Faithful Living: Prayer, Vocation, and Eternal Security

What I hope to communicate quietly to the church is really a pathway into the Psalms. I think a lot of Christians find the Psalter sort of intimidating. It's a collection of poems, in the first place. We don't read poems anymore, except maybe in Hallmark cards. So, you know, we're not a people much accustomed to the reading of poetry. And then the poems in the book of Psalms strike many of us as sort of randomly there. So, even if we find a poem we really like, we can have a very difficult time ever finding it again. So, this book is an invitation to learn there is a structure to the Psalter. There are themes in the Psalter. There is a way, fairly easy, to begin to get some sense of how poetry works in the Psalter. So, it really is an invitation for people to regain access to this glorious heritage in the Word of God of really beautiful and appropriately emotional responses to God. And so, I hope it will encourage people to really learn to love the Psalms. [00:27:48]

I know what it is to pray for forty-five years and more for the salvation of family members, and I will not stop. I don't think this is a, you know ... 2 Corinthians 12, Paul talks about a thorn in the flesh that he prays three times for it to be removed and somehow received assurance that this prayer was not going to be on answered, at least, not going to be answered in the way that he was praying it. I don't think that's something that we receive about praying for the conversion of friends or family members. It terrifies me too, which drives me even more to prayer. Don't give up. Don't stop praying until you have no pulse. Storm the gates of heaven. [00:162:63]

The warning passages of the Bible have to be taken seriously, that it is possible to make a profession of faith and to commit apostasy, that our hope and assurance doesn't lie in our profession; our hope and our assurance lies in Jesus. And looking to Him every day, preach the gospel to yourself every single day. [00:438:46]

Certainly, the Reformers believed that throughout the Middle Ages there were genuine Christians in the institutional church in the medieval Roman Catholic Church. And I think that's right. I think that's a correct perception, and you can look at theologians, you can look at prominent preachers and religious figures. It's harder to know what went on in the minds and hearts of a lot of common people because there are not a lot of record left by those people, but there certainly was a witness to the gospel and there certainly were believers. [00:503:89]

I think one of the great doctrines and one of the great practices of the Christian life that comes out of the Reformation is the notion of vocation or the notion of calling. We spend a lot of time speaking of the solas and the doctrine of the authority of God's Word, and of justification by faith alone. There is also this wonderful teaching of vocation, and I think many people struggle with this, "What is my calling?" So there are some practical ways we can do this. One is, we just need to try things. Well, if we have an inclination to something, we need to try it. We need to experiment even with things. [00:600:65]

We also need to listen to others that are around our lives, those that we trust, those that have wisdom that have gone down the road a little bit more than we have, that can speak into our lives and can see blind spots and maybe even point out things that are strengths for us that we don't recognize. Proverbs talks about this, like getting godly counsel from others, and then we also just need to wait upon the Lord and trust that the Lord will open doors for us. [00:689:90]

I try to tell this to my students all the time, the good news is that God is sovereign and God is good and God is all wise and He will safeguard our choices. And many times, this is true in my life; it's true in your life. Many times, God will protect us from ourselves and keep us from making those bad choices. We don't always see it at the moment, but later we can see how that was God's good hand in protecting us and shepherding us and guiding us. [00:727:35]

There are two ways I think you can look at this question. One is the philosophical objection that is raised and it's stated as a philosophical axiom. So, God is sovereign, just the first premise. Second premise: God is good, and yet there is suffering and evil. Therefore, God is not strong enough to prevent evil because He is good or He is not good enough to prevent evil because He is strong enough. And so, if God is not strong enough or if God is not good enough, then God is not God. [00:1323:71]

And so, we look at the text of Hebrews at chapter 12, we have this great hall of faith, but then we're told to consider Jesus, to consider this One who suffered and this One who endured so that we might endure, so that we might be able to persevere through suffering. And so, if we're looking for an answer to the question for suffering, we're not going to find it like we would find an answer to the philosophical problem, but instead we're going to find one. [00:1439:54]

I think this is an unlikely place to find a text about worship, and I think you're exactly right. There is a lot more to this question. There needs to be a lot more to this answer, but I find these verses in the middle of Ecclesiastes to be very helpful, and I'll just ... you look at them later. It is chapter 5 and it's the first three verses. "Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil. Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth." [00:1793:08]

I think Romans is a great example of this. Paul is writing to the city that is facing significant cultural issues, and what Paul leads off with is the gospel. This is the hope for the Christians that are in Rome. This is the hope for their neighbors. This is the hope for the city of Rome. This is the hope for all of us, and it is eleven chapters of the gospel. But then you get to chapter 12 and there's a great deal in there on ethics and even into textured particulars of ethics. [00:2248:21]

I think the best way to combat secularism is to never assume that there is a deep-seated belief in the authority and the trustworthiness and the sufficiency of Scripture, that as Christians, and as Reformed Christians especially, we probably would not deny the doctrine of inerrancy. But do we subtly question either through our actions or thoughts the sufficiency of Scripture? Do we wonder if it still applies in the twenty-first century when we hear people tell us, sociologists tell us about human identity, and now in the twenty-first century we know better than this ancient book of millennia ago? [00:2607:61]