3 of a Kind by Theodore Scott

Hello everyone. My name is Andrew and I was homeschooled.

It is true. For 10 years, through high school, I walked in those proud ranks.

And what a mighty force we were. Standing against the foes of cultural liberalism, the Democratic Party and the Public Educational System, we were a fell enemy to all things evil. Armed with our Latin, Logic and SAT scores we slew the ideas and perspectives we hated.

We measured ourselves against the ignorant horde of the Public Schooled and came out the Victors. It was we who were fair-minded. It was we who were free to think and reason. It was we who were preserved from State Controlled brain washing. It was we who had the best theology, the best philosophy and the best politics.

We bled republican red. We applied our proven grassroots ability and far-reaching networking to great success for our saviors in D.C. We fought to keep prayers public in the schools we shunned and we ached for our government to be run by Christians once again.

We spat upon the endless, mindless questioning of American-hating liberalism. We defended absolute Truth and repelled Mr. Darwin. We worked to keep our nation afloat in the seas of moral relativism. We were the sails and we were the rudder; predestined to put our Christian Country back on course.

We were the intellectual warriors, the fair-minded victors and the liberalism-squelching band of home-educated brothers. Ours was a proud tradition and we fought tooth and nail to defend it.

And yet.

I left the ranks of the Enlightened and upon entering the marketplace of ideas and results, I was humbled.

I found that I was not the conqueror and that there were scores of people educated differently than I who were far wiser and more intelligent than I.

I found that the Republican Party is just as nasty, spiteful and sin-filled than any political party anywhere in this sinning world.

I found that liberalism really does have some very searching questions, few of which I had developed any real solid answers for.

I found that my country is not really the greatest and that she will ultimately fall as all great countries have.

I found that I am just an ordinary guy relying on Jesus in a sinning, sorry world. I love myself too much. I love my mind too much. I love this world too much.

Home Education has much to offer. My parents did right by me in it. It took guts and gumption and they succeeded with flying colors. I know many more young men and women who have benefited from it as I have. My wife and I plan on homeschooling our own small children. Yet, it is still a human enterprise and as such, it is open to the same sin and vice as any activity engaged in by men.

The Pharisee and the Tax Collector, Part 1

The Pharisee, according to his own perception of righteousness, had every reason to expect that he was right before God.  He followed all of the rules, He kept away from all of the sins, and he was absolutely more righteous than sinners like the tax collector.  Everyone knew how moral the Pharisee was and how utterly wicked and depraved the Tax Collector was.  This reality was not to be questioned.

Yet, the tax collector went home justified and the Pharisee did not.  The Tax Collector understood something vital: that he was indeed a sinner!  The Pharisee was right!  There was nothing in the tax collector to commend him to God.  There was nothing in his soul or in his heart that would make him in any way desirable or attractive to the Holy Lord.  He was utterly without help and hope apart from God’s sovereign mercy.  The Pharisee missed this key point: that he too was without hope apart from God’s Grace!  No matter how righteous he was, no matter how holy he was, no matter how lovely his prayers were or how much he fasted or how much he prayed, all of those works were filthy menstrual rags in comparison to the holiness of God, the holiness that is required for salvation.

This was the hope that the Tax Collector had.  That someway, somehow, God would overlook the blatantly obvious sin and still have mercy.  The Pharisee did not need this mercy.  God had already given it to him by making him so moral and upstanding that it inspired awe in those around him.  He exalted himself above the Tax Collector and above the people around him and above even God himself and Christ states that he did not go away justified.  Those who exalt themselves will be brought low.  Without Christ’s mercy, the Pharisee was damned.

And why was the Tax Collector justified?  Was it because of his righteous and holy repentance?  Certainly not!  He went home righteous because God heard his cry for mercy and loved and saved him.  The Tax Collector knew that he was lost apart from God’s mercy.  The Pharisee knew he was saved.  Christ did not come to save the righteous, but He did come to save sinners.  The Pharisee did not understand this reality.

How easy it would be to hate the Pharisee like the Pharisee hated the tax-collecting sinner!  “Lord, thank you that I’m not like other religious men!  I humbly pray three times a week, I give to the poor twice per year, I mourn over my sins every chance I get.  I thank you that I’m not like self-righteous men who try to earn their own salvation or even like this Pharisee.”  God forgive us for praying such prayers!  May he grant the mercy to repent like the Tax Collector, praying simply “Lord have mercy on me, a sinner!”

Simply being a sinner is not enough to be saved.  A man can know he’s a sinner and that he is completely unrighteous, but if he is not humbled enough to cry for mercy like the Tax Collector, he will not find salvation.  There is really only one difference between the Pharisee and the Sinner.  The Sinner knows he is lost, whereas the Pharisee thinks he is saved.  Yet both are still lost.  It is not until a man cries for mercy and believes that that man finds the salvation he so desperately seeks and needs.

Religion is a very dangerous thing.  Having the understanding of salvation, or claiming to, can be an extremely powerful bargaining chip in the hands of wicked men.  People engage in all sorts of insanity to find salvation.  This is the beauty of Christ’s teachings, that only when one stops trying to be saved will he be in a position to attain it.  Christ did not come to save the righteous.  He came to save sinners.  He came to save men like the Tax Collector, who had nothing with which to commend himself to God.

Yet pharisaical men are not without hope.  The church’s greatest missionary, the Apostle Paul, described himself in his letter to the Philippians as being a man who had every reason to have confidence in and boast in his flesh by stating that he was “…circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.” (Philippians 3:5-6)  Paul put the Pharisee in Jesus’ story to absolute shame.  If that man was a good Pharisee, Paul was better.  According to the righteous under the law, Paul was blameless.  What was the difference then between Paul and this Pharisee?  The difference is found in verse 7 and 8, as Paul states: “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.  Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,  that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.” (Philippians 3:7-8).  Paul understood the lesson of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector.  He knew that his righteousness was not enough.  If anyone had come close enough, it was Paul.  Paul’s heart beat with that of the penitent Tax Collector, not the Pharisee.  The self-proclaimed Chief of Sinners knew the wickedness of his heart and the hopelessness of trying to satisfy God’s righteousness apart from Jesus.  And that same humbled chief of sinners also knew something of the riches of the exaltation of being a son of God in Christ.

Perhaps one of the most poignant examples of Christ’s mercy to a man like the Tax Collector is the life of John Newton.  The author of the hymn “Amazing Grace” was a man who spent a great deal of time and exerted a great deal of effort to, like Jonah, run away from God.  After many years of fighting, this man was used of God in great and mighty ways (and through his hymns and his story, is still being used).  The inscription on his tombstone reads: “John Newton, Clerk, once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in Africa, was, by the rich mercy of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the faith he had long labored to destroy.”  This is the mercy that God has for sinners.  This grace is initially unlooked for, subsequently begged for and finally granted to the sinner; unearned, unexpected and above and beyond all hope.  Amazing grace, indeed!

Religiosity devoid of Christ-enlivened spirituality always and without fail leads to damnation.  This is a sobering lesson of the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector.  Jesus made no secret of His detestation of the teachings and theology of the Pharisees.  When He was not teaching doctrines that ran contrary to the Pharisees (enraging them) or dining with sinners (deeply offending them) or teaching parables against them (confounding them), He was pronouncing woes upon them and calling them vipers and whitened sepulchers.  He even saw fit to use them as an object lesson in this parable in Luke 18:9-14.

The parable in question involves two characters: a Pharisee and a Tax Collector.  Pharisees were the religious leaders of their day.  They were renowned for their apparent righteousness and law-keeping.  They loved the honor of men and loved the sweet smell of money (Luke 16:14).  They were self-righteous and devious.  Jesus did not think very highly of the Pharisees.  In return, they hated Him.  The Gospels are filled with battles that Jesus had with these leading rulers and many of his teachings were teachings in direct opposition to the Pharisees.  In Matthew 21:33-40 Jesus likened them to tenants who beat and murdered the servants of the owner of a vineyard, even going so far to murder the owner’s son.  When asked what should be done to men such as those, the Pharisees ironic answer was “He will put to those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons” (Matthew 21:41).  Jesus’ telling response was that they (the Pharisees) had rejected God’s chief cornerstone and that “…the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits.” (Matthew 21:43).  Furthermore, Jesus pronounced seven woes against them in Matthew 23:13-36, using perhaps his harshest language recorded in the Gospels.  In this chilling passage Jesus referred to the Pharisees as hypocrites, children of hell, blind guides, blind fools, blind men, whitewashed tombs, serpents, and a brood of vipers.  He pronounces woes on them for trying to keep people out of God’s kingdom, attempting to make proselytes into children of hell, making foolish oaths, neglecting the “…weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness” (Matthew 23:23), being men concerned only with their outer appearance, concerning themselves with external righteousness while being internally dead men of lawlessness and hypocrisy, and hypocritically distancing themselves from the murder of God’s prophets.  Again, Jesus did not think highly of the Pharisees.  Their doctrines were hateful to Him.  Their supposed worship was a stink to His nostrils.  He hated their wickedness and their hypocrisy.  Yet, the Pharisees were the “big leaguers” of the Jewish religious climate.  They were the professionals.  If they said to jump, everybody asked how high.  They were the Righteous.  They were the ones close to God.  They were the ones who were in and doing God’s will.

The tax collectors, on the other hand, were a despised lot.  After Levi the Tax Collector was called by Jesus to be a disciple he invited Jesus and his fellow Tax Collectors (and other sinners) over to his house.  The scribes of the Pharisees took offense to this and asked why Jesus would do such a thing, to eat with such a dirty group of people.  Jesus’ beautiful answer is telling: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.  I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Mark 2:17)  Tax Collectors were a sinful lot and they knew it.  They were in the employ of the Roman Empire but were Jews.  They were cheats, snitches and were despised by everybody.  They and everybody else knew that righteousness was impossible for them.  They were not well.  That Jesus would eat with them was a scandal of the highest order.  Such men were worse than the Romans.  Yet Jesus, because of His gracious love, came to save such men.  The Pharisees knew that they were righteous.  The Tax Collectors knew that they were not.    

The parables of Jesus were more than quaint stories.  They always had a purpose and always had a particular message and audience in mind.  Quite handily, Luke very kindly interpreted this parable by mentioning the audience and purpose of this passage.  In Luke 18:9 he states: “[Jesus] also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt”.  This parable was (and is) intended for men like the Pharisees, who thought themselves righteous and better than everybody around them.

In particular, the Pharisee of Jesus’ parable was a stellar example of perceived righteousness.  By his own loud, self-seeking, prayerful admission, he proclaimed his righteousness by thanking God for giving it to him.  “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all I get.”  (Luke 18:11).  This was a man convinced of his standing before God and of his own inherent righteousness.  He was fair with his money (even though he loved it too much), he was just (even if it was by his own depraved standard of righteousness), he was faithful to his wife (even if he was able to find a myriad of reasons to justly divorce her) and he was nowhere near as wicked as the nearby Tax Collector.  Furthermore, this man did not just fast once a year or once a month or even once a week, he fasted two times during a week and he was sure to let everybody see how much his devotion cost him.  Even more impressively, he gave tithes of all he that he got, even if it meant that he did not have enough to respectively give to his parents in their need.  This Pharisee in Jesus’ parable was the standard of holiness and God-likeness.

The Tax Collector, on the other hand, agreed with the Pharisees assessment of him.  He knew that he did not have the righteousness of the Pharisee.  He knew that he was an extortioner, that he was unjust and that he was adulterous.  He was a tax collector after all.  This man knew that he was sick and in dire need of a physician.  It was all he could do to fall on his face and cry to God for the simple grace of underserved, unearned, unjust and completely necessary mercy.  This man was at his end.  He knew that there was nothing that he could do and nothing that he could offer to God to make God love him.  He quite simply had nothing to give and was ready to take anything and everything that God might give to him.  This man, Jesus says, went home justified, rather than the Pharisee.  This man repented of the sins that the Pharisee would never admit he had committed.  This man, completely unacceptable to God was accepted and went home justified and the Pharisee who by God’s grace kept all the law was found wanting and went home condemned.  In exalting himself the Pharisee was humbled to the point of condemnation.  In humbling himself and simply asking for mercy, the sinful Tax Collector was exalted and justified before God.

Sermon Poetry, 13 December 2009
Sermon Title – “Keeping the Unity of the Holy Spirit”
Sermon Text – Ephesians 4:1-7

In Christ we’ve life that comes from God
As men once blind we see
We’re called to love our Sovereign King
The One by whom we’re free
The sin within is raging fierce
The Spirit holding strong
Lord, give us strength to keep Your Word
Your worship be our song

In Christ we’re one, we’re unified
Once sinners all, we’re free
How do we love the ones of God?
How do we love our King?
We hate and lie, we cheat and steal
Despising Jesus’ own
Once enemies, now brothers all
We praise our Lord enthroned

We’re children of our Lord and King
Of every race and tongue
But now, in Christ, we all are His
In Christ the Church is one
We all were sinners foul and rank
Depravity was ours
But now in Christ we’re saved and cleansed
His mercy on us poured

We’re called to join with Jesus’ own
Submitting one to all
Forgiving fellows’ heinous sins
And asking love for ours
We’re bound to do the dirty work
Of loving fellow men
We’re called to build relationships
With those redeemed from sin

Lord please forgive us when we lose
The point of Jesus’ love
When pride and arrogance is strong
O’er others placed above
Lord humble us, Your mercy heal
In spirit make us poor
Relying on Your loving grace
To others place before

Your grace convict me to repent
And turn from all my sin
In self-control to love Your own
My family and my kin
You saved my soul, You made me live
You’ve loved me as Your son
In Christ my heart is born again
Redemption You have won

Sermon Poetry, 8 November 2009
Sermon Text – John 18:1-13
Preacher – Pastor Mike Tardive

Kind Jesus, Your people are suffering life
With sadness and sickness and poverty strong
They’re crying with voices of weakness and sorrow
With quavering lips they are singing their song

You’ve given us cups with a drink hard to swallow
We haven’t the strength to survive Sovereign Will
We’re crying with voices of frailty and mourning
Come calm with Your mercy and make our hearts still

We suffer as people who worship our Savior
We follow our Jesus, our Suffering Lord
He drank from His chalice, prepared by the Father
Fulfilling the Scriptures, God’s beautiful Word

Our Father is Sovereign, with Providence Holy
His will is accomplished, no matter how sad
So as Jesus swallowed, our sins were forgiven
We’re bathed in His blood, and our mourning is glad

We’re washed in His mercy, we’re cleansed by His blood
Through death are we living, through blood made alive
In Him is salvation, we’ve access to Yahweh
Once sinners of darkness, now Children of Light

Sermon Poetry, 1 November 2009
Sermon Text – Genesis 13
Preacher – Pastor Matthew Brennan

Lord give me wisdom to live for You
So that Your name is praised
Your glory loud proclaimed
Please give me strength to plant the seeds
Of Jesus’ Gospel sweet
So men Your mercy see
So sinners might be saved

Lord give me strength to live for You
I am a sinner small
I live with sinners lost
The sins around oppress my heart
Your name is never praised
Few sinners ’round are saved
Pour out Your lovely grace

Lord give me strength to rest in You
The sin about is dark
From dark and rocky hearts
Lord give me speech to speak Your Truth
Come save the sinners’ hearts
Your grace to men impart
Come raise from death to life

Lord give me strength to trust in You
To save the sinners’ hearts
Christ’s righteousness impute
I cannot save the sinners ’round
I just proclaim Your Truth
So men might worship You
Lord thank You for Your Grace

Lord give me strength to mercy show
To others never judge
To trust Your sovereign love
Please sensitize my sinful heart
To think on Holy things
To ponder Jesus’ Grace
To be like Christ my King

“If we act in a wrong spirit, we shall bring little glory to God, do little good to our fellow creatures, and procure neither honor nor comfort to ourselves. If you can be content with showing your wit, and gaining the laugh on your side, you have an easy task; but I hope you have a far nobler aim, and that, sensible of the solemn importance of gospel truths, and the compassion due to the souls of men, you would rather be a means of removing prejudices in a single instance, than obtain the empty applause of thousands. Go forth, therefore, in the name and strength of the Lord of hosts, speaking the truth in love; and may he give you a witness in many hearts that you are taught of God, and favored with the unction of his Holy Spirit.”

- John Newton

Preacher – Dr. Tom Ascol

The Father is seeking and saving and loving
To save all His children He loves
He sent Christ tas Savior to bleed and to suffer
So sinners like us might be saved

He loves us with fervor, ’tis shown on the Cross
christ died so that sinners might live
He sought us as rebels and loves us as son
The Father His Grace to us gives

We’re called as the Body to go to the World
And tell of the Gospel of Christ
We’re called on a Mission, to tell of the Savior
So sinners like us might be saved

Dear Father, please help us to speak of Your Son
To family and friends all around
To witness of Jesus and of our salvation
So sinners once lost might be found

Oh Father, come finish Your plan of Salvation
Your Spirit come send to convert
So sinners believing might have Christ’s Salvation
Together we worship Your Name

Sermon Poetry – “Lord, Help Me”
Sermon Title – “Preaching Christ to the Natural Man”
Preacher – Dr. Tom Ascol

We live in a time where there’s gods all about
We’re proud of our pluralist ways
The people don’t know of the God of the Word
Ignoring the Ancient of Days

Lord help me when walking in markets and ways
When working among fellow men
Lord help me to preach Jesus Christ to the lost
To sinners, the lost and the damned

Lord help me be faithful to rightly engage
The culture in which I am pleased
To study and know it and judge it by truth
Lord help and show me Your Grace

Lord help me remember the sin of my heart
The sin that enslaves these around
Lord help me to love You and love neighbors too
A sinner was lost, now I’m found

In me light a fire that burns for Your Name
Your honor and glory proclaim
In culture around me, your honor to seek
Proclaiming Your glorious fame

Lord help me to study Your Scripture of Truth
And study the culture around
Respecting the sinner and loving the lost
In Christ, make the lost sinner found

And finally, Father, Your Truth will I tell
I haven’t the strength on my own
Please make me committed, Your glory to seek
Save sinners in Jesus the Son

“Thank you, Rich. You left us too soon. We’ve missed you. You suck, by the way, for not wearing a seatbelt.

Say “hi” to Francis for us.”

- Jason Boyett, speaking on the anniversary of Rich Mullins death

Sermon Title – “Christian Liberty #4: Christ Our Only Lord”
Sermon Text – Romans 14:1-9
Preacher – Pastor Steve Garrick

Jesus is Lord, the Savior who came
Who stooped, who bled and who died
He rules as our King, His praises we sing
The perfect and pure sacrifice
Our worship we offer unto Him
Salvation is in and is through Him
The Kingdom is for and is by Him
All worship our Savior and King

Jesus is King, He rules over all
He followed the Will of the Lord
He rules over earth, o’er stars, over us
His right and His sure reward
All peoples will bow down before Him
All nature is subject unto Him
Our lives and our glory is for Him
All worship our Savior and King

Jesus the Son submitted in death
The Father’s good will He obeyed
He bled on the Cross, entombed in the grave
In three days our Savior was raised
All things have been given unto him
The Father is satisfied with Him
This plan through the ages was for Him
All worship our Savior and King

Jesus alone is the King over all
Our liberty’s given by him
Our freedom is bought by blood and a Cross
His Law alone dictates our sins
Salvation is by and is for Him
Obedience is by and through Him
Our hearts are bought and owned for Him
All worship our Savior and King

Jesus my King, my heart is in pain
I’m sinning and breaking Your Law
I know that I’m bought, I know that I’m saved
In grief, my heart’s hurting and raw
I know Jesus, healing is in You
My savior, I worship and love You
Please give me the strength to obey You
I worship my Savior and King

Preacher – Jarrett Downs
Sermon Title – “Christian Liberty #2 – Freedom from the Law”
Sermon Text – Romans 7

It’s not freedom from the Law
In that I need not keep its word
Or trust emotions faint
Or do what’s right in my eyes

It fills my mouth with praise
To honor Christ as King
My bloodied Savior Lamb
My King and Perfect Potentate

Apart from Christ I am wed
To the Law I cannot keep
Perfection is Required
Then alas I am a whore

I need to be wed to Christ
The One who has kept the Law
Perfection He performed
In Christ, this sinner is freed and cleansed

This dirty prostitute
Is clothed in righteousness
The works of Jesus Christ
I now have freedom to obey

A means to sanctify
The Law is now to me
I’m freed from saving self
In Christ my heart is free

In Christ I can obey
To be like Jesus Christ
The Law is not my master
I’m wed to Jesus, my loving King

Outside of Christ we’re slaves
The Law’s an unforgiving master
Its requirements cannot be kept
As slaves, we are all rightly damned

But in Christ, our Righteous Lamb
We’re freed from the Law’s demands
We’re saved with Grace so free
We’re free in Christ to Live

Preacher – Jarrett Downs
Sermon Title – “The Deeds and Hopes of Persevering Saints”
Sermon Text – “Revelation 3:7-13

Jesus, I’m selfish with Your Word
I’m selfish with Your Truth
I think I can hoard Your Love
I’m loving myself, not loving my neighbor
Ignoring Your Power to Move
Forgive my arrogance
Please save me from my sinfulness:
Ignoring the broken and meek
I want to share you with liberality
When bruised, to love my enemies
Lord Christ, when I’m before You, I’m broken and weak

Jesus, I’m hated in this world
They laugh at my weakness
Deriding the son that You Love
Lord Christ by Your Grace, I’m loving my neighbor
Expecting Your power to move
Forgive them their arrogance
Save them from their sinfulness:
Ignoring the broken and meek
Please help me share You with liberality
When killed, to love my enemies
Lord Christ when I’m before You, I’m broken and weak

Jesus, I’m worshipping You
Relying on Your promises
Staying faithful as best I can
Lord Christ by Your Grace, Your Words I will follow
Upheld by Your tender hands
Preserve me to persevere
To stay faithful to the end
Although I am broken and weak
Please strengthen me to worship You
To hold onto Your Word of Truth
Lord Christ I am before You, I’m broken and meek

Jesus, I’m waiting for the end
When I’ll Your glory see
With quickened and eternal eyes
Lord Christ, by Your grace, my race will be finished
And then I will enter Your rest
My eyes are wet with gratitude
To Christ who saved me to new life
My brokenness is fully healed
A laurel crown around my head
A whitened robe around my frame
Lord Christ I am before You, once sinner now saved

In the past 3 years I have gone from being a very single young 23-year old man finishing a computer science engineering degree at the University of Texas at Arlington, to being a married man of slightly less than a year and a half with one eight-month old little girl, working as a systems engineer, working towards a Masters of Divinity degree and prayfully considering where our little family is going to put down roots.

Much in my life has changed.

Along with these changes have come many lessons and mistakes.

Of these lessons (or perhaps more fundamentally observations based on fundamental truths), two have stood out in my 15 months of husbandhood and 8 months of fatherhood (not counting the in-the-oven time): namely, as a Father, I’m to exemplify God the Father and as a husband I’m to love my sweet wife as Jesus loves His Bride, the Church.

Now, in many ways, this is both a blessing and a curse.  It is a curse because the reality is that there is no one on this earth who can do it.  It’s nigh impossible.  I am absolutely incapable of loving my wife like Jesus loves me.  I simply cannot.  I can never love my daughter like the Father loves me.  Any attempt, while noble, will always fall short because I am, quite obviously, not Jesus.

Yet, this reality is also an extreme blessing because in the Father and in the Son I have perfect examples of how to love my family.  When my daughter is crying at night, very loudly, and there is absolutely nothing I can do to soothe, calm, or quiet her and I am tempted to get made and flustered and discouraged, I can remember all of the times I have whined and cried and shook my little fists at God and my mind can be calmed and I can love my daughter in some small way like how my Father loves me.  When I get flustered and my wife and when the romance is not there and when I’ve had a sucky day and she’s had a sucky day and I’m short with my words and I’m impatient and angry with my thoughts and I just want to go to bed instead of being with my wife,  I can be kindly rebuked by my Savior’s Love for me; that love that lived on this earth, was broken, beaten, bruised, spat upon, tortured, bloodied, crucified and killed and I can know His great love for me and have a tangible example to encourage me to forget myself and my own petty needs and love my wife as Jesus eternally loves me.

Being a husband and a dad is better and harder than I ever imagined.  God has surely graced me in allowing me to do it.

Preacher – Jarrett Downs
Sermon Title – “The White-Washed Tombs of Sardis”, 9 August 2009
Sermon Text – “Revelation 3:1-6

I am comfortable, living laziness, I’m wearing a mask on my face
I’m an outward show, an inward show, a man who’s ignoring God’s Grace
My holiness is lacking, my sinfulness is growing
I’m living to earn Jesus’ Love
I want the glory of humanity, the memory of posterity
But when I stand before God, I am nothing

Jesus, you see my heart, you see my mind, You see the mask that I wear on my face
You see the outward show, you see the inward show, you see a sinner in need of Your Grace
My holiness is lacking my sinfulness is growing
I’m helpless to earn Jesus’ Love
Begon, oh glory of humanity, the memory of posterity
God I come to you broken, I am nothing

In Christ I live, In Christ I move, it is in Christ that I have all my being
By His blood I’m washed, by His blood I’m clean, in Christ by the Father I’m seen
Though holiness is lacking, Christ’s Grace is me is growing
I’m helpless to earn Jesus’ Love
I shout the glory of the Trinity, I yell His name for all posterity
In Christ my heart is softened, in Christ I am something

I live His name, it is by His Grace, so sinners like me can be saved
I tell His Love, I tell His Grace, for this goal my heart’s remade
Lord, holiness be giving, Christ’s Grace in my be growing
Please shower me with Jesus’ Love
To live the glory of the Trinity, to tell Your Name for all posterity
For Your Glory I am living,
For Your Honor I am telling,
So Your Worship will be growing … Jesus use me