“We walk by faith, not by sight.” – 2 Corinthians 5:7

Economists describe the cost of any choice we make as “opportunity cost”, or the loss of an opportunity to do something different with whatever time or resources we committed to a particular choice. If I spend a dollar on a candy bar, the cost of the candy bar is whatever else I could have spent the dollar on. If I spend an hour watching television, even if it is free there is still a cost- namely, whatever else I could have spent the hour on.

Coming to worship always incurs a cost- the cost of sleeping in on Sunday or going to the park with your kids or whatever else might bring you short-term enjoyment. Worship itself might bring you short-term enjoyment as well- seeing friends, enjoying good music and a hopefully engaging sermon. But there are always pressing needs or more immediately enjoyable activities. That’s why God made it a commandment to observe the Sabbath. Left to ourselves, people will always allow other things to crowd out the worship of God. We do not observe a day in the same ceremonial fashion as the Jews under the Mosaic Law did, but the principle has not changed. We must make time for the worship of God.

When we gather together on Sunday for worship, we are committing an act of faith. Faith means trust, believing in God’s word and promises that He is who He says He is and will do what He promises to do. Worship is a means of grace, the way God works great benefits in His people through the power of His Spirit, but those benefits are subtle and long-term. Often they are not clearly visible in the short term.

The short term benefits of worship mentioned above, while real, should not be our main motivators for being in worship. If short term benefit is our motive, our sinful flesh will always find other things to tempt us. Our real motive should be faith, trust that God will work His work in us over time. We should “desire the pure milk of the word, that we may grow thereby.” (1 Peter 2:2). We should desire to be taught and exhorted by the singing of psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. (Colossians 3:16). We should desire to “stir up love and good works” in each other (Hebrews 10:24). When we are motivated by trust in God’s promises, then we will be faithful in church even when we don’t feel like it, even if we’re not getting along with others, even if there are other things we’d rather do. Motivated by faith, walking not by what we can see but what we can and must believe, we will learn to attend consistently to the means of grace and have confidence that we will grow in grace as a result.

Holy God, we praise your name;
Lord of all, we bow before you;
all on earth your scepter claim,
all in heav’n above adore you.
Infinite your vast domain,
everlasting is your reign.

Hark, the glad celestial hymn
angel choirs above are raising;
cherubim and seraphim
in unceasing chorus praising,
fill the heav’ns with sweet accord:
“Holy, holy, holy Lord.”

Lo! the apostolic train
join your sacred name to hallow;
prophets swell the glad refrain,
and the white-robed martyrs follow;
and from morn to set of sun,
through the church the song goes on.

Holy Father, Holy Son,
Holy Spirit, Three we name you;
while in essence only One,
undivided God we claim you,
and adoring bend the knee,
while we sing this mystery.

Our hymn of the month is an adaptation of a very ancient hymn, one of the oldest hymns still extant, the Te Deum of the fourth century. It is a hymn of praise to God, anticipating the completion of salvation and the fullness of the kingdom.

That anticipation is clear in the first verse, which states that “all on earth your scepter claim,” meaning that everyone on earth acknowledges the rule of God. Clearly it is not the case presently, but we know that it will be one day. So the writer, anticipating it, writes the hymn as if it had already happened. This verse praises the universal extent of God’s rule and the totality of His sovereignty.

Much of the hymn alludes to Revelation 4 and the vision of the throne of God that John sees. The angels, the hymns, the throne, and the refrain, “Holy, Holy, Holy” all remind us of that chapter. Verse 2 describes the worship of the angels, showing us what a glorified thing it is to worship God. The higher we ascend in heavenly glory, the more we praise God. Worship isn’t something we just do in this present state. It’s not something that just serves some end, like giving us comfort in present sorrow or educating us about God’s nature (though it certainly does those things). Even after the need for education or comfort is gone, we still praise God like the angels do, for it is the highest purpose of our created nature to do so.

Verse 3 similarly portrays the great men and women of the faith, apostles, prophets, and martyrs, and their unceasing praise to God. It is truly a glorious gift to know God and to praise Him, as the hymn illustrates to us by the joyful worship of these great saints. This hymn shows so clearly that the worship of God is something we should look forward to joyfully, not a dutiful chore to be performed.

The last verse makes reference to the doctrine of the Trinity. God is one in essence and three in person, a uniquely Christian doctrine. The hymn does not spell out all the nuances of the doctrine, but nonetheless clearly identifies the true doctrine of God as Trinitarian. The original Te Deum as well as many other hymns contains this doctrine for a few different reasons. First, because the nature of God is always cause for wonder and joy at the revelation of this beautiful mystery. Secondly, it serves to identify the orthodox doctrine and shut the heretics of the day (most notably the Arians who denied the deity of Christ) out of the orthodox faith. And finally, it serves a pedagogical purpose, to deeply impress within the people’s mind the Biblical and orthodox teaching in a way that the decision of a church council by itself never could.

This is a great example of the best use of good hymns. It teaches us good doctrine; it serves as a confession of faith for the church; and it guides us in right practice, showing us what a good and wonderful thing it is to joyfully praise our God.

1 Abide with me: fast falls the eventide:
the darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide:
when other helpers fail, and comforts flee,
help of the helpless, O abide with me.

2 Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;
earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away;
change and decay in all around I see;
O thou who changest not, abide with me.

3 I need thy presence every passing hour;
what but thy grace can foil the tempter’s pow’r?
Who like thyself my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, O abide with me.

4 I fear no foe, with thee at hand to bless:
ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death’s sting? where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if thou abide with me.

5 Hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes:
shine through the gloom, and point me to the skies:
heav’n’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee:
in life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

This beautiful hymn is the reflection of one approaching death and calling upon God for comfort and assurance as he passes.

We are not all dying. But then again, we are. In 2 Corinthians 6:9 Paul describes himself as “dying, and behold we live.” He is not here commenting on his particular circumstances, but rather on the fact the Christian life is a death to the world and self, an embrace of that death as passing into life. Just two chapters earlier he said that he is “always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.” (2Co 4:10 NKJ)

The pride of life is sin (1 John 2:16). We are under the curse of death, and for us to boast in our life, to be lifted up in pride in our physical strength or good health or intellectual capacity is to fall into the pride of life, and to fail to recognize the curse of death that is on all of us. If we are in Christ by faith, then that curse of death becomes a blessing, a deliverance, as we are released from this body of death into the glorious life to come. But even as a saved man, the reality of death constantly hangs over me, and it is a reality I should embrace as my deliverance, not to flee from. So the hymnist’s attitude should be all of our attitude whether we are close to death in our estimation or not.

To “abide” is to stay or remain in place. The hymnist is calling on the Lord to remain by his side, to stay with him, throughout the coming darkness. He can endure it if he knows God remains his faithful God, and Christ his faithful savior, throughout the ordeal. There comes a time in all our lives, sooner or later, when troubles overwhelm the ability of even the most faithful and loyal friend, when loved ones are silent and throw up their hands in despair. But God is never overwhelmed at our sorrow and trouble, and can and will be a friend to us when nobody else is.

One does not have to live very long before earth’s joys start to grow dim. The things that used to give me such joy as a teenager, mysteries of life that I longed for, become unfulfilling when now experienced regularly. Buying a new album or seeing a movie in the theater is nice, but not particularly exciting. I remember how glamorous it used to seem to fly on an airplane or stay in a hotel, experiences I now simply endure. “Change and decay” is indeed all around, and the fundamental brokenness of the world becomes more apparent. But the Lord’s comforting presence throughout guides us through.

In verse 3 the writer recognizes that change and decay in himself as well. The devil’s constant attacks, only made more potent by the despair and hopelessness in the things of this world, would ruin us if not for God’s constant presence. The Reformed doctrine of perseverance of the saints does not deny the need for us to stay faithful throughout our lives to avoid falling away; nor does it teach an inherent power in the believer to do so. It teaches that God will abide with us; that those united to Christ by faith will be preserved by God’s power throughout.

The cross, then, is our guide throughout our lives. Jesus’ victory came not through earthly triumph or glory, but through dying. We must enter into His death, that we might enter into His glory. The life of the Christian must be cross-shaped throughout, for if we look to the glory and pride of this earth to bless us, we will be sorely disappointed, and ultimately lost. The cross is God’s verdict against all the world and its glory, and our salvation depends on us embracing that cross—not as an abstract principle, but as a living reality deep down in our bones that shapes our whole lives, right up to death. Then we can say with Christ, “Not my will but Thine be done, Father.” We can accept whatever pain or humiliation the world dishes out, knowing that Christ’s glory came through suffering and death.

So too will mine, if He abides with me.

1 All that I am I owe to thee;
thy wisdom, Lord, has fashioned me.
I give my Maker thankful praise,
whose wondrous works my soul amaze.

2 Ere into being I was brought,
thine eye did see, and in thy thought
my life in all its perfect plan
was ordered ere my days began.

3 Thy thoughts, O God, how manifold,
more precious unto me than gold!
I muse on their infinity,
awaking I am still with thee.

4 The wicked thou wilt surely slay;
from me let sinners turn away.
They speak against the name divine;
I count God’s enemies as mine.

5 Search me, O God, my heart discern;
try me, my inmost thought to learn;
and lead me, if in sin I stray,
to choose the everlasting way.

Hymn #37 from the 1990 Trinity Hymnal is a versification from Psalm 139:14-24. The psalmist expresses a complete confidence in God’s will for his life based on the fact that God created him.

He starts by praising God for this fact, which is most appropriate. We are “fearfully and wonderfully made,” indeed. A human being is an amazing entity, and we are only just beginning to understand how amazing we are. The mechanical design of our bodies, the chemical reactions necessary, the intricate proteins, and the many different elaborate structures and the way they react to each other all point to a highly complex and ordered design. In the past, more than once, certain organs like the tonsils or the appendix have been declared superfluous, just evolutionary holdovers, only to discover later what the functions of these organs are. One of the most amazing things about a human being is his ability to communicate, that I can have concepts and ideas formed inside my head, and that I can communicate those concepts to others by means of electrical and chemical signals along neural pathways that cause my mouth and throat to make vibrations in the air, that in turn cause tiny little bones and membranes in some other person’s ear to vibrate, which in turn sends electrical and chemical signals along neural pathways to his brain, causing the same or similar concepts to appear in the other person’s brain. How appropriate is it then that we offer glory and praise to God with this most incomprehensible faculty? The amazing nature of a human being should not cause us to be prideful, but on the contrary to praise and worship the great power and wisdom of the God who made us, and to listen to His word. So the psalmist gives His maker thankful praise (verse 1).

Since every single aspect of his being has its origin with God, the psalmist knows he can trust God completely with his life (verse 2). Who can know us better than the God who made us? And if we are His creation, we can have confidence that He has the best in mind for us. He certainly has demonstrated His benevolence toward us many times, not least in how wonderfully He made us in the first place.

The psalmist comes to the obvious conclusion of that truth in verse 3. If all this is true, what could be more important than knowing God’s thoughts, as He has revealed them to Him? It is like the great value the owner’s manual of a complex piece of equipment has if you are having trouble working the machine. Without knowledge, the equipment is useless. Without the wisdom of God, prospering in our life is impossible, or even knowing what real prosperity is. But what a joy it is to contemplate that wisdom when we have it, by His grace!

The fourth verse might seem shocking or incongruous or shocking to the modern ear, but in fact the thought flows naturally from the previous. God is wise and perfect, and loves His creation. The wicked are those that destroy His creation and rebel against Him, and it cannot be that God would permit this to go on forever. If God intends good for His creation and His people, then it must be the case that He is hostile to those who would destroy His creation and His people, and this is what rebellion against God always entails.

Therefore, the psalmist desires that God’s grace would be at work, for he knows it is only by that grace that any of us would be on the right side of God’s justice and not exposed to His wrath. So he prays in verse 5 for the inner searching of God, to know the sins that lie lurking in the human heart, and lead him to righteousness instead. If God is our creator and God’s plan is perfect, then He alone can diagnose the problem in the human heart and fix it, and the psalmist knows this. If we are wise, we will follow the lead of the psalmist and desire the sanctifying work of the Spirit of God, working in us the salvation of Jesus Christ, so that God’s perfect intention for us is fulfilled, for the only alternative to that is the destruction of the wicked. But by His grace we can instead come to the “everlasting way.”

1 “Wake, awake, for night is flying,”
the watchmen on the heights are crying;
“awake, Jerusalem, at last!”
Midnight hears the welcome voices,
and at the thrilling cry rejoices:
“Come forth, ye virgins, night is past!
The Bridegroom comes; awake,
your lamps with gladness take; alleluia!
And for his marriage feast prepare,
for you must go to meet him there.”

2 Zion hears the watchmen singing,
and all her heart with joy is springing;
she wakes, she rises from her gloom:
for her Lord comes down all-glorious,
the strong in grace, in truth victorious;
her Star is ris’n, her Light is come!
Ah, come, thou blessed Lord,
O Jesus, Son of God, alleluia!
We follow till the halls we see
where thou hast bid us sup with thee.

3 Now let all the heav’ns adore thee,
and men and angels sing before thee,
with harps and cymbal’s clearest tone;
of one pearl each shining portal,
where we are with the choir immortal
of angels round thy dazzling throne;
nor eye hath seen, nor ear
hath yet attained to hear what there is ours;
but we rejoice, and sing to thee
our hymn of joy eternally.

Wake, Awake, for Night is Flying
Our hymn of the month is #317, “Wake, Awake, for Night is Flying.” This hymn was written (words and music) by Philipp Nicolai, a Lutheran minister, in 1599. Nicolai also wrote “How Lovely Shines the Morning Star,” #515 in the 1990 Trinity Hymnal, and these two hymns became known as the “King and Queen of the Chorales” and both were arranged later by J.S. Bach in the forms we have today. Nicolai is regarded by many as one of the greatest hymn-writers of the Christian faith. These two hymns in particular were written as part of a devotional written to comfort his congregation after a severe bout of the plague, in which 1300 of his parishioners died in one year (1597).

The hymn is a joyful anticipation of the moment when Christ returns to consummate the salvation of His people. It draws from several Biblical figures. In Isaiah 52, the watchmen of Jerusalem call to Jerusalem to awake to see the salvation that God is bringing to them. In Matthew 24, Jesus uses the figure of virgins awaiting the return of the bridegroom for the beginning of the wedding feast, to exhort us to live lives of readiness for His coming. Throughout, the hymn expresses an awareness that the present state falls far short, a night and a gloom that only retreats with the full manifestation of He who is our light.

Verse 1 calls to us, as the people of God, to be ready. It can be read on two levels: one, that we live lives of anticipation, looking forward with joy to the time when our sorrow and troubles are done, when Jesus returns; and two, that we live our lives in the immediate present in the light of the truth that His return may be at any time. The foolish virgins were not ready for the coming of the bridegroom, and had to go get more oil for their lamps, and thus missed out on the feast. The wise virgins were prepared for that return to be imminent, but also prepared for it to be postponed for some time, and thus were ready. Jesus uses this parable to inform us in the attitude we should take to our lives in the present age—ready for an imminent return, but also prepared for a long wait. But even that long wait will be endured in the joyful anticipation of the time we know is coming. The song is infused with a sense of great joy at His coming, a joy that sees God’s people through that long wait.

Verse 2 really emphasizes the truth that our hope and joy is not in the present. Our joy and hope is all in our Savior, and we do not yet have Him fully, and so we are in “gloom,” from which we emerge only truly when He comes. The one who eagerly looks for his joy in this life does not have his mind focused on the Savior, and so the hymn both encourages us to rest in the hope to come, and exhorts us as well to get our eyes off the vain hopes of this world. The speakers in the hymn have their hearts fully fixed on the joy to come, because their hearts are fixed on Christ. If our faith and trust is in Christ, then our hearts must be fixed on the future, for we do not fully enjoy Christ now, He who is “all-glorious, the strong in grace, the truth victorious.” We are united to Christ now and experience many of His gifts, but this can only increase our anticipation of the time when we enjoy Him fully, and even the partial enjoyment of His grace in the present should cause the false and ephemeral attractions of this life fade in comparison. So the hymn, in verse 2, says with the Apostle John, “Come, Lord Jesus.”

Verse 3, informed by the teachings of Scripture, imagines what that moment will be like, when God’s glory is fully revealed in Christ to all His people, and we, together with men and angels and all creation, praise God as He deserves to be praised. The writer knows that we cannot even know what that will be like—“nor eye hath seen, nor ear hath yet attained to hear what there is ours;” but nonetheless, we can rejoice now to know that it will truly be wonderful, the full satisfactions of all our desires and hopes, more than we can even understand in the present.

Galatians 3:9-10:

“But now after you have known God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you desire again to be in bondage?  You observe days and months and seasons and years.”

The New Testament does not permit the observance of holy days.  The early Reformers generally put an end to special worship services on days such as Christmas and Easter, because of the unbiblical elevation of such days in the medieval church.  The Lord’s Day was the only day that most of them would view as a mandated day for worship.  Some such as John Calvin extended the principle even to the Lord’s Day, teaching that public worship on one day out of seven was more a matter of good church order than it was a divine command making that day different than any other.

As the Reformation went on, many churches continued or resumed the practice of remembering certain aspects of Christ’s life at certain times of the year, while others prohibited it.  The RCUS constitution states that it is permissible for churches to recognize Christmas, Easter, Pentecost and other days, including national days of thanksgiving, as they see fit.  None of these days are mandated, however, and care should always be taken to remember that such days are not required by Scripture, are not means of grace, and should never be elevated above those things which the Lord has commanded us to do.

The Easter season is the time when much of the Christian world chooses to remember the death and resurrection of Christ.  It is appropriate to recognize certain times of the year as times when we will remember various aspects of our redemption and to reflect on the historical events of Scripture to focus on those truths.  There are a great many beautiful hymns that have been written for the Christmas and Easter seasons particularly.  But superstition and legalism are constant temptations. High church ceremonialism is coming back into vogue in the Reformed world, with all the sacerdotalist trappings, and believers should be on their guard.  We must not think that Easter or Christmas are special times of the dispensing of God’s grace, since no mention is made of them in Scripture and no command is given to observe these days.  We should never permit these seasonal times to overshadow what God has commanded, the regular, everyday preaching of the whole counsel of God.

Superstition is more of a problem than many think.  It is all too common for Christians to believe that special dispensations of grace are given to believers on certain days, or that our spiritual walks are enhanced by ceremonies that God never commanded.  These are the “weak and beggarly elements” Paul cautions us about.  We should never permit materialism, nostalgia or our ever-present tendency to manufacture idols in our hearts distract us from the simple and unadorned worship, sacraments, prayer and preaching of God’s word which is commanded us in Scripture.  That is what advances the Christian life.

We are at liberty to choose to remember the doctrines of the incarnation and the resurrection at the traditional times the church has done so, a practice that goes back as far as anyone knows.  But we should always be content with the means of grace that God Himself ordained, and resist the ever-present pull of our sinful hearts to manufacture new ones.

Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah

We are singing hymn #598 (from the 1990 Trinity Hymnal) this Sunday, a hymn that picks up on the theme of the Exodus as a way of talking about the Christian life.  “No other Old Testament motif is as crucial to understand.  No other event is so basic to the fabric of both Testaments.” (Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, ed. Leland Ryken et al.) The New Testament continuously presents this life as essentially a pilgrimage, a journey from deliverance out of bondage on our way to our promised home.  This theme is one of the primary themes of the Lord’s Supper, which shows us Jesus’ sustaining life-force as that which feeds and nourishes us on this pilgrimage until He comes again.  1 Corinthians 10 is just one of many passages connecting the experience of the Israelites in the wilderness to the life of the New Testament Christian.

In verse one, the hymn-writer expresses his dependence on God for everything.  “I am weak but Thou art mighty; hold me with Thy powerful hand.”  Our native pride constantly urges us to think, even under the guise of service to God, that He somehow needs us, that we should do something glorious and important in His service.  But God doesn’t need us.  We need Him.  In Isaiah 46 God powerfully illustrates the difference between the gods of the pagans and the God of the Bible.  The pagans carry their gods from place to place.  But God carries His people and puts them where He will.  He carried the Israelites from Egypt to Canaan, not dependent on their mighty deeds at all.  All they needed to do was trust Him.

He picks up the theme of the manna in the wilderness in the last line.  God fed them in the wilderness, and He feeds us today.  More important than the bread on our table is the spiritual bread from heaven, the true Bread that gives us life, Jesus Christ.  The bread of the Lord’s Table is the bread of the Passover which symbolized the sustenance of God on their journey to the Promised Land. God would keep them fed on their journey, not with the milk and honey of luxury they would have in Canaan, but with what they needed to make it there.  We likewise have a promise, not that we will live lives of luxury and pleasure- that will come in time.  But we will be sustained by the power of God until we make it home.

The hymnist refers to the “crystal fountain,” the miraculous provision of water in the desert, water from the rock which was Christ (1 Corinthians 10:4), and the pillar of cloud and fire which guided them, all ways that God sustained and preserved them in their time in the wilderness.  He fills us with His Spirit and gives us His Word to guide us.  The believer who trusts God will, like the hymnist, earnestly pray for and be thankful for the guidance and direction of the Lord in his life.  That guidance and help from the Lord will continue until the end, until the “verge of Jordan”, when we cross into His promised rest forever, to praise and worship Him as He deserves for all eternity.

“Be Thou My Vision” is an adaptation of an ancient Irish poem called “St. Patrick’s Breastplate.”  Patrick was the evangelist of pagan Ireland, and while there was often in danger of his life from bandits and from lords and rulers who did not want the Christian faith spread in that land.  He expressed his firm conviction that the Lord would protect him and keep him safe.  It is not certain that Patrick actually wrote “St. Patrick’s Breastplate” which may have been written somewhat later, but it certainly reflects the spirit of Patrick’s faith.  He says, in part:

“I arise today, through
God’s strength to pilot me,
God’s might to uphold me,
God’s wisdom to guide me,
God’s eye to look before me,
God’s ear to hear me,
God’s word to speak for me,
God’s hand to guard me,
God’s shield to protect me,
God’s host to save me
From snares of devils,
From temptation of vices,
From everyone who shall wish me ill,
afar and near.”

“Be Thou My Vision” draws from many themes in the poem and focuses especially on the sufficiency of God to the needs and wants of the believer.  But the hymn is a prayer, expressing not so much the reality of the believer’s imperfect affections but the believer’s desire to be purged of everything else but the desire for and reliance upon God.

Verse one, and the title of the hymn, focus on God as the focus of all the believer’s desire.  God is to him the focus of his heart and his ambition, and the mere fact of God’s existence crowds out everything else from his mind.  In verse two, it is knowledge and wisdom that the writer focuses on, knowing well the truth that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.  That knowledge, as the Proverbs make clear, is the result of a personal connection to God, and can never be a matter of abstract or disconnected information.  God is the writer’s Father and dwells in intimate relationship with Him.  True wisdom and knowledge flows out of this relationship.

God’s power and protection is the focus of verse three.  God is the armor and weapons with which he fights, with which he will be kept safe from all the slings and arrows of life.  There are valid times in life to pick up earthly weapons.  It is wise to store up for the winter or for the day of trouble, or to take other measures to protect ourselves from danger.  Worldly prudence is a virtue.  But we should never be under any illusion that any of these things will truly keep us safe.  Our confidence should always be in the King of kings, who is truly a buckler and a high tower in times of trouble.  A high tower gives you security from the attacks of enemies, and it also gives you foresight—you can see the enemy coming and prepare.  With our trust in an omnipotent and omniscient God who is always working good for His people, we never need fear surprise dangers or the secret schemes of men.

Verse four reiterates the writer’s rejection of all earthly desires.  He “heeds not” wealth or praise from men.  The Bible does not say wealth or reputation are bad things.  They are blessings from God when one has them and uses them to His honor.  But to “heed” them means that those are the things that drive us, that govern our behavior.  The hymnist will be directed by the desire for God and His truth rather than these earthly and temporary things.

The last verse returns to the theme of the whole, that our trust, ambitions and desire is all to be found in God, our High King.  It expresses it all as a prayer, not as a presently achieved reality, for we all know the weakness and division that exists within our own heart.  We do long for the things of this world.  We do put our trust in men.  But we pray for God to purge us of a faulty heart and a double mind.  We long for the state of mind when God is truly the only Lord of our heart.