VFBC Blog - Valley Forge Baptist Church

Valley Forge Baptist Church

Colossians 3:5-9a – Putting Sin to Death (P2)

2/28/2023

We are continuing to look at the powerful matter that Paul brings up to the Colossians here as he speaks of our need to look carefully at our lives and see to it that we are actively pursuing “putting to death” sin as it seeks to rule over us as believers.

To view the Sermon simply click the link below...

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https://youtu.be/cHBDA9AwoLc
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Make Sure to See how the Various Gospel Units are Linked

2/23/2023

One of the tasks imposed on those who wish to read the canonical Gospels sensitively is to see how the various units are linked. Casual readers remember individual stories about Jesus from their Sunday school days, but do not always reflect on the links that weld these stories into a complete Gospel. Moreover, the individual evangelists did not arrange their material exactly the same way as the others, so the special flavor of each gospel is often lost unless the distinctive links are thoughtfully pondered.
An instructive example is found in Luke 9:49–50. The preceding verses (9:46–48) find Jesus’ disciples arguing as to which of them would be greatest (in the consummated kingdom, presumably). Knowing their thoughts, Jesus teaches them an embarrassing lesson, employing a little child to make his point. Important people honey up to even more important people. Those who follow Jesus welcome the least powerful members of society - the little children. What Jesus demands is an outlook fundamentally at variance with that of the world: “For he who is least among you all—he is the greatest” (9:48).
It is at this juncture that 9:49–50 comes into play. John comments that he and the others saw a man driving out demons in Jesus’ name, “and we tried to stop him, because he is not one of us.” Jesus forbids them this course of action, “for whoever is not against you is for you.” At first glance this is a somewhat different topic from that of the preceding verses. Then again, maybe not: the connections call for reflection. John’s complaints no longer sound like godly concern for orthodoxy, but like power-hungry moaning more concerned that those who preach and heal belong to the right party than that the mission itself be advanced. So this is pathetically tied to the debate over who would be the greatest. Personal aggrandizement will inevitably prove an unstable base for making wise assessments of the ministry of others.
The following verses (9:51–56) find Jesus in Samaria. When the Samaritans prove inhospitable, Jesus’ disciples are quite prepared to call fire down upon them. Jesus rebukes them. Since these verses follow the themes already elucidated, the attitude the disciples here betray is clarified. Their passion for judgment against the Samaritans is motivated less by a genuine grasp of and devotion to Christ Jesus, than by a power-hungry self-focus.
The closing verses of the chapter highlight the same contrast (9:57–62). The three who protest the loudest about how eagerly they will follow Jesus are firmly put in their place: they have not counted the cost of discipleship, and so their pious protestations take on the ugly hue of self-love.

Love Like God Loves (Ephesians 4:32)

2/21/2023

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And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.
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Jesus was a Jew, so when He taught, He used typically Jewish literary styles. For example, He used comparisons for purposes of illustration. In Matthew 13 there are eight kingdom parables, seven of which compare the kingdom of heaven to ordinary things: agriculture, seeds, treasure, a fishing net, and the like. Jesus illustrated something complex by comparing it to something familiar.

Recommended Reading:

Colossians 3: 12 – 15

The apostle Paul also used a comparison to illustrate how we are to forgive others. We are to forgive others “as God in Christ forgave you.” The question then becomes, how did God in Christ forgive us? He forgave us unconditionally, willingly, generously, permanently, graciously, completely, sacrificially...and the list goes on. That means we are to forgive others the same way. If that sounds daunting, it is. But it also provides insight into the depth of God’s love for us and the love He expects us to extend to others in the form of forgiveness.
As God forgives others, so must we. Rather than resentment, let forgiveness be our response to any who have offended us.

True forgiveness breaks a man, and he must forgive.
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
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Meditating on Leviticus (Selected Scriptures in Leviticus)

2/20/2023

I spent a good bit of time over the past couple of days in the Book of Leviticus and one thing I have noticed and realized as I have read is that, among quite a number of reasons given in the Scriptures for the detail and tremendous amount of requirement and mandatory actions and warnings given there lies a wonderful reason and cause! Amongst all of these there is a fearful description of God's nature and of the humanly impossible and unreachable standards exist for pleasing Him and being righteous in His sight!
There was no way that any Israelite could do or be what the picture painted for them to do and be. No one can be good enough to stand in God’s favor. ONLY the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ meets those stringent and extensive standards for being what God desired His people to be!
For any person to be what God desires one of His created persons to be – they MUST give themselves over and embrace the Redemption offered via the Cross and the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ – He ALONE among all of those in the race of Adam and Eve was able to completely and fully observe and obey the Law of God thus providing a sure and adequate basis satisfying our sovereign Father in heaven! Otherwise, the result can only be that men/women remain in the sinful condition handed down to them from Adam with the result of the full wrath of God in eternal Judgement!
The incredibly detailed requirements put forth in the OT Law and particularly regarding the Tabernacle/Temple and dealing with sin only underscore it emphatically and dramatically! In its’ details and its’ volume all we can do is be amazed and shake our heads in all too human discouragement and what was required but also in glad and even joyful realization that God sent His only Son to do and be what you and I could NEVER do or be.

Jesus Did Not Return in Kind (1 Peter 2:23)

2/19/2023

by: Reformer Martin Luther

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Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not.
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“Did not Christ revile when he called the scribes and Pharisees hypocrites, murderers, serpents, a generation of vipers?” Oh yes, in this we would gladly follow Christ’s example. It is much easier than to be patient. We would need no master to help us in this. But a distinction must be made here. Reviling, or pronouncing execrations and threats, is of two kinds. In one case it is official and pronounced by God; in the other without authority and comes from man. It was one of the duties of Christ’s office on earth, and one now incumbent upon those called to bear that office after him, to assert the truth and censure the evil. Such a course is essential to the honor of God and the salvation of souls. Official chastisement is a work of divine, Christian love. It is a parental duty imposed of God, who has implanted in the parent nature intense love for the child; at the same time, if parents are godly and have proper affection for their children, they will not connive at, nor let pass unpunished their disobedience. So every one may and should reprove when official duty or his neighbor’s case requires; it serves to reform the subject. “Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.”
It was love and sincerity of heart which prompted Christ in his office to censure and reprove. His motive was to turn the transgressors from their blindness and malice, and to rescue them from perdition. But having fulfilled his official duties, and the hour of his suffering having arrived, he suffered patiently, permitting his enemies to heap upon him all possible evil in return for his manifested love and blessing. Instead of angrily reviling and execrating while suspended from the cross, he prayed, “Father, forgive them.” It was, indeed, a heart of unfathomable love that, in the midst of extreme suffering, had compassion on its persecutors and blessed them in greater measure than parent can bless child, or one individual bless another. We have here a perfect and inimitable example of patience of the most exalted kind. In it we may behold as in a glass what we have yet to learn of calm endurance.

Jesus Led Up to be Tempted (Matthew 4:1)

2/17/2023

by: Reformer Martin Luther

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Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
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Jesus was led up of the Spirit into the wilderness, that he might there fast and be tempted; but no one should imitate Christ’s example of his own choice and make it a selfish and arbitrary fasting; but instead wait for the Spirit, who will send him enough fastings and temptations. For whoever, without being led by the Spirit, wantonly resorts to the danger of hunger or any other temptation, when it is truly a blessing of God that he can eat and drink and have other comforts, tempts God. We should not seek want and temptation, they will surely come of themselves; we ought to act honestly, and always do our best. The text reads: Jesus was led up of the Spirit into the wilderness; and not: Jesus himself chose to go up into the wilderness. “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.” God gives his blessings that we may use them with thanksgiving, and not that we let them lie idle, and thus tempt him; for he wishes us to fast by the Spirit or by a need which we cannot avoid.
This narrative is written both for our instruction and admonition. For instruction that we should know how Christ has served and helped us by his fasting, hunger, temptation, and victory; also that whosoever believes on Christ shall never suffer need, and that temptation shall never harm him, but that we shall have enough in the midst of want and be safe in the midst of temptation; because his Lord and Head triumphed over all these in his behalf, and of this he is assured. “Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”
This is written for our admonition, that we may in the light of his example also cheerfully suffer want and temptation for the service of God and the good of our neighbor, like Christ did for us, as often as necessity requires it, which is surely accomplished if we learn and confess God’s Word. But we have practiced fasting as a good work, not to bring our flesh into subjection, but as a meritorious work before God to atone for sins and obtain grace. This has made our fasting a stench, a blasphemy, and a disgrace.

Loving Another Fulfills the Law (Romans 13:8)

2/15/2023

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8 Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another
has fulfilled the law.
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Innumerable are the books and doctrines produced for the direction of man’s conduct. There is still no limit to the making of books and laws. These laws and doctrines would be tolerated and received with more favor, if they were founded upon and administered according to the great law of love. Of love’s higher authority we find many illustrations in the Scriptures. Christ makes particular mention of this matter when he refers to David and his companions eating the holy show-bread. Though a certain law prohibited all but the priests from partaking of this holy food, Love was empress here, and free. Love was over the Law, subjecting it to herself. The Law had to yield for the time being, had to become invalid, when David suffered hunger.
Had the priest been disposed to refuse David the holy bread, had he blindly insisted on honoring the prohibition of the Law and failed to perceive the authority of Love, had he denied this food to him who hungered, what would have been the result? So far as the priest’s assistance went, David would have had to perish with hunger, and the priest would have been guilty of murder for the sake of the Law. Here, indeed, the most strenuous right would have been the most strenuous wrong. Moreover, on examining the heart of the priest, you would find the abomination of making sin where there is no sin, and a matter of conscience where there is no occasion for it. In connection with this same incident, Christ teaches that we are to do good to our neighbor on the Sabbath, to administer as necessity demands, whatever the Sabbath restrictions of the Law. For when a brother’s need calls, Love is authority and the Law of the Sabbath is void.
Were laws conceived and administered in love, the number of laws would matter little. Though one might not know all of them, he would learn from the one or two, of which he had knowledge, the principle of love taught in all; and though he were to know all laws, he might not discover the principle of love any more readily than he would in one. No greater wrong, calamity and wretchedness is possible on earth than the teaching and enforcing of laws without love. “Love is the fulfilling of the Law.”

Sermon Video - Colossians 3:1-4 – Living the Risen Life (P3)

2/13/2023

We’re moving further along in our discussion of Colossians 3 and looking at the instructions Paul has given in order to lead them on in learning to walk in a manner pleasing to the Lord. We looked in particular at the fourth of reason he gave them – “The Reason”.
Take a look at the video and let us know what you think...Click the link below:

https://youtu.be/OwTfuvwJ09s

People Speaking Better than they Know (Mark 15)

2/13/2023

Here in Mark 15 it is sadly clear that people speak better than they know.

“What shall I do, then,” Pilate asks, “with the one you call the king of the Jews?” (15:12). Of course, he utters the expression “king of the Jews” with a certain sneering contempt. When the crowd replies, “Crucify him!” (15:13, 14), the politically motivated think this is the end of another messianic pretender. They do not know that this king has to die, that his reign turns on his death, that he is simultaneously King and Suffering Servant.
The soldiers twist together a crown of thorns and jam it on his head. They hit him and spit on him, and then fall on their knees in mock homage, crying, “Hail, king of the Jews!” (15:18). In fact, he is more than the King of the Jews (though certainly not less). One day, each of those soldiers, and everyone else, will bow down before the resurrected man they mocked and crucified, and confess that he is Lord (Phil. 2:9–11).
Those who passed by could not resist hurling insults: “So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, come down from the cross and save yourself!” (15:29–30). The dismissive mockery hid the truth they could not see: earlier Jesus had indeed taught that he himself was the real temple, the antitype of the building in Jerusalem, the ultimate meeting-place between God and human beings (John 2:19–22). Indeed, Jesus not only insisted that he is himself the temple, but that this is so by virtue of the fact that this temple must be destroyed and brought back to life in three days. If he had “come down from the cross” and saved himself, as his mockers put it, he could not have become the destroyed and rebuilt “temple” that reconciles men and women to God.
“He saved others but he can’t save himself” (15:31). Wrong again—and right again. This is the man who voluntarily goes to the cross (14:36; cf. John 10:18). To say “he can’t save himself” is ridiculously limiting. Yet he couldn’t save himself and save others. He saves others by not saving himself.
“Let this Christ, this King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe” (15:32). But what kind of Christ would they then have believed in? A powerful king, doubtless - but not the Redeemer, not the Sacrifice, not the Suffering Servant. They could not long have believed in him, for the basis of this transformation in them was the very cross-work they were taunting him to abandon.

“Surely this man was the Son of God” (15:39). Oh my Yes! Much more than they knew!

Let No Debt Remain Outstanding, EXCEPT… (Romans 13:8)

2/11/2023

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“Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law”.
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Some Christians have used this verse to argue that all debt is wrong and condemned by God. Pay your way as you go. “Let no debt remain outstanding.” The strongest voices argue that it is wrong to take a mortgage for a house or for a church building.
The flow of the passage, however, argues against such an interpretation. The opening verses exhort Christians to submit to the civil authorities, not only because they are constituted by God, but also because, when they function properly, they enforce what is right and punish what is wrong (13:1–4). So it is important to submit to such authorities, not only so as to avoid punishment, “but also because of conscience” (13:5): Christians want to keep a clear conscience by doing what is right. That is also why we pay taxes. The civil authorities are “God’s servants, who give their full time to governing” (13:6). Like others of God’s servants, they are sometimes disobedient and foolish, but in God’s ordering of society taxes are God’s means of supporting those whose task it is to govern. So we should pay what we owe: “If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue” (13:7).
More broadly yet, pay whatever is owed: “If respect, then respect; if honor, then honor. Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another” (13:7–8).
“Debt,” then, in this context, has only a secondary reference to financial obligation. The passage has everything to do with the ongoing obligations of personal relationships in a society ordered by God. Moreover, insofar as finances are concerned, some financial obligations, such as taxes, are paid again and again; as they come due, we pay them. In precisely the same way, in a contracted mortgage, as the payments come due, we pay them. For all kinds of reasons it may be best to avoid fiscal debt of all kinds. But that is scarcely the point the apostle is making here.
The way Paul talks about love as “the continuing debt” reinforces the point. Some “debts,” such as taxes, recur; the debt of love does not so much recur as continue: it is ever with us. The commandments that bear on horizontal relationships (what today we would call social relationships) may be summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (13:9; Lev. 19:18). Love is thus the “fulfillment” of the Law (13:10) - that is, love is that to which the Law points, in this time of eschatological fulfillment (13:11–14), and this we always owe.