MVOPC 15 January 2012
Call to Worship: Psalm 100:1-5
Opening Hymn: 34 “The God of Abraham Praise”
Confession of Sin
Almighty God, Who are rich in mercy to all those who call upon You; Hear us as we humbly come to You confessing our sins; And imploring Your mercy and forgiveness. We have broken Your holy laws by our deeds and by our words; And by the sinful affections of our hearts. We confess before You our disobedience and ingratitude, our pride and willfulness; And all our failures and shortcomings toward You and toward fellow men. Have mercy upon us, Most merciful Father; And of Your great goodness grant that we may hereafter serve and please You in newness of life; Through the merit and mediation of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Assurance of Pardon: Psalm 103:11-13
Old Covenant Reading: Habakkuk 2:12-20
New Covenant Reading: Acts 9:1-9
Hymn of Preparation: 436 “Zion, Founded on the Mountains”
Sermon Text: 1 Corinthians 3:16-17
Sermon: God’s Sacred Temple
Hymn of Response: 355 “We Are God’s People”
Confession of Faith: Apostles’ Creed p. 845
Doxology (Hymn 732)
Diaconal Offering
Closing Hymn: 441 “Jesus Shall Reign”
PM Worship: Hosea 13:1-14d – Where is Thy Sting?
Adult Sunday School: Fellowship Lunch – No Sunday School
Suggested Preparations
Monday (1/9) Read and discuss 1 Corinthians 3:16-17. This passage has been frequently misunderstood by Christians who take the teaching from 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 about individual Christians being filled with the Holy Spirit and force today’s passage into that mold. Both the context and grammar of today’s passage requires us to understand Paul’s Temple imagery in this passage as applying to the local church. As Gordon Fee notes, today’s passage is actually one of the most important texts in Scripture for understanding the local church in the economy of redemption. Fee writes:
One of the desperate needs of the church is to recapture this vision of what it is by grace, and therefore also what God intends it to be. In most Protestant circles one tends to take the local parish altogether too lightly. Seldom does one sense that it is, or can be, experienced as a community that is so powerfully indwelt by the Spirit that it functions as a genuine alternative to the pagan world in which it is found. It is perhaps not too strong to suggest that the recapturing of this vision of its being, both in terms of its being powerfully indwelt by the Spirit and of its thereby serving as a genuine alternative to the world, is its single greatest need.
Read or Sing Hymn: 34 “The God of Abraham Praise” Prayer: Ask that the LORD would grant the evangelical churches in North America a higher view of the Church and that He would make us into a genuine alternative to the world around us.
Tuesday (1/10) Read and discuss 1 Corinthians 3:10-15. Today’s passage talks about our participation in Christ’s work of building His Church. Paul reminds us that “no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” Interestingly, the word “other” doesn’t mean instead of it means alongside of. What Paul is arguing for here isn’t simply that Christ is essential but that Christ alone is the essential foundation for the Church. It is helpful to remember that Bible believing churches do not become liberal in the blink of an eye. What normally happens is that they make the identity of the local church Christ plus something else. Then, the leadership starts assuming that everyone knows about Christ and the gospel. They are not denied but they move out of the pulsating center of the congregation’s life. When this happens, the other thing that was laid next to Christ as an additional identity marker for the church becomes more and more prominent. Eventually the church includes those who are denying essential truths of the Christian faith because they are clinging to this alternative identity marker. This may seem like an abstract process that we don’t need to worry about, but churches are tempted to go down this route all the time. Consider the vision statement of one of the largest and most famous PCA churches in the United States:
To build a great city for all people through a gospel movement that brings personal conversion, community formation, social justice and cultural renewal to New York City and, through it, to the world.
There are at least four important things to observe about this vision statement:
- First, the statement doesn’t even mention Jesus Christ.
- Second, the list of things that they want this church to accomplish is actually a list of great things for Christians to be involved in. Generally speaking, good things (at least at first) are more likely to supplant Christ alone in a church’s identity than bad things.
- Third, this vision statement makes God a means to an end other than Himself. To put it bluntly – it is idolatrous.
- Fourth, virtually any vision statement you will ever see adopted by a local church is an expression of a theology of glory rather than a theology of the cross. Where is Paul’s desire to know nothing among the Corinthians except Jesus Christ and Him crucified? The dominant modern Western identity for the Church flows from our boast about what we will do. Paul’s vision for the Church flows out of a boast concerning what Christ has done.
Prayer: Please pray for the Session as it meets this evening.
Wednesday (1/11) Read and discuss Habakkuk 2:12-20. The world’s values are distorted. It is easier to destroy than to build and easier to conquer than to truly liberate. Nevertheless, we tend to celebrate those who wage war (i.e. Alexander the Great) rather than those who make peace. This is true in the United States where virtually all of the national monuments and memorials are dedicated to wartime Presidents (Jefferson is an exception. Even though Jefferson engaged in the First Barbary War – that is not what he is celebrated for). Likewise, we tend to celebrate those who became rich even if they became such by exploiting the poor. Yet, while we say “wow” the LORD God Omnipotent says “woe!”
“Woe to him who builds a town with blood
and founds a city on iniquity!
Behold, is it not from the LORD of hosts
that peoples labor merely for fire,
and nations weary themselves for nothing?
For the earth will be filled
with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD
as the waters cover the sea.
There are two great truths that we should take from this: (1) First, we should re-align our idea of greatness with God’s idea of greatness; and (2) Second, we should take great comfort in the fact that the days in which oppressors rule is numbered. “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.”Read or Sing Hymn 436 “Zion, Founded on the Mountains” Prayer: Ask that our Father would cause His name to be hallowed and that a renewed knowledge of His holiness would fill our land.
Thursday (1/12) Read and discuss Acts 9:1-9. There are at least three great truths in this passage:
- First, the King of Kings has so intimately identified with His Church that He treats attacks against His people as though they were attacks upon Him. We might have expected Jesus to say: “Why are you living such an angry and violent life? That’s no way for a good Jew to behave.” Or, we might have expected Christ to say: “Why are you persecuting My Church?” But what Jesus asks is: “Why are you persecuting Me?” Take comfort from the fact that whatever the world may through at you – Jesus has identified that closely with all who belong to Him.
- God humbled Paul before he used him so dramatically in the spread of the early Church. Let’s face it; known of us likes to be humbled. Yet, we should realize that humility is one of the absolute prerequisites for being truly useful in Christ’s Kingdom. There is only one King, and you and I are not Him!
- Jesus is able to turn His fiercest enemies into His most loyal subjects. Sometimes Christians wrongly imagine that the spread of the Kingdom of God in history is about a struggle between good and bad people. In fact, it is the story of the Good Shepherd who is overcoming the evil that each of His subjects brings. To paraphrase Martin Luther, each of us contributes something absolutely essential to salvation – we contribute the sin. Getting this truth down will dramatically reshape how we view the world. On the first view, we will naturally think of non-Christians as bad people while Christians are the “good” people. If we come to think Biblically, we will learn to see non-Christians as fellow sinners in need of grace.
Read or sing Hymn: 355 “We Are God’s People” Prayer: Give thanks that the LORD Himself is our shield and our exceedingly great reward.
Friday (1/13) Hosea 13:1-14d. What is the greatest risk that you face in the coming year? When we’re young we think: “Risk? What risk?” But as we get older we realize that we will need insurance for our health, our car, and if we buy one – our home. We recognize that life presents us with risks and the wise man or woman takes those risks into account. So, what do you think is the greatest risk you face this year? Hosea 13:5-6 might make you re-assess your answer. According to Hosea, it was when all of Israel’s circumstances were going great that she turned away from her LORD. Prosperity can be every bit as great a risk in our lives as depravation. This is why Proverbs 30 teaches us to ask:
Two things I ask of you;
deny them not to me before I die:
Remove far from me falsehood and lying;
give me neither poverty nor riches;
feed me with the food that is needful for me,
lest I be full and deny you
and say, “Who is the LORD?”
or lest I be poor and steal
and profane the name of my God.
This is wisdom worth mediating on and applying to our lives in the year ahead. Recite the Nicene Creed. Prayer: Prayer: Ask that Christ would grant you godliness with contentment.
Saturday (1/14) Read and discuss 1 Corinthians 3:16-17. Removed by almost twenty centuries from when it was written, we may take today’s passage too easily in stride. It might be helpful to remember when Jesus challenged the religious leaders in Jerusalem by saying, “Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it again.” Until you understand who Jesus was and is, such talk must have sounded like the ravings of a madman. Paul’s words in today’s passage follow in the same understanding of what constitutes the Temple of God and must have sounded nearly as shocking to the Corinthians when they read it. Richard Hays writes:
In order to grasp the full audacity of this claim, we must remember that when Paul wrote to the Corinthians the Temple in Jerusalem was still standing and active. For Jews like Paul, the Jerusalem temple had been understood as the central locus of the divine presence in the world. Thus, when Paul now transfers this claim to the community of predominantly Gentile Christians in Corinth, he is making a world-shattering hermeneutical move, de-centering the sacred space of Judaism. How can Paul possibly assert that the church has replaced the Temple? He believes that the Spirit of God is present in the community and that the community is now the place where praise and worship are rightly offered up to God. The Spirit of God no longer can be localized in a sacred building: it is to be found in the gathered community of God’s elect people in Christ.
Read or sing Hymn 441 “Jesus Shall Reign” Prayer: Please lift up tomorrow’s morning and evening worship services.
