April's Newsletter

I know that most of you probably are more interested in what is going on in our lives than in my devotional thoughts; nevertheless, I though I would post my monthly letters to my congergation.

April 1, 2006

To the saints in Christ Jesus at Drakes Branch Baptist Church,

You are a cause of great joy in my life, and I therefore thank our God for you. I still stand amazed that you have invited me to come and be your pastor and teacher, for I have so much to learn from you. Thank you for being used by God to bring me and my family here. Thank you for your loving patience as you overlook my manifold shortcomings. Thank you for “being eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bonds of peace,” as you evaluate God’s church not by what best ministers to “you,” but by what ministers to “us” and glorifies God.

I have very much enjoyed our time in the closing events of the Gospel of John. My awareness of the majesty of God displayed in Christ is abounding as we labor through these texts. I trust that God will continue to serve our faith and satisfy our souls’ hunger as we study the climax of history and the cornerstone of our faith: the death and resurrection of our Lord. We will approach many of these great truths during our Maundy Thursday service (4/13, 7:00PM), our Good Friday service (4/14, 7:00PM) and our Easter Sunday service (4/16). I hope and trust that these three services will be a highlight of our year and a foundation upon which God will continue to build us up “to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”

As I have been meditating and studying these Scriptures I have come to realize that we can look at the death of our Lord from many different perspectives. First, we can see his death as natural. This was the real death of a real man. His body was broken and his blood was shed. Second, we can see his death as unnatural; for “the wages of sin is death,” and yet he “knew no sin.” Death had no claim on him, and so it is quite unnatural for the Holy One of God to die. Third, we can see his death is preternatural. That is to say it was marked out before time, for he is the “lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world.” Prior to creation, God predetermined the death of his beloved Son that he might proclaim his glory as “the just and the justifier.” Last, we can see his death as supernatural. As his birth was unlike any other and as his life was unlike any other, so his death was unlike any other death ever died. He would, at the end of his redeeming work when the propitiation was paid, voluntarily “bow his head” and deliberately “commit [his] Spirit” to the hands of his Father. No one took his life from him, but “he laid it down on [his] own accord.” Such a death so shook the foundations of creation that the temple veil was torn asunder, the earth quaked and the graves were opened: all bearing their witness that “truly this was the Son of God.” As the puritan John Owen would write, death has died in the death of Christ! Oh, that God would continue to stir our affection and adoration of his most Blessed Son!

Pray for me that I may pastor you with grace and wisdom. And may God grant to us that we may we treasure Jesus together, that we may we search his Word together, and that we may we care for one another and our community together.

Your Brother in Christ,

Steven