Personal

The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath. Sabbath is a gift God has given us for our good. We are feeble creatures who need rest, yet foolish creatures who would otherwise work ourselves to the bone. The sabbath is a reminder of our weakness, of our finiteness, of our inability. It is a reminder of all of these in a physical sense and, more ultimately, in a spiritual sense, for so much of what is true of our bodies is true of our souls. We accept sabbath as a blessing from God and ignore or reject it to our own peril.

A short time ago I compared certain evangelical churches to a meatless, cheeseless, crustless pizza. Just like removing too many elements of a pizza will call into doubt whether something still qualifies as pizza at all, removing too many elements of worship should call into doubt whether something still qualifies as a worship service. A service devoid of prayer, congregational singing, sacraments, and the public reading of Scripture may be a service in name only. The main point of that article was to call churches to emphasize (or re-emphasize) Scripture reading, and I offered two reasons we ought to do this: Because God commands it and because the Bible has the power to save, teach, reprove, correct, train, and mature. Today I want to offer a few more reasons that churches should have tons of Bible in their worship services, and especially to have a skilled reader read a substantial portion as an element that stands on its own. These reasons are not as directly and obviously drawn from the Bible, but are drawn from my experience and the experience of other pastors.

Do you weep over your sin? There must be some things in life that bring you to tears, but is your sin one of them? We would all do well to consider these powerful words from Thomas Watson’s The Godly Man’s Picture for he warns “how far are they from being godly who scarce ever shed a tear for sin” and goes on to explain the beauty and necessity of repentance.

Jerry Bridges gave many gifts to the church, not the least of which was his 2007 book Respectable Sins. In it he coined a term that describes a whole category of sins that might otherwise escape our attention. “Respectable sins” are behaviors Christians (sometimes individually and sometimes corporately) regard as acceptable even though the Bible describes them as sinful. They are subtle or refined in such a way that we may even dress them up to become a kind of virtue. Bridges offers many examples: anxiety and frustration; discontentment; unthankfulness; impatience and irritability; worldliness; and so on.

want to encourage you to read at least part of a denominational ad interim committee report on human sexuality. That may sound rather drab and difficult, but I am convinced you will find it both helpful and rewarding. It won’t even be particularly difficult. So let me set the context and then tell you why you should read it.

Babies grow by drinking milk—lots of it. They don’t take in one glass on Sunday and another the next Sunday. They drink all day, every day, several times a day. (And night.) But imagine if a mother only fed her baby one day a week. What would happen to that baby? Even if it survived, it would grow up malnourished, with serious growth defects.

During the summer at one of our Summit campuses, an Afghan woman—I’ll call her Hadiya—showed up to VBS and, with a very limited vocabulary, let the staff know she was there for her 5-year-old to attend the event. She opened up her phone and showed them a picture of a lady who she called Amanda and said that this lady invited her while she was at the park. Hadiya had wanted to come because she’d heard of the church before.

This may surprise you, but I’m not an expert on butterflies. I do recall a few key insights from one of my favorite books, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. For instance, there are days—like the day after the Super Bowl—when I think I need to eat “one nice, green leaf,” and after that, I’ll feel much better. I did a little reading up on caterpillars recently and learned some fascinating things about their transformation process. When the caterpillar is in its cocoon, it isn’t just rearranging pieces on its body. It’s not in there reading manuals about flight or working out. It actually releases enzymes that turn its body into a little soup. Those cells rearrange into a new creation—with wings, antennae, eyes, and all the rest. After a few weeks, it nibbles a hole in the cocoon, and out pops a butterfly! And then, without any classes or coaching or coercion, it flies. The Apostle Paul may or may not have known all this about butterflies.

Many cultural Christians think church is a good thing, but they are not committed. They are not involved in any ministry. They don’t sacrificially give. They couldn’t tell you the last time they told someone about Jesus. They come to church about once every couple months, because they are “just so busy.” (Plus, their extended family has a beach house and so they try and get down to it for the weekend whenever the weather is nice.) For these people, church is a good thing, but they’re just not interested in making it a priority.

The Apostle Paul says that at the core of all our sin is idolatry. He didn’t just mean bowing down to statues (though that counts). Idolatry is much bigger than that: It’s deciding something has such worth and weight that we think possessing it is the key to a happy life. So we prioritize it over knowing and obeying God. Romans 12:1 says, “Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship” (CSB).