This past Sunday (29th August), Matt Chapman (pictured left) led us in sharing the Lord’s Supper together, and did a brilliant job, turning our attention to the grace and love of God towards us, through the wonder of the gospel.

During his brief comments, he read a hymn that deeply affected me as it freshly redirected me to the most important person in history, the One of supreme value, the Son of God — Jesus Christ.

Matt kindly emailed it through, and I thought I’d share it with you again.  Trust it benefits your soul!

If I gained the world, but lost the Savior,
Were my life worth living for a day?
Could my yearning heart find rest and comfort
In the things that soon must pass away?
If I gained the world, but lost the Savior,
Would my gain be worth the lifelong strife?
Are all earthly pleasures worth comparing
For a moment with a Christ-filled life?

Had I wealth and love in fullest measure,
And a name revered both far and near,
Yet no hope beyond, no harbor waiting,
Where my storm-tossed vessel I could steer;
If I gained the world, but lost the Savior,
Who endured the cross and died for me,
Could then all the world afford a refuge,
Whither, in my anguish, I might flee?

O what emptiness!—without the Savior
‘Mid the sins and sorrows here below!
And eternity, how dark without Him!
Only night and tears and endless woe!
What, though I might live without the Savior,
When I come to die, how would it be?
O to face the valley’s gloom without Him!
And without Him all eternity!

O the joy of having all in Jesus!
What a balm the broken heart to heal!
Ne’er a sin so great, but He’ll forgive it,
Nor a sorrow that He does not feel!
If I have but Jesus, only Jesus,
Nothing else in all the world beside—
O then everything is mine in Jesus;
For my needs and more He will provide

– by Anne Orlander (1861-1939)

Here’s the quotes from the sermon preached on Sunday 23rd May 2010, entitled: New Life//New Words (Ephesians 4:29).

John Stott:
“Speech is a wonderful gift of God. It is one of our human capacities which reflects our likeness to God. For our God speaks, and like him we also speak. Speech distinguishes us from the animal creation. Cows can moo, dogs bark, donkeys bray, pigs grunt, lambs bleat, monkeys squeal and birds sing, but only human beings speak.”

Tullian Tchividjian:
“Words kill and words give life, they’re either poison or fruit – you choose. Words have not only destructive power but also life-giving power. They have massive potential for good and disastrous potential for evil. Our words can serve either to love or to hate, to encourage or to discourage. They have the power either to build up or tear down… That’s why Paul tells us that the church needs to be a community that use the gift of speech the way God intended, as we put off harmful words and put on helpful words… The church must be marked by a different language than the world exhibits, a peculiar speech. We must choose to speak redemptively. The sweetness and strength of the gospel – the sweetness of grace, the strength of truth – should flavour everything we say.”

Paul Tripp:
“We need to realise how “wordy” our lives actually are. Talk seems so normal, so ordinary, so unimportant, so harmless. Yet, there are few things we do that are more important. Words are powerful, important, significant. It was meant to be that way. When we speak we must speak with the realisation that God has given our words significance. He has ordained for them to be important. Words were significant in creation and at the fall. They are significant to redemption. God has given words value. So we must do all we can to assign words the importance that Scripture gives them.”

Bryan Chapell:
“Paul’s imperative (v.29) is far broader than we may expect or like. Christians are not allowed to say whatever they desire simply by rationalizing that we do not cuss or become corse. We are not even allowed to fall back upon some category of neutrality in rationalizing what we say, as in: ‘It doesn’t hurt anyone, so it’s all right to say.’ The apostle’s standard is that if it does not build up and benefit, then it is not worthy to be said.”

David Dickson:
“I have taken all my good deeds, and all my bad deeds, and have cast them together in a heap before the Lord, and have fled from both to Jesus Christ, and in Him I have sweet peace.”

Tullian Tchividjian:
“When we choose to speak redemptively — the way God intended — our words become a means of transforming grace. People encounter the grace of God as we give them a sense of who he is by the way we speak. You don’t have to be in an evangelistic conversation for your speech to be redemptive. When you treat others with your words the way that God has treated you, they’ll encounter his grace regardless of what the conversation is about. And in a world where words are so often used to destroy, this becomes a powerful exhibition of God’s kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven.”

We live in a society and culture that delights in complaining, the media seems to concentrate on the negative things that are taking place in our world.

The comedian Jack Dee makes a living out of looking miserable and complaining about everything.

We complain when it’s raining and we complain when it’s hot.

The Apostle Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

Famous Bible commentator Matthew Henry, after being robbed, once wrote this in his diary:

“Let me be thankful……
First, because I was never robbed before.
Second, because although they took my wallet they did not take my life.
Third, because although they took my all, it was not much.
Fourth, because it was I who was robbed, not I who robbed.”

I believe God wants us to live in “Joyful Gratitude“; and we can only do this when we understand and focus on what Christ has done for us in saving us and giving us the promise of eternal life.

William Law, in his “Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life” writes:

“Would you know who is the greatest saint in the world?  It is not he who prays most or fasts most; it is not he who gives most alms, or is most eminent for temperance, chastity, or justice, but it is he who is always thankful to God, who wills everything that God willeth, who received everything as an instance of God’s goodness, and has a heart always ready to praise God for it.”

In light of our recent series as a church studying Ephesians, and what we have been shown in Ephesians 1:3-14, this quote by John Owen from ‘Worldliness‘ edited by CJ Mahaney stands out as a great application to us of understanding God’s grace in our dealing with sin:

“When someone sets his affections upon the cross and the love of Christ, he crucifies the world as a dead and undesirable thing. The baits of sin lose their attraction and disappear. Fill your affections with the cross of Christ and you will find no room for sin.”

— John Owen

As described by Nathan, the cascade of enjoyment and awe that Paul writes about in Ephesians 1 can do nothing but turn the heart of the believer to praise and adoration to God, who not only saves, but adopts sinners like you and I!

In this quote, John Owen doesn’t just give us a way to dig our heals in, grit our teeth, close our eyes and resist the lure of the false promise of joy and life that sin offers.  No.  He calls us to fill our hearts with affection for the cross of Christ; God becoming man to seek, save and redeem the lost.

This is the way we will truly overcome temptation to pursue the sinful identity and life we have been saved from, so that we may live according to our new identity in Christ.

Let us do just this.  Let us use Paul’s letter to the Ephesians to fill our affections with the wondrous cross of our Saviour, God and King.

A few folks have sought me out to request a copy of the quotes I shared during Sunday’s sermon entitled, “The Father’s Grace, The Father’s Glory” from Ephesians 1:3-6.

So I thought I’d go ahead and post them here.

I hope they serve you as you reflect on the marvel that is God’s sovereign, electing, saving grace!

C.H. Spurgeon:

“When I was coming to Christ, I thought I was doing it all myself, and though I sought the Lord earnestly, I had no idea the Lord was seeking me.  I do not think the young convert is at first aware of this.  I can recall the very day and hour when I first received those truths of God’s sovereign grace in my own soul – when they were, as John Bunyan said, burnt into my heart as with a hot iron, and I can recollect how I felt that I had grown on a sudden from a babe into a man – that I had made progress in scriptural knowledge, through having found, once for all, the clue to the truth of God.  One week night, when I was in the house of God, I was not much thinking about the preacher’s sermon, for I did not believe it.  The thought struck me, How did you come to be a Christian?  I sought the Lord.  But how did you come to seek the Lord?  The truth flashed across my mind in a moment – I should not have sought him unless there had been some previous influence in my mind to make me seek him.  I prayed, thought I, but then I asked myself, How came I to pray?  I was induced to pray by reading the Scriptures.  How came I to read the Scriptures?  I did read them, but what lead me to do so?  Then, in a moment, I saw that God was at the bottom of it all, and that he was the Author of my faith, and so the doctrine of grace opened up to me, and from that doctrine I have not departed to this day, and I desire to make this my constant confession, ‘I ascribe me change wholly to God.’”

C.H Spurgeon:

“I believe the doctrine of election, because I am quite certain that, if God had not chosen me, I should never have chosen Him; and I am sure He chose me before I was born, or else He never would have chosen me afterwards; and He must have elected me for reasons unknown to me, for I never could find any reason in myself why He should have looked upon me with special love.”

J.I. Packer:

“The biblical doctrine of election is that before creation God selected out of the human race, foreseen as fallen, those whom he would redeem, bring to faith, justify, and glorify in and through Jesus Christ…  This divine choice is an expression of free and sovereign grace, for it is unconstrained and unconditional, not merited by anything in those who are its subjects.  God owes sinners no mercy of any kind, only condemnation; so it is a wonder, and matter for endless praise, that he should choose to save any of us; and doubly so when his choice involved the giving of his own son  to suffer as sin-bearer for the elect.”

Mark Webb:

“After giving a brief survey of these doctrines of sovereign grace, I asked for questions from the class.  One lady, in particular, was quite troubled.  She said, ‘This is the most awful thing I’ve ever heard! You make it sound as if God is intentionally turning away men and women who would be saved, receiving only the elect.’  I answered her in this vein: ‘You misunderstand the situation.  You’re visualizing that God is standing at the door of heaven, and men are thronging to get in the door, and God is saying to various ones, ‘Yes, you may come, but not you, and you, but not you, etc.’ The situation is hardly this.  Rather, God stands at the door of heaven with His arms outstretched, inviting all to come.  Yet all men without exception are running in the opposite direction towards hell as hard as they can go.  So God, in election, graciously reaches out and stops this one, and that one, and this one over here, and that one over there, and effectually draws them to Himself by changing their hearts, making them willing to come.  Election keeps no one out of heaven who would otherwise have been there, but it keeps a whole multitude of sinners out of hell who otherwise would have been there.  Were it not for election, heaven would be an empty place, and hell would be bursting at the seams.  That kind of response, grounded as I believe that it is in Scriptural truth, does put a different complexion on things, doesn’t it?  If you perish in hell, blame yourself, as it is entirely your fault.  But if you should make it to heaven, credit God, for that is entirely His work!  To Him alone belong all praise and glory, for salvation is all of grace, from start to finish.”

Mark Webb:

“God intentionally designed salvation so that no man could boast of it.  He didn’t merely arranged it so that boasting would be discouraged or kept to a minimum – he planned it so that boasting would be absolutely excluded.  Election does precisely that.”

As I was checking out one of the blogs I regularly read (Adrian Warnock) I was interested to note his post from today had to do with the topic of prayer. He highlights a forthcoming new book from the pen of Sam Storms, drawn from Paul’s epistle to the Colossians, entitled: “The Hope of Glory: 100 Daily Meditations on Colossians.”

Adrian has had permission to post a number of extracts taken from the book focusing on Colossians chapter 4 and Paul’s exhortations to pray! Helpful stuff. Go check it out here.