We are not to think of God as this big grandpa-like figure handing out Werther’s Originals to his grandchildren; just kind of a benevolent super-star up above doting on his little ones. While we confess and gladly believe that the Lord loves us with all His might and grace, we also recognize in humble reliance the same God who swirled around the top of Mount Sinai in thunder and lightning. His power and authority is the reason why we can pray at all. We must never domesticate the living and true Jehovah. He is the one who moves the mountains that we pray for, and He is the one who can alone deliver us from the trials and tribulations of this life.

I’ve made this point, probably too much, that the central beauty of the Presbyterian way of looking at things is that we are to always understand ourselves to be a part of a covenant community grounded in the free gift of the gospel of Jesus Christ. What that means practically is that the unity of the body is bound by the promise of mercy we have in the forgiveness of sins and the new life in and through our savior. It is a joint blessing and there is no sense in which we are to experience these glories alone. Even when we pray for individual needs we do so in the sure and certain knowledge that our brothers and sisters in Christ are likewise lifting us up to the Lord of glory. This mutual benevolence of faith people is united together in the eternal nature of our Triune God. That is part of what Paul is speaking about in his letter to Thessalonica as he encourages the people by giving thanks for the way they are always praying for the brethren in Jerusalem and elsewhere.
Another aspect of this is discovered in the picture drawn in the Old Testament of how the tribes were to help one another in the conquest of the land, and also how each of them were in turn and kind then to support their brother Levites in their labors. It is this image of the parts working together with one purpose that the more godly elements of the church is to follow in time. What does all this have to do with the Lord’s Prayer? As we enter into the separate parts of the Lord’s Prayer to whom and why we are lifting up supplications to God needs be kept central.
Let’s go ahead and read the Q/A and get started:
Q. 189. What doth the preface of the Lord’s prayer teach us?
The preface of the Lord’s prayer, contained in these words, Our Father which art in heaven, teaches us, when we pray, to draw near to God with confidence of his fatherly goodness, and our interest therein; with reverence, and all other child-like dispositions, heavenly affections, and due apprehensions of his sovereign power, majesty, and gracious condescension: as also, to pray with and for others.
That first word is what the opening paragraphs have been all about. Our. Our Father. Also, remember the One who is introducing us to this form of prayer is the Son of the Living God. When He says Our think about what that means. We get a deeper sense of that in Jesus’s prayer in John 17.
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Appreciating Him as the thunder, darkness, and lightning above Mount Sinai is such a vital part of our being able to pray. We need to really and truly comprehend His majesty, for it is in that bigness that mountains get moved. A weak, powerless, struggling God can’t do anything for anybody. However, the one who spoke all things into existence can help with your difficulties at work and home in a way that a being that just comes alongside for a hug cannot. It is a joy unspeakable to be in His presence and that is what we are communicating when we gather together in prayer.

When I sit down to write these devotionals through the Larger Catechism I always read and pray through the questions, partly because I think the Westminster Divines designed all of the material we have from their deliberations to help us primarily to worship God better. To know God is to love Him, to be mesmerized by His grace, to rest and be at peace in His love. The more time we spend growing in that goodness the more we will appreciate and adore the maker of Heaven and of Earth. In the questions we have before us today there are some advantageous reasons given as to why we should pray, how we should pray, and where we can go to find some help in seeking to do it better and with better form/purpose. These dusty confessions and catechisms have so much life in them if we would only approach them with the spirit in which they were ordered. If we look at them as drudgerous listings of angels dancing on the head of a pin it’s no surprise we don’t get anything out of them.
Feed your soul. Feed it. Here’s the Q/A’s for today:
Q. 185. How are we to pray?
A. We are to pray with an awful apprehension of the majesty of God, and deep sense of our own unworthiness, necessities, and sins; with penitent, thankful, and enlarged hearts; with understanding, faith, sincerity, fervency, love, and perseverance, waiting upon him, with humble submission to his will.
Q. 186. What rule hath God given for our direction in the duty of prayer?
A. The whole word of God is of use to direct us in the duty of prayer; but the special rule of direction is that form of prayer which our Saviour Christ taught his disciples, commonly called The Lord’s prayer.
Of the clauses which make up Q.185 the one that pops out at me first is humble submission to His will. Like a lot of things in the Christian life it says a lot more than we maybe want to hear. Whenever we come to God in prayer we are testifying of our own weakness, our whole and full reliance on Him for all things. There is truth to the idea that prayer is an act of love, of expressing our desire to be blessed by our Father who art in Heaven. Keeping that relationship in mind when we bow down is central to our being heard. A petulant child who whines is less likely to be heard than a young one who calmly asks nicely.
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The more and more we learn about and of God the more we will trust Him with our deepest thoughts and desires, and the more we read His word and understand His will and purpose for our lives the more our prayers will model the example of Christ who sought that His every moment would be spent doing the will of His Father. We meditate on His mercy to sinners, because we is one, and we praise His precious name for in it we have the perfection of His love.

Today’s a big one. Four questions seems like a lot, and it is. However, they are all tied into something which is very important for us to realize as we grow in faith and use prayer for its intended purpose. Pray is service unto the Triune God. That being the case each of the members of the Trinity play a role in the power of prayer and in its success, at least as we measure that.
Due to the fact we have so many we won’t bother with a lot of introductory stuff and just get right to reading the Q/A’s for today:
Q. 179. Are we to pray unto God only?
A. God only being able to search the hearts, hear the requests, pardon the sins, and fulfil the desires of all; and only to be believed in, and worshipped with religious worship; prayer, which is a special part thereof, is to be made by all to him alone, and to none other.
Q. 180. What is it to pray in the name of Christ?
A. To pray in the name of Christ is, in obedience to his command, and in confidence on his promises, to ask mercy for his sake; not by bare mentioning of his name, but by drawing our encouragement to pray, and our boldness, strength, and hope of acceptance in prayer, from Christ and his mediation.
Q. 181. Why are we to pray in the name of Christ?
A. The sinfulness of man, and his distance from God by reason thereof, being so great, as that we can have no access into his presence without a mediator; and there being one in heaven or earth appointed to, or fit for, that glorious work but Christ alone, we are to pray in no other name but his only.
Q. 182. How doth the Spirit help us to pray?
We not knowing what to pray for as we ought, the Spirit helps our infirmities, by enabling us to understand both for whom, and what, and how prayer is to be made; and by working and quickening in our hearts (although not in all persons, nor at all times, in the same measure) those apprehensions, affections, and graces which are requisite for the right performance of that duty.
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The willingness of the men of Gad and Simeon to do their duty, and the blessing of the women being able to take on the responsibility of homesteading while their husbands and fathers are off fighting in the war for their countrymen’s freedom is a tale as old as time. Yet, it’s a perfect representation of the way things ought to be. Notice the trust, the love, the relationship, all unspoken, all without fanfare or displays of notoriety. The simple mercy of knowing that what needs to be done is being done.

Be nice to finally get some dry days around here. I always thought it was April showers bring May flowers, not May showers bring June rot. Been biblical around these parts. For our prayer and worship time today we are not only going to be asking for some sunshine, but that we might see something bright and lovely about the story of Gad and Simeon in Numbers 32. What’s that you may ask? (no pun intended). On Wednesday nights we have been of course going through this fourth book of Moses throughout the year. There are a lot of moments in that book that really cause the work to live up to its name. Census after census, detail after detail, it almost seems like at times you are walking through a Scriptural phone book. We confess and believe that every verse in the Bible is important. There is no portion of God’s Holy word that is less vital to our faith than any other, but I don’t think there is anything wrong with noting that some parts are more scintillating than others. Which gets me to the point of this Tuesday’s post.
The leaders of the tribes of Gad and Simeon approach Moses and Eleazar the High Priest about building their homes on the east side of the Jordan. At first Moses is not too keen on this idea because he thinks these tribes want to slink out on their responsibility to help the whole of Israel gain the victory over the pagans in the Promised Land. The elders of Gad and Simeon assure Moses and Eleazar that this is not the case, all they ask is that they be allowed to leave their cattle and their livestock, along with their women and children, on the eastside and the fighting men will follow with blood and toil with their brothers-in-arms. There is something so poetic, so masculine and lovely about the promise of Numbers 32:16-18. Let’s take a look at it:
Then they came near to him and said: “We will build sheepfolds here for our livestock, and cities for our little ones, but we ourselves will be armed, ready to go before the children of Israel until we have brought them to their place; and our little ones will dwell in the fortified cities because of the inhabitants of the land. We will not return to our homes until every one of the children of Israel has received his inheritance.
The totality of what is being said here is more than just a mundane covenantal promise. It is the kind of thing you would hear Charlton Heston or Jeff Bridges say as the law man came to his ranch to ask his help to go and capture a wanted fugitive or marked man.
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The real reason why men need to be in church is the same reason why all of us do. Our actions and attitudes about the calling of God to us in the work that we do, and understanding more deeply the glory of a life lived not for yourself, or for this present evil world, but for the honor of the life to come is what makes a Christian man work hard for his family, for his faith, and for his kith and kin. There is something greater than himself in the labors he does every day, if every man lived so boldly, and with such humility, imagine where we would be today?

Being young and invincible in some ways is the best part of life. Understanding that you are not is the first step towards maturity. I grew up in a time when it was common to office banter to hear the local dad joke connoisseur come up to you while you were getting a cup of coffee and say, “Hey Ben, you working hard or are you hardly working?”. There are days where I am glad I do not work in an office. Those days end in “y”. God made me a little bit to be a lone ranger, that has its benefits and has caused me problems in the past. Few things were more annoying as a corporate drone than forced small talk when I just wanted to do what I was there to do and go home. When God ordered Adam to tend to the Garden He did so in the context of Adam’s pure heart and soul, which had not been stained with sin. There was a kind of joy to his labor that became a drudgery after he broke the covenant of works, and all humanity then fell with him.
In today’s prayer and worship help we are going to dovetail into talking more about men and church, but this time from a point of view that wants to help all of us think some more about what the Lord would have us to be and to do in light of His marvelous grace, and the promised eternity which comes through Jesus Christ alone. Seeing the future as more than one’s own lifetime changes how we approach labor and life. It also is meant to remind us that the world is bigger than either ourselves or our earthly existence. Walking by a graveyard every day has the habit of reminding me that the moment is limited and what we do and who we are will largely be forgotten in a few generations. Not to make this more morose than it needs to be, but it’s part of asking the question concerning how we are to approach the time that God gives us, and why what we do in the Lord’s house on the Lord’s Day has more than a weekly benefit.
Getting back to work habits for a second the apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians 5:16 that we are to redeem the time because the days are evil. What he means by that is not that there is something sinful about Mondays. (Monday is my favorite non-Sunday day of the week).
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Prayer is worship. It is why that word adoration is used in the A.C.T.S. You are confessing your faith in Him, in His person as the Creator, and in His Work as the giver of all things by the word of His power. It is a statement of humble reliance upon the one who alone is able to provide whatever it is you are lacking in the moment.

Back in the Fall of 2022 we began our walk through the Westminster Larger Catechism. It’s hard to believe that we are here in the Spring of 2024 starting the last section of the WLC. Just like with the Shorter, the Larger ends with a talk about prayer, using the Lord’s Prayer as a model. In today’s catechism question the Divines are going to define for us what the Christian is to do with prayer and what prayer means. Kind of like the sacrament discussion we just finished a believer thinking about a subject like this can seem old hat. We are called to pray every day, prayer makes up a significant portion of what we see people do in the Bible and if you were going to isolate one particular thing that stands out in the Christian’s life it would be our conversating with the living and the true God. To pray well means to know what you are doing, not so much about the mechanics, but its purpose, and so as we get into questions 178-196 each of the Q/A’s will help us do better at resting and trusting not only in the mercy of prayer, but in its Trinitarian power.
Here is the lone question for today:
Q. 178. What is prayer?
A. Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God, in the name of Christ, by the help of his Spirit; with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgment of his mercies.
Those of you who grew up in 90s evangelicalism will remember the acrostic A.C.T.S. The letters form a helpful way to make a plan for prayer and were something I was taught at a youth rally in high school. It stands for Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. Like most things that involve stuff that is useful it was not created thirty years ago. If you notice the pattern of the Lord’s Prayer it follows the basic alignment of beginning prayer with God’s name (Our Father), with confession of our sins (Forgive Us Our Debts), thanks (Thine is the Kingdom), and asking for particular gifts (Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread).
When it comes to applying the same format to the catechism question, we see how this wisdom can even be found in our catechetical documents. In defining what prayer is the writers of the WLC first testify that prayer is an offering. Usually when we think of that word we assign it to be some kind of physical gift to the Creator.
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Your manliness does not come from these outward qualities or commitments. It comes from a deep love of the Savior who bought you with a price. Taking seriously the calling of Ephesians 6:1-4 to raise your children in the fear and admonition of the Lord, listening to Ephesians 5 and loving your wife as Christ loved the Church, by leading her and being a Man for once. All these things are a helpful way to start thinking about the way to get the young men interested in being the kind of person God has called them to be, not fake society, or domesticating them into women.

Our topic today is a little bit out of left field, and may seem a bit strange, especially since it may appear to only apply to half of you. Most of you know that my dissertation for my doctoral degree was on reaching white working-class men for Christ. The least “churched” people group in the United States are young white men without a college education. No one knows that because most people don’t care. They are not high on the list of agenda items at most church plant conferences nor is there really anything being written about them. When I was doing research the only resources I could find were all negative. In other words these men who don’t actually go to worship on the Lord’s Day were being blamed for all kinds of societal problems with their evangelicalism coming along for the ride. Outside of the white working-class not really having any actual political power the bigger issue, at least for me as a minister of the gospel, was trying to figure out why they weren’t going to church, and the reasons I found were not exactly groundbreaking. For our prayer and worship help we are going to think through this for a little bit, and try and find a solution, or at least just complain about it.
First of all the men I talked to who were under fortyish all had one thing in common: they do not have fathers, and in many cases even grandfathers, for which meeting with Jesus on the Sabbath was any kind of priority. Even if they did attend on the odd Sunday they looked and acted like a conscientious objector through the whole service. Didn’t sing, didn’t really pay attention, was quiet, but completely uninvolved in the happenings around them. They might as well have been Helen Keller for all the good it did them to be there. Why should a younger man put any effort into being at the Lord’s house if the men in his orbit didn’t? It’s a good question, and one I don’t really blame them for. They just acting how they was raised.
The second big reason given to me was the church was full of hypocrites. Imagine finding sinners at a church. But that wasn’t really what they was talking about. These men may not be Christians, but one doesn’t necessarily need to be to put two and two together. People acting one way on Sunday morning and then another the rest of the week has a habit of putting a damper on you thinking it makes any difference how dolled up you get for Sabbath School and morning service if you just going to go roll around in the mud when Monday comes.
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Baptism and the Lord’s Supper work together, as the catechism notes, to each in their own way testify to the one covenant of grace made in Genesis 3:15 and reconfirmed in circumcision and Passover, and then in the new covenant of Jeremiah 31 and stated by Christ in Mark 14 and Peter in Acts 2. Baptism for circumcision and the Table for Passover. New signs, the same seal.

As we considered the sacraments over the last month it is important as the catechism is going to do this week to think through why we only have two sacraments and how they work together in order to improve the Christian life. Sometimes we do religious stuff without really understanding its purpose. Blind tradition is dangerous in that way. Even the most aged saint needs reminding every now and then as to the reason behind why we do what we do in the religion we profess to be the hope we rest in. It does us no good to go through the motions. In fact God abhors and condemns hand religion that has no faith attached to it. (James 1:26-27).
Believers who have no interest in growing in knowledge of heart and soul bewilder me, in all honesty. We have been given by grace new life in Jesus Christ and so often we just want to leave it at that. Do we treat other matters with such frivolity? If we are a big hunter or fisher do we not desire to not only get better at the hunting and fishing but invest in the right tools to accomplish that joyful longing to reel in a big bass or take down a broad twelve point? The catechism question today in fact is particularly designed to help us reconsider why we baptize and why we eat the bread and drink the cup. Just like the ceremonial system of the law of Moses (which we have learned more about in our walk through Numbers on Wednesday evenings) the New Testament sacraments are just as pedagogical, that is they teach us stuff about Jesus.
If we say we love Jesus wouldn’t we then want to get deeper in that love so as to love Him better and better? Here’s the Q/A’s:
Q. 176. Wherein do the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s supper agree?
A. The sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s supper agree, in that the author of both is God; the spiritual part of both is Christ and his benefits; both are seals of the same covenant, are to be dispensed by ministers of the gospel, and by none other; and to be continued in the church of Christ until his second coming.
 Q. 177. Wherein do the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s supper differ?
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We’ve talked about how the bread and the wine are necessary. They each play a role in helping us to see in a visible way the death of Jesus Christ and through that sign to more deeply be encouraged in the gift. One by a faith revealed, and the other by a faith disclosed. The spiritual is where in some sense the action happens in Communion. It is by the union we have through the Holy Spirit where the connections take place through faith and the spiritual nourishment is applied when we rightly and properly partake of the outward elements.

Words like mystical, supernatural, enchanted, etc… sound like they belong more at home in a fantasy novel than they do being associated with a Presbyterian church. However, we would do well to remember that we should be comfortable with such terms, especially when our minds turn towards the sacraments of the Church. We confess our thoroughgoing skepticism no more than when we get uncomfortable with the stuff that happens outside our brain. Yet, our fathers in the faith in Scotland and elsewhere worried not about such modern hang-ups. It would be quite beneficial to us to re-embrace the weird in the Christian faith.
What does all that then have to do with the Lord’s Supper? In no other place in our religious life do we need to think outside the confines of what we can perceive with our senses than when it comes to what happens when we partake of the bread and the cup at Christ’s table. For our Q/A today we will read more on what the Westminster Divines understood about these truths.
Here are the two for today:
Q. 170. How do they that worthily communicate in the Lord’s supper feed upon the body and blood of Christ therein?
A. As the body and blood of Christ are not corporally or carnally present in, with, or under the bread and wine in the Lord’s supper, and yet are spiritually present to the faith of the receiver, no less truly and really than the elements themselves are to their outward senses; so they that worthily communicate in the sacrament of the Lord’s supper do therein feed upon the body and blood of Christ, not after a corporal and carnal, but in a spiritual manner; yet truly and really, while by faith they receive and apply unto themselves Christ crucified, and all the benefits of his death.
Q. 171. How are they that receive the sacrament of the Lord’s supper to prepare themselves before they come unto it?
A. They that receive the sacrament of the Lord’s supper are, before they come, to prepare themselves thereunto, by examining themselves of their being in Christ, of their sins and wants; of the truth and measure of their knowledge, faith, repentance; love of God and the brethren, charity to all men, forgiving those that have done them wrong; of their desires after Christ, and of their new obedience; and by renewing the exercise of these graces, by serious meditation, and fervent prayer.
In God’s way of doing things the body and the soul are meant to work together for the betterment of the individual believer. We confess that the human being is both physical and spiritual. How that works exactly is above our paygrade. What we do comprehend is that both are creations of the Lord and they both inhabit our identity. They are not to be understood as either fighting against one another (like a cartoon where each have a different voice) or that one is more important to God than the other. They are equal in power and glory.
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What a precious and lovely promise is Jesus. He is the author of life in all its different facets. He not only forms us in the womb, but He rescues us from the grave in the gift of His righteousness. He provides us life day-by-day in the daily bread of grace. He feeds us the nourishing love of Himself in the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. 

When we were in our series from Ecclesiastes we read through a popular passage, quoted at length by the Byrds in their hit song Turn, Turn, Turn. There is a season for everything under Heaven. A time to be born, and a time to die. We at Bethany have had the blessing and the misfortune to experience both in recent weeks. As one life entered into the world, one has passed from it. Some at this point would make reference to the cycle of life. However, as Christians we don’t believe in such a thing. Our understanding of the world is of a beginning and an end, or maybe better said a beginning and an eternal future. The Bible starts off with an existence that is outside of time. There is no night nor day, morning or evening. When the Lord speaks, it comes to be, the light and the darkness separated. It is not the darkness which is scary. Before sin it is good. There is no reason to fear.
Yet, Adam did sin.
Which leads us to the subject of today’s prayer and worship help. The life which comes from death. When we think of life and death our minds are often drawn towards Jesus’ words to Martha in John 11. “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.” When Christ says that He is the resurrection He is not merely noting that He is the one who brings the resurrection about, though that is true. No, even more than that He is testifying to the fact that it is by the power of Jesus that resurrection comes. He is the definition of resurrection. He is the resurrection. Resurrection only exists in the Son of God because He is the creator. It is in a very real way the only way it can happen. How does that make sense? Go back to Genesis 1:1 for a second and the beginning of life. Who speaks it into existence? Christ. Who is the one who raises up Adam from the dirt and breathes life into Him? Christ. How do we know that? Remember what John says at the opening of the gospel which bears his name.
All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
As you read John in both chapters 11 and 1 you are seeing what it is that enables the Christian to have comfort both in life and death. It is what moves us to praise His name and to worship Him. What a precious and lovely promise is Jesus. He is the author of life in all its different facets.
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