Toby J. Sumpter's Blog, page 82

Mike & Grace

“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple” (Lk. 14:26).

For some reason this hasn’t been a very popular Scripture for wedding homilies. But I want to argue that it is a wonderful verse for a wedding. Jesus, in His typical way, draws with big, scrawling letters because we are blind. We immediately want to pull Jesus aside and explain to Him that the word “hate” was probably a bit too strong, and that some folks might get the wrong idea. But Jesus knows our hearts, and the hearts of men, and He knows what He’s doing. He knows that we already have the wrong idea, and that unless He says it this way, we will carry on with the wrong idea, assuring ourselves all along that we have got the right idea.

So what does Jesus mean exactly? Well, He means that we must truly hate our families and ourselves in order to be His disciples. There, I’ve said it again, and we’re all secretly hoping I can explain it away quickly before it sinks in and we’re stuck with it. How must we hate our families? Here are several ways: First, we must hate the sin in our families. We must hate sin and all evil. “O you who love the Lord, hate evil!” (Ps. 97:10) “The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate” (Prov. 8:13). It’s so hard to hate evil, especially in the ones we love the most. We are so tempted to make peace with it for the sake of peace, for the sake of unity, for the sake of friendship – we are tempted to sign treaties with sin and evil. We do this with ourselves because we love ourselves, and we do this with those we claim to love. But true love makes no peace with evil. Unless we hate the evil in ourselves and in those that we love, unless we hate their sins and our sins, we cannot be disciples of Jesus.

Second, we must hate our families and friends compared to our love for Christ. This explanation is often the best evasion of Christ’s words. It’s certainly true, but it often works overtime to mitigate what Jesus says. Instead, we really must work the other way: can we truly see how our love for Christ really must come out as a kind of hatred of those closest to us? There’s something of this sentiment in the great Christmas carol God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen – in the final stanza of the original text it says, “This holy tide of Christmas all others doth deface.” It’s always so jarring to sing those words. But the sense is that this celebration leaves all others in the dust, looking, seeming for all the world not only ignored but positively robbed. In Sheldon Vanauken’s book A Severe Mercy, he describes how he felt when his wife named “Davy” became a Christian before him: “I was back in the camp of the non-believers. And now I began to resent her conversion. I did not, I thought, resent her being a Christian; I resented her acting like one. Going to church without me – practically unfaithfulness. Going with all the other Christians, leaving me alone. I even resented her little special goodnesses, even goodness to me. I suspected she was doing it for God.” And even later after Sheldon himself had accepted Christ, he continued to struggle with the same resentment. He writes, “I wanted – what did I want? I wanted the fine keen bow of a schooner cutting the waves with Davy and me – just Davy and me… Well, there was nothing unchristian about that, as long as God was there too… But, though I wouldn’t have admitted it, even to myself, I didn’t want God aboard. He was too heavy. I wanted Him approving from a considerable distance. I didn’t want to be thinking of Him. I wanted to be free… I wanted life itself, the color and fire and loveliness of life. And Christ now and then, like a love poem I could read when I wanted to. I didn’t want us to be swallowed up in God… But for Davy, to live was Christ. She didn’t want to be a saint… She simply wanted God – almost totally. His service was her freedom, her joy. She loved me, she loved our sharing; but, ultimately, all there was to share was Christ and His service…”

And this leads to a third way in which we must hate our families and friends: we must hate them for how we allow them to draw us away from Christ. All of the best things in this world are meant to draw us toward Christ. But we are stubborn rebels, and we are so easily distracted. God gives us all the best things. He created the world. All the best things were His idea. Watermelons, candy, elephants, giraffes, waterfalls, helicopters, iPhones, Moms and Dads, husbands, wives, children, friends. All God’s idea, all meant to awaken in us delight and joy and longings to love and be loved, to be happy and fulfilled. And yet, they don’t fully fulfill us. They leave us always hungry for more, but instead of realizing that they were never meant to fully satisfy us, we become disgruntled and discontent and carry on demanding that they must. I deserve to be loved. I deserve to have my needs understood, appreciated, and met. I deserve to be happy – we insist. And Jesus Christ comes into the middle of this selfishness and says no. And instead, He demands that He be our highest love, our greatest treasure, our fullest devotion.

Now, this exclusivity that Jesus demands seems absurd. There are names we have for people who make demands like this: narcissist, megalomaniac, passive-aggressive, creep. It simply is not possible to say that Jesus was a nice man who taught people how to be nice. No ordinary man has the right to make those kinds of claims. Any other man who says that to you, “You can only be my friend if you hate all your other friends and family,” is either insane or a creepy conman. Or else Jesus was no ordinary man. And this is actually what He claimed. He claimed to be able to forgive sins. Not just sins you committed against Him. He would forgive you of sins you committed against other people. What kind of man does that? He seemed to insist that every time anyone sinned, they were in some way sinning against Him. The only kind of man who could do that is a man who believed that everything and everyone was somehow accountable to Him, which is to say that He believed He was God. And this is exactly who Jesus claimed to be. Before Abraham was, I Am, Jesus claimed. If you have seen me, you have seen the Father. I am in the Father, and the Father is in me. I and the Father are one. I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through Me. He walked on water and made bread and fish multiply and spoke to the wind and the waves like He was their Creator, their Author, their Maker, their Lord. He could spit in the dirt and rub it into the eyes of a blind man and restore his sight. He spoke to a dead a man, a man who had been in the grave for four days, and He commanded him to come out of the grave. And he did. But not only all of that, but He also insisted that He take full responsibility for all of the darkness and sin and brokenness in the world and even death itself. He said He came not to be served but to serve and give His life as a ransom for many. And so He did. He was betrayed into the hands of wicked men, convicted of crimes He did not commit, and was crucified on a Roman cross for the sins of the world, so that all men might be reconciled to Him.

You see this is why it is not only permissible for Jesus to insist on our exclusive allegiance; it’s actually the most wonderfully good news in all the world that He does. Jesus says, look at me, keep your eyes on me, follow me, turn away from everything else, everyone else. Despise it. Hate it. Because if you don’t you’re refusing the One in whom all things exist. You must hate the world, despise all the offers of love, friendship, peace, prosperity. Because none of those things are heavy enough, strong enough, solid enough to hold you, to keep you, to never let you down. Fathers will fail you. Mothers will fail you. Husbands, wives, children, dear friends will let you down. But Christ will never fail you. A good man might perhaps die for another good man, but God shows his love for us in that while were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Mike and Grace, in the Christian vision of marriage, a man and woman truly are brother and sister before they are husband and wife. Their relationship to Jesus is more fundamental, more essential than their relationship to one another. Mike, there are true duties set before you as a man becoming a husband today. You must love your wife the way Christ loves His bride the Church, and you must lead her. You must lead her straight to Christ. And Grace, there are true corresponding duties set before you as a Christian woman becoming a wife today. You must respect your husband and submit to him in the Lord. You are to be his glory, his crown. And you are to do all of these things in order to win Mike more and more fully to Christ. And so these duties only make sense and your love and friendship will only find their fullest blessing and fulfillment when they are framed by and anchored to your exclusive love and devotion to Jesus Christ.

I’m not sure there have been many wedding homilies in which the minister has exhorted the bride and groom that they must hate one another in order to love one another rightly. But that’s just what I’ve done, and it’s absolutely true and I pray that by the power and blessing of God Almighty, it is and remains wonderfully true and wonderfully good news for you now, and for your many (tall) children, and their children, all your days, and to a thousand generations.

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

Why I Discourage Making the Sign of the Cross

So I need to say a few words to my congregation about making the sign of the cross, but it’s the kind encouragement and exhortation that I don’t mind others listening in to and applying to their own situations with wisdom, so I’m posting it here.

Anyone who attends Trinity Reformed Church knows that we are a robustly liturgical church. I preach in a white robe, our prayers, hymns, and order of service draw heavily from the great reformational and catholic tradition. And so it may come as a surprise to some that it has not been our practice to use the sign of the cross or encourage its use in our worship services. As it happens, we do have families and students from a variety of backgrounds, and when we’ve had folks come in from Lutheran or Anglican backgrounds where making the sign of the cross was as normal and pious as saying Merry Christmas or the equivalent of raising hands in prayer or worship (as is common in other traditions), we’ve assured those folks that they are welcome to continue to pray in those ways, even though that isn’t our common practice. However, I’m sure from time to time some folks have wondered about whether it isn’t something they should begin to do, and in recent months, it appears to me like there may be some slight surge in the practice. So in what follows, all I’m arguing for is the continuation of our current common practice, and I’m writing in order to discourage people who didn’t grow up with it (as an act of sincere faith) from picking it up.

Now, to begin, I want to be clear that I’m quite familiar with the traditional arguments in favor of the sign of the cross, largely falling into the categories of adiaphora, biblical symbolism, and ancient, venerable tradition. Working backwards, yes, of course the sign of the cross reaches far back into the depths of the Christian tradition. Yay, Athanasius. Yay, Luther. And yes, I know that we are to glory and boast in the cross of Christ, and yes, we have been crucified with Christ. Amen. And yes, much like Christmas trees or banners or candles, I believe Christians are free to use these signs and symbols (or not) depending on whether they truly assist people in remembering Christ and living for him. Adiaphora. Got it.

However, a number of considerations go in to my plea that our common practice remain as is, and why I would generally discourage the practice in our reformed and evangelical churches.

First, while there is a tight-shoed formulation of what is called the “Regulative Principle” that is unsupportable biblically — e.g. are there verses that positively command the exact order of worship, whether women may take communion, or whether there may be a pulpit, lectern, or even a communion table up front? So if we agree that many of these elements must be faithfully, thoughtfully, and prayerfully deduced from Scriptural principles and common sense, then there we are all agreeing that our worship must be according to Scripture but without all the huffing and puffing. And the point here is simply that we must never fall into the assumption that we get to decide what practices are most useful for us. We are not, to put it bluntly, the lords of our salvation. We are the slaves who need redeeming. We are the sick who need healing. We are the dead who need raising. If the Lord sends us to a dirty stream and commands us to dip seven times, then that is what we need, regardless of how we feel about it. If the Lord hands us a loaf of a bread and says, ‘Take, eat, this is my body,’ then we take and eat. If He says that the preaching of the Word of God is food for our souls, then we listen and obey. But if the Lord doesn’t say, thou shalt touch thy head, thy abdomen, thy left and right shoulders — that should give us significant pause, no matter how many other people are doing it, no matter how venerable and ancient the tradition may be, no matter the so-called symbolism.

Second, and closely related, would be the concern that we actually do what the Lord says to do before we begin introducing other “good” ideas. As it happens one of the significant problems with the ancient and medieval church was in their misunderstanding of the goodness of creation, the body, and music. Now, to be clear, it was a complex scene, and many good men were fighting in the right direction given the forces they faced on the ground, but that doesn’t justify pretending that we are in the exact same spot in the battle or pretending that the Spirit hasn’t given the Church any forward progress. So for example, the Psalms command God’s people to shout, clap, dance, and play many different musical instruments to the Lord. David danced before the Lord with all his might and made his wife blush. While in some ways, I certainly understand that the sign of the cross may have been a pious attempt at embodying prayer (one cheer), the fact remains that they largely failed to obey the explicit commands of Scripture in the ways that Scripture actually commanded them to embody prayer. As King Saul learned the hard way, obedience is better than sacrifice. Obeying what God actually commands is far better than making up our own ways that we think enable us to obey His commands. Not only is it better; God considers our innovations to be rebellious and arrogant. I’m not saying we know yet exactly how to do all of those things that the Psalms command, but what we know is that those are things that the Lord for sure loves. If we know that the Lord loves those things, shouldn’t we be working over time to do those things? And shouldn’t that aim earn first place, way ahead of gestures that God didn’t command? Related to this point and the previous one, given all of the very particular things God does command His people, it should once again be a rather striking thing that God hasn’t commanded this. He could have very easily taught the Hebrews to make the sign of the cross, but He didn’t. Paul could have reminded the churches to remember to make the sign of the cross, but He didn’t. Instead, he’s always reminding us greet one another with the kiss of peace. Well, huh.

Third, Jesus warns explicitly against public shows of piety. If you want to cross yourself in private where no one but the Lord sees you, that’s between you and God. But when we gather together as the people of God, we gather as an army, in battle array. This is what liturgy means. It is the work of the people, our spiritual sacrifice, our reasonable service. This is why it is also called our “common prayer.” It is what we do together, as a body. While I would still protest on the grounds mentioned above, I would have less concerns with making the sign of the cross in a congregation that did so together, in unison. But this has not been the historic practice of the presbyterian and reformed churches, not to mention American evangelical churches. And thus, to make the sign of the cross in our church is to stand out, to act the individualist, to make a show and a spectacle of your prayers. And Jesus says that you should not do that. Do not pray in order to be seen by men. And for the same reason, I tend to frown on the practice of folks raising their hands sort of willy-nilly during worship services. Though it should be pointed out, at least they have Bible verses! And truth be told, even in many “non-liturgical,” semi-charismatic churches, everybody does raise their hands at roughly the same time during the chorus, (almost like it was planned!).

Lastly, some questions to consider: When we gather for worship, what is our aim? Is our aim to make sure we *feel* worshipful, to make sure our needs are being met? Or is our aim to bow before the Lord of the Universe in humility and joy and in obedience? Should our greatest concern be with what *I* can do or is it more about what *we* have gathered to do together? Would you ever raise your hands or clap your hands during a hymn (all by yourself)? If not, why not? If you’re going to stand out and do something different, why not do something you know the Lord loves? Are our postures, gestures, etc. encouraging others to join together in one heart and one voice? Or is there any chance that our personal preferences are creating barriers, distractions, or confusion for others who may not understand or be confused by our actions?

The point here may in some ways come down to Paul’s exhortation to love your brothers, and especially when it comes to questionable matters, why allow anything to interrupt fellowship or be a potential cause for confusion or division? There are enough non-questionable matters that the Church still needs to figure out that will be challenging enough as it is. And besides, if you are a Christian, you already bear the sign of the cross. Your baptism is the indelible sign that God placed on you that forever proclaims the death and resurrection of Jesus.

And, as I recall flirting with promoting the sign of the cross many years ago, I’m filing this post under “retractions.”

An Armory for Modern Christians #9

The Beautiful Power of Motherhood

Introduction

The Bible teaches that every woman is created for motherhood, and this is not because every woman marries and bears biological children. Rather, there is something intrinsic about being made female in the image of God that gifts a woman with the beautiful power of motherhood that is deeper and broader than physical pregnancy and birth. Conception and birth are the central signs of this reality, but they do not exhaust it. We live in a world that is at war with God, and unsurprisingly, it has declared war on this most precious gift – surely because it is so potent.

Saved Through Childbearing

“Yet she will be saved through childbearing – if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control” (1 Tim. 2:15). It’s striking that in an apparently liturgical context, Paul points to the unique calling of women to be child-bearers (1 Tim. 2:15). It might also seem a bit odd since Paul is speaking about men and women, not explicitly about husbands and wives. But this actually makes sense given the creational context. The garden was the original sanctuary, and that is where the first sin occurred. The solution to sin is promised through the “seed of the woman,” and Adam named his wife “Eve” in faith and repentance believing that she would become the “mother of all the living” (Gen. 3:20). Paul does not mean a woman will be saved through childbearing in a crass materialistic way, but he says rather that together with faith, love, holiness, and self-control, the maternal calling is central to God’s plan of salvation for every woman and for the world (e.g. Ps. 8, 127). To put it another way, there is a feminine-shaped faith, love, holiness, and self-control that is uniquely maternal and domestic and used by God to bring His salvation to the world.

The Power of Motherhood

In 1 Peter 3, Peter gives encouragement to women who have disobedient husbands, and he goes straight to a woman’s calling to be beautiful (1 Pet. 3:1-4). Woman was created to be the glory of man (Gen. 2:23), which is why Paul says it is a disgrace for men to have long hair and a disgrace for women to have short hair: longer hair is a sign of a woman’s glory (1 Cor. 11:7, 14-15). Given the close association between glory and power in Scripture (e.g. Ps. 63:2, 78:61, 145:11, 1 Cor. 15:43), it is not too much of a stretch to say that a woman’s beauty and glory is her power. And this fits with what Peter is talking about. When a man is being disobedient, a woman should use her God-given power to win him to obedience (1 Pet. 3:1-2). Peter reminds women that their power is not primarily in their words or external adorning, but flows out of “the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in the sight of God is very precious” (1 Pet. 3:4). And here’s where motherhood comes in. Peter says that this is how the holy women of old have always adorned themselves, in submission to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, whose daughters you are, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening (1 Pet. 3:6). Peter says that Sarah’s embrace of her duty of submissive adornment before God and toward her husband is simultaneously an act of motherhood to all who follow her example. What’s striking is that for most of Sarah’s life she was barren and childless, and not to put too fine a point on it, she had no biological daughters. But Peter holds her up as a supreme example of motherhood. This is because she embraced her calling to be the glory of man, specifically for her husband. We see a similar pattern emerge as we survey the rest of Scripture: Deborah was a mother in Israel through her political and prophetic ministry (Jdgs. 5:7). King Lemuel’s mother is enshrined in Proverbs as a mother of all young men seeking wisdom and an excellent wife (Prov. 31:1ff). Paul asks the Romans to greet a man named Rufus and specifically his mother, who had been a mother to him as well (Rom. 16:13).

What Does This Powerful Motherhood Look Like?

Industry: Paul warns Timothy about the temptation, particularly for younger women, to be idle, going about house to house, gossips, busybodies, and saying what they should not (1 Tim. 5:13, cf. Prov. 31). Paul says that these younger widows should be encouraged to marry, bear children, and manage their households, and “give the adversary no occasion for slander” (1 Tim. 5:14).

Instruction: Paul exhorts Titus that the older women are to be reverent and teach what is good, “and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and obedient to their husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled” (Tit. 2:3-5).

Comfort: “As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem. You shall see, and your heart shall rejoice; your bones shall flourish like the grass” (Is. 66:13).

Sharing a Sincere Faith: “I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well” (2 Tim. 1:5). This is related to that precious inward beauty that isn’t afraid of anything frightening (1 Pet. 3:6).

Freedom to be Fruitful: “But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. For it is written, ‘Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear; break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor! For the children of the desolate one will be more than those of the one who has a husband’… So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman” (Gal. 4:26-27, 31). Freedom is not found in doing whatever you want; freedom is doing what you were made for, and every woman is made for motherhood. One way we can demonstrate this is to ask: when does motherhood begin? Within a couple of days of conception all the genetic material is there for a fertilized egg to become a mature woman, and her uterus begins developing during the 9th week of gestation. In other words, every woman is created with this central sign, that she was made to be fruitful, to welcome strangers, to make a home. And this is fundamentally because you are a home.

Conclusion

In 2 Timothy 3:1-9, Paul warns Timothy of a particular stripe of corruption that sometimes infiltrates the church, “having a form of godliness, but denying its power… for among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened by sins and led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:5-7). Here, Paul calls the entire church to be watchful, but there is a particular warning for women and the only solution to the threat is gospel grace. Fundamentally, guilt is what makes women weak and vulnerable and restless, but a forgiven woman is strong, secure, fearless, fruitful, and altogether lovely.

Ash Wednesday 2017

 

One of the striking elements of our Ash Wednesday service is the recitation of the curses of the covenant found in Deuteronomy 27. This was included in Thomas Cranmer’s original Ash Wednesday service, and Martin Bucer – John Calvin’s mentor – said it was a “particularly wholesome ceremony” and went so far as to recommend that the service be done quarterly, though he suggested that the curses might be re-aligned with the Ten Commandments.

Bucer went on to urge Cranmer and the English Church to give thought to how “the whole discipline of penance and correction of sinners” needed to be restored in the churches. And what Bucer means is the whole gamut of what we call Church Discipline: beginning with routine private admonitions and accountability, reaching to public censures and rebukes to suspensions from the Lord’s Table and excommunication. These “very ready cures for our sins, for the fatal diseases of the faithful,” Bucer explains, “have been prescribed by the chief physician of our souls, the Son of God, and commanded by the weighty words of scripture.” He says that if we fail to carry out this discipline our hearts will condemn us for betraying the glory of Christ and the salvation of souls, which he bought for himself with his own blood. This must be done “not in writing, not in words, not in empty show of ceremonies, but in its reality and its effective ministration. The Lord Christ came to make sinners whole, but on condition that they are truly penitent: but for those who do not do the will of the Father, whatever they hear or say, whatever ceremonies they parade before themselves, such men he never knew or counted among his own (Matt. 7).”

What Bucer is saying is nothing less than what Scripture insists upon from beginning to end, which is sincerity before God, honesty before God. What God hates, what He loathes is pretense, hypocrisy, lies. Isaiah puts it this way: “Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations – I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood” (Is. 1:13-15). God had commanded Israel to celebrate the Sabbaths and offer incense and lift their hands in prayer, but what He commanded was that they draw near to Him in honesty, not in pretense, not pretending, not treating God like a lucky rabbit’s foot, a genie in a bottle, as though they could hide their lies and sins behind their backs and He wouldn’t know or see.

And Jesus came with this same message: “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward… And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret and your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Mt. 6:5, 16-18).

This is why we here at Trinity do not walk out of this building with ashes on our foreheads. There are extra tissue boxes scattered around the narthex so that you may wash your face and go out in public and not cancel out the prayers you have offered in here. The millions of Christians that go out in public with ashes on their foreheads are doing something that God hates and they are asking God not to listen to their prayers. Many of them do it ignorantly, having been deceived by their pastors who do not actually teach them the Word of God or how to actually be free of their sins but rather perform superstitious ceremonies to falsely comfort them as they meander their way to Hell. The same thing goes for announcing your fast on social media. Jesus says, do not be like the hypocrites.

So what is this service for? Why is this a particularly wholesome ceremony? This service is a wholesome ceremony because it is a call to repentance. And if it results in actual, honest, sincere repentance before God, then it serves as an enormous battering ram against the gates of Hell. When sinners see their sin for what it is, when they see that they have willfully rebelled against the love of their Creator God, that they have spit in His face, and that their sin clings to them like horrible tattoos that can never be removed, like white maggots squirming around inside their hearts – when they see their sin for the curse that it is, for the disgusting disease that it is, when their hearts break for the harm they have done, and when they fall on their knees crying out for mercy – the gates of Hell tremble, the powers of darkness cower, the demons scream.

And this is why we recite the curses of the covenant. But this can be easily misunderstood. In the first instance, we are not promising not to do those evil things. Of course we should not want to do them, but the central point is not that we are promising to be good so that we don’t come under the curses. Neither are we pointing outside this building, outside this assembly at the world that does these things and stands under the terrible curse of God, though that is certainly true. No, in the first instance, we are owning these curses. When you say ‘Amen’ after each curse – in the first instance you are saying, “this is me” – “I am guilty.” Do you not know what the cross is? The cross is God’s ancient curse on the sin of man: “If a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God” (Dt. 21:22-23). And there is no wiggle room. Paul quotes the final curse we will own together this evening in Galatians saying, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them” (Gal. 3:10, cf. Dt. 27:26). Apart from perfect obedience to the entire law of God, we all fall under the curse of the law.

But we are not just barely under the curse, we are fully under the curse. We have prized idols over the one true God. We have worshipped money, jobs, sex, wine, and status over the Lord Jesus Christ. We have dishonored our mothers and fathers. We have talked back to them, and cursed them in our hearts. We have not cared what they think. We have stolen from our neighbors and lied to them. We have taken advantage of the weak and the helpless. We have perverted justice by turning a blind eye to lies and false accusations. We have falsified. We have overlooked. We have not loved the truth. We have committed sexual abominations. We have lusted for things in our hearts that are sick and disgusting and shameful. If you think that you are sitting next to people who would never be tempted by child pornography, bestiality, incest, adultery, or homosexuality, you are living in a Pollyanna make-believe world, and you are deeply deceived about the wickedness of your own heart. You have been tempted by things. We have imagined making love with other men’s wives and other women’s husbands, with mother-in-laws, sisters, brothers. We have hated our brothers in secret, imagining the curses we would love to utter to their faces, we’ve cut them down and murdered them in our bitterness a million times, and there is blood all over our hands. We have been bribed and bought by peer pressure and the fear of man not to bring up sketchy looking situations, not to question the way things were handled, not to confront our brother for the way he talks to his wife or children or a sister for the way she disrespects her husband.

If we are honest, the final curse is almost laughable: cursed be anyone who does not confirm all the words of this law and do them. We are covered in curses. We are bound by the curses. We are deformed and defaced and disfigured by the curses.

One version of a false gospel that masquerades all around us is the gospel of forgiveness without repentance. If the preacher only ever says, you’re forgiven, he’s failed to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. You see, the gospel of the New Testament was the gospel of repentance, the power of Christ entering into you to cause you to change, to stop sinning and walk in obedience. Jesus said, “I did not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance” (Lk. 5:32). And at the end of Luke’s gospel, Jesus teaches the disciples that the Old Testament was all about the fact that the Christ would die and rise again “and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations” (Lk. 24:47). Paul summarizes his ministry to the Ephesians saying that he testified “both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21). And this is what Peter says we wait in hope for, that all should come to repentance (2 Pet. 3:9). The gospel is the promise that “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us… so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith” (Gal. 3:13-14).

So we are gathered here this evening to hear the voice of our Lord call us to repentance. Yes, this is a call to receive His forgiveness, but with God’s forgiveness is always the promise of the Spirit, the promise of Christ in us, the promise of the power to change. One of the great lies of the devil is that charge that you cannot change. He says that you were born that way. He says it goes deep in your family. He says you’re damaged goods, broken. He says that you’re different from other people, and you just can’t. The devil holds many who name the name of Christ in the strangle hold of these lies. But he has no right to hold you in that bondage. He has no right. He has no right because Christ suffered that you might go free. Christ suffered and bled for all of it. Not merely that you might be forgiven, but that you might be set free to walk in holiness and obedience.

In just a minute, we will take a few moments to ponder these things silently. And my charge to all of us is to take these words to heart. What sins have you made peace with? What sins have you tried to bury in the recesses of your memory? What sins are you most terrified to deal with, afraid of what will happen if anyone finds out? Some of you need to repent of your harshness with your wife or children – losing your temper, raising your voice, or maybe just giving them the cold shoulder. Some of you need to repent of failing to lead your wife and children – you aren’t taking responsibility for the state of your home before the Lord Jesus before whom you will give an account. Some of you need to repent of being unsubmissive and disrespectful of your husbands – wearing them down with your words, manipulating them in order to get them to do what you want. Some of you need to repent of harboring bitterness towards your father, your mother, teachers, or pastors – do you regularly remember how they have let you down, hurt you? That’s called bitterness, and it is eating your soul. Some of you need to repent of your critical and complaining words and heart – God let a generation of Israel die in the wilderness for the bad attitudes and Paul says that’s an example for Christians to beware of. Some of you need to repent of your arrogant and rebellious heart – you think this sermon doesn’t really apply to you or you aren’t really inclined to do anything just on principle – because it wasn’t your idea. I’ll wear my ashes out of this building if I want to, Pastor. You are in grave danger, my friend, humble yourself before it’s too late.

Do not say “Amen” to the curses, do not allow the sign of the curse to be placed on your forehead unless you are ready to come clean, unless you are ready to be honest before God, sincerely broken, truly penitent. And let me add this as well. God knows all of us, that we are weak and frail people. We make resolutions and then almost immediately begin to explain to ourselves why we were rash to make such resolutions and we begin justifying our sin. Don’t make that mistake. Don’t continue to carry your sins around alone. God puts us in the church not because we are good but because we are not. Your elders and pastors are not perfect or sinless men, we are men who know the insidiousness of sin in our own hearts and lives and by the grace of God we know what it is to be set free. And I want you to be set free. I want you to experience the power of Christ to grant you repentance, to really and truly change. And I want you to know that we stand ready and willing to assist you in any way we can. If you know you need to change but don’t know where to start or how to begin, please come talk to one of us after the service. If you just need prayer that you would have the courage to do what’s right, please come talk to one of us after the service and let us pray with you and for you. Send one of us an email, set up an appointment, give us a call. Don’t let Satan get a foothold in your heart or in our church. Defy the devil and repent of your sins.

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

When You Must Not Pity: Loving Enemies & False Accusations

In the Old Testament law, everything was to be confirmed by the mouth of two or three witnesses (Dt. 17:6). Paul says in the New Covenant that we must not receive an accusation against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses (1 Tim. 5:19). The same standard applies to church discipline cases (Mt. 18:16). If there is only one witness, that is not sufficient to convict someone of wrong doing (Dt. 19:15). One witness, even a very loud, persistent witness is not sufficient to convict someone. However, let us admit that in some instances there will only be one witness of a sin/crime. In those situations, the one true witness does not have a gag order. We are not saying that they must pretend all is well, but the witness must also submit themselves to the providence of God and await His justice. No amount of pleading or yelling your solo-testimony can get the criminal convicted. If you succeed in getting the criminal convicted or the pastor defrocked or the member excommunicated on your say-so alone, you have just incited mob justice. This is a bad deal for everyone because even though in one case the perpetrator really was guilty, what’s to stop somebody else from bringing false accusations against you? In the name of justice, you have overturned justice. Do we really want to live in a world where a lone voice pleading and yelling long enough can incite a mob to go lynch someone? Unfortunately, we are fast approaching such a world.

In addition to this good requirement of two or three witnesses, the Bible also requires that a false witness be held accountable for their words of testimony, such that they are held liable for whatever the results of a (false) conviction might have been. “The judges shall inquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. And the rest shall hear and fear, and shall never again commit any such evil among you. Your eye shall not pity. It shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot” (Dt. 19:18-21, emphasis mine).

This is striking because Moses knows that it is often easy to pity the wrong person. Moses assumes that we will be tempted to pity false witnesses, people who lie about other people. We will be tempted to go to their defense. We will be tempted to explain away their false accusations as the result of trauma or abuse or misunderstanding, or we’ll worry that this harshness really makes it difficult to work with them or perhaps it will discourage true witnesses from coming forward. But God says that isn’t true. God insists that we must not pity any false testimony. In fact, the exact opposite is the case: when we are hard on false testimony as God requires, all true testimony is encouraged, and true witnesses are assured that it will be easier for them because all they have to do is tell the truth.

Now, how does this Old Testament law square with the compassion of Jesus for sinners? Aren’t we to love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, and forgive as we have been forgiven in Christ? Yes, absolutely. All day, every day. But aren’t our enemies often making false accusations against us? Aren’t we supposed to forgive them, love them, do good to them, and seek to win them to Christ? Yes, absolutely. But we must not pity their lies.

This is because the love of God in Christ does not pity our lies. This is the difference between biblical justice and all humanistic aping of justice. Humanism pretends to care about justice, but humanism actually systematically miscarries justice because it pities the lies we tell. And when lies are pitied, justice (by definition) cannot be done. But God in His justice did not pity our lies; He condemned our lies in the flesh of His Son Jesus (Rom. 8:3). Why did He do that? He did it because He loves us, because He knows what our lies do and will do to us and those around us. Yes, it is true that God in His mercy does not bring up every last sin we’ve ever committed. In His mercy, God does not confront us with the complete, exhaustive list. But that’s not because He just winks at some of our sins. It’s not because He just sweeps it under the cosmic carpet. The reason God can cover our sin with His love is because His love sent His Son to the cross to suffer and die for every. single. one. of them. The reason God does not confront us with the complete, exhaustive list is because He already confronted His beloved Son Jesus with that complete, exhaustive list on the cross. God covers our sin with His love because He purchased our entire salvation with the blood of Jesus. God does not bring up every single sin, but only if He has dealt with every single sin, only if the truth has been told about every single one. Everyone will one day give an account before the throne of God, and the only defense that will stand will be the blood of Christ (Mt. 12:36, 2 Cor. 5:10).

In other words, the love of God doesn’t ignore the things that destroy us. And the love of God preeminently confronts the lies that would destroy us. The love of God confronts what would destroy us first in the cross, and then by the Spirit applying the cross to our lives. This means that there is room for patience and grace for all of us. But we don’t get to define which sins may be covered and which ones need immediate address. We don’t get to instruct God on how He administers His grace to us. We are the sick; we are the diseased. He is the Healer, the Great Physician. If He says that false accusations must not be pitied, then He must be trusted. If He says to give your enemies drinks of water when they are thirsty, then He must be trusted. He is God. He is the Lord. He is our Savior.

An Armory for Modern Christians #8

Between the Mountain and Me

Introduction

The transfiguration occurs in Matthew, Mark, and Luke and marks a significant transition in the gospels, functioning as a key hinge of the life of Jesus, the end of his ministry of signs and the beginning of his ministry of suffering. The signs point to who Jesus is, but His suffering points to who we are and the path to life. Perhaps one of the greatest lies that runs rampant throughout human history down to the present is the claim that people are basically good and therefore deserve better. Everyone deserves… the Bible says, death (Rom. 6:23). But even more insidious than the lie is the fact that this lie is the driving force behind all violence and hatred and destruction in our world (Js. 4:1-10).

The Text: This tension between what we think we deserve and reality is presented dramatically between the transfiguration scene and what immediately follows. While Jesus takes His closest friends up on a mountain to experience His glory, to see a vision of Elijah and Moses, and to hear the voice of God (Mk. 9:2-8), his other disciples are down below failing to cast out a violent demon causing a young man to seizure (Mk. 9:14-18). On top of the mountain, the clothes of Jesus shine with radiance (Mk. 9:3); on the bottom of the mountain the son foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid (Mk. 9:18). On top of the mountain, stalwarts of faith and courage stand with Jesus (Mk. 9:4); on the bottom of the mountain, a desperate father begs powerless disciples to help him and crowds form around the embarrassing scene (Mk. 9:14-16, 18, 22-25). On top of the mountain, the disciples want to stay there forever (Mk. 9:5); on the bottom of the mountain, the disciples are confused, discouraged, overwhelmed, and couldn’t get away soon enough (Mk. 9:14-16, 28-29). The connection between these two scenes is in the word “son.” God identifies Jesus as “my Son” (Mk. 9:7) and when they come down from the mountain another father greets them pleading for “my son” (Mk. 9:17). One son shines in glory; another son writhes in agony. But the end of the story is the key: “And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, ‘He is dead.’ But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose” (Mk. 9:27). And just in case you aren’t convinced that Mark (or Jesus) saw the significance of this moment, read on: “They went on from there… he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, ‘The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days, he will rise…” (Mk. 9:31).

Between the Mountain and Me

This juxtaposition resonates with us so strongly because we can all relate to the reeling feelings and emotions of these two scenes. What is your top of the mountain? Where do you say, “It is good that we are here. Let’s live here!” Is it on vacation? With the kids? Away from the kids? At work? With particular friends? At home in bed? What’s your bottom of the mountain? Your job? Your marriage? Your singleness? Your childlessness? Your losses, your pain, your sickness, your failures? Maybe you identify mostly with the disciples at the bottom of the mountain, and everyone else in your life seems to be those three special disciples who get to go up the mountain with Jesus and come back down with warm hearts. Are you tempted to resent it? There you are in the trenches wrestling demons and where’s Jesus? Why would He leave you behind to do something you don’t seem equipped to do? It’s getting old. You’re getting tired. Or maybe you identify with those disciples who were on the mountain with Jesus. You’ve experienced those sweet times of encouragement, refreshment, communion with God and godly friends, and then you have to go back to work, go back to school, talk to your wife again, your kids are difficult, your father is overbearing, your mother is critical. Maybe you’ve moved, changed jobs or churches, and it doesn’t seem like things have really panned out like you had hoped. Are you tempted to resent that? Notice too how this is exactly what played out with the disciples in the next scene: they argued about who was the greatest (Mk. 9:33-34). This is where quarrels and fights come from: your desires warring within you; you covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel (Js. 4:1-3).

Hear Him

It’s rather astonishing what God says on the mountain: This is my beloved son, hear him. Listen to him. Obey him. This is an echo of the great Israelite credo: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord our God is one (Dt. 6:4). It’s clearly an affirmation of the full deity of Jesus, that He is the God of Israel, and as such, He is worthy of loving, grateful obedience. And what does He say? What does He command? He commands the unclean spirit to leave and never come back again (Mk. 9:25). In other words, our warring passions, our envy, our resentment, our bitterness, our pride – those are our demons and they deform us and seek to destroy us, and therefore, deliverance from all of our demons is grateful submission to word of Christ. Hear him. When Peter asked Jesus about John’s future, Jesus said: “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that you? You follow me!” (Jn. 21:21-22). We are not the lords of our salvation. We are poor, foolish, demon-infested beggars, and salvation is found in the fact that we do not belong to ourselves any longer, but rather, we belong to Christ who suffered for us and purchased us with His precious blood. You are not your own; you were bought with a price. Your success is not your own, and your failures are not your own. Your mountaintops and your valleys are not your own. You are a man or a woman or a child under orders. And what Jesus commands often seems and feels counter-intuitive: “And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, ‘He is dead.’ (Mk. 9:26). Does obedience to Christ sometimes feel painful, agonizing, like dying?

Conclusions

Jesus said, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Mt. 16:25). Paul models this discipleship when he says that “whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ…” (Phil. 3:7-11). So my charge to you is to lay everything at the feet of Jesus. Lay down your victories; lay down your defeats. Lay down your hopes and dreams; lay down your shame. Consider it all loss “for the surpassing worth of knowing Christ.” The glory is Christ, and therefore wherever Christ leads us, we may confidently share in His glory there.

An Armory for Modern Christians #7

A Walk Through a Christian Wedding

Introduction

If the world is busy seeking to press us into their mold, it should not come as a surprise that they are running plays in less obvious ways all around the celebration of marriage. On the flip side, since Christian marriage is one of the significant ways we proclaim the gospel, surely a Christian wedding must give thought to this goal.

What is a Wedding?

A wedding is a covenant ceremony where vows are taken and witnessed with the result that one man and one woman become one flesh and form a new family (Gen. 2:18, 24). Our modern wedding ceremony is actually the combination of both betrothal and the marriage ceremony. In the ancient world, betrothal was a legally binding promise to marry by both parties, in which the breach of the contract was considered adultery (e.g. Dt. 22:23-24, Mt. 1:18-25). The period of time between the betrothal and marriage varied, but was the period of time needed to make the necessary arrangements for the new family to be formed. In Genesis 24, we see all of the essential elements of a wedding: Abraham’s servant explains his mission to find a wife for his master’s son (Isaac) to Rebekah and her brother and father. “Then Laban and Bethuel answered and said, ‘…Behold, Rebekah is before you; take her and go, and let her be the wife of your master’s son, as the Lord has spoken” (Gen. 24:50-51). “Her brother and her mother said…’Let us call the young woman and ask her, ‘Will you go with this man?’ She said, ‘I will go.’ So they sent away Rebekah their sister… and they blessed Rebekah… [And returning] Rebekah lifted her eyes, and when she saw Isaac… she took her veil and covered herself. And the servant told Isaac all the things that he had done. Then Isaac brought her into the tent of Sarah his mother and took Rebekah, and she became his wife, and he loved her” (Gen. 24:57-60, 64-67).

A Covenant Community Event

During the early and medieval church, there was rather wide spread confusion concerning marriage, combining a spiritual suspicion of the married state with a sort of individualistic contractual view alongside the growing consensus that marriage (if it had to be entered into) was a sacrament. Thus, by the high middle ages, a man and woman who suddenly promised to get marred and then slept together were considered married in the sight of God, even though there had been no ceremony. Just imagine the chaos. The Reformers set about reforming this situation, such that betrothal came to serve as a waiting period in which the couple was required to remain chaste and in which the community might weigh in on the proposal. Thus, in the traditional wedding ceremony, after the opening (betrothal) vows (e.g. “Will you… I will), the minister often asks if anyone knows of any reason why this man and woman should not be married. While it may still be permissible to ask that question during the ceremony, our modern day engagements (and prayer lists!) serve the purpose of letting the public know and inviting any questions or objections. But all of this serves to highlight the important role that the community plays in forming new families. There are multiple interested parties when it comes to a wedding. Of course the bride and groom themselves have the responsibility to voice their own consent and swear their own vows. The families of the bride and groom have interest in the event by their love, care, and responsibility before God for their son and daughter. The covenant community of the Church also has interest by virtue of their love and care this brother and sister in Christ. In it’s most basic sense, all we mean by “courtship” is that a man and woman thinking about marriage ought to do so with the input of their families and Christian community. And where biological family is lacking, there are many brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers in Christ. Likewise, even the civil magistrate cares to know who is married to whom, and matters of inheritance and property are rightly their concern as well. This is why the bride is escorted by her father and accompanied by her attendants, why the groom is likewise attended, and why we specifically ask who gives this woman to be married to this man. This is why there has also often been a question to the entire congregation regarding their commitment and ongoing role in the life of this new family. We are saying that we are all in this together.

For Blessing

Marriage is an institution into which all human beings may enter by virtue of creation, so long as it abides by the most basic creational standards (one man, one woman mutually promising to be married). Yet, for Christians, marriage is not merely a contract because embedded in the creation of marriage is a glorious and mysterious sign of the gospel: “‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church” (Eph. 5:31-32). While the Roman Catholic tradition has wrongly elevated marriage to a sacrament based on this verse (in part), the Reformed tradition has affirmed that marriage is a covenant blessed by God. A covenant is a bond formed around promises with attended blessings and curses. The gospel is the New Covenant in which all Christians participate by faith in Christ. While marriage does not participate in the New Covenant as such, it is a reflection of that covenant and a sign that points to it, which God promises to be present for and to work His blessing in. Therefore, it makes sense that in some ways a wedding ceremony would reflect elements of our worship service (e.g. prayers, hymns, and scriptural exhortation). This reflection should also be seen in the joyful solemnity of a wedding ceremony. Wedding vows are sworn before God and before witnesses. And this ceremony proclaims the gospel. Casual and silly antics, pop music or trendy clothing or hair styles tend to turn the focus of the ceremony on the wedding party rather than on the sign of blessing which points to Christ. At the same, this joyful solemnity should be full of blessing – songs and prayers and toasts and benedictions should fill the ceremony and tumble out into the celebration following. Speaking of which, thought should be given to the reception: it should certainly be full of joyful music, dancing, toasts, and feasting, but it should also seek to include the community as much as possible.

Conclusion

There are many stages of life represented in this room, each bringing with them different temptations with regard to a message on weddings. But the central application I want to make is that weddings are not really in the first instance about us. Even from the very first wedding, it has always been about Christ and His love for His bride, the Church (Eph. 5:32). This is the central thing. When we’ve been raised in glory for a million years, our particular stories will be faint, brief blinks in time, but Christ will be everything. And that is the secret to being faithful now, whether single or married, old or young, happy or disappointed: a wedding proclaims the love of Christ for His bride.

The Dignity of Guilt

One of the most loving and dignifying things God does for human beings is insist that they take responsibility for their sin. This is one of the fundamental meanings of the words of Christ: If anyone tries to save his life, he will lose it, but if he loses it for my sake, he will find it. Ironically, we live in a world that makes excuses for everything, blames other people, circumstances, and wants to constantly play the victim, but the deep irony is that all excuse making is dehumanizing. Every time you blame someone else you sell your soul, you become less human. In our effort to save our life, our dignity, our value we actually cheapen the impact of our own choices, decisions, thoughts, words, and reactions. The end result of blaming others is that your actions don’t matter, you don’t matter. How could you matter? By that standard, nothing you do does anything. You were angry because of the kids. You lied because of that other person. You’re depressed because of your dad. You snapped because you didn’t get enough sleep or you missed breakfast. But what you’re doing with every one of those excuses is selling your dignity as a human being, and fundamentally you are defying the God who made you in His image. You do not have the right to be offended. You do not have the right to sin. And so, one of the kindest, most loving things God comes to do is to dignify every human being with the sentence of guilty. No, you are not nothing. You are not worthless. You are not a mere victim of circumstances. No, you are a man; you are woman made with intelligence and the power of choice, and you have sinned. You have loved evil and hated good. You have hurt yourself and you have hurt others. And yes, you have been hurt and wronged, but you always had the responsibility to choose to respond with patience, kindness, and love. We are guilty. We deserve death. We are sinful and unclean. And the moment we tell the truth and take responsibility for our sins, Christ offers to take our sins away and promises to raise us up with the dignifying power of His grace.

The Feminine Duty of Discouragement

In Ezekiel 13, the Lord sends Ezekiel to condemn the many false prophets in Israel, and he specifically identifies the many false “daughters” who prophesy out of their own hearts (Ez. 13:17). Turns out, women emotionally bloviating is nothing unique to Facebook.

In those days, “magic bands” and “veils” were all the rage, along with greedy grasping for handfuls of barley and pieces of bread, with which they hunted souls like birds (Ez. 13:18-20). Again, hardly much has changed. Whether it’s dietary and medicinal fads, or misplaced sympathy and compassion, or virtue-signalling outrage — the soul-suffocating energy spent rushing to and fro on the interwebs is often no different. God says He will tear off their magic bands and tear off the veils and deliver His people from these women, and they shall no longer be their prey.

But the real condemnation is that these foolish women have been “putting to death souls who should not die” and they have been “keeping alive souls who should not live” by their lies (Ez. 13:19). They have “disheartened the righteous falsely, although I have not grieved him, and [they] have encouraged the wicked, that he should not turn from his evil way to save his life” (Ez. 13:22). The condemnation of these false daughters of Israel is that their idolatrous enthusiasms, their deceitful sympathies, their ignorant pontificating have encouraged the wrong people and discouraged the wrong people. They should have encouraged the righteous and given health and life to the souls of the faithful, but instead they have put those souls to death and left them discouraged. And instead of discouraging the wicked that they might either turn from their evil ways or die in their wickedness and do no more harm, the foolish women have propped the wicked up, have kept them on life support, and have subsidized their wickedness.

Surely this is not a temptation that is unique to women, but here the word of the Lord explicitly exhorts the women of God to beware of this. The implication is also that in the unique feminine powers granted by God to women to promote and cultivate life, they are called upon to exercise great wisdom in carrying out this justice. Who are you encouraging? Who are you discouraging? You have the duty to encourage the righteous and give them life and you have the duty to discourage the foolish and the wicked, so that they may turn from their evil ways and live.

An Armory for Modern Christians #5

How You are Being Groomed

Introduction

As we continue to ask God to search our hearts and minds and entire lives so that every thought may be taken captive to obey Jesus, we need to see and understand how the forces of unbelief are arrayed against us and specifically how the world is grooming us to be exploited by sin. Paul urged, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom. 12:2). In other words, ever since the Garden of Eden, Satan and the powers of sin have been at work grooming and seducing human beings to conform to the wisdom of the world (Gen. 3:1-6, cf. Col. 2:8, Js. 1:14-15). But Christians are called to be transformed by the renewing of their minds, to discern what is good.

Grooming & Seduction

What is grooming? Grooming is establishing a relationship with the express intention of normalizing certain topics or behaviors in order to lower inhibitions to the point where abuse can occur without resistance. This often happens to those who are most on the edges of a community, most needy, most disadvantaged, and the grooming begins with attention, praise, gifts, meeting needs. Over time, the relationship of trust also introduces elements of secrecy, maybe initially all very innocent but this in turn includes small lines being blurred and then crossed until the victim finds himself/herself trapped and confused. The book of Proverbs has a number of warnings about seduction that fit this overall pattern (Prov. 2:16-17, 5:1, 3-4, 8-9, 22, 6:23-27, 7:7-10ff). In every case, what begins as willing choices ends up in painful entrapment. Notice how the warnings begin with the mouth of the seductress: smooth words, lips that drip honey, and a smooth tongue. The warning is first of all aimed at what is said. She’s friendly. He’s kind. She’s funny. He seems intelligent. She just likes talking. He makes me feel special. But the end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword, held fast in the cords of his sin, clothes burned, etc. Nobody signs up for that kind of entrapment and pain, but that’s where the nice words, kind gestures, friendly messages are leading. Notice too, the secrecy of the shadows, lack of accountability. In our day the “twilight” might be texting, messaging, instagram, etc. It’s a very striking contrast to notice how Wisdom cries aloud in the streets and confronts the simple and the foolish: “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?” (Prov. 1:20-22ff). Folly flatters; Wisdom confronts.

Grooming Today: Connecting the Dots

There is a significant difference between two people falling into sin mutually on the one hand and an overtly abusive relationship on the other, where one party wields a clear upper hand in power, authority, age, etc. But the point that I want to make is that all sexual sin is on the sexual abuse spectrum. In fact, whenever we sin against one another we are always using and abusing one another. The point isn’t to downgrade particularly heinous sins and crimes, which the Bible identifies and prescribes capital punishments for (Dt. 22:25-27). The point is that we live in a culture that is massively blind to the relationships between the flammable cultural material being pushed and the frequent fires we face. You can tell that you live in a culture that has been thoroughly groomed by the fact that it’s a bit scandalous and confusing to even refer to a woman as “dressed as a prostitute” (Prov. 7:10). Grooming works by blurring lines and slowly crossing them, and we live in a world that has been so thoroughly groomed that we have a hard time even knowing where the lines are anymore. Nevertheless, as we saw last week, we are commanded by God to pass on to our covenant children a thoroughly Christian culture (Eph. 6:4), which includes dressing like Christians (1 Tim. 2:9, 1 Pet. 3:3-4). Perhaps the single most glaring example of this is the claim that it magically becomes acceptable to wear your undergarments around in public if there happens to be water within fifty yards or the temperature is over 80 degrees. But the point is not in the first instance what sin may or may not be occurring at that moment. The point is: What is being normalized? We are either celebrating the glory and dignity of being made in the image of God and being trained to honor that glory or we are being trained to view other people as objects and dishonor them. When a man says that he isn’t bothered by immodesty that merely proves the point. He’s been desensitized. When a woman can dress immodestly and not feel embarrassed, she’s been desensitized. This is a set up for abuse to occur without resistance.

Transgressive Culture

The other front of this battle is a broader normalizing of “transgressive culture.” Transgressive culture is not necessarily overtly sexual, but its aim is to cross lines in order to blur them. Dying your hair blue, getting unusual piercings, or wearing strange, outlandish clothing, or gender-blurring clothing – these are all examples of transgressive culture. Again, the point isn’t that some massive sin is happening in that moment (maybe or maybe not), but the point is: what is being normalized and what inhibitions are being worn down? We are always either practicing love and sacrifice for others or something else. “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver” (Prov. 25:11). “Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout is a beautiful woman without discretion” (Prov. 11:22). Part of the glory of the image of God is the love of creativity and beauty, and these things frequently mean new expressions of goodness and beauty. But transgressive culture is not about building cultures of goodness and beauty; it is about tearing down goodness and beauty. In the name of “fun,” transgressive culture is actually conditioning us not to value anything very deeply at all (Prov. 13:20, 28:7, 28:24).

Conclusions

So how do we resist the grooming of the world? Paul says to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God (Rom. 12:1). There are at least two barriers to doing this. First, we don’t want to do this because it means dying, laying down our own wisdom and glory. Second, we don’t do this because we have a hard time believing we really are holy and acceptable to God. But we have concluded that “one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised” (2 Cor. 5:14-15). Resisting the grooming of the world is fundamentally found in hiding in Christ, finding your identity, your meaning, your glory in Him.