Dissecting Pride
While God opposes the proud, he loves the humble. It is the humble who will be exalted, whereas the proud will be brought low (2 Ch. 7:14, Lk. 1:52. Jas 4:10)....
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Subject to The Elders: The Deacon's Appointment
Since, as we’ve seen, the elders are responsible to initiate and guide the process of a deacon’s nomination and examination by the congregation, as well as to make the final decision on whether they will be appointed, it means deacons are, in the final analysis, subject to the elders of the local church. That’s why deacons are, at the end of the process, appointed by the elders....
Tried and Tested: The Deacon's Examination
So churches need to try and test the character and maturity of their deacon nominees prior to their appointment by the elders, a process that requires time and familiarity. That’s the deacon’s examination....
Examined By the Assembly: The Deacon's Nomination
Biblical deacons, then, are to be examined by the assembly. That’s at the heart of the deacon’s nomination for office....
Appreciating the Problem: The Deacon's Definition
Deacons, again, are to guard the unity of the church and the ministry of the elders from the demands of practical problems. Appreciating such problems requires the careful definition of each deacon’s role....
The Fifth Qualification: The Deacon's Purity
There is only one qualification Paul mentions to Timothy that is not found in Acts 6, and it is that qualification we now turn to examine: the deacon’s purity....
The Fourth Qualification: The Deacon's Faith
This combination of a practical, nuts-and-bolts focus and a separation from doctrinal and pastoral oversight ministry might tempt a church to overlook the piety and conviction of a candidate. That would be a grave mistake....
The Third Qualification: The Deacon's Wisdom
The very fact that this responsibility requires dedicated attention should tell us that it may not come easily, and that not just anyone will be able to fulfill it. It’s no surprise, then, that the third qualification emphasized by the apostles in Acts 6 is wisdom......
The Second Qualification: The Deacon's Maturity
Having seen last week that the first qualification of a potential deacon is a solid reputation, we now turn to look at the second qualification found in Acts chapter 6: being “full of the Spirit.” Of all the qualifications, this one is perhaps most at risk of being misunderstood in the present day. What does “filled with the Spirit” mean?...
The First Qualification: The Deacon's Reputation
Now that we’ve looked at the intent, mission, and objective of the New Testament deacon, it’s time to look at what kind of Christians fill this office. What are the qualifications of those called to be deacons?...
Freeing Elders For Word and Prayer: The Deacon's Objective
We see in Acts 6 that even in the earliest church the temptation to be distracted from this ministry is strong. The apostles put it in blunt terms: “it is not right that we should give up the preaching of the Word of God to serve tables.”...
Caring For Practical Needs: The Deacon's Mission
The mission of the office of deacon is to care for practical needs in the local church....
When God Pours Out Blessings, Part 10
David talks in First Chronicles 29 about uprightness of heart, but why does he do that? Why does the heart matter when looking at good deeds like a Temple offering? ...
To Believe and To Suffer in Seedtime and Harvest
The Christian life might not be romantic or nostalgic but its real. Our organic connection to Jesus Christ in his death and resurrection is better than all of the hoped for clean eating and living that hopeless shoppers pursue. ...
When God Pours Out Blessings, Part 9
Human beings have an innate longing for meaning and significance. As we continue to pray after David's example in First Chronicles 29 we wrestle with the need for us to confess our mortality and shortness of days to God, and live in light of them....
When God Pours Out Blessings, Part 8
Even our willingness and ability to do things for God are gifts from his hand. In this article we look at and pray in light of this truth as David presents it in his prayer, found in First Chronicles 29....
When God Pours Out Blessings, Part 7
God provides all that we have. As we continue to pray through First Chronicles 29 in celebration of a year in our own building, we look at how David acknowledged God's provision of all things as an example for our own prayers....
When God Pours Out Blessings, Part 5
As we remember God's provision in the life of our own church one year ago, when we took possession of a building of our own for the first time, we look at the example of David's model prayer in First Chronicles 29. In this article we consider how David opened his prayer--with blessing and praise....
When God Pours Out Blessings, Part 6
Gratitude is a crucial attitude of the Christian life. As we continue to mark our first anniversary in a building of our own, we seek to imitate David's example of thanksgiving in prayer found in First Chronicles 29....
When God Pours Out Blessings, Part 4
As we continue to celebrate our first year owning our own church building, we are meditating on and praying through First Chronicles 29. How does the Christian look at a text like First Chronicles 29, or indeed any Old Testament story or promise or command? The answer is the classic Sunday School answer: “Jesus!”...
When God Pours Out Blessings, Part 3
As we at Calvary Grace continue to mark our first anniversary as "homeowners" in a building of our own, we consider the miracle of Israel's offering for the Temple in First Chronicles 29:1-9, and mark its meaning....
When God Pours Out Blessings, Part 1
Sometimes God provides spectacularly in the life of an individual or a church. On Calvary Grace's first anniversary as "homeowners" in a building of its own, we pause to consider the example of King David's Israel after God ordains a staggering offering by his people for his Temple, seeking wisdom on how to pray after God pours out blessings....
When God Pours Out Blessings, Part 2
We can’t understand the amazing prayer offered in First Chronicles 29 unless we first understand the man who offered it. In this article, we’re going to look at King David, a "man on a mission." We’ll review what brought him to that moment, in order to help us grasp why he prayed the way he did....
Resources for Gathering One2One
We’ll wrap up this newsletter series by introducing three new e-book Ministry Guides you can download to help you with this ministry, along with providing (all in one place) the links to the Study Outlines introduced over the past month...
Gathering One-2-One For Bible Reading
To get you started reading the Bible one-to-one, what follows is a simple method of Bible study called the COMA method. COMA studies a Bible passage in four steps: Context, Observation, Meaning, and Application....
Gathering One-2-One For Prayer
ACTS stands for Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. When gathering one-to-one for prayer, you simply take turns, each praying a prayer of adoration, then each praying a prayer of confession, and so on....
Gathering One2One For Sermon Application - Be An Expositional Listener!
Sermon listening is a central part of the Christian life, and so why not learn more about it? Christopher Ash has written a very short but very useful booklet called Listen Up! A practical guide to listening to sermons, filled with useful tips and challenging questions that will help you “take care…how you hear” (Luke 8:18). After getting started with Gathering One2One, we strongly urge you to find and use this book....
How Do I Get Started Gathering One-2-One?
Here’s some steps to follow, both before the first meeting, and at that first meeting together....
Who Should I Find to Gather One-To-One With?
Try to build up one another, and build up the church, by building fellowship across the whole congregation one-to-one around God’s Word!...
Truth & the Human Dilemma
As Christians, we insist that truth can be known. Truth is objective and the most important truths we can know are centered in God and presented in his Word. ...
Keep ReadingTruth & Ethics
Without a recognition of a glorious God, there can be no moral underpinnings. People have the law of God written on their hearts and by nature know what is right or wrong (Romans 2:14-15), but this has been eclipsed by human principles that have deemed that offending others is the ultimate wrong. If humanity is seen as most glorious, then there can be no sense of wrongn...
Keep ReadingTruth & Character
In this day of pseudo-realities and pseudo-substance, we need to uphold the truth of God and the glories of the gospel. We are not reinventable and insubstantial, but rather those who are created in the image of God to reflect him and his truth. ...
Keep ReadingThink About These Things
Do you find this difficult to do in today’s word? I do. The world bombards our senses with sexual humour and innuendo, LGBT agendas and concerns, messages of greed and self-indulgence just to name a few things that are anything but what Paul is describing in Phil. 4:8. We are besieged by those things that would appeal to our sinful nature and capture our thoughts....
Keep ReadingBearing the Light
We live in a dark world, but we bear the light of Christ. His light has dawned in our hearts, but will dawn one day in full consummation. ...
Keep ReadingPersevering Until Morning
"I wait for the Lord, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning." (Psalm 130:6) I thought that this month I would select some of my favorite passages of scripture to do a meditation on. Psalm 130 is one of my favorite psalms. In it the psalmist cries out to the Lord with pleas for mercy (vs. 1...
Keep ReadingChrist's Glory - Faith and Sight
Who can think of the glory of Christ but not think that he who was humbled has been glorified above all things (Phil. 2:8-10) with a heavenly glory that we cannot yet see....
Keep ReadingChrist's Glory as a Humbled Mediator
The fact that Jesus took on the form of a man so that he could effectively mediate between man and God is one of the greatest truths we can think about....
Keep ReadingChrist's Glory As God's Representative & In His Person
In scripture we read that Christ is the image of God (2 Cor. 4:4). He makes the invisible God visible (Col. 1:15). God is glorious and in beholding Christ we behold that glory. In Christ, God himself, his Being and the mystery of his existence in three distinct persons, was gloriously revealed to believers, and the light of the knowledge of these truths dispelled all those...
Keep ReadingSeeing Christ's Glory and Spiritual Decay
There is a diligence required of the believer that results in a rich entrance into the eternal kingdom of Jesus Christ (2 Peter 1:10-11). A diligence in what? A diligence in the pursuit of holiness. That is, we need to grow in grace through the means that the Lord has established for our growth....
Keep ReadingJohn Owen and the Glory of Christ
Having read through The Glory of Christ by John Owen I have some questions. Has "look to Christ", or "behold Christ" become nothing more than a platitude? If you are told to "look to Christ" are you disappointed, hoping for something more? This month I want us to look to Christ and behold his glory, together, for perhaps the reason these statements have lost their savor...
Keep ReadingMoney: You Cannot Serve to Masters
This month I want us to take a look at money. While it is a gift from God (Dt. 8:18), the Bible is replete with warnings about the dangers associated with it. Money is not inherently sinful. Rather, we sin when we don’t see money rightly and approach it with correct attitudes. It is the love of money that is a root of all kinds of evils. It is in craving money that ...
Keep ReadingGodliness - Comfort to the Godly
This concludes our look at Godliness according to Thomas Watson in “The Godly Man’s Picture”. At the end of the book (the second last chapter) he offers comfort to the godly. This is so important, because if you are a godly person you will mourn your lack of godliness. You will not focus on what you have but how far you still have to go. You may even become discourag...
Keep ReadingGodliness - Practical Helps and Persevering in Godliness
Having looked at various characteristics of the godly and having been exhorted to godliness, it is now time to turn to practical helps in godliness and the idea of perseverance. All this, again, is drawn from Thomas Watson in “The Godly Man’s Picture”....
Keep ReadingGodliness - An Exhortation
Chapter 6 in Thomas Watson’s work, “The Godly Man’s Picture” is one of exhortation to godliness. He accomplishes this first by contrasting the godly and the ungodly. He starts by exhorting men to seriously weigh their misery while they remain in a state of ungodliness. Here Watson would have a person consider that the ungodly are in a state of death, that their...
Keep ReadingGodliness - Spiritual Carefulness, Trained in Religion, Walking with God, Striving for Influence
Continuing with Thomas Watson on characteristics of the godly person from “The Godly Man’s Picture”...
Keep ReadingGodliness - Thankful, Loving the Saints, Non-Indulgent, Relationally Good
This month we are continuing with Thomas Watson on characteristics of the godly person from “The Godly Man’s Picture”. This goes together with the earlier series I did in August, 2015. Thomas Watson’s words will be in italics as a means of identification....
Keep ReadingGodliness: Sincere, Heavenly Minded, Zealous, Patient
Continuing with Thomas Watson on characteristics of the godly person from “The Godly Man’s Picture”, this will be the last newsletter on this subject for a while. There are more to come....
Keep ReadingGodliness: Love for the Word, Spirit Inhabited, Humble, and Prayerful
Continuing with Thomas Watson on characteristics of the godly person from “The Godly Man’s Picture”:...
Keep ReadingGodliness - Worship, Serving God, Prizing Christ, Weeping
A godly person cares about the worship of God. This isn’t to say that he enjoys worship, but that he is careful about it. A godly man reverences divine institutions, and is more for the purity of worship than the pomp....
Keep ReadingGodliness - Knowledge, Faith, Love, God Likeness
Thomas Watson, in “The Godly Man’s Picture”, puts forth 24 characteristics of a godly person. The first is that they are spiritually knowledgeable. This knowledge is grounded in the faith (Col. 1:23). It is one that esteems God and energizes (enlivens) the spirit. It is applicable to our sinful nature and transforms that nature (2 Cor. 3:18). It is a knowledge t...
Keep ReadingMoney: Sending it Forward
You have likely heard the phrase “pay it forward” which was made popular by the 2000 movie by the same name. This is the idea that out of the blessings and kindnesses we have received, we in turn should pass it on to others. We should be cultivating good deeds as a means of paying it (the kindnesses shown) forward. In turn, we are blessed in our giving. This week, ...
Keep ReadingMoney: Two Perspectives for Success
We obviously need money to obtain the basic necessities of life and to provide for our families. It is also prudent to save for the future and to give some thought to investing money for the future. Having and investing money is not wrong. Remember it is the love of money which is a root of evil, not money itself. Yet, money can tempt us so strongly. Once we have it, ...
Keep ReadingMoney: A Healthy Detachment
If the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil that has led to the ruin and destruction of many, then we must ask the questions, “How does a Christian regard money? With what attitudes should we approach wealth?” While Jesus has taught much on money and has given us many cautions to heed, let’s take a look at 1 Timothy 6:3-10 for an answer....
Keep ReadingSin is On its Way Out
It is now time in this last newsletter of October 2014 to look at the actual work of mortifying our sin. We have considered John Owen’s thoughts on the need for mortification, the nature of mortification and what we have to consider in preparation for the work. Now it is time to ask the question, “What will be the means or the agent of the mortification of our sin?...
Keep ReadingSetting the Direction for the Work of Mortification
Having looked at the necessity and that nature of mortification, it is now time to set ourselves toward the work itself. John Owen in his book, “Of the Mortification of Sin in the Believer”, puts forth both general and particular directions for the work itself. In other words, he gets his reader to consider their own sin so as to know their enemy. He also gets his read...
Keep ReadingThe Nature of Mortification
Last week we began a look at what it means to mortify one’s sin. Borrowing heavily from John Owen’s writings on the mortification of sin, I tried to highlight the necessity of it. In the words of Owen, if we are not actively killing sin, sin will be killing us....
Keep ReadingA Call To Battle
Anyone who has been to Calvary Grace Church for any amount of time has hopefully realised by now, that we have a lot to say about sin. To be sure, we have much to say about grace as well, but you can’t fully appreciate grace until you’ve spent some time pondering sin. Unfortunately, people can fall victim to a morbid introspection where your sin is all you see and gr...
Keep ReadingTime Flies
Time flies regardless of how much fun we are having. True, it seems to fly by faster when we are having fun or doing the things we enjoy, but in reality, time flies regardless of how we perceive its passing....
Keep ReadingSobering Signposts
The other day we drove past a bunch of flowers set up in memorial by a light post at an intersection. One of our kids remarked that someone had died there. I remember seeing a show, but I forget where, that indicated that such displays are actually illegal. They break some city bylaw or other, but many times officials are lenient and allow the memorials to remain, at lea...
Keep ReadingThe Booth of David
In the sermon I gave on Sunday, July 29 I highlighted the temporariness of the Booth of David and also stated that the Booth of David is Christ. This may have led some to think of Christ as being temporary. Those who know me know that I would never say such a thing. Let me explain one more time....
Keep ReadingIf Christ Had Not Been Raised
"Even if Christ had not been raised, our sins would still be forgiven when Christ died on the cross." I have now heard this statement numerous times and once again at a church I visited this past Easter Sunday. 1 Corinthians 15:17 says, "And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins." Obviously both statements cannot be true. On...
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