All posts tagged Sovereignty

Where is your victory?

by Hugh on May 14, 2008 in Faith, Life with No comments

In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul taunts death…

“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Death has no victory. It is only sin that makes facing death scary, but Christ has defeated sin and defeated death. The victory is ours in Christ!

Go and listen to John Piper’s talks on suffering and sovereignty from New Word Alive again…

Piper: NWA

by Hugh on April 16, 2008 in Faith with 2 Comments

I think this was probably the highlight of New Word Alive for me. Partly because I’m a bit of a preacher groupie, actually it’s more than that, Piper’s preaching through its freeness at DesiringGod.org has really helped me during my time at Uni, really shaped my view of God, and although I haven’t read much of his writings, Don’t Waste Your Life was great! So getting to see him preach live (yes we were sad and made it to nearly the front row) was just great, he is a great communicator, passionate and dynamic, visibly in love with Jesus and deeply influenced, to the core by a massive view of God in His sovereignty . More importantly, it was the highlight because of the topic and passage.

Piper spoke from Romans 8 (in two parts) under the title ‘Treasuring Christ and a call to suffer’, it really needed 3 messages as he spent 30 minutes of the 2nd giving qualifications and expansions on the 1st, my solution is let him preach for as long as he likes! I didn’t take any notes, I just wanted to listen (you can find some notes on Adrian Warnock and Tim Chester’s blog).

Three big points on the first night were; first, suffering is universal, everyone suffers (except God and non-fallen angels), second that suffering is historical, it had a beginning and will come to an end, and third that all suffering is judicial, God’s judgement on a rebellious world. For the non-Christian that suffering is the foretaste of eternal condemnation, for the Christian there is now no condemnation, so all suffering is purifying.

The second message was the why and how of the first message, it’s aim was to try and be practical response to the theological grounding of the first, in reality he still had much theological grounding that he wanted to give – which is good, you need a robust theology of suffering to be able to in God’s grace, stand through the storm. The big point here was Ephesians 1:5-6 – “He predestined us… to the praise of his glory” - Piper passionately explained that this groaning world exists to give glory to God, and ultimately this is displayed through Christ on the cross, the suffering of which we will sing FOREVER!

Piper concluded with a quote from ‘Shining Like Stars‘, which is sourced from Howard Guinness (in the book Sacrifice. A call to faithful suffering, and obedient service…

Where are the young men and women of this generation who will hold their lives cheap and be faithful even unto death? Where are those who will lose their lives for Christ�s sake � flinging them away for love of Him? Where are those who will live dangerously, and be reckless in His service?

Part 1, Part 2

My flesh and heart may fail

by Hugh on April 14, 2008 in Faith, Life with No comments

What do you do when your world falls apart? What do you do when everything goes wrong? What do you do when as the Psalmist says, your flesh and heart fail (Psalm 73:26)? What do we do, how do we respond when we face suffering, and what seems like pointless random suffering?

I thought those were just theoretical questions before a few years ago, and they were challenged again after receiving the news of a mate from back home dying suddenly on Friday. He wasn’t a close friend, but he was a mate; we played football together, we went to the pub together, we played Football Manager together… we grew up together. From perfect health, to illness and death within a few days, 23 years old – it is tragic and sobering.

(some of) The Riseley Boys: Campbell, Czaicki, Stu, Me, Bonce, Boom

How do we respond? Shock – sometimes when people die it’s a long process, people have time to prepare, this was sudden and shocking. Grief – I cried, I’m a long way from home right now, I’m not there with the guys to grieve, but am still in mourning. Shaken – it shakes me up to the reality, the brevity of life… will I make my life count?

How do I respond as a Christian? How do I respond to the fact that I believe in an all-powerful, all-loving God who has power over life and death and all things in this world, yet let this tragedy take place? First, I grieve (John 11:35), I cry out to God to bring the pains of this world to an end. But why would God let it happen, surely this suffering is pointless? Jesus is asked some tough questions like this in Luke 13… there’s some people at a place called Siloam who get crushed by a falling tower (18 people die)… Jesus doesn’t focus on those who die, but on those who are left, those asking the questions… he says that one day you’ll die too, and face God. The only way we can escape death is to trust the One who beat death, Jesus Christ.

Why do I keep going? Why do I keep trusting a God who lets this stuff happen? Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die” (John 11:25-26). Why then must I persevere – because there is hope! There is hope of life, true life, eternal life, for whoever puts their trust in Christ.

I’ve just come back from New Word Alive. On the final night Richard Cunningham spoke on our call to serve God, in his talk he spoke about David, his nephew. David was diagnosed with Leukaemia at the age of 11 (he died a few weeks ago) at his diagnosis he said to the doctor – “I’m not scared of death. I’ve got a friend called Jesus who will keep me safe”. That is simple, child-like faith, but that is all that is required to receive new life, a simple trust that Jesus is king, that he died in your place for your sins, and that he rose to new life that we might too.

If you’re not a Christian, can you give any answers to the problem of suffering, do you find hope or meaning in tragedy? Seek Jesus, only the One who has suffered to the point of death, and now lives can help, can give answers. If you are a Christian is your view of God big enough, is He sovereign enough to answer these questions? If you’re not currently experiencing suffering, do you have a theology of suffering which is rooted in the cross and the glory of God’s sovereignty – if not, how do you expect to stand when the storm comes? I can’t commend highly enough a book by Marc Maillefer called ‘God in the Storm‘, it will help you to focus on Christ in your suffering.

If God is good why is the world so bad?

by Hugh on April 2, 2008 in Faith, Talks with No comments

Genesis 1-2

God created everything � �and it was good�

Genesis 3

We reject God. We Sin
Suffering enters the world. We are the cause
DEATH, �The earth is cursed�, �nature is in conflict�, �pain in child-bearing�

Romans 8:18-25

V.22 Creation groans as in child-birth �bondage to decay�, can�t escape
V.23 We groan inwardly� as we wait, patiently
V.18 Something better is coming!!

For the non-Christian, this world is as good as it gets�

But for the Christian, THERE IS HOPE!

Revelation 21:1-5 (open this one, get someone to read)

New Creation � no more suffering

So it�s my fault? Does God not care??

Hebrews 4:15 JESUS is able to sympathize with our weaknesses, because he was tempted in every way, just as we are�yet was without sin.

Born into poverty, broken family, manual job, homeless, under military occupation, abandoned by friends, betrayed, falsely accused, mocked, beaten, tortured, murdered

JESUS CAN IDENTIFY WITH OUR SUFFERINGS

BUT, HE ALSO DEALS WITH OUR BIGGEST PROBLEM - SIN

2 Cor 5:21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

I dropped the pen!

by Hugh on December 11, 2007 in Faith, Random with No comments

Unconditional Election

by Hugh on September 1, 2007 in Faith with No comments

Yet again we come to one of those posts which has been sitting unfinished for some time – remember the thought of blogging through TULIP, well I made it to T! But I thought it was important to keep going, to ponder my understanding of these points. Anyway… I was thinking that Unconditional Election isn’t really much different to Total Depravity, it’s just the next step…

Why Election?

Universalism isn’t Christian, it’s a heresy – Driscoll mocks it referring to it as “Justification by death”, you get your ticket to heaven when you die. Jesus says there’s a heaven and a hell, and everyone is going to spend eternity in one of these places. Since God is sovereign, then at the very least he has foreknowledge of ‘who goes where’. But Election is more than this, God as sovereign wills and purposes all things to his glory, including salvation. God chooses (elects) those who will come to faith, and by the same logic, the same truth, God also chooses people who will not be saved.

What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory… Romans 9: 22-23 ESV

We see two groups here in Romans 9, “vessels of wrath” and “vessels of mercy”. Both groups have been chosen, elected – to say “prepared beforehand” is to choose in advance, to… predestine?? Both groups have been dealt with by God, one with “wrath”, and one with “mercy” to show his power and glory. Wrath is God’s righteous anger and judgement upon sin that all of mankind deserve. Mercy is not for everyone, it’s not universal, although the fact that God has “endured with much patience” is a sign of common grace, of some mercy shown to all. Mercy is undeserved, it’s unconditional because it’s a free gift from God.

That’s my reasoning of Romans 9 – if we don’t accept that then we have to seriously consider what election is? who are the elect? what does it mean to be predestined? The Bible tells us that God elects and predestines, that seems to be what Romans 9 tries to explain…

Why Unconditional?

The mercy shown in Romans 9 is unconditional. Ephesians 2 showed that we’re dead and unable to get to God. So if this is true then our ‘eternal destiny’ cannot be in our hands, we’re dead! We can’t do anything. Romans 8 makes it clear that it’s all God – he forknew, he predestined, he called, he justified, he glorified – we didn’t contribute or by our actions cause any of these things, they were all the free gift of God. It was by grace we were saved, not works.

As I understand, an Arminian position would say that, God in his foreknowledge chooses to save (elects) people based on their response to the gospel – conditional election. Other less acceptable positions might say that God doesn’t have foreknowledge and salvation is unknown until the Day, realistically this is probably going to lead to universalism – everyone is elected, or at least saved in the end.

Conditional election may at first glance be easier to swallow, but it has two major flaws: first the focus is taken away from God and shifted to us, but this is not right, Ephesians 2:8 says that even our faith is a gift of God’s grace. Secondly there is the problem of children who die young, tribes who never hear the gospel, the mentally incapable (is that PC? anyway you know what I mean). If election is conditional on the choice of the individual, then that automatically condemns the above who for one reason or another are unable to hear/understand/respond to the gospel. So in fact, believing in a God who chooses unconditionally, in my mind is much easier to accept!

The Next Step…

At the start I said I thought this was simply the next logical step, following on from Total Depravity. TD says that we are corrupted in every area and incapable of approaching and responding to God. Unconditional Election affirms our state of total helplessness – there is nothing we can do to merit salvation, nothing that might persuade God that we’re not that bad – it’s the story of the God who in his mercy saves people like you and me, who without him are lost, hopeless and helpless.

He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure – Psalm 40: 2