Jesus among your other gods: The idol smack-down and the peace of Jesus.

Idolatry defined: any aspect of creation that we love, trust, & serve hoping it can fulfill our identity, circumstance, or future.

Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images...they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.  Romans 1:22-25


The Bible tells you that you are a worshiper.  You are always in pursuit of something and in service of something to provide you with meaning, purpose, and joy... If God isn't the central reason for doing all that I do, then something in the creation will be.  It is an insight that is inescapable and profound.  Every moment of life is spiritual.  Everything I do is theological.  There is never a moment - never a word, action, or reaction - that is not somehow shaped by whatever has claimed the allegiance of my heart.

Paul Tripp, Lost in the Middle

How to identify your idols - three litmus tests:

1. Your religion is what you do with your solitude.  The true god of your heart is what you thoughts effortlessly go to when there is nothing else demanding your attention...What do you habitually think about to get joy and comfort in the privacy of your heart? 

2.  How do you spend your money?  Your money flows most effortlessly toward your heart's greatest love.  In fact, the mark of an idol is that you spend too much money on it, and you must try to exercise self-control constantly. 

3.  When you pray and work for something and you don't get it and you respond with explosive anger or deep despair, showing a lack of emotional proportion, then you may have found your real god.  

Tim Keller, Counterfeit Gods

[Paul] reverses the way that Christians now typically think of singleness and marriage.  Christians today tend to think that singleness ought to serve marriage.  We ought to endure a sexless life of singleness in order to save ourselves for marriage.  Marriage is the goal.  Paul, on the other hand, assumes that marriage ought to look as much like singleness as possible.  In 1 Corinthians 7, singleness is the goal... We should accept that it is a mark [negative mark!] against our faithfulness when we lack the kind of communities that can sustain the single life as one that is rich in friendship, intimacy, purpose, and love... We are brothers and sisters in Christ.  We are brothers and sisters before we are married or single.  Before we are husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, we are gathered as God's friends.  We have the shared task of seeking an alternative to the isolated home and privatized notions of love.  

David Matzko McCarthy, The Good Life

The grief of midlife is not simply that we all collect things to regret, that we all fear getting old, or that we all mourn the demise of our dreams.  We mourn the fact that midlife exposes our idols' fundamental inability to deliver.  

Paul Tripp, Lost in the Middle

Rejoicing and repentance must go together.  Repentance without rejoicing will lead to despair.  Rejoicing without repentance is shallow and will only provide passing inspiration instead of deep change...Fear-based repentance makes us hate ourselves.  Joy-based repentance makes us hate the sin.  Rejoicing in Christ is also crucial because idols are almost always good things.  If we have made idols out of work or family, we do not want to stop loving our work and our family.  Rather, we want to love Christ so much more that we are not enslaved by our attachments.  

Tim Keller, Counterfeit Gods

Sunday School, December 12 2010

Grace Presbyterian Church

Prayer of Confession
Father, we come to you this morning as people who need to be redeemed.  We need to be made whole.  We confess that we need you to heal us for we cannot heal ourselves.

We confess our wandering hearts.  We run after acceptance, prestige, wealth, order, pleasure and novelty in a desperate effort to heal our hearts.  None of these can redeem us, none of these can make us whole.  Yet we are slow to learn.  Forgive us we pray.

We confess our faithless hearts.  We have looked for redemption everywhere but in your arms.  We have not looked to you because we doubt your love for us.  Forgive us we pray.

Now, Father, accept our confession and receive us gladly.  We ask this not upon our deserving it, or even the honesty of our confession, but for the sake of Jesus.  You rejected Him, the innocent, in order to embrace us, the guilty. Amen.

Assurance of Pardon
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  Romans 8:1

Order of Worship, December 5 2010

Grace Presbyterian Church

Prayer of Confession
Holy Father and Merciful King
Our lives are not hidden from your sight.
You hear our thoughts, know our hearts, and see every moment of our lives:
Our whining and pride, our laziness and fear of risk, our grumbling and envy.
All that we are, we are before You.  Even so we wrestle against your grace, pretending that we can hide our sin behind our self-righteous deceit.

We confess not only our sin, but the shame of our attempts to fight against the grace of your love for sinners.

Humble us with the gospel.
Father cover us in the righteousness of Christ.
Let us hear Your Spirit assuring us that Christ's sacrifice is our peace
and His resurrection the seal of our adoption as sons.

May the peace of Christ guard our hearts so that we might seve you with feedom and joy, now and forever more.
Amen

Assurance of Pardon
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  1 John 1:8-9

Order of Worship, December 12 2010

Grace Presbyterian Church

A marvelous wonder has this day come to pass:
Nature is made new, and God becomes man.
The Word put on a body, the Invisible is seen.
He whom no hand can touch is handled,
and he who has no beginning now begins to be.

Orthodox Vespers for Christmas

Order of Worship, December 12 2010

Grace Presbyterian Church

Prayer of Confession
Almighty and most merciful Father, we are thankful that your mercy is
higher than the heavens,
wider than our wanderings,
deeper than all our sin.

Forgive our careless attitudes toward your purposes,
our refusal to relieve the suffering of others,
our envy of those who have more than we have,
our obsession with creating a life of constant pleasure,
our indifference to the treasures of heaven,
our neglect of your wise and gracious law.

Help us to change our way of life
so that we may desire what is good,
love what you love,
and do what you command,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Assurance of Pardon
I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.  And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes--I, and not another. Job 19:25-27

This faith enables us to be at the same time realistic and hopeful.  We can be realistic, knowing that no human project can eliminate the powers of darkness as they operate in human life.  This realism delivers us from the Utopian fanaticisms which have condemned millions of people to misery and death in the cause of an imagined future.  But at the same time we can be hopeful, acting hopefully in apparently hopeless situations, not dreaming of an absolute perfection on this side of death, but doing resolutely that relative good which is possible now, doing it as an offering to the Lord who is able to take it and keep it for the perfect kingdom which is promised.

Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society

Order of Worship, November 28 2010

Grace Presbyterian Church

Prayer of Confession
Almighty and most merciful Father, we have erred and strayed from your ways like lost sheep.  We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts.

We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; we have done those things which we ought not to have done; and there is no health in us.

But you, O Lord, have mercy upon us.  Grant, O most merciful Father, for Jesus' sake, that we may hereafter live a godly, righteous and joyful life, to the glory of your holy name. Amen.

Assurance of Pardon
If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies.  Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died - more than that, who was raised - who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Romans 8:31-35

I do not think that any of us yet knows what this [Christian discipleship] will involve.  We have accepted for too long the position of a voluntary society among other such societies, conceived of as alternative options within a religiously and ideologically neutral society...The church can never settle down to being a voluntary society concerned merely with private and domestic affairs.  It is bound to challenge in the name of the one Lord all the powers, ideologies, myths, assumptions, and world views which do not acknowledge Jesus as Lord.  If that involves conflict, trouble, rejection, then we have the example of Jesus before us and his reminder that a servant is not greater than his master.

Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society

You did not choose me but I chose you.  And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last.  

Jesus, The Gospel of John

Worship must equip us for that [gospel] mission with a deep vision of the extravagant splendor of God.  Rather than being "a vendor of religious goods and services" that cater to people's tastes, the Church is called to be "a body of people sent on a mission." 

Marva Dawn, A Royal "Waste" of Time

Paul speaks far more often of Christians being 'in Christ' than of Christ being 'in Christians.' It's important to see our individual experience within the larger picture of our membership in God's family in the Messiah, within the worldwide plan Paul [writes in this letter]. 

N.T. Wright, Ephesians Study Guide

Order of Worship, November 14 2010

Grace Presbyterian Church

Prayer of Confession
Most merciful Father, we have sinned against and are guilty before you.
Forgive us the sins of our tongues--
For deception and untruthfulness in our dealings with others; for resentment, coldness, impatience, and tempers out of control.
Forgive us the sins of our eyes--
For impurity in our glances and imagination; for pining after more beauty, comfort, status, and wealth than you have given us.
Forgive us the sins of our hearts--
For hard-heartedness toward you and our neighbors; for pride, self-absorption, self-pity; and above all for rebelling against your Lordship and doubting your love.
Now, Holy Father, kill our envy, remove our pride, melt our hearts.  Give us grace to be holy, kind, gentle, pure, to live for you and not for ourselves, to be transformed into your likeness, to live wholly for your glory.  Take away our mourning and give us music; remove our sacklcloth and give us your beauty.  In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Assurance of Pardon
For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.  As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him. Psalm 103:11-13

Order of Worship, November 7 2010

Grace Presbyterian Church

The most important contribution which the Church can make to a new social order is to be itself a new social order.

Lesslie Newbigin, Truth to Tell

The deepest root of the contemporary malaise of Western culture is an individualism which denies the fundamental reality of our human nature as given by God--namely that we grow into true humanity only in relationships of faithfulness and responsibly toward one another.  The local congregation is called to be, and by the grace of God often is, such a community of mutual responsibility.  

Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society

It is easy to produce examples of the many ways in which Americans attempt to minimize, circumvent, or deny the interdependence upon which all human societies are based.  We seek a private house, a private means of transportation, a private garden, a private laundry, self-service stores, and do-it-yourself skills of every kind.  An enormous technology seems to have set itself the task of making it unnecessary for one human being ever to ask anything of another in the course of going about his daily business.  We seek more and more privacy, and feel more and more alienated and lonely when we get it, our encounters with others tend increasingly to be competitive as a result of the search for privacy.  We less and less often meet our fellow man to share and exchange, and more and more often encounter him as an impediment or a nuisance: making a highway crowded when we are rushing somewhere, cluttering and littering the beach or park or wood, pushing in front of us at the supermarket, taking the last parking place, polluting our air and water, building a highway through our house, blocking our view, and so on.  Because we have cut off so much communication with each other we keep bumping into each other, and thus a higher and higher percentage of our interpersonal contacts are abrasive. 

Philip Slater, The Pursuit of Loneliness

Memory, community, and hospitality.  Christian sojourners are people of the Book who love one another and entertain angels.  Without biblical memory, generous community, and sacrificial hospitality, no authentic Christian community can exist. 

Steven Bouma-Prediger and Brian J. Walsh, Beyond Homelessness

Order of Worship, November 7 2010

Grace Presbyterian Church

The most important contribution which the Church can make to a new social order is to be itself a new social order.

Lesslie Newbigin, Truth to Tell

The deepest root of the contemporary malaise of Western culture is an individualism which denies the fundamental reality of our human nature as given by God--namely that we grow into true humanity only in relationships of faithfulness and responsibly toward one another.  The local congregation is called to be, and by the grace of God often is, such a community of mutual responsibility.  

Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society

Prayer of Confession
Almighty and Merciful Father, in Christ we are your dearly loved children.
You know us by name.
You have adopted us in love.
You have taught us to love justice, give mercy, and live humbly for our neighbors.

Father, we have not lived according to Your gracious love.
We are more ready to resent than to forgive,
more ready to manipulate than to serve,
more ready to fear than to love,
more ready to keep distance than to welcome,
more ready to compete than to help.

We do not love fully because we have forgotten the fullness of Your love for us.
Forgive us our cold unbelief.
Open our eyes again to know Your lovingkindness
so that we can imitate you as sons.
By the power of the Holy Spirit, remake us into a family that acts justly, loves mercy and walks humbly - serving the world for which Jesus died.

Assurance of Pardon
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!  And that is what we are!  1 John 3:1

Let there be no mistake.  To proclaim the lordship of Jesus in all the world can never be a matter of merely inviting people to embrace a personal salvation that leaves the power structures of the world untouched.  If it is reduced to that, then in the name of the whole New Testament we must say that the Jesus of whom such a message speaks is not Jesus of Nazareth, but an idol who has usurped his name and distorted his message.  And at the same time, we must say that to work for justice and peace in the world on any basis other than the declaration that the crucified and risen Jesus is Lord of the world, and that his Spirit is at work today to implement his victory, is to fight idolatry with idolatry.  Only Jesus, the real Jesus, is Lord; only by his Spirit is there victory, is there hope.  The gospel promises the life of the age to come, the hope of resurrection, to all who turn from idols and trust in this Jesus.  The same gospel promises that, because his victorious reign has already begun, the power of his self-giving love can challenge and dethrone the usurping idols that still enslave, distort and destroy human life.  There is one gospel, because there is "one body and one Spirit & one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, on baptism, one God and Father of all" (Ephesians 4:4-6).  There is one world, one God, one gospel.  And with this gospel we, however surprisingly, have been entrusted.  We are not spectators in this drama.  We ourselves are summoned to be God's agents in bringing this earth-shattering message to the world--and to the church!--that so desperately needs it.

N.T. Wright

God is a peacemaker.  Jesus Christ is a peacemaker.  So, if we want to be God's children and Christ's disciples, we must be peacemakers too. 

John R. W. Stott, Decisive Issues Facing Christians Today

Order of Worship, October 31 2010

Grace Presbyterian Church

Prayer of Confession
O Lord, we want to enter your presence, worshiping you face to face, awed by your majesty, greatness, and glory; but encouraged and ravished by your love.

Yet there is a coldness in our hearts, a hardness toward you, an unwillingness to admit our sin and need for you.  Forgive us, for Jesus' sake.  Come near and strengthen us until Christ reigns supreme within us, in every thought, word, and deed; in a faith that purifies the heart, overcomes the world, works by love, fastens us to you, and always clings to the cross.  In Jesus' name, Amen.

Assurance of Pardon
And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. Philippians 1:6

Order of Worship, October 24 2010

Grace Presbyterian Church

All sufferers can find comfort in the solidarity of the Crucified; but only those who struggle against evil by following the example of the Crucified will discover him at their side.  To claim the comfort of the Crucified while rejecting his way is to advocate not only cheap grace but a deceitful ideology... A genuinely Christian reflection on social issues must be rooted in the self-giving love of the divine Trinity as manifested on the cross of Christ; all the central themes of such reflection will have to be thought through from the perspective of the self-giving love of God... to reflect on social issues based on the same decision Paul made as he proclaimed the gospel to the Corinthians - "to know nothing among your except Jesus Christ, and him crucified."

Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace

We know enough of our history by now to be aware that people exploit what they merely concluded to be of value, but they defend what they love.  

Wendell Berry, Life Is A Miracle

The music of life is subtle and elusive and like no other--not a song with words but a song without words, a singing, clattering music to gladden the heart or turn the heart to stone, to haunt you perhaps with echoes of a vaster, farther music of which it is part...We cannot live our lives constantly looking back, listening back, lest we be turned to pillars of longing and regret, but to live without listening at all is to live deaf to the fullness of the music.  Sometimes we avoid listening for fear of what we may hear, sometimes for fear that we may hear nothing at all but the empty rattle of our own feet on the pavement.  

Frederick Buechner, The Sacred Journey

Love is not the opposite of wrath.  As difficult as it may be to conceive, the wrath of God is an expression of his love and deep attachment to his people.  Already in the third century, the theologian Lactantius wrote that "he who does not get angry does not care."  If God can look at the sin and injustice in this world and not get angry, he is not much of a God!  The God of the Bible is not some unmovable unfeeling force, but a God who cares.  

Klyne Snodgrass, Ephesians (The NIV Application Commentary)

Order of Worship, October 24 2010

Grace Presbyterian Church

Prayer of Confession
My God, You placed my sin on Your Son
And You credited His righteousness to me.
I rest in the Lamb, whose blood has washed me whiter than snow.

But, I confess that I am not holy in my thoughts, words, or deeds.
In my flesh I continue to put on the old rags of sin.
My prayers are stained with grumbling.
My tears are mixed with conceit and unbelief.

Help me to see my life as You see it.
Help me to grieve my sin and to trust the power of your redemption.

I confess my shallow and unthoughtful repentance.
I confess my weak and fickle faith.
Apart from Christ's life in me I can do nothing.

Hear my prayer.
Forgive my sin and continue to transform my life into Christ-like wholeness.
You are my Savior; in You alone I hope for salvation.
Amen.

Assurance of Pardon
What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all --how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.  Who is he that condemns?  Christ Jesus, who died--more than that, who was raised to life--is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Romans 8:31-34

Order of Worship, October 10 2010

Grace Presbyterian Church

At no point does the gospel come into more violent collision with the world than in its insistence on humility as the paramount virtue.  The wisdom of the world despises humility.  Western culture has been greatly influenced, often unconsciously, by the power-philosophy of Nietzsche, who envisaged the emergence of  "a daring and ruler race."  His hero was the Ubermensch, tough , brash, masculine and overbearing, who would become a "lord of the earth."  But if the ideal of Nietzsche was the superman, the ideal of Jesus was the little child.  There is no possibility of finding a compromise between these alternative models; we are obliged to choose.

John R. W. Stott in Alive to God

Where the Spirit is poured out on the church, it sweeps the believers along as though in a great river of obedience, praise, and mighty works.  Empowered by the Spirit, the community can dare and hope great things, seeing visions, dreaming dreams, turning the world upside-down...Preeminently, the Spirit energizes the community to bear witness in word and deed to the power of the resurrection...Where the Spirit is at work, liberation is underway: good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, deliverance to the oppressed.  The purpose of God's outpouring of the Spirit is to establish a covenant community in which justice is both proclaimed and practiced. 

Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament

Order of Worship, October 10 2010

Grace Presbyterian Church

Prayer of Confession
Eternal God, whose promise to us is never broken; we confess that we fail to follow you.  Though you have bound yourself to us, we run from your embrace.  In Jesus Christ you serve us freely, but we refuse your love and withhold ourselves from others.  We do not love you fully or love one another as you command.

Eternal Father, in your mercy, forgive and cleanse us.  Forgive us and cleanse us not on the basis of our commitment to change, but on the basis of Jesus' work on the cross for us.  Lead us once again into your arms and unite us to Christ, who is the bread of life and the vine from which we grow in grace.  Lord, have mercy on us for Christ's sake. Amen.

Assurance of Pardon
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  Hebrews 12:2

Order of Worship, October 3 2010

Grace Presbyterian Church

Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak.  We are half-hearted creatures, fooling around with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea.  We are far too easily pleased.

C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

Non-Christians get courage by forgetting reality; Christians get courage by remembering reality. 

Timothy J. Keller

True spirituality is not a superhuman religiosity; it is simply true humanity released from bondage to sin and renewed by the Holy Spirit.  This is given to us as we grasp by faith the full content of Christ's redemptive work; freedom from the guilt and power of sin. 

Richard F.  Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life

God's mission is nothing less than the sending of the Holy Spirit from the Father through the Son into this world, so that this world should not perish but live.  The sending of the Holy Spirit is the revelation of God's indestructible affirmation of life and his marvelous joy in life.  

Jurgen Moltmann

Anyone who opens his personality to the living Spirit takes a risk of being considerably shaken. 

J.B. Phillips

Order of Worship, October 3 2010

Grace Presbyterian Church 

Prayer of Confession

Father, you have called us to follow Jesus and live counter-cultural lives.

You have called us to let the gospel shape our dreams, our goals, our desires and our hearts. 

However, we come to you this morning confessing

that we have allowed our world to shape us instead of Your lovingkindness.

Where you desire us to serve, we have sought to be served. 

Where you desire us to sacrifice, we have pursued comfort. 

Where you have sought us to engage, we have remained aloof. 

Where you have sought us as your children, we have lived as orphans. 

Now, Father, accept our confession and receive us gladly.  

We do not ask for your grace because we deserve it, 

We even doubt our ability to confess with full honesty the depth of our sin. 

Father pardon us for the sake of Jesus. 

You rejected Him, the innocent, in order to embrace us, the guilty. 

Amen. 

Assurance of Pardon

Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him. Hebrews 9:27-28

Order of Worship, September 26, 2010

Grace Presbyterian Church 

For us Christians, all truth is "relative," relative to this Jew named Jesus.  We really do not know what the world is, much less where it is headed, until we know him.

William H. Willimon in Exilic Preaching

The repeated promises in the Qu'ran of the forgiveness of a compassionate and merciful Allah are all made to the meritorious, whose merits have been weighed in Allah's scales, whereas the gospel is good news of mercy to the undeserving.  The symbol of the religion of Jesus is the cross, not the scales.

John R. W. Stott

Very few of us have any understanding of the reason why Jesus Christ died.  If sympathy is all that human beings need, then the Cross of Christ is a farce, there was no need for it. 

    We trample the blood of the Son of God under foot if we think we are forgiven because we are sorry for our sins.  The only explanation of the forgiveness of God, and of the unfathomable depth of His forgetting, is the Death of Jesus Christ.  

    The Death of Jesus Christ is the performance in history of the very Mind of God.  There is no room for looking on Jesus Christ as a martyr; His death was not something that happened to Him which might have been prevented: His death was the very reason why He came. 

    God could forgive men in no other way. 

    The greatest note of triumph that ever sounded in the ears of a startled universe was that sounded on the Cross: "It is finished."  That was the last word in the Redemption of man. 

Oswald Chambers

Order of Worship, September 26 2010

Grace Presbyterian Church 

All of your life an unattainable ecstasy has hovered just beyond the grasp of your consciousness.  The day is coming when you will wake to find, beyond all hope, that you have attained it, or else, that it was within your reach and you have lost it forever.

C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

Order of Worship, April 15 2007

Redeemer Presbyterian Church of New Orleans

American religion is a mass of contradictions.  We want community, but on strictly individual terms.  We want human closeness without feeling cramped or obligated.  We want a personal God who doesn't ask much personally.  We want mystery, but in a controlled, non-disruptive way.  We want a faith that's fulfilling, practical, earthy, tolerant, transcendent, fun, empowering, morally serious without being morally demanding, a faith that restores wonder and deepens intimacy, and we want it not to cost too much or take up too much time.

Mark Buchanan ,  Article in  "Books & Culture"

Order of Worship, April 15 2007

Redeemer Presbyterian Church of New Orleans

Those who celebrate the mighty resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, therefore, have an awesome responsibility. When we say, "Alleluia! Christ is risen," we are saying that Jesus is Lord of the world, and that the present would-be lords of the world are not.  When we sing, in the old hymn, that "Judah's Lion burst his chains, and crushed the serpent's head," are we ready to put that victory into practice?...Are we ready to speak up for the truth of the gospel over the dinner table, and in the coffee bar, and in the council chamber?  Let's make no bones about it: if Easter isn't good news, then there is no good news.  But if it is--if it is true that Jesus Christ is risen indeed--then Easer day, and the Easter message, is the true sun which, when it rises, puts all other suns to shame.

N.T. Wright, For All God's Worth

God did not abolish the fact of evil: He transformed it.  He did not stop the crucifixion: He rose from the dead.

Dorothy Sayers, Letters to a Diminished Church

Order of Worship, April 8 2007

Redeemer Presbyterian Church of New Orleans

Some critics seem so intent on deciding who bears responsibility for killing Jesus that they've turned the story into a major whodunit.  The truth is though, Christ's death is not a mystery to be unraveled, but a love story to be embraced.

Lorraine V. Murray, "Why the Passion Matters" (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, March 1 2004)

Our world is torn by ethnic, class, and religious hatred.  Don't show the emerging culture a movie about Jesus: show them a movement of people living like Jesus-people who like him love the different, even the enemy, whose doors are open and tables are set with welcome.

Brian McLaren, Article in "Christianity Today"

Order of Worship, April 1 2007

Redeemer Presbyterian Church of New Orleans

Only the man who follows the command of Jesus single-mindedly, and unresistingly lets his yoke rest upon him, finds his burden easy, and under its gentle pressure receives the power to persevere in the right way.  The command of Jesus is hard, unutterably hard, for those who try to resist it.  But for those who willingly submit, the yoke is easy, and the burden is light.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

Order of Worship, March 18 2007

Redeemer Presbyterian Church of New Orleans

When Christians affirm, as they do, that Jesus is the way, the true and living way by whom we come to the Father (John 14:6), they are not claiming to know everything.  They are claiming to be on the way, and inviting others to join them as they press forward toward the fullness of truth, toward the day when we shall know as we have been known.

Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society

Order of Worship, March 11 2007

Redeemer Presbyterian Church of New Orleans

Historically, the Church's ability to transform society has depended not upon a power of management over society or political brokerage of its own interests, but rather upon a willingness to exercise its freedom to redeem and re-create a fallen world.  This the Church has done in its worship, with the strength of internal discipline and by building from within its unique polity more just and compassionate forms of human relations and services.

Vigen Guroian, Incarnate Love: Essays in Orthodox Ethics

Order of Worship, March 4 2007

Redeemer Presbyterian Church of New Orleans

In worship God gathers his people to himself as the center: 'The LORD Reigns.' Worship is meeting God at the center so that our lives are centered in God and not lived eccentrically.  We worship so that we live in response to and from this center, the living God.  Failure to worship consigns us to a life of spasms and jerks, at the mercy of every advertisement, every seduction, every siren.  Without worship we live manipulated and manipulating lives.  We move either in frightened panic or deluded lethargy, as we are, in turn, alarmed by specters and soothed by placebos.  If there is no center, there is no circumference.  People who do not worship are swept into a vast restlessness, epidemic in the world, with no steady direction and no sustaining purpose.

Eugene H. Peterson,  Reversed Thunder

Order of Worship, February 25 2007

Redeemer Presbyterian Church of New Orleans

God gives us various means to grow: prayer and Scripture, silence and solitude, suffering and service.  But the huge foundational means is public worship.  Spiritual growth cannot take place in isolation.  It is not a private thing between the Christian and God.  In worship, we come before God who loves us in the presence of the others whom he also loves.  In worship, more than at any other time, we set ourselves in deliberate openness to the action of God and the need of the neighbor, both of which require us to grow up to the fullness of the stature of Christ, who is both God and man for us.  Regular, faithful worship is as essential to the growing Christian as food and shelter to the growing child.  Worship is the light and air in which spiritual growth takes place.

Eugene H. Peterson, Living the Message

Order of Worship, February 7 2007

Redeemer Presbyterian Church of New Orleans

The gospel of the resurrection means not only that dead Jesus came back to life (though it means that) but also that Jesus has entered the realm of life, of the new creation and of the Spirit.  In him, the new creation has already begun and the kingdom has been established, though the creation is not yet fully renewed, restored, or transfigured into a new heavens and a new earth.  Only by faith does the believer know that, through his death and resurrection, Jesus fundamentally renovated the world, but his resurrection and ascension guarantee that he will in the end bring the world to its destined fulfillment.

Peter J. Leithart, Blessed are the Hungry

Order of Worship, February 4 2007

Redeemer Presbyterian Church of New Orleans

The church is God's incarnation today.  The church is Jesus' body on earth.  The church is the temple of the Spirit.  The church is not a helpful thing for my individual spiritual journey.  The church is the journey.  The church is not a collection of "soul-winners" all seeking to tell unbelievers "the Way" to God.  The church is the way.  To be part of the church is to be part of God--to be part of God's Communion and to be part of God's ministry.  To belong to the people of God is to enjoy relationship with God and live out the purposes of God. The church is God's present-day word and witness to an unbelieving world.  And, most importantly, the church is the only true means to be transformed into the likeness of God.

Tod E. Bolsinger, It Takes a Church to Raise a Christian

Order of Worship, January 28 2007

Redeemer Presbyterian Church of New Orleans

True freedom arises, not in our loud assertion of individual independence, but in our being linked to a true story.

Stanley Hauerwas, Resident Aliens

Arise, shine, for your light has come,

      and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.

For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, 

      and thick darkness the peoples; 

but the Lord will arise upon you, 

      and his glory will be seen upon you.  

And nations shall come to your light,

      and kings to the brightness of your rising.

Lift up your eyes all around, and see;

      they all gather together, they come to you; 

your sons shall come from far, 

      and your daughters shall be carried on the hip. 

Then you shall see and be radiant; 

      your heart shall thrill and exult, 

because the abundance of the sea shall be turned to you,

      the wealth of the nations shall come to you. 

A multitude of camels shall cover you,

      the young camels of Midian and Ephah;

      all those from Sheba shall come.

They shall bring gold and frankincense,

      and shall bring good news, the praises of the Lord.

Isaiah 60:1-6 (ESV)

Order of Worship, January 7 2007

Redeemer Presbyterian Church of New Orleans

The very first thing I liked about Christianity, long before it ever occurred to me to go to church or say the creed or call myself a Christian, was the Incarnation, the idea that God lowered himself and became a man so that we could relate to Him better.  In Christianity, God got to be both a distant and transcendent Father God, and a present and immanent Son God who walked among us.  Christians spent their time talking to God who knew from experience what it was like to get hungry, to go swimming, to miss a best friend.

Lauren Winner (one of my favorites!), Girl Meets God

Order of Worship, December 10 2006

Redeemer Presbyterian Church of New Orleans

You are so young...and I would beg you, dear Sir, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language (you must learn)...Live the questions.  Perhaps then, you will gradually...live your way into the answer.

Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

Order of Worship, November 12 2006
Redeemer Presbyterian Church of New Orleans 

When we find ourselves deficient in wisdom, it is not because the Word of God has pages missing, but because we have not seen all there is on the pages we already have.  It is not another book we need, but better attention to the book we have; it is not more knowledge we require, but better vision to see what has already been revealed in Jesus Christ.

Eugene Peterson, Praying with the Psalms

Order of Worship, November 5 2006
Redeemer Presbyterian Church of New Orleans 

Grace takes the agency of salvation out of human hands, whereas the heart's desire of every child of Adam and Eve is to keep it there--to strive endlessly to find something we can do to make ourselves legitimate.  But grace makes all our efforts to legitimize ourselves irrelevant because it proclaims us already legitimated by the work of Someone Else, without a single effort on our part.

Robert Farrar Capon, The Astonished Heart
Order of Worship, October 8 2006
Redeemer Presbyterian Church of New Orleans