“‘Come unto me,’ he says, ‘and I will give you.’ You say, ‘Lord, I cannot give you anything.’ He does not want anything. Come to Jesus, and he says, ‘I will give you.’ Not what you give to God, but what he gives to you, will be your salvation. ‘I will give you‘ — that is the gospel in four words.
Will you come and have it? It lies open before you.”
~ C. H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of the New Testament, I:175. Italics original
(HT: Ray Ortlund)
Do you remember when life first entered your dead heart, when the chains of sin were broken, when the dungeon of your sin-dead life flamed with light? In those first days, weeks, months, Andrew Murray in Abide in Christ says, “you experienced that His word was truth; all His promises fulfilled; He made you partakers of the blessings and the joy of His love. Was not His welcome most hearty, His pardon full and free, His love most sweet and precious?”
Yet many lose the blessings they once enjoyed and the love and joy of their first days with their Savior becomes “faint and feeble”. Listen to Murray explain why:
“Often you have wondered what the reason could be, that with such a Savior, so mighty and so loving, your experience of salvation should not have been a fuller one. The answer is very simple. You wandered from Him.”
If your affections for our Savior are faint and feeble, if your joy in His saving love has waned, put off everything you are abiding in and abide in Christ. The power of sin has been broken, so take hold of the everything spiritual blessing God has gracious given His people in Christ. The gospel is not only the door to life with Christ, but also the power to abide in Him every day. We cannot do this in our own strength… all “this Jesus Christ himself alone must do by His Holy Spirit. But what I would fain by the grace of God be permitted to do is, to repeat day by day the Master’s blessed command, ‘Abide in me’”.
Let us abide in our great and glorious Savior today through the power of the gospel and with the help of the Spirit.
Today is the one year anniversary of Pastor Dan Cummings’ death. Death is a reality of life because of sin (Romans 6:23) and it is appointed for man to die once (Hebrews 9:27). But the good news of the gospel is that though sin entered the world and death through sin, there is an abundance of grace and a free gift of righteousness through Jesus Christ. It is through Jesus Christ’s perfect life and death on the cross that sinners find justification by His blood and reconciliation with God. And it is this truth that leads Paul to say in Romans 5:21, “so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” For the person who puts their faith alone by grace alone in Christ alone for the forgiveness of sins, death is not eternal. As John Owen wrote, “the Father and his Son intended by the death of Christ to redeem, purge, sanctify, purify, deliver from death”… in Jesus, the death of death has come. [The Death of Death in the Death of Christ (Book II, Chapter III)]
This reminds me of a song from the album Come Weary Saints (which is on sale this month at Sovereign Grace). The lyrics are below:
It Is Not Death To Die
It is not death to die
To leave this weary road
And join the saints who dwell on high
Who’ve found their home with God
It is not death to close
The eyes long dimmed by tears
And wake in joy before Your throne
Delivered from our fears
CHORUS:
O Jesus, conquering the grave
Your precious blood has power to save
Those who trust in You
Will in Your mercy find
That it is not death to die
It is not death to fling
Aside this earthly dust
And rise with strong and noble wing
To live among the just
It is not death to hear
The key unlock the door
That sets us free from mortal years
To praise You evermore
In our pursuit of joy we are constantly being bombarded by the culture for our attention; the distraction to find our joy in anything other than God. There are not many of us that find our pleasures in mortgage payments or credit card bills. Our joy is in something else, our joy is in God. Romans 8 reminds us “ those who live according to the flesh set their mind on the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the Spirit.” We are promised in John 14:26 “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” What a beautiful reminder as we consider our daily walk and call to reach the world around us. Our joy begins with God, there is no other place to start our pursuit than with the Gospel.
Mark Dever gives an excellent overview of the Gospel in his recent book The Deliberate Church. Dever’s recounting of the Gospel is very similar to the material of Two Ways To Live.
“The most important aspect of evangelism is the evangel-the Gospel, the Good News. If we are not getting the evangel right according to the Word, then whatever we are doing, it cannot be called evangelism. So what are the essentials of evangelism? We can sum it up in four words: God, man, Christ and response. God is our holy Creator and righteous Judge. He created us to glorify Him and enjoy him forever (Gen.2:7, 16-17; 18:25; Matt 25:31-33). But mankind has rebelled against God by sinning against his holy character and law (Gen. 3:1-7). We’ve all participated in this sinful rebellion, both in Adam as our representative head and our individual actions (1 Kings 8:46; Rom. 3:23; 5:12,19; Eph. 2:1-3). As a result, we have alienated ourselves from God and have exposed ourselves to His righteous wrath, which will banish us eternally to hell if we are not forgiven (Eph. 2:12; John 3:36; Rom. 1:18, Matt 13:50). But God sent Jesus Christ, fully god and fully man, to die the death that we deserved for our sins-the righteous for the unrighteous-so that God might both punish our sin in Christ and forgive it in us (John 1:14; Rom. 3:21-26; 5:6-8; Eph. 2:4-6). The only saving response to this Good News is repentance and belief (Matt 3:2; 4:17; Mark 1:15; Luke 3:7-9; John 20:31). We must repent of our sins (turn from them and turn to God) and believe in Jesus Christ for forgiveness of our sins and reconciliation to God. God, man, Christ, response.”
My concern for us as a body of believers at Five Points is that our Pursuit of Joy first be anchored and grounded securely in the Gospel. Without this foundation all other pursuits of joy are a false joy.
