Whenever I used to read about “the wilderness” in Scripture, I used to picture the Amazon forest. Well, to my shock, my imagination once again proved unreliable. I did not have an accurate mental picture of the Judean wilderness until I found myself in the midst of it. I got off the bus and immediately felt the need to chug water. Instantly my understanding of some narratives in Scripture was expanded: Jesus being tempted in the wilderness, David fleeing from Saul in the wilderness, and Israel’s 40-year wandering… these did not take place in the Amazon (duh, Marcus)… they were in a hot, sweaty desert. I think it took me about 10 minutes to get to “I’m grumpy and tired and thirsty” stage, and at that point I realized how similar I am to grumbling Israel.

Me realizing the Judean Wilderness was not the Amazon.

David knew the need for shelter. As he fled from Saul in the wilderness of Judea, and later from his son Absalom, he needed protection: protection from his pursuer, from wildlife, and from the scorching sun above. The safe haven of a shadow was precious to him in those wilderness wanderings. In one Psalm he wrote during his time in the wilderness (Psalm 63), David says to God, “For You have been my help, and in the shadow of Your wings I sing for joy.”  As a mother hen provides a looming shadow of protection over her chick, so God’s presence provided that peace and safety for David. God was David’s Mother Hen.

Well, David did not have a physical mother hen with him in the desert, but what did give him shelter were rocks. Oh what a welcome sight a large rock was to David! He could rest in the coolness of its shade, have peace that he was hidden, and have confidence that he was out of reach. A cleft in a rock was the perfect hiding place for David, and he found it to be another great picture of his real fortress, Yahweh (Ps. 18:2).

Rock of Ages, cleft for me

Let me hide myself in Thee!

Is God your Hiding Place? For the security of your salvation, is He your Hiding Place? From the scorching heat of God’s rightful anger against your sin, is He your Hiding Place? From the attacks of others around you, is He your Hiding Place? Do you hide daily in Him? Oh how He desires to hide you in His shadow, where you can sing for joy (Ps. 63:7)! Click HERE to listen to “Rock of Ages”.

All Praise to Our Redeeming Lord

Come, Christians Join to Sing

By Faith

You Made Us Your Own

May we run to the Scriptures today, family! Praying for us!

-Pastor Marcus

Scholars debate on the year of the crucifixion/resurrection. Potentially it was 29 A.D.

It is clear, however, that the crucifixion took place on a Friday, and the resurrection took place on Sunday. Therefore, today we are celebrating Good Friday, remembering the Friday that Jesus actually took God’s wrath for all that would trust in Him. Oh, the love and justice of God!

This Sunday we will be singing “The Power of the Cross“. In the chorus we will sing twice “Christ became sin for us”. This is taken from II Cor. 5:21 -

“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf,

so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.”

This is jaw-dropping. This has rightfully earned the word “amazing”. Since eternity past (so, for forever) all Jesus had ever known was righteousness. He was always perfect. He never experienced a moment of imperfection, and never felt the weight of sin.

And since our conception – (think about that) – Since our conception all we have ever known is sin. We have always been “in sin”. We have never experienced a moment of perfection, and never felt the joy of righteousness.

The righteous Jesus coming and dwelling with sinful man… imagine the filth Jesus saw around Him… it would be like us crawling through sewage, only infinitely more gross. Yet we are so used to crawling through sewage… it is all we’ve ever known.

And then – “Christ became sin for us.” We cannot comprehend this. Righteous Jesus took upon Himself our sin. The perfect Christ, bearing our sin, was crushed for us, as if He took all of our places on Death Row.

The result of perfect Jesus becoming sin for us during those 3 hours on the cross: we get to be with Him in righteousness. Do you understand that substitution? — Righteous Christ took our sin, sinful man receives Christ’s righteousness! Soli Deo Gloria for this amazing grace.

Other songs for this Resurrection Sunday:

Hosanna (Praise is Rising)

Come, People of the Risen King

My Redeemer Lives

Christ the Lord is Ris’n Today

Excited to study the Word of God with you this Sunday, and to celebrate together the resurrection of our Savior!

Pastor Marcus

A few weeks ago I got to enjoy a “family devotion time” with my Cambria family, the Laws. The study was a fun one as we read a storybook on the Exodus from Egypt. Once we finished the story and reviewed its content (Bella and Brennen answered all the questions before I could), we sang “Jesus, Thank You” as a family. My heart was encouraged as we finished the song, and I thought I was about to get up from the family time and go to my bedroom or something… but then the unexpected happened.

Pastor Chris asked his family, “Why do you think I chose that song to end our study?”

“Well, because Jesus saved us!” I thought in my head, confident I had mastered the question.

But then Bella… blew my answer clear outta the water. “Well,” Bella said softly, “Just like God washed away our sins, God washed away the Egyptians.”

…

Immediately I fell before 7 year-old Bella and cried out, “I am your student!”…. Well, that part is not true. But when she spoke that analogy of the gospel, my heart was transported both to the Sea of Reeds as well as to the cross on Golgotha.

What a glorious picture of the gospel! Just as the Egyptians were hot in pursuit for the children of Israel, so sin was seeking to destroy us (Gen. 4:7); just as the Egyptians seemed to have the Israelites right where they wanted them, so sin had us dead (Rom. 7:12) and hopeless (Eph. 2:12); and even as God washed away the Egyptians completely in the Sea of Reeds, so Jesus Christ washed away our sins and made us free (Rev. 7:14)!

This Sunday, may we celebrate that the Lord has washed away our Egyptians – for Christ has washed us of our sins! Click HERE to listen to “Jesus Thank You”.

Majestic

God of Wonders

Nothing but the Blood

All I have is Christ

 

Christ is all,

Pastor Marcus

Hello church family! Devotional to come tomorrow, but here is the set list for this Sunday:

Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee

Lord Most High

Grace Unmeasured

My Jesus, I Love Thee

My music pastor in college would often stop us as we sang and ask us, “Did you catch that?”, or before a verse of a hymn he would stop us and say, “Now don’t miss this…” Church family, I pray that you do not miss this –

The love of God is greater far

Than tongue or pen could ever tell

It goes beyond the highest star

And reaches to the lowest hell

Incredible lyrics. When these lines are chewed upon, it overwhelms the heart. The love of God, so vast, so complete… that it “surpasses knowledge” (Eph. 3:19) and its “breadth and length and height and depth” (v. 18) truly is immeasurable.

To leave us just with this idea that God’s love is immeasurable, we would not understand very well what His love looks like. God gave us the ultimate object lesson, however (see Rom. 5:8). That is what the 2nd half of the first verse of this song speaks of:

The guilty pair bowed down with care

God gave His Son to win

His erring child He reconciled

And pardoned from his sin

This “guilty pair” – not a burdened piece of fruit – is our father and mother, Adam and Eve. Though the race of humanity were all bowed down underneath the weight of sin inherited from Adam, “God gave His Son to win.” God purchased us from our sins.

God purchased us from our sins!

This is the object lesson we have of the love of God found in the gospel. May we respond to this with praise.

O love of God! How rich and pure

How measureless and strong

It shall forevermore endure

The saints’ and angels’ song

Click HERE to listen to “The Love of God”

Indescribable

Your Love, O Lord

How Great Thou Art/ Doxology

The Servant Song

I encourage you, before Sunday, read through the letter of I John to prepare!

Praying for us,

Pastor Marcus

You must lose your life to find it.

You must sell all that you have to buy the field -

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”

                            – Jesus

When someone truly beholds the glory of the Lord, he understands that there is nothing else more delightful than Him. A converted heart is one that can say with the Psalmist – “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from You.”; with the disciple Peter, “Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life…”; and with the Apostle Paul, “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”

Notice the man in the parable Jesus gave: he went and gave everything up… joyfully! He realized that every single thing he possessed was “rubbish” (Phil. 3:8) in comparison to the treasure in the field. Indeed, for this man… life was not livable without this treasure. From the outside looking in, it would seem the man lost everything that day. Yet for the man, he could joyfully give it all up because he was gaining the real treasure.

This Sunday we will be singing these words:

“For we never can prove the delights of his love

Until all on the altar we lay…”

Have you laid it all on the altar? Have you sold everything to purchase that field? Have you given up everything in order to “gain Christ and be found in Him” (Phil. 3:8, 9)? If you have, let me encourage you, believer: No matter what you are experiencing I can promise you that “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” (Jim Elliot, October 1949)

Songs for this Sunday:

All Hail the Pow’r of Jesus’ Name

Beautiful One/ Fairest Lord Jesus

Oh Sacred Head now Wounded

In Christ Alone/ The Solid Rock

Trust and Obey

 

Praying for us,

Pastor Marcus

Hello, church family!

Due to the conference this week, I did not write a devotional here! This makes me sad , as the songs we are singing are so rich in truth! However, just in case you check before church tomorrow morning, here is the set list!

Majestic

He is Exalted

Praise to the Lord, the Almighty

Enough

Before the Throne

Forever my Love (The Nails in Your Hands)

The Glories of Calvary

“Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever! Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, whom he has redeemed from trouble” Amen!

Pastor Marcus

Psalm 51.

“For the choir director. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the Prophet came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.”

Thus begins 19 verses of brokenhearted confession. 3,000 years after David’s tragic, foolish sin with Bathsheba… we are still reading and discussing it. This brings up an interesting question: how would you like it if the biggest mistakes of your life were recorded in the inspired Scriptures for generations to study? How exposing!

Yet David felt the weight of his exposure — before the Lord, not before us. Verse 4 – “Against You, You only have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight…” If sin is done in God’s sight, then who cares who else sees?

Every Christian has felt the weight of sin, the mourning over rebellion, and the pain and joy of repentance. Every believer can see him- or her self in Psalm 51.

One verse that seems difficult to relate with, however, is verse 11 – “Do not cast me away from Your presence and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.” As a believer living in the church age, I used to cringe when singing these words. God will never cast out those who come to Him (Jn. 6:37), and He will never remove His Holy Spirit from the elect (Jn. 14:16), for He is the guarantee of our inheritance (Eph. 1:14). How, then, could we ever relate with the prayer “Don’t cast me out, God! Don’t take Your Holy Spirit from me, God!” 

In an excerpt from a John Piper sermon on Psalm 51 (click HERE to listen), he provides good insight:

“When… I pray, ‘Don’t cast me away, and don’t take your Spirit from me,’ [I] mean: Don’t treat me as one who is not chosen. Don’t let me prove to be like one of those in Hebrews 6 who have only tasted the Holy Spirit. Don’t let me fall away… Confirm to me, O God, that I am your child and will never fall away.”

Do you see why we can echo this prayer by an Old Testament saint? In our repentance, we should be praying along with David: “God, don’t let me fall away! Don’t let me prove to be a non-believer! May I attain the resurrection from the dead! (Phil. 3:11) May I continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel! (Col. 1:23)” Click HERE to listen to “Create in Me a Clean Heart”:

Lord Most High

To God be the Glory

Crown Him with Many Crowns/ We Fall Down

Jesus, What a Friend for Sinners

All I Have is Christ

“For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.”

- Pastor Marcus

This week we will be singing a short prayer that we have sung for over 20 years: “Refiner’s Fire”. The chorus of this prayer contains the following words:

Refiner’s Fire

My heart’s one desire

Is to be holy

Set apart for You, Lord

I choose to be holy

Set apart for You, my Master

Ready to do Your will

There was a time in my life I really struggled with singing such songs as these. Not too long ago I could be well-described by page 66 of Bob Kauflin’s book Worship Matters:

“I’ve met Christians who feel dishonest or hypocritical when they sing words like ‘I’ll always follow you,’ ‘I will worship you alone,’ or ‘I surrender all.’ But expressions like these help align our hearts with God’s work in us through the gospel, especially as we’re aware of our need for God’s Spirit to carry out those commitments.”

At the foot of the cross, in view of all He has done, may we sing the chorus of this song to God, echoing the Apostle Paul in Romans 7, that our heart’s one desire is to be holy to God… and that since we see a different law in the members of our body “waging war” (7:23) and trying to  enslave us again to sin, may we call out to God, in reliance upon the Holy Spirit, “I choose to be holy, set apart for You, my Master…” What a powerful prayer this song is when sung with the cross in view and in reliance upon the holy Spirit. Click HERE to listen to “Refiner’s Fire”.

Other songs for this Sunday (02/12):

Immortal, Invisible

There is a Higher Throne

Hear the Call of the Kingdom

Shine Jesus Shine

“I will bless the LORD at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth.” – Ps. 34:1

Praying for us,

Pastor Marcus

I just want to remind you that our times of singing together require focus. Try to block out the following thoughts during congregational singing:

“I wish I would have grabbed another doughnut at the fellowship time…”

(or)

“I wish I wouldn’t have grabbed that other doughnut at the fellowship time…”

“I wonder who the deacon is for Missions Spotlight this morning…”

“There’s a spider over there…”

For, how can you be thinking of these things and at the same time proclaiming with understanding these truths:

In Christ alone, who took on flesh

Fullness of God in helpless babe

This gift of love and righteousness

Scorned by the ones He came to save.

‘Til on that cross as Jesus died

The wrath of God was satisfied

For every sin on Him was laid

Here in the death of Christ I live

I know that we are all sinners: we will worship imperfectly while here on earth. I just want to encourage us: be alert as we sing, for these songs are such blessings! And when we “fall off the horse” by thinking about that spider in the corner, etc., be quick to get back on! Pray with me for the Spirit’s help before we sing together for the glory of God… and look forward to that day when we will perfectly, with all our heart, ”bow in humble adoration, and there proclaim ‘My God, how great Thou art!’”

Songs for this Sunday:

Let Your Kingdom Come

God of Wonders

How Great Thou Art

In Christ Alone

I Stand Amazed

———–

“Sing praises to the LORD, who sits enthroned in Zion! Tell among the peoples his deeds!”