Contemplate & Consider Vol. 15

From The Bible is Not Self Help by David Wells

But the point of studying Scripture is not therapy. Bible study is not self-help. We are not there to listen to our own voice that is crying from within. We are there to hear his voice that comes from outside our experience. And his Word is not one of many. It is the only Word that has been there from all eternity because it comes from the eternal God.

God, then, is not there for our use when we need him; we are here on earth for his use. He is not there for our benefit as if he were a product; we are here for his service.

5 Ways Sin is Serious

From Desiring God Ministries
John Piper

In Psalm 51, as he laments and repents of his adultery with Bathsheba and his murder of Uriah, David confesses at least five ways that his sin is extremely serious.

1. He says that he can’t get the sin out of his mind.

It is blazoned on his conscience. Verse 3:

For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.

Ever before him. The tape keeps playing. And he can’t stop it.

2. He says that his exceeding sinfulness is only against God.

Nathan had said David despised God and scorned his word. So David says in verse 4,

Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.

This doesn’t mean Bathsheba and Uriah and the baby weren’t hurt. It means that what makes sin sin is that it is against God. Hurting man is bad. It is horribly bad. But that’s not the horror of sin. Sin is an attack on God—a belittling of God. David admits this in striking terms: “Against you, you only, have I sinned.”

3. He doesn't justify himself.

David vindicates God, not himself. There is no self-justification. No defense. No escape. Verse 4:

…so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.

God is justified. God is blameless. If God casts David into hell, God will be innocent.

This is radical God-centered repentance. This is the way saved people think and feel. God would be just to damn me. And that I am still breathing is sheer mercy. And that I am forgiven is sheer blood-bought mercy. David vindicates the righteousness of God, not himself.

4. He intensifies his guilt by drawing attention to his inborn corruption.

Verse 5:

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Some people use their inborn corruption to diminish their personal guilt. David does the opposite. For him the fact that he committed adultery and murdered and lied are expressions of something worse: He is by nature that way.

If God does not rescue him, he will do more and more evil.

5. He admits that he sinned not just against external law but against God’s merciful light in his heart.

Verse 6:

Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.

God had been his teacher. God had made him wise. David had done so many wise things. And then sin got the upper hand. For David, this made it all the worse. “I have been blessed with so much knowledge and so much wisdom. O how deep must be my depravity that it could sin against so much light.”

So in those five ways at least David joins the prophet Nathan and God in condemning his sin and confessing the depths of his corruption.

Excerpted and adapted from the sermon "A Broken and Contrite Heart God Will Not Despise."

Contemplate & Consider Vol. 14

"One's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions."

Luke 12:15

Funny or Not? Vol. 32

The T-Shirt War from Ibrahim Nergiz on Vimeo.

Dumpster Juice or Jesus?

Philippians 3:7-8
But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.

Food, money, relationships, stuff...life. What is your treasure? Something eternal or something that will quickly fade with life and death. In Philippians 3 Paul encourages us with the treasure of his life, Christ. He considers everything else to be trash compared to the worth of Christ. This doesn't mean that food, money, relationships and stuff have no value, temporally, but compared to the eternal value of Christ they are like that juice you find at the bottom of the dumpster.

So, how do we value Christ? How do we use money, food, relationships and stuff in a way that shows the world we treasure Christ more?

Check out this John Piper Sermon Jam:



"The way we display the supreme worth of Jesus is by treasuring him above all things and then making choices which make the joy we have in his supreme worth manifest." (John Piper)

People need to see that we treasure Christ. That we treasure our relationship with him. That we understand the supreme value of eternity versus stuff.

Treasure Christ this week by keeping an eternal perspective in everything.