Introduction: When we sing the psalms back to God, one of the things we are learning how to do is how to address Him as He would like to be addressed. Instead of cooking up our own idea of pious noises and a liturgical shuffling around, our own ex tempore musical, we can read the …
Enjoying His Pleasure
As we come to this Table, it is natural for us to think about what we are doing. We want to understand the meaning of the sacrament, we want to reflect on it as we come, we want to have departed from all known sin, and we want to look around so that we might …
Psalm 97/The Potency of Right Worship
Introduction: Many of the problems confronting modern Christians is that they diligently try to do the right thing . . . but in the wrong categories. They try guitar fingering on a mandolin; they try chess rules on a backgammon board; they apply the rules of French grammar to English. And for us to draw …
Psalm 96/Our God Reigns
Introduction: God is worthy of all praise and honor. We know this through special revelation—as we see here in Psalm 96—and we also learn the same thing from the created order itself. God is speaking both places because God is silent nowhere. The creation is an essential part of the choir. The oceans are singing …
Maybe the Other Person Is Not the Difficult One
Meals together are to be a time of harmony. We are all of us companions here. The Latin word for companion comes from two words meaning “one who shares bread together with you.” As companions, we should want to be companions on more than just one level. We are growing together, being knit together as …
Learning Our Lines
You have been exhorted as a people numerous times to remember who you are in the story you are in. You have been asked to think about what kind of character you are. If the day you are having were a movie, what character would you be? And would it be a sympathetic character or …
Psalm 95/Let Us Kneel and Bow Down
Introduction: Throughout the New Testament, we are given cautions and warnings. We are told repeatedly that we are to take our covenant lessons from what happened to our older brothers, the Jews. The things written down in Scripture were written for our edification, as examples to us, which means that we need to learn to …
Never Use the Biggest Spoon
“Preach simply . . . To preach truths and notions above the hearers’ capacity, is like a nurse that should go to feed a child with a spoon too big to go into its mouth” (William Gurnall, The Christian in Complete Armour, pp. 64-65).
A Cracked Bell Cannot Peal
“Keep a clear conscience; he cannot be a bold reprover, that is not a conscientious liver; such a one must speak softly, for fear of waking his own guilty conscience. Unholiness in the preacher’s life, either will stop his mouth from reproving, or the people’s ears from receiving” (William Gurnall, The Christian in Complete Armour, …
The Pulpit is Not Supposed to be a Safe Space
“How oft hath the coward been killed in a ditch, or under some hedge, when the valiant soldier that stood his ground and kept his place, got off with safety and houours?” (William Gurnall, The Christian in Complete Armour, p. 63).