Good morning. I like how clappy you have been
this morning. We have just sung about the
goodness of our God. Yes, Amen.
Let's hear a great expression of the goodness of God that he
speaks to us. He speaks to us.
How awesome. How good is that?
My friends, you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you
once walked, following the course of this world, following
the Prince of the power of the air, the Spirit that is now at
work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all
once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the
desires of the flesh and the mind.
And we're by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.
But God being rich in mercy because of His great love with
which He loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses, God
made us alive with Christ. By grace you have been saved,
and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the
heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He
might show His immeasurable riches of His grace and kindness
towards us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved
through faith, and this not your own doing.
It is a gift of God, not a result of work, so that no one
may boast. For we are His workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared
beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Amen. This is the word of the Lord.
Let's be to God. Dear Lord.
God, we pray that as we hear this word that it would not just
resonate in our heads, but that it would change our hearts.
Lord, we want to be transformed by the power of this word, by
the power of Your Word every time you speak to us, so that
indeed we might be more and more faithful servants of you,
followers of you in all that we do.
We pray through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Please proceeded and grab your Bibles and turn to Ephesians
chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2.
Most of you are going to be familiar with the distinction
between believing something and really believing something,
between believing something and really believing in it.
Most of us immediately can associate what that is.
Kelly and I, past couple of weeks, went to the Grand Canyon.
By your grace, we were able to go.
We went to the Grand Canyon and beforehand, I believe that the
Grand Canyon was grand. Everybody says so.
I've seen pictures. It marks it itself out.
I knew that the Grand Canyon was grand, but once you get there
you really know how grand it is. I was young when I realised that
having children would change your life, that having kids
would be a major factor in your life and would transform what's
happening here. I believe that long ago, but
once I had kids, man, did I ever believe that.
It was a belief structure that was totally different.
Part of the celebration of my faith has always been a global
understanding of our God. How globally gracious and good
and powerful and overwhelming is our God.
You recognize that about God. And then I've had the
opportunity to worship with congregations around this world,
and you see God worshipped and praised around this world, and
believing this global picture of God takes on an entirely
different perspective. Once you see some of these
things. There's believing in something,
and then there's really believing in something.
Today we're going to talk about the fact that Hebron Church is
and desires to be a Reformed congregation.
And what we're going to emphasize in that understanding
is the distinction between believing in something and
really believing in something. As we've moved into the EPC and
there's a good way to get us going here in our understanding,
our self understanding of who we are.
I've come up with a phrase in which I think captures both what
Hebron is right now to some extent and what we desire to be.
Now, the distinction there is one that I think, as I talked
through a lot of these characteristics, I hope that
you've been able to say, Oh yes, that sounds like Hebron.
That sounds like who we are. And yet also that there's a part
of your mind always going, but boy, we could be so much better
at these areas. So we looked at what it means
that we are biblically based. And sure, we're a biblically
based church and I hope that leaks it out and I hope that
shows in everything we do. But my friends, we could do that
so much better. We're a Christ centered
congregation. I hope that shows in everything.
I hope that shows in our worship.
I hope that shows in our programs.
I hope that shows in our interactions with one another as
we're talking with one another. I hope that Christ centered
nature of who we are actually shows itself in those ways.
But my friends, we could be so much better.
We could be so much better in our worship and our service and
our nurture and how we do all these things so consistently.
This description that I have laid out for us, I think is both
a, a description of who we currently are.
I want it. If you can't recognize us in
this description, then we are failing you tremendously in this
regard. But also there should be a
yearning to have an even greater expression of this.
So here's the description that we've been using here.
Hebron is a biblically based, Christ centered community of
disciples, A Reformed classically evangelical church
in the Presbyterian tradition, worshipping, growing and serving
Christ in the East Hills of Pittsburgh.
OK, Now we've looked at a number of these characteristics already
today, and today what I want to focus on is this idea of
Reformed. We are a reformed congregation.
Now, if you've been a part of our congregation for any period
of time, if you've worshipped with us, you will have heard
that terminology. We're a Reformed Church.
We're reformed theology. We reform in our thinking.
Along these lines. What I want to take a little bit
of time is just lay this out now.
There are seminary classes that go on for years that touch on
the nature of what it means to be reformed, etcetera, etcetera.
And we're not going to do that tonight, today, tonight until
tomorrow. No, we're just going to have a
discussion, what I hope are some of the highlights about what it
means to be reformed. So what I want to do is I want
to hit on three characteristics really quickly.
I want to hit on two of them really quickly and one of them
in in a little bit more depth. When we say that we're reformed,
one of the things that we're doing is we are identifying
ourselves with a history and with a tradition.
A history and a tradition that dates back centuries.
Now, if you think about the Christian Church in terms of a
tree, it's always the imagery that works the best in this
regard as a tree that grows throughout time.
The starting from the very beginning of the church all the
way through time, there have been different branches that
have developed as the church has evolved.
As the church has grow, it developed into certain branches
that share a history in the tradition.
So you've got the Orthodox branch, you've got the Catholic
branch, you've got the Methodist branch, you've got the
Episcopalian branch, you've got all these branches.
Well, one of those branches is the Presbyterian or the Reformed
branch. That's the branch in which we
associate ourselves with. So when we say that we're a
Presbyterian, I'm sorry, I keep messing that up.
When I say that we are a Reformed Church, one of the
things I'm intentionally doing is identifying with a certain
history, a certain tradition. I am saying, look, the history
that brought us to this point right now is not insignificant
for the way in in which Hebron functions, and that is certainly
true. It is to our great detriment
that we are as ignorant as we are about the history, church
history, because it really does factor into and it shapes and
changes a lot of what we are. If you ask why we do certain
things, why we look a certain way, the way we function in
terms of our community, some of it is related simply to the
fact, well, we are connected to those men and women who have
gone before us that have helped shape and think through what it
means to be a faithful body of believers together.
So part of it is just the history in which we are
connected with. Again, we are at the default.
We are at a detriment to ourselves when we don't pursue,
when we don't understand more about that history.
We have a blessed but growth group that is growing right now
that is focusing on church history.
I would encourage you to spend some time learning some of those
kind of things. It is immensely helpful in your
growth and in your understanding of the scriptures.
So the first thing when we talk about Reformed is that we are
self consciously self identifying with the history.
I'm not spending a lot of time with this.
I don't know how helpful it would be to spend a lot of time
with it, with you from the stage, but it would be
incredibly helpful I think, if you went back and looked.
What does Reformed look like over the past centuries?
That's first, the history of the church.
Secondly, there's an an attitude of life.
There's an approach to life that the reformed churches embrace
that is essential to the way in which we do things, and that is
captured well in the phrase reformed and always reforming.
We are a church that is reformed and always reforming.
Now slow down for a second. Reformed.
Reformed actually does kind of mean what the word means.
You know, sometimes we say things and because they're
theological words, we assume that they mean something that
they don't. Reformed means to form again, to
shape again, to be molded again. So a Reformed Church is a church
that has been shaped again, molded again.
And the picture is to a Reformed Church is a church that is
reformed, remolded, and is always being reformed, molded.
Now, what do we mean by that? What we're capturing is the
reality that as any institution exists, as any person grows and
matures, as any thought process develops, there is going to be a
drift away from the norm that is before us.
What is the norm for all church? What is the norm for Hebron
Church? What is the norm for every
Christian? Of course it is Scripture
itself. Scripture is our norm.
Scripture is that straight arrow that is pointing straight ahead.
And as the church goes and develops, no matter how straight
it starts, the realities are in life that because of sin and
because of brokenness and because of our natural human
limitations, we start fading a little way away from that norm.
That consistently happens. Have you ever been driving and
the roads going straight and the car is going straight and you
let go of the steering wheel just to see how long your car
can go straight before it starts?
I have never done that. That is dangerous.
What a terrible illustration. Don't ever do that.
But you know what that would be like?
You would go for a while and the car would eventually, no matter
how straight the road is, no matter how straight the car is
going, in time it would drift. And So what do we need to do?
We need to reform always to the scriptures, reform always to the
word of God. Now, what does this mean for
Hebron? It means self consciously we are
aware that while our history is a beautiful one, and while what
we've done in the past 15 years has been beautiful and while
we've what we've done in the last 15 days has been beautiful
and what we've done in the last 15 minutes has been beautiful,
there is that constant tug of sin and worldliness that pulls
US ever so slightly away from that norm, that scripture.
And so we need to be self consciously a church that is
reformed and is always being reformed, always being shaped
back to the Scriptures. So what you should be able to
see, what you should be able to identify is that there are
moments in time where the leadership of the church kind of
Yanks us back, or where the congregation in the church Yanks
us back always to the Scriptures, where we're always
being measured by that standard, that authority, that word of
God. Now, I'm jumping ahead a little
bit, but it's hard not to say this to you.
If the institution can fade in time, so can every individual
fade in time. You could have a rock solid
faith and rock solid expression of your faith, and you cannot
think you are changing and deviating at all from that.
My friends, the power of sin is such that it pulls us away from
that norm. You too, if Heaven Church is
going to be a church that is reformed and always reforming,
you too need to be an individual that is reformed and always
reforming. That is, that is always holding
forth that concept of the standard that is before you and
checking yourself consistently so that you are always being
yanked back to the standard. That is the only truth, the only
role of life and faith, Scripture itself.
So we have a history. When we talk about reforms,
we're talking about history. We're talking about an attitude,
a way in which we approach things.
But primarily when we talk about reforms, what we're identifying
is a certain theology, a certain way of looking at the
scriptures, or rather a certain way of forcing us that the
scriptures force us to look at. When we read the Scriptures, we
see the Scriptures speak to us in certain ways and certain
fashions, and we want to emphasize what the Scripture
emphasizes. We want to stress what the
Scripture itself stresses. And we believe that that.
So there's a, a reformed way of looking at the Bible.
There's a reformed way of looking at the at the Trinity.
There's a reformed way of looking at our sin, of creation,
at the work of the Holy Spirit, of the Spirit's gifts in our
lives and the work of the church.
There's a Reformed theology that arises out of the Scripture that
captures those things. But when we talk about Reformed
in in a quick and helpful way, we are largely talking about 3
emphasis. Now these are this is that idea
that you know, you can believe it, but then you can really
believe it. The Reformed Church has a robust
view of the sovereignty of God. It also has a robust view of the
depravity of sin, and it has a robust view of the work of
grace. Now, there's more to Reformed
theology, but what we do is when we read the scriptures, we think
that the scriptures that are advocating robust, I'm talking
about a strong, definitive, aggressive, dominant, kind of a
thing like coffee, a robust flavor of a coffee or something
like that. So I hope the robust doesn't
throw you off. It's a robust view of the
sovereignty of God. Now let me stop for a second and
once again emphasize what I think you would automatically
realize is that every Christian to some extent throughout the
world thinks about the sovereignty of God and
recognizes the sovereignty of God.
You can't read the Scriptures, even casually, and not come away
with any other picture other than the God rules the world.
God is sovereign, He rules, He has authority, He has power,
etcetera, etcetera. That's what we're talking about
when we talk about the sovereignty of God.
God has sovereign control over all things.
Every Christian is going to embrace that to some extent.
When we talk about the Reform, the Reformed are insistent on
speaking definitively where we think the Scripture speaks
definitively. And where the Scripture speaks
about the sovereignty of God, it doesn't have a soft sovereignty
or a limited sovereignty. It advocates for a very robust,
a strong view of God's sovereignty.
So a lot of people think, well, yeah, God control everything,
but there are he does so limit He's limited in certain ways.
Now what do I mean by that? Well, our human actions shift
and change things in God's plan and he has to adjust and correct
himself or the the struggle with the devil that there is
spiritual warfare out there and and there then the struggle with
the devil limits God's sovereign expression or something like
that. Or that God limits himself in
his sovereign expression, that he controls what he decides,
what he's not going to do and what he's going to leave up to
somebody else to do, etcetera, etcetera.
When we talk not idolatry in the Scriptures, idolatry is not
necessarily in the Scriptures the displacing of God with a
different divine being, with the worship of something else.
In the Old Testament in particular, what you see with
idolatry, it's the elevating something else to the same
status of God. This is why the Scriptures say
you will have no other gods before me.
There will not be any other God but God himself.
He is a sovereign over all things.
And it is that, it is that robust understanding of
sovereignty that plays into the way in which we are saved.
How, my friends, are we saved? We are saved by God's work, by
God's initiative. God takes the initiative to save
us. God does the work in saving us.
God applies that work into our lives to save us.
Our salvation is in God's hands and God's alone.
There is no other competitor to that.
There is no other factor that determines things other than God
himself. This is that robust picture of
God's sovereignty. Again, lots of people recognize
that God can have sovereignty over all things.
The Reformed Church reminds, captures that picture from the
Scriptures that say, no, God is the one who is sovereign over
all things. God is sovereign over all.
We have a robust view of sovereignty.
Secondly, there's a robust view of the depravity of sin.
And once again, it's going to be really hard to be to find any
Christian that doesn't recognize that sin is a bad thing.
Every Christian across the board is going to acknowledge sin is
bad, etcetera, etcetera. But the Reformed churches have
tried to capture the biblical teaching about sin, that sin is
not something that is bad or disappointing or discouraging to
God. Sin is not something that annoys
God. Sin is something that God hates
with the full form of that word that you can imagine he hates
it. God hates sin.
Sin is not something that we have to work through.
Sin is not something that we struggle with.
Sin is not something that we, you know, we had kind of have to
work our way around or something like that.
Sin is something that God punishes.
God punishes sin in this world. Sin is not something that is
just kind of a bother to us. Sin is something that Jesus came
to give his life to pay for. If sin is as horrific as the
Scriptures identify it, then it makes sense that the only
solution is the death of God himself is the God man himself,
Jesus Christ. And so when we understand the
nature of sin as the Bible portrays it, we realize that sin
is not something that that. Now, we don't preach Hellfire
and damnation here at this church because we want to see
you squirm, although that's always fun.
I, I, I don't do that because I get a kick out of wagging my
finger at you or wagging my finger at me.
What we do is we proclaim A robust view of sin because the
Bible portrays A robust view of sin, and not just sin, but the
depravity of sin. Now depravity is a word that
doesn't just mean that we are as bad as we can possibly get.
Look, you all can be a lot worse than what you are right now.
We all know that we can be so much worse than what we are
right now. And it's by God's grace that it
restrains those sinful impulses. So you don't let go of the
steering wheel when your car is going straight down a straight
Rd. So we don't fall into sin in
those kind of in those kind of ways we can be worse than what
we are. But nevertheless, the Bible
teaches a depravity of sin that means that it impacts Everything
Everywhere. It is easy for us.
To talk about the sin out there and to look at what the sin is
doing in this world and say, my gosh, there is chaos out there.
And they come up with the silliest ideas and they promote
the most ridiculous concepts, and they are advocating for the
death of our society. According to the scriptural
norms. It's easy for us to identify the
sin out there, but the depravity of sin, a robust view of the
depravity of sin, recognizes that the sin out there is
exactly the sin that is in here, that is in here.
Yeah, it shows itself differently, but there's no
difference between the depravity that is out there and that is
here, that is sinful, that wraps its way around every aspect of
who we are. And so you've got the teaching
of this robust view of the depravity of sin, which reminds
us that it's not US versus them. It's not awesome. 1 standard and
them on a different standard. It is all of us standing under
the same position of being condemned and judged and guilty
in our sin, save for the redeeming grace of Jesus Christ,
which is that third picture of the Reformed theology, a robust
view of the work of grace. And once again, every Christian
one way or another is going to recognize God's grace in things.
We all know that God does things that are good to us.
We all recognize one way or another that we need God's help
to get over the hump and those kind of things.
So we kind of picture God's grace is functioning.
For a lot of people, God's grace functions like this.
Here's this big hill that is before us.
We're living this life here and we're struggling in life, and we
got this big hill that's before us.
And over here is salvation in heaven and God's blessings and
stuff like that. And we've got this big hill that
we have to climb and we look at the hill and we say, Oh my gosh,
I can't get over that. But I, we try.
And it's a responsibility to get pushing and we get a little bit
of a way. Some of you get 1/2 of the way,
some of you get less than that. And we get part way up the hill,
etcetera. And then God comes along and
gives us his grace by pushing us over the hill.
That is not a biblical picture of grace.
It sure isn't a Reformed picture of grace.
The Reformed picture of grace says this We are dead in our
sins. There's no going up that hill.
There's no looking at that hill and despairing.
There is a recognition that we have nothing, that we bring
nothing to the table but our sinful selves and our complete
inability to do anything but on behalf of our salvation.
And it's not that God gives us that little extra that we're
missing to get us over the hump. It's that we've got nothing to
give it all, and God gives it all.
God's grace is his unmerited blessing to every sinful Sinner.
That's his God's grace. When he pushes, he doesn't
pushes the final couple feet over the hill.
He grants us everything, every bit of salvation.
A robust view of grace recognizes that when we come
before our Lord and Savior, we come completely, completely
unable to do anything on our behalf.
And we are dependent completely and totally.
Now why are we so unable? Because of this complete
depravity of our sin? Then why are we left-leaning
completely and totally into the goodness of our God, our
sovereign God who takes all the initiative, who takes all the
work on our behalf? If we're going to be a Reformed
Church, that the teaching, the undergirding of everything in
which we do is going to stress this robust view of the
sovereignty of God, of the depravity of sin, and of the
marvelous work of God's grace and salvation.
If you're going to be a Reformed believer, you're going to be a
believer that sees in the Scripture that that recognizes
that the Scripture screams about the sovereignty of God, that the
Scripture screams about the depravity of sin and how horrid
it is. And it screams that God's
salvation, salvific grace is his solution to the trauma in which
we find ourselves is God's grace that brings us into his
presence. And that's nowhere pictured as
well is in the table that we come to.
I would urge you, I read through Ephesians chapter 2 earlier and
part of the intent was to walk through that text and just show
you how it screams out those 3 notions of a robust view of the
sovereignty of God, a robust view of of our depravity and
sin, and a robust view of God's grace.
I urge you, I beg you, look back at that text and see if it
doesn't speak exactly and directly to those, to those
points. But if we see it in God's Word,
it is wonderful to experience it through God's sacrament.
We come to the table, picture what is here.
We articulated the body and blood of Jesus Christ, His
death, predicated by whom? By God himself was his decision,
His initiative, His plan to lead you to this spot where we come
to the table of our Lord. Why is it body and blood?
Because it was his death, fully his death.
Why? Because of the great depravity
that we are under. If sin wasn't so bad, he could
have come up with a different plan that didn't involve the
life of his own son. But instead, we celebrate the
life of His own son here because we realize how bad sin really
is, and we see His love and grace for us, that He comes here
even at the cost of His own son, so that He might meet us at this
table.