Mark Dever

A number of the devotions written up at VerticalDevotion.com have gotten me thinking about the life of Christ. Is Jesus Christ’s life a good example that we are should emulate?

I imagine that most Christians would agree that we should emulate His love and care for the poor, mistreated, overlooked, diseased, etc. But the story doesn’t stop there. Jesus isn’t just our example. he is our Savior and our Righteouness. That is the Good News of the Gospel!

I read notes on Mark Dever’s teaching on Luke 6 this week and he shared this great truth:

The most common misunderstanding of Christianity is that Jesus mainly is a good example for people to follow. While this is true in a secondary sense, it is not possible to understand Christianity if you do not understand that Jesus is mainly utterly unique. He is the Son of the eternal God who became man and lived the perfect life; He died on the cross, suffered and provided an atonement for our sins by taking upon Himself God’s wrath and the punishment for the sins of those who would trust in him and calls us now to respond to this claim; uniquely, he was raised from death, showing that his sacrifice was accepted and God’s wrath was exhausted. That is why this and every Sunday we gather to celebrate the resurrection – that Christ was raised from the dead. Christ alone is like that. That is why Christ alone is the Lord of religion.

Christian, the point of our religion and everything we do is Jesus. The goal of Christians is to know Him better, to have a more realistic and true relationship with Him. In the funeral sermon entitled “Christ is Best,” Richard Sibbes preached, “Heaven is not heaven without Christ… to be with Christ is to be at home.” This is our Sabbath rest, and Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath.

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I am not a pastor and I am not at Desiring God’s 2009 Pastors Conference, but that doesn’t mean I can’t follow along. After watching the Stars defeat the Flames last night, I listened to the first two messages by Mark Dever and Matt Chandler.

Having just finished Dever’s The Gospel and Personal Evangelism and now these messages. Wow. All I can say is that I am convicted. Convicted at how little I am doing to share the Gospel with those around me. I pray God’s Spirit will move me to be more bold in sharing the Good News.

Mark Dever on The Need for Evangelism

Look, can you think of any reason why we would want God’s judgment to seem less terrible to sinners? …do you want to make sinners…feel better about their rebellion?

Friends, I find words fail me in trying to describe how bad hell must be….

As preachers of the Gospel, we have no business trying to make God seem just or fare or more humane to unbelievers who are in rebellion against Him.

Jesus did not preach a “don’t worry” Christianity. He preached a be worried—you need a savior! When you are in God’s universe, the most important thing is to know how God feels about you.

The Puritan minister Daniel Burgess said, “My father in all his letters used to write to me, ‘O, child, better never born than not new born.’”

A nice summary of Mark’s 3 Reasons to Share the Gospel