Sinclair Ferguson

So let me share a book.

This is Sinclair Ferguson's book, maturity, growing up and going on in the Christian life.

Now we read this book, uh, I don't know how many years ago in tribe.

And I, I will, I will be honest when I started these types of things, the podcast, all the stuff I did not I wasn't aware of a lot of people.

I don't know.

That sounds very, very naive, but I was very ignorant to a lot of things.

And so if I were to come across a Sinclair Ferguson, the way he writes, I would have assumed, I would have assumed he lived, you know, John Knox era.

I would assume that he was a hundred, 200 years ago.

I'm going to turn out my Ligonier bookshelf here and remove...

So this is Union with Christ by Sinclair Ferguson.

So I will say, as a Ligonier kind of published one, there's loads of stuff by Sinclair, and I'd recommend basically everything that he's written, but...

he has imbibed a great deal of John Owen.

And letting them know that it's true in your own life, you know, so that they can see it.

If it's doctrinal commitment, you know, maybe it's you and you're with them a lot, you can introduce them to something like Sinclair Ferguson's The Christian Life, which is a basic, you know, Christian doctrine book.

But it is The Christian Life.

We are engaged on all these topics.

You don't have to come to them and say, hey, I think you'd benefit from reading the Institutes.

I mean, you might, but there's a whole host of books that are lower level, entry level books that you can just introduce them to.

I mean, i have people read note to self by joe thorne there are 50 short little devotional snippets that help us to apply the gospel in daily life there are tons of books like that and whether that's the christian life by sinclair ferguson dad packard's knowing god is not a hard read but it's a substantial book to help frame how we think about so introduce them to good books introduce them to to a good podcast and if you can't think of any um the gospel for life might substitute i mean but get them to to listen to have good inputs in their in their life get them plugged into a good church yes i mean yeah

When you talk about good friends, Christian friends or a good church, this is the aspect that I always understand that God has given gifts to his church.

Reformation Day episode, we praise God for the articulation of the Christian faith through the lens of these five solas.

And we recognize Sinclair Ferguson has been so helpful to articulate that the reformation uh if you're looking at it like a coin there's two sides of it there's the doctrine and then there's the practice specifically in the gathering together of the church because at the heart of the reformation was a reformation of corporate worship as much as it is about theology Both are in view.

And so another Latin phrase that comes to help articulate the Reformation is semper reformanda.

Semper reformanda.

It burns and burns, yet it is not fueled.

What does it mean? Sinclair Ferguson said, the fire that was in the bush did not depend on the bush for its energy to burn.

It was a most pure fire, a fire that was nothing but fire.

It burned, but never burned out, nor did it consume.

Now, that doesn't matter if you're convinced that the Lord's day ends at noon, because then, you know, you've got nothing.

But if you have—I mean, if you talk to Sinclair Ferguson, he'll always say, when people ask me, they say, "'Tell me about your church.

How many people come?' I say to them, "'I only want to know how many people come to the evening service.'" And of course, that shuts the conversation down real fast, and it makes us all feel bad if we don't have an evening service.

But, brother, context really matters—who you're dealing with, what the vibe is.