Our God gave His Law as a gift to His people, to define the marriage He lovingly arranged by a covenant of grace. On this point, R.C. Sproul has written:
Love for the Law of God is rooted in the relationship between the Law and the lawgiver. God does not learn the Law from some cosmic legal manual and then pass it along to us. Rather the Law of God comes from within him, from his own internal character. It is a reflection of his own righteousness ( The Soul’s Quest for God, p. 97).
In other words, God has loved His people by sharing His righteousness with them in His Law, that they might love Him in return by faith and live before Him (Ezek 20:11). With inexcusable sin and rebellion, God’s people have consistently refused to return God’s love and to believe His Word.
So for the sake of His glorious name, the Lord has promised to cause His people to love and believe Him, fulfilled in the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ – dealing with us “not according to your evil ways” ( Ezek 20:44).
And this great hope was aptly expressed in the final pulpit prayer of the sickly and dying John Calvin, after completing his last biblical exposition, from Ezekiel 20:
Grant, Almighty God, since we have already entered in hope upon the threshold of our eternal inheritance, and know that there is a certain mansion for us in heaven after Christ has been received there, who is our head, and the first-fruits of our salvation; Grant, I say, that we may proceed more and more in the course of Thy holy calling until at length we reach that goal, and so enjoy that eternal glory of which Thou affordest us a taste in this world, by the same Christ our Lord – Amen (Commentaries on Ezekiel II, p. 345).
Let’s proceed more and more – or, press on (Phil 3:14)! – in love and in obedience to God’s Word until all these promises are fulfilled for the sake of His name.
Beloved, how great and glorious is the truth of God’s purposes in Christ for His people, as we’ve been seeing recently from the letter of 1 Peter! I can’t encourage you enough to keep reading, praying, and meditating upon all that God has revealed in this portion of His Word. And as you read, pray, and meditate, keep striving by His grace to live faithfully as “elect exiles” – as those who have been foreknown by the Father, sanctified by the Spirit, brought to obedient faith, and sprinkled with the precious blood of Jesus Christ.
And may God give us grace to love one another earnestly from a pure heart (1 Pet. 1:22), praying and caring for one another in ways that encourage these glorious truths to become all the more evident in our lives.
It is a great joy to share life in Christ with you in His body at RCG, and to pray and serve with you to these very ends. Soli Deo Gloria!
As we learned from 1 Pet. 1:1,2 this past Lord’s Day, there is great significance in Peter identifying his readers as “elect exiles.” Peter is declaring that those who have been born again through faith in Jesus Christ belong uniquely to God (“elect”). As a result, such believers no longer belong to the world (“exiles”, or “strangers”). This powerful, and precious truth – of every believers’ identity in relation to God the world – sets the focus for Peter’s entire letter. And all that God reveals through Peter is intended to help believers know how to live and persevere in the midst of a God-hating world.
One Puritan writer has summarized Peter’s letter this way:
“The heads of doctrine contained in it are many, but the main that are most insisted on, are these three, faith, obedience, and patience; to establish them (the “elect exiles”) in believing, to direct them in doing, and to comfort them in suffering.” (Robert Leighton (1611-1684), A Practical Commentary Upon the First Epistle General of 1 Peter, 1799, pg. 16).
Yes…powerful and precious truth! I’m looking forward to walking and growing in Christ with you through our time in 1 Peter!
Grace upon grace,
Greg
Extending from our recent sermons in Mt. 6:19-34, consider these thoughts from Alexander MacLaren and what it means to seek first God’s kingdom and righteousness:
“You must fill the heart with a supreme and transcendent desire after the one supreme object, and then there will be no room or leisure left for anxious care after the lesser…’Seek first the kingdom of God.’ Let all your spirit be stretching itself out towards that divine and blessed reality, longing to be a subject of that kingdom, and a possessor of that righteousness; and ‘the cares that infest the day’ will steal away from out of the sacred pavilion of your believing spirit. Fill your heart with desires after what is worthy of desire; and the greater having entered in, all lesser objects will rank themselves in the right place, and the ‘glory that excelleth’ will outshine the seducing brightness of the paltry present. Oh! it is want of love, it is want of earnest desire, it is want of firm conviction that God, God only, God by Himself, is enough for me, that makes me careful and troubled. And therefore, if I could only attain unto that sublime and calm height of perfect conviction, that He is sufficient for me, that He is with me for ever,-the satisfying object of my desires and the glorious reward of my searchings,-let life and death come as they may, let riches, poverty, health, sickness, all the antitheses of human circumstances storm down upon me in quick alternation, yet in them all I shall be content and peaceful. God is beside me, and His presence brings in its train whatsoever things I need. You cannot cast out the sin of foreboding thoughts by any power short of the entrance of Christ and His love. The blessings of faith and felt communion leave no room nor leisure for anxiety.” (Alexander MacLaren, Sermon on Mt. 6:25-34)
And how is this “supreme and transcendent desire” cultivated? By praying according to the will of God, even as Jesus makes clear in Mt. 6:5-15, and 7:7-11.
Seeking Him with you,
Greg
Another Christ-exalting album from Sovereign Grace Music! Their newest gift to the church is a biblically faithful, beautifully arranged collection of 14 songs entitled From Age to Age. SG’s website says this about the album:
Inspired and influenced by hymn writers of the past like Martin Luther, Augustus Toplady, and Charles Wesley, From Age to Age contains 14 new hymns that combine rich, theologically driven lyrics with singable melodies for the glory of the Savior whose praises know no end.
I encourage you to invest in the album, and be all the more encouraged and equipped in letting “…the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” (Col. 3:16, ESV)
For His glory, and your joy,
Greg
What a special Lord’s Day we shared at RCG this past weekend, celebrating Christ’s resurrection. We missed those of you who weren’t with us!
The fact of Jesus living and reigning at the right hand of the Father should deeply impact our prayers for one another, even as Paul exemplified in Ephesians 1:15-23 (ESV):
“15 For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, 16 I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, 18 having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might 20 that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 22 And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.”
One of the greatest joys any pastor has is to see God working in people’s lives through His word and through His Spirit. It is a great blessing for pastors to carry on their ministry among people who are eager to know and follow Jesus Christ, and who are thus hungry to hear, believe, and obey God’s holy word.
So I know I speak for the other pastors at RCG (yes, we also call them elders 
), in saying that these words from the Apostle Paul to the Thessalonian believers also express our hearts toward you:
And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers. (1 Thessalonians 2:13, ESV)
Pressing on in the great hope of Jesus Christ, risen and coming again!
“16 We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. 17 But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? 18 Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.”
God wills for every people to be strengthened in trusting Christ, and to increasingly comprehend His incomprehensible love in Christ. Paul’s prayer in Eph. 3:14-21 makes this clear. Thus it is good and right to meditate much on God’s love in Christ, as revealed in His Word.
Along these lines, be encouraged by these helpful insights from John Owen, in his book Communion with the Triune God:
“So much as we see of the love of God, so much shall we delight in him, and no more. Every other discovery of God, without this, will but make the soul fly from him; but if the heart be once much taken up with this the eminency of the Father’s love, it cannot choose but be overpowered, conquered, and endeared unto him. This, if anything, will work upon us to make our abode with him. If the love of a father will not make a child delight in him, what will? Put, then, this to the venture: exercise your thoughts upon this very thing, the eternal, free, and fruitful love of the Father, and see if your hearts be not wrought upon to delight in him. I dare boldly say: believers will find it as thriving a course as ever they pitched on in their lives. Sit down a little at the fountain, and you will quickly have a further discovery of the sweetness of the streams. You who have run from him, will not be able, after a while, to keep at a distance for a moment.”
Learning to live “at the fountain” with you!
Greg
Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. (Jn. 21:25, ESV)
As most of you know, this past Lord’s Day I finished preaching through the Gospel of John, after about 7 ½ years, and some 215 sermons. All praise to God alone! I will undoubtedly be doing some occasional sermons from John here and there – I’m actually set to preach from Jn. 13:34,35 on March 11, with a message entitled “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” But I’m planning to begin preaching through the book of First Peter in the very near future, which I’m eagerly and soberly anticipating.
One of the things I mentioned in last Sunday’s sermon was that while we have finished the exposition of John’s Gospel, we have only just begun to comprehend and digest the greatness of God’s glory in Jesus Christ therein revealed. With that in mind, here are a couple of choice observations about John’s final words in Jn. 21:25, for your encouragement:
“Not only ought we to take into account the number of Christ’s works, but we ought also to consider their importance and magnitude. The majesty of Christ, which by its infinity swallowed up, if I may so speak, not only the senses of men, but heaven and earth, gave a miraculous display of its own splendor in those works. If the Evangelist, casting his eyes on that brightness, exclaims in astonishment, that even the whole world could not contain a full narrative, ought we to wonder at it? (John Calvin, Commentary on Jn. 21:25)
“It is fitting for us to bring our study of the Gospel to a close with the reminder of the limitations of our knowledge. It is well for us to be appreciative of the knowledge we have and to show a due gratitude to God for what he has revealed. But we should not exaggerate. Our knowledge of the truth is at best partial. The reader who appreciates the significance of these final words is kept humble.” (Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, Eerdmans Publishing Company: 1995, pg. 777)
Striving by His grace to Behold, Believe, and Behave faithfully with you!