Now that we’ve lived here for one month, I thought it time to post some pictures to let our friends outside the Boston area see what our new neighborhood looks like. We are really enjoying living here. Our neighborhood (one of 21 neighborhoods in the city) is officially called South Boston, but many of the residents simply call it Southie. The first picture in the gallery below is a google map of the neighborhood. As you can see, we’re surrounded by water on three sides, and downtown on the fourth side. Our current residence is 2 blocks from the Old Harbor beach. On with the pictures!
Our Neighborhood: Southie
July 12th, 2011
What I shared at my dad’s funeral
December 11th, 2010This is what I shared at my dad’s funeral on 12/09/2010. He was 62 years old. He passed 12 weeks after being diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer.
Losing your dad is hard. It’s especially hard when he’s more than just your dad, but also your friend, and your most trusted advisor.
And so as I began to think about what I would say to you today, I wished, as I’m sure I will many times in the coming months and years, that I could ask dad for some advice.
I have so many memories of my dad that I could share. I’m sure we all do. We’ve been telling stories all week, and we’ll continue to share those memories and stories throughout the day today and in the coming days. They are mostly good memories. As we remember him today and into the future, we’ll think about the good, and we’ll be tempted to call him a good person, and not think about why we can say that.
I think that’s the advice dad would have given me. He would have said, “Don’t talk about me being good, talk about Jesus being good.”
In the Gospel According to Luke, a rich young ruler calls Jesus by the title “Good teacher” and Jesus asks him
“Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.” (Luke 18.19 ESV)
Of course, Jesus was the Good Teacher, the Good Shepherd, and everything that is good. But, if you don’t believe Jesus to be God, then you can’t call him good.
The point, as John Calvin said, is that
“strictly speaking, men and even angels do not deserve so honorable a title [as good]; because they have not a drop of goodness in themselves, but [that which is] borrowed from God;” ¹
Dad would not want to remembered as a good man. He would want to be remembered as a man who was saved by the grace of Jesus Christ. If there was good there, it was borrowed goodness.
As we three boys think about how blessed we were to be raised by our parents, it’s not that they were good parents, it’s that they were parents who knew the grace of Jesus, and his goodness was worked out in their lives.
Yes, they were good parents, by the grace of God. Dad was a good man, by the grace of God. And he would want us to remember that.
We gather here today and share our grief at being separated from him for a time. It is right and understandable that we should do so. When Jesus’ friend Lazarus died, even our Lord wept.
But dad would be the first to remind us that this separation is only for a time. For while Jesus wept at Lazarus’ death, he also told the grieving family:
“I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” (John 11.25–26 ESV)
Not only was dad a good father, a good friend, and a good man – by the grace of God, but it is also by the grace of God that he lives on today, in heaven with the Lord of Glory.
The best of our own “goodness”, apart from faith in Jesus, is not enough to secure our place in the presence of the Lord in eternity. It is only by the grace of God that the righteousness of Jesus is given to us in exchange for our selfish, greedy, hate filled, self-exalting, prideful “goodness”. Our pretend goodness would only condemn us apart from Jesus!
And so we stand here today, parted from dad for a time, remembering his life lived full of borrowed goodness, grieving at our separation, but with the hope of the resurrection and eternal life in Christ, by grace.
“I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.”
Then Jesus continues:
“Do you believe this?” (John 11.25–26 ESV)
That was the theme of dad’s final days on earth. He felt the weight of eternity, the urgency of the gospel, and he asked everyone around him this question: Do you believe this? The stories have already been told of the nurses in the hospital warning each other that the question was coming the first time you set foot in dad’s room.
Do you believe?
Dad did, and that is what he would want us to remember and celebrate today. He would want us to think deeply about the question, and our answer to it.
One day, Jesus will demand an answer from each of us when we stand before him. I know what dad’s answer was. What will yours be?
1 John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries (Complete) (trans. John King; Accordance electronic ed. Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1847), n.p.
Live as people who are free
July 4th, 2010This sermon was preached on July 4th (7/4/2010) at Pulaski PCA. Because of a technical difficulty with the wireless microphone, no audio is available.
Men fight for freedom, then they begin to accumulate laws to take it away from themselves.Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged. ~ Ronald Reagan
Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature. ~ Benjamin Franklin
The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission. ~ John F. Kennedy
Liberty doesn’t work as well in practice as it does in speeches. ~ Will Rogers
Freedom is celebrated here in America. And today on July 4th, it is celebrated as it is on no other day.
Freedom is considered a basic right in America. Right? Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Liberty being synonymous with freedom in this case.
My point is, as American’s we’re hardwired for freedom. We think it as our God given right, and we’re exuberant in exercising that right.
So as we come to our text this morning, I want us to realize that we have a preconceived notion of what it means to be free. We bring that with us, and we need to be careful not to read that into the text of Scripture, but rather to let Scripture shape and inform our understanding of freedom.
That’s my goal for this sermon.
Our text this morning is
“Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.” (1 Peter 2.16 ESV)
Because you are sons…
June 23rd, 2010This sermon was preached on Father’s Day (6/20/2010) at Pulaski PCA.
Mother’s Day became an official holiday in the US in 1914, but it wasn’t until 1972, almost 60 years later, that Father’s Day became official. I’m not sure what that says about how we honor our fathers here in the US. 1972 . . . good year! My birth year, but I’m sure the two aren’t related . . .
So what exactly is Father’s Day? There are all sorts of serious variations of a definition for the holiday, but the most accurate one I’ve found comes from an unnamed young boy who described it this way.
Father’s Day is just like Mother’s Day only you don’t spend so much.
I’m certain that is true, as are all the fathers in the room.
Usually on Father’s Day, you’ll get a sermon about fatherhood, or about honoring your father. This morning though I thought we’d do something a little different.
For this Father’s Day I thought we’d take a closer look at our relationship to God as our Father, and us as his adopted children.
This requires that we tackle the biblical doctrine of adoption. So if you would, please take your Bibles and turn to the end of the third chapter of Galatians.
Now, the last couple of times I’ve spoken with you, we’ve looked at different sections of Galatians. The last time I preached on a Sunday morning we looked at Galatians 5 and our relationship to the Law.
A few weeks ago, on a Wednesday evening, we looked together at Galatians 2, where Paul, to steal a phrase from Martin Luther, beats Peter over the head with the gospel, and we talked about what it looks like to bring our “conduct…in step with the truth of the gospel.”
Based on what I’ve told you during these two times, you should be familiar with the issue Paul is dealing with in his letter to the churches in Galatia. Read the rest of this entry »
Learn to love the Law
May 6th, 2010Here’s the sermon I preached this last Sunday (5/2/2010) at Pulaski PCA (follow the link for audio).
This morning we’re going to look at the Law, the two predominant errors Christians are prone to concerning the Law, why we, as Christians, should love it, and how it should inform our worship. I’ve titled this sermon, LEARNING TO LOVE THE LAW.
We’re going to dive into Galatians here in a minute, but first I want to do a quick review.
God is a being of perfect holiness, flawless nature, infinite power. God is eternally existent, knowing no beginning and no end. God creates the world, the universe as we know it. He creates mankind to inhabit this earth. The first humans, Adam and Eve, enjoy a close relationship with God for a time. But then they decide to rebel, to disobey their creator. This disobedience is known as sin, and it separates them from God. Their children, their children’s children, all of their descendants are born corrupted by that original disobedience. We are all born with disobedience to our creator as part of who we are. We typically refer to this as our sin nature. Scripture refers to mankind in that state as “sons of disobedience.” (Ephesians 2.2)
But God made a promise to Adam and Eve. He promised to fix it. He said he would send a savior as one of their offspring, who would restore men to right relationship with God.
Skip forward a handful of generations, and God speaks to a man named Abram, changes his name to Abraham, and promises that the savior will be born to his family. Abraham has a son named Isaac, Isaac has a son named Jacob, and a nation is born. Ethnic Israel comes into being in the family and descendants of Jacob.
Jacob’s 12 sons end up in Egypt. Their families grow, but they become slaves. After 400 years of slavery, God calls a man named Moses to lead this, now quite large, nation of people out of slavery and back to the land inhabited by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. On the way, God gives to this people further revelation of himself in the Law.
Moses is called the great lawgiver. Under the direct guidance of the Lord, Moses gives the people three sets of Law.
- The Moral Law, or Ten Commandments – for how an individual should live
- The Civil Law for how the nation should live
- The Ceremonial Law for how people should relate to God
Now, as these people learn to live under these Laws, time goes by, they disobey in various ways, God sends them into captivity, returns them to the land after they repent, sets foreign powers over them, etc. And they develop a system of religion built around these laws, they develop their own laws about the laws, and beyond the laws of God.
Finally, the promised savior comes. God himself born in human flesh Read the rest of this entry »
Welcome
March 21st, 2010Welcome to the new website for Summa Church. We’re excited about introducing our vision and mission to you. Please take the time to look around and see what we’re about.
