Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: indwelling sin, john macarthur, romans 7
I read an excellent sermon by MacArthur on Romans 7 on the reality of indwelling sin in the believer’s life. It was refreshing, and very helpful. A brief excerpt:
What he’s saying is I know I haven’t gotten there yet. And that’s all you have here in Romans 7 is a recognition of what he isn’t. It’s a perspective. It’s not all that could be said about him but it is something that could be said about him. It isn’t all that could be said about me to say I am unspiritual but it is true about me to say I am unspiritual, I have not yet become fully what I will become, right? It is a non-technical view. It is a perspective. It is the same perspective that made Paul say “I am chief of sinners,” 1 Timothy 1:15.
And what do you say gives that perspective? Well, listen very carefully. It is an understanding of the pure, holy, just, good law of God. And when you see yourself against that law, you are very much aware of how sinful you are. Now when you see a Christian, calls himself a Christian, or herself, and they appear to be very content with where they are spiritually and they want to make sure you know how really holy they are and how pious they are, that is not to indicate to you that indeed they are holy, but rather indeed they don’t understand the Word of God. That is evidence not of their holiness but an evidence of their ignorance of God’s holy law, for the better we understand the infinite perfection of God’s holy law, the better we will understand our own imperfection, true? And so I submit to you that what we have in Romans chapter 7 is not only the testimony of a Christian but a very mature one and a very insightful one and a very spiritually minded one.
MacArthur did a great job unpacking, clearly explaining the passage and demonstrating how the passage speaks of the Christian, particularly a mature one, and not the non-Christian, nor the immature or new Christian. I highly recommend the message, which can be found here:
http://www.biblebb.com/files/MAC/45-53.htm
It reminded me a lot of the humble condition and hope conveyed in this quote from John Newton (one of my favorites!):
I am not what I ought to be; ah, how imperfect and deficient. I am not what I wish to be; I abhor what is evil, and I would cleave to what is good. I am not what I hope to be soon; soon I shall put off, with mortality, all sin and imperfection. Though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor what I hope to be, I can truly say that I am not what I once was, a slave to sin and Satan. And I can heartily join with the apostle and acknowledge that by the grace of God I am what I am.
Filed under: Uncategorized
I just wanted to link to this encouraging article by MacArthur, “Super-Sized Saints?” on how God uses the humble lowly and meek. Here’s brief excerpt:
If you’ve ever visited the great cathedrals in Europe, you’d think the apostles were larger-than-life stained-glass saints with shining halos who represented an exalted degree of spirituality. But actually, they were very, very common men.
It’s a shame they have so often been put on pedestals as magnificent marble figures, or portrayed in paintings like some kind of Roman gods. That dehumanizes them. They were just twelve completely ordinary men—human in every way—and we shouldn’t lose touch with who they really were.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Grace Gems, He must increase, J.R. Miller
I subscribe to this devotional from Grace Gems (http://www.gracegems.org/), and I found today’s very helpful. It pains me that behind my motivation to give glory to God, sin is right there trying to cause me to desire glory for myself instead.
(J. R. Miller, “Ministry of Comfort” 1898)
“Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men–to be seen by them.” Matthew 6:1
One of the most difficult lessons to learn, is self-effacement. It seems to us, that we have a right to put our name on every piece of work we do, and to get full honor for it. We like people to know of the good and virtuous things we do–the kindnesses we show, our gifts, our sacrifices, and our services.
SELF always dies hard.
John the Baptist, in his life and ministry, illustrated the grace of self-effacement as few other men have done. When he first began to preach, great throngs flocked about him. But when Jesus came–the crowds melted away from John and went after the new preacher. John rejoiced in seeing Jesus thus honored, though at the cost of his own fame. “He must increase–but I must decrease” was his answer, when his disciples grew envious of the Galilean Rabbi. He understood that the highest use to which his life could be put–was to add to the honor of his Master. He was glad to be unnoticed, to have his own name extinguished, that the glory of Christ might shine the more brightly.
Renunciation of self should characterize all who follow Christ. They should seek only to get recognition for Him, willing for themselves to be unrecognized and unhonored. Yet not always are the Master’s friends content to be nothing–that the praise may be given to Christ. Too often do they insist upon having their own name written in bold letters on their work. It would be the mark of a higher degree in spiritual attainment, if we were willing to be anonymous in every service for Christ.
Not only should we do all our work for the divine approval–but we should not be seeking to get our own name on what we do. If it is done solely for the honor of Christ, why should we be solicitous to have everybody know our part in it? Should it not be honor enough–to have Christ accept our work and use it?
Only what we do for the honor of Christ–is really gold and silver and precious stones in the spiritual building; all the rest is but wood, hay, and stubble, which cannot abide.
Are we willing to do deeds of service and love, and then keep absolutely quiet about what we have done? Is there not among us, too much of the spirit which our Lord so severely condemned–sounding a trumpet before us–when we are going out to do some deed of charity, some act of kindness?
“Everything they do–is done for men to see.” Matthew 23:5
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: depth, Piper, seeing and savoring, worship
For those of you that are familiar with John Piper, the following quote will be quite familiar! Familiar or not though, my forgetful heart forgets again and again the glory and awesomeness of God, and I forget that He is my treasure. I forget that my soul thirsts for the glory of God and not earthly comfort in its many different forms. I start seeing sin as attractive, and forget that it’s blinding me from His glory, distorting the truth of God and claiming it to be a lie. So I’m grateful and glad to hear from a teacher that truly understands the greatness of God, and rejoices in it greatly.
Piper quotes Jonathan Edwards, who says that “God is glorified not only by His glory’s being seen, but by it’s being rejoiced in. When those that see it delight in it, God is more glorified than if they only see it. His glory is then received by the whole soul, both by the understanding and the heart”.
He writes:
There are always two parts to true worship. There is seeing God and there is savoring God. You can’t separate these. You must see him to savor him. And if you don’t savor him when you see him, you insult him. In true worship, there is always understanding with the mind and there is always feeling in the heart. Understanding must always be the foundation of feeling, or all we have is baseless emotionalism. But understanding of God that doesn’t give rise to feeling for God becomes mere intellectualism and deadness. This is why the Bible continually calls us to think and consider and meditate, on the one hand, and to rejoice and fear and mourn and delight and hope and be glad, on the other hand. Both are essential for worship.
Today, we lack depth, and we lack a heart for Christ. But when we address one, we often neglect the other. I’m glad that Piper points out how both are in relation to the other. In the general Asian American Christian culture, it always frustrates me that we say that we have a hard time loving God and being passionate and yet we neglect to take up the word of God, and really try to understand it and chew on it. I do this myself. I can make every effort to stir up my emotions, but our love for God will be as deep as our understanding of Him, and our desire to know and treasure Him. May we worship God by seeing and savoring Him!
I really appreciate the deep, God-exalting, Christ saturated lyrics I often find in songs by Sovereign Grace Music. There’s a (sort of) new album by Na Band (part of Sovereign Grace Music) that I’ve been enjoying a lot called Looked Upon, or Lu in short. It heavily emphasizes the greatness of God and His grace to breathe life into our dead hearts. One song my favorite songs from the album is “What A Savior”:
Man of Sorrows, what a name
For the Son of God who came
Ruined sinners to reclaim, hallelujah
Bearing shame and scoffing rude
In my place condemned He stood
Sealed my pardon with His blood
Hallelujah, hallelujahSavior, You showed Your love
Defeated our sin, poured out Your blood
So we praise You, Lamb that was slain
We offer our lives to proclaim
What a SaviorGuilty, vile, and helpless we
Spotless Lamb of God was He
Full atonement, can it be? Hallelujah
Lifted up was He to die
“It is finished” was His cry
Now in heav’n exalted high
Hallelujah, hallelujahWhen He comes, our glorious King
All His ransomed home to bring
Then anew this song we’ll sing
Hallelujah, hallelujah
You can download the song here (for free!). You can also stream the whole Lu album for free here, and or purchase it here.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: legalism, lordship, obedience, Randy Smith
I came across this two part series on legalism by Randy Smith on biblebb.com, and it’s helpful. He addresses what legalism isn’t, and what it is. Sadly, I fall so easily into wrong understandings of both when I forget that I, and we, have been freed from slavery and brought under the Lordship of Christ, to love God by keeping His commandments, and we also lose sight of the glory and sufficiency of the cross, thinking that we can somehow earn the love of God and that we can add to what Jesus accomplished on the cross because the anguish of His soul was not enough.
I appreciate that Randy makes it clear that legalism must not be confused with the importance of obedience to Christ. With some of our definitions of legalism today, we would even wrongly label Jesus as a legalist.
Legalism is not obedience to Christ’s commandments
Jesus Christ has become our new Lawgiver. He expects us to follow Him in wholehearted obedience. In Luke 6:46 He said, “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” Understanding our freedom in Christ (Jn. 8:32, 36) is contingent upon understanding our slavery to Christ. Paul (Rom. 1:1; Gal. 1:10; Phil. 2:7; Tit. 1:1), James (Jas. 1:1), Jude (Ju. 1:1), Peter (2 Pet. 1:1) and John (Rev. 1:1) all gratefully acknowledge themselves as a “bondservant” of Jesus Christ. He is our Lord. He is our Master. As Christians we are commanded to do as He says. We have been set free to do as He says. Anything less robs our joy and fails to display our love for the Savior. “If you love Me, (Jesus said) you will keep My commandments” (Jn. 14:15).
You wouldn’t believe the number of people who have sought to abide by these expectations of Jesus Christ, only to be called legalists by other people who profess to be His children. Instead of rightly encouraging these individuals in their Christian commitment, these obedient saints are discouraged (by being wrongly critiqued as legalists) in their pursuit of doing what God desires.
He also points out the abundance of warnings in scripture of turning obedience to God into an attempt to earn His love, forgetting that we’re saved by God’s grace and nothing that we do. We do this out of selfishness, to gain credit and praise, and it assaults our relationship with the living God. This is a great “test” from the sermon to see if we’ve fallen into the trap of legalism. I failed.
Let’s say you had a spiritually rich week. I mean, it was one of those weeks where everything clicked in your relationship with God. A mountaintop experience if you will. Great devotionals every day. A few evangelistic opportunities. A week of faithful service at VBS. You really felt the nearness of God’s presence. And here you are on Sunday morning as the culmination of a great week, excited to meet corporately with God in worship.
Then let’s pretend next week doesn’t go as well. Your prayer time pushed aside by other activities. You yell at your husband and discipline your children in anger. You exchange Wednesday’s prayer meeting for a movie that violated your conscience. And then comes Sunday morning. God appears so distant. You’re convicted about your sins. You even debate going to church, but confess your sins and ask God to mercifully accept your worship.
Now here’s the big question: Which Sunday did God love you more? If you pick one over the other, you have you fallen into the trap of performance which is the sin of legalism.
As I said earlier, legalists are self-focused. They are far more aware of their own sins than what Christ accomplished on the cross. God wants you to look to Him more than you look to yourself. There is absolutely nothing wrong with self-examination, but as one wise pastor once told me a few years ago, “For every finger you point to yourself, point ten to Jesus Christ.”
We must understand that God’s love for us is based on the work of Christ. We didn’t earn it; we simply received it. It is undeserved on our part, but unconditional on His. I think many Christians have it backwards. We do not avoid sin in fear of losing God’s love; on the contrary we look to God’s perfect, unceasing and infinite love as a motivation to avoid sin. God’s love is the impetus that compels us to give ourselves to Him (2 Cor. 5:14). For those in Christ Jesus, there is nothing we can do to make God love us more and nothing we can do to make God love us less.
Legalism also leads to loss of joy. If we are focused on rule keeping, if we are focused on earning God’s acceptance through our efforts, if we are focused on trying to meet the convictions and standards of others, God becomes a gloomy killjoy and the vibrant relationship we desire with Him becomes dull, distant and difficult to bear. As we spin the plates of legalism, our Christian walk increasingly becomes a burden with the continual addition of another plate. And to keep the plates spinning, we’ll focus more on the plates, our legalistic rulebook, than our intimate and exciting and joyful walk with the living God.
I definitely appreciated the comforting slap in the face this sermon gave me, and I pray that I remember that “We do not avoid sin in fear of losing God’s love; on the contrary we look to God’s perfect, unceasing and infinite love as a motivation to avoid sin.”.
The sermon can be found here: Legalism 1, Legalism 2.
I’ve been reading John MacArthur’s short booklet, “Found: God’s Will”. I came across a helpful chapter on living the Spirit filled life. In this little excerpt, he writes of being saturated with the things of Christ, with His word and Person, by studying the book that discloses who He is. As Christians, we always say that we struggle with knowing God, intimacy with Him, obeying Him, or even thinking about Him daily, but we neglect the Word that God has breathed out for us know, treasure, and obey Him by. One common reason we give as an excuse for neglecting the Word (I should know, I’m guilty of this too!), is that we stop reading the Bible consistently because we don’t really get anything out of it, or because it’s too hard to understand. MacArthur gives a helpful response, and it’s helped me to see that a lot of my struggle with the Word, knowing and understanding it, is that I don’t spend time in it. We say “I tried reading the bible, but I didn’t get anything.” This is his response:
Let me share how I study the Bible, and how the Bible has come alive to me. I began in 1 John. One day, I sat down and read all five chapters straight through. It took me 20 minutes. Reading one book straight through was terrific. (The books of the Bible weren’t written as an assortment of good little individual verses. They were written with flow and context.
The next day, I sat down and read 1 John straight through again. The third day, I sat down and read 1 John straight through. The fourth day, straight through again. I did this for 30 days. Do you know what happened at the end of 30 days? I knew what was in 1 John.
Someone says to you, “Where in the bible does it talk about confessing our sins?” You see a mental image of 1 John, first chapter, right-hand column, half-way down (depending on your Bible). “Where does it say to love not the world?” Second chapter, right-hand column, half-way down. Where does it talk about sin unto death? Chapter 5, last page. You know 1 John!
…You might say, “My, are you smart!” No, I am not smart. I read it 30 times. Even I can get it then! Isaiah said to learn “precept upon precept, line upon line,… here a little, and there a little”(see Isa. 28:10-13). Then you have hidden it in your heart. After a while you are no longer a concordance cripple!
The more you study the Word of God, the more it saturates your mind and life. Someone is reported to have asked a concert violinist in New York’s Carnegie Hall how she became so skilled. She said that it was by “planned neglect.” She planned to neglect everything that was not related to her goal.
Some less important things in your life could stand some planned neglect so that you might give yourself to studying the Word of God. Do you know what would happen? The more you would study the Word of God, the more your minds would be saturated with it. It will be no problem then for you to think of Christ. You won’t be able to stop thinking of Him.
Brothers and sisters, let’s not take for granted and neglect the living and active Word of God, that is sharper than any double-edged sword, that penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; that judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart (Hebrews 4:12)! It pains me that I can go through the entire day without spending time in the Word of God, my Maker and Redeemer. If we love God, by His Spirit we ought to and need to love His Word too! Emotionally, we will not always be excited by the Word, but we can’t rely on our emotions to gauge the glory of God revealed in it. He never changes, and His glory will not diminish according to our feelings. Also, our flesh in itself will never desire the things of God. We need to trust in His promises, not our flesh, throw off the sin that blinds us from His glory, and put on Christ, digging deep into His precious Word. Dig in!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Imputed Righteousness, Penal Substitution, Sinclair Ferguson
These clips are interviews of Sinclair Ferguson from the upcoming Desiring God 2008 National Conference. He shares about two ideas that are critical in understanding the gospel and have really helped me to better understand the depth and glory of the cross: penal substitution and imputed righteousness.
Penal Substitution: That Christ died in my place, as the believer’s substitute. He bore the full weight of justice demanded by my sin. I should have taken the full, furious wrath of God for the for the sin that’s in my head, heart, and life against God, but he bore it in my place, paying for my legal debt in full. God made him who knew no sin to be sin so that in him, we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21)
Imputed Righteousness: Not only is our punishment paid for, we’ve been given a righteousness that isn’t our own. It’s put on, applied to us. For the person that has trusted in Christ alone for salvation and submitted to his Lordship, his righteousness is counted as ours. It’s like an exchange of unimaginable proportions: our sins for his righteousness. We can do nothing, but Christ has done it all.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12:1-2
This is a great article by J.C. Ryle on Hebrews 12:2. It’s definitely been a helpful and necessary shake up reminder for me to look to Christ in his death, living intercession, pattern, and coming return in the midst of taking it easy in this jobless and school-less first half of summer. Here’s a snippet, the link is right below:
In the phrase “looking unto Jesus,” it is useful and interesting to remember that the Greek word which, in our English Bible, we render “looking,” is only found here in the New Testament. Literally translated it means “looking off,”—looking away from other objects to one, only one, and looking on that one with a steady, fixed, intent gaze.
But, after all, the grand question which rises out of the text is this: What is it that we are to look at in Jesus? If we are to live habitually fixing the eyes of our mind on Christ, what are the special points to which we are to have regard? If “looking unto Jesus” is the real secret of a healthy, vigorous Christianity, what does the phrase mean?
And the object we are to look at, you will observe, is a PERSON,—not a doctrine, not an abstract theological dogma, but a living Person; and that Person is Jesus the Son of God. How much matter for thought lies there! Creeds and confessions are the necessary invention of a comparatively modern age. The first and simplest type of an apostolic early Christian was a man who trusted, and loved, a living Divine Person. Of head knowledge, and accurate definitions, perhaps he had but little store. Very likely he would have passed a poor examination in a latter day theological school. But one thing he did know: he knew, believed, loved, and could have died for, a living Saviour, a real personal Friend in heaven, even Jesus, the crucified and risen Son of God. Well would it be for the Churches of the nineteenth century, if we had more of this simple Christianity among us, and could realize more the Person of Christ.
I believe the doctrine of election, because I am quite certain that, if God had not chosen me, I should never have chosen Him; and I am sure He chose me before I was born, or else He never would have chosen me afterwards; and He must have elected me for reasons unknown to me, for I never could find any reason in myself why He should have looked upon me with special love.
-Charles Spurgeon
Jonathan apart from God’s grace: selfish, self-righteous, sin and world loving, an enemy of God, dead in sin. By my own will, I would never have chosen to live for God and submit to Him. On my own, I would never understand that my greatest need was for a savior, and not a healthy, happy, successful life. I would rather live in darkness, loving the things that He hated, living with superficial righteousness, but filthy inside.
By the grace of God (His giving me what I could never earn and would never deserve): a slave to righteousness, a servant and child of the Living God. I did not choose God in my wisdom, because I have none, but He drew me to Him. As Jesus put it in John 6:65 “And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” By His unmerited favor, God broke down my own construction and understanding of His Son, and allowed me to know him for whom he is, and love him because he loved me first.
I now know that I am twice owned by God: As my Maker, God has every right over every fiber of my being, and as my Redeemer, He’s bought me with the priceless blood of Christ. I am a servant, brought into joyful submission to the maker of all things, the everlasting and only God. In Christ, I’ve been adopted, having no right to be called a child of God in myself, but because he (Christ) has paid my debt in full and I’ve been given a perfect righteousness that isn’t my own (Christ’s), I and we have received the Spirit of adoption (the Holy Spirit) as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”, and the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.
Understanding what I deserve in light of God’s infinite Holiness, His unwavering justice, and my exponentially increasing sin that demands His justice, I am understanding and learning more and more what John 1:16-17 speaks of about Christ, that we’ve received from him grace upon grace:
“From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known”.
Having been reconciled to God as Christ bore the full weight of the justice demanded by my sin and covered me with his perfect righteousness, I am justified (made right) in the sight of God, striving and struggling to live up to the righteousness that I have in Christ. I am so imperfect, but I live by His spirit with all of my might to love God with all of my heart, soul, mind and strength. How good is it to know that God in His sovereignty would take someone so undeserving and full of sin, someone like me, and break down my opposition to Him. He’s left me with no opportunity to boast, and nothing to take pride in, because I’ve done nothing but sin against Him, and throughout my life I’ve chosen nothing but to oppose God and the things that are of Him, and left me with only gratitude and love for Him. Praise God that He is sovereign, and that He is good.
1As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. 4But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Ephesians 2:1-10
