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Monday, January 5, 2009
Speaking Grace (Sermon Follow-Up)
In the morning sermon, we noted that although Habakkuk was expecting a reproof, and although he did indeed have some growing to do, God basically affirmed and encouraged Habakkuk in the good that he was already doing. In Hab 2:2-4, God basically instructs him to do what he is doing in v1.
Now, in the sermon I made the general application that we should be like our God in affirming and encouraging others with respect to the evidences of grace that we see in them. We're very good at pointing out where others fall short, and this can be a necessary part of edifying and sharpening each other (not just pointing out but actually helping each other improve). But are we good at pointing out the evidences that we see in each other of God's gracious work?
A great model of this is the apostle Paul. In almost every one of his letters (Galatians a notable exception), he begins by thanking and praising God for specific evidences of His grace at work in those to whom he is writing. It's amazing that in a letter that has to deal with a church torn by cliques, in which sexual immorality is accommodated, in which giftedness has marginalized love, and in which the worship of God has been turned into a three ring circus... Paul begins 1 Corinthians by affirming them (1:1-9)!
Surely, then, if someone is a believer at all, we can find some words of grace to accompany any words of instruction they might need from us. Let us imitate Paul as he imitates God.
General isn't good enough. Let's get specific. Be intentional about speaking specific encouragement into the lives of specific people. Here's a suggestion of just one way you could do this:
- Pick specific believers, at least one of whom is from your family, and at least one of whom isn't. Pick people whom you have instructed or to whom you have pointed out a failing. Pick people whom you know need encouragement.
- For each of them, make a list of at least three evidences of God's gracious work that you see in them.
- Select the one evidence of grace for each person that you think is most complimentary, and call each of them and tell them--something like... "Hi, [name], I was just thinking about how you [whatever], and that's just such an evidence of God's grace in you that I wanted to make sure you see it too and know that others see it. Keep it up!'
- "Save" the other evidences for working naturally into a conversation.
- Keep the list in your Bible until you've spoken all that grace into their lives
Labels: Sermon Follow-Up
¶ 5:04 PM 0 Comments Links to this postSunday, January 4, 2009
Rom 7:13-25 pt1, 'Spiritual Sinners' (Jan 4, Evening)
In worship this evening, we heard from Rom 7:13-25 the conclusion to Paul's argument for the goodness of the law. The main idea was that the law is pleasant and beneficial, because it is our ally in the fight against our hated enemy, sin. [audio] and a [manuscript] are available.
Labels: Sermons
¶ 8:14 PM 0 Comments Links to this post
Hab 2:2-4 'The Just Live by Faith' (Jan 4 Morning)
In worship this morning, we heard from Hab 2:2-4 how the righteous live life out of a deep confidence in God's sure, swift, steady and sound, secure Word. The [audio] and a summary [outline] are online.
Labels: Sermons
¶ 1:24 PM 0 Comments Links to this postSaturday, January 3, 2009
The Lord's Day, January 4, 2009
Well, I wanted to get in a couple more follow-ups to last week's sermons, but I ran out of time preparing tomorrow's. Please remember that tomorrow we are having the Lord's Supper in the morning service, and that there is no fellowship meal after worship tomorrow morning. And don't forget that through January, beginning tomorrow, we are meeting in the basement of Iowa State Bank
Here is the plan for worship tomorrow:
The Lord’s Day, January 4, 2008
Morning Worship, 10a.m.
Call to Worship and Prayer – Heb 4:14-16
*Song – #305, Arise, My Soul, Arise
Serial Reading – Matthew 26
*Song – #455, And Can it Be That I Should Gain
Text, Hab 2:2-4 · Message, The Just Shall Live By Faith
*Song – #370, Revive Thy Work O Lord
Prayer
*Song – #193, v2 Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence
The Lord’s Supper
*Benediction
*Song – #455 v5, No Condemnation Now I Dread
Evening Worship, 6p.m.
Call to Worship and Prayer – Psalm 106:47-48
*Song – #80, Lord, with Glowing Heart I’d Praise Thee
Serial Reading – Isaiah 50
*Song – #225, Once in Royal David’s City
Prayer
Text, Romans 7:13-25, pt1 · Message, Spiritual Sinners
*Benediction
*Song – #148, How Shall the Young Direct Their Way?
*Congregation standing as they are able
Please stay after worship for coffee and fellowship!
Labels: Announcements, Worship Services
¶ 7:24 PM 0 Comments Links to this postFriday, January 2, 2009
In Faith (Sermon Follow-Up)
The second point of the evening sermon this week was that believers respond to perplexing situations by crying out in faith.
We've already spent an entire sermon follow-up on crying out, because anguish is something of which much of the "church" in our time and place has been bereaved. Crying out to God is an important part of biblical living in this world.
But anguish is not the same as despair. And asking God questions in our perplexity is not the same as questioning God in accusation. The crying out that we see in the Psalms, in Habakkuk, in the Garden of Gesthemane is not mere crying out. It is crying out in faith. Let us consider these two aspects of the in-faith-ness of our crying out:
Anguish but not despair. The context of Habakkuk's questions in vv13-17 was certainty of the outcome because of who God is ("Are you not from everlasting, O Yahweh, my God, my Holy One") and certainty that this God would not just be involved later but is directly acting in history now ("O Yahweh, You have ordained them as judgment; and You, O Rock, have established them as reproof").
These are certainties that every believer in Christ always has: certainty about our end, and certainty that God directly acts in history now. These are certainties from which faith begins, not eventual conclusions that faith hopes to be able to draw. Not knowing these things would produce despair indeed. But as long as we know them, no matter how deep our anguish, it does not rise to the level of despair (cf. 2Cor 4:8).
Questions but not questioning. You know the difference. Questions assume that the person you are addressing has answers. As many of us recently turned to the birth narratives of Christ, we saw a beautiful example of this with Mary: "how can this be, since I am a virgin?"
Questioning assumes that there are errors or transgressions to be found in the addressee, and that we have the right to make that assessment. The basis of questioning is not faith but unbelief (cf. Zechariah's response in Luk 2:18, and Gabriel's response in vv19-20). We know that what Habakkuk's questions weren't questioning for two reasons: first, all parts of his complaint merely echoed things that God had already said; second, we see his humility in a properly translated 2:1 (more on this tomorrow, God-willing).
All of this gives us pause to examine ourselves when we are in anguish or when we have questions for God. Let us be careful that no matter how deeply we hurt, our crying out is based upon the certainty of our end and that God is directly acting in all of our circumstances. And let us be careful that when we ask God questions, we assume that He has good answers, and that it is He who assess us, and never the other way around.
Labels: Sermon Follow-Up
¶ 6:58 PM 0 Comments Links to this post
How I Love Your Law! (Sermon Follow-Up)
One of the things that I thought the text was doing, and that I hoped to do, in the morning sermon was rehabilitate our view of the law.
We are now in a section in Romans, where we are getting a pretty intimate look at the inner life of Paul's own thinking as a Christian. And I think we can understand how for Paul, personally, reaction against the law would have been quite understandable. Until his conversion, the law was a huge part of his life. Philippians 3:5-6 tells us that in earthly terms he had been quite proud of being a Pharisee as far as the law was concerned, and blameless as far as righteousness under the law was concerned.
Sandwiched between those two in Philippians 3 is that his zeal was best demonstrated in his persecuting the church. Because of his misunderstanding of the law, his zeal for it had made him the enemy of Christ and Christians--a terror to God's dear ones and a literal pain in Christ's side (cf. Ac 26:14).
So you can imagine how the converted Paul--for whom care for believers weighs heavier than a lifetime of tortuous hardship (cf. 2Cor 11:28-29), and for whom knowing Jesus was more valuable than everything else put together (Phil 3:7-8)--might have responded by hating the law of God. He didn't. He responded by hating sin, and we'll see that this coming Lord's Day evening.
No, Paul kept the baby and tossed only the bathwater. Paul calls the law holy and spiritual; he calls the commandment holy and righteous and good. In this, he was imitating our Lord Jesus. When we had our serial readings through John, one of the things we saw repeatedly was how Jesus delighted to do whatever the Father commanded. In Matthew 15 we saw that a big part of Jesus' indignation with the Pharisees' legalisms was that by them they were being transgressors of God's law. In Matthew 5, we saw Jesus carefully guarding against anyone using His gospel as occasion to neglect or even weaken the smallest part of the law.
So, it is a direct outworking of Paul's love for Jesus and love for God's people (cf. 1Jo 5:2) that he would persist in passionate love for the law of God. Whenever I think about love for God's law, my mind goes to Psalm 119. I just now scanned through it and saw in it at least eleven, specific declarations of love for God's law. Here, in the book that opens up for us the emotional life of Jesus and the proper emotional life of believers is a love-song, a great love-poem for God's law.
Do we feel such enrapturing, passionate love for God's law? We had a worship chorus in my high school youth group in which we sang for joy of loving God's grace, God's mercy, God's help, God's power, God's presence. Oddly enough, we never sang great love-songs for God's law. We should have! Oh what a glorious, gracious blessing God's word is. Do you still get that thrill from time to time? You place your hand upon your Bible, or you open it up, and you get that tingle in your soul? Do you know what it is to read a command of the page of sacred Scripture and have the core of your being leap and say, "yes! yes! a thousand times yes, my Lord, my Love, my God, my Maker, my Redeemer!"?
The way I sometimes hear people speak of God's law or God's commands, I wonder if they consider that their libertinism has taken them to the same place as Paul's legalism once had--to a place of inflicting pain upon Jesus. Where we ought to be singing for joy, "How I love Your law!," what is it to Christ when we instead sing or think or gossip, "How I loathe Your law; how contemptuous of those who are zealous for it; and, how irritated that they think I should be zealous too!" How heart-rending it is for a husband when his wife tells him how burdensome it is to serve him and do things his way just because they are his. Let us not be such a bride!
No, let us sing with the psalmist, with Paul, with Jesus, "How I love Your law!" Let us know that gasp of pleasure at opening it up, reading it, hearing it. Let us know that deep, inner yearning for more of it, and the sweet joy of doing it out of love. In the morning sermon, we considered how its most painful role was yet for us a gracious one. Now that it no longer has that role, no longer condemns, no longer dominates, how much more shall we say,
"How I love Your law!"
Labels: Sermon Follow-Up
¶ 3:01 PM 0 Comments Links to this postWednesday, December 31, 2008
Life as a Victory Parade (a meditation for the new year)
As I wrote a note of encouragement to someone today for 2009, it occurred to me that we might all benefit from the following reminder. God grant you all a blessed new year!
In 2Cor 2:12-13, Paul describes his travels as restless and frustrated. Then in v14, do you know what he calls the same travels? A "triumphal procession." The key is the first phrase of v14: "But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us" ... the point is that even when he is worried for his friend Titus and searching the known world for him, because Paul knows that God leads him in Christ, Paul refers to this anxious search as a victory parade!
We've talked before about what Paul's life is like in 2 Corinthians (see 4:17-18 and 11:23-28). And yet in 2:14, he says that God in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession. Always! What a glorious, cloud-dispersing, energy-giving, joy-restoring, just-makes-you-want-to-run-and-shout-and-dance thought... for those who are in Christ, the greatest heartaches and confusion in life are part of the victory parade. We don't need to know how it all fits, only that God is the one who leads us in Christ, and that Christ has already triumphed, and that we who are in Him are absolutely guaranteed to enjoy that triumph with Him forever.
So, whatever 2009 brings you, remember that it's part of the victory parade. God in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession!
Labels: Pastoral Counsel
¶ 11:09 AM 0 Comments Links to this postTuesday, December 30, 2008
Photos from the Building Remodel
See them [here]
Labels: Announcements
¶ 8:14 PM 0 Comments Links to this post
Embracing God (Sermon Follow-Up)
Habakkuk's name means "the embracing one" or "the embraced one," and in the first sermon from Habakkuk, I suggested that it seems that this "embrace" is more the embrace of Gen 32:24-30 than Gen 33:4. While it is true that God embraces His own in loving embrace (who can forget the beautiful pictures of God and His people in Hosea and Song of Solomon?), this wrestling kind of embrace is a vital part of the life of a believer in this world.
We see such wrestling in faith throughout the Psalms, and we noted in this week's evening sermon that Hab 1:13-17 are a wonderful example of a believer wrestling with God--or, as we had it in the outline, "crying out to God in faith." We'll spend more time on the "in faith" part later this week, but for now I'd like to reinforce the wrestling part.
It is important that believers wrestle with God. As we heard, it is the necessary result of true, living, active faith. It was precisely because Habakkuk believed in God's power ("are You not from everlasting?") that the promised rise of the Chaldeans, and their infatuation with their own power, was so perplexing to him. It was precisely because Habakkuk believed in God's special care and interest in His people ("my God" and "my Holy One") that the promised tortuous treatment at the Chaldeans' hands made no sense.
The very things that caused Habakkuk to be sure of the end result in v12 ("we shall not die") caused Habakkuk's consternation at what he knew would certainly happen, because he believed with all his heart that what God says will come to pass.
Seemingly unjust circumstances don't send into anguished prayer someone with a small view of God. Why waste such energy upon a God who probably cannot do anything about it? Confusion and pain don't send into earnest questioning someone with a distant view of God. Why ask such earnest questions of a God who keeps Himself at a distance?
It is only those confident in God's justice, God's power, God's covenant love who know this kind of wrestling with Him.
So the question is: do you? Do you wrestle with God when the way things are stacking up don't seem to correspond to what you are SURE is true about Him? Yes, there are careful caveats to make, such as the "in faith" part and the wonderful humility that we saw in Hab 2:1. But, the legitimate question remains: do you wrestle with God?
And if not, is it...
(a) because you have no troubling circumstances?
(b) because you've already done the wrestling and come out with a Hab 3:17-19 view of them?
or perhaps...
(c) because your view of God is too small
(d) because your view of God is too distant
or maybe even...
(e) because you've never considered that those passionate, anguished, wrestling Psalms are what it looks like to trust in the God of the Bible while we live in this world.
If it's a matter of (c), (d), or (e), let me encourage you to incorporate the Psalms into your singing and praying life as an individual and as a family. God has given His saints wonderful things to think, say, sing, and pray when they are miserable. Praise be to God!
Labels: Sermon Follow-Up
¶ 7:47 PM 0 Comments Links to this post
Announcements, announcements, announcements
BE PREPARED FOR THE LORD'S SUPPER in morning worship on the 4th. Although we should always be examining ourselves, etc., we often need reminders, don't we?
NEW MAILING ADDRESS is 209 1st St NE, Orange City, IA 51041. Mail will be forwarded from the old PO Box for some time yet, but please update your records.
NEW/TEMPORARY MEETING LOCATION is in the community rooms of Iowa State Bank (right across the street south from the new building--enter as if you're going to bank during regular banking hours, then either take the elevator or the right-hand stairs down). WORSHIP THIS COMING LORD'S DAY IS AT IOWA STATE BANK AT 10a AND 6p.
GARY AND JEAN VANDER PLAATS have invited the entire congregation over to their home (2520 460th Street, Ireton) tomorrow evening (New Year's Eve), beginning at 7p.m. If you'd like, bring something to share with everyone.
NO BIBLE CLASSES ON THE 4TH (curriculum for two of the children's classes, and books for new students in Gary Vander Hart's class, will not be in yet).
WOULD YOU LIKE TO HELP PAY FOR OUR NEW PIANO? The session has approved the purchase of a reconditioned Yamaha U3 upright for around $3000, shipped. If you would like to help pay for it, please indicate so on your check or envelope and include it with your regular offering. Any excess donations will be used for other expense associated with the new building.
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO HELP ON SATURDAY please meet at the new building around 9a.m. In addition to whatever is being done on remodeling, we will need to transport hymnals, Bibles, resource table items, etc. (not chairs) from Unity.
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO HELP SET UP FOR WORSHIP ON THE LORD'S DAY please meet at Iowa State Bank around 9:15 a.m.
Labels: Announcements
¶ 7:28 PM 0 Comments Links to this postMonday, December 29, 2008
Praise for Past Tense (Sermon Follow-Up)
As I've begun preparing for next Lord's Day evening in Romans 7:13-25, one of the first things that I've noticed is a change in verb tenses. Including the text for this week's morning sermon, up until v14 the verbs are almost all past tense; beginning in v14, they are present tense verbs. This is an important difference to note for next week's sermon, because it indicates that the turmoil in which Paul finds himself in the rest of the chapter is the turmoil of a mature Christian.
But it is also an important difference to note in applying Rom 7:7-12 for this week. We spent yesterday morning having Paul describe to us that even the condemning, dominating aspect of the law, the aspect from which we have been freed in Christ. We saw that we ought to be grateful for the law's condemnation and domination, because God used it to show us that sin was very much alive in us and that we were dead. "used" ... "was" ... "were" ... past tense!
Believers ought to be grateful that the law once was condemning and dominating us! But if this isn't past tense for us, then great is our peril indeed. Believers aren't under condemnation anymore. Believers aren't under the law's domination anymore. Believers have peace with God (ch 5). Believers walk in newness of life, obeying from the heart (ch 6). It is this new kind of obedience at work in us that gives life to the struggle in next week's text!
So as we heard in the sermon, we should be grateful that the law showed us that we were wicked and dead and damned. That's the only kind of person for whom Jesus--the Savior of wicked, dead, and damned people--is good news! But this gratitude must be for something that is in our past.
The question for you is: is the law's condemnation and domination in your past? There are two reasons you might answer, "no."
The first possible reason for "no," would be if you have never been condemned by the law and dominated by the law. This is quite possible, since God's law is so rarely preached these days. God's law hasn't just been yanked from court rooms by seething secularists. God's law has been yanked from pulpits by spineless church architects--attempting to "grow" God's church by man's so-called "wisdom." And the result is that it is quite possible that you have attended an "evangelical" church all your life and have never had your conscience pinned under the law.
If you're in that position, you are an evangelical without the evangel. The gospel is not that you can have a better life and be a better you if only you would have Jesus in your heart. The gospel is that Jesus died to take our damnation, rose to give us life, and ascended and poured out His Spirit to sanctify us. Without the law to tell you that you are damned, dead, and wicked, there simply is no true gospel.
A second reason why Rom 7:7-12 might not be past tense for you is if you are still stuck in it! Alas, this is all too possible. If you hear law, and rather than a heart desire to keep it, you feel a heart desire to "get away" with breaking it while appearing to others (calligraphy!) as if you keep it, you might be stuck. If you hear law, and rather than grief out of love for your Savior you feel singled out and condemned, then it's not past tense. If you hear law, and rather than hearing a guide for your life, you hear a description of how bad you are, you might be stuck.
And if you're stuck, you still need to be saved. People who belong to Jesus have been freed from this relationship with the law. If the law is heavy and condemning to you, fly to the cross. Ask Jesus to free you from its slavery and make you His slave instead. The law is not the gospel. Law without Jesus isn't good news; it's even worse than no news at all!
Labels: Sermon Follow-Up
¶ 7:25 PM 0 Comments Links to this post