It is time once again to prepare our hearts for worship. I want to go back to Proverbs 4:23 which I have mentioned before, but I feel it is so applicable to these preparing for worship post. Proverbs 4:23 says: “Watch over your heart with all diligence, For from it flow the springs of life.” As Joe Thorn says that to watch over your heart ‘is your primary business as a Christian, and it cannot be done with passing interest or any small amount of energy. It requires the consistent use of all the means of grace. You must make the most of worship, Scripture, prayer, and the church gathered in all its forms with an aim at keeping your heart and growing in grace.” It is so much easier to keep up appearances and not our hearts though. It is easy just to slap on a smile before stepping foot in Church, and keep up our external appearance. It is harder to work on our life internally.

When we prepare for worship we are working on our life internally. We confess and are broken over the remaining sin in our life. We preach the gospel to ourselves and remind ourselves that: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” We seek to see the glory of Jesus in the gospel. As John Piper says: “Seeing the glory of Jesus Christ in the gospel awakens joy.” A great place to see the glory of Jesus is the cross. Frederick Leahy said: “the cross…should be central in the thinking and experience of the individual Christian. It is my conviction, and at times my sad experience, that as the cross goes out of focus in the Christian’s life, coldness and backsliding set in.” When the cross goes out of focus in our lives our hearts will grow cold. Missionary Amy Carmichael wisely said: “From all that dims Thy Calvary, O Lamb of God, deliver me.” As we prepare for worship we want to bring the cross of Christ into sharp focus, we want to be delivered from anything that will dim the cross from our view.

As the song that we sang last week says: “At the cross You beckon me
You draw me gently to my knees, and I am
Lost for words, so lost in love,
I’m sweetly broken, wholly surrendered”

So, before I get to the text that Mark will be preaching on, I want to go to the cross. Mark 15 tells us that Jesus was crucified at the third hour, which was 9:00 am. Matthew 27 tells us that from noon “there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. ⁴⁶ And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” 

Frederick Leahy says: “At Bethlehem, when the Saviour was born, the night was changed to day as the glory of the Lord shone around the shepherds. On Golgotha the day gave way to night…At Bethlehem there were countless angels praising God; on Golgotha legions of darkness filled the impenetrable gloom, hoping that darkness would finally triumph over light…At the creation, God, at an early stage, introduced light. Yet now he leaves his Son suspended in darkness at midday. Why must the light of the world be placed in darkness?…That darkness was a symbol of God’s wrath. Hendriksen says that God’s wrath was ‘burning itself out in the heart of Jesus.’  In that hour of blackness He had nothing, nothing but the guilt of sin of all those for whom He died. Utterly forsaken, He was cut off…Christ cried to God, but for Him there was no mercy; He had to bear the curse; He had no rights.” Jesus endured this darkness to redeem His people. At the cross we truly are ‘lost for words, so lost in love.’

Let us pray for the service tomorrow as we prepare our hearts for worship. Let us pray for Ian and Erin as they lead us in worship. Let us pray for Jerry as he leads us in a time of confession and let us pray for Mark who will open up Genesis 18 & 19 to us. Let us pray that God would stir up our affections for Him.

Links to Genesis 18 & 19 of the ESV text are below:

Genesis 18

Genesis 19

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How do we prepare for worship when our hearts are cold? How do we prepare for worship when we are spiritually dried up like an old piece of forgotten fruit in the back of the refrigerator? I read something from George Mueller yesterday that got me thinking about this. He said: “It is a common temptation of Satan to make us give up the reading of the Word and prayer when our enjoyment is gone; as if it were of no use to read the Scriptures when we do not enjoy them, and as if it were of no use to pray when we have no spirit of prayer.” I know I have fallen prey to this temptation. I will be spiritually dry during the week and I will just leave my Bible unattended. I will leave the throne of grace unattended as well, as my heart grows colder and is filling with the dark murky water that we have talked about in the past. If this is you this week Randy Alcorn has some advice. He says: “The key in such times isn’t to give up on God’s Word and prayer but to stay with it and ask Him to give us joy.” “Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit” (Psalm 51:12).”

So, if your heart is cold today and has been this week, let us run to the throne of grace and just pour our hearts out to God and plead with Him to restore the joy of our salvation. Another thing we can do to help us prepare for worship when our hearts are cold, is to simply go back to the Cross. As Jerry Ediger said last week in his sermon let us: “race to the Cross.” This has been something that has been a tremendous help to me in my own life when I have been dry. Numerous times I have been spiritually dry and I have simply gone to the Cross. John Stott says the Cross ‘is the blazing fire at which the flame of our love is kindled.’ So, I will take my cold, dry heart and I will stand at the foot of the Cross of Jesus. There at the Cross, I behold the sinless, savior, suffering the wrath of God in my place, and sparks begin to fly upon my cold heart. Soon my heart is melted and my eyes begin to fill with tears. Charles Spurgeon said: “something lies within the truth of the Cross which sets the soul aglow;…” I love that line from Spurgeon. So, let us race to the cross and stand beneath that blazing fire to have our love kindled and our souls set aglow.

John Piper said: “The preciousness of being saved will rise in its intensity to the degree that you see the horror of what your saved from, and the beauty of what your saved for.” So, as we prepare for worship today and tomorrow let us remember as the song says that at one time we were running our hell-bound race indifferent to the cost. Just this morning I was thinking about my life before my conversion, and I was reminded just how sinful I was. I was running a hell-bound race. As John Piper says: “I must feel the truth of hell―that it exists and is terrible and horrible beyond imaginings forever and ever…I must feel the truth that once I was as close to hell as I am to the chair I am sitting on―even closer.” As we feel the weight of our sin and understand that we deserve hell and at one time we were running there, we must remember the grace of God.

“That God looked upon our helpless state
And led us to the cross
And we beheld God’s love displayed
You suffered in our place
You bore the wrath reserved for me
Now all I know is grace”

Let us pray for the service tomorrow as well. Let us pray for Ian and Erin who will once again be leading us in worship. Let us pray for Jerry who will lead us in a time of confession, and let us pray for Mark as he will open up God’s Word to us. Mark will be looking at Genesis 16 and Galatians 4:21-31. The ESV text of both passages is below:

Genesis 16

“Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar. ² And Sarai said to Abram, “Behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. ³ So, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram her husband as a wife.⁴ And he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress. ⁵ And Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my servant to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the Lord judge between you and me!” ⁶ But Abram said to Sarai, “Behold, your servant is in your power; do to her as you please.” Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her.

⁷ The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. ⁸ And he said, “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?” She said, “I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai.” ⁹ The angel of the Lordsaid to her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her.” ¹⁰ The angel of the Lord also said to her, “I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude.” ¹¹ And the angel of theLord said to her,

¹³ So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are a God of seeing,” for she said, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.” ¹⁴ Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi; it lies between Kadesh and Bered.

¹⁵ And Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. ¹⁶ Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram.”

Galatians 4:21-31

“Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? ²² For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. ²³ But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. ²⁴ Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. ²⁵ Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. ²⁶ But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.²⁷ For it is written,

²⁸ Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. ²⁹ But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now. ³⁰ But what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.” ³¹ So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman.”

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It is once again time to prepare our hearts for worship. As we prepare for worship today and tomorrow I thought we could spend some time thinking about our adoption. 1 John 3:1 says: “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are…” Stephen Miller says: “All true worship begins with our adoption. All prayer, all praise, all singing — all of our relating to God — begins with being able to come to him as his children. That’s what Jesus won for us. When he went to the cross, he paid the immeasurable price of our adoption, to make us sons and daughters of the living God.

The apostle Paul says in Ephesians 2 says: “Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, …— ¹² remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.” So, for me this was my first 23 years on planet earth. I was separated from Christ, without hope and without God in the world. Incomprehensibly though I was adopted into God’s family before my 24th birthday. Paul goes on: “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. ¹⁴ For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility ¹⁵ by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, ¹⁶ and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. ¹⁷ And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. ¹⁸ For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. ¹⁹ So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,”

Martyn Lloyd-Jones says: “We have become members of God’s family; we really are in that relationship to Him because we have His nature. Because we have received of His life, we, as children, belong to His family, we belong to his household, and we are therefore in this unique relationship to Him. And that, of course, in turn means that we are heirs of God, as Paul says in Romans 8:17: “If children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.”

Going  back to the first verse that I started this with 1 John 3:1 which says that we: “should be called children of God.” Lloyd-Jones that we are “called the children of God, and there is a sense in which this is so staggering and so overwhelming that we find it almost impossible to accept it, and to retain the idea in our minds. Yet that is what is said  about Christians everywhere in the New Testament. Let us never again think of the Christian as just someone who is trying to live a good life, trying to be a little bit better than somebody else, a person with a belief in doing certain things, going through certain forms and ceremonials and keeping certain regulations dictated by the church. Christians do all that, but before all that is this vital fact that they are children of God. They have been born again, born from above, born of the Spirit; they have received something of the very nature and life of God Himself.”

As we prepare our hearts for worship let us spend time this afternoon and tomorrow morning just dwelling on our glorious adoption into the family of God. Stephen Miller says: “And the truth that God would give his own Son that he might make us his sons and daughters ought to produce awe and wonder and amazement in us. It ought to make us stop for a second — or for a Sunday morning — and say, How great is the love of the Father! How could we not sing? How could we not shout? How could we not respond, with all that we are, to all that he has done for us?

We need to be captivated by this truth, and let it produce a response of awe-filled adoration in us. What a glorious thing to say, “Our Father, hallowed be your name! Let your kingdom come, and your will be done here.”

May we begin to live in light of that glorious truth — that we are redeemed and adopted sons and daughters of the living God. He wants us. He is with us. And he is for us.

Let’s worship in light of that!”

Let us also pray for Ian and Erin who will once again be leading us in worship. Let us continue to uphold Kelly and Mark at the throne of grace as they have been at the hospital for several days now. Mark wrote this on Tuesday: “My wife Kelly started having some contractions last night. We’re two months short of the due date (July 9), so we’re at the hospital trying to prevent a pre-term labor from starting. So far things are looking relatively good. We’ll likely be here for at least a couple more days. Say a prayer for Kelly and the baby in particular if you’re able. Thank you! God is in control.” It looks like Mark and Kelly will be going home from the hospital this afternoon. So, Jerry Ediger will be preaching for Mark this Sunday. So, let us pray for Jerry as he opens up the Word to us.

Jerry will be preaching from Romans 8. The ESV text of Romans 8 is below:

Romans 8

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. ² For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. ³ For God has done what the law,weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,⁴ in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.⁵ For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. ⁶ For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. ⁷ For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. ⁸ Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

⁹ You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. ¹⁰ But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. ¹¹ If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. ¹² So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. ¹³ For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. ¹⁴ For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.¹⁵ For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry,“Abba! Father!” ¹⁶ The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, ¹⁷ and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

¹⁸ For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. ¹⁹ For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.²⁰ For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope ²¹ that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. ²² For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. ²³ And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit,groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. ²⁴ For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? ²⁵ But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

²⁶ Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. ²⁷ And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. ²⁸ And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. ²⁹ For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. ³⁰ And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

³¹ What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³² He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?³³ Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. ³⁴ Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. ³⁵ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? ³⁶ As it is written,

³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹ nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

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It is once again time to prepare for worship. One way we can prepare our hearts for worship is by reminding ourselves who God is. Acts 17:24-25 says: “The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.”

Pastor Sam Storms wrote an article and he quoted this Matt Redman song:

Let our praise be Your welcome
Let our songs be a sign
We are here for You,
we are here for You
Let Your breath come from heaven
Fill our hearts with Your life
We are here for You, we are here for You

Sam Storms says: “When we sing, “We are here for you,” in what sense do we use the word “for”?” He goes on:

“Simply put, God does not need you or me. He is altogether self-sufficient, dependent on no one. He is, in fact, the one who is responsible for the existence and preservation of all life, yours and mine. Therefore, he cannot be “served” as if he were needy or exhausted or weak or lacking something that only you and I and the people of your church can supply.

To arrive on a Sunday morning and declare to God, “We are here for you,” in the sense that you believe there is something you can give to God that he doesn’t already have, or that you can shore up a weakness, or fill a gap or overcome a deficiency, is to insult God to the very core of his being.

That is why we must be extremely careful that we are never there “for” God in the sense in which we might be there “for” an invalid or someone who is destitute of the resources to care for himself.”

Pastor Storms continues:

“God is infinite and immeasurably abundant and needs nothing from us. Rather, we are here for God in the sense that we need him as a thirsty man needs water, as a hungry traveler needs food, as a bankrupt beggar needs money, as a guilty soul needs forgiveness, as a broken heart needs healing, as a lost sinner needs salvation. That is why we are here for God. Only he can supply what we lack. Only he can give us what we need.

If we gather for God, thinking that he stands in need of us, we insult him. But if we gather for God to drink deeply and feast upon all that he is for us in Jesus, we honor him.

By the way, we should give Matt Redman credit for making this quite clear in his song. If we ask of the lyrics, “Why are you here for God?” the answer is clear:

     Let Your breath come from heaven
     Fill our hearts with Your life

The worshiper comes not to infuse God with breath, but to receive it from him. The worshiper makes no pretense at filling up what is lacking God, but cries out that God fill his heart with divine and supernatural life.”

So, let us prepare our hearts for worship by being reminded about who God is, and being reminded of how desperately we need King Jesus. Let us ask God to stir up our affections for Him. Let us pray for Ian, and Erin who will both be singing and leading us in worship. Let us pray for Jerry as he leads us in our time of confession, and let us pray for Mark as he opens up the Word to us.

Mark will be preaching on Genesis 15. The ESV text of Genesis 15 is below:

“After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision:“Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”² But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” ³ And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” ⁴ And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” ⁵ And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” ⁶ And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.

⁷ And he said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.” ⁸ But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” ⁹ He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” ¹⁰ And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. ¹¹ And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

¹² As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. ¹³ Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. ¹⁴ But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. ¹⁵ As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. ¹⁶ And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”

¹⁷ When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. ¹⁸ On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give^[c] this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, ¹⁹ the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites,²⁰ the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, ²¹ the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.”

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It is time once again to prepare our hearts for worship. Lord willing tomorrow will be the first time that North Avenue Church will partake in Communion. So, how should we prepare our hearts to take the Lord’s Supper? Joni Eareckson Tada said: “Sometimes I know that I come to Communion unprepared, not paying attention to the housecleaning that my heart needs.” Paul says in 1st Corinthians 11:28: “Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup.” All of our hearts need housecleaning as Joni said before we come to the table. The Puritan Jeremiah Burroughs said: “We should make a diligent search to see whether there is not…, some evil in your heart; and whatever sin you shall come to find in your heart, there must be a casting out of it.” When we come to the Lord’s Supper we are coming to remember the broken body and shed blood of Christ. Burroughs says that: “a suitable disposition is brokenness of heart, a sense of our sin, of that dreadful breach that sin has made between God and the soul.” Tim Challies says that: “Our sin should be upon our hearts, but only in such a way that we understand it through the application of the blood of Christ. We must behold Christ broken and behold the ugliness of our sin in the red of the glass of the blood of Jesus Christ.”

As we examine ourselves and when we find sin in our hearts, Burroughs gives us a powerful metaphor of how we are to regard that sin as we come to the Lord’s Supper: “If you saw the knife that cut the throat of your dearest child, would not your heart rise against that knife? Suppose you came to a table and there is a knife laid at your plate, and it was told to you that this is the knife that cut the throat of your child. Fathers, if you could still use that knife like any other knife, would not someone say, ‘There was but little love to your child?’ So when there is a temptation come to any sin, this is the knife that cut the throat of Christ, that pierced his sides, that was the cause of all his suffering, that made Christ to be a curse. Now will you not look upon that as a cursed thing that made Christ to be a curse? Oh, with what detestation would a man or woman fling away such a knife! And with the like detestation it is required that you should renounce sin, for that was the cause of the death of Christ.”

So, let us repent of the sins that we find and fling them away. Let us pray that God would stir up our affections for Him. We should come tomorrow with a hungering and thirsting for more of Jesus, knowing that in Christ these sins have been forgiven and they have been removed as far as the east is from the west. Burroughs again says: “Oh, that I might have more of Christ, that I might meet with Christ, that I might have some further manifestation of Jesus Christ, that I might have my soul further united to the Lord Christ, and so have further influence of Christ to my soul.”

Let us also pray for Jerry, Ian, and Mark as they will once again be leading us in worship. Let us think much of the gospel today and tomorrow as we prepare our hearts for worship. As Charles Spurgeon said: “The wrath of God on account of sin fell upon him who had never sinned, and he bore it all. A penalty which must have made a hell for us for ever was exacted of our Lord upon the cross, and he discharged it. He drank the whole of our bitter cup. He bore in himself all that was necessary to vindicate the divine justice until he could truly say, “It is finished.”

Mark will be looking at portions of Genesis 14 and Psalm 110. Genesis 14:17-24 and Psalm 110 are below:

Genesis 14:17-24:

“After his return from the defeat of Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley). ¹⁸ And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. (He was priest of God Most High.) ¹⁹ And he blessed him and said,

And Abram gave him a tenth of everything. ²¹ And the king of Sodom said to Abram, “Give me the persons, but take the goods for yourself.”²² But Abram said to the king of Sodom, “I have lifted my hand to the Lord, God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth, ²³ that I would not take a thread or a sandal strap or anything that is yours, lest you should say, ‘I have made Abram rich.’ ²⁴ I will take nothing but what the young men have eaten, and the share of the men who went with me. Let Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre take their share.”

Psalm 110:

It is once again time to prepare our hearts for worship. One way that we prepare for worship is prayer. I think prayer is absolutely essential in preparing our hearts for worship. Maybe you have had a long, discouraging week. Maybe you don’t even feel like praying because this week has been difficult or frustrating. The great Scottish pastor of the 1800’s Robert Murray M’Cheyne says that if we are feeling sad or frustrated we should: “Go and tell Jesus; spread out your sorrows at his feet. He knows them all; feels for you in them all.” So, maybe we just come to God in prayer and say: “Father I am feeling discouraged, I am feeling stressed out with work, or school, or whatever it may be.” We should just pour out our hearts to God. J.C. Ryle says: “Fear not because your prayer is stammering, your words feeble, and your language poor. Jesus can understand you.” So, let’s just pour our hearts out to God in prayer. Just be transparent with the Lord in prayer.  My brother Mark uses the illustration of a dirty cup of water. We have this dirty cup of water which is our sadness, or discouragement, and our sin. We take this dirty cup and we just pour it out to God in prayer. Then we take the crystal clear water of the promises of God and the glorious gospel and we pour that back into our souls.

In Lamentations 3 we see something like this. The author says: “my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is;” He goes on: “My soul continually…is bowed down within me.” This is the dirty cup of water. Then here comes the crystal clear water of the promises of God. In verses 21-24 of chapter 3 he says: “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: ²² The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; ²³ they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ²⁴ “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” So, let’s start preparing for worship by just going to God in prayer and pouring out our dirty cup of water, and then begin to pour the fresh water of the gospel and the promises of God into our souls.

Jordan Kauflin says: “How we prepare for our Sunday gatherings is directly related to how much we benefit from our time together.” He goes on to say that we should prepare to receive. “Every time we gather as a church, God will speak to us as his word is preached, sung, read, and studied. Hearing from God is a weighty and glorious thing. Just read Exodus 19–20. To see God for who he is, to be overwhelmed by his greatness and holiness, to experience his presence, to see his boundless love and mercy, to encounter what should make our hearts tremble. Through Jesus, we can boldly come and receive (Hebrews 10:19–22), but confidence does not equal casualness. Prepare by asking God to help you receive his revelation with gratefulness and humility.” So, let’s ask God to stir up our affections for Him, and let’s pray for Ian, Jerry, and Mark who will be leading us in worship. The last thing I will mention before I get to the text is something I read recently from Paul Tripp. This is something that I think is helpful as we prepare to worship. Tripp says: “Worship is designed to remind you that in the center of all things is a glorious and gracious King, and this king is not you.”

Mark will be preaching through portions of Genesis 10-12. I am including Genesis 12:1-9 below:

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. ² And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. ³ I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

⁴ So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. ⁵ And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan, ⁶ Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. ⁷ Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. ⁸ From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. ⁹ And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb.

Picture from here

Sorry I am late in writing this, but I have been on vacation. Hopefully we all will pray for the service tomorrow. Hopefully we will all pray for Ian, Jerry, and Mark as they will be leading us in worship. Before I get to the text, I wanted to quickly share something that has been really helpful to me from Matt Chandler. He says that we should seek to fill our lives with things that stir our affections for Jesus and seek to avoid those things that rob our affections for Jesus. I think this once again goes with Proverbs 4:23 that I have mentioned the last two weeks. Which says that we should watch over our hearts with all diligence for from the heart flow the springs of life.

With that said, Matt Chandler says that he: “started asking what stirs my affections for Christ? What, when I’m doing it, when I’m around it or dwelling on it creates in me a greater hunger for, passion for and worship of Christ and His mission? The first list was a strange one. It looked something like this:

As we rapidly approach another Lord’s day, let us once again prepare our hearts for worship. A couple of weeks ago I talked about Proverbs 4:23 which says we should watch over our hearts will all diligence for from the heart flow the springs of life. We should continue the ongoing work of cultivating love for God and hatred for sin. I wanted to share something that I have to constantly watch over in my own heart. I became a Christian at age 23 and almost immediately after my conversion I started buying and consuming theological books. The danger for me is to read just to acquire knowledge, and not let my reading produce worship in my heart.

In Revelation 2:2-5 Jesus tells the church at Ephesus:

“I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. ³ I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. ⁴ But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. ⁵ Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.”

Matt Chandler commenting on this passage says: “I (Jesus) have this against you. Yes,you have truth right. Yes, you endure well, but here’s what I have against you: You have abandoned the love you had at first,” and then he tells them to do two things. One is to repent of that, abandoning that love, and two is to get back to doing the things you did at first.” He goes on: “What he is saying, then, is, “If you’ll remember back to what you did and you’ll do those things, that affection, that love you had for me, not that I have for you because my love for you is built on Christ, but your love for me will be restored.” Then you have this scary word of warning. “If you don’t, if all you are is doctrinally correct, and you beat your chest and boldly stand in endurance on those principles and on those truths, but you have no affection for me, you have no love for me, no desire for me, I’m pulling the lampstand. I’m shutting this thing down. I am removing the power of the Holy Spirit. I am removing my presence, and I’ll continue to save and do work as I choose to save and do work, but it will not be through you.” That’s a pretty terrifying threat. I haven’t emailed back and forth with the church at Ephesus, so it appears they didn’t heed this advice, but there are some real pointed things you need to hear here. Although he commends them for sound doctrine, it appears sound doctrine that does not lead us to a deeper love for Jesus Christ, and his grace isn’t enough. He’s all about endurance and enduring, but enduring that is not leading to a greater love and affection for Jesus Christ is not what Christ came and died for.”

So, ‘sound doctrine that does not lead us to a deeper love for Jesus, and his grace isn’t enough,’ and ‘endurance that is not leading to a greater love and affection for Jesus is not what Christ came and died for.’ So, if you have been feeling cold and dry spiritually this week, turn to the throne of grace even now and say: Lord I am sorry that I have been cold. I’m sorry that even my Bible reading this week has not warmed my hearts affections for you. I have just being going through the motions and doing my duty without any affection for you Lord. This is my own prayer this week. Then preach the gospel to yourself. As J.C. Ryle says: “Was Jesus condemned, though innocent? It was done so that we might be acquitted, though guilty. Did he wear a crown of thorns? It was done so that we might wear the crown of glory. Was he stripped of his clothes? It was done so that we might be clothed in everlasting righteousness. Was he mocked and reviled? It was done so that we might be honored and blessed. Was he reckoned a criminal, and counted among those who have done wrong? It was done so that we might be reckoned innocent, and declared free from all sin.” Oh, the power of this glorious gospel! Let’s preach it to ourselves every day!

Let’s pray that God would stir up our affections for Him. Let’s pray for the service tomorrow as well. Let’s pray for Allen who will be filling in for Jerry and doing the confession time. Let’s pray for Mark and Ian who will also be leading us in worship tomorrow. Mark will be preaching on the flood and Noah’s ark tomorrow. Genesis 6:1-9:17. The ESV text is below.

Genesis 6

“When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, ² the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. ³ Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” ⁴ The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.

⁵ The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. ⁶ And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. ⁷ So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” ⁸ But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. ⁹ These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man,blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God. ¹⁰ And Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

¹¹ Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. ¹² And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. ¹³ And God said to Noah,“I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth.¹⁴ Make yourself an ark of gopher wood. Make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch. ¹⁵ This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark 300 cubits, its breadth 50 cubits, and its height 30 cubits. ¹⁶ Make a roof for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above, and set the door of the ark in its side. Make it with lower, second, and third decks. ¹⁷ For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die. ¹⁸ But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you. ¹⁹ And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female. ²⁰ Of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground, according to its kind, two of every sort shall come in to you to keep them alive. ²¹ Also take with you every sort of food that is eaten, and store it up. It shall serve as food for you and for them.” ²² Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him.

Genesis 7

Then the Lord said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation. ² Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate, ³ and seven pairs of the birds of the heavens also, male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face of all the earth. ⁴ For in seven days I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.” ⁵ And Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him.

⁶ Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters came upon the earth. ⁷ And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood. ⁸ Of clean animals, and of animals that are not clean, and of birds, and of everything that creeps on the ground, ⁹ two and two, male and female, went into the ark with Noah, as God had commanded Noah. ¹⁰ And after seven days the waters of the flood came upon the earth.

¹¹ In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened.¹² And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights. ¹³ On the very same day Noah and his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them entered the ark,¹⁴ they and every beast, according to its kind, and all the livestock according to their kinds, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, according to its kind, and every bird, according to its kind, every winged creature. ¹⁵ They went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life. ¹⁶ And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him. And the Lord shut him in.

¹⁷ The flood continued forty days on the earth. The waters increased and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. ¹⁸ The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the face of the waters. ¹⁹ And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. ²⁰ The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep. ²¹ And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all mankind. ²² Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died. ²³ He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. They were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark. ²⁴ And the waters prevailed on the earth 150 days.

Genesis 8

But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided. ² The fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, ³ and the waters receded from the earth continually. At the end of 150 days the waters had abated, ⁴ and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. ⁵ And the waters continued to abate until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen.

⁶ At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made ⁷ and sent forth a raven. It went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth. ⁸ Then he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground. ⁹ But the dove found no place to set her foot, and she returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her and brought her into the ark with him. ¹⁰ He waited another seven days, and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark. ¹¹ And the dove came back to him in the evening, and behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. ¹² Then he waited another seven days and sent forth the dove, and she did not return to him anymore.

¹³ In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried from off the earth. And Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry. ¹⁴ In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth had dried out. ¹⁵ Then God said to Noah,¹⁶ “Go out from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. ¹⁷ Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—that they may swarm on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” ¹⁸ So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him. ¹⁹ Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by families from the ark. ²⁰ Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. ²¹ And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. ²² While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”

Genesis 9:1-17

And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. ² The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. ³ Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. ⁴ But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. ⁵ And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man.

⁷ And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.”

⁸ Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, ⁹ “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, ¹⁰ and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth. ¹¹ I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” ¹² And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: ¹³ I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. ¹⁴ When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, ¹⁵ I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. ¹⁶ When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” ¹⁷ God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

Picture from here

Tomorrow we celebrate Easter Sunday. Tomorrow we celebrate Jesus’s resurrection. Which Jonathan Edwards says: “The resurrection of Christ is the most joyful event that ever came to pass.” So, as we once again prepare our hearts for worship let’s think about the sufferings of Jesus and his resurrection. Professor and author Matthew Harmon says that: “it is no exaggeration to say that Jesus rising from the dead literally changes everything.” So, why does Jesus rising from the dead change everything? What if Jesus had not been raised from the dead? Charles Spurgeon says: “Were Jesus still dead, His death would have been like the death of any other person—and would have given us no assurance of acceptance. His life, with all the beauty of its holiness, would have been simply a perfect example of conduct but it could not have become our righteousness if His burial in the tomb of Joseph had been the end of all. It was essential for the confirmation of His life-teaching and His death-suffering, that He should be raised from the dead. If he had not risen but were still among the dead, you might as well tell us that we preach to you a cunningly devised fable. See, then, the power of His resurrection—it proves without a doubt the faith once delivered to the saints.”

Spurgeon continues: “There was as much reality about the rising of our Lord as about His death and burial. There is no fiction here. This literal fact gives reality to all that comes from Him and by Him. Justification is no mere easing of the conscience—it is a real arraying of the soul in righteousness. Adoption into the family of God is no fancy, but brings with it true and proper sonship. The blessings of the Gospel are substantial facts and not mere theological opinions. As the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead was a plain visible matter of fact—so are the pardon of sin and the salvation of the soul matters of actual experience and not the creatures of religious imagination. Brethren, such is the evidencing power of the resurrection of Christ, that when every other argument fails your faith, you may find safe anchorage in this assured fact. The currents of doubt may bear you towards the rocks of mistrust. But when your anchor finds no other hold, it may grip the fact of the resurrection of Christ from the dead. This must be true. The witnesses are too many to have been deceived. And their patient deaths on account of their belief proved that they were not only honest men but good men who valued the Truth of God more than life. We know that Jesus rose from the dead—whatever else we are forced to question, we have no question on that score.”

The apostle Paul tells us that: “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.” Basically, if Christ had not been raised from the dead we have no hope. However, Paul goes on to tell us: “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead…” This is what we will celebrate tomorrow, and the resurrection of Jesus does in fact change everything!

Before I get to the text for tomorrow I want to pause here and just confess something. I just was thinking how easy it is for me to write a post like this, but not be affected in my heart. I can write about the resurrection of Jesus and still my affections for Jesus are not stirred up. So, I continually need to pray and I believe a key way that we can prepare for worship is to ask God to stir up our affections for Him. Let’s pray for Mark, Ian, and Jerry once again as they will lead us in worship tomorrow. Let’s meditate on the gospel, the suffering’s of Jesus, and His glorious resurrection. Joe Thorn tells us: “God in Christ has reconciled us to himself, is renewing our minds, and promises to raise us from the dead, and we will dwell in righteousness and peace forever. If you have this, what more do you need?”

Mark will look briefly at Genesis 5, but will spend most of his time in 1 Corinthians 15. Verses 1-28 and verses 45-58 of 1 Corinthians 15 are below (ESV):

“Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, ² and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. ³ For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, ⁴ that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, ⁵ and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.⁶ Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. ⁷ Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. ⁸ Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. ⁹ For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. ¹⁰ But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. ¹¹ Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed. ¹² Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? ¹³ But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.¹⁴ And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. ¹⁵ We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. ¹⁶ For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. ¹⁷ And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. ¹⁸ Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. ¹⁹ If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

²⁰ But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. ²¹ For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. ²² For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. ²³ But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. ²⁴ Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power.²⁵ For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.²⁶ The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. ²⁸ When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.”

45 Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. ⁴⁶ But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. ⁴⁷ The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. ⁴⁸ As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. ⁴⁹ Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. ⁵⁰ I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. ⁵¹ Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,⁵² in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. ⁵³ For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. ⁵⁴ When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

⁵⁶ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. ⁵⁷ But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

⁵⁸ Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

Picture from here

As I was thinking about what to write for this weeks preparing our hearts for worship blog, I thought about Proverbs 4:23 which says: “Watch over your heart with all diligence, For from it flow the springs of life.” Joe Thorn says in a note that he wrote to himself: “You work at keeping your conduct in line, and you work at maintaining a good reputation, but you don’t work enough at keeping your heart. The problem with this is unless you learn to keep your heart, your conduct and reputation will be of little value and may come crashing down in times of weakness. The call to keep your heart is a call to work on your life internally, not merely externally. The latter is easy; the former is much harder and more complicated. The religious or moral person will focus on the external and maintain good appearances, but it may have little to nothing to do with the heart. God is first and foremost concerned with your heart, for when you are keeping the heart, the rest of life follows.”

He goes on and this is what I hope these blog post are helping us to do: “To keep your heart means that your focus and work is on maintaining communion with God and pursuing the transformation that only God can accomplish in you. It is not performance-based religion, nor the moral improvement of your life, but the ongoing work of cultivating love for God and hatred for sin. It is the unending effort of guarding ourselves against idols while resting in the promises of the gospel. To keep your heart is your primary business as a Christian, and it cannot be done with passing interest or any small amount of energy. It requires the consistent use of all the means of grace. You must make the most of worship, Scripture, prayer, and the church gathered in all its forms with an aim at keeping your heart and growing in grace. If you are doing anything less than this, you are keeping up appearances but not your heart. And you know that the heart is what God is primarily interested in (Ps. 51:16-17)—hearts that are broken over sin, healed by God’s forgiving grace, and consequently filled with love for our Redeemer God.”

Oh how easy it is to keep up appearances but not our hearts! Let’s pray that God would help us to watch over our hearts with all diligence, and that He would stir up our hearts affections for Him. Something that has helped me stir up my affections for God has been music. Psalm 30:4 says: “Sing praises to the Lord, O you his saints, and give thanks to his holy name.” Joe Thorn says: “People sing about the things that capture their hearts and things that give them joy. People sing of heroes, victory, longing, and hope. People even sing as a way to express their sorrow. Does anyone have more reasons to sing than you? As a sinner who has been forgiven, a slave who has been freed, a blind man who has received sight, a spiritual cripple who has been healed—all by the gospel—you have real reasons to be known as a person of song!”

So, as we pray for the service tomorrow, and as we pray for Ian, Mark, and Jerry who will all be leading us in worship tomorrow, let’s also prepare for worship by singing. A song that my wife and I have been listening to a lot this week is one that Ian lead us in last week. The name of that song is: To The Cross I Cling. You can listen to it here. A little background on the song can be found here.

Mark will be preaching on Genesis 4:1-16. The ESV text is below:

“Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord.” ² And again, she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground. ³ In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, ⁴ and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, ⁵ but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. ⁶ The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? ⁷ If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.”

⁸ Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. ⁹ Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” ¹⁰ And the Lord said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground.¹¹ And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. ¹² When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength. You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.” ¹³ Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is greater than I can bear. ¹⁴ Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.” ¹⁵ Then the Lord said to him, “Not so! If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.” And the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest any who found him should attack him. ¹⁶ Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.”

Picture from here