New Active Duty Prayer List

Find a copy of our newly revised BCC Military Prayer List here.  If you attend BCC and have someone serving on active duty and would like to add them, send us a photo.  If you see a correction that should be made, let us know!  Remember to pray for these servants: pray that God would guard their hearts and minds and bodies, and that they might "bear the sword" for good (Romans 13:4).

Saved by Personal Realization, or Saved by God's Grace?

Are you saved by coming to a realization of God’s love for you, or are you saved by the love of God graciously given to you?

I ask this question, and make this distinction, because I hear people say our biggest problem is that we don’t embrace God’s unconditional love for us. As Christians, this may be true, but I get the impression that people also apply this to the lost, and their understanding of the gospel message. For, I also hear people apply God’s unconditional love to mankind simply because we are human and made in the image of God. The implication is that God loves everyone because they are human, and salvation comes when we simply realize His love for us.

What ever happened to the separation between man and God because of Adam’s sin? Didn’t Jesus die to reconcile us to the one who is justly angry with us because of Adam’s fall, and our resulting guilt? Did His death remove God’s wrath from all human beings? If so, then what is Hell, and why would the Bible describe anyone going there? If God’s wrath is no longer hanging over any human being, then aren’t all saved?

I sure hope you don’t see this as splitting theological hairs, because in reality it is a matter of grace, and understanding the gospel of Jesus Christ. For, if God’s love is hanging over every human being then our realization of this “truth” is the only thing keeping us from Him. The problem with this is that salvation then becomes a matter of personal enlightenment, and not God’s mercy from start to finish. God’s unmerited favor is not gained by independent enlightenment. We are all under the wrath of God, and the good news is that God alone gives us eyes to see His salvation. This is a gift of God. This is His unmerited favor. 2 Corinthians 4:3-6 describes that we were blinded by Satan and that our remedy is not realizing what already exists, but instead it is the power of God that creates our faith.

In the beginning, when God said, “Let there be light” there was no choice to be made; light simply came into existence. This is the connection Paul makes (in 2 Corinthians 4) to our salvation.

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

God's wrath is real, people are blind to the gospel, and if you know His love for you then you have been delivered from God's wrath by His grace in both providing reconciliation through Jesus, and in creating light in your previously dark heart, so that you might rightly see Jesus.

May God be praised for His glorious grace!

From Him and Through Him and To Him

A Summary of Pastor Dale's Sermon on Romans 11:11-36

In this section of Romans we think of the place of ethnic Israel in God’s redemptive plan. In it we read of their stumbling, and their being pictured as branches broken off an olive tree while the unnatural, Gentile branches are grafted in. A partial hardening has come upon Israel (v.25), and so we ask; why did God harden the Jews?

In Genesis 50:20 we hear Joseph say to his hardened brothers, “What you meant for evil, God meant for good.” And even the sinful, hard-hearted actions of those who crucified Jesus are said (in Acts 4:27-28) to be the predestined plan of God. So it is not new or unusual that God would harden some for His ultimately good purposes.

Jesus said, “the kingdom of God will be taken away from you [the Jews] and given to a people producing its fruits” (Mt 21:43), and in Matthew 8:11-12 He says, “I tell you, many will come from east and west … while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. So the purpose of this hardening has brought about God’s mercy being shown to you (Acts 13:46, 48; Rom 11:30-32), and yet there is no room for either boasting or anti-Semitism because God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all. Faith is the only thing by which we are grafted in (Rom 3:20, 27-28). The severity of God not only sends us fleeing to Him for mercy, but it also keeps us from taking God’s kindness for granted.

These are hard truths, and yet Paul’s response to God’s sovereign plan ends in praise:

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

“For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?”

“Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?”

For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

In this we hear:

1. All things are from him and through him (Eph 1:11); so remember,

2. No one can give a gift to God so as to make him need anything from us (Acts 17:25); likewise

3. No one can give any counsel to God about how he should do things (Job 40:2-3); because (of course)

4. His ways and judgments are unsearchable and inscrutable to our finite minds (1 Cor 13:12); so that, finally, it only makes sense that

5. We should give all glory to God, and be content with an utterly dependent Christ-exalting happiness in God.

Concerning this, Charles Spurgeon said,

This should be the single desire of the Christian. All other wishes must be subservient and tributary to this one. The Christian may wish for prosperity in his business, but only so far as it may help him to promote this – “To him be glory forever.” He may desire to attain more gifts and more graces, but it should only be that “To him may be glory forever.” You are not acting as you ought to do when you are moved by any other motive than a single eye to your Lord’s glory. As a Christian, you are “of God and through God,” then live “to God.”

Let nothing ever set your heart beating so mightily as love to him. Let this ambition fire your soul; be this the foundation of every enterprise upon which you enter, and this your sustaining motive whenever your zeal would grow chill; make God your only object. Depend upon it, where self begins sorrow begins; but if God be my supreme delight and only object,

To me ‘tis equal whether love ordain

My life or death – appoint me ease or pain

This Sunday we also celebrated communion by watching a special Advent meditation given by Pastor John Piper. You can watch it here. I hope you are blessed as you remember the purpose for Christ’s birth, and God’s mercy shown to you, who have been grafted into this great salvation by faith.