Prayer & Giving Thanks

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1st Thessalonians 5:16-18 says: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing,  give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” How do we obey these verses? Specifically, how do we pray without ceasing? Part of the answer to this is to obey verse 18 which says: “give thanks in all circumstances.” Let me share a powerful story from Corrie Ten Boom that relates to these verses from 1st Thessalonians 5. She and her family were Christians who hid Jews in their home in Holland during World War II. They hid Jews in their home undetected from 1943 to the early part of 1944. Then in February 1944 Corrie and her entire family were arrested. Corrie and her sister Betsie were both in their 50’s at this time. They were sent to a few different prison camps, but eventually they were transferred to a horrible prison camp named Ravensbruck. This camp was in operation from 1939-1945 and during that time about 130,000 female prisoners passed through this camp. Of that 130,000, it is estimated that 50,000 ‘of them perished from disease, starvation, overwork and despair; some 2,200 were killed in the gas chambers. Only 15,000 of the total survived until liberation.’ 

Giving Thanks In All Circumstances

Here is Corrie Ten Boom in her own words describing being moved to the horrible prison camp Ravensbruck:

“The move to permanent quarters came the second week in October. We were marched, ten abreast, along the wide cinder avenue…Several times the column halted while numbers were read out–names were never used at Ravensbruck. At last Betsie’s and mine were called…We stepped out of line with a dozen or so others and stared at the long gray front of Barracks 28.Betsie and I followed a prisoner-guide through the door at the right. Because of the broken windows, the vast room was in semi-twilight. Our noses told us, first, that the place was filthy: somewhere, plumbing had backed up, the bedding was soiled and rancid.

Then as our eyes adjusted to the gloom we saw that there were no individual beds at all, but great square tiers stacked three high, and wedged side by side and end to end with only an occasional narrow aisle slicing through.

We followed our guide single file–the aisle was not wide enough for two–fighting back the claustrophobia of these platforms rising everywhere above us…At last she pointed to a second tier in the center of a large block.

To reach it, we had to stand on the bottom level, haul ourselves up, and then crawl across three other straw-covered platforms to reach the one that we would share with–how many?

The deck above us was too close to let us sit up. We lay back, struggling against the nausea that swept over us from the reeking straw…Suddenly I sat up, striking my head on the cross-slats above. Something had pinched my leg.

‘Fleas!’ I cried. ‘Betsie, the place is swarming with them!’

We scrambled across the intervening platforms, heads low to avoid another bump, dropped down to the aisle and hedged our way to a patch of light.

‘Here! And here another one!’ I wailed. ‘Betsie, how can we live in such a place!’

‘Show us. Show us how.’ It was said so matter of factly it took me a second to realize she was praying. More and more the distinction between prayer and the rest of life seemed to be vanishing for Betsie.

‘Corrie!’ she said excitedly. ‘He’s given us the answer! Before we asked, as He always does! In the Bible this morning. Where was it? Read that part again!’

I glanced down the long dim aisle to make sure no guard was in sight, then drew the Bible from its pouch. ‘It was in First Thessalonians,’ I said. We were on our third complete reading of the New Testament since leaving Scheveningen.

In the feeble light I turned the pages. ‘Here it is’: “Comfort the frightened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all…” It seemed written expressly to Ravensbruck.

‘Go on,’ said Betsie. ‘That wasn’t all.’

‘Oh yes:’…”Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus.’

‘That’s it, Corrie! That’s His answer. “Give thanks in all circumstances!” That’s what we can do. We can start right now to thank God for every single thing about this new barracks!’ I stared at her; then around me at the dark, foul-aired room.

‘Such as?’ I said.

‘Such as being assigned here together.’

I bit my lip. ‘Oh yes, Lord Jesus!’

‘Such as what you’re holding in your hands.’ I looked down at the Bible.

‘Yes! Thank You, dear Lord, that there was no inspection when we entered here! Thank You for all these women, here in this room, who will meet You in these pages.’

‘Yes,’ said Betsie, ‘Thank You for the very crowding here. Since we’re packed so close, that many more will hear!’ She looked at me expectantly. ‘Corrie!’ she prodded.

‘Oh, all right. Thank You for the jammed, crammed, stuffed, packed suffocating crowds.’

‘Thank You,’ Betsie went on serenely, ‘for the fleas and for–‘

The fleas! This was too much. ‘Betsie, there’s no way even God can make me grateful for a flea.’

‘Give thanks in all circumstances,’ she quoted. It doesn’t say, ‘in pleasant circumstances.’ Fleas are part of this place where God has put us.’

And so we stood between tiers of bunks and gave thanks for fleas. But this time I was sure Betsie was wrong.

Back at the barracks we formed yet another line–would there never be an end to columns and waits?–to receive our ladle of turnip soup in the center room. Then, as quickly as we could for the press of people, Betsie and I made our way to the rear of the dormitory room where we held our worship “service.” Around our own platform area there was not enough light to read the Bible, but back here a small light bulb cast a wan yellow circle on the wall, and here an ever larger group of women gathered.

They were services like no others, these times in Barracks 28.

At first Betsie and I called these meetings with great timidity. But as night after night went by and no guard ever came near us, we grew bolder. So many now wanted to join us that we held a second service after evening roll call.

There on the Lagerstrasse we were under rigid surveillance, guards in their warm wool capes marching constantly up and down. It was the same in the center room of the barracks: half a dozen guards or camp police always present. Yet in the large dormitory room there was almost no supervision at all. We did not understand it.

One evening I got back to the barracks late from a wood-gathering foray outside the walls. A light snow lay on the ground and it was hard to find the sticks and twigs with which a small stove was kept going in each room. Betsie was waiting for me, as always, so that we could wait through the food line together. Her eyes were twinkling.

‘You’re looking extraordinarily pleased with yourself,’ I told her.

‘You know, we’ve never understood why we had so much freedom in the big room,’ she said. ‘Well–I’ve found out.’

That afternoon, she said, there’d been confusion in her knitting group about sock sizes and they’d asked the supervisor to come and settle it.

‘But she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t step through the door and neither would the guards. And you know why?’

Betsie could not keep the triumph from her voice: ‘Because of the fleas! That’s what she said, “That place is crawling with fleas!’”

My mind rushed back to our first hour in this place. I remembered Betsie’s bowed head, remembered her thanks to God for creatures I could see no use for.”

Pray Without Ceasing

A key then to praying without ceasing is to give thanks in all circumstances. If Betsie and Corrie Ten Boom could give thanks in Ravensbruck, how much more do we have to be thankful for? Let’s see if we can all cultivate a spirit of thankfulness in our hearts to God each day.

John Piper says that to pray without ceasing: “means that there is a spirit of dependence that should permeate all we do. This is the very spirit and essence of prayer. So, even when we are not speaking consciously to God, there is a deep, abiding dependence on him that is woven into the heart of faith. In that sense, we “pray” or have the spirit of prayer continuously.”

He goes on by saying: “I think praying without ceasing means not giving up on prayer. Don’t ever come to a point in your life where you cease to pray at all. Don’t abandon the God of hope and say, “There’s no use praying.” Go on praying. Don’t cease.” To pray continually according to Piper means that we: “lean on God all the time. Never give up looking to him for help, and come to him repeatedly during the day and often. Make the default mental state a Godward longing.”

Something else that I think is helpful on this topic is that we don’t have to be praying for 10-15 minutes at a time all throughout the day. I don’t think that is what Paul had in mind. Charles Spurgeon is helpful when he said:

“You may be…weighing your groceries, or you may be casting up an account and between the items you may say, “Lord, help me.” You may breathe a prayer to Heaven and say, “Lord, keep me.” It will take no time. It is one great advantage to persons who are hard pressed in business that such prayers as these will not, in the slightest degree, incapacitate them from attending to the business they may have in hand! It requires you to go to no particular place. You can stand where you are,…walk along the streets,…and yet pray just as well such prayers as these. No altar, no Church, no so called sacred place is needed!

Wherever you are, just a little prayer as that will reach the ear of God and win a blessing. Such a prayer as that can be offered anywhere, under any circumstances. I do not know in what condition a man could be in which he might not offer some such prayer as that. On the land, or on the sea, in sickness or in health, amidst losses or gains, great reverses or good returns, still might he breathe his soul in short, quick sentences to God! The advantage of such a way of praying is that you can pray often and pray always. If you must prolong your prayer for a quarter of an hour you might possibly be unable to spare the time, but if it only needs a quarter of a minute, why, then, it may come again and again and again and again—a hundred times a day!”

George Mueller who was an amazing man of prayer, describes what praying without ceasing looks like: “I live in the spirit of prayer. I pray as I walk about, when I lie down and when I rise up…From the very early morning, let us make everything a matter of prayer, and let it be so throughout the day, and throughout our whole life.”

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Preparing For Worship

 

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It is once again time to prepare our hearts for worship. I wanted to start this off by just talking about what the essence of worship is. John Piper says that the “essence of worship is not external, localized acts,…” So, the essence of worship is not going to church on Sunday and occupying a seat there. The essence of worship is not singing songs at church and reading from our Bible’s when the Word is preached. Why are these things not the essence of worship? The answer is because all of these things can be done without having the heart engaged. As John Piper says: “Worship that does not come from the heart is vain, empty. It is not authentic worship.” So, what is the essence of worship? John Piper answers and says that the essence of worship is an ‘inner, Godward experience.’ Another way he says it is like this: “Worship is real, authentic experience in the heart with God, or it is nothing.”

Jesus said: “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me” (Matthew 15:8). Piper commenting on this verse said: “That means they are singing. They are preaching. They are praying for nothing. This people honors me with their lips. Why is it vain? Why is it for nothing? Because their heart is far from me…There isn’t any more important question than to ask the heart question. What is my heart supposed to be doing while we are doing these music things, these verbal things, this preaching thing?” This is an extremely important question. Let me quote Piper again as he talks about worship and asks a similar question: “Worship is all about reflecting the worth or value of God. So the question we are asking this morning is: What inner experience of the heart does that? If the essence of worship is not mere outward form, but inner, Godward experience, what experience reveals and expresses how great and glorious God is?”

 So, what are our hearts supposed to be doing on Sunday at North Avenue? What inner experience of the heart reflects the worth or value of God? Piper answers: “the inner essence of worship is cherishing Christ as gain — indeed as more gain than all that life can offer — family, career, retirement, fame, food, friends. The essence of worship is experiencing Christ as gain. Or to use words that we love to use around here: it is savoring Christ, treasuring Christ, being satisfied with Christ. This is the inner essence of worship.”

So, how do we prepare for this type of authentic heart worship? Piper is helpful when he says: “And the answer would seem to be that we get up in the morning and we get our hearts fixed on Christ. We go to him and renew our satisfaction in him through his word. And then we enter the day seeking to express and increase that satisfaction in all that God is for us in Jesus.”

The problem is that most of the time we don’t get up and get our hearts fixed on Christ. We get up and get our hearts fixed on our problems, or our jobs, or school, or our favorite sports team, or our plans for the day, or our singleness, or 100 other things. If I spend all of Sunday morning fixing my heart on anything other than Christ, then my heart is not prepared for worship. This is why prayer is utterly essential for us as we prepare for worship. So, we pray something like: “Lord I feel my heart wandering to 100 other things this morning, please help me to fix my heart on You this morning. As I go to read Your Word this morning open my eyes that I may see wondrous things in your law (Psalm 119:18); help me to taste and see that you are good this morning (Psalm 34:8). Lord I don’t want to worship you with a heart that is far from you this afternoon. Stir up my affections for You.”

 So, we plead with God at the throne of grace to draw us closer to Him, we read from His Word, seeking to renew our satisfaction in Him, and we should use other means of grace to help get our hearts fixed on Jesus. Something that my wife and I have found helpful in stirring up our affections for Jesus is worship songs. So, often times we will turn to worship songs to help us prepare for worship.

As we prepare for worship let’s remember to pray for Ian and Erin who will once again lead us in worship. Let’s be sure to pray for Jerry who will lead us in a time of confession, and let’s pray for Mark as he will open up God’s Word to us. Mark will be looking at Genesis 41. The link to the ESV text is below:

Genesis 41

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Rejoicing Through Suffering

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My blog post this week just didn’t quite come together. So, I decided to post something from Matt Chandler that I thought was powerful. I took this quote from a Matt Chandler book, which you can get here. This is a powerful portion of the book where he talks about rejoicing through suffering. Chandler writes:

“One day when my son, Reid, was just a little over one year old, I went home from the office in the middle of the day to surprise my wife for lunch.  My wife’s a blogger, and she was working on a new post that day. When I show up, Reid’s upstairs napping.  Lauren asks me to read what she’s written before she posts it, so I sit down to give it a look.  And while we’re sitting there reading and just catching up, I hear Reid upstairs.

He’s not able to get out of his crib yet, of course, but something up there just sounds … wrong.  I don’t know if you can understand that if you’re not a parent, but if you are, you probably know exactly what I’m talking about.  You get used to certain sounds of stirring, crying, turning over.  You know which silence is normal and which isn’t.  And this time, something just doesn’t sound right. So I say that. I say, “What is that?”

Lauren heads upstairs.  I sit down at the computer to finish reading her blog post.  As I’m scanning through her post, I hear her scream like I’ve never heard her scream before.  She’s screaming at the top of her lungs – and she’s running down the stairs, carrying my son, who’s in a full-on seizure, turning blue and gasping for air.  He’s trying to breathe, but he can’t.

I take Reid from her, set him down on the ground, try talking to him, try to get him to snap out of it, and Lauren starts dialing 9-1-1.  The fire department is literally a block from our house, so I hear them, while my wife’s on the phone with them, fire up the siren and start the short drive to my house.

I turn Reid on his side.  I don’t know if he’s living or if he’s dying, but the ambulance gets there right away, and the paramedics push me out of the way and start working on him. Then they hustle Reid outside and put him in the back of the ambulance. They turn to Lauren and me and say, “Only one of you can ride in the ambulance.”

Now, I don’t know how it works in your house, but we didn’t even have a discussion about that.  We didn’t say, “Well, what do you think?  Do you want to go?”  My wife just gets in the ambulance.  She doesn’t even turn around.  She doesn’t look at me.  She doesn’t nod.  She just gets in the ambulance, and the paramedics tell me, “Follow us.”

So I run and get in my car.  The paramedics shut the ambulance door.  Boom, and they’re gone.  I don’t know what hospital they’re going to.  I quickly start my car and tear off after them, and I keep up with them for maybe about the first mile.  They’ve got a siren, remember, and I don’t.  So it doesn’t take long for me to get cut off and for us to get separated.

I don’t know where I’m going.  I don’t know where they are going.  I can’t get Lauren to answer her cell phone.  And I don’t know if my one-year-old son is about to die. How do you rejoice then?  Because God is not saying through Paul, “Rejoice when everything’s going well.”  He said, “Rejoice always.”  “Always” includes when they put your son in the back of an ambulance.  Or when you get put in there yourself. Rejoice in the Lord.  Always.  And again I say, rejoice.

We need help then, don’t we?  I want to rejoice always, but I need help on the day I’m stuck at a stoplight, my son and wife are gone, I have no idea where to go, I don’t know if he’s going to make it – how in the world could I possibly rejoice?  Because as out-of-the normal as those situations are for many of us, they are still real-life situations right?….That day when the ambulance disappeared out of my sight, knowing that God is God – that nothing is too difficult for Him, that His love and His sovereignty are real – was my foundation.  When my heart and mind wanted to go to every plausible reason why despair made sense, the fact that nothing is too hard for God became my reason, my rationality.

This is why the mature Christian is reasonable.  Because, as Paul says, “the Lord is near,” even in a desperate situation like the one I described.  Because in that moment, here’s what I had at the ready: the knowledge that the God of the universe, the God who rescued and saved me, is not Himself powerless at all in that moment, is not at all surprised or shocked by that moment, is not reeling one bit or trying to figure out what to do in that moment.

The God of the Bible is not an ambulance driver who shows up after the wreck and hops out and thinks, Okay, let’s do some triage here.  The God of the Bible does not show up after the accident and try to fix it.  That’s not what He does.

He’s there.  He knows. And on that day, the Lord was near, and my son’s life was not too difficult for Him to save.  He could be trusted with my son.  Reid was and is His.  My wife is His.  My daughters are His.  I am His.

My prayer, then, is, “Lord help me rejoice in You in this moment.  Because I know you are in control.  I know You love me; I know You love my family.  And I don’t understand what You’re doing, and I don’t know how things are going to work out.  But help me to acknowledge that if I have You, I have everything.”

My prayer in that moment, seeking joy in all circumstances, is similar to Job’s – “Though he slay me, I will hope in him” Job 13:15) – and Jehosephat’s – “We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you” (2 Chron. 20:12).

Now, let me be very clear, because I’m not trying to make this whole exercise stupid.  I didn’t sit in my car with an idiot grin on my face, saying, “Well, I’m glad the Lord’s here, and this is great!  Rejoice in the Lord always; and again, I say rejoice!”

That wasn’t happening.  That’s what we might call an unreasonable theology.  God is not glorified when you act happy about horrific things. He’s glorified when, in the deepest possible pain you experience, you still find a way to say, “I trust You.  Help me, because my heart is failing in my chest.  Help me!  My son is Yours.  His soul is Yours.  His life is Yours.  You loaned him to me for Your good to begin with.  And I know I’m supposed to hold him loosely, and if you take him home, he’s Yours…but I’d like to keep him.”…

In the end, all turned out well with my son.  But in those moments when joy is hard to come by, I go back to that painful, desperate day.  And I use my imagination like this:  I see the Lord in that ambulance with my son.  I see the Lord caring for my wife, calming my wife, and giving peace to my wife.  I see His glory filling that ambulance with infinite power.  Regardless of how it might have ended, I see God as fully in control and fully loving in that moment.”

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Preparing For Worship

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It is once again time to prepare our hearts for worship. We are preparing our hearts to meet God in public worship. John Piper says: “There is a heart preparation to be done in order to meet God.” Why is it so important to prepare our hearts for worship? Well, Jesus said: “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me” (Matthew 15:8). All of us have probably been guilty of honoring the Lord with our lips when our hearts have been far from Him. So, as we prepare for worship we need to do some spiritual inventory on our hearts. Are our hearts far from the Lord? Whatever we may find when we do spiritual inventory, we all need to be closer to the Lord. We all may be different distances from the Lord, but those distances are not measured in inches or miles. John Piper says those distances are measured in the following five ways:

“It is measured with the tape of attention—you may not even be thinking of God Saturday night or Sunday morning. So your heart is far from him measured by attention.”

“Or it may be measured by the tape of focus—you may have some attention on God but it is broken up by other things and there is no focused attention that gets God clearly in view and makes him the primary object of attention.”

“It is measured by the tape of desire—you may feel little desire for God but be very much caught up in a greater desire for sports or finances or a trip to the lake, while the desire and the longing for God is weak by comparison.”

“Or it can be measured by the tape of trust and hope—your trust in God may be weak and your hope faint and wavering.”

“Or it may be measured by the tape of delight or joy in God—you may feel much more pleasure Saturday night in a late movie than in meeting God in the morning.”

Piper goes on to say that: “Every one of us is far from where we want to be on one of these measuring tapes every week.” So, all of us are far from where we want to be on some of these measuring tapes that Piper listed. So, how do we draw closer to God in these areas? As we think over these measuring tapes, I think a good place to start is prayer. Let’s start with the first one. As we think over the first measuring tape we realize that our heart is far from God measured by attention. We have thought about seeing friends at church or we have thought about what we are going to have for lunch or a hundred other things, but we haven’t thought much about God. So, we just go to the throne of grace and plead with God to help us reorient our hearts on Him. We would pray something like: “Lord forgive me for being so focused on other things this morning, forgive me for being so consumed with the things of this world. Lord draw my heart closer to you, help me to reorient my heart on You. Draw me closer to you and stir up my affections for you Lord.”

Let’s take the third measuring tape. As we think over this one we realize that our hearts are caught up in a greater desire for something other than God. So, again we pray something like this. “Lord forgive me for having a greater desire for sports (or politics, or whatever it may be) this weekend than for You. Father as I consider these measuring tapes I am reminded of the song that says: “No day of my life has passed that has not proved me guilty in your sight. The best I have to offer are these filthy rags.” Lord I am a great sinner and every day proves me guilty in your sight, and yet you love me! Father help me to live my life in light of the gospel. Help me to be able to truthfully say what the Psalmist says: “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. 26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”

Let’s be sure and pray for Ian and Erin who will lead us in worship. Let’s also lift up Jerry who will lead us in a time of confession, and let’s pray for Mark who will open up God’s Word to us. Mark will be preaching on Genesis 40. The link to the ESV text is below:

Genesis 40

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Fighting Sin

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It is time once again to dig deeper into this past weeks sermon. We saw the great contrast between the two brothers Judah and Joseph. Judah in chapter 38 falls prey to sexual temptation. Joseph on the other hand in chapter 39 flees the sexual temptation that he was under. What I want to do this week is just spend some time discussing temptation, and our fight against sin. How do we obey Colossians 3:5? “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” How do we: “die to sin and live to righteousness?”

Let me start with temptation. What is temptation? I am going to quote John Owen (1616-1683) quite a bit on this post because he has been so helpful in my own fight against sin. I will update some of the quotes to be plural and may change some of the old English a little bit. Owen defines temptation like this: “Temptation, then, in general, is any thing, state, way, or condition that…has a force or efficacy to seduce, to draw our minds and hearts from our obedience, which God requires of us, into any sin, in any degree whatever.” So, a point of quick application here. Something that we should probably pray at least at the start of each day is: “Lead me not into temptation.”

So, how are we tempted? James chapter 1 says: “But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.” So, during a temptation sin is seeking to entice us. Let me see if I can use a fishing illustration. When we give into a temptation we are in essence biting the hook. The hook is what we will end up with, but during the temptation sin seeks to hide the hook and it seeks to cover the hook with bait. John Owen says that sin will seek to: “possess the mind and affections with the attraction and desirability of sin,…” When this happens it diverts our: “soul from realizing its danger.” Let’s look at a Biblical example of this. Eve in Genesis chapter 3 is being tempted by Satan. In that temptation she sees the hook in verse 3 and tells Satan that God had told them not to “eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden,…lest you die.” Satan undeterred, covers that hook and he as Owen says: “immediately filled her mind with the beauty and usefulness of the fruit, and she quickly forgot her practical concern for the consequences of eating.” 

We are being tempted with the bait of pleasure, on the hook of sin. John Owen wisely tells us since this is the case we need to: ‘Clearly, watch over our affections.’ Let me see if I can try and explain this. Let’s take the sin of gossip. A modern translation of Proverbs 18:8 says: “The words of a gossip are like choice morsels; they go down to a man’s inmost parts.” Matthew Mitchel wrote a small book on gossip and in that book he says that “Choice morsels are tasty things that we want to devour quickly. They are the best, most attractive, most addictive things to eat. They are like a bowl of potato chips left on the kitchen counter.” Mitchel goes on to define sinful gossip like this: “Sinful gossip is bearing bad news behind someone’s back out of a bad heart.” He continues by saying that: “Bad news, shameful news…is attractive but not good for us. There is something really wrong within us that makes us want to know and to talk about the shameful things that other people do.”

So, let’s say we overhear some shameful news about someone we know. Right away our affections may be drawn to this shameful news, and we may see it as a choice morsel. We leave that setting and we can’t wait to tell the first person we see about this shameful news. This can literally all happen in just seconds. We enter into the temptation, the choice morsel is dangled in front of us, our affections are drawn out and we take the bait. Later though after repeating the shameful news to our friends we will find ourselves with the hook of sin in our mouths. As Matthew Mitchel says: “Gossip tastes great going down, but is has lasting and poisonous effects on our hearts.”

Watching Over Our Affections

When John Owen says that we need to watch over our affections he is just summarizing Proverbs 4:23 which says: “Watch over your heart with all diligence, For from it flow the springs of life.” To help us better fight our sin we need to watch over our hearts will all diligence. John Piper says that when we commit sinful deeds those deeds come from somewhere. They have a life line that leads back to our hearts. He says: “Sinful deeds have a life line that must be cut. In other words, there is a condition of the heart that gives rise to the “deeds of the body.” It’s a heart issue.” When we begin to see a particular sin as desirable and attractive, our affections and life line as Piper says are already heading out of our hearts at that moment. If we don’t cut that life line then, sin is right around the corner. Once again James 1 tells us: “But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin…” 

So, let’s say we gave into sin today. We committed the sin of envy. We took the bait and bit the sinful hook of envy. Well, the first thing we would do would be to repent of this sin. Race to the cross as Jerry always says. A second thing that we can do in this situation would be to examine ourselves and see what lead us to commit this particular sin. So, hypothetically let’s take this sin of envy. Let’s say we committed this sin at 5:00 in the afternoon. It is 10:00 o’clock at night and we have repented of this sin. We go back over the day and start looking for answers in terms of what lead us to commit this sin.

As we look back at the start of our day we realize that we didn’t sleep well the night before. Our lack of sleep lead us to be more susceptible to sin. John Piper discovered in his late 20’s that a lack of sleep caused trouble for him. He said: “I realized for the first time that when I lack sleep I get irritable and impatient, and with enough sleep, I am less irritable and more patient.” Tim Challies is so helpful here in explaining what I am trying to get at with this: “Contemplate the occasions in which this sin breaks out and guard against them…think about the times when you fall into this sin. What are the occasions? What happens right before you sin? What are the habits or patterns that lead to it? Think about these things, know what you do before you actually commit the sin, and stop the downward spiral long before it gets to the point of sinning.” This doesn’t necessarily help us deal with the root of the sin, but it helps us better understand how we were made more susceptible to sin. Doing this will help us obey the words of Jesus when he said: “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation.” Matthew Henry says: “we should be much afraid of entering into temptation. To be secured from this, we should watch and pray, and continually look unto the Lord to hold us up that we may be safe.”

Fighting Sin

Part of our fight against sin involves watching over our affections. One of the best ways though to fight sin is the joy of the Lord. As Nehemiah 8 says: “for the joy of the LORD is your strength.” Matthew Henry powerfully tells us that: “The joy of the Lord will arm us against the assaults of our spiritual enemies and put our mouths out of taste for those pleasures with which the tempter baits his hooks.” So, one of the things that we need to do every day is to pursue joy in Jesus. George Mueller wisely said: “According to my judgement the most important point to be attended to is this: above all things see to it that your souls are happy in the Lord. Other things may press upon you, the Lord’s work may even have urgent claims upon your attention, but I deliberately repeat, it is of supreme and paramount importance that you should seek above all things to have your souls truly happy in God Himself!”

That is profound wisdom from George Mueller. When our souls are happy in the Lord our mouths are put out of taste for sins pleasures. However, when our joy in the Lord is low we are making ourselves sitting targets for sin. Tim Keller said: “The sin under all other sins is a lack of joy in Christ.” This is why it is so important for us to have our souls happy in the Lord. Plus there is far superior pleasure to be found in Jesus. Michael Reeves said: “Compare Christ to whatever else it is that you treasure. So what is it that you really want? Is it love? Is it that you want to be loved? And that can come across in various ways — a sexual addiction, a desire for fame — those are really varieties of wanting to be loved. Is it acceptance? Is it money? Is it power? Is it comfort? Now compare that thing that you dream of and love with Christ. Which is better? Does pornography offer you the satisfaction, acceptance and love that Jesus does? Does money offer you anything in comparison to the riches of Christ? Does passing temporal power offer you anything in comparison to what Christ is offering? And when you see how much better Christ is than those other things you go running after, you will choose Christ rather than those things and you will walk away from them with freedom.”

In our pursuit of joy in Jesus we need to continually go back to the gospel. John Owen reminds us how important the gospel is in our daily battle with temptation. He writes: “keep the heart full of a sense of the love of God in Christ. This is the greatest preservative against the power of temptation in the world. Joseph (in Genesis 39) had this (sense of God’s love); and therefore, on the first appearance of temptation, he cries out, “How can I do this great evil, and sin against God?” and there is an end of the temptation as to him; it lays not hold of him, but departs. He was furnished with such a ready sense of the love of God as temptation could not stand before,…”

Lastly he says: “store the heart with a sense of the love of God in Christ, with the eternal design of his grace, with a taste of the blood of Christ, and his love in the shedding of it; get a relish of the privileges we have thereby,—our adoption, justification, and acceptance with God;…” I hope that we will all be gospel-centered people who fight sin, and who seek to have our souls truly happy in God Himself!

My wife made the picture that I used for this post 🙂

 

 

Preparing For Worship

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It is once again time to prepare our hearts for worship. Philip Ryken says that we should emphasize: “the priority of worship. This is what human beings were made for: to give praise to God.” John Stott said: “Christians believe that true worship is the highest and noblest activity of which man, by the grace of God, is capable.” So, what is ‘true worship?’ James Boice helps us out when he says: “Many people worship with the body. This means that they consider themselves to have worshiped if they have been in the right place doing the right things at the right time…In our day this would refer to people who think they have worshiped God simply because they have occupied a seat in a church on Sunday morning, or sung a hymn, or lit a candle,…or knelt in the aisle. Jesus says this is not worship. These customs may be vehicles for worship. In some cases they may also hinder it. But they are not worship in themselves. Therefore, we must not confuse worship with the particular things we do on Sunday morning.” So, we can get to North Avenue early, sing all the songs, have our Bibles open on our laps following the text, fellowship with others after the service, and even in all of that we may not have partaken in true worship.

Boice continues: “In addition, however, we must not confuse worship with feeling, for worship does not originate with the soul any more than it originates with the body. The soul is the seat of our emotions. It may be the case, and often is, that the emotions are stirred in real worship. At times tears fill the eyes or joy floods the heart. But, unfortunately, it is possible for these things to happen and still no worship to be there. It is possible to be moved by a song or by oratory and yet not come to a genuine awareness of God and a fuller praise of His ways and nature. True worship occurs only when that part of man, his spirit, which is akin to the divine nature (for God is spirit), actually meets with God and finds itself praising Him for His love, wisdom, beauty, truth, holiness, compassion, mercy, grace, power, and all His other attributes.”

So, true worship is worship that is done in spirit and in truth. As Jesus says in John 4: “The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” John Piper helps further explain this: “Worship must be vital and real in the heart, and worship must rest on a true perception of God. There must be spirit and there must be truth. . . . Truth without emotion produces dead orthodoxy and a church full (or half-full) of artificial admirers . . . . On the other hand, emotion without truth produces empty frenzy and cultivates shallow people who refuse the discipline of rigorous thought. But true worship comes from people who are deeply emotional and who love deep and sound doctrine. Strong affections for God rooted in truth are the bone and marrow of biblical worship.”

Similar to some of what Piper said, Bryan Chapell adds that: “true worship requires enthusiastic, respectful, and grateful praise of God, that is doxology (from the Greek word for praise). If God’s people gather to worship without evident gladness, awe, and security in God’s redemptive provision and providential care, then their worship is defective.”

So, as we prepare for worship, we want to prepare to worship God in spirit and in truth. We want to prepare to partake in true worship. We do not want to partake in worship that is defective. If our affections for God are low, then let’s race to the cross as Jerry Ediger would say. Let’s run to the throne of grace. Let’s open up God’s Word and ask God to stir us up as we read from say Colossians or Philippians, or a Psalm. Another thing we can do is to text or call our friends and ask them to pray for us. Tell them that your feeling dry spiritually and that you need their prayers. If your affections for God are strong today, then text or call your friends with something encouraging that you read. Maybe it was a verse, or a song, or an article, or a sermon that encouraged you. Let’s all seek to obey Hebrews 3: “But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.”

I will see if I can encourage you guys with something I read this week. I read this from J.I. Packer (who turned 90 yesterday): “The older I get, the more I want to sing my faith and get others singing it with me. Theology, as I constantly tell my students is for doxology: the first thing to do with it is to turn it into praise and thus honour the God who is its subject, the God in whose presence and by whose help it was worked out.”

Let’s be sure and pray for the service tomorrow. Specifically let’s pray for Ian, Erin, and Ethan who will lead us in worship. Let’s  pray for Jerry as he will lead us in our time of confession. Let’s also lift up Mark at the throne of grace as he will be opening up God’s Word to us. Mark will be preaching on Genesis 39. The ESV text is below:

Genesis 39

Picture from here

Preparing For Worship

 

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It is time once again to prepare our hearts for worship. D.A. Carson writes that: “We long to meet, corporately, with the living and majestic God and to offer him the praise that is his due.” Every Sunday afternoon at North Avenue Church we have the privilege of meeting, corporately, with the living and majestic God and during our time together we get to offer him the praise that is his due! This should get us excited for Sunday afternoon worship at North Avenue.

R. Kent Hughes says: “When…you get together with the people of God who are seeing the glory of God, it is amazing. When you’re praying and all are united together, when you can hear people affirming what’s going on, there is something very wonderful about the gathered body of Christ. There is an encouragement that takes place from singing with the people, affirming the same things, saying “amen” to the reading of God’s word, having your Bibles open with all the pages turning at the same time to the text that can’t happen individually. There is nothing like gathered worship.”

We should be eagerly anticipating the Sunday worship service. As we prepare our hearts for worship today and tomorrow we should remind ourselves that there really is ‘nothing like gathered worship.’ Seminary professor Dennis Prutow says: “There is a great privilege the people of God have of drawing near to God in corporate, public worship.  In corporate, public worship, God is pleased to draw near to His people…and to assure them that they belong to Him and that He is indeed their God.” So, one way we can prepare for worship is to simply thank God for the great privilege that we have of drawing near to God in corporate, public worship.

God’s Love

I am going to go in a slightly different direction to end this post than I normally do. This is something that I thought about yesterday and today. As most of you know Mark and Kelly went to the hospital Thursday evening and Kelly ended up going into labor Friday. Their precious little son Micah was born at 3:38 AM early Saturday morning. My wife and I were there Thursday night, Friday night and today. What I saw was how much this little guy was already loved by everyone. All of his family and extended family already loves him so much. Almost everyone cried when they first saw him. Honestly I was moved by all the love that was so obviously evident for little Micah.

As I was dwelling on the love that was on display for Micah I began to think about God’s love for us. I saw my brother with such love for his only son Micah, and then I thought about God. God also has a dearly beloved precious Son. God could have sent his Son into the world to condemn the world. Thankfully John 3 tells us: “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” Amazingly God sent his Son into the world, so that the world might be saved through Jesus!

How would the world be saved through Jesus? Well, God would have to: “not spare his own Son but give him up for us all…” Martyn Lloyd-Jones powerfully tells us of God’s love when he says: “God, in his great love to us, delivered up for us his only begotten, dearly beloved Son, who had never disobeyed him and had never done any harm to anybody, to the death of the cross…God did not say, Because he is my Son I will modify the punishment. I will hold back a little, I cannot smite him, I cannot strike him…He did not keep anything back. He spared not his own Son. He poured out all his divine wrath upon sin, upon his own dearly beloved Son. That, my friend, is the love of God to you, a sinner…And that is the wonder and the marvel and the glory of the cross, God punishing his own Son, in order that he might not have to punish you and me.”

So, as we prepare our hearts for worship let us marvel at the grace of God in our lives. Let’s marvel at the gospel! Today as I thought about the love for Micah Timothy McAndrew, it was almost as if God was telling me: “Yes, there is a lot of love for Micah, but have you felt my great love for you?” I think I experienced on a very very small scale what D.L. Moody experienced in the 1870’s in New York City. He describes it like this: “one day, in the city of New York—oh, what a day!—I cannot describe it, I seldom refer to it; it is almost too sacred an experience to name…. I can only say that God revealed himself to me, and I had such an experience of his love that I had to ask him to stay his hand. I went to preaching again. The sermons were not different; I did not present any new truths, and yet hundreds were converted. I would not now be placed back where I was before that blessed experience if you should give me all the world—it would be small dust in the balance.”

Maybe as we prepare for worship we should go to the throne of grace and ask God to help us: “comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge,…”

Let’s be sure to pray for Ian and Erin as they will once again lead us in worship. I am actually going to be doing the confession tomorrow, so if you wouldn’t mind praying for me that would be great. Also, let’s pray for Jerry as he will be preaching on the life of Joseph tomorrow. He will mainly be looking at Genesis 37. The link to the ESV text is below:

Genesis 37

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Dealing With Idolatry

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I am going to go in a slightly different direction this week. Mark dealt with the subject of idolatry quite a bit recently. So, I wanted to spend most of this post just talking about idolatry. Matt Chandler said: “It is easy to see that you and I have been created to worship. We’re flat-out desperate for it. From sports fanaticism to celebrity tabloids to all the other strange sorts of voyeurisms now normative in our culture, we evidence that we were created to look at something beyond ourselves and marvel at it, desire it, like it with zeal, and love it with affection. Our thoughts, our desires, and our behaviors are always oriented around something, which means we are always worshiping—ascribing worth to—something. If it’s not God, we are engaging in idolatry. But either way, there is no way to turn the worship switch in our hearts off.” Just think about what Chandler is saying: “Our thoughts, our desires, and our behaviors are always oriented around something,…we are always worshiping—ascribing worth to—something.” Our hearts are always oriented around something. John Piper says: “The human heart hates a vacuum. We never merely leave God because we value him little; we always exchange God for what we value more.” This is why we must watch over our hearts as Proverbs 4:23 says: “Watch over your heart with all diligence, For from it flow the springs of life.”

C.J. Mahaney gives us some great questions that we would all do well to consider. These questions may help us expose and deal with idolatry in our lives: “Each of our lives is centered on something. What’s at the center of yours? Think about it for a moment. What’s really the main thing in your life? Only one thing can truly be first in priority; so what’s at the top of your list, second to none? Or let me put it this way: What are you most passionate about? What do you love to talk about? What do you think about most when your mind is free? Or try this: What is it that defines you? Is it your career? A relationship? Maybe it’s your family, or your ministry. It could be some cause or movement, or some political affiliation. Or perhaps your main thing is a hobby or a talent you have, or even your house and possessions. It could be any number of good things—but when it comes to centering our life, what really qualifies as the one thing God says should be the most important?…”

Jacob’s Idol

We looked at Genesis 29 last Sunday and we saw idolatry on full display in Jacob, Rachel, and Leah. Jacob was idolizing Rachel. Tim Keller says: “Jacob’s life was empty. He never had his father’s love. Now he didn’t even have his mother’s love, and he certainly had no sense of God’s love. He had lost everything—no family, no inheritance, no nothing. And then he saw Rachel, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, the most beautiful woman for miles around, and he said to himself, “If I had her, finally, something would be right in my lousy life. If I had her, life would have meaning. If I had her, it would fix things.” If he found his one true love, life would finally be okay.” Our culture to this day still believes the lie that Jacob was believing. The lie that says that our spouse will give our lives ultimate meaning and significance. Keller says: “And that is what people are doing all over the place. That is what our culture is begging us to do—to load all of the deepest needs of our hearts for significance, security, and transcendence into romance and love, into finding that one true love. That will fix my lousy life!”

An example of our culture promoting this idea that Keller is talking about is found in the movie Jerry Macguire. In that movie Tom Cruise’s character famously says to his girlfriend played by Renee Zellweger: “You complete me!” Scotty Smith says: “There is a problem,…if our primary commitment in life (and in marriage in particular) is to find someone to whom we can speak that memorialized line from the movie Jerry Macguire—”You complete me!” Or in other words, “I believe you are the one who can fill up this deep cavern in my soul!” As Tim Keller says: “If you get married as Jacob did, putting the weight of all your deepest hopes and longings on the person you are marrying, you are going to crush him or her with your expectations. It will distort your life and your spouse’s life in a hundred ways. No person, not even the best one, can give your soul all it needs.” Why is this? Blaise Pascal powerfully gives us the answer: “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God the Creator, made known through Jesus Christ.”

Our Idols

So, what are some idols in our own lives? How can we determine what our idols are? Tim Keller helps us when he says: “We have an alternate or counterfeit god if we take anything in creation and begin to ‘bow down’ to it—that is, to love, serve, and derive meaning from it more than from God.”  So, what are we loving, serving, and deriving meaning from currently? 1 John 5:21 says: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” 1st Corinthians 10:14 says: “Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.” How do we ‘keep ourselves from idols, and how do we flee from idolatry?’ I think the first step that we need to take is to try and discern idolatry in our own hearts. 

John Piper gives several ways that we can discern idolatry in our own hearts: “Great desire for non-great things is a sign that we are beginning to make those things idols.”  “When our enjoyment of something tends to make us not think of God, it is moving toward idolatry.”  He then adds this which is helpful: “But if the enjoyment gives rise to the feeling of gratefulness to God, we are being protected from idolatry.” So, during the enjoyment of things like TV shows, movies, food, or sports are we finding ourselves thinking of God less? If so, that is a sign that we may be making an idol of that particular thing. We should ask ourselves often if the ‘enjoyment gives rise to the feeling of gratefulness to God?’

Piper continues his list: “When we find ourselves spending time pursuing an enjoyment, knowing that other things, or people, should be getting our attention, we are moving into idolatry.”  “Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it does not desire that Christ be magnified as supremely desirable through the enjoyment. Enjoying anything but Christ (like his good gifts) runs the inevitable risk of magnifying the gift over the Giver. One evidence that idolatry is not happening is the earnest desire that this not happen.”

“Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it is not working a deeper capacity for holy delight. We are sinners still. It is idolatrous to be content with sin. So we desire transformation. Some enjoyments shrink our capacities of holy joy. Others enlarge them. Some go either way, depending on how we think about them. When we don’t care if an enjoyment is making us more holy, we are moving into idolatry.”

Uprooting Our Idols

So, after we have gone through Piper’s questions and we begin to discern some idolatry in our hearts, how do we get rid of those idols? Tim Keller interestingly ties this in with repentance. He says: “repentance is identifying and removing the idols of the heart. Now the reason we’re doing that is because if you don’t understand the idols of the heart, you can still think of repentance as just basically stopping certain kinds of superficial, external behavioral sins.” So, once we identify the idols of our heart, which Keller says that is half the battle, we next need to take that idolatry to the cross.

When we take our idolatry to the cross, Keller warns us against self-pity. He talks about the difference between self-pity and true repentance. “Self-pity and repentance are two different things. I came to a place in my life where I realized 90 percent of what I thought I had been doing as repentance throughout most of my life was really just self-pity. The difference between self-pity and repentance is this: Self-pity is thinking about what a mess your sin got you into…What you’re really doing is saying, “I hate the consequences of this sin,” but you haven’t learned to hate the sin. What is happening is instead of hating the sin, you’re hating the consequences of the sin, and you’re hating yourself for being so stupid. Self-pity leads to continuing to love the sin so it still has power over you but hating yourself. Real repentance is when you say, “What has this sin done to God? What has it cost God? What does God feel about it?…When you see what effect it has had on the loving God who died so you wouldn’t do it, who died for your holiness, when you begin to see that it melts you, and it makes you begin to hate the sin. It begins to lose its attractive power over you. Instead of making you hate yourself, you find you hate it, and so the idol begins to get crushed bit by bit.”

So, we uproot our idols by taking them to the cross. Keller then tells us how to destroy the power of a sin: “The way to destroy the power of a sin in your life is to take it to the cross where, you see, Jesus Christ died so you wouldn’t do it. Jesus Christ died out of a commitment to your holiness. When you see that and realize this sin is an insult to him because it’s putting something as more important than him in your life, yes, that will make you feel bad, but it’s not a pathological kind of bad feeling. Instead, it actually frees you, because instead of making you hate yourself, it makes you say, “I don’t want this. I know what he wants for me. This thing I can do without,” and you’re free. You have to look and see what Jesus has done.”

When we see all that Christ has done for us in giving his life for us, we begin to hate our sin. As we dwell at the cross we will see that Jesus is infinitely more valuable than whatever idol we have pursued. As Beau Hughes says: “The…way we can displace these idols is if we come to see Jesus Christ as infinitely more beautiful, infinitely more valuable, infinitely more hope giving and worthy of our affections than whatever it is right now for you that’s your savior that you’re looking to to give you only what Jesus Christ could do. So it’s only when Jesus Christ becomes the predominant affection of your heart that the other things that your hearts are giving affection and attention to will be uprooted and replaced. So whatever you’ve been looking to for significance, whatever you’ve been trusting in to make you somebody, whoever you’ve been depending on to make life worth living, look away from that this morning and look to Jesus Christ.”

Picture from here

 

 

Preparing For Worship

 

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It is once again time to prepare our hearts for worship. I read a book about B.B. Warfield written by Fred Zaspel not too long ago. In this book Zaspel says that: “Warfield’s heart beat hot for Christ. His passion for Christ and the gospel pulses prominently throughout the many thousands of pages of his works. He adored the Lord Jesus Christ, the incarnate Redeemer, and he loved to say so.” I loved the description of Warfield’s heart beating hot for Christ. As we prepare our hearts for worship we are seeking to stir up our affections for God and to get our hearts beating hot for Christ.

If we want to get our hearts beating hot for Christ we need to start at the throne of grace and plead with God to come and stir us up. This past Thursday at our discussion group we had a wonderful time of prayer after the discussion. Several people prayed for God to come and fill us up because we are helpless without God. So, let us start here at the throne of grace. Let us plead with God to come and fill us up and to stir up our affections for Him. Then we should go to the gospel and just preach the gospel to ourselves again.

So, let me preach the gospel to us all for a little bit. I want to use the passage that Mark preached on last Sunday. Mark preached from Genesis 29 which talks about Jacob, Rachel, and Leah. Specifically, I want to go back over the story of Leah from Genesis 29. Tim Keller says that: “We are told that Leah is the older daughter, but the only detail we are given about her is that she has weak eyes. Nobody quite knows what “weak eyes” means; some commentators have assumed it means she has bad eyesight. But the text does not say that Leah had weak eyes, but Rachel could see a long way. Weakness probably means cross-eyed; it could mean something unsightly. But here is the point: Leah was particularly unattractive, and she had to live all of her life in the shadow of her sister who was absolutely stunning.

As a result, Laban knew no one was ever going to marry her or offer any money for her. He wondered how he was going to get rid of her, how was he going to unload her. And then he saw his chance, he saw an opening and he did it. And now the girl that Laban, her father, did not want has been given to a husband who doesn’t want her either. She is the girl nobody wants.” So, Leah is the girl nobody wanted, but God in his mercy loved her. Keller again: “when the Lord saw Leah was not loved, he loved her. God is saying, “I am the real bridegroom. I am the husband of the husbandless. I am the father of the fatherless.”

Then Keller goes from the girl nobody wanted Leah, to the man nobody wanted the Lord Jesus. “When God came to earth in Jesus Christ, he was the son of Leah. Oh yes, he was! He became the man nobody wanted. He was born in a manger. He had no beauty that we should desire him. He came to his own and his own received him not. And at the end, nobody wanted him. Everybody abandoned him. Even his Father in heaven didn’t want him. Jesus cried out on the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Why did he become Leah’s son? Why did he become the man nobody wanted? For you and for me! Here is the gospel: God did not save us in spite of the weakness that he experienced as a human being but through it.  And you don’t actually get that salvation into your life through strength; it is only for those who admit they are weak. And if you cannot admit that you are a hopeless moral failure and a sinner and that you are absolutely lost and have no hope apart from the sheer grace of God, then you are not weak enough for Leah and her son and the great salvation that God has brought into the world.”

Keller gets you on so many levels in this story. First you feel compassion for Leah as you see she is the girl that nobody wanted. Then you are moved by the compassion and grace of God. “when the Lord saw Leah was not loved, he loved her.”  This should make us think of our own conversion. We were without hope and without God in the world. We were running our hell bound race indifferent to the cost. Then God pursued us and loved us and lead us to the cross.

Then Keller jumps to Jesus and says that he was the man nobody wanted. This is so deeply moving. Jesus the Son of God, was ‘despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;…’ Then Jesus was even abandoned by God: “Even his Father in heaven didn’t want him. Jesus cried out on the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” So, let us dwell on Jesus today and tomorrow morning, and let’s think about how much he suffered. Let’s think about how the sinless Jesus was actually made sin for us, ‘so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.’  As we do this we will find our hearts will begin to beat hot for Him. As Jim Elliot once said: “Of Jesus I cannot seem to get enough.” May this be true of all of us, that we just can’t get enough of Jesus.

Let’s be sure to pray for the service tomorrow and to lift up Ian and Erin at the throne of grace. Let us also pray for Jerry and Mark who will open up God’s Word to us. Mark will be preaching from Genesis 32-33. Links to the ESV text are below:

Genesis 32

Genesis 33

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Preparing For Worship

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It is time once again to prepare for worship. David Mathis writes about the privilege of worshiping Jesus:

“Worshiping Jesus together with his church is an awesome privilege.

God’s own voice sounds in the reading and preaching of his word. The community of the redeemed responds together in prayer and song. Pastors care for the souls of their flock through their preparation of the service and leadership from the front. Congregants offer, as act of worship, their humble, but sacrificial, financial partnership in the mission of the church.

Take a careful inventory, and you will find that most weeks this is the single most important hour of the week — and yet we are so prone to squander such a rich opportunity, sometimes even neglect it.”

So, how do we prepare for worship? Bob Kauflin answers: “We want to build a sense of expectancy, that we’re going to meet not only with each other, but with God. That’s an amazing thing.” He goes on to say that: “There are no normal Sundays.” Meaning, that we should not just go through the motions on Sundays with low expectations, but we should try and cultivate “a sense of faith” toward corporate worship. Which this sense of faith according to Kauflin: “develops over a period of time, just by reading God’s word and seeing how many times God called his people together to meet with them, to remind them of his promises, and strengthen them.”

Kauflin then proceeds to give us three practical pieces of advice to prepare ourselves for Sunday worship. The first thing he says is: “To get enough sleep.” This may seem like common sense, but how many of us have dragged ourselves to corporate worship with less than adequate sleep? If we come to worship tired, Kauflin says we will not: “really participate the way we could because we weren’t prepared.”

The second piece of advice Kauflin gives is to: “Plan ahead for others.” I think he is mainly aiming this at parents who have children. He wants those parents to give their children appropriate instruction about what worship is and not to just drag them along with them. If we don’t have children but are either married or dating or even driving with friends to the service, I think we can still heed Kauflin’s advice about planning ahead for others. Maybe if you are riding to church with a couple of friends, you could suggest that you guys all say a quick prayer for the service. For those of us who are married maybe we could talk to each other about the passage that Mark will be preaching on, or just ask how you could pray for each other. You could almost title this second piece of advice ‘helping others prepare for worship.’

The third piece of advice he gives is: “To arrive early.” “Aim to get to the meeting fifteen minutes before it starts. Think of weddings: no one wants to be late for a wedding. . . . [We should] think of the Sunday meeting that way, where I want to be there early because there’s so much happening beforehand. If all these spiritual gifts are in operation before the meeting even starts, why wouldn’t I want to be there, both to participate and be used by God to serve others, and then to be encouraged and strengthened by those around me?”

I thought these three pieces of advice from Kauflin were very practical and helpful. I have written a lot about how we prepare our hearts for worship, which I hope we will continue to do each week. In addition to that though, I hope we will all begin to ‘get enough sleep, plan ahead for others, and try to arrive early.’

What happens though if we don’t sleep well enough, and we haven’t prepared our hearts for worship, and haven’t planned ahead for others? Should we neglect the worship service if we haven’t done those things and don’t really feel like going to church that particular Sunday? To answer in the words of Ravi Zacharias: “No, no, no, a thousand times no!” If we miss church Bob Kauflin says ‘we are missing grace.’ ‘We are missing God himself at work to pour out his grace.”

Years ago when I was single I had many Sundays when I was tired and I wasn’t prepared for worship and I would wrestle with the temptation not to go to church. Every time that I ended up actually going to church on those Sundays I was always encouraged and strengthened, either by the singing of the songs, or the preaching of the Word, or the fellowship with brothers and sisters in Christ. The Sundays that I didn’t go to church and stayed home, I missed grace. So, let’s prepare our hearts for worship, let’s pray for Ian, Erin, Jerry, and Mark, and for the service at North Avenue. Even if we don’t do these things, and don’t feel like going, let’s not miss grace.

Mark will be preaching from Genesis 29. The ESV text is below:

Genesis 29

Picture from here