Sunday School is for All Ages!

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In the fullness of time, God revealed to Moses His plan to deliver Israel from Mizraim (the Hebrew word for Egypt meaning cramped, tight, or narrow place) into a good & spacious land flowing with milk & honey. Yes, God was going to deliver them from slavery & He was going to judge Egypt, but that’s only the beginning. In His announcement that He has “come down to rescue them,” God is also promising His presence among His people, a far greater gift. The message the Apostle John records in Revelation 21:1-6 is an updated version of the message Moses received 4000 years prior. God desires to dwell with His people.

Sunday School for all ages begins weekly at 9:45 AM. All are warmly welcome.

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First Sunday of Lent (A Prayer)

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“Almighty God, whose blessed Son was led by the Spirit to be tempted by Satan: Come quickly to help us who are assaulted by many temptations; and, as You know the weakness of each of us, let each one find You mighty to save; through Jesus Christ Thy Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen” (The 1979 Book of Common Prayer, 2005).

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Read the Bible: Psalm 28

 
 

LORD, I call to you;
my rock, do not be deaf to me.
If you remain silent to me,
I will be like those going down to the Pit.
2 Listen to the sound of my pleading
when I cry to you for help,
when I lift up my hands
toward your holy sanctuary.

3 Do not drag me away with the wicked,
with the evildoers,
who speak in friendly ways with their neighbors
while malice is in their hearts.
4 Repay them according to what they have done —
according to the evil of their deeds.
Repay them according to the work of their hands;
give them back what they deserve.
5 Because they do not consider
what the LORD has done
or the work of his hands,
he will tear them down and not rebuild them.

6 Blessed be the LORD,
for he has heard the sound of my pleading.
7 The LORD is my strength and my shield;
my heart trusts in him, and I am helped.
Therefore my heart celebrates,
and I give thanks to him with my song.

8 The LORD is the strength of his people;
he is a stronghold of salvation for his anointed.
9 Save your people, bless your possession,
shepherd them, and carry them forever.

Psalms 28:1-9 (CSB)

Psalm 28
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Lent Continues

The posture of repentance begun on Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the season of Lent, forty days of preparation for Easter or Resurrection Sunday. Some church traditions, like our own, eschew the official liturgical calendar and its inherent risk of repetitive ritual divorced from its significance and power. Yet, the meaning of feast days and seasons, the deep truths to which they beckon our return, resonates across time, place, or even Christian denomination. Lent is a season of reflection, repentance, and renewal for all who are in Christ.

Esau McCauley writes, “We hope that as Christians we mature and grow and become more and more like Christ. But the church in its wisdom assumes we will fail, even after our baptism. The church presumes that life is long and zeal fades, not just for some of us but for all. So it has included within its life a season in which all of us can recapture our love for God and His kingdom and cast off those things that so easily entangle us” (2022). McCauley’s description reminds us that our own “low church” denomination certainly has its own liturgical calendar. We don’t formally celebrate Advent, Epiphany, Lent, Pentecost, and common time like our “high church” brothers and sisters, but there are spring and fall revivals, communion services, district and denominational camp meetings, 21 Days of Fasting and Prayer, and homecoming Sundays, all about the same times each year. And for the same reasons: because we are, as the hymn writer so aptly penned, “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.”

 
 
 
 

Commemorating Lent for its intended purpose does not require bondage to tradition or coldness of faith. Rather, it is merely an honest recognition that until our sanctification here and now yields to our glorification in heaven, we contend with our flesh—that is the remaining human nature in us that apart from the keeping power of the Holy Spirit would surely rebel against God. James, a brother of Jesus, gives practical instruction in the matter:

“Therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you” (James 4:7-10).

Drawing near to God, according to James, requires cleansing, purification, mourning, and humility. Why such a gloomy posture for a season of victory? Because there is no resurrection that is not preceded by death. There is no exaltation that is not preceded by humility. In that vein, there is no Easter that is not preceded by Lent.

Lenten observances vary widely, but have traditionally included:

  • Fasting: purposefully abstaining from something of importance, most often food, for the discipline of directing our longing for what has been set aside to the things of God. Every hunger pang becomes a call to prayer. Every altered meal becomes a reminder of the source of every good and perfect gift.

  • Focused study or Scripture reading. There is no merit in observances apart from their significance and their significance is only found in the Word of God. You absolutely can read the Bible. (No, really, hit that link, pick a resource, and just get started.)

  • Remembrance or renewal. In liturgical traditions, there are additional church services or activities compared to the rest of the calendar year. In traditions like our own, this might simply be a time to recommit to church attendance as a priority. Perhaps you’re faithful on Sunday mornings but have yet to support night or midweek gatherings of your local congregation. Try using this season to intentionally rework your calendar to gather with the family of God for encouragement, worship, and instruction.

  • Acts of charity or justice. The Word of God through the prophet Isaiah: “Isn’t this the fast I choose: To break the chains of wickedness, to untie the ropes of the yoke, to set the oppressed free, and to tear off every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, to bring the poor and homeless into your house, to clothe the naked when you see him, and not to ignore your own flesh and blood?” (Isaiah 58:6-11). Lent may be the time to consider where works of our hands should further accompany our thoughts and prayers for others.

  • Confession. For many, confession evokes troubled images of booths and priests, part of the baggage and misunderstanding that discourages participation in celebrations of Lent. And yet we are instructed to “…confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed” (James 5:16). Do we notice the reason for confession? It’s not so we can feel wicked, but so we might be healed. The season when we remember the sin nature that required Jesus to become our propitiation at Calvary is ripe for learning the practice of confession.

There is no exhaustive list of disciplines to help believers grow in faith. Jude, another brother of Jesus, writing “to those who are the called, loved by God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ” (Jude 1) summed it all up nicely:

“But you, dear friends, as you build yourselves up in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting expectantly for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ for eternal life” (Jude 20-21).

Jude reminds that because Christians are the called, beloved, and kept, we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to keep ourselves in the love of God through varied means of grace. As we prepare to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus in victory over death, hell, and the grave, let’s intentionally use the remainder of these 40 days in whatever manner the Spirit leads to truly remember our great need for a Savior, repent, and receive deep renewal in Christ Jesus.

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Learn more about Lent and the rest of the Easter Season

Lent: The Season of Repentance and Renewal (Fullness of Time) by Esau McCauley (2022, IVP Formatio)

The 1979 Book of Common Prayer (2005, Oxford University Press)

Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing by Robert Robinson (1758).

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Ash Wednesday (Lent Begins)

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

This phrase will be spoken over many today who will kneel before an officiant in certain types of churches (quite different from ours) to be smeared with ashes in the shape of a cross on their foreheads. Young and old, healthy and suffering, rich and poor, all alike will be reminded of our mortality, the inevitability of death in the time preceding Christ’s return. Why mark the start of the Easter season—a time of celebration and triumph—with such a somber memento mori? Because there is no resurrection that is not preceded by death.

Death was not God’s original design for creation. We read in Genesis 2:17 that death was a consequence of human choice, not part of the “good” and “very good” (Gen. 1:31) fabric of creation. Lured by the serpent’s lie that “You will certainly not die,” (Gen. 3:4) Eve and Adam, “who was with her,” (Gen. 3:6) openly defied the explicit command of God, an act of spiritual treason. The consequences of sin were immediate and devastating, including the promise of eventual physical death as an outward display of the spiritual death that had already occurred.

…The ground is cursed because of you.
You will eat from it by means of painful labor
all the days of your life.
It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
You will eat bread by the sweat of your brow
until you return to the ground,
since you were taken from it.
For you are dust,
and you will return to dust.

Genesis 3:17-19

 
 
 
 

The story of Scripture from the garden to this day is that we are still prone to spiritual treason. Faced with the reality of our inherited sin nature, we can pray no different from King David when confronted with his own deeply grievous sin: “Indeed, I was guilty when I was born; I was sinful when my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51:5). Our story is not that of generally good people who are damaged by the difficulties of life. We are sinners from birth because we are children of Adam and Eve (Rom. 5:12), and “the wages (recompense) of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). Such is our helpless state unless we are spiritually born again—raised from death to life in Christ (Eph. 2:1-9).

Ash Wednesday is an annual reminder that apart from the regenerating work of Jesus, we would remain dead in our sins and trespasses, alienated from God. Apart from the keeping power of the Holy Spirit, we would return to our sins and trespasses. Despite the new life we have received in Christ, we contend with our flesh (Col. 3:5) and continually return to “The LORD—the LORD … a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love and truth, maintaining faithful love to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin…” (Exodus 34:6-7).

On this Ash Wednesday, we return afresh to a spirit of repentance. We recognize the frailty of our flesh, our inability to keep to the things of God unless we are first kept by His Holy Spirit. Easter reminds us what it cost to put away our sins. We dare not neglect so great a salvation (Heb. 2:3), but instead pray with saints the world over this prayer of repentance:

Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Collect for Ash Wednesday (Contemporary), Book of Common Prayer, 1979

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Learn more about Ash Wednesday and the rest of the Easter season

Lent: The Season of Repentance and Renewal (Fullness of Time) by Esau McCauley (2022, IVP Formatio)

The 1979 Book of Common Prayer (2005, Oxford University Press)

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Read the Bible: Psalm 27

 
 

The LORD is my light and my salvation —
whom should I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life —
whom should I dread?
2 When evildoers came against me to devour my flesh,
my foes and my enemies stumbled and fell.
3 Though an army deploys against me,
my heart will not be afraid;
though a war breaks out against me,
I will still be confident.

4 I have asked one thing from the LORD;
it is what I desire:
to dwell in the house of the LORD
all the days of my life,
gazing on the beauty of the LORD
and seeking him in his temple.
5 For he will conceal me in his shelter
in the day of adversity;
he will hide me under the cover of his tent;
he will set me high on a rock.
6 Then my head will be high
above my enemies around me;
I will offer sacrifices in his tent with shouts of joy.
I will sing and make music to the LORD.

7 LORD, hear my voice when I call;
be gracious to me and answer me.
8 My heart says this about you:
“Seek his face.”
LORD, I will seek your face.
9 Do not hide your face from me;
do not turn your servant away in anger.
You have been my helper;
do not leave me or abandon me,
God of my salvation.
10 Even if my father and mother abandon me,
the LORD cares for me.

11 Because of my adversaries,
show me your way, LORD,
and lead me on a level path.
12 Do not give me over to the will of my foes,
for false witnesses rise up against me,
breathing violence.

13 I am certain that I will see the LORD’s goodness
in the land of the living.
14 Wait for the LORD;
be strong, and let your heart be courageous.
Wait for the Lord.

Psalms 27:1-14 (CSB)

Psalm 27
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Sunday School is for All Ages!

A fugitive murderer hiding on the backside of the desert married into the family of an unusual priest. Is there anyone less likely to receive a visitation from the Lord than Moses in Midian? Yet, God knew exactly where Moses was and exactly the purpose he had been delivered as an infant to fulfill, regardless of his past.

Sunday School for all ages begins weekly at 9:45 AM. All are warmly welcome.

I have a Question

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