Tragedy is Coming - Place Your Hope In Christ Alone

Tragedy is Coming - Place Your Hope In Christ Alone

Tragedy is Coming. It is coming quickly, it is inevitable and unavoidable. October 2005 a Young Pastor in Waco is preparing to hold a baptism in the Sunday Morning Service, A microphone falls in the baptism, dead immediately. Thanksgiving Day 2009, A Young Pastor from Flower Mound is preparing to spend time with his family, without warning falls down, has a seizure, and discovers he has terminal brain cancer. Every day there are millions who face the tragedy of death, terminal illness, loss of job, or any other number of life's uncertainties. Life is uncertain and unstable; there is nothing apart from salvation that cannot be plucked out of our hands, even life. You see whether you realize it or not tragedy is coming quickly, it is inevitable and unavoidable.

The above paragraph is an incredibly depressing statement in many contexts, however it is also a very liberating and freeing statement as well. The statement is depressing and discouraging if you place you hope and trust in this world; if you have a earthly view of life, then there is no hope, period. If you have an earthly view of life, you can be incredibly successful, do all the right things, invest in all the right places, smile at all the right people, but tomorrow you may find that your life is fleeting faster than you planned. If you have a heavenly view of life, the statement is incredibly liberating and freeing; life is not in your hands, you don't have to worry if you smile at the right person, if you invest in the right places, or if you are incredibly earthly successful, all you have to worry about is pleasing your King and He will take care of the rest. Gone is the worry, gone is the fear of tragedy, our hope is in Christ alone. You see tragedy is coming quickly still, it is still inevitable and unavoidable, we expect it, but we have the assurance that God is in control over all things and place our hope and trust in Him.

The past month I have personally seen many people struggling with the tragedies of life; it has made my heart incredibly heavy. In this time of seeing incredible tragedies my soul has been filled with the line from In Christ Alone, "No guilt in life, no fear in death, This is the power of Christ in me; From life's first cry to final breath, Jesus commands my destiny. No power of hell, no scheme of man, Can ever pluck me from His hand; Till He returns or calls me home, Here in the power of Christ I'll stand."

Yes Tragedy is coming. Yes it is coming quickly. Yes it is inevitable and unavoidable. Place your hope In Christ Alone and see how liberating life can become.

Glorify God or Share the Gospel? What is Our Purpose?

What is our greatest purpose here on earth? Many times we are quick to answer that question with a variation of the first question from the Westminster Shorter Catechism, "Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever. This statement is absolutely one-hundred percent true, however our assumption of what this statement means, I believe, is sometimes misunderstood. Some might understand this phrase as a call to live life no different then they would if they were not a follower of Christ, but simply giving God the credit for everything the accomplish instead of taking it for themselves. Others might understand this phrase as a call to live life radically different than they did before, doing a plethora of good works and spending a lifetime learning the deep theological truths of scripture, taking no credit for anything they do but saying all the credit goes towards God. While both of these responses in themselves are not bad, it is possible to live each of these lifestyles without focusing on what I consider the most fundamental and important aspect of Glorifying God, which is obedience.

Our greatest purpose here on earth is to to Glorify God; the greatest way that we can Glorify God is to obey Him. We do this by not by living lifestyles that are "good", by doing "good" social works, or even through knowing the deep theological truths of scripture. We do this by being consumed and obedient to the commands and the Gospel.

When we think of the most familiar commandments of God, the ten commandments undoubtedly quickly comes to mind. The Westminster Shorter Catechism states that the sum of the ten commandments is Matthew 22:37-40, "Love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength, and with all our mind; and our neighbor as ourselves". I don't think it is by mistake that Jesus sums up all of God's commandments in this statement. Jesus is making it clear that we Glorify God best through obedience to Loving God and Loving Others as ourselves. It is no accident that the most loving thing we can do in loving God and loving others is in fact the same thing, sharing the Gospel.

In recent years in Southern Baptist life their has been great disagreement over what the greatest purpose of Christians here on earth is; Some have argued that it is to Glorify God while others have argued that it is to share the Gospel and fulfill the great commission. I submit to you that the answer is both. The greatest purpose we have on earth is to Glorify God through the obedience of His commands in sharing the Gospel. While it is easy to live lives of grand social work or to study the deep theological truths of God's word, if this is where our obedience stops, then we are merely doing good works and studying God's word, not allowing the Gospel to completely consume us. Jesus calls us to action through the great commission, therefore to be obedient and to glorify Him, we must obey Him.

Share the Gospel today.