Jesus is the Word of God
Sticks and stone may break my bones but words can never hurt me? Poppycock!
Here for your brutal critique I offer an all age sermon on the theme of words in Proverbs:
The cross is heaven's gentle answer to our harsh words
When it goes to our heart, our words will be healthy
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At the end he quotes from Spurgeon's sermon "Eternal Faithfulness Unaffected by Human Unbelief."
I tell you again that He cannot reject you—that would be to alter His whole Character and “un-Christ” Himself! To spurn a coming sinner would un-Jesus Him and make Him to be somebody else, and not Himself any longer. “He cannot deny Himself.” Go and try Him! Go and try Him. I wish some trembling soul would, at this moment, go and cast Himself upon Christ and then report to us the result. Come, poor quivering Seekers, sing in your heart, unbelieving as you are...
If you were to perish at His feet, you would be the first that ever did so out of all those who have ever come to Him! And that first man has never been seen yet! Go and try my Lord and see for yourselves.
Well now, you Christian people, I want you to come, also. If you believe your Lord, He will be faithful to you. Suppose it is a time of trouble with you? He will be faithful to you—go and cast your burden upon Him. Suppose at this time you are much exercised with spiritual distress? Go to the Lord as you did at first, as poor, guilty, rebellious sinners—and cast yourself upon Him and you will find Him faithful. “He cannot deny Himself.” If my Lord were not kind to me tonight when I go to Him with my burdens, I should think that I had knocked at the wrong door because the Lord has been so good and so faithful to me up to now that it would take my breath away if I found Him changed! Oh, how good, how exceedingly good is my Lord!
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Can you imagine a beggar outside Buckingham Palace, begging for change. And she’s not a rough diamond. She’s not a salt of the earth character deep down. She’s unpleasant, she’s selfish, she’s backstabbing, she’s grubby, she’s been in and out of prison all her life and she’s only got herself to blame.
The Queen comes out of the palace and starts talking to the woman. And she doesn’t just spare some change for the poor unfortunate, she holds out her hand and helps the woman up. She gets dirty lifting the beggar to her feet. And she leads the beggar into the palace, past the security, past the bewildered staff. And they sit down to eat dinner together in the royal banquetting hall.
At the end of the dinner, the Queen makes an announcement. She officially adopts the woman into her royal family and shares all her wealth with her. She will share everything - even the throne - with this awkward, angry beggar.
And we say – That’s ridiculous! Nothing like that would ever happen.
The truth is that something far greater than this HAS happened. And it’s happened to us.
Full text below....
Romans 5:12-21
Look at yourself in Adam; though you had done nothing you were declared a sinner. Look at yourself in Christ; and see that, though you have done nothing, you are declared to be righteous. That is the parallel. We must get rid of all thoughts of our actions there is no boasting. We do nothing; all we are and have results from the obedience of the One – our Lord.” –Martyn Lloyd-Jones preaching on Romans 5:18,19, taken from: Romans 5: Assurance, p274.
Sermon audio here (sorry, my sermon not the Doctor's!)
Text below...
On Sunday I began our Gospel Alone series with this sermon on Christ Alone.
Audio here. Excerpt beneath. Full sermon at the end.
We do not know God except in Christ alone. We are not saved by God except in Christ alone.
Does that sound narrow?
It’s only as narrow as Christ is. So how narrow is Christ?
He is the Eternal Image of the otherwise Invisible God, the Creator and Redeemer of the Cosmos in Whom the fullness of deity dwells. How narrow is He? He is vast, He is beyond imagining. He fills the universe and the fullness of God fills Him.
We don’t say “Christ alone” to be narrow. We say 'Christ alone' because there’s no room for anyone else! He is the eternal Son of the Father, our Maker and our Saviour, Who reconciles the cosmos back to His Father – there’s just no room for anyone or anything else. That’s why we say 'Christ alone'.
It’s not about being narrow. It’s just about naming the true Lord of this world. The true Lord of this world is not Buddha or Allah or Krishna, He’s Jesus. The true Lord of this world is not money, sex or power, He’s Jesus. The true Lord of this world is not a big bang or a tiny particle or a long equation, He’s Jesus.
This is not narrow, this is simply naming the vast majesty of His Person and work. It’s Christ alone, because when you understand who He is, there’s no room for anyone else.
And when you grasp the all-sufficiency of His Person and work - it transforms your view of Christ, of His Father, of the world, of salvation, of yourself. To know Christ for Who He is means being drawn into His very life and work - to be caught up into the heart of all things. Grasping 'Christ alone' changes everything...
Full sermon text below...
Zephaniah prophesied during Josiah's reign - years leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem in 586BC. The Babylonian army was about to sack the city of God, to destroy the temple of God and to carry into exile the people of God. And Zephaniah rightly thinks to himself – if the city of God, the house of God and the people of God aren’t safe from destruction, then nothing is safe. If the very house of God is going to be judged, then the whole world will one day be judged. And so this national crisis that Zephaniah faced made him think of the global crisis we will all face when the LORD judges the earth.
The whole world is heading for the flames (Zeph 1:18; 3:8). And these flames are the LORD's jealous love (cf Song 8:6)- see more on the jealous judgement of God here.
For the proud, who stand alone in the face of the coming judgement, this will be a judging, consuming fire. For those who are sheltered by the LORD who hides (Zephaniah means the LORD hides), these flames will only refine and bring us into the sunshine of His love.
In Zephaniah 3:9-20 we see Refining (v9-13); Rejoicing (v14-17) and Restoration (v18-20).
These verses are some of the most extraordinary depictions of our future hope ever written. From the deepest depths to the highest heights, Zephaniah takes us through law to gospel. He shows us our utter hopelessness in ourselves and then, in this passage, proclaims our glorious future in Christ.
We usually live in the dreary middle, thinking our badness is not that bad and our God and His future is not that good. Zephaniah tells us the truth. And once we have faced the realities of our helplessness he will blow us away even more by the LORD's overwhelming love.
Our biggest battle in the Christian life is to trust the LORD's love for us - sinners though we undoubtedly are. Zephaniah will urge us to renounce ourselves - our badness and our goodness. And to simply allow God's blazing love to shine on us in all His glory!
Zephaniah 3 sermon audio here.
Text below...
We've thought about the chief error in guidance - believing that our choices make us who we are. That's Pelagian/Erasmian/Enlightenment garbage. But it infects everything.
One way it plays out is by feeding a familiar false dichotomy: it's the old boundary keeper versus tight-rope walker dilemma.
The 'boundary keeper' believes God has set limits ‘out there’ on our behaviour. There’s the ten commandments etc. And if you keep them – if you keep within the boundaries – then choose whatever you want. Get on and do your thing. Don't bother God and God shouldn't bother you.
You can see pretty clearly how the chief error feeds this view. I am my own self-directing godlet (with limits obviously).
But what's interesting is that the flipside to this error is essentially the same hubris differently applied.
The tight-rope walker looks very different. They think there's only one right path in life and at any minute they may put a foot wrong and fall off God’s will for their life.
Guidance then is all about making sure you make the one right decision in every circumstance.
But of course the question must come: Why? Why must you make the RIGHT decision? Unfortunately, for the tight-rope walker the answer comes: Because my very selfhood / standing before God depends on it. You're still effectively saying "It's all in my hands."
Looks humble and fearful before God. It's still all about you.
What's the answer?
Well this sermon from Proverbs has a go at an answer.
Essentially I conclude - we're not in a wide-open plain, we're not walking a tightrope - we're in the House of Wisdom. From that loving security we grow wise. And with the resources of the House of Wisdom - the Craftsmanship of Jesus; the Teaching of Jesus and the People of Jesus - wise people start making wise choices.
Audio here. Text below.
Ever since Genesis 3 we've had the sense that the world out there and our hearts in here are headed somewhere bad. And it's not going to end well.
We've all got our doomsday stories.
And in the popular imagination there's nothing like a post-apocalyptic vision of a deserted city for grabbing our attention. How many times has New York been destroyed on film?
Well Zephaniah is facing the destruction of Jerusalem and its imminent demise is making him think of the end of the world. Because if the people of God and the city of God and the house of God are about to be judged - then nothing and no-one is safe. The judgement of Jerusalem in the 6th century BC is a picture of the judgement of the whole world.
And so as Zephaniah thinks of global judgement, he paints his own picture of a deserted city. In verse 13 he turns his attention to perhaps the world's greatest city of the day - Nineveh. And he says this:
Look at v13
13 He will stretch out his hand against the north and destroy Assyria, leaving Nineveh utterly desolate and dry as the desert. 14 Flocks and herds will lie down there, creatures of every kind. The desert owl and the screech owl will roost on her columns. Their calls will echo through the windows, rubble will be in the doorways, the beams of cedar will be exposed. 15 This is the carefree city that lived in safety. She said to herself, "I am, and there is none besides me." What a ruin she has become, a lair for wild beasts! All who pass by her scoff and shake their fists.
It sounds just like one of those films. But the bible insists that there IS a right fear of the end of the world. Judgement is coming. And all our human securities WILL be overturned.
Things can’t go on like this forever. Life as we know it is moving towards judgement day. And even just on an individual level, our own bodies are decaying and falling apart, the physical world is groaning beneath us. And one day it will come crashing down.
Which means if you don’t like Zephaniah 2 and all the bible’s teaching on judgement – well I completely understand that. It’s not meant to be pleasant reading. It’s a bit like the fire alarm going off. No-one likes the fire alarm going off. Our smoke detector is very sensitive and it’ll go off the second I’ve burnt the toast. That’s annoying and I usually then take the battery out of the alarm until I’m done cooking. But I’d be stupid to take the battery out for good. I’d be stupid to throw away the fire alarm. And I’d be stupid to complain that the alarm was too loud and shrill for my liking. It’s meant to be loud and shrill, it’s meant to be inconvenient, it’s meant to disturb people so that it saves lives.
And it’s the same with Scripture’s warnings. But so often we’re like the person who takes out the battery and chucks it away. We skip over the judgement stuff because it’s a bit loud and shrill. Well it’s meant to be. But as disturbing and inconvenient as the fire alarm is – it’s nothing compared to the fire itself. And compared to these warnings in the bible, they are nothing compared to the judgement they warn us of. These warnings need to shock us out of our complacency and make us face reality.
There is a judgement, there is a reckoning, there is a last day, I will face Christ my Maker. And you can’t escape judgement by throwing the bible away and more than you can escape a fire by chucking away the fire alarm.
But even if you do throw the bible away, the world will sell you its own doomsday stories. Even without the bible you’ll still be told of catastrophic global warming and killer pandemics and the sun dying, the earth choking, the seas rising, the universe freezing. And just on an individual level, you’ll still get a call from the doctor to say “The results of the tests have come back, I think you’d better come into my surgery...” Your body will still go into the ground and rot along with everyone you love. You can’t escape judgement by throwing the bible away. And no-one should call the bible primitive for talking about Armageddon. We’ve all got our judgement day stories.
Zephaniah 1:1-2:3
What is our hope for the world? Many things threaten our planet and our lives, many dangers, many problems. What is our hope for the world?
Let me give you Zephaniah’s answer. What is our hope for the world? Judgement. Universal, inescapable, final judgement. That is our HOPE for the world. Interesting answer isn’t it? But I think it’s really profound. And if we understand it – really helpful.
Here are handouts from a marriage course my wife and I ran recently:
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On Saturday our church witnessed a tremendous picture of the book of Proverbs. The vicar married his son to a wise and beautiful woman. It was a very joyous occasion. And it perfectly pictures the book of Proverbs.
Because Proverbs is all about a father – King Solomon – addressing his son, the young prince. And he keeps saying, over twenty times, “my son, my son, my son.” It’s a case of saying, “Now boy, here’s what you need in life.” You can almost imagine it as the vicar and his son having a father-son chat.
And as you read through Proverbs essentially Solomon’s advice to his son is this: Watch out for the ladies!
In fact there are two ladies you need to look out for.
There’s a lady called Wisdom – get her, embrace her, marry her. There’s a lady called Folly – avoid her, don’t listen to her, don’t be ensnared by her.
And the King keeps saying to his son, the young prince – embrace wisdom, shun folly. All of life essentially boils down to one of two paths. Will you go wisdom’s way, or will you go folly’s way? The way of wisdom is the way of life and success. The way of folly is the way of death and disaster. Everything depends on shunning folly and embracing wisdom.
But what’s fascinating is that King Solomon does not present this choice as a matter of the intellect. It’s not just about applying ourselves to learning and head knowledge. And neither is this choice a matter of the will – as though we just need to be determined and resolved and just do it!. No, wisdom and folly are matters of the heart.
Our lives are ultimately a success or a failure depending on what we love. Or rather on Who we love.