31 Days of Purity: Day Fifteen

Mike Leake

Day Fifteen: The Local Church

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. (Hebrews 10:24-25)

The New Testament knows nothing of the lone Christian—the man who claims to be a believer but who deliberately or carelessly allows himself to drift from the local church. Just as the wolf will prowl outside the flock of sheep, looking for the one that strays from the shepherd, Satan prowls the church, looking for the people who stray from Christian fellowship. Every Christian is dependent upon the local church and we neglect it to our peril, for it is in the church that we powerfully experience the means of grace God gives us—the Word, prayer and the sacraments (or ordinances). We cannot thrive or even survive without them. Neither should we expect to.

It is also within the church that we uniquely experience the joy of imitating Christ in putting aside our own desires in order to love and serve others. And so, my brother, don’t simply go to church: Be an active, serving, participating member of that church. Do not expect that you will be able to put sin to death or to pursue holiness without the local church.

Father, I am grateful for the gift of the local church. I am grateful that through the church I am able to experience those wondrously ordinary means of grace. I am grateful that you led me to my church, and I pray that you would help me to commit to it more and more, that I would love the people you bring there, that I would have deep and meaningful friendships there, that I would faithfully serve your people by stirring them up to love and good works.

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Tim Chalies is husband to Aileen and a father to three children aged 7 to 13. He worships and serves as a pastor at Grace Fellowship Church in Toronto, Ontario, where he primarily gives attention to mentoring and discipleship. He blogs daily at challies.com, is a book reviewer for WORLD magazine, co-founded Cruciform Press, and has written four books.

Richard Sibbes and The Glorious Feast of the Gospel (YWS Week 10)

Nick Horton 1 Comment

richardsibbessmallWelcome 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

Sibbes sermons series on the Glorious Feast of the Gospel is sourced from Isaiah 25:6-9. This passage of scripture details the feast of the righteous, and here Sibbes meditated at length. He took the mountain to be a type that pointed to the antitype that is the Church of Jesus Christ. This feast then is for all that believe in Jesus Christ. It is fulfilled both here, and in the end of time when Christ come to judge the lost and welcome the redeemed.

Sibbes notes that believers must bring their appetites for spiritual things, that Christ will remove the veil from those who believe so that they can behold him and his feast, our enemy death will be fully and finally swallowed up, and our tears that we have so many of now will be wiped away.

Sibbes relates the feast to the ins and outs of the Christian life. We are invited to the feast by God himself, just as he invites us in salvation. Though we are invited to this feast, we must bring something. (458) Yet even what we bring is nothing but an overflow of the grace that he has given us. Anything we know and understand positively of God is granted by his Holy Spirit to us. Without God removing the veil from us, we are darkened and separated from him and cannot understand fully his truth.

“When kings conquer, they bring fundamental laws; and when we are taken from Satan’s kingdom into the kingdom of Christ, the fundamental laws are then altered. Christ by his Spirit sets up a law of believing, and praying, and doing good, and abstaining from evil. The law of the spirit of life frees us from the law of sin and death.” (479)

Application / Further Discussion

Have you been moved from Satan’s kingdom to the kingdom of Christ? Sibbes gloried for page after page in the glorious feast that is to come for those that know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. We who know Christ will delight in his excellencies and beauty and truth for eternity. We will enjoy fellowship with the God who made us. This enjoyment is not of us, no, it is the grace of God. Indeed, as Sibbes notes;

“There is nothing in the heart of man but a contrariety to divine light.” (465)

From birth we are veiled from God because our sin separates us from him. We are walled off from him, yet we know he is there. Our reaching out to him is but grasping in the dark because we don’t know the way.

Christ has made the way.

Jesus Christ, God born in the flesh, lived a perfect and sinless life as God demanded. Yet he was crucified at the hands of sinful men and died on the cross for our sins. God’s wrath was poured out on him for the sins of all who would believe. He was buried. On the third day, he was resurrected, proving his power over sin and death. He now holds out the possibility of salvation to all who would repent, turn from their sins, and believe that he is who the Scriptures say he is.

“Repentance must cost us tears.” (482)

That invitation is available to you. You are invited to repent and believe in Jesus Christ and be forgiven of your sins. You are invited upon believing, to the glorious feast mentioned in Isaiah chapter 25. This life is not all there is. You know that, you feel that deep in your heart. Death and sorrow and loss are not how it was meant to be. And one day, Christ will come again to set all things right. Those who do not confess and believe in him will be judged and sent to hell. Those who believe in him and receive the righteousness of Christ will enter heaven.

Will you be at the table with me? Will you be there on feast day? Will you be there rejoicing, never to cry again? Will you be there to experience life as it was truly meant to be; reconciled to your God?

I hope so.

Trust him. He is faithful to forgive all who call on his name.

—

Last week, we covered Sibbes’s sermon, “A Breathing After God.”

Next week, we’ll read “Christ is Best.“

31 Days of Purity: Day Fourteen

Mike Leake

Day Fourteen: Passion for the Word

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. (Psalm 1:1-2, ESV)

God’s Word cuts and cuts deep. This kind of cutting doesn’t always feel like a blessing to those who are living in impurity. It hurts. It convicts. It wounds as it penetrates our hearts and exposes our sin. God’s Word lays us bare before Yahweh. But it also strengthens and sustains. God’s Word is the weapon that He wields (and that we wield) in our fight against impurity. It is through His powerful Word that mountains melt like wax. It was through His powerful Word that your heart came alive. And it will be through His powerful Word that our impure hearts will be transformed into the likeness of His Son.

If we want a passion for God, it will only come through a passion for God’s Word. If we want to be rescued from the land of scoffers and the counsel of the wicked, then we’ll want to position ourselves under God’s Word. It is here that our delight in God will grow. Therefore, let us pray that the Lord would give us an abiding passion for His Word.

Father, we thank you for your Word. Thought it slays me I know that it also restores me. I know that naturally I do not have a passion for your Word. I will not drift into reading and meditating upon your Word. I certainly will not naturally treasure it. But through your Spirit the Word will be a delight to my heart. So, God I pray that you would incline my heart to you. Give me an abiding passion for your Word, a passion unlike any I have known before. Use your Word to conquer my sin and unbelief.

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Mike Leake is associate pastor of First Baptist Church of Jasper, IN. He and his wife, Nikki have 2 children (Isaiah and Hannah). Mike is the author of Torn to Heal and regularly blogs athttp://mikeleake.net

Today in Blogworld 03.14.14

Mike Leake

Celebrity Pastors: A Retrospective

I wholeheartedly agree with this from Carl Trueman: “If there are people out there who still believe that there is such a thing as reformed evangelicalism as a trans-denominational movement, if they believe that this movement will play a key role in the future of the church, and if they believe that they are important leaders in this movement, then they need to speak directly, clearly, and firmly to precisely these issues.  You cannot be a leader without leading publicly on the major issues and major personalities of the day who impact your movement and your chosen constituency.”

What We Need: Biblical Bluntness

There’s a fine line between being blunt and being a jerk. Colin Adams helps us walk that line.

“Ask Jesus Into Your Heart” –A History of the Sinner’s Prayer

Interesting.

One-Another Infographic

All of the Bible’s one-anothers in a handy infographic. (HT: Alan Cross)

Folks we’ve got a problem. Thankfully, Kevin Bacon is here to help us raise 80’s Awareness: