June Newsletter

To the Saints in Christ Jesus at Drakes Branch

Late in the Apostle Paul’s life he experienced great hardship and pain. As his life drew to a close Paul was imprisoned in Caesarea, without a trial, for two years. He was then moved to Rome, after surviving assassination attempts and a hazardous storm on the Mediterranean, and was imprisoned for an unknown length of time. While living in a cell in Rome, Paul learned that many of his followers and fellow Christians had turned their back on him: some pastors preached against Paul, attempting to get him in greater trouble with Rome; while other just deserted him. The great Apostle Paul was abandoned by virtually everyone, left to spend his remaining days alone in prison. All this, plus Paul was expecting his imminent execution because of his stand for Jesus. It is under these terrible circumstances that Paul penned his epistle to the saints in Christ Jesus at Philippi (1:1). And yet, despite the great extent of Paul’s suffering, no book in the Bible is more filled with joy as Philippians!

How can this be? How can Paul have joy in such a place at such a time? And why do so few of us affluent comfortable Americans have it? What is Paul’s secret? Quite simply, Paul set his mind on Christ. In fact, he mentions the name of Jesus seventeen times in chapter one alone. It has been said that the mind cannot think on two things at once. One cannot think about back pain and at the same time think about how much water to put in the coffee maker. Likewise, one cannot think about trials and at the same time think about Jesus.

So Paul filled his mind with Christ, and was consequently filled with joy. Paul confessed that his greatest longing was not freedom or fellowship, but rather it was to know Jesus more and more intimately. Indeed, this greatly accomplished man considered his countless achievements as loss “compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord” (3:8).

What a lesson for us to learn. May we long to know the surpassing greatness of our Lord as well. May God grant us that desire as we begin our study of the book of Philippians.

Your brother in Christ

Steven

God is great

Our trip was tremendous! We were cold, exhausted, tired, hungry, dehydrated, suffering from altitude sickness and nauseous most of the time. The food was terrible and so was the coffee. At one time our bodies stopped generating their own heat so we spent twelve hours in our sleeping bags trying to raise our body temperature. Other times we would take a step and suddenly fall four feet through the snow and have our snowshoes tangled in trees and lodged under boulders. There were times when we were lost and dropped our packs in an effort to hike up ridges and through shrubs to orient ourselves. At all times our feet were wet and cold (in fact our boots would freeze like an ice cube every night). Today, I still do not have feeling in the tips of my big toes. For days we hiked in snow that would not hold our weight and we would sink a foot every step we took.

The snow was too deep that for two days we had to make our own trials. That is when your Boy Scout orientation skills come in handy. We hiked through forest, dodging branches; we hopped from lake to lake trying to keep track of where we were; we traversed down double diamonds runs in the middle of Avalanche Ally as the sun set; we walked on (semi) frozen lakes and over snow covered streams.

AND I loved every minute of it (well ... most minutes). What I saw for five days, I will take with me always. The majesty of our God is unimaginable. Why put yourself through something like that, you might ask. What drives me is that God created these mountains, trees, lakes and streams for a reason. To display his glory. To show he is powerful and majestic and wonderful. It is almost as if there is an additional book of the Bible up in these mountains that declares how great God is. I am willing to work a little bit in order to get a chance to read it (of course it helps that I love the challenge too).

So I report back to you that our God is great indeed, for I have seen his handiwork myself.

Rocky Mountains: More Pictures

May's Newsletter

I have survived my trip. Updates to come this week. Here is May's newsletter.


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

I want to tell you how much I have benefited from our services on Wednesday nights. Our time together in prayer is refreshing as we cast our burdens on the Lord; while our time together in the Word is satisfying as we plumb the depths of the revelation of God. As most of you are aware we are currently examining the splendor of the cross: trying to understand the justification behind it, the impact of it and the love and justice that cover it. Such an investigation has demonstrated to me the vastness of this beautiful doctrine. In fact, this week I listed all the biblical terms used to describe the work of the cross that came to mind:

1) Salvation: Rom 1:16
2) Forgiveness: Eph 1:7
3) Justification: Rom 5:18
4) Sanctification: Rom 6:22; Phil 2:12
5) Glorification: Rom 8:30
6) Redemption: Col 1:14
7) Atonement: 1 Peter 2:24
8) Reconciliation: Rom 5:11
9) Adoption: Rom 8:15
10) Penal substitution (Substitutionary/ vicarious atonement): Rom 5:8
11) Propitiation: Rom 3:25; 1 John 4:10
12) Expiation: John 1:29; Heb 9:26-28
13) Ransom: 1 Tim 2:6; Mark 10:45
14) Regeneration: 1 Peter 1:3; John 3:3
15) Sacrifice: Heb 9:26
16) Mediation: 1 Tim 2:5; 1John 2:1
17) Imputed righteousness: 2 Cor 5:21
18) Purified/cleansed/washed: 1 Cor 6:11
19) Satisfaction: 1 John 2:2
20) Rescue/release: Rom 6:20-22
21) Transfer: Col 1:13
22) Deliverance: Rom 4:25; Gal 1:4; 1 Th 1:10
23) Canceling debt: Col 2:14
24) Recreation: 2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15
25) Passover: 1 Cor 5:7

Certainly, you can see that we could spend scores of Wednesdays trying to uncover the teachings our Scriptures offer concerning the cross of Christ. One passage in particular I read this week is Hebrews 10. Verse 1-3 reads:

For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sin? But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sin every year.

We can see that one of the roles of the old covenant sacrificial system was to remind the people of Israel of their sin, and consequently their need for salvation (Gal 3:24). One commentator writes, “[the sacrificial system] is like a sledgehammer to the human spirit, pounding away year after year with its constant battering away at the theme of sin. In other words, it doesn’t work to heal; it works only to drub it into us that we are sinful, sinful, sinful and unacceptable to God.”

Praise God that we have the great fortune to live this side of the cross; that we are not called to repeatedly cast our gaze on our own sinfulness, but rather let our eyes fall upon the mercy of God (Phil 3:13-14). Nevertheless, unfortunately sometimes Christians, churches and pastors abandon this great reality and are better at reminding us that we are transgressors than that God is gracious. They hound people that they don’t measure up. Repeatedly people are reminded that they don’t give enough, pray enough, study the Word enough, witness enough, serve enough, care enough, praise enough … it’s never enough. The worshippers are just beat down with a sense of inadequacy. Over and over again they will make their “offerings” but they are never adequate. Consequently they keep their distance from God, leave services with guilty consciences and come back next week “with another basket of good intentions and deeds to place on the altar – or they stay away altogether” (Thomas Long).

It is of course easy to fall back into the old covenant way of thinking, constantly reminding us of our sinfulness. Nonetheless, this moralism or, as I like to call it, this “do-betterism” has no place in the shadow of the cross. Rather than harping on our sinfulness (although this must never be ignored) let us be a church that holds up Christ, our beautiful and glorious king: and let the majesty of this crucified yet living savior draw all people to himself (Jn 12:32).

May God grant that we may relentlessly seek him this month. I hope to see you on Wednesday nights as God continues to serve our souls through his living and abiding word.

Your brother in Christ

Steven