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The Great Shepherd's Great Restoration

Mon, 30 Dec 2024 22:02:46 GMT

The Great Shepherd responds to intercession and rescues His people.

Micah's prophecies show us how much God cares about obedience. These prophecies also show us how difficult obedience actually is. From the time of the Exodus (ca. 1400 B.C.) to the time of the exile (ca. 590 B.C.), Israel had done almost nothing but test God's patience. For nearly 1,000 years, God waited patiently as His people put other gods before Him, carved images of worship, took His name in vain by claiming to be His but actually were not, forgot His sabbath days, dishonored parents, murdered, committed adultery, stole, bore false witness, and coveted anything and everything that was their neighbors'. In other words, God waited patiently while Israel broke covenant with God, broke every single one of His Ten Commandments in multiple ways every single day, thus committing adultery against God ... for nearly 1,000 years. There were moments under leaders like David and Hezekiah where there was a brief reprieve from the idolatry and the unrighteousness, but the good leaders were few and far between, and none of them was good in the sense of God's perfection. Therefore, God sent sword, famine, pestilence, and exile upon the children of Israel.

In present-day America, the one who punishes is viewed as evil. The villain in most stories or movies presented to us today is the one who punishes people. The hero is the one who lets people have what they want. Ah. There is the key word: want. What do you desire the most? Is what you want good? You might think that what you want is good, but that is simply your own thoughts and desires determining what is good and beneficial for you. You see, most people think that they are basically good and that God will accept them into heaven on the basis of what they have done. What does it take for God to accept you into his holy, favorable presence? Absolute perfection. Everything done with a desire to His glory. Everything done out of supreme love for God and a strong love to do everything you can to extend yourself to your neighbor's good. God requires absolute perfection to that standard in order to earn eternal life. What's the problem? No one can attain that level of perfection, save One: Jesus Christ. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. There is none who seeks God. No, not even one. God is holy, and because He is holy and just, He must punish all evil.

That is quite the plight. We need to be saved from God! God is not the villain for punishing. We are the villains for rebelling, and God waited patiently for Israel to turn from her wicked ways, repent, and believe God, and seek Him for their salvation, first individually and then collectively.

But that never happened. Why? Because that is the fallen human condition: we will never come to God. If we have sinned against Him, and we sin almost by the second, then we deserve nothing but His fierce wrath. How could God wait for nearly 1,000 years? God is also kind and gracious and forgiving. There is no god like our God. There is no god who forgives iniquity and transgression and sin as God does. In fact, He is the only One Who can forgive sins. God is not the villain of Scripture for punishing sins. That is simply God's doing what He is obligated to do by nature of His goodness and righteousness and by nature of the evil of the rebellion against Him and the created design He has for His image bearers. God is the hero of Scripture BOTH for punishing evil AND for forgiving sins.

On what basis does He punish evil and on what basis does He forgive sins? How does He choose which ones receive which judgment? That is done according to the covenant that He has set up from all eternity. And He remains just when He declares sinners righteous by gifting sinners with the righteousness of Christ and punishing that sin in Jesus' death on the cross. His death pays the penalty for the sins of all who believe in Him. Do you want forgiveness? Submit to God through repentance and faith. Acknowledge that you deserve His wrath. Depend upon Christ's righteousness alone for your salvation. Know that in you there dwells no good thing.

God is able to be patient with Israel because He knew He was going to forgive the sins of many through the atoning death and vindicating resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. There is no greater exchange than believers' sins being placed upon Christ and Christ's righteousness being placed upon the believer, and all for the sake of the glory of God. There is none like our God Who both punishes evil in the hearts of the impenitent and forgives the sins all believers.

This is the message of Micah, and this is the mystery into which he and all the prophets longed to look, and this is the mystery revealed in the person and work of Christ as recorded for us from the pens of the apostles. This is the unchanging message of God's great salvation. Believe it, or not. We pray you do!

The Lord Alone Is Trustworthy

Wed, 27 Nov 2024 14:45:56 GMT

How do you rise out of darkness and into light?

Plentiful are those who are telling you these days, "You can do it! You got this! Live your dream! If you can dream it, you can do it!" Why is this message so popular? The desire for significance and approval and acceptance is strong in each and every one of us. The desire to count and matter also compels us to do something of great import.

Most of the time, I'm afraid, those who are telling you these things are trying to profit from you. They want you to do something for them or give something to them. The health and wealth preacher wants you to give him or her money, and the money they receive is tax free. The social media expert is trying to get you to buy their flash-in-the-pan product, or to give them enough likes and subscriptions so that their platform can get monetized. There are the science health experts who tell you that they have figured out how to beef up your body or to keep your body healthier longer with this one supplement. Movies and TV shows all give the same, consistent message: do what you want! You live in the land of opportunity, so reach out and grab that opportunity! Your options are limited only by your imagination!

Who, then, is the operator in this endeavor? Who gets the credit for this endeavor? You are, and you do! That makes us feel good: I accomplished something. I set out to do a big thing, and I did it! I overcame my fears, and I reached my goals. I convinced enough people to buy something from me such that I can now go and live a life of indulgence from now on.

Is that the sense in which Micah the prophet says, "Though I have fallen, I will rise?"

Absolutely not!

How do I know?

Look at verse 9 (ESV).

"I will bear the indignation of the LORD because I have sinned against Him,

Until He pleads my cause and executes judgment for me.

He will bring me out to the light;

I shall look upon His vindication."

What does Micah do in this verse? He certainly doesn't unlace his own boots and pull himself up.

What does he do?

He humbles himself before the Lord his God. He accepts the Lord's rage and indignation against him, for he sees that he has sinned against God. This is a tremendous realization. This is exactly what the fear of the Lord is. This is the beginning of wisdom: to acknowledge that I am without the ability to accomplish anything of eternal significance on my own. Wisdom begins with saying, "I am completely helpless before God. I do not have this. In fact, I cannot get this. Apart from Christ, I can accomplish nothing."

Oh, we can build buildings. We can help people save a lot of money. We can help improve people's lives in this world. We can build machines that make our lives easier. We can change our outward behaviors to a certain extent.

But we cannot change who we are. We cannot change the fact that we have all sinned against a good and holy God Who is just to punish all sins and Who is merciful to punish some of those sins in the death of Jesus Christ for the sake of all whom He has chosen to believe.

What happens when you believe? You turn from relying upon yourself to relying upon God. You turn from thinking, "I've got this," to, "Help!!" You recognize God and God alone as the hope of your salvation from none other than God Himself! You see that He is good and gracious to forgive anyone at all. You see that He pulls you out of darkness into His marvelous light for your benefit and to His glory! You see that life is not about you. It is about God, for He alone has life in Himself. He alone cannot die, for death is the wages of sin, and for God to die would mean that God had sinned. He has eternal life to give to all His believing saints, which means that He will never and indeed can never sin!

When God pleads your case before God, you can rise from the ashes and say, "Yes, your accusations are true, but God is for me. Who can be against me?" You say, "I was once in the darkness of trying to accomplish things on my own. Now I am in the light of accomplishing all that He has placed before me in His strength and for His glory. I once hated God for His control over my life. Now I love Him for being in control of all things. There is no greater rest or comfort known to anyone."

This is the cleansing that God proclaims in Micah. The cleansing of the judgment upon all sin, whether upon the sinners themselves or upon Christ Who now intercedes on behalf of all for whom He particularly died.

Are you among those whose heart says, "Yes! I love the God of Scripture Who has revealed Himself once for all!" Or are you among those who say, "How can God be just to choose some and not others, for who can resist His will?" I pray it is the first. I pray that God changes your heart as He has mine.

#comeandseeJesus

#comeandlivebyfaith

#loveandworshipHim

#SoliDeoGloria

Justice, Mercy, Humility, and Glory

Mon, 11 Nov 2024 19:09:38 GMT

Micah's Famous Revelation

Justice is of great concern, not only in our day, but also in Micah's day. As we have been working through Micah, it is clear that justice was not being done in Israel and Judah, and it is also clear that God was not pleased with the injustice. Let's look at just two verses from chapter 3, verses 9 and 10.

9 Now hear this, heads of the house of Jacob

And rulers of the house of Israel,

Who abhor justice

And twist everything that is straight,

10 Who build Zion with bloodshed

And Jerusalem with violent injustice.

Clearly, those in Judah before the exile were not conducting themselves according to God's good and holy standards. They were flaying people's skin and boiling them in pots and burning their children in sacrificial rites. They were profiting from the idolatrous practices and using the money to build up Zion through these injustices. Clearly, these actions are wrong, and God sends His punishment upon the people in the forms of swords from their enemies, famine, pestilence, and exile. Death and destruction are headed Judah's way because of their gross injustices, but what should their response be? How do they come out from under the peril

But are the actions all that God is concerned with? God tells His people in Micah 6:8 what is good and what He requires of His people. The first on the list is to do justice. The word in Hebrew is mishpat , which is in the context of adjudication. If a wrong has been perpetrated by someone, the judges (who in Israel were the elders sitting at the city gates) were to decide who was right and who was wrong and to execute the punishment and restitution according to the statutes and principles laid out clearly by God through Moses, especially in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy. If someone committed murder, the punishment was life for life. The punishment could not exceed the crime committed. There were also specific instructions concerning oxen and their wages of grain for treading out the grain as well as in the case that an ox gored an animal or another person. There were also laws against idolatry and child sacrifice. Clearly, justice or correct judgments were not being handed out in Israel. But, again, these are outward actions.

What about inward desires?

Micah 6:8 continues that we should love mercy or lovingkindness or steadfast love or covenantal faithfulness. What God's people need in addition to doing good and executing justice according to God's standards is to love God's chesed . (The "ch" is pronounced as a hard, guttural "h.") This Hebrew word has no equivalent in English. It is variously translated into English as mercy, lovingkindness, or steadfast love. My own stab at defining chesed is this: a joyful willingness and a delighted determination both to create and to keep covenantal relationship. If a covenantal relationship is broken, death is the consequence. Once God creates a covenantal relationship with someone, that relationship is permanent. The question of relationship when it comes to considerations before God is not whether you are in relationship with God, but a question of which covenantal relationship you are under. Are you under the covenant of works which Adam broke, or are you under the covenant of grace which Christ has cut on your behalf? If you are under the covenant of works, you are under God's just condemnation, for your default position is to walk in pride before God rather than humility. If you are under the covenant of grace, then Christ has kept the covenant of works on your behalf, and all He requires of you is to depend upon Christ's right judgments, love of lovingkindness, and humble walk before the Father. If you are under the covenant of grace, then God will make you more and more like Himself in this life and then completely like Himself when you see Him face to face. The work is His. The effort is yours. To decide correctly between right and wrong is one thing. To love lovingkindness is a gift beyond comparison, for it comes from humility.

Humility is a very un-American virtue. In America, we are told to believe in ourselves, to live our dreams, and to accomplish what we want to do. What is the underlying assumption behind all these adages? It is the twin assumption 1) that people are basically good and 2) that it is the height of humility to give people the freedom to live according to what they believe to be true. The Scriptures teach very clearly the exact opposite. Romans 3:10-18 is an indictment of complete degree against the entire human race (except Christ). There is none who is good, no not even one. There is none who seeks God. Their throat is an open grave. The venom of asps is on their tongues. Human beings are intrinsically vile and evil. But, I can hear you say, I'm not a bad person. I give people their freedom. I cheer people on who live their dreams. I haven't killed anyone. I haven't stolen anything. I am not like (name your most infamous villain). Yet, Jesus reveals in Matthew 5 that even getting angry at someone is equivalent to murder. So, God is concerned about more than just mere, outward behavioral obedience. He is concerned about the heart. Therefore, we sin because we are sinners and not sinners because we sin. The disease is pride that says, "I know good from evil. I am the arbiter and judge of what is right and wrong. My truth determines my own path." Instead, biblical humility says, "God's truth, righteousness, and holiness define good, and anything contrary to these are evil." Biblical humility also says, "I acknowledge that God is right sovereignly to differentiate the good from the evil according to His good pleasure and His good standards and His good chesed . I am not wise enough or knowledgeable enough to be able to make the determination."

Our ability to do justice and to love lovingkindness flow from humility, and humility only comes from the life that God gives His people through His proclaimed word according to His divine pleasure.

And all of this points us to the glory of God. It is God and God alone Who not merely possesses goodness but Who is goodness! Anything that does not measure up to God's goodness stands condemned. Anything not good (a.k.a. evil) will be condemned. Either, Christ bore that condemnation on your behalf on the cross, or you will bear that condemnation for all eternity. What makes the difference between the two? Repentance of believing lies, especially the lie that an intrinsically evil human being is good and that the holy and righteous God is evil, and humbly put your faith, your reliance, your belief in God Himself, for there is no one who can keep His promises the way God does. He gets 100% of the credit for your salvation and sanctification and glorification. Do justice because you love lovingkindness because you walk humbly before the one, true God because He has called you to that end.

#comeandseeJesus

#comeandlivebyfaith

#loveandworshipHim

#SoliDeoGloria

Means of Grace

Mon, 23 Sep 2024 15:07:35 GMT

What does God do through His means of Grace?

Life in the Kirk has been in quite the upheaval as of late. One member dealt with cancer at the beginning of the year, and another member suffered cardiac arrest, finishing his race at the beginning of September. But, God has called us to continue bearing witness to Himself and to His great glory until He returns or calls us home, so carry on we shall and we do.

Our Sunday school lessons this year have been a trek through the Westminster Shorter Catechism. The first 38 questions of this catechism are tremendous gateways into the fundamentals of the historic and biblical Christian faith. Questions 39-81 concern our duty before God, and questions 82-107 address the human responses of saving faith and prayer to God's saving grace. Each of these questions is grounded firmly in God's Word, and this brings me to the title of this post: the means of grace.

What are the means of grace? Protestants have identified them as Word, sacraments, and prayer. It is good to read the Word as individuals, but it is also necessary to have the Word correctly interpreted, so the composers of the Westminster Standards identified preaching as the primary means of grace. If you want an interpretation of a text that allows you to do what you want, you can find that interpretation. How do we know which interpretation of the text is the correct one? How can we identify which interpretation or interpreter gives the correct meaning of the text? Before answering this question, it would be wise to address another.

Often, when people hear "means of grace," they think that everyone who receives the means of grace automatically receives God's saving grace. If this were the case, then everyone who lived before Christ who was ever circumcised and/or participated in Passover was saved. Further, those who have been baptized and/or participate in the Lord's supper since Christ would also be saved, automatically! This is clearly not the case both from Scripture as well as from our personal experience.

Moreover, the Scriptures also make clear that we cannot please God without faith! (See especially Hebrews 11:6.) What is the relationship among grace and means of grace and faith and glory that makes it impossible for us to please Him without faith? Why do faithful preachers speak in such a way as to foster true, saving faith in you? Ah. Now we are getting to the heart of the matter! Now we can put forward definitions of our terms to help us understand the importance of having a correct understanding of these great matters.

Let's start with grace. What is grace? Grace is a common name. Usually, when people say, "Give me some grace," they mean, "I know I'm not good at this, so please don't judge me," and extending grace and understanding is certainly a balm to the soul! But, God's grace is greater than that.

Grace is God's desire and decision to show covenantal favor toward all those sinners whom He has chosen to turn into saints.

What is covenantal favor? Covenantal favor is the love that God has for all His saints in Christ. It is God's extending His great gifts to His saints. These gifts are the gifts of life toward God, faith in Him, the forgiveness of sins, justification with Christ's righteousness, adoption into familial unity with God Himself, eternal life, growing desire to walk in God's ways, and a delight in being made like Him when we see Him face to face! These are the spiritual blessings with which all who are in Christ are blessed. These are the gifts contrasted with the judgments that we all deserve from God. It is God's grace that motivates Him to choose some sinners to turn into saints, and He makes this transformation by means of grace. He sovereignly uses means to produce in His people the life that He has and gives.

As above, these means are Word, sacraments, and prayer, but especially the preaching of God's holy, inspired, infallible, and inerrant Word. It is the sound preaching of God's Word that helps us understand the fundamentals of Who God is, who we are, why we are in trouble before Him, how we are made right with Him, and why we should want to be made right with Him. If we misinterpret Scripture, we run the risk of getting faith wrong, of robbing God of His glory, and of remaining under His ire despite our best efforts to the contrary.

This brings us back to the Word. If we think of individual reading of the Word as brushing and flossing our own teeth, we recognize that we need to do this on a daily basis to keep our teeth and mouths from becoming diseased. And we also need the regular cleaning of our mouths by an expert who wields specially-designed tools to remove all the excess plaque, calculus, and tartar, all of which will foster disease both in our mouths as well as in the rest of our system. We might feel fine for a while, but the neglect will lead to greater and greater complications in the rest of our lives. The preaching of the Word is like going to the dentist to have x-rays taken, gunk scraped off our teeth, cavities filled, teeth removed, and so on. Listening to the preaching of the Word is not always a pleasant exercise. Paul tells Timothy in 2 Timothy 4 that preaching involves much more than explanation of the text. Timothy is commanded to reprove, rebuke, and exhort with great patience and teaching.

A pastor needs to take x-rays of your soul, to listen to your words and say, "Here's what you need to do in order to change for the better." He needs to say, "Not that way. This is the way of good that God has defined for us to walk in." A pastor needs to scrape things off your teeth with the fine and precise instruments of the Word of God. He should not take those instruments and cut up your mouth, but he should use them to get rid of the death that--left unchecked--will spread throughout your mouth and eventually your body.

When a pastor preaches and shepherds well with skill, precision, care, compassion, and proper training; he is pointing his people to God. And this brings me back to an earlier question: how do we know which interpretation of the Word of God is the correct one? The correct interpretation of the Word of God will always maximize His glory, skillfully upholding both His holiness and justice as well as His mercy and grace, especially revealed in the life, death, resurrection, ascension, and session of Jesus Christ to the glory of God the Father by the power of the Holy Spirit.

What response is God giving you? Do you want to visit the dentist to get your teeth cleaned, or do you want to close your mouth and turn away? Do you love this God, or do you want to turn from Him? We pray that He gives you life, repentance and faith, hope, joy, peace, and covenantal love even in the midst of all life's difficulties. The alternative is much too grave.

What does God do through His means of grace, especially the preaching of the Word? He transforms sinners into saints by His grace, for their joy, and to His glory!

#comeandseeJesus

#comeandlivebyfaith

#loveandworshipHim

#SoliDeoGloria

The Word of the Lord against False Worship

Mon, 05 Aug 2024 17:47:14 GMT

Micah 1:1-7

Israel's history is one of spotty obedience at best. From Abraham to Malachi and everyone else in between, some were faithful, but most did what was right in their own eyes. When Israel fled Egypt, they took the idols of Egypt with them, building a golden idol in the shape of a calf, naming it "the Lord." And this just a few mere weeks after having been told clearly by God Himself from the cloud at the top of Mount Sinai: "You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain." At the end of this incident, Moses, who had just been on top of Mount Sinai with God, makes two requests: that God not depart from them, despite the idolatry and that God show His glory to Moses. The people had just committed treason against the one, true God Who had just delivered them out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage: they had fashioned and worshiped a false god and had given it the name of the one, true God. In other words, they had violated the second and third commandments--not to mention adultery and murder and covetousness.

An interesting observation is that all the actions flow from the thoughts, beliefs, desires, and worship. What you believe and where your affections lie drive what you do and what you reach for. In Israel's case, they got impatient with God and with Moses, so they took their worship into their own hands.

This pattern continued throughout Israel's history, and in Micah's day, the word of the Lord was one of judgment and doom because, as Isaiah his contemporary prophet said, "This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me." When presented with the opportunity to enter the promised land, Israel said in essence, "No, thank you, God. We don't think you can defeat the armies that are so much greater than we are." When the judges ruled between Joshua and King Saul, Israel did whatever was right in his own eyes, and that resulted in several terrible occurrences. (See Judges 19-20 as one example.) When the kings ruled and reigned, Israel and Judah had 40 kings between them. All but eight good kings of Judah led the people into idolatry. Only two of those eight good kings of Judah (Hezekiah and Josiah) destroyed the high places where the people worshiped the false gods. But by the time of the reigns of Hezekiah and Josiah, idolatry had been so ingrained into the people's hearts that the high places were re-constructed almost immediately after their deaths.

Unless you think, "I would never do anything like that," where do you spend your time? What holds your affection above all else? Whom do you seek to please the most? Whose definition of goodness guides your beliefs, desires, and actions? If your honest answer to any of these questions is anything other than the one, true, sovereign God of Scripture; then you are guilty of idolatry. If you place God's name on something that He has pronounced as evil or vile, then you are guilty of taking His name in vain. Some of the key topics in our day and age range from abortion to identity to family. What has been pronounced good in America is giving freedom to the individual to do what is right in his own eyes. Sound familiar?

What does God do to the high places Israel set up throughout their lives in the promised land? He comes down from on high and destroys them. He melts them. He tosses the rocks of the high places into the valleys. In essence, He is saying, "Enough!" to the idolatry found throughout the land of Israel.

Perhaps you are thinking, "Yup. The angry god of the Old Testament. Always full of wrath and never any mercy or love."

But, this way of thinking is from a misunderstanding of Who God truly is. He is holy and full of wrath against sin, but that is because He is full of steadfast love for righteousness. His perfection demands it. He created us to bear the image of perfection that He is, and we said, "No. I'd rather have my own perfection," and this has led us into so many trials and hardships and tribulations that I lack time to enumerate. Be that as it may, God is the One Who is most pained and most offended and most violated by all this treason against Him. And He patiently waited for 1,400 years from the time of the exodus to the time of Christ. He did destroy Samaria and Jerusalem, but He brought His people back to Jerusalem.

God is both merciful and just, and His glory is revealed in the fact that He faithfully dispenses both according to His steadfast love that He has for His Own people, each of whom He has chosen from all eternity. How do you know if you are one of His elect or not? Are you amazed that God hasn't wiped us off the face of the earth yet, or are you thinking that God is not fair for sending His judgment on innocent people? If the first, rejoice! If the second, you are right in your evaluation of justice, but the idea that people can be innocent before God is simply false. There is only one who is a mediator between God and man, the Man Jesus Christ. There is no other name given under heaven by which men must be saved: Jesus Christ. If you recognize that He is the standard and that you fall short of that standard, then trust Him completely and only for your righteousness. He alone is good. Trust Him. Follow Him. Love Him. Together with us!

#comeandseeJesus

#comeandlivebyfaith

#loveandworshipHim

#SoliDeoGloria

The Resurrection

pastor@kirkoftheway.org (Jeremy Swygard) — Sun, 14 Jul 2024 21:07:44 GMT

Jesus' Death, Burial, and Resurrection Are History's Three Greatest Events

When Jesus said, "It is finished!" ( τετέλεσται tetelestai) on the cross, what a mouthful He uttered! The infinite wrath of the infinitely holy God was absorbed by the infinitely worthy Son of God. This wrath was the wrath of God against all the sins of all the elect for all time. There is no greater accomplishment--indeed there can be none greater! The Father forsook the Son on the cross, putting the Son in hell on the accursed tree. My sins put Him there. All the sins of all the elect put Him there. If you turn from depending upon yourself, your sins were also placed there.

How do I know? Because God is just, and He has determined to punish sins in one of two ways: either on the cross or in hell. There is no third option. We all know that this world is pretty messed up. Each one of us is doing what is right in his or her own eyes. Each one of us is pursuing pleasures at a frenetic pace. The desire behind each pleasure is designed to satisfy, but no matter how many games you win, no matter how many sales you make, no matter how many votes you may win, no matter how much money you control; you will find that what you are striving after fails to give that permanent satisfaction. We are told in Ecclesiastes 3:11 (LSB) "He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end." That emptiness you feel from seeking that next satisfaction and finding it less than what you were dreaming or hoping for is due to this fact: God and God alone is infinite. Therefore, God and God alone can satisfy the longing in our heart for the eternal and the infinite.

So, what is sin? Sin is lawlessness ( 1 John 3:4 ). It is any want of any conformity unto or transgression of the law of God ( WSC 14 ). What is the law of God? To love the one Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength ( Deut. 6:4-5 ) and to love our neighbor as ourselves ( Lev. 19:18 ). Sin, therefore, is not loving God or neighbor in any way or in any degree. Since all sin is ultimately against God ( Psalm 51:4 ) and God is infinite and ultimately holy and without any flaw or injustice or unrighteousness, even the slightest sin is justly punishable by the eternal death of hell. But God, being rich in mercy, did not want all to perish but sent His Son to bear the just, due penalty of the sins of all His saints in His body on the tree about 2,000 years ago. Death is the just penalty for sin, for God has declared that the wages of sin is death. Therefore, Christ actually died on that cross.

But that only takes care of one side of the equation. If death is the wages of sin, then life is the just reward for righteousness and love. Jesus did not die for His Own sins. If He had, He would still be dead. But to prove that His death absorbed the just penalty of sins and was for the sins of others, He was raised from the dead. In fact, it was impossible for Him to stay dead, for it was granted to Him to have life in Himself. Life and righteousness go together! Christ's resurrection to an eternal life of intercession for all who believe means that He will never die again and that He will forever plead His blood on behalf of all who are in His presence. This is indeed cause for a believer to cast the crown of his or her reward at the feet of Christ, giving Him the praise, the glory, the honor, the magnification forever and ever. There is none who compares with the One Who absorbed infinite wrath with infinite worth on behalf of all who will believe and all to the glory of God the Father.

At so many times and in so many ways, we trample underfoot the blood of Christ. "How do we do this?" you ask. Let's go back to love. When you love someone, you believe that someone. One of the greatest offenses any of us ever endures is betrayal of the trust we extend to another. Betrayal of trust comes from one of both of the friends not believing the other. When belief disappears, love disappears with it. Now, let's think about the Garden of Eden. Adam and Even sinned when they ate the forbidden fruit, and that one act of disobedience is counted as everyone's sin, and we commit our own sins because we are sinners. But, they never would have eaten that fruit if they had not desired it. And they never would have desired it if they had believed the truth of God's declaration that they would surely die in the day that they ate of it. So, because they believed the lie of the serpent, they desired the fruit, and they disobeyed God. We have all been disobeyed. We all know what it is like to have someone do the exact opposite of what we have told them. We get angry! God would have been just to kill Adam and Eve on the spot, but He instead provided a substitute as a pointer to the ultimate substitute of His Son on the cross who rose from Joseph of Arimathea's tomb nearly 4,000 years later.

Again, how do we trample underfoot the blood of Christ? By thinking that we can do enough good to earn our way into heaven. This is what most people think in some way shape or form: my good outweighs my bad. This is such a great lie! A single sin is deserving of infinite wrath, and Christ absorbed infinite wrath for all the sins of all the saints for all time. How great is His salvation! There is none like Him! Why would you want to depend upon anyone or anything other than Him? The twin commands of the Apostles in the New Testament are: "Repent and believe!" Now, most of the time when we hear, "Repent!" we think, "I'm supposed to think poorly of myself and not positively." That is actually a consequence of repentance. True repentance is a change of mind about what is true and what is false. Repentance is objectively turning from believing lies to believing truth. There is no more popular lie than, "Believe in yourself. You can accomplish anything you dream up!" If you want eternal life, you have to stop believing that you can earn merit before God, and you have to start believing that Christ's righteousness alone is meritorious to save you from the death that you deserve.

In conclusion, let me leave you with a few thoughts. Jesus was really dead; otherwise, you cannot be justified. Jesus was really raised; otherwise, you cannot be glorified. Jesus was really raised to complete the covenantal atonement of our death to Him and His life to us by grace through faith in Him … alone!

Come and see Jesus! Go quickly and tell!

#comeandseeJesus

#comeandlivebyfaith

#loveandworshipHim

#SoliDeoGloria

Atonement, Baptism, and Salvation

Sun, 30 Jun 2024 01:36:45 GMT

How does Christ save?

During our tour of Matthew's account of Jesus' life, suffering, death, and resurrection; we have discovered much. In Matthew, Jesus Christ came to fulfill the law and to establish His kingdom that begins here on earth and grows for all eternity. When He begins His ministry, Jesus explains that He has not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. Since Adam broke the first covenant God made with man, all who are in Adam by ordinary means have been imputed with Adam's sin. How is that fair, right, or just you ask? This question arises from even a biblical principal: a son or a father may not be put to death for the sin of the other. The answer is that God does this through imputation. He imputes Adam's sin of disbelieving God upon all who are born of a man and a woman. By default, we are guilty before God, and unless He makes us right before Him, we will remain under His just condemnation. How does He make us right before Him? Also by imputation! He imputes the righteousness of Christ to all whom He has graciously chosen to believe in Him.

The details of how God does this are amazing and overwhelm our thinking at every turn, but God is both just and the justifier of the ungodly. He is just and merciful, and He dispenses His justice and His mercy according to the steadfast love He has had within Himself for all His elect from all eternity. The great imputational exchange happens at the cross. God the Father places all the sins of all His saints for all time upon His Son, Who willingly volunteered from all eternity and kept His promise when He prayed, "Not My will but Yours be done."

According to God's covenant with Adam, there has to be a death for the violation of that covenant. According to the covenant of grace, that death can be the death of another, so for about 1,500 years (from the time of the Exodus to the death of Christ) there was a daily reminder of the necessity of an atoning death in order for us to be made right with God. From the moment Adam and Eve received animal skin coverings for their nakedness and shame to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, that death was an animal sacrifice. Of course, these animal sacrifices could never atone for sin, so where did the atonement God promised come from? It came from the atonement Christ accomplished once for all on the cross. All the animal sacrifices were pointing to the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ on a hill, outside the city, hanging on a dead tree, planted on a hill of death. The moment that Christ died, the veil was torn in two, and the animal sacrifices should have ceased instantaneously, but they carried on for another generation until Roman legions destroyed Jerusalem in AD 70 and then completed the job in AD 73 at Masada.

How does Christ save? By just imputation wherein His death is counted as the death of all the sins of all His saints, and He only had to die once, for the One Who has been granted to have life in Himself cannot stay dead, nor can He justly die again, for to have life is to have perfect righteousness, for the wages of sin is death. Spiritually speaking and from God's justice, the only reason anyone dies (yes, there are many physical causes of death) is that death is the only just punishment for sin. Further, because Christ's blood is too precious to spill even a single drop, God the Holy Spirit has been making sure that all those for whom Christ died live again to God and so are counted righteous with the righteousness of Christ.

How did this death come to pass? Through the greatest injustices every perpetrated. Christ suffered injustice at the hands of Judas, the mob that came to arrest Him, His own disciples, the chief priests and scribes, the crowds of Jerusalem, Pilate, and the Roman soldiers who were unwitting pawns in the drama that unfolded nearly 2,000 years ago. Jesus' testimony that He is the Messiah was rejected as false because none of those trying Him believed Him. Jesus' testimony that He is the King of the Jews brought about a false death sentence because neither the crowds nor Pilate believed Him. Yet, all these things happened because of God's good will. His plan was to use the injustice to bring about His just and righteous end of glorifying Himself by the salvation of His people from His Own wrath. Jesus was the only sacrifice that God would accept in exchange for the wrath that all the sins of all His saints deserves. God imputed our sins upon Christ and Christ's righteousness upon us by grace alone through faith alone. The greatest sacrifice ever made was the sacrifice of the righteous for the unrighteous as the mystery of God's justly justifying the ungodly was and is revealed in the cross and empty tomb.

The cross is not the end of the story of the atonement, however. If Jesus had stayed dead, there would have been nothing special about it. Paul argues in 1 Corinthians 15 that without the resurrection there is no forgiveness of sins. Without the death, there is no satisfaction of God's wrath. Without the resurrection, there is no eternal life, for that would have meant that Jesus was an ordinary man who simply deserved death because He was a sinner, but the only truly and perfectly righteous man ever to walk the planet was unjustly murdered so that He could give up His spirit and provide for all His saints everywhere the just payment for the sins of His people to an absolutely perfect judge. This is how the atonement works, and the atonement saves all who believe.

Believers are like those who entered Noah's ark to be delivered from God's wrathful outpouring of water to flood the entire earth. We climb into the boat and are saved. Peter uses this illustration to say that Noah and his wife and their three sons and their three wives were baptized through the flood waters. What is baptism? Baptism is a sprinkling or immersion in water into the name of Christ as a sign and seal of what happens when God saves His people from eternal destruction by washing them clean with the righteousness of Christ where His death is counted as theirs and His life is given graciously and freely to all upon whom He works His regenerative power. It is the baptism of regeneration from and by the Holy Spirit that we then look to God with joy instead of consternation, delight rather than disdain.

Now that the atonement has been accomplished and that we have received the great gift of life from the Holy Spirit and that Christ is constantly interceding for us, what do we have to fear? Shall famine or sword or nakedness or wearing masks or not wearing masks or economic collapse or world domination separate us from the love of God which is for all who are in Christ Jesus? Absolutely not! Christ alone saves because Christ alone is worthy. And all for whom He died are definitively saved. Come and see Him in the fullness of His glory.

#comeandseeJesus

#comeandlivebyfaith

#loveandworshipHim

#SoliDeoGloria

Peter Denies and Repents

Thu, 30 May 2024 13:37:34 GMT

Why does Peter repent while Judas does not?

Matthew is the gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven. Throughout the book, Jesus keeps the laws of the kingdom, demonstrates His power within the kingdom, calls people into the kingdom, and shows who is in the kingdom and who is not. Additionally, Matthew tells us why some are in and some are not.

There is no more poignant contrast than Judas and Peter. Yes, throughout His ministry Jesus had confrontations with the Pharisees, chief priests, scribes, Sadducees, elders of the people, and so on. Yes, these confrontations revealed that none of the religious groups in first century Israel correctly interpreted Scripture, but none from these groups was a disciple of Jesus for His entire earthly ministry.

Judas and Peter saw the same miracles. They saw Jesus calm the sea of Galilee ... twice! They saw Jesus feed a crowd of 5,000 and then 4,000 men (besides women and children)! They saw Jesus raise the dead ... thrice! They watched Jesus cast out demons ... with a single word! They heard Him teach the mysteries of the kingdom. They heard Him give the meanings of the parables. They watched Him weep over the death of His friend Lazarus, even though Jesus had intentionally waited for Lazarus to die. They had both seen and heard all these things.

Yet, Judas was eaten up by greed. His small sins led to bigger and bigger sins. He was in the habit of helping himself to what was in the money bag, and this led up to the confrontation he had with Jesus when Mary poured out an entire bottle of nard onto Jesus. "Why was not this perfume sold for a year's worth of wages, and the proceeds given to the poor?" John tells us Judas was using generosity toward the poor as a pretense and cover-up for his greed. Jesus, of course, knew all this and responds to Judas--full of love and truth--that you will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me. The contrast of hearts between Mary's glad generosity and Judas' selfish greed could not have been more stark.

Peter, on the other hand, was a work in progress. His impetuosity is infamous. When Jesus gives Peter a monstrous catch of fish and calls Peter to follow Him, Peter responds, "Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man." When Jesus is crossing the stormy sea of Galilee, Peter says, "If it is You, Lord, call me out to You." When Jesus says that He is going up to Jerusalem to die, Peter responds, "Far be it from You, Lord." When Jesus says that all His disciples will abandon Him and that Peter will deny Him three times, Peter and all the other disciples said that they would not.

Yet, they all did exactly what Jesus had said they would do. And, each of them did exactly what each one wanted most in each and every moment that night of Jesus' betrayal. We marvel at this, yet the Scriptures make clear on every single page that everything comes to pass according to the word of the Lord and that each sentient being is doing exactly what he or she wants to do. The mystery here is not the what but the how. (Mystery here is being used in the biblical sense of the word where God has chosen to set things up a certain way but we only understand it when He makes the fullness clear.)

The question now becomes clear: why did Peter repent and Judas only regret? Both had seen the marvelous things that Jesus had done and taught. Both committed heinous sins against Jesus. To betray and to deny were both sins absolutely worthy of God's just and eternal condemnation. Yet, according to Luke, Jesus had prayed earnestly for one and had left the other. Jesus prayed earnestly for Peter, but He had left Judas outside the camp, so to speak. Even though Judas was one of the twelve, yet when he fell he demonstrated that he was not a righteous man, for he fell and stayed down. He did not get back up.

Why did he not get back up?

Was it because Peter was a better man than Judas? Was it because Peter was smarter than Judas? Was it because Peter was more intrinsically worthy than Judas? There answer is that none of these assumptions is true. The answer is that Jesus--of His own good pleasure and out of His own grace and mercy and for the purpose of revealing His own glory--chose to pray for Peter and to leave Judas to himself. And all of this was to fulfill what the Scriptures had spoken.

This is not a fluke event. This is not just a one-time event. This is a particular example of how God saves some and hardens others. He saves some by interceding for them. He hardens the rest by giving them over to the corrupt desires in their hearts. He does not create evil in them, but they do exactly what they want, for it has been written from all eternity, and also for they have been gifted with the ability to choose.

How do I know that Judas was condemned before God and that Peter was forgiven before God? Jesus called Judas a devil and said that it would have been better for Judas if he had never been born. Peter, on the other hand, Jesus prayed for and restored into covenantal favor when Jesus asked Peter if Peter loved Him and commanded Peter to take care of Jesus' sheep and lambs.

Notice something key here: the ground for our understanding of the differing destinations of Peter and Judas is nothing less than and nothing more than the word of God itself. What God declares and decrees is exactly what is. The evidence for our understanding is the divergent responses that Peter and Judas gave. Judas hanged himself in a potter's field out of regret and anguish and sorrow. Peter's anguish and sorrow over his denials led him ultimately to repentance, and God used Peter mightily to proclaim the goodness of God to the crowd at Pentecost.

Peter was never perfect. Nor was Paul. Nor was any other of our heroes of the faith. Jesus alone was the only perfect human being ever to walk this terrestrial ball. And that will remain true until He returns.

The question for you is this, "What has the One, True God done for you?" Has He prayed for you? Has He called you? Are you in awe that the holy God Who exists in eternal perfection and holiness would want to make you like Himself: righteous and holy? Or, are you repulsed by a God Who chooses some and excludes others on the basis of His own good pleasure and covenantal love that He has for Himself and His elect? If you are in awe, rejoice! If you are repulsed, repent and believe, for there is no other way to stand before God than to be clothed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ alone that is given freely to all who believe in Him alone by grace alone, eschewing one's own works and embracing Christ's works alone.

Are you like Judas, or are you like Peter? There is no third option. I pray you are like Peter.

#comeandseeJesus

#comeandlivebyfaith

#comeandworshipHim

#SoliDeoGloria

Ancient Heroes of the Faith

pastor@kirkoftheway.org (Jeremy Swygard) — Sat, 30 Mar 2024 20:21:30 GMT

Who is a true hero?

Hebrews 11:32 (LSB) And what more shall I say? For time will fail me if I recount Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, as well as David and Samuel and the prophets, 33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, performed righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong from weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. 35 Women received back their dead by resurrection; and others were tortured, not accepting their release, so that they might obtain a better resurrection; 36 and others experienced mockings and floggings, yes, also chains and imprisonment. 37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword. They went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, mistreated 38 (of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in desolate places and mountains and caves and holes in the ground.

Hebrews 11 recounts for us several highlights of the Old Testament. Instead of the score of the game, it gives us the names of the saints. It's incredible what men and women can do on the track, on the ice, or on a field. But the list in Hebrews 11 trumps them all. Walls fall down. The dead are raised. Lions are tamed. Flames have no effect. Incredible are these accomplishments. But, take a closer look at the list. What do we have? A prostitute in Rahab. An idolater in Gideon. A wimp in Barak. A vow breaker in Samson. A child sacrificer in Jephtha. An adulterer and murderer in David. A terrible father in Samuel. A rebellious prophet in Jonah. I could go on.

Yet none of their wicked deeds is recorded in Hebrews 11. Why? Because only that which is done in faith survives the fire of judgment.

Faith seems pretty important, then, so what is faith? Faith in its simplest terms is believing God. But what does that mean? Faith believes everything God has revealed of Himself. To be saved, you need to know, assent, and rely upon Him alone for your salvation. You need to know that He is three persons and one being. You need to know that Jesus Christ is 100% God and 100% man, that He has kept all the law on behalf of all who rely upon His righteousness alone for their right standing before God. You need to know that He was crucified, dead, and buried to absorb the wrath of God on behalf of all who believe. You need to know that He was raised to life to demonstrate that His death was not for Himself and that He sits at the right hand of the Father interceding for all His chosen saints.

But even if you know this, you are not saved until you rely upon Him alone. It is His righteousness that He gives to all His saints that saves us. It is by His grace that we are raised out of the death of our sins and wickedness such that we want to believe in Him.

When this happens, all your wicked deeds are paid for in Christ. Only the deeds done by faith and reliance upon God remain, for those, ultimately, are God's works, not yours. Anything you do by faith is a result of what God has already done in you, working into you the desire and the power to accomplish those good deeds that He has laid out for you.

Now, your by-faith-deeds won't be as spectacular as conquering kingdoms, raising the dead, or stopping the mouths of lions. But they will be significant. Perhaps you will forgive someone for what he or she has done to you. Perhaps you will help someone cross the street. Perhaps you will help someone grow in his or her faith. Perhaps you will pray when no one else is watching. Perhaps you will encourage another to worship the One, True God.

Whatever your deeds, they will be deeds done for which you can and shall testify, "Only by the grace of God and only to His glory did I do anything that gives evidence to His great work in my heart."

#comeandseeJesus

#comeandlivebyfaith

#comeandworshipHim

#SoliDeoGloria

Marveling at God's Sovereignty

pastor@kirkoftheway.org (Jeremy Swygard) — Sat, 23 Mar 2024 20:19:39 GMT

Can we trap God?

Matthew 22:15 (LSB) Then the Pharisees went and took counsel together about how they might trap Him in what He said. 16 And they sent their disciples to Him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that You are truthful and teach the way of God in truth, and defer to no one; for You are not partial to any. 17 Therefore, tell us, what do You think? Is it lawful to give a tax to Caesar, or not?” 18 But Jesus, knowing their wickedness, said, “Why are you testing Me, you hypocrites? 19 Show Me the coin used for the tax.” And they brought Him a denarius. 20 And He said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” 21 They said to Him, “Caesar’s.” Then He said to them, “Therefore, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are God’s.” 22 And hearing this, they marveled, and leaving Him, they went away.

What is it to marvel? We stare up at the night sky, and we think of the vast distances as well as the multitude of stars, and we wonder, "Who am I? What is my significance?"

We watch someone sing and dance in happiness on a stage to music, and we marvel, "How amazing! I'm so overwhelmed!"

At whom or at what do you marvel the most? In Matthew 22, we are given a story about men who marveled at Jesus. These men were His enemies. They wanted nothing more than to trap Jesus in something He said so that they might accuse Him of evil or of wrongdoing that they might be rid of Him.

In this case, they used taxes to try to trap the world's greatest Teacher. Should we pay taxes or not? If Jesus answered yes, His enemies hopes the crowds would turn against Him. If Jesus answered no, then His enemies hoped that they could accuse Him before Rome. Either way, they hoped, Jesus would be removed from their lives.

Jesus of course sees through their deviousness and asks for a coin. This coin bears the image of Caesar. It belongs to Caesar. It is his. For him to claim it back in the form of taxes is no injustice.

Then Jesus turns the tables on His enemies once again. These people have grown up knowing Scripture. In Whose image and likeness are all human beings made? The very fist chapter of Scripture testifies that God has created man--male and female--in the image and likeness of God. His image and likeness are stamped on us, but instead of giving to God what we owe Him, we rebel against Him.

We say that we are good and God is evil. We say that our definitions of right and wrong are true while God's definitions are false. We say that we believe and cause God to make us alive when it is God who causes us to live in order that we might believe. We render unto ourselves the praise and the authority that are due to God alone, and we do so in new ways almost every single day.

Well, Jesus' enemies marvel at Him. As well they should. He has seen right through their trap into the depths of their souls. Jesus has declared to them their obligation to worship Him and to follow Him and to give Him their allegiance.

But their marveling doesn't turn them to Jesus. They walk away from Him rather than submitting to Him and walking with Him.

What is your response? Will you repent of your false beliefs about good and evil, right and wrong? Will your marveling at God turn you to Him or away from Him? He is calling. I pray you are chosen and so come.

#comeandseeJesus

#comeandlivebyfaith

#comeandworshipHim

#SoliDeoGloria

Longing for God's Glory

Sat, 16 Mar 2024 20:17:57 GMT

What do you long for?

Isaiah 11:6 (LSB) And the wolf will dwell with the lamb,

And the leopard will lie down with the young goat,

And the calf and the young lion and the fatling together;

And a young boy will lead them.

7 Also the cow and the bear will graze,

Their young will lie down together,

And the lion will eat straw like the ox.

8 And the nursing baby will play by the hole of the cobra,

And the weaned child will put his hand on the viper’s den.

9 They will do no evil nor act corruptly in all My holy mountain,

For the earth will be full of the knowledge of Yahweh

As the waters cover the sea.

What do you long for? What do you hope for? Perhaps you want that promotion at work. Perhaps you want to learn how to influence other people. Perhaps you want your children to respect you. Perhaps you want your husband or wife to be kind and respectful. Perhaps you want nations to cease fighting with one another. Perhaps you want economic prosperity without work. Perhaps you want to be free from something you desire too much.

Whatever it is that you long for, if it has been made or if it can be attained in this world, it is too small. How do I know?

Because God is infinite. He is perfectly holy. Wonderfully just. Powerfully true. He knows all things, ordains all things, orchestrates all things in such a way that each one does what he or she wants, and these actions and desires at the same time are also what God has written from all eternity.

The end for which God created the world is His Own glorification. One day, the knowledge of His glory will cover the earth just as the waters cover the seas. How will this come to pass? It will come to pass ultimately on the day of judgment. In that day, God will separate the sheep from the goats, and He will reveal the glory of His mercy upon His sheep who hear His voice and follow Him by faith. He will also reveal the glory of His justice against the goats who have stubbornly refused to submit to Him. When that happens, there will be a great peace between God and what He has redeemed and is preparing in the new heavens and new earth. Creation groans with the cosmic conflict begun by Satan and continued by Adam and Eve and all who stand in rebellion against God. One day, that groaning will cease. Hatred. Violence. Lust. Pride. Falsehood. Wars. Conflicts. Death. All of these will have been dealt with on the cross for the sake of all who believe, or they will be punished for all eternity in the lake of fire. There is no other way for the lion to lie down with the lamb. There is no other way for the sinner to be at peace with the one and only true and holy God. God will reveal His glory. God must reveal His glory.

The only remaining question at the moment is this: has God given you Christ's righteousness or not? One way to tell is whether you rejoice at the vision of the revelation of His glory. Do you rejoice that God is both just and merciful, or do you turn in disgust and say, "That's not my God." I pray it is the first and not the second.

#comeandseeJesus

#comeandlivebyfaith

#comeandworshipHim

#SoliDeoGloria

Assurance of Salvation

Sat, 09 Mar 2024 21:16:29 GMT

If I sin, do I lose my salvation?

1 John 5:1 (LSB) Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the One who gives new birth loves also the one who has been born of Him. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and do His commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome. 4 For everything that has been born of God overcomes the world; and this is the overcoming that has overcome the world—our faith. 5 Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

Faith. Obedience. Commandments. Love. Overcoming the world. Salvation. The ontology of God. The depravity of man. Grace. Mercy. Glory. The order between new birth (regeneration) and faith.

All of these (and more) are addressed in this passage.

Everyone who believes Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. This is saving faith. But what is it to believe? Who is Jesus? What is the Christ?

People at ball games will yell Jesus !#$^ Christ. I know. I sat next to one once. Does that mean that such people believe Jesus is the Christ and so are saved? Is saving faith simply a knowledge of the facts? No. James tells us that the demons know and believe that God exists, that He has done all that is necessary to save His people. They know this world is under judgment and that they are out of perdition on borrowed time. They know, and they tremble!!

Saving faith believes all the truth, especially about Jesus as God's anointed one (Messiah in Hebrew, Christ in Greek) Who has come to live a perfect life, to die a substitutionary death, to be raised never to die again and all for the sake of the people whom the Father has chosen, the Son has purchased, and the Spirit will make alive and is making holy (or has already made holy in the case of departed saints). Saving faith believes in / relies upon / submits to God Who has accomplished all these things for the sake of His Own glory.

And it is God Who brings this about. We are born and then we believe. Not the other way around.

Further, John tells us that we know that we are saved when we love God and when we do His commandments. How is he so confident of this? Because he knows that a sinful, rebellious human heart has no inkling of desire to follow God unless God first gives life that kindles that desire. The first command we obey upon the new birth God gives is the command to believe. We repent of believing lies that we are in charge, that we know good and evil, that we are basically good. We acknowledge that God alone is truly good and that we are utterly dead and rebellious before Him. The ONLY way that comes about is by the Holy Spirit's regenerative work in us through hearing the Word of God proclaimed.

Any obedience we give back to God has been wrought in us by God. Any faith we have in Him, any love we have for Him is from Him and through Him and to Him. Our sinful nature has been crucified, but it still rears its ugly head, but we who believe in and love God and neighbor are those whom He has chosen and so made alive and so saved. There is nothing left to fear. God has accomplished it all.

In this way, we overcome the world. What is it to overcome the world? It is to overcome evil with good. Not with a superhero complex. Not with a look what I did attitude. Not with a don't tread on me independence. But with a heart of love for God and neighbor, heaping coals of judgment upon our neighbor's head by giving them water to drink, leaving vengeance in God's hands, all the while hoping and praying that He gives life and repentance and faith instead of giving them over to their evil ways. We who have been saved by grace through faith have been freed to love our neighbors as ourselves. We overcome by the blood of the lamb and by the word of our testimony that He has saved us by His grace and for His glory. O sinner, repent and believe! O saint, see His glory!

#comeandseeJesus

#comeandlivebyfaith

#comeandworshipHim

#SoliDeoGloria

Ashamed of the Gospel

Sat, 02 Mar 2024 21:13:56 GMT

Why can we not be ashamed of the gospel?

Romans 1:16 (LSB) For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “But the righteous will live by faith.”

How can I be ashamed of the gospel? I cannot be ashamed of the gospel if I am in Christ. The gospel is the good news that God is in charge, holy, and especially how He has arranged to forgive all the sins of those who repent and believe in Him. Whenever the apostles opened their mouths in regions of the world where the people did not acknowledge God as God, they started with creation. The Maker has the right of rule over that which He has made. Then they turn to the fact that everyone everywhere has rebelled against God, especially in the foundational assumption about who defines right and wrong, good and evil. Then they give God's solution: repentance FROM trying to earn their own righteousness or trying to ignore their obligation to be righteous TO depending utterly upon the righteousness of Christ, which He has earned and freely gives on behalf of all who repent and believe. He has done so on the basis of His perfect life, substitutionary death, and vindicating resurrection. All who believe in Him have forgiveness of sins and eternal life, and they have this life because God makes them alive out of their trespasses and sins in order to believe in and depend upon Jesus Christ alone for their being declared righteous.

What could possibly be more powerful than the God Who has spoken all things into existence? What could possibly be more powerful than the God Who has the right to judge all men and women everywhere? What could possibly be more powerful than the God Who has made a just and holy way to extend His mercy and grace upon all whom He has chosen to believe? What could be more powerful than the God Who calls dead sinners to life, gives them forgiveness, gives them His Own righteousness, makes them holy, and gives them eternal life? What can possibly be greater than this salvation?

This salvation is God's saving His chosen bride out of her rebellion against Him from His Own wrath for the sake of His Own glory, which is to the everlasting joy of His bride. God's salvation is greater than you think it is, for the problem is greater than you think it is.

And it doesn't matter your ethnicity, language, lineage, intelligence, or background. If God wants you to come, He gives you the desire to come. My friends, there are a great many conflicts in our day. If you are Jew, you may come to Him. If you are Gentile, you may come to Him. We are all physical descendants of Adam and Eve, of Noah and his wife, and we are all in the same boat before God: guilty of seeking to usurp His throne. All we need do is to stop trying to ascend to His throne, fall at His feet in worship and submission, and He will raise us up into His lap as His children. To put it simply: all who are in Adam will perish. All who are in Christ alone by grace alone through faith alone will live. Skin color, language, lineage, wealth, intelligence, nor anything else by which we differentiate ourselves makes any difference when it comes to God's ability to save us and unite us with Himself and therefore one another. The only way we can have peace with one another in our families, in society, or between nations is first to have peace with God. And we cannot have peace with God without righteousness or holiness.

What is righteousness? It is moral perfection. In order to be absolutely righteous, you cannot ever have violated His perfect moral law. Not once. Is there anyone (myself included!) who has never once gotten angry at anyone, has never desired something that someone else has, or has broken a promise, or has never done something they know they should not have? Paul goes on to say in Romans that there is none righteous, no not even one. You might think that most people are good, but everyone who thinks so has no idea what it is to be truly good. Righteousness is a perfect obedience to God and His moral law. There has been only one who ever did so: the God-man Jesus Christ, and because He was and is intrinsically righteous He perfectly kept the law of God on behalf of all who would ever believe in Him. And all those who believe are given His righteousness and so have eternal life.

How do we live by faith? Simply put, we turn from our own righteousness (which is actually gross, putrid, blood-filled rags) to depending upon God for His righteousness. God gives us the spiritual life necessary to believe, faith in Him that He will keep His promises, His righteousness, and His eternal life. There is no greater gift!

#comeandseeJesus

#comeandlivebyfaith

#comeandworshipHim

#SoliDeoGloria

The Author and Perfecter of Faith

Sat, 24 Feb 2024 21:11:10 GMT

Jesus blazes our path of faith.

Hebrews 12:1 (LSB) Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, laying aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary, fainting in heart.

How can we run with endurance? As John Coffey tells us in The Green Mile, "They's too much hate in this world." John couldn't take it anymore, so he willingly sacrificed himself to resolve the case against him, to the tears and sorrow of his executioners. Paul Edgecomb was infected with life, and he considered it a curse. It is true that there is too much hate in this world. It is true that there is One Who has willingly sacrificed Himself for the sake of those He loves. It is not true, however, that eternal life is a curse.

We are told here in Hebrews that we are (present tense!) surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. Who are these witnesses? They are the saints who have gone before us! They are the ones telling us that enduring hardship and hatred is worth it. They are the ones whose testimony of God's worthiness and trustworthiness has been written and recorded for our sake so that they together with us might receive the fulfillment of God's promises. God has been faithful in the past. He cannot change, and He has promised us a great future! Because of all He has done, we too get to receive the benefits and promises God has made for all whom He calls into covenantal relationship with Him.

We have a problem, though. Sin. What is this sin? Sin, we are told in Romans 3:23, is falling short of the glory of God. Sadly--grievously--how far short of this glory we all fall. What is the sin that gets all other sins going? What is the source of our thinking that we can know good from evil apart from God? What is the source of our thinking that we can supplant God from His throne? In a word: unbelief. The opposite of faith. Faith looks at our Triune God Who has created us and says, "I believe Your every word, down to the stroke of every letter." Unbelief says together with Frank Sinatra, "I did it my way!" It says with Henley, "I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul."

My friends, I can think of no starker contrast than these two fundamental ideas. Either God is Master, or we are. Either we approach God with humility or pride. There is no third option. As the Apostle Paul told the Athenians in Acts 17, God commands that everyone everywhere should repent. Repent of what? Repent of bearing this weight of sin, this burden of rebellion.

How can you run a race with a burden on your back? John Bunyan gives us an illustration of Christian's walking around with a growing burden on his back. Christian could not run until that burden was removed at the foot of the cross. We cannot run the race set before us if we are burdened and hampered by sin. Turn from your unbelief to fixing your eyes on Jesus! He ran with endurance the race set before Him. He endured mocking, flogging, and being crucified. He endured much more than that. He endured the wrath of the Father against all the sins of all the saints who have ever lived and ever will live. When you look to Jesus in faith, your sins are placed upon Him, and His righteousness is placed upon you. Because God has declared it to be so. He endured His cross for the sake of the joy of being seated at the right hand of the Father, for the joy of being united with His Bride for all eternity, for the glory He receives for purchasing dead sinners and transforming them into living saints. He endured the cross, despising its shame.

Can we do any less? Can we live for anything greater? Yes, things are tough and difficult in this world, but this world is boot camp for all eternity. Our eternal life begins now, but the fullness of the promises is not yet. We here in the United States have quite a few comforts, but, if our Master endured hostility, should we expect any less? When we look at Him, gaze upon Him, and see what He has done on our behalf; how can we expect to be refined in any different way? So, endure, my friend. Sinner, repent! Saint, take heart! Christ is the author and the perfecter of faith. He is the beginning, the middle, and the end of all things. To Him be the glory both now and forevermore. Amen!

#comeandseeJesus

#comeandlivebyfaith

#comeandworshipHim

#SoliDeoGloria

Why Build a Temple?

Sat, 17 Feb 2024 21:06:54 GMT

A place of atonement was necessary until Christ.

1 Chronicles 21:26 (LSB) Then David built there an altar to Yahweh and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. And he called to Yahweh and He answered him with fire from heaven on the altar of burnt offering. 27 Then Yahweh spoke to the angel, and he returned his sword to its sheath. 28 At that time, when David saw that Yahweh had answered him on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, he sacrificed there. 29 Now the tabernacle of Yahweh, which Moses had made in the wilderness, and the altar of burnt offering were in the high place at Gibeon at that time. 30 But David could not go before it to inquire of God, for he was terrified by the sword of the angel of Yahweh.

Why do we need a substitute? Why is death necessary to satisfy God? What does this have to do with my death and with your death? This all has to do with how we are made right with God. With this goal in mind, let's take a look at the pattern.

Throughout the Old Testament, we are given examples of substitutionary death. Adam and Eve had clothing made for them from animal skins, having their nakedness and shame covered by the skin of another animal. Their just penalty was to die, but they were mercifully spared through a substitutionary death. Abel brought one of his flock as a sacrifice and as a substitutionary death. God promised a Seed Who would bruise the serpent's head. He promised that Seed would have His heel bruised by the serpent. God told Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. We are told later in Hebrews that Abraham believed God would raise Isaac from the dead. Instead of raising Isaac from the dead, God provided a substitute: a ram who would take Isaac's place.

The children of Israel were commanded to make sacrifices throughout their wilderness wanderings and all throughout their dwelling in the land of promise. For nearly 1,500 years from the Exodus to the time of Christ (with a couple periods of exceptions), the sacrificial system was carried out every single day. The priests and Levites took the sacrifices from the people to offer up to God what was intended to be a pleasing aroma: the sacrifice of an animal as a representative substitutionary atonement that points to the once-for-all sacrifice of God's Own Son: Jesus Christ.

We are told that the wages of sin is death. (Romans 6:23) Without death, there is no satisfaction for sin. Why? Because those were the terms of the original covenant between God and Adam and Eve (and all their descendants). In the strictest of covenantal terms, Adam and Eve should have been put to death the moment they ate the forbidden fruit. But they weren't. They were covered with the skin of an animal. The animal that died took their place. So, God will only accept death as the payment for falling short of His glory, for which He has created us. The question is this: whose death will pay for your sins? Your eternal death, or Jesus Christ's once-for-all sacrifice on the cross of Calvary 2000 years ago? There is no third option.

Why did David have to sacrifice on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite? Because he and the people of Israel had sinned against God. David had counted the people of Israel, which was against what God required of the king. The king was to trust God for victory in battle, not the size of his army. In fact, we are supposed to trust God for everything! The nation of Israel was to trust God to keep His promise to Eve as they looked forward to that sacrifice through the daily practice of the animal sacrifices. We are to trust God as we look to Him through the once-for-all sacrifice that Jesus Christ willingly and of Himself 2000 years ago. Christ's sacrifice was perfect and unique. It was perfect because He had committed no sin. It was unique because He was the only One Who could be our substitute. He did much more than we should have done. He did what we could NEVER have done for ourselves.

The temple in the Old Testament was the place where people were made right with God. Now every believer is a temple of the Holy Spirit and an instrument of reconciliation between God and man through the proclamation of the good news of the forgiveness of sins by grace alone through faith alone in Christ according to Scripture alone to the glory of God alone. This I repeat to you this day, and I repeat the gospel commands: repent and believe! There is no other way to eternal life than through submission to God Himself. He is our maker and our creator. He sets the rules. O come and taste and see that He is good!

#comeandseeJesus

#comeandlivebyfaith

#comeandworshipHim

#SoliDeoGloria

Is There a Resurrection?

Sat, 10 Feb 2024 21:02:36 GMT

God is the God of the living!

Matthew 22:25 (LSB) Now there were seven brothers with us; and the first married and died, and having no seed, he left his wife to his brother;26 so also the second, and the third, down to the seventh.27 And last of all, the woman died.28 In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife of the seven will she be? For they all had married her.”

Now that the Pharisees, chief priests, and Herodians have all made their attempts at questioning Jesus; the Sadducees take their turn. So far, each group has been proven beyond the shadow of a doubt to be wrong in their interpretation of Scripture. The Pharisees had questioned Jesus' authority, and Jesus demonstrated--once again--that He had the authority to do all the things He was doing. They sought to trap Jesus into saying something that would make Him unpopular with two groups of men. Jesus argued from the relationship between the Creator and the created to demonstrate that taxes belong to Caesar and that everything belongs to God. As each group walks away with their purposes unfulfilled, the Sadducees come and give it their go.

The Sadducees were a group of teachers in ancient Israel whose own writings we have very little left, for their writings were destroyed in AD 70 with the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem by Rome. What we do know about them comes from the writings of others, and we are told by Scripture that the Sadducees denied the existence of angels as well as the hope of the resurrection.

These Sadducees had come up with a hypothetical conundrum which they thought disproved the resurrection. They used what is known as the levirate marriage as a proof against the resurrection. The levirate marriage was a part of the Mosaic law that made provision for the preserving of the physical line such that if the oldest brother died without children, the younger brother was to marry his older brother's widow and raise up offspring for him. The Sadducees took that to an extreme and said, "What if that happens for one bride and seven brothers? Whose wife will she be in the resurrection, for they all had her as wife?"

You can hear them saying, "You see, Jesus? God cannot violate His own law in eternity, now can He?"

Jesus' answer is clear: the Sadducees are assuming incorrectly both about marriage and about the resurrection. Marriage is an arrangement for this world only. In the new heavens and new earth, in the New Jerusalem, marriage will no longer exist as an institution. Marriage was designed to be a temporal arrangement.

As for the question of the resurrection, the Sadducees are also sadly mistaken. Jesus could have used any number of passages from Scripture to prove them wrong, but He also knew that the Sadducees accepted as authoritative only the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). So, Jesus quotes Exodus 3:6 where God reveals Himself to Moses in the burning bush as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the interesting thing is that God uses the present tense. Not, "I was," nor, "I will be," but, "I AM!" Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had been in their graves for at least 400 years at the time. God IS the God of all His people. His people live with Him the moment they leave this world. They are with Him and are made like Him, for nothing unholy can dwell in His presence.

Is there a resurrection? Most emphatically: yes, and amen. Without the resurrection of the dead, you do not have Christianity. Paul tells us such in one of the longest chapters he ever composed: 1 Corinthians 15.

What was the response of the people at the time? Astonishment! In our day, people are hardly moved by anything. Movies and news and images flashed at us across our screens have anesthetized us against feeling awe and astonishment. At least the crowds of Jesus' day recognized His greatness. Sadly, by the end of the week, they were calling for His death. It is possible to be astonished and amazed at God without knowing and depending and relying upon Him alone for your salvation. Jesus--as fully God and fully man--has kept God's perfect standard of righteousness for all who believe. He was raised from the dead to demonstrate that His death was substitutionary and undeserved. He sits at the right hand of the Father, making constant intercession for His saints. He and the Father have sent the Holy Spirit to call sinners to sainthood by grace alone through faith alone in Him alone! O sinner, repent and believe! O saint, cast aside your false beliefs and run with eagerness toward the prize of the high calling of Christ: God Himself!

#comeandseeJesus

#comeandlivebyfaith

#comeandworshipHim

#SoliDeoGloria

Is Christ Calling You to Follow Him?

Sat, 03 Feb 2024 20:55:27 GMT

God is gracious to restore us and to call us.

John 21:15 (LSB) So when they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?” He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” He said to him, “Tend My lambs.” 16 He said to him again a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?” He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” He said to him, “Shepherd My sheep.” 17 He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?” Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, “Do you love Me?” And he said to Him, “Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You.” Jesus said to him, “Tend My sheep. 18 Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to gird yourself and walk wherever you wished; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will gird you, and bring you where you do not wish to go.” 19 Now this He said, signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God. And when He had spoken this, He said to him, “Follow Me!”

What is love? What is it to love God? How do I love my neighbor?

These are difficult questions. We all crave love. We all desire that acceptance and affection and faithfulness. We also know that love is costly and risky. Many today would rather stay single than marry for fear of being betrayed later on.

For Peter, who had denied that he knew Jesus the night Jesus was betrayed, love was costly. Jesus called him to a life of loving God supremely and ultimately, shepherding God's sheep thrice over, and to an unpleasant death. Peter is commanded to follow Jesus. Why would anyone do such a thing at such a cost? Why would anyone follow Jesus and lead God's sheep to God's glory instead of his own?

There can be but one answer to these questions: it is the gift of God.

Jesus calls Peter to a life of self-denial, of following Christ, of leading God's sheep, and the cherry on top? Peter, you will be crucified, just like your Master was.

Why would anyone do such a thing?

Let us consider the gift of God. The gift of God is covenantal love, and it comes as a package deal: life in Him, desire for Him above all else, complete and utter dependence upon Him for righteousness as well as for each breath and heartbeat, the Master's demands for 100% of his or her life and livelihood, forgiveness of sins, and eternal life. If you talk to most people, they prefer to stay in charge of themselves than turn over control of their lives to God. As Milton pontificated about Lucifer's thoughts in Paradise Lost: Better to rule in hell than submit to God.

For Peter, the cost of following Christ was a life of constant vigilance over God's flock under God's authority and to God's glory and praise. He was crucified upside down. But he is now in the presence of his Master, singing God's praise, enjoying God's covenantal favor, reigning together with God. Why? Because God first loved him, God has called Peter into that eternal, intra-trinitarian love that God has had for Himself from all eternity and unto all eternity. God loves holiness and righteousness, and He has created us to do the same. We would rather love ourselves than Him. It is costly to give up the delusion of being masters of our own fates, captains of our own souls.

O, but the return on that cost? Forgiveness of sins, peace with God, truly covenantal love for God and neighbor, a seat on God's throne in perfect submission to Him, and eternal life are just a few of the benefits that far outweigh the cost of anything in this world.

If Jesus compellingly calls you to follow Him, will you be divided from and under the ire of many, many others in this world? Absolutely. Will it be worth it? Beyond the shadow of a doubt.

I echo Christ's command to Peter: follow Him, no matter the cost.

#comeandseeJesus

#comeandlivebyfaith

#comeandworshipHim

#SoliDeoGloria

Life's Difficulties

Sat, 27 Jan 2024 20:52:01 GMT

You think you have it hard?

Hebrews 12:4 (LSB) You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin. 5 And you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, Nor faint when you are reproved by Him; 6 For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, And He flogs every son whom He receives.”

What is the most difficult thing anyone has ever done? Perhaps you think of those who have conquered kingdoms, captured cities, built skyscrapers, made lots of money, become the best ever at what they have done, climbed Mt. Everest, plunged to the bottom of the Mariana Trench,

What is the most difficult thing you have ever done? Perhaps it was learning a new language, raising children, becoming a champion in high school, getting a perfect score on your final.

Whatever difficult thing you or anyone else has ever done, it pales in comparison to what Christ did in Gethsemene.

Proverbs 16:32 (LSB) tells us this:

He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty,

And he who rules his own spirit, than he who captures a city.

There is no one who rules his own spirit the way Jesus Christ did. He spent His entire childhood never once committing a sin. Even when He stayed behind in Jerusalem, He was not disobedient to His parents. Making it through childhood without sinning is difficult enough. Then; when tempted with bread when starving, all the kingdoms of the world for submitting to Satan, and casting Himself from the top of the temple for showmanship; He did not once submit to the temptations. Throughout His ministry, He was presented with multiple opportunities to become sinfully angry with those who tested and resisted Him at every turn.

When He was about to be captured by the Roman soldiers, He could have called down a company of angels. But He didn't. Why not?

Because He had resisted the greatest sin conceivable: not submitting to the Father to accomplish the very thing they had created the world to do: going to the cross. Jesus' greatest temptation was in Gethsemene when He had the chance to flee. He pled. He begged the Father. He implored His Father with Whom He had always co-existed in perfect covenantal love and holiness: "Take this cup from Me!" Luke tells us that His sweat was as drops of blood.

No one before or since has faced a greater trial: bearing the infinite wrath of God for innumerable sinners to become saints. No one before or since has resisted so great a sin: autonomy from God for the sake of self-preservation.

Jesus is the author and the perfecter of faith. We should consider Him, ponder Him deeply, and then consider our own ways. How often do we (myself included) think, "Oh. It doesn't matter." Scriptures tell us that God puts us through the ringer in order to make us stronger by depending more completely upon Him. Have you resisted sin to the point of shedding your blood on behalf of others, bearing willingly the shame, the scoffing, and the wrath of God?

I didn't think so. I haven't either.

Thanks be to God Who has given us the gift of Christ's righteousness by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. He is in the business of strengthening His saints. Trust Him in the midst of life's difficulties. Oh! Will it be worth the trials and the discipline!

#comeandseeJesus

#comeandlivebyfaith

#comeandworshipHim

#SoliDeoGloria

Do You Love God?

Sat, 20 Jan 2024 20:47:26 GMT

To love God involves more than you might think!

Matthew 22:34 (LSB) But when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered themselves together. 35 And one of them, a scholar of the Law, asked Him a question, testing Him, 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the great and foremost commandment. 39 And the second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang the whole Law and the Prophets.”

This is our text for Sunday morning worship. This is the final test that the best human minds can present to the Sovereign Lord incarnate. The question burning in the minds of the Israelites in Jesus' day was, "What is the correct interpretation of the Law? How do I know I am right with God? How do I know that I am not under the covenantal curse?"

There were three primary schools of thought in Jesus' day who sought to answer these questions: the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes. In their various ways, they answered these questions above with, "Our own works." Their works were different, and that is what set them apart, but, in the final analysis, they were relying upon their own good deeds to be in right standing before God.

What must one do to attain eternal life? The answer? Keep the Law. But here is the problem: which Law is supreme? Jesus answers that question here with the two great commandments which are actually the same: love God and neighbor. In Luke 10, Jesus answers the question, "Who is my neighbor?" with the parable of the Good Samaritan. Love risks. Love extends. Love trusts God so much that it has little concern for what happens to self. Love sees someone in need and says, "I will help you, even if you don't want me to help you; even if you don't see that you need help." Love knows that anyone's ultimate need is the forgiveness of sins by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, so love seeks the good of his neighbor.

Because God has created us in His image, we have been created to love Him supremely and our neighbors as ourselves. That love looks like believing every single word, every single letter, indeed!, every single stroke of the pen that God has breathed out and had preserved and translated for us. God does not change. Neither does His Word. It is we who have fallen far short of this standard of perfection, of covenantal love, of believing God's every single word, of trusting Him for everything in our lives, of striving with every fiber of our being in the strength that He supplies to turn away from the rubbish of sin to the holiness of God.

In order to have eternal life, we must keep this Law. The problem here? We do not do it. Indeed, we cannot. What is the solution? How can anyone be saved and stand righteous before God? God has made the one and only way: He has kept the Law perfectly on our behalf; He has died the death of the covenantal curse on behalf of all who believe; He has been raised never to die again in the person of the Son of God: Jesus Christ. Only God can love God supremely and perfectly. Only God loves His neighbor as Himself. Only God has kept the Law. Because He has done so on behalf of all who believe, there is but one question that remains: will you repent of the unbelief of thinking that your own works will save you and believe that Christ's works alone save you?

Is it really that simple? Does God really give you His Own righteousness because He first gives you life to believe in Him? Yes! How can that kind of covenantal love and faithfulness not stir up your heart and affections for God? How can this God not cause your heart to say, "Yes! Amen! He is holy, just, true, merciful, gracious, and kind! I believe. I believe! Help my unbelief! Give me life! Give me holiness! Give me strength to walk in the good deeds You have prepared for me!" O, sinner, come and see! O, saint, come and see!

#comeandseeJesus

#comeandlivebyfaith

#comeandworshipHim

#SoliDeoGloria