Don't Get to This Point

The rich man ignored Lazarus day after day. He got to a state where he wasn’t interested in or able to repent. To change and love God or his neighbor. In Hades, he wants relief from his torment, but has no repentance to express, even when he sees Lazarus. maybe he still doesn’t care, Maybe he knows it’s too late, maybe both. The point is for you not to get to this spot, by our repeated offenses and superficial sorries.

What will shake us up enough out of callous stupor to turn from self and sin to the Savior? Surely a sensational resurrection would do it. Lazarus, back from the dead! No, Jesus says, and the facts bear him out. When Jesus actually brought Lazarus back from the dead, did the rulers repent and come to Christ? No, they just plotted to kill Lazarus, too – surely the silliest plan ever.

Jesus’ point is sobering for us. If the Word of God won’t shake you and cause you to repent, no ghost appearance will either. No scary visions of hell, emotional preaching, or traumatic experiences will do it. Only the Spirit at work in the Word.

1/12/15

Brought to the Heavenly Mountain

Heavenly Father, thank You for bringing us to mount Zion in our worship, to Your heavenly Jerusalem, to Your heavenly hosts of angels, to Your glorified saints who have gone before us and are made perfect. Most of all thank you for bringing us to Jesus, Your provided mediator to bring us to You. You bring us to His blood which does this, covering our sin. Thank You for speaking even better things in His blood than Abel’s blood did after Cain killed him. Thank you for putting to death all enmity, malice, envy, jealousy, greed and vengeance at the cross. And for clothing us with the righteousness of Christ our cornerstone. You have bound Yourself to us in love by His blood, and we seek close communion with You as we sing, confess, listen to Your Word, eat and drink by your word and spirit.

1/12/15

Opening Prayer

Singing a Stern Psalm

This Psalm* is darker, in a minor key, kind of brooding and stern. What are we doing singing this kind of song in worship?

The book of Psalms gives us more moods to sing than just positive and encouraging, and we should use them. There is certainly a time to sing about nations rejecting our God and our Lord Jesus, these days. And the mood that brings is lament or stern resolution, not bounce and cheer. We should weep with those who weep in our singing together.

This can be tricky to engage with in worship. It takes some preparation. We don’t mentally veg out and just let the music float us down stream. One reason we have a printed bulletin is so you can look ahead a step or two and prepare for what is coming. Changing emotional gears can be a little abrupt sometimes. If it takes a verse or so to get into the new mood sometimes, that’s fine. 

The key is this:  are you singing the Word of God?  Is the Word driving the words?  Are we understanding and responding appropriately with our emotions to the Word of God as we sing?

No response at all or a deadpan is not appropriate. An artificial insistence on personal happiness isn’t appropriate, either.

Sing the Psalms with your whole heart and voice.

1/12/15

* Psalm 2 in the Cantus Christi, tune POURQUOI FONT BRUIT, from Strasbourg, 1539

Review: Boys of Blur

Boys of Blur by N.D. Wilson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



A fast paced re-telling of Beowulf, Wilson conveys well some important themes:

1. Your father is important, whether he has hurt you or helped you.
2. Go fight the evil, don't just run away from it.
3. You have to resist thoughts of envy and hatred, from the evil one.

Many good thoughts conveyed, without being preachy, while telling a great story!



View all my reviews

Food for the Soul; Bread for the Journey

After Elijah calls down fire on Mt Carmel and kills the prophets of Baal, Jezebel threatens his life and he flees into the desert, despairing of his life. But God sustained him. God ordained this sacrament for us to remember Him, and to proclaim His death until He comes. But always remember this isn’t so much a religious exercise we are doing, a statement we are making. It’s more like food for us, God sustaining and strengthening our souls.

We have to eat and drink of Christ’s flesh and blood to have life in us, John 6 says, and that body is true food indeed. This isn’t meant in a physical sense, the flesh profits nothing He says a bit later. The Spirit gives life and feeds, but He uses the Word and this meal to do it. Feed on the Lord Jesus Christ now, in your thoughts, yes. But let your soul partake, desiring His riches, satisfied with His grace, longing to bear fruit for His name.

1/5/14

Epiphany in July!

Matthew 2:7-12

"Then Herod, when he had secretly called the wise men, determined from them what time the star appeared. 8 And he sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the young Child, and when you have found Him, bring back word to me, that I may come and worship Him also.”

9 When they heard the king, they departed; and behold, the star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came and stood over where the young Child was. 10 When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy. 11 And when they had come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down and worshiped Him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to Him: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

12 Then, being divinely warned in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed for their own country another way."

Today is the twelfth day of Christmas, and tomorrow is Epiphany. By this time we’re sick of hearing about Christmas. Santa has been in the stores since Halloween, our trees are on the curb, let’s get on with 2014.

But just a moment.

Epiphany is a great time to consider further the world’s response to the Incarnation, the revelation of the Son of God.

• The nearby king Herod tried to kill Him.
• Far away kings came to worship Him.
• The Gentiles came streaming in to His light, over the centuries.
• Empires were transformed, steeples and cathedrals raised to the glory of Christ, the world turned upside down.

The question was put to the wise men, what they would do about the star, about the son King to be born. The question is put to each of us. Would you rather be your own king and build your own kingdom, or bring your treasure to the true King?

Let us confess our reluctance to come and worship Jesus.

1/5/14

Receive the Riches

2 Corithians 8:9:

"you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.”


The point of the sermon today was to faithfully receive the news of Christ’s birth, as Mary did. You are now seated at the King’s table, with the opportunity to practice what we are supposed to do. So believe these things. Jesus took on physical human nature to redeem it, not to surrender the physical world to the devil. Jesus was born to deliver His people from their sins in His body sacrificed at the cross. Christ has enriched you, obtaining the Father’s favor for you. Jesus took the eternal throne of His earthly ancestor David, in fulfillment of God’s promises to Israel. This kingdom is no longer limited to ethnic Jews. He rules the world with truth and grace.

As you receive food into your body, you trust those who set it before you that it is good for you. So receive this news with faith and joy in your hearts. We need Jesus like we need food. So we eat and drink. He has given us far better than we deserved. Let us thank Him by communing with Him, proclaiming His death until He comes.

12/22/13

A Time Not To Accuse

Matthew 1:20-25
“Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.... 24 Then Joseph, being aroused from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took to him his wife, 25 and did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn Son. And he called His name JESUS."

Consider here the purity and the mercy of Joseph. He maintains purity with Mary before their marriage. And instead of breaking off the marriage as he was planning, assuming her unfaithfulness, he listens to the angel and decides to marry her anyway. Decent neighbors in Nazareth would look down on him for this, not rejecting a brazen sinner. But he doesn’t put so much stake in being THOUGHT righteous, as in BEING righteous. There is one thing for us to confess today. Another comes from the key word “secretly.” You might wonder how anything could be kept “secret,” and it really means privately, as opposed to a public accusation and scandal. It was Joseph’s right at this point to accuse. Just like the Genesis Joseph found his brothers vulnerable to his accusation in Egypt, bowing before him. Both Josephs refrain from accusing, and instead show mercy. Do you find your heart accusing others ever? Often? Is there a certain person coming to your mind, even now?

12/22/13

Strolling the Links

Randy Booth takes away all your excuses to not extend hospitality by inviting people into your home for fellowship.

Tim Challies encourages Sunday evening worship services.

So do I!

This was one of the best articles I've read on tattoos, thus far.  I'll probably write more on this in the future.

The Purchase and the Prize

In this supper we remember the cost of redemption and the result of our redemption. Jesus gave us bread and wine to remember His body was torn and His blood shed at the cross. This was covenant curse carried out against the Christ. Jesus calls the cup the covenant. He links this supper with His cross. This way we always remember, the coming of the king led Him to a cross. Discern His body hung there. We are to take up our cross and follow Him. So as we lift the cup to our lips, we remember our calling – to lay down our life for others, as He did. This was the cost of redemption.

We also see the result of redemption. As we lift the cup, we are feasting and taking our ease at table with the King, looking ahead to the marriage supper of the lamb. We look around and see those He has redeemed with us. Like everything else we do in worship, we do this together. Discern His body, the body of Christ, the Church, around you, and give thanks. From heaven He came and sought her to be His holy bride. This is covenant mercy and relationship extended to His people.

12/15/13

Free Hearts, Crowding Close

Heavenly Father, we praise You for calling us forth from dark dungeons and into Your marvelous light. Our chains have fallen off, our hearts are free. Give us grace now to worship and follow thee. Prepare the way, prepare our hearts. You give food and freedom, you open blind eyes, you lift up the discouraged, you will reign forever. Lord, let us enter into the joy of Your great deeds for us. Don’t let us hold back, remain at a distance. We crowd close to consider the Christ, His healing, His cross, His resurrection life, His sovereign rule now for our growth, His consummate joys in glory.

Gracious Father, we come to You in the Lord Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, who live and reign with You, 1 God without beginning or end - Amen.

12/15/13

The Point of Light

Jesus is the light of the world. As darkness more in this season, shining lights help us remember Him. The Psalmist sings, “Your Word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path.” The point of lights isn’t so much to dazzle and wow, it is to see so we can walk rightly. When one burning candle touches another, it comes alight, too. This is communion, and the reason Jesus can tell us, “You are the light of the world.” We are to live in His light, shine it for others to see in our good works, and not go back to the darkness.

The light we have is not our own. We do not speak or live on our own authority. We cannot live on our own. God’s command for us is life, and that is what Jesus speaks over us and gives us. Here at this table we remember every week that we don’t live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from God. HE sustains us. This is why I tell you to live when we eat and drink. God communicates life and forgiveness, peace and purity to us, as He unites us to the Lord Jesus Christ by His Holy Spirit.

12/8/13

From Disheartened to Bitter

Numbers 21:4-7
"Then they journeyed from Mount Hor by the Way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; and the soul of the people became very discouraged on the way. 5 And the people spoke against God and against Moses: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread.” 6 So the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and many of the people of Israel died.
7 Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you; pray to the LORD that He take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people."

Discouraged souls can become embittered souls.

Circumstances discourage us sometimes. But the heart is active, not just passive. We decide whether to turn to God in faith, or to speak against Him or against others. We come to despise the very gifts God sustains us with.

God may send pain and difficulty to wake you up. Israel listened and repented. Now is the time to consider and come with contrite hearts.

12/8/13

Anything Can Happen

Douglas Wilson, on NT Wright's "Surprised by Scripture" chapter 3 on the resurrection:

"someone asked why we should even bother to read Wright. This chapter is why....

[Wright] is healthy in ways that the contemporary Reformed church is unhealthy. On this point, on this particular, there are many conservative believers who need to come to grips with the fact that Wright is way more orthodox than they are, meaning that he is more biblical than they are, and that he gets the ramifications of the gospel better than they do. Note, I do not say that he gets justification-by-faith better than John Piper does, because he doesn’t, but I am saying that he gets what the impact of justification by faith is supposed to be, and he gets it better than the faculties of every Reformed seminary in North America put together.

"The resurrection is the transformation of history, and not just a weird event contained within ordinary history, which ordinary history then continues on the way it always did, wandering aimlessly down an amillennial road. And this is something he gets from the Bible, and lots of conservatives don’t. And this, incidentally, is why these conservatives keep getting their hineys kicked in our culture wars. American Christians are to be commended for actually fighting the culture war, contra Wright, but they are to be admonished for not fighting with the kind of exuberant and necessary optimism that Scripture provides for us in the fact of a man coming back from the dead right in the middle of history."

Vacation memories, part three

We played the board game "Sorry" while on vacation.  It was a fun change of pace, but now that I'm back to work, here's some theological ruminations about it.

"Sorry" teaches counterfeit apology.  True repentance would involve undoing the wrong act.  But when you knock an opponent’s piece off the board, and say “Sorry,” you never take it back!  If you cut in line ahead of your brother, and say you're sorry, but you stay ahead of him, you make a mockery of your apology.

There are several elements to full repentance.  Going to everyone you wronged.  Describing the offense to the offended.  Asking for forgiveness.  Avoiding excuses.  Making it right as best you can shouldn't be forgotten.