Mission/Vision

KING’S CROSS CHURCH exists to glorify God and enlarge His Kingdom by gathering regularly to proclaim and celebrate the Gospel of Jesus Christ, yielding to the authority of God’s Word as illuminated by the Holy Spirit and summarized in the historic Christian Creeds and Reformed Confessions, partaking together of Christ’s presence in the Sacraments, providing opportunities to love and serve one another in Community, equipping the saints for Ministry to those who are lost and hurting, both locally and globally, and preparing them to cultivate Shalom (peace and well-being) wherever God calls them to serve.

Wednesday, November 28, 2018

Lectionary Thought Questions for 2 Chronicles 5

(2 Chronicles 5:13-14) and it was the duty of the trumpeters and singers to make themselves heard in unison in praise and thanksgiving to the Lord), and when the song was raised, with trumpets and cymbals and other musical instruments, in praise to the Lord, “For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever,” the house, the house of the Lord, was filled with a cloud, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of God.
2 Chronicles 5 is the account of Yahweh taking up residence in Solomon's Temple. And the last two verses provide some details of glorious importance to our weekly worship.

Thought Questions:

1) What did the people do? Be specific.

2) What happened as they did it; what was the result?

3) Connect Psalm 22:3 with 2 Chronicles 5:13-14 and venture to comment on what it means for our Sunday morning gatherings for worship.

Answer in comments below, or on our FB page.

Thursday, November 22, 2018

Lectionary Thoughts - 1 Chronicles 28:6-7


(Matthew 16:16) Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

We tend to read and understand Peter's declaration that Jesus was "the Son of the living God" as proof of Jesus' divinity. But, as always, we need to "Go to Jerusalem before we go to Wenatchee." In other words we need to ask ourselves what Peter meant, and how the other disciples would have heard and understood Peter's words.

In the Old Testament, "son of God" indicated rule/kingship, not divinity. Note how Yahweh refers to Solomon as He gives instructions to David regarding the building of the great Temple in Jerusalem:

(1 Chronicles 28:6–7) He said to me, ‘It is Solomon your son who shall build my house and my courts, for I have chosen him to be my son, and I will be his father. I will establish his kingdom forever if he continues strong in keeping my commandments and my rules, as he is today.’

So, Peter's answer to Jesus question, "Who do you say that I am?" was an indication that Peter finally understood what Jesus had been saying from the very beginning of his ministry (Matt. 4:17): that the much-anticipated kingdom of God had broken into a broken world and that he, Jesus, was the long- awaited king of that kingdom. Good news indeed!

Wednesday, November 7, 2018

When Pulpits Poison


Expostulation
William Cowper

When nations are to perish in their sins,
‘Tis in the church the leprosy begins;
The priest, whose office is with zeal sincere
To watch the fountain, and preserve it clear,
Carelessly nods and sleeps upon the brink,
While others poison what the flock must drink;
Or, waking at the call of lust alone,
Infuses lies and errors of his own:
His unsuspecting sheep believe it pure;
And, tainted by the very means of cure,
Catch from each other a contagious spot,
The foul fore-runner of a general rot.
Then Truth is hushed, that Heresy may preach:
And all is trash, that Reason cannot reach:
Then God’s own image on the soul impressed,
Becomes a mockery, and a standing jest;
And faith, the root whence only can arise
The graces of a life that wins the skies,
Loses at once all value and esteem,
Pronounced by gray-beards a pernicious dream;
Then Ceremony leads her bigots forth,
Prepared to fight for shadows of no worth;
While truths, on which eternal things depend,
Find not, or hardly find, a single friend;
As soldiers watch the signal of command,
They learn to bow, to kneel, to sit, to stand;
Happy to fill Religion’s vacant place
With hollow form, and gesture, and grimace.

Monday, October 15, 2018

The Lord Be With You


(Ruth 2:4) And, behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said unto the reapers, The LORD be with you. And they answered him, The LORD bless you.

Although this greeting sounds a bit foreign to our ears. It has only been in the recent history of God’s people that these sorts of salutations have been superceded by the mundane likes of “How’s it goin’?”, “Hey”, “How ya doin’”, the slightly more formal, “Hello”, or the vapid just saying nothing at all.

Evidently, in Boaz’s time, even the everyday/ordinary greeting uttered by a master to his servants in the field was considered an opportunity to invoke a blessing of unspeakable worth and inestimable value: “The LORD be with you.” To which the sweaty reapers joyfully replied with a benediction no less glorious than their master’s: “The LORD bless you.”

Indeed, all of Scripture contains similar greetings. The angel of the LORD hailed Gideon with a “The LORD be with you” as did the angel who announced God’s wondrous plans to the virgin Mary. The newly resurrected Christ greeted his apprehensive disciples with a “Peace be with you” and the epistles of Paul are fairly well interspersed with the likes of “The Lord be with you all”, sometimes as a greeting, and sometimes as a farewell.

For the last two millennia, our own generation excepted, the saints have delighted to greet one another, and to call one another to prayer with some form of the biblical and beautiful responsive “The LORD be with you…And also with you.” A higher blessing one cannot imagine, and a more fitting way to exercise one’s office as a New Testament priest is difficult to conceive. For God has made us a kingdom of priests, a royal line of clerics imbued with authority to call down upon, and to convey to one another the very blessings of Almighty God. One has to wonder how we can be so content with the parched dryness of silence, or the insipid grape juice of “How’s it goin?” when the potent wine of “The LORD be with you” is so near at hand?

Sunday, September 2, 2018

The Potency of Biblical Femininity

Sarah Smith in C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce

“First came bright Spirits, not the Spirits of men, who danced and scattered flowers. Then, on the left and right, at each side of the forest avenue, came youthful shapes, boys upon one hand, and girls upon the other. If I could remember their singing and write down the notes, no man who read that score would ever grow sick or old. Between them went musicians: and after these a lady in whose honour all this was being done.

I cannot now remember whether she was naked or clothed. If she were naked, then it must have been the almost visible penumbra of her courtesy and joy which produces in my memory the illusion of a great and shining train that followed her across the happy grass. If she were clothed, then the illusion of nakedness is doubtless due to the clarity with which her inmost spirit shone through the clothes. For clothes in that country are not a disguise: the spiritual body lives along each thread and turns them into living organs. A robe or a crown is there as much one of the wearer's features as a lip or an eye.

But I have forgotten. And only partly do I remember the unbearable beauty of her face.

“Is it?...is it?” I whispered to my guide.

“Not at all,” said he. “It's someone ye'll never have heard of. Her name on earth was Sarah Smith and she lived at Golders Green.”

“She seems to be...well, a person of particular importance?”

“Aye. She is one of the great ones. Ye have heard that fame in this country and fame on Earth are two quite different things.”

“And who are these gigantic people...look! They're like emeralds...who are dancing and throwing flowers before here?”

“Haven't ye read your Milton? A thousand liveried angels lackey her.”

“And who are all these young men and women on each side?”

“They are her sons and daughters.”

“She must have had a very large family, Sir.”

“Every young man or boy that met her became her son – even if it was only the boy that brought the meat to her back door. Every girl that met her was her daughter.”

“Isn't that a bit hard on their own parents?”

“No. There are those that steal other people's children. But her motherhood was of a different kind. Those on whom it fell went back to their natural parents loving them more. Few men looked on her without becoming, in a certain fashion, her lovers. But it was the kind of love that made them not less true, but truer, to their own wives.”

“And how...but hullo! What are all these animals? A cat-two cats-dozens of cats. And all those dogs...why, I can't count them. And the birds. And the horses.”

“They are her beasts.”

“Did she keep a sort of zoo? I mean, this is a bit too much.”

“Every beast and bird that came near her had its place in her love. In her they became themselves. And now the abundance of life she has in Christ from the Father flows over into them.”

I looked at my Teacher in amazement.

“Yes,” he said. “It is like when you throw a stone into a pool, and the concentric waves spread out further and further. Who knows where it will end? Redeemed humanity is still young, it has hardly come to its full strength. But already there is joy enough in the little finger of a great saint such as yonder lady to waken all the dead things of the universe into life.”

― C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce

Wednesday, August 22, 2018

God's Wisdom in Proverbs


"Proverbs by definition are short and pointed. They burst in the front door, bang a cup on the table, have their say, and then exit with a slam – leaving us blinking in amazement and mulling over what they said." - Dan Phillips

Currently, at our Men's Prayer meetings on Wednesday mornings, we read and discuss a chapter from the book of Proverbs before we solicit prayer requests and pray together. To help better understand this amazing and timeless collection of divine wisdom, here are a few quotes from Chapter One of Dan Phillip's excellent book, "God's Wisdom in Proverbs."

Wisdom: Skill for living in the fear of Yahweh 
Chapters 1 through 9 clearly contain two discourses. The first is parental exhortation. The second is an extended metaphor.
Proverbs is a book of poetry… English poetry tends to rhyme with words, Hebrew poetry tends to rhyme/develop thoughts.
Hebrew poetry tends to be identifiable by its terseness, its use of imagery, and it’s employment of parallelism.
A proverb is a saying, not a dissertation...Proverbs are designed for the lean economy of expression.
Proverbs convey pithy points and principles, not precious particular promises.
Proverbs are wonderfully successful at being what they are: proverbs. They are not failed prophecies or systematic theology’s.
Proverbs by design lays out pointed observations, meant to be memorized and pondered, not always intended to be applied “across the board” to every situation without qualification...e.g. “Look before you leap” and “He who hesitates is lost.”
A proverb is a compressed statement of wisdom, artfully crafted to be striking, thought-provoking, memorable, and practical.
A proverb typically is truth dress to travel. It is wisdom compressed, compacted, stripped down to its essentials, and ready to go. Proverbs are tailored in such a way as to snag and stay in the mind... proverbs do not try to say everything. But what they do say, they say artfully and memorably.

Major Types of Proverbs:

1.     Synonymous Proverbs: In this, line B rewords the thought of line A.

2.     Contrast Proverbs: In this category, line B contrasts with line A.
-          Example: “A wise son makes a father glad, but a foolish son is a grief to his mother.”

3.     Comparison Proverbs: In this sort of Proverbs, line 8 is like blind be.
-          Example: “Like vinegar to the teeth and Smoke to the eyes, so is the sluggard to those who sent him.”

4.     Satirical Proverbs: These are striking, memorable little portrayals which use the humorous device of satire to penetrate and arrest our attention.
-          Example: “The sluggard buries his hand in the dish and will not even bring it back to his mouth.”

5.     Evaluation Proverbs: Evaluation Proverbs amount to asserting that line A is better than Line B.
-          Example: “Better is a little with the fear of the Lord that great treasure and trouble with it.”

6.     Consequence Proverbs: Proverbs of this category amount to asserting that line B is what happens when you do line A. Consequence proverbs are two general kinds. Some issue warnings, other consequence proverbs commend a way of life by showing where it leads.
-          Example: “Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the Lord; be assured, he will not go unpunished.”
-          Example: “Do you see a man skillful in his work? He will stand before kings; he will not stand before obscure men.’

7.     Synthetic Proverbs: Here, line B builds on or extends and completes the thought of line A. It is line A – and what’s more, line B.
-          Example: “Leave the presence of a fool, for there you do not speak words of knowledge.”

8.      Proverbial discourse: These are protracted didactic poems, found chiefly in chapters 1 through 9. They are longer lectures and discourses on selected topics introductory to the shorter proverbs which follow.




Tuesday, August 14, 2018

Notable Quotations on Marriage


A Working Definition of Marriage:
A mutually exclusive sexual, emotional and spiritual relationship between one man and one woman; protected by a covenant, until death do them part; ordained by God to portray His triune nature and picture His love for His people; to populate eternity; for protection; for progress in sanctification; and for partnership in the work given by God.


Introduction to a Wedding Ceremony c.1679
DEARLY beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this Congregation, to join together this man and this woman in holy Matrimony; which is an honourable estate, instituted of God in the time of man's innocency, signifying unto us the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and his Church; which holy estate Christ adorned and beautified with his presence, and first miracle that he wrought, in Cana of Galilee; and is commended of Saint Paul to be honourable among all men: and therefore is not by any to be enterprised, nor taken in hand, unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly, to satisfy men's carnal lusts and appetites, like brute beasts that have no understanding; but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God; duly considering the causes for which Matrimony was ordained.
First, It was ordained for the procreation of children, to be brought up in the fear and nurture of the Lord, and to the praise of his holy Name.

Secondly, It was ordained for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication; that such persons as have not the gift of continency might marry, and keep themselves undefiled members of Christ's body.

Thirdly, It was ordained for the mutual society, help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity. Into which holy estate these two persons present come now to be joined.

Therefore, if any man can shew any just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter forever hold his peace.

NOTE: Recently the Episcopal Church in the United States has decided to scrap the terms "husband" and "wife" from its marital liturgy in its latest move to find favor with the LGBT community. Phrases related to "procreation" will also be deleted, as they may offend those who do not identify as heterosexual.


University of Notre Dame English professor Roy Scranton recently wrote an article for the New York Times that began with this remarkable paragraph:
“I cried two times when my daughter was born. First for joy, when after 27 hours of labor the little feral being we’d made came yowling into the world, and the second for sorrow, holding the earth’s newest human and looking out the window with her at the rows of cars in the hospital parking lot, the strip mall across the street, the box stores and drive-throughs and drainage ditches and asphalt and waste fields that had once been oak groves. A world of extinction and catastrophe, a world in which harmony with nature had long been foreclosed. My partner and I had, in our selfishness, doomed our daughter to life on a dystopian planet, and I could see no way to shield her from the future.”


The 1937 letters were written during a three-week preaching tour in America. This was a difficult time for Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Elizabeth, his daughter, said years later that after that trip, he vowed never to be gone from Bethan that long again. The letters from 1939 were during World War II. The family had been evacuated to the countryside while he remained in London. His love and longing for Bethan comes through on every page. He was affectionate, aware, and attentive. He was specific and lavish in his adoration. Paragraphs like this one are common:
"Let us say just this much—thinking of you gives me endless happiness, and I am more certain than ever that there is no one in the world like you, not even approaching you, not in all the world…I have been thinking of eleven years ago tonight, when we went together to Covenant Gardens and there back to Dilyrs’s. I thought at that time, that I loved you, but I had to live with you for over 10 years to know you properly and so to love you truly. I know that I am deficient in many things and must at times disappoint you. That really grieves me, and I am trying to improve. But believe me, if you could see my heart you would be amazed at how great is my love. I hope you know, indeed I know that you know, in spite of all my failings. I can do nothing but say again that from the human standpoint I belong entirely to you."


Hope for Your Marriage (Paul David Tripp in What Did You Expect, pp 128-29)
“God knows how big our struggle is. He knows how deep the war inside us runs. He knows how weak and blind we all can be. He knows how fickle our hearts can be. He knows how easily we lose our way. So, to help our marriage he didn’t just give us a set of principles; no, he gave us himself.

Immanuel has invaded our marriage with an initiative of warrior grace. He is not standing outside your marriage, giving you principles to live by and judge you if you don’t. No, he has literally gotten inside your heart, so he can battle for you at the very place were the war for marriage takes place – your heart. He knows that you and your spouse are not perfect. He knows that sin will again and again get in the way of what a marriage can and should be. He knows that rules, principles, and perspectives are not enough. He knows that your marriage needs more than information; it needs transformation, so he has taken residence inside you. This means that he battles with the dark instincts of sin that are still within you, even when you don’t!

If you are God’s children, then your marriage isn’t just a union of two; it is more accurately a union of three. Think about this: the same Spirit that now lives inside of you, wife, also now lives in side your husband. His presence provides the best platform for marital unity and love that you could ever wish for. He brings you the wisdom and strength you need to be what you are supposed to be, and to do what you have been called to do in your marriage. And his sweetest gift, in an agenda of grace, is that he daily rescues you from you, which is just what you need but are unable to do for yourself.

Hope for your marriage is not to be found in your spouse. No, it is to be found in that third invisible Person, who has made himself part of your union. He has come to you so that you would have everything you will ever need to pull up what needs to be pulled and to plant what needs to be planted so that your marriage can be everything that God designed it to be.”


Answered Prayer (Pastor Tim Keller)
"If we knew what God knows, we would ask exactly for what He gives."

Wednesday, August 8, 2018

True Bible-Readers



“True Bible-readers and Bible-searchers never find it wearisome. They like it least who know it least, and they love it most who read it most. They find it newest who have known it longest, and they find the pasture to be the richest whose souls have been the longest fed upon it. When one of our missionaries had to read a certain Book of the Old Testament through a hundred times while he was translating it, he said that he certainly enjoyed the hundredth time of reading it more than he did the first, for he understood it better, and it seemed to him to be fuller and fresher the more familiar he became with it.” (C.H. Spurgeon)

Thursday, March 29, 2018

Abortion, Straight Up


Pastor Toby Sumpter with some straight talk on the basics of abortion, including some very helpful action items. You can read it here.

Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Worship is Warfare


(2 Chronicles 20:21–22) And when he had taken counsel with the people, he appointed those who were to sing to the LORD and praise him in holy attire, as they went before the army, and say, “Give thanks to the LORD, for his steadfast love endures forever.” And when they began to sing and praise, the LORD set an ambush against the men of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who had come against Judah, so that they were routed.

It’s frightening to realize how increasingly our present society resembles the peoples judged by God in the Old Testament. Our manic preoccupations with wealth, military might, sexual immorality and our disdain for innocent life easily put us in the company of ancient Moab, Amon and Philistia. So, what are we to do?

According to the Bible we are changed every time we gather around Word and Sacrament to worship the LORD. God’s Word, read, sung and preached sanctifies us by convicting us, correcting us, training and rearranging us. Taking the bread and cup together heals us and strengthens our bond with Christ and with one another. Though ordinary, these are the humble means that God has appointed to complete the good work that He has begun in us.

But there is a very dangerous temptation to think that the effects or our worship are confined to the space within the four walls of the place wherein we meet; there is a very harmful temptation to not believe that God is subduing the forces of darkness up and down this valley (and beyond) as we fulfill our calling as New Covenant priests ministering in the house of God (1 Pet. 2:5,9).

As someone sagely noted: Worship is warfare. Ministry is picking up the spoils.

A few examples will suffice to demonstrate this:
Recall how Jericho fell to Joshua and his army. Not by military might or shrewd tactics. But with the faithful shouts of God’s people and the trumpet blasts of the priests on the seventh day (the seventh day being the day of worship for God’s people in the Old Covenant.)
Recall how King Jehoshaphat in 2 Chronicles 20, sent the Levitical choir out ahead of his army singing (of all things) praises to the LORD for the everlasting nature of His love and mercy. And skillfully singing the LORD’s praises that day, the LORD himself fought for His own, and secured a great victory over their enemies.
But perhaps more pertinent to our own time is the relationship between Abraham’s trek, and later Jacob’s trek, through the promised land, and Joshua’s conquering of the same territory hundreds of years later. This is the first and most revealing illustration of the way that God uses worship to conquer and subdue His enemies.
According to the Genesis account, as they moved around the land that God had promised to them and their descendants, Abraham (and Jacob, two generations later) repeatedly built altars; wherever they went, they constructed centers of worship. But here is something that you might have missed:

Over 500 years later, when Joshua lead the children of Israel into the promised land, conquering as he went, he did so following a route that closely resembled the previous expeditions of Abraham and Jacob.

In other words (as Peter Leithart and others have noted) the worship of Abraham and Jacob was in effect a "pre-conquest" of the land. Once the land was consecrated to the Lord by worship, it could eventually be conquered and purged of its idolatry and wickedness. It would take centuries, but the Lord would, and did indeed establish His house, His people, His throne and His worship in the land.

If God is kind, we see with our own eyes His work in our midst as He conforms us individually and corporately to the image and likeness of His Son, Jesus. But it is only with the eye of faith that we will be able to see the effects of our worship in this valley a hundred, two hundred, or maybe even a thousand years hence. So, royal priests of the God most high, roll up your sleeves, and ready yourself for battle.

GH