New Life Baptist Church, College Station Texas

This evening’s mes­sage is enti­tled “Judg­ing Right­eously and will cover Matthew 7:1–6, which includes one of the most mis­in­ter­preted and mis­ap­plied verses in the whole Bible:  “Judge not, that you be not judged” (7:1).

Here’s a nugget from D.A. Car­son to whet your appetite:  “…this does not mean that the dis­ci­ple of Jesus must never speak against any sin, exer­cis­ing a sort of insipid, over­look­ing mercy.  God’s stan­dard of jus­tice will not go away.  These verses attack judg­men­tal atti­tudes, but they do not deny that real sins may well be present” (JSOTM, 108).

We hope to see you tonight at 5 pm!

In light of Romans 12:10, which tells us to love one another with broth­erly affec­tion, Josh Har­ris posted sev­eral wrong rea­sons to love the church from the ser­mon, “We are Here to Love the Church.”

I encour­age you to med­i­tate on his thoughts and con­sider why you love (or don’t love) the church.  Is it for bib­li­cal, God-centered rea­sons or for sub­jec­tive, man-centered reasons?

Today, Justin Tay­lor posted this video of Albert Mohler’s study with the cap­tion, “Men, show this to your wife if she thinks you buy too many books…”  I have heard (though I can­not cite a source) that Dr. Mohler, who serves as Pres­i­dent of The South­ern Bap­tist The­o­log­i­cal Sem­i­nary, has a near pho­to­graphic mem­ory and can quote directly from almost any book in his library.  He is truly a gift to the church.

I had the priv­i­lege of meet­ing Dr. Mohler in the sum­mer of 2003.  Three friends and I trav­eled to South­east­ern Sem­i­nary in Wake For­est, North Car­olina and then up to South­ern Sem­i­nary in Louisville, Ken­tucky.  Despite a very busy sched­ule, Dr. Mohler invited all four of us into his study and talked with us about per­sonal mat­ters for nearly an hour.  He is one of the kind­est, most down-to-earth Chris­t­ian lead­ers I have ever met.

Our first mem­bers’ meet­ing of 2010 will be held tonight at 6:30 pm in the wor­ship cen­ter.  All mem­bers are asked to attend and child­care will be pro­vided for chil­dren ages 0–3.  We will enjoy wor­ship through song, praise God for the work he has done so far, and look ahead to the won­der­ful new oppor­tu­ni­ties God has pre­sented us with this year.  The night will end with a focused time of prayer for our church and our com­mu­nity.  We look for­ward to spend­ing time with you this evening!

Yesterday’s mes­sage was enti­tled “Cal­cu­lated Trust in God” and cov­ered Matthew 6:25–34.  We learned that we must make a choice between serv­ing the false god of con­trol and the true God, who cares for us and pro­vides for all of our needs.

Kendra reminded me that John Piper preached a ser­mon in the late 80s called, “Bat­tling the Unbe­lief of Anx­i­ety.” Here is a good quote:

“Stop for a moment and think how many dif­fer­ent sin­ful actions and atti­tudes come from anx­i­ety. Anx­i­ety about finances can give rise to cov­et­ing and greed and hoard­ing and steal­ing. Anx­i­ety about suc­ceed­ing at some task can make you irri­ta­ble and abrupt and surly. Anx­i­ety about rela­tion­ships can make you with­drawn and indif­fer­ent and uncar­ing about other peo­ple. Anx­i­ety about how some­one will respond to you can make you cover over the truth and lie about things. So if anx­i­ety could be con­quered, a lot of sins would be overcome.”

If you have time, I encour­age you to lis­ten to the whole mes­sage and learn to exer­cise cal­cu­lated trust in God.

Tonight’s mes­sage will cover Matthew 6:25–34 and is enti­tled “Cal­cu­lated Trust in God.”  Instead of con­tin­u­ing to serve the false god of con­trol by wor­ry­ing, we need to exer­cise cal­cu­lated trust in God.  He has promised to pro­vide for us and has proven him­self faith­ful again and again.  We hope to see you tonight at 5 pm!

We began this new year with preach­ing focused on the gospel, and this hymn was cho­sen as the hymn of the month for the same rea­son. The gospel is the light of the knowl­edge of the glory of God in the face of Christ, (2 Cor 4:4–6) and the cross is the blaz­ing cen­ter of the glory of God. Romans 5:8 says love is that while we were sin­ners Christ died for us. There­fore, the won­der of the cross inten­si­fies when we see that the cross was required to effec­tively pay for our sin and rec­on­cile us to God.

In his book, “A Gospel Primer for Chris­tians” author Mil­ton Vin­cent says,

“A grue­some death like the one that Christ endured for me would only be required for one who is exceed­ingly sin­ful and unable to please a holy God. Con­se­quently, when­ever I con­sider the neces­sity and man­ner of His death along with the love and self­less­ness behind it, I am laid bare and utterly exposed for the sin­ner I am.”

There­fore, we must make great efforts to med­i­tate on the cross.

When I sur­vey the won­drous cross
On which the Prince of Glory died
My rich­est gain I count as loss
And pour con tempt on all my pride

To sur­vey some­thing is more than just see­ing it. It implies inves­ti­ga­tion, time, and con­tem­pla­tion. One does not sim­ply think of the Cross and cap­ture all of its glo­ries with a sim­ple assent to its his­tor­i­cal occur­rence. So when we think of or sing of the won­der of the cross we must dwell on the glory of the one dying there, of his will­ing­ness to be there, and of his humil­ity to endure it, despite the shame. When we do, the result is dis­dain for our own pride, as what was once gain for us is now con­sid­ered loss. Philip­pi­ans 3:7–8

See from His head, His hands, His feet
Sor­row and love flow min­gled down
Did e’er such love and sor­row meet
Or thorns com pose so rich a crown

Here we get a graphic image of what would, in every other cir­cum­stance, be deemed shame­ful and hor­rific. But in this verse, the allu­sion to the flow of blood from var­i­ous parts of the body of Christ is called sor­row and love. Just as the blood would have been min­gled together, there is a vis­i­ble com­bi­na­tion of sor­row and love. In con­trast to the for­merly rich gains, (now losses) from verse 1, one of the sym­bols used to mock the king­ship of Christ, is declared to be a rich crown.

Oh the won­der­ful cross, O the won­der­ful cross
Bids me come and die to find that I might truly live
Oh the won­der­ful cross, O the won­der­ful cross
All who gather here, by grace draw near and bless your name

It is true that no one comes to the Father except through the Son, (John 14:6) and no one comes to the Son, except by his grace and through the Cross. There­fore He calls us to come to the place of exe­cu­tion in repen­tance, giv­ing up liv­ing for our­selves and for sin, so that we may have true, last­ing life.

For­bid it Lord that I should boast
Save in the death of Christ my God
All the vain things that charm me most
I sac­ri­fice them to his blood

This verse echoes Gala­tians 6:14 where Paul says pos­i­tively where all boast­ing should take place. All our boast­ing should be sub­servient to our boast­ing that Christ was exe­cuted for our sins. Then we are called to take the fleet­ing van­i­ties that charm or enchant us, essen­tially serv­ing as a sub­sti­tute sat­is­fac­tion and give them up in recog­ni­tion of the last­ing sat­is­fac­tion accom­plished by the blood of Christ.

Were the whole realm of nature mine
That were an offer­ing far too small
Love so amaz­ing so divine
Demands my soul, my life, my all

The hymn con­cludes with stat­ing the require­ment for those who would fol­low after Christ. If any man come after me, he should deny him­self and take up his cross and fol­low me. Luke 9:23 We can­not repay the debt with any of our best actions or inten­tions, even if all things were at our dis­posal to give. This is not what he desires, He desires mercy and not sac­ri­fice. Matt. 9:13 Romans 11:33–35

Our found­ing church, Liv­ing Hope, planted two new churches in 2009.  Our sis­ter church, Liv­ing Hope — Bryan, will cel­e­brate their one year anniver­sary in less than two weeks.  God has done many good things there in the past year, and we have enjoyed hear­ing of some and being a part of oth­ers.  Our prayer is that God would con­tinue to use them for his glory to reach the city of Bryan.

If you’d like to fol­low what’s hap­pen­ing at Liv­ing Hope – Bryan, you can visit their nor­mal web­site or the guest page of their mem­bers’ site, known as The City Plaza.  Con­tinue to pray for them and their lead­er­ship as they seek to pro­mote the Gospel in 2010.

Mark Dever, pas­tor at Capi­tol Hill Bap­tist Church in Wash­ing­ton D.C. and the lead voice of IX Marks, inter­viewed Matt Chan­dler a few months ago. The one-hour inter­view is now avail­able here.  Here’s a plug from Dever:

“This past August, Matt shared an hour with us to talk about his min­istry. In light of what has hap­pened to Matt in recent days, we con­tacted him about pub­lish­ing this inter­view. He said he was very happy for us to present it, and that he was con­tin­u­ing to trust in God for the future. As you lis­ten to this inter­view, thank God for our brother and pray for him.”

I love the IX Marks Lead­er­ship series and I trust that you’ll find it help­ful as well.

Last night we talked about the fool­ish­ness of stor­ing up trea­sures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal, and the wis­dom of stor­ing up trea­sures in heaven, where they are guar­an­teed forever.

My good friend Justin Hyde is the lead pas­tor at Christ Church Bren­ham and co-founder of the Bra­zos Val­ley Church Planters Net­work with me.  Justin Hyde stores up a lot of trea­sure in heaven.  And last week, Justin Hyde got jacked.  You can read all about it, includ­ing the great lessons he learned after get­ting robbed, here.