Category: Exhortation

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Exhortation: What’s in a Name?

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

What’s in a name? Peter, John, Ron, Al? What’s in a name? Everything. Your name means something. In Christ, your name carries great weight. To be baptized is to receive a new name. We ask the parents at baptism, “what is your child’s Christian name” because they are going to carry on a new identity. This is what the third commandment means when it says you shall not take the name of the Lord in vain. In Christ you carry the Lord’s name with you wherever you go. In the Scriptures, names also carry great weight. Sometimes a name reflects the life of an individual or sometimes the name carries  an opposite meaning. My exhortation to you is Live Your Name! You are the child of a great King. In Christ you died to your old name and in Christ you are raised with a new name. What’s in a name? Everything.

Teach us, O Lord to live according to our calling as children of the Most High God.

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Exhortation: Music as Culture

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.

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Exhortation: God’s Liturgy

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.

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Exhortation: Human and Divine Liturgy

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.

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Exhortation: Righteousness Exalts a Nation

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 4th 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.

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Exhortation: The De-Feminization of America

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

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Exhortation: Father Hunger and True Bread

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

The Bible tells us that fathers are providers. What Father would give His Son a stone if the son asked for bread? The answer is a false father. The world is replete with false fathers. The father hunger in our society grows with each passing day. There is a need for godly fathers who know their roles as providers in the home. The false fathers today are not so blunt as to give a stone; rather they give some form of bread; a substitute for the real thing. They provide entertainment without love; goods without grace. They will give their children and wife everything, but true bread. They will give them everything but nurture, love, care, encouragement. But as Paul says, “of you I expect better things.”

Father’s Day has a way of reminding us that bread is bread. We provide for our families, because it is our sacred duty. Children, your responsibility to honor the fifth commandment goes far beyond a mere acknowledgment of the fatherhood of your dad; it goes far beyond a “Yes, Sir or No, Sir” answer, honoring the fifth commandment means observing your father with the intention of becoming like him. Now, for fathers, this means that you will have to become quite familiar with the words “I am sorry and I repent,” so that your children will learn to imitate you, even in how you respond to your sins. Fathers, to give your children bread is to give them of yourselves. Nothing else will cure the father hunger in our culture.

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Exhortation: Pentecostal Manhood

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

I would like to spend these next two exhortations discussing briefly what it means to be real men and real women in the Church of Christ. Let me address the men this morning. There is an ideology of masculinity that has replaced the Christian faith as the true religion of men. This type of masculinity finds the church repulsive and un-masculine. Certainly, there is truth to this statement, but the fact is true masculinity is not anti-church, rather embraces the church. You do not have to abandon the church to become man; the opposite is true. You embrace the Church to become truly man. Even Charles Spurgeon saw this problem over a hundred years ago when he said: “There has got abroad a notion, somehow, that if you become a Christian you must sink your manliness and turn milksop.” The reality, of course, is that true masculinity is church masculinity. Real men are churchmen. Real men delight in the church, support the church, delight in the ministry of the church, and desire the victory of the church. This is Pentecostal Manhood; men who are led by the Spirit and committed to leading their families to love the Bride of Christ. This is true manhood and everything else is a false imitation.

Pentecostal Manhood causes fathers to train their children to love everything about the church; to even tolerate her imperfections, because just as you are maturing in your walk, so is the church maturing in her wisdom and love for her Groom; because just as your wife accepts your imperfections and does not leave you when she discovers you are imperfect, neither do you leave the Bride of Christ when you come to the realization that she is not perfect. Pentecostal, Biblical manhood means that the Church carries a central role in the life of the man. He sings with passion, even when singing is not his gift, he sets the model for his wife and children of what a good parishioner looks like. He may not have 40 hours a week to study the Scriptures, but he has 4 hours a week to do so and to instruct His family.

For us, Jesus Christ is the first Pentecostal Man, because He sent the Spirit to make us like Him. He did not leave us as little babes; He called us by His Spirit to become mature men; men who embrace the passion of the Psalmist and the wisdom of God in the community of saints.

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Exhortation: Jesus and Trinity

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

Sometimes it is easy to go back to our early days in the Christian faith. Back then everything was so simple. We believed in Jesus, everyone believed in Jesus, and life was simple. Of course, we then grow up and we learn more about the Scriptures, and we discover that Jesus is one with the Father, that He sends the Spirit, and then we hear the language of the Trinity. It’s in our confessions, our creeds, and in every Systematic theology. And then we learn that if we do not embrace the Trinity, we are not true Christians. But why can’t we just believe in Jesus, after all He is the answer to every question we can’t answer?

But we grow up. It’s good to grow up; it’s hard to grow, but it is ultimately our goal. And part of growing up means we become more mature in the language of the Bible. We come to know that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Spirit is God. The Jews and the Muslims criticize the doctrine of the Trinity by saying that any doctrine that cannot be reconciled logically is not true. How can there be Three Persons and One God? Thomas Jefferson expressed the frustrations of many when he said that the doctrine of the Trinity should be abandoned all together:

“When we shall have done away with the incomprehensible jargon of the Trinitarian arithmetic, that three are one and one is three…when in short, we shall have unlearned everything, which has been taught since His day, and get back to the pure and simple doctrines he inculcated, we shall then be truly and worthily his disciples.”[1]

Thomas Jefferson, of course, is part right and part wrong. “He was correct in the sense that Christians needs to focus on Jesus more,” but he was sadly mistaken that this would bring us back to simple doctrines and away from the Trinity. The reality is that at the precise moment we begin to focus on Jesus we are led directly to the doctrine of the Trinity. It was precisely through Jesus that the disciples knew the Trinity; it was precisely through Jesus that they learned that all authority has been given to Him? By Whom? The Father. Through Jesus they learned that the paraclete, the Spirit, would be sent after His ascension, and through Jesus they learned that the baptism of the nations, young and old, must be done not only in Jesus’ name, but into the Name, notice, not NAMES, but into the God, Father, the Son, and the Spirit= Three Persons. God in Three Persons, blessed Trinity.

Prayer: Glory be to the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end, amen, amen.

[1] Quoted in Darrel Johnson’s Experiencing the Trinity, pg. 12-13

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Exhortation: Ascended Living

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.