Ascending Mt. Zion
For the upcoming Lord’s Day April 27th, 2025
As Americans, we live under a bombardment of advertising. Whether we are talking about billboards on the side road that clutter the landscape or ads online that clutter our eye-scape (making up words today), everywhere our appetites are being tempted. If you think about it, we’ve become so successful in advertising we sell brands now, not products. They’ve somehow made us think that we should pay to advertise for them. We buy NIKE and carry their symbol everywhere we go.
Even more, than making me watch commercials for content I pay to stream (which really grinds my gears), I consider turning me into a walking billboard the ultimate double dip. I pay an exorbitant price and then I have to wear an obnoxious logo everywhere I go too? I’m chasing a bit of a rabbit trail but stay with me.
The Effect of Constant Advertising on the Soul
What is the effect on us? Being advertised to I mean. Have you ever considered the change in mind that would be wrought on a people who were told as individuals everywhere they go that they are the most important and needed individuals in that moment on the planet for their charity or business to thrive or even survive? Who cares if it is to sell chicken sandwiches or love online? Ask yourself, “What do you think that kind of attention would do to a person?” Write it down. Seriously write down what you think that person would be like. Eventually, they’d start to think of themselves as the center of the universe.
In the end, they would begin to measure everything by their preferences. As consumers, they’d consume everything–including the Christian religion–as a good or service that they preferred in this style or that style or not at all. The first step in moving from consumers to living sacrifices moving is to realize how the modern advertising world effects us
Cafeteria Christianity and the Cult of Preference
Consumers would give rise to a cafeteria-style Christianity where the Trinity or the Unchangeableness of God or the created order could be set aside for cultural reasons. You know, so we could reach more people. Never mind the sin of reaching them with a half Gospel devoid of Law, ethics, and practice. Nothing demonstrates the success that advertising firms have had in making us “gods” more than the soundbite theology of Big Eva. Here is George Barna’s latest polling which puts orthodox Trinitarian Christianity decidedly in the minority among evangelicals.
Individualism: The Spirit of the Age
As Christians, we have to reckon with the spirit of the age, the zeitgeist. The spirit of the age is individualism. You can see it in the State’s constant refrain, “democracy democracy!” What are they saying? What desire are they attempting to stoke up? The individual’s importance in the political process so they can use it to enflame their passions and control their behavior.
The Lord’s Day: A Check on Self-Centeredness
The Lord’s Day is a check to our passions and desires. It is helps us change our mindset from consumers to living sacrifices The Lord forbids unnecessary business and work. The Lord requires us to look away from the flesh and to focus on the things of the Spirit. Man doesn’t live by bread alone. Work is good but worship is better. The world is Fallen so we can’t just worship now–that comes in the Consummation–now we must spend the majority of our time working. Soon we will inherit a weedless fruitful world where “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away (Revelation 21:4).”
Worship Is Not Consumption but Sacrifice
Public worship, family worship, private prayer–in all those places we enter in, not to consume or to have our needs met, but to turn away from ourselves and worship the One Who is worthy of our adoration and praise. In public worship, we are the performers, and God the audience. We offer sacrifices for God to smell and consume. Our worship is a sweet-smelling savor to Him. We are living sacrifices, not offered in blood but in service. Like Samuel, who was a living sacrifice offered by his mother Hannah, so we are living sacrifices offered by our mother the New Jerusalem. She is the Mother of us all (Galatians 4:26) and upon our birth she ushers us into the True Temple in robes stitched for us special, made from the fabric of Christ’s righteousness.
Humility: The First Virtue of the Christian Life
Christianity, authentic Christianity is a conscious turning away from seeing ourselves as a god. The root word of Humilityis the Latin word, humus which means “from the Earth.” There is a reason its root is not “from the heavens.” The first virtue of Christianity is humility before God. We see Jesus crucified for sinners. Yes, but Who is He? He is the God Who created the heavens and the Earth, the sea, and all that is in them.
Humility: The Example of Christ
Jesus came to us in a humble estate. He humbled Himself unto death, death on a cross. Following Him is to live in humility before God. It is to cease to be the audience and to become the performer. In worship, we are to cease to be a consumer. We are the sacrifice. There we renew our offering to be a living sacrifice. Christians are bondservants for Christ. We now “look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maidservant to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God, till he has mercy upon us (Psalm 123:2).” May we all move from consumers to living sacrifices
Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.
Thanks For Stopping By
If you are not a member at SPCC, thanks for reading “From Consumers to Living Sacrifices” What comes after this section may not mean much to you. However, I always write a little piece at the front of this missive on Wednesdays so don’t be shy, go ahead and SUBSCRIBE. Every little encouragement helps and I write several pieces a week.
Sermon
This week Pastor Jeremy will be in Acts 22:1-22
Memory & Meditation
Memory & Meditation Verses for this Prayer Book are 1 Corinthians 15:35-49.
SPCC Prayer Book: Celebrating the Resurrection
M & M Verses for the Lord’s Day April 20th, 2025
But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” 36 You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain (1 Corinthians 15:35-37).”
NEW Memory & Meditation Essays Series based on 1 Corinthians 15:35-49 begins Friday
Previous M & M Essay Series
Forsaken For Us All Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 based on Psalm 22:1-15
Christ, His Church, & Marriage Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 based on Ephesians 5:22-33.
Catechism Questions
Westminster Shorter Catechism: Questions 11-15
Remember that you can present Questions 6-10, our WSC Catechism Questions from last month, to any member of the Consistory during lunch starting this week.
Lord’s Day Meal
Yes,!
Psalms & Hymns of Worship
Psalm 61:1-14 Tune: Ortonville Hymn- Arise My Soul Arise
Psalm 60:1-5 Tune: Martyrdom & Hymn – Come Behold The Wondrous Mystery
Yes Midweek Worship
Our next Midweek Worship will be April 23rd, 2025
Join Us for Worship
Finally, come and worship with us on the Lord’s Day. We also meet on three Wednesday evenings a month for Catechism Lesson & Prayer. Another Visit our Homepage or What We Believe for more information. Find us on Google Maps or watch our sermons on Youtube.
Go in peace to love and serve the Lord!
Pastor Jeremy
“The Creation is quite like a spacious and splendid house, provided and filled with the most exquisite, and at the same time, the most abundant furnishings. Everything in it tells of God.” – John Calvin
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