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On February 25, 2020 By In Worship

Some Thoughts on Pancakes (and Lent)

Our church always has a big pancake feast on Shrove Tuesday before the season of Lent. It’s one of the highlights of the church year for the kids. Several children, my own included, mentioned that they had skipped lunch in order to have more room for pancakes at the celebration. They didn’t just want to enjoy some pancakes. They wanted to enjoy as much pancakes as humanly possible.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this is a picture of what the season of Lent is all about. It is not merely an opportunity to declutter our lives, or to learn contentment with less, or to practice self-discipline. Lent is not a giving up or an emptying out. Lent is about making room for more. And it is the culmination of Lent that teaches us what we are making room for–the resurrection power of the risen Christ in our everyday lives.

The Apostle Paul said, “…that I may know [Christ], and the power of His resurrection, and may share in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.” (Phil. 3:10-11)

Jesus left left the tomb empty that He might fill the earth with His glory. He left His disciples that He might fill them more fully with the Holy Spirit. Whenever God pours us out in sacrifice and service, it is always for the purpose of filling us up with better things, namely Himself. Each Lord’s Day we come with empty hands to His table and He fills us with strength and joy that overflows into the rest of the week.

So this Lenten season, do not merely ask what it is that you need to give up, but more importantly, ask yourself what it is that you want to be filled up with in its place. Certainly we must throw off the sin which clings to us. a We should lose our appetite for sinful pleasures. But we must also hunger and thirst after righteousness. b We must long for Christ as the desperate deer pants for water. c

Therefore, we fast from those good things that we might feast on the greater things. And there is no greater thing than to be filled with the life and love and peace of Christ.

  1. Hebrews 12:1  (back)
  2. Matthew 5:6  (back)
  3. Psalm 42:1  (back)

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On February 9, 2020 By In Theology, Worship

Family Conversation

God is a conversationalist. He speaks. He has always been speaking. Speaking is so much a part of who God is that the second Person of the Trinity is called “the Word” (Jn 1.1, 14). The Father is the Speaker, the Son is the Word, and the Spirit is the Breath that carries the Word of the Father. God speaks within the Trinitarian family eternally.

The conversation of God was so full of love and life that, by it, he created the heavens and the earth to join in. The apex of God’s creation was his own image: man. To be the image of God means many things, but one of the primary meanings is that man is a conversationalist. Man is made to speak.

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On February 2, 2020 By In Theology, Wisdom, Worship

Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

The story of the Good Samaritan is well-known in our culture, not just among Christians, but by everyone. We have Good Samaritan laws that protect those who help people in distress from being sued if the rescue doesn’t go well. Presidents and other politicians have referred to the story of the Good Samaritan in their speeches to encourage certain policies. Back in 2018, Nancy Pelosi recited the entire story in her eight-hour speech on the floor of Congress to promote “The Dream Act.” (https://www.christianpost.com/news/nancy-pelosi-recites-the-good-samaritan-parable-praises-evangelical-leaders-in-8-hour-speech-216989/) There is a Christian mercy ministry run by Franklin Graham called “Samaritan’s Purse.” Christians have a health insurance replacement called “Samaritan Ministries.” The story of the Good Samaritan is well-known, well-loved, and well-used.

When a story like this becomes such a common cultural fixture, it becomes easy to assume we understand the story. Our American culture has taken the story, for the most part, in a very simplistic way, reading it as if it were one of Aesop’s Fables: a story that promotes a moral. In this case, the moral is “Do good for hurting people.” This, of course, is true as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go nearly far enough. There is quite a bit more to the story.

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On January 28, 2020 By In Worship

Can I Pray Like The Psalmist?

Guest Post by Rob Noland


“Prove me, O LORD, and try me; test my heart and my mind. For your steadfast love is before my eyes, and I walk in your faithfulness. I do not sit with men of falsehood, nor do I consort with hypocrites. I hate the assembly of evildoers, and I will not sit with the wicked. I wash my hands in innocence and go around your altar, LORD, proclaiming Thanksgiving aloud and telling all your wondrous deeds.”- Psalm 26:2-7 

There is a stream running through the Psalms that I have often found difficult to swim in, and I suspect that I am not alone (especially among reformed folks). How can a desperate sinner like me pray and sing about his righteousness before God? How can I say, “you have tested me and will find nothing” (Psalm 17:3) or, “I hold back my feet from every evil way, in order to keep your word. I do not turn aside from your rules, for you have taught me.” (Psalm 119:101-102)?

I tell my wife every day that I love her. Of course, I don’t love her perfectly. My love is a needy kind of love that never arises to the perfection of Christ’s love for the church. But I don’t rise up every morning and confess my lack of love for her. How would she feel if I always told her how little I loved her? There are some days that I just feel like shouting from the balcony of our apartment, “I love Amber Noland!” Of course, that would not turn out to be a very practical way of loving her, because it would embarrass her terribly. But there would not be any hypocrisy to it. It would not be appropriate for someone to take me aside and say, “You know, you really shouldn’t say that you love your wife, because you don’t love her perfectly.”

There is also a place in my marriage for me to proclaim my love for her in a different way. I can say to her something like, “Search my internet history, you will find nothing,” or “There hasn’t been a single time this week that I’ve held my gaze on another woman.” She knows very well that this hasn’t always been the case with me, so there are times when she really needs that kind of assurance. Proclaiming my faithfulness to her is an act of love.

I would suggest that the difficulty comes from a certain posture that is right and good in confession, but not normative for praise. The mistaken idea is that we can only ever confess our lack of love for the LORD. Further, we must always come before the LORD and say, “I have not loved you as I ought,” “I have despised your word,” “I have hated your statutes.” We cannot proclaim our obedience to the LORD, even in thankfulness for God’s grace to us, because that would amount to self-righteous boasting.

What I am saying is, our love for the LORD is expressed through our obedience to him. It is appropriate in some contexts to proclaim our love for the LORD by proclaiming our obedience to his word—not out of an expression of self-righteous boasting. It is the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us that enables our obedience, and his work on our behalf that enables us to walk boldly into his holy place. And, of course, we need to regularly confess our lack of love for the LORD, just as sometimes I need to confess to my wife that I have not loved her well. But after we come to the LORD in confession and receive forgiveness, we praise him. It is not self-righteous to praise the LORD. Let all the earth praise the LORD.

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On January 4, 2020 By In Worship

Ten Blessings of Community

Dear friend,

I just want to take a few moments to exalt the virtues of community life and to show that without it one’s humanity suffers:

First, to be in community is the closest human sample to that heavenly experiment in the age to come.

Second, to be in community is to put to test those divine imperatives to love, show kindness, and cover one another.

Third, to be in community is to see weakness displayed often and to be humbled by it.

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On December 15, 2019 By In Theology, Worship

Ordinary Changes

Worship with God’s people on the Lord’s Day is not always exciting. It’s okay. You can admit it. Many times we walk out feeling encouraged. Sometimes we leave feeling refreshed. But there are those times–more often than not–that worship is … well … rather ordinary. We’ve gone to worship because we know that’s what God commands, but we don’t feel extremely different when we leave (except for exhaustion if you’ve had to wrestle with small children). We certainly don’t look any different. Nevertheless, as faithful Christians, we faithfully plod on Sunday after Sunday.

Somewhere in our hearts, there is this hankering for some excitement in worship. We want something different, something special that will thrill us and provide emotional motivation to be zealous throughout the week. Sometimes God provides this. There are times in worship when the fellowship of the saints seems particularly joyful, the sermon is especially penetrating and encouraging, and the Supper is a deeply emotional experience. Those times are special.

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On December 8, 2019 By In Counseling/Piety, Theology, Worship

Glorifying God

At the top of the Mt of Transfiguration, Jesus is glorified. The Father and the Spirit transfigure him, altering his face and making his clothes brilliantly white. This glorification is a gift from the Father through the Spirit to the Son. This gift is a responsibility, a mission, that will entail Jesus taking up his cross and be raised so as to redeem the created order. Jesus will take this gift, make it more than it is in the present—glorify it—and then return it to the Father. This sequence is basically what Paul outlines in 1Corinthians 15.20-28.

What is happening between the members of the Trinity on the Mt of Transfiguration is a glimpse into the eternal life and family culture of the Trinity. This mutual glorification, this giving-glorifying-and-returning sequence, is not unusual or something specific only to the incarnational ministry of Jesus. What we see is the revelation of the character of the Trinity. In his words and works, God reveals his eternal, immutable character.

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On December 2, 2019 By In Culture, Theology, Worship

Why the Church Year?

There was a time when time was not. God began to speak. The heavens and earth came into existence. The rhythms of life within the eternal Trinity began being imaged in the rhythms of the creation. Day one. Day two. Day three. Day four. Day five. Day six. Day seven. A steady, twenty-four-hour rhythm turns into the rhythm of the week. The rhythm of weeks turns into the rhythm of months. The rhythm of months turns into the rhythm of seasons. The rhythm of seasons turns into the rhythm of years. What started as a slow steady beat has turned into a symphony of layered rhythms; some consistent, some syncopated, but all moving the creation relentlessly forward.

In order to conduct this symphony, God put the sun, moon, and stars in the firmament-heaven. They separated the day from the night and were for signs and festival times. The heavenly lights were God’s authoritative clock to tell the world the time (Gen 1.14-19).

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On October 27, 2019 By In Theology, Worship

You Are The Christ?

The Twelve have been walking with Jesus for a while now. They have heard him proclaim the gospel of the kingdom. They have seen him heal diseases, cast out demons, and feed multitudes with five loaves and two fish. Jesus has even granted them authority over diseases and demons. But do the Twelve know who Jesus is? Do they understand his true identity and, consequently, his vocation?

In Luke 9, on the heels of the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus inquires. First, he asks the disciples who the crowds say that he is. They had been mingling through the crowds (9.11) passing out and collecting food. People were talking. What were they saying about Jesus? The disciples tell him that they believe that Jesus is one of the prophets risen from the dead. But then Jesus turns to the disciples and asks, “And you, who do you say that I am?” Peter answers, “You are the Christ of God.” (9.20)

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On October 11, 2019 By In Books, Politics, Theology, Worship

Kuyper’s Lectures on Calvinism: Calvinism and Religion

This is the second part of a six part article series on Abraham Kuyper’s Lectures on Calvinism. He gave these lectures at Princeton Theological Seminary over a series of days in October 1898. Happy International Abraham Kuyper Month!

Religion is For God

In this second lecture, Kuyper argues that Calvinism has a religious energy that other theological camps do not. This energy is found in how Calvinism places God and God’s glory at the center of all religious life. This energy restores the true nature of religion and this restoration in turn sets out the full task of man before God.

What is this religious energy in Calvinism? It is that all of the Christian religion must be for God. Kuyper says, “The starting point of every motive in religion is God and not Man” (p 46). God should be our primary and ultimate goal. We must love and worship God for His own sake, not because we are trying to get a reward out of Him. Kuyper says this is our goal: “…to covet no other existence than for the sake of God, to long for nothing but the will of God, and to be wholly absorbed in the glory of the name of the Lord, such is the pith and kernel of all true religion” (p 46). The true demand of the Christian life is that we must spend all our energy following God’s will. 

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