Pittsburgh New Church » Special Programs Category

Welcome to our summer series, “Don’t Just Go to Church, Be the Church!” The church is not the priesthood, nor is it some abstract thing apart from you. The church is simply the group of people who follow the Lord, and you are called to be one of them. For the next several Sundays we will be talking about what it means to be citizens of the Lords’ kingdom on earth.
In our first part, “Connect with the Lord”, we begin by reviewing what our personal, individual responsibilities to the Lord are. Put briefly, there are seven things the Lord wants us to do: (1) Pray, (2) Read the Word, (3) Worship, (4) Repent, (5) Shun evils, (6) Serve other people, and (7) Regenerate, or be born again. The first three are what are sometimes called the “life of piety”, and the next three are called the “life of charity”; the last one is not something we do ourselves, but instead is something the Lord does for us as a result of the other six.

To see the truth of this and learn how to apply it to your life, read Luke 17:20-21 and The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine 124, 241-245 (included below), and then listen to the full audio of this sermon by clicking here. This sermon, along with the rest of the series, is available through the Pittsburgh New Church (where it was preached), TheoBlog, the New Church, and the Apple iTunes Store.

Next week we will begin to talk about our responsibilities to the church in “Be the Church, Part 2: Love One Another”.

* * *

Luke 17:20-21:

Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.”

The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine 241-245:

THE CHURCH

What constitutes heaven with a man, also constitutes the Church; for as love and faith constitute heaven, so also love and faith constitute the Church: consequently, from what has been already said concerning heaven, it is evident what the Church is.

The Church is said to be where the Lord is acknowledged, and where the Word exists; for the essentials of the Church are love to the Lord and faith in Him, both derived from Him; and the Word teaches how a man ought to live in order that he may receive love and faith from the Lord.
That the Church may exist, there must be doctrine from the Word; because without doctrine the Word cannot be understood. Yet it is not doctrine alone that constitutes the Church with a man, but a life according to doctrine. From this it follows that faith alone does not constitute the Church but the life of faith, which is charity. Genuine doctrine is the doctrine of charity and at the same time of faith, and not the doctrine of faith apart from the former; for the doctrine of charity and at the same time of faith, is the doctrine of life; but not the doctrine of faith apart from the doctrine of charity.

Those who are outside the Church, and acknowledge one God, and live according to their religion in some charity towards the neighbor, are in communion with those who are of the Church; for no one who believes in God and leads a good life, is damned. From this it is evident, that the Lord’s Church is everywhere throughout the world; although specifically it is, where the Lord is acknowledged, and where the Word exists.

Every one with whom the Church exists, is saved; but every one with whom the Church does not exist, is damned.

The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine 124:

Piety consists in thinking and speaking piously; in praying assiduously, and in behaving then with humility; in attending churches, and in devoutly listening to the preaching there; in partaking frequently during the year of the Holy Supper; and in observing in like manner the other acts of Divine worship, according to the ordinances of the Church. But the life of charity consists in willing and doing good to the neighbor; and in acting from a principle of what is just and fair, and good and true, in every work and in every office; in a word, the life of charity consists in the practice of uses. Divine worship consists primarily in the life of charity, and secondarily in piety. Wherefore, he who separates the one from the other, that is, he who leads a life of piety, and not at the same time a life of charity, does not worship God. It is true, he thinks of God, yet he does not think from God, but from himself; for he constantly thinks of himself, and not at all of the neighbor; and if he does think of the neighbor, he has no respect for him, unless he is of alike quality. He also thinks of heaven as a reward; and for this reason there is in his mind the idea of merit, and also the love of self, as well as a contempt or disregard for uses, and thus of the neighbor; at the same time also there is present with him a faith in his own guiltlessness. From this it may appear, that a life of piety separated from a life of charity, is not the spiritual life which ought to be in Divine worship. (See Mat. 6:7-8.)

From these considerations it is clearly manifest that so far as a man shuns evils, so far is he with the Lord and in the Lord; and so far as he is in the Lord, so far he does good, not from himself but from the Lord. Hence results this general law: SO FAR AS ANY ONE SHUNS EVILS, SO FAR HE DOES WHAT IS GOOD. (Doctrine of Life 21)

When we turn away from hell, which way are we facing?

We often think of the Ten Commandments as a list of “Thou Shalt Not”s—the Lord telling us, like parents tell their children, all the things they are not allowed to do. But as we have learned over the past weeks, the Ten Commandments are not about limiting our freedom or making us suffer. So why are they so negative?

The Doctrine of Life, which is drawn directly from the Ten Commandments, teaches that everyone in this world is suspended between heaven above and hell below. We are kept this way so we can freely choose which direction we want to turn. By birth we would naturally turn towards hell, but the Lord maintains our freedom and equilibrium and then educates us on how to turn towards heaven. We would assume that we would therefore be taught about how to do good. But in the 10 Commandments, we’re not taught how to do good, but how to not do evil. Why?

Good and evil are opposites and destroy each other when they meet. Since we are born with an inclination to evil, we cannot do good right away because the evil within us would destroy it. So our first job is to get rid of the evil. And as we shun those evils as sins, the Lord replaces them with good. We cannot do good without first shunning evil. The amazing result is turning toward heaven—not because we are choosing to tourn towards heaven, but because we are turning away from hell. If we choose to not look down at the ground, we can’t help but look at the sky. Obeying the Ten Commandments by shunning evils as sins against the Lord is the surest way to reach heaven.

To see that this is true, first read Doctrine of Life 53, Isaiah 1:10-20, and Doctrine of Life 18-21, then listen to the full audio version of this sermon, and, finally, try practicing it for a week.

This is the tenth and final sermon in our Journey series, celebrating the Ten Commandments.

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant nor his female slave, nor his ox nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.” (Exodus 20:17)

The Lord is waiting for permission to replace your heart with a pure one. This is because right thinking and useful living cannot overcome selfishness and greed on their own. We are all born with sick hearts, and no amount of exercise will save us. Spiritually healthy living is important, but without a spiritual heart transplant, we’re still doomed.

We have already learned in the past eight weeks of studying the Commandments that there is not only natural murder, but spiritual, as well. We are to shun both. The problem is, spiritual murder actually feels good to us at times. How is this a spiritual form of coveting?

Consider how coveting—longing to possess something that belongs to someone else—is like stealing in one’s own heart. When we covet something, we haven’t actually stolen it, but there’s a part of us that wants to. This is how eventually all natural thefts, murders, false witnesses and acts of adultery come about. First comes the covetous desire, then comes the destructive act. So spiritual murder—attacking a person in your own heart—begins with the evil desire to do so.

Now here’s the frightening part of this teaching: satisfying our heart’s desires gives us pleasure. That means that there’s a dark part of us that feels good when we break a commandment, whether spiritually or naturally. The sin of adultery provides a powerful illustration of this.

Everyone knows that physically committing adultery involves physical pleasure. That’s a big part of the attraction of adultery.

So our will rules over our intellect. Our will is our spiritual heart, and just like a natural heart, we can’t directly control it. We can hold our breath but we can’t “hold our pulse” from beating. Only the Lord can help us. For Him to do this, though, we have to freely decide on our own that we want Him to. We do this by repenting—or turning away from—evil impulses as they come to us, by praying to Him to ask Him for a clean heart, and by shunning—literally “fleeing”—evil when it presents itself within us.

This is what the Lord meant when He said that, if our right eye or hand causes us to stumble, we should pluck it out and cut it off. He also said that it isn’t what goes into the mouth but what comes out from the heart that makes a person unclean, meaning that it isn’t our intellect that makes us evil, but our will. This is because love of self, along with its subordinate love of the world, warp our rational thinking, making whatever justifies our evil desires appear to be truth, and whatever satisfies them to feel good.

Our hearts are corrupted by selfishness and greed, and full of murder, adultery, theft and deceit. So go back to the beginning of the Commandments., acknowledge the false god is you, and pray to the Lord for a new heart, and over time He will miraculously transform your life.

To see that this is true, read Exodus 20:17, Luke 12:13-21, Mark 7:1-23, and True Christian Religion 325-328, then listen to the full audio of the sermon, and finally put it into practice for a week.

This is the second-to-last sermon in the Journey / Rise Above It series on the Ten Commandments, preached at Pittsburgh New Church, this time addressing the ninth and tenth commandments. It is archived at TheoBlog.com, and also available through www.PittsburghNewChurch.org and www.NewChurch.org.

Pittsburgh New Church will celebrate and honor the participants from all over Pittsburgh who took part in a faith journey that began September 17^th, in the Point Breeze neighborhood of Pittsburgh. ‘The Journey Program’ concentrated on the validity and power of faith through common elements found in the Ten Commandments. At this event, people will witness how lives have changed since the start of that program. Their Journey started in September and is now approaching closure November 19^th. Everyone is welcome to attend this exciting and life-changing celebration, even if they did not participate from the beginning of the program.

Sixty-seven men and women in Pittsburgh joined over 1,000 people around the country working to strengthen their personal spiritual walks, build healthier relationships and ultimately lead more purposeful lives. This celebration is a culmination of a ten week program that re-examined the Ten Commandments, its relevancy for the 21^st century and how these Commandments show up in different faith traditions and in life. Participation in this program has been open to people of all faith walks.

People who participated in this program are saying it changed their lives. One participant new to the congregation happily described the impact one week as “earth shattering”. Another participant, Gillian, of Edgewood, PA, described how the program made her a better mother. Speaking about an incident in which one of her children knocked over a grocery cart, she said, “In the past, I wouldn’t have been able to let it go. I would have lectured on and on about it the whole way home. This time, though, because of the program, I was able to remain at peace. I handled it calmly and quickly, and then moved on with life. For me, that’s a huge deal.”

The Journey program educates and encourages individuals, couples and families to have healthier relationships, to resolve conflict, find greater personal fulfillment, and ultimately lead happier lives through applying a unique perspective on the Ten Commandments.

The Journey program is a great opportunity for personal growth and to build friendships and connections with people in Pittsburgh. This celebration is not just for participants at the Pittsburgh New Church, but also for affiliated congregations elsewhere in Pennsylvania (Sarver, Philadelphia, Ivyland) and across the country (Los Angeles, Cincinnati, Tucson and Phoenix) who joined in this effort.

The celebration on November 19^th marks the end of the program, but not the end of the journey for participants, says Assistant to the Pastor, Rev. Mac Frazier. “Spiritual journeys never really end, of course. I think we’ve all learned new ideas and practices that will continue to help us for the rest of our lives.” He also says that participants have formed new friendships through the Journey program. “That’s part of the strength of programs like this. If you couple powerful ideas with real-life skills, and do that in a loving community, then you end up not just with tools for life, but a support group that is always there to help you use them.”

“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” (Exodus 20:16)

The commandment not to bear false witness is one that does not obscure its spiritual meanings too much; we easily leap from giving false testimony before a judge to lying in general, and from there to the spiritual meaning of this commandment: to not call the truth falsity, and to not call falsity truth. In the highest meaning, of course, it is a warning not to blaspheme against the Lord, for the Lord is Truth Itself.

The great sin described in Isaiah 28 is false witness. The source of this sin was drunkenness, that is, the purposeful confusion of the understanding part of the mind as to what is right or true and what is wrong or false. This “drunkenness” was not an accident, but was the result of people pridefully and selfishly searching for truth with their own reason alone, confirming their own ideas with a mixture of falsified truths from the Word and “proofs” from the natural world. The result of this “intoxication” is extreme uncleanliness, representing the possession of the mind by the evil spirits. Once this state sets in, the Word is no longer the source of truth, but an obstacle to be overcome in fulfilling one’s own selfish desires.

How could a person live this way and call it good? That is the greatest lie of all: that the hells are the source of happiness, safety, comfort, strength, and peace. The hells promise us “glorious beauty” and delicious fruit from verdant valleys, self-esteem, success, and power. But when judgment comes, that covenant is annulled and our relationship with the hells is revealed to be terrible and the real source of suffering.

How do we prevent this from happening to us? The short answer is to let your Yes be Yes and your No be No. Let truth be true and falsity be false. Acknowledge that the Lord is Truth itself and the source of what is right. The Lord simply says to us, “Give ear to My voice, Listen and hear my speech.” We are not the source of our understanding of the truths of the Lord’s Word; the Lord’s Word is the source of our understanding of everything else. We break this commandment when we turn away from the Word when seeking answers to life’s questions. Instead, we will listen to the teaching of the Lord.

To see that this is true, read Matthew 5:33-37, Isaiah 28, and True Christian Religion 324, then listen to the full audio of today’s sermon. This is the eighth sermon in our Rise Above It series on the Ten Commandments.

“You shall not steal.” (Exodus 20:15)

When you take credit for the good you do, you are stealing from the Lord and buying into the first and biggest of all lies: that you—and not the Lord—are the source of all life. Doing this leads to fear, anguish and suffering, because you also end up stealing the Lord’s responsibility for all future good, which you cannot possibly hope to manage without disaster. If instead you learn to praise the Lord for every good thing, then you will find you are able to enjoy all the Lord’s loving gifts with a new sense of freedom.

To see that this is true, read Matthew 6:19-21, Genesis 2:15-3:24, and True Christian Religion 317-319, then listen to the full audio sermon explaining Exodus 20:15.

This is the seventh Rise Above It / Journey sermon on the Ten Commandments, addressing this time the seventh commandment, against all kinds of theft. It is archived at TheoBlog.com, and also available through PittsburghNewChurch.org, NewChurch.org, Apple.com (through the iTunes Music Store), and FeedBurner.com.

“You shall not murder.” (Exo. 20:13)

Similarly to the fourth commandment to honor your father and mother, the commandment against murder is clearly to be viewed in terms of both width and depth. Instead of adding numbers of people to achieve a wider point of view, as we did with the fourth commandment, we include all the stages leading up to murder. This includes wounding or mutilation that proves fatal, but also the feelings of hatred, enmity, and revenge that are the causes of the wounding—even if the actual murder never takes place. Because of this, those who injure another’s name or reputation have the same motivations and fears. The hateful or vengeful person, even if they never hurt anyone, lives “in danger of hellfire.”

But this commandment also goes much deeper than the life in this world; a person’s real life is in their soul. Making the Word or the life of religion the subject of a joke can be spiritual murder if it then prevents another from thinking reverently about these things. Persuading someone to reject something of religion or worship is spiritual murder because it destroys that person’s ability to live the life that leads to heaven. Of course, you do not have the power to close heaven to another, but you can provide real assistance to evil spirits as they try to drag another soul into hell.

Both of these levels of murder come from a rejection and hatred of the Lord. All in the hells want nothing more than to destroy the Lord, the dreadfulness of which is pictured in the final days of the Lord’s life on earth. But since they cannot, they instead try to destroy those who would follow Him. Real murder is the rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Those who attempt spiritual murder only end up bringing spiritual death on themselves by choosing the life of hell.

To see that this is true, read Matthew 5:21-26, John 8:37-59, and True Christian Religion 310, and then click here to listen to the full audio sermon.
This is the fifth Rise Above It sermon on the Ten Commandments. If you missed them, check out our earlier sermons in this series:

1. How to Worship the Lord Only
2. Take the Name of the Lord—Just Not in Vain
3. How to Find True Rest
4. Becoming Spiritual Children

“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you.” (Exodus 20:12)

The fourth commandment is one of the clearer places to see the truth of both the natural and spiritual meanings of the Word. In the natural world, we clearly see the need to honor our parents. They brought us into the world, fed us, protected us, and cared for us. We can also see the need to expand thedefinitions of father and mother to all the people who helped raise us. And we areusually willing to expand “fathers and mothers” even further to include our country, from which we still receive things necessary to life and happiness in this world. But that’s about as far as you can stretch that natural idea.

But we can elevate our thoughts to what is spiritual. As we receive food and clothing from natural parents, we receive spiritual food and spiritual clothing from our common spiritual parents: the Lord and His church. We call the Lord our Heavenly Father and the Bridegroom of the Church. We call the Lord’s New Church a “bride adorned for her husband.” These are not simply pleasant ways of talking, but are representative of the real relationships between the Lord, His Church, and us. The Lord is not called Father because He is analogous to our biological fathers, but because He is the source of everything we have and are. The New Church is called our spiritual mother because it is the matrix in which the Lord’s love is received and takes form. An analogy might be with the natural sun and earth: the sun provides energy by which the earth produces various forms: flowers, snakes, birds, dogs, and human bodies. The effects of this “marriage” include flowers turing their “faces” to the sun and birds singing at sunrise.

When we leave this natural world, we no longer need our biological parents, just as we no longer need the natural sun or earth. But we never stop needing the Lord’s love and His gift of life. And we never stop needing the truths of the church through which we transform love’s energy into useful service. It is the love within us and the useful service that we do that defines us as children of God. Honoring the Lord and the church as the source of everything we need to be truly human is to become children of our common spiritual parents.

To understand this, read Exodus 20:12, Matthew 12:46-50, and True Christian Religion 308.

This is the fourth in our Rise Above It series of sermons. If you haven’t already, check out the first three sermons:

1. How to Worship the Lord Only
2. Take the Name of the Lord—Just Not in Vain
3. How to Find True Rest