Toby J. Sumpter's Blog, page 74

Building the City of God in a Fallen World

Introduction

In a world gone mad, Christians can become unwitting assistants to the insanity, and therefore, it is incredibly important for Christians to keep the building blocks of civilization straight in their own heads. How are cities built? They are built on the principle of personal responsibility.

The Text: After Adam and Eve sinned, and God spared their lives, Eve bore children to Adam, the first two apparently being Cain and Abel (Gen. 4:1-2). God was pleased with Abel’s worship and displeased with Cain’s, and this made Cain very angry (Gen. 4:3-5, cf. Heb. 11:4). God warned Cain that disobedience and a bad attitude meant more evil was crouching at his door, and he needed to rule wisely, but Cain ignored the warning and murdered his brother (Gen. 4:6-8). When the Lord confronted Cain, he shifted the blame like his parents before him, raising a philosophical question about the nature of responsibility, but the Lord was not distracted and reiterated the curses for Abel’s blood (Gen. 4:9-12). When Cain realized that his actions left him vulnerable to the vengeance of others, he pleaded for mercy and God sent him away with a mark of protection and he started building a family and a city (Gen. 4:13-18). We see the downstream results in his family when Lamech takes two wives and soon admits to murder as well (Gen. 4:19, 23-24), and yet, God also grants his family a measure of cultural dominion over cattle, music, and technology (Gen. 4:20-22). Meanwhile, Eve bore another son to Adam, named Seth, and in those days, men began to call on the name of the Lord (Gen. 4:25-26).

Building Culture in the Ruins

This may seem like a very unlikely passage to discuss Christian culture building. Ultimately, the whole earth was filling with evil, leading to the flood (Gen. 6:5). But there are at least two curious things in this text: First, why did God spare Cain (and later, Lamech)? And why did God bless his family with a measure of cultural success? We know that sometimes God blesses the wicked with success in order to give that wealth to the righteous (e.g. Prov. 13:22), but we do not want to be backed into a corner where we are saying that it’s just inscrutable luck. So, despite the growing disobedience of the human race as a whole, it seems likely that the way God dealt with Cain’s sin was related to his ability to build cities and discover true treasure and glory in the earth. Where did that ability come from? Common grace and the image of God are certainly part of the picture, but the text curiously frames the agricultural, musical, and artistic and technological advances of Cain’s family with the stories of Cain and Lamech (Gen. 4:19-23).

While we may (rightly) note the familial resemblance between Cain and Lamech’s sin, we should not miss the fact that five generations later, Cain’s descendants are still citing God’s dealings with Cain (Gen. 4:24). In fact, Hebrews says, we have come “to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel” (Heb. 12:24). In other words, the murder of Abel was a type of Christ’s sacrifice, and it’s in that context that men are dwelling in tents, raising cattle, making music, and working with metal. The point is that in the midst of the anarchy of sin, God administered a measure of justice, insisting that Cain take responsibility for the bloodshed of his brother, and as he did so, the city of Enoch was built, and five generations later, Lamech is also taking responsibility for his sinful actions and his family is cultivating cattle, music, and technology.

Conservative Victim Cultures?

If you have been around here long at all, you have heard and read any number of warnings about the current “sacred victim culture” we live in. This is a false gospel if there ever was one (cf. Gal. 1). It offers justification and holiness to any and all who will claim the status of victim. This is a form of self-justification, since a victim must claim relative innocence, and this is also a form of crowd sourcing your justification – justification by popular vote. But perhaps most importantly, this is a refusal to accept responsibility. There are certain frontal assaults in this war that we must not budge on: insisting on justice for the accused, two and three witnesses, due process, etc (which, incidentally, is how true crimes should be adjudicated). But we must also be aware of certain flanking attempts, where Christians are offered various victim club cards (e.g. religious persecution and discrimination, liberal fascism, the Federal regulations, unjust taxation, Hollywood, porn, etc.), but we must see every offer of victimhood as an offer to join the anarchy, to become assistants to the insanity.

We must refuse and reject every offer of victimhood, not because real injustice cannot be perpetrated against us, but because we are never totally innocent and we have a better offer. And this is because we have a better victim. Jesus is the better victim because He was completely innocent and willing, and therefore, His sacrifice was an act of taking responsibility in order to present us to God with all glory (Eph. 5:25-26, 1 Pet. 2:24-25). And because Jesus took responsibility for us, we are completely justified by faith. Our sins are washed clean, and the obedience of Jesus is imputed to us (Rom. 4:22-25). This is why Paul says that even when we are victimized, we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us (Rom. 8:36-37).

Personal Responsibility & Culture Building

Satan plied Eve’s moral clarity in order to deceive her: Did God really say? Here, Cain has taken it a step further, asking whether God should really even be asking him about his brother (Gen. 4:9). Moral ambiguity is frequently closely aligned with evading responsibility. People have a bad habit of trying to justify sin with ambiguity and confusion. This can be done by straight-forward evasion and relativism, but this can also be done by claiming that everything is everyone’s responsibility, which ultimately means no one is responsible for anyone because you are not infinite, omniscient, omnipotent – in short, you are not God. Be assured that the attempt to do this will always result in various attempts at playing god. But this will ultimately result in apathy and paralysis. Why should anyone do anything? What are you working for? Who are you working for? What would constitute any actual progress? What are you responsible for?

This is why Christians, in submission to God’s word, have historically insisted that faithfulness means being responsible and sovereign over the sphere(s) that God has assigned to you (and not others). The principle of “sphere sovereignty” comes from God assigning responsibility to particular people in particular relationships: civil magistrate, parent, husband, master, teacher, etc. God assigns three broad spheres: family, church, and state. And God’s law always applies to every sphere: a man may not murder his brother and tell the civil magistrate to stay in his own lane. I suspect that God gave Cain such a light sentence (as well as Lamech) both to display His great mercy (as He had with Adam and Eve) and to lean hard against sphere anarchy. In God’s ordering of things, personal responsibility is the basic building block of culture. Men are tempted to try to trick power out of evasion of responsibility, by blaming others, by claiming to be victims, but that is a black hole of chaos and anarchy.

But the answer to the chaos is the gospel: Jesus has taken personal responsibility for us – for our sin and for our good works (Eph. 2:8-10) – His blood speaks better things than that of Abel, so that one by one, as we call on the name of the Lord, living stones are being built up into the city of God, as we take up the good works that He has prepared beforehand for us to walk in them.

 

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The Word Spreads the Feast

As God has been gracious to grant many of us a greater appreciation for the Biblical foundations of formal worship and the gift of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, it’s important that we keep our priorities straight. Two of the gifts the Lord has given us in this meal in particular have been the opportunity to welcome our baptized children to share this meal with us, and our custom of celebrating this meal together every week. If you’ve come from a different church background or visited other churches on vacation, you know that not everyone celebrates like we do. Historically, reformed churches have not welcomed children to this table until they were able to make a mature profession of faith in Jesus for themselves. And this meal was often only celebrated once a quarter or once a month. While I believe we should rejoice in what God has given us here, we should not misunderstand how we are to receive this.

And what I mean is this: Standing firmly in the Reformed tradition means that we understand the faithful preaching and application of God’s Word found in the Bible is the most important thing. This faithful preaching should lead to a joyful, faithful celebration of the sacraments. But we do not want to drift into thinking that these additional blessings that we treasure are the center. The center is knowing Jesus and walking with Him by faith through hearing and obeying His Word. You don’t ever want to find yourself contemplating going to a church where you’re not sure if they actually believe the Bible but at least they have weekly communion. That’s completely backwards.

So let me encourage you here to make sure you are talking with your children about these things. They will understandably be most excited about the bread and the wine, and it is here for them. But as you teach them, remind them that they are welcome here because Jesus has welcomed them in His Word. We hear His word, believe His word, obey His Word, and in so doing, we find a glorious feast spread for us and for our children.

 

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Your Assignment from Conception

Sometimes people wonder what their calling is. They wish God would just make it clear what they are supposed to do with their lives. And this certainly can be challenging at times. At the same time, the witness of the Bible is not that God is an introvert who mostly keeps to Himself. No, the Bible reveals God as outgoing, talkative, and opinionated. The problem isn’t that we can’t get God to talk. The problem is that we can’t hear.

David says that the heavens are declaring the glory of God and every day is going on and on about Him, in every language, in every land. God has spoken this world, and He upholds it all with the Word of His power. You are surrounded in the words of God. You are one of His spoken words.

And just to drill down on this a little: God has spoken to everyone in this room in creating us male or female. And when He spoke each person male or female, He was calling you into existence with a calling, a vocation, an assignment to image Him as a man or a woman. What are you supposed to do with your life? What does God want you to do? He wants you to live as the man or woman He created you to be. Most of you are or will be married, most of you are or will be fathers and mothers, and this is good and wonderful and glorious. But this is an outworking of your fundamental calling to image your Maker in this world as a man, as a woman.

No one is born with a completely blank slate. There may be any number of options and opportunities before you, but God gives our most basic assignment at conception. He spoke to each one of us in our creation. This was not an accident, a mistake, or random. It was the wisdom of your Father. He spoke you, and He spoke you as a man or a woman. And this is an assignment from Him. Go and learn this. Go and live this. Learn the glory of being a man; learn the glory of being a woman.

And as you do this, do not assume that the various offers to help you with this are of equal value. Turn to the One who made you, who knows you, and ask Him to teach you.

 

Photo by Ryoji Iwata on Unsplash

The Wolves Are Not Here to Help

One of the distinctions Christians really need to get down is the difference between fighting bad guys and ministering to the hurting. In Bible terms this is the difference between fighting wolves and binding up the wounds of the sheep. And there really are a number of things to try to keep straight in our minds.

First, the standards for all of these distinctions must be the Bible. Wounded sheep are not the standard, wolves are not the standard, and wounded wolves or healthy wolves posing as wounded sheep are not the standard. This will always make the wolves howl, but all the sheep should be greatly comforted by this fact. Jesus is the Great Shepherd of the Sheep. He knows what is best for His flock, and therefore we rest in His Word, not the words, impressions, feelings, or fears of anyone else.

So what do we see in Jesus’ ministry? We see Him doing both. He mocks the Pharisees and taunts the scribes and laughs at hypocrites of all stripes, and when the broken and hurting show up in front of Him, He is full of compassion and tenderness and healing. And so it must be the same for those who claim to follow this Jesus: fierce words for the wolves, tender words for the wounded. But one of the things that the broken and wounded need to understand is that they are in no position to give instructions on how to fight the wolves, apart from generally cheering the guys at the front lines on. Likewise, God equips certain parts of the Body of Christ to be expert healers, physicians of the soul, and they should be given all the support and encouragement possible in their hospital ministry. And they should not expect that the tactics they use in the hospital are what the lieutenants and sergeants should be using out in the field. In fact, this is precisely where the modern Christian Church is often confused and failing. We have nurses out on the front lines crying foul at all the guns and swords and rocket launchers, insisting instead that we wrap wolves up in gauze and roll them into our camps in wheel chairs. And at the moment we have hordes of hungry wolves only too willing to play the victim, flopping like a professional basketball player and moaning about how the Church has mistreated them and #metooing their way into the Church. But what your childhood fairytales should have taught you once and for all is that you can never trust a wolf. Never.

The challenge centers around the fact that our goal on the battlefield is to turn our enemies into friends. Jesus only saves enemies (Rom. 5), and this means that our goal in preaching the gospel is to kill wolves such that they rise again as fellow sheep. But wolves are conniving bastards, and they love to pretend that they have been killed, love to play dead and hurt and wounded, and pluck the heart strings of tenderhearted Christians who should not be allowed to call the plays on the battlefield. We need their tenderness with the truly wounded sheep, not with the conniving wolves. To be tender toward wolves is to be violent with sheep.

And related to the challenge of doing this well is the fact that we do not fight with carnal weapons. Our guns and swords and rocket launchers are not physical; our warfare is spiritual: primarily with words, with songs, with truth, with Scripture, with feasting and joy and grace. But this is such an uncommon way of waging war, it’s easy to confuse these tactics with not fighting. But fight we must. The Bible is absolutely clear (Eph. 6, 1 Tim. 1:18, 2 Cor. 10, 2 Tim. 4:7). The fact that our weapons are not carnal, does not mean we do not fight.

And our aim is the death of all wolves, all snakes, all lions — all the enemies of Christ. And all will die either in the cross of Christ or in Hell. But all who die in Christ are raised to new life. This is why it can be said truly that we wage this war in love. This is why we love our enemies, bless our enemies, do good to our enemies. But all of this must be biblically defined, and not defined by our feelings, by our sentiments, or by what Lifetime and Hallmark and Precious Moments have cooked up in their cheap knockoff, faux-love machines. Sometimes Jesus mocks His enemies; sometimes He is silent. Sometimes Jesus feeds His enemies; sometimes He confronts their errors with holy fury. Sometimes Jesus saves His enemies; sometimes He sends them to Hell forever. Jesus is love. He defines love for us and not the other way around.

Obviously, some of those particular actions are beyond the skills or wisdom of any Christian. But we do have the gospel, and we have been commissioned to proclaim this. In the cross of Jesus, all love and justice, mercy and wrath come together in God’s infinite and perfect wisdom. So we preach the cross of Christ. We tell the truth about sin, about evil, about wolves, and preach all of it mocked, scorned, condemned, and nailed to the cross of Jesus. Every kind of abuse, every kind of mistreatment, every sort of insult, every hypocritical #MeToo wolf charade, every manner of lustful looks, every imaginable wicked deed, whether done in the light or hidden in the dark — all sin was condemned in Jesus, and the holy, righteous, and infinite wrath of God was poured out for it all.

So when a preacher goes into battle, this is the center of his armory. He wields this sword, the sword of the Spirit which carries within it the holy fury of God against all sin and lies and injustice, and the mercy and compassion and love of God that sent His only Son to stand in the place of rebellious sinners, wolves and enemies all.

But this is the thing: God’s love cannot be divorced from the cross of Jesus. God shows common grace to all men, He sends rain on the good and evil, but God’s love, His lovingkindness, His covenant mercy is for those who fear Him, for those who hide themselves in Christ. So this is the key to the distinction between fighting wolves and binding up the wounds of sheep. The cross is the great fence, the Great Wall, the great divide, the Great Door. On the one side there is only condemnation; on the other side there is no condemnation. And yes, of course we do good to those under condemnation: we give our enemies food if they are hungry and drink if they are thirsty, heaping burning coals on their heads (Rom. 12). But the point of those burning coals is to invite the enemies God through the door of the cross, which turns out to be a tomb. And this means dying: dying to self, dying to pride, dying to all human hubris, but there is light on the other side.

So have you been hurt, mistreated, abused? Do not seek shelter in any of the makeshift wolf tents marked with #MeToo. They can put on a real show of compassion and sympathy with all their teary puppy dog eyes, but never forget: wolves eat sheep. They can swear up and down and on the grave Herod the Great, but be assured: they will always eventually eat you. And sure, I understand that some of Jesus’ undershepherds are a bit fierce, not too cuddly, and maybe sometimes overly Irish. But be thankful that they hate wolves. Be thankful they are fighting. Because they are fighting for you. They mock the wolfish offers of care and healing because they love sheep and they know the wolves are not really here to help.

#MeToot & the Bloodhound Gang

As I have taken aim over the last few weeks and fired my Daisy BB gun at the #MeToot shrine of holy victimhood, I have had a few folks wonder why I have taken such a negative view towards the whole thing. Isn’t it good that some real abuses are being exposed and trapped women have come out of the shadows? Why not recognize that it’s a big mixed bag with some good folks and some bad folks and just be thankful for the good that’s coming from it?

You mean like Trump when he defended the white nationalists in Charlottesville, saying there were “some very fine people on both sides?” I ask, while pumping my gun three more times, squinting down the barrel, lining up that little notch with that little V, pulling my trigger, and listening for that delightful plink of metal on metal.

But seriously. Why not rejoice in the good and reject the evil? Shouldn’t a Christian pastor rejoice even if one woman was set free by the #MeToot movement? Let me see. The answer is no. Absolutely not. Never. Not in a million years. Nope. Nada (that’s Spanish for Hell, no.).

Why?

The reason is that Christians must not worship idols. “Little children, keep yourself from idols” (1 Jn. 5:21). There, isn’t that enough?

Ok, let’s do a little word play here. Should a Christian rejoice if even one woman was set free by Zeus? Should a Christian rejoice if even one woman was set free by Baal? Should a Christian rejoice if even one woman was set free by Asherah, Aphrodite, or Molech? No. Never. Nope. Absolutely not. Nada.

Why? Because none of those false gods and idols can set any woman free ever. None of those false gods and idols ever lifted a finger to help any woman ever. They were always, continuously, forever dead set on the perpetuation of the abuse of women. That’s what idols do: they deform the human beings who make them and serve them (Ps. 115:8). Idols always abuse their worshippers. But you can be sure that they always advertised their services as “healthy” and “humane” and “progressive” and “liberating” and “empowering.” That’s how idols always work.

But, you say, #MeToot is not a false god or an idol. It’s just a loose movement, a diverse conversation, a hashtag on social media trying to spread awareness of how widespread the sexual abuse of women is. Right, that grew out of what exactly? Where’d it come from?

There we were slaughtering babies to Molech the monster god of feminism and scraping and bowing to sodomites and self-mutilated transgendered eunuchs and all their effeminate initiates (our new priestly caste), with a multi-gazillion dollar porn industry flourishing online and sex shops, sex robots, strip clubs, and every other sexual perversion pimped out in every major city on every major cable network, and you’re telling me that somebody suddenly looked up, covered in blood and semen and said, “Wait, but what about the women?” As a tear slowly rolled down his cheek?

Ha. Double ha. Belly laugh.

In order for #MeToot to do the slightest good in the world there would have to be widespread, ahem, what shall we call it? Repentance. But what we are seeing currently is nothing even remotely resembling repentance. Sure, it’s a sham repentance. Harvey Weinstein and the few other high profile targets are scapegoats, false sacrifices meant to appease the mobs, er um, I mean dogs. I mean… Final answer: gods. Whatever. But the whole point is to keep the industries of abuse fully functioning all while serving up platitudes of moral virtue. The gods always promised success, prosperity, victory, happiness, but there was always that little, teeny, itsy-bitsy thing they required: blood. Will Jennifer Lawrence be applauded for a violent pornographic scene, all while claiming to be empowered? Oh right. I guess so. There you go. When #MeToot has done it’s work, we will have women being abused and calling it empowerment. They will thank the gods for being raped. It’s what the idols always do.

Should Christians speak out against sexual assault and mistreatment of women? Of course. Yes. Absolutely. Should the authorities be called when crimes have been committed? Absolutely. Every time. Should creeps be fired? Yep. Should the unrepentant be excommunicated? You bet. Should we go easy on men who mistreat women? Absolutely not. But all of this, mark my words carefully: is because men and women are created in the image of the Triune God, because His law is fixed forever in the Bible, because His Christ suffered, bled, and died, condemning all evil in His flesh, including the mistreatment of women, and rose from the dead triumphant over all of it. This is the fixed standard, the only standard, the only rock that is strong enough to withstand the storms of public opinion, the mobs, the false gods, the money-power, the politicians, the media. All other ground is sinking sand.

So why do I object to #MeToot? Why not see it as a welcome breath of fresh air in the midst of this wicked world? Why not hijack this movement for the gospel? Well, I really would be fully on board with an actual hijacking. But so far, I’ve seen no hijacking and only Christians being muddled, foolish, and getting hijacked.

At best, #MeToot is a shrine to the unknown goddess in the American pantheon. Over there is Aphrodite, she’s organizing the next Sports Illustrated pornsuit issue. On the other wall, you will see Mars keeping military men empowered with sexual guilt. And down the hall, you’ll find shrines to money-sex, academia-sex, and one of the more popular, is a gigantic, shiny mirror, the god Demos, the will of the people to always have sex. But over here in this corner you find this pert little altar to an unknown goddess, named #MeToot. (Sorry, she has gas.)

It’s an unknown goddess because we don’t know why it’s wrong to mistreat women. If Darwin is right and Freud was right and Kinsey was right and Hugh Hefner was right and The Shape of Water and Call Me By Your Name won Oscars this year, why should anyone do anything other than what the urges inside them tell them to do? In the immortal words of one of your own prophets, the Bloodhound Gang, “You and me baby ain’t nothin’ but mammals; So let’s do it like they do on the Discovery Channel.” Which come to think of it is probably coercive, manipulative, and violent. But hey, survival of the fittest, baby.

So do I think Christians could stand, like Paul did on the Areopagus, and proclaim Jesus Christ to the pagans who are sick and tired of women being treated like crap? Yes, I do. But that would be to take on all of the false gods at the same time. Paul did not stand up there and try to start a conversation with all the pagans. He did not stammer or stutter. He said God made the heavens and the earth and isn’t contained in idols made by men with gold or silver, and then he said that God had appointed Jesus to judge the world and everyone everywhere needs to repent. That’s what hijacking would look like. It would mean calling the Hollywood and New York elites and all the red state hillbillies in between to repent of abortion, transgenderism, homosexuality, all prostitution, adultery, and fornication. And let’s be clear, this is no “abortion juke,” this isn’t a rhetorical sleight trying to force some kind of false dichotomy. No, the point is straight up the middle. The single greatest act of sexual abuse being perpetrated on American women today is abortion. Period. Full stop. For someone to say they want to talk about sexual abuse and then say that abortion is off the table — that is the juke.

The fact that abortion and homosexuality and prostitution and porn are not at the center of the #MeToot movement tells you all you need to know.

And they have healed the brokenness of My people superficially, Saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ But there is no peace. Were they ashamed because of the abomination they have done? They were not even ashamed at all; They did not even know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; At the time that I punish them, They shall be cast down,” says the LORD. (Jer. 6:14-15)

This is what #MeToot offers: bandaids for cancer. But are they ashamed of transgender mutilations? Are they ashamed of the millions of babies sacrificed to convenience? Are they ashamed of their bodies bought and sold on pornhub as sex slaves? No. They do not even know how to blush.

And you better believe that if someone prominent were to stand up and list those root sins as directly related to what the #MeToot movement needs to address, they would be shouted down and shut up as quick as a politician would tell a lie. This tells you what the goals and aims of this movement are: to make a bunch of people feel moral and zealous and virtuous all while perpetuating all of the same abusive industries that are destroying women’s lives every day. The whole #MeToot movement is a sham. It is an idolatrous sham. I will not give #MeToot credit for anything good. #MeToot can save no one, change no one, help no one. She has no eyes, no ears, no mouth, no hands. It is an idol. The heart of idolatry is always trying to trick some kind of virtue, some kind of salvation into existence without reference to the Triune God, but that’s impossible and it always perpetuates abuse of its victims.

If any woman has really been delivered from abuse, all praise goes to Christ, our only God and Savior. He was crucified, buried, and rose again. He triumphed over all evil.

So I’ll be over here all day long with my Daisy BB gun.

Staying Hungry for Real Food

“Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby:If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.”

One of the things this meal reminds us of week after week is that we are to desire the sincere milk of the word like newborn babes. We should be hungry for the word. We eat these words on the Lord’s Day in order to be reminded that we need to be hungry for God’s word every day.

Here, Peter points out two motivators, two things that should make us hungry for God’s word. The first is laying aside fake food. That’s what sin is: fake food. Hatred, lies, hypocrisy, envy, evil speaking – these promise to fill us, to satisfy us, but they never do. Sometimes you allow those sins into your own heart and head and mouth, sometimes you let friends talk that way around you, or maybe you consume those things on the internet or television or as entertainment. Not only is that stuff not good for you, it takes away your hunger for real food, for God’s word. Also, if you’re honest with yourself, it’s hard to lay aside those sins. So, if you’re serious about laying aside that fake food, you will be hungry for real food, for the sincere milk of the word.

The second thing Peter says that should make us hungry for God’s word is the fact that we have tasted that the Lord is good. Do you remember those times when the Lord has been so good to you? When He has answered prayer beyond expectation? When He comforted your heart? When you came upon that verse that spoke exactly to that need? When the Lord used a sermon like Pastor Wilson had been eavesdropping on your prayers? Have you tasted that the Lord is good? Then don’t you want some more? Aren’t you hungry for more? Desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby.

“And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost.”

So come and welcome to Jesus Christ.

 

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God In Our Image

One of the great root heresies is the temptation to try to make God in our own image. We are made in God’s image, but this doesn’t mean that we may project back into God whatever we find in ourselves.

It’s often frustrating or confusing to try to figure out how people who profess to know God can get to the point where they promote and bless abortion, sodomy, transgenderism, fornication, polyamory, no-fault divorce. How do you get there? Well, you get there by beginning to imagine God in our image.

Perhaps one of the more subtle and vicious ways this occurs is when we prioritize relationship over truth. Arguably, this slide has been fed for decades by the evangelical mantra of having a personal relationship with God. To be a Christian is to be in covenant with God, but God does not relate to us the way we relate to one another. He is not getting to know us as we get to know Him. He does not change in any way. This would be to make God one of us and therefore no God at all.

In God, truth and love really are the same. This is why love rejoices in the truth, and we are to speak the truth in love. But since we are finite creatures, and not God, we must necessarily order these priorities, and the order really must be truth as the foundation for relationship. This is because God has ordered creation this way. God’s word speaks and creates this world and then creates a man to relate to it, and from that first man’s rib a woman was created to relate specifically to that man. The truth about reality is the foundation for relationships, and not the other way around.

In our culture, we have been taught just the opposite: to prioritize relationship over truth, that unity and harmony will lead us to truth, but this is not a harmless mistake. This is ultimately to play God, to pretend that our love can somehow create truth. But we are not God and therefore His truth is the only foundation for true love. God is love, and His love is identical with His truth. But we are not God, and so we must not pretend that our love is identical with truth. But the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have beheld His glory, full of grace and truth.

Heroes in the Social Media Trenches

We come now to the third chapter in 12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You by Tony Reinke. If you’re just joining us, you can find my previous installments here and here. Once again, there is plenty here to take on board and heed. Tony opens with a couple of cautionary tales of women caught up in internet celebrity addictions, and he argues that the internet has largely replaced our heroes with celebrities, momentary images that play on our envies, rather than heroes who grow more solid with time as their virtues solidify and standout against fashions and fads. This drives the overall aim the of the chapter warning against the fear and approval of man, with an especially well-aimed shot at missionary selfies, where Christians frequently substitute the immediate reward of 80 likes and 12 comments for the eternal reward God offers in heaven for good deeds done in secret.

Now, all well and good in general, but again, my interest is in pushing the conversation further up and further in. So what if you’re a Christian who hates self-promotional selfies, is completely committed to seeking the eternal glory and approval of Christ, and doesn’t need likes or favorites or retweets to find meaning and peace in this world? In other words, what is the Lord giving us in the gift of social media, iPhones, and the internet?

Or maybe better: what would the Apostle Paul have done with his iPhone X if he had one? Some of you think he would have thrown it away, but I don’t agree. For example:

Some, to be sure, are preaching Christ even from envy and strife, but some also from good will; the latter do it out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel; the former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, rather than from pure motives, thinking to cause me distress in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed; and in this I rejoice, yes, and I will rejoice. (Phil. 1:15-18)

Imagine Paul talking about social media and iPhones in these verses — some people are driven by envy and strife and selfish ambition, but some also from good will, some from pure motives, some do it out of love, some use these means to proclaim Christ and His truth. And therefore, Paul rejoices. He doesn’t wring his hands and sigh dejectedly. He sees the messiness of human sin and mixed motivations, and says, but don’t you see how Christ is being preached in spite of all that?

That’s the spirit I don’t see or hear much of in Christian discussions of smart phones and social media. Sure, people will get caught up in the glitz and glamor, and some people really will ride the celebrity merry-go-round until they puke. But what about the opportunities? What about the opportunity of having a megaphone in your pocket to proclaim Christ and Him crucified? What about the fact that we can tag these insulated celebrities, and here and there make real contact and (perhaps) make a real difference in their lives? What about the fact that “news” is now effectively being democratized — and no longer nearly as monopolized by big business media? What are the opportunities with social media to make known the truth about abortion, police brutality, war crimes, and proclaim the truth and grace of Christ into it all?

There is certainly a lure in social media to find your identity in likes, follows, shares, and retweets, but there is also a reverse lure to be the armchair scorner of difficult and challenging things. It’s easy to sit up in your middle class ivory tower sneering at all the plebs posting Bible verses and pro-life memes and actually engaging with culture. It’s harder to figure out how to be bold and godly on Twitter. It’s harder to learn how to apply the fruits of the Spirit to Facebook and Instagram. Social media is a jungle, but God sent us into all the world to make disciples of all the nations, so that ever knee would bow, every tongue confess, and every square inch of this world would be brought under the dominion of Christ. Surely that includes phones and social media.

And Paul knew something about the dangers of seeking the fleshly approval of men. He had the full Jewish Boy Scout catalogue of merit badges and threw all of that away as worthless (Phil. 3:4-7). But if Paul were a modern evangelical Christian, he would go on to lament this tendency in men to seek righteousness through the approval of men and how it was becoming more common with the advent of cheaper scrolls and secretaries, safer travel along the Roman Roads, and everyone speaking Greek. If Paul were a modern evangelical Christian, he would only be able to see the down sides and dangers and wrap yellow warning tape around the whole mess.

But that isn’t what Paul does at all. The opposite of seeking the approval of men is seeking the approval of Christ, and it is precisely that glory that drives Paul all over the mediterranean preaching, writing, working, shipwrecked, imprisoned, beaten, threatened, and hungry:

Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. (Phil. 3:7-11)

In other words, Paul says he threw away all that humanistic righteousness in order to gain real righteousness — the righteousness which is from God by faith. But here’s the thing: this righteousness from God by faith is what we call justification. It’s vindication. It’s being right. It’s being approved by God, which will ultimately be publicly proven by Paul’s resurrection from the dead. And Paul has determined to live his life in the full assurance of that reality of the resurrection. This is what drives his preaching, his letter writing, his disciple-making, his boldness, his courage, his fearlessness. He continues:

Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus…Brethren, join in following my example, and note those who so walk, as you have us for a pattern.

So how does Paul chase the glory of God? How does He press toward the goal? By preaching the gospel everywhere he goes with every means available to him. Pressing on toward the goal of the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus doesn’t necessarily mean being less active on social media. Maybe it does for some people. Maybe if you’re neglecting your other duties, it means that. But I suspect that a well-balanced life of seeking the glory of Christ in obedience to His Word will mean some measure of social media involvement for most people. It will mean sharing God’s blessings with your friends and neighbors enthusiastically. It will mean posting encouraging words to those who need them. It will mean telling the biblical truth boldly at various points about important social and political issues. It will mean being a witness of Christ in day to day life with joy and grace and courage.

And my point here is simply to point out that if God blesses you with that — as He did with Jesus and Paul and Augustine and Luther and Wesley — and He gives you an internet following (most likely along with many enemies and detractors and anonymous trolls), even a very large following, that would make you a hero, and not merely a celebrity. And that would be a high calling, and nothing to be despised or embarrassed about. And I do not doubt that there will be some glorious crowns awaiting some faithful saints who carried on joyfully and courageously in the social media trenches, some of the least of these my brethren, who do not sound trumpets while they patiently tell the truth, share only the funniest memes, and make this world a better place through their wit and wisdom. Their reward will be great in heaven.

Victory in the Presence of our Enemies

This is a victory meal, and we eat this meal in the presence of our enemies. And just to make it clear what we’re talking about, we mean our enemies inside and outside. We mean the sins that still so easily entangle the saints of God: the fear, the anger, the bitterness, the complaining, the lies, the lust, the envy in our hearts as well as the social norms and institutionalized forms of those sins all around us: the enemies of God organizing their various rebellions to His law and His Christ. And add to this the downstream effects of sin: the creation groaning with violence, our bodies groaning with the curse, and death itself staring every one of us in the face. And the Lord invites us here week after week to celebrate victory over them all.

And what this means is that this meal is rightly celebrated by faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus. You cannot celebrate victory over your sin, victory over the evils that pervade our society, victory over death itself – you cannot celebrate victory over these enemies without faith. This is what faith is: believing what you cannot see, what is not yet here, but which God has promised us. And this last point really is important. The world around us likes to talk about faith and believing, but they just mean hoping for something they think would be really great but which they have no real substantial reason for thinking will actually come to pass.

But Christian faith is believing the Word of God, believing the promise of God. We are not believing vague feelings or hopes. Christians believe in Christ. Christian faith holds fast to what Christ has said. And this is our victory that overcomes the world: our faith. This is not because we have exceptionally strong faith. This is because we have an exceptionally strong Christ. So this is the basis of our faith, and this is the basis for our victory meal. We sit here together sharing the certainty of sin’s destruction, the certainty of all our enemies put beneath the feet of Jesus, and death itself swallowed up in victory.

So come and welcome to Jesus Christ.

 

Photo by Arthur Poulin on Unsplash

Happy Beggars

Today the Christian Church celebrates the pouring out of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. One of the great tasks of the Holy Spirit is to convict the world of sin, but frequently this conviction of sin is confused with Satan’s accusations and lies.

So how do you tell the difference between the conviction of the Holy Spirit and the accusations of the devil? First, the Holy Spirit brings clarity, but the devil brings confusion. The Holy Spirit brings light; the devil brings shadows. The Spirit points out black and white sins that Jesus died for. The Devil brings what-ifs and maybes and might-ofs, vague worries and fears. As a general rule of thumb, a Christian should give a guilty feeling about a minute, honestly asking the Lord to show you if there’s something to put right. And then move on. This is not giving yourself a pass. This is assuming the goodness of God. If there’s something you need to know, He’ll show you. Second, the Holy Spirit is the comforter. The devil bring endless condemnation and fear. But the Spirit brings peace and joy.

The way things work, some of you haven’t confessed a sin in several years and you think that must be the comfort of the Spirit when it is actually the apathy of the devil. And on the flip side, some of you have been running on the confession treadmill for the last three years panting and sweating, and you think that is the comfort of the Spirit when it is actually the affliction of the devil. So it really is a risky thing for a pastor to give an exhortation on this topic. Apathetic Christians are tempted to hear the words of comfort as affirmation of their apathy, and afflicted Christians are apt to hear exhortations to be tender toward the Spirit as affirmation of their affliction.

The only thing that breaks through both is the grace of God. So hear this: salvation is all grace. There will only be happy beggars in Heaven. Some will arrive having confessed sins for many years and find that they only confessed a tiny fraction of what Jesus died for. Others like the thief on the cross will have barely confessed one. But real grace always brings us to God, and therefore it is our joy to lay aside every weight.

 

 

Photo by Blaise Vonlanthen on Unsplash