Ryan’s sermon on Good Friday, “An Unlikely Chain of Events,” was taken from Matthew 26 and 27. As Ryan said, if we weren’t already familiar with the twists and turns in these chapters some twenty things would be shocking and strange to us. It’s important for us to see these twists and turns with fresh eyes so that we might rightly marvel at the beauty, glory, power, and victory that lies beneath the surface of these seemingly odd events.

Here are Ryan’s twenty points along with four concluding reflections.

Twenty “oddities” found in Matthew 26 and 27:

1. He prayed to be delivered (Matthew 26:39)
2. His disciples slept while he prayed (Matthew 26:40-45)
3. One of the twelve, Judas, turned him in (Matthew 26:14-16; Matthew 26:47-50)
4. Another, Peter, tried to kill for him (Matthew 26:51-53)
5. Shortly after, Peter disavowed him Three Times (Matthew 26:72-75)
6. All of his disciples fled (Matthew 26:56b; Matthew 26:31)
7. His religious/national leaders wanted him dead (Matthew 27:1)
8. He gave no defense at his trial (Matthew 26:62-63a; Matthew 27:12-14)
9. Pilate’s wife had bad dreams about Jesus (Matthew 27:19)
10. The crowd chose to free a notorious criminal instead (Matthew 27:15-17; Matthew 27:21-23)
11. He was caught in the middle of a political pickle (Matthew 27:20; Matthew 27:24)
12. He couldn’t carry his own cross (Matthew 27:32)
13. He was mocked, humiliated, and beaten (Matthew 27:27-30; Matthew 27:37; Matthew 27:39-40)
14. He was crucified with common criminals (Matthew 27:38; Matthew 27:44)
15. He was forsaken by his Father (Matthew 27:46)
16. Nearing his death the sky went dark (Matthew 27:45)
17. The temple curtain tore in two (Matthew 27:51a)
18. There was an earthquake (Matthew 27:51b)
19. There was a group-resurrection (Matthew 27:52-53)
20. One of his captors believed (Matthew 27:54)

What conclusions can we draw from all this?

1. If you were making up this story to try to start a political movement or a new religion, you wouldn’t include most of these 20 things. Some stories are too strange to not be true!
2. Scripture says that, in all of these seemingly odd events, God was orchestrating affairs to bring Jesus to the cross (Acts 2:22-23).
3. In God’s wisdom, he has chosen to bring power out of weakness and wisdom/salvation out of foolishness (1 Cor 1:21-24).
4. In all these events one thing keeps coming up: no one is passing the test – not the religious establishment, not the governor, not the masses, not even the closest disciples. No one passes the test…except Jesus.

In Sunday’s sermon, “Restoring Marriage,” Ryan preached from Colossians 3:18-19, where Paul writes, “Wives, submit to your husbands, as  is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and  do not be harsh with them.” Those words are simple, but they are charged with implications.

Since the language of submission can be misunderstood, Ryan clarified its meaning against what it does not mean according to Scripture. In doing so, Ryan referenced six points from a sermon delivered by John Piper indicating “What submission is not,” according to 1 Peter 3:1-6. Here they are:

1. Submission does not mean agreeing with everything your husband says. You can see that in verse one: she is a Christian and he is not. He has one set of ideas about ultimate reality. She has another. Peter calls her to be submissive while assuming she will not submit to his view of the most important thing in the world—God. So submission can’t mean submitting to agree with all her husband thinks.
2. Submission does not mean leaving your brain or your will at the wedding altar. It is not the inability or the unwillingness to think for yourself. Here is a woman who heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. She thought about it. She assessed the truth claims of Jesus. She apprehended in her heart the beauty and worth Christ and his work, and she chose him. Her husband heard it also. Other wise Peter probably wouldn’t say he “disobeyed the word.” He has heard the word and he has thought about it. And he has not chosen Christ. She thought for herself and she acted. And Peter does not tell her to retreat from that commitment.
3. Submission does not mean avoiding every effort to change a husband. The whole point of this text is to tell a wife how to “win” her husband. Verse one says, “Be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won.” If you didn’t care about the Biblical context you might say, “Submission has to mean, taking a husband the way he is and not trying to change him.” But if you care about the context, you conclude that submission, paradoxically, is a strategy for changing him. The goal of this text is to help wives bring about the most profound change in their husbands that can be imagined—the transformation from being a spiritually dead unbeliever to a spiritually alive believer. Submission does not say, “I renounce all efforts to change my husband.” What it does say we’ll see in a moment.
4. Submission does not mean putting the will of the husband before the will of Christ. The text clearly teaches that the wife is a follower of Jesus before and above being a follower of her husband. He is going on the path of unbelief. She does not follow him in that, because she has been called to be a disciple of Jesus. Submission to Jesus relativizes submission to husbands—and governments and employers and parents. When Sara calls Abraham “lord” in verse 6, it is lord with a little “l”. It’s like “sir.” And the obedience she renders is secondary obedience, under, and because of, and filtered through obedience to the LORD with a capital “L”.
5. Submission does not mean that a wife gets her personal, spiritual strength from her husband. A good husband should indeed strengthen and build up and sustain his wife. He should be a source of strength. There are ways in which a wife is the “weaker vessel” as verse 7 says. But what this text shows is that when a husbands spiritual nurturing and leadership is lacking, a Christian wife is not bereft of strength. Submission does not mean she is dependent on him to supply her strength of faith and virtue and character. The text assumes just the opposite. She is summoned to develop depth and strength and character not from her husband but for her husband. Verse five says that her hope is in God, not the husband.
6. Finally submission does not mean that a wife is to act out of fear. Verse 6b says, “You have become [Sarah’s] children if you do what is right without being frightened by any fear.” In other words submission is free, not coerced by fear. The Christian woman is a free woman. When she submits to her husband—whether he is a believer or unbeliever—she does it in freedom, not out of fear.

So, What then is submission? Piper continues:

It is the disposition to follow a husband’s authority and an inclination to yield to his leadership. It is an attitude that says, “I delight for you to take the initiative in our family. I am glad when you take responsibility for things and lead with love. I don’t flourish when you are passive and I have to make sure the family works.” But the attitude of Christian submission also says, “It grieves me when you venture into sinful acts and want to take me with you. You know I can’t do that. I have no desire to resist you. On the contrary, I flourish most when I can respond creatively and joyfully to your lead; but I can’t follow you into sin, as much as I love to honor your leadership in our marriage. Christ is my King.”

If you’d like to further explore the subject of Christian marriage or biblical manhood and womanhood, the following books should be a great help:

• What did You Expect? Redeeming The Realities of Marriage, Paul Tripp
• When Sinners Say “I Do”: Discovering the Power of the Gospel for Marriage, Dave Harvey
• This Momentary Marriage, John Piper
• Sex, Romance, and The Glory of God: What Every Christian Husband Needs to Know, C.J. Mahaney
• Feminine Appeal: Seven Virtues of a Godly Wife and Mother, Carolyn Mahaney
• The Masculine Mandate: God’s Calling to Men, Richard D. Phillips

Also, check out the messages portion of our site, which includes a number of sermons on the subject of marriage and biblical manhood and womanhood.

Update: Michael Horton’s excellent nine part response to Love Wins is now available in one spot on the web and in pdf form.

This Wednesday night, Ryan preached a sermon from Romans 8:1, where Paul writes,”There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” The sermon’s title was, “‘Now No Condemnation’ – What Condemnation?”

That’s an important question. What precisely are we rescued from through our union with Jesus Christ? What is so great about “no condemnation,” after all? To appreciate all that we have in Christ, we must understand all that Christ’s work rescued us from. To clarify what Paul means by “condemnation,” Ryan made the following points from Scripture:

• Condemnation is Hell
• Hell is Abandonment
• Hell is Destruction
• Hell is Conscious Torment
• Hell is Forever
• Hell is Punishment
• Hell is Just
• Hell is Wrath

This is a sober subject, but we can praise God that His grace is greater than all of our sin. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus! In His life, Christ met God’s righteous demands for us. In His death, Christ absorbed God’s wrath for us. Death has no sting. Hell has no victory.

The question of the nature of hell is of particular relevance given the national attention received by a new book by Grand Rapids area pastor, Rob Bell, Love Wins: A Book about Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived.

While Bell does not adopt the label of “universalist,” he can only do so by redefining what he means by that. Bell asserts that every human person, in the end, will be won over by the love of God. In other words, everyone goes to heaven. Some will turn to him before death, and some after death. God wants all to be saved so, in the end, God gets what he wants.

That would sound like good news, but it does damage to Scripture. In addition to mishandling the Bible’s specific teaching on the subject of hell, Bell’s proposal undermines the constellation of Scripture’s teaching concerning nature of God and the nature of what Christ accomplished on the cross.

Whenever we find the Bible mishandled we have a chance to apprehend God’s glorious grace in Jesus Christ more fully by returning to the Scriptures with greater interest for clarity and understanding. To clarify your understanding of the Bible’s teaching against this occasion of false teaching, we recommend the following four resources for your review:

• Tony Reinke, “The Rob Bell Debate: A Reader’s Digest, with Suggested Resources“
• Michael Horton, “Bell’s Hell: A Review by Michael Horton“ (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9)
• Kevin DeYoung, “God Is Still Holy and What You Learned in Sunday School Is Still True: A Review of ‘Love Wins’“
• Albert Mohler, “We have Seen all This Before: Rob Bell and the (Re)Emergence of Liberal Theology“

In his interview with Bell on MSNBC, Martin Bashir made this timely interpretation of Bell’s work:

“You’re creating a Christian message that’s warm, kind, and popular for contemporary culture. . . . What you’ve done is you’re amending the gospel, the Christian message, so that it’s palatable to contemporary people who find, for example, the idea of hell and heaven very difficult to stomach. So here comes Rob Bell, he’s made a Christian gospel for you, and it’s perfectly palatable, it’s much easier to swallow. That’s what you’ve done, haven’t you?”

God is just. That is a good thing, even if it means bad news for us. But, thankfully, “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). And He did this “that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:26).

May we be found believing, defending, and proclaiming this best of all good news while there is time.

In Sunday’s Sermon, “God’s Pervading Word among His People,” Ryan Kelly preached from Colossians 3:16-17, where Paul writes, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.”

Ryan’s points drew attention to the various ways in which God’s word functions among His people. If you recall, he said that each point could be the subject of a sermon on its own.

So, if you’re interested in exploring any of Ryan’s points further, they are listed below with links to several sermons previously preached here at DSC:

1. The Word Planted within
   “I Resolve to Give Myself to the Word”
2. The Word Propagated among Others
   “The Urgency of Unity: A Display of God’s Power in the Church“
3. The Word Praised back to God
   “Spirit Filled Singing“
4. The Word (and Worship) Permeating All of Life
   “A Mother’s Daily Tasks as Worship”

By way of reminder, audio from previous sermons is always available and searchable at the messages portion of the site.

In Sunday’s sermon, “Prepare for Battle,” Carlos Griego preached from Ephesians 6:10-20, where Paul issues his familiar exhortation for believers to “put on the whole armor of God” (6:11). But it is significant that this is not how Paul begins this section on spiritual warfare. He begins with the command for believers to “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might” (6:10).

In his sermon, Carlos quoted from a helpful article on Ephesians 6 by Sam Storms to draw out the importance this initial command:

The simple exhortation “Be strong!” is both dangerous and useless. Self-reliance in spiritual warfare is suicidal. Believers do not strengthen themselves. Our strength must come from an external source, namely, the Lord. The strength of an earthly general is in his troops. But in the Christian life, the strength of the troops is in their general.

By way of reminder, you can search DSC’s sermon database by topic at the Messages portion of the site. In addition to Carlos’ sermon from Sunday, several other messages are available there on the topic of spiritual warfare.