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    eBook: Filtered Grace
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    Threads Articles
    Explore Ecclesiastes
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Interviews
Join Us
  • Writing
    • Not in Vain: 1 Corinthians Devotional
    • Explore Lamentations
    • eBook: Good News People
    • eBook: Filtered Grace
    • Gospel Coalition Articles
    • Church Society Articles
    • Threads Articles
    • Explore Ecclesiastes
    • Explore Galatians
    • Evangelicals Now Articles
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That Happy Certainty - Gospel | Culture | Planting
Genesis, sin

Gardeners' Questiontime

Reading Genesis 3 again this evening with pizza and brothers.

It simply sums up in narrative form the absolute arrogance of human rebellion, the casting aside of the Creator God and the willed decision to become gods ourselves. Sin is in essence an act of revolution: to replace God with myself.

The woman, knowing that the serpent had outlined that eating the fruit will make them ‘like God’, still chooses to eat of the forbidden tree. That’s despite both the implications laid out by the serpent and it being an act of straight-forward disobedience to God. The narrative also picks out the subtle exchange of authority from what God has said, to what humanity judges to be right; the woman sees the fruit looks good, ‘a delight to the eyes’ (3.6) and that it is able to make one wise, and it is this that takes preference over obeying God’s word.

The clear difference between the actual command God gives in 2.16-17 and the woman’s version of what God said (3.3) is peculiar (the lack of ‘neither shall you touch it’ in the original). Sure, woman hadn’t been created when the command was given, suggesting man had passed the command on, but either he’d got it wrong, or she’d not paid enough attention to it. Either way, God’s words are not as familiar to the couple as they need to be, considering they are the very words of the God who created them, the very words that previously spoke life into nothingness. Consequently the serpent is able to cause mass confusion by first questioning God’s word (3.1: ‘Did God actually say…’) and then casting doubt on the reality of God’s judgement (3.4: ‘You will not surely die…’).

He’s made God out to be incoherent, twisted in intention, and a liar. To read this passage is to see graphicly in a snapshot moment how sin works. And it’s easy to point the finger and throw our hands up at this evil anonymous passerby, whom we call ‘sin’. But in reality it is us, our hearts, it is me who does this. And then I remember that moment this afternoon when I doubted whether the real world actually needs the gospel. Or that time yesterday when I was reluctant to believe God’s desire that I be sanctified was true, rather fancying my own will for myself. Or when I questioned whether the Bible was clear in what it said.

I love that closing line from Chris Tomlin’s song ‘Indescribable’, it speaks so simply of the wonder of Jesus’ death for sinners, sinners like Adam, and sinners like me.

‘You see the depths of my heart and you love me the same; you are amazing God’

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May 9, 2007by Robin Ham
Gospel Ministry, Romans, sin, Michael You

Probem solving…

“The greater the problem, the greater the gospel.
The smaller the problem, the smaller the gospel.

“We need to be very clear on the problem, and its magnitude, to understand and be thrilled by the gospel that solves it… many heresies stem from having the gospel without a problem. To have a Jesus who is the ultimate answer, but to not understand the problem, means we come up a problem resembling whatever we think the world’s greatest problem is.”

Michael You

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May 3, 2007by Robin Ham
Sexual Ethics, sin, Joshua Harris, Lust, Purity

Lust is a dissatisfaction with God…


Listening to Joshua Harris’ series on Purity at the moment. Really good stuff.

I remember reading his first book I Kissed Dating Goodbye when I was 17, and being appalled at his hardcore attitude to relationships. It didn’t help that one of my guy mates gave it to the girl I was ‘dating’ at the time. However, five years later I’m convinced he’s the bomb. If you’ve never digged into his books (Boy Meets Girl, Sex isn’t the probem (Lust is), and Stop Dating the Church) they’re well worth getting your hands on. A married friend recently told me Boy Meets Girl has been the most helpful book he’s read on the issue of relationships. It’s worth bearing in mind before you read your first one that he is an American (cue scary music), and, surprise surprise, his books are American too. Don’t be put off by the fact that he’s clearly addressing an American audience – the truth is his priorities, principles and attitudes will pack a punch in whatever culture you’re in. Be aware of the ease and danger of using the Americanisms as an excuse for not applying the Biblical truths to your life, like I did five years ago!

Anyway, the series on Purity is a collection of six sermons he gave at Covenant Life church, which he pastors in Gaithersberg, Maryland. They’re available free here, are each about 45 mins long, and he sits right under God’s word, preaching grace and repentance. Purity 2 is the only sermon on lust I’ve ever heard and is absolute gospel-centred gold-dust, and a brilliant summary of his latest book. Listen to it with your friends. He quotes Piper partway through, saying ‘Lust (/Sin) is the dissatisfaction with God’. Really got me thinking. We choose to sin because we think it will satisfy, and thus because we think it’ll satisfy more than God (we’re dissatisfied with Him). We’re wrong, and time and time again we’re left feeling empty. Surely then, we need to fight to find our satisfaction in Him. Discuss.

Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.
Fear the LORD, you his saints, for those who fear him lack nothing.
Psalm 34.8-9

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March 28, 2007by Robin Ham
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About Me

 

Hello, my name is Robin. Welcome to That Happy Certainty, where I write and collate on Christianity, culture, and ministry. I’m based in Barrow-in-Furness in South Cumbria, England, where I serve a church family called St Paul’s Barrow, recently merged together from two existing churches, St Paul’s Church and Grace Church Barrow.

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“If we could be fully persuaded that we are in the good grace of God, that our sins are forgiven, that we have the Spirit of Christ, that we are the beloved children of God, we would be ever so happy and grateful to God. But because we often fear and doubt we cannot come to that happy certainty.”
- Martin Luther

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