Sin: The Exaltation of Ourselves at the Expense of God and Worshipping our Self-made Man creator

For the Lord’s Day, March 7, 2021

Dear Saints,

First, I rejoice to report from the Renner’s that our sister and mother in the faith, after a long absence in the body (while present in the spirit and through our webcasts), Eleanor Fraire, will be back to worship with us in the body this Lord’s Day morning!  Please pray for her strength.  As noted last week in anticipation of this family reunion, we will have the Lord’s Supper after the morning service.

As you know, I began working in “tent maker ministry” this week for the Alliance  of Confessing Evangelicals as Community Engagement Coordinator.  I look forward to sharing more about the details with you as things develop in my training.

One wonderful thing to let you know about is that the Alliance is sending me a copy of all their books for a reference in my work.  And they are happy to have them housed in our church library so you all can have access to them.

Also, I began listening to a series of sermons this week that were made available by the Alliance for free in one of their recent emails to anyone who has interest, and I’d like to encourage you to give them a listen.  It is a series entitled, “The Christian’s Struggle Against Sin” by the late Dr. James Montgomery Boice from his Bible Study Hour radio program (I also just got his book on Philippians this week to add to my reading for the evening sermons and am already enjoying it).

In his first message of the above named series, while speaking on the First Commandment, Dr. Boice shares two things from John Stott’s Basic Christianity that really stuck out to me as profound and challenging: 

“Sin is fundamentally the exaltation of self at the expense of God.”

“What someone wrote of the Englishman is true of every man, he is a self-made man who worships his creator.”

Both of these quotes I think need no further comment other than to say they are well worth meditating upon as we look at ourselves (thoughts, words, and deeds) in the mirror of God’s Word.  Still, it might be worth noting that “creator” in the second quote is not capitalized.

Dr. Boice gives a lovely overview and application of the Ten Commandments in this message.  I encourage you to listen to it and the other messages that follow in the series by accessing them here to download for free:  https://reformedresources.org/the-christians-struggle-against-sin-mp3-download-set/ 

As we muse on the definitions of sin above by Dr. Stott, let us remember what the Word of God says sin is, and how it is described by our Larger Catechism:

1 John 3:4: Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.

1 John 5:17: All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death.

Westminster Larger Catechism Q&A 24. 

Q. What is sin?

A. Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, any law of God, given as a rule to the reasonable creature.

Let us repent of our selfish exaltation of our own unrighteous breaking of God’s holy law and humble ourselves before Him to exalt Him in real worship tomorrow — and trust that in this He will lift us up in Christ.

Semper Reformanda,

Pastor Grant

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