When talking about the assurance of salvation, we often look to Scripture for the promises of God's faithfulness, such as we find in Romans 10:9, or we point to the work of the Holy Spirit in assuring us of our faith (see Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 21). Yet, especially in Reformed circles, we seldom mention the assurance that comes to us in the Lord's Supper. Consider what Herman Bavinck has to say in the fourth volume of his Reformed Dogmatics on the profound nature of the Supper:

Of primary importance in the Lord's Supper is what God does, not what we do. The Lord's Supper is above all a gift of God, a benefit of Christ, a means of communicating his grace. If the Lord's Supper were only a memorial meal and an act of confession, it would cease to be a sacrament in the true sense. In that case, like prayer, it could only be obliquely and indirectly called a means of grace. The Lord's Supper, however, is on the same level as the Word and baptism and therefore must, like them, be regarded first of all as a message and assurance to us of divine grace.

...[Christ] makes of [the] elements a meal in which the disciples consume his body and blood and thus enter into the most intimate communion with him. This communion does not merely consist in their sitting at one table, but they eat one and the same bread and drink one and the same wine. Indeed, the host here, in granting the signs of bread and wine, offers his own body and blood as nourishment and refreshment for their souls. That is a communion that far surpasses the communion inherent in a memorial meal and an act of confession. It is not merely a reminiscence of or a reflection on Christ's benefits but a most intimate bonding with Christ himself, just as food and drink are united with the body.

...Calvin, accordingly, correctly remarked against Zwingli that the meaning of eating Christ's body and drinking his blood is not exhausted by believing. Believing is a means, a means that is even temporary and destined to become seeing, but the communion with Christ engendered by it goes much deeper and endures forever. It is a mystical union that can only be made somewhat clear to us by the images of the vine and the branch, the head and the body, a bridegroom and his bride, the cornerstone and the building that rests on it. It is this mystical union that is signified and sealed in the Lord's Supper.

Often there seems to be a hesitancy in Reformed circles to say too much about the Lord's Supper for fear of sounding like some of the Lutherans or the Roman Catholics. Yet perhaps the opposite then becomes a problem as well, and they end up saying too little about it. It is not uncommon to hear the charge that the Reformed understand of the Lord's Supper is much more Zwinglian than Calvinist, and while the accusation might not be entirely fair, you can see the warrant for it. When a church holds the Lord's Supper only four or five times a year and goes to great lengths to emphasize the symbolic and memorial nature of it, it severely diminishes the significance of it.

But the invitation to the table is an invitation to enter into intimate communion with Christ. It is an invitation to "taste and see that the Lord is good" (Ps. 34:8). It is an invitation to be united with Christ when physically partaking of the elements. It is an invitation to have a foretaste of the coming marriage supper of the Lamb (Rev. 19:6-10). It is an invitation to receive—not just to remember—His grace.

If you do not believe that the Supper actually does something in the first place, there is no impetus to frequently come to the table. But when you truly understand the Supper as a means of grace, how could you not run to the table at Christ's invitation to receive that grace as often as you can?

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After finishing up Preaching and Preachers, I felt the desire—if not the urge—to begin to read Iain Murray's two-volume biography of Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Knowing that Lloyd-Jones had been influenced by the Puritans, I was not surprised to discover that already in March of 1926, before he entered the ministry (although at that point already having decided to), he was giving a talk to the Literary and Debating Society at Charing Cross Chapel on Puritanism.

One of the most significant reasons we ought to read the Puritans, he says, is because of the profound depth of faith they demonstrate, and their earnest desire to live a life reflective of the grace of God that had been at work in their lives.

'If you wish to know what Puritanism really is, don't read large volumes on the subject by men who may be scholars but never were Puritans, but rather read the life-stories of Puritans...and pray God to give you light not merely to see what is in print but also to see what is between the lines. The great truth in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress is not that Christian endured great hardships on his way to the eternal city, but that Christian thought it to be worth his while to endure those hardships...The only people who have a right to say anything about Christianity are those who have felt its force in their own lives...'

The Puritan, [Lloyd-Jones] argued, is not 'the strong man'. He is: 'a very weak man who has been given strength to realise that he is weak. I would say of all men and women that we are all weak, very weak, the difference being that the sinners do not appreciate the fact that they are weak, whereas the Christians do' (98).

Growing up in Dutch Reformed circles, I did not have a lot of exposure to the Puritans, nor did I during my college years where I was surrounded by—and profoundly influenced by—neocalvinism (which I still primarily identify myself with). However, last year I took a course on the theology of John Owen taught by Sinclair Ferguson, which opened my eyes to the gold mine that is the Puritans.

I remember conversations in college in which we wrestled with the recognition that sometimes neocalvinism could be so focused on thinking about what it meant to bring all of life and creation under the lordship of Jesus Christ that we lost sight of the fact that our souls needed to be submitted to Christ as well. I think reading more of the Puritans may be a way for me to balance that out.

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Revelation 3:1-6 contains Jesus' letter to the church at Sardis. It is likely that the church was large, rich, and influential, giving it the appearance of being a thriving congregation. But the tone of the letter is largely negative, and contains a stern rebuke and call to repentance.

Simon Kistemaker has authored a commentary on the book of Revelation and makes the important point that the letters to the seven churches in the province of Asia are not intended only for the churches they are addressed to, but are intended for the Church as a whole. I found this to be especially clear in reading the letter to the church at Sardis. Kistemaker comments:

The gospel that the local Christians proclaimed and applied was too weak to be offensive...the kind of gospel that the inhabitants of Sardis heard from the Christians posed no threat to their pagan religions...

Of the seven churches Sardis was among the lowest in spiritual fervor. Its accommodation to its religious environment shielded the church from persecution, for hardly anyone took notice. Its inoffensive lifestyle yielded religious peace with the world but resulted in spiritual death in the sight of God. Apart from a few faithful members who kept the fire of the gospel burning, the church itself was gradually dying, like a fire that lacks fuel and air...

Almost the entire church had capitulated to the surrounding world of pagan religion and Judaism, and instead of being an influence on the culture, it had become influenced by that culture (149, 150).

Reading this, my immediate reaction was equate the climate of the church of Sardis with the general character of modern evangelicalism. The church at Sardis is a concrete example of some of the problems I've tried to highlight before that plague the modern Church. In both cases, the concession to cultural influence is one of the main factors in the declining fidelity of the churches.

Some promising and important things emerge from the letter, however. Despite the stern words of Jesus, His grace shows forth in issuing the call to repent. Christ is withholding His judgment from the church to give them time to repent and return to Him. This call to repentance is not just for the Sardisian church, it is for the Church universal. While His grace is evident in the allowance of time for repentence, we cannot ignore that Jesus also declares that there will be severe consequences for the failure of the church to remain faithful in her love for Him and in holding on to the gospel.

This should be a great encouragment to us as well. Despite our sinfulness and misdirection, Jesus grants us time to repent and return to Him. We need to recognize that his words of rebuke also apply to us to the extent that we have been unfaithful to Him. And like the church in Sardis, the consequences of losing our first love are very real. However, His promise stands that if we confess our sins and repent, He will cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). If we remain faithful and persever to the end, what was promised to the church in Sardis is promised to us as well, that we will be clothed in white garments and never have our names erased from the book of life.

"He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches" (Rev. 3:6).

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Just to be clear, I don't want to seem like the angry guy who is critical of everything. I'm not like that at all. Posts like this and this are just a reflection of my deep concern for the state of the Church, and my hope and prayer that people would learn to embrace a wholehearted faith, one that is fully committed to the Lordship of Jesus Christ over all of life.

The Church, especially in our day, makes so many efforts to satisfy the desires of its members. People are continually spoon-fed exactly what they want. The Church is marketed this way. It promises an encounter with a God who will fit your agenda, one who will make you feel loved and accepted no matter what. Perhaps evangelicals are not as flagrant about it as figures like Joel Osteen, but subtlety doesn't make it any less of an issue. It is a troublesome concession to a consumerist and individualistic culture.

The problem here is that when you give people what they want, eventually you will come to a point where you won't be able to give them what they need. But if you give them what they need and they come to realize that as a need, it will then become what they want. John Owen is a perfect case in point here. I just finished reading The Mortification of Sin in Believers (which I strongly encourage you to read), and what he writes is very difficult to swallow. Nobody wants to hear about how great their sin and misery are, yet that is precisely what is needed. We easily become complacent with the condition of our hearts and are persuaded by the notion that if we just do a certain number of things right, everything will go well with us now and in eternity. This idea is only amplified when all we hear week after week is that God loves us and accepts us unconditionally if we put our faith in Him, that He is gracious and merciful, and that Jesus will help us make our lives better.

Certainly, these things are true and cause for rejoicing. But it is only half the story. God loves us and accepts us unconditionally in spite of our sin—and not just the occasional commission of sin, but that wretched, natural state of sin that we are all enslaved to and that inclines us to hate God and our neighbor (Rom. 3:23; Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 5). Yes, our God is gracious and merciful, but far more so than many believe. God's grace is not just material wealth or good health, but is the radical love that grasps on to us, rescues us from certain death, and declares, "You are mine!" even as we are striving with everything we have to run away from Him (Col. 1:21-22). Jesus certainly makes our lives better, but not just by improving our marriage or helping us choose which movies to watch, but in that He is our King who brings us under His rule by laying down His own life for us and reconciling us to God (Rom. 5:6-11).

This is what people need. They need to hear how great their sin and misery are. They need to hear how despite their total enslavement to sin, God calls them unto Himself to be His own and brings them into His fold. They need to hear that they are called to be a holy people, set apart, foreigners and aliens in the land. They need to hear that all of life is to be lived in service to Him, for His glory. They need to hear that they are part of a bigger story, that they are God's people, living under His rule, and blessed by Him. They need to hear that the end goal is not some disembodied state of bliss in an intangible, spiritual realm, but that they are wholly involved as God's people in His mission and in bringing all things in heaven and earth under the Lordship of Christ (Eph. 1:9-10).

Our culture, and many in the Church, do not want something that demands so much from us and that makes such a total claim. To them, that is the antithesis of freedom. However, to the contrary, this is freedom in the fullest sense of the word. This is what it truly means to be alive. We know true joy when we, as creatures, live as the Creator intended us to. This only begins when we cease to live for ourselves, and instead consecrate ourselves to God, pursuing holiness.

I was talking briefly with a friend yesterday who made the comment, "I've been quite perplexed lately at the way evangelicals seem to understand 'make disciples' as simply meaning 'share the gospel.'" It is a point well taken. We can tell them all these good things about grace and about love and about Jesus, but that is not enough. A confession of faith requires a complete surrender to Him. Jesus Christ makes a total claim over our lives and demands that we live in holiness. The Gospel, our faith, is radical and transformational. It leaves nothing untouched. If it does, then it is an insufficient Gospel, even a false Gospel.

Augustine has famously said, "Thou hast made us for Thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee." We will only realize this when we have come to believe the Gospel in its entirety and when we have taken up our cross to follow Him. The Lord has called us to be holy, as He is holy (Lev. 19:2; 1 Pet. 1:13-16). May this become our desire, and may our song be, "Take myself, and I will be, ever, only, all for Thee."

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Surveying the horizon of the evangelical landscape, you cannot help but notice that there is a disturbing lack of holiness in the Church—or perhaps conversely, that it is marked by a disturbing degree of self-righteousness. There are probably several reasons for this, but some of the most significant are the Church's unfaithfulness to Scripture and the negligent way in which it has allowed itself to succumb to the values and norms of our culture.

Our culture is so antagonistic towards rules and authority that both those raised as Christians and those who become Christians later in life seek out an expression of Christianity that requires very little of them. They don't want a God who, despite freeing them from sin by His infinite mercy, love, and grace, requires that they live to glorify Him in all that they do. They only want a salvation that makes their eternal destiny sure, not one that forces them to look at all of life through the lenses of a new paradigm. They don't want a gospel that transforms everything, but instead one that makes them feel good and loved and can be used whenever is convenient for them. And regrettably, the Church has made this distorted gospel readily available to them.

Missing the Point
What pains me so much about this is that people in the Church, leaders and laymen alike, don't see it and continue to feed the problem. In a post the other day, I quoted D. A. Carson, who said that while the gospel may have peripheral benefits such as improving your marriage or how you handle your finances, that is not the heart of it. Yet that is what has become of it in the Church today. We turn Jesus into a weak, smiling figure who loves us and gives us some good advice on how to make our lives better. I am not a big fan of Brian McLaren, but the title of one of his books is perfectly relevant here—we have embarked on adventures in missing the point.

While that might be a bit humorous, make no mistake about it, there is nothing funny about this. It is terribly serious business. Carson rightly says that at the end of the day the gospel is about ultimates. It is about life and death, sin and grace, death and redemption. It is the root and foundation of all that we are, all that we say, think, and do. The problem is that far too many Christians have it reversed. Instead of making the gospel the starting point, we begin with cultural norms and patterns. We then take the gospel and selectively baptize some of the elements of life in order to make them Christian. The gospel is imposed from above on whatever parts of life we choose. It takes minimal effort, makes us look and feel good, and gives us the freedom to live largely as we please.

The Gospel Transforms Everything
But the fact of the matter is that we don't have a choice. If we believe the gospel, we need to believe in it in such a way that it transforms absolutely everything. Christ, as sovereign King, makes a claim over every part of life. If we do not live as such, we have sinned and have enthroned someone or something else as king. Furthermore, we are not living in the fullness that God intended humanity to live in. That fullness of life is only realized when we live with Christ as our King.

All this does not mean that life will become easier or make us more happy, as we have been taught to believe. Quite the contrary. When you begin to learn just how the gospel transforms all of life, you realize very quickly that it makes life a great deal harder. The narrow road is a difficult road. Yes, there are mountains we will overcome, but there are also some very deep valleys we will go through. If you haven't yet figured that out, you're missing something key. Read Pilgrim's Progress.

This is a hard truth, and I am just as guilty as the next person of making my faith into something I want it to be instead of what it ought to be. But there is no excuse. God has entered into relationship with His people by means of a covenant. His grace is immeasurable in that He demands nothing of us and brings us into that covenant relationship because of His love for us. However, once we are in that relationship, He requires that we worship and serve Him alone. That worship is all-encompassing; it means that the totality of our life is lived in worship to Him. God does not ask that we honor Him now and then, or when it is convenient, or when something good has happened to us. No, He demands our total and complete allegiance. Simply put, if you are not worshiping God, you are worshiping something else.

Neither our culture nor the modern Church like the language of "demands" or "duty" because it is suggestive of legalism. Ironically, they shed the shackles of legalism only to rapaciously embrace the shackles of antinomianism. What appears to be freedom is anything but. True freedom is found always and only in Jesus Christ. When we come to understand and believe that, the things which God requires of us no longer seem like demands. Instead, we joyfully desire to serve Him and strive to do everything to His glory. That is true freedom. Anything less is slavery to ourselves or another.

Regaining our Footing
We have missed the point of the gospel, and have substituted another gospel (Gal. 1:6-10). The implications of this are enormous. Our lives are lived out of the convictions and beliefs we hold, and when those basic convictions are not biblical, they are sinful. John Piper says in his Battling Unbelief, "We sin because it offers some promise of happiness. That promise enslaves us until we believe that God is more desirable than life itself (Psalm 63:3). Only the power of God's superior promises in the gospel can emancipate our hearts from servitude to the shallow promises and fleeting pleasures of sin." It is a complete reordering of life which places the true gospel at the center.

There is a great deal of work ahead and we need leaders who are wholly committed to the gospel, prepared to show how the gospel revolutionizes all of life, and willing to stand against the unfaithfulness that has become so prevalent in the Church. Pray that God will raise up those leaders. Pray that we as the Church might see how we have wandered and turned to our own ways, and that instead we would fix our eyes on Jesus and yearn for the freedom and joy found only in service to Him. Pray that we might forsake ourselves and all others for Him. Pray that we might no longer seek to accommodate the gospel to our own desires, but allow ourselves to be transformed by its power. Pray that it will be soon.

Let us take up our cross and follow Him (Matt. 16:24-26). We rest in the assurance that when we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive them and cleanse us from unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).

Lord, revive Your Church.

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