Call to Worship: Psalm 105:1-3
Opening Hymn: 243 “How Firm a Foundation”
Confession of Sin
O great and everlasting God, Who dwells in unapproachable light, Who searches and knows the thoughts and intentions of the heart; We confess that we have not loved You with all our heart, nor with all our soul, nor with all our mind, nor with all our strength; Nor our neighbors as ourselves. We have loved what we ought not to have loved; We have coveted what is not ours; We have not been content with Your provisions for us. We have complained in our hearts about our family, about our friends, about our health, about our occupations, about Your church, and about our trials. We have sought our security in those things which perish, rather than in You, the Everlasting God. Chasten, cleanse, and forgive us, through Jesus Christ, who is able for all time to save us who approach You through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for us. Amen.
Assurance of Pardon: Hebrews 8:10-12
Hymn of Preparation: Hymn 262 “One There Is, above All Others
Old Covenant Reading: Deuteronomy 21:18-21
New Covenant Reading: Luke 15:11-32
Sermon: The Two Brothers Who Needed to Repent
Psalm of Response: Psalm 51B “God, Be Merciful to Me”
Confession of Faith: Apostles Creed (p. 851)
Doxology (Hymn 568)
Closing Hymn: Hymn 494 “O Jesus, Joy of Loving Hearts”
Evening Worship
Hymns: 98C, 1B, 534
OT: Psalm 128
NT: 1 Timothy 3:1-7
The Overseer
Suggested Preparations
Monday (8/16) Read and discuss Luke 15:11-32.
And he said, “There was a man who had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.’ And he divided his property between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living. And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.
“But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.”’ And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.
“Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.’ But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’ And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’” (ESV)
Rick Phillips writes:
We remember it was the Pharisees’ scorn over Jesus’ love for sinners that prompted these parables. Here is the ultimate explanation for Jesus’ ministry, namely, that God is not like the Pharisees. They looked down in scorn on those who were lost. But God is compassionate, with concern for those who suffer and grace for those who have sinned. This is the great fact that changes everything in this fallen world: god’s great and boundless love that gave up His Son.
Many people wrongly think that by dying for us Jesus forced the grace of an otherwise reluctant heavenly Father. They think of God as One who is threatening, eager to condemn and to judge. If that is how you think of God, you need to realize that it was the Father who sent His Son into the world for the work of our redemption. God’s great love is the motive of the gospel of grace. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Jesus came as our Savior with the same sacrificing love. He says, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13); seeking after even one who is lost, He says, “I am the Good Shepherd.” The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep” (John 10:11).
MEMORY WORK
Q. 9. What is the work of creation?
A. The work of creation is God’s making all things of nothing, by the word of his power, in the space of six days, and all very good.
Tuesday (8/17) Read and discuss Luke 16:1-13.
He also said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions. And he called him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager.’ And the manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do, since my master is taking the management away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do, so that when I am removed from management, people may receive me into their houses.’ So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’ The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.
“One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own? No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” (ESV)
The shrewd manager isn’t the morally good manager – but he does see his situation clearly and he acts according to his worldview. James Montgomery Boice writes:
We can imagine a situation in which a person might try to wish away his problem. He had been discovered and was now required to give an accounting. He had been threatened with the loss of his job. He could have thought: “It’s true that I’m in a fix and will have a hard time getting out of it. But I’ve been in difficult places before and have always squeaked through. Perhaps my master will not be able to detect the tampering I’ve done with his books. Or, even if he does, he may feel sorry for me and keep me on after all.” Again, the manager might have been so paralyzed at the thought of appearing before his master, books in hand, that he would have refused to think about his problem at all. He might have tried to wish it away. But that was not the case. When confronted by his master he knew at once that the “jig” was up. He could not disguise his dishonesty, and the only thing left was to plan for the future as best he could.
If the Lord were spelling out the points of the parable He might say at that juncture, “It would be good if all people could see the issues as clearly as that dishonest steward could. You are all stewards of what God has entrusted to you. You are wasting His possessions. One day you must give an accounting. Think how it will stand with you in that day and prepare for it.”
One thing that appalls me about so many people today is the muddle-headed thinking on ultimate issues they willingly foster and accept. It is part of the relativism of our age that many are quite willing to have several mutually contradictory notions on any subject floating around in their heads at any one time, and never seem to feel it wise or even eventually necessary to sort those things out. According to such people, there may be a God. But again, there may not be. If He exists, he may be personal or He may not be. He may have revealed Himself or He may not have.
Jesus may be the supreme revelation of this God. Or again, some other religious figure may be a supreme revelation. Jesus’ death may have been necessary, or it may not have been. Faith in Jesus may be the way of salvation, etc. … That is, sometimes they operate as if there is a God who has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ. But at other times they act as if He does not exist, or if He does, that existence is one of the most insignificant facts of their experience.
That is what is really incredible – that people can operate in such a contradictory fashion. If you are doing that, I challenge you to learn from the dishonest manager and think clearly.
MEMORY WORK
Q. 10. How did God create man?
A. God created man male and female, after his own image, in knowledge, righteousness and holiness, with dominion over the creatures.
Wednesday (8/18) Read and discuss Deuteronomy 21:18-21.
“If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they discipline him, will not listen to them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives, and they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear, and fear. (ESV)
Eugene Merrill writes:
The behavior that occasioned the particular legislation of the passage would seem to have been best addressed in connection with the fifth commandment (“Honor your father and your mother”), but since it might result in death for the rebellious child, it appeared here in the elaboration of the sixth commandment. Yet the description of the attitudes and actions of the unruly offspring graphically depicts what it means to dishonor one’s parents.
Specifically, the charge was that the child was “stubborn” and “rebellious” against his father and mother, disobedient and unresponsive to discipline. “Stubbornness” here means more than just a willfulness. With the companion word “rebellious,” it possibly constitutes a hendiadys suggesting outright rebellion against constituted parental authority. That is, he was rebelliously stubborn, first with respect to his parents and then, by extension, with respect to God, whose sovereignty is transmitted through family headship. The same construction, in fact, occurs elsewhere to speak of insubordination to the LORD Himself.
It should be clear that the issue is not infants and young children who are being unruly. Rather, the LORD is giving instruction about older children whose open rebellion against God’s ordained plan for ruling Israel undermined the foundations of society. We can see that older children are in view from the fact that such a child might be referred to as “a drunkard and a glutton.” When Jesus quotes from this passage in Matthew 15, our Lord explicitly applies it to grown children:
Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.” He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have gained from me is given to God,” he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God. (ESV)
MEMORY WORK
Q. 11. What are God’s works of providence?
A. God’s works of providence are his most holy, wise and powerful preserving and governing all his creatures, and all their actions.
Thursday (8/19) Read and discuss Psalm 128.
Blessed is everyone who fears the LORD,
who walks in his ways!
You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands;
you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you.
Your wife will be like a fruitful vine
within your house;
your children will be like olive shoots
around your table.
Behold, thus shall the man be blessed
who fears the LORD.
The LORD bless you from Zion!
May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem
all the days of your life!
May you see your children’s children!
Peace be upon Israel! (ESV)
Tim Keller writes:
A loving spouse and growing children are a great blessing (verses 3-4). But sin in the heart and evil in the world have disrupted the life of the human family. Many wish to have families who don’t, and many who have families wish they had very different ones. There are also people who have suffered terrible abuse within their families. Jesus said that His family did not consist of His biological relatives: “Whoever does God’s will is My brother and sister and mother” (Mark 3:35). The church must not only support and repair families but also find a way to become the family of God where everyone, married and single, childless or not, can flourish in love.
MEMORY WORK
Q. 12. What special act of providence did God exercise toward man in the estate wherein he was created?
A. When God had created man, he entered into a covenant of life with him, upon condition of perfect obedience; forbidding him to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, upon pain of death.
Friday (8/20) Read and discuss 1 Timothy 3:1-7.
The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore, an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil. (ESV)
R. Kent Hughes writes:
Church leadership can attract people with mixed and sometimes outrightly sinful motives. The seeming prestige of spiritual leadership attracts some. The lure of power draws others. The spiritual directing of others’ lives can be heady stuff. Some, I think, like the idea of having access to the supposed mysterious inner workings of the church. All these motives are empty pursuits, but that does not reduce the lure for some.
I say all this to emphasize that Christian ministry and leadership is without question a matter of character. One’s authentic spirituality and Christian character is everything in church leadership. It is a sober fact that as goes the leadership, so goes the church. With some commonsense qualifications, it is an axiom that what we are as leaders in microcosm, the congregation will become in macrocosm as the years go by. Of course, there are always individual exceptions. But it is generally true that if the leadership is Word-centered, the church will be Word-centered. If the leadership is mission-minded, the church will be mission-minded. If the leadership is sincere, the people will be sincere. If the leadership is kind, the church will be kind. This is also true negatively – exponentially! Unloving, narrow, stingy leaders beget an unloving, narrow, stingy church. … This concern for one’ character and the resultant lifestyle looms large in 1 Timothy and peaks here in the third chapter.
MEMORY WORK
Q. 13. Did our first parents continue in the estate wherein they were created?
A. Our first parents, being left to the freedom of their own will, fell from the estate wherein they were created, by sinning against God.
Saturday (8/21) Read and discuss Luke 15:11-32.
And he said, “There was a man who had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.’ And he divided his property between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living. And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.
“But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.”’ And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.
“Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.’ But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’ And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’” (ESV)
Terry Johnson writes:
Why is it ‘we had to be merry and rejoice?’ Because a fellow lost sinner has been reclaimed. Heaven celebrates this and as fellow sinners so must we Jesus is explaining why He socializes with sinners, why He seeks their conversion, and why we ought to rejoice when they do convert. Celebration is a natural and necessary response to the recovery of the lost.
The parable ends with the elder brother still outside, excluded by his own self-righteousness and pride. The parable leaves an unresolved question – will the elder brother go into the celebration? Will he continue to think in terms of what is legally his and what he has earned and remain outside, or will he embrace the grace of God in Christ? ‘In leaving these points unresolved He throws out a challenge to all His hearers, be they like the elder or like the younger,’ says Morris. The same grace that saves the morally polluted but repentant Prodigal also saves the proud, self-righteous and legalistic Pharisee. To reject the grace of God for the Prodigal, as the elder son has, is also to reject the grace of God for himself.
MEMORY WORK
Q. 14. What is sin?
A. Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God.