Toby J. Sumpter's Blog, page 25

Making Sharp Arrows

[These are notes from a Logos School Teacher Training talk I gave last week.]

Psalm 127
Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep. Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

Introduction
I want to talk about the task of classical Christian education as assisting parents in raising children that contend with our enemies in the gates of our cities. I want to talk about the kind of education that trains children to be on the offensive, to build cities and houses, businesses and families that successfully resist the darkness and churches that push back the gates of Hell. 

We Have Enemies
I want to begin at the end of the Psalm and simply make the observation that Christians have enemies. Jesus said that we are to love our enemies, but how can you love them if you don’t have any? And therefore, Christian education takes place “in the presence of our enemies” (Ps. 23). Psalm 127 says that the goal of the gift of children is reinforcements. They are to be arrows in the hand of a mighty warrior. And arrows are not just for looking at. 

A truly Christian classical education must be oriented to the fray. We are training up inventors and doctors and mothers and dentists and artists, but above all, we want them to think about their vocations as strategic positions all along a great battle line. Jesus said that He built His church on the foundation of Peter’s great confession that Jesus is the Christ, and His promise is that the gates of Hell will not prevail against it (Mt. 16). But people frequently miss what that image clearly implies: Hell is not laying siege to the Church – it’s the other way around: Jesus built His church at the gates of Hell. We are laying siege to Hell. Jesus did this so that it would be really hard for us to miss. 

Another way of saying this is that we believe in the antithesis. We believe in truth, and therefore, whatever contradicts the truth is false. We believe in goodness, and therefore, whatever contradicts goodness is evil. And we believe in beauty, and therefore, whatever contradicts beauty is ugly. And the Triune God is ultimate truth, goodness, and beauty. There is a massive difference between a school that understands the antithesis that runs down the middle of history and the middle of every human heart and a school that is either ignorant of that conflict or ambivalent to it. 

Closely connected to this point is the Great Commission. Jesus sent us into the world to disciple the nations (Mt. 28). That means proclaiming the gospel to them so that they are converted and taught everything Jesus commanded. With regard to teaching and running schools oriented to the Great War against sin, the flesh, and the Devil, a really important question that every Christian should ask at some point is: should we expect that the Church over the course of history will accomplish that mission? We have enemies, we have a mission, we have a battle line, but if the plan is to make little to no progress, that puts a major damper on the whole enterprise. If you think that having children and raising children and educating children makes little to no difference in the battle, it’s hard to be enthusiastic about that and it will color everything you do. It will shape the whole educational atmosphere of your school. 

But Jesus said that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Him, therefore go. We go because He has won the authority over them. The nations that continuously rage and conspire against the Lord and against His Anointed have been given to Jesus (Ps. 2). Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance. So the first point in making sharp arrows is a fundamental commitment to the fray, to the war, and the firm conviction that Jesus has struck the fatal blow against the kingdom of darkness and the Church will prevail, the nations will be discipled, and our educational efforts are central to the plan.

Meekness not Weakness
This is related to the beginning of Psalm 127. We do not build rightly, unless we build knowing that God is the one building our house. We do not guard or keep watch rightly, unless we do it knowing that God is guarding and watching our city. So this is the second point: a truly biblical Classical education trains warriors from a position of peace and joy and rest, not fear, not panic, not stress. Meekness holds strength from a position of peace and joy. Belligerence is angry, wrathful, uncontrolled, and often driven by deep panic. The other ditch is to simply run away in cowardly weakness, although it is often described in less obvious ways (“I’m just not into the culture war”, “I believe in gentleness and poetry”). But refer back to the previous point: we are at war, we have enemies, and we are training reinforcements.  

This work of classical Christian education really is extremely hard and difficult. We really are building houses and cities, and we really are in a great war, a great conflict with enemies all around us. But we build and fight with Jesus in our midst. We are in the storm, but Jesus is in our boat, and Jesus rules the wind and the waves. Listen to Psalm 3: “But thou, O Lord, art a shield for me; my glory, and the lifter of my head. I cried unto the Lord with my voice, and he heard me out of his holy hill. I laid down and slept; I awaked; for the Lord sustained me. I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people, that have set themselves against me round about. Arise, O Lord; save me, O my God: for thou hast smitten all mine enemies upon the cheek bone; thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly” (Ps. 3:3-7). Notice again the presence of enemies, and the gift of sleep and rest and fearlessness because the Lord fights for His people. In Psalm 127 it says that God gives His beloved sleep.  

Children sense in their parents and teachers the difference between joy and panic, peace and fear. We have great enemies, but we have a greater Savior. There are many Goliaths in the land, but we have One who is Greater Than David in our camp. It is vain for you to rise up early or stay up late, stress eating the bread of sorrows over grades, lesson plans, enrollment, budgets, the board, your kids, or our disintegrating culture. It is empty. It is worthless. And it is worse than worthless because it is actually teaching your students to panic and worry. We build and we fight and we work hard in the peace of Christ, in the joy of the Lord, and we are training children to do the same. So we strive for excellence, high standards, and push beyond what seems reasonable (and sometimes that means late nights and early mornings!), but we do so from a place of joyful confidence. The battle belongs to the Lord. If the Lord is not sitting up late with you or rising early with you, what you are doing is worthless. This is the stance of meekness not weakness. The meek will inherit the earth, Jesus said, but meekness means strength under discipline, power under control. Christian meekness believes that God uses means, God uses parents and teachers and curriculum, but meekness knows that all of it depends on the work of the Spirit not on us. Unless the Lord builds the house, we labor in vain. But if the Lord builds the house, nothing can stop it. Meekness builds with the Lord, guards with the Lord, gets up early, stays up late, resists evil, but only with the Lord. And that is the source of our peace and joy. We want that peace and joy to pervade our classrooms, hallways, and families.

Children are a Heritage: Boys & Girls
The center of this psalm declares to us the gift of children: “Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.” This center is the hinge and pictures everything we are talking about. And notice what it says children are: they are the inheritance of the Lord, His reward. The reinforcements are God’s inheritance. When the classrooms and halls fill up this Fall, smile and thank God for the reinforcements. Thank Him for such a rich inheritance. 

But when God gives the gift of children, He always does so in two varieties: boys and girls. This is now considered a radical and backward notion, and is probably illegal to say in some states. So I want to finish by simply insisting that you must see your students not as gender neutral placeholders. But gifts and ammo and reinforcements for the battle with particular gender assignments and powers. Do not lose sight of the fact that you are training and discipling men and women to be fathers/husbands/leaders and mothers/wives/helpers. They will be the most potent in the battle as men and women, with their respective glories shining brightly. 

Men are called to use their strength sacrificially to lead, to be assertive, to be bold, to stand firm, and women are called to use their wisdom to glorify, beautify, and multiply. The glory of men is their strength, and the glory of women is taking the gifts of God and making them lovely and fruitful in every way. This means you must learn to see these rudimentary instincts in your students and encourage them. This is usually the hardest with boys. Some of the most challenging boys in your school will be great leaders one day. The reason he can’t sit still is because he was made to work hard. The reason he won’t stop asking questions is because he was made to discover, create, and invent. Stop giving your Christian character awards to the quiet, mousy boy who has straight As and aces scripture memory. If you want to reward effeminacy and get more of a gay culture, go right ahead. Do not misunderstand: Boys most certainly must be learning humility, self-discipline, and respect for authority, but you also want boys to be bold, adventurous, and take risks. I would suggest that a boy with no mistakes on their record is a problem not a role model. 

Make sure that girls know that the highest calling for a Christian woman is the fruitfulness of being a wife, a mother, and homemaker and make sure they know that they will be hated for that, and they must not care. Discourage all tomboy-ishness, and encourage true Christian cultivation of beauty, inside and outside. No cattiness, no gossip, no ugly attitudes or grudges. Wisdom is a woman, and she builds houses and sets feasts. But the mouth or immodesty of the foolish woman tears down her own house with her own hands.  

Make gender distinctions throughout your school, not just in the bathrooms. Conservatives are (understandably) in complete meltdown mode because public schools are beginning to allow boys in girls bathrooms and locker rooms, but we have sat there doing nothing for the last number of years, pretending that boys and girls are completely the same everywhere else (co-ed wrestling?, girls playing football?, hockey?). If we really want to push back on the gender confusion, practice the glory of manhood and womanhood in the hallways and classrooms and activities. Some ideas: have the girls be seated first at lunch, let the girls come into the classroom and exit the classrooms first, require boys to hold doors, and have clear differences in athletics and sports. Can girls play basketball? Sure, but there ought to be marked difference between boys’ and girls’ basketball. Get lots of input from dads and true men in your community on these things because a bunch of well-meaning moms could think something seems really cute and romantic, and that would be a great way to get a bunch of your boys to die on the inside. 

Conclusion
We are making arrows, and we want these arrows to be sharp and fly straight and do damage. And we do that by keeping the battle in plain view, by resting in our Captain who has struck the decisive blow in the cross and resurrection, and by glorying in our distinctive gifts and powers. The Devil and the world are attacking us at this very point because they know that these are powerful and potent. A generation of happy warrior men and women, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers committed to Jesus, their families, and the Church will speak with our enemies in the gates. 

Photo by Possessed Photography on Unsplash

Culture and Worldview & Classical Christian Schools

[Note: These are notes for a talk I gave for the Logos School teacher training last week.]

Introduction
A culture is the matrix of belief and practice, faith and works. It includes everything from technology to entertainment to sports to holidays to marriage and family, worship and community life. Culture includes shared language, art, music, morals, habits, customs, loves, and loyalties. 

So when we talk about a Christian Worldview, we are talking about seeing the world through the lens of Scripture, believing in Christ and His Word, and then ordering our lives to the best of our ability in gratitude and obedience. Since we are finite human beings, we cannot pretend to be able to address every detail. We confess that Christ lays claim to every detail, we submit in principle, and then we seek to order our priorities scripturally. 

The Greatest Commands & the Ten Words
What is most important? The Bible tells us that loving God with all that we are and loving our neighbor as ourself summarizes the whole Bible, and they are summaries of the Ten Commandments in particular. Never forget that the foundation of God’s law has always been His grace. The introduction to the Ten Commandments is: I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the House of Bondage. “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous” (1 Jn. 5:3). We love God because He loved us first. Our obedience must be a response of gratitude and thanksgiving, otherwise our obedience will not be blessing. The law of God is the law of liberty. The center of Christian culture is this grace: we get to obey God, not you better or else, joy not drudgery.

The Ten Words can be broadly categorized under the two greatest commands: love God and love neighbor. The first four commands teach us how to love God, and the last 5-6 teach us to love our neighbors. The fifth command straddles both commands. Honoring father and mother is where love and fear of God are first learned, and a culture that despises parents will not long fear or love God. Broadly, we can say then that a Christian worldview and culture is concerned with the right love and worship of God and the right love and honor of those who bear His image, beginning with those closest to us. We might summarize these priorities as worship and family. A Christian worldview values those things that God says are most valuable, and acts accordingly, building habits, using technology, developing arts that honor God and those who bear His image. 

If I were called to plant a new church somewhere where there was not already a well-established Christian community, right after the church was launched, I would start a classical Christian school. And that’s because a well-ordered school, under God’s blessing, is where both worship and family can be strategically reinforced. 

The Failure of Modern Worship
When I say worship, you might be tempted to only think of only the music, but I’m talking about the entire worship service: prayers, songs, scripture readings, sermon, communion, etc. God put the tabernacle literally at the center of Israel in the wilderness, and this is because communion with God in worship is the center of Christian culture. The first sanctuary was in the Garden of Eden where God met with Adam and Eve at the Tree of Life. A river flowed out of the Garden and divided into four heads, and God directed Adam down the river as part of his mission to take dominion and make the world fruitful. From one angle: the Garden-sanctuary was a picture of what the world could become: a cultivated garden, mature trees with fruit, etc. From another angle, God clearly implied that there was more glory to be found out in the world down the rivers to be discovered, refined, glorified, and used in the world and back in the garden. While sin disrupted this communion and dominion mandate, God renewed covenant with Noah after the flood and again with Abraham and Israel. When God put a golden box with His Words in the heart of the tabernacle at the center of Israel, He was once again calling Israel to go into all the world, to make it fruitful by taking His ways out into the world and to find the glory there and bring it back into the sanctuary. 

Modern Christian worship has been largely reduced to an emotional experience instead of a fully human covenant renewal. The biblical and historical pattern of worship included a Call to Worship, a Confession of Sin, Consecration through Scripture readings and message from Scripture, Communion with God in the Lord’s Supper, and a Commissioning/Blessing. We don’t have the time to explore this in detail, but suffice it to say that discipleship is a wholistic process aimed at applying all of Scripture to all of life. Christian worship focused on fearing the Lord, hearing His Word, confessing sin and repenting of it, and applying God’s word to every area of life is a very different kind of worship than getting an emotional pep talk and having a good experience. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. 

Related, is the opposite extreme where some famished evangelicals desperate for something historic and reverent, have lurched into Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy. While I do have some sympathy with the mistake, since you are often likely to get more Scripture in one of those churches than a modern evangelical comedy hour, the fact of the matter is that you are actually only substituting one form of man-centered worship for another. Protestant worship is unique for its insistence on worship being according to God’s Word. Worship that is regulated by God’s Word built the modern West. The Protestant work ethic flows from protestant worship.

Family & Culture
If Christian Worship is the engine that drives Christian culture, the Christian family is the basic building block of culture. Family is the first place where Christian discipleship is inculcated and practiced. I want to begin in perhaps a surprising place and that is the death penalties found in the Old Testament for adultery and rebellious sons. Frequently these are raised as examples of what a theocracy would mean (“horrors!”). Unbelievers will say something like, “I could never believe in a God who would command that.” We should have a couple of responses ready. First, we should note that since we rejected God’s law in this land, we’ve executed over 60 million babies. As we have rejected God’s Word specifically with regard to honoring parents, honoring the marriage bed, and honoring life, we have seen an epidemic of fatherlessness, addiction, crime, suicide, school shootings, and incarceration. How’s that working out? 

But our other response should simply be to trust God’s Word without apology. When you see flashing lights and orange cones and yellow tape, you probably don’t immediately think that someone has drastically over-reacted. You generally assume that something bad has happened, and you hope everyone is OK and you’re thankful for first responders. 

We should think of the death penalties in Scripture as God’s flashing lights and orange cones and barbed wire fences. God is saying that something potent and powerful is going on here. Mess with marriage, mess with the marriage bed, mess with family, and you are playing with fire. The family really is nuclear. We are living in the nuclear fallout of decades of playing with the nuclear family. The radiation is everywhere.  

Everyone in this room has been touched by the radiation. From pornography to divorce to abortion to estrangement, all of our families have been touched by it. But the Old Testament ends with God’s solemn promise to turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest He strike the earth with a curse, and the gospels tell us that Jesus came to do that. He came to take the curse, the radiation of our family failures and sins, and make all things new. 

This renewal begins with faith in Christ and conversion, but it grows and flourishes in families that confess sins and forgive one another quickly. This is the oil of gladness in all Christian community. The joy of the Lord is fundamentally the joy of forgiven sin. You cannot have the joy of the Lord, if you have accumulated sins in your heart or home. The difference between two homes on the same street with the same number of kids, where one is a messy dump and one that is tidy and smells like bread is baking in the over – the difference is that in one house they pick up. Confession of sin is picking up. All sin must either be covered in love or confronted in love. Christians may not sweep sin under the carpet. 

And so the same principles apply to a biblical Christian school. Sin must be covered in love or confronted in love, otherwise that Christian community can quickly turn toxic. As an extension of the family, a faithful classical Christian school should practice biblical peacemaking, confession, forgiveness, and restitution. Dealing with sin biblically is a potent cultural force.

Conclusion
A successful classical Christian school should aim to graduate men and women who are committed to classical Protestant worship, getting married, and having big families. They will only be loyal and committed to these culture building powerhouses if they have received the blessings of them as they have grown up. One of the great dangers of a Christian community, churches, and families is the potential for inoculation, giving kids just enough of a taste of it to turn them off and make them immune to the offer. And the only way to avoid that is by keeping Christ and His grace central. 

Photo by CDC on Unsplash

[image error] [image error] [image error] [image error] [image error]

Roe Reversal and the Horror Stories

Introduction
If your social media timeline has been anything like mine over the last couple of weeks, you’ve seen some horror stories going around about what the reversal of Roe will mean for women in difficult situations. One story I saw described a woman being forced to carry a child to term with a rare genetic defect causing it to have seizures every few minutes. The story was meant to illustrate the necessity (apparently) of abortion in at least some “medically necessary” situations. And how could you be so cruel?

First off, the horror stories seem a bit premature. I’m reliably told that New York and California are still offering abortions up to birth for whatever ails you. Sure, you might have to make a drive or take a flight, but the point is that the reversal of Roe did not end abortion in this land or make it impossible to get an abortion. And many large corporations are lining up to fully fund your abortion travel expenses, so I’m thinking abortion will still be largely assessable for those determined to go through with it. In 12-13 states, it is in the process of being made illegal, but that is hardly the end of abortion in America.

My Story
But second, and to the point of this post, as long as we are telling our stories, I thought I should tell mine. My daughter was born 14 years ago. She was a twin, and her twin sister died before they were born. When we went in for our 20 week ultrasound, we were told that one of our babies had died and the other did not look healthy. We spent a long day in the hospital talking to fetal specialists, looking at multiple ultrasounds and being told that it did not look good for our remaining living daughter. The maternal fetal specialist doctor told us that whatever had killed the one twin was probably in the process of doing the same to our living daughter. He then asked us if abortion was an option for us. We said, “no.”

He then went into further explanations of our living daughter’s condition: we were told that she had experienced significant In Uterine Growth Retardation (IUGR) which meant that she was measuring several weeks smaller than usual for her gestation age. Again, he emphasized that she was probably in the process of dying just like her twin. We were also told that she had high chances of Downs Syndrome, Cytomegalovirus, and other scary chromosomal and genetic defects and disorders and he asked again, “you mean to tell me that if your daughter is suffering from one of these diseases or disorders and will most likely die or will be born with significant defects, you still wouldn’t consider abortion?” We assured him that we would not.

After he left, a nurse came in with a bunch of paperwork for genetic testing. We started filling it out sort of in a daze over everything happening. When she came back in, I asked her what it was all for, and she repeated the litany of disorders and diseases that the ultrasounds were suggesting our daughter might have. They would run tests on her blood. None of the tests would be conclusive. They would bring back percentages of likelihood of diagnosis. So I asked: If she has any of the diseases or disorders, could they do anything about it? No, the nurse replied. I smiled and said that we wouldn’t be getting any of the tests that could only tell us a percentage of possibility for something we could do nothing about until after birth (except kill our baby). We went home.

We returned a week or two later to see a fetal heart specialist. He performed a special heart ultrasound and we watched our daughter wiggling around on a big screen for about 45 minutes. The heart specialist concluded his analysis by telling us that she had a healthy heart. No need to see him again. Our maternal fetal specialist came back into the room and once more reviewed the many possible and probable diseases and defects our daughter had. He asked us again if we would consider abortion. Again, we insisted that there was no way we would consider abortion. At this point, after we left that appointment, we asked our regular OB/GYN if we could stop seeing a maternal fetal specialist. We didn’t find him particularly encouraging. Our OB/GYN told us we still needed to see a specialist, but he agreed to refer us to a different one. 

Upon referral, we had a much different experience. The new maternal fetal specialist was a Christian doctor who never mentioned abortion to us. However, even with the new specialist, the information roller coaster was not over. Even though our daughter now appeared to be growing at a more normal rate, concerns about disease and disorders remained. We continued having ultrasounds almost every week, and after one of them, one technician informed us that she was seeing some significant abnormalities and deformities. Nevertheless, our daughter was born on Easter Sunday 2008 by emergency c-section at 31 weeks crying and breathing on her own. Other than being 2lbs 2oz. and needing a number of weeks to grow and mature in the NICU, she was completely healthy and whole. No diseases. No deformities. No disorders. 

The Gift of Life
So that’s another story. It’s a story of God’s grace, but it’s also a story of how little medical doctors sometimes know or understand. If we had not been completely committed to carrying our daughter to term, a kindly looking elderly doctor might have talked us into killing our perfectly healthy daughter. And I hate to know how many other mothers heard similar warnings from that same doctor encouraging them to abort, and how many of them took his advice, fearing the worst. I shudder to think of the horror story at the beginning of this article if it turns out that the woman’s baby has a persistent case of hiccups and she thinks (or has been told by a “specialist”) it’s seizures.

And hasn’t the fear-mongering logic of many progressives over the last couple of years of COVID been something along the lines of: if we can save one life… it will be worth it? Even if you accept the premise (which I do not and more in a minute) that it would be better to kill a severely disabled baby than to bring it to full term, are we so cold hearted to insist that it would be better to kill many healthy babies just in case one of them might be severely disabled? And how many perfectly healthy babies have been aborted because the genetic testing came back indicating a “high probability” of disease or disorder? Is that really how we treat life? It *might* be hard? It *might* include suffering? Or it might not? Better to abort a possibly healthy baby in case it might have some disability?

But of course not all stories turn out like ours. There are many children with diseases and disorders. Some die in the womb, some die just after birth. But this is the difference between a Christian view of human life and a non-Christian view. Christians believe that every human life is made in God’s image. This means until or unless God gives express permission to take the life that bears His image, we are duty bound to receive it as a gift from Him. And we are not in charge of that decision. Human beings are not animals. It is perfectly acceptable to put down an animal, to put it out of its misery. But God is the sovereign Lord of human life because it bears His image. From conception to natural death, God gives life and God takes it back at His pleasure. Who are we to say: that is enough of that gift? Who are we to say that we will not receive the gift of life that proclaims the living God, however disabled or handicapped?

My wife and I have never had to receive a child born with severe defects or disease, but we have walked alongside a number of families who have. And in our experience not a single one of them has regretted the difficult journey they walked. Some of them lost their child before they were born; some spent days or weeks with their child before they died; some have cared for their disabled children into adulthood. In Christ, every single life is a gift, and some of the most challenging ones are the greatest gifts. There’s a section of the cemetery here in Moscow where all the children are buried, and I can walk down a particular section recognizing many names. I’ve said before that at the resurrection there will be a glorious party and reunion there.

One of the markers in that section of the cemetery is my own son Justice who died around 20 weeks from unknown causes. I remember when he was born, he was small of course, but he was a perfectly normal looking baby boy. We still have his little hand and footprints from the hospital, from the day he was stillborn. It was certainly hard to see the ultrasound technician’s worried face as she left the room, as we began to wonder, and then the doctor’s confirmation that there was no heartbeat and then going to the hospital to give birth to a child we would not get to watch grow up. It was a painful and difficult delivery. But it was absolutely worth it. Holding my son in my arms, a strange feeling surged through me, one I wasn’t expecting, a sense of pride. This was my son. God gave him to me for 20 weeks, and then God took him home. And that little man had done something that I still haven’t done; he fought death and won. He had gone to heaven ahead of me. I was proud of him. That was a gift that God gave to me, and I would never trade it away for a little less pain or difficulty.

When my father in-law died of cancer a few years ago, another related lesson was impressed upon me. My father in-law was one of those classic granddads, the kind that takes grandkids fishing, tells you stories about the Civil War, and would take you on car trips to see a national park or some other natural or historic site. But after he got cancer all of that changed, and after a number of rounds of chemotherapy, he was not the same active man he had been. He remained cheerful and courageous through it all, but it just wasn’t the same. And yet, the lesson I will always remember from those days is the certainty that what my kids most needed was to watch their Granddad go through that trial. This was the greatest fishing trip, the best war story, the most scenic trip of all. It was the adventure of watching him face death in faith and win. And so even as he suffered, he was giving to all of us through the life he was given.  

Conclusion
I know that for a non-Christian, these stories perhaps change little. And that is because the central crux of the issue is the Cross and resurrection of Jesus. In the Cross, God allowed the most awful thing to happen. He allowed evil to heap on top of His beloved Son. He laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Jesus suffered horrifically for hours, bleeding out, excruciating pain, suffocating, stripped naked before a mocking crowd. But in that horrific suffering God was taking away the sins of His people. By His stripes we are healed. And the point is this: If God has determined to swallow up all death through the suffering of His Son, how much more can we trust Him to give us glimpses of that victory over death in the darkest moments of our lives? If God is good, if He is the God who has determined to destroy death and wipe away every tear (and He is), we can trust Him to tell our stories and every story perfectly. He knows what He is doing. He is not careless. He is not absent. He is with us. And He is the resurrection and the life. Those who sow their tears in the Lord always reap with shouts of joy. So place your trust in Him.

Happy Presbyterian Revolt Day!

Introduction
You might not be a presbyterian, but the founding of our nation and its war for independence was led by a rough and tumble crowd of Scots-Irish presbyterians. But there is a lot more to it than just a random Christian denomination. What John Calvin taught John Knox who established it in Scotland and then spilled over into UIster Ireland and eventually the American colonies was a cocktail of covenant theology, republican style representative government, and liberty with a backbone, the kind that only grows in the happy soil of predestination. 

So pull up a chair and gather round. Refill your pint glasses and let’s have a history lesson. 

William Wallace & the Founding of America
There’s a reason why the legend of William Wallace stirs American hearts. Even if the cinematic Braveheart was mostly Hollywood and very little history, Scotland really did fight for and gain its independence from England in the late 1200s, under the leadership of Andrew Moray and William Wallace. Robert the Bruce was crowned the King of Scotland in 1306, and the Scots won a decisive victory over the English at the Battle of Bannockburn on June 23 and 24, in 1314. Is it an accident that the Dobbs decision was handed down on June 24, 2022? 

While you’ve probably heard of William Wallace and Robert the Bruce, you may not have heard of the Declaration of Arbroath in 1320, which is considered by historians to be one of the first documented declarations of independence. It was recognized by Pope John XXII and led to an official recognition of Scotland’s independence by the English Crown. Remember the Declaration of Arbroath; we’ll come back to that in a minute. Nevertheless, after gaining independence, over the course of several centuries, Scottish and English royalty intermarried with the result of slowly bringing the two nations back together. In 1603, King James VI of Scotland became King James I of England, Ireland, and Scotland. While James attempted to unite the nations, it was not until a century later that the union would be completed.

But you really do need to remember that history of Scottish-English struggle. I’ve passed over centuries of struggle in a few sentences, but the thing to note initially here is the fact that there was a deep history of conflict and mistrust between England and Scotland, going back centuries. Many Scotch Protestants fled to the Ulster region Ireland during periods of conflict and persecution, and from there, many of the Ulster Scots-Irish immigrated to the American Colonies. When King George began breaking the covenant charters he had signed with the colonies, many of the Scots-Irish could see it as none other than the old creeping tyranny of English monarchs. And when the King of England heard about the American Declaration of Independence, he called it the “Presbyterian Revolt” not just because of church polity differences but because it was the old specter of the fierce Scottish independence streak. It was like a new Declaration of Arbroath, some 450 years later. 

John Knox & Republican Government
This brings us up to the time of the Reformation, with John Knox and his double-bladed battle ax. True story. But first, while Scotland had fought for political freedom previously, historians note that with few exceptions the land was full of darkness, superstition, crime, and poverty. But a dramatic change began to occur as the Reformation gospel was preached with clarity for the first time by Patrick Hamilton, and then George Wishart, and finally by John Knox and all of their disciples. What emerged in Scotland was the world’s first presbyterian nation, or what you might call a Christian republic. While Knox himself was not a purist presbyterian (he would have worked with Bishops that were accountable to presbyteries), he is still considered the founder of Presbyterianism – churches ruled by elders elected by the people – a sort of ecclesial republican form of government. It was this form of church government that began to influence the political thinking of many.

One of the most significant doctrines recovered during the Reformation was the idea of “covenant.” On the one hand, this helped to correct the superstitions of the Roman Catholic Church, who had slowly turned sacraments into pseudo-magical moments. The Reformers taught that baptism and the Lord’s Supper were signs and seals of the covenant between God and man through Jesus. A covenant is an agreement between two or more persons with attendant blessings and curses. Reaching back to Noah, God had made a covenant, promising not to destroy the world again, which clearly applied to all of humanity and gave the sign of the rainbow (Gen. 9). Then God made a covenant with Abraham, passing through the cut animals, giving him the sign of circumcision, promising to give Abraham many descendants and inherit the world (Gen. 15, 17). God also renewed covenant with Israel at Mt. Sinai (Ex. 19:5, 24:7-8), and as the Reformers struggled to articulate a political theology, they noticed that God had made covenant with Israel as a nation. And while it was clear that this was a special covenant with Israel, it suggested that other nations might be established as covenants as well. 

They also noted that other political and tribal covenants existed in Scripture between Abraham and Abimelech (Gen. 21), Abimelech and Isaac (Gen. 26), Laban and Jacob (Gen. 31), as well as the covenant of marriage (Mal. 2:14). In Scotland, Knox and other Reformers came to be known as “covenantors” for their promotion of the idea that the nation of Scotland ought to be established as a covenanted nation to God as well as between its leaders and their people. They taught that just as a marriage covenant can be broken and dissolved because of sexual immorality, certain severe breeches of duty to God or the people would make it biblically legitimate to dissolve a civil covenant. This is exactly what the Declaration of Independence would claim had happened with the King of England and why they took the time to list his failures in such detail as a defense of their actions. Have you read the entire Declaration recently? Go ahead and review it. It was a thoroughly covenantal document. 

Presbyterianism & the English Civil War
These theological doctrines had also been swirling around England throughout the Reformation era and had no small impact on politics there. Against the presbyterian “covenantor” notions, King James I taught the “divine right of kings,” which essentially claimed that monarchs had their authority directly from God which was absolute. While King James asserted this, he was smart enough not to push it too hard. But his son Charles I asserted it more forcefully, trying to get funding for his wars on the Continent – which included him levying taxes without Parliament’s permission, forced loans, martial law, imprisoning without warrant, quartering troops, and vaccine mandates and face mask rules… (Heh. Just making sure you’re paying attention). In 1628, Charles faced a sort of “Magna Charta” moment when he was forced to agree to the “Petition of Right” from Parliament, reasserting the rights of Englishmen to have substantive representation in Parliament and the King’s custom of working with Parliament. And it should not be missed that the British Parliament often consisted of a majority of presbyterians during these days. The pressure to respect representative government with checks and balances was driven in part by the covenant theology and republican government of the Calvinist presbyterians.  

When Charles marched on the Scottish Presbyterians in 1639, not only did the military campaign fail, but Parliament retaliated by condemning the Earl of Strafford and Archbishop Laud and beheading them both. When Charles failed to quell further violence, he fled to Nottingham, and the English Civil War had begun. While the presbyterians essentially won the war, they were never able to hammer out a more republican form of government and so the monarchy was eventually restored, albeit a rather chastened monarchy with a far more powerful parliament. But again, the thing to note is the political impact of presbyterianism on politics. It was the presbyterians who insisted on checks and balances, representation, and the right to revolt against tyranny in civil government. So when the American colonies declared their independence a hundred years later, and King George called it a “presbyterian revolt,” the English Civil War was not altogether unrelated to that assessment. In certain respects, what the presbyterians in England had fought for in the English Civil War was finally brought to fruition in America.

Conclusion
When it came down to the actual war for independence, historians have repeatedly noted that presbyterians played an outsized role in leading the way. In the lead up to the war, some have pointed out that one of the unifying factors of the 13 independent colonies was actually presbyterian polity. At the time there was no unifying civil government between the completely independent colonies, but the one pervasive presence throughout the colonies was the presbyterian church. Their General Synods welcomed representatives from presbyterian churches all over the colonies, and they declared their support for American independence a year before the Declaration of Independence was signed. Many have noted that presbyterian church government served as practice for a “presbyterian” civil government, which is essentially what a representative republic is. 

While George Washington was himself Episcopalian, and his denomination being closely aligned with the Church of England denounced the war, he acknowledged his debt to the presbyterians by donating generously to a presbyterian college in his homeland of Virginia, which honored him by changing their name to Washington College. 

The war itself was led by many psalm singing presbyterian elders and ministers and members. One anecdote recalls the presbyterian minister Rev. James Caldwell, who helped win some battles, when they ran out of paper for musket wads, he pulled out Isaac Watts’ Psalter-Hymnal and started ripping out pages, saying, “Give ’em Watts, boys!”

The prime minister of England, Horace Walpole said in Parliament that “Cousin America has run off with a Presbyterian parson,” apparently referring to John Witherspoon, presbyterian minister, signer of the Declaration of Independence and president of the presbyterian college Princeton. And when Gen. Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown all but one of the American Colonels were presbyterian elders. You can read more about this rich Calvinist presbyterian heritage here and here.

While this is only a brief sketch, I hope it makes you think a little more today about the freedom we enjoy and where it came from. While we are engaged in a fierce battle to retain our liberty, the liberty we are fighting for grows in a particular kind of soil. The absolute sovereignty of God in predestining all of history and the salvation of the world creates a kind people who are radically happy and free. But this is no humanistic happiness or freedom, it is a happiness and freedom that thrives under the supremacy of Christ and accepts the assignments He gives in the governments established among men: families, churches, and nations. Those governments are established as covenants between God and men, with representatives, checks and balances, and lesser magistrates. These doctrines are not mere religious curiosities, they are the foundations of culture, civilization, and political freedom.

So sing a Psalm of praise to the Lord today. Hoist a pint in honor of No King but Christ. Site in your rifles. Shoot off some fireworks (illegal ones preferably). Grill something savory. Fly the Stars and Stripes. And maybe if you’re feeling really frisky, call up a presbyterian pastor and ask him to baptize your babies. It’s all connected. It’s all related. And the name of the tree is liberty, and the only root is Christ.

Happy Fourth of July, and Happy Presbyterian Revolt Day. 

Crucified for Sinners

With the Dobbs decision out this last week, supporters of Molech, supporters of abortion and the murder of babies are in frenzies of panic and rage. Threats of violence have increased, particularly against Christians, churches, and pro-life pregnancy centers. It is perfectly lawful to take extra measures of precaution to protect ourselves and our property from lawlessness, but we must not forget that the tip of our spear is worship. The most important thing we do every week is gather here for worship. Worship is our warfare. 

When Abraham was promised Canaan, we went through the land building altars to the Lord, and 400 years later, when Joshua began to take the land, the first fight was the Battle of Jericho, and God gave that victory through worship. But shortly after that, Joshua set ambushes for a battle in the very same place where Abraham had built an altar to the Lord, hundred of years earlier. The point could not be clearer: the battle belongs to the Lord. Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord. Some trust in chariots, others trust in horses, we trust in the name of the Lord our God. 

And the particular name that we trust in is the name of Jesus. And Jesus means savior because He saves His people from their sins. The panic among unbelievers is actually at root panic about this. They have contrived schemes of trying to deal with their guilt and shame and sin. Abortion is one of their central schemes for hiding their sin, and it is their blood sacrament that has been threatened this week. But this means we have an opportunity to proclaim what their guilt really needs. We have an opportunity to proclaim what has taken away our guilt and shame: the blood of Jesus. What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.  

That’s what we proclaim and sing and celebrate here, and from this place, from this Table, we take that message to everyone: Christ crucified for sinners. Christ was not crucified for good people. He was crucified for bad people. Christ was not crucified for people with their acts together. He was crucified for criminals and sinners, outcasts and losers, for druggies and alcoholics, for the scum of the earth. Are you a sinner? Then you qualify. So come and welcome to Jesus Christ. 

Photo by Gift Habeshaw on Unsplash

We Have Seen & We Remember

On Friday, it was announced that the Supreme Court had ruled to overturn Roe v. Wade, a wicked and blasphemous ruling from 1973 claiming to grant the right of abortion in our land. Since that time, millions of babies have been murdered. That ruling should have never been received as just or lawful since Christians know from Scripture that unborn babies are precious to the Lord and ought to be afforded all the protections of human life, but it truly is a momentous event to reverse such a travesty of justice. Given the lay of the land: drag queens in libraries and pride month being forced down our throats at every moment, it doesn’t seem like a likely moment for this kind of reversal. But God is King, and He reigns in Heaven, and He does whatever He pleases. 

And when He does these kinds of things, our job is to see them for what they are: “wonders He has done” and to praise His name for them. This is the Lord’s Day a day of remembrance, and in a little bit, we will eat and drink together at a table of remembrance. Today we remember the victory that God won in the death and resurrection of Jesus, but in that victory we also remember all of His victories and we give thanks for them all. We remember how God created the heavens and the earth. We remember the Passover, how the blood was put over the doors, and the angel of death only struck the firstborn of Egypt and led Israel through the sea. We remember bread in the wilderness and the water from the rock. We remember Barack and Deborah routing the armies of Siserah, and Jael putting a tent peg through his head. We remember Boaz and Ruth. We remember David and Goliath. We remember Daniel’s three friends in the fiery furnace, and Daniel in the Lion’s Den. We remember Esther and Mordecai. 

We remember the apostles preaching, the church fathers teaching: Augustine and Gregory and Boniface and Luther. We remember the fathers of our nation. We remember those who gave their lives, who spent their lives, who stood, who smiled, who bled, who laughed, who sang, who marched, and we will remember what God has done in our day. He has saved us, He has forgiven us, He has washed us in His blood. And He has seen fit to deliver us from the scourge of Roe. We have a ton of work to do. But we do not work from a place of fear. We work from a place of gratitude, a place of deep thanksgiving, because we serve a God who hears the prayers of His people, a God who saves. And we know this because we have seen it with our own eyes, and because we remember.

Fred & Ann Hurt, RIP

I’m not sure I remember the very first time I met Fred and Ann, but my earliest memories at 14 or 15 years old are warm welcomes into their homes, smiles, kindness, good conversation, good senses of humor, and food. Lots of good food. And that’s pretty much the way it always was. Grandma Ann told me many times that I was much too skinny, and in those early days she was right. And so I do think we all owe her a debt of gratitude for at least some of the weight I’ve put on over the years. I mentioned to my church secretary back in Idaho that I was coming to do this memorial this week, and as it turns out she and her husband had actually stayed with Fred and Ann many years ago when Deacon and Amy got married. And the first thing my secretary mentioned was that she had a great scone recipe from Ann. 

The first thing that we should say at a memorial service like this is thank you. When we have been recipients of such kindness, such hospitality, such care and provision, everyone knows that they should give thanks. Gratitude is the natural response for goodness and blessing. And as we say thank you, it is good and right to remember as much as we can so that we can be thankful for as much as possible. Remembering all the good things, all the gifts, all the conversations, all the laughter, all the stories is also how we honor them. God commands His people to honor their fathers and mothers, and so we are doing that today by this service. Fred and Ann gave so much to all of us, and so we instinctively and rightly want to mark that, remember that, honor that. 

In the Bible the word “honor” literally means “heavy” or “weighty.” Kings and important people in the ancient world were literally weighed down with lots of possessions and riches. When God commands us to honor our parents, He wants us to think highly of them, consider their wisdom and experiences significant and important, remember them, and to pile up memories and thanksgiving for them. Things that don’t matter are easy to forget, but it is good for families and cultures to remember their fathers and mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers. 

This is all very good and very important, but it also presents a possible problem. At a memorial service, we are remembering and giving thanks for someone, and this case, two someones, and yet that raises the question, who are we thanking? It was good and right to thank Fred and Ann when they were living for all that they did for us. But what about now? Who are we thanking now? Who do we thank for all these gifts and memories today? 

Philosophers and atheists sometimes like to argue that there cannot be a God because of the evil in the world. This is called the problem of evil. If God is good and all powerful, and there is evil in the world, they claim that this must mean that God is either not really good or not all powerful since He allows evil in the world, and therefore in either case, no god. While I think there are good answers to that question, I am posing a different question which you might call the problem of goodness and gratitude, and it’s sort of the inverse problem. If there is no god, and there is anything good in the world, where did it come from and who do we thank? 

In the Bible in Romans 1 it says that the invisible attributes of God are clearly seen in the creation of the world, in nature, which includes people, human beings like Fred and Ann. The Bible says that it is so clear that there is a God who made all things that everyone is without an excuse. Even the atheists know there is a God, and in the same place it says that people suppress the truth in unrighteousness. People refuse to admit there is a God because then they would be subject to Him. 

But everyone is going around all day long assuming and believing in some kind of god. If we return to the so-called problem of evil, we might ask: what exactly is evil? Where did you get that standard of good and evil? Who decides? Whatever that standard is, whoever ultimately decides what is good and evil is your god. And ultimately, we are driven back to the question: where did it all come from? And the only two possible answers are God and nothing. Either it was designed and intentional, or it was an accident and completely random. And this brings us back to the problems we’ve been discussing: if everything is ultimately an accident and random, then there is no such thing really as good or evil and gratitude makes no sense at all. But if there is a good and loving God who created this world and gives good gifts like fathers and mothers, homes and families, good food and joy and love, then He is the One that we must thank. He is the one we must thank for the all the good we received in Fred and Ann and all of their good gifts to us. 

I want to say one more thing, and that is that there are no perfect families in this world. And even as we remember all the joy and kindness and love, sometimes memorial services can conjure up mixed feelings, regrets, failures, hurt, and sin. And maybe you’re one of those people who is just really good at stuffing thoughts and feelings like that, but as a minister of the gospel of Jesus, I want to tell you that just stuffing those thoughts and feelings is not honoring to Fred or Ann, and it doesn’t actually fix anything or help anything. And chances are good that those regrets or hurt feelings will grow mold in the back of your heart and mind. It really doesn’t help to leave the moldy cheese in the back of the fridge, as I’m sure Grandma Ann would agree. 

So what do you do with those mixed feelings or less happy memories? The natural man says that there’s nothing to be done. They’re gone, and it is what it is. But the Bible says that God sent His only Son Jesus into the world to reconcile all things. Reconciliation is when two things that are at odds are put back together, and made friends. We say that if someone has died there’s no way to put things right, no way to heal any strains or hurts after that. And that is true for us, but it is not true for Jesus who is risen from the dead. How does Jesus reconcile all things? The Bible says that He does this by His blood, by the blood of His cross. Colossians says that Jesus has made peace through the blood of His Cross, so that by Him, God might reconcile all things, things on earth and things in heaven (Col. 1:20). 

In the first century there was tons of enmity and animosity that had existed for centuries between Jews and Gentiles, but the same principle is true in every other human relationship where there is tension and enmity and animosity: tension between men and women, spouses, parents and children, siblings, bosses and employees, ethnic tensions, and so on. 

How does cross of Jesus reconcile? Just a bit further down, it says that God does this by nailing all of our offenses to the cross of Jesus. When Jesus was crucified, sin was crucified in Him. And the offer of the gospel is that if you look to the cross of Jesus for reconciliation, for healing, for forgiveness, then you can see your sin crucified in Him. Your bitterness, your resentment, as well as the power of any other sins that have been committed against you. You can see it all there, and when you see it there, you look down and it isn’t on you or in you anymore. 

So as we remember and honor Fred and Ann today, we do so in the greatest possible way, we do so by thanking God for them, for their lives, for their love, for their gifts, and by thanking the God who made them and gave them, and by thanking that same God for sending Jesus to reconcile all things, to put all things right, and making peace through His blood. 

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

You Qualify

“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price” (Is. 55:1)

The invitation to Christ and His hospitality really is this wide open: everyone who thirsts, come. Are you thirsty? Come. So anyone who knows they need Jesus can come. In fact, Jesus says that’s the one prerequisite. Jesus told the Jews one time that if they knew they were blind, then He would make them see, but if they didn’t think they were blind, then they actually were blind.

So, are you a sinner? Then come. Have you sinned grievously? Have you sinned badly? Then come. You qualify. This is a table for sinners because Jesus is the friend of sinners. If you don’t think you’re that bad, then you probably aren’t coming with the right kind of faith. The right kind of faith sees Jesus as a pool of clean, cool water and knows that only Jesus can make you clean. If you look down and see the grime and scum of lust and envy and hatred and malice and bitterness and lies, and you hate all of it, and you want to be clean, then come, the water is clean and the water is free. 

And don’t miss that: come everyone who has no money, come buy and eat, come buy and drink wine without price. This feast is free to anyone who wants it. To anyone who wants to be forgiven, the forgiveness is free. The food is free. Again, the only qualification is that you realize that you have no money. If you think that you could probably buy this meal somewhere else, then you aren’t coming with the right kind of faith. 

The right kind of faith knows that you can’t buy this anywhere else and you could never afford it. You could never afford this kind of love, this kind of forgiveness, this kind of mercy, this kind of blessing. 

And when you realize that what Jesus offers, you could never pay for, Jesus says, come, you qualify. You qualify for this grace. Because that’s what it is: undeserved, unmerited, unpaid for mercy, kindness, blessing without measure, without end. So come and welcome to Jesus Christ. 

Photo by mrjn Photography on Unsplash

Politics For His Own Glory

Introduction
Christians confess that Jesus is Lord. He is not trying to be Lord. He is not running for office. He came, was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, worked wonders, healed the sick, walked on water, calmed storms, and finally freely gave up His life as a ransom payment for many sinners. He rose from the dead three days later, and forty days after that, ascended into heaven. He promised that He would send the Spirit as a down payment and proof of His authority and power over Heaven and Earth, and so He equipped His people to preach the gospel and disciple the nations. 

And yet we are witnessing one of the most gut-wrenching collapses of civilization in the history of the world. What is happening all around us is what it looks like to watch a civilization totter in a drunken frenzy and fall. The wheels have all come off, and the train is careening into a canyon. The lies, the vitriol, the pride, the hubris, the violence, the treachery, the selfishness, the debauchery, the decadence is towering, oceanic, cancerous, and pervasive. 

Where is Jesus? Where is Jesus while these insane parents “Drag their kids to Pride,” grooming their children for sexual exploitation and abuse? Where is Jesus while millions of tiny babies are still being chopped up in their mothers’ wombs? Where is Jesus while scheming elites and doddering politicians connive, conspire, and prey upon the weak, the elderly, the poor, the fatherless? Where is Jesus while Muslims blow up churches? Where is Jesus while Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses lead millions to Hell? Where is Jesus while communism grows in China and North Korea and American classrooms? Where is Jesus while millions slowly waste away under the spells of porn, drugs, and despair? Where is Jesus? 

A Couple Catechism Questions
When my son was little, one of the catechism questions I asked him was: What’s Jesus doing in Heaven? And the answer was: Destroying all His enemies. Which is true enough. 1 Cor. 15:25 says that He must reign until all of His enemies have been put beneath His feet. But in moments like this, we are often tempted to ask the question again, but what is Jesus doing right now? This is what we mean by our question: Where is Jesus? We don’t mean geographically or cosmically; we mean what is He doing? Why is He allowing these things to happen? And the same answer is true (He is destroying all of His enemies), but I think maybe another catechism question is needed. My parents also taught me a catechism when I was very young. After a couple of preliminary questions about God making me and all things, the following question asks: Why did God make you and all things? And the answer is: For His own glory. 

For His own glory. I don’t think we think about this enough. John Piper has tried to get us to think about it more. Many of the greatest theologians have spent years and many volumes on this topic, and we so frequently smile and nod and do not understand what they are saying. But think about it. God didn’t need to make anything. He didn’t need to make a world, and He certainly didn’t need to save the world. But He chose to do so for His own glory. But the glory of God is that He isn’t short any glory. He isn’t lacking any glory. Even though we have sinned against His glory and owe an infinite debt to His honor, His glory and honor have not been diminished in the slightest. The glory of the Trinity is endless, infinite, overflowing, and God made us in His image, to reflect that glory. 

We know from Scripture that God has determined to save the world: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved” (Jn. 3:16-17). We know that the salvation of sinners, and the salvation of the world will ultimately bring glory to God. But God doesn’t need sinners to repent for Him to have a better day, a better year, or a better millennium. God is fullness of joy, fullness of peace, fullness of holiness, justice, mercy, goodness, and love. And God made us and the world, and by extension, the history of the world, for His own glory, to display His complete self-sufficiency. God didn’t make the world and its history to satisfy our desires, or at least, not directly. He created the universe and every detail of its story so that everything in the world would proclaim His glory. So that everything would proclaim His worth, His fullness, His perfection, His abundance, His sufficiency. As John Piper has famously put it: God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in Him.  

The Lord of Glory
This helps to explain why it pleases God greatly for one of His image bearers to stand up for the truth in Jesus’ name, when no one cares, when no one listens, when it doesn’t seem to do any earthly good at all. Our natural instinct is to think that if it doesn’t do anything, or change anything, or fix anything, it must have not worked. But that is to measure with an earthly, human scale. God says that He does what He does to bring glory to His name. Sure, there is glory in God answering prayers, glory in sinners repenting and being converted, and glory in changing the course of human history. But there is also great glory for God in faithful witnesses standing before enemies unashamed of the truth because the only reason a man would do that sort of thing is because He has been captured by the beauty of His Savior. And that is glorious.

What did Stephen get out of testifying to the Jewish Sanhedrin? Nothing. What did Stephen get for faithful message confronting the hard-hearted Jews. Nothing but rocks thrown at his head, and the glory of Christ his Master, his King, his Lord. And yes, God used Stephen’s death for great good, scattering the Christians so that the Word would spread even faster. But the point is that Stephen’s faithful testimony was successful simply because it pleased God, it glorified God and that is the greatest reward.  

So of course the answer to all of our questions: Where is Jesus? Is simply and wonderfully, He is here. He is in Heaven and He is Immanuel: God with us. He is present by His Spirit. He is active. He is reigning. He is Lord. But He is the Lord of Glory, the King of Glory. And we are His subjects and the battle lines are being drawn, with many Philistines and Giants taunting us and our King. And I suspect that our King has determined to use this moment to display a particularly potent form of His glory, the glory of the few who are unashamed to speak the name of Jesus in the public square, the glory of a man, of a woman, face shining, smiling, unashamed of Christ and His Word. And the glory is not measured by immediate results. The glory is measured by the pleasure of God. No, we will not live by lies. We will not bow our knees to false pronouns, to race hustlers, to guilt manipulators, to perversion pimps, to statist sacraments, to pseudo-science witchcraft, or any other argument that sets itself up against the knowledge of Jesus Christ. 

The Treasure in the Field
The glory of God is His greatness and majesty and power and goodness that is utterly transcendent and immense and free. It is the treasure in the field that the man found, and having found it, sold everything he had to purchase the field. To begin to perceive the glory of God is to see that nothing compares to it. Everything fades before it: job, career, money, houses, fame, reputation, family, friends, marriage, children, and every comfort. 

There’s a little-known verse of the hymn Come Thou Fount that our new Cantus Christi hymnal has re-inserted that is utterly jarring to modern ears:

“If thou ever didst discover
To my faith the promised land,
Bid me now the stream pass over,
On the heavenly border stand. 
Now surmount whate’er opposes,
Into thine embrace I’d fly;
Speak the word thou spake to Moses;
Bid me, ‘Get thee up and die.’” 

I’m not saying this needs to be your new favorite verse, but I would say there is something wonderful here and full of glory. The verse is saying that the glory of God is so great that if we ever got a true glimpse of it, we would want nothing but to be with the Lord immediately. We would be begging God to let us come into His embrace. To live is Christ and to die is better. But to live to Christ is to live with eyes fixed on Christ. This need not veer into some kind of pseudo-gnostic pietism, rejecting the good gifts of God’s creation: food, drink, sex, laughter, marriage, children, or work. But the point is that all of these good gifts, are the good gifts of the Lord of Glory, the King of Glory, the Fount of Every Blessing. 

Conclusion
All of this means that when the world tells lies, we stand up for the truth because the truth is Christ our glory. When the world rages against Christ, against His created order, we stand with Christ our glory, come what may. And when we are hated, lied about, smeared, slandered, fired, fined, and rejected, we rejoice for being counted worthy to suffer for His name. Because His name is worthy. All glory to His name. 

I suspect that this will be the turning point in this battle that we are currently in, and I do believe that it is coming — it will be at that moment when God raises up a number of men who are zealous for the name of Christ, who cannot be bought or distracted or manipulated by any threats or bribes or consequences because Christ is their treasure, their glory, and obedience is their crown. They may suffer greatly, and God will be their reward. But the glory will shine in that moment because it had nothing to do with immediate results. It will be the simple truth from the bottom of their hearts: Jesus is worthy and I will serve Him, come what may. 

Jesus is Lord of the public square. He is Lord there, and He will certainly reign until every public square acknowledges that He is their Lord. The United States and Canada and England and France and Russia and China and Brazil must all kiss the Son, lest they perish in His wrath. There is no other name under Heaven by which any man may be saved, and therefore His name is above every name and it is to be honored by all men. But this means that we do not fundamentally need a bunch of Christians to get more political. No, we need a bunch of Christians to become more Christian. We need a bunch of Christians to become real Christians, and then we need a bunch of real Christians to be zealous for the glory of God, for the glory of Jesus. When this happens, it will be unmistakable.

As C.S. Lewis says somewhere if you aim at earth, you will miss it and lose it entirely, but if you aim at Heaven, you will get this world thrown in. If you aim merely at a Christian presence in the public square, you will miss it and lose it entirely, as we have seen over the course of the last number of decades. But if you aim at the supremacy of Christ, the glory of Christ, full and complete satisfaction in Jesus, God will throw everything in, including politics, and every knee will bow. 

Photo by Brad Dodson on Unsplash

The Sanity of Gratitude

“… when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools…” (Rom. 1:21-22).

We live in a world that has gone mad. The Bible says that when sin goes unchecked, people go insane. Thinking that they are wise, they become fools. And so they have, all around us, right on schedule. 

There are many temptations in this kind of moment. One is just plain fear: terrified of what new madness they will think up next. Another might be pride or self righteousness: at least we know the difference between boys and girls.

But this table teaches us the right response to all of it: Gratitude, thanksgiving to God for all of His good gifts. In fact, Romans says that it is the refusal to give thanks that leads to the madness. They refused to give thanks and worship God as God, therefore they became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Therefore, giving thanks is the medicine, the solution, the cure for the insanity at all around us.  

When the Spirit was poured out at Pentecost, the people watching and listening were amazed to hear in their own native languages “the wonderful works of God” (Acts 2:11). We frequently emphasize the different languages part, but really just as miraculous and powerful was the “wonderful works of God” part. When the Spirit falls, people are filled with gratitude. When the Spirit falls, people start talking about Jesus and His salvation and all of His good gifts. When the Spirit falls people are put back in their right minds, and the sanity that returns is a sanity of deep thanksgiving. 

Do you want to actually be wise? Give thanks. Do you want to see clearly? Give thanks. Do you want this land to recover from its madness? Cultivate gratitude everywhere: in your car, at work, in your home, around the dinner table, all flowing from this table, from Christ. So come and welcome to Jesus Christ. 

Photo by Warren Wong on Unsplash