Hope & Holiness
This section of 1 Peter 1 is a call to our own sanity. Peter calls us to prepare our minds for action, for holiness. His prescription for this sober-minded holiness? Remember the Gospel. Peter gives two commands in this section (be holy as God is holy and love each other earnestly), but both are book-ended by calls to remember the Gospel and the fact that we were ransomed from the sin of our old lives. We can approach the daunting commands of God because Jesus has already done it for us and that is our identity in Christ.
Wrath: The Cost of Grace
Nahum 3 is another tough chapter of graphic imagery of God’s wrath on Nineveh; it feels painfully excessive, especially when the final question of the book pins the focus squarely on our own sin. So why do we put ourselves through this? Why do we stare at how widespread our sin is, giving ourselves what appears to be a massive self-esteem crisis? The truth is that the Gospel is cheapened without books like Nahum revealing our sin. The more we recognize just how holy God is and just how sinful we are, the more the Gospel grows in our hearts and minds. Displays of God’s just wrath show us how much we desperately need a Savior and how radically gracious God really is.
Humbling Wrath
Assyria had tormented Israel and Judah for generations, mocking God as they went. God opposes the proud and the arrogant, those who try to lift themselves to God’s level and God details their impending destruction. God is against Nineveh. Judah had been abused and humbled for over 200 years. God speaks a word of comfort into their affliction. God promises salvation now over their Assyrian oppressors and salvation to the rest of the world today as over sin and all other oppressions and torments. The question you must ask yourself, though, is “Which message is for me?” Is God comforting you in your brokenness and humility with the knowledge that He is Justice or is God telling you that He knows your pride and stands against you?
Comforting Wrath
Nobody likes to talk about God’s wrath. It’s uncomfortable to think that there is some being out in the universe that can cause seas to dry up and hills to melt. It seems evil of God to wipe out people groups or to send people to Hell today. But is the alternative better? Is it better that God be indifferent to the affronts of sin against Himself and against us? Would we think that God is good if He turns a blind eye to all of the things that we do to harm each other and tear apart relationships as if there wasn’t anything wrong? God takes sin, justice, and righteousness seriously in His good wrath. But who can stand against His wrath? Who wouldn’t be destroyed by it? The only one who can stand God’s wrath and save us from it is God Himself.
Religious Grace
Having reached the end of the book of Jonah we anticipate a neat wrapping up of the story. God has saved a massive city from evil and destruction, but what we now see is that this story apparently has very little to do with Nineveh. The end of the story focuses on Jonah and shows us a prophet who has had his concept of God completely rocked and his chief idols threatened. He accuses God of injustice, dishonesty, and promiscuity. Then, rather than striking him down for his defiance, God pursues him. God demonstrates His love and grace for him. But what about us? We accuse God of injustice in His wrath. We act as if He is a liar. So how does He respond to us?
Resurrecting Grace
It may not be apparent why Jonah is an Easter Sunday topic. He lived 700 years before Jesus. But maybe you figure that since he was in the fish but then he wasn’t, that that is enough like resurrection to make the connection. But what if it’s a more than that. What if, rather than just being a case of coincidental similarity, Jonah was actually looking to Christ while in the fish? And what if the whole story of Jonah in the fish was intended to point us toward Christ and His better redemption, His better death, and His better resurrection?
Violent Grace
The storms of our life most often are the most effective at revealing what we actually believe. What is it that we do in the storm? Why do we want God to calm it? Is it because we think that God owes us better? He doesn’t. Is it because we’ve done everything right? We haven’t. Is it because we read the Bible and we go to church and we go to community groups and this just doesn’t happen to that good of a Christian? It does. Jonah’s storm came out of God’s grace as he ran from God and toward a religious life. How are you running from God?
A Zealous Church
We are zealous for what we are passionate about. We are zealous for that which is most important in our lives. We are zealous for those things that keep us awake at night when they’re threatened. But what can bear the weight of our zeal? Scripture reveals that, just like the church in Laodicea, when we are zealous for our own comfort and success we only find ourselves to be wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. It is only in Christ that we can find satisfaction for our zeal. But how do we become zealous for Christ?
A Biblical Church
At Veritas we desire to be a biblical church. Why? Because we believe that the Bible is the inerrant, divinely-inspired Word of God and, thus, the ultimate authority for all that it speaks on. But a church is only biblical if it is made up of biblical Christians. We, as individuals, need to love the Bible and study the Bible. We need to view Scripture with the authority with which it views itself. We need to read the Bible looking for Christ so that we can grow closer to Him. We need to see the call it puts out on us to believe in and love Jesus, recognize our need for Jesus, and understand the gospel Jesus gives.
The Glory of God in Mission
The idea was to preach about how God’s immense glory, as seen by Isaiah, translates to our call as a church to be on mission. God had a different idea. Ten minutes before the gathering began we learned that the infant daughter of a couple in the church had passed away. This sermon is still about the immense glory of God, but it is about how His glory informs our suffering here on earth. We don’t merely see a God who sends messengers and ambassadors from His throne (which is true), but we see a God who in the midst of earthly chaos and calamity sits. Calmly and unworriedly, He sits. And we don’t merely see a God who is so glorious that the seraphim can do nothing but sing for all eternity (which is true), but we see a little girl, taken from us sooner than we had hoped, finally able to join in the unending chorus with them and all creation.