In the kindness and providence of God, we have come to a place where we are seriously undertaking the work of pursuing a church building. There is of course a lot to do, but one of the most important aspects of our prep work is reinforcing certain spiritual assumptions in you, the congregation. Church buildings …
Bold But Abashed
Scripture teaches us to come boldly to the throne of grace, so that we might find mercy there (Heb. 4:14-16). Notice the possible tensions here—the first is between throne and grace. Grace is not a kindly senility. Grace is not soft or indulgent. Grace is regal, grace is majestic; grace sits on a throne. Like …
Small But Significant
Solomon tells us that there are four creatures that are apparently insignificant, but yet are extraordinarily wise. This is one of God favorite devices in telling His stories. Those four creatures are the ant, the rock badger, the locust, and the lizard (Prov. 30:24ff). Despite their smallness, they provide food and shelter for themselves, showing …
Exhortation as Softener
Exhortations are intended to stir God’s people up in their resistance to sin. Exhort one another daily, it says, lest anyone be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin (Heb. 3:13). We see that sin hardens and, extending the metaphor, exhortations soften. We sometimes in our folly think to reverse this. We blame exhortations for hardening …
The Root of Unbelief
We have been considering how to cultivate a humble spirit without falling into discouragement. The way to approach this is by naming your sins rightly, and by tracing our sins back to the root sin, and identifying that root sin correctly. Whenever you sin, whatever the sin is, the root of it is unbelief. If …
Reading tjhe World
We are supposed to love and revere the Word of God, but we are also told to love not the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Almost all of us know that loving the Scriptures means reading them, but few people know that not loving the …
Remembering the Basics
We have considered the importance of reading the story we are in. In doing this, we avoid the trap of being like brute beasts—like pigs under an oak tree, eating all the acorns, but never, ever, looking up. The acorns are just there, taken for granted. But as we read the story, we must also …
You Might Be Envious If . . .
Envy is one of the sins we are most likely to hide from ourselves. This is because of the nature of the sin itself—it compares to others, and when you are looking at others it is hard to see yourself—and it is also one of the sins we most despise when we see it in …
The Sorrows of the Spirit
We have asked what the difference is between being humbled and being discouraged. The first thing we considered is the difference between thinking about dishonor to God and discomfort for oneself. But there is more to this. Another difference is that we find truth in the gospel paradox that teaches us to respond to them …
Humbled or Discouraged?
What is the difference between being humbled and being discouraged? This is an important question as we prepare ourselves to come to this meal. Humbling ourselves is how we wash up for this meal, and discouragement is a counterfeit form of washing up. So what is the difference? The Puritan William Bridge is a great …