MBA update

It seems as though such is in order as one poster requested as much. I apologize for the delay.


My first semester went by smoothly. I took courses in Marketing, Business Law, and Managerial Economics, and I thoroughly enjoyed the subject matter. The course work was not too taxing, reading was moderately heavy in volume, but nothing I was unused to after having attended Hillsdale. But, the reading texts themselves were not very deep (except for one), and so the overall reading experience became monotonous at some points, where the same ideas and common sense would be repeated. Nonetheless, the material gave me ample room to expand my thinking and the writing exercises (I wrote between 180-200 pages this semester) afforded me a platform to demonstrate as much. I especially enjoyed analyzing new business ideas and start-ups and their likelihood for success or failure. I wrote several case studies during the course of the semester, and while that was a somewhat new experience for me (and I had not written in APA format since high school, having dug-in among the ranks of MLA and Chicago stylists), the Lord allowed me to grasp an understanding of the formatting and the desired product (as in what the professors expected as a demonstration of having learned the material and applied the comprehension well). Analysis and evaluation were exciting exercises because they allowed students to metaphorically "stand above" the situations before them and reason the matter.

The semester ended in the second week of December, and I received my grading report about two weeks after that. God continues to grace me in all academic work. I will return to class next weekend when my first class of the new year begins.

This semester I will take courses in International Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Leading Change, and Research methods and statistics. The final class in that list is an accelerated, five-hour Saturday course taken for seven weeks. The second to last class is online, and the first two are once-per-week, three-hour, night classes.

If you do not know the cost of graduate-level course books, you can be almost sure that even online, used-books for every course will be over $100 each. But, if you search carefully, you can likely still save money. And, get to know your classmates well, because you might be taking courses with students ready to graduate who would be willing to sell you their old books at radically reduced prices for you and better prices than they would receive elsewhere through buyback.

From Debts to Love - A Battle Cry

The following poem emerged as a hymn from my heart echoing the cry of my Christian brother's heart (Derry Prenkert) to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength BECAUSE, though we did not and do not keep that greatest commandment, JESUS DID AND DOES, and He took on our punishment so God's wrath toward us (because we did not and do not) might be satisfied, making known to all His glorious and gracious mercy, unsurpassed in degree. AND, in doing so, His righteousness has been imputed to believers, and we are declared worthy because of Him. Such is one of the richest and deepest truths with which we've been graced. In amazing wonderment and awe, let us repent and follow in thankfulness and unhindered joy.



Luke 7:37

Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little."


Raise the battle cry:

Let our eyes be clear to see our state.
Remember the infinite debt He paid!
Jesus Christ, the Holy Son,
Took on flesh, suffered, died and then was raised.
Took our debt and drank the wrath to us,
That we might love Him because
He deserves our highest affections of all our being.
And for that joy Jesus paid the price supreme.
Killed our foes, and more than conquered.
Freed captives, raised an army, and leads it onward.
We love because none else could pay,
With a priceless gift like God's body slain.
But He paid in full, and was still too rich,
Took back up His life, beamed light in pitch.
So raise His banner and gather low,
To the cross's base where our treasure's sown.
And bear fruit from that Vine in which we're in-grafted.
We are but clay by the Potter crafted.
That part of Him we do well and good;
Apart from Him no man has stood.
No man has lived who has loved Him well
Who has not first known he deserved hell.
But O the blessed Lamb healed our fell,
When crushed in our placed like a tender shell
Underfoot the fury of God's fearsome wrath.
So in repentance we'd be strong to walk the narrow path.
Not to earn, but to receive what we ought not,
Declared righteous because of the death of God.

But more than that,
Because in righteousness He was raised.
For His Father would not let Him see decay.
And so He showed just His Father's long-suffering,
In delaying the just wrath we had earlier gained,
Realized JUST when under that wrath was Jesus slain.
And so more than declared, we hope for more.
When raised one day from this blue ball's floor
We will ascend to meet Him Most Fair.
The saints dazzling in His light across the air.
O to see from whence we came,
That for eternity we would be crushed like grain,
And then another, and more and more,
We would never see the end of such horror.

But in hours the value of the Son was seen
To far outweigh the debt of all man's sins
Which were surely nothing small.
But each single earned the whole price of Fall.
For to not love perfectly is to hate Him fully.
And no man has ever kept the Law.
At all.
Except Jesus.

And so His love was priceless beyond all man's debt.
But to think He suffered even hours is amazing yet.
Such evil we have incurred
To have on our behalf placed hours upon the Word.

But for joy He did what none else could do.
To show forth His worth and make all things new.
But the plan was old from eternity, past.
To save wax figurines from the furnace blast.
No other god saves from fire so,
But our God has, so let us bow our hearts low.
And remember that none could stand to pay the debt
To face God's wrath, and so His Son was sent.



"In this is love, not what we loved God, but that He loved us
And sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins."
1 John 4:10

Here is this morning's message (not all the particulars, but the main portion)

UPDATE: I now have the audio version available. If you would like a copy, post a comment to let me know. You cannot be anonymous for me to send you a copy. I will try to post it if I can.

Our text is Mark 8:34-9:1. This text comes immediately on the heels of Jesus’ questioning Peter about who the people said Jesus was and then Jesus asking Peter who Peter thought that Jesus was. We know from another Gospel that Peter’s revelation that Jesus was Messiah came as a gift from God. Then Jesus tells the disciples about how He must suffer, die, and rise as Messiah in order to fulfill Scripture. This teaching is in order to adjust the people’s understanding of Messiah. Like the blind man who just a few verses before Peter’s confession had to be healed twice so that he could not only see, but see clearly, Jesus was opening the people’s eyes to know Him as more than the Messiah who has the power over all things in life, but He would be known as the Messiah who suffered and died and rose again. At this, Peter rebukes Jesus, and the word rebuke is ep-EE-tay-mah-O, which means to both tax with fault as well as to show honor or “raise the price of.” The idea is that Peter tells Jesus something likely in reference to Jesus’ worth being greater than he thinks Jesus realizes, and that Jesus is too great to fulfill such debased prophecies. Then Jesus rebukes Peter for not valuing the things of God highly enough. Think about that. From that situation, Jesus calls his other disciples and the rest of the crowd to him.

³⁴And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

³⁵For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the Gospel’s will save it.

³⁶ For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?

³⁷For what can a man give in return for his soul?

³⁸For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."

¹And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death

until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power.”

Prayer

³⁴And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

In order to understand this passage, we must understand this verse clearly, for the statements following it add support and expand upon it and its implications

· The first phrase to examine is “would come after,” which implies a coming into, or going unto, or going after Jesus. The idea is of following with an implied desire, that is, He calls out to come, and if you want to come, here is what must take place.

· We next follow with a brief explanation for the word “deny.”

o The word “deny” = Ah-par-NEY-oh-my

o Meaning

§ to forget one's self, lose sight of one's self and one's own interests

o Idea – Quit-Claim Deed…divesting yourself of any and all interest….you are no longer your own

o Thus, the statement simplified is “if you will follow Jesus, you have to stop following yourself.

· AND begins the next two implications of being allowed to follow Jesus.

o In denying yourself, as in not following yourself, as in not doing what is right in your own eyes, you must take up your cross.

o Thus we come to the question of what does he mean by “the cross.” His hearers would not have associated the cross with his later crucifixion in this instance. To them it would have been the most shameful form of execution…to be associated with the scum of the earth…can you find yourself associated with those people? This doesn’t mean bearing up under your struggles in life as if you’re pious for doing so. This is about associating yourself as the Apostle Paul did with the most wretched of men and seeing himself as the chief of sinners. Perhaps you think yourself too good for that, and think too highly of yourself?

o Once when Jesus was at a Pharisee’s house a sinful woman came in and poured expensive ointment on Jesus’ feet, wetting his feet with her tears and wiping them clean with her hair. The Pharisees looked down on this woman while she looked up upon Jesus. Jesus told the hypocrites, “her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.”

Until you realize the sheer magnitude of the debt you owe, you will never appreciate the debt you’ve been forgiven in Christ. Thus, until you know this truth, you will remain thankless to God, ungrateful, and forever blinded to how wretched we as men really are.

Let me ask you to think about something for a moment. You see me up here and I’m speaking to you about the Bible. The pastors have allowed me to share with you. But don’t think that it’s so because I have attained to some spiritual level. If you’re looking for someone with a secret to listen to, you might as well leave. I’m just another failure where it all counts. Don’t discount what I just said. I can honestly tell you that I know more about myself than you know about me. Thus, you should believe me when I say you don’t know how wicked I am. Some of you might be thinking, “What’s he talking about? Is there some dark secret he has, something he’s done in his past that I we don’t know about?” Let me remind you quickly, I’m not evil or sinful because I’ve sinned. I do wicked and heinous things because I’m a sinner. If I could play my life backwards on a screen before you today, if you could watch my thoughts like a tree growing from seed to sapling to full growth, what would you see? You would see unspeakable things. You would be appalled, and I wouldn’t remain here to watch in my shame. How strange is that, that I would be ashamed to let the truth be known though you are no less sinful yourselves? [Move through Sermon on the Mount “you have heard, but I tell you” statements]. If I asked you if you have ever committed adultery which is no less evil if it’s in your heart, or if you still do, would any of us still be armed with stones to throw at the man in the newspaper or the politician on television? If I asked if you had committed murder, no less vile in the sight of God because it was in anger toward your brother, your sister, your mother, your father, your enemy, would you still find yourself to be better than the criminal who had taken life? Surely I don’t say those things are good, but that’s the point, they’re not good. I have said nothing about your lying, stealing, and coveting. And how bad they are, well do we recognize how bad they are? The Scriptures say before Christ we are lost, condemned, under the wrath of God, dead in our trespasses and sins, and possessing desperately wicked hearts.

Have you pleased God in obeying the first commandment?

An old man once replied to a young man who asked him what the greatest sin was with the answers à disobeying greatest command (heart soul mind strength)

We have never obeyed that command, He has never failed to love His Father fully

Additionally, do you know how good your goodness is? Do you know what the Scriptures tell us about our goodness? When we attempt to do good things, it’s utterly disgusting and gross to God. Pastor Bob has spoken about sins as your attempt to restore your perishing self, but attempting to clean yourself and stop your bleeding with such will only speed up the process and ensure you become infected worse, grow more sickly, and radically increase your need to be saved from death.

But for you who say, stop telling me all this, I know how wretched I am. I know that I deserve nothing but God’s wrath. I know that I am but a worm and have nothing to offer God. Hear me, for you are the man or woman or old man or child for whom Christ came.

The sick need a doctor, not the healthy. If you’re a good person, you don’t need Jesus. The only problem is that there are none who are good. Not a single one except Jesus Christ. He alone is the remnant who followed God. To Him alone are all of the covenant promises and blessings. He did what no one else could do. That is why I showed you the good and holy law which holds you condemned, that you might not try to stand on legs you do not have. That way, you might give God the credit.

Hear this, Romans 3:11 teaches us that no one seeks God. Your friends don’t seek God, your parents don’t seek God, your neighbors don’t seek God, your bosses don’t seek God. Luke 19:10 tells us that that’s why Jesus came, For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost, not that men would find what they were looking for, but that He would find those who weren’t looking for what they needed most. “All are like sheep gone astray, each to his own way. But God has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” God seeks and He finds. Pray to God that He would seek, because if He seeks, He will find, and they will know Him.

This is the way of the Christian life. It’s repentance. Repentance acknowledges that God’s way is right and your way is wrong and that you are ashamed of following the wrong way, and that you see how good God is, though you were His enemy. This is why God’s mercy teaches us to fear not, because we ought to be in fear, knowing how wicked we’ve been, living as if God has not provided us with life and breath and everything else. We live as if God has not given all good things. We try to live independent of God, not only sinning, by also offending his majesty. Being infinitely worthy, we ascribe Him no value, demonstrating that our hearts hate Him and believing and living that way is worthy of a punishment of equal degree, eternal damnation. When you realize how evil you have been and God shows you how good He has been despite your wickedness, THEN you can appreciate His love – knowing that Christ was damned upon that tree becoming a curse. He drank down the cup of God’s wrath until no drop was left. Do you see that? He bore the curse you deserve. In light of such incredible mercy, repent and take joy. That turn of heart is repentance and it bears true fruit of faith. Faith without works is dead. Faith that is rooted in the Truth bears fruits of His Spirit. Christians live lives of repentance, growing more and more mournful of their sin over a lifetime and more and more thankful for God’s grace toward them and the world. Christians grow in thankfulness and joy when they grow in repentance. You are not yet freed from the presence of sin, you may be free of its curse, and you may be justified in God’s sight, but you still contend with sin. Grow in the knowledge of the Lord and the sinfulness of sin so that you can hate sin more. In hating sin more, love God more.

And so I entreat you to “test yourself to see if you are of the faith,” and to “work out your faith with fear and trembling.”

Verse 35

³⁵For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the Gospel’s will save it.

This proposition supports verse 34

• Would - implies desire, and pleasure.
• Save - the word is “sowed-zo” and it means to keep from perishing. It does not mean to just hold on to, but to hold onto because it is in danger of being taken away. It’s diseased and is in need of healing or rescue
• Lose - refers to putting out of the way entirely, often by destroying, or the declaration of death on something.

OPPOSITE

• Loses
• Sake of Jesus and the Gospel
• Save

Think of the statement, therefore like this:

· If you find pleasure in your diseased life, and try to keep the disease from destroying it, you will fail. In fact, your attempt is itself a declaration of death upon your life.

But

· If you put your life, that is, all that is you, out of the way entirely (recognize that you have no value on your own) for the purpose of valuing Christ and the Good news of what He came to do and did do, your life will be healed, and you will be rescued.

In 2 Corinthians 5:15 Paul writes of Christ, “and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.”

That said, we move on to Verse 36

³⁶ For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?

This proposition is a question establishing the truth of Verse 35 with an expected answer in the negative.

Jesus asks, does a man do well to acquire the whole world if he has to suffer the loss of his own soul in the process? Is such a man acquiring something of greater worth in that exchange?

The answer is expectantly “NO!” Such is demonstrated in the next verse, with a question compounding the strength of this position.

³⁷For what can a man give in return for his soul?

Jesus presents a question which forces one to ask: how valuable is a man’s soul? This presents us with a problem. We know that outside of Christ man is of no inherent value, that is, man is worth nothing in relation to the worth of God. And the worth of God is the standard by which all things must be considered. Thus, the question here ultimately draws us to think about the necessity of Jesus Christ as propitiation for our sins. What can a man give as to one asking for his soul? If you stand outside of Christ, you should tremble. Because no account you can offer is good payment for the heinousness of your crime against the Lord’s name. If you stand in Christ, no payment ought to be good enough for you to delight in any other god besides Him.

Both of you, sinner and saint, turn away from your idols. Acknowledge the goodness of the Lord. We spend more time lauding the feats of men on floors of wood and synthetic grass that we laud the Lord of Glory. We speak more of money-lovers than the God Who is love. We spend more time devoted to questioning how far we can step outside of the will of God before we will lose His benefits, than we spend praying and seeking the inside of the encampment that we might delight more in God Himself. It’s a true saying that everyone wants to go to heaven, except most people don’t want God to be there when they arrive.

What will you offer for your soul?

This culminates in Jesus’ next statement in Verse 38

³⁸For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."

Ashamed - there is a familial bend to this….in Hebrews it is used to demonstrate that Christ is not ashamed to call us brethren and that God is not ashamed to be our God

Why? Should God be ashamed? God in His holiness will not permit sin into His presence, thus He crushed His Son Jesus Who bore all sins on our behalf. If God were to allow sin into His presence and not destroy it, He would be acting unjustly. If God were to act unjustly, God would be sinning against Himself and in need of shame, but God is Just, and all His ways are right. He will not be ashamed of those whom He has redeemed. He will honor Himself is justifying sinners, showing how great and mighty He is. Thus, He need not be ashamed, but rather He glories in Himself and what He’s done.

THEREFORE, if you would not attribute to God such value. If you would say that Jesus ought to be ashamed and that His words require shame on His behalf, as if God has done something sinful, you should quake where you sit. Is this not what you do when you do not exercise all effort in magnifying Christ? When you are unwilling to show Him forth for as great as He is, you effectively say He is not worth it. If you say He is not worth such acclaim, and He says He is, and you act upon your words and understanding rather than His, beware. Beware. We have not followed cleverly crafted tales. This is reality. Wakeup.

The final verse of this short engagement with the crowd is Jesus’ statement

¹And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power.”

Here Jesus is referring to what happens six days later. John Mark writes that after six days Jesus went up on the mountain where He was transfigured in glory before Peter, James, and John. Thus, the “some” in Verse 1 refers to those three disciples standing there, who saw Jesus Christ, God’s promised King of God’s everlasting Kingdom, and were witnesses to His power, and now to His visible splendor.

I hope you realize that this ought to change your life. If you walk away from these words today and go about your life as if these words had not been spoken, or as if you were sanctified enough that these words are just something to think about but not act upon immediately. Beware. I don’t say that to scare you as if I take joy in making you afraid. Be assured, I don’t. But if you retain any impurity in your vision, and I have the opportunity to offer you clarity of which I myself am undeserving, well I ought to be ashamed.

Thus I ask you, do you treasure the Gospel? Do you treasure it so much that you also offer it freely, as freely as it has been offered to you? Do you relegate that to others, as if it’s a chore to be done? Do you take no joy in glorying in Christ before the world?

Maybe your life is just so busy and you have so many mouths to feed, and you know, God wants you to be a good steward of that time and family…is that supposed to be an excuse to not find all joy in Christ? Such relationships only have eternal value when associated to the command of loving God with all of your being, and outside of that association they only serve to condemn you.

I’m going to close here in a minute. But first, know that faith is not a worked disposition.

The true follower bears fruit. You will have works of faith, works which show God as glorious and not yourself, works which admit that God provided all the evidence for why you are obeying Him, and that you are not obeying as if what God promised is still uncertain, and therefore you are the one giving Him grace. Be assured, you are not. His faithfulness is the hardest fact this creation has ever encountered.

How hard is it for you to sit down? Should you receive an award for sitting down, expecting the chair to hold you up, as if it might not, and its faithfulness still unproven? How much less should you receive an award for doing what God commands, as if His covenant promises are potentially unreliable? Thus, you follow out of an overflow of joy, not being compelled by guilt because you actually hate those things. See this clearly. The true follower does not hate the things of God. He grows in love of them. If you find trouble with your flesh and that you do hate to obey. Pray to our Father in Heaven, Who sits on the throne of grace that as He has given you breath to breathe, that you might also be given understanding of His Good News, and that you would value and delight in Him more, so that you would love righteousness and hate unrighteousness.

My final word to you is to reflect on how you have lived toward God. And because you have never done what is commanded of you, and are without excuse, repent. Repent and live for God in thankfulness of what He’s done. You have no hope outside of Him, dead in your sins, and doubly dead in your self-righteous deeds. Repent and cling to Christ. He is your only hope. You cannot earn what is only His, but He can pluck you from the fire. Fearing the wrath to come upon you, Call upon Jesus’ name and believe and you will be saved, and then fear no more. Having heard this news of what Christ has done, shouldn’t you be joyful?

Jesus said that Kingdom of heaven advances because of violent people taking it by force. Like the man thrashing in the water as he drowns and will grab and hold with a death grip anything thrown to him so the Christian will believe in Christ’s rescue and will cling to Christ.

Therefore,

Rejoice and keep on rejoicing. Why wouldn’t you. Deny yourself. Take up your cross. Follow Him. For He took up His for the joy set before Him. Take up yours for the joy set before you, namely Jesus Christ the Lord.