Jared Longshore's Blog, page 12

Unless This Wine Keeps the City

Our community is replete with people who want good things to grow and we should thank God for this. It is easy to get stuck in the mud, unmotivated to see such growth. And it is easy to be confused about what should grow and what shouldn’t. But in the main, we have a collection of saints who know what it is we are laboring for. So we pray and work for the growth of God’s kingdom in all its fullness, including the growth of marriages, children, education, business, the arts, sports, politics, culture, and every other good thing the Lord has given us. 

As we labor toward that end, consider the lesson of this table. This bread is the fundamental growth agent. Apart from this bread, everything shrivels up. Apart from this wine, the world decays with all of its projects. If this bread doesn’t build the house, they labor in vain that build it. If this wine keeps not the city, the watchmen stay awake in vain. 

I am not, of course, simply saying that you should be nourished by Christ in your labors. That is true enough but not the central point. The central point is that this bread will rebuild all things. This wine will surely do it. What our Lord said to David is just as true today. He bends down low so we can hear and says, “Will you build me a house to dwell in?” No, “I will build you a house.” 

You find yourselves today in the heavenly tabernacle formed by no human hand. You’re in a growing kingdom like a rock carved by no human hand. Even the womb which our Christ took to as His first earthly home was a virgin womb. Put not your trust in any Joseph, for He will die and His plans will perish. But do trust the virgin’s Son, the will of the LORD will prosper in His hand. So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ.

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So Shall Ye Be Established

The virgin birth is not only a miracle, it is a miracle with a purpose. In it God winks at you when you’re tempted to unbelief. He is delighted to test your faith. And He will not permit your unbelief. He’s more than happy to put you in that precarious position of having to trust His promises in the face of encroaching enemies. But He does not leave you in that position without potent signs.

Isaiah is the one who announced “Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” But we forget that God made the virgin conceive as an explicit sign connected to a test of faith. In Isaiah’s day, King Ahaz had heard that the King of Syria and the King of Israel were advancing against him at Jerusalem. This news set the hearts of the people shaking like tree branches in the wind. God did not say to them, “All will be well no matter what you do.” He said, “Fear not, their attack will fail.” And He added, “If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established” (Isaiah 7:9). Make no mistake. Believe not, be established not.

Amid that test, God said, “Your faith is weak? I’ll tell you what: I’ll make a virgin conceive. Do you believe me now?”

The promises of God are abundant and before you for the believing. These promises include blessing for you and your household to a thousand generations, including sanctification, holiness, maturation, dominion, victory, resurrection, and glory. You will be established in all of that by faith. And if you will not believe, then you will not be established. If you say, “How can I know?” God is happy to answer His Gideon’s with a fleece. And that fleece is virgin born, named Immanuel.

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Christmas Is Not Modern

Christmas is an obstacle to modern progress. Rooted in the past, and even the remote past, it cannot assist a world in which the ignorance of history is the only clear evidence of the knowledge of science. Born among miracles reported from two thousand years ago, it cannot expect to impress that sturdy common sense which can withstand the plainest and most palpable evidence for miracles happening at this moment. . . .Christmas is not modern; Christmas is not Marxian; Christmas is not made on the pattern of that great age of the Machine, which promises to the masses an epoch of even greater happiness and prosperity than that to which it has brought the masses at this moment. Christmas is medieval; having arisen in the earlier days of the Roman Empire. Christmas is a superstition. Christmas is a survival of the past.

G. K. Chesterton

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Table of the King

As you come to this table you should be aware of the loyalties involved. This is the table of a King, and not just any king. It is a table of the King of Kings. No one is tricked into participating. And participating should not be taken lightly. Christ gives orders here. Those orders are “Take and eat.” And “drink of this cup.” But this cup is the blood of the new covenant. As you drink, you drink covenant blood. And it is not only Christ’s blood on the line. Those who drink of this cup and forsake our Lord, forsake him at their peril, at the cost of their lives in this world and the next.

The call of Christ is a call of obedience. It is a call to listen to the Master’s voice, believe His words and obey them. Do not be so foolish as to think He will have you enrolled into His ranks and then not command you. Yes, His yoke is easy and His burden is light. But the commands of the Lord are not abtract rules that you can take or leave. The Lord’s standard was born in Bethlehem. His command-word meets you in your daily life and trials. You must obey Him in the particulars, not simply in theory. 

What makes Christ’s yoke objectively easy is that all of His commands are good. And what makes His yoke subjectively easy is your faith that sees them as such. Any attempt to obey the commands of Christ while begrudging them is not only doomed to fail, it is downright laughable. His command has always been to follow Him and live, to “do this” and “live.” Yes, He might be pulling you into more life than you bargained for, but life it is, world without end. So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ.

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The King’s Conquest

Christ was born in Bethlehem that He might rule the world. For two thousand years, His kingdom has spread as saints have been gathered into His church, receiving the Triune name of our God on their heads. Before us today is yet another instance of this great conquests. In baptism, God the Father seals His saints in His son and by His Spirit. It is a witness of His good purposes for us, that He Himself has sword will come to pass. And if one wonders how we can know His covenant word will indeed come to pass for this little one. We point to the virgin’s little one.

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Advent: Life Inside the Clock

Advent is a season of waiting, patience, and anticipation. It reminds us that, while God lives outside of the clock, we live very much inside it. The psalmist says that a thousand years in God’s sight is equal to only a short watch of the night. But you have to walk through the years at the going rate for humans, living in the present and waiting to see tomorrow when it finally shows up as today. Our temptation is to think of waiting as dead space and this is just how the man who lives by sight thinks of it. He waits to see and until He sees, He is dead, lazy, unproductive today in his feigned ambition for tomorrow.

But the life you now live, you live by faith, not by sight, just like our fathers who came before us. Many prophets longed to see the coming of our Lord and saw it not. But they lived, manning their stations by faith, levelling kingdoms and stopping the mouths of lions. All while they waited.

So it is now. Given the advent of our Lord, His reign is in our midst. And His earthly reign will extend far beyond our present lives. You have something in common with those prophets of old. There are many triumphs of Christ to come in this world that you will never see with the eyes in your head and in which you will not participate, at least in this body. Your children will see them and participate in them. Your grandchildren will play their part in their day.

But you are prohibited from taking up those conquests of our King in your arms like Simeon took Jesus up in his. But you are not at all prohibited from taking up the present conquests of our King. Those are within reach.

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The Normal Hero

The old fairy tale makes the hero a normal human boy; it is his adventures that are startling; they startle him because he is normal. But in the modern psychological novel the hero is abnormal; the center is not central.

G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

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The Perfect Meal

One of the perrenial temptations during Advent is the temptation to the wrong kind of perfection. Yes, Scripture does say “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” But it is easy for that pursuit to become one spurred on by the flesh rather than the Spirit. Fathers insist that every dollar be spent just right. Mothers fret about every member of the family minding their manners at the meals and looking like happy bedazeled elves on the Christmas card. Children nostalgically insist that this holiday have the magic of past years.

But Christ’s arrival was anything but that kind of perfection. Bethlehem had no vacancy. People murmured about the scandal of Mary’s pregnancy. Herod sharpened his sword. Pagans showed up not entirely clear about what was going on. And God sent the main invitations to blue-collar men who made their living protecting mindless and insecure animals.

Even when this perfect meal was instituted, there was Judas the traitor at table, the disciples who would soon desert the Lord, and Peter putting his foot in his mouth about a head-washing during a foot-washing.

If our Lord’s formal institution of this table had its imperfections, how much more your table? How much more your giving and receiving? 

Every week you hear that this bread is the body of Christ broken for you. And while He is not continually sacrificed. You must continually draw upon that sacrifice. The only perfect sacrifice is behind you. The only perfect gift is behind you. And the Spirit of God has fresh supplies of that gift for you and yours. You arrived at this table by that Spirit and you will grow into a perfect man by Him. So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ.

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Mine Eyes Have Seen Thy Salvation

Our salvation was as true before Simeon could lay his eyes on it as it was after he did so. But it was not as visible. So it is with baptism. Our salvation was decreed before the foundation of the world. But God is pleased to show us His salvation through baptism. Whether He speaks to us through Word or Water, faith is the answer to His promise. And Christ is the gurantee. As we behold baptism, behold Christ and say with that man from Jerusalem, “Mine eyes have seen Thy salvation.”

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An Uncomfortable Advent

There is indeed something still and quiet about the advent of our Lord. We are familiar with the manger scene as we are of the little town of Bethlehem lying still, as the carol says. But the serenity of Christ’s advent is the serenity of a terrible army approaching the rebel city, rank upon rank. He came to level many strongholds, many kings, and many kingdoms.

But the advent of our Christ is not only uncomfortable for our enemies outside the walls of Christendom. It is uncomfortable for each of us. You want the Lord’s advent do you? Then prepare to be exposed. You want the Lord’s advent? Then lay yourself open before His coming. He comes to incinerate what remains of your flesh. He comes to pierce your soul, as He did Mary’s, His own mother. The sanctification of His drawing near is lovely as it is deadly. And that sanctification requires that you play no games with Him. If you hear His voice, harden not your hearts as in the day of temptation in the wilderness. If He has convicted you, confess. If He has corrected you, then amend your ways. He has more furniture to arrange in your soul. And He’s knocking at the door.

This season affords you abundant opportunity to discover the sin that remains in you. But those discoveries are no cause for self-loathing. There’s no sense in going to hide in a hole because others are more festive than the grumpy pickle staring back at you in the mirror. Even the holes will be brightened by His coming. Whatever is dark in you, His light is brighter still. Whatever is crooked, His coming is straighter still. Many will rise and fall at His coming. And see that you rise. But the only way to rise is to humble yourself and, however uncomfortable it is, say, “Come Lord Jesus.”

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