Essentially, our day becomes a twenty-four opportunity to worship our God, seeking to live a Christ-exalting life as we walk in the Spirit. We walk with Christ. He goes with us everywhere we go. The Spirit indwells us. We live in God’s world and in His presence. We are not alone today. Instead, we are loved and enjoy the presence of the Lord (Rom 8:31-38; Gal 6:16-26). We worship our God as we love Him supremely, known as the first Great Commandment, and as we love our neighbors sincerly, known as the second Great Commandment.

This morning, the day is new. We look at the day ahead and ask, “What is in a day?” What lies ahead of us this day?
None of us know. I spoke with a friend yesterday, and he had no idea the events of his day until they happened. Total surprise how his day went from one thing to another unexpectedly. Sometimes, we do know what we believe is generally going to happen, but, of course, we do not know the exact details.
Here’s the good news: regardless of who you are or where you are, we each share a series of commonalities regarding our day ahead. For the Christ-follower, this is really good news. If we take time to remember a few of these things at the beginning of our day, it really benefits us; in fact, I promise it will make your day better. Notice how the prophet Jeremiah emphasizes the benefits of remembering a few of these key ideas of “What is in a day.” He writes, “This I recall to my mind and therefore I have hope” (Lam 3:21).
Here are a few of those key realities to remember:
God’s Grace and Mercy Are New Every Morning
Our God is a covenant faithful God. He expresses his loyal love to us daily through His mercy and grace. As we get up and going today, God’s faithfulness provides us a fresh, full helping of grace and mercy – enough to last us all day! Back to Jeremiah:
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,for his compassions never fail.They are new every morning;great is your faithfulness.I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;therefore I will wait for him.”
The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him,to the one who seeks him;it is good to wait quietlyfor the salvation of the Lord. (Lam 3:22-26)
God Loves Us and That Motivates Our Service
The loyal love that provides great mercy and grace every morning also serves us in another way. As we stop to remember God’s love, it serves to motivate us to serve Jesus Christ and others today. The Apostle Paul describes how God’s love for us through Christ, as we remember and meditate on it, begins to influence us and control how we respond to the people and pressures in our day. In reflection of God’s love through Christ to us, we determine to live for Him and not for ourselves.
For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. (2 Cor 5:14-15)
We Stand Righteous in Christ, Forgiven, and Capable of Honoring the Lord
Because we have a relationship with God through Jesus, which we often called being saved, we now stand as righteous in Christ. We are forgiven of our sins and are intimately known by God. Because we are in Christ, we are no longer condemned; instead, we are now capable of honoring our wonderful Lord. Because of this possibility, we diligently seek to grow in our walk with the Lord.
His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. (2 Pet 1:3-7)
My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2:1-2)
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Eph 2:8-10)
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, (Rom 8:1)
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When our Christian brothers and sisters in other denominational contexts see real blessing from God on their labors, let’s not let our various disagreements with them over doctrine and practice prevent us from recognizing the true work of God in their midst. Let’s not betray a belief that if God isn’t blessing us (or those most incredibly like us) whatever we are seeing must be a mere mirage of revival. Being different from us doesn’t put another group beyond the reach of God’s blessing anymore than it puts them beyond the reach of His grace.

Iain Murray describes biblical revival as consisting of “…a larger giving of God’s Spirit for the making known of Christ’s glory… a sense of God… not only in conviction of sin but equally in the bewildered amazement of Christians at the consciousness of the Lord who is in their midst” (Revival & Revivalism, p. 30). Revival is not a constant reality in church history or in the life of any specific congregation. Rather, it is descriptive of those extraordinary times when the Lord is pleased to pour out a greater abundance of saving grace, resulting in a greater zeal for Kingdom priorities and a vital spirituality characterizing the people of God. It is a time of unique energy and vigor regarding gospel labors, and of unique blessing from the Lord in those pursuits.
All churches would love to see such things become a reality in their own midst. Who would dare to say that they would not want the Lord to pour out such grace, to act in mighty ways to save sinners, to animate and revitalize His people? The desire for such blessing need not mean a depreciation of the normal, plodding rhythms of ministry and the ordinary means of grace.  Indeed, Biblical revival is not a circumventing of normal ministry activities; it is a fresh and dynamic outpouring of grace through those very same means.
It is true that some people take revival and do unbiblical things with the concept. In fact, much of Murray’s book is given over to distinguishing the difference between true God given revival and man’s foolish attempts to manufacture an outpouring of the Spirit- a pursuit he labels as revivalism.  To the historically minded, terms like revival sometimes evoke negative associations like Charles Finney’s anxious bench (a forerunner of the more modern altar call), and to the broader culture it often takes on a garish tent-huckster ethos, but we should never let other people’s errors define our practice. None of these abuses are the fault of authentic revival. And so quite aware of the dangers of a false and manufactured show of dramatic piety, even solidly Reformed men do say, “Lord, if it pleases you, send revival in our midst!”
But what about when you pray for revival and it comes…but to someone else? What are we to think of extraordinary measures of grace that God seems to pour out on others, while He seems pleased to withhold it from us? What am I to think of my neighbor’s revival?
To that question I offer three responses.
1. Avoid the temptation to adopt an elitist “narrow way” cynicism.
The present reality is that the Kingdom of God on earth is fractured into a multitude of church denominations, sects, movements, and coalitions. At this stage in church history, no matter what segment of evangelical Christianity you call home, there are always more people outside your circle than inside of it. No one group has the majority. What that means is that God is always doing more outside your narrow context than inside of it.
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For men equipped with the keys to some of the most sacredly precious positions in the Kingdom of Christ, O15 simplifies the decision-making on our version of the broader homosexual clergy question. Is the man describing himself (present tense) as a homosexual, all equivocations aside? If so, as this means he is NOT above reproach, we can be sure that the Spirit has not called him to sacred office in the Church.

A fellow PCA elder, a brother in Christ whom I am indeed grateful for, asked for my reaction to some arguments he was going to make before his session, urging them at their upcoming presbytery meeting to vote against Overture 15. In keeping with the best of biblical (i.e., presbyterian) practice, he asked for the reactions of someone he knows would most likely be opposed to his reasoning. (Well done, brother, well done.)
PCA presbyteries are now taking up this overture, with the first one to vote on it passing it (8/27/22, Central Carolina, 41-11-1). O15 is considered a long shot for receiving the two-thirds majority yes votes from our presbyteries. Accordingly, appreciating this brother’s integrity, and disagreeing with his reasoning for a “no” vote on O15, I thought I might edit my comments to him, and post them for consideration by others. My goal (as a faith-exercise of my calling as an officer in the PCA) is to see the Spirit use these admittedly imperfect arguments to persuade other PCA elders to support O15’s passage.
Here is O15, as passed by the PCA 49th GA (Birmingham Al, ’22):
“Men who describe themselves as homosexual, even those who describe themselves as homosexual and claim to practice celibacy by refraining from homosexual conduct, are disqualified from holding office in the Presbyterian Church in America.”
I want to offer two arguments for why this overture should be passed:
1) It avoids the identity language equivocation trap, and
2) It provides a simple and straightforward way of applying the above reproach standard.
The Equivocation Trap
Almost all the arguments I’ve seen against O15 anchor themselves on a reason for the failure of overtures 23 and 37 from the previous GA (48th, St. Louis). The main argument against them (persuasive in about forty percent of our presbyteries) was that the language of identity was problematic. Particularly, they noted that the teaching elder exemplar in view (i.e., the “poster child” prompting these overtures, no denigration intended) maintains that in his use of identity language (e.g., a homosexual pastor, a Christian who struggles with same-sex attraction as much as he did the first day he was saved) is nothing more than apologetic-ordered language intended to help in ministering to those struggling with the sins of same-sex attraction. The opponents to these overtures also noted that the TE in question also affirms his agreement with the biblical doctrine of new identity in Christ. The same arguments are being raised against passage of O15: such men are not identifying as homosexuals; instead they are identifying with those struggling with same-sex attraction.
Inside and Outside Definitions
I agree that the exemplar TE’s description of himself in terms of a believer who struggles with homosexuality fits both the inside and outside the PCA. He is able to do so not because he uses the same description inside that he does outside. Instead, he is able to do so because he uses the post-modern technique of equivocation. In the most egregious examples, this brother uses the same language inside and outside, qualifying his usage with descriptions fitted to each context’s own meaning of identity. This is equivocation. Using this technique, this brother can use self-descriptive language as a same-sex attracted pastor, in two diametrically opposed contexts, and affirm that he is consistent with the doctrine of both.
The Equivocation Trap
To push this a bit more, consider the self-description this brother offers in both contexts. His inside self-description as a homosexual pastor is more or less consistent with the Bible (as summarized in the Westminster Standards). The brother maintains he is merely “identifying” himself with besetting sins that he nevertheless biblically describes and seeks to biblically deal with.
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