3 Sermon Recommendations

There have been three messages lately that have really stuck with me, and I thought I would share them with you. If you are looking for Christ-centered, grace-filled preaching, here you go:

First, Tullian Tchividjian preached a message last week entitled God Comes Down Part 1. It is fantastic! Definitely check that one out. You will be blessed by it. I was able to listen to it again this morning and it was even better the second time.

Dr. Warren Gage, of Knox Theological Seminary, preached what I would describe as a theological masterpiece. If you want to hear a man preach Christ with both knowledge and zeal - give this a listen.

Lastly, Timothy Keller's message entitled Justified by Faith could be a case study in how to preach the gospel to an audience ranging from the pious to the skeptic. It's a gem that speaks to the very heart of mankind and provides the only possible solution to our ills - Jesus.

CJ Mahaney: Singing the Gospel To Yourself

If you watch this video, you are in for an 8.5 minute gospel feast. This is the good stuff. Why churches and minsters would talk about anything else perplexes me.



[via]

Becoming Increasingly More Aware of My Need of Christ

I was listening to a solid Christmas message this morning and heard this helpful reminder:

"If you understood just how desperate you were, just how broken you were, you would be unapologetic in your clinging to God's grace."

I think the speaker is right. I so often fail to understand my own desperate need of Christ on a daily basis. Pride and self-sufficiency are always right outside my door waiting to overtake me. May God help me realize, once again, my need of His grace and my utter dependence on Him.

William Romaine: Pardoned

“It is true, I have sin in me, but it is pardoned. God has forgiven me all trespasses. I stand before him in my surety, who undertook for me, and I am perfect in him. The Father chose me in his Son: he looks upon the face of his Beloved, and sees me in him. In him he is well pleased, so he is with me. As he loves him, so he loves me. This is the glorious privilege which by faith I now enjoy.

I deny sight and sense, and I stick to the word of God. I adhere strictly to its testimony concerning me, believing myself to be dead indeed unto sin in Christ, and in him absolutely freed from guilt and condemnation. The Father is at peace with me, and he loves me in his Son, and with the same love with which he loves him—his Father and my Father." [via]

The Truth Hidden In Plain Sight

"For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance, he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries." - Robert Jastrow (astronomer) [source]

John Newton: Boasting is Excluded for Christians

This is theological gold:

“They [true Christians] love much, because much has been forgiven them. They dare not, they will not ascribe anything to themselves—but are glad to acknowledge, that they must have perished (if possible) a thousand times over, if Jesus had not been their Savior, their shepherd, and their shield. When they were wandering—he brought them back; when fallen—he raised them; when wounded—he healed them; when fainting—he revived them. By him, out of weakness—they have been made strong:  he has taught their hands to war, and covered their heads in the day of battle.

In a word, some of the clearest proofs they have had of his excellence, have been occasioned by the humiliating proofs they have had of their own vileness. They would not have known so much of him—if they had not known so much of themselves.” [via]

Newton's words bring to mind this story from Luke's Gospel.

Jacob Goff: Permission to Sin?

I instinctively bristle at writing like this, but perhaps this is exactly the kind of thing I need to hear on a daily basis. This is the writing of someone who has experienced God's scandalous grace. Enjoy:

“Should we sin all the more that grace may abound?” This is the question Paul anticipates his hearers to ask after he explains how deep grace goes. I had never anticipated this question - despite spending tons of time in church growing up. Why not? Because most preachers are afraid to preach like Paul.

Today, we think anticipating this question is necessarily sinful. You heathens - we think - of course all you care about is how much you can get away with. And we suppress our own impulse to ponder this question. But what if this question is an indication - the indication - that we are beginning to wrap our minds around the gospel?

If you leave a pastor’s sermon and this question is rolling around in your head, “Does this mean I can do whatever I want?” then your probably beginning to understand.

Like many things in this mad world, asking the right questions is a harder task than having the right answer. But Paul’s answer is important: Should we sin all the more that grace may abound? By no means. Or, colloquially, Hell no! But then, he goes right back to talking about grace. Paul doesn’t say, Of course you idiots are obsessed with what you can get away with – you need to be more spiritual like me! He knows talking that way will only encourage pharisaism, and he also knows that this is the point that will help us see God’s love for us in Jesus at its starkest and most offensive level. The truth is, God just keeps on forgiving.

So, if our impulse is to sin after hearing about grace, what is the cure? More meditating on the gospel. More grace. (Read Romans 6 for yourself, Paul seems obsessed with Christ’s work on our behalf. The climax grows and grows, Romans 8 – there is therefore now no condemnation for those in Jesus Christ. And if you think Paul is, like many pastors, going to point you to your strength and determination to make your life right with God, take a gander at the chapter sandwiched between these two, Romans 7, “I do the things I don’t want to do, who is going to deliver me from this body of death?” Thanks be to God, indeed. We need Jesus more than we imagined!)

So, does God’s forgiveness mean we have permission to sin? Can we just keep on sinning?

Robert Farrar Capon writes:

God, in the act of creating you, gave you permission to do any damned fool thing you could mangage to bring off. Forgiveness neither increases nor decreases God permissiveness; instead, it just fishes us out of the otherwise inescapable quicksand we so stupidly got ourselves into and says, ‘There! Isn’t that better?’

To repeat the central point of this post, and perhaps the bible, God just keeps on forgiving you. Should we keep on sinning? No! But don’t expect God to suddenly stop forgiving you. Christ blood covers your rebellion – all of it." [via]

Tim Keller: Getting Out

If Christ Has Not Been Raised...

If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain… If the dead are not raised, Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. - 1 Corinthians 15:14, 32

There is only one reason why I am a Christian - and it has nothing to do with our American Christian subculture, sanitized Christian music, cute messages addressing my felt-needs, morality, values, the "victorious Christian life,"  metro-sexual worship leaders, or supposed crowns some say I will earn. I am a Christian - by God's grace - because of the objective fact that Jesus Christ walked out of the grave 2,000 years ago.

If Jesus has not been raised, I am to be pitied. If Christ's body is ever recovered and his resurrection is proven to be a hoax, I am out. I will be on the first flight to Amsterdam ready to party like it's 1999...  for tomorrow I die.

Martin Luther: All of Grace

“The fatuous idea that a person can be holy by himself denies God the pleasure of saving sinners. God must therefore first take the sledge-hammer of the Law in His fists and smash the beast of self-righteousness and its brood of self-confidence, self wisdom, and self-help. When the conscience has been thoroughly frightened by the Law it welcomes the Gospel of grace with its message of a Savior Who came–not to break the bruised reed nor to quench the smoking flax–but to preach glad tidings to the poor, to heal the broken-hearted, and to grant forgiveness of sins to all the captives.” [via]

Exploring Covenant Theology

Here is a podcast recommendation for those interested in learning the basics of covenant theology. 

Michael Horton sits down with Mike Brown and Zach Keele, authors of the new book, Sacred Bond: Covenant Theology Explored.

Also, here [Part 1 & Part 2] are some more in-depth lessons on this important issue.

Of First Importance

"Whenever we don't actively focus on the gospel, we passively drift back into self obsession and self righteousness." - Michael Horton

Grace in the Midst of Doubt & Spiritual Famine

I have talked to several people lately who are struggling – who are waning in their passion for Christ and are wrestling with certain doubts. If that is you, if you are struggling right now as well, be encouraged. The Christian life is (thankfully) bigger than you and I.

The Christian faith, unlike every other worldview or religion, is not about how we feel today or how zealous we are in our good works. It is about the objective fact that God the Son came down to earth, took on flesh, lived a sinless life, fulfilled the law, died on a cross, bodily rose again for our justification (as evidenced by the eyewitness account of over 500 men and women), and promises to return in glory and power. 

Now, for those whom he called, there is no condemnation ever! Those who are in Christ can freely live under the banner of “It is finished.” That is what Christianity is about. It is not about our performance.

Hang in there! We are allowed to struggle and doubt; but know that God will never let go of his children. His grip will not falter. His righteousness is still enough. His grace is still sufficient even for your low moments, even for your doubts.

If you are struggling, if you are in a season of spiritual famine, take some time today to thank God that this thing is not about you. 

Though we tend to be faithless - though we are prone to wander - he remains faithful for he cannot go against his nature. That is good news!

Tim & Kathy Keller: Gospel-Driven Love in Marriage

"We must say to ourselves something like this: “Well, when Jesus looked down from the cross, he didn’t think, ‘I am giving myself to you because you are so attractive to me.’ No, he was in agony, and he looked down at us—denying him, abandoning him, and betraying him—and in the greatest act of love in history, he stayed. He said, ‘Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing.’ He loved us, not because we were lovely to him, but to make us lovely. That is why I am going to love my spouse."” [via]

Wanna Be A Good Theologian?

"A theologian is made, not by thinking or reading or speculating, but by living and dying and being damned." -Martin Luther

Death Swallowed

This is a great video.

Joel Beeke: An Unbreakable Covenant

"We rest on this unbreakable covenant. In this covenant of grace, we meet a giving God and stand before Him as Abram did, as receiving parents...

With regard to the salvation promised to us in the covenant, we are receiving sinners approaching a giving God. What have we contributed to our own salvation? Absolutely nothing; it is all of grace. Thank God for His covenant, and for the burning lamp that passed through the pieces of the animals, which confirmed that covenant to Abram and to all who are in Christ, Abram’s seed and heirs according to the promise (Gal. 3:29)." [via]

Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Justification (Great News For Sinners)

"But this is the amazing message, and this is what is meant by justification – that God tells us that, as the result of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, because of his life, his death and his resurrection, if we believe on him and trust ourselves solely and entirely to him, God pardons and forgives our sins.

Not only that, he declares that we are free from guilt: more than that, justification includes this. He not only declares that we are pardoned and forgiven and that we are guiltless, he also declares that we are positively righteous. He imputes to us, that is, he puts to our account, the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ himself, who was entirely without sin, who never failed his Father in any way, and who never broke a Commandment or transgressed any law. God gives to us – puts upon us – the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ himself, and then looks upon us and pronounces that we are righteous in his holy sight. That is the biblical doctrine of justification." [via]

Kim Riddlebarger: Imputation

"When we renounce our own righteousness and place our trust in Jesus Christ, God places our sins upon Jesus, who becomes a curse, paying for our sins. Through that same faith, God imputes or reckons to us the perfect righteousness of the Son of God. Thus God sees us as though we had never sinned and as though we had kept the law of Moses perfectly, even though we remain sinners." [source] 

Tullian Tchividjian: Identity

"Our identity is anchored not in the "do" of law but the "done" of the gospel." [source]

Phil Ryken: A Desperate Need For Grace

“We begin at the beginning, with our desperate need for grace. From the moment we came into the world as helpless babies, right up until this exact second, we are utterly and completely dependent on the grace of God for everything we have, including life itself. What is more, if we have any hope of life after death—eternal life—it is only because of God’s free and undeserved grace for us in Jesus Christ.

Until we understand this, it is impossible for us to have the relationship with God that we truly need. But when we do understand this—when we understand our absolute need for Jesus—then his grace changes everything." [source]