Truly Meeting with God on the Lord’s Day
We must know that God especially condescends to us as we gather with His people on His Day. If we truly believe that, we will be motivated to prioritize Lord’s Day worship in our lives. Who wouldn’t, like the Psalmist David, say, “One thing I ask from the LORD, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple…for a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere” (Ps. 27:4; 84:10).
Slowly but surely, I am learning that I am not an abnormality within the PCA. That comment has nothing to do with my quirkiness, and I would have friends who, at this point, would like to highlight all of my peculiarities. No, that comment has everything to do with my feelings as I moved away from my childhood Pentecostalism into Presbyterianism during my freshman year in college. For the longest time, especially as I began the PCA ordination process, I thought I was the only one with such a drastic denominational move. Many often asked, referring to my “spiritual faith journey,” how I left the Pentecostal church and became a confessional Presbyterian. I was asked this question so often that I admittedly got tired of answering the question. Nevertheless, as the denominational pendulum swung in my life, I tried denying anything and everything I had learned in my upbringing. It wasn’t until Dr. Doug Kelly, one of my predecessors here at First Presbyterian Church – Dillon, challenged me over lunch to not forget the suitable lessons that I had learned from my fellow believers in the Church of God (the Cleveland, TN flavor of pentecostalism).
As I began to wrestle with that appropriate challenge, I thought about everything I disagreed with – spiritual gifts, emotionalism, altar calls, eschatology, sanctification, etc. As my mind automatically started at the negatives, I quickly began thinking that there was nothing I should hold on to theologically. Yet, after a few days, I grabbed hold of a particular lesson that I believe is of utmost importance and one we would all do well to remember – on the Lord’s Day, as we gather together as God’s people, we are truly meeting with a living, powerful, and holy God.
Looking back, I thank God for my parents and their commitment to have me in the local church for morning and evening worship on the Lord’s Day.
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Five Reasons God Gave Us the Sacraments
The sacraments of the New Testament, in God’s appointment and our use, have three main ends and two further ends.
To Give a Clear Picture of the Covenant
The first end of the sacraments is to represent clearly the nature of the covenant and the things promised in it. These include the washing away of sin, Christ himself in his death and benefits, and the way we come to the application of all these, i.e., by faith, freely, putting on Jesus Christ for taking away guilt, and strengthening us to a holy walk.
In all these, the sacraments (that is, the signs, and word of institution added) fully and clearly hold forth — firstly to the ears, secondly to the eyes, and thirdly to our other senses of feeling, etc. —not only hold what is offered, but also our way of closing with and accepting of that offer. It’s as if God, who by preaching lets us hear Him speak (inviting us to be reconciled to Him) is in the sacraments letting us see Him tryst and close that bargain with us by His ambassadors.
In this respect, the sacrament may be called the symbol and token of the covenant, as in Genesis 17.
This way too, the sacraments have a teaching use. They bring to our remembrance Christ, and His sufferings and benefits, as well as our state, what it was without Him, and before our closing with Him.
All this is represented to us by the word and elements, with the actions concurring, as if it was being acted out before our eyes, so as to make the way of the gospel as clear as can be to the minds and memories of people like us, who either take up these spiritual things senselessly or sluggishly forget them. The Lord, who sometimes makes use of parables and figurative expressions, or similitudes, to set forth spiritual things, to make them resonate with us the more, has chosen this way to make use of external signs and actions for the same ends also.
To Seal and Confirm What God has Said
The second main end of the sacraments is to seal and confirm God’s mind and revealed will to us, and to put us out of question of the truth of His promises, so that we may have a further prop to our faith, and on this basis may draw all the stronger consolation from the promises of the covenant.
In this respect the sacraments are called “seals” (Rom. 4:11) of the righteousness by faith; that is, not the righteousness of Abraham’s faith, but of his obtaining righteousness by it, and not by works. They are seals of the covenant which offers and promises righteousness to those who believe. In the same way the tree of life [in the garden of Eden] was a confirmation to Adam of the promise of life. So was circumcision a seal and confirmation to Abraham of the promises of the gospel, as God’s oath was (Heb. 6:18).
This confirmation may be looked at three ways. It confirms (a) the proposition, (b) the minor premise, and (c) the conclusion of a practical syllogism, by which the believer concludes from the gospel that he shall be saved.
(a) The proposition (or major premise) is, Those who believe shall be saved. By the sacrament this is simply confirmed as a truth that one may lean on. The believer’s conscience in the faith of that subsumes, “I will then take me by faith to Christ.” “Seeing that is a sure truth, I will rest on Him and hold me there.” Or more clearly, “I do believe in him.”
(b) The minor premise of the syllogism, I have faith, is not confirmed simply by the seal, for the sacrament is to be externally applied by church officebearers who can say no more than that they charitably judge this or that person to have faith. Yet we may say that it is confirmed in the case of someone whose faith doubts, who may by this be encouraged to rest on Christ, and quiet himself on Him. -
Hope In a Hopeless World
Whatever storms of life might come our way, we are like steady ships with “a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf” (Heb 6:19–20). So, hope in Jesus Christ and His salvation. Steady yourself by placing your anchor with Him in heaven. Protect yourself from the enemy and wrath to come by wearing the helmet of salvation. Have hope in a hopeless world by trusting only in Him.
Something I read from 1988 reminded me of the hopelessness that many face today:
Present hurts and uncertainty over what the future holds create the constant need for hope. Worldwide poverty, hunger, disease, and human potential to generate terror and destruction create a longing for something better. Historically people have looked to the future with a mixture of longing and fear. Many have concluded that there is no reasonable basis for hope and therefore to hope is to live with an illusion.1
What is hope? And why are so many hopeless today? Maybe it’s because people are putting their hope in all the wrong things.
The Bible warns us against false hope.2
The Bible warns us against putting our hope in people (Jer 17:5–8; Mic 7:3–5; Ps 118:9; 143:3–7). Whether princes, great men, neighbors, friends, spouses, children, or parents—people can dash our hopes in them.
The Bible warns us against putting our hope in riches (Job 31:24–28; Ps 52:1–7; Prov 11:28). They will perish with us in the end (Job 1:21; Ecc 5:15; Luke 12:13–21; 1 Tim 6:7).
The Bible warns us against putting our hope in whatever saves our physical lives (Ps 33:10–11, 16–17; Isa 30:15–16; 31:1–3; Hos 10:13). Personal strength, an army to bid, our resources and greatest plans—none of these will deliver us from death and take us into heaven.
The Bible warns us against putting our hope in false gods (Ps 115:4–8; Hab 2:18–19). They are made and make nothing themselves. They give no profit to those who worship them but bring woe from God instead.
If our hope is in any of these things, we have “hope in this life only” and “are of all people most to be pitied” (1 Cor 15:19). We will “grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Thess 4:13). We may even show that we are “separated from Christ… having no hope and without God in the world” (Eph 2:12). Our hope would thus be eternally deferred, and our heart forever sick (Prov 13:12). “Hope that is seen”—people, riches, resources, or gods made by men—“is not hope” (Rom 8:24).
True hope does exist. Let’s remind ourselves of that eternal hope today.
The Bible tells us what true hope really is.
There is only “the one hope” (Eph 4:4) which comes from “the God of hope” (Rom 15:13), which is in “Christ Jesus our hope” (1 Tim 1:1). More specifically, it is “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col 1:27). Here’s the story of that hope.
First, there was once a day when hope was unknown and unnecessary to man on earth. God created all things, man included, and walked and talked with him (cf. Gen 3:8). Everything was perfect. Faith was sight and hope unknown, and man knew only love (cf. 1 Thess 1:3; 5:8; 1 Cor 13:13; Gal 5:5–6; Heb 6:10–12; 1 Pet 1:21–22).
But then, man sinned, and the human race sinned in him (Rom 5:12).
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What’s in a Name?
Leon Kass comments, “The change of Abram’s name, offered in conjunction with God’s abundant promise, is in fact deeply significant. ‘Abraham’s very identity is now inextricable from God’s promise of abundant offspring. His being depends on God’s speech. If God breaks his promise, Abraham ceases to be Abraham.’”1 Abraham cannot be Abraham unless God is faithful. It all depends on the promise.
Ninety-nine years is a long time to wait for a new name. Most men make a name for themselves well before. Through their work, they conquer their field and make their contribution. Through their family, they establish their progeny and expand their influence.
But for Abram, it was a different story. We meet him in Genesis 12, where God calls him to go to a land he will show him (Genesis 12:1). He was a foreigner in a strange land, unknown by the world, childless, landless. In a world that depended so much on one’s family line, he was as nameless as they come.
The irony is the name Abram carried meant “Exalted Father.” Would he ever live into his name? That question constantly nagged. In his seventy-fifth year he heard a word from God and followed him into a new land, chasing promises from a God previously unknown but one whom he deemed trustworthy, Abram put all his chips on God’s square. What had become of the gamble? So far nothing.
But the promised remained. Not only did it remain, but it was also constantly reinforced. God kept coming to Abram, bolstering his word with covenants and signs and everything else.
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