Descriptions and Commissions

December 19, 2008 in Bible - OT - Isaiah, Meditations

Acts 13:46-48 (NKJV)Then Paul and Barnabas grew bold and said, “It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken to you [Jews] first; but since you reject it, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles. 47 For so the Lord has commanded us: ‘I have set you as a light to the Gentiles, That you should be for salvation to the ends of the earth.’” 48 Now when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.

In the passage before us today, we find Paul making use of the Servant Songs of Isaiah, the very texts that we are studying in this season of Advent. Paul vindicates his ministry to the Gentiles by applying the statement of the Servant Song to himself and to Barnabas. “I have set you as a light to the Gentiles, that you should be for salvation to the ends of the earth.” The question we should be asking is, “How can Paul do that?”

After all, these Servant Songs, as we saw last week, speak clearly of the ministry of our Lord and Savior Jesus. He is the Servant of the Lord. But Paul doesn’t apply the words of the Song to Jesus; rather, he applies the words to Barnabas and to himself. He declares that the Servant Song is being fulfilled in his ministry, in the life of the Church. The Church is called to be a light to the Gentiles, to be for salvation to the ends of the earth. How can this be?

What Paul reveals is that in the Servant Songs we have not only descriptions of what our Lord and Savior Jesus was like but also commissions of what we as the people of God are to be. The Church, after all, is the body of Christ. And so the descriptions of what our Lord was like are simultaneously descriptions of what we are to be like.

So what did we learn last week in our survey of the first Servant Song, in our study of Isaiah 42? We learned that Jesus was humble, gracious, and patient. He does not raise His voice in the street, He does not break the bruised reed, and he will not fail nor grow discouraged until he has established justice in the earth. This is who our Savior was.

If what Paul says is true, then alongside these descriptions of our Lord come commissions for us as the people of God. We are to be humble. We are to be gracious. We are to be patient. Yet I fear that frequently it is not so. Frequently we draw attention to ourselves; frequently we wound those in need of healing; frequently we grow discouraged in our tasks.

Consider the calling to be gracious. Our Lord does not quench the smoking flax, he does not break the bruised reed. What of us? How do we treat those in need of encouragement around us? Siblings, brothers and sisters, how do you use your words with one another? Do you use your words to build up or to tear down? To plant or to uproot? The Lord calls us to the former and in the life of our Lord exhibits how it is done – have we done it? Whether we are speaking with our spouses, our parents, our children, or our siblings – are we gracious? Are we encouraging those around us or are we breaking them down? Are we breaking the bruised reed, quenching the smoking flax? “Let no corrupt word,” Paul exhorts us in Ephesians 4:29, “proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.”

Reminded of our calling to imitate that Great Servant, the Lord Jesus Christ, let us kneel and let us confess our failure to do so to the Lord.

Singing for the Kingdom

December 8, 2008 in Bible - OT - Isaiah, Meditations, Prayer, Singing Psalms

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. Are You not the arm that cut Rahab apart, And wounded the serpent? 10 Are You not the One who 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 Lord shall 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 the promises that He is making through Isaiah himself. The Lord has promised through the prophet Isaiah to rescue His people from exile; indeed, not only to rescue His people from exile but to rescue the entire earth. And so Isaiah, seeing the promise, longing for its fulfillment calls out to the Lord in the midst of writing these 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.

And so Isaiah calls upon this same Lord, the Lord who delivered Israel from Egypt and who was presently revealing His purposes to Isaiah – Awake! Awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord!

And this brothers is the heart of true prayer. The heart of true prayer is to consider the promises of God and then ask Him, plead with Him, urge Him to do the very things that He has promised to do. Lord, act! Lord, save!

Today is the second Sunday of Advent – the beginning of the Church calendar. In this time we have the immense privilege of recalling the cries of our fathers – Lord awake! Lord act! Do that which you have promised.

But we too find ourselves in this position. For the Lord has yet to fulfill all His promises. The Lord has yet to fill the earth with the knowledge of His name, yet to spread justice to all the ends of the earth. And so we are instructed by our Lord Jesus to cry out, Lord awake! Lord act! Thy Kingdom come! Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven! Vindicate your Name, O Lord! Rescue your people!

One of the chief ways that we as the people of God issue these cries is in our singing – we praise the Lord who has acted and beseech Him yet to act! And this is what Isaiah tells us. “So the ransomed of the Lord shall return, And come to Zion with singing.” For what was the response of Israel following the Exodus? Miriam and the daughters of Israel composed a song and praised the Lord for his deliverance. But now Isaiah is asking for more – deliver us yet again. Israel praised the Lord for His deliverance and looked forward to deliverances yet to come. And we, brothers and sisters, are in a similar position. Christ has come – Hallelujah! Christ has yet to extend His rule throughout the earth – Maranatha!

You’ll notice that the hymns and psalms we have chosen for Advent are endeavoring to give expression to this reality. We are endeavoring to be consistent with the thrust of the season. And so as you sing – consider. Why are we singing what we are singing? Is the song a song of praise for deliverance accomplished or is it one of deliverance desired or is it one of both? For we as the people of God have the immense privilege of celebrating the incarnation of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and of praying that His Kingdom would reach its full fruition. We are praying as we sing, Thy Kingdom come! Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

And so how ought we to sing? Well, what is the tone of Isaiah’s call? Awake! Awake, put on strength O arm of the Lord! Is it not one of passion, conviction, entreaty, hunger, robustness?

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 kneel and confess our complacency to the Lord.

Changing the Liturgy

December 8, 2008 in Liturgy, Meditations, Tradition

Matthew 15:1-6 (NKJV)1 Then the scribes and Pharisees who were from Jerusalem came to Jesus, saying, 2 “Why do Your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.” 3 He answered and said to them, “Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition? 4 For God commanded, saying, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.’ 5 But you say, ‘Whoever says to his father or mother, “Whatever profit you might have received from me is a gift to God”— 6 then he need not honor his father or mother.’ Thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition.

The passage before us in Matthew should be very familiar. We have recently explored Mark’s telling of this same event. But Matthew’s emphasis falls differently thank Mark’s – Matthew wants to make sure that his readers always keep before them an essential distinction – there are those things that are human traditions and there are those that are commandments of God. When we fail to make the distinction between these two things we inevitably run the danger, which the Pharisees failed to avoid, of substituting human traditions for the Word of God or of imagining that our own traditions have equal weight with the Word of God.

Traditions are not inherently bad. In fact, traditions are inevitable. They are one of those things that we cannot avoid. And when we try to avoid having traditions we simply end up with a new tradition – namely, not having traditions. Traditions then are not the problem.

The problem arises when we don’t make a distinction between our traditions and God’s commands and we soon become incapable of differentiating them. This then leads us to the point where our traditions take precedence over the Word of God and we find ourselves incapable of seeing the way in which our traditions actually undermine the Word of God. This was the situation of the Pharisees. So much did they laud their traditions, that they could no longer see the way in which their traditions were making the Word of God of no effect.

This morning we have instituted a change in our call to worship and it is always good on such occasions to understand why we have done so. Among the various reasons – which would include the beginning of the Advent season this Lord’s Day – one of the central ones is reinforcing the distinction between the Word of God and our traditions. We are firmly convinced that our basic order of worship is reflective of biblical principles. We are just as firmly convinced that the details of our worship, while also reflective of biblical principles, are nowhere absolutely commanded in the Word of God. They are our own local traditions. And so, as a means of ruffling feathers and making sure that we don’t get so set in our ways that we imagine all the little details of our liturgy are found in Deuteronomy somewhere, we periodically change the liturgy.

And so, as we come into the presence of our Lord this day, let us remember to draw the distinction between the commandments of God and the traditions of men – and let us confess to our Lord that we have too often failed to make this distinction.

Turning Sinners Back

November 25, 2008 in Bible - NT - James, Meditations

James 5:19-20 (NKJV)19 Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, 20 let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.

Today we close our series of exhortations from the book of James. And it is fitting that the book closes with a promise that James himself kept in mind as he wrote his epistle. He who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.

James wrote his epistle to encourage his audience to love, serve, and obey the Lord with fullness of joy and diligence. He wrote to those who were tempted to compromise; tempted to soften the demands of the Lord and Savior Jesus. He wrote to call them back to their senses – call them back to righteousness and holiness. Why? So that he might turn their souls from death and cover a multitude of sins.

The way of sin, in other words, is the way of death. When we walk down the path of transgression, we are walking the path of death. Satan lured our mother Eve to sin by promising the knowledge of good and evil – if you eat of the fruit then you will have a true and full life.

But Satan was a liar from the beginning. What he really held out before Eve was not life but death, not liberty but slavery, not knowledge but ignorance. And when Eve ate of the fruit, she plunged headlong into destruction. And when Adam joined her, the fate of mankind was sealed. We became corrupt, demented, distorted, full of wickedness and deceit, the living dead.

But Jesus came to give us life, to free us from the ghoulish state of unbelief. He came to breathes into us the breath of life so that once again we might become real men, freed from the curse of unbelief. But what are we tempted to do? We are tempted to forget; tempted to wander away from the one who has loved us and given himself for us; tempted to embrace once again the culture of death. And so James reminds us – he who rescues an erring brother, rescues him from death.

And so this morning, let us be reminded to pray for all those who have turned from the truth and who are walking in the paths of death. In particular, let us pray for ——–. And let us also pray that God would forgive us for so often believing the lies of the evil one and embracing the culture of death. Let us kneel together.

Fervent Prayer

November 16, 2008 in Bible - NT - James, Meditations, Prayer

James 5:16-18 (NKJV)16 …The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. 18 And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.

We evangelicals are not, for whatever reason, particularly passionate about prayer. Those of us in the Reformed portion of evangelicalism are especially dispassionate. Hold a feast – folks will come; hold a bible study – still folks will come; hold a prayer meeting – get ready to pull teeth. Why is this?

Perhaps it is because we do not think prayer very significant. Perhaps we reason that since God has ordained all things whatsoever come to pass that our prayers are not important. Perhaps we have failed to consider the promises of God.

Whatever the cause, James draws us up short with his exhortation and promise today. He has already urged us to confess our sins to one another and pray for one another that we may be healed. He follows that exhortation up with the promise that the effective, fervent prayer of the righteous man accomplishes much.

As proof of his assertion, James cites the life of Elijah. No doubt you have heard of Elijah. One of the greatest of the Old Testament saints, Elijah stands as the forerunner of the various other prophets. He is the prototype of the prophet. And God used Him marvelously. Healings attended his ministry; fire from heaven; visions of God; miraculous provision; raising from the dead. Elijah was a very unusual man.

But in our text today, it is not the unusualness of Elijah that James wishes to highlight but rather his usualness. Elijah, James reminds us, was a man with a nature like ours. He was a sinner; he was subject to discouragement; he was fearful at times; in himself, he was incapable of doing great things. Elijah was a very human figure, James wants us to remember.

So how then was Elijah able to accomplish so much? How did he manage to achieve victory over the followers of Baal? How did he manage to avert capture by Jezebel? How did he cause a drought in Israel? Elijah served the living God and prayed fervently that God would vindicate His Name through Elijah’s ministry. And this is what James wants us to understand – the same God who was active in Elijah’s day is active in our day also. God reigns, let Israel rejoice; the Lord reigns, let the Church praise His Name.

Precisely because the same God that Elijah served lives and works in the world today, James’ exhortation has force. Brothers, pray for one another. Pray that God would bless and strengthen; pray that God would open doors and solve problems; pray that God would heal sickness; pray that God would bring repentance; pray that God would restore joy. Pray.

Why? Because the effective, fervent prayer of the righteous man accomplishes much. Elijah controlled the weather for three years. And he had a nature just like ours. So just imagine what you could do?

So let us pray that God would forgive us for our unbelief and grant us fervency in our prayers. Let us kneel together.

Political Conspiracies

November 10, 2008 in Bible - OT - Isaiah, King Jesus, Meditations, Politics

Isaiah 8:12-14 (NKJV)12 “Do not say, ‘A conspiracy,’ Concerning all that this people call a conspiracy, Nor be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled. 13 The Lord of hosts, Him you shall hallow; Let Him be your fear, And let Him be your dread. 14 He will be as a sanctuary, But a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense To both the houses of Israel, As a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

Isaiah lived at a very tumultuous time in Judah’s history, in many respects a frightening time in Judah’s history. For about two hundred years the separate kingdoms of Judah in the south and Israel in the north had squared off against one another in an ancient cold war. Occasionally the ice would break and outright fighting would take place; but even when outright fighting wasn’t occurring, tensions were high.

In Isaiah’s day, the ice had broken and the northern kingdom of Israel was preparing to invade and conquer her smaller sister of Judah. Israel joined forces with the land of Syria and together they planned to conquer Judah and place a puppet king upon the throne in Jerusalem.

Many in Judah were understandably afraid. How could Judah possibly withstand the combined might of Israel and Syria? Destruction seemed inevitable. The conspiracy among the kings of Israel and Syria would certainly undo them.

And so the great temptation among the people of Judah was to look around for a Savior. Who will deliver us from our dire circumstances? Shall we call upon Egypt? Shall we call upon Assyria? Perhaps, some suggested, we should seek counsel on the course to take from the dead – we should consult the mediums and spiritists.

In the midst of this situation, this angst, God spoke His word through the prophet Isaiah. “Do not regard as a conspiracy everything that these people regard as a conspiracy.” You see the people of Judah were tempted to look about them and conclude that the attack upon them by Israel and Syria was a result of a conspiracy between Israel and Syria. Well, wasn’t it? Yes and no. Certainly it was in the sense that Israel and Syria had joined forces to overthrow Judah.

However, in our text today, Isaiah reminds his hearers that in another sense the answer was no – there was no conspiracy. How’s that? Because God Himself had planned and orchestrated this event for this very time in Judah’s history. Israel and Syria weren’t the real players on the scene – God was. And God calls His people in the midst of political turmoil to look to Him as their Savior. Do not look to Egypt; don’t look to Assyria; look to me and be saved all you ends of the earth. The Lord Him shall you fear and of Him shall you be in dread. He is the one who has orchestrated this to instruct and chastise to the end that all the ends of the earth might know that there is a God in Judah who rules and reigns over the sons of men.

Events this week have been the cause of much consternation and hand wringing among many Christians. Barack Obama has been elected as the 44th President of the United States of America and the Democratic Party has achieved majority control of the legislative branch of government. If you are disturbed by this turn of events then the message from Isaiah is very relevant – “Do not say, ‘A conspiracy,’ in relation to all this people says, ‘A conspiracy.’” The Lord of Hosts – Him you shall fear, Him you shall dread. This turn of events is first and foremost from the hand of God and is a call upon us as the people of God to seek His face and ask Him to show mercy to our nation and to teach us to fear Him.

Reminded that we so often in the midst of political changes look to the proximate causes rather than the ultimate cause – namely, the hand of God – let us kneel and confess that we miss the point of these events and fail to grow in our fear of the Lord.

Confessing to One Another

November 10, 2008 in Bible - NT - James, Confession, Meditations

James 5:16 (NKJV)16 Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.

Last week we learned that sickness is always a result of sin. As a result of our rebellion against God in the garden all evil things, including sin, sickness, and death, entered into human experience. As a result, when we are ill we are to look to God for healing, seeking his blessing and forgiveness through the voice of the Church.

Today James continues that exhortation and broadens it. He urges us, as the people of God, to confess our trespasses one to another. Why is this? Here’s the reason. Sins against our brothers and sisters are the most destructive to our personal health. While we can sometimes cover over our private sins for an extended period of time, living hypocritically, cherishing idols, etc. But when we sin against Sally, the consequences of my sin are right in front of me.

So I yell at my children – and what happens? I have to live not only with my own guilty conscience, I have to live with the estrangement that my yelling has created between me and my children. Sin destroys relationships. First and foremost it destroys our relationship with God. But sin also destroys our relationships with one another. And when relationships are destroyed, our health suffers as a result.

But notice that James holds out a great promise. Our ill health need not remain a fact of our existence. We can be healed. We can be made well. What is the cure? The cure is honest confession to one another and intercession for one another.

When you sin, go to the person against whom you sinned and ask their forgiveness. Reconcile the relationship. Do not permit the broken relationship to break your health as well. In Christ the broken relationship can be restored; and because the broken relationship is restored, our health need not suffer as a result.

But not only should we be confessing our sins to one another – we should be praying for those who have sinned against us. When our brother or sister comes and confesses a sin which they have committed against us, James exhorts us to pray for them. Pray for them that God would not only restore the relationship but preserve the health of our brother or sister. And the promise is that the effective, fervent prayer of the righteous man accomplishes much.

Reminded of our calling to confess our sins to one another, to deal with sin as it occurs rather than sitting on it and letting it destroy our health, let us confess our sins to the Lord and restore our relationship with Him.

Praying and Singing the Psalms

November 1, 2008 in Bible - NT - James, Bible - OT - Psalms, Meditations

James 5:13 (NKJV)13 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms.

What are we to do when facing the ups and downs of life? When we are suffering and weighed down, heavy of spirit – what are we to do? On the other hand, when cheerful, full of joy and wonder at the world in which we live – what are we to do? Today James tells us. “Is anyone among you suffering – feeling poorly, enduring trouble? Let him (an imperative, a command – this isn’t simply good advice) Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him (again, an imperative, a command), Let him sing psalms.”

James tells us straight that when we are suffering we are to pray. We are to take our troubles straight to the Lord. Lord, I don’t understand; God help me; Father, lift me up; My God, my god, why have you forsaken me, why are you so far from my groaning? When we are suffering it is not simply a good idea to take our pain to the throne of God, we are commanded to do so. Cry out to God; He wants to hear; He wants to be the one to whom you direct your cries.

Balancing this imperative comes James’ imperative for times of joy. When we are cheerful, we are to sing psalms. Why? Because singing enables us to funnel the joy that we are experiencing in the right direction – in praise and thankfulness to our Creator and Redeemer. When we are joyful there is only one proper response in James’ mind. What is it? Praise and thanksgiving.

Note then that the role of the psalms, in James’ mind, is first and foremost an expression of wildly exuberant joy and gladness. When joyful, James tells us, that which should first come out is the psalms. But as you think about the psalms, you will perhaps remember that some of the psalms are expressions of grief and longing for God’s presence – how do they fit with this theme of thanksgiving? It is here that we are directed back to James’ command to pray when burdened. James’ exhortation to pray also directs us to the psalms – for the psalms embody for us what despairing cries to God look like.

Notice then the priority that James places upon the psalter for the life of the people of God. What are we to do when suffering? We are to pray. And where do we find examples, patterns of prayers offered up in the midst of suffering? In the psalter. What are we to do when joyful? We are to sing psalms. And where do we find these psalms to sing? In the psalter.

So here’s the question for us – do we know our psalter well enough to fulfill James’ exhortation? How well do you know your psalms? Do the psalms, when you are burdened and weighed down, come to your mind and fill your soul with cries to God? Do the psalms, when you are cheerful and lifted up, come to your mind and fill your home with praise and thanksgiving?

I dare say that if you are like me there is some lack in this regard. Not many of us grew up singing the psalter. This is a new experience for us. Many of the psalms may be strange and foreign to us. Some of the tunes that we have in our English psalters are hard to learn. Some of the words of the psalms are difficult to understand and believe. But is the problem with the psalter? Hardly. It is with us. We need to grow in our ability to sing and to understand the psalms. And so, one of the things we are committed to do as a congregation is to become more excellent in our ability to sing the psalms and more knowledgeable of their content. And one of the things that we do every month to enable us to fulfill this duty is hold a psalm sing. The psalm sing is specifically geared to help us fulfill the exhortations given to us by James – is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms.

Reminded that in our suffering and in our joy God expects us to cry out to Him with the psalms and to praise Him with the psalms, let us kneel and confess that we have neglected to do so.

The Lord will Raise Him Up

November 1, 2008 in Bible - NT - James, Meditations

James 5:14-15 (NKJV)14 Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.

When we are sick, to whom do we look for deliverance? Particularly today, in our technologically and medically advanced society, to whom do we direct our eyes? Certainly, we must confess, we direct our eyes primarily to pharmaceutical companies and doctors.

But today James directs our attention elsewhere. He commands us to look first and foremost to the Lord rather than to physicians for our deliverance. This, of course, does not mean that it is wrong to consult physicians – James’ imperative does not exclude other imperatives alongside it. But James tells us first and foremost to seek the blessing of God in our illness.

Why is this? Two reasons. First, God is our Healer and Savior. When anyone recovers from illness, it is fittingly and appropriately ascribed to the hand of God. Physicians themselves will very often be the first to acknowledge this. The healing of illnesses is a great mystery accompanied by all kinds of unexpected complications. Frequently, treatment plans don’t do what they are supposed to do. And this is our reminder that healing comes ultimately from the hands of God – whether we are healed from a minor cold or a severe case of cancer.

But there is another reason James urges us to direct our attention to God in our sickness – sickness is always a consequence of sin. Sickness is a consequence of mankind’s original rebellion against God in the garden. As a result of our rebellion, all evil things – sin, sickness, death – entered into man’s experience. But sin is also sometimes a consequence of personal sin. If we are engaged in sin and refuse to confess it, the Lord will – in His mercy – visit us with sickness to bring us up short and call us to repentance. Paul writes to the Corinthians that because of their scandalous conduct at the Lord’s Table, many among them were sick and suffering.

The second reason, therefore, to seek the face of God when we are sick is to keep short accounts with him. If we have committed any sins, James assures us, and we confess them, then our sins shall be forgiven.

Thus far our application of James’ words is fairly commonly accepted among God’s people. But note the central exhortation in James’ epistle that we find hard to grasp. James urges us to seek the face of God in our sickness by calling upon the elders of the Church. The elders, James implies, function as the representatives of God Himself. And in a service of healing, the elders proclaim to the sick person the blessing of God and the forgiveness of their sin.

Note this – they are to anoint the sick person with oil. Oil is very frequently a sign of blessing and favor. The elders in a service of healing proclaim to the sick person – as we put this oil on you, it’s not just us blessing you, God Himself is blessing you. And not only do the elders speak with the voice of God in blessing, they also speak with the voice of God in forgiveness – having confessed your sins, you are forgiven.

What does this mean practically? First, in every illness large or small, alongside seeking medical assistance, look to God – look to him as your Healer and Savior. Second, as the case warrants – I wouldn’t necessarily counsel in every illness, but certainly in serious cases – call upon the elders of the congregation to come and assure you of the blessing and forgiveness of God.

Reminded of the gravity of our sin and the way in which our sin has practical consequences in the world – causing sickness and death – let us kneel and confess our sin to the Lord.