This past Sunday I argued that God is meant to be experienced within community. Adam didn’t just need a companion for himself, he needed a companion to experience God with, so Eve was created. Eve doesn’t mediate God’s presence, but she adds to Adam’s experience of God through her perspective, interpretation, and partnership.

When Adam and Eve sinned, the Son was offered to atone for their sin and ours and to bring us back into the family of God. All the goodness of God comes to us now, not directly, but through the mediation of the Son of God. Like light passing through a diamond, all the facets of Gods’ goodness are presented to us through Jesus. We experience all the facets of God’s goodness, not individually, but through the people of God gathered. Paul says that when Jesus ascended, he gave gifts to men, grace individually meted out to members of God’s family, or Jesus’ church (Ephesians 4:7,8). When we gather, we experience through each other, the various facets of Jesus’ mediation of God’s goodness and glory. If we want to experience the greater fullness of God, we need to gather together
 
This week, we’ll consider the goodness and glory of God presented to us through the graces distributed within Jesus’ body. The goodness of God in the church is intended to communicate that we belong, that we are part of God’s family. Join us for worship as we consider the beauty Jesus in the church. 

All year we’ve focused our time in the Scriptures on presenting the overwhelming goodness of God. The Apostle Paul says of Christ, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us,” Ephesians 1:7,8. God has not horded his massive fortune of grace, but has showered us with temporal and eternal benefits of his goodness.

As we conclude this series, we’ll consider the gracious words of Christ as he is about to end his earthly ministry, “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also,” John 14:1-3.

 Jesus’ final words to his followers assure them that they are part of him and will be brought together to dwell forever in the presence of God with him. We belong together because we’re family. Nothing on earth communicates our family ties like the body of Christ, the church. Join us Sunday as we consider our family relationship with God.

God’s grace is so good when we are facing trials and troubles.  Many believers are comfortable turning to God when our trouble is not our fault. We rightly cry out for deliverance in those times.

When our trouble is our fault, some of those same believers are so burdened with shame that they are slow to turn to God for deliverance. This week in Psalm 3 we will see how God guides His people, no matter whose fault our trouble is!

James Jardin currently serves as the RUF Campus Minister at Western Kentucky University.  RUF stands for Reformed University Fellowship and is the official college ministry of our denomination. Also, James is married to Joyce Leonard’s daughter, Leah who came up through the youth group at ECPC.

Sunday we’ll finish our study of how the Lord’s Table communicates that we belong to God. The focus is on how the table presents salvation from God. In Genesis 22, Abraham is taking Isaac up on Mount Moriah because God had told him to sacrifice his son. As they walk up the mountain, Isaac asks about the missing sacrificial lamb. Abraham, confident in the promises and power of God responds, “God will provide for himself the Lamb a burnt offering, my son,” (v8). Why is that important? In the Gospel of John, John the baptizer, sees Jesus and declares, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world,” John 1:29. Through the narrative of Abraham and Isaac, God is explaining how he can offer his people salvation by grace through the Lamb that he would provide.

As we read, we learn that the Lamb is none other than God’s beloved Son. This deeply affects our understanding of the communion meal. As we partake by faith, we declare our union with the Lamb. His death is our death. His sacrifice is our sacrifice. But this Lamb is God’s Son, the one who is accepted, beloved, with whom God is well pleased, so symbolically we join ourselves to the One who truly belongs. Join us Sunday as we worship the Lamb of God.

This week we will continue to consider how the Lord’s Table communicates that we belong to God. If you have ever watched The Office, in one episode the character Michael Scott is deep in debt. He learns that he can be freed from his debt by declaring bankruptcy. So, in classic form, Michael walks in the Dunder Mifflin office and says, “I declare bankruptcy.” What happens? Well, nothing because as he learns, declaring something doesn’t make it a reality.

In our text, 1 Corinthians 11:26, the Apostle Paul urges regular participation in the Lord’s Table as a declaration of the Lord’s death. Partaking of the meal doesn’t create a reality, it declares a reality. Proclaiming the Lord’s death reminds us of why we have a seat at God’s family meal. Put simply, we sit at the Lord’s Table in fellowship with God because Jesus took our judgment upon himself. The bread and wine symbolize God’s pledge to forgive our sins through Jesus’ sacrifice.  

Our souls need to see, touch, and hear this reality regularly (some would argue weekly). Our place at God’s table has nothing to do with us. Our righteous choices, our sacrifices, our good works, even our devotional intimacy (piety), while meaningful, are not the basis for our seat at the table. It is all of Christ. God sent his Son to redeem us through his obedience unto death, raising him in life, so that we might have a right to his table.

Join us Sunday as we consider this reality and declare together, “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,” 1 Corinthians 15:3,4. 

This Sunday, we move from baptism to consider how the Lord’s Table (communion) speaks to us of belonging to God. As the disciples finish the Passover meal, Jesus takes the bread and the wine, the two most common elements of nourishment, using them to signify the grace provided in his atonement. The bread represents his body, broken for us, while the wine represents his blood shed for us. We know this is “representation” since at the time of instituting these elements he is still living (Matthew 26:26-29).

The early church, during the lifetime of the Apostles, celebrated the Lord’s table after a community meal where they were physically nourished. Then, near the end of the meal, the church leaders would take up the bread and the cup, administering them to the congregation to be nourished spiritually. A significant point of the communion meal, and why Paul calls it the Lord’s Table (1 Cor. 10:21), is that it is the meal Jesus provides his family to nourish them in the graces of his salvation. As we feed on Christ symbolically and by faith, the Spirit of Christ comes to assure us of the application of his sacrifice and strengthen our weak souls. How does this speak to us of belonging? Christ only feeds his family! Join us as we consider this beautiful truth and then let’s share the Table of Christ.

Guy M. Richard, Ph.D., is President and Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at RTS in Atlanta, where he has served since 2017. Before moving into his current position, Guy served as the Senior Minister of the First Presbyterian Church in Gulfport, Mississippi (PCA), for almost 12 years. He had the privilege of leading this congregation in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which completely destroyed the church facility and the homes of approximately one third of the members of the congregation. Guy is the author of four books and many articles dealing with the history and theology of the Reformation and post-Reformation periods. He posts regularly on his blog The Suburbs of Heaven, which is available on his website. In his free time, he enjoys swimming, cycling, and most other sports. He and his wife Jennifer have three children.

Sunday, we considered the regenerative symbolism of baptism. When we pour water on the recipient, we're saying that only the Spirit can give us a new heart and make us a new creation (Ezek. 36, 2 Cor. 5). The Spirit of God cleanses us by separating us from our depravity and uniting us to Jesus Christ. That union communicates another symbol of baptism: inclusion.

Presbyterians speak often of God's covenant family. The reason is that the covenant promises of salvation by grace that advance from Genesis to Revelation include the promises of inclusion in God's family. The New Testament authors don't separate the promises made to Israel from the promises made to the church. Whether Paul (Romans, Galatians, and Ephesians), Peter (Acts and his epistles), or the author of Hebrews, the Gentiles are not offered a new covenant but are incorporated into the ONE family of God through the ONE covenant of grace. 

When we pour water on the recipient, we're saying, "Only God's Spirit can unite us to Christ and bring us into His family." Whether Israel or the Church, there is a rite that communicates our inclusion by grace. Join us Sunday as we consider this beautiful truth of God's goodness.

Sunday we’ll continue looking at the Scripture’s teaching on baptism, focusing on how it communicates that we belong to God. Remember, the sacraments (sacred rites) are demonstrations of God’s pledge to make us his own by grace. Last week, moving from the Old Testament into the New Testament, we learned that baptism communicates the cleansing grace of God for his people. Unclean because of our sin, we need to be washed clean to have fellowship with God. This washing is something God does for us, symbolized by sprinkling us clean.

The cleansing work of God is accomplished by the Spirit’s work of regeneration or the new birth. Paul says, “He saved us…according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,” Titus 3:4,5. In the Old and New Testaments, the Spirit’s work is a pouring out, as Paul says, “whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior,” Titus 3:6. The Spirit is poured out, giving us new life, so that we might become children of God, belonging to him. It’s a beautiful presentation of the Spirit’s work to wash us through new birth. Join us Sunday as we consider this truth and worship our Savior.

Over the next few weeks, we’re going to consider the meaning of baptism. As was stated last week, the sacraments (baptism and communion) communicate God’s pledge to us, rehearsing his promises in the covenant of grace. These religious rites are meant to communicate that we belong to God by his grace. When a person receives baptism, or when we witness a baptism, we rehearse God’s promise to cleanse us from sin, enabling us to belong to him in righteousness. As Paul says, “He chose us in him (Jesus)…that we should be holy and blameless before him,” Ephesians 1:4. He continues, saying of Jesus, “(He) gave himself…that he might sanctify her (church), having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,” Ephesians 5:26.

Sin makes us unclean preventing us from walking in fellowship with a clean, holy God. Discontent with our broken relationship, God moved to provide us the cleansing that we would need to have restored fellowship with him, to belong to his family. This cleansing is demonstrated by the application of the solvent of water. It dates all the way back to the book of Leviticus where God uses ceremonial washings to illustrate Israel’s need to be cleansed of their uncleanness. It was an uncleanness that water could not solve because it is spiritual. It was an uncleanness that only God could provide through the work of his Spirit, and is similar to the rite of circumcision. Once cleansed by the Spirit, a person’s relationship with God is restored, and they belong to him. Join us Sunday as we worship our Savior and consider his cleansing work.