Mark Scholten

Session Summary Feb 2021

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Roy Smith shared some devotional thoughts from John 11:45-47. Gary Mullen was absent with notice as he was following a Covid protocol isolation.  Scott Duffin reported on a refinancing offer from Queensborough Bank.  The Administration Team will vet the offer and make a recommendation to the session.  Ben and Hannah Field were joyfully received into membership.  They are transferring from Faith Presbyterian in Long Beach, CA.  We received a report from the Web Site Team and their desire to launch a new website in March.  Also, we approved a proposal to update our wireless equipment so as to provide reliable internet throughout both buildings. The McKnight shoe donation for adoption expenses has been started with reception bins in the foyer and the fellowship hall. A class for the children of the church who may be ready to make a profession of faith will begin in March. Several ideas for evangelism and discipleship were shared included a bus ministry to Fort Gordon, passion week events, Home groups and Men’s breakfast restarting, a possible podcast, Sunday Evening schedule (Home Groups, worship service, prayer meeting?), and a possible outreach to the Veritas Academy and Classical Conversations. A Jews for Jesus Christ in the Passover event will be hosted by Westminster on March 25 at 7:30pm.  Your shepherds are updating our Elder Watch Care lists. The prayer ministry of the church was a source of great encouragement to the elders as well as the peace and unity that has prevailed in our congregation through the unique and pressing challenges that Covid-19 has presented.  Many of those isolating in our congregation and beyond may soon receive a thoughtful gift – the brainchild of Karrie Harmer.  God is good and He is doing good.  Our labor in the Lord is not in vain. May he be glorified in both in our ministry and life together as the body of Christ. 

Broken Things and God’s Lessons

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“What we are all going through right here, right now is a massive, progressive process of values clarification and heart protection. God is daily employing the brokenness of this present world to clarify your values. Why do you need this? You need it because you struggle in this life to remember what is truly important, that is, what God says is important. You and I place much more importance on things than they truly possess, and when we do so, these things begin to claim our heart allegiance. So God ordains for us to experience that physical things get old and break. The people in our lives fail us. Relationships sour and become painful. Our physical bodies weaken. Flowers die and food spoils. All of this is meant to teach us that these things are beautiful and enjoyable, but they cannot give us what we all long for – life.

In this world that is groaning, God is protecting our hearts. He is protecting us from us. Our hearts can be so fickle. We can worship God one day, only to turn and give the worship of our hearts to something else the next. So, in love, God lets pieces of the creation die in our hands so that increasingly we are freed from asking earth to give us what only he can give. He works through loss to protect us from giving our allegiance to things that will never, ever deliver what our hearts seek. This is all designed to deepen our love and worship of him. It is all crafted to propel the joy that we have in him And in so doing, he is preparing us for that moment when we will be freed from this present travail and give all of our being to the worship of him forever and ever.

Your Lord knows that even as his child your heart is still prone to wander, so in tender, patient grace he keeps you in a world that teaches you that he alone is worthy of the deepest, most worshipful allegiance of your heart.”

Paul Tripp

Delivered from the Paralyzing Fear of Death

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Hebrews 2:14-15  Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.

Jesus was made like his brothers in all things, except sin. Messiah, our elder brother, fully identifies with His children so that He might conquer the devil, overcome our fear of death and restore us to true life. He has succeeded. The obedience and suffering of Christ is our salvation.

The accuser is silenced, “Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies” (Romans 8:33), death is befriended, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21), and life is freely given, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).

What is this “lifelong slavery” that the fear of death subjects us to? Satan forms our sin into a stick to mercilessly flay our consciences. We are guilty and we know it. Our life is forfeit due to our transgressions. Satan, our accuser, has a legitimate case and we know it. That cripples our walk through life. We live in the fear of a death that we so richly deserve.

Jesus has taken the stick out of the devil’s hands. Our sin is paid for. The accusations are answered in full. Life can now be lived without the ball and chain of guilt and shame.

Death is now a friend. How is that again? We are now delivered from the guilt and shame of sin but not from sin itself. Sin, our disobedience to the law of God, is a life sapper. Sin brings death; always. While we are still subject to sin and temptation, fullness of life is just out of reach. Death changes that. Death is a promotion. When we die, sin dies and we are beyond the reach of temptation. Death ushers us into life; real life; eternal life.

Actually, Jesus ushers us into life and he does so the moment we first believe. As his children we are no longer walking zombies living in the fear of death. We have life now. Life will become fuller, richer, in glory; but we walk in newness of life today. “We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4).

Yet, even Christians continue to be afraid of what comes next. Contributing to our fear of death is the unknown. Will I still be me? Does our conscious self continue after death? Yes. “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). Will we recognize and relate to other saints? Yes. “For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at His coming? Is it not you? For you are our glory and joy” (1 Thessalonians 2:19-20). “And He (Jesus) was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light. And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with Him (Matthew 17:2-4). What will we be doing there? Working, resting, hearing, praising, reigning in the presence of Christ – seeing him as he is.

What will we be waiting for? The completion of salvation, the full restoration of life. We shall be body and soul on the new heavens and the new earth in the presence of God and the absence of sin forever.

Death need not be feared while we walk in newness of life. Death is conquered, life is freely given. We have passed from darkness into light, from death into life. “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins (Colossians 1:13-14). “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life” (John 5:24).

So, we have “Death in Adam, life in Christ” (Romans 5:12). “And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This He set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in Him” (Colossians 2:14-15).

I have quoted the Scriptures profusely. Nearly half of this article is the Word of God. Why? First, because I am a divine plagiarist. I have no new wisdom or experience that did not come to me by the Word of God. Second, only God can answer the questions of sin and death. And he does answer them. Let us rest in them and rejoice. And live, now, the life of the world to come.

Death is Defeated!

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It calls for an exceptional effort of mind on our part to appreciate how paradoxical was the attitude of those early Christians to the death of Christ. If ever death had appeared to be triumphant, it was when Jesus of Nazareth, disowned by His nation, abandoned by His disciples, executed by the might of imperial Rome, breathed His last on the cross. Why, some had actually recognized in His cry of pain and desolation the complaint that even God had forsaken Him. His faithful followers had confidently expected that He was the destined liberator of Israel; but He had died – not, like Judas of Galille or Judas Maccabaeus, in the forefront of the struggle agains the Genitle oppressors of Israel, but in evident weakness and disgrace – and their hopes died with Him. If ever a case was lost, it was His; if ever the power of evil were victorious, it was then.

And yet – within a generation His followers were exultingly proclaiming the crucified Jesus to be the conqueror of death and asserting … that by dying He had reduced the erstwhile lord of death to impotence. The keys of death and Hades were henceforth held firmly Jesus’ powerful hand, for He, in the language of His own parable, had invaded the song man’s fortress, disarmed him, bound him fast and robbed him of his spoil (Luke 11:21f). This is the unanimous witness of the New Testament writers; this was the assurance which nerved martyrs to face death boldly in His name. This sudden change from disillusionment to triumph can only be explained by the account which the apostles gave – that their Master rose from the dead and imparted to them the power of His risen life.

FF Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews, NICOT, p. 49.

The Gentle Shepherd

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“Those who live by God’s forgiveness must imitate it; one whose only hope is that God will not hold his faults against him forfeits his right to hold others’ faults against them.” – J.I. Packer

I need God’s grace.  I am still weak, misguided, headstrong and unbelieving.  I need His wisdom, patience, and mercy applied to me daily.  I have always conceived of the pastoral ministry as one hungry beggar showing other hungry beggars where to find bread.  I depend on the free grace that I preach to you. Thomas Manton wrote, “there is none so tender to others as they which have received mercy themselves; that know how gently God hath dealt with them.” Grace must be needed, received, and enjoyed, before it can be effectively proclaimed.

I think this is one reason why men are called to preach and not angels.  The faithful angels do not need the same grace that I do.  One of the qualifications for preaching Christ is being humbled and exalted by that sweet grace of the gospel. We must taste that sustaining and transforming grace before we can joyfully and powerfully proclaim it to others. I can at times grow weary at the weakness and ignorance of God’s sheep.  Until I remember my own.  Depression grows when I see the hard-heartedness of God’s children; until I remember my own.  You get the picture.  We all need the same thing; the humility to receive and remain dependent on the sure grace of God.

We must shepherd others as Christ has shepherded us. Paul speaks of his pastoral ministry in this way, “but we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children” (1 Thessalonians 2:7).  Early on in my ministry I summarized this conviction in a way that I would remember. “Be as patient, gracious, and gentle with others as Christ was with you.” That thought has served me well as I walk among the weak, the wounded, and the weary. I am the hungry beggar that has found the bread!  Join me and let us celebrate the grace of God together!  Pray that we would be a gentle, gracious presence in the midst of God’s flock at Westminster.

The Longing Finally Fulfilled

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The Longing Finally Fulfilled

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11–13, ESV)

Out of the abundance of His own joy, beauty, and glory God has created all things. His creatures/creation all reflect, and in some sense, participate, in His glory. God has hidden himself in all the joy and beauty that He has made.  We can see Him, sense and experience Him in all that is fair.  

Mankind was made in the image of God as the crowning achievement of all that He had made. God created us with sensors to know Him and to recognize and enjoy all the expressions of his glory, even those glimpses found in the created order.  He has placed eternity in our hearts!  We long for God as we see the various manifestations of his glory all around us.

Yet, we are fallen creatures, partially blinded, and were unceremoniously escorted out of the Garden of God’s delights.  Now, we cannot find out what God has done.  We long for Him, for beauty, for glory; we can taste it and even glimpse it from a distance but it never fully satisfies.  We long for home but we do not know the way. We have lost the map.

CS Lewis calls this longing, Sehnsucht. This German word roughly modified means “the sense of deep, inconsolable longing, yearning, the feeling of intensely missing something when we don’t even know what it is” (Jennifer Neyhart).  From Till we Have Faces, “it almost hurt me … like a bird in a cage when the other birds of its kind are flying home … to find the place where all the beauty came from – my country, the place where I ought to have been born. The longing for home.”

We all have this longing for home, for joy, for satisfaction, for fulfillment.  We try to slake this hunger with other created things; fame, wealth, physical pleasure, etc. but they never satisfy.

CS Lewis in speaking of meaning and joy of his short marriage wrote, “Are no all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who had some inkling (but faint and uncertain even in the best) of that something which you were born desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year after year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for? You have never had it. All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it – tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear.  But if it should really become manifest- if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself – you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say “Here at last is the thing I was made for.””

Later, speaking of this longing for home, Lewis wrote, “About death I go through different moods, but the times when I can desire it are never, I think, those when this world seems harshest. On the contrary, it is just when there seems to be most of Heaven already here that I come nearest to longing for a patria. It is the bright frontispiece which whets one to read the story itself. All joy (as distinct from mere pleasure, still more amusement) emphasizes our pilgrim status; always reminds, beckons, awakens desire. Our best havings are wantings.”

Only God himself, his essential glory, can satisfy this longing. The glory that God has placed in the created order are hints, dim reflections, or better, foretastes of the satisfaction that we can only find in God. “Our hearts are restless, until they can rest in you.” (Augustine)

So, the preacher concludes, it is good for us to enjoy the foretastes, the hints of that glory, but not to rest in them short of the God who gave them. “I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man.” 

So, enjoy the gifts of God that he has placed in the created order but follow the gifts to the great Giver, and find your rest in Him.  “The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us is we trust to them; it was not in them, in only came through them, and what came through them was longing… For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never visited.” CS Lewis. “One day, soon, we will be home. “What are hearts seek and hunger after is the overwhelming joy of homecoming and reunion with a Beloved.” (Terry Lindval)

“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world” (CS Lewis).  Death is not the end. It is The End! The goal, the purpose, the place where our longing hearts will be satisfied.  It is life, finally. It is home.The

Communion Meditation December 2020

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This is a family table.  All of God’s children are welcome here. 

If you are a child of God through faith in Jesus Christ as he is offered to all in the gospel; you are welcome to this table.

If you do not know the Lord, if you have not placed your faith in him alone for forgiveness; do not come to this table.

We are the adopted children of God.

Here we are reminded that all that belongs to the real, natural son, belongs to them as well.

We are heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, through faith.

Many parents have adopted children into their family.  They often make that happen with great sacrifice, and it is pursued out of great love.  With every added child, the love of the whole family increases.

When they become part of the family, officially full sons and daughters, they often struggle to accept the fact that they are full members of the family; that they are included, loved, and will continue to be loved no matter what the future brings – just like the natural children.

They seem to emphasis the ‘adopted’ part of adopted children.  They fell like second class children, not full accepted, not equally loved.  Nothing pains the parents more than this struggle of their adopted children.

So, they continue to love them, accept them; speaking love to them, giving them tokens and reminders of their continuing love and acceptance.

In part, that is what God is doing in the Lord’s Supper.  He is reminding us that we are His children, with full rights and privileges as sons and daughters, yes, but also as fully loved and accepted as the natural son.

Romans 7:17 “and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.”

“Provided we suffer with him.”

To be part of the family is to embrace the joys and the sorrow.  It is to live life together; even the tears and the suffering.

Perhaps nothing proves that you are part of a family than the fact that you feel what they feel, and suffer what they suffer.

So it is in the family of God.  We are family.  We bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. 

Colossians 1:24  Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ‘s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church,

But notice also the end of Romans 7:17; “in order that we may also be glorified with him.”

We will be glorified with Christ.  The best is yet to come.  We will enter into his glory.

Matthew 25:34, “‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”

Communion Meditation January 2021

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“And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves. For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”” (Luke 22:15–18, ESV)

The Lord’s Supper is an intensely personal meal.  It is a family meal.  It is by invitation only.  And the invitation goes out to all who believe; to all his disciples.  If you do not believe the gospel, do not come to this table.  If you are not a Christian, do not come to this table.

Jesus earnestly desired to have the last Passover with his disciples.  He was nearing the end of his painful mission. All was about to change.  Passover would become the Lord’s Supper, the work of Christ would be fulfilled, and the Kingdom were come in a new and powerful way.

Jesus takes an oath of self-denial until it is accomplished.  “I will not eat,” “I will not drink, until…”  This declares his steadfast commitment to finish his work and to complete their redemption. In other words, to fulfill the meaning of Passover and the Lord’s Supper.  To shed his blood to save their souls. “Having loved his own, who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (John 13:1).

Jesus here proclaims his steadfast commitment to go to the cross and to fulfill his calling from the Father.

“Until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.”  “Until the Kingdom of God comes.”  When did that happen?

In his incarnation, in his death and resurrection it came.  It began.  It was initiated.

In the end it will come in fulness.  It will be completed to the uttermost.

The kingdom is here already, but not yet in its fulness.

The blessings of the kingdom are present now, they are accessible, but not yet complete.  

The day awaits when the full multitude, from every tribe, tongue and nation will come to Christ.

This is a supper that we can enjoy today, and in its fullness then. The marriage supper of the Lamb is coming.  Here is a foretaste; an anticipation.

The Kingdom is here, and the kingdom is coming.

We look back, we remember, the finished work of Christ – his shed blood and his resurrection.  The Kingdom is here!  Jesus reigns now!