no escape

If they dig into Sheol, from there shall my hand take them;

if they climb up to heaven, from there I will bring them down. Amos 9:2

No one can escape the fate God has decreed. Sinners have been running and trying to hide from God since The Fall in the Garden of Eden. We’ve been wrapping our loins in fig leaves and hiding among the bushes. But God always sees. He knows. His righteousness shines a flood light on our dark disobedience. His truth exposes our error.

We cannot descend into the coldest cavern of the earth to hide. We cannot ride the fastest rocket into space to avoid God. There is no place to escape His gaze, evade His justice, or outpace His coming wrath. We will be seen, known, and every sin will be accounted for.

Sinners instead need to run to Christ and not from judgment. In Jesus all my descent into sin and hiding was carried to His cross, there to be borne and to be held subject to wrath and justice… and grace. I can only ascend to heaven because Jesus will carry me there by His mercy, grace, and righteousness. I must always embrace a Savior and cease my soul’s failed covert operation of running. I instead run to a Savior and not from a Judge. I run to life and not from death. I run to deliverance and not to judgment. I run to salvation and a home and am saved from separation in hell.

essential elders

This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you— Titus 1:5

God wants an orderly local church. And this little pastoral postcard of Titus provides a kind of bullet point checklist of what that looks like. Paul left Titus on Crete to make sure the local churches in each town were kept in order. It took time. The first task on the checklist: elders needed to be appointed for each town’s local church. And that sort of leadership training and development takes deliberate effort and serious time commitment for the trainer and the candidates.

Some thoughts about elders from this first priority in the first chapter of Titus:

1. Local churches need a plurality of elders to truly be a New Testament church. That is why your Bible Study or your “home group” or your “household” are not local churches. It is popular today to avoid this biblical pattern. It is perilous as much false doctrine and practice erupts from such places. No surprise… they aren’t biblical in structure. Titus was commanded to appoint a plurality of elders in each town.
2. Elders are proven leaders at home (Titus 1:6). The fruit of their leadership is shown at home and backs up character, commitment, and calling.
3. Character predominates elder qualification (Titus 1:7-8). In the long list is nothing about organizational acumen, business success, or charisma. It is all about the character of Christ.
4. Word skill is essential as a teacher (Titus 1:9). The primary call of the elder is to teach the Word and direct the life of the church around it.
5. Elders will face opposition by false teachers within the church (these false teachers are always non-qualified by the first three things on the list). They face persecution from outside the church (Titus 1:9b-16).

God, help us to raise up and appoint Your qualified and called men for Your local churches! Amen

my grateful prayer

For great is your steadfast love toward me; you have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol. Psalm 86:13

A wealth of grace has been poured over my soul by Your faithful love to me, O God! Like David, I too am loved by a covenant-keeping God Who has given all to save me from death. Jesus, You poured out Your life in love for my soul. Could there be any greater display of love? I was Your enemy, far from God, enslaved to sin, and rebellious to Your holy truth. And yet You came to save sinners and fully paid my sin-debt with Your sacrifice.

My soul is saved from hell by Your redemption, proven forever by Your resurrection from the dead. I am loved. I am saved from the penalty and power of sin. I am given new life and will inherit eternal life. Sin and death no longer master me! Your steadfast love has captured me and in the New Covenant celebrated at Your table I feast as I remember Your great love, Lord Jesus!

Amen

Seek Me

For thus says the LORD to the house of Israel: “Seek me and live…” Amos 5:4

A gracious God

stands ready to forgive

”Seek me and live!”

…but you did not believe

In mercy

He will full pardon give

”Seek me and live!”

…but you did not believe

Look to a cross

at what Jesus did

”Seek me and live!”

…but you did not believe

”Come to me…”

Jesus patiently says

”Seek me and live!”

He stands ready to forgive

”Seek first my kingdom”

Holy gifts He gives

”Seek me and live!”

believe and be His!

Eternal life

to His people instead

”Seek me and live!”

beat death and truly live

A perfect life

remade in Him

”Seek me and live!”

Oh, that you will believe!

rejecting sound doctrine

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. 2 Timothy 4:3-4

Paul describes the motivations people have in rejecting the preaching of the Word as he exhorts Timothy to faithfully continue to do so with patient teaching. There are five characteristics of those who reject the clear exposition of God’s Word when there is Christ-centered, gospel-saturated, doctrinally driven preaching.

1. They don’t endure. They want quick and easy answers, will not work at listening to the truth, and applaud platitudes and Reader’s Digest condensed talks.
2. They want something novel and exciting that is the opposite of sound doctrine. Itching ears are tired of hearing gospel truth. They trade the wonder in salvation with wandering to new and opposite message.
3. They collect teachers like Pokémon cards. It’s about the latest craze and the accumulation of novel messages and messengers. They focus on men, not the message.
4. They suit their own passions. False teaching de-emphasizes sin and exalts the flesh. It craves affirmation and not confession.
5. They turn away from truth. This implies that they hear it and reject it. The gospel is both replaced AND ignored by choice.

Lord,

help us stay true to the command to preach the Word, always ready with clear exposition of the text, gospel application of the text, and Christ-centered focus in the truth of the text!

Amen

R E S T O R E

Restore us, O LORD God of hosts! Let your face shine, that we may be saved! Psalm 80:3, 7, 19

Remember, O God that we are dust.

Redeem us from the pit.

Return to us our joy.

Restore us, O Lord God.

Everyone has turned away.

Even the righteous stumble.

East winds scorch and parch us.

Eternal power must save us.

Spare us, O Lord God!

Sanctify us to Yourself.

So many are our sins.

Salvation belongs to the Lord!

To return to You, our hope…

To know again Your peace…

To prosper in You love…

These things we desire.

Over sin You have dominion.

On our side, You help us.

Overcome the weights that sink us.

Overpower sin, death, and hell.

Remember us again in mercy.

Redeem us and make us Your possession.

Return to us in power and glory!

Restore us, God, is our heart’s cry.

Each of us in great need,

equal with inability to save ourselves,

ever aware of Jesus, our only Savior,

eternally we will sing Your praise!

moral incompetence

“They do not know how to do right,” declares the LORD,

“those who store up violence and robbery in their strongholds.” Amos 3:10

What an indictment! God says of His people Israel that they do not know how to do what is right. The nature of the covenant God made with them was that they would be a nation uniquely devoted to Him. By keeping His law they would show God’s holiness and love to the world. They were meant to be a holy light to the nations to draw them to God. Even though they possessed the covenant and had God’s Law they failed miserably. They had become incapable of doing good… instead hoarding violence and sin in their actions, character, and national reputation.

Israel’s failure proclaimed by God through the prophet Amos reminds us that sinners cannot keep God’s Law under their own power. That is why Christ came to perfectly fulfill God’s Law. This proclamation reminds us that sinners cannot do right. That is why the righteousness of Christ needs to be applied to us. Sinners are filled with iniquity. That’s why we must be clothed in Christ’s righteousness. We do nothing good. That’s why we come to Christ in repentance, confession, and faith so that His work transforms us as we turn FROM wrong to embrace His righteous gifts!

Lord, “They do not know how to do right…” But transformed by grace through faith, Christ’s righteousness can live in Your redeemed elect. And that is really true in me by faith! Thank You! Amen.