Jared Longshore's Blog, page 36

Mere Christendom via the Resurrection

We find ourselves in Easter season so the question naturally arises, “What hath the resurrection to do with Mere Christendom?” Investigating this question will protect from two dangers. If these two dangers were rattlesnakes, one of them rattles just around the corner and we should really watch out for him. The other has already bitten us and well, that’s not great. But, take hope, Christendom-via-Resurrection will serve as the antivenom.

The bite we have already suffered is the modern evangelical mindset which says the resurrection has nothing to do with Mere Christendom. This mindset insists that we stop talking about Christendom, culture-shaping, Christian Nationalism and the like, and we must stop post haste. If we keep talking Christendom, then we are going to lose the gospel altogether, such is the claim. Paul claimed to know nothing but Christ and Him crucified, and if we go pushing everything out to the edges, then we’re going to lose the center. 

Now for the other rattler. Snake number two, rattling just around the bend, claims that we can usher in social, cultural, and civil change from the outside in, top down, and the whole process is really quite simple. But this approach smells too carnal, employing the wisdom from below. It seeks to exercise authority as the Gentiles do, lording it over others and what not.

If we would heal up from the bite we’ve already received, and avoid the other, then we need Mere Christendom via the resurrection. But first another illustration in order to paint a clear picture of our times.

Culture-Shaped; It’s an Ugly Mold

Along with these two snakes, we can conceive of our present moment by way of two Christian teams, neither of which are ready to shape culture and build Christendom: the conservatives and the progressives. The conservatives are anti-woke, and God bless them. These conservatives like to conserve and good on them for that too. Many, however, wobbled on wokeness until they saw which way the chips were going to fall. Even more of them wobbled on COVID. The root problem with this group however is that they don’t really have a plan for where to go. Going somewhere would involve progress and these folks are too busy for that, their time being spent conserving the house the liberals gave them.

The second team is the Christian Progressives. These lack the resisting impulse of the conservatives. They have drifted into varying levels of wokeness. Christendom sounds too much like a kingdom with teeth for them. It sounds like people wouldn’t have enough options. Christendom, even mere Christendom sounds like a world in which you couldn’t exercise your right to krump in a thong before Mrs. Harrison’s 2nd grade class. And without that right my friend, we would be persecuting the Free Methodists in no time.

Christendom Coming

Both of these groups must come to grips with the inevitability of Christendom. As Abraham Kuyper once said, “The situation has always been and will be until the end, Christianity or Paganism, the idols or the Living God.” In God’s kindness, He is revealing to us, among other things, that Christianity indeed is a religion, the sacraments matter, and civil authorities are servants of the Triune God. All of this is good news, but it leaves the conservatives that I pencil-sketched above thinking that we are sacrificing that inner beauty for a Reformed and Evangelical pope. Not only do we not need such a pope, but I claim that if we don’t get on board with Mere Christendom, then we will lose that holy, inner, puritan devotion that we have come to know and love. The vast majority of the men who penned those lovely prayer in the Valley of Vision are with us on the Mere Christendom thing.

A Frame for the Resurrection

So we are after Mere Christendom-via-Resurrection. But to hear the full thunder of the glorious resurrection, we should lay some groundwork, a frame for the glory of Easter morning. Chesterton once said, “When we are asked why eggs turn to birds or fruits fall in autumn, we must answer exactly as the fairy godmother would answer if Cinderella asked her why mice turned to horses or her clothes fell from her at twelve o’clock. We must answer that it is magic . . . The only words that e3ver satisfied me as describing Nature are the terms used in the fair books, ‘charm,’ ‘spell,’ ‘enchantment.’ . . . A tree grows fruit because it is a magic tree. Water runs downhill because it is bewitched.”

This Chestertonian enchanted world is foundational to resurrection power and our pursuit of Mere Christendom. We are tempted to say that our culture, nation, civil leaders, etc. are natural, merely natural, purely natural; and not a few conservatives don’t like Chesterton getting fancy with the spices describing the intersection of nature, fairies, and spells. FOX news must be kept in a particular box labelled political, physical, practical. The box labelled spiritual and heavenly is kept at the other end of the garage to be opened after I’m done watching Tucker Carlson, mmmkay? Thus, the conservatives.

But the progressive Christians have the same basic frame job on their intellectual house, they just play it the other way. “Yes, you see,” they say, “that FOX news is not spiritual and that is why I don’t watch it. I stay in the spiritual box. I stay in the juicy middle, refusing to pick sides in these earthly battles.” Ah, but both of these groups are discovering that the world is not wired up the way they thought it was. 

Francis Schaeffer warned us about all of this many years ago with his upper story and lower story. The lower story (earth and earthly things) has been untethered from the upper story (heaven and heavenly things) and this is bad juju. The result is that the upper story is devoured by the lower story. Progressive Pietism wanted to keep itself in the heavens, in the box labelled spiritual. But come to find out there were intersectional principalities and powers in that box teaching a false gospel leading big evangelical conferences to yearn for an answer to why they were so white.

On the other hand, Earthly Conservatives have rightly gone to war with Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality. But whatever holiness and spiritual power they get when they spend time in the box labelled spiritual doesn’t translate when they get into the box labelled earthly. I have said before, these folks may not be terribly concerned with the kingdom of God coming on earth as it is in heaven, but they sure do want good neighbors . . . and the neighborhood kids to stay off the lawn.

Schaeffer gets us going in the right direction so that we can begin to hook things up the right way. He warned against leaving Christianity in the upper story. He knew it had to touch down on the things of earth. But when it touches you, you know what you have, you have Mere Christendom. 

These troubles with heaven and earth, the spiritual and the physical, are nothing new. Irenaeus set those straight who taught that the virgin born Jesus was not the heavenly Christ—”But there are some who say that Jesus was merely a receptacle of Christ” (Against Heresies, 313). Irenaeus cites several texts demonstrating that the Son of God took on flesh, and it was this Godman who rose from the dead—”concerning His Son, who was made to Him of the seed of David according to the flesh, who was predestinated the son of God with power through the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.” And again, “who was the seed of David according to His birth from Mary; and that Jesus Christ was appointed the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead, as being the first begotten in all the creation” (Against Heresies 315, 316).

Christ came from heaven, took on flesh, descended into Hades, and rose again bodily. He is the Second Adam, not merely a living soul but a life-giving Spirit. Which box is He in? In this resurrection glory, we hear, “Behold, I make all things new” (Revelation 21:5).

The Secret Sauce

The secret sauce to culture shaping and the pursuit of Mere Christendom is the truth that the same power that raised Jesus from the grave lives in us. And He lives in all of us. This is a blood-sealed reality of the new covenant. All of the saints that want to divide, that want to carve out a little kingdom within the kingdom, those saints who are too cool to stand by others, they have lost their grip on the nature of the new covenant. 

The law has been written on our hearts. Hearts of stone have been removed and hearts of flesh have been given. The new covenant is a more fleshy than the old. Our kingdom labors are labors by the Spirit, not by the flesh. They are inside out not outside in. But they are labors that touch upon the flesh and done in the flesh for the life we now live in the flesh we live by faith in the Son of God. That Son rose bodily, redeeming His people, soul and body. 

If you want the gospel of Jesus Christ, if you want the power of the Spirit at work in the heart of man, then it is time to sign on for Mere Christendom. We are a kingdom of priests, and our message is: Be reconciled to God. The present movement toward Mere Christendom, the one moving in resurrection power (for no other will live), is a matter of defending justification by faith alone, the virgin-birth of the Messiah, and it possesses a heart more evangelical than Billy Graham.

It is a Great Commission Christendom, that not only obeys but anticipates the successful completion of our Lord’s instruction: Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20).

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Parental Horse Sense: Lesson 6 — A World of Yes and a No That Doesn’t Budge

One of the sobering things about marriage is that it images Christ and the church. You would think that there are enough difficulties in the institution without this particularity. But then you read Ephesians 5 and come across this high calling, this enlisting to a particular job. The Father says, “Your marriage is to tell the truth about Christ and His bride.” A man who takes this seriously and honestly may well try to decline the job, “Lord, I have considered the offer and frankly I know when a promotion is above my pay grade. I simply can’t do the job. I have to pass up the position.” 

Then, he discovers that God is not asking.

If you read the Bible long enough, you realize that you’re doing this imaging thing all of the time—”So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Genesis 1:27). This imaging principle is not lost on the parental department, “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him” (Psalm 103:13). But what if a father shows no pity to his children? Yes, therein lies the trouble and the stakes are high.

If we would image the Father well, then we must follow His lead. When He created His world, He said it was good. When He planted His garden, He planted trees for His image bearers to enjoy, lots of them—”And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat” (Genesis 2:16). Adam was not only to eat of every tree of the garden. But he was to do so freely. 

God did draw one hard line, one no in a sea of yes. And God’s no wasn’t a wet-noodle—”But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Genesis 2:17).

Here is Parental Horse Sense Lesson 6: Give your children a world of yes and a no that doesn’t budge.

Now let’s go ahead and face it, we have come to yet another parenting principle that requires more strength than we can muster. That’s OK. Just let this fact remind you that if you parent according to the flesh, you will die (Romans 8:13). But if you parent by the Spirit, you will live.

The problem is we want the parenting without the sacrifice. So we hedge our bets on the yes. To stay with the garden motif, if the kids go to eating from all of the trees in your garden, then you’re going to have to tend those trees. You can guarantee the little cute one is going to leave her apple core lying around somewhere. You will likely find it a week later, brown, shriveled, and peeking out of the couch cushions while guests are over.

This world of yes thing—and for that matter, holding the line on the clear-cut no—just feels like too much. Too much driving to soccer practice. Too much money spent on their education. Too many walks to the park to throw the football. Too many wrong notes struck on the piano while they’re figuring out how to tickle the ivories. Too many trips to the grocery store. Too many questions, 

“Dad, how old is the oldest living NBA player?” – “You know, I don’t know.” 

“Dad, do you think Themistocles was a good guy or a bad guy?” – “Well, I’m not sure about that.” 

“Dad, can we have a movie night tonight?” – “Hmmm. Maybe.” 

“Dad, is there anything that you do know?” – “Yes, yes there is, I know when my superiors are not in the mood for any more questions.”

We live by the strength that God supplies. And He really does supply it. We must trust him for it. When you sense that you have reached your capacity, you must remember that God enlarges your capacity. In fact, that heartburn you are feeling—you may feel it is a heart attack—is often what it feels like when God enlarges your heart: “I will run the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart” (Psalm 119:32). 

Parenting is a full speed kind of thing. Not frantic. Not frazzled. But parenting involves running in the way of God’s commandments. Your goal is for your children to pass you one day. By God’s grace, they will go farther and faster than we have gone. But while they’re young enough to be under your roof, you raise them up by running in the way of God’s commandments with them coming fast and furious behind you. They’re following you. The little buggers have more energy than you do it seems so they may well be right on your heels. So ask the LORD to enlarge your heart. He will do this for you and your children.

This enlargement is a promise we have in the New Covenant, which is far better than the Old. Isaiah prophesied of the New Covenant, saying, “Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break for into singing . . . Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes” (Isaiah 54:2). 

Paul cites this section of Isaiah when he reminds the Galatian Christians that they are not children of the bondwoman, but children of the freewoman. We will pass on one attitude or another to our children. The only fitting attitude to pass on is that of freeborn children of the freewoman, that glorious new covenant which is marked by the Spirit’s power.

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The Lord Himself Shall Descend

Scripture tells us at many places that we must endure until the end. God wouldn’t go on telling us this if there was no temptation to give up. If you’re going to endure then you must endure in hope. And not many words have suffered as much violence as the word hope.

Our Christian hope is not some vague generalization that all will be well in the end. Our hope is not simply that our souls will meet again, fellowshipping together in a heavenly land. Our hope is that the firmament which God created on the second day of creation will be opened on a future day as it was two thousand years ago. On that future day, our resurrected Lord, who ascended into heaven will descend from heaven. The Apostle Paul tells us of our day of hope in 1 Thessalonians 4:16, “the LORD himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise.”

We live in a world that is being pressed from the top and the bottom. A resurrected man is just above us. His name is Jesus. With him are the spirits of just men made perfect. And His descent is coming. When he descends, His body will be seen just as much as the archangel’s voice will be heard. The bodies of the dead in Christ are below us. To dust they have returned. The ascent of those bodies is coming. On the day of our hope, those bodies will spring up from the ground like the tulips which are soon to break through the soil beneath our feet.

So do not be ignorant of this day, living as others who have no hope. 

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Parental Horse Sense: Lesson 5 — Left-Handed Parenting

These lessons on Parental Horse Sense are worthy of the name because they are not difficult concepts. But don’t let the title of this series fool you. These lessons may not be difficult to grasp, but they border on impossible to implement. Fret not, though, we serve the God who puts the camel through the needle’s eye, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26). 

In lesson 5 here, I commend to you Left-Handed Parenting. I should say at the outset, that Right-Handed Parenting has its place. Parents really need to be ambidextrous. But we often forget the left hand, thus lesson 5: Left-Handed Parenting. I’m applying the principles of right and left-handed power to parenting so we should start with the principles themselves.

Right-handed power is the power of “Because I said so.” This power is not bad or corrupt; it is direct and straightforward, however. Jesus told the wind and the waves to be still, and still they were. The centurion was a man under authority who had soldiers under him. He told them to come and they came, to do and they did (Matthew 8:9). But this right-handed power has its limits. And moreover, it is not the only power the Lord has given us.

Robert Capon makes a good point—”Suppose [a son] makes unauthorized use of your car, and you use a little straight-line verbal power to scare him out of doing it again. Well and good. But suppose further that he does it again anyway—and again and again and again. What do you do next if you are committed to straight-line power? You raise your voice a little more nastily each time till you can’t shout any louder. And then you beat him (if you are stronger than he is) until you can’t beat any harder. Then you chain him to a radiator . . .”

You may have many thoughts that spring from Capon’s illustration. But his main point holds. You can’t lock the kids up forever. Right-handed power has its place, particularly in the little years. But you soon find that the kids have brains. They pay attention. They are persuaded, or they are not persuaded. They see your godly life, your good life lived wisely, and it compels them, or it doesn’t. 

Left-handed power is seen in Elisha following Elijah around. Elisha longed for a double portion of Elijah’s blessing. He saw something attractive. Elijah was no slouch. Left-handed power is not about being a limp noodle. But it is about praying for those who are wrong, bad wrong, like Moses did for rebellious Israel over and over again. 

There is a priestly nature to left-handed power. It moves things by use of the angels. It breaks bones with a soft tongue (Proverbs 25:15). Priests pray. And priests offer sacrifice. So this left-handed parenting is in the business of sacrificing. But the sacrifice offered follows in the footsteps of our Great High Priest. That is, the sacrifice offered is oneself. The distortion of this principle is a father and mother being walked on by the children, and I don’t commend that practice in the least. But I do commend sacrificial parenting that doesn’t use the children like pawns while dad and mom live it up off of the back of the little slaves in the home. Think about all of the wicked step-mothers lifting themselves up by stepping on Cinderella and the like. Mark and avoid. 

The goal is to lay your life down for the children. And the glory is that there is power, left-handed power, bound up in such a sacrifice. The wonder is that such a sacrifice returns to you ten-fold and you find that the children have been moved to sacrifice themselves. The apple ends up falling not that far from the tree.

Left-handed parenting is straight up the middle stuff. You have authority. And Jesus has said, “Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant: Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:25-28)

So there is nothing too flashy here. But, we are aiming to follow the Son of man who gave his life. So in that regard, this is the kind of parental horse sense that leaves us helpless apart from divine intervention. There we are like Elijah himself pouring water on the sacrifice three times in a row saying, “Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the Lord God” (1 Kings 18:36-37).

God has been known to answer that left-handed prayer with fire, the kind that leaves no water left in the trench.

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Spending Words

The wise man Moses prayed that the Lord would teach us to number our days. In similar fashion, we need to number our words. We will only speak so many of them. God knows the exact number. We do not. But we do know that our tongue will fling only so many words out of our heart. If we would spend our words well, then like a wise bricklayer, we need to know what structure we’re building.

Ephesians 4:29 says, “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.” Now, we too often hear “Let no bad words come out of your mouth.” But that is not what the Apostle Paul said. He said “Let no corrupting words come out. That is, let no worm-words come out that will gnaw away at Zion’s walls.” Stated positively, Paul says to speak words that will build, that will actually bestow and minister grace to others. That’s why you have a tongue.

Your tongue is not an instrument to vent whatever reactions arise within you in response to the difficulties of life. Your tongue is a trowel with which you spread grace upon Living Stones, building up the saints around you. The old ones, the young ones. The strong ones and brittle ones. The ones that you will find in your home. And the ones you will find in your workplace. 

Spending your words like little ministers of grace is no easy task. But it is a glorious one and one to which you’re called. You’re not permitted to say, “Oh, this is too hard, I will just take a vow of silence.” No, by God’s grace, resolve to spend your words for Christ and His kingdom. That means trusting God that his kingdom is being built up, loving the bricks, and refusing to fret when you find out that some of them need a little patch work; that’s why God gave you a trowel. 

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A Table That Opens to the Kingdom of Heaven

In a day and age when many do not know who they are or whose they are, we come to a table that reminds us of both. This is the table of the Lord. And those who eat and drink here are members of his body and belong to him. 

The Heidelberg Catechism says that by church discipline the kingdom of heaven is opened to believers and shut to unbelievers. It goes on to explain that this church discipline involves the sacraments, particularly withholding the sacraments from those who rebel against our Lord.

It follows that those of you who come to partake of this table are members of the kingdom of heaven. As the wardrobe opened Narnia to the Pevensie children so this table opens the kingdom of heaven to you. 

So come joyfully. Be done with your doubts and fears about who you are and whose you are. Be done with your laughable worries about whether you are in or out. You’re a blood-bought child of the King. You are in. That is why Jesus says to you at this table, “This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.”

Since you are in the kingdom of heaven, you all must live as members of the kingdom of heaven. So as you come to this table, putting away your doubts and fears, put away your sins as well, your pride, self-confidence, lusts, envy, bitterness, slander, money-loving, and selfishness. You are not coming to a natural table. You’re coming to the table that opens the kingdom of heaven to believers and closes that kingdom to unbelievers. So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ.

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Parental Horse Sense: Lesson 4 – Feast! Feast! Feast! I Say.

I should begin by telling you that I am a firm believer in the fact that a good coach delivering a good pep talk before the game can change the course of the contest. His team may just win if his pre-game rouser is on key. The same goes for kings as they ride before their men on horseback before battle. The flip-side is also true. If these moments are botched, if coach goes to telling long stories about how he comported himself in his championship days, then all of a sudden, the boys are drained; the spirit is quenched, the gusto is zapped. 

Spurgeon said somewhere, while renouncing lengthy prayers, that he once knew a minister who could pray him right into a good frame of mind, and then pray him right out of it. Many a coach has erred in this fashion. But I don’t have the time to decry the parental problem of rambling on, I myself am now drifting down a side road. Back to the main line.

The spirit (and the matter) of your dinner table is far more important than you think it is. That blessed and highly favored meal at the end of the day can be your best parental friend or your worst parental enemy. Whatever it is, it is a time of discovery. You need only be a fly on the wall for a few minutes at dinner hour to know how a family is doing. 

Is dad spaced out at the table? Is he busy returning missed text messages from earlier in the day? Or is his face turned toward his children? Did mom burn the biscuits? Or did she get the biscuits just right and snuff out all of the children’s joy in the process by snapping at them like a prodded lobster? — “Serves the little devils right for coming in Michelin-mom’s kitchen while I’m making Cordon Bleu!” 

Are the children happy to be at this table? Do they like their food? Do they eat their food even if it is not their favorite? How does everyone respond when the toddler drops her fork for the fifth time? Then there is the conversation. Does it roll along well enough or drag? Are there any laughs at this dinner table? Are these eaters genuinely interested in the conversation? Is there a lively debate? 

If you’re out of fellowship, dinner shows it. If you talk too much, your fellow diners will know. If you’re a grumpy muffin, there’s no chance of getting through this bread-breaking fellowship while keeping that attitude concealed. Ah, dinner, the revealer of mysteries.

So, parents should take advantage of this evening scouting report. But there’s much more to be said. You have to do more than just observe at this table. I titled this post, “Feast, Feast, Feast, I Say.” And that is just what you should do. Make your dinner table a place where the children want to be, a place where you want to be. The work involved is not small. 

It starts with a mom (and dad) who knows that kitchen knives are not in vain, and neither is the grocery list. The goal is not to make your family dinner look like a five star restaurant every night. But neither is the goal to make it look like whatever is under those heat lamps at the 7/11. You don’t need to break the bank. But parents do have to know that the food a mother puts on the table for her family matters. That is why the cooking of that food is fraught with temptation to idolatry and despair. God has called mothers to walk that glorious road and it is walked by the Spirit’s power. There are not high enough words to honor mother in the kitchen. The woman fed these children in her womb for months. She nursed them for months after that. And for a remarkable amount of years following, God sees fit to answer our prayer for daily bread by delivering it to us through her hands. Mothers, your cooking is not in vain. 

While mom is the head chef, dad shouldn’t be ignorant of the kitchen. There are not many things more glorious than getting the whole family in there on a weekend, preparing dinner together. Turn some music on. Feed the kids bits and pieces as you prepare the feast. Investigate the ingredients. Talk about where they came from. God made this world that you’re enjoying. One of the duties parents have is that of teaching their children how to enjoy God’s good world. And as Robert Capon has said, don’t forget the candy—”The child’s preference for sweets over spinach, mankind’s universal love of the toothsome rather than the nutritious is the mark of our greatness . . . The world is no disposable ladder to heaven. Earth is not convenient, it is good; it is, by God’s design, our lawful love.”

Once you’re around the table, aim for a conversation that is pleasing to the Lord. Now is not a time to coast in the parenting department. Your dinner dates with your children are not altogether different from your hospitality dinners when hosting guests. You are dad and mom. If you’re not interested and interesting, then how can you expect the kiddos to be? If you’re slumpy, disconnected, gloomy, and selfish at this meal, then you will likely reap what you sow. 

But, by the same token, if you love the family through this time of eating and drinking, if you enjoy yourself as you spend yourself for them, then you will find this same sowing and reaping principle turned in your favor.

I’ll close with by commending this simple rule to fathers: Make your wife and children laugh wholesomely at dinner. Be interested enough in them and the world around you to see the silly things and say them for the enjoyment of your family. Yes, yes, you are weighed down with a load of responsibilities. But that is why God gave you the widest shoulders at the table. It is likely that your wife has taken your hard earned money and turned it into this very nice meal. There she is, getting your body and soul through another day, and your children to boot. That is a thought that lifts the spirits. So lift the spirits of the table in turn. Not with slander, worry, or a domineering hand. But with a spring in your step, a twinkle in your eye that can only come from the life-giving spirit.

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If You Do Not Go Up With Us

Our Christian growth often stalls because we forget that the power of Christ rest upon us. We know which direction we want to go. We have counted the cost involved in order to get there. But our progress is not what it ought to be because we have forgotten what Moses remembered in the wilderness. God told Moses to go up with Israel to the Promised Land. Moses replied, “If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence” (Exodus 33:15). 

Moses’ sentiment was, “Lord, your power and glory is upon me here. You meet with me face to face like a man speaks to his friend. I enter this tabernacle to meet with you, the cloud descends, and my face shines with your glory. Quite frankly, Lord, as eager as I am to see all of your promises come to pass, if your presence will not go up with us into Canaan’s Land, we simply can’t go.” Moses was a wise man. And God’s response was not, “Moses you just do what I tell you when I tell you.” God was not upset with Moses’ insistence that God’s presence rest upon him. He was happy to say, “I will do this thing also that thou hast spoken: for thou hast found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name” Exodus 33:17).

If you want things set right (your family, mind, business, attitude), if you want to slay giants in the Promised Land and eat the swollen fruit in those parts, then you have to know more than the directions; you must have more than a really well thought-out game plan, several good examples, and a history of making pretty good decisions.

You need the power of Christ to rest upon you. We have not because we ask not. And just what might happen if we do ask? 

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Far Better Than a Fenced Table

It is common for Christians to talk about ministers fencing the Lord’s Table. And we really can do better with our word pictures. It is easy for this image to become quite displeasing. One imagines a high chain link fence running right along the edges of a table, forbidding anyone from enjoying the meal. The minister is tying off the last of this chain link with some barbed wire on top as if the Table is a prisoner and you’ve got little to no chance of obtaining visiting rights.

How different the picture is when Christ first instituted this meal. For he was not inside a fence. He was inside a room, reclined, eating and drinking with those He loved. 

We are not opposed to a boarder around this table, but that boarder is the Living Stones of the Temple of God. The Heidelberg Catechism we recited earlier says that this table is not for the enemies of God and we could not agree more. The reason the enemies of God are not to eat and drink is because “then the covenant of God would be profaned and his wrath provoked against the whole congregation.” 

That “whole congregation” is in the room. That “whole congregation” is at table with the Lord. That “whole congregation” is sanctified by the blood of the covenant. How then could they be excluded from the blood of the covenant which is found in this cup? If the cup has sanctified them, why can it not touch their lips?

All of you baptized Christians are loved by God from the littlest of you to the greatest. And this table is for you. You are in the house of God and that is the boundary of this table. It is a beautiful house, far better than a fence. And the table right here at the center of it is furnished with the Bread of Life Himself. So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ. 

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Parental Horse Sense: Lesson 3 — Raise Them as Insiders (Even When They Botch It)

In his work The City of God, Augustine explains that all mankind falls into one of two categories: the city of God or the city of man. To be in the city of God is to have God as Father and Christ as Savior. A citizen of this city shares in the Holy Spirit. But to be in the city of man is to be an enemy of God, a stranger and an exile without hope and without God in the world (Ephesians 2:12). In a time when the spirit of the age wants to chop up humanity into an endless array of intersectional divisions, it is refreshing to return to the fundamental division, the division of all divisions: the city of God and the city of man. 

Now this series of posts is on parental horse sense so the paragraph above is simply setting the stage for the question: Which city are your kids in? You are in the city of God. Are they? You have God as Father. Do they? When you’re holding your little newborn, or helping that toddler walk her way across the living room, are they in the same city you are in? The answer to that question is yes, they are with you in the city of God.

Let’s say you’re sitting around the dinner table with the family and you’re singing the old Gaither hymn The Family of God. You’ve got a litter of kids from 14 years old down to the one year old in the high chair. The whole family sings the chorus, 

I’m so glad I’m a part of the family of God, 

I’ve been washed in the fountain cleansed by his blood.

Joint heirs with Jesus as we travel this sod,

For I’m part of the family the family of God.

Now, your fourteen year old blurts out before the song is over, “Hey, dad, is that true? Are we all a part of the family of God, even little Bobby over there in the high chair incoherently babbling along with us?” 

My point is that you have solid biblical warrant to say, “Why yes son, all of us are a part of the family of God, including little Bobby. God is our Father, Christ is our High Priest, the Spirit is our Comforter. God is our God and we are His people.”

I recall reading a Christian parenting book many years ago which addressed how parents should speak to a child who had the wiggles during family prayer. The counsel placed the child thoroughly outside of the city of God. It ran along the lines of, “We understand that you don’t want to pray. And we’re glad you’re not faking it. We will pray that God changes your heart in the future. But for now, you have to sit quietly while we pray.” 

That counsel, quite apparently, puts distance between parent and child. And that counsel flows from thinking that the distance is there. We (the parents) are in the city of God, while you (the child) are outside of that city, still in the city of man. 

There are many texts that could underscore that our children are insiders. But one of the best ones is Isaiah 65:23 “They shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; for they are the seed of the blessed of the LORD, and their offspring with them.” God speaks through the prophet saying plainly that his people are the seed of the blessed of the Lord. And then what about the offspring? The text is clear. They too are the seed of the blessed of the Lord. They too are children of God. 

If a child is getting out of sorts, then the response is not to panic, or parent as if he is outside the camp. Rather this is just the time when you remind him who he belongs to, who his Father is, and what Jesus has done for him. You are a part of the family of God kid, and we just don’t do that kind of thing. There is a high calling on your life so let’s get on with repenting and believing. 

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