Toby J. Sumpter's Blog, page 34

Sinless Savior

Hebrews 4 says that we have a high priest who sympathizes with us in our weakness because He has been tempted in every way just as we are, yet He did not sin. And then it says, therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace. But we often get this almost exactly backwards. We think because Christ is perfect and sinless, we cannot draw near to Him, and we think He cannot possibly understand our situation since He never committed the sins we have committed. But the text says exactly the opposite. It says that because He did not sin, He can sympathize with us. There are some things you understand better from the outside. 

Think about the panic that can set in if you get a cramp or get disoriented in deep water. The panic can lead to drowning. But someone outside the water can see where you are and where you need to go; they can give you good instructions and save you. This applies to Christ and to good friends. Sometimes, we think the best counselor or friend is someone who is in the same trouble we are in. Of course there can be some help in that, but frequently that’s like wishing there was someone else out in the water with you just as lost and scared. There’s no guarantee that a second person who is lost and scared will help. What you want is someone who is not your situation who can help. 

So this is the good news of our sinless Christ. He understands your situation perfectly because He has not fallen in. So above all of the voices, all the shouting, all the panic, listen to the voice of Jesus. Drawn near to Him with confidence because in Him you will always find mercy and grace to help in your time of need. Are you in need? Then come.

Come and welcome to Jesus Christ. 

Photo by Janosch Diggelmann on Unsplash

Not Stress Eating

This meal is the center of our Sabbath celebration. We sit down in the presence of God and enjoy bread and wine. In the Old Covenant, priests were forbidden from sitting in the presence of God, and while priests could eat bread, no one was allowed to drink wine in the presence of God. While God invited His people to draw near in worship, they could not yet really, fully rest in His presence. But Jesus Christ has paid all our debts. All our sins are washed away. We have been received in the Beloved, and now we are His children, sons and daughters of the King. 

This is not a dour meal. This is not a cranky ceremony. This is the part where you breathe a sigh of relief. Christ is King. He holds the nations in the palm of His hand. He numbers the hairs on your head. Do not look at the things that weigh upon you. Do not look at the struggles in your family. Do not look at your health concerns. Do not look at our political situation. Right now, look to your King. He is faithful. He is wise. He is good. He has overcome the evil one. Rest in Him. 

In the face of kings and rulers conspiring together, Psalm 2 says that He who sits in the heavens laughs. He is not stressed out. He is not worried. He is not axious. He is King. He is Lord. And He has already secured the outcome. As we share this bread and wine, we are sharing that victory, that security, that peace, that Sabbath rest. So look down your aisle as you pass the bread and wine. Look at one another and smile, smile at your wife, your husband, your kids, your roommates. You are not sharing stress. We are not stress-eating. This is Sabbath rest. We are sharing Christ, and Christ is King. So come and welcome, to Jesus Christ. 

Photo by mohamed hassouna on Unsplash

Fight Laugh Feast 2021 & the Gamma Variant

Introduction
Someone has probably clicked on this link eagerly hoping to hear that our most recent conference was a super spreader event. And it was, but I’m sorry to break it to you, not in the way you might hope. What we were spreading was life, health, industry, and good cheer, not the Gamma Variant, or whatever Greek letter we’re on now.

But most of all, I want to register my gratitude here to God, to the CrossPolitic Crew, the Fight Laugh Feast Network, the speakers and their families, the sponsors and vendors, and the 1300+ people who came to Lebanon, TN for the second annual Fight Laugh Feast Conference. What a blast. We continue to be blown away, thankful, and inspired by the thousands of thoughtful Christians we have had the opportunity to meet, fellowship with, sing with, learn with, feast with, and more fully co-labor with, in this moment over the last several years. 

And that co-laboring is what I want to emphasize here. Many folks have asked me what was most encouraging about the conference – what was my favorite talk? I was grateful for all of the main stage plenary talks, and while I only caught snippets of the SWAT talks, I’ve heard good things all around. But my consistent thought and answer to the question has been two-fold, and I want to share it here because I think it’s a real encouragement, even if you didn’t make it out to the conference — which, by the way, all the talks were recorded and are (or will be) available for Fight Laugh Feast club members).   

Against the Gamma Variant
First, I think Christian conferences on the whole have generally suffered for many decades from a rather virulent form of Gnosticism – let’s call it The Gamma Variant – that’s Gamma for Gnosticism. Gnosticism is an ancient Christian heresy that denies the goodness of the material world and history. It claims that salvation is found in secret knowledge (“gnosis”) that supposedly enables the initiated to escape and transcend this dirty, infected material/historical existence. And in the face of this, John wrote, “In the beginning was the Word… and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (Jn. 1:1, 14).

On top of that Word-made-flesh glory, that same glory was crucified, buried, and raise from the dead and ascended into heaven. Not only did the Eternal Word who is God take on flesh, but that same God-man suffered for the sins of the world and was raised from the dead in a glorified human body and now sits at the right hand of the Father. All of this to say: creation is good, creation has been cursed by sin, but the Maker has embraced His Creation and taken away the curse, and now that same Creation is in Heaven. If God has embraced this world to redeem it and glorify it, so should we. This world matters. Dominion matters. Evangelism matters. Business matters. Art matters. 

The point here is that modern Christians have fallen into this ancient heresy to the extent that much of our discipleship and teaching has consisted for far too long in mere information, so-called “spiritual experiences,” and a bifurcated view of the universe, with religious/spiritual matters (read: “really important things”) over here (at church on Sundays and at occasional retreats and conferences), and all those dirty “secular” material things (read: “not important, not spiritual”) over there. 

Of course I have no problem with Christian conferences on theology, Christian philosophy, or apologetics or the Bible. All of that is great, fabulous, incredibly important even. So long as we are in full submission to the Word of God, I’m all for it. But the gaping hole has been the decided lack of Christian conferences on business, culinary arts, fine arts, media production, entertainment, economics, criminal law, and politics. We have left those industries, those fields of human endeavor to the Marxists, leftists, and alphabet jihadists. And lo, shock of all shocks, those industries and areas of life are dominated by such ilk.  

But there have been voices in the wilderness. Francis Shaeffer began talking about how the Christian faith impacts the arts and media and politics back in the 70s and 80s. The reconstructionists began writing and talking (with all their endearing grumpiness) about the fact that Bible has something to say about politics, foreign policy, criminal law, and economics back in the 80s. And Doug Wilson and others launched the classical Christian education movement around the same time, while thousands of other families simply walked out of the government schools. Huzzah!

So what was most exciting thing to me about the Fight Laugh Feast Conference? It was the combination of flavors, the combination of choke-holds we put on Gnosticism, secularism, materialism, and all that damned nonsense. The talks were theologically and biblically robust, but they hit so many areas of life: family, sex, politics, church, economics, arts, abortion, media, philosophy, history, business, comedy, law, and homemaking. And I know I’m missing some. 

Closely related to all of those topics, is the fact that the 1300+ people who attended are the kinds of people who are attracted to this breadth of knowledge and living. The kinds of people who came are conscientous Christians who are committed to taking dominion of the whole world, just like Genesis says. They are husbands and wives, parents and children, churchmen and pastors, military men and homemakers, businessmen and artists, entrepreneurs and investors, creators and educators. They are believers and doers. 

And one of the most important things for us at CrossPolitic is helping these people meet one another. God has poured out His Spirit on the church, and this means that He has given gifts to men. These gifts include wisdom and skill and resources in every area of life. And when we work together to start families, churches, schools, businesses, and companies, we are building the Kingdom. 

Doers of the Word
The second thing I’ve mentioned to folks – as one of my favorite things to happen at the conference is the fact that there was a luncheon for Christian CEOs looking to be encouraged in this current cancel culture and looking to network with other Christians. Our friend Andrew Crapuchettes from Red Balloon led this charge. This exemplifies the previous point. It was a conference full of good fellowship, but it was a working conference, a conference for Christians who are committed to hard work. And we did it all with several hundred kids in attendance, while singing Psalms every chance we got. Which is to say, we understand that the only way our hard work will be potent for the Kingdom is if God builds our houses and watches over our cities (Ps. 127). And if it is God who is building our families, our churches, and businesses, then we want to build with Him, cutting with the grain of His blessing. And that means we want fruitful families, piles of well-loved kids, with His War-Songs in our mouths as we work and fight.

And if all of this wasn’t encouraging enough already, I want to aim all of this at our current Blundering-Biden Moment. And what I mean is all the mandates, all the political overreach, all the diktats, all the soft fascism oozing out of the talking heads.

Am I worried? Am I scared? Not a bit. 

Don’t get me wrong. We are up against it. We are in it. There are orcs overrunning our lands, and there have been and there will be some atrocities in the process. But what I see happening is a God-given shake-up allowing the people of God to re-align with allies and friends. This shake-up has happened in the churches, in schools, in families, in businesses, and in the states. Right about now you should know that there is no going “back to normal.” This disease is Stage 5 Cancer. But there’s a good bit about this country that needs to die. So find your people. Make a strategic retreat if you need to. Find high ground to defend. Find a church that won’t shut down. Find a school with an explicitly Christian backbone free of government hooks and whips, which is usually indicated by the fact that they will not require masks. Start a business or join one that respects your responsibility before God to worship Him alone and make your own health care decisions. And probably in order to do those things you will also need to find a relatively conservative state, and a county and city where there is at least some visible, vocal presence of old school Americans who believe in Biblical freedom, preferably with a sheriff who chews tobacco and reads John Calvin in his free time. 

We’ve had it easy in this country for a while, and thank God for all the blessings, but Christianity is a fighting religion: we were made to storm the gates of Hell. We were made for moments like this. 

Conclusion
The Fight Laugh Feast Conference was a huddle, and there will be (Lord willing) many more huddles like it. We huddle to discuss, to encourage, to offer feedback, to consider the plays, and then we break to run back out on to the field, to run the next play, to follow our Captain into the fray.

Who knows what folly will be announced next, but I’m seeing thousands of Christians busy with good work building real Christian economies – communities that can and will provide protection, provision, jobs, schools, industries that withstand all the nonsense, cities on a hill, bright gospel light in this present darkness. So find your people and dig in: hard work, education, and planning for generations, all centered around the worship of the Triune God. It has always worked in the past and it will work again.

Christ is King. Glory to God.

R.I.P. Tressa DeBoer

Ps. 127 A Song of mAscents. Of Solomon.
Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the LORD xwatches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious ytoil; for he gives to his zbeloved asleep. Behold, bchildren are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of da warrior are the children1 of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies ein the gate.

Embedded in these words is a biblical concept called “covenant.” God made covenant with Abraham and promised to be his God, and the God of his children after him, that his descendants would be as numerous as the grains of sand on the seashore, and as glorious and numerous as the stars of the heavens. In fact, God promised that through Abraham’s children, all the nations of the earth would be blessed (Gen. 12:3, 21:17-18). 

A covenant is an agreement between two or more persons, with attendant blessings and curses – blessings for keeping the terms of the covenant, curses for breaking covenant. God made covenant with Abraham and then renewed that covenant with Israel at Mt. Sinai. While God called his people to obedience, He always called them first to faith. Abraham believed God and it was imputed to him as righteousness (Gen. 15:6). Even the Ten Commandments begin with a statement of salvation: “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage…” The only way to obey God rightly is to first trust God fully. 

And so we see the same thing here in this Psalm. Children are a heritage of the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward. But we do not build families in our own strength. Unless the Lord builds the house, we labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. Apart from the covenant blessing of God, we can do nothing. If God is not with us, all our attempts at family and community are worthless. But if God is with us, nothing and no one can stand against us. 

But we are fallen and sinful, and no man or woman keeps covenant perfectly. We are all covenant breakers in Adam, and we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The wages of sin is death, and so we all deserve to die. And when we come to a funeral, we come face to face with the curse of sin, the curse of covenant breaking. Often, when we come to a funeral of a loved one, there can be many regrets. Perhaps you regret things that were said, or things left unsaid, or the way things were left. There may be a sense that certain things were unresolved or there may have been tensions in the family or old sins or grievances never completely addressed. A funeral in this world can amplify weaknesses, regrets, and failures. And yet, we are here as Christians to ask for God’s blessing on this moment, on this family, and on all who knew Mrs. DeBoer. But the question staring us in the face is: How can a just God who promises to punish covenant breakers, nevertheless bless covenant breakers?

How can we ask for the blessing of Psalm 127 when the wages of sin is death? The answer is that we must have another covenant, a greater covenant. We must have a covenant of grace. We must have a covenant that is perfectly kept. And so we do: Jesus is the head of the New Covenant. Every covenant must have a head, a representative. The Old Covenant head was Adam, and so we have all been born under the curses of that broken covenant, and therefore it is appointed to every man to die once (Heb. 9:27). But the New Covenant head is Jesus, and He has volunteered to represent all who trust in Him. He has been perfectly faithful to the terms of the covenant. In fact, He has been faithfully obedient even to the point of death, even the cursed death of the Cross. And because He has fulfilled the terms of Adam’s covenant, dying for our disobedience, receiving the fullness of the curse we deserved, all who trust in Him are granted the status of covenant keepers. This was the righteousness reckoned to Abraham a couple thousand years before Jesus came. 

How could Abraham believe that God would bless his family with descendants like sand and stars, that through him all the nations of the earth would be blessed? How could Abraham, a frail, sinful man possibly receive such a heavy blessing? Only by believing that God would somehow uphold both sides of the covenant. In other words, only by believing that God would build his house, by believing that God would watch over his city. God would have to do it. And so God did in the person of His own well-beloved Son, Jesus Christ. 

This is how we ask for the blessing of Psalm 127 on this moment, on this family, on this legacy. We ask for it by faith in Jesus Christ alone. He has been perfectly faithful, and if we are in Him, we stand perfectly righteous before the throne of God. And we are summonsed to come boldly. We come clothed in our covenant head, we come in His name, in His obedience, in His covenant faithfulness. And therefore, we may ask God boldly for the covenant blessings of that obedience. And so we do that now.

We ask that God would be pleased to continue building this family, this house, this legacy, and that He would watch over this city. We ask for fruitfulness to continue, with children and grandchildren and great-grand children that love the Lord and walk with Him all their days. We ask for boldness and courage that they might stand in the gates and speak with our enemies under the blessing of the living God and never be put to shame. We ask that the legacy of this woman, a dear daughter of the covenant, would be mercy and truth, to a thousand generations. 

And so may we rest in the covenant care of our covenant-keeping God. We do not eat the bread of anxious toil; for He gives His beloved sleep. And so we trust that Tressa DeBoer is resting safely in the presence of her covenant Lord, and so we rest secure in that same mighty care. 

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

Photo by Barthelemy de Mazenod on Unsplash

The Gospel

Logos Assembly September 2021 
Eph. 2:1-10

Introduction
I am presenting on the Gospel today, but as I do so, I want to point out a few ways in which sometimes well-meaning Christians get the gospel wrong. They may use many of the same words, but because some of the words mean different things and there may be other assumptions at work, the actual gospel message being presented is watered down, distorted, not the high-octane gospel message of the Bible. Hopefully, you know this by now, but not all Christian churches are created equal, meaning, not all Christian churches are equally faithful to Scripture, equally healthy, or equally discipling their members. 

One of the ways we know this generally is simply by how things are going in the battlefield of our culture. Professing Christians are a massive portion of our nation’s population, and yet, we are being bossed around by a far smaller minority of sexual deviants and activists. Why? I believe a significant part of the answer is that what passes for preaching the gospel in many North American evangelical churches is at best a very watered-down version of the gospel, and at worst, it isn’t even the gospel. The result is that there are many people who profess faith in Jesus who are either not really Christians at all, or else are such weak and confused Christians that they are not equipped to face challenges. The final verse of our text says that being saved by grace means becoming God’s workmanship and producing good works. Professing Christians who are not producing those good works call into question whether they are truly God’s workmanship. One time I was talking to Pastor Jim Wilson, and he said, “God does a better job than that.”

Some Gospel Distortions
One of the ways the gospel is sometimes distorted or watered down is by presenting it as a helpful aid for life. God can help your family. God can help your business. God can help your love life. God can help you feel better. Of course there is a sense in which God does help His people in all of life, but that isn’t the gospel. The gospel isn’t a self-help solution.

Another way the gospel is sometimes distorted or watered down is by making it seem like the gospel is something within anyone’s power to accept. We can give this impression when the entirety of a gospel presentation is, “just ask Jesus into your heart.” Sometimes the Bible verse about Jesus standing at the door and knocking is quoted from Revelation, and it is misconstrued to be referring to the door of an unsaved sinner’s heart, as though Jesus is waiting around for us to act. He would like to help, but He hasn’t been invited in yet. The gospel is not merely, “you can ask Jesus into your heart.”

And this leads to a third distortion of the gospel that is sort of the flip side of the previous one, and that is presenting Christ and His Cross as not really very powerful or potent. If the gospel is all about asking Jesus into your heart, and He’s standing at the door knocking, hoping you will let Him in, what kind of Savior is that? And more specifically, it creates the impression that the death of Jesus only made it possible for some to be saved, if only they will ask. The Cross is God’s best effort at saving sinners. That’s like saying God bought a bunch of get-out-of-jail cards, if anyone wants one. But that’s very different than God Himself breaking into the prison and leading the jail break, guaranteeing the freedom of many particular prisoners. 

These distortions also make God’s love sort of anemic and sentimental. The get-out-of-jail cards He left at the front office are not for anyone in particular. It’s only a generic love. And it raises the question: does God’s love in Christ only work if we want it to? It might work for some but not for others. And so many people actually say that: your religion works for you but not for me. The Cross in this view didn’t guarantee or accomplish anything for sure. And when it works, apparently it’s primarily an emotional response, making you feel really bad or really good or something, but that veers dangerously close to manipulation. And it often leaves people feeling very uncertain about their faith, God, and truth, as they see their salvation as bound up with an emotional experience. Their emotions become their standard.

What is the Gospel?
Our text makes it clear that the gospel is not a self-help solution because it says before we are saved, we are dead in our trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1, 5). Dead people can’t help themselves, and there’s not really anything that can be done for dead people. You can’t really help the dead. 

The only thing that can be done for the dead is raise them. How much could Lazarus do for himself in the tomb? Could Lazarus even ask Jesus for help? If Jesus stood at the door of his tomb and knocked, could Lazarus let Him in? This is why our text says that when God saves us, He makes us alive. He raises us from the dead. While it is true that in salvation the Spirit gives us a new heart and Christ comes to dwell in us, it is not true that Jesus is waiting around for us to let Him. 

Nevertheless, we know that salvation is by faith, by believing in Christ’s work for us. We are told that all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved (Rom. 10:13). “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?” (Rom. 10:14)

But how can dead people hear someone preaching? Ezekiel is actually given this very picture in the Valley of Dry Bones (Ez. 37). He preaches to the dry bones and they come together and flesh comes upon them, and finally, he calls the Spirit to fill them. God uses preaching to call the dead to life, and our text says that they are saved by grace through faith. But that faith is the gift of God (Eph. 2:8). It’s not of works, which means that we don’t even come up with the faith ourselves, otherwise, we would have a reason to boast (Eph. 2:9).

In all of this, we are God’s “workmanship, created in Christ Jesus.” We are New Creations, and Paul says elsewhere that it is the same sort of act as the first creation: “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of the darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6). We supply the darkness, and Christ commands the light to shine in our hearts. We supply the blindness, and Christ makes us see. 

Finally, we can be even more specific about Christ’s work on the cross. Christ’s death was not merely an expression of His love and an attempt to save sinners (if they will only let Him). The particular kind of death we are in before we are saved is the death of trespasses and sins, slavery to the devil and disobedience, and we were children of wrath (Eph. 2:1-3). 

“And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God bmade alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by ccanceling dthe record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. wHe disarmed the rulers and authorities2 and eput them to open shame, by ftriumphing over them  in him” (Col. 2:13-15). 

So how does Christ make us alive? By forgiving our trespasses. But how does He forgive them since He is perfectly just? Can God let a mass murderer into heaven? Does He just give some sins a pass? No, that would be unjust and wicked. He cancels our debt and sets it aside by nailing it to the cross.

At the same time and in the same action He also disarms the rulers and authorities – Satan and all his demons – how? Well, Satan is the “Accuser.” His power over anyone is based on their guilt. Satan is a prosecuting attorney, and He brings the accusations of all our sin. But if Christ has died in our place, and all of our particular sins have been nailed to His cross, then every accusation of Satan falls flat. Satan is put to open shame. Christ has triumphed over them. 

But this means that when Christ said, “It is finished.” He actually accomplished the salvation of His people. He paid for the particular sins of particular people, such that their specific debts were paid, the wrath of God has been satisfied, and therefore, they cannot help but come alive. 

Conclusion
The gospel is the good news that we are utterly powerless to save ourselves. We provide the sin and guilt. We provide the corpse. We provide the darkness. We do not merely need “help.” We need to be made alive. The gospel is the good news that Jesus is Lord. And that means that He is not knocking on the door of our hearts, hoping we will let Him in. Jesus always gets His man, woman, or child. He does not need our permission to save. If He needed our permission to save us, no one would be saved. Christ did not die in order to try to save people in general. Christ died for particular sins for particular people so that they would be saved completely, certainly, and to the uttermost.

“And fthis is the will of him who sent me, gthat I should lose nothing of hall that he has given me, but iraise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who jlooks on the Son and kbelieves in him lshould have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day… No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.” (Jn. 6:39-40, 44).

It is this potent gospel – the gospel of God’s mighty grace that makes mighty Christians. But a weak gospel makes weak Christians. The more people think they can do in their salvation the weaker the gospel, and ironically, the weaker their faith. But when we understand our own utter weakness, the power of God bestows a more powerful faith.  

How do you know you’re a Christian? Do you love Jesus? Do you want to follow Him? Do love singing His praises? We love Him because He loved us first. Do you love going to church? Do love being around other Christians? John says that we know that we have passed from death to life because we love the brethren. 

How do you know that you’re really alive? Are you breathing? Is your heart beating? 

Or do you not really love God? Are Christians annoying? Are you secretly counting down the days till you can leave home, leave church? Then you aren’t alive in Christ. You’re still dead in your sins and trespasses. And this is the first part of the gospel. You are lost. You cannot save yourself. You cannot do anything to help.

But the second part is this. We proclaim Christ crucified for the particular sins of particular sinners, so that their debts might all be paid, so that they might walk out of the grave of sin and death. And just as Jesus called Lazarus and told him to come forth, so too, Christians ministers (and all Christians are authorized) to proclaim this gospel to dead sinners and God promises to use that announcement to make dead sinners live, and when they gasp for air, the first thing they do is call on the name of the Lord.

In Narnia, the children explain that they had been calling for Aslan, and Aslan explains to the children that they could not have called for Him unless He had first called for them. And so it is with the gospel. So it is with our Christ our Savior. Do you love Him? It is because He loved you first.

Photo by John Thomas on Unsplash

It’s in the Hebrew

“The Church submits to Christ in part by praying and singing the Psalms back to Him. And so this is one of the ways we can learn about what it means for a wife to submit to her husband in everything…

What we find in the Psalms are many prayers of praise, respect, honor, remembering God’s greatness and salvation. Therefore, a wife should work hard to praise her husband, speak highly to him and about him, and thank him for his faithfulness, loyalty, hard work, paying the bills, and so on…

Nevertheless, we also find Psalms of lament and sadness, one of which says something like, ‘Where have you been all day? Why have you not answered any of my texts? I’m surrounded by people in diapers. Will you not come speedily with chocolate ice cream and deliver me?'”

–No Mere Mortals, 53.

Photo by Phil Hearing on Unsplash

Very Good

This meal that Jesus gave us teaches us the pattern of Christian dominion. When God created the world, each thing that He made, He pronounced good before He went to work on it again and made it better. This is what dominion is: receiving God’s good gifts, giving thanks for them, and then making them better. 

In a fallen and sinful world, there is more pain and suffering and now death is involved, but the pattern really is the same. And Jesus demonstrates that pattern in this meal that He gave us. He took bread that represented His body, gave thanks, and broke it and shared it with the disciples. Then He did the same thing, taking wine representing His blood, gave thanks for it, and then distributed it. Notice the pattern: He takes the gift God has given (in this case His body and blood), gives thanks for it, and then breaks it apart and distributes. This is the pattern of good to very good. Good bread becomes a very good fellowship. Good wine becomes very good forgiveness and peace. 

So what we are doing here, God is teaching us to do everywhere. Receive the gift, give thanks for it, and then look for some way to make it better, share it, bless someone, turn a profit. But the key thing really is gratitude. Thankfulness is what allows you to see clearly what is there, what has been given, and that is what will allow you to make it fruitful. But God has often assigned us a challenge to take dominion of that is difficult to be thankful for. So what is it for you? A friendship? Your marriage? Your parents? Your kids? A roommate? A health challenge? This mad, mad world? First give thanks. And then maybe give thanks again. Keep giving thanks until you see what it is for, until you see how to make it fruitful.

And don’t miss the fact that this is what God is doing to you: He has taken hold of you, rejoiced over you in His Son, and now He’s breaking you, He’s remaking you, in order to make you very good, in order to make you very fruitful. So come and welcome to Jesus Christ. 

Photo by Maja Petric on Unsplash

A Double & Triple Wedding Homily

It has been rightly said that the resurrection of Jesus is the end of the world breaking into the middle of history. Faithful Jews had always looked in hope for the resurrection of the dead. Job said in the midst of his suffering, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God” (Job 19:25-26). And Martha told Jesus regarding her brother Lazarus who had died, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day” (Jn. 11:24). But then Jesus announced to her that something completely unexpected was happening. He said, “I am the resurrection and the life.” The end of history, the end of the world, had arrived in the middle of history when Jesus was born, and ultimately when Jesus rose from the dead. 

But there is another way that the end of history has always been breaking into the middle of history. Paul says that this is what weddings are. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church” (Eph. 5:31-32). That first verse is a quotation from Genesis 2 describing the very first marriage in the history of the world, on the very first day of human history in the history of the world. And Paul says that what was pictured on that first day of human history in the very first wedding ceremony between Adam and his wife, was the last day of human history: the marriage of Christ and His Bride, the church. Revelation 21 says, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Rev. 21:1-2).  

The Bible teaches that beginning with the first wedding in the history of the world, every wedding since has been a proclamation, a revelation of the end of history. And this means that there is some sense in which every wedding is a double wedding, and if that’s true, then this is actually a triple wedding – there’s always one more couple – there is always Christ and the Church. 

But it turns out that this other couple, this final wedding that is always being proclaimed at every wedding, is not really anything less than the resurrection breaking into human history. Rev. 21 goes on to say: “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Rev. 21:3-4). This is partially why weddings are such joyful moments. They are pictures of unity and happiness, but they are actually always pointing us to what our hearts long for: the union of God and man once more and the end of all death and suffering and sadness. 

But here’s the point: weddings are not merely pictures of the union of God and man and the end of all death and suffering and sadness. They are offers of that reality presented to the world now. Sentimentalism looks at all of this, sighs, perhaps even sheds a tear or two and then turns away in unbelief. Perhaps various forms of scientism or naturalism look at all of this and only see naïveté, blind optimism and thinks, just wait till the honeymoon’s over. But faith sees all of this as a down payment, as true evidence of God’s goodness, as a real garish splash of beauty in a truly dark world, and faith says, if God can give this gift, then He must be infinitely greater. If this kind of goodness and beauty exist in this fallen world, surely the source of this goodness and beauty also exists. What is being offered here is a proclamation of Christ and His Bride, the church, and in that offer is the offer of resurrection life here and now. Jesus says that if anyone believes in Him, he will never die. Do you believe?

These couples are not Jesus and the Church, but they are picturing it for us now. By God’s determination, they are a small but true glimpse of the last day here on this day. And therefore, this is a picture of what is happening to the whole world even now. John saw the New Jerusalem coming down out of Heaven, as a bride adorned for her husband. And that is the history of the world since the death and resurrection of Christ.

He took our sin judicially, so that He might take away our sin historically. He paid for all the guilt, so that He might wash away all our stains. It turns out that Jesus is an eager groom. He saw us far off and came for us in our darkness, in our rebellion, in our shame. And He is the one who has carried us back home. And He is the one who is ushering us down the aisle of history. The Last Day came in the middle of history in order to usher us to the end personally Himself. And that means there is utterly no doubt that we will make it. And every wedding – particularly every Christian wedding – is a reminder that Christ is still ushering His Bride.

Despite the insanity, despite the darkness and sin and suffering, He is leading us straight to the altar, straight to the marriage supper of the Lamb.

Photo by Patrick Hodskins on Unsplash

Beast-Mode Homemaking: and other thoughts on women in sports

Introduction
Modern conservatives have very few wins. We mostly lose. And we frequently lose because our flesh, the devil, and our enemies offer us compromises. Here, vote for this – it will look like you put up a good fight, it will look like you won something, but in actual fact, you will have given up ground and be in a worse position. But hardly anyone will notice for at least a couple of years and by then all the compromisers are lost in the crowd. 

I mean look at us, we have been at least as numerous in national elections as leftists, sometimes holding majorities, and many red states are shot through with conservatives, and yet we rarely take ground back. Our “victories” frequently consist of us repelling a particular attack, which, to put it mildly is not the same as winning the battle. The same is often true in our denominations. We are rarely gaining on Christian principles. I say “rarely” because I know there are shining counter-examples. I’m just painting the broad side of our barn. 

The Olympic Circus
So the Olympics are upon us and conservatives are desperate to display the old forgotten virtues of nationalism and piety and loyalty and tenacity and men in speedos. Also women in speedos or bikinis or whatever because gymnastics, running fast, and dress codes. Also women grappling with each other, trying to put one another in headlocks, throwing one another, and ultimately, if all goes well, pinning a woman to the mat. If you think any of this has been sexualized in the slightest, you’re a slimy pervert. Unless of course you are the women’s handball team from Norway, then you’re a hero. You go girl. But if you thought that any women might be sexualized before that, then you’re a slimy pervert. You’re only allowed to notice that something *might* be sexualized and immodest if all of the media outlets report on it first. You should also wait until the team intentionally disobeys the upstanding citizens on the Olympic committees requiring girls to play in their underwear. You should also probably wait until the whole team has been fined by the same committees for not playing handball in their underwear. Then, and only then, can you agree that there might be some, perhaps only a little, sexualizing and immodesty going on in that great and wholesome pagan circus known as the Olympics. 

Now don’t get me wrong. I grew up in this land. Red blood courses through my veins. I too am not immune to those Facebook video ads of that guy who falls at the start of the race and then overtakes the pack and wins Olympic gold. I have a heart. And while the “gospel” presentations of how this poor orphan overcame odds, usually believed in herself, and then gets her chance in the Olympics are way overdone and overdone, I get the appeal. And when one of them actually is a Christian and they give all the glory to Christ and tell us that He is more precious than gold, and so on, sure, I’m thankful for that. Does my heart not beat U-S-A?

Desperate Youth Pastor Syndrome
But refer back to paragraphs one and two. On the whole, taking one thing with another, I would say that we, as a conservative Christian people have the discernment of a desperate youth pastor. We’ll do anything to get the kids to come to our Bible study. And if the last number of decades have taught us anything, it’s that the kids will come but when they go, what you actually discipled them in was rarely Jesus. You discipled them in silly antics, root beer floats, lame skits, bad music, and often lots of teen romance and sexual sin. And the Jesus stuff was this gold ring you kept trying to put on the snout of that pig’s nose. Which, come to think of it, never really made any sense. Congratulations.    

This desperate youth pastor syndrome seemed to be on full display last week when Not the Bee – one of my favorite conservative news aggregators – posted this story about Tamyra Mensah-Stock winning Olympic gold in women’s wrestling. In the interview after her win she enthusiastically relates that it is by the grace of God that she can move her feet, she’s so grateful to her coaches for pushing her, and draped in an American flag, she says she “freaking loves” the USA.

Look, I’m not here to tell you that I think Mensah-Stock is a bad person. I hear she is a wife and a mother, and I really do wish her all the best. I’m guessing she’d make a fine neighbor. We would probably get along great. And do I prefer her enthusiasm and joy over soccer dikes with bad attitudes? Of course. Every day of the week. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t also see real problems. And the thing that Christians cannot get through their hard hearts is the fact that several decades of celebrating Mensah-Stock (as a culture) inevitably leads to soccer dikes with bad attitudes. Many Christians will (rightly) note that it’s not enough for us to go back to the 1950s (culturally speaking). We have to actually repent of our sins, including the sins of the 1950s that were harder to see. It’s the same thing here. We need to repent of the sins of the 1970s and 1980s when it was still cool to “freaking love the USA” but when we had already begun to despise the glory of women, by normalizing women’s wrestling, football, and ice hockey. 

Answering Objections
Ok, let me get a few easy objections out of the way. First, I’m not saying women can’t play sports. But if we are Christians who are utterly committed to repenting of our cultural sins and committed to pursuing true freedom and glory in Christ, we have to begin by confessing that we do not know what the Hell we are doing when it comes to men and women, boys and girls. We live in a cauldron of confusion. We live in a lair of lies. So the first thing you should not do is saunter up to the microphone like you know that women’s wrestling is fine because you’ve actually seen it done. Right. We won’t be coming to you for advice or counsel.

I’ll tell you what else we won’t do: we won’t be getting advice from people whose immediate response to God’s warnings about sexual confusion is defensiveness and belligerence. Scripture says that it is an abomination for women to wear the clothing/gear/tools/weapons of men, just as it is an abomination for men to wear what pertains to a woman (Dt. 22:5). This is clearly talking about sexual confusion, dressing and acting like the opposite sex. This forbids every form of crossdressing, and we should not miss the fact that cross-dressing lite is often just practicing for full mastectomies and hormone therapy.

And let me just say that when the Bible calls something an abomination, that isn’t the moment to say, well, I guess that was the Old Testament. At the very least, you should exercise extreme caution. And at the other very least, you should have deep understanding for a fellow Christian who may draw the line tighter than you do. It’s not hateful to not want to nuke your family, community, and nation. When the timid guy clears his throat at the city council meeting and wonders whether or not the local science club should be playing with Uranium, it’s not a good argument to call that guy an f*****g idiot. 

Our Smoking Ruins
But of course everyone immediately wants to know where the line is. Can a woman play soccer? Basketball? Run? What about shooting? What about martial arts? Sure, let’s talk about all of those questions, but first let’s talk about the smoking ruins we’re living in. Over 60 million human beings will never get the chance to breathe, let alone play any games or compete in any Olympics because we gave God the middle finger and told Him that we know all about sexuality and what it means to be human beings. We live at the bottom of a crater of our sexual arrogance and hubris and rebellion.

And the fact that many conservative Christians have the audacity to immediately object to someone who says that our tranny confusions are connected to our celebration of women wrestling – that tells you that we aren’t ready to repent yet. We don’t have soft hearts, teachable hearts, humble hearts ready to admit that we’ve been wrong. We have hard hearts, clenched fists, and jaws that are jutting out in defiance. Girls can too fight! All that tells me is that we should brace for more cultural turmoil. We don’t have anything good to say to the world, so God shut down our churches last year and put gags over our mouths, as if to say, would you please shut up? And if we keep saying the stupid things we love to say, He can and will do it again. 

So if we’re going to have a conversation, an actual conversation, then we have to have it in the spirit of utter defeat. We don’t know what we’re doing. Imagine a field laced with landmines, our cousins and aunts and uncles and friends have been trying to get across this field for the last several decades and many are dead or missing limbs. And if my analogy is too deft, what I mean is that our families and communities are full of apostates, lesbians, sodomites, adulterers, porn addicts, divorces, single moms, abortions, abusers and abuse victims.

I mean, do we have a sexual abuse problem or not? I have no doubt that we do, but I also think we are an utterly insane people who have been given over to madness by our Maker because we refuse to humble ourselves before Him (Rom. 1). And in our madness, we continue to do the same things over and over again, expecting different results. So let’s have the conversation, but let’s have the conversation with the appropriate sobriety. There are landmines everywhere. And just so I’m being clear, I’m not just talking about the progressive idiots teaching 5 year olds how to masturbate. I’m also talking about the conservative idiots homeschooling their 12 kids naively unaware of the incest taking place in their home. There are landmines everywhere. 

Where’s the Line?
So where is the line? The principles are two fold: We are required to honor the respective sexual glories of men and women, and we are forbidden from confusing them. Go and learn what that means. Ok, I’ll say a little more. The goal in sports as with the rest of life should be to practice what we want to become permanent. The glory of young men is their strength, and the glory of women is their beauty. This does not mean that women are not strong, and this does not mean that men must not care about aesthetics. But it does mean that we are made to display God’s glory in different ways, and we need to lean into it.

Of course everyone wants to bring up Jael and Deborah – those women were fighters. Well, actually, no. That’s not what the text says at all. Jael was a homemaker, and Deborah was a wife and judge who was also usually at home or at least judging from her home town. They were both clearly very strong women, and we should celebrate that. But their glory was not their strength. Their glory was their wisdom and grace.

So can a woman be trained to physically defend herself? Of course. But she should be trained as a woman. And this means that it must be done in all purity, modesty, and with an eye to honoring her God-given strength to bear children and make a home. This means that she should not be trained exactly like a man. The end product will not be a woman who defends herself just as well as a man. Will some women be particularly gifted? Sure. Good for them. But we are not training black belts, Army Rangers, or Navy Seals. We are training an army of wives and mothers. Why? Because that is more potent. Their beautiful and wise fruitfulness and homemaking will overcome the world.

At the same time, I do know that some of you men are black belts and Rangers and Navy Seals, and you will be in a position to train your wives and daughters more thoroughly than some of us, and feel free. But it should be fixed in your mind that her more potent weapons against the darkness are bearing children, building and keeping a home, and speaking words of wisdom. And note this well: this is because we want more Jaels and Deborahs.

Just because we grant a woman may be trained as a woman, does not at all mean that it is fine for her to compete on a national stage or even your local wrestling club. What a father may be able to do (appropriately) to prepare his daughter or wife for an attacker is not at all the same as what is appropriate for another man (or woman) to do with your wife or daughter out in public. And different skills admit different protocols. Shooting a gun is different than learning jiu jitsu. I do believe that girls’ sports and physical training can be very formative and helpful, but they really do have to be done carefully.

Butch soccer chicks do not happen randomly. We trained them. We demanded that they play like dudes, and shock! we cannot imagine how it is that they came to believe that they don’t need men in their lives or that they can be men themselves. So as our daughters play sports and train, they must be taught to understand the difference between what they are practicing for and what their brothers and male counterparts are practicing for. Men are practicing for battle. Women are practicing for feminine strength, running homes, and childrearing.

So yes, women can play basketball, softball, volleyball, participate in track and field (this is not an exhaustive list!), but it must be done with stark, bright lines distinguishing the way women participate in them and the way men do. What is the standard? Is the standard men? Is the standard men, just turned down 3 or 10 degrees? Then I call that misogynist. The standard must be the actual glory that God made women for.

What Are We Becoming?
What are we training our sons and daughters for? If we train our daughters to take a hit, to get hit and bounce back up, to throw elbows, we are training them to be hard. We are training them to be rough. Which is just another way to say that we are training them to be dudes. They may not come out as lesbians, but it will certainly be harder for them to have a gentle and quiet spirit, which is most precious in the sight of God (1 Pet. 3).

Note well: this does not mean that our girls should not be taught to be physically, emotionally, and intellectually tough. The Proverbs 31 woman clothes her arms in strength, staying up late, and getting up early to run her household well. I fully endorse beast mode homemaking.

Related to all of this, we really do need to include in our discussions of women in sports what intense physical training often does to female bodies. Women who stress their bodies constantly frequently have hormonal imbalances, other health challenges, struggle with barrenness, and often, to be frank, destroy their bodies. I know nobody wants to be that guy, but what the heck, I’m already here. It’s great to be “in shape” and “healthy” but girls with chiseled biceps are ugly. That isn’t your glory.

Related to thinking carefully about what you’re practicing for is the whole modesty issue both in terms of dress but also in terms of how you carry your body. When we talk about modesty, conservative Christians almost immediately jump to what is sexually alluring or stumbling, but that isn’t the only sense of the word. Modesty also has to do with what is fitting. As I have noted in previous rounds of my discussions related to feminine glory, this is why wise Christian women ought to refuse all fashion trends offering to dress you up like a circus clown. Despite the smoldering claims in the commercials that it is “sexy” or just “fun,” tattoos and pink hair and body piercings are the uniform of the lost and enslaved. None of it is practicing for the beautiful strength of motherhood. Note well: I didn’t say you can’t possibly be a faithful wife and mother with those things, I’m just saying they’re the wrong uniform. They aren’t fitting.

A modest woman is not only careful in what she wears but also in what she says, how she carries herself. A wise woman is discrete in her actions and words. She knows that she is the glory of man, and so she carries that glory with propriety, dignity, and deftness. This ought not be stuffy or frumpy or prudish. A daughter of the king must be joyful, adorned with the boldness and glory of the gospel, and humble. But rolling around on a mat, sweating, with limbs and butts in the air – even with another woman is not what I would call dignified or modest. And the point is not that this is necessarily salacious, although in our perverse world you really shouldn’t assume anything, but the point is that it isn’t feminine and more importantly, it isn’t practicing for real feminine glory. We should not want our daughters to get use to that kind of behavior. We don’t want it to be normal. I do not want Mensah-Stock to be my daughters’ hero. I do not want my daughters practicing that kind of behavior. I don’t want them to be used to that. And this doesn’t mean that we should not want our daughters to have many opportunities to learn and train themselves to be tough, even tough as nails, especially the kind that you may need to drive through the head of one of your enemies.

All of this applies to all the bikini wearing. Let me say this nicely: just because you are within 50 yards of water or a gym mat doesn’t mean it’s ok to wear your underwear in public. And my first concern is *not* who might look or who might stumble. My first concern is my own daughters. I do not want them to get used to being seen like that. I don’t want them to feel normal, displaying their glory for the whole world to see. Their glory, their beauty is precious to God and to me, and it is for their husband one day. It is too beautiful, too precious to be given away for free to any random passerby. I will not value my wife or daughters as something that you could just flip through on a TV. And that includes all physical training and competitions. If they cannot compete modestly, then why sell your daughter’s glory for a stupid trophy? And yes, I’m also talking about your wife’s yoga pants and sports bra at the local gym. Again, I underline this point: I’m not in the first instance worried about some guy’s personal problems (although love can and does apply there), my primary concern is for her. I want her to prize her own glory. And her glory is her God-given beauty and motherhood, not a second rate man body. 

Conclusion
So let’s recap. I don’t hate Tamyra Mensah-Stock. I’m thankful for her joy, her enthusiasm, her patriotism, and what appears to be a genuine Christian faith on a very public stage. I can appreciate all of that, and yet still throw a flag when what she’s actually doing is dishonoring her feminine glory. I can also appreciate how our culture has not prepared her to understand this, and she’s just doing her best with the cards she was dealt. No doubt many otherwise faithful Christian women wrestlers will enter the kingdom ahead of our many spineless evangelical pastors. But we can say that and still disapprove her grappling like a dude on an international stage. We can be thankful for an otherwise faithful Christian woman in the military or political leadership, and we can still lament the state of our culture when women and children rule over us. 

And if nothing else, I hope I have instigated numerous conversations about this topic. What are you practicing for? How are you guarding and honoring the particular glory that God has bestowed upon you, upon your wife, or your daughters? And it’s not good enough to say that nothing bad has happened (yet). Again, I refer you to the field littered with landmines and corpses. We are not here to survive. We are here to win. And we need strong women, women like Sarah and Jael and Ruth and Mary and Monica and Kate Luther and Elizabeth Eliot and Darlene Deibler-Rose and Corrie ten Boom.

Photo by Edan Cohen on Unsplash

Masks, Vaccines, and the Lamb who was Slain

“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” And the four living creatures said, “Amen!” and the elders fell down and worshiped.” (Rev. 5:12-14)

Introduction
I had the great honor of attending the Chenaniah Summer Institute concert last Friday evening. Sidenote: it’s a pretty insane gift to live in a tiny town where on any given week there may be some high end concert that some folks pay tons of money for in big cities, but because we have a bustling little community of artists, composers, musicians, and choirs, I can pop downtown and walk in to a hall and hear a number of pieces performed and then pop home like it was nothing. 

But it wasn’t nothing. The theme of the concert was “Worth is the Lamb” and the concert closed with Handel’s famous setting from The Messiah. And it was wonderful. Of course you can click over to your Spotify right now and pull up a number of recordings of that piece. But there’s nothing quite like sitting in an audience listening to a live performance, watching the violinists’ arms driving, the trumpets raise and brandish, the timpani (those are the big drums) rumbling and banging and booming. 

I honestly don’t know how Handel could bring himself to finish it. How do you stop singing, “Blessing and honor and glory and power be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb!” How do possibly get to the point where you say, that’ll do? Of course that final anthem in the Messiah breaks into the final piece which is over four minutes of “Amens.” I imagine anyone who’s studied the piece knows what I just noticed on Friday, but Revelation says that the four living creatures said, “Amen,” and then the elders fell down and worshipped, and so the Amen chorus begins with a solo (or just a few voices) from each voice (Bass, Tenor, Alto, Soprano) imitating those four living creatures, and then all of the voices join, all the angels and the myriads of saints gathered to the throne. 

Our Twilight Zone
And here we are living in what seems like a twilight zone of COVID mandates, vaccine threats, woke cancel culture, and Joe Biden and his cronies shuffling around breathing heavy into mics. What can we do? How can we stop the madness? It’s easy to feel powerless and impotent, like there’s nothing we can do. And of course there are plenty who are trying to run another political play. We have to stop them in the next election! Pass a law! And of course I do think we should use every play we have to stop the commies. But I think it was John Piper who said that missions exists because worship doesn’t. In other words, the point of missions and evangelism is to call the world to worship Jesus. Missions will be finished when every knee bows and every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord. But in the meantime, people who don’t worship Jesus don’t really care to obey Him. Why is abortion legal in our land? Because our land has rejected Jesus. Why is our country run by fools and clowns? Because we will not worship Christ. 

Let me make a distinction here between people who “go to church” and those who worship Jesus. In one of the first statements or interviews (I don’t remember which) I read or heard from James Coates (the first Canadian pastor to be arrested for leading his people in worship, I believe), I remember hearing him say that Jesus was worthy of our worship. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that. Such a simple statement, but so profoundly true. Why go against government regulations and meet for worship? He is worthy. Why disregard mask mandates and social distancing requirements? Because Jesus is worthy. Why risk slander, fines, and imprisonment?He is worthy of our worship. He is worthy.

So as I was driving home from listening to “Worthy is the Lamb,” and it dawned on me. The reason we are not free, the reason we are oppressed by wicked rulers and tyrannical nannies, the reason perversion is celebrated in our streets, the reason the unborn are still being murdered by the thousands each day, the reason the clowns in our capitol buildings keep voting for economic insanity that will ultimately enslave us all – the reason, the fundamental reason is because we don’t think Jesus is worthy to receive all “power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.” And how do I know? Because we keep giving power and wealth and might and honor to scoundrels and fools and blood-thirsty tyrants. 

Who is Worthy?
Just imagine some congressman or governor running on the platform “Jesus is Lord of all,” routinely opening his Bible to explain his public policy objectives on immigration, finance, or education. He gets laughed off the stage. Then imagine some dude in a dress calling himself a “conservative” running for governor. You’ll get an hour on primetime interviewed by one of our “conservative” talking heads. Of course a bunch of the “church going” people excuse themselves by saying that even though they disagree with the dude in the dress, he’s definitely the more viable candidate and has more experience. And they appreciate the guy with the Bible, but that just doesn’t seem realistic. And making room for the fruits and nuts out there, the fact remains that what we are saying on the whole is that Jesus doesn’t seem very realistic. We are saying that He is not worthy “to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.” 

But the thing that really struck me is that we should not lose sight of how simple our problem really is. Whether it’s Biden and his cronies, the Supreme Court, your state’s COVID insanity, or your city’s latest nanny policy, remember that this is really all that must be done. It’s so simple: we must bow the knee. We must proclaim, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain.” That’s the message and that’s the solution. The reason the world doesn’t sing “Worthy is the Lamb” is because they don’t think He is worthy. They have other gods, other saviors, other solutions, other salvations. They are looking to the State, to some new economic policy, to magic multicultural Zen, to medicine and chemicals, but they are worshipping their gods. By their dedication to those solutions, they are proclaiming that those gods are worthy of all power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing. It’s not whether but which. 

There will be god who is worshipped; there will always be some god to whom is ascribed all power and wealth and wisdom. But no other god has given His own life for His people. No other god has taken the penalty due for our sin upon Himself. No other god has loved such unlovely people and tasted death for them all. No other god has died and risen from the dead, to make all things new. And that is why no other god is worthy. Only Jesus is worthy. Because He is the Lamb who was slain. And by His blood, He has made us clean. He has brought us near. He has made us a kingdom of priests. 

Do Not Despair
So do not despair: The Lamb is on the throne. Blessing and honor and glory and power be unto Him who sits upon the throne and to the Lamb. And precisely because He is on the throne, He is worthy. And because He is on the throne, all of this nonsense is nothing to Him. Christ has already died and risen from the dead and has reigned these 2,000 years. What are these rebellious men and women but a swarm of angry ants on the sidewalk of history? Shake your fists again, you little six-legged insects. 

But this is the point: you cannot sing “Worthy is the Lamb” and then go your own way. Is He worthy to receive all glory and honor and power and wealth? Then give it to Him. These tinpot dictators are not worthy of all glory and honor and power and wealth. They are worthy of whatever honor Jesus commands us to give them, no more and no less. They are not worthy of our obedience when it comes to how we will gather to worship the Lamb who was slain. They are not worthy of our obedience when it comes to mask mandates and vaccine edicts. They are not worthy of our obedience when they command us to shut down our businesses or schools. They have not died for our sins. They have not risen from the dead to make us completely new. They are not lords of our families or our churches. We can and do honor their offices, but they are mere men and women like us, or else they are royalty like us. But only Christ is worthy of all our honor and glory and power and wealth. 

So the offer is here: Christ is worthy of our worship and praise. Worship Him. Bow down. Humble yourself. Bend your knee. Now serve Him. Are you baptized? Then you are under orders. Does the Spirit dwell in you? Then He yearns jealously for your obedience to the Lamb who was slain. 

Conclusion
There is no political solution to this mess. There is no policy platform that can right this course. Our western Christian civilization has plunged off the cliffs of insanity. There is no course correction in midair. But the beauty of this moment, the beauty of living in these days is realizing that our only hope is Christ. It’s Christ or nothing. Christ or chaos. Christ or utter desolation. But Christ is on the throne. The Lamb has already been slain for the sins of the world. The Spirit has been poured out. This is not a moment for despair. This is a moment for great hope. This is a moment for bold obedience. This is a moment for prayer. And this is a moment to sing louder than ever, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain!” Christ has purchased the nations with His blood, and so all of the nations will come. The kingdoms of this world have become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He will reign forever and ever.

Why won’t we stop meeting for church? Because Christ is worthy. Why won’t we submit to unjust decrees and dictates? Because Jesus is worthy. Why are we so happy while we are hated and despised? Because the Lamb is worthy. 

Photo by David Beale on Unsplash