The Public Reading of Scripture

The following is excerpted from our time of Scripture reading at tonight’s worship service of Grace Church:

The Holy Spirit, through the apostle Paul, urges us to “devote [ourselves] to the public reading of Scripture” (1 Tim. 4:13, ESV).

At Grace Church, we don’t include the reading of Scripture in the order of service just to fill some time and space in our worship.

We don’t include it for the purpose of giving you a cute little anecdote, or something interesting to think about.

We include it so that it may overwhelm and transform your life.

We believe that the Word has infinite power and purpose when it goes forth.

It has power to save and to transform even the vilest sinner, the one that everyone else has given up on and forsaken. Read more »

Destroying the Works of the Devil

The following is a short gospel message that was preached to the poor and homeless at a special worship outreach and feeding on April 16th:

This evening, I want to share a few words about a people who were severely afflicted and oppressed; and a few words about the God who heard their cry and delivered them out from under the hands of those who were causing their suffering.

Before the time of Moses, the ancient Egyptians enslaved the people of Israel and “made their lives bitter with hard service,” treating them “ruthlessly,” (Ex. 1:14) the leaders even going so far as ordering that all male Hebrew children be killed immediately after birth (Ex. 1:15-22). Read more »

On “Therapeutic Spirituality”

Frequently, I dialogue with nice, moral people who genuinely believe that they are “good” and that Jesus came to help them discover their ultimate potential in life. They believe that he can help them by unleashing some kind of untapped, or dormant, power inside of them.

I’ve asked people who believe this sort of thing to explain to me what they believe Jesus meant when he said, “You must be born again” (John 3:7). Usually, I get an explanation that sounds something like this: “Well, Jesus can help us discover how much love and greatness we have inside of ourselves so that we can live better lives.”

In this type of religious system, Jesus the omnipotent God-man is reduced little more than a self-help guru. Sort of like Tony Robbins with a halo.

Those who are deceived (or have deceived themselves) into thinking such strange and unbiblical things are usually people who have some type of (very) limited knowledge of the teachings of Scripture, attend church on occasion (either presently or in their past), and know some facts about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. I confess that, in the months leading up to the day I was saved, I believed something very similar to what I described above (although, for the life of me, I don’t believe I could have offered such a creative explanation as to what being “born again” meant).

Following are some excerpts from a fabulous book I am currently reading and re-reading. In it, the author adeptly addresses the type of culturally-popular / ungodly / vapid / powerless / counterfeit “spirituality” I just described above.

Excerpts from Michael Horton, The Gospel-Driven Life (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2009), 78-80:

“Spirituality” is as successful as materialism in feeding our narcissism. Keeping us preoccupied with our inner self and its experiences, morality, and activity, the “search for the sacred” is as godless as atheism. There are plenty of resources on the market to feed our culture’s anxiety over self-improvement. But they are all different ways of dressing up the old Adam. Furthermore, their moralistic prescriptions never actually reduce stress but pile more expectations upon us to try to make ourselves acceptable to God.

We are not sick, but spiritually dead. We are not good people with room for improvement, but the ungodly. We are not children who need a little direction, but lost. The gospel comes not to help us get our act together, fixing us up for a night on the town, making us more respectable to ourselves or others. Rather, it comes to kill us and make us alive as completely new creatures. Not a new and improved self, but a self buried and raised with Christ, is the gospel’s message of genuine transformation.

Moralistic, therapeutic spirituality is part of that narcissistic complex about which Paul warned Timothy that makes us “lovers of self…, having an appearance of godliness, but denying its power” (2 Tim. 3:2, 5). And the power that it denies is the announcement of free justification in Christ, apart from works. The power of God does not lie in programs, strategies, self-help formulas, seven steps to a better life, or political reform. Like someone trapped in a burning building, we cannot rescue ourselves. There is no hope inside of us! There are no inner resources or possibilities – no Archimedean point at which we might pry ourselves open to God and begin to climb the stairway to heaven. Our whole nature is in bondage to sin, so we cannot even repair our condition by an act of the will. Our only hope lies outside of us, from the God who rescues us in his Son! Paul said that he was “not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Rom. 1:16)….

This gospel – the Good News of God’s justification of sinners in Christ – …is the ocean that we swim in, the air that we breathe, the identity that defines us….

The gospel is not a general belief in heaven and hell or hope for a better life beyond; it is not even confidence in a resurrection at the end of the age. It is the announcement that Jesus Christ himself is our life, for he is our peace with God. He does not merely show us the way; he is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6).

A Review of Boyd’s “The Myth of a Christian Religion”

Following is a brief review of Gregory A. Boyd, The Myth of a Christian Religion: Losing Your Religion for the Beauty of a Revolution (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009).

This is a book that describes what it looks like to live submitted to the lordship of Jesus Christ in twenty-first century America. Boyd addresses the sad and discouraging fact that many professing Christians appear to be totally submerged in the worldly norms and values of our fallen and wicked culture. In this, they are “indistinguishable” from the agnostics, atheists, and peoples of other faiths around them. There is a “radical contradiction between the lifestyle Jesus calls his followers to embrace…and the typical American lifestyle” (11). Boyd calls on Christ-followers to embrace the extreme counter-cultural call of the gospel and lifestyle of the Kingdom.

At the heart of much of our consumer-oriented evangelicalism today is the “magical” sinner’s prayer. Boyd points out that the misuse of Romans 10:13 has done much to empty the gospel of its saving power: “We’re basically [teaching people to purchase] fire insurance with a magical prayer” (167). This has, in my opinion, created legions of unconverted, unloving, gospel-inoculated, church-going sinners who may mistakenly believe that they are co-heirs with Jesus Christ in His Kingdom. People who have no intention of submitting their lives to the lordship of Jesus Christ have placed their trust in the power of a prayer rather than in the power of the One who commands their ultimate love, affection, and allegiance. The object of the prayer is thus ignored in pursuit of the prayer itself. In this, modern evangelical Christianity has become no different than the pagan religions of the world, with their magical incantations and recitations.

Boyd points out that a saving relationship with Christ “must be one of submission. We are ‘saved’ when we authentically surrender our life to Christ, enthroning him as Lord” (167). The remainder of this work details what it looks like, from a biblical perspective, to live out the radical implications of the lordship of Christ in our daily lives.

After two foundational and introductory chapters on the nature of the church universal and the separate nature of the “two kingdoms” (the Kingdom of the Cross and the Kingdom of the Sword) that many evangelicals tend to so easily confuse and conflate, Boyd concisely and adeptly tackles what I believe to the largest issues confronting the body of Christ in America today: heart idolatry, judgmentalism, religiosity, Western individualism, nationalism/patriotism, violence, social oppression, racism, poverty and greed, abuse of the creation, sex, and secularism. A failure to live like Christ in each of these areas has done much damage to the church’s gospel witness and credibility.

This book may be extremely difficult and challenging for many within the conservative evangelical church. All the more reason, then, to honestly and openly engage the truth it contains. I commend Boyd for the courage it took to write this book and to take the bold stand that he takes for the Kingdom and the cause of Christ.

Christmas – A Celebration for Notable Sinners

Christmas – A Celebration for Notable Sinners

Dr. John P. Davis

In preaching on Matthew’s record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ in Matthew 1:1-17, I was wonderfully reminded of the grace of God in giving us a Savior who is not deterred by our great sinfulness. One point of my message that day was on how the genealogy of Christ contains the names of notable sinners. They are notable because they stand out in the genealogy, though everyone (except Jesus) in that genealogical record is a sinner.

It was unusual in ancient genealogies to include the names of women. Their inclusion in Matthew is not necessary to establish any legal point so they must be included for a theological purpose.

Tamar, Rahab, and Bathsheba share something in common. They have notoriety in Scripture partly because of their moral failures. In our self-righteousness and pride we would exclude names of those with whom we do not want to be identified. Jesus doesn’t.

Tamar was the daughter-in-law of Judah. Her husband died and left her childless so it was the next son’s responsibility to take her as wife and continue the family name through her. He refused to do so and Judah did not demand it. Tamar sought justice but in an unrighteous way. She posed as a harlot and seduced her father-in-law and bore twins through her father-in-law. So her father-in-law is a philanderer and she is a prostitute. This is the ancestry of Jesus Christ. I know this story sounds like a Hollywood soap opera, but it is real life where sinners, even those who know better, do sordid and horrible things. Matthew doesn’t hide it. Jesus identifies with them. Jesus came as a friend of sinners, to call them to repentance, and to give his life for them.

Rahab even when spoken of in the NT is called Rahab, the harlot. Though she came to faith in the true and living God she doesn’t seemed to have outlived her prior reputation. She married one of the descendants of Judah through whom the Messiah would come. Salmon must have seen in this harlot a transformation of God’s grace that brought him to marry her or perhaps he was sordidly attracted by her reputation. She becomes the great, great grandmother of King David. She is a marvelous picture of God’s redeeming and transforming grace.

Bathsheba is noted in Scripture for being not only the mother of Solomon but the woman involved in bringing King David to the lowest point in his kingdom. Though she was seduced by David, she surrendered to his seduction, and became pregnant. David had her husband killed, then married Bathsheba and bore a child whom God did not allow to live. Nevertheless, God in his grace gave another son, Solomon, the heir to the kingdom.

Jesus’ genealogy includes notable sinners because he comes for sinners. He identifies with sinners in his incarnation and in his death. Whatever your sin may be, you are not so bad that Jesus would not identify with you. He came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.

This is our Savior. And let me say, that until you have seen yourself as a notable sinner, you will not know the power of the grace of Jesus Christ. He came for sinners.

When you trace the genealogy of Jesus that follows Him, i.e. those who are his descendants by faith, you find the names of notable sinners. One of those names is John P. Davis – a sinner saved by grace. This is the blessing of Christmas.

THE GOSPEL AND TRANSFORMATION (notes from message on 11/15/09)

The Gospel and Transformation

2 Corinthians 3:7-18
⁷ ¶ Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, ⁸ will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? ⁹ For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory. ¹⁰ Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all, because of the glory that surpasses it. ¹¹ For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory. ¹² ¶ Since we have such a hope, we are very bold,, ¹³ not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end. ¹⁴ But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away.

¹⁵ Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts. ¹⁶ But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. ¹⁷ Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. ¹⁸ And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

Introduction:

I was in a conversation recently with someone talking about a counseling situation where the young man had created an alter ego. He came from a Christian home with parents who desired the best for him so from the beginning they named him Samuel, after the prophet who obeyed God. To him Christianity was all about obeying and pleasing God and earning his favor. He knew little of grace and became weary of trying to be Samuel. So he created Saul, another personality that would rebel against God and enjoy the pleasures of sin. He would revert back and forth from Samuel to Saul, between striving to please and living for his own selfish desires. He found happiness and peace in neither personality. In themselves, neither striving to be Samuel or Saul could lead to peace. Together, eventually it led to a psychological breakdown.

Now you may say, that’s pretty weird, but if you think about it, you can identify with either one of his personalities or maybe both. You live striving to please God but are wearied by it; or you live running from God and still wearied by it (or maybe you live a life of duplicity).

What the Samuel and Saul personalities have in common is that they both focus on the power of self to achieve happiness through obedience or through rebellion and the inevitable emptiness that results from both.

We are looking at text today that talks about the glory of God : 1) the glory of the Old Covenant (the law) represented by the reflection on Moses’ face; 2) the glory of the New Covenant represented by the person and work of Jesus Christ.

By ‘glory’ is meant a ‘a reflection of who God is.’ It is the same God behind the glory of the law and the glory of the gospel. Both the law and the gospel reveal the holiness of God.

In the law, the holiness of God is not propitiated (i.e. to take away the wrath and displeasure)

In the gospel the holiness of God is propitiated by the blood of Christ (Romans 3:24).

In the law, the un-propitiated holiness of God induces fear ( ³⁰
Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, and behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him. )

This fear exists because when sinful beings are confronted by God’s holiness they can only cry out as Isaiah the prophet did – Woe is me!

In fear people do one of two things: 1) they attempt to appease God by an obedience that earns his favor; 2) they run from God abandoning any hope of having his favor.

We try to manage this fear of God’s glory either by running from the glory or trying to appease the glory. Either way is futile. Neither Samuel nor Saul is the model for us.

Though there is a third option: As Isaiah, we can receive cleansing from God. The law reveals to us our need of God’s mercy and forgiveness.

To alleviate this fear, every time Moses’ came from the presence of God he would put a veil over his face.

Our text, here adds a little more information about what this veil accomplished. Not only did it alleviate the fear of the law; it hid the fact that the reflection on Moses’ face would have dissipated in time – it hid the fading glory – the temporary nature of the law and the true purpose of the law.

Furthermore, the people’s response to the display of God’s holiness revealed that another veil existed – a veil over their hearts. This veil over their hearts coupled with the veil over Moses’ face brought about a distortion of the law: Because of the veil, the fear inducing holiness of God became a feint memory and the fading glory of the law was hidden so that with veiled hearts and blinded minds, the law, instead of exposing one’s need of mercy, became for many the means of earning God’s favor.

When the condemning and fading nature of the law are veiled and the human heart is prevented from seeing clearly the purpose of the law, the law becomes misused as a means by which to earn God’s face.

Because of the veil, they could not see the outcome of the law – which is to bring us to Christ.

Only in Christ do we see that the glory of the law (with its ministry of condemnation and death) has faded away and is replaced by the unfading glory of the gospel (with its ministry of righteousness and life).

Christ is the end of the law to everyone who believes.

Romans 10:4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

In the gospel, the propitiated holiness of God invites us to enjoy the majesty and wonder of his Holiness.

In Christ, the veil is taken away from our hearts (this is the work of the Spirit in regeneration) and like Moses, with unveiled face, we come boldly into the presence of God. In contrast to Moses who hid the glory of God from the view of the people, we are bold to proclaim this unfading, life-giving and righteousness-giving glory of Christ.

Now here is the key to the relationship of the gospel and transformation in verse 18:

1. As we keep beholding, we are transformed into the image of the glory of Christ.
   

   This is the work of the Spirit who is none other than Yahweh of the OT. The same Lord who gave the law is the Lord of the gospel.
   

How are we transformed? – while beholding (keeping the glory of Christ, as revealed in the New Covenant, in focused view), the Spirit transforms us.

We are active in beholding the glory of Christ.

Why is this gaze upon the glory of the cross so crucial to transformation? Because the cross exposes your powerlessness and it’s only in being powerless that you experience the transforming power of God.

We are passive in the transformation that takes place. This is the work of the Spirit of God.

There is a similar pattern in 2 Cor 4: (being renewed while beholding)

2 Corinthians 4:16-18 Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. ¹⁷ For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, ¹⁸ as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal

2. Where do we behold the glory of Christ – in the New Covenant, in Christ, as he is revealed in Scripture, especially in the work of the gospel.

The Law – revealed the glory of God’s fierce holiness moving the heart to fear.

The gospel – reveals the glory of God’s propitiated holiness moving the heart to worship.

3. Who does the transforming? The Spirit of God.

4. This glory, rather than fading, increases – from glory to glory.
Moses reflected an intermittent fading glory of the law; we reflect a progressively increasing glory of the gospel.

“Consider well of the office, the bloodshed, and the holy life of Christ — His office is to expiate sin, and to destroy it. His blood was shed for it: his life condemned it. Love Christ, and thou wilt hate that which caused his death. Love him, and thou will be made more like him.” - Richard Baxter, quoted by Elyse Fitzpatrick and Dennis Johnson in Counsel from the Cross (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2009), 148.

“Isn’t it true, you know, that ultimately we become like what we worship?  If we worship money, we become materialistic.  If we worship power and prestige we become cold and calloused.  If we worship an idol, we become as spiritually dead and lifeless as a stone.  On the other hand, if we worship Christ, we will be conformed to His image.  If the veil is off and we behold the glory of the Lord that shines in the face of Jesus Christ, if He is our ever-increasing preoccupation then we are imperceptibly being transformed into His image by the Holy Spirit.  This is the goal of the new covenant and this monumental verse shows us the increasing glory of sanctification that takes place by the Holy Spirit in the new covenant.

Folks, ceremonial, sacramental, sacerdotal works-righteousness systems offer us nothing.  They didn’t offer anything to the Corinthians and they don’t offer anything to you either.  All you need is Christ.  All you need to do is get the veil off, look into the face of Jesus Christ, the Spirit of God begins the process of conforming you ever-increasingly into His image.  That’s what Christianity is.  It isn’t bells and whistles, it isn’t candles and robes, it isn’t Popes and Cardinals. Christianity is a relationship to Jesus Christ, it’s a one-thing life, gazing at the glory of the Lord that shines in the face of Jesus Christ and being transformed into His image.  It’s the relationship that matters” (John McArthur).

Conclusions:

1. Transformation is New Covenant centered, which is gospel-centered, which is Christ centered.
   
2. Transformation involves our action in contemplating the glory of the Lord.- primarily in the Word which we fail to read properly if we do not see the glory of Christ in the gospel
   
3. Transformation takes place by work of the Spirit as we contemplate Christ, as revealed in the Word.
   
4. Transformation is true freedom from trying to achieve God’s favor on our own.

Grace Gathering Video – Pastor John Davis

Dr. John Davis speaking on justification and the glory of God on 11-15-09.

Grace Gathering Video – Pastor John Davis (Part Three)

Part Four here.

Grace Gathering Video – Pastor John Davis (Part One)

Our Motivation for Serving the Poor

The following was prepared for a “Grace Gathering” of Grace Church of Philly:

At later times, Lord willing, we will get into discussions about the who, what, where,and the how of serving the poor. But before those conversations take place, I think it necessary to briefly cover the why of mercy ministries.

Examining the why of anything is to investigate the foundations of doing what we do. Without a proper and biblical why, we are doomed to serve others out of improper motives, which can hurt both the poor and ourselves in the process.

Why do we serve the poor? Because of Jesus. And because of His gospel.

Mercy ministries find their root and are ultimately grounded in the person, life, and work of Jesus Christ our Savior.

If the ultimate goal of our life is to serve and minister in a way that is Christ-centered for the glory of God the Father, then we will necessarily be powered and equipped for such service by the Holy Spirit Himself, and not our own desires, religious or otherwise.

If the eyes of our heart are continually fixed on the great sacrifice of Christ on the cross, we will see the great and precious value that each person has in His sight.

Christ-centeredness produces other-centeredness. It cannot do otherwise.

Mercy ministries also find their heritage in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

If we are continually and daily preaching the gospel of God’s grace to ourselves, we are empowered to live out this gospel of grace by serving the poor and disenfranchised.

It is the gospel that is the power of God both unto salvation and that spurs good works.

Every young Christian knows Ephesians 2:8-9, which says: For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

I’m convinced that v. 10 is frequently overlooked in its significance for Christian living: For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

By looking at these verses as a unit (and not in atomistic isolation) we see that the gospel of God’s grace saves us not only from sin and death, but saves us from the prison of selfishness that was our former life.

While we formerly lived as children of wrath, imprisoned “in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of” our bodies and minds (v. 3), by the power of the gospel we are “created in Christ Jesus for good works,” freed to serve others with the love that God has poured into our hearts by His Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5).

Gospel-centeredness produces other-centeredness. It cannot do otherwise.

Why do we serve the poor? Because we are radically committed to Jesus Christ and His saving gospel.

It is through ministry to the poor that we worship God the Father, bringing Him glory by the power of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 12:1-2).

(The next in this short series is “Our Identity in Serving the Poor.”)