Guide for the Preparation for Worship on 4 August 2019 Sunday, Jul 28 2019

4 August 2019

Call to Worship: Psalm 96:1-3

Opening Hymn: Psalm 8A “O LORD, Our Lord, in All the Earth”

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: Romans 8:1-4

Hymn of Preparation: 277 “Before the Throne of God Above”

Old Covenant Reading: Psalm 62:1-12

New Covenant Reading: 1 Peter 1:13-21

Sermon: Christian Identity

Hymn of Response: Psalm 62A “My Soul in Silence Waits for God”

Confession of Faith: Nicene Creed (p. 852)

Doxology (Hymn 568)                      

Closing Hymn: 265 “In Christ Alone”

PM Worship

OT: Psalm 98:1-9

NT: Revelation 4:1-11

Rejoice the LORD is King!

Singing Psalm 98 B

Shorter Catechism Q/A # 102

Q. What do we pray for in the second petition?
A. In the second petition, which is, Thy kingdom come, we pray that Satan’s kingdom may be destroyed; and that the kingdom of grace may be advanced, ourselves and others brought into it, and kept in it; and that the kingdom of glory may be hastened.

Suggested Preparations

Monday (7/29) Read and discuss 1 Peter 1:13-21. Calvin writes:

From the greatness and excellency of grace he draws an exhortation, that it was their duty to receive the grace of God more readily, as the more bountifully He bestows it upon them. We must notice the context. He had said that the Kingdom of Christ, to which the Gospel calls us, was so high that even angels in heaven desire to see it. What ought we who are in the world to do? … It is therefore necessary for us to put off the image of Adam and to cast aside the whole world and all hindrances, so that being thus set at liberty we may rise upwards to Christ. He exhorts those to whom he writes to be prepared and sober, and to hope for the grace offered to them, and also to renounce the world and their former life, and to be conformed to God.

The first part of the exhortation is, therefore, to gird up the loins of their mind and to direct their thoughts to the hope of grace which is given them. In the second part, he defines the manner, so that their minds may be changed, and they may be conformed to the image of God.

Read or sing Psalm 8A “O LORD, Our Lord, in All the Earth” Prayer: Please pray for the OPC Mission in Uganda.

Tuesday (7/30) Read and discuss Joel 3:1-16. Doug Stuart writes:

From the perspective of the covenant, God’s prophets proclaimed a foreseeable but indefinitely scheduled future. [This passage] addresses an important interest of the people of Jerusalem, threatened by an invasion and perhaps a siege. What was the ultimate fate that they, their city, and their country would meet? Would the enemy prevail, destroy them, annex their territory, and exile them forever? Would their various enemies, past and present, end up having succeeded at international lawlessness, while the remainder of Israel – Judah and Jerusalem – disappeared as an entity in the community of nations? Would Yahweh ever again be worshiped on Mount Zion? Were the invasion, drought, and desolation so graphically described in chapters 1 and 2 the beginning of the end of a city, state, and people? Where was Yahweh? Would his Day of rescue ever come?

The chapter provides a reassuring answer to these questions. A great final judgment will take place, one that will vindicate those faithful to Yahweh and punish those opposed to his purposes and his people. He will establish himself forever in his people’s capital with all they need to live securely and joyously.

[This passage] is also Christian eschatology. The Day it describes is one we await as well. The final eternal era will be unmarred by opposition to God’s purposes or people. He will be everywhere supreme and will reign from his holy city. Its river will give life, all as Joel foretold.

The guarantee of eventual vindication is a great sustenance to God’s people to remain faithful and to continue to trust.

Read or Sing Hymn 277 “Before the Throne of God Above” Prayer: Give thanks that as believers we can already be certain of our final vindication because it depends on Christ’s performance rather than our own.

Wednesday (7/31) Read and discuss Psalm 62:1-12. Allen P. Ross writes:

This Psalm is a beautiful display of confidence in the LORD. The psalmist is in a life-threatening crisis, but he is not filled with fear or anxiety. Instead, he trusts in the LORD and waits silently for the LORD to deliver him. He knows that the LORD can provide the strength and security to deliver him from his destructive foes – he knows that only the LORD can do this. And he is confident that the LROD will do it because he is the savior of his people. The point this psalm is making can be stated this way: God alone is able to deliver the faithful from destructive enemies ad make them safe and secure because he alone is both savior and judge. Because he is the savior, he will save his faithful servants; and because he is the judge, he will reward everyone in accordance with what they have done – and for the malicious enemies of the people of God that means judgment, perhaps now, but certainly at the end of the age. New Testament believers also know that they cannot save themselves on any level, and so they trust in the LORD and wait for the day of deliverance. Paul in his letter to the Philippians instructs believers to rejoice in the LORD (praise), and not be anxious (calm confidence), but pray (faith), and the peace of the LORD will guard their hearts and minds (Phil. 4:4-7).

And the theme of judgment in accordance with works is most clearly presented in Jesus’ teaching on Matthew 25:31-46. Those who demonstrated their faith by their good works enter into the kingdom; but those who did not show any kindness or care about Jesus’ brethren demonstrated their rejection of him. They will be cast out. The household of faith has known from ages past that there is coming a day of judgment when the LORD will save those who have found forgiveness but condemn those who rejected him and opposed his saints.

Prayer: Please pray that the LORD would lead visitors to our congregation who would be blessed by uniting with our church family.

Thursday (8/1) Read and discuss Revelation 4:1-11. The book of Revelation is given to encourage Christians who are facing persecution to persevere in faith and faithfulness until the end. The challenge is that we walk by faith and the persecution can be seen and felt. So the LORD gives us a glimpse into heaven so that His people can be strengthened by the way things really are. It can be easy to get lost in the book of Revelation by focusing on the details. While the details are important, we should first focus on grasping the big picture. Today’s reading can be dividing into two parts:

1. Verses 1-6a focus on the One who is seated on the throne.
2. Verses 6b-11 focus on the worship that the One seated on the throne receives.

If we allow ourselves to get caught up in this vision, the sufferings of this present age will truly begin to seem like light and temporary afflictions (2 Corinthians 4:17). As N.T. Wright astutely observes, this vision ought to motivate and inform both our daily and our corporate worship:

Many have guessed, probably rightly, that these songs and prayers are similar to those which the earliest Christians used, though the logic of John’s vision is not that what he sees in the heavenly dimension is merely reflecting what is going on in the life of the church, but rather that what he sees in heaven is what ought to be going on here on earth. Heaven is in charge; heaven gives the lead. It isn’t simply ‘the spiritual dimension of what we happen to choose to do.’

Read or Sing Psalm 62A “My Soul in Silence Waits for God” Prayer: Pray that the LORD would make the light of faithful Christians in New England shine forth with the beauty of His gospel.

Friday (8/2) Read and discuss Psalm 98:1-9. James Mays writes:

Psalm 98 is the Old Testament text for Isaac Watts’s Christmas hymn, “Joy to the World!” The hymn celebrates the birth of Jesus as the coming of the LORD to rule the world with truth and grace. It uses the language and themes of the psalm in order to say that the nativity is an event of the kind and significance proclaimed in the psalm. The psalm announces the coming of the Savior God as king of the world. It is a companion to the similar Psalm 96.

Psalm 98 is an imperative hymn of praise composed of three parts, each preparing for the next. The first part (vv. 1-3) begins with a general call to praise the LORD in song because the LORD has done marvelous things. The marvelous things are then summarized; the LORD has won a victory that showed his faithfulness to Israel and revealed his righteousness to all the earth. The second part (vv. 4-6) invites all the earth, because of what they have seen, to join in the music that acclaims the LORD as king. The third part (vv. 7-9) intensifies the invitation by including all that is, sea and world, hills and floods. Nothing is to fail at praise, because the LORD comes as the king who will judge the earth with the same righteousness that He has shown toward Israel, a saving righteousness. The psalm lifts up the prospect of a coming kingdom where power and policy make for salvation. That is indeed reason for joy in the world!

Read or sing 265 “In Christ Alone” Prayer: Please pray for the parents in our congregation that they would not grow weary in seeking to raise their children in the fear and admonition of the LORD.

Saturday (7/3) Read and discuss 1 Peter 1:13-21. The ESV helpfully translates verse 13 into language that makes sense in the modern world: “Preparing your minds for action …” The original idiom is the interesting expression “gird up the loins of your mind.” Calvin writes:

This is a metaphor from an ancient custom. Since they had long garments, they could not make a journey, nor conveniently do any work, without being girded up. Hence the expressions, to gird up oneself for work or for an undertaking. He therefore bids them remove all hinderances, so that they may be free and go on to God. Those who philosophize too subtly about the loins, as though he were commanding that lusts ought to be restrained and checked, depart from the real meaning of the Apostle, for these words means the same as those of Christ, “Let your loins be girded about, and your lamps burning in your hands’ (Luke 12:35) [ESV: Luke 12:35–36: “Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning, and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks], except that Peter doubles the metaphor by ascribing loins to the mind. He means that our minds are held entangled by the passing cares of the world and by vain desires, so that they do not rise up to God. Therefore anyone who really wants to have this hope must learn in the first place to disentangle himself from the world, and gird up his mind so that he does not turn aside to vain affections. For the same reason he enjoins sobriety, which immediately follows. He commends not only temperance in eating and drinking, but rather spiritual sobriety, when we contain all our thoughts and affections so as not to be inebriated with the allurements of the world. Since even the least taste of them draws us away stealthily from God, when anyone plunges himself into these, he must of necessity become sleepy and stupid, and he forgets the things of God.

Prayer: Please lift up tomorrow’s morning and evening worship services.

Would their various enemies, past and present, end up having succeeded at international lawlessness, while the remainder of Israel – Judah and Jerusalem – disappeared as an entity in the community of nations? Would Yahweh ever again be worshiped on Mount Zion? Were the invasion, drought, and desolation so graphically described in chapters 1 and 2 the beginning of the end of a city, state, and people? Where was Yahweh? Would his Day of rescue ever come?

The chapter provides a reassuring answer to these questions. A great final judgment will take place, one that will vindicate those faithful to Yahweh and punish those opposed to his purposes and his people. He will establish himself forever in his people’s capital with all they need to live securely and joyously.

[This passage] is also Christian eschatology. The Day it describes is one we await as well. The final eternal era will be unmarred by opposition to God’s purposes or people. He will be everywhere supreme and will reign from his holy city. Its river will give life, all as Joel foretold.

The guarantee of eventual vindication is a great sustenance to God’s people to remain faithful and to continue to trust.

Prayer: Give thanks that as believers we can already be certain of our final vindication because it depends on Christ’s performance rather than our own.

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Guide for the Preparation for Worship on 28 July 2019 Sunday, Jul 21 2019

28 July 2019 – Silas Schreyack Preaching

Call to Worship: Psalm 105:1-3

Opening Hymn: 245 “Great is Thy Faithfulness”

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 86:12-15

Hymn of Preparation: 243 “How Firm a Foundation”

Old Covenant Reading: Jonah 3:1-10

New Covenant Reading: Romans 15:8-13

Sermon: The Goodness of God Leads to Repentance

Hymn of Response: Psalm 32B “How Blest Is He Whose Trespass”

Confession of Faith: Apostles Creed (p. 851)

Doxology (Hymn 568)                      

Closing Hymn: 238 “Lord, with Glowing Heart I’d Praise Thee”

PM Worship

OT: 1 Kings 8:22-30

NT: Acts 7:44-50

Praying to the Most High God

Shorter Catechism Q/A # 101

Q. What do we pray for in the first petition?
A. In the first petition, which is, Hallowed be thy name, we pray that God would enable us and others to glorify him in all that whereby he maketh himself known; and that he would dispose all things to his own glory.

Suggested Preparations

Monday (7/22) Read and discuss Jonah 3:1-10. It is frequently said that “repentance is a change of mind.” That is true, but it is incomplete. Biblical repentance involves a reorientation of our whole selves, so that we seek going our own way and are turned to God. When the king of Nineveh rises from his throne and puts on sackcloth, he is acknowledging that though he might be the king of Nineveh for a short period of time – he is not the Great King – and so he abases himself before the One who is truly in charge. Rosemary Nixon puts it like this:

There is something deliberately dramatic about the [the words of verse 6]. They are vividly pictorial. There is a beautiful symmetry in the way the actions of the king are set out. The action begins with him rising from his throne and ends with him sitting in ashes. Between these two resting places he has taken off his royal robe and covered, or ‘hidden,’ himself in sackcloth. Not even David’s repentance, after he had heard the words of Nathan the prophet, is so lucidly portrayed. In that story it is only after King David has been told that his child is dead that we are told, “Then David arose from the earth, and washed, and anointed himself, and changed his clothes. The story of Ahab shows he king adopting a similar response on hearing the words of the prophet Elijah: ‘he rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted and lay in sackcloth, and went about dejectedly.’ God’s response to Ahab was to delay judgment.

The response of these kings to the words of the prophets was unusual. Perhaps more common was the response of Jehoiakim, king in Jerusalem. On hearing the words of the prophet Jeremiah read to him by the scribe, ‘the king would cut them off with a penknife and throw them into the fire. … Yet neither the king, nor any of his servants who heard all these words, was afraid, nor did they rend their garments.’ Such brazen hostility towards God was all the more shocking coming from a descendant of David and a king of Jerusalem.

The pagan king of Nineveh, however, knew that fasting and the usual outward signs of repentance alone were insufficient. He added a totally new dimension to them by urging on the people the idea that the pattern of evil and violence had to be broken: ‘let every one turn from his evil way and from … violence’ (v. 8). It is not said of the men of Nineveh, “And God saw their sackcloth and their fasting,” but “God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way.”

Read or sing Hymn 245 “Great is Thy Faithfulness” Prayer: Please lift up the young people of our congregation and ask that the LORD would protect them from the temptation towards materialism – and thinking that life consists in an abundance of things.

Tuesday (7/23) Read and discuss Romans 12:14-21. Verse 15 commands us to:

Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.

John Stott helps us flesh this out. He writes:

Love never stands aloof from other people’s joys or pains. Love identifies with them, sings with them, and suffers with them. Love enters deeply into their experiences and their emotions, their laughter and their tears, and feels solidarity with them, whatever their mood.

Human nature being what it is, this has always required people to die to themselves in order to live for God. If you are honest with yourself, you will probably admit that this doesn’t come natural to any of us. Yes, we are happy to have your friends share their suffering – so long as we can be sympathetic in an efficient manner and then move on to something else. It is much more difficult to joyfully give up your plans for the next two or three hours to sit with someone in their grief. Remember Jobs friends. Astonishingly, they sat with Job for seven days without saying a word – because they saw that his suffering was very great. We frequently rush to criticizing Jobs friends – but let me confess – I have never done that, not even once in my entire life. But when the suffering didn’t end, Jobs friends lost their sympathy and they began to speak. Nevertheless, you have to give them this: At least they were there. Beloved, you can only truly weep with those who weep when, by the grace of God, you consider the needs of other people more important than your own – and when you are seeking the praise of God rather than the praise of man. For God cares so much about His children, that He – as it were – stores up all of our tears in a bottle.

Perhaps surprisingly, as difficult as it can be to weep with those who weep, it can be even more difficult to rejoice with those who rejoice. Parents, if you doubt me on this, how much do you rejoice when one of your friends or co-workers tells you that his daughter just received a full-scholarship to Princeton? No, I don’t mean your instant polite response the first time he tells you this. I mean what are you thinking and feeling the 6^th or 7^th time he excitedly shares this “news” with you? Do you genuinely enter into the other person’s joy or are you secretly – and I hope that it is “secretly” – are you secretly thinking: “Yes – Yes – We all get it. Your daughter is really special. She received a full scholarship to Princeton. Can we move on to something else”? It can be quite challenging both to weep with those who weep, and to rejoice with those who rejoice. We can only do this when we fix our eyes on Jesus and live in the power of the Holy Spirit. Read or Sing Hymn 243 “How Firm a Foundation” Prayer: Ask the LORD to work a genuine sympathy into your life for those who are around you.

Wednesday (7/24) Read and discuss Romans 15:8-13. N.T. Wright comments:

The great Finnish composer John Sibelius brought the art of writing symphonies to a new glory. His first six were each splendid in their own way, developing the form which previous composers had used and flooding it not only with new themes but with new ways of developing and combining them. But in his seventh symphony he moved into a different mode again. If we listen carefully, we can trace elements of the traditional four-movement structure. The music passes through different moods that correspond in some ways to the regular pattern. But Sibelius has woven the whole thing together into a single great movement, far more tightly knit together than anything he or anyone else had attempted previously. It remains one of the most sublime pieces of music ever written.

This great symphony begins and ends in the key which, for many composers, has been a kind of ‘home base,’ that of C Major. … This is part of the great appeal of Sibelius’ Seventh Symphony, providing a lasting sense of satisfaction at having worked through all the different moods and returned, full and grateful, to where we started. Something of the same sense is captured in T.S. Elliot’s famous lines, in ‘Little Gidding,’ the last of his Four Quartets, in which he speaks of arriving at last at the place where we began and knowing it for the first time.

Something of this same effect, I suggest, is what Paul achieves in the present passage. This is often overlooked, because many readers come to the letter with particular questions to which they find the answers in earlier chapters and then retire exhausted, like someone listening only to the first ten minutes of Sibelius’s seventh symphony and then, having heard a favorite tune, walking out of the concert. Romans, of course, like a great symphony, does have some obvious ‘movements,’ and we have noted them as we have gone through. Chapters 1-4, 5-8, 9-11 each form a single section with its own integrity, its own argument, its own great themes developed in their own way. So, too, does the section which runs from the beginning of chapter 12 to the end of the present passage (15:14 to the end of the letter function as a kind of personal conclusion). But Paul has clearly had the whole thing in mind all through, and the four main sections are stitched together with so many crisscrossing themes, so many tunes that echo previous material or anticipate what is to come, that the Sibelius analogy has considerable force at this point too.

The main thing to notice, though, is the ‘key’ in which Paul’s argument ends as it began. In 1.1-5, Paul sets out the gospel which he has been commissioned to announce among all the nations. Its main content is Jesus: Jesus as the son of David who is also the son of God, Jesus who has risen from the dead, Jesus who is now the Lord of the whole world. This is his ‘home base,’ the Christian equivalent of the musician’s key of C Major. Most of the great tunes of romans have been either in this key or in another closely related to it.

Prayer: Ask that the LORD would tune your life so that it radiates the major key of the true gospel.

Thursday (7/25) Read and discuss Acts 7:44-50. Eckhard J. Schnabel writes:

As Stephen is interrogated about his convictions, he responds with a long review of the history of Israel. This could be regarded as a response that fits the context, since Stephen stands before the Jewish leaders in the Sanhedrin. However, from the fact that the early Christians relied on the Old Testament as their Scriptures, and from the fact that many foundational terms, metaphors, and convictions are used in the New Testament to describe the transformative salvation that has become a reality through Jesus Christ, there is an obviously fundamental continuity between Israel and the church. When we relate this continuity to the history of Israel that Stephen summarizes in Acts 7, three basic points emerge [the first of these is]:

The revelation and salvation that characterized the history of God’s people since Abraham explain God’s revelation and salvation through Jesus and thus characterize the history of God’s people ever since. Stephen recounts Israel’s history in order to explain, among other things, the climatic fulfillment of God’s promises in Jesus, the messianic Son of Man who is the Prophet-Redeemer like Moses. The life, death, resurrection, and exaltation of Jesus is the new foundation and center of the life of God’s people – since the promises given to Abraham have been fulfilled, since the redemption effected by his death supersedes the redemption that God provided at the time of Joseph and Moses, and since the function of the tabernacle and the temple as places of God’s presence has been absorbed by Jesus, the exalted Son of Man who works on behalf of his people from his position at the right hand of God.

But Jesus’ significance cannot be properly understood if we do not understand God’s promises to Abraham, God’s intervention at the time of Joseph, God’s redemption at the time of Moses through the exodus from Egypt, God’s revelation at Mount Sinai, and God’s worship in the tabernacle and in the temple. Since Jesus has a dramatically increasing number of people who follow him and who constitute the “congregation” of God’s people in the present time (both in the first century and today), they claim Israel’s history as their own history. Paul’s arguments in Romans 4 indicate that this is true even for Gentile Christians – Abraham is their “father” also, and God’s promises to Abraham and his redemption in the exodus inform their self-understanding as the people of God just as in the case of Jewish Christians.

Read or Sing Psalm 32B “How Blest Is He Whose Trespass” Prayer: Give thanks, that by faith you have become a child of Abraham and therefore a child of the Living God.

Friday (7/26) Read and discuss 1 Kings 8:22-30. Phil Ryken writes:

The first three parts of Solomon’s prayer are his praise, his petition, and his invocation. The king opens his prayer by praising God for who he is: “O LORD, God of Israel, there is no God like you, in heaven above or on earth beneath, keeping covenant and showing steadfast love to your servants who walk before you with all their heart, who have kept with your servant David my father what you declared to him. You spoke with your mouth, and with your hand have fulfilled it this day.”

The king thus began his prayer with God, who is the beginning of everything. He addressed God as the LORD, acknowledging his sovereignty over heaven and earth. He also identified his LORD as the “God of Israel.” God is not some abstract or impersonal deity, but someone who has a personal relationship with his people. He is their God, and this is the starting point for everything else in prayer.

To say that the LORD is the God of Israel is not to say that he is merely a tribal deity, as if he were only one among many gods, on a par with the idols of other nations. On the contrary, Solomon praises God for his uniqueness, his incomparability. There is no one else like him. He is the only true deity. No other so-called god even belongs in the same category with God the one and only. There is no other god like him “on earth beneath” – no one else we can trust to satisfy our souls or take care of our physical needs. There is no other god like him “in heaven above” – no other being who deserves our worship. In other words, there is no other god like him at all. He alone is the one true God.

When Solomon prayed this way, he was following an ancient tradition for worship. The prophet Moses said, “Lay it to your heart, that the LORD is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other” (Deut. 4:39). The Israelites acknowledged this truth every morning in their daily prayers, when they said, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one” (Deut. 6:4). In making this confession of their faith, they were declaring the incomparability of God. Solomon’s father David believed the same doctrine. Thus he prayed, “There is none like you among the gods, O LORD …; you alone are God” (Ps. 86:8, 10).

Read or sing Hymn 238 “Lord, with Glowing Heart I’d Praise Thee” Prayer: Please lift up Grace Presbyterian Church in Laconia, NH as they become a member congregation of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church this evening.

Saturday (7/27) Read and discuss Jonah 3:1-10. Kevin Youngblood writes:

Jonah’s oracle, despite its brevity, sparks a remarkable movement of contrition and repentance that can only be attributed to God’s mercy. The immediacy and thoroughness of the citizens’ response stresses the power of God’s word to inspire reform even on such a large scale as the great metropolis of Nineveh.

Furthermore, the fact that this narrative applies similar terminology to God’s relenting from disaster as it does to human repentance from moral wrong suggest a significant connection between the two. God is responsive to human repentance because of His mercy.

At the same time, the narrative carefully avoids compromising divine freedom in any way. Though God’s change of course from judgment to mercy was motivated by Nineveh’s repentance, it was in no way necessitated by that repentance (3:9). God is presented as free both with regard to human repentance and with regard to the prophetic word. Neither human repentance nor the prophetic word forces God into a course of action. Thus, Jonah 3 provides a clear illustration of the principle expressed in Jeremiah 18:7-10:

If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be build up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had threatened to do for it.

One should not, however, interpret God’s freedom with regard to the divine word as implying any inefficacy with regard to that word or caprice on God’s part. Whether Nineveh repents and is spared, or does not and is destroyed, the divine word is effective and vindicated. This is evident in two ways in the narrative. First, the narrative refuses to give any credit for Nineveh’s repentance to secondary causes. While the curious reader may wish to know what providential circumstances inclined the proud and wicked Assyrians to respond so readily, the narrative keeps the reader’s attention firmly fixed on the divine word as the only cause. Nineveh’s remarkably repentance is therefore attributable to nothing but the power of God’s word.

Prayer: Please lift up tomorrow’s morning and evening worship services.

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Guide for the Preparation for Worship on 21 July 2019 Sunday, Jul 14 2019

21 July 2019

Call to Worship: Psalm 98:1-3

Opening Hymn: 222 “O God, Our Help in Ages Past”

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: Romans 5:6-8

Hymn of Preparation: 218 “Mighty God, While Angels Bless You”

Old Covenant Reading: Psalm 133:1-3

New Covenant Reading: Romans 12:14-21

Sermon: How to Overcome Evil?

Hymn of Response: Psalm 133A “How Excellent a Thing it Is”

Confession of Faith: Q/A 1 Heidelberg Catechism (p. 872)

Diaconal Offering

Doxology (Hymn 568)

Closing Hymn: 526 “He Leadeth Me: O Blessed Thought!”

PM Worship

OT: 1 Kings 8:12-21

NT: Hebrews 10:19-25

Solomon’s Blessing

Shorter Catechism Q/A # 100

Q. What doth the preface of the Lord’s prayer teach us?
A. The preface of the Lord’s prayer, which is, Our Father which art in heaven, teacheth us to draw near to God with all holy reverence and confidence, as children to a father able and ready to help us; and that we should pray with and for others.

Suggested Preparations

Monday (7/15) Read and discuss Romans 12:14-21. Commenting on verse 19, R.C. Sproul writes:

There is a difference between vindication and vengeance. Vindication reveals innocence whereas vengeance is payback for harm. Vengeance is a desire for revenge. Actually, revenge is not a bad thing. It is a good thing, because God takes revenge. Therefore, revenge in and of itself is not evil. What makes it evil is who undertakes it. Revenge belongs to God, who tells us that we ought not to avenge ourselves: “but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will replay,’ says the LORD.” Revenge is God’s prerogative to dispense, although he delegates tot eh civil magistrate the responsibility of vengeance, as we will see in Romans 13. In the final analysis vengeance belongs to God. There will be payback. Our offenses will be avenged, but the one who is to do it is God. When God brings vengeance, he brings it perfectly. His justice never punishes more severely than the sin. If vengeance were left to us, our fallen condition is such that we would not be satisfied unless we could inflict more pain than the crime deserves. God never does that.

Read or sing Hymn 222 “O God, Our Help in Ages Past” Prayer: Ask the LORD to help you let go of grievances you have with people who have hurt you.

Tuesday (7/16) Read and discuss Romans 12:9-13. Today’s passage begins with a command:

Let love be genuine – in each of your lives.

That word, translated “genuine”, comes from Greek Theater. When the Greeks put on plays, actors would play multiple parts and they would simply change the masks that they were wearing to indicate which character they were playing at the time. This word for genuine means “without a mask.” Paul is telling us that true love is not a theatrical production. What does the so-called love which is not genuine look like? James warns us of those who tell the poor “‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things they need for the body.” The mask is all the nice words – “Go in peace, be warmed and filled” – that are not followed up with action. The mask is all the nice sounding words. But the reality behind the mask is a person who isn’t lifting a finger to actually help his brother or sister during a time of need. Genuine love seeks the good of the people that we are interacting with. Read or Sing Hymn 218 “Mighty God, While Angels Bless You” Prayer: Ask the LORD to transform your thinking so that you would think about love the way that He thinks about love; and that in the power of the Holy Spirit you would increasingly manifest this biblically defined love in your life.

Wednesday (7/17) Read and discuss Psalm 133:1-3. Allen P. Ross writes:

What at first seems to describe the benefits of an extended family dwelling together in harmony is actually the manifestation of the greater spiritual unity of the people gathered in Zion to receive God’s blessing. The psalm is not so much about fraternal harmony or the unity of brothers as it is about the blessing from God that truly binds together in the covenant. As Kidner says, community is praiseworthy, but dependent on the LORD. That blessing is bestowed in the sanctuary, the place where people come together to worship and to pray for it; it is a blessing that brings all the common joys of life to the people who dwell together. …

Both testaments emphasize the importance of living in peace and harmony with others, most certainly others in the covenant. And that unity should be most evident as people gather in fellowship in the presence of the LORD to worship in common and to realize his renewed blessings. If the blessing of God is not the cause of the unity, then there is very little basis for it. But if that unity is from God, then it brings with it the responsibilities of a community.

Prayer: Please lift up our brothers and sisters at the Presbyterian Church of Cape Cod.

Thursday (7/18) Read and discuss Hebrews 10:19-25. Tom Schreiner writes:

Community encouragement and love and good works can scarcely occur if believers cease to meet with one another. The fear of discrimination and persecution explains, at least in part, why some believers were inclined to abandon their meetings. Refusing to meet with other believers in this context signifies apostasy, the renunciation of the Christian faith. If believers renounce meeting with other Christians, especially because they fear discrimination and mistreatment, they are in effect turning against Christ. Apparently, some were following this course of action, for they had made it a habit of not attending. For the author of Hebrews, this isn’t a light matter. Forsaking such meetings signaled great danger, for if they did not return to the assembly of fellow believers, they would face final judgment and destruction. Meeting together with other believers on earth looks forward to the eschatological gathering. O’Brien comments on the significance of the church meeting together: “Their gathering together” anticipates “the final ingathering of God’s people. The assembly is the earthly counterpart to the heavenly ‘congregation’ of God’s people.”

Read or Sing Psalm 133A “How Excellent a Thing it Is” Prayer: Give thanks that the LORD has made you part of His Church family.

Friday (7/19) Read and discuss 1 Kings 8:12-21. Phil Ryken writes:

Believing that God would dwell with his people, Solomon built a house to God’s name. When the sacred building was finished, holy priests went up the Temple Mount in solemn procession. They were carrying the ark of the covenant, which represented the throne of God and signified the place of his earthly presence. The priests carefully placed the ark in the Holy of Holies. When they were finished, the glory of God came down in a cloud so thick that the priests could not even stay in the temple.

King Solomon recognized this cloud as an appearance of the divine being. God had descended to dwell with his people; this was confirmed by the glory cloud in the temple. In response, Solomon joyfully spoke words that are sometimes printed as lines of poetry: “The LORD has said that he would dwell in thick darkness. I have indeed built you an exalted house, a place for you to dwell forever.

Here the king is giving expression to the double mystery of God’s immanence and transcendence. God is transcendent: he is high and exalted. In fact, he is separated so far from us that he is shrouded in darkness. This imagery appears elsewhere in Scripture. When Moses went up to receive the Ten Commandments, for example, he “drew near to the thick darkness where God was.” Similarly, King David said that God “made darkness his covering, his canopy around him (Psalm 18:11).” This is one of the great mysteries of the divine being. God is beyond our full comprehension; there are many things about him that we cannot see and do not know. “Truly, you are a God,” said the prophet Isaiah, “who hides yourself.” Solomon saw this at the temple, where God appeared in the thick darkness that he had promised.

Yet at the same time, this mysterious God also invites us to know him and be near him. He is immanent as well as transcendent. That is to say, he is a God who wants to be with us. This was Solomon’s experience exactly. He knew that God was beyond his reach, that he lived in thick darkness. Yet he also knew that God had called him to build a house on earth that would bring God into close proximity with his people. Solomon brought both of these divine attributes together because he knew that they were both true about God: the nearness and the distance, the closeness and the separation, the immanence and the transcendence. Commenting on the temple, Dale Ralph Davis writes that the cloud “both is Yahweh’s glory and covers Yahweh’s glory; it both reveals and conceals.” Davis says further that this is characteristic of God himself, who “satisfies your need for clarity but not your passion for curiosity.”

Read or sing Hymn 526 “He Leadeth Me: O Blessed Thought!” Prayer: Ask the LORD to send visitors to our congregation who would be blessed by uniting with our church family.

Saturday (7/20) Read and discuss Romans 12:14-21. Writing on verses 17 through 21, N.T. comments:

We should note that this [passage does not teach that we should] ‘go soft on evil.’ Saying you shouldn’t take revenge isn’t a way of saying evil isn’t real, or that it didn’t hurt after all, or that it doesn’t matter. Evil is real; it often does hurt, sometimes very badly indeed and with lasting effects, and it does matter. This is, perhaps, one of the fundamental differences between Christianity and, say, Buddhism. Because we believe in a creator God who made a good and lovely world, we believe everything which defaces and distorts, damages or spoils part of that creation is not just another variety of goodness but is actually its opposite, evil. The question is, what are we going to do about?

For Paul, that question begins with the question, what has God done about it? Quite a bit of the letter, earlier on, has been devoted to answering this question, and it boils down to what he says in 5:6-11: “while we were still sinners, the Messiah died for us.” There are many other things to be said about God’s moral governance of the world, but at the centre of the Christian story stands this claim, that when human evil reached its height God came and took its full weight upon himself, thereby exhausting it and opening the way for the creation of a new world altogether. Revenge keeps evil in circulation. Whether in a family or a town, or in an entire community like the Middle East or Northern Ireland, the culture of revenge, unless broken, is never ending. Both sides will always be able to ‘justify’ further atrocities by reference to those they themselves have suffered.

This brings us to the question of whether it is possible to forgive someone who isn’t sorry. I had a letter from a small boy the other day asking me exactly that question: it’s something that even very young children can understand, and they are often just as good as adults in thinking about such problems. This passage seems to indicate that, though when someone isn’t sorry there is no chance of full reconciliation, it is not only possible but actually commanded that we should rid ourselves of any desire for revenge. Instead, we should actually go out of our way to do the positive, uncalled-for acts of kindness to those who have wronged us.

Prayer: Please lift up tomorrow’s morning and evening worship services.

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Guide for the Preparation for Worship on 14 July 2019 Sunday, Jul 7 2019

14 July 2019

Call to Worship: Psalm 100:1-5

Opening Hymn: 219 “O Worship the King”

Confession of Sin

O great and everlasting God, Who dwells in unapproachable light, Who searches and knows the thoughts and intentions of the heart; We confess that we have not loved You with all our heart, nor with all our soul, nor with all our mind, nor with all our strength; Nor our neighbors as ourselves.  We have loved what we ought not to have loved; We have coveted what is not ours; We have not been content with Your provisions for us.  We have complained in our hearts about our family, about our friends, about our health, about our occupations, about Your church, and about our trials.  We have sought our security in those things which perish, rather than in You, the Everlasting God.  Chasten, cleanse, and forgive us, through Jesus Christ, who is able for all time to save us who approach You through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for us.  Amen. 

Assurance of Pardon: Hebrews 10:16-18

Hymn of Preparation: 525 “Savior, like a Shepherd Lead Us”

Old Covenant Reading: Deuteronomy 32:34-43

New Covenant Reading: Romans 12:9-13

Sermon: The Good Life

Hymn of Response: Psalm 111B “O Give the LORD Wholehearted Praise”

Confession of Faith: Ten Commandments

Doxology (Hymn 568)

Closing Hymn: 494 “O Jesus, Joy of Loving Hearts”

PM Worship

OT: 1 Kings 8:1-11

NT: 2 Corinthians 3:7-18

The Glory of the LORD

Shorter Catechism Q/A # 99

Q. What rule hath God given for our direction in prayer?
A. The whole word of God is of use to direct us in prayer; but the special rule of direction is that form of prayer which Christ taught his disciples, commonly called the Lord’s prayer.

Suggested Preparations

Monday (7/8) Read and discuss Romans 12:9-13. R.C. Doug Moo writes:

Jesus Himself put love for God and love for others at the heart of His “new covenant ethics.” The apostles only rarely call on their converts to love God, preferring to speak of faith and obedience instead. But they follow Jesus almost to the letter in making lover for other people the central focus of their exhortations. But “love” can be a vague idea. One of Paul’s purposes here is to specify some types of behavior that manifest “sincere” love.

The Greek behind the NIV’s “Love must be sincere” has no verb; a very literal rendering would be “the love sincere.” Supplying an imperative verb (as almost all translations do) is not necessarily wrong, but it obscures the fact that these words seem to be a heading for the rest of the passage. It is as if Paul gives a definition: “Love that is sincere will be …” The underlying word [translated sincere means “not hypocritical.” The word translated “hypocritical”] was often applied to the actor who “played a part” on the stage. Christians can avoid love that is mere “play-acting” if they put into practice the commands that follow.

Read or sing Hymn 219 “O Worship the King” Prayer: Ask the LORD to lead you to act in ways that express sincere love toward those around you.

Tuesday (7/9) Read and discuss Romans 12:3-8. Human nature being what it is, we shouldn’t be surprised that Paul would first warn us to not think more highly of ourselves than we should. Nevertheless, one of the temptations we need to avoid as Christians is the temptation to be reactionaries. Over the past 30 years, America has gone through a self-esteem craze – where we moved to giving ever athlete a trophy merely for participating and where we frequently cared more about how students felt about themselves while studying math and English than whether they were actually learning anything. If you think that this problem has gone away – you ought to talk with a college professor about what would happen if she were to give half of her students Cs. But what I want to highlight, is how Christians, in reacting to this self-esteem craze, sometimes mistakenly think that the alternative to thinking too highly of ourselves is to think really lowly of ourselves. This is where we have to remember that, in Christ, you are completely and perfectly loved by the God who spoke the universe into existence; you have been called into His mission to reconcile the world to Himself in Jesus Christ; and you have been given gifts by God both for the sake of that mission and for our common life in the world. What keeps us from being puffed up with pride isn’t thinking that these gifts from God aren’t a big deal. What keeps us from being puffed up with pride is remembering that they are all gifts from God rather than our own personal achievements. Christian humility is not thinking poorly about yourself. Christian humility flows from remembering that all the talents and abilities that we possess are gifts of God’s free grace. As Paul says elsewhere, “What do you have that you did not first receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you didn’t receive it?” This is a truth that liberates us to the true humility of not worrying about our status in society at all. Read or Sing Hymn 525 “Savior, like a Shepherd Lead Us” Prayer: Please lift up the Session of our congregation as it meets this evening.

Wednesday (7/10) Read and discuss Deuteronomy 32:34-43. On July 8^th, 1741, Jonathan Edwards preached one of the most famous sermons ever to be preached in North America – Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God – on Deuteronomy 32:35: “Their foot shall slide in due time.” Modern Americans frequently treat this great sermon as though Edwards and other Puritans were obsessed with judgment. But what Edwards was actually obsessed with, was the grace of God in calling sinners out of judgment for the sake of His beloved Son. You can see this in how Edwards ends this famous sermon. He writes:

And let every one that is yet out of Christ, and hanging over the pit of hell, whether they be old men and women, or middle aged, or young people, or little children, now hearken to the loud calls of God’s word and providence. This acceptable year of the LORD, a day of such great favor to some, will doubtless be a day of remarkable vengeance to others. Men’s hearts harden, and their guilt increases apace at such a day as this, if they neglect their souls; and never was there so great danger of such persons being given up to hardness of heart and blindness of mind. God seems now to be hastily gathering in His elect in all parts of the land; and probably the greater part of adult persons that ever shall be saved, will be brought in now in a little time, and that it will be as it was on the great out-pouring of the Spirit upon the Jews in the Apostles’ days; the election will obtain, and the rest will be blinded. If this should be the case with you, you will eternally curse this day, and will curse the day that ever you were born, to see such a season of the pouring out of God’s Spirit, and will wish that you had died and gone to hell before you had seen it. Now undoubtedly it is, as it was in the days of John the Baptist, the axe is in an extraordinary manner laid at the root of the trees, that every tree which brings not forth good fruit, may be hewn down and cast into the fire.

Therefore, let ever one that is out of Christ, now awake and fly from the wrath to come. The wrath of Almighty God is now undoubtedly hanging over a great part of this congregation. Let every one fly out of Sodom: “Hasted and escape for your lives, look not behind you, escape to the mountain lest you be consumed.”

Prayer: Ask the LORD to cause His word to take root in your life that it would produce the fruit of righteousness and peace.

Thursday (7/11) Read and discuss 2 Corinthians 3:7-18. Scott Hafemann writes:

A serious study of the text reaffirms the nature of biblical revelation and communicates to the church that the locus of meaning and authority of the Scriptures does not reside in us, but in the text that we labor so hard to understand. In his weakness, Paul argued for his authority from the Scriptures, in contrast to his opponents, who relied on their personal power, mystical experiences, rhetorical prowess, and public reputations

So too, we turn to the Scriptures because we are convinced that the authority of our gospel derives from the inerrancy, sufficiency, and power of the Word of God.

In addition to all that Paul actually says in this passage, the scriptural foundation of his arguments calls the church to regain its commitment to a serious exegesis of the biblical text as the basis of its authority and ministry in the modern world. As Daniel Fuller puts it, the essential role of the Holy Spirit in biblical interpretation urges “the exegete always to acknowledge his complete dependence upon the Holy Spirit, and at the same time … to develop his skill in using valid exegetical means to determine the meanings that were intended by the words which the Holy Spirit inspired the biblical writer to use.”

We must pray that our Spirit-inspired willingness to go where the text leads us will be matched by a corresponding willingness to take up the task of studying the Scriptures under the conviction that in these writings alone God has spoken to His people. Given the subjectivity that reigns both in our culture and in the church, this second willingness will necessitate a dramatic work of the Spirit of no less magnitude than the first.

Read or Sing Psalm 111B “O Give the LORD Wholehearted Praise” Prayer: Ask the LORD to reform the Church in New England by causing us to rediscover the centrality of obedience in the Christians life.

Friday (7/12) Read and discuss 1 Kings 8:1-11. Walter Maier writes:

1 Kings 8:10-11 relates how, after the priests left the Holy Place, … (which means they came out from the temple), “the cloud” filed the temple. As a result, the priests were not able to minister inside the sanctuary, “because the glory of Yahweh filled the temple.” This was “the cloud” in which was the special presence of Yahweh, which manifested His presence. That this cloud entered and filled the temple was a sign of Yahweh’s approval and acceptance of the temple and his taking up “residence” there. All of this is strikingly reminiscent of what happened when Moses set up the tabernacle, as recounted in Exodus 40:34-35: “The could covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of Yahweh filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to go into the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of Yahweh filled the tabernacle.”

In other words, the cloud which filled the temple was the same theophanic cloud manifested in Moses’ day. This was the cloud of God’s presence. The divine Angel was associated with this cloud, which stood between Israel and the Egyptian army. The glory of the LORD appeared in the cloud just before Yahweh sent the quail and manna. This cloud was also above the tabernacle, and when it lifted, the Israelites would set out, being led by the cloud to a new camping site.

Read or sing Hymn 494 “O Jesus, Joy of Loving Hearts” Prayer: Ask the LORD to send visitors to our congregation who would be blessed by uniting with our church family.

Saturday (7/13) Read and discuss Romans 12:9-13. Doug Moo writes:

Biblical love, as we are constantly reminded, is not an emotion. It is an attitude, a mind-set. This distinction is one that older writers, and a few contemporary ones, try to get at by using the word “charity’ to describe what the Bible is talking about. We are commanded to love; it is therefore a choice we make, a matter of the will.

To be sure, I do not think any of us can love in the way the Bible asks us to without the enabling grace of God. Love is not something that can ever be entirely the product of the human will. But our wills are involved. The Spirit may foster love within us. But it is our job to cooperate with the Spirit in developing a consistent mind-set of love toward others and to work actively at putting love into effect in the various relationships we find ourselves involved in. This is precisely the point Paul seems to be making here. “Sincere love,” as we have argued, is the theme of 12:9-21. Paul wants to show what biblical love looks like in practice. The Christian who harbors an attitude of love will act in the ways that he describes here.

Prayer: Please lift up tomorrow’s morning and evening worship services.

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