Our Integration Point

For from him and through him and for him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.

Romans 11:36

Commenting on this enigmatic passage of Scripture, the late Dr Francis Schaeffer believed that it explained the comforting fact that God is our “integration point. “ We live in a world that is both physically and morally disintegrated and furthermore it is insidiously disintegrating to a greater extent day by day. On the physical side we have the 2^nd Law of Thermodynamic, the law of entropy, which is patently observable proof of a winding down of order and energy in nature. Simply put the 2^nd Law points out the fact that all physical systems are moving from a state of complexity to simplicity, from a state of order to chaos and from a state of highly available energy to less available energy. Our physical world is surely and gradually disintegrating. It the midst of that we need a reliable source of integration and stability. The psalmist provided us with reassuring information in that realm when he wrote: In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. Like clothing you will change them and they will be discarded. But you remain the same, and your years will never end. (Psalm 102:25-27). God is utterly immutable and while every thing else is in a state of instability, He alone remains eternally stable.

Morally, we live in a fallen world. That moral instability causes fallen humanity to engage in all sorts of despicable behavior. Writing to the Galatian church, the apostle Paul listed those crimes against God as being: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. (Galatians 5:19-20) Our only defense against such behavior and our singular ability to stay integrated in this disintegrated world, is the grace of God the Father, the atoning work on the Cross of God the Son, the regenerating power of God the Holy Spirit who makes us new creatures (2 Corinthians 5:17) and the infallible, inerrant and inspired instruction of the Holy Bible.

With all things coming from, through and to our sovereign Lord, nothing escapes His knowledge, affects His ability to control every molecule in the universe and every being in heaven, or violates His perfect will. For we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)

The Light and the Life of the Local Church

In him was life, and that life was the light of men.  (John 1:4)

Heinrich Emil Brunner (12/23/89 – 4/06/66), a Swiss Reformed theologian once said, “The church exists as a mission the way a fire exists by burning.”  What Brunner was saying was this: when the local church ceases to burn with the fire of the Holy Spirit it ceases to exist. Fires provide (1) heat, (2) light and a means for cooking (3) food. The first manifestation of the Holy Spirit experienced by the first century came in the form of fire, as we find chronicled in Acts 2:1-3. When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.

(1) The heat of a campfire on a chilly evening has always been something that draws people together, like moths to a flame, to sing, laugh and share “old war stories.” Too often our churches are emotionally cold and unattractive and they do little to draw people together to sing, worship and hear the Gospel preached. The attraction should not come from the size of the sanctuary but rather the enormity of love in the hearts of the members. What draws people should not be the sound of music but the expressions of love on the faces and actions of the members. Warm hearts, warm smiles and warm hugs will go a long way to attract new folks into our fellowship. All of that warmth radiates from the Holy Spirit who abides in our souls. The psalmist said You, O LORD, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light. (Psalm 18:28)

(2) The light of truth is preached from the pulpit of old North Church every Sunday and taught in the Sunday school classes as well. The psalmist also tells us that the light of God’s Word is what guides his steps. Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path. (Psalm 119.105) By learning of and growing through the light of truth we will enjoy the fullness of life that Christ promised all who put their trust in Him (John 10:10) This is a world of spiritual darkness in which we live, and we need the light of God’s Word to find our way. John put it this way, if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. (1 John 1:7)

(3) The food that feeds our soul comes from the Bible. The capacity to understand that Word and feed upon it comes from the Holy Spirit. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Corinthians 2:12-14)

“We burn the sweetest incense in His sight when we are aflame with Holy Piety and Love.” (Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, Circa 391 AD)

The life of the local church is in its people. The life of the people is in the Holy Spirit who keeps them on fire through the Word. If the Word ever ceases to be preached in any church, spiritual starvation ensues, the Spirit filled members leave, the ecclesiastical fires go out and the local church succumbs to spiritual night and when the custodian turns of the lights for the last time it passes into literal darkness.