Some Thoughts on Psalm 1:  This Psalm is the opening of the song book given to God’s people. It sets the theme for the song book by directing God’s covenant people to the joy of Lord by paying heed to God’s instruction. Man in the fall in sin is in rebellion to the wisdom and knowledge of God. But God in his mercy reveals himself, his salvation and his will for his covenant people in his words given through the inspired prophets and apostles, and here it is called “law”. It is God’s law that is to be meditated on by God’s children who seek their joy in him. The result of this turning away from joy through sin and those who practice sin, to the joy of the Lord through the wisdom of the Lord is a fruitful, resilient and flourishing blessed life in God. It is a life in the path of righteousness, the righteousness of God and the righteousness in God. It is in God’s law our unrighteousness is revealed, and God’s righteousness by grace through faith in Christ is manifest, so that all who believe in him may become slaves of righteousness in the joy of the Lord holding fast to his Word.

Psalm 1 – ST ANNE

 ¹Blessed is the one who turns away

from where the wicked walk,

Who does not stand in sinners’ paths

or sit with those who mock.

²Instead he find God’s holy law

his joy and great delight.

He makes the precepts of the LORD

his study day and night.

³He prospers ever like a tree

that’s planted by a stream,

And in due season yields its fruit,

its leaves are always green.

⁴Not so the wicked!  They are like

the chaff that’s blown away.

⁵They will not stand when judgment comes

or with the righteous stay.

⁶It is the LORD who sees and knows

the way the righteous go,

But those who live an evil life

the LORD will overthrow.

Why would God rebuke a people because they do not cry from their hearts to Him? Here are a few reasons. It is out of the heart the mouth speaks with praising or cursing (Mt.12:34). It is from the heart that the life springs into willful affections and actions (Prov.4:23). It is from the heart that we are to humble ourselves before God in repentance (Jas.4:8-10). It is from the broken and contrite heart that we are to worship God (Ps.51:17). It is from the heart that we are to honor God (Mt.15:8). It is the pure in heart that God gives his joy (Mt.5:8). It is from the heart that we are to serve God (1Chron.28:9), love God (Deut.6:5) and seek God (Jer.29:13). It is God who looks throughout the earth to see whose heart is blameless toward him (2Chron.16:9). God is interested in the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Gen.6:5).

God has created his image bearers to live out of their hearts toward him in love. It is the heart as the central place of man’s being that gives animation to the will. The heart in Scripture describes what we are at our core. The will of man does not act in an autonomous fashion apart from the direction of his heart. Where your treasure is there your heart will be (Mt.6:21). The tree bears good fruit when the tree is good (Mt.12:33). So man lives toward God for his glory from the heart or man lives for his own glory putting God under the bus from the heart.

Israel did not cry to God from the heart even as they experienced his judgment. According the prophet Hosea they brutalized themselves for grain and wine but they did not rend their hearts for the God of their salvation. Crying from the heart for God is a seeking after God with the whole heart, and it is then that God will be found (Jer.29:13). If we seek after God with our divided hearts because we want him to make much of us by giving us the material possessions the world has, our grain and wine, then we are not crying to him from the heart. Crying to God from the heart is to make him our treasure. God’s plan for his image bearers is to be the desire of their hearts. But our hearts are in rebellion to God’s plan just as was Israel’s, and so God is against us.

Yet it is at the same time true that God is for us as he seeks his own sinful image bearers in love. He seeks them with all his heart in rejoicing to do good to them (Jer.32:39-41). He seeks them to give them a new heart, to write his Word upon their hearts, to put his Spirit within their hearts to cause his own to fear Him and walk in His ways (Ezek.36:25-27). The promise and the reality of the New Covenant is to receive from God a heart that is toward God. It is by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and repentance of our hearts love with sin that we receive the promised Holy Spirit and a heart after God. In salvation through being born again by the Spirit we receive the new heart that treasures God, crying to him from the heart. Crying to God, the richest Treasure, from the heart is the core of the re-created image bearer in the likeness of Jesus Christ. We cry to him from the heart in our struggle with sin. We cry to him from the heart in others struggle with sin. We cry to him from the heart from a broken and contrite heart that rejoices in him who makes all things new. We cry to him from the heart with longing for his appearing that we may see him face to face and be with him where he is to be satisfied in him our best portion forever with one undivided heart. May God find us crying to him from the heart and not mutilating ourselves for the treasures of the earth.

I want to encourage you all to rise up early on Sunday mornings (9:00-9:45) and attend to the teaching of God’s Word as outlined in this book. Those teaching this class will be Scottie Deloach, Greg Sperry, Tracy Altman and Charlie Turner. Please pray for these men God has raised up to be your teachers.

If you would like to purchase the book you can follow this link, “The Enemy Within: Straight Talk About the Power and Defeat of Sin” by Kris Lundgaard

In the words of John Owen,

Mr. Smith appeared in the doorway of McIntosh’s Feed and Seed, the bell ringing above his head announcing his entrance. Mr. McIntosh was still tending to his early morning duties in the back of the store when he heard the bell. Red had been fed and the big yellow cat, he had no name demonstrating his place in Mr. McIntosh’s worldview, was hastily waiting his turn but he would have to wait. Mr. McIntosh hollered out as he made his way to the front of the store, “Good morning”, at which he received a jolly sort of “Good morning” in return. McIntosh thought how pleasant it was to start the day with a glad hearted customer.

Before Mr. McIntosh could get out of his mouth his desire to assist this unrecognized customer, Mr. Smith exclaimed, “I am looking for apples!” Now to this Mr. McIntosh was a little hesitant to respond. He thought, ‘Is Apples a lost dog?’ or ‘Is Apples something he had lost, like his marbles?’ But he decided to quell his wit and respond with a safe, “What’s that, looking for apples?” He knew this would evoke a clearer response, and he was correct.

Mr. Smith said, “My name is Smith and I just moved in to the area. I hear this is a good place for apples and I am interested in getting apples. I want apples in my backyard so that whenever I want an apple I can go out and see its beauty, I can smell it’s sweetness or I can taste it’s goodness.” By this time the big yellow cat was rubbing against Mr. McIntosh’s leg and meowing in complaint that he was being neglected, and with this he received a deaf ear and a swinging leg.

Mr. McIntosh responded, “Oh, its apples you want. Yes, we grow some of the best apples in the state in this area; some say some of the best in the country. And I have here at the Feed and Seed some of the best apple trees money can buy. In fact my apple trees produce some of the most delicious apples from these parts. Each year at the Apple Gala apples from these trees win some of the biggest of prizes. Let me show you the trees.” At this Mr. McIntosh motioned in the direction toward the side door inviting Mr. Smith to follow. But Smith did not move and only objected, “I don’t want trees, I want apples.” At this McIntosh stopped in his tracks, turned and said, “Well if you are going to have apples in your back yard that you can see, smell and taste you are going to have to have some trees”. At this point Mr. Smith looked at Mr. McIntosh rather puzzled like and questioned, “I have to have apple trees to have apples?”

McIntosh took a sort of double take and then called for the big yellow cat. Feeling his prized wit ready to flow off the end of his tongue he knew it was time to feed the cat and that he did excusing himself from Mr. Smith for a moment. But Mr. Smith followed and persisted, “Why must I have a tree to have apples?” McIntosh poured the food into the bowl for the yellow cat and then decided to pull out a chair and sit down. He decided that he either was going to teach ‘kindergarten class’ with Mr. Smith as his pupil, or he was going to decide if he was dealing with mental incapacity which required his most witless and Freudian self he could put forth. And now with Red settled for his grueling day laid out at McIntosh’s feet and the yellow cat growing more girth at the feed bowl Mr. McIntosh began.

Mr. Smith, he began, if you want apples you have a couple of options but only one at this store. One option is to go down to the market and buy some apples. But most people who do that don’t put them in their backyard; they put them in their kitchen. Then they can see, smell, and taste them right there in their home. If you put them in you’re backyard something else like a coon will see, smell and taste those apples while they’re laying there in your yard. No, the only option for you if you want apples in your backyard is to buy an apple tree from me.

You will have to take that apple tree home and dig a hole in your back yard. In that hole your going to want to put some peat and some composting material, both of which I sell. Then you will take the tree and put it roots first into the hole and cover over those roots with dirt that you dug out of the hole with the shovel you will buy from me. Now comes the tough part. You have to wait for that tree to blossom, and then produce apples. They will start small and you will have to watch them grow until they are ripe. Through all this process you will have to make sure that you keep the tree watered, not to much to rot the roots but not to little to let it dry out. You will also need to keep it free of bugs that will eat the leaves and the fruit, and critters that will climb in the tree to eat the fruit. Again you can buy from me the hose for watering, pesticides for keeping the bugs off and a trap for the critters. That tree is going to take some care. You will have to learn to prune it so that it produces more fruit and fertilize so that its fruit can grow and become sweet. And I will provide you with tools for pruning and the fertilizers. I also sell a book that tells you everything you need to know about planting and growing apple trees that produce good fruit.”

At that moment McIntosh made a longer pause expecting some kind of response. Red did not move an inch and the big yellow cat moved on in search of a quiet spot, while Mr. Smith responded expressionless. Mr. McIntosh had been pausing between thoughts to give Mr. Smith a chance to respond or ask a question, but all he got was a silent dumb stare. Finally at this last and longer pause McIntosh decided it was time to move from kindergarten to psychoanalysis which consisted of showing Mr. Smith the door. And just as he moved in his chair to stand up Mr. Smith said something. He said, “I just want beautiful shinny red, sweet smelling, delicious tasting apples.” At that Mr. McIntosh gave Mr. Smith directions to the market and encouraged him to keep the apples in the kitchen.

There are people today who want an experience with God like Mr. Smith wanted apples. They want the experience and they expect it by their own designs and according to their own comforts. God has ordained means by which his people will experience him in their minds and hearts. He has given the world his church and within her the means whereby his people will experience him by loving him with all her heart, soul, mind and strength. He has given himself to his church in a covenant relationship that is planted, grown and nurtured through his Word preached, his sacraments observed by faith, and the regular discipline of the church through her people using his Word and their lives.

Think through these questions from the Association of Biblical Counselors website:

• Are you a believer in Jesus Christ?
• Do you have a good working knowledge of the Word?
• Do you believe God equips believers through his Word and the ministry of the Holy Spirit to help others with the issues of life?
• Are you committed to doctrinal soundness and a life that reflects the Gospel?

If you answered “yes” to these questions, you are called to provide Biblical counsel.

At RPC we desire to be conduits of God’s grace for sin and mercy for misery through applied theology in Christ centered and Biblically saturated relationships. One of the ways this is expressed in the life of the church at Redeemer and toward those in our community is through Biblical Counseling.

We believe this counseling takes place in the everyday relationships we have with one another. “Biblical counseling is any gentle instruction, encouragement, or rebuke of one brother or sister in Christ to another brother or sister in Christ.” (from Association of Biblical Counselors website, www.christiancounseling.com) This may happen in our homes, in the parking lot or in the pastors office. We also believe that Biblical Counseling takes place in purposeful and directed relationships that are aimed at maturity in Christ as we face differing issues in a life of sanctification. “Biblical counseling is intensified, personalized discipleship in the Word of God.” (Dr. Craig Rowe).

At RPC we desire to see God use his church as a counseling center to offer help to those inside and outside the church. It is our goal to have trained and certified counselors in the church who are counseling others and training others to counsel. It also our desire that each communing member at RPC is seeking to be equipped for the everyday life of Biblical counsel in the home, church and community. Our first step toward the fulfillment of these goals is to offer Biblical Counseling Training this Fall and Spring at RPC. We encourage every adult communing member to sign up for this training as we seek to grow in our ability to minister to one another and those outside of this body in love in the everyday areas of life we face as we walk with Christ.

Biblical Counseling Training

Helping You to Help Others

Level I Counseling Seminar

Dr. Craig R. Rowe

September 16-17                    Friday 6:30 – 9:45 pm  / Saturday 9:00 – 4:30 pm

October 14-15                         Friday 6:30 – 9:45 pm  / Saturday 9:00 – 4:30 pm

November 4-5                         Friday 6:30 – 9:45 pm  / Saturday 9:00 – 4:30 pm

Pick up a brochure from the church and sign up today. Or contact Corey Lee (242-6483 or c.l.lee.87@gmail.com) for more information or questions.

Also more information is available on the churches website on the “Biblical Counseling” page.

• Friday August 26th 6:30—10:00 PM,
• Saturday August 27th 6:30—8:30 PM,
• Sunday August 28th Worship and State of Church Report with Dinner & Prayer following Worship -   *No Evening Worship

In Isaiah 56:6-7 there is a wonderful promise made to Gentile “foreigners”, those who are not descended from Israel: “And the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, to minister to him, to love the name of the LORD, and to be his servants, everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it, and holds fast my covenant—these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer…” God is the joy of his people when those people are called by him and seek him in prayer. It is no wonder Paul commands the Thessalonians church, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances.” (1Thessalonians 5:16-18). Rejoicing in the Lord and giving thanks always happens in the context of a church that in her calling continually prays. John Calvin says regarding these verses from Isaiah 56, “We are called into the church in order that we may call on God; for in vain do they boast who neglect prayer and true calling upon God, and yet hold a place in the church.”

We who have been called to look up and out beyond sin and death to the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation and life, who worship and serve him, calling his Sabbath a delight and keep covenant faithfulness have the privilege of drawing near to Mount Zion and his throne of grace to rejoice in our God through unceasing prayer. Let us find the triune God to be our true joy in a church life of unceasing prayer.

Your life in this place is from the LORD. Yes you have made choices, good and bad, taken positions for better or worse, rented, bought and sold, married, separated or divorced, moved because you wanted a better life or haven’t moved because you were afraid. Whatever your circumstances or situation you can be assured that the same God of Israel who said, ⁴“Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon:”(29:4), has sent you to this place. Some of you like Esther and Mordecai will stay after others like Ezra leave, but this also will be in the Lord’s providence and sovereign will. You are responsible for your sin, your decisions and indecisions, your actions and non-actions. But it is the Lord who reigns over you and if he sent the people into exile (29:4) and can bring them back from exile 70 years later as he promised (29:10, 14), then he also reigns over you his church in his absolute sovereignty and providence. I pray that the knowledge of God revealed in his Words leads you to delight yourself in him, rest in him, submit to him and live for his glory in all things in these present places.

There are some very practical instructions for you here in Jeremiah 29. It begins with build houses and plant gardens (29:5). Cultivate a productive home life. Nurture your homes that they may be a pleasing aroma of faith, hope and love to all who enter or come near. Be good stewards of the gifts God gives you and use those homes and gardens to welcome others in hospitality. Adorn your home with peace through the gospel of grace and make it a place of peace and rest for others. In your homes and gardens show forth the variety of God’s glory through his windows of creation, fall and redemption in the way you decorate and plant, maintain and add to or take away. Don’t chase an American Dream through a ‘dream house’ but build and cultivate lives of endurance and perseverance through planting, watering, nurturing and weeding.

Be fruitful in relationships for the glory of God (29:6). Men seek a wife and women pray for a husband. If you have the gift of singleness, then use it to minister to others through a sacrificial life in community. Husbands and wives love one another and submit to one another. Wives submit to your husbands in joy as you submit to Christ. Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church giving yourself up for her in sacrificial leadership. Husbands and wives keep your marriage bed pure and bare forth children. Children are a blessing from the Lord and a heritage, they are not inconvenient, a pain or a bad investment. Raise them to love God with all their hearts, souls, minds and strength and to love their neighbors as themselves through the grace of the gospel. Prepare them for marriage, family, church life and the communities they will live in. Children honor and obey your parents. Be sexual for the glory of God and not the glory of self. Live to learn and learn to live in love with God and his creatures. Multiply your lives in the earth with a holy zeal for the glory of God in the gospel through relationships. Don’t decrease.

Live and pray for the welfare of the city where God has placed you (29:7). The welfare of the community in which you live is through your living in obedience to God’s will for the glory of his name and the good of others. Seek to offer yourselves to God each day in the renewing of your mind and in being filled with the Spirit. It is in this way of life that you will know his will and live by his will and grace in the Spirit and not by your flesh, which only seeks the city for what you can get out of it. But by God’s Spirit through a living union in Christ you may loose your life in the city by giving it away for others. You can seek the welfare of the city where you worship and work by being conduits of God’s grace and mercy by sharing the gospel of his grace. The best gift our city could receive and live in is the gospel that sets people free from sin and death giving them peace with God through Jesus Christ and a life of holiness by the Holy Spirit. Pray for the city because if the Lord does not build the city those who seek the welfare of the city seek it in vain.

Guard your lives with the truth of God from his prophets, apostles with Christ Jesus being the center (29:8). Guard yourselves against lies, untruth, half truth and imposter truth. Men and women will arise around you and from within you speaking lies, and even from the very words of God. Hold fast to God’s Word, examine what is spoken, taught and preached with his sound Word. Prayerfully expect God to reveal himself, his salvation and his will through his Word when you sit in your closets, when you gather with your families and when you gather for worship around his Word on the Lord’s Day. It is by his Word imperishable that you were brought to life and it will be by his Word eternal that you are carried through to life forevermore.

I given thanks with every remembrance of you as God’s household of faith through the Lord Jesus Christ and by the power of the Spirit. And I pray that you will live by God’s grace extending a passion for knowing and delighting in the glory of God.

For His Glory,

Pastor Jim

Should men in the church be ambitious for leadership or should they wait to be asked?

The church needs men with a holy ambition for the loving serving leadership of God’s church. Paul tells Timothy if a man aspires to the office of overseer he desires a noble task (1Tim.3:1). Paul is speaking of a man having a yearning and aim to be an elder. He is certainly not speaking of everyone, but he is speaking of those whom God is working in their hearts to have a want for serving God’s church. The aspiring and desiring is not for a status, a position or a place of importance. It is a want from humility that sees the people of God in the church and has a desire for greatness by being a slave to them through prayer, the Word and a life (Mt.20:25-28). Men with this holy ambition do not wait they work by grace. They work out their salvation with fear and trembling (Phil2:12-13), they make their calling and election sure (2Pe.1:10), they throw off ever weight and sin that entangles to run (Heb.12:1), they make every effort (2Pe.1:5), they strain ahead for the prize (Phil.3:14), they discipline themselves staying under control (1Cor.9:26). They see themselves as “a piece of work” and by God’s grace they plead with him to make them his workmanship, making them into the image of Jesus Christ while they give themselves to his means of grace (Eph.2:10; Heb.13:20-21). Yes, they must “wait” to be nominated and elected and ordained, but the waiting is that of a holy ambition for the loving serving leadership of God’s church. The same is true for those men who would serve God’s church with the gifts and leadership as deacons. The church needs men to act like men (1Cor.16:13), and men take risks, men are ambitious and men count the cost to pursue those things that they are insufficient to do.

Why is the Church necessary? This is the question that we pondered Thursday night at our College Bible study. The Church is necessary because it has been appointed by God to lead those outside the covenant into a right knowledge of God and His truth. However, our present culture, which has been influenced by the Enlightenment and Evolution, teaches that truth is something apart from God and through the unaided mind man can somehow determine who God is and what he requires. This is not a biblical view of man. Doug Kelly in his Systematic Theology rightly comments that, “those who seek to know God and his truth outside Israel and the Church are always doomed to failure.” God and his truth have always been revealed within a believing community as Jesus’ high priestly prayer demonstrates, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” May this truth exhort us to be more evangelistic. Since the church, as the Westminster Confession of faith says, is “God’s ordinary means of salvation,” we as members of that body must see the absolute necessity in carrying the knowledge of God and his truth to the lost.

We need men in the church:

• Who are redeemed being loved and chosen by God and living out that redemption in works of faith, labors of love and a steadfast hope (1Thes.1:3-5).
• Who are impoverished in spirit crying out to the Lord for mercy (Mt.5:3; Lk.18:13-14).
• Who live by the certainty of grace behind and before in sanctification working out their salvation with fear and trembling (Phil.2:12-13).
• Who groan with the creation in the pains of childbirth longing to be set free from corruption to obtain the freedom and glory as the sons of God (Rom.8:20-23).
• Who in this life wear out their knees in prayer (Lk.18:1) and the pages of their Bible in study (Ezra 7:10).
• Who long for the courts of the Lord on every given Lord’s Day to gather with God’s people in the solemnity and joy of corporate worship (Ps.84; Heb.12:22-29).
• Who will walk in wisdom making the best use of the time given them knowing what the will of God is (Eph.5:15-17).
• Who will clothe themselves with humility as young men and seek to submit themselves to leadership (1Pe.5:5).
• Who will give themselves as older men for the building up of the church through young men (2Tim.2:2).
• Who will lay down their lives for their wives bringing them to maturity in Christ (Eph.5:25-30).
• Who will lead their children with Godly and Biblical discipline and instruction, not giving them everything in the world for their joy but giving them all that God is for them in Christ as their joy (Eph.6:4).
• Who will give of the time, resources and gifts God has made them stewards of for his glory in his church and kingdom (1Pe.4:10).
• Who see the church not as their own but as the bride of Christ, the members of his body, the household of God and his prized possession that he is building for his own glory (Rev.19:7; 1Cor.6:15; Eph.2:19; 1Pe.2:9).
• Who will hold fast to the sound pattern of doctrine as taught them from the Word of God (1Tim.4:6; Tit.1:9).
• Who are full of the Holy Spirit boldly witnessing of the glory of Christ in the gospel (2Tim.1:8).
• Who are willing to suffer as good soldiers, hard working farmers, and enduring athletes of Christ Jesus (2Tim.2:3-7).
• Who will take up their cross and follow the Lord Jesus Christ wherever he leads them for his own glory and for theirs and others good (Lk.9:23-26).

We need men who reflect the glory of God that is in Christ living strong and courageous like the Lion of Judah and gentle and tenderhearted like the Lamb of God who was slain (Rev.5:5-6).

As Charles Spurgeon said, “Up, I pray you now. By him whose eyes are like a flame of fire, and yet were wet with tears, by him on whose head are many crowns, and who yet wore the crown of thorns, by him who is King of kings and Lord of lords, and yet bowed his head to death for you, resolve that to life’s latest breath you will spend and be spent for his praise. The Lord grant that there may be many such in this church – good soldiers of Christ Jesus.” The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol.16 p.370  We need these kinds of men who are living by faith in the gallantry and humility of Christ for his glory and the good of his church. John Piper says, “Where are the men with a moral vision for their families, a zeal for the house of the Lord, a magnificent commitment to the advancement of the kingdom, an articulate dream for the mission of the church and a tenderhearted tenacity to make it real?” What’s the Difference?: Manhood and Womanhood Defined According to the Bible, p.68-69

May we pray that God would raise up men for his church and that he would revive the hearts of those redeemed men to serve their families, their church and in their communities where he places them by his providence for the glory of his name.