Strong and Safe

 

In 2012 our family went on a vacation to England, Scotland and Iceland. We spent six days of our two-week trip in Newtonmore, a small town in northern Scotland. We wanted to spend some time in quiet place and just explore and experience what was in the area. We had no particular interest in Newtonmore over anywhere else. When we were planning our trip it just happened to be a place where it was easy to make reservations.

One of the places we visited was a local ruin, the Ruthven Barracks. The first castle was built there in the 13^th century. The remains there now are of buildings went up in the 18^th century, although they didn’t last long, being destroyed in a rebellion that ended in 1746.

My mind went back to the Ruthven Barracks today as I was reading from Proverbs, where Proverbs 18:10 says,

The name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous man runs into it and is safe.

The “name of the LORD” is to be understood as the divine name of God, the name God revealed to Moses in Exodus 3:14, saying,

I AM WHO I AM

Two things we can see in that name are God’s self-sufficiency and His timelessness.

First, God does not depend on anyone or anything, ever. All that He needs He has within Himself, all the time.

Second, God is who He is in the present tense, always. It is never “God was.” It is never “God will be.” God is, and as He is, He has always been, and always will be.

When we who are His children feel troubled or in danger, the self-sufficiency and timeless nature of God is a great comfort. We can go to Him for safety and protection, knowing that He will always be there, ready and willing to keep His children safe. He is not under construction, offering partial protection. He is not rundown, an image of His former strength.

His name is a strong tower, and may you find your refuge there every time you need it.

 

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Photo credit: http://www.castlesfortsbattles.co.uk

 

“…the excellencies of Him…”

 

Last Sunday I preached Psalm 1. Verse 2 of that psalm teaches that the blessed man and woman find that their delight is in the law of the Lord and that they meditate on God’s law day and night. This meditation is an active process. It is a taking in of God’s teaching in the Bible and soaking in it, absorbing it, allowing it to permeate every cell of your being.

Because I just preached it that idea of meditating on God’s word has been a frequent inhabitant of my thought life over the past week. I have been both thinking about the idea of meditating on God’s word, and I have been meditating on God’s word, reading something in my morning devotional time and then coming back to a phrase or a verse or an idea several times during the day or in wakeful times at night. I want to share one of those mediations with you in this post.

Robin and I are presently reading through 1 Peter in our evening prayer time together. We were reading 1 Peter 2:6-12, where in verse 9 Peter writes:

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

There is a whole lot of really powerful theology packed into that verse but the thing that jumped out to me on this occasion were those four simple words, “the excellencies of Him,” with Him being a reference to Jesus. 

There is an idea floating around in my mind that I believe came from John Piper, where he said that a central task of the preacher was to magnify the person and work of Jesus through the proclamation of the word. Piper said it was like holding Jesus up to the light like a precious gem, which radiated beauty at every point you looked at it. “…the excellencies of Him…”

And so I am meditating on the excellencies of my Savior and Lord, which include, in no particular order, His mercy, kindness, faithfulness, holiness, love, righteousness, justice, power, wisdom, eternity, omnipresence, goodness, hatred of sin, patience, empathy and compassion. Surely there are more excellencies within Him. And being excellencies they are all both perfect and for good.

Those last two thoughts I tacked on, that everything within Jesus is both perfect and good, are speed bumps for some people coming to see who He truly is, what He has done, and what His work makes possible for all who come to Him in faith. He could not possibly be anyone’s Savior and Lord if He were not perfect and always working for good, from God’s point-of-view. His excellencies are perfect and they are always used in just the right way.

Consider His excellencies and then, as appropriate, thank Him, or, in faith turn to Him and trust in Him. Amen

 

 

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Photo credit: Shutterstock.com, via Entrepreneur.com

The Psalms

 

This Sunday I am starting something new, bringing my congregation God’s word from the Psalms. In my Bible the introduction to the Psalms says, “The book of Psalms is filled with the songs and prayers offered to God by the nation of Israel. Their expressions of praise, faith, sorrow and frustration cover the range of human emotions. This diversity is unified by one element: they are centered upon the one and only living God.”

For most of the time that I have been their pastor it has been my practice to preach through whole books of the Bible. From beginning to end we have gone through 1 Peter, Colossians, Ruth, Mark, Philippians, Amos, John, Zechariah, James and Galatians. One advantage to this method of choosing texts is that we hear what God as to say His children from the entire book. Sometime this means that the Bible addresses something we would rather not hear about. But if we believe what Paul wrote to Timothy,

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

then we dig in to the word and seek to know and live by the truth God teaches through it, Psalms included.

Psalms is a long book, 150 chapters, and I will be making one change in my practice, in that I will not preach the whole book. I expect that we will hear from 25-30 of the Psalms. There are also many kinds of psalms, where the main idea of the particular psalm will be praise, or thanksgiving, or lament/complaint, and even calling for God’s justice on God’s enemies. As we go through the Psalms we will touch on all the different types. Like other parts of the Bible, we may be confronted with things we would rather avoid but I will approach them with the idea that in those challenging things God has something for our good.

When I preach through a book I try to find a verse or two that captures the particular theme of that book. Psalms, being a long book and dealing with many things in many ways, presents a challenge to that task. I’ve settled on Psalm 68:19, 

Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears us up; God is our salvation.

God is our salvation. Precisely how this was to happen was not clear to the writers of the psalms or the ancient nation to Israel. It is clear to us, as God’s plan of salvation has been worked out through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Ultimately the Psalms point to Him and their promises are fulfilled in Him. May the glory of our Savior be magnified and may our faith in Him grow as we hear from the Psalms.

 

 

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Step-By-Step

 

Yesterday I made my first hospital visit in just over a year. Just last week the hospital began to allow visitors, one visitor per patient per day, and on Tuesday someone here asked me to visit a relative of theirs who is very ill and going onto hospice care. I know the ill person just a little bit and he had asked, specifically, for me. The family member who relayed the request is someone I know fairly well, and he had one overriding concern, which was that I would share the gospel with his relative, whose time among us looks to be short. I was only too glad to do so. Nothing would be more important.

I read a really good book last year on the topic of evangelism, and this definition of that task has stayed with me. Evangelism is teaching the gospel with the aim to persuade. It is a good, clear definition, but how, precisely, does one teach the gospel?

There are ways that I would, and do, teach the gospel as I preach. The average congregation has unconverted people in the pews, people who need to be called to faith in Jesus. I also believe that for converted people to hear the gospel again and again is good, as they are reminded of the truth of God’s love for them in Jesus. But how would I teach the gospel to this person I barely knew, and whose understanding of Christian faith was unknown to me? I decided to go step-by-step.

I began by talking about God, as creator and as holy. He has determined how people should live in ways that are pleasing to Him, and that our disobedience is sin, which He will deal with. I then used seven passages of the Bible to lay out the promise of the gospel. Here they are, in the order that I used them.

First, Genesis 3:3.

God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’

This highlights the serious nature of sin, from God’s point-of-view. What we think of our sin matters little to God. It is a violation of His law, and through the words Eve repeated here, He promises to punish sin with death.

Second, Romans 3:23.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Here, in a few words, Paul makes it clear that all humans are sinners against God. There are no exceptions. None. Not Paul, not me, not anyone ever.

Third, Romans 6:23.

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This points to a choice. Live with our sin and its consequences or receive the free gift of God, which only comes through faith in the Lord Jesus.

Fourth, John 3:16-17.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Here we more clearly see the purpose for the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. By faith in Him we will not perish in our sin but receive eternal life with God. Jesus, the Son of God, sent by the Father, that we would be saved by Him.

Fifth, Romans 10:9.

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

This is a favorite verse of mine, for it very simply states the truth of salvation. I don’t need to earn it, and in fact I can’t earn it. There is nothing I can do with my sin to get rid of it or decrease it. All I can do is to trust in what Jesus did, for me and for everyone else who has faith in Him.

Sixth, John 10:27-28.

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

Here Jesus teaches that our place with Him, the place that we have by having faith in who He is and what He has done, will never be lost. We will still struggle with sin but, concerning our final state, Jesus has the last word.

And seventh, Romans 8:31-39.

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
    we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Using very emphatic language Paul makes it crystal clear that there is absolutely nothing on earth, nor any spiritual force, that will separate believers in the Lord Jesus from their Savior. Not now. Not ever.  

After sharing all of this we talked a bit more, where this man told me that he trusted in Jesus as his Savior. It was joy to close my visit in prayer and head back home knowing that I had a new brother in Christ.

I don’t know when the next time will be that I will have to share the gospel with someone one-on-one. It will be a different dynamic, given that the people and the situation will be different. But I pray that the Lord will lead me, step-by-step, to the same wonderful outcome, which is to bring another sister or brother into the Kingdom of God, forever.