A Public Faith PART III
Dr. Timothy Keller
13 October 2013
Psalm 73:1-3, 12-26
1Surely God is good to Israel,
to those who are pure in heart.
2But as for me, my feet had almost slipped;
I had nearly lost my foothold.
3For I envied the arrogant
when I saw the propensity of the wicked.
12This is what the wicked are like--
always free of care, they go on amassing wealth.
13Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure
and have washed my hands in innocence.
14All day long I have been afflicted,
and every morning brings new punishments.
15If I had spoken out like that,
I would have betrayed your children.
16When I tried to understand all this,
it troubled me deeply
17till I entered the sanctuary of God;
then I understood their final destiny.
18Surely you place them on slippery ground;
you cast them down to ruin.
19How suddenly they are destroyed,
completely swept away by terrors!
20They are like a dream when one awakes;
when you arise, Lord,
you will despise them as fantasies.
21When my heart was grieved
and my spirit embittered.
22I was senseless and ignorant;
I was a brute beast before you.
23Yet I am always with you;
you hold me by my right hand.
24You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will take me into glory.
25Whom have I in heaven by you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
26My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.
WHAT IS DOUBT?
--Disorientation that can happen to anyone as it has to this Psalm author.
--Can be away of spiritual progress.
--Doubt led Thomas to greater faith.
--Active, not passive, doubt leads us to question and think about things.
CAUSES OF DOUBT
--Fact--seeing bad behavior pay off.
--Personal experience that feels like every day ends in punishment.
--Doubt and faith is a mixture of thinking and experiences.
WHAT TRANSFORMS DOUBT
--Experience--going to where God feels real--church, community.
--More than just thinking things through--requires actions.
--Thinking through things--heart of all doubt is in faith.
--Even non-believers believe they are right.
Faith on Trial
about Psalm 75
DM Lloyd Jones
Saturday, December 21, 2013
Sickness Unto Death
Public Faith PART II
Dr. Timothy Keller
06 October 2013
Ecclesiastes 2: 9-26
9I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me.
10I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;
I refused my heard not pleasure.
My heart took delight in all my labor,
and this was the reward for all my toil.
11Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;
nothing was gained under the sun.
12Then I turned my thoughts to consider wisdom,
and also madness and folly.
What more can the king's successor do
than what has already been done?
13I saw that wisdom is better than folly,
just as light is better than darkness.
14The wise have eyes in their heads,
while the fool walks in darkness;
but I came to realize
that the same fate overtakes them both.
15Then I said to myself,
"The fate of the fool will overtake me also.
What then do I gain by being wise?"
I said to myself,
"This too is meaningless."
16For the wise, like the fool, will not be long remembered;
the days have already come when both have been forgotten.
Like the fool, the wise too must die!
17So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. 18I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. 19And who knows whether that person will be wise or foolish? Yet they will have control over all the fruit of my toil into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless. 20So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun. 21For a person may labor with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then they must leave all they own to another who has not toiled for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune. 22What do people get for all the toil and anxious striving with which they labor under the sun? 23All their days their work is grief and pain; even at night their minds do not rest. This too is meaningless.
24A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, 25for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? 26To the person who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
THE THOUGHT EXPERIMENT WITH A LESSON
--Author is a professor questioning things.
--Looking at "life under the sun" life on earth without regard to eternity or God
--Is life satisfying under these terms?
--Ways to live life seculary:
Sensual Pleasures--chasing after the wind, you can feel it, but can't grab it.
Wisdom--Using human reasoning to find meaning in life without recourse to God.
Work is meaningless because he hated having to leave everything to someone that comes afterwards that might not be as wise--all of your life is anxious and working like crazy.
The same fate overtakes the philosopher and the fool.
REPETITION IN ECCLESIASTES
--Under the sun....
Meaningless is the lesson if life is only these things we can know under the sun.
--Atheists allow people to decide what meaning is--regognizing that life is random.
--Meaningless can be self defined; it must be discovered as something bigger than you--beyond the self.
EXISTENTIALISTS
--If we're here by accident and your destiny is meaningless, then so is your life.
VERSES 24-26
--Looking at life with God in the center
--Suddenly, everything is a gift
--Your identity isn't just obeying God, but pleasing Him.
--Obey God out of adoration.
ROMANS 8
--Gift of futility
--Meaningless world grounded in hope.
--On the cross, Jesus was inserting himself in our life--that's true love.
Dr. Timothy Keller
06 October 2013
Ecclesiastes 2: 9-26
9I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me.
10I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;
I refused my heard not pleasure.
My heart took delight in all my labor,
and this was the reward for all my toil.
11Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;
nothing was gained under the sun.
12Then I turned my thoughts to consider wisdom,
and also madness and folly.
What more can the king's successor do
than what has already been done?
13I saw that wisdom is better than folly,
just as light is better than darkness.
14The wise have eyes in their heads,
while the fool walks in darkness;
but I came to realize
that the same fate overtakes them both.
15Then I said to myself,
"The fate of the fool will overtake me also.
What then do I gain by being wise?"
I said to myself,
"This too is meaningless."
16For the wise, like the fool, will not be long remembered;
the days have already come when both have been forgotten.
Like the fool, the wise too must die!
17So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. 18I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. 19And who knows whether that person will be wise or foolish? Yet they will have control over all the fruit of my toil into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless. 20So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun. 21For a person may labor with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then they must leave all they own to another who has not toiled for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune. 22What do people get for all the toil and anxious striving with which they labor under the sun? 23All their days their work is grief and pain; even at night their minds do not rest. This too is meaningless.
24A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, 25for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? 26To the person who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
THE THOUGHT EXPERIMENT WITH A LESSON
--Author is a professor questioning things.
--Looking at "life under the sun" life on earth without regard to eternity or God
--Is life satisfying under these terms?
--Ways to live life seculary:
Sensual Pleasures--chasing after the wind, you can feel it, but can't grab it.
Wisdom--Using human reasoning to find meaning in life without recourse to God.
Work is meaningless because he hated having to leave everything to someone that comes afterwards that might not be as wise--all of your life is anxious and working like crazy.
The same fate overtakes the philosopher and the fool.
REPETITION IN ECCLESIASTES
--Under the sun....
Meaningless is the lesson if life is only these things we can know under the sun.
--Atheists allow people to decide what meaning is--regognizing that life is random.
--Meaningless can be self defined; it must be discovered as something bigger than you--beyond the self.
EXISTENTIALISTS
--If we're here by accident and your destiny is meaningless, then so is your life.
VERSES 24-26
--Looking at life with God in the center
--Suddenly, everything is a gift
--Your identity isn't just obeying God, but pleasing Him.
--Obey God out of adoration.
ROMANS 8
--Gift of futility
--Meaningless world grounded in hope.
--On the cross, Jesus was inserting himself in our life--that's true love.
Sunday, December 15, 2013
Why a Public Faith?
A Public Faith: PART I
Rev. Leo Schuster
29 Septermber 2013
John 4:27-42
27Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, "What do you want?" or "Why are you talking with her?" 28Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29"Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?" 30They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
31Meanwhile his disciples urged him, "Rabbi, eat something." 32But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about." 33Then his disciples said to each other, "Could someone have brought him food?"
34"My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 35Don't you have a saying, 'It's still four months until harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. 36Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. 37Thus the saying 'One sows and another reaps' is true. 38I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.
39Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I ever did." 40So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41And because of his words many more became believers.
42They said to the woman, "We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world."
SPRING OF PUBLIC FAITH
--Spring of Living Water becomes a public declaration for her.
--She posed a question, but didn't get in their faces.
--Discovering the wellspring should lead to natural sharing.
FOOD OF A PUBLIC FAITH
--God's food should guide your life, not cultural "food".
--Why don't we share?
--Pride--church as an exclusive club, but it's really a motley group.
--Fear of how we look or that we're offending.
SURPRISE OF A PUBLIC FAITH
--Levels our pride because we're all in a desert.
--Cast out our fear and enslavement by what others think of us.
Let love squeeze out fear--If God went public, why wouldn't we?
Rev. Leo Schuster
29 Septermber 2013
John 4:27-42
27Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, "What do you want?" or "Why are you talking with her?" 28Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29"Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?" 30They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
31Meanwhile his disciples urged him, "Rabbi, eat something." 32But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about." 33Then his disciples said to each other, "Could someone have brought him food?"
34"My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 35Don't you have a saying, 'It's still four months until harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. 36Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. 37Thus the saying 'One sows and another reaps' is true. 38I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.
39Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I ever did." 40So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41And because of his words many more became believers.
42They said to the woman, "We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world."
SPRING OF PUBLIC FAITH
--Spring of Living Water becomes a public declaration for her.
--She posed a question, but didn't get in their faces.
--Discovering the wellspring should lead to natural sharing.
FOOD OF A PUBLIC FAITH
--God's food should guide your life, not cultural "food".
--Why don't we share?
--Pride--church as an exclusive club, but it's really a motley group.
--Fear of how we look or that we're offending.
SURPRISE OF A PUBLIC FAITH
--Levels our pride because we're all in a desert.
--Cast out our fear and enslavement by what others think of us.
Let love squeeze out fear--If God went public, why wouldn't we?
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)