Jamaica Mission Trip 2014

We've gotten the green light from the Missions Team, and the  youth team Jamaica Missions Trip is a go. This year, we hope to accomplish great things for God in Jamaica. Currently, we are planning to go this spring break. As exciting as that is, it also means our fund raising time isn't as prolonged as it was last time; so we are kicking our fundraising into high gear.

If you have any work or donations for our team, please contact Merv Wyse.

Challenge for 2013

The New City Catechism is a compilation and adaptation of three historic catechisms from the Reformation era. Condensed to 52 questions, it is ideally suited to work through in a year studying one Q/A each week.

Each Q/A page has four aids to help study and reflect on the theme: Scriptures, Commentary, a brief Video Lesson, and a Prayer. An abbreviated answer for young children is contained (with highlighted text) within the longer answer for older children and adults. You can find the web page here.

Overcoming Sin

I had a great time with the 'Saints Alive' and 'SayIt' youth groups last night and thought I'd post the quote I shared with them. For a long time I had wrestled with how to understand Psalm 119:32,

"I will run in the way of your commandments

when you enlarge my heart."

Then, while reading Overcoming Sin and Temptation, which is a recent compilation of three classic books by John Owen (1616-1683) edited by Kelly Kapic and Justin Taylor, I came across this passage in Kapic's introduction:

"To respond to the distorting nature of sin you must set your affections on the beauty and glory of God, the loveliness of Christ, and the wonder of the gospel: [Kapic then quotes Owen:] 'Were our affections filled, taken up, and possessed with these things... what access could sin, with its painted pleasures, with its sugared poisons, with its envenomed baits, have unto our souls?' Resisting sin, [according to Owen], comes not by deadening your affections but by awakening them to God himself. Do not seek to empty your cup as a way to avoid sin but rather seek to fill it up with the Spirit of Life, so there is no longer room for sin."

Psalm 119:32 made complete sense in the light of Owen's skillful insight.

Sermon Series: The Gospel According to the Old Testament

The Old Testament tells the history of the ancient people of God: the nation Israel. They are the children of Abraham, the man God choose and called, and to whom he gave a promise, sealed by a covenant, that through Abraham’s family God would bless all the families of the earth.

A common way of reading and understanding the O.T. is to find in the various stories examples for us to follow… or not. To see in the exemplary characters patterns for us to follow and in those that are less-than-exemplary, the pitfalls we should avoid. While this way of reading has some merit, the danger is that we simply moralize the text. That is, we merely seek to find the ‘moral of the story.’ And thus we come away challenged to ‘be like Moses’ or ’be like David,’ to ‘have courage like Joshua,’ or negatively, ‘don’t be like the 10 disobedient spies,’ ‘don’t be like wicked Saul.’ Great moral lessons, but not much hope for success.

But Jesus and the writers of the N.T. see far more in the O.T. than merely a collection of good morals, like Aesop’s Fables. The O.T. is, both as a whole and in its parts, an unfolding of the Good News that God has been at work throughout human history to accomplish salvation for lost humanity, winning rebels to his gracious will. This unfolding of the Gospel culminates in the giving of his own Son, the Messiah to fully and finally redeem a people for himself. Jesus himself said to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, “Didn’t you understand from the Scriptures…” and then he opened to them all the Law and the Prophets showing how the entire O.T. is a pointer to himself. Everywhere you open it the O.T. is going to build an expectation for something that only Jesus Christ can satisfy.