Wine in to Water- T. Graham Brown

My Apologies for Sporadic Posts

August has been a hectic month! I have not been able to keep up with my blog and my original purpose. I feel bad about this and want to apologize to you.

There is more to do around the house since summer has arrived (yes, Virginia, there is a summer in Washington State)

Work has been hectic, I have had some blood pressure issues - no it is not to high, it has been to low. It was down to 64 over whatever, then it came up to 84, then to 88, then to 118.

The last week in August Irene and I will be in Chicago visiting our number three daughter, son-in-law, and grandson.

I also am finishing up a series entitled "The Catalog of Christian Confession" and on September 6, 2009, I begin a new study. I will be teaching an exegetical and expositional study of the gospel of John. As a result I have been doing tons of reading and prep work in order to begin this new series.

Hopefully, I will be able to get back on track beginning September 1 with regular posts. I appreciate those of you who actually take the time to read and even leave comments. But more important I hope to be a blessing. I am nothing but a pastor with a pastor's heart. I care for you and want to share something, or add something to your life, or give you something that will be for your good and God's glory! This is my goal for any part of my ministry - my goal is two fold, your good and God's glory. Colossians 1:24-2:5.

Well, I just wanted to check in and make a comment and post an apology. Hopefully I can get back on track and you will be blessed and God will be glorified.

Gregg

Meet John Newton

Periodically I would like to introduce to those of you who read this blog, believers who have contributed to or influenced my growth in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. I thank God for the many men and women whose shoulders I am standing on who faithfully passed down something of value that I have latched onto by the grace of God. The men who have had the most influence on me are pastors. I love the men of God who pastor God’s dear lambs and sheep. I am a pastor with a shepherd’s heart and many men both dead and living have had a tremendous influence on me. The first man that I want to share with you was a pastor. He is well know either for his horrific debauchery as an immoral slave trader or for his conversion and writing of the beloved hymn, Amazing Grace. John Newton wrote over 300 hundred hymns, wrote many letters and kept journals. His life and ministry has been a blessing to me. John Newton was born in London, England on July 24, 1725. Newton’s father was a commander of a merchant ship and his mother died before he turned eighteen. It seems that Newton joined his father on his ship and he became a deckhand at the age of 11. He was able to sail on six different voyages with his father. In 1744 Newton was forced to serve on a ship called the H. M. S. Harwich. Since the conditions were harsh, we deserted his post. However we was captured and beaten for being a deserter. At some point, Newton requested a transfer to a ship that was involved in slave trading. He ended up in worse conditions and it was reported that his treatment was even harsher than before. Newton eventually became the captain of his own ship. He was still involved in the slave trade. He became a heavy drinker, sexually immoral, and wicked in every behavior he could think of.

Lindsay Terry writes: “It is reported that at times he was so wretched that even his crew regarded him as little more than an animal.” It was also reported that Newton fell overboard on one occasion and his own crew refused to drop a boat over the side to help him. It is said that the crew threw a harpoon at Newton and the crew dragged him back into the boat with it. It is also reported that to avoid capture with the evidence (which was hundreds of African prisoners who would be sold into slavery) Newton would throw them overboard, while chained together, choosing to murder them rather than be caught red-handed. Newton lived a life of absolute and sinful debauchery. But thanks be unto God that God in His wisdom had a plan. Newton records for us that he believed God was speaking to him through a violent storm that was so severe that the crew had to tie themselves to the ship to be kept from washing overboard. Newton records in his journal the following: When all seemed lost and the shop would surely sink, he exclaimed, “Lord, have mercy upon us." Newton continued to write, “later I reflected on what I had said and I believed that God spoke to me through the storm and His grace had begun to work in me.” In Newton’s multitude of letters and journals he commemorates May 10, 1748 as the day of his conversion. This was for him he believed to be a “day of humiliation in which he subjected his will to a higher power.”

Newton married Mary Catlett in 1750. In 1755 due to a serious sickness, Newton gave up the sea. While he was a sailor he had begun to educate himself. He had taught himself Latin. For a short period of time Newton was a surveyor in Liverpool, England. During this time he met George Whitefield and also John Wesley. Newton became the disciple and protégé of George Whitefield and he learned both the Hebrew and Greek languages.

John Newton became a pastor in Olney, Buckinghamshire. It is reported that his church became so crowed that services had to be enlarged. In 1767 a great meeting took place by the Providence of God. John Newton became friends with William Cowper.

Cowper helped Newton with his church services and they wrote songs together for weekly prayer meetings. They determined to write a new hymn for each meeting. Together or separately they wrote over 350 hymns. Many of those hymns are sung regularly each week in the worship of our God. Of course you know Newton as the author of probably his most well known hymn, “Faith’s Review and Expectation.” Oops, that was the original title of his most well known and beloved hymn, the title later became “Amazing Grace.” You know that one don’t you?

John Newton pastored sixteen years in Olney and then for twenty-eight years at St. Mary Woolnoth. He is buried there with a head stone that he wrote himself which says:

JOHN NEWTON, Clerk

Once an infidel and libertine

A servant of slaves in Africa,

Was, by the rich mercy of our Lord and Savior JESUS CHRIST,

restored, pardoned, and ap­point­ed to preach

the Gos­pel which he had long labored to destroy.

He min­is­tered, Near sixteen years in Ol­ney, in Bucks,

And twenty-eight years in this Church.

{Adapted from information by Al Rogers & Lindsay Terry, R. E. Welsh, and from Christian Biography Resources.}

My Inheritance in the Saints

"The gospel is not just a message of reconciliation with God, but it also heralds the reconciliation of all believers to one another in Christ. Through the death of Christ, God has brought peace where there was once hostility, and He has broken down the racial, economic, and social barriers that once divided us outside of Christ (Eph 2). Also, when God saved us, He made us members of His household (Eph 2:19), and He gave us as gifts to one another (Eph 1:18). Each brother and sister is a portion of my gospel inheritance from God, and I am a portion of their inheritance as well. We are significant players in each other’s gospel narrative, and it is in relationship with one another that we experience the fullness of God in Christ (Eph 3). Hence, the more I comprehend the full scope of the gospel, the more I value the church for which Christ died (Eph 5:25), the more I value the role that I play in the lives of my fellow-Christians, and the more I appreciate the role that they must be allowed to play in mine."

(Milton Vincent, A Gospel Primer, Focus Publishing, pg. 24) What Do You Think?

John Calvin on the Knowledge of God

“What avails it, in short to know a God with whom we have nothing to do? The effect of our knowledge rather ought to be, first, to teach us reverence and fear; and secondly, to induce us under its guidance and teaching to ask every good thing from him, and when it is received, ascribe it to him.” (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 1, chapter two, page 41) “…it ought to be more carefully considered, that all men promiscuously do homage to God, but very few truly reverence him. On all hands there is abundance of ostentatious ceremonies, but sincerity of heart is rare.” (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 1, chapter two, page 42) It seems that Calvin is passionately communicating to us that there is more to knowing God than mere knowledge of whom he might be or where he may dwell. Deep, intimate, and glorious knowledge of God leads us into a sincere reverence and even a gripping awe of him. As we come to know God, we find that he is the author of every thing that we could ever need. This splendid knowledge of God leads me then to conclude seven distinct truths: 1. I owe everything, all that I am, all that I have, and all that I will ever have to God 2. I am nourished and cherished continually by his loving and glorious care 3. God is the author of all of my blessings 4. Therefore, I have no reason to look at any other source for anything I need 5. I need to ask God to develop within me a deep and sincere reverence for him 6. I can not devise my own means of meeting any of my needs apart from him 7. I am bound and compelled to ascribe all that I receive to him for his glory What do you think?

The Blessing of the Lord’s Table

This past Sunday our fellowship, in keeping with its long standing custom, celebrated the Lord's Table on the first Sunday of the month. I look forward to our time around the Lord’s Table as a local body of believers. Communion is a very special time for me. I will admit that I lament and sometimes mourn that we do not celebrate or commemorate the Lord’s Table each week. Though I have participated in the Communion Service an innumerable number of times, have preached and taught on Communion, and have meditated heavily on it, I do not profess to be an expert nor to have the last word. However, I think that many times we miss the blessing and the meaning of the Lord’s Table by our rote, abbreviated, “moment” of reflection and by our actions. I realize there isn’t much that can be varied or changed in the celebration. It is a struggle to keep any pattern or form of observance from becoming ritualistic or routine. If we are not careful in our endeavor to truly see the significance of the Lord’s Table we can miss the blessedness of God’s gift to the church in this ordinance. (This is not the time to discuss transubstantiation or consubstantiation, or memorial.) It seems from a careful study of the New Testament that God has given us two ordinances, baptism and the Lord’s Table. Baptism is to be performed once after an individual has professed allegiance to and acceptance of the gospel message. The Lord’s Table is to be conducted as often as we wish or determine by believers who have been redeemed by our Lord Jesus Christ. What is the significance of baptism? Briefly, it demonstrates in a physical pictorial form what has transpired in the life of one who has repented of their sins and turned in faith to the saving work of Jesus Christ on the cross. It is an identification with the death, burial and resurrection of Christ in the life of one who once had no identification with Him. In other words, a baptismal candidate is stating publicly that he or she is identifying themselves with and as a recipient of the death of Jesus Christ. They are acknowledging that they now trusting in the acceptance of God the Father of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ the Son in His death as their means of eternal forgiveness and redemption. At the Lord’s Table we do the very same thing. Why did God give this ceremony to the church? It is to be a frequent reminder that we publicly identify with the death of Christ on the cross for our eternal salvation. We are also stating that the ability to now live as a Christian, to put off the deeds of the flesh and to put on the deeds of the Spirit, can only come as a result of Christ’s death and subsequent resurrection. When we eat the bread, which represents His body, and drink the wine or juice that represents His blood, we are stating that everything I now have and everything that I now am in Christ has been purchased for me by the death of the Lord Jesus Christ and God’s acceptance of that death. Where do we miss these truths? We miss these truths when we take a “few minutes for reflection on our lives in order to confess known sin.” We miss these truths when we fail to mention that we are now to live in light of the death of Christ. We miss these truths when we minimize (many times very unintentionally) our identification with the death of Christ. Christ purchased for us so much more than just heaven, or “eternal life” when He died on the cross. He purchased every blessing we will ever experience. He purchased forgiveness, redemption, inheritance, freedom, and the ability to live for Him in this life as He commands. As we celebrate the Lord’s Table we should focus on what was purchased by the death of Christ. As we are dismissed from the table we should focus on the fact that we now can live in light of what the death of Christ purchased and then, and only then, are we encouraged to go forth from the gathering of the body into our daily life through the scattering of the body living as one who has been truly redeemed. Don’t miss the significance of the Lord’s Table by simply reflecting on some sin that may need to be confessed prior to eating and drinking in order not to be judged in some manner. No, the table is so much more than that! Thank God for the great gift of the Lord’s Table and for all that it means to us who have been redeemed by the sacrifice of His body and the shedding of His blood! What do you think?

Oh Evangelical Church - Wake Up!