salvation

What are you thankful for?

The past couple of weeks in the life of Wilkesboro Baptist Church have been amazing. I am thankful to our Lord for answered prayers and for souls saved.

In recent weeks, children, teenagers, and adults have placed their trust in Jesus Christ. Some of them will follow through with believer’s baptism on Sunday November 28.

Baptism on November 28 coincides with the final sermon in our current sermon series: LIFE, DEATH, HELL, HEAVEN. The final sermon in the series is on HEAVEN. We will celebrate the professions of faith through baptism and look at what the Bible teaches about HEAVEN in our services this week.

This series has reminded me of some specific things for which I am thankful:

  • I’m thankful that God answered the prayers of family and friends for the salvation of sinners. Many of those who have professed faith recently have been on my prayer list and/or on the prayer lists of parents, Sunday school classes, and discipleship groups.
  • I’m thankful for the opportunity to preach the gospel and to share the gospel personally. It is my calling and joy to preach the gospel, and I’m grateful when God brings sinners to salvation connected to our worship services. But it is also my calling to share the gospel personally. I’ve had the opportunity to share the gospel personally with some of those who have recently come to faith.
  • I’m thankful for parents who are faithful to share the gospel with their children, bring them to church, and pray for their children. The tears of joy in the eyes of parents when their children come to faith is an unforgettable privilege I am thankful for.
  • I’m thankful for our children and student ministries and our ministerial staff who lead them, Tad Craig and Danielle Hicks. Their gospel-centered teaching and leadership help saturate children and students with the good news of Jesus.
  • I’m thankful for baptism. Baptism is the public declaration of one’s personal decision to follow Jesus. It is a time for the church to celebrate with those who have trusted in Jesus Christ.
  • I’m thankful for our Trinitarian God who saves. Before the world began, God the Father planned our salvation (not just the events that occurred 2,000 years ago, but also the personal circumstances that have brought each of us to salvation). God the Son secured our salvation by his death on the cross and resurrection from the dead. God the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin and makes us alive by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Remember this, as much as we want God to save our friends and family, our neighbors and the nations, God wants to save them more.

What things are you thankful for? Give this question some thought this week. Make time to thank God for what he’s done and for what he’s doing.

During this Thanksgiving week, let me encourage you to not only be thankful, but to celebrate with us at Wilkesboro Baptist.

  • Plan to attend either the 9:30 am service or the 11:00 am service on November 28. We’re baptizing in both services, and we will look at what the Bible says about HEAVEN in all our services this week.
  • Invite others to attend. The willingness of our church folks to invite friends and family to attend during this sermon series has been a blessing! Keep inviting. Sunday, November 28 will be a special day that you don’t want to miss.
  • Continue to pray. God is at work. Don’t lose heart in praying for sinners to come to faith in Jesus. God is answering your prayers and mine. Keep asking God to save. Ask God to open blinded eyes, to soften hard hearts, and to rescue sinners from death and hell.
  • Share the good news. The good news is meant to be shared. God rescued us, but he also commissioned us to lead our neighbors and the nations to follow Jesus. Look for an opportunity this week to tell someone about the life that Christ has given you.

We ought to be thankful for the salvation we’ve received, and we ought to be faithful to share the good news with those who’ve yet to receive salvation. In this past week’s sermon I referenced a powerful appeal by Charles Spurgeon to his congregation at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London. Let this appeal both burden and bless us this week as we pray for, invite, and share with our neighbors and the nations.

Oh, my brothers and sisters in Christ, if sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies; and if they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay, and not madly to destroy themselves. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon, “Sermon XX: The Wailing of Risca.”[1]

[1] Quoted by Denny Burk,. Four Views on Hell (Counterpoints: Bible and Theology) (p. 43). Zondervan Academic. Kindle Edition.

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

Word of the Week: Trinity

Over the years, I’ve had plenty of questions about Scripture and issues of faith. One of the deepest questions I’ve experienced concerns the nature of God—specifically God as Trinity. I think one of the reasons for these questions is that the doctrine of the Trinity is both fascinating and mysterious.

Illustrations have been applied to assist us in explaining the Trinity: the egg (shell, yoke, white) or water (ice, liquid, steam) or a person (husband, dad, employee). These illustrations lack because they fail to justly explain the nature of God. They fall incredibly short because when we talk about the Trinity because we are talking about the nature of God himself: One God in three Persons.

The Bible affirms several truths about God’s nature as revealed in the Trinity.

First, God is One. Christianity is monotheistic. There is only one God.

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”

Deuteronomy 6:4

Second, God the Father is God. Jesus teaches us to pray to God the Father as holy and Sovereign.

Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.”

Matthew 6:9

Third, God the Son is God. When Thomas saw the risen Jesus, he called Jesus Lord and worshipped him. Only God can be worshiped. Jesus himself affirmed that only God can be worshiped.

Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”

John 20:28

Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’”

Matthew 4:10

Fourth, God the Holy Spirit is God. When Annanias and Sapphira lied about how much they sold their property for, Peter said they lied to God.

But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land?  While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man but to God.”

Acts 5:3-4

Fifth, God is One, yet in three persons. God is Trinity as the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. At Jesus’ baptism, each person of the Trinity acted in the event uniquely (Matthew 3:13-17). This is an important distinction that reflects the Trinity.

In Jesus’ own baptism, there are not simply three names but three actors—the Father who speaks (“This is my beloved Son”), the “beloved Son” who is baptized, and the dove who hovers above Jesus, suggesting reference to the Sprit hovering over the waters in creation and concurring with the benediction on all that God has made.

Michael Horton, The Christian Faith, 275.

Trinitarian heresies of a variety of sorts have risen throughout church history. Arianism taught that Jesus was not God. Modalism taught that God revealed himself in different modes at different times. For example, God revealed himself in the Old Testament as Father, in the Gospels as Jesus, and now to the church as the Holy Spirit. These heresies, along with others, misconstrue the truths of the Trinity affirmed in the Bible in order to try to make sense of the Trinity. But instead of trying to wrap our finite minds around the mystery of the Trinity, we need to believe what the Bible affirms and accept that the mystery of Trinity means God is greater than we can understand.

With Augustine, we must say, “I believe in order that I may understand.” 

The Trinity is a staggeringly practical and important doctrine. Even as it may be difficult to fully understand, we can clearly understand the implications of the doctrine for our Christian experience.

Without the Trinity our salvation according to Scripture would not be possible. Take a look at Ephesians 1:3-14 and note how each person of the Trinity participates in our salvation. The Father planned our salvation, the Son accomplished our salvation, and the Spirit convicts us to salvation (John 16:8-12) and assures us of salvation.

Without the Trinity our prayers would be meaningless. We pray to the Father through the Son by the Holy Spirit. We don’t talk to the Father on the evidence of our own goodness, but we talk to the Father based on the righteousness given to us by Christ. And it is the Holy Spirit that both prays for us (Romans 8:26) and empowers our prayers.

Without the Trinity, we would not have a God who is love. When John affirmed that “God is love” (1 John 4:7), he used the Greek word agape for love. Agape is love that is other-oriented, relational, selfless. But God has always been, and there was a time when only God existed. So how could God be love? He could only be love in the definition of 1 John 4:7 if God is Trinity, existing eternally in the Persons of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Tim Keller explains this concept beautifully.

If God is unipersonal, then until God created other persons there was no love, since love is something that one person has for another. This means that God was power, sovereignty, greatness from all eternity, but not love. Love then is not the essence of God, nor is it at the heart of the universe. Power is primary.

Tim Keller, The Reason for God, 225.

Be thankful that the God whose greatness and nature in Trinity is greater than our understanding, yet gracious enough to condescend to be our Savior and Friend.