“Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; worship the LORD in the splendor of holiness.”
Psalm 29:2
“Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; worship the LORD in the splendor of holiness.”
Psalm 29:2
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We love the place, O God,
Wherein Thine honor dwells;
The joy of Thine abode
All earthly joy excels.
We love the place, O God,
Wherein Thine honor dwells;
The joy of Thine abode
All earthly joy excels.
It is the house of prayer
Wherein Thy servants meet;
And Thou, O Lord, art there
Thy chosen flock to greet.
We love the sacred font;
For there the holy Dove
To pour is ever wont
His blessings from above.
We love Thine altar, Lord;
Oh, what on earth so dear?
For there in faith adored
We find Thy presence near.
We love the Word of Life,
The Word that tells of peace,
Of comfort in the strife,
And joys that never cease.
We love to sing below
For mercies freely giv’n;
But, oh, we long to know
The triumph song of heav’n.
Lord Jesus, give us grace
On earth to love Thee more,
In heav’n to see Thy face
And with Thy saints adore.
The lyrics for this hymn are in the public domain and may be shared or reproduced without obtaining permission.
Sighing on Sunday: 40 Meditations for When Church Hurts explores the difficult—but unfortunately not uncommon—circumstances of pain experienced by people from others within the church.
Sighing on Sunday: 40 Meditations for When Church Hurts explores the difficult—but unfortunately not uncommon—circumstances of pain experienced by people from others within the church.
Author Megan Hill is a pastor’s daughter and a pastor’s wife who draws from her own experience of seeing people wounded within the church community to compassionately address feelings of neglect, rejection, betrayal, and even abuse. In this collection of forty Scripture-based meditations, she offers empathy and biblical insights into how to heal from these difficult circumstances.
The book offers encouragement by pointing to faithful biblical figures, including the apostle Paul, who experienced criticism, neglect, and abandonment from those within the church. Yet in all of these struggles, Paul still acted in love.
This book is candid, relatable, and saturated with the Gospel. It was written to address difficulties among believers, including strained relationships, unmet expectations, leadership failures, division, and personal feelings of isolation. Sighing on Sunday also offers words of warning against Satan’s tactics that draw those who are hurting into deeper misery and redirects them to the steadfast love of Christ, who remains the head of His church despite its imperfections.
If you’ve experienced these challenges or know someone who has, request Sighing on Sunday.
In the final sentence of His prayer in John 17, Jesus declares that He made known God’s name to His disciples and “will continue to make it known.” Then He explains why: “that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” In his final sermon in the series The High Priestly Prayer, Alistair Begg considers where this love comes from and how it is expressed:
In the final sentence of His prayer in John 17, Jesus declares that He made known God’s name to His disciples and “will continue to make it known.” Then He explains why: “that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” In his final sermon in the series The High Priestly Prayer, Alistair Begg considers where this love comes from and how it is expressed:
Remember, in John 13, John tells us that Jesus, “having loved his own who were [with him] in the world, he loved them to the end.”1 Here he is, loving them all the way to the end. And the love to which he refers here in the twenty-sixth verse is not our love to God. Notice: It is God’s love to us. “That the love with which you have loved me,” he says to the Father, might “be in them, and I in them.” That is dramatic, and it’s vitally important. I’m glad it doesn’t say that “their love for you” might be the key. Because if we’re honest, our love towards God and towards one another, actually, ebbs and flows on all kinds of bases. That is not the ground of our security. That is not the basis of our understanding of things. If that was the case, we could never have sung, “I Am His, and He Is Mine”: “Loved with everlasting love.”2
What love? The love that the Father had for the Son has been manifested in Jesus so that we might know that love—that God is love and that the greatest assurance of his love has been in sending Jesus. That’s why we read, again, Psalm 118. “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.”3 God’s love is such that he doesn’t give up on us. Why has he kept us? Because he loves us! Why is he sanctifying us? Because he loves us! Why does he want us to be united? Because he loves us! Why would he want us to share his glory? Because he loves us! It’s so obvious. His love is unchangeable. His love is irreversible. “How deep the Father’s love for us”!4
John 13:1 (ESV). ↩︎
George Wade Robinson, “I Am His, and He Is Mine” (1876). ↩︎
Lamentations 3:22 (ESV). ↩︎
Stuart Townend, “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us” (1995). ↩︎
On Sunday, March 2, 2025, musicians who are members of Parkside Church were joined by members of the Cleveland Orchestra and the Cleveland Institute of Music for a special evening of classical music and a survey of God’s redemptive plan. Beginning with the opening pages of Scripture and concluding with Revelation and the believer’s new home, the concert From the Garden to Glory featured curated musical selections paired with the biblical text to help us reflect on the Bible’s overarching message: the hope found in Jesus alone. As you can see in the video below, each musical theme was accompanied by brief commentary from Alistair Begg.
On Sunday, March 2, 2025, musicians who are members of Parkside Church were joined by members of the Cleveland Orchestra and the Cleveland Institute of Music for a special evening of classical music and a survey of God’s redemptive plan. Beginning with the opening pages of Scripture and concluding with Revelation and the believer’s new home, the concert From the Garden to Glory featured curated musical selections paired with the biblical text to help us reflect on the Bible’s overarching message: the hope found in Jesus alone. As you can see in the video below, each musical theme was accompanied by brief commentary from Alistair Begg.
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. … And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. … Then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” (Gen. 1:1, 31; 2:7)
Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007: I. Prélude
Johann Sebastian Bach
“Just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned…” (Rom. 5:12)
String Quartet No. 8 in C Minor, Op. 110: II. Allegro molto
Dmitri Shostakovich
“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” (Gen. 3:15)
“Gabriel’s Oboe”
Ennio Morricone
“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isa. 9:6)
Opus 31, No. 23, “Mouvement de Prière Religieuse”
Fernando Sor
“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.” (1 Peter 3:18)
Adagio for Strings, Op. 11
Samuel Barber
“If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.” (1 Cor. 15:13–14)
Concerto No. 1 in E major, Op. 8, RV 269, “Spring” (La primavera): I. Allegro
Antonio Vivaldi
“The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.” (Rev. 11:15)
String Octet in E-flat Major, Op. 20, MWV R 20: IV. Presto
Felix Mendelssohn
“After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’” (Rev. 7:9–10)
“Morgen!” ("Tomorrow!"), Op. 27, No. 4
Richard Strauss
Glorious things of thee are spoken,
Zion, city of our God;
He whose Word cannot be broken
Formed thee for His own abode.
On the Rock of Ages founded,
What can shake thy sure repose?
With salvation’s walls surrounded,
Thou may’st smile at all thy foes.
Glorious things of thee are spoken,
Zion, city of our God;
He whose Word cannot be broken
Formed thee for His own abode.
On the Rock of Ages founded,
What can shake thy sure repose?
With salvation’s walls surrounded,
Thou may’st smile at all thy foes.
See, the streams of living waters,
Springing from eternal love,
Well supply thy sons and daughters
And all fear of want remove.
Who can faint while such a river
Ever flows their thirst t’assuage?
Grace, which like the Lord, the giver,
Never fails from age to age.
’Round each habitation hov’ring,
See the cloud and fire appear
For a glory and a cov’ring,
Showing that the Lord is near.
Thus deriving from their banner
Light by night and shade by day,
Safe they feed upon the manna
Which He gives them when they pray.
Blest inhabitants of Zion,
Washed in the Redeemer’s blood!
Jesus, whom their souls rely on,
Makes them kings and priests to God.
’Tis His love His people raises
Over self to reign as kings,
And as priests, His solemn praises
Each for a thank offering brings.
Savior, if of Zion’s city
I, through grace, a member am,
Let the world deride or pity;
I will glory in Thy name.
Fading is the worldling’s pleasure,
All his boasted pomp and show;
Solid joys and lasting treasure
None but Zion’s children know.
The lyrics for this hymn are in the public domain and may be shared or reproduced without obtaining permission.
“Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets” (Heb. 1:1). But, the book of Hebrews tells us, the situation has changed. God’s Word has come to us in its fullness not as a series of propositions or promises but as a person: “In these last days he has spoken to us by his Son” (v. 2). In Jesus Christ, presented to us infallibly in the Scriptures, God essentially says about Himself and His eternal plan, “Here is My final word. There is nothing better to say.”
“Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets” (Heb. 1:1). But, the book of Hebrews tells us, the situation has changed. God’s Word has come to us in its fullness not as a series of propositions or promises but as a person: “In these last days he has spoken to us by his Son” (v. 2). In Jesus Christ, presented to us infallibly in the Scriptures, God essentially says about Himself and His eternal plan, “Here is My final word. There is nothing better to say.”
That is why Hebrews 2:1 tells us, “We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.” What is it that “we have heard”? It is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which the author of Hebrews has summarized for us in the opening of his letter. Hebrews 1:2–3 gives us five details about the Son that demand our attention, consideration, and meditation.
In these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things. (Heb. 1:2)
From all eternity, the Son has had the promise of an inheritance. It is evident from the beginning of His life on earth. The angel told Mary about Jesus, “The Lord God will give to him”—that is, as His inheritance—“the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:32–33).
At the end His ministry, in John 16:15, Jesus affirmed the scope of this inheritance: “All that the Father has is mine”—in other words, everything! As the hymn says,
He owns the cattle on a thousand hills,
The wealth in ev’ry mine;
He owns the rivers and the rocks and rills,
The sun and stars that shine.1
And this same heir of all things, the hymn writer reminds us, cares for us. To know Jesus Christ is to share in the promises and blessings of this inheritance (Rom. 8:17).
In these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, … through whom also he created the world. (Heb. 1:2)
Paul says of the Son that “all things were created through him and for him” (Col. 1:16). And John affirms that “all things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:3). So not only is everything to be placed in the Son’s hand, but actually, He was involved in it all in the first place. Everything that is and was and will be has come through Him and is destined for Him.
There is no truth that does not have its origin in the Son. No scientist, no historian, no poet has ever said or done anything outside the bounds that the Lord Jesus set for them before time began. He is the starting point of the world and all we can know about it.
He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. (Heb. 1:3)
God’s “glory” is the visible expression of His presence. Moses asked to see God’s glory on the mountain (Ex. 33:18). This is the same glory that the apostles saw in the face of Jesus Christ: “We have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
When we see what the Son is like, we see exactly what God is like. That’s why when Philip repeated Moses’s request—“Lord, show us the Father”—Jesus answered, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:8–9). The true and the full character of God is made open and clear to us in the person of Jesus.
He upholds the universe by the word of his power. (Heb. 1:3)
The Son, in His role as Creator, was not a watchmaker who wound the earth up and let it go. No, the same powerful word that created something out of nothing actually keeps the creation going. “In him,” Paul says of the Lord Jesus, “all things hold together” (Col. 1:17).
Jesus’ miracles reveal this cosmic reality as through Him, the power of God breaks into the course of normal events. It took only a word for Jesus to calm the storm on the Sea of Galilee, just as it had taken only a word to create the Sea of Galilee. In awe, the disciples asked, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” (Mark 4:41). He is the very one who “upholds the universe by the word of his power.”
After making purification for sins he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. (Heb. 1:3)
Because He upholds the universe, it is also in the scope of Jesus’ power to uphold His creation—the pinnacle of which is humanity, made in the very image of God. Most remarkably, He this did by “making purification” on the cross. At a moment in time, the creator of time “bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness” (1 Peter 2:24).
Jesus’ humanity was a necessity, but His divine identity made this purification possible and totally effective. A priest of the old covenant “stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins” (Heb. 10:11). But Jesus “has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Heb. 9:26)—an incomparable sacrifice.
Furthermore, unlike the priests of the old covenant, Jesus “is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them” (Heb. 7:25). There will never be a day when He ceases to intervene on our behalf, putting His righteousness before the Father and attributing it to all who believe in Him as Lord and Savior. There will never be a day when we cannot draw near to God in full assurance of faith (Heb. 10:22).
In a pluralistic, syncretistic world, we may be tempted to say, “Whatever works for you!” But the Scriptures have not left that path open to us. God’s final Word has come to us in the person of His Son.
“Therefore,” the writer to the Hebrews reminds us, “we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard” about this Jesus. When we feel ourselves beginning to drift away, we must lift our eyes again to God’s glory revealed in God’s Son, who will inherit all things, who made us, who sustains us, who saved us, and who keeps us.
This article was adapted from the sermon “Heed These Warnings” by Alistair Begg.
John Willard Peterson, “He Owns the Cattle on a Thousand Hills” (1948). ↩︎
“The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man.”
Acts 17:24
“The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man.”
Acts 17:24
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When Jesus prayed in His High Priestly Prayer, “I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known,” He was referencing something absolutely foundational: that God jealously guards His name and expects those who are His friends to do the same. In his sermon “What’s in a Name? — Part One,” Alistair helps us to understand why God places such importance on reverence for His name:
When Jesus prayed in His High Priestly Prayer, “I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known,” He was referencing something absolutely foundational: that God jealously guards His name and expects those who are His friends to do the same. In his sermon “What’s in a Name? — Part One,” Alistair helps us to understand why God places such importance on reverence for His name:
Saying the Lord’s prayer, the first petition takes us exactly there: “Our Father [who] art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.”1 Now, why is this so important? Because God’s name is more than just a title. God’s name declares His character. God’s name proclaims who God is and what God does.
In fact, realistically, the name of God actually stands for God Himself. We live in a culture where the name of God is routinely profaned—profaned by all ages. Listen to children. Profaned in all places! But we ought not to regard this as new, because when you read your Bible, you discover that God’s concern for His name extends all the way from the creation of the world. For example, here’s the Seventy-Fourth Psalm: “Remember this, O Lord, how the enemy scoffs, and a foolish people reviles your name.”2 It’s one of the distinguishing features of what it means to know God, to love God, to serve God.
What’s in a name? The name actually matters. That’s why it’s quite wonderful when we have the privilege of taking the Psalms and making them our own in praise and in prayer. We find ourselves, as those who love God, saying, “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”3 With the psalmist: “Those who love your name … exult in you.”4 With the psalmist, as read this morning and carved in granite at the entryway to our building: “You have exalted above all things your name and your word.”5
Now, those of you who’ve been reading in Exodus with M’Cheyne will have had occasion, again, in Exodus chapter 3, to be struck forcibly by the amazing encounter at the burning bush between Moses and God. Because it is there, by means of His name, that God declares Himself to be self-existing, to be self-determining, and to be sovereign—self-existing, self-determining, and sovereign. Wow! Thomas Manton, from an earlier century, remarks, “He were not God if he were not incomprehensible.”6 We cannot subject faith to our reason. Faith is the ongoing discovery of the wonders of these things. Moses encounters this, and there it is before him: “Who will I say?” “Who will I say?” He says, “Well, you just tell him that I Am has sent you.”7 “I Am has sent you.” In other words, “Just tell him who I am.”
Matthew 6:9 (KJV). ↩︎
Psalm 74:18 (ESV). ↩︎
Psalm 8:9 (ESV). ↩︎
Psalm 5:11 (ESV). ↩︎
Psalm 138:2 (ESV). ↩︎
Sermons upon the Seventeenth Chapter of St John, in The Complete Works of Thomas Manton (London: James Nisbet, 1873), 11:133. ↩︎
Exodus 3:13–14 (paraphrased). ↩︎
“Dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh” (Col. 2:13) is not the most pleasant way to describe someone’s past. This, however, is precisely the diagnosis that Paul gave the believers in Colossae. The Colossians had been sinners against God, deserving His just punishment; and they—like the Ephesians—had been “strangers to the covenants of promise” (Eph. 2:12) in which the Jewish people found hope. In other words, the Colossians needed forgiveness but had no obvious expectation of receiving it. They were as good as dead and in need of a radical intervention.
“Dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh” (Col. 2:13) is not the most pleasant way to describe someone’s past. This, however, is precisely the diagnosis that Paul gave the believers in Colossae. The Colossians had been sinners against God, deserving His just punishment; and they—like the Ephesians—had been “strangers to the covenants of promise” (Eph. 2:12) in which the Jewish people found hope. In other words, the Colossians needed forgiveness but had no obvious expectation of receiving it. They were as good as dead and in need of a radical intervention.
And yet “you,” Paul adds, “God made alive” (Col. 2:13). The intervention came—not from human beings but from God Himself, who stepped in to correct the problem. The Colossians were not saved by finding religion. They weren’t saved by a new philosophy. They were not saved even by good works. God saved them, forgiving their sins and bringing them to life spiritually.
How did God do this? As Paul goes on, he explains what God has done in three pictures.
Paul begins with the picture of a slate wiped clean, a canceled record of debt—in the words of the King James Bible, “blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us”:
You, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. (Col. 2:13–14)
In Paul’s day, people wrote on papyrus or vellum, and the ink they used was not permanent. It could be wiped away. It was possible to take a sponge and wipe a record clean.
God has a law that is expressed in His Word and reflected on the human conscience—even on the consciences of those who never heard the law (Rom. 2:14–16). Every human, except for Christ, has disobeyed the law and accrued a vast debt of guilt. A day is coming when God will settle the accounts.
But, Paul says to the Colossians, our debt of sin is like an IOU that God takes and tears up. Christ has paid the debt, settled the account, and disposed of the record. And this is what happens for all who believe in Christ and put themselves in His hands. We have no power to clear the debt ourselves, but He will do it for those who come to Him in faith.
Paul’s second picture recalls the notice that was nailed to the cross when Jesus died, declaring that the reason for His execution was that He was “The King of the Jews”: “This he set aside, nailing it to the cross” (Col. 2:14). In God’s providence, that placard proclaimed that He was dying in the place of the people and for them—and not for Jewish sinners only but for all sinners (Eph. 2:14–16).
As Paul says elsewhere, “For our sake God made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). The believer’s debt is eradicated because on the cross, Jesus Christ paid the debt. He suffered the punishment for our sins, and He allowed us to have all the credit of His own righteousness.
The hymn writer put this eloquently in “It Is Well with My Soul”:
My sin—oh the bliss of this glorious thought!—
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more.1
The cross, far from being a place of despair and defeat, has become a place of joy and triumph for those who believe. It is there that Jesus took sin on His own shoulders and made it possible for us to receive life and forgiveness through faith.
Finally, Paul offers the picture of victory: “He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him” (Col. 2:15).
Jesus triumphed in the cross. He dealt with the forces of evil arrayed against Him and against God’s people. Satan is an accuser who wants men and women to die in their sins. At the cross, however, he has been struck down. He is not yet annihilated, but he is certainly and irrevocably defeated and humiliated.
A Roman triumph was a parade in honor of a victorious general. The general would lead a procession displaying the trophies of his victory, not least of all his vanquished foes, stripped and chained. The people would look on and say, “There’s nothing to fear from those soldiers anymore—not after what our general has done to them.”
That is the picture Paul employs. Christ has won the victory; the forces of evil have been, are being, and will be put to shame. Therefore, the Christian can say,
When Satan tempts me to despair
And tells me of the guilt within,
Upward I look and see Him there
Who made an end of all my sin.2
When we place our faith in Christ, the devil may still lash out at the conscience and accuse us, making us doubt our standing with God. We can say, “My Lord Jesus has wiped the record clean. You cannot accuse me. Christ has paid my debt, He has born my sin, and He has defeated you.” Because for the believer, sins are forgiven, the slate is wiped clean, that old stack of debt has been nailed to the cross, and the enemy has been disarmed.
This is good news! And it is good news for those who will come to Christ in faith, rejecting sin and putting their destiny in His hands. Anyone—male or female, young or old, Jew or gentile—may come to Him and say, “Dear God, thank You for sending Your Son to do for me what I could never do for myself. I admit that I am sinful. I believe that Jesus died in my place. I come with empty hands and a needy heart, and I ask You to transform my life and make me the person You intend for me to be.”
This article was adapted from the sermon “Triumphant Forgiveness” by Alistair Begg.
Horatio Gates Spafford, “It Is Well with My Soul” (1873). ↩︎
Charitie Lees Bancroft, “Before the Throne of God Above” (1863). ↩︎
