Song of the Drunkards

JESUS FACED A CONSIDERABLE AMOUNT OF OPPOSITION FOR HIS HARD WORDS AND UNFLINCHING DEVOTION TO YAHWEH. NO SURPRISE THEN IF WE FIND OUR NAME FESTOONED IN BARROOM BALLADS (CF. PS 69:12).

The Fruit of Joy

June 24, 2012 in Bible - NT - Galatians, Holy Spirit, John Calvin, Meditations

Galatians 5:22–23 (NKJV)
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.

One of our distinctives as a congregation is what we have labeled Sunny Calvinism. What do we mean by the label? Just this – Calvinism, rightly understood, is nothing but the declaration, as Spurgeon once said, that salvation is of the Lord.

Salvation – the glorious glad tidings that though we rebelled against our Creator and brought upon ourselves and all creation ruin and destruction, God acted to deliver us from our folly and rescue all creation from the darkness of death. He sent His Son to bear the punishment for our sin; He raised up His Son victorious over the grave; He gave His Son, as the Exalted Ruler over all creation, the right to pour out the Spirit and renew the face of the earth. What we could not do, weak as we were, God did.

But there’s more. After all, for all these glorious things to apply to us individually something more must happen. God doesn’t just set up some mechanism of salvation and then say to us – OK, put the coin in the slot and pull the lever and make it work. No! Salvation – the renewal of all creation and the renewal of each of us individually – is of the Lord. Each of us by nature is a child of wrath, devoted to the service of other gods, selfish, self-centered, worshiping the creature rather than the Creator. We are, as Paul announces, dead in our trespasses and sins – unable to rescue ourselves from our folly, unwilling to turn from our sin and embrace Christ. Christ’s death on the cross, His resurrection to the right hand of God – neither would benefit us if not for the illumination of the Spirit. God must make us willing to turn from our sin and turn to Jesus. So if you are in Jesus, if you believe in Him and rest on Him for forgiveness and newness of life, then God has done this for you. Though you were stubbornly set against God by nature, by grace He has given you new life.

So what ought to be our response? Joy! Rejoicing! Delight! Sunny Calvinism. The fruit of the Spirit is joy. God has rescued us; God has done that which we were not able to do for ourselves; so how can we be anything but joyful?

And not only this – not only has God rescued and redeemed us – we know that our Sovereign Lo rd governs all things and holds us and all things in His hands. Whatever the Lord pleases he does – in heaven and on earth, in the seas and in all deeps. He is sovereign. Salvation is of the Lord – the One who holds us in His hand and whose purposes none can thwart. God is on our side, not one hair falls from our head apart from our Father determination – so ought we not to be joyful?

But often rather than reflecting such joy – joy that we have been redeemed, joy that God has us right where He has us for some good purpose – we grumble, complain, grow sour, live anxiously. So let us kneel and confess our sin to the Lord.
Our God and Father,
You have been good and kind. Not only did you Create us in your own image but you Redeemed us through sending Your Son as the propitiation for our sins. You give us Your Spirit that we might believe in you, love you, cherish you, worship you. Yet we have responded to your grace with fear, anxiety, worry, grumbling, complaint rather than with joy and thankfulness. Forgive us and bring forth the fruit of joy in our lives. Through Christ our Lord,
Amen.

The Fruit of Love

June 17, 2012 in Bible - NT - Galatians, Holy Spirit, Meditations

Galatians 5:22–23 (NKJV)
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.

In listing the various fruits of the Spirit, Paul begins appropriately with love. When Jesus was asked which was the greatest of the commandments, he replied, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love is the greatest virtue, the virtue which gives to other actions their worth.

Paul writes in 1 Cor 13:
“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.” (1 Corinthians 13:1–3, NKJV)

Paul reminds us that neither remarkable spiritual experiences, nor religious achievements, nor doctrinal exactitude, nor intellectual brilliance, nor even great faith are of any value absent love. Love gives to these actions and experiences their worth; absent love they are absent virtue.

So what does it mean to love? Paul explains:
“Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.” (1 Corinthians 13:4–7, NKJV)

Paul looked to Christ and in the face of Christ beheld love on display –  a love that considered not its own interest but gave itself in the interest of others. And it is this love that Paul describes; this love that He holds out for us. The fruit of the Spirit is love – a love for God and love for neighbor.
The Apostle John warned the Church in Ephesus that she had lost her first love, had become cold and indifferent to the Lord and Master whom she claimed to serve. So what of us? Are we driven by love? Consumed by love? Overcome with love for God and for neighbor? If not then we, like the Ephesians, need to remember from whence we have fallen and do the first works. So let us kneel and confess that we are often loveless people.
Our God and Father,
You have loved us with an everlasting love and underneath are the everlasting arms. You have cared for us and cherished us; you have watched over and protected us. You have provided food for our sustenance; clothes for our covering; homes for our shelter; family for our warmth; church for our growth. Yet too often we respond to your love with indifference and coldness. Forgive us, O Lord, and renew within us a right spirit: grant us a passionate love for you and for our neighbor, through Christ our Lord,
Amen.

Calvin on the Necessity of Corporate Worship

June 15, 2012 in Ecclesiology, John Calvin, Worship

“Many are led either by pride, dislike, or rivalry to the conviction that they can profit enough from private reading and meditation; hence they despise public assemblies and deem preaching superfluous. But, since they do their utmost to sever or break the sacred bond of unity, no one escapes the just penalty of this unholy separation without bewitching himself with pestilent errors and foulest delusions. In order, then, that pure simplicity of faith may flourish among us, let us not be reluctant to use this exercise of religion which God, by ordaining it, has shown us to be necessary and highly approved.” John Calvin, Institues of the Christian Religion, IV.1.v.