First Things

Friday night we had the privilege of hearing Michael Horton speak at a conference in a nearby town. The theme of the conference was "The Means of Grace." We drove over with some friends and soaked in about an hour's worth of teaching for our weekend, unable to return on Saturday. It was well worth the effort and time it took to attend, even for that short while.

There were many things to consider as we left, many things worth remembering, but one thing in particular gave me pause to think. It summed up much of what he had to tell us, and that was this:


When we come to church, God wants to serve us.


Martin Luther said, "God doesn't need our good works. Our neighbor does."

The worship service is God's service - He wants me to sit down and be still and RECEIVE the Word, every week. I need the Good News that the Gospel announces, reorienting my reality with the truth that I am accepted in Christ Jesus and it is finished. This message is not only for the unbeliver, but most especially for the believer! He is the "Savior of all people, especially of those who believe." (I Tim. 4:10)

It's so easy to come into the sanctuary, however, with the impression that I am there to serve God - to find out what He wants me to give, or do, or change - how to be busier for Him, how to somehow earn those things that only He can give. This is partly my sinful nature's desire to "do" instead of "be." But it is also peculiar to this culture, part of that American ingenuity, an independent streak that works against the Spirit, saying, "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps." I don't even notice that I'm doing it, many times. This is why I'm prone to "leave my first love."

The Ephesians are a good warning to me today: "I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance... I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for My name's sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore..." (Rev. 2: 2-4)

Throughout Scripture there is a theme of "covering." The atonement seat (the "covering" of the ark of the covenant) in the Tabernacle was sprinkled with blood. The blood "covered" it and made the sacrifice acceptable. The doorposts were "covered" with the blood as the angel of death flew over. Noah and his family were "covered" while the rains fell. Even in the very beginning, Adam and Eve's shame was "covered" by God with animal skins. And in the New Testament, Christ was covered in flesh in order to enter our humanity to serve us, then covered us with His own blood, making atonement for us once and for all. This is His service to us - always, it is Him coming to us. Our service, such as it is, is done in response to what we hear from Him.

But I have HEAR - I have to stop and listen FIRST. It is not the ONLY thing I do, but it is the FIRST thing I have to do, because this is how I receive the power of God (I Cor. 1:18).

The means of grace are not complicated. I've heard it said that Satan's worst is always a perversion of God's best. Satan doesn't have to be too creative, really. It's the same sin witnessed in the Garden of Eden: "God said don't eat of it - NOR TOUCH IT..."
Eve added to God's words, and so do I, all the time.

Coming to God's house on Sundays isn't complicated and difficult - it's not a matter of DOING more, or "finding my gifts," or "finding a place." I have a place, and God gives the gifts. My response is simple worship, which is fitting and proper.

But I'm the one who makes things complicated. When God gets busy peeling away the layers I've gathered around me all week, sometimes that feels uncomfortable or maybe it even FEELS "complicated," this undoing of my own laws and traditions, things I'm believing and then acting upon without realizing it. Reacclimating me to truth, replacing my dirty, scratched lenses with clear ones, helping me focus on the one tree instead of the entire forest - this is God's service to me, each Sunday in worship. Some weeks are harder than others, but the Word of God is powerful, sharper than a double-edged sword: it cuts straight through the you-know-what, right down to the bone and beyond. Listening to my pastor pronounce God's forgiveness after confession, hearing him pronounce the benediction upon me before I leave, these things "massage in" the Word of God when I am stiff and resistant. I feel my spirit soften, my muscles relax, I breathe deeper, I'm letting go.

Words are powerful, and the Word of God is most powerful. We are to be people of the Word. This week I'm asking myself if I'm really coming to it in order to receive, or am I only coming to it looking for more things to do? And what does God want me to do? How would He rather spend this time with me? If there is something God wants to give me, I want to receive it.

Michael Horton reminded us Friday that "the message IS the means." Preaching is the God-ordained means by which we receive God's gifts, and the Word is God's chosen means by which we receive His grace each day. He does not exclude the one who feels they are not "intelligent enough," nor the one who "isn't a good reader." He gives His Spirit to teach and call to remembrance. He is not in a hurry for me to "get it." This is God's will that I must submit to in the act of humbly picking up a Bible and saying, "What do you want to give me today, Lord? What do you want to say to me?" while I sit and wait, still and quiet, for just a little while in my busy week.

It's that simple... and it's that complicated.

Submission is never "simple." It's very difficult. Peeling away the layers is usually difficult, too. Maybe if I was a better student of the Word I wouldn't have so many layers to peel away each week! But it makes me terribly thankful for the mirror of the Word of God, for the beauty of language and all it conveys. It's miraculous, really, that a God who is so big and OTHER is willing and able to speak our limited, finite language, with limited, finite words - how does He communicate such vast truth in such feeble ways through such feeble people? How did He squeeze "the fullness of the Godhead" into a body? All that knowledge, into a brain? All that wisdom, into 66 books?

Even when it looks mundane - the same old building, the same pews, the same sinful pastor, the same sinful people sitting in those same pews -
even then, when we are all together, something happens that we cannot see. We are changed and He is with us, nourishing us and building us up for yet another week. My faith is challenged to truly believe this, every week.

If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
Who could stand?
But with You there is forgiveness,
that You may be feared.
Psalm 130:3

We revere God because He is the Source of our forgiveness. He is the only One who can give it or withhold it - and having it makes all the difference. Knowing this motivates us to hallow His name. It is then that we are enabled to say with Jesus, "Rise, let us go from here..." willing and ready to obey, submitted to God's will - whatever it may be that awaits.

Someone told me once to be patient about finding God's will - that HE would be sure to find ME.

I'm learning how true that is -
and I'm learning to be found, every day.

But especially on Sundays.