The Family of God

October 4, 2009 in Ecclesiology, Meditations

1 Timothy 5:1-2 (NKJV)1 Do not rebuke an older man, but exhort him as a father, younger men as brothers, 2 older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, with all purity.

God in His grace and mercy and wisdom has called us to be part of a family. Not only has he ordained marriage as the foundation for human society – with children being the fruit of it – but he has also, in Christ, united the Church to one another as family. In the text before us today, Paul reminds Timothy to treat the other members of the Church as extended family. He is to treat older men as fathers, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters. The Church is a family.

Because the Church is a family, there are lessons that all members of the family teach one another. All members of the body of Christ, male and female from infancy to old age, teach and instruct one another. It is for this reason that the trend in the modern church to separate folks according to age is so detrimental. Whether this manifests itself in children’s church, in contemporary versus traditional services, or in youth groups that capitalize on juvenile behavior, each robs the Church and undermines her long term health.

Today, therefore, we begin a short series of exhortations on lessons learned from different portions of the family of God. What do infants teach us? Children? Young boys and young girls? Young men and women? The middle-aged? The aged?

As we look at the Word of God, we will see that every member of the family of God has incredible significance. Each has a lesson to teach – and this, of course, means that everyone has a lesson to learn from them all. And so the questions come to us this morning – how are we doing? Are we considering the important role that we play in teaching the rest of the people of God? And, on the flip side, are we learning from all members of the family?

Paul expects us to treat one another as family – to love and cherish one another, to show respect where it is due, and loyalty at all times. But I fear that this is often not what happens. We hasten to hide away some members of the family. We don’t want the inconvenience or embarrassment associated with them. Old Uncle Charlie gets shuffled down the stairs to the basement and junior gets tossed in the nursery. We ignore Freddy’s pertness and pray that little Sally won’t say “Amen” too loud. But in the process we miss what God is teaching us and fail to see the true wonder of His glory.

Reminded of our failure to treat one another as family, to love one another and be loyal to one another, let us kneel and confess our sins to our heavenly Father.

Tremble, All the Earth

October 4, 2009 in Bible - OT - Psalms, Meditations

“When Israel went forth from Egypt,
The house of Jacob from a people of strange language,
Judah became His sanctuary,
Israel, His dominion.

The sea looked and fled;
The Jordan turned back.
The mountains skipped like rams,
The hills, like lambs.
What ails you, O sea, that you flee?
O Jordan, that you turn back?
O mountains, that you skip like rams?
O hills, like lambs?

Tremble, O earth, before the Lord,
Before the God of Jacob,
Who turned the rock into a pool of water,
The flint into a fountain of water.”
Psalm 114

The Scriptures declare to us that the Triune God, the Lord of Heaven and Earth, is truly a God of wonders. Far from the empty prattlings of philosophers; far from the idyllic dreams of mystic thinkers; far from the lifeless clay of idolaters is the Living God. He is no idle fancy.

Though modern man envisions himself as master of his own destiny, the Word of God declares that the Sovereign Lord is master of all destinies. It is He who rules the winds and the waves; he who makes the birds to fly; he who makes the seasons to change; he who numbers the days of every living thing on earth—saying, “This long shall you live and no longer!”

The text before us today declares both the wondrous power of God and the response which all creatures are to have towards Him. There is perhaps no greater testimony of God’s power and might in the Old Testament than the Exodus. Here that event is celebrated in poetic verse.

When Israel went forth from Egypt,
The house of Jacob from a people of strange language,
Judah became His sanctuary,
Israel, His dominion.

The psalmist marvels that the people of Israel, once enslaved and degraded, became the most exalted people on earth—the very temple of the living God, the benefactors of His Kingship. In like manner, Paul celebrates the exalted position of the Church—we are now the temple of God, the place of His dwelling. And who is this God who dwells in our midst—none other than the God who makes the earth itself reel from His awful presence.

The sea looked and fled;
The Jordan turned back.
The mountains skipped like rams,
The hills, like lambs.
What ails you, O sea, that you flee?
O Jordan, that you turn back?
O mountains, that you skip like rams?
O hills, like lambs?

What else could nature do as it faced the mighty hand of God? When God said, “Part!” to the waters of the Red Sea, they parted. When God said, “Turn Back!” to the waters of the Jordan in the days of Joshua, they turned back. How could they do otherwise?

And now what does the Psalmist call upon the earth to do? Tremble! Behold Your God and tremble.

Tremble, O earth, before the Lord,
Before the God of Jacob,
Who turned the rock into a pool of water,
The flint into a fountain of water.”

And if the psalmist calls upon the earth itself to tremble, how much more ought we to tremble in His sight—we who have transgressed against Him and spurned His holy covenant. And so let us kneel and confess our failure to tremble before Him.

The Gift of Good Manners

September 15, 2009 in Bible - NT - Colossians, Bible - OT - Proverbs, Meditations

“5 Walk in wisdom toward those who are outside, redeeming the time. 6 Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.” Colossians 4:5,6

In closing his letter to the Colossians, Paul urges a number of common graces upon the believers in Colossae. Knowing that they would be tempted in the cosmopolitan and corrupt city of Colossae to retreat into a holy huddle and be cranky and uptight, Paul imparts to them some closing words of counsel about their actions and their speech.

In regard to our actions, Paul commands us to “walk in wisdom” and to “redeem the time.” Paul urges us to follow the exhortations to wisdom found in Proverbs and other books, particularly in light of the brevity of our lives and the time that the Lord has allotted to each of us on earth. We are to use the gifts and talents that the Lord has afforded us to the best of our ability and for the benefit of others.

This other oriented focus continues in Paul’s exhortation regarding our speech. “Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.” Elsewhere he gives the same basic command urging us to speak in such a way that it “gives grace to those who hear.” Our speech, Paul tells us, is not primarily to serve ourselves but to serve others.

And so, what do these exhortations mean for us? First, they remind us that Paul saw no contrast between the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and the wisdom literature, like the Proverbs, in the Old Testament. After all, these words that Paul entrusts to the Colossians were nothing new. Solomon had given the same basic exhortation years before.

“24 Put away from you”, Solomon counsels, “a deceitful mouth,
And put perverse lips far from you.
25 Let your eyes look straight ahead,
And your eyelids look right before you.
26 Ponder the path of your feet,
And let all your ways be established.
27 Do not turn to the right or the left;
Remove your foot from evil.”

Notice then that when Paul urges us to walk in wisdom, he is commanding us to have these proverbs dwell in our hearts and minds. Let us teach them to our children and grandchildren that they might learn what it means to walk in wisdom and redeem the time.

Second, in this passage Paul is endorsing the old-fashioned concept of good manners. For what are manners but simple patterns of behavior that attempt to put others at ease and consider their well-being as more important than our own? Opening the doors for ladies, saying hello and goodbye, saying thank you and you’re welcome – we should view all these trifles as attempts to incarnate Paul’s admonition to let our conduct be characterized by wisdom and our speech seasoned with salt.

There is one particular way in which we can be practicing Paul’s wisdom every week as we gather together. We worship in a facility that is not our own but which we are being permitted to use. As guests in this facility, we need to demonstrate good manners. And so, children, you shouldn’t be climbing over the furniture, playing with things that aren’t ours, or carrying your donuts outside the eating area.

And you, parents, take responsibility for your children. Watch over them with all diligence and teach them the importance of manifesting good manners in their treatment of this facility. But let us not do this in such a way that we too violate the command to have our speech seasoned with grace. We mustn’t yell and scream at our children because we have failed to train them in good manners. Instilling manners into our children is not done on Sunday morning – it must be happening all week so that Sunday morning is nothing new. So the exhortation comes to us: we must impart the grace of manners to our children.

Walk in wisdom, redeem the time, speak with grace – these are the reminders that Paul gives to the Colossians and to us. Reminded how we as a people have failed to fulfill these things, let us kneel and confess this to our Father seeking His forgiveness.

Numbering Our Days

September 7, 2009 in Bible - OT - Psalms, Evangelism, Meditations

Psalm 90:12 (NKJV)
12 So teach us to number our days, That we may gain a heart of wisdom.

John Piper tells the story of an old man converted to Christ through the preaching of Piper’s father. Praying for God’s mercy through his tears, the man cried out, “I’ve wasted it. I’ve wasted it.” So little time he had on earth and he hadn’t devoted it to that which truly mattered.

This past week a friend of mine died. He was 48. A week ago Friday we played tennis together; talked about his children; spoke about the weather; sweated on the court; reflected on John Piper’s book Don’t Waste Your Life. By last Sunday morning he had died and gone on to his reward. This side of the grave we won’t meet again.

Blaise Pascal, the great 17th century mathematician, physicist, and Christian apologist, wrote in his Pensees:

Imagine a number of prisoners on death row, some of whom are killed each day in the sight of the others. The remaining ones see their condition is that of their fellows, and looking at each other with grief and despair, await their turn. This is a picture of the human condition…The last scene of the play is bloody, however fine the rest of it. They throw earth over your head, and it is finished forever.

It was this awareness of the transitory nature of life that moved Moses to cry out to God in our psalm today, “So teach us to number our days, That we may gain a heart of wisdom.” When we are confronted with death it is our opportunity to remember that our days are numbered. We will not live forever. God has set our appointed time on earth and when the number of those days comes to a close then our time here will end as well. Because God has numbered our days, Moses asks the Lord to teach us to number them as well. Teach us to count the number of days we have here on earth, to consider that the time we have before death is short.

What is the purpose of this numbering? So that we might have a morbid fascination with death? Dress in black and be morose? Be like the ancient Egyptians, who had a wooden corpse in their homes that they might bring it out in the midst of their parties and show their guests, declaring, “Look on this while you drink, for this will be your lot when you are dead”? Is this why we should learn to number our days?

No. The purpose is so that we may gain a heart of wisdom. What does a heart of wisdom look like? First, it reckons with the vanity of life and the inevitability of death. Pascal notes:

Nothing is of more importance to man than his state, nothing more fearful than eternity. It is unnatural that there should be people who are indifferent to the loss of their life and careless of the peril of an eternity of unhappiness. They react very differently to everything else. They are afraid of the least things that they anticipate and feel. The same person who spends nights and days in a rage, in the agony of despair over the loss of some status or imaginary affront to his reputation, is the same person who knows he will lose everything by death and shows neither concern nor emotion at the prospect. It is extraordinary to see in the same heart and at the same time this concern for the most trivial matters, and yet lack of concern for the greatest.

But the heart of wisdom does not betray this folly. It knows the imperative of reckoning with death, of being ready to face eternity. And so, the heart of wisdom trusts in the sacrifice of Christ on the cross as the only means to reconcile a sinner to a holy God. Nothing in my hand I bring, says the old hymn, simply to Thy cross I cling.

Second, the heart of wisdom lives fully and completely for the glory and grandeur of God. What is the chief end of man? Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. A heart of wisdom knows that we were created to find our great joy and gladness in union and communion with God. And so the man who has learned to number his days has learned to spend every one of them in passionate enjoyment of the Living God.

Unfortunately we often waste our days rather than number them. We move from one day to the next with little thought or reflection, distracted by trinkets rather than devoted to the glory of God. Reminded that we are to number our days, that we are to present to the Lord a heart of wisdom, let us kneel and confess our sins in the Name of Christ.

Who is Lord over us?

August 31, 2009 in Bible - OT - Psalms, Meditations, Tongue

“Help, Lord, for the godly man ceases to be,
For the faithful disappear from among the sons of men.
They speak falsehood to one another;
With flattering lips and with a double heart they speak.
May the Lord cut off all flattering lips,
The tongue that speaks great things;
Who have said, ‘With our tongue we will prevail;
Our lips are own own; who is lord over us?’
‘Because of the devastation of the afflicted, because of the groaning of the needy,
Now I will arise,’ says the Lord; ‘I will set him in the safety for which he longs.’”
Psalm 12:1-5

In our fallen nature we frequently think of ourselves as independent, free from all restraint. We consider ourselves autonomous, a rule unto ourselves. We want to define our own reality, to say what is good and right, what is fitting, what is just, what is lovely. This rebellious spirit is reflected in David’s words today. [Quote] “[The wicked say] With our tongue we will prevail; Our lips are our own; who is lord over us?” [End Quote]

Because we imagine ourselves independent, we use our tongue to achieve our own ends – to serve ourselves rather than to serve God and others. The psalm today identifies three ways we abuse the tongue for our own ends. First, we speak falsehood to one another. In other words, we lie to one another. We fail to honor God and our neighbor by giving the gift of truth. Instead we speak falsehood. Why would we do such a thing? Perhaps we have spoken a falsehood to our brother to get something we want, “Mom says you have to give the lollipop to me.” Perhaps we have lied to our parents to avoid punishment, “No, Mom, I didn’t hit junior with this bloody stick – he’s just whining.” Perhaps we have made excuses to our employer to retain our job, “Really, sir, that wasn’t my fault, Ralph is the one who passed the bad information along to me.” Perhaps we have pretended innocence for hurting our spouse to avoid sexual sanctions. “Honey, I didn’t know that you thought our 25th anniversary dinner was important.” Whatever our situation, whatever our justification, when we lie we are not numbered among the faithful of the land, among the godly who fill the earth. “Lying lips,” Solomon says, “are an abomination to the Lord, but those who deal faithfully are His delight.” [Proverbs 12:19]

Not only do we speak falsehood to one another, we also flatter one another. Flattery is, of course, another type of lying. But whereas falsehoods are like vinegar, flattering lies are like sugar water. They are sweet and syrruppy and tasty to those who hear them – until they discover the bitter poison at the end of them. “A man who flatters his neighbor,” Solomon tells us, “Spreads a net for his neighbor’s feet.” [Prov 29:5] The flatterer is he who speaks to his neighbor not for the truth’s sake, not to secure his neighbor’s well-being, but simply to advance his own selfish agenda. When asked for counsel, the flatterer does not consider, “What is true? What is the right thing to do?” but rather, “What does this person want to hear so that I can get what I want from them? “A lying tongue,” Proverbs 26:28 tells us, “hates those who are crushed by it, And a flattering mouth works ruin.”

The culmination of falsehoods and flatteries is deceitfulness. There is, David tells us, a man who speaks with a double heart – who pretends to be your most earnest and heartfelt friend but who is really reserving his heart for another. He speaks out of both sides of his mouth – his heart is not with you. He is like Judas who betrays His Master with a kiss. Solomon warns us to beware such a man:

“Do not eat the bread of a selfish man,
Or desire his delicacies;
For as he thinks within himself, so he is.
He says to you, “Eat and drink!”
But his heart is not with you.
You will vomit up the morsel you have eaten,
And waste your compliments.”
Proverbs 23:6-8

But as we consider the charge of being double-hearted, is this not manifest in our own lives. How often do we betray those to whom we are supposed to be loyal in order to avoid embarrasment? “No, that snivelling little kid isn’t my brother.” Are we not all prone to deceit? Prone to seek our own advantage at the expense of others?

In the psalm today, David warns us and reminds us that fallen men are selfish creatures. Rather than submit our tongues to the Lord, we use them to gratify ourselves. But in the paradox of fallen man, what we think will gratify us in the end destroys us.

Reminded of our failure to submit our tongues to the Lordship of the incarnate Word of God, let us kneel and confess our sins in His name, seeking the forgiveness of our Heavenly Father.

Contentment and Happiness

August 17, 2009 in Bible - NT - Philippians, Meditations

Philippians 4:10-13 (NKJV)
10 But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at last your care for me has flourished again; though you surely did care, but you lacked opportunity. 11 Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: 12 I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. 13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

There is an ancient Roman proverb that states, “Who is it that has the most? Is it not he who desires the least?”

What Paul and this short proverb are endeavoring to communicate to us is that our contentment and happiness are directly proportionate to our expectations. We imagine that we need more, deserve more, are entitled to more and so we are not content with what we already possess. We set our expectations so high that they are never met and so we are never content. And our discontent reveals itself in a lack of thankfulness to others and to God. For thankfulness is an expression of contentment—an expression that the expectations we have set have been fulfilled and even exceeded.

These expectations come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Sometimes, as in the text before us in Philippians, they are monetary expectations. Paul had learned, he tells us, to be content both with prosperity and with poverty, both with being filled and going hungry, of having abundance and suffering need. As a result, he was able to give thanks regardless of his circumstances.

But our expectations can also be non-monetary. We can set unreasonable expectations upon our spouses, our employers and employees, our children, our friends—and so we never thank them for the meal on the table, for the folded towels in the closet, for the daily labor at the office, for the opportunity to work, for the work performed, or for the frequent sacrifices made on our behalf. It’s his or her job to do all those things, we say to ourselves, and so we never express thankfulness—never look at others with a twinkle in our eye and a full heart and say, “Thank you.” Our expectations are set so high that no one could ever possibly meet them. No circumstances, however favorable, could transpire to make us happy.

But this was not Paul’s situation. He tells us that he had learned the secret of being content. What is that secret? Paul came to understand that what is most important in life is not our circumstances but the God who has given these circumstances to us. Let us ask ourselves, when tempted to be discontent and unthankful – Is God sovereign? Is God in control of every event in our lives both good and bad? Has God orchestrated every moment of our past lives as He sees fit? Clearly the answers to these questions are, “Yes!” And since this is the case, what is our calling? Is it not to trust Him? To rest in His good providence and be overflowing with gratitude? As Paul says, “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” True contentment comes not by having high expecations of our circumstances but by trusting the goodness of our Heavenly Father.

Reminded of our failure to trust the Lord in any and every circumstance and our failure to be thankful, let us kneel and confess our sins in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Tremble, and Do not Sin

August 11, 2009 in Bible - OT - Psalms, Meditations

“Tremble, and do not sin;
Meditate in your heart upon your bed, and be still.
Offer the sacrifices of righteousness,
And trust in the LORD.”
Psalm 4:4 – 5

The call of God upon us as His creatures is very simple and straightforward – he wants us to serve Him, not man; to trust in Him, not in created things; to love and cling to Him, not to the idols which we create with our own hands. As our Lord Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”

Each of us is called to make this most determinative and fundamental choice. And it is not a choice that admits of middle paths – there is no third option; no opportunity of pleading that we have been placed in a false dilemma. The dilemma is real; the antithesis stares us in the face; we must choose whom we shall serve. Who will be our God?

The challenge comes: who is your God? Have you given yourself to the gods of this age? To glamour, wealth, power, academic prestige, simplicity, health? Do you sit and worship at their feet?

Or have you given yourself to the Triune God, the Creator of heaven and earth, the fountain of true glamour, of lasting wealth, of real power, of profound wisdom, of unpretentious simplicity, of blessed health? Do you sit and worship at His feet?

It was here that David sat and notice the way he describes the calling of all men on earth:

Tremble, and do not sin; – Fear God, do anything except offend him, remember that our God is a consuming fire. Since sin is that which causes a separation between us and God – if he is our Lord then we must put away sin, we must forsake it to serve Him.

Meditate in your heart upon your bed, and be still – As one who fears God and not men, don’t let your thoughts go wild; be anxious for nothing, but in everything with prayer and petition present your requests to God and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. If we meditate on the Word of God, if we let our thoughts race not on our own anxieties but on the Word then we shall be equipped to be still – and this is why our Lord Jesus follows up His remark that we cannot serve God and mammon with an exhortation not to be anxious.

Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, and trust in the Lord – Serve the Lord with gladness of heart; rejoice in his precepts; delight in His law; pray; for with such sacrifices God is well pleased. Don’t succumb to the allurement of idols – many of them are carved quite cunningly, beautiful with their gold and silver accents – but remember that despite all their cunning beauty they cannot do anything for you.

So what is God’s call upon us as His creatures? David tells us:
“Tremble, and do not sin;
Meditate in your heart upon your bed, and be still.
Offer the sacrifices of righteousness,
And trust in the LORD.”

Reminded of our failure to trust wholly in the Lord, let us kneel and confess our sins in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, seeking the forgiveness of our Heavenly Father.

Refined in a Furnace

August 3, 2009 in Bible - OT - Psalms, Meditations, Trials

8 Oh, bless our God, you peoples!
And make the voice of His praise to be heard,
9 Who keeps our soul among the living,
And does not allow our feet to be moved.
10 For You, O God, have tested us;
You have refined us as silver is refined.
11 You brought us into the net;
You laid affliction on our backs.
12 You have caused men to ride over our heads;
We went through fire and through water;
But You brought us out to rich fulfillment. Ps 66:8-12

When trials come our way from whom do they come? Shall we curse some blind fate? Shall we lay the blame at the feet of our enemies? Shall we scorn our own folly?

The psalmist today reminds us that trials come upon us, ultimately, from the hand of our loving and personal God – our God who loves us and desires nothing more than to see us grow and prosper.

But why does God do this thing? Why does he bring trials our way? The psalmist provides us with a couple reasons. First, God wishes to refine us as silver is refined. “For You, O God, have tested us; you have refined us as silver is refined.” There is simply no way to get the impurities out of the precious metal silver without heating it up and burning them out. And there is no way to get the sin out of our lives without trials and struggles. Without them, we become slack and lazy, coddling our sin and thinking that truly we are upright people. It is only when God brings trials upon us that we throw ourselves at Jesus feet like Jairus when his daughter lay dying, and say, “Help me Lord!”

Second, He wishes to reveal to us how great His determination to bless us is. He wants to bring us through trial to an abundant and fruitful life. “I have come,” our Lord Jesus assured His disciples, “that you might have life and have it abundantly.” And so we go through fire and water, we get caught in the net, we have affliction laid upon our backs. Why? Because God is a masochist? No – because He delights to rescue us from our afflictions and demonstrate His great power. “You brought us into the net; You laid affliction on our backs. You have caused men to ride over our heads; We went through fire and through water; But You brought us out to rich fulfillment.” God delights to bring us to a land flowing with milk and honey. But we can’t get there without going through the Red Sea.

And so what should our response be to trials that come our way? Well listen to the voice of the psalmist: “Oh, bless our God, you peoples! And make the voice of His praise to be heard, who keeps our soul among the living, and does not allow our feet to be moved.”

But what is our response instead? Is it not to grumble and complain? To curse the day we were born? To accuse our God?

Reminded of our failure to trust our Heavenly Father in the midst of our trials and hardships, let us kneel before Him and ask Him to forgive us and grant that we might be as silver refined in a furnace seven times.

Mindless Repetition

July 29, 2009 in Bible - NT - James, Creeds, Meditations

“You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble!” James 2:19

In confessional churches there is an ever present danger – the danger of mindless repetition. The prophets in Israel were stern in their rebukes of the people of God for failing to draw near to God in their hearts and substituting external ritual for an inward love for Him. “Woe to those who draw near to me with their lips but whose hearts are far from me.”

Every Lord’s Day we have opportunity to confess our common faith with one of the ancient creeds. It is always good to remember why we do this, so consider just a few reasons:

1. Common confession is a fitting response of faith to God’s Word, a declaration of trust in the Sovereign Lord. As God’s Word continues to be spurned in our culture and in our churches more and more we need to confess–we trust in His Word. He is God; we are not. We shall do what He says and follow Him. The creeds are an excellent way to express this faith–we trust Him.

2. In light of the massive syncretism in our culture, the recitation of creeds is a forceful way to declare whom we worship. We will not bow to America’s idol, some general theistic deity. Neither shall we worship Vishnu, nor Zeus, nor Allah, nor the
universe. We will invoke the blessing of the Triune God and no other. We worship Him.

3. It enables us to verbalize our thankfulness to God for those who have gone before us. We worship the God of Abraham and Isaac, Peter and Paul, Ambrose and Augustine, Luther and Calvin, Edwards and Whitefield. When we confess the creeds, we acknowledge our indebtedness to our forefathers. They lived, breathed, suffered, and died to preserve this faith for us and we lay hold of it with everything we have. So we thank Him.

While remembering why we do this, it is also important to emphasize how we are to do it. And this brings us back to our opening danger – the danger of mindless repetition. As we recite the creed each Lord’s Day we declare, “We believe…” It is important to ask, believe it or not, what we mean by the word “believe”? For “believe” can be used in a variety of ways – as we see in our passage from James today: “You believe that God is one. You do well. The demons also believe and shudder!” There is a certain type of belief that will not deliver in the day of judgment. So when we confess the creed, the belief that we should be confessing is not a mere admission of intellectual assent, “Oh, yeah, this is what I think,” but rather an expression of heartfelt commitment, “This is the One I love, I trust, I cherish, I adore.”

And so, how are we doing? Children, how are you doing? Are you embracing and cherishing the One who calls you His own in the waters of baptism? Are you approaching worship each week in faith, hungering to hear the voice of Christ, to be changed and transformed? Adults, how are you doing? Is worship growing ever more sweet and lovely? Are you reciting the creed intelligently and faithfully or by rote? These are the questions that the different meanings of the word “believe” force us to ask. Our confession should be robust, lively, and full of faith. Beware lipping the words and losing their meaning.

Reminded of our propensity to draw near to God with our lips and fail to draw near Him with our hearts, let us seek His face and ask Him to forgive us and make the fruit of our lips a pleasing sacrifice in His sight.