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).

Come and Worship!

March 24, 2019 in Bible - OT - Psalms, Liturgy, Lord's Day, Meditations, Singing Psalms, Worship

Psalm 95:1–3 (NKJV)

1 Oh come, let us sing to the LORD! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. 2 Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms. 3 For the LORD is the great God, And the great King above all gods.

Each week as we begin the Lord’s Service, I summon us to stand and worship the Lord. This section of our weekly liturgy is called the Call to Worship. Why begin each week this way?

The Call to Worship reminds us of two things. First, it reminds us that we are part of one body. Listen to the words of the psalmist: Oh come, let us sing to the Lord! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving; Let us shout joyfully to him with psalms. As one body, we all are joining our voices together. And even as a body has many members and yet is one body – so also is the Church. We are each integral parts of the body, given to one another to join our various voices together as one voice.

So why do we join our voices together? To worship. We are here to praise and honor and exalt God Most High. Oh come, let us sing to the Lord! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving; Let us shout joyfully to him with psalms. We are here to sing joyfully, to utter thanks, and to shout joyfully to Him with the psalms. Jesus told the Samaritan woman that the Lord was seeking out men and women and children to worship Him. Every week the call to worship summons us to fulfill this calling.

So why are we here to worship? Because God is worthy of our praise. The psalmist reminds us, after calling us to join him in worship, For the Lord is the great God, and the great King above all gods. To worship God is to acribe worth to God – it is not to add something to God that he lacks but to praise Him because He does not lack anything. God is the Lord and greatly to be praised.

So how ought we to worship? Remember the words of the psalmist – we ought to shout joyfully, we ought to enter into his presence with thanksgiving, we ought to shout joyfully with psalms. So where is your heart today? Are you prepared to worship with joy and thanksgiving? Or are you filled to the full with other things, with other worries and concerns? As we enter worship this day, let us put such sins aside, let us confess our sin to the Lord and beseech him to empower us to worship with joy and thanksgiving. As you are able, let us kneel together as we do so. We will have a time of silent confession followed by the corporate confession found in your bulletin.

Baptism Meditation

March 18, 2019 in Adoption, Baptism, Bible - NT - Luke, Children, Ecclesiology, King Jesus, Sacraments

Luke 18:15–17 (NKJV)

15 Then they also brought infants to Him that He might touch them; but when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. 16 But Jesus called them to Him and said, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God. 17 Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it.”

Today I have privilege of baptizing —–. Before I invite the family forward, I wanted to remind you why we baptize children. Jesus provides for us the foundational reason in this text. The reason that we baptize children, including infants, is that Jesus claims our children as His own. He reckons them to be members of His kingdom, the kingdom of God.

Consequently, children (including nursing infants) teach us something important about the nature of God’s work in our lives. After all, Jesus reminds us in Matthew 21:16 that the Scriptures proclaim, “Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants You [O, Lord] have perfected praise.” So what do children proclaim? What do they declare? Children proclaim that we are all dependent upon God for His grace and mercy in both creation and salvation. We none of us created ourselves and we none of us enter into the kingdom of God by our own merit or worth or choice. It is God who created us, not we ourselves, and it is God who saves us, not we ourselves.

The 19th century Presbyterian theologian B.B. Warfield wrote, “Every time we baptize an infant we bear witness that salvation is from God, that we cannot do any good thing to secure it, that we receive it from his hands as a sheer gift of his grace, and that we enter the Kingdom of heaven therefore as little children, we do not do, but are done for.” Did you catch that last clause? “We do not do, but are done for.” Salvation, like creation, is the work of God, who graciously grafts us into His people. Today God welcomes —– into His Church. So as I baptize him this morning, let me urge you to remember that your baptism preaches to you, proclaims to you the grace and mercy of God. So believe Him, trust Him, rely upon Him, and know that “as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear Him” (Ps 103:13).

Being Open-Handed and Generous

March 18, 2019 in Bible - OT - Ecclesiastes, Meditations, Thankfulness, Wealth, Work

Ecclesiastes 11:1–2 (NKJV)

1 Cast your bread upon the waters, For you will find it after many days. 2 Give a portion to seven, and also to eight, For you do not know what evil will be on the earth.

The Word of God is full of financial counsel and admonitions. Hence, the way we handle our money reveals whether we are men and women of faith or unbelief, whether we are wise or foolish, whether we are righteous or wicked. Because finances are such an integral part of our religious devotion, we include the bringing forward of our tithes and offerings each week in worship. One of the men who leads us in prayer also represents us in bringing forward the fruit of our labor to offer to the Lord. He sets the box of tithes and offerings before the Lord’s Table as a visible symbol of our intention to consecrate all of life, including our finances, to the Lord. We are mere stewards of that which the Lord has entrusted to us.

As we bring the tithes and offerings forward each week, we sing a song about finances. During Advent and Lent, times of preparation for Christmas and Easter respectively, we sing these verses from Ecclesiastes 11:1-2 – Cast your bread upon the waters, For you will find it after many days. Give a portion to seven, and also to eight, For you do not know what evil will be on the earth. So what do these verses mean and how should they affect our view of our finances?

The author of Ecclesiastes counsels us in these verses to be generous, open-handed men and women. The image of “casting your bread upon the waters” invites us to think of useless waste. After all, what fool casts bread on the water? It just goes to waste! Similarly, the miser insists that giving to others, being open-handed and generous, is a waste. What return is there from giving to the poor and being open-handed with one’s wealth? But our text assures us that there shall be such a reward: Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days. So Proverbs 19:17 promises us: “He who has pity on the poor lends to the Lord, and [the Lord] will pay back what he has given.”

The next verse reminds us to be generous and open-handed in this way because of the uncertainty of life. Give a portion to seven, and also to eight, For you do not know what evil will be on the earth. Unlike the unrighteous man who reasons from the uncertainty of life that he must hoard all that he has, the righteous man reasons from this same uncertainty that he must be generous and open-handed, giving a portion to seven, even to eight, so that if he is ever in like circumstances, the Lord will pity him. “Blessed is he who considers the poor;” Psalm 41:1-2 reminds us, “The LORD will deliver him in time of trouble. The LORD will preserve him and keep him alive, And he will be blessed on the earth; You will not deliver him to the will of his enemies.”

So what of you? Are you open-handed and generous? Are you striving to be a faithful steward of that which God has entrusted to you? Or have you instead hardened your heart to the poor? Moses writes in Deuteronomy 15:7-8, 10 – “If there is among you a poor man of your brethren, within any of the gates in your land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart nor shut your hand from your poor brother, but you shall open your hand wide to him and willingly lend him sufficient for his need, whatever he needs… You shall surely give to him, and your heart should not be grieved when you give to him, because for this thing the Lord your God will bless you in all your works and in all to which you put your hand.”

So reminded of our calling to be open-handed and generous with that which the Lord has entrusted to us, let us confess that we have often been selfish instead. We have often hardened our heart and shut our hand from those who are truly in need of assistance. And as you are able, let us kneel together as we confess our sin to the Lord. We will have a time of silent confession followed by the corporate confession found in your bulletin.