Fight the Good Fight of the Faith: Folly and Faithfulness

In the previous post, we talked about some highlights from ch. 8, which finishes off the episode that began with Achan's sin and Israel's defeat as a result. With the sermon in today's post, we continue forward through the book of Joshua with Jos. 9, and we are going to look at the effects of human folly on the battles of the Christian life, and yet, in the wake of that foolishness, we also see God’s glory and redemptive nature in how He handles our folly.

In the last sermon, the Israelites were taught a hard lesson: They had already grown spiritually lazy—the great victory over Jericho had left them thinking that they had God in their proverbial “back pocket”—and within that context, one man thought his sin would not make a difference, so he stole from God. Yet, his sin had implications that affected the whole nation and nearly derailed, at least from a human perspective, the fulfillment of God’s promises in the land of Canaan. The failure of the whole people had found its focus in the sin one individual, and it nearly cost that generation the Promised Land. So, after they finally defeated Ai in ch. 8, they renewed the covenant—they had become spiritually lazy and so they needed to wake themselves up by renewing their minds in the covenant God made with them. And, after that, if we were reading this book for the first time, we would probably think they had learned their lesson, but then we get to ch. 9.

When we read ch. 9, we might be tempted to scoff at them and think, “Seriously? You just renewed the covenant and didn’t learn your lesson?” Yet, if we slow down and take a look at our own hearts, we will not judge the Israelites too quickly. How often do we say to ourselves after repeating an old sinful pattern, “When am I going to learn! What’s wrong with me? Why do I keep doing this?” In fact, this episode might be a tragic comedy, if it didn’t hit so close to home—if we weren’t able to read and say, “I do the same thing.” But, this episode also shows us the faithfulness of God and the power of His sovereignty in an amazing way, which will point our eyes back to Christ to say, “I’m such a great and foolish sinner, but I have a gracious, wise, and powerful Savior!”

Unfortunately, a technical issue kept this sermon from being recorded when I preached it back in the summer, but you can still read the transcript here, if you like.

I pray that God will use it to magnify His glory in your heart and fortify you for the battles of this Christian life.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Fight the Good Fight of the Faith: Sin in the Camp

First, this week, there is not a devotional that goes with this sermon. As I have mentioned in the past, the devotionals in this series come from emails sent to my church on the Fridays before the sermons. Generally, they have something to do with the passage or subject of the coming sermon. I like to use them to fill in gaps in the sermon series. Because my series are often for a summer, there are a limited number of sermons I can preach, so sometimes I have to skip parts to finish a book or section of a book (like with my Joseph series). This was certainly true with Joshua, for I had to fit 24 chapters into eleven sermons. But, this week, there was not anything major I had to skip to move on, so, instead in the Friday email to my congregation that preceded this sermon, I sent a link to an article about the PCA's racial reconciliation efforts. You can read that article here, if you want, but it is not really pertinent to this series, so I am not going to talk about it. Instead, we will move on to the sermon itself.

Today's sermon is on Joshua 7:1-13, 19-21, 25-26. With this text, we come to the hardest passage of Joshua, I think. Of all the episodes, this is the one to which I was least looking forward. I’d rather preach on the whole conquest of the land and the annihilation of the Canaanites than this, and, by the way, last week’s Friday post covered the tough question of how the holy war against the Canaanites fits in the biblical witness. If you have not read that, you might want to because I think it will help you with a very difficult part of the Bible. But, again, I personally think that’s easier than this passage. Here we come face-to-face with the consequences of sin not only on the individual but on the congregation of God’s people, and that’s not a subject on which I want to preach. But, this is the counsel of God, and really no series on the battle of the Christian life would be complete without addressing the issue of sin, which is probably why the author includes this difficult story in the first place.

If you want to hear more, you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here.

I pray that God will use it to magnify His glory in your heart and fortify you for the battles of this Christian life.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Fight the Good Fight of the Faith: God Fights for His People

In the previous post, I talked about the conquest of the land of Canaan because that is one of the difficult ethical issues that this book brings up, and in the chapter that this sermon will cover brings that to the forefront. However, I would not have had time to cover it in the sermon, so I did it in the devotional. So, if you have not read that, please read it first.

In this sermon, we'll see from this passage how God fights for His people in the battles of this life. We cannot hope to stand alone against sin, the devil, the world, and death itself. Our enemies are far more powerful than we are, but God does not leave us alone. He fights for us, just like He fought for Israel in the battle against Jericho.

If you want to hear more, you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here.

I pray that God will use it to magnify His glory in your heart and fortify you for the battles of this Christian life.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Fight the Good Fight of the Faith: Faith's Greatest Nemesis

In the previous post in this Joshua series, we looked at how Joshua is a type of Jesus--i.e. he is a kind of "working model" of Jesus for us in the Old Testament (OT). In today's sermon, we are going to look at Joshua 3-4, and through Joshua see Jesus--the object of our faith--and we will also learn a little more about faith.

If I were to ask you “What is the nemesis of faith?” What would you say? Last week, we looked at ch. 2 where this book shows us true faith from a gentile harlot—Rahab. Given what you know from that—that true faith is knowledge, conviction, and trust—what do you think faith’s greatest nemesis is? What’s its greatest enemy that plagues it all its life? Many of us would probably be tempted to answer, “Doubt,” but I think that’s a mistake and so does the author of this book.

If you want to hear more (and if you do, you will understand the picture on this post), you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here.

I pray that God will use it to magnify His glory in your heart and fortify you for the battles of this Christian life.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Fight the Good Fight of the Faith: True Faith from a Shady Lady

In my last post in the Joshua series, I talked about how we should look at Rahab's deception in Jos. 2. As I mentioned in that post, I think we often get distracted by the way Rahab helps the spies and miss the whole point of this story. So, that is why I talked about the deception in a post and not the sermon on her story. It is not an unimportant detail, but it is not nearly as important as what Rahab shows us about faith.

So, what does Rahab show us about faith? Well, in short, she shows us what true faith is, which is incredibly important for the overall purpose of this book. As I talked about in the first sermon, this book shows us how to live by faith in our God who truly fights our battles for us. If that is the case, then early on the author needs to show us what true faith is, and for the Jews (and probably us too), there is no more convicting way to do that than to do it through a Gentile prostitute.

If you want to hear more, you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here.

I pray that God will use it to magnify His glory in your heart and fortify you for the battles of this Christian life.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Fight the Good Fight of the Faith: Be Strong and Courageous

This past Friday, I began posting my sermon and devotional series on Joshua from the summer. I began with the first devotional, which argued for the historical veracity of the book of Joshua. Now, here is my sermon on the book of Joshua from Jos. 1:1-9, 16-18: "Be Strong and Courageous."

Since this sermon is the first in a series, I began with an extended introduction to the book of Joshua. It was longer than most normal introductions (about 10 minutes), but that is because before we dive into this important book, we need to understand why it is important and how it is applicable to our lives. In short, the book of Joshua teaches about the Christian life--how to fight the good fight of the faith--and if we view this book rightly, it will fortify us for the Christian life. There more detail below and in the sermon.

The book of Joshua tells us the story of God’s people after they had been redeemed from Egypt under Moses and wandered in the wilderness for forty years because of their sinful rejection of God’s promises. It tells us the story of how God’s people entered into the land of Canaan that God had promised to them and began to conquer it. But, more than that, the book of Joshua is a story about a great period of transition for God’s people.

Hundreds of years earlier, God had promised Abraham two things: God would make him a great nation, and He would give him the land of Canaan as an inheritance in which that nation would dwell. The following centuries had seen God’s people vastly grow in number, but they had yet to possess the land of Canaan. In fact, while the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt, it may have seemed like God’s promises would never come true. But, under Moses, God redeemed them from slavery, and under Moses, God formed them into a nation through the giving of the Law. But, there was still that very important piece left: the land. God promised Abraham in Ge. 17:8, “I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession.” And, Deuteronomy promises God’s people that this land will be a place where they can find rest. But, they still needed to possess it. And, this book tells us the story of that great transition: God taking the wandering nation and giving them the physical land that He had promised to Abraham.

So, there’s a lot of history in this book, and it’s a very important time in the history of Israel. That’s why modern Bibles categorize Joshua under the “history” books. But, would it surprise you to know that the Jews didn’t categorize Joshua that way? They didn’t. From the time of King David onward, Joshua was placed in the section of books in the OT called the “former prophets”—they viewed Joshua as prophecy. Now, that sounds a little odd to us because we tend to think of prophecy as foretelling the future, and certainly some prophecy has that component to it. But, by and large, the prophecies of the OT were not so much about foretelling the future but forthtelling about the present, i.e. they took God’s Word written and His mighty works performed and applied them to the lives of the people in the present. Prophecy in Scripture is taking the Word and works of God and saying, “This is how this word from God or these events apply to your life. There is a message God has for you in them, and here it is.” In particular, Joshua is a record of how the Word of God written in the first five books of the Bible—the Pentateuch—began to work in the lives of God’s people as they moved through this great transition, and, in fact, God has a message for all His people in this book.

Now, it’s important for us to grasp that difference because mere history is just a record of facts, from which we might learn something but aren’t necessarily compelled to. But, history that’s also prophecy means this book is meant to convict, not simply inform; it’s meant to compel a response, not merely enlighten with information; it’s meant to encourage, not merely report. It’s a message from God to us as much as it is about God’s work in history.

Now, you might read this book and think, “Well, this book is a whole lot of battles, and that does not really have anything for me. I’m a professor, student, teacher, homemaker, business professional, or something else like that.” We may be tempted to think about the book of Joshua, but nothing could be further from the truth. You see, the taking of the land in this book isn’t primarily about property, but it symbolizes for all the Bible and us the spreading of the Kingdom of God itself, which is far bigger than a small piece of land on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean. The battles and events of this book are seen by the whole Bible as opportunities to learn what faith really is and how we live a life of faith in God. Even for the OT believers who fought these literal battles, it was all about learning to live and fight by faith in their Savior. And, in fact, ultimately it points us to the work of Christ as our King who fought for us and secured the true Promised Land of the new heavens and new earth that all believers—His Kingdom people—will one day possess.

In fact, we are in a great transition just like the Israelites. We stand on the shores of Jordan, you could say, having been redeemed but also having to fight spiritual battles until we’re given our heavenly Promised Land by our King. And, even as Israel stood on the shores of the Jordan as a nation, their battles were still dependent on faith. In every battle in Joshua (and later on in Judges), it didn’t matter if they had inferior numbers, weapons, or strategies, and in fact, on several occasions God commands them to fight that way. We can’t replicate the strategies for Jericho, Hazor, or most of the other battles because they were battles that had to be fought God’s way in faith that God would provide the victory. They still had to fight, yes, but they had to use His strategies in faith that He would make them successful, even when they looked as ridiculous as simply marching around a city and screaming.

In fact, the NT shows us that even the nation and the land for which they fought was merely a temporary fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham anyway. Canaan could never be the eternal land of rest God promised Abraham. The book of Hebrews shows us that Abraham and the true believers of the OT were never really looking forward to an earthly land but in faith to a heavenly one that Jesus Himself would secure for them through His life, death, and resurrection—the new heavens and new earth that Re. 21-22 describe for us, and that will be eternal rest for us. And, our Savior and His true, eternal Promised Land can also only be possessed by faith.

This is why Joshua has so much to teach us about the Christian life. It‘s a story of God’s redeemed people having to fight by faith in the King who truly fights the battles for them, using God’s ways to possess rest in the Promised Land, which is exactly a mirror of our lives today, although spiritually; not physically. The life of a Christian isn’t something that’s comfortable and easy, and I know you all know that. This life is a relentless, spiritual war that we must fight by faith in our King who truly fights for us, which precedes our eternal rest in the true Promised Land that Jesus secured for us. Church family, from a spiritual perspective, we’re in all-out war—spiritual battles are constant—and Christians have the terrible privilege of being the target of satan—that roaring lion who seeks to devour us, as Peter says in 1 Pt. 5. We do not “wrestle against flesh and blood but against… the spiritual forces of evil,” as Paul says in Eph. 6. Our enemies are no longer literal people that we’re called to drive out like the Israelites, but the Canaanites still exist in here [our hearts] and still need to be driven out. For us, the Canaanites are in our sinful hearts, the temptations of the world, and the attacks of the devil. This is why we need “to fight the good fight of the faith,” as we heard earlier in 1 Ti. 6, looking to our Savior and King who truly fights for us. And, if we see this book rightly as prophecy and history, God can use it to fortify us for the battle of the Christian life. That’s why this book is so relevant for God’s people even today.

If you want to hear more, you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here.

 I pray that God will use it to magnify His glory in your heart and fortify you for the battles of this Christian life.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Why Have You Forsake Me?

Yesterday was Maundy Thursday, which is the Thursday before Easter. It is the Thursday where many Christians around the world commemorate Christ's last night with His disciples and His suffering and death before the Sunday when we will celebrate His resurrection. At this time last year, I had the privilege of preaching at my church's Maundy Thursday service, and my text was Psalm 22. It might seem strange at first to use an Old Testament text to commemorate the suffering and death of Christ, but this text is a prophetic text--one that describes David's suffering in figurative terms which will be literal for Jesus. Here is a portion of the sermon:

It’s no accident, I think, that this psalm is followed by Ps. 23. It’s no accident that a psalm that expresses profound feelings of complete abandonment is follow by a psalm that emphasizes God’s presence even in the valley of the shadow of death. We can move from Ps. 22 straight into Ps. 23 because our Savior experienced the full punishment of hell that we deserved on the cross. Because He cried out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” when we feel forsaken, we can pray with utter confidence “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.” What is described in Ps. 22 may feel like what we go through sometimes in our lives, but the last movement of the cross of Christ shows us that it is only a feeling because it was real for Jesus. And, the very last bar of the third movement of this psalm—“he has done it”—points us to the fulfillment of the very last bar of the final, fourth movement that Jesus wrote: “It is finished.”

If you would like to hear the rest of the sermon, you can listen to it here or read the transcript here. I pray that on this Good Friday, the Holy Spirit will use it to magnify Christ in your heart and mind to the glory of God.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Jesus: Always the Same

A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to preach on the last Sunday of 2015. While I was thinking and praying about what God would have me preach, I started to think about how so much has changed in 2015, which sometimes makes me worry about 2016. That got me to thinking that so much changes in this world all the time, and so what I really need--what we all really need--is something stable on which we can stand and place our hope. We need an anchor in an ever-changing world so we can rest. That led me to preach from He. 13:1-9 because there in v. 8 we are given one of the most profound and central statements in Scripture: "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." I needed to hear that as one year ended and another began, so perhaps you do too. If you would like to listen to the sermon, you can here, or you can read the transcript here.

I pray that the Holy Spirit will use it to magnify Christ in your heart and mind to the glory of God.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Exodus: A Great Salvation -- Who is the LORD?

As we continue through our series in the story of the exodus, let me ask you: What is the most important information you can know in this life? If you could ask one question or maybe actually two and have them immediately answered with complete accuracy, what questions would be most crucial to ask? Well, the text—Ex. 5:1-6:13—for this sermon's post asks those questions and shows us how God answers them.

In the text, we see the two most crucial questions we can ask: one is clear and the other subtle, but ironically, they both come from the lips of God’s enemy: Pharaoh. He asks, “Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice…” The first words we hear from the mouth of this Pharaoh (who’s not one of the original Pharaohs from chs. 1 and 2) ask the most important question any human being can ever ask: Who is the LORD? Or, who is God? Now, there’s a second, subtle question in Pharaoh’s statement that’s almost just as important: Who am I? Here, Pharaoh sets up one of the major themes of the Pentateuch—the first five books of the Bible—because from here on out, these questions will get answered: Who is the LORD? And, who are His people? Pharaoh needs these questions answered if he’s going to let the people go. The Hebrews need these questions answered if they’re to relate to God, worship Him, and serve Him properly. And, really, every human being needs to answer these questions on some level in order to live and order their life.

If you want to hear more of how Ex. 5:1-6:13 asks and answers these crucial questions, you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here. I pray that the Holy Spirit will use it to magnify Christ in your heart and mind to the glory of God.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Exodus: A Great Salvation -- The Call of the Weak

For the past few weeks, I have been blogging a series of sermons and devotionals on the first twelve chapters of the book of Exodus that I preached and wrote over the summer. These chapters contain the actual story of the exodus, which is a great salvation that points us to God’s ultimate salvation that Jesus accomplished. We’ve seen God setting up that salvation in ch. 1 and the first part of ch. 2, and then we’ve also seen God preparing His savior and the people through suffering from the second half of ch. 2. In today's post, we’re going to see God’s official call of Moses.

The text for this sermon is a selected reading from Ex. 3-4, which recounts to us God's call of Moses and Moses' response. Moses' response is, shall we say, less than flattering for him, and if you know the story, you know what I am talking about. But, let's not be quick to judge Moses. Put yourself in Moses’ position here. He’s about 80 years old at this time. He has settled into the life of a shepherd and has been roaming the wilderness with his sheep for about 40 years. At this point, Egypt is probably a fading memory and any hope he had of being the one who delivers the Hebrew people has probably faded even more. Then, one day, which probably started out like a normal day, he brings his sheep to the base of a mountain. While there, he sees a burning bush, and probably does not think much of it at first, but then, after some amount of time, he notices that it’s burning but not actually burning up, so he goes to check it out. And, then, all of a sudden, the bush starts talking to him, and the bush knows his name. Then, immediately the bush introduces itself as God Himself and calls Moses to go back to Egypt and deliver the Hebrews from Pharaoh. Now, how do you think that would have hit you, if you had been Moses? Perhaps you fancied yourself a deliverer when you were young and well-to-do, but after 40 years of sheep herding, you’ve probably mellowed and maybe even given up on the idea of being a deliverer. Even when you tried to be a deliverer, you weren’t, shall we say, in your prime, and with each passing year in the wilderness, that dream fades, tracking somewhat with the deterioration of your body. So, you’ve become “set in your ways” and are content to live out your life as a shepherd. But, then, seemingly “out of the blue,” God calls to you from a burning bush and says, “Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” How do you think you’d feel? Probably not really up for it, I would think.

Well, I wonder if stuff like this does happen to us at times in our lives. Perhaps it’s not quite so dramatic, for to be sure we no longer hear God’s voice out of a burning bush, but maybe at some point we had grand ideas about what we can do for God whether it’s in our own personal holiness or in the world around us, until the circumstances of God’s providence blindsided us and we kind of settled down. Yet, then, somewhere in that more settled life, an opportunity comes before us: maybe God brings to mind a particular sin with which we’ve gotten comfortable and we can no longer ignore it, or maybe someone in the church asks us to do something that we’ve never really considered or been trained to do, or maybe a situation at work challenges us to stick out more as a Christian, or something else, and we’re worried that it might be God subtly saying, “Come, I have this for you…” because, like Moses, we’re not really up for it. Well, I think this passage can help because here we see God’s call of the weak, and if we’re honest with ourselves, we should probably be thinking, “Uh… yeah… that’s me.”

If you want to hear more, you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here. I pray that the Holy Spirit will use it to magnify Christ in your heart and mind to the glory of God.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Exodus: A Great Salvation -- Preparation

About two weeks ago, I began a blog series on the story of the exodus from a summer sermon series, and in last week's sermon, we saw God beginning to set up His great salvation in ch. 1 and first part of ch. 2. One of the things we saw is that God is hardly mentioned at all in the first two chapters, even though things are bad. In fact, even with our passage for today—Ex. 2:11ff—He doesn’t come into the story until the last verse of ch. 2. Things get worse and worse throughout these first two chapters, and if we were reading this for the first time, even knowing that God’s working as we saw last week, we might ask, “What’s going on? What are you doing, God?”

Have you ever asked that question of God before? Maybe you feel like God has called you to do something—a job, marriage, children, reconciliation, etc.—and you’re almost certain of it, but then roadblock after roadblock keeps getting thrown up in your path? Have you ever cried out to God like Habakkuk does in the second verse of his book: “O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear?” About two and half years ago, I was driving through the city of Atlanta on my way to a presbytery meeting of our denomination south of the city. I lived north of the city and with traffic, it was going to take me a couple of hours, so I had some time to kill. Yet, I was not really interested in listening to music or a podcast. I was feeling really discouraged, and I wasn’t really in the mood to listen to anything. Instead, I was mulling over the past year and a half in my mind. You see, I had been a graduate for seminary for almost year at that point, and I had been searching for a pastoral call for about six months longer than that. As I thought it over in my mind, I realized that only two churches had really shown much interested in me at all and that had been a year earlier. I realized that I had gone to a General Assembly of the PCA and two presbytery meetings as a seminary graduate without a call, and I was on my way to the third in that same state. And, about a week earlier, the last member of my graduating class from RTS to be without a ministry job found one… the last member except for me, that is. When I finally made it to the church at which our presbytery meeting was being held, I sat in my car for a little while, not wanting to go in because I was too embarrassed. Everyone there knew my situation: I was an interim pastor for a small congregation at the time, yes, but that would end soon, and still no one was even remotely interested in me for a permanent position, so I felt like a failure. Add to that the fact that Gabriel was a few months old and Erika was having to work full time because my position didn’t pay much, so I felt like a failure as a father and a husband, and everyone in that meeting knew what was going on. I was trying to pray to get up enough courage to walk in, but all I could think was, “What are You doing, God? Am I not called to be a pastor?”

Well, by the end of our passage, it would not surprise me at all if Moses and the Hebrew people were thinking the same thing: “What are you doing, God?” Up until the last verse of ch. 2, things seem even bleaker than at the end of ch. 1—the savior is exiled and the oppression is getting worse for God’s people. Moses was probably wondering what God was doing, and the people were probably wondering that too. And, just looking at the passage on the surface, we might wonder the same thing: “What is God doing? What doesn’t He just act?”

If you want to hear the rest, you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here. I pray that the Holy Spirit will use it to magnify Christ in your heart and mind to the glory of God.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Exodus: A Great Salvation -- Salvation Set Up

As I mentioned in last week's post, I had the pleasure of preaching a sermon series on the first twelve chapters of Exodus over the summer—i.e. the exodus story itself. Last week I talked about the preliminary issue of the historical nature of the account and made an argument for its historical veracity. Today's post is the first sermon itself: "Salvation Set Up," which covers Ge. 50:22-Ex. 2:10.

This sermon series began in Ge. 50 because while the exodus story is a riveting, historical epic, it’s not something out of the blue. Like most great epics, Exodus begins in the middle of things, with the adventure already underway in Genesis. In fact, in the Hebrew, the book begins with the word “And,” showing us that while we may be starting a sequel of sorts, the story is the same story that God has been writing since the beginning of the world—the story of redemption that began in Ge. 3:15, builds throughout the whole OT, and climaxes with Jesus.

The story of the exodus is part of the grand narrative of the OT, and it serves as a bridge between God’s promises to the patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—to the initial fulfillment of those promises here on earth, setting the stage for the descendents of Jacob to become the nation of Israel and to be taken by God into the earthly promised land. In fact, the story of the exodus lays the foundation for the entire OT, and its importance extends even into the NT. The exodus is the great miracle of the OT, and thus the rest of the OT looks back on the exodus as the paradigm, the pattern of God’s great salvation—past, present, and future. For example, Ps. 106 is one of the many passages that look back on the exodus and say, in effect, "This is the God we serve! He saved us from Egypt. He redeemed us out of slavery. He brought us into the promised land. That means we’re His people, and He will take care of us today. So, we will trust Him and worship Him."

Now, this paradigm of salvation extends even into the NT because the story of the exodus is really, from a spiritual perspective, the story of Jesus and His work of redemption—it’s a picture and a sign pointing us forward to the ultimate salvation that Jesus accomplished.

So, if you want to hear more about how this passage sets up the story of the exodus and even points us to Jesus, you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here. I pray that the Holy Spirit will use it to magnify Christ in your heart and mind to the glory of God.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Hope for the Inadequate

In my last post, I posted a devotion on fear from the story of Gideon's call in Jdg. 6:1-16. In it, I pointed out that Gideon's encouragement comes from the fact that God is with him, which helps cast out the lesser fears of the Midianites or following God's call. Well, that devotion was a precursor to a sermon on the call of Gideon from Jdg. 6:11-16: "Hope for the Inadequate."

Do you sometimes feel like God is calling you to do something for which you know you are totally and completely inadequate? It could be parenthood (being a mom isn't for sissies, folks), it could be a job or change of jobs, it could be ministry or an office in the church, or anything else. Well, the story of Gideon's call (and all the other call narratives in Scripture as well) helps us to see that it is God's pattern to call the inadequate not the adequate (or those who think they are adequate), make them adequate by going with them, and gain the glory, which ultimately our greatest good (cf. this past post of a sermon on that subject).

So, if you want to learn more, you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here. I pray that it is a blessing to your soul and increases your joy in Christ.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Good News of Great Joy for All Peoples

So, I am little late on getting this sermon up. It is actually a Christmas sermon, of sorts, for it was preached on Dec. 21, 2014 and certainly has an advent theme. But, just a few hours after I preached it, my family and I left to drive to Atlanta for some time with our families there, and I have not had time to post it since. However, even though it is a "Christmas sermon," it the subject matter from God's Word applies to our lives at all times of the year, so hopefully it can still be helpful to you.

What is the center of your life? That is an important question because the answer tells you what your life revolves around and a little about your goal in life. We might also ask, "What is the center of history?" And, without going into the longer explanation that the sermon presents, the center of history is the advent of Christ. The calendars of the world revolve around the advent of Christ, and every person in the world dates their life, in their day-to-day existence, with reference to the birth of Christ. That tells us what history revolves around, and it tells us that goal of history as well: the second advent of Christ.

Well, Ps. 117, which is the text for the sermon, is the exact center of Scripture, which is entirely appropriate (maybe even providential) because in a nutshell, this psalm describes what the Scriptures revolve around—the firm foundation of Jesus Christ—and they describe God’s ultimate goal: all His people from all tribes and nations praising Him for His steadfast love and faithfulness.

So, if you want to find out more, you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here. I pray that it will be a blessing to your soul and increase your joy in Christ.

By His Grace,
Taylor

The Gospel According to Joseph: The Gospel and Reconciliation

Yesterday I preached the final sermon in this series--The Gospel According to Joseph--from Ge. 50:12-21, which shows us the final reconciliation between Joseph and his brothers. Reconciliation is a fitting way to end this story, this sermon series, and even the whole book of Genesis because it brings a sense of closure to each. If you want to find out how and hear about reconciliation from this story, you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here.

This one did not introduce any new questions we can ask of the OT to determine how we may be able to see Jesus in this story, but I plan to write a future post that summarizes the questions we have talked about in this series, so keep an eye out for that.

I pray that this sermon will show you Jesus clearly and Him only and that it will be a blessing to your soul.

By His Grace,
Taylor

The Gospel According to Joseph: The Gospel and Grace

My apologies for not publishing this on Sunday, my friends. The weekend was very busy for a number of reasons, and I simply forgot. Please forgive that memory lapse. Here it is, though, the sermon that complements last Friday's devotional: The Gospel and Grace. Israel's life has been a picture of God's amazing grace ever since he was born clinging to Esau's ankle, and here at the end of his life and near the end of this whole narrative, he becomes a bestower of grace through the blessings he gives to his sons and grandsons. The scope of this sermon only had room to look at two of those blessings--the blessing on Joseph's sons and the blessing on Judah--but in those two blessings we learn a lot about God's grace to us. So, if you want to hear about that, you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here.

Now, as we have also talked about in the other posts in this series, in each sermon, I try to highlight a question that we can ask of any Old Testament text to help us to see how Jesus may be on that page of Scripture. This week's sermon did not add a new question, but it does show another way that we can use a question we have talked about in previous sermons: How does this passage reflect upon or prepare us for the person or work of Christ—i.e. who He is to us (His person) and what He does for us (His work)? So, check out the sermon if you want to learn more.

I pray that this sermon will show you Jesus clearly and Him only and that it will be a blessing to your soul.

By His Grace,
Taylor

The Gospel According to Joseph: The Gospel and Finishing Faithfully

As we continue our way through the story of Joseph, Jacob, and Judah, we come to the part of the story where the Israel gets the majority of the attention. We have seen a lot about Joseph so far, some about Judah, and only a small amount about Israel, but in chapters 47-49, the story shifts is character focus mainly to Israel and the end of his life. In the sermon for today's post (from a selected reading in Ge. 47-48), we see Israel, who was stumbling greatly at the beginning of this narrative, finish his life faithfully and pass on his renewed faith in God to the succeeding generations. If you want to learn more, you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here.

Now, as we have talked about in the other posts in this series, we're not only studying the story but learning how to see Christ properly in these Old Testament (OT) narratives. To accomplish that, we've been talking about questions that we can ask of any OT text to help us to see how Jesus may be on that page of Scripture. For today's sermon, we added a new question: "How is the text calling us to respond to the grace of God and follow after Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit?" This is the part of preaching and teaching from OT stories where it's appropriate to see some instances as examples to be followed, but even these examples are still Christ-centered. If you want to learn more, you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here.

I pray that this sermon will show you Jesus clearly and Him only and that it will be a blessing to your soul.

By His Grace,
Taylor

The Gospel According to Joseph: The Gospel and God's Sovereignty

As Friday's devotion mentioned, this sermon post focuses particularly on God's sovereignty. Sovereignty (and the providence which results from sovereignty and God's love for us) can be sometimes be a tough theological truth to swallow, especially for "modern," Western Christians who have been raised in a culture of "self-determination" and individuality. Yet, it God's sovereignty is a very comforting, wonderful doctrine when it is viewed rightly, and the episode of this narrative found in Ge. 45-46 shows us several aspects of God's sovereignty. My prayer is that this sermon will help your view of God's sovereignty to be more biblical and comforting. You can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here.

Now, as we have also talked about in the other posts in this series, in each sermon, I try to highlight a question that we can ask of any Old Testament text to help us to see how Jesus may be on that page of Scripture. This week's sermon did not add a new question, but it does show another way that we can use a question we have talked about in previous sermons: How does this passage reflect upon or prepare us for the person or work of Christ—i.e. who He is to us (His person) and what He does for us (His work)? So, check out the sermon if you want to learn more.

I pray that this sermon will show you Jesus clearly and Him only and that it will be a blessing to your soul.

By His Grace,
Taylor

The Gospel According to Joseph: The Gospel and Transformation

Continuing our way through the story of Joseph, Jacob, and Judah brings us to Ge. 43-44, which is one of the high points of this narrative, at least when it comes to the theme of gospel-change working in our lives. In the previous sermon, we saw Jacob and Joseph's brothers' consciences being pricked and awakened by God; yet we didn't actually see any transformation of their hearts. In Ge. 43-44, we see God use the tools of providence and guilt to transform Jacob and the brothers' hearts. It's a wonderful development in the plot of this story, and you can hear the sermon here or read the transcript here.

As we have stated in the past posts in this series, we are also learning the questions that we can ask of any OT text to help us to see how Jesus may be on the page of Scripture. In this passage, we do not learn a new question but reuse one we have already learned: What does this passage reveal about the redeeming nature of God? And, when we see an aspect of God's redeeming nature, we can see Jesus there, for He brings together all those aspects in His work of redemption. In this sermon, we also get introduced to another way of seeing Christ in these Old Testament stories: types. A "type" is a theological term for an OT person, place, or object that God ordained to serve as a predictive pattern for Christ and what He does for us, and we see Judah as a type of Christ at the end of ch. 44. If you want to learn how, you can hear the sermon here or read the transcript here.

I pray that this sermon will show you Jesus clearly and Him only and that it will be a blessing to your soul.

By His Grace,
Taylor

The Gospel According to Joseph: The Gospel and Sin

In the previous post, I talked about the summer series I am presently preaching at GCPC called "The Gospel According to Joseph," and I also posted a short prequel to the story of Joseph, Jacob, and Judah, briefly summarizing the first 36 chapters of Genesis. Well, the first sermon in this series comes from Ge. 37: 2-8, 18-28, 36, and it is entitled "The Gospel and Sin."

Now, our culture doesn't like to talk about sin and doesn't want us to talk about it. And, honestly, you'd be a strange person indeed if you actually enjoyed talking about sin, but to be faithful to God's Word and truly Christ-centered people, we have to talk about it. The good news of the gospel isn't really good and doesn't really affect our lives until the bad news of our sin first drives us to Christ. Well, that's where Moses begins in the story of Joseph, Jacob, and Judah, and it's where we begin in the first sermon—clearing seeing our sin, so that we're driven to our Savior. You can listen to the sermon here or read it here.

Also in this series, one of the things I am trying to do is teach how to study these Old Testament (OT) stories and how to see what the Holy Spirit was showing the original audience and is showing us about God's redeeming work in Jesus. For Jesus Himself told us in passages like Lk. 24:27, 44 and Jn. 5:46 that the OT is about Him, but seeing exactly how it teaches us about Him is not quite so easy. My senior pastor, Chris Hutchinson, has written a couple of great articles on preaching/teaching Christ from the OT that can be found here and here, and there are several of good books written on this subject like David Murray's Jesus on Every Page. But, in the interest of ease for this series of sermons, I will be teaching some basic questions that we can ask of any OT passage to help us to see how Jesus may be in that passage. Now, all these questions do not always apply to each OT passage, but we can ask these of any passage and one or more of them will help us to see Jesus on that page of Scripture. In this sermon, there are two that come up:

• What does this passage reveal about the sinful nature of man who needs redemption? And, when we see an aspect of man's sinful nature and need of redemption, we can see Jesus there, for He is the ultimate solution to man's need. 
• What does this passage reveal about the redeeming nature of God? And, when we see an aspect of God's redeeming nature, we can see Jesus there, for He brings together all those aspects in His work of redemption. 

If you want to learn how to apply those questions and see it done with Ge. 37, you can listen to the sermon here or read it here.

I pray that this sermon will show you Jesus clearly and Him only and that it will be a blessing to your soul.

By His Grace,
Taylor