I preached in Oak Hill chapel (for presumably the last time) on Nehemiah 9:22-31 last friday. This is a brief outline of what I said.
Two points to aid our life of repentance
1. Grace is the context for extraordinary sin.
Israel’s chief sin across history, from the perspective of this prayer at least, was to take take take grace from God and yet return that with disobedience and rejection of his laws.
E.g. see use of ‘gave’ in 22, 24, 27, 29 & 30.
The contrast is seen most clearly there in the transition from 25 to 26. They gorged themselves on grace. Yet threw the law behind their backs. Hence v25. great goodness of YHWH, and v26. great blasphemies of Israel.
God’s grace highlights the heinousness and unwarranted nature of the sin.
To sin against a gracious God is a terrible thing.
To gulp down his grace and cast away his covenant instructions is a terrible crime.
If for them, how much more for us living AD not BC?
Interesting that it’s this sin of license that they chose to focus on. As they looked at Israel’s history this was the way they chose to epitomise the nation’s sins that had gotten them into the mess they were now in. This was the nature of their covenant-breaking.
That should lead us to consider whether it might not be the same amongst us, God's covenant people today. E.g. Liberalism. E.g. various forms of Evangelical antinomianism.
We would do well to consider whether we need to repent of the same sins as Israel. We must not think we can take grace with one hand and cast aside our Father’s commands with the other. It’s a non-starter. It’s a road that leads straight to judgment.
2. Sin is the context for extraordinary grace.
E.g. God’s patience: ‘Testified/ warned’in 26, 29, 30. Also 'many mercies/ times' in 27, 31, 28, 30.
Three cycles, (26-27, 28, 29-30/31). Sin – handed over – cry out – saved. First two cycles follow the pattern, but third only has no cry, and no salvation. Because this prayer is the cry (32-37). This prayer is expecting salvation. They were expecting God to complete the cycle, to act as he’s acted before.
As they looked back on their history Israel saw the need to repent, for taking grace for granted.
But they also saw the basis for that repentance. v31.
You could say that where sin abounded grace superabounded.
If for them, how much more for us living AD not BC? What extraordinary grace to send His Son to be all that Israel failed to be, to restore, resurrect Israel even and give to his people, Jew and Gentile, the gift of the Spirit.
Repentance is based on grace. We repent because we know God to be a gracious and merciful God. We repent in the expectation of forgiveness and salvation and blessing.
Showing posts with label Sermons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sermons. Show all posts
Monday, May 19, 2008
Monday, October 16, 2006
Jeremiah Chapel Preach
Here is what I said today when I preached in chapel on Jeremiah 6:10-21 (I didn't take the whole passage though, as you will see). While I'm on the subject, Jeremiah - what a book! We should hear more preaching from it than we do.
Jeremiah 6:10-21
I wonder what we would hear if we could hear what was really being meant when we say the things we do here in chapel in response to God’s word?
When we pray what we pray
When we sing and promise God our obedience and trust
When we confess our sin to him and say we want to turn away from it.
If we could hear behind the words being said to what was actually meant, would the two be the same?
Jeremiah 6: 16-19 is a little bit like being able to do that.
What Jeremiah has given us here in these three verses is a bit like the liturgy for an anti-worship service, or a sort of mock covenant renewal service. It follows the same sort of pattern as genuine covenant renewals like the one at the end of the book of Joshua.
So, in vs. 16 the LORD invites Israel to seek after the ancient path - to walk down the road of faithfulness to him which their ancestors had, to walk the good way of the covenant, the way of rest and life. And this is the bit were in a real covenant renewal service the people would respond positively, pledging faith and obedience to the LORD. Only this time we hear what their real response is – ‘we will not walk in it’. Judah is offered the chance to live the Torah-driven life and she shakes her head and says ‘I’d rather go this way thanks’.
The pattern is repeated in vs. 17, only this time the LORD recounts how he gave them watchmen, the prophets, telling them to heed to sound of the trumpet – the impending judgment. Again the response is ‘we will not’ – Judah places her fingers in her ears.
And so now God calls witnesses, like in any covenant renewal service, only this time the witnesses are not being called to hold Judah to her promises, like in Joshua. The witnesses in the ‘mock renewal service’ are called to observe that God is just in bringing terrible terrible calamity on Judah. Vs. 19, the judgment is simply the LORD bringing the consequences, the fruit of Judah’s own evil on their own heads. Completely just since Judah has ignored the warning words of the LORD and rejected the gracious gift of the law (torah).
Of course if you were to ask the average resident of Jerusalem as he left the temple on a Saturday morning if he trusted and obeyed the LORD he probably would’ve answered with a vigorous yes, maybe slightly offended that you would ask such a question. The people in Jeremiah’s day were facing impending judgment by and large in sweet self-satisfied oblivion. They loved the temple (see Ch. 7), they were very particular and grand in their offering of sacrifices (see vs. 20).
And yet the version of the gospel they had been sold and gladly swallowed was (vs. 14) a toned down version that declared ‘peace peace’ when there was no peace, so that the warning-rebuking wounds made by the LORD were treated with a band aid of cheap grace. That’s why below the surface Judah and Jerusalem stank with the rotten smell of idolatry, greed, injustice, all the things Jeremiah puts his finger on elsewhere. Jeremiah’s mock-covenant renewal service is really there to strip away that veneer of faithfulness and show where Judah really stood in relation to the LORD, how she was really responding to the word of the LORD.
And the verdict is that she has rejected the law and ignored the prophets. That’s why our reading kicked off with those desperate words in 10.
All of which shows that it is possible to be so spiritually deaf that we don’t realise we are rejecting the gospel. It is possible to have so cheapened grace, so neglected repentance,
so smoothed over the cracks of our sin, that we think we are OK with the LORD, when in reality all the time we’re saying ‘we will not walk’ ‘we will not pay attention’.
College life means we are in constant contact with the sort of invitation the LORD makes in vs. 16 – the invitation to repent, to return to the ways of the LORD, to take Jesus’ yoke and find rest in him.
College life means we are in constant contact with the sort of warning talked about in vs. 17. The trumpet is constantly sounding in our ears because we’re constantly reading and thinking about God’s word. Few people are better aware of the danger of judgment than in this room I imagine.
And yet the danger is that we can be simply going through the motions like Judah. It looks on one level like we’re trusting in the LORD’s grace, taking our sin seriously, obeying his word, but in lots of places in our lives we look to the same old idols to give us identity, pleasure, escape, importance, and slavishly give them our love and obedience.
The danger is that familiarity breeds contempt and we become hard of hearing if not yet deaf to the LORD’s words of promise and warning. The danger is that like Judah, Jeremiah’s mock-service words better explains the response of our hearts than the words that come out of our lips.
So what should we do if we find that’s what is happening to us?
Don’t blame it on the liturgy.
This is the ‘How can I be expected to mean the same thing every day?’ attitude. And we can use that false antithesis between regularity and authenticity to excuse what is a problem with our heart’s responding to God’s word. Instead, repent and ask the LORD to unblock your ears.
Don’t blame it on repentance-fatigue.
This is the ‘Great, another thing to correct in my (delete as appropriate) theology/home life/ marriage/ study practices!’ attitude. If you’re heart is like mine then you can quickly move from that sort of legitimate feeling of having so much to sort out to absolving yourself from responsibility to apply anything. Instead repent and ask the LORD to dig you a new pair of ears.
Don’t think being a good listener is a solo pursuit.
It’s our joint responsibility isn’t it, to keep one another open to the correction and challenge of God’s word? It’s our joint responsibility to keep one another daily depending on the LORD’s grace isn’t it? We need to repent and ask the LORD to open our ears and write his law on our hearts.
Jeremiah 6:10-21
I wonder what we would hear if we could hear what was really being meant when we say the things we do here in chapel in response to God’s word?
When we pray what we pray
When we sing and promise God our obedience and trust
When we confess our sin to him and say we want to turn away from it.
If we could hear behind the words being said to what was actually meant, would the two be the same?
Jeremiah 6: 16-19 is a little bit like being able to do that.
What Jeremiah has given us here in these three verses is a bit like the liturgy for an anti-worship service, or a sort of mock covenant renewal service. It follows the same sort of pattern as genuine covenant renewals like the one at the end of the book of Joshua.
So, in vs. 16 the LORD invites Israel to seek after the ancient path - to walk down the road of faithfulness to him which their ancestors had, to walk the good way of the covenant, the way of rest and life. And this is the bit were in a real covenant renewal service the people would respond positively, pledging faith and obedience to the LORD. Only this time we hear what their real response is – ‘we will not walk in it’. Judah is offered the chance to live the Torah-driven life and she shakes her head and says ‘I’d rather go this way thanks’.
The pattern is repeated in vs. 17, only this time the LORD recounts how he gave them watchmen, the prophets, telling them to heed to sound of the trumpet – the impending judgment. Again the response is ‘we will not’ – Judah places her fingers in her ears.
And so now God calls witnesses, like in any covenant renewal service, only this time the witnesses are not being called to hold Judah to her promises, like in Joshua. The witnesses in the ‘mock renewal service’ are called to observe that God is just in bringing terrible terrible calamity on Judah. Vs. 19, the judgment is simply the LORD bringing the consequences, the fruit of Judah’s own evil on their own heads. Completely just since Judah has ignored the warning words of the LORD and rejected the gracious gift of the law (torah).
Of course if you were to ask the average resident of Jerusalem as he left the temple on a Saturday morning if he trusted and obeyed the LORD he probably would’ve answered with a vigorous yes, maybe slightly offended that you would ask such a question. The people in Jeremiah’s day were facing impending judgment by and large in sweet self-satisfied oblivion. They loved the temple (see Ch. 7), they were very particular and grand in their offering of sacrifices (see vs. 20).
And yet the version of the gospel they had been sold and gladly swallowed was (vs. 14) a toned down version that declared ‘peace peace’ when there was no peace, so that the warning-rebuking wounds made by the LORD were treated with a band aid of cheap grace. That’s why below the surface Judah and Jerusalem stank with the rotten smell of idolatry, greed, injustice, all the things Jeremiah puts his finger on elsewhere. Jeremiah’s mock-covenant renewal service is really there to strip away that veneer of faithfulness and show where Judah really stood in relation to the LORD, how she was really responding to the word of the LORD.
And the verdict is that she has rejected the law and ignored the prophets. That’s why our reading kicked off with those desperate words in 10.
All of which shows that it is possible to be so spiritually deaf that we don’t realise we are rejecting the gospel. It is possible to have so cheapened grace, so neglected repentance,
so smoothed over the cracks of our sin, that we think we are OK with the LORD, when in reality all the time we’re saying ‘we will not walk’ ‘we will not pay attention’.
College life means we are in constant contact with the sort of invitation the LORD makes in vs. 16 – the invitation to repent, to return to the ways of the LORD, to take Jesus’ yoke and find rest in him.
College life means we are in constant contact with the sort of warning talked about in vs. 17. The trumpet is constantly sounding in our ears because we’re constantly reading and thinking about God’s word. Few people are better aware of the danger of judgment than in this room I imagine.
And yet the danger is that we can be simply going through the motions like Judah. It looks on one level like we’re trusting in the LORD’s grace, taking our sin seriously, obeying his word, but in lots of places in our lives we look to the same old idols to give us identity, pleasure, escape, importance, and slavishly give them our love and obedience.
The danger is that familiarity breeds contempt and we become hard of hearing if not yet deaf to the LORD’s words of promise and warning. The danger is that like Judah, Jeremiah’s mock-service words better explains the response of our hearts than the words that come out of our lips.
So what should we do if we find that’s what is happening to us?
Don’t blame it on the liturgy.
This is the ‘How can I be expected to mean the same thing every day?’ attitude. And we can use that false antithesis between regularity and authenticity to excuse what is a problem with our heart’s responding to God’s word. Instead, repent and ask the LORD to unblock your ears.
Don’t blame it on repentance-fatigue.
This is the ‘Great, another thing to correct in my (delete as appropriate) theology/home life/ marriage/ study practices!’ attitude. If you’re heart is like mine then you can quickly move from that sort of legitimate feeling of having so much to sort out to absolving yourself from responsibility to apply anything. Instead repent and ask the LORD to dig you a new pair of ears.
Don’t think being a good listener is a solo pursuit.
It’s our joint responsibility isn’t it, to keep one another open to the correction and challenge of God’s word? It’s our joint responsibility to keep one another daily depending on the LORD’s grace isn’t it? We need to repent and ask the LORD to open our ears and write his law on our hearts.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Proverbs 9 to download
My Sermon on Proverbs 9 is now available to listen to/download, should you be interested.
Click HERE to listen directly online.
Or go HERE to download it for saving and listening to at your leisure (right click, choose 'save target as').
All comments are welcome. Not sure I feel as happy about this one as Proverbs 8 one. Not sure I always got the whole Proverbs thing right.
Click HERE to listen directly online.
Or go HERE to download it for saving and listening to at your leisure (right click, choose 'save target as').
All comments are welcome. Not sure I feel as happy about this one as Proverbs 8 one. Not sure I always got the whole Proverbs thing right.
Friday, August 25, 2006
Choose Wisdom
Below is a sermon plan for this sunday's sermon on Proverbs 9 (I trust if you are going to be there on sunday you'll look away now).
Main teaching point: The choice between wisdom and folly is the choice between life and death, between teach-ability and stubborn arrogance.
Biblical Theology: The choice between wisdom and folly is crystallised in the ministry of Jesus Christ. Being teachable/open to correction equates to heeding Christ’s words, similarly the life offered by wisdom is received from him.
Introduction
Rival voices in our culture compete for our allegiance and obedience. Ultimately the choice is between God’s wisdom (embodied in Christ) and the world’s wisdom (folly). Proverbs 9 depicts this choice by making two contrasts, between on the one hand 2 invitations we can accept and on the other hand between two types of listener we can be.
1. We must choose between 2 invitations - life from wisdom or death from folly (1-6, 13-18)
Wisdom and Folly personified and contrasted. Folly a cracked mirror-image of Wisdom, a doppelganger. Both have set up house, both have prepared a banquet, both invite the simple/gullible.
The difference is deadly. The food on offer from Wisdom is life/insight – being able to make sense of life and live it properly/successfully, true life. Folly on the other hand offers tantalising illicit pleasures, but those who dine with her are dead. Folly promises pleasure but serves up death.
Application
Folly’s many guises today (the different ways we can choose to run our lives and how they lead to death).
Whose banquet are you going to dine at?
2. We can be one of two types of listener - foolish and arrogant or wise and humble (7-12)
The scoffer is proud and arrogant and unable to bear criticism/change their way of life and will therefore never submit to God’s wisdom (in fact hates it).
The wise man however is distinguished by his teach-ability and openness to correction (and therefore loves God’s wisdom) – this amounts to humble fear of the LORD the author of life.
Application
The importance of being open to correction by God’s wisdom. The danger of pride.
Matthew 7:24-27. The choice between being wise/foolish, between life/death is seen ultimately in how we listen to Jesus’ words – he is God’s wisdom and to be wise is to listen to him in rebuke and correction. To 'fear the LORD' is to bow the knee to him.
What type of listener are you going to be?
Main teaching point: The choice between wisdom and folly is the choice between life and death, between teach-ability and stubborn arrogance.
Biblical Theology: The choice between wisdom and folly is crystallised in the ministry of Jesus Christ. Being teachable/open to correction equates to heeding Christ’s words, similarly the life offered by wisdom is received from him.
Introduction
Rival voices in our culture compete for our allegiance and obedience. Ultimately the choice is between God’s wisdom (embodied in Christ) and the world’s wisdom (folly). Proverbs 9 depicts this choice by making two contrasts, between on the one hand 2 invitations we can accept and on the other hand between two types of listener we can be.
1. We must choose between 2 invitations - life from wisdom or death from folly (1-6, 13-18)
Wisdom and Folly personified and contrasted. Folly a cracked mirror-image of Wisdom, a doppelganger. Both have set up house, both have prepared a banquet, both invite the simple/gullible.
The difference is deadly. The food on offer from Wisdom is life/insight – being able to make sense of life and live it properly/successfully, true life. Folly on the other hand offers tantalising illicit pleasures, but those who dine with her are dead. Folly promises pleasure but serves up death.
Application
Folly’s many guises today (the different ways we can choose to run our lives and how they lead to death).
Whose banquet are you going to dine at?
2. We can be one of two types of listener - foolish and arrogant or wise and humble (7-12)
The scoffer is proud and arrogant and unable to bear criticism/change their way of life and will therefore never submit to God’s wisdom (in fact hates it).
The wise man however is distinguished by his teach-ability and openness to correction (and therefore loves God’s wisdom) – this amounts to humble fear of the LORD the author of life.
Application
The importance of being open to correction by God’s wisdom. The danger of pride.
Matthew 7:24-27. The choice between being wise/foolish, between life/death is seen ultimately in how we listen to Jesus’ words – he is God’s wisdom and to be wise is to listen to him in rebuke and correction. To 'fear the LORD' is to bow the knee to him.
What type of listener are you going to be?
Monday, August 21, 2006
Sermon on Proverbs 8
My sermon on Proverbs 8 this past sunday is now available HERE (right click and choose 'save target as'). You may detect it having changed quite a bit from the outline posted on this blog last week.
Proverbs 9 is to follow this sunday, details to be posted as and when.
Proverbs 9 is to follow this sunday, details to be posted as and when.
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Does not Wisdom call?
Here it is then, the skeleton of my Proverbs 8 sermon for this sunday. Much blood, sweat and tears has gone in already. Comments are very welcome especially since I am yet to flesh all of this out into a sermon script (if you are a Christ Church Central person I hope you will look away at this point and not be naughty and think that if you read this you needn't turn up on sunday - or worse, once you've read it decide you don't want to turn up on sunday).
Sermon Plan: Proverbs 8 (click here for text)
Introduction (vs. 1-5 and context)
Will we follow Lady Wisdom or Lady Folly (cf. Proverbs 7), who will we listen to, who will be our partner to guide us through life? Powerful reasons to listen to Lady Wisdom. That means God’s wisdom. For us it means Jesus Christ.
NB. Throughout the poem the 'argument' builds, with wisdom firstly claiming to be able to deliver tremendous benefits (6-21) then secondly providing theological rationale for these claims in the 'cosmic' passage (22-31). Everything is heading towards the plea found in the conclusion (32-36).
1. Wisdom’s qualities
a. Wisdom’s words are reliable and valuable (vs. 6-10)
b. Wisdom enables good government (vs. 11-16)
c. Wisdom offers great rewards (vs. 17-21)
Application: Among other things, note the marrying of the practical (wisdom is great because it works) and the moral (wisdom is great because it is right) and the way in particular these are married in the concept of righteousness/justice – correct ordering of the world along God’s lines. The creation-based and creation-embracing character of wisdom stands in opposition to our false sacred-secular divisions and our culture’s insistence that pragmatics and morality remain separate, especially in the political sphere.
2. Wisdom’s qualifications
a. Wisdom existed before creation (vs. 22-26). Therefore this wisdom is not merely observation from what has been made, but revelation from the one who made it all.
b. Wisdom was involved in creation (vs. 27-31). The world was ordered by wisdom. Wisdom delighted in the orderly, human-ruled creation of Genesis 1-2. The call to embrace wisdom is the call to re-order along the creator's desires.
Biblical Theology: Jesus Christ as the source of wisdom for us. Is Christ speaking in Proverbs 8? No (in one sense Proverbs 8 is clearly a personification of Solomon’s God-given wisdom, we must allow the full force of the literary device to hold) but of course yes (Solomon’s God-given wisdom finds fulfilment in Jesus Christ, such that what is personified in ‘Lady Wisdom’ is embodied, perfected even (in a teleological sense), in Jesus Christ).
Application: We must seek all that wisdom promises in Prov. 8 in Christ in whom are all the treasures of wisdom. He, the pre-existent Son, not only made all things but he is the reason for which all things have been made. Similarly he is the one in whom all things are being re-created and re-ordered, such that the call to flee folly and embrace wisdom is a call to embrace him for all areas of our life. This is again in contrast to our tendency to ‘spiritualise’ the Christian life or reduce the effects of the gospel to ‘forgives my sins/ticket to heaven’. Christ is the source of all we need to pursue true humanity, true life, and rule the world the way we should. Which leads neatly to
Conclusion: Wisdom offers blessed life (32-36)
Sermon Plan: Proverbs 8 (click here for text)
Introduction (vs. 1-5 and context)
Will we follow Lady Wisdom or Lady Folly (cf. Proverbs 7), who will we listen to, who will be our partner to guide us through life? Powerful reasons to listen to Lady Wisdom. That means God’s wisdom. For us it means Jesus Christ.
NB. Throughout the poem the 'argument' builds, with wisdom firstly claiming to be able to deliver tremendous benefits (6-21) then secondly providing theological rationale for these claims in the 'cosmic' passage (22-31). Everything is heading towards the plea found in the conclusion (32-36).
1. Wisdom’s qualities
a. Wisdom’s words are reliable and valuable (vs. 6-10)
b. Wisdom enables good government (vs. 11-16)
c. Wisdom offers great rewards (vs. 17-21)
Application: Among other things, note the marrying of the practical (wisdom is great because it works) and the moral (wisdom is great because it is right) and the way in particular these are married in the concept of righteousness/justice – correct ordering of the world along God’s lines. The creation-based and creation-embracing character of wisdom stands in opposition to our false sacred-secular divisions and our culture’s insistence that pragmatics and morality remain separate, especially in the political sphere.
2. Wisdom’s qualifications
a. Wisdom existed before creation (vs. 22-26). Therefore this wisdom is not merely observation from what has been made, but revelation from the one who made it all.
b. Wisdom was involved in creation (vs. 27-31). The world was ordered by wisdom. Wisdom delighted in the orderly, human-ruled creation of Genesis 1-2. The call to embrace wisdom is the call to re-order along the creator's desires.
Biblical Theology: Jesus Christ as the source of wisdom for us. Is Christ speaking in Proverbs 8? No (in one sense Proverbs 8 is clearly a personification of Solomon’s God-given wisdom, we must allow the full force of the literary device to hold) but of course yes (Solomon’s God-given wisdom finds fulfilment in Jesus Christ, such that what is personified in ‘Lady Wisdom’ is embodied, perfected even (in a teleological sense), in Jesus Christ).
Application: We must seek all that wisdom promises in Prov. 8 in Christ in whom are all the treasures of wisdom. He, the pre-existent Son, not only made all things but he is the reason for which all things have been made. Similarly he is the one in whom all things are being re-created and re-ordered, such that the call to flee folly and embrace wisdom is a call to embrace him for all areas of our life. This is again in contrast to our tendency to ‘spiritualise’ the Christian life or reduce the effects of the gospel to ‘forgives my sins/ticket to heaven’. Christ is the source of all we need to pursue true humanity, true life, and rule the world the way we should. Which leads neatly to
Conclusion: Wisdom offers blessed life (32-36)
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