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Psalm 119 Not By Bread Alone – Blessed are Those…

The Lord's Day Evening January 6, 2013 “Not by Bread Alone Blessed are Those Who Walk in the Word” Psalm 119:1-8 The Reverend Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III If you do have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to Psalm 119 as we begin a new series together in this wonderful psalm. Last year, as we were finishing our way through the fifth book of the Psalter that takes us from Psalm 107 all the way to Psalm 150, we came to Psalm 119 and I preached two sermons, sort of, on Psalm 119. If you’ll remember, I read Psalm 119 and it took about twenty-five minutes to read out loud and then I gave a very brief, sort of five or six minute, highpoint exposition, and then I came back and we looked at some more of the themes in Psalm 119 the next week without reading it all the way through.…

Enduring Trials in Light of Jesus’ Return:…

The Lord's Day Morning October 28, 2012 “Enduring Trials in Light of Jesus’ Return: Pauline Prayer Request” 2 Thessalonians 3:1-5 The Reverend Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III A very appropriate hymn for this Lord's Day. Four hundred and ninety-five years ago on Wednesday, Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five points of debate on the church door of the castle church in Wittenberg, Germany, and sparked the Protestant Reformation. Five hundred million Christians in the world today trace their spiritual birth to the truths that were articulated by Luther and the other great magisterial reformers. We’re just five years away from the five hundredth anniversary of that event. Well, if you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to 2 Thessalonians chapter 3. We've gone to…

Enduring Trials in Light of Jesus’ Return: Early…

The Lord's Day Morning October 21, 2012 “Enduring Trials in Light of Jesus’ Return: Early Benediction” 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17 The Reverend Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, if you’ll look with me at the last two verses in that chapter. You will notice immediately it's just one sentence; these two verses comprise one sentence and that sentence is a benediction. Some scholars of early Christianity call these “wish prayers” because they have their roots in similar prayers of blessing or expression of wishes, desires to God for blessing in someone's life. That has its roots in the Judaism of the time. You would find pious Jewish people praying these “wish prayers” for one another. And…

While I am, I Praise

If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to Psalm 146, the first of the final hallelujahs of the Psalter. These psalms supply us with the substance of the praise that we will be giving to God forever. In that day, when we stand before Him for the first time to begin never-ending worship, none of us will say, “Lord, I wish the preacher had told me more about how to make money. Lord, I wish the preacher had told me more about how to be successful in this world.” But we’ll…

The Lord, My Only Hope for Strength, Love and…

If you have your Bibles with you, I'd invite you to turn with me to Psalm 144. This psalm draws on phrases and words and ideas found in a number of other psalms, at least four, but puts them together in a unique way. It's a royal psalm; a psalm of David. It's a psalm for he and his successor kings lifted up in petition to the Lord for the whole nation. And so it combines the kinds of content that you would expect in a psalm on the occasion of the coronation and installation of the…

Living in Light of Jesus’ Return: A Parting…

The Lord's Day Morning August 26, 2012 “Living Life in Light of Jesus’ Return: A Parting Request, Greeting, Charge, and Blessing” 1 Thessalonians 5:25-28 The Reverend Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. As we come to the end of this letter, we've studied it all along under the rubric of “Living Life in Light of the Return of Jesus” and now in the final few words the apostle Paul is going to give us…

Living in Light of Jesus’ Return: A Benediction…

The Lord's Day Morning August 19, 2012 “Living Life in Light of Jesus’ Return: A Benediction for Sanctification” 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 The Reverend Dr. J. Ligon Duncan If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. We’re going to be looking at verses 23 and 24 together. You may want to look back at verse 22 because it will help you understand what Paul is doing in this passage. If we were to devote ourselves to verse 23 alone, you would…

Blessing and Blessed

And so with that, let me get you to turn in your Bibles to Psalm 134. We've come all the way from Kedar and Meshech to MountZion. You know, we've been working our way from Psalm 120 here to Psalm 138 in the Psalms of Ascents and the pilgrims have made their way all the way to Jerusalem and we're now coming to the final of the Songs of Ascents. And you hear me say this psalm every Lord's Day evening that I'm in the pulpit leading the service in a slightly different form than…

The Joy of Unity

If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to turn with me to Psalm 133. Psalm 133 has been sung at Presbyterian General Assembly for probably close to five hundred years now and if you've ever been to a Presbyterian General Assembly you’ll know why it needs to be sung there because unity is not something that Presbyterians are known for at their General Assembly. It used to be said that if the Scots couldn't find somebody to fight they’d fight one another and that national…

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