Beating the gospel into our heads...

According the Martin Luther, we "leak" the gospel, and it needs to be beat into our heads. Every day. Over and over. My pastor has been teaching throught Galatians, and has quoted Luther on justification (which IS the gospel) and our need to understand it, hear it, and preach it to ourselves constantly.

Justin Taylor over at Between Two Worlds had a link to this article by Jerry Bridges, which says the same thing...

So I learned that Christians need to hear the gospel all of their lives because it is the gospel that continues to remind us that our day-to-day acceptance with the Father is not based on what we do for God but upon what Christ did for us in his sinless life and sin-bearing death. I began to see that we stand before God today as righteous as we ever will be, even in heaven, because he has clothed us with the righteousness of his Son. Therefore, I don't have to perform to be accepted by God. Now I am free to obey him and serve him because I am already accepted in Christ (see Rom. 8:1). My driving motivation now is not guilt but gratitude.

Yet even when we understand that our acceptance with God is based on Christ's work, we still naturally tend to drift back into a performance mindset. Consequently, we must continually return to the gospel. To use an expression of the late Jack Miller, we must "preach the gospel to ourselves every day." For me that means I keep going back to Scriptures such as Isaiah 53:6, Galatians 2:20, and Romans 8:1. It means I frequently repeat the words from an old hymn, "My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness."

I urge you to read Bridges' article in its entirety...I was recently talking to a friend, trying to explain why this Galatians series has been so liberating, and found myself totally unable to articulate what I meant. I think this article says what I was fumbling to say.

Not What My Hands Have Done

by Horatius Bonar

(Click here for the tune)

Not what my hands have done can save my guilty soul;
Not what my toiling flesh has borne can make my spirit whole.
Not what I feel or do can give me peace with God;
Not all my prayers and sighs and tears can bear my awful load.

Your voice alone, O Lord, can speak to me of grace;
Your power alone, O Son of God, can all my sin erase.
No other work but Yours, no other blood will do;
No strength but that which is divine can bear me safely through.

Thy work alone, O Christ, can ease this weight of sin;
Thy blood alone, O Lamb of God, can give me peace within.
Thy love to me, O God, not mine, O Lord, to Thee,
Can rid me of this dark unrest, And set my spirit free.

I bless the Christ of God; I rest on love divine;
And with unfaltering lip and heart I call this Savior mine.
His cross dispels each doubt; I bury in His tomb
Each thought of unbelief and fear, each lingering shade of gloom.

I praise the God of grace; I trust His truth and might;
He calls me His, I call Him mine, My God, my joy and light.
’Tis He Who saveth me, and freely pardon gives;
I love because He loveth me, I live because He lives.

If God be for us, who can indeed be against us?

Read this extremely encouraging tidbit from my pastor’s (Charles Biggs) exposition on Romans. You can read the whole thing here; scroll down to Favorites/Special Editions. It is the one titled "The Christ of Romans".

Paul wants us to understand the story of our lives from the perspective of being in Christ even when we suffer and find circumstances difficult to bear- -when we most feel like quitting and giving up in the Christian life! Paul says that the tribulation has purpose (Rom. 5:3-5), and it has meaning in Christ, because we suffer in Christ as God’s children in this world of sin and misery.

So don’t be moved by difficult circumstances, but look to Christ the exalted Lord! As God did not leave Jesus in the tomb, so he will not leave us or forsake us! Rather, he will raise our bodies and we will physically be resurrected to take part in a glorious body like Christ’s (Rom. 8:22-25; 1 Cor. 40-58).

What a grand and gracious story that has meaning and makes sense of our lives! Whatever comes our way, however we groan with the creation in this present age (Rom. 8:22), we know that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus! Nothing spiritual or material, holy or demonic, can ever take away God’s love and purpose for us “in Christ”.

If God be for us, who can indeed be against us?

I have been using Charles' teaching (you can find his audio sermons on Romans here) and outline as a guide as my kids and I read through Romans, and we are currently memorizing Romans 8:31-39. I told my kids that if they remember nothing else specifically of what we study in Romans, this is the thing I want indelibly etched on their brains.

If God be for us, who can indeed be against us?

The Church's One Foundation

We sang this yesterday at Caleb's church in Grove City, Rocky Springs Presbyterian (PCA). Sweet little church, wonderful sermon, and a fun lunch following with Caleb, Erin, and Ben. A lovely visit!

The church's one Foundation
Is Jesus Christ her Lord;
She is his new creation
By water and the Word:
From heav'n he came and sought her
To be his holy bride;
With his own blood he bought her,
And for her life he died.

Elect from ev'ry nation,
Yet one o'er all the earth,
Her charter of salvation
One Lord, one faith, one birth;
One holy Name she blesses,
Partakes one holy food.
And to one hope she presses,
With ev'ry grace endued.

Though with a scornful wonder
Men see her sore oppressed,
By schisms rent asunder,
By heresies distressed,
Yet saints their watch are keeping,
Their cry goes up, "How long?"
And soon the night of weeping
Shall be the morn of song.

The church shall never perish!
Her dear Lord to defend,
To guide, sustain and cherish
Is with her to the end;
Though there be those that hate her,
And false sons in her pale,
Against or foe or traitor
She ever shall prevail.

'Mid toil and tribulation,
And tumult of her war,
She waits the consummation
Of peace for evermore;
Till with the vision glorious
Her longing eyes are blest,
And the great church victorious
Shall be the church at rest.

Yet she on earth hath union
With the God the Three in One,
And mystic sweet communion
With those whose rest is won:
O happy ones and holy!
Lord, give us grace that we,
Like them, the meek and lowly,
On high may dwell with thee.