Category: Exhortation

Music reflects the culture of a church.  Whether for good or ill, what you sing establishes the tone of worship. We are conveying something when we sing. Music in worship is not just a past-time to get to the real deal, but music is the real deal. Everything we do this morning is the real deal.  Music is a sung sermon. Singing is glorified speech. When we sing we are glorifying our environment.  When we sing this morning, whether a psalm or a hymn we are speaking words of wisdom; we are declaring what God has declared. We are partaking of the joy of the angels and archangels in heaven. We are musical beings. Our song to Yahweh is one of the deepest expressions of adoration and thankfulness. This is precisely why our music ought to reflect who we are as a people and who we worship as a Church. So let us sing a new song to our risen Lord Jesus Christ.

Prayer: Prepare our tongues to sing your praise, O Lord our God.

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

In my sermon last week I mentioned that the body in Proverbs is central to the pursuit of wisdom. The Spirit guides the body. It is in our interest to control our bodies, so that we may grow up into all wisdom.

But there is more than this. Controlling the body is not just about what no to do with it, it is also about what to do with it. Paul says that our bodies are living sacrifices unto God. You cannot help but consider the language of sacrifice in the Scriptures, which is the language of worship. Your human body is a symbol of worship. What you do with it in worship is a picture of what you worship. Psalm 138 teaches us this. We bow, we cry out, and we sing. And even Yahweh has a liturgy of his own; a liturgy of salvation according to the psalmist: He stretches out his right hand and saves us. Your bodies are living sacrifices to God, so use it this morning: confess, sing, respond, and in the end, receive God’s service to you when He stretches out his right hand and delivers you. Amen.

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

Proverbs 14:34 – Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.

Today is the 4^th of July and like many of you I hope to be enjoying a couple more hamburgers than usual this afternoon. But thousands of American churches are at this moment celebrating the United States of America.  There will be flags, perhaps the pledge of allegiance, and even a few country songs dedicated to the US of A. There is nothing wrong with celebrating a nation in a football field or a soccer stadium, but there is something profoundly wrong in celebrating a nation in the Church, because the Church’s purpose is not to celebrate this or any other nation, but to celebrate the holy nation, a chosen race, a royal priesthood, as Peter says. We celebrate in Church the glories of the kingdom of God and the manifestation of His kingdom power in the entire world.

Yet the purposes of God are not separated from His people living in this country. We are very thankful for the privilege of free worship and that no one at this point is breathing down our necks waiting for us to say something offensive, so they can put us behind bars. The Church has always had a profound say on the nation’s life. In fact, as the church goes, so goes the nation, and we are a people still benefiting from the fruits of our forefathers in this nation who were deeply committed to the Church.  We bear the fruit of those who lived the Puritan ethic and who had an intense desire to see Jesus enthroned above every kingdom. This has always been at the center of our Reformed tradition. But our duty as worshipers is to give a thumbs-up to our forefathers and then acknowledge that we no longer live in the past. We are a future-oriented people. The faithfulness of some in the past will not sustain the faithlessness of those in the future. If we want the blessings of God in this nation, then we must want the good of the kingdom of God first and above all nations. Proverbs tells us that “righteousness exalts a nation,” but to contrast that it also says, “but sin is a reproach to any people.” Faithfulness and loyalty to a nation is futile if the nation is not seeking and embracing Jesus as Lord. Politics and heritage will die, but the kingdom of God will stand forever. This is our only true hope.

Prayer: Teach us, O Christ, to love your kingdom and to seek the good of the eternal city.

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

A few weeks ago we addressed briefly what it means to be a Pentecostal Man, and I would like to address for the next couple of weeks what it means to be a Pentecostal Woman. Let me begin by addressing some of the sociological and theological issues involved in dealing with women in the church. Addressing women and their role in the church is not an easy task today. On the one hand, liberals from all perspectives want to equalize the roles of men and women in the church. They want equal opportunity for male and female; they want to undo what God has done, which was creating man and woman different, but complimenting one another. The arguments feminists where making many years ago about political rights for women are now the same arguments they are using for the church, which is, if men can do it, so can women. Of course, this has never been an issue of ability; this has always been an issue of what does God say. Women who dream of careers are now choosing a career in the church, and the result is that mainline churches find this argument compelling.  The logic of this thinking only leads to one result: the de-feminization of women. The report in an article this week proves that point. The article was entitled: “More American Women not having children.” One individual who praised this recent report said the following: “Women have more options than in the past to build strong careers and to exercise the choice not to have children.”[1] There is much to be said about this trend in our society and the culprits for this de-feminization are first of all 1) husbands and fathers in the church who have not matured in their understanding and thus have not helped mature their wives in their understanding, and 2) women who have bought easily into the lies of our culture. Guilt goes both ways. And since guilt goes both ways, let me also address the conservative fault in these matters. Liberals are too easy of a target for us. The difficulty arises when self-examination occurs close to home. The reaction of conservatives– and by conservatives, I am simply referring to the broad evangelical church—is that conservatives have reacted to the liberal agenda by abandoning the women all together. They act like redemption has not moved forward. They act and talk like we are still living in a farm in ancient Israel before Jesus. They forget Paul’s words that in Christ we are one, male and female; yes, different functions, but covenantally one in Christ. In this New Creation women are given more responsibilities; the same is applied to men. As creation in Christ matures, so do our responsibilities. Many conservatives fail to see this progression in redemptive history. And so it is that in discussing the role of women in the church in this Pentecostal season and in this era of the church in which we see the dominion mandate being fulfilled, we see that women’s roles do not fit well into a party or into a movement. My exhortation to the women this morning is to focus on the oneness you have with the men. There is plenty of time to talk about distinctions in roles. We conservatives, spend endless hours focusing on the distinctions, but let us focus on your oneness in this body as worshipers, as respondents to the grace of God, as active participants in the worship of God’s people. Ladies, you are one in Christ with your brothers; let that energize your worship and your zeal for the kingdom of God and as new women in a new creation.

---

[1] http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100625/lf_nm_life/us_children_report_1

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

One author wrote that “conversion does not simply install a new “religious” program over the existing operating system. It installs a new operating system.”[1] This is the idea that needs to be heard in our society. The gospel message is not Jesus died and rose for you, therefore trust in Him. The gospel message is Jesus died, rose again, ascended and He now demands your total allegiance. The Church needs a wholistic message to a wholistic people.[2] Embracing the Christian message means embracing all of it. We are new creation in Him and we live New Creation lives in His presence. Most especially, this morning, we are filled with a new joy and a new song as we sing to our ascended Lord.  So, let us prepare our hearts to declare the praises of our King.

---

[1] Peter Leithart, Against Christianity, pg. 16.

[2] James Jordan, Crisis, etc.

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

This morning looking at the current state of this country does not seem too thrilling for Christians. We find that everything seems dark and void. We find everything to be chaotic. Precisely the way things were before creation; precisely the way things were when Adam fell in the garden, precisely the way things were when Joseph was thrown into a pit left to die, precisely the way things were…until God shows up and makes heaven and earth, until God shows up and makes a promise that a seed will crush the serpent, until God shows up to elevate Joseph to a place of honor. This morning looking at the current state of this country and the world, do not be deceived into thinking that God will never show up. He did at the tomb and He will again today.

Prayer: Teach us, O Lord to trust in You even when all seems lost.