Toby J. Sumpter's Blog, page 18

You & Your Children 1

Faith, Fellowship, & Fruitfulness: Heb. 11:1, 6
[Sermon audio/video found here.]

Introduction
As we are a congregation of fruitful families, we will spend the next five Sundays reviewing what the Bible says about raising children. This week we begin with the big picture goals of Faith, Fellowship, and Fruitfulness, and from there we will proceed to parenting young children, teenagers, courtship and marriage, and finally grandparents and grandchildren. 

I want to frame this series not merely as common sense and biblical principles (although that’s true), I also want to frame this in terms of our cultural and political moment. When Moses preached the sermon series of Deuteronomy, he was giving Joshua and the elders their marching orders for conquest. While our culture self-immolates, many thoughtful Christians ask themselves, “What can we do?” There are many things we can and should do, but one of them is gather ammo. And by that I mean, have children and train them well (Ps. 127). 

Training them well begins with a firm faith in God the Rewarder. There is an enormous difference between parenting in faith and parenting in fear. One fills a home with tension, stress, and constant anxiety; the other fills a home with relief, peace, and joy. 

Faith vs. Fear
Faith means trusting that God is there, and that He is for you and for your children. The center of this faith is salvation in Jesus Christ: “If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not His own son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Rom. 8:31-32) All things – like what? How about our children? And this is precisely what was promised by the Prophet Malachi: “Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to their children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse” (Mal. 4:5-6). And Luke says this was John the Baptist (Lk. 1:17). Jesus came to remove the curse of sin, particularly in how it tends to flow through generations. 

But the Old Testament promises of the New Covenant go even further: “As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the LORD; My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith the LORD, from henceforth and forever” (Is. 59:21). Isaiah says that the New Covenant includes the promise of God’s Spirit and words being with us and with our children and our grandchildren forever. 

“And they shall be my people, and I will be their God: And I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me forever, for the good of them, and of their children after them: And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me” (Jer. 32:38-40). 

What good thing does God promise those who trust in Him? He promises to turn the hearts of our children toward us and toward Him, so that His Word will remain in their mouths and the mouths of our grandchildren forever, so that they may fear Him for their good. This means that the dominant tone in a Christian family must be relief, joy, gratitude, laughter, delight, and freedom because of the gospel promises of God. And fathers/husbands, you must be the joy-bringers. 

Staying in Joyful Fellowship
In regeneration, we are made alive by faith in Christ, and we are brought into fellowship with the Father, through the Son, by the Holy Spirit and given a joy that can never be taken away (Jn. 16:22). This fellowship with God is the fullness of joy, and we share that fellowship with one another, with everyone who is in fellowship with the Father (1 Jn. 1:3-4). When a new child is born into a Christian home, they are sovereignly placed by God into that Christian fellowship. This is why the Bible calls the children of at least one believing parent “saints” (1 Cor. 7:14). But this holy fellowship must be maintained by walking in the Light and the blood of Jesus Christ cleansing us from all sin (1 Jn. 1:7). This cleansing takes place either through the joyful covering of sin in love (1 Pet. 4:8, Prov. 10:12) or the gracious confronting of sin in love (Gal. 6:1). This is why love is called the bond of perfection (Col. 3:14). 

When covering sin in must be completely put away and forgotten under the blood; when confronting sin, the goal is confession, forgiveness, reconciliation, and winning your brother (Mt. 18:15). The Hippocratic Oath applies here also: first do no harm. There’s no situation so bad that you can’t make it worse. Sometimes invasive surgery is necessary, but often not and risks infection. Remember a brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city (Prov. 18:19). Bitterness is resentment, grudges, past offenses that spring up defiling many with all kinds of trouble (Heb. 12:15). But love keeps no record of wrongs and does not let the sun go down on anger; therefore sin must be dealt with right away, as soon as possible (1 Cor. 13:5, Eph. 4:26).  

Applications
Faith means believing that God is there, and that He is for you and for your children because of what He has done in Jesus Christ. This is the seed of the gospel from which proceeds all Christian fruitfulness. And this means that a Christian home is marked by this joy and relief. Let there be light in Goshen.

Christian love guards this joy and the resulting fellowship by dealing with sin as quickly as possible, either covering the sin in love or confronting the sin in love, remembering to take the log out of your own eye first. This includes parents confessing their own sins to their children. This is how we keep the light shining.

Finally, Christian faith believes God that children and joyful families are central to the mission of the earth being filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. God is our Father and we have a great inheritance in Him, including our children, they are the inheritance of the Lord and reinforcements as we receive them in faith. 

Photo by Brandon Morales on Unsplash

Four Questions for my 1689 Brothers

The central debate between 1689 London Baptist brothers and 1646 Westminster Presbyterian brothers is the nature of the New Covenant. Is the New Covenant only made up of regenerate persons or does it consist in some measure of a “mixed multitude” – both believers and unbelievers (as in the Old Covenant in Israel). The argument over whether infants and young children should be baptized on the basis of the profession of faith of their parents highlights this difference. The Presbyterian view holds greater continuity with the Old Covenant, that the promises are for those who believe and their children, while acknowledging that there are still some who come into the New Covenant who do not believe and are not regenerate. 

On the other hand, the Baptist view points to passages like Jeremiah 31 and Hebrews 8 to argue that the promise of the New Covenant is that it will be better than the Old Covenant and not like the Old Covenant, where many did not believe. The strongest argument for this perspective (in my view) points to the efficacious ministry of Jesus as the mediator of this new and better covenant. And if your Calvinism is firing on all cylinders, all of your particular redemption and efficacious atonement theology kicks in, and you might suspect your Presbyterian brothers are going a little wobbly. How could Jesus, the High Priest of this New Covenant, lose anyone He died for? Well, the short answer of course is that He doesn’t: everyone Christ intends to save, He saves to the uttermost and not one person can be plucked from His firm, saving hand. But there are other texts that describe a broader, more universal ministry which some partake of and yet reject which us Presbyterian types would point to as evidence that the New Covenant is something a bit broader than just the company of the elect. But I’m getting ahead of myself… 

Let me add one more thought before jumping in to my questions for my 1689 Baptist brothers. I offer these questions in an honest spirit of curiosity – not gotcha questions at all, and for the sake of clarity. To anyone who cares to reply, thanks much. As someone who has grown up in the Westminster tradition, there are aspects of the 1689 position that are still very foreign to me, but since I consider you all my brothers and comrades in arms, I’d at least like to hear you out. And related to this last point, I serve as a pastor in a community that has worked together with Reformed Baptist families for decades. In fact, I’ve probably done more believers’ baptisms in the last year or so than I’ve done my whole ministry. So this is not at all meant to signal some kind of change to that warm friendship and comradery. These are just some questions that have occurred to me from time to time – questions I assume that 1689 brothers have answered many times but I simply don’t know the answers to. So four questions for you. 

First Question
How do you understand Jesus when He says that He is the vine and we are the branches in Jn. 15? If you are a Calvinist, you do not believe that you can truly come into Christ and then be severed from Him later. You believe in the preservation of the saints. But then in what way may someone be organically united to Christ and yet not bear fruit and be cut out and thrown into the fire? What is that relationship to Christ called? Similarly, the covenant is likened to an olive tree/vine in the Old Covenant (Jer. 11). When Paul describes the Jews being cut out of the olive tree and Gentiles being grafted in, how is that not the New Covenant (Rom. 11)? Furthermore, the warning in Romans 11 is specifically that the Gentile branches not boast themselves against those branches that were cut out since the same God who cut the natural branches (Jews) out is able to do the same again with prideful/unbelieving Gentile branches. Why is the most natural reading of John 15 and Romans 11 not that the New Covenant still admits cutting out and grafting in?

Second Question
How do you understand 1 Cor. 10 where Paul’s warning of the Corinthian Christians rests upon a strong continuity between the Old and New Covenant? Paul tells the Corinthians that Israel was baptized in the cloud and in the sea, and they ate spiritual food in the wilderness and drank spiritual drink, and the Rock that followed them in the wilderness was Christ (1 Cor. 10:1-4). Paul says that the New Covenant Corinthians have what the Old Covenant Israelites had. You have baptism? They had baptism. You have the Lord’s Supper? They had the Lord’s Supper. You have Christ? They had Christ. Those things were written for our examples, Paul says, that we should not lust after evil things as they lusted (1 Cor. 10:6). “Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also temped… Now all these things happened unto them as examples… Therefore let him that think he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10:9-12). If the New Covenant, marked by baptism and the Lord’s Supper, does not have unbelievers, how does Paul’s warning apply? How could New Covenant members actually “take heed lest they fall”? 

Third Question
How do you understand the universal saving language of the New Testament? A common objection from Arminians is the claim that the blood of Jesus must be attempting to save everyone since the New Testament so often claims a universal efficacy. Beginning with the most famous Bible verse of all: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world might be saved through Him” (Jn. 3:16-17). How do you understand God’s saving love for “the world”? Or elsewhere Jesus said that if He would be lifted up on the cross, He would draw all men to Himself (and this He said describing what kind of death He would die) (Jn. 12:32-33). How do you understand Christ’s promise to draw “all men” to Himself? Perhaps most pointed would be the notion of “propitiation” not only for our sins, but also for “the whole world” (1 Jn. 2:2). How is Jesus the propitiation for the sins of the whole world? 

The usual Calvinistic answer to these questions is a combination of recognizing that universal language need not be required to be absolutely universal in order to still be true as well as an openness to distinguishing between sufficiency and efficiency. Christ’s sacrifice was sufficient to save every last human being, but according to God’s secret, decretal will, it is only efficient to save the elect. The ultimate impact of Christ’s saving work will be world-wide and in the end, the total number of the saved will so overshadow the number of the damned that “all men” will have been drawn to Christ. I think these are reasonable explanations, but they expand the lexical-theological possibilities of the universal language in the New Testament. Is Jesus drawing “all men” to Himself? Did Jesus die to save the world? And my question is: if you are willing to recognize that the efficacy of the cross can be described in those universal terms, without meaning an exhaustive and absolute universal application, why can’t the same be true of Jeremiah 31 and Hebrews 8? Why can’t those universalizing texts (Jer. 31/Heb. 8) be making a true theological and historical point (e.g. compared to the efficacy of the Old Covenant, the New Covenant will be WAY more efficacious, the ministry of Jesus in Heaven will be WAY more fruitful, and WAY better and therefore not like the Old Covenant in those ways)?

Fourth Question
How do you explain the lack of significant argument and controversy surrounding the new exclusion of children from the covenants of promise in the New Testament? God’s dealing with Israel by households and covenant promises for children and grandchildren were far more central to the Old Covenant than the general exclusion of the Gentiles, and yet the inclusion of the Gentiles takes up portions of nearly every book of the New Testament. How could an even more monumental shift not have required at least another Jerusalem council and multiple mentions in Paul’s letters? Instead, what we have are many clarifications about the change in ceremonial laws (e.g. clean/unclean, holy days, circumcision) and the repeated insistence that circumcision is no longer the marker of covenant inclusion, etc., but not one mention that children are no longer automatically welcomed into the covenant with their believing parents. I suspect that the Baptist would likely point out the repeated emphasis on repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus as the new boundary marker in the New Testament, but to think that first century people would just do that math and come up with profession of faith baptism does not do justice to the training wheels of the Old Testament regarding God’s promises to our children and their inclusion. The Old Testament believers all knew that the true marker of true covenant fellowship was always repentance and faith (cf. Dt. 10:16, 30:6, Gal. 3:6-7, Heb. 11) and yet their children had always been welcome. Abraham was justified by faith and his children were included in the covenant. Emphasis on the necessity of repentance and faith isn’t enough to imply that children are now excluded until they have their own personal profession of faith.

Where are all the clarifying instructions that parents need to be sure of their children’s faith before bringing them to baptism? I know that some of my Baptist brothers wish that us Presbyterians would put far more emphasis on the word “call,” in Acts 2 (the promise is for you and for your children and as many as are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call…) as though Peter assumed that the festival crowd gathered in Jerusalem would simply look up their TULIP cards and realize that they couldn’t be sure of their infants’ “efficacious call” yet and never even thought to bring them to baptism. But anyone who has done much exegetical work on the word “call/calling” knows that it is used in some places to refer to decretal election efficacy but in other places it is used in a broader covenantal sense (e.g. Is. 41:9, 43:1-22, 45:4, Hos. 11:1-2, Mt. 20:16, Mt. 22:14, Rom. 11:29). In other words, even with an emphasis on the word “call” in Acts 2, why was there no need for clarification by Peter or an immediate controversy over the fact that the promise to children would no longer be marked by covenant signs and seals? Shouldn’t a shift that monumental between the covenants be even more present in the pages of the New Testament than whether Gentiles are now included?

Photo by Alex Shute on Unsplash

4 Reasons to Prefer Cultural Christianity & Nominal Christianity to Paganism

1. We should prefer a nominally Christian culture to paganism because the restraining of evil is always to be preferred to the open embrace and celebration of evil. While all sin is deadly for the soul and deserves the just wrath of God in Hell forever, not all sin is equally corrupting or harmful to individuals or a society. Lust in the heart is sinful adultery, but it is not as corrupting to an individual or society as actually committing adultery, homosexuality, or bestiality. While all lust is sin, and the wages of all sin is death, the corruption of a teenage boy looking at a Victoria Secret model really is very different from him coming across hardcore child porn. Likewise, hatred in the heart is sinful murder as our Lord taught; but actual physical murder does more harm and damage. While hypocrisy is a grave sin that leads to greater evils if left unchecked, it is still a less corrupting sin than the open and flagrant defiance of God’s laws. As Francois de La Rochefoucauld famously said, “Hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue.” And better that culture than one in which vice feels no need to pay any tribute to virtue at all. Which incidentally means that I would argue that a nominally Christian culture is only possible where true Christian faith has a dominant influence in a culture. Nevertheless, suppression of evil is to be preferred to the open celebration of evil for the same reason that civil order is to be preferred to civil chaos, even if the order arises from mixed, unbelieving, or even hypocritical motives. 

2. We should prefer a nominally Christian culture to paganism because we are required by God to pray for the peace of our cities and to pray that we might live quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and honesty (Jer. 29:7, 1 Tim. 2:2). Of course the ultimate peace of our cities would be the true conversion of every individual in our cities to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and the most quiet life would be one where everyone is regenerated. But the relative peace of our cities is found in their relative openness and conformity to God’s laws and ways, even if not done with pure motives from the heart. For example, while our nation has clearly not repented of our barbarous murder of preborn children, Christians should be rejoicing in the overturning of Roe. And the fact that a mainline presbyterian President and several Roman Catholic Supreme Court justices played major roles in that decision is an example of nominal Christian culture scoring a win over overt paganism. Anecdotally, many nominal Christians (who for example only attend church on Christmas and Easter) tend to lean more biblical when it comes to many social issues, even if inconsistently. Vague, external conformity to Christianity is better for the peace of nations and for the peaceable existence of Christians than unrestrained paganism.

3. We should prefer a nominally Christian culture to paganism because when the church is healthy and thriving, many nominal Christians come into more contact with the true gospel and come to true faith. We practice this when Christian parents raise their children going to church. Some of those children do not come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ until years later, but those years of “nominal” church attendance were not waisted. They were years of evangelism and preparation for the gospel. As I tweeted recently: “Fear of ‘cultural Christianity’ is the social-cultural equivalent of normalizing crisis conversion — the mistaken notion that you have to go through a period of rebellion before getting saved. But many come to Christ growing up going to church; we should want that for our nation.” Likewise, Christians frequently invite non-Christian friends to attend church, Bible studies, vacation Bible schools, Christian concerts, small groups, and I strongly doubt that any Christians seriously worry that this is bad for their non-Christian friends and neighbors or their churches or nation. The gospel works like leaven through a loaf, and that ordinarily takes time and contact. That time of external contact with the gospel is not bad but ordinarily good. We certainly know that if unbelievers hear the gospel clearly and reject it, it will go worse for them in the end in Hell (2 Pet. 2:21). But in the meantime, the fact that some non-Christians will attend church or Bible studies and to some extent conform their lives outwardly to some Christian norms is an evangelistic opportunity. This is to be preferred over open antagonism to Christianity where those opportunities are far fewer. It’s harder to share the gospel when the unbelievers are only shouting you down and hauling you off to the gulags — even though God has often still used that persecution to display His gospel and call unbelievers to Himself.

4. We should prefer a nominally Christian culture to paganism because it allows for the church and Christian families to do their work more freely. While it is true that nominal Christian cultures tempt many churches and families to laziness and apathy, it is still better to raise children and disciple new Christians with the culture’s general approval and support than in hiding and under persecution. We should rather live in a culture that allows churches to meet, build buildings, for Christian schools to operate openly, and for evangelism to take place unhindered. Of course, God has often been pleased to require His people to work in less than ideal circumstances, and there are special blessings for those endeavors – the underground church in North Korea and China are no doubt sustained by God’s grace for this mission. Yet, Christians should generally prefer to work in relatively more accepting cultures. If we could press a button today and the only options were leave America as it currently is (the decomposing corpse of a Christian culture) and becoming North Korea, Christians should not willingly choose North Korea. We should of course be willing for God to choose that situation for us and rejoice in that assignment, but we should not willingly choose it unless we are convinced that it is for our good and the good of the Kingdom. All things being equal, we should choose less persecution, more freedom for the sake of the gospel, for the sake of meeting openly as a church, doing evangelism, Christian education, and carrying out the Great Commission. If missionaries arrive on an island where cannibalism is practiced, with particularly vigorous appetites for strangers bearing some new religion, the first order of business is to somehow convince the cannibals to adopt a form of Christian nominalism, at least long enough to hear the gospel. And the missionaries should feel no tinge of guilt whatever if they suspect that the cannibals are embracing Christian notions of due process without having accepted Christ as their Savior.

Photo by Ahmed Mansour on Unsplash

Six Principles for Raising Kids in a Pomosexual World

Notes for King’s Cross Church Special Men’s Forum

1. Faith vs. Fear: believe the promises of God found in Scripture. Jesus came to turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers (Mal. 4). He came to bear the curse of Adam that has infected all our families. Jesus became the curse on the cross, so that the sins of our fathers and mothers, our sins and our children’s sins might be taken away. Believe the promises of the gospel. This kind of faith creates a home where the dominant tone is relief. If God is for you and for your family, then what can stand against you? And a family where joy and light are the dominant themes is a greenhouse that drives secret sins away. But if there’s something growing in the back of your proverbial pantry, that’s a perfect recipe for missing something big. Fear comes from guilt and shame. Deal with your guilt and shame; believe the gospel. Walk in joyful light. Light exposes darkness.

2. Read the whole Bible together as a family and discuss everything: you can’t read through the whole Bible and not address a number of topics relating to sexuality – we used this language with our kids when they were young (lay with, a man’s seed, strange woman — the “bad lady” who uses her beauty to try to trick or trap men — rape, fornication, adultery, homosexuality, bestiality, etc.). Genesis 1-3 also clearly lays out the goodness of the human body, the image of God, the goodness of marriage, the origin of shame in sin and disobedience, and the promises of the gospel. But if you read the whole Bible together as a family, regularly, you will cover pretty much every topic that needs to be covered. Allow the Bible’s language to inform your language and create categories for young children which can then make conversations more in-depth and natural as the children come into adolescence. 

3. Celebrate feminine beauty, marriage, children – model that joyful fellowship in your marriage. You are commanded by the Bible to rejoice in the wife of your youth, and to rejoice in her beauty, her body. Your children should all know that you are into your wife. Without being inappropriate, you should hold and kiss your wife enough to occasionally make the kids feel slightly embarrassed. Tell your daughters they are beautiful and encourage them to practice feminine beauty; tell your sons that they must honor and respect feminine beauty. Practice this in how you require them to interact from early ages: no wrestling or fighting with girls, etc. Require your sons to be “gentlemen” and your daughters to be “ladylike.” Don’t tell your children that the magazine ladies are “ugly” or “gross.” Say that they are beautiful, but that their beauty should not be shared so cheaply with the world. Talk about marriage and children as the goal of dating/courtship from early years. The thought of pairing off, having crushes, “liking” so-and-so or dating before a marriageable age should seem foreign and silly. Don’t let this sort of thing go on at all.

4. Establish wise house rules – entertainment standards (be careful even with Rated G movies with foolish assumptions about pairing off, boyfriends, girlfriends, foolish parents), require space with siblings separate bedrooms, times/spaces for changing/bathing (especially between brothers and sisters), be very careful choosing friends, even extended family, giving and taking rides, parties, overnights (no slumber parties), minimize alone time and any time without multiple witnesses/accountability (both for temptations and false accusations or misunderstandings) – it’s not good for man to be alone, and folly is bound up in the heart of children. In our house, play time with friends was always out in the open, not back in bedrooms, etc. The general principle should be to practice protocols that would make secret sin almost impossible to happen, always having multiple people, publicity, and accountability in place (even with good friends/family). Don’t let your guard down simply because they are family, good friends, kirkers, homeschoolers, etc. Good house rules allow you to live without fear because they generally protect against being in situations where sin is likely to happen in secret. 

5. Electronic protocols – accountability software, parental protections, keep all screens and devices out in public. You need to give lots of hovering oversight when kids are young, slowly giving freedom and allowing room for wise use in teenage years. You want to be letting go of rules before kids leave the house, so they can practice complete freedom before they leave. They will be facing the real world when they leave, and if you only shield them, they will not be truly prepared. Focus on positive uses of electronics: reading the Bible, smart podcasts/sermons, connecting with extended family, etc. and guard against mind numbing, time-sucks and self-serving.

6. Confession, Forgiveness, and Accountability: Believe the gospel when things have not gone right, whether small sins or big sins. Never panic. Don’t freak out if your child or teenager expresses doubts about biblical sexuality or curiosity about sex or worldliness. The younger they are, you can simply inform them of the truth cheerfully and require it. If your little boy says he likes wearing dresses, tell him that he doesn’t and he’s a man who God has called to protect ladies. If your young daughter says she likes wrestling and wants to be a boy, tell her that she doesn’t, and God has made her a woman to be beautiful and make a glorious house for a man and be a mom. Cheerfully insist on this, and celebrate the steps they take to obey. Inform them in the same way that you require them to believe that the sky is blue, Jesus is God, and words have meaning.

The older they are, the more you must respectfully engage. Ask lots of questions. Where are they getting this desire from? Are they following unhelpful people on social media? Are their friends influencing them? Are they lonely, insecure, hurt, bitter? Pour on the love and the respect, and gently lead them to the truth. Clamping down, panicking, getting angry are all recipes for disaster and driving your children further away. Finally, remember the difference between forgiveness and trust. Jesus requires immediate and complete forgiveness of all sins (big and small) which restores true fellowship, but forgiveness does not mean that you leave them to flounder in their temptations and sins. You should ask them how you can help them repent and move forward in obedience; love leans into and (depending on the severity) requires accountability.

Photo by Sammie Chaffin on Unsplash

Raising Kids in a Pomosexual World

Notes for King’s Cross Church Special Men’s Forum

1. Faith vs. Fear: believe the promises of God found in Scripture. Jesus came to turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers (Mal. 4). He came to bear the curse of Adam that has infected all our families. Jesus became the curse on the cross, so that the sins of our fathers and mothers, our sins and our children’s sins might be taken away. Believe the promises of the gospel. This kind of faith creates a home where the dominant tone is relief. If God is for you and for your family, then what can stand against you? And a family where joy and light are the dominant themes is a greenhouse that drives secret sins away. But if there’s something growing in the back of your proverbial pantry, that’s a perfect recipe for missing something big. Fear comes from guilt and shame. Deal with your guilt and shame; believe the gospel. Walk in joyful light. Light exposes darkness.

2. Read the whole Bible together as a family and discuss everything: you can’t read through the whole Bible and not address a number of topics relating to sexuality – we used this language with our kids when they were young (lay with, a man’s seed, strange woman — the “bad lady” who uses her beauty to try to trick or trap men — rape, fornication, adultery, homosexuality, bestiality, etc.). Genesis 1-3 also clearly lays out the goodness of the human body, the image of God, the goodness of marriage, the origin of shame in sin and disobedience, and the promises of the gospel. But if you read the whole Bible together as a family, regularly, you will cover pretty much every topic that needs to be covered. Allow the Bible’s language to inform your language and create categories for young children which can then make conversations more in-depth and natural as the children come into adolescence. 

3. Celebrate feminine beauty, marriage, children – model that joyful fellowship in your marriage. You are commanded by the Bible to rejoice in the wife of your youth, and to rejoice in her beauty, her body. Your children should all know that you are into your wife. Without being inappropriate, you should hold and kiss your wife enough to occasionally make the kids feel slightly embarrassed. Tell your daughters they are beautiful and encourage them to practice feminine beauty; tell your sons that they must honor and respect feminine beauty. Practice this in how you require them to interact from early ages: no wrestling or fighting with girls, etc. Require your sons to be “gentlemen” and your daughters to be “ladylike.” Don’t tell your children that the magazine ladies are “ugly” or “gross.” Say that they are beautiful, but that their beauty should not be shared so cheaply with the world. Talk about marriage and children as the goal of dating/courtship from early years. The thought of pairing off, having crushes, “liking” so-and-so or dating before a marriageable age should seem foreign and silly. Don’t let this sort of thing go on at all.

4. Establish wise house rules – entertainment standards (be careful even with Rated G movies with foolish assumptions about pairing off, boyfriends, girlfriends, foolish parents), require space with siblings separate bedrooms, times/spaces for changing/bathing (especially between brothers and sisters), be very careful choosing friends, even extended family, giving and taking rides, parties, overnights (no slumber parties), minimize alone time and any time without multiple witnesses/accountability (both for temptations and false accusations or misunderstandings) – it’s not good for man to be alone, and folly is bound up in the heart of children. In our house, play time with friends was always out in the open, not back in bedrooms, etc. The general principle should be to practice protocols that would make secret sin almost impossible to happen, always having multiple people, publicity, and accountability in place (even with good friends/family). Don’t let your guard down simply because they are family, good friends, kirkers, homeschoolers, etc. Good house rules allow you to live without fear because they generally protect against being in situations where sin is likely to happen in secret. 

5. Electronic protocols – accountability software, parental protections, keep all screens and devices out in public. You need to give lots of hovering oversight when kids are young, slowly giving freedom and allowing room for wise use in teenage years. You want to be letting go of rules before kids leave the house, so they can practice complete freedom before they leave. They will be facing the real world when they leave, and if you only shield them, they will not be truly prepared. Focus on positive uses of electronics: reading the Bible, smart podcasts/sermons, connecting with extended family, etc. and guard against mind numbing, time-sucks and self-serving.

6. Confession, Forgiveness, and Accountability: Believe the gospel when things have not gone right, whether small sins or big sins. Never panic. Don’t freak out if your child or teenager expresses doubts about biblical sexuality or curiosity about sex or worldliness. The younger they are, you can simply inform them of the truth cheerfully and require it. If your little boy says he likes wearing dresses, tell him that he doesn’t and he’s a man who God has called to protect ladies. If your young daughter says she likes wrestling and wants to be a boy, tell her that she doesn’t, and God has made her a woman to be beautiful and make a glorious house for a man and be a mom. Cheerfully insist on this, and celebrate the steps they take to obey. Inform them in the same way that you require them to believe that the sky is blue, Jesus is God, and words have meaning.

The older they are, the more you must respectfully engage. Ask lots of questions. Where are they getting this desire from? Are they following unhelpful people on social media? Are their friends influencing them? Are they lonely, insecure, hurt, bitter? Pour on the love and the respect, and gently lead them to the truth. Clamping down, panicking, getting angry are all recipes for disaster and driving your children further away. Finally, remember the difference between forgiveness and trust. Jesus requires immediate and complete forgiveness of all sins (big and small) which restores true fellowship, but forgiveness does not mean that you leave them to flounder in their temptations and sins. You should ask them how you can help them repent and move forward in obedience; love leans into and (depending on the severity) requires accountability.

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See Everything Through Christ

The invitation of this table is to see Christ and in Him, see all things rightly. But this means that the eyes of faith are being trained by peering through several lenses. The two central lenses are the Word and this Sacrament. Faith doesn’t look at the Word and at the bread and wine, but instead, faith looks through the Word and through the bread and wine. Faith sees Christ in the Word and Christ in the sharing of the broken bread and poured wine. Faith sees Jesus in the whole Bible, and then sees Him here at this table in this gratitude and fellowship. 

But remember what Jesus told the Jews: “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me” (Jn. 5:39). There’s a way of looking at the Word, looking at this Table, looking at baptism, or looking at this fellowship, and thinking that you have eternal life in these things. But these things: this book, this word, this bread and wine, this water, this communion all by itself is not eternal life. These things proclaim Christ who is Your Life. All of these things announce that Jesus died for your sins, that your sins are forgiven, that they have been nailed to His cross and buried in His grave, and that He is risen from the dead and alive forevermore.

And by teaching you to see Christ through the Word, through the Table, through the water of baptism, through the fellowship of the saints, Jesus is teaching you to see all things rightly. There is a Creator God over all. There is a Redeemer, Jesus, God’s own Son. There is a Spirit that comforts hearts and gives peace that passes all understanding. Death has been dealt a death blow, and Satan has been wounded in the head. All authority in heaven and one earth has been given to Jesus, and He must reign until all of His enemies are put beneath His feet. And the last enemy to be destroyed will be death itself. And every tear will be wiped away from every eye, sorrow and pain will be no more, and the Festival of Eternity will never end. You will be raised so that your bodies will be conformed to His glorious body. And we will work and worship and rejoice forever.

See those glorious promises; see Christ at the center of it all. And seeing Christ making all things new: see your life, your family, your world rightly. And so come and welcome to Jesus Christ. 

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Resurrection Fellowship

“Christ is risen” is the battle cry of the Christian faith. It is the historical fact that changes all of human history. Instead of the slow grinding rot of sin and death progressing and spreading and consuming all life and light, the One who is the Light and Life of the world took our death-infection into Himself and died with it in Him, crushing it, so that all who have been infected might be healed. Jesus became the pierced serpent for all who have been snake-bit. And the resurrection is the definitive proof that the serpent poison has been eliminated. Jesus died because He took our poisonous guilt upon Himself, but He could only stay dead as long as our judicial death was upon Him. But as soon as our death was paid for, as soon as justice had been done, Jesus rose. And so “Christ is risen” is the defiant cry of sinners saved by grace. “Christ is risen” is the battle cry of our militant war against all the vestiges of sin in our lives. We chase the remnants of darkness with the assurance that Christ was crucified for it all and now He is risen. 

And this is why the gospel urges us to make no provision for the flesh. Because Christ is risen, we are at war with all sin. Because Christ is risen, reckon yourself dead to sin. Because Christ is risen, do not love the world, or the things of the world, the lust of the flesh, the pride of life. So how do you talk in your home, with your family or friends? Do you talk like a Christian, or do you countenance cursing, foul language, or course jesting? How do you fill your free time? Are you thoughtful about using your time for good, to build up and bless others? Or are you surfing the internet like a fool walking down a virtual red light district? When you gather with friends and family, do your gatherings and hangouts have some measure of planning and structure, activities and games, readings and Psalms or is it the kind of thing some of the local frat boys or sorority girls could accidentally barge into and feel right at home? This doesn’t mean that Christian gatherings must all be Bible studies, but they must be informed by the Bible, by the speech of the Bible, the songs of the Bible, the joy of the Bible, and the grace of the Bible. Why? Because we are Christians, and Christ is risen from the dead. 

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Jesus Friend of Sinners

Good Friday 2023

“While he was still speaking, Judas came, one of the twelve, and with him a great crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the elders of the people. Now the betrayer had given them a sign, saying, ‘The one I will kiss is the man; seize him.’ And he came up to Jesus at once and said, ‘Greetings, Rabbi!’ And he kissed him. Jesus said to him, ‘Friend, do what you came to do.’ Then they came up and laid hands on Jesus and seized him” (Mt. 26:47-50).

“Friend, do what you came to do.” In the Garden of Gethsemane, surrounded by a crowd with swords and clubs, greeted with such insolence by His betrayer, Jesus addresses Judas, as “friend.” This isn’t the more common word for “friend” in the New Testament. The more common word is “philos,” from the word philia, which means love or affection. But this word, while less common in the New Testament, is from a root that refers to someone of your own clan or family. It means companion, friend, cousin, comrade, mate. This word is used only three times like this in the New Testament, and all three times it’s in Matthew’s gospel. And as we look at each passage, a clear and striking pattern emerges. 

The word is used in Matthew 20 at the end of the parable of the workers in the vineyard. Remember the master of the vineyard hires workers for a denarius for working in the vineyard at the beginning of the day, and then he hires others in the middle of the day, and then again, toward the end of the day, all for the same pay. And then, beginning with those he hired last, he pays them all what he promised them. But by the time he gets to the workers he hired at the beginning of the day, paying them the exact same amount as those he hired at the end of the day, those first workers begin to grumble against him. And Jesus says that the master of the vineyard “replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius?’… Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with my own money? Is your eye evil, because I am good? So the last shall be first, and first last: for many are called but few chosen” (Mt. 20:13-16). 

Again, in Matthew 22, Jesus puts this word “friend” in the mouth a king in the parable of the wedding feast for the marriage of his son. Having sent out invitations, none of the original guests would come, some of the guests even mistreating the king’s servants who invited them. So the king sent out his servants instructing them to invite anyone they could find from the highways and byways, both good and bad. But when the king came into the feast, now full of guests, he saw a man without a wedding garment, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And the guest was speechless. Then the king said to his servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few are chosen” (Mt. 22:12-14).

Notice the parallels and pattern that emerges: in both stories, the ones addressed as “friend” have been treated very well, even generously, but they are not responding to the generosity and kindness well. In the first parable, the worker is being greedy and envious, and in the second parable, the wedding guest has come without a wedding garment, apparently showing great disrespect for the occasion, not really there for the festivity. Perhaps he only came for the free food, or perhaps as one of the original guests, greedy and envious that others were invited to take his place – which would make both of the so-called ‘friends’ in the parables greedy and envious. In both stories, the master or king intend real blessing to the one they address as ‘friend,’ doing them real good as friends, but the one they are addressing is rejecting that blessing, demanding something else instead. In both stories Jesus summarizes the point as many are called, but few are chosen. The ones that come first often end up on the outside, and those on the outside at first often end up on the inside. 

The story of the betrayal of Jesus continues the same pattern: Judas has just betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. And we know from elsewhere that Judas was a greedy and envious man. He objected to the extravagant generosity of the woman who anointed Jesus with costly oil, complaining that the perfume might have been sold to help the poor, but it later came out that Judas was not really so concerned about the poor as he was about skimming off the top of the poor fund that he was in charge of. Judas was a greedy and envious man. Judas was also in the inner circle of the apostles, one of the first disciples, with closest access to Jesus, and yet he betrayed Jesus and ended up on the outside, in the outer darkness, where there is only weeping and gnashing of teeth. 

Applications

Greed and envy are closely related sins. Pilate knew it was out of envy that the chief priests had delivered Jesus to him (Mt. 27:18). Greed and envy are sins of betrayal. Jesus calls it having an evil eye or an eye full of darkness. Your eyes are so set on something, often something that someone else has, that it distorts your vision. Whether it is a possession, a house, a car, a job, a level of affluence, or a position of authority or respect or fame or influence or followers, or whether it is certain relationships: a husband, a wife, a kind of family, marriage, children, friendships. 

Ironically, you can lie to yourself saying that you only want these things because they are good things. God says they are good gifts; why shouldn’t I want them? Just like Judas said that his desire was for the care of the poor. But greed and envy don’t really merely want good gifts, they idolize these good gifts, obsess over them, and calculate exactly how much those around you are getting and by implication what you are not getting. And greed and envy quietly (or not so quietly) resent and hate how God is dealing out His gifts. But notice the end of that road: you end up at a lavish wedding celebration refusing to celebrate. You’re sound wound tight about what you don’t have, you end up pushing away the gifts He’s actually giving you. You become like the dwarves in The Last Battle who can’t see the New Narnia. You’re there, but all you can see is an old barn full of hay. Greed and envy betray you, and in the process of betraying you, they drive you to betray those around you, like Judas. 

Yet the point remains that in every one of these stories, Jesus calls the one betraying Him, resenting Him, hating Him and His kindness, “Friend.” And the point I want to make is that the offer is true, the offer of friendship is genuine, and Jesus says exactly how far He’s willing to take this generous offer: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (Jn. 15:13). Elsewhere, Romans says what this entailed, “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:6-8). 

While it is true that some whom Christ calls “friend” reject the offer, and end up on the outside, in the outer darkness, the fact remains that all who come to Christ were once His sworn enemies and traitors. The only people Christ died for were sinners, traitors, insolent, ungodly, greedy, and envious. And so His death is a true offer of friendship: He laid His life down for His friends, and His friends were His enemies: the ungodly, sinners of every sort, greedy and envious, and He died because He loved them. He died to make them His friends. And when He makes you His friend like that, how can you not forgive one another? How can you not love your enemies and do good to those who have betrayed you?

And so the offer is still there. The offer is here, right now, for you and for the world. Whatever your circumstances, whatever you have complained about, whatever you have pushed away, whatever you have resented bitterly in your heart or in your words, Jesus still says to you, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong.” All that Jesus does is good and kind and generous. He is the Son of the Father, in whom there is no shadow of turning, from whom comes every good and perfect gift. He is the Father of all the prodigals and of all the self-righteous older brothers. He has thrown a great party, an extravagant feast, and you are invited. So lay down your grievances. Lay down all your claims, all your excuses, all your calculating. Lay down your bad attitude, your bitterness, your resentment. Lay down your envy and your greed. Christ was crucified for sinners. Jesus is the friend for sinners. So come to the Feast. But when you come into the feast, you must have a wedding garment, and the wedding garment He requires is the garment of praise. So ask Jesus to peel off your rags of resentment and envy. Ask Him to take them away. And ask Him to give you His royal robes of righteousness. He loves to give this gift. And He promises to give this gift to everyone who comes and asks. He will not turn you away, because He calls you His friend. 

So come and welcome to Jesus Christ. 

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen. 

Grace Works Harder

Because we live in decadent times, with a lot of wealth and food and entertainment, right on schedule, humanistic gurus show up on the scene to tell you how to get your life in order. There are the personal trainers, the body builders, the health and nutrition high priests, the how-to read a hundred books, how to have personal disciplines, how to schedule your week, your month, your decade, and there are of course many practical tips and ideas that can be really useful. We also believe that our bodies and our time are gifts from the Lord to be redeemed, to maximize the good we do for the glory of Christ. Self-discipline is one of the fruits of the Spirit, and godly ambition is a holy zeal. We should want to echo Paul’s astonishment in his work for the gospel: I worked harder than all the other apostles. 

But it must be fixed in our hearts and minds that the real powerhouse of discipline, productivity, and ambition is not human wisdom, is not the perfect schedule, is not mental exercises and gimmicks, or personal rewards or punishments. The real powerhouse of self-discipline, productivity, and zealous ambition is grace. This is what Paul says, “I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Cor. 15:10). The secret to success is grace. But when you hear that, it’s tempting to think: so that means don’t try harder? Don’t work harder? Don’t schedule anything? How does grace actually make you work harder? How does grace make you more productive, more zealous and ambitious? 

Part of our problem is that we don’t really understand grace. We think God’s grace is this weak and flimsy thing. But the grace of God is the bloody cross of His beloved Son Jesus. The grace of God is potent. The grace of God – His mercy, His kindness, His favor, His blessing – is powerful. If your human effort is you jumping into the air, God’s grace is the rocket ship that carries you to the moon. This is why when Paul says to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, He immediately adds: for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Paul isn’t saying, so jump harder. God’s grace is God working in you, and when you do the work that God is working, it’s His power doing it. And that’s why grace is the most powerful force, the most potent force for self-discipline, for productivity, for zealous ambition. It was the grace of God that drove Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and to the cross, and out the other side of death.

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God of the Great Escape

Because of Jesus, because of His Spirit, we are to believe that God is more ready to hear than we are to pray, more ready to answer than we are to believe. And this is most intensely true when it comes to our sins and prayers for forgiveness: “I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found: surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him. Thou art my hiding place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble; thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance” (Ps. 32:5-7).

Notice that it is particularly the certainty of forgiveness that is the cause of everyone praying. When you know how God loves to answer the prayer for forgiveness, it makes you want to pray way more. The immediate answer to the honest, humble prayer for forgiveness is songs of deliverance. This is not God, the Great Fussy Librarian, reminding you of how overdue your confession is. This is God the Jail-Breaker, God The Prison-Breaker, the God of the Great Escape, the God of Getaways, rejoicing to break you out of that guilt and shame, singing while He does it, singing songs of deliverance. 

And humility believes this; humility trusts the Word of God. And the Word is this, ‘if you confess your sins, God is faithful and just to forgive you and cleanse you from all unrighteousness.’ And how does God forgive? Right away, all the away, and with a huge grin on His face. God doesn’t wallow around in your sins, and He doesn’t you to wallow there either. When you honestly acknowledge your sin to him and ask for forgiveness, He has already forgiven you. Humility trusts that His Word is true and simply moves on. Arrogance and pride insist that we are really big stuff, and our big sins have made a big mess. Yes, that’s true, but God’s grace is way bigger. 

So this is what we celebrate at this meal. Your sins are forgiven. We celebrate complete relief, complete acceptance, complete peace and joy. The words are “come and welcome.” And even if your heart is still troubled, even if there is still a great struggle inside of you with sin, the simple question is this: what do you want more? Do you want Christ? Then come. Come and welcome to Jesus Christ. 

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