Sermons - Emmanuel Bible Church: Recent Episodes
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Only at the cross can Jesus be rightly known, not simply as a great moral teacher or as the most noble person who ever lived; nor only as a miracle worker or as an answer to this or that pressing question of the world. At the cross Jesus is revealed as the suffering Son of God, whose rejection, suffering and death reveal the triumph of God. Only at Golgotha can Jesus be rightly known as God incognito who reveals himself to those who are willing to deny themselves and follow him in costly discipleship.
— James Edwards
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God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
— Hebrews 12:7b–11
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Wimpy worldviews make wimpy Christians. And wimpy Christians won’t survive the days ahead.
— John Piper
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A believing sight of God's glorious majesty should affect us all with Godly fear.
— Matthew Henry
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When earth-bound men want symbols of power they conjure up mighty beasts and birds of prey. Russia elevates the bear, Britain the lion, France the tiger, the United States the spread eagle – all of them ravenous. It is only the Kingdom of Heaven that would dare to use as its symbol of might, not the Lion for which John was looking, but the helpless Lamb, and at that, a slain Lamb.
— J. P . Love
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The fundamental problem in the evangelical world today is not inadequate technique, insufficient organization, or antiquated music; and those who want to squander the church’s resources bandaging these scratches will do nothing to stanch the flow of blood that is spilling from its true wounds. The fundamental problem in the evangelical world today is that God rests too inconsequentially upon the church. His truth is too distant, his grace is too ordinary, his judgment is too benign, his gospel is too easy, and his Christ is too common.
— David F. Wells
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Adversity has slain her thousand, but prosperity her ten thousand.
— Thomas Brooks
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There is no peace like the peace of those whose minds are possessed with full assurance that they have known God, and God has known them, and that this relationship guarantees God’s favor to them in life, through death and on forever.
— J. I. Packer
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The central basis of Christian assurance is not how much our hearts are set on God, but how unshakably his heart is set on us.
— Tim Keller
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One generation … believed the gospel and held… that there [are] certain social, economic, and political entailments. The next generation assumed the gospel, but identified with the entailments. The following generation denied the gospel: the “entailments” became everything.
– D. A. Carson
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Question 30: How does Christ execute the office of a king? Answer: Christ executes the office of a king, in subduing us to Himself, in ruling and defending us, and in restraining and conquering all His and our enemies.
– Keach’s Catechism, 17th Century
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Almighty God, who for our redemption gave your onlybegotten Son to the death of the cross, and by his glorious resurrection delivered us from the power of our enemy: Grant us so to die daily to sin, that we may evermore live with him in the joy of his resurrection; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
— Book of Common Prayer, Easter Vigil 295
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Make no mistake: if He rose at all it was as His body; if the cells' dissolution did not reverse, the molecules reknit, the amino acids rekindle, the Church will fall. The stone is rolled back, not papier-mâché, not a stone in a story, but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow grinding of time will eclipse for each of us the wide light of day.
— John Updike
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It is right to praise you, Almighty God, for the acts of love by which you have redeemed us through Jesus Christ our Lord. On this day he entered the holy city of Jerusalem in triumph, and was proclaimed as King of kings by those who spread garments and branches along his way. Let these branches be for us signs of his victory, and grant that we who bear them in his name may ever hail him as our King, and follow him in the way that leads to eternal life.
— The Book of Common Prayer
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“Anyway, to answer your question, well . . . I used to believe in those things but in this job . . . well . . . I guess I’ve seen too much corruption in people to believe them anymore. We’re not just rooted to this world, we’re also a part of it. I don’t think we can ever be perfectly free or pure. We can’t rise above who we are.” After a long pause that stretched into awkwardness, Tessa asked softly, “Can someone else lift us?”
– Steven James, The Rook
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There is an admirable conjunction of diverse excellencies in Jesus Christ. There do we meet in Jesus Christ infinite highness and infinite humility. He is higher than the kings of the earth for He is King of kings and Lord of lords. So great is He that all men, kings, and princes are as worms of the dust before Him. . . . And yet . . . none are so low or inferior, but Christ’s condescension is sufficient to take a gracious notice of them. His condescension is great enough to become our friend, to become our companion, to unite our souls to Him in spiritual union, to take our nature upon Him, to become one of us, that He may be one with us.
– Jonathan Edwards
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Here might I stay and sing– No story so divine! Never was love, dear King, Never was grief like Thine. This is my Friend, in whose sweet praise I all my days could gladly spend.
– Samuel Crossman
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The love of Christ is rich and free; Fixed on his own eternally; Nor earth, nor hell, can it remove; Long as he lives his own he’ll love.
– William Gadsby
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Look, ye saints, the sight is glorious:
See the Man of Sorrows now;
From the fight returned victorious,
Every knee to Him shall bow.
Crown Him! Crown Him!
Crowns become the Victor's brow.
– Thomas Kelley
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The greatest sorrow and burden you can lay upon the Father, the greatest unkindness you can do to Him is not to believe that He loves you.
– John Owen
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Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons exist. Children already know dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children that dragons can be killed.
– G. K. Chesterton
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In Jesus’ mouth the human word becomes God’s Word. When we pray along with the prayer of Christ, God’s Word becomes again a human word. Thus all prayers of the Bible are such prayer, which we pray together with Jesus Christ, prayers in which Christ includes us, and through which Christ brings us before the face of God. . . . If we want to read and to pray the prayers of the Bible, and especially the Psalms, we must not, therefore, first ask what they have to do with us, but what they have to do with Jesus Christ. We must ask how we can understand the Psalms as God’s Word, and only then can we pray them with Jesus Christ.
– Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Formerly, when I rose, I began to pray as soon as possible. But I often spent a quarter of an hour to an hour on my knees struggling to pray while my mind wandered. Now I rarely have this problem. As my heart is nourished by the truth of the Word, I am brought into true fellowship with God. I speak to my Father and to my Friend (although I am unworthy) about the things that He has brought before me in His precious Word.
—George Muller
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The Christian call to evangelism is a call not simply to persuade people to make decisions but rather to proclaim to them the Good News of salvation in Christ, to call them to repentance, and to give God the glory for regeneration and conversion. We don’t fail in our evangelism if we faithfully present the Gospel and yet the person is not converted; we fail only if we don’t faithfully present the Gospel at all.
—Mark Dever
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If a seminary graduate is of average gifts, we think he should pastor a church. If he has above-average gifts, we think he should pastor a large church. But if he has exceptional gifts, we think he should teach in seminary. I say in schools of theology that this is not the way it should be.
In my view, the worst should teach, the more gifted men should pastor churches, and the very best should be missionaries. Paul and Barnabas were the best and they were missionaries.
—James Boice
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If you have been truly born again you have a new and holy nature, and you are no longer moved towards sinful objects as you were before. The things that you once loved you now hate, and therefore you will not run after them. . . . The man who puts his trust in the Lord sees the pleasures of sin in a new light. . . . The flesh sees honey in the drink, but faith at once perceives that there is poison in the cup. Faith spies the snake in the grass and gives warning of it. Faith remembers death, judgment, the great reward, the just punishment and that dread word, eternity.
— C. H. Spurgeon
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[God] had respect to himself, as his last and highest end, in this work; because he is worthy in himself to be so, being infinitely the greatest and best of beings. All things else, with regard to worthiness, importance, and excellence, are perfectly as nothing in comparison of him. All that is ever spoken in the Scripture as an ultimate end of God's works is included in that one phrase, the glory of God.
— Jonathan Edwards
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Worship is the fuel and goal of missions. Missions exits because worship does not. . . . Passion for God in worship precedes the offer of God in preaching. You can’t commend what you don’t cherish. Missionaries will never call out, “Let the nations be glad!” who cannot say from the heart, “I rejoice in the Lord. . . . I will be glad and exult in thee, I will sing praise to thy name, O Most High” (Ps 104:34, 9:2). Missions begins and ends in worship.
– John Piper
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[Christ] is the most magnanimous of captains. There never was his like among the choicest of princes. He is always to be found in the thickest part of the battle. When the wind blows cold he always takes the bleak side of the hill. The heaviest end of the cross lies ever on his shoulders. If he bids us carry a burden, he carries it also. If there is anything that is gracious, generous, kind, and tender, yea lavish and superabundant in love, you always find it in him. . . . God help you to enlist under the banner of Jesus even this day! Amen.
C. H. Spurgeon
God’s promises are longer than life, broader than sin, deeper than the grave, and higher than the clouds.
— C. H. Spurgeon
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And Mary said,
“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.”
— Luke 1:46–50
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If the Lord be with us, we have no cause of fear. His eye is upon us, His arm over us, His ear open to our prayer, His grace sufficient, His promise unchangeable.
— John Newton
The gospel is boldly advancing under the contested reign and inevitable victory of Jesus the king. This side of Jesus’ death and resurrection, all of God’s sovereignty is mediated exclusively through King Jesus. . . . Christ “must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet” ([I Cor.] 15:25). That presupposes the reign is still contested, and still advances. This is of a piece with Jesus’ claim, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt 16:18). But one day, the final enemy, death itself, will die, and Jesus’ mediatorial kingship will end. God will be all in all.
— D. A. Carson
Question 64: What is the invisible Church? Answer: The invisible Church is the whole number of the elect, that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one under Christ the head.
Question 65: What special benefits do the members of the invisible Church enjoy by Christ? Answer: The members of the invisible Church, by Christ, enjoy union and communion with him in grace and glory.
– Westminster Larger Catechism
[Jesus says in John 13:35 that] if an individual Christian does not show love toward other true Christians, the world has a right to judge that he or she is not a Christian. Here [in John 17:21] Jesus is stating something else that is much more cutting, much more profound: We cannot expect the world to believe that the Father sent the Son, that Jesus’s claims are true, and that Christianity is true, unless the world sees some reality of the oneness of true Christians.
– Francis Schaeffer
Question 30: How does Christ execute the office of a king?
Answer: Christ executes the office of a king, in subduing us to Himself, in ruling and defending us, and in restraining and conquering all His and our enemies.
– Keach’s Catechism, 17th Century
God is the highest good of the reasonable creature. The enjoyment of him is our proper; and is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Better than fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of any, or all earthly friends. These are but shadows; but the enjoyment of God is the substance. These are but scattered beams; but God is the sun. These are but streams; but God is the fountain. These are but drops, but God is the ocean.
– Jonathan Edwards
The best men [such as David] are not always in a good frame; we are apt to over-grieve for what we over-loved. . . . But while we learn from his example [regarding Absalom] to watch and pray against sinful indulgence, or neglect of our children, may we not, in David, perceive a shadow of the Saviour’s love, who wept over, prayed for, and even suffered death for mankind, though vile rebels and enemies?
– Matthew Henry
From the ashes a fire shall be woken, A light from the shadows shall spring; Renewed shall be blade that was broken, The crownless again shall be king.
– J. R. R. Tolkien
Without the will of my heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head.
– Heidelberg Catechism, Question 1
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.
- Galatians 3:13
There is no real joy in the text; for it is not the prodigal but the murderer who returns. And the father’s kiss is not a prelude to celebration, but a cue for foreboding.
— Dale Ralph Davis
There is no real joy in the text; for it is not the prodigal but the murderer who returns. And the father’s kiss is not a prelude to celebration, but a cue for foreboding.
— Dale Ralph Davis
The central basis of Christian assurance is not how much our hearts are set on God, but how unshakably his heart is set on us.
— Tim Keller
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If sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies. And if they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for.
— C. H. Spurgeon
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The Lord puts a special honour upon baptism, and it would be ill for us to neglect that which he so evidently esteems. Do not make any mistake, and imagine that immersion in water can wash away sin; but do remember that if the Lord puts this outward profession side by side with the washing away of sins it is not a trifling matter.
— C. H. Spurgeon
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The degree of our peace of mind is tied to our prayer life (Phil. 4:6-7). This is not because prayer is psychologically soothing, but because we address a prayer-answering God, a personal God, a responding God, a sovereign God whom we can trust with the outcomes of life's confusions. And we learn, with time, that if God in this or that instance does not choose to take away the suffering, or utterly remove the evil, he does send grace and power. The result is praise; and that, of course, is itself enjoyable, in exactly the same way that lovers enjoy giving each other compliments.”
—D. A. Carson
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To reconcile offending man,
Make Justice drop her angry rod;
What creature could have formed the plan,
Or who fulfill it but a God?
No drop remains of all the curse,
For wretches who deserved the whole;
No arrows dipped in wrath to pierce
The guilty, but returning soul.
Peace by such means so dearly bought,
What rebel could have hoped to see?
Peace by his injured Sovereign wrought,
His Sovereign fastened to a tree.
– William Cowper
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Learn much of the Lord Jesus. For every look at yourself take ten looks at Christ. He is altogether lovely. Such infinite majesty, and yet such meekness and grace, and all for sinners, even the chief. Live much in the smiles of God. Bask in his beams. Feel his all-seeing eye settled on you in love. And repose in his almighty arms. . . . Let your soul be filled with a heart-ravishing sense of the sweetness and excellency of Christ and all that is in Him.
– Robert Murray M’Cheyne
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The account about King David “provides one of the Scripture’s most vivid reminders that all human beings, no matter how elevated their status in the eyes of those around them, no matter what special calling they may have received from the Lord, are still fallen creatures and capable of the most unimaginable iniquities. It is for this reason that the Bible encourages us to place our trust in the Lord rather than in other people (Pss 118:8; 146:3).”
— Robert Vannoy
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Make no mistake: if He rose at all it was as His body; if the cells' dissolution did not reverse, the molecules reknit, the amino acids rekindle, the Church will fall.
The stone is rolled back, not papier-mâché, not a stone in a story, but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow grinding of time will eclipse for each of us the wide light of day.
— John Updike
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When Christ entered into Jerusalem the people spread their garments in the way. When He enters into our hearts, we pull off our own righteousness, and not only lay it under Christ’s feet, but even trample upon it ourselves.
— Augustus Toplady
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You can shine your shoes and wear a suit. You can comb your hair and look quite cute. You can hide your face behind a smile.
One thing you can't hide
Is when you're crippled inside.
— John Lennon
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Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper. . . .
– Proverbs 28:13a
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Jesus Christ, the Son of David, sent his ambassadors, his apostles and ministers, after all his servants the prophets, to his people, but they treated them shamefully, as Hanun did David’s ambassadors, mocked them, abused them, slew them; and it was this that filled the measure of their iniquity, and brought upon them ruin without remedy; for Christ takes the affronts and injuries done to his ministers as done to himself and will avenge them accordingly.
– Matthew Henry
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I now see that duties are ours, events are the Lord’s.
When our faith goes to meddle with events, and to hold a court, as it were, upon God’s Providence, and begins to say, “How wilt Thou do this or that?” we lose ground. We have nothing to do there. It is our part to let the Almighty exercise His own office, and steer His own helm. And he steers well.
– Samuel Rutherford
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The great commission makes disciple-making the normal agenda and priority of every church and every disciple.
– Colin Marshall and Tony Payne
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For your own sake, and your children’s sake, cherish and revere him whom you have chosen to be your pastor. Already he loves you; and he will soon love you as “bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh.” It will be equally your duty and your interest to make his labors as pleasant to him as possible. Do not demand too much. Do not require visits too frequent. Should he spend, in this way, half of the time which some demand, he must wholly neglect his studies, if not sink early under the burden. Do not report to him all the unkind things which may be said against him; nor frequently, in his presence, allude to opposition, if opposition should arise. Though he is a minister of Christ, consider that he has the feelings of a man.
– Edward Griffin
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Adoption is a family idea, conceived in terms of love, and viewing God as father. In adoption, God takes us into his family and fellowship—he establishes us as his children and heirs. Closeness, affection and generosity are at the heart of the relationship. To be right with God the judge is a great thing, but to be loved and cared for by God the Father is a greater.
– J. I . Packer
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[W]e are not washed by Christ, that we may plunge ourselves again into new filth, but that our purity may serve to glorify God. Besides, he teaches us, that nothing can proceed from us that can be pleasing to God until we are purified by the blood of Christ; for as we are all enemies to God before our reconciliation, so he regards as abominable all our works; hence the beginning of acceptable service is reconciliation.
– John Calvin
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We quickly learn that God is more interested in our holiness than in our comfort. He more greatly delights in the integrity and purity of his church than in the material well-being of its members. He shows himself more clearly to men and women who enjoy him and obey him than to men and women whose horizons revolve around good jobs, nice houses, and reasonable health. He is far more committed to building a corporate “temple” in which his Spirit dwells than he is in preserving our reputations. . . . He prefers that his people live in disciplined gratitude and holy joy rather than in pushy self-reliance and glitzy happiness. He wants us to pursue daily death, not self-fulfillment, for the latter leads to death, while the former leads to life.
– D. A. Carson
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The Church is the mirror that reflects the whole effulgence of the Divine character. It is the grand scene in which the perfections of Jehovah are displayed to the universe. The revelations made to the Church—the successive grand events in her history and, above all, the manifestation of ‘the glory of God in the person of Jesus Christ’—furnish even to the heavenly intelligences fresh subjects of adoring contemplation.
– Charles Bridges
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The light of nature shows that there is a God, who has lordship and sovereignty over all; [he] is just, good and does good unto all; and is therefore to be feared, loved, praised, called upon, trusted in, and served, with all the heart and all the soul, and with all the might. But the acceptable way of worshipping the true God, is instituted by himself, and so limited by his own revealed will, that he may not be worshipped according to the imagination and devices of men, nor the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representations, or any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scriptures.
— “Of Religious Worship” from the Westminster Confession of Faith (1646) & The London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689)
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Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
1 Peter 1:8, 9
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The whole life of Christ was a continual Passion; others die martyrs but Christ was born a martyr. He found a Golgotha (where he was crucified) even in Bethlehem where he was born; for to his tenderness then the straws were almost as sharp as the thorns after, and the manger as uneasy at first as the cross at last. His birth and his death were but one continual act, and his Christmas day and his Good Friday are but evening and morning of one and the same day.
– John Donn
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For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
– John 3:16
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Worship is the fuel and goal of missions. Missions exits because worship does not. . . . Passion for God in worship precedes the offer of God in preaching. You can’t commend what you don’t cherish. Missionaries will never call out, “Let the nations be glad!” who cannot say from the heart, “I rejoice in the Lord. . . . I will be glad and exult in thee, I will sing praise to thy name, O Most High” (Ps 104:34, 9:2). Missions begins and ends in worship.
– John Piper
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Anyone who reads the Gospels—and especially [Luke]—knows that Jesus is a friend of the poor and oppressed. The story of Zacchaeus testifies that Jesus is a friend of the rich—even rich oppressors—as well. Luke’s story of the incarnation is not developed according to a stereotype of justice in which the poor are befriended and the rich condemned. The fellowship of Jesus is not offered as vindication of poor and condemnation of rich, but as “good news of great joy” (2:20) to all who are lost, whether poor or rich.
– James Edwards
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The Christmas message is that there is hope for a ruined humanity—hope of pardon, hope of peace with God, hope of glory—because at the Father’s will Jesus Christ became poor and was born in a stable so that thirty years later he might hang on a cross. It is the most wonderful message that the world has ever heard, or will hear.
– J. I. Packer
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If we take it all for granted, if we think life just shows up with this stuff already in place, if we trick ourselves into believing that everyday household items come from the grocery rather than from a gracious God, we walk right past countless reasons for [thanksgiving] without even knowing it.
– Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth
Grace means God’s love in action towards men who merited the opposite of love. Grace means God moving heaven and earth to save sinners who could not lift a finger to save themselves.
– J. I. Packer
The gospel is boldly advancing under the contested reign and inevitable victory of Jesus the King.
– D. A. Carson
When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, “Repent” (Mt 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.
– Martin Luther, Thesis 1
We believe that the very beginning and end of salvation, and the sum of Christianity, consists of faith in Christ, who by His blood alone, and not by any works of ours, has put away sin, and destroyed the power of death.
– Martin Luther
One is not righteous who does much, but the one who, without work, believes much in Christ. The law says, “Do this,” and it is never done. Grace says, “Believe in this,” and everything is already done.
– Martin Luther
The true treasure of the church is the most holy gospel of the glory and grace of God.
– Martin Luther, Thesis 62
God does not give us everything we want, but He does fulfill His promises, leading us along the best and straightest paths to Himself.
– Dietrich Bonhoeffer
To what will you look for help if you will not look to that which is stronger than yourself?
– C. S. Lewis
Then Bacchus … and Maenads began a dance, far wilder than the dance of the trees; not merely a dance for fun and beauty (though it was that too) but a magic dance of plenty, and where their hands touched, and where their feet fell, the feast came into existence.… Thus Aslan feasted the Narnians till long after the sunset had died away, and the stars had come out.… And the best thing about this feast was that there was not breaking up or going away, but as the talk grew quieter and slower, one after another would begin to nod and finally drop off to sleep with feet towards the fire and good friends on either side.
–Prince Caspian
An act of holy heroism? No! It was an act of arrogance, a sin of presumption. Uzzah assumed that his hand was less polluted than the earth. But it wasn't the ground or the mud that would desecrate the ark; it was the touch of man. The earth is an obedient creature. It does what God tells it to do. It brings forth its yield in its season. It obeys the laws of nature that God has established. When the temperature falls to a certain point, the ground freezes. When water is added to the dust, it becomes mud, just as God designed it. The ground doesn't commit cosmic treason.
–R.C. Sproul
Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight, At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more, When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death, And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.
C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Christ’s reign in His Church is that of a shepherd-king. He has supremacy, but it is the superiority of a wise and tender shepherd over his needy and loving flock. He commands and receives obedience, but it is the willing obedience of the well-cared-for sheep, rendered joyfully to their beloved Shepherd, whose voice they know so well. He rules by the force of love and the energy of goodness.
C. H. Spurgeon
Learn much of the Lord Jesus. For every look at yourself take ten looks at Christ. He is altogether lovely. Such infinite majesty, and yet such meekness and grace, and all for sinners, even the chief. Live much in the smiles of God. Bask in his beams. Feel his all-seeing eye settled on you in love. And repose in his almighty arms. . . . Let your soul be filled with a heart-ravishing sense of the sweetness and excellency of Christ and all that is in Him.
– Robert Murray M’Cheyne
From the ashes a fire shall be woken, A light from the shadows shall spring; Renewed shall be blade that was broken, The crownless again shall be king.
– J. R. R. Tolkien
For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another.
– Psalm 75:6, 7
And so the story ends. Israel wanted a king. But, Saul, the best example they could produce, is dead — his very death surrounded by scandal, coming at the hands of an enemy he once rebelled against God to remove. Because Saul would not kill sin, sin had killed him. And now Israel’s hopes for a king lie as lifeless as Saul, as cold as his corpse. Who will be the next king? Who will be the king they need but have shown they have no business picking? Who will be king? That is the story of 2 Samuel. And of our own lives, too.
Some wish to live within the sound of Church or Chapel bell; I want to run a Rescue Shop within a yard of hell.
— C. T. Studd
If we but knew a fraction of the future God is making for us; if we could begin to feel that all our deepest longings will be satisfied, that every beauty of this world will be preserved and heightened, that every good affection will soar, that every proper relationship will be restored forever, that all pain and frustration and ugliness will vanish, . . . and Jesus will fill the world with golden light—if we could believe what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him (1 Corinthians 2:9), our hearts would be freed from the greed and fears that cause us to sin.
— John Piper
The nature of the Christian life is corporate, because the body of Christ is a corporate entity. While our individual walks are crucial, we are impoverished in our personal pursuit of God if we do not avail ourselves of the help that is available through mutually edifying relationships in our covenant church family. . . . The corporate life of the congregation should be central to the life of the individual believer. . . . We can't live the Christian life alone. We are saved individually from our sins, yet we are not saved into a vacuum. We're saved into a mutually edifying community of believers who are building each other up and spurring each other on to love and good deeds.
— Mark Dever and Paul Alexander
Redemption is the means; worship is the goal. In one sense, worship is the whole point of everything. It is the purpose of history, the goal of the whole Christian story. Worship is not one segment of the Christian life among others. Worship is the entire Christian life, seen as a priestly offering to God. And when we meet together as a church, our time of worship is not merely a preliminary to something else; rather, it is the whole point of our existence as the body of Christ.
— John Frame
Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back, Guilty of dust and sin. But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack From my first entrance in, Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning, If I lack'd any thing.
— George Herbert
The gospel is boldly advancing under the contested reign and inevitable victory of Jesus the king. This side of Jesus’ death and resurrection, all of God’s sovereignty is mediated exclusively through King Jesus. . . . Christ “must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet” ([I Cor.] 15:25). That presupposes the reign is still contested, and still advances. This is of a piece with Jesus’ claim, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt 16:18). But one day, the final enemy, death itself, will die, and Jesus’ mediatorial kingship will end. God will be all in all.
— D. A. Carson
“One generation . . . believed the gospel and held as well that there were certain social, economic, and political entailments. The next generation assumed the gospel, but identified with the entailments. The following generation denied the gospel; the ‘entailments’ became everything.”
— D. A. Carson
The [scenes] throughout [Revelation] not only have a judicial effect on the unbelieving but are meant also to shock believers caught up in the church’s compromising complacency by revealing to them the horrific, beastly nature of the idolatrous institutions they are being tempted to identify with and trust in. Use of the various pictures and images throughout Revelation — beasts, dragons, harlots, horsemen, strange creatures, plagues, and so on — is meant to shock believers out of their complacency and the danger of compromising with the idolatrous culture in which they live.
— G. K. Beale & David Campbell
Necessity is laid upon us. We must fight. There are no promises in the Lord Jesus Christ's epistles to the seven churches, except to those who “overcome.” Where there is grace, there will be conflict. The believer is a soldier. There is no holiness without a warfare. Saved souls will always be found to have fought a fight.
—J. C. Ryle
“Even though [we] love Jesus, [our] love threatens to grow cold when the familiar becomes taken for granted and neglected.”
— Greg Morse
“This Gospel [of John] is no fanciful speculation, no whimsical, inspired redrawing of Jesus’ portrait. It is an account of what happened, given by a man who had seen it.”
— Gary Burg
“It is the error of our times to separate evangelism from discipleship and to center on winning the lost rather than building up the church; the best means of reaching the lost is to develop excited Christians who will take the gospel to others.”
— Grant Osborne
“Grace is the pleasure of God to magnify the worth of God by giving sinners the right and power to delight in God without obscuring the glory of God.”
— John Piper
The uniqueness of the scandal of the Christian religion rests on the mediation of revelation through historical events. Christianity is not just a code for living or a philosophy of religion. It is rooted in real events of history. To some people this is scandalous because it means that the truth of Christianity is inexplicably bound up with the truth of certain historical facts. And if those facts should be disproved, Christianity would be false. This, however, is what makes Christianity unique because, unlike other world religions, modern man has a means of actually verifying Christianity’s truth by historical evidence.
–George Ladd
“John has provided us with the best evidence he can muster to persuade us that belief is not only a reasonable choice, but a necessary decision if we are going to follow Jesus. Jesus is not an idea whose ongoing validity finds a home in our ideas or our ethics. Jesus is a person—he is God incarnate in human history—and in coming into history, he has left marks that we can see and measure and trust. The resurrection is the capstone event in Jesus’ career, which demonstrates the reality of what has happened since the moment of his incarnation” and demands our belief in him.
— Gary Burge
Thomas, “the most outrageous doubter of the resurrection of Jesus, utters the greatest confession of the Lord who rose from the dead.”
— G. R. Beasely-Murry
The resurrection has personal implications, but that does not exhaust its significance. Jesus’ vision is not of a multitude of inspired individuals each acting independently out of his or her personal encounter with the risen One. The fruit of his exaltation is a community, bound together by their common participation in the Spirit, sent forth to gather his “other sheep” from every corner of the world.
— Bruce Milne
We affirm that the mission of the church is the Great Commission: “Make disciples of all nations” by baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and by teaching them to observe everything that Jesus commands us. God has commissioned local churches, acting corporately, to teach everything Jesus commanded and to equip saints for their various ministries. While Christians care about alleviating present earthly suffering, we care especially about alleviating eternal suffering by verbally proclaiming Jesus as Savior and Lord and calling all to repent and believe.
–Bethlehem Baptist Church Elders, “Ethnic Harmony Affirmations & Denials”
We affirm that the mission of the church is the Great Commission: “Make disciples of all nations” by baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and by teaching them to observe everything that Jesus commands us. God has commissioned local churches, acting corporately, to teach everything Jesus commanded and to equip saints for their various ministries. While Christians care about alleviating present earthly suffering, we care especially about alleviating eternal suffering by verbally proclaiming Jesus as Savior and Lord and calling all to repent and believe.
–Bethlehem Baptist Church Elders, “Ethnic Harmony Affirmations & Denials”
Andy Naselli’s companion essay to the sermon: 10 Resources That Have Helped Me Make Sense of Our Current Culture and How Christians Are Responding to It
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The death of Jesus is the pivotal event of human history, and everything needs to be understood in light of that.
— Alistair Begg
On the cross, Christ wins through losing, triumphs through defeat, achieves power through weakness and service, comes to wealth through giving all away.
— Tim Keller
[Jesus] took our place, he was condemned for us! He is our representative man. He died, “the righteous for the unrighteous,” that he might “bring you to God” (1 Pet. 3:18). But because he took our place at the judgment, and faced our charges, and bore our judgment, we can go free.
— Bruce Milne
The Lord puts a special honour upon baptism, and it would be ill for us to neglect that which he so evidently esteems. Do not make any mistake, and imagine that immersion in water can wash away sin; but do remember that if the Lord puts this outward profession side by side with the washing away of sins it is not a trifling matter.
— C. H. Spurgeon
I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them have never happened.
— Mark Twain
Thou art coming to a King,
Large petitions with thee bring;
For His grace and power are such,
None can ever ask too much;
None can ever ask too much
— John Newton
A Bible that’s falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn’t. — Attributed to Charles Haddon Spurgeon
The nature of the Christian life is corporate, because the body of Christ is a corporate entity. While our individual walks are crucial, we are impoverished in our personal pursuit of God if we do not avail ourselves of the help that is available through mutually edifying relationships in our covenant church family. . . . The corporate life of the congregation should be central to the life of the individual believer. . . . We can't live the Christian life alone. We are saved individually from our sins, yet we are not saved into a vacuum. We're saved into a mutually edifying community of believers who are building each other up and spurring each other on to love and good deeds.
— Mark Dever and Paul Alexander
God could quite justly have abandoned us to our fate. He could have left us alone to reap the fruit of our wrongdoing and to perish in our sins. It is what we deserved. But he did not. Because he loved us, he came after us in Christ. He pursued us even to the desolate anguish of the cross, where he bore our sins, guilt, judgment, and death. It takes a hard and stony heart to remain unmoved by love like that.
— John Stott
Order of Worship • Kids' Guide
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It is here, in the thing that happened at the first Christmas, that the most profound unfathomable depths of the Christian revelation lie. God became man; nothing in fiction is so fantastic as this truth of the incarnation.
— J. I. Packer
Order of Worship • Kids' Guide
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Christmas is the end of thinking you are better than someone else, because Christmas is telling you that you could never get to heaven on your own. God had to come to you. It is telling you that people who are saved are not those who have arisen through their own ability to be what God wants them to be. Salvation comes to those who admit how weak they are.
— Tim Keller
Order of Worship • Kids' Guide
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Whenever any distrust arises, and all means of escape are taken away from us, . . . let us recall to our remembrance that Christ is called Wonderful, because he has inconceivable methods of assisting us, and because his power is far beyond what we are able to conceive. When we need counsel, let us remember that he is the Counsellor. When we need strength, let us remember that he is Mighty and Strong. When new terrors spring up suddenly every instant, and when many deaths threaten us from various quarters, let us rely on that eternity of which he is with good reason called the Father, and by the same comfort let us learn to soothe all temporal distresses. When we are inwardly tossed by various tempests, and when Satan attempts to disturb our consciences, let us remember that Christ is The Prince of Peace, and that it is easy for him quickly to allay all our uneasy feelings. Thus will these titles confirm us more and more in the faith of Christ, and fortify us against Satan and against hell itself.
— John Calvin
Order of Worship
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War is not the vilest form of evil, not the most evil of evils. An unjust trial . . . that scalds the outraged heart is viler.
— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Order of Worship
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In the circumstances leading to the apprehension of Jesus, it has already become clear that the whole scenario was anticipated, even planned, by him. There is a strange sense of inevitability about his arrest and conviction. Jesus has come from the Father into the world. He goes from the world to the Father. His mission will not have a happy and triumphant conclusion in the eyes of the world. Its wicked rebellion against the claim of God will reach its awful climax in the murder of the Son of God. Only in this way, however, can the darkness be overcome, and the Father’s love for the world truly disclosed.
— Bruce Milne
Order of Worship • Kids Guide
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[Christ] has forced open a door that has been locked since the death of the first man. He has met, fought and beaten the King of Death. Everything is different because He has done so. This is the beginning of the new creation: a new chapter in cosmic history has opened.
— C. S. Lewis
Order of Worship • Kids Guide
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Let us wait with . . . confidence; we have no cause to doubt; we have God’s word and guarantee; as sure as Christ is in heaven, we shall be there.
— Thomas Manton
Order of Worship • Kids Guide
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Christ, having been made ours, makes us sharers with him in the gifts with which he has been endowed. We do not, therefore, contemplate him outside ourselves from afar in order that his righteousness may be imputed to us but because we put on Christ and are engrafted into his body—in short, because he deigns to make us one with him. For this reason, we glory that we have fellowship of righteousness with him.
— John Calvin
Order of Worship
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Glorification is the “final step in the application of redemption. It will happen when Christ returns and raises from the dead the bodies of all believers for all time who have died, and reunites them with their souls, and changes the bodies of all believers who remain alive, thereby giving all believers at the same time perfect resurrection bodies like his own.”
— Wayne Grudem
Order of Worship
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In John 17, “Jesus is poised between the conclusion of his earthly task and the glory awaiting him at the Father’s side. Like a mountaineer gazing out from an eminence across the expanding vista as range succeeds range into the distant horizon, so Jesus gazes out across the rolling centuries. He beholds and embraces the harvest of the ages, the church of the Redeemer, gathered from every nation, people, language and tribe. He is praying for us.”
— Bruce Milne
Order of Worship
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Forever let us thank God that the hope of a Christian rests on such a solid foundation as a Divine Savior. He to whom we are commanded to flee for pardon and in whom we are bid to rest for peace is God as well as man. To all who really think about their souls and are not careless and worldly, the thought is full of comfort. Such people know and feel that great sinners need a great Savior, and that no mere human redeemer would meet their needs. Then let them rejoice in Christ and lean back confidently on Him.
— J. C. Ryle
Order of Worship
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After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
— Revelation 7:9, 10
Order of Worship • Kids Guide
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Forever let us thank God that the hope of a Christian rests on such a solid foundation as a Divine Savior. He to whom we are commanded to flee for pardon and in whom we are bid to rest for peace is God as well as man. To all who really think about their souls and are not careless and worldly, the thought is full of comfort. Such people know and feel that great sinners need a great Savior, and that no mere human redeemer would meet their needs. Then let them rejoice in Christ and lean back confidently on Him.
— J.C. Ryle
Order of Worship • Kids Guide
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I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish things that people often say about Him: “I am ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher.
— C. S. Lewis
Order of Worship • Kids Guide