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This week I am going with an old hymn. I really enjoy this recording, sung by thousands of men at a conference. The hymn is How Firm a Foundation and it fits well with the message regarding God's Word found in John 20:30-31. I have decided to try to find a song and video to share to help you think about the upcoming Sunday sermon. So, with John 20:24-29 in mind, here are the Petersons with their take on a Ralph Stanley classic: One of the most dangerous days in the life of a Christian, a church, or any other ministry is the day when, on this side of heaven, they determine that they have “made it”—that they have reached their goal. If there was a New Testament saint who might have claimed to have done so, it would surely have been the apostle Paul. But Paul writes, “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippines 3:12-14, ESV).
Brothers and sisters in Christ, let’s not dwell on the past, focus our eyes on the opportunities before us, and “press on” to Jesus. Pastor Don I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, “Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.” (Rev. 1:9-11, ESV)
Tomorrow is the Lord’s Day. It is the day when saints everywhere gather to worship the God who saved them. They gather under the Word of God read and preached. They sing together, praising God and declaring their faith. They pray together, bringing their needs to an almighty and always good God. They testify to God’s grace, because they know every good thing they have is from Him. They make offerings because they long to see the work of the Lord flourish. Sound good? Join them! Charles Spurgeon often shared this story: “At last one snowy day, it snowed so much that I could not go to the place I had determined upon, and I was obliged to stop on the road; I found rather an obscure street, and turned down a court, and there was a little chapel. It was the Primitive Methodist Chapel. I had heard of these people from many, and how they sang so loudly that they made people’s heads ache; but that did not matter. I wanted to know how I might be saved, and if they made my head ache ever so much I did not care. So, sitting down, the service went on, but no minister came (the snowstorm made him late). At last a very thin-looking man came into the pulpit, opened his Bible, and read these words, ‘Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.’ Just setting his eyes on me, as if he knew all my heart, he said, ‘Young man you are in trouble.’ Well I was, sure enough. Says he, ‘You will never get out of it till you look to Christ.’ And then lifting up his hands he cried out, ‘Look! look! look! It is only look,’ said he. I saw at once the way of salvation. Oh, how I did leap for joy at that moment! I know not what else he said, I did not take much notice of it. I was so possessed with that one thought. Like as when the brazen serpent was lifted up, they only looked and were healed. I had been waiting to do fifty things, but when I heard this word, ‘Look!’ what a charming word it seemed to me! Oh, I looked until I could almost have looked my eyes away; and in heaven I will look on still in my joy unutterable.” [1]
[1] Joseph S. Exell, The Biblical Illustrator: St. John, vol. 1 (London: James Nisbet & Co., n.d.), 240–241. |
From Pastor DonWriting about the Bible and praying that it will be of some good for someone. Archives
June 2021
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