Every Sunday, the deacons bring our tithes and offerings forward and set them here on this table. It’s worth pointing this out because it’s not just a nice thing we do. When we bring your tithes and offerings forward, we are doing it as an act of worship, an act of allegiance, an act of praise to Jesus our King. But when we give our tithes and offerings to the Lord, we are of course only giving back to Him some of what He gave us. Many of you practice learning to tithe with your children, giving them money for jobs around the house, and then teaching them to count out their tithe and bring it to church and put it in the box at the back before the service. But really, all of us are always doing that. Jesus gives us little jobs to do and blesses us and teaches us to remember that it’s all from Him. It all belongs to Him. And so we put our tithes and offerings in the box too. But of course when we give, we are imitating Him too just as our children are imitating us. God is our Father and as His dearly beloved children, we imitate Him by giving. God gives us everything: life, health, children, joy, food, possessions, money, houses, clothing, cars, salvation. Continue Reading…
Archives For Theology – Sacraments
The Heidelberg Catechism famously begins: What is your only comfort in life and in death? That I am not my own but belong body and soul, in life and in death, to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ…
Joseph and Sarah, I know that this question and answer are dear to you. And I know that you intend to teach it to your children. The wonderful thing about this catechism question is that it places our hope completely outside of us. Our comfort in every situation stretching from the very beginning of life at conception all the way to our last breath – our comfort is that we don’t belong to ourselves. We are not our own. We have been purchased by the precious blood of Jesus. We are watched over by God our Father, and we are carried along by His Holy Spirit. We have been freed from ourselves, from our sins, from our failures, from the dominion of the devil – and now we belong to the Triune God: Father, Son, and Spirit.
Of course it’s easier to say than to do. Believing this wonderful gospel has daily implications. It means that our time doesn’t belong to us. It belongs to Jesus. Our houses are not ours. Our money is not ours. Our family is not ours. We are not our own but belong body and soul, in life and in death, to our faithful Savior Jesus Christ. Continue Reading…
Introduction
The Gospel that we looked at last week implies a certain view of God and therefore of man made in His image. The good news that Jesus died for our sins and was raised again for our salvation is only the tip of the iceberg.
The most famous Bible verse: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (Jn. 3:16)
Notice two things: God has an “only begotten son.” This implies that there is already community/family in God Himself. Second, notice that God loves. In 1 John, it says that God is love. Furthermore, here, John says that God’s love extends to the world. Last week we established the fact that ever since the first sin of Adam, man has been ungodly, sinners, and enemies of God. This has brought death and destruction and confusion and pain into the world. Again, John says that because of God’s great love for the world, He gave His only Son (cf. Rom. 5:8). And we know that this love is an overflow of the love God the Father has for His Son (Jn. 3:35, 5:20, 10:17, 17:24).
Finally, we have the final marching orders of Jesus after His resurrection: “Go therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you…” (Mt. 28:19-20)
Putting all of this together, we should make several points: First, here we have what Christians call the doctrine of the Trinity. This is a word that the Church coined early on to describe the One, True God as a “Tri-Unity” – God is three persons that exist eternally as only one God. We do not worship three gods. Nor are we Unitarian. Much could be said on this, but we’ll keep our comments short: 1. There is only one God because this is how God revealed Himself to Israel (Dt. 6:4). 2. This one God exists in three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Spirit. The Father is God. The Son is God. The Spirit is God. Three persons in One God. 3. The Trinity is how love and community are inherent in the nature of God. God is Himself a community of persons that share eternal love with one another. 4. Man was created to share in this Triune community of love. But we rebelled and rejected God’s love and built our own cities and kingdoms in anger and bitterness and bloodshed. But God in His mercy came and sought us by His own Son who suffered in our place, rose up victorious over the curse of death, ascended to heaven and poured out His Spirit upon all who believe.
Continue Reading…
Our sermon text is about a new Exodus that God promises through Isaiah, an Exodus out of exile into freedom, into glory. In the gospels, the turning point in Jesus’ ministry, when He turns His face toward Jerusalem, is the transfiguration, when Moses and Elijah appear with Jesus, and He shines with the glory of His coming victory. And Luke’s gospel says explicitly that what they talked about was the Exodus that He was about to perform in Jerusalem (Lk. 9:31). In other words, the great Exodus that Isaiah foretold began when the exiles returned under Cyrus, but that only prefigured the Great Exodus of Jesus. And like the first Exodus, Jesus began with a meal, shared with His disciples, and He told them to keep celebrating it until He comes again in glory. Isaiah commands a number of things for keeping the Passover Feast which we should keep in mind: Wake up, get dressed, be on the look out, rejoice, get ready to leave, and the sign of their departure will be God’s servant, a new Moses, who will be greatly exalted, but He will be surprising because His appearance will be marred. Week after week, we come to this same table, to celebrate this same Exodus, and so the commands are still for us: Continue Reading…
“Therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and joy; and sorrow and mourning shall flee away.” (Is. 51:11)
One of my earliest memories in church as a child is singing a song based almost word for word on this verse. John Frame, one of the greatest theologians of our time, was our Music Minister at my family’s church in California, and I specifically remember him stopping us in the middle of singing this song one time, in order to teach us to properly clap on beat to the song. I thought about trying to teach it to you this morning, but maybe another time.
Every week, we celebrate our return from the exile of sin and death. Every week we come with singing unto Zion with an everlasting joy upon our heads. This world is still full of sorrow and mourning, but we gather here because Jesus has come back from the dead. Jesus has taken away our sins. And now even sickness and failure and shame and death cannot and will not have the last word. And because Jesus drank the cup of God’s wrath and gave His body broken on a tree, we have this bread that will never fail and this cup of everlasting joy. And as we share it together, we lift it up to God and remind Him of His promises to us in Jesus to put all things right, and we remind one another that sorrow and mourning will not have the last word. They shall flee away. So come and rejoice.
Today around this country, many Christians are remembering the Roe vs. Wade decision from 40 years ago which left some of the weakest, most vulnerable members of our society undefended, unprotected. And millions of lives have been taken as a result. We stand with our brothers and sisters protesting this monstrosity, this barbarian holocaust. And we plead with Jesus to hear their cries, to forgive us, and to turn us from this great evil.
At the same time, I want to call us this morning to be more consistently pro-life. We are pro-life, but we have to recognize that there is more to being pro-life than merely protecting the life of the unborn. It certainly includes that, but there is more than that. And I want us to consider two areas in particular. First, we want to continue to grow up into a community that shelters and protects women, particularly those coming from abusive relationships, in crisis pregnancies, those most tempted, most vulnerable to considering abortion. And we also want to offer forgiveness and cleansing and healing through Jesus to all women who have had abortions. And there are many. There are some in our churches, and there are many in our community. Continue Reading…
In our Old Testament reading this morning, we read the famous Shema of Israel, the Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. Here, God reminds Israel that they are to love God with all that they are, and that they are to teach that faith to their children by talking about it all the time and putting reminders of it everywhere: on the refrigerator, on the dashboard of the pickup, and at city hall.
One of the things we learn as we read the Bible and see what the world around us means is that God is our Father and we are His children, and that means He shows us how to do it. He created this world in order to constantly teach us about loving Him, and He decorated this world with constant reminders so that we would remember to love Him. The heavens declare the glory of God, the firmament sheweth His handiwork. Day unto day, uttereth speech, night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out into all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. His invisible attributes have been clearly seen by all, since the creation of the world. Creation can’t stop talking about God. For example, trees are constantly reminding us of people, of God’s people, of wicked people, of fruitfulness and life, and reminding us and pointing us to the cross of Jesus, our tree of life. Continue Reading…
In our sermon text today, we noted that the tabernacle and the priests were anointed with oil for their dedication. In the New Testament, all Christians are ordained to the new priesthood through the water of baptism and the anointing of the Holy Spirit. But in James 5 it says that if anyone is sick, he should call for the elders of the church to come pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord (Js. 5:14-15). The elders of Trinity take this seriously, and this is why from time to time we gather with individuals and families and anoint them with oil and lay hands on them and pray for their healing. One of the things that we regularly say when we perform this is to remind the individual or family that this anointing should remind them and is a prayer to God to remember their baptism, to remember His promises to them in Jesus. It’s a way to enact prayer before God with actions, we are asking the Holy Spirit to heal, to empower, to transform a difficult trial, a sickness into an occasion for great glory. We want Jesus to shine out in power, just like the oil makes your face shine. Continue Reading…
With the Reformers, we confess that Jesus comes to us in the Word and in the Sacraments. The gospel is proclaimed and read, the gospel is poured and sprinkled (or you might get dunked in it), and now we come to eat and drink the gospel.
In the providence of God this means that we basically have a trinity of expressions of Jesus. Jesus comes in the word, Jesus comes in the water, and Jesus comes at the table. Just as in God, the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit each point to the other, giving glory to one another, so too, in the Word and Sacraments. The Word proclaimed points to the water, you were washed in and the bread you eat, and the wine you drink and the people eating and drinking around you. The Water points to the Word that proclaims the promises of forgiveness to you and to your children, and the table that proclaims the death of Christ until He comes.
And likewise, this table points you back to Jesus in His Word and Jesus in the Water. This table reminds you of what God has already spoken to you: you are justified, you are righteous in Jesus, and this table reminds you of what God has already spoken over you: His own name has been placed on you. You’re part of His family, and so look around you: these are your people. You belong here at this family table because you belong to Jesus. Continue Reading…
We have said that this table is to be a model for our tables, but it might occur to some of you that this table is different. For example, we say that this table is for all those who have been baptized and are walking with Jesus, not just anybody. At times, the elders have barred people from this table for refusing to repent of sin, and we pray for those individuals regularly, pleading with God to soften their hearts that they would come back and join us at this table again. That would seem to be different than our home tables. You probably don’t have a list of people who have been excommunicated from your home tables! But while it’s correct to point out that our tables are not synonymous in this regard, they are still analogous.
For one thing, there is an open invitation to this table. If you aren’t baptized, we warmly invite you to trust in Jesus and be baptized and join us. On the flip side, as we give particular energy and emphasis to our calling to be ministering to our neighbors and friends through hospitality, through meals together, following the example of Jesus, we are not just inviting neighbors and friends to eat with us. We are inviting them to Jesus. We are inviting them to be baptized, to repent and believe, and follow Christ. Continue Reading…
