Sunday's Hymn

All My Hope on God Is Founded

All my hope on God is founded;
He doth still my trust renew,
Me through change and chance He guideth,
Only good and only true.
God unknown, He alone
Calls my heart to be His own.

Pride of man and earthly glory,
Sword and crown betray His trust;
What with care and toil He buildeth,
Tower and temple fall to dust.
But God’s power, hour by hour,
Is my temple and my tower.

God’s great goodness aye endureth,
Deep His wisdom, passing thought:
Splendor, light and life attend him,
Beauty springeth out of naught.
Evermore from His store
Newborn worlds rise and adore.

Daily doth th’almighty Giver
Bounteous gifts on us bestow;
His desire our soul delighteth,
Pleasure leads us where we go.
Love doth stand at His hand;
Joy doth wait on His command.

Still from man to God eternal
Sacrifice of praise be done,
High above all praises praising
For the gift of Christ, His Son.
Christ doth call one and all:
Ye who follow shall not fall.

—Joachim Neander

Other hymns, worship songs, sermons etc. posted today:

• O God of Mercy! Hearken Now at The Happy Wonderer
• Lord’s Day 3, 2010 at The Thirsty Theologian
• The King of Love My Shepherd Is at Whatever Is Good
• Not All the Blood of Beasts at Hiraeth
• Heart Aflame - January 17th at The Upward Call
• Man of Sorrows at Field Stone Cottage
• I Saw a New Vision of Jesus at Whatever Things
• Glory to Thee O Christ at Conjubilant with Song
• Jesus Shall Reign at Count it all Joy

Have you posted a hymn (or sermon, sermon notes, prayer, etc.) today and I missed it? Let me know by leaving a link in the comments or by emailing me at the address in the sidebar and I’ll add your post to the list.

My Desktop Photo 87

Photo by Andrew Stark
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Justification's Implications for Sanctification

Quoting D. A. Carson from his Crossway sponsored lecture on evangelicalism at the 2009 meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society:

Justification has huge implications for how you live. What is the opposite of justification? Non-justification? Pastorally, the opposite of justification is self-justification. Over against being justified by someone outside ourselves—being justified by God, through what he has done in Christ—we justify ourselves.

So the man, for example, who approaches Jesus: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”, whence Jesus gives him the first round of responses, he asks another question. Luke’s comment is, “He, wanting to justify himself, said….” And then a few chapters farther on, further people approach Jesus “wanting to justify themselves.” Or the parable of the Pharisee and the publican going up to the temple together, the Pharisee saying, “I thank you God that I am not as other men are, including this wretched publican over here.” What is that but self-justification?

So now you have come out of a rotten background where you never could gain enough of your parent’s approval. They were just so harsh and miserable all of the time. And you’ve become a Christian, and you know that you’re justified before God. What is it in you, then, that is constantly trying to show yourself good enough to be accepted by others, to be loved by church people, to be accepted by your siblings? Isn’t that a form of self-justification that is denying the justification that you have experienced in the onset of the gospel?

There is so much of Christian discipleship and growth that is bound up with the cross-work in justification. What sins do we commit where we are not tripping over self-justification? Self-justification in our publications, in our schools, in how our spouses think of us, in how we think about ourselves? Self-justification, even though at some level we know we’ve been justified by another?

If the gospel is rightly understood, if the gospel is rightly conceived, the glory of being justified by God himself through what he has provided in his Son by grace alone through faith alone begins to transform all of our relationships. In one sense, sanctification, understood in the Reformed sense (not always in the Pauline sense), is nothing other than the progressive application of justification.