Anyone taking Vince’s prayer class?  This quotation may be particularly meaningful:

“Prayer is the language of a man burdened with a sense of need.”
-E.M. Bounds, quoted by Steve Wright, reThink, 118.

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So yesterday I got to preach about the second person of the Trinity: the Majesty of the Son.  This was one of the hardest messages I’ve done; what words could I possibly use to describe the glory and majesty and mystery of the Trinity.  Basically, my message yesterday me saying, “Hey, I’m going to go worship the Triune God, wanna come with?”

We looked at Matthew 3:13-17 and reviewed three important ideas:

1. God is a Trinity
2. The Son is Fully God
3. The Doctrine of the Trinity Leads Us To Worship

Here are some of the quotations that I ran across in my preparation that I couldn’t use:

“No sooner do I conceive of the one than I am illumined by the splendour of the three; no sooner do I distinguish them than I am carried back to the one.  When I think of any one of the three I think of him as the whole, and my eyes are filled, and the greater part of what I am thinking escapes me.  I cannot grasp the greatness of that one so as to attribute a greater greatness to the rest.  When I contemplate the three together, I see but one torch, and cannot divide or measure out the undivided light.”  Gregory Nazianzen, Orations on Holy Baptism, 40.41

“Just about everything that matters in Christianity hangs on God’s three-in-oneness.”  Bruce Milne, Know the Truth, 78.

“The next thing less than the infinite is infinitely less.”  J. Gresham Machen, quoted in Stephen Nichols, For Us and For Our Salvation, 60.

“For who even of slight intelligence does not understand that, as nurses commonly do with infants, God is wont in a measure to “lisp” in speaking to us?  Thus such forms of speaking do not so much express clearly what God is like as accommodate the knowledge of him to our slight capacity.”  John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, Vol 1, p. 120.

Categories: Monday Matters
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I’ve had a few requests for the playlist from five15 on Saturday:

Enjoy! Thanks again, Sara, for assembling this.

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Ran across this as I prepared for my church history class:

“There is not one little blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make men rejoice.” - John Calvin

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Yesterday, Vince helped us think about the first member of the Trinity: God the Father.  Three helpful points:

1. The Father is Fully God
2. The Father is Supreme in the Godhead
3. The Father is Our Father

I quote really encouraged me:

“To be right with God the Judge is a great thing, but to be loved and cared for by God the Father is a greater.”  J.I. Packer, Knowing God, 207.

To many people think about God the Father in light of their own experience with their human father.  This is backwards.  God the Father is a perfect, loving, compassionate Father who “so loved the world, he sent his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”  Truths like this should lead us to worship with all our might!

Categories: Monday Matters
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Last night was part 3 of Push Back: on Dating. The bottom line:

Push Back by opening your Bible and seeking to walk out relationships based on God’s Word. Push Back by honoring your parents and their desires for your relationships.

There are too many lies that are too easy to believe. Our culture is constantly pressing on us, trying to persuade us to follow its path. Trying to find satisfaction in joy in anything without God will ultimately fail:

“…you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you. Augustine, Confessions, translated by Henry Chadwick, 3.

We need to get our perspectives on relationships from God’s Word…

“In the same way that hunger alone tells us nothing about eating nutritionally, our passions and urges do not teach us about loving well.” John Ensor, Doing Things Right in Matters of the Heart, 44.

Another great quote:

“Loving God first as a matter of the heart puts all our other loves in their rightful place and in their right proportion… If we do not seek our happiness in God and make him our perfect and everlasting happiness, then every good thing becomes a substitute for God; it becomes an idol.” John Ensor, Doing Things Right in Matters of the Heart, 46.

We learn a lot about how God wants us to act in Paul’s instructions to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:12:

“Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example
in speech,
in conduct,
in love,
in faith,
in purity.”

So here are five ways to glorify God and serve others in relationships.  More on each of these this week.

In the meantime, don’t forget the gospel!  If this is an area in which you have sinned, that sin is serious, but it is forgivable:

“Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper,
but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.” (Pr. 28:13)

Categories: Push Back
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Here are the quotes I read at Rocket…

First, Randy Alcorn, on soberly assessing the direction of our lives:

“Alfred Nobel was a Swedish chemist who made his fortune inventing dynamite and other powerful explosives, which were bought by governments to produce weapons. When Nobel’s brother died, one newspaper accidentally printed Alfred’s obituary instead. When Alfred read it, he saw himself described as a man who became rich from enabling people to kill each other in unprecedented quantities. Shaken from this assessment of his life, Nobel resolved to use his fortune to reward accomplishments that benefited humanity. One of the many rewards he funded was the Nobel Peace Prize.

“Nobel had a rare opportunity—to look at the assessment of his life at its end, but to still be alive and have opportunity to change that assessment.

“Let’s put ourselves in Nobel’s place. Let’s read [or write!] our own obituary—not as written by uninformed or biased men, but as an onlooking angel might write it.” Randy Alcorn, In Light of Eternity, 154.

This is the story that prompted us to write our own obituaries:

• ______________ was well known for…
• ______________ spent free time…
• Friends of ______________ said that the most important thing in the world to him/her was…
• ______________ hoped to devote his/her life to…
• Three words that described ______________ are:
• ______________ made a difference in the lives of others by…

And Charles Spurgeon on the church:

“I know there are some who say, “Well, I have given myself to the Lord, but I do not intend to give myself to the church.”

“Now why not?

” ‘Because I can be a Christian without it.’

“Are you quite clear about that? You can be as good a Christian by disobedience to your Lord’s commands as by being obedient?

“What is a brick made for? To help build a house. It is of no use for that brick to tell you that it is just as good a brick while it is kicking about on the ground as it would be in the house. It is a good-for-nothing brick.” Charles Spurgeon, in Josh Harris, Stop Dating the Church, 45-46.

Categories: Rocket—08, five15 blog
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I try to make a point of remembering this verse every time it snows:

“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord:
though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool.”
Isaiah 1:18

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BIG MEETING on Saturday! Remember, because of the football game last time, we made changed this to a BIG MEETING. Installment 3 of Push Back comes our way at the Saturday night. Show up and tune in for the dating message.

A sneak peek:

“In the same way that hunger alone tells us nothing about eating nutritionally, our passions and urges do not teach us about loving well.” John Ensor, Doing Things Right in Matters of the Heart, 44.

“You stir man to take pleasure in praising you, because you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you. Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick, 3.

Categories: Push Back
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Parents, here are the Rocket Discussion questions, in case you lost your booklet:

MESSAGE 1 DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

• What is a Christian?
• How does a person become a Christian?
• Do you think you are a Christian?
• If yes, why? When did you become a Christian? How confident are you that you will go to heaven when you die?
• If no, what do you think it means to become a Christian? What is keeping you from becoming a Christian?
• What are you living for?
• What do you get most excited about?
• What do you think about in your free time?
• If you had an entire day that was yours to spend however you wanted, what would you do?
• Talk about your obituary.

MESSAGE 2 DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

• What does our world tell us that parents are for?
• What does the Bible tell us that parents are for?
• How am I doing as a dad/mom?
• If you knew for sure that I wouldn’t get angry, is there anything you’d want to tell me about my parenting?
• What are Dad and Mom most passionate about?
• Do I act the same at church as I do when I’m at home? Can you give me some examples?
• Are you aware of my love for you?
• Is there any way I’ve sinned against you that I’ve not repented of?
• Do you have any observations for me?
• Does my relationship with Dad/Mom make you excited to be married?

MESSAGE 3 DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

• What do you get most excited about?
• What do you think I get most excited about?
• What does God get most excited about?
• Describe your level of passion for the church.
• How is God calling you to grow in passion for the church?
• Where is God calling you to serve in the church?

MORE DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FOR LATER ON

• What did you enjoy most about Rocket?
• How did God meet you at Rocket?
• What did you learn?
• Who did you get to know that you didn’t know before?
• What is one way you’ve been encouraged?
• Based on what you heard at Rocket, what is one change you think God is leading you to make in your life?
• What is one step you can take to make that change?
• How can I help you make that change?
• Who can you encourage at church tomorrow for how you saw God’s grace in their life today?

Categories: Discussion Questions, Rocket—08, Thursday Thoughts For Parents
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