Morning Worship
Call to Worship: Psalm 96:1-3
Opening Hymn: 212 “Come, Thou Almighty King”
Confession of Sin
Most merciful God, Who are of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, and hast promised forgiveness to all those who confess and forsake their sins; We come before You with a humble sense of our own unworthiness, acknowledging our manifold transgressions of Your righteous laws. But, O gracious Father, Who desires not the death of a sinner, look upon us, we beseech You, in mercy, and forgive us all our transgressions. Make us deeply sensible of the great evil of them; And work in us a hearty contrition; That we may obtain forgiveness at Your hands, Who are ever ready to receive humble and penitent sinners; for the sake of Your Son Jesus Christ, our only Savior and Redeemer. Amen.
Assurance of Pardon: Romans 3:21-26
Psalm of Preparation: Psalm 8A “O LORD, Our Lord, in All the Earth”
Old Covenant Reading: Ezekiel 34:11-16
New Covenant Reading: Luke 15:1-10
Sermon: Lost and Found
Hymn of Response: Psalm 23A “The LORD’s My Shepherd”
Confession of Faith: Ten Commandments
Doxology (Hymn 568)
Diaconal Offering
Closing Hymn: Hymn 410 “Christian Hearts in Love United”
Evening Worship
Hymns: 212, 16A, 135 (stanzas 1 through 4)
OT: Isaiah 44:6-20
NT: 1 Corinthians 10:1-22
Participating in the Body and Blood of Christ
Suggested Preparations
Monday (8/9) Read and discuss Luke 15:1-10.
Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”
So he told them this parable: “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
“Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” (ESV)
David Garland writes:
Jesus does more than imply that He models the behavior of the shepherd and the woman (harmless stories in and of themselves). He defends His actions by pointing out their relation to what goes on in the heavenly realm: “Parallel to the earthly realm there is a heavenly realm, in which the inner reality of the earthly situation is revealed.” Implicit in this parallel is the premise that “Jesus’ action is God’s action.” Jesus’ rejoicing before tax collectors and sinners, where purity issues seem of no concern, is likened to God’s rejoicing before the angels. The heavenly parallel makes these two parables most provocative. This is what God is like, Jesus says, and this is why I act as I do, since I act “under His orders and in His stead.” To murmur against Me is to murmur against God.
In contrast to the parallel in Matthew where the sheep wanders away from the flock, the shepherd is said to have lost one of the sheep. Does this assume negligence on the part of the shepherd, like the criminal negligence of the shepherds of Israel in the Old Testament? If so, Ezekiel announces that God will take over the role of shepherd, who will seek the lost sheep and bring back the strayed (Ezekiel 34). If these parables vindicate Jesus’ own activity in seeking out the lost and conferring that what Jesus does is nothing less than the action of God, who takes the initiative in recovering the lost.
Manson’s astute comment is widely quoted, “But the characteristic feature of these two parables is not so much joy over the repentant sinner as the Divine love that goes out to seek the sinner before He repents.” Sheep and coins do not repent for getting lost. Bornkamm concludes similarly that “salvation and repentance have … now changed places.” For Jesus’ audience of Pharisees “repentance is the first thing, the condition which affords the sinner the hope of grace, it is now the case that repentance comes by means of grace.” For Jesus, grace is the first thing, and repentance comes as a response to grace.
MEMORY WORK
Q. 105. What do we pray for in the fifth petition?
A. In the fifth petition, which is, And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors, we pray that God, for Christ’s sake, would freely pardon all our sins; which we are the rather encouraged to ask, because by his grace we are enabled from the heart to forgive others.
Tuesday (8/10) Read and discuss Luke 20:9-18.
And he began to tell the people this parable: “A man planted a vineyard and let it out to tenants and went into another country for a long while. When the time came, he sent a servant to the tenants, so that they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the tenants beat him and sent him away empty-handed. And he sent another servant. But they also beat and treated him shamefully, and sent him away empty-handed. And he sent yet a third. This one also they wounded and cast out. Then the owner of the vineyard said, ‘What shall I do? I will send my beloved son; perhaps they will respect him.’ But when the tenants saw him, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Let us kill him, so that the inheritance may be ours.’ And they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others.” When they heard this, they said, “Surely not!” But he looked directly at them and said, “What then is this that is written:
“‘The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone’?
Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.” (ESV)
Rick Phillips writes:
God is patient, but there is an end to His offer of grace, an end that was reached in Israel’s rejection of His Son. John 1:11 says, “He came to that which was His own, but His own did not receive Him.” The result was a terrible judgment and Israel’s expulsion from God’s vineyard, which in A.D. 70 was revealed in the destruction of their city by the Romans. “Because of their transgression,” Paul explains, “salvation has come to the Gentiles” (Rom. 11:11), and now through the gospel all nations are called to repent and believe so as to bear the fruit God desires from His vineyard.
The parable of he wicked tenants tells the story of Israel’s rebellion and rejection, but it also points to the fall of humankind as a whole. God is the Creator of the entire human race, whom He made to bear His image and do His will. But humanity has rebelled against God, denied His right to rule, and fought against His will through sin and unbelief. These wicked tenants betray the enmity of every person in rebellion against God. Just as the Jews put God’s Son to death, so does the great mas of humankind reject Him today, crucifying Jesus all over again through scornful unbelief. Therefore the judgment spoken of here is a judgment that will come to all the world, Jerusalem’s fall a mere prelude to the wrath of God against all the rebel earth.
MEMORY WORK
Q. 106. What do we pray for in the sixth petition?
A. In the sixth petition, which is, And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, we pray that God would either keep us from being tempted to sin, or support and deliver us when we are tempted.
Wednesday (8/11) Read and discuss Ezekiel 34:11-16.
“For thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land. And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the country. I will feed them with good pasture, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on rich pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord GOD. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them in justice. (ESV)
Iain Duguid writes:
Most of us who are pastors will naturally gravitate toward one style of pastoral ministry or the other. By temperament, we typically either draw people to Christ or we drive them to Christ. Bu the image of the shepherd calls us to a richer, more balanced view of our calling: as drawers and drivers, drivers and drawers, by all means winning those whom God, the Great Shepherd, is adding to His flock.
But Jesus is not merely the model shepherd who makes contemporary pastors feel guilty by how far short we fall. He is Himself the One of whom Ezekiel 34 speaks. He is the One in whom all the covenants of the Old Testament find their fulfillment. He is the ultimate Shepherd-King who fulfills the Davidic covenant, as the crowds recognized during His triumphal entry into Jerusalem. He fulfills the Mosaic covenant both as the Lawgiver, who speaks His authoritative word from the mountain (Matt 5-7), and also as the One who has come to fulfill the law given from Sinai. He is the Second Adam, who through His obedient life, death, and resurrection fulfills the covenant of creation. He is the One who ushers in for His people the blessings of the covenant by being the covenant-keeper in our place. In Him, we have peace with God; in Him, we have peace with one another; in Him, all creation finds peace.
MEMORY WORK
Q. 107. What doth the conclusion of the Lord’s prayer teach us?
A. The conclusion of the Lord’s prayer, which is, For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever, Amen, teacheth us to take our encouragement in prayer from God only, and in our prayers to praise him, ascribing kingdom, power and glory to him. And in testimony of our desire, and assurance to be heard, we say, Amen.
Thursday (8/12) Read and discuss Isaiah 44:6-20.
Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel
and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts:
“I am the first and I am the last;
besides me there is no god.
Who is like me? Let him proclaim it.
Let him declare and set it before me,
since I appointed an ancient people.
Let them declare what is to come, and what will happen.
Fear not, nor be afraid;
have I not told you from of old and declared it?
And you are my witnesses!
Is there a God besides me?
There is no Rock; I know not any.”
All who fashion idols are nothing, and the things they delight in do not profit. Their witnesses neither see nor know, that they may be put to shame. Who fashions a god or casts an idol that is profitable for nothing? Behold, all his companions shall be put to shame, and the craftsmen are only human. Let them all assemble, let them stand forth. They shall be terrified; they shall be put to shame together.
The ironsmith takes a cutting tool and works it over the coals. He fashions it with hammers and works it with his strong arm. He becomes hungry, and his strength fails; he drinks no water and is faint. The carpenter stretches a line; he marks it out with a pencil. He shapes it with planes and marks it with a compass. He shapes it into the figure of a man, with the beauty of a man, to dwell in a house. He cuts down cedars, or he chooses a cypress tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it. Then it becomes fuel for a man. He takes a part of it and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Also he makes a god and worships it; he makes it an idol and falls down before it. Half of it he burns in the fire. Over the half he eats meat; he roasts it and is satisfied. Also he warms himself and says, “Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire!” And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for you are my god!”
They know not, nor do they discern, for he has shut their eyes, so that they cannot see, and their hearts, so that they cannot understand. No one considers, nor is there knowledge or discernment to say, “Half of it I burned in the fire; I also baked bread on its coals; I roasted meat and have eaten. And shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?” He feeds on ashes; a deluded heart has led him astray, and he cannot deliver himself or say, “Is there not a lie in my right hand?” (ESV)
Being a Christian requires courage. It requires us to stand upon the word of God as being more certain than the projections we might draw simply by looking around. If we simply lived by our own personal experiences, it might be easy to believe that the Kingdom of God was in trouble and that it would be a safer bet to hook our wagons to the kingdoms of this world. That is how it must have seemed to at least some of the Jews during the Babylonian exile. God’s Temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed. Would they remember that it was destroyed because they had rebelled against the LORD and He had spewed them out of the Promised Land or would some of them imagine that the real power in their day came at the tip of the Babylonian spear? R. Reed Lessing writes:
Testifying to the claims in 44:6-7 would be a fearful thing for at least two reasons: (1) The Babylonians may not believe it, and (2) the exiles themselves may not embrace it. A good lawyer briefs his witnesses before they stand in the court. This is what Yahweh does. He encourages His people to recall the ancient pledge that He is their Rock. Israel is prepared to announce a fact that popular pagan opinion will not tolerate. Yahweh is the only God. “The LORD planned, proclaimed, and announced long ago what He is now bringing to pass and, unlike the gods of the other nations, has witnesses to prove it.”
But is this not an audacious claim? During the exile, Yahweh will have not standing Temple, and His people will have no land, no monarchy, and no government. Can He be the world’s only true God? Who would dare embrace this idea? Isaiah did. He offers a “counter-empire testimony.” He will not give in to Babylon’s brutality and ruthlessness. The prophet offers hope for the deportees that better days will come through Cyrus and the submissive Servant. So Israel must testify, regardless of the consequences. As many have discovered. Yahweh has not witness protection program (e.g., Acts 7). He does, however, promise to raise us up on the Last Day (Jn 6:40).
MEMORY WORK
Q. 1. What is the chief end of man?
A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.
Friday (8/13) Read and discuss 1 Corinthians 10:1-22.
For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.
Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.” We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer. Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Consider the people of Israel: are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar? What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he? (ESV)
The early church fathers frequently used a striking image for the Church by comparing it to Noah’s Ark. There is much to be said in favor of this image. One wit has suggested that, like the Ark, if it wasn’t for the storm raging outside none of us could stand the smell on the inside. Thankfully, that is not the universal experience of Christians. The reason why the Ark imagery can be so helpfully is because when the LORD saves people He grafts them into His family. In spite of contemporary Western attitudes the time honored saying is clearly Biblical: “Ordinarily there is no salvation outside of the Church.” Nevertheless, all images are subject to abuse. The comparison of the Church to Noah’s Ark is helpful for directing people toward joining the Church but is perverted if we come to imagine that this means everyone within the Church is in fact saved. Instead of such a scheme teaching salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, because of Christ alone, it teaches that salvation is by formal church membership. This view has returned time and again to plague Christ’s Church. In the Middle Ages this view spawned the idea of implicit faith. Where the priests and well educated might be expected to have a personal faith in Jesus the laity could be saved without personally having faith in God or an understanding of what He had done in sending His Son simply be being church members and thereby sharing in the faith of the whole Church. Obviously such a view is not taught in the Bible. Amazingly, a variant of this view has broken out in North America in the 21st century amongst some who are on the fringes of Reformed Christianity. This variant wants to insist on the objectivity of membership within the covenant community. Some of these men are simply recovering a high view of the Church while others seem to be downplaying the need for individual regeneration and explicit personal faith in Jesus Christ. Paul’s answer to this view is uncompromising. In effect he asks: “Have you never read your Bibles?” Virtually every adult who the LORD delivered from Egypt died in the wilderness due to their unbelief. Furthermore, most of Israel’s history from the time of Joshua to the time of the Babylonian exile was marked out by immorality and idolatry. Privilege meant responsibility it did not guarantee salvation. “Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.” Let us heed this example and cling to Christ out of genuine confidence in Him.
MEMORY WORK
Q. 2. What rule hath God given to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him?
A. The Word of God, which is contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him.
Saturday (8/14) Read and discuss Luke 15:1-10.
Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”
So he told them this parable: “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
“Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” (ESV)
N.T. Wright comments:
The three parables in Luke 15 are told because Jesus was making a habit of having celebration parties with all the ‘wrong’ people, and some others thought it was a nightmare. All three stories are ways of saying: ‘This is why we’re celebrating! Would you have a party if it was you? How could we not?’ in and through them all we get a wide-open window on what Jesus thought He was doing – and, perhaps, on what we ourselves should be doing.
At the heart of the trouble was the character of the people Jesus was eating with on a regular basis. The tax-collectors were disliked not just because they were tax-collectors – nobody much likes them in any culture – but because they were collecting money for either Herod or the Romans, or both, and nobody cared for them at all. And if they were in regular contact with Gentiles, some might have considered them unclean. …
Throughout the chapter Jesus is not saying that such people were simply to be accepted as they stand. Sinners must repent. The lost sheep and lost coin are found. The prodigal son comes to his senses and returns home. But Jesus has a different idea to His critics of repentance means. For them, nothing short of adopting their standards of purity and law-observance would do. For Jesus, when people follow Him and His way, that is true repentance. And – He doesn’t say it in so many words, but I think it’s there by implication – the Pharisees and legal experts themselves need to repent in that way. ‘Righteous persons who don’t need to repent’ indeed (verse 7)! Try saying the sentence with a smile and a question-mark in your voice and you will, I think, hear what Jesus intended.
The point of the parables is then clear. This is why there’s a party going on: all heaven is having a party, the angels are joining in, and if we don’t have one as well we’ll be out of tune with God’s reality.
MEMORY WORK
Q. 104. What do we pray for in the fourth petition?
A. In the fourth petition, which is, Give us this day our daily bread, we pray that of God’s free gift we may receive a competent portion of the good things of this life, and enjoy his blessing with them.