- 00:03
- Hello, welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist.
- 00:07
- This is a daily conversation about scripture, culture and media from a Reformed perspective.
- 00:15
- Get your Bible and coffee ready and prepare to engage today's topic.
- 00:21
- Here's your host, Pastor Keith Foskey.
- 00:25
- Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist.
- 00:27
- I'm Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist.
- 00:31
- As most of our listeners know, along with being the host of this program, I am also the pastor of Sovereign Grace Family Church of Jacksonville, Florida.
- 00:40
- On today's program, I'm going to feature a portion of a recent sermon from SGFC.
- 00:46
- If this portion of the sermon is of interest to you, and you decide you'd like to hear the full message or others like it, please go to our website and you will find a library of over 1,000 sermons on a variety of topics.
- 00:59
- These include messages from me, our other elders, and from special guests who have visited our church over the years.
- 01:07
- Now, without further delay, here is a clip from a recent message.
- 01:11
- I hope you enjoy.
- 01:14
- As I was preparing my message this week, I was reading through a commentary by Ortlin and Hughes.
- 01:22
- Kent Hughes is a commentator and I read quite a bit.
- 01:27
- I tend to like the way that he puts things together in words.
- 01:31
- I want to read to you something that he wrote in this commentary.
- 01:36
- It's a paragraph, so I would encourage you not to allow your mind to wander, but to listen to this closely.
- 01:47
- It's possible as our awareness of reality expands with adulthood, for our knowledge of God to remain at a juvenile level.
- 01:56
- If we let that happen, we end up having to choose between the facts as we see them and loyalty to an inadequate God.
- 02:06
- We end up secretly fearful that some new discovery in human knowledge might overturn our beliefs.
- 02:14
- We end up worshiping God not with glad confidence, but only as a duty.
- 02:20
- That is a defeatist faith.
- 02:23
- Nowhere does the Bible teach us to think that way.
- 02:27
- The prophetic faith of the Bible brings all of reality, including the perplexities of life, under the command of God.
- 02:36
- The Bible doesn't shrink from problems.
- 02:39
- It deliberately creates more problems for us.
- 02:42
- Why? Because we do settle for superficial answers.
- 02:47
- But God wants to lift us to a mature confidence in him as the one true God who is wisely managing reality toward a goal that deserves our all.
- 03:04
- Now why did I read that paragraph? Because I think Dr.
- 03:09
- Hughes really hits on something with this paragraph.
- 03:12
- He makes the point that ultimately our view of God tends to be very small.
- 03:24
- Our view of God's power tends to be very small.
- 03:29
- And we see this happen when the bad things come and we begin to shudder with fear, we begin to shake with discontent, we begin to be frustrated with the world around us because somehow we think that it's all up in the air and there's no rhyme nor reason and that it's all going to go according to the fates.
- 03:53
- And what happens is, and I love this quote, I even underlined it, we end up secretly fearful that some new discovery in human knowledge might overturn our belief.
- 04:05
- We end up secretly afraid that somehow we're going to find out God wasn't in control all along.
- 04:12
- We end up secretly afraid that somehow we're going to reach the end and realize we've worshipped the wrong God or the God that we've worshipped is inept or impotent.
- 04:24
- We've said he's powerful but do we really believe it? We've said he's almighty but do we really live that way? We've said he's sovereign but do we really put our trust in his sovereignty? We end up with a juvenile faith and we grow into maturity as adults but we don't take our faith to maturity.
- 04:45
- We become 60-year-old adolescents in our faith.
- 04:52
- We become older in our body but still have a 12-year-old understanding of God.
- 04:59
- Are y'all with me? Are you hearing what I'm saying? Because this is all that today is about because to really recognize the sovereignty of God and really live in light of the sovereignty of God takes a spiritual maturity that most of us are not ready to even begin to go toward because we're still caught up in the juvenile faith.
- 05:26
- I mean Paul talks about this, right, in his letters.
- 05:29
- He talks about those who have not yet gone on to maturity that are still living as essentially infants in the faith and I do think this is an issue.
- 05:46
- I think this is an issue for all of us.
- 05:50
- I think we're afraid and I think we live in fear because we still have an immature faith.
- 06:10
- I'm not standing here saying I'm better than you, by the way, just so you know.
- 06:16
- I have fear.
- 06:18
- I deal with fear and I deal with doubt.
- 06:23
- I really do.
- 06:25
- And I struggle with those things.
- 06:29
- When things are good, man, God is good all the time, right? And we're going to sing that later because God is good all the time but the purpose of singing that song is to remind us something all the time even when it's not good because it's hard to sing that song when things are bad.
- 06:50
- It's hard to say those words when it hurts and it's hard to trust when it looks like everything's falling apart.
- 07:05
- I hope you enjoyed that short sermon clip from Sovereign Grace Family Church.
- 07:09
- Again, if you're interested in hearing more or you would like more information about SGFC, please go to our website at sgfcjax.org.
- 07:18
- That's Sovereign Grace Family Church of Jacksonville.
- 07:20
- And if you're in the Jacksonville area, please come visit us on an upcoming Lord's Day.
- 07:25
- Thank you for listening today to Coffee with a Calvinist.
- 07:28
- I'm Keith Foskey and I have been your Calvinist.
- 07:32
- May God bless you.
- 07:34
- Thank you for listening to today's episode of Coffee with a Calvinist.
- 07:38
- If you enjoyed the program, please take a moment to subscribe and provide us feedback.
- 07:44
- We love to receive your comments and questions and may even engage with them in a future episode.
- 07:51
- As you go about your day, remember this, Jesus Christ came to save sinners.
- 07:57
- All who come to Him in repentance and faith will find Him to be a perfect Savior.
- 08:03
- He is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through Him.
- 08:10
- May God be with you.
