Though we are justified by God and are continually being sanctified, we remain sinners who transgress his law each and every day. We continue to feel the shame and guilt of our many sins. The Lord’s Day offers us the opportunity to confess these sins and to be assured of God’s kind and complete forgiveness. Though no man has the right or responsibility to forgive sins, it is the joy of the pastor to lead the church in confessing sins and in assuring those who have repented that they are forgiven.

The longer I live—the longer I live out this life as a Christian—the more I see my desperate need of the Lord’s Day. Though it once seemed like the kind of day I could take or leave, I’ve since come to rely on it and to see God’s goodness in giving it. It’s a day we ignore at our peril. As I stood to worship on Sunday, I found myself considering just some of what the Lord’s Day is…
The Lord’s Day is water for the parched runner. This life is a race, and one that leaves us weary and dry as we constantly “lay aside every weight” and “run with endurance” the long race set before us (Hebrews 12:1). Like the stations along the marathon route provide water that will hydrate the body until the next interval, the Lord’s Day offers us spiritual refreshment to keep us going not for the whole race, but at least for the next week.
It is a meal for the hungry pilgrim. As Christians we are pilgrims, people moving purposefully through this life toward the heavenly city that awaits us. Like a kind citizen may provide a meal to the needy pilgrim, the Lord’s Day is God’s kind provision for our spiritual sustenance. It provides what we need and what we cannot generate from within ourselves.
It is a rest for the weary worker. God created us to work upon this earth. But as sin entered the world, so did weariness and frustration, for “the creation was subjected to futility” (Romans 8:20). The Lord’s Day provides a period of rest from our day-to-day labors in which we trust that just as God in Christ has provided for our every spiritual need, he will also provide for our every physical need.
It is a celebration to the sorrowful. Life in a world like this is attended with many sorrows.
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Written by Aaron M. Renn |
Friday, August 12, 2022
Churches in cities are exposed to cultural change early. For this reason, they often pioneer ways of responding to these changes. Even if urban churches fail to reach the culture (or capitulate in inappropriate ways) they can show the broader church what not to do. It may be easy to cast stones at urban church leaders from the comfort of a red-state suburb or small town. But it would be wiser to pay attention to the pressures they’re operating under, because those same forces will soon be everywhere.

Cities are important for the church’s mission because, increasingly, that’s where the people are. Until very recently, humanity lived almost exclusively in villages or rural environments. As recently as 1910, only 10 percent of the world’s population lived in cities. Today it’s over 50 percent urban, and that number may rise to 75 percent by midcentury. Paul Romer describes this radical change as human beings going from living in packs like wolves to living more like ants or termites.
The shift is primarily happening in the developing world. Africa is now urbanizing faster than any other continent. According to the UN, half of global population growth by 2050, about 1.2 billion people, will be in Africa. By 2050, 21 percent of the world’s population will live in African cities. China and India have also been urbanizing. Over 1 billion people around the world now live in urban slums, more than the combined population of the United States and Europe. As missiologist Ray Bakke said, “It’s no longer a grass thatch roof from a jungle. [Cities are] the new mission field of the future on all six continents.” 
The Great Commission pushes us to reach every people group and location on the planet, but the sheer weight of demographics argues for a more urban mission field today. For every 100 million new urban residents, we need to launch 10,000 new urban churches just to hit a ratio of one church for every 10,000 people. This means we’ll need to start tens of thousands of new urban churches in the coming decades.
But What About America?
Urbanization looks different when we’re studying the United States. If you follow the Census Bureau’s classification, our country has long been filled with city dwellers—reaching 50 percent urban in 1920 and sitting at around 80 percent urban today. But the “80 percent urban” figure is misleading as the bureau says that any place with 2,500 or more residents is urban. Someone living in John Mellencamp’s “small town” home of Seymour, Indiana, is now technically a city dweller.
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As we read Jesus’s interactions with the Pharisees, we get the sense that the Psalm 81 rebuke would still apply: “Oh, that they would but listen to me!” May we not be the same. May we read our Bible and listen to God’s word. But more that merely that, according to what we see in the center of the center of the psalms, may we listen by preferring God’s ways and counsel over our own ways and counsels.

Overall Israel disobeyed the Lord. They turned from his ways to their own.
We can say more, though. For mere disobedience sounds too external. It can imply their primary issue was their actions. It can imply the root issue was what they did or didn’t do with their hands, without much concern for their hearts, or heads—or ears.
What Is the Center of the Psalms?
As I’m reading and praying through the Psalms in my Bible reading, I’m reading through W. Robert Godfrey’s Learning to Love the Psalms. On the chapter for Psalm 81, Godfrey begins unlike he does for any other chapter so far. He writes, “Psalm 81 is a remarkable and important psalm in the Psalter” (142).
He says this for a handful of reasons. But primarily, it’s because of something I’ve never heard before. Godfrey writes, “In a sense, [Psalm 81] is the central psalm in the book of Psalms” (143).
Godfrey clarifies Psalm 81 of course isn’t central in terms of chapters (since there’s 150 psalms). Nor is Psalm 81 central in word count. Rather, Psalm 81 is central as “it is the central psalm in the central book of the Psalter” (143). There are five “Books” in the Psalms—divisions that are in the original text—and Psalm 81 is the middle psalm in the middle Book.
And thinking more about this, it seems that if anything, this is most likely what the Israelites saw as the center of their song book. With these five inspired “Books,” we can imagine that if an Israelite were asked, “What is the central psalm?” They probably wouldn’t answer “Psalm 75,” like we would with our focus on the 150. Instead, answering “Psalm 81,” since it is the psalm in the middle of Book Three would perhaps fit better.
The Center of the Center
Anyway, that’s Godfrey’s argument for why Psalm 81 is the central psalm in the Psalms.
What’s more interesting, however, is what the center of Psalm 81 itself is. If Psalm 81 is the center of the Psalms, what’s the center of the center? Godfrey writes,
“At the center of Psalm 81 are these words: ‘O Israel, if you would but listen to me!’ (v. 8b). For all the mysteries of God’s providence with Israel, here is the central truth: Israel was suffering a crisis of exile because she had not listened to her God” (143).
Fascinating, right? The central issue wasn’t merely or mainly disobedience or idolatry. Those were symptoms, results. What was the root? Not listening. Deciding to disregard God’s words. From there, everything fell apart.
The Diagnosis: Not Me, But Their Own Counsels
But in God’s word this root is even deeper still than just saying they didn’t listen—and it’s deeper for us. We can hear that Israel didn’t listen and imagine that they had closed off ears. But no one does. Instead, as God tells Israel, when we don’t listen to God, it’s because we’re listening somewhere else.
Notice how God talks in Psalm 81 when he diagnoses this central problem. Hear God’s specific judgment on their non-listening. I’ll italicize the ending of each line to get the point across.
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