Proverbs 16:1-9 “The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirit. Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established. The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble. Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the Lord; be assured, he will not go unpunished. By steadfast love and faithfulness iniquity is atoned for, and by the fear of the Lord one turns away from evil. When a man’s ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him. Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues with injustice. The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.”

I remember singing a song as a child about God having the whole world in his hands – a simple truth that is quickly forgotten. Each one of us has hopes for today and the future. We make plans, and live our life accordingly. God tells us though, that He is the ultimate authority for everything that happens. Today I’m not going to answer the question of how God is sovereign over evil, I’ve done so before, and it takes a bit to unpack. I want to focus instead just on the simple truth of God’s sovereignty over our lives and how that is a source of peace for those of us who know God, know Jesus as our all-loving Savior.

The arrogance of man’s heart, is an abomination to God. God hates when someone believes that they are the determiners of their fate. That may be difficult for the Type A persons to swallow. At the root of it all is pride, to believe that they are God, and God is not. We labor and worry over life, as if we could change its end result. This is an abomination to God.

Matthew 6:25-27, 34

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?”

“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

God’s answer to us is not that we should sit idly by and do nothing, but that we should commit our works to the Him and trust Him. He is the ultimate determiner of all things, and He values us and loves us. We do not commit an end result to God – we commit our works to God. We should be asking ourselves questions often – is this work I’m doing pleasing to God? If so, then regardless of the outcome, you are delighting God and doing exactly what you should be doing. You can rest that whatever the result of those works are, it is exactly as God intends it. This is incredibly powerful for Christians. How much stress do people carry worrying about things that they cannot control? How much stress do people carry about things you can control? God says to stop altogether, to give responsibility for the end results over to Him, and simply to commit yourself and your works each day to Him. He is our loving Father, and His love for us and His plans for us will always be far greater than our own.

Look to Jesus, who was confronted by a culture of arrogant persons attempting to make themselves righteous before God by observing the laws of Moses. What the Jewish culture believed would bring life was only bringing endless guilt, shame, and ultimately death. God’s plan was better. He did what man could not do, by taking all of man’s sin on Himself, dying in their place, and rising again in power – having conquered not the Roman army as Jews expected, but having conquered sin and death itself. In Jesus there is no guilt, no shame, because we have been made completely holy forever through him.

2 Corinthians 5:21 – “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

I’ll close with this as we consider the place of mourning amidst trusting God’s sovereignty. It is right to mourn loss. It may be right to mourn missed expectations and hopes for a time. After mourning however, Christians should not stay sorrowful indefinitely. Let your soul be refreshed in Jesus, who loves you, is with you, and is for you. We will never understand all the joys and sorrows of this life on this side of eternity, but we do know Jesus, who is good and in control of all things.

Proverbs 9:10 – The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.

We come to know the holiness of God, that is, His perfect righteousness, through his wrath. Much of the Old Testament are pictures of God angry at sin, pouring out his wrath against it. God’s wrath comes to a head in the cross of Christ, when instead of small outpourings of God’s wrath, such as the flood or destructions of cities and nations, we finally see the true wrath of God against sin when the omnipotent, infinite wrath of God against sin is put on Jesus. For 3 hours, the whole earth is consumed in darkness (Luke 23:44-45). Jesus bore the wrath of God. We who are saved by faith in Jesus, were purchased by His blood. It is only when one sees and feels the weight of the wrath of God towards sin, acknowledges they incapable of any true “good” in themselves, and comes to an end of any attempt of self-righteousness, that God can work in that person wisdom as to how they are to live rightly.

At this point, I’m distinctly aware that none of this sounds “compassionate”, so was this title a mistake or a clever ruse to get someone to hear about the wrath of God against sin again? No. I started this, this way because this message is for Christians, and I feel like as Christians, many of us are well acquainted with sin already, feel the weight of it, and may be stymied by it. For you, I want to propose a healthy challenge – find one person all of the Bible who acknowledged their sin before Jesus, that Jesus was anything other than exceedingly compassionate and patient towards. To save you some time, there isn’t one. Jesus’ harshest words were always for the self-righteous (mostly Pharisees). You see Jesus have compassion on adulterers (John 4, John 8), prositutes (Luke 7:36-50), murderers (Acts 9:1-19), and thieves (Matthew 9:9-10).

A question for you, brother or sister in Christ. If Jesus has compassion on you, do you have compassion on yourself? The burden of sin you felt from the first paragraph above has been dealt with fully in Jesus. Jesus knows the weakness of our flesh. Jesus knows every way we’ve failed in the past, and every way we will fail in the future, just as he did with each person he met in the Bible, yet he met each person with compassion. My goal is never to make light of sin in our lives – we should all be putting it to death, striving towards the love of Christ in all things. We should with the same vigor fight against the lie of our enemy that sin holds weight on us now or in the future.

Matthew 11:28-30 – “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

These are the words of Jesus for you – it was for freedom Christ has set us free. If you see a distinction between God the Father, and Jesus, know that there is none – John 14:8-10 – “Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.”  Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works.”

When Jesus shows us compassion and love, He is showing the compassion and love of God to you. If knowing the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, it is knowing the love of God towards you in Christ Jesus that will complete it. Strive as Christians who know the compassion and love of Christ towards you in His grace personally, and carry that message forward to others in your life.

As a Christian, this place is not our home. There are difficulties, struggles, pain, and loss that escape understanding. It’s easy to look around at the brokenness around us and wonder, where is God? How could God allow this to happen? If God is love, why is there so much hate? If God is light, why is there so much evil? I come back to a basic truth that is foundation if you believe God – God did not make man for this world. Just as the beauty of new life, new marriage, and nature proclaim the glory of God, pain, loss, and struggle, proclaim the absence of Him.

Those times when God feels most absent, are when God in love is pulling us to Himself. We are reminded in strong ways, that this world is not our home, but that is not the end. We have a God who loves us, who is calling us home one by one, and who made a way for us to come to Him through the gospel of Jesus.

Psalm 90:12-15 –

“¹² So teach us to number our days
    that we may get a heart of wisdom.
¹³ Return, O Lord! How long?
    Have pity on your servants!
¹⁴ Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
    that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
¹⁵ Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
    and for as many years as we have seen evil.”

Each day that we live on this Earth will in some measure rightly feel as an affliction. Christian and even non-Christian can look around and say to themselves innately ” This is not how things should be.” We were created for life, not death. We were created for joy in relationship with God, not broken relationships. Our bodies were created for strength, not decay.

Romans 8:22-24 – “For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. ²³ And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. ²⁴ For in this hope we were saved.”

The purpose of pain, is to purpose our hearts in faith towards our redemption. This is not our home, so do not pursue joy ultimately here as if it could be found. Rest your hearts in the gospel of Jesus, who has told us, “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. ² In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? ³ And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (John 14:1-3).

Seek after God’s will as many days as he has given you here, and set your heart’s affections in knowing that God has better plans for us still. Know that when you see wrong in this world, it is pointing us towards what is Right. He loves you, He is with you, and He is for you.

Today’s message is one of reminder an encouragement.  As our culture here in the US turns further and further away from the God of the Bible, as culture is set against scripture; we each must choose.  We choose either to follow our own heart, what seems right to us, or we choose to submit our heart and mind to God alone in His Word.  Why is this essential?  Because if we are not people of Scripture, we cease to be people of God, or at least not the god of the Bible – so we would be found to be worshiping a God of our own making.  Is it no wonder then that we find in scripture warnings like this one from Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount:

Matthew 7:21-23 –  “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.  On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”

God did not die to save a part of you, and allow another part of you to wretch in sin.  He died to adopt you, to declare you something altogether different than what you were before.  If that is true, which everyone who believes on Jesus is hoping for, then we must be diligent in challenging our own hearts – are we submitted to God, are we trusting in Him for His righteousness, and do we love God more than the world or what the world could offer us?

All of us struggle with sin, but there is a greater danger to a Christian than to sin or even to be struggling with an ongoing sin, and that is to find themselves in a practice of sin, unrepentant, unwilling to even go to God to ask His mercy over them.  This is the danger in the culture we live in.  It’s message is contrary to God’s – it’s message is that you’re ok like you are, and that you do not need to go to God in humility and brokenness.

Proverbs 16:25 – “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.”

Jeremiah 17:9 – “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”

So, I do not trust in what seems right to me, nor do I trust in what my heart “feels” is right, but I resolve to trust God alone – the God who has already displayed His love towards me by dying in my place.

The Psalms, for all their richness of emotion and ability to pierce the hearts of men to carry their emotions rightly to God, we sometimes forget that they are also Scripture, and therefore contain doctrine for teaching as well.

Psalm 84:10-12 

“For a day in your courts is better
    than a thousand elsewhere.
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
    than dwell in the tents of wickedness.
For the Lord God is a sun and shield;
    the Lord bestows favor and honor.
No good thing does he withhold
    from those who walk uprightly.
O Lord of hosts,
    blessed is the one who trusts in you!”

There are little joys that this world could offer; Sin can be fun, otherwise it would not entice anyone.  The consequences, however, are beyond what we can fathom.  Just as when Adam ate from the tree, and endured in on bite a curse beyond what he could have imagined, so too, when we sin, are setting ourselves up for more earthly consequences than we often imagine, and if we do not truly seek repentance in the mercy of God, we will pay the ultimate consequence in separation from God forever in Hell.

My encouragement is not to keep anyone from joy, but be diligent in pursuing joy in your adoption as a son or daughter of God.  We follow news of princes and princesses of Earthly kingdoms, and forget that we are princes and princesses of the eternal kingdom, with the only true King.  We have a higher calling – set your minds there, and reject lesser things.  Reject the lies of culture, and resolve to set yourself on the narrow road to trust in Christ alone and His will for your life.  It may be a harder road, but it is the only road that leads to peace now, and eternal life with Christ forever.

Grace and Peace,

Adam

One of the great things that I love about God, is that He is always working.  When we’re strong, when we’re weak, when we succeed, when we fail, when we are rich, when we are poor, when we are at peace, when our emotions are a storm, when we have joy, when we have despair – God is always at work.

“we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified” – Romans 8:23-30

God is faithful to complete what he has begun in us, to use the circumstances of our life to draw us closer to Him, where lasting peace and joy is found.  He shows us more of Himself, His goodness, and in seeing Him as He is, we are being transformed into His image little by little.

2 Corinthians 3:17-18 – “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”

It is with these things in view, that God has challenged me lately.  As a Christian, we are called to a great many things, but there is really only one thing that matters – seeing and savoring Jesus for all that He is to us and for us.  Everything else, even obedience in life, service, and Christian disciplines, if they are not rooted and sprouting forth from a heart that sees and delights in Jesus, is nothing.  It could be worse actually, in that it may actually mask an unbelieving heart.

A simple question is, do you love Jesus?  Do you love him primarily not for what He has done for you, and not what He can do for you, but simply for who He is – what you see of God in His Word?  With hearts that are so easily deceived, as ours are, it is imperative that we question ourselves, and ask God for His grace and mercy to draw us to a pure love and trust in Him.

My encouragement for us all, is to ask pursue each day a greater love for Jesus than we had for Him the day before.  Ask God to see wonderful, delight-inducing things about Himself from His Word.  Ask God for the Spirit’s work to have a singular affection for Him, and let all other loves of our hearts be derivatives or an overflow of our Greatest Love, God Himself.  Seeing Jesus with clear eyes, delighting in Him from a pure heart in His Word, will have us by the Spirit conformed into His image day by day.

I hope this reaches each of you well, and pray that our God who is able to do all this and more grants each of you peace, diligence, and unity of the Spirit among the people of God.

 

So, I’m a couple days late with this message as Thanksgiving week has passed, but I hope it still reaches everyone well.

It has been my experience, over my years with God, that He has often used specific people in specific ways at specific times to encourage and sustain my faith.  God has a plan for each of us, each of us is invaluable.

1 Corinthians 12:12-13 – “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.  For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.”

Each of you is unique.  You have a background that is uniquely your own, yet God has a plan for it, both the good, and especially the bad.  While I can comfort a woman who has lost a child, I would never be able to comfort her like another woman who has lost a child could.  While I can encourage someone who struggles with alcoholism, I can never encourage them like someone who has been through that.  I have my own sin struggles, and mistakes from my own life that God has a plan to use, and the same is true for all of us.  To those who say that faith is private and personal, their faith will be dead soon enough.  We were made to exist and be sustained by one another as Children of God.

Hebrews 10:23-25 – “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. 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.”

My encouragement today, is two-fold.  First, immerse yourself in the people of God.  Find a church, get into a small group, and start meeting up with people regularly, if you’re not already.  It’s hard, it is inconvenient, and it’s going to be messy, because they’re messed up sinners (just like you are).  But God can and does use messed up people, to accomplish His perfect will, and He absolutely has a plan to build up and sustain your faith through His people.

Second, consider how God has used people in your life to encourage and sustain your faith.  Each of you has at least one story, because each of you had the gospel preached to you by someone at some point in your past.  Do not think too highly of yourself that you do not need the people of God, and do not think too lowly of yourself that they do not need you.

1 Peter 4:7-11 – “The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers.  Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.  Show hospitality to one another without grumbling.  As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace:  whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.” 

 

Grace and Peace,

Adam

 

John 1:1, 14 – “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

I’ve said it before, and it seems right to say it again – I often feel that my words get in the way of God’s, that the most important truths in anything I ever write will always  come from the scripture included therein.  My words have no power, but the word of God is the Word of Life.  There is not Truth apart from God and His Word, there is no life apart from God and His Word, there is no salvation apart from God and His Word, and there is no joy apart from God and His Word.

Psalm 19:7 – “The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether.  More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweet also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb. 

I, like many of you, have multiple Bibles – some of which collecting dust on a shelf.  When I think about how blessed we are to live in this period of history, where everyone who wants a Bible can have one or many; where everyone can go online to read commentaries and expositions, unfolding the depth of truth of God in His Word, my heart cannot help but to be thankful to God for this grace.  How good of God to bless us in this way.  If also like me, many of you are feeling a sense of conviction at this moment for how little you treasure the Word of God like this often, as we ought to, then my hope would be that instead of pushing that awkwardness and conviction away, we would humbly allow God to rebuke us, and ask Him to incline our hearts rightly again to a high view of scripture and its study.

It is the love of God poured out to you, that you have access to the literal Word of God, your Creator, to find truth, freedom, and peace.  I hope as each of us has opportunity, we are both thankful to God for this gift, and also take full advantage to pursue joy in the Lord in it.

Isaiah 40:8 – “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.”

Grace and Peace,

Adam

In the spirit of Thanksgiving week, I felt it good to consider some things for which I personally am most thankful to God for.  My hope is that by way of remembrance, we can all be encouraged with the great love that God has lavished on us all in salvation.

Psalm 14:2-3 “The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God.  They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.

Hebrews 3:12-15 – “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. As it is said, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”

So today, my encouragement to my own soul and hopefully yours, is that if we hear the voice of God, we should rejoice.  God does not owe us His pursuit of us, but it is an overflow of His love towards us.  It is not chance, it is not your own “good choice or will”, it is literally the calling of God, the Holy Spirit, upon your life, if you are aware of your sin, and turn away from it and towards God.  The voice of God flows from the love of God, and is a mercy to those of us with ears to hear it.  Do not lament what earthly things may be “lost” in following the voice of God, but consider the eternal weight of glory in perfect love for eternity that awaits us with God through Christ Jesus.

Phillippians 3:13b-14 – “forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

Grace and Peace,

Adam

If you read the gospels, it is easy to look at the acts of Jesus and simply say – “that’s how I should act”.  This is the foundation of the WWJD idea, of acting in such a way that in every circumstance of life you attempt to act as Jesus would.  In itself, that is a futile effort though, and will only lead you to frustration when you realize that you are not Jesus.

Living the life Jesus would have us live entails more than just a series of decisions.  If you look at the life of Jesus in scripture, you will see that surrounding all of the great actions of Jesus, there was time of prayer, communion with God the Father, fasting, and even celebrations.  In the same way that it would be foolish to look at a star baseball player, and then turn to a child and say “now hit that major league fastball just like the star baseball player did”, it is foolish to say to one another just “act like Jesus did”.  It took effort and training in order for the baseball player to be able to hit a major league fastball, and it takes effort and discipline for us to move forward day by day to be conformed into the image of God.  Jesus did not live certain acts in isolation, but those actions of his life were the overflow of his private discipline of communion with God.

1 Corinthians 9:24-27 – “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize?  So run that you may obtain it.  Every athlete exercises self-control in all things.  They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.” 

My exhortation today is one of peace.  You do not have to wake up tomorrow and live exactly like Jesus would.  You simply have to pursue Christ seeking to grow into him more than yesterday.  You can rest your heart in the gospel, the finished work of Jesus on the cross for your sin, and resolve simply to do the work of disciplining your life to follow after him.  Day by day, we are to come before God to be renewed, refreshed, and grow more into His likeness.  Our actions will be the overflow of our heart, and our heart will be transformed not as much from individual decisions of what to do or what not to do, but in times no one ever sees; in times in reading scripture, in prayer throughout the day, in periods of fasting, in times in nature alone with God, and in various other ways we will grow our hearts in Truth towards God.

Be encouraged, that even if you are reading this, God has a purpose for you today.  Our race is not a sprint, but a marathon of daily disciplines, one day at a time, step-by-step, and God is with you every step of the way.

At some point in your life, I hope you had someone love you enough to tell you to grow up.  We are not meant to live like children into our later years, nor as Christians are we meant to remain as spiritual children.

1 Corinthians 13:11 – “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.“

You will encounter suffering.  You will encounter temptation.  These things are guaranteed in this world, which is stained by sin.  Resolve to glorify God in each day, so that when those things come, they are not a time to shrink back from your faith, but for the faith and God to be magnified.

James 1:2-4 – “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.  And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

My exhortation today is short – the time has come to put away half-measures, self-deception, partial-allegiance, and lukewarm faith.  You have been redeemed by the blood of God in Jesus, His burial, death, and resurrection.  Grow up.  You are an adopted daughter or son of God, if indeed that is what you are.  Your thoughts, your actions, your resources are towards one end, in this life – what can be done to lift up the name of Jesus, push back darkness, proclaim life to the spiritually dead through the proclamation of the gospel, pursue justice for the oppressed, and serve the poor for the glory of God.  Life will not be easy as a Christian, but the joy of the LORD is great, and there is no better place to be moment to moment of each day than in the will of your Creator.