On Easter Sunday, John Calvin refused community leaders communion because of mistresses. They responded by rushing the communion table. He responded: “Over my dead body.” They backed off but in the afternoon they exiled him. One year and a half years later they asked him back. When he ascended to the pulpit he began on the very next verse he had ended with when he was kicked out. He loved and trusted God’s Word.
We are a people of the Book. We know God through the Book. We meet Christ in the Book. We see the cross in the Book. Our faith and love are kindled by the glorious truths found in that Book. We have tasted of the divine majesty of the Word and are persuaded that the Book is God’s inspired and infallible written revelation. Therefore what the Book teaches matters. Doctrine is important for worship and life and mission. Knowing the truth found there and doing the truth found there will bring great joy to our souls and great glory to our Savior. GR
GOD-GLORIFYING MARRIAGES: A BIBLICAL PLAN TO GLORIFY GOD BY FINDING JOY IN OUR MARRIAGES
Ruth Graham was once asked is she had every thought about divorcing Billy. She responded, “Divorce no. Murder, yes.”
“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.” Eph. 5:25-27
Love is the overflow and expansion and completion of joy in God, which gladly meets the needs of others. Love is not merely the passive overflow, but the aggressive extension and expansion of joy in God, reaching even to the poor in Jerusalem. –John Piper, commenting on the love of the Macedonian Church, The Dangerous Duty of Delight
THE EXCELLENCY OF GOD’S WORD
“I delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your Word.” Ps 119:16
“Would it not be an encouragement to a subject, to hear his prince say to him, “You will honor and please me very much, if you will go to yonder mine of gold, and dig as much gold for yourself as you can carry away?” So for God to say, “Go to the ordinances, get as much grace as you can, dig out as much salvation as you can; and the more happiness you have, the more I shall count myself glorified.” –Thomas Watson
Our Purpose: In Jesus Christ our hearts are satisfied. We were made to discover and delight in his glory. It is the knowledge of Christ that brings joy to our souls. The knowledge of the glory of God is most clearly seen as the Spirit opens the eyes of our hearts to see and hear Christ speak in his Word. Thus, our motivation for devouring God’s Word is not only duty but deep delight. In this session it is our purpose to explore how we can make Christ’s glory our treasure through devouring his Word.
The Authority of God’s BOOK
2 Timothy 3:16-17, All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work .
“We owe to Scripture the same reverence as we owe God, since it has as its only source in him and has nothing of human origin mixed with it.” –John Calvin
OUR PURPOSE: God’s speaks in creation, in history, in miracles, in visions, in the Incarnation, and in the written Word to carry out his will. When God speaks, he reveals his power, his authority and his presence. In Jesus Christ, God reveals the fullness of His glory. In the written Word, the Bible, Christ the Word speaks to us. Our goal is to see why we can have unqualified confidence in what it says about life and the pathway to joy.
THE CENTRALITY OF CHRIST AND THE WORD
John 5:39-40, “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.”
“We were made to know and treasure the glory of God above all things; and when we trade that treasure for images, everything is disordered. The sun of God’s glory was made to shine at the center of the solar system of our soul. And when it does, all the planets of our life are held in their proper orbit. But when the sun is displaced, everything flies apart. The healing of the soul begins by restoring the glory of God to its flaming, all-attractive place at the center.” –John Piper, Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ, p. 21
Read more: God's Book of Joy #4 The Centrality of Christ and the Word
The Sufficiency of God's Word: Part Two
“I hate and abhor falsehood but I love your law. Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous laws. Great peace have they who love your law and nothing can make them stumble.” Ps 119:163-165
“On the far side of every risk-even if it results in death-the love of God triumphs. This is the faith that frees us to risk for the cause of God. It is not heroism, or lust for adventure, or courageous self-reliance, or efforts to earn God’s favor. It is childlike faith in the triumph of God’s love-that on the other side of all our risks, for the sake of righteousness, God will be holding us. We will be eternally satisfied in him. Nothing will be wasted.” – John Piper, “Don’t Waste Your Life,” p. 95
Read more: God's Book of Joy #3 The Sufficiency of God's Word: Part 2
The Sufficiency of God's Word
“Jesus replied, ‘Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the
power of God?’” Mark 12:24
“In the beginning of this century the battle was over the inerrancy of the Scriptures. Today it is over the sufficiency of the Scriptures.” – Dr. James Boice
Our Purpose: God’s Word is sufficient. God speaks and accomplishes His purposes (Isaiah 55:11). God’s Word is our food (Matthew 4:4). God’s Word is irresistible power (Jeremiah 23:29). God has spoken the words that are written down in our Bible (2 Timothy 3:16). When it is believed and received, it creates eternal life (John 20:31). Its truth sets apart the people of God (John 17:17). It opens the eyes of the blind (2 Corinthians 4:4-6). It gives life to the dead (Colossians 2:13). It grows the Church (Acts 12:24). It frees the captive (John 8:31-32). It gives hope to the weary (Romans 15:4). It brings joy to the heart (John 15:11). It brings glory to God (John 15:7-8). Nothing needs to be added to it and nothing needs to be taken from it (Deuteronomy 4:2). Nothing can be set alongside it (Psalm 119:89). God’s Word is sufficient! If we will believe it and proclaim it, God will glorify himself through it.
Read more: God's Book of Joy #2 The Sufficiency of God's Word: Part 1
Give Me That Book #3
The Center That Holds us Together
We are living in a day when those who are best, those who have good intentions, lack conviction. In other words they put up with evil. They don’t participate but neither do they stand up in protest. They simply escape to their cabins along a mountain stream to avoid all of the chaos and confusion. They simply do not care enough or are not sure enough to stand up against the tide of evil.
At the same time, the worse, those with no sense of right and wrong, those who have only one passion, the satisfaction of the self, hold nothing back. They are willing to speak out, protest, go to jail, blow themselves up, step-on the beliefs of others, and promote their vile lifestyles, all for the sake of pursuing their wildest and most degrading fantasies. When the center is lost, when that which holds a society together falls apart, when the anchor has been cut away, all hell breaks loose. Everyone does what is right in their own eyes. Evil is pursued with a passion. Life looses its sacredness. A hunter kills 8 defenseless people because he was confronted for being on private property. An enraged millionaire basketball player plunges into the crowd and incites a riot because he got hit by a cup of beer. Two football teams square off with fisticuffs and kicking and throwing equipment because their rivalry is intense. We are seeing the demise of our society right before our eyes.
Read more: Give Me That Book #3 The Center That Holds Us Together
God Declares His Glory! [Part One] Psalm 19
We are presently in a series in which I hope to produce a book and a seminar called, “Give Me That Book!” My purpose is both simple and selfish. I want to see and enjoy more of the glory of God. I believe that God wants me to see his glory and enjoy his glory. And because I believe that the place that His glory is most powerfully, and personally and practically revealed is His own written Word, I devote myself to its study. And because my sinful and dull heart is seriously flawed, I join the Psalmist and cry out for help in this adventure. I pray, “Open my eyes that I might see the wonderful things in thy Law” [Psalm 119:18]
However, my purpose for writing is not just about me. I want to draw you, even drag you with me, into a new love and new confidence in God’s written Word. I want you see and savor the glory that He has hidden there. Let me ask you: “Isn’t there more joy when we share the pleasure we have found than when we just keep it to our selves?” I think so. If the Holy Spirit would open the eyes of our hearts as he did the Psalmist, we would not only get into the Book out of duty, we get into the Book out of sheer delight, as he did. We would not only see and discover God; we would savor and delight in His riches that await us there. And if we do that, the sheer joy of it all would transform us into radical missionaries of the wonders we have found there. A whole company of Christ lovers would be set loose upon this land. LFC would become a center for the declaring of the glory of God that is found in His Book.
The Happy Man and God’s Law: Psalm 1
Bill Bright was the founder of Campus Crusade. He was one of the most influential Christians leaders of the 20th century. He was saved in 1941 through the prayers of his mother. He attended Princeton and Fuller seminaries. It was while he was at Fuller Seminary that he felt the call of God to help fulfill the great commission to go into the world and preach the gospel. He began to witness on the campus of UCLA and it was there that the seed of Campus Crusade was planted in his heart.
Campus Crusade became the largest Christian organization in the world. Begun in 1951, it now has 20,000 full time staff and 225,000 trained volunteers working in 191 countries. Bright’s pamphlet, “The Four Spiritual Laws, has been used around the world to explain God’s eternal plan for salvation. The “Jesus Film,” also produced by Campus Crusade, has been seen by people in 234 countries and is the most widely translated film in history. More than 128 million people have indicated decision to receive Christ in response to this film. Think of it! What a legacy!
