Where do we turn when the world seems dark and our lives seem like chaos? To the first page of the Bible where we read the words, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). Those words were written for a generation that was rescued out of the darkness and chaos of Egyptian slavery, to convince them of the sovereignty of God and his powerful Word. We need convincing just the same.
In Sunday’s sermon, “In the beginning,” we toured the book to discover its central theme, the blessing of God. That is, the favor and smile of God on his people. The theme of blessing bookends the book and recurs some 90 times in-between. Blessing captures the joy and fulness of life with God before sin, what was lost in our rebellion, and the force that drives the book across its fifty chapters. It’s everything we need, even if the word has become cheap. Let’s recover it.
For those interested in studying alongside the series, consider these resources:
Genesis, by Derek Kidner. This is a classic little tome, readable, and a best short-volume on Genesis you could pick up.
Genesis: A 12-Week Study, by Mitchell Kim. If you’re wanting to meet up with a friend from church or work one-to-one, here’s a Bible study that asks perceptive questions and includes a bit of instruction along the way.
The Genesis Factor: Probing Life’s Big Questions, by David Helm and Jon Dennis. Here’s a great volume for reading Genesis with worldview questions in mind—mingling biblical theology and philosophy and insightful observations from the text.
Genesis: Beginning and Blessing, by Kent Hughes. Hughes is a famously faithful, straightforward, and perceptive preacher. This is his expositional commentary.
Whether you pick up a resource to study along or not, be sure to read along in your Bibles. In fact, that’s the best way to spend your time either way.
I’m eager for this journey of ours and pray for us to know the fullness of “every spiritual blessing” that is ours in Christ (Eph. 1:3).
On January 6, Pastor Abe Stratton delivered the book of Hebrews from memory, in a sermon titled, “Looking to Jesus.” In this first of a two-part guest-post, Abe shares with us some observations and benefits of Scripture memory.
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From the middle of 2016 until the end of 2018 I worked to memorize the book of Hebrews. The following thoughts are observations on and benefits of memorizing large portions of God’s Word. In a future post I plan to offer some encouragements and exhortations. My prayer is that the Word of Christ would dwell richly in the hearts and minds of his followers so that individual believers will be sanctified, the church will be built up, and ultimately our God will be glorified.
Here are some observations and benefits of Scripture memory.
1. A well-organized plan is not mandatory in order to memorize.
Your plan can change as you go along. Mine did as I realized how I needed to memorize a growing portion of Scripture, how I needed to review, etc. Here are some personal examples of how my plan developed and adapted over time.
Because of my office schedule at Heritage, I decided to spend time memorizing 4 days a week (Monday-Thursday). At the beginning of the book I spent about 10-15 minutes a day working on a new verse and going over the previous verses I had memorized. Memorizing out loud was helpful for me to internalize the words and message. Not only was I seeing and reading the words, but I was also hearing them. Aural emphasis is helpful for me in memorization.
As the number of memorized verses grew I had to change plans a bit because the time to review was getting longer. The best method seemed to be to review the previous chapter to the one I was memorizing. But around the time I passed the half-way point of the book, I began reviewing 3 chapters a day in addition to memorizing one new verse. This review was rotational. So, I would review chapters 1-3 while memorizing 10:12; the next day I would review chapters 4-6 while memorizing 10:13; the next day I would review chapters 7-9 while memorizing 10:14.
When reviewing 3 chapters a day and memorizing a new verse, the time commitment was probably 20-30 minutes a day. Note, this may sound like a lot of time, and it is in one sense. We are busy people. But think about your time spent in car line, time spent watching TV, time spent on your work commute. What could be more important than thinking on and treasuring the eternal Word of the living God which will remain forever? We tend to spend a lot of our time on things which are transitory and much less important. Now that I have finished the whole book, I will review 2-4 chapters a day to keep the book fresh in my mind and to keep the connections between chapters.
Your routine can be flexible as you progress. Some days I wouldn’t memorize a new verse if I felt like I had not gotten a good hold on the verse from the day before. Sometimes I would just review the chapters that I had memorized to that point.
2. You begin to see connections in lengthy passages of Scripture when you are in them for long amounts of time.
Not until I was in the final chapters of the book did I see a repeated pattern that the author uses. There are a number of “therefores” in the book; look out for them. Following a number of these “therefores” the author says, “Let us…” The author is making the point that because of a significant truth we must respond in a particular way. Once I saw this pattern, I went back through the book and marked each one. These triggers then became points of emphasis for me in my recitation of the book.
3. Scripture comes naturally and unbidden to your mind in everyday life.
I have found that in writing a note to a person or in reading a book or in fighting my own temptations, some passage from Hebrews will rise to my thoughts. This is a wonderful blessing and a work of grace.
This Sunday we will begin a five-week sermon series through the Book of Isaiah, titled, A Vision of Two Cities.
In Isaiah’s vision he sees Jerusalem as it is, in ruins. Yet by the end of the book, he sees a new Jerusalem. The question is: how does Jerusalem get that way? Across these 66 chapters we will gain a better understanding of the human problem of sin, of God’s holiness, and of the good news of salvation in Christ. In fact, it’s from Isaiah’s writing that we get the langauge of “good news” (Isa. 40:9).
Here’s the series outline so you can read ahead each week:
November 25: “The God of Unapproachable Holiness” (1-12)
December 2: “The God of The World and History” (13-27)
December 9: “The God of Incomparable Strength” (28-39)
December 16: “The God of Good News for Sinners” (40-55)
December 23: “The God of a New City” (56-66)
Reading ahead will require a bit of planning, as these are larger divisions of text. But if you can pull it off, your investment will pay you back. Isaiah is quoted in the New Testament more than all of the other prophets combined.
In getting to know Isaiah’s prophecy we will get to know our Bibles better, and in getting to know our Bibles better we’ll get to know Christ better. Come on Sundays with expectation for how God will use his Word among us this December.
What has God told us to do when we come together? What kind of worship is worthy of “the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God,” to whom belongs all “honor and glory forever and ever” 1 Tim. 1:17)?
In Sunday’s sermon, “Elders as Bible Men,” we explored what we call, the Regulative Principle. The Regulative Principle is a commitment to allow the Bible to both fill and form our worship. It entails a basic trust in God’s means for his own worship.
What are God’s means for his own worship?
For example, Paul writes to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:13, “devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching.” We have other such commands concerning singing (Col. 3:16), and praying (Acts 2:42). Where’s the command about instruments? What about stained glass? High ceilings? Ornate woodwork? What about video bumpers for the sermon? The harder we search, the more we find that worship under the new covenant is surprisingly and profoundly and freeingly simple. The kind of external detail our Lord required for his old covenant people, Israel, has gone internal for us, a spiritual house, a people who offer ourselves as spiritual sacrifices (1 Pet. 2:4–5; Ro. 12:1–2).
Practically speaking, what does this mean? This means we make sure the big rocks of the reading and preaching and singing of God’s Word stay big in our imaginations and in our gatherings. And it means we pursue simplicity and exercise restraint with respect to almost anything else that we do in our gatherings, especially where we have a tendency to obsess a bit too much. Again, we are trusting God’s means for God’s worship. It means we’re really excited about the things the Bible says for us to do, becuase that’s how God works, and we can remain relaxed about the rest.
If you’d like to reflect more on this subject, two articles and two books come to mind. In his article, “The Freedom of the Regulative Principle,” Kevin DeYoung writes offers of five ways in which this principle brings about freedom in our worship. Then, in his piece, “Music–Gift or God?,” Bob Kauflin addresses the question of music specifically and offers us five ways in can make music into a god. Here they are:
We choose to attend a church or a meeting based on the music rather than the preaching of the gospel and God’s word.
We can’t worship in song apart from a particular song, style, leader, or sound.
We think music leads us into or brings God’s presence.
Poor musical performance leads us to sin against other band members or the musicians leading us.
A love for music has replaced a love for the things of God.
If you’re up for some extended reading, look into two books. The first one Steven Brundage and I are working through this year, Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God, by Bob Kauflin. Then, D.A. Carson’s, Worship by the Book, explores some of the intricacies of the regulative principle and shows how three separate congregations order their worship according to the Word.
Music is a gift from God, but it must be enjoyed and employed to the glory of God. Because of the time and place in which we live, we have a super-abundance of creative musical and artistic possibilities for our worship. These and other trends force us to ask, what regulates our worship?
It’s not an exact science, but this princple offers us a framework for approaching this important question.
It is helpful to think of our growth in godliness as growth. Things that grow take time, and things that grow usually take a measure of work. That’s why Paul says writes to Timothy, “train yourself for godliness” (1 Timothy 4:7).
How exactly do we train ourselves for godliness? We explored this a bit in last week’s sermon, from 1 Timothy 4:6–12, “Elders as Examples of Godliness.” If godliness is the growth in likeness to God, then training ourselves for godliness must mean long exposure to God through his Word, in prayer, etc. As Charles Spurgeon put it, “Nearness to God brings likeness to God. The more you see God the more of God will be seen in you.”
“Hear his voice. Have his ear. Belong to his body.” That’s the three-part breakdown of David’s book. That third one intersects with Paul’s purpose in exhorting Timothy to, “set an example for the believers” (1 Timothy 4:12). One way to grow in godliness is to get around those who have been pursuing it for a long time.
As we pursue godliness together, let’s remember this: like many things that grow, godliness is worth it, “for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come” (1 Timothy 4:8).
We’re one week into our new July sermon series, The Beauty of Holiness.
Abe Stratton, our Pastor for Member Growth, designed this series as a kind of preached biblical theology of holiness in the Bible. As he said this past Sunday in his sermon, “The Holy God,” for a variety of reasons this is an often misunderstood subject. We may tend to think of holiness in merely ethical separatist terms. Or we may think of holiness as something for special Christians.
Here’s how Abe put the Bible’s teaching holiness in a sentence: “A holy God is doing an eternal work through His Holy Son to transform sinners into His holy people by the power of His Holy Spirit so that they might live with Him in a holy place forever.”
Read and pray ahead each week as we advance through the month.
Pray also for me, for rest from preaching and fruitfulness in other pastoral labors. As I shared at our family meeting this past April, I’ll take one month each summer to redirect my time in a number of ways: to specific projects that are difficult to tackle in a normal preaching week, to more lingering availability for people, and to long-term pulpit planning.
This kind of a several-week break is important for me. It makes sure I remember you don’t need me, and it reminds me that I need to sit under the Word myself. It’s good for our shared commitment to raise up or strengthen other preachers. For many years I benefitted from the opportunity to design and preach a run of sermons each summer. In these ways this plan benefits you, but it benefits you more directly as well. It’s good for you to hear different voices, and benefit from long-exposure to the heart and gifting of another brother.
