KCPC Blog

From Your Pastor: “Why Are You Angry?”

The LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.” 8 Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. 9 Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” 10 And the LORD said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground (ESV Genesis 4:6-10).

Cain’s heart was not right before God. Both Cain and Abel came to bring offerings of worship to God Almighty (Gen. 4:1-5). Both were outwardly worshipping God and bringing the substance of their labors to the LORD for worship and dedication. But Cain’s heart was far from God, even though his lips and actions may have honored Him (cf. Isaiah 29:13).

Abel’s sacrifice was acceptable to God because his heart was right before God. This reminds all of us of the importance of daily seeking to live before God with tender hearts that are devoted to our loving Savior (cf. Heb. 3:12-13). We must never come to God in our own name, but always in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and with a heart resting in His completed work alone. We must remember that the Lord knows our hearts:

“For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance,

but the LORD looks on the heart.”- 1 Samuel 16:7

Cain’s sacrifice was a mere show and God knew his heart, and God rejected his offering: “…For Cain and his offering he had no regard” (Gen. 4:5). This made Cain very angry. So God asked Cain: “Why are you angry?”

God asks him the question about his anger to lovingly and patiently bring him to see his sin and to repentance. God warns Cain of the danger of his sin, and sin’s desire to possess and enslave him (Gen. 4:7). Why was Cain angry? On the surface it was because his brother’s sacrifice was acceptable and his was rejected. Deeper in Cain’s heart, he was angry for selfish reasons (cf. James 4:1-4). The anger that was manifesting and coming forth from Cain’s heart was that he didn’t truly love God as he should. Cain thought God owed him something; Cain came in his own name, based on his own merits, or what he thought he deserved from God.

Cain thought selfishly that his works for God were good enough and that God was indebted to accept him. God warns Cain of sin’s ability to enslave and seek to master those who would reject God’s grace, relying on their own works and efforts before God. We too must always keep in mind that we deserve nothing before God because of our sinfulness (Luke 17:10). God is good and faithful, and does amazingly gracious things for us, yet we are undeserving (cf. Luke 11:13). We must keep this in our minds, lest we too become angry and ungrateful. All sinners are accepted only on the basis of the completed work of Jesus Christ.

But Cain does not listen to God’s gracious and merciful warning. What we see here is a man who is seeking to please God for himself. Cain is seeking to self-justify (to “justify himself”, cf. Luke 10:29), rather than trust in the riches of God’s grace by asking God for mercy through faith alone in His promises. Our only hope is that God is pleased to justify (“declare righteous”) the ungodly based on what God has done for sinners in Jesus Christ (Rom. 3:23-26); we must repent of our efforts at justifying ourselves before God, it will only lead to more anger at God and others.

Our anger often is an indicator that we somehow think we deserve grace from God. When we’re angry, let us find out if we are perhaps only serving self rather than serving God. Our anger reveals something about our hearts before God. Let us be honest with God and ourselves. Do we truly believe that we are received by God’s grace alone, or do we think that God owes us something, and so we get angry when we estimate that we have gotten less than we think we deserve? Do we understand that anything that we have accomplished has ultimately been because of God’s grace and Spirit? (1 Cor. 4:7).

Honestly, what do we truly deserve before God? When we think of the numerous times we have been angry with God and others from our hearts, the many times we have self-righteously and self-centeredly lived for God only for what we could get from God, let us be reminded of His rich love and grace to us in Jesus Christ. How patient and kind, how gentle and meek God is toward sinners in Christ. How He loves those who will recognize what they truly deserve for their sins, and find grace in God’s promise to forgive and heal and to accept that is found in the love of the Lord Jesus Christ.

God asks us today: “Why are you angry?” Do you think you deserve something from me? Will you not be accepted if you do what is right, simply trusting and believing in God’s promises revealed in Jesus Christ alone? Will you not be accepted if you simply believe that all the righteousness that God requires of you He also provides for you in the Person and Work of Jesus Christ?

Rather than repent, Cain struck in angry murder against his brother Abel who was accepted by faith. If sinners cannot kill God in their anger, they will kill those who please God if they have the opportunity (cf. Acts 7:51-53; 9:4-5). We must remember that anger is potential murder against God and those whom God loves (Matt. 5:21ff). It was the anger of the Pharisees and teachers of Israel that put Jesus to death (Mark 3:6). Yet through this sacrifice made by Jesus Christ, all repentant sinners (including the angriest, and those farthest right now in their hearts before God) can be brought near to God and be accepted by God in the Beloved (Eph. 1:6; 2:14ff) through Jesus’ precious blood that continually cries out for forgiveness rather than vengeance, and speaks a better word than the blood of Abel (Heb. 12:24).

With God, there is mercy and forgiveness, and everlasting steadfast, undeserved love because of the precious blood shed by God’s blessed Son for sinners! God poured out His righteous and just anger on His Beloved Son, so that we could be acceptable to Him.

Why are you angry? Repent, believe; repent again, believe again. When you are angry, ask yourself what you truly deserve, and then see what God graciously has given you by His grace in the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ! If you’re a believer, Jesus lived for you; now go live for Him! He died for you; now go lose your life so you can truly find it! He was raised and vindicated for you; go and live righteously alive in Him! He was enthroned at God’s right hand; go and be confident in Him! (2 Cor. 5:14-15).

Let us be careful to watch ourselves and our hearts closely, as John Calvin warned us: “Anger is always our near neighbor.”  And as the blessed Apostle James wrote: “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness that God requires” (James 1:19-20).

In Christ’s love,

Pastor Biggs

From Your Pastor: Justification and Sanctification

Justification and Sanctification[1]

Below is a helpful chart to help you to distinguish between justification and sanctification.

A very important truth to keep in mind when thinking about justification and sanctification is that you should always make a distinction between the two, but never separate them (Calvin used the helpful Latin phrase: “distinctio non sed separatio” or “distinct but never separate”). Our confession states the distinction this way in the Westminster Larger Catechism, Questions 70 and 75:

WLC 70 – What is justification? A. Justification is an act of God’s free grace unto sinners,(1) in which he pardoneth all their sins, accepteth and accounteth their persons righteous in his sight;(2) not for any thing wrought in them, or done by them,(3) but only for the perfect obedience and full satisfaction of Christ, by God imputed to them,(4) and received by faith alone.(5) (1)Rom. 3:22,24,25; Rom. 4:5 (2)2 Cor. 5:19,21; Rom. 3:22,24,25,27,28 3)Tit. 3:5,7; Eph. 1:7 (4)Rom. 5:17-19; Rom. 4:6-8 (5)Acts 10:43; Gal. 2:16; Phil. 3:9

WLC 75 – What is sanctification? A. Sanctification is a work of God’s grace, whereby they whom God hath, before the foundation of the world, chosen to be holy, are in time, through the powerful operation of his Spirit(1) applying the death and resurrection of Christ unto them,(2) renewed in their whole man after the image of God;(3) having the seeds of repentance unto life, and all other saving graces, put into their hearts,(4) and those graces so stirred up, increased and strengthened,(5) as that they more and more die unto sin, and rise unto newness of life.(6) (1)Eph. 1:4; 1 Cor. 6:11; 2 Thess. 2:13 (2)Rom. 6:4-6 (3)Eph. 4:23,24 (4)Acts 11:18; 1 ohn 3:9 (5)Jude 20; Heb. 6:11,12; Eph. 3:16-19; Col. 1:10,11 (6)Rom. 6:4,6,14; Gal. 5:24

These two important aspects of salvation in Christ can be, and often are confused, and so it is important to keep these distinctions in mind without separating them (see Romans 8:29-31 as the Apostle Paul teaches that the grace that has begun in justification will always result and be fully realized in glorification through the sanctifying work of the Spirit).[2] To put it as pointedly as possible, you cannot have one without the other. The saving grace of Christ includes both justification and sanctification.

To be united to Christ by His Spirit means being a participant in the Spirit’s justifying work, as well as His sanctifying work. To make the proper distinctions will keep us from the terrible dangers of both legalism and antinomianism. It could also lead us to joy through the growing in our assurance of our faith.

 

JUSTIFICATION

SANCTIFICATION
Change in relation to God and His law: No longer condemned under the Law of God

 

 Change in nature: I now love the Law of God and desire to keep it sincerely.

 
Judicial act of God acquitting believers Continual building up

 

 
Complete and not of various degrees Growing work of many degrees
   
Perfect at the first moment Not perfect until death
   
Equal in all Not the same in all believers

 
Cannot be lost Degrees may be lost

 
Instantaneous Progressive

 
Removes guilt and liability to penalty Kills the being and power of sin

 
Man accepted and righteousness imputed Grace infused and the Spirit given
   
Gives right to life Gives fitness to share inheritance
   
By faith alone Requires exercise of all graces

 

——————————————-

Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 60. Q. How are you righteous before God? Only by true faith in Jesus Christ. Although my conscience accuses me that I have grievously sinned against all God’s commandments, have never kept any of them, and am still inclined to all evil, yet God, without any merit of my own, out of mere grace, imputes to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ. He grants these to me as if I had never had nor committed any sin, and as if I myself had accomplished all the obedience which Christ has rendered for me, if only I accept this gift with a believing heart.

In Christ’s love,

Pastor Biggs

 

 

[1] John Brown of Wamphray on Justification and Sanctification.  Source: John Brown, The Life of Justification Opened (N.p.: 1695), 268. See Joel R. Beeke, “John Calvin and John Brown of Wamphray on Justification,” in Reformed Orthodoxy in Scotland: Essays on Scottish Theology, 1560–1775, ed. Aaron Clay Denlinger (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015), 191–211.

[2] We should also remember to always understand justification as the foundation of our sanctification. Roman Catholicism formally confuses the two and places the sanctifying work of the Spirit through the Church before justification. Rome teaches that a person works in cooperation with the Spirit through the Roman Catholic Church (what they call “sanctification” through the seven sacraments), and this leads to a final justification (after death, and many times through purgatory). This is a terrible heresy. And this teaching is for another day, but it is to emphasize now the importance of getting justification and sanctification correct, and in proper, biblical order (for formal teaching of Romanist doctrine see Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1996, Second edition, III:sec.1, chap. 3, article 2, 1987-95).

Easter Meditation: John Calvin on Carrying Our Cross

 

“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”

– ESV 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

 

From Calvin’s ‘Institutes of the Christian Religion’ 3.7.1, 3.8.1:

“The duty of believers is ‘to present their bodies to God as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to him,’ and in this consists the lawful worship of God (Rom. 12:1). From this is derived the basis of the exhortation that ‘they be not conformed to the fashion of this world, but be transformed by the renewal of their minds, so that they may prove what is the will of God’ (Rom. 12:2). …We are consecrated and dedicated to God in order that we may thereafter speak, meditate, and do, nothing except to His glory.

 

…’We are not our own’ (1 Cor. 6:19)…Let us therefore live for him and die for him. We are God’s: let his wisdom and will therefore rule all our actions. We are God’s: let all the parts of our life accordingly strive toward him as our only lawful goal (Rom. 14:8; cf. 1 Cor. 6:19). …As self-interest is the pestilence that most effectively leads to our destruction, so the sole haven of salvation is to be wise in nothing and to will nothing through ourselves but to follow the leading of the Lord alone.

 

Let this therefore be the first step, that a man depart from himself in order that he may apply the whole force of his ability in the service of the Lord. I call ‘service’ not only what lies in obedience to God’s word but what turns the mind of man, empty of its own carnal sense, wholly to the bidding of God’s Spirit. …Christian philosophy bids reason to give way to, submit and subject itself to, the Holy Spirit so that man himself may no longer live but hear Christ living and reigning within him (Gal. 2:20).

 

…Let us not seek the things that are ours but those which are of the Lord’s will and will serve to advance his glory. This is also evidence of great progress [in the Christian life]: that, almost forgetful of ourselves, surely subordinating our self-concern, we try faithfully to devote our zeal to God and his commandments. For when Scripture bids us leave off self-concern, it not only erases from our minds the yearning to possess, the desire for power, and the favor of men, but it also uproots ambition and all craving for human glory and other more secret plagues.

 

….Let each of Christ’s disciples bear his own cross (Matt. 16:24). For whomever the Lord has adopted and deemed worthy of his fellowship ought to prepare themselves for a hard, toilsome, and unquiet life, crammed with very many and various kinds of troubles. It is the Heavenly Father’s will thus to exercise them so as to put his own children to a definite test. Beginning with Christ, his first-born, he follows this plan with all his children. …The apostle notes that it behooved him to ‘learn obedience through what he suffered’ (Heb. 5:8).

 

…Why should we exempt ourselves, therefore, from the condition to which Christ our Head had to submit, especially since he submitted to it for our sake to show us an example of patience in himself? Therefore, the apostle teaches that God has destined all his children to the end that they may be conformed to Christ (Rom. 8:29).

 

…In harsh and difficult conditions, regarded as adverse and evil, a great comfort comes to us: we share Christ’s sufferings in order that as he passed from a labyrinth of all evils into heavenly glory, we may in like manner be led through various tribulations to the same glory (Acts 14:22). ….The cross strikes at our perilous confidence in the flesh. It teaches us, thus humbled, to rest upon God alone…Thus humbled, we learn to call upon his power, which alone makes us stand fast under the weight of afflictions.”

 

In Christ’s love,

Pastor Biggs

 

Good Friday / Easter Meditations

Good Friday Meditation: BEHOLD THE LORD JESUS: “With what less than ravishment of spirit can I behold the Lord Jesus, who, from everlasting was clothed with glory and majesty, now wrapped in rags, cradled in a manger, exposed to hunger, thirst, weariness, danger, contempt, poverty, revilings, scourgings, persecution? Into what ecstasies may I be cast to see the Judge of all the world accused, judged and condemned? To see the Lord of life dying upon the tree of shame and curse? To see the eternal Son of God struggling with His Father’s wrath [in the Garden…on the cross]? …How Jesus’ love toward His own has carried Him! He has laid down His life for us! What raptures of spirit can be sufficient for the admiration of this infinite mercy! Be thou swallowed up, O my soul, in the depth of divine love; and hate to spend your thy thoughts any more upon the base objects of this wretched world. Look upon Him! He hangs on the cross naked, torn, and bloody, between heaven and earth, as if He were cast out of heaven, and also rejected by earth….The whole gospel is no other thing than a motive to draw man to God by the force of God’s love to man in Christ….Is not this a great love? Are not all mercies wrapped up in this blood of Christ? …Christ is all in all, and Christ above all, and will you not love Him? O that all our words were words of love, and all our labors, labors of love, and all our thoughts, thoughts of love, that we might speak of love, and muse of love, and love this Christ who first loved us, with all our heart, and soul, and might!” – Isaac Ambrose, ‘Looking Unto Jesus’.

 

Easter Meditation: “How was Christ exalted in his resurrection? A. Christ was exalted in his resurrection, in that, not having seen corruption in death, (of which it was not possible for him to be held,) and having the very same body in which he suffered, with the essential properties thereof, (but without mortality, and other common infirmities belonging to this life,) really united to his soul, he rose again from the dead the third day by his own power; whereby he declared himself to be the Son of God, to have satisfied divine justice, to have vanquished death, and him that had the power of it, and to be Lord of quick and dead: all which he did as a public person, the head of his church, for their justification, quickening in grace, support against enemies, and to assure them of their resurrection from the dead at the last day.” – Westminster Larger Catechism.

 

Easter Weekend Prayer: “Our Lord, teach us to see that our whole salvation and all its parts are comprehended in Christ…If we seek salvation, we are taught by the very name of Jesus that it is ‘of him’. If we seek any other gifts of the Spirit, they will be found in his anointing. If we seek strength, it lies in his dominion; if purity, in his conception; if gentleness, it appears in his birth. For by his birth he was made like us in all respects that he might learn to feel our pain. If we seek redemption, it lies in his passion; if acquittal, in his condemnation; if remission of the curse, in his cross; if satisfaction, in his sacrifice; if purification, in his blood; if reconciliation, in his descent into hell; if mortification of the flesh, in his tomb; if newness of life, in his resurrection; if immortality, in the same; if inheritance of the Heavenly Kingdom, in his entrance into heaven; if protection, if security if abundant supply of all blessings, in his Kingdom; if untroubled expectation of judgment; in the power given to him to judge. In short, since rich store of every kind of good abounds in him, let us drink our fill from the fountain, and from no other. In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.” – From John Calvin, Institutes 2.16.19.

 

In Christ’s love,

Pastor Biggs

 

 

Repentance before God: Psalm 51

Repentance is not merely a changing of one’s mind toward sin, but a turning completely away from sin with all of one’s heart, soul, mind, and strength, to receive God’s forgiveness in Christ by faith. True repentance is seeing the ugliness of sin, of our particular sins against God and others, and turning away in abhorrence to see the beauty and glory of Christ who receives sinners!

We should remember that faith and repentance are two sides of one coin. You cannot have one without the other. Repentance is always a believing repentance; faith is always a repentant believing. Bringing these two aspects of our walk before God together, our forefather Thomas Watson wrote: “Repentance is a grace of God’s Spirit whereby a sinner is inwardly humbled and visibly reformed.”

As our forefathers, Martin Luther and John Calvin pointed out, repentance and faith are the Christian’s life-long work. As we repent, we learn to grow in our faith; as our faith grows, so deeply do we repent. J. Gresham Machen described Christianity well as the “Religion of the broken heart”. This is true. As we become more aware of the righteousness of God, God’s grace in Christ, we often experience deep brokenness of heart before we enjoy the deep joy that Christ has promised to believers (John 15:9-11). This does not occur one time only, but will be a pattern as we die to sin and live to righteousness by His grace and Spirit. Thomas Watson noted six very important ingredients of true repentance by which we may test ourselves: 1) Sight of sin; 2) Sorrow for sin; 3) Confession of sin; 4) Shame for sin; 5) Hatred for sin; and 6) Turning from sin (His excellent book on repentance bears reading and re-reading. Available as a Banner of Truth Trust Puritan Paperback).

At this time of when many think of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, perhaps it would be good to see a model of repentance in inspired Scripture. Psalm 51 is helpful in this (as well as Psalm 32). Let us note a few things about Psalm 51 that can teach us about growing in repentance, and thus our faith, and especially our joy of the LORD!

Let us read prayerfully together Psalm 51, then I invite you to use this portion of Scripture to repent before God:

Psalm 51: Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! 3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. 4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. 5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. 6 Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. 7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. 9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. 11 Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. 13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. 14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. 15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. 16 For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. 18 Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; build up the walls of Jerusalem; 19 then will you delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar.

 

  1. “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions” (51:1) The God we approach in repentance is full of steadfast love and abundant mercy, and willing and able alone to blot out our transgressions, or our sins against His holy commands. God’s steadfast love is His covenantal faithfulness to all in Christ Jesus, and so our repentance is particularly in Jesus’s name. We approach as those who have sinned against God’s law and more fully His love revealed to us in Christ. But we approach with great hope (cf. Heb. 4:14-16). Prayer: Father, forgive me for Jesus’s sake.

 

  1. “…Cleanse me from my sin” (51:2): It is particularly “my sin” that is in need of cleasning. God is willing, and able to cleanse us from our sins. We can avoid our sins, we can act as if we do not have sins, but because sin is ultimately a sin against God, only God can cleanse us. But cleanse us He will when we approach Him in Christ’s name! Prayer: Father, I am unclean, make me clean from the heart. Make me like Christ.

 

  1. “I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me!” (51:3). True repentance acknowledges openly and honestly before our God that we have sin, and that our transgressions against God’s righteous law are real. Prayer: Father, I have broken your laws, forgive me, and restore me.

 

  1. “Against you, and you only…so that you may be justified in your words and…judgment…” (51:4). This acknowledges our sin as being not first and foremost against others, but offensive against God. All sin is first of all “against God” and God “only”! This helps us to cultivate a true and healthy spiritual fear of God (“The end of the matter: fear God and keep His commandments…” – 12:13). We acknowledge that we have nothing to defend ourselves with before God, no one else to blame; we have really sinned, and against such a holy and kind God! True repentance acknowledges that God is just if He did indeed condemn us for our sins. He would be just. This removes from us any blame on others, or making excuses for our sins before God. Making excuses and blame will never bring out true brokenness and sorrow for sin, and will make us self-righteous before God. It will tempt us to take God’s grace for granted. Prayer: Father, you would be altogether just in judging me, but you have provided a substitutionary sacrifice in Christ on my behalf. He who knew no sin became sin for me so that I might be covered in your righteousness (2 Cor. 5:21).

 

  1. “I was brought forth in iniquity…” (51:5). This acknowledges that we are sinners by nature undeserving of God’s mercy and grace. Prayer: In myself there is nothing good, but all good and grace and truth in abundance found in Christ! (John 1:16).

 

  1. “…You delight in truth in the inward being, and teach me wisdom in the secret heart” (51:6). God knows our hearts, and repentance is the ability to be honestly self-aware of one’s own heart. As we grow in the Christian life, we grow in our appreciation of the depths of God’s mercy, His lavish love, and unimaginable grace that He gives to sinners in Christ (Eph. 3:17-19), but we also become more aware of our “inward being”, or our “hearts” and how desperately sinful they are. True repentance is being honest before God and man. God teaches us wisdom in the “secret heart” so that we might have wise hearts, and be watchful over our hearts (cf. Prov. 4:23). Prayer: Father, make me rich with the wisdom and riches of grace found in Christ.

 

  1. “Purge me…wash me…whiter than snow….Create in me a clean heart…” (51:7, 10). Our Heavenly Father purges us from the taint and evils of sin through the precious blood of Christ our Lamb. Jesus Christ died for us on the cross to take away the penalty of sin which was death and hell, to free us from the power and dominion of sin, to heal us from the pollution of sin, and to change our course in life from the imminent punishment of sin. We are complete purged of our sins when we approach God in Christ. By His blood, we are washed, cleansed, made pure, and before God we are “whiter than snow”! From the center of our beings, our persons, “from the heart” we are made clean. Prayer: Thank you for the precious blood of Jesus that makes me pure and clean and holy.

 

  1. “Let me hear joy and gladness….Restore to me the joy of my salvation…” (51:8, 12). True repentance reconciles us back into our fellowship with God. As our sins break our fellowship with God that we enjoy in Christ, true repentance returns us to fellowship, and the joy and spiritual health that comes from that fellowship! Prayer: Father, I want to live in close fellowship with you all of my days: “Whom have I in heaven but you, and who on earth do I desire but you…For me, it is good to be near to God” (Psa. 73:25-28).

 

  1. “Then I will teach transgressors…” (51:13). True repentance displays an example of God’s love and power before the world. Repentance is clearly displayed so that all may undeniably see God’s goodness and power in the sinner saved by grace. Only God can save us—only God can truly sanctify us and heal us from sin. Prayer: Let me be a light to shine before others in a dark world: in my home, my workplace, my neighborhood, let me shine, kind king!

 

  1. “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit…” (51:17). A broken and contrite spirit is pleasing to God (cf. 2 Cor. 7:10-11). There is a worldly repentance that leads to death; there is a true repentance that leads to further life, and life more abundantly before God and others. The Christian life is a life of being broken before God, knowing that God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble (James 4:6). Thomas Watson said: “The mourner’s heart is emptied of pride and God fills the empty with His blessing.” The best and most mature Christians are not those who on the one hand merely talk about or feel sorry all the time for their sins, self-centeredly focused on themselves and their problem of sin. Neither are they those who are presumptuous of God’s grace, and live outwardly joyful, but thinly spiritual lives with a mere smile. Rather, the best and most mature Christians are those who most of the time feel broken and humbled by their sins and lack of fruitfulness and prayerlessness, yet their constant need makes them more wisely watchful over their own hearts, and more fully focused and dependent upon Christ and His grace, so that they are at the same time full of joy and wonder of God’s goodness and kindness, and mournfully crying out: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me!” Prayer: Father, let me live a broken-hearted, yet joyful life remembering always: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

Amen, and amen!

In Christ’s love,

Pastor Biggs

Is Anything Too Hard for the LORD?

ESV Genesis 18:14 “Is anything too hard for the LORD? At the appointed time I will return to you about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son.”

Beloved in Christ, this is your question today: “Is anything too hard for the LORD?”

Sometimes you think there is something too hard in your life that even God cannot help you with. You believe, but sometimes you are inconsistent with what you say you believe. You believe in a sovereign God who rules over the world. You believe in the Almighty God who is maker of heaven and earth. You believe that God was made flesh and lived and died for you. You believe that Jesus has risen from the dead. You believe that Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords.

Yet your worry, anxiety and fears betray what you’re hiding, and they reveal a heart that wants to believe, more than actually does believe. As a Christian, you know the truths of God are infallibly true and wonderfully revealed to you in Scripture, but you often live inconsistently with these truths, and you’re easily troubled. But again, let God ask you: “Is anything too hard for the LORD?”

Abraham and Sarah waited a very long time to hold in their arms the baby that had been long promised to them by God. For twenty-five long years, they waited on the promise of God to be realized in their lives. There were times of strong faith, and also times of failure during their wait. In Genesis 18, God manifested Himself to Abraham and Sarah to assure them that His promises would come to past “next year” (18:10) —and Sarah laughs in unbelief, and then tried to deny that she had indeed laughed:

“So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I am worn out, and my lord is old, shall I have pleasure?” …. But Sarah denied it, saying, “I did not laugh,” for she was afraid. He said, “No, but you did laugh.” (Genesis 18:12, 15).”

Isn’t she a bit like you and me?! Sarah couldn’t see how God could take her state of practical death in that she was too old to have babies, and grant her new life. Sarah could not conceive in her mind how she could ever conceive a child through God’s life-giving power. What God had promised was just a bit beyond her grasp of faith.

God knew also that she had laughed, and He was not angry with her and take away His gracious promises to her as it were. Rather, it was as if God was confronting Sarah with her laughter of unbelief so that she might see her sins, and might behold in Him the One who could do all things!

This is our God, dear congregation of Jesus! God reveals Himself and keeps His promises to us in spite of our lack of faith, and our silly, limited unbelief. God is always going to be faithful to His people even when His people are unfaithful to Him (2 Tim. 2:13). This in itself is a reason to ask yourself: “Is anything too hard for the LORD?” God can do all things; even forgive our sins because of His mercy.

Whatever your worries, anxieties, and fears are revealing is wrong deep within your heart, you can go to God, with a mere seed of faith, and find a great and powerful Christ ready to forgive, ready to pardon, ready to receive and ready to give to you above and beyond what you could ever ask or imagine!

What are your worries today? What is it in your life that is too difficult for you? What threatens to overwhelm you in your fears? What is too great– too hard– too difficult for you?!”

But you say: “You don’t understand my situation.” You don’t understand that I have made this problem for myself, and I must get myself out.” “There is no way that you would ever understand the problems at my workplace…in my marriage…with my children…the change that never seems to come with myself!?”

Think on Christ. Jesus loves you, and he has lived and died for you. God permanently took upon Himself a human nature from the substance of the Virgin Mary, to unite God and man together forever in Him. In Christ, God did the unbelievable. The Incarnation is the “enfleshing” of God Almighty with the goal of securing your redemption! When God sent His Son into the world, it was with you and your hard situations in mind! God who is Spirit united Himself to a body; God who is infinite united Himself to finitude; God who is everywhere present, became local in Jesus; God who is all-knowing, became limited and learning. And all for us!

“Is anything too hard for the LORD?” Think about the Incarnation and how in Christ God reveals what is in our estimation the “impossible”. Remember: “For nothing will be impossible with God” (Luke 1:37). When the Angel Gabriel came to the Virgin Mary in the fullness of the times and told her that Jesus, the Son of God, would be born to her, she didn’t laugh- – but believed. This is how we too come to understand and believe.

We may not fully understand our situation (and many times will not!); we may doubt a bit in the power and grace of God toward us (this is a reality of weak faith in this life); but we are to bow before God in humility with the little faith we have in a great Christ, and say with Mary:

“Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”

We are to simply seek to believe God’s Word to us. What is too hard for you today? This thing you are concerned about is never impossible with God. Believe. Think of the change that God has wrought in your heart by the power of the Spirit. Have you always believed? No! How did you come to believe in Christ in the first place? Was this not a mighty “impossible” display of God’s power in taking a hardened sinner far from God, and making your heart loving and teachable, and full of desire to follow Jesus?

Is this not a hard thing, too? Go back to your conversion, think on how the power of the Spirit came upon you to transfer you from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of God’s son; how you were raised, like Lazarus, from the spiritual dead, and seated with Christ in the heavenly places; how you were dead in trespasses and sins, enslaved to sin and the devil, and you were raised to new life in Jesus! (Col. 1:13-14; Eph. 2:1-8; Col. 3:14). Truly, I ask you, when you think of the work that has begun in you, “Is there anything too hard for the LORD?”

Think of the work yet to be done because God is committed to you. He who began a good work will complete it in you! (Phil. 1:6). God is committed to changing us. Ask Him for more faith. Don’t keep your doubts from him, but rather confess them. If you laugh at what you find to be unbelievable at the moment, learn from Sarah, and don’t cover it up and lie to God. God knows our hearts, and He kindly deals with us not according to our sins, but he pities us knowing that we are but dust (Psalm 103:11-15). Like a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on us.

Confess your worries and anxieties and fears to God. Tell him how you are struggling. Go to God in Jesus Christ who wears your nature before the face of God to represent you as your Great and Faithful High Priest, and ask Him for more faith to trust and believe all that He has promised to you.

Then laugh. Laugh with a deep joy, and hearty, belly-like, robust laugh (a real guffaw!), that God is good. Laugh with all your heart knowing that Jesus is for you, and not against you. And if God be for you, who or what could possibly be against you, or harm you?! (Psalm 27:1ff; Romans 8:30ff). Nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus, so go and flourish in your faith, knowing that nothing can harm you (Romans 8:35-39). In Christ, you’re more than a conqueror over everything that God allows to come into your life!

The hardest, most difficult, trying, exasperating, soul-crushing, and painfully unbearable work that could have been imagined, or done by you or anyone else, has been done for you in the death of Jesus Christ.

What was impossible for us has been done for us. Our sins against God were a constant and permanent reminder that we owed God for every sin in our words, thoughts and our deeds. We owed God not only an infinite payment for the sinful condition and our actual sins, but also we owed him a perfect lifetime of righteous living according to His commands, for His glory alone.

We could never repay such a debt. But God did the impossible; God did what was hard for us. God sent His Beloved Son Jesus to perfectly keep His commands and earn all righteousness before Him for us. God sent Jesus, His Beloved Son to die and provide an infinitely valuable sacrifice for our infinite sin-debt against a Holy and Just God for us. God was satisfied with Jesus’ hard work on our behalf; Jesus was raised and vindicated as a permanent and eternal memorial that all who believe in Him have been forgiven. And this, very hard thing, by grace, because of God’s love, has been done, for us.

Laugh.

Laugh.

Laugh.

God is good and faithful.

Look to Jesus who loves you!

“Is there anything too hard for the LORD?”

 

In Christ’s love,

Pastor Biggs

 

Where Are You?

“But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” – ESV Genesis 3:9

“Where are you?” is the first question in the Bible. Interestingly, it is the first question that God utters to mankind. The first question in the Bible teaches us that God seeks to ask His people questions. But why?

God is omniscient and that means He knows all things. Why then would He ask us questions? Doesn’t He already know the answer?

The questions that God asks are not so much for His sake as they are for us. God wants to draw us near to Himself, and to search and know us. God delights in His children coming to Him and hearing Him as He speaks by His Spirit through His Word. He wants to speak to us, and for us to learn to listen to Him.

When Adam and Eve sinned against God, they had gone their own way. They had lived according to their own plans, and done what is right in their own eyes (Much like we often do! Gen. 3:1-7). They had willingly broken fellowship and communion with God. Rather than truly listening and learning from their wonderful Creator and LORD, they chose to do their own will.

Yet God graciously came to our first parents, and sought them out, even when they were not looking for Him! The Bible tells us that God came “walking in the garden in the cool of the day” (Gen. 3:8). Rather than join God for fellowship as would have been their normal practice and delight, Adam and Eve actually sought to hide from God because of the fear and shame that sin produces. Sin may cause us to hide from God, but in His mercy God seeks after His own.

Satan, sin and shame may drive us away from God, but God intends to draw His dear children near to Him! (John 6:37, 44; James 4:8).

John Calvin wrote: “No one will dedicate himself to God until he be drawn by His goodness, and embrace Him with all his heart. He must therefore call us to Him before we call upon Him; we can have no access till He first invites us…allured and delighted by the goodness of God.”

What grace we behold in God coming to speak to the hearts of our first parents- -and to our hearts today.

In Genesis 3, God reveals Himself as the God who not only speaks, but the merciful God who asks. Rejoice and let us behold the God who reveals His willingness to hear us, and to listen to our needs, to forgive us our sins when we repent, and this is how God reveals Himself throughout Scripture to His dearly loved children.

God comes to us and asks us the question “Where are you?” so that we can see our need for Him and turn to Him and be restored. God graciously promises His people that if we will turn to Him, He promises that He will have mercy on us and forgive us. God desires to restore His relationship to mankind that was broken by the fall. God desires to restore you to communion with Him right now.

Ultimately, God asks us the question of “Where are you?” so that we will be brought to see our sins and repent of them, finding grace in our time of need (Heb. 4:14-16).

Dearly beloved of God, do you allow God to ask you this question each day? Listen to His voice: “Where are you?” Where are you today? Where are you in your relationship to God? Are you walking with God, acknowledging His presence? Honestly, where are you? Are you hiding from God? Are Satan, sin and shame driving you from God?

Where is your heart? God is everywhere present, but are you acknowledging His presence and living in His strength? When He knocks on the door of your heart do you answer? (Revelation 3:20). Are you near God today?

The question of “Where are you?” put to us by God in the beginning, and then spoken to us every time we seek to read and meditate upon His Word, to hear from Him and to pray, is the same question that was also in the Lord Jesus’ mouth:

Jesus was forsaken on the cross, abandoned as a cursed thing because although He had not committed any sins or transgressions Himself, the LORD had laid our iniquities upon Him.

In our place condemned He stood! This is our Beloved Savior, perfect and sinless as the Lamb of God, and as He who knew no sin because sin for us, so Jesus cries out in dereliction on the cross:

“Where are you?”

Or, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?”

Or, “My God, My God why have you forsaken me?”

Jesus was made to be sin, having our sins imputed to Him, so that we would receive His righteousness by faith alone and boldly draw near to God.

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” – ESV 2 Corinthians 5:21

Jesus reconciled us to God, and has given us access to all of our dear Heavenly Father’s questions. Let us hear Him, let us listen, and let us respond with faith and obedience because of what Christ has done for us!

Dear Beloved in Jesus Christ, God asks us ‘Where are you?’ because God desires to search us and examine our hearts by His most Holy Word and Spirit. Do not run Him! Do not run away and be driven from your only hope for joy and salvation! God wants to bring us to the end of ourselves, to show us our sins, and the habits that only bring hurt and harm to ourselves and others, so that we might repent, and find a deeper, closer relationship with our loving Lord Jesus.

Consider this question to you today: “Where are you?” Are you near to God? Draw near to God in Jesus Christ because He died for you, and He promises to draw near to you.

When you read your Bibles, and meditate thoughtfully on Scripture, let God ask you over and over: “Where are you?” And then be honest with Him…and yourself. Let his be your prayer:

“Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” – ESV Psalm 139:23-24

In Christ’s love,

Pastor Biggs

Why Keeping the Lord’s Day is Glorious (Part 3)

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8)

Why is keeping the Lord’s Day holy glorious?

* Keeping the Lord’s Day holy is glorious because it is an opportunity to please and glorify God in obedience to His commandments.

* Keeping the Lord’s Day holy is glorious because it is a privilege and blessing of the Covenant of Grace.

* Keeping the Lord’s Day holy is glorious because it can remind us that the Lord Jesus created it, kept it, and fulfilled it, and gave it to believers as a way of imitating Him.

* Keeping the Lord’s Day holy is glorious because it is an opportunity for growth and maturity in Christ.

* Keeping the Lord’s Day holy is glorious because it can be a time well spent that helps us not to live overly busy and distracted lives.

* Keeping the Lord’s Day holy is glorious because it is a way of joyfully, peacefully, and graciously witnessing publicly to whom it is you belong, and to whom it is you ultimately submit!

* Keeping the Lord’s Day holy is glorious because it is part of our confessional heritage as particularly Reformed Christians.

  1. Keeping the Lord’s Day is glorious because it can remind us that our Lord Jesus created it, kept it, and fulfilled it, and gave it to believers as a way of imitating Him.

The Lord Jesus Christ who is God and man created the Sabbath, kept it joyfully, and fulfilled it. These are three aspects of Christ’s work that we should consider. As God, the Lord Jesus Christ created the Sabbath for the good of man as a creation ordinance to order man’s time pattern and rhythm according to God’s own time-keeping as His redemptive story unfolded in space and time history.[1]  Our Lord Jesus says: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27) to emphasize the gift of God the Lord’s Day is, particularly to believers. Jesus Christ our Lord also kept the Sabbath Day joyfully as a true human being in obedience to God (John 17:4). Christ said that “Heaven and earth shall pass away but not one jot or tittle shall pass away” from the moral law, particularly the fourth commandment as given by God to man (Matt. 5:17-20). It was our Lord’s delight to keep the Sabbath Day holy unto God.

Jesus fulfilled the Sabbath Day as a covenant of works, but He opened up for believers the power and transformative grace to fulfill it, too, not as a basis for works righteousness, but as a privilege of grace for the glory of God. Jesus fulfilled the law’s perfect demands, so that we could be free to live God’s law as a glorious way of life. Jesus became Savior to save us from the law, but he is also our example to teach us how to live saved according to the law. The Lord Jesus fulfilled all the moral law for believers, particularly as revealed in the Ten Commandments, so that in Him, by His power, we might meet the righteous requirements of God’s Law who “walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit” (Rom. 8:4). The Apostle Paul teaches this great and glorious news of freedom from the Law as a covenant of works, and the opportunity and privilege for believers now to live as Christ lived according to the law:

For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit (ESV Romans 8:3-4).

Note very importantly in Romans 8:3-4 that God doesn’t change the holy and righteous requirements of His law. God changes us! God doesn’t overlook or disregard or abrogate or abolish His law, but He changes our hearts and writes the law on our hearts as He promised in the Old Covenant (Jer. 31:33; Heb. 10:15-17)! God doesn’t change the law, he changes our relationship to it! Once we were “married” to the law as a binding covenant of works, but now we are “married” to Christ by faith, and in Him, we live according to the law as a way of life: “…In order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us…” (Rom. 8:4; 1 Cor. 7:1-12). God upholds His just law and graciously changes us from within (in a way the law is powerless to do!) so that we might uphold it, too. He truly is the God who is just and also the justifier of all who believe in Christ Jesus!! (Rom. 3:24-26).

Suggested Questions to Ponder and Ask Yourself to Help You to Keep the Lord’s Day Holy:

Is this activity on the Lord’s Day going to glorify God above all things? / Is this activity a work of necessity or mercy that I lovingly desire to do to love God and neighbor? / Is this activity going to hinder me (or others) from publicly worshipping God and attending to any calls to worship that God calls me to through his ordained servants? / Is this activity loving and the best use of my time for myself, my family, my guests, my neighbors, and those who look to me for leadership? / Is this activity going to be consistent with God’s Word, and particularly His clear teaching on how he desires the Lord’s Day to be remembered? / Is this activity work that I normally engage it on other days, and can it wait? / Is this activity a distraction from my taking time to grow up in God’s Word? / Is this activity something that will not be conducive to remembering what I learned in the morning worship sermon and meditating upon it and hiding in my heart so that I won’t sin against God? / Is this activity properly living a godly example before a broken and lost world?

Prayer: Dear Jesus, I want to keep the Lord’s Day holy, please help me. Grant me your wisdom and discernment. Amen

In Christ’s love,

Pastor Biggs

 

[1] The fourth commandment is a commandment that is rooted not merely in redemption, but also in creation teaching that this is a commandment that is binding on every creature who has ever lived, does live, and will live (contrast Exodus 20; Deuteronomy 5). One important implication of keeping the Lord’s Day holy is that it is imitating God as He rested after His glorious creation work and following His work-rest pattern (Gen. 1:31).

(To read the entire study on why keeping the Lord’s Day is glorious, click here: From Your Pastor.Why Keeping the Lords Day is Glorious.March 2016)

Jonathan Edwards: “The Excellency of Christ”

Jonathan Edwards- ‘The Excellency of Christ’ (edited and updated for 21st century Christians by Rev. Charles R. Biggs) 
 
“And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.” And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. (ESV Revelation 5:5-6). 
 
Edwards begins by stating: “There is an admirable conjunction or meeting of diverse and paradoxical elements in the Person of Jesus Christ.” 
 
Jesus is called a “Lion”. “Behold the Lion of the Tribe of Judah”. Jesus is also called “Lamb”. “…I saw a Lamb”. John saw a Lamb who had prevailed to open the book. The book was John’s vision, or visual portrait of God’s decrees where the events in time and space were foreordained from the foundation of the world. The Lamb was “as if it had been slain”.  
 
A lion is a devourer, one that is able and desires to make a terrible slaughters of others. No creature falls more easily prey to a lion than a lamb…The lion excels in strength, and in the majesty of his appearance and voice. The lamb excels in meekness and patience, besides the excellent nature of the creature as good for food, and yielding that which is fit for our clothing, and being suitable to be offered in sacrifice to God. But in Jesus Christ, we see both: 
 
Because the diverse excellencies of both the lion and lamb wonderfully meet in him! 
 
Such are the various divine perfections and excellencies that Christ is possessed of. Christ is a divine person and therefore has all the attributes of God. There do meet in Jesus Christ infinite highness and infinite condescension. Christ, as he is God, is infinitely great and high above all. He is higher than the kings of the earth for He is King of kings, and Lord of lords. He is higher than the heavens, and higher than all the highest angels of heaven. 
 
So great is Christ, that all men, kings and princes, are as worms of the dust before him…He is so high, that he is infinitely above any need of us. He is above our reach, that we cannot profitable to him, and above our conceptions that we cannot fully comprehend him. Christ is the Creator and great Possessor (owner) of heaven and earth. He is sovereign Lord of all. His knowledge and wisdom is without bounds. His power is infinite, and none can resist him. His riches are immense and inexhaustible. His majesty is infinitely terrible (awesome or awful). 
 
And yet Jesus is one of infinite condescension. 
 
None are so low or inferior, but Christ’s condescension is sufficient to take a careful notice of them. He condescends graciously not only to the angels, humbling himself to behold the things that are done in heaven, but he also condescends to such poor creatures as sinful men- -even to those who are of the lowest rank and degree, such as those commonly despised by their fellow creatures- – yet Christ does not despise them (1 Cor. 1:28). 
 
Christ condescends to take notice of beggars (Luke 16:22) and people of the most despised nations of men (Col. 3:11). He that is thus high, condescends to take a gracious notice of little children (Matt. 14:14). What is even more significant, is that Christ takes a gracious notice of the most unworthy, sinful creatures, those that have no right to ask anything of God, and those that have infinitely offended God’s holiness and character by living sinfully and selfishly, a law unto themselves. 
 
And yet so great is Jesus’ condescension. 
 
What a meeting of infinite highness and low condescension do we see in the Person of Jesus Christ! We see in many of our experiences what a tendency that a high position or station with men will make them quite the contrary in their disposition.  
 
If one worm be a little exalted above another, by having more dust, or a bigger dunghill, how much does he make of himself! What a distance does he keep from those that are below him! And a little condescension is what he expects of other men below him and for his position to be acknowledged as important and powerful! 
 
Yet Christ condescends to wash our feet, even the feet of sinners who think so highly of themselves! 
 
In Christ we also see infinite justice and infinite grace come together paradoxically and meet in his person. 
 
As Christ is a divine person, he is infinitely holy and just, hating sin, and disposed to execute deserved punishment for it upon sinners. He is the Judge of the world, and the infinitely just Judge of it, and will not at all acquit the wicked, or by any means clear the guilty.  
 
And yet Christ is infinitely gracious and merciful. 
 
Though his justice by so strict with respect to sin, and every breach of God’s Law, yet he has grace sufficient for every sinner, and even the chief of sinners. There is no benefit or blessing that sinners can receive that is greater than the sufficient grace of Christ, that can be received by even the greatest of sinners! 
 
Christ not only bestowed grace for those sinners who will receive it by faith, but he suffered in this world of sin and misery in order to mercy to sinners. He suffered the most extreme evil unto death, receiving in himself the curse and punishment of God for sinners, although he was blameless and without sin. Christ had sufferings in his soul, that were the most immediate fruits of the wrath of God against the sins of those whom he loves and stands in for as the merciful Savior. 
 
In the Person of Christ we see infinite glory and lowest humility come together paradoxically and meet in his person. 
 
Infinite glory, and the virtue of humility meet in no other person but Christ. Infinite glory and lowest humility meet in no created person, for no created person has infinite glory, and they meet in no other divine person but Christ….In Jesus Christ, who is both God and man, those two diverse excellencies are sweetly united. Christ is a person infinitely exalted in glory and dignity (Phil. 2:6ff).  
 
But however he is thus above all in glory, yet he is lowest of all in humility. 
 
There never was so great an instance of this virtue among either men or angels. None were ever so sensible and aware of the distance between God and him, or had a heart so lowly before God, as the man Christ Jesus (Matt. 11:29). What a wonderful spirit of humility appeared in him, when he was here upon earth, in all his life! In his contentment in his humble outward condition, contentedly living in the family of Joseph the carpenter, and Mary his mother, for thirty years together, and afterwards choosing outward poverty, contempt, rather than earthly greatness. He was content to wash dirty disciples’ feet, in all of his speeches being a humble yet content man, and his cheerfully sustaining the form of a slave through his whole life, and submitting to such immense humiliation in death. 
 
In the Person of Christ we see infinite majesty and transcendent meekness come together paradoxically and meet in his person. 
 
These again are two qualifications and qualities that meet together in no other person but Christ. Meekness is a virtue proper only to the creature. We scarcely ever find meekness mentioned as a divine attribute in Scripture, at least not in the New Testament. But Christ being both God and man, has both infinite majesty and superlative meekness. 
 
Christ was a person of infinite majesty. It is he that is mighty, that rides on the heavens, and his excellency on the sky. It is he that is terrible out of his holy places, who is mightier than the noise of many waters, even the great waters of the sea. Before him a fire goes, and burns up his enemies around him, at whose presence the earth quakes, and the hills melt. He is the One who sits on the circle of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the earth are as grasshoppers…He is the One who inhabits eternity, whose Kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and of whose dominion shall never end! (Psalm 45). 
 
And yet Christ was the most marvelous instance of meekness, and humble quietness of spirit who ever lived! 
 
He says about himself that he is meek and lowly in heart (Matt. 11:29). There was never such an exemplary life of meekness and humility than Jesus. Under injuries, persecutions, jeers, and sinful slander, Jesus did not revile! Jesus had a wonderful spirit of forgiveness, ready to forgive his worst enemies, and prayed for them with fervent and effectual prayers! With what meekness did he appear in the ring of soldiers that were condemning and mocking him- – yet he was silent, and opened not his mouth, but went as a lamb to the slaughter. 
 
Jesus Christ is a lion in majesty and a lamb in meekness. 
 
In the Person of Christ we see the deepest reverence towards God and yet equality with God. 
 
Christ, when on earth, appeared full of holy reverence towards the Father. He paid the most reverential worship to him, praying to him with postures of reverence such as kneeling before him and others. God the Father has no attribute or perfection that the Son has not, in equal degree, and equal glory, yet Christ was reverent before His Father. 
 
In the Person of Christ we see an exceeding spirit of obedience with supreme dominion over heaven and earth. 
 
Christ is the Lord of all things in two respects: (1) As God-man and Mediator between God and man, and thus his dominion is appointed, or given to him by His Father. He has his dominion in one respect as by delegation of God; He is His Father’s vicegerent. (2) In another respect, he is Lord of all things because he is God, and so he is by natural right the Lord of all, and supreme over all as much as the Father. Thus, he has dominion over the world, not by delegation, but in his own right. 
 
And yet is found in the same Jesus Christ, both God and man, the greatest spirit of obedience to the commands and laws of God that ever was in the universe which was manifest in his obedience here in this world (John 14:31). The greatness of his obedience appears in its perfection, and in his obeying commands of such exceeding difficulty. 
 
Never has any one received commands from God of such difficulty! One of God’s commands to Jesus was that he should yield himself to those dreadful sufferings on the cross which he underwent with full knowledge and willingness for us (John 10:18). As Philippians 2:8 says: “He humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” As Hebrews 5:8 says: “Though he was a Son, yet he learned obedience by the things he suffered.” 
 
In the Person of Christ we see absolute sovereignty and perfect resignation. 
 
Christ, as he is God, is the absolute sovereign of the world, the sovereign disposer of every single event. The decrees of God are all his sovereign decrees, and the work of creation, and all of God’s works of providence are his sovereign works.  
 
Yet Christ was the greatest example of resignation that has ever appeared in this world. He was absolutely and perfectly resigned when he had a near and immediate prospect of his terrible sufferings, and the dreadful cup that he was to drink. The idea and expectation of this made his soul exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death, and put him into such agony, that his sweat was as it were great drops or clots of blood, falling down to the ground. Yet in these circumstances, he was fully resigned to the sovereign purposes of God and his will (Matt. 26:39): “O my Father, if this cup may not pass from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.” 
 
What an amazing act of grace was it when Christ took upon our human nature. In this act of great condescension, he who was God became man. The Word should be made flesh, and should take on him a nature infinitely below his original nature. We should appreciate the remarkably low circumstances of his incarnation: He was conceived in the womb of a poor young woman, whose poverty appeared in this, when she came to offer sacrifices for her purification, she brought what was allowed of in the Law only in the case of poverty, a pair of turtle-doves or two young pigeons. 
 
Christ’s infinite condescension marvelously appeared in the manner of his birth. He was brought forth in a stable, because there was no room for them in the inn. The inn was taken up by others, that were looked upon as persons of greater account. The blessed Virgin, being poor and despised, was turned or shut out. Though she was in such need, yet those that counted themselves her better would not give place to them. Therefore, in her time of giving birth, she was forced to give birth to her son in a stable, and laid him in a feed trough. 
 
There Christ lay a little infant, and there he eminently appeared as a lamb. But yet this feeble infant, born this way in a stable, and laid in a feed trough, was born to conquer and triumph over Satan, that roaring lion (cf. 1 Peter 5:8). Jesus came to subdue the mighty powers of darkness, and make a show of them openly, and so to restore peace on earth, and to manifest God’s good-will towards men, and to bring glory to God in the highest!  
 
In Jesus Christ’s life, and especially in his suffering and death, he appears as paradoxically both lion and lamb. 
 
He appeared as a lamb in the hands of his cruel enemies, as a lamb in the paws and between the devouring jaws of a roaring lion. He was a lamb actually slain by this lion, and yet at the same time, as the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, he conquers and triumphs over Satan, destroying his own devourer! In Christ’s death on the cross, we see the glorious strength of the lion destroying his enemies, as he was brought as a lamb to the slaughter. 
 
In Christ’s greatest weakness he was the strongest!  
 
Even in Christ’s present state of exaltation in heaven, we see the attributes of both the lion and the lamb! In his exalted state, he most eminently appears in manifestation of those excellencies and strength of a great lion, but he still appears as a lamb. Though Christ be now at the right hand of God, exalted as King of Heaven, and Lord of the universe, yet as he is still in the human nature, he still excels in humility! 
 
Though the man Christ Jesus be now at the right hand of God, and is the highest of all creatures in heaven as a glorified man, yet he still excels all in humility because he still knows the infinite distance between the Creator and the creature. Though he now appears in such glorious majesty and dominion in heaven, yet he appears as a lamb in his condescending, mild, and sweet treatment of His saints here on earth. For he is a lamb still, even amidst the throne of his exaltation, and he that is Shepherd of the whole flock is himself a Lamb, and goes before them in heaven as such! 
 
Though in heaven every knee bows to him, and though the angels fall down before him adoring him, yet he treats his saints with infinite condescension, love, mildness, patience, and endearment. And in his acts towards the saints on earth, Jesus still appears as a lamb, manifesting exceeding love and tenderness in his intercession for them, as one that has had experience of affliction and temptation like them. 
 
Behold the Lamb who instructs, supplies grace, and comfort, coming to His own, and manifesting himself to them by His Spirit, supping with them at His table, and enabling them to do that which pleases God. Behold the Lamb admitting His people to sweet communion with Him, enabling them with boldness and confidence to come to him, and quieting their hearts with his peace. 
 
Jesus Christ will come again and will appear as the Lion of the tribe of Judah. He will appear in infinite greatness and majesty, when he shall come again in glory, with all his holy angels, and the earth shall tremble before him, and the hills shall melt (Rev. 19:11-17; 20:11). The devils tremble at the thought of his appearance, and when the time comes, the kings, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, shall hide themselves in the dens, and in the rocks of mountains, and shall cry to the mountains and rocks to fall on them, to hide them from the face and wrath of the Lamb! 
 
Jesus Christ will at the same time appear as a Lamb to his saints. He will receive them as friends and brethren, treating those who believe and have awaited his return with infinite mildness and love. The church shall be then admitted to him as his bride and that shall be their wedding day. The saints shall all be sweetly invited to come with him to inherit the kingdom, and reign with him in it for all eternity. 
 
Jesus Christ the Lamb of God invites his people to come unto him and trust in him. With what sweet grace and kindness does he invite us to sup and fellowship with him by His Spirit. Jesus Christ the Lion of Judah invites his people to come to him in his glorious power and dominion for defense and shelter amidst the storms and struggles of this life. 
 
Would you choose for a friend a person like Christ with such dignity? It is a thing common to our experience in this world to have those for our friends who are much above us because we look upon ourselves honored by the friendship of such. Thus, how a young inferior maid would be pleased to have a great and excellent prince to give his dear love to her?! This is the stuff of fairy tales! But Christ is infinitely above you, and above all the princes o of the earth for he is King of kings. So honorable a person as this offers himself to you, in the nearest and dearest friendship! 
 
Christ will himself give himself to you by faith, with all those various excellencies that paradoxically meet together in him, to your full and everlasting enjoyment. He will forever after treat you as his dear friend, and you shall always be where he is, and shall behold his glory, and dwell with him, in most free and intimate communion and enjoyment (1 John 3:1-3; Rev. 21:1-7). 

Why Keeping the Lord’s Day Holy is Glorious! (Part 2)

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8)

Why is keeping the Lord’s Day holy glorious?

* Keeping the Lord’s Day holy is glorious because it is an opportunity to please and glorify God in obedience to His commandments.

* Keeping the Lord’s Day holy is glorious because it is a privilege and blessing of the Covenant of Grace.

* Keeping the Lord’s Day holy is glorious because it can remind us that the Lord Jesus created it, kept it, and fulfilled it, and gave it to believers as a way of imitating Him.

* Keeping the Lord’s Day holy is glorious because it is an opportunity for growth and maturity in Christ.

* Keeping the Lord’s Day holy is glorious because it can be a time well spent that helps us not to live overly busy and distracted lives.

* Keeping the Lord’s Day holy is glorious because it is a way of joyfully, peacefully, and graciously witnessing publicly to whom it is you belong, and to whom it is you ultimately submit!

* Keeping the Lord’s Day holy is glorious because it is part of our confessional heritage as particularly Reformed Christians.

  1. Keeping the Lord’s Day Holy is glorious because it is a privilege and blessing of the Covenant of Grace.

While the Old Covenant saints enjoyed a blessed holy day on the last day of the week, New Covenant saints that confess and believe the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead are blessed to keep the Lord’s Day on the first day of the week (Rev. 1:9-10). It is a privilege and blessing of the Covenant of Grace to have a Christian Sabbath that is also the Lord’s Day. This is a particular privilege and blessing of the Covenant of Grace because only God’s people who are recipients of His saving grace can properly keep the Lord’s Day holy from a pure heart (Matt. 5:8; cf. 1 Tim. 1:5).

God gave the Old Covenant saints the last day of the week as the Lord’s Day or Sabbath to point them to the Promised Messiah and Hope that was to come. Now that Christ has come and has been resurrected according to the Scriptures (1 Cor. 15:1-4; Luke 24:25-27; 44-47), the Lord’s Day or Christian Sabbath is on the first day. This first day of the week reminds us that we are part of a new creation, the first fruits of the resurrection in Christ Jesus—Hallelujah!! (1 Cor. 15:20ff). Although the day has changed now for the commandment to be kept (from last day to first day), the commandment remains the same in substance and in the goal to promote the glory of God and the good of His people!

The Westminster Larger Catechism, Q&A 116 teaches us: What is required in the fourth commandment? A. The fourth commandment requireth of all men the sanctifying or keeping holy to God such set times as he hath appointed in his word, expressly one whole day in seven; which was the seventh from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, and the first day of the week ever since, and so to continue to the end of the world; which is the Christian sabbath,(1) and in the New Testament called The Lord’s day.(2) (1)Deut. 5:12-14; Gen. 2:2,3; 1 Cor. 16:1,2; Acts 20:7; Matt. 5:17,18; Isa. 56:2,4,6,7 (2)Rev. 1:10

We should reiterate again that believers in Christ can never keep any of God’s laws in order to merit salvation or the favor of God (that is as a covenant of works), but we can keep it holy and set apart from all other days with a sincere heart that desires to please God. As God’s people in Christ, it is a privilege and blessing to be those who are set apart for the LORD’s own chosen possession to be a holy people, and to be different from the world in order to glorify God (Titus 2:11-14; 1 Peter 2:9-12): “Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable…they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation” (1 Pet. 2:12; cf. Matt. 5:13-16).

What a blessing the Lord has given to us as a gift this special day! What a mercy and kindness of God that we as believers can have one day in seven to freely honor and joyfully worship God, and that we can be reminded of our everlasting rest that is yet to come (Heb. 4:9-10), that we can worship and serve Christ, knowing we are united to Him in his death and resurrection (Col. 3:1-4), and that we can receive the means that the Spirit has provided for our growth in Word, Sacrament, prayer, and fellowship (cf. Acts 2:41-37).

Suggested Questions to Ponder and Ask Yourself to Help You to Keep the Lord’s Day Holy:

Is this activity on the Lord’s Day going to glorify God above all things? / Is this activity a work of necessity or mercy that I lovingly desire to do to love God and neighbor? / Is this activity going to hinder me (or others) from publicly worshipping God and attending to any calls to worship that God calls me to through his ordained servants? / Is this activity loving and the best use of my time for myself, my family, my guests, my neighbors, and those who look to me for leadership? / Is this activity going to be consistent with God’s Word, and particularly His clear teaching on how he desires the Lord’s Day to be remembered? / Is this activity work that I normally engage it on other days, and can it wait? / Is this activity a distraction from my taking time to grow up in God’s Word? / Is this activity something that will not be conducive to remembering what I learned in the morning worship sermon and meditating upon it and hiding in my heart so that I won’t sin against God? / Is this activity properly living a godly example before a broken and lost world?

Prayer: Dear Jesus, I want to keep the Lord’s Day holy, please help me. Grant me your wisdom and discernment. Amen

In Christ’s love,

Pastor Biggs

(To read the entire study on why keeping the Lord’s Day is glorious, click here: From Your Pastor.Why Keeping the Lords Day is Glorious.March 2016)