In order to correct some of the disorders that had crept into the worship of the saints at Corinth, the apostle tells them to deal with their hunger at home. Apparently, the love feast that accompanied the Eucharist in the first century was being used as an occasion to fill the belly, at the expense …
In Pleasant Places
Father in heaven, You are a gracious God, and You have poured out blessing after blessing upon our heads. You have established the lines for us in pleasant places. We have opened our mouths, and You have filled them. We have turned to You, and You have bestowed Your covenant kindness upon us. We thank …
Fullness and Overflow
Who are you? What are you doing here? How did it come about that you are now here? The instruments used by God are many, but the fundamental answer is that you are here at worship because you have been called, summoned. God wants you to hear His Word. He requires you to worship Him, …
Lockstep or Likemindedness?
We are told to tarry for one another. This is why we take and eat together, and why we take and drink together. The point of this is not communion in lockstep, but rather communion in likemindedness. We are told in various places of Scripture that likemindedness is one of our great duties – we …
The Potency of Right Worship
INTRODUCTION: Many of the problems confronting modern Christians is that they diligently try to do the right thing . . . 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 attention …
Faithfulness Is Full of Faith
If we do not think about what we are doing here, and if we do not think about it in faith, then we are just so many donkeys gathered in a stable. The New Testament teaches plainly that a Christian gathering, in the name of the Lord Jesus, on the Lord’s Day, can do more …
Look Away
If we refuse to judge ourselves, the Word tells us, then God will undertake the task. But St. Paul adds that God does this so that we will not be condemned with the world. Judgment begins, Scripture tells us, with the household of God. Chastening begins with us so that it might not be the …
Preparation for the Word
We are gathered here this morning so that God might govern us, and so that the Lord Jesus Christ might demonstrate His rule among us. There are many ways that this is shown in the service of worship, but one of the central ones is seen in the way we listen to the Word of …
True Self-Awareness
If we would judge ourselves, St. Paul tells us, we would not be judged. When we look away from ourselves, to the mirror of God’s Word, and to the image of God imprinted on our brothers and sisters around us, we are brought to a true knowledge of ourselves. We cannot come to a true …
Day of Deliverance
Our Lord and God, we call upon Your name in celebration, as we recall how You bared Your right arm on behalf of our fathers. We are children of liberty because of their gifts to us, and we pray that we would be faithful to the inheritance they have left for us. This is Reformation …