Advent : The Need by Paul D. Tripp

Posted on December 4, 2013 by jim
“The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5).Could you get any more graphic, more specific, more all-inclusive words? All over the inhabited earth were people who were constantly doing evil in the sight of God, and every intention of the thought of their heart was wicked. You couldn’t find a pure person with a pure motive.

Genesis 6 doesn’t go into gritty detail about what kind of wicked deeds were being committed, but you could guess. Every act of murder and violence is rooted in a wicked heart; every moment of financial greed is rooted in a wicked heart; every bit of disobedience to authority is rooted in a wicked heart; every lustful flash of adultery is rooted in a wicked heart.

Maybe you never killed someone. Maybe you never beat someone up on the street. Maybe you’ve been more generous than most in your church with your resources. Maybe you never committed adultery on your spouse. Maybe you’re thinking to yourself, “I’m one of the good guys. I’m not defined by this verse.”

For the believer, the power of sin has been broken, so in many ways, your life isn’t defined by this verse. You’re not in bondage to this type of wickedness, and you do live righteously and serve God with a pure heart.

At the same time, however, the presence of sin still remains. A war rages on the turf of your heart everyday. There are times when you love God more than yourself, but not always. There are times when you sacrifice in love for your spouse, but not always. There are times when you are generous with your resources, but not always. There are times when you speak from a pure heart, but not always.

Think again about the world described in Genesis 6:5. It’s a scary place! It wouldn’t be safe to walk around your neighborhood; it wouldn’t be safe to trust the government; it wouldn’t be safe to invest your money in banks or stocks. You would be surrounded by wickedness at every turn.

So what’s the solution? Here’s the trap that you and I fall into all the time. We think that with a little bit of behavior reform, we can clean things up. So maybe all Genesis 6:5 needs is a police force that locks up criminals quicker. Maybe all Genesis 6:5 needs is a new election that replaces corrupt politicians with new ones. Maybe all Genesis 6:5 needs is little bit of bank reform.

The Bible doesn’t propose that. All throughout Scripture, our big problem is a heart problem. That’s why Genesis 6:5 uses the word heart. The heart is the control center of the human being. Whatever controls my heart will then control my behavior. A temporary solution might be to alter my words and my behavior, but permanent change will only travel through the pathway of the heart.

The only way the world of Genesis 6:5 will be cleaned up is with a new heart. And the only way you and I will be rescued is by a transformed heart. Someone needs to do for me what I could never do for myself – create in me a clean heart (Psalm 51:10).

God did just that. In love, the Father sent his Son to be exposed to all the harsh realities of life in a fallen world, but to live perfectly in the midst of that brokenness and temptation. In every thought and every desire and every word and every action, Christ obeyed perfectly on our behalf. He died a satisfactory death and paid the eternal penalty for our sin.

The Cross satisfied the wrath of God and sealed the promise of eternal life. But it also gave me a new heart. By the power of the Holy Spirit, I can now live for Jesus. “And he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised” (2 Corinthians 5:15). That’s what Christmas is all about.

This Advent season, celebrate the work of the Messiah and the new life you have because of him. But remember, you still wrestle with an impure heart. You don’t need behavior reform. You need a soft and humble heart that is captured everyday by a love for God and his kingdom.

 
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It Won’t Wear Out by Paul Tripp

Posted on August 14, 2013 by jim
Have you noticed that everything in your life wears out? The sweater that you loved so much and wore winter after winter is now stuffed in the bottom drawer of your dresser, threadbare, unused, and unwanted. The car that excited you so and that even smelled new is now just a car with scratches and squeaks to prove it. The stain-resistant carpet ended up not being so stain-resistant after all.

The list could go on and on, but the point is that this side of heaven, everything in your life wears out somehow, someway. In fact, even you wear out. Your body grows old, weak, and tired. Your joints hurt because they’re wearing out from all the stress of exercise over the many years of your life.

It’s something you and I are used to. So we’re happy when a car or an appliance lasts for ten years before it wears out. We’re all quite accustomed to living in a world where things simply don’t last.

But, if you’re one of God’s children, there’s something in your life that won’t wear out. In fact, it has the amazing capacity to be new day after day after day. Scripture says that God’s mercies are “new every morning” (Lamentations 3:22-23).

Now you know you need mercy, because you know you need forgiveness and help. Almost every day you mess up in some way. Almost every day you face things that are bigger than the size of your personal wisdom and strength. You and I constantly need the mercy of forgiveness and the mercy of enablement. And so, it’s very encouraging to know that God’s mercy is new every day! God’s mercy never grows stale and it never loses its transforming power. God’s mercy is brand new morning after morning after morning.

This also means that God’s mercy is form-fit for the problems that you’re facing right here, right now. Each morning you’re given new mercies for the particular things that you’ll face that day.

So, you can wake up tomorrow with courage and hope. And you can do this, not because of your strength and wisdom, but because you know that the most important thing you’ve ever been given will never wear out. You can also have hope because you know that the God who’s given that new mercy knows exactly what you’re about to face.
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Analyzing Unanswered Prayer by R. C. Sproul

Posted on July 16, 2013 by jim

Our prayers are sometimes not answered because we pray in vague generalities. When all our prayers are either vague or universal in their scope, it is difficult to experience the exhilaration that goes with clear and obvious answers to prayer. If we ask God to “bless everyone in the world” or “forgive everyone in town,” it would be difficult to see the prayer answered in any concrete way. Not that it is wrong to have a large scope of interest in prayer, but if all prayer is given to such generality, then no prayer will have specific and concrete application.

Our prayers are also hindered if we are at war with God. If we are out of harmony with God or in a state of rebellion toward Him, we can hardly expect Him to turn a benevolent ear toward our prayers. His ear is inclined to those who love Him and seek to obey Him. He turns His ear away from the wicked. Thus our attitude and reverence toward God is vital to the efficiency of our prayers.

We also tend to be impatient. When I pray for patience I tend to ask for it “right now!” It is not uncommon for us to wait years, indeed decades, for our most earnest petitions to be realized. God rarely is in a hurry. On the other hand, our fidelity to God tends to depend on “prompt and courteous” action by God. If God tarries, our impatience yields to frustration.

We also have short memories and easily forget the benefits and gifts we’ve received from the hand of God. This is the mark of the apostate—he forgets the benefits of God. The saint remembers the gifts of God and doesn’t require a fresh one each hour to keep his faith intact.

Though God does heap grace upon grace, we should be able to rejoice in God’s benefits if we never receive another benefit from Him. Remember the Lord when you go before Him. He will not give you a stone when you ask Him for bread.

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Surveying the Crisis of Worship by R. C. Sproul

Posted on May 23, 2013 by jim

There is a crisis of worship in our land. People are staying away from church in droves. One survey indicated that the two chief reasons people drop out of church are that it is boring and irrelevant.

If people find worship boring and irrelevant, it can only mean they have no sense of the presence of God in it. When we study the act of worship in Scripture and church history, we discover a variety of human responses to the sense of the presence of God. Some people tremble in terror, falling with their faces to the ground; others weep in mourning; some are exuberant in joy; still others are reduced to a pensive silence. Though the responses differ, one reaction we never find is boredom. It is impossible to be bored in the presence of God (if you know that He is there).

Neither is it possible for a sentient creature to find his or her encounter with God a matter of irrelevance. Nothing—and no one—is more relevant to human existence than the living God.

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Examining Calvin’s Rules of Prayer (Part 2) by R. C. Sproul

Posted on May 13, 2013 by jim

John Calvin’s third rule of prayer was that we must always pray with genuine feeling. Prayer is a matter of passion: “Many repeat prayers in a perfunctory manner from a set form, as if they were performing a task to God . . . They perform the duty from custom, because their minds are meanwhile cold, and they ponder not what they ask.”

A fourth rule of prayer from Calvin was that it be always accompanied by repentance: “God does not listen to the wicked; that their prayers, as well as their sacrifices, are an abomination to them. For it is right that those who seal up their hearts should find the ears of God closed against them.”

Calvin said a humble submission is required: “Of this submission, which casts down all haughtiness, we have numerous examples in the servants of God. The holier they are, the more humbly they prostrate themselves when they come into the presence of the Lord.”

If I can summarize Calvin’s teaching on prayer succinct, I would say this: The chief rule of prayer is to remember who God is and to remember who you are. If we remember those two things, our prayers will always and ever be marked by adoration and confession.

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Examining Calvin’s Rules of Prayer (Part 1) by R. C. Sproul

Posted on May 7, 2013 by jim

For John Calvin, prayer was like a priceless treasure that God has offered to His people.

Calvin’s first rule of prayer was to enter into it with a full awareness of the One to whom we are speaking. The key to prayer is a spirit of reverence and adoration: “Let the first rule of right prayer be, to have our heart and mind framed as becomes those who are entering into converse with God.”

Calvin wrote of how easy it is for our minds to wander in prayer. We become inattentive, as if we were speaking to someone with whom we are easily bored. This insults the glory of God: “Let us know, then, that none duly prepare themselves [sic] for prayer but those who are so impressed with the majesty of God that they engage in it free from all earthly cares and affections.”

Calvin’s second rule of prayer was that we ask only for those things that God permits. Prayer can be an exercise in blasphemy if we entreat His blessing for our sinful desires: “I lately observed, men in prayer give greater license to their unlawful desires than if they were telling jocular tales among their equals.”

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Tried and Triumphant by James M. Boice

Posted on February 14, 2013 by jim
This is part of a larger study by Dr. Boice. I thought this might be edifying. The theme is “Temptation” and his text is 1 Corinthians 10 : 1 – 22.
There is a second truth we should learn from this section as well. It comes in this magnificent verse 13: “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” This is a verse you should memorize early in the Christian life because its teaching is so important. It says temptation is common. Just because you are a Christian, you are not going to avoid temptation. But this verse tells us God provides the way of escape for Christians when the temptation comes. You may say, “I just couldn’t help it,” but that is a lie of the devil, because God always gives you a way of escape. The reason so many of us fall so often is that we are not looking for that way of escape. That is why we fall. And when we do, we must recognize that God made a way of escape. If we sin it is not God’s fault.
As you study Scripture and what it has to say about temptation, you find that it says temptation comes to us from different sources. Some temptation is fleshly. We immediately think of sexual sin, but there are other fleshly sins as well. Overeating is a fleshly sin. Laziness is another. There are other sins that come to us from the world as it tries to force us into its mold. This is to think like the world, to have the world’s priorities, to make choices the way the world does. This is worldliness. There are also temptations that come to us directly from the devil.
It is interesting that the Bible gives different instructions for resisting the different sources of temptation that come our way. In other words, there is a different strategy for each category. First take this matter of fleshly sins. What does the Bible say that we are to do in the face of fleshly temptation? In Paul’s first letter to Timothy he discusses sexual immorality. He gives Timothy advice that any young man or any young woman should heed in similar situations. It is very simple. He says, “Flee from sexual immorality” (1 Cor. 6:18). That means run away. If you find yourself in a situation where you are tempted to a fleshly sin, do not stand around and debate it. Get out of that situation. Why? Because in other situations you always have your reason on your side. Your reason, as an ally, comes to offset the temptation. But, if you are tempted to sexual sin, to give just one example of a fleshly sin, you know that your reason does not have a whole lot to do with it. So Paul says when you are in such a situation, run away from it. Get out! That is the way that this particular sin is to be resisted. The same strategy applies to overeating. The only way to resist overeating is stop eating. Get up from the table. Go away. If you are indulging in too much television, the only thing to do is get up and turn off the television. These are all fleshly sins and Paul gives very practical advice.
What do you do with sins that come from the world? Paul gives the answer in the twelfth chapter of Romans. He says, “Don’t let the world force you into its mold. Be transformed from within by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God” (v. 2). He is saying that you have to live close to God in the Scriptures and allow God, as you grow in the Christian life, to enable you increasingly to think as God thinks rather than as the world thinks. This takes time. It is a matter of Christian maturity. Because none of us is completely mature – we are all worldly and involved in worldly sins – we need to draw near to God and allow the Holy Spirit to do that kind of trans-formation which makes us different people as the new life of Christ comes to fruition within us.
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10,000 Little Moments by Paul Tripp

Posted on December 29, 2012 by jim

Well, it’s that season once again. It’s the fodder for blogs, newspaper articles, TV magazine shows and way too many Twitter posts. It is the time for the annual ritual of dramatic New Year’s resolutions fueled by the hope of immediate and significant personal life change.

But the reality is that few smokers actually quit because of a single moment of resolve, few obese people have become slim and healthy because of one dramatic moment of commitment, few people who were deeply in debt have changed their financial lifestyle because they resolved to do so as the old year gave way to the new, and few marriages have been changed by the means of one dramatic resolution.

Is change important? Yes, it is for all of us in some way. Is commitment essential? Of course! There is a way in which all of our lives are shaped by the commitments we make. But biblical Christianity—which has the gospel of Jesus Christ at its heart—simply doesn’t rest its hope in big, dramatic moments of change.

The fact of the matter is that the transforming work of grace is more of a mundane process than it is a series of a few dramatic events. Personal heart and life change is always a process. And where does that process take place? It takes place where you and I live everyday. And where do we live? Well, we all have the same address. Our lives don’t careen from big moment to big moment. No, we all live in the utterly mundane.

Most of us won’t be written up in history books. Most of us only make three or four momentous decisions in our lives, and several decades after we die, the people we leave behind will struggle to remember the event of our lives. You and I live in little moments, and if God doesn’t rule our little moments and doesn’t work to recreate us in the middle of them, then there is no hope for us, because that is where you and I live.

The little moments of life are profoundly important precisely because they are the little moments that we live in and that form us. This is where I think “Big Drama Christianity” gets us into trouble. It can cause us to devalue the significance of the little moments of life and the “small-change” grace that meets us there. And because we devalue the little moments where we live, we don’t tend to notice the sin that gets exposed there. We fail to seek the grace that is offered to us.

You see, the character of a life is not set in two or three dramatic moments, but in 10,000 little moments. The character that was formed in those little moments is what shapes how you respond to the big moments of life.

What leads to significant personal change?

  • 10,000 moments of personal insight and conviction
  • 10,000 moments of humble submission
  • 10,000 moments of foolishness exposed and wisdom gained
  • 10,000 moments of sin confessed and sin forsaken
  • 10,000 moments of courageous faith
  • 10,000 choice points of obedience
  • 10,000 times of forsaking the kingdom of self and running toward the kingdom of God
  • 10,000 moments where we abandon worship of the creation and give ourselves to worship of the Creator.

And what makes all of this possible? Relentless, transforming, little-moment grace. You see, Jesus is Emmanuel not just because he came to earth, but because he makes you the place where he dwells. This means he is present and active in all the mundane moments of your daily life.

And what is he doing? In these small moments he is delivering every redemptive promise he has made to you. In these unremarkable moments, he is working to rescue you from you and transform you into his likeness. By sovereign grace he places you in daily little moments that are designed to take you beyond your character, wisdom and grace so that you will seek the help and hope that can only be found in him. In a lifelong process of change, he is undoing you and rebuilding you again—exactly what each one of us needs!

Yes, you and I need to be committed to change, but not in a way that hopes for a big event of transformation, but in a way that finds joy in and is faithful to a day-by-day, step-by-step process of insight, confession, repentance and faith. And in those little moments we commit ourselves to remember the words of Paul in Romans 8:32 – “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us, how will he not also with him freely give us all things.”
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Violent Grace by Paul Tripp

Posted on November 7, 2012 by jim
Our relationship with the Lord is never anything other than a relationship of grace. It’s grace that brought us into His family. It’s grace that keeps us in it and it’s grace that will continue us in it forever. But the grace that we’ve been given is not always comfortable grace. Here is why:

As sinners we all become way too comfortable with our sin. The thought that once bothered becomes an action that no longer plagues our conscience. The word that troubled us the first time it was uttered now is accompanied by others that are worse. The marriage that was once a picture of biblical love has now become a relationship of cold-war detente.

Commitment to work degenerates into doing as little as I can for as much pay as I can negotiate. A commitment to a devotional life now become perfunctory and empty duty, more like getting my ticket punched for heaven than enjoying communion with my Lord. Minor, unexpressed irritation, which once troubled my heart, is now fully expressed anger that is easily rationalized away. Sin is like the unnoticed drips of water that silently destroy the foundation of a house.

You see, we all have a perverse capacity to be comfortable with what God says is wrong. So God blesses us with violent, uncomfortable grace. Yes, He really does love us enough to crush us, so that we would feel the pain of our sin and run to Him for forgiveness and deliverance.

David says in Psalm 51:8, “Let the bones You have crushed rejoice.” It’s a curious phrase. Crushed bones and rejoicing don’t seem to go together. You wouldn’t say, “Hooray, I have a broken bone!” But that’s very close to what David is saying. He’s using the searing pain of broken bones as a metaphor of the pain of heart that you feel when you really see your sin for what it is. That pain is a good thing!

Think about it. The physical pain of an actual broken bone is worth being thankful for because it’s a warning sign something is wrong in that arm or leg. In the same way, God’s loving hammer of conviction is meant to break your heart and the pain of heart you feel is meant to alert you to the fact that something is spiritually wrong inside of you. Like the warning signal of physical pain, the rescuing and restoring pain of convicting grace is a thing worth celebrating!

So God’s grace isn’t always comfortable because He isn’t primarily working on our comfort – He’s working on our character. With violent grace He will crush us because He loves us and is committed to our restoration, deliverance, and refinement. And that is something worth celebrating!

 
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How to Be Clean by Paul Tripp

Posted on September 5, 2012 by jim

When David says, “Create in me a clean heart, O God,” (Psalm 51:10) he’s admitting the one thing we don’t want to admit. He’s confessing to the depth of his moral dilemma. He’s looking at life God’s way. He’s saying, “I’m facing something that I can’t free myself from. I’m dealing with something that I can’t solve. I’m in the middle of something that I don’t have the independent power to alleviate.”

Here’s the confession, here’s the plea: “God, my problem is that I have a fundamentally unclean heart. I bring this uncleanness to every situation, location, and relationship of my daily life. In some way, it influences all of my thoughts, desires, choices, words, and actions. Lord, I want to be clean because now I can see clearly the legacy of my uncleanness, but I’m not able to make my heart clean. God, I’m asking you to do what I can’t do for myself. I’m asking you to create in my heart what isn’t there; fundamental moral purity – a moral goodness of heart that will then shape all of my actions and reactions to life.”

The word for create here is the same word that’s used in Genesis 1. Why is this important? Because it tells you that David understands to whom he’s talking. He’s appealing to the One who’s the Creator of all things to do exactly what he did as he spoke the physical universe into to being. He’s asking the Redeemer to exercise the expansiveness of his creative power to create moral purity at the motivational core of his personhood, the heart. David is pleading for a miracle that’s every bit as astounding as what’s recorded in Genesis 1. He’s asking God to create a moral universe in his heart that doesn’t yet exist. And he’s asking for this because he knows that unless he’s the recipient of such a miracle, he’ll never be what he’s supposed to be or do what he’s supposed to do.

David gets it. He gets that he desperately needs forgiveness, but he also understands that he needs something more. He gets that he needs to be recreated at the core of who he is as a person. His prayer for a “clean” heart is a prayer for deliverance from the moral pull and the vulnerability that’s the functional danger of an unclean heart. In praying this way, David prays for all of us.

Psalm 51:10 is the “says it all” diagnosis of the moral struggle of all of us. So isn’t it wonderful that Jesus, the Messiah, was sent to earth so that we could be the recipients of the one thing that we could never provide for ourselves: a new heart? So don’t be discouraged and don’t let yourself be defeated. There’s help for us! There’s hope for us! There’s a Creator Redeemer who delights in exercising his power to create a moral cleanness in the hearts of needy people who seek it because they know that it can only be found in him.

Be humble enough to pray David’s prayer, recognize your need of the same Creator cleansing, and watch what your Redeemer will do.

God bless

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