Bulletin for November 5, 2023

Thinking About the Apostles’s Creed

This week, I’ll be preaching on 1 Peter 3:17-22. If you’ve read this, it’s probably immediately clear to you that this is a difficult passage. Of course, verse 21 is complicated, but there’s also this odd thing about Christ preaching to the “spirits in prison.” I’ll talk about that verse in detail during the sermon, but I wanted to share this Bible study I did a few months ago on the Apostles’ Creed and the phrase “he descended into hell,” especially since Christ’s descent into hell is more of a side point in Sunday’s text. Hopefully, if you have questions, this will help you orient yourself some to what we’re talking about. And if there’s anything you’re still struggling with, feel free to ask about it.

Updates

1. Don’t forget to change your clocks tonight! We’re falling back one hour!

2. Be sure to continue bringing items for Operation Christmas Child. We have about one more week to get everything packed.

3. Thanks to all of you for praying for and bearing with our family this past month. The wait was longer than we wanted, but everything went wonderfully. Lois and Madeleine are both happy and healthy, and we’re all finally at home for the forseeable future!

Your friend in Christ,
Reid

Bulletin for October 22, 2023

How We Pray

A couple weeks ago, I gave a brief reflection on the Lord’s Prayer. This week, I want to turn to the broader biblical basis for public prayer in worship. The key passage is 1 Timothy 2:1-10.

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time. For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling; likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness–with good works.

There are several things to notice about the ways this passage informs our public prayers.

1. Paul commends several different kinds of prayer. In worship, we engage in all these kinds of prayer. Supplications are prayers where we specifically ask God to provide for our own needs; we pair this with our prayer of confession because our primary need is forgiveness from sins. Intercessions are prayers for others which we lift up in the long prayer after the sermon. We give God thanksgiving following the offertory. We also find warrant for the invocation (which is also a prayer of adoration) and confession of sin in other parts of Scripture, most notably in the Lord’s Prayer.

2. We are specifically called to pray for all kinds of people, including our political leaders. You’ll hear a prayer for our leaders every time we do an intercessory prayer, included with our prayers for the needs of all sorts of people. Of course, we want our political leaders to believe the gospel, but even when that does not happen, we are to pray for the sake of peace. The Westminster Confession of Faith says, “As nursing fathers, it is the duty of civil magistrates to protect the church of our common Lord.” This is something we should seek even when the civil magistrate is unbelieving.

3. Paul says that part of his purpose in his call as a preacher is to pray. In Roman Catholic theology, the minister stands between the people and God. The Reformers rejected that in favor of the biblical notion that the minister serves as a mouthpiece for the congregation. Certainly, I am always praying for you, but in worship, we are all praying together. Even as one person speaks, we are to join together as the priestly people of God with one heart.

4. Paul gives specific instructions to men and women to pray with pure hearts. You’ll notice that Paul’s instructions are very similar to what we saw in 1 Peter 3:1-7. Our prayers can be hindered by anger and quarreling or by distracting ourselves with our outward appearance. In public worship, we’re called to put those things aside so that we can pray with a singular focus on the work of Christ, who intercedes with us and for us in heaven.

(As an aside, this passage is one of many that describes the most common posture for prayer in the Bible: hands raised. That’s why I normally raise my hands during prayer. If you’re comfortable, I invite you to do the same. It’s a bodily sign of our prayers being lifted up before God. The second most common posture in the Bible is kneeling.)

So as we pray in worship, don’t sit idly. Be attentive and focused. Join the prayer of your heart with the prayers of those around you as we join with the communion of saints. We are just a few people here on earth, but when we worship, we participate in the eternal heavenly worship that always rises before God.

And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne, and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel. – Rev. 8:3-4

Updates

As of Friday night, we still don’t have a new baby, so I’m planning to be with you this Sunday. That means we won’t have communion just yet, but continue to be prepared!

I also received the following announcement from Presbyterian Women this week regarding Operation Christmas Child:

Presbyterian Women have ordered boxes to pack for Samaritan’s Purse OCC. They will be here within 2 weeks. Please pack your boxes with love and prayer or let Janet know ASAP if we want to plan a night for the children to pack boxes. The deadline for boxes to be delivered to the Church is November 14th so we can get them to the area pick up site. Postage will be $10 per box. If you wish, PW will pay your postage.

Your friend in Christ,
Reid

Bulletin for October 15, 2023

As many of you have likely noticed, I am very fond of the Westminster Catechisms. As I’ve been thinking about that over the past week, I was reminded of the following article written by Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield. Warfield served as Professor of Reformed Theology at Princeton Seminary from 1887 to 1921. In a time when liberalism was beginning to take hold in the Northern Presbyterian church, Warfield took a strong stand for the trustworthiness of the Bible and the importance of the Westminster Standards as a faithful summary of biblical teaching.

The Shorter Catechism is, perhaps, not very easy to learn. And very certainly it will not teach itself. Its framers were less careful to make it easy than to make it good. As one of them, Lazarus Seaman, explained, they sought to set down in it not the knowledge the child has, but the knowledge the child ought to have. And they did not dream that anyone could expect it to teach itself. They committed it rather to faithful men who were zealous’ teachers of the truth, “to be,” as the Scottish General Assembly puts it in the Act approving it, “a Directory for catechizing such as are of a weaker capacity,” as they sent out the Larger Catechism “to be a Directory for catechizing such as have made some proficiency in the knowledge of the grounds of religion.”

No doubt it requires some effort whether to teach or to learn the Shorter Catechism. It requires some effort whether to teach or to learn the grounds of any department of knowledge. Our children–some of them at least-groan over even the primary arithmetic and find sentence–analysis a burden. Even the conquest of the art of reading has proved such a task that “reading without tears” is deemed an achievement. We think, nevertheless, that the acquisition of arithmetic, grammar and reading is worth the pains it costs the teacher to teach, and the pain it costs the learner to learn them. Do we not think the acquisition of the grounds of religion worth some effort, and even, if need be, some tears?

For, the grounds of religion must be taught and learned as truly as the grounds of anything else. Let us make no mistake here. Religion does not come of itself: it is always a matter of instruction. The emotions of the heart, in which many seem to think religion too exclusively to consist, ever follow the movements of the thought. Passion for service cannot take the place of passion for truth, or safely outrun the acquisition of truth; for it is dreadfully possible to compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, to find we have made him only a “son of hell.” This is why God establishes and extends his Church by the ordinance of preaching; it is why we have Sunday schools and Bible classes. Nay, this is why God has grounded his Church in revelation. He does not content himself with sending his Spirit into the world to turn men to him. He sends his Word into the world as well. Because, it is from knowledge of the truth, and only from the knowledge of the truth, that under the quickening influence of the Spirit true religion can be born. Is it not worth the pains of the teacher to communicate, the pain of the scholar to acquire this knowledge of the truth? How unhappy the expedient to withhold the truth–that truth under the guidance of which the religious nature must function if it is to function aright–that we may save ourselves these pains, our pupils this pain!

An anecdote told of Dwight L. Moody will illustrate the value to the religious life of having been taught these forms of truth. He was staying with a Scottish friend in London, but suppose we let the narrator tell the story. “A young man had come to speak to Mr. Moody about religious things. He was in difficulty about a number of points, among the rest about prayer and natural laws. ‘What is prayer?’ he said, ‘I can’t tell what you mean by it!’ They were in the hall of a large London house. Before Moody could answer, a child’s voice was heard singing on the stairs. It was that of a little girl of nine or ten, the daughter of their host. She came running down the stairs and paused as she saw strangers sitting in the hall. ‘Come here, Jenny,’ her father said, ‘and tell this gentleman what is prayer.’ Jenny did not know what had been going on, but she quite understood that she was now called upon to say her Catechism. So she drew herself up, and folded her hands in front of her, like a good little girl who was going to ‘say her questions,’ and she said in her clear childish voice: ‘Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins and thankful acknowledgement of his mercies.’ Ah! That’s the Catechism!’ Moody said, ’thank God for that Catechism.’ "

How many have had occasion to “thank God for that Catechism!” Did anyone ever know a really devout man who regretted having been taught the Shorter Catechism–even with tears–in his youth? How its forms of sound words come reverberating back into the memory, in moments of trial and suffering, of doubt and temptation, giving direction to religious aspirations, firmness to hesitating thought, guidance to stumbling feet: and adding to our religious meditations an ever-increasing richness and depth. “The older I grow,” said Thomas Carlyle in his old age, “and now I stand on the brink of eternity, the more comes back to me the first sentence in the Catechism, which I learned when a child, and the fuller and deeper its meaning becomes:

What is the chief end of man? To glorify God and to enjoy him forever.

Robert Louis Stevenson, too, had learned this Catechism when a child; and though he wandered far from the faith in which it would guide his feet, he could never escape from its influence, and he never lost his admiration (may we not even say, his reverence) for it. Mrs. Sellars, a shrewd, if kindly, observer, tells us in her delightful “Recollections” that Stevenson bore with him to his dying” day what she calls “the indelible mark of the Shorter Catechism”; and he himself shows how he esteemed it when he set over against one another what he calls the “English” and the “Scottish” Catechisms–the former, as he says, beginning by “tritely inquiring ‘What is your name?,’” the latter by “striking at the very roots of life with ‘What is the chief end of man?’ and answering nobly, if obscurely, ‘To glorify God and to enjoy him forever.’”

What is “the indelible mark of the Shorter Catechism”? We have the following bit of personal experience from a general officer of the United States army. He was in a great western city at a time of intense excitement and violent rioting. The streets were over-run daily by a dangerous crowd. One day he observed approaching him a man of singularly combined calmness and firmness of mien, whose very demeanor inspired confidence. So impressed was he with his bearing amid the surrounding uproar that when he had passed he turned to look back at him, only to find that the stranger had done the same. On observing his turning the stranger at once came back to him, and touching his chest with his forefinger, demanded without preface: “What is the chief end of man?” On receiving the countersign, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever”–“Ah!” said he, “I knew you were a Shorter Catechism boy by your looks!” “Why, that was just what I was thinking of you,” was the rejoinder.

It is worth while to be a Shorter Catechism boy. They grow to be men. And better than that, they are exceedingly apt to grow to be men of God. So apt, that we cannot afford to have them miss the chance of it. “Train up a child in the way he should go, and even when he is old he will not depart from it.”

Supporting Jerusalem

A couple of you have asked about ways to support Christian work in Israel. Denominationally, the EPC is heavily involved in Muslim missions and has missionaries all across the Middle East. You are, of course, always free to give to EPC World Outreach to support their work. You can find a list of various projects here.

For an organization specifically focused on Israel, I recommend looking at CMJ Israel. This is a trustworthy organization that stewards their resources well. They are also under the supervision of Christ Church Jerusalem. They have been established in Jerusalem for over two hundred years and share our biblically Reformed convictions. I have personally spent time with several of their leaders. Here is a prayer service they held on Sunday if you want to hear some of things they are praying for right now.

Locally, we have several things coming up on the church calendar. Be sure to check out the announcements listed on the last page of the bulletin.

Your friend in Christ,
Reid Roberson

Bulletin for October 8, 2023

The Lord’s Prayer

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.

At every worship service, we follow the invocation with the Lord’s Prayer. Something I hear frequently, especially from Baptist and non-denominational Christians, is that they find the practice a bit uncomfortable. There seems to be some fear about be “too Catholic” or participating in vain repetitions. So let’s look at what the Westminster Larger Catechism says and address those fears.

Q. 186. How does God direct us to pray?

A. The whole word of God, but especially the Lord’s prayer, which our Savior Christ taught his disciples, directs our prayers.

Q. 187. How should we use the Lord’s prayer?

A. The Lord’s prayer not only directs us as a model for our other prayers but may also be used as a prayer itself that will promote our understanding, faith, reverence, and the other gifts of God in us that are necessary for us to pray properly.

The Lord’s Prayer is an example prayer drawn from the Sermon on the Mount. It’s very short and simple, but it contains all the essential elements of prayer that we find in Scripture. There’s adoration, confession, supplication, intercession, and thanksgiving. If you pay attention to our prayers throughout our worship service, you’ll hear all of those elements. If you read the Psalms, you’ll find them as well.

But does Jesus intend for us to use this prayer “as a prayer itself” like the catechism says? I think so. First, notice that the prayer is framed in first person plural. It is a collective prayer, not an individual prayer. Second, Jesus opens the prayer saying, “Therefore, pray then: Our Father…” Most English translations will supply a phrase like “after this manner” or “like this.” That’s not a bad translation, but it can be misleading. Jesus is not saying, “Pray like this, but don’t use this prayer.” Instead, he’s saying pray like this, as opposed to the way the hypocrites pray.

In addition to the fact that I think Jesus intends us to pray this prayer together, there are also good practical reasons for using it. First, if we’re going to us the Lord’s Prayer as a model, we probably need to know it. It’s becoming increasingly popular for Christian writers to come up with “prayer methods.” They range from perfectly good and appropriate (like the ACTS method) to dangerous (like “centering prayer”). But Jesus himself has given us a model for prayer!

Second, the Lord’s Prayer is perfectly and infallibly inspired. When I pray, my prayers are all messed up. I ask for things that I shouldn’t. My mind wanders, and I lose focus. I get concerned with myself instead of looking to Christ. But the Lord’s Prayer can straighten me out. It’s the same reason we say the Apostles’ Creed right after the sermon.

Finally, some people struggle with prayer, and set prayers like the Lord’s Prayer are helpful. Prayer doesn’t come natural to us. Children and new believers need to learn to pray. Furthermore, I don’t always know what to pray, but the Spirit helps me (Rom. 8:26). The Spirit has also provided me with words. The pinnacle of the Spirit’s words are in the Lord’s Prayer, but the Bible includes a great number of prayers that can provide words for the voiceless. When we don’t know what to say, we can pray God’s words back to him, knowing that they are perfect and effective.

So we pray the Lord’s Prayer, not because it’s a magic spell or because we’re trying to be Catholic. We pray the Lord’s Prayer because it is Christ’s gift to us. We are sinners with all sorts of false motives, but he offers his words to cleanse us. We are weak and small, but he has stooped down to meet us. Let’s not take that for granted.

If you want to study the Lord’s Prayer further, our Catechisms have great line-by-line expositions. See questions 186 and following in the Larger Catechism or questions 98 and following in the Shorter Catechism.

Updates

On Wednesday, I was advised by Madeleine’s doctor to stay in Starkville until we were sure about her status. As of writing this (late Thursday), there hasn’t been any progress, so I’m expecting to be back in town for worship on Sunday. Thank you for your continued prayers as we get ready to introduce Lois!

Also, I neglected to mention this Sunday, but whenever Lois is born, Rev. Ron Pierce has agreed to preach in my absence. At that time, he will also serve the Lord’s Supper. So please be in preparing to come to the Table within the next couple of weeks.

Your friend in Christ,
Reid

Bulletin for October 1, 2023

Psalm 51

This week in worship, we’ll be singing a portion of Psalm 51. We’ll continue to sing, learn, and reflect on this Psalm for at least the next month. The Psalms are the prayerbook and the hymnbook of the Bible. Not only do they teach us right doctrine, but they teach us right emotion. They are God’s inspired examples of how we ought to speak to him. (At some point, I’ll write a longer explanation of why we sing psalms, but the short answer is the Paul directly commands it in Eph. 5:19 and Col. 3:16.)

Psalm 51, in particular, is one of best examples of how we are to repent. The inscription (which is part of the biblical text) says,

A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.

David had committed a grave sin against Uriah, against Bathsheba, and against the whole people of Israel. He certainly owes repentance to all of these people, but notice who is mentioned most in Psalm 51. In David’s mind, although he had sinned against a number of people, his primary concern was that he had sinned against his holy God. That doesn’t diminish his debt to the people around him, but he knows that he cannot right his wrongs in the world if he hasn’t first been reconciled unto God. (Remember: “on earth as it is in heaven.”)

At the same time, David calls on the promises of God. What David brings before God is not his own works. Instead, God’s own grace is the basis for David’s plea.

How many times do we repent in a self-centered way? We tell God that we’re sorry, that we’ll never do it again. But if Psalm 51 is a model for repentance, maybe that’s the wrong way to approach God. God doesn’t want to hear our promises; he wants to hear his promises. I know that I’m going to fail. I’m going to stumble. But God is our steadfast Rock.

Does God want our offerings and our obedience? Yes! But these are only possible through the gracious work of the Holy Spirit. Grace comes first; obedience comes second. The Lord rebuilds Jerusalem, and then he receives the offerings of the temple. If you want to be received by God, you must do it on the foundation, not of your own works, but of his mercy given in the work of Jesus Christ.

“Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; build up the walls of Jerusalem; then will you delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar.” – Psalm 51:18-19

Thank You

Madeleine and I are very grateful for your kindness to us at Wednesday night’s shower. You went above and beyond to care for us, and having been with you for only a short time, we already feel welcomed and loved. Thank you.

Your friend in Christ,
Reid

Bulletin for September 24, 2023

A Word on Worship

1 Peter 2 tells us that we are being built up into a spiritual house “to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” We’ll talk more about this in the sermon, but one of the primary ways we do this is through our public service of worship. Therefore, it’s important that we have some understanding of what exactly we’re doing in worship each week. Why do we do things the way we do? In order to answer that question, I want to include here a few reflections each week on our various elements of worship. For many of you, this will simply be a review, but I hope it can be of some encouragement as we worship together each week. This week, let’s consider the Call to Worship.

The Call to Worship

In the past, VPC has referred to the opening choral introit as a call to worship, and this is appropriate under certain circumstances. We may return to that pattern at some point, but you may have noticed that in the past few orders of worship, the introit and call to worship have been separate. There are several reasons for this.

The Westminster Confession of Faith reminds us that “[public gatherings] are not to be carelessly or willfully neglected or forsaken, since God calls us to join other believers in public worship.” Isaiah 56:6-7 says,

“And the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, to minister to him, to love the name of the LORD, and to be his servants, everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it, and holds fast my covenant–these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”

Notice it is God who brings us before him, not ourselves. This pattern is repeated in all of the great covenant renewals throughout the Old Testament, most notably in Exodus 19 and following, and reinforced by the first commandment:

“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.”

Oftentimes, we think of going to church on the Lord’s Day as an act of personal devotion, something we do for our own “spiritual fix,” but not really something vital for the Christian life. This is an error. Of course, God is present in all his power when his people gather, and he really does bless us richly in our worship, but it’s not because we have willed him out of heaven. No, God is present in our worship because he has called a people unto himself. We do not gather ourselves, but we are joined together by the Lord who has redeemed from our sin. We worship in response to God’s gracious command to repent and believe.

So the call to worship is God speaking to us, just as he speaks to us in his Word throughout the worship service. Therefore, it is the ordinary (i.e., there are other perfectly acceptable ways to do this) practice of the Reformed tradition for the preacher to call the church to worship from Scripture. This is also the practice prescribed by the Westminster Directory of Public Worship. The Bible, and particularly the book of Psalms, is filled with these calls. This week, it is drawn from Psalm 118:

This is the day that the Lord has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
for his steadfast love endures forever!

Also, our call to worship this week is responsive. The past couple of weeks, I’ve used “one-way” calls to worship, but the Psalms are actually designed for responsive reading and singing. (Have you ever noticed that each verse of the Psalms are divided into two parts?) The congregation’s part is a direct response to the Word of God’s call.

So as we participate together in the Call to Worship this Lord’s Day, reflect on God’s grace to you. In our sermon text, Peter says that God has “called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” Let’s rejoice in his call, the call to come to Christ in repentance and faith, and lift up our hearts to him in response.

Some further devotional reflections can be found here, courtesy of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

A Ministry Opportunity

Some of the ladies have begun writing cards to people in our church and community that would benefit from the encouragement. This is a very simple but meaningful way to reach out to those in need and love our neighbors. If there is someone you think would benefit from receiving a card or if you would like to help, please speak to me or Janet James.

Your friend in Christ,
Reid

Bulletin for September 17, 2023

One additional announcement that did not make the bulletin: Presbyterian Women will meet Tuesday, September 19, at 2:00 PM!

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