Category: Exhortation

August 5^th, Exhortation

We are this morning in a sacred space. This is a place where holy things happen. But don’t confuse holiness with neat and tidy. We are not neat and tidy people. We are rather messy at times. In fact, this is why we are here this morning. Our hearts are prone to wander from the wisdom of God and his forgiveness, so He brings us together to clean us up a bit, and re-orient our hearts to purity and wisdom.

Worship is holiness; a holiness that conflicts with the messiness of our lives. This is why worship has a mediator. The mediator is the Holy Spirit who draws us into the heavenly places. There, our hearts are made clean. Our orientation is transformed, and wisdom is given from above. There, Jesus forgives and makes all things new. We are in holy space today, so let us then hear the call of God who is the very definition of holiness.

Prayer: Holy, Holy, Holy. Heaven and earth are full of your glory. Cleanse our hearts and instruct us to pursue the One who is Wisdom made flesh, even Jesus Christ. Amen.

Proverbs 28 says that

“Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper,

but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy. (Proverbs 28:13 ESV)

As we gather this morning, God provides for us a time of solemn confession both corporately and privately. Why? So that we may come into his presence filled with his forgiveness, with his mercy. Yahweh promises to give mercy to those who confess their guilt, and who acknowledge that they need the grace of God. During our time of confession, let us obey wisdom and confess our faults before God, and He will act righteously, justly, and in equity toward us. Let us pray.

Prayer: Our God, you promise that if we confess our sins you will forgive us and cleanse us. Teach us not to hide from you, for you see all things. Teach us to forsake our sins, so that you will be ever closer to us. This we pray through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Grace, Mercy, and Peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Church is strange and ordinary. She is strange because she offers a unique message. “She is strange because she is the creation of the Father through the Word and Spirit, the community of those who have been united by the Spirit with the Son, and therefore brought into eternal community of the Trinity. She is strange because her headquarters is not in a man-made space, but in the holy space of heaven, so that when you say we are going to Church on Sunday what you are actually saying is you are going to heaven. The Church is strange because it is a city without walls or boundary lines bringing together Jews and Gentiles, slave and free, male and female; you cannot say the same thing about any society.

But the church is also ordinary. She is made up of human beings. She is made up of crying infants, male and female, sanctified, wheat and chaff.  The Church is ordinary because she tells stories, she communes, she feasts, eats, and drinks. She partakes of the natural habits of human history, but she does so in the context of her divine origin, and in the simplicity of a common people.

We need to grasp the strangeness of the Church’s mission and ordinariness of her mission.[1] This is why this is an institution that cannot be defeated and the gates of hell cannot prevail against it. So, let us come into the courts of this strange, but yet ordinary body of worshippers called the Church, and lift up her King for this is why we were created and why we live.

Prayer: Our great and Triune God, you have called us to assemble this morning as a strange, but yet ordinary people. Fill us with your joy, and establish us in your peace, and cause us to come into your gates with thanksgiving, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

In the 1930’s Chesterton observed that Americans had loosened their divorce laws, so that divorce for “reasons of incompatibility” was now legal. Chesterton quipped: “If Americans can be divorced for “incompatibility of temper” I cannot conceive why they are not all divorced. I have known many happy marriages, but never a compatible one.”

There will always be moments of incompatibility in marriage, but what we do when our incompatibility bump against each other? This is where Chesterton is brilliant:

The differences between a man and a woman are at best so obstinate and exasperating that they practically cannot be got over unless there is an atmosphere of exaggerated tenderness and mutual interest…every woman has to find out that her husband is a selfish beast, because every man is a selfish beast by the standard of a woman. But let her find out the best while they are both still in the story of “Beauty and the Beast.” Every man has to find out that his wife is cross—that is to say, sensitive to the point of madness; for every woman is mad by the masculine standard. But let him find out that she is mad while her madness is more worth considering than anyone else’s sanity.”

Our Lord Jesus did not seek His Bride, the Church, in marriage because they were compatible. The Church had nothing in common with our Lord. In fact, Deuteronomy says it was not because there was anything more lovely about her, but Christ poured his affection on her precisely because of her incompatibility. At the resurrection, Christ and the Bride will be perfectly compatible, but at this stage Christ is still purifying his Bride. And this is why worship can be so difficult, because as a people we do not love Christ as we ought. Our Lord provides this time so we may love him more, praise him more, and be sanctified by His abundant grace. So, let us love our Lord now in worship, even as He loves us.

Worship is hard work. By the end of this hour you should feel the exhilaration of a runner, except magnified. Biblically, New Covenant worship is far simpler than Old Covenant Worship. Those detailed descriptions of worship in Leviticus are no longer applicable, except as important broad patterns. Why is this the case? Because the Bible is one great story, and patterns of worship in the Old are going to be found in the New, and the New is going to look to the Old.

The Protestant model of worship has made worship accessible to the people, which has always been the intention of the biblical text. Biblical worship is heavenly worship, and heaven is accessible to all believers. So in many ways our worship is heavenly friendly, because we want the heavens to be opened for you each Lord’s Day.

But do not let the simplicity of white robes, a loaf of bread, sweet wine, a modern Bible translation, and my Brazilian accent be an incentive to passive worship. Our worship may be simple in its outline, but it is going to demand a lot from you this morning. It is going to demand body and soul. For worship to be significant and effective, you need intentionality. The Spirit likes to push you to sing louder, to repent more often, to listen more attentively, to manifest more faith, and so on.

Worship is hard work, but hard work pays off. And the results are delicious to watch, whether it is a child that surprised you with her memorization of the Nicene Creed, or the teenage son who seeks biblical wisdom in his day to day duties.

Come this morning, and be refreshed by the God who calls us to find rest in our labor.

Let us pray:
Almighty God, you have given us a week of work, you have provided for us. Today cause us to find rest as we seek diligently to offer you our praise, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

Blessings on you, and particular blessings be upon our fathers at Providence Church.

The Bible is a covenantal book. It is all centered on this divine covenant made by the Father, Son, and Spirit. And that covenant relationship is then to be imitated by God’s people at all times. It is no wonder that there is a very close connection between a man and his children in the Bible, because it mirrors the relationship between God the Father and all his adopted children. In fact, Job chapter one provides a picture this fatherly responsibility and relationship:

His sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each one on his day, and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. And when the days of the feast had run their course, Job would send and consecrate them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, “It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts.” Thus Job did continually.

We find here a description of a godly, covenantal father. He is blameless and upright, according to verse one. This does not mean he is perfect in a human sense, but righteous in a godly sense as one who lives faithful to his God. He offers a sacrifice, not to receive forgiveness for his parenting failures, but for the sake of his children. Job took the time after feasting and rejoicing to offer a sacrifice for each of his ten children. This is a father who petitions for his children that they would find refuge in the forgiveness of God. He even prays on account of what any of his children might have done in their hearts. He prays that if they should break the Lord’s commandments they would seek and find forgiveness.

A faithful father needs to not only pray for himself, but also for his family. The father prays the Lord’s Prayer for his family: that God would lead them not into temptation, but deliver them from evil. This is not to take away the responsibility of children to seek forgiveness themselves and to find refuge in God alone, but that the father has the responsibility to be an example, a model of faithfulness before his family.

Wives submit to your husbands in love, encourage them daily in their labors, because God has placed a heavy responsibility on the man of the house. Children honor your father, because he is to provide for you an environment where grace is modeled and repentance is seen. Woe to the father who is arrogant; woe to the father who never utters the phrase “Please, forgive me.” Woe to the father who overlooks the affairs of the home, while prizing more his job and career. But blessed is the father who rises early to speak to God on behalf of his family; who prays that God would honor his labors, and who seeks God day and night. That father is blessed. His children will surround him with love, and they will feast with him in his house.

Let us pray:
O, Lord, I pray on behalf of the fathers in this congregation: strengthen us that we may show the world the joy of living our children, pouring affection on our brides, and cleansing our homes, so we may serve and worship you in your holy temple, even on this day, Amen.

If truth is to be valued in our society, then we are to embody truth. We cannot believe truth apart from living it. And this is the center of our calling as Christians. The Early Church did not find Christian faith compelling until they found the Christian faith exercised. Truth and practice are the starting points of all Christians, particularly because we are indwelt by truth. The Person of the Spirit is enabling us to walk in this truth. And we are encouraged to walk in this truth as we find satisfaction worshiping the One who is Truth. Indeed this is the first step to practicing truth: To worship the Father, Son, and Spirit who is One Eternal God dressed in splendor and truth.

Let us Pray:

Most Gracious God, fix our hearts on you, that we would desire to know your truth and to live by it all our days, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

The Pentecost Season begins today. We start this season with a new salutation, a new confession of sin, and a new fire. The redness of our congregation is reflective of that. In case someone asks with great curiosity why we celebrate Pentecost, you tell them that it is the one time of the year when Reformational people can say they are Pentecostal. But more than that, of course, it is the first Sunday of 28 Pentecost Sundays to come. 28 Sundays to see God working through redemptive history in the liturgy and the text, through the Church to prevail against evil; to crush the attacks of the enemies of God, and to refresh His body with the Holy Spirit. It is the second part of the Church Calendar where we see the acts of an infant Church changing the world through the kingdom proclamation.

As Saint Chrysostom wrote, “But when Jesus ascended on high, the spirit descended from on high “like a rush of a mighty wind.” Through this it is made clear that nothing will be able to stand against them and they will blow away all adversaries like a heap of dust.”

Let it be so. Let us prepare ourselves for the mighty rushing Spirit to work in our midst and cause us to worship the Ascended Christ.

Prayer: Father in heaven, fifty days have celebrated the fullness of the mystery of your revealed love. See your people gather in prayer, open to receive the Spirit’s flame. May it come to rest in our hearts and disperse the divisions of word and tongue. With one voice and one song may we praise your name in joy and thanksgiving. Grant this through Christ our Lord. Amen.