Christ the King Newton Sermons: Recent Episodes
CTK Newton
“What riches of kindness he lavished on us.
His blood was the payment, his life was the cost.
We stood ‘neath a debt we could never afford.
Our sins, they are many, his mercy is more.”
— “His Mercy Is More,” Matt Papa and Matt Boswell
Luke 6:37-42
“Malice will never drive out malice. But if someone does evil to you, you should do good to him, so that by your good work you will destroy his malice.”
— The Wisdom of the Desert, Thomas Merton
“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
— Romans 12:21
Luke 6:27-36
“Because Jesus was the king who became a servant, we see a reversal of values in his kingdom administration (Luke 6:20–26). In Jesus’ kingdom, the poor, sorrowful, and persecuted are above the rich, recognized, and satisfied. The first shall be last (Matt 19:30). Why would this be? This reversal is a way of imitating the pattern of Christ’s salvation (Phil 2:1–11). Though Jesus was rich, he became poor. Though he was a king, he served. Though he was the greatest, he made himself the servant of all. He triumphed over sin not by taking up power but by serving sacrificially. He ‘won’ through losing everything. This is a complete reversal of the world’s way of thinking, which values power, recognition, wealth, and status. The gospel, then, creates a new kind of servant community, with people who live out an entirely alternate way of being human.”
— Tim Keller
Luke 6:17-26
“I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church.”
— Nicene Creed, 381 AD
Luke 6:12-19
“Six days shall you labor
The seventh is the Lord’s
In six He made the earth and all the heavens
But He rested on the seventh
God rested
He said that it was finished
In the seventh day, He blessed it
God rested”
— Andrew Peterson, “God Rested”
Luke 6:1-11
“We must… give up any thought that we have any claims upon God… But Jesus Christ has great claims on God, and we should go to God in our prayers not on the ground of any goodness in ourselves, but on the ground of Jesus Christ’s claims.”
— R.A. Torrey
Luke 5:27-39
“With that Gandalf stood before him, robed in white, his beard now gleaming, like pure snow in the twinkling of the leafy sunlight. ‘Well, Master Samwise, how do you feel?’ he said.
But Sam lay back, and stared with open mouth, and for a moment, between bewilderment and great joy, he could not answer. At last he gasped: ‘Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What happened to the world?’
‘A great shadow has departed,’ said Gandalf, and then he laughed, and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land; and as he listened the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment, for days upon days without count. It fell upon his ears like the echo of all the joys he had ever known. But he himself burst into tears. Then, as a sweet rain will pass down a wind of spring and the sun will shine out the clearer, his tears ceased, and his laughter welled up, and laughing he sprang from his bed.”
— J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
Luke 5:17-26
“Teach me to feel that Thou art always nigh. Teach me the struggles of the soul to bear. Teach me the patience of unanswered prayer. Spirit, help my unbelief.”
—Isaac Wardell, “Lord, I Believe”
Luke 5:12-16
“The experience of ‘being in error’ so inevitably accompanies the perception of beauty that it begins to seem one of its abiding structural features. … Something beautiful fills the mind yet invites the search for something beyond itself…”
—Elaine Scarry
Luke 5:1-11
“He breaks the power of canceled sin, he sets the prisoner free; His blood can make the foulest clean; his blood availed for me.”
—Charles Wesley, “O For A Thousand Tongues To Sing”
Luke 4:31-44
“There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”
—The Apostle Paul to the Christians in Ephesus
Colossians 3:12-17
“Lord, while we see whole nations die,
Our flesh and sense repine and cry,
Must death for ever rage and reign?
Or hast thou made mankind in vain?
Where is thy promise to the just?
Are not thy servants turned to dust?
But faith forbids these mournful sighs,
And sees the sleeping dust arise.”
—Isaac Watts
Luke 4:16-37
“I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.”
—Psalm 119:11 (NIV)
Luke 4:1-15
“When He took the three disciples to the mountainside to pray
His countenance was modified, His clothing was aflame
Two men appeared, Moses and Elijah came
They were at his side
The prophecy, the legislation spoke of whenever he would die”
— Sufjan Stevens, “The Transfiguration”
Luke 3:21-28
“Repentance exhorts people to be fair with others and meet basic needs with fundamental aid. This is what God desires of those who know he is present and coming: a concern for him is expressed through concern for others.”
—Darrell L. Bock, A Commentary on Luke
Luke 3:1-22
“Crown Him with many crowns,
The Lamb upon His throne;
Hark! how the heav’nly anthem drowns
All music but its own!
Awake, my soul, and sing
Of Him who died for thee,
And hail Him as thy matchless King
Through all eternity.”
—“Crown Him with Many Crowns”
Luke 2:41-52
“All human wisdom is contained in these two words — Wait and Hope.”
—Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
Luke 2:22-40
“Christian humanism is not based on the presumption that our humanity is self-justifying. Rather Christians are humanists because God showed up in Mary’s belly.”
—Stanley Hauerwas
Luke 2:1-21
“Memory is power. The person who says that history is bunk, or that the past is gone and all that matters is today, just doesn’t know much about real life. In real life memory has tremendous power to inspire and guide.”
—John Piper, Pastor & Author
Luke 1:57-80
“Mary’s submission is a very lovely thing. ‘Whatever God says, I accept.’ Mary had learned to forget the world’s commonest prayer — ‘Your will be changed’ — and to pray the world’s greatest prayer — ‘Your will be done.’”
—William Barclay
Luke 1:26-45
“What we think about God will determine what we think about everything else. To speak of ‘God’ is to invoke the context for all understanding, that to which all life and thought are related: to the extent that we live and think at all, therefore, we do so in light of our understanding — whether explicit or implicit — of God. Theology, that is, is never merely ideation. It is always and inherently a total way of life.”
— Kavin Rowe, World Upside Down
Luke 1:5-25
“What I need first of all is not exhortation, but a gospel, not directions for saving myself but knowledge of how God has saved me. Have you any good news? That is the question that I ask of you. I know your exhortations will not help me. But if anything has been done to save me, will you not tell me the facts?”
—J. Gresham Machen
Luke 1:1-4
“We cannot come to Christ to be justified until we have first been to Moses to be condemned. But once we have gone to Moses, and acknowledged our sin, guilt, and condemnation, we must not stay there. We must let Moses send us to Christ.”
—John Stott
Galatians 4:1-7
The tree of life my soul hath seen,
Laden with fruit and always green;
The trees of nature fruitless be,
Compared with Christ the Apple Tree.
His beauty doth all things excel,
By faith I know but ne’er can tell
The glory which I now can see,
In Jesus Christ the Appletree.
For happiness I long have sought,
And pleasure dearly I have bought;
I missed of all but now I see
‘Tis found in Christ the Appletree.
I’m weary with my former toil—
Here I will sit and rest awhile,
Under the shadow I will be,
Of Jesus Christ the Appletree.
This fruit doth make my soul to thrive,
It keeps my dying faith alive;
Which makes my soul in haste to be
With Jesus Christ the Appletree.
—“Jesus Christ the Appletree”
Revelation 21:1-6a, 22-27
“That feast will be, like most other marriage suppers, the fulfilment of long expectation. Our Lord has waited long for his perfected Church. He espoused himself to her before ever the earth was; but there was much to be done ere she was prepared for the marriage. The Bridegroom, too, had to leave his Father, and become one with his Bride by taking upon himself our humanity. For our sake, he did quit the thrones and royalties of heaven that he might be bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh; and here was he born, and here he lived, and here he died.”
—Charles Spurgeon
Revelation 19:1-10
“Maker of the sun, He is made under the sun. . . .
In [the Father] He remains,
From [His mother] He goes forth.
Creator of heaven and earth,
He was born on earth under heaven.
Unspeakably wise, He is wisely speechless;
filling the world, He lies in a manger;
Ruler of the stars, He nurses at His mother’s bosom.
He is both great in the nature of God,
and small in the form of a servant,
but so that His greatness is not diminished by His smallness,
nor His smallness overwhelmed by His greatness.”
—Augustine of Hippo
Revelation 7:9-17
“My name from the palms of His hands
Eternity will not erase;
Impressed on His heart it remains
In marks of indelible grace.
Yes, I to the end shall endure,
As sure as the earnest is given
More happy, but not more secure,
The glorified spirits in heaven.”
—Augustus Toplady, “A Debtor to Mercy Alone”
Revelation 5
“To witness the perpetual marvel of the world’s coming into being is to sense the presence of the Giver in the given, to realize that the source of time is eternity, that the secret of being is the eternal within time. … All week long we are called upon to sanctify life through employing things of space. On the Sabbath it is given us to share in the holiness that is in the heart of time. … Eternity utters a day.”
—Abraham Heschel, The Sabbath
Leviticus 25:1-13
“Holiness is thus not so much an abstract or a mystic idea, as a regulative principle in the everyday lives of men and women. ... Holiness is thus attained not by flight from the world, nor by monk-like renunciation of human relationships of family or station, but by the spirit in which we fulfill the obligations of life in its simplest and commonest details: in this way—by doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with our God—is everyday life transfigured.”
— J. H. Hertz, Leviticus
Leviticus 19:9-18
“Unfortunately, many modern Christians have been deeply formed within the surrounding culture, so that they have… come to see their relationships and marriages in purely individualistic terms. Their marriages are perceived as solely for their own benefit rather than existing also for the sake of the church and its witness in the world. It is no wonder, then, that Christian relationships are often not clearly distinguishable from those in the culture at large.”
— Jonathan Grant, Divine Sex
Leviticus 18:1-5
“You should tell the devil: ‘Just by telling me that I am a miserable, great sinner you are placing a sword and weapon into my hand with which I can decisively overcome you; yea, with your own weapon I can kill and floor you. For if you can tell me that I am a poor sinner, I on the other hand, can tell you that Christ died for sinners, and is their Intercessor . . . You remind me of the boundless, great faithfulness and benefaction of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ . . . to Him I direct you. You may accuse and condemn Him. Let me rest in peace; for on His shoulders, not on mine, lie all my sins.’”
— Martin Luther
Leviticus 16:1-5
“For the Scriptures teach me that God established two seats for men, a judgment seat for those who are still secure and proud and will neither acknowledge nor confess their sin, and a mercy seat for those whose conscience is poor and needy, who feel and confess their sin, dread his judgment, and yearn for his grace. And this mercy seat is Christ himself . . . There shall I take my refuge when I have done or still do less than is meet and done much more of sin according to the law, both before and after my sanctification and justification. . . . Thereunder shall my heart and conscience creep and be safe.”
— Martin Luther
Leviticus 10:8–11
“The Scripture stories do not, like Homer’s, court our favor, they do not flatter us that they may please us and enchant us — they seek to subject us, and if we refuse to be subjected we are rebels.”
— Erich Auerbach
“In the self-assured world of modernity people seek to make sense of the Scriptures, instead of hoping, with the aid of the Scriptures, to make some sense of themselves.”
— Nicholas Lash
Leviticus 9:22-10:3
“You should tell the devil: ‘Just by telling me that I am a miserable, great sinner you are placing a sword and weapon into my hand with which I can decisively overcome you; yea, with your own weapon I can kill and floor you. For if you can tell me that I am a poor sinner, I on the other hand, can tell you that Christ died for sinners, and is their Intercessor . . . You remind me of the boundless, great faithfulness and benefaction of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ . . . to Him I direct you. You may accuse and condemn Him. Let me rest in peace; for on His shoulders, not on mine, lie all my sins.’”
— Martin Luther
Leviticus 6:24-7:10
“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
— John the Baptist when he sees Jesus, John 1
Exodus 40:34 - Leviticus 1:9
“[Christians] 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.”
— Letter to Diognetus, 2nd Century
1 Peter 2:9-17
“Love has redeemed His sheep with blood;
And love will bring them safe to God;
Love calls them all from death to life;
And love will finish all their strife.”
—William Gadsby, “The Love of Christ is Rich and Free”
1 Peter 4:7-11
“For Peter, identity begins with such questions as, ‘Who is my God? Whom do I trust? What is my community?’ The question ‘Whose am I?’ Has more weight than ‘Who am I?”
— Daniel M. Doriani
1 Peter 2:4-10
“A sermon without Christ! As well a loaf of bread without flour in it. How can it feed the soul?”
— Charles Spurgeon
1 Peter 1:3-12
“Because this act was done by this one, there and then, acts of reconciliation are more than an attempt to create reality by establishing imagined communities which offer a different sort of social space from that of the world’s routine violence. Human acts of reconciliation are in accordance with the structure of reality which God in Christ creates and to the existence of which the gospel testifies; and therefore they are acts which tend toward the true end of creation which God’s reconciling act establishes once and for all in Christ’s person and work.”
— John Webster
1 Corinthians 12:12-31
“Paul’s emphasis on unity-in-diversity is grounded in the nature of the one God, who is holy Trinity. … Paul sees all persons of the Trinity as involved fully in creation, redemption, and salvation. All gifts come ultimately from God the originating and loving Father, but God gives them through Jesus Christ as Mediator, and they are appropriated by the enabling work of the Holy Spirit.”
— Anthony Thiselton
1 Corinthians 12:1-11
“... so much American Christianity today comes packaged as inspirational uplift—sunlit, backlit, or candlelit. Furthermore, we are so accustomed to seeing the cross functioning as decoration that we can scarcely imagine it as an object of shame and scandal unless it is burned on someone’s lawn. It requires a considerable effort of the imagination to enter into the first century world of the Roman Empire so as to understand the degree of offensiveness attached to crucifixion as a method of execution. ... There were many thousands of crucifixions in Roman times, but only the crucifixion of Jesus is remembered as having any significance at all, let alone world-transforming significance.”
— Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ
Mark 8:22-33
“Q. 172. May one who doubts of his being in Christ, or of his due preparation, come to the Lord’s supper?
A. One who doubts of his being in Christ, or of his due preparation to the sacrament of the Lord’s supper, may have true interest in Christ, though he be not yet assured thereof; and in God’s account has it, if he be duly affected with the apprehension of the want of it, and unfeignedly desires to be found in Christ, and to depart from iniquity: in which case (because promises are made, and this sacrament is appointed, for the relief even of weak and doubting Christians) he is to bewail his unbelief, and labor to have his doubts resolved; and, so doing, he may and ought to come to the Lord’s supper, that he may be further strengthened.”
— Westminster Larger Catechism
1 Corinthians 11:17-34
“The justice behind God’s creation of male and female and his arrangement of the different roles he chose for them may not always be apparent to us. Why one and not the other? But should we expect our finitude to understand the infinite, omnipotent, wise, good, lovely, gracious justice of God? Perhaps some inkling resides in the dance of the sexes, by which we reveal truth about the inner life of the triune God. The rest is clothed in mystery, to which we yield, with full confidence that it is meant for our good.”
— Kathy Keller
1 Corinthians 11:2-16
“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
1 Corinthians 10:23-11:1
“What is an idol? It is anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give. ... Anything can be an idol, and everything has been an idol.”
— Tim Keller, Counterfeit Gods
1 Corinthians 10:1-22
“Rock of Ages, my great hope secure. Your promise holds just like an anchor to my soul. Bind your children with cords of love and grace. Rock of Ages, we give you praise.”
— Sandra McCracken, “Rock of Ages (When the Day Seems Long)”
1 Corinthians 9:15-27
“Jesus, my Lord, my life, my light,
Oh come with blissful ray.
Break radiant through the shades of night;
Won’t you chase my fears away?”
—Anne Steele, “Thou Lovely Source of True Delight”
1 Corinthians 9:1-14
“With all other teachers the world has ever known, the important thing is the teaching; but here is a case in which the Teacher is more important even than what he taught.”
— D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount
Matthew 7:28-29
“In applying [the Sermon on the Mount] to ourselves, we need to consider that the Bible is a dangerous book to read, and that the Church is a dangerous society to join. For in reading the Bible, we hear the words of Christ, and in joining the church, we say, we believe in Christ. As a result, we belong to the company described by Jesus as both hearing his teaching and calling him Lord. Our membership therefore lays upon us the serious responsibility of ensuring that what we know and what we say is translated into what we do.”
— John Stott
Matthew 7:24-27
“You say, you find it hard to believe it [is] compatible with the divine purity to embrace or employ such a monster as yourself. [In thinking this, you] express not only a low opinion of yourself, which is right, but too low an opinion of the person, work, and promises of the Redeemer; which is certainly wrong. ... Satan transforms himself into an angel of light. He sometimes off ers to teach us humility; but though I wish to be humble, I desire not to learn in his school. His premises perhaps are true, that we are vile, wretched creatures—but he then draws abominable conclusions from them; and would teach us, that, therefore, we ought to question either the power, or the willingness, or the faithfulness of Christ.”
— John Newton, “Letter XI, to the Rev. Mr S”
“[I]t is as if an error slipped into an author’s writing and the error became conscious of itself as an error. ... and now this error wants to mutiny against the author, out of hatred toward him, forbidding him to correct it and in maniacal defiance saying to him: No, I refuse to be erased; I will stand as a witness against you, a witness that you are a second-rate author.”
— Søren Kierkegaard
Matthew 7:15-23
“The way is unutterably hard, and at every moment we are in danger of straying from it. If we regard this way as one we follow in obedience to an external command, if we are afraid of ourselves all the time, it is indeed an impossible way. But if we behold Jesus Christ going on before step by step, we shall not go astray. ... For he is himself the way, the narrow way, and the strait gate. He, and he alone, is our journey’s end. When we know that, we are able to proceed along the narrow way through the strait gate of the cross, and on to eternal life, and the very narrowness of the road will increase our certainty. The way which the Son of God trod on earth, and the way which we too must tread as citizens of two worlds on the razor edge between this world and the kingdom of heaven, could hardly be a broad way. The narrow way is bound to be right.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Matthew 7:13-14
“The Golden Rule is a ‘call to creativity.’ Far from being a wooden rule to look back and ‘do to others what others have done to you,’ which would be counsel to reciprocate proportionally, it is counsel to look forward and to anticipate what others would like done and so be initiatory. And Jesus’ command to act in this creative way applies not only to disciples’ relations with other disciples, but with all human beings, as the use of the word ‘people’ rather than ‘brothers’ or even ‘neighbors’ indicates.”
— Bruner, Matthew, A Commentary
Matthew 7:12
“In your gift we find our rest. There are you our joy. Our rest is our peace. … A body by its weight tends to move towards its proper place. The weight’s movement is not necessarily downward, but to its appropriate position: fire tends to move upwards, a stone downwards. … Things which are not in their intended position are restless. Once they are in their ordered position, they are at rest. My weight is my love. Wherever I am carried, my love is carrying me. By your gift we are set on fire and carried upwards.”
—Augustine of Hippo
Matthew 7:7-11
“Thy Mercy, my God, is the theme of my song, the joy in my heart, and the boast of my tongue; Thy free grace alone from the first to the last, hath won my affections, and bound my soul fast.”
—John Stocker
Matthew 7:1-6
“‘Be not anxious for the morrow’: either that is cruel mockery for the poor and wretched, the very people Jesus is talking to who, humanly speaking, really will starve if they do not make provision to-day… or it is the unique proclamation of the gospel of the glorious liberty of the children of God, who have a Father in heaven, a Father who has given his beloved Son. How shall not God with him also freely give us all things?”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
Matthew 6:25-34
“1. Draw me from created good,
From self, the world, and sin
To the fountain of Thy blood,
And make me pure within
Chorus: If Thou hast drawn a thousand times
(Oh draw me Lord again)
Around me cast the Spirit’s bands
(Oh draw me Lord again)”
— Benjamin Beddome
Matthew 6:19-24
“In spite of errors and abuses, Christians in the past had sound intuitions about the centrality of fasting in the Christian life. In the early Church, fasting was not an isolated practice reserved for a day or a season. It was a clue to all Christian living, a perspective on the whole of discipleship. To be a Christian meant to participate in a great feast. It meant also to observe a great fast.”
—Peter J. Leithart
Matthew 6:16-18
“The simple, possessive pronoun, ‘your’ on Sinai, and now the simple possessive pronoun ‘our’ on the New Testament mountain, join the people of God to God. God was not introduced to Israel, coldly and formally as ‘Yahweh, the God,’ but warmly as ‘Yahweh, your God.’ And now in the same spirit, God is given to us not only as the Father, but as ‘Our Father.’ The ‘our’ means we belong and are at home. It is a possessive pronoun, meaning that God the Father owns us yet gives himself to us so that he is ours and we are his. In the simple word ‘our’ is the joy of the whole gospel. We will never be able to calculate the honor that has been done us by being allowed to say, ‘Our Father.’’’
—F.D. Bruner, Matthew, A Commentary
Matthew 6:9-15
“It might have been possible, we could say, before Christ rose from the dead, for someone to wonder whether creation was a lost cause. If the creature constantly acted to uncreate itself, and with itself to uncreate the rest of creation, did this not mean that God’s handiwork was flawed beyond hope of repair? … Before God raised Jesus from the dead, the hope that we call ‘gnostic,’ the hope for redemption from creation rather than hope for the redemption of creation, might have appeared to be the only possible hope. ‘But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead…’ (1 Cor. 15:20). That fact rules out those other possibilities, for in the second Adam the first is rescued. The deviance of his will, its fateful leaning towards death, has not been allowed to uncreate what God created.”
— Oliver O’Donovan, Resurrection and Moral Order
Romans 6:5-11
“Nine Ascending steps of loving one’s enemy: 1.) take no evil initiative; 2.) do not avenge another’s evil; 3.) Be quiet; 4.) suffer wrongfully; 5.) surrender to the evil doer more than he demands; 6.) do not hate the evil doer; 7.) Love him; 8.) Do him good; 9.) Entreat God on his behalf.”
—John Chrysostom, 5th Century Church Father
Matthew 5:43-48
“There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by. A life of good days lived in the senses is not enough. The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and less; time is ample and its passage sweet.”
— Annie Dillard, The Writing Life
Matthew 5:38-42
“I once heard the worst thing
A man can do is draw a hungry crowd
To tell everyone his name, pride and confidence
But leaving out his doubt
I’m not sure I bought those words
When I was young, I knew most everything
These words have never meant as much to anyone
As they now mean to me
The weight of lies will bring you down
And follow you to every town
‘Cause nothing happens here
That doesn’t happen there
So when you run, make sure you run
To something and not away from
‘Cause lies don’t need an aeroplane
To chase you down”
— The Avett Brothers “The Weight of Lies”
Matthew 5:33-37
“I used to float, now I just fall down
I used to know but I’m not sure now
What I was made for
What was I made for?”
— Billie Eilish lyrics, “What was I made for?”
Matthew 5:31-32, 19:1-9
“Sex is sinful to the degree that, instead of drawing you closer to other human beings in their humanness, it unites bodies but leaves the lives inside them hungrier and more alone than before.”
— Frederick Buechner
Matthew 5:27-30
Q. 135. What are the duties required in the sixth commandment?
A. The duties required in the sixth commandment are, all careful studies, and lawful endeavours, to preserve the life of ourselves and others by resisting all thoughts and purposes, subduing all passions, and avoiding all occasions, temptations, and practices, which tend to the unjust taking away the life of any; by just defence thereof against violence, patient bearing of the hand of God, quietness of mind, cheerfulness of spirit; a sober use of meat, drink, physic, sleep, labor, and recreation; by charitable thoughts, love, compassion, meekness, gentleness, kindness; peaceable, mild, and courteous speeches and behavior: forbearance, readiness to be reconciled, patient bearing and forgiving of injuries, and requiting good for evil; comforting and succoring the distressed, and protecting and defending the innocent.
— Westminster Larger Catechism
Matthew 5:21-26
“[Jesus] is saying that our attitude to the law of God is an index of our attitude to God himself. If we treat the law lightly and encourage others to do so, we show that we are strangers to the promise of the new covenant in Christ. But if we love and keep even the least of the Lord’s commandments, and we encourage others to do so as well, that is a sure mark that we love Christ and belong to his kingdom.”
— Sinclair Ferguson
Matthew 5:17-20
“The Lord who said, ‘Ye are the light of the world,’ also said, ‘I am the light of the world.’ These two statements must always be taken together, since the Christian is only ‘the light of the world’ because of his relationship to Him who is Himself ‘the light of the world.’”
—D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Matthew 5:13-16
“The church does not become good because we have some capable members, some powerful members, some influential members, some rich members, or some accomplished members. No. What should a church glorify in? It should glorify in the suffering of Christ, the body that suffers for the sake of Christ, the life of the martyrs. What a church glorifies in, who it glorifies in, what kind life it glorifies in, will demonstrate whether it is a faithful church that is filled with longing for the end times.”
— Wang Yi, Pastor, Early Rain Covenant Church, Chengdu, China (arrested and in state custody since December, 2018)
Matthew 5:1-12
The Merciful:
“[those] who come to the aid of others” — St. Augustine
“[those] who are not only prepared to put up with their own troubles but who also take on other people’s troubles.” — John Calvin
“The Gospel Merciful are the understanding; those who under-stand; those who put themselves under others to support them.” — Frederick Dale Bruner
Matthew 5:1-12
“You will never find a greater antithesis to the spirit and outlook [of the world] than that which you find in this verse: ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.’”
—Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones
Matthew 5:1-12
“Give what you command, O Lord, and then command whatever you will.”
—Augustine of Hippo
Matthew 4:17, 4:23-35, 5:1-2
“God has done this. God will manifest his power. That is what Christmas is about. Not what men are going to do, nor what they should do. No, no—what God has done. We are asked to stand back and to look and listen.”
—David Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Luke 1:76-79
“For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and of peace
there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
to establish it and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.”
—Isaiah 9:6-7
Proverbs 14:8-15
“For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.’”
—Isaiah 57:15
Ezekiel 43:1-9
“Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue?”
—JRR Tolkien, The Return of the King
Ezekiel 37:1, 11-14
“Go on up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news; lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Judah, ‘Behold your God!’ Behold, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.”
— The Prophet Isaiah
Ezekiel 34:1-6, 11-16
“The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.’”
— Exodus 34:6-7
“And now the LORD says…
‘It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to bring back the preserved of Israel;
I will make you as a light for the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.’”
— Isaiah 49:5-6
Ezekiel 28:25-26
“We follow One who stood and wept at the grave of Lazarus – not surely, because He was grieved that Mary and Martha wept, and sorrowed for their lack of faith (though some thus interpret) but because death, the punishment of sin, is even more horrible in his eyes than in ours.”
—C.S. Lewis
Ezekiel 20:33-38
“High King of heaven, my victory won
May I reach heaven’s joys, O bright heaven’s sun
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall
Still be my vision, O ruler of all”
—Be Thou My Vision
Ezekiel 11:14-21
“Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art
Thou my best thought, by day or by night
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light”
Ezekiel 10-11
“Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
— Isaiah
Ezekiel 7:1-4
“The Bible, all of it, is livable; it is the text for living our lives. It reveals a God-created, God-ordered, God-blessed world in which we find ourselves at home and whole.”
— Eugene H. Peterson, Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading
Ezekiel 2:1-10, 3:1-15
“Religion is sin when it makes God into something which we can handle.”
— John Webster
Ezekiel 1:1-5a, 26-28
“The aim of Christian ethics is not Stoic self-sufficiency, which requires proper knowledge; rather its aim is the benefit and advantage of a sister or a brother.”
— Gordon Fee, Commentary on First Corinthians
1 Corinthians 8:1-3
“Vocation is the place at which one responds to the call of Christ and thus lives responsibly. The task given to me by my vocation is thus limited; but my responsibility to the call of Jesus Christ knows no bounds.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1 Corinthians 7:17-24
“Our salvation is ‘from outside ourselves’ (extra nos). I find salvation, not in my life story, but only in the story of Jesus Christ. What we call our life, our troubles, and our guilt is by no means the whole of reality; our life, our need, our guilt, and our deliverance are there in the Scriptures.”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1 Corinthians 7:10-17
“Marriage and family are temporary for this age; the church is forever. I am declaring the radical biblical truth that being in a human family is no sign of eternal blessing, but being in God’s family means being eternally blessed. Relationships based on family are temporary. Relationships based on union with Christ are eternal. Marriage is a temporary institution, but what it stands for lasts forever.”
—John Piper
1 Corinthians 7:1-17
“This life therefore is not righteousness, but growth in righteousness, not health, but healing, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it, the process is not yet finished, but it is going on, this is not the end, but it is the road. All does not yet gleam in glory, but all is being purified.”
— Martin Luther
1 Corinthians 6:12-20
“For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,’ and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.”
— David, Psalm 32
1 Corinthians 5
“Grace leads to gratitude; ‘wisdom’ and self-sufficiency lead to boasting and judgement. Grace has a leveling effect; self esteem has a self-exalting effect. Grace means humility; boasting means that one has arrived.”
— Gordon Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians
1 Corinthians 4:6-21
God forbid that I should glory
Save in the Redeemer's cross.
Counting shame for him but honor,
Counting earthly gain but loss.
All the love of God is here,
Oh, Love that casteth out all fear.
—Horatius Bonar
1 Corinthians 3:18-4:5
“A sermon that just informs the mind can give people things to do after they go home, but a sermon that moves the heart from loving career or acclaim or one’s own independence to loving God and his Son changes listeners on the spot.”
— Tim Keller
1 Corinthians 2:1-5
“The LORD is exalted, for he dwells on high; he will fill Zion with justice and righteousness, and he will be the stability of your times, abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge; the fear of the LORD is Zion’s treasure.”
—Isaiah 33:5-6
John 21:1-14
“‘We do not know… how can we know the way?’
Courageous master of the awkward question,
You spoke the words the others dared not say
And cut through their evasion and abstraction.
Oh doubting Thomas, father of my faith,
You put your finger on the nub of things
We cannot love some disembodied wraith,
But flesh and blood must be our king of kings.
Your teaching is to touch, embrace, anoint,
Feel after Him and find Him in the flesh.
Because He loved your awkward counter-point
The Word has heard and granted you your wish.
Oh place my hands with yours, help me divine
The wounded God whose wounds are healing mine.”
—Malcolm Guite
John 20:19-31
“The finality of Christ’s death on the cross - which left to itself, could be so soothing to us, in the somber glow of our wisdom and tragedy’s pathos - has been unceremoniously undone, and we are suddenly denied the consolations of pity and reverence, resignation and recognition, and are thrown out upon the turbid seas of boundless hope and boundless hunger.”
—David Bentley Hart
John 20:11-18
“The resurrection [of Jesus Christ] cannot be part of any history unless it is the center and turning point.”
—Lesslie Newbigin, The Light Has Come
John 20:1-10
“Six days shall you labor
The seventh is the Lord's
In six He made the earth and all the heavens
But He rested on the seventh
God rested
He said that it was finished
And the seventh day, He blessed it
God rested.”
—Andrew Peterson
John 19:16b-42
“Lev.17:11: ‘For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I, I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your soul…’ In the [Biblical] case of sacrifice, the offerer tends to think, ‘I am putting this blood on the altar for the Lord.’ But here, the Lord turns that idea on its head. As scholar Baruch Schwartz explains in his essay “Prohibitions Concerning the ‘Eating’ of Blood”: What our clause does, in its unique, metaphorically graphic way, is to take a set phrase, the ‘placing’ of the blood on the altar, and to reverse the conceptual direction of the action: ‘It is not you who are placing the blood on the altar for me, for my benefit, but rather the opposite: it is I who have placed it there for you—for your benefit."‘ In his mercy and grace, the Lord has provided a way for guilty sinners to be forgiven.”
— Jay Sklar
John 19:1-16a
“The scale of the reversal cannot be exaggerated: when Jesus stands before Pilate… he must seem from the vantage of all the noble wisdom of the empire and the age... merely absurd… But in the light of the resurrection… the mockery now redounds upon all kings and emperors, whose finery and symbols of status are revealed to be nothing more than rags and brambles beside the majesty of God’s Son, beside this servile shape in which God displays his infinite power to be where he will be; all the rulers of the earth cannot begin to surpass in grandeur this beauty of the God who ventures forth to make even the dust his glory.”
— David Bentley Hart
John 18:28-40
“The name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous man runs in to it and is safe.”
—Solomon, Proverbs 18:10
John 18:12-27
“The King of love my Shepherd is,
Whose goodness faileth never;
I nothing lack if I am his
And he is mine for ever.“
—WH Baker, “The King Of Love My Shepherd Is”
John 18:1-11
“[There] is nothing so social by nature as man, nothing so unsocial by corruption.”
— Augustine of Hippo
“[R]edemption being a work of restoration will appear to us by that very fact as the recovery of lost unity – the recovery of supernatural unity of man with God, but equally of the unity of men among themselves.”
— Henri de Lubac
John 17:20-26
“Two men appeared
Moses and Elijah came, they were at his side
The prophecy, the legislation
Spoke of whenever he would die”
—Sufjan Stevens, “The Transfiguration”
John 17:1-19
“The pac Romana (the Roman peace) was won and maintained by a brutal sword; not a few Jews thought the messianic peace would have to be secured by a still mightier sword. Instead, it was secured by an innocent man who suffered and died at the hands of the Romans, of the Jews, and of all of us. And by his death he effected for his own followers peace with God, and therefore ‘the peace of God which transcends all understanding’ (Phil.4:7).”
— D.A. Carson, The Gospel According to John
John 16:25-33
“Part of the goodness of creation is we were made to be dependent on God, on our neighbor, and on the earth. That is not a result of sin. Dependence isn’t a result of sin. Sin just distorts those dependencies.”
—Kelly Kapic
John 16:16-24
“Come O Spirit comfort true,
Help us by Your pleading.
Come and every heart renew
Breath of God proceeding
You alone to God can win us
Spirit now work good within us
Come our conscience to relieve
From the sin remembered.
Come our Savior’s blood to plead,
Naked we surrender.
Sin hath left a wound revealing,
Spirit help us with Your healing
All our riches all our crowns
Cast we now before Thee
Scales removeth chains unbounded
Boldly we implore Thee
As You knit us once together
Fasten us to You forever.”
—Isaac Wardell
John 16:4-15
“An unjust man is an abomination to the righteous,
but one whose way is straight is an abomination to the wicked.”
— Proverbs 29:27
John 15:18-16:4a
“You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.”
—Leviticus 19:18
John 15:12-17
“The faith that… is able to warm itself at the fire of God’s love, instead of having to steal love and self-acceptance from other sources, is actually the root of holiness.”
—Richard Lovelace
John 15:1-11
“What kings and leaders of nations, philosophers and artists, founders of religions and teachers of morals have tried in vain to do—that now happens through a newborn child. Putting to shame the most powerful human efforts and accomplishments, a child is placed here at the midpoint of world history—a child born of human beings, a son given by God (Isa. 9:6). That is the mystery of the redemption of the world; everything past and everything future is encompassed here. The infinite mercy of the almighty God comes to us, descends to us in the form of a child, his Son. That this child is born for us, this son is given to us, that this human child and Son of God belongs to me, that I know him, have him, love him, that I am his and he is mine—on this alone my life now depends. A child has our life in his hands….”
—Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Genesis 35:16-29
“Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship… is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.”
—David Foster Wallace, “This is Water”
Genesis 35:1-15
“And that is the wonder of all wonders, that God loves the lowly…. God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings. God marches right in. He chooses people as his instruments and performs his wonders where one would least expect them. God is near to lowliness; he loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak and broken.”
—Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Genesis 34
“We have become so accustomed to the idea of divine love and of God’s coming at Christmas that we no longer feel the shiver of fear that God’s coming should arouse in us. We are indifferent to the message, taking only the pleasant and agreeable out of it and forgetting the serious aspect, that the God of the world draws near to the people of our little earth and lays claim to us.”
—Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Genesis 33
“St. Thomas, for instance, says: ‘That God wishes to give to someone... grace and glory proceeds from his sheer generosity.’ … [T]o someone, to some person at whom we can point. To someone, to you, to me, this very day.”
—Henri de Lubac
“True faith is not only a certain knowledge, whereby I hold for truth all that God has revealed to us in his word, but also an assured confidence... that not only to others, but to me also, remission of sin, everlasting righteousness and salvation, are freely given by God, merely of grace, only for the sake of Christ's merits.”
— Heidelberg Catechism, Question 21
“Read the words ‘me’ and ‘for me’ with great emphasis. Print this ‘me with capital letters in your heart, and do not ever doubt that you belong to the number of those who are meant by this ‘me.’ Christ did not only love Peter and Paul. The same love He felt for them He feels for us. If we cannot deny that we are sinners, we cannot deny that Christ died for our sins.”
—Martin Luther
Genesis 32
“St. Thomas, for instance, says: ‘That God wishes to give to someone... grace and glory proceeds from his sheer generosity.’ … [T]o someone, to some person at whom we can point. To someone, to you, to me, this very day.” — Henri de Lubac
“True faith is not only a certain knowledge, whereby I hold for truth all that God has revealed to us in his word, but also an assured confidence... that not only to others, but to me also, remission of sin, everlasting righteousness and salvation, are freely given by God, merely of grace, only for the sake of Christ's merits.” — Heidelberg Catechism, Question 21
“Read the words ‘me’ and ‘for me’ with great emphasis. Print this ‘me’ with capital letters in your heart, and do not ever doubt that you belong to the number of those who are meant by this ‘me.’ Christ did not only love Peter and Paul. The same love He felt for them He feels for us. If we cannot deny that we are sinners, we cannot deny that Christ died for our sins.” — Martin Luther
Genesis 31:17-55
“Remember, the only real leader you have is Jesus Christ. Unless you are daily taught of Him you will not be able to make the right decisions. To get to Him you need to pray, but it needs to be prayer of a unique quality. You can pray all night and all day and still not be in touch with His will. Prayer is not full and effective unless it adds up to our learning to wait upon the Lord for Him to make known His will. He needs to break down our tendency to cry out in prayer "Your will be done," and then to get up and still try to impose our will on circumstances.”
—Jack Miller, The Heart of a Servant Leader
Genesis 30:25-31:16
“You see, there is prayer, and there is God-given prayer. The former is superficial, the work of orphans, who may be religious people but are unwilling to surrender human independence to the leadership of Christ. God-given prayer and praise have as their essence a waiting on God, a willingness to be wrought upon by the hammer and the fire of the Almighty until the chains of self-centered desires fall away from the personality, and the love of Christ becomes the deepest hunger of the inner life.”
—Jack MIller
Genesis 29:31-30:24
“He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.”
— Isaiah 53:3-4
Genesis 29
“The divine covenant partner commits himself to be present with, to preserve, and to protect his pilgrim-saint until he returns safely to the Promised Land. … The pilgrim obligates himself to come to God’s house and worship him with tithe in hand. These commitments commence the plot of [Jacob’s sojournings]. Jacob sets out to find a wife, but first God finds him.”
—Bruce Waltke
“And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
—Matthew 28:20b
Genesis 28
“[S]eeing [Christ] to be called man, we are bold to call him sister and brother. Now the soul which may say of herself, that she is the sister of God, ought to have her heart assured.”
—Marguerite de Navarre
John 15:1-11
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
—Deuteronomy 6:4–9
Genesis 27
“‘Wilderness’ is a place, in biblical rhetoric, where there are no viable life support systems. ‘Grace’ is the occupying generosity of God that redefines the place.”
—Walter Brueggemann, Journey to the Common Good
Genesis 26:12-35
“The terrible, tragic fallacy of the last hundred years has been to think that all man’s troubles are due to his environment, and that to change the man you have nothing to do but change his environment. That is a tragic fallacy. It overlooks the fact that it was in Paradise that man fell.”
—Martin Lloyd Jones
Genesis 26:1-11
Please note: due to a microphone issue, the last several minutes of the sermon were not recorded.
“There are no natural guarantees for the future and no way to secure the inheritance of the family. It must trust only to the power of God. Period. Period promise requires an end to grasping and servitude and an embrace of precariousness. It is only God who gives life. Any pretense that the future is secured by rights or claims of the family is a deception.”
—Walter Brueggemann, Commentary on Genesis
Genesis 25:19-34
God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,
though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble at its swelling. …
“Be still, and know that I am God.
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!”
The LORD of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.
—Psalm 46:1-3, 10-11
Genesis 24
“Now as man could not live in society without truth, so likewise, not without joy.”
— Thomas Aquinas
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. “
— The Apostle Paul to the Galatians
Revelation 7:9-17
“A people, we may say, is a gathered multitude of rational beings united by agreeing to share the things they love. There can be as many different kinds of people as there are different things for them to love. … The better the things, the better the people; the worse the things, the worse their agreement to share them.”
— Augustine, The City of God XIX.24
Ephesians 2:11-22
“The only bond of unity [among the apostles] is Jesus’ choice and call.”
—Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
Acts 8:26-40
“The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.”
—Matthew 1:1 (ESV)
Matthew 28:16-20
Sinners then shall learn from me,
And return, O God, to Thee
Savior all my guilt remove,
And my tongue shall sing Thy love
Touch my silent lips, O Lord,
And my mouth shall praise accord
—Scottish Psalter (Psalm 51)
Zechariah 8:13-23
“In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that—and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison—you do not know God at all. As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.
That raises a terrible question. How is it that people who are quite obviously eaten up with Pride can say they believe in God and appear to themselves very religious? I am afraid it means they are worshiping an imaginary God. They theoretically admit themselves to be nothing in the presence of this phantom God, but are really all the time imagining how He approves of them and thinks them far better than ordinary people: that is, they pay a pennyworth of imaginary humility to Him and get out of it a pound's worth of Pride towards their fellow-men.”
—C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
Daniel 4:19-37
“My name from the palms of His hands
Eternity will not erase;
Impressed on His heart it remains
In marks of indelible grace.
Yes, I to the end shall endure,
As sure as the earnest is given
More happy, but not more secure,
The glorified spirits in heaven.”
—Augustus Montague Toplady
Isaiah 49: 5-18
“Tribes are a normal part of life. They can be as simple as a high school hockey team or a label like ‘Presbyterian.’ Our family is a mini-tribe. Tribalism turns a tribe into a center of worship. Tribes tend towards tribalism, largely because that’s what the heart does. In tribalism, the tribe then becomes not just an affinity grouping but a source of life. In short, the tribe becomes an idol. It’s easy to see tribalism in others, but it’s hard to see our own.”
— Paul Miller
Jonah 3:10-4:11
“Glorious things of thee are spoken,
Zion, city of our God;
He, Whose word cannot be broken,
Formed thee for His own abode
On the Rock of Ages founded,
What can shake thy sure repose?
With salvation's walls surrounded,
Thou mayst smile at all thy foes.”
— John Newton, Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken
Psalm 87
“The message of the prophets is not, ‘Israel has sinned; therefore, Israel needs to get its act together or it will die.’ The message is… ‘Israel has sinned; Israel is already dead. Cling to the God who raises the dead.’”
—Peter Leithart
2 Kings 5:1-14
“The love and power of God must address not only the sin of individuals but also the strife and striving of nations; not only the need of human beings but also the suffering of animals and the curse of the ground…What can God do next? Something that only God could have thought of. He sees an elderly, childless couple in the land of Babel and decides to make them the fountainhead, the launch pad of his whole cosmic redemption. We can almost hear the sharp intake of breath among the heavenly hosts when the astonishing plan is revealed.”
—Christopher Wright, The Mission of God
Genesis 12:1-3
Due to technical issues, the sermon audio was not recorded.
“As a man, looking steadfastly on a dial, cannot perceive the shadow move at all, yet viewing it after a while, he shall perceive that it hath moved; so, in the hearing of the Word, but especially in the receiving of the Lord's Supper, a man may judge even his own faith, and other graces of God, to be little or nothing increased, neither can he perceive the motion of God's Spirit in him at that time; yet by the fruits and effects thereof, he shall afterward perceive that God's Spirit hath little by little wrought greater faith and other graces in him.”
—Daniel Cawdray
John 14:25-31
“Come, our conscience to relieve from each sin remembered. Come, our savior’s blood to plead; naked we surrender. Sin hath left a wound revealing; Spirit, help us with your healing.”
—Come, O Spirit, by Isaac Wardell
John 14: 15-24
“The Father and the Son are so perfectly one in their mutual indwelling that when we listen to the words of Jesus and attend to his works, we are coming to see God, and it is therefore futile and irrelevant to look elsewhere.”
—Lesslie Newbigin
John 14:8-14
“What can strip the seeming beauty, from the idols of the earth? Not a sense of right or duty, but the sight of peerless worth.”
— Ora Rowan, Hast thou Heard Him, Seen Him, Known Him
John 14:1-7
“My entire hope is exclusively in your very great mercy. Grant what you command, and command what you will.”
—Augustine of Hippo, Confessions X.29
John 13:31-38
“The company of Jesus’ friends who have accepted (even if uncomprehending) the washing of their feet by their Lord and Master have made the decisive turn. But among them there is one who remains in the service of the power of this age. There is treason in the very heart of the Church, and Jesus knows it and has known it from the beginning. His disciples must know it too, and be forewarned against the collapse of faith.”
—Leslie Newbigin, The Light Has Come
John 13:21-32
Q. What is true faith?
A. True faith is not only a sure knowledge by which I hold as true all that God has revealed to us in Scripture; it is also a wholehearted trust, which the Holy Spirit creates in me by the gospel, that God has freely granted, not only to others but to me also, forgiveness of sins, eternal righteousness, and salvation. These are gifts of sheer grace, granted solely by Christ’s merit.
—Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 21
John 13:1-20
“Very early in the morning on the first day of the week, before anyone had done a stroke of work or acquired a jot of merit, he rose from the sepulchre, bringing new life to his disciples. What then began had nothing to do with last week's work or last week's sins; they all seemed centuries away. The old world for Christ's disciples had ended in calamity, had gone down into a gulf of darkness; the earth had crumbled under their feet, they had nothing to stand upon. But here was something as new as the creation of the world where no world was; new life straight from the hands of the only living God.”
—Austin Farrer
1 John 3:19-24
God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps on the sea, And rides upon the storm.
Ye fearful saints fresh courage take, The clouds you so much dread, Are big with mercy, and shall break, With blessings on your head.
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, But trust him for his grace. Behind a frowning providence, He hides a smiling face.
His purposes will ripen fast, Unfolding every hour.
The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flower.
Blind unbelief is sure to err, And scan His work in vain; God is His own interpreter, And He will make it plain.
—Written by William Cowper d.1800; last hymn written before he descended into mental illness, from which he subsequently died.
John 12:36-50
“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it but because by it, I see everything else.”
— C.S. Lewis
John 12:27-36
“Never is tranquillity restored to our minds, or fear and trembling banished from them, except by knowing that Christ reigns amongst us.”
— John Calvin, Commentary on John
John 12:12-26
“The sisters were heartbroken when Lazarus died. They must have felt sure that they knew what their heart’s desires were, and they must also have felt sure that they had lost them forever. But what the story of Mary of Bethany shows is that a person can feel sure about these things and still be altogether mistaken.”
Eleonore Stump, Wandering in Darkness
John 12:1-11
“From beginning to end, the Holy Scriptures testify that the predicament of fallen humanity is so serious, so grave, so irremediable from within, that nothing short of divine intervention can rectify it.”
― Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ
John 11:45-57
“Jesus wept, and in his weeping, he joined himself forever to those who mourn. He stands now throughout all time, this weeping Jesus weeping, with his arms about the weeping ones: ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.’ He stands with the mourners, for his name is God-with-us. Jesus wept.”
- Ann Weems, Psalms of Lament
“For in [Christ] the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.”
- Colossians 2:9
“He sanctified the body by being in it.”
- Athanasius, On the Incarnation
John 11:28-44
“That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, ‘No future bliss can make up for it’ not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory.”
—C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
John 11:17-27
The King of Love my Shepherd is,
Whose goodness faileth never;
I nothing lack if I am His
And He is mine forever.
Where streams of living water flow
My ransomed soul He leadeth,
And, where the verdant pastures grow,
With food celestial feedeth.
Perverse and foolish, oft I strayed,
But yet in love He sought me;
And on His shoulder gently laid,
And home, rejoicing brought me.
In death’s dark vale, I fear no ill
With Thee, dear Lord, beside me;
Thy rod and staff my comfort still,
Thy cross before to guide me.
Thou spread’st a table in my sight;
Thine unction grace bestoweth;
And O what transport of delight
From Thy pure chalice floweth.
And so through all the length of days,
Thy goodness faileth never;
Good Shepherd, may I sing Thy praise
Within Thy house forever.
—The King of Love My Shepherd Is, Henry Baker
John 10:22-42
“The action of Jesus in giving his life is an act both of complete freedom and of filial obedience. He is not the passive victim of other men’s purposes. … Jesus in going this way offers his life to the Father in whose will is his joy, confident that what he has so offered cannot be lost but will be received back. This path of freely willed and obedient surrender to the Father is the way which Jesus is, and along which he leads his people.”
— Lesslie Newbigin
John 10:1-21
“Thy mercy my God is the theme of my song; the joy of my heart and the boast of my tongue. Thy Free Grace alone from the first to the last, hath won my affections and bound my soul fast.”
—John Stocker, 1776
John 9
“Listening… means real listening, intense listening, listening which hurts. It means attentive straining after what is said, giving ourselves wholly to the task of attention to Jesus. Why? Because he is God’s Word, he is what God says to us. …It is a way–the way–of being human. Listening means obedience… the lifelong task of giving my consent to the shape which God has for my life. Obedience is letting God put me in the place where I can be the sort of person I am made by God to be. I come to see what kind of person this is when I stop trying to be in charge of myself, and instead acknowledge that God is my Lord, that I can only be myself if I walk in his ways. So listening to Jesus is always a practical matter…”
—John Webster
John 8:48-59
“So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
— 1 Corinthians 13:13 (ESV)
John 8:39-47
“‘Learning’ virtue—becoming virtuous—is more like practicing scales on the piano than learning music theory: the goal is, in a sense, for your fingers to learn the scales so they can then play ‘naturally,’ as it were. Learning here isn’t just information acquisition; it’s more like inscribing something into the very fiber of your being.”
—James K.A. Smith, You Are What You Love
John 8:31-38
“When God’s Son took on our flesh, he truly and bodily took on, out of pure grace, our being, our nature, ourselves. This was the eternal counsel of the triune God. Now we are in him. Where he is, there we are too, in the incarnation, on the cross, and in his resurrection. We belong to him because we are in him. This is why the Scriptures call us the Body of Christ.”
—Dietrich Bonhoeffer
John (8:21-30)
“Christmas is not a reminder that the world is really quite a nice old place. It reminds us that the world is a shockingly bad old place, where wickedness flourishes unchecked, where children are murdered, where civilized countries make a lot of money by selling weapons to uncivilized ones so they can blow each other apart. Christmas is God lighting a candle, and you don't light a candle in a room that's already full of sunlight. You light a candle in a room that's so murky that the candle, when lit, reveals just how bad things really are. The light shines in the darkness, says St. John, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
—NT Wright, For All God’s Worth
John 7:37-39, 8:12-20
“[L]ove is a vital principle uniting, or seeking to unite two together, the lover, to wit, and the beloved."
— Augustine
Job 42, Jeremiah 32:36-41
“He will come, will come,
will come like crying in the night,
like blood, like breaking,
as the earth writhes to toss him free.
He will come like child.”
—Rowan Williams, Advent Calendar
Job 41:1-11, Isaiah 11:1-9
“When uprightness is joined to superabundant prosperity, the motivation for the uprightness is murky. At best, the source of the uprightness is uncertain; and, because it is untested, to that extent the commitment to righteousness is comparatively shallow. There is, therefore, something less than optimal about virtues developed and preserved in great affluence. So, until prosperity and goodness are pulled apart, it may not be a determinate matter whether Job loves the good for its own sake, or whether what he loves is mingled good and wealth.”
—Eleonore Stump, Wandering in Darkness
Job 40: 1-14, Isaiah 50:10-11
“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, ‘Do it again’; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”
—G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
Job 38:1-11
“God’s pleasure—the beauty creation possesses in his regard—underlies the distinct being of creation, and so beauty is the first and truest word concerning all that appears within being; beauty is the showing of what is; God looked upon what he had wrought and saw that it was good.”
—David Bentley Hart
Job 14:7-17, Job 19:23-27
“Each day, it seems, thousands of Americans are going about their daily rounds - dropping off the kids at school, driving to the office, flying to a business meeting, shopping at the mall, trying to stay on their diets - and they're coming to the realization that something is missing. They are deciding that their work, their possessions, their diversions, their sheer busyness, is not enough. They want a sense of purpose, a narrative arc to their lives. They're looking to relieve a chronic loneliness, a feeling supported by a recent study that shows Americans have fewer close friends and confidants than ever before. And so they need an assurance that somebody out there cares about them, is listening to them - that they are not just destined to travel down that long highway towards nothingness”
—Barak Obama, 2008
Hebrews 9:11-15
“Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his law.”
—The Prophet Isaiah regarding God’s chosen Servant; ch. 42:1-4
Job 4:1-9
“Lament deals with reality. It presupposes a God who hears, who loves, and who is powerful; this is the basis for lament, which is a combination of complaint, grief, questions, confusion, desire for rescue, and expectation of divine faithfulness. …
Any attitude that emphasizes hope while ignoring lament comes from a naïve and unrealistic optimism that contradicts our actual experiences. Lamenting without hope, on the other hand, is equally unrealistic, a kind of unfaithful cynicism that ignores God’s activity and crushes us in its unrelenting despair. Sometimes we find Christians who then avoid both lament and hope, but that is the path of detached stoicism, not Christian hopeful realism.”
—Kelly Kapic
Job 3
God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform; He plants his footsteps in the sea, And rides upon the storm.
Deep in unfathomable mines Of never failing skill; He treasures up his bright designs, And works His sovereign will.
Ye fearful saints fresh courage take, The clouds ye so much dread, Are big with mercy, and shall break In blessings on your head.
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, But trust him for his grace; Behind a frowning providence, He hides a smiling face.
His purposes will ripen fast, Unfolding ev'ry hour; The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flow'r.
Blind unbelief is sure to err, And scan his work in vain; God is his own interpreter, And he will make it plain.
—William Cowper, 1773
Job 1:13-2:10
“Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not ‘So there’s no God after all,’ but ‘So this is what God’s really like. Deceive yourself no longer.’”
— C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
Job 1:6-12
“I’ll never forget the trouble, the utter lostness,
the taste of ashes, the poison I’ve swallowed.
I remember it all—oh, how well I remember—
the feeling of hitting the bottom.
But there’s one other thing I remember,
and remembering, I keep a grip on hope:
God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out,
his merciful love couldn’t have dried up.
They’re created new every morning.
How great your faithfulness!
I’m sticking with God (I say it over and over).
He’s all I’ve got left.”
—Eugene Peterson, The Message, Lamentation 3:19-24
Job 1:1-5
“When it comes down to it, there are only two choices: to conform desire to truth or truth to desire, to conform our soul to reality or conform reality to our wishes:
There is something which unites magic and applied science while separating both from the ‘wisdom’ of earlier ages. For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men: the solution is a technique....
Truth or a technique for altering reality—that is the choice.”
—Art Lindsley
Job 28
“Give what you command, and command what you will.”
—St. Augustine
Job 42:5-6, Jeremiah 32:36-41
“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
— C.S. Lewis
Job 42:1-6
“In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that—you do not know God at all. As long as you are proud, you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.”
— C.S. Lewis
Job 1:1, Psalm 147:10-11
“So I’ll cherish the old rugged Cross
‘Til my trophies at last I lay down
I will cling to the old rugged Cross
And exchange it some day for a crown.”
—George Bennard
1 Samuel 26:6-12
Wilderness (noun)
1a - (1): a tract or region uncultivated and uninhabited by human beings
(2): an area essentially undisturbed by human activity together with its naturally developed life community
b: an empty or pathless area or region: “in remote wildernesses of space groups of nebulae are found” — G. W. Gray 1960
c: a part of a garden devoted to wild growth
2 obsolete: wild or uncultivated state
— Merriam-Webster Dictionary
1 Samuel 23
“When men say that they miss combat, it’s not that they actually miss getting shot at—you’d have to be deranged—it’s that they miss being in a world where everything is important and nothing is taken for granted.” — Sebastian Junger
“The antidote to exhaustion is not rest but wholeheartedness.” — David Whyte
“For serving God concerns the Frame of our Spirits, in the whole Course of our Lives; in every occasion we have, in which we may shew our Love to his Law.” — William Penn
1 Samuel 22
“Those convinced of the fact of divine reconciliation should thereby be convinced that intellectual conviction is not attained in a sort of spiritual vacuum. One must have bared one’s soul, even reckoned oneself as some kind of sinner... talk of such realities as sin and forgiveness may fail to commend itself to us because it cannot
discover in us a disposition to receive it.” — Stephen Williams
“The existential predicament in which one fears condemnation is quite different from the one where one fears, above all, meaninglessness.” — Charles Taylor
1 Samuel 21
“I fear the prayers of John Knox more than all the assembled armies of Europe.” — Mary, Queen of Scots
”Live in Christ, die in Christ, and the flesh need not fear death.” — John Knox
1 Samuel 17
“The Scripture stories do not, like Homer’s, court our favor, they do not flatter us that they may please us and enchant us - they seek to subject us, and if we refuse to be subjected we are rebels.”
— Erich Auerbach
“In the self-assured world of modernity people seek to make sense of the Scriptures, instead of hoping, with the aid of the Scriptures, to make some sense of themselves.”
— Nicholas Lash
1 Samuel 16: 1-13
“In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship...is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things... you will never have enough. ... Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. ... Worship power — you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart — you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on.”
— David Foster Wallace, This is Water
1 Samuel 1:1-20
“For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.”
— The Prophet Habakkuk
Acts 28:11-30
“Some went down to the sea in ships, doing business on the great waters; they saw the deeds of the Lord, his wondrous works in the deep. For he commanded and raised the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves of the sea. They mounted up to heaven; they went down to the depths; their courage melted away in their evil plight; they reeled and staggered like drunken men and were at their wits’ end. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed. Then they were glad that the waters were quiet, and he brought them to their desired haven. Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man!”
—Psalm 107:23–31 (ESV)
Acts 27
Jesus is who you think. He is after the marginalized. He is after those who are on the outs. In fact, if you've experienced shame, that is good evidence he is coming for you. You are in the very center of his mission statement.
—Ed Welch
Acts 24:1-21
“Covid-19 is not a blessing. It is one more obvious, terrible instance of a broken world. But amid all the reasonable concern, we shouldn’t lose sight of the deeper cause of our anxiety—our mortal fear, [death]—and the unprecedented chance within this life to become fuller, richer and more joyful human beings...No sane person would ever give thanks for a pandemic. But if we take the chance it gives us to become truth-tellers, lovers and reconcilers, we may well wind up giving thanks for what we have become.”
—Kavin Rowe, Professor of New Testament, Duke University, article from the Wall Street Journal
Acts 21:17-36
“He said to him a third time, ‘Simon, Son of John, do you love me?...Feed my sheep.’ ” — Jesus with Peter, John 21:17
“Don’t beat the sheep or eat the sheep. Feed the sheep.” — origin unkown
Acts 20:17-38
“Repeated crimes awake our fears, and justice armed with frowns appears. But in the Savior’s lovely face, sweet mercy smiles, and all is peace, all is peace .... He lives! The great Redeemer lives! What joy the blest assurance gives! And now, before His Father, God, pleads the merit of His blood. He lives! The great Redeemer lives! What joy the blest assurance gives! And now, before His Father, God , pleads the merit of His blood. He lives, oh, He lives.” — Anne Steele, He Lives
“Good writing is about telling the truth. We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not share this longing, which is one reason they write so very little. But we do. We have so much we want to say and figure out.” — Anne Lamont
“It is a world where the battle goes ultimately to the good, who live happily ever after, and where in the long run everybody, good and evil alike, becomes known by his true name...That is the fairy tale of the Gospel with, of course, one crucial difference from all other fairy tales, which is that the claim made for it is that it is true, that it not only happened once upon a time but has kept on happening ever since and is happening still.” — Frederick Buechner
Acts 19:21-41
“When you are with God, that is what you are; you are no more and no less. Who you are with God defines all the rest.”
— Jack Miller
Acts 19:21-41
“Thou will supply my every need, on to the end whate’er befall. Through life, in death, eternally, Thou art my all.”
—Third verse of “Thou Art My Life” (or “Jesus My Savior”) by Charlotte Elliot, who became an invalid around age 30, and remained so the rest of her life. About her physical condition, Elliott wrote: “My Heavenly Father knows, and He alone, what it is, day afer day, and hour afer hour, to fight against bodily feelings of almost overpowering weakness and languor and exhaustion, to resolve, as He enables me to do, not to yield to the slothfulness, the depression, the irritability, such as a body causes me to long to indulge, but to rise every morning determined on taking this for my motto, If any man will come afer me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me.”
John 7:37-39
“Be careful what you put your hope in. Every human being functions by hope. You will attach your identity, your meaning and purpose, your inner security to something. It never works to attach your hope to something horizontal. Lasting hope is only ever found vertically. Be careful what you’re afraid of. Fear never produces anything good in your life. I think fear of the march of cultural things that we think are wrong, that threaten human identity, massive changes in sexuality, in gender, in morality – that fear can make you run some place and associate with things that you think are speaking your language that may lead to complete compromise on what you actually believe and where you actually find hope.”
—Paul David Tripp
[Unfortunately, sermon audio is not available for this week. Please check back for our next sermon.]
Psalm 46
“For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe“
—Ephesians 1:15-19a
Acts 18:24-19:20
“Fear not, for I am with you; I will bring you offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you. I will say to the north, give up, and to the south, do not withhold; bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”
—Isaiah 43:5-7
Acts 18:1-23
“It is the Holy Spirit’s job to convict, God’s job to judge, and my job to love.”
—Billy Graham
Acts 17:16-34
“They said the Apostles turned the world upside down. They meant by that, that they were disturbers of the peace. But they said a great true thing; for Christ’s gospel does turn the world upside down. It was the wrong way upwards before, and now that the gospel is preached, and when it shall prevail, it will just set the world right by turning it upside down.”
—Charles Spurgeon
Acts 17:1-15
“Long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and nature’s night; thine eye diffused a quickening ray; I woke the dungeon flames with light. My chains fell off, my heart was free. I rose, went forth, and followed thee.”
—Charles Wesley, And Can It Be
Acts 16:16-40
“Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”
— The Apostle Paul in his letter to the Church in Ephesus.
Acts 15:36-16:15
“God-given prayer and praise have as their essence a waiting on God, a willingness to be wrought upon by the hammer and the fire of the Almighty, until the chains of self-centered desires fall away from the personality, and the love of Christ become the deepest hunger of the inner life.”
—Jack Miller, Heart of A Servant Leader
Acts 15:1-35
“Go, then, earthly fame and treasure, come disaster, scorn and pain.
In Thy services, pain is pleasure, with They favor, loss is gain.
I have called Thee Abba Father, I have stayed my heart on Thee.
Storms may howl, and clouds may gather; All must work for good to me.”
—Henry Lyte, Jesus I My Cross Have Taken
Acts 14
“The highest of all of God’s commands is this: that we ever hold up before our eyes the image of his dear Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. He must daily be to our hearts the perfect mirror, in which we behold how much God loves us and how well, in his infinite goodness, as a faithful God, he has grandly cared for us in that he gave his dear Son for us. Do not let this mirror and throne of grace be torn away from before your eyes.”
—Martin Luther, Letters of Spiritual Counsel
Acts 13:13-52
“Jesus, with Thy Church abide; Be her Savior, Lord, and Guide. While on earth her faith is tried...Keep her life and doctrine pure; Grant her patience to endure, trusting in Thy promise sure...May she one in doctrine be, one in truth and charity, winning all to faith in Thee...May she guide the poor and blind, seek the lost until she find, and the broken hearted bind: We beseech Thee, hear us.”
— Thomas Pollock, Jesus With Thy Church Abide
Acts 13:1-12
“As always, the people of God must decide what reading of their experiences they will live by. Are they to look at the darkness, the hopelessness, the dreams shattered and conclude that God has forgotten them? Or are they to recall his past mercies, to remember his present promises and to make great affirmations of faith?... Hope is the present reality, part of the constitution of the ‘now.’ The darkness is true, but it is not the whole truth, and certainly not the fundamental truth.”
— Alec Motyer, Commentary on Isaiah
Luke 1:57-79
“For many, Christianity is just a beautiful dream. It is a world in which every day reality goes a bit blurred. It is nostalgic, cozy, and comforting. But real Christianity isn’t like that at all. Take Christmas, for instance: a season of nostalgia, of carols and candles and firelight and happy children. But that misses the point completely. Christmas is not a reminder that the world is really quite a nice old place. It reminds us that the world is a shockingly bad old place, where wickedness flourishes unchecked, where children are murdered, where civilized countries make a lot of money by selling weapons to uncivilized ones so they can blow each other apart. Christmas is God lighting a candle; and you don’t light a candle in a room that’s already full of sunlight. You light a candle in a room that is so murky that the candle, when lit, reveals just how bad things really are. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it…Christmas, then, is not a dream, a moment of escapism. Christmas is the reality, which shows up the rest of ‘reality’. And for Christmas, here, read Christianity.”
—NT Wright, For All God’s Worth
Luke 1:57-79
“Optimism and hope are radically different attitudes. Optimism is the expectation of things—the weather, human relationships, the economy, the political situation, and so on—will get better. Hope is trust that God will fulfill God’s promises to us in a way that leads us to true freedom.”
—Henri Nouwen
Luke 1:46-56
Oh come, oh come Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel.
Who mourns in lowly exile here
Until the Son of God appears.
Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel.
Has come to thee oh, Israel.
—O Come, O Come Emmanuel
Luke 1:39-56
[Unfortunately, sermon audio is not available for this week. Please check back for the first sermon in our Advent series.]
Psalm 86
“How we react is often a better thermometer of our heart than how we act.”
—Sinclair Ferguson
Jonah 4:5-11
“It is in the dark struggles with God that we are surprised by His response to our anger and fear. What we receive from Him during our difficult battle is not what we expect. We assume He wants order, conformity–obedient children. Instead, we find that He wants our passionate involvement and utter awe in the mystery of His glorious character.”
—Dan Allender and Tremper Longman, Cry of the Soul
Jonah 3:10-4:4
“Biblical repentance… is not merely a sense of regret that leaves us where it found us. It is a radical reversal that takes us back along the road of our sinful wanderings, creating in us a completely different mind-set. We come to our senses spiritually.”
—Sinclair Ferguson
Jonah 3:6-10
“Thy Mercy is more than a match for my heart
Which wonders to feel it’s own hardness depart.
Dissolved by thy goodness, I fall to the ground,
And weep to the praise of the mercy I’ve found.”
—John Stocker, Thy Mercy My God
Jonah 3:1-5
“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 cures, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
—Genesis 12:1-3
Jonah 2:8-9
“There’s a wideness in God’s mercy I cannot find in my own,
And He keeps His fire burning, to melt this heart of stone;
Keeps me aching with a yearning, keeps me glad to have been caught,
In the reckless raging fury that they call the love of God.”
—Rich Mullins
Jonah 2:1-10
“God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps on the sea, and rides upon the storm. Ye fearful saints fresh courage take, the clouds you so much dread, are big with mercy and shall break, with blessings on your head. Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust him for his grace. Behind a frowning providence, He hides a smiling face. His purposes will ripen fast, unfolding every hour. The bud may have a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flower. Blind unbelief is sure to err, and scan his work in vain. God is his own interpreter, and He will make it plain.”
—William Cowper, God Moves in a Mysterious Way
Jonah 1:17, Matthew 12:38-42
“When I was sinking down, sinking down, sinking down;
When I was sinking down, sinking down
When I was sinking down, beneath God’s righteous frown,
Christ laid aside his crown, for my soul, for my soul!
Christ laid aside his crown, for my soul!”
—What Wondrous Love is This
Jonah 1:11-16
“When through the deep waters I call you to go, the rivers of sorrow shall not overflow; for I will be with you, your troubles to bless, and sanctify to you your deepest distress.”
—How Firm a Foundation
Jonah 1:7-10
“The dismaying news is the every act of disobedience to God has a storm attached to it…The Bible does not say that every difficulty is the result of sin—but it does teach that every sin will bring you into difficulty.”
—Timothy Keller, The Prodigal Prophet
[Unfortunately, sermon audio is not available for this week. Please check back for the next sermon in our series.]
Jonah 1:4-6
“At odds with God, Jonah typifies those who see the divine attributes of justice and mercy as functioning for their own convenience; mercy for themselves, but justice for their enemies. Fortunately, however, these attributes are not directed by human motives or desires. As the book of Jonah makes plainly obvious, God is sovereign, his justice is totally impartial, and his mercy may extend to anyone.”
—Desmond Alexander
Jonah 1:1-3
“O Love that will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.”
—George Matheson, O Love that Will Not Let Me Go
1 John 4:7-21
“God’s purpose was not only to secure our sonship by His Son, but to assure us of it by His Spirit. He sent His Son that we might have the status of sonship, and He sent His Spirit that we might have the experience of it.“
—John Stott, The Message of Galatians
1 John 4:1-6
“Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think’st thou doest overthrow
Die not, poor Death, no yet canst thou kill me…
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.“
—John Donne, Holy Sonnets
1 John 5:13-21
“There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship…is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.“
—David Foster Wallace
Psalm 115
“If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity,, find out how much they make of being God’s child and having God as father.”
—J.I. Packer, Knowing God
Galatians 4:1-7
“If I were sitting on the end of the pier on a summer day enjoying the sunshine and the air, and someone came along and jumped into the water and got drowned ‘to prove his love for me’,I should find it quite unintelligible. I might be much in need of love, but an act in no rational relation to any of my necessities could not prove it. But if I had fallen over the pier and were drowning, and someone sprang into the water, and at the cost of making my peril, or what but for him would be my fate, his own, save me from death, then I should say, ‘Greater love hath no man than this.’ I should say it intelligibly, because there would be an intelligent relation between the sacrifice which love made and the necessity from which it redeemed.”
— James Dennon, The Death of Christ
1 John 3:11-24
“Commandments are the railroad tracks on which the life empowered by the love of God poured into the heart by the Holy Spirit runs. Love empowers the engine; law guides the direction. They are mutually interdependent. The notion that love can operate apart from the law is a figment of the imagination. It is not only bad theology; it is poor psychology. It has to borrow from law to give eyes to love.”
— Sinclair Ferguson, The Whole Christ
1 John 3:1-10
“True, [God’s] love for me is not based on my qualification or my preparation but it is misleading to say that God accepts us the way we are. Rather he accepts us despite the way we are. He receives us only in Christ and for Christ’s sake. Nor does he mean to leave us the way he found us, but to transform us into the likeness of his son. Without that transformation and new conformity of life we do not have any evidence that we were ever his in the first place.”
— Sinclair Ferguson, The Whole Christ
1 John 2:28-3:10