The Psalms have rightly been referred to as “the medicine cabinet for the soul.” In God’s kindness the Psalms provide a balm for wounded hearts, nutrition for weakend souls, and tranquility for anxious minds. They can restore the depleted, energize the weary, console the mournful, lift up the discouraged, and admonish the wayward. We would do well in our Christian pilgrimage to routinely keep ourselves in the Psalms. So, if you happen to be reading this blog, I would like to invite you to join me in considering Psalm 107 over the next 2-3 days. Let’s try to read it a couple of times each day and, I will attempt to give a brief teaching/encouragement from it. Why Psalm 107? Two reasons: one personal and the other biblical. The personal reason is that Psalm 107 blessed me on Monday morning and I trust it will do the same for you. The biblical reason is found in the Psalm itself. Psalm 107 concludes with these words, “Whoever is wise, let him attend to these things; let them consider the steadfast love of the LORD.” There is wisdom to be mined in this Psalm, if we will give our minds and hearts prayerfully to it. So, I hope you will accept my invitation to saturate your soul in the steadfast love of the Lord found in Psalm 107. How often do you think about holiness? How often does holiness play into your decision making and attitudes? How often do you take the time to grow in and pursue holiness? If you are like me the answer is probably, “Not enough.”
Last week in my personal Bible reading, Ps. 93:5(b) arrested my attention and continues to challenge me. The Psalmist says, “Holiness befits your house, O LORD, forevermore.” As radiance befits a diamond, or laughter befits childhood, or romance befits marriage, so holiness befits God’s house. Because God is “Holy, Holy, Holy” (Is 6:3) it is only fitting that His house reflect His holiness. But this begs the question, “What is God’s house?” Well, for the Psalmist it was the temple in Jerusalem. It was constructed, ornamented, and tended to in such a way so as to reflect the holiness of God. As the worshipper came, he was dramatically reminded of the holy character of the God he worshipped. As foreigners looked on, they would have received witness to Israel’s holy God. But with the advent of Jesus Christ and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, all of this changed. God’s house is no longer at the temple in Jerusalem. His house is His blood-bought, Spirit-indwelt people. Two things follow: First, the local church (the people not the building) is the house of God. He meets with and dwells with His people when they gather in the name of Jesus (Matt 18:20). Paul told the Corinthian congregation, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?…God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.” (1 Cor 3:16-17). Peter wrote, “You yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house….” (1 Pet 2:5). The local church is the house of the Lord and therefore ought to be marked by holiness. Our relationships to each other, our attitudes, actions, and words, our approach to and involvement in worship ought to be reflecting the holiness of our God, so that when we come and “foreigners” observe, all will know that God is Holy. Secondly, the believer’s physical body is the house of God. Paul emphasizes this truth to the Corinthians when he writes, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” (1 Cor 6:19-20). Remember, holiness befits God’s house. Our bodies, then, are also to reflect the holy character of our God. They are not to be used for sexual immorality, abused by food or drink, or enslaved to any passion. Rather, we are to obey Paul’s exhortation in Romans 6:13, “Present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.” God in Christ has redeemed us, body and soul, through the precious blood of Jesus and now indwells us by His Spirit. Holiness, then, befits our bodies. So, in corporate life and in personal life, may God grant us the grace to reflect His holiness. For, “holiness befits your house, O LORD, forevermore.” I’ve heard it said that the legendary coach of the Green Bay Packers, Vince Lombardi, once gathered his team together at the beginning of the season, took a ball in his hands and said, “Gentlemen, this is a football.” His point was that his professional athletes should never forget the basics.
Sports are not the only areas of life that we are prone to forget the basics. We can also do it in our spiritual lives. In life’s busy demands and distractions, we need our attention drawn back to the basics. For me, Psalm 86:11 is one of those Gentlemen-this-is-a-football type of Scriptures. It helps get my focus back on the basics. Listen to David’s prayer, “Teach me your way, O LORD, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name.” Three fundamentals of our walk with God stand out to me: 1) Learn. David humbly asks God to teach him. He longs to know the way of God. Yet, he knows that on his own he cannot know God’s way. He knows God’s ways are higher than his and that God’s thoughts are not his own (Is. 55:9). So, he beseeches God to teach him. He wants to learn the truth of God and His way. This is basic to his faith and ours. As disciples of Christ, we too, must be continual learners of our Master and God. 2) Live. Why did David want to learn the truth? Was it because he wanted to be a theological egg-head who could impress the people with his knowledge? Not at all! He tells us the reason: “that I may walk in your truth.” David wanted to learn the truth so that he could live the truth. He wanted to know the way of God, so that he could walk in that way. Knowledge without obedience is sinful. We need to learn the truth in order to live the truth. 3) Love. Notice David’s last request in the verse, “unite my heart to fear your name.” This is a petition motivated by love for God. David knew that his heart could be divided by competing loves and loyalties. So, he prays that God would “unite” his heart in order that his affection, devotion, direction, and adoration would be completely God-ward: “that I might fear your name.” David’s love for God was fundamental to his relationship with God. If you are like me, you might find yourself returning to this passage from time to time just in order to be reminded of the basics; to recall the things that really matter. Namely, keep learning the truth in order to keep living the truth so that I may be growing in love with the Truth Giver. Jesus said that the greatest commandment is, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” (Matt 22:37 bold-type mine)
Our minds matter to God. He is the Creator of our minds and the use of our minds is one facet of being made in the image of God. It is by our minds that we are able to think God’s thoughts after Him as revealed in the Bible. It is by our minds that we think and reason in order to inform our wills and inflame our hearts. The Christian mind is to be a sanctified mind. That is, a mind illumined by the Spirit and set apart for the glory of God. We are to nurture the life of the mind so that we may learn to love God with all of our mind. The best way to nurture the life of the mind is to regularly feed upon the Word of God. “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation…” (1 Pet 2:2). “Blessed is the man [whose]… delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.” (Psalm 1:1,2) Regular intake of God’s Word helps us to love God with our minds. Along with reading our Bibles though, we should learn to read good books. The Lord Jesus has blessed His Church with many good teachers both from the past and in the present. It is a wise and good thing to give our minds to reading what they have written. Godly books can instruct, encourage, correct, admonish, challenge, comfort, and they can help develop the life of the mind. And that matters to God. We can express love to Him by reading and studying good books! I think the Apostle Paul might utter an “Amen,” for while he sat under Roman imprisonment writing his last inspired letter, he told Timothy, “Do your best to come to me soon… When you come, bring the cloak that I left…, also the books, and above all the parchments.” (2 Tim 4:9&13) In prison and awaiting execution, Paul wanted his books! What comes to mind when you think of the power of God? His power to create the world out of nothing? His ability to uphold the universe? His rule as the only Sovereign? Certainly, God’s glorious power is seen in all these ways. But the book of Numbers shows us another display of God’s power that maybe we don’t always associate with God’s power, namely, the power to forgive. The book of Numbers is an account of the faithfulness of God despite His people’s continual sins. They complain about their God-given circumstances and God-ordained leader (Num 11-12). They despise God by not believing in Him, “in spite of all the signs that [He has] done among them.” (Num 14:11). And they act with presumption as they ignore His clear command. (Num 14:39-45) In the midst of Israel’s unfaithfulness, Moses prays, “…please let the power of the Lord be great as you have promised, saying, ‘The LORD is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.’ Please pardon the iniquity of this people, according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have forgiven this people, from Egypt until now.” (Num 14:17-19; italics and bold mine) Moses knew that God’s people’s greatest need in that moment was forgiveness. It was a need so great that only the power of God could meet it. Israel couldn’t escape God’s anger for their sins. Moses did not have the resources to pay the debt that was owed to the God of glory. No, only God had the power to forgive and pardon. And He did! Numbers 14:20 says, “Then the LORD said, ‘I have pardoned, according to your word.'” Wow! God was so powerfully forgiving! The good news is that this is the same powerfully forgiving God offered to us in the gospel. Like Israel of old, our greatest need is one we cannot supply: forgiveness. We don’t have the resources to pay our sin debt. We can’t make a refuge strong enough to withstand the fiery, righteous wrath of God. We don’t possess the ability to mend our alienation from God. But God is able! He displayed His power to forgive at the cross, “And you, who were dead in your trespasses… God made alive together with [Christ], having forgiven us all our trespasses, by cancelling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.” (Col 2:13-15) By faith in the crucified and risen Christ, all of our sin is forgiven. Not one stain of sin is left uncleansed. Not one blemish is left uncovered. In Christ, God has powerfully pardoned us. So let us cling to the word of the cross. It may seem like nonsense to those who are perishing. But, “to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Cor 1:18) Yesterday, I heard a challenging statement on the radio that I would like to pass on. The preacher said something to the effect of, “Much of our Christian life is closing the gap between reputation and reality.” I tend to agree.
Reputation is what others think they know about us. Reality is what is actually true of us. Reputation may be nothing more than the image we project or the image others perceive. Reality is what we are; our character. Often times we are afraid to let others see the reality. We fear their rejection. We worry that they may think less of us. So, we hide behind the image we project. Or, we fail to correct a misperceived idea that we know we aren’t worthy of. What’s at the heart of this? I think at least two things: pride and unbelief. Pride because we are selfishly concerned with how we look to others. We live to get others to see us, talk about us, and depend on us. Somehow we keep gravitating to the sinful notion that the world revolves around us. It’s an expression of unbelief because we are failing to rest in the gospel of our security in Christ. We are failing to actively believe that through Christ we have been freely and forever accepted by God. Christian friend, God loved us when He knew the reality about us (Rom 5:6-11). He has accepted and adopted us in Christ. Believe the gospel declared in Rom 5:1-2, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand…” Because of the gospel, we don’t need to be hypocritical pretenders or projectors. Rather, by the Spirit’s help, let’s keep putting pride and unbelief to death and, by God’s grace, continue to close the gap between our reputation and reality. Psalm 29:3 declares God to be “the God of glory.” This is a statement revealing who God is. He is glorious. In other words, God has inherent, intrinsic glory. Glory is of the very essence of the Divine Being. Therefore, His glory never diminishes, fades, or improves. It is unchanging.
What is glory? To be sure, our creaturely minds cannot fully comprehend the magnitude and majesty of God’s glory. Many words could be used to describe God’s glory. But, let me offer two that might help. Glory has to do with weight and worth. There is a “weightiness”, a “heaviness” to God’s Being. In the Scriptures when people encountered certain manifestations of God’s glory, they were noticeably affected. Moses’ face shone so bright that he had to wear a veil. On the day that the temple was dedicated, the priests could not stand to minister in it because of the Glory that was present. When Job experienced God’s glory, he responded, “Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth….I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 40:4; 42:6) When the Apostle John saw the glory of the risen and reigning Christ, he fell on his face as a dead man. Mortal man cannot remain unaffected by the experience of the weight of God’s glory. Glory also speaks of God’s worth. Unlike everything else in all creation, God’s worth is not a derived worth. It is unaffected by human opinion or desire. The God of glory is the source and determiner of all worth. He is infinetly abundant in worthship and gloriously incomparable in honor. “To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him?” (Is. 40:18) He has been, is, and ever will be worthy. Therefore, let us “ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name.” (Ps 29:2 italics mine) And, “let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. ” (Heb 12:28-29) May God grant that our experience and expressions of worship increasingly reflect His weight and worth, for the God of the gospel is also, the God of glory! The first seven chapters of Leviticus are instructions on the various types of sacrifices that God’s people were to offer unto Him. In chapters 4-6 we find this truth, “And the priest shall make atonement for him, and he shall be forgiven,” repeated 10 times. Surely God is teaching some valuable truths.
First, God is holy. He is other than us in purity. He is transcendent in perfection and goodness. He cannot abide with guilty people. He cannot be served with unclean hands. He will not receive profane worship. He must prescribe and provide for the way of worship and relationship. The second truth necessarily follows the first, namely, that sin has separated humanity from this holy God. The Israelite worshippers had to have a God-appointed priest who would act as a mediator between God and the people. The priest would offer up the sacrifice on behalf of the worshipper. Thirdly, not only does man need a priest to mediate, but a sacrifice to atone. Sin not only separates man from God, but puts him under God’s righteous judgement. That judgement is death. God must punish sin. Thankfully, Leviticus shows that God graciously provided for a substitute to be sacrificed in place of the worshipper. Through a mediated and unblemished offering, the offender was forgiven and his worship accepted by God. Lastly, the fact that these sacrifices were to be repeatedly offered shows their inability to satisfy God’s wrath for human sin and to cleanse the conscience of the sinner. These sacrifices were temporary and preparatory. They were put in place by God until the time when the ultimate, once for all sacrifice was made by Christ. Jesus came to be both High Priest and Sacrifice, Mediator and Substitute. He alone was able to go before God in perfect holiness as our High Priest and to offer up himself as an unblemished sacrifice on behalf and in place of his people. He is the fulfilment and point of Leviticus 1-7! (Hebrews 10:1-18) Today on this Good Friday we are not picking out a spotless lamb to take to the priest so he can offer it to God for us. Nor are we participating in bread and wine as a means of atonement offered by a priest. No, rather, we are reflecting upon and exulting in the once for all sacrifice of our High Priest offered on the cross of Calvary. Through faith alone in him alone we have the forgiveness of sins and fellowship with our holy God. So, “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.” Hebrew 10:22-23 “He fell on his face…” (Matt 26:39) Don’t let this phrase pass you by. In Gethsemane, the Lord of Glory is laid low on the ground. The Almighty is bowed down because his soul is “sorrowful, even to death.” The Incarnate Word is pleading in prayer.
Can you see him? Can you feel the cool grass and smell the dirt beneath him? Can you hear his groans and cries to the Father? He is “sorrowful and troubled.” There is a an agony so intense that “his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” (Luke 22:44) What is the source of this sorrow? Well, we hear it in our Lord’s prayer, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me…” The cup was the cup of sin and judgement. It represented the wrath of God toward sinners. Jesus knew that he was about to be so identified with sinners that he would become sin for them (2 Cor 5:21). And in so doing, take upon himself the wrath of God. He would suffer outside of the camp cut off from the Divine Presence to bear the curse that our sins deserved. This is what agonized and shook our Lord Jesus. But, thankfully, that wasn’t all He prayed, for Jesus followed “let this cup pass from me” with “nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” In humble submission and unforced volition, Jesus takes the cup, as it were, and carries it from Gethsemane to Golgotha and drinks it dry, pouring out his life as an offering for sin. And by that act, Jesus turned the cup of sin and judgement into the cup of forgiveness and salvation. He holds that cup out to us. But we must take it. We must humble ourselves in repentance and faith. So, I suppose, in a sense, Jesus fell on his face that we might fall on ours. His falling meant death. Our falling means life! It goes without saying that a king has a kingdom. Palm Sunday is a celebration of Jesus the King. King Jesus has a kingdom, too. I would like to offer a few brief biblical observations about the kingdom of King Jesus.
First, in the parables of the mustard seed and the leaven (Matt 13:31-33), Jesus taught that His kingdom starts small and seemingly insignificant (a Jewish carpenter from Nazareth and a small rag-tag group of guys) but grows to universal invasion and impact (the global christian mission). His is a kingdom on the move. Second, Jesus spoke of His kingdom as being both present now (“…the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.” Luke 17:21) and still to come (“Your kingdom come, your will be done…” Matt. 6:10). His is a kingdom we experience in the Spirit (Rom 14:17) and expect with hope (1 Cor 15:20-28). Third, Jesus said that His kingdom is not of this world and therefore does not exercise its authority the same way as earthly kingdoms do (John 18:36). Jesus’ kingdom was not established by politics or the sword. He established His kingdom through His word and the sacrificial love of the cross. His is a kingdom of grace and truth manifested through the Church by Word and ordinances (baptism and Lord’s supper). Finally, Jesus taught that the citizens of His kingdom would be hated, insulted, persecuted, and/or even killed by the opposing kingdom of this world (John 15:18-21). His kingdom will be in conflict with the world’s kingdom. But, we are not to fear, for King Jesus has secured the final victory by His death and resurrection! Nothing shall ever separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom 8:35-39). His is an unshakeable kingdom! (Heb 12:28) Guilt can be a tricky thing. Have you ever been driving at night, minding your own business, and following the speed limit and discover that the bright, flashing blue and red lights are for you? “What could I possibly have done? I wasn’t speeding. I know I stopped at that sign. Not Guilty!” Then the officer asks, “Did you know you had a headlight out?” Even if the answer is “no,” you are still guilty, for the law forbids driving at night without both headlights on. It was your responsibility to know. Even though you may not have felt an ounce of guilt (subjective guilt), in actual fact, you were guilty (objective guilt).
In a small way, this illustrates our standing before God the Law Giver and Judge. The Bible says that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Rom 3:23) Whether we feel guilty or not does not change the fact that we are guilty. We have broken God’s law and rebelled against His rule. We may feel free. We may feel good. But, we are guilty. Guilt can be a tricky thing. Have you ever had a circumstance wherein something went wrong and you knew it was your fault? You felt horrible about it. You were ashamed of your irresponsibility and did not want to look the others in the eye. You were feeling down right guilty. So, you muster up enough courage to admit your wrong, only to discover that no one else was blaming you, because, as it turns out, it wasn’t your fault. You had misunderstood. You felt guilty (subjective guilt), but in actual fact, you weren’t guilty (objective guilt). The glory of the gospel is that in Christ Jesus, God has provided the answer to the fact of our guilt and our felt guilt, or, if you like, our objective and subjective guilt. In an act of incomprehensible love, God sent forth His Son to bear the guilt of sinners in His sacrifice upon the cross. Any and all who repent of their sins and believe upon the risen Lord Jesus are justified. Our Law Giver and Judge declares, “Forgiven! Not Guilty!” That verdict from Heaven’s Court cannot be overturned or reversed. It is forever true of those in Christ. But as time goes by, the enemy of our souls begins to accuse us and remind us of our sins and unworthiness. We begin to feel guilty all over again. In that moment we must look afresh to Christ crucified and remember that He took away our guilt. In Christ we are not guilty no matter how we feel. As we feed our faith with what God says is true of us, our souls are nourished and our hearts gain peace. Let us continually look to Christ crucified for our sins and raised for our justification. (Rom 4:25) “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9 In the last post I briefly wrote how Martin Luther, commenting on Gal 1:4, shows how to preach the gospel to yourself. Turns out, he was just doing what the Apostle Paul had instructed the church at Rome to do nearly a millennia and a half before.
Romans 6 begins with the Apostle Paul answering a false view of grace, “Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?” (v 1) His answer? “By no means!” (v 2) Then he spends the next 12 verses expounding the gospel of the believer’s union with Christ’s death and resurrection. Listen to 2 of these 12 verses, “For the death [Christ] died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So, you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” (vv 10-11; bold type mine) In Romans 6 the answer to a false view of grace, to overcoming sin’s power, and to battling the discouragement and unbelief that comes from seeing the sin that still remains is a continual considering or reckoning of the gospel! What the believers in Rome needed in the first century and in Germany in the 16th century is what we need in the 21st century, namely, to continually preach the gospel to ourselves. Yesterday, after preaching from Galatians 1:1-5, I sat down and read Martin Luther’s comments on verse 4, “who gave himself for our sins.” They are too good to keep to myself, so I want to share some of them with you: “The genius of Christianity takes the words of Paul ‘who gave himself’ for our sins as true and efficacious. We are not to look upon our sins as insignificant trifles. On the other hand, we are not to regard them as so terrible that we must despair. Learn to believe that Christ was given, not for picayune (petty) and imaginary transgressions, but for mountainous sins; not for one or two, but for all; not for sins that can be discarded, but for sins that are stubbornly ingrained. “Practice this knowledge and fortify yourself against despair…when the memory of past sins assails the conscience. Say with confidence: ‘Christ, the Son of God, was given not for the righteous, but for sinners. If I had no sin I should not need Christ…. “‘Because my transgressions are multiplied and my own efforts at self-justification rather a hindrance than a furtherance, therefore Christ the son of God gave Himself into death for my sins.’ To believe this is to have eternal life.” What Luther is teaching is what in our day is called “preaching the gospel to ourselves.” If we are going to grow in joy, peace, and holiness then we must learn to preach the gospel to ourselves on a regular basis. Some ways for us to do this consistently are to memorize and meditate upon gospel rich phrases and passages; pray them and personalize them; and learn songs that exult in the glory of the gospel. At all costs fight for your faith in the gospel! Believe it’s promises for they are true! Most of us have probably seen the Disney/Pixar animated movie “Finding Nemo.” You remember that it’s a great story of an overly-cautious clown-fish father in search of his adventurous, now lost clown-fish son (Nemo). In the ocean-journey to find Nemo, the father meets up with a fish, named Dori, who has some necessary information and a willingness to help. But there is one huge problem, Dori has a very short-term memory. Still yet, she eventually helps father and son clown-fish reunite.
One of the things that helps Dori and also proves helpful for finding Nemo is expressed in a little ditty, “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming.” When she seems to forget everything and everyone else, she has been taught to remember one thing: just keep swimming! That’s what a fish does. Now lest you think I have stepped off the deep end, this blog is not about singing fish! But it is about remembering one thing when we can’t seem to make sense out of anything. Just as a fish (even an animated fish) is meant to swim, we as born-again children of God are meant for intimacy with God in prayer. Prayer is the oxygen of spiritual life. It is our spiritual breathing. When we are confused, lost, frustrated, turned around, sick, anxious, joyful, discouraged, even depressed we need to hear in our souls, “Just keep praying, just keep praying.” This is surely one of the lessons we learn from the Psalter. The Psalmists cry out to God in all types of circumstances and at all times of the day. In times of fear he prays (Ps 56). In times of injustice he prays (Ps 17). In times of intense suffering and loneliness he prays (Ps 22). In times of shame, he prays (Ps 3). In times of deliverance, he prays (Ps 18). In times of guilt, he prays (Ps 32 & 51). In times of near unbelief, he prays (Ps 73). In times of depression he prays (Ps 42). In times of wonder and worship he prays (Ps 8). In times of joy and celebration he prays (Ps 45)! Brothers and sisters let us never forget that we were created in Christ for intimacy with God in prayer. No matter what life circumstances we find ourselves in, may we remember: “Just keep praying, just keep praying.” I have recently been re-reading Preaching & Preachers by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Lloyd-Jones was deeply committed to preaching (expository preaching) in a time when preaching was in decline. Culture and churches were clamoring for new ways and methods to advance the kingdom and preaching was losing its primary place in the life of the church and the work of evangelism. Lloyd-Jones didn’t budge. He continued to preach and he continued to call the Church and preachers back to the primacy of preaching.
One of his arguments for the primacy of preaching in the gathered congregation both encouraged and thrilled me. I would like to simply quote it for your consideration and benefit: “Now the Church is a missionary body, and we must recapture this notion that the whole Church is a part of this witness to the Gospel and its truth and its message. It is therefore most important that people should come together and listen in companies in the realm of the Church. That has an impact in and of itself….The preacher after all is not speaking for himself, he is speaking for the Church, he is explaining what the Church is and what these people are, and why they are what they are….The very presence of a body of people in itself is a part of the preaching, and these influences begin to act immediately upon anyone who comes into a service. These influences, I suggest, are very often more potent in a spiritual sense than pure intellectual argumentation. “Not only that, when a man comes into a church to a body of people he begins to get some idea of the fact that they are the people of God, and that they are the modern representatives of something that has been known in every age and generation throughout the centuries. This makes an impact on him, in and of itself. He is not simply considering a new theory or a new teaching or a new idea. Here he is visiting or entering into something that has this long history and tradition. “But let me put it in this form; the man who thinks that all this can be done by reading, or by just looking at a television set, is missing the mysterious element in the life of the Church. What is this? It is what our Lord was suggesting, I think, when He said, ‘Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst.’ It is not a mere gathering of people; Christ is present. This is the great mystery of the Church. There is something in the very atmosphere of Christian people meeting together to worship God and to listen to the preaching of the Gospel. (D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching & Preachers, 40th Anniversary Edition, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 52-54.) I hope Lloyd-Jones’ words help us continue to foster a spirit of supplication, anticipation, and expectation as we gather weekly to worship in the mighty name of the Lord Jesus Christ! |
AuthorChuck Cook is the pastor of Grace Bible Church - Rolla. Archives
April 2020
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