Saying we want to enjoy today is great in theory, but it’s difficult when we see the struggles that ‘today’ brings. That’s when our eyes begin looking toward another day. Continually, we must recognize that even the struggles of today are being used by God to sanctify us and purify our faith through the fiery trials (1 Peter 4:12–13). In his sovereignty, God has placed you in your current circumstances for a reason. While it’s possible tomorrow could be better, today is the day that the Lord has made . . . so let us rejoice!

My two-year-old son ran up to me, dripping wet, and said: “Daddy, this is fun!”
Last summer, we spent a week visiting different attractions in the Dallas area. My kids were enjoying the splash pad at Legoland as I watched from a nearby table trying not to melt in the scorching Texas heat. Exhausted from the battles of getting four kids dressed, traveling, and applying mother-approved amounts of sunscreen, I watched them run around wildly and thought: “One day I’m going to miss this.”
One day, I’m going to miss the wild antics of my young children. I’m going to miss my kids thinking daddy is the coolest, or the random things that come out of their mouths. As much as I grumble about the high decibel levels that has become normal at our house, one day I’ll sit in a quiet house and actually miss the noise. One day, I’ll look back and miss these young years.
Ironically, I often find myself wanting to get past these young years. I get frustrated when they are so dependent on me for the most basic functions of life. I can lose patience when my kids won’t stop asking questions when all I want is peace and quiet. I am short-tempered when they fight over a toy (especially one nobody wanted until one kid grabbed it). In these frustrating moments, I find myself wishing they were just a little older and more mature—then life would be perfect.
But, as many of you know, that perfect day never comes. With each phase of life, new challenges and issues arise. That ‘perfect’ time seems just over the horizon. But when we get there, it eludes us. As the proverbial donkey continues to chase the dangling carrot, so we continue to long for that which is out of our reach. There’s nothing wrong with looking forward to what tomorrow might bring; but we must be careful that while we are looking forward to tomorrow, we don’t miss out on today.
For you, it may not be the young years of your children, but perhaps you tend to wish away your high school, college, or single years. Maybe you’re looking forward to marriage or having children. Or, perhaps, you long for a new job or retirement. There are many seasons of life where this might be a temptation. What season of life are you tempted to wish away?
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God is always and ever prior to us. He was here before us, and before there even such a thing as “before”. The drama of the Gospel begins in his movement of grace toward us. Even the Law, read to us in the Sentences, is a gift of grace arising from the profound priority of God (cf. Jn 1:16). Our arrival to worship–whether at home on a weekday, or at church on a Sunday morning–only occurs because God first moved and called us.

Recently here at Ad Fontes, Sam Bray wrote an excellent two-parter on the logic and dynamics of the opening sentences of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer (which Sam recently co-edited in a gorgeous new International Edition, which everyone should buy and use).
The 1662 BCP begins Morning Prayer with sin and confession, offering eleven short Scripture passages–known as “The Sentences”–to be chosen from and read to begin the service (whether in private or public use, Morning Prayer being something for every day). Rather than a call to worship, the service begins with an announcement of our sinfulness and need for forgiveness (which is then followed by a call to worship, in both Morning and Evening Prayer). But the 1662 BCP makes a point of placing the Sentences first. Why? Sam explains:
Over and over the Scriptures teach that human beings cannot just waltz into the divine presence. God is holy, but we are not. Among the many implications of that truth is one about worship. Before the priests could offer sacrifices, they had to be cleansed in the laver (Exodus 40). Before Isaiah could receive the divine commission, he had to be cleansed with the burning coal (Isaiah 6). Before Jesus’ disciples could eat the Passover with him, he washed their feet (John 13). This is the logic of starting with sin and forgiveness at the beginning of Morning and Evening Prayer.
This is, of course, bang on the money in many ways. We cannot just waltz into God’s presence, even as Christians. In our day and age–which minimizes guilt and sin, and teaches us that all of life can be tailored to our preferences with a few taps of the screen–it’s not hard to see that the seriousness of the Sentences is a necessary tonic. The logic of the Sentences is not aping that of Roman Catholic confession, as if we need to be cleansed of accrued venial sins. We certainly should repent of recent or ongoing sins as we come to worship (as part of our progressive sanctification), but not as if they’ve built up to the endangerment of our souls. Rather, the logic of the Sentences is more of a replay of how our sins were once and for all washed away in salvation (as part of our initial sanctification). Such a practice honours the way the verb “to sanctify” is used in both past and present tenses in Hebrew 10:10-14 (see the ESV).
And yet, I felt the need to offer a brief, good-hearted rejoinder to Sam (which I am aware equates to a brief rejoinder to the whole of the 1662 BCP–something I am distinctly unqualified for. Maybe I should have paid more attention to John Ahern’s recent piece on the site about being reluctant to speak).
In short: I don’t think you should start worship with repentance.
Well, not quite. That’s the hard form of the argument. To soften and elaborate: I think there are good reasons not to start worship with repentance and that, in our current context, these reasons edge out the benefits of the 1662 approach.
Let me lay out my chief theological reason first, followed more briefly by a contextual one.
Everything Starts With God
As we’ve touched on: worship services reenact, in myriad ways, things which have already happened. They are not self-contained, entirely occasional events, concerned only with what has happened since we last worshiped. The 1662 service, via the Sentences, replays the drama of the Gospel. By beginning this way, it begins where we all begin within our mother’s wombs: in sin (Ps. 51:5), by nature objects of wrath (Eph. 2:3). As far as any of us are concerned, life does rightly begin in the Sentences (and for this reason, I think they are a laudable and valid way to start a service).
Yet, ultimately, this is to begin in media res. And that’s fine–many great stories do. But the story of the universe does not begin in sin, but with God. He is the Alpha and the Omega. In fact, before the story even began… God was, and he was Good. He is eternal, simple, a se–all the big doctrine-of-God-things.
God is always and ever prior to us. He was here before us, and before there even such a thing as “before”. The drama of the Gospel begins in his movement of grace toward us. Even the Law, read to us in the Sentences, is a gift of grace arising from the profound priority of God (cf. Jn 1:16). Our arrival to worship–whether at home on a weekday, or at church on a Sunday morning–only occurs because God first moved and called us.
Beginning with the Sentences, whilst not contradicting any of this, seems to squeeze it out.
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Written by The Mary A. Rackham Institute |
Tuesday, June 6, 2023
“One of his therapists made a very good synopsis, describing someone’s brain before aphasia being a neatly categorized file box but after a stroke, everything gets thrown about and put back in,” Mariah said. “The retrieval part of words that Jeff is trying to communicate is being thwarted.” “It wasn’t until towards the end of his therapy there that we realized, other than miraculous intervention, Jeff would never be able to preach again. This was very hard to wrap our minds around,” shared Mariah.

Chapter 1
Jeff Windt enjoyed preaching and working with local families. The tools of his trade were words. For years, Jeff had been a pillar in his community. He was a leader at Second Presbyterian Church [PCA] in Greenville, South Carolina, where he served as the Assistant Minister of Youth and Families for four years. Leading youth groups and bringing people together had always been a passion of Jeff’s. He also has a family of his own, three young boys and a wife, Mariah.
Then, everything changed one night in June 2020. At 44 years old, Jeff had an acute ischemic stroke at home. Ischemic strokes are the most common type of stroke, accounting for nearly 90% of stroke incidents each year.
“I heard Jeff’s phone hit the bathroom floor with a smack,” said Mariah Windt, Jeff’s wife. “That was a bit alarming because it was a brand new phone he had purchased the day before.”
Mariah said Jeff had come home from work that evening and complained of having a headache, but that he seemed normal — for him. She asked him what had happened with the phone, repeating the question when he didn’t respond. He just shook his head and said ‘I don’t know,’” she recalled. “It was a little odd but I didn’t dwell on it.”

A Night They’ll Never Forget, Even Though They Wish They Could
The family sat down and ate dinner together. During dinner, Jeff seemed to be acting normal. After dinner, while cleaning up, Mariah noticed Jeff pacing about the house. This again seemed odd to Mariah. It was at this point that she started keeping more of an eye on his behavior.
“I was trying not to overreact about the strangeness of his behavior but at the same time I just felt that something was wrong,” she said.
It was then that a friend called Jeff on the phone.
“They were on speaker phone, and I couldn’t really hear the conversation but I did notice that the other person was talking, but Jeff wasn’t really responding back,” she said. “The other person hung up, and when Jeff held his phone to hang up he dropped it in his lap and was having a hard time picking it back up. It was then I knew something was terribly wrong.”
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