Video Clip: Will there be evidence of faith in the life of a believer?

 

 

 JTR

The Vision (2.28.25): Jacob's Sanctification

 

Image: Esau Meeting Jacob, wood engraving, George Frederick Watts, 1863-65.

Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Genesis 33 & 34.

And Jacob lifted up his eyes, and looked, and, behold, Esau came… And Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him: and they wept (Genesis 33:1, 4).

The LORD chose Jacob to bear his covenant with Abraham, not because of any inherent merit in him, but only, as Paul said in Romans 9:11, that “the purpose of God according to election might stand.”

Indeed, early on it seemed that there was little in Jacob that appeared spiritually commendable. He manipulated his brother Esau into giving him the birthright (Genesis 25). He deceived his father Isaac, pretending to be Esau, to receive his father’s blessing (Genesis 27).

But, as Jacob’s story unfolds, we begin to see evidence that the God who chose this man also worked to change and sanctify him.

We see this especially in Jacob’s prayer for deliverance in Genesis 32 as he prepares to meet his estranged brother Esau. Jacob humbles himself, telling the LORD, “I am not worthy  of the least of all thy mercies,” before he petitions, “Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau” (32:10-11).

It is there in Jacob’s wrestling with the Angel of the LORD, and his being given a new name, Israel, and a new identity as a prince of God (32:28).

And it will continue in Genesis 33 as Jacob meets and is reconciled with Esau (33:1-4)

There is something of the gospel in this. The man chosen by God who humbles himself, and seeks deliverance from the Lord, wrestles with God in prayer, will be made, by God’s grace, a new creature in Christ, given a new name, a new identity, and reconciled with his brethren.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

Audio and Images from 2020 Keach Conference

Image: 2020 Keach Speakers (l-r): John Miller, Simon O'Mahony, Ryan Davidson

The 2020 Keach Conference was held on Saturday, September 26, 2020 with a limited enrollment of 90 participants.

The messages have been posted to sermonaudio.com:

 

  

Some scenes from the conference:

Image: Singing praise.

Image: Fellowship between sessions.

Images: Lunch on site

JTR

The Vision (10.23.15): Sanctification is like warming up from the cold

Note:  This devotion is adapted from last Sunday morning’s sermon On Hebrews 2:10-15.

For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren (Hebrews 2:11).

Hebrews 2:11 reminds us that the God who saves is also the God who sanctifies.  It also affirms that those who are saved and those whom God sanctifies are given unity or union with Christ:  “For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all one.”

Consider the act of progressive sanctification, which is referred to here.  Becoming a Christian is both something that happens all at once and something that happens little by little over time.  Justification happens all at once.  Sanctification, however, is a process that begins the moment we are saved but which is never fully accomplished in this life.  We only arrive at definitive sanctification at the final stage of life:  glorification.  And this occurs at our deaths (absent from the body and present with the Lord; 2 Cor 5:8) and, ultimately, at the end of the ages in the final resurrection (when we receive our resurrection bodies; John 5:28-29). 

I recently read a book in which the author described sanctification as like being transferred “from the icy cold into a warm room.”  He continues:

The heat is a decisive force; it cannot be reversed.  But as someone stands in front of a roaring fire or even a radiator, that person still suffers from frozen joints or from pockets of cold.  They feel the decisive heat, and know that eventually they will be warm through and through.  But it remains a steady process, even though the warm and the cold represent two kinds of forces or ‘orders of existence’ (A. Thiselton, The Living Paul, p. 12).

Indeed, becoming a Christian is like coming in from the bitter cold and slowly being warmed up, even while we still feel the chill in our bones.

May the Lord continue to warm us up in holiness.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle  

Jerome on the the persistence of the flesh even in the desert

 

I preached Sunday from Galatians 5:16-18 and meditated upon the spiritual state of the regenerate man and the struggle within between the flesh (remaining sin) and the Spirit (the indwelling presence of God).  “For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh” (v. 17).  In the message I made reference to a quote from the Church Father Jerome in which he laments the fact that though he had withdrawn from the world, the temptation to sin was still present in his heart.  Here’s the quote from Jerome:

O how often I imagined that I was in the midst of the pleasures of Rome when I was stationed in the desert, in that solitary wasteland which is so burdened up by the heat of the sun that it provides a dreadful habitation for the monks!  I, who because of fear of hell had condemned myself to such a hell and who had nothing but scorpions and wild animals for company, often thought that I was dancing in a chorus with girls.  My face was pale from fasting, but my mind burned with passionate desires within my freezing body; and the fires of sex seethed, even though the flesh had already died in me as a man (as cited in Timothy George, Galatians [Broadman, 1994]:  p. 388).