Service to God and Others

Greetings All,

Today's "thought" speaks of spiritual disciplines. Yes, spiritual disciplines!  Those activities we train ourselves to do to grow spiritually.  Yet this message is not always popular.  In an age of comfort and ease, even people in the church often see spiritual disciplines as "legalistic," often thinking (or suggesting) that somehow growth just happens without any effort or self-discipline on our part. Something they  will state even though Paul tells us in Galatians 5:23 that self-discipline is a Fruit of the Spirit.  It's one of the traits of character that God's Spirit (if that Spirit dwells within us) works to produce and grow in us over time as an expression of godliness.

     
     So, today, I will let Donald Whitney speak on this topic from his excellent book entitled: "Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life."  For those whose hearts have been reoriented by God to desire godliness, this book is very helpful. For he shows us that spiritual disciplines are not contrary to grace, but flow out of the grace God gives. They don't earn us merits with God, they evidence that God has changed our affections so that we desire the things He wants for us.  They show us that God is within us moving us to engage in those activities that will bring growth in godliness. This selection has to do with the Spiritual Discipline called Service to God and Others.  Enjoy.

     "Discipline without direction is drudgery... It is said of God's elect in Romans 8:29: "For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son." God's eternal plan ensures that every Christian will ultimately conform to Christ-likeness.  We will be changed "when he appears" so that "we shall be like him" (I John 3:2). This is no vision. This is you, Christian, in a few years. So why all this talk about discipline? If God has predestined our conformity to Christ-likeness, where does the discipline come in?  Although God will grant us Christ-likeness when Jesus returns, until then He intends for us to grow toward that Christ-likeness.  We aren't merely to wait for holiness, we're to pursue it.  "Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy," we're commanded in Hebrews 12:14, "for without holiness no one will see the Lord."  Which leads us to ask what every Christian should ask, "How then shall we pursue holiness? How can we be like Jesus Christ, the Son of God?"  We find the clear answer in I Timothy 4:7: "Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness."

     ...There is little value in practicing Spiritual Disciplines apart from the single purpose that unites them (Colossians 2:20-23, I Timothy 4:8). That purpose is godliness... The Spiritual Disciplines are the God-given means we are to use in the Spirit-filled pursuit of Godliness. Godly people are disciplined people.  It has always been so. Call to mind some heroes of church history -- St. Augustine, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Bunyan, Susanna Wesley, John Wesley, George Whitefield, Lady Huntingdon, Jonathan and Sarah Edwards, Charles Spurgeon, George Mueller -- they we all disciplined people.  Godliness comes through discipline.  We avail ourselves of the Spiritual Disciplines because they help grow us in Christ-likeness.

THE DISCIPLINE OF SERVING

     The Pony Express was a private express company that carried mail by an organized relay of horseback riders. The eastern end was in St. Joseph, Missouri, and western terminal was in Sacramento, California.  The cost of sending a letter by Pony Express was $2.50 an ounce.  If the weather and horses held out, and the Indians held off, that letter would complete the entire two-thousand-mile journey in a speedy ten days, as did the report of Lincoln's Inaugural Address.... Being a rider for the Pony Express was a tough job. You were expected to ride seventy-five to one hundred miles a day, changing horses every fifteen to twenty-five miles. Other than the mail, the only baggage you carried contained a few meager provisions... In case of danger, you also had a medical pack... In order to travel light and to increase speed of speed of mobility during Indian attacks, the men always rode with nothing but shirts, even during the fierce winter weather.  How would you recruit volunteers for this hazardous job?  An 1860 San Francisco newspaper printed this ad for the Pony Express: "WANTED: Young, skinny, wiry fellows not over 18. Must be expert riders willing to risk daily. Orphans preferred."  Those were the honest facts of the service required, but the Pony Express NEVER had a shortage of riders [even though 20 employees lost their lives in the year and a half it was in existence until the telegraph wires replaced the need for riders].

     We also need to be honest with the facts about serving God.  Like the Pony Express, serving God is not a job for the casually interested. It's costly service. He asks for your life. He asks for service to Him to become a priority, not a pastime. He doesn't want servants who will give Him the leftovers of their life commitments. Serving God isn't a short-term responsibility either. Unlike the Pony Express, His kingdom will never go under, no matter how technological our world gets.  The mental picture we have of the Pony Express is probably much like the one imagined by the young men of 1860 who read that newspaper ad.  Scenes of excitement, camaraderie, and the thrill of adventure filled their heads as they swaggered over to the Express office to apply. Yet few of them envisioned how that excitement would only occasionally punctuate the routine of the long, hard hours and the loneliness of the work.

     The discipline of serving is like that. Although Christ's summons to service is the most spiritually grand and noble way to live a life, it is typically as pedestrian as washing someone's feet. Richard Foster puts it starkly: "In some ways we would prefer to hear Jesus' call to deny father and mother, houses and land for the sake of the Gospel, rather than His word to wash feet. Radical self-denial gives the feel of adventure. If we forsake all, we even have the chance of glorious martyrdom. But in service we are also banished to the mundane, the ordinary, the trivial." The ministry of serving may be as public as preaching or teaching, but more often it will be as sequestered as nursery duty. It may be as visible as singing a solo, but usually it will be as unnoticed as operating the sound equipment to amplify the solo. Serving may be as appreciated as a good testimony in the worship service, but typically it is as thankless as washing dishes after a church social. Most service, even that which seems the most glamorous, is like an iceberg. Only the eye of God sees the larger hidden part of it.

     Beyond the church walls, serving is baby-sitting for neighbors, taking meals to families in flux, running errands for the home-bound, providing transportation for the one whose car breaks down, feeding pets and watering plants for vacationers, and -- hardest of all -- having a servants heart in the home. Serving is as commonplace as the practical needs it meets. That's why serving must become a spiritual discipline. The flesh connives against hiddenness and sameness. Two of the deadliest of our sins -- sloth and pride -- loathe serving. The paint glazes over our eyes and puts chains on our hands and feet so we don't serve as we know we should or even want to.  If we don't discipline ourselves to serve for the sake of Christ and His kingdom (and for the purpose of Godliness), we'll serve only occasionally, or when it's convenient or self-serving...  However, those who want to train themselves for Christlike spirituality will find it one of the surest and most practical means of growth in grace."

     Tom Landry (former coach of the Dallas Cowboys for most of three decades) put it well when he said: "The job of a football coach is to make men do what they don't want to do in order to achieve what they always wanted to be."  That's true for us as Christians as well.  "Christians are called to do things they would naturally not be prone to do -- pursue spiritual disciplines -- in order that they might become what they've always wanted to be, that is, like Jesus Christ" (Whitney).  A mentor once told me (and I now have it taped to the wall in my house): "Character is making yourself do what you don't want to do because you know it will be good for you."  This can't happen without the fruit of the Spirit we call self-discipline. In an age that tends toward undisciplined living, his words go against the grain. Yet they are totally in line with the teaching of the New Testament (I Corinthians 9:23-27).  Self-discipline is a primary part in the pursuit of godliness.

In the Service of Christ, Pastor Jeff

A Selection of Short Thoughts

Greetings All!

     Sometimes you can say a lot in very few words!  Therefore,  today, instead of one longer thought, I offer you many short thoughts -- all which struck me as worthy of sharing.  I trust one or more may hit home for you as well!   Enjoy!

     “Prosperity cannot be a proof of God’s favor, since it is what the devil promises to those who worship him.”

John Piper

     “When we deal seriously with our sins, God will deal gently with us.”

Charles Spurgeon

     “Evangelism must start with the holiness of God, the sinfulness of man, the demands of the law, and the eternal consequences of evil.”

Martin Lloyd-Jones

     “I frequently hear persons exhorted to give their hearts to Christ, which is a very proper exhortation. But that is not the Gospel. Salvation comes from something that Christ gives you, not something you give to Christ.  The giving of your heart to Christ follows after receiving from Christ the gift of eternal life by faith.”

Charles Spurgeon

“I’m just a nobody telling everybody about somebody who can save anybody.”

Anonymous

“Your personal testimony, however meaningful to you, is not the Gospel.”

R. C. Sproul

     “In our day it is considered worse to judge evil than to do evil.”

Os Guiness

     “Faith does not operate in the realm of the possible. There is no glory for God in that which is humanly possible.  Faith begins where man’s power ends.” 

George Muller

     “Worry is believing God will not get it right, and bitterness is believing God got it wrong.”

 Tim Keller

     “You will derive far more benefit from a single verse of Scripture read slowly and prayerfully and duly meditated on than you will from ten chapters read through quickly.”

A. W. Pink

     “I must listen to the gospel. It tells me not what I must do, but what Christ the Son of God has done for me.”

Martin Luther

     “If you are really saved, brethren, not a hair of your heads belongs to yourselves. Christ’s blood has either bought you or it has not. And if it has, then you are altogether Christ’s – every bit of you – and you are neither to eat nor drink, nor sleep, but for Christ.”

Charles Spurgeon

     “The doctrine of grace and redemption keeps us from seeing any person or situation as hopeless.”

Tim Keller

     “God has given me everything, forgiven me everything, promised me everything, and I lack nothing except the faith to believe it.” 

Martin Luther

     “The secret is Christ in me, not me in a different set of circumstances.”

Elisabeth Elliot

     “You have become blind when you see nothing wrong with something God has called sin.”

Anonymous

Many blessings in Christ, Pastor Jeff

Sanctification

Greetings All!

     Not too long ago I was speaking with a group of college-age Christians when I brought up the topic of sanctification. There was dead silence.  “What’s sanctification?” one boy asked.  “It’s being set apart for God, or as belonging to God,” I said. “It means growing in holiness.”   Since they still looked a bit confused and didn’t totally understand the term holiness, I said: “You know, like growing to be more godly or coming to reject sin more and more. Seeking to do what Christ wants and resisting the things of the world.” 

     Yet, try as I might to explain it, it was a topic they found hard to grasp.  And these weren’t unbelievers or non-churched people, they were churched people, one young man being a pastor’s kid.  So, I figured that if they struggled with the concept of sanctification, maybe others do as well.  And if so, to help remedy that lack of understanding, I offer these quotes on sanctification from well-known Christians.  I trust they will help!  Enjoy!

     "There are three things which the true Christian desires in respect to sin: Justification, that it may not condemn; Sanctification, that it may not rein; and Glorification, that it may cease to be."       Richard Cecil

     "I asked her what was so scary about unmerited free grace? She replied something like this: If I was saved by my good works – then there would be a limit to what God could ask of me or put me through.  I would be like a taxpayer with rights. I would have done my duty and now I would deserve a certain quality of life. But if it is really true that I am a sinner saved by sheer grace – at God's infinite cost – then there's nothing he cannot ask of me."    Tim Keller

     "Associate with sanctified persons. They may by their counsel, prayers, and holy example, be a means to make you holy."    Thomas Watson

     "The Christian life requires hard work. Our sanctification is a process wherein we are co-workers with God. We have the promise of God's assistance in our labor, but His divine help does not annul our responsibility to work (Phil. 2:12-13).”    R. C. Sproul

     "Some Christians overlook the blessing of sanctification, and yet to a thoroughly renewed heart, this is one of the sweetest gifts of the covenant. If we could be saved from wrath, and yet remain unregenerate, impenitent sinners, we should not be saved as we desire, for we mainly and chiefly pant to be saved from sin and led in the way of holiness.”     Charles Spurgeon

     “Is my wife more like Christ because she is married to me? Or is she like Christ in spite of me? Has she shrunk from His likeness because of me? Do I sanctify her or hold her back? Is she a better woman because she is married to me?"    R. Kent Hughes

     "The one marvelous secret of a holy life lies not in imitating Jesus, but in letting the perfections of Jesus manifest themselves in my mortal flesh. Sanctification is "Christ in you."... Sanctification is not drawing from Jesus the power to be holy; it is drawing from Jesus the holiness that was manifested in Him, and He manifests it in me."  Oswald Chambers

     "The sanctified body is one whose hands are clean. The stain of dishonesty is not on them, the withering blight of ill-gotten gain has not blistered them, the mark of violence is not found upon them. They have been separated from every occupation that could displease God or injure a fellow-man."    A. B. Simpson

     "Those who have been justified are now being sanctified; those who have no experience of present sanctification have no reason to suppose they have been justified."   F.F. Bruce

     One of God’s primary purposes in the life of everyone He saves is to restore His sin-damaged and sin-fractured image within us.

     This is one of the three primary aspects of “salvation” which includes: 1^st) JUSTIFICATION or being “saved” from the wrath of God against our sin, and brought into a pardoned, reconciled, or right standing with God, by grace, through atonement and faith in Christ or His blood (Rom. 3:21-26).  2^nd) SANCTIFICATION or being “saved” from the power and personality-distorting effects of sin in two ways: In an immediate way at the time of our conversion (definitive sanctification), and then in a gradual way for the remainder of our lives (progressive life-long sanctification) where God conforms us more and more into the likeness of Jesus, who is “the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His being" (Heb. 1:3).  And 3^rd) GLORIFICATION or being “saved” from the indwelling presence of sin within us all together at the time of our death and/or resurrection.

     So, "salvation" is to be saved from sin’s penalty (justification) and power (sanctification) and presence (glorification). It's one of the reasons you can't really speak about salvation from a biblical perspective without speaking of sin!  It also explains what Richard Cecil means in the first quote, and why F.F. Bruce can say what he says in the last quote. "God chose us before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in Him"  (Eph. 1:4) and "predestined us to be conformed to the image of His Son" (Rom. 8:29).  That was His eternal purpose for us, and it always involves sanctification!

In the Bonds of the Gospel, Pastor Jeff 

The Gift and Grace of Weakness

Greetings All!

     This week's "thought" comes to you from Charles Spurgeon.  It is found in the devotional I have recommended before (one that I consider a gem) - "Beside Still Waters - Words of Comfort for the Soul." This particular entry has to do with the gift and grace of weakness.  It's a concept that's hard for those raised in our "strength worshiping" culture to understand, but he true believer will grasp what he says.  In fact, the true believer may be the only one who grasps what he says.  Enjoy.

     
     "Your faith will never be weak when you are weak, but when you are strong your faith cannot be strong. To the apostle Paul, Jesus said, "My strength is made perfect in weakness" (II Corinthians 12:9). The only way to increase your faith is through great trouble.  We do not grow strong in faith on sunny days; only in stormy weather do we obtain it. Strong faith does not drop from heaven in a gentle dew; generally, it comes in the whirlwind and the storm.

     Look at the old oaks. How did they become so deeply rooted?  The March winds will tell you. It was not the April showers or the sweet May sunshine that caused the roots to wrap around the rock.  It was the rough, blustering, north winds of March shaking the trees.  The weakest of trees are those grown in the shelter of the greenhouse.

     Life in the barracks does not produce good soldiers. Great soldiers are made amid flying shot and thundering cannons.  Nor are good sailors made on calm seas. Good sailors are made on the deep, where the wild wind howls, the thunder rolls like drums, and the waves smash in repeated succession against the hull.  Storms and tempests make tough and hardy sailors.

     It is that way with Christians. We must expect great troubles before we attain great faith."

     In times of plenty and ease it is questionable whether faith is even necessary, and the longer or more extended those periods of ease and plenty are, the weaker faith becomes.  So also in the Lord's work, it is better to have a man who knows his weakness and casts himself wholly upon the Lord in utter and desperate dependence on Him and His grace, than a confident man who thinks he is strong and completely capable of doing anything, and thus depends on himself alone. 

     Spiritual work is not like physical work, and worldly success is far different from eternal fruit borne for the kingdom of God.  Faith in God must not be confused with confidence in self.  If we were more attuned to the ways of God and what He was up to in permitting our struggles and trials, we would be far less anxious and far more willing that His power might be made perfect in us through our weakness.

In the sufficiency of His grace, Pastor Jeff 

Eternal Perspectives -- A Collection of Quotations on Heaven, the New Earth, and Life After Death

Greetings All!

Just over 15 years ago I had an older gentleman in my church in Honduras ask me: "Pastor, why is it that no one preaches on heaven anymore?  Everything seems to be focused on the here and now."  He was right then, and his words only more so now.  Heaven is not a common sermon topic anymore -- and the lack of it is seen in the lack of life in many churches. Without an eternal perspective, our priorities as Christians become stunted, get twisted, and can even become unchristian.

Thus, in honor of him (who left these earthly shores a few years back) I offer you these selections from Randy Alcorn's book, "Eternal Perspectives -- A Collection of Quotations on Heaven, the New Earth, and Life After Death."  It is a massive collection of quotes on that topic from Christian's throughout the ages. I trust the one's I've selected (read and meditated upon, two or three a day) will increase your hunger to know more and cause you to see the benefit of such a renewed focus. Enjoy.

"Christians are living too much in the "present now" -- and [therefore] the anticipation of better things to come has almost died out in the Church of Christ. We find ourselves so well-situated now, that we don't really need any of tomorrow's heaven. We don't need to hope -- we have everything well enough now."

A. W. Tozer

"All beauty in the world is either a memory of Paradise, or a prophecy of the coming transfigured world."

Nicholas Berdyaev

"O my Lord Jesus Christ, if I could be in heaven without You, it would be a hell; and if I could be in hell, and have you still, it would be a heaven to me, for You are all the heaven I need."

Samuel Rutherford

A mere glimpse of heaven would be enough to re-energize us and give us renewed strength to persevere till the end.  "In 1952, young Florence Chadwick stepped into the waters of the Pacific Ocean off Catalina Island, determined to swim to the shore of mainland California. She'd already been the first woman to swim the English channel both ways. The weather was foggy and chilly; she could hardly see the boats accompanying her. Still, she swam for fifteen hours. When she begged to be taken out of the water along the way, her mother, in a boat alongside her, told her she was close and could make it. Finally, physically and emotionally exhausted, she stopped swimming and was pulled out.  It wasn't until she was on the boat that she discovered the shore was less than a half mile away. At a news conference the next day she said: "All I could see was the fog... I think if I could have seen the shore, I would have made it."

C. J. Mahaney

"On a tombstone in Indiana that dates back more than one hundred years is written: 

"Pause, stranger, when you pass me by;

As you are now, so once was I.

As I am now, so you will be. 

So prepare for death and follow me.

An unknown passerby scratched these additional words on the tombstone:

"To follow you I'm not content,

Until I know which way you went."

Ron Rhodes

"Only the pure in heart will see God, because only the pure in heart want to see God.  Heaven would not be heaven to those who detest holiness here. Those who seek not God's presence now, would never be happy to dwell in it for all eternity then. And God is just, He will never give the Christ-rejecting unbeliever then, what they don't want now."

"He who hopes to be gathered with saints in heaven, while he only loves the gathering of sinners on earth, is deceiving himself." 

J. C. Ryle 

"God loves us enough to tell us the truth. There are two eternal destinations, not one, and we must choose the right path if we are to go to heaven. All roads do not lead to heaven. Only one does -- Jesus Christ... As human beings, we have a terminal disease called mortality. The current death rate is 100 percent. Unless Christ returns soon, we're all going to die. We don't like to think about death, yet worldwide, 3 people die every second, 180 every minute, and nearly 11,000 every hour.  If the Bible is right about what happens to us after death, that means that 250,000 people every day go either to heaven or to hell."

Randy Alcorn

"More important than all the physical beauty of the heavenly city; more important than the fellowship we will enjoy eternally with all God's people from all nations and all periods of history; more important than our freedom from pain and sorrow and physical suffering... more important by far than any of these will be the fact that we will be in the presence of God and enjoying unhindered fellowship with Him."

Wayne Grudem

"Some of you while sitting here today (in worship) have been trying to lift up your minds to heavenly contemplation, but you cannot. The business has gone so wrong this week; the children have vexed you so much; sickness has been in the house so sorely; you yourself feel in your body quite out of order for devotion -- these enemies break your peace...  [But remember] life is but a moment. In short time you will appear in eternity. And though impatience counts it long, yet faith corrects her and reminds her that one hour with God will make the longest life seem but a point in time, a mere nothing, a watch in the night, a thing that was and was not, that has come and gone."

Charles Spurgeon

"The reason why we have no ease of heart or soul [is that] we are seeking our rest in things which can never satisfy, and not seeking to know God, almighty, all-wise, all-good...  We shall never cease wanting and longing until we possess Him in fullness and joy. Then we shall have no further wants. Meanwhile, His will is that we go on knowing and loving until we are perfected in heaven...  The more clearly the soul sees His Blessed face, by grace and love, the more it longs to see it in all its fullness."

Julian of Norwich

"When the Bible defines eternal life, it is not in terms of location or duration, but in terms of relationship with God: 'This is eternal life,' says Jesus, 'that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent' (John 17:3)." 

Daniel Brown

     May your contemplation of eternity move you to live more fully in the present, and resolve once-and-for-all where you shall spend it.  Alcorn is right when he says, "not all roads lead to heaven."  That is what the Bible clearly teaches, along with the twin truth, that, "Only one road leads there -- Jesus Christ."

That others may know Him, Pastor Jeff

Christ is Best

Greetings All,

     It's been a few weeks since I sent out a "thought."   Yahoo tightened their controls and was blocking me from sending them. Therefore I had to find an alternative way of sending them out.  We will see how this goes! With that being said, I send you this thought.

     It comes to you from one of the most beloved of Puritan preachers -- Richard Sibbes. He was Spurgeon's favorite because his writings were always so comforting and Gospel-saturated. It is found in his booklet "Christ is Best."
     It was actually preached at the funeral of a friend.  Michael Reeves, who writes the forward to the booklet, sums it's message up well:"In dead religion, one can easily talk of receiving 'grace' so as to 'get to heaven.'  Paul does not.  Instead of departing and be 'in heaven,' Paul says he desires to depart and be 'with Christ.'  For, says Sibbes, 'heaven is not heaven without Christ.'  In other words, true faith is not about buying into some abstract system of salvation (even one paid for by Christ); first and foremost it is about the Spirit bringing me to know, love, and desire Christ himself... hearts begin to desire Christ above all when they sense how much he loves us sinners, how much he has suffered for our forgiveness, how unfathomably kind and merciful he is and has been. We love him because he first loved us (I John 4:19)." And those brought to love him because of his great love them, yearn not solely for heaven, but for heaven because it is there that they will be with the Christ they have come to love. I have taken the liberty to change some antiquated terms and explain others.  Enjoy.

"For me to live is Christ and to die is gain... Yet what shall I choose? I do not know!  I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ , which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body."   Philippians 1:21-24

     "Death is but a departing. The word death [in the Greek] means 'loosing from the shore, or removing a ship to another coast' [Luke 8:38, 2 Timothy 4:6, Phil. 1:23].  We must all be loosed from our houses of clay and be carried to another place, to heaven.  Paul labors to sweeten so harsh a thing as death, by comfortable expressions of it. It is but a sleep, a going home, a laying aside our earthly tabernacle...

     Some things are desirable for themselves, like happiness and holiness. Some things are not desirable for themselves, but because they make a way to better things... Medicine is not desired for itself, but for the health it brings. And just as we desire health for itself, and medicine for health, so to be with Christ is a thing desirable of itself.

     Yet because we cannot come to Christ but by the dark passage of death, Paul says, I desire to depart that my death may be a passage to Christ. Death was the object of St. Paul's desire so far as it made a way for better things.  To be with Christ who came from heaven to be here on earth with us and descended that we should ascend; to be with him who has done and suffered so much for us; to be with Christ who delighted to be with us; to be with Christ who emptied himself and became of no reputation, becoming poor to make us rich; to be with Christ our husband, now in heaven -- that all of him may be gained in heaven -- this was the thing Paul desired.

     Question: Why does he not say, "I desire to be in heaven?"  Answer: Because heaven would not be heaven without Christ. It is better to be any place with Christ than to be in heaven itself if he were not there. All delicacies without Christ are but as a funeral banquet. Where the master of the feast is away, there is nothing but solemnness.  What is all without Christ?  I say the joys of heaven are not the joys of heaven without Christ.  He is the very heaven of heaven.

     True love is carried to the person. It is adulterous love to love the thing (or the gift) more than the person. St. Paul loved the person of Christ because he felt the sweet experience that Christ loved him. His love was but a reflection of Christ's loving him first. He loved to see Christ, to embrace him, and enjoy him who had done so much and suffered so much for his soul -- who had forgiven him so many sins.

        To be with Christ is best of all. To be with Christ is to be at the spring-head of all happiness. It is to be in our proper element. Every creature thinks itself best when in its own element. That is the place it thrives in and enjoys its happiness in. And Christ is the element of a Christian.

     Again, it is far better, because to be with Christ is to have the marriage consummated. Is not marriage better than the contract? Is not home better than absence? To be with Christ is to be at home. Is not triumph better than to be in conflict? But to be with Christ is to triumph over all enemies, to be out of Satan's reach.

     Is not perfection better than imperfection?  Here all is but imperfect, but in heaven there is perfection. Therefore that is much better than any good below, for all are but shadows here, there is reality.  What are riches?  What are the worm-eaten pleasures of the world?  What are the honors of the earth but mere shadows of good?  'At the right hand of God are pleasures indeed' (Ps. 16:11), honors indeed, riches indeed; there is reality...

     It is better to be with Christ than enjoy the graces and comforts of the Holy Spirit here. Why? Because they are all stained and mixed.  Here our peace is interrupted with desertion and trouble. Here the joys of the Holy Spirit are mingled with sorrow. Here the grace in a man is mixed with combat of flesh and spirit, but in heaven there is pure peace, pure joy, pure grace; for what is glory but the perfection of grace?  Grace indeed is glory here, but it is glory mixed with conflict.  It is imperfect.  My friends, perfection is better than imperfection, therefore to be with Christ is far better.

     Is it not far better to die and be with Christ, than to live a conflicting life here?  Why should we then fear death, which is but a passage to Christ?... It is but a departure to a better condition.  It is but as Jordan to the Children of Israel, by which they passed into Canaan... It is but the Red Sea by which we pass from Egypt to the promised land. Death is ours and for our good.  It ends all our misery and sin.  It is the suburbs of heaven.  It lets us into those joys above."

     Sibbes shared all this to comfort and encourage those present at the funeral of his friend Mr. Christopher Sherland (1593-1632).

     Death, though the final enemy, has been defeated, and made by the sufferings, death and resurrection of Jesus, the gateway into his immediate presence. It is the Jordan we must cross. It is the passageway through the Red Sea to the promised land.  It is the gateway to true and everlasting life and eternal pleasures at Christ's right hand. In Him, as the author of Hebrews tells us, God has "freed those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death" (Hebrews 2:15).

In the Bonds of our Blessed Hope, Pastor Jeff