© Rev. Daniel R. Hyde

Originally published in The Presbyterian Banner (November 2003): 8-9.

“O God, You are my God; early will I seek You; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water” (Ps 63:1).

The Scriptures declare to us that the Christian life is lived as a pilgrim in the wilderness between the City of Destruction and the Celestial City. Meditate with me about the Psalmists’ experience in our text before us and how that applies to us.

Have you ever been so thirsty that you longed so deeply for a drink of cold water that you thought you could actually feel cold water running down your throat? Thirst is a powerful desire. It causes your body to ache, your mouth to salivate, and your mind to wander in delusion. As Christians, those brought out of Egypt by the covenant Lord, we are like pilgrims in the desert, sojourners in a foreign land, wandering vagabonds in this life as we awaite our heavenly homeland. And as David desired water in that desert in which he sat in Psalm 63, so too we are to desire the Lord Jesus Christ and His Spirit, “the living water” (Jn 7:38) which satisfies our souls.

I’ve been amazed recently at how often the imagery of pilgrimage and dwelling in tents appears in Scripture as a description of the life of the faithful: Adam and Eve we’re excommunicated from Paradise to till the ground in the sweat of their brow outside of the Garden, “east of Eden.” Noah and family wandered in the Ark and then dwelt in tents after the Flood in a completely new and foreign world. Abraham, of course, journeyed from Ur of the Chaldees to the land of Canaan, which he would never posses. Jacob spoke of his life as “the days of the years of my pilgrimage” (Gen 47:9) towards the end of his life. Moses lived in Midian for 40 years, then wandered another 40 with the entire nation of Israel behind him. And the prophets depict the exiled people as pilgrims in the parched desert awaiting to tread the highway back into the Promised Land.

But let us not think that this is only an Old Testament image of the believer, of the Church. As Reformed Christians we see the beautiful harmony and unity between the Old and New Covenants, between Israel and the Church, between the plans of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In our New Testaments the apostles describe us as the New Covenant community as having more in common with God’s people as the wandered outside the Land from the time of Abraham through the wilderness generation, than with the national people as established in the Land under the military leadership of Joshua. In the Gospel of Matthew, chapter two, we read of Jesus being taken into Egypt of al places as a baby, only to return in an anti-typical second Exodus. In the Acts of the Apostles, chapter eight, Saul’s intense persecution causes the Church in Jerusalem to scatter to Judea and Samaria. Luke here uses the verbal form of the Greek word diaspora, “diaspora,” which was the word used to describe the dispersed Church during the captivity in the Old Testament. Paul describes the Church in Rome as begin justified by faith, just like the plgrim Abraham (ch. 4). He calls us “sons of God” who are “led by the Spirit” (8:14), hearkening back to Yahweh’s words that “Israel is My son” (Ex 4:22) and that he (Israel) was “led” by the LORD by the pilar of cloud and fire, an Old Testament image of the Holy Spirit (Ex 13:20-22). Paul also warns us not to be like the wilderness generation of Israel (1 Cor 10). In Peter’s First Epistle the apostle to the Jews writes to the Churches in Asia Minor, which were at least mixed congregation’s on Jewish and Gentile Christians, as “the pilgrims of the Dispersion” (1:1; Greek, diasporas). He comforts them in their sufferings by saying that this dispersed community on earth has an inheritance “reserved in heaven” (1:4). Later he begs us as “sojourners and pilgrims” (2:11) to live holy lives, no doubt remindeing us of the unfaithful wilderness generation. Therefore he speaks in 2 Peter 1:13-14 as soon dying, “putting off my tent,” as does Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:1, as we await the resurrection. Therefore the writer of Hebrews encourages us in 11:13-16 by saying that the fathers died as pilgrims, strangers on the earth, who desired a heavenly homeland, which is better than any home on earth.

Beloved, we are that wandering generation, we like Abraham who lived outseide the Land promised to him by God Himself. Is it any coincidence, then, that the early Church Fathers, such as Augustine in The City of God, and the Reformers in their Psalm-singing piety, saw themselves as pilgrims, as a suffering and wandering people outside of the Land in this life, awaiting the inheritance to come! Augustine’s prayer for the Church, as the Roman Empire was on the verge of crumbling, was to see by faith the City of God as the true home of the Church, not here in the City of Man.

“So what does this all mean for me,” I know you are asking? It applies to us in our ongoing sanctification in four ways. First, knowing that we are pilgrims reminds us that this life is difficult and often dreadful because it’s not our final destination. We are living in “this present evil age” (Gal 1:18), the “present time” of suffering (Rom 8:18). Don’t get down when life is difficult, when suffering hits, because it is not that God has left you, but that He’s using your sufferings to prepare you for glory now!

Second, living a life of holiness is difficult. It’s not just that life is difficult, this side of glory, but that living in this life as Christians is difficult because we personally are making a pilgrimage from sin to glory, from imperfection to perfection. This is why our beloved Belgic Confession says in article 15, “...the awareness of this corruption may make them often groan as they eagerly wait to be delivered from this body of death” (BC, 15).

Third, living in this difficult age trying to live the difficult life of holiness cannot be done alone. As pilgrims we need each other to survive in this wilderness. Your struggles are the same struggles the person sitting next to you is undergoing. You are not alone, but you are a member of that “great cloud of witnesses,” universally, but especially locally in this church. Help each other, pray for each other, lift each other up when you trip and fall on a stone. Especially tell each other to look to the bronze serpent, our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are bit by the serpents temptations and sinful ways.

Fourth, in all of this wandering and struggling, lift up your hearts. In this unstable life lift up your hearts to contemplate the stable life to come. We open our worship with the call to worship and sursum corda, but daily lift up your hearts and offer them to God, “promptly and sincerely.”

We are pilgrims, beloved, and the best part of being a pilgrim is that we won’t always be pilgrims, but we will on that Day cease from wandering and enter into eternal rest in the Land of the New Heavens and New Earth.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen!

Crossway Publishing, publisher of the English Standard Version of the Bible, has a great website with 10 different Bible reading plans. Here is the link: http://www.esv.org/biblereadingplans

This year I will be reading through the Daily Reading Bible plan, which has a daily Old Testament reading, Psalm reading, and New Testament reading. This guides you through the Old Testament once, Psalms twice, and the New Testament twice.

As your pastor, let me once again exhort you: READ YOUR BIBLE! Here are eight reasons that I can think of in less than one-minute:

First, it is “breathed out by God” (2 Tim. 3:16).

Second, reading the Word is “profitable” (2 Tim. 3:16).

Third, it teaches, reproves, corrects, and trains in righteousness (2 Tim. 3:16).

Fourth, it equips “for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:17).

Fifth, it is the “sword of the Spirit” by which we do battle with Satan (Eph. 6:17).

Sixth, God “preserves, continues, and perfects [his work of grace in us] by the hearing and reading of His Word, by meditation thereon, and by the exhortations, threatenings, and promises thereof” (Canons of Dort, 5.14).

Seventh, it is a lamp unto our feet and light unto our path in the midst of the darkness of this world (Ps. 119:105).

Eighth, in it we hear the voice of Jesus Christ, who words are “spirit and life” and “the words of eternal life” (John 6:63, 68).

All these reasons were summed up in a convicting way by one of my seminary professors, Dr. W. Robert Godfrey, who wrote:

If we are not interested in the Word of God, can we really be interested in God?

Pleasing God in our Worship, p.32

Blessed Lord,

who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning;

Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them,

that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word,

we may embrace, and ever hold fast, the blessed hope of everlasting life,

which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

The following is from my sermon on Exodus 13:1–16 entitled, "An Inaugural Sermon."

__________

Seminaries teach about it. Students read about it. Ministers work at it. Parishioners at times endure it. The world does not understand it. God’s Word commands it. What is it that causes all this commotion? Preaching. What is preaching? How would you explain it to your neighbor if asked? Let me say that I believe the greatest paragraph ever written on preaching and that I believe summarizes not only my belief and practice but that of the Reformed churches is from the Second Helvetic Confession, chapter 1, paragraph 4, written by Heinrich Bullinger in 1561:

Wherefore when this Word of God is now preached in the church by preachers lawfully called, we believe that the very Word of God is preached, and received of the faithful; and that neither any other Word of God is to be feigned, nor to be expected from heaven: and that now the Word itself which is preached is to be regarded, not the minister that preaches; who, although he be evil and a sinner, nevertheless the Word of God abides true and good.

In preaching we hear, receive, and need to expect the very voice of God himself through the means of sinful men. Can you understand why preaching is so vital to our faith and worship?

It was the same way in the days of Moses and the Israelites. Our text takes place right after the exodus from Egypt. And what was the first thing the narrative says happened? The church listened to Moses’ inaugural sermon to the newly freed people of God! Although this section of chapter 13 may seem disjointed and unorganized, there is a literary structure to it that gives us our three points today. Notice that in verses 1–2 the Lord speaks to Moses. This is a superscription over the entire text that gives the authorization for Moses to preach. Then in verses 3–16 we have Moses’ speech, which addresses the laws for the feast of Passover and the laws for the consecration of the firstborn. In reading these verses we come away impressed that the overall theme is the centrality and vitality of preaching the Word to the people of God. In this inaugural sermon, therefore, Moses challenged the people of God to respond to the gospel of the exodus in three ways, and the Holy Spirit today calls us to respond to our redemption in Christ in the same way: hear the Word, obey the Word, and teach the Word. 

Hear the Word (vv. 1–2)

God calls us to hear the Word. Notice that our text begins, “The Lord said to Moses” and this is contrasted with verse 3, which says, “Then Moses said to the people.” Verses 1–2 act as a superscription over this section of chapter 13. This means that it is like a heading that gives the reason for what Moses is about to say to the Israelites.

Even before Moses could preach he had to hear the Word of God from God. Of course this is the same as it is with ministers of the Word. When we were on vacation recently I was asked, “So how do you do it? Does a message just come to you?” I answered that God does speaks to me and I seek to deliver his message. I had this man's attention. But then I went on to that God speaks to me through his written Word! When a minister reads the Word prayerfully he enters the presence of God, and when he comes out to preach that Word, he should come out like Moses did when his face shone. He should come out with conviction, passion, and urgency.

So Moses and ministers must hear the Word, but since verses 1–2 were written down not only for later generations of Israelites to read, but especially "for our instruction" (1 Cor. 10), they apply to Israel and to all hearers of the Word in the same way. So how can you hear the Word week after week? Let me give you three practical ways.

First, you have to hear it expectantly. Do you come week after week expecting to hear the voice of God? This is what happens when the Word is preached: "When this Word of God is now preached in the church by preachers lawfully called, we believe that the very Word of God is preached." But let me say even more personally, do not come expecting to hear God's speak generally, but come expecting his particular word for your soul?

Second, you have to hear it faithfully. Remember, while you hear the voice of an evil and sinful man—your pastor—you hear in truth the very Word of God. And you must embrace his word with faith! Because this is so difficult for us, listen and learn from these words: "The Word itself which is preached is to be regarded, not the minister that preaches; who, although he be evil and a sinner, nevertheless the Word of God abides true and good."

Third, you have to hear it prayerfully. You must not only pray Monday through Saturday for your minister to preach the Word and that you will be enabled to hear it, but since the act of listening to the sermon is an act of worship you must be in an attitude of worship right now. When you hear the Law in the sermon you must humble your heart and confess your sins to God, and when you hear the Gospel you must rejoice and be glad in his salvation!

A Homily on Hospitality
“Seek to show hospitality” (Rom 12:13)

Congregation of Jesus Christ:

Seek to show hospitality. Among the apostles’ many exhortations in Romans 12 none may be more powerful for the life of the Christian and the Christian’s local church. You see, it is one thing for Paul to say love one another with brotherly affection (Rom 12:10) but quite another to say seek to show hospitality. The former is an attitude while the latter is an action; one is a creed and the other is a deed. Hospitality is love in action. It is Paul’s way of saying what James says: I will show you my faith by my works (James 2:18). I said there may be no more powerful imperative in Romans 12 because hospitality shows love. It breaks down walls. It opens the way of fellowship. It says to its recipient: “You are welcome here; I am privileged to have you in my home, at my table.” It does this because the New Testament word translated hospitality is philoxenia—the love of strangers. Let me exhort you, then, Oceanside URC, to seek to show hospitality as a powerful expression of your love for Christ, his people, and those whom he calls us to love although they may not love us (Rom 12:14–21).

As a Christian
Paul commands us, in the first place, to show hospitality as Christians. This is one of the ways we show ourselves thankful to God and lay down our lives as living sacrifices in response to the sacrifice of Christ (Rom 12:1–2). God has shown you hospitality by granting you entrance into his Father’s house and lavish kingdom, now you do likewise. What is so interesting about this verb, seek (dioko), is that it is used elsewhere for running after something and even persecuting someone. For example, in Philippians 3:14 Paul says, “I press on toward the goal for the prize.” It has the idea of running after something or striving for a goal. In Romans Paul uses it figuratively to speak of our being zealous for hospitality. Hospitality takes effort; it takes work; it may even inconvenience you! We are to be hospitable as Christians with two groups: those who are saved and those who are strangers. With those who are saved Peter exhorts us as the Body of Christ: “Show hospitality to one another without grumbling” (1 Pet 4:9). With those who are strangers Hebrews exhorts us: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (Heb 13:2).

As a Congregation
Paul’s command can also be extended to our life as a congregation. What a wonderful way to show the love of Jesus Christ! How can we all be hospitable on the Lord’s Day? When you see new people, welcome them by introducing yourself and genuinely seek to get to know them better. Offer them refreshments; hand them a bulletin; let them know where the child-care is if they have little children; and direct them to our literature rack/table. After you hear the minister say, “Greet each other in Christ’s name,” make sure you greet visitors in your area. No one should leave OURC without having been welcomed and feeling the warmth of Christian love. How can it be any other way for us who have been so overwhelmed by the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord? Amen!

A LIFE IN WATER

As I mentioned in the introduction, we want to think of the Reformed Christian life in three ways, first of which is a life in water. The great protestor and reformer, Martin Luther, spoke of the Christian life in his Large Catechism, saying, “A Christian life is then nothing else than an ongoing daily Baptism, once begun and always continuing.”¹ Baptism begins our life in Christ and his Church as well as is the continuing metaphor of it. Luther also described baptism as the greatest jewel with which to adorn our bodies and souls, as well as our daily garment to be worn.² The Christian life, then, is a life begun and continued in the waters of Christian baptism.

Beginning with Baptism
This brings us to a problem, though. One may very well question the validity of such an approach to the Christian life, seeking to think in terms of the Christians’ conversion or faith as the legitimate opening to the Christian life. Recently, on the web version of Christianity Today, Erik Thoennes, associate professor of theology at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University, sought to answer the following readers’ question: “How can I know I’m a Christian if I can't remember when I first responded to the gospel?” His answer was to distinguish the Revivalist from the Reformed answer. The former emphasizes the need for personal appropriation of the gospel by faith, although it leads to an overly individualistic view of salvation, while the latter steers clear of individualism and focuses on churchly reception by baptism and confirmation, yet it falls into the trap of not emphasizing the need for personal salvation. His answer, then, was this:

For those who question their salvation, the best evidence is not the memory of having raised a hand or prayed a prayer. Nor is it having been baptized or christened. The true test of the authentic work of God in one’s life is growth in Christ-like character, increased love for God and other people, and the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22–25; James 2:18).³

Not only does Professor Thoennes misunderstand Reformed theology and practice, his answer does nothing to answer the sincere question of the frightened believer. In seeming to lead us between subjectivism and objectivism, he ends up giving a subjective, introspective answer: look to your fruits! But that is precisely the problem. Not only cannot this dear saint not remember when he/she embraced Christ, how is he/she going to do that looking to fruits?

Thankfully our Reformed tradition does give us help. In dealing with the struggle of assurance, the Canons of Dort say we are to look to Christ’s promises first and only then to the Spirit’s fruits in our lives (5.10 cf. 5:14). And when believing the promise of the gospel is the problem, God has added visible seals in the sacraments, which are meant to lead us back to the promise of Christ.

In terms of our study on the Christian life, this applies because using baptism as an organizing image and event for the whole of the Christian life, especially its beginning, we have something to grasp that is tangible and can be related to our lives. After all, we can try as hard as we would like to remember the moment we were converted, but how are you ever sure? Instead, we see font before the people of God every Lord’s Day and its waters used on many occasions.

Far from leading us to an overly ritualistic religion without the necessity of being born again and appropriating Christ for ourselves, our Reformed tradition impresses this upon us in our liturgy for Public Profession of Faith: Form Number 1. There the one who stands before the church to profess faith in Christ is asked (while those who have professed faith are confronted once again): “Second: Do you openly accept God’s covenant promise, which has been signified and sealed unto you in your baptism”?⁴

¹ Luther’s Large Catechism: A Contemporary Translation with Study Questions, trans. and ed. F. Samuel Janzow (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1978), 107.
² Luther’s Large Catechism, 104, 109.
³ Cited at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/december/29.56.html (Accessed December 26, 2007).
⁴ Psalter Hymnal, 132.