Further up and Further in…
This past year, we have seen some wonderful growth. However in some ways we are battling some stagnation and even retreat. For those of you who are doing well, press in and stay the course. Do not let your guard down. Do not ease back. Stay vigilant and keep running.
For those of you who are struggling. Struggling with sin, struggling to know and understand your role and purpose here, struggling with temptation to fracture and isolate, press in. Do not wait for something to change or fall in your lap. Run toward the prize. And if you can’t run, walk. If you can’t walk, crawl.
Do not retreat. Do not stagnate. Do not let your emotions steer you. Armor up. Shout on, pray on, we’re gaining ground.
Do not worry about tomorrow. Today, this is where you are. This is your home. This is your family. These are your people. This is your body. So do not despise your home home and body.
SOLDIERS TOGETHER
Yahweh is calling us today to seek His Kingdom first and to stop merely seeking our own comforts. He is calling us to endure hardships like a good soldier.
There are a lot of things this charge can rightly teach us. One of the relevant implications for our congregation is that a good soldier is not willfully isolated or fractured from his band. Do not isolate yourself from Christ by isolating yourself from His body, in any way.
One of the dangers lurking at the door of CFC is this isolation. Guard yourselves against fracturing, against being discontent and disconnected from one another soul and body. You can be present and not be present. And then there is the temptation to not be present at all.
This is part of the reason we carved out a time and space for everyone to fellowship with one another at a time you had nothing else to do (10:30am on Sunday morning!).
You may be tempted to fill this newly freed up time with something else besides intentionally seeking to be knit together with the body. Do not do this.
People are tempted to prioritize self-serving creature comforts over a sacrificial and thriving body life. Do not do this. Be vigilant and diligent at the position you have been assigned at the walls and do your part to guard against fracturing and isolation.
One of the ways we can fall into this trap is by devaluing “non-essential” gatherings (midweek, fellowship time, Sunday School, Sabbath dinners, Psalm sings, mission meals, etc.) even while longing for more connection and opportunities for growth and fellowship. This is double minded. Do not give in to such foolishness.
You will not walk away from every single gathering feeling intellectually or emotionally stirred and fulfilled. No. Sometimes you will walk away from a gathering with nothing more than the satisfaction of having been there with and for your people who love you and are to be loved by you. Lay down your life and give yourself to your people. Give yourselves to one another.
You may be in a season where things you want to do, things you want to have, are not easy or perhaps they are nowhere in sight at all. Do not grow weary.
Many of you were not born into this community nor have you grown up in this body, a blessing our children will be privileged to enjoy. But you are here now, a member of this imperfect, reforming church in part because you want to partake of the good fruit you have seen from a distance. Praise God! This is good.
Now that you are here you must understand and refuse to forget how we got here. This good fruit is the result of divine mercy and grace after decades of faithfully living utterly interdependent lives as a body, as brothers and sisters, according to a Holy Spirit led understanding and application of the Holy Scriptures.
This living as a body has not always been easy and fun and it will not always be easy and fun. Maybe you know that well right now. There has been excruciating devastation, betrayals, and grief. There is real, ugly, septic, sin to wade through here. We are not perfectly polished, sinless statues that eat and drink nothing and produce no excrement.
No, we are sinners and sin is messy and shameful and brings with it guilt and the stench of death. This too is a part of the story that is being written here. And thanks be to God for Jesus Christ in whom there is no longer condemnation but freedom in the Spirit by the power of His Gospel.
Look around you. Don’t overlook the littles nor the oldest among us. Look at the souls who are here today. If you want more than a mere fleeting taste of eternal freedom, if you want the full feast and joy of life as the body of Christ, you must immerse yourself and faithfully live interdependent lives with the people around you, in this room and in this body.
How can we do this? Diligence and faithfulness to confess our sin and to live humbly toward one another is key. I am not only talking about confessing when you commit sins in your body or mind. I am talking about our need as a congregation to more diligently confess those things that we don’t want to admit are sin. Those things you don’t want to let go of and that you have been making excuses for. Those things you keep hidden and tell yourself you have received forgiveness for but still drown in the guilt and shame.
The locks and chains you use to keep those secrets hidden away are actually the very guilt and shame you so desperately want to be rid of. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Hidden in Him, there is nothing to hide.
And how far do I want our confession to go? How much do I want to dig up and uncover? All of it. Anything that still grabs you by the throat, that you drag around guilt and shame for like a ball and chain, I want all of that rooted up, cast off, and nailed to the cross. The cross, daily, is the rod and staff to strike the rock and unlock the endless fountain of mercy and comfort.
And consider this, something I heard from a wise man right here in this room, your Jesus was not too ashamed to take on your sin as His own and to suffer your public penalty and humiliation. So why do we believe we must keep these filthy sins hidden away behind lock and key instead of letting them be seen by all as covered and cleansed by the glorious blood of our Jesus?
Say the same thing God says in every area of your life and that is where you will find joy uncontainable. In other words, don’t be a hypocrite. In Deuteronomy 28 God’s people are warned that if we do not serve Yahweh our God with joy and gladness of heart, we will serve our enemies whom Yahweh will send. Run free. Live and die free.
JOY
Some of what I see sorely lacking among us, particularly in our worship services, are our corporate expressions and manifestations of deep and abiding joy and gladness of heart. I am talking about deep gratitude, satisfaction, expectancy, zeal, love, and anticipation that is palpable in our worship. I am not talking about fake.
A pastor once taught me that joy is buoyancy. Joy does not eliminate heaviness in our lives or in our gatherings. On the contrary, the joy of our salvation is the solemn joy our agonizing Jesus experienced in Gethsemane to endure the cross.
Joy, like glory, is weighty. But not the kind of weight like sin that sinks and smothers us. Joy is the kind of weight that displaces and bears us up.
Joy keeps our head above the waves and yet our expectation so often is that we need to just keep treading water in order to get the joy. This is totally backwards expectation and will only frustrate and disappoint.
EXPECTATIONS
We are called and gathered to die and yet the Lord’s Service is not a funeral. It is sowing and reaping. It is metamorphosis.
This isn’t about you. You die. When you come in and respond, pray, sing, when you lead a part of the liturgy, when you are thanklessly serving one another, take care that your heart is set right and oriented toward Christ who is light and life and not turned in on self.
This daily reorienting should be a part of your preparations before you ever step foot in the sanctuary. Get up, confess your sins, shower, brush your teeth, get dressed, and capture your wild and slavish emotions and take them to the cross.
Seed, do not think of yourself except to die and then think of the harvest that comes after.
When we gather to worship the Triune God, it is not a funeral and neither is it an informal, social, get-together. It is not earthly at all.
We each come together because Christ calls us. Your mind and body and clothes and emotions and desires and expectations should all express and reflect the praise and glory-weight of the King of kings who calls you with His body to rise again.
So set your heart and your mind and your affections and your strength on Christ and His body. Know what you are to do. Rehearse it. Then do all your ability, supplied by God, will allow. And do it that way even when you don’t feel like it.
SUMMARY
In 2024, we do not know what all may come but do not be a fool who expects tomorrow to be just like today. Do not assume the hardships you are being called to endure today will last forever and likewise do not assume the blessings we take for granted will always be.
Know that the double minded man will not stand and stand firm with Christ’s singleness of mind. Soldier, endure faithfully. Seek His Kingdom.
See the fullness of joy in spending yourself for His Kingdom. Jesus said, “For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”
You will lose it so stop trying to hang on to it and let it go.
Let it go and stop ignoring the Christ-exalting, gospel opportunities God has gifted you.
Find the lost sheep and the unbelievers and compel them to come.
And may God grant us victory in our Lord Jesus Christ, forever and ever, world without end. Amen