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love

Risen Thinking (Easter 2019)

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Risen Thinking (Easter 2019)

When I was growing up there was a saying, I don’t hear much anymore. You are what you eat. What a ridiculous saying. That’s why we don’t here it much anymore - it’s like our entire generation woke up and said, Nah, that’s not true. “If i eat this chocolate bunny …” yeah, no. It doesn’t make sense - I think it said to try to make us eat more healthy food, but who wants to how up and me a head of lettuce?

Maybe we’ve lost something when we threw out that idiom however. Maybe there was wisdom in the saying, it's just that I heard it wrong all those years. Maybe the idiom was never supposed to be taken literally at all (yeah, of course, you don’t really turn into a chocolate bunny.” What I mean is, maybe the idiom wasn’t about food at all. It wasn’t about what we consume with our mouths, but with our minds. If it’s not about food, but about our thoughts, then the saying has a bit more staying power. You are what you think about. You are what you let into your thoughts. You are the media and philosophies you consume.

This seems to be the Apostle Paul’s concern in this verse that I want to centre our thoughts on this morning, that our thoughts shape us, we are what we eat: 

Phil. 4:8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

Last week, we finished a series in the book of Ecclesiastes, and at the end of that book, we saw a description of God’s communication to us through the Biblical writers as thoughtful, careful, delightful and true. That’s a great framework for all of our communication. And it is my prayer this morning as we reflect on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. For there is nothing more excellent or worthy of praise than the resurrection, and for that reason, it is good and proper for us to “think about these things”. But my prayer here this morning is not only to communicate information, but that the Holy Spirit might grant us illumination, that will turn our hearts to celebration.

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Searching for "The One"

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Searching for "The One"

Some preachers seem embarrassed by this passage, that it would be this superfluous love story in the middle of such a serious theological work, and so the labour hard to imagine that this text is some sort of allegory for evangelism - and such it might be! However, it is first and foremost the story of Abraham securing a wife for his son. So before we get into any more fanciful interpretation, let’s not despise this passage as it speaks of marriage. As John Calvin writes in his commentary on this text, it is precisely because we do not hold marriage in honour, that Moses would insist on giving us a detailed picture of the marriage of Issac. 

Now when we say this is a text about marriage, and an important text about marriage, and we can take some principles from this text without getting absorbed into the details and say, this is the key to finding a wife - first, get a really rich dad; second, have him send his servant back to his people and find a wife for you; third, there’s a lot of camels involved for some reason. Right, so we want to listen to the text, and what it might teach about marriage, but not get overwhelmed by the particulars. 

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By Grace Alone

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By Grace Alone

Today we’re looking at a second truth to fix our life on, namely, salvation by grace alone. Ephesians 2:1-4 is one of the most beautiful passages of scripture. It speaks of our complete hopelessness in our state without God - we were dead, we were completely lost following the ways of this world and the desires of our flesh, under the influence of Satan and under the wrath of God. And you have that great contradiction in verse 14: But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, made us alive together - and the entirety of our hope is summed up at the end of verse 5: by grace you have been saved. What a passage! What a promise! What more needs to be said? We can go home!

Yet the powerful truth the resounded out of the reformation was not merely “salvation by grace” but “salvation by grace alone”, and so all week I’ve been trying to understand, what difference does that little word make? and does that little word still matter? And if it does still matter, what does that mean for us?

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