I used to work with someone who said almost every day, “Your strength is your weakness.” For example, some people are very stubborn. They refuse to budge on their view of things, and they won’t try something new. Stubbornness is a weakness. But people who are stubborn can also be stalwart. Someone who is stalwart is loyal and reliable. If you ask a stalwart person to help you for a day, they will be there. Unfortunately, if their stubborn side reveals itself, you’ll end up doing it their way.

Of, as another example, we might meet someone who is disorganized, seemingly unable to make a decision and always living in a bit of a mess. That same person is probably also very creative and has the ability to think outside the box. Don’t let that kind of person take minutes at a committee meeting, but listen carefully to them as they come up with new ways of thinking about things. They may not be organized enough to be able to carry through with their ideas, but their ideas usually will be very novel and helpful.

When in a job interview, the potential employer will often ask, “What are your strengths?” Most people who are applying for a job have thought this through carefully enough, and they are able to give a clear summary of what they are good at. This same question is usually followed up by, “And what are your weaknesses?” We are less inclined to want to list those, and the interviewee may struggle. Perhaps the best answer he/she could give is, “I am not only dependable, but I can be a little stubborn.” Or, “I am able to think creatively, but I can’t always implement my ideas.” A good employer will appreciate the candidate’s strengths but will also understand that these same strengths can become a problem if not recognized and used effectively.

When I was in university, I took a course in which we filled out a survey which resulted in a strengths profile. We spent a couple of class periods talking about what we had discovered, and I quickly realized that I was fairly unique among my classmates. As the professor talked to us about our various profiles, he spoke of people of my type of profile in a fairly negative way. I went home rather dispirited because I felt that God had given me strengths that he could not use. I struggled with this for a few hours, and when I returned to class, I challenged the professor who continued to disparage my strength type, for I felt that he was concentrating the weaknesses of who I am rather than on the strengths. I don’t know if he heard my challenge, but I do know that I learned to accept myself for who I am, at least a little more. True, I don’t have the personality or strengths that pastors normally have, but I have something that God can use in his church.

We often talk about how the Holy Spirit has given gifts to all those who believe in Jesus. There is no believer who has nothing to offer. We would say, further, that all the gifts necessary for a local congregation to fulfill its calling are already present. God always equips a congregation to do the work that he calls it to do, and thus we can say with confidence that Nobleford CRC has all the gifts necessary to carry out the ministry that God has called us to. At the same time, we recognize that our strengths, among them the gifts of the Holy Spirit, can become our weaknesses. The very strengths that God has given me can also be used for harm, for the devil likes to take what God has made good and turn it toward evil. Thus, we would have to admit that all the gifts that God has given to us are not always used as they should be. As a result, the church does not always fulfill its calling.

This is precisely why we need each other. Again, because each of us has gifts, we need each other because none of us has all the gifts. But we also need each other to help us grow in the use of the gifts and strengths that we have. A stubborn person needs others around them to encourage them when the are stalwart and challenge them when they are digging in their heels. A creative person can make our church more beautiful but may need to be encouraged to keep working at the task at hand. We all have gifts, but we don’t always use those gifts as best we could, so we need others to help us grow.

It can be our tendency to notice others more when they use their gifts and strengths inappropriately and criticize them for their failings. We would do well if we could see how someone’s weaknesses can also become their greatest strengths and appreciate each other for how God made us. Further, we should always expect that as time passes, if we continue to rely on the Lord, we will grow in our strengths and our weaknesses will become less and less obvious. After all, the Holy Spirit not only gives us gifts that we can use, but he also causes us to grow in faithfulness. So, let’s be thankful for stubborn people, not because they’re stubborn but because we can be sure that as they grow in Christ, they will be the stalwart people our church needs.

In a few weeks, God willing, we will celebrate public Profession of Faith. A number of people have been taking the Profession of Faith class and most, if not all, will be standing before the congregation and they will be professing their faith. Profession of Faith is celebrated as an important step in the faith journey of baptized members of our congregation.

But what is Profession of Faith, and where does it come from? A formal profession of faith before the congregation is not commanded by Scripture, nor do we see any examples of professions of faith in the Bible itself. The closest biblical references we have to professions of faith are the adult baptisms of those who had not grown up in the church but had come to faith in Jesus Christ when they heard the gospel preached. The Ethiopian eunuch of Acts 8 is one such example of someone who came to faith in Jesus Christ and, upon his profession, was baptized by Philip. In churches where infants are not baptized, adult baptism takes the place of profession of faith. In churches which do baptize infants, profession of faith, or something similar, has become standard practice.

As is often the case with the practices of Protestant churches such as the CRC, much of what we do has its roots in the older church which gave rise to ours, the church we now call the Roman Catholic Church (RCC). At the time of the Protestant Reformation, the European church which was centred in Rome had seven sacraments, baptism and confirmation among them. Confirmation arises out of baptism.

Roman Catholics teach that it is nearly impossible for someone to be saved if they are not baptized. Their logic is as follows: to be saved, one must believe the gospel, namely that Jesus died to forgive us our sins. The church has been entrusted with the message of the gospel and calls people to believe. Baptism is the means by which one enters the church and so can hear the gospel. Thus, we have this progression: baptism gives one entry into the church where the gospel is preached and it is through the preaching of the gospel that one comes to faith and so are saved. Thus, Roman Catholics would say that without baptism there cannot be salvation. Baptism is a gracious act God administered by the church by which it is conferred upon the individual the ability to hear the gospel and so believe.

In the Roman Catholic tradition, confirmation, also a sacrament in the RCC, follows naturally upon baptism. As the church, with the help of the parents, teaches baptized children to put their trust in Jesus, it is expected that the children will come to faith. When that child (who must be at least 7 years old) is able to say that he/she is ready to renounce the world and follow Jesus, believing that his death on the cross is God’s gracious act of salvation, that child is confirmed. In the ceremony the bishop (very occasionally the local priest), after hearing a profession of faith, confirms that the one before him has been granted eternal life and then confers upon that person the gifts of the Holy Spirit. According to the liturgy of confirmation, the Holy Spirit is given to the individual to be their Helper and Guide so that they can live with wisdom, courage, and reverence.

To summarize, in the RCC at baptism the church confers upon a child the ability and opportunity to believe and at confirmation, the church confers upon the ones who believe the ability to live their lives as faithful followers of Jesus Christ. Both baptism and confirmation, thus, are acts of the church through which God graciously brings his people to faith and faithfulness.

There is much that is right and good in the Roman Catholic teaching, but the Reformers did not agree with these teachings entirely. We who adhere to the teachings of the Reformers (Calvin, in particular) understand things a little differently.

First, baptism is not a means by which God brings us into his church. Rather, to use the language of both the Heidelberg Catechism and the Belgic Confession, through baptism we are received into Christ’s church, meaning that the church recognizes and welcomes the person being baptized as being part of God’s church either through faith in Jesus Christ or because they are born into a family of believers for, as Paul says, children of believers are holy. Thus, baptism recognizes what God has already done. It is God who confers upon individuals a place in his church, and the church recognizes what God has done. While the Roman Catholic teaching says that it is the church which has been given the right to confer upon a person the ability and opportunity to be saved, Reformation churches attribute this work to God.

Like the RCC, Reformation churches teach that we all need to believe in Jesus to be saved. When a person comes to faith (be they young or old), they are affirming and accepting that not only has Jesus died for sinners, but he has also died for “me” as a sinner. In other words, as we grow older, we are all required to believe in Jesus in order to be saved. We also believe that at the moment one becomes part of God’s family, the Holy Spirit is already living in them, giving them the ability to live faithfully. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are given to all God’s covenant children, young and old, and they do not need to be conferred upon an individual by the church. Again, while the RCC sees itself as being called to confer upon the believer God’s gracious gifts, the Reformation churches teach that it is God who acts directly in the lives of people, without the necessity of the medial role of the church. Thus, instead of practicing confirmation which is an act of the church, Reformation churches have adopted the practice of Profession of Faith.

In Profession of Faith an individual is given the opportunity to express publicly that they affirm and accept God’s gracious promises made to them in baptism. Profession of Faith is an opportunity to testify to what has already happened and should not be viewed as a life-changing experience. Profession of Faith is simply a public announcement that “This is what God has done in my life through Jesus Christ.” Further, it is an opportunity for an individual to say, “And I am publicly announcing that with the help of the Holy Spirt, I will live for Jesus.” And, importantly, in Profession of Faith, those professing their faith also make a formal commitment to the church to which they already belong, asking that the church hold them accountable in life and faith.

Reformation churches have abandoned the rite of confirmation and have, instead, adopted the practice of public Profession of Faith. We have also abandoned the idea that something “happens” to the individual at their Profession of Faith. We don’t look for a change in a person’s life, but, rather, we celebrate the change that has already taken place. When we hear the profession of God’s children, we should be filled with a spirit of wonder and awe that God has again been faithful to fulfill his promises. The Faith Formation Committee of the CRC has said that perhaps one public Profession of Faith is not enough. The committee suggests that our professions should happen often and regularly. But perhaps they already do, as we profess our faith using the words of the Apostles’ Creed. Should we not be filled with a spirit of wonder and awe when we again testify that our Triune God has saved us into the covenant community.

In 1934 the Christian Reformed Church made a radical departure from what it had been doing for centuries: it gave permission for churches to sing hymns in public worship. Let me give a brief history:

• 1957 – The Christian Reformed Church was established in North America when several hundred people separated themselves form the Reformed Church of America. The CRC, at that time, consisted of almost entirely Dutch-speaking people, and they used the Dutch Psalter (containing versions of the Psalms set to Genevan tunes). A few other songs found in Scripture were also included in the psalter, for example, The Song of Mary.
• 1914 – As English became more common in the CRC congregations, the denomination adopted an English Psalter which had been developed by the United Presbyterian Churches. For the first time in North America, singing in public worship was heard in English. Outside of the worship service, hymns were sung regularly, but in church only psalms were permitted.
• 1934 – The CRC developed its own songbook, and for the first time, hymns were included. Hymns were not based on the psalms but, rather, were written by Christians praising God using their own words. The argument was made that these hymns were suitable expressions of our praise for God and they gave opportunity for believers to express their faith in contemporary ways. Hymns celebrating the Christian year were also included, and thus Christmas and Easter hymns became part of the worship services in the CRC. This first Psalter Hymnal is known as “The Old Red Psalter Hymnal.”
• 1959 – Two years after the CRC 100^th anniversary, a new Psalter Hymnal, a blue book, was produced, expanding the number of hymns available for churches to sing.
• 1987 – Another new Psalter Hymnal was produced, the Grey Psalter Hymnal, and it made some more changes. Unlike the previous red and blue Psalter Hymnals which contained several renditions of many of the Psalms, the Grey Psalter Hymnal included one rendition of each psalm and, if there was more, it included them, not in the psalter section of the book but later, scattered among the hymns.
• 2013 – Together with the Reformed Church of America, the CRC produced a new songbook which contains renditions of all 150 psalms, but they are scattered throughout the book. Unlike the previous songbooks, this one is not called a Psalter Hymnal but, rather, is given its name: Lift Up Your Hearts: Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs. It is the longest of all the songbooks, and it includes a number of more contemporary songs.

This latest songbook may be the last produced by the CRC. Today, almost all churches project the words of the song onto a screen and few pick up the songbook with the exception, perhaps, of those who read music and enjoy singing in harmony. Many churches in the CRC today select their Sunday worship music from websites such as Song Select which contains thousands of Christian songs both old and new. More are added each week. A new songbook is unlikely to be perceived as necessary or desirable by many congregations.

There are advantages to being able to choose songs from the Internet. There are many beautiful songs which express biblical truths very well, and they have become a blessing to many. Singing only from a songbook, as was done in the past, limits the options for congregational singing, and may prevent believers from expressing their praise to God in ways that are meaningful to them.

But there are concerns as well. When the CRC published a songbook, it did so under the guidance of theologians who carefully evaluated the lyrics of each song to ensure that they were true to Scripture. Sometimes they would change a few words to make them more appropriate. One example of such a change can be found in the beautiful song, Amazing Love. The chorus originally contained the words, “That you, my God, should die for me,” but that is theologically incorrect, for God did not die. One word was changed, and now the line reads, “That you, my Lord, should die for me,” making it biblically sound.

Not so long ago, when musicians chose songs for public worship, if they were not included in one of the official denominational songbooks, before they were sung in church, the elders would evaluate the song to ensure that it was theologically correct. Usually this work was passed off to the pastor, but eventually that requirement was dropped altogether. Today, in most churches, songs are chosen by musicians who may or may not be theologically trained.

This concern was raised already in 1934 in the Foreword of the Old Red Psalter Hymnal, and I quote:

We were aware of the unsound or unsatisfactory character of many current hymns, and we feared that in an environment where the Psalms are seldom sung, the introduction of hymns in public worship would lead to the neglect of these deeply spiritual songs of the Old Testament which the Church should never fail to use in its service of praise.

Nevertheless, in spite of this concern, the denomination proceeded to produce a songbook which included songs not found in Scripture, but it was careful to ensure that those songs were biblically rooted.

We rarely sing psalms in church anymore and when we do, we are probably not aware that we are doing so. The old Genevan tunes don’t connect with us, and we find them difficult and even a little boring. Our experience and attitude is not unique, for others feel the same. And some are doing something about it. There has been a resurgence of the desire to sing psalms again, and some talented young musicians are setting the old psalms to new music. Interestingly, they have discovered that some of the old Genevan tunes had their roots in famous composers like Beethoven and Bach, and they are going back to those old tunes and reworking them to give them a modern feel. There is a lot of work to be done, but we can look forward to singing the beautiful biblical songs again but in ways that are new and vibrant and edifying.

In the meantime, we have many songs by which we can express our praise to God. Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs give us an opportunity to praise God for all that he has done.

I have had a few experiences that I will not forget. About a year ago, I had one of them, and it has become a fond memory. It involves four people: Ken, Cliff, and a guy of about 30 whose name I cannot remember. I’ll call him Craig.

Ken had invited me to go with him to look at a new pulpit, baptismal font and communion table at a church in another town, the town where I had grown up. He had supplied the wood from a maple tree he had cut down and sawn into boards. My brother had built the furniture, and I wanted to see the finished produce. Ken is in his early 70s, a farmer whose family has been in Canada for a couple of hundred years. He was a member of my former church. Ken lives with his wife in a small cabin in the woods, a beautiful spot if you like that kind of thing. They have four children and a bunch of grandchildren but no great grandchildren, yet.

Ken had invited Cliff to join us for the excursion. I knew Cliff from years back when he as an English teacher at the high school I attended. While I would classify Ken as being a big guy, Cliff was the opposite. Cliff is quite short, compared to Ken and me. Cliff lives in an old farmhouse in the country and, as far as I know, never married. Cliff had the unique ability to gather people together to display their various talents, and how he found people in the community who could sing, play instruments, and generally entertain the rest of us, I don’t know, but he knew them and gave them an opportunity to share their gifts with others. He used just about any excuse to hold a talent show – a random birthday, anniversary of his retirement, etc. – and he would pack the hall with people from the community. When I knew him as a teacher, I did not know that he was a Christian, but he is. Cliff joined us for the excursion because he simply enjoys that kind of thing, and since he cannot drive anymore, he depends on others to get out and about.

The third individual to join us was Craig. I knew Craig’s parents from years back, but I didn’t know him. Craig had grown up in a Christian home, but he had a bit of a rough patch. He lived on the street for a time, but he had since found a permanent residence in the town we were visiting. Craig had tattoos and body piercings, reminders of his former days. They remained an expression of his identity. Craig did not join us for the excursion, but we picked him up at the local Walmart. From the way he looked, I would not have identified him as Cliff’s friend, but they were obviously close.

And then there was me, a pastor of Dutch descent, living a fairly conservative life in rural Ontario. I was along for the ride. More accurately, I acted as the driver, so perhaps the others were along for the ride.

After we picked Craig up, we went to a local restaurant for supper. After we ordered, I was about to suggest that we pray before the food arrived, but before I could get to it, Cliff said to Craig, “Why don’t you ask for a blessing on the food?” We bowed our heads together and this tattooed, pierced, 30-year old man who had lived rough, prayed the most beautiful prayer, thanking God for his provision, and asking for his blessings on our lives. I should note that I expected that I would be praying for the meal, being I was the pastor and people seem to expect that of me. Cliff was wiser and he chose the right person to lead us in prayer, and I was blessed, and God was glorified.

As we ate, we talked among ourselves, and I learned something about what living on the street means. I also gained some insight into the graffiti that we find on train cars that are loaded with grain and fertilizer. Craig was familiar with some of the artists who take it upon themselves to paint these cars. He himself was also an artist and perhaps his art has crossed the Lethbridge tressel at one time or another. During our meal, a woman approached our table and she acted like she knew us. We talked with her for a while, and all of us assumed that she knew one of us. She didn’t, and we don’t know why she picked us to have a conversation with, but she did, and it was pleasant.

As we spent time together, I could not help but marvel at the picture we must have presented to those around us. We sat together, an 80-year old retired teacher, a 70-year old retired farmer, a 55-year old pastor and a 30-year old tattooed and pierced former street person. Anyone seeing us would have wondered what brought us together.

Of all the meals I have shared over the years, this is one I will not forget. The food was no more than average, and the restaurant is not memorable. But the company was excellent. And what brought us together was an opportunity to view a newly built pulpit, communion table and baptismal font in a church none of us attended. But you would not know that from looking at us.

Circumstances brought us together, but what made the meal great was our common faith. All of us believed that it is by God’s grace that we are saved through Jesus Christ. Our life journeys were radically different, but our common faith made us brothers in the Lord. And while we may have all started in different places and had very different experiences, our destination is the same. I don’t expect I’ll sit at the table with the four of us again while here on this earth, but perhaps in heaven, we’ll share a meal together once more. And just as Jesus was present among us then, so he will be present among us on that day as well.

My advice: if you are invited to look at some newly built church furniture (or some other seemingly random reason to take an excursion), take a few hours out of your day and do so. Maybe God will give you an experience you will be stamped into your memory.

Some years ago, I attended a church service in which the speaker spent about half an hour refuting the “L” or TULIP, “Limited Atonement.” (In case you are unfamiliar with them, TULIP is an acronym which makes it easier to remember the five points of Calvinism. If you don’t know what they are, I encourage you to look it up.) Without going into any detail, what the speaker did was give a rather distorted version of what “Limited Atonement” is and then went on to say what it wasn’t biblical. I agreed with him that his version of Limited Atonement wasn’t biblical because what he had said Limited Atonement was is not what it is. He would have had a much more difficult time refuting Limited Atonement had he actually defined it correctly.

A few decades ago, several well-respected theologians in the Christian Reformed Church engaged in a conversation with some Roman Catholic theologians to talk about Lord’s Day 80 of the Heidelberg Catechism, the one that calls the Roman Catholic mass a “condemnable idolatry.” In their conversations, the Roman Catholics stated quite clearly that the way the Heidelberg Catechism describes the Roman Catholic mass is incorrect. The Roman Catholic theologians said that if what the catechism said was what the Roman Catholic Church taught, they too could agree that the mass is a condemnable idolatry. “But that is not what we believe or teach,” they said. As a result, the Christian Reformed Church, while not removing the suspect statements in the Catechism, did bracket them and place a footnote under them saying what they are incorrect and we should make ourselves aware that they have misrepresented Roman Catholic teaching.

What I have just described are two examples of a “straw man argument.” A “straw man argument” is one in which we distort or weaken another’s position so that we can argue against it. By misrepresenting someone else’s beliefs or teachings, we can easily refute them and quickly condemn them. Arguing against someone after first distorting their belief is called “attacking a straw man.”

It’s a fairly apt description. If we take a bunch of straw and pack it into Samuel’s clothing and we put Samuel’s face on our creation, we are building a straw man. We might name that straw man “Samuel,” and we might then proceed to attack it with bayonets, saying that we are “killing Samuel.” Of course, we aren’t killing Samuel, for the straw man is not Samuel. We are making ourselves look foolish if we continue to say that we are attacking Samuel.

When we do this is a debate situation, the same thing happens. Instead of accurately representing Samuel’s position, we create one that looks a lot like Samuel’s position but is missing some significant components. It is easy to attack Samuel’s position because it is not what Samuel said. The problem is this: while it is easy to see the difference between a straw man and the real Samuel, it is often harder to see that the argument presented is not Samuel’s but, rather, a misrepresentation of Samuel’s argument. We might be inclined to join in the attack against Samuel’s argument and so attack Samuel himself. Unless someone points out that what we are attacking is not Samuel’s argument but a fictitious misrepresentation, Samuel’s credibility will be destroyed.

Sometimes within the Christian church, we cannot be bothered to spend the time to develop a misrepresentation of another’s argument so that we can more easily refute them, so we simply use a short cut and label them as “liberal.” In many circles, that label is enough to destroy someone’s credibility immediately. In calling someone a “liberal” without having taken the time to hear what they have to say, we have created a straw man, and we feel that we can attack that individual without hesitation because, after all, we don’t want liberals to ruin the church. Naming someone as a liberal without ever really engaging them in conversation is the most egregious form of a straw man argument, at least in our circles.

As Christians who seek truth, we should recoil in horror at the very idea of setting up and attacking a straw man. Not only will we eventually look foolish, but we may even destroy the reputation and integrity of one of God’s children. That goes against the very core of who we are.

It is true that there will be people we disagree with and sometimes we disagree on very important points. However, before we write them off a “liberal,” the most egregious straw man argument or misrepresent them by distorting their argument, we must first listen carefully so that we understand. In fact, we have not listened well enough if we cannot accurately reproduce their argument. It is only then that we can give answer to what they believe, carefully using Scripture to guide us in our refutation of their argument. This whole process can be rather frightening, for we might find that when we truly understand someone’s position, we might find that we have to change our own. None of us does that easily. But, if we are going to be people of integrity and honesty, we cannot set up straw men and attack them so that we are never challenged in our beliefs. There is also the real possibility that when we engage people in their beliefs, and if their beliefs do not align with Scripture, we can bring them around. But that will only work if we have honest discussions and are willing to listen first.

It was difficult for me to listen to the speaker who attacked Limited Atonement by first misrepresenting it. As someone who holds to the five points of Calvinism, I wanted him to represent what I believe fairly so that I could hear his argument against it. Because he built a straw man first, I found that I could not engage him in conversation. I found myself frustrated and even a little angry because what I believe was misrepresented, and if I had announced that I believed in the doctrine of Limited Atonement, I would have been condemned as believing a non-biblical teaching.

The CRC was right in listening to the Roman Catholic theologians. And it is good that a few lines are bracketed and noted that they do not inaccurately describe someone else’s supposed position. While the CRC might not agree with the Roman Catholic position on other things, at least on this one, we are being honest.

Being honest does not weaken our position; it strengthens it. If we have integrity, we will be able to have good discussions with others, and, most likely, we will all become more aligned with the teachings of Scripture. If we set up straw men and attack them, we will never help those who we perceive are straying, and we will look foolish in the process.

A couple of years ago a friend was building a house, and before he started framing, he ordered his windows and doors because he was told that it would take about four months for them to arrive. The lag between demand and supply has increased significantly over the past few years, and what we normally could buy off the shelf or wait a few days to obtain it now takes weeks or even months. Thankfully, things are beginning to become “normal” again and we find that supply is not lagging as long behind demand as it used to.

We might call this delay a gap between expectations and actions. We have certain expectations (how long it takes to obtain windows for our house, how long we have to wait in line to get the hamburger we ordered, etc.), and if the length of time exceeds our expectation, we can become irritated. When another’s actions fail to meet our expectations, our frustration level grows. We may even lose faith in them.

In the Bible there is sometimes a gap between our expectations and God’s actions. One story that has puzzled me is the story of the Saul and David. In 1 Samuel 15 the prophet Samuel, tells Saul that God has rejected him as king. In the next chapter, Samuel anoints David to be the next king of Israel. What is puzzling and even a little troubling is that it takes another 20 years for Saul’s reign to end (he was 72 years old) and David’s to begin. If God had told Saul that he had rejected him as king, why did he let him reign for another 20 years? Our expectation is that when God says he is going to do something, he should do it, and he shouldn’t procrastinate.

Another example of God’s seemingly delayed activity could be seen in Psalm 13, a psalm of David. There David laments: “How long will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? . . . How long will my enemy triumph over me?” We don’t know when David writes this psalm, but it could well have been in those years between his anointing and his coronation, for it was during those years that Saul tried to kill him. Clearly David is frustrated by God’s seemingly slow action, for he feels that the oppression will never end. If God doesn’t act, the psalm continues, David feels that he might be killed. We can understand his frustration at God’s seeming inactivity.

The most obvious example of God’s seemingly slow action can be seen in the delayed return of Jesus. There is strong indication that the early church was also a little confused about Jesus’ return, for when he ascended into heaven, it did seem that his return would be imminent. True, during those early years the church grew rapidly, but so did its suffering. During times of severe persecution, it is not hard to believe that our brothers and sisters felt very much in tune with David’s sentiments in Psalm 13: “How long, Lord, will you forget us forever?” If the early church had known that this world would still be carrying on 2000 years later, they might have been quite surprised. There truly is a very large gap between their expectations and God’s actions. The gap is so large that today we scarcely give thought to Jesus’ return. It’s almost as if it won’t happen. (We know Jesus will return, but we don’t think about it that much.)

We may feel that gap between our expectations and God’s actions in our own lives. We pray for the salvation of a loved one, but it doesn’t happen as quickly as we might expect. We ask God for healing, but instead of being healed overnight, it takes years. We pray for God to open doors, but no doors open, and we remain feeling trapped in our current lives.

These gaps between our expectations and God’s action can leave us feeling frustrated, and we might even lose some faith in God. Our cry may also be, “How long, Lord, before you do something?” but God doesn’t seem to answer or even give us a reason.

It would be helpful to know the reason for the delay. When we order windows and the lead time doesn’t meet our expectations, we can usually discover why. Perhaps the supply of raw product (plastic for the injection molding machines) has been delayed, and we discover that they reason for the delay is that a ship has turned sideways in the Suez Canal (as happened a couple of years ago). Or we might learn that the plant that makes the windows we ordered had a fire and production had been paused for a couple of months as repairs were made. When we discover the reasons behind the delay, we might retain our trust and not become quite so frustrated.

God, however, does not always reveal to us the reasons he does not act immediately. We are never told why Saul reigned another 20 years before he was removed from the throne. We don’t know why Jesus hasn’t returned. We don’t know why God doesn’t heal us or turn a loved one back to himself. We can speculate, but we have to remember that any guess we have might be wrong. We cannot know.

In Psalm 13 David doesn’t receive any answers. He frets about his situation, and he cries out to God, but it does not seem as if there is any answer forthcoming. Yet, in verse 5, David says this, “But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation.” The word that is translated as “unfailing love” is often understood as “committed love” or “covenantal love.” What David trusts is that God’s love for him is not based on emotion or circumstance. God had made a commitment to David, and God would keep it. Of this David was absolutely sure. And that allows him to end the psalm with praise as he says that God has been good to him even though he hasn’t received what he asked for.

David doesn’t receive reprieve from his enemies. He doesn’t receive an explanation from God as to why there was a delay. He doesn’t even get a timeline, telling him when things would change for the better. But what he does have is the assurance that God loved him and would give him what he needed. How that would happen and when it would happen, he did not know. But God still loved him.

When God’s actions don’t meet our expectations, it is frustrating. But David instructs us by his example that in spite of what we experience and know, God’s love remains steadfast, and he will take care of things in his way and in his own time. Our response is simple: trust God that he will do what he will and leave it in his hands.

Some time ago I read an article in which philanthropic activity was considered to be the opposite of running a business. Philanthropy (literally the love of humanity) is often viewed as “giving money to good causes.” Philanthropy is much more than that, of course, for any action we take which helps others is included in the definition of the word. Nevertheless, most philanthropy involves giving money to help fellow human beings.

Many philanthropists were at one time successful in business. Quite often a philanthropist has sold his/her business for a very large sum of money, and they commit themselves to philanthropy (giving to good causes) for the rest of their lives. The perspective seems to be that when they were in business, their goal was to make a profit but after they sold their business, their goal was to give that profit away. I think it is often fair to say that running a successful business to make a profit and philanthropy (loving fellow human beings) are seen as incompatible. True, many successful business owners give a substantial amount of money to “good causes,” and we can be thankful for that, but it would seem that the business can only be successful if it focuses on profit rather than philanthropy. It would seem that the common perception is that philanthropy (the love of humanity) is possible because of good business practices, but good business practices don’t work well if they have philanthropy built into them.

One example of this separation of business and philanthropy could be found in a seed company which developed a seed with what was called a terminator gene. The terminator gene in a plant resulted in crops (e.g. soybeans) being unable to reproduce themselves. Thus, a farmer who saved some seed from one year to plant the next would be unable to do so, for the seeds he saved would not germinate. This may not have been a big deal for farmers in Canada, but for many subsistence farmers in poorer regions of the world, this was devastating. They are in the habit of saving seed from this year to plant next year, and the added cost of having to buy new seed each year would result in a net loss every year. The company which had developed this terminator gene spoke about its increased profits and bragged about how they were using those profits to help feed poor people, but their boasts seemed hollow. Providing help for farmers who had been impoverished by company policy hardly seems philanthropic.

Another example may be planned obsolescence in many of the products we buy. If we buy a fridge, for example, we can expect that it will run for 5-7 years without defect. When it does break down, we discover that the replacement parts are expensive, and we may even discover that they are unavailable to the consumer and must be installed only by a certified technician. Or, as we may have experienced, parts are glued into place (rather than held in place by screws) so that they cannot be replaced and the consumer must buy a new machine. These are deliberate ploys used by companies to increase sales and thus also profitability. The companies advertise their products in such a way to imply that the consumer will be satisfied with their purchase, but are doing so only to gain a greater market share. Sadly, while the company may be more profitable, humanity does not feel loved.

As Christians, we are called to love our neighbours as ourselves. (Jesus could well have said that he expects us to be philanthropists, lovers of humanity.) It is a challenge to do so in our current climate, one that seems to be run by profit margins and return on investments. If the principles by which we make decisions are for our own profit and we assuage our guilt by giving to good causes, are we truly obeying Jesus’ weighty command? Are we being truly philanthropic? To be philanthropic is to obey the second of the two great commandments (loving our neighbours), and we must ask if we can do that in all areas of life.

I am not a businessperson, so I don’t know the challenges of making a business viable in today’s economy. Certainly, there must be a way for a business to run on the principle of philanthropy while still being profitable or else God would not call Christians to become businesspeople. Still, even while he issues that call, he does expect that those who heed that call do so against the background of the second great philanthropic command to love our neighbours as ourselves. (Loving our neighbour as ourselves means that we seek to ensure our neighbours have what we provide for ourselves.)

I am not a businessperson, but I am under the obligation to be philanthropic in all areas of my life. That means that my concern for others is at least as great as my concern for myself, and it means that I provide for others what I also provide for myself. That might not pencil out very well, but, of course, God’s accounting practices are not always ours. His don’t make sense on paper, or so we are told, because we have to look out for ourselves and our own viability and profitability first or else we cannot be philanthropic. Yet, we have to trust that when God says that he will look after us so that we can love others that somehow it will work out. To love our neighbours as ourselves means that everything we do is guided by philanthropy rather than profitability. We love our neighbours, and we leave the profit (that which benefits us) up to God. That must be true not only in business but in our personal lives as well for it seems to be one of the primary ways we respond to God’s grace to us.

Some years ago, when taking a seminar on the biblical teaching about marriage, the teacher asked this question: Which couple in the Bible had the best marriage? He listed a couple of parameters: we read about them interacting as husband and wife as they planned together, and together they followed through on their plan. They were unified in what they believed and what they did. We thought for a while, and we posed a few answers: Abraham and Sarah were quickly ruled out because of Hagar. (Allowing a third party into the marriage doesn’t work that well.) Someone suggested Zachariah and Elizabeth, the parents of John the Baptist. They seem to have had a good marriage, but we don’t really see them interacting as a couple. Others suggested Joseph and Mary, but, again, we don’t see them interacting as a couple.

When we had exhausted all possibilities, the teacher gave the answer: Ananias and Sapphira. We meet this couple in Acts 5 where we discover that they had agreed to sell a piece of property and donate the money to the work of the newly formed church. But, sadly, although they pretended to give all the money from that property to the work of the Lord, they had decided to keep a little back for themselves. For this sin of lying and cheating, both of them lost their lives. Yet, as marriages go, Annanias and Sapphira had a pretty good marriage in that they were united in both planning and carrying out the plan. They had a good marriage, but they did not have a good relationship with the Lord.

A few years later, after this teacher challenged me to reflect on this, in one of the churches I served we had a marriage enrichment weekend. The presenters spoke at the morning church service, basing their text on a passage from Song of Solomon in which they spoke of the beautiful relationship Solomon and his wife had. What was missing was mention that Solomon had over 700 wives and 300 concubines (women he slept with but to whom he was not married). On the way out of church, two people gave a one-line response to what they had heard that morning, “Which one?” They were rather cynical about the message that had been given, for Solomon does not seem to be the best example of someone who has a good marriage.

The point that the teacher of the marriage seminar who challenged us about biblical examples of good marriages (there are very few, if any), wanted us to think about the greatness of our God. Isn’t it amazing, he said, that throughout the 4000 years of post-flood biblical history, that the people were so sinful and yet God accomplished great things through them? It truly is amazing. I doubt that we would let Abraham or David, and certainly not Solomon become members of our church, but that didn’t stop God from advancing redemptive history anyway.

I am not advocating that we allow every kind of person, no matter how sinful, to be part of our church. There is no doubt that God has given us excellent and clear instruction about what marriage should look like: a lifelong commitment made before God and his people between a man and a woman. That is the biblical definition of marriage, and we are obligated to follow it, and if we don’t we are, in essence, ignoring God’s will. When people refuse to do as God commands, we must say something about their lifestyle, and, if they are unrepentant, we must they should not be members in good standing in any church. We must make it our goal to develop marriages that honour God, but we do so from biblical teaching, not biblical example, for there are few biblical examples of marriages that we would classify as being appropriate and proper.

The point of these paragraphs is not to criticize marriages of the Bible, and it is not to help us understand what good marriages are. Rather, the point is that we marvel at God’s ability to accomplish salvation history through sinful people.

Samson is another case in point. We can’t point to him as a good example for us all, for not only was his marriage rotten, but much of what he did was badly tainted by sin. Samson is the last of the judges (leaders of God’s people) in that book, and he the worst of them all. God didn’t have much to work with in Samson, but he still used him to bring relief from oppression through the defeat of the Philistines. God sometimes has to use pretty broken tools, but the amazing thing is that he can bring salvation through brokenness and in spite of brokenness.

Last week I wrote about competency, urging us to become competent, experienced Christians bur recognizing that when we are incompetent the Holy Spirit can still use us. This week the topic is somewhat the same but with a bit different perspective. Even if we are poor tools (pliers, duct tape, and WD40 are not the best tools with which we fix a car), God can still build his kingdom. And this should give us confidence in God.

We cannot doubt that there were good marriages in biblical times, marriages which we might want to emulate. We cannot doubt that there were good and faithful people who lived in joyful obedience to the Lord all the days of their lives. But the Bible does not put them forward as examples of how we should live so that God can build his kingdom through us. The Bible presents to us people who are sometimes grossly sinful but are still used by God.

Again, that does not give us the right to sin just so that we can see how powerful God is. But we can see how powerful God is when we consider what he has to work with. In Canada, at present, the church seems to be waning and there are many within the church who are unfaithful, but that should not make us think for a moment that God’s hands are tied. They aren’t, and he will continue to bring people to himself in spite of who we are and how we live rather than because of who we are and how we live. For that reason, we can continue with confidence, seeking to serve the Lord and live for him faithfully, all the while trusting that God’s will get done what needs doing. What he asks, of course, is that we be willing and not rebellious. Annanias and Sapphira wanted to appear willing but were rebellious. David appeared rebellious but was willing, and through him God accomplished great things, in spite of his sin.

Some time ago, I disputed the charges on a utility bill I had received. Because the issue was not resolved immediately, I had to make a number of phone calls, and each of those phone calls went to the same level of support staff. None of the support staff I talked to had the capability to address my claims. As I dealt with them, I came to realize that they were reading from a manual, and because what I was asking was not in the manual, they were not able to give the information that I needed nor could they make corrections to the charges. It became evident that as they referred the problem to another level of support staff, they did not communicate my concerns appropriately, and I continued to receive inadequate answers to my questions.

The longer I spoke to the support staff, the more I became convinced that their competency was based on their ability to read a manual. Sadly, they did not have the level of competency I needed to deal with my dispute of the charges. They had stock answers, but those stock answers were not based on real experience. I do not fault them for their lack of competency, but, rather, the fault lies with the ones who had trained them. To become truly competent, they would have had to have a deeper understanding of the billing process, and it was clear that they did not. In other words, experience would have helped their competency. Understanding a manual gets one only so far.

Competency is important in many areas of life, and that also includes our faith. A colleague, one who works with a Muslim community in a large Canadian citizen, is often asked to speak at a church. When asked to do so, he requests that he bring along a Muslim imam (equivalent of pastor in Islam). On the appointed day, the imam arrives and apologizes and says that the pastor is running late but that he would like to engage those in attendance in conversation because he has some questions about Christianity. With permission given, he begins to ask those in attendance what they believe and why. His questions do not require answers that demand a deep understanding of theology, but they do require a basic understanding of Christianity. It becomes quickly apparent that many Christian believers do not really know how to give answers to his questions. They prove to be somewhat incompetent. My colleague is concerned that many Christians are not fully aware of what the manual (the Bible) teaches.

About half an hour into the presentation, the imam begins to remove his Muslim garb, and it becomes evident that it is not an imam who is speaking to them but the pastor himself. In taking the role of a Muslim cleric, he is able to reveal to those gathered that they do need to know what they believe if they are going to talk about their faith with unbelievers, especially those who have questions. He emphasizes how we not only need to be ready to give an answer to those who question us on the hope that we have, but we also need to know what the answers are. In other words, we do need to exhibit more than a competency we gain from a child’s Bible story book. This pastor is convinced that most people have heard the answers at one time or another but that was during the catechism class they took as a teenager or heard in a second service in which the Heidelberg Catechism was being preached. What concerns him is that many have not used those answers in everyday life. In other words, the book learning that we once had has faded into obscurity because we have not made it part of our experience, at least not intentionally so.

In a way, those learning situations, while important, are rather like learning the vocabulary of a second language. We can learn the vocabulary and even the grammar of another language but until we put it into practice, we won’t ever be fluent. In the same way, unless we speak of the hope that we have in Jesus Christ, we might have learned the words, the facts, but we won’t have the answers. Competency comes with experience, real life experience. It comes from more than just learning how to read and quote a manual. If we are going to be competent Christians, then, we need to be living and speaking our faith. We must apply the gospel in every situation, thus making what we learned from a manual a part of our experience. We will then become competent.

But, thankfully, we are not alone. When I was a student at Reformed Bible College (now Kuyper College), one of the required courses was an evangelism course. We had to learn a method of presenting the gospel, and then we were required to partner with an evangelism committee from a church which was involved in door-to-door calling. It wasn’t a great experience for me, and I dreaded those Tuesday evenings. But one day, my partner and I were invited into the house, and my partner asked that I give the presentation of the gospel. I fumbled around, looking for the words and trying to remember the Bible verses. When I came to the part where I asked him if he wanted to accept Jesus as his Lord and Saviour, he said, “Yes, I do.” I was quite astounded, sure that he didn’t really understand what I was asking, so miserable had been my presentation of the gospel. But he was adamant: he understood, and he wanted to put his trust in Jesus, and he wanted to follow his Lord. After trying to convince him otherwise (I actually tried to dissuade him!), we prayed together, and he gave his life to Jesus.

Clearly the Holy Spirit was present that day. Thankfully he was, for I certainly did not do a competent job in talking about Jesus had done. But the Spirit was competent where I was not.

The present of the Holy Spirit ensures that even when we are weak (or maybe especially when we are weak) he is strong, and he can accomplish what we cannot do. This story I just told reminds me of how weak I am. This does not excuse us, of course, of learning and growing in our competency. To give answer to the hope that we have, we need to speak the language, and to speak the language, we have to actually live it. But we can be confident that even if we do not speak the language of the gospel clearly or proficiently, the Spirit can take what we say and make it good. For that we can be thankful. I’m guessing, however, that the Holy Spirit, though fully able to use incompetent people, would prefer that we make ourselves competent. It works a little better that way.

Recently, I believe it was in the evening service, we sang the song, Crown Him with Many Crowns. In the fourth verse of that hymn, we find these words:

A few years ago in another church, after we sang these words as a doxology, a member of the congregation approached me and said, “I sang those words, but I had no idea what I was singing.” I understood why, for there are words in that verse that we rarely, if ever, use day to day.

I didn’t know exactly what they meant, but our daughter looked them up and explained them. A “potentate” is someone who is very powerful. We get our word, “potent,” from the same Latin root word. “Sublime” is a word that we might have heard. I recall hearing it in a commercial once, perhaps to describe some sort of dessert. It tasted sublime, which means that it was absolutely wonderful. They used the word “sublime,” but they did not say “ineffably sublime.” That’s the word that gives me the most trouble, for I have never heard “ineffably” used except for in this song. Maybe back in 1851, when the song was written, Matthew Bridge, the author of the words, made a trip to the local library to find words in the thesaurus that would help him write the song. Or, more likely, they used the word, “ineffably,” more often then than we do now.

“Ineffably” means something like “in a way that causes so much emotion that we cannot put into words what we are feeling.” That phrase doesn’t fit very well into the metre of the song, so the author had to say “ineffably.” Maybe there have been times when we were so full of emotion that we could barely speak. I could say, “My feelings were ineffable when my daughter was born, and I first held her in my arms.” I didn’t have the words to express how I felt. Or, as a friend told me when he met the woman who was to become his wife, he found her so beautiful that he was beyond tongue tied. Sometimes we find ourselves unable to express our emotions because what we are experiencing is beyond description. When Matthew Bridge contemplated who Jesus is and what he has done, his emotions ran so deep that they were beyond description.

As I worked through the definition of these words, I began to see that the words, “ineffably sublime,” connect two very different ideas. The verse I quoted above speaks of Jesus being the Lord of years, meaning that there never was and never will be a time when he is not sovereign over all. He is the “potentate of time,” meaning that he has always and always will be more powerful than any other power or authority who has existed or will exist. He is the creator of the rolling spheres, not only earth but also of the planets and the stars. The incredible number of spheres located in what we call outer space is beyond our comprehension, and they were created through the one we know as Jesus. When we contemplate who Jesus is, we certainly should be in awe, for he rules over all that he has made.

But what follows the words, “ineffably sublime,” is what is truly amazing. The verse continues: All hail Redeemer hail, for you have died for me. If we had never heard the teachings of the Bible before and if we were told that the one through whom all things were created and who rules over the entirety of all that is came to this earth and died on the cross so that we could be saved, we would wonder at that. Can it really be true that God the Son, who has always existed, became the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and he did it through his death? This is what is ineffably sublime, according to the author of this song.

If we do not find this outstandingly amazing, and if this does not make us tongue-tied and if we do not feel any emotion because of what happened 2000 years ago, then we have either become so accustomed to the gospel that it has become almost humdrum, or we don’t really understand who Jesus is and what he has done. But if we do understand, and if we have taken time to contemplate what Jesus has done for us, then we can say with Matthew Bridge that our praise shall never, never fail through all eternity. When we realize for the first time or when we contemplate again the import of what God the Son did by taking on human nature and become Jesus, the Saviour, we cannot help but turn to praise, and that praise will never, never fail for we will live for all eternity.

When I was a young adult, I attended a Bible study there, and most of us there had grown up in the church. I forget what it was that we were talking about, but I do remember that the discussion had deteriorated into a rather heated theological debate about some important aspect of biblical truth. Almost all of us had grown up in the church, but one guy had recently become a Christian. After the debate had continued for some time, he, with tears in his eyes and a broken voice said to us in words something like this, “You’ve grown up knowing these truths, and they have become commonplace to you, and you argue and talk about them as if they are just points to be debated. You don’t know how wonderful the gift of God’s grace that you have experience all your life is. And you have forgotten how wonderfully amazing it is that God sent his Son to this world to die for our sins.” He couldn’t express his emotions as he contemplated what Jesus had done, but they were truly ineffable, for what Jesus did is absolutely sublime. We who had grown up knowing and trusting in Jesus were rebuked that evening, and rightly so. Sadly, when he was overcome by emotion, he left the room, and someone commented that he was over-reacting. Reflecting on this years later, I don’t think he was. He was trying to express how indescribable God’s grace is, and he wanted us to have the same emotions as well.

Jesus, the Potentate of time, Creator of the rolling spheres died for me. He is truly ineffably sublime. Our praise may never, ever fail for all eternity.