You are currently browsing the monthly archive for November, 2008.
November 16, 2008
I Timothy 6:6
Exordium: Last week we considered together the dress code for Christians-the “clothing of contentment.”
• What beauty it adds to the face
• What protection from the heat and the cold in life
• What a hiding of our deficiencies it offers us
We concluded that one ought to be discontented until he gains this rare Christian virtue, the “clothing of contentment.”
Explication: Let us remember this morning that contentment is an inner virtue. The clothing analogy may have misguided us. We need to go beneath the surface and for that the Lord leads us to a different place in the Word of God.
I Timothy 6:6 is a strong warning not to skip godliness on the way to contentment:
“Godliness with contentment is great gain.”
So before we try to put contentment on as our garb for the Christian walk, let us go back to the source from which this precious, sought after contentment flows-Godliness.
Contentment is a very supernatural thing. It is not a natural ability or talent. No one is created with it. It is not something the natural man can cultivate. It is a divine gift of the blessed Holy Spirit.
It is also a very mysterious thing in that it is called a “secret” something that can be discovered only with the help of the Lord. It is not easy to open or easy to gain. It is a holy art and skill sometimes called the “rare jewel.”
WHAT IS GODLINESS?
For the children Godliness is “godlikeness”, that is the Christian who is godly resembles Him in His ways, His words, and His attitudes. He is so focused on Christ that he becomes like him.
It is the fifth rung of the ladder of faith: add to your faith virtue and to your virtue, knowledge, and to your knowledge, self-control, and to self-control, perseverance, and to perseverance, godliness.
Godlikeness means you share in His heart. What is important to Him is also important to you. You feel as He does. He stamps you with His own moral image so that your judgments and choices are like His. You obey His precepts because they come from Him. You obey them because you love Him and want to be found obeying Him.
BUT HOW DOES THIS GODLINESS PRODUCE CONTENTMENT IN US? Read the rest of this entry »
November 2, 2008
John 16:33
Exordium: These are the last words of the Lord Jesus. Tomorrow would be the end of His days on earth. Here, with His disciples, He sums up His life and especially His teachings in the Upper room, which constitute the last three chapters of this part of the Book of John. He leaves them with a terrific present and a powerful warning and a great promise.
Explication: These are His closing words to them, “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”When Luther read these words, he wrote to his friend Philip. “These words should be carried from Rome to Jerusalem upon one’s knees.”
Jesus outlines here the two spheres of the Christian’s life and thought: IN ME and IN THE WORLD. Any other kind of Christian life will be abnormal and unbalanced. Here is God’s balance: this is the mind of Christ about the life we are to live in this world.
What a great present He gives as a going away gift by which to remember Him. Peace. He wants His followers and us to have His peace, the very peace which was His to be in us as well. That peace is an inner blessedness, a fruit of the Holy Spirit in us. It is a light within, strength, comfort, support, favor, the unction of the Spirit, purification of the heart of the recipient of this peace.
What does Jesus teach us about His peace, this marvelous present He has for us? Read the rest of this entry »
