Pastor’s Notes (Page 28)

• Three things: 1. Special service this Sunday for the ordination of Tom Bilbro and Matthew Lanser to the offices of elder and deacon, respectively. Thankful for their service to Christ in our midst. 2. Remember the special musical, *Joseph,* next Saturday at 7:30, featuring our own Ross Hauck. Preview here. 3. MEN’S MINISTRY is on for this Saturday at 9:00. Breakfast…

• I’m working on an essay on knowing God this week and haven’t had time to write a note. So here’s the first part of the essay. The “tools” I’ll suggest in the next section (not included) will be the means of grace: word, sacraments and prayer. A man can take only so many editors, but I’m open to your comments.

• Three different thoughts this week. Remember, Palm Sunday, Good Friday and Easter beginning in nine days. Great and glorious things to consider.

• For the last two years I’ve mulled over the meaning of Jesus coming not for the healthy but the sick. There are some easy take-aways: the “ sick” (these are the “good” people in these narratives) are the humble, the self-aware, those who know they have a problem in their hearts, not just their conduct. At this level, the healthy-sick equation seems simple and we say: “…

• No men’s ministry tomorrow morning. We’re going to rethink this to try to accommodate a greater number of men in the church, especially those in younger families who are currently unable to attend. Sorry, brothers, for not getting this word out sooner.

I recently sent this letter (a few things omitted) to a couple in the church, but to some extent it applies to all of us who are married. So I thought I’d send it as this week’s note.

• The incomparable John Owen said worship was “indispensably necessary” based on the simple reality of who God is (think Romans 1). And this “inner” awareness was expressed in how God commanded his people to worship (what Owen called God’s “ appointment” ). Owen argued that if you give up the latter — namely corporate worship with God’s people according to God’s ideas —…

• A few weeks ago at prayer meeting I mentioned how the first decade of our marriage was fraught with grave concerns for Lisa’s health: multiple surgeries, several very bad attacks of asthma, one brush with death. Lisa was always much better than I was at placing the love of God alongside pain — as Psalm 118: “ the Lord has disciplined me severely, but he has not given me…

• Oddly enough, Jesus sometimes uses the word “sinner” to mean something other than a sinner. Often he is not referring to a person’s moral condition at all, but almost entirely to a person’s awareness of his moral condition, as in Luke 5:32 “ I came not to call the righteous but sinners.” Technically, of course, there are no non-sinners in Jesus’ audience. He’s using the…

• After the note below, I offer Teddy Roosevelt’s “ Ten Reasons for Going to Church” as an historical artifact, if nothing else.