Tuesday, July 30, 2013

The Family at Church, Part 4 - Practicing the Preached Word

Beeke goes on to unpack the Westminster Catechism and apply it to how we as Christians are not only to prepare for and listen to the preached the Word, but also how we are to practice the preached Word.

Here are some practical ways he suggests for us to become better "doers of the Word":

1. Strive to retain and pray over what you have heard

Let us, as the author of Hebrews warns, "pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it" (2:1).

"Our memories," says Thomas Watson, "should be like the chest of the ark, where the law was put." Or, as Joseph Alleine once put it, one way to remember the sermon is to come from your knees to the sermon, and then go from the sermon to your knees.

Beeke goes on to recommend, but in no way command, the practice of note-taking. His practice is to review his notes throughout the week, and to pray through them, asking the Lord to help him apply the truths expounded on the Lord's Day. Moreover, he also encourages families to take notes, from which they can compare them together and learn from one another's gleanings. Often, he says, this time is even more profitable than the hearing of the sermon.

2. Familiarize yourself with the truths you have heard.

Beeke advocates the practice of what the Westminster divines called 'the repetition of sermons, especially to one's families.' When you come home from church, speak to your loved ones about the sermon you have heard in an edifying, practical manner (i.e. not spending time having 'roast pastor', that is, criticizing/judging every flaw or mistake he made that day, or rating/comparing the sermon to your ideal 'standard'). Talk about the sermon in words that your youngest child can understand. Share some of the lessons you are learning from the Word.

Additionally, after the sermon, intentionally refrain from frivolous, worldly conversation after the message. Shallow talk about politics, sports, news, etc. is one of Satan's chief ways of sending vultures to pluck away the good seed of the Word.

During the week, meditate upon the truths of the message throughout the week.

3. Put the sermon into action

Beeke reminds us that a sermon is not over when the minister says "Amen." Rather that is when the true sermon begins. In an old Scottish story, a wife asked her husband if the sermon was done yet. "No," he replied, "It has been said, but it has yet to be done."

James 1:22-25 reminds us that merely hearing the Word but not doing it is a deceitful undertaking. The true blessing, says James, only comes in the doing of the Word.

True listening means applying the Word. In Matthew 7, Jesus says that those who are not doers of His teaching are foolish builders who build upon sand, not rock. Elsewhere, He questions some of His hearers, saying, "Why do you say 'Lord, Lord', but do not do what I say?"  This is scary stuff. Sometimes we feel that by merely repeating with our lips what was preached is enough. How often are we like the fig tree, which from a distance looked like it was 'in season', but upon closer inspection ultimately bore no fruit?

To nicely sum everything up: the Word attended must also be the Word applied.

Next time Beeke will show us 4 more practical ways to help us better put into practice what we are hearing from God's Word when it is preached on the Lord's Day.

In Christ, and for His glory through His church,
Pastor Ryan


Wednesday, July 24, 2013

The Family at Church, Part 3 (Receiving the Preached Word)

In this chapter, Beeke exhorts us as Christians to "take heed to how we hear" the preached Word on Sunday, for growth is impossible if the listener does not profit from the Word.

The four practical ways he outlines to help us better receive the preached Word are as follows:

1. Listen with an understanding, tender conscience

Matthew 13 presents us with four types of listeners, all of whom hear the same message.
  • The stony-hearted, superficial listener. Such people are at church only because 'they have to be there.' As a pastor, I grieve over those who are asleep, busy with their smart phone, who are more intent on watching the clock than listening to the gospel. Not surprisingly, such "listeners" leave more hardened than when they came.
  • The easily impressed but resistant listener.  Such people like to add religion to their life, but do not really want to hear about the kind of radical discipleship that involves self-denial, taking up one's cross, and following Christ. When the going gets tough, [true] Christianity is jettisoned for the world. 
  • The half-hearted, distracted listener. This kind of hearer tries to absorb the Word of God with one ear while thinking about business, lunch, sports, money, and anything else under the sun. Such listeners 'serve' God partially, and what is 'heard' is quickly choked by the thorns of this world's cares.
  • The understanding, fruitful listener. Such people have hearts that come prepared. They are eager not only to hear, but to do the Word. Not surprisingly, fruit is abundantly manifest in their lives as they intentionally seek to apply the teaching they have heard on Sunday to their everyday lives throughout the week.
When the preacher stands up to expound God's glorious Word, we must ask ourselves, "how am I going to listen to the Word?"

2. Listen attentively to the preached Word

Such attentiveness involves banishing wandering thoughts, dullness of mind, and drowsiness.

The reason so few listen to the preached Word with anticipation and attentiveness is that so few of us actually regard the sermon as a matter of life and death.

Therefore, we must listen to sermons not as spectators but as participants; the minister must not be the only one working on Sunday! Good listening is hard work: it involves worshiping God continuously.

All too often, many people come to church expecting to be spoon-fed; they often have no desire to think or learn or grow. For us to grow, we must come hungry, willing to exert whatever effort necessary that we might feed on the living Manna.

Finally, a good listener responds promptly - whether in repentance, resolution, determination, or praise.

3. Listen with submissive faith

Faith is the key to profitably receiving the Word. If the chief ingredient of a medicine is missing, the medicine will not be effective.

Hearing is not enough. It must be mixed with faith, or else it will do us no eternal good (Hebrews 4:2 KJV). Actually, hearing without faith has a hardening effect. "Therefore," says the author of Hebrews, "we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it" (2:1).

Let us then not trifle with the preached Word.

4. Listen with humility and serious self-examination

Do we humbly examine myself under the preaching of God's Word, trembling at its impact (Isaiah 66:2). Often we listen to sermons, seeking to apply them to others. But if we are to profit from the Word, we must seek first to apply it to our own lives.

As Robert Burns put it, let us pray that the Spirit apply His Word to "our business and bosom."


May God by His grace enable us to better received the preached Word on Sundays! May we as Fathers especially endeavour to plead before the throne of grace on behalf of our families, that they too might receive with meekness the implanted Word, which is able to save one's soul! (James 1:21b)

In Christ, and for His glory to the ends of the earth,
Pastor Ryan

Thursday, July 18, 2013

The Family at Church, Part 2 (Preparing for the preached Word)

Beeke gives 5 simple, yet practical things Christians, especially fathers, ought to do in preparation of the preached Word on Sunday:

1. Before coming to church to hear God's Word, prepare yourself and your family with prayer.

The Puritans said that just as we dress our body with clothes for worship, we should likewise dress our souls with prayer.

Pray for the conversion of sinners, the edification of believers, and the glorification of God's triune name.

Pray for children, teenagers, and the elderly. Pray for listening ears and understanding hearts.

Pray for yourself, saying: "Lord, how real the danger is that I will not hear well! Lord, help me to concentrate on Your Word as it comes to me. Let it have free course in my heart. Let it be accompanied with light, power, and grace."

Pray that you will come as a needy sinner, ready to cling to Christ and the cleansing power of His blood.

Pray that your pastor receive the unction of the Holy Spirit. Pray for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit to convict, quicken, humble, comfort, and regenerate through the preached Word.

2. Come with a hearty appetite for the Word.

"Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation." (1 Peter 2:2)

A good appetite for the Word means having a teachable heart ready to do God's will. It is foolish to expect a blessing if you come to worship with a hardened, unprepared, or worldly-minded heart.

The Puritans said preparation for worship should start on Saturday evening. Just as people baked bread on Saturday evening so that it would be warm on Sunday morning, so believers should study the Word on Saturday evenings so that their hearts are warm for worship on Sunday morning.

If you know the passage to preached upon, spend time studying, praying, and meditating over it. It's amazing how the message will come alive when you have already been chewing on it for a while.

3. Meditate upon the importance of the preached Word.

The high and holy triune God of heaven and earth is meeting with you to speak directly to you. Of gospel preaching, Thomas Boston wrote, "The voice is on earth, but the Speaker is in heaven."

Since the gospel is the Word of God, not the word of man, come to church looking for God. Though you should deeply appreciate your pastor's efforts to faithfully bring you the Word of God, pray that you see "no man, save Jesus only" (cf. Matthew 17:8). Do not focus on the messenger, but the message.

Teach your children that every sermon counts for eternity. Salvation comes through faith, and faith comes through hearing God's Word (Romans 10:17). As one Puritan wrote, "The nearer to heaven any are lifted up by gospel preaching, the lower will they sink into hell if they heed it not."

Furthermore, remember that every Lord's Day you are receiving spiritual food and supplies for the coming week. The Puritans called Sunday "the market day of the soul." As the Puritans went to market each week to stock up on material supplies, so we should stock up on our spiritual goods for the week by listening well to the sermon, then meditating upon it throughout the week to come.

4. Remember that when you enter the church, you are entering a battleground.

Many enemies will oppose your listening to the preached Word.

Internally, you may be distracted by worldly cares, lusts of the flesh, cold hearts, and a critical spirit. Externally, you may be distracted by the weather, the behaviour or dress of others, even people arriving late.

Remember that Satan seeks to oppose your listening to God's Word with might and main, knowing that if you truly hear it, you will bear righteous fruit to the glory of God (cf. Matthew 13:23).

Therefore, make sure that you and your children get enough sleep on Saturday night. As willing as the spirit might be, how we receive God's Word often is strongly linked to how rested our 'flesh' is (cf. Matthew 26:41).

5. Finally, coming with an expectant faith.

Come pleading the promises of God, that because He is not man that He should lie, His promises will not return to Him void or unfulfilled (cf. Isaiah 55:10-11).

Come with reverential fear of God and His majesty.

Come, believing that He delights to show mercy and grace to those who ask. 

Some of the most condemning words in all of Scripture are when Jesus tells people, "May it be to you according to your faith."

May this not be true of us when we gather to hear and feed upon the living Manna of Christ.


In Christ,
And for His glory in His church,
Pastor Ryan

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

The Family at Church, Part 1

In this "series" of blogs, I want to offer a review of Joel Beeke's tiny book entitled, "The Family at Church."

The reason for this is because I believe that God could actually use this principle to transform the life of our church. Honestly. Really.

In an age that scoffs at and scorns anything that smacks of tradition, the inherent danger is that often in the pursuit of something fresh and new, we toss away things of infinite value and worth. One such grace that has been unfortunately jettisoned whole sale from the church is the idea of intentionality when it comes to preparing our souls - and the souls of our families - for corporate worship.

Since words like discipline and intentionality sound eerily like "legalism", we run as fast and as far away as possible, often under the rubric of "walking in the Spirit." Christ has set us free for liberty, not bondage, right? Rules and regulations sound like the antithesis of such freedom, and so, ignorantly believing the lie of the serpent, we cast away anything and everything that might lead to legalism.

By experience, I have found these principles outlined by Beeke to be extremely profitable. But even above my own experience, I want to show how biblical the idea of intentional preparation for worship on the Lord's Day is for those who call themselves Christians.

Why should Christians come on Sundays as a "people prepared"?

1. The Importance of Preaching

John Calvin often instructed his congregation about rightly hearing the Word of God. He did so for two reasons: first, he believed few people listened well to sermons; second, he had a high regard for preaching. Calvin, in agreement with Scripture, saw preaching as one of the primary means that God used to bestow salvation and benediction. For him, the Holy Spirit is the "internal minister" who uses the "external minister" of the preached Word. Thus, faithful gospel proclamation is one of the chief means by which the Spirit does His saving work of illuminating, converting, and sealing sinners.

If this is true, why do we often come to church so tired and weary, complacent and indifferent, so absent-minded and aloof, so concerned with anything and everything but the preached Word? When we come so nonchalantly to church, we do so at great peril to the well-being of our souls.

In Luke 8:18, Jesus warned His listeners to "take heed how you hear." Why? Because when we don't hear well, what is preached "will be taken away." That is scary. How many sermons we've sat through, all for naught! [notice the preceding context of how many "seeds" never take proper root in the "soil" and bear fruit]

When we 'listen' to sermons with indifference; when all we can do is but stay awake in sermons; when we 'listen' merely to critique the pastor; when our minds are wandering off to the cares of the world; when we 'listen' with bitterness in our hearts; when we 'listen' carelessly, we run the risk of having that very Word taken away from us, the way a bird devours the seed scattered by a faithful farmer.

If we are honest, we must admit that the reason we can't recall so many of the messages given on Sunday is not because it was a poor message, or because the message was delivered poorly. The primary reason we forget so many sermons is because we don't come with our "soil" properly prepared.

So here is my challenge to us as a church: let us endeavor to be more disciplined and intentional in preparing for church on Sundays. In the words of the Westminster Larger Catechism,
It is required of those that hear the Word preached, that they attend upon it with diligence, preparation, and prayer, examine what they hear by the Scriptures, receive the truth with faith, love, meekness, and readiness of mind, as the Word of God; meditate, and confer of it in their hearts, and bring forth the fruit of it in their lives.
For starters, let me give you two practical applications to put into practice THIS WEEK:

1. Go to bed early enough on Saturday night so that you won't wake up rushed on Sunday morning. It's hard to "worship the Lord with all our minds" when they're barely awake and we spend more time trying to not fall asleep than to feast on the Word as it's read, prayed, sung and preached. Moreover, when we sleep in, often - to avoid embarrassment - we get all worked up about not being late. Instead of devoting the morning to God in worship, our minds are elsewhere (I'm positive most of the arguments in the car on the way to church have to do with being late). If we can wake up every other day to get to work by 8, is it too much to wake up enough to make it on time to worship the Lord with His people one day a week?

2. Intentionally make the first thing you do on Sunday morning is get in the Word. Don't read the newspaper, check the weather, check Facebook or your email. Prepare your heart for worship. After setting the standard for the day, I will then try to either meditate on Scripture, or listen to God-exalting music while getting ready for church. By the way, if you neglect #1 above, #2 is virtually impossible.

Next time we will look at Preparing for the Preached Word

In Christ, and for God's glory in the church,
Pastor Ryan

Since God Withholds Forgiveness, Should We? (Part 2)

In our last blog, we saw the biblical precedent and pattern that divine forgiveness is contingent upon human repentance. Or, put negatively, God does not forgive unrepentant sin or rebellion.

What then are we to do with Paul's exhortation to us as Christians to forgive one another as God in Christ has forgiven you? (Ephesians 4:32)

The most important word for our study is "as", which can also be translated "in the same way." Simply put, our forgiving one another is predicated and patterned upon God's forgiveness of us.

Which begs the obvious question, "If God only forgives those who repent, then I am to withhold forgiveness to those who have wronged me but have not apologized or sought reconciliation?"

This is an important question. As a pastor I have had this question asked many times, and unfortunately, I have not found an adequate answer in any of the sermons I've heard or other pastors I've asked or blogs that I've read. This is because it is not a petty issue. Unfortunately, most of us have not thought through it for ourselves, and thus a simple Christian cliche is often the only 'counseling' we offer to those going through great and honest turmoil.

As Christians, we need to remember that there actually are other brothers and sisters in Christ who have been greatly sinned against. Will a cliche comfort someone sexually abused as a child by someone who may still be on the prowl? What about those who have been robbed of much money by an unrepentant schemer? Or, as is quite prevalent in our day, what is a wife to do with her husband who has left her and the kids for a younger woman?

To nonchalantly tell them to simply "forgive" the offending party can be taken as a slap to the face. Trust me, I've "counseled" people in this way, and unfortunately, rather than helping them, I've offended them by making them think that because they are struggling with anger and unforgiveness, they are the primary sinners in the equation, which inevitably adds guilt to their situation.

Now of course, I have counseled people who have become embittered and hostile against their unrepentant offenders, which is undoubtedly sin. I have met people who are still stuck in the past, and have made their identity as helpless martyrs who live and feed on the pity of others, whose conversation revolves invariably around vilifying and demeaning the offending party. Such people are living in what I will call "sinful unforgiveness", and must indeed repent of this.

This inevitably begs another question: "Is there such a thing as "non-sinful unforgiveness"? Does the Bible have anything to say about this? Are there any explicit examples of this? Or, are we to unreservedly forgive those who have sinned against us or wronged us, despite the fact they refuse to apologize and make restitution? Are we to go on living with them as though nothing has happened? Can we sweep their iniquities under the carpet, as it were, and pretend all is well?

As we think through this together, please leave some feedback or comments. This is a complex, complicated issue that demands and deserves much biblical contemplation, meditation, and application. Don't be afraid to weigh in on this subject.

Next time we will begin opening up the various texts that deal with this sensitive topic.

In Christ, and for His glory,
Pastor Ryan