Will America Be Judged? | Desiring God

Will America Be Judged? | Desiring God 

What the Hijabi Witnessed (and What She Didn't) - Reformation21

The thing that interested me about this article is what it might say to us about reading Scripture in our services.  Before the twentieth century and the onset of Liberalism and higher criticism, we used to read Scripture in church more than we sang.  We all had at least an Old Testament and New Testament reading along with the Psalms, and the readings were done in some sort of systematic way.  But now in our churches we sing way more than we read the Bible, even though the Lord commands us to be publicly devoted to the public reading of the Scriptures (1 Tim. 4:13).  

At the same time that we are singing more and reading less in church, the average Christian is getting so much of his theology from the contemporary Christian music scene in his car or in his home!  If we are raising Christians whose theological beliefs are more in tune with contemporary Christian music than God's Word, then maybe in the church we need to return to the tradition of the Christian liturgy for the first 1900 years of its existence, reading from the Old Testament, Gospels, Epistles and Psalms.  Reading Scripture has power---more power than the individualism of contemporary choruses.  The enemy must be pleased to have maneuvered this change in our liturgy, silencing the written Word he hates.

What the Hijabi Witnessed (and What She Didn't) - Reformation21 

New Song Based on Luke's Sermon on the Plain

Our Father, For Your Precious Son

Suggested tune: TALLIS' EVENING HYMN (http://www.opc.org/hymn.html?hymn_id=27).  Meter: LM.  Based on Luke 6:27-42.  Words: William Weber, 2014. (after sermon, imitation of God in Christ, Christ as gift and example, indicative/imperative, sanctification)

v. 1

Our Father, for Your precious Son,

and all that through Him You have done,

we lift our hearts in thanks and praise;

O be with us through all our days.

v. 2

Conform us, Father, to Your Son,

and make us like You in Your love.

O may the world Your mercy see,

and orphan sinners come to Thee.

v. 3

O Jesus, teach to be like You,

in all our ways and all we do.

Forgiving, giving as we're taught,

and cursing and condemning not.

v. 4

Our God to whom all glory's due,

O may we not Your name impugn.

Your love in Christ to us is great,

O may we learn to imitate.

v. 5

Our Father, we are children weak,

and sin remains and so we seek:

the Spirit who joins us to Christ,

who is the way, the truth, the life.

Jesus as Gift and Example

Luther taught us to receive Jesus as both gift and example.  Luke's Sermon on the Plain seems to teach the same thing.  Jesus himself fulfill the beatitudes perfectly, and his perfect life, including his sin-bearing death is given to his people who come to him in faith.  Thus, we are justified (made right with God) by Jesus' righteousness. But Jesus is also given to his people as example.  As our Teacher, Jesus trains his people, so that when we are fully trained we become like him.  Thus, imitation is a big part of the ethic of Jesus.  The lyrics of this hymn are built upon the truth that Jesus is given to his people as both gift and example.  The basis for the hymn in Scripture is Luke 6:20-23, 36, 40.

Jesus Christ Is Gift, Example

Suggested tune: REGENT SQUARE (http://www.opc.org/hymn.html?hymn_id=225).  Meter: 878787.  Based on Luke 6:20-23, 36, 40.  Words: William Weber, 2014. (after sermon, indicative/imperative, imitation of God in Christ)

v. 1

Jesus Christ is gift, example,

given by the God of grace.

Sent to win a great salvation,

for a dying human race.

Find in Jesus grace and blessing,

at His table take your place.

v. 2

First He's gift and then example,

life we need to imitate.

We were made to bear God's image,

and His traits to emulate.

Living icons in His temple,

is our privileged estate.

v. 3

But we sought our independence,

and His likeness did not bear.

Far from God our hearts have wandered,

idols fetter and ensnare.

But our Lord came to our rescue,

in His love we now can share.

v. 4

So receive this gift of Jesus,

seek His presence day by day.

Seek to know the Son and Father,

meditate upon the Way.

May we bear the fam'ly likeness,

like our Teacher when we're trained.

Faithfulness to the Story and its Author

“In the postmodern era, the overarching story is that out world is heading for political, economic, and ecological oblivion.  The only way we can save it is through a rescue; we need a savior, a state, who will end discrimination by enforcing diversity, who will deliver our economy by neo-Marxism, and who will rescue our environment with eco-legislation.  Then we will have complete equality, true diversity, and authentic community.  Just read philosophers like Peter Singer, Alain Badiou, or Slavoj Zizek, and you will get themes like this coming through.  Here religion, as an ideology of resistance to hyper-secularism, stands in the way of diversity and eco-responsibility; therefore, it must be exiled out of the public sphere. Sex can be publicized, but religions must be interiorized. Tolerance is not respect for the beliefs of others; it is the abandonment of beliefs that offend.  I suspect that when all is said and done, the postmodern vision will collapse in on itself in nihilism.  Its hope for a community-in-diversity can only be achieved by forcing faith communities to forfeit their truth claims, to deny the finality of their hopes, and to expunge themselves of anything offensive to others.  The irony of postmodernism is that its quest for absolute diversity can be only achieved by crushing dissenters.

“In contrast to all this, Christian theology claims that history is about the mission of God working out his purposes.  These purposes were promised to the patriarchs and to Israel, were summed up in Christ, flow into the church, and will climax at the appointed day.  We know how the story goes, we know who it is about, and we even know how it all ends---not with a whimper but a new creation.  We do not die; rather, we become alive at the great resurrection.  Christian eschatology represents a competing story, a story that dares challenge the dehumanizing ideologies of secularism and nihilism, for it tells us of a world without end, a benevolent Lord, a never-ending peace, and time without tears.  What is more, it is a world that has already begun in the context of this world, for that is the eschatological horizon of the gospel.”

---Michael Bird from his book, Evangelical Theology

I was particularly struck by the accuracy and reality of Bird's description of the direction of the world at this particular time in history and his description of the Christian faith as a competing story.  O how we need to be faithful to that story, and cling to its Author in what will become a more and more difficult time.

The History of Christianity in 25 Objects: Olney Hymns | Challies Dot Com

The History of Christianity in 25 Objects: Olney Hymns | Challies Dot Com

Excellent article on the origin of Reformed and Evangelical hymns. I found this article to be encouraging as someone who tries to write hymns for the reasons articulated in this article. I try to write hymns based on the Gospels that communicate simply the truths of the faith, something I do not think a lot of our contemporary worship songs do, or even many of our hymns. 

Jesus' Fulfillment of the Beatitudes

20 And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said:

“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

21 “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.

“Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.

22 “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! 23 Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.

--------------------

The beatitudes are, first of all, about Jesus before they are about us.  Jesus is the blessed man in a way that no other person could be.  Jesus fulfills each of the beatitudes and gives the rewards he earned to his people as blessings.  

Paul puts the first beatitude like this in 2 Corinthians 8:9: "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich."  Who else has left the riches of heaven to come to earth on an errand of mercy?  Who can fathom the condescension of the second person of the eternally blessed trinity taking to himself our human nature to be born of the virgin?  Who can comprehend the love of God that not only takes to himself our nature, but in that nature goes to the cross to reconcile sinners to himself and his Father?

Surely Jesus is the preeminently blessed man, for he became poor for our sake, because of sheer grace and love.  He is the fount in whom every blessing will be found.  No kingdom blessing or benediction can be found apart from him.

He above all others, hungered for righteousness.  As he said in John 4:34, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work."  And, accomplish it he did.  But the good news is that he freely gives his accomplishment to his believing people for our justification.

Similarly, our Lord wept for the human race.  He understood as no one else our spiritual poverty, enslavement, blindness and oppression (Luke 4:18-19).  Our pitiful condition moved him to prayer, compassion and ultimately, the cross.

And surely we see that Jesus was hated as no one else.  As John put it, "the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil" (John 3:19).  While the Father showed his heart of love through the cross, unregenerate men showed their heart of hatred for God by nailing him to that cross, and this is a hatred that only Jesus can root up by the gift of the indwelling Spirit.

So see, first, in these beatitudes the blessings the Son of God has earned for you in love, and may the Spirit cause us to respond with a poverty, hunger, and weeping, which we will look at in our evening devotion.