A need for expository sermons

 

I have begun to listen to mp3 sermons by Dick Lucas again. He is still my favourite speaker. 

He is an Anglican evangelical cleric, best known for his long ministry at St Helen's Bishopsgate in London, England. He was the rector there from 1961 to 1998. He founded the Proclamation Trust in 1986 as a center to train men and women on reading and studying the bible contextually. Now in his 90s, he still has an active and influential ministry. He preaches and speaks at conferences and serves on the leadership team of the Cornhill Training Course. 

He preaches very good expository sermons giving you both the context of the passage and the bible as a whole. 

I just listened to part 1 of his sermon The Race set Before Us (2 Tim 4:1-8) and learnt that Onesiphorus is one rather special person. 

Lucas compared Paul being imprisoned in Rome to a pastor then being imprisoned in Iran. The pastor's friends who visited him in the Iranian prison went through invasive interrogation as to who they were and why they would want to visit the pastor in prison. They were asked who among their friends who have also converted to Christianity. There were soon released after being fingerprinted. Would you have the courage to visit this pastor in Iran? 

In the same way, Paul was imprisoned in Rome under Nero. Imagine what Onesiphorus would have gone through when he visited Paul in prison. Paul said this of him: "May the Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains, but when he arrived in Rome he searched for me earnestly and found me - may the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that Day! - and you well know all the service he rendered at Ephesus. - 2 Timothy 1:16-18

I have new respect for this small but great person in the bible. We can learn many lessons just from him. 

I really miss listening to expository sermons. I plan to listen to more of these mp3 sermons in my commute. I have also just signed up to attend the Centre for Expository Preaching Conference 2016 to give myself a three-full-day dosage of it. As much as I am not a preacher, I am looking forward to it, as well as the Klang Valley Bible Conference 2016 in the evenings after the day conference. 

pearlie

No theologian who has ever lived resolved this

I am not one who would argue for Calvinism or Armenianism on predestination. I find that we are all totally inept to fully understand the topic of the sovereignty and the grace of God put together. I was listening to Dick Lucas on Rev 3:14-22 this morning where he quoted a commentator* who said, “We got to find room for divine sovereignty and human responsibility and no theologian who has ever lived is able to resolve how to bring those together theoretically.”

What do you think? No one is able to resolve it? I kind of reconcile it with the fact that we have no way to save ourselves, and even if we can make the decision to believe in Him and so be saved, it is only made possible by the grace of a sovereign God. In a sense, yes, we will not be saved if we do not make the decision to believe in Him but we cannot make the decision in the first place if not for the grace of God. This God is both sovereign and gracious, and we cannot speak of his sovereignty and grace separately.

How would you reconcile it best you could?

pearlie

* He did not say (or I did not hear) who the commentator was. I could not google it either.

I don't believe in coincidences

I am pretty stressed out lately, to the point that I get panicky at the slightest feel of loss of control. On my way to work this morning, I was rummaging through the new selection of mp3 sermons I had just downloaded. I thought to myself, "Wouldn’t it be nice to listen to Dick Lucas on Philippians?"

Scrolling down the mp3 list, I settled on this series of four sermons by Dick Lucas entitled “All I Want”, and as you would have it, they were his expository Tuesday Lunch sermons on Philippians 3.

The Epistle to the Philippians is my favourite Pauline epistle.

And believe you me, Dick Lucas seem to have that calming effect on me – his tone, his faithful handling of Scripture, his dry wit and his sometimes no nonsense word of exhortation.

My favourite Pauline epistle and my favourite expositor-preacher, combine these two and it should settle me down.

I don't believe in coincidences. God hears our every thought.

pearlie

The Unanswered Prayers and the Answered Prayer

Melissa once asked if I am “into Englishmen and stiff, upper-lip British English”.

Ah, I am not sure about the first one, since I do not really know any Englishman but she is absolutely right on the second!

Anyway, that is beside the point. I have uploaded several of Dick Lucas’ talks into my cellphone and I had let it run as I commute to and fro work. I happened to hear his session on 1 Kings 18 on The Unanswered Prayers and the Answered Prayer.

Talk about my endless study and thinking on the subject of prayer, this session seriously hit the nail in the head for me – it is about the most realistic thing I have heard about prayer.

It won’t do justice to have it summarised here. You have to listen it for yourself – the session is just brilliant. Get the mp3 here.

pearlie

Our pockets are tightening up

Petrol prices here went up by RM0.78 today to RM2.70. That is a huge jump, the biggest ever and this is more bad news for the already rising inflation. I keep reminding myself that this is life as it is and that I have eternity to look to, I have hope.

I was also listening to Dick Lucas' session on Psalm 90, which in fact has an extremely dismal portion about us. His title for the session is so aptly put: Are We Living in the Real World?

Many people, be it Christians or non-Christians, politicians or beauty queens, tells us that our world can be perfect, peaceful, sublime and happy, if we do and follow a certain set rules, or simply, we do what they say. As much as things can be better if we do some of those things they advocate, ultimately we live in a broken and fallen world. As much as we call for peace, for justice, for equality, and as much as we do our best to make those a reality, we are but drawn to the darkness and we revel in it.

Dick reminds us that we need to be careful not to live in Dream Land. Scriptures keep us away from dream world.

In times when we feel that life is like a rock rolling downhill, with its momentum gathering as it goes and getting chipped as it hits hard surfaces, remember Psalm 90.

In verse 1 and 2, the Psalter first remind himself of,
The Eternal God.
Psalm 90:1-2
1 Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations.
2 Before the mountains were born
Or You gave birth to the earth and the world,
Even from everlasting to everlasting,
You are God.

After setting the scene in v.1-2, the Psalter is now able to face the terrible state of life and laments without a bitter spirit,
The Transient Life of Fallen Man.
Psalm 90:3-12
3 You turn man back into dust
And say, "Return, O children of men."
4 For a thousand years in Your sight
Are like yesterday when it passes by,
Or as a watch in the night.
5 You have swept them away like a flood, they fall asleep;
In the morning they are like grass which sprouts anew.
6 In the morning it flourishes and sprouts anew;
Toward evening it fades and withers away.
7 For we have been consumed by Your anger
And by Your wrath we have been dismayed.
8 You have placed our iniquities before You,
Our secret sins in the light of Your presence.
9 For all our days have declined in Your fury;
We have finished our years like a sigh.
10 As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years,
Or if due to strength, eighty years,
Yet their pride is but labor and sorrow;
For soon it is gone and we fly away.
11 Who understands the power of Your anger
And Your fury, according to the fear that is due You?
12 So teach us to number our days,
That we may present to You a heart of wisdom.

In his closing, the Psalter say
A Prayer for True Restoration and Renewal.
Psalm 90:12-17
13 Do return, O LORD; how long will it be?
And be sorry for Your servants.
14 O satisfy us in the morning with Your steadfast love,
That we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
15 Make us glad according to the days You have afflicted us,
And the years we have seen evil.
16 Let Your work appear to Your servants
And Your majesty to their children.
17 Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us;
And confirm for us the work of our hands;
Yes, confirm the work of our hands.

We too need to daily say the psalm:

First to worship our Eternal God, to acknowledge Him as Lord and King. And with our Eternal God to rule our lives, whom shall we fear?

Second, to confess our frailty and our sins, we cannot save ourselves - a fact so clearly demonstrated throughout the history of humankind.

And finally, to seek God humbly to restore and renew us, to find favour in us and confirm us as His children. We are nothing other than what He says we are.

Amen.

pearlie

An excellent exposition on Ps 119

I have found Dick Lucas' expository sessions so well done and enormously beneficial. In my efforts to understand the bible and put God's commands into practice, I find his sessions a joy to listen to, with many things to learn.

I was listening in these couple of days to his exposition on Psalm 119.

He reminded us that there are those who paints a picture of a Christian life or standards for the church that would be too ideal and unreal. What we can gain from Psalm 119 though is a realistic model of Christian spirituality for every age and every person - not something that is too ideal or unrealistic to be followed.

He gave a clue or key to the reading of Psalm 119. It is one, unlike most psalms, that has no logical flow, no argument that leads to a conclusion, no melodic line, and it even ends with a sad anti-climax. Refering to Alexan Alexander, he said that Psalm 119 is intended as a "storehouse of material for pious meditation rather than a discourse of continuous perusal".

The psalm is rich in covenantal language that shows us what a close relationship the psalmist has with the Almighty God. I also realised that the psalm is full of pain - I never saw that. The psalmist was very open about his emotions on the dismal condition of himself, on Israel and on humankind.

There are many changes required in me to attune my life to God's standard. We need a standard to level up our lives on, and that standard is nothing but the Word of God. No sooner had I wanted to include "and our Lord and Saviour" to the standard, I realised in amazement that He is the Word.

Dick also said that in fact, only a pulpit and a table is needed in our churches.

A pulpit that only preaches the Word; a table that only serves bread and wine, and only functions as how Christ has asked us to remember. If the pulpit and the table is being used otherwise, we have strayed from the standard and they no longer represent the Gospel of Christ.

I need to be reading the psalm again today.

pearlie