A Godward Turn

Posted on January 20, 2022 by pottsvillearp

In the Bible, we see amazing testimonies of God’s grace. One remarkable example is found in Jonah 3. Jonah ran from God, but God pursued him. In the belly of a great fish he called out to God. And Jonah is restored to his office as a prophet. And while that is a remarkable testimony of God’s grace, it is only a foretaste of what comes next.

This time Jonah follows God’s call to warn the people of Nineveh of God’s judgment. Nineveh was a city known for its wickedness and rebellion against God. Amazingly, however, God uses this message to bring about one of the Bible’s greatest revivals. From the least to the greatest, the Ninevites turn from sin and unto God.
What accounts for such a radical change? God worked through the preaching of His Word to change the hearts of the people. God was pleased to save many through the foolishness of the preached word. One of the Bible’s shortest sermons stirs even to the king of Nineveh to repent.

What is your attitude to the preaching of God’s Word? Are you receptive? Have you recognized it as the Word of God which is authoritative and powerful? Are you grateful for the grace of God in giving us His Word? This is the Word that presents to us the message of the Gospel. God has not left His people without hope or without a Word from Him.

Perhaps you wonder if God could ever receive you. The example of God’s grace to Jonah and to the people of Nineveh should give you hope. Christ has died for sinners, and the Christ that saved them is offered to you as well. Join us this Lord’s Day as we examine Jonah 3 and consider the power of God’s Word and the kindness of God which leads us to repentance.

We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship. Get directions here or contact us for more info. Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube.

Salvation Belongs to the Lord

Posted on January 13, 2022 by pottsvillearp

Herman Melville wrote of a great white whale. And in his tragic tale, the whale takes center stage. But Melville’s magnum opus pales in comparison to the tale of the prophet Jonah – swallowed alive by a great fish, then spit out three days later. Melville’s work is fiction, but the events in Jonah are real historical events. Jonah was actually swallowed up and spit out by this fish at a real time in history, yet still, the fish is not the central theme of chapter 2. Rather, the One who is central is Jonah’s God.

In the first chapter of Jonah, we see that Jonah flees from his God, but his God pursues him. God is sovereign over all things, even over His prophet who is fleeing from His commands. Jonah was called to go to the people of Nineveh but ran away–he sought to chart out his own course. But God sent a storm to rage on the sea which Jonah was attempting to use as an escape route. Jonah was tossed into the sea to cause the storm to cease from its raging. But this was not the end of Jonah.

Jonah 1:17 says, “And the LORD appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.” This fish was appointed by God to swallow up Jonah in order that Jonah would live. And in the belly of this fish, we see in chapter 2, Jonah calls out to God. In Jonah’s prayer we see the power and the sovereignty of Jonah’s God, and we also see the faithfulness of God to deliver His people. We see especially that God is absolutely sovereign in the salvation of His people: “Salvation belongs to the LORD!” (Jonah 2:9)

This is a truth that comforted Jonah’s soul once again, and the truth that many have noted is the theme that runs through the entire book of Jonah. Jonah’s time in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights also points us to the one who died for sinners and on the third Day was raised from death. It is there, in the death of Christ for sinners and His victorious resurrection that we see most clearly that “Salvation belongs to the LORD!”

Profiling

Posted on December 31, 2021 by pottsvillearp

As a recovering software engineer, the anthropology of software fascinates me far more than the technology. Ideally, software is designed to automate and simplify human labor. Or as Tony Reinke wrote, technology pushes back some effects of The Fall. But more often than not technology, once deployed, outgrows its design. Growing beyond automating human work, it defines it. Human work and behavior mimic the software designed to mimic its master. It is an inevitable turn of events, a constant ebb and flow between who runs the show – man or machine.

This is true not only of our work, but also our relationships. Our tech now mediates the mechanics of relationships. We no longer visit neighbors, we follow them. We don’t talk to friends, we message them. If this was a simple equivocation, then ‘OK.’ But social media is more than a new medium for communication. It has become a virtual kabuki where actors market an assumed identity, not one that actually exists. Is it any wonder that in such a world, even biological certainty falls victim to how I identify.

The phrase ‘going viral’ used to carry only bad connotations. But social media has made ‘going viral’ the goal of influencers, extroverts, and narcissists of all stripes. It means you are getting noticed. And all of us want to get noticed. Our online identity is digitally rendered. So, setting up a social media profile is no simple matter, less about who I am and more about who I want people to believe I am.

While Brad Paisley’s song, Online is a little off-color, his social commentary rings true when he sings ”I’m so much cooler online.” Do people who view your profile wonder who you really are and what you are really like? Now take that one step further. Do those who view your spiritual profile, your profession of faith and your ‘life and conversation,’ wonder who you really are? Are you WYSIWIG or is your profile as a witness of the Lord Jesus Christ a tidy bit of historical fiction?

At the beginning of the gospel many came to John the Baptist wanting to view John’s profile. In John 1, the religious establishment in Jerusalem sent inquisitors to unearth John’s real identity. But John’s concern was not who he was, but what he was – a witness. What mattered most what not what John’s life said about John, but what it said about Jesus.

John comes out of nowhere. Like Clint Eastwood in a spaghetti western, he is an apocalyptic figure. Dressed in the prophetic garb of Elijah, he was fanatically different from the long line of false Messiah’s who filled the 400-year silence since the prophet Malachi. His preaching was changing lives. Those who cared nothing for ritual purity sought real purity – not the cleansing of the Pharisee’s ritual baptism but a spiritual baptism that washed away much more than dirt.

His whole ministry and identity was as a witness to the ‘Lamb who takes away the sin of the world.” And in that he is an exemplar for us. John is the last of the Old Testament prophets and the first of Jesus’ evangelists. He is a radical, a revolutionary. Surely this extremist is not the paradigm for the “profile of a disciple?” Is this what we are to emulate? Jesus later commented on this question when he was asked about greatness. He said of John.

Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
Matthew 11:11

John 1:19-34 reveals John’s profile and as it does, reveals to us what it means to be a witness for the Lord Jesus Christ. John is an exemplar and not an extremist. What does our profile look like as a witness for the Lord Jesus Christ? Join us this Lord’s Day as we examine John 1:19-34 and consider our profile as witnesses.

12/24/2021 | “Lessons and Carols”

Posted on December 29, 2021 by pottsvillearp

The story of Christ’s coming is the most dramatic story ever told. While it reaches a beautiful high point with Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, there is much more to this story – a story with origins in eternity past and implications in eternity future, a story of epic failure and dramatic rescue, a story that reveals a God quite different from the one our fears imagine. Come and experience the rest of this story in God’s own words and in song as we share in An Evening of Lessons and Carols.

The Wrong Question

Posted on December 24, 2021 by pottsvillearp

I was THAT kid in school. The one who asked, “is there a maximum number of pages for this paper?” The one who pleaded for more, not fewer, graded assignments. And the one who begged the teacher for essay questions rather than multiple choice. My concern was not a zeal for learning, but an obsession with my grades – and more specifically my grade point average. At any given moment, I could assess the effect of any graded assignment to my overall GPA.

I did not trust multiple choice questions. I second guessed and micro analyzed every question. Not my answers, I felt confident of those. What I feared was subtly in the questions themselves. Surely a trap or a trick had been embedded into what appeared a simple query? For indeed, this is what makes good multiple choice and true/false questions tick. What if my teacher was not clever enough to get this right? An essay allowed me to correct poorly crafted questions and clarify exactly what question I had answered.

Tucked away in my anxiety closet was a large store of Atychiphobia – a fear of failure that takes on an extreme form. What if I gave the right answer to the wrong question? I would fail. My GPA would drop. My future would hang in the balance. All hopes of future happiness and success would vanish. Or so I thought. Failing to spot a flawed question seemed to me catastrophic. And answering the wrong question, even with the right answer, an irrecoverable misstep.

Of course, no such plot existed. The multiple choice and true/false questions had not been laced with poison logic or satanic subtlety. All was as it appeared. But the consequences of answering the wrong question manufactured for me considerable adolescent angst. Most of us don’t rise to this level of concern about right and wrong questions. We are simply concerned with right and wrong answers. But what if I had been right to be afraid? What if an irrecoverable misstep or eternal catastrophe did result from answering the wrong question, but never answering the right one?

The story of the wise men in Matthew 2 poses this conundrum vividly.

Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet:

“‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
who will shepherd my people Israel.’”
Matthew 2:1-6

On the surface, the wise men and Herod seem to be asking the same question. But closer examination reveals a great, but subtle, difference. The wise men ask, “where is he, that we may worship him?” Herod asks, “where is he, that I may manage him and preserve my own autonomy?” All men ask these same two questions. Believers seek him to worship him. Skeptics seek him to manage, discredit, and remove him from his place in their lives.

What about you? What is your question when it comes to Jesus? Is it to find him and worship him? Or to manage, discredit, and remove him from your life? Or do you have no concern for him at all? Questions about Jesus are inextricably tied to our own existential questions, whether we admit it or not. When it comes to this test, to answer the wrong question is fatal. The gospel enables us actually know Jesus, not merely know about him. Are you asking the right questions? Join us as we examine Matthew 2 and Micah 5:1-6 this week and consider the difference between asking right and wrong questions.

12/19/2021 | “Graceful Receiving” | Luke 2:8-20

Posted on December 22, 2021 by pottsvillearp

Mama loved to see gifts joyfully received. In the same way, God delights in our gratitude for His grace. No story reveals this like the shepherds in Luke 2. These unlikely converts were first to hear of Jesus’ birth. No one gave them anything. But God gave them everything. Their joy is the joy of the hopeless finding hope. Do you have that joy? God offers a great gift. Will you receive it? Listen as we examine Luke 2 and hear of a “great joy will be for all the people.”

Lessons and Carols, 2021

Posted on December 21, 2021 by pottsvillearp

We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn. Get directions here or contact us for more info. Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube.

Graceful Receiving

Posted on December 15, 2021 by pottsvillearp

A long time ago, the Christian author, Gary Chapman, penned an important book, entitled “The Five Love Languages.” He noted that every person communicates and perceives love in one or more ‘languages.’ These languages include physical touch and closeness, acts of service, gift giving, encouraging words, and quality time. Think about that for a moment. How do you communicate and perceive love? What love language is your native tongue? Perhaps you are multi-lingual when it comes to these love languages. My mother-in-law was like this. She spoke every one of these languages fluently, but her lingua franca was without a doubt, gift giving.

Her love of gift giving was prodigious. It would be an understatement to say that she sometimes went over the top. Especially when grandchildren were involved. She was always thinking of just the apt gift. Throughout the year, whenever someone expressed a need or desire, she would purchase and wrap their heart’s desire and tuck it away in somewhere in her house. There are probably still hidden gifts wrapped and tucked away at MaMa’s. While Santa has to be told what children want, MaMa always knew. Her radar always detected exactly what would satisfy the longing hearts of her beloved.

But gift giving for her was not merely apt selection and presentation. She created a whole dramatic narrative surrounding the giving of gifts. Her true aim was to create joy. She delighted to delight. She needed to be present when the gifts were opened so that she might rejoice with the joy of the receiver. She needed to hear the squeals, see the surprise, and sense the gratitude. That was, for her, the gift received in the giving of gifts. Her greatest desire was to bring joy to others. Gifts graciously received were her greatest gift.

Christmas after Christmas, I saw, shining through the life of my mother-in-law, the heart of a Heavenly Father, who gives the gift of His Son that we might find true and abiding joy. Like my mother-in-law, our Heavenly Father delights to hear and see and receive our gratitude in response to His grace. In Luke 15, in the midst of three parables about being lost and found, Jesus twice notes that, “I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”

Many stories in the Bible illustrate this, but no story pictures this as powerfully as that of the announcement of Jesus’ birth to the shepherds in Luke 2:8-20. Here as the Lord of glory is born into quiet obscurity the only announcement is given to shepherds, the most despised and outcast class of society. These enigmatic shepherds were the most unlikely of converts — men who were notoriously under suspicion, who were rejected from temple worship due to their habitual and ritual uncleanness, and whose word was not acceptable in the courts. If anyone had hope to receive God’s goodwill and favor because of their works it was not these men. Yet these were the men to whom God announced, “for unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” Unto “you!” No one gave these men anything, but unto them God had given a savior!

Their response is a powerful testimony to the joy that comes when the hopeless find hope. They urgently flee Christ. Finding him, they tell everyone they meet then return to their sheep glorifying and praising God. These unlikely converts exhibit the joy of a changed life. Their priorities, their conversation, and their way of life are radically transformed. Their circumstances did not change, but they were changed in the middle of their circumstances. Men who were outcasts with God and man, were now Sons of the Most High and the first human evangelists. Their joy was uncontained and unrestrained.

Do you have that kind of joy? If not, perhaps it is because you have not experienced the grace of receiving. God has offered you a great gift. He delights for you to receive it and find joy. Join us this Lord’s Day, as we examine the story of the shepherds in Luke 2 and consider how finding Jesus changes our lives.

Who Are You?

Posted on December 8, 2021 by pottsvillearp

We live in a world awash with outrageous claims and inflammatory statements. Faced with the daunting challenge of distilling fact from fiction, we may be tempted to believe everything or nothing. But among all the outrageous claims, what if there is life giving truth? What if there is truth we cannot live without?

No man made more outrageous claims that Jesus Christ. He shocked the men of his hometown, by claiming to be the Messiah. He challenged the religious leaders to point out a single one of his sins. He pushed the limits with his disciples, commanding them to love enemies and offer unlimited forgiveness to offensive brothers.

Jesus’ own disciples struggled to understand who he was and what he came to do. From time to time, glimpses shone through their own preconceived notions of Him. In a poignant moment, as they were crossing the Sea of Galilee, a furious squall sprang up and threatened to sink their small fishing boat. Half of Jesus’ disciples grew up on these tempestuous waters, fishing with their families from their childhood, yet even they were convinced that they would not survive the trip. They woke Jesus, who was asleep in the back of the boat.

They did not ask him to save them – for what miracle working teacher was a match for a force-ten gale? They only asked, “don’t you care that we are about to die?” Jesus stood up in the boat and with a word, brought the waters from tempest to mirror. These seasoned seamen were almost speechless. The only thing they could say of Jesus was, “who is this?” They perceived that there was much more to Jesus than even their imaginations could anticipate.

What about you? When someone mentions Jesus, what comes to mind? Religious revolutionary? Social justice warrior? Ethical teacher? Failed Zionist leader? Founder of a yet another world religion? Who is this Jesus? For many it is a caricature, influenced by pictures you have seen or by clichés which permeate our cultural ideas of “the historical Jesus.” Or perhaps you remember him from a collection of anecdotes or parables you heard as a child in some Sunday School. Just who is Jesus?

No claim of Jesus was more outrageous than his claim that “I and the Father are one. He who has seen me has seen the Father.” Jesus did not claim merely to be God’s servant, or God’s prophet. He did not claim to be “a son of God,” but “The Son of God.” Despite the best efforts of Arian heretics to erase Jesus’ claims to divinity, the Scriptures claim pervasively and decisively that Jesus is fully God and fully man. Men who seek some value in Jesus as a mere man and moral example, but disbelieve his outrageous claim to deity, must face C. S. Lewis’ scathing critique.

A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else He would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity.

Jesus did not come to point out the way, the truth, or the life, but to be the way, the truth and the life. This demands that he be fully human and fully divine.

Who is Jesus? Our seasonal displays of a baby Jesus in a lowly cattle stall have led us astray, thinking only of his humanity. But in one of the great Old Testament prophecies of Christ’s coming, he is called ‘Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace.” You think you know who Jesus is? Come and find out as we examine Isaiah 9:1-7 and grapple with what our forefathers expressed in the Westminster Shorter Catechism.

Q21: Who is the Redeemer of God’s elect?
A21: The only Redeemer of God’s elect is the Lord Jesus Christ, who, being the eternal Son of God, became man, and so was, and continueth to be, God and man in two distinct natures, and one person, forever.
Westminster Shorter Catechism

So Much More

Posted on December 3, 2021 by pottsvillearp

My father was an avid story-teller who knew how to create suspense. He masterfully drew listeners to the precipice of a story’s climax. He was often called upon to speak publicly, especially at celebratory or ceremonial occasions. With carefully chosen words, he lent gravity and significance to every proceeding, no matter how small or common. The natural drama that surrounds the holiday season especially primed my father’s pump.

Christmas Eve brought convergence to my father’s love of suspense. Before bed, we set out chocolate pie for Santa. Then Daddy would pull out his giant reel-to-reel recorder and conduct interviews with my sisters and me. With a news reporter’s demeanor, he would conduct his man-on-the-street interview, probing our expectations for the day ahead. As we prepared for bed, he scanned across oceans of static on his transistor radio for reports from NORAD about an unidentified inbound object over the Bering Sea. We were never sure which was imminent – Santa Claus or nuclear holocaust? Every detail of the evening was calculated to create suspense by asking the same question. “When we wake in the morning, if we wake, will we encounter wonder or disappointment?”

My father knew this was never a settled question for me. He knew that sometime in the night, I would wake and slip, as noiselessly as an eight-year-old can, into the living room where all things Christmas were contained. He knew I would investigate the pie plate then the wing-back chair which was the designated landing spot for the evidence of my goodness in the preceding year. The pie plate looked like a crime scene and in the chair were many good things, but not every good thing. Something was always missing. The big item on my list – that something more — was never there. Even as he slept, my father created suspense.

In the morning, after Santa’s gifts were examined and family gifts were exchanged, just as my mother was getting up to begin lunch preparations, my father would notice something out of place, stuck in an unused corner or fallen behind some furniture. With great fanfare and musings of “what is this” and “where did that come from,” he produced ‘something more.’

Christmas is often a season which leaves us looking for something more. Expectations are high, but our celebrations rarely deliver. And even when we take to heart Linus’ words to Charlie Brown that Christmas is about the birth of a Savior, we are left wondering what type of Savior He is. Is He a mere teacher, who increased the demands of the law from mere outward conformity, to the perfect obedience of heart, mind, soul and strength? Is He a mere example, come to demonstrate to us how to love and sacrifice for one another? Is He a revolutionary who incites us to throw off convention and tradition? Or should we look for something more? Our catechism asks, “What kind of mediator and deliverer must we seek?”

In Matthew 1, Joseph wrestled with the revelation of Mary’s pregnancy. How should he respond? What was to become of her? And what about the child? The Bible narrates Joseph’s deliberation and the Lord’s intervention.

But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:

“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall call his name Immanuel”

(which means, God with us)
Matthew 1:20-23

That path laid out for Joseph was, no doubt, not one of his alternatives. But the angel’s words which vindicate Mary’s honor are given for much more than that. They reveal to Joseph and to us that this child is much more than a mere human. Or as our catechism says, he is “one who is a true and sinless man, and yet more powerful than all creatures, that is, one who is at the same time true God.” This is the only type of savior who can save. And this is the only type of savior we should seek.

The doctrine of the Virgin Birth is not about Mary, but about Jesus. The grace that is ours in the gospel is much more than we imagine or expected. Join us this week as we examine God’s promise of Immanuel in Isaiah 7:1-17 and consider how God’s gracious promise points to something much more than we dared to hope or imagine.