1 June 2014 — 10 AM Worship

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

1 June 2014 — 3 PM Worship

Thabiti Anyabwile writes:

Mrs. Bea was my mother’s best friend. The two of them used to laugh together as if they were the only two in the universe. They spent a lot of their free time together, which was easy since they lived half a block apart.

Mr. Fred was Mrs. Bea’s husband. Everybody in the neighbourhood called him “neighbour” because he greeted everyone with the same question: “How’s my neighbour?” He was the kind of man who would interrogate strangers who happened on your property and didn’t look as if they belonged. He would repair a door or mow a yard without being asked. He was a neighbour.

I played with Bea and Fred’s five children. We did everything from ride our bikes together to play basketball or stickball in the neighbourhood park to chase one another in frenetic games of tag or hide-n-seek. We children were neighbours, too.

I thought about Bea and Fred last week as I prepared to preach Luke 10:25–37, the parable of the so-called “good Samaritan.” I prefer to call it the parable of the godly neighbour since Jesus tells the story to a religious man who asked in a self-justifying moment, “who is my neighbour?” Here’s the parable:

25 And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” 27 And he answered, ”You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbour as yourself.” 28 And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”

29 But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbour?” 30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. 34 He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ 36 Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbour to the man who fell among the robbers?” 37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”

I read this and six things stood out to me:

1. To be a neighbour requires risk (v. 30). The Jericho road was 17 miles long, descended over 3,000 feet, featured many twists and turns with caves along the way. It was perfect for robbers and it was a dangerous pass. Any good neighbour will have to take some risks, like stopping on a dangerous road to help the hurting.

2. Simply being religious and theologically orthodox will not make you a neighbour (vv. 31–32). The priest and the Levite are religious leaders in Israel. They’re holy men. They believe all the right things and worship in all the right ways ceremonially. But they are not neighbours to this hurting man. It’s possible to be deeply religious in one sense and treacherously unloving.

3. A neighbour isn’t necessarily someone like you (v. 32). Common ethnicity is no predictor of neighbourliness. If the robbed man were an Israelite, then being fellow Jews did not make the priest and the Levite his neighbour. They passed by. It is the despised, outcast Samaritan (John 4:9) that proves to be the true neighbour. It’s someone thought to be “unclean” and “cut off” that emerges as the truly loving. I recently heard Ed Copeland say, “Not all your skin folk are your kin folk, and not all your kin folk are your skin folk.” I think the parable demonstrates that neighbours are not determined by ethnicity. In fact, these two men were strangers to one another. Yet that Samaritan crosses the xenophobic gulf to care for the stranger in his midst. Jesus expands the definition of neighbour well beyond family, friends, co-workers, ethnicity and those who live in physical proximity to us.

4. A neighbour is someone who sees your need and responds with compassion (vv. 33–34). That’s the difference between the Samaritan and the priest and Levite. They all see the man on the road naked and half-dead. But the Samaritan has compassion. He allows himself to feel for the man and acts out of that concern. A neighbour doesn’t turn his eyes away or cross the road when he sees someone in need. Neighbours render practical and sacrificial assistance in time of need.

5. The most natural and effective mercy ministry in a community is a good neighbour (v. 36). I’m all for organized mercy ministries. In fact, some problems in a community are so widespread or intense that they require an organized response. But the deeper, longer-lasting, truly transforming “mercy ministry” comes in the form of good neighbours. Saturate a block, a community, a city with neighbours like the Samaritan and you’ll transform that community slowly, deeply, and effectively.

6. Love and Law demand every Christian be a merciful neighbour to anyone in need in our presence (v. 37). Jesus’ discussion with this expert in the Mosaic Law summarizes all the Law and prophets with two commands: Love God and love neighbour. Love God with all yourself and love neighbour like yourself. The final command from Jesus, “go and do likewise” (v. 37), binds us to this duty of being Samaritan-like neighbours. It also binds our conscience with guilt so that we any attempt to justify ourselves apart from Christ miserably fails, like the lawyer’s. We’re thrown onto the  back of Christ for justification with God. But then having been freed from the Law for justification, we find ourselves drawn to the Law in sanctification and Christian witness. Having been loved, we now turn to love (1 John 3:16–18; 4:20).

What does all of this mean?

Very simply: Christians ought to be good neighbours with an expansive definition of neighbour.

The reason there are fewer and fewer true neighbourhoods is because there are fewer and fewer true neighbours. Even though more and more people live atop one another and we aggregate the need in cities, we don’t often love like this Samaritan. In fact, the Samaritan is so striking to us because we so seldom see such sacrifice for others or make such sacrifice for others. But we Christians ought to be the best neighbours of all.

25 May 2014 — 10 AM Worship

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

25 May 2014 — 3 PM Worship

Why Do People Stay Away From Church?

adapted from R.C. Sproul

There is a crisis of worship in our land. People are staying away from church in droves. One survey indicated that the two chief reasons people drop out of church are that it is boring and irrelevant.

If people find worship boring and irrelevant, it can mean only one thing—they are utterly blind and deaf to the presence of God there.

When we study the act of worship in Scripture and church history, we discover a variety of human responses to the sense of the presence of God. Some people tremble in terror, falling with their faces to the ground; others weep in mourning; some are exuberant in joy; still others are reduced to a pensive silence. Though the responses differ, one reaction we never find is boredom. It is impossible to be bored in the presence of God if you are attuned to the fact that he really is there.

Neither is it possible for a sentient creature to find his or her encounter with God a matter of irrelevance. Nothing—and no one—is more relevant to human existence than the living and true God.

Why “Go to Church”?

Adapted from Fred Zaspel

As in our day, so when the epistle to the Hebrews was written some were sorely tempted to turn away from the Lord. God urgently warns them of the awful consequences of leaving Jesus. If you leave Jesus, then you will have no Saviour, and you will have no salvation. Why? Because there is no other Saviour, and there is no other sacrifice for sin! So again and again in the epistle, God exhorts us:

• “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?” (Heb 2:3).
• “Let us hold firmly to the faith we profess” (Heb 4:14).
• “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess” (Heb 10:23).
• “Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us” (Heb 12:1).

In other words, we need to be very careful to guard our hearts and our lives so as to go on with the Lord, lest we show that our profession was false and we perish.

It is in this context that God exhorts us, “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing” (Heb. 10:25). Obviously, the stated formal gatherings of the church are in view here. And the point is that attendance at these meetings is not only our duty but also it is our support, the means by which we are strengthened to continue with the Lord. The public gathering of the people of God is one of God’s appointed means of keeping us. We call it a “means of grace.” Simply put, we meet together because we need it!

“Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing.” As you read this you can almost feel God’s grief as he says — “as some are in the habit of doing.” Who are these people who are so strong and so holy that they do not need this divinely appointed means of grace? Are they really so strong, so secure, so advanced that they do not need the common worship and ministry of the Word which God has appointed for them? What arrogance! What fools! They are courting the very worst of all dangers, and they seem oblivious to it.

We “go to church” because God commands it and because God says we need it. And when we think other things are more important — so important that “we do not have the time” to go to church — it is only because our spiritual state is already at such a low point.

Inversely, being active and faithful in the public meetings of the church indicates a heart and mind that understands the need and appreciates the provision. If our hearts are warm to the Lord, our feet will be quick to take us to the place of ministry and worship. If we have any understanding of our weakness and our tendency to fall away, we will run eagerly to the place God has appointed for our strengthening.

As in everything else, even here our Lord himself sets the example. Following his baptism and the mount of temptation, he came back home to Nazareth and on the Sabbath day went to the synagogue of meeting “as was his custom” (Luke 4:16). It was our Lord’s practice to take his place with the people of God in the stated place of worship to which he belonged. This one who above all others was pleasing to God in all things, this one who is supremely the perfect man, without sin, felt that even he could not neglect regular public worship. For all its imperfections, and for all its dullness, and for all there was about it that was beneath him, he saw it as a divine provision for him. Even our Lord needed it, and he was faithful to it.

We “go to church” because it is good for us, because we need it, and because God commands it. Our attendance at our gathered meetings has much to offer us. Whether we know it or not, we cannot do without them. And our attitude toward them speaks volumes about us.

18 May 2014 — 10 AM Worship

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

18 May 2014 — 3 PM Worship