Public Confession of Sin and Giving Thanks - Attracting God's Attention

The last few years we have begun our Week of Prayer with a time of confession. Of all our meetings I think this one freaks people out the most. Get together and publicly confess sin!? Who does that?

I admit my own hesitation to this early on. In fact, it was only upon reading a description of Spurgeon’s Week of Prayer at the Tabernacle that convinced me it was worth a try. At the end of this meeting I am always left asking why we do not do it more.

            But this is the one to whom I will look:

                        he who is humble and contrite in spirit

                        and trembles at my word.

                       (Isaiah 66:2b ESV)

I think this is the power of public confession. We attract the attention of God. When my brothers and sisters are pouring out their hearts to God and admitting their failures over the past year, God gets glorified. His forgiveness, His patience, His longsuffering, indeed, His abundant grace, all get made much of. And He looks toward them - He gives them "more attention."

Tonight we will seek to spend the hour of prayer thanking God. Thanksgiving tends to work like water breaking through a dyke. What starts as a slow trickle ends up gushing forth in abundant praise to the One who has done so much for us.

I think it is great to prepare for these meetings. One thing you could do for tonight is spend the rest of the afternoon jotting down things for which you are thankful. Bring your list to our meeting and help us all glorify the One who has given us so much.

8 Reasons to NOT Come to Week of Prayer (with Biblical Refutations!)

I am of the opinion that coming up with excuses to miss a prayer meeting is about as easy as opening a can of pop. It does not take a profound imagination to concoct reasons to skip. With that in mind, I sometimes remind myself why prayer must be kept essential rather than supplemental. I like to use the Word to re-frame my desires. If you are a member of Grace Fellowship Church and starting to think of why you should stay home tonight or any night this week, here are some of my Monday afternoon reflections.

Answer the Tempter with Truth!

I am tired.

“Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak.” (Matthew 24)

I have more important things to do.

“For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek His kingdom, and these things will be added to you.” (Luke 12)

I do not like to pray.

“Pray without ceasing.” (1 Thessalonians 5)

I can pray better on my own anyway.

“And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” (Acts 2)

I forgot about it.

“They forgot his works

and the wonders that he had shown them.

Yet he, being compassionate,

atoned for their iniquity

and did not destroy them;

he restrained his anger often

and did not stir up all his wrath.

He remembered that they were but flesh,

a wind that passes and comes not again.

How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness

and grieved him in the desert!” (Psalm 78:11, 38-40)

I don’t feel like it. Have you even been outside?

“Another of the disciples said to him, ‘Lord, let me first go and bury my father.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.’” (Matthew 8)

I don’t see the need to confess my sins in front of other people.

“Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” (James 5)

I have to get ready for school/work tomorrow.

“Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” (Matthew 6)

How to Listen to Handel’s “Messiah”

A large group from our church will be attending the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Mendelsohn Choir’s presentation of Messiah this week. For many this will be their first time and I thought I might provide a little coaching on how to get the most out of it.

The first thing you need to realize is that classical music is not bad. George Frideric Handel died in 1759 after a long and productive life of writing operas, oratorios and the like at the height of the Baroque period. If that doesn’t mean anything to you, don’t worry. All you really need to know is that he composed very beautiful, logical music. Listen carefully to how it progresses. In Messiah, it is aimed to closely match the meaning of the words. Happy thoughts come with happy music. Sober ideas get sober music. That kind of thing.

The second thing to note is that every word in Messiah comes from the Bible. Most often, this is done by directly quoting a Biblical text, but sometimes a phrase from another text is added to help complete the thought.

David said,

            I will meditate on your precepts

                        and fix my eyes on your ways.

            I will delight in your statutes;

                        I will not forget your word.

(Psalm 119:15-16 ESV)

Now you have the key to Handel’s Messiah!

The way to meditate on the Word of God is to take a verse or two and think on them for a period of time. You may, for example, read the verse out loud putting the emphasis on a different word each time. Or you may just read it over and over again carefully ruminating on each word. There are many ways to meditate.

Handel’s Messiah is a beautiful way to ponder the Word of God concerning Jesus. Handel takes us from the early prophecies of Christ, through the Scriptures concerning His birth, then on to his death, resurrection and the Final Judgment. In what may be, in my opinion, the most lovely section of the piece, he ends with the chorus of the angels in heaven from Revelation 5: “"Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power – and riches, – and wisdom, – and strength, – and honour, – and glory, – and blessing. Amen."  The “Amen” alone is worth the price of admission!

So, come to Messiah ready to worship. You will be blessed with a couple of hours of thoughtful, indeed beautiful, meditation on the Christ. Let yourself enjoy the musical arrangements. Listen for ways Handel was attempting to communicate via the music what he understood as the intention of the verses. And by all means, do not talk during the performance. (Okay, I had to get that in. People have forgotten how to attend concerts these days, whether at my kids’ schools or Roy Thompson Hall. Sit quietly, never even whisper except through applause breaks, and don’t stand up until the Hallelujah chorus.)

May God use your attendance and mediation and delight in Him and His ways to prepare your heart to worship Him with passion and joy Christmas Day.

P.S.  This is a paid concert. If you are late, you will not be shown to your seat until pre-scheduled breaks in the music. Depending on how late you are, that can be a long way into the performance. So, love your fellow concert-goers and arrive downtown early. There is lots to see in the lobby if you have extra time.

Challies, Walter and Getting Angry

Tim preached a helpful little sermon on anger last Sunday and that got me thinking about a letter old Walter wrote our church a few years back. You can read the whole thing here, but I liked this little quote:

It's a funny thing with anger. It feels like it must get vented, otherwise we will explode or something. Yet, quite the opposite is true. Vent it - and you'll be throwing gasoline on the fire! Suppress it - and the fire is snuffed out. Notice I said "suppress" and not "repress." I'm not a wordsmith, by any stretch, but there's a difference in my mind between those two terms. By suppress I mean, turn away from the anger and pray to the Sovereign. By repress I mean just get tight-lipped and fuming mad on the inside. I don't see much grace in the second of the two. I think what the Lord desires is for us to lose the anger on the outside and the inside - and we can, by His help.
 One encouragement in all this is to recall the respect God lays on the name of the man that controls his anger:
 Proverbs 29:11  “A fool gives full vent to his spirit, but a wise man quietly holds it back.”

John Murray On What it Means to "Work Out Your Salvation"

This extended quote may be the most helpful and succinct commentary written on Philippians 2:12-13 in the English language. It is worth your time to read it slowly and thoughtfully.

While we are constantly dependent upon the supernatural agency of the Holy Spirit, we must also take account of the fact that sanctification is a process that draws within its scope the conscious life of the believer. The sanctified are not passive or quiescent in this process. Nothing shows this more clearly than the exhortation of the apostle: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:12-13). The salvation referred to here is not the salvation already in possession but the eschatological salvation (cf. 1 Thess. 5:8-9; 1 Pet. 1:5, 9; 2:2). And no text sets forth more succinctly and clearly the relation of God’s working to our working. God’s working in us is not suspended because we work, nor our working suspended because God works. Neither is the relation strictly one of co-operation as if God did his part and we did ours so that the conjunction or co-ordination of both produced the required result. God works in us and we also work. But the relation is that because God works we work. All working out of salvation on our part is the effect of God’s working in us, not the willing to the exclusion of the doing and not the doing to the exclusion of the willing, but both the willing and the doing. And this working of God is directed to the end of enabling us to will and to do that which is well pleasing to him. We have here not only the explanation of all acceptable activity on our part but we have also the incentive to our willing and working. What the apostle is urging is the necessity of working out our own salvation, and the encouragement he supplies is the assurance that it is God himself who works in us. The more persistently active we are in working, the more persuaded we may be that all the energizing grace and power is of God.

            The exhortations to action with which the Scripture is pervaded are all to the effect of reminding us that our whole being is intensely active in that process which has as its goal the predestinating purpose of God that we should be conformed to the image of his Son (Rom. 8:29). Paul says again to the Philippians, “And this I pray that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all discernment, so that ye may approve the things that are excellent, that ye may be sincere and without offence unto the day of Christ, being filled with the fruit of righteousness which is through Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God” (Phil. 1:9-11). And Peter, in like manner, “Yea, and for this very cause adding on your part all diligence, in your faith supply virtue; and in your virtue knowledge; and in your knowledge self-control, and in your self-control patience; and in your patience godliness; and in your godliness brotherly kindness; and in your brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, they make you to be not idle nor unfruitful unto the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 1:5-8). It is unnecessary to multiply quotations. The New Testament is strewn with this emphasis (cf. Rom 12:1-3, 9-21; 13:7-14; 2 Cor. 7:1; Gal. 5:13-16,25,26; Eph. 4:17-32; Phil. 3:10-17; 4:4-9; Col. 3:1-25; 1 Thess. 5:8-22; Heb. 12:14-16; 13:1-9; James 1:19-27; 2:14-26; 3:13-18; 1 Pet. 1:13-25; 2:11-13, 17; 2 Pet 3:14-18, 1 John 2:3-11; 3:17-24). Sanctification involves the concentration of thought, of interest, of heart, mind, will and purpose upon the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus and the engagement of our whole being with those means which God has instituted for the attainment of that destination. Sanctification is the sanctification of persons, and persons are not machines; it is the sanctification of persons renewed after the image of God in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness. The prospect it offers is to know even as we are known and to be holy as God is holy. Every one who has this hope in God purifies himself even as he is pure (1 John 3:3).

John Murray (Redemption Accomplished and Applied, Eerdmans, pp 148-150)