No Other Boast

Genesis 2:4-17 & The Divine DTR

God has Defined The Relationship.

I think most people in the west make two deadly assumptions concerning their relationship with God.

1) It exists and it is good. They have never had to do anything to gain it, but they most assuredly have it. They are not super serious about the relationship from their side, but they are convinced the Divine is intensely serious about them. Here God is a Cosmic Care Bear, a Santa Clause on steroids, and a Mr. Rodgers who is everybody’s neighbor.

2) They deny such a relationship exists altogether. They may or may not be adamant about this. Most likely this exists in a soft form of apathy. Whether or not there is such a relationship to be had they just don’t care.

With the rise of an ethereal spirituality in the US I think most people place make the former assumption. They are like the 5 year old whose girlfriend is their kindergarten teacher, the relationship isn’t really real. They “talk to God” kind of like the 30 year old guy who lives in grandma’s garage “talks to girls” online while wearing Star Wars pajamas – the relationship ain’t really real.

We only relate to God within the structures of covenant. Covenant relationships are serious, and this is the most serious relationship of all. Now it is true that all mankind does relate to God as their creator, and God has a posture to general benevolence toward all of mankind, but man as a whole is in violation of covenant, this covenant (Hosea 6:7). The favor and blessing of God are absent. We are excommunicants of the covenant, we are now a dying death. Relationship with God is so serious that the only basis for it is perfection.

You are saved by works. Covenants are unchangeable. They may be superseded, this one never was. This covenant was not annulled, it was fulfilled. Again, you are saved by works, the catch is that they are not your own. Every time you read the gospels, think to yourself as you see the perfect living of Christ, “that is my righteousness by faith”. Every time you read the gospels, think to yourself as you see cursed death of Christ, “that is my curse”.

You are either in Adam or in Christ. You relate to God in one of these two ways. God has defined the relationship.

Tolle Lege: Just Do Something

Readability: 1

Length: 122 pgs

Author: Kevin DeYoung

I loved this book. It is worth it for its modern Puritan-esque title alone: Just Do Something: A Liberating Approach to Finding God’s Will or How to Make a Decision Without Dreams, Visions, Fleeces, Open Doors, Random Bible Verses, Casting Lots, Liver Shivers, Writing in the Sky, etc. Pastorally it is so useable; this will probably be my go to book for persons who come to me wrestling with the will of God for their life for years to come. I won’t say much more about the book, the quotations should be enough to glean the big idea.

[W]e should stop thinking of God’s will like a corn maze, or a tight-rope, or a bull’s eye, or a choose-your-own-adventure novel.

[W]hen we look carefully at the instances of special revelation in the book of Acts – visions, angels, audible voices, promptings, etc. – we notice one very important and consistent fact. The extraordinary means of guidance were not sought. I don’t deny that God can still speak to us in direct surprising ways. Of course, it must be tested against scripture, but I believe God can still give visions. The Point is that these extraordinary means in the New Testament are just that – extra-ordinary.

In short, God’s will is that you and I get happy and holy in Jesus.

So go marry someone, provided you’re equally yoked and you actually like being with each other. Go get a job, provided it’s not wicked. Go live somewhere in something with somebody or nobody. But put aside the passivity and the quest for complete fulfillment and the perfectionism and the preoccupation with the future, and for God’s sake start making some decisions in your life. Don’t wait for the liver-shiver. If you are seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, you will be in God’s will, so just go out and do something.

The Doctor: The Measure of Grace

If you want to measure grace, that is how you do so – from the highest heaven down to the cross, and beyond that even to the grave, down amongst the dead. This is the way to see the character of the reign of grace. It was grace, the grace that was in His heart, and in the heart of the Godhead, that led Him to do all of this – eventually to give His very life a ransom for our sins… It is there you see the bounty, the abundance, the munificence of it all. He gave himself even unto the death of the cross. So that aspect of grace is seen most gloriously and most brightly in Him. – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Volume 4, p. 364

Genesis 1:2-2:3 & Imago Dei

From my limited study of culture in America I will venture to say that generation gaps are a recent development. Just a matter of decades ago the radical preference differences between teen and parent would not be so obvious. To be in anyway like your parents as a teen is now often uber-uncool.

Our society which places stress on the individual adds to this. You must find out who you are, you own style, your own way. Customize you life. Too often this results in rebellion. You want to run from anything that would conform you to the mold of you parents. Take heed, how you respond to this authority tells of your attitude toward the ultimate authority that placed you under such dorky parents.

It is a good thing to have good parents. God designed the parent child relationship, it is good. It is good to imitate their faith and look like them as they look like Christ.

Imago Dei , the image of God – the implications of this doctrine are so intense. The more I reflect on it the more I am left in awe. In the original rebellion man was not content with being made in the image of God, he wanted to be God! He rebelled against his Creator. He wanted to customize his image, upgrade. Unfortunately like many rebellious fashion attempts of teens today, this was a tragic downgrade. Identity was not found it was lost. We devolved.

Jesus comes to restore the imago Dei. In fact he takes us beyond mere restoration. After our final glorification we will be in a better position than Adam. When vile sinners who are exposed graciously to the glory of God break in contrition, their identity is not lost, rather they begin to find it. In repentance and faith our humble humanity is restored. And our humble humanity is glorious. What is man that you are so mindful of Him?

The Doctor: The Sin of Morality

I would say that the greatest sinners in the world are the self-satisfied, self-contained, good moral people, who believe that, as they are, they are fit to stand in the presence of God. Moreover, they are in reality telling God that He need never have sent His Son into the world as far as they are concerned, and that the Son need never have died upon the Cross. There is no greater insult to God than that; but that is precisely what they are guilty of. There is no greater sinner in the universe than the man who has never seen his need of the blood of Christ. There is no greater sin than that – murder and adultery and fornication are nothing in comparison with it. – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 4, p. 291

Genesis 1:1 & One Down, One-Thousand-Five-Hundred-Thirty-Two to Go

Last night we began a trek, an epic trek. We took one step, just one step of 1533 toward our desired destination. It was just one step, but what a step it was. Oh the glories of this one verse! God forgive me for all the times I have read or contemplated this verse flippantly. Forgive me for playing with nitroglycerin as if it were glass of ice water.

One of my favorite books I read in preparation for this trek was Allen Ross’s Creation and Blessing. Ross said, “If creation around us displays the glory of God (Ps. 19), how much more the account of that creation.” In this sentence, just this one sentence, I learn that God is incomparably majestic and powerful. He is transcendent. He alone is Creator, all else is creature or creation. He is eternal, unbound by time. He is wise and creative. A man is smart if he can design a clock, God set the stars, burning balls of gas in motion. If man messes up I am five minutes late. If God messes up we all die. He never messes up, we do.

This first sentence of the Bible is more amazing than the stars. Oh, see it that way, God grant us to see it that way! Alpha Centauri does not shine as brightly as this verse of scripture. And this is the most glorious thing, this transcendent, glorious King of the cosmos has become immanent as I read this very sentence and His Holy Spirit illumines it. Our God is a talking God. He talks to us.

Only 1532 glorious more steps to take as we learn more and more of this great covenant God and our relation to Him. God bless these steps, may we like the patriarchs be those who “walk with God”.

Tolle Lege: The Holiness of God

Readability (1-3): 2

Length: 219 pgs

Author: R.C. Sproul

I have yet to write one of these ‘reviews’ on a book I am not reading for the first time, perhaps this is the first because I was moved to worship again as wonderfully as when the book was first cracked. Although Sproul can do nothing but fall desperately short of the grandeur of his topic he writes superbly and as a master teacher. Weighty, deep theological truths are taught in an incredibly understandable way. This book easily glides to the top of the most impactful books I have read. If you are not joining us for the NRBC this month as we discuss this book I strongly encourage you to read it.

Ministers are noteworthy of their calling. All preachers are vulnerable to the charge of hypocrisy. In fact, the more faithful preachers are to the Word of God in their preaching, the more liable they are to the charge of hypocrisy. Why? Because the more faithful people are to the Word of God, the higher the message is that they will preach. The higher the message, the further they will be from obeying it themselves.

I cringe inside when I speak in churches about the holiness of God. I can anticipate the responses of the people. They leave the sanctuary convinced that they have just been in the presence of a holy man. Because they hear me preach about holiness, they assume I must be as holy as the message I preach. That’s when I want to cry, “Woe is me.

It’s dangerous to assume that because a person is drawn to holiness in his study that he is thereby a holy man. There is irony here. I am sure that the reason I have a deep hunger to learn of the holiness of God is precisely because I am not holy. I am a profane man – a man who spends more time out of the temple than in it. But I have had just enough taste of the majesty of God to want more. I know what it means to be a forgiven man and what it means to be sent on a mission. My soul cries for more. More soul needs more.

The Doctor: It’s Not Fair!

[W]e must not begin to question our relationship to the world’s first man, Adam, because every time you put the question I will make you ask the same question about our relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ. If you say to me, ‘Is it fair that the sin of Adam should be imputed to me?’ I will reply by asking, ‘Is it fair that the righteousness of Christ should be imputed to you?’ – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 4, p. 219

Hebrews 13:20-25 & A Gracious Storm

If you haven’t been in Tulsa the weekly forecast for the past two weeks is illustrated by the single picture above. I would love to visit Seattle and visit Mars Hill Church. I was curious about the weather as well, now I think I know what it’s like. When I walked out yesterday afternoon I was struck by something alien. What is this strange warmth tickling my skin? What are these colors? Why is quiet peace after the storm somehow more quite than the peace that preceded it? How is it that the bird’s songs seem sweeter? Do they sense the same things I do?

Hebrews is a category five hurricane for your soul. As it sweeps by it devastates the landscape. False hopes, strengths, and idols are decimated. False professors flee before it. Only those left tethered to the one true Anchor are left, and they are better for it.

I have found some of the deepest most abiding comfort in this precious book. It is true comfort. It is not built on the illusory; it is anchored in the deepest of realities, God Himself. I am so glad that peace does not come quickly or easily in this book. I am thankful for the storm and all it brought down. The storm was a mercy.

The same storm that wrecked my false securities also stirred the seas of God’s grace and peace and now they come crashing thunderously upon me. They are deep waves, mighty waves, surging waves. The Son is brighter now. Songs of praise spring forth spontaneously. The peace is deafening. Grace is crashing in.

Tolle Lege: The Courage to Be Protestant

Readability: 3

Length: 248 pp

Author: David Wells

Beginning in 1993 David Wells began writing a series of what would become four books that would rattle the evangelical world. These four titles, No Place for Truth, God in the Wasteland, Losing Our Virtue, and Above all Earthly Pow’rs, have recently been condensed and updated in his newest work The Courage to Be Protestant. A stout critique of contemporary evangelicalism, this more accessible version is not light, but needed reading. It is still serious reading, but more readable. I am glad to see the material presented in a way I can more readily recommend.

Most of his arguments are deeply developed so I would encourage you against reacting against the quotations below. I share them only to poke you towards reading it for yourself and discovering them.

Emergents, too, are standing outside the house that Ockenga, Henry, Graham, Packer, Stott, Lloyd-Jones, and Schaffer built in that earlier generation. The difference is that they know they are standing outside the house, whereas the seeker-sensitives, the marketers, still imagine they are living inside it.

If the postmodern world is going to be engaged successfully, it will have to be at this point. A soft, shapeless Christianity ready to adapt to any worldview may enjoy initial success, but it will soon be overtaken and lose its interest. The problem with all such adaptations is that those outside the faith soon see that they can reap Christian benefits on purely secular grounds without paying whatever small price is being asked for the adapted version of this faith.

…it is important to remember that culture does not give the church its agenda. All it gives the church is its context. The church’s belief and mission come from the Word of God. They do not come from the culture either thorough attraction to it or alienation from it. It is not the culture that determines the church’s priorities. It is not the (post)modern culture that should be telling it what to think. The principle here is sola Scriptura, not sola cultura.

The postwar resurgence of evangelical believing in the West gained a great deal of strength from the fact that its many churches and organizations could work together around commonly held beliefs. Centrally, these were the authority of Scripture and the necessity of the cross. The core was narrow, in the sense that diversity around belief was allowed, but it was deep. With the passing of the years, however, the core began to disintegrate and certainly, has been losing its depth. It has become very shallow.

Without the holiness of God, sin has no meaning and grace has no point. God’s holiness gives to the one its definition, and to the other its greatness.