Celebrating Reformation Day

Today is Reformation Day. While Halloween is observed by many, we – as evangelical and Reformed – have reason to celebrate what this occasion represents. On Oct. 31, 1517, Catholic monk Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on the Castle Church door in Wittenberg, Germany. Luther sought a debate on the practice of indulgences in the Catholic Church, but his action that day helped produce something much greater. He ignited a conflagration that swept through Europe and continues to burn today. It is known as the Reformation. As it has been described, it was a recovery of the gospel that had grievously been lost by the church.

The Reformation truths restored included the sole authority of Scripture, the headship of Christ over His church and salvation by grace alone. At the heart of the Reformation – and of Luther’s transformation into a courageous reformer – was the doctrine of justification by faith alone.

The key verse God used in Luther’s spiritual awakening was Rom. 1:17. Church historian Bruce Shelley describes it this way in his book Church History in Plain Language:

A new and revolutionary picture of God began developing in Luther’s restless soul. Finally, in 1515 while pondering St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans Luther came upon the words: “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith” (1:17, KJV). Here was his key to spiritual certainty: “Night and day I pondered,” Luther later recalled, “until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that ‘the just shall live by his faith.’ Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise.”

Luther saw it clearly now. Man is saved only by faith in the merit of Christ’s sacrifice. The cross alone can remove man’s sin and save him from the grasp of the devil. Luther had come to his famous doctrine of justification by faith alone. He saw how sharply it clashed with the Roman church’s doctrine of justification by faith and good works – the demonstration of faith through virtuous acts, acceptance of church dogma, and participation in church ritual.

We can give thanks today for God’s gracious work in and through Martin Luther and many others. May we guard the gospel so our church never loses it, and may we proclaim it clearly to others.

'The point of the gospel'

“The point of the gospel isn’t celebrating an experience; it’s believing a Man who is your crucified, resurrected, reigning Life.” -- Russell Moore, dean of the School of Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in an Oct. 27 blog post.

Preparing for corporate worship October 30

God can cause even the world’s mightiest rulers – pagans though they are -- to humble themselves before Him and confess His sovereignty. We see this happen more than once in the book of Daniel. On one such occasion, God restores Nebuchadnezzar to his throne after humbling him to the extent that he acts as if he were an animal. Upon his return to rule over Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar closes his praise of God by saying, “Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise, exalt and honor the King of heaven, for all His works are true and His ways just, and He is able to humble those who walk in pride” (Dan. 4:37). What a great declaration of praise to the only One worthy of worship! How much more should we express our adoration and thanksgiving this Sunday, however, when we will gather as those who have been delivered from enslavement to sin, Satan and death by the Sovereign God who humbled Himself and died for us.

Questions about Halloween and the gospel

What if?

That’s the question David Mathis asks over and over regarding Halloween in an Oct. 26 post at the Desiring God blog. Mathis -- executive pastoral assistant to John Piper at Desiring God and Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis – challenges Christians to think in a gospel-advancing way regarding this increasingly celebrated holiday. It is a worthwhile read. Whatever we decide about our response to Halloween, may Jesus and His gospel be at the heart.

Here are some of the gospel-focused challenges Mathis posted:

What if a crisp October wind blew through “the way we’ve always done things” at Halloween? What if the Spirit stirred in us a new perspective on October 31? What if dads led their households in a fresh approach to Halloween as Christians on mission?

What if spreading a passion for God’s supremacy in all things included Halloween — that amalgamation of wickedness now the second-largest commercial holiday in the West? . . .

What if we saw October 31 not merely as an occasion for asking self-oriented questions about our participation (whether we should or shouldn’t dress the kids up or carve pumpkins), but for pursuing others-oriented acts of love? What if we capitalized on the opportunity to take a step forward in an ongoing process of witnessing to our neighbors, co-workers, and extended families about who Jesus is and what he accomplished at Calvary for the wicked like us?

What if we resolved not to join the darkness by keeping our porch lights off? What if we didn’t deadbolt our doors, but handed out the best treats in the neighborhood as a faint echo of the kind of grace our Father extends to us sinners?

What if thinking evangelistically about Halloween didn’t mean just dropping tracts into children’s bags, but the good candy — and seeing the evening as an opportunity to cultivate relationships with the unbelieving as part of an ongoing process in which we plainly identify with Jesus, get to know them well, and personally speak the good news of our Savior into their lives?

You may read the entire post here.

Introducing Katie Davis

Meet Katie Davis, if you have not had the privilege already. If you were in our church’s corporate worship Oct. 23, you heard me introduce her and share briefly about her.

Katie Davis is a mother to 13 girls -- in Uganda -- at 22 years of age.

I have read her Jesus-drenched posts periodically for more than a year after a blogger I follow linked to her blog. Katie Davis left her home in Brentwood, Tenn., after graduating from high school to teach in a Ugandan village. She returned home the next year to begin college but found her heart remained in that needy African country. She returned and cared for orphaned and abandoned girls, spreading the message of Jesus as she did. She has helped start a ministry to Ugandans named Amazima. Her story is told in a book, Kisses From Katie, released three weeks ago.

Here is a video released to promote the book that provides a look at this young lady’s heart. (There is one comment by her that probably calls for further clarification. I assume it is provided in her book.)



This July article by National Public Radio provides a good overview of her unusual life.

You can read here an interview with her published Oct. 25 in Christianity Today.

The posts at her blog -- which can be found here -- are often powerful, vivid demonstrations of her passion for Jesus and for the needy. She writes with insight beyond her years. She writes with conviction, and her writing convicts. Here is her blog post on June 3 of this year:

Around here, we live bent low.

Tuesday morning ladies from Masese stream through my front door. We have moved our weekly meeting from the slum of Masese to my living room because I have been up all night with new foster baby and can’t imagine getting all 14 of these little people out of the house. Excited about a change of pace and my sweet friends in my home, I enlist the help of darling Tamara and 13 eager little girls to give these ladies pedicures. We wash and we rub and we paint. I rub lotion into old scarred feet and think of the journeys they have traveled. I whisper thanks for the ways they have blessed me and the things they have taught me, and here in a puddle on the hard tile floor, Joy overflows.

It is on this same cold, smooth tile that I kneel hours later, face inches away from the burn on Makerere’s calf. The stench doesn’t even bother me anymore. And while it looks horrific to outside eyes, I remember what it looked like months ago and ever so slowly, I can see the healing. I can see the healing in the blood red life that spills out as I bandage and in the smiling eyes that tell me stories as I work. Laying on my belly with a surgical blade I scrape out the dead and do my best to preserve the new pink tissue that is starting to form around the edges. He laughs and says, “I have told you now all the stories I have! It must be your turn.” And I tell him a story of a Heavenly King, born as a pauper and of a Body broken for me and for him and for each one of us. And I don’t even realize but there are tears on the tile and I sit astonished that messy, inadequate, ungraceful me would get to share such a story.

We sit in the dirt, not worried about the red stains and serve 400 plates of food to sponsored children on Saturday. I look into these faces and remember them nearly 4 years ago, destitute and hopeless and starving. Afraid of my funny white skin. We feed them lunch and we feed them God’s Word and we watch them transform. We feel like family now, no one noticing these skin differences. The [sun’s] rays beat down the glory of God and covered in mud and chicken broth I know that this is contentment.

Our family sits on the street corner down town sharing ice cream and laughter. My daughter bends low to offer a homeless man her popsicle and as he cries that no one cares about him she looks straight into his face. “We will be your family,” she asserts, and she means it. We kneel on the pavement and we pray and people stop to look but we hardly notice because we were made for this.

We bend.

I bend to sweep crumbs and I bend to wipe vomit and I bend to pick up little ones and wipe away tears. I bend over a big pot of stew and I bend to fold endless laundry and I bend over math books and spelling sentences and history quiz corrections. And at the end of these days I bend next to the bed and I ask only that I could bend more, bend lower.

Because I serve a Savior who came to be a servant. He lived bent low. And bent down here is where I see His face.

He lived, only to die.

Could I?

Die to self and just break open for love.

This Savior, His one purpose to spend Himself on behalf of messy us. Will I spend myself on behalf of those in front of me?

And people say, “Don’t you get tired?” and yes, I do. But I’m face to face with Jesus in the dirt, and the more I bend the harder and better and fuller this life gets. And sure, we are tired, but oh we are happy. Because bent down low is where we find fullness of Joy.

Praying for you as you bend today for whoever is in front of you. He will meet you there.

Marriage myth No. 3: My spouse will complete me

Not really. You are complete already, whether single or married, if you are in Christ by virtue of saving faith. There is a sense in which this statement – “My spouse will complete me” -- can point to some truths in marriage: A man and woman become one in marriage; they can have oneness in spirit, purpose, thinking and body; a spouse can have strengths that off-set your weaknesses; God uses marriage as part of the sanctifying process, utilizing your spouse as a means of conforming you to the image of Christ. To say your spouse completes you, however, attributes something to him or her that Jesus has already achieved: “For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete” (Col. 2:9-10a). Recognize your completeness comes from Jesus, not another person -- even your spouse.

A prayer for Covenant Community Church

“We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brethren, as is only fitting, because your faith is greatly enlarged, and the love of each one of you toward one another grows ever greater” (II Thess. 1:3).

Dear God, thank you for Your people who make up Covenant Community Church. Thank you for the privilege of being a part of them. You have been good to bless us with many manifestations of your grace through these years. Thank you for enlarging our faith, especially in opening our eyes more and more to the centrality of the Lord Jesus and the total sufficiency of His finished work for us. Thank you also for the love for one another that lives in our fellowship and for the growing expressions of that love that are being displayed.

Please extend Your grace to us that we would grow more and more in our trust in You and Your gospel, and please cause our love for one another to increase even more. In these merciful works of Your Spirit, may You receive all the glory.

I offer this prayer through Jesus and on the basis of His priestly work in my behalf. Amen.