Things Leading to Death

We often recoil from the law. We are afraid of the policeman because we know he can find something that we are doing illegally. When it comes to God’s law, we shrink away for the same reason. Any thorough examination from God will reveal things leading to death.

          But God’s prescription for dealing with deadly poison in our hearts is to remove it to produce life and health. Why would you insist on clinging to those things that only give immediate pleasure and surely result in long-term sickness? In reality, there are many reasons. We like our pleasures. We like our sins. We don’t think about where they lead. We don’t care what God thinks. We are simply foolish. We bank on Gods’ forgiveness in the future, not knowing that our hearts will be too hard by then to even seek His forgiveness.

Whatever the reason is, it is not reasonable. The only truly reasonable response is to forsake those things leading to death and embrace the love of God in Christ Jesus. Repent, therefore, and turn to the Lord.

Praise

O Lord God, maker of Heaven and Earth, we rejoice in this Easter Season that the Lord Jesus has risen from the dead. That same Spirit that raised Christ up, also dwells in the midst of Your people, granting us life and joy. We glorify Your Holy name. Attend unto our worship, prayers, singing, bible reading, preaching and communion. Grant us abundant life in Jesus Christ and joy overflowing in Your Holy Spirit. We give You all glory, power and praise, both now and forever more. Amen.

God's Provision

We know that God is our provider. We have food, drink, shelter, transportation, all things needful for life. If we are paying attention, we realize that God is the One who sustains us in all of these things.

He provides for our physical needs but He doesn’t stop there. He provides forgiveness, restoration, healing of the soul, joy, peace. To wit, all the internal spiritual needs.

Jesus Christ has paid the price to save you from your sins. He has risen from the dead to grant you new life in Him. He has sent His Holy Spirit so that you might walk in this newness of life in an obedient manner. We shall not continue in sin but if we sin, we have an advocate, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is slow to anger and quick to forgive sins.

There is no need in this life or in the one to come that has not been fully provided by our kind, gracious, promise keeping God. Trust in Him and rest in peace and joy.

Confession of Sin

Luke 24:5-6 And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen.

Our Father, the one in whom there is life and who raises the dead, forgive us for remaining perplexed about Your power and might. Remove all of our doubt and unbelief and grant us faith to clearly see the risen Lord Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Empower us by Your Holy Spirit to repent and turn from sins and turn our faces towards our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

For Those Named Christian

Today, we baptize a little one and name him Christian. For all of you named Christian, the promises of God are held out to you. Are you weak? Sinful? Distressed? Heavy laden? Happy? Fulfilled? Doubting? Strong? Unsure? Confident? Needy? Self-sufficient? 

         It doesn’t matter how you feel today about God’s promises, or whether this is a good day in sanctification or a bad one. God is ever faithful and His promises are ever sure. In Christ Jesus the promises of God are always yay and amen. This day His forgiveness is for you. This day His Spirit is for you. This day, all of God’s promises are for you who are named Christian. Receive them with gratitude and joy.

Genesis 24:1-9 Sermon

Genesis 24:1-9

A Good Woman is Hard to Find

May 19, 2019

Lynchburg, Virginia

EXHORDIUM

         In our last section, Sarah died and it was the occasion for Abraham to purchase property and begin to take ownership by purchasing the cave of Macphelah in the land of Canaan. We see this is God’s plan as Hebron is the very place were David begins to rule. Furthermore, after Saul’s death, Hebron is the place where a decisive battle takes place to see whether God had chosen David or Saul. God makes his choice clear in choosing David.

         The title of the sermon, A Good Woman is Hard to Find is not a joke. It is true. Many men have gone astray from following God by choosing a woman that is not faithful. In the subsequent history of Israel, we see that women are often a snare to them. Of course, it takes the sinful lust of the men to fall into such sins. But we should understand the power of women to entice and lead astray. 

         God considers the choice of a spouse a very important matter. This is why one should not choose a spouse simply based upon physical attractions. In the Old Covenant, Israelites were to marry only Israelites. In fact, they were supposed to marry within their own tribe so that the land inheritances were not confused. But they were must marry within the covenant or suffer God’s chastisement.

         Keep in mind that this requirement to marry within the covenant was not simply blood lines. In the Geneology of Christ are Rahab of Jericho and Ruth the Moabite. These women forsook their land and their foreign gods and were joined to Yahweh and His Covenant people. What is proscribed is the sort of thing that Solomon did when he took foreign wives and honored their pagan gods by letting them stay in their religion. He even built them temples to worship false gods.

         I have seen how for the love of a woman, a young man can be challenged to serve God with all his heart, soul, mind and strength. If those are the character qualities that she upholds then many young men will rise to the challenge. But such a woman is hard to find and many young men are unwilling to look that hard or wait that long.

         In the history of Israel, we see a great deal of concern about offspring. The Covenant with Abraham begins with the ritual of a covenant sign in circumcision. It is important for us to see why. From God’s perspective, the entire project of His covenant promises is about godly offspring. He has promised to be a faithful husband and is looking for a faithful bride. 

Genesis 23:1-20 The Discipline of Faith

Genesis 23:1-20

The Discipline of Faith

May 5, 2019

Lynchburg, Virginia

EXHORDIUM

         There is a lot of laughter surrounding Sarah. God speaks to her about having a baby in her old age and she laughs and unbelieving laugh. She thinks she knows her body better than God. The angel chastises her and she comes around to faith. She gets pregnant at 90 years old and laughs, hardly being able to believe it. Isaac is born and she calls him, ‘he laughs’, knowing that God has done a great thing and given her laughter.

         Abraham laughed when God said he would have a son in his old age. He was disciplined to believe when God spoke. He couldn’t believe it either but it was the laugh as to why would God bless him so, not the laugh of unbelief at God’s ability to do so.

         Sarah and Abraham laughed together at the blessing of Isaac, coming to agree that God had poured His blessing upon them. They believed God and their belief was reckoned as righteousness.

         In chapter 23, Sarah is now quite old, 127 and at the end of her life. God had promised her descendants and land. She had a son, Isaac, who is now 37 years old and yet unmarried. She does not have grandchildren but must believe that what God said He would do, He would fulfill. Sarah and Abraham. still have no land of their own. They are sojourners in a foreign land. And so she must believe God for this promise as well.

Good Friday Homily

Good Friday Homily

4/19/2019

The Good in Good Friday

Lynchburg, Virginia

Prayer of Illumination- O Father in Heaven, we thank You for sending Your Son to die on the cross for us and for our sins. Grant us Your Spirit, we pray, that we might be empowered to fully lay down our lives for You, for our Lord Jesus and Your Holy Spirit. Help us to know and believe that as we lay ourselves down, forsaking our own desires, only then do we truly and fully become all that You desire us to be in Christ. Amen.

         

         This is Good Friday and it is good. We may think of it as Bad Friday for this is the day our Lord was murdered. But He was not simply murdered, His life and potential cut short of doing all that He could or should do. No, He gave His life for sinners and He did so at just the right time and in just the right place. 

Wicked men killed Him but just as the Father had planned. For Acts 4:26-28The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ. For of a truth against Thy holy child Jesus, whom Thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, For to do whatsoever Thy hand and Thy counsel determined before to be done.

         So, wicked men did wicked deeds but our Father accomplished His good will through them. It was good that it be so. It was good for us that Jesus died on the cross. Otherwise, we would still be dead in our sins.

We understand that we cannot pay for our sins. Only Jesus can do that and He has done so. But we can choose to hold ourselves back from Him or fully give ourselves to Him. 

We will only refuse to give ourselves to Him if we do not believe that He is good and that He desires the very best for us. We might choose to retain our own wisdom, our own freedom, our own desires. But Jesus has died to make man fully man. As long as we refuse Him and hold onto ourselves, then we will never be what God meant us to be. Jesus said, “Mark 8:35For whosoever will save his lifeshall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it.”

Jesus has died to bring peace between God and man. Jesus has died to bring peace between man and man. All those who have died with Christ on the cross are also those who have been raised with Christ on the third day. But those who refuse to die, who refuse to submit themselves fully to Jesus, will also fail to receive the life that is in Him.

So, we are reminded on this horrible day, we are reminded on this glorious day, that we must die. But we are also reminded that our Father is the Creator of the universe, that He speaks to the darkness and it produces light. He speaks to the weak and they are made strong. He touches the sick and they are healed. He touches the blind and the deaf and the lame and they see and hear and walk. He calls to the dead and they come forth from the tomb and cast off their garments of death and walk into life. 

Our Lord Jesus goes to the cross and we do not fear to go there with Him for He will arise and we will arise with Him. Amen.

Death's Epilogue

We preach Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. To unbelievers, a scandal and an outrage. To those who are being saved, the power of God.

Why is this? Is death good? No, death is not good. Death is an enemy and the last enemy that will be put to death. Death is a formidable foe. Even though condemned by Jesus’s death, death remains strong. He rattles his sword and attacks even the saints of God.

Death can make dead. But there is one thing that death cannot do. Death cannot make alive again. This is why we Christians do not fear death. He can harm us. He can even kill us. But he cannot keep us dead.

Because Jesus has risen from the dead, there is no more Pharisean/Sadducean debate about the Resurrection of the Dead. The dead do rise and all that are in Christ rise with Christ.
Thus, the Epilogue of Death is “In the end, death died and there was none who could resurrect him. And all those saints he killed, rose from the dead and stood over his grave and laughed at his inability to make alive again.”

Dear Saints, the death of Jesus was our death to the power of sin and death. The Resurrection of Jesus is the power of our life in Resurrection to life.

Disciplined Children

Dear Saints, some children despise their chastening. They do not like it when their father gives them a strong word. Little ones do not like it when their father gives them a spanking. 

         But if you want obedient, well-mannered, strong, happy, content teenagers and young adults, it is necessary to bring a lot of discipline in the early years. That outward fatherly discipline develops inward individual discipline. It is sometimes difficult for men to find the right balance of hardness and mercy, often too harsh or too soft. Not so with God who is the perfect Father.

         We are the children of God. Many of us suffer, even at His hand. He is the sovereign ruler and our father, the one who knows best what we need to be mature Christian men and women. His discipline of us proves that He is our Father. If He left us alone, we would have reason to worry. But He has not done so. Embrace the Lord’s Fatherly, good discipline as His beloved child. Practice this discipline of faith. 

Reconciled

Barnabas’s nephew, Mark, was the cause of a bitter separation between Paul and Barnabas. Paul took Silas as his assistant and Barnabas took Mark and they went their separate ways.

But later Paul and John Mark are reconciled and presumably Paul and Barnabas, as well.

These men must have finally realized the need to seek reconciliation because they, themselves, were reconciled to God in Christ.

Col 1:20-22 says we are reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in His sight, if you continue in the faith grounded and settled and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel…

This reconciliation of men to God and men to men is accomplished through the body of His flesh through death. The result is that we are presented before God as holy, unblameable and unreprovable in God’s sight. That is powerful language.

That is how you sit here in God’s presence, as long as you continue in the faith grounded and settled. You are reconciled. Holy. Blameless. Without reproof. This is the power of the gospel.

Taste and See

We have been talking about blindness and vision. The Scriptures encourage us to taste and see that the Lord is good. Of course, it is encouraging us to examine the Lord and His work, and to fully embrace Him, that is, taste His goodness.

In this meal, we get to taste and see that the Lord is good. In this meal, we examine the bread and wine, and we contemplate not just the work of the Lord but the work of the Lord for us, for me, for you.

The bread, the body, the wine, the blood. The life of Jesus spilled out to give you life. The Father’s love, who gave His only Son for you and His indwelling Holy Spirit, our Comforter. Taste all of the goodness and see that the Lord is good.

Full of Jesus

This meal is Christ’s bounty to you. The Father sent the Son and the Son gave His all for you. He laid Himself down, the sacrifice consumed by the Father as wholly pleasing. And if you are in Jesus, then you are wholly pleasing to the Father, as well.

Jesus promised to save you. He promised to be with you and never leave you. He sent His Holy Spirit to dwell with you that you might have life and that abundantly. His Spirit testifies that the Father is the Creator of all things and that the Son is the Savior of the World.

When you eat and drink in faith, you acknowledge the Father’s grace and mercy in His Son. As you eat and drink in faith, you are filled up with Jesus Christ, knowing that He is the Alpha and the Omega, and all points in between, for in Him is life and health and peace. Eat and drink in faith and be filled with Jesus Christ.

Well Fed

Hagar and Ismael were perishing of thirst in the wilderness within sight of the well of their salvation. They simply had to look up to see that God had provided life for them. But their circumstances were too overwhelming. All they could do was sit down in desperation to die.

Ishmael called out to God and God sent an angel to deliver them from death.

You have come to church this morning for various reasons and in various conditions. Some in despair, some in joy, some in hope, some in pain, some in doubt, some in great faith but all of you within eyesight of the well of salvation.

All of the ancient promises of God, even the promise in laughing Isaac, were pointing at Jesus. Do you see Him? Here we are again at Communion, the Son of God, given for you. Do you believe this? If so, then you are well watered, well fed. The well of Salvation has been provided for you. Eat and drink and be filled.

You Know Me

We can take this phrase two ways. The sheep know the voice of their shepherd. When we come to the Lord’s Table, it is familiar, we know the Lord Jesus has given Himself for us and we gladly do what He told us to do to remember His death and to embrace His life.

It is also a command, Know Me. It is our duty to get to know Jesus better and this regular meal informs us. We contemplate who Jesus is and what He has done. We remember that He told us to eat this memorial meal until He comes again. So, He desires that we remind ourselves again and again about who He is and what He has done and what it means for us to be in Him. This fulfills His command for us to know Him.

You do know Him and what He has done and that He extends His grace to you daily and in this meal. Embrace Christ Jesus given for you.

Tangible Signs

God is kind to us. He knows our frame, that we are but babes in many ways. That is why He gives us tangible signs, water, bread and wine.

         In the water, we see that God has washed us from sin. The water washes the body but it represents the blood that washes the soul. If your faith is weak, remember your baptism, the water and the blood.

         He also gives us bread and wine. At Communion, we feast on Jesus Christ. To some, a macabre picture. But these things are Spirit and life. We receive Jesus, His broken body of death that satisfied divine justice. We receive His blood which cleanses us from all unrighteousness. If your faith is weak, remember God’s invitation to Commune with Him in the bread and in the wine.

         The water, and the bread and the wine; tangible signs of God’s grace, mercy and kindness extended to you in Jesus Christ.

Spiritual Lasik

You heard me say before that spankings improve memory. They do. They also improving hearing. Now, seriously, I don’t mean they literally improve hearing or memory. But discipline does change your desire to do that which is right. And when you have the will to do that which is right, then obedience follows.

         Now this sort of discipline also improves vision. It enables you to see who God is and to remember to keep looking with eyes of faith. We all need spiritual lasik surgery. When the Lord disciplines us, it is so that he can heal our hearing and our vision, so that He can give us ears that hear and eyes that see that Jesus is Lord of everything.

         Use this time of confession and repentance as a spiritual discipline so that the Lord can do His spiritual lasik so that you can taste and see that the Lord is good.

Great Mercy

Dear Saints, we know that the Lord is merciful. He looks down upon us, considers our frames, and through the shed blood of Jesus, forgives our sins so that we might dwell with Him in peace. 

But He is more than merciful. He has great mercy. His mercy extends far beyond what we consider prudent or just or even wise. His mercy is lavish. It goes beyond the pale. Like the father of the prodigal, He reaches down to us and extends His kindness, love and joy to us. We may squander His lavishness but when we come to our senses and return to Him, He kills the fatted calf and throws a feast in our honor. That is great mercy.

Laugh of Unbelief

When you laugh, how do you laugh? Do you laugh in unbelief, like Sarah, when she heard she was to have a child? She thought she was beyond the blessing of God, too old, too used up, to receive the promise, even from the Almighty God. That is one temptation.

         Or, do you laugh like Sarah after the birth of Isaac, as one who cannot believe the manifold blessings of God to have actually fallen on her? She bore a child and was amazed. Why would the Lord bless her so?

         Or do you laugh like Ishmael, who thinks he has privileges over others, the most important son, who cannot see his own haughtiness? 

         Is your laugh the right kind of laugh? We should be amazed at God’s kindness to us, even in the midst of impossible circumstances. We should respond like Abraham who believed that God would do what He said He would do, namely provide the well of salvation for us in His Son, Jesus. 

         If your laughter is unbelief, or scorn, or haughtiness, then turn to Christ now in faith and look to God’s promises in Jesus.

Living Water

When we drink from the well of life, from the fount of living water, we have life in ourselves. Jesus said to the woman at the well, drink from the water that I shall give you and you shall never thirst again. What water? The water of life. The Words that He spoke to her were spiritual and life-giving. She had only to believe that Jesus was the Christ, to repent of her sins and to follow Jesus.  Drink of that water and you will have all the water you will ever need.

Believing in Jesus is the well of salvation, embracing Christ Jesus in all that He is; Lord of all, Savior of the world, the perfect sacrifice who gave His own body and blood, the author and finisher of our faith, the risen Lord, the sender of the Holy Spirit, the one coming again at the end of the age. Drink of that water and you will have all the water you will ever need.