Two Points:: Thursday November 18

Point 1

"You are no more capable of doing better than you are of creating new world." A W Pink.

So many of us, even those who seek to know, understand and apply the gospel, are plagued by this need to do better, to be better. I was involved in sports and church as a kid. A lot of my sports teams were very good and we were pushed to work hard, practice hard, give max effort all the time and that would yield success.

In church, I was taught the same thing. Our offering envelopes that got mailed to our house every three months had boxes on them to check off. The boxes were giving, bible brought, bible read daily, Sunday School attendance, outreach attendance and some more that I do not remember.

The point of these boxes was to get the minds of the members to think about such things. But the result that was poured into my conscience was that these are things that I could do to make God happy, to be a good Christian. There is nothing inherently wrong with any of these things. But there is something very wrong with my working to get to God.

Point 2

Genesis 2:25 says that Adam and Eve were (pre-sin) naked and unashamed. Gen 3:7 says that Adam and Eve (post-sin)knew they were naked and so they did things to cloth themselves.

What if we stopped focusing on who or what we are and started to focus on who and what God is? What if that took away this need to try harder or try to cover ourselves? What if our problem is that we are too focused on ourselves and we need to get back to that place in the garden where we were naked and unashamed. Between Genesis 2:25 and 3:7 the physical thing that happens to Adam and Eve is that their eyes are opened to who they are. That is, they are distracted from God and His pure beauty and provision by themselves.

From the Sermon Tomorrow (11.13.10)

We are justified by faith and not by the law.

There is no amount of right doing that will get us to God. In fact, it is detrimental to our getting to God, because our success and failure in following the law places our focus on self and not on God. The old chorus, Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus gets it exactly right. It says, "Look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace."

This is a theme that is all throughout the book of Galatians and will be all throughout the sermon in church tomorrow. It is a message that is worthy of redundancy, because we just do not get it. Our bend is always toward religion and trying to earn our way. Even in earthly relationships, we try to earn things. But our relationship with God is based only the fact that Jesus Christ suffered a death that we should have suffered to satisfy the penalty for sin that we could not satisfy so that sin could be put away and we could live.

The thing is that even that understanding of the gospel can self focused. Our right view of God and the gospel can be the things that puffs us up and we wind up centered around our right understanding of God, rather than being centering around Christ Himself.

The Gospel is at Stake Update

We are a few weeks into our series on the book of Galatians called, "The Gospel is at Stake." We have just finished the first chapter. So I thought it would be a good idea to bring us up to speed on what is going on and reintroduce the central theme of the book as we study.


Context
Paul is the author of the book and he has started churches in various cities and towns in the region of Galatia. In each one of the cities, Paul had previously preached the gospel and started churches by appointing and training leaders of those churches. While preaching, Paul was threatened with death if he continued to preach by religious power wolves. Paul was actually stoned just outside of one of the cities and left for dead.

This did not stop Paul, he would get up and go to the next city knowing full well that those same power wolves would follow him into the city and cause chaos. But the gospel was more important to Paul than his safety. So he went in and taught these people the gospel.

Theme
It is very simple and it is the message that Paul preached to the people prior to him writing the book. The theme is salvation through faith in Jesus Christ alone and not through any religious activity.

Chapter 1
Through the first chapter of the book Paul has reinforced two things strongly. First, the gospel. Paul very simply points out the gospel in Galatians 1:4 and points out, with vigor, his purpose for the book in Galatians 1:6. In the second half of chapter one Paul continues by proclaiming that his message of the gospel is the message that God has charged him with teaching. It is Paul's authority to proclaim the gospel.

What is ahead
This week we begin to look into the mission of Paul and the mission that we have as men and women "entrusted with the gospel". We hope to see you Sunday at 10:00 am at 660 Charbonier in Florissant. You can also check out the podcast of the message linked from our website and Facebook page.

The Gospel is at Stake Part 1:: Set Up

We started our series on the book of Galatians this past Sunday called "The Gospel is at Stake." We will use this blog to look back at what we talked about in the message and also to look forward to what is coming. Today we will look back at the set up message from October 24.

Galatians was written to the people in the churches in the region of Galatia that Paul established during his first missionary journey. That journey led Paul to preach in several cities across the region of Galatia and then later come back to those cities and establish churches and appoint elders for those churches. You can see those cities (Salamis, Paphos, Perga, Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe) on the map. (courtesy to ESV Study Bible for use of the map.)

As he preached he would also receive persecution from religious leaders in the cities who threaten to stone him and on one occasion did stone him and nearly killed him. Paul preached a message of justification by faith alone. The religious leaders contended with Paul saying that converts needed to fully obey the law of Moses, which goes against the core of the gospel.

The ESV Study Bible provides this commentary on the Galatians, "In one way or another, everything in the epistle is related to Paul's defense of justification by faith alone. The letter is also unified by the apostle's intensity of tone, which comes through as strongly here as it does in any of his writings—especially in his intolerance of false doctrine and his indignation with people who promote it."

Thanks for reading, be sure to check back to the blog consistently for more commentary and direction as we go through this series and we hope to see you Sunday.

Marriage Conference

Strong marriages are a backbone of any good church. At North Church we are consumed with investing in marriages. The best sermon that a man will ever preach is the way he treats his wife. Much of what we do is centered around these ideas.

Along that line, we want to make you all aware of an event that is coming to St. Louis October 1-2 that will be hosted by Central Presbyterian Church and featuring Paul Tripp. Paul Tripp is a well known author and speaker you can visit his website about the conference here. You can get information on the conference here.

Check these sites out and make plans to go today. You can register on your own through the website.

When Obedience is Hard::David

This week our in series called "When Obedience is Hard" we will look at David. There are so many things that we could talk about in the life of David in regard to obedience.

The message on Sunday will focus on David's encounter with Bathsheeba, Uriah and Nathan. We will look into how and why it is so much harder to walk in obedience after a season or instance of disobedience.

David was a man after God's own heart, but he was also a man who fell into several spirals of bad decisions that were compounded by more bad decisions and ultimately left him as murder and adulterer with a dead infant son.

The story is in 2 Samuel 11:1-27 and 2 Samuel 12:1-24. Try to make time to read through the story and join us Sunday morning at 10:00 at 660 Charbonier in Florissant.

God is faithful

The Lord has been taking me on a journey to better live out the gospel but more importantly, to speak the gospel to the lost. For the past several months everywhere I go and everything I do has been done with the thought of, how can I communicate the gospel today. This is not a sign of my spirituality as much as it is the Lord's faithfulness to teaching me urgency in my obedience in this matter.

We, in the past couple weeks, I have had the opportunity to speak the message of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection for the forgiveness of sin, to 3 different individuals specifically. Each of these opportunities has stemmed from the Lord simply saying to me, "If you are willing and surrendered, I will use you." And so that has been my approach each day, and it's been amazing to see the Lord's faithfulness, even in my unbelief and timidity in those moments. Ask me the stories, they are really cool!

Will we remember that God's faithfulness is the means to our obedience? I challenge you to simply say each morning, "Lord I want to be minister of reconciliation today. Make me aware of opportunities to speak your name today and give me your grace to walk in obedience. I surrender."

Gen 18:14 - "Is anything too hard for the Lord."

Journeying to better obedience with you,
Dave