Sinclair Ferguson

We are baptized into the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

And if that's happened to you, then you are visibly a member of this family of Here's how Sinclair Ferguson describes it.

And they said, Sinclair Buchanan Ferguson.

I don't have as good of an accent as Sinclair Ferguson, but you can just imagine that I'm saying it like him.

Okay.

Ever since that moment, he continues, at least in my consciousness, whenever I hear the word Sinclair Ferguson, inwardly I respond, that's me.

That's who I am.

That's my identity.

And they absolutely need the riches of Reformed theology in their lives, but they absolutely need it communicated in a way that they can digest and absorb and take with them into Monday morning.

So there is a role for the pastor-theologian, but by that I mean someone who's done some post-grad studies, perhaps he's got the Union ticket of a PhD, You know, in the higher levels, you've got, you know, Ligon Duncan is a classic pastor, theologian, did a great work at First Presbyterian Jackson, Sinclair Ferguson at Columbia, you know, Corey Brock across the road there.

You are, whether you like it or not, a pastor, theologian.

Tell me, does the academy have anything to say to the church and does the church have anything to say to the academy? Yeah.

But then I also want them to see that the way I speak to a colleague in the corridor and the way I chat to somebody after class is modeling a pastoral care that is deeply interested in someone's life.

Which is discipleship we were talking about earlier.

It's not just a transfer of information because you could just go onto YouTube and you could listen to Sinclair Ferguson, but that's not the same thing.

Absolutely, absolutely.

In April of last year, the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals held a meeting for evangelical leaders in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and out of that came the Cambridge Declaration.

One of the papers that was presented at this conference was by Sinclair Ferguson, a professor at Westminster Seminary who often worships with us when he's here in Philadelphia, and it was on repentance.

Ferguson discussed the errors of the Middle Ages against which Luther was reacting, and he argued that at least five features of that old medieval Christianity are noticeable today in contemporary evangelicalism.

Let me just review them.

The whole night was just fantastic.

filled with encouragement and it got started with Sinclair Ferguson talking about what the, what the scripture says in its totality about singing.

And he brought out some really important things in this hour, the first hour backstage at sing today, we're going to go to some of the, the, the tape from last night, but the way that he tracks, um, how God himself sings, how nature itself sings, and then we narrow the lens down to how we as humans are commanded to sing and how we do it and to what degree we give it our best as we are attempting that.

All very, very moving.

for a year.

So I would encourage you to do that as well if that is something that sounds of interest to you.

And I think that when you're talking about what the Sing conference is about, to sing, to sing to the Lord, to sing praise to God, which is in essence to do, as Sinclair Ferguson pointed out last night, it's in essence to do what nature's doing all the time around us.

In fact, he made a comment that I'm going to completely butcher, but the concept was this.

Some were friends from other churches, some were men who'd spent the last three years working on the construction, and some were friends who had helped pay for the whole thing.

One of Trinity's best friends is author and speaker Sinclair Ferguson, who moved to Aberdeen after his retirement so he could preach evening services for them.

It's a kind of perpetual pattern, the gates of hell seeking to prevail, Ferguson told the community, filling up the old wooden pews in the sanctuary and the balcony.

And the people of Jesus Christ remain steadfast, like a family.

And that now, because you belong to Jesus, because you've been justified, you've been declared righteous, God now forever looks at you, despite your sin, He looks at you and He treats you as if you lived the life that Jesus lived.

Sinclair Ferguson is absolutely right.

One person emailed me this great quote last week.

We are justified in His righteousness.