We have also found a place to begin meeting for corporate worship services.Lord willing, we will begin meeting for services this Sunday, October 23 at EdenLakeElementary School.EdenLake is located at
12000 Anderson Lakes Parkway in Eden Prairie, Minnesota (not far from the intersection of 494 and 169).We will have Sunday School for all ages from to .Corporate worship will begin at .
If you live in the Twin Cities, come and join us on Sunday, October 23!Come and hear the Word preached as we look at Luke 24:13-35 with a sermon on The Emmaus Road.Join us as we joyfully sing the historic psalms and hymns of the Christian faith together.Enjoy fellowship with your brothers and sisters in Christ united by the precious promises of the gospel.Rejoice in our rich communion with the Triune God!
In his vision, John sees a new heaven and a new earth (Revelation 21:1).This calls to mind the opening words of Genesis 1, where we read that “God created the heavens and the earth.”D.A. Carson says “the opening of the Bible connects with the closing of the Bible.But now this new heaven and new earth is untainted by any of the residue of the sin of Genesis 3.It is a new heaven and earth.”
Revelation 21-22 is the climax of the whole Bible.We ought to read these chapters, like the rest of the book of Revelation, with the Old Testament (not the New York Times) in our other hand.Revelation 21-22 is not telling us to be on the lookout for certain world events that will signal the second coming of Christ, but rather these chapters contain rich symbolism with Old Testament roots.Many of the symbolic elements in Revelation 21-22 are suggestive of Eden before the fall.
Revelation 21:3-4 and 22:3 describes the new heaven and new earth as a place where there are no tears, no pain, no mourning, no curse, and no death.In this life, the church is made up of sinners like you and me.We have been justified and we are being sanctified, but we are not yet perfected or glorified.But one day we will be in the presence of the Lamb of God in glory and splendor for all eternity.There will be no more impurity or possibility of sin (Revelation ).We will love and worship God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength without any hint of idolatry.We will love our neighbor as ourself without greed, hate, betrayal, selfishness, or jealousy.The new heaven and the new earth is the consummated union between Christ and his people, and it has been secured for us through the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord Jesus.
Revelation 21-22 fosters hope and anticipation.This is important to note as we go through deep waters of trials and sufferings in this present evil age.Christian hope is anchored in the past, in what Christ has done in keeping the law, fulfilling all righteousness, bearing the curse, and rising again victorious over sin, death, hell, and the devil.Our hope as believers is grounded in the plan of the Triune God from before the beginning of time.Christian hope also projects into the future, prompting God’s people in every generation to meld their voices together and cry “Amen.Come quickly, Lord Jesus” (Revelation ).
If you are interested in talking more about “the new heaven and new earth,” you are invited to come and join us for our next Bible study, which takes place tomorrow night (Wednesday, September 28) from to .We meet at 9257 Amsden Way in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.
This has been an especially burning question since the recent publication of Rob Bell’s book Love Wins: A Book about Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived.Listen to how D.A. Carson answers this question:
Doubtless many think that hell, if it exists, is for really bad people, like the guards at Auschwitz, perhaps.What this overlooks is that the guards at Auschwitz were just “ordinary” people from a sophisticated and highly educated culture.A number of photographs have come to light showing these guards, including prominent leaders such as Rudolf Hoess and the infamous Josef Mengele (who performed cruel medical experiments on camp inmates) at Solahutte, a retreat center for SS personal located a mere 30 kilometers from Auschwitz.These photographs disclose merry times—eating berries, mugging for the camera, lighting a Christmas tree.One is thus introduced to the “banality of evil”: one of the most revolting elements of the evil was the sheer thoughtlessness of it all.
Yet although this is an evil of a high order, from a biblical perspective the ugliest evil, the highest order of evil, is the erection of idols, the failure to love God with heart and soul and mind and strength.We may console ourselves with self-deceptive comfort that our culture would never act like that of Nazi Germany, but a little self-knowledge enables us to imagine descending to similar levels, while reflection on the biblical themes shows that these levels are merely symptoms of a far deeper corruption that, in its idolatrous independence, has happily and mockingly ignored the God who is there and thereby attracted his wrath.Indeed, the heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9).
Yes, hell does exist—even though many try to deny this fact.A.W. Tozer was right when he said “the vague and tenuous hope that God is too kind to punish the ungodly has become a deadly opiate for the consciences of millions.”Since the fall of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3, the theme of judgment and curse runs throughout the Scriptures.Jesus actually says more about hell than any other person in the Bible (Matthew ).
Hell is not a time to hang with your friends—there are no “friends” in hell.Hell is also not separation from God; rather, hell is to be eternally tormented in the presence of the Holy angels and of the Lamb.Imagine facing God in his wrath, without regard to his mercy—this is what hell is and why the torment is so great (Revelation 14:9, 11).So, the testimony of God’s Word is that hell is eternity in the presence of the wrath and justice of God with weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 13:42; 2 Thessalonians 1:9; Revelation 19:11-16; 20:9-10).
God is righteous, just, and holy.We have all broken his law, and are deserving of his wrath and judgment for all eternity (Revelation 14:6-20).The good news for God’s people is that Christ finished something on the cross; namely, he satisfied God’s justice and bore God’s wrath in our place (John ).On the cross, Christ didn’t just suffer suffocation and dehydration and blood loss.While he hung on the tree on Golgotha, the sins of all his people were imputed to him and his righteousness is imputed to us (2 Corinthians ).
On the cross, Jesus was the ultimate obscenity.He bore the curse of God’s law and became a horrific mass of depravity in the sight of the Father, suffering the wrath, judgment, and punishment of a holy God who is just and hates sin (Matthew 27:46; Galatians 3:13).He was punished as a criminal under the justice of God for our crimes.He drank that cup of the Father’s wrath for us so it wouldn’t come to our lips, and he was baptized into hell for us to be saved.Carson writes: the measure of Jesus’ torment as the God-man is the measure of torment that we deserve and that he bore.And if you see that and believe it, you will find it difficult to contemplate the cross for very long without tears.
Today is the day of salvation.The Bible says that we are to flee from the coming wrath (Matthew 3:7) by trusting in Jesus, who saves us from the wrath to come (John 3:16-18, 36; 1 Thessalonians 1:10).Carson says “granted that hell is real, terrifying, and eminently to be avoided, it would be unkind and uncharitable of me not to warn you, in exactly the same way that it would have been unkind and uncharitable of Jesus not to warn the people of his day.”
If you are interested in talking more about the question of hell, you are invited to come and join us for our next Bible study, which takes place tomorrow night (Wednesday, September 14) from to .We meet at 9257 Amsden Way in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.
Christianity is not a list of pre-packaged rules.D.A. Carson explains that sometimes, Christian pastors get this wrong.Perhaps we try to discern signs of decay in the culture, and if we are not careful we will begin to say, “Don’t do that.Do this instead!”This type of thinking gives the impression that we can fix things by imposing a fresh set of rules—so you can show how righteous, good, and disciplined you are if you adopt all of these rules in your life.
The fundamental Christian motivation is not adherence to more rules.Rather, Ephesians says, “forgive each other as God in Christ has forgiven you.”God’s Spirit transforms us by bringing us back to the cross so that all of our morality is first and foremost a function of gratitude to God for what Christ has already done.If you begin to see just how much you were forgiven by what Christ did on the cross, how on earth can you possibly nurture bitterness toward others?Because we have received so much love from God through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ Jesus, how can we not also go forth and freely and impartially love others (Ephesians 5:1-2)?The gospel justifies us and the gospel sanctifies us.
And yet we are painfully aware of our continual battle with sin, for we are simultaneously justified yet sinful.John Newton talked about this reality.Newton, who lived from 1725 to 1807, was once a slave trader who estimated he transported twenty-thousand slaves across the Atlantic.He said that in his nightmares he could still hear them scream.At some point in his life he became a Christian and then a pastor.Near the end of his earthly pilgrimage, Newton said:
“I am not what I ought to be—ah, how imperfect and deficient!I am not what I wish to be—I abhor what is evil, and I would cleave to what is good!I am not what I hope to be—soon, soon, shall I put off mortality, and with mortality all sin and imperfection.Yet, though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor what I hope to be, I can truly say, I am not what I once was; a slave to sin and Satan; and I can heartily join with the apostle, and acknowledge, “By the grace of God I am what I am.”
If you are interested in talking more about “the battle against sin,” you are invited to come and join us for our next Bible study, which takes place tonight (Wednesday, August 24) from to .We meet at 9257 Amsden Way in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.
D.A. Carson writes: At a certain level, the title above almost seems perverse.The following is how we would prefer that things work:
Members of the jury, I am not asking for mercy or pardon.I want justice.I am demanding full acquittal.Yes, I committed the murder of which I am accused.But I am not guilty.Members of the jury, you must consider all my good deeds—not merely as mitigating circumstances but as reason for exonerating me.The goodness of my other deeds outweighs the crime I committed.My good deeds require a “not guilty” verdict.If justice is to be done, you must find me innocent.
We grin as we read the paragraph above because the argument is so ridiculous.Yet suddenly we see that an approach to God that depends finally on our balancing of good deeds and bad deeds must be no less ridiculous.For this is the lamest of all forms of self-justification—yet this is the case we want to make before God.This argument is not a plea for leniency; rather, it is a bold assertion of innocence.It assumes that guilt is cancelled by good deeds.God must acquit us and declare us “not guilty” because we have done enough compensating good things.This is self-justification.And it is no more believable before the bar of God’s justice than it would be in a contemporary court.
So how should we think that God looks at things, this God who is himself spectacularly holy and who does not see our good deeds as things that are weighed in a balance against bad deeds but sees even this futile effort at self-justification as one more example of our moral defiance against him?What is the Bible’s solution?God does not pretend that good deeds make up for bad deeds.Rather, he has found a way to declare the guilty just—and retain his integrity while doing it.Instead of self-justification, he finds a way to justify us.
Do you want to know where God’s justice is most powerfully demonstrated?On the cross.Do you want to know where God’s love is most powerfully demonstrated?On the cross.There Jesus, the God-man, bore hell itself, and God did this both to be just and to be the one who declares just those who have faith in him.God views the Christian through the lens of Jesus, who absorbed the white-hot wrath of God that we deserve.Your sin is now viewed as his, and he has paid for it.And his righteousness, which he earned by perfectly obeying God's law, is now viewed as yours (2 Corinthians ).God looks at you and declares you to be just, not because you are just (you are guilty, as Romans says) but because he has set forth his Son to be the propitiation (wrath-appeasing sacrifice) for your sins (Romans -31).
If you are interested in talking more about “the cross of Jesus,” you are invited to come and join us for our next Bible study, which takes place tomorrow night (Wednesday, August 10) from to .We meet at 9257 Amsden Way in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.
D.A. Carson writes: “In the Bible, a handful of people were brought back from the dead before Jesus.One of the most notable was Lazarus, brought back from the dead by Jesus himself (John 11).Yet Paul insists that Jesus is the firstfruits of the resurrection of Christ’s people at the end of the age (1 Corinthians ).What makes his resurrection so special, especially if he is not, sequentially, the first?Apart from the question of who this Jesus is who has been resurrected—none less than the incarnate Son of God, who by his death atoned for the sins of all his people—the New Testament texts insist that his resurrection is unique.
True, Lazarus was brought back to life in bodily form after spending even more time in the grave than Jesus did.But his body remained an ordinary body; presumably Lazarus died again.By contrast, after his resurrection Jesus is said to possess a “spiritual body” (1 Corinthians ).Jesus’ post-death body has some sort of continuity with his pre-death body (the marks of the wounds are still there); it is certainly a genuine body in the sense that Jesus could be touched and handled, and he could eat with his disciples.Yet it was more than a body as you and I know it.Jesus continues to be a human being forever, a resurrected spirit-body human being—and our resurrection bodies at the end will resemble his.”
The destiny of the Christian is not the immaterial existence of a disembodied ghost; rather, our ultimate destiny is resurrection existence with glorified bodies (2 Corinthians 5:1-10) in the new heaven and the new earth.Only Jesus has undergone this transformation to resurrection existence.He is the firstfruits of it, the one who has secured it for us.
If you are interested in talking more about “the resurrection,” you are invited to come and join us for our next Bible study, which takes place tomorrow night (Wednesday, July 27) from to .We meet at 9257 Amsden Way in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.
Kim Riddlebarger writes: “Think of the worst sin you have committed—the one sin you don’t want anyone else to know about.Then think of that habitual sin that holds you in a death grip, that sin you cannot stop committing and have confessed a thousand times and still struggle with.Then think of the sum total of all the sins you have committed.What possible chance do you have of making it to heaven if the death of Christ doesn’t satisfy God’s justice toward all your sins?”
How can we be saved when we can all think of terrible, besetting, and constant sins we have committed?Because Christ paid for the guilt of your sins in full once and for all when he suffered and died on the cross.Christ satisfied God’s justice toward you by dying in your place and receiving the punishment you deserve.Christ redeemed you and purchased you with his blood, and he reconciled you to God and God to you.He turned aside God’s wrath toward you.2 Corinthians says: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
Because of the person and work of Christ, God’s wrath can no more touch you as a Christian than a hurricane that happened a hundred years ago can harm you.God’s wrath has been satisfied in history for you who believe.All the satisfaction you ever need has been made, and as a result you can lift up your hearts and rejoice and worship your Triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
You don’t need to wonder what happens on judgment day anymore because it has been declared to you now.Romans 8:1 says “there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”Through his perfect life of obedience to God’s law, his death on the cross, his resurrection, and his ascension, Christ has earned righteousness for you.His perfect righteousness is imputed to you as the ground of your justification.God is no longer angry with you because you are now clothed in the perfect righteousness of his Son.
So, what is forgiveness?Forgiveness is seen in the cross of Christ, where Christ bore the weight of God’s wrath against your sins and was cursed in your place (Galatians ; 1 Peter ).All of your sins—past, present, and future—were paid for by Christ on the cross.Your guilt, defilement, shame, and punishment has been taken away.As a result of what has happened on the cross, God is for you today, Christian, and not against you (Romans ).Why?Because his justice has been satisfied and his love has been poured out through the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ.
If you are interested in talking more about “forgiveness,” you are warmly invited to come and join us for our next Bible study, which takes place tonight (Monday, July 11) from to .We meet at 9257 Amsden Way in Eden Prairie.
When you ask people to define who God is, often the first thing they will say is “God is love.”D.A. Carson says that “occasionally you will hear somebody saying something like this: ‘It’s Christians I don’t like.I mean, God is love, and if everybody were just like Jesus, it would be wonderful.Jesus said, ‘Judge not that you be not judged.’You know, if we could all just be nonjudgmental and loving the way Jesus was loving, then the world would be a better place.’
There is an assumption there about the nature of love, isn’t there?People wrongly assume that love is nonjudgmental.It does not condemn anyone.It lets everybody do whatever they want.Now, it is true that Jesus does condemn the kind of judgment that is self-righteous or hypocritical.But God’s love is no some sort of spongy sentimentalism that just winks at sin.
It is true that God is love, but it is also true that God is holy, just, righteous, and glorious.
We will never understand God’s love and mercy without first understanding the seriousness of our sin and the justice of God’s wrath against us.Jesus had a purpose in going to the cross; namely, to save people from condemnation that is already hanging over them (John , 36).
One author writes: “if God were not just then there would be no demand for his Son to suffer and die; if he were not loving there would be no willingness for his Son to suffer and die.”In his love, God meets the demands of his justice in the sacrificial work of His Son on the cross (John -18).1 John 4:10 says “this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation (wrath-absorbing sacrifice) for our sins.”
If you are interested in talking more about “the love of God,” you are warmly invited to come and join us for our next Bible study, which takes place tomorrow night (Thursday, June 23) from to .We meet at 9257 Amsden Way in Eden Prairie.Our study will focus on John 3:16-21.
As you think about that question, perhaps a number of things come to your mind—from the urgent to the mundane and everything in between.You may think of your need for things like food, shelter, clothing, sleep, and relationships.You may need your brakes fixed on your car or your air conditioner to be repaired.You may need to visit the doctor because your child has an ear infection and is unable to sleep through the night.The list goes on and on.
Physical needs such as food and shelter are of course very important.While not neglecting those things, the Bible takes us further and talks about our greatest needs.In my previous post, I mentioned that the Bible teaches that the God who is there has come to earth as the God-man, who is Jesus Christ.How, precisely, does his coming help us?D.A. Carson says that Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection addresses our three greatest needs:
We are sinners and we need to be reconciled to a holy and just God.
We need to be morally transformed.
We need all the effects of sin to be reversed and overcome.This includes not only our relationships with one another but also death itself.
Jesus directly confronts all of these things.Carson says “biblical Christianity is much more than simply making a decision for Jesus so that we can live happy lives.We must be genuinely reconciled to the holy God who is there.We ourselves must be transformed—in measure right now, and for the rest of our lives, and ultimately with the kind of thorough transformation that leaves no hint of self-centeredness.”We need our greatest enemy to be destroyed, which is death itself.And when this happens, we will be “swamped in sheer delight at the glory and centrality of God.”
How does Jesus address our three greatest needs?At least in part, he does so by granting us new birth (John 3:1-21; 1 Peter -25).
If you are interested in talking more about “the new birth,” you are warmly invited to come and join us for our next Bible study, which takes place tomorrow night (Wednesday, June 8) from to .We meet at 9257 Amsden Way in Eden Prairie.Our study will focus on John 3:1-15.
D.A. Carson writes: “In his 1903 book The Dynasts, Thomas Hardy describes God as “the dreaming, dark, dumb Thing that turns the handle of this idle show.”Hardy’s God is not a person but a thing.It is devoid of relationships, friendship, fellowship, warmth.It is utterly silent (“dumb”); it cannot speak.Yet in some ways it controls our lives, presumably in some sort of impersonal, amoral, purposeless, and fatalistic fashion, as it “turns the handle of this idle show.”
The God of the Bible, the God who is there, is not like that.Though he is sovereign, he is also personal: he is presented as passionate, relational, warm, indignant, loving, wrathful.Above all, he is the God who communicates—not only in spectacular events, and not only in nature (Psalm 19:1-2), but also in words that have been written down in the Bible.So important is this category of “word” that eventually it is applied to the highest and greatest revelation of all: the revelation of God in the person of his Son, who is consequently called God’s Word, his self-expression.For this Word “became flesh” (John ).Jesus is not merely a spokesperson for God, a kind of souped-up prophet; he is the explanation of God, the narrative of God, the exegesis of God (Hebrews 1:1-4).
In other words, while pondering the incarnation or wrestling with the doctrine of the Trinity, one must see that a huge claim to revelation is being made—the revelation of God.If this is taken seriously, one can never again reduce Christianity to the level of mere ritual and popular religion: it is bound up with God becoming a man, with revelation of the most exquisitely high order.Jesus cannot be reduced to the level of guru equivalent to other gurus.He is utterly unique.”
If you are interested in talking more about the eternal Son of God who entered human history and became man, you are warmly invited to come and join us for our next Bible study, which takes place tomorrow night (Wednesday, May 25) from to .We meet at 9257 Amsden Way in Eden Prairie.Our study will focus on John 1:1-18.
Music is a part of our daily life.From ipods, to background music at Starbucks, to our favorite radio station, there is not a day that goes by without listening to a song or singing along to our favorite tune.Many of these tunes get stuck in our head—whether we like it or not.And many of the lyrics of the songs we sing affect our mood and our outlook on life.
Have you reflected on why we sing so much?One person said “let me write the songs of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws.”The shaping of our minds often takes place on the basis of what we are listening to on our ipods.Music reflects the emotions and experiences of life, and it impacts us to the depth of our being.Music stimulates our soul.
Music strikes a chord with our heart, mind, and emotions.Music tends to bring to mind the memories and the experiences of life, from times of great joy, excitement, and happiness to moments of intense grief, mourning, and sadness.
If you are interested in talking more about these things, you are warmly invited to come and join us for our next Bible study, which takes place tonight from to .We meet at 9257 Amsden Way in Eden Prairie.Our study together is based on a book by D.A. Carson called The God Who is There.Tonight we will talk about chapter 6, entitled “The God who is Unfathomably Wise.”Our study will focus on Psalm 51.
God has created us as musical creatures (although some are more “musically gifted” than others). God has given us the gift of music to enjoy together.In the Old Testament, of the 38,000 people who ministered at the temple in Jerusalem, 4,000 were musicians. In today's culture, music is a part of the lives of God’s people throughout the week, and a crucial element to our corporate worship together on Sunday.
The God who is there—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—speaks to us in the Bible by way of song.In fact, there are 150 songs in one book of the Bible.That book is the Psalms, which reflect every emotion of the human heart.One man said that “there is not an emotion of which any one can be conscious that is not here presented in the psalter as in a mirror.”
The psalms speak of the entire range of human emotions for all circumstances of life.We all go through times of joy, lamentation, repentance, discouragement, confusion, and frustration.We can resonate with the emotions and experiences expressed in the psalms, including loss, shame, death, triumph, gladness, and thanksgiving.The psalms allow us to express the genuine delight and struggles of our heart.
The range of emotions in the psalter informs us on how to sing God’s Word.We do not always feel joyful when we worship.At times, the circumstances of life seem to overwhelm us and leave us feeling lonely or discouraged.Singing the Psalter allows us to express the myriad feelings of our hearts.
The psalms also point us to Christ. The Word of God, from Genesis to Revelation, is God’s plan to redeem a people for himself through Christ.We read the Bible with a Christ-colored lens, so as we sing the psalms we are expressing our gratitude to God for what he has done to save us from his holy, divine wrath through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.
So, what song is in your head?My prayer is that God’s Word will fill our hearts and minds, and that the words of the psalms are on our lips.“Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name!Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits” (Psalm 103:1-2).
We conjure up many different ideas in our minds when we hear a word like "king" or "kingdom".Some may think of the recent royal wedding of Prince William and Kate.Others think of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.Depending on where we live, we have different perceptions of what we think of a “king.”
The Bible talks about a different sort of kingdom with a different kind of king.If you would like to hear more about God's kingdom, you are warmly welcomed to come and join us for our next Bible study tomorrow night (Wednesday, April 27).We will meet from to at 9257 Amsden Way in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.Our time together will be spent in fellowship and discussion about God’s kingdom as we study 2 Samuel 7.
Our study is based on a book by D.A. Carson called The God Who is There.Tomorrow night we will talk about chapter 5, entitled “The God Who Reigns.”
We are in need of a certain kind of king.A king who is “perfectly righteous, who cannot be corrupted, who is entirely good, in whom there is never any taint of evil.”Jesus Christ is that King who inaugurated his kingdom in his first coming and has defeated death through his life, death, and resurrection.
Jesus is now reigning in heaven at the right hand of the Father, and his kingdom continues to go forth as sinners are saved through the preaching of the gospel.King Jesus will come again to consummate his kingdom when sin and death will be abolished and “God will be all in all” (1 Corinthians ).
So, what is God's kingdom? The kingdom of God is the consummation of all things in perfect righteousness and holiness in the new heavens and new earth (Revelation 21:1-5).Hail King Jesus!
Did Jesus truly rise from the dead? Did Jesus’ biographers—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John—record actual historical events? Were they capable historians? These are just some of the many questions that arise in our minds as we read the Bible.
Check out this video by Dr. Peter Williams as he gives a summary of the biblical evidence for the heart of the Christian faith - Jesus' bodily resurrection.Dr. Williams is the Warden of Tyndale House in Cambridge:
As we read the Scriptures, it is evident that the gospel writers had access to eyewitness testimony. We are to read the gospels as historically accurate and reliable documents. As Christians, we rejoice in the promise of the historic, bodily resurrection of Christ each Lord's Day, including this coming Easter Sunday.
The gospel itself is the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ. If Christ did not rise from the dead, then Christianity is a sham. But if Christ did rise bodily on the third day, then as Christians we have a certain hope that death has been defeated and we have the promise of the resurrection of our bodies and life eternal.
In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says: 13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 19 If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. 20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. 23 But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. 24 Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. 25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
55 "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?"
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
What is one of the most commonly asked questions by restless teenagers, fearful young adults, successful businesspeople, lonely single-parents, and frail grandparents?The answer is “what is God’s will for my life?”
If you would like to hear more about God's will for your life, you are warmly welcomed to come and join us for our next Bible study tomorrow night (Wednesday, April 13). We will meet from 6:30 to 8 PM at 9257 Amsden Way in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Our time together will be spent in fellowship and discussion about God's will for our lives as we study the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20.
If you are interested in reading more about God's will for your life, see Just Do Something: A Liberating Approach to Finding God’s Will by Kevin DeYoung. DeYoung gives profound insight as well as biblical wisdom to struggling pilgrims living a life filled with emotional and physical sufferings in this present evil age. The problem, as DeYoung states, is that “our search for the will of God has become an accomplice in the postponement of growing up, a convenient out for the young (or old) Christian floating through life without direction or purpose. Too many of us have passed off our instability, inconsistency, and endless self-exploration as ‘looking for God's will,’ as if not making up our minds and meandering through life were marks of spiritual sensitivity.”
DeYoung’s answer to this problem is that God is not a magic 8-ball, a cosmic genie, or a divine butler.Rather, “we have no promise in Scripture that God will speak to us apart from the Spirit speaking through His Word” (Hebrews 1:1-3).What a comfort to rest in God’s providence, which is “the almighty everywhere present power of God, whereby, as with His hand, He still upholds heaven and earth, and all creatures; and so governs them, that leaf and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, food and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, indeed, all things come not by chance, but by His fatherly hand” (Heidelberg 27).
So, what is God’s will for our lives?DeYoung says we are not given step-by-step instructions in life, but we are to look to God’s word for guidance and wisdom.In the Bible, we see that God’s will is for us to rejoice, pray, and give thanks (1 Thessalonians -18). Colossians 1:9 says we are to bear fruit and know God better by hiding his Word in our hearts that we might not sin against him (Psalm 119:11).God’s will for his people is that we grow in holiness (1 Thessalonians 4:3), so we ought to pray that we will make decisions based on “faith, hope, and love—and not the praise of man and greed and selfish ambition.”
Every Sunday as we gather for worship we commemorate Jesus' death and resurrection. With Good Friday and Easter just over two weeks away, this provides yet another opportunity for us to reflect upon what Jesus did to save us from wrath, hell, and sin by dying on the cross and rising again on the third day (John 3:16-20, 36).
The gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are an account of true history. The four gospels tell us about "the gospel," which is the life, death, and resurrection of Christ in real planet earth history (1 Corinthians 15:1-8). Jesus of Nazareth is the eternal Son of God who was born in Bethlehem, lived for 33 years, died on a wooden cross in Jerusalem, rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, and will return in glory to judge the living and the dead (Acts 1:9-11; Revelation 19:11-16).
There are also other historical accounts that talk of Jesus of Nazareth. Check out this interesting video discussion of two men who are looking at evidence for Jesus' crucifixion:
One question that people have is "what does it mean to be a Confessional Reformed Church?"
Here is how one pastor responds:
We are a Christian Church that believes in the Bible. We hold fast to "the faith that was once and for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 3). We confess and believe all that is taught in the Old and New Testaments, which are the inspired and infallible word of God. We summarize Scriptural teaching regarding the holy Trinity and Christ in the great ecumenical creeds of the ancient church:
We confess to believe that these creeds and confessions are biblical; that is, they are faithful summaries of the teaching of Scripture.
We believe the Bible teaches us that we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in the perfect righteousness of Christ alone, to the glory of God alone. As a historic, Confessional Reformed church, we trace our heritage from the Apostles through the ancient church to the Protestant Reformation.
We are studying a book by D.A. Carson entitled The God Who is There. The focus of our study is to understand what the Bible says about God. Christians hold that the God of the Bible is the God who is there, and in this study we invite both Christians and nonbelievers to see what the Bible says about this God. We will look at who God is and the implications for what this says about the world.
Come and join us for our next study on Wednesday, April 13 from 6:30 to 8 PM. We will meet at 9257 Amsden Way in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Our time together will be spent in fellowship and discussion about God's will for our lives as we study the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20.
