Jared Longshore's Blog, page 8

Covenant Renewal Service

As our community continues to grow, we must remember to keep the central things central. And nothing is more central to our flourishing Christian culture than worship. But as it is with all of the central things, we can easily set up a stone of rememberance while forgetting what the stone signifies. We can set up statues while forgetting the men. In order to avoid this, I want to remind you about what you are doing here today.

You are the covenant people of God, who have been called out of darkness into His marvelous light. You have assembled as covenant families before your covenant-keeping God. Our worship began with a call to lift up your hearts, and you have testified that you have lifted them up to the Lord. This includes an exaltation into the heavenly places themselves, where we have joined with seraphim, cherubim, and arch angels to offer service to the Almighty, Father, Son, and Spirit.

That service or worship you now pay to the Lord is your very body, which is to be a living and holy sacrifice (Romans 12:1). You know it is not has holy as it should be. And a moment’s reflection will call to mind how you have missed the mark this past week. So you are soon to kneel and confess those shortcomings that you might be a pleasing sacrifice to the Lord. Christ the Word will soon be preached to you and you must listen for His voice ready to believe and obey.

Following this consecrating Word, you will commune with God Himself, partaking of the peace offering, Jesus Christ. And then you will be commissioned to go forth from this covenant renewal service to do the good works God has prepared for you to do.

The covenant that God renews with you now is very real. The blessings promised are as rock solid as the curses promised. So sing, kneel, pray, hear, eat, and go as what you are: a sacrifice to the Lord.

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The Spirit of Jael

Be the kind of woman that when your feet hit the ground each morning, the devil says, “Oh crap, she’s up.”

Unknown

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The Whole Christ

This table is a tangible reminder that the Christian faith is supernatural. Jesus Christ was born of the virgin Mary and suffered under Pontius Pilate. He was truly and fully human, made like us in every way apart from sin. It follows that His body is like our body, albeit glorified after His resurrection from the dead.

The body of Christ, being fully human, has location. We disagree with the teaching of transubstatiation that claims this bread is turned into the physical body of Christ. That teaching would leave Christ’s physical body fragmented into a thousand pieces filling various churches across the globe. But we do not disagree with the truth that at this table we participate in the whole Christ. We commune with Him and that includes His divine and human nature. But if His physical body is not fragmented into the various churches where Christ is being worshipped today, how do we truly feed upon the body and blood of our Lord in this sacrament?

The answer is that we have ascended to heaven where we now feed on Him by faith. We have ascended like Elijah. We walk with God now like Enoch. We have gone up the true and better mount of transfiguration to commune with Christ in His glory. The bread you now eat is true bread indeed and the wine you drink is true wine that gladdens hearts eternally. You do not have to understand everything about this meal, and for that matter, you never could. But you do have to come in faith. Christ is dead for you, risen for you, ascended for you, and here you are with Him, so come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ.

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New Book: Man for the Job

An announcement here that I wrote a new little book for young men called Man for the Job. Below is the preface.

You can pick up the paperback for $7 here.

And the Kindle version for $4 here.

Preface

This little book is an attempt to equip the rising generation of young men with truths they will need to rebuild our commonwealth. I trust that you already know that such a rebuild is necessary. If you are looking for a book on the fall of Western civilization, you will not find it here. But, if you have read enough of those books to be aware of our problem and would like to get on with the work of restoration, then this book has something to offer you. I do not offer a silver bullet. But I do offer you advice on the kind of men we need for the job at hand.

Within are ten fictional letters to a fictional nephew, each consisting of a directive for becoming the kind of man who can work with the sword and shovel. We need men who can both tear down strongholds and build the true, good, and beautiful amid the rubble. I have four sons of my own, four nephews, and I have the privilege of teaching high school seniors and college freshmen. As I look around at these young men, I see immense energy and loads of raw potential. We have many reasons to be hopeful about what these men may do for the health of our nation in the coming days.

But the task of each generation is to pass down the lessons of our fathers to our sons. Proverbs says that the glory of young men is their strength, and the splendor of old men is their gray head” (Proverbs 20:29). Unfortunately, I just passed my fortieth year which means I am not old enough to be wise nor young enough to be strong. So you will have to consider these lessons as coming from a middle man, simply passing down to the young bucks what I have learned from the gray heads thus far.

Sincerely yours,

Uncle Jared

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No Reason to Doubt It

Baptism is a sign of one’s ingrafting into Christ. It is a sign of regeneration, the cleansing of sin, and God’s steadfast covenant love. As with all of God’s words, His sign of baptism is simply to be trusted. We do not know all of the trials and temptations that our covenant children will face in their lives. But we do know what God has promised. We do know what God says here in and through baptism. And given that God’s covenant promise is guaranteed in Christ’s blood, we see no reason to doubt it.

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To Obey Is Better Than Sacrifice

One of the most memorable lines of Scripture comes out of the mouth of the prophet Samuel during his encounter with King Saul. Saul had just destroyed the Amalakites. He was to destroy all of them and all they had, including all of their animals. He and Israel, however, kept some of the animals for sacrifice. After the battle, Samuel approaches Saul and Saul says to him, “Blessed be thou of the LORD. I have performed the commandment of the LORD.” And Samuel replies, “What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears” (1 Samuel 15:14)? Trouble.

Samuel reminds you of every good mother coming up to check on the bedroom cleanings. The boys say, “We have performed the commandment.” Mom replies, “What meaneth then the smelling of those socks beneath thy bed?” “Ah, mom, those are for sacrifice.”

Samuel went on to say that “to obey is better than sacrifice.” Sacrifice is glorious, of course. We have assembled as the saints of God today, a kingdom of priests, ascended to Mount Zion with the holy angels to offer our bodies as living and holy sacrifices. Our songs, confessions, and thanksgivings around Christ’s table are full of wonder. And the prophet says that obedience is even better.

Obedience often gets a bad wrap. The great lie being that obedience is cold, lifeless, boring, and a sign of a rigid fundamentalist. By contrast, sacred service is often portrayed favorably: Give me well-dressed people in a well-lit cathedral, kneeling in a religious posture: that is the good life.

But do you know what is even better? Running in the way of God’s commandments. This we will do when He enlarges our heart.

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Wise Counsel for the Nitpicker

Don’t pick each other’s nits.

Luke Jankovic

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Diversity in Unity

One of the wonders of this table is that it testifies about everything. It is a single light that enlightens every corner of the world. One of those dark corners is the topic of diversity and unity. The well worn leftist phrase, “Diversity is our strength” is dumb enough on its face. But it is the kind of statement that can make conservatives overreact and say, “Unity is the ultimate thing.” But surely that is silly like the former. You can be unified in evil. Those men at Babel had one language, one aim, and their unity was rotten to the core.

This table speaks to the unique Christian witness concerning diversity and unity, which is namely diversity in unity. This is true of our Creator: God is three in one and one in three. So it is with this table. All nations stream to it. All nations (there is diversity) stream to it, one table (there is unity). The Jews and Gentiles reach into the same dish. They partake of the same bread, the one wine. So it is with black and white, rich and poor, male and female, old and young, they all come to one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one table.

Paul said that as you were baptized into Christ, you put on Christ. So there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ (Galatians 3:28). Paul did not mean that Christian women cease to be female or that men cease to be men. Jews did not stop being Jews and Greeks did not stop being Greeks. But these diversities were plunged into one man at baptism and the one man is poured into them at this table. The death of Christ puts an end to all carnal divisions and it puts an end to all carnal unities. And it grafts the many children of Adam into one man better than us all. So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ.

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The Generous Farmer

One of the interesting things about people that have reaped a significant crop in life is that they can’t tell you exactly how it happened. They will often tell you that they stumbled into blessing. The harvest found them more than they the harvest. Now these people worked hard, sowed bountifully, and they could tell a good deal from a bad one. But they weren’t precious about their seed and they weren’t arrogant in their judgment.

The temptation that comes as you grow in discernment is to grow thin, narrow, and snooty. In the name of only making the most excellent meals for your children, you make very few of them. With an aim to invest in only the best start ups, you invest in none. No suitor for your daughter will do. No doctrinal books but the most pristine. No house comforts but the most elegant. No steak crosses the threshold of your lips, but Waygu. In the name of pursuing perfection, which you ought to be pursuing, your life becomes tiny. So tiny you actually miss the dark horses, the shepherds out in the field, the younger sons, the Nazarene, surely nothing good will come from Nazareth.

The point is not to look for diamonds in the rough. The point is to sow your seed liberally. Give a portion to seven and also to eight. The solution is to be like the generous farmer. He has his a fair idea of which crops will grow and which fields will produce, but he’s happy to scatter his seed far and wide because he is humble enough to admit that he doesn’t have a clue at the end of the day where the crop is really going to come in. Ecclesiastes 11:6—”In the morning so thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand: for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good.”

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Slimy either Way

Don’t sweat the petty things and don’t pet the sweaty things.

George Carlin

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