Oaks Parish

The Oaks Parish Podcast

Bryan Buck & Martha Van Houten

Questions or comments about this podcast episode? Click here to email us!

Scripture Text: Luke 13:10-21

Bryan Buck

Quotes for Reflection

J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospel of Luke

With Christ nothing is impossible. He can soften hearts which seem as hard as the lowest millstone. He can bend stubborn wills which for eighteen years have been set on self-pleasing, on sin, and on the world. He can enable sinners who have been long poring over earthly things to look upward to heaven and see the kingdom of God. Nothing is too hard for the Lord. He can create...

The Oaks Parish Podcast

Bryan Buck & Martha Van Houten

Questions or comments about this podcast episode? Click here to email us!

Scripture Text: Luke 12:35-48

Bryan Buck

Quotes for Reflection

John Calvin, The Institutes

God is not to be feared as if He were ready to punish us, but rather to be revered because He has loved us so much.

Rebecca DeYoung, Glittering Vices

At its core, acedia is aversion to our relationship to God because of the transforming demands of his love. God wants to kick down the whole door to our hearts and flood us with his life; we want to keep...

Scripture Text: 1 Corinthians 15:1-11

Bryan Buck

Quotes for Reflection

Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ

Christ rose once from the dead, and now dies no more. Death shall no longer have dominion over Him. Rejoice, for you are called to share in His victory.

C.S. Lewis, Miracles

The New Testament writers speak as if Christ’s achievement in rising from the dead was the first event of its kind in the whole history of the universe. He is the ‘first fruits,’ the pioneer...

Scripture Text: Matthew 26:17-56

Bryan Buck

Scripture Text: Matthew 21:1-11

Bryan Buck

Quotes for Reflection

Thomas Merton, Baptized by Darkness

Now He is sent. He has come. He has descended into the far end of night, gathered our Fathers, the Patriarchs and Prophets, to Himself in Limbo. Now we will all be manifest. We will see one another with white garments, with palm branches in our hands. The darkness is like a font from which we shall ascend washed and illumined, to see one another, no longer separate, but one in the Risen Christ.

On Maundy Thursday we will sing this new setting by Andrew Shaughnessy of the hymn Go to Dark Gethsemane. Andrew's haunting musical update reflects the loneliness of Christ's journey through Gethsemane, abandoned by those closest to him. Will we watch with Him one hour?

Lyrics, James Montgomery (1825)

Music, Andrew Shaughnessy

The Oaks Parish Podcast

Bryan Buck & Martha Van Houten

Questions or comments about this podcast episode? Click here to email us!

Scripture Text: Exodus 20:1-17

Bryan Buck

Quotes for Reflection

Kevin D. Young, The Ten Commandments

There’s nothing necessarily wrong with noticing what other people have, but most of us don’t stop and notice so that we can give thanks to God for his blessings to others. We notice and then stop being thankful for all that God has given to us.

The Westminster Larger Catechism

The duties required in the tenth commandment are, such a full contentment with our own condition, and such a ch...

The Oaks Parish Podcast

Bryan Buck & Martha Van Houten

Links to resources mentioned in this episode:

Questions or comments about this podcast episode? Click here to email us!

Scripture Text: Exodus 20:1-16

Pat Roach

Quotes for Reflection

from the Westminster Larger Catechism

Q. 144. What are the duties required in the ninth commandment?

A. The duties required in the ninth commandment are, the preserving and promoting of truth between man and man, and the good name of our neighbor, as well as our own; appearing and standing for the truth; and from the heart, sincerely, freely, clearly, and fully, speaking the truth, and only the truth, in matters of judgment and justice, and in all other...

The Oaks Parish Podcast

Bryan Buck & Martha Van Houten

Questions or comments about this podcast episode? Click here to email us!

Scripture Text: Exodus 20:1-15

Bryan Buck

Quotes for Reflection

Paul David Tripp, Redeeming Money

God created us to be dependent. He created us to follow his commands and to submit to his will. Real life and true freedom are found when we willingly and joyfully surrender to the One who created us, knows what we need, and rules what we could never control. But something else is vital to remember: we were never designed to put ourselves in the center of our world and make our lives all about...

The Oaks Parish Podcast

Bryan Buck & Martha Van Houten

Questions or comments about this podcast episode? Click here to email us!

Sermon Text: Exodus 20:1-14

Bryan Buck

Quotes for Reflection

Ann Voskamp

Your naked body deserves the honor of being shared only with someone who is covenanted to never stop loving your naked soul.

Preston Sprinkle, “What is Marriage”

Is marriage the union between two consensual adults—who fall in love and are committed to each other? Or, is marriage the union between two sexually different persons? I would suggest that the Bible says the latter. Marriage is the union between two sexually different persons. It’s not as...

Sermon Text: Exodus 20:1-14

Bryan Buck

Quotes for Reflection

Ann Voskamp

Your naked body deserves the honor of being shared only with someone who is covenanted to never stop loving your naked soul.

Preston Sprinkle, “What is Marriage”

Is marriage the union between two consensual adults—who fall in love and are committed to each other? Or, is marriage the union between two sexually different persons? I would suggest that the Bible says the latter. Marriage is the union between two sexually different persons. It’s not as...

The Oaks Parish Podcast

Bryan Buck & Martha Van Houten

Scripture Text: Exodus 20:1-13

Quincy Robinson

Ash Wednesday Service

Scripture Text: Exodus 20:1-12

Bryan Buck

Scripture Text: Exodus 20:1-13

Quincy Robinson

The Oaks Parish Podcast

Bryan Buck & Martha Van Houten

Questions or comments about this podcast episode? Click here to email us!

Scripture Text: Exodus 20:1-11

Pat Roach

The Oaks Parish Podcast

Bryan Buck & Martha Van Houten

Questions or comments about this podcast episode? Click here to email us!

*We apologize for the poor sound quality at the beginning of the recording. It resolves in about 20 seconds!

Scripture Text: Exodus 20:1-7

Bryan Buck

Quotes for Reflection

William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other word would smell as sweet;

So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,

Retain that dear perfection which he owes

Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name;

And for thy name...

The Oaks Parish Podcast

Bryan Buck & Martha Van Houten

Resources we mentioned in this episode:

Idolatry Chart - based on Tim Keller’s material on the “mega-idols” of power, control, comfort, and approval

Questions or comments about this podcast episode? Click here to email us!

Scripture Text: Exodus 20:1-6

Bryan Buck

Quotes for Reflection

Kevin D. Young, The Ten Commandments

If the first commandment is against worshiping the wrong God, the second commandment is against worshiping God in the wrong way.

John Calvin, Commentary on Exodus

God wishes to be worshiped in a spiritual manner. If we turn away from this, we lapse into idolatry.

Timothy Keller, Counterfeit Gods

What is an idol? It is anything more important to you than God...

The Oaks Parish Podcast

Bryan Buck & Martha Van Houten

Scripture Text: Exodus 20:1-3

Bryan Buck

Quotes for Reflection

Kevin D. Young, The Ten Commandments

The good news of law, C. S. Lewis once remarked, is like the good news of arriving on solid ground after a shortcut gone awry through the mud, muck, and mire. After fumbling about in the squishy, stinky mess, you’re relieved to finally hit something solid, something you can trust, something you can count on.

John Frame, Doctrine of the Christian Life

The document begins with God’s name: Yahw...

The Oaks Parish Podcast

Bryan Buck & Martha Van Houten

Mentioned in this episode:

Article: How Intellectuals Found God

Questions or comments about this podcast episode? Click here to email us!

Scripture Text: Luke 2:22-38

Andy Tobin

Quotes for Reflection

R. Kent Hughes

Simeon and Anna represented all who saw that their only hope was in the mercy and grace of God. Along with the poor carpenter and his wife and the outcast shepherds, they were flesh-and-blood examples of those to whom Christ comes. They personified the paradox of being profoundly empty and profoundly full—“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (Matthew 5:6). They longed for the righteousness and consolation that would come only t...

The Oaks Parish Podcast

Bryan Buck & Martha Van Houten

Questions or comments about this podcast episode? Click here to email us!

Scripture Text: Luke 11:1-13

Bryan Buck

Quotes for Reflection

Hudson Taylor, Hudson Taylor’s Choice Sayings: A Compilation from His Writings and Addresses

Let us give up our work, our thoughts, our plans, ourselves, our lives, our loved ones, our influence, our all, right into His hand, and then, when we have given all over to Him, there will be nothing left for us to be troubled about, or to make trouble about.

Michael Card, Luke: The Gospel of Amazement

If you want a window in...

The Oaks Parish Podcast

Bryan Buck & Martha Van Houten

Questions or comments about this podcast episode? Click here to email us!

Scripture Text: Luke 10:25-37

Bryan Buck

Quotes for Reflection

David Brooks, How to Know a Person

You may find the whole idea of God ridiculous, but I ask you to believe in the concept of a soul. You may just be chatting with someone about the weather, but I ask you to assume that the person in front of you contains some piece of themselves that has no weight, size, color, or shape yet gives them infinite value and dignity. If you consider that each person has a soul...

The Oaks Parish Podcast

Bryan Buck & Martha Van Houten

Scripture Text: Luke 9:1-36

Bryan Buck

Quotes for Reflection

Hartmut Rosa, Two Versions of the Good Life & Two Forms of Fear When something really touches us, we can never know or predict in advance what we will become as a result of this.

J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on Luke Thousands in every age of the church spend their lives in this way and never come to the point of drawing near to God. They satisfy themselves with a miserable round of gossip about this preacher’s sermons or th...

Scripture Text: Colossians 1:15-20

Andy Tobin

Quotes for Reflection

David Wells

Paul’s Christology, therefore, also encompasses the language of the kingdom of God in the Gospels. To believe on Christ is to enter the kingdom and is to become a part of the age to come. Paul, however, expands this thought far beyond the personal and ecclesiastical. If Christ is the Lord whom every believer serves, the Head to whom the whole churchly body is responsive, he is also the Creator from whom everything derives its existence, the ce...

Read: Matthew 1:18-25

Reflect:

1. How does thinking of Jesus as Emmanuel impact your life right now?

2. Where have you seen God's hand in your personal life history?

3. How do you rely on the Holy Spirit in your vocation?

4. Wherever God has dwelled has always been the most holy place. And as the Holy Spirit dwells in us, we are now the most holy place for our culture. How does this compel you this week - whether in thought, word, or deed?

5. What does the incarnation...

Scripture Text: Matthew 1:18-25

Quincy Robinson