Freedom is at the heart both of God’s grace, and who God is.

When God reveals Himself to Moses, He virtually defines Himself as an absolutely free giver of grace. In Exodus 33.18, Moses says to God,

“Please, show me your glory,”

God’s first reponse to this prayer is to give Moses a verbal revelation that precedes the visual one. In effect, what God says is, Here is my glory: “I will be gracious to whom I would be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.”¹

When God says, “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious,” he means: I am free in showing grace. If you were to ask, “Who are those to whom you show grace,” the answer is: “Those on whom I show grace.” In other words, God doesn’t look outside His own will for an impulse to move his grace. Ultimeately grace is not constrained by anything outside of God Himself.

Right at the very heart of God’s self-revelation is the declaration that He is free in the way He dispenses His grace. And this freedom belongs to the very essence of what it means to be God. God is gracious to whom He will be gracious. He is not limited by anyone’s wickedness. He is not ever trapped by His own wrath; His grace may break out anywhere He pleases. And this is a great encouragement to the worst of sinners to turn from futile hopes and trust in God’s grace…

1. Exodus 33.19, ESV, emphasis mine. [↩]

This post is really a final thought about, and extension of, my sermon series on the distinction between the Law and the Gospel. As I tried to articulate to the college crowd at H²0 over the last 6 weeks, the Law is what God demands; the Gospel is what God provides. Articulating this distinction is essential to understanding and living life in Christ.

The more I’ve mulled over the topic in my head, even after the series has been completed, the more I realize that I could have preached in that series for the rest of 2008 and not come close to exhausting all that the Bible has to say on this particular topic.

For the most part, I use the word gospel nearly interchangeably with the word grace. I do this because Paul repeatedly speaks of the gospel of God’s grace, with grace being the focal point of the gospel. When the Law demands, the Gospel provides, and what is provided by the gospel is grace! Grace which is unmerited and totally free, and grace and freedom is at the absolute heart of who God is.

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“We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.”

I start our series on First John with this verse because it seems to provide the background and the setting for what will be taught by the whole letter. I know many people, both believer and unbeliever, that find this letter somewhat confusing and difficult to understand; there are numerous reasons for that. The message of First John is essentially quite simple; it’s author’s manner and style is one that will lead us to a certain amount of confusion if we don’t keep a very firm grasp on the the great principles of his teaching.
This letter absolutely illustrates the case of being in danger of missing the woods for the trees, so we start with one of the three great key verses to understanding what’s written. The other two are:

“I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.” 1 John 5.13

And,

“And we are writing these things so that our¹ joy may be complete.” 1 John 1.4

It is in these three statements that we have the great objective which was in the mind of the Apostle John.

In other words, the theme of this letter is the Christian in the world, what is possible to him; how is the Christian to face the world; how is he to stand up to it; what is his relationship to this world that he finds himself in?

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1. some manuscripts read your [↩]

Now that I’ve gotten FeedDemon all setup and working properly, I’m subscribing to some of my favorite blogs by way of my aggregator, and at the top of the list is the Desiring God Blog, featuring Pastor John Piper.

Many of Dr. Pipers books sit dog-eared on my bookshelf, and have profoundly influenced me in the last 2 years. Discovering God’s Passion For His Glory was like stumbling on a cave full of treasures. While Dr. Piper freely admits he is not a primary teacher in the sense that Jonathan Edwards was, he has still been a powerful instrument of God’s grace to me, and for that I am so incredibly thankful.

While checking FeedDemon today, I found his newest blog post, Sometimes Only God Can Feel Hope, and wanted to recommend it to you all. Once again, Piper hits a home-run.

So here we go:

I’m reading through a load of New and Old Testament passages on prayer, while simultaneously trying to pick apart Calvin’s comments on prayer in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, and I’ve been very convicted by one recurring theme.

Prayer is intimately connected to passion. And passion, ladies and gents, is one of a number of things that is severely lacking in my own prayer life.

The single, unifying passion of all prayer is Jesus. As the image says,

“obsesssively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus…”

All prayer is about Jesus and His kingdom, and is directed towards Jesus for the triumph of His kingdom. If Jesus isn’t at the center, it just isn’t really prayer.

So why this obsession with Jesus?

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