Pastoral Notes for Sunday, November 10, 2024

Dear Cornerstone family, 

Well, it’s the second week of November, and that means Thanksgiving is fast approaching. For many of us, Thanksgiving is the annual opportunity to be reunited with friends and family, to watch a little football, and to savor the flavors of our favorite holiday fare. (I can almost taste the turkey and dressing and pumpkin pie, can’t you?)  

But the real question is not who will win the football game, or if Grandma will provide her melt-in-your-mouth yeast rolls, but will we be thankful on Thanksgiving? More to the point, what will you do to ready your heart for Thanksgiving? Take to heart these three simple instructions as you prepare to give thanks this Thanksgiving.

1.    Take time to remember the experiences of this past year. Pay attention to what God’s providence has brought into your life. Review each month slowly and gain a sense for the narrative flow of the year. Take special note of the watershed moments and the smaller formative times where emotional memory is stored—times of great joy or sadness. Commit these moments to writing and add any on-the-spot reflections you may have. 

2.    Take time to trace these remembrances to the purposes of God. Since God is sovereignly directing all things according to His purposes (Romans 8:28-30), nothing in your life this year is without meaning. Therefore, take time to consider how the glory of God is expressed in what you’ve experienced this past year. Though you will be tempted to neglect the hard or difficult memories from the year, please don’t. Prayerfully ask God for the eyes to see and heart to interpret each experience—good or bad—according to the redemptive purposes of God (Philippians 2:13).

3.    Take time to share what you see with others. After you’ve remembered and begun tracing these experiences to God’s purposes, share what you’ve learned with others. Take time over Thanksgiving Dinner with the family or set aside a few moments at a quieter time with a few close friends to share how God has been at work. Whatever the context, be intentional in your sharing and make much of God. 

“Give thanks to the Lord, call upon His name, make known His deeds among the peoples, proclaim that His name is exalted.” —Isaiah 12:3b

Your servant,

 


Pastoral Notes for Sunday, November 3, 2024

Dear Cornerstone family, 

At the 2024 General Assembly in Richmond, VA, I was elected to serve on the Permanent Committee of Mission to North America, which is the Presbyterian Church in America’s agency entrusted to support and oversee church planting and vitality across North America. The fall meeting of the MNA Permanent Committee was this week in Atlanta, GA.  

One particular ministry under the umbrella of MNA is Mission to State. Mission to State aims to provide spiritual guidance, support, and encouragement to those serving in government. As a service to churches in the PCA, Mission to State published a prayer guide for churches leading up to this week’s national election. I am republishing the prayer guide below in hopes that you will use it this week as you lift up prayers for our nation.  

“I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your heart enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.” —Ephesians 1:18-21  

How To Pray

  • Pray for “the eyes of your heart” to be enlightened to the reality of the immeasurable greatness of Jesus’s power.

  • Pray for a greater trust in God’s sovereignty over this election season.

  • Pray for the church as a whole to place greater trust in the rule and reign of Jesus.

  • Pray for Christ to intercede for the needs of your community.

“First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” — 1 Timothy 2:14

How To Pray

  • Pray for all who work in government (i.e. a high position) and for those about to be elected.

  • Pray for people you know personally who work in government (consider reaching out and asking how you can pray for them specifically).

  • Pray for “a peaceful and quiet life” that is “godly and dignified in every way.”

  • Pray for those who have not come to the knowledge of the truth.

  • Pray for Christ to intercede for our elected officials and our government workers.

  • Give thanks for the good work that is being done through our government.

“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.” ––Romans 13:1 

How To Pray

  • Pray for a peaceful election, and that all Christians would be subject to the governing authorities.

  • Pray for God to be merciful and gracious to our country.

Your servant,

 


Pastoral Notes for Sunday, October 27, 2024

Dear Cornerstone family, 

On June 15, 1520, Pope Leo X issued a papal bull of which Martin Luther was the subject. The Pope cited Luther with 41 instances of doctrinal deviation from the Roman Catholic Church.  Luther had sixty days to recant or further action would be taken. 

Luther wasted no time in publishing his answer. With some pomp and publicity, Luther lit a match and burned the papal bull publicly. Luther’s in-your-face rejection of the papal bull was not received kindly by the Pope. In response, in January 1521, Luther received an edict of excommunication from the Pope. Just like that—he was no longer a member of the Roman Catholic Church.

It’s hard for modern Christians to appreciate the gravity of this action. The Roman Catholic Church was the church in Western Europe at the time. You couldn’t go down the street to the Baptist or Episcopal church because there were no Baptist or Episcopal churches. Indeed, other than the Eastern Orthodox Church, which was thousands of miles away, there was no other branch of the church to which one could affiliate. To be cut off from the Roman Catholic Church was to be completely cut off from the church. Period. End of story. Or was it?  

Luther responded to his excommunication with an excommunication of a more significant kind. The theological errors of Rome were obscuring the gospel to such a degree that Luther claimed Rome could no longer be considered a true church. Indeed, Rome’s rejection of justification by faith alone––“the article by which the church stands or falls”––was proof enough in Luther’s mind that Rome could no longer be regarded as a true church.   

To support this claim, Luther returned to the Bible’s doctrine of the church. Luther argued that the true church does not consist in its history or in its institutional structures. Rather, the true church is found wherever the true gospel is preached. “The sure mark by which the Christian congregation can be recognized is that the pure gospel is preached there. For just as the banner of an army is the sure sign by which one can know what kind of lord and army has taken the field, so too the gospel is the sure sign by which one knows where Christ and his army are encamped” (Luther’s Works, 41:231-232).

Including Luther but speaking more broadly of the Magisterial Reformers, Michael Reeves and Tim Chester said this, “It was not the Reformers who had departed from the true church. It was Rome that had departed from the true gospel…the church is the universal body of people on earth and in heaven who have been formed by the gospel. You are not saved by being a part of the church. You are a part of the church by being saved” (Why the Reformation Still Matters, p. 164-165).

In worship today, we join with thousands of churches across the world remembering and giving thanks for the truth of the gospel recovered during the Protestant Reformation. At the same time, we recognize the work of reformation is not done. Even the purest churches today are “subject to mixture and error” (WCF 25.5). And so we labor in hope, asking the Lord to continue reforming the church until a yet more glorious day dawns—the perfection of Christ’s church (Philippians 1:6).

Your servant,

 


Pastoral Notes for Sunday, October 20, 2024

Dear Cornerstone family, 

On Wednesday evenings this fall, we are slowly making our way through the Lord’s Prayer. This last week we came to the series midway point to the petition, “Give us our daily bread.”

Introducing the petition, I told a story about my grandfather on my father’s side. He was not a follower of Christ, and one of the reasons why was this petition. What do I mean? To pray, “Give us our daily bread,” felt like a lie to him. “God does not give us bread,” he’d say, “Every piece of bread I’ve ever eaten I had to earn. I spent my hard-earned money for bread, eggs, milk, a house, cars, and everything else.”

Now, in a sense, my grandfather was right. He did “earn” all those things. However, in the ultimate sense, he couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Christian theology distinguishes between primary and secondary causes. To illustrate the difference, let’s consider the breakfast you ate this morning. I’m going to assume your breakfast did not fall from heaven like manna. You very likely purchased the food at the store. Then, you scrambled the eggs and made toast or poured the cereal and milk into a bowl. In other words, God used secondary causes—namely, your efforts—to provide breakfast.

But notice how I said that—God used secondary causes. Underneath all your effort, there is a primary cause: God. Because he gave you the ability, energy, know-how, and health to work, which led to getting a job, which led to getting a paycheck, which led to purchasing food, which led to you this morning preparing and enjoying a delicious breakfast. In the ultimate sense, it’s all a gift from God.

When Jesus teaches us to pray, “Give us our daily bread,” he simultaneously deconstructs the earning paradigm we operate in 90% of the time. He’s stripping away our worldly assumptions about earning and owning. It’s God saying to us, “Look at your clothes. Look at your food. Look at your home. It’s all a gift from me.”

When we really believe everything is a gift from God, our grip on money and worldly possessions loosens, and we become generous people. We start to give in the way God has given to us.

With that in mind, I want to thank you, on the behalf of the Cornerstone Leadership, for giving so faithfully to the work of ministry. Our fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30, which means we just closed the book on the first quarter. We finished the first quarter pretty close to on target. God is providing for Cornerstone through you!

Please take a few minutes to review the numbers below. As always, if you have any questions, please reach out to Whitney Ruff in the church office at admin@cstonepres.org.

 
 

Your servant,