Borrowed Light

Sibbes and the Application of Particular Mercy (YWS Week 21)

May 30, 2014Nick Horton 1 Comment

Welcome to a year of reading Richard Sibbes together! The reading plan for the entire year can be accessed here. I encourage you to stick with us, allow yourself time to read, and soak in the riches of this gifted and prolific Puritan preacher. You will be edified and encouraged.

If you have trouble with how Sibbes used words, check out the Lexicons of Early Modern English for definitions from the period.

Summary/Engagement

I own a Labradoodle named Jake. He’s a very loving dog. He has endless energy and is a clown. He also trusts anyone and everyone and would honestly go home with anyone. To him, everyone is his potential pack mate. If you’re friendly and kind you’re his new best friend. It’s a bit strange that my dog whom I love would likely go home with anyone. I’ve raised him, cared for him, and been there for him since he was a puppy. Yet, I’m not so sure he sees me as his owner.

Now, insert us in his place and the owner being God. Is he our caretaker until someone or something else comes along? Do we see him as particularly ours? Throughout this work of Sibbes has dealt with our soul’s conflicted relationship with God. In chapter 30 he focuses on two words; “My God.” How crucial it is that God is not merely God, but mine. This is not mere semantics or legalistic insistence on proper language. Is God MY God? Is he YOUR God? If he is merely a God then you are in a precarious position with him.

“The very life-blood of the gospel lies in a special application of particular mercy to ourselves.”

Our redemption is personal.

Application / Further Discussion

Let’s press the point a little more. Salvation is a relationship between sinful man and holy God. “Take away my from God, and take away God himself in regard of Comfort.” If he is not your God, then he is your Judge. Either you are an adopted son or daughter of the Kingdom or you are part of the wicked who will be judged on the last day.

“What if God be a rock of salvation, if we do not rest upon him? . . . How can we rejoice in the salvation of our souls, unless we can in particular say, ‘I rejoice in God my Saviour.'”

Indeed, what is Christ to you if you will not yield and rest upon him for the salvation of your soul? In the darkest nights of the soul is Christ your God that you cry out to or just a set of facts you think are true? The Gospel is indeed true, but you must enter in to a relationship with God. One where we, the sinner, acknowledge our guilt before Holy God. One where we, the sinner, recognize that we deserve judgment and damnation. One where we, the sinner, admit that we cannot repair the breach our sin has caused.

Christ is a great Savior for great sinners like you and me. He lived perfectly, died unjustly, and rose victoriously. He rose for a particular people who recognize their sin and call upon him for their salvation. It wasn’t general, for those who don’t repent and believe.

“The principle here is, that God is the God of all that trust in him.”

The truth of God and his gospel is so beautiful we can endlessly admire the facts and logic and doctrine and ignore the God who made all of it and to whom it points. Christianity is not a thoughtless faith based in absurdity. It is logical, factual, and reasonable. The grace offered is unthinkable. The mercy of God goes to such depths that we can scarcely believe it is possible. The grace offered us leaves us speechless and often in tears that despite all our sin and ugliness, the one who knows us better than ourselves would say, “This one is mine.”

Christ must be yours if you would be his. God must be your father, not just any father. I’ve labored over this because it is vital for any relationship with God. It’s not only a relationship between God and man. It’s a family relationship. Unless you are a son or daughter of the Kingdom, and God is your Father, you have nothing, you have no place with him. The truth of God is beautiful, but it points to Him to behold Him as beautiful. Make him yours.

“It is no easy matter to say in truth of heart, My God; the flesh still labour for supremacy. God should be all in all unto us; but this will not be till these bodies of flesh, together with the body of sin, be laid aside. He that says, God is my God, and doth not yield up himself unto God, raiseth a building without a foundation, layeth a claim without a title, and claimeth a title without an evidence, reckoning upon a bargain, without consent of the party with whom he would contract.”

What then should we do? Yield.

“Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”” (Mark 1:14-15)

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Last week, we read chapters 21-27 of The Soul’s Conflict.

Next week, we’ll read A Glance of Heaven, a.

Today in Blogworld 05.30.14

May 30, 2014Mike Leake

God Is Not Logical

I appreciate what Barnabas Piper is saying here. It doesn’t mean that God is illogical it just means that he is beyond logic.

Millennials are the devil

Marty Duren with a little pushback on all of the “millennials are the devil” talk coming out of Christian circles.

What Tom Nettles Taught Me

Dr. Tom Nettles has recently retired. Dr. Moore gives a few reflections on this man’s ministry.

Shooing Away the Legalism Boogeyman

Here are five things that graceless legalism isn’t.

This little dude is slick:

Six Lies Grads Will Be Told

May 29, 2014Mike Leake 16 Comments

It’s graduation season. And as such, scores of graduating students and their doting family and friends will be exposed to the senseless drivel known as a graduation speech. This speech is supposed to prepare the students to face the real world—or perhaps the “real world” of going to college. One last shot at making something out of these thugs.

Most graduation speeches follow the same format. And they are filled with inspirational quotes and silly sayings that somebody’s mom will post on Facebook three years later with pretty little flowers and a demand to share. Or maybe the saying will be really good and you’ll see it on one of those overpriced placards that people buy to put in their storage sheds.

Usually the graduates are just lied to. Here are six lies they’ll likely be told:

You can be anything you want. Just dream and work hard. This sounds so wonderful and loving and I’ve heard it so many times I feel like a jerk saying it isn’t true. But it isn’t. It is true that hard work pays off. But if your singing voice is about as pleasing as listening to a goat giving birth, you aren’t going to be the next superstar no matter how hard you try or how much you dream. Truth be told your dream might be stupid. Because it’d harm you and it’d harm others, the Lord in his grace will crush your silly dream.
Follow your heart. The people that don’t like you don’t matter. Donald Sterling followed his heart when he expressed his racist comments. Therefore, the people that disagree with him don’t really matter. He should just keep on being a racist and saying racist things. See how dumb that sounds? It’s only good to follow your heart if it isn’t deceptive and if it loves the things that it ought to love and hate what it ought to hate. That only happens through the redemption of Christ.
These are the best years of your life. Not even close. If these are the best years of your life then you are well on your way to being Uncle Rico. Being a grown up and having a family, and real work, and being a grown man (or woman) is far better.
Your life begins now. If you believe your life is just beginning now then you are going to be ill-equipped. You’ll end up either mooching off your parents or the government simply because you assumed that you once you received that piece of paper you’d be mature and you could simply flip a switch and stop playing beer pong and start holding down a job. Your life began many years ago,and if you’ve squandered all of those years leading up to this moment you’re going to have some serious catching up to do.
Throw away the map and write your own story! Forget what the generations before you have taught. You live in the now and you write history. This sounds great now but I wonder what you’ll think about this quote in twenty years, when a new batch of grads are being told to throw away the map that you’ve been writing. We need history. There is nothing new under the sun. There isn’t a new story to write. There’s only the Grand Old Story to embrace and enjoy.
It’s okay to fail. I confess, this one is partially true. But the way that it’s flippantly bandied about is not helpful. It is okay to fail, and by all means try new stuff. Put yourself out there. But there’s a little more pain that comes with failure when you have a wife and kids to support. Failure isn’t the end. But it’s not a good thing that ought to be celebrated. When you are twelve and your lemonade stand fails, it’s one thing. When you are older and have people that are banking on your not-failing it’s quite another. By all means dream and risk, but don’t be an idiot as you do that.

This is a tremendous time in the life of a graduate. It is a time to celebrate and it is a time to encourage and admonish. This is a new chapter in your life—may it be used for God’s glory. And don’t forget that the greatest problem in the world have already been solved through the blood of Jesus Christ. Live your life to make Him the only boast of your generation and you won’t go wrong.