The Missing Jewell

Jeremiah 6:16 (ESV) 

    Thus says the Lord: "Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.  But they said, 'We will not walk in it.'

One of our great aims at FPC is to recover our historic distinctive of Reformed belief and practice in our worship and our way of being a church.  This is not a popular road to travel, even among people of our own denomination.  It seems as though we are constantly bombarded with the message that to be relevant to our culture we must move from the past.  But, the Bible reveals the way of faithfulness is not mimicking the culture, but going back to the ancient paths our spiritual ancestors marked out for us.  Our new sanctuary is one example.  Its newness is a recovery of historic Reformed worship where people gather around the preaching of the Word.  This sanctuary has been designed in the shape of a Cross to reflect the centrality of Christ’s work as the means of coming into the presence of God.   The congregation gathers around the raised pulpit to hear the Word of God read and expounded to capture the Reformed priority of the Holy Scriptures in bringing forth faith in those who believe. 

This reality of the centrality of preached Word, has implications in everything we do.  It means more than just one hour of listening to the pastor and then going back to life as usual.  It stands as a call that the whole day, which our Presbyterian forefathers called the Sabbath, was to be spent in holy rest and religious worship, because God rested after six days of creating this world(Gen. 2:3), and as a Gospel rooted  ordinance (Acts 20:7).  In fact, what we see in Acts, is a church more engaged in worship, then what Israel was mandated in the law.  Worship in the reality of Christ’s finished work and resurrected power is the transforming experience of Christian living.   The more I study the Scriptures, the more convinced that this is the missing jewel (to borrow A.W. Tozer’s phrase) in many people’s lives.   People are living under greater stress today; our lives are being pulled apart by discord and unhappiness.  The more we work to find contentment and joy, the less we experience it.  Our children and family life with our middle class affluence are filled with discontent and rebellion.   They see the hypocrisy of our disjointed morality and according to many studies are leaving the faith in masses. 

It may sound overly simplistic, but the core problem of our manifold crisis is our contemporary disregard of the fourth commandment to “honor the Sabbath.”   The whole day was meant to reconnect our lives, our homes to our true identity as God’s people.  Through all day worship, training in the Scriptures, learning the catechism, praying with one another, in godly fellowship and caring ministry, this one day was set apart as a blessing and not a burden.   I am not talking about a legalistic observance, but a Gospel soaked experience of getting us back to where we find God’s grace poured into our lives.  

I will make a challenge for you.   Is your life fraying at the edges?  Do you need more peace and joy?  Then do what God prescribes, by making the whole day, not just one hour, the Lord ’s Day, where He is central in your week.  If you are struggling in some area in your life and are not worshipping weekly, don’t ask first for pastoral counseling, go first to this God designed pattern for wholeness.  This is the missing jewel in your life.  In public worship, God uses the ordinary means of grace to minister to heavy hearts.  In those times you need someone to hear you unburden your heart and to be prayed for (James 5:16), we have prayer/counseling rooms behind the sanctuary, where an elder and the pastor can meet with people following worship, as needed.   It is our hope that coming to church on the Sabbath will become a wellspring of life and blessing to the saints gathered at First Presbyterian Church in Enterprise.