This Sunday, Zach Nielsen will be preaching for us, as we consider:

• our spiritual adoption in Christ
• the church’s call to care for orphans
• opportunities for adoption and orphan care in and through DSC

Zach put together this touching and encouraging video. Towards the end, it shows the families at DSC who have adopted or are making plans to do so. Praise God for his goodness in the love and care shown through so many in our body!

DSC Video For Orphan Care Sunday from Zach Nielsen on Vimeo.

Kevin DeYoung gives a six-fold answer to the oft-asked question, why does membership matter?

1. In joining a church you make visible your commitment to Christ and his people.
2. Making a commitment makes a powerful statement in a low-commitment culture.
3. We can be overly independent.
4. Church membership keeps us accountable.
5. Joining the church will help your pastor and elders be more faithful shepherds.
6. Joining the church gives you an opportunity to make promises.

Go read the whole post to see how each of these are fleshed out.

Related to this is Kevin’s new book (co-authored with Ted Kluck), Why We Love the Church: In Praise of Institutions and Organized Religion. I’ve only had time to skim it, but what I’ve read so far I’ve heartily agreed with and enjoyed. I’m sure we’ll be carrying this in our church Resource Center soon.

As I mentioned in last Sunday’s sermon, the next week will cover the same verses in a slightly different way.

Last Sunday we looked at the general principles in the passage:

• Don’t Worry about People
• Don’t Worry about Possessions
• Don’t Wonder about His Promises
• Don’t Wonder about “Priorities”–Seek His Kingdom

This coming Sunday we will focus in on how we seek God’s kingdom, specifically

• …with our Speech (vss 4-12)
• …with our Stuff (vss 13-34)

If you didn’t hear last Sunday’s message, especially because it is the first-half of a two-parter, take some time before this Sunday to listen to it. And whether you heard the message last Sunday or not, please take the time to read through the verses again before we meet for corporate worship on Sunday AM.

Looking forward to seeing you and worshipping our great God and Savior with you on this next Lord’s Day. May God’s goodness and nearness and power and truth be evident!

In last Sunday’s message — “Worldly Worry vs. Kingdom Confidence” (Luke 12:1-34) — I mentioned a couple of very helpful books on fear and worry by Ed Welch:

• Running Scared: Fear, Worry & the God of Rest
• When People Are Big and God Is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man

Red Mountain Church has an excellent recording of this hymn, which can be downloaded here for free. I’d highly recommend any or all of the modern hymns on their six albums.

My friend, Andy Naselli (research asst. to D.A. Carson), has put together a few very helpful resources on the thorny topic, “Do We Have a Free Will?”:

1. MP3 (1 hour and 45 minutes including Q&A)
   
2. Handout (7-page PDF)
3. Condensed Essay (4-page PDF, which Reformation 21 reprinted today)

His basic outline is this:

• What is “free will”?
• What have noteworthy theologians thought about “free will”?
• What are biblical and theological reasons for “compatibilism”?
• How does “free will” relate to the origin of both sin and conversion?
• Concluding Applications on the Free-Will Debate
• Recommended Reading

He gives the following theses to summarize the biblical teaching:

• The Bible never says that humans are free in the sense that they are autonomously able to make decisions that are not caused by anything.
• God is absolutely sovereign.
• Humans are morally responsible, which requires that they be free.
• God’s absolute sovereignty and human freedom and responsibility are simultaneously true.
• The Bible condemns some people for acts not done with a libertarian free will.
• God is omniscient (e.g., he predicts future events).
• God breathed out Scripture through humans without violating their personalities.
• God enables Christians to persevere: Christians work because God works.
• God himself does not have a free will in the libertarian sense.
• God’s people do not have free wills in heaven in the libertarian sense.

That’s just a quick overview. I highly recommend taking the time to work through some or all of Andy’s material. Some terms (like compatibilism or libertarian freedom) might be new to you or seem unnecessarily technical, but they are often a part of any thoughtful discussion of this issue, and Andy introduces and explains such technical terms gently and clearly.