Thinking, feeling, and acting rightly toward our enemies is not where we like to begin looking for the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. We like to ask, "Am I loving with my friends? Am I joyful in light of my friends? Am I peaceful toward my friends? Am I patient with my friends? etc." Replace friends with enemies in that sentence, and we're talking about a whole different level of fruit.
Let us at this point remember that though the Spirit is ultimately responsible for bearing this fruit in believers--and praise God that every believer has Him!--what it looks like in the actions of the believer is not some passive, restrained waiting for it to happen Spiritually (i.e. "naturally" according to our new nature).
Galatians 5:22-6:10 (ESV) But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.Those who like to emphasize passivity in Gal 5:22-23 would do well to include vv24-25 in their reading, along with Paul's expansion of those verses in 6:7-9. Though only the Spirit can do that internal work, the believer should be:
If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.
Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. For each will have to bear his own load. One who is taught the word must share all good things with the one who teaches.
Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.
vicious with his sin, 5:24--putting sin to death, or reckoning yourself dead to sin is one thing; the image here goes way beyond that: crucifixion. This was a very real, very gruesome and vicious image from the lives of people in the Roman world. You know who you are outside of Christ? That's what Paul is calling "the flesh" here, and the image he is giving you is one of taking that person and thrashing that person into a pulp before suffocating her until she's out of blood, out of air, and just breathless, lifeless mangle of bloody tissue.Now, it's no accident that the glue that holds these passages together is 5:26-6:6 in which loving your enemy in the church (restoring gently the transgressor, bearing one anothers' burdens, and sharing with one another) figures prominently. Loving our enemies is where genuine repentance is either most evident or most clearly absent. And this is exactly where Jesus goes when talking about worshiping with a right heart (cf. Mat 5:23-24, Mar 11:25).
6:8, expanding upon 5:24, isn't talking about starving your body for the sake of saving your soul; it's talking about starving your sin nature for the sake of seeing real Spiritual growth. The Spirit bears the fruit, yes, but He does this through means. Galatians describes Christians as people who crucify and starve to death our sin natures. If you've never worked on loving your enemies, you need to gear up for this kind of viciousness with your sin.
persistent with the Spirit, 5:25--the logic here is simple. You start with the Spirit, and you keep on, and you keep on, and you keep on. The word walk has connotations of methodical, steady, persistent action, like clockwork.
We don't live in a society where we measure distance in "days' walk," and we are unfamiliar with a long, steady, persistent walk of 12 hours and what that looks like. That's the background here, and that's why someone's "walk" in the NT is a way of describing their steady habit that has become the manner of their life.
Paul expands upon walking with the Spirit in 6:9; talking about sowing to the Spirit as "doing good," he says "let us not grow weary" and "let us not give up."
We've been hearing from Romans 5 how the most surprising, hidden, shockingly revealed by the Spirit thing about God is that He loved His enemies, you and I and all for whom He gave His Son to die were enemies at the time! We heard particular application of that this week from Rom 5:9-11, Assurance in God's Action and Attitude [audio - manuscript]: in the wonder of considering to what extent God loved us whom He rightly at the time considered enemies, we were asked, "Do we love this way even those whom we rightly consider enemies?"
Do you have an enemy in the church? If you haven't by next Lord's Day evening made your heart right before God and attempted to make the matter right between you in whatever way you can, don't take the supper! "Examine yourself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup," (1Cor 11:28), and as you do so, don't neglect to give yourself an "enemy examination."
Labels: Lord's Supper, Sermon Follow-Up
¶ 10:35 AM 0 Comments Links to this post
Gen 9:18-29, Watch Against Sin! [audio - manuscript]
¶ 5:58 PM 0 Comments Links to this post
1 Corinthians 11:23-26 For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, "This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.In the supper we look back. We proclaim the Lord's death. We remember the way God remembers in the Old Testament--not a recapturing of what we have forgotten but a renewed action upon what we've never stopped being committed to. And that remembrance is a proclamation, an announcement, a bold testifying by the church that this is an historical and legal reality: the Lord of glory died, and God Himself bled the lifeblood that secures all of His covenant blessings for us. The supper is about God's past action at the cross.
In the supper we look up. We have a direct invitation from Jesus, through the apostles, to dine and drink at His table, from His bounty. Jesus was so intent upon directly giving that invitation that rather than leave Paul to learn it from others, Jesus gave it directly to Paul from the right hand of God. Jesus' greatest bounty is Himself, and so He invites us to feed upon His flesh and blood by faith--neither He leaving heaven nor we leaving earth, but through faith the Spirit nourishing our souls upon His body and blood (cf. Jn 6:43-58). And this invitation, this fellowship that we share with Him and each other (communion!), this upward-looking nourishing that the Spirit effects all drive home to us our current reconciled state, the removal of our enmity: God counts us as friends. The supper is about God's present attitude of friendship toward us.
In the supper we look forward. We proclaim the Lord's death until He comes. Isn't it wonderful that even with those last three words, this is a meal of joy and thanksgiving (eucharist)! The day of the Lord is synonymous in Scripture with the day of wrath, and yet those who sup at this table look forward to that day with exulting (joy-full-to-bursting)! How? Because as we look backward to God's action at the cross; and look upward to God's attitutde toward us, our reconciliation in Christ; we look forward with assurance to the Lord's coming, and therefore our expectation contains no dread, only joy and peace and exulting.
Now is the time for looking inward. Incidentally, even when we do this, what we are looking for is not sincerity at some past time (i.e. NOT "did I really mean it when I made my 'decision' or 'commitment'?). We are looking for the genuine fruit of repentance.
1 Corinthians 11:27-28 Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.Examining ahead of time is the key to not profaning the body and blood of the Lord. What are we looking for? Well, taken literally, it reads "guilty of the body and blood of Lord"--the "of" there represents the idea "with respect to." Does it mean nothing that this is the body of God who gave Himself for us upon which we are feeding? Is it of small account that this is the blood of God who bled His life away for us that we are imbibing?
Genuine repentance--hatred of sin and violent opposition to it--is the fruit of those who take the cost at the cross seriously. And genuine repentance always accompanies faith. If you are ok with your sins instead of hating them and half-hearted in fighting them as opposed to violent, then this is the time for you to be deciding that you aren't going to take the supper in October.
If you are going to take, please arrive having already examined yourself, so that instead of looking inward during the supper, you can be assured and exult as you look backward, look up, and look forward.
Labels: Announcements, Lord's Supper, Sermon Follow-Up
¶ 4:53 PM 0 Comments Links to this postWe began by considering from 1 John how those who are loving God in response to His pouring His own love into us are passionate about right doctrine.
Here's a summary of some other things that 1 John tells us about how those who have the love of God respond in love to Him:
If we have had His love poured out in our hearts, let us cheerfully obey His commands (1 John 1:5-6, 2:3-6, 2:28-3:10, 5:2-3)
If we have had His love poured out in our hearts, let us love one another (1 John 2:7-11, 3:11-18, 4:7-12, 5:1-2)
In short, if you would like to see evidence that what God has done in you is real and bearing fruit, then fix your eyes on the cross, and read 1 John. And if you are simply full of love and gratitude toward God and looking for guidance in how best to express it, spend some quality time with 1 John!
Labels: Sermon Follow-Up
¶ 9:25 PM 0 Comments Links to this postI know you cannot tell from this week, but I am endeavoring to get this published earlier in the week, so we can prepare better for the Lord's Day. Parents with children in 3rd-9th grades should note that if in family worship you sing the suggested psalms and hymns from the catechism class handout each week, you will be preparing and practicing for the singing in the coming week's Lord's Day assemblies.
On to the worship guides...
Guide to the Morning Service
Like last week, our call to worship this morning is Is 58:13-14. One thing that bothers many of us is how little we seem to be able to delight in God Himself both apart from and central to our delight in His gifts. Indeed, though everything in the garden was delightful, God set apart the Sabbath to Himself as a day to rest from delighting Him in other ways and instead focus on delighting directly in Him Himself. If we would be sure that our delight in all other things is part of our delighting in God, then let us call His Sabbath a delight, and so delight in Him! Just as Jesus is the center of all delighting in God, we see Him asserting Himself as Lord of the Sabbath, then after His resurrection intentionally setting the first day of the week aside as a day when He gathers to Himself His own that they may delight in Him, so that by Revelation, John can assume that all Christians know what he means by “the Lord’s day.”
Our first song, O Day of Rest and Gladness, sings our delight in this day, because on it supremely we exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ (cf. Rom 5:11). Because it is new to most of us and useful to our souls in an area where few songs are, we’ll be singing it together for a while until we know it.
Our serial reading, Isaiah 36, begins an historical interlude that shows that those who trust in Yahweh shall indeed renew their strength, but leaves us hungering for One greater than Hezekiah. Ch 36, specifically, shows us the arrogance and attraction of unbelief.
In response to God’s “helping us to sing” by the reading of His Word, and in anticipation of our confessing answers two and three about His Word from the Shorter Catechism, we will sing just the first verse of How Firm a Foundation. This was one of the songs suggested for family worship on the take-home sheets in the 3rd-9th grade catechism class. Families who sing these songs throughout the week will also be preparing and practicing for corporate worship on the next Lord’s Day.
As our children learn the Shorter Catechism, we are using it to confess the truths of the Bible with them in worship. Today, we confess WSC answers 2 and 3. Students studied 2 at home last week and discussed it in class today, and will study 3 with their families this week. Please encourage your student to learn the catechism’s truths from the Bible and to apply them in their lives!
Just as we are learning a hymn about delighting in God by delighting in His day, so as we learn Psalm 16 together, we learn a Psalm about considering God first in all things and counting Him and His presence the fullness of all our joy.
In this week’s Pastoral Prayer, the supplication will focus especially upon God’s sending the Gospel of His Son throughout the world and strengthening His church.
As the pastoral prayer generally concludes with a request for Christ to be our preacher and feed us from His Word, we will immediately join our voices and hearts to that particular request in song, singing Break Thou the Bread of Life.
In the sermon, we will hear Salvation Now and Then preached from Romans 5:9-11. We have justification and reconciliation already, which means that the day of wrath has become for us eternal life in final fullness. Therefore, we exult not in lesser blessings but in God Himself, with whom we already have restored relationship. To contraphrase Osteen: your best life later.
After praying for application, we will sing and appropriate response and the OCCS hymn of the month that several of our children are learning, Amazing Grace.
Finally, we will hear the pronouncement of God’s blessing in the benediction from Num 6:24-26 to dismiss us.
********************
Guide to the Evening Service
The evening service call to worship is Psalm 134, which is a Biblical call to worship, specifically for the evening service. We will then pray that God would grant what He has commanded.
After praying for God’s help, we will sing that prayer in the first verse of Come, Thou Almighty King. We depend upon the help of God in all things—how much more when we sing His Name and praise Him! But He is up to the request. He is the Almighty.
In the reading from Matthew 13, we read how it is possible that even where the best seed of the gospel is sown, weeds may come up due to hardness, fickleness, or worldliness of heart, and to the work of the devil. It is no safety merely to have the means of grace and be counted in the church; on the other hand, those who treasure Christ above all else can expect to learn more and more of Him, and grow in ways that are seen and unseen.
As we come again to confessing Bible truth from today’s catechism questions, again we sing those truths in Psalm 119:129-136, using music to express that this is not just the expression of our minds but the cry of our hearts. We will then confess together Shorter Catechism 2-3.
Again, we will sing Psalm 16, which we are learning together as a congregation, concluding with the thought that in God’s presence are fullness of joy and pleasures forever. By this time on the Lord’s day, having dwelt upon Him and drawn near to Him all day long, we come to the Evening Prayer, asking God to grant that we would live out the week in the strength of the joy of belonging to Him and being with Him.
The prayer having concluded with petitions for Christ’s voice and the Spirit’s help in the preaching, we will sing our dependence on Them in vv2-3 of our opening hymn, beginning with the verse, Come, Thou Incarnate Word.
Tonight’s sermon, Our Rotten Roots from Genesis 9:18-29, proclaims the imprisonment of people to their sin, the danger of having such a nature, and the crucial importance that God would send One greater than Noah to redeem such wretches as we all are.
After praying for God to apply His Word to our hearts, we will respond, not just to the joy of having had God feed us manna from heaven in His word, but indeed to the joy of His having taken us away to spend a day with Him in undivided attention with the hymn with which we began that day, O Day of Rest and Gladness.
Labels: Worship Services
¶ 4:27 PM 0 Comments Links to this postUnderstanding how the Old Testament teaches about Jesus and how to parent according to Scripture aren't just Bible teaching needs that we have identified at Harvest. They are likely needed teaching for many people that you know... invite friends for class; invite them to stay for worship.
Thanks!
Labels: Bible Class
¶ 2:34 PM 0 Comments Links to this post[Session devotional] from 1Cor 2:9-13.
Labels: Prayer Meetings, Session Devotionals
¶ 5:02 PM 0 Comments Links to this postSo, if you don't know what it is to experience v5, you haven't savingly come to terms with v8. And if your experience isn't driven by the objective reality of v8, then whatever it is, it isn't the experience described in v5.
But then what? Does believing do anything? Does love do anything? Of course, I wouldn't be asking the question if the answer wasn't a resounding "YES!" Here, I want to take you back to 1 John. In that letter, God tells us several of the things that people do who have had the indescribable experience of having infinite divine love explode the confines of a finite human heart. Have you been filled with this love? Are you overwhelmed by what God in Christ has done for you and want to express your love back to Him?
Let's spend the next few days examining from 1 John how the real deal in Rom 5:5, as a response to the objective reality in Rom 5:8, gets expressed by the outworking of our hearts. And let's endeavor to love God in those ways!
Divine love in a human heart (4:9-10) results in Passionate Doctrine. Now, that may be an odd-looking phrase to you, but think about it. Let's say your husband had done for you what Jesus has done for you. And let's say that there were lies being believed about your husband that diminished his character and work. Would you not passionately believe and defend the truth about your husband? Every error about Jesus obscures and degrades His glory. If that doesn't matter to you... do you really love Him?
Love to God is passionate about the doctrine of sin, especially as it pertains to ourselves (1Jn 1:6-10). We don't gloss sin over, explain it away, or excuse it. We don't pretend that it is unkind to call sin "sin." Why? Among other reasons, if we make sin smaller, we make salvation smaller, and we make the Savior smaller... and even a liar (2:1-2)
Love to God is passionate about the doctrine of sanctification. If you want everyone to know that Jesus is "the righteous" (2:2), then you will be serious about how those who belong to Him ought to be growing in that righteousness themselves (2:3-6).
Love to God is passionate about the doctrine of Christ. Lovers of Jesus defend His eternal, divine Sonship (2:22-24). They are not wishy washy about Christ's eternal glory. Lovers of Jesus defend His genuine humanity (4:1-3, 5:6). Lovers of Jesus defend that He became a man primarily to destroy sin (3:5-8). They do not sound nice or smart by pretending that this is one equally important aspect of incarnation among many.
Love to God is passionate about penal substitutionary atonement. You cannot monkey with the cross without rendering God either impotent or cruel. And if you reduce what the God-man endured for us, you go beyond ingratitude to insult. Propitiation, that wonderful word for how Jesus averted from us the entire wrath of God for us by enduring the entire wrath of God for us, is right at the heart of 4:9-10. Are there other aspects to what happens at the cross? Sure. But those who are overflowing with God's love in a Rom 5:5 way as a response to Rom 5:8 will not permit consideration that any of these other things are even close to as important as what God Himself was enduring in our place on the cross.
Love to God is passionate about the exclusivity of salvation through faith alone in Christ alone. Love is a jealous thing. If you genuinely love your wife, you reject all competitors. If your heart is dominated by the love of God in response to what happened at the cross, you absolutely reject any competitors. There is no other way to be saved--no other substance but the cross, no other mechanism but conscious belief (5:6-12)
Labels: Sermon Follow-Up
¶ 10:58 AM 0 Comments Links to this post...we are planning a prayer meeting and session meeting for tomorrow (Wednesday) evening at Marlo and Darlene Fedders' (3530 460th St in OC). Prayer meeting begins at 7p.
...the Siouxland Reformation Society plans to meet Thursday evening at 7p at the OC Library. Pastor Hakim will speak for 15 minutes, PCA TE Russ Westbrook for 10 minutes, and Engineer Matt Van Essendelft for 5 minutes on Matthew 5:1-12
Labels: Local Events, Prayer Meetings
¶ 4:49 PM 0 Comments Links to this postThe evening sermon, 'An Established Covenant' from Genesis 9:8-17 is now online [manuscript - audio]. What hope is there for people who have infinitely offended an infinitely powerful God? Can anyone who has done that be secure and sure of such hope? What does Jesus have to do with rainbows? Hear or read Genesis 9:8-17 preached to learn the answers.
[Last week's prayer meeting folder] is online. How are believers to conduct themselves when under attack or in conflict? What can enable them to do so and sustain them when righteousness seems to get punished? Psalm 17 has the answers.
If you missed catechism class, you might want to [download the handout], as it has your assignment for next week.
Labels: Catechism, Prayer Meetings, Sermons
¶ 4:31 PM 0 Comments Links to this postIt turned out that she was referring to a spiritual movement on the local college campus in which people are having ecstatic experiences, getting slain in the spirit, etc. And to those who pine after spiritual reality, in addition to not a small desire to feel younger, such things seem very attractive. I would not be surprised to discover that some among us, even those a few or not a few years removed from college, have heard of IHOP or something like it, and either desire to be part of it or desire something less outrageous but equally stimulating.
How very well this need is answered by Romans 5:5-8, the text for yesterday morning's sermon [manuscript - audio]! For, indeed, God gives every believer something better than Denny's, IHOP, or Lakeland, FL. And by "better" I don't mean "disappointing for now, but wait, and sometime in the indeterminate future you may get it, but it's so far away that for all practical purposes it changes nothing now." I mean, "richer, fuller, deeper, more real RIGHT NOW." The real love of the infinite God in your heart NOW.
Romans 5:5 and Romans 5:8 must be taken together. Otherwise, you will miss one of two essential aspects of this...
The love of God being poured out is a very real and very intense experience that happens now in the believer's life. God's love has been poured out into our hearts (v5, perfect tense: completed action, continued effect) and God shows His love (v8, present tense: ongoing action). Those who lack desire for such experience of God or frown upon intense experience simply for its intensity would not seem to be familiar with what this passage describes as the common experience of all believers.
The love of God being poured out comes as a response to the death of the infinitely valuable, righteous, strong, good, worthy, glorious Jesus for undesirable, unrighteous, weak, wicked, worthless, wretched people. Just because an experience is intensely religious or spiritual, doesn't make it good. It can be all glands and no grace, to which millions of Baal-Yahweh syncretistic "worshipers" will bear witness in Hell forever. Very attractive concepts of "Jesus" and "spirit" and "gospel" and very impressive ministries that seem to come from "super apostles" can be quite deadly, rather than tolerable, let alone desirable (2Cor 11:2-5). How then do you know the real Holy Spirit, the real gospel, the genuinely intense spiritual experience? God the Holy Spirit uses the Gospel to pour His love out into our hearts, not charged up rallies or mindless meditation or anything else but bringing sinners before the cross. The fact that the Bible tells us that this is the means by which the Holy Spirit gives us this experience means that...
You can't have this experience unless you really see yourself as undesirable, unrighteous, weak, wicked, worthless, and wretched. Spending time in intentional self-esteem-boosting will hinder this experience. Part and parcel of how the Spirit shows now the love of God in Christ's death is by emphasizing for what worthless people this death occurred!
Undermining the divine and glorious in Jesus' earthly life will hinder this experience. He came, revealing Himself as glorious and worthy of absolute allegiance to the spurning of all other desires and commitments. When this glorious One dies for such worthless ones, the jewel of God's love is seen in its most post polished, spectacular display. But there seems to be a view of Jesus afoot among us that sees Him as feeble, effeminate, but very very very nice rabbi, almost to the exclusion of the Almighty Himself veiled in our flesh.
You will eliminate all hope for the genuine experience of God's love poured out in your heart through the Holy Spirit if you deny that the cross is a story of penal substitution. The infinite Son enduring infinite wrath in our place for our infinitely wicked sin against God's infinite glory. If you fail to see that happening at the cross, then however much you have heard the cross preached or read about it, it is not truly the love of God that has been poured out in your heart.
If the cause, center, and object of your experience isn't "while we were still sinners, Christ died for us," then what you're experiencing is not from the Holy Spirit. Period. That's what the Holy Spirit uses to show God's love and pour it into our hearts. And no supposedly "spiritual" experience is valuable apart from the experience of God's love being poured out into our hearts. Right in the middle of discussing the experience of the most sensational apostolic and revelatory gifts, Paul inserts an ethic that is foundational and superior, without which all the "experience" in the world is absolutely worthless: love. And we know from 1 John 4 that this love comes only as the result of God's love first being poured into our hearts. And it is interesting that in 1 John, a letter describing the evidences of the genuine transformational work of God in a person, these experiences are not mentioned at all. I suppose we cannot know whether that is because such experiences have either almost or altogether ceased by the time that late letter is written, or simply because such experiences are completely peripheral, irrelevant, and shallow by comparison to experiencing the love of God. Both are true.
So, what's the sum of all of this? It won't surprise you if you've been paying attention to the preaching these last six months. The sum of this is that even when it comes to intensity of spiritual experience, you never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never get past the gospel!
A recommendation on how to talk to friends who are enamored with dangerous pseudo-spiritual experiences, and a pseudo-gospel of nebulous spirituality, and a pseudo-Jesus who is more role model than glorious ransom: talk to them about the cross. Talk to them about your own worthlessness, Jesus' great worthiness, and how it ought to have been you in Hell but instead it was Jesus on a cross. You might want to do it sitting down--the Holy Spirit uses that to pour God's love out in the hearts of believers, and you never know what could happen as a result. And, if your friend is a believer, or God is pleased to make her one at that moment, the real Spirit may give her a real experience that makes her lose her appetite for those other imitations.
Are you a glutton for spiritual joy? Maybe we ought just to have gospel societies, in which we set a half hour each week, during which we talk just about the great story of God's dying for sinners. Share verses about our unworthiness. Share verses about His gloriousness. Share verses about how God in love gave Him for us. Can you imagine what that would be like? And what if you invited an unbelieving friend? And what if it wasn't a half hour but an entire day? Ah... now you are getting an idea of what a glorious Sabbath the Lord''s Day is really designed to be! It is, after all, to be a foretaste of our final rest, and enthrallment at the worthiness of the Lamb who was slain happens to be such an intense, glorious experience that it is literally heaven (Rev 5:9-14).
Labels: Sermon Follow-Up
¶ 11:31 AM 0 Comments Links to this postBy the way, there are helpful articles about this catechism in particular [here] and [here]. If you read them you will understand why I say that I look forward to sitting with our perts and poets as pastor Fedders teaches us tomorrow.
You may also note that according to this theory, by 3rd grade six years of the best memorization power in a child's life are behind them. If you have a 4-9 yr old at home, don't expect them to be a pert or a poet, but do teach them the catechism!
Labels: Catechism, Worship Services
¶ 4:30 PM 0 Comments Links to this postThe reason isn't that your teachers remember 1647 as one of the better years that we were in high school. There are a variety of reasons including:
(a) the 1647 language is the language adopted by the PCAThat's the reasoning; here's the wording (if you don't have it memorized by the Lord's Day, don't worry; we'll work on memorizing in class too... but we'd like you to at least come prepared by having thought about it and what it means):
(b) we know who came up with the original language, and we trust them... we're not sure who came up with the language in the devotional book (please keep using the devotional book!), and though the new language isn't wrong, some of the questions and answers aren't really equivalent to the original language
(c) ok... we weren't in high school at the time, but we do like the old language for its precision, beauty, and memorability--and we don't think it's a terrible idea for you to learn new words and broader meanings to the words you know, especially if it will help you understand the Bible more and know God better in Christ!
Q1. WHAT IS THE CHIEF END OF MAN?
A. MAN'S CHIEF END IS TO GLORIFY GOD AND TO ENJOY HIM FOREVER
Notice that "chief" is the original for the newer "primary"--but chief doesn't just mean the most important among many, it means the one under which all the others serve. It's not only that glorifying God and enjoying Him is most important; but, other ends are only important to the extent that they are part of glorifying and enjoying God!
Also, "end" means more than just "intent" or "purpose." It is true that God made us with the intent that we would glorify and enjoy Him, but this is also our end, our telos, our fulfillment--our aim and the condition in which find perfect fulfillment and satisfaction. There can be nothing beyond or added to it.
(language in other questions and answers, though helpful in some ways, is even further from the original)
Labels: Catechism
¶ 2:31 PM 0 Comments Links to this postThe Morning Service, 10:00a.m.
Call to Worship, Prayer for Help*
Song: ‘O Day of Rest and Gladness’ (392)*
Serial Reading: Isaiah 35
Song: Psalm 104:1-4,31-35 (insert)
Confessing Our Faith: Shorter Catechism 1-2 (869)
Song: Psalm 16 (insert)
Prayer*
Preaching: Romans 5:5-8
‘Assuring Love’
Prayer for Application*
Song: ‘And Can It Be That I Should Gain’ (455)*
Benediction*
Guide to the Morning Service
Our call to worship this morning is Is 58:13-14. One thing that bothers many of us is how little we seem to be able to delight in God Himself both apart from and central to our delight in His gifts. Indeed, though everything in the garden was delightful, God set apart the Sabbath to Himself as a day to rest from delighting Him in other ways and instead focus on delighting directly in Him Himself. If we would be sure that our delight in all other things is part of our delighting in God, then let us call His Sabbath a delight, and so delight in Him! Just as Jesus is the center of all delighting in God, we see Him asserting Himself as Lord of the Sabbath, then after His resurrection intentionally setting the first day of the week aside as a day when He gathers to Himself His own that they may delight in Him, so that by Revelation, John can assume that all Christians know what he means by “the Lord’s day.”
Our first song, O Day of Rest and Gladness, sings our delight in this day, because on it supremely we exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ (cf. Rom 5:8). Because it is new to most of us and useful to our souls in an area where few songs are, we’ll be singing it together for a while until we know it.
Our serial reading, Isaiah 35, is a song about how the ultimate joy of God’s people is as sure as His strength (v1-4), as glad as His goodness (v5-7), and as pure and unmingled as His holiness!
From Psalm 104:1-4,31-35, we will then sing this joy that finds its object and depth in the glory of our God.
Last week, we began confessing the Westminster Standards as a summary of what the Bible teaches, using the Westminster Shorter Catechism. Today, we will confess WSC questions and answers 1-2, which our young people have been working on last week and this one.
Having confessed that our purpose and aim are to glorify God and to enjoy Him, and that the Bible is the only authority and guide for how to do so, we will sing these truths from the Bible itself in Psalm 16. Because it expresses from our hearts these foundational truths, this is another that we will be singing often in coming weeks to learn as a congregation.
As elder Hilbelink leads us in this week’s Pastoral Prayer, the supplication will focus especially upon God’s help and blessing in the various ministries of Harvest and the PCA.
In the sermon, we will hear Assuring Love preached from Romans 5:5-8. God gives us hope—sure confidence of future blessing. But what if we get there and find out it wasn’t true? That won’t happen, and God has given us His love to prove it!
After praying for application, we will sing what we have heard preached from the Bible in And Can It Be That I Should Gain.
The Evening Service, 6:00p.m.
Call to Worship, Prayer for Help*
Song: ‘O Worship the King’ (2)*
Serial Reading: Matthew 12
Song: ‘Psalm 16’ (insert)
Confessing Our Faith: Shorter Catechism 1-2 (869)
Song: ‘I Belong to Jesus’ (129)
Prayer*
Song: ‘Doxology’ (733)*
Preaching: Genesis 9:8-17
‘An Established Covenant’
Prayer for Application*
Song: ‘O Day of Rest and Gladness’ (392)*
Benediction*
*Congregation Standing
Guide to the Evening Service
The evening service call to worship is Psalm 134, which is a Biblical call to worship, specifically for the evening service. We will then pray that God would grant what He has commanded.
This morning, we sang Psalm 104 to the same tune as O Worship the King. This evening we sing that hymn, which is itself a looser paraphrase of… Psalm 104! The ultimate reason for worshiping God is His extreme worthiness. It would be a great sin to fail to. Because He is so worthy, God would be unjust and dishonest and not God if He did not create all things for His glory or command us to worship Him. Even the existence of Hell is a reminder of how great God’s glory is and how infinite a wickedness it is to fail to worship Him with all that we are. What is really surprising, then, is the existence of grace. At what cost to Himself did the All-Glorious-One redeem such infinitely wicked people from peril so that they might enjoy Him forever by glorifying Him forever? The cost to Himself was quite literally… Himself. O tell of His might! O sing of His grace! Let us sing O Worship the King!
In the reading from Matthew 12, we read about how the merciful lordship of Jesus is the great delight of all who truly belong to God in the only way possible—through Jesus. That merciful lordship is the theme of our joyful Sabbaths (v1-14), the true focus of all the teaching in the Bible (v15-21), the cause to be credited for all His life transforming work in us (v22-37,43-50), and the single great evidence upon which true faith depends (v38-42).
As our song and reading have been reminding us that man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever, like we did this morning, we will sing those truths from Psalm 16 before confessing them together from Westminster Shorter Catechism 1-2. Then, we will again sing the same truths, now bringing Jesus Himself (as we learned from Matthew 12) as the personal center of them in the hymn I Belong to Jesus.
Having lifted our minds, hearts, and wills to meditate upon God in Christ, we will then wait upon Him in the Evening Prayer, asking Him to bless this week in our lives in every way, but especially in the best way: with Himself.
Good theology can overflow from our hearts in many rich verses, and it can explode from them in one powerful, concise verse, which we will endeavor to be the case as we then sing the Doxology. NOTE THE HYMNAL NUMBER AND THE TUNE.
Tonight’s sermon, An Established Covenant from Genesis 9:8-17, shows from the text that God’s commitment to save (covenant) means that our salvation is as strong as His power and as sure as His faithfulness.
We will then respond, not just to the joy of having had God feed us manna from heaven in His word, but indeed to the joy of His having taken us away to spend a day with Him in undivided attention with the hymn with which we began that day, O Day of Rest and Gladness.
Labels: Worship Services
¶ 2:23 PM 0 Comments Links to this postLook no further than Carolyn Mahaney's To Teach What Is Good: (Titus 2), by a wife and mother, for wives and mothers, according to the Scriptures. And mp3 downloads and text downloads of it are free.
Labels: Resources for Women
¶ 9:43 AM 0 Comments Links to this post9a.m. - LORD’S DAY CLASSES
AUTUMN OPTIONS:
- Adult 1 – Christ in the Old Testament
- Adult 2 – The Case for Kids (Biblical parenting)
- P-K – God Leads His People (Exodus and God as Savior)
- 1st-2nd – Obeying God (focusing on the Prophets and Kings)
- 3rd-5th and 6th-9th Westminster Shorter Catechism
GI Williamson will be preaching
11:30a.m. - FELLOWSHIP MEAL
Don't forget that it's on the second week this month! Please bring items for the buffet.
6:00p.m. - EVENING WORSHIP WITH THE LORD'S SUPPER
Please remember to be preparing your heart in advance; one of the advantages of having it in the second service is that we have the afternoon to prepare as opposed to coming with our hearts fairly cold yet in the morning.
7:15p.m. - CONGREGATIONAL MEETING
The session has recommended that instead of representing ourselves to the state as having simply associated with each other, we represent ourselves as having incorporated into a body as members. There are more available of the sheets that detail our thought process and conclusions.
Labels: Announcements
¶ 12:01 PM 0 Comments Links to this postGuide to the Morning Service
This morning’s call to worship is Psalm 100. This Psalm commands joyous assembling in light of the fact that while all people ought to praise God as Creator, He has been especially gracious to draw us to Himself by His steadfast love and eternal faithfulness. After reading the Psalm, we will be led in prayer for it to happen, and then sing it together in All People That on Earth Do Dwell.
As many of our children begin to memorize the Shorter Catechism, learn its truths from the Bible, and how it applies to life, we will be affirming together our “holding fast to our confession” before God in worship. We begin this morning with WSC 1, Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever! We will then do just that in song with Psalm 146, Hallelujah, Praise Jehovah…
The serial reading is Isaiah 34. Because God knows how easily we take lightly His wrath, He mercifully gives us this chapter to see its reality. With very vivid language, God emphasizes both the extreme intensity of His wrath in the first half of the chapter and the absolute certainty of His wrath in the second half. Let us appreciate the greatness of His wrath and therefore exult in the supremacy of His grace! We do the latter by singing Psalm 32, What Blessedness…
With God’s glory, wrath, and grace on our hearts and minds, we will then lift our hearts up to Him in the Pastoral Prayer, focusing especially in supplication this week on the second half of our list—those particular needs that are specific to our congregation.
We are delighted this morning to welcome back to Harvest’s pulpit GI Williamson, under whose ministry we will sit for the Reading and Preaching of the Word of God.
Finally, we will receive the blessing from Num 6:24-26, God affirming the reality of His favor upon His people. As we hear these words, we always remember that Jesus endured the opposite of this on the cross for our sin, so that we can be absolutely certain of our receipt of this blessing for His righteousness alone.
The Morning Service, 10:00a.m.
Call to Worship, Prayer*
Song: ‘All People That on Earth Do Dwell’ (1)*
Confessing Our Faith: Shorter Catechism 1 (TH-889)
Song: ‘Hallelujah, Praise Jehovah, O My Soul’ (57)
Serial Reading: Isaiah 34
Song: ‘What Blessedness for Him Whose Guilt’ (Ps 32, Insert)
Prayer*
Reading and Preaching of God’s Word – G.I. Williamson
Song: ‘From All That Dwell below The Skies’ (Ps 117, Insert)*
Blessing*
*Congregation Standing
Guide to the Evening Service
The evening service call to worship is Psalm 134:1-2, which is a call to worship in Scripture, specifically for the evening service. We will then pray that God would grant what He has commanded.
Warning: by the time we have sung Psalm 117 a few times, many of your children will have accidentally memorized a chapter of the Bible. These and other words of God, accompanied by the powerful ministry of the Holy Spirit, are known to have mind-altering and personality-transforming effects sometimes referred to as the “new birth” and later “faith” and even “sanctification.”
As we continue reading through Matthew, we find in chapter 12 that those who genuinely belong to God in Christ delight in Christ. His merciful Lordship is the theme of our joyful Sabbaths (vv1-14), the focus in our understanding of the Bible (vv15-21), that which gets all the glory from His life-transforming work in us (vv22-37, 43-50), and the single great evidence upon which genuine faith depends (vv38-42). We will then pray that Christ would be our Lord in every way, and especially now as He speaks to us and feeds us in the sermon and the supper.
From Gen 1 and 2, Mk 10, and Eph 5, we will hear preached What Is at Stake in Marriage, how the Bible teaches us that marriage is not just a social convention but a God-designed institution, whose focal point is the imaging of His glory, the enjoying of His provision, the demonstration of Christ’s love, and submission to Christ’s Lordship. What an extremely important thing your marriage is!
We will sing There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood, remembering what God has done for us as we come to proclaim it and feed upon Christ in The Lord’s Supper. Our response then will be to sing our wonder at the mind-boggling goodness of God to sinners in Amazing Grace.
The blessing with which God dismisses us this evening is the conclusion to the “evening service Psalm,” 134.
The Evening Service, 6:00p.m.
Call to Worship, Prayer*
Song: ‘From All That Dwell below The Skies’ (Ps 117, Insert)*
Serial Reading: Matthew 12
Prayer*
Preaching: Gen 1:26-27, Gen 2:18-25, Mk 10:1-12, Eph 5:22-33
“What Is at Stake in Marriage?”
Song: ‘There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood’ (253)
The Lord’s Supper
Song: ‘Amazing Grace!’ (460)*
Blessing*
*Congregation Standing
Labels: Worship Services
¶ 11:58 AM 0 Comments Links to this post1Cor 2:3-5 - “How to Be a Powerful Church”
10-Sep-08 HCC Session Devotional
1 Corinthians 2:3-5 3And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. (ESV)
“I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling.” Could that be said of the elders of our church? Could it be said of me? We are in constant danger of looking more like the so-called “super-apostles” of Paul’s day than the genuine apostle, Paul.
The symptom of this condition, as we saw last week, is when the emphasis is on style—wanting other people to see how excellently we do everything. The source of this condition is a lack of confidence in the Gospel. How could Paul feel free to be weak and fearful and trembling in front of others? Didn’t he know he had appearances to keep up? After all, he was an apostle!
But Gospel confidence breeds Gospel authenticity. If I am absolutely certain of the genuine power of God in the Gospel, I don’t feel a need to put on airs, to pretend that I am better or bigger than I am. This is the first part of how to be a powerful church: be so confident of the Gospel that you never need to pretend in front of others; never be artificial in your manner.
A second part can be seen in the next verse. Not only must we avoid being artificial in our manner (v3), but we must avoid being artificial in our method (v4). The premise is, of course, that God the Spirit is real and that He does real work in real people! And the procedure of those who believe this premise is prayer and the pursuit of the means of grace.
Prayer is the life-blood of the powerful church. Why? Because the Holy Spirit is absolutely sovereign. This is what drove Nicodemus mad about the new birth in John 3—there was nothing he could do to produce it; it was solely up to the will and whim of the Spirit, who works where and when He pleases. But often in Scripture invites His people to pray, and He delights to answer prayer. Elders will be men of prayer if their hopes are in the moving of the Spirit rather than in the marketing of our system.
And yet God has not left us with nothing to do. He has presented to us those means of grace through which He ordinarily works. We have already mentioned prayer. The others, primarily, are the Word and Sacraments. If our hope is Christ (Heb 10:19-21), then our habits are sacraments (10:22), preaching and teaching (10:23), the fellowship of the saints (10:24), and worship (10:25). The means of grace are the program of the powerful church.
And the result, 1Cor 2:5 tells us, is that our confidence is surer, and all the praise goes to God!
Labels: 1Corinthians 2, Session Devotionals
¶ 5:20 PM 0 Comments Links to this postPsalm 16 (ESV)
0A miktam of David.
1Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
2I say to the Lord, "You are my Lord;
I have no good apart from you."
3As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones,
in whom is all my delight.
4The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply;
their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out
or take their names on my lips.
5The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup;
you hold my lot.
6The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.
7I bless the Lord who gives me counsel;
in the night also my heart instructs me.
8I have set the Lord always before me;
because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.
9Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;
my flesh also dwells secure.
10For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,
or let your holy one see corruption.
11You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
As Peter made clear in his sermon in Acts 2, this Psalm is about Jesus. David was buried and did decay; Jesus didn’t! The Psalms are not just a wonderful provision from God to us—a songbook, right there in the Bible. They are also a wonderful provision from the Father to the Son: songs and prayers that Jesus learned growing up, many of which prepared Him for the cross.
Have you ever sung, “may the mind of Christ, My Savior…”? Have you ever read Philippians 2 and prayed and determined that you would “have the mind of Christ”? Psalm 16 is a good place to find out what “the mind of Christ” is, and I think we can summarize the teaching in two parts:
Christ Is Single-Minded, vv1-8—His Father is everything to Him. If we are to have the mind of Christ, then God must be everything to us! God is everything when it comes to His
· security (v1), is God your refuge or your backup plan?
· wellbeing (v2), are you always content because you always have Him?
· choice of friends (v3), do your friend choices depend upon their belonging to Him?
· worship (v4), do you absolutely refuse to give to anything else the worship of your heart, mind, and voice?
· desires (v5), is He Himself the ultimate goal of any and every ambition you have?
· outlook (v6), is just having Him enough to evaluate your situation as “pleasant”?
· knowledge (vv7-8), do you look to Him as the ultimate source of all of your knowledge, and are you absolutely certain of whatever He says?
Christ is Joyful/Future Minded, vv9-11—I’m sure there is a good single word to replace joyful/future, but I can’t think of it right now. How did Christ endure the cross? Because if you are single-minded about God, you are guaranteed a future joy despite even the bleakest (does it get bleaker than the cross?) circumstances. Christ is certain even on the cross and in the grave (vv9-10) of resurrection, ascension, and eternal session (sitting with the Father) (v11). And because of His experience of these, we too can look forward with perfect certainty and boundless joy to eternal life in the presence of God (though sitting at His right hand is reserved for Christ!). This is exactly what Heb 12:2 was talking about when it said, “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (ESV). Are your thoughts dominated, even in the bleakest circumstances, by the certainty and intensity of this future, eternal joy in the presence of God?
Labels: Midweek Meeting, Psalm 16
¶ 4:41 PM 0 Comments Links to this postSeptember 25, 7:00p.m., OC Library -- elder Hakim will be teaching on Matthew 5:1-12 at the Reformation Society meeting
October 23, 7:00 p.m., OC Library -- elder Vander Hart will be teaching on Matthew 5:13-20
October 29, 8:30 p.m., Dover Church -- elder Hakim will be teaching on 2Sam 7:18-29 as part of a community-wide prayer meeting (place and text tentative but probable)
Plan to come and bring friends!
Labels: Announcements
¶ 4:06 PM 0 Comments Links to this postThe Fall Society Meeting for Orange City Christian School will be held on Monday, September 17 at 7:00 p.m. in the school multi-purpose room. Election of new board members will take place from the following nominations:
Calvary
Bart Peters
George Scholten
Jerry Van Grouw
Ward Van Peursem
Bruce Vanden Brink
John Wagenar
At-Large
Matt Bos
Alan De Jong
Marlin Hoogland
Nathan Huizenga
Randy Jeltema
Scott Kooiman
Partner Society
Kevin Cooper
Junior Hoogland
Tammy Kobza
Perry Krosschell
Monique Schiebout
Dave Van Den Brink
Labels: Announcements
¶ 3:41 PM 0 Comments Links to this postTonight, there is a prayer meeting and a session meeting at 217 3rd St, NW (the Hakims' house). The prayer meeting is at 7; session meeting afterward. I think that the prayer meeting is also going to be in part an organizational/sending meeting for the trip going to Eastern Iowa tomorrow afternoon to help gut homes ruined in the floods.
Please remember to pray for our mission team!
Labels: Announcements, Prayer Requests
¶ 10:42 AM 0 Comments Links to this postLabels: Website
¶ 9:52 AM 0 Comments Links to this post
