Sentence of Excommunication

April 2, 2012 in Bible - NT - Matthew, Discipline, Ecclesiology, Meditations

Matthew 18:15–20 (NKJV)
15 “Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. 16 But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that ‘by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.’ 17 And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector.
In the passage before us Jesus lays out the general pattern for church discipline. Private, individual confrontation is to be followed by increasing levels of accountability culminating, if necessary, in exclusion from the covenant community.
There are a variety of purposes served by such accountability but one of them is to make clear that Jesus really is Lord. When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday he was correctly acknowledged as king and His kingship had ramifications in time and space – Jesus entered the Temple and cleaned out the corruption. We cannot spurn God’s law, reject His authority, and continue to comfort ourselves with the assurance that all is well. “Do you not know,” Paul writes to the Corinthians, “that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor 6:8-10). Jesus really is Lord.
Approximately two months ago the elders, in obedience to Jesus’ command, informed the church that —-, a member of this church, was living in sin. Despite repeated admonitions and encouragements, accompanied with fasting and prayer on —- behalf, —- still obstinately refuses to hear the Church, and has manifested no evidence of repentance: Therefore, in the name and by the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, we, the Session of Trinity Church do pronounce —— to be excluded from the Sacraments, and cut off from the fellowship of the Church.
Such action reminds all of us how susceptible we all are to the deceptions of the Evil One, the corruptions of our own flesh, and the allurements of the world. But for the grace of God we too would turn from Him. And so Paul warns us, “Beware brethren lest there be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the Living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called ‘Today,’ lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” (Heb 3:12-13)
Paul insists that we need one another – we need our brothers and sisters who will encourage us, pray for us, exhort us, rebuke us, comfort us, console us. And one of the ways that we help one another is by coming here every Lord’s Day and acknowledging together how much we need the grace of God. We gather together, bow the knee to God and confess our sins, pleading the cleansing blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for our sins. And so reminded of this, let us kneel and confess our own sins to the Lord.

Turning the Clock Back

March 19, 2012 in Bible - OT - Amos, Meditations

Amos 2:6–8 (NKJV)
6 Thus says the Lord: “For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away its punishment, Because they sell the righteous for silver, And the poor for a pair of sandals. 7 They pant after the dust of the earth which is on the head of the poor, And pervert the way of the humble. A man and his father go in to the same girl, To defile My holy name. 8 They lie down by every altar on clothes taken in pledge, And drink the wine of the condemned in the house of their god.
Amos was a prophet to Israel. Thus far in his list of judgments, however, Amos has addressed the nations that surrounded Israel and we can imagine the Israelites cheering at each full stop. “Yes, judge those Moabites, judge those Philistines, judge those Ammonites and Edomite and Judahites. They deserve it.” But the Lord of all, the Lion who has roared forth from Jerusalem, has simply been circling his prey. The real object of his attention is Israel.
What were Israel’s transgressions? It is instructive to note that whereas Amos only mentions the central transgression of the other nations, Israel’s transgressions are explained at length. Rather than seeking to protect the poor and the weak, they are exploiting and abusing them. Rather than honoring the sacredness of the sexual act, they are profaning and prostituting it. Rather than giving thanks for the gift of wine, they are corrupting it. Such are their sins. Israel is a society in moral decline and disarray.
Lilian, Jose, and I are reading C.S. Lewis’ The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Early in the voyage, King Caspian pays an unexpected visit to part of his domain, the Lone Islands. The Governor of the Lone Islands, Governor Gumpas, is a practical man, a man who looks at charts and figures and statistics and rules and laws but who has little use for a king or for ideals. Consequently, Gumpas has permitted the slave trade to grow up in the islands.
When Caspian arrives, he confronts Gumpas for allowing such a filthy trade to be practiced in the islands that had always been forbidden. Gumpas replies that the trade is absolutely essential for the present prosperity of the islands; an essential export. Caspian declares that whether it is essential or not, it must stop.
You see Caspian was a man of principle who understood that whether certain activities are economically viable or not they are wrong and therefore to be opposed. He knew that there is One who rules over the affairs of men and nations. Caspian was a servant of the Great Lion Aslan and understood that he held his post in trust. He knew that the slave trade not only debased these men and women who were made in the image of God but also angered the true Ruler of the Lone Islands who would demand an account. So it must stop.
But Gumpas was a practical man. He was a politician, one who, like former Missouri Senator John Danforth, insists that the essence of political discourse is compromise. So he responds to Caspian’s demand with disbelief – and listen to the words that Lewis so fittingly puts into his mouth – “But that would be putting the clock back! Have you no idea of progress, of development?”
Such a question was of course a distraction, a straw man. For progress can only be defined if we have some object toward which we are heading. Gumpas’ object was revenue – so anything that increases revenue is progress, the slave trade is progress. Caspian’s object was honor and virtue. Consequently, the slave trade was not progress but regress.
We find ourselves in the midst of a cultural slide; a slide, as Robert Bork once wrote, toward Sodom and Gomorrrah. When we oppose this slide, we often hear the words of Gumpas, “But that would be putting the clock back! Have you no idea of progress, of development?” Those who define progress as simple economic growth or as moving closer to unbridled license will inevitably express shock and disbelief when others come and oppose them. But this is our calling. We are to stand against immorality, impurity, and tyranny that parades itself as progress. We are to keep ourselves unstained from the world. For one day the Lord of all will act and will judge all those societies that degenerate into filth and decay even as he judged the nation of Israel.
So reminded that true progress means becoming more like the Lord of all, more like the King who rules and reigns over us, let us kneel and confess that rather than progressing we have regressed. We will have a time of private confession followed by the public confession found in your bulletin.

Made in the Image of God

March 5, 2012 in Bible - OT - Amos, Human Condition, Meditations

Amos 2:1–3 (NKJV)
1 Thus says the Lord: “For three transgressions of Moab, and for four, I will not turn away its punishment, Because he burned the bones of the king of Edom to lime. 2 But I will send a fire upon Moab, And it shall devour the palaces of Kerioth; Moab shall die with tumult, With shouting and trumpet sound. 3 And I will cut off the judge from its midst, And slay all its princes with him,” Says the Lord.
In our text today the prophet Amos pronounces the Lord’s judgment upon the kingdom of Moab. Moab was situated just opposite the Dead Sea from Israel and just north of the kingdom of Edom. Between Moab and Edom there was frequent strife and warfare.
In 2 Kings chapter 3 we are informed of one particular battle between these two kingdoms that occurred some years prior to Amos’ prophecy. The battle went against the Moabites. So, in great extremity, the king of Moab endeavored to break through the army of Edom and slay their king. He failed. And when he saw that all was nearly lost and that his kindgom was likely to be destroyed, the king of Moab made the shocking decision to sacrifice his eldest son to implore the help of his god. The sacrifice worked – the Edomites and their allies retreated in disarray.
However, from this day forth, the king of Moab nursed a grudge against the king of Edom, longing for revenge for the death of his son. And some time later either he himself or one of his descendants took his revenge by burning the king of Edom’s bones to lime. As Matthew Henry remarks, the king of Moab “seized him alive and burnt him to ashes, or slew him and burnt his body, or dug up the bones of their dead king…and, in token of his rage and fury, burnt them to lime, and perhaps made use of the powder of his bones for the white-washing of the walls and ceilings of his palace, that he might please himself with the sight of that monument of his revenge.”
The actions of the king of Moab are condemned in the harshest terms by God. Even as the king of Moab burned the king of Edom, God will burn down the king of Moab’s kingdom. And the very fact that God condemns the Moabites for an offense against the Edomites illustrates that God is not only concerned for how men treat His elect people but for how they treat one another. Man’s inhumanity to man is an affront to the God in whose image we are created as human beings.
Amos’ words remind us that as human beings we bear the very image of our Creator and that we must, therefore, treat fellow human beings – even those who are our enemies – with honor and respect. Revenge is forbidden; cruelty is forbidden; inhumanity is forbidden.
The Apostle James chastises his readers for misusing their tongue simultaneously to “bless our God and Father, and [to] curse men, who have been made in the [image] of God. Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so.” (Jas 3:8-11) And if it is offensive to God when we defame the image of God in our neighbor with our words then how much more when we debase image of God with such extreme inhumanity as is charged against the king of Moab.
Calvin writes:
“The Lord commands all men without exception ‘to do good’ [to everyone even though] the great part of them are most unworthy if they be judged by their own merit. But here Scripture helps in the best way when it teaches that we are not to consider [what] men merit of themselves but to look upon the image of God in all men, to which we owe all honor and love…”
After some examples Calvin concludes:
“Assuredly there is but one way in which to achieve what is not merely difficult but utterly against human nature: [namely], to love those who hate us, to repay their evil deeds with benefits, to return blessings for reproaches. It is that we remember not to consider men’s evil intention but to look upon the image of God in them, which cancels and effaces their transgressions, and with its beauty and dignity allures us to love and embrace them.”
The king of Edom had been made in the image of God and should have been treated with reverence by the king of Moab – instead he was debased and desecrated.
So what of us? Murder is not limited to the actions – Jesus traces it to the heart. So are we reverencing the image of God in our children? The image of God in our employees? The image of God in our neighbors? The image of God in our enemies? This is our calling.
Reminded that we often overlook the majesty of the men and women and children with whom we interact, let us kneel and confess our sins to the Lord. We will have a time of private confession followed by the public confession found in your bulletin.

The Sin of Abortion

March 1, 2012 in Abortion, Bible - OT - Amos, Meditations

Amos 1:13–15 (NKJV)
13 Thus says the Lord: “For three transgressions of the people of Ammon, and for four, I will not turn away its punishment, Because they ripped open the women with child in Gilead, That they might enlarge their territory. 14 But I will kindle a fire in the wall of Rabbah, And it shall devour its palaces, Amid shouting in the day of battle, And a tempest in the day of the whirlwind. 15 Their king shall go into captivity, He and his princes together,” Says the Lord.
This last Wednesday marked the beginning of a roughly 40 day period that has since the 10th century been called Lent. This period calls us to anticipate and prepare for the celebration of the great feast of Easter – that most momentous of holy days when we commemorate the resurrection of our Lord Jesus from the dead. But the very fact that we celebrate His resurrection reminds us that Jesus died – died for our sin and rebellion, died for our transgressions. And Jesus’ death reminds us that we are called to die to sin, to die to the old Adam, the way of life that despises God and His law and substitutes human wisdom in its stead. And so Lent is appropriately  a time to focus upon specific sins that call for public confession and repentance.
In our congregation the specific issue that we have tied to this period of time is that of abortion. This is the greatest blot on our much blotted national character. Since 1973 we have slaughtered approximately 50 million children, 50 million children who will rise up and condemn this generation in the day of judgment.
Just this week Secretary of State Clinton called the actions of Russia and China “despicable” – that was her word – because they failed to authorize UN sanctions against Syria. In the last several months Syrian President Assad has used increasing force to suppress a rebellion in his country and several thousand individuals have lost their lives as a result.
Regardless of the Syrian question in itself, let me remind us all that this Hilary Clinton who declared the failure of Russia and China to stand against the death of a few thousand individuals in Syria “despicable” is the same Clinton whose hands are red with the blood of innocent children here within our own borders. This is the same Hilary Clinton whose husband while President and whose current President countenance the slaughter of millions of children while still in the womb. And she has the gall to declare the actions of Russia and China despicable? How dare we Americans condemn Syria for deaths in the thousands when each year we slaughter over a million of our own children within our very borders? Will not the Lord hold us accountable for such shameful hypocrisy? Indeed he will.
And it is this that our text from Amos declares to us today. The people of Ammon are condemned for ripping open the pregnant women of Gilead in order to expand their own borders. In other words, the people of Ammon slaughtered these children for their own advantage. They wanted greater power, greater welath, greater prestige, greater influence, greater control – and these children stood in the way of all that. And so Ammon slaughtered the infants of Gilead.
And is this not the driving force behind abortion? Selfish convenience? I want to avoid the shame of having conceived a child out of wedlock, so I slaughter my child. I want to have more disposable income, so I slaughter my child. I want to avoid the inconvenience of raising a child, so I slaughter my child. And what is God’s attitude toward such selfishness; nay, more than selfishness, evil? He detests and abhors it – and promises that His hand of judgment will fall on Ammon and bring her to the ground. 
And so reminded of our sin, reminded that like Ammon we have made war on those children yet in the womb, let us kneel and confess our sins to the Lord. We will have a time of private confession followed by the public confession found in your bulletin.

For Three Transgressions, even Four

January 30, 2012 in Bible - OT - Amos, King Jesus, Meditations

Amos 1:3-5
Thus says the LORD: 
    “ For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four,
      I will not turn away its punishment,
      Because they have threshed Gilead with implements of iron.
       4 But I will send a fire into the house of Hazael,
      Which shall devour the palaces of Ben-Hadad.
       5 I will also break the gate bar of Damascus,
      And cut off the inhabitant from the Valley of Aven,
      And the one who holds the scepter from Beth Eden.
      The people of Syria shall go captive to Kir,”
      Says the LORD. 
A couple weeks ago we began a series of exhortations from the prophet Amos. God chose the sheepherder Amos to speak the Word of God to the corrupt people of Israel and Judah. However, before Amos speaks to the people of God, he speaks the Word of God to the nations around Israel. Though God was not in covenant with the nations surrounding Israel, he makes very clear that He is nevertheless their Ruler and Judge. He is Lord of all the nations of the earth.
In our text today God speaks a word of judgment on the nation of Syria with its capital at Damascus. The ancient king of Syria, a man by the name of Hazael, had been chosen by God Himself to rule Syria. Once a servant of the King of Syria, Hazael was sent to the prophet Elisha to discover whether the king would recover from his illness. There Eliasha announced that Hazael would be the next king of Syria. But even as Elisha made the announcement, he wept openly. Hazael, astonished, asked why he wept. And this was Elisha’s reply:
“Because I know the evil that you will do to the children of Israel: Their strongholds you will set on fire, and their young men you will kill with the sword; and you will dash their children, and rip open their women with child.”
It is for these cruelties that Syria is condemned by the prophet Amos:
“For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four,
         I will not turn away its punishment,
         Because they have threshed Gilead [in n. Israel] with implements of iron. 

So what would be the consequence of Syria’s cruelty toward the people of God? God would hold them accountable. He would bring down the throne of Hazael, destroy his palaces, bring desolation on his land and people, and take many of the Syrians into captivity – words that were fulfilled when the mighty nation of Assyria destroyed Damascus within the next 50 years.
Now if it was true that God was Lord of all the nations of the earth in the Old Covenant, when God was permitting the nations of the world by and large to go their own way, how much more true is it now that Jesus is exalted as the Ruler of all the nations. Jesus rules and reigns among the nations of the earth and calls them to implement justice, righteousness, and purity on the earth. And even as God executed judgment on the nations of the ancient world for three transgressions and for four, so Jesus executes judgment on the nations of the modern world. Why have the governments of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya fallen this year? Why is the modern nation of Syria facing serious unrest? Because Jesus rules and reigns in history and overthrows wickedness and injustice, especially when that injustice is practiced against His people. And so the call to all the nations is, “Kiss the Son lest he become angry and you perish in the way.” Jesus is remarkably patient; he waits for three transgressions, even four before he strikes. But strike he will if we refuse to give heed to Him – especially if we strike out against His people.
And this is a sober reminder; after all our own nation is practicing cruelty. We are threshing the unborn with implements of iron, slaughtering our children in the womb; we are removing ancient boundary stones and meddling in affairs that are not our own; we are corrupting ourselves and others through the perversity and coarseness of our media; for three transgressions and for four Jesus judges – so let us kneel and confess our sins, requesting that God in His mercy would grant us repentance.

Suspension from the Supper

January 24, 2012 in Bible - NT - 2 Thessalonians, Discipline, Ecclesiology, Meditations

Public Suspension of —– —–
2 Thessalonians 3:13-15 (NKJV)
13 But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary in doing good. 14 And if anyone does not obey our word in this epistle, note that person and do not keep company with him, that he may be ashamed. 15 Yet do not count him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.
Paul closes his letter to the Thessalonians with several exhortations to the congregation at large. He begins by urging them, “brethren, do not grow weary in doing good.” Note that Paul’s command presumes that it is possible to grow weary in doing good – after all, we don’t warn about things that aren’t possibilities. In endeavoring to do good we face much opposition – both from within and from without – and so Paul commands us to never grow weary. The temptations of the Evil One, combined with the allurements of the world and the lusts of our own flesh, often make the task of doing good challenging, the temptation to grow weary alluring.
Because of the strength of this temptation, the temptation to give up doing good and simply start doing whatever, Paul exhorts the church to take seriously those who refuse to obey the Word of God. As Paul remarks elsewhere, a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough. If a congregation permits sin to go unchecked, then that congregation cannot be surprised when such sin spreads. So notice that Paul urges the Thessalonians to act – “if anyone does not obey our word in this epistle, note that person and do not keep company with him, that he may be ashamed.” Paul’s command involves two parts – first, the Thessalonians are to “note” – mark – point out – publicly identify such a one. Second, they are to refuse to keep company – refuse to enjoy communion, including normal fellowship at the Lord’s Supper – with such a one. Why? What is the purpose of this marking? This suspending of normal fellowship? Note Paul’s words: “that he may be ashamed.” In other words, the purpose of this discipline is to awaken the sinner to the seriousness of his sin. As Solomon writes in Proverbs 20:30, “Blows that hurt cleanse away evil, As do stripes the inner depths of the heart.”
It is with sober hearts that the elders inform you today – in accordance with Paul’s words that such things are to be announced in the public assembly (1 Cor 5:4) – that —– —– is being suspended from fellowship in the Lord’s Supper.
For some time —– has been wavering in her service of Christ. During this time numerous folks have endeavored to encourage her and come alongside her. Within the last two weeks, however, she has made clear that she is turning away from Jesus and embracing a life of sin. It has become plain that for many months she has been lying to and deceiving her parents and others, using them to further her own selfish ends. She has been committing and is continuing to commit sexual immorality. She has rejected the Bible’s authority, declaring that it is not relevant for today. She has intentionally absented herself from corporate worship and avoided accountability.
—–’s parents and the elders have spoken to her and urged her to turn back to Jesus, to beware trampling under foot the blood of the covenant by which she was distinguished from the world. She has rejected these overtures. Our Lord commands us in Matthew 18:15-17:
““Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that ‘by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.’ And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church…
In accordance with these words of our Lord, that when a brother or sister will not hear the exhortations of two or three witnesses the matter is to be brought before the church, the elders are bringing —–’s sin to your attention. Our purpose in so doing is twofold: first, that you would pray for —– and her family that the Lord would give —– eyes to see and ears to hear, that she would return to the Lord and flee from the foolish and destructive path that she is choosing. We know that all of us by nature are frail and prone to sin and deception, that but for the grace of God we would turn from him and serve self, and so let us pray that He would indeed have mercy upon her, bringing to her mind and heart the many things which she has been taught over the years.

Second, our purpose in bringing this to your attention is that you would consider writing to —–, expressing your love for her as a member of this body and urging her to repent and return to Jesus. The elders will provide you with contact information in the week to come should you choose to do so.
Suspending —– from the Lord’s Supper is an act of love, “For whom the Lord loves he disciplines even as a father the son in whom he delights.” —– is our sister and so as we admonish her we treat her “not as an enemy but as a beloved” sister who has lost her way. And these reminders of the deceitfulness of sin remind all of us of our need to confess our sins to the Lord. So let us kneel as we confess our sins and pray for our sister.
Our Father,
We are prone to sin, tempted to grow weary doing good. The temptations of the Evil One distract us, the enticements of the world draw us away, the lusts of our own flesh incline us toward evil. But for your sustaining grace we would each pursue our own way rather than the way of Jesus. We none of us by nature desire to take up our cross and follow Jesus – for following Jesus means dying to sin and self and none of us relish the prospect. We pray your mercy upon us. Remember your lovingkindness and mercy toward our sister —–. Restore her to her knees that she would bow before you and seek your forgiveness, that she would abandon the path of sin and destruction on which she has set herself and that she would return ot the narrow way that leads to life. We pray also that you would keep all of us from sin and deception, pour out your grace upon us that we would hunger and long for righteousness and purity and every good way. Through Jesus Christ our Lord and by the power of Your Spirit,
Amen.


Epiphany and Miscommunication

January 9, 2012 in Bible - OT - Isaiah, King Jesus, Meditations, Tongue

Isaiah 60:1–3 (NKJV)
1 Arise, shine; For your light has come! And the glory of the Lord is risen upon you. 2 For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, And deep darkness the people; But the Lord will arise over you, And His glory will be seen upon you. 3 The Gentiles shall come to your light, And kings to the brightness of your rising.
Communication is a good thing. As creatures made in the image of God, spoken into existence by the Word of God, one of our most god-like capabilities is the ability to communicate – to articulate with words our thoughts, feelings, desires, longings, ideas, fears, etc. Words make us human.
Ideally when we communicate both parties get the same message. But sometimes – either because we forget to speak with one another or because the person speaking communicates something other than that which the other hears – our messages just don’t get across. And this is what happened last week with our service of worship.
You see Epiphany in the church calendar, the day that celebrates the revelation of Christ to the Magi and, many years later, His baptism and His first miracle at the wedding in Cana, is celebrated on a fixed day, January 6th. Churches in the west that don’t celebrate Epiphany itself but who celebrate Epiphany on a Sunday instead have to decide which Sunday on which to celebrate. And while Carrie and I were treating last Sunday as Epiphany, Jim and Cassandra assumed we would celebrate this Sunday. Miscommunication.
So what do we do when we have a miscommunication? First, of course, the one responsible for the miscommunication should take responsibility for it. So, mea culpa – I should have communicated better. Second, knowing that our God is sovereign over all and that He intended this miscommunication for our good, our next calling is to be thankful. One of the glorious things about miscommunications is that they frequently result in multiplied blessings: we got to sing additional Christmas hymns last week and we get to sing Epiphany hymns this week and what’s wrong with that? Praise the Lord! After all, the church calendar is just a tool, a means to enable us to focus our lives on the life of our Great King Jesus. The church calendar declares that his life is the pattern for our own – and Jesus was routinely misunderstood and yet continued to give thanks to God.
And it is the centrality and magnetism of Christ which we find celebrated in Isaiah’s vision today. What happens when the light of the world comes? When the glory of the Lord rises and shines upon His people? The Gentiles shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.Men are drawn to that light, to the character of Christ, like moths to a flame.
Today throughout the world, millions of people will gather to worship Him and to pay Him tribute. Why? Did he march forth into battle with sword and shield, scimitar and daggar, battle axe and hammer? No; he did something far more fearsome. He faced the wrath of the thrice-holy God in order that he might pay the penalty for our sin. He went through the fiery furnace of judgment in order to bring us to safety and peace. He loved us and gave His life for us – upholding justice by causing justice and mercy to kiss in peace. He has conquered millions by His love.
And it is into this image that we are being transformed. So should we strive to communicate well? Yes for Jesus is the Word of God and faithfully communicated all that the Father had given him to say. But when we fail to communicate well, what should be our response? To acknowledge that we are yet fallen creatures in need of the grace of God and to give thanks that despite our miscommunications God has taught us to love one another and is enabling us, by His Spirit, to become more like Jesus.
So what miscommunications have dogged you this week? Have you and your spouse failed to understand one another? Have you and your children been like ships passing in the fog? Has your boss failed to hear your suggestions or your employee failed to implement what you thought you communicated so clearly? Whatever the miscommunication, God sends it as a reminder of our frailty, a reminder of our need for the sacrifice of Christ, and so let us kneel and seek His forgiveness for failing to respond to these miscommunications in a godly fashion.

Why did Jesus come?

January 2, 2012 in Bible - OT - Malachi, King Jesus, Meditations

Malachi 4:5–6 (NKJV)
5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. 6 And he will turn The hearts of the fathers to the children, And the hearts of the children to their fathers, Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.
When God created the world, He created it a realm of righteousness and peace – a place of blessing. When human beings rebelled against Him, however, the entire creation became twisted and distorted, it came under judgment. Where once there was only blessing now curses touched the animate and inanimate creation.
This was no surpise. After all, God Himself had announced that were our first parents to reject His Word they would surely come under His judgment. Further, since God Himself is the source of righteousness and peace, to turn away from Him is to sever ourselves from all that is good and right, from that which gives us blessing; even as a lamp depends for its light upon the electrical outlet, we depend for blessing and joy upon the living God. To reject God and imagine that we could preserve righteousness, peace, and joy is foolish – yet this was the sin of our first parents – and it is a sin repeated by countless millions of human beings to this day.
The ultimate end of rebellion is always judgment. Satan’s intention in tempting the man and the woman was to destroy all creation, to destroy that which God had designed and made, by bringing it like himself under God’s wrath and curse. Human beings became his tools, his instruments, to accomplish this objective.
But God had other plans. God intended to rescue the world not abandon it to the folly of our first parents or to the malevolence of the Evil One. He would rescue His creation. And it it this intention that is celebrated every Epiphany Sunday when Jesus was revealed to foreign kings, to the magi. It is also this intention that is announced one final time in the closing verses of the Old Covenant:
Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he will turn The hearts of the fathers to the children, And the hearts of the children to their fathers, Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.
Uniformly the NT interprets the promise of Elijah’s arrival to refer to John the Baptizer. He is Elijah who was to come before the arrival of the Messiah; he was the one commissioned to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to the fathers – a worthy theme for discussion in and of itself. But I’d like you to note the reason God gives for sending John. Why send John to restore family relationships and bring people back to the Lord? “Lest,” the Lord declares, “I come and strike the earth with a curse.”God sent John as the forerunner of His plan of salvation, His plan to rescue the entire creation from the bondage in which it was trapped.
And this is precisely what Jesus declares to us. “For God so loved the world, the kosmos, the creation which He had so lovingly and painstakingly crafted, that He sent His only Son that whosoever believes in Him may not perish but have eternal life…He did not send the Son into the world to judge the world but that the world might be saved through Him.”God acted in Christ to rescue the creation from its bondage to decay. And how did He accomplish this?
Remember that the ultimate end of rebellion is always judgment. In justice our rebellion must be judged. And so, wonder of wonders, the eternal Son of God took on human flesh by being born of the Virgin Mary, he lived among us, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried. He bore the judgment that was due to us because we had rebelled against Him. And what’s more, God raised Jesus from the dead. In this way, He broke the power of death, reversing the curse that once enslaved all creation. He came lest the earth be struck with a curse; he came to rescue all creation.
So what of you? The ultimate end of rebellion is always judgment. Either we face that judgment ourselves – the end of which will be our condemnation – or we turn in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ, who bore the judgment for all His people, and so receive blessing from the Lord in Him. None of us can face the Lord in ourselves; we have all rebelled against Him. And so, as we enter into His presence this day, He commands us to seek refuge from judgment through Jesus. Reminded of our need for a Savior, let us kneel and confess our sins to the Lord.

With Reverence and Godly Fear

December 19, 2011 in Bible - NT - Hebrews, Ecclesiology, Meditations, Worship

Hebrews 12:25–29 (NKJV)
25 See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven, 26 whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, “Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven.” 27 Now this, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. 28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. 29 For our God is a consuming fire.
Today in this final Sunday of Advent we close our meditations upon Paul’s words to the Hebrews. Paul reminds us that as Christians we have received the unshakeable kingdom; that the temporary kingdom of the Jews has given way to the eternal kingdom of the Messiah. Therefore, as members of the Messianic kingdom, we are to approach God in corporate worship in a way that is acceptable, in a way that is pleasing to him. Note Paul’s words, “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.”
Last week we insisted that Paul’s use of the word “serve” in this passage is specifically addressing corporate worship. Latreuwmeans ‘to perform religious rites, to worship, to venerate.’ We also saw that Paul insists that there is a right and wrong way to worship God. He says that by grace we may worship God acceptably – implying, of course, that there is an unacceptable way of worshiping him. So what does it mean to worship God acceptably? Paul does not leave us to answer this question on our own – for he immediately qualifies his exhortation.
We are to worship God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire. Paul’s language leaves us in no doubt of his reference point. Ages ago when God appeared to Moses and called him to rescue Israel from Egypt, he appeared to Moses in the burning bush. And when Moses became curious and would have searched out the secrets of the burning bush God declared, “’Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals from off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground…I am the God of your father – the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God” (Ex 3:5-6). Moses’ response to the awe-inspiring presence of the Lord in the burning bush is the paradigm that Paul uses to describe acceptable worship.
First, acceptable worship is reverent worship. The word that Paul uses here alludes to Moses hiding his face. It is the word used elsewhere to be ashamed, shame-faced, or embarrassed. By extension it means to bow one’s head with a self-conscious acknowledgment of inferiority or fault. When we come here week in and week out to worship, we come to meet with the high and holy one – the very one with whom Moses met on the mountain, the very one whose presence was transfigured on the mount such that Peter, James, and John couldn’t look upon him. So as we come, we are to come remembering that the One we worship is a consuming fire and so we are to be reverent.
Second, acceptable worship is fearful worship. When Moses was confronted by the living God, he was in awe, afraid to look upon him. Knowing that God is not to be trifled with, not to be treated lightly, we are to worship with this due sense of awe. And awe will manifest itself in obedience – when we hear the voice of the one we fear we listen attentively. God rebukes the Jews in Isaiah’s day for fearing men rather than fearing Him: “I, even I, am He who comforts you. Who are you that you should be afraid of a man who will die, and of the son of a man who will be made like grass? And you forget the Lord your Maker?” (Is 51:12) So when we come to worship we are to have godly fear.
So why do we do what we do? Why isn’t our worship hip and trendy? Why do we sing stodgy old psalms and hymns? Why don’t we dance and skip in the aisles? Why do we kneel? Why do we raise our hands together? Why do we recite creeds, pray sober prayers, greet one another with promises and even warnings? Because we are called to worship the Lord with reverence and godly fear.
And so, reminded that this is our calling, reminded that we come this morning into the presence of the same God before whom Moses quaked in fear, let us kneel and confess that we are unworthy in ourselves to be here and that we stand in great need of the sacrifice of Christ to cover our sins.