The Greatest Sandwich I Ever Ate

I love it when God brings forgotten memories of His faithfulness to mind. The other day I was pondering such things. Being a list maker my heart was fixed upon a time in life where there was great loneliness, and yet God was showing His care in several ways.

Near the seminary where I attended was also a church that had taken pity on me and hired me as a custodian. I say pity because I was immature and not very good at my job. My efforts never seemed to measure up, and yet the folks there were gracious and patient with me.

On Monday nights they conducted visitation. I would take care of the church cleaning, especially the sanctuary. Here I would privately preach to an empty room with my thoughts running deep into the glories of God. One particular Monday had been exasperating. My loneliness was washing over me as a storm, wondering what God had in store for my future. I was tired, and lacking hope.

As I rounded the hall while dwelling on these thoughts a man stopped me. I recall his name as Rick Martinez. He was the director of visitation. In his hand was a napkin covered plate. Handing it to me he expressed that the family had thought of me while eating dinner and wanted to share with me.

Even now I fail to draw the bucket up from the depths of what God was working in my heart at that moment. It became a spiritual marker to me. Under that napkin was a handful of potato chips and a very simple sandwich. The sandwich was white bread, ham, and cheese. There were no condiments. But its simplicity represented the God would be my daily bread. It was like eating manna that night.

That one act of kindness, that Christian love, set a renewal of strength and faith in me that has its workings even now.

Martinez family, where ever you are, may God be blessing you.

The Sabbath Day

The 4th Commandment
Keeping the Sabbath Day Holy.
Exodus 20:1-11 and Matthew 12:1-14


I have spent several years looking into the Sabbath. There are many many opinions. I bring this part to you out of a great concern that we are idolizing leisure above the worship of God. I have great concerns that on Sundays when we come to worship we are distracted, tired from the work week and running around, to the point that our efforts are displeasing to God and that we never connect with Him. In short I wonder, quite often about our real love for God.
As your pastor it is my hearts desire that all of us truly know God in a saving manner in which He is truly Savior, Lord, and Love.
With the mounds of notes that I have on the Sabbath, I have come to several conclusions. Honestly, I also have new questions. So in what I shall deliver over the next few Sundays, I hope to summarize for you some essentials. Let us remember a few key points…
• The Ten Commandments are more about Who God is than legalistic rules that no flesh can keep.
• God’s laws are meant for our benefit, leading us to Him and protecting us from evil.


First let us tackle the biggest concern. Legalism & Worship
Throughout the Old Testament is it undeniable that God repeatedly held the breaking of the Sabbath against the Jews. He often charges them with profaning His Sabbath. It was to be a time of worship of Him and of rest. God detests the sniffing at His name and the false pretenses of worship. It was this that was an early step towards idolatry of false idols. They may not have immediately left the Sabbath, they may have mixed Baal with their regular worship. But hand in hand they failed to worship God.
• Sabbath rest was not instituted until the Decalogue was given to Moses.
• In Genesis we never find a command for man to rest on the seventh day.
• Rest did have many benefits for Jew, animals, and slaves.
• In the NT, all the ten commandments are taught explicitly, with the exception of Sabbath rest. The early church did not keep the Sabbath, they kept the day of resurrection for worship.
• The Pharisees legalistically kept the Sabbath. They added commands that were not of the Lord.
• Jesus pointed out that the Sabbath was made for man, that doing good to others on this day was encouraged, and that the Pharisees had it all wrong.

Historically, in post reformation days, the Sunday worship became relaxed in “Merry Old England”. It was called such as the church started being the grounds of festivals and sports on Sunday afternoons. Yet it got out of hand. There were dong fights and gambling, and it became the focus of the day rather than the work of Christ.

Now, legalistically in our day and in the last 100 years, we have had blue laws and have sought to facilitate worship on the Sabbath un hindered. It was then thought that if a person worked on such a day that it would ruin our witness before others that we are Christians. (More will be covered on this in following weeks)

Now I fully admire and respect people such as Truett Cathy and his Chick Fil A stores which are all closed on Sunday. I also have this regard for Hobby Lobby for the same reason. If I owned a business I would do the same as they. But, I am not finding any command of the New Testament prohibiting Christians from working on the Sabbath. Now I do find some provisions to their life that need to be observed.
• They must not forsake the assembling of the believers.
• They must have some time of rest in the week for reflection and meditation upon the graces of God. (Implied by the church)

Surprised?

Me too. But like the Berean brethren, we must take what is taught us and put it against scripture to see what Scripture says.

Many of us have objections to alcohol. I do. However, some of those same people regularly give no regard to other commandments. I say, pass the pork.
Through the NT we often see Jesus bringing clarity to the OT regulations and laws. We now understand murder is on par with anger against a brother or name calling. We see that lust is on par with adultery. This then begs us to investigate how Jesus taught about the Sabbath. Seems to me most of His healings and work that we have recorded were Sabbath events. I find that wonderful.

Now Jesus did teach that if an ox went in a ditch on the Sabbath day that one would get it out. Adrian Rodgers once said that if the ox kept getting in the ditch either fill in the ditch or slaughter the ox. That is a good rational for those making excuses of why they neglect worship while acting “spiritual”.
But Jesus was showing the duplicity of the Pharisees’ treatment of the Sabbath. His intent was to say that it glorifies God to do good on the Sabbath.

And this brings me to my main point. The Sabbath is to full fill the two greatest commandments.
To Love the Lord your God (That is to worship Him) and
To Love your neighbor as Yourself (Do ministry unto others)
For we are created to glorify God, thus we are also to be lights unto a dark world that has yet to know Christ. The fulfilling of the great commission is to go into all the world, and how will the world know and believe our message? It is by the Spirit working in us that we love, not that we keep all the law. The scripture states…

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. "By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." John 13:34-35

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. 1 Corinthians 13:1-3

We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. 1 John 3:14-16

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 1 John 4:7-11

Love is the evidence of our Christianity, not law. Yes if we love God we keep His commandments, But without the love, law is useless.

So let me give you a few things John Calvin concluded about the Sabbath that will be beneficial summations…
1. That during our whole lives we may aim at a consistent rest from our own works in order that the Lord ma work in us by His Spirit.
2. that every individual as he has opportunity man diligently exercise himself in private and pious meditation on the works of God and at the same time, that all may observe the legitimate order appointed by the Church, for the hearing of the word, the administration of the sacraments, and public prayer.
3. That we may avoid oppressing those who are subject to us.

Cheap Grace

Sometime Back I wrote our folks about Cheap Grace from Bonhoeffer's perspective. By rereading this I believe it brings deeper reflection and meditation to the Lord's Supper. It goes beyond that. It brings us to see how much we do need a Savior.

Bonhoeffer said “That is what we mean by cheap grace, the grace which amounts to the justification of sin without the justification of the repentant sinner who departs from sin and whom sin departs.” “Cheap grace is the grace we bestow upon ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, Grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”

I feel I must go on, he also said, “Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble, it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows Him.” “Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life.” “Above all it is costly because it cost God the life of His Son: “Ye were bought at a price,” and what has cost God much cannot be cheep for us. Above all it is grace because God did not reckon His Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered Him up for us. Costly grace is the incarnation of God.”

Sunday Preperations

As I prepare for Sunday, and the Lords Supper my thoughts run that this should not be taken for granted. But what can be done to make the most out of communion? Too often this act of worship has become cheap grace, as Bonhoeffer would say. It is my desire that every one of my flock leave the service having worshiped and been renewed in a passion for God. Only God can do this in us, but we must be mindful to remove hindrances to the Spirit. So again, how can we go about our week being prepared for the sacrament.

Here are some rough notes I have at present. Enjoy.
There is one body and one Spirit--just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call-- one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. (Ephesians 4:4-7)

Last week I introduced the ideas of Indicative and imperative moods o the text.

Indicative is indicating what has been done it is a past tense work, such as grace.

Imperative is a work to be done, such as law

Both of these are relevant. Keeping the law as a Christian is part of our desire to keep close to God and give proper weight to the grace we have been shown. We are grateful for the law as it reveals our sin that we might repent and seek God. But we must not confuse grace and law. Law says obey these rules. Grace says Christ is the fulfillment of the law. When you listen to a sermon or read a book, you will find those that list “imperatives to happiness” and "solutions for a better life" will tend to be law centered as well as man centered. This is what Paul rallied against when the Jews were demanding that the Gentiles be circumcised in order to be saved. However, what sets us free is the grace in what Christ has done, this is indicative as we can ascribe them as being cross and Christ centered. Law will wear you out, grace will fill your cup.

So as we take the Lords Supper today we must see that law works in us to open our remembrance to our need for God and what was to happen to us, and then mount up with grace in adoration of what now will be.

God has created the church to have a nature of self denial in which unity is a notable character. This is based on what Christ has done.

Scripture attests that man is selfish. It also attests that when we become a Christian there is an intrinsic change of nature within us. This change moves us from selfishness to self denial, taking up a cross and following Christ. The one of the greatest evidences of the church is its unity and love for others.

Notice not division, no lack

One Body

One Spirit

One Hope

One Lord

One Faith

One Baptism

One God

One Father

Of all

Over all

Through all

In all

To each grace given

according to the measure (worthy?)

Christ’s gift. The Cross