I Went to Church Yesterday

The thirteenth of an undetermined number in a series on the character and need for corporate worship.

I went to church yesterday.

Preaching through the book of Genesis has been exciting and rewarding. Exciting because it reinforces our need to view the earliest accounts of recorded history from the perspective of God's unfolding his redemptive purposes in history for his own glory through sinners like you and me. It is rewarding because it is a reminder of God's faithfulness to his own Name and of his hesed, his steadfast, unbreakable covenant loyalty to those he chose unto himself. It is a comforting reminder that the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, is our God, the trustworthy covenant-keeper who is the same yesterday, today and forever. As the Holy Spirit applies the preached word to our hearts, we joyfully affirm with the prophet Isaiah, "Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the LORD; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation." Isa 25:9.

Yesterday's sermon was from Genesis 40, the story of the imprisoned Joseph's service to the Pharaoh’s chief cupbearer and baker. In his marvelous Providence, the Lord God placed Joseph in the same prison unit with these two former confidants of Pharaoh. In his marvelous Providence, the Lord God caused them to have equally imposing and disturbing dreams, both needing immediate interpretation, on the same night. In his marvelous Providence, the Lord God enabled Joseph, disparagingly called "the lord of dreams," 37:19, by his brothers, to provide them with the requisite, separate interpretations. But how did Joseph, a Hebrew from the land of Hebrews, 40:15, end up in Egypt?

Briefly, Joseph was a daddy's boy and a spoiled brat. His brothers despised him because he continually taunted them with the fancy coat his father had given him and with his boastful claims of future lordship over them, predictions that he had dreamed. His offended siblings conspired against him, stripped him of his contentious coat, sold him to Midianite traders who took him down to Egypt and who later sold him to Potiphar, Pharaoh's captain of the guard. There Joseph quickly incurred the favor of Potiphar who entrusted all that he had to him. 39:5-6. Joseph was extremely successful and for his sake, the Lord richly blessed Potiphar's estate, vv. 2-5. All of this took place according to the marvelous Providence of God. Indeed, the Scripture affirms the hands-on Providence in this way, “The LORD was with Joseph,..” v. 2.

However, Joseph's lot suffered a swift, radical reversal. The scorned and scheming Potiphar's wife, whose brazen sexual advances Joseph consistently parried, viciously accused him of attempted rape. Potiphar believed his treacherous wife and summarily placed Joseph in the prison in which the king’s prisoners were kept. Yes, there he was, in the words of Gilbert O'Sullivan, "Alone Again (Naturally)" but also there he was, with the Lord. “The Lord was with him ".. and showed him steadfast love and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison.” As a result, Joseph was appointed a trustee supervisor over the other prisoners and the warden placed everything under his charge ".. because the LORD was with him. And whatever he did, the LORD made it succeed." vv. 21-23. In the marvelous Providence of God, all these ups and downs, these good times and bad times, were ordered for Joseph. The Lord was with him when his brothers sold him, when Potiphar bought him, and when Potiphar's wife persecuted him. The Lord was with him. This very Lord is with us now as he was with Joseph.

How often we tend to think that our suffering is in direct consequence to our sin. While it is true that the holy God cannot wink at iniquity and must punish evildoers, sometimes there is not a one-to-one correspondence between our sin and our suffering. This is one of the lessons of the book of Job – sin is not necessarily causal of our suffering; it may be a possible cause but is not always a necessary one. Sometimes the Lord God providentially orders our suffering for his own glory. This truth is amply verified in both the story of Job and of the blind man in John 9. From Job's experience we learn that God is often pleased to withhold the reason for our travail and will keep it in store for display in his heavenly trophy among the many cloud of witnesses in heaven.

Returning to Genesis 40, Joseph's interpretations of the chief cupbearer's and baker's dreams proved that the Lord was with him – they were true. Pharaoh "lifted up" the head of the chief cupbearer and the head of the chief baker, a very poignant pun, in different ways. The former was reinstated to his position in the king's court while the latter was ignominiously hanged. But the chief cupbearer did not ask Pharaoh to release Joseph as Joseph had requested of him. He did not remember Joseph… but the Lord was with Joseph. There he was again in familiar territory, imprisoned, disappointed, desolate and dejected, alone again (naturally). But the Lord was with him.

In the deep, dark night of Joseph's soul, the Lord God was working all things together for his own glory and for his good. The sovereign God was silently preparing him for his exaltation to the position of second-in-command in all Egypt, a position from which he would bring the Lord's covenant family into Egypt from which the Lord would later stage the greatest redemptive act in the Old Testament, the exodus. The Lord was with Joseph. Through the life of this individual, the Lord was sovereignly using secondary causes to effectuate his greater purposes of redemption in history. As he himself would later enlighten his brothers, "So it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt… As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today." 45:8; 50:20. God used his brothers’ sins against him sinlessly to promote the Lord's greater purposes of redemption that would expand from the confines of sibling rivalry to the dank prison cells in a foreign land to the palace of the world's reigning superpower to the stage of redemptive history. The Lord was with Joseph.

One great lesson from this story is this:
God moves in a mysterious way;
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm. William Cowper, 1774

When God is with us, we rejoice that the mysteries of his providence and the inscrutability of his ways are not occasions for doubt but are causes for worship. True faith (not perfect faith)in the covenant loyalty, the hesed, of the Triune God, impels us, not to seek explanations but to remember his character, to adore him and to praise him for his goodness, wisdom, beauty, etc. In times of darkness, in times of profound pain and intense suffering, our greatest comfort is not in the provision of answers but in the assurance of the presence of our great covenant God and King with us. The Lord was with Joseph. The Lord is with us. Christ our King is with us. He is Immanuel.

I learned this in church yesterday.

I Went to Church Yesterday

The twelfth of an undetermined number in a series on the character and need for corporate worship.

I went to church yesterday. I'm part of the body of Christ. In it the union between God and his people is sealed. Christ's body is the temple, the place in which God dwells with his people, Jn 2:19. It is a community, a communion of the saints. Now, it is true that the Lord saves us individually – each one of us must confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts that God raised Christ from the dead, in order for us to be saved, Rom 10:9. As Jesus Jesus taught the baffled Nicodemus ".. unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." Jn 3:3; see also vv. 5, 8.

However, the Scripture also goes on to tell us that our confession of Christ is neither something that we do of ourselves nor is it an action that is unto ourselves, that is, that it terminates on us. Our confession of the Lord Jesus Christ is effected by the Holy Spirit: ".. No one can say "Jesus is Lord" except in the Holy Spirit." 1 Cor 12:3. Secondly, the Holy Spirit sovereignly equips each person with different spiritual gifts, vv. 4-11. Thirdly, it is in (by) this Holy Spirit that "… we were all baptized into one body--Jews or Greeks, slaves or free--and all were made to drink of one Spirit., ", v. 13. The summary of these verses is that as man the sinner is regenerated by the Holy Spirit, he is at the same time equipped with at least one spiritual gift with which he is to glorify God and serve other believers, 1 Pe 4:10-11, in the context of the local church, into which he is divinely placed. In the same way that parts of the physical body are organically interconnected, so "God arranged the members in the body [the church], each one of them, as he chose." 1 Cor 12:18. Essential to the understanding of the word member is the notion of a relationship with others; to be a member is to be a part of a group, collective or community. "For the body does not consist of one member but of many… If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body." vv. 14, 19-20. The one church is constituted of many different members.

From the foregoing we can safely conclude that genuine faith is a faith that terminates upon the Person and work of Jesus Christ and that expresses itself in the communion of saints, which is also termed the assembly or congregation of the faithful. This community is the church. While the Scripture teaches that the word church may be used in a variety of ways – the company of believers in one house, Rom 16:5; 1 Cor 16: 19; etc.; one city, Acts 8:1; 11:22, 26; etc.; a particular province, Acts 9:31; and in a universal or catholic sense, 1 Cor 12:28; Eph 1:22; 3:10, 21; etc., "Very frequently the word is used in the plural to designate the plurality of churches, that is to say of units, scattered throughout a certain area of lesser or greater geographical proportions.. Acts 14:23; 15:41; 1 Cor 16:1, 19;.." (John Murray, Christian Baptism, p. 33). It is with particular reference to this latter application of church, that is, the local, visible church, that saving faith is expressed and verified. As the late Professor Murray elucidates, "Union with Christ and the faith through with that union is effected, though in themselves invisible and spiritual facts, are nevertheless realities which find expression in what is observable." p. 34. In other words, one cannot claim to have faith in Christ and thereby to be a part of the universal church without being a member of a local, visible community. Saving faith is anchored in ".. visible association and organization [which] are implicit in the very nature of what constitutes the church." Ibid. Membership in the local church therefore is an inevitable consequence of saving faith. As such, it is a privilege to be enjoyed, a responsibility to be willingly undertaken, a union to be displayed, for it is one of the "… far-reaching implications of faith and conduct." Such action necessarily follows our confession which is "… an intelligent and consistent profession of faith in Christ and of obedience to him." Ibid., 36. (Emphasis added)

Well, some would argue, what about the thief on the cross? Was he not saved? Did he not make a genuine profession of faith in Christ? Surely he was not a member of the local church! All of these are true. However, the major point of Jesus' extending saving mercies to this thief is to demonstrate, not the possibility of deathbed salvation – (note that of the countless biblical examples of sinners coming to faith in Scripture, this is the only one of its kind. Therefore, it can be correctly described as extremely limited- only one is recorded in Scripture, but nevertheless, real- it was genuine; Christ did save this sinner)- but his absolute faithfulness in honoring his promise that ".. Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame… For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." " Rom 10:11, 13.

So what did I learn in church yesterday? I was strengthened in the truth that being a member of the local church is an immense privilege. I was fortified in the biblical teaching that the saving faith we are given and which ".. comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ." v. 17, is the very faith that directs us to the place where Christ dwells on earth, his church, his body, his historical community which he created and over which he rules by his Word and Spirit. In church I learned that membership in (t)his body is not a peripheral or incidental matter, nor is it simply a personal matter. On the contrary, church membership is one of the crucial evidences of true saving faith, the faith that is worked in the heart of the sinner by the Holy Spirit in conjunction with the Word of God but that which, essentially, is a faith that is evinced in corporate communion. In church I gained a deeper understanding of the fact that on the Lord's Day, all believers are to answer the Holy Spirit's summons to “Adeste fideles, .. Venite adoremus, Domine,” that is, to "Come all ye faithful.. Come and adore him, Christ the Lord." In so doing, we demonstrate our faith is genuine. In so doing, we demonstrate that in our corporate worship and in our service to our brothers and sisters, we are not living for ourselves but for him who lived, died and was raised for our sake, 2 Cor 5:15.

I learned all of this in church yesterday.

I Went to Church Yesterday

The eleventh of an undetermined number in a series on the character and need for corporate worship.

I went to church.. not yesterday, but the day before. Yesterday, I was out of town and could not post my blog because I was in meetings all day. But, I did go to church.

As I was doing some reading, I thought that I might approach this week's reflections from a different angle, from the perspective of a minister reviewing his last preached sermon. I think ministerial Monday morning quarterbacking does have many benefits; indeed, it is a privilege and honor with which the sovereign Lord presents us in order that we may review our sermons and detect ways by which we could (and should) improve them. How often have I neglected the glorious benefits of such an opportunity to prove myself faithful to the Lord! How often have I grieved the Holy Spirit by rejecting his loving nudges to return to the sermon and with the added insight that he provides through additional reading, reflection and prayer, stubbornly refused to apply myself to such a noble task! On the one hand, it shows the sinful extent to which I worship my own stubborn, fallen will and also the adoration with which I joyfully stroke the idol of my slovenliness. On the other hand, it evinces my very careless and callous attitude toward God's people, his sheep, the sheep of his pasture, those with whose care he has so graciously entrusted me. I neglect the truth that the spiritual gifts with which I have been endowed are to be directed toward the edification of God's people and the glorification of his Name, 1 Pe 4:10-11. Further, while it is true that our spiritual gifts are divine enablements, it is also true that, in some cases, like that of preaching, these abilities are also skills and as such, they need to be honed through diligent practice; constant revision; dutiful examination of the works of our predecessors and peers; a ceaseless resolve to learn and apply new insights; a determination to preach the whole counsel of God; copious reading and prayer; etc., all of which impel us to heightened faithfulness in the exercise of our duty to ".. preach Christ crucified, ..” After all,"..what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake." 1 Cor 1:23; 2 Cor 4:5

So what did I do yesterday? I reviewed my sermon that was based on the first seven verses of the book of Zechariah. The scene there is the heavenly council of God in which the High Priest Joshua, representing all Israel, is standing before the Judge, the Angel of the Lord, a synonym for Yahweh, with the prosecutor, Satan the Accuser, at his right hand. His ineluctable guilt is graphically symbolized by his dress –his clothing is filthy, as well as by his demeanor – he is silent; the charges are true and he is unable to produce any alibi; his mouth is stopped, Rom 3:19. He is condemned and helpless! Here the drama of redemption reaches its apex: at the last moment, when he is about to be consumed, the Lord God, abounding in mercy and goodness, graciously intervenes by silencing Satan, by delivering Joshua from the consuming fire of God's own just wrath and by ordering that his filthy garments be replaced with righteous and pure vestments taken from the heavenly wardrobe.

Clearly this is a pictorial presentation of the doctrine of justification by faith alone in Christ alone which the Westminster Larger Catechism # 70 defines as ".. an act of God's free grace unto sinners, in which he pardoneth all their sins, accepteth and accounteth their persons righteous in his sight; not for any thing wrought in them, or done by them, but only for the perfect obedience and full satisfaction of Christ, by God imputed to them, and received by faith alone." Although all the elements of this doctrine are not presented in the text, nevertheless, this teaching is sufficiently identifiable. For example, the Lord God efficaciously declares the guilty and condemned Joshua to be righteous, cf. Rom 4:5-6; 5:6, 8; Gal 2:16; etc. The great exchange of Joshua’s rags of wretchedness by pure vestments is a picture of the divine Lord's clothing the sinner with Christ's righteousness, cf. Isa 61:10 with Rom 3:21-28; 10:4; 1 Cor 1:30; Phi 1:11; 3:9; etc., indeed, with Christ himself, Rom 13:14; Gal 3:27. Throughout this entire procedure, the defendant makes no contribution; he is entirely passive. He is the unworthy recipient of God's saving mercies.

My broad sermon outline was as follows:

Text: Zechariah 3:1-7
Title: Justification: A Radical Change from Rags to Riches

I. THE MISERY OF DESERVED GUILT vv. 1, 3

II. THE MERCY OF DIVINE GRACE vv. 2, 4,-5

III. THE MANDATE TO DILIGENT GUARDIANSHIP vv. 6-7


Reviewing my sermon from the post facto advantage of the Monday morning quarterback, I realized that in the final division, vv. 6-7, I was not as effective as I should have been. I did not adequately emphasize that only on the basis of the Lord's once for all declaration are Joshua and indeed, all sinners, righteous in God’s sight. Secondly, I should have accentuated the fact that we, like Joshua, are mandated to do good works which prove and testify our justification. "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." Eph 2:8-10. In Joshua’s case, the Lord re-commissioned and reinstated him to his priestly duties, perhaps with added privileges.

As a result my conclusion was weak. I really needed to drive home the point that our obedience to the law (sanctification) necessarily flows from our justification and that our good works are done in gratitude to the Lord for his justification and not as a prerequisite for our salvation. Further, I could have further sharpened this truth by placing it within the context of the indicative/imperative dynamic– the indicative of God's justification of sinners by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone necessarily leads them to carry out the mandate of presenting their bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable unto God, which is their reasonable service, Rom 12:1. God the Father did not snatch Jesus Christ, his eternal Son, from the consuming fire of his wrath on Calvary's cross. Instead, Christ the sinless suffering Servant, having fully obeyed the law and bearing the sins of those that he came to save and dressed in their filthy rags, willingly endured the full immolation of a fiery divine judgment for the very ones who now receive the benefits of his finished work, imputed to them by God and appropriated by faith alone. Who, being so super-abundantly privileged, would not commit his life to such a Savior? Who, being so honored as to receive the Lord himself, would not want to serve him obediently the rest of his days? Who, being saved by God's grace alone, would not live his life in such a way as to prove that God's grace reigns in his life through righteous works “leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Rom 5:21. This I should have done sparing no effort to present myself “.. to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.”2 Tim 2:15. This is how I should have ended my sermon.

These are my reflections on my paltry service to my risen Lord. However, Deo volente, I'll have another opportunity next Sunday on which I plan to go to church. Will you be there?