A Needed Lesson from the Weaned Child

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Lately I’ve heard about numerous difficult providences in a variety of believers’ lives. They include things related to marriage, parenting, singleness, childlessness, joblessness, just to name a few. Far too often for my comfort level I grope for explanations to bring encouragement in the face of such gargantuan hurts.

Frequently I find myself pointing folks to a pertinent text in the psalms when all else fails – Psalm 131.

[A SONG OF ASCENTS. OF DAVID.]
[131:1] O LORD, my heart is not lifted up;
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.
[2] But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me.
[3] O Israel, hope in the LORD
from this time forth and forevermore.

Not everything, but more than we might like to think in life, qualifies for the categories of too great and marvelous. So many things belong to the secret things of God and not for us (Deut. 29:29). What are we to do in such instances? Calm and quiet ourselves. Don’t miss the word picture. Calm and quiet like a weaned child who no longer clamors for milk from its mother’s breast.

How do we do that? Verse 3 – Hope in the Lord, always. Matthew Henry said it well: Thus does a gracious soul quiet itself under the loss of that which it loved and disappointment in that which it hoped for, and is easy whatever happens, lives, and lives comfortably, upon God and the covenant-grace, when creatures prove dry breasts.

Creatures prove dry breasts more than not, especially in the hard providences of life. Let us live comfortably, calm and quiet upon God and the covenant grace of His Son, Jesus, in the gospel.

Pray for the Digo

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We are determined.

We will seek God for spiritual breakthroughs in our adopted people group, the Digo.

You may not be able to attend a prayer meeting, but you can pray on your own.

For help in knowing what and how to pray I give you this agenda from last night’s concert of prayer: Digo Prayer Meeting.

Would love to have you join us on October 17 for our next time of prayer. Watch the events calendar for location and time.

59 and ???

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It started in ’05 with my 53rd birthday. I attached to September 15 that year and every year since a little rhyming ditty to capture the spirit of another year in my life post-cancer.

Allow me to review:

  • 53 and cancer free
  • 54 and ready for more
  • 55 and staying alive (with apologies to the US government)
  • 56 and up to the same old tricks
  • 57 and not ready for heaven
  • 58 and feeling great

Normally I know well in advance what the next year’s slogan will be, but not so for my 59th. That one didn’t gel until the day before on September 14 at 6 AM in the pantry. Why then and there I have no idea. But it hit me like an all-pro linebacker tackle on a 4th and one.

59 and gospel primed.

Let me explain. Not too long ago someone came to me after I embarrassed myself in one of our services with a tirade in our announcements. This brother confessed that he walked away from that Sunday suffering from an ecclesiastical identity crisis. It took a lot of guts for this person to confront me. To be honest I reacted at first rather defensively. The more I thought about it the more the Lord convicted me that he was right! I determined then and there that I would never let that happen again if I had any say in it. Since that time I have enjoyed something of a gospel renaissance in my personal and pastoral life that I never want to lose a grip on.

Ergo this year’s saying. At every turn I want to be primed for gospel-action, preaching, counseling, obedience and to commend the same to everyone with which I come into contact.

My prayer is very much that of Scotty Smith’s:

Lord Jesus, one of the many things I cherish about the Bible is the way it robs me of my penchant for hero worship. Who but God would write a book documenting the foibles and failures of so many of his sons and daughters? Who but God would chronicle the ways his chosen leaders, like Peter, limp along and prove themselves to be in constant need of mercy and grace?

This gives me great encouragement and hope. It also gives me freedom to acknowledge that I need the gospel today just as much as the first day I believed it. This will be just as true tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. Keep me convinced, Jesus, because I’m much like Peter.

It’s one thing for me to get irritated and angry about the ways this generation is downplaying your work on the cross. But it’s quite another to see the subtle ways I try to keep you from the cross. Deal with me as you dealt with Peter.

When I mute my heart to the insult of grace, I deny your cross. When I think, even for one moment, that my obedience merits anything, I deny your cross. When I put others under the microscope and measure of performance-based living, I deny your cross. When I wallow in self-contempt and shame, I deny your cross. When I’d rather do penance than repent, I deny your cross.

When I gossip juicy tidbits more than I gossip the gospel, I deny your cross. When I pout more than I praise; when I show more fear than faith; when I want to be right more than I want to be righteous, I deny your cross. When I talk about people more than I pray for the same people, I deny your cross. When my grip on grudges is tighter than my grasp of the gospel, I deny your cross.

By the gospel, help me to mind the things of God more than the things of men. May your cross get bigger, and may my boast in it grow louder. Jesus, you’re the main hero in the Bible. The rest of us are totally dependent on you. That’s never going to change. I need fresh grace today. So very Amen I pray, in your patient and persistent name.

What he prayed.

Only 361 days until I turn sixty. For every day God gives me may they know fresh grace and gospel power for God’s glory, my joy, and the joy of those who attach themselves to my so often flesh-compromised ministry.

Preventing Provoking

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This Saturday our Oxford Club for Men meets at 7 AM at the church office. We will continue our discussion over Richard Phillip’s book The Masculine Mandate.

Chapter ten deals with our keeping role of disciplining our children as godly men.

Here is a taste from the chapter, some excellent words relating to not provoking our children to anger as Paul prescribes in Ephesians 6:4 –

In order to avoid provoking our children to anger, we must be fair and judicious in placing demands on our boys and girls. We should not be personally abusive (agian, all abuse  undermines rather than enhances authority). I want my children to think of themselves with God-given dignity and self-respect, and this requires the proper praise and respect of their father toward them. Here’s a rule I try very hard to follow: I will always be on my children’s side, even if I am punishing. I will never be against them and I will never speak to them with contempt (pp. 117-18).

Lots more good stuff where that came from. Look forward to digging in with you on September 17 for breakfast, fellowship, and study.

Angel Work

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This quarter’s edition of The Free Grace Broadcaster focuses on Comfort in Affliction.

I have taken much of value away from the articles within, especially a sermon by Charles Spurgeon called Cheer Up, My Dear Friends.

In it he addressed those discouraged that they could do nothing due to being laid aside by sickness or some other hard providence. I pass it on for its encouragement, especially with respect to the high work of refreshing God’s saints.

The refreshing of God’s saints is one of the highest works in which anyone can be occupied. God will send prophets to his servants at times when they need to be rebuked; if he wants to comfort them he generally sends an angel to them, for that is angel’s work. Jesus Christ himself, we read, had angels sent to minister to him. When? Was it not in the garden of Gethsemane, when he was bowed down with sorrow? Comforting is not ordinary work: it is a kind of angelic work. “There appeared unto him an angel strengthening him.” A prophet was sent to warn the Israelites of their sin; but when a Gideon was to be encouraged to go and fight for his country, it was the angel of the Lord that came to him. So I gather that comforting work is angel’s work. You, dear kind Christian men and women, who think that you are not able to do anything but to condole or to console with cheery words some souls cast down and sore dismayed, you are fulfilling a most blessed office, and doing work which many ministers find it difficult to perform. I have known some who have never known suffering or ill-health, and when they try to comfort God’s weary people they are dreadfully awkward over it. They are like elephants picking up pins: they can do it, but it is with a wonderful effort. God’s tried people comfort each other con amore; they take to the work as a fish to water. They understand the art of speaking a word in season to him that is weary, and when this is the case they may not complain that they are doing nothing.

Paul certainly thought highly of this angelic work. In 2 Timothy 1:16-18 he praised one such angelic servant in these terms:

[16] May the Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains, [17] but when he arrived in Rome he searched for me earnestly and found me—[18] may the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that Day!—and you well know all the service he rendered at Ephesus.

Can you think of someone who might need refreshing through a kind word or note of encouragement. Why not undertake some angel work today?

Yes, It's a Holiday Weekend but . . .

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Yes, it’s Labor Day weekend with the rest, relaxation, and refreshment it can bring, but . . . Sunday will come tomorrow and we will gather for worship and community as always.

In some ways it is a more important Sunday than others.

First, we have a congregational meeting during the 9:30 hour for members and attenders alike. We will address a financial update on our 2011 operating budget as well as the capital campaign for our building program. We will hear about the growth group and 9:30 hour for children and adult emphases this fall as well. We have some interesting research about churches who recently opened new facilities and will share what we have learned from that and how we are seeking to profit by the conclusions. Finally, as we almost always do, time permitting, we will have an open mic Ask Anything of the Leadership Team session at the conclusion of the meeting. Child care will be available for ages 0-4.

Another reason tomorrow takes on greater importance than some other Sundays is that we will have the Lord’s Supper at the conclusion of the service. The Scripture reading for the day actually includes Paul’s treatment of the Supper in 1 Cor. 11:17-34. The sermon text comes from vs. 33-34 where we hear Paul exhort about the grace of waiting for one another at the Table. Why not take a moment to read and reflect upon the passage now?

For some excellent insight on how to prepare for the Supper tomorrow, especially if you have struggled with your indwelling flesh this week, check out this by Pastor John Piper: Can I take the Lord’s Supper if I’ve had a bad week spiritually?

Digo Team Report on Audio

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I am pleased to report that our first-rate tech team on Sunday recorded our Digo team report of our recent trip to Kenya during the 9:30 hour.

If you didn’t get a chance to hear the report, you can listen to the audio here.

Please continue to pray with us for God’s wisdom and direction in further initiatives among the Digo for promoting the gospel.

How People Change

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We’re gearing up this fall for a church-wide growth group emphasis using the How People Change DVD Seminar Curriculum.

You can hear more about this during our congregational meeting this Sunday during the 9:30 hour.

Here’s one description of the material:

In the How People Change Seminar Paul Tripp and Tim Lane explore the truth of the gospel and apply it to life in a fallen world. Through their teaching, they clearly explain and enhance the truths from the How People Change Study Guide that help people to understand how Christ’s life, death, and resurrection can and does change the details of their lives. Through twelve, 30-minute sessions participants will be challenged to experience the deep-down change that the gospel of Jesus Christ brings and given the tools to understand the basic principles in the companion study guide.

For a taste of what’s in store, take ten minutes to view the video below.

Please pray with us for God to use this to shape our lives for change all the more by the power of the gospel.

The Trouble with Community

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That’s easy.

Christians. Saints by position in Christ who still act like pagans in sin. No matter how spiritual believers become, while in the flesh, the potential for relapse ever remains a threat.

In my role as a pastor, occasionally I take the heat for the local church body by receiving complaints about real and/or perceived breakdowns in its expression of community. These trouble me, especially the ones I cause by my own lapses into gospel amnesia that lead to legalism or license in my own life. I pray and labor to find ways to correct our imperfections.

I think a sermon series like The Graces of Gospel-Shaped Community like we are giving ourselves to for the rest of this year at OGC can tend to spur us on to greater heights and depths of community. Certainly I pray and labor for that in multiple ways. But the downside of such an emphasis is that it can serve to highlight our failures and weaknesses in community too. And that can lead to discouragement, if we don’t take care to keep things in perspective.

Something helping me in that regard is to remember the nature of the first century church. We really can’t afford to romanticize the experience of the New Testament church. That kind of thinking tends to reveal itself in comments like, If we could only be like the church of the first century, that would fix everything wrong with our church.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. The fact that we have so many one-another passages in the New Testament is due to the fact that the assemblies of the first century experienced their fair share of sinful dysfunction and more. In fact, we wouldn’t likely have some of the precious one another passages of the Bible, if it weren’t for the troubles of a church like Corinth for example.

This Sunday’s text from 1 Corinthians 11:17-34 illustrates this perfectly. The Corinthian saints got so out of whack in their fellowship that they abused one another in the taking of the Lord’s Supper. God got so miffed at them for their offenses that He judged some with sickness and death (v. 30)! If you want to know the cause of the Lord’s wrath on this occasion, don’t miss this Sunday’s sermon – The Grace of Waiting. I know, I have no shame, but I refuse to let the exegetical cat out of the bag before its time.

I could cite similar historical and contextual instances from other books of the New Testament, but I think you get the point.

So while we take seriously our failures in community with a view to allowing the gospel to shape us more thoroughly toward improvement, let’s remember that we have ample evidence from the New Testament that sinners living in community will trouble one another.

And that’s exactly why we need to be in community — gospel-shaped, grace-laden, Christ-exalting, Spirit-empowered community.