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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God’s command to us is that we would be anxious for nothing (Philippians 4:6). And nothing, of course, means nothing. This is a high bar. We all know what it is like to miss this particular mark. But that is no excuse for us missing it. Peace is what must replace worry. Peace is the fruit of the Spirit that involves all being well with your soul. But the very notion that peace is a fruit of the Spirit implies that you cannot simply go out and get it. Peace is something you must receive. It must be given to you.

After His resurrection, Jesus was with his disciples forty days. And the first thing He said when He showed Himself to them was, “Peace be unto you” (Luke 24:36). They responded with terror, afraid they had seen a spirit. But He asked them, “Why are you troubled? . . . Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have” (Luke 38-39). Peace flooded in at that point. Not only had they not seen a spirit. They had seen their likeness raised from the dead. A real man, dead and now raised to live forever, as they would be. While they were still in awe, He underscored their peace by asking, “Does anyone have some meat that I can eat?” Imagine their awe as they watched Him chew and swallow.

Peace comes from the resurrected Christ. You will find it nowhere else. Look to Him and believe His words when He says, “Peace be unto you.” You must see Him by faith, of course. As Isaiah says, “You will keep Him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you” (Isaiah 26:3). So stay your mind and heart on the embodied and risen Christ. He is your peace.

Jared Longshore – April 7, 2024

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Trials have the unfortunate ability to completely knock you off of your feet. Trials are painful and that pain is to be expected, but the question is, what will you do when a trial knocks on your door? 1 Samuel starts off with the bleak scene of Hannah’s life. She’s struggling with infertility, she has been for a while, and not only that but she has the other woman that her husband married, likely because she’s infertile, tearing into that wound and pouring all the salt she can find on it just to spite her. She’s so affected by this trial that she can’t even eat. She is completely overwhelmed.

But what does she do about it? Well she doesn’t turn to witchcraft like Saul, she doesn’t run away like Elijah, or return revile for revile. No, instead she goes to the tabernacle, she runs to the presence of God and through tears she pours her heart out to the Lord. She lays out her complaints and her grief in prayer. 

And it’s not like everything got better for her right away. Matter of fact as she’s praying, the pastor on site, the priest, accuses her of being drunk. But Hannah remains faithful, she keeps her eyes on God. And out of this situation God hears her prayers and gives her a son who would bring revival to Israel. 

So when God gives you a trial. Follow the example of Hannah. When you get laid off from your job, take it to the Lord in prayer. When your car breaks down AGAIN, take it to the Lord in prayer. When you struggle with infertility, take it to the Lord in prayer. Replace the urge to panic with prayerful petitions, replace the desire to sulk with relentless hope. We are to cast our cares on Him and we do this because we know that He cares for us.

Jeremiah Jasso – April 7, 2024

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If man wonders why Christianity has triumphed throughout so much of the world, then he needs to look no further than the fact that Christians are ready to die. As Tertullian said, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” Here is a principle that every man can grasp. If you face an army in which every soldier is ready to give his life, then you face a formidable force. Christians live in this world for something more than this world. We live in this world for the next world, the resurrected world. And the Christians who live most for that world are the most effective in this one.

Let the resurrection have its full force. You are coming out of the ground, my friends. This is a promise upon which we stand flat-footed. Your casket will crack. Your lungs will heave. Your ears will hear the sound of resurrected Canadian geese. And you will attend the mother of all family reunions with honors and treasures given for how each one lived in this life. This resurrection will happen on an appointed day. Maybe a Tuesday. I’m betting Sunday. And what a day it will be.

This resurrection frees you from the fear of death—and not just physical death when you depart the body. The resurrection frees you from the fear of every death you face between now and then—those “dying-daily” deaths. There is no other way to do good works. Death must be at work in you so that life is at work in others. And how will you face those regular Thursday afternoon deaths? Honestly, how are you going to carry your cross on that long road to Calvary? It is quite simple: The same Spirit that raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you. 

Jared Longshore – March 31, 2024

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