A Righteous Hunger (5 of 32)
Series: Sermon on the Mount
Robert Dawson
Matthew 5:6
This week we had the opportunity to spend Thanksgiving with several of our friends in NC. We had a great time reminiscing about old times and catching up on what is going on in their lives and in the life of the churches. One afternoon, we were able to ride four-wheelers through the woods. We all lined up like trail ponies and started out through the fields and the woods…well the paths through the woods are not all that wide. As a matter of fact they are just wide enough for a four-wheeler to go through. As you are going up and down some of the hills if you did not turn hard enough you wound up face to face with a tree, which I did. The only way to move forward again was to throw it in reverse and back up and get back on the right trail.
While it may not be the greatest analogy in the world but it is true of our spiritual life as well. Sometimes in order to move forward we must first go backward. I was reminded of that while reading the other day and ran across this quote in The Bruised Reed by Richard Sibbes, Puritan preacher and writer from the 17th century, …
1. God often works by contraries (word we have been using is paradoxes: things that at first glance don’t seem to be possible or true but nonetheless are possible and true): When He means to give victory he will allow us to experience defeat at first. When He means to comfort us He will terrify us first. When He means to make us glorious, He will abase/humble us first…
2. Christ’s work, both in the church and in the hearts of Christians, often goes backward so that it may go forward better. As a seed rots in the ground in the winter, but after comes up better, and the harder the winter the more flourishing the spring, so we learn to stand by falls, and get strength by weakness. Weakness is the keeper of virtue.
Sometimes in order to go forward we must first go backward. Sometimes, in order to be built up we ...
Series: Sermon on the Mount
Robert Dawson
Matthew 5:6
This week we had the opportunity to spend Thanksgiving with several of our friends in NC. We had a great time reminiscing about old times and catching up on what is going on in their lives and in the life of the churches. One afternoon, we were able to ride four-wheelers through the woods. We all lined up like trail ponies and started out through the fields and the woods…well the paths through the woods are not all that wide. As a matter of fact they are just wide enough for a four-wheeler to go through. As you are going up and down some of the hills if you did not turn hard enough you wound up face to face with a tree, which I did. The only way to move forward again was to throw it in reverse and back up and get back on the right trail.
While it may not be the greatest analogy in the world but it is true of our spiritual life as well. Sometimes in order to move forward we must first go backward. I was reminded of that while reading the other day and ran across this quote in The Bruised Reed by Richard Sibbes, Puritan preacher and writer from the 17th century, …
1. God often works by contraries (word we have been using is paradoxes: things that at first glance don’t seem to be possible or true but nonetheless are possible and true): When He means to give victory he will allow us to experience defeat at first. When He means to comfort us He will terrify us first. When He means to make us glorious, He will abase/humble us first…
2. Christ’s work, both in the church and in the hearts of Christians, often goes backward so that it may go forward better. As a seed rots in the ground in the winter, but after comes up better, and the harder the winter the more flourishing the spring, so we learn to stand by falls, and get strength by weakness. Weakness is the keeper of virtue.
Sometimes in order to go forward we must first go backward. Sometimes, in order to be built up we ...
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