Did you know that when you shop on Amazon you can also support DSC?

Amazon is one of the amazing success stories of the internet. With a long view for the growth of their business, they have become a primary way many of us shop for Christmas gifts and just about anything throughout the year.

This Christmas when you purchase gifts on Amazon, there are three ways to make around 5% of those purchases go to DSC.

First, you can search Amazon through the widget on our Resources page. Anything you buy having entered Amazon through that search widget will count for DSC.

Second, you can add a simple code to the end of a product page URL before you add something to your cart. Here it is: “/desesprichur-20”. Don’t include those quotation marks, just the forward slash and the text that follows. Save this little code somewhere handy and paste it into your browser as you make purchases across the year. Here’s an example of a URL link for an ESV Study Bible:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1433502410/desesprichur-20

Third, and perhaps the easiest way to go about this, you can book mark this link in your browser and use it to get to Amazon. By entering Amazon via this bookmark you setup, all of your Amazon shopping will count toward DSC.

This is hardly the most important post we will publish to the blog this year, and this is hardly a substantive means for any of us to support the important work of God in the local church. But since we’re buying gifts anyway, and since this is quite easy to do, we thought we’d let you know.

In his letter to the Philippians, the Apostle Paul says of Jesus Christ that God has “exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name” (2:9).

It’s from this verse that our December series gets its name: “The Name Above Every Name.” The series begins tonight at our Lord’s Supper service and will take us through Christmas Eve, with the exception of this Sunday’s North Africa commissioning service.

• Wednesday, December 4  —  “The Name Above Every Name”
• Sunday, December 15  —  “Jesus, The Son of Man”
• Sunday, December 22  —  “Jesus, The Son of God”
• Christmas Eve, December 24  —  “Jesus Christ, The Lord”

In the first sermon, Ryan will preach from Philippians 2:1-11, and in the last sermon we will hear more specifically from Philippians 2:5-11. The two sermons in between will work from several places in Scripture to unfold the significance of two important and frequently used names for Jesus Christ.

December is a wonderful month to extend an invitation to friends and family to join us at church. Let’s pray for Christ’s name to be exalted in and through our church this December.

Timely, helpful, and free. That’s how we can describe a new book by John Piper, Good News of Great Joy: Daily Readings for Advent. It’s available here as a free download. Print it out, staple it, and set aside 5 minutes a day to read and pray.

Here’s the reading from December 16, “God’s Most Successful Setback”:

“Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” —Philippians 2:9–11

Christmas was God’s most successful setback. He has always delighted to show his power through apparent defeat. He makes tactical retreats in order to win strategic victories.

Joseph was promised glory and power in his dream (Genesis 37:5–11). But to achieve that victory he had to become a slave in Egypt. And as if that were not enough, when his conditions improved because of his integrity, he was made worse than a slave — a prisoner.

But it was all planned. For there in prison he met Pharaoh’s butler, who eventually brought him to Pharaoh who put him over Egypt. What an unlikely route to glory!

But that is God’s way — even for his Son. He emptied himself and took the form of a slave. Worse than a slave — a prisoner — and was executed. But like Joseph, he kept his integrity. “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow” (Philippians 2:9–10).

And this is God’s way for us too. We are promised glory — if we will suffer with him (Romans 8:17). The way up is down. The way forward is backward. The way to success is through divinely appointed setbacks. They will always
look and feel like failure.

But if Joseph and Jesus teach us anything this Christmas it is this: “God meant it for good!” (Genesis 50:20).

You fearful saints fresh courage take
The clouds you so much dread 
Are big with mercy and will break
In blessings on your head.

Click here to download a fee copy of Good News of Great Joy.

Here’s a nice video from Crossway answering this question:

[RSS and email readers, click here to view this video]

We read and recommend plenty of Crossway books at DSC.

Be sure to read this letter from Crossway’s President, Lane Dennis, on the occasion of Crossway’s 75th anniversary, and download Crossway’s ESV Study Bible app for free in the month of November.

The following is a prayer adapted from the pastoral prayer from Sunday, November 17, 2013. 

Great Father of glory, we rejoice as we ponder your salvation.

Salvation is yours and you are on your throne. And one day we will know this salvation in its fullness in the new creation: a place without sin; a place without competing and false gods; a place without the proud human opposition to your throne, which though futile is everywhere around us, and in us; a place without sin, sadness, and death.

While we wait, we pray now for those caught in a fallen world.

We want to pray for those who have been devastated by the winds and waves in the Philippines. Rows of bodies are even now being collected and staged for burial in mass trenches. The body count is devastating. The heartbreak of parents and of children is unlike anything most of us here have known. This Typhoon was not beyond your jurisdiction. It was a part of the world you cursed because of Adam’s sin. It is a reminder that the entire world is under judgment, even if this tragedy is not a specific judgment for the specific sins of a specific people. Father, as your Word says, the creation groans. We have heard it grown this week. We pray that these dark days would lead to great light and hope for the people of the Philippines. May your work through your people with your Word bear great fruit. We pray for help, and comfort, and safety for those sleeping under the stars even now, perhaps especially for women and for children without the protection of the husbands and fathers they have lost. And most of all we pray that this shake up of everything familiar to these precious people would mean a shake up of their lives at levels deeper than they could imagine. We may not be able to track it and trace it, but perhaps you would be pleased to grant salvation to many through the doors that this tragedy will open for the gospel.

And Father, we pray for the unborn sons and daughters in the wombs of mothers in our city. Specifically, in light of the ordinance brought before our city this week, we pray for the restraining grace of human government to be more closely aligned with the reality of human life in the womb, and the reality that all human life is valuable as such, and not just certain kinds of human life. We are a people in history uniquely privileged and accountable with our hand on the wheel here, not only governed but governing through our political process. And so we pray for the day when we will look back on these years as a nation with great contrition and embarrassment at what our laws taught, approved, and even promoted, and with great joy at how you have answered our prayers.

We pray for the witness of the church and for many conversations to take place this week. We pray for conversations this week with those who are considering an abortion, that our words and our lives would clearly and beautifully demonstrate the preciousness of human life. We pray for conversations this week with men and women who have committed abortions, that we may offer the hope of the gospel to them, which forgives all of our sins. We pray for conversations with this week with those who approve of abortion, that their minds and that their hearts may be changed.

Father, we remember that the New Testament Scriptures were written in the midst of the great darkness that is this world, in the midst of persecution, and in a world filled with great evil. And yet they were written with resilient hope and a certain confidence in your wise purposes centered in Jesus Christ. We thank you for bringing us into this hope. We thank you for opening our eyes and calling us into the light. We pray that you would do that for many in our city through the preaching of the gospel this week.

Gracious Father, we need your Word. We are dead without it.

In Jesus’ name we pray these things,

Amen.