Saturday night, we took some time to pray for our friend Alyssa. 10 year old daughter of Lou and Lisa, Alyssa was told last week that she has lymphoma, a form of cancer. Her brother Phil has created a website to provide us updates of her condition and treatment: AlyssaGallo.com:

Here is a starter list of some ways to pray for Alyssa:

• That Alyssa and her family would remain steadfast in trusting God through this painful suffering
• That God would heal Alyssa
• That God would protect Alyssa and her family from fear
• That God would give Alyssa’s doctors clarity about what type of lymphoma this is and how to treat it

And here are some verses you can use to pray for Alyssa:

• Isaiah 41:10
• Psalm 18:1-2
• Hebrews 13:20-21
• Psalm 34:19

Thanks for praying for our friend!

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After the worship and ministry night Saturday night, we are going to enjoy something special: an ice cream sundae bar. I’m crazy about ice cream, and for most flavors of ice cream, I like to smother my scoops in piles of crunchy stuff. (The obvious exception is Breyer’s Mint Chocolate Chip which is as close to perfect ice cream as one can hope to get this side of glory.)

We’ll provide the ice cream, but this is a BYOICT event: bring your own ice cream toppings. And not just to horde but to share with all! Sprinkles, caramel, nuts, whatever: bring a bottle and we’ll dig in.

See you Saturday night.

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That was how C.J. described the opportunity we had tonight: listening to Dr. R.C. Sproul exposit Isaiah 6:1-8, helping us see and appreciate the holiness of God.

I really liked how Dr. Sproul described his conversion: he said, “I realized that God plays for keeps. If I am going to serve him I can’t play around.” A very good point. But the message wasn’t about Dr. Sproul’s conversion, it was about the holiness of God.

There are a lot of things that were said in this message, but I thought one of the most important of them is that the holiness of God is not just one attribute among many, but it is the sum and substance of all of God’s attributes. In other words, his mercy is a holy mercy, his justice is a holy justice, and so on. Dr. Sproul pointed out that it is too easy to be too familiar with God. While our adoption into God’s family does mean that we can call him “Abba, father”, we must be careful. He is still the transcendent Holy One. He is not our buddy. In fact, Dr. Sproul began the message by pointing out that some of the giants of the faith like Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, and Edwards had this in common: they all possessed an overwhelming sense of the majesty of God.

Do you feel an overwhelming sense of the majesty of God? If not, why not? Go and read Isaiah 6:1-8 and see if that doesn’t help. Re-read the first couple chapters of The Holiness of God. We need to be reminded—often—of the soaring greatness and the blazing holiness of God. As A. W. Tozer says, “The most important thing about us is what comes into our minds when we think about God.” If we’re not amazed at God’s holiness, we’re not going to be motivated to live for him. Our worship will be limp and lifeless. Our prayers will be rote and mechanical. Joy and gratitude will flee from us. Understanding the holiness of God is the ticket to vibrant, passionate Christianity.

Can you believe we get to hear teaching like this? If you didn’t come, well… you missed out. Remember that part 2 is tomorrow night, also free, also at 7pm.

For those of you who were here, what did you think?

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Tonight the Sovereign Grace Ministries Leadership Conference begins. We (your pastoral team and their wives) would be very grateful for your prayers. In particular, you could pray:

• For C.J., R.C. Sproul, David Powlison, and the other speakers, that God would give them grace and speak to us through them
• That we would be refreshed and equipped by the teaching
• That our love for one another would increase
• That we would experience conviction where necessary and grace to change
• That we would love the Savior more
• That God would protect our families while we are gone

Hope to see you tonight and tomorrow night at Dr. R.C. Sproul’s sessions!

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five15 BIG MEETING on Saturday!

We’ve got a little change of plans: we’re going to use this meeting as a Worship & Ministry Night. The idea here is to devote our time to worshiping God, praying for one another, and using the spiritual gifts God has given us to serve one another.

You have a choice to make here: you can just show up on Saturday night and probably get something meaningful out of our time together. Or with just a small bit of preparation, you can come ready to encounter God and serve others. Here are two suggestions to prepare for the meeting:

1. Read Psalms 98-100. How does God want you to worship Him? Why does God want you to worship Him?
2. Read 1 Corinthians 14:1. We love others by using our gifts to serve them. Pray that God would stir up spiritual gifts (especially prophecy) in your heart and in five15.

See you Saturday night!

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Ok, my series of posts on the Three Trees got rather stuck.  Things like that happen with a new baby.  Let me refer you to the various parts: Overview, Heat, Bad Fruit, Bad Root, Consequences, and Redeemer.

If you’d like to learn more (which I highly recommend), get the book How People Change by Timothy Lane and Paul Tripp. The first full-length explanation of the Three Trees, this book provides very thorough and practical help for using the diagram and actually changing.  It’s in the bookstore.

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My Tori.

With that, the blog takes a couple days off.

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The most important tree in The Three Trees diagram is the center one: the cross of Jesus Christ. Miss this tree, and you’ll be left choosing between self-despairing awareness of sin (the right tree) and self-righteous satisfaction with good-fruit performance (the left tree). How does the cross work in The Three Trees? Basically this: by answering the question, “Who is God and what does he say and do in Christ?”

The path of change from the bad-fruit tree to the good-fruit tree goes through the cross. The benefits of the cross are applied to our lives and put to work in the path of change through faith and repentance.

How does the reality of Christ’s finished work effect your circumstances and your heart? Will you turn from the lies you have practiced and believed? Will you believe the truth of the Gospels? We see a great example of this in the book of Ephesians. Read chapters 1-3 and consider the power of the gospel. You were dead but you’ve been made alive. Now read chapters 4-6 and see how the gospel can change the way we live: our words, thoughts, and actions.

In the same way, I love Philippians 2:12-13,

“…work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”

The command is there, to work out our salvation. But remember the “for“! Working out our salvation (moving from bad fruit to good fruit) is poosible because it is God who is at work in you!

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Part 4 probably isn’t hard. Heat happened, you sinned, here was an unhappy result. You might be still smarting from it. “What is the effect of your behavior?”

The challenge here is to honestly and humbly ask others what the consequences of your sin meant to them. In some cases, our sin is self-destructive; it doesn’t directly affect others. But often, it is against others, and humility demands that we inquire. It may mean taking it like a man (or a woman): the truth of how our sins have affected those we love may be hard to hear. But remember Psalm 141:5,

Let a righteous man strike me—it is a kindness;
let him rebuke me—it is oil for my head;
let my head not refuse it.

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Today in his sermon, Mark referred to the 10 best April Fools Day jokes of all time. He was referring to this list by Yahoo News. My favorites are food related:

— In 1996, American fast-food chain Taco Bell announced that it had bought Philadelphia’s Liberty Bell, a historic symbol of American independence, from the federal government and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell.

Outraged citizens called to express their anger before Taco Bell revealed the hoax. Then-White House press secretary Mike McCurry was asked about the sale and said the Lincoln Memorial in Washington had also been sold and was to be renamed the Ford Lincoln Mercury Memorial after the automotive giant.

– Burger King, another American fast-food chain, published a full-page advertisement in USA Today in 1998 announcing the introduction of the “Left-Handed Whopper,” specially designed for the 32 million left-handed Americans. According to the advertisement, the new burger included the same ingredients as the original, but the condiments were rotated 180 degrees. The chain said it received thousands of requests for the new burger, as well as orders for the original “right-handed” version.

(HT: JT)

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