Grace & Peace PGH: Recent Episodes
Grace and Peace Presbyterian Church: Pittsburgh, PA
“If we say ‘I believe in Jesus’ but it doesn’t affect the way we live, the answer is not that now we need to add hard work to our faith so much as that we haven’t truly understood or believed in Jesus at all.” – Timothy Keller, The Prodigal God, 124.
“…individualism is a cultural system with many advantages. Yet recent culture seems to have crossed the line from individualism to hyperindividualism. For example, the self-focsued phrases are not just individualistic – they’re also, well, wrong. ‘Just be yourself’ sounds like good advice at first, but what if you’re a jerk? What if you’re a serial killer? Maybe you should be someone else. ‘Believe in yourself’ is fine, but ‘anything is possible’? No, it’s not. Expressing yourself, respecting yourself, and being honest with yourself are somewhat tautological but not usually directly harmful. But ‘you have to love yourself first’ has a crucial flaw: people who really love themselves are called narcissists, and they make horrible relationship partners.” – Jean M. Twenge, Generation Me, 65.
“Money is like sea water. The more you drink, the thirstier you become.” – Roman Proverb
“You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.” – John Bunyan
“This picture of the new creation as a garden keeps us from expecting that this world is ever going to fully satisfy us. We’re thirsty for the living water. We’re hungry for the fruit of the tree of life. We long for the full and complete satisfaction that awaits us in the new and greater garden to come.” – Nancy Guthrie, Blessed, 237.
“This picture of the new creation as a garden keeps us from expecting that this world is ever going to fully satisfy us. We’re thirsty for the living water. We’re hungry for the fruit of the tree of life. We long for the full and complete satisfaction that awaits us in the new and greater garden to come.” – Nancy Guthrie, Blessed, 237.
“…to be heavenly minded is to live in light of the age to come. To maintain a heavenly orientation is not to withdraw from the earthly creation but rather to view the earthly in light of the heavenly.” – Michael D. Williams, Far As the Curse is Found, 301.
“God is portrayed in Revelation, not as uncontrollably angry, but as inexorably just. God’s faithfulness to the creation, all humanity, and the church leads to the divine war against evil, Empire, and their lies, represented by the unholy trinity and named ‘Babylon.’ The three members of that unholy triumvirate together meet their final fate, along with those who ultimately refuse the mercy of God, as well as Death and Hades themselves… In other words, God wins: ‘It is done!’…." – Michael J. Gorman, Reading Revelation Responsibly, 158.
“Evil must be destroyed, not only for the sake of God’s justice, but for the sake of the purity of the new world.” – Vern S. Poythress, The Returning King, 175.
“Brides who are in love can’t stop talking about the bridegroom. This is how we know we are really prepared for the wedding: we find that we can’t keep from talking about our bridegroom.” – Nancy Guthrie, Blessed, 200.
"The proper response to the vision is not fatalism but 'an altered life'... When readers become aware of their own complicity in the practices of the empire portrayed as Babylon and distance themselves from its ways, the vision has the effect for which it was written." —Craig R. Koester
"Revelation as a whole is a call to patient endurance as we wait for our king, the Lamb, our bridegroom, to come. And inherent in that patient endurance is faithfulness. To wait is going to require that we refuse the advances of any other lovers who seek to seduce us." —Nancy Guthrie
"This blessing is promised to those who 'die in the Lord'. And for a person to 'die in the Lord' requires that they lived in the Lord." —Nancy Guthrie
"We are not looking for figures by predicting specific persons in the future; rather, we are looking for images of dragon-like leaders at work in all societies and all times. They are puppets, whose strings are pulled by the dragon. Remember, these images are not about predicting the future, but about shaping our perceptions of the present.” – Scot McKnight with Cody Matchet
"It is possible that people can refuse to believe [the Bible's] testimony, functioning as if Jesus' tomb has a No Vacancy sign hanging outside it. It is also possible that we verbally affirm the resurrection and still fail to be changed by it. The Spirit's work is essential. But when he works... the resurrection radically transforms our lives. The resurrection, the key to understanding the biblical story, becomes the key to our story as well, the key to a new way of understanding and living in the world." —Michael D. Williams
“From the expulsion from Eden, God’s people have been an expectant mother, awaiting the birth of the Seed who would champion their cause against Satan the liar, accuser, and murderer.” – Dennis E. Johnson
“The contribution of the Revelation to the work of witness is not instruction, telling us how to make a coherent apology of the faith, but imagination, strengthening the spirit with images that keep us ‘steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord’ (1 Cor 15:58). Instruction in witness is important, but courage is critical, for it takes place in pitched battle.” – Eugene H. Peterson
“…not because Christians in the late first century were actually innumerable, but because of John’s faith in the fulfillment of all the promises of God through Christ, the church is depicted as an innumerable company drawn from all nations.” – Richard Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation, 77.
“Seven is the number of perfection, implying something done according to the divine design, the number of completion. Three implies the greatest or ultimate expression of something. So seven times three indicates triple perfection! These judgments describe the complete, perfect erasure of evil.” – Scot McKnight, Revelation for the Rest of Us, 110.
“In the heart of ultimate reality, John saw a Savior who still bears the marks of his suffering – a Lamb who was slain, yet conquered death.” – Nancy Guthrie, Blessed, 98.
“The worship of God is the heartbeat of the cosmos, even when we humans on earth do not see it, participate in it, or value it. Only God is worthy to receive what others, especially powerful political figures, may want or demand: our total devotion, our praise, our crowns.” – Michael J. Gorman, Reading Revelation Responsibly, 107.
“The messages to the seven churches establish a context in which readers of Revelation can ponder the meaning of the visions that will unfold in the next chapters. We have seen that those who were first addressed by the book faced issues ranging from persecution, to assimilation, to the complacency that arises from prosperity… The promises that were made at the end of each message are not forgotten in the visions that follow but points us to the final chapters of Revelation, when the faithful find everlasting life in the New Jerusalem.” – Craig R. Koester, Revelation and the End of All Things, 73-74
“The reproof is startling and designed to bring change. The goal is to shake the congregation out of its complacency and into a renewed relationship with Christ.” – Craig R. Koster, Revelation and the End of All Things, 73.
“Could it be that the Christian faith is unthinkable for many people today more from prejudice, misinformation, and neglect than from honest investigation?” – Dick Keyes, “A Crisis of Meaning” in Finding God at Harvard, 85.
“…to be heavenly minded is to live in light of the age to come. To maintain a heavenly orientation is not to withdraw from the earthly creation but rather to view the earthly in light of the heavenly.” – Michael D. Williams, Far As the Curse is Found, 301.
“God’s answer to everything that ever terrorized us is a child. The power of God is so far superior to the Assyrias and all the big shots of this world that he can defeat them by coming as a mere child. His answer to the bullies swaggering through history is not to become an even bigger bully. His answer is Jesus.” – Raymond C. Ortlund Jr., Isaiah: God Saves Sinners, 99.
“God’s first word to fallen man has all the marks of grace. It is a question, since to help him He must draw rather than drive him out of hiding.” – Derek Kidner, Genesis, 70.
“You have made us for yourself and restless is our heart until it comes to rest in you.” – Augustine
“The letter to the church at Philadelphia invites us to ask ourselves: Am I walking through the doors that Jesus has opened for me to share the gospel?” – Nancy Guthrie, Blessed: Experiencing the Promise of the Book of Revelation, 82
Travis' comments on the Letter to the Church of Sardis: "Yet you have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy." - Revelation 3:4 Sardis is one of two churches in Revelation 2-3 that receives only a rebuke and no commendation. Some folks wonder if that is correct? Isn't 3:4 a commendation of this church? That is obviously a valid question, but I think the answer is no. Without going too far into the weeds here, I think what we find in 3:4 is more of an acknowledgement than a commendation. That is, while the church in Sardis overall is receiving no commendation, Jesus is acknowledging that there are a few people in the church who are walking in faithful allegiance to him. There a few reasons why I say this. First, the overall tone of this letter should guide how we interpret verse 4. Second, when compared to the other letters that receive both commendation and rebuke, the letter to Sardis is more negative in its tone. Third, even though there is commendable behavior mention in 3:4 (they are worthy), the emphasis in this verse seems to fall on the small number of people this represents (only a few names). Thus, the idea seems to be that though there are a small number of people who are faithful in Sardis, the church overall is dead and needs to wake up (3:1-3). So, while a few people receive an encouraging word of commendation, the church as a whole doesn't. That's different from most of the other letters.
Some challenges of idolatry for the modern believer: Far from idolatry being a relic of the distant past of paganism, idolatry is an ever present temptation and struggle for believers in every age, including our materialistic, rationalistic, and scientific one.
"Seven churches, different in so many ways from one another. Seven churches, similar in so many ways to the churches in which we live and serve Jesus. What one thing do all these churches need to fortify them against the enemy's frontal assaults, to make them savvy to his subtle stratagems, and to make them loyal to God and compassionate toward their oppressors? They need to hear Jesus' voice... His voice addresses us today in his letters to the seven churches of Asia, for each letter is what the Spirit says to all the churches." —Dennis E. Johnson
"A church can continue only for so long on a loveless course. Continuing on that course means ceasing to be a church. Its lampstand is removed." —Leon Morris
Note: This recording had an error part way through and ended abruptly. Apologies for the delayed upload and partial sermon.
"From this point onwards, the centrality of Christ is the ruling theme of Revelation. All things depend on their relation to him." —Michael Wilcock
"When a sinner turns to God, heaven throws a party. The prospect of such joy keeps Jesus associating with sinners." —Darrel L. Bock
"In sum: 'to be saved' in the Pauline view means to become part of the people of God, who by the Spirit are born into God's family and therefore joined to one another as one body, whose gatherings in the Spirit form them into God's temple. God is not simply saving diverse people and preparing them for heaven; rather he is creating a people for his name, among whom God can dwell and who in their life together will reproduce God's life and character in all its unity and diversity." —Gordon Fee
This week's sermon is the first of a two-part series from Derek Bates out of Ephesians.
Today's sermon from guest speaker Nameun Cho on the Tower of Babel and how it relates to Pentecost.
"Kindness, which is an ability to serve others practically in a way which makes me vulnerable, comes from having a deep inner security. Its opposite is envy, which leaves me unable to rejoice in another's joy. And its fake alternative is manipulative good deeds, doing good for others so I can congratulate myself and feel I am 'good enough' for others or for God." —Tim Keller
"...[O]ne of the main themes of the biblical story and stories is that even some of the ablest human beings who have ever lived, such as Abraham and David, could not rise above the brutality of their own cultures nor the self-centeredness of their own hearts. But by clinging to the wondrous promise that God's grace is given to moral failures, they triumphed." —Timothy J. Keller
"These modern beliefs—that we must all be committed to equal rights and justice but that there are no God-given moral absolutes—undermine each other. Modern secular education teaches every child that they must be true to themselves, that they must identify their deepest desires and dreams and pursue them, no letting family, community, tradition, or religion stand in their way. Then it calls for justice, reconciliation, and benevolence, all of which are basic forms of self-denial, even as it encourages self-assertion. It teaches relativism and calls people to be ethical. It encourages self-seeking and calls people to be sacrificial." —Timothy Keller
The second sermon on God's Kingdom from Matthew 13 in guest speaker Roger Woodworth's four-part series.
"The gospel comes from that kingdom, and conducts to that kingdom; the word of the gospel is the word of the kingdom; it is the word of the King, and where that is, there is power; it is a law, by which we must be ruled and governed. This word is the seed sown, which seems a dead, dry thing, but all the product is virtually in it. It is incorruptible seed (1 Peter 1:23); it is the gospel that brings forth fruit in souls (Colossians 1:5-6)." —Matthew Henry
"If you believe in a God who controls the big things, you have to believe in a God who controls the little things. It is we, of course, to whom things look 'little' or 'big'." —Elizabeth Elliot
"The humblebrag is a way for us to glory in ourselves without sounding glorious, being proud while sounding humble. No one likes the guy who is always bringing attention to himself, and we roll our eyes at overtly proud people. But deep in our hearts, we want to be acknowledged, honored, and we want glory." —John Pennylegion
"The branch needs leaves for the maintenance of its own life, and the perfection of its fruit: the fruit itself it bears to give away to those around. As the believer enters into his calling as a branch, he sees that he has to forget himself and live entirely for his fellowmen. To love them, and to save them, Jesus came: for this, every branch on the Vine has to live as much as the Vine itself. It is for fruit, much fruit, that the Father has made us one with Jesus." —Andrew Murray
"If you insist that no one can determine which beliefs are right and wrong, why should I believe what you are saying? The reality is that we all make truth-claims of some sort and it is very hard to weigh them responsibly, but we have no alternative but to try to do so. It is no more narrow to claim that one religion is right than to claim that one way to think about all religions (namely that all are equal) is right. We are all exclusive in our beliefs, but in different ways." —Timothy Keller
"The life he gives is nothing less than the indestructible life of the resurrection, the very life of the deathless God himself. Moreover, it is his gift here and now. Martha believes in some such life at the distant horizon of history when the Messiah eventually appears. Jesus invites her to reshape her hope radically." —Bruce Milne
"Jesus is God incarnate, the Good Shepherd. By his death and resurrection, he not only claims us for himself, but actually unites us to himself. We're not called to follow a mere man whose authority and ways will be detrimental to us, but we are called to follow the Good Shepherd who defends us and secures for us eternal life." —John Pennylegion
"There is but one door to a fold, and sheep and shepherds alike must enter by this door. There is no other way for them. But Jesus does provide the way." —Leon Morris
"Jesus is the light of the world; the light of the world is Jesus. He himself in person is that light. He—no one else beside him—is that light, for it is only in and through him that God's glorious attributes shine forth most brilliantly in the midst of the world." —William Hendriksen
"By offering himself as bread, Jesus declares that he is the satisfier of our spiritual, emotional, and rational cravings." —John Pennylegion
"No one could tell that Jesus was God just by looking at him. It's just the same today; no one can conclude that Jesus is God using human sensory and reasoning capacity alone; it remains an article of faith. Yet this faith is not a stab in the dark." —Harold L. Senkbeil
"There is but one only, living, and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions; immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, most wise, most holy, most free, most absolute..." —Westminster Confession of Faith, 2:1
"All the wonder of God happens right above our arithmetic and formula. The more I climb outside my pat answers, the more invigorating the view, the more my heart enters into worship... By reducing Christian spirituality to formula, we deprive our hearts of wonder." —Donald Miller
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." —John 3:16
"He is man as man was meant to be... Through his victory over death, the one true man—who is also the one true Son of God—brings the heavenly life of the resurrection to earth, and we who are in Christ shall also bear the image of the man from heaven." —Michael D. Williams
Does this quote work? "When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace." —Jimi Hendrix
"Christ is the better high priest since he, being sinless (Heb. 4:15; 9:14), did not have to offer sacrifice for himself (Heb. 7:27), and he holds his priesthood permanently (Heb. 7:23). As the better high priest, Christ provides a better hope 'by which we draw near to God' (Heb. 7:19), a better covenant (Heb. 7:22; 9:15) based better promises (Heb. 8:6), and a better sacrifice (Heb. 9:23)." —Michael D. William
The first sermon from our series on the roles of the coming Christ during this Advent season.
"As the book's concluding word... David sounded the triumph of God's providence over the vicissitudes suffered by the names listed. Considering Judah's irresponsibility (Gen. 38), the perilous intervening centuries, and Ruth's earlier infertility (1:4-5), that David was born at all amply attested the presence of that providence. Further, given Saul's cruel vengeance (1 Sam. 18-28), David's ascent to power provided weighty corroborating evidence. God is, indeed, King!" —Robert L. Hubbard Jr.
And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. —Colossians 1:9-14
"Ruth's offspring for many generations would be there to show this bitter woman the healing grace of God. In this way, grace flowed to Naomi. In her arms, she saw the living, suckling, crying example of God's faithfulness. This was his answer to her bitterness. Obed's descendant Christ can be as well the answer to bitterness in our life." —Robert A. Wauzzinski
"Jesus Christ is the ultimate kinsman-redeemer. He redeems us, buys us out of our slavery to sin, gives us a hope and a future, showers us with daily blessings, and gives us a land we must call the new heavens and the new earth." —Robert A. Wauzzinkski
I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore. —Psalm 121
"The awareness of a master storyteller weaving my life lets me pause and, like an artist, see hidden blessings and patterns when I begin to bear the cost of narrowing my life. It lets me endure in love because I know Someone is guiding the story toward resurrection." —Paul E. Miller
"This pledge made negatively as a rejection of all that was familiar for this Moabitess, is a whole-life conversion; everything changes for Ruth, because of her commitment. Life, land, loyalties, and her destiny change because of commitment." —Robert A. Wauzzinski
"Naomi's losses would be staggering for any culture, but in the ancient Near East for a mother to lose not only her husband but also her sons was the epitome of suffering." —Paul E. Miller
"I would warn against any doctrine of the last things which places all the emphasis on the fact that the believer will rejoice in the absence of pain, worry...sickness, etc., but forgets that it is especially the absence of sin (as the root of all of these) that should cause us to rejoice." —William Hendriksen
"When the wicked are successful and their misdeeds go unrequited, men tend to imagine that God is asleep... but His slumber and apparent inactivity should not be misunderstood... The verdict has already been pronounced on them, and the doom which will surely overtake them has been set in motion from of old..." —J.N.D. Kelley
Today's sermon from guest speaker David Augustine, of Reformed University Fellowship at IUP, on 1 Kings.
"We do not dishonor God if we struggle honestly with questions about how we are to best understand his self-revelation. It is not insulting to him if we sincerely express our puzzlement and frustrations in his presence. But because we also know that he is sovereign—and that he does not have to justify his ways to us—we must eventually get around to the praise songs." —Richard J. Mouw
"God acts through his words, the Word is 'alive and active' (Heb 4:12), and therefore the way to have God dynamically active in our lives is through the Bible. To understand the Scripture is not simply to get information about God. If attended to with trust and faith, the Bible is the way to actually hear God speaking and also to meet God himself..." —Timothy Keller
"They are blind in that they fail to see what they should see. They have become so shortsighted that they have forgotten the most important reality of all. Peter observed that those who are not practicing these virtues have forgotten their baptism and their forgiveness of sins. In other words, they are not living as forgiven sinners. They are behaving like unconverted people. If members of the church are living immoral lives, they bear witness that forgiveness means little to them. Those who treasure being forgiven live in a way that pleases God." —Thomas R. Schreiner
"When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life! So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church? I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers, but brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers? To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? But you yourselves wrong and defraud—even your own brothers! Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." —1 Corinthians 6:1-11
"The delicate balance between the indicative and imperative is preserved here. Grace has grasped every believer in Jesus Christ, and believers have been begotten by God's grace (1:3). Still, they must stand in the grace that has secured them. Grace does not cancel out the imperative but establishes it." —Thomas R. Schreiner
"...Christians resist the devil by standing firm in the faith... What Peter is talking about is not putting strength into believing but drawing strength from what we believe." —I. Howard Marshall
"What does the picture [of a shepherd] convey? As developed in the various biblical passages, it brings out the desperate need of sheep for a shepherd: to keep them from wandering away in their stupidity; to protect them from dangers from wild animals and thieves; to feed them; to find them, even at personal risk, when they are lost; to prevent one animal from taking advantage of others; to maintain unity within the flock; and to exercise individual care. Many of these applications were made exclusively with reference to Jesus, but they apply by extension also to those who are his under shepherds in the church." —I. Howard Marshall
"Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever." —John Piper
"They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers. They marry, as do all [others]; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men, and are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned; they are put to death, and restored to life. They are poor, yet make many rich; they are in lack of all things, and yet abound in all; they are dishonoured, and yet in their very dishonour are glorified. They are evil spoken of, and yet are justified; they are reviled, and bless; they are insulted, and repay the insult with honour; they do good, yet are punished as evil-doers." —The Epistle to Diognetus (c. AD 130-200)
“This is a strange text and certainly a more obscure passage than any other passage in the New Testament. I still do not know for sure what the apostle meant.” —Martin Luther
"The heart is the origin of human behavior (cf. 1:22; 3:4), and from it flows everything people do. Hence, setting apart Christ as in the heart is not merely a private reality but will be evident to all when believers suffer for their faith. The inner and outer life are inseparable, for what happens within will inevitably be displayed to all, especially when one suffers." —Thomas R. Schreiner
"For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct. Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear—but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious. For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening. Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered." —1 Peter 2:21-3:7
"'Slow of heart' calls attention to their failure to orient themselves fully around Jesus' teaching, not to their need for remedial education. 'Heart' refers here... to the inner commitments, the dispositions and attitudes of the person that determines his or her life. Failure of insight comes from failure to embrace the ways of God." —Joel B. Green
"The remarkable thing about God is that when you fear God, you fear nothing else, whereas if you do not fear God, you fear everything else." —Oswald Chambers
"We expect anything and everything. We expect the contradictory and the impossible. We expect compact cars which are spacious; luxurious cars which are economical. We expect to be rich and charitable, powerful and merciful, active and reflective, kind and competitive. We expect to be inspired by mediocre appeals for excellence, to be made literate by illiterate appeals for literacy...to go to 'a church of our choice' and yet feel its guiding power over us, to revere God and to be God." —Daniel J. Boorstin
"The Christian community declares by its existence, by its liturgy and worship, by the daily lives of its members the mighty deed of Christ's resurrection, which reveals the praiseworthy character of God." —Karen H. Jobes
"How is it possible that the gospel should be credible, that people should come to believe that the power which has the last word in human affairs is represented by a man hanging on a cross? I am suggesting that the only answer, the only hermeneutic of the gospel, is a congregation of men and women who believe it and live by it." —Lesslie Newbigin
"A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert—himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt—the Divine Reason." —G.K. Chesterton
"Affirming that God doesn't love us on the basis of our keeping within his paths does not require us to act as though he has left us without good direction... Grace does not forbid giving directions, promises, corrections, and warnings. Only cruelty would forbid such help." —Bryan Chapell
"Behind that there was something else at work, beyond any design of the Ring-maker. I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker. In which case you also were meant to have it. And that may be an encouraging thought." —J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring.
"To be born is to enter existence in a new world. Physical birth brings us into a world that will eventually perish. Spiritual birth is into a world where there is hope for the future..." —I. Howard Marshall
"Our true identity is found in accepting our status as creatures of [the] infinite Creator God and rooting our sense of identity in his. Our identity is an identity derived." —Dick Keyes
"There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking." —Alfred Korzybski
Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, 2 saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” 3 When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; 4 and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. 5 They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet: 6 “‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’” 7 Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. 8 And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and worship him.” 9 After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. 11 And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. 12 And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way. -Matthew 2:1-12
"You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in You." —St. Augustine
"You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in you." —St. Augustine
"Christ went outside the city gate and suffered. We must go after him, and to him. This means we have to relinquish all the privileges of the camp and the city for his sake. We have to leave them behind and go to him. We must cling by faith to his sacrifice and through this to sanctification... We must own him under all that reproach and contempt that were heaped on him during suffering outside the gate." —John Owen
O come, O come, Immanuel, and ransom captive Israel that mourns in lonely exile here until the Son of God appear.
"True dialogue is as far as possible from neutrality or indifference. Its basis is the shared conviction that there is truth to be known and that we must both bear witness to the truth given to us and also listen to the witness of others." —Lesslie Newbigin
"You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you." —John 15:16
"But hope for the Christian isn't just confidence in a certain glorious future. It's hope in present providence... The Christian hope is that God's purposes are so unassailable that a great thunderstorm of events can't drive them off course. Even when we're wave-tossed and lost at sea, Jesus remains the captain of the ship and the commander of the storm." —Elliot Clark
"Although the book Esther is known for the fact that God is never mentioned in the book... the author nonetheless expects his intended readers to see God at work at every turn in the story." —Gordon D. Fee & Douglas Stuart
"Rather than break faith with God, Daniel was willing to risk expulsion from the Royal Academy with the disgrace and danger that entailed. His priorities were firm." —Gleason L. Archer, Jr.
"For the Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe. For they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by any singularity. The course of conduct which they follow has not been devised by any speculation or deliberation of inquisitive men; nor do they, like some, proclaim themselves the advocates of any merely human doctrines. But, inhabiting Greek as well as barbarian cities, according as the lot of each of them has determined and following the customs of the natives in respect to clothing, food, and the rest of their ordinary conduct, they display to us their wonderful and confessedly striking method of life." —The Epistle to Diognetus
"You must choose, but choose wisely... He chose... poorly." —Grail Knight, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” —Genesis 12:1-3
"By virtue of faith in Christ, home is in heaven, and Christians, therefore, are just passing through this world as foreigners." —Karen H. Jobes
"If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world." —C.S. Lewis
"In the first 'garden 'Not your will but mine' changed Paradise to desert and brought man from Eden to Gethsemane. Now 'Not my will but yours' brings anguish to the man who prays it but transforms the desert into the kingdom and brings man from Gethsemane to the gates of glory." —D.A. Carson
"Not everyone is called to pour out expensive ointment over Jesus' head; but if someone is, the rest should respect it. The grumbles of the bystanders... sound a lot like the embarrassed rationalizations of people who have their own emotions well covered up and don't like seeing other people's on display..." —N.T. Wright
"Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it
"In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose from them twelve, whom he named apostles: Simon, whom he named Peter, and Andrew his brother, and James and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon who was called the Zealot, and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor. And he came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all the crowd sought to touch him, for power came out from him and healed them all."
"We have to see the tough challenges of 'self-denial' and 'carrying one's cross' not as goals in themselves but as means to the goal
"The ground of Jesus' surprising statement is not to be found in any subjective quality possessed by children but rather in their objective humbleness and in the startling character of the grace of God who wills to give the Kingdom to those who have no claim upon it..."
"The order of life for the disciples in their relationship to each other is to be the service of love. By transforming the question of greatness into the task orientation of service, Jesus established a new pattern for human relationships which leaves no occasion for strife or opposition toward one another... The disciples cannot order their relationships as they please but are to recognize in one another men under whom they place themselves as servants."
"...the father's famously paradoxical reply captures the tortured self-doubt of many sincere pray-ers. Belief and unbelief are mixed in most of us, and perhaps Mark would encourage us to notice that this common condition proved in the event to be no obstacle to his request being granted. At least he put his [unbelief] in the right perspective by not dwelling on it but asking Jesus to help with it. His belief, however uncertain, was all that was needed, and from this point he plays no further part in the narrative, so that all the attention falls where it should, on the power of Jesus."
"Even though it seems that death removes all memory of us when we leave this world, the fact remains that God always acknowledges us as his own... it is impossible for us not to live [eteranlly] if this is in his will."
"Moses had reflected the glory of God as the moon reflects the light of the sun. But Jesus produces the unsurpassable glory of God; it emanates from him. Jesus does not point to the glory of God as Elijah, Moses, and every other prophet has done; Jesus is the glory of God in human form."
"A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert
"Perhaps, in the strange providence of God, the way Mark's book now finishes encourages us all the more to explore not only the faith of the early church, that Jesus is indeed risen from the dead, but our own faith. There is a blank at the end of the story, and we are invited to fill it ourselves. Do we take Easter for granted, or have we found ourselves awestruck at the strange new work of God? What do we know of the risen Lord?"
"Who do we perceive the Master to be? Do we domesticate Jesus merely as the 'Lord of the church,' the 'Lord of my personal prayers,' or the 'Lord of my family'? Or do we bow before him as the Lord of the universe, the Lord over political rulers and business leaders, the Lord over creation and his church, the Lord to whom we are to submit rather merely asking him to bless what we do?"
"God limits our knowledge first that we should be kept humble and also that we should continue to have dealings with our fellows."
"In Western cultures we don't have anything like this kind of assertiveness. We only have the assertion of our rights. We do not know how to contend unless we're standing up for our rights, standing on our dignity and our goodness and saying, 'This is what I'm owed.' But this woman is not doing that at all. This is rightless assertiveness, something we know little about. She's not saying, 'Lord, give me what I deserve on the basis of my goodness.' She's saying, 'Give me what I don't deserve on the basis of your goodness
"We can trust God's loving pursuit of us because he does this not merely to show us the weight of our inner lives, but to liberate us from it with the cleansing assurance of his love."
This week's sermon on love as maturity, from 1 Corinthians 13, by guest pastor Nameun Cho.
"Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." James 1:2-4
“Nothing can seem extraordinary until you have discovered what is ordinary. Belief in miracles, far from depending on an ignorance of the laws of nature, is only possible in so far as those laws are known.” ―C.S. Lewis
“The point of including the story about the Wise Men in Matthew’s Gospel is probably to show how wise men, even Gentile wise men, sought Jesus out while a Jewish king who should have known the OT prophecies neither personally sought out nor properly honored the new son of David.” – Ben Witherington
“John is concerned that we should miss neither the good news of the incarnation of God, nor the tragedy of the human rejection of God.”
"The plain duty of the true Christian is, to live provided with an antidote against all fears of the great unseen world. That antidote is faith in an unseen Saviour, and constant communion with Him. Armed with that antidote, and seeing Him who is invisible, nothing need make us afraid."
"We do not dishonor God if we struggle honestly with questions about how we are to best understand his self-revelation. It is not insulting to him if we sincerely express our puzzlement and frustrations in his presence. But because we also know that he is sovereign
"The performance of miracles in the absence of faith could only have resulted in the aggravation of human guilt and the hardening of men's hearts against God... Unbelief excluded the people of Nazareth from the dynamic disclosure of God's grace that others had experienced."
"He is not a magician, doing conjuring tricks by some secret power for an amazed but uninvolved audience. He is (though the onlookers don't yet realize this) God's son, the one through whom the living God is remaking Israel, humans, the world. And faith, however much fear and trembling may accompany it, is the first sign of that remaking, that renewal, that new life. Where are you in this story?"
"Affirming that God doesn't love us on the basis of our keeping within his paths does not require us to act as though he has left us without good direction... Grace does not forbid giving directions, promises, corrections, and warnings. Only cruelty would forbid such help."
"There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors."
“Fear is endemic to the human situation. Perhaps today you are fearful. Perhaps you fear life in general, that you will not be adequate for the challenges which are coming. It is a sort of amorphous fear, but it is real and continual. Maybe you fear some unspoken problem which has no apparent solution. The winds are howling, and no hope is on the horizon. What should you do? Understand and believe that it is through storms, afflictions, hardships, and challenges that you grow. Without them, you would be captive to the terrible tyranny of self. Understand that Christ wants to develop you through the storms ahead. Know that he is completely capable of delivering you with a word. He is the same Christ who calmed the storm. Know that he is in the boat with you.”
"For Mark, the parables of Jesus both reveal and conceal. For those who have ears to hear, they convey the good news of God's kingdom; for those who refuse to listen, their message is obscure. The parables are in some ways similar to crossword clues, making sense to those who are prepared to accept their challenge"
"His critics had painted themselves into a corner. Once you label what is in fact the work of the Holy Spirit as the work of the devil, there's no way back. It's like holding a conspiracy theory: all the evidence you see will simply confirm your belief. You will be blind to the truth."
"The appointment of the Twelve marks the formation of the messianic fellowship and anticipates the extension of Jesus' mission through them."
"Any day the time may come to decide for the world or for the Church. We may have to decide, not in some spectacular matter, but in quite trivial, everyday affairs. And then we shall see and discern the good from the bad. In that day the reality will stand the test, not appearances. In such times as these, Jesus requires his disciples to distinguish between appearance and reality, between themselves and pseudo-Christians. They will then rise above all inquisitive examination of others, but they will need a sincere determination to recognize ·the verdict of God when it comes. At any moment the nominal Christians may be separated from the real ones. We may even find that we are nominal Christians ourselves. Here is a challenge to closer fellowship with Jesus and to a more loyal discipleship."
"The world and the church need genuinely rested Christians: Christians who are regularly refreshed by true Sabbath rest, not just leisure or time off. When a godly rest is achieved, you will see just how tough and resilient Christians can actually be."
Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord. Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart! -Psalm 32
7 Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. 8 You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. 9 Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the door. 10 As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. 11 Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.
"Unbelievers know when their friends who claim to be Christian don't actually take their faith seriously. It is detrimental to the mission of God in a community when unbelievers see little distinction between themselves and friends who are associated with a church." - Dean Inserra
“Often people think healing and forgiveness is impossible. They find God distant or uncaring. But true faith won’t stop there... Don’t stay on the edge of the crowd. Dig through God’s roof and find yourself in his presence.”
The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the people of Israel: you shall say to them, The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. “So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.” Numbers 6:22-27
“To adore God is not simply to behold the truth, goodness, and beauty of God in a disinterested way, but to affirm one’s allegiance to God...”
“In the church, where the gospel is known, sin is most clearly manifest, and self-righteousness, though extremely common, is an alien thing. Believers should have no illusion of not needing constantly to be forgiven, constantly to repent.” - C.E.B. Cranfield
“Jesus alone can satisfy the heart. In a society which has experimented to the point of satiation with every form of material, physical and spiritual palliative to fill the inner emptiness of its heart, Jesus’ invitation comes with wonderful relevance - He who comes to me will never go hungry... will never be thirsty.”
“What we believe is not a matter of intellectualizing salvation but rather a matter of knowing what to love, knowing to whom we pledge allegiance, and knowing what is at stake for us as people... In reciting it each week, we rehearse the skeletal structure of the story in which we find our identity. It’s cadences become a part of who we are, and they function as rival cadences, sometimes doing battle in our imagination with the cadences of other pledges that would ask for our allegiance and loyalty.”
“The host of the worship service is divine. We do not invite him to be present. He invites us to ‘come before him’ (Ps 100:2). God calls us from all other preoccupations to join the people he has redeemed in recognition, praise, and service of his omnipresent glory. Because the Call to worship is from God, we are reminded that he always initiates; we respond. This is a profound truth, not only for our salvation but also for our worship of the One who saves us.”
“It is possible that people can refuse to believe [the Bible’s] testimony, functioning as if Jesus’ tomb has a No Vacancy sign hanging outside it. It is also possible that we verbally affirm the resurrection and still fail to be changed by it. The Spirit’s work is essential. But when he works... the resurrection radically transforms our lives. The resurrection, the key to understanding the biblical story, becomes the key to our story as well, the key to a new way of understanding and living in the world.”
“They forgot their confident assertions made a few hours before. They forgot that they had declared their willingness to die with their Master. They forgot everything but the danger that stared them in the face. The fear of death overcame them. They ‘forsook him, and fled.’”
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal."
So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. —James 4:17
“Let us bless God that the Saviour with whom we have to do is almighty. It is a cheering and comfortable thought that with Christ nothing is impossible. No heart-disease is so deep-seated but He is unable to cure it. No plague of soul is so virulent but our Great Physician can heal it. Let us never despair of any one’s salvation, so long as he lives. The worst of spiritual lepers may yet be cleansed… The chief of sinners may yet be brought nigh to God by the blood and Spirit of Christ. Men are not lost, because they are too bad to be saved, but because they will not come to Christ that he may save them.”
"He [Jesus] says, 'I want you to follow me so fully, so intensely, so enduringly that all other attachments in your life look like hate by comparison.' If you say, 'I'll obey you, Jesus, if my career thrives, if my health is good, if my family is together,' then the thing that's on the other side of that is your real master, your real goal. But Jesus will not be a means to an end; he will not be used. If he calls you to follow him, he must be the goal."
"The whole Christian gospel could be summed up in this point: that when the living God looks at us, at every baptized and believing Christian, he says to us what he said to Jesus on that day. He sees us, not as we are in ourselves but as we are in Jesus Christ. It sometimes seems impossible, especially to people who have never had this kind of support from their earthly parents, but it's true: God looks at us, and says, 'You are my dear, dear child; I'm delighted with you.'"
"It is not enough to know who John was historically. What is required is an encounter, through the medium of history, with that summons to judgment and repentance which John issued."
"In the Greco-Roman world from which the early church adopted it, 'gospel' was a public proclamation of, say, a war won, borne by a herald who ran back to the city and, with his welcome of political news, occasioned public celebration." - Rodney Clapp
"Could it be that the Christian faith is unthinkable for many people today more from prejudice, misinformation, and neglect than from honest investigation?"
"He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away." Revelation 21:4
"A church that takes its stand on the forgiveness of sins can never be a church of the pure. It will always be a community that is patient and understanding toward the timid and the imperfect."
"Firework", "Office Space", and New Year's resolutions. Listen to Derek Bates' sermon on Philippians 2 here.
"The truth is that the Christian faith has been on the margins of whatever culture it's been in throughout history..." Listen to guest Pastor David Schweissing's sermon here.
“All the Advent preparation in the world would not be enough unless God were favorably disposed to us in the first place..." - Fleming Rutledge, Advent
"Many kings claimed to be 'father' to their people and even their captives, yet their fatherhood was of a strictly temporal and self-tainted character. This person's father is claimed to be forever. Such a claim cannot be ignored."
When we hear the words "wonderful counselor" we think of someone who's a terrific therapist. When Isaiah prophesies that the Savior will be called Wonderful Counselor he means something quite different.
"The church, according to Scripture, is not a religious club, a voluntary association of like-minded Christians who cultivate friendships and engage in joint projects. It is rather the institution of Christ and of the Spirit, formed by his power and governed by his word."