Welcome, Baby Adeline!

DPC welcomes Baby Adeline, born to Steve & Adriane at 7:22 this morning!  She weighed in at 6 pounds 14 ounces, and is 19 inches long.  Give thanks for this precious gift from God.

"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, 

coming down from the Father of lights

with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change."

James 1.17

"People who do not like children are swine, 

dunces, and blockheads,

not worthy to be called men and women,

because they despise the blessing of God,

the Creator and Author of marriage."

Martin Luther

Man Night!

Iron Men,

Think about this... in the Lord's Prayer we pray that God might give us our daily bread, right?

How exactly does God answer that prayer for you?

Well, there's the guy who sells seed to the farmer.  There's the farmer himself.  There's the banker who lent the farmer money for the tractor.  There are the people who made the tractor, and the other people who sold the tractor.  There are the harvesters.  There's the baker.  There's the cook.  There's the truck driver who delivered it all to the grocery store.  There are the grocery store employees.  There's also the lady at the checkout counter, or the kid handing you your cheeseburger through the fast food window.  And a whole lot more as well, but you get the point.

All of this... just to give you your daily bread.  All of these different people and their work... God used every last one of them (in answer to your prayer) to give you the food you ate yesterday.

This is the doctrine of vocation.  This is the dignity of all honorable work.  God provides for our needs through one another's work.  I serve you and you serve me, all through the particular work that God Himself has called us to.

God is powerfully at work in this world through the means of vocation.

That's what we're talking about tonight at Man Night.  And it's about the most practical thing you can imagine, in a thousand different ways.  Hope to see you there!

Iron Men of DPC

Forged by God; Sharpened by Brothers

Iron sharpens Iron, and one man sharpens another. ~ Proverbs 27.17

This is what God intended all along...

Check this out:

Genesis 1:28 ~ “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion"

Colossians 1:5,6 ~ "the word of the truth, the gospel, which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing"

Colossians 1:10 ~ "bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God"

In the first reference, God is commanding humanity (at the time of creation) to bear fruit and increase.

In the second reference, the gospel (which brings about the new creation) is now bearing fruit and increasing.

In the third reference (a prayer for God's people), we are once again bearing fruit and increasing; bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.

What a great progression.  What is said about humanity is then said about the gospel and is then said about the people in whose lives and hearts the gospel is at work.

In the re-created humanity of the church, God is doing exactly that which he always intended...  He's reaping a rich harvest of image-bearers who will revel and flourish before him.

Come to Jesus Christ and become who you were made to be.  Become truly human.

All through the power of the gospel and the grace of the Savior.


  

Celebrating S'mores & Fires & Friends

“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself (for God did not need to create). It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.”

~C.S. Lewis

The Book of Longing

If you're using the Bible reading plan discussed HERE, then you're in the midst of the book of Judges.  Let me tell you right now... don't hold out hope for a happy ending.

This is an era of chaos, lawlessness, violence, and gross immorality---sexual and otherwise.

"In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes."  That's how the book of Judges describes itself.  Everyone's doing what's right in his own eyes; no one is concerned about God's eyes.  Sad stuff.

The consequences are disturbing, and the conclusion is obvious: WE NEED A KING!  We need a faithful king, an eternal king---one who will rule over us in wisdom and love.  Because left to ourselves, we fall apart and our entire culture becomes unraveled.

By the way, have you seen today's newspaper?

We still need that king.  And the good news of the gospel is that we have him!  He is King Jesus, the one prefigured and foreshadowed in many wonderful ways throughout the book of Judges, over and over and over again.

This is 21 chapters (618 verses) of a sad tale, full of longing---skillfully told.  Unforgettable stories, unforgettable people.  


Actually, sometimes the stories in this book are downright gruesome.  Why do you think God thought it was important for us to read this?  The point is plain and profound: we need the Bible's king.

There's an important cycle in the book of Judges:

1. The people of God do evil.  
2. They are punished for this evil.  
3. They cry out to God for deliverance.  
4. He graciously sends a savior / deliverer / rescuer / judge.  Each one of these judges is a picture of Christ in some way.  But, of course, the picture is very limited and the deliverance is very temporary.
5. When the judge dies, the people generally return to Step 1.  (It's a cycle that every self-aware Christian can identify with.)  

We need a Savior / Deliverer / Rescuer / Judge / King who can somehow establish his righteousness over us forever.  We need a Greater Samson, a Greater Gideon, a Greater Deborah, a Greater Ehud, a Greater Othniel, a Greater Shamgar, a Greater Jephthah, etc.

And in Christ, that's what we're freely given.

He's the Greater Adam (Romans 5), the Greater Moses (Mark 6; John 5), the Greater David (Matthew 12), and the Greater Solomon (Luke 11).  The salvation he brings is the Greater Exodus (Hebrews 12) and the Greater Restoration from Exile (Luke 4).  The church he founds is the Living Temple (1 Peter 2) and the Israel of God (Galatians 6).

And on top of all that, he's also our Greater Judge and our Long-For King.  

"What do these judges have in common?... What they have in common... is their rich diversity.  The book of Judges delights in surprises, in diversity of character and situation, in reversals of expectations. The hand of the Lord falls where it will, often in unexpected places---on a southpaw, on two women, on the youngest son of a poor farmer in a weak clan, on the son of a prostitute, on the son of a barren woman...."

~Kenneth R.R. Gros Lous

"The book of Judges is full of paradox.  It contains some of the most famous of the Bible's stories and some of the least known.  In them there is much that is attractive, perhaps more than is repulsive.  Their lessons are at one simple and difficult.  They show us man's blackest sin, but we see it by the light of God's most luminous grace."

~Michael Wilcock

JOSHUA POST

The Book of Re-Conquest

Following the Bible-reading plan discussed HERE, you recently finished the book of Joshua.

It's not just the book of conquest; it's actually the book of re-conquest.  For "the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers" (Psalm 24.1).  The whole earth belongs to God, and he claims it for his own holy and grace-drenched purposes; no one can deprive him of this claim, no matter how many idols they summon to their aid.

This book that begins with God's reassuring commissioning of Joshua (Israel's new leader) and mercy to a Gentile prostitute and a second miraculous crossing of a river boundary and memorial stones and the covenant signs and the appearance of the commander of the army of the Lord quickly moves into the taking of the Promised Land.

There are other things of note as well:  the establishing of the boundary lines that divide the tribes of Israel, the ongoing tension with Canaanites that are tolerated instead of dealt with as God commanded, the last words of Joshua, etc.

But at the center of this book stands the Divine Warrior, the One who intervenes to give his people victory (or give his people discipline---for their sinful disobedience).

And what this book is really about is how this God fulfills all his promises.  He made a great promise to Abraham, and not one word of that promise fell to the ground.  24 chapters, 658 verses of promises fulfilled.  

But here's the kicker... you know what the name "Joshua" means?  It means "Yahweh is Salvation."

And when you translate that name into Greek, you know what you get?  "Jesus."

Jesus is the Greater Joshua, and all of God's promises are actually fulfilled in him.  "For all the promises of God find their Yes in him" (2 Corinthians 1.20).  Jesus is our Ultimate Champion, who defeats our ultimate enemies (sin & death), and leads us into the Ultimate Promised Land.

"Joshua is an important book for many reasons... for the history it records and for its internal teaching.  But what makes the book of Joshua overwhelmingly important is that it stands as a bridge between the Pentateuch (the writings of Moses) and the rest of Scripture."

~Francis Schaeffer

"We see in it much of God, and his providence... his faithfulness to his covenant with the patriarchs, his kindness to his people is real notwithstanding their provocations."

~Matthew Henry

"Joshua is... the story of how God, to whom the whole world belongs, at one stage in the history of redemption reconquered a portion of the earth from the powers of this world that had claimed it for themselves, defending their claims by force of arms and reliance on their false gods.  It tells how God commissioned his people, under his servant Joshua, to take Canaan in his name out of the hands of the idolatrous and dissolute Canaanites.  It tells how he aided them in that enterprise and gave them conditional tenancy in his land in fulfillment of the ancient pledge."

~Arthur Lewis

"Between the book's own beginning and end an important transformation takes place.  Wandering Israel outside the land becomes settled Israel at rest within it."

~L. Daniel Hawk

"The book of Joshua is one of the Bible's greatest testimonies to the mighty acts of God on behalf of Israel."

~Jerome F.D. Creach

DEUTERONOMY POST

Welcome, Baby Shelton!

"If one feels the need of something grand, something infinite, something that makes one feel aware of God, one need not go far to find it. I think that I see something deeper, more infinite, more eternal than the ocean in the expression of the eyes of a little baby when it wakes in the morning and coos or laughs because it sees the sun shining on its cradle."

Vincent van Gogh

DPC welcomes Shelton, born to Cody & Blakely on Monday, April 22, at 3:00 pm.  She weighed in at 8 pounds, 1 ounce and was 20 & 1/2 inches long.  

For you formed my inward parts;

you knitted me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works;

my soul knows it very well.

My frame was not hidden from you,

when I was being made in secret,

intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw my unformed substance;

in your book were written, every one of them,

the days that were formed for me,

when as yet there was none of them.

Psalm 139