Don Carson, during his final session at The Gospel Coalition’s 2012 Ontario Regional Conference, offered an exhortation to the attendees as he concluded the conference’s message preaching fromPhilippians 4:4-20. In this message, he offered six resolutions for living in light of the gospel–for working out our own salvation with fear and trembling, even as it is God at work within us. His six resolutions follow, along with my paraphrased notes of Dr. Carson’s commentary:
1. Resolve to rejoice always in the Lord (Phil 4:4)
Surely we should want to do this–we are given redemption; the promise of the holy spirit, the hope of future glory… That we should even need to be told to rejoice in light of all that God has done is indicative of our sorry state. The text insists that we rejoice in the Lord. Tim Keller likes to say, “For the Christian, optimism is naive, but pessimism is atheistic.” This is because we see things through different lenses. We rejoice in the Lord. And for how long? Always. One who rejoices in the Lord consistently cannot be haughty, a back biter, a gossip, unprayerful, a complainer, a whiner… because rejoicing in the Lord is a salve against such things. Read more…
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