GCV Blog

Newton continued his encouragement to Ryland, pointing him to trust in God and not Ryland's emotions or perceptions of God's blessings. Ryland would swing from despair that he was failing spiritually to concern that he wasn't being tested enough. Newton deals with both these extremes.

Although he's better known for writing Amazing Grace, John Newton was also a faithful pastor who excelled at another kind of writing. Newton wrote countless numbers of letters, some to members of his congregation, some to friends, some to the newspapers as editorials, and some to other pastors. Newton's letters to one pastor in particular, John Ryland Jr., have been gathered and organized in a book called Wise Counsel. This fascinating and helpful work functions as a mix between history, biography, and devotional reading. For the next few weeks, I'd like to share excerpts from "Letter Five," a letter designed to encourage a discouraged Ryland.

"As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace: 11 whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies-in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen." I Peter 4:10-11

Does grace lead to unrestrained sin? Does freedom from the Mosaic Law mean freedom from any kind of obedience? The apostle Paul faced these kinds of questions recurringly, and the consistency and clarity of his answers ought to make the answer plain to us. "What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means!" "What then? Are we to sin because we are not under Law but under grace? By no means!" It is only the most serious misunderstandings of grace that use grace as an excuse for sin. Grace is abused and misused if we ever think of it as a reason to live unrighteously. Grace is actually the only power for holiness. Rightly understood, there is no greater or better motivation for holiness.

"Oh freedom, oh freedom, oh freedom over me And before I'd be a slave I'll be buried in my grave And go home to my Lord and be free"

Throughout the book of Philippians, Paul celebrates the unique Gospel partnership he shared with the Philippian church. Paul opens the books by explaining that even his prayers were marked with thankfulness and joy because of their partnership in the Gospel. And in the closing of his book, Paul again praises the Philippians for being the only church who partnered with him, joined his suffering, and met his needs. In the Great Commission, both "senders" and "goers" matter. It's our privilege to partner with the Staniscis to spread the Gospel in Italy. Lucio's birthday is on Thursday, and the Staniscis are our Seeds missionaries for the month. All these seemed like good reasons to remind you about the Staniscis' ministry and a few key prayer requests.

Last week brought an end to some of our children's ministries' busiest weeks of the year. Among Vacation Bible School, Camp 7 Oaks for 4th-6th graders, and then Camp 7 Oaks for Junior High, you as a church poured out an incalculable amount of time, energy, prayer, and effort. Thank you seems pretty inadequate considering how much effort these last weeks have taken, but thank you so very much.

Time. It can crawl by and drag on, it can run and it can race. Time flies and we run out of it, but we all have the same amount to work with. Time can disappear like a lady in a magic act and be wasted like a gambler's dollar. We never get to relive the past and we never arrive at the future. So how should we think about the present? Especially as we race into our summer schedules, how should we be thinking about our time?

As a pastoral team, we're excited to have Jim Berg as a guest speaker next Sunday, June 3. Jim is a gifted speaker, writer, and counsellor. He also happens to be Angie McMorris's dad. He's written two excellent books on sanctification, Changed Into His Image and Created for His Glory. I've personally been blessed by Changed into His Image, having read it multiple times, and his short little book When Trouble Comes is also an excellent read on suffering. We'll have some of Jim's books available at the Hub, so you might want to consider picking one or two up there on Sunday.

Here's one final suggestion for understanding the purpose of Judges 19-21: ask the Holy Spirit what we're supposed to apply from this story. In the two previous pastoral words on this passage, I suggested that we first look for clues in the text and context, then ask "how does this fit into the story of redemption"? A final clue to any passages' purpose, however, is to ask how it should be applied. Behind any ability to grasp the application of Judges 19-21 are two fundamental convictions. First, we need the Holy Spirit's help and second, He wrote it for a teaching purpose.