Grace Abounding

Sermon Title: A Biblical View of Work
Sermon Text: Ecclesiastes 2:24-25; Colossians 3:22-24; Titus 2:9-10
Series: A Biblical View of Work & Rest
Speaker: Jonathan Matías, Pastor
Date Preached: July 12, 2009

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I’m almost done reading A Gospel Primer For Christians. The cover is painful to look at, but inside, its pages are filled with a roadmap for Christians to find incredible hope in the Gospel. I make light of the cover, but mostly just to get your attention. For when I first opened it, I never expected to be drawn in so deeply to enjoying the Gospel like it has helped me!

The Gospel has been ever-present in my life since an early age, growing up with my parents who were missionaries and church planters. But I’m still in desperate need of seeing afresh how Christ’s work on the cross conveys astounding present benefits to me as a Christian, benefits I forget, leading to needless confusion and discouragement in my life.

The Gospel isn’t just for those who don’t know God yet. It’s jam-packed with the truths that will motivate me to serve God today and grant my soul deepest satisfied in God himself.

You prefer poetry or narrative? Milton Vincent retells the benefits of the Gospel in each of these ways. He went through a season of life where he exhausted himself in an ongoing struggle with guilt from his sin. Then when he rediscovered the person and work of Jesus Christ as encapsulated in the Gospel, Milton says,

“I could hardly believe my good fortune. I drank in the doctrine of my justification like a thirsty man drinking a tall glass of water in the desert. The way those truths put my soul at rest was indescribable” (p. 95).

The author is honest about wresting as a Christian with pride, doubt, fear, ongoing temptation, and spiritual laziness. His transparency is a window for us to gaze into his life and see how the Gospel can be applied to these same struggles in our own lives.

I’ll be re-reading A Gospel Primer For Christians once a year to find the same liberating and motivating realities that Milton Vincent finds in the Gospel. Why not do the same? It’s available here.

Thanks to John Gardner for giving Christy and me a copy of this book by his brother-in-law.

God has used Paul David Tripp’s practical and God-centered writing countless times in my life. So I’m excited to recommend his new book on finding shelter in God in the ups and downs of life.

A Shelter In the Time of Storm is comprised of fifty-two brief meditations where Tripp gets honest about his own struggles and points us to God, our soul’s anchor. When I’ve battled discouragement and despair, Tripp’s writings have taken me to Christ where my soul has been uplifted.

Check out the book here or watch the video below.

Want to get more out of your Bible reading? Trying to figure out how to fully enjoy and rest in God’s grace? Wondering how to jump-start your relationship of enjoying God? This book, Spiritual Disciplines For the Christian Life is for you….and it’s free.

You can download the audiobook free from ChristianAudio.com. They give away a free audiobook a month. Don Whitney’s book gives practical advice on prayer, personal worship, fasting, silence and solitude, reading the Bible, Scripture meditation, applying the Bible, journaling, and other areas of the Christian walk.It’s available free (in March) here. Listen during your daily drive or metro commute. It’s a book that challenged me and I’m confident will encourage you. My friend Angel Potter gave me this book a number of years ago. If you’re reading this, thanks Angel!

A few years back, Pastor Sandy McCormick gave me an outline from a talk on marriage called “When Sinners Say I Do” that he heard from Dave Harvey. That outline helped me prepare for my marriage to Christy and understand how in our life together we must view each other in light of the Cross every day. I came to see how the Gospel is of first importance in our marriage, both to preserve and deepen our love for each other and to achieve the intent of marriage – to deepen our love for God (1 Corinthians 7:35).

The talk is expanded into a book called When Sinners Say I Do, the best book on marriage I’ve read. It’s 40% off at wtsbooks.com right now. If you are married or engaged, I highly commend you get the book and the study guide and work through it together.

A good friend of this church, Matthew Hoskinson, knows what it is like to suffer. Matthew is part of the team of elders who is overseeing the planting of our  church in Alexandria (that’s not why he’s suffering…I hope!). God has seen fit for this pastor, husband, and father of three to go through cancer while in his 30’s. As Matthew is learning to trust and rest upon God’s grace through his fight with cancer, he has preached two important sermons. They are wonderful contributions to the body of Christ’s understanding on how to view suffering and death in light of God’s plan for us.

These two sermons lead you to refreshing water in a parched land–the cool, clear water of God’s sovereign goodness. The first sermon is Matthew’s personal testimony of grappling with the news that he has cancer; it’s called “The Mercy of God in Cancer.” You can read his notes for this sermon here. The second sermon is his “Reflections on Death” from Genesis and Romans. His cancer journal is here. I commend them to you.

Looking for help studying the Bible? Look no further than the new ESV Study Bible, which has just been released.

You’ll find 19,500 study notes to help you unfold the richness and truth of God’s Word. In addition, over 50 well-written articles by trusted biblical scholars and pastors give insight on how to study the Bible and read it for all it’s worth.

Watch the ESV Study Bible video introduction below. You can order your copy here at my favorite online bookstore, WTSBooks.

Join us on Wednesday nights for “Exploring The Word,” an in-depth discussion on how to get more out of your Bible reading. Our Wednesday Community Group meets at 7:30 pm in Alexandria for residents of Springfield, Kingstowne, Arlington, Annandale, Alexandria, and other nearby places.

The Book of Job has gripped me like no other writing of the Bible. Job’s story forces us to grapple with weighty questions — Is God really worth serving when life is grim, when treasures are taken away, and when He seems so very far away?

Chris Koelle from Portland Studios has illustrated John Piper’s epic poem about Job’s life, suffering, and grace from God. See the web video and get the book here. I was grateful when Emmanuel Bible Church in Mauldin, SC, invited me to preach a 1-sermon overview of The Story of Job last year. You can listen here.

A Ten-Year Study Begins with the First Study: Dan Olinger on Apologetics

I have always appreciated Dr. Dan Olinger, an elder from our sending church Heritage Bible Church. He teaches an adult Sunday School class there, and does a wonderful job. He always has a way of speaking to me just where I am, and about just what I need.

We at Grace Church have been talking a lot about what some call “first things.” These include basic philosophical and theological questions about who God is and how we should react to Him on the basis of who He is. Dr. Dan Olinger started in 2006 to teach a series on Apologetics that he says will take the next ten years. I hope hie’s joking (you’ll find he does that a lot), but also I hope he’s serious about the time he’s going to take. This reminds me of Heritage’s four or five year series preaching through Matthew, but that’s another post.

Dan Olinger is a professor of theology with a pastor’s heart, who is abnormally engaging, witty, and Gospel-centered. In his first few lectures you’ll learn about the basic questions he’s setting out to answer:

• Who is God
• How do we know what He’s like
• How do we go about learning about him?

Really, this is not a ten-year teaching series, but the beginning of a life-long series called the Christian life.

Find his sermons on iTunes in the Heritage Bible Church podcast here.

Or a stream Dan Olinger’s sermons from SermonAudio.com