Welcome to a year of reading Richard Sibbes together! The reading plan for the entire year can be accessed here. I encourage you to stick with us, allow yourself time to read, and soak in the riches of this gifted and prolific Puritan preacher. You will be edified and encouraged.
If you have trouble with how Sibbes used words, check out the Lexicons of Early Modern English for definitions from the period.
Summary/Engagement
I own a Labradoodle named Jake. He’s a very loving dog. He has endless energy and is a clown. He also trusts anyone and everyone and would honestly go home with anyone. To him, everyone is his potential pack mate. If you’re friendly and kind you’re his new best friend. It’s a bit strange that my dog whom I love would likely go home with anyone. I’ve raised him, cared for him, and been there for him since he was a puppy. Yet, I’m not so sure he sees me as his owner.
Now, insert us in his place and the owner being God. Is he our caretaker until someone or something else comes along? Do we see him as particularly ours? Throughout this work of Sibbes has dealt with our soul’s conflicted relationship with God. In chapter 30 he focuses on two words; “My God.” How crucial it is that God is not merely God, but mine. This is not mere semantics or legalistic insistence on proper language. Is God MY God? Is he YOUR God? If he is merely a God then you are in a precarious position with him.
“The very life-blood of the gospel lies in a special application of particular mercy to ourselves.”
Our redemption is personal.
Application / Further Discussion
Let’s press the point a little more. Salvation is a relationship between sinful man and holy God. “Take away my from God, and take away God himself in regard of Comfort.” If he is not your God, then he is your Judge. Either you are an adopted son or daughter of the Kingdom or you are part of the wicked who will be judged on the last day.
“What if God be a rock of salvation, if we do not rest upon him? . . . How can we rejoice in the salvation of our souls, unless we can in particular say, ‘I rejoice in God my Saviour.'”
Indeed, what is Christ to you if you will not yield and rest upon him for the salvation of your soul? In the darkest nights of the soul is Christ your God that you cry out to or just a set of facts you think are true? The Gospel is indeed true, but you must enter in to a relationship with God. One where we, the sinner, acknowledge our guilt before Holy God. One where we, the sinner, recognize that we deserve judgment and damnation. One where we, the sinner, admit that we cannot repair the breach our sin has caused.
Christ is a great Savior for great sinners like you and me. He lived perfectly, died unjustly, and rose victoriously. He rose for a particular people who recognize their sin and call upon him for their salvation. It wasn’t general, for those who don’t repent and believe.
“The principle here is, that God is the God of all that trust in him.”
The truth of God and his gospel is so beautiful we can endlessly admire the facts and logic and doctrine and ignore the God who made all of it and to whom it points. Christianity is not a thoughtless faith based in absurdity. It is logical, factual, and reasonable. The grace offered is unthinkable. The mercy of God goes to such depths that we can scarcely believe it is possible. The grace offered us leaves us speechless and often in tears that despite all our sin and ugliness, the one who knows us better than ourselves would say, “This one is mine.”
Christ must be yours if you would be his. God must be your father, not just any father. I’ve labored over this because it is vital for any relationship with God. It’s not only a relationship between God and man. It’s a family relationship. Unless you are a son or daughter of the Kingdom, and God is your Father, you have nothing, you have no place with him. The truth of God is beautiful, but it points to Him to behold Him as beautiful. Make him yours.
“It is no easy matter to say in truth of heart, My God; the flesh still labour for supremacy. God should be all in all unto us; but this will not be till these bodies of flesh, together with the body of sin, be laid aside. He that says, God is my God, and doth not yield up himself unto God, raiseth a building without a foundation, layeth a claim without a title, and claimeth a title without an evidence, reckoning upon a bargain, without consent of the party with whom he would contract.”
What then should we do? Yield.
“Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”” (Mark 1:14-15)
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Last week, we read chapters 21-27 of The Soul’s Conflict.
Next week, we’ll read A Glance of Heaven, a.
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