Quotes by Sinclair Ferguson
Sinclair Ferguson (b. 1948) — Theologe, Professor für Systematische Theologie, Prediger und Buchautor · Reformiert / Presbyterianisch · Schottland / Vereinigtes Königreich
Sinclair Ferguson (* 1948) ist ein schottischer Theologe und presbyterianischer Pastor, der als Professor für Systematische Theologie und Gemeindepfarrer in Schottland und den USA wirkte. Er steht für eine klassisch calvinistische Theologie im Rahmen der Westminster-Bekenntnisse mit einem Schwerpunkt auf dem Verhältnis von biblischem Gesetz, Gnade und dem Heiligen Geist. Bibellesern vermitteln seine Auslegungen eine Verbindung aus reformierter Dogmatik und praxisbezogener seelsorgerlicher Anwendung.
Era: Today
Recurring topics: God, Jesus & the Holy Spirit, Growth & Character, Discipleship, Guidance & God's Will, Faith & Trust, Grace & Redemption, Prayer & Silence, The Bible & the Word of God
Quotes by Sinclair Ferguson
Any way of salvation that depends on something that we must contribute…can never bring assurance to us, for we can never be sure we have done enough to help.
Sinclair Ferguson
The foundation of our love for the Lord lies in the recognition of His holiness, our sinfulness, and His grace…those who are forgiven much, love much.
Sinclair Ferguson
God’s holy wrath is poured out on what He hates because it damages and destroys what He loves.
Sinclair Ferguson
How do we bring glory to God? The Bible’s short answer is: by growing more and more like Jesus Christ.
Sinclair Ferguson
There is nothing more important to learn about Christian growth than this: Growing in grace means becoming like Christ.
Sinclair Ferguson
We miss the radical nature of Paul’s teaching here to our great loss. So startling is it that we need to find a startling manner of expressing it. For what Paul is saying is that sanctification means this: in relationship both to sin and to God, the determining factor of my existence is no longer my past. It is Christ’s past.
Sinclair Ferguson
When we impose man-made regulations upon ourselves (or others) and lose sight of our liberty to do or not do those things which Scripture neither commands nor forbids, we destroy the fruit of the Spirit and we cease to grow (or to allow others to grow).
Sinclair Ferguson
We must not think that obedience leads to an easier life, nor should we assume that when things fall apart it is always a sign of our specific disobedience – God’s ways with us in the Christian life are usually much more intricate and complex than that!
Sinclair Ferguson
Do I learn through dark providences, or simply seem relieved when they are over?
Sinclair Ferguson
God’s love is the most awesome thing about Him. It is not His justice, nor His majesty, nor even His blazing holiness, but the fact that He has made and keeps a covenant of personal commitment and love to His people.
Sinclair Ferguson
There is a difference between going to a service “for the worship” and going to a service “to worship the Lord.” The distinction appears to be a minor one, but it may imply the difference between the worship of God and the worship of music!
Sinclair Ferguson
The fear of the Lord tends to take away all other fears… This is the secret of Christian courage and boldness.
Sinclair Ferguson
When you look at the Cross, what do you see? You see God’s awesome faithfulness. Nothing – not even the instinct to spare His own Son – will turn Him back from keeping His word.
Sinclair Ferguson
It is God who gives us the spirit of worship (Psalm 133:3), and it is what we know of God that produces this spirit of worship. We might say that worship is simply theology, doctrine, what we think about God, going into top gear! Instead of merely thinking about Him, we tell Him, in prayer and praise and song, how great and glorious we believe Him to be!
Sinclair Ferguson
[Pastors], you are the ones most under your ministry.
Sinclair Ferguson
The providence of God is the way in which He governs everything wisely, first for the glory of His own Name, and second for the ultimate blessing of His children.
Sinclair Ferguson
We learn about guidance primarily by learning about the Guide. It is the knowledge of God and His ways with men which ultimately gives us stability in doing His will.
Sinclair Ferguson
We [should not] make the mistake of thinking that marriage will provide the ultimate satisfaction for which we all hunger. To assume so would be to be guilty of blasphemy. Only God satisfies the hungry heart. Marriage is but one of the channels He uses to enable us to taste how deeply satisfying His thirst-quenching grace can be.
Sinclair Ferguson
Too often we fail to appreciate that [the] apprehension of God is not only the test of our worship, but also the test of our spiritual growth. A Christian’s real development in spiritual life will always be revealed by how he or she thinks about God – how much he thinks about Him, and how highly he thinks about Him.
Sinclair Ferguson
God is God; you are but one of His creatures. Your only joy is to be found in obeying Him, your true fulfillment is to be found in worshipping Him, your only wisdom is to be found in trusting and knowing Him.
Sinclair Ferguson
Genesis 2 does not tell us much more about the significance of this seventh day. But as we learn more about it from Scripture we realize that the “rest” involved was not a lazy rest. Rather, it was intended to be a day when the working man could enjoy the Creator as well as the creation. He could devote himself more directly to fellowship with God and the worship of His Name. This “sabbath,” or “rest-day,” was a further special blessing which God gave to man so he would be refreshed and strengthened, encouraged and heartened by contemplating all that God had done and stimulated to worship God in response.
Sinclair Ferguson
So what is the place of the Law in the life of the Christian? Simply this: We are no longer under the Law to be condemned by it, we are now “in-lawed” to it because of our betrothal to Christ! He has written the Law, and love for it, into our hearts!
Sinclair Ferguson
Those to whom God is faithful become faithful.
Sinclair Ferguson
You do not become a master musician by playing just as you please, by imagining that learning the scales is sheer legalism and bondage! No, true freedom in any area of life is the consequence of regular discipline. It is no less true [in the spiritual realm].
Sinclair Ferguson
Be obedient even when you do not know where obedience may lead you.
Sinclair Ferguson
Appearances can be deceptive. The fact that we cannot see what God is doing does not mean that He is doing nothing. The Lord has His own timetable. It is we who must learn to adjust to it, not vice versa. When God’s time comes nothing will stand in His way. We can therefore wait for Him with this happy confidence: “As for God, His way is perfect” (2 Samuel 22:31).
Sinclair Ferguson
Spiritual growth depends on two things: first a willingness to live according to the Word of God; second, a willingness to take whatever consequences emerge as a result.
Sinclair Ferguson
The foundation of worship in the heart is not emotional (“I feel full of worship” or “The atmosphere is so worshipful”). Actually, it is theological. Worship is not something we “work up,” it is something that “comes down” to us, from the character of God.
Sinclair Ferguson
The whole of the Christian life is centered on Jesus Christ. Like Paul the contemporary Christian can say: “To me to live is Christ.” But often, in Christian experience, we are tempted to look elsewhere for direction, example, counsel and guidance. We lose sight of the fact that everything we need to live the Christian life is to be found exclusively in Christ. For this reason when we begin thinking about spiritual growth we must think first of all about Christ.
Sinclair Ferguson
Where God is at the center of things, worship inevitably follows. Where there is no spirit of worship, there God has been dethroned and displaced.
Sinclair Ferguson
Who knows the extent to which we would give in to sin, were we to be given a guarantee of immunity from discovery and exposure?
Sinclair Ferguson
God’s guidance will require patience on our part. His leading is not usually a direct assurance, a revelation, but His sovereign controlling of the circumstances of our lives, with the Word of God as our rule. It is therefore, inevitable that the unfolding of His purposes will take time – sometimes a very long time.
Sinclair Ferguson
[A proper fear of God] is that indefinable mixture of reverence and pleasure, joy and awe which fills our hearts when we realize who God is and what He has done for us. It is a love for God which is so great that we would be ashamed to do anything which would displease or grieve Him, and makes us happiest when we are doing what pleases Him.
Sinclair Ferguson
How can all things be worked together by God for good? The answer is at hand. It is because God’s ultimate purpose is to make us like Christ. His goal is the complete restoration of the image of God in His child! So great a work demands all the resources which God finds throughout the universe, and He ransacks the possibilities of joys and sorrows in order to reproduce in us the character of Jesus.
Sinclair Ferguson
It is only when we want to take our lives out of the Father’s hands and have them under our own control that we find ourselves gripped with anxiety. The secret of freedom from anxiety is freedom from ourselves and abandonment of our own plans. But that spirit emerges in our lives only when our minds are filled with the knowledge that our Father can be trusted implicitly to supply everything we need.
Sinclair Ferguson
Perhaps the most wonderful thing of all is this: God lifts us not only from what we are by nature to what Adam was in the Garden of Eden, but to what Adam was to become in the presence of God, and would have been had he persevered in obedience. The gospel does not make us like Adam in his innocence – it makes us like Christ, in all the perfection of His reflection of God.
Sinclair Ferguson
The way in which God leads us is the way of following Christ in bearing the cross. Any “guidance” which contradicts this principle will lack the familiar autograph of Christ. Any “voice” which beckons us to forsake this pathway we will silence. For we will have come to recognize the accents of our Master. There is no voice like the voice of the One who has been crucified.
Sinclair Ferguson
We discover the will of God by a sensitive application of Scripture to our own lives.
Sinclair Ferguson
When we have differences of opinion about a course of action, the decisive factor is to be “what tends most to the glory of God?” (1 Corinthians 10:31).
Sinclair Ferguson
God is a covenant-making, covenant-remembering, covenant-keeping God!
Sinclair Ferguson
96 quotes in total — browse the collection.
Sources: wikipedia.org, banneroftruth.org
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