WSC Q&A #47

Q: What is forbidden in the first commandment?
A: The first commandment forbids the denying, or not worshiping and glorifying the true God as God, and our God; and the giving of that worship and glory to any other, which is due to him alone. 
Psalm 14:1 The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none who does good.

I think what is most interesting about this week's catechism question is that the writers of the confession rightly recognize that ultimately, there is no neutrality when it comes to worshiping God. In other words, we are either worshiping the one and only living and true God, or we are idolaters. 

Look at how the answer is laid out in this week's catechism. First, we have a passive action-withholding the worship and glory that belongs to God alone. But then, the catechism flows right into an active action-giving of that worship and glory to any other. On the surface, these passive and active actions may seem like two separate acts, but I would be willing to bet that were we able to talk to the Westminster divines today, they'd say they see it all as one act, two sides of the same coin, neither side existing independently of the other. The fact of the matter is, if we're not worshiping and glorifying God, we are worshiping and glorifying someone or something else. Human beings were created for worship.  It's ingrained in us. We can't help but worship, and the reality is, if we're withholding our worship from God, then we are directing it elsewhere. Everyone who has ever lived has worshiped and is worshiping someone or something. We are all "religious" in that sense.

In many ways, this is why our weekly gathered worship is so important. By participating in the liturgy of our gathered worship, by learning these repeated elements of the worship service that are intended to reenact the gospel, by participating in the singing of songs, in the prayers, the confessions, the reading of the Word, and participating in the sacraments, we are training ourselves to redirect our worship away from all the false gods that fill our lives, and to the one and only living, true, holy, Triune God. It may seem repetitious or even monotonous at times, but we can trust that as we participate in biblically grounded liturgy, the Holy Spirit is working in and through us to make us worshipers of the only One who is truly worthy of receiving worship.

Worth Reading

Mark 11:11-25

Do you come to our gathered worship service expecting God to speak to you through his Word? We encourage you to prayerfully read through the passage that will be preached prior to the service to help you prepare.

Don’t Forget

We all do it, probably every day. It has a much bigger impact than we realize. The scary thing is, we barely recognize that we're doing it.

What is this thing we all tend to do? We forget the generosity of God.

In the busyness and self-centeredness of our lives, we forget how much we have been blessed by grace. The fact that he blesses us when we deserve nothing (except for wrath and punishment) fades from our memories like a song whose lyrics we once knew but now cannot recall.

How to Witness at Work

Every day when you arrive at your workplace, an attitude arrives with you. Our attitudes are like the perfume or cologne we are wearing; we smell the fragrance when we first put it on, but others smell it throughout the day. The fragrance you’re wearing at work, others are picking up.

So what are those around you smelling? The apostle Paul reminds us that as apprentices of Jesus, we have the fragrance of Jesus. The attitudes we wear to our workplaces should remind others of him. The fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control—should make up a great deal of our attitudinal fragrance.

What You Should Know About the Syrian Refugee Controversy

Building His Church in a Refugee Crisis

God is building his church — through this refugee crisis — and the very hellishness of ISIS will not prevail against it.

*The inclusion of links to various articles does not mean we endorse everything written by the author or even necessarily agree with everything in the linked article, but we do think it's worth reading and thinking about with discernment.

The Mortification of Sin

Today we continue our study through John Owen’s book, The Mortification of Sin. The idea is we read this together and that we read the corresponding chapters prior to the blog post each week. This week we consider chapters 7 and 8.

As we read, may we keep in mind Owen’s goal in writing this book as stated in the preface: “to promote the work of gospel mortification in the hearts of believers and direct them into safe paths where they will find rest for their souls.” (viii)

Chapter 7, Only Believers Can Mortify Sin

In this chapter Owen begins to consider the general rules and principles that are necessary to gain true victory in our fight against sin. The first, and perhaps most important, rule is this:

Unless a man is a true believer, and grafted into Christ, he can never mortify a single sin.

Owen has already made it clear that mortification is the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is only given to those who are united to Jesus Christ, to those who are Christians. Thus, it follows that only those who have the Spirit can have any hope of mortifying sin in their lives.

We have seen that the Spirit alone can truly mortify sin; He has promised to do it, and all other means without Him are empty and vain.

He has promised to do it. Be encouraged by those words. All those who have the Spirit, in other words, all Christians, do have certain hope that the Spirit in them will mortify sin in their lives. Sin will not get the final say or the upper hand. It has been defeated decisively at the cross of Jesus Christ and it will be defeated finally (and completely eradicated) when we meet Jesus face to face, either at his second coming or when he calls us home. In the in between time, the already / not yet time, all believers have the hope that we will be made more and more like Jesus and will, by the power of the Spirit, mortify sin more and more. As the catechism says, the Spirit enables us “more and more to die unto sin and live unto righteousness”.

At the same time, those who are not Christians should not be encouraged to mortify sin in their lives. What?! Does this mean we encourage people who do not know and love Jesus to live as they please and indulge in sin? No, of course not. It simply means we encourage them to deal with the root of the problem in their lives before they attempt to bear new fruit. Owen says there are three serious problems for people who seek mortification without knowing Jesus:

1. The mind and soul are diverted from that which is most important. (They need to seek conversion first!)

2. This duty, being a good thing in itself and in its proper place, tends to bring a false peace to the conscience.

3. When a man has for a season such soul deception, and then finds out after the long course of his life that his sin was not truly mortified, or that he has just changed one sin for another, he begins to believe that victory over sin is impossible.

This is a good time for us all to examine our own hearts and lives. Before we continue in our fight against sin we should ask: Do I have the Spirit? Have I repented of my sin and acknowledged my need for a Savior and am I trusting in Jesus Christ alone for salvation?

Chapter 8, God Requires Universal Obedience

Owen’s second general rule in the fight against sin is this:    

You cannot mortify a specific lust that is troubling you, unless you are seeking to obey the Lord from the heart in all areas!

What an important point for us to consider! This was certainly an eye-opener for me. It made me think of Jerry Bridges’ book, Respectable Sins. I think it is easy for us to think we are doing well in our fight against sin if we are not guilty of any of the “major” sins: murder, adultery, lying, stealing, looking at pornography, etc. But what about complaining, selfishness, gluttony, laziness, or neglecting to seek after God?

We must hate all sin, as sin, and not just that which troubles us. . . If you hate sin as sin, and every evil way, you would be watchful against everything that grieves and disquiets the Spirit of God. . . We must not be concerned only with that which troubles us, but with all that troubles God. God’s work is to have full victory, and universal obedience, not just the victory over the sins which trouble our soul.

If we will do anything, we must do everything. So, then, our need is not only an intense opposition to this or that particular lust, but a universal humble frame and temper of heart that watches over every evil, and seeks the performance of every duty that is pleasing to God.

NEXT WEEK

Read chapters 9-10 by next Wednesday, November 25.

YOUR TURN

It would be great to hear what you gained from these chapters. Feel free to post comments below or talk with one another about what you are reading. Do not feel that you need to say anything shocking or profound. Just share what stirred your heart or what gave you pause or what confused you. Let’s make sure we’re reading this book together.

WSC Q&A #46

Q: What is required in the first commandment?
A: The first commandment requires us to know and acknowledge God to be the only true God, and our God; and to worship and glorify him accordingly.
1 Chronicles 28:9 And you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father and serve him with a whole heart and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will cast you off forever.

So much of this week's question has been covered by previous catechism questions. Last week we already examined what God is expecting from us here, and how that is extremely difficult to do given the idolatry in our hearts. If you remember, way way back in the second question of the catechism, we talked about how the Bible alone is to be our guide for how to glorify God. His holy scriptures tell us how to worship and glorify God as the only true God. So as I sit here thinking over this question, thinking about how I can write something new and fresh about all this, my mind keeps going in a direction that is less an exegesis of the catechism, and more of a point of application, particularly in light of current events and this week's scripture passage.

The catechism this week has a tremendous line in it. Not only are we to know and acknowledge God as the one true God, we are to know and acknowledge him as our God. That kind of language is extremely personal. It's covenantal. It's relational. It reminds us that the one true God is our God, and we are his people. I think its safe to say that this week, all of us are feeling a little rattled. In light of what happened in Paris this past weekend, we are all understandably nervous, a little scarred, a little on edge, angry, and a whole lot of other emotions that are to be expected in light of a tragedy. For the people of God, though, the fact that God is relational, that he is our God, should bring us hope and comfort. What does it mean to know and acknowledge God as our God? It's certainly not merely a head-knowledge, and it's certainly not a mere verbal profession of who God is. Rather, it is a trust in the fact that God is our God. It's a humble reliance upon God. It creates in us a hope that we are in relationship with the one and only living and true God. Does that not encourage and lift our hearts? As we go about our lives in light of the Paris attacks, as we think about the plotting and scheming of radical Islamic terrorists world wide, we as the people of God have a hope and encouragement that can only come from knowing and loving the one true God. Look at what God says to Solomon in this week's scripture reference: "For the Lord searches all hearts, and knows every plan and thought." It's a reminder that God is completely and utterly sovereign. Man holds no authority or power, he can make no plans and he can accomplish nothing unless the Lord God allows it. God alone is God. ISIS is not God, the US is not God, we are not God. God alone is completely sovereign and just and is carrying out his great and perfect will. And this completely sovereign, true and living God is our God!

As we think about the events of this past weekend, as we reflect on the implications of the events, as we think about the refugee crisis and what it may mean to us as many Syrian refugees come to American shores, let us rest in knowing that we serve the one and only living and true God. Let us not make idols out of our fear. Let us not make gods out of those who wish to destroy the body. Rather, let us rejoice in knowing that God is the only true God, and that he is our God. And when we rest in this reality, we can have confidence in obeying God's commands. We can have confidence in following God's law to love him with all our heart, strength, soul, and mind, and we can have confidence in loving our neighbors (and our enemies!) as ourselves. In doing so, we truly will be keeping the first commandment. We truly will be living lives that glorify and worship God as the only true and living God.

Worth Reading

The inclusion of links to various articles does not mean we endorse everything written by the author or even necessarily agree with everything in the linked article, but we do think it's worth reading and thinking about with discernment.

Mark 11:1-11

Do you come to our gathered worship service expecting God to speak to you through his Word? We encourage you to prayerfully read through the passage that will be preached prior to the service to help you prepare.

What Does It Mean for a Man to Lead His Home?

It is an awareness that God has placed me in his world to play a role that is going to make an impact forever.

I am a father over precious children, someday to be a grandfather. That authority must not be surrendered to the pervasive and corrosive self-doubt of our times. We must accept who God has called us to be and then serve with that authority.

What You Should Say After Every Week Of Work

God delights in His work, one day at a time. As those who reflect His image, shouldn’t we also delight in what we’ve accomplished?

I’ve found that simply pausing and telling myself, “It is good” is one of the best ways I recalibrate my heart, celebrate the work I’ve accomplished, and entrust the results to God’s hands.

Mizzou and a More Excellent Way

I do not know the motivations of Wolfe and the Mizzou administrators. But I do know that God paid an infinitely higher cost to ensure that his own people would love one another, not for their reputation or their school’s reputation, but for his. God crushed his only Son to glorify himself by reconciling man with himself and man with each other. God then enjoins upon his followers to humbly and compassionately work out this reconciliation—to understand and love one another—to put others so much before ourselves that we essentially die to ourselves for each other (1 Pet. 3:8; Phil. 2:3). Christians, in doing so, emulate our Lord who died for us. We stupefy the world, directing their gaze to a glorious God (John 13:35).