Trinity Evangel Church

"Likewise wives subject yourselves to your husbands" or "Likewise husbands show honor to your wife as the weaker vessel"

# Introduction It would be challenging to find a more important paragraph in the New Testament. The truth in it depends on the realities about Jesus' life and death and resurrection recorded for us in the Gospels. But if 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 is the summary of gospel history, then Romans 3:21-26 is the cream that rises to the top of gospel theology. A couple brief comments: I love paragraphs, and w...

# Introduction Jesus said, “I will build my church” (Matthew 16:18). Jesus is the head of the body, the church, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything He might be *preeminent* (Colossians 1:18). We have nothing good apart from Him, and nothing we say today or celebrate about our church matters apart from Him. “Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain” (Psalm 127:...

# Introduction There are at least three great reasons to be a Calvinist: 1) other people, 2) my heart, 3) God's Word. It's the Bible that has the ultimate authority, but personal experience and observation affirm the Scripture. Maybe you’ve heard of the “cage stage” of Calvinism, where enthusiasm (for a newly understood theological perspective) is rabid and needs some restraints. But by (irresisti...

# Introduction The first time I read the following argument was in the fall of 1993 by a man named Erasmus. He wrote that some parts of the Bible are too difficult to understand, are likely to cause confusion, maybe even will lead to heretical teaching, and should therefore be untouched, certainly by untrained men and probably even by the academic theologians. Then I read Martin Luther’s response,...

# Introduction There is a wonderful simplicity in the Christian life and in the worship of the church. It is so simple that in one sense a definition is not needed. What is needed is faith in God through Jesus His Son. The “student” nuance of the word disciple isn’t as helpful as the “follower” emphasis. There really is a distinction between knowing God and knowing about God. There is a distinctio...

# Introduction While we talk a lot about circumcision this morning, which is not a frequent sermon topic, remember that sinners excel at missing the point. There is a lot of iceberg underneath the tip of this paragraph. We see what's above the surface, we see what Paul actually wrote to the Romans, and the problem isn't as much which parts Paul left out but how much the Jews had left out. Circumci...

# Introduction One surprise that keeps surprising me in Scripture is how much *God gives*. When we talk about His attributes, we ought to connect them to His generosity, His magnanimity. Omniscience applied means He gives with perfect knowledge, who needs what and who will respond how. Omnipotence applied means He gives with complete power, the only limits are ones He sets Himself. Righteousness a...

# Introduction Sometimes a magnificent waterfall waits at the end of a long trail. At least we can walk the trail together in this introduction. At Men to Men last Monday night Jonathan prayed about how many pivotal and life-altering issues seem to be confronting us, and how quickly they keep coming. It is a great time to be a Christian, because we can see how laughable it all is to our God (Psalm...

# Introduction As one of the shepherds I am burdened for the body, jealous for you against the world’s attempts to make you miserable. Within the last ten years—which happen to overlap the years we’ve been busy cultivating a Trinitarian community of worshipping, maturing disciples who acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord over all the world—the accuser, the devil, the evil one, has been cultivating his...

# Introduction The beginning of a new calendar year is as good a time as any for evaluation, which for everyone should result in a lot of things to give thanks to God for, and also for everyone probably some repenting from sin and turning to obedience. These are year round activities, but something about the transition from December to January makes it fitting. The beginning of the calendar year a...

# Introduction Here we are on the last Lord’s Day of the year, during the sermon part of Consecration, the part of our liturgy which focuses on setting us apart to the Lord. Consecration belongs with our sanctification; we are being conformed into greater Christlike holiness and transformed into greater Christlike glory. There has maybe been no greater test of my sanctification this past year than...

# Introduction I prefer quiet. I grew up in a house where my dad more than preferred it, he punished the rest of us, not ironically and quite effectively with his own unvoiced anger, for not being quiet. Quiet is drilled into me. Many stories we’ve heard about “spiritual” people also involve quiet. Among us Bible-reading types we even have our own modern-monkish moments we call “quiet times.” We’v...

# Introduction There have been a lot of babies born under the sun. There have been a lot of important people born. There have been a lot of incredible stories surrounding births, even ones we read in the Old Testament. Yet there is only *one* only-begotten child of the Father, there is only *one* virgin-born son, there is only *one* Christ, one Savior of men, and one birth story *gloria in excelsi...

# Introduction Hindsight is 20/20; reporting accurately on what happened is easier than predicting accurately (even though these days the "news" may exhibit more creative license than a charismatic preacher’s work in an abstract pottery class). The point is, before and after really are different positions. One of the ways that God distinguishes Himself from idols is by telling the future (“Behold,...

# Introduction Christmas is a double-edged story that cuts off both the legs of Gnosticism and materialism in the same swing. God, clothed in flesh, endorsed the physical world, perhaps in a deeper way that even the creation itself. Yet how the Incarnation comes about, and what it points to, calls us to live on earth by faith, not by empiricism. Even though we don’t really have another good, consi...

# Introduction C. S. Lewis referred to it as the *Tao* in _The Abolition of Man_. Augustine and Aquinas called it “natural law,” and it ought to be seen as a complement to the presuppositional apologetic as taught by men such as Cornelius Van Til and Greg Bahnsen. You don’t need to read any of those men, you can read these five verses to the Romans. Whatever label we give it, or how many more page...

# Introduction When I was a new Kuyperian I was a naïve Kuyperian. By Kuyperian I mean someone who acknowledges that Jesus is Lord of all and that Jesus is *interested* in it all. This means that sermons and reading Scripture aren’t the only spiritual or significant things. God can be served and glorified by *any* lawful activity, by every good work done by faith. All vocations, and side projects...

# Introduction It’s been said that the more you know, the more you realize how much you don’t know. That has some truth in it, but there is a related second-cousin axiom, that the more you know, the more you realize how much *other people* are wrong. The Information Age has increased the amount of information we have to judge others with. This fault-finding bent is a corruption of the *imago Dei*...