Sing the Psalms

December 29, 2013 in Bible - NT - Hebrews, Bible - OT - Psalms, Christmas, King Jesus, Meditations, Singing Psalms, Word of God, Worship
Hebrews 4:11-13 (NKJV)
11 Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience. 12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. 13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must giveaccount.
Much has transpired in the last week. We have moved out of the time of Advent and into the time of Christmas. And in the season of Christmas we celebrate! We celebrate the arrival of the long anticipated One; we celebrate the fulfillment of God’s promises in the life and death and resurrection of His Son. The Lord our God has come!
In our sermons this Advent and Christmastide, we have focused upon Jesus in the Psalms. One of the things that we have emphasized is that Jesus is the true Singer of the Psalms. In Him the psalms, all the psalms, reach their fulfillment and culmination. Throughout His life Jesus sang these psalms, meditated upon these psalms, absorbed these psalms into His life and made them part of His being.
Our text in Hebrews urges us to have this same type of faith. After exhorting us to enter into God’s rest, Paul directs us to the Word of God, which is able to slice and dice us, able to show us our faults and illumine our shortcomings. Why direct us here? Why direct us to the Word of God? Because this is the same place that our Lord Jesus went to direct His own walk with His Father. He was a student of the Word of God. He allowed the Word of God to make and fashion Him into the type of man His Father desired Him to be. And though He was free from sin, free from the necessity of going back and redoing things that he had messed up, He nevertheless grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man through the things that He learned in the Word.
And so the author of Hebrews directs us to be students of the Word of God. We are called to be disciples. To hear what He says to us that we might correct our faults and that we might be reminded of the great promises that He has made to us.

So reminded of our calling to be singers of the psalms, let us kneel and confess that we have often failed to permit His Word to shape us and have instead been shaped by other, contrary voices.

Awake and Sing!

December 22, 2013 in Bible - OT - Isaiah, Christmas, Church Calendar, Eschatology, King Jesus, Meditations, Singing Psalms, Worship
Isaiah 51:9-11 (NKJV)
9 Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord! Awake as in the ancient days, In the generations of old. AreYou not the arm that cut Rahab apart, And wounded the serpent? 10 Are You not the Onewho dried up the sea, The waters of the great deep; That made the depths of the sea a road For the redeemed to cross over? 11 So the ransomed of the Lordshall return, And come to Zion with singing, With everlasting joy on their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness; Sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
In our passage today Isaiah calls upon the Lord to fulfill His promise to rescue His people Israel from exile; indeed, not only to rescue His people Israel but to rescue all the peoples of the earth. The nations that sat in darkness needed the light of God. And so Isaiah cries out to God to fulfill His promises, “Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord!”
Isaiah calls to the Lord’s mind His previous acts of deliverance and implores Him to act again. “Was it not You, Lord, who acted to destroy Egypt? Was it not You who dried up the Red Sea? Who made the depths of the sea a road for Israel to cross upon? Yes it was You, Lord, who did this.” So Isaiah calls upon this same Lord, the Sovereign Lord of heaven and earth, Yahweh, the Creator of all men and nations, to fulfill His promises, “Awake! Awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord! Awake as in the ancient days, in the generations of old.”
And this, brothers and sisters, is what we pray in Advent. During Advent we recall the cries of our fathers like Isaiah and issue cries of our own. We rejoice because God answered Isaiah’s cry by sending our Lord and Savior Jesus to rescue the world from sin and darkness. But we not only rejoice that God has fulfilled Isaiah’s prayer, we also lift up prayers of our own. For the Lord has yet to fulfill all His promises. He has yet to fill the earth with the knowledge of His name, yet to spread justice to all the ends of the earth, yet to bring history to a close in the return of Christ and the resurrection of the just and unjust. And so we are instructed by our Lord Jesus to cry out, “Thy Kingdom come! Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven!” In other words, “Awake! Awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord! Awake as in the ancient days, in the generations of old.”
One of the chief ways that we issue this cry is in our singing – we praise the Lord who has acted and beseech Him to act yet again. Note that Isaiah’s vision of God’s redemption in Jesus is filled with singing. “So the ransomed of the Lord shall return, And come to Zion with singing.” Because God has answered Isaiah’s cry to “Awake!”, we ought to sing and praise the Lord, to come to Zion with singing. And even as Isaiah, remembering the Exodus from Egypt, remembering God’s past deliverance, petitioned the Lord to rescue Israel again, so we cry out in song for the full revelation of Christ’s kingdom.
So how ought we to sing? Isaiah models and instructs us. Note that his cry to God is filled with passion, conviction, entreaty, hunger, longing, joy, and delight. “Awake! Awake!” he cries. Then he describes our singing, So the ransomed of the Lordshall return, And come to Zion with singing, With everlasting joy on their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness; Sorrow and sighing shall flee away. May God make it so and fill us with joy and peace in believing and in singing.

Reminded that we are yet in need of the Lord’s mercy, that the Lord has exhorted us to sing and pray for the full arrival of His Kingdom, let us confess that we are often complacent and do not cry out to the Lord to fulfill his promises.

Why Celebrate Christmas?

December 15, 2013 in Bible - OT - Esther, Christmas, Church Calendar, Church History, King Jesus, Meditations
Esther 9:20–23 (NKJV)
20 And Mordecai wrote these things and sent letters to all the Jews, near and far, who were in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, 21 to establish among them that they should celebrate yearly the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the month of Adar, 22 as the days on which the Jews had rest from their enemies, as the month which was turned from sorrow to joy for them, and from mourning to a holiday; that they should make them days of feasting and joy, of sending presents to one another and gifts to the poor. 23 So the Jews accepted the custom which they had begun, as Mordecai had written to them,
So why celebrate Christmas? The rationale is supplied by the passage before us in the book of Esther. About 2500 years ago God in His kindness delivered our fathers from the plotting of the wicked Haman. Though Haman was determined to slaughter our people, man, woman, and child, God rescued them from his machinations. God worked a marvelous deliverance – these were the days on which the Jews had rest from their enemies… the month which was turned from sorrow to joy for them, and from mourning to a holiday. No more fear only delight and thanksgiving.
So what did our fathers and mothers do? They celebrated, of course – they feasted, thanked God, rejoiced in God’s goodness, shared presents with one another, and gave gifts to those in need even as they had been in need. Listen to the text again: Mordecai formalized the feast of Purimthat they should make them days of feasting and joy, of sending presents to one another and gifts to the poor.
And so let us argue from the lesser to the greater. If our fathers and mothers celebrated their deliverance from the plottings of wicked Haman, ought not we to celebrate the birth of Christ who through His mercy have been delivered from the plottings of Satan himself? Jesus took on human flesh and was born in order that he might fight against the Evil One and deliver us from his evil intent to destroy us and ensnare us in wickedness and deceit; to hang us from his gibbet. The birth of Christ is the arrival of our Deliverer.
So what ought we to do? Why celebrate, of course! We ought to feast, thank God, rejoice in God’s goodness, share presents with one another, and give gifts to those in need even as we all were in need. Had not Christ come to rescue and deliver us, we all would have perished miserably in our sins. We all would have continued in rebellion against God, hateful and hating one another. We would have continued to despise the Lord Most High, to disregard His law, to endure the burden of our sins and the shameful, degrading lusts that once dominated our lives. But now…but now, we are free! Free from sin! Free from the fear of death! Free to delight in God and obey His laws! Free to love and be loved! Free to rejoice!  So ought not we to celebrate?

Yet how often we take God’s gift of life through His Son Jesus for granted! And this is why we need reminders, why God in His kindness has given us the Lord’s Supper and why our fathers in their joy gave us the gift of Christmas – that we might ever have Christ before us and rejoice in His goodness toward us. And so reminded of our call to celebrate, rejoice, give thanks, and share, let us kneel and confess that we are often ungrateful.

Do It Again!

December 9, 2013 in Bible - OT - Proverbs, Children, Christmas, Creation, Meditations
Proverbs 8:30–32 (NKJV)
30 Then I [Wisdom] was beside [the Creator] as a master craftsman; And I was daily His delight, Rejoicing always before Him, 31 Rejoicing in His inhabited world, And my delight was with the sons of men. 32 “Now therefore, listen to me, my children, For blessed are those who keep my ways.
As we continue in Advent to anticipate the arrival of Christmas and the birth of the Christ Child, I would remind you that children love times of celebration like Christmas. While adults often grow tired, kids never tire and long for the celebration. “When are we going to get the tree? When are we going to put up the lights? When are we going to open presents?”
We see in our text from Proverbs today that the delight and energy and joy of children reveals God’s own delight in all His work. God never tires of causing the earth to spin like a top; never tires of flapping the wings of a bird; never tires of causing the grass to sprout from the earth; never tires of sucking water out of the earth through the roots of a tree and turning the nutrients into apples that people can eat. All these works of the Lord reveal His untiring joy and laughter, reveal His delight in all His work, His faithfulness and uprightness. Chesterton explains in his book Orthodoxy:
“A man [typically] varies his movements because of some slight element of failure or fatigue. He gets into a [bus] because he is tired of walking; or he walks because he is tired of sitting still. But if his life and joy were so gigantic that he never tired of going to Islington, he might go to Islington as regularly as the [river] goes to [the sea]. The very speed and ecstacy of his life would have the stillness of death. The sun rises every morning. I do not rise every morning; but the variation is due not to my activity, but to my inaction. Now, to put the matter in a popular phrase, it might be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising. His routine might be due, not to a lifelessness, but to a rush of life. The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. it may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”

And so reminded that we have sinned and grown old, that we have become bored and complacent with the marvelous world that God has made and in which He has placed us, that we have complained rather than overflowed with thanksgiving, let us kneel and confess our sin to the Lord.

Called to Sing

December 2, 2013 in Bible - NT - 1 Peter, Christmas, Meditations, Singing Psalms, Worship
1 Peter 2:4–5 (NKJV)
4 Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, 5 you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
Today is the first Sunday of Advent, the time of year when we recall both God’s promise to our fathers that one day He would send a Son of Adam to rescue us from sin and death and God’s promise to us that one day that Son shall return in glory to vindicate all who trust Him. It is this Son who is the subject of Peter’s epistle. Peter describes the Son as a living stone, rejected indeed by men – so deep was our ailment as human beings that we rejected the One who would deliver us, killed the physician who would heal us, stoned the king who would rule over us, crucified the Lord of Glory. Yet it is this stone that was chosen by God and precious.
So Peter calls upon us to remember the life of our Lord Jesus as we consider our own plight in the world. As Christians we dare not assume that we shall be treated better than our Master. Sometimes in His kindness God grants periods of peace and prosperity to His Church. But when He chooses to send trial, hardship, or persecution we dare not grumble or imagine something strange is happening. For we, like Jesus, are living stones, stones which are often rejected by men but chosen by God and precious. It is with these stones, with us, that God is building a spiritual house, a holy priesthood.
So why has God rescued us from sin and death? Why is he constructing a spiritual Temple from these living stones? Why establishing a holy priesthood from these sinful men and women? Peter gives us the answer – to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. God has chosen us that we might worship God. Listen to the 9thverse of this same chapter:
But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;
God has chosen the Church in order that we might worship Him, sing His praises, declare the wonder of His grace, join our voices in the congregation of the righteous and extol the excellencies of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.
This Advent our sermons focus on Jesus in the Psalms. As we consider the psalms, I would remind you why God has given them to us in the first place – they are meant to be sung. God saved you that youmight proclaim His praises, that youmight offer up spiritual sacrifices, that youmight offer up the fruit of your lips to God. Singing praise to God is not optional – it is the reason God delivered you from your sin. So sing – don’t be self-conscious. Sing; don’t make excuses. Sing; don’t deprive the assembly of the righteous of your voice.

And as we gather in His presence to sing, let us acknowledge that we often put the cart before the horse. We often imagine that it is we who are the center of salvation – but it is not we who are the center but God. God saved us so that we might praise Him – because He is worthy of praise. Does this benefit us? Absolutely! Our greatest delight as human beings comes when we learn to extol God’s wonder more fully and completely. Is it centered on us? Absolutely not! We were delivered to sing His praises, not our own. Yet often we put ourselves at the center. So reminded of this, let us kneel and seek the Lord’s forgiveness through Christ.

Unless the Lord Builds the House

November 25, 2013 in Bible - OT - Psalms, Confession, Ecclesiology, Liturgy, Meditations

Psalm 127:1–2 (NKJV)
1 Unless the LORD builds the house, They labor in vain who build it; Unless the LORD guards the city, The watchman stays awake in vain. 2 It is vain for you to rise up early, To sit up late, To eat the bread of sorrows; For so He gives His beloved sleep.

This morning we wish to join our voices together in thanks and praise to God for His goodness to us – especially in bringing us into this new facility. We welcome those of you who are visiting with us this morning. There are many hands, many hearts, many minds, and many backs that joined together to make this purchase and move a possibility. But were it not for God’s favor and kindness, none of this labor would have borne any fruit. Unless the LORD builds the house, They labor in vain who build it. So it is fitting that we join in giving thanks and praise to God and that we dedicate this building to His service and glory.

Millennia ago, when Solomon dedicated the Temple in Jerusalem, he prayed that God would listen and give heed to His people as they prayed towards the Temple in Jerusalem. His words have shaped our service of dedication today. Yet we live at a different time than Solomon. In the new covenant, we no longer pray to a central sanctuary in Jerusalem; we pray to the Living Temple of God, Jesus Christ. It is in Jesus’ Name that we seek God’s favor and forgiveness. So as we come into God’s presence today, we adapt the words of Solomon to the New Covenant era when God has raised up Jesus as Lord over all. And even as Solomon knelt in prayer at the dedication of the Temple, I would invite you to kneel as we seek the Lord’s mercy in the Name of Jesus.


Kneeling, let us beseech the Lord’s forgiveness: (Based on 1 Kings 8:22–53)
Minister: LORD God of Israel, there is no God in heaven above or on earth below like You, who keep Your covenant and mercy with Your servants who walk before You with all their hearts.
People: Let us praise the Lord forever, and give thanks to the God of gods.

M: LORD God of Israel, you have kept what You promised Your servant David, saying, ‘You shall not fail to have a man sit before Me on the throne of Israel.’
P: You have raised up Jesus, Son of David and Son of God, to be Ruler over all the Kings of the earth.

M: But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You.
P: Yet you took on human flesh in Jesus, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, the Word of God who tabernacled among us.

M: So regard the prayer of Your servants and our supplication, O LORD our God, and listen to the cry and the prayer which we are praying before You today: that Your eyes may be open toward us night and day, 
P: For here in this building we would worship Jesus, the One who bears Your Name, and in whose Name we come into Your presence.

M: Hear in heaven Your dwelling place; 
P: and when You hear, forgive. 

M: When there is famine in the land, pestilence or blight or mildew, locusts or grasshoppers; when our enemy besieges us in the land of our cities; whatever plague or whatever sickness there is; whatever prayer, whatever supplication is made by anyone, or by all Your Church, when each one knows the plague of his own heart, and spreads out his hands toward Your Christ:
P: Then hear in heaven Your dwelling place, and forgive, and act, and give to everyone according to all his ways, whose heart You know (for You alone know the hearts of all the sons of men), that we may fear You all the days of our lives. 
M: Moreover, concerning an unbeliever, who is not of Your Church, but who comes to this place for Your name’s sake (for they will hear of Your great name and Your strong hand and Your outstretched arm), when he comes and prays toward Your Christ;
P: Then hear in heaven Your dwelling place, and do according to all for which the unbeliever calls to You, that all peoples of the earth may know Your name and fear You, as does Your Church, and that they may know that Jesus is Your Chosen King.

M: When we sin against You (for there is no one who does not sin), and You become angry with us and deliver us to our enemy, yet when we come to ourselves, and repent, and make supplication to You in the Name of Jesus, saying, 
P: ‘We have sinned and done wrong, we have committed wickedness,’

M: And when we return to You with all our heart and with all our soul, and pray to You through Your Son Jesus;
P: Then hear in heaven Your dwelling place our prayer and our supplication, and maintain our cause, and forgive Your people who have sinned against You; and grant us compassion before those who have conquered us, that they may have compassion on us (for we are Your people and Your inheritance, whom You delivered through the death and resurrection of Jesus). Amen.

It Seemed Like a Good Idea

November 15, 2013 in Bible - OT - Isaiah, Coeur d'Alene Issues, Eschatology, King Jesus, Meditations, Politics, Postmillennialism
Isaiah 42:4 (NKJV)
4 He will not fail nor be discouraged, Till He has established justice in the earth; And the coastlands shall wait for His law.”
When we are tempted to grow discouraged with the state of the world and the current condition of Christianity in Western Society, it is helpful to remember the Servant Songs of Isaiah. Here in these songs, God revealed millennia ago the calling of our Lord Jesus Christ – a calling which Jesus self-consciously fulfilled in his earthly ministry. Having fulfilled the calling of the songs to suffer, Jesus is now, as the Ascended and Exalted Messiah, fulfilling their call to rule and reign.
So what shall be the nature of His reign? As Jesus spreads His influence throughout the world, what will be the result? The result will be, according to our text, the spread of true justice and liberating law. Jesus as the Word of God made flesh will cause His Word to prevail in the earth and for justice founded on His law to triumph.
So what are we to think when we witness times of setback? What are we to think when the cause of justice, so strenuously established over hundreds of years, is in the course of just a few decades undermined and in many cases destroyed? Is this cause for despair? Should we perhaps rethink whether our Lord and Savior Jesus means to establish justice in the earth?
Here the Servant Songs come again to our aid. Notice the promise in our text: He will not fail nor grow discouraged until he has established justice in the earth and the coastlands shall wait for His law. Jesus is not discouraged. God is not looking down at the world and declaring, Well it sure seemed like a good idea at the time. God is in control; He has seated Jesus at His right hand where He rules and reigns over the earth. No one can thwart Him or say to Him, “What have you done?” For he does according to His will in the host of heaven and among the nations of the earth.
Isaiah’s promise reminds us of the lessons Jesus endeavored to teach during his lifetime. What is the nature of the kingdom of God? It is like a mustard seed which starts as the smallest of all seeds but when it is planted gradually grows until it becomes a great tree in which the birds of the air make their nests. To what shall we compare the kingdom of God? It is like leaven which a woman hid in a lump of dough until the entire lump was leavened.
The task of preaching and spreading the kingdom of God is not an easy task; throughout church history there have been times of great success and there have been times of abysmal failure. At the moment in Western society we are in the midst of a largescale apostasy. But Jesus is not discouraged; He knows precisely what He is doing and His calling to us is to be faithful to Him – to preach the Gospel, to teach the Word of God, and to worship the Living God.

So reminded that we are not to grow discouraged but instead to trust in the Sovereign pleasure of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, let us kneel and confess that we have often failed to look to Him in faith.

Give Thanks in Everything

November 4, 2013 in Bible - NT - 1 Thessalonians, Meditations, Thankfulness
1 Thessalonians 5:18 (NKJV)
18 In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
Paul summons us to be a thankful people, a people who readily acknowledge and praise God for His kindnesses to us. We are to give thanks, Paul declares, “in everything.” We are to give thanks when enduring trials and when experiencing blessings – in everything we are to give thanks.
So today as we enter into our new facility, a facility that we can properly call our own, it is a time for much thankfulness and gratitude. Since the planting of our congregation in March of 2006, we have rented various places in and around Coeur d’Alene. Many of us remember with smiles or with knots in our stomachs the various places God has led us over the years: the Silver Lake Motel, the Songbird Theatre, the Iva Lee Dance Hall, the Lake City Senior Center, the Seventh Day Adventist Church. Each of these facilities served us well and enabled us to gather weekly to worship the Lord together and praise Him for His kindness to us.
And here we are now in a facility that we can call our own. If we are to give thanks “in everything” then surely we are to give thanks when God sends manifest blessings upon us as He has done today. God is good and has been good to Trinity Church.
Paul’s command is directed not only to us corporately but also to each of us individually. In everything we are to give thanks, all the more so in times of deliverance and mercy. So this morning we join our voices in giving thanks for God’s mercy to the Dixons this week in their car accident. But we are to give thanks not only in deliverance but in everything. One of the lessons which our Heavenly Father wants to teach us is to give thanks not because what we are experiencing is necessarily pleasant but because we know that our Father has promised to use this thing, pleasant or unpleasant, for our good and for His glory. And so in everything we are to give thanks.

But often we don’t give thanks in everything. Sometimes we grumble and complain rather than give thanks; often we take our blessings for granted rather than thanking God for them. So reminded of this call, this call to give thanks in everything, let us confess our ingratitude to the Lord and ask him to forgive us and teach us to give thanks. As you are able, let us kneel together as we confess.

Steady Plodding and Ordinary Time

October 28, 2013 in Bible - NT - Luke, Church Calendar, Church History, Liturgy, Meditations
Luke 13:18–19 (NKJV)
18 Then He said, “What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it? 19 It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and put in his garden; and it grew and became a large tree, and the birds of the air nested in its branches.”
As 21st century Americans who profess the Christian faith, we can often be tempted to muddle our Christianity with our Americanness. This temptation to mistake our broader culture for Christian piety is not unique to us, but the particular ways in which our culture influences us are unique. One way our American culture affects our conception of Christianity is our love affair with that which is spontaneous or new or different. We tend to grow tired of, what we call, the “same old thing” and have a hankering for some new fad to bring life back into our Christian walk.
But what Jesus articulates for us in his parables of the kingdom is that the way the Holy Spirit works both in our individual lives and in the life of His Church is better pictured by the growth of a tree than the lighting of a sparkler. Sparklers, of course, are fun and exciting – they burn bright and shed their fire on all around them. But sparklers soon burn out while trees, planted and taking root, slowly grow over time; growing almost imperceptibly, soaking up the nutrients in the soil and increasingly displaying the glory of their Creator.
This steady, slow, natural growth is the way Christ typically works in the lives of His disciples. Normal Christian growth involves long periods of steady plodding – plodding that brings prosperity but plodding nonetheless. Steady plodding. Few sprints; mainly marathons. A long obedience in the same direction.
You may not know, but the last five months in the Church Year are called “ordinary time.” It is a time of year when there are no special feasts and celebrations; we’re in the time of the Spirit’s work in the Church. After the pouring out of the Spirit at Pentecost, the Spirit began working in the Church, gradually transforming the people of God into the image of Christ. Hence the color of this period is green, a color of growth.
One thing that you may have noticed, if you’ve been here a while, is that for these last five months we have used the same greeting, the same words of confession, and the same version of the Creed. For five months. Why have we done this? There’s no biblical requirement that we do so. We could have changed them weekly, monthly, periodically – as we have done in the past. God has left these things to the wisdom of church officers. So why have we kept the Call to Worship, the Confession, and the Creed the same? To highlight that the course of our Christian lives is only occasionally interrupted by unusual acts and works of God. More typically God works in our lives through steady plodding, slow growth, gradual transformation – through what theologians have called the ordinary means of grace: the preaching of the Word and the administration of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
Very soon we’re coming upon changes – moving to a new building, entering a new church year when Advent arrives and we’ll have a different Call to Worship, a different Confession, a different Creed. Before we change, I wanted to draw to your attention the fact that for these last five months these have been the same. Perhaps you noticed; perhaps you’ve wondered if this is ever going to change. And perhaps you’ve thought the same thing about periods in your own life and spiritual development. And the message of Jesus is that He is at work growing His kingdom and even growing you.

Reminded that Jesus’ work in our lives is often gradual, like the growth of a tree, we are alerted that often our hankering for something spontaneous or new or different is not an impulse of our Christian faith but our Americanness. And this reminds us that we need to confess our fickleness to the Lord and ask Him to enable us to practice a long obedience in the same direction. So let us kneel as we confess our sins together.