We will come at the conclusion of this service to the Lord’s Supper. Too often this Table has been made the occasion for disputes, but this has happened because one aspect of the Table has been neglected. We need to learn to think of this Table as a central arbiter of all disputes. Too often …
Jazz Played Well
When the gospel breaks out, it always brings joy and gladness in its train. Sinful and tidy-minded men do not like the kind of disorder the gospel brings, and so they bustle around trying to pick up after it. After a time, God grants their request and sends leanness to their souls, and their museum …
Fathers Leading In Worship
Fathers, the word of exhortation is directed at you this morning. You have gathered your families, and you have brought them here to worship in the presence of the Lord. The exhortation here is that it is not enough to do this physically. The apostle Paul told the Thessalonians that he had behaved toward them …
Always Bright and Shiny
We wrestle not against flesh and blood, St. Paul tells us, but rather against principalities and powers. These principalities have an embodiment and manifestation in the worldly power structures that surround us, and it is therefore a central responsibility of ours to assemble in worship of the triune God. This is because worship of Almighty …
Neither Dead Works Nor Dead Faith
Faith is a gift of God, lest any man should boast. With and in this faith, all of life is sacramental, and the two sacraments proper are clear and unobstructed meetings with God in Christ. But without faith, everything becomes blurry, and religion is reduced in principle to shamanism. The faith that God gives is …
An Odd Call to Worship
This may strike you as an odd call to worship, but you are being summoned to worship the God of heaven with understanding. This includes understanding how our worship affects the unbelieving world outside, and this particularly includes unbelieving women in our community taking off their tops. First, know that when God is worshiped rightly …
Marriage Slipping Away
Our nation recently passed two significant milestones. This last week, our population passed the 300 million mark. And also, just recently, the make-up of that population has been significantly changing. Five years ago, 52 percent of all households in America were married households. That number has now dropped below 50 percent. This means that those …
Little Exiles
God created us in order that we would get along with one another. When sin entered the world, our fellowship with God was disrupted, of course, but so was our fellowship with one another. Adam and Eve hid from God after their sin, but they were also estranged from one another, which can be seen …
Spiritual Morning Glory
The saying of the corporate amen is a great covenant privilege, and has the force of a binding oath. We never want to take it lightly, or invoke it to no purpose, or, worst of all, to mumble it. As we sing the psalms, we offer back to God what He gave us to sing …
Tender Mercies
There is no substitute for personal holiness, kindness, and humility. Nothing can be substituted in for it. Nothing adequately takes the place of it. There are many glorious truths in the Christian faith, but there is only one demeanor to adorn them all. The gospel is glorious, but what adorns it? Tender mercies. The covenant …