Author Archives: reveds

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About reveds

Occupation: Pastor, Ebenezer Presbyterian Church, Lennox, SD Education: BS - Christian Education, Sterling College; MDiv. - Princeton Theological Seminary Family: Married, with Four children. Hobbies: Running (will someday run a marathon), Sci-Fi (especially Doctor Who and Sherlock), Theater, and anything else my kids will let me do.

Gripped by the Cross

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“In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
(1 John 4:10 ESV)

How would you define love?  Is it an emotion or feeling that you get when you are around someone you adore, someone who makes you feel good just being in their presence?  Is love an act of the will, a conscious decision to show someone kindness, compassion, mercy, and tenderness?  When we say “I love you” do we really mean “I love me, and I want you”? 

The Apostle John defines love for us saying, “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”  God defined what love means by demonstrating his love for us in Jesus Christ.  When we were lost in our sins, unloving and unlovable, God loved us still, and sent his son to die for us (John 3:16, Romans 5:8).  Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13), then proceeded to demonstrated that love by going to the cross.  During that same conversation in John’s gospel, Jesus also told his followers, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.  By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34-35).

Dr. Joel Beeke writes in his Epistles of John that “the great motivation for practical, Christlike living is the doctrine of the cross; hence, every failure to love can be traced back to a failure to understand the cross.  When the cross of Christ grips us, everything in our world changes.”

If love has been defined in the cross of Christ, then our failure to love in the church, in our homes, in our community with a Christlike love is simply because either we don’t understand what the cross really means or we forget to that the cross should affect every relationship and every decision.  Either way, our failure to love belies our failure to really understand the cross.

When we have been gripped by the Cross of Christ, when the beauty, tragedy, and grace of the cross really shakes us, our lives will never be the same.  J.I. Packer writes “Christ as crucified is the great object of our live, or should be… in the death of Christ do his love, his grace, his condescension, most gloriously shine forth.  Sin nowhere appears so hateful as at Calvary, and lust shrivels up in the Christian’s heart while he keeps Calvary in view.”  If we keep the cross before us, we will learn to live like he lives and love like he loves.  If we really want to be a more loving church, a more loving people, let us keep the cross of Jesus before us. 

SDG

Always be killing sin…

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“Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” (Colossians 3:5 ESV)

The Westminster Confession of Faith defines the Christian life:
“They who are effectually called and regenerated, having a new heart and a new spirit created in them, are further sanctified, really and personally, through the virtue of Christ’s death and resurrection, by his Word and Spirit dwelling in them; the dominion of the who body of sin is destroyed, and the several lusts thereof are more and more weakened and mortified, and they more and more quickened and strengthened, in all saving graces, to the practice of true holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.”

The purpose of the Christian life is to grow in holiness, to grow in the likeness of Christ. J.I. Packer put suggests that sanctification consists of two parts: vivification, or the growing and maturing of the new man; and mortification, the weakening and killing of the old man. 

We spend a lot of time in churches today talking about building up the new life.  Sermons are preached on godly character, classes taught on Christian virtue, and great emphasis is placed on doing more, living better, on doing what Jesus would do.  All of that is fine, but unless it is accompanied by the continuous reminder to put to death the old life, it is nothing more than lipstick on a pig.  Isaiah tells us we must “cease to do evil and learn to do good (Isa 1:16-17).”  The two must go hand in hand, vivification and mortification.  The life of the Christian is a constant battle against sin.  When we are made alive in Christ, it is only because we have died to sin and been raised with him.  John Owen, puritan pastor extraordinaire, once wrote “you will be killing sin or sin will be killing you.”

An important question to ask, though, is “why put sin to death?” because the motive reveals the condition of our heart.  Do not engage in the battle because of fear of judgment.  Terror of the wrath of God is wise, but if that is all we know of God, it is incomplete.  Even the demons fear the judgment of God, but they have no love for him.  Neither should you war against sin in your life as an attempt to earn God’s favor.  You can’t.  You will never vanquish sin from your life completely.  It will be an ongoing battle.  The Westminster Confession goes on to say: “This sanctification is throughout the whole man, yet imperfect in this life: there abides still some remnants of corruption in every part, whence arises a continual and irreconcilable war, the flesh lusting against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.”

Rather, we should struggle against sin because of our love for God in Jesus Christ.  Knowing how much he loves us, and how offensive our sin is to him, should drive us to tears when we toy with temptation.  Because he has died for us, let us live for him!

(If you want to know how to battle sin in your life, worship with us on Sunday, or listen to “The New Life” at www.cmpres.com/sermons.)