Saturday, March 27, 2010

By Grace Alone: How the Grace of God Amazes Me

Below are some excerpts from Dr. Sinclair Ferguson's book "By Grace Alone: How the Grace of God Amazes Me." Visit here for more information about the book.

Page xiv - A chief reason for the weakness of the Christian church in the West, for the poverty of our witness and any lack of vitality in our worship, probably lies here: we sing about “amazing grace” and speak of “amazing grace,” but far too often it has ceased to amaze us. Sadly, we might more truthfully sing of “accustomed grace.” We have lost the joy and energy that are experienced when grace seems truly amazing. With the help of Pastor Sibomana’s hymn, these pages reflect on God’s grace from seven angles. Tasting the power of the grace of God can refresh the inner sanctuaries of our being, and banish the spiritual lethargy and indifference that take God’s goodness and love for granted. After all, if we are not amazed by God’s grace, can we really be living in it? By its very nature, God’s grace astonishes those who taste it and amazes those who receive it.

Page 3 - “Most assuredly, I say to you,” Jesus said, “whoever commits sins is a slave of sin” (John 8:34). Does this really need to be underlined? Jesus thought it did, and perhaps someone reading these pages may need a little help to understand what Jesus was saying here: • We do not become sinners by committing specific acts. • We commit specific acts of sin because we are sinners. In short, my problem is not the isolated actions that I see as aberrations from what I really am. I am deceiving myself if I think that way. These actions are not aberrations but revelations of what is in my heart. They show that I commit sin because I am in bondage to it.

Page 8 - We can never atone for our own sin. We can never break its power. We can never come to God and say, “God, surely what I have done is enough to compensate for my sins.” Nothing we can do can possibly compensate. But God sent His own Son—think of it, His own Son—who stood in for us, in our place. He lived a perfect life. Since He had no sins of His own to atone for, He was qualified to make a sacrifice for our sins. No sacrifice we could make could ever be adequate to atone for sin. But He was able and willing to do it. Because of that, we can be set free from guilt and from the bondage it creates. Christ also sets us free in another way: through the truth about God—and about ourselves—that He reveals. If we believe in Him, we will come to know the truth, and the truth will set us free (John 8:32). That is His promise.

Pages 24, 25 - The elder brother was Jesus’ portrayal—indeed, His unmasking—of these Jewish leaders. He had poured out grace on sinful men and women, and they had responded to His message about the kingdom of God. They came to Him to receive love, forgiveness, welcome, and restoration. But the Pharisees were repelled by the grace the Lord Jesus displayed and utterly demeaned Him for it—as well as despising those who received it.

Jesus vividly portrayed the spirit of these men in the elder brother. When he hears the sound of celebration, he comes in from the fields, grits his teeth, and demands to know what is happening. He learns the news, but he refuses to go in or share any part of the celebration. Grace, you would think, would make him happy. But it makes the elder brother miserable. He seems incapable of either receiving or rejoicing in grace. What irritates the older brother about grace is precisely that it is grace. In his eyes, the younger son does not deserve what he is receiving. Has his father no sense of justice? The tragedy is that he himself has never enjoyed a relationship of grace with his father.

What a picture of a person whose religion has no place for grace, and who therefore never experiences it. His religion is his bondage, not his freedom. He is held captive by what Paul calls a “spirit of bondage” (Rom. 8:15). He is a tragic figure indeed.

Page 25 - Religion can be bad for your spiritual health. Engaging in religious duties (even good ones) can be very deceptive. It can dis-grace grace.

Page 50 - Contemporary men and women find it almost impossible to conceive that they were made to glorify and to enjoy God. It would perhaps be more accurate to say that the very idea of living for the glory of God appears to be many people’s idea of hell. We might rework the famous words in Jean-Paul Sartre’s play No Exit, “Hell is other people.” To many, hell is the presence of God. But to live for ourselves, that is heaven. Or is it? Tragically, instead of finding profound and lasting pleasure in God’s world, we find only increased alienation there.

Page 59 - Can we really be righteous in God’s sight? Yes, but the truth is even more remarkable—in Jesus Christ, I am as righteous in God’s sight as Jesus Christ Himself. How can that be? The only righteousness with which I am righteous is Jesus Christ’s righteousness. It is as if He has said to me: “Here is my righteousness. Wear it; it is yours. It fits your needs perfectly and completely.” As I stand in God’s presence and He looks at me, I hear Him say: “Where have I seen that righteousness before? Come near. I recognize it now. That is My Son’s righteousness you are wearing. Enter! You are welcome—and safe—here.”

Page 65 - You would not expect a non-Christian to find the grace of God amazing. Sadly, we Christians, who sing about “amazing grace,” sometimes lose sight and sense of its graciousness. It ceases to amaze us. To the extent this is true, we have lost our grip on the gospel of Jesus Christ. We need to rediscover how amazing the grace of God is.

Page 71 - Here is the heart of the plan of God and the wonder of the gospel. The best of all men dies as though He were the worst of all criminals. This is not merely a matter of human wickedness destroying a good man. It is the heart of the purpose of God, as Isaiah had long before prophesied (Isa. 53:4–6, 10). Behind the handing over of the Lord Jesus—by Judas Iscariot, by Herod, by the priests, by Pontius Pilate—stood the purposes of His heavenly Father handing Him over to the cross in order to die in the place of sinners. He bore God’s judgment and wrath against our sin. What inexpressible love this is.

Page 84 - Satan cannot ultimately destroy a Christian believer. But he is well able to destroy our assurance and our joy—our pleasure in the gospel. So we need to find in the grace of God a defense against those fiery darts of the Evil One. But the next verse of the hymn speaks about “Satan’s art”: “When evil thoughts arise through Satan’s art.” What is “Satan’s art”? The “art” of Satan is his ability to produce sinister thoughts in the mind of the Christian believer. By this I do not mean what the Bible regards as the works of the flesh or the lust of the eyes. Satan, of course, does work through the “eye gate” and the “passion gate” to produce evil thoughts and deceive believers, as he did in David’s sin with Bathsheba. But ultimately, the most sinister thoughts that Satan insinuates into our minds are not enticements to sin but suspicions about God Himself. He always plots to cause us to “exchange the truth of God for the lie” (Rom. 1:25).

Page 110 - But when you begin to understand that in Christ you died to sin and have now been delivered from the dominion of sin; that you are no longer under its bondage; that you no longer need to be a victim of its subtle paralysis—then you find yourself saying not only “Isn’t this amazing grace?” but “What glorious freedom Jesus Christ has bought for me on the cross.”

Friday, March 26, 2010

O how the grace of God amazes me



Dr. Sinclair Ferguson's book "By Grace Alone: How the Grace of God Amazes Me" was inspired by a hymn by African pastor Emmanuel T. Sibomana.

"Although little is known about Sibomana," wrote Karisa Schlehr, "we do know he was born in 1915 and became a Christian in his late teens or early twenties. In 1946, he published the hymn that would be later translated as 'O How the Grace of God Amazes Me.'"

Here are the seven stanzas of the hymn:

1. O how the grace of God amazes me! It loosed me from my
bonds and set me free! What made it happen so?
His own will, this much I know, set me, as now I show, at liberty.

2. My God has chosen me, Though one of nought, to sit beside my
King in heaven's court. Hear what my Lord has done,
O, the love that made Him run to meet His erring son! This has God wrought.

3. Not for my righteousness, for I have none, but for His mercy's
sake, Jesus, God's Son, suffered on Calvary's tree;
Crucified with thieves was He; Great was His grace to me, His wayward one.

4. And when I think of how, at Calvary, He bore sin's penalty
instead of me, Amazed, I wonder why
He, the sinless One, should die for one so vile as I; My Saviour He!

5. Now all my heart's desire is to abide in Him, my Savior
dear, In Him to hide, my shield and buckler He,
cov'ring and protecting me; from Satan's darts I'll be safe at His side.

6. Lord Jesus, hear my prayer, Your grace impart; When evil thoughts arise
through Satan's art, O, drive them all away
and do You, from day to day, keep me beneath Your sway, King of my heart.

7. Come now, the whole of me, eyes, ears, and voice. Join me, creation
all, with joyful noise: Praise Him who broke the chain
holding me in sin's domain and set me free again! Sing and rejoice!

An mp3 of the hymn may be downloaded here.

Christ’s resurrection and the dawn of the new creation

Tony Reinke, in preparation for Easter, collected quotes to study with an open Bible to help him focus on "one of the many implications of Christ’s resurrection: how the resurrection marks the dawning of the new creation." He compiled a PDF file with the quotes, and his notes and quotes follow this rough outline:

1. Christ as the “Firstborn” and “Firstfruits” in Colossians 1 and 1 Corinthians 15
2. In 1 Corinthians 15:35–49
3. In the two Adams of 1 Corinthians 15:20–23 and 42–49
4. In Ephesians 1:15–23
5. In Colossians 1:15–20
6. In Revelation 3:14
7. In Revelation 21
8. In the practice of the Lord’s Day
9. Summary Quotes

Download the document here (PDF).

Endtimes e-book and timeline animation

David Murray has a helpful e-book titled "Endtimes Q&A," which is an expanded version of “The Four (Main) Millennial Views” he presented at the 2010 Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology in Grand Rapids. He also has several narrated animations of the four main views: amillennialism, dispensational premillenialism, postmillennialism, and premillennialism.

Amillennial timeline animation:


Dispensational premillenial timeline animation:


Postmillennial timeline animation:


Premillennial timeline animation:

The Story of Zac Smith

Whatever people may think to the contrary, God is, God is great, and God is good. May God continue to grace Zac Smith so that he lives by the strength that God supplies in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. to him belong the glory forever and ever. Amen. (1 Peter 4:11)

All good things secured by Christ on the cross

“Everything that we know and appreciate and praise God for in all Christian experience both in this life and in the life to come springs from this bloody cross.

Do we have the gift of the Spirit? Secured by Christ on the cross.

Do we enjoy the fellowship of saints? Secured by Christ on the cross.

Does he give us comfort in life and death? Secured by Christ on the cross.

Does he watch over us faithfully, providentially, graciously, and covenantally? Secured by Christ on the cross.

Do we have hope of a heaven to come? Secured by Christ on the cross.

Do we anticipate resurrection bodies on the last day? Secured by Christ on the cross.

Is there a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness? Secured by Christ on the cross.

Do we now enjoy new identities, so that we are no longer to see ourselves as nothing but failures, moral pariahs, disappointments to our parents—but deeply loved, blood-bought, human beings, redeemed by Christ, declared just by God himself, owing to the fact that God himself presented his Son Jesus as the propitiation for our sins? All this is secured by Christ on the cross and granted to those who have faith in him.”

—D.A. Carson, Scandalous: The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), 70-71

(HT: Of First Importance)

True freedom

John 8:31-38: So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?” Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are offspring of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you. I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father.”

Tim Challies (paraphrase and direct quote): Though our hearts and bodies may cry out for some kind of fulfillment outside of God's revealed will, we will ultimately find freedom in obedience to God. "No sin is worth the captivity it brings us. Sin enslaves, but God delivers. We find our freedom not apart from him and the boundaries he gives us, but with him and within those boundaries he has graciously given to us. Here is true fulfillment and true freedom."

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

What is grace?

“Grace is not a ‘thing’. It is not a substance that can be measured or a commodity to be distributed. It is the ‘grace of the Lord Jesus Christ’ (2 Cor. 13:14). In essence, it is Jesus Himself.”

- Sinclair Ferguson, By Grace Alone (Lake Mary, FL: Reformation Trust Publishing, 2010), xv.

(HT: Of First Importance)

Monday, March 22, 2010

Be watchful

Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. 1

The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. 2

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 3

"Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children's children-- 4

but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him." But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls. 5

And what I say to you I say to all: Stay awake." 6

fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. For I, the LORD your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, "Fear not, I am the one who helps you." 7
______________

1. Rev 3:2; 2. 1Pe 4:7; 3. 1Pe 5:8; 4. Deu 4:9; 5. Heb 10:38,39; 6. Mar 13:37; 7. Isa 41:10,13

Check out more of "Samuel Bagster's 'Daily Light' Devotions," which "consists of brief groupings of scripture passages which speak to prominent Biblical themes - two themes (morning and evening) for each day of the year. Daily Light appends no commentary, but simply allows scripture to speak for itself."

The Story of God

“If you read the Bible from cover to cover you realize that it narrates (proclaims!) a true and cohesive story: the good news that through Jesus Christ God has entered history to liberate and renew the world from its bondage to sin and suffering. This is the story of God, who pursues the restoration of his creation at the cost of his own life. He is making all things new (Rev 21:5)! That’s the simple and yet profound, life- and world-altering plotline of the Bible.”

- Michael R. Emlet, CrossTalk (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2009), 41.

(HT: Of First Importance)

Monday, March 15, 2010

Forgiveness gives away the right to get even

John Piper: Forgiveness assumes grace. If I am injured by you, grace lets
it go. I don’t sue you. I forgive you. Grace gives what someone
doesn’t deserve. That’s why forgiveness has the word give in it.
Forgiveness is not “getting” even. It is giving away the right to
get even. (The Passion of Jesus Christ: Fifty Reasons Why He Came to Die, page 36)

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Henry Scougal on humility

"Humility" imports a deep sense of our own weakness, with a hearty and affectionate acknowledgment of our owing all that we are to the divine bounty. This is always accompanied with a profound submission to the will of God, and great deadness towards the glory of the world and applause of men. (The Works of Henry Scougal (1650-1678), page13)

(HT: Joshua Harris)

The Gift of Gifts

Here's a prayer titled "The Gift of Gifts" from "Valley of Vision: A collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions" edited by Arthur Bennett (pages 27-28):

O SOURCE OF ALL GOOD,

What shall I render to thee for the gift of gifts,
thin own dear Son, begotten, not created,
my Redeemer, proxy, surety, substitute,
his self-emptying incomprehensible,
his infinity of love beyond the heart's grasp.

Herein is wonder of wonders:
he came below to raise me above,
was born like me that I might become like him.

Herein is love;
when I cannot rise to him he draws near on
wings of grace,
to raise me to himself.

Herein is power;
when Deity and humanity were infinitely apart
he united them in indissoluble unity,
the uncreated and the created.

Herein is wisdom;
when I was undone, with no will to return to him,
and no intellect to devise recovery
he came, God-incarnate, to save me
to the uttermost,
as man to die my death,
to shed satisfying blood on my behalf,
to work out a perfect righteousness for me.

O God, take me in spirit to the watchful shepherds,
and enlarge my mind;
let me hear good tidings of great joy,
and hearing, believe, rejoice, praise, adore,
my conscience bathed in an ocean of repose,
my eyes uplifted to a reconciled Father;
place me with ox, ass, camel, goat,
to look with them upon my Redeemer's face,
and in him account myself delivered from sin;
let me with Simeon clasp the new-born child
to my heart,
embrace him with undying faith,
exulting that he is mine and I am his.

In him thou hast given me so much
that heaven can give no more.

Truthless love, loveless truth

Tim Chester:

Love without truth is like doing heart surgery with a wet fish.

But truth without love is like doing heart surgery with a hammer.

You Can Change: God’s Transforming Power for Our Sinful Behavior and Negative Emotions, p. 158.

(HT: Justin Taylor)

Thursday, March 11, 2010

You can't get to know God on the fly

Paul Miller (A Praying Life, page 47):

Jesus' example teaches us that prayer is about relationship. When he prays, he is not performing a duty; he is getting close to his Father.

Any relationship, if it is going to grow, needs private space, time together without an agenda, where you can get to know each other. This creates an environment where closeness happen, where we can begin to understand each other's hearts.

You don't create intimacy; you make room for it. This is true whether you are talking about your spouse, your friend, or God. You need space to be together. Efficiency, multitasking, and busyness all kill intimacy. In short, you can't get to know God on the fly.

If Jesus has to pull away from people and noise in order to pray, then it makes sense that we need to as well.

(HT: Joshua Harris)

-

The Difference between the converted and the unconverted

William Arnot:

The difference between an unconverted and a converted man is not that one has sins and the other has none; but that the one takes part with his cherished sins against a dreaded God, and the other takes part with a reconciled God against his hated sins.

—Laws from Heaven for Life on Earth: Illustrations of the Book of Proverbs (orig., London: T. Nelson and Sons, 1884), p. 311.

(HT: Justin Taylor)

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Warfield on the joyfully exultant tone of miserable sinner Christianity

B.B. Warfield (1851–1921), from his essay, “’Miserable-Sinner Christianity’ in the Hands of the Rationalists,” in The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield, vol. 7, pp. 113-114:

We must always be accepted for Christ’s sake, or we cannot ever be accepted at all.

This is not true of us only “when we believe.”

It is just as true after we have believed.

It will continue to be true as long as we live.

Our need of Christ does not cease with our believing; nor does the nature of our relation to Him or to God through Him ever alter, no matter what our attainments in Christian graces or our achievements in Christian behavior may be.

It is always on His “blood and righteousness” alone that we can rest.

There is never anything that we are or have or do that can take His place, or that can take a place along with Him.

We are always unworthy, and all that we have or do of good is always of pure grace.

Though blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ, we are still in ourselves just “miserable sinners”: “miserable sinners” saved by grace to be sure, but “miserable sinners” still, deserving in ourselves nothing but everlasting wrath. That is the attitude which the Reformers took, and that is the attitude which the Protestant world has learned from the Reformers to take, toward the relation of believers to Christ.

There is emphasized in this attitude the believer’s continued sinfulness in fact and in act; and his continued sense of his sinfulness. And this carries with it recognition of the necessity of unbroken penitence throughout life. The Christian is conceived fundamentally in other words as a penitent sinner.

But that is not all that is to be said: it is not even the main thing that must be said.

It is therefore gravely inadequate to describe the spirit of “miserable sinner Christianity” as “the spirit of continuous but not unhopeful penitence.” It is not merely that it is too negative a description, and that we must at least say, “the spirit of continuous though hopeful penitence.” It is wholly uncomprehending description, and misplaces the emphasis altogether.

The spirit of this Christianity is a spirit of penitent indeed, but overmastering exultation.

The attitude of the “miserable sinner” is not only not one of despair; it is not even one of depression; and not even one of hesitation or doubt; hope is too weak a word to apply to it.

It is an attitude of exultant joy.

Only this joy has its ground not in ourselves but in our Savior.

We are sinners and we know ourselves to be sinners, lost and helpless in ourselves.

But we are saved sinners; and it is our salvation which gives the tone to our life, a tone of joy which swells in exact proportion to the sense we have of our ill-desert; for it is he to whom much is forgiven who loves much, and who, loving, rejoices much.

(HT: Justin Taylor)

Sunday, March 7, 2010

What you can do with the gospel

Justin Taylor provides a sample list from two verses of what we can do with the gospel.

You can (and should):

• preach it
• hear it preached
• deliver it
• receive it
• believe it
• be saved by it
• remember it
• remind others of it
• stand in it
• hold fast to it

“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.”—1 Corinthians 15:1-2

Whatever is not from faith is sin

"The most penetrating and devastating definition of sin that I am aware of in Scripture is the last part of Romans 14:23: "Whatever is not from faith is sin." The reason it is penetrating is that it goes to the root of all sinful actions and attitudes, namely, the failure to trust God. And the reason it is devastating is that it sweeps away all our lists of dos and don'ts and makes anything, from preaching to house-painting, a candidate for sin. In the original language, this is stressed even more than in our versions: it says, "Everything which is not from faith is sin." Anything, absolutely any act or attitude which is owing to a lack of trust in God is sin, no matter how moral it may appear to men. God looks on the heart." (John Piper)

Faith is being satisfied in all the God promises to be for us in Jesus Christ. (John Piper)

Every time you sin, you are diminishing your ability to find your joy and satisfaction in God.