Christ Church (Moscow, ID)

2 Chronicles 13

We don’t often think of strict rules as comfortable. But the sound doctrine of the Gospel, rigid & inflexible with its truth that salvation is in Christ alone, and the summons to obedience to our respective duties is anything but confining. It is, in fact, a comfort. This is what we were made for, to glorify God & enjoy Him forever.

The great Augustine once said that in the affairs of men, the dead are replaced by the dying. Isaac Watts memorably rendered Psalm 90 this way: “Time, like an ever-rolling stream/Bears all its sons away;/They fly forgotten, as a dream/Dies at the opening day.” “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom” (Ps. 90:12).But there is more to this wisdom than simply recognizing how fleeting our lives are. We need something to compare it to, and that something is one in the order of Melchizedek, with the power of an indestructible life (Heb. 7:16). Without the baseline of eternal life, our earthly lives are not even fleeting.

Genesis 2:18-25

We’re in the time of year where you’re likely to have attended a graduation. As parents and grandparents look on their children, the emotions in the arena likely range wildly. Pride, fear, hope, disappointment, maybe a touch of doubt. “He chose to major in Klingon?” The older generations are prone to be skeptical of the generation who is about to take their place. But in the Christian Church, we aren’t to simply wish that the next generation “makes it.” Paul lays out a plan for creating a culture of faith and good works that will last for eternal ages, because God said we should and promised it would work.

As the saints gather for worship each Lord’s Day, we should think of it as the time signature of history. God set the the metronome “in the beginning” and from then on out, the week begins with God’s creative work. 

Scripture teaches us that envy is an insidious sin. It is a destructive and soul-rotting force, and has the ability to go anywhere. It is found with the lowly and among the mighty. Envy lurks in slums and struts in kings’ palaces. We need to be far more wary of this sin than we usually are.

Text: Hebrews 13

Text: Gen. 2:4–18

Text: John 3:1–21