CHRIST-DRIVEN

I will be back to posting regularly to Christ-Driven once we are settled in our new home.  Check out my family site or my Web Clippings site for updates.  

The latest...

The Courage to Be Godly, Part 4 

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 

by Steve Dumas

Speaking of God's providence, Andrew Fuller, the fearless Baptist minister of the eighteenth century, and a dear friend of William Carey (whom many call "the Father of Modern Missions"), said, "In the early ages of the world there appears to have been a much stronger persuasion of Divine interposition in human affairs than generally prevails in our times" (The Works of Andrew Fuller, page 744). In other words, God's sovereignty is not as popular today as it used to be.  Fuller goes on to say that even followers of false gods believe that their gods oversee and intervene in the affairs of men.  If in the eighteenth century the idea of God's control and power seemed outmoded, then how must the doctrine of God's providence sound to postmodern ears?  Every age has had an aversion to the supremacy of God, because every age is polluted by fallen human nature.  It takes courage to believe and proclaim the Lordship of God in any age.

At the very least, God's sovereignty means that He alone rules and reigns everywhere, everyday, all the time. He is on His throne and will accomplish everything He sets out to do.  Absolutely nothing can dethrone Him. So we must trust Him.

The Christian home should be the place of all places, outside of the gathered church, where God's sovereignty over history and salvation finds its clearest expression. When we suffer, we proclaim and embody the gospel of God's sovereign grace in Christ. When we are blessed, we thank God and ascribe all glory and honor to Him. Instead, we find little substantive difference between unbelievers and their evangelical neighbors who get their theology from Netflix rentals and Google search results.

In the churches where I have served, I have been surprised to discover the number of Christians who come up to me after a sermon and say things like, "I have never heard this before, and I have been in the church for twenty years." We sing, "Have faith in God; He's on his throne. Have faith in God; He watches o'er His own." Then, after a life-changing event we struggle to accept that God had anything to do with it.

One passage that has invoked surprised-by-sovereignty responses is the familiar and beloved Psalm 127. This Psalm makes God's Lordship clear by pointing out His supremacy over four areas: 1. Building a house (127:1a); 2. Protecting a city (127:1b); 3. Providing for a family-God is the ultimate provider, not you! While you sleep, God is working (127:2); and, 4. Planning and Raising a family (127:3, 4, 5). 

To be continued... 

• Fat Christians make great churches (F - faithful, A - available, T - teachable).
• A church that does not reach out will die out.  
• If a church does not take the Lordship of Christ seriously, then the community will not take the church seriously.   

Sinclair Ferguson:  

How can we recover the new affection for Christ and his kingdom that so powerfully impacted our life-long worldliness, and in which we crucified the flesh with its lusts?

What was it that created that first love in any case? Do you remember? It was our discovery of Christ’s grace in the realization of our own sin. We are not naturally capable of loving God for himself, indeed we hate him. But in discovering this about ourselves, and in learning of the Lord’s supernatural love for us, love for the Father was born. Forgiven much, we loved much. We rejoiced in the hope of glory, in suffering, even in God himself. This new affection seemed first to overtake our worldliness, then to master it. Spiritual realities—Christ, grace, Scripture, prayer, fellowship, service, living for the glory of God—filled our vision and seemed so large, so desirable that other things by comparison seemed to shrink in size and become bland to the taste.

The way in which we maintain ‘the expulsive power of a new affection’ is the same as the way we first discovered it. Only when grace is still ‘amazing’ to us does it retain its power in us. Only as we retain a sense of our own profound sinfulness can we retain a sense of the graciousness of grace.

- Sinclair Ferguson "Expelling Worldliness with a New Affection"

Of First Importance