For Resurrection Sunday

Q.  What does the resurrection of Christ profit us?

A.   First, by His resurrection He has overcome death, that He might make us partakers of the righteousness which He has obtained for us by His death; second, we also are raised up by His power to a new life; and, third, the resurrection of Christ is to us a sure pledge of our blessed resurrection.    -- The Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day Seventeen, 1563

For The Lord's Day - Palm Sunday

“Secular wisdom may lead us to the truth about the revolution of the planets, but it cannot explain the nature of God, man, sin and redemption. It cannot lead us to the truth of how we are saved from God’s wrath, for it refuses to believe that divine wrath is a reality. ‘The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing’ (Romans 1:18a), said the apostle Paul, because it does not fit the questions – much less the answers – of secular wisdom… the message of the cross assumes the terror of the law, divine wrath toward sinners (and not just their sins), and the need for a substitutionary sacrifice to assuage divine justice. It assumes the greatest problem facing humanity is original and actual sin – personal rebellion against a holy God – not stress, low self-esteem, and a failure to realize one’s potential.” - Michael Horton in Sola Scriptura

For The Lord's Day

“The way to heaven is ascending; we must be content to travel uphill, though it be hard and tiresome, and contrary to the natural bias of our flesh. We should follow Christ; the path he traveled was the right way to heaven. We should take up our cross and follow him, in meekness and lowliness of heart, obedience and charity [love], diligence to do good, and patience under afflictions.” -- from The Christian Pilgrim, Jonathan Edwards

For The Lord's Day

"There is only one sense in which it may be said that Jesus “died to sin” and that is he bore its penalty, since “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Having paid sin’s wage (or borne its penalty) by dying, he has risen to a new life. So have we, by union with him. We too have died to sin, not in the sense that we have personally paid its penalty (Christ has done that in our place, instead of us), but in the sense that we have shared in the benefit of his death. Since the penalty of sin has been borne, and its debt paid, we are free from the awful burden of guilt and condemnation. And we have risen with Christ to a new life, with the sin question finished behind us.” John Stott, The Cross of Christ, p. 270

For The Lord's Day

“Our substitute, then, who took our place and dies our death on the cross, was neither Christ alone (since that would make him a third party thrust in between God and us), nor God alone (since that would undermine the historical incarnation) but God in Christ, who was truly and fully both God and man and who on that account was uniquely qualified to represent both God and man and to mediate between them. If we speak only of Christ suffering and dying, we overlook the initiative of the Father. If we speak only of God suffering and dying, we overlook the mediation of the Son.”

~ John Stott, The Cross of Christ, p. 156.

For The Lord's Day - Second Sunday in Lent

“Nothing makes God more supreme and more central in worship than when people are utterly persuaded that nothing – not money or prestige or leisure or family or job or health or sports or toys or friends – nothing is going to bring satisfaction to their sinful, guilty, aching hearts besides God. This conviction breeds a people who go hard after God on Sunday morning. They are not confused about why they are in a worship service. They do not view songs and prayers and sermons as mere traditions or mere duties. They see them as means of getting to God or God getting to them for more of his fullness – no matter how painful that may be for sinners in the short run.” ~ John Piper in God’s Passion for His Glory

For The Lord's Day

What happened at the cross?

“At the cross in holy love God through Christ paid the full penalty of our disobedience himself. He bore the judgment we deserve in order to bring us forgiveness we do not deserve. On the cross divine mercy and justice were equally expressed and eternally reconciled. God’s holy love was ‘satisfied.’” John Stott in The Cross of Christ, p. 91