Ephesians 1; Psalm 103
Psalm 103 of David, bless the Lord, oh my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagles. The Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed. He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel.
The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love towards those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame, he remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass. He flourishes like a flower of the field for the wind passes over it and it is gone and its place knows it no more. But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him and his righteousness to children’s children, to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments.
The Lord has established his throne in the heavens and his kingdom rules over all. Bless the Lord, all you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word, obeying the voice of his word. Bless the Lord, all his host, his ministers who do his will. Bless the Lord, all his works in all places of his dominion. Bless the Lord, oh my soul.
And now Ephesians chapter one, verses three through 14. So in our morning studies in first Corinthians, Paul is over the water at Ephesus, hearing about Corinth and writing back to them. Ephesians one, beginning at three, blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.
In love, he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us all in wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In Him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, so that we who are the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of His glory. In Him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory.
And now 1 John chapter one, verses one through four. 1 John one, beginning at one says that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life. The life was made manifest and we have seen it and testify to it, which was with the father and was made manifest to us. That which we have seen and heard, we also proclaim to you so that you too may have fellowship with us. And indeed our fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. Amen. This is God’s word.
This past two months or so, OnStar, the General Motors thing, you know, that you pay a bunch of money for and it gives you maps and phone and all the rest. I don’t have that in my car. It’s capable. And so they gave it to me for two months for free. And so I soaked up XM radio. It was nice not to have static, and you drive around and the radio signal stays nice. And so I would listen to things that I wanted to hear intentionally, because there’s 900 channels and it’s all wonderful. And you can scratch any itch. If you’re feeling like rock and roll, there it is. Bluegrass, there it is. The news, it’s right there.
Well, one day I get in my car and it’s back to the poor man’s radio. Well, at least it wasn’t AM, it was FM. So if I wanna listen to some news, I sadly have to listen to the station from Chapel Hill, if you know what I mean. And so this week I was riding to work in the morning and there was a Studio 1A discussion on NPR. And the talk went something like this.
The church needs to change. Well, that caught my ear. The church needs to change. In fact, the present creeds of the church, and if I’m not mistaken, it was speaking of the apostles’ creed, the current creeds of the church are very militant. I thought, wow. And it said, it’s to the exclusion of other people. And I thought, boy. And they went on and on about how if the church was going to be the church, they were going to have to make some significant changes.
But the problem they said you run into is the people that hold dear the Christian creeds and tenets of the faith that Jesus once and for all gave to the apostles and they once and for all handed them down to the saints. Now they didn’t say it like that at all because that would be biblical. But they pretty much said there are a bunch of right wing nut jobs in the church and come hell or high water, they’re not going to let you change their creed. And so they said the problem was people in the church holding on to their confession, their creed.
Now, of course, my brain is saying absolutely. My brain is saying, and no, we’re not militant about it. We’re just faithful to it. Where I ended up thinking by the time I got over here to Saddle Club Road and dodged all the paving trucks and found my way into the parking lot, what I decided was this.
If you don’t like church, guess what? You don’t have to go. You can go to yo-yo and you can make up your own rules. If you don’t like church, you can stay home and make up your own rules. You can even write a creed if you want to and say it. And you can be as anti-God as you want and you can be as pro friendly to everybody that you want to be, but the church needs to remain the church because Jesus is the king of the church. He is the head of the church. He is the Lord of the church, the prophet of the church. And what he says goes. Now that’s NPR speaking.
Uh, I remember back probably 15, 20 years ago, there was a big push in my early days of ministry from within the church for people to say, you know, we need to reconsider church and retool it. We’ve got these generations coming along and they don’t like historic Christianity. Well, again, my brain would go back to say, well, they don’t have to come. There’s plenty else they could do, but we don’t have to change what Jesus did to accommodate.
But that has been the pressure over the years. And so there’ve been all these movements in the church to unchurch the church so that the unchurched would come to church. And remember the old slogan, what you win them with, you have won them too. And then you have to do the bait and switch and say, now, what we really want to give you is Jesus or worship or whatever.
And then they say, oh, I didn’t sign up for that. Well, lots to think about, but What are some of the basic things about life in the church? Well, we have them right here. What do you believe about the Holy Catholic Church? What do you understand by the communion of saints? And then what do you believe concerning the forgiveness of sins? These are pretty big deals to us. And so we’ll think through each of them.
But I wanna ask this question, how old is the church? Now, this one dates back to 1965. January 1st, 1965. We’re 66 years old. If I got that right. 61 years old. I don’t know. I can’t do math. That’s why I have this job. 60 years old. Well, plus one because it’s 26. Yeah. So we’re 61 years old. How old is the ARP? OK, 1782. That’s getting old. How old since the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s? Well, keep going back. How old is the church? Does the church go back to Pentecost?
Well, it depends on who you ask. Some would say yes. How about back to the garden of Eden when Adam was born? How about back to the garden when God made man and put him on the earth to glorify and enjoy him? to learn his commandments and his ways and to obey him and to spread that glory across the earth.
And most essentially, I think you should say of the church is it is the people of God. On through Old Testament history, you bump along and there’s a word for the church and it’s the assembly word. There’s a noun that the gathered people of God are the assembly, the congregation, But then there’s also the verb word, assemble together. When God would call the people together, he’d say to Moses or whoever, go to the people and tell them to take a bath, abstain from certain things, prepare their hearts, ready themselves, and tomorrow tell them to come to the foot of the mountain, assemble themselves, and there I will meet with them. And so throughout the Old Testament, the assembly of the people of God was the church. And then you come to the New Testament and you have the church word, ek, ekklesia, ek from out of, a prefix, and kaleo, the word call. So they are the called out ones. Think of Abraham being called out of Ur of the Chaldeans. We have been called out of sin and darkness. So the church are the called out ones.
And then you come to the, I don’t know, down the line through church history and Bible translations, you come, uh, the church word that we use church, uh, goes back to like the Scottish word for Kirk. And I think the German word care K and then you’ve got, uh, all these going backwards. And it basically goes back to the Greek word curious, which is the Lord. And so we are the Lord’s people. So you got the assembly word, the called out ones word, and the worst people word.
And so when we ask the question, what do we believe concerning the holy Catholic church? We are thinking through the universal church, Catholic being universal. We think of the scripture that says one Lord, one faith, one hope, one baptism. We think of the church as an organization We’re part of a denomination, there’s a head office, there’s a HR department, there’s worship and government and discipline and all the other things in our little book. It’s got organization to it, but the church is also, and maybe more importantly, a living thing, so it’s an organism. The church is an organism with organization, it is visible. We are the gathered church of God here on Saddle Club Road, but we are part of the larger visible church on earth.
Uh, when Obadiah was born to his parents, uh, he became part of the visible church by virtue of being their child. He’s part of the visible church. It does not mean that he is saved. It does not mean that he can come to the Lord’s table. It does not mean that, that he is growing in grace and being sanctified. But what it does mean is he is part of the visible church by virtue of the covenant of God. God promised to be a God to generations. And so his parents and faith bring him to church. They present him before the Lord and their trust. Our hope along with them is that he will hear the gospel and believe the gospel and one day profess faith. But until then, he has all the rights and privileges of the covenant family.
Think about Ishmael. Ishmael never came to faith. Ishmael never served the living God. God had purposes for Ishmael. He was circumcised. He grew up in Abraham’s household, his tent, his encampment. And he had all those blessings of living under the covenant of Yahweh. Of course, he went out on his own and he’s the father of other faiths, other peoples.
But the visible church, we say in our confession and creeds and catechisms, the visible church are believers and their children together who gather to worship God and who are governed in some way. And so we have our local churches, we have our regional churches, our national churches, and then we’re part of the big communion worldwide that’s visible on this earth. And so, What do we believe concerning the Holy Catholic Church? We believe that the son of God, through his spirit and word out of the entire human race, from the beginning of the world to its end, notice these three words, gathers, protects, and preserves for himself a community chosen for eternal life and united in true faith.
And then I love this statement, and of this community, I am and always will be a living member. And so our view of the church is that the eternal son of God, part of the Trinity’s eternal plan was to use the word and to use the spirit to gather, protect, and preserve his people.
Now, I know some of you, Have your daily routine where you get up, you make your coffee, maybe you read your Bible, and then you get out the pill box, right? You take your pills, you take your vitamins, you do the things that you need to do so that you can live and be happy and healthy according to doctor’s orders. And we’ll do those things.
Our cars. We know that there’s a little thing on the side that every once in a while needs about $40 to $60, depending on where we’re fighting wars. But it needs that nozzle stuck in it and something put in its tank so that it can go, go, go. And then a little more periodically, we know that the stuff that’s in the engine needs to be changed out. But we do that. If we don’t, we have no engine.
But in general, we take our pills, we take our vitamins, we get gas in our cars. We take our needed nourishment pills and vitamins, but what about church? It’s interesting that in my lifetime, I’ve seen a high level of commitment to church. I know I’m talking to you, the Sunday nighters, but I’ve seen a high level of church down to, well, we got a beach house. We got a place at the mountains. We got a place up at the lake. We’re chasing the grandkids. Oh, we got season tickets to the, whatever sports team.
And so we see less and less church attendance. And that means less and less people are going in for a fill-up. People less and less are getting their spiritual vitamins and minerals and nourishment. People less and less are coming to the place where God gathers, protects, and preserves a people for himself by his word and spirit.
By his word and spirit, meaning in in the corporate aspects of the church. God nourishes his people by the word read and preached. He nourishes his people by the discipleship ministries of the church. He nourishes his people by the sacraments and by prayer. And so how will God nourish his church? Fill up their tanks, fill up their pantries.
He will do that weekend by weekend, Sunday by Sunday in the market day of the soul. And so if we say, I believe God does it this way, we ought to vote with our feet. Now you all are the Sunday night crowd. And so the challenge here may be to encourage others to vote for their feet.
You know, we got 52 Sundays a year and we got 52 morning services. And in most cases, if somebody said, I’ll give you double for the same price, What would we do? I’d take the 104, right? Now, I know, again, I’m speaking to the Sunday night crowd and the choir and whatnot, but wouldn’t we take a double portion if it was offered to us in most other places? I mean, after all, we ride by the buffet and what do we say in our mind and heart? I’d like to go eat there. And why do we like to eat the buffet? Because we can go back for, more seconds, that’s right.
But God, by his word and spirit, preserves his church from the beginning of the world to its end. And he gathers, there’s the assembly word, he protects, there’s the kingly idea, and he preserves this community for eternal life. We understand the order of salvation, What do we say? Predestination and effectual calling and regeneration and faith, justification, adoption and sanctification. And then what is the P word? Perseverance of the saints or preservation of the saints.
And if we live life before God in faith, fearing him and eating at the buffet, taking the vitamins, stopping at the fuel tanker, changing the oil, all that business in the Christian life. It will not be easy, but it will be the way he will sustain you.
And so we as the church have this great privilege. We are the community of God united in faith. We have on our website, I think that’s where it is, our little motto, we are a welcoming family of reformed believers committed to the historic Christian faith and life. And so if NPR were to come in here and say, you know, you people need to change your beliefs, we’d say, we’re happy with the ancient Christian faith. And we believe that God, the Father, God, the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit of old have determined by the word and spirit that they will gather a people, preserve a people, and protect a people, and no thank you, go.
Join a yoga club, go do whatever it is you do, but don’t mess with our church. I love the little statement, and of this community, I am and I always will be a living member. If you stay in the word and you dwell on the promises of God, you nurture your faith and you strengthen your faith, you work out your salvation with fear and trembling, you will, no matter what goes on around you, have a strong sense of belonging to Jesus, and you will also learn that Jesus plays for keeps. He does not let go. His love is a steadfast love, and his faithfulness is a forever faithfulness.
Well, the next question asks, what do we understand by the communion of saints? I think we saw on display today, uh, yesterday, and I saw it all week long because I saw all the church mice coming in and doing little bitty things, you know, the 45 minutes or so you sat at a meal, um, that, that took, uh, That took a week of lots of doing.
It says, first, that believers, one and all, as members of Christ the Lord, have communion with him and share in all his treasures and gifts. So believers, one and all, as members, have communion with God, with Jesus. but we share in all his treasures and gifts. So God shares the riches of heaven. We read of that in Ephesians chapter one. So what’s an advantage to be in the communion?
Heaven comes down and rains its due and its blessings upon you. When you pray, your prayers are reaching up into the throne room. When you pray, it’s not to an unknown God or a wooden deity, you’re praying to the God of heaven and earth. And it’s a real prayer attached to a real God who can do real things. And so the treasures of God for the church, the treasures of God for you, the gifts of God are ours. And one of the best gifts we have is the church of Jesus Christ.
You know, I’m sure that you all have other associations in this life, and I’m sure you’re very proud to be connected to those other associations, but this is the best one that you have. This is the best one you have because you are connected to God, the triune God of the universe, the living God, the only God. And he richly shares with you all his blessings and all his benefits. If you are in a family, that’s a wonderful gift from God. If you are serving in the marketplace and in the world, that’s a great gift from God.
We have these associations that are God given. He gives us work, he gives us family, and he gives us church. But in the church, we share in all his treasures and gifts. So believers have communion with God, all his blessings, but we also, second, we have a duty to use these gifts readily and joyfully for the service and enrichment of others. I was enriched today by lasagna. Sounds like Garfield, the cat. Wasn’t he a lasagna eater? Yeah. I was, he’s the cool cat. Yeah.
I was enriched by lasagna. I was enriched by pistachio cake. I was enriched by sitting with a family and visiting with them. I was enriched by walking around saying hello to people. I was enriched by, I got to hold a baby today. None of y’all did. Did you just me yeah, that was pretty cool get to hold a little one I was enriched by a lot of things today and I know you you were as well and so We should consider it a duty when we we have God’s blessings come on us We should consider it a duty to use these gifts readily and joyfully With others sometimes it is no fun to serve other people You know the the proverbial What is it? I just pick up after people all the time. Can’t they pick up their own stuff? Well, you know, on and on we go, our mind goes. And what should we do probably?
I get to serve the Lord, serving these people who don’t know better, right? Isn’t that the mother’s prayer? After she picks up from her kids or does their laundry or, you know, the wife who cleans up after her husband’s socks have been in the corner for, you know, three months or whatever. It’s hitting a nerve here, aren’t I? And it can be that way with the pastor in the church or the deacons or the elders or the, you know, do I have to make another pot of coffee and then clean it up? You know, we can be, but we should consider it a duty to use these gifts. And it says readily and joyfully.
A couple of months ago, um, Back in the fall, we needed to replace Julie for a Sunday after her procedure for her heart, and so I called up the Kimmins. Carol ended up coming and playing. And when I called, they’re pretty busy folks. When I called and Carol said, or John says, yeah, Carol will probably do it. She’ll call you back. She called me back and said, of course I’ll play. I’m needed. That was her response. Of course I’ll play. I mean, she didn’t have to think about it. She didn’t have to come up with an excuse. She didn’t have to say, I’ll get back to you in two to three to four business days between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. like the cable person. It was just immediate.
I am needed. I will be there. That is readily. That is joyfully. We can all learn something of that example. This morning, I think I got here at seven and David must have been here already an hour. you know, putting those lasagnas in the oven, how sweet and wonderful. You think of the children getting taught, the trash getting taken out, the beans getting counted. There’s a lot that goes on in the life of the church, and it happens because people readily and joyfully see their duty.
God has rained down on them blessings, and they want to give those blessings to others. And why, what’s the benefit? Yes, it’s to serve others, but it’s also for the enrichment of the other members. And so remember back in our study of 1 Corinthians a couple of weeks back, the main areas of spiritual gifts are teaching, governing, and serving.
And so as various ones teach and govern and serve in the life of the church, as it enriches you, you should be sure to thank them. Thank Robert, thank our Christian ed teachers, thank the coffee makers and the coffee, put her out or something, you know, on and on we can go.
If you’ve been enriched, let people know. My dad in his old age as a minister, when he let folks know that he was sick, he’s gotten all kinds of letters and notes and Facebook posts. And people have told him, I think at a critical point in his life, how much he has meant to them. And he says it makes an old guy happy to know his life was not in vain. And so those are big encouragements that we can offer to one another.
Well, finally, what do we believe concerning the forgiveness of sins? This is a whole different twist and turn here. But we’re not in the church if we’re not forgiven of our sins. It says, I believe that God, because of Christ’s satisfaction, will no longer remember any of my sins. That’s a heavy statement, isn’t it? or my sinful nature, which I need to struggle against all my life. Rather by his grace, God grants me the righteousness of Christ that I may never come into judgment. What is Christ’s satisfaction? Christ on the cross satisfied the demands of the law.
We sing from time to time the hymn, let us love and sing and wonder. Let us praise the savior’s name. He has hushed the law’s loud thunder. He has quenched Mount Sinai’s flame. Jesus fulfilled all righteousness. Jesus fulfilled the law. But we also think of his satisfaction probably more so in his death on the cross. God was satisfied that the debt owed for sin was paid. God was satisfied because Jesus made satisfaction. And what is the blessing? What is the benefit?
He will no longer remember any of my sins. That’s any, none, zero. We’re really good at remembering sins. And we like to bring it up at just the right moment, don’t we? You know, when things are heated, you know, you’re, well, do you remember that time you were worse than I was just now? And what do we think it does? Well, it justifies it, right? And so we love to bring it up, but it’s good to remember. Who is the accuser? Yeah, if we want to be devil-like, hold people’s sins over them. That’s devil-like, but what is God like?
He remembers them no more. We read Psalm 103, and I remember as a kid asking my mom one time, where is as far as the east is from the west? Because my little brain, you know, you flip a globe or look in the encyclopedia, you figure it’s somewhere. And she had to tell me over and over, it is nowhere. God does not remember our sins.
They are no more. But we’re not very much like that, are we? We remember, we keep accounts, we hold grudges, and we expect, guess what, for people to do it again. And they probably will. We’ll come to that in just a second. But what is the one side of justification?
It’s just as if I never, God sees you as if you never sinned because Jesus paid for them, wiped them away. So because of Christ’s satisfaction, he’ll no longer remember my sins, but what’s the other thing? Or my sinful nature. He does not look at you and see a believing Christian saint being sanctified and say, oh, but he’s riddled with original sin. He’s riddled with remaining corruption. He’s riddled with the flesh. God does not remember our sinful nature, but here’s the catch.
We must. We must, because it says, which I need to struggle against all my life. Now, I probably was, raised up in the same scenario or setting as most of y’all. You know, sin is bad. You know, God doesn’t like sin, but you hear that you’re forgiven in Jesus. And then you go to church and you hear, you probably sinned this week. You need to rededicate your life and quit sinning and need to try harder. All right, isn’t that what you hear? The South Christianese, it’s kind of Catholic almost, because your justification probably went down if you did sin or backslide.
I think that’s how it goes. But when you come to understand that we have remaining corruption in us, we have remnants of sin, Paul calls the flesh, and it’s, I think I’ve told you before, like the coals in a wood stove, when your fire dies down throughout the night, all you’ve got to do when you open that wood stove in the morning is pull back the ashes and what will be there but red hot embers. And that’s the remnant sin. That’s the remaining corruption. That’s the remainder of the fire.
And if you put some kindling and fuel on that fire, it’s not long before it’s 600 degrees again, raging hot. And if you feed your sin, if you fuel your sin, if you nurture the flesh by what you see, what you say, where you go, what you do, what you fail to avoid, or you forget that God is holy and so are you, you will have that fire rage. And so the struggle in our Christian life is to keep that fire tapped down so that we don’t have a wildfire. We don’t have an uncontrolled burn. Jesus does not remember. our sins and he doesn’t remember our sinful nature. But I say this just out of practicality. We need to remember it because it’s there and we need to fight it. And that’s our lot the rest of our lives by God’s grace. Finally, it says God grants me the righteousness. of Christ, and that’s the just as if I’ve always obeyed part.
When God sees you as righteous, he sees you as perfectly obedient. Now, are you a good little boy and a good little girl and keeping the 10 commandments? And so God is divinely patting you on the head and saying, very good, nice job, you get to go to heaven. That’s not how it works. It’s by Jesus you get righteousness. Our good works, our behavior does not merit salvation. But these are wonderful things for us to consider.
The whole of human history is God gathering a people to himself by his word, by his spirit, so that we can fellowship, we can struggle, and we can be part of that a kingdom where he preserves and protects us forever and ever. Now, one last thing to think about when you get to heaven and you are before the throne of God, where will you be? You’ll be in the great sanctuary, the great presence of God. And who will be there? Every single person that Jesus saved for himself out of the human race. And there the people will dwell with the lamb and he will comfort and care for them forever and ever.
Of this community I am, and of this community I will always be a living member. Let’s do give thanks. Father, we thank you for saving us from ourselves and from our sin and from our misery. and for bringing us into this communion of saints with all the blessings and benefits of heaven. Give us each a love for each other and a sense of duty so that our desire is to meet others’ needs by governing and teaching and serving. And we pray that you would raise us up more and more to be a community that shares in the gifts and graces that heaven has bestowed upon us. Thank you for saving us and forgiving us. Help us in the fight of the Christian life to live for you and not for ourselves. And we pray for strength in the name of Christ. Amen.