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What We Believe: He is not silent

This is an ongoing series of blog posts based on papers originally written for my church’s elder class. Our subject for this entry is how God communicates with His people.

One important truth that underlies the preaching of the gospel is that God is not a secret from creation, but that He is present and making Himself known to, and in, creation. As Paul says in Romans 1, “‭…what can be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what he has made. As a result, people are without excuse.” But to speak of God’s communication with us is not simply a matter of inference from what we see, but a matter of direct, and interactive, communication. 

One of the most striking truths about the relationship between God and man is that we have a truly personal relationship. God does not sit high above us unapproachable and uninterested, but He is deeply involved in His creation, and He has given us the means by which we may truly know Him. It is important to understand what this means for us in our daily lives, and what it looks like to draw near to God in reverence and expectation that He is both speaking and listening.

Speaking with our Father

Prayer is seen all throughout the Bible and Jesus is constant in His prayers. Very often we see Him withdrawing from others to spend time in prayer with the Father, and it is in His prayers that we see the true intimacy of that inter-Trinitarian relationship. Jesus teaches His disciples to pray in Matthew 6 with a confession that God is not just God but that He is “our Father.” That is an incredibly intimate confession for us to make, and the Son of God is calling all of us who are in Him to join with Him in calling God the Father, our own Father. 

Yet this is not said casually, for the very next line calls for His name to receive the highest reverence. Many of us have memorized it as “hallowed by Your name,” or as the CSB renders it, “Your name be honored as holy.” God is our Father and we may draw near Him, yet He is also our holy and perfect God, and we hold those two truths in balance with one another.

From there the prayer moves to a desire that God’s will should be seen in our world as much as it is Heaven. Not because God is not sovereign over all things, but in the sense that we would see the rebellion of sin be wiped away, and all creation be restored to true peace and obedience to God, to true harmony. We seek to bring ourselves into true obedience to the Shema, what Jesus rightly calls the greatest commandment: that we would love God with every element of our beings to the fullest.

Finally, we see the desire for God’s provision – for our needs, and against the failures of sin in our flesh. And we know God hears these and provides for them. Jesus says as much later in the same chapter, as He says “So don’t worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.” And we see exactly that in the prayer He teaches – it begins with the kingdom, and ends with our needs. The Lord calls us to pray to Him, and often, bringing our needs to Him over and over. There is no tiring or annoyance, because this is truly another example of God ordaining both the ends – His working in our world and lives – and the means – the prayers of His people.

Our Father speaking with us

By the same token, He speaks to us, through His Word and by His Spirit. It isn’t a matter of asking God a question, flipping open a Bible and pointing at a random verse to get an answer, but rather that devoted pursuit of God in His Word along with pursuing that intimacy with God in prayer will bring us deeper into understanding God’s will for life, strengthening our wills to endure difficulty and to glorify God in the circumstances of our lives. I wrote in the last entry on election that humility is a necessary ingredient to our intimacy with God, as it should be. The order of creation is evident from the beginning of Scripture: that which is made worships that which made it. That’s why idol-worship is so consistently repudiated throughout the Bible, because the idea that someone would make an idol and then pray to this thing they just made is simply backward. We are made to know our Creator, and intimately so.

I have encountered many moments where a question or issue has been weighing on my mind and in my prayers, and I have suddenly found myself encountering a passage that seems to speak directly to it. I try to be wary about reading my own desires into Scripture, but those moments have happened to me. I had a moment just the other day when I had a weight on my heart about an issue I was wrestling with, and my tendency when left to my own devices is to just let it eat at me. In that moment however, I pushed against that and chose to stop, and sit in the Word and prayer, and wait. What I found was most certainly the peace that passes understanding, and a reassurance that was echoed from those around me without my seeking it out from them. It’s said that those who look for patterns will find them, and certainly someone who doesn’t believe would likely make that claim. I have no qualms about the fact that personal evidence is the weakest kind – yet it is as much a part of my testimony as the truths of Scripture I’ve learned, or the evidence of God written in the building blocks of creation itself.

I’ve encountered what seemed at the time to be a moment of close communication by the Spirit. I’ve experienced the Lord ministering to my spirit in dark times in ways that are difficult to articulate, yet were clearly an experience that was bigger than myself, than my own ideas. I think the reason why these particular moments are ones I attribute to the Lord ministering to me in such a moment are because these were instances that I was seeking answers in a difficult moment, and the answers I received were very much not what I would have desired. There was also the fact that they were later confirmed, again not because I sought to make them happen, but because of how these particular circumstances concluded. I’m writing about this obliquely because these moments involve the privacy of others.

God is near to us, and we know Him in Christ, through the Spirit, and thus we pray. We know His will by His Word, which points to Christ, and is brought into being through the work of the Spirit. As His church we walk in this spiritual respiration of breathing in Word and breathing out prayer, and it is what truly sustains us. It is right for us to desire knowing God intimately, because the writers of Scripture show that He desires us to truly know Him. 

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 8 about the unity of knowledge and love in God. In humans, knowledge tends to produce overconfidence in ourselves, and is why God calls us to love him in the right way, the way that lets us depend upon him as His creatures, His children. He says that “if anyone loves God, he is known by him.” And in chapter 13 he expounds on love, what it is and why it is a necessary component of humanity. It’s not a mere extension of desire, as seems to us. It involves a humility, a surrender of who and what we are to the truth of who God us, and therefore to what we as humans are to each other: fellow image bearers of God, made to trust in Him with all our beings, made not to serve the will of a petulant demanding idol but instead to rely fully on the loving grace of our loving Father, our gracious Lord.

We must heed Peter’s words in his first epistle, that we must “humble [ourselves] therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt [us] at the proper time, casting all [our] cares on him, because he cares about [us.]” Our humility isn’t rooted in fear of destruction, but in the truth that we must not deceive ourselves into self-reliance and self-aggrandizement. This is why Christian unity should not look like angry people demanding external morality in others. It shouldn’t look like a bunch of smarty-pantses who have all the answers to life’s questions. It should look like people who rest in the work of Jesus for everything they need, who love one another even and especially when they don’t seem very lovable, and who give of themselves to serve others – even to the cost of themselves. What we have is His, and He is a faithful provider at all times. He is here with us, and He is not silent.

A call to speaking and listening

I want to close with what I believe are wise actions to take as we all pursue God’s ministry to us in our daily lives:

  • Be in your Bible. The Bible is given to us as a gift, and is God’s speech. It’s not a cold dead text, but a living and vibrant one that is ministered to us by the Spirit and through the church. By staying in it we find our own encouragement and instruction, and we can be prepared for serving one another by being ready to engage in “teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness.” Being in Scripture is critical when seeking to hear from God, for only by studying the true voice of our Father can we know when He is speaking with us, as opposed to us simply placing His name atop our own desires and thoughts. Scripture is sufficient to our needs for this in all things.
  • Make prayer a priority. I’ll be honest, this is a tough one for me, and I’ll bet it’s a tough one for many out there. It’s easy to find yourself distracted, or to feel like the time you have to devote to it could be used elsewhere. It’s easy to make excuses. But I don’t believe there’s ever been an instance in my life where I’ve rejected those excuses and made myself sit even for a few moments to pray, that I’ve walked away saying “I wish I had done something else.” Build the habit, and pursue it. 
  • Be in community. This isn’t simply a call to church attendance, though that is a given where it can be carried out. (Certainly as an American I often take for granted the fact that I can attend church freely and without fear, something that not every believer in the world is able to do.) This is a call to know and to be known. Develop friendships, have people who can pray for and with you, who can rebuke you in love when you’re going astray – and pursue the humility in your own heart to receive that. If your church is a place where you can’t truly be open because of a lack of grace, that may be a change you need to make. On the other hand, if it’s a place where confession brings about no encouragement to transformation, to repentance, that likewise is a deficiency in the ministry of the gospel. 

If there are ways we can provide help, guidance, or even simply prayer, please feel free to reach out to us. I desire that this podcast and blog is a place that encourages everyone who comes across it to hear the hope of Jesus, and to truly find their rest in Him. That includes you, whoever you may be. May the grace of Christ go with you into your home and work and everywhere else you venture.

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Episode 8 – Less Terminator, More Mr. Data

Dave and Jake are back again talking about their musical work, their faith and families, but the real hot topic is artificial intelligence. Jake is ready to put it to work more, but Dave is skeptical – after all, haven’t we seen this movie before? They also talk about the paper Dave just posted on election, as well as plans for a follow-up to the ongoing “What We Believe” series.

https://coronationradio.net

Opening music: “Unanae” performed by The Big Easy Brass Band: https://www.thebigeasybrassband.com/
Check us out at Revelers Hall May 30:
https://www.revelershall.com/

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What We Believe – Election

This is an ongoing series of blog posts based on papers originally written for my church’s elder class. Our subject for this entry is the doctrine of election.

The doctrine of election is one of the most controversial subjects often discussed within Christian theology. The concept of predestination, that God has chosen His people who will be saved not just in the course of their lives or because of their actions, but from before creation itself, has drawn many objections, including from Christians. It is a subject that requires patience and pastoral care alongside a devotion to Scripture’s inerrancy and sufficiency. It also requires a great deal of humility, which often seems to be alien to the debates this issue raises. 

Continue reading “What We Believe – Election”
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Episode 7 – This is Just a Tribute

So, we actually tried to record this podcast nearly a month ago, but due to technical issues it never got past the sitting down to chat part. Now, we try to recreate it. Sadly, we couldn’t recreate the greatest podcast in the world. No…this is just a tribute.

Dave and Jake talk about Dave’s struggles working on the next part of the What We Believe series on the doctrine of election, and Jake gives some solid advice that will hopefully mean that blog post will finally see the light of day here shortly. We also reflect on what it’s like writing on this topic in an era after so many of the “young, restless and reformed” big name pastors have declined or even been caught out in major scandals of one sort or another.

We also talk about more fallout from the exposure of the deep cracks in the foundation of the current SBC as the truth about the extent of abuse in the denomination has been dragged into the light.

https://coronationradio.net

Opening music: “Unanae” performed by The Big Easy Brass Band: https://www.thebigeasybrassband.com/
Check us out at the Wildflower Festival Friday May 15:
https://wildflowerfestival.com/

Subscribe to us on YouTube:
youtube.com/channel/UCPI4s-XuybhNTlxnixGJNBA/

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What We Believe – Sanctification

This is an ongoing series of blog posts based on papers originally written for my church’s elder class. This week’s topic is sanctification in the life of Christians.

Christian preaching works heavily through the concepts of justification and sanctification, and for good reason. We have seen many instances throughout the history of the church where the two concepts have been muddled and confused, and it has led to a great deal of strife. To this day we still struggle with discerning the difference, either by mixing sanctification into justification in a way that requires perfection in the now in order to be or remain justified, or by emphasizing justification so heavily that sanctification becomes an afterthought. The former leads to pharisaism and legalism, and the latter leads to antinomianism and a lack of care for holiness.

From God’s eternal perspective, we are clean and holy in Christ, a finished work that glorifies Him. But to us as we walk through each day of life, the sanctification of the Spirit can involve hardship, frustration, conviction, and even suffering. One passage that captures this duality is Romans 8:28-30:

We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; and those he called, he also justified; and those he justified, he also glorified.

The battle within ourselves

Yet in our daily experiences we don’t often feel this. Indeed, we often experience a deep sense of frustration as we live out the words of Paul in the preceding chapter, that “when I want to do what is good, evil is present with me.” As we strive forward towards the cross, our flesh continues to fail us. We find our motivations called into question, our hearts heavy, as we mourn the effects of sin even as we also rejoice in our circumstances and struggles. But this is not something we ought to lose hope over. There is, after all, excellent reason that chapter 7 is followed by chapter 8, and the joyful, life-giving truth that “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

Paul’s words in chapter 6 spell out the reality of sanctification for the Christian, and indeed I think it is how we can see the Lord working in our lives. It isn’t in moments of ease and contemplation that our love for God is most cultivated, but the times we experience and resist temptation. Our happiest times are made all the sweeter when we reflect on what we endure to get there, and especially in knowing that God walks through them with us. Our Lord is not distant, after all, because He too suffered with us. He too endured temptation, and in His power we have the right to reject our sinful desires and weaknesses. We can reject the condemnation of the enemy and embrace the truth that we are dead to sin, and alive in Christ.

We endure many things in this life, which serves to grind away at the hardness of heart, fear, doubt, and all the other things that point to the ways that we don’t trust God’s love and promises. For the person who loves God, when we consider all the experiences life may hold, God is promising that each and every one of them will work for our good. This idea is awe-inspiring, but also becomes incredibly vexatious to many when we consider what that might include. Disease? Financial hardship? Horrible abuse? The evils of war? Loss of a child? God’s Word is clear: yes, even these, though to walk with someone through this notion who has experienced suffering on this scale demands a great deal of empathy, patience, and pastoral care.

Purpose in all things – even the hard things

Sanctification in the Christian life is a significant part of our answer to the question of suffering and evil in this world. Why does God allow them to persist? We do not know His wisdom at its greatest height, nor would we be foolish enough to attempt to, but we do know suffering works its way through our lives so that we may be transformed, degree by degree, into the image of Christ. It is through the lens of Christ – His life, His work, His suffering and death, and His resurrected life – that we are able to endure suffering. 

When we experience hardship, grinding away at our lives and comforts, we are able to most fully embrace the truth of Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 3:17 and 18. We have a freedom by the Spirit that this world cannot take away, and as we behold the truth and love of Christ we further embrace this freedom to endure this dark world. We have freedom in Christ to live knowing that He is better, He is stronger, He is more loving and gracious and providing than this world will ever be. We have freedom to endure evil knowing that He will bring justice to bear upon it in perfect time. We have freedom to be generous ourselves because He is infinitely generous towards us with what we need. And we have the freedom to give up everything, even our lives, because He stands with us, and receives us in glory as His own.

Sanctification’s role in what Paul describes in Romans 8:28-30 can be summed up in the phrase, “God ordains the ends and the means.” I can look at my life and at experiences like struggling to make ends meet, at relationships beginning and ending, or times of literal pain. I can think of moments that the Holy Spirit has lifted an idol from my hands in love, one I had been holding back for so long, and in the aftermath of that I found not loss, but true gain. I found my step lighter and my heart more free. This is why I say that sanctification is dying to ourselves, and finding freedom in Christ. We die to desires that weigh us down and find that the weight was only oppression on our souls. And when passages like Paul’s come to mind in those times when we are wrestling with our flesh, we can take heart in them. 

Whatever the pain and suffering, whatever the idol being wrenched from our grasps, whatever evil the world is throwing at us, all of it serves ultimately for our good in Christ. All of it demonstrates that no matter what the world says we need or what we should value, no matter what our flesh longs for, no matter what evil another may perpetrate against us, God’s love is greater. His good plan will come to full fruition in perfect time. And so, we strive to endure it by the strength granted us as we follow behind Christ, our crosses on our shoulders, knowing that death is not the end. J. Todd Billings writes in his book Rejoicing in Lament:

As the Heidelberg Catechism states, “Even as I already now experience in my heart the beginning of eternal joy, so after this life I will have perfect blessedness such as no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no human heart has ever imagined: a blessedness in which to praise God forever.” The continuity between now and then is none other than our incorporation into the life of Christ.

So we walk through sanctification each day, whatever that may look like, and we encourage one another in it in patient love, rejoicing in the Lord always. We do the work before us because it is what leads us to the day that we will truly, as Paul writes in Romans 8:29, “be conformed to the image of Christ.” To us now, that day seems far in the distance, but God sees it clearly before Him, a people made holy and perfect and honored for enduring to the end. 

Hope in all seasons, patience in affliction 

Our story is one of sanctification. All the victories and failures of live, the pleasures and discomforts, they are not purposeless. They are meant to pry our hands free from this life – not in a nihilistic way, but in a manner that points to eternity. 

I think of all the encouragements I could give to others in this, it is that we are not meant to walk through this alone. We are never truly alone of course, in that the Holy Spirit is with us and within us, giving us strength and guidance through all things. But we should seek out those who encourage our spiritual strengthening, who aid in stirring our affections for Christ and who in turn we can serve and encourage in their own walks and strivings. Be with believers who will listen, and who will aid in prayerful and practical ways – and be ready to serve. 

The Bible is full of warnings against hardening our hearts, and encouragement that to endure is to see the fruit of Christ grow in our lives. I want to encourage those of you who may be struggling in any way that you are not alone in that. If nothing else, Jake and I are here to provide prayer and encouragement. The Lord knows your needs, and is with you through it all. After all this comes not a statement, but a question: how can we pray for you?

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Episode 6 – Holidays and Hobbit-Sense

"This is the story of a little ship, that took a little Christmas trip..."

Jake and I sat down to record this a couple weeks before Christmas, but life got hectic as it does this time of year, so we’re a bit later than we expected to get it uploaded. As a result, some of the things we talk about as upcoming – like Tuba Christmas, or Jake’s winter solstice performance at our church, have already happened. But! You can still enjoy our end of year wrapup. It’s been a year of highs and lows, and we reflect on our year and our favorite holiday traditions, and what we hope to see accomplished as we mark the new year’s entry. Join in, and email us or comment below your thoughts and prayer requests.

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What We Believe – Justification

This is an ongoing series of blog posts based on papers originally written for my church’s elder class. This week’s prompt: Please define justification.

Justification is that work of God in our lives that makes us righteous, able to stand before God as holy, when we are most assuredly not by our own human work and reckoning. Justification is what we receive and in which we walk in life after we have been regenerated. It is not just a simple hand-wave of God saying “all right, you’re fine.” It is a Trinitarian work that begins with the Father’s calling of His people, the Son’s sacrifice of Himself for the sins of His people and taking the wrath due to them on Himself, and the Spirit bringing new life to those people which enables them to place their faith in that work of the Son on their behalf. 

Justification can be described simply, such as when Paul and Silas told the Roman jailer in Acts 16:31, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.” Yet the closer we look at it the deeper the truth of it runs. It is also a concept that has held heavy controversy and disagreement throughout the age of the church. One challenge I have noted as I’ve written this is discussing justification specifically without moving into its lifelong effect, sanctification. The truth is simple, however: the former begets the latter, always. One who is in Christ will bear the fruit of Christ. 

Continue reading “What We Believe – Justification”
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Episode 5: Faith, Repentance, and the Land of Lothlorien

It’s been a week or two, right? All right, all right…ten months. So sue us. No, don’t…sue us. Just listen as we talk about life and family amidst our musical endeavors, enduring loss and more. We go through the latest post to the blog that Dave just finished and talk about Jake’s recent performance marking the seasonal transition at our church. We dip our toes into the current political scene as we talk about one of Dave’s current selections for light reading, and our prayerful desires to help our neighbors who will be encountering hardship as government benefits face interruption. We also get to hear Dave try his hand at a bit of audiobook production, reading a brief selection from Lord of the Rings, and discuss what it means to share these kind of stories with kids as they grow. Listen in and let us know what you think, and how we can pray for you!

Visit our website at https://coronationradio.net/

Email us: spurgeonaudio@gmail.com

Jake’s livestreamed fall equinox performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z37fSsijI0g

Dave’s band performing locally: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ifh5ZFm26p4

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What We Believe – Repentance and Faith

This is an ongoing series of blog posts based on papers originally written for my church’s elder class. This week’s prompt: Please explain your understanding of repentance and faith.

Two posts ago I wrote on the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and in the previous one I moved onto regeneration, the effect of that baptism.  Now the fruit of regeneration comes into view: faith and repentance. While they are two separate concepts with different definitions, they are hand in hand in the work these words describe in the lives of Christians. No one will have saving faith in Christ that is not accompanied by a lifetime of repentance from sin. Likewise, no one can walk away from their sin in any method that does not involve a faith in Christ born of the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. 

Continue reading “What We Believe – Repentance and Faith”
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What We Believe – Regeneration

This is an ongoing series of blog posts based on papers originally written for my church’s elder class. This week’s prompt: Please define regeneration.

The Old Testament is full of vivid imagery from God, on the subjects of His will for His people, warnings of the consequences of sin and rebellion, and the coming work of His Messiah. Some of it is delivered in words, but there are many examples of God giving visions to His prophets to show what was to come. 

One of the most striking examples is in Ezekiel 37, where God brings the prophet to a valley full of dry bones. Not simply dead bodies, but the desiccated remains of countless humans. God tells Ezekiel to “Prophesy concerning these bones and say to them: Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Lord God says to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you will live. I will put tendons on you, make flesh grow on you, and cover you with skin. I will put breath in you so that you come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.” Ezekiel obeys and it happens exactly as God had said it would. God then repeats His command to prophesy, this time to “the breath,” to come and fill the bodies with life. Again, Ezekiel does so, and again, it happens exactly as God said it would. Dead bones become a massive host of living humans.

When we think about what regeneration is, this is the kind of image we need to keep in mind. Another image of this is given in the preceding chapter in Ezekiel, in verses 26 and 27: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will place my Spirit within you and cause you to follow my statutes and carefully observe my ordinances.” Paul echoes this idea in Ephesians 2 when he writes, 

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the disobedient. We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses.

In many ways, to speak of regeneration is to simply reiterate what I wrote about in my last post on the baptism of the Spirit: this is the work of God in His people to bring spiritual life to those who were previously dead in spirit. He takes the unwilling, the rebellious, the God-hater, and makes them not simply able to choose to obey God, but to actually do so. 

This is the same idea that Jesus speaks of in John 3 when he tells Nicodemus that “unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus expresses incredulity at this, struggling to understand this picture, but Jesus asks him how he can not understand it, being a man who is in his position in part because of his deep knowledge of the Scriptures. He would have intimately known both references I mentioned above, yet he didn’t connect it to what Jesus was talking about. Jesus even points to it in his imagery in verse 8 when he says “The wind blows where it pleases, and you hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

To talk about the baptism of the Holy Spirit and regeneration is to talk about the planting of a seed and the fruit that the plant that rises from it later bears. He who the Spirit baptizes lives again, and believes, and obeys. This is not, as some say, a “prevenient grace”, grace that puts everyone into sort of a neutral space where they can “choose their own destiny.” He who sees the Spirit work in his heart will find spiritual life, and he who lives in the Spirit will walk in that life. The Spirit’s work of regeneration becomes the sign and seal of the promised eternal life we hope for in Christ. This is what Paul means in Romans chapter 8:

For what the law could not do since it was weakened by the flesh, God did. He condemned sin in the flesh by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh as a sin offering, in order that the law’s requirement would be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit have their minds set on the things of the Spirit. Now the mindset of the flesh is death, but the mindset of the Spirit is life and peace. The mindset of the flesh is hostile to God because it does not submit to God’s law. Indeed, it is unable to do so. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him. Now if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, then he who raised Christ from the dead will also bring your mortal bodies to life through his Spirit who lives in you.

Regeneration points ahead to resurrection, both in the images used to convey the idea, and in its effect in the lives of believers. By the faith empowered in our lives through the work of the Holy Spirit, we are able to make war on the sinful desires of our old dead humanity while striving ahead towards our new, true humanity, our hope in Christ. 

Spiritual death followed Adam’s sin, but spiritual life follows Jesus’ obedience. It is not our work that brings regeneration about – and how could it? Could those dry bones raise themselves? As Nicodemus asked, could a man enter his mother’s womb a second time? Salvation is a trinitarian work of God. Just as the Father has chosen His people, and just as Jesus has been the perfect sacrifice for us and is our brother in the resurrection to come, so the Holy Spirit is the one who works in our hearts to bring newness of life and spiritual eyes which look ahead to Christ in hope and faith.

There is a larger picture to consider here but also a very personal one. As I edit this to post for the blog, there is a lot of turmoil going on in the world. I won’t belabor this post with pontificating on recent events, and those will likely wait for the next podcast episode for further discourse. But I will say this: If you are dismayed by the turn the world is taking, if you are angry or afraid or embittered: pray. Call out to your Lord and cast your cares on Him. As His church, let’s pray for our neighbors that He will transform the hearts of our neighbors – and do your part to that end by displaying Christ’s love to them.

Beware those who desire to turn you into an army for human ends, or into a voting bloc. Human power is fleeting and vanishes as quickly as it arrives. Trust that God does listen to the prayers of His people, and that He is powerful enough to save, to bring vitality where there is only death, and then: look at your neighbor. Literally, who lives around you? How are they hurting – or how are they rejoicing? Love them in that, serve them in their needs, and be patient as we all endure tribulation. Reject the urge to live a fearful life, and display the patient love of Jesus by trusting that He will be the one to bring mercy and justice to bear at the proper time – but above all, let’s pray that the Holy Spirit will bring life into the hearts of many, and by doing so, bring the only true means of transformation to a hurting and broken world.

How have you see the Holy Spirit work in your heart and in the lives of others to transform? How do you want to see Him further moving in your communities? And above all, how can we pray for you? Leave a comment below or email us.