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Last week we looked at the Parable of the Sower and considered some lessons on how we can “take care” how we listen to God’s word. We need to 1. Be watchful in prayer for Satan’s attacks; 2. Hunger for deeper roots in the truth of God’s word; 3. Acknowledge the temptations of the world, which distract from the word; and 4. Hold fast to the word with a good word. The bottom line is that we need to be proactive in our hearing of God’s word, whether it is while we are reading our Bibles alone or listening to the preaching of God’s word. Passive listening leaves us vulnerable. When Jesus tells the parable of the sower, he quotes from Isaiah 6 to explain the significance of the parables. We read in Matthew 13:13-15, “This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. Indeed, in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says, ‘“You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive.” For this people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them.’” ... Keep Reading

The gospels record Jesus giving the parable of the sower (Matt. 13:1-23; Mark 4:1-20; Luke 8:4-15). Jesus describes the truth of the parable as the “secrets of the kingdom” (Lk. 8:10). The seed of the Word of God is sown into hearers, who are described as different types of soil. The “secret” of the kingdom is that the way one hears and receives the Word of God directly impacts one’s fruitfulness in the kingdom. Jesus then gives the practical application in Luke 8:18, “Take care then how you hear.” What can we glean from the parable to help us “take care”? Be watchful in prayer for Satan’s attacks. Jesus says, “[The seed that falls] along the path are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved” (Lk. 8:12). For believers, Satan cannot ultimately steal the word from our hearts so that we would not be saved. And yet, Satan is our adversary, prowling like a roaring lion, “seeking someone to devour” (1 Pet. 5:8). If Satan cannot snatch us from the hand of God, he will still try to snatch away our fruitfulness. Satan will always be active, therefore, we must be active in prayer, resisting him in the strength of the Lord. ... Keep Reading

This last week, during one of my meetings, I had the wonderful opportunity to reflect on Psalm 103. As we were reflecting and meditating on Psalm 103, I was struck with a simple question that we all do well to ask ourselves, “What delights your heart today?” The reality is that we all live in light of what delights us. We can seek many places, things, and people to satisfy our desire to be delighted. Sadly, that search can leave us tired, weary, anxious, and flat out burnt out. Our hearts and lives were ultimately made to delight in God. Our hearts are prone to wander and to forget the God we profess to love and all His benefits. The Lord is faithful to use His word to draw our hearts back to Him and continuously reminds us that our hearts are most delighted and satisfied in Him. With that, I’d like to briefly draw us to at least 5 truths that David, the psalmist, directs for us to delight in and that we would forget not all His benefits. Delight 1: God’s Complete Forgiveness Delight in the wonderful truth of the complete forgiveness we have received by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. God’s forgiveness is not partial; it is complete and full. Through the cross of Christ, all our sins are forgiven. God forgives all our iniquities (3). Read that again. In and through Christ all of your iniquities are forgiven! He removes our transgressions from us as far as we could ever possibly imagine, as far as the east is from the west (12)! Delight 2: God’s Perfect Justice Delight in the wonderful truth of God’s perfect justice and righteousness (6). Everything that God does is right, good, and best. In other words, God can do no wrong and only does what is good. From our vantage point, it can often seem that this is not so, but this psalm reminds us that God has, and continues to, make His perfect ways known to His people and works all things for the good of His people (6-7). We see this most clearly as we behold Jesus. Jesus, the righteous One, took the penalty for our sin on the cross. He bore the punishment that we deserved, satisfying God’s justice in full. Though we may face injustice on this side of eternity and in this world, cling to hope knowing that God’s justice has been fully satisfied through Jesus, and He will one day make all things new into a day where there is no more pain, brokenness, sin, and death. ... Keep Reading

Early in his narrative we read that Abram “called upon the name of the Lord” (Gen. 12:8, 13:4). The repetition of this activity brings to mind Proverbs 18:10: The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous man runs into it and is safe. In a sense, Abram is an example of living according to this proverb. Let me draw out four details that will help you and me also live out this proverb. Faithfulness. What is the significance of the name of the Lord? The small caps indicates to us that a specific Hebrew word is used: Yahweh. This name is tied to God’s self-revelation to Moses in the burning bush. In Exodus 3:14 God declares that his name is “I am who I am.” The name “Yahweh” is a cognate of the verb “to be” used in Exodus. This unique name for God emphasizes his unchanging, unfailing nature. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. When applied to his promises, the implication is that God will never forsake his promises, nor his people. God is faithful. When Abram calls upon the name of the Lord, he is appealing to God’s faithful character that is the bedrock foundation for his life. Abram, and his faith, is like shifting sand. ... Keep Reading

The promises made to Abram in Genesis 12:1-3 are foundational promises for the outworking of redemption. God promises to make Abram a great nation and give him the land of Canaan. These two promises establish Israel as God’s representative people during the Old Testament. God preserves this nation, even when the people rebel, as the channel through which the promised Messiah will come. The nation and land are not ultimate promises but serve the ultimate promise that comes in verse 3, “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” Paul quotes this promise in Galatians 3:8, asserting that its fulfilment is found in the gift of justification by faith made available to all people. The nation and land served as the conduit through which Jesus came to provide atonement for the sins of the world. Sandwiched between the promises of nation and land and the promise of blessing all the families of earth is the promise found in verse 2, “I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.” Some commentators interpret this promise as the same one as the one at the end of verse 3: All the families of the earth will be blessed in Abram. But there is a distinction between the two promises. In verse 2, God says Abram will be a blessing. In verse 3, God says others will be blessed in Abram. Verse 2 says there is a direct link from Abram to the blessing. Verse 3 says Abram’s family line will produce the ultimate blessing for the world, fulfilled in Jesus. ... Keep Reading

I grew up going to church as a child. Much like Oak Hills, the children were dismissed in the middle of the service in order to attend children’s church. We sang songs, heard a Bible story, and did some sort of craft. I have fond memories of the time. But there was one song that confused me as a child, Father Abraham. Perhaps you recall the lyrics: Father Abraham had many sons, Many sons had Father Abraham. And I am one of them And so are you. So, let’s just praise the Lord! Right arm! (Left arm; Right foot; left foot…) I had so many questions as a child singing this song. Who was Abraham? How could I be his son (I knew who my dad was)? Why are the women and girls singing this; they cannot be sons? Why should we praise God for this news? And what are we doing with our arms and legs? ... Keep Reading

The last two weeks at Oak Hills we have heard about the multiplication and rebellion of the nations from Genesis 10 and 11. Genesis 10 is typically called the “Table of Nations” as it outlines 70 nations that descended from Noah and his sons after the flood and spread across the face of the earth. As the text repeatedly states, the people “spread in their lands, each with his own language, by their clans, in their nations” (10:5). Genesis 11 tells the story of the Tower of Babel. This explains the dispersion of the nations that occurs in Genesis 10. The story also reveals what author Christopher Watkin calls the “Babel Instinct,” which he says is ever present among humanity. I want to draw out some practical implications from Genesis 10 and 11 that help us think about “the nations” in our world today. The Nations are Not Geo-Political Entities. There are 195 geo-political nations in the world today. When the Bible speaks about “nations,” however, it is not using 21st Century geo-political defined nations. In biblical terms, nations refer to people groups with distinct languages. Take Cameroon in West Africa as an example. Up until the 1800s there was no such thing as the nation Cameroon. In the region there were (still are) up to 250 distinct tribal/ethnic groups with their own languages or dialects. Through European colonization in the 1800s, the region came under the rule of Germany. After World War 1, the region was taken away from Germany and split between Britian and France. This created the division between the English-speaking states and the French-speaking states, which, by the way, still causes conflict today, even sparking a civil-war-like crisis in the last decade. The region gained independence in the 1960s and became known as the geo-political nation of Cameroon. All this goes to show that we should not impose 21st century geo-political ideas of nations on the Bible. ... Keep Reading

In our study of Genesis on Sunday mornings we come to the Towel of Babel this week. A sentence from Derek Kidner’s commentary has caught my attention as I prepare for Sunday. He wrote, “The elements of the story are timelessly characteristic of the spirit of the world” (Kidner, 118). The ancient story of Babel is “timeless.” It gives us a peak into “the spirit of the world” that is still with us today. What does Kidner mean? What do we learn about “the spirit of the world” from the Towel of Babel? First, it is important to understand the word “world.” The Bible writers use this word with different meanings or connotations. When John writes “God so loved the world” (John 3:16) and Jesus is “the propitiation…for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2), he is speaking about all the diversity of people. God loves all people from every ethnic group. God has given his son as the atonement for sin for all ethnic groups. There is a different meaning to the word “world” in verses like John 15:19 where Jesus says, “If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you,” and 1 John 2:15, where the apostle writes, “Do not love the world or the things in the world.” In these verses “world” is not speaking about ethnic diversity, but a system of rebellion against God. The “world” is an anti-God state of mind that is prevalent in every human heart apart from Christ. ... Keep Reading

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. Philippians 2:3-11 As a member of the Men’s ministry leadership team, I want to see my brothers grow to maturity in Christ. How can I stir up my brothers and sisters to love and good works? (Heb 11:24-25) How can I pray about this as part of the men’s ministry? As part of the larger church body? At Oak Hills, as the visible body of Christ, how can the men grow in fellowship? Why must we grow in fellowship? How may this year’s men’s ministry impact the Oak Hills congregation—men, women and children? How can we reach the lost for God’s Kingdom?... Keep Reading

C.S. Lewis writes in The Problem of Pain, “We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” This is a creative way to simply say, God speaks to us in our pain. This does not mean we ought to throw ourselves into pain; pain is inevitable in this world subjected to the futility of the curse on sin. Our response in pain ought to be to listen. What is God saying to us in our pain? David wrote Psalm 62 out of an experience with pain. He writes in verses 3-4, “How long will all of you attack a man to batter him, like a leaning wall, a tottering fence? They only plan to thrust him down from his high position. They take pleasure in falsehood. They bless with their mouths, but inwardly they curse.” In this situation, David’s pain was the result of the hurtful words and actions of a group of people. We don’t know the specific situation, but we do know that David was attacked by others throughout his life. We all know the pain of personal attacks. Such pain can consume our minds and hearts, leading us to be distracted and melancholy, if not worse. In Psalm 62, however, David does not wallow in his pain and misery. He listens to God in the midst of the pain. The psalm is a journal entry of the lessons David learns from the pain he experienced. Let me catalog the lessons. ... Keep Reading