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Saturday sermon series: “The Gospel Demands Radical Compassion” by David Platt.

We continue our Saturday sermon series from David Platt.  The Gospel Demands Radical Compassion is part three in this eight-part series. 

This series was the inspiration for Platt’s book, Radical.  

Here is the description of the series:

“In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.” With these words, Jesus turned away large crowds who were following Him. With grace and authority, He beckoned potential followers to consider the demands of discipleship. For most, the price was too high and the cost was too great. In the 2000 years since Jesus spoke these words, it begs the question: Do we in contemporary Christianity realize the high price of following Jesus? Do we understand the great cost for all who call themselves followers of Christ? Take a closer look at the words of Jesus that require us to consider the implications of the Gospel for every facet of our lives.

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Saturday sermon series: “The Gospel Demands Radical Sacrifice” by David Platt.

We continue our Saturday sermon series with the second installment from David Platt’s series Radical which inspired the book by the same name.

This week’s message is The Gospel Demands Radical Sacrifice (you can find last week’s message here).

This sermon series is one of the most sobering and deeply challenging that I’ve ever listened to. I have found it to be incredibly convicting and trust that you will too.



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Saturday sermon series: “What the Gospel Demands” by David Platt.

Yes, I’m going to do it. Starting today I am going to post a series of sermons so weighty and so sobering that I dare say they rival any other sermon ever presented on DefCon in the area of depth of conviction. If you don’t believe me, I dare you to listen to today’s message (part one in the series) entitled What the Gospel Demands.

For the next eight Saturdays I challenge all the readers of DefCon to listen to this series. Some of you will be glad you did, but some of you may be angry with what you hear and refuse to listen to any more after today.

I expect some to be repentant due to deep conviction after listening to this message. And I even expect some to be very angry due to that same conviction after listening to this message. But I can’t fathom anyone being indifferent to this message.

I warn you, though, this series will end on Saturday, December 24th, and more than likely it will damper your current view of the upcoming self-indulgent Christmas festivities.

 

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Quotes (912)

The gospel reveals eternal realities about God that we would sometimes rather not face. We prefer to sit back, enjoy our clichés, and picture God as a Father who might help us, all the while ignoring God as a Judge who might damn us. Maybe this is why we fill our lives with the constant drivel of entertainment in our culture—and in the church. We are afraid that if we stop and really look at God in His Word, we might discover that He evokes greater awe and demands deeper worship than we are ready to give Him.

– David Platt

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The lady in the rose garden.

Lady in the Rose Garden

A lesson for all of us to consider from the puritan Joseph Meade:

I once walked into a garden with a lady to gather some flowers. There was one large bush whose branches were bending under the weight of the most beautiful roses. We both gazed upon it with admiration. There was one flower on it which seemed to outshine all the rest in beauty. This lady pressed forward into the thick bush, and reached far over to pluck it. As she did this, a black snake, which was hid in the bush, wrapped itself round her arm. She was alarmed beyond all description; she ran from the garden, screaming, and almost in convulsions. During all that day she suffered very much with fear. Her whole body trembled, and it was a long time before she could be calmed. That lady is still alive. Such is her hatred now of the whole serpent race, that she has never since been able to look at a snake, even a dead one. No one could ever persuade her to venture again into a cluster of bushes, even to pluck a beautiful rose.

Now this is the way the sinner acts who truly repents of his sins. He thinks of sin as the serpent that once coiled itself around him. He hates it. He dreads it. He flees from it. He fears the places where it inhabits. He does not willingly go into the haunts. He will no more play with sin than this lady would afterwards have fondled snakes.

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Quotes (909)

We are giving in to the dangerous temptation to take the Jesus of the Bible and twist him into a version of Jesus we are more comfortable with. A nice, middle-class, American Jesus. A Jesus who doesn’t mind materialism and who would never call us to give away everything we have. A Jesus who would not expect us to forsake our closest relationships so that he receives all our affection. A Jesus who is fine with nominal devotion that does not infringe on our comforts, because, after all, he loves us just the way we are. A Jesus who wants us to be balanced, who wants us to avoid dangerous extremes, and who, for that matter, wants us to avoid danger altogether. A Jesus who brings us comfort and prosperity as we live out our Christian spin on the American dream. But do you and I realize what we are doing at this point? We are molding Jesus into our own image. He is beginning to look a lot like us because, after all, that is whom we are most comfortable with. And the danger now is that when we gather together in our church buildings to sing and lift up our hands in worship, we may not actually be worshiping the Jesus of the Bible. Instead we may be worshiping ourselves.

– David Platt

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Quotes (908)

voddie-baucham How does a mother build biblical truth into her daughter’s life, nurture her, guard her, and encourage her toward the application of that truth, then send her into an environment that will oftentimes by its very nature be hostile or at least ambivalent toward that truth? How does a father raise his son to respect young women and protect their purity only to send them off to the youth building with exposed midriffs, low-cut tops, and skin-tight jeans?

– Voddie Baucham

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Quotes (907)

  Christ’s death is the Christian’s life. Christ’s cross is the Christian’s title to heaven. Christ “lifted up” and put to shame on Calvary is the ladder by which Christians “enter into the holiest,” and are at length landed in glory. It is true that we are sinners–but Christ has suffered for us. It is true that we deserve death–but Christ has died for us. It is true that we are guilty debtors–but Christ has paid our debts with His own blood. This is the real Gospel! This is the good news! On this let us lean while we live. To this let us cling when we die. Christ has been “lifted up” on the cross, and has thrown open the gates of heaven to all believers.

– J. C. Ryle

1816 – 1900

HT: JC Ryle Quotes

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Quotes (905)

 Never are men’s hearts in such a hopeless condition, as when they are not sensible of their own sins. He that would not make shipwreck on this rock, must beware of measuring himself by his neighbors. What does it signify that we are more moral than other men? We are all vile and imperfect in the sight of God. “If we contend with Him, we cannot answer him one in a thousand” (Job 9:3). Let us remember this. In all our self-examination let us not try ourselves by comparison with the standard of men. Let us look at nothing but the requirements of God. He that acts on this principle will never be a Pharisee.

– J. C. Ryle

1816 – 1900

HT: JC Ryle Quotes

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Quotes (902)

The average American family devotes one-fourth of its spendable income to outside debts. Since 1945, consumer debt in the United States has multiplied thirty-one times. The IRS calculates that the average filer spends ten times more paying off interest on debts than he gives to charitable causes. If all evangelical Christians were out of debt, hundreds of millions of dollars would be freed up for God’s kingdom. Our families would be stronger, because financial pressures caused by indebtedness are major factors in more than half of divorces.

– Randy Alcorn

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Quotes (899)

  What happened to the God-centered method of evangelism that calls sinners to repent and believe the Gospel? For the last 100 years people have been told to repeat a prayer, come forward, sign a card or get baptized to be saved. Many of them have lived with a false hope because none of these methods are found in God’s Word. . . . Well-meaning Christians who use a man-centered approach to evangelism by manipulating people to make a decision are helping the devil plant tares. They promote easy believism with no call to repentance or discipleship because it produces quick results that people can measure. The unanticipated results of their actions are devastating: God is not glorified, the sinner is not saved, the church is not sanctified and the devil is thrilled and delighted. . . . We must quit seeking quick results and instead glorify God by making disciples and faithfully proclaiming His Word until the sinner asks, “What must I do to be saved?”

– Mike Gendron

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Quotes (896)

Many churches spend more on interest payments than on world missions. Debt ties the church’s hands. If attendance drops, the economy suffers, or giving dips, then pastors or missionaries must go unpaid. The building completed eight years ago, already needing repairs, keeps demanding those monthly payments, mostly going to interest. . . . When a church overextends itself financially, it inevitably spends time during services trying to persuade people to give to the building fund. This changes the focus from worshiping Christ, studying the Scriptures, and meeting the needs of the community to concerns about buildings, mortgages, and money.

– Randy Alcorn

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Quotes (895)

[Jonah] was exceedingly displeased and even very angry (Jonah 4:1) because Nineveh had been spared from destruction. Jonah was far more deeply concerned with the fate of a single plant than he was with perhaps a million or more never-dying souls who had just turned to the living and true God.

What a lesson for us today. How many of us are far more deeply concerned over our gardens and our clothes, our houses and our businesses, our cars and our gadgets, than we are with the millions of perishing–yet never-dying–souls all around us. How many of us are “exceeding[ly] glad” for something that adds a little more to our own comfort and ease and luxury, but we are utterly unconscious and without a care or a thought as to whether there is joy, exceeding joy, in Heaven over one sinner who repents (Luke 15:10).

Furthermore, like Jonah, we are “exceedingly displeased” and even “angry” if anything happens to disturb our comfort and upset the course of our day. The unsaved in their blindness may bow down to wood and stone, for all we care, provided the worms do not get into our gourds and the hot east wind does not blow upon us.

– G. C. Willis

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Quotes (894)

The Pure in heart shall see God, those that hunger and thirst after righteousness shall be completely satisfied with the same, the peace-makers shall be called the sons of God. These second clauses in the beatitudes describe the essence of the final kingdom in which the reward will consist. They show, therefore, that the reward towards which Jesus points his followers is not something morally or spiritually indifferent, but the highest enjoyment of what here already constitutes the natural blessedness pertaining to the internal Kingdom. Thus the reward bears an organic relation to the conduct it is intended to crown.

– Geerhardus Vos

1862 – 1949

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Quotes (891)

Holiness has a mighty influence upon others. When this appears with power in the lives of Christians, it works mightily upon the spirits of men; it stops the mouths of the ungodly . . . . I am sure we have found, by woeful experience, that in these debauched times, when religion is so bespattered with frequent scandals, yes, a general looseness of professors, it is hard to get any to come into the net of the Gospel. . . . If they were but holy and exemplary, they would be as a repetition of the preacher’s sermon to the families and neighbors among whom they converse, and would keep the sound of his doctrine continually ringing in their ears.

– William Gurnall

1617 – 1679