Seventh Sunday after Trinity
Holy Communion
West LaHave, Crousetown – July 6 AD 2008
Rom 6:17f St. Mark 8:1f
Ye have yielded your members servants to
uncleanness
and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now
yield your members servants to righteousness
unto holiness.
What would a
lively parish look like? I’ve been thinking a lot about this
recently, and it brought to mind a visit of J.I. Packer to the Diocese
of Saskatchewan when I was there. He gave a talk on the Marks of
Revival, and I thought it would be good to begin with a summary of
that talk.
Now don’t worry – there is no test on this, you
don’t have to memorize it – so just relax. I just want you to think
about whether this is something that you want to happen here…
“The features of
revival movements on the surface vary widely, perhaps as a result of
different settings, yet indeed God appears to delight in variety.
Nevertheless, at the level of deeper analysis, there are constant
factors recognizable in all biblical and post-biblical revivals,
whatever their historical, racial, and cultural settings. [Think
about this in terms of the examples in the Acts of the Apostles,
some of the great reform movements in the 12th century (Francis,
Dominic), the Reformation, the Wesleyan Revival, the Oxford
Movement, and more recently.] They
number five, and are described below.
“Awareness of God's presence. The first
and fundamental feature in revival is the sense that God has drawn
awesomely near in his holiness, mercy, and might. This is felt as
the fulfilling of the prayer of Isaiah 64:1ff: "O that thou wouldst
rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at
thy presence . . . to make thy name known to thine adversaries, that
the nations may tremble at thy presence." God "comes," "visits," and
"draws near" to his people, and makes his majesty known.
The effect is the same as it was for Isaiah
himself, when he "saw the Lord sitting on a throne" in the temple
and heard the angels' song — "Holy, holy, holy"— and was forced to
cry, "Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean
lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips" (Is. 6:1-5). It is
with this searching, scorching manifestation of God's presence that
revival begins, and by its continuance that revival is sustained.
[We are in God’s presence, do we know it?]
“Responsiveness to God's Word. The sense of God's presence
imparts new authority to his truth. The message of Scripture which
previously was making only a superficial impact, if that, now
searches its hearers and readers to the depth of their being.…God's
message—the gospel call to repentance, faith, and holiness, to
praise and prayer, witness and worship—authenticates itself
unambiguously to men's consciences, and there is no room for half
measures in response.
“Sensitiveness to Sin. Deep awareness of
what things are sinful and how sinful we are is the third feature of
revival that calls for notice. No upsurge of religious interest or
excitement merits the name of revival if there is no profound sense
of sin at its heart. God's coming, and the consequent impact of his
word, makes Christians much more sensitive to sin than they
previously were: consciences become tender and a profound humbling
takes place. The perverseness, ugliness, uncleanness, and guilt of
sin are seen and felt with new vividness. Under revival conditions
consciences are so quickened that conviction of each person's own
sinfulness becomes strong and terrible, inducing agonies of mind
that are beyond imagining till they happen. The gospel of
forgiveness through Christ's cross comes to be loved as never
before, as people see their need of it so much more clearly.
“But conviction of sin is a means, not an end;
the Spirit of God convinces of sin in order to induce repentance,
and one of the more striking features of revival movements is the
depth of repentance into which both saints and sinners are led. …
Revival always includes a profound awareness of one's own
sinfulness, leading to deep repentance and heartfelt embrace of the
glorified, loving, pardoning Christ.
“Liveliness in Community. A revived church
is full of the life, joy and power of the Holy Spirit. With the
Spirit's coming, fellowship with Christ is brought right to the
center of our worship and devotion; the glorified Christ is shown,
known, loved, served, and exalted. Love and generosity, unity and
joy, assurance and boldness, a spirit of praise and prayer, and a
passion to reach out to win others are recurring marks of a people
experiencing revival. So is divine power in their preachers, a power
which has nothing to do with natural eloquence. [Please pray for
your preacher.]
“Fruitfulness in testimony. Revival always
has an evangelistic and ethical overspill into the world. When God
revives the church, the new life overflows from the church for the
conversion of outsiders and renovation of society. Christians become
fearless in witness and tireless in their Savior's service. They
proclaim by word and deed the power of the new life, souls are won,
and a community conscience informed by Christian values emerges.
Also in revival times God acts quickly; his work accelerates. Truth
spreads, and people are born again and grow in Christ, with amazing
rapidity.
“Such in outline is the constant pattern by which
genuine movements of revival identify themselves. Christians in
revival are accordingly found living in God's presence (coram Deo),
attending to his word, feeling acute concern about sin and
righteousness, rejoicing in the assurance of Christ's love and their
own salvation, spontaneously constant in worship, and tirelessly
active in witness and service, fueling these activities by praise
and prayer. The question that presses is whether revival is actually
displayed in the lives of Christian individuals and communities:
whether this quality of Christian life is there or not.”
So here is Packer’s vision of a church in
revival. Does this sound like something we want here? Often we
think of a religious revival as lots of people coming suddenly into
the Church – but actually it starts with the people who are in the
Church.
The good news is that my purpose this morning is
not to call on you to do more than you are doing now – I’m not
suggesting we need more fundraisers! so please relax – I know that
many of you are working full out doing good works.
What I’d like to suggest is that revival in our
souls begins by truly allowing ourselves to enter into God’s rest.
It comes about from reaching out to touch and from being touched by
God.
First, from the Epistle…
as ye have yielded your members servants to
uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your
members servants to righteousness unto holiness.
If we take a careful look at our lives – how are
we spending our desire?
Are we drinking too much, eating too much, are we
falling into old patterns of thinking – unchastity, covetousness,
anger, envy, are we full of vain thoughts about how great we are –
all these things exhaust us and keep us from seeing the dazzling
light of heaven inwardly.
What happens to us in those very moments when we
are lonely, when we are anxious about the future or about our family
or about our health or whatever?
Instead of spending ourselves in that very moment
on something which does not give life, but covers over true life,
let us instead reach out for God. And by that I mean, take a step
back and lift our hearts to heaven and seek to enter God’s rest. A
little less – Martha – and a little more – Mary, resting at the feet
of Jesus and listening. Do less, but whatever we do, do it in the
right direction and renewal will come to our souls. Now yield
your members servants to righteousness unto holiness. God gives
us the true rest that the world cannot give. Seek and ye shall
find, knock and it shall be opened unto you, ask and it shall be
given to you…This is an inward, quiet seeking, knocking,
asking… This is our reaching out (or rather reaching in) to touch
the divine glory.
But this inward turn is hard, because it seems a
kind of darkness, there are things in the way of us seeing God
inwardly – our sin, and we are afraid to look there. Jesus knows
this and provides the light, the assurance of forgiveness, the
complete cleansing away of our inner darkness. He promises to reach
out to us to touch us from within our hearts with His divine glory.
In today’s Gospel…
Jesus called his disciples unto him, and saith
unto them, I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now
been with me three days, and have nothing to eat: and if I send them
away fasting to their own houses, they will faint by the way; for
divers of them came from far
He took the seven loaves, and gave thanks, and
brake, and gave to his disciples to set before them; and they did
set them before the people. And they had a few small fishes;
and he blessed, and commanded to set them also before them. So they
did eat, and were filled: and they took up of the broken meat that
was left seven baskets.
In the Holy Communion, Jesus gives us His Body
and His Blood. He touches us inwardly with the divine glory and
breaks through our inner darkness. When we feed on Him in our
hearts by faith, His powerful presence is manifested to us
inwardly. And the Marks of Renewal begin to appear in us, “there is
deep repentance and a heartfelt embrace of the glorified, loving,
pardoning Christ.”
Here is forgiveness for our spiritual sloth, for
our dissipating our strength on things that only bring death. Here
is spiritual food in the wilderness to strengthen us in all
goodness.
Jesus continually renews us with desire, with a
zeal in our pilgrimage. As one famous poet described it, With
each step, desire came upon me, desire upon desire.
[Dante] Or as St. John says, from his
fulness have we all received, grace upon grace. It is
that well of living water that Christ promises, welling up in our
hearts to eternal life, to eternal liveliness, ever renewing us
inwardly – bringing true joy, and making us, necessarily, powerful
witnesses to the world.
Let us pray for such a revival in our souls and
in our parishes…
LORD of all power and might, who art the
author and giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of
thy Name [that we might with all our desire reach out to touch
you], increase in us true religion [not frenetic activity],
nourish us with all goodness [by touching us inwardly with your
very Body and Blood], and of thy great mercy keep us in the same;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
[The Collect for the Seventh Sunday
after Trinity (with additions)]
