“Blessed are the merciful, For they shall obtain mercy.”

Thomas Watson calls mercifulness “a melting disposition whereby we lay to heart the miseries of others and are ready on all occasions to be instrumental for their good.” This disposition is modeled by Christ frequently when he sees the sick and lame and blind. In such encounters, the gospels regularly say, “he had compassion on them.” But his compassion didn’t stop at merely feeling certain things about them. Christ was willing to be moved to action by the suffering of others. Like the Good Samaritan, he was willing to be interrupted and inconvenienced in order to attend to the needs of those around him. 

This fact can be difficult for us to deal with sometimes. Are we so quick to drop whatever it is we preoccupy ourselves with in order to attend to the needs of others? Or, perhaps the better question is how often do we plan ahead and get that thing done in advance so that we are ready and prepared to help in a moment of need? In other words, do you find yourself constantly frustrated by the needs of others because you didn’t plan well enough? What about with your kids or your spouse? Do you often view their needs or requests as inconveniences to your daily schedule? 

We think this way, and yet there is a terrifying implication to Christ’s words here. What happens if we are not characterized as people who are merciful? What happens if we become like the Scribes and Pharisees who perform all kinds of religious duties but neglect the weightier matters of the law; such as, justice, and faith, and mercy? If being merciful brings with it the great blessing and reward of receiving mercy ourselves, then to not be merciful is to incur the curses and judgment of God. 

It is true that we cannot earn God’s mercy; otherwise, it would not be mercy. But as Galatians 6:7 says, “God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.” By sowing mercy, you reap mercy. And by failing to sow mercy, you will not receive mercy. 

And so the question comes: Do you need the mercy of God today? What about in your marriage? Could you use a bit of God’s mercy because of how you spoke harshly with your wife, or how you berated your husband? What about your strained relationship with your kids or your parents? Do you need God’s mercy there? If so, don’t wait for things to magically change. Confess your own failures. Confess where and how you have been unmerciful, where you’ve been critical, or harsh, or nagging. Confess it now and pray that the Lord would fashion you into a worthy instrument to be ready at all times to seek the good of others.

Zach Wilke – April 14, 2024

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Proverbs tells us, “As the door turneth upon his hinges, so doth the slothful upon his bed” (Proverbs 26:14). You can envision the man there, rotating like a stuffed pig roasting on a spit. He’s being fattened up for the slaughter. This lazy man is not happy. He is not at leisure. He is not recreating. There is no re-creation here, but de-creation. The sloth is unpleasantly immobile, digging himself deeper and deeper into an abyss, down there where satan is bound. Very often he spins downward while mindlessly scrolling on a smartphone. There is nothing particularly tantlizing about sloth. You may be tempted to it, of course. But you are not tempted to it like the sins of pride, greed, and sexual immorality. So you must know what this particular sin is up to.

R. J. Snell has wisely said that “Boredom is a heresy, declaring God was wrong when he saw the goodness of the world.” The slothful man retreats into himself, refusing to see, taste, hear, smell, and touch God’s created world with gratitude. And it is not as if the world, from which the slothful man flees, is stagnant or passive. This good creation speaks to him in a thousand ways. It reaches out to him. The birds sing to him. The sawdust assaults his sense of smell with its pleasing aroma. The apples beckon him to taste and see that they are good. They hang from the tree as if to politely request to be put into a pie.

But the slothful man trusts his own words more than these words from God. He opts to trust his lying words of despair, hopelessness, and meaninglessness; rather than the true word of God, brought to us by slimy slugs, laughing children, and rhubarb springing up from the ground. 

To all of this, the bed-bound sloth says, “But, there is a lion in the streets.” To which we must reply, “Perhaps so, and if there is, I really would like to go and see him shake his golden mane. We might even get to hear him roar.

Jared Longshore – April 14, 2024

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It’s easy to forget what you’re doing. Easy to walk into a room and then stare off into space perplexedly, wondering why you came in there and why you’re holding a hammer. This is a classic danger when heroes go questing: inevitably they will walk over some enchanted ground, or they will fall under some witch’s spell, or they will dally with a fair maiden with the result being that they forget what they’re doing and some helpful squire or mentor has to come along and remind them who they are and what they’re supposed to be doing.

All throughout scripture the Lord instructs his people to remember, remember, remember. Remember the gifts of God, remember the past faithfulness of God, remember the work he has given you to do. Paul tells Timothy to stir up, or rekindle, the gift of God. So consider what God has given you, and what God has given you to do, and how God has provided for you in the past. Remember that God is remaking the world and that he is doing so by means of word and sacrament each Lord’s Day, and psalms around the dinner table, and hard and honest work throughout the week, and laundry washed and folded, and joyful marriages, businesses built, and children loved and fed and taught to fear God. The Kingdom of Christ is built in these things, and it goes forth invincibly.

One of the ways we forget the gifts and calling of God is when we stop believing that the Kingdom of Jesus shall be victorious in this world, that the will of God will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.

But if we’re honest, the truth that the church will be victorious in the world is frightening. It means that we really are engaged in a great war and that what we do matters. It means that the sword in my hand is for stabbing and the shield is for blocking real arrows, and not just for looking cool until the play is over. But our God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of love and of power and of a sound mind. Love for God and neighbor, the power of the Holy Spirit at work in us remaking the world, and the wisdom of Christ which looks like foolishness to the world.

So let us pray to our God for Christian courage and repent of our faithless cowardice.

Joshua Edgren – April 7, 2024

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Each Lord’s Day we come to worship the Lord together, and we do so as people with bodies and souls. We are not floating disembodied spirits, walking brains, nor bags of flesh. We are made up of both body and soul, and so when we worship our God, we want to offer all of ourselves to Him. This is why during our worship services we assume various bodily postures. 

But because we want all that we do in worship to be according to Scripture, it would be good to review why we do what we do from time to time. So this morning, I’d like to run through the four basic postures we assume in our worship services and their biblical support.

First, we kneel during our prayer of confession. This is an act of humility and submission. It is not a Roman Catholic thing, but a human thing, and a biblical practice. As Psalm 95:6 reads, “Oh come, let us worship and bow down; Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.” 

Second, we stand for the reading of God’s Word. This shows honor, respect, and attentiveness. When Ezra opened the Book of the Law to be read before the people, it says they all stood up to receive it (Neh. 8:5, 9:3). 

Third, we sit for communion. This is because we are guests seated at our Lord’s Table. As the Gospels record, Jesus sat with His twelve apostles as they ate their final Passover meal (Mt. 26:20, Lk. 22:14–15). 

And fourth, we lift our hands during the closing doxology. We do this in unison as a corporate action of praise, rather than as a spontaneous individual expression. We see this action in various psalms, along with Paul’s instructions in 1 Timothy for men to pray lifting up holy hands (Ps. 63:4, 143:6, 1 Tim. 2:8). 

By observing these various postures, we are producing within ourselves what we are trying to cultivate, such as humility in confession. And then we are also communicating this outwardly, displaying the posture of our hearts to both men and God. 

So with this understanding, may we all now seek to present our whole bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to our God, for this is our spiritual worship (Rom. 12:1).

Shawn Paterson – April 7, 2024

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