Alzheimer's and Kingdom Service

I was ministered to today by Joyce Spiaggi, a member of First Baptist Fisherville (where I pastor). She is taking care of her mother who has Alzheimer's disease. I went to visit Joyce to encourage her but I was the one encouraged as I saw her love, patience, care, and service to her mother.

One of the things I've admired about Joyce is that even though she has this burden she carries at all times, she rarely misses Sunday worship (or Sunday School). But she told me today that she wished that she could be more involved.

I told her that the most godly thing she could be doing right now is what she is currently doing: serving her elderly mother. See, sometimes its easy to fall into the trap of thinking that kingdom work/ministry only takes place between the walls of the church building. Now, to be sure, I believe that if you aren't actively involved in the life of the local church (unless providentially hindered), you are out of the will of God as a Christian. Study the epistles and see how the gospel imperatives can only be obeyed in the context of the gospel community (the church).

Having said that, our kingdom roles extend outside the context of the church into our spheres of influence. In Joyce's case, in this season of life, it's her mother.

Consider these words I recently read from pastor/scholar Philip Ryken.

Kingdom work can include any good thing that is done for Christ as King—anything that advances his kingdom, or opposes his proud enemies, or speaks in defense of his kingship. We can do kingdom work in the marketplace. Whenever we make a fair sale, build a solid house, or shine a good shoe—if we do it for Jesus—we are advancing the cause of our King by bearing witness to the values of his kingdom. We can also do kingdom work in the home. Whenever we put beautiful flowers on the table, or pick up our shoes off the floor, or decide to be the first to say, “I’m sorry,” we are bearing witness to the kingdom of God. Then we can do kingdom work in society. Whenever we oppose the evil of abortion, or work for the end of child abandonment, or take an active role in what is happening in the lives of people in our neighborhood, this too is kingdom work. We also do kingdom work through the ministry of the church: inviting friends to worship, passing out Bibles, welcoming people with disabilities, supporting workers overseas, laboring in prayer for people doing all kinds of ministry that we ourselves are not called or gifted to do. This is all the more true when we tell people the gospel in words they can hear and understand, which is the most direct way to advance the kingdom of Jesus Christ (P. G. Ryken, 1 Kings, 28-29).

God's Unwavering Agenda: Our Holiness

Making us holy is God's unwavering agenda until we are taken home to be with him. He will do whatever he needs to produce holiness in us. He wants us to be a community of joy, but he is willing to compromise our temporal happiness in order to increase our Christlikeness (Lane and Tripp, How People Change, 6).

The Gospel Offers Life Before Death

We find it much easier to embrace the gospel's promise of life after death than we do its promise of life before death! (Timothy Lane, Paul Tripp, How People Change, 5).

Influence and the Kingdom of Christ

Whatever power, interest, or influence, men have--they ought to improve it to the utmost for the preserving and advancing of the kingdom of the Messiah (Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary on the Whole Bible,vol. 2, Judges to Job).

Only Two Kinds of People: Which One Are You?

There are only two kinds of people—those who say “Thy will be done” to God or those to whom God in the end says, “Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell choose it (C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, 116; The Great Divorce, 69).

Saving Faith is Coming to King Jesus on His Terms

If your agenda is the end, then Jesus is just the means; you’re using him. But if Jesus is the King, you cannot make him a means to your end. You can’t come to a king negotiating. You lay your sword at a king’s feet and say, “Command me" (Tim Keller, King's Cross, 106-07).

The Centrality of God and Worship

The loss of God’s centrality in the life of today’s church is common and lamentable. It is this loss that allows us to transform worship into entertainment, gospel preaching into marketing, believing into technique, being good into feeling good about ourselves, and faithfulness into being successful…God does not exist to satisfy human ambitions, cravings, the appetite for consumption, or our own private spiritual interests. We must focus on God in our worship, rather than the satisfaction of our own personal needs. God is sovereign in worship; we are not. Our concern must be for God’s kingdom, nor our own empires, popularity or success (The Cambridge Declaration: A Statement by the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals,1996).

Our Present Existence: A Preface to Eternity

As we go in to our new week, consider these words from Scottish theologian Thomas Boston who once wrote, our present life is only a short preface to a long eternity (Thomas Boston, Human Nature in Its Fourfold State, in The Complete Words of the Late Rev. Thomas Boston of Ettrick, 8:244).

Sobering if you think it about, isn't it? This should remind us all that to be consumed with the temporal at the expense of the eternal is foolish, vain, and eternally shortsighted.

So, as you go into the week, set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory (Col 3:2-4).

Irony of Ironies: Saving Grace Costs You Your Life

Today, we discussed John the Baptist's forceful call to repentance. It seems today that repentance is all too often neglected in many pulpits/churches. It got me to thinking of a well known, but oft neglected statement by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Consider these penetrating words:

Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine...no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin....Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance....Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has....Such grace is costly...because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life....Grace is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him....The only man who has the right to say that he is justified by grace alone is the man who has left all to follow Christ (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship).

The Law's Just Sentence Has Been Satisfied in Christ for Believers

Over the last couple of weeks I have been leading a discussion with our VBS workers on the nature of the Gospel. The Gospel is outside of us. It is accomplished by the Triune God. We must respond in repentance and faith to experience its fruit; however, the Gospel is performed by God himself. Hear these perceptive words:

God has provided for your perfect deliverance from sin in Christ. Everything needed for this purpose was finished by him on the cross. He was your surety. He suffered for you. Your sins were crucified with him and nailed to his cross. They were put to death when he died, for he was your covenant-head, and you, as a member of his body, were legally represented by him and are indeed dead to sin by his dying to sin once.
The law has now no more right to condemn you, a believer, than it has to condemn him. Justice is bound to deal with you as it has with your risen and ascended Savior. William Romaine (The Life, Walk and Triumph of Faith, 280).

Sermon for June 26: "The 'Voice' to Break the Silence" (Luke 3:1-14)

Please pray for our service on Sunday as we resume our study of Dr. Luke’s Gospel, which we began during Christmas season. In our last time in Luke (12/26/10) we saw the 12 year old Jesus being gradually prepared for the task which the Father had assigned. His divine nature didn’t need preparation but his human nature was in need. This period of preparation is now at its end. As we pick up in Luke 3, its been some 18 years since we last heard from Jesus.

But before Luke even gets to Jesus’ public ministry, he turns to the forerunner for 2 reasons: (1) John must introduce Messiah (3:15-17). The "voice" crying in the wilderness was the prophetic hope (Isa 40:1-5). 2nd, John was the divine instrument in preparing hearts for the Messiah (3:1-14). The principal way to prepare for Messiah was to call people to repentance.

What is repentance? Repentance is a saving grace (Acts 11:28), where a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin (Acts 2:37, 38), and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ (Joel 2:12; Jer 3:22), does, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God (Jer 31:18, 19; Ez. 36:3 1), with full purpose of and endeavour after new obedience (Baptist Catechism).

As we consider this passage, please pray that God the Spirit will bring about this necessary repentance so that we can behold "the horn of salvation" (Luke 1:69) and so that we "might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days" (Luke 1:74b-75).

Anger: A Major Clue to the Idols of the Heart

All too often we are like Diotrephes, whom the New Testament describes as someone "who likes to put himself first" (3 John 9). But when we put ourselves on the throne, God is no longer the God of our lives; he is only another one of our servants. Rather than seeking his kingdom, we expect him to advance ours. Sooner or later we will get upset with him for not doing whatever it is that we expect him to do for us. Typically we get angry when we do not get what we want, which makes anger one of the best clues to our own private idolatries. When we are angry at the world or angry with God, it is almost always because we have the wrong person on the throne (Phillip G. Ryken, Commentary on 1 Kings, 10).

Are You Anxious? Despairing? Here's a Timely Word for You!

One day, perhaps, when we look back from God’s throne on the last day we shall say with amazement and surprise, “If I had ever dreamed when I stood at the graves of my loved ones and everything seemed to be ended; if I had ever dreamed when I saw the specter of atomic war creeping upon us; if I had ever dreamed when I faced the meaningless fate of an endless imprisonment or a malignant disease; if I had ever dreamed that God was only carrying out his design and plan through all these woes, that in the midst of my cares and troubles and despair his harvest was ripening, and that everything was pressing on toward his last kingly day—if I had known this I would be been more calm and confident; yes, then I would have been more cheerful and far more tranquil and composed (H. Thielicke, The Waiting Father, 88).

The Resurrection Means "Paid in Full"

After a criminal does his time in jail and fully satisfies the sentence, the law has no more claim on him and he walks out free. Jesus Christ came to pay the penalty for our sins. That was an infinite sentence, but he must have satisfied it fully, because on Easter Sunday he walked out free. The resurrection was God’s way of stamping PAID IN FULL right across history so that nobody could miss it (Tim Keller, King’s Cross, 219).

Are You Broken and In Need of Rescue? The Gospel is For You!

The Gospel simply means "good news." Note, the Gospel is not "good advice." That's moralism and religion, but it's not the Gospel. The Gospel is achieved outside of us. We experience its power and bear its fruit; but, nonetheless, the Gospel is not something we do, it's done outside of us "for us and our salvation."

The Gospel is the good news that "God has fulfilled his promise to send a Savior to rescue broken people, restore creation's glory, and rule over all with compassion and justice" (Bryan Chapell, What is the Gospel?, 7).

Indeed, that's why an apt summary of the gospel is "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners" (1 Tim 1:15).

Do you perceive yourself as a sinful, ungodly, wretch of a human being? Congratulations! You are qualified for the Savior's restoration program. In fact, those are the only kind who are qualified (Rom 4:5).

Inactive Church Membership: Not a Biblical Category

This is not to dismiss the reality of "shut-ins" who can't physically take part in the "body-life" of the local church; however, the idea that one can be a physically able member of a local church and yet not attend is absolutely foreign to the New Testament.

In this regard, I agree with the words of Tom Rainer: The only inactive members we see in the history of the New Testament fellowship are Ananias and Sapphira as they are carried out feet first from the Jerusalem church (see Acts 5:1-11) (High Expectations, 49).

Don't Keep Silent This Week!

Never keep silence or accustom yourself to reticence. You must speak out for the Christ. He who does not do so, or who is loathe to do so because of embarrassment, becomes guilty of denying his Savior (Abraham Kuyper, The Implications of Public Confession, 53-54).

A Timely Encouragement to Christian Fathers

To all the Christian dads out there who feel guilty today for blowing it and failing your children, Christ's death covers you fully (Tullian Tchividjian).

Two Testaments: One Gospel

I mentioned this morning in the sermon the Passover "service" that was prescribed by YHWY in Exodus 12. Tim Keller's thoughts on the significance of Passover are insightful:

Imagine you were in Egypt just after that first Passover. If you stopped Israelites in those days and said, "Who are you and what is happening here?" They would say, "I was a slave, under a sentence of death, but I took shelter under the blood of the lamb and escaped that bondage, and now God lives in our midst and we are following him to the Promised Land." That is exactly what Christians say today (Tim Keller, King's Cross, 172).

Children Need To Know They Are Sinners!

The question was recently posed to me as to whether we should use the term "sinner" with children. I understand the sentiment. No one wants to unnecessarily damage our children's self-image. Having said this, unless they understand and believe their dire situation in light of a infinitely holy God, they will never be brought to the place of desperation where they throw themselves upon the mercy of God in Christ. That is, they will never understand their need for the gospel.
Consider this:
Suppose you were standing in a long line at the bank. Suddenly, I grab you, jerk you out of line and drag you out of the building. You probably wouldn’t be happy. You’d say, “What do you think you’re doing? You hurt my arm, tore my shirt, and made me lose my place in line. On top of that, you made me look like a fool in front of everyone”
But, one simple fact would change your attitude to one of complete gratitude: the bank had just been taken over by terrorists. In the first scenario, you didn’t yet know the danger. In the 2nd scenario, you had become aware of the danger and you knew that you were doomed unless rescued.
Before our children can appreciate God’s grace, they need to know that they are justly under His wrath and condemnation--unless someone intervenes.
It's only in understanding their condition, that they celebrate the fact that someone has intervened--the Lord Jesus Christ, who lived the Torah life as our covenant keeping representative and died as our covenant breaking representative, and was raised from the dead for our vindication from judgment (Rom 4:25-5:1).
Yes, our children are sinners and they need to understand this. It serves as the backdrop for the greatest news in the universe: God's purpose to glorify himself in the salvation of sinners through the judgment of the Son of God, our substitute!

Tools for Discipleship

A friend of mine called to tell me he had the privilege of leading someone to Christ and asked what two books I would recommend them read through together. I was excited not only because God was gracious to save someone, but also because my friend had the wisdom to realize the responsibility fell on his shoulders to begin the discipling process with his friend. If you are in the position to read through a book with a new believer, I would recommend these two books to you as well:

The first is The Walk by Stephen Smallman. This book covers the basic elements of the Christian faith and gives a great description of orthodoxy (right belief) and orthopraxy (right living). To my knowledge, it is the best resource to put in the hands of a new believer.

The second book is Knowing God by J.I. Packer. It is a classic, and I've never met anyone who regretted spending the time to read it thoroughly and thoughtfully.

Of course there are many other great resources for new believers. Scott Hafemann's The God of Promise and the Life of Faith is a great overview of the bible, as is Far as The Curse is Found by Michael Williams. The Enemy Within by Kris Lundgaard is a good intro to sanctification. Bunyan's Pilgrims Progress is helpful, and reading the works of C.S Lewis is a good rule of thumb for believers young and old.

At the end of the day, the Spirit speaking through the Bible is sufficient to feed the sheep of God, but resources such as these can help give us pointers and aid in our task to make disciples of all nations.

Sermon for June 19: "A Gospel Mandate to Fathers" (Eph 6:4)

Please pray for our service on Sunday as we consider the crucial role that fathers (and mothers, to be sure) have in God's purpose to sum up all things in Christ (Eph 1:9-10).
Christ's victory has been achieved, no doubt, in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension to the right hand of God. However, God's people take part in the mop-up operation of this progressive triumph (the Great Commission) as we communicate the Good-News of this victory to a sin-fractured world.
This operation begins at home.
Parents, our highest goal in parenting (and to be sure we are mere instruments; this goal can only be effectually achieved by God the Spirit) is to "open their (our children) eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith" in the Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 26:18).

The story in which we find ourselves

"Faith in Jesus should be the means through which a Christian seeks to understand all of life and the whole of history. This is not just because the scriptural story is comprehensive, or because it happens to be the story that we have inherited, or because it is the story that works for us. We must take the Christian story seriously in this way because it is true and tells us truthfully the story of the whole of history, beginning with creation and ending with the new creation....There are numerous ways in which to encounter the Christan story. Church liturgy reminds us constantly of the story that should shape our lives. Hymns and choruses celebrate it. The creeds rehearse it as we confess our faith in God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Sermons explain its importance to our lives from week to week. But the authoritative source for the Christian story is the Bible itself." - Craig Bartholomew & Michael Goheen, The Drama of Scripture: Finding Our Place in the Biblical Story

By the Spirit, Through the Church and Family, To the World, For Christ's Glory

Last Sunday I spoke of the Plot of all plots, which is God's purpose to glorify himself by establishing his universal rule over all of creation through his Seed (the Lord Jesus Christ [Gal 3:16] and those in union with Christ [Gal 3:29]). If our lives aren't centered and embedded in that Plot, then we are playing Monopoly with our short lives. In keeping with this idea, I came across this statement today by Pastor David Fairchild in a book I am reading. I think what he says corresponds nicely to what I said.

Frequently we lose sight of that fact that the gospel reaches beyond our own families. We grow content with having nice children who say "please" and "thank you," and we forget that the gospel is meant to inform all of our relationships, especially the ones we have with those outside. Remembering the truths of the gospel and that they are for those sinners, the ones out there, will keep the parents from seeing gospel centeredness merely as a cul-de-sac where we have pious, covenant families who live only for their own holiness rather than giving themselves and their children away for the cause of the gospel and advancement of the kingdom. Christ is on mission from his throne, by his Spirit, through the church and our family, to the world, for his glory. We join in the mission of Christ as he turns to his own and says, "as the Father has sent me, so I send you." We are called to be the "light of the world."...Because of Christ's mission to seek and save the lost, we are to become part of the narrative and see ourselves as real actors in the drama of his redemptive story (David Fairchild).

Some Bad News and Some Good News

Let me give you some really bad news and then I will give you some really good news:
Our sin is worst than we ever dared to imagine.

But:

God’s grace is greater than we ever dared to hope

Of course, this grace is bound up in a person, the God-man Christ Jesus (2 Tim 2:1).

Christians and the Law

Christians still hear the law and are called to obey it, but as "the reasonable service" of their adoption as royal heirs, not as the condition of their receiving it. One becomes a beneficiary of the estate on the basis of another family member's achievements, received through faith, and then follows the "house rules" not as a way of gaining or keeping the inheritance but as a proper way of responding to our new surroundings in a new family (M. Horton, The Gospel Driven Life, 109-10).

Why Are Our Youth Leaving the Church When They Graduate?

Mark this down: If you don’t see nurturing your children in the gospel of Jesus Christ as your highest priority as parents (and to have "highest priorities" is to have "posteriorities" as well, which are things at the bottom of the list of priority), let me just tell you what very well may happen. You may know the Lord, and you may be committed to his church, but the culture will swallow alive your children.

Let me share some statistics: According to the SBC’s Family Life Council Study (2002), when churched youth leave home, 88% leave the church. In a 2007 LifeWay Research study, 70% of youth who leave home leave the church. According to the Assemblies of God study, 66% leave. And most optimistically (and the numbers aren't actually optimistic), a 2006 Barna study cites 61% of churched youth who leave the church when they leave home.

Let me give you my take on one of the primary reasons why this is so. Those familiar with Dorothy Sayer’s Lost Tools of Learning may recall how she explains the classical educational model of grammar/logic/rhetoric.

In our youngest years we’re sponges for grammar—not just of language but of everything: colors, names for things and proper names for people. This is the grammar they’ll use throughout life.

Then there’s the stage of logic, when they learn to argue, question and explore connections between various subjects (commonly called being a teenager).

Finally they reach the stage of rhetoric as they begin to communicate their convictions in their own words. Mike Horton asserts that those who’ve never learned the grammar tend to be always on the outside looking in. Those who’ve never learned to think clearly and to relate their knowledge in a coherent pattern (logic) often find that they simply have to take the "so-called" experts’ word for things. And those who haven’t learned to express themselves well (rhetoric) often find that they are captives to persuasive powers that may not share the core beliefs that are essential to their identity.

Horton argues (The Gospel Commission, 146-50) that growth in Christian discipleship can be compared to this model of learning. First, children learn the grammar of the gospel at home, but also through public worship.

In fact, after reading Horton, I came across this text in Exodus that supports what he is arguing. Listen to how Israel’s children learned the grammar of God's great act of redemption: Ex 12:25 And when you come to the land that the LORD will give you…you shall keep this service (Passover). 26 And when your children say to you, “What do you mean by this service? 27 you shall say, It is the sacrifice of the LORD’s Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.

So in this text, the children observe their parents and other adults worshiping, and it spurs questions: "What do you mean by this service?" (v. 26).

Think about this. Children will learn the grammar of the gospel only by watching and listening adults sing, read Scripture, pray, and picking it up from sermons, baptisms, and celebrations of the Lord's Supper. This means that they have to actually be around older Christians instead of spending all of their time with children their own age.

Could it be that "children's church" (which is a late 20th century fad) and our youth's Exodus "from" church when they leave home, is related. I strongly think so! Children need the grammar or when they reach the logic stage, they don't have any grounding or foundation from which to appeal when the culture/world makes its appeal for their souls.

Consider again the words of Exodus 12. This is God's prescribed method of teaching the children. They observe the covenant people worship and it teaches them. There's no better way, even if children's church is more entertaining (and easier for the parents).

Disciplining Children and the Gospel

The good news teaches us that the record of the Wise Son (Jesus) has been given to believing children--and that doesn't change during times of discipline. Although some children compound their sin during discipline by being stubbornly angry or sullen, they can be reassured that Jesus suffered through his time of punishment perfectly, without sinning and that is their record if they truly believe. Times of correction are to be times of gospel witness, reminding children that Jesus knows what it is to be punished and that he submitted to it even though he didn't deserve it (Fitzpatrick and Thompson, Give Them Grace, 102).

When an Entire Church is Aroused to "Sacred Energy"

Great things are done by the Holy Spirit when a whole church is aroused to sacred energy: then there are hundreds of testimonies instead of one, and these strengthen each other (Charles H. Spurgeon).

How Much Would You Give to Know Your Bible?

"An enthusiastic young man once introduced himself to a well-known Bible teacher with the words, 'Oh, Sir, I'd give the world if I knew the Bible like you do.' The older man looked him straight in the eye and replied, 'Good, because that is what it will cost you.'" (Referenced from the new autobiography, John MacArthur: Servant of the Word and Flock, pg. 17).

Sermon for June 12: "Behold the Priest-King" (Zechariah 6:9-15)

Please be in prayer for our worship service on Sunday as we consider this crucial Christological passage from Zechariah. One of the reasons we are looking at this passage is that we are preparing ourselves for the Gospel of Luke. The hope of Messiah doesn't come out of nowhere. We saw in Ruth and we see in Zechariah that the hope of Messiah was Israel's and the world's hope.

The problem with Judah (Israel) and the whole world since the Fall is that humanity has revolted against the reign of God and each of us prefers his own will to the will of God.

Furthermore, we are utterly incapable in and of ourselves of changing. Only the God-man, the last Adam, the true Davidic King, can rescue any of us from our revolt against the kingdom.

When we gaze and muse on what God has achieved in and thru his Son (and Zechariah and the Old Testament saints looked forward), we are gradually transformed and transferred from our pointless scripts and inserted into ultimate reality.

We fundamentally need this because this age of sin and death seduces us into thinking that this is the real world so that our pursuits, affections, and concerns are foolishly centered on earthly things that are transient, temporal, and vain.

Zechariah reminds us that the human condition hasn’t changed since Genesis 3. Hence, we have the same need: a messianic priest-king who will represent us as Mediator to God as God takes humans and creation to their intended divine goal.

In face, this is what all of the writing prophets are doing--setting forth the eschatological realities of God’s plan to encourage, warn, comfort, and exhort the people so that they will persevere with a “God’s story” mentality; a story that presses towards and culminates in a person, the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, our Priest-King.

Christian Righteousness and the Benediction of a Holy God

Christian righteousness is that level of goodness that can withstand the scrutiny of a perfectly holy God and earn the benediction, "You are good!" It is perfect obedience in both outward conformity and inward desire. It is goodness for the sake of God's great glory motivated by a pure and zealous love for God and neighbor. It is the right action at the right time for the right reason (Fitzpatrick and Thompson, 45).

Does this describe you? It has to in order for you to go to heaven. Pure, unadulterated, consistent love for God and our neighbor is the standard and requirement.

Of course, this doesn't describe any of us. But put this way, it sure makes us more grateful for God's grace in imputing Christ's perfect righteousness and record to our (believers) account, doesn't it? That's the glory of the doctrine of justification.

Parents, "Morality Without the Gospel Is Not Our Goal"!

Every way we try to make our kids good that isn't rooted in the good news of the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ is damnable, crushing, despair-breeding, Pharisee-producing law. We won't get the results we want from the law. We'll get either shallow self-righteousness or blazing rebellion or both (frequently from the same kid on the same day!). We'll get moralistic kids who are cold and hycrocritical and who look down on others...or you'll get teens who are rebellious and self-indulgent and who can't wait to get out of the house. We have to remember that in the life of our unregenerate children, the law is given for one reason only: to crush their self-confidence and drive them to Christ (Fitzpatrick, Thompson, Give Them Grace, 36).

The Law Can't Save-But Grace Does!

Mormons, Muslims, and moralistic atheists all share the belief that law can perfect us, but Christians don't. Christians know that the law can't save us; what we need is a Savior. We need a Savior because every one of us has already demonstrated that we don't respond well to rules (Rom 3:23). We've been given a perfect law (Rom 7:12) but none of us--no, not one--has obeyed it (Rom 3:10)....In light of our dismal record, it should be obvious that our salvation and the salvation of our children must come from someone else. This person has to give us something other than more rules to obey. But what else is there? There is grace. And what he brings us is simply that--grace....Our salvation (and our kids' as well) is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Grace alone (Elyse Fitzpatrick & Jessica Thompson, Give Them Grace, 16-17).

Temptation and the Forgetfulness of God

Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his short book Temptation gives an insightful and vivid description of the process by which to we give in to sin:
With irresistible power desire seizes mastery over the flesh…It makes no difference whether it is sexual desire, or ambition, or vanity, or desire for revenge, or love of fame and power, or greed for money…. Joy in God is…extinguished in us and we seek all our joy in the creature. At this moment God is quite unreal to us, he loses all reality, and only desire for the creature is real…Satan does not here fill us with hatred of God, but with forgetfulness of God…The lust thus aroused envelops the mind and will of man in deepest darkness. The powers of clear discrimination and of decision are taken from us. The questions present themselves: “Is what the flesh desires really sin in this case?” “Is it really not permitted to me, yes—expected of me, now, here, in my particular situation, to appease desire?”…It is here that everything within me rises up against the Word of God (p. 33).

Anselm's "Prayer to God"

“Almighty God, merciful Father, and my good Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner. Grant me forgiveness of my sins. Make me guard against and overcome all snares, temptations, and harmful pleasures. May I shun utterly in word and in deed, whatever you forbid, and do and keep whatever you command. Let me believe and hope, love and live, according to your purpose and your will. Give me heart-piercing goodness and humility; discerning abstinence and mortification of the flesh. Help me to love you and pray to you, praise you and meditate upon you. May I act and think in all things according to your will, purely, soberly, devoutly, and with a true and effective mind. Let me know your commandments, and love them, carry them out readily, and bring them into effect. Always, Lord, let me go on with humility to better things and never grow slack. Lord, do not give me over either to my human ignorance and weakness or to my own deserts, or to anything, other than your loving dealing with me. Do you yourself in kindness dispose of me, my thought and actions, according to your good pleasure, so that your will may always be done by me and in me and concerning me. Deliver me from all evil and lead me to eternal life through the Lord.”The Prayers and Meditations of Saint Anselm (Penguin Books, 1986), 93-94

Anselm's prayers our fruition of his reading and meditating on the Scriptures where he came to understand the wickedness of himself and the great majesty of God. We grow in humility the more that we read Scripture and see the grandness and greatness of Christ and our prayers our shaped by understanding our sinful state, our need for Christ, and the mercy we find at the Cross. Take a moment a read this prayer out loud and may we all find unison is praying "Help me to love you and pray to you, praise you and meditate upon you…"

Sister Thoughts on Overcoming Sin

Nobody sins out of duty. We sin because we believe sin’s promise of pleasure. So the path to holiness is a superior pleasure (John Piper)

Sufficient love of God is the power to overcome sin. If this is true, then the presence of such sins in our life reveals that we do not love God enough. In fact, we have loved our sin more than we love him, or it would not have a home in our hearts (Bryan Chappell)