Vision 3: Send Equipped Christians to Serve the Church in France and Beyond (Matthew 28.18-20)

This is the final week in our series on our church vision . As we've seen over the past two weeks , we need to be clear about what our purpose as a church is and why.

Just as a reminder, here is the vision of our church . Eglise Connexion exists to:

• Embody the gospel for Parisians;

• Train disciples who make disciples;

• Send equipped Christians to serve the Church of Jesus Christ .

We've seen what it means to embody the gospel in the city; we've seen what it means to train disciples who make disciples. This week, we'll look at the final point of our vision: sending empowered Christians to serve the church of Jesus Christ .

And the good news is that to look at this third point , we'll be in a single text, as I prefer to do . It's a text that most of you are probably already familiar with ; we talk about it a lot in the Church , but I'd like to take it little by little. We'll start in the text and then we'll see together just a few ways in which we can accomplish this mission within our Church .

The Mission of the Church (Matthew 28:18-20)

The text we have read comes at the very end of the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus fulfilled his ministry , he died and rose again . Then he appeared to the disciples, and now at the end of the Gospel , he entrusts them with a mission, which they will then pass on to the churches they will establish in the years to come . This remains the mission of all churches today, Christ's mandate to us.

18Jesus came to them and said, “ All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me . 19Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And I am with you always, to the very end of the age. ”

There are essentially four commands in these three verses. They are all necessary ; each command depends on the others. And when we consider them , we should see them as assured — as not just commands, but as promises . The work is not yet finished , but the work is assured , because Christ has all authority ( v. 18), and he is with us in carrying out this mission (v. 20). No obstacle can stand in his way; nothing will prevent God's plan from being accomplished .

But now it has to be done .

So, what are the commandments that, together, constitute the mission that Christ entrusts to us?

The first is very simple: it tells us to GO (v. 19) . From all​​​ everywhere, in all nations .

Even though this command to go is very , very clear — I don't see how Christ could have said it any more clearly than that — it 's still very surprising how often we forget it , and expect people to come to us.

The mission of the Church is a mission that is necessarily centrifugal. When you put something in a centrifuge , what happens ? Everything is pushed towards the end , towards the outside .

And this is the mission of the Church . This is the direction in which the Church is called to go — not toward Jerusalem , where the disciples are at the time of this text, but outward , to all nations. We are called to go to people , not simply to bring them in . towards us.

Of course , this doesn't mean we shouldn't pay attention to what's going on here—quite the contrary. We've been talking about this for the past two weeks : the more we pay attention to what's going on inside the church , the better equipped we 'll be to carry out our mission outside . The Bible is full of commands about how we should behave and conduct ourselves . when we come together ; and as we saw two weeks ago, one of the most powerful tools we have to show people the gospel is the life of the church , which lives the gospel together.

But very often , churches are so focused on what's happening here that we forget to go out . We forget that there's a whole world outside , to which we're supposed to go . Where do we go ? We go outside, into the city, obviously — but even further afield, into all the nations. We'll come back to that later .

So we have to go, and once we 've gone, we 're called to make disciples.

Last Sunday we discussed where and how disciples of Christ are formed — they are formed in the local church — by Christians learning together to carry out the work of ministry .

Much has been said about Ephesians 4 in the past ; we won't reread it now , but in this passage Paul says that building up the church and doing the work of the ministry is not my job as a pastor ; it's our job as Christians . It 's not me as a pastor who builds up the members of the church ; it 's all of us , as members of the church , who have that responsibility .

This is how we grow in maturity . This is how we become more like Christ . We draw closer to one another and help one another understand the Bible, see how to live the Bible. We lovingly correct one another when we sin , and we humbly repent of that sin and help one another overcome it . We observe one another, encourage one another , and exhort one another — all parts of the body, working together to build up the whole body . We are not spiritual orphans, but brothers and sisters , members of the same family , following the same Master .

But how do we get people ready to enter this family? How do we get people ready to start this process? How do you get people to change — from hostility toward God to love for him and his family?

Occasionally, God does this in the twinkling of an eye , independent of any outside intervention : that 's what he did for the apostle Paul . But most of the time, that 's not how he does it . Most of the time, we are brought to faith in Christ because someone has preached Christ to us . As Paul says in Romans 10: 13For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved . 14But how then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? Or how will they believe in him of whom they have not heard? Or how will they hear of him unless someone preaches him ?

At some point , people who don't know Christ will need to hear the gospel — the good news of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection — because the gospel is the primary way God's Spirit works in our hearts to transform us . The gospel is the way he gives us faith, makes us aware of our sin and our need for a Savior, and compels us to put our faith in Christ and desire to walk with him.

People need to hear the gospel . And they need to see the gospel lived . ( So you see, I think there 's a natural overlap between last Sunday's point and today 's . )

At some point , it is not enough to stay among ourselves: the gospel must go out , it must be shared , because it is through the gospel that God draws people to him, and changes their hearts , and makes them disciples of Christ through the witness and life of the church , which lives the gospel before their eyes .

So these first two commandments are considered to be commandments almost exclusively centered on " evangelism " : that is to say : we are called to go out and share the gospel with others .

And even if that is the purpose of these first two commandments to go and make disciples, the problem is that many Christians stop there . They share the gospel ... without necessarily paying attention to what happens afterward . Listening to the gospel and praying a prayer is very good ... but what about the next day ? And the day after that ? And the day after that ? ?

There's a reason Jesus did n't just say, " Go and make disciples . " There's no point in going out and making disciples if those new disciples have no way of learning how to live as disciples. I was talking this week with someone who shared his burden for the church , for people who seem to be living a half-hearted life for Christ : all the right things are said , but there's no fire, there 's no life behind it . He's right to feel that burden. The Bible is clear that if we don't cultivate our faith, if our faith isn't " kindled , " we risk learning one day that it does n't really exist.

And as we have seen the last two Sundays, the context of our faith, in which and through which our faith grows, is the Church . This is why Jesus continues .

Which brings us to the third commandment . We must go . We must make disciples. And then we must baptize them. in the name of the Father , and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

This may seem like a somewhat incidental addition, but it is anything but. A disciple of Christ cannot grow without other disciples of Christ; and baptism is the visible sign that we now belong to this community of disciples.

The fact that Jesus gives this command here , in the midst of his great evangelistic mission , should shatter many of the preconceived ideas we have about what baptism is .

Many people see baptism a bit like the Baccalaureate. You go to school for twelve years, you learn a lot, you grow as a human being and as a student , and at the end of high school , you get your Baccalaureate, which proves that you have been well educated , and that you are ready to face your higher studies .

For many people, baptism is seen as the entrance exam to higher - level Christianity —the thing you do only after you've passed a certain number of spiritual milestones. They see baptism as a rite for mature Christians , to show the world that now they've " arrived " —they're no longer baby Christians , now they 're adults .

There are two huge problems with this way of thinking . The first is that no one seems to agree on what these "spiritual milestones " should be . Many churches couldn't even tell you what they require for someone to be baptized . It often comes down to a feeling. subjective opinion that church leaders have about the believer before them .

The second problem is much simpler: according to the Bible, baptism does not exist to be a validation of spiritual maturity . Baptism is the visible sign that shows that a person has been brought into the family of God by faith in Christ. And the Bible tells us that this integration into the family of God happens immediately : as soon as we repent of our sins and place our faith in Christ, we are members of his body, we are adopted by God and become brothers and sisters in the faith.

This is why , for example, in the book of Acts, the profession of faith of a new believer and the baptism of this new believer took place almost simultaneously . The gospel is preached , people believe, they repent of their sins , and they are baptized right away .

I said all this to say that this command of Jesus to go and make disciples of all nations is meaningless if these new disciples are not then brought into the local church , in which they learn to grow in their faith with the help of other Christians . Baptism is the first step in this process.

The second step we have already touched on a little . We must go and make disciples, baptize them to confirm their entry into the Church , and then, finally, we are called to teach them to observe all that Christ has taught us .

That was last week's message , so I won't repeat it all. But to put it simply, the church is supposed to spread the gospel by their words and by their lives together, not just so people go to heaven, but to equip the church to teach new believers to live as Christ commands us to live — and that applies not just to the words of Jesus found in the Gospels , but to everything taught to us by the apostles who followed him , for they were inspired by the same Spirit of Jesus Christ . The purpose of evangelism is not just to save people , but to teach them how to live like God . tells us to live .

We talk a lot about sharing the gospel , and it needs to be done. But I'm sure some of you have had this experience : You heard the gospel preached thousands of times when you were a child . But at some point, you met someone who was actually living in obedience to the commandments of Christ. And when you saw that person 's life — their joy in God and the choices they were making and the effect those choices had on their own life and the lives of others — when you saw that, Finally, You have understood the gospel . We have finally seen the effect that the gospel has on us, because we have seen what life is like when we obey the God who saved us , who gave us these commandments because he loves us.

This is our call:

Go [therefore] and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you.

Sending qualified Christians​​

That 's the foundation. That 's the calling of every church . And there are three ways in which these initiatives of going and doing and baptizing and teaching take place .

The first has a more local scope : Christians share the gospel with those around them , and the people around them encounter Christ . This is by far the most common way , because it is the calling of all Christians throughout history .

But sometimes we have to go a little further. The second way the church works to fulfill Christ's mission is when it sends people trained in specialized areas to do specialized work elsewhere .

The classic example is the sending of missionaries and mission teams . We have a lot of missionaries in our church , and that's what they do. They've been trained , often in specific, targeted areas , and they 're sent to another city or country to do something specific .

It has been said that today will be Mission Sunday: at the end of this service, and even more so this afternoon , we will talk together about what the mission of the church looks like outside the borders of our country. We have a mission trip planned for this fall to Togo, and there will be others in the future . Our prayer is that these discussions and trips will light a fire in members of the church , and that they will be sent out to proclaim Christ where he is not yet known . If you have not heard this before , I hope you can stay with us this afternoon to discover this.

Another example of this sending would be church planters and church planting teams . This was the case for me — after receiving general theological training , I spent two years with Loanne being trained to plant churches in France , and then we were sent to plant this church . This is the case for the church planting currently taking place in the 10th , at Oberkampf Church ; Romu and Liz joined Connexion a few years ago with the goal of putting together a team to go and plant a local church on the other side of the Place de la République . Philip Moore and his family launched the Mountain Church in the 5th last Sunday . God is doing His work in particular cities through planted churches that will proclaim the gospel for His glory.

Another example for us at Connexion is our interns. This year we have three interns: Eva, Dahlia, and Silvain. The goal of these internships is to help Christians interested in ministry find their way so that , God willing , they can serve at Connexion or elsewhere . Marjolaine completed her internship with Connexion last year before she was “ sent ” to work with women at the church on Rue de Sèvres .

In short: this is the first way in which this sending occurs — the church sends people trained to do a specific job in a specific place .

But there is still one way to accomplish Christ's mission, which is a little particular to us and linked to our context .

Last week we talked about being disciples who make disciples of Christ. We talked about the biblical reasons why this should happen, and at least a little bit about how it should happen. And there's a very strong sense of this need, because the reality is that when Christians want to learn what it means to be disciples of Christ, all too often the church sends them somewhere else , outside of the church , to be trained .

The church , more often than not, outsources the training needs of the church , rather than taking them on itself .

The reality of our church is that there is a good core of people who stay here for the long term , but there are also easily 40-50% of people who will be with us for two or three years, before leaving for entirely legitimate reasons .

Rather than seeing this turnover as a constraint, we want to see it as an opportunity . We want to use the time we have with you to train you to be pillars in the church where you will find yourself tomorrow. That 's why we have everything we have outside of worship. That 's why we train community group leaders to prepare their Bible studies . That 's why we have Entre Elles (the women's meeting) and the men's group. That 's why we have the monthly Sunday Training sessions , where we train more deeply to understand the teaching of the whole Bible, and the application of that teaching. And that 's why we now have a very robust internship program. The purpose of all this is so that when people leave Connexion after their time with us, we can send them out ready to serve the church they arrive at. I can't tell you what a gift it is for a pastor to receive into the church people who have been well - trained in the past , and who come ready and able to serve faithfully — people you know you can count on, to love others, to live in obedience to Christ , and to teach others to do the same .

This is what we want to do with every Christian here . And the reason is simple: because all power in heaven and on earth has been given to Christ . Our neighborhoods, our city, our country, the whole world, have long lived in active rebellion against our King Jesus . If he were a dictator, a cruel ruler, this rebellion would make sense. But our King is not a cruel ruler.

The prophet Isaiah praises the Lord in Isaiah 64 : 3, saying: 

Never has anyone heard or learned of such a thing, never has any eye seen another god than you act in this way for the good of those who rely on him.

All our efforts to proclaim the gospel , to embody the gospel , to train one another in the gospel , to send out Christians to serve the gospel … All these efforts are not simply so that people can one day go to heaven. These efforts are driven by our love for the people around us, so that they may know this God who loves his people , that they may know God our Father , Jesus Christ our Brother , and the Spirit our Comforter.

And because all power has been given to Christ, and because he is always with us, we can do it. Our efforts are not in vain. We can accomplish the mission he has entrusted to us , for our joy and for his glory.

Vision 2: Train disciples who make disciples (2 Timothy 3)

We are currently in a series on our church's vision. As a reminder, our vision has three points. We exist to:

1. Embody the gospel for the people of Paris;

2. Train disciples who make disciples;

3. Send empowered Christians to serve the gospel in France and elsewhere.

Last week we talked about what it looks like to embody the gospel for the people of our city; this week we're talking about the next point: training disciples who make disciples. This is the next logical step: once we encounter Christ, we must learn to live like him.

To talk about this, we're going to look at a very well-known passage, chapter 3 of Paul's second letter to Timothy.

In case you don't know what's going on in this letter: the apostle Paul had a protégé, a young man named Timothy. Timothy traveled with Paul, listened to Paul preach, and observed how Paul lived.

One day, when Timothy was mature enough, Paul left him in Ephesus to be pastor of the church there. Some time later, Paul was imprisoned by the Romans.

He wrote this letter while he was in prison, shortly before his death. He wrote it as a final exhortation to Timothy, a farewell to his son in the faith. The letter is an exhortation to Timothy to keep what is truly important at the center of his life.

Paul does this first by expressing his gratitude for Timothy's faith and exhorting him to persevere in the gospel; then he puts his exhortation in the proper context by talking about the false teachings that have arisen in Timothy's church and elsewhere. These false teachings do not come from Timothy; they come from other Christians.

And that is where the danger lies.

The danger of false disciples (vv. 1-9)

This is where we will begin, in chapter 3, verse 1.

Know that in the last days there will be difficult times, 2for people will be selfish, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, blasphemers, rebellious against their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3insensitive, implacable, slanderers, violent, cruel, enemies of good, 4treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. 5They will have a form of godliness but deny its power. Have nothing to do with such people.

This is what happens when true discipleship is not lived out. This is the counterexample that Paul gives to Timothy.

In verses 1-5, Paul lists certain character traits that seem fairly obvious if you have read Paul's other letters. But here, he seems to be casting a wider net than usual. He speaks of people who are selfish, greedy, arrogant, deceitful, brutal, "lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God." It's almost a caricature of what we would consider a "bad" person.

But one thing sets these people apart, something we wouldn't necessarily expect here, and it's the most important thing. We see it in verse 5: They will have the appearance of godliness but deny its power.

These people have the appearance of godliness. Godliness is both a correct belief about God and the committed practice of the life He commands us to live. Simply put, godliness is knowing God and doing what He tells us to do.

These people appear to know God and do what He says. This means that despite the harsh things Paul has just said about them, if we saw these people in church, we would find them impressive. They are people who call themselves Christians and even seem to be model Christians. They have the appearance of godliness.

But, Paul says, they are not driven by piety; they are driven by the selfish desires that have always motivated them.

That is why these people are particularly dangerous; that is why Paul says at the end of verse 5, "Keep away from such people."

These false disciples are dangerous because, since they appear so pious, they are trusted. But since they are driven by their desires rather than by God, they are not worthy of that trust.

Paul says in verse 6 that these men "slip into homes and take in gullible women burdened with sins—that is, these women had sinned in the past, could not escape the guilt they felt because of these sins, and as a result continued to be led astray by all kinds of desires; they are always learning but can never come to the knowledge of the truth."

This can also happen to men, of course, but given the power dynamics between men and women at the time, this type of woman would have been easy prey. (A good example of the type of woman Paul is talking about is the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4. She was in exactly the same situation, except that it was Jesus she met at the well, and thank God for that.)

What do these men do? They ensnare these women—and again, it could be men too—in their nets. They convince them of a false gospel, which has all the appearance of godliness but none of the truth.

Paul says in verse 8 that these men are like Jannes and Jambres. Who are they? These names do not appear in the Old Testament, but Jannes and Jambres are the names given in Jewish tradition to the magicians who opposed Moses in Exodus 7. Today we use the name Napoleon to refer to a haughty character; Jannes and Jambres were a shortcut used by the Jews to represent opposition to the truth of God.

These men have minds twisted by sin; they oppose the truth in their actions, while speaking the truth aloud. Their folly will one day be obvious to all, but in the meantime, they are dangerous to themselves and others.

Paul's purpose in telling Timothy all this is not to frighten him. He is trying to do two things: first, he wants Timothy to watch over his church: to be on his guard, to keep his eyes open for signs of this type of person, because they are dangerous to themselves and especially to the church.

The life of the true disciple (vv. 10-13)

But the second thing Paul wants to do is to encourage Timothy in the true life of a disciple. When true godliness is at work in someone, the "power" of godliness will be seen in the way others are drawn to Christ through that person's life. And that is what we see in the following verses. V. 10:

10You, on the other hand, have closely followed my teaching, my conduct, my plans, my faith, my patience, my love, my perseverance, 11as well as the persecutions and sufferings I endured in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. What persecutions I endured! And the Lord delivered me from them all.

When we read verse 10, it seems that Paul is feeling quite strong. He reminds Timothy of what Timothy saw when he followed him. He speaks of my teaching, my conduct, my plans, my faith, my patience, my love, my perseverance...

One might say that Paul is getting a little big-headed here, but he is not praising himself. He is doing two things. First, he is showing Timothy what constitutes the true strength of our faith (in contrast to what he says in verse 5, speaking of those who have the appearance of godliness but deny its power). Some will come boasting of the extraordinary—sometimes even supernatural—deeds they have done for the Lord. But it is not these visibly impressive things that make up the strength of godliness; it is very simple things: patience, love, perseverance in trials, a commitment to the truth, and conduct in accordance with that truth.

And then, by saying everything that Timothy was able to see in him, Paul draws Timothy's attention, not to Paul himself, but to the way Timothy has followed in his footsteps. In verse 10, he is saying, "Timothy, you have followed me closely, and you have learned well. You have grown well. You are conducting yourself well. You have a good purpose in life. You have grown in patience, in love, in perseverance." Paul is commending Timothy here, not himself.

Timothy followed in Paul's footsteps, and what's more, he saw how Paul suffered during his ministry. He reminds Timothy that true discipleship is costly and often humiliating. Verse 12:

12Moreover, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, 13while evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving others and being deceived themselves.

For the disciple of Christ, suffering and persecution are part of the deal. As Jesus said, "A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you" (John 15:20).

Why does Paul talk about persecution here? Because it is another clear indicator of true godliness, of the true life of a disciple.

I have used this illustration before, but I will say it again now.

This summer we were on vacation in the mountains, and we went swimming in rivers and lakes several times. Most of the time, it was Zadie (our seven-year-old daughter) who wanted to swim. The water was freezing, but she was determined to show what she could do.

And so she went in: she gritted her teeth and said, "Wow, it's cold!" but she went in anyway. She got in the water and had a lot of fun.

I wanted to go with her because I love to swim, I love the water. But I'm also sensitive to the cold, and the water was really cold. I wanted to go in the water with her... but I didn't want to that much. I went in up to my knees, and then I said, "Actually, I'm fine. I'm good here."

That's the dynamic we see when we are exposed to suffering or persecution for our faith—we see what our faith is made of. Paul and Timothy are fully committed to this life. They are determined to follow Christ. So they accept persecution, they accept suffering for Christ, they are willing to brave the cold waters, because they know what awaits them at the end, and it is infinitely better than what they would have if they did not suffer.

The people Paul described in verses 1-9 would never go that far. They would never accept persecution for what they claim to believe, because they don't fully believe it. J. Oswald Chambers says: "We go through a spiritual crisis when we are forced to go beyond the convictions we had previously adopted." When the Christian life becomes costly, a false disciple will drop the mask and leave. As Paul says in verse 9, their folly will be obvious to all.

The question is, how did Timothy, this young Greek man who came to faith in Christ, reach a maturity that enabled him not only to demonstrate faith, patience, and love, but to persevere in this character even in the midst of suffering?

The answer is that he followed Paul. He lived with Paul. He learned from Paul.

He followed him in holy character and in the difficulties that Paul endured.

The point here is that Timothy did not do this on his own. He learned to live the Christian life faithfully, in good times and bad, by watching Paul and following him.

Of course, not all Christians have this same opportunity. Here is a classic example: if a man were shipwrecked on a desert island with nothing but his Bible, could he still grow in his faith?

Of course he could—the apostle John did. In such extreme cases, God is faithful to help us grow in faith. But we must recognize that this is the exception rather than the norm.

Jesus' disciples learned to follow him...by following him. And they themselves took on disciples who followed them. Paul trained Timothy. Priscilla and Aquila trained Apollos.

The norm for Christian life is that we learn to live faithfully for Christ by observing and imitating others who live faithfully for Christ.

So there are two things we need to note. The first is fairly obvious, but it needs to be said anyway:

First, if we have a local church, we cannot afford to live apart from it.

Some people are like me—they struggle in social situations. Others have trouble opening up. Others have been hurt by the church in the past. There are many excuses one can find for staying away from a local church, and many people will do so; they will say, “I love Jesus, I love the Bible, but I don’t need the church, because God will guide me.”

That's not how it works. It's a dangerous thing to presume on God's grace and choose to remain isolated from the church He has commanded us to be attached to because we don't want to open up there. We are clearly told, “Do not neglect meeting together” in the letter to the Hebrews (Hebrews 10:25).

If you have access to a local church—as we all do here—then the standard the Bible gives you for Christian living is to grow in Christ by living out your faith with your brothers and sisters in Christ.

If we have access to the local church, we cannot live apart from it. That is the first thing.

The second thing to note is that the stakes are enormous. In verses 1-9, Paul gives this long description of people who call themselves Christians but who are actually serving their appetite for pleasure. He says that these false believers are disqualified when it comes to faith.

And then he says to Timothy, "But that's not the case with you. You haven't lived like them. You haven't done what they've done."

What did Timothy do instead? He followed Paul. He learned from Paul. He grew in the Christian life by imitating Paul.

We may tend to think of an active discipleship as incidental to the Christian life: something we can do if we have time, but which is not strictly necessary.

It is true that we are not saved by our life of discipleship; we are saved by the grace of Christ alone. But we must see that the Christian life, after we are saved, is a life of discipleship. Always. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “Only those who believe obey; and only those who obey believe.”

This life is not optional; it is what life with Christ looks like. We must invest ourselves in this life.

So we see the first means of discipleship in verses 10-13: we live as disciples by living our lives together, observing and imitating one another as we live faithfully. The first means of our discipleship is our life together.

The fuel of the disciple's life (vv. 14-17)

The second means of discipleship that Paul gives to Timothy is the most basic and the most important: it is the Word of God. V. 14:

14As for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, knowing from whom you learned it. 15From childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16All Scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Verses 16-17 are the clearest description in the entire Bible of what happened when the Bible was written. All Scripture, all 66 books of the Old and New Testaments, are "inspired" by God—but that translation is too weak; literally, it says that all Scripture is "breathed out" or "breathed" by God. The words we have in the Bible are exactly what God wanted, while maintaining the style and personality of the person holding the pen.

I know it's easy to say that, and some of you will have questions about the Bible itself: Are there books missing from the Bible? Are there books here that shouldn't be here? How can we know that these particular books are truly inspired by God?

These are big questions, and good questions, and we have talked about them; a long time ago, in 2015, we did a workshop on these questions; and the first sessions of the second year of Sunday School were dedicated to this topic. You can find all of this on our website.

For now, I will simply say what we affirm as a church: the books contained in the Old and New Testaments are the Word of God, the primary means by which God speaks to us today. We have very good reasons to believe this.

And since all Scripture is inspired by God, it is useful to us—it is sufficient: it is the fuel for our growth, so that the man of God may be trained and equipped for every good work.

There is no need for new "revelations"; there is no need for new words from God. He has said everything we need to hear in the Bible. But it is not as if God inspired the words of Scripture and then sat back and left us to figure it out for ourselves. The Scripture that God "breathed" into the biblical authors is useful to us because God still breathes.

Every time we sit down with an open Bible, asking God to help us understand it, integrate it, and live it out, the same Holy Spirit who inspired those words animates them in us and nourishes us.

It is an incredible truth that we get used to far too easily: every time we approach God's Word in faith, God himself speaks to us through that Word.

That is why the Bible is the center of everything we do as a church. The Bible is the Word of God, given so that we may hear God's voice, learn His will, and learn to love what He loves.

All Scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

But our emphasis on verses 16-17, while very good, often misses something; when we talk about these verses, we often forget the context.

The context of verses 16-17 is, of course, verses 14-15, where Paul tells Timothy to hold fast to what he has learned and to remember from whom he learned it.

Timothy was not sitting alone in a library studying the Bible. He was taught the Bible. In chapter 1, Paul thanks God for the way Timothy began in the faith: by listening to and observing his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice. These two women exposed him to the Scriptures, and Paul later took up the baton.

That is how Timothy learned to know Scripture and to live Scripture. He did not do it alone. It was through faithful men and women who walked alongside him and helped him understand Scripture, who modeled Scripture for him, that he grew in his knowledge and love of God.

Application

It is not difficult to see how God is calling us to respond to what Paul says in this passage.

First, watch yourselves.

Paul wasn't afraid for Timothy, but God knew what He was doing when He inspired Paul to write these words. In verses 1-9, He gives us a clear warning against the dangers of not following Christ, of being "friends of pleasure rather than of God"—of what we can become when we pretend to be disciples of Christ but follow our own goals. And Paul also gives us indicators to look for in others, for he tells Timothy, "Avoid" such people. Obviously he is speaking to a pastor, and we want to be very careful before making such a decision (it has only happened a few times since we started this church), but we cannot miss his greater message: calling oneself a Christian while neglecting the true life of a disciple of Christ is dangerous for the church, and we must watch over ourselves to avoid such dangers.

Second: follow Christ together.

We tend to want to establish a whole program for what we call "discipleship," and programs can be useful. But the example of Paul and Timothy is so valuable because it shows us that a program will never do as much good as simply following Christ together. Timothy went where Paul went, he listened to what Paul said, he observed how Paul lived...and he did the same. Like a child learning to walk or talk. It's not easy, but it's not complicated either.

We sit down, open our Bibles, pray, read together, and discuss. And then we spend a lot of time together, to see what it looks like to live out the Word.

There are people around each of you—I'm talking to you—there are people around you who know Christ better than you do, who follow Christ better than you do, and who are more mature in their faith than you are. Find someone like that and ask them to read the Bible with you. Observe how they live and imitate them.

Singles, spend time with married people. Couples, spend time with singles. Parents, disciple your children. Make sure the gospel is omnipresent in your home. Talk about the gospel, memorize it together, show your children what it looks like when talking about the gospel is natural.

Those of you who are (a little) older, seek out your younger brothers and sisters too, because we learn as much from them as they learn from us. Paul said to Timothy in his first letter, in 1 Timothy 4:12: Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity. Timothy was the young one, but he was also the example.

You all have areas of maturity and knowledge and experience that those around you do not have, and you can—and should—help each other grow. We learn to follow Christ by following Christ, together.

And finally: whether you are together or alone, listen to God speaking to you through his Word.

Paul writes his last letter to Timothy, knowing that he will soon die. Soon, Timothy will no longer have his mentor.

But ultimately, Timothy doesn't need Paul; he needs Christ. Paul was a tool in God's hand, to train Timothy in the Word. And the Word of God, the testimony of Christ, brought to life by the power of the Holy Spirit—that is what truly transforms.

Don't follow anyone to such an extent that that person overshadows Jesus Christ. Dig deep into God's Word, when you are together and when you are alone. Pray that God will speak to you through His Word. Listen to what He says in His Word.

And when you hear Him, obey Him.

All Scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

We have everything we need to grow, right now.

Vision 1: Embody the Gospel (2 Corinthians 5.17-6.13)

Every Christian church has essentially the same mission; it is the mission Christ gave his disciples at the end of his ministry: to go into all nations and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything he has commanded.

But every church finds itself in a different context and is filled with different people, so it is important to spell out how we, as the church that we are in the center of Paris, must do this.

So as we have done in the past, today we are going to begin a three-week mini-series on the vision of our church. This is an important reminder for those of you who have been with us for a long time, and a little introduction to the church for those of you who are new.

Here then is the vision of our church: we will take one week for each point.

Église Connexion exists to:

1. Embody the gospel for the people of Paris;

2. Train disciples who make disciples;

3. Send Christians equipped to serve the Church of Christ in France and beyond.

Today, we are going to look at the first point—our desire to embody the Gospel for the people of Paris. And to talk about this point, we will be in Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians.

Ambassadors for the Gospel (5:17–6:2)

To understand where Paul is going in this passage, we need a bit of context.

The church in the city of Corinth was deeply troubled. Paul had planted it with Priscilla and Aquila; they spent eighteen months there, then went on to Ephesus (we see this in Acts 18). At some point, Paul learned that the church in Corinth had completely gone off track—false teachings, blatant and open sins… it was a disaster.

So he wrote them a letter. We don’t have that letter—it has been lost—but Paul mentions it in 1 Corinthians 5. Apparently, the church in Corinth didn’t understand his letter at all, and their problems only got worse. So he wrote another letter, which we have in our Bible under the title of 1 Corinthians. In this letter, Paul corrected many doctrinal errors and rebuked them quite harshly for their sin.

Good news, though: many in the church were convicted of their sin. They repented, they accepted the gospel Paul was preaching to them, and they got back on track.

But some members of the church still resisted Paul, refused to accept his exhortation, and refused to repent. So Paul wrote another letter, 2 Corinthians, both to encourage those who had repented and to defend his apostolic ministry against his opponents.

Yet he does not speak only for himself; he speaks on behalf of all those who served the church in Corinth with him—people like Priscilla and Aquila. It’s very important to see that he is not giving an isolated example of what he alone did, but is describing how “we,” those who served the church in Corinth, lived.

In other words: he is describing a collective model of behavior, not just the example of one man. And he speaks of himself and his companions as ambassadors for the gospel.

Up until now, Paul has spoken of the sufferings he and his companions endured for the Gospel, and especially of the reason they do it. In chapter 4, he says that because they know where they are going—because they know that their life with Christ is not temporary—they can be in the midst of the most brutal circumstances without losing hope.

And it is on this note that he begins to speak of what motivates him and his co-workers. Chapter 5, verse 17:

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Paul tells us two essential things here.

First, he speaks about us. He says, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” Sometimes it can be hard to believe that, or to understand what Paul means. But he says it in the verses we just read. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation—that is: a person who is now reconciled to God. We see this several times: in v. 18, in v. 19, and in v. 20. The goal of Christ’s work was to reconcile us to God. The old has passed away: formerly, we were not reconciled to God; now we are.

Second, Paul tells us how Christ did this; he tells us the Gospel. The essence of the Gospel is summed up in v. 21: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to earth as a human being, fully God and fully man, and he is the only human being in history who “knew no sin.” We have all sinned and are naturally separated from God; Jesus, though he shared our human nature, never sinned. Though he was tempted as we are, he never gave in to temptation. He was and still is perfectly innocent, perfectly righteous, perfectly holy.

And yet, God made him who knew no sin to be sin. Christ took all the rebellion of all his people throughout human history and placed that sin on himself, to such a degree that it was as if Christ himself were the sin that made us guilty before God. Christ went to the cross, carrying that sin on his shoulders, and was punished—not only, or even primarily, by men, but by God. God poured out every drop of his wrath against our sin, and he poured it out on Christ.

That is half of the equation. The other half is found in these words: “so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Just as Christ took our sin to the point of becoming our sin, he gives us his perfect life to the point that we become his righteousness.

This is how Christ has made us new creations; this is how he has reconciled us to God.

God cannot reconcile with sin. It’s like oil and water: sin and holiness cannot coexist. So how can God reconcile with sinful men and women? He did it by killing their sin in the person of Christ, and by giving them the sinless life Christ lived.

Think about what that means. I am a sinner—I feel, like Paul, that I am the worst of sinners. But God saved me, brought me to faith, and I placed my faith in Christ. I repented of my sin. So God killed my sin in advance when he poured his wrath out on Christ. In other words, two thousand years ago, God killed all the sins I have committed over the last forty-four years, and all the sins I will commit for the rest of my life. Two thousand years ago, God killed the sin I will commit tomorrow.

In the same way, God gave us in advance the righteousness of Christ, so that we might grow in righteousness. Two thousand years ago, Christ lived the perfect life that I will show to God at my death. I will stand before him, he will examine me, he will see the perfect life of Christ that has been given to me, and he will declare me innocent and righteous—innocent because my sin is erased, and righteous because Christ has given me his righteousness.

We must understand that this is done. It is finished. In your life, you will experience many sufferings and trials. But if you have placed your faith in Christ, you will never again have to fear being punished by God for your sin. He has already done it, when he punished Christ.

And he has placed Christ’s perfect life on you, so that God sees you as perfect, and not as guilty. You are guilty before God, and so am I. But Christ is not, and it is his life that we now wear.

That is the Gospel. That is the first thing Paul tells us.

The second thing is as surprising as the first (at least to me).

If God has created a way to reconcile people to himself, then people need to know about it.

Of course, God is God. He could easily make himself known to people in a vision, or simply cause the truth to appear miraculously in our minds. Sometimes he does that: he can proclaim the message of the Gospel himself.

But most of the time, that is not how he does it. Most of the time, he entrusts this responsibility to other people. That’s what Paul says in v. 18–20: God gave us the ministry of reconciliation; he entrusted to us the message of reconciliation; he made us ambassadors for Christ; it is through us that he makes his appeal.

This is crazy. It’s so risky. I know myself, and I know that 90% of the time, I don’t speak very well. I’ve prepared this message in advance, there’s no one else talking at the same time; that I can do. But if you’ve ever had a conversation with me, you know that’s not how I normally speak; in conversation, I don’t speak well. I go in circles, I stutter, I have trouble speaking spontaneously.

And apparently (we discover later in this letter, in chapter 11, verse 6), Paul had the same problem. He says that he is “unskilled in speaking.” He was a great writer, but not a great speaker.

Yet God chooses to make people like that—people like you and me—ambassadors of the Gospel, to entrust to us all the ministry of reconciliation. Why? Because it is when we minister in our weakness that the strength of Christ is displayed. It is always amazing when an awkward and imperfect conversation about the Gospel brings faith to someone else, because we can never say that this person came to Christ because I did such a great job. No, it is clearly God’s work.

So, as imperfect as we are, we make our appeal; we beg people on behalf of Christ, “Be reconciled to God.”

And that is what we see Paul doing at the beginning of chapter 6:

Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. 2 For he says,
“In a favorable time I listened to you,
and in a day of salvation I have helped you.”
Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.

We’ll come back to this appeal later, but this is Paul’s work as an apostle, it is Priscilla and Aquila’s work as servants of the gospel, and it is our work too. This is the mission Christ has given us: to call people to repentance and faith in Christ in order to be reconciled to God. To do that, we must share the good news of the Gospel.

Living Examples of the Gospel (6:3–10)

But one thing we constantly see in the Bible is that the proclamation of the good news rarely, if ever, comes by itself; it is accompanied by a living example of what that good news looks like. And that is where Paul moves next: he spends eight verses reminding the Corinthians how he and his companions live their lives. 6:3:

3 We put no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, 4 but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, 5 beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; 6 by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love; 7 by truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; 8 through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; 9 as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; 10 as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything.

In this passage, Paul gives two arguments why his opponents should listen to him. The first is in 5:20–21, which we saw before. He says: “Listen to what I say because this is what Christ says: God makes his appeal through us, and that appeal is to believe in what Christ has done for you. Listen to what I say because it is the truth.”

That should be enough. But Paul doesn’t stop there. The second argument Paul gives is the example he and his companions give in their lives. Their way of living, of serving, of suffering. His second argument is completely objective, empirical, and visible.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ changes us. He just said so. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

These are not just words. This is not a sentimental statement. It is literally true. If we are in Christ, we are no longer what we were.

I want to be careful here, because some of us might read what Paul says in these verses and think: “I’m not like that; so I must not be a Christian.”

That’s not what Paul is saying. Read Romans 7—Paul acknowledges that some changes in us are immediate and others take a lifetime; we must learn to observe everything Christ has commanded. It is not automatic. If you have not yet reached the level of maturity Paul describes here, don’t worry, neither have I.

But if we are in Christ, by definition, as new creations, there will be changes. And we will grow in those changes. Paul gives here the example of what mature and experienced Christians look like—or, to put it another way, what living examples of the Gospel look like.

He gives positive examples—endurance (v. 4), purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, love (v. 6), truthful speech, the power of God, and righteousness (v. 7), in all circumstances (v. 8). This is the part of the Christian life that others will look at and say: “I want to be like that.”

I don’t know if you’ve thought about this. Many people will find problems with Christian doctrine and ethics if they want to; those are the areas where people debate, where they try to find a flaw in what we believe in order to challenge it. That’s what Paul’s opponents in Corinth were doing.

But no one can credibly speak against Christian character. No one says: “I hate patient people. I hate kind people. I hate loving people. I hate honest people.” These are traits that are almost universally admired.

And that’s normal, because every human being is made in the image of God, and we are created to respond positively to his character.

But some people will stubbornly resist having such character in themselves, because even though it is attractive, it is also costly. That’s why Paul gives negative examples—or rather examples that most of us would consider negative.

It’s easy to be patient, kind, loving, and honest when everything is going well. But the true nature of our character is revealed when the world turns against us. And that’s what Paul says—not only is their character exemplary, but it is so in the most difficult situations: in suffering, hardship, calamities (v. 4), beatings, imprisonments, riots, hard work, sleepless nights, hunger (v. 5), dishonor and slander (v. 8).

How is that possible?

Actually, it’s very simple. What we do is always determined by what we desire. If what you desire is comfort, ease, and superficial happiness, then you will lose patience at the slightest obstacle to those goals. You will not love people who are unlovable. We can really judge the value of our character when it continues in the midst of difficult circumstances.

And the reason why the Christian’s character can continue to manifest and grow in the midst of trials is that for his people, Christ transforms every circumstance into an occasion for grace.

Paul says (at the end of v. 8):

We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; 9 as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; 10 as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything.

So in part, these things are literally true—Paul and his co-workers were often condemned (Paul himself was later executed in Rome), but they knew what awaited them at their death. They were poor, but their poverty was not an obstacle to enriching others spiritually. They were often sorrowful, but they had a joy in their Lord that did not disappear in their sadness, since it did not depend on their circumstances.

They really had very little, almost nothing—they left everything to follow Christ. But in reality, they possessed everything. Everything they needed, everything that truly matters, was theirs.

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

If anyone is in Christ, a trial becomes a grace.

If anyone is in Christ, a failure becomes a ladder.

The Call of the Gospel (6:11–13)

And when Christ does this—when the grace of Christ allows their character to persist in every circumstance, and that can be seen—the call God gives us to make as ambassadors for Christ cannot be easily rejected. Paul says in v. 11:

11 We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians; our heart is wide open. 12 You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections. 13 In return (I speak as to children) widen your hearts also.

Here is what he says to the unbelieving Corinthians who are listening to this letter. No matter what you may have heard from other sources, we are not weighing you down and we are not living in lies. Our heart is wide open. We are not holding you back, and the Gospel is not holding you back; what is holding you back is you.

So, just as we have opened our hearts to the Gospel and to you, open your hearts to us as well. We are the living proof that it is possible to live for Christ, in good times and bad—to be called liars and yet tell the truth, to be sorrowful and yet always rejoice, to have nothing and yet possess everything.

And if we can do it, you can do it, because it is not us who have done it—it is God who did it in us. And he can do it in you too.

At this point, the Corinthians have no credible arguments left against Paul and his companions. They can debate theology if they want, but they cannot credibly speak against Christians who are faithful.

And if what Paul says about his own character is true, is it not possible that what he says about the gospel is also true?

You see, God uses the Gospel to bring us to faith, but he does it in more than one way. Sometimes, people hear the Gospel and are entirely convinced by the Holy Spirit, right away. That happens, and it is wonderful.

Other times, though, people hear the Gospel and say: “Okaaaaaaay…” And they remain in doubt.

But over time, they see what their Christian friends’ lives look like, they see the practical application of the Gospel, and they begin to believe that what they once considered foolishness might actually be true. That too is the work of the Holy Spirit.

We cannot know which means the Holy Spirit will use. That’s why we must always have all our tools at hand.

Conclusion

And here are the tools Paul gives us here.

The first is the Gospel. We must do everything we can to know it as well as possible, we must learn to “speak Gospel fluently,” like our mother tongue. We must learn to be able to say, without even thinking: Be reconciled to God! For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

The second tool he gives us is our life. Paul’s life and that of his companions legitimized the Gospel for the Corinthians. If the Gospel produces such a change in them, in the midst of all they are suffering, isn’t that something worth digging into, worth taking seriously?

But watch out: this example of the Gospel manifesting in our lives means something that will make many of us uncomfortable. It means that we must open ourselves up to people, give them access to ourselves and to our community, in such a way that they can see the Gospel lived out in various circumstances among us. When we do things together—going to church, participating in a community group, playing football, whatever—unbelievers should be included as much as possible. Because they need not only to hear the Gospel, but also to see what it looks like.

That takes a lot of time, it’s not easy, and it’s risky, because it means being vulnerable, being able to say what Paul says to the Corinthians: our heart is wide open. We don’t always want to open our hearts to others, because that would mean letting them have access to aspects of our lives that we prefer to keep to ourselves.

But that is what an ambassador of Christ looks like. It’s risky, but it’s incredibly freeing. There is nothing more freeing than having nothing to hide. People need to see the Gospel.

And when we do that, the last tool Paul gives us here becomes really striking: of course, it is the appeal. Paul says: “We have spoken freely to you… open your hearts also.”

We must not be afraid not only to announce the gospel, but also to say afterward: “I beg you on behalf of Christ: be reconciled to God! Please, believe in him. Accept him. Put your trust in him.” No appeal you will ever make will be more important than this one.

If we live this way, if we use all the tools God gives us, will it be effective every time? No, at least not in the sense we usually mean.

But every time God saves one of his own, every time someone comes to Christ in faith and then lives a life of discipleship, that visible presence of the Gospel, manifested in the lives of his people, will be there.

We want to be a church that embodies the Gospel for the people of our city. We want the people of Paris to hear the Gospel, see the Gospel, and accept the Gospel. This is our prayer, and God is faithful.

“But You…” (Psalm 102)

You may have heard this story before. Florence Chadwick was an American swimmer who made her greatest contribution to the sport in the 1950s. In 1950, she became the first woman to swim the English Channel from France to England in both directions. In 1952, she wished to swim the 41-kilometer route between Catalina Island and the California coast. Boats made the trip with her, in case she needed to be fished out of the water because of sharks, or if she got too tired. After 15 hours of swimming, a very thick fog rolled in. Florence began to doubt her ability to go much further; she told her mother, who was in one of the boats, that she didn't think she could make it. Her mother told her she was almost there; but Florence, exhausted and blinded by the fog, couldn't believe it. She asked to be lifted into the boat. It wasn't until she was in the boat that she learned that the coast was barely two kilometers away. Indeed, she was almost there, but with no end in sight, she couldn't hold on.

I often think of this story when studying the Bible. It can be really stimulating to discover theology—there are so many incredible concepts in the Bible that spark the imagination. And that can be enough to fuel your Christian life for a while. But you will always come to a point where you have to ask what difference all this fascinating theology makes for your life. When you’ve come up against a problem that needs solving, how will the doctrine of the Trinity, or the doctrine of unconditional election, or the doctrine of justification by faith alone, help you deal with the problem you’re facing?

The Bible is filled with lessons for dealing with real-world problems; but the lesson we learn in Psalm 102 is the one that has helped me the most, the one that has been the lesson I have come back to the most often in my Christian life.

What we need to think about today is how the great biblical truths about God can be a comfort for us in suffering. So we’ll look at the psalmist’s reaction to his suffering first, and then we’ll examine the truths he clings to that enable him to respond in that way.

1) The reaction to suffering: "But you..."

The beginning of this psalm describes the mentality of someone going through very difficult suffering.

It describes emotional suffering. His heart is stricken, and he is depressed—v. 4: My heart is struck down like grass and has withered; I forget to eat my bread. V. 8: He suffers insults from his enemies—v. 9: For I eat ashes like bread and mingle tears with my drink.

He also describes physical suffering. He loses weight—v. 5-6: Because of my loud groaning my bones cling to my flesh. 6 I am like a desert owl of the wilderness, like an owl of the waste places. He can't sleep—v. 7: I lie awake; I am like a lonely sparrow on the housetop.

Like every sufferer, he's well aware of his own mortality and the fact that there's nothing he can do about it.

V. 3: For my days pass away like smoke, and my bones burn like a furnace.

V. 11: My days are like an evening shadow; I wither away like grass.

And the only explanation he gives is that God must be angry with him for a sin he has committed. V. 10: [I suffer all this] because of your indignation and anger; for you have taken me up and thrown me down. Interestingly, the psalmist gives no particular sin that might have inflamed God's wrath. Perhaps the psalmist is speaking less about the reality of his situation than about the feeling he has—and shares with almost anyone who believes in God and suffers without knowing why. The psalmist doesn't blame God—he never says that God is unjust in allowing this pain—but he simply acknowledges God's sovereignty over his suffering.

It is extreme suffering that is described: it causes mental depression, prevents sleep, causes weight loss, incites insults, makes one realize the limit of one's own days. The frankness of this psalm is astounding—sometimes we imagine that the Bible gives us an overly idealistic version of the world; we imagine that the Christian worldview is profoundly out of step with the reality of the world we live in. But this psalm should make us realize that the Bible doesn't ignore the reality of suffering at all—it tells us that the pain we may go through is real and vivid, and not to be ignored.

Most people react to suffering in the same way as the psalmist…and their reaction to suffering stops there. They suffer, they take medication, and they wait for it to pass, so that they can stop feeling the pain and get on with their lives. But the psalmist doesn't stop there. Just as we imagine him on his knees, head to the ground as he proclaims his lament, in verse 13 he looks up.

V. 11-12: My days are like an evening shadow; I wither away like grass. But you, O LORD, are enthroned forever; you are remembered throughout all generations.

If you suffer, you must be honest with God about your suffering...but you mustn't drop anchor there. The psalms in general and this psalm in particular teach us to be honest with God about our feelings and our pain...and then to look up and say, "BUT". The Bible doesn't tell us that we won't suffer; but it does say that there is always a "But". The worst mistake we can make in suffering is to forget to say: "But...".

But you, O LORD, are enthroned forever; you are remembered throughout all generations.

In almost every psalm of lament or intercession, it happens the same way. The psalmist is honest with God about his worries...then he says, "But." And then he gives a reason why he can be encouraged, a grace that God gives him that enables him to combat his negative reaction to suffering. The Bible never tells us that negative reactions aren't appropriate, but it does tell us not to drop anchor there.

In Psalm 102, the psalmist gives us two "Buts", two truths that reassure and comfort him in his predicament.

2) Future Grace: God will establish his holy city

The word "Zion" appears over 150 times in the Bible, and essentially it means "fortification"-a strong place, a stable and secure dwelling. "Zion is the city of God, the city where God dwells. In the Old Testament, Zion was synonymous with Jerusalem, where God's temple was located. God's city was Jerusalem (Isaiah 40:9). In the New Testament, "Zion" took on an even deeper meaning-the eternal dwelling place of God, the city that God would establish as His dwelling place and that of His children (1 Peter 2:6, Hebrews 12:22, Revelation 14:1). "Zion" is therefore another name for what we call paradise, the holy city, the New Jerusalem where God will forever establish his kingdom on earth.

The psalmist's first comfort is found in the promise that God will establish his holy city, and that all God's children will be able to settle and establish  themselves there, and dwell there forever.

V. 13-14 : You will arise and have pity on Zion; it is the time to favor her; the appointed time has come. For your servants hold her stones dear and have pity on her dust.

V. 28 : The children of your servants shall dwell secure; their offspring shall be established before you.

For the psalmist, there was a real link between the city God was going to build for his people and his own well-being at the time. And this attitude runs counter to everything we know today. In our world, everything has to be immediate: we can recall as many promises as we like, but it doesn't change a thing-"That's all very well, but I'm still suffering!"

Indeed, attaching oneself to God requires a radical adjustment of our worldview and priorities. The child of God has his priorities not in what happens to him now, but in what will happen one day. Last week we saw that Jesus' vision was so fixed on the future that he was able to undergo the worst suffering imaginable. Hebrews 12:2: for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.. The amazing thing is that it wasn't weightless hope that kept him going, but the promise of even greater joy. The suffering of the cross was enormous; the joy to come was far greater still-so he was able to endure.

In the same way, if we have our eyes fixed on the grace to come, we too can endure. If Florence Chadwick could have seen the approaching coast, she might well have finished her journey. Likewise, if we keep our eyes on the grace that will one day come, we'll be able to finish ours-no matter how much suffering we go through. It doesn't lessen the pain, but it allows us to live our pain the right way, for God's glory—trusting in his wisdom and sovereignty.

The promise the psalmist gives us is that God will establish his holy city, where he will dwell forever, and where his children—that is, us—will be able to strengthen themselves and live in joy for all eternity. It's a promise that gives us real comfort in our suffering—if at least we have our eyes fixed on the glorious future that awaits us, and not on our present situation.

3) Present Grace: the knowledge of God's glory

If the psalmist gives us this grace to which we can turn in suffering, he gives us yet another: the reality of God's glory, which the nations of the world will see and praise. (This word "glory" means seeing and rejoicing in the beauty and greatness and majesty of God. When we see and rejoice in God's excellencies, He is glorified).

We can see why the promise of joy to come might comfort the psalmist. But when the psalmist refers to the other great truth that relieves him in his pain, it doesn't seem to be related to himself at all. Rather than saying all that God will do for him, he speaks of God himself.

11 My days are like an evening shadow; I wither away like grass. 12 But you, O LORD, are enthroned forever; you are remembered throughout all generations.

15 Nations will fear the name of the LORD, and all the kings of the earth will fear your glory. 16 For the LORD builds up Zion; he appears in his glory…

21 …that they may declare in Zion the name of the LORD, and in Jerusalem his praise, 22 when peoples gather together, and kingdoms, to worship the LORD.

Rather than saying all that God will do for him, he speaks of God himself, as if God himself were the benefit that gave relief to the psalmist's suffering. But how is this possible? Why should the knowledge of God's power and eternity and glory be a comfort to the psalmist, what he looks up to when he's suffering?

To answer this question, we need to pause and reflect. If the psalmist finds comfort in the knowledge of God's glory, there must be a reason.

In fact, that reason can be found on every page of the Bible, from beginning to end. The Scriptures proclaim without reservation that the reason God does what He does is so that His creation can know Him, love Him and see His glory. First of all, everything God did in the Old Testament was aimed at this goal. All his law and his intervention on behalf of the people of Israel were designed to help them see God.

Isaiah 40:9:

Go on up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news; lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Judah,“Behold your God!”

That's the point of what he was doing in the New Testament too. God sent Jesus Christ to take our place—to live a perfect life in our place, to pay the price for our sins in our place-so that we might be reconciled to God. He did this because he loved us—but even that love is not an end in itself. While God would be just in punishing us, the love he shows us demonstrates his great mercy and compassion—when we accept the love God has shown us in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, we give him glory. God's love and Jesus Christ's sacrifice for us glorify God. So the main reason Christ died was not primarily to save and forgive us, but that through this act of divine salvation and forgiveness, we might see and know and give glory to God.

1 Peter 3.18:

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God…

2 Corinthians 4.6:

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

This is the main reason why God does everything he does from the beginning of creation—and it's his plan for us too. God does everything so that the men and women he has created will see, love, rejoice and take pleasure in that glory. When we know God's glory, we fulfill our reason for being-as Isaiah 4:6-7 says:

…bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, 7 everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”

Now we're ready to return to our question. Why would the knowledge of God's power and eternity and glory be for the psalmist a relief, what he looks up to when he's in pain?

Because he has found his greatest good not in things he can lose—his health or his family or his work or his hobbies or his relationships—but in God himself. Everything he possesses could be taken from him, but God never changes-his existence is constant, his power inexhaustible, his glory always visible.

11 My days are like an evening shadow; I wither away like grass. 12 But you, O LORD, are enthroned forever; you are remembered throughout all generations.

Verses 27-28: [Earth and heaven] will perish, but you will remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away, but you are the same, and your years have no end.

And since he knows that God is the only being who doesn't change, he knows that God is the only reliable source of comfort. So even if it's hard, even if his suffering has reached a level that seems unbearable, he looks up to God, for he is sovereign; he is eternal; he is trustworthy.

Application

Now the main question here is, how do we learn to do this—to respond to suffering like the psalmist does? It can seem impossible: how does someone who is going through suffering so intense that they’re not sleeping, they’re not eating, they feel like their body is wasting away… How does this person respond sincerely, like the psalmist did, and find comfort in what they’re saying?

I’m going to suggest two very practical things, and then I’ll explain why they’re so important.

First of all—and it sounds ridiculously simple—if we want to learn to respond to pain like the psalmist does, read the Bible, and go to church. The church—the body of Christ—is the main means God has given us, through his Spirit, to let the Word of God take root in our hearts and change us.

When we come to church, what do we do? We sing songs that proclaim these truths about who God is. We listen to the Word of God that proclaims who God is. We comfort one another with these truths about who God is. We need to see these truths lived out and celebrated, and we need other people who can help us stand when we no longer have the strength to do it on our own.

Secondly: if we want to learn to respond to suffering like the psalmist does, we must develop the habit of praying like this when we’re not suffering.

If we look at the second half of this psalm—basically, at everything starting at v. 12—with very few exceptions, we can pray all of these things in any and every circumstance. These things are always true.

We have two couples in the church who are getting married in less than two weeks. Their wedding day will be, for them, a wonderful, joyful day—the beginning of their life together.

And on that day, they can stop for a moment, look out at the celebration happening around them, and then can say in all honesty: “But you, O LORD, are enthroned forever; you are remembered throughout all generations… Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you will remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away, but you are the same, and your years have no end. The children of your servants shall dwell secure; their offspring shall be established before you.”

If we develop the habit of thinking like that all the time—in good moments and in completely boring, ordinary moments—we will be ready to think that way when the storms arrive.

It’s not a quick fix; it’s a long-term plan for peace.

We so often look for easy solutions to our problems—or we look for ways to pretend our problems don't exist. Real solutions—the ones that get to the root of the problem and uproot it—are rarely quick or easy. The Bible offers real solutions to our pain—not quick fixes or ways to live in denial. They're sometimes slow, often difficult—but they're real and definitive. Anchoring our relief in God's great plan for humanity and in God's glory is the only way to find real, lasting comfort here and now.

This is exactly what the psalmist does. Even if he has to suffer now, he knows that God will accomplish His purposes for His people, and he finds happiness in that knowledge. After honestly telling God of his immediate suffering, he looks up to God's plan for mankind—the establishment of his holy city, where all his children can grow strong—and to the greatest good there is-the glory of God himself. His suffering isn't necessarily over, but at least he can see the end of the tunnel...and so he can hold on.

A month after her failure in the English Channel, Florence Chadwick tried the route again. The fog rolled in as before, and she tired as before... But this second time, she made it to the end, because she knew that even if she couldn't see the coast clearly, it was there, and it wasn't as far as it seemed.

Likewise, if we keep our eyes firmly fixed on God's plan for his people, and on God himself, we'll be able to hold on until the end—because even if everything we have is taken away from us, our God and his will cannot be taken away from us. We can find comfort in this today, as we say with the psalmist:

...you are the same, and your years have no end. The children of your servants shall dwell secure; their offspring shall be established before you (v. 27-28).

Why We Sing (Psalm 95)

I’ll be honest with you—there is a part of every church service that, all my life, has made me moderately uncomfortable. And that is the part of the service in which we sing.

It’s sort of a strange thing to do, isn’t it? Plenty of us enjoy singing, and many of us do it when we’re alone, but I’ve tried to think of other situations in ordinary life in which people sing when they’re assembled in a group, and there aren’t many. People sing “Happy Birthday” at a birthday party. People sing “We Are the Champions” or that “Oooooohh-oooohhh” chant at football games. People sing the national anthem on national holidays (or at football games). People sing along with their favorite songs at concerts or clubs.

I’m sure there are other situations in which people do this, but none of them quite resemble what we do when we gather together to worship. When we come to church, we stand, usually all facing the same direction, and we sing together. And unless you’re going to a church that is—let’s face it—more of a concert than a church, the songs we sing aren’t party songs like “We Are the Champions”—we’re not singing these songs because they’re catchy. Often the songs are slow, and old, and not particularly easy.

And the songs are always about the same thing. They’re about God, and who he is, and what he has done.

But we have other ways of talking about God, and who he is, and what he has done. We have the Bible, which we read. We have prayer, in which we speak to God by repeating what the Bible has said. We have study and discussion, in which we try to get to the bottom of what the Bible means.

The songs come in, it would seem, from two places: from the long tradition of God’s people singing about him for millennia, and from the Psalms, which is the original songbook of God’s people.

But that still doesn’t answer the question I asked myself when I was a kid: WHY do we sing? Why do we stand together and sing several songs whenever we gather?

There are a lot of answers to that question, but this psalm in particular gives us two very good ones. The first answer is quite easy to see, but the second is a little trickier. So we’re going to have one point on the first answer, and two on the second.

Why do we sing? First answer:

Reason 1: We Sing to Awaken Our Affection for God (v. 1-7).

In v. 1-7, we see essentially the same thing twice. The first is a call to worship (specifically in song), and the second is the grounds for our worship. And in the call for us to sing praises to God, the psalmist gives us particular characteristics of worship that should be there.

V. 1:

Oh come, let us sing to the LORD;
      let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
            2       Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
      let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!

So the first thing we see here is that when we sing, we ought to sing with joy. Make a joyful noise, he says, to the rock of our salvation. Make a joyful noise with songs of praise.

Next he says that we should be thankful. “Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving,” he says in v. 2.

And he thirdly, the psalmist says our worship should be characterized by humility. V. 6:

6       Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
      let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!

Why should our songs be characterized by joy, by thanksgiving, by humility? The simple answer is that those emotions are the proper response to who God is.

The psalmist goes back and forth between invitations to worship in a certain way—with joy, with thanksgiving, with humility—and the reasons why God deserves that kind of worship. He says, first of all, in v. 1, that God is “the rock of our salvation”. All of our hopes for a life of meaning, a life in which we are fulfilling the reason why we were created, an eternal life of peace and happiness and fulfillment—all of these hopes are resting on him, and he will make good on our hopes. He is the rock of our salvation, a solid foundation for our hope.

Then we see (v. 3):

3       For the LORD is a great God,
      and a great King above all gods.
4       In his hand are the depths of the earth;
      the heights of the mountains are his also.
            5       The sea is his, for he made it,
      and his hands formed the dry land.

Our great God, who is King above all authorities on earth, is the Creator and sustainer of the earth itself. From the deepest ocean trench to the highest mountain, the seas and the land are all his and all come from him. And what he created, he sustains.

Think about how many intricate things have to go right in order for us to take a breath every second. If you’re breathing in right now, if your heart is beating, it is because God is sustaining your life. And that is true of every thing on this earth; if God decides to let the earth tilt on its axis by a single degree, all life is over. All of existence is in his hand. If we’re here, we have reason for joy; we have reason to be thankful; we have reason to be humble, because we’re here—we exist. This is something everyone can say.

But the psalmist goes even further than that. Look at v. 7:

7       For he is our God,
      and we are the people of his pasture,
      and the sheep of his hand.

This is something that not everyone can say. Everyone can find reason for gratitude in God’s care for the earth he created, but not everyone can say that God is my God, and I am one of his people. He is not just the God over all the earth; he is our God, and we are his people. The psalmist calls us “the sheep of his hand”. God cares for us, the way a shepherd cares for his sheep, and far beyond.

It’s not for nothing that this description of God carried over to Jesus when he came. Jesus called himself the Good Shepherd, who lays down his life for his sheep (John 10.11). He lived the obedient life we should have lived; he took our disobedience on himself; he was punished for our sin; and he gave us his perfect life in exchange. This Shepherd’s care for his sheep goes far beyond the care of an ordinary shepherd; he takes the place of his sheep, letting the danger come to him instead of to them.

If you here have placed your faith in Christ for your salvation, then you are his people; this God is your God, and he will continue to care for you the way he already has cared for you in Christ.

We sing to express things, and to feel things, we don’t ordinarily get to express. I grew up watching Old Hollywood musicals. They’re silly, sure—but there is something satisfying about watching Gene Kelly fall in love with Debbie Reynolds, then walk outside in the rain and feel so overwhelmed with happiness at finding her that he just starts singing and dancing in the rain. Or seeing Oliver Twist mourning the absence of his mother and letting out his grief in song, in the basement of a funeral home. They let themselves do that in these musicals (and it helps that an orchestra is always with them, playing the background music). There’s a part of us that sort of wishes life works that way, that we could do the same thing—that we could express grief or joy or gratitude or humility in this emotionally-charged way.

Well, when we come together to worship, that’s essentially what we’re doing: we’re letting the reality of our situation drive us to the response that we can’t have when we’re just out walking in the streets. We think about who he is and what he has done, we lift our eyes to him…and we can sing. We’re not alone, so we don’t have to feel weird about it. And we have musicians playing along with us (like we never do in our day-to-day lives), so we won’t get lost.

We sing because he is that good; we sing because we need to feel that he is that good.

But that’s not the only reason why. But before we get to that second reason, we need to look at the next four verses, because they can be a bit disorienting.

Warning: Do Not Harden Your Hearts (v. 7b-11)

At the end of v. 7, there is a fairly dramatic change in tone. Up until now, it has been nothing but calls to worship God, and reasons why we should do so. But at the end of v. 7, there is a command, accompanied by a warning.

v. 7b:

Today, if you hear his voice,
            8       DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS, as at Meribah,
      as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,
            9       when your fathers put me to the test
      and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.
            10       For forty years I loathed that generation
      and said, “They are a people who go astray in their heart,
      and they have not known my ways.”
            11       Therefore I swore in my wrath,
      “They shall not enter my rest.”

So this part of the psalm references something that happened to the people of Israel earlier in their history, in Exodus 17. In this passage, God has just rescued the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt; he has miraculously brought them through the Red Sea, and led them into the wilderness. At this point, he has already provided miraculous food for them, and provided water. But now they’ve moved on to a new part of the wilderness; God is still providing food, but there is no water for the people to drink.

It’s surprising how quickly desperation can take hold: even though they’ve seen God’s provision for them, and recently, the mere idea that they might go without water is enough to make them wonder whether his provision will continue. So they quarrel with Moses, saying, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” So God tells Moses to take his staff and go to a certain rock. Moses does what God tells him to do: he strikes the rock, and water begins to come out of it.

Moses named the place “Massah and Meribah,” because Massah, translated, means “testing,” and Meribah means “quarreling”.

So why did the people “harden their hearts” against God? Simply put, because they were thirsty (physically), and they lost sight of God’s promises of provision because of their need. That’s all. Though they had seen his work (v. 9), they doubted.

And the consequences, according to the psalm, were dire: that generation of Hebrews didn’t enter the rest of the Promised Land.

But here’s what’s interesting. This consequence, of being unable to enter the Promised Land, didn’t happen because the people doubted God at Massah and Meribah. God doesn’t say, “Because you grumbled about water, you won’t enter the Promised Land.” He doesn’t say it here, and he doesn’t say it much later in Numbers 20, when the exact same thing happens again.

But if you read the rest of the book Exodus, and Leviticus, and Numbers, and Deuteronomy—which every Israelite at the time this psalm was written would have known well—you see that the hardening of the people’s hearts at Meribah and Massah in Exodus 17 wasn’t an isolated event. This was the beginning of a pattern that continued.

We get a little closer to the root of this pattern if we look at Hebrews 3, where this psalm is extensively quoted.

Let’s just read Hebrews 3.12-19:

12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. 15 As it is said,
                  “Today, if you hear his voice,
                  do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” [There’s Psalm 95.7-8.]
16 For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? 17 And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? 18 And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? 19 So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.

Why were they unable to enter their rest? It wasn’t because they doubted one time when they were thirsty. It’s because they came to have evil, unbelieving hearts that led them to fall away from the living God. They didn’t enter their rest because of unbelief.

So that is the warning of the second half of this psalm—don’t fall into unbelief like the Hebrews did in the wilderness. God has provided rest for his people in Christ; he is a great God, and a great King above all gods; in his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. He is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.

So don’t be like the Hebrews. Don’t be so focused on the difficulty in front of you that your hearts become hardened to the God who has provided everything for you in Christ. Do not let yourself have an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.

Reason 2: We Sing to Protect Ourselves Against Unbelief.

So here’s the question we need to ask. What do the first half of Psalm 95 and the second half of Psalm 95 have to do with each other? Why do v. 1-7 come before this warning in v. 8-11?

And here, I think, is the answer. Remember that the psalms are songs, meant to be sung by God’s people when they are gathered together to worship. Several things happen during these assemblies—God’s people will pray; they will hear the Word of God preached; they will encourage one another; and yes, they will sing. That means that if the priests (for the Israelites) and the pastors (for the Christian church today) do their jobs, then God’s people will be constantly reminded of who he is. They will be constantly reminded of what he has done. They will be constantly be reminded of the glory he deserves.

And there will always be a right way and a wrong way to respond to what we hear.

Both the right way and the wrong way are present in this psalm. We see the wrong way described in the second half—it is unbelief. And it’s scary, how easily unbelief can creep in, without our even being aware of it. How easy is it for us to listen to a sermon, or listen to Scripture being read aloud, and barely register the words, and feel nothing? How easy is it to hear the Bible itself—the Word of God—read aloud, and in the back of our minds have a voice that says, “Yeah, I don’t know.” We’d never say it out loud, but it happens all the time.

So here is why the two halves of this psalm fit together so perfectly. I said earlier that there are two reasons why we sing. The first is that we sing because God deserves it; that’s what we saw in the first half of the psalm. The second reason why we sing is because singing together in gathered worship to God is a weapon against unbelief. That’s what we see in the second half, and that is why this warning is given.

So here’s the question: how do we protect ourselves from unbelief? How do we protect ourselves from hardness of heart?

We sing the way he told us to in v. 1-7. If you’ve got the story of Israel in the back of your minds when you read the beginning of this psalm, you see that the psalmist is reminding us of everything the Israelites forgot: that God is a great God, that he is sovereign over all creation, and that he cares for his people, as a shepherd cares for his sheep.

So there is a way to sing that feeds our faith, that feeds our affections for God, that protects us from unbelief and hardness of heart.

I thought long and hard about how to describe this way we are called to sing, but in community group this week one of our members put it perfectly: he said that this psalm is an invitation to worship actively. Most of us, when we worship, are very passive. We let the words come up on the screen, and we sing along when the people leading worship show us when to sing.

But that’s a far cry from the way the psalmist calls us to sing. He says, “Make a joyful noise to the Lord”—he doesn’t just say, “Make noise.” He says, “Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving”—he doesn’t just say, “Come into his presence.” He says, “Let us worship and bow down”—he doesn’t just say, “Get on your knees.”

He’s inviting us to make a choice: to expose ourselves to the revelation of who God is, and to remind ourselves, actively, that God should make us joyful; that we should be thankful; that we should be awed and humbled by his power.

God wants us to worship in a way that makes us feel something. A video went sort of viral a few months ago; it showed John Piper reading a prayer that was written by ChatGPT. It was a beautiful prayer, in which the gospel was elaborately laid out. After reading the prayer, he asked the crowd, “Is this worship?” And then he answered with a resounding “NO.” Why? Because computers can formulate words better than we can, but they don’t feel anything. A computer can make noise, but it can’t be joyful. It can’t be thankful. It can’t be humble.

That is the exclusive domain of creatures who were made in the image of God and who are moved to love and affection when we remind ourselves in song of who God is and why he has been so good to us.

So think about this (and I’ll close): when you sing, how do you sing? I’m not talking about how loud you are, or whether you raise your hands, or whether or not you clap; those things will vary greatly from person to person. I’m talking about what you feel when you sing. When you sing to God, do you think about what you’re singing? When you sing to God, are you aware that you’re singing to God? When a song calls you to be joyful, are you reminding yourself of why you should be joyful? Are you allowing yourself to be reminded by the song, and by your brothers and sisters around you, why you should be thankful? Why you should be humble?

We sing because we need what our corporate worship provides. We need more fuel for our souls than “Happy Birthday” or “We Are the Champions” provide. We sing together because singing together gives us the opportunity to feed right affections for God in ourselves—joy, and thankfulness, and humility, and many others. And we sing because when we expose ourselves to the truth of who God is, we strengthen our faith; we protect ourselves against unbelieving hearts that will, eventually, lead us away from him.

So let us sing actively. Let us sing consciously. Let us sing with feeling. He deserves it, and we need it.