(By David Giarrizzo)

Good Friday is upon us. This weekend Christians all around the world will celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in a very special and public way. But while so many people celebrate “Easter,” few, I think, really grasp the meaning of the death of Christ and the Gospel implications for mankind. Consider these two points regarding Christ’s important sacrifice: first, Christ did not come to earth to simply set an example for men to follow; but secondly, Christ’s death delivers men from sin and eternal death.

1. He did not come to merely set us an example.

In his book, Manly Dominion, author and pastor Mark Chanski shows his readers how Christ was a good example for men to imitate and follow:

• He lived his life serving and helping others, while simultaneously, He was the greatest leader to ever live!
• He was obedient to God in all circumstances.
• He was patient in suffering and affliction.
• He was humble.
• He was loving.
• He set the standard for love by His own sacrifice.
• Et cetera.

Throughout history there have always been those who refuse to see Christ as anything more than a good man and a wise Jewish teacher. They’ll say he was a role model, a good example, an icon of morality, but they will refuse to accept Him for who he really is.

In his gospel account, John gets to the point right off the top: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.” I was teaching this verse to a 3rd and 4th grade Sunday School class not too long ago, and they came to understand that the “Word” that John speaks of here is the second Person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, God’s only Son. And we need to accept that Jesus is not only the Son of God, but is God Himself, otherwise, His atonement was useless and empty.

In the final hours leading up to Jesus’ death, he faced what Chanski calls, “wholesale desertion.”  First, one of his own 12 closest friends betrayed him for a meager 30 pieces of silver. Then, in the Garden, in the moments of extreme mental and emotional agony, his disciples slept while he prayed, and once they woke, they fled. Then one of his dearest disciples, Simon Peter, denied—not once, not twice, but three times—that he even knew this man named Jesus!
The ultimate desertion, however, came at Christ’s darkest hour—as he hung upon the cross under the unbearable weight of the sins of you and me and of the whole world as the sole object of His Father’s wrath.

But it was at the moment of Christ’s death that mankind’s liberation from the bondage of sin was procured by a merciful Lord! As Spurgeon wrote, “The last word but one, ‘It is finished.’ There is the complete justification of the believer, since the work by which he is accepted is fully accomplished.”

Jesus hung there on that cross until His Father’s will was accomplished; until his errand was completed; until his chore was done; until His people had been redeemed; until He said resolutely, “IT IS FINISHED!”

Philip Graham Ryken wrote, “When Christ said, ‘It is finished,’ he was not merely uttering a sigh of relief or a moan of resignation…He was announcing a victorious proclamation! ‘IT IS FINISHED!’” Thus, Christ didn’t come to merely be an example of a good living, but secondly…

2. He came to deliver us from the wrath of God and to take away our sins.

When Jesus’ earthly cousin, John the Baptist, proclaimed in John 1:29, “Behold, the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world,” he was giving Christ more than a name or title. He was supplying us with a wonderful description of Jesus the Messiah.

In the Old Testament, the priests would shed the blood of animals which symbolized a covering of one’s sins. But Christ’s death and the shedding of his blood did much more than cover the sins of sinners; it took their sins away entirely! Furthermore, Matthew Henry commentated that with Christ’s statement, “It is finished,” there came an end to transgression and the bringing in of an everlasting righteousness to those who call upon His name.

There are some who have criticized Christianity for holding the cross in such high esteem. They see the cross as a symbol of death and suffering; but as Christians we look at the cross and see life! “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life.” (John 3:14&15)

Hebrews 9.27-28 reads, “Just as it is appointed for man to die once and then to face judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for Him!”

He came and died once to bear our sins on himself, and after that…It Is Finished!

So away with the notion of works-oriented salvation; away with the idea that man partakes in his own redemption. As Scripture clearly teaches, Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners from their sin and God’s wrath. And the day that Jesus hung bleeding his blood on the cross for us was the day that God satisfied God. Without His perfect atonement to take away all our unrighteousness, we would be without hope. There is a reason that Christ—even in the hour of His death—was able to say victoriously, “It is finished.” And it is for this reason, because of this Savior, that we glory in the death of Jesus Christ. Without Him, we are nothing.

Oh, to see my name
Written in the wounds,
For through Your suffering I am free.
Death is crushed to death;
Life is mine to live,
Won through Your selfless love.

This, the pow’r of the cross:
Son of God—slain for us.
What a love! What a cost!
We stand forgiven at the cross.

(By: Eddie Goodwin)

Chapter 10 is entitled: People Worth Watching.  It’s subject matter emphasizes the active repsonsibilities of church leaders to encourage select members to consider & pursue ministerial work.

“Actively recruiting talented (note: he is assuming biblically qualified) people sounds wordly and crass.  Shouldn’t we just have confidence in Christ the ascended King, that he will raise up people in his own time? 

It’s strange how we have recourse to the sovereignty of God or of Christ at some times and not others.  We don’t stop evangelizing or teaching the Word just because we have confidence in the sovereign God to do His work in people’s hearts.  We don’t stop praying just because God has His perfect purposes that cannot be thwarted.  We don’t stop encouraging people to serve Christ and get involved in church life even though we know that Christ is the One who will ultimately build His church.  God’s actions and ours aren’t mutually exclusive.  We speak and serve and work and pray, knowing that God will work in and through all these things to give the growth.

It’s the same with raising up the next generation.  We know that the Lord of the harvest will raise up labourers, but that should not stop us from praying that He would do so, and actively recruiting godly, gifted people when we notice them” (p.140).

(By: John Miller)

Last week I introduced the book The Shepherd Leader by Tim Witmer. This week I want to share with you one thing that struck me from the first chapter, which is the first of four chapters in Part I: Biblical and Historical Foundations. The first chapter is entitled “Not a New Idea: Old Testament Themes.”

 

Dr. Witmer begins by pointing us again to the reality that the Lord God Himself uses the imagery of a shepherd to describe His relationship with and care for His people. The first place that this occurs in the bible is Genesis 48:15, in which Jacob describes God as “the God who has been my shepherd all my life long to this day.” Remember the context of this statement is when Jacob is blessing Joseph and his sons Ephraim and Manasseh. Thus, it is near the end of Jacob’s life. What an amazing statement for Jacob to make, and what a change in perspective from the way that he thought about God earlier in his life. Jacob, the deceiver, was not someone who trusted in God to be his shepherd and care for him. Instead, Jacob believed that he had to manipulate others in order to receive blessing from God. Jacob had manipulated his brother Esau into selling him his birthright when Esau was famished (cf. Genesis 25:29-34). Jacob later deceived his father Isaac into thinking that he was Esau so that he could receive Isaac’s blessing (cf. Genesis 27). And even more ridiculous and foolhardy is Jacob’s belief that he can actually manipulate the kind of young sheep and goats born to Laban’s flock by putting branches with stripes and spots in front of the water trough where the flocks mated! Certainly it was the Lord who caused the young sheep and goats to be spotted and speckled, and not these branches, but Jacob still trusted in himself and his deceptive schemes to take care of himself instead of the Good Shepherd.

 

What about you? Do you trust in your own abilities and your own schemes in order to find blessing? Do you think that you need to manipulate the people around you in order to find happiness, joy, or blessing? Or do you realize that every blessing that you have in your life comes from the Good Shepherd? Do you realize that in spite of all your deception and schemes that it is God who is sustaining your life? And if you are in Christ, do you remember daily that He is the One who will take care of you both now and for all eternity? Oh, may the Lord increase our faith in Him, and may we come to own the words that Jacob uttered near the end of his life early in our lives, confessing with David, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”

(By David Giarrizzo)

Two weeks ago today the soul of my grandfather, Joseph Giarrizzo, passed from this life into the next. He lived 83 years.

When I received the call from my dad just before 8am, I was sitting in front of the computer in my 8×8-foot cubicle at work. I had one hand on the mouse and the other gripping my coffee cup. It was the middle of a busy week during a busy time of year, early in the day with lists of tasks to be attended to and appointments to be met.  But as soon as my dad’s words “Your Grandpa Giarrizzo died this morning” came through the phone and penetrated my inner ear, I immediately dropped what I was doing. I pushed away from the keyboard and my eyes began to well with tears as I bowed my head and began to pray for God’s comfort upon my family.

I can think back to a handful of similar sad moments in my life when I received phone calls notifying me that someone I knew had died. At every one of those instances, my reaction was the same: All other thoughts and anxieties about my life’s activities faded into the distant obscurity of my mind. In other words, the death of another caused my life to pause.

I want to briefly list a handful of reasons why I believe it is important to “pause life” when someone we have known dies:

1.) Pause to grieve the death of a loved one.

This may seem like a point so obvious it’s not worth listing. However I believe it is important for us to remember to take an appropriate amount of time to mourn. Grief is both a natural human reaction to a saddening event and a biblical reaction. Ecclesiastes 3:1&4 says,

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:
…a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance…”

We read in John 11 that Jesus himself took time to show his grief in front of his disciples and those present at his dear friend’s Lazarus’ tomb. Jesus wept whilst knowing that he would soon raise Lazarus from death back to life. As with everything, we should grieve to the glory of God, with full dependence on Him for our comfort. May we follow the example of our Lord by taking time to cry when our friends and relatives leave this world for the next.

2.) Pause to experience the joy of God’s comfort.

When we consider verses like Psalm 116:15 (“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.”), we begin to develop a different picture of the death of a believer in Christ. Ironically enough, for many Christians, the death of a fellow believer is often accompanied by joy and celebration as sad as it may be initially. Truly, the death of a brother or sister in Christ is a bittersweet time for the surviving family and friends. On the one hand we mourn the loss of someone close to us; on the other hand, we must be reminded that if our loved one knew the Lord Jesus in a saving way, he or she no longer knows sadness or pain, but only the indescribable joy of being in the presence of Christ. I remember when my great-grandmother died, my dad said that we had not “lost Nana,” because when you lose something it implies that you don’t know where it is. Instead, we knew that because Nana believed in Christ alone for her salvation, she was safe and secure in the arms of her Savior.

Not only should we pause at the death of a saint to be comforted, but also to comfort others. When my grandpa Joe passed away fourteen days ago, the outpouring of love expressed by the kind words, encouraging notes, generous acts, and continual prayers from the family of God was probably the most visible example of God’s comfort that the Giarrizzo family could have experienced. I am so grateful for the body of Christ. I hope that I will remember to pause and show my love to anyone else who has to experience the death of a loved one.

3.) Pause to consider the unnatural concept of death.

I have recently been following the HBO miniseries, The Pacific, a 10-part history following a group of US Marines and their campaign against the Japanese in World War II. Like with many military dramas based on real life, in a scene where a fellow soldier is shot and killed, the surviving soldier next to the fallen one will typically hesitate with terror, pause with the shock of seeing his friend’s life extinguished in an instant. The next time you watch a show like this, pay attention to the expression on the faces of those around the person who is killed. You will see the look of surprise, confusion, sadness, and fear blended together.

Death is shocking to us partly because it can be unexpected, but mostly because it is unnatural. When God created man in Genesis, the concept of death was known only through God’s command, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.” For Adam and Eve death was hinged on the conditional and not based on God’s natural order of creation. It was only after Adam and Eve had sinned by disobeying God that death entered the world as an effect of their sin (Genesis 3:19). Therefore, for us, the children of Adam who are conceived in sin, we too are under sin’s curse of death.

I believe this is part of why humans have a hard time grasping the idea of death: because it is not natural to man from the beginning. The death of a loved one can be surprising, confusing, saddening, fearful, or all of these. Thankfully, though, because God’s grace was made known to sinful man through His Son, death is not a punishment for the child of God, but a passage to glory. (More on this under point #5.)

4.) Pause to contemplate our own impending deaths.

Life is short and death gets closer with every passing breath. Moses understood the brevity of human life as well as anyone. Thankfully he paused to write his contemplations for us to read in Psalm 90.

You turn men back to dust,
saying, “Return to dust, O sons of men.”
You sweep men away in the sleep of death;
they are like the new grass of the morning-
though in the morning it springs up new,
by evening it is dry and withered.
The length of our days is seventy years—
or eighty, if we have the strength;
yet their span is but trouble and sorrow,
for they quickly pass, and we fly away.
Teach us to number our days aright,
that we may gain a heart of wisdom. (Psalm 90:3, 5, 6, 10, 12)

It was the end of my senior year of high school that I attended the funeral of a dear friend. Dan was 30 years old when the Lord took him home quickly in a car crash. The days and weeks following Dan’s death, I remember taking time to think about my own life. “Will I make it to 30, or will God take me home at a young age?,” I wondered to myself. To this day I think often about the shortness of life and the imminence of death. (Ask my family and they’ll say I’m just morbid.) God used Dan’s death to remind me to take life seriously, to number my days aright. What better an opportunity than the death of a friend to consider mortality, eternity, and the importance of salvation through faith in Christ? Likewise, what better opportunity to preach the Gospel to other sinful mortals?

“Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.” (Ephesians 5:15-17)

5.) Pause to remember that Christ conquered death.

Finally, and most importantly, the thought of death and dying should cause us to think of Christ, our Prophet, Priest, and King. The sacrificial Lamb of God Who bled and died on our behalf is resurrected and ruling over heaven and earth. Only because of the death of Christ can the Christian sing, “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” By His death and resurrection, Christ has removed the power of death. In fact, even the fear of death should be lessened or abolished for he who dies in the Lord. May we always remember the words of Isaiah 43:2, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.” As Bunyan’s Hopeful in Pilgrim’s Progress spoke to Christian who struggled through the River of Death, “Be of good cheer, Jesus Christ maketh thee whole,” may we also be of good cheer knowing that we have a great Savior Who has Himself endured death in order to grant us everlasting life.

Where, O death, is your sting?
To Christ, my hope, I do cling!
The water is deep and the darkness is dense,
But great is His light in the night of my death!

Surely there are other reasons why it is important for us to pause at the deaths of loved ones. I would love to hear from you if you have your own thoughts on why death should give us cause to pause.

(By: Chad Bennett)

This past weekend I had the privilege of participating in the founding of a new Reformed Baptist association of churches. A number of elders from churches all over the state met at Heritage Church in Fayetteville, GA to unite and encourage one another. The purpose of the association is not to replace our national association, ARBCA, but in appreciation of ARBCA to create a local association that can meet more often and work together to accomplish works locally.The stated purpose of the association is:

Georgia has a rich Reformed Baptist heritage, but has been without a Confessional Reformed Baptist association in over 100 years. Seven churches signed the Declaration and another seven men signed as associate members (see picture). Our hope is that we creating a rich foundation for future Reformed Baptist churches. We were encouraged by solid preaching, church updates and testimonies, and information about church plant possibilities throughout the state. The conference also brought together two Ardent Cries bloggers Nick and myself.

If you are interested in more information please visit the GACB website or visit the Facebook group.

(By: Eddie Goodwin)

The emphasis of chapter nine is reflected in the title: Multiplying Gospel-Growth through Training Co-Workers.  Toward the end of the chapter, the authors provide a summary of their model so far related in the book.

Co-workers, vine-workers, and the bigger picture

1. What is God doing in the world?  God is calling people into His kingdom through Spirit-backed gospel preaching.  He is growing a great worldwide vine, which is Christ and the people who are joined to Him.

2. Everyone who by God’s grace becomes a disciple of Christ is not only part of the vine, but also a vine-worker, a disciple-maker, a partner in the gospel.  Although some Christians have particular gifts and responsibilities for teaching and oversight, all Christians have a role in prayerfully speaking the word of truth to each other and to those outside.

3. Training is the process of growing mature Christian vine-workers — that is, Christians who are mature enough in their faith to look for opportunities to serve others by prayerfully speaking God’s truth to them.  This is our aim in people work.  It involves not just ministry skills and competencies, but growth in convictions (understanding) and character (godliness).  This is a fundamental aspect of church life, and might involve a shift in the way we think about church (especially with respect to our reliance on sermons as the only means of growth).

4. Training (understood in this way) is the engine of gospel growth.  People move from being outsiders and unconverted through being followed up as new Christians and then growing into mature, stable Christians who are then in turn trained and mobilized to lead others through the ‘gospel growth’ process.

5. Recruiting and training a smaller group of co-workers is the first step towards recruiting and training all Christians as vine-workers.  You can’t personally minister to and train 130 people.  But you can start with ten, and those ten can work beside you — not only to minister personally to others, but to train others as well, who will in turn minister to others.  The ‘co-workers’, in other words, are not a different category — they are just a bunch of gifted potential ‘vine-workers’ who work beside you to get things moving.  It’s ministry multiplication through personal training, and it is one of the great needs of the contemporary church.