Toby J. Sumpter's Blog, page 43

A Duty to Resist: Jonathan Leeman, Frederic Bastiat, and the Beastie Boys

Introduction
As Pastor Wilson has noted several times, 2020 is a dress rehearsal for what is coming if the church does not get her act together. This year has been an elaborate fire drill. And thus far the returns are less than impressive. We got handed a test on sphere sovereignty – the biblical roles of state, family, and church, as well as individual responsibility, with several extra credit questions about mask mandates, private businesses, the authority of pastors, and how to love your neighbor. And I believe the paper we doodled on for the last six months (with some glorious exceptions) will turn out to have a grade only a few percentage points better than the number of people who died of COVID-19 (and only COVID-19).

The best of our Christian leaders have acknowledged that there may come a time for Christians to resist or disobey. They may have even cleared their throats and with a cracking voice, haltingly suggested that maybe, perhaps, on Tuesdays between 3:30 and 3:45 (Eastern), John MacArthur may have been right do what he is doing – before scuttling back to their gospel-centered bushes. This is the height of our collective courage. And I’m honesty grateful for anything along those lines since it might possibly dry out during the next global warming spasm and becoming something spiritually flammable in the end. 

The Question
But the question comes down to this: How important is it for Christians to fight for freedom? And I mean Christian freedom – the freedom to worship the Triune God, the freedom to work and provide for our own families without being regulated and taxed to Kingdom Come, the right to assemble peaceably and not be harassed by dress code nannies with Glocks. I’m not talking about the autonomous libertarian perversion of this, popularized by that proverbial line from the Beastie Boys: you gotta fight for your right to party. Unless by “party,” we are talking about all the prep work we’re currently engaged in for the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, because that is something of a holy ruckus. 

But how important is it for Christians to fight for Christian freedom? Some have come out clearly and said that Christians must not fight for freedom at all. Period. Full stop. Christians must lay down and invite the boots and knees of tyrants to be placed upon their necks. In fact, some hail this pacifistic tomfoolery as solidarity with George Floyd and all the oppressed. However, my gut tells me that there is a far larger segment of the Christian population that thinks Christians should resist tyranny a little bit, somehow, maybe some day, maybe pretty soon, but they are tied up in knots about having a good testimony and not being jerks for Jesus and the words “culture war” taste rancid in their mouths.  

Ye Olde Declaration
While it is most certainly not inspired, let’s begin with a few startling sentences from the Declaration of Independence: “When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands… when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security…” (emphasis mine)

The particular words I draw your attention to are the ones I helpfully emphasized with italics: the words necessary and duty. These are words of moral obligation. The signers of the Declaration of Independence not only say it is the right of the people to push back against the destruction of their rights under God, but it says there comes a time when it is necessary, when it is the duty of God-fearing men to do so.

It’s Worse Than We Think
When would it be the duty of Christians to push back against the destruction of their rights under God? Well, the clearest and easiest answer that many Christians give but very few Christians understand is: when we are being required to disobey God. Many have an inkling of what this might look like when God has prohibited something that the government is requiring, like bowing down to a golden statue of Donald Trump or something. But what about when the government has so encroached on various duties and assignments given to men by God Himself that it makes obedience to God impossible? 

God requires a righteous man to care for his elderly parents, leave an inheritance to his children’s children, and provide a Christian education for his children, all while working hard enough to provide some assistance to others in need. Those are all positive commands from God. Now what if our government has created a situation where taxes and regulations are so onerous that it is very difficult if not impossible to obey God? If Jesus were here, He might say to our officious taskmasters: “Why do you also transgress the commandment of God by your health codes and building regulations and tax code? For you say, Whosoever shall file his payroll taxes, and income taxes, and social security taxes, and property taxes, and sales taxes, and submit to building inspections, it is enough, and you need not honor your father or mother or provide a Christian education for your children, much less an inheritance for your grand children” (cf. Mt. 15:5-6).

But a big part of our problem is that we have gotten so used to being oppressed, we barely notice it. If you had the freedom and responsibility your great-grandfather had, you would have more resources than you would know what to do with. And no, that’s not a good reason to give them up, any more than it’s OK for someone to drive off with a car sitting in your driveway you haven’t been using.

We have sold our freedoms for luxury, convenience, and to feed our sloth and lust. We are in an Egypt of our own making, but the leeks are plentiful and tasty, and on-demand. A great deal of our oppression is also protected by law, and so its shirt is tucked in and hair combed and it is presented as respectable in the light of day. But it’s a total Weekend at Bernie’s scam. Lawlessness established by mountebank “lawmakers” does not magically become justice, anymore than posing with with a dead guy makes him alive.

Who funds all those government programs and all those health codes and building inspectors and administrators and lawyers? Why we do. Who funds all those government college grants and scholarships and public schools indoctrinating our land with God-hating Darwinism and socialism? We do, as well as our children and grand children. Who funds National Socialist, er, I mean Public Radio, the welfare state, and the latest blasphemous, intersectional cow patty dropped from the hinder parts of the National Endowment for the Arts? We do. Do you want to? But more importantly, is it just to command everyone to pay for these services at the point of a gun, with the threat of fines, imprisonment, and implicitly, violence to their persons?

Under any other conditions, we would call this theft, plunder, harassment, and slavery. But because men in suits made speeches in a big fancy building and a vote was held, we call it “the common good” and “general welfare” and “love” and some even have the audacity to call it “justice.” But it’s actually just the opposite: it’s injustice to take from someone what they have not freely given.

Jonathan Leeman & Frederic Bastiat
Some of you caught the recent CrossPolitic conversation with Jonathan Leeman, which I appreciated greatly. He was gracious, good humored, and I hope we will get to talk again. But the conversation revealed the continental divide, the watershed issues before us. Francis Shaeffer once explained a watershed issue by pointing at the snow on the tops of the mountains on the continental divide: some of that snow will melt and end up in the Atlantic and some of it will melt and end up in the Pacific. It’s only 6 inches apart up there at the top of the mountain, but it will end up on different sides of the globe in the end. That’s the difference between holding that civil magistrates have essentially a negative or positive assignment from God. 

Frederic Bastiat explains the difference: “When law and force keep a person within the bounds of justice, they impose nothing but a mere negation. They oblige him only to abstain from harming others. They violate neither his personality, his liberty, nor his property. They safeguard all of these. They are defensive; they defend equally the rights of all… the purpose of the law is to prevent injustice from reigning. In fact, it is injustice, instead of justice, that has an existence of its own. Justice is achieved only when injustice is absent. But when the law, by means of its necessary agent, force, imposes upon men a regulation of labor, a method or a subject of education, a religious faith or creed — then the law is no longer negative; it acts positively upon people.” (The Law, 15)

Do civil magistrates have a positive duty to find new ways to encourage the common good or general welfare? Or has God assigned civil magistrates the duty of merely prohibiting and punishing injustice – and is that all by itself the way civil magistrates secure the common good and general welfare of the people? 

The example we used with Leeman was taken from Deuteronomy 22:8: “When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thine house, if any man fall from thence.” I argued that according to this law there would be no building inspectors in Israel going around checking the roofs of Israelites. Rather, there would only need to be a building inspection if someone fell off an Israelite’s roof and was hurt or died. There would only be a penalty if harm had occurred. And the penalty would match the harm according to the biblical laws of restitution (e.g. eye for eye, tooth for tooth). But Leeman argued that he thought it would be reasonable to infer building inspections and penalties for failure to comply with the building codes. 

The question we asked in return was: what would the just penalty be for not having a fence around your roof if no harm has been done? He suggested some kind of fine. But who would the fine be paid to? Who has been wronged? Who has been harmed? What is the fine putting right? For those of you taking notes at home, the answers are no one, no one, no one, and nothing. Worse than that, is the fact that requiring a fine when no harm has been done is theft. And worse still is the implicit threat of violence from the magistrate, which is a manifest breach of the basic biblical principle of lex talionis – eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life.

Less Talionis
While many Christians woefully misunderstand this principle as some kind of permission for violence, bloodshed, or vengeance, it has actually always functioned to limit these things. The laws of restitution found in Exodus 21-22 are very practical applications of this principle, and the clear point is: you cannot shoot your neighbor if he steals your car. Biblical justice requires the return of stolen or damaged property (or its equivalent) with an additional payment doing to the criminal what he sought to do to the victim. But the glory of God’s principle of eye for eye, tooth for tooth is that property theft or damage does not rise to the level of violence. God’s law is limiting violence, bloodshed, and vengeance. 

But if a magistrate may require a fine of a property owner when no harm or crime has occurred, the magistrate is implicitly threatening violence against not only the property but also the person. If the property owner does not pay the fine, will his property be seized? If he does not pay the fine, will he be imprisoned? Presumably so.

But this is the world we live in with property taxes, implicitly threatening violence and plunder from the state for failure to pay. This is the world we live in with building codes and health regulations threatening fines, threatening our eviction from our honestly purchased property, threatening closure of our honestly functioning businesses, ultimately threatening imprisonment and violence against our persons when we have done nothing wrong, when we have harmed no one anywhere. But what is alleged? That we might harm someone. But who is to judge what might result in harm, when there is no clear and present danger? This is a blank check that foolish and grasping men will happily make out to their own imaginations, charged to the liberties of those who elected them.

Conclusion
One of the other basic principles of biblical justice is the requirement that every crime be proven by the mouth of two or three witnesses. Short of those two or three witnesses, a true criminal cannot be convicted under biblical law. This principle is enshrined in what we call “presumption of innocence” and analogously applied in our custom of trial by jury. There is safety in a multitude of counselors. But this means that God wants His people to err on the side of letting some criminals go, rather than punishing some innocent people. When biblical justice is fully functioning according to its design, some criminals will get off the hook in order to protect the freedoms of the innocent; the only other option is to lean the other way, seeking to punish every criminal and being willing to punish some of the innocent in the process.

Rather than running the risks of biblical freedom and only punishing evildoers, since a bad thing might happen, we restrict the freedoms of all. And that is the way of building inspectors and health codes, fines and fees enough to swing a dead cat at, a Jabba the Hut Nanny State, and before you know it states are ordering healthy people to stay home, mask up, and close their businesses over a bad flu, a fake emergency, because some harm might happen, all of which God requires Christians to resist.

Photo by Tim Gouw on Unsplash

Christian Fellowship

This meal celebrates fellowship – being in fellowship with God and one another. This is why we call it communion. We are in fellowship. No grudges, no resentment, no bitterness, just fellowship.

But this meal is also teaching us how this fellowship works. There is only one way to be in Christian fellowship with God and one another. “If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 Jn. 1:6-7). 

There is only one way to walk in the light; there is only one way to have fellowship with God and one another. And that is through the blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, cleansing us from all our sin. We share bread and wine because our fellowship is only possible through the death of Christ. He reconciles us to God and one another.

And how does this reconciliation happen? It happens through confession of sin and forgiveness. The very next verses in John’s letter say, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” How does Christ’s blood cleanse us from all our sins? It cleanses us when we ask Him to, when we confess our sins and ask Him to forgive us. 

So, are there any places of tension in your family, with your husband, your wife, your kids, your parents? Are there any places of tension with anyone in this room or with anyone else? If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, His son, cleanses us from all unrighteousness. Confess your sins, forgive one another, and come and welcome to Jesus Christ. 

Photo by Eric Ward on Unsplash

Training Up Children

Introduction
One of the great mistakes of parenting is to get the stages of parenting backwards. When children are young, they need significant guidance and discipline and a very narrow, black and white path. But as children grow older, they need to internalize and love the standards and exercising them for themselves. Another name for this process is discipleship in Christ. 

The Text: “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Prov. 22:6).

What is the Way?
The “way” a child should go is the way of obedience to Christ. When he is old, when he goes to college or gets married that is the path we want our children to remain on. How must we obey Christ? We must obey Him right away, all the way, and cheerfully all our days because He loved us first (1 Jn. 4:19, 5:2-3). “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right” (Eph. 6:1). “In the Lord” means to obey your parents because of what the Lord has done and in the same way you would obey Jesus. This is similar to the command given to servants, “Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ” (Eph. 6:5).

Slow obedience is not obedience. Fussing and complaining obedience is not obedience. Arguing and eye rolling are not compatible with obedience. Partial obedience is not obedience. Having to be told more than once is not obedience. Obedience coerced from counting to various numbers is not obedience. Obedience resulting from threats of discipline is not obedience. This is because obedience is love. Cheerful, prompt, and thorough obedience is not only possible but makes for a very pleasant home.

Training Up
Training is primarily a matter of practice. When a pile of third graders show up for their first football practice in the history of ever, the coaches do not expect the boys to know how to play football. Likewise, parents need to remember that these little people just arrived on this planet, and that is why they act the way they do. They really do need to be taught and reminded a lot, especially when they’re very young. The fact that they need to be taught about everything is a design feature, not a bug. And parents must be obedient to that command – prompt, cheerful, and thorough – in teaching their children: “And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up” (Dt. 6:7). Parenting is a full-time job, and it happens all day long, everywhere you go (and sometimes throughout the night, “when thou liest down”). This element of training includes lots of talking and lots of practice. To return to the sports analogy, you do not merely talk about the game and then go to your first game. You talk about it, and then you practice, then correct and talk more, then practice more. So too parents must talk a lot, practice, and prepare their kids for the game of life.

What will they face today, tomorrow, or next week? What temptations will they face in the grocery store, when friends or cousins come over, at dinner time or bed time or at the birthday party or school? Teach and practice for them all. This is love. Love prepares. When our kids were little we played the “obedience game” after dinner, where I would give the kids random commands (e.g. “go get your pillow”) and they had to say “yes sir!” and run and obey, and when they returned I often had a jelly bean or some kind of reward for them. Practice obeying quickly, cheerfully, thoroughly. Role play lots: what do you do if Johnny steals your favorite ball? What do you say when Mr. So-and-so comes over? If you suddenly require your 3 year old to say hello or thank you to the strange dinner guest, have you prepared them to run that play? Same thing goes for church. Practice obedience regularly, and do everything you can to make practice a joy. Lavish high praise, high fives, and candy.

When They Are Young
When children are young, they do not know the way. There is a sense in which they do not know the difference between good and evil, how to go out or how to come in (e.g. Is. 7:16, 1 Kgs. 3:7). And therefore, they must be taught. While you wouldn’t know it from most Disney movies, the hearts of children are not repositories of wisdom and knowledge. “Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him” (Prov. 22:15).

Therefore, the opinions, wishes, and feelings of young children need to be formed and informed, and not really given the time of day. How they feel about bed time, nap time, what’s for dinner, what to wear, who their friends are — are all opinions which need to be given to them. For the first ten or so years of a child’s life, he or she needs to live in a benevolent totalitarian dictatorship. It should be full of love and joy and laughter and hugs and a very a small, well-defined world, full of black and white. Do not ask a five year old how they think that makes you feel. The justly administered spanking is teaching him exactly how he should feel, and besides, your feelings are not the standard. 

Learning to Ride a Bike
Many parents will probably have the opportunity to help one or more of their kids learn how to ride their first bike. Lessons begin with lots of hovering and holding the bike upright, and you can feel the bike wavering back and forth. But as your child begins to learn how to peddle and balance, you begin loosening your grip, and you need to do that so that they can begin to feel the sensation of the bike’s motion and begin controlling the balance for themselves. Finally, at some point, you begin letting go, maybe for only a few seconds at a time, but eventually you let go completely.

That’s what Christian parenting should be like: lots of hovering in the beginning, then slowly loosening your grip with slight corrections, and by sometime in high school, you really should let go. Another way to describe this same process is internalizing the standard. What you were providing (balance/momentum) in the beginning is what they have to internalize for themselves in order to remain on the path of obedience. The Bible describes this process of internalizing God’s standards as coming to love them. “And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart” (Dt. 6:5-6). Far too often parents get this backwards: they give far too much freedom in the early years and then when things start looking wobbly in middle school, they begin trying to clamp down, often resulting in collisions. 

Conclusion
The Bible teaches that the law of God is sweet (Ps. 19:10). Obedience is like chocolate cake, like milk and cookies, like frosted donuts, like candy. When God gave the Ten Commandments, He prefaced them with, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt…” (Ex. 20:1). God’s standards are the standards of freedom. We get to worship God alone, keep Sabbath, honor authorities, defend marriage, etc. We love because He loved us first. Loving little ones means lots of training when they are young, so that when they are old they do not depart from that love. 

Photo by Ben Hershey on Unsplash

Robert & Karen

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace…” Eph. 1:3-7

Paul writes these words to the Ephesians and assumes that this really is good news – in fact this is the theme that fills his letters. After becoming a Christian, this message is what he dedicated his life to spreading all over the Mediterranean world of the first century. But Paul is not just making a vague religious claim. He blesses the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ because He has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ. Spiritual blessings are not blessings that are immaterial. Spiritual blessings are blessings bestowed by God’s Spirit. One of those spiritual blessings, often bestowed upon His people, is the blessing of Christian marriage. 

But in order to understand what sets Christian marriage apart from the same institution that non-Christians, atheists, and Hindus can participate in, we need to unpack the rest of what Paul says here. After tracing the good pleasure of God’s will from before the foundation of the world, Paul arrives at the redemption we have through Christ’s blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace. And that’s what I want to explain today.

Redemption means release, and it usually indicates a release or pardon as a result of a payment. A similar word is ransom – a payment securing the release of a prisoner or captive. In this case, Paul explains both the captivity and the payment. The payment is blood, and the captivity is sin. We have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our sins, and all of this is provided by the riches of God’s grace. 

In our modern world the idea of blood being a payment at first seems utterly archaic and primitive, if not barbaric. Likewise, the idea of sin seems foreign and strange. 

So let’s begin with the idea of sin. What is sin? One dictionary gives these synonyms: trespass, violation, wrong, wickedness. It also notes that the English word is derived from a Latin verb meaning “to be guilty.” To sin is to incur guilt. 

The Bible teaches that all people are created in the image of God, that is, there is an inherent value, dignity, and worth bestowed on all human beings that reflects the goodness, creativity, love, and intelligence of God. This gift of God’s image is also a calling. Bearing God’s image means we were made to display His glory. Sin is falling short of that glory. Romans says that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Instead of reflecting God’s goodness and creativity and love and intelligence, we have all chosen selfishness, pride, lies, lust, and spite in various ways. Who hasn’t hated someone at some point in their heart? Who hasn’t lusted or coveted, despising what others have – good health, material wealth, business success, a beautiful body, praise or fame? Who hasn’t lied? Who doesn’t have regrets, secrets, shame? Who doesn’t have guilt? 

But what can be done about it? There are many offers: counseling, therapy, exercise, change your diet, get new friends, a new job, moving to a new community, positive thinking, but however hard you try, you cannot make sin go away. You cannot make guilt go away. There is no amount of good that you can do to make the evil you did disappear. This is one of the reasons why the Bible stands the test of time. It was written thousands of years ago, but it addresses the human condition with a rare honesty. It displays our depravity in all of its horror. Lies, betrayal, cruelty, violence, bloodshed – it’s all there.

However, many object to the solution that the Bible offers to this problem. Despite the objections millions have found that the Bible’s solution is real. It actually works. The Bible says that the wages of sin is death. The reason you cannot wash the guilty stain off your hands or your heart or get any peace is because the wages of sin is death. Even if we deny there is a God, guilt and shame still haunts every human heart. 

The Bible says that every sinner must die for his or her sin or else a perfect substitute must be found to die in our place. Many people are desperately trying to find a substitute – sometimes they take their pain and guilt out on a punching bag, or maybe it comes out their treatment of enemies. But none of those substitutes are satisfying. None of them bring peace. The good news is that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that whosever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life (Jn. 3:16). What we cannot do, what good works cannot do, what therapy cannot do, what positive thinking cannot do, what drinking cannot do, what trying to release your anger cannot do, God did by sending His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and God condemned our sin in His flesh.  

Christianity is not a religion of trying to be good. Christianity is not a religion of do-gooding. Fundamentally, Christianity proclaims that people are not good, even though we pretend that we are. Christianity proclaims that only God is good, and only one man was ever perfectly good. That man was Jesus Christ of Nazareth. He is the eternal Son of God, and He was born of the virgin, Mary. He lived a perfect life. He never sinned. He never cheated. He never did anyone any wrong. He never incurred any guilt of His own. He was hated and despised, proving yet again that we are members of a sinful race of people. His goodness highlighted our envy, His humility displayed our pride, His love put our enmity in high relief. 

But God knew this would happen, and He knew that Jesus would be killed. And it was for the reason that He came into the world. Jesus surrendered willingly to evil politicians, wicked religious leaders, and in a sham trial, they conspired and convicted Jesus of crimes He didn’t commit. They sentenced Him to death, and they carried out that execution in one of the most humiliating and excruciatingly painful methods know to man: crucifixion. After beating and whipping Him and spitting on Him and mocking Him, they hammered a crown of thorns onto His head, and forced him to carry His own cross out of town and up to a hillside called Golgotha. There, soldiers nailed Jesus naked to a cross of wood with two other criminals. Where he slowly died from loss of blood and breath. 

But the Bible teaches that Jesus died for the sins of the world. He came as the Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world. He came as the perfect substitute to stand in my place and to stand in your place. He who knew no sin became sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Jesus was struck so that we might go free. He is the ransom payment so that our sins might be forgiven. Occasionally a good man will lay his life down for his friends, but while we were still enemies, Christ died for us. 

The story doesn’t end there. Jesus died, was taken down from the cross and laid in a tomb. Soldiers were sent to secure the tomb, and an enormous stone was rolled over the entrance. But early in the morning on the first day of the week, the third day since He was killed, Jesus rose from the dead. He came back to life because He had fully satisfied the payment due for our sin. His blood was shed and there was nothing left to pay. The justice of God was fully satisfied, and because Jesus is the Son of God, having paid for every last sin of God’s people, death could not hold Him any long. Jesus rose, and an angel rolled back the stone, the soldiers fled, and Jesus began giving new life to the world. He was met by Mary Magdelene first, a sinful woman, who had been tormented by demons. He met His disciples and showed them His hands and His feet. He was seen by hundreds after His resurrection. He ate them them, He touched them, and proved that He was really alive and that their sins were really forgiven. It is from this historic event, the death and resurrection of Jesus, that every spiritual blessing flows. And all who place their trust in Him have access to this eternal life. No wonder Paul was so excited. 

Robert, the death and resurrection of Jesus changed everything, including marriage. It’s true that you are entering the same state that other non-Christians can enter, but the death and resurrection of Jesus makes everything new. It has made you new, and therefore, as you become a husband today, it must make you into a new kind of husband. You are still called to lead your wife, to love your wife, to protect your wife, to provide for your wife, but you are called to do all of that under the blessing of Jesus Christ. You are not called to do any of it in your own strength or according to your own wisdom. You are to do it all by receiving blessing from the death and resurrection of Jesus and then sharing that blessing through your leadership and love with your wife. What that fundamentally means is that what you give your wife must be something you have received from Jesus. The Bible says that we love because God loved us first. Robert, if Christ loved you when you were still in your sins, if He was patient and kind to you in your hard-heartedness, if He is still at work you today, how much more must you endeavor to love your wife, honor her as a lady bought with a great price by the precious blood of Jesus and show her great kindness, joy, and patience. 

Karen, the death and resurrection of Jesus has changed you as well. You are also becoming a wife like many other women on this planet, but you are becoming a Christian wife today. And that means that you are becoming a new kind of wife, a wife shaped and driven by the death and resurrection of Jesus. You are called by God to respect your husband, to submit to his leadership, to help in his calling, and to adorn his home with the fruitfulness of the gospel. But the only way you will be able to do that well is by keeping your eyes fixed on Jesus. For the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross and shame and has now sat down at the right hand of God the Father. If Jesus so loved you like that, you are called to love Robert like that. You are called to serve him patiently, respectfully, honoring him as a man, as your lord, as to Christ.

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

Photo by Foto Pettine on Unsplash

A Choir Exhortation

The Battle of Jericho is famous as the first great victory in the land of Canaan. Of course what makes it famous is the method of the battle – marching with the Ark of the Covenant, horns blaring, and on the seventh day – the day of worship and rest, shouting, and the walls came tumbling down.

The Battle of Jericho typifies how God would give the land to Israel. Israel would worship and obey, and God would fight for them. This is how the Exodus had happened. God fought for His people. The people put blood on their doorposts, and God delivered them. God did send soldiers into battle — including at Jericho, but God wanted His people to learn the lesson that their victories came from Him. And all of this is to underline a principle that we have emphasized for years: worship is warfare. And to our point today: the choir is the vanguard of the worshiping army of the Lord. 

But the exhortation comes from the story that follows, the story of Achan. He disobeyed God, stole some of the dedicated things and tried to hide his sin in his tent. When Israel went out to their next battle at the relatively small city of Ai, they were trounced. With God’s blessing, fortified cities can fall, and without God’s blessing, we cannot stand against one guy and his rake. 

Since you are the vanguard of the worshiping army of the Lord, leading by example, inspiring, encouraging the saints in worship, do not hide any sin in your tent. This principle applies to the whole church. There is no secret that God does not know about. Of course this includes the obvious sins: fornication, theft, hatred, but perhaps people who are drawn to sing in choir may be tempted by more subtle sins: pride, arrogance, or a critical spirit. But you are not a better Christian because you sing in the choir, and other members of the body are not worse Christians because they spend their time serving in other ways. But be on guard against all sin: confess it and kill it quickly.

Remember that above all, we need the blessing of God. Beautiful, skillful singing without the blessing of God cannot do anything. And the halting praises of a backwoods chapel lifted up by the Spirit could send New York City into a panic. We do not have to choose between halting praises and skillful praises, but whatever we do, we want the blessing of God. Therefore, be quick to confess your sins, quick to forgive, keep short accounts. This is not only so that you may stay in the joy of the Lord, and God’s blessing may rest upon you and your families. This is also so that God’s blessing may rest upon your musical ministry and upon our whole church, so that our worship may be truly potent and our praises may continue to bring down the walls of unbelief. 

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Saving Up Joy

St. Jerome once said, grieve over your sin, and then joy over your grief. What Jerome meant is similar to what Paul said in 2 Corinthians about how the Corinthians had truly mourned over their sin. Paul said he was glad. He had mourned over their sin, and rebuke them, and they in turn had been given a godly sorrow that lead to real repentance, and therefore it was time to rejoice. 

Just as we begin every worship service with confession of sin and assurance of forgiveness, we conclude every worship service with this table of joy. But do not misunderstand. We are not ceremonialists – we are not saying that you must save up all your sins throughout the week for the confession, and therefore you must wait until this point to be assured that God has accepted you. No, these parts of our service are more like confessions of faith, reminders of what is true all the time. We proclaim the truths of forgiveness and joyful fellowship here because they are available to you all week long. 

Do not save up your sins: confess them right away, forgive one another right away, keep short accounts. And as you do that, every time you are forgiven, there should be a mini-feast of joy laid for you and for the people around you. What is your forgiveness? It is the body and blood of the Lord shed for your sins. What is your joy? It is the body and blood of the Lord shed for your sins. 

Then you might wonder: why bother with church every Sunday? Well, for starters, Jesus told us to gather together and keep this meal whenever we gather. But Jesus also promised to be uniquely present when we gather together, to be in our midst. But think about it: we all sin throughout the week, and we confess our sins, and we receive forgiveness, all week long. And then we come here, all together, to celebrate that. It’s not that we’ve been saving up our sins to be forgiven, or in some weird way, pretending we don’t know if we’re forgiven or not. 

Rather, if we’ve been confessing our sins and forgiving one another all week long, we’ve actually been saving up our joy. If we’re doing it right, there’s a sense in which we should be welling up as the week goes on, considering how gracious and kind and merciful God is being to each of us, and then considering how God is being so gracious and kind and merciful to our whole church. So we’re welling up with joy throughout the week, and then we come here to rejoice. We come here to lift our praises. We come here to feast together with our King. God is good.

 So come and welcome to Jesus Christ.

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Love Covers

“And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins. Use hospitality one to another without grudging” (1 Pet. 4:8-9).

Love covers a multitude of sins. You know that love also must confront some sins, but here we are taught that there are crowds of sins that love simply covers. Love overlooks many sins. And the next verse suggests that many of those sins must be covered in the context of hospitality – and think of hospitality broadly as loving those in your own home as well as those you welcome into your home. 

The opposite of covering multitudes of sins in love is grudging. The same word could be translated murmuring or complaining or grumbling. If you are faced with the kind of sin that requires you to cover it with love, then you must do so gladly, cheerfully, not grumbling all the way to bed. 

But how can you do that when the dinner guests were rude? How can you do that when your spouse wasn’t as helpful as you hoped? The only way to love others in Christian love is to keep your eyes fixed on Jesus. 

In another place, Paul says, “Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God for Christ’s sake forgave you” (Eph. 4:32).

This table is the hospitality of God in Christ. Here, God welcomes you week after week, and he does so gladly. And, not to put too fine a point on it, he does so, covering multitudes of sins. We confess the sins we know about throughout the week and at the beginning of the service, but the promise is always that He will cleanse us from all unrighteousness – not some, not most, all. We confess the sins we know about, and God in His kindness and tenderness welcomes us to His table, covering us in the blood and righteousness of Jesus, covering us in His love. 

And God does not grudge filthy sinners who are hungry for his grace. He is not murmuring or complaining or grumbling about all the sins remaining in us. God loves to forgive, and God loves to cover our sins – because both display the goodness and glory of Christ. Christ died for sinners. That’s why we’re here. And when we get to cover the sins of our spouse, our children, our parents, our relatives, our neighbors, or dinner guests, we get to do the same. The death of Christ paid for all our sins, and that grace is now free: free for us and free to share.

So come and welcome to Jesus Christ.

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The Ways of Their Father

All parenting is a kind of foster care. We are all caring for children that belong to the Lord. They are His, and to train them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord is to say that we are training them to be comfortable and fully prepared to dwell in the house of the Lord forever. We are teaching our children the words and the ways, the customs and the habits of their Father’s House. 

This means that Christian parenting is all about God’s standards not yours, not your friend’s, not you mother’s. Your parenting style should be as free and generous as God is and as firm and narrow as God is. Many parenting mistakes amount to being rigid where God is actually very generous and being flexible precisely where God refuses to budge. So consider: are your household standards God’s standards? Do you need to make any adjustments to your standards in education, entertainment, music, clothing, friends, food?

This also establishes the importance of parents confessing their sins. If you know you’ve been harsh or indulging in your standards, you may need to ask forgiveness. A father who asks his children to forgive him for his sin is acknowledging that Jesus is Lord of the house. And for the same reason, parents must never apologize for something that is not a sin. A pouting fit must never be appeased by grasping for something to apologize for. Not only is that lying, it is also making someone’s emotions the god of the home, which, in very short order will be a Hellish place to live. 

Finally, remember that the admonition of the Lord is the paidea of God, or the culture of God. Culture is something that takes time. Especially when children are young, you are planting many seeds that will only bear fruit 3, 5, and 10 years later. This means that you must parent by faith, and that means you must look diligently to the Word of God and then trust and obey. If you are looking anywhere else (magazines, books, down the aisle at church, or Facebook or Instagam), you will grow discouraged, impatient, or despair. 

You absolutely want to be praying and looking for fruit, but if you’re looking for immediate payoffs, you are likely to begin taking all the wrong cues. God has assigned these particular children to you. He knows what He’s doing. Trust Him and joyfully bring them continually to Him. 

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Far As the Curse is Found

The goal of all evangelism is worship. Jesus sent the first disciples out into all of the world, to preach the gospel and make disciples of every nation, baptizing them and teaching them to obey Jesus. Our goal is that every knee would bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. 

Therefore, this task begins with Christians obeying Jesus, Christians bowing the knee and confessing with their mouths that Jesus Christ is Lord. So evangelism begins with Christians worshiping God. However, there is a mistaken notion among some Christians that this must mean that worship is evangelistic in the sense that it is oriented to unbelievers. Those worship services tend to lower the bar in order to make unbelievers feel comfortable, and the end of that road is often that the unbelievers feel so comfortable that they feel no need to become Christians at all. Meanwhile, the Christians are often not being fed or growing into maturity, and frequently it turns out that many of the professing Christians are not really Christians at all since it’s so comfortable to be an unbeliever. 

But this doesn’t mean that worship is not evangelistic. Worship’s primary goal is to glorify God by obeying His summons and appearing before Him on the Lord’s Day to do what He calls us to do. Therefore, worship is evangelistic in a secondary way. It’s evangelistic in the sense that when God’s people worship Him, we are doing what God wants the whole world to do.

When we lift up our hearts to the Lord in the Call to Worship, we are inviting our neighbors to do the same. When we confess our sins and praise the Lord for our forgiveness, we are telling the whole world that this forgiveness is for them as well. When we sing Psalms with joy and reverence, we are doing what God wants all the nations to do. When we hear the Word in humble submission, we are doing what God summons everyone to do. When we share bread and wine with thanksgiving, in fellowship with God and one another, we are proclaiming the peace offered in the Cross. And when Jesus proclaims His blessing on us as we go back out into the world, part of what we are receiving is a blessing that flows, far as the curse is found.  

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Let the Children Come

Jesus said, let the little children come to me, for of such is the kingdom of God. And on Palm Sunday when Jesus rode into Jerusalem and the children were cheering as He drove out those who bought and sold in the temple and the priests objected, Jesus said, have you never read that God has ordained strength out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants. 

We do have child care rooms available for nursing mothers and parents who need to teach and train their young children, but we always want to make it clear that all children are most welcome here. Not only that, but we believe that their praises are most necessary and needed. The praises of children – their voices, their hands raised, their amens – sometimes several beats after ours, are mighty. God has ordained strength in them, to silence the enemy and the avenger. 

We live in a world, in a culture, that has determined to silence the voice of children. We have done our own silencing in the church by sending them out of our services. We have silenced their voices slowly by sending them to schools that teach them not to worship the Triune God. And many millions have been silenced before they even took their first breath. And all of this has happened in a nation in which half or more of its population claims the name of Jesus. Because we have done this, God has silenced our voice. The American evangelical church has been largely struck dumb. We have nothing to say, and when we do say anything it’s full of froth and no one cares. 

None of this is based on a misplaced romanticism. Children are sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, sinners in need of grace, and if left to themselves, full of folly and rebellion. But when parents cling to the promises of God in humble reliance on His grace, and patiently correct and teach their children, God blesses and a mighty army arises. 

Children, received with trembling, joyful faith, are the reward of God, arrows in the hand of mighty warriors. So as we gather for worship now, let the little children come. Fathers, let them come. Mothers, let them come. Let them come as you teach them, as you encourage them, as you correct them, and as you remember their frames. Bring them to Jesus, so that He might bless them, so that by their praises, God might once again give us a voice, so that He might silence our enemies. 

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