MVOPC 27 September 2015 – Rev. Stephen Michaud Preaching

Call to Worship: Psalm 98:1-3

Opening Hymn: 57 “Hallelujah, Praise Jehovah, O My Soul”

Confession of Sin

Most holy and merciful Father;  We acknowledge and confess before You;  Our sinful nature prone to evil and slothful in good;  And all our shortcomings and offenses.  You alone know how often we have sinned;  In wandering from Your ways;  In wasting Your gifts;  In forgetting Your love.  But You, O Lord, have pity upon us;  Who are ashamed and sorry for all wherein we have displeased You.  Teach us to hate our errors;  Cleanse us from our secret faults;  And forgive our sins for the sake of Your dear Son.  And O most holy and loving Father;  Help us we beseech You;  To live in Your light and walk in Your ways;  According to the commandments of Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.  Assurance of Pardon: 2 Corinthians 5:1-5

Hymn of Preparation: 558 “That Man is Blest Who, Fearing God”

Old Covenant Reading: Psalm 1:1-6

New Covenant Reading: Matthew 5:1-3

Sermon: Rich Poverty

Hymn of Response: 144 “Father of Mercies, in Your Word”

Confession of Faith:  Heidelberg Catechism Q/A #1

Doxology (Hymn 732)

Closing Hymn: 279 “Christ Jesus Lay in Death’s Strong Bands”

PM Worship:

OT: Psalm 9

NT: 2 Peter 3

Adult Sunday School: Greg Montemurro Teaching

Shorter Catechism Q/A #10

Q. How did God create man?
A. God created man male and female, after his own image, in knowledge, righteousness and holiness, with dominion over the creatures.

Suggested Preparations

Monday (10/5) Read and discuss Matthew 5:1-3. John Stott writes:

To be ‘poor in spirit’ is to acknowledge our spiritual poverty, indeed our spiritual bankruptcy, before God. For we are sinners, under the holy wrath of God, and deserving nothing but the judgment of God. We have nothing to offer, nothing to plead, nothing with which to buy the favor of heaven.

Nothing in my hand I bring,

Simply to the cross I cling;

Naked, come to thee for dress;

Helpless, look to thee for grace;

Foul, I to the fountain fly;

Wash me, Savior, or I die.

This is the language of the poor in spirit. We do not belong anywhere except alongside the publican in Jesus’ parable, crying out with downcast eyes, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ As Calvin wrote: ‘He only who is reduced to nothing in himself, and relies on the mercy of God, is poor in spirit.

To such, and only to such, the kingdom of God is given. For God’s rule which brings salvation is a gift as absolutely free as it is utterly undeserved. It has to be received with the dependent humility of a little child. Thus, right at the beginning of his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus contradicted all human judgments and all nationalistic expectations of the kingdom of God. The kingdom is given to the poor, not the rich; the feeble, not the mighty; to little children humble enough to accept it, not to soldiers who boast that they can attain it by their own prowess. In our Lord’s own day it was not the Pharisees who entered the kingdom, who thought they were rich, so rich in merit that they thanked God for their attainments; nor the Zealots who dreamed of establishing the kingdom by blood and sword; but publicans and prostitutes, the rejects of society, who knew they were so poor they could offer nothing and achieve nothing. All they could do was to cry to God for mercy; and he heard their cry.

Read or sing Hymn 2 “O Worship the King” Prayer: Please pray for our brothers and sisters in the war torn nation of Syria.

Tuesday (10/6) Read and discuss Hebrews 6:1-8. Today’s passage is commonly raised in debates around whether or not genuine believers can lose their salvation. We should begin by acknowledging that Hebrews is one of the more difficult books in the New Testament to interpret and this passage is one of the most contested passages in the book of Hebrews. What then is the responsible thing to do? Sometimes, when we can’t tell with certainty what a passage is teaching, it can be helpful to rule out what a passage is not teaching. Given that many passages in the Bible seem to forcefully present the idea that genuine believers will never lose their salvation we should rule out the possibility that this passage is teaching that they can. Let me give two examples. In John chapter 10 Jesus says:

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.  28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.  29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.  30 I and the Father are one.”

Jesus establishes the security of believers in the love and power of both Himself and His heavenly Father. Furthermore, Jesus plainly declares: “and they will never perish.” It is hard to see how our Lord could have been any plainer. Similarly, in Romans chapter 8 Paul writes:

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.  29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.  30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

This is commonly called “the golden chain of salvation” because the logic of the passage is that the chain is never broken. Everyone God foreknows He predestines. Everyone God predestines He also calls and so on. Nobody makes it all the way down to being justified only to lose their salvation and not be glorified. In fact, did you notice what Paul says about our predestination? He writes:

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, …

That is, God didn’t simply predestine us to the beginning of our salvation but to the end of it – when we would be fully conformed to the likeness of Christ. Given that the Bible has many passages like this that seem to strongly teach that genuine believers cannot lose their salvation it would be a mistake to try and interpret a difficult passage like Hebrews 6 to teach that they can. Furthermore, trying to understand Hebrews 6 verses 4 through 7 as though they were teaching that genuine believers could lose their salvation doesn’t even fit with the rest of the book of Hebrews. The rest of Hebrews 6 goes on to say in verse 9: “Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things- things that belong to salvation.” And in verse 11 the readers are encourage as part of their move to spiritual maturity to gain “the full assurance of hope until the end.” The warnings of the present passage, instead of warning that genuine believers can lose their salvation, are intended to serve the purpose of leading the readers to the place of full assurance that they are and ever will be children of the Living God. Prayer: Ask that the LORD would lead you and your loved ones to a “full assurance of the hope until the end.”

Wednesday (10/7) Read and discuss Psalm 1:1-6. The first Psalm is so important to the Christian life that it is well worth memorizing so that you can meditate upon it throughout the day. Allen P. Ross explains the central message of the psalm:

By drawing a contrast between the righteous and the ungodly, the psalmist instructs believers not to live the way the world lives, not to take spiritual, moral, or ethical advice from unbelievers, and not to join them in their profane enterprises; rather, believers must study the word of God in order to live an untarnished and productive life for God, and that life will be evidence of a living faith that will see them through the judgment, when God judges the wicked. …

For believers, the application is obvious: they must spend time meditating on God’s word so that they may live a distinct and productive spiritual life for God, and in the process find assurance that God knows them and will preserved them through the judgment. To unbelievers the message is urgent: they must come to faith in the Lord, because if they live their lives without faith in him or his word, not even their good deeds will count and they will not survive the judgment to come.

Read or sing Hymn 94 “How Firm a Foundation” Prayer: Ask the LORD to give you a deeper hunger for His word that you would more consistently meditate upon His word throughout the day.

Thursday (10/8) Read and discuss Psalm 9. Allen P. Ross writes:

The psalm in many ways focuses on God’s sovereign rule over the affairs of men. The psalmist thinks of his own experience of vindication when God judged the wicked, and from there he looks forward to what it all prefigures, a great and final judgment to come. The LORD is the champion of the weak and afflicted who trust in him, and he will one day bring justice into the world by putting the oppressors in their place. Their place will be Sheol, their native element.

The message of the psalm is timeless. It may be worded as follows: Because God has demonstrated that he is the righteous judge of the world, believers may trust in him now for protection from the wicked and confidently pray for the final vindication in the judgment to come.

There are two ways this psalm may be directed. One is that people hearing this psalm may have to acknowledge that they are part of those who are being prayed against in this psalm – they may have a share in the oppression of others, either on a small scale or by being part of powerful nations. Passages such as this should inspire believers to relieve the suffering and the affliction of others when they have the opportunity to do so.

The other way this Psalm may be directed is the straight-forward meaning of the text. Any individual believers who are oppressed by wickedness in high or low places will find strength and comfort from this psalm to pray for relief and vindication. They will certainly understand the plight of others who have been afflicted, and join in their ancient prayer, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?”

Read or sing Hymn 92 “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” Prayer: Please pray for the Sunday school teachers in our congregation.

Friday (10/9) Read and discuss 2 Peter 3:1-13. Denial is not only a river that runs through Egypt – it is one of the most popular ways by which people deal with unpleasant realities. Those who refuse to turn from their rebellion against God naturally seek to deny the severe consequences of their continued rebellion.  So they mock the followers of Christ: “You Christians talk of Jesus coming again, but since the creation of the world everything keeps going along exactly as it always has.” Note well that this is deliberate ignorance on the part of unbelievers. According to verse 5 they are suppressing the twin truths that God created the world by His word and once destroyed it in the days of Noah by a universal flood. As believers, we can also rejoice in additional truths about Christ’s Second Coming. First, the reason for the apparent delay in His return is simply a revelation of Christ’s patience and longsuffering. The day of salvation is not yet in the past. We can still pray and witness for the sake of the salvation of loved ones and strangers alike. Secondly, we do not need to look away from the Day of Judgment. Clothed in Christ’s righteousness, “we are waiting for a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.” Prayer: Please pray for the Rev. Stephen Michaud who will preaching in our congregation the next two Sunday mornings.

Saturday (10/10) Read and discuss Matthew 5:1-3. Michael Wilkins writes:

The “poor” are those who have encountered unfortunate circumstances from an economic point of view, but also persons who are spiritually and emotionally oppressed, disillusioned, and in need of God’s help. Those who have experienced the harsh side of life in which deprivation and hunger are their regular lot have no resources of their own to make anything of their lives. This also includes those who recognize that they can produce no spiritual or religious self-help before God. They are spiritually bankrupt. We hear this in the psalmist as he cries out in Psalm 4o:17:

Yet I am poor and needy,

   May the Lord think of me,

You are my help and my deliverer,

   O my God, do not delay.

This attitude of humility in the harsh realities of life makes a person open to receive the blessings of the kingdom of heaven.

… “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” The kingdom of God belongs to those who know they have no resources, material or spiritual, to help themselves before God. These are the “poor” to whom Jesus has come to announce “good news” (11:5) and to whom the kingdom of heaven belongs. This first beatitude undercuts the predominant worldview that assumes that material blessings are a sign of God’s approval in one’s life and that they automatically flow from one’s spiritual blessings. Instead, Jesus teaches that the norm of the kingdom of heaven is spiritual bankruptcy, unlike the spiritual self-sufficiency that was characteristic of the religious leaders. Jesus’ disciples will experience their most complete personal fulfillment as they draw on the resources of the kingdom of heaven to guide their lives.

Read or sing Hymn: 528 “My Faith Looks Up to Thee” Prayer: Please lift up tomorrow’s morning and evening worship services.