EBG Preken

A Day in the Life
Sermon series on the book of Job. 1/6
Job 1-2

This book is a literary masterpiece in its own right. Perhaps the oldest book of the Bible Job covers themes of human suffering, the unfairness of life, the inadequacy of human understanding and the sovereignty of God in a manner that engages the reader to experience the sadness and despair of the main character.

Though written during the time of the patriarchs (Job lived to be many hundreds of years old), the issues this book grapples with are relevant to our Christian experience.
An honorable Man 1-5
We are introduced to a godly man. He’s from Uz - somewhere between modern Jordan and Iraq. He’s not from the Promised land. He’s not a jew. He worships God. He has been blessed beyond measure - an ancient sign of God’s approval. That God approves of Job is proven by verse 8: there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?
There was perhaps no better example of a God-fearing person than Job.

If there is one topic that will boil the blood of even the best Christian, it is unfairness or injustice. We want to believe in a world where things are equal and fair and when the truth of the situation is revealed it makes us ask the most difficult questions. And this is where Job takes us.
A horrible Loss 13-19
The story moves from earth to heaven and back twice in the first two chapters and this morning we are going to remain on earth. We will consider the scenes in heaven next week. Job’s experience did not include this peek into heaven’s events.
One fateful afternoon Job received four messengers. With each delivery more of Job’s wealth is destroyed. His farm implements - the oxen - and his source of milk - the donkeys - are killed by an invading force. His source of fabric - the sheep - are killed by fire from heaven. His transportation - the camels - were raided by a caravan. His kids were killed in a freak building collapse. In one fell swoop Job is left with four servants and a wife.

What would your response be? What if you lost your job, your car, your house, your savings and your kids on one afternoon? Job praised God. This isn’t a platitude… this is the expression of a faithful believer who won’t let go of God.
A hideous Sickness 2:7-8
Job is still reeling from his loss when he feels a lump on his forehead. Before long he is covered in loathsome sores. Chapter 7:5 give us a bit more detail about these sores. An itch. Infection. Infested with worms. This man is in agony.
“At least I have my health.” Not anymore. When his friends arrive at the end of the chapter he is unrecognizable to them and they mourn. Not only does he lose his health, he loses his dignity, lying naked in a heap of ashes, scraping his sores with a broken piece of pottery.

What would your response be? You discover that lump while taking a shower. You worry and fret until the doctor’s appointment comes. You pray and cry while you wait for the results from the biopsy. It’s cancer and it’s bad.
You fall. You break something. It doesn’t heal properly. Now you live every day with pain. How do you respond?
Job praises God.
A harsh response 2:9
It’s all too much for Job’s wife. Don’t be too harsh on her. She has lost her wealth and her security in a time when widows didn’t have much status. She lost ten children. Now she sees her husband become a pathetic, oozing heap of humanity. She says: “Just curse God and die.” Get it over with. Just be done with God.
Here is the response many of us struggle not to have in times like this. And here is the temptation for Job - he loses his spousal support.
His answer is loving… I don’t think it is scathing. “This isn’t you… you sound like one of the silly women.”
Job can still help and guide and correct his wife.

How do you respond when you spouse doesn’t give the support you hope for?


The unthinkable circumstances strengthened Job’s trust in God 1:21 and the medical crisis enlarged Job’s dependence on God. 2:10

In none of the things Job says about holding onto God did he sin. Job’s commitment was firm and he would not let anything steal God from him.

Preek van 15 januari

A Unique Prayerlife
Luke 11:1-13

“Talking with God.” “Spending time with the Father.” “Crawling into the lap of my dad.”
These are many ways that I have heard people talk about prayer. The immense personal nature of what we are permitted in prayer is actually surprising - yet we take it for granted. We are so far removed from the day in which Jesus lived.

We learn many things about Christ’s prayerlife in the gospels.

He prayer regularly Luke 5:16
He prayed with others Luke 9:28
He prayed alone Matthew 19:13
He prayed in seclusion Luke 6:12
He prayed all night Luke 6:12
He prayed with emotion Matthew 26:36-44
He prayed in submission Matthew 26:39

I found it telling that His disciples approach Him and ask Him to teach them to pray. We should have such an atiitude.
He prays out of Relationship
Jesus refers to God as “Father” some 60 times in the New Testament. And before Jesus did it, this never happened. This is unique to Christ.
The examples (parables?) He employs at the end of this section clearly prove that Jesus teaches us to relate to God the Father. Relationship. A friend. A father with His children.
He begins with Worship
Jesus’ focus is clearly on God’s person and plans. In teaching how to pray, Jesus clearly wants His disciples to ascribe glory and honor to the Father. This is in stark contrast to the Pharisees (Luke 15 and 20).
He ends with petition
Asking God for something isn’t wrong though and Jesus instructs us how to do it… though notice the order… First the Father’s wants… then my own.
Jesus gives us three important needs:
NourishmentThis one is physical. Please give me my daily physical needs.
ForgivenessThis one is spiritual. Please give me my spiritual need.
TemptationThis one is life. Help me to navigate the pitfalls of life.

What Jesus proves is that there is one place to go with our needs: the Father. And He teaches us ask.

Preek van 1 januari 2017

De opname van deze preek is door omstandigheden niet goed gelukt. Onze excuses voor de ruis.

A Unique Teenager
Luke 2:40-52

There is so much more that is unique about Christ than His birth. For this reason we will continue this series from time to time to consider unique themes from the life of Christ. Today and on the 15th we will look at two moments in the unique life of Christ.

Last week on Second Christmas Day we visited my parents in Veghel. As long as I can remember we have come together for Christmas dinner, though growing up we drove to Breda and had dinner around John and Anna Kay’s giant table. We carry on the tradition even after John and Anna Kay have retired. We enjoy a Turkey dinner with all the trimmings and then sing English hymns and eat pie afterwards.
This year we decided to drive to Valkenswaard after our dinner to sing hymns together with Madaline at the nursing home, Taxandria. It is about a thirty minute drive and of course Cole immediately pleaded with us if he could ride in oma and opa’s car.
We had about arrived at Taxandria when I realized that Cole was not in the car. I looked at Heather and said: “Is Cole in mom and dad’s car?” She nodded and then added: “Wouldn’t that have been bad? What would Cole have done?”
These are moments that make up parenting. You’re constantly aware of where your kids are and always worried about what they might be doing.
It happens to me as I sit in my office and suddenly realize I don’t hear the children. It prompts me to go an check to see what they are doing. Why? They’re too quiet. No good ever comes from Children being too quiet.

I find it fascinating that we read of such an “everyday” moment in the life of Christ. Luke 2 is the only account of the childhood of Christ. There is a chasm between His well-documented birth and the beginning of His ministry in His thirties. This account is included to prove to Theophilus that Christ was the Son of God and that even as a child there were clear indications of His uniqueness.
His human development
You’d likely read over this introductory verse as chronicling the life of Christ, but don’t miss its implications: Jesus grew healthy and strong. No more profound statement could be made of His humanity, but that He grew. He hit all the milestones: He learned to sleep through the night and crawl and eventually took His first step. He had his first haircut and learned to eat solid foods. He learned coordination and how to run and jump, He learned to dress himself and eat without making a mess. He learned how to read and like any good Jewish boy - He learned the Torah.

He grew strong too. How do kids become stronger? They fail - and learn from their mistakes. They fall - scrape up their leg and get up again. They explore their curiosity and learn about life. Life was hard in those days and the Rome was cruel. Do away with any notion of a sterile and perfect environment for Christ to grow up in. He was in every way tempted like us - according to Hebrews - so that He is a sympathetic High Priest - yet without sin.

At twelve years old He accompanies His parents to Jerusalem - just as He has every year. There is good evidence that this particular trip was special to Jesus, because He would undergo what Jews now call bar mitswah. At twelve years old a child because a son (or daughter) of the covenant, meaning that they were now personally responsible to know and keep the 613 laws and prohibitions in the Torah.
In frightening circumstances
What is fascinating to me is that the stage that Luke sets is a parents’ worst nightmare. You left your kid in a big city all by himself. You can imagine that Mary was about as worried as the mom in Home Alone. They had traveled a day’s journey before they realized Jesus was missing. You don’t travel by night, so they would have waited until morning to...

Preek door Willem Wouters.

Geen Engelse outline beschikbaar.

Be Thankful

“And what do you say?” It’s one of those things that parents do. I never quite thought about it until I was a parent myself. I was taught to be thankful by my mom and dad. And I am teaching my children to be thankful.
This week is a very American week for us. On Thursday we celebrated Thanksgiving - an American national holiday. We had the Turkey and everything. I then discovered that the Netherlands also celebrates a Thanksgiving Day (Dankdag) on the first Wednesday of November (except Zeeland, where it is the last Wednesday of November).
While it isn’t significant whether or not you did or did not celebrate these holidays, I decided that this morning I wanted to zero in on a virtue that is disappearing from our culture. And this was predicted in the last days.


In 2 Timothy, Paul is writing a personal letter to a man he has mentored. This man is believed to have become the pastor in Ephesus.
Paul tells us about the last days in chapter three… what can we expect people and culture to look like? I find it astounding that in this list of vices “unthankful” is listed.


Ingratitude is just as bad as all the rest. Inability to be thankful is central to the problem.


Paul follows that by laying out the more central ideology behind the ingratitude (and all of the other sins in the list). People pursue personal enjoyment, rather than enjoyment of God. This becomes the ultimate idolatry - trading the Creator for the created things (Romans 1).


This proves that ingratitude is a God issue. When we moved to the Netherlands, we packed all of our belongings in boxes. Some boxes had arrows on them, pointed to the UP-side. This was not obeyed on a few our the boxes. When the arrow isn’t obeyed, the inside became an absolute mess. When we are oriented incorrectly, our insides become a mess.
Thanksgiving is that proper orientation. Giving thanks to God for what He has done requires humility as we confess our dependence on His grace.


If we aren’t grateful we end up with a sort-of-looks-like-faith, but devoid of any power. We might look right on the outside, doing all the religious things, but we short-circuit the Power that faith gives.
Gratitude is a backwards look on life - thanking God for what He has done, what has transpired and how He has used it in our lives to mold and make us into the image of Christ. It allows us from that backward look to look forward with faith at what is to come and what we may trust God to provide.
When we forget - or simply don’t - give thanks, we lose our ground and motivation to trust and have faith in what is yet to come.
Paul get’s even more pointed when he instructs us to keep our distance from people that are like this.


Give thanks… because it is essential to your Christian experience. Stop and thank God for the innumerable blessings He has given and then have powerful faith in what tomorrow will bring.

Where are we going?
being a disciple - 6
John 14:1-7 & Hebrews 12:1-4

These past two weeks we have been clarifying discipleship: deny yourself, pick up your cross and follow. If you want to walk the road together after Him, these are the necessary aspects of that walk.
Last week we came to realize, however, that this walk is not a series of doors to walk through (and doors to avoid), but it is the walk that comes from walking through the one door. Jesus called it the narrow gate. Once you walk through, your life is characterized by a love for Jesus that supersedes all other loves. Being a disciple becomes our identity in Christ.

Of course this is a process - a way of life. The question that begs answering is: “Where are we going?”
Thomas asked this question point-blank when Jesus was talking about where He was going. He described in Jewish wedding-language the house of His Father. He was going to go there ahead of the disciples and prepare a room.
In Jewish tradition, once the bridegroom was betrothed to a young lady, he would leave her for a period in order to go and build on an extension - a room - to his father’s house. When it was finished the bridegroom would gather his friends and they would march to the bride’s home to fetch her. At a distance a horn would be blown, signaling to the bridal party the bridegroom’s arrival and she would go out with her maidens to meet the bridegroom, who would escort her back to his father’s house, where the wedding feast (seven days) would be celebrated.

Jesus says they understand this - you know the way. This prompts Thomas to disagree. We don’t know where you are going and we don’t know the way. Then Jesus directs their attention to Himself - I’m the way.

Have you ever considered the trust that children exert in their parents. You just get into the car and trust that they know where they are going. Really, that is how it works with Christ. He knows where He’s going and as long as we keep our eyes fixed on Him, we’ll be headed in the right direction.

Illustration of the rope (borrowed from Francis Chan): imagine this rope represents time. Your time. It began here at a point in time and now imagine with me that this rope continues on forever and ever around the corner over there. We have a beginning, but according the Scripture, our lives will be eternal. Now this little section here… this is your life spent on planet earth. And this little section tends to eat up all of our focus. And most of mankind in our society, tends to live life focused on this little red part… that’s once I hit retirement age. I save money all my life so that I can enjoy this little red part here. And yet there is so much life left after that little red part. There is so much life left that we don’t consider and yet this little section right here is where you lay aside treasures for this life that is yet to come. This life here is where we choose if we’re going to follow Christ today or not. We forget how much life is yet to come!

In Hebrews 12:1-14 the author zero’s in on discipleship, but uses an entirely different analogy: a marathon race. The witnesses of chapter 11 teach us that the race can be run and that you can do it. Our eyes need to be fixed on Christ - the author and finisher (He’s run out ahead and He’s running with us again), and the final question considers our commitment… you haven’t even struggled to the point of bleeding against sin.

The author’s challenge: RUN THE RACE!

Hate your mum?
being a disciple - 5

Last week we ended with three statements that clarify discipleship: deny yourself, pick up your cross and follow. If you want to walk the road together after Him, these are the necessary aspects of that walk.


In Luke we encounter another such challenge to His disciples, which contains similar elements of following and yet Christ introduces a black and white, no-nonsense, extreme perspective that doesn’t sit well with us.
If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. (Luk 14:26, ESV)


Wow. This is one of those “Did He just say that?” moments. What about honoring your parents? What about “husbands love your wives?” How does this fit with: “Fathers do not provoke your children to wrath?”


We need just a bit of perspective to correctly understand this. In Jewish culture of Jesus’ day parents and siblings played an integral role in the decisions you made. Especially life-altering decisions would be discussed with your parents and anything that could possibly bring shame upon the family name would need to involve your siblings.
Following Christ, abandoning the Jewish religious rule-based culture of the Pharisees, would have been such a life-altering decision.
He chooses language that is Biblical to make His point. In the same vein as Jacob loving Rachel and hating Leah and God loving Jacob and hating Esau, Christ asks His disciples for a radical commitment. Hate isn’t the point. Love is the point. Love that is so intentional and exclusive that in comparison you hate all others. Christ is asking for exclusivity.


And there you have it. Relationship defined. Christ declares that He does not want to have an on-again-off-again relationship. He doesn’t want the center seat on the sofa of your life, with your wife, kids, family, boss, entertainment, and you own self crowding around Him. He wants the throne and He wants to be the only sitting on that throne.
He doesn’t say “love me more than all these others.” He’s not even saying “love me most”, He’s saying: “love me”.


You want to follow me? Deny yourself, pick up your cross, love me exclusively, and follow.


Is Jesus one of many loves or is He the only one?


Now. This is where we can get it all wrong. Because it is all too easy for us to define our discipleship by what we do and don’t do. And passages like these make this easy. Look at how I deny myself (like when I say ‘no’ to ice cream), and look at how I pick up that cross (I did that hard thing at work last week), and I love-love Christ (except during that sale at C&A this week)... presto: I’m a disciple.
We view life as a series of doors and some we need to open and walk through and others we need to leave firmly shut. It becomes more of a maze and we are trying to follow Christ through all the doors. And that is not it!


Discipleship is NOT that. Discipleship isn’t determined by my do’s and dont’s. Discipleship goes to the core of who I am. Discipleship is an identity. And discipleship is one door. Once you walk through that door and you follow Christ, you will continually be loving Him above all, hating yourself through denying, picking up the cross that lies at your feet and you’ll follow.


This is about who you are, not what you do. Are you a fan of Jesus or a follower? Did you walk through the narrow gate? Did you start in faith? Paul explains it in Galatians… then you’ll finish in faith.


Life no longer is about you… Jesus leads.


I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal 2:20 ESV)


But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith-- that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. (Phi 3:7-12 ESV)

If anyone desires to come after me - 2
being a disciple - 4

“Who do people say that I am?”
“And what about you? Who do you say that I am?”


Two questions that framed the text we started with last week and will finish this morning. This question sparks Peter’s incredible confession and confirms in the hearts of the disciples that Christ is their expected Messiah and the Son of God. The verses that follow this confession reveal that you can know who Christ is and follow Him and yet have it completely wrong. Peter suddenly finds himself on the dark side and Christ confronts his worldly thinking.
We ended last week by asking the question: What if what Jesus wants for you isn’t what you had pictured? That’s a tough question, but it gets tougher as Jesus explains what “coming after me together on the road” will take.
deny yourself
Denying yourself? This conjures up the picture of the flagellating saint, the Churchgoer that has surrounded himself with a host of DO’s and DON’T’s that make up his Christian experience. I’m defined by what I don’t do. I don’t watch tv, I don’t wear skirts, I don’t swear, and the list goes on. I’m reminded of an old Baptist saying: “I don’t drink and I don’t chew and I don’t dates girls that do.”
But this misses the point of what Christ is saying. “Himself” is the direct object of this sentence. Christ doesn’t say “deny yourself something”. He says: “deny yourself”.
Peter helps us with this on the night of Christ’s arrest. When he is sitting in the courtyard and is questioned about his involvement with Christ, he denies that he knows Him. Same word.
Christ is saying that the old you no longer in charge. Isn’t this how Peter just got himself into trouble? He was thinking like the old Peter when he confronted Christ.
pick up your cross
Now when Jesus said this, the cross had no special meaning to the disciples. Christ had not yet been crucified. In those days an estimated 30,000 jews had been crucified. It was a Roman device meant to instill fear and submission. People were hung on display for up to week along the roads leading in and out of Jerusalem.
Jesus repurposes the image. Peter’s theology didn’t make room for a suffering Messiah and by citing the cross Christ dramatically introduces suffering into the plan of God. He makes it foundational to coming after Him.
Someone who has been made to pick up their cross, has accepted his fate. It begins the trek that will lead to his death.
Christ’s words carry the meaning that you let go of the plans that you might have and accept the plan that has been determined for you.
Follow me
This on is easy to understand. Hard to do, though, isn’t it. Christ is the replacement for the “self” you have denied and he is the example of picking up that cross. His words carry the same meaning as: “Let’s go.”
One author put it this way… we have the family standing in the terminal. Their son is leaving. He says goodbye, he grabs his bags, and he goes on his journey.
“You want to go this road together after me? Kiss yourself goodbye, carry this, and let’s go.”
If you could do it over
This verses that follow paint the picture that in the end, if you had it to do over again. You’d choose to do what Christ is saying. He introduces the paradox that clinging to your life now, means losing in the end. Losing your life now, means gaining everything in the end.


You want to be my disciple? Kiss yourself goodbye. Pick up that cross. Follow me.