prayer

Salvation By Works Gives No Hope

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“And next I think it will be admitted by all, that the way of salvation by good works would be self-evidently unsuitable to a considerable number. I will take a case. I am sent for in an emergency, and it is the dead of night. A man is dying, smitten suddenly by the death-blast. I go to his bedside, as requested. Consciousness remains, but he is evidently in mortal agony. He has lived an ungodly life—and he is about to die. I am asked by his wife and friends to speak to him a word that may bless him. Shall I tell him that he can only be saved by good works? Where is the time for works? Where is the possibility of them? While I am speaking, his life is struggling to escape him! He looks at me in the agony of his soul, and he stammers out, ‘What must I do to be saved?’ Shall I read to him the Moral Law? Shall I expound to him the Ten Commandments and tell him that he must keep all these? He would shake his head and say, ‘I have broken them all; I am condemned by them all!’ If salvation is of works, what more have I to say? I am of no use here. What can I say? The man is utterly lost! There is no remedy for him. How can I tell him the cruel dogma of ‘modern thought’ that his own personal character is everything? How can I tell him that there is no value in belief, no help for the soul in looking to Another—even to Jesus, the Substitute? There is no whisper of hope for a dying man in the hard and stony doctrine of salvation by works!”

—CH Spurgeon

Biblical Balance in Worship that Is Not Disconnected from Time

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“Good worship does not engage in the arrogance of modernity, which disconnects from the past, nor does it participate in the idolatry of traditionalism, which lives in the past. Rather, we should begin with the great classical worship that at one time was contemporary and has now become tried and true, and then build upon it, being ready to absorb that which is excellent in the present. Good worship is offered in spirit and in truth, honors Christ, and facilitates the praise of God’s people and the communication of the gospel to the lost. It is connected to the past without living in the past, contextualized in the present without accommodating the present, and setting a pattern to shape the future instead of becoming dated in the future.”

–Harry L. Reeder, III;  Embers to a Flame, 34-35.

5 Reasons God Wants You to Stop Being Anxious (Matt. 6:25-34)

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Anxiety

On the website for the Anxiety Disorder Association of America (ADAA), the following statistics are reported:

  • Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S., affecting 40 million adults in the United States age 18 and older (18.1% of U.S. population).
  • Anxiety disorders cost the U.S. more than $42 billion a year, almost one-third of the country’s $148 billion total mental health bill.
  • More than $22.84 billion of those costs are associated with the repeated use of health care services; people with anxiety disorders seek relief for symptoms that mimic physical illnesses.
  • People with an anxiety disorder are three to five times more likely to go to the doctor and six times more likely to be hospitalized for psychiatric disorders than those who do not suffer from anxiety disorders.[http://www.adaa.org/AboutADAA/PressRoom/Stats&Facts.asp; accessed 3/20/09]

Anxiety is not merely a problem from Bible times that we don’t understand. Anxiety lives in our town, our street, and probably even in our own homes. Anxiety comes in all shapes and sizes, and for all sorts of reason. Some elderly folks worry about having living too long so that their money runs out or about who will take care of them when they are no longer able to. But the young are not immune to anxiety either. I currently know of at least five young men and women who are worried that they will never get married and that maybe God has chosen them for a life of celibacy (we should get them all together!).

So, money and food, and clothes aren’t the only things that we are anxious about. Jobs, kids, bills, cars, relationships, health, all of these things and more give us plenty of reason to worry. But God says something different.

Five Reasons God Wants You To Stop Being Anxious

1. Anxiety Clouds Your Real Mission on Earth (vv. 25, 33)

Jesus asks a serious question that we forget when we are in a state of anxiety. It is found at the end of verse 25, “Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” God wants our lives to be more about getting stuff and keeping it. If all we do is chase after the latest and greatest, then we prove ourselves to be serving the false god mammon, and not the Lord Jesus Christ. The correct focus that every true child of God ought to have is found in verse 33, “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” You see, we can spend all of our time worrying about temporal things, and we shall find that when we get to heaven, we missed the boat completely. Our eyes were on the wrong prize. Our true mission is to see the kingdom of God grow and for the individual members of the church to grow in the likeness of Christ in holiness. That is our mission—priority one. The church has become weak and diluted because it has lost its mission and has begun chasing after lesser things.

2. Anxiety Causes You to Doubt God’s Love for You (vv. 26, 28-30)

Jesus goes on to give us two illustrations of God’s loving care and concern over his creation: birds and lilies of the field. First, Jesus shows that although birds work very hard daily to care for their needs by feathering their nests, hunting down worms and other insects, they don’t worry about storing up food for the winter. They let God be God and trust him to supply their needs tomorrow.

Second, Jesus directed his disciples’ attention to the wildflowers growing around them on the mount they were gathered on. These flowers were adorned beautifully by God himself, all without worrying.
Jesus’ main point is this, and don’t miss it—God cares more for you than he does for any animal, even these little birds. He loves you more than the temporary grasses and flowers that last only a few days and then wither up and die. If he cares enough to attend to their needs, how much more does he care about you?

Rom. 8:32 reminds us, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” Did Christ die for sparrows? Did he give his life for flowers? Did God send his only begotten Son to save your soul, only to leave you to die naked and starving? It is when we are anxious that we imply these things. We imply by our anxiety that God doesn’t love us enough to take care of us and supply us with every need, whether physical, spiritual or emotional.

3. Anxiety is a Waste of Energy (v. 27)

This reason is probably the most pragmatic of the five reason. It asks, what does worrying change? How has anything ever been accomplished by anxiety? Stress and panic, sleepless nights and tearful fretting all accomplish nothing. They cannot bring a solution to the table, and in the end, they usually make us feel worse.

4. Anxiety is a Mark of Small Faith (vv. 30a-32)

Jesus doesn’t say that if you are anxious that you have no faith, but he does say that you have little faith. I don’t think I know of a Christian who wants small faith. You may have small faith, but you want to grow in your trust of the Savior. Jesus is setting before us an opportunity to do just that. But how?

Peter tells us in 1Pet. 5:6-7, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.”

We need to humble ourselves under God’s mighty hand. We can’t be anxious and at the same time say we have placed our full trust in God. Matthew 6:32 tells us that the Gentiles, or pagan unbelieving world, chases after its own needs, feeling that if they don’t take care of #1, then nobody will. Should a follower of Jesus Christ have the same attitude? We need to be humble and put our full weight upon the Lord, and he will not fail us. Why? Because he cares for you!

5. Anxiety Tries to Get Ahead of God (v. 34)

Today has enough problems doesn’t it? God has wisely and sovereignly distributed the amount of blessings and troubles that we can handle. Like the manna in the wilderness, He has given us enough grace for today. But we can’t hoard it up for tomorrow. There is only enough for today and the worries of today. We need to trust the Lord in this. We can’t begin worrying about tomorrow. What a precious Savior, that he cares so much for us!

So, what can we hope to do when anxiety attacks our hearts? Here are some wise closing words of biblical instruction from A.W. Pink: “Be anxious for nothing” (Phil. 4:6). Worrying is as definitely forbidden as theft. This needs to be carefully pondered and definitely realized by us, so that we do not excuse it as an innocent “infirmity.”

The more we are convicted of the sinfulness of anxiety, the sooner are we likely to perceive that it is most dishonoring to God, and “strive against” it (Heb. 12:4). But how are we to “strive against” it? First, by begging the Holy Spirit to grant us a deeper conviction of its enormity. Second, by making it a subject of special and earnest prayer, that we may be delivered from this evil. Third, by watching its beginning, and as soon as we are conscious of harassment of mind, as soon as we detect the unbelieving thought, lift up our heart to God and ask Him for deliverance from it.

 

 

 

How to Pray, pt. 6 (Matt. 6:12)

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The first half of these lesson on prayer taught us to pray for God’s name, God’s kingdom and God’s will.

The second half, so far has taught us to ask for God’s provision for our physical needs. As we move from our physical needs, the next two petitions address our spiritual needs: forgiveness of our sins and deliverance from temptations and evil.

We are twice as needful of spiritual provisions as physical needs, although in our daily attention we spend far more time addressing physical needs than spiritual ones!

Let’s turn to Matt 6:12 and look at this fifth petition in the Lord’s model prayer: “and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”

The Problem-Debts
This word used in the Greek New Testament comes from a verb which means “to owe, as in a financial obligation.” It is usually used for monetary debts, but it is also used for a moral obligation.

We know that this is not a financial debt that Jesus is talking about here because this same saying in Luke 11:4 has the word hamartias or sins. Forgive us our sins, as we ourselves forgive everyone who are indebted to us.

Luke’s account shows us that debts in this context are sins. Sin is pictured as a debt, and the sinner is pictured as a debtor. Get this: sin is not only wrong, but it requires payment—the debt must be settled. This is a major problem. Many People woefully underestimate the seriousness, deadliness and consequences of their sins before God.

To illustrate this, look at the picture that Jesus paints of our situation using a story that will hopefully tingle in our ears: Matt 18:21-35.

  • V. 21: Notice that the context of this parable is in response to Peter’s question about forgiveness.
  • V. 23: This parable is couched in financial terms. The servant who owes the king is said to be in debt.
  • V. 24. How much is ten thousand talents by today’s standards? A talent was worth about 20 years wages. The servant here owes the king 10,000 talents, or $6 billion dollars! This is a dramatic representation of the amount of sins that we have committed against our King and God.

You need to grasp this if you are ever to grasp forgiving others. If you see yourself as a relatively good person (relative to others, not relative to God), then you will never understand why we ought to forgive as God forgave us. Back to our story in Matthew 18:

  • V. 25-27 Not surprisingly, the servant could not pay the king the debt, despite all the servant’s vain promises that he could.

Scottish pastor Horatius Bonar wrote these words in a hymn:
Not what my hands have done can save my guilty soul;
Not what my toiling flesh has borne can make my spirit whole.
Not what I feel or do can give me peace with God;
Not all my prayers and sighs and tears can bear my awful load.

Your voice alone, O Lord, can speak to me of grace;
Your power alone, O Son of God, can all my sin erase.
No other work but Yours, no other blood will do;
No strength but that which is divine can bear me safely through.

Thy work alone, O Christ, can ease this weight of sin;
Thy blood alone, O Lamb of God, can give me peace within.
Thy love to me, O God, not mine, O Lord, to Thee,
Can rid me of this dark unrest, And set my spirit free.

We’ll come back to this parable later. But what I want you to understand is that great debt of sin that every person owes to God. It is both wrong, and must be paid.

If you are a Christian, your debt has been paid. Your sins have been forgiven. Your account has been settled.
For you, passages like Col 2:13-14 are sweet:

And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

Now, if  you have never approached Jesus Christ and asked for his mercy and forgiveness, then you still owe a huge debt of sin to God, and you can never repay it. But it doesn’t need to end for you this way. Notice what 1John 1:9 says, “if we confess our sins…”

Forgiveness by God for your sins requires confession on your part. Confession doesn’t mean repeating all the things that you’ve done. Confession is from the Greek verb homologeo and it literally means “the same word.”
Confession is when you say the same things about your sins as God does. God knows what you have done. He isn’t surprised. He wants YOU to recognize them as offenses against HIM, and to call them what they are. He wants you to agree with him that they are sins, and they are wrong, and they are a stench in his nostrils.
If you confess with a broken heart and a right attitude, God will forgive and will cleanse you from all unrighteousness.
If you play the part, saying “I’m sorry” in order to get out of punishment, or in order to satisfy your guilt without truly seeing the depths of your sins, your only fooling yourself and your sins remain.
When you realize how your sins are an offense against God, then you will want to be changed. You will want to turn from them. You will want to get away from them like a wretched garment that is stained with filth and vomit.

Is. 55:6-7 says, “Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”

How to Pray, pt. 5 (Matt 6:11)

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As we’ve been learning how to pray over the last posts, we have looked at the God-centeredness of our prayers. We have seen that our prayers should be about God’s name, God’s kingdom, and God’s will. But as I stated before, we are not to think that we cannot come to God with our needs. We just need to begin with the right priorities. If we begin our prayers with a God-centered attitude, we will more than likely be unable to continue in a selfish man-centered manner.

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In this post we are going to begin with the first of three petitions that address the needs that we have:

  • “Give us this day our daily bread”-Addressing our physical needs
  • “Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors”-Addressing our own soul’s need
  • “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”-Addressing our spiritual needs

As we consider the fourth petition, we will see two lessons concerning our prayers, so that we will ask for our physical needs with greater understanding as to how we should ask:

  1. “Give us”: All of our needs are supplied by God

We can’t forget the original audience that Jesus was speaking to: the Jews of Galilee. Every year, continuing even to this present day, the Jews remember an event that forever shaped them-the Exodus from Egypt. Immediately after the Jewish people left Egypt, they found themselves in the wilderness—a desert wasteland that would not supply for a million people food or water. They had to learn that God would supply all their needs.

Where do you find food for a million people in the desert? God had to supply it: Ex. 16:1-7. We live in such a different world, don’t we? Where does our food come from? The market. Costco. We have massive farms and huge distribution chains. It can become easy to forget that God is the one who supplies our needs.

The stock market crashed on Oct. 29, 1929. It was called Black Tuesday and the start of the Great Depression. The depression had devastating effects in virtually every country, rich or poor. International trade plunged by half to two-thirds; as did personal income, tax revenue, prices and profits. Farming and rural areas suffered as crop prices fell by roughly 60 percent. Thirteen million people became unemployed. Industrial production fell by nearly 45% between the years 1929 and 1932. Homebuilding dropped by 80% between the years 1929 and 1932. From the years 1929 to 1932, about 5,000 banks went out of business. By 1933, 11,000 of the US’s 25,000 banks had failed. In 1933, 25% of all workers and 37% of all non-farm workers were unemployed. Between 1929 and 1932 the income of the average American family was reduced by 40%.

We are in fear of a return to such an economic disaster, but this scare can have one benefit: It can remind us of what wealthy nations often forget, our prosperity comes directly from the hand of God, and we are dependent upon Him for everything.

  1. “This day our daily bread”-All our needs are satisfied daily to teach us to trust in God

Again, as the Jewish people were listening to Jesus teach about how to pray, they would have immediately thought about the manna given in the wilderness: Ex. 16:13-27. Notice a couple of things here:

  • God gave the manna daily, so they couldn’t stockpile it. Every day was taken on faith.
  • They had to gather and cook the manna. God gives to us our needs, but this doesn’t preclude effort on our part. In general, he won’t send you checks in the mail. You need to go to work. But this work is given to you as a gift from God.

This daily dependence upon God means that we aren’t to be anxious, because God will supply all your needs: Matt 7:7-11. He supplies your needs, but we need to understand the difference between a need and a want. He supplies your needs out of love. As a father loves his child, so our heavenly Father takes care of us, his adopted children.

With all of this, let me ask you a question. If at the end of the day, you have a full stomach and a warm place to sleep and clothes to wear, is that all that you need?

Look up John 6:25-40 in your Bible. The feeding of the 5,000 had just occurred. Jesus proved that He, the Son of God, was able to provide for their physical hunger. After leaving them, they sought him out to meet their continued physical needs, but Jesus wanted them to look beyond that. He wanted them to see their real hunger was deeper—a hungering for their souls’ desire to be satisfied. He said that He was the bread of life.

We continue to hunger after every meal. We hunger after every shopping spree. After every physical desire. We hunger for more.  Jesus satisfies what our soul longs after. He is the bread of life. Have you come to partake of Jesus, the bread of life?