Here, then, is the sovereign power with which the pastors of the church…ought to be endowed. That is that they may dare boldly to do all things by God’s Word; may compel all worldly power, glory, wisdom, and exaltation to yield to and obey his majesty; supported by his power, may command all from the highest even to the last; may build up Christ’s household and cast down Satan’s; may feed the sheep and drive away the wolves; may instruct and exhort the teachable; may accuse, rebuke, and subdue the rebellious and stubborn: may bind and loose; finally, if need be, may launch thunderbolts and lightnings; but do all things in God’s Word. – John Calvin, The Institutes
I’ve been away from the blog for a few weeks now, but I’m back today with my latest sermon in the gospel of Mark.
Yesterday, I preached on Mark 9:2-8 and the transfiguration of Christ. John MacArthur has said that the transfiguration is the single most significant miracle in the life of Christ, outside of the resurrection. Check out the following links to find out why.
Mark 8:31 – 9:1 is one of the most powerful passages in the gospel of Mark. It revolves around the question, “What does it mean to Follow Jesus?” or “What does Jesus call us to?” The answer is that when Jesus calls a man He bids him to come and die in order to come and live.
Scott Smith has a great collection of sayings at the gospel coalitions website from John Witherspoon (1768-1794) on raising children. Here are a few of my favorites.
1. The best exercise in the world for children is to let them romp and jump about, as soon as they are able, according to their own fancy.
2. A parent that has once obtained and knows how to preserve authority will do more by a look of displeasure, than another by the most passionate words and even blows. It holds universally in families and schools, and even the greater bodies of men, the army and navy, that those who keep the strictest discipline give the fewest strokes.
3. There is not a more disgusting sight than the impotent rage of a parent who has no authority.
6. Let it always be seen that you are more displeased at sin than at folly.
7. Nothing is more destructive of authority than frequent disputes and chiding upon small matters. This is often more irksome to children than parents are aware of.
My friend Sean Higgins over at tohu va bohu has been writing a series of posts on hope. His latest titled Eight Cups of Water is well worth the read. Here’s an excerpt:
God put us here and God often makes life hard so that we will learn to hope. He desires that we hope in Him and, as we do, He often uses our hope to provoke questions from unbelievers. Peter said, “in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15). We may be diligent to prepare our apologetic answers but if we don’t have hope, why do we think they’ll ask us anything? They can read Evidence That Demands a Verdict for themselves. They can’t explain our hope when they see no evidence.
We will not grow in hope in heaven; when we get there we’ll see what we’ve hoped for. God has us here for now for His glory to be known, explained, and hoped in, for our own maturation and as a platform to watching eyes. Organizing gospel presentations requires less effort than being Christians who sanctify Christ as Lord in our hearts and who live with a hope that makes others ask why.
I’m preparing to preach on Mark 8:31 – 9:1 this week and in my studies I ran across this quote from CS Lewis’s Mere Christianity. They’ve given me much to think about when it comes to this passage…and to the scope of my life.
The more we get what we now call “ourselves” out of the way and let Him take us over, the more truly ourselves we become…our real selves are all waiting for us in him…The more I resist Him and try to live on my own, the more I become dominated by my own heredity and upbringing and surrounding and natural desires. In fact what I so proudly call “Myself” becomes merely the meeting-place for trains of events which I never started and I cannot stop. What I call “My wishes” become merely the desires thrown up by my physical organism or pumped into me by other men’s thoughts…It is when I turn to Christ, when I give myself up to His personality, that I finally begin to have a real personality all of my own…[Nevertheless], you must not go to Christ for the sake of [a new self]. As long as your own personality is what you are bothering about you are not going to Him at all…
Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, the death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day and the death of your whole body in the end: Submit with every fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.
The finest test of the consecration of a minister of Christ is not in his public performances, but in what he does when the world is not looking. It is hard for a man to tell when he is preaching whether he is preaching for himself or for God. To open up glorious ideas, to clothe them with language which glows and speak them in tones which burn-all this is so delightful that it is not easy for the preacher to say just why he likes to do it. But in the obscurity of pastoral service, he has an opportunity to ascertain whether he really loves god, and how much he is willing to do for people simply for Jesus’ sake. – Charles Jefferson, The Minister as Shepherd
A few things are certain. We live in a universe created by a shepherd God. The Lord is our Shepherd. Our world is redeemed by a Shepherd Savior. Our elder Brother is a Shepherd. The Man whom humanity most needs is a shepherd. Every messenger of Christ is sent to do a shepherd’s work. We are to stand at last before a shepherd Judge. God is going to separate the good shepherds from the shepherds who are bad. The questions which every pastor must meet and are three: “Did you feed my lambs? Did you tend my sheep? Did you feed my sheep?” – Charles Jefferson, The Minister as Shepherd
Mark 8:27-30 has been called the “Continental Divide” of the gospel of Mark. Everything before this paragraph leads up to it and everything after this paragraph flows out of it. In other words, it’s almost impossible to overstate the importance of these four verses. In them Mark is asking the most important question that any person will ever be asked, “Who do you believe Jesus is?” Mark helps us by giving two compelling insights into the messianic nature of Jesus 1) Jesus is far great than you ever dared imagine (vv. 27-28), 2) Jesus is categorically different than you ever expected (vv. 29-30).
Here, then, is the sovereign power with which the pastors of the church…ought to be endowed. That is that they may dare boldly to do all things by God’s Word; may compel all worldly power, glory, wisdom, and exaltation to yield to and obey his majesty; supported by his power, may command all from the highest even to the last; may build up Christ’s household and cast down Satan’s; may feed the sheep and drive away the wolves; may instruct and exhort the teachable; may accuse, rebuke, and subdue the rebellious and stubborn: may bind and loose; finally, if need be, may launch thunderbolts and lightnings; but do all things in God’s Word. – John Calvin, The Institutes
