For those who came to BLT+ 2010 this year, I’ve now uploaded my talk manuscripts from BLT+ that have been edited.  They’re in pdf for download.

Sanctification: The Goal As God’s Glory & Our Joy In Him.  Click here to download

Sanctification: The Path To God’s Glory & Our Joy In Him. Click here to download

Sanctification: The Ministry Of Bringing Others To God’s Glory & Joy In Him.  Click here to download

For those who came to BLT+ 2010 this year, I’ve attached below my slides from the conference.  They’re in pdf for download.  I’m hoping to have the full manuscripts up for download by the end of this week.

Sanctification: The Goal As God’s Glory & Our Joy In Him.  Click here to download

Sanctification: The Path To God’s Glory & Our Joy In Him. Click here to download

Sanctification: The Ministry Of Bringing Others To God’s Glory & Joy In Him.  Click here to download

Most of you are familiar with the story of The Three Little Pigs. The mother pig’s children leave home and are no longer little pigs. They set off to make their fortune and each build themselves a home. The first pig builds a home out of straw because he’s cheap. It shakes in the wind. The second pig builds a home out of sticks because he’s lazy. And the third pig builds his home out of bricks. He does the work to build a structure that is strong; he lays the foundation, brick by brick, and he builds it up. The big bad wolf then comes to blow their houses down, and only one house stands – the house of bricks. The moral of the story is simple: be careful how you build; take care how you build! (Or if you come from a Chinese family, the moral of the story is to study hard, and work hard to get a job or you’re going to end up like the first 2 little pigs: hungry and without a home!)

Paul, in 1 Corinthians 3, tells us that there is a wrong way and a right way to build the church. In fact, the future of your church, and the ministry of the gospel, depends on how you build today (as pastors, lay leaders, deacons, and elders). Where you end up as a church depends on the materials you use, whether you’re building with straw, sticks, or bricks. There is a wrong way and a right way to build the people of God; there is a wrong way and a right way to do church.

So let me unpack the Scriptures this evening from 1 Corinthians 3 …

The full sermon manuscript  can be downloaded here

Download ‘Reading The Bible’ Slides in PDF here

Last year I was reading a book on adoption by Russell Moore (a seminary lecturer at a Baptist college in the US).  In his book Russell describes the adoption of his two boys from an orphanage in Russia. He recalls the very first time he saw these two boys, which a Russian judge had picked out for them: two boys that had been abandoned and dumped by their mothers; orphans.

When Maria and I first walked into the orphanage, where we were led to the boys the Russian courts had picked for us to adopt, we almost vomited in reaction to the stench and squalor of the place.  The boys were in cribs, in the dark, lying in their own waste … Each day we would visit them … and leaving them at the end of each day was painful, but leaving them on the final day, before going home to wait for the paperwork to go through, was the hardest thing either of us had ever done.  Walking out of the room to prepare for the plane ride home, Maria and I could hear Maxim calling out for us and falling down in his crib, convulsing in tears.  Maria shook with tears of her own.  I turned around to walk back into their room, just for a minute.  I placed my hand on both of their hearts and said, knowing they wouldn’t understand a word of English, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” I don’t think I consciously intended to cite Jesus’ words to his disciples in John 14:18; it just seemed like the only think worth saying at the time.  For us, it didn’t matter that they seemed like any other orphan in that institution; they were part of our family now.  We knew them.  We loved them.  We claimed them.  And it didn’t matter that for the next several weeks they’d still be called Maxim and Sergei. The nameplates hanging on the wall of their new room in a faraway country read Benjamin and Timothy, now our sons. (p.25, Adopted For Life).

I want to say to you this evening as we come to these few verses in Ephesians 2: this is what you and I are being told here; as Paul speaks of the sovereign grace of God in our lives, and as Paul speaks of the Father’s love for you: you were a spiritual orphan dead in your transgressions and sins, and God loved you and made you alive, and raised you up with Jesus to be His son or daughter

And so what I want to do this evening is to begin by visiting a spiritual orphanage. I want to walk with you down into a spiritual valley and unpack for you the Bible’s teaching on the problem of the orphaned soul. Discover the reason why we need Jesus, the reason why the gospel is good news, and the reason why God’s grace is glorious.

The gospel is supremely good news when you begin to understand the depths and darkness of the orphanage or valley that you are in. So here in vv.1-3 Paul is going to take you down into the valley of your soul, showing you the depths of your lostness, your helplessness, and your brokenness.  And then he’s going to show you why the good news is glorious because in vv.4-7 he will ascend the mountain of God’s glorious grace and show you the heights of God’s grace. We begin with darkness and we end with light; we begin with night before we meet the rising sun; we move from death to life; we begin in a valley before we ascend to the peak of a mountain.

…

The full sermon notes can be downloaded by clicking here

Every so often I’m asked whether it’s ok to serve God out of duty or obligation.  If I as a pastor was welcoming to you, spent time meeting up with you, had meals with you after church on Sundays, but were only doing it out of duty or obligation (not because I really wanted to serve you or were interested in you or enjoyed my time with you, but because I had to as part of my pastoral duty), how would that make you feel?  Or alternatively, if a girl at church spent time with you, invited you out to have dinner with her each week, but was only doing it out of duty or obligation (not because she cared or had any interest in you) I suspect you would not only be appalled, but you would consider such actions hypocritical or insincere.  In fact, it would be downright hurtful.  The same works in a marriage relationship – imagine a husband doing all he does for his wife purely out of duty.  He would in effect be saying to her, ‘I’m only in this marriage, and doing what I have to do out of duty, not because I love you or enjoy you or delight in our marriage‘.  Now that’s the problem with serving purely out of duty and obligation.

Duty without love and joy reflects that I don’t treasure the one I serve. When I love the one I serve and treasure them, duty is not done out of obligation, but out of love and joy.  It’s the reason why the more we love and treasure something or someone in our lives, what we do in serving, protecting, sacrificing, defending, acquiring for them is not an obligation, but a joy.  So when believers serve God out of duty or obligation without love and joy, it reflects the affection of their hearts: that God is not the supreme treasure in their lives worth serving because serving him is not a source of delight, which is why they would rather be doing other things in their lives.

So if I’m serving and obeying God out of duty, devoid of love, thanksgiving, joy/delight then the way forward is to: work to make God your treasure, for until you see his supreme worth and value above all things in your life, you will not serve him in love.  It’s precisely for that reason Paul calls us to ask God to help us do this, and to pursue a growing love for Jesus and his redeeming work in our lives, that fills our hearts as a treasure of surpassing wealth (Eph.3:16-19).  Like everything in life, when someone is a treasure in our lives, everything we do in relation to them no matter how hard is always done in joy. In fact, when someone is a treasure in our lives, we are also empowered with joy to serve them (consider your relationships with people you love supremely and what you are willing to do for them.  Our joy in them as supreme treasures in our lives gives us strength and empowers our serving them).  It’s for this reason we read in Neh.8:10, that the joy of the Lord is our strength to endure, persevere, obey, serve.

So is it sinful to serve God purely out of duty without love or joy? The answer is – yes because it reflects where the affection of our hearts real love and joy lie which is not in the Lord, but elsewhere.  I can assure you for every believer who serves God only out of duty, you will also find something in their lives that they relentlessly pursue and serve with love and joy.  In fact, one of the most sobering OT passages that most people miss is Deut 28:47.  Judgment fell on the OT people of God, not just because of their idolatry, but ‘because you did not serve the LORD your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart’.  Why does it say that?  Because our joy and gladness of heart reflects Dt.6:4-5, whether we love Him as a supreme treasure above all things with all our heart, soul and might.

That being said, we have to remember that as fallen creatures we’ll never express perfect love and joy in our duty.  We don’t do even do it in our human relationships. Our emotions undulate, circumstances hem us in, disappointments wear us down.  During those times we need to be reminded more than anything else of God’s grace to us in Jesus, that we need ongoing repentance and we need to seek God’s help by his Spirit.  In fact, it’s a command for us to always seek joy in the Lord in all we do.  Paul says in Phil.4:4 – rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice.  That tells me that we are imperfect creatures who need to be constantly reminded of where ultimate joy lies in who should be our ultimate treasure: that the pursuit of serving God with joy/delight is found in ‘the Lord’.  The more he is the object of my hearts affections as treasure supreme, the more I will know joy in serving him.  Paul says the same thing in Phil.3:8-11.  Everything he once considers a gain or a treasure in his life he now considers a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus, so he lives continually pursuing Jesus to enjoy the promises of the gospel that is his, even in his imperfect state (Phil.3:12-16) towards future glory (Phil.3:20-21).

So when you begin to fall into a place where you are serving out of duty, without love and joy, the way forward is to not stop serving (as some people do).  No one does that in marriage or in any area of life.  It’s a indicator to us that perhaps we need to spend time:

1) reflecting on what is causing our lack of love and joy/delight in serving as believers – is it because something else has stolen or replaced Him as our love and joy/delight? Is it because we have not given time to fostering our hearts and minds affections for Jesus?  Is there sin in our lives that we have not dealt with or ignored?

2) in repentance and prayer over the things that have replaced Jesus as our source of joy in our lives,

3) seeking his help in growing our affection for Jesus in the personal spiritual disciplines of prayer, Bible reading, fasting/meditation on the riches of Jesus, the promises of his gospel and the glory of God, or

4) seeking God’s help in the corporate spiritual disciplines of ‘fellowship’ with others who can walk with us in pursuing joy in Jesus.

What’s the relationship between God’s glory and Jesus? Not only do we see God’s infinite greatness and worth displayed in creation (Ps.19:1), we’re told that it is in the person and work of Jesus that the glory of God is supremely displayed and revealed. It is in Jesus that we see God’s infinite greatness and worth above all things.  In fact the gospel centers on the glory of God in Jesus not just revealing to us God’s glory, but also saving us to God’s glory.  In 2 Cor.3:7-16 we’re reminded that the problem with believers in the Old Testament was that they couldn’t come face to face with God’s glory and live.  God as an infinitely glorious being perfect in righteousness and holiness dwells in unapproachable light (1 Tim.6:16).  Even as you look at a rising sunrise, as the sun rises, your eyes begin to squint, until eventually you have to look away.  Keep looking at the sun and you will go blind because of its sheer light.  Look at God’s glory directly without a veil, and you will die because he dwells in unapproachable light.  But now for those of us who are New Testament believers we are no longer looking at God’s glory behind a veil because in Jesus we are beholding God’s glory (2 Cor.3:18)! We are seeing God in his infinite glory, in all his manifold perfections in Jesus!

In fact 2 Cor.4:4-6 reminds us that the gospel is ‘the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God’.  And in the verses that follow in v.6, we are again reminded that in saving us God has shone in our hearts to reveal to us ‘the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’.  Jesus is the very glory of God.  To see Jesus is to see the very glory of God.  The gospel that saves us is a revelation of God’s infinite greatness and worth above all things, his glory above all things revealed to us in Jesus and his redeeming work.  In saving us we are being brought to seeing and recognizing as true in our lives and in our hearts that God is infinitely great and worthy above all things; that we have ignored him all our lives and given glory to lesser things; but we now see that God alone is a treasure above all treasures in life, glorious above all things because we see that in him is everything we desire as great and praise worthy, and it has come to us in the face of Jesus.

Repeatedly we are told that Jesus is the very glory of God.  He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature (Heb.1:1-3).  He is the image of the invisible God in whom the fullness of God dwells (Col.1:15, 19).   To see Jesus is to see the Father (John 14:9).  It’s the reason why the Father takes delight in the Son.  As God the Father looks at his Son in Matt.3:17 we are told that he is the beloved Son with whom God is well pleased or with whom he delights in. In the entire universe who is the supreme object of God’s joy or delight? We’re told in the Scriptures that it’s in his Son that he supremely delights in, not you or me. It’s because Jesus reflects the glory of the Father in his being and in his saving work at the cross.  God could not delight in anything less than himself or in his own glory otherwise it would make that which he takes pleasure in greater than him.  But he takes delight in his Son because Jesus is the reflection, radiance, image of the glory of God, God himself and so he reflects in who he is and in what he does the infinite greatness and worth of God himself in all his manifold perfections.

That is precisely why the gospel as it centers on the glory of God in Jesus and his saving work is so central to everything we hold dear to as believers.  The gospel reveals the glory of God and it brings us to the glory of God for the glory of God – it reveals God in his infinite greatness and worth, and it brings us to God in his infinite greatness and worth and magnifies God in his infinite greatness and worth. How does the gospel do this?

Firstly, only God himself is able to sufficiently deal with our judgment and sin so that we might be forgiven.  Who can sufficiently deal with the judgment of a perfect and infinitely just and righteous God?  Only one who is comparable in infinite glory can sufficiently pay the penalty for my sin to secure my forgiveness.  Secondly, only God himself is able to give us a sufficient righteousness that covers us so that we might stand before him righteous.  Who can sufficiently deal with the demands of a perfect and infinitely holy and righteous God?  Only one who is comparable in infinite glory can clothe me in a sufficient righteousness to secure my right standing before God.  Only one in whom the glory of God supremely dwells is able to save us, and Paul says the one has come to us in Jesus who is the glory of God for our salvation (2 Cor.4:4, 6).

The gospel as it centers on the glory of God in Jesus and his saving work is very reason why the gospel is good news, for God himself comes to die for our sin and covers us with his righteousness saving us for his glory, and to his glory, to our joy forever.  And it’s all sufficiently accomplished because of an infinitely glorious Son, Jesus.

Sometime this week I was asked about the relationship between God’s glory and the gospel.  As believers we are called to pursue God’s glory in all things, or to magnify his infinite greatness and worth in all things, or as the catechism says, we exist to glorify God.  How does this relate to Jesus and his saving work?  How does the cross relate to our pursuit of God’s glory in all things?

The Biblical answer is that the gospel as it centers on Jesus and his saving work supremely displays God’s glory or magnifies God’s infinite greatness and worth, and saves us to do just that. We often make much of ourselves when we think of the gospel, and we tend to make ourselves the end goal of the saving work of Jesus.  However, as we turn to the Scriptures we find that God’s final and ultimate purpose is to preserve and display his glory in all things.  To pursue any other end would make God less than glorious, because it would make that which he pursues either greater than he is, or he would be less than glorious. God’s own infinite greatness and worth is the motivation, reason and end goal in everything he does.  Everything God does is to preserve and display his infinite greatness and worth above all things.   As you search the Scriptures you discover that this is the overwhelming testimony.

Creation exists to declare the infinite greatness and worth of God.  The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork (Psa. 19:1) God saves people for his glory. Everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made (Is. 43:7).  God does everything to preserve his glory.  For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another (Is.48:11)

You discover that God’s glory is also the goal of the gospel or the saving work of Jesus.  As you turn to John 17:1, Jesus in praying that he might be glorified in his coming death on the cross, prays that it might be to the glory of his Father.  When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you.” The lifting up of the infinite greatness and worth of the Son in his death on the cross, is to highlight the infinite greatness and worth of God!  Jesus doesn’t say, “Father, glorify me … let people see my infinite greatness and worth in my death so that they might be saved”.  Instead he says, “Father, glorify me … let people see my infinite greatness and worth in my death, so that your infinite greatness and worth above all things might be seen.”  Other passages in John repeated remind us that the death of Jesus was to glorify the Father (John 21:19; 12:27-28)

And so it’s no surprise that when Paul speaks of the gospel in Ephesians 1, he speaks of us being recipients of grace to the praise of his glory!  We are saved so that God might be praised and glorified i.e so that his infinite greatness and worth might be seen and praised. Everything God does is to the praise of his glory in preserving it and magnifying it.  While this might seem egocentric on God’s part, it’s worth pausing to ask ourselves this question.  Who else should he magnify or could he magnify other than himself as a being of infinite greatness and worth?  We forget that God is not like us in seeking praise for his own name, because as a being of infinite greatness and worth above all things, for him to do any less would either make him less than great or make that which he seeks to magnify greater than him.

Let’s get our understanding of the glory of God and the gospel right.  The ultimate goal of the gospel or the ultimate goal of the death of Jesus for sin is to make much of God, and I am saved to make much of God in all things.  The ultimate goal of the death of Jesus for sin is to preserve and magnify the infinite greatness and worth of God, and I am saved to magnify the infinite greatness and worth of God in all things.  That’s the whole point of the saving work of Jesus.  It’s the reason why I am condemned and am in need of saving: it’s because I don’t glorify God as God.  I am condemned because I refuse to recognize God’s infinite greatness and worth above all things.  We read in Rom.1:23 that instead of seeing and recognizing and worshipping the God who is of infinite greatness and worth above all things, instead of seeing and recognizing and worshipping the one being in the universe who is to be treasured above all, we turn and we worship created things ascribing greatness and worth to them that belongs to God.

The gospel in saving us deals with our sins, and turns our hearts, minds, affections, and desires towards the God who is of infinite greatness and worth above all things, such that we now live to pursue his glory, because we now see that he alone is a treasure above all things.  Which is why I said before that the death of Jesus for sin is to preserve and magnify the infinite greatness and worth of God, and I am saved to magnify the infinite greatness and worth of God in all things.  God and his glory is the goal of the saving work of Jesus in the gospel.  Just like we make much out of our treasures in life because we consider them great and worth something, in the same way the gospel makes much of the God who is the ultimate treasure above all things, and saves me to now make much of God as my ultimate treasure in life because I now see and grasp his infinite greatness and worth above all things.

Sermon notes from last Sunday’s sermon, “Saved For More” on Ephesians 2:10 and the accompanying sermon outline in powerpoint/pdf can be downloaded here.

“… When God saves you – he saves you for more, much more that you can possibly imagine – because the good works he has prepared for you is a life after his likeness, after his image, where you are moving towards him and becoming more like him who is of infinite greatness and worth in his beauty, majesty, power, perfection, love, kindness, mercy, peace, security, hope above any thing in your life and my life.  There is no limits to the infinite greatness and worth of God which he has saved you to and now shares with you.“

Over the last few weeks I’ve been slowly reading through Augustine’s ‘Confessions’. Augustine was born in 354 AD the son of an unbelieving father and a Christian mother. For the first 33 years of his life he lived as an unbeliever pursuing a hedonistic lifestyle, associating with company that was only interested in exploiting women for sex and power. Given every opportunity and as a gifted intellectual, at 30 years of age he rose to the highest possible chair academically and politically for the imperial court in Milan. During this time he also took a concubine on the side for 13 years and had a son by her. This was his life before God found him. The ‘confessions’ are really Augustine’s confession to God reflecting on the life he lived before becoming a believer. It’s been a compelling read, and though written almost 1600 years ago everything he says resonates so much with the struggles, challenges, temptations and issues in our culture and society.

One of the things that struck me was Augustine’s upbringing, and how his parents sought to give him the very best in life. His father was modestly well off and saved to give him an education so he could travel abroad and study. His mother a believer prayed for him regularly and sought to see him saved, but had higher ambitions for him in life. So much so that when he was falling into a godless lifestyle at 16, what he called ‘the age at which frenzy gripped me and I surrendered myself to lust … My family made no effort to save me from my fall … their only concern was that I should learn how to make a good speech and how to persuade others by my words’ i.e. to excel rather in his course of studies. His mother though a believer instead of actively intervening and promoting godliness in his life by marriage, Augustine tells us, ‘was afraid that that the bonds of marriage might be a hindrance to my hopes for the future – rather than the life to come, which she confessed in you, but instead in my hopes of success at my studies.’ Augustine continued to live this way until he was 33, a slave to every kind of lust, sexual experiences, power, acceptance, prestige, and academic fame, before God graciously intervened and saved him.

I believe there are some valuable lesson here for Christian parents. The great danger is that we encourage our children to put their hopes in, and treasure everything earthly that we think will give them a successful future, without any thought to their eternity. The greatest gift a parent can give their child is not the opportunities of a private education or money or material possessions, but a God entranced vision of life where Jesus is treasured above everything else in the family and in life. The former without the latter is nothing more than encouraging idolatry in your children with a sporadic dose of ‘churchianity’ on Sundays to appease the conscience. As parents the Biblical mandate is that we raise children who are totally given over to Jesus, where he is lifted up for them to be seen as the one who is to be their hope and treasure in life.

And it’ll be seen in the weekly priorities, disciplines and practices you pursue in your family.

We saw a few weeks ago in the sermon from Deuteronomy 6:4-9, that parents are to make God their first love above all in life, especially in their families. You may not realize this but as your children grow up it becomes very obvious to them what you love and treasure and place above all. The decisions you make or don’t make, the things you say or don’t say, the priorities you have or don’t have, the weekly disciplines in your family, the way you use your money, the way you spend your time, the way you pray or don’t pray, the place of the Bible in your family, the way you serve or don’t serve, what you encourage them to do or don’t do, what you teach or don’t teach them – it all reflects and will eventually play out in the lives of your children.

They’ll begin to model their lives off you, and what you love and treasure will soon be theirs as well. It’s the reason why parents are called to make God their greatest treasure, because it’s only when you have a God entranced vision of life, where you are loving God with all your heart, soul and strength, that your children will be raised in a family where God is treasured above all.

Successful Christian parenting begins when parents adopt a God entranced vision of life, where they are loving God with all their heart, soul and strength, and making Him their hope and treasure above everything else in life.

Successful Christian parenting begins when your children see this in your life and in the way you parent them, always with a view to helping them put their hope in Jesus and treasuring Him above everything else in life … even over their studies, sport, music and future careers.

A great place to start is to download a copy of Thrive, our monthly GracePoint newsletter to help make Jesus your treasure and delight above all things in your marriage and family.