Covenant Protestant Reformed Church
83 Clarence Street, Ballymena BT43 5DR
Rev. Angus Stewart
Lord’s Day, 15 March, 2020
“Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies,
kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering …” (Col. 3:12)
Morning Service – 11:00 AM – Rev. M. McGeown
Christ’s Command: Do Not Worry (1)
Do Not Worry About Your Life [youtube]
Scripture Reading: Matthew 6:19-34
Text: Matthew 6:25, 27, 34
I. The Activity
II. The Object
III. The Futility
Psalms: 112:1-6; 132:1-9; 55:19-23; 43:1-5
Evening Service – 6:00 PM – Rev. M. McGeown
Christ’s Command: Do Not Worry (2)
Learn from the Birds and Flowers [youtube]
Scripture Reading: Matthew 6:19-34
Text: Matthew 6:26, 28-30
I. Examine God’s Providential Care
II. Consider Your Greater Value
III. Rebuke Your Little Faith
Psalms: 8:1-9; 132:10-18; 104:16-21; 147:3-11
For CDs of the sermons and DVDs of the worship services, contact Stephen Murray
If you desire a pastoral visit, please contact Rev. Stewart or the elders
CPRC Website: www.cprc.co.uk • Live Webcast: www.cprc.co.uk/live-streaming
CPRC YouTube: www.youtube.com/cprcni
CPRC Facebook: www.facebook.com/CovenantPRC
Quote to Consider
Martyn Lloyd-Jones: “If you lie awake at night for hours, I can tell you what you have been doing; you have been going around in circles. You just go over the same old miserable details about some person or something. That is not thought; that is the absence of thought, a failure to think. That means that something else is controlling your thought and governing it, and it leads to that wretched, unhappy state called worry … We must have discovered this in ourselves, or perhaps when we have tried to help to deliver other people who are suffering from a condition of worry. The conversation starts with the particular thing that has brought them to you. You then provide the answers and show how unnecessary worry is. You will find, however, that almost invariably they go on and say, ‘Yes, but …’ That is typical of worry: it always gives the impression that it does not really want to be relieved. The person wants to be relieved, but the worry does not; and we are entitled to draw that distinction. Our Lord does it Himself when He talks about the morrow taking thought of the things of itself. That is personalising worry … If it cannot work up its case on the facts it has before it, it does not hesitate to conjure up facts. Worry has an active imagination, and it can envisage all sorts and kinds of possibilities” (Sermon on the Mount, vol. 2, pp. 130, 147-148).
Matthew Henry on Matthew 6: “A fine pass fallen man has come to, that he must be sent to school to the fowls of the air, and that they must teach him! … You are his children, his first-born; now he that feeds his birds surely will not starve his babes. They trust your Father’s providence, and will not you trust it? In dependence upon that, they are careless for the morrow; and being so, they live the merriest lives of all creatures; they sing among the branches, and, to the best of their power, they praise their Creator. If we were, by faith, as unconcerned about the morrow as they are, we should sing as cheerfully as they do; for it is worldly care that mars our mirth and damps our joy, and silences our praise, as much as anything … The array of Solomon was very splendid and magnificent: he that had the peculiar treasure of kings and provinces, and studiously affected pomp and gallantry, doubtless had the richest clothing, and the best made up, that could be got; especially when he appeared in his glory on high days. And yet, let him dress himself as fine as he could, he comes far short of the beauty of the lilies, and a bed of tulips outshines him. Let us, therefore, be ambitious of the wisdom of Solomon, in which he was outdone by none (wisdom to do our duty in our places), rather than the glory of Solomon, in which he was outdone by the lilies. Knowledge and grace are the perfection of man, not beauty, much less fine clothes.”
Announcements (subject to God’s will)
We welcome Rev. & Larisa McGeown to our worship services. Rev. McGeown will be preaching for us today, while Rev. Stewart is in the Limerick Reformed Fellowship.
Because the corona virus has been declared a pandemic, we are going to stop shaking hands and we ask anyone with flu symptoms (i.e., cough, fever, etc.) to please stay at home.
Monday catechism classes:
5:30 PM – Angelica, Bradley, Josh, Samuel & Taylor (Seniors NT)
6:15 PM – Corey & Katelyn (Juniors OT)
7:00 PM – Alex, Jacob & Nathan (Essentials)
Tuesday Bible Study meets at 11 AM at church to discuss the confidence of faith.
Belgic Confession class meets on Wednesday at 7:45 PM to continue our consideration of Article 36 by treating communism.
The Reformed Witness Hour broadcast next Lord’s Day (Gospel 846 MW at 8:30 AM) by Rev. R. Kleyn is entitled, “The Prayer of the Christian Soldier” (Luke 11:4).
Tibor Bognar appeared before the consistory and made confession of his faith. If there are no objections, Tibor will make his public confession of faith at the morning service of 22 March.
The next Lord’s Supper is scheduled for 29 March.
Offerings: General Fund: £985.85.
PRC News: Kalamazoo PRC and Cornerstone PRC called Rev. J. Engelsma (Doon, IA).
Never Be Anxious
Herman Hoeksema
(an article in The Standard Bearer, volume 61, issue 5)
Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God (Phil. 4:6).
Hear, O ye of little faith! Incline your ear, open your heart, ye children of the Most High, who walk in the midst of this world!
Listen attentively, ye who believe, ye who have the Lord as your portion, even as-you walk in the midst of pain and sorrow, burdened with a thousand cares, anxiously troubled with a thousand fears.
Take heed! It is God, your God, Who speaks! He addresses, admonishes, encourages you, saying, “Be careful for nothing … But in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.” God, Who is GOD, is speaking to you! And when He speaks, it behooves you to be silent, to listen, to believe.
Our sinful heart is so readily inclined to contradict when God speaks. His divine Word stands opposed to the shallow, lying word of man. It rules and triumphs over the things that are seen. It does exactly what it says. It carries out all that God wills. It is highly exalted, far above our judgment of things. It contradicts that judgment. And it requires that we surrender our judgment, and believe what He says. Therefore that divine Word seems so impossible, so contradictory, so humanly unattainable. And for that very reason our vain and foolish hearts find thousands of reasons to cast His Word from us, and to follow the dictates of our own minds, as things appear to us, or to listen to the word of man …
This was true already when we were confronted with the Word of God immediately preceding this verse: “Rejoice in the Lord always!” How impossible that appears to be; how completely in conflict with all reality: to rejoice always!
This applies also to this Word of God. Be careful for nothing!
Yet it is God Who speaks. Therefore, let your ear be attentive and your heart receptive to this divine Word, in order that you may respond with the Psalmist: “O why art thou cast down, my soul / And why so troubled shouldst thou be? / Hope thou in God, and Him extol, / Who gives His saving help to me.
Do not be careful! That is, be concerned about nothing; never be anxious! It is obvious that this is the negative of the positive statement, “Rejoice always; again I say, Rejoice!”
For who has not experienced that troublesome, oppressive frame of mind that burdens our lives and fills our hearts with anxiety and robs us completely of our joy in the Lord? Anxiety and joy are mutually exclusive. They show themselves on the face of the child of God by completely different creases and lines.
Worry—who is not acquainted with it? Who has not experienced it? We have certain needs, wants, and desires. We need food and clothing, a roof over our heads, money to meet our obligations; we want conditions in which we can find work for our hands; health and strength to perform our labours and to supply our needs and the needs of our families. There are many things to which we are devoted and which deeply concern us. Often we are afraid that we shall not receive the things we so sorely need, that everything will go wrong, so that we will lack those things that are so necessary for our lives.
Worry is aroused in us by the things we cannot control, concerning which we have nothing to say, over against which we are completely helpless, because we cannot change them. Nor do we have a calling to change them. They are the things which only God can and does control. The farmer entrusts his seed to the soil; he looks to the sky, but there is no rain; and he becomes concerned about his crops. The labourer is dependent upon the economy, but there is no work. The enemy creeps into the church and deceives many, whether by means of false doctrines and worldly-mindedness, or by threats of sword and fire. God’s cause seems to be delivered into the hands of the enemy. God’s child sees all this and is filled with fear for the future …
It is always concerning God’s work that we are filled with anxiety. What fills our souls with worry is the fear that God is leading us in the wrong direction, so that His cause will meet with disaster. What smallness of faith!
When our eye strays from the living God and stares at things, when things seem dark and momentarily we see no way out, we want to direct for ourselves the course of our lives and the lives of our dear ones, as well as the future of God’s cause. As we see it, everything will go completely wrong in the future. That is what creates worry …
The Word of God also points out the way in which we can be delivered from all our vain care and be truly care-free in the midst of this world.
O, indeed, we can know all about this. We can understand that God gave everything its place in the counsel of His will, that He carries out that counsel in eternal wisdom, and that therefore all things must work together for good for those who love God. There is simply no reason why we should be troubled. We can understand this, and can even rest assured that this is so very true, but without applying it to our own hearts, so that when we face anxious days and the way becomes steep and difficult we fail to cast our way upon the Lord.
There is such a great difference between knowing the truth and applying it! Our practical living is far different from our confession! How, then, can we bring this Word of God into practice in our lives: Be careful for nothing?
But! And then follows: In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. Be careful in nothing, but! … The one excludes the other. If you make your requests known with prayer and supplication with thanksgiving before God, you no longer worry. You cannot worry. When you make your requests known to God in everything, you have nothing about which to worry. And if you worry about anything at all, the reason is exactly that you have not made that matter known to God!
Your requests! That is, whatever lives in your heart concerning the things you think you should have or the things which should happen; things you desire; upon which you have set your heart; things you expect. Make them known to God!
The idea is: do not go to your neighbour to make your complaints to him; do not shout from the housetop, complaining loudly about your needs. Do not mull over them in your own mind, choking yourself in your worries which crop up. But go with your requests, with all your requests, to stand before the face of God and pour them out! If you go to your neighbour with your needs, he will not help you. If you shout them from the housetop, you will find companions in your misery by the dozen. If you mull over them in your own mind, the way becomes darker and you become more anxious. But turn your face to God, and then speak. Make your requests known with your face directed to God. Not, you understand, to enlighten God, as if He does not know what you need; not to tell Him what actually should be done; but for your own sake!
Do you worry? Then go to God, tell Him, pour out your heart before Him. Show Him your situation. Open your innermost heart to Him. Tell Him everything. Hold back nothing! Do that by prayer, that is, by that act of faith whereby you sincerely approach the living God and acknowledge Him as the overflowing Fountain of every good and perfect gift, whereby you thirst after Him …
