BridgeWay242 Blog

The 2nd Annual Cup of Hope

First, check out the website: http://www.acupofhope.org/

Second, be there!

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“Upon a life I did not live, upon a death I did not die; another’s life, another’s death, I stake my whole eternity.”

Horatius Bonar

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Consider the words of G. Campbell Morgan:

“I do most confidently affirm that it ought to be a perfectly natural and easy thing to turn from work or play to prayer at any time or in any place, and moreover, it seems to me increasingly, as days pass on that any work or play which makes that spontaneous prayer impossible should be abandoned at all costs and once for all.”

Source: G. Campbell Morgan, The Practice of Prayer, p. 45.

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This Sunday’s sermon text is Psalm 13.  Read it.  It records the journey of a godly man through a valley of deep darkness.  Then read “Psalm 13,” a poem by hymnwriter Isaac Watts (1674-1748).  Here it is:

How long, O Lord, shall I complain,
Like one that seeks his God in vain?
Canst thou thy face for ever hide,
And I still pray, and be denied?

Shall I for ever be forgot,
As one whom thou regardest not
Still shall my soul thine absence mourn,
And still despair of thy return?

How long shall my poor troubled breast
Be with these anxious thoughts oppressed?
And Satan, my malicious foe,
Rejoice to see me sunk so low?

Hear, Lord, and grant me quick relief,
Before my death conclude my grief:
If thou withhold thy heav’nly light,
I sleep in everlasting night.

How will the powers of darkness boast,
If but one praying soul be lost!
But I have trusted in thy grace,
And shall again behold thy face.

Whate’er my fears or foes suggest,
Thou art my hope, my joy, my rest;
My heart shall feel thy love, and raise
My cheerful voice to songs of praise.

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This past weekend two BridgeWay members entered into the covenant of marriage; Lord-willing, the same thing will happen for two other members later in the summer.  The Bible teaches that marriage is a vehicle for displaying the gospel of the glory of Christ.  God designed human marriage to display the supreme value and worth of Christ, and his faithful, sacrificial, and transformative love (see Ephesians 5:22-33).  Participation in this display of glory is the highest calling of a husband and wife.  But there is another Scripture that connects marriage and the glory of God.  It is Psalm 19:

“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork….  In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber” (Psalm 19:1, 4-5 ESV).  Notice the logic:

1. The heavens declare God’s glory.

2. Therefore, the sun – which is in the heavens and part of the heavens – declares God’s glory.

3. The sun is “like a bridegroom leaving his chamber.”  

4. Therefore, God’s glory is “like a bridegroom leaving his chamber.”  

Which leaves us with a question: what significance does the psalmist intend when he refers to a bridegroom?  Here is how John Piper answers this question:

“Do you see what God wants you to see here—and when you leave this service today? He wants you to see and to feel that when the sun pours forth speech about the glory of God, the message is that the glory of God is an overwhelmingly happy thing. Why else would he say it’s like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber? The point here is not merely that the bridegroom is decked out in the finest clothes and surrounded by his noble groomsmen. The point is that this is the happiest day of his life. This is the fulfillment of dreams. This is the beginning of a whole new kind of joy. That’s what the glory of God is like. That’s the message when the sun rises in lavish red and gold and lavender in the eastern sky. God’s glory is a happy thing—like the happiness of a bridegroom on his wedding day.”*

So let the happiness of this summer’s weddings – and the memory of them – be a signpost pointing you to the most valuable reality in the universe: the glory of God.

* Source: John Piper, “Do You See the Joy of God in the Sun?”  Accessed June 8, 2009.

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Hear the words of Tim Stafford:

“The first question we ask someone after learning his name is, “What do you do?”  In getting to know God, then, we must ask that question.  He may hide his face, but he has not hidden his work.

   “What does God do?  He makes flowers and mountains and starry nights, the severity of the desert and the lushness of the forest meadow.  In these he reveals himself as an artist of incomparable imagination.  I have sometimes wondered: What if we had never seen a tree until, one day, someone presented one in the Museum of Modern Art?  Would it not be a work of sculpture so splendid that all the other sculptors would put down their tools and come to stare?  But that is only the beginning of the exhibition; next comes a whale, and after that a stone, and after that a star, and after that a seed, and after that….”

Source: Tim Stafford, Knowing the Face of God.  Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1996: p. 102.

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This Sunday, May 24, Josue Raimundo, who serves as the pastor of Iglesia Biblica de la Gracia, plans to share the Word with the BridgeWay242 family.  Josue will continue our month-long sermon series on the subject of God’s Faithful Provision, and he has been asked to speak about how the truth of God’s faithful provision addresses the human heart’s tendency to grumble and complain.

Josue hails from the Dominican Republic.  He has been sought after to speak or teach in both English- and Spanish-language settings.  His teaching reaches across generations and cultures, with depth of insight and a great love and respect for the Word of God.  He teaches theology, Bible survey and in-depth studies of books of the Bible.  Josue has taught about family-life issues and theology, both in Northern Virginia and other US states, as well as in foreign countries.  Josue presently teaches and disciples about ten men in Arlington.  

Come and be blessed by the faithful proclamation of God’s holy word!

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What is at the heart of a deep and stable spiritual life?  Consider the words of Don Carson:

“There is no deep and stable spirituality that does not acknowledge what an utterly profound privilege it is to know God and be reconciled to him by the crucified Messiah.”

Source: D. A. Carson, The Cross and Christian Ministry: Leadership Lessons from 1 Corinthians, p. 52.

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Hear the words of Malcolm Muggeridge:

“The world’s way of responding to intimations of decay is to engage equally in idiot hopes and idiot despair.  On the one hand some new policy or discovery is confidently expected to put everything to rights: a new fuel, a new drug, detente, world government.  On the other, some disaster is as confidently expected to prove our undoing.  Capitalism will break down.  Fuel will run out.  Plutonium will lay us low.  Atomic waste will kill us off.  Overpopulation will suffocate us, or alternatively, a declining birth rate will put us more surely at the mercy of our enemies.

   “In Christian terms, such hopes and fears are equally beside the point.  As Christians we know that here we have no continuing city, that crowns roll in the dust and every earthly kingdom must sometime flounder, whereas we acknowledge a king men did not crown and cannot dethrone, as we are citizens of a city of God they did not build and cannot destroy.”

Source: Malcolm Muggeridge, The End of Christendom.  Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1980: p. 52.

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