All posts tagged Sovereignty

Honeymoon Reading

by Hugh on September 6, 2010 in Books, Faith, Life with No comments

While on Honeymoon I committed to reading two books, it was a slow start, but as I got into reading more, I found myself able to relax more… don’t know if there is a connection…

So I started off with John Piper’s ‘A Sweet and Bitter Providence‘… “sex, race and the sovereignty of God in the book of Ruth”… If you’ve listened to Piper’s sermons on the book of Ruth it’s basically those in book form, but it’s a wonderful resource to have it as a book!

Piper’s main theme running through the book is how God is sovereign and while his providential plans are always for our good, sometimes they seem bitter and sometimes sweet, as Naomi knew too well. As he takes us through the story he picks out the themes of race, sex, interracial marriage, what it means to belong to God’s people, and His Sovereignty.

This book is great because it works on two levels and everywhere in between… it serves as a great devotional book, applying the story and truths from the story of Ruth to our own lives and experience… at the same time it also serves as a basic commentary on the book, while devotional in feel, Piper is still rigorous with the text, digging up hidden gems and showing the depth of the story. Well worth having a read.

The next book is slightly different. ‘The Breeze of the Centuries‘ is the second offering from UCCF theology guru Mike Reeves. I don’t usually bother with introductions, but it was interesting to read and find out the reason for the title… a quote from CS. Lewis, which translated basically says “we need to listen to and learn from people in the past, the breeze of the centuries…”

Reeves takes us through a short biography and the background to the works of some early Christian theologians, people like Polycarp, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Athanasius, Augustine and more…

You get a real feel for the people and their situations, and it’s great to be introduced to authors writing so soon after Jesus. It’s really interesting to see how the early church fought against heresies and how actually there’s nothing new under the soon. Many of the controversies of the early church have seemingly been re-repeated under a different guise throughout church history. A great introduction to some giants of the early church… get it and read it!

James 1 – Pure Joy

by Hugh on April 28, 2010 in Faith, Talks with No comments

Preached a couple of weeks ago on James 1…

There’s that somewhat shocking, disagreeable, interesting, vexing, deep, confusing, enigmatic, truthful, heart-warming, [insert adjective here] verse which goes something like…

“Consider it pure joy my brothers whenever you face trials of many kinds”

I would say this verse is a little bit challenging, to preach, and even more so to live out!

Download the MP3 here

Script here

Ballast in your boat

by Hugh on January 30, 2009 in Books, Faith with No comments

“It is not my calling to help you to have chipper feelings while the whole of creation groans. My job is to put the kind of ballast in the belly of your boat so that when these waves crash against your life, you will not capsize but make it to the harbour of heaven battered and wounded but full of faith and joy”

John Piper, Spectacular Sins [pg. 28]

Spectacular Sins

by Hugh on January 6, 2009 in Books, Faith with No comments

Me and my dad are both reading one of John Piper’s recent books – ‘Spectacular Sins and their global purpose in the glory of Christ’. It’s a book about God being in complete control of EVERYTHING, and not just that it’s about EVERYTHING having one purpose – to give God glory… everything means everything, even the worst sins ever committed in human history!

“At the all-important pivot of human history, the worst sin ever committed served to show the greatest glory of Christ and obtain the sin-conquering gift of God’s grace. God did not just overcome evil at the cross. He made evil serve the overcoming of evil. He made evil commit suicide in doing its worst evil.

Evil is anything and everything opposed to the fullest display of the glory of Christ. That’s the meaning of evil. In the death of Christ, the powers of darkness did their best to destroy the glory of the Son of God. This is the apex of evil. But instead they found themselves quoting the script of the ancient prophecy and acting the part assigned by God. Precisely in putting Christ to death, they put his glory on display – the very glory they aimed to destroy. The apex of evil achieved the apex of the glory of Christ. The glory of grace.”

John Piper, Spectacular Sins [pg. 12]

When I read this it blew me away, and this is just part of the introduction! I’m going to give a full review when I finish reading it… shouldn’t be long, it’s hard to put down!

2008 – You don’t always get what you want!

by Hugh on December 31, 2008 in Life with No comments

Andy Shudall works with students in New Zealand, for TSCF – I don’t know him, never met him, but I know he’s a friend of lots of friends (11 according to Facebook). Anyway he’s just written a great post summing up 2008 for him… sounds like he’s had a pretty rough year… I’d echo much of what he says…

1. God is good, sovereign and true no matter our experience.

3. Sinfulness is so ingrained in the human heart, soul and mind that weakness strengthens it and strength is laid low before it.

4. Seasons change and there is glory in every season.

5. Of all the things to treasure here friendship is of great value.

“Goodbye 2008 – you weren’t what I asked for, but I’m confident that you are what I needed.”

Reconciling God�s Sovereignty with Real Life

by Hugh on December 23, 2008 in Faith, Life with 1 Comment

Something that really annoys me is theology-geeks, you get a lot in Christian blogging circles… theology-geeks do annoy me, but not simply because of that, I get annoyed when people have their theology all sorted in nice little boxes, they’ve read Grudem, Milne, Berkhoff etc. and all the i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed. I used to be like that, I probably still am.

Anyway, it’s not just that they’re geeks, it’s that so many live their lives with their nice theological position but it’s disconnected from reality, it’s not qualified by any life experience that tests whether your beliefs are modelled in the way you live in response to real life events.

I’ve had a pretty crap year… it’s not as bad as most, not as bad as being a Christian in Orissa, not as bad as running a AIDS orphanage in the midst of cholera in Zimbabwe… but it’s not been great! Part of me has to rejoice though; a few months ago I had to preach on James 1 – “consider it pure joy my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds” – God has been teaching me what it means to suffer in the knowledge that He’s in control, He’s brought me through trials of many kinds and teaches me lots in those times.

What will you do when you face death, when you face illness, rejection, pain, heartache, poverty, depression, despair, anger, bitterness, doubt, loneliness, unbelief, relationship breakdown, shattered dreams, crushed hopes…?

Will you cry out to God, your Rock and refuge? (Psalm 62)

Will you trust that God works all things for your good (Rom 8:28) and that through trials He brings about maturity (James 1) in the believer?

Does your theology of God’s sovereignty provide answers and comfort in the midst of trials?

Has your theology of God’s sovereignty been tested through trials? (If not, it will be – are you prepared?)

Have you had the opportunity to reconcile what you believe about God with how you live your life in the midst of trials?

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.

2 Corinthians 4:7-12

I say these things not as someone who did all the right things, who responded rightly in all of life’s situations, not as someone who has the right answers… but just as someone who knows that having a big view of God is a comfort in hard times, and knowing that coming to Him, seeking His refuge has gotta be better than not doing that!

What do you do when life gets crap?

by Hugh on December 18, 2008 in Faith, Life with No comments

Sin.
Get angry with other people.
Be part of the Church.
Live out Psalm 62.

I’ve found that 1 and 2 are really easy to do, but just make things a whole lot worse.

3 and 4 are harder, but liberating and life-giving. Surrounding yourself with God’s people and trusting him, is the solution to life’s crap… even though it seems easier to do things your own way (1 and 2).

Packer: 1 Point Calvinism

by Hugh on October 17, 2008 in Faith with 1 Comment

“The very act of setting out Calvinistic soteriology [the doctrine of salvation] in the form of five distinct points (a number due, as we saw, merely to the fact that there were five Arminian points for the Synod of Dort to answer) tends to obscure the organic character of Calvinistic thought on this subject. For the five points, though separately stated, are inseparable. They hang together; you cannot reject one without rejecting them all, at least in the sense in which the Synod meant them. For to Calvinism there is really only one point to be made in the field of soteriology: the point that God saves sinners.

“God – the Triune Jehovah, Father, Son and Spirit; three Persons working together in sovereign wisdom, power and love to achieve the salvation of a chosen people, the Father electing, the Son fulfilling the Father’s will by redeeming, the Spirit executing the purpose of Father and Son by renewing.

“Saves – does everything, first to last, that is involved in bringing man from death in sin to life in glory: plans, achieves and communicates redemption, calls and keeps, justifies, sanctifies, glorifies.

“Sinners – men as God finds them, guilty, vile, helpless, powerless, unable to lift a finger to do God’s will or better their spiritual lot. God saves sinners and the force of this confession may not be weakened by disrupting the unity of the work of the Trinity, or by dividing the achievement of salvation between God and man and making the decisive part man’s own, or by soft-pedalling the sinner’s inability so as to allow him to share the praise of his salvation with his Saviour. This is the one point of Calvinistic soteriology which the five points are concerned to establish and Arminianism in all its forms to deny: namely, that sinners to not save themselves in any sense at all, but that salvation, first and last, whole and entire, past, present and future, is of the Lord, to whom be glory for ever; amen.”

J.I. Packer, Introductory Essage, in The Death of Death in the Death of Christ, by John Owen (London: Banner of Truth, 1959) 4-5.

HT: Scott Thomas

My Earthly Tent

by Hugh on May 20, 2008 in Faith, Life with No comments

My mum passed into glory 8 days ago. Here are some words she was reading recently and wanted to be read at her funeral.

You are taking down my earthly tent with much tenderness and love. You have prepared a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. May you never leave me nor forsake me, ’till I be with you, where you are, and be like Christ and enjoy him for ever and ever! Yet a very, very little while – hold on, faith and patience – and I shall see Jesus in his glory, which is the heaven of heavens. - William Romaine

She was also able to choose some songs; ‘See what a morning’ and ‘The Lord’s my Shepherd’…

And we are raised with Him,
Death is dead, love has won,
Christ has conquered;
And we shall reign with Him,
For He lives, Christ is risen from the dead!

More than Conquerors

by Hugh on May 15, 2008 in Faith, Life with 1 Comment

In Romans 8 Paul reminds us of two great promises…

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

1. Nothing shall separate us from God’s love that we find in the cross of Christ, not even death.

2. We are conquerors of death, no, more than conquerors, through Christ.

Go back and listen to Piper’s talks again… he says that we are more than a conqueror of death because death serves us, he says “Death! Get up and serve me well!”. Death serves us by bringing us to see Christ face to face, so in him we conqueror death and make it serve us. – Isaiah 25:8