CREC- Communion 2

Covenant Renewal

Sermon Notes

Listen

October 22, 2017

Lynchburg, Virginia

NOTE: These written notes are woefully incomplete for a written sermon. I think the preached version of this one did not stick close to the notes at all. Thus, I recommend you listen to this one via the link above.

EXHORDIUM

         As we look at our Acronym, CREC, we are working our way through the first C, Communion. A Communion of churches who are gathered together with like-minded doctrine and practice. The CREC is somewhat unique in that we are gathered in quite a large tent.

         Our churches all partake of the Historic Reformed positions. But we are not all merely Presbyterian Churches. Nor is the CREC, itself, a Presbyterian Church. Our individual churches operate with elder boards, but our founding documents include Presbyterian, Anglican and even Baptist documents. The Presbyterian documents are of themselves of a wide scope, including the Westminster Confession of Faith but also the Three Forms of Unity, which are the Heidelberg Catechism, the Canons of Dordt and the Belgic Confession. You can form a CREC Church under the London Baptist Confession or the 39 Articles of the Anglican Church.

         So, you can see that our Communion is a particularly broad one. Within that broad Communion are some common distinctives. As we make our way through these sermons, we will look at these distinctives from a Biblical perspective.

         Among the most important distinctives are:

1. Covenant Renewal Worship. 2. Post-millenial eschatology. 3. Every person in the family a member of Christ (Paedo Everything) 4. Close community fellowship and accountability 5. Sabbath keeping manifested in worship and fellowship. 6. Practical Christian living application to every area of life. 7. Commitment to Christian education for our children.

         Last week, we talked about the Covenant. At the heart of understanding our emphasis on God’s Kingdom and our life together in the church is God’s Covenant with us. This is important in understanding everything from a Covenant Renewal Worship service, to our paedo everything view, to our view of the Hopeful Gospel, which we call Post-milenial eschatology.

         As we think about Covenant Renewal Worship, we look back to God’s Covenant with man, particularly fallen man, and this establishes our basis of fellowship with Him and with one another. As we think about the various CREC emphases of Christian life and Church life, it is important for us to look forward to examining these distinctives, also with God’s Covenant in mind. This is nothing less than an attempt to see what we are to believe concerning God and what duty God requires of us.

Today, we look at Covenant Renewal Worship.

         What are we doing on Sunday?  Why is this important? What sort of people are we?

        

Do not neglect that gathering together.

         Heb. 10:19   Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, ²⁰ By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; ²¹ And having an high priest over the house of God; ²² Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. ²³ Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;) ²⁴ And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: ²⁵ Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. 

Sing songs, hymns and spiritual songs.

         Col. 3:12   Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; ¹³ Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. ¹⁴ And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. ¹⁵ And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful. ¹⁶ Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. 

        

Give attention to reading, prayer and exhortation.

1 Tim. 4  :13  ¹³ Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine.

EXEGESIS

FROM Annual Liturgy is Life Sermon- Virgil Hurt

We come to worship the Lord.  This means that we esteem Him as God, lay hold of Him through Christ, bless His name and receive blessing from Him.  We are accounted His people and take His name on us as our God.  We are prepared for a feast, hear a preparatory message from our King, sing songs in the joy of the celebration and it all culminates in the eating of a meal.  This is a great love relationship.  We love God and He loves us.  This is all declared in the acts that we do here each Lord’s Day. 

God is concerned about raising up a faithful people to worship Him in Spirit and truth.  He was in the times of Abel at the beginning and with Abraham as He called a people to Himself, as He called the children out of Egypt and as they sojourned in the Wilderness and made their way into the Promised Land.  God desired a people to worship Him in the tabernacle of David and in the Temple of Solomon and again as they returned from their captivity.  And God has made a way for us to worship Him now, in the most holy place through Jesus Christ.  Christ is seated in the heavenlies, at the right hand of the Father, and we are drawn up to Him each Lord’s Day as we gather to worship.  Our main desire should be to do this in a way that pleases the Lord.

The Word of God is a sharp-sword.  It cuts us deep.  Before God, we are not able to hide, to resist His will, or to defend ourselves.  We are flayed open like a sacrificial lamb and sacrificed before the Lord.  This is the picture of death and sacrifice.  But it does not leave us there.  The picture of death always includes resurrection.  Our High Priest was resurrected and so are we.  We rise and live and are encouraged to come boldly into His presence with thanksgiving to obtain mercy and find grace for our souls. 

This is grand and glorious.  God’s Word lays us bare and reveals the thoughts and intentions of the heart.  This frightens us, as we know that our hearts so easily deceive us.  If we were honest, this flaying open by the Word of God ought to make us shrink from His presence but that is not the conclusion of the writer to the Hebrews.  It should make us march boldly into the throne room of God expecting mercy.  How so?  Because we have a High Priest and He is still ministering at the altar on our behalf.  His once for all sacrifice cleanses us for all time.  If we grasp this glorious truth, we are glad for the Word to cut us deep so that we might be healed in the name and righteousness of Jesus Christ.  No sacrifice means no resurrection.  What we do each Lord’s Day ought to picture this glorious truth. 

My intent today is simply to walk through our liturgy and give some brief explanations about what we do and why we do what we do.  We do a liturgy sermon each year.  That way, any new members that may not understand what we are doing get an opportunity to see that it is purposeful.  Also, as we continue to reform in this area, it will be good for us to continually remember why we do what we do. 

One of the surprises in my life has been to attend mainline denominational churches or even a Roman Catholic Church and see what they are saying in their service.  It is often beautiful, glorious and true.  The Words and the music testify of the holiness of God and the goodness of Jesus Christ and the presence of the Holy Spirit but you look around and see people that think that they are chewing on gravel instead of enjoying a feast.  The problem is not that they don’t have something beautiful, good, and savory in their liturgy.  The problem is that they have stopped believing it.  They are like the dwarves in the stable at the end of the Last Battle.  We must continue to believe God as we worship Him.  And one way we can do this is to understand the dance steps that we are taking in our liturgy.  We want to know the Liturgy so that we can do the dance without having to think about the process of the dance too much.  But we must do so with wisdom, knowing that we go this way for a reason because we have to soon go that way for a reason and it is all part of the enjoyment and glory of embracing Jesus Christ freely offered to us in the gospel.

We should embrace our Lord’s Day services with the zeal of a great oath.  We come to pledge our allegiance to Jesus Christ and to receive His blessing upon us.  He holds out the promises of God to us and we receive them by faith.

We should view our Lord’s Day Service as a paradigm in which we learn to live the rest of our lives.  In this life, we fill many roles.  We are citizens of a country, husbands, fathers, wives, mothers, and children.  But fundamentally, we are the people who worship the one true God, in the Triune name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  And we should view this not only as individuals embracing God but as the gathered worshipping people of God.  This view of reality is no more clearly seen than when the saints gather on the Lord’s Day to worship God. 

John 4

Worshipping Man- Homo Sapiens or Homo Adorans?

Word for Worship is proskune÷w proskyneoœ;

 (literally or figuratively) prostrate oneself in homage (do reverence to, adore): — worship.

To Worship God is to fall at His feet. It is to do homage to Him. It is to submit to Him.

Entered Heaven with Jesus

         Eph. 2:4   But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, ⁵ Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) ⁶ And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: 

Paradigm for Daily Life

Worship culminates in meal of peace. This is peace with God but it is not only peace with God. It includes peace with men as well.

EXHORTATION

CRW vital to faithful Christian living.

         Be there for the Call but especially for Confession, Assurance of Pardon, Preaching of the Word, Communion and Blessing.

Be there for the blessing and peace.

         Who would want to miss the blessing? And by blessing, I mean blessing, happiness, reward, fulfillment, success. The blessing is more than Go in Peace, it is go in the peace and blessing of the Lord.

         But the Bible also teaches us to avoid presumptuous sins. We should not presume upon God. We would not even presume upon our own parents to keep loving us after we repeatedly betray them. If we lie to them and do the things they tell us not to do, then at some point we should expect them to hold us accountable. If the sin against them is egregious enough, they may even cut you off, disinherit you, until you come to your senses and repent.

         Well, in our service, we have a way to do this. We are here at the beginning of the service when we confess our sins. We are not lying to God. We are not hiding our sins. We are not trying to pull another fast one on God. We know that He knows, so we get on our knees and confess our sins and ask Him to forgive us. The Bible teaches that He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. And so, if you want to receive the blessing, you have to do the confessing and repenting. You cannot jump to blessing without God’s grace, the remission of sins, and remission only comes to us through the shedding of blood. That is why we come to the Father at the beginning of our service, in the name of Jesus, and confess our sins.

         When we do so, we are looking forward to this Communion Meal. We do not want to be seated at Table with our Father knowing that there is something that needs to be cleared up. Furthermore, we do not want to be seated with our family with issues with them. We want a free and open and gracious Table. In order for this to happen, there must be no enmity between you and God or between you and anybody else, particularly those gathered here. But starting here, the peace must go from here to the entire world.