Monday, March 24, 2008

The Message of Easter

Please enjoy this article by Pastor Darryl Dash of Richview Baptist Church in Toronto Canada. He also runs the Theocentric Preaching website, where this entry originally appears and has graciously granted permission to have it reproduced it here. Pray that we may all take heed of its simple yet powerful message.


I used to subscribe to the tape ministry - remember the days before digital downloads? - of a large church. I remember getting the Easter Sunday message one particular year. The main idea of the sermon was something like, “You’re good, but you could be better.” The preacher used the illustration of Tiger Woods’ golf swing. It was good, but Tiger went back and and learned a new swing to be even better. We can do the same with our lives when we come to Christ, he said.

I remember being shocked. The message of Easter isn’t that we’re good but Christ came to make us a little bit better. Earl Creps has said that Jesus didn’t come to make bad people good, or good people better. He came to make dead people live. I agree. Dead people need the message of Easter, and nothing else will do.

At Easter we get to proclaim the timeless story of God in Christ taking the place of sinners so that we who were dead could live. There are so many riches within this story, so many angles, so much depth, that we don’t have to drift from the meaning of Easter to be relevant.

Let’s stick with the message of Easter. It’s far better than any other message we could offer, and it’s one that people desperately need to hear.




I can't help but get a little naughty here, but if Emergent Pentecostal Earl Creps (of the AOG!) can get that one right, then the rest of us simply have no excuse. No excuse at all. Ooh, yeah!
Grace & Peace --Boms

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Celebrating the Holy Gracious RISEN LORD Jesus our Saviour, Forever and Ever!



"Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you— unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures...

"But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep."

--Paul the Apostle, 1st Letter to the Corinthians 15:1-4, 13-20






Hoshana!
הוֹשִׁיעָה נָּא
הושענא
ὡσαννα
Please save, we pray...
In Christ's name, Amen.



Saturday, March 22, 2008

By Grace Alone...



"And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." --The Apostle Paul's Letter to the Ephesians 2:1-10 (ESV)

"Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God."
--The Apostle Paul's 2nd Letter to the Corinthians 3:5 (ESV)




GRACE ALONE
©1998 Maranatha! Music.
Words and Music by Scott Wesley Brown, Jeff Nelson


The Sensuous Christian...


It was a happy occasion when I received an email from Ligonier Ministries, granting permission to reproduce here an excerpt from Dr. R.C. Sproul’s book “Knowing Scripture” (Intervarsity Press, 1977), entitled “The Sensuous Christian.”

A Sensuous Christian is someone who relies more on feelings rather than the correct handling of God's Word. Heaven knows I need to be less and less of a Sensuous Christian. May the Lord use this to keep us all from becoming one, or to transform us from being one—not just during each Lenten Season.

Ligonier Ministries was established in 1971 to equip Christians to articulate what they believe and why they believe it. Our foremost desire is to “awaken as many people as possible to the holiness of God by proclaiming, teaching, and defending His holiness in all its fullness.”


You can help support Ligonier Ministries by visiting their website http://www.ligonier.org/
(Pls. right click on the link for the option to open it in a new window.)



What is a Sensuous Christian? One dictionary defines sensuous as, “pertaining to the senses or sensible objects: highly susceptible to influence through the senses.” The sensuous Christian is one who lives by his feelings rather than through his understanding of the Word of God. The sensuous Christian cannot be moved to service, prayer or study unless “he feels like it.” His Christian life is only as effective as the intensity of present feelings. When he experiences spiritual euphoria, he is a whirlwind of Godly activity; when he is depressed, he is a spiritual incompetent. He constantly seeks new and fresh spiritual experiences and uses them to determine the Word of God. His “inner feelings” become the ultimate test of truth.

The sensuous Christian doesn’t need to study the Word of God because he already knows the will of God by his feelings. He doesn’t want to know God; he wants to experience him. The sensuous Christian equates “childlike faith” with ignorance. He thinks that when the Bible calls us to childlike faith it means a faith without content, a faith without understanding. He doesn’t know that the Bible says, “In evil be babes, but in your thinking be mature” (1 Corinthians 14:20). He doesn’t realize that Paul tells us again and again, “My beloved brethren, I would not have you ignorant” (see, for example, Romans 11:25; or 1 Corinthians 10:1, 12:1; 1 Thessalonians 4:13—Boms).

The sensuous Christian goes his merry way until he encounters the pain of life that is not so merry and he folds. He usually ends up embracing a kind of “relational theology” (that most dreadful curse on modern Christianity) where personal relationships and experience take precedence over the Word of God. If the Scripture calls us to action that may jeopardize a personal relationship, then the Scripture must be compromised. The highest law of the sensuous Christian is that bad feelings must be avoided at all cost.

The Bible is addressed primarily though not exclusively to our understanding. That means the mind. This is difficult to communicate to modern Christians who are living in what may be the most anti-intellectual period of Western civilization. Notice, I did not say anti-academic or anti-technological or anti-scholarly. I said anti-intellectual. There is a strong current of antipathy to the function of the mind in the Christian life today.

To be sure, there are historical reasons for this kind of reaction. Many laymen have felt the result of what one theologian has called “the treason of the intellectual.” So much skepticism, cynicism and negative criticism have spewed forth from the intellectual world of theologians that the laymen have lost their trust in intellectual enterprises. In many cases there is the fear that faith will not hold up under intellectual scrutiny so the defense becomes the denigration of the human mind. We turn to feelings rather than to our minds to establish and preserve our faith.

Christianity is supremely intellectual though not intellectualistic. That is, Scripture is addressed to the intellect without at the same time embracing a spirit of intellectualism. The Christian life is not to be a life of bare conjecture or cold rationalism; it is to be a life of vibrant passion. Strong feelings of joy, love and exaltation are called for again and again. But those passionate feelings are a response to what we understand with our minds to be true. When we read in Scripture, “Take courage; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33), “ho hum” is not an appropriate response. We can be of good cheer because we understand that Christ has indeed overcome the world. That thrills our souls and sets our feet to dancing. What is more precious than to experience the sweetness of the presence of Christ or the nearness of the Holy Spirit?

God forbid that we should lose our passion or go through the Christian pilgrimage without any experience of Christ. But what happens when there is a conflict between what God says and what I feel? We must do what God says, like it or not.

Reflect for a moment. What happens in your own life when you act according to what you feel like doing rather than what you know and understand God says you should do? Here we encounter the ruthless reality of the difference between happiness and pleasure. How easy it is to confuse the two! The pursuit of happiness is regarded as our “unalienable right.” But happiness and pleasure are not the same thing. Both of them feel good, but only one endures. Sin can bring pleasure, but never happiness. If sin were not so pleasurable, it would hardly represent a temptation. Yet, while sin often “feels good,” it does not produce happiness. If we dot know the difference, or worse yet, do not care about the difference, we have made great strides to becoming the ultimate sensuous Christian.


Learn more about correctly handling the Word of God. Rely less on feelings to interpret the Holy Bible. Read Dr. R.C. Sproul’s book “Knowing Scripture” (InterVarsity Press, 1977). Copies should be available at the following online booksellers:

Ligonier Ministries
InterVarsity Press
Koorong
Word
The Reformers Bookshop, Stanmore Baptist Church

(Pls right-clink on the links for the option to open each one in a new window.)