Tonight we are ending up our series looking at the attributes of our glorious God. Working through Psalm 96, Dana takes us back into what we have learned of God and asks the question, “How will we respond to such a great God?”
You can download sermon here.
Is God just like His creation? How should we think and approach the God of the Bible? Drew takes us into Leviticus 10:1-3 to learn and marvel at the holiness of our God and revel in the salvation we have obtained through the person and work of Jesus our Savior (Colossians 1:21-22)!
You can download sermon here.
Last night Pastor Dave preached on God’s wisdom and helped us see in the Scriptures that God has ordained all things by His perfect wisdom. That is, God has chosen the best plan and chooses the best means of carrying that plan out. This includes the atrocious evils of the world. God has a plan and permits evil to take place as means to His great end which is the glory of His Son Jesus Christ.
So how does God use evil to serve for His Son’s glory? Well, let me take a step back and let John Piper answer that question specifically about how Satan’s fall and ongoing existence serves to glorify Jesus Christ.
Why didn’t God cast him (Satan) into the lake of fire the day after he rebelled? Why let him rampage through humanity for centuries?…Satan deserved the lake of fire the moment he rebelled against God…God had the right and the power to put Satan out of commission the moment he sinned. Therefore, the fact that God did not do it shows that he had a reason. Can we know what it was?
God saw all that Satan would do if he created Satan and permitted him to rebel. In choosing to create him, he was choosing to fold all of that evil into His purpose for creation. That purpose for creation was the glory of His Son. All things, including Satan and all his followers, were created with this in view. They were created knowing what they would do, and that knowledge was taken into account in God’s decision to create them. Therefore, the evil in the world is part of how the greatest purpose of God will be accomplished.
Satan’s fall and ongoing existence are for the glory of Christ. The Son of God, Jesus Christ, will be more highly honored and more deeply appreciated and loved in the end because he defeats Satan not the moment after Satan fell, but through millenia of long-suffering, patience, humility, servanthood, suffering, and decisively through His own death. A single, sudden, and infintely holy display of power to destroy Satan after his fall would have been a glorious display of power and righteousness. But it would not have been the fullest possible display of all the glories of the Son and the Father. God chose an infinitely wise way of displaying the full array of divine glories in letting Satan fall and do his work for millenia…
Satan, and all his pain, serves in the end to magnify the power and wisdom and love and grace and mercy and patience and wrath of Jesus Christ. We would not know Christ in the fullness of His glory if He had not defeated Satan in the way He did. (John Piper; Spectacular Sins; p. 47-49)
See from this that God is not lacking power to stop evil.
See from this that God is not lacking love to stop evil.
See from this that God, in Almighty Power and Perfect Love, knows of coming evil and permits it to happen for the glory of His Son Jesus Christ and the ultimate good of those He loved before the creation of the world. In perfect power God controls all things, both good and evil. In perfect love God gives Himself in Jesus Christ to pay, once for all, for sins of His elect (Romans 8:28-30). And in perfect wisdom God works all things, both evil and good, for His glory and His peoples joy.
Amen and amen.
Pastor Dave goes into the story of Joseph to help us see that God, in perfect wisdom and power, uses all things for His glory and our good. “God works all things for the glory of those who love Him and have been called according to HIs purpose” (Romans 8:28).
You can download sermon here.
There are a lot of popular views and notions about God. His love, His mercy, His kindness are all something people like to attribute to God, but His righteousness isn’t something that is ever in vogue. “The LORD works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed” (Psalm 103:6). In this sermon, Pastor Dave takes us into the Word to learn about the righteousness of God and how we are to praise God because He will never tolerate evil in any capacity.
You can download sermon here.
This last thursday I had the privilege and responsibility to preach on God’s love. I entered into this task with a lot of burden. Why did I feel burden when speaking of such a lovely truth as God’s love? I felt burdened for two main reasons: the incomprehensible greatness of God’s love and it’s relevance for Christian’s joy/worship AND the way this doctrine is utterly unknown or abused by the world and the church. As I prepared to preach this sermon I knew I wouldn’t be able to address all the things that really need to be addressed so I thought I would post some additional thoughts about God’s love for your joy and His glory.
So to start us out, we will look at one of the major abuses of God’s love and misunderstandings of the gospel.
“Since God is love then I can sin all I want and trust him to always accept me.” No one would dare say it this way, that is, “I can do whatever I want and God will always feel nicely about me and do good things for me,” but many live this way. I have met scores of people who comfort themselves in living in rebellion against God by assuring themselves that God will always love them no matter what they do. How are we to respond to this blatant abuse and misunderstanding of grace? Well, the gospel of course. The gospel changes the hearts of men and women to love God and to desire Him over all things (Ezekiel 36:26-27). Anyone who sees the gospel as a license to sin reveals that their heart has been utterly untouched by His wondrous love. See these passages below to get a biblical vision of this nature changing love given to us in Christ:
If you love me, keep my commands… Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. John 14:5, 24
This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. 1 John 1:5-7
We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands. Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did. 1 John 2:3-6
No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister. 1 John 3:9-10
Can you see the truth that weaves in and out of these passages? Do you behold the power of the gospel in these Scriptures? What is there to see? Listen carefully:
WE HAVE A NEW MASTER: Anyone who sees the cross of Christ, where the love of God is supremely revealed, as freedom to do evil is still in their sins and have no knowledge of the gospel at all. A life filled with desire and habitual practice of sin shows that sin still rules; sin is still master. The old man still reigns almighty in the heart that loves to sin more than to obey and follow Jesus. Jesus graciously makes us His slaves (Eph. 6:6) and we would have it no other way.
WE HAVE A NEW NATURE: We must see that becoming a Christian means having one’s core nature change. It doesn’t mean that we will no longer be tempted to sin or that we won’t sin any longer, for indwelling sin will be with us until death, but it does mean that sin will no longer our desire. As Thomas Watson said, “Though sin lives in him—yet he does not live in sin. A godly man may step into sin through infirmity—but he does not keep on that road.” Christians love to live in sin as much as a human loves to live under the water; they cannot breath, they cannot see, they cannot move freely. Our nature demands that we live on land. We are comfortable their, we want to be there. In the same way Christians have been made into new creations that desire the land ruled by Christ instead of the water ruled by sin. Christians will fall in the water every now and then, but their new nature urges them to fight to get out because they don’t want to drown. They have been made alive in Christ (Ephesians 2:4-5) and desire to stay alive and will violently fight against sin to continue in their new life.
WE HAVE A NEW LOVE: In making us a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17), Jesus has given us new desires. No longer do Christians thirst for the things of the world, but they thirst for Christ. Paul says that everything else, compared to knowing Jesus and being found in Him, is trash (Phil 3:8). Christians want Jesus and their new love demands new life. When I married my wife, the most beautiful Chawna, I took a new life. No longer was I able to do whatever I wanted when I wanted to, but I had to think of her in all my decisions. No longer were my desires the only thing to think about, but I now had to think about hers. My good took the backseat to hers. You know what? I would have it no other way.
My new love carved out a new life for me that I am most blessed to live because I love to please the one I love and conform my life to one that brings her honor, blessing and happiness. Is it not the same with Christ? Our love for Him makes us obedient. Our love for Him makes us sing. Our love for Him makes us share His gospel with others. His love for us has born in us a love for Him and that new love now controls us. In other words, our love for Jesus has now become the wheel that steers our life and we would have it no other way. How twisted would it be if Chawna told me she loved me and I took that as reason to go out and sin against her? Does not her love beckon my own? Is it not the same with Jesus?To see the cross as a license to sin is to show that you don’t love Jesus, but actually hate Him. Selah.
Hear the closing words of Charles Spurgeon:
You would be indignant at sin, and cry,
“The dearest idol I have known,
Whate’er that idol be,
Lord, I will tear it from its throne,
And worship only thee,”
Love is not a license to sin, love is a license to grow one’s affections more deeply in the one they love!
“Jesus doesn’t love us because we are good, Jesus loves us because He is good.” Dana continues our series looking at the attributes of God. In this sermon Dana takes us into 1 John 4:7-12 where John teaches us about what God’s love really is and how that transforms His people. If you would like to read a copy of Dana’s sermon notes you can access them here.
You can download sermon here.
If you weren’t at Core this last Thursday then you missed receiving a free copy of a chapter from A.W. Tozer’s “Knowledge of the Holy”. But don’t worry, we have supplied an online version of the chapter right here just for you! This has been one of the most influential chapters I (Dana) have ever read in my walk with Jesus. The chapter addresses why our thoughts about God are the most important thing about us. I hope God uses this to help all the more understand that what they think about Him is of utmost importance.
Pastor Dave preaches on why our thoughts about God are the most important thing about us.
Download Dave’s sermon outline here: Tell me all your thoughts on God
