Glen Burnie Evangelical Presbyterian Church

First, We Lament

My favorite seminary prof, Richard Pratt once pointed out that it is curious how often we evangelicals tell each other not to ask "why?" when tragedy strikes, when "why?" is the question most frequently asked of God in the Bible.

There is a bit of a good reason for this - though the question "why?" is often asked in the Bible it is seldom answered, at least in the way we think it should be.  Sometimes it is, but often it isn't.

But the question "why?" gets at a forgotten aspect of godly living, and that is the aspect of sorrow and lamentation.

Jonathan Edwards Institute 2

Sinclair Ferguson's second message of the Jonathan Edwards Institute conference was titled "The Trinity: The Life of God in the Soul of Man."  His texts are John 14:15-24 and Romans 8:1-39.  My notes on his message follow.

The Trinitarianness flows through the whole of these passages.

The work of redemption in its entirety is necessary for redemption.  It takes the entire Trinity to save one soul.  It has taken nothing less than the love and power of the Triune God to bring me back into fellowship with Him and to save the church of Jesus Christ.

The whole of the Christian life is bracketed by its Trinitarian nature.  Our entrance into the Christian life is marked by the Trinitarian sacrament of baptism.

Sinclair wishes we would stop inventing benedictions and simply remember that the whole of the Christian life and the bookend of our Christiain life is that we live under the benediction of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  The benediction is the pronouncement of the blessing of the Triune God on you.  Open your eyes and see the eyes of the Triune God pursuing you from this worship service.

Jonathan Edwards Institute, 1

This week I am attending the Jonathan Edwards Institute Conference in Annapolis and am being very well fed spiritually.  I thought I would share with you some of the notes I am taking at the conference so that you might be edified as well.

The opening session today was taught by Dr. Sinclair Ferguson, professor of systematic theology at Westminster Theological Seminary.  The title of his message was: "The Trinity: The Life of God in the World of Eternity." His text was John 17 - the Farewell Discourse.  What follows are the notes I took on his lecture.

In our evangelical circles there is the perception that the doctrine of the Trinity is speculative and impractical. For example, the original print run for the book Knowing God, by J. I. Packer was 2000 and the publisher wasn't sure they would be able to sell the 2000.   This is an indicator of the a move in the spirit of evangelicals.  We take it for granted that knowing God belongs at the epicenter of being a Christian, but this is not the case.

What to others may have seemed to be speculative was to our Lord Jesus Christ the very anchor of His existence. Where do you find strength for a soul that is exceedingly sorrowful unto death.  Christ finds it in the knowledge of God the Trinity and all that this means.

With death closing in Christ gives His disciples some of the most rarefied lessons on the doctrine of the Trinity in the entire New Testament.  The whole of the NT Scriptures are interlaced with the persons of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Terri Schiavo and Lost Causes

With the passing of Terri Schiavo today it seems that not only have her advocates lost a mighty battle, but that those who advocate a culture of life have lost an important battle. Yet, though a life has been lost and a cause has been lost, the cause itself is not lost.

To be sure, over these last few weeks as I have engaged the issues I have seen that the issues surrounding the life and death saga are far more complex than I originally thought.  

There is the issue of defining exactly what we mean by the phrase “extraordinary measures.” Personally, I don’t buy the argument that a feeding tube is an “extraordinary measure.” Several times I have heard advocates for removal of the feeding tube say that, in times gone by, people in Terri’s condition would have died naturally, having no access to a feeding tube. Thus, we can “let nature take its course.” But that is a silly argument in my mind – none of us want to allow nature to take its course. This is why we immunize our kids and why we give them penicillin when they have an infection. Vaccines for polio and smallpox were invented for the purpose of interfering with the course of nature. In Terri’s case, a feeding tube was simply an alternative means of delivering nutrition to her. Since when is providing nutrition an “extraordinary measure?”

Pastor's Column for 2-2-05 - My Journey Into Grace Part 3

Follow this link for My Journey into Grace Part 1

Follow this link for My Journey into Grace Part 2

III. Conversion and Early Christian Life

            Growing up I was a pretty insecure kid. I was raised by mother and stepfather, who truly loved me. But, my stepfather was an alcoholic and there are consequences of that. For me one of the consequences was a feeling of insecurity.

            To add to that, my life was the equivalent of a B-movie. No, my life wasn’t filled with tomatoes that ate Pittsburgh, or aliens from the planet Zyborg. I was on the B-list in everything I did, not the A-list.

            My grades were in the B to C range. I loved athletics and was always good enough to make the team (often because there were no cuts) but never good enough to start. I was friends with lots of the popular kids but wasn’t in the “inner circle,” of popularity. I could get a few dates here and there, but the young ladies weren’t exactly lining up outside my door, and I usually got dumped after a few dates. But I deeply wanted to be accepted by the “in-crowd” wherever they could be found.

Pastor's Column for 2-1-05 - My Journey Into Grace Part 2

Follow this link for My Journey Into Grace Part 1

II. Setting the Stage

Tim Keller is the pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, and he has this to say about Redeemer’s ministry:

At the heart of Redeemer's ministry and its philosophy of preaching to post-modern audiences is the conviction that "the gospel" is not just a way to be saved from the penalty of sin, but is the fundamental dynamic for living the whole Christian life--individually and corporately, privately and publicly. In other words, the gospel is not just for non-Christians, but also for Christians. This means the gospel is not just the A-B-C's but the A to Z of the Christian life. It is not accurate to think 'the gospel' is what saves non-Christians, and then, what matures Christians is trying hard to live according to Biblical principles. It is more accurate to say that we are saved by believing the gospel, and then we are transformed in every part of our mind, heart, and life by believing the gospel more and more deeply as our life goes on.

The gospel is "I am accepted through Christ, therefore I obey" while every other religion operates on the principle of "I obey, therefore I am accepted." Martin Luther's fundamental insight was that this latter principle, the principle of 'religion' is the deep default mode of the human heart. The heart continues to work in that way even after conversion to Christ. Though we recognize and embrace the principle of the gospel, our hearts will always be trying to return to the mode of self-salvation, which leads to spiritual deadness, pride and strife and ministry ineffectiveness.

That is the story of my Christian life – going from “the gospel as A-B-C” to “the gospel as A to Z.” I had a wonderful conversion to Christ at the age of 16, where I genuinely came to know Christ as my Lord, Savior, King and Best friend. But somehow, over the years, I lost something in the Christian life. What I lost was that “gospel is A to Z” understanding of Christianity. Like many I believed that the gospel, through faith in the atoning work of Christ, got you into the faith, but obedience was what sustained you and enabled you to grow in the faith. As Keller said, I recognized and embraced the principle of the gospel, but my heart was always returning to the mode of self salvation, which produced spiritual deadness, pride, strife, and ministry ineffectiveness in me.

 

Pastor's Column for 1-31-05 - My Journey Into Grace Part 1

A couple of months ago the session asked me to write two pamphlets for us to put in our literature rack.  One was to be directed toward Christians and the other toward non-Christians.  We were hoping that we could have something that you might share with your friends and neighbors that would be helpful, and that you could say "my pastor wrote this."  This way, they would be hearing from someone who is local, whom they might be able to get to know.

As I have thought about this, it occurs to me that one of the best things I could write would be my own testimony.  After all, I know more about my own testimony than anything else, so why not share it.

Yesterday I shared a bit of it during the sermon and was told by many that it ministered to them.  My hope was that, my own journey in grace would encourage you as you seek to know and experience more of God's grace.

As I mentioned in the sermon, my testimony is one that has far more failure in it than anything else.  I hope that this will be encouraging to many of you who live with a sense of failure - the sense that you are not measuring up to what you think you should be for Christ.  On the other hand, if there is anyone out there who considers themselves to be a spiritual success, I hope my testimony will be used to humble you the way God has humbled me.

So, I am now writing this testimony and we will print it and have it available for you in a brochure format in the near future.  However, to start with I'll go ahead and post excerpts from my testimony here on our web site for your reading. 

If you are still with me and want to keep reading, what follows is an introduction and an account of my early years in the faith. 

Pastor's Column for 1-25-05

I hope that everyone had a restful day off this week and that all of you enjoyed the snow.  I don't like cancelling church, but sometimes it is the best thing to do in the interest of safety.  I"m looking forward to re-joining the GBEPC family in worship this Sunday morning, everything will be on schedule as usual.

As you can tell we are redesigning our website to make it more useful to you.  Those in the know in internet circles talk about static and dynamic websites.  A static website is one that has the same content pretty much all of the time.  A dynamic website is one that changes content regularly.