Toby J. Sumpter's Blog, page 83

An Armory for Modern Christians #4

The Necessity of a Christian Education

Introduction

So far in this series, we established that God has acted decisively in Jesus Christ in order to begin to take back this world from the lies and destruction of sin, death, and Satan. This power has been granted to believers through the Spirit, the Word, and prayer so that every lofty opinion of man raised against the knowledge of God may be destroyed and every thought taken captive to obey Christ (2 Cor. 10:4-5). This process of destroying false ideas and retraining our thoughts to obey Jesus is what the Bible calls discipleship, training, wisdom. All of this entails a thorough Christian education.

A ProLife Education

As we noted last week, at the center of a prolife culture is the cross of Jesus telling the truth about our sin, God’s grace and justice, and the power of sacrifice. If education does not put the cross of Christ at the center, something else will necessarily take its place. And from that center, a different culture will emerge. In particular, remember what we noted about hard work, provision for your family, becoming a giver instead of a taker – these require a thorough discipleship, working closely with faithful Christian men and women who understand the cross of Jesus and see how it applies to being human beings, men and women, husbands and wives, parents and children, citizens and students and friends, employers, employees, and so on. If we are truly seeking to build a prolife culture, a world where the image of God is so valued and loved that abortion is an unthinkable insanity, we must see that desire connected to how we are teaching and training one another, beginning with our children and continuing through our entire lives.

In the Church

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Mt. 28:18-20). The command to “go” rests on the authority of Christ, which spans heaven and earth. This authority is the basis for all Christian education. All true learning must acknowledge this authority in Scripture and creation. The command is to go and make disciples of all nations. This also gives a sense for the breadth of the command. In order to make Russia and Somalia and America disciples, everything about them must be examined in the light of Scripture, every thought must be taken captive to obey Jesus. Jesus says that becoming a disciple begins with baptism and continues with teaching the nations to obey His commands. Every baptism therefore is a renewal of this Great Commission and a reaffirmation of our duty and commitment to teach all nations to obey Christ, including the nations growing up around our ankles. This mission was given to the Church, and it is still our central task today. This includes teaching judges, congressmen, parents, students, and children what God says about science, taxation, legal justice, sexuality, immigration, care for the poor, racism, protecting unborn life, and so on.

In the Family

One of the things Jesus commands is that fathers and mothers are to be honored (Mt. 15:4). This command presupposes that fathers and mothers play a significant role in discipling nations. “‘Honor your father and mother’ (this is the first commandment with a promise), ‘that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.’ Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:2-4). Fathers are to bring up (lit. nourish) their children in the paideia and nouthesia of the Lord. Nouthesia is teaching or warning. Paul says he wrote to the Corinthians as his beloved children in order to teach them (1 Cor. 4:14). Paideia in classical Greek culture referred to the training necessary for becoming the ideal citizen of a Greek polis, encompassing the liberal arts, athletic training, poetry, music, and philosophy – in short, it encompassed all of the necessary features of enculturation, of building and passing on a way of life. This means that a Christian father is responsible to see to it that his children are being nourished in a distinctly Christian culture. Interestingly, Paul wrote this to the Ephesians when there was even less Christian culture available to them than there is to us. Surely, Paul had what Moses instructed Israel in mind: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart… You shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up” (Dt. 6:5-7).

What Education is For

Given all of this, a Christian education aims for far more than mere proficiency in reading, writing, and arithmetic. It aims at far more than mere vocational training. Given what Paul told the Ephesians, he was saying that Christians are actively involved in building a rival culture. Of course, because of God’s common grace throughout creation shared with all nations, there are aspects of every culture that reflect God’s glory and ought to be celebrated and employed by Christians as appropriate (e.g. certain laws of science, mathematics, arts, language, and so on). But these vestiges of truth, apart from submission to Jesus Christ, are actually stolen goods. And God is now calling all men everywhere to repent – to recognize Jesus as the world’s rightful King (Acts 17:30). And to the extent that the world rejects these claims of Christ, we are at war with the world. In our land, the American public education system was organized and designed in order to inculcate a godless culture. While for many years, prayer and Bible reading were tolerated, the foundational principles of the American public schools were essentially: the innate goodness of man and the salvation of the state. People are born basically good and education is the gift of the state affirming that goodness and setting all men free.

Damn the Torpedoes

In Psalm 127, Solomon sings that children are a reward from the Lord, that they are like arrows in the hand of a warrior. “Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.” The mission of Christian education is the duty of training disciples of Jesus Christ who do not merely survive the unbelieving culture around us but rather go on to inflict much damage in the unbelieving culture around us: destroying strongholds, arguments, and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God. Christ is our mighty warrior with a full quiver. In Him we have become the children of God, His great reward, and He is making us into sharp arrows.

March For Life 2017

On March 6, 1857 the Supreme Court ruled in Dred Scott v. Sandford that a black man whose ancestors were imported into the US and sold as slaves, could not be an American citizen and therefore had no standing to sue for his freedom in a federal court. Many historians and scholars believe that the Dred Scott decision was the high court’s worst decision ever.

I agree that it was a bad decision, but everything rides on the question why? Why was it a bad decision? Was it against the constitution? If you read the majority opinion written by the Chief Justice, you’ll find that he actually appealed to the Declaration of Independence, arguing that when it says that “all men are created equal… endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights… among them is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” – that those words, the Chief Justice argued, could not have been thought to apply to the African race. He said that the authors could not have been thinking of slaves. And what if he was right? What if the authors of the Declaration weren’t thinking of slaves? How do we know the Dred Scott decision was still wrong?

The reason the Dred Scott decision was wrong is because it defied the Creator. On one level it doesn’t matter what the signers of the Declaration of Independence had mind. It doesn’t matter what they thought. Everything depends on what the Creator had in mind. Who did the Creator give those unalienable rights to? You can’t appeal to the Creator and then exclude His opinion from the discussion.

And we don’t have to speculate about what the Creator thinks. Scripture says that God created all men in His own image, male and female in His likeness, and from one blood, He has made all the nations of the earth. The reason the Dred Scott decision was wrong and is wrong is because it ignored and defied the opinion of God our Creator.

But as bad a decision as it was, the Dred Scott decision will not go down in history as the worst Supreme Court decision ever. At this point, that infamy is reserved for Roe v. Wade.

Since the Supreme Court Decision Roe v. Wade on January 22, 1973, forty-four years ago tomorrow, the law of our land has likewise defied the Creator God, denying to the unborn the right to life . Since that time, nearly 60 million abortions have been performed in America. An estimated 1.4 billion babies have been legally killed worldwide since 1980. Worldwide, there is more than one abortion performed every second. Over 60,000 abortions have already been performed in America in 2017. Abortion, defined as the intentional termination of any human pregnancy, is considered murder by the Bible and has always been prohibited by God’s Word and the consensus of the Christian Church. In the law of Moses, God explicitly required his people to give additional protections for women carrying unborn children (Ex. 21:22-24). Because human beings are made in the image of God, life is to be diligently protected (Gen. 9:5-6). David declares that unborn infants belong to God, and His hand is upon them, knitting them together in their mother’s wombs (Ps. 22:9-10, 139:13-16). The incarnation of our Lord Jesus is the supreme witness against the murder of unborn children: from the moment Jesus was conceived in the womb of the virgin by the Holy Spirit, His fully human, fully divine person was real and present with us. This was further demonstrated by His unborn cousin, John, leaping in the womb of Elizabeth when Mary entered her house (Lk. 1:39-44).

In the Didache of the Apostles, one of the earliest extant post-apostolic writings, abortion is specifically listed among other sins/crimes prohibited. Likewise, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Basil, Ambrose, Jerome, John Chrysostom, Augustine, Justinian, Gregory the Great may all be listed as witnesses testifying clearly that the taking of unborn life is without a doubt murder.

But we cannot stand here today testifying against the brutal desecration of the image of God in little ones, if we do not connect the dots to the desecration and exploitation of God’s image in other ways. The abortion industry is propped up on the demand for sexual exploitation of every kind. Pornography and prostitution gross in the tens of billions of dollars every year. And these industries in turn drive an underground sex trade in which some estimates suggest that between 300,000 and 400,000 girls are victimized in America every year. The biggest weekend for sex trafficking in America is the NFL Super Bowl. The driving force behind all of this is the objectification and commodification of human beings made in the image of God. The bodies of men, women, and children are being stolen, bought, traded, sold, used, and discarded like so much disposable merchandise. And lifestyles of exploitation – using other people for what we can get out of them – demand abortion.

Therefore, we cannot stand here asking God to end abortion in our land and throughout the world while giving any room for any exploitation in our lives or in our hearts. We cannot ask God to end abortion while we continue to dishonor marriage, treating sexual love like a swap meet. We cannot ask God to end abortion while we continue to buy movies and television shows that pay women to undress in front of cameras – as though their bodies can be bought and sold. We cannot ask God to end abortion while we continue to speak to our wives or our husbands without respect or kindness. How can we ask God to end abortion in our land while we yell and lose our tempers with our own children? Jesus says that all murder begins in the heart with anger.

This means that the situation is pretty dire because we are all implicated. But listen to the glorious words of the apostle Paul: “For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom. 8:3). So while we stand here today, asking God to end abortion and praying that laws will be passed that protect all unborn life, we must do so recognizing that the problem goes down deep and therefore the law will not ultimately be able to take care of this problem. But what the law could not do, God has done by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, and he condemned sin in the flesh. At the center of our resistance against all human exploitation, must be the cross of Jesus. Because in the Cross, God not only condemned the unjust taking of unborn life, He also condemned all our hatred, our bitterness, our lust, our theft – every form of human exploitation, and he condemned it in the flesh of Jesus so that it all might be forgiven. There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

So while we must stand unflinchingly against every form of human exploitation, we do so holding forth this good news of Jesus Christ for every form of exploitation: the sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, homosexuals, thieves, drunkards, and swindlers will not inherit the kingdom of God: “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God… you are not your own, for you were bought with a price…” (1 Cor. 6:9-10, 19-20). And so we proclaim the infinite mercy of our God to every sex-trader, prostitute, pornographer, porn-user, sexual-abuser, and rape victim. We proclaim this mercy in Christ crucified to every abortionist, every mother who signed the death sentence for their children, every approving or pressuring boyfriend, husband, parent, and every cowardly lawmaker who cast a vote for its protection. Christ was betrayed for your betrayal; Christ was crushed for how you crushed innocent children with forceps; Christ was unjustly condemned and murdered for the injustice and murder on our hands.

And so we lift up the cross of Jesus as the only sign, the only thing strong enough, powerful enough to take away this scourge, this plague, this blood-guilt from our land.

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

God our Savior

NSA Morning Prayer Exhortation

Jer. 21:11-14, Acts 2:37-41

Whenever God confronts people with sin, He does so in love. His fierce wrath is always also a jealous love. God hates what sin does to His world and to those He has made. His hatred of evil drives Him to confront it in every form. At the same time, there are various ways people often compound the problem. Of course some people receive the confrontation and ignore it or make excuses. This is just the way I am. I can’t change. It’s not so bad as you seem to think. Others receive the confrontation and set about trying to fix themselves. Others receive the confrontation, feel bad and despair. But all of these responses fail to see God for who He truly is: as our Savior. He confronts the sin in our lives because He is determined to deliver us from it. He confronts us because He loves us. He confronts us because He knows we can’t fix ourselves. The only response to seeing the remaining sin in our lives is to turn wholly to Him, to run toward Him in faith. Believe His promises. You never were on your own, but sin pretends to be. So repent and believe. Turn around and remember your baptism, remember that you belong to Christ, and walk towards Him, leaving your sin behind.

An Armory for Modern Christians #3

A Manifesto for a Culture of Life

Introduction

As we remain committed to defending the lives of the most vulnerable in our world, those developing in their mother’s wombs, we must do so seeking to think biblically about the entire project and not merely be driven by slogans or sentimentality. We have been given divine power to take every thought about “life” captive to Christ. As we come up on the 44th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, it is necessary that we not only continue to tell the truth about unborn life and speak up on their behalf, but we must also be asking God to enable us to think through the entire issue.

The Issue

Since the Supreme Court Decision Roe v. Wade on January 22, 1973, nearly 60 million abortions have been performed in America. An estimated 1.4 billion babies have been legally killed worldwide since 1980. Worldwide, there is more than one abortion performed every second. Almost 40,000 abortions have already been performed in America in 2017. Abortion, defined as the intentional termination of any human pregnancy, is considered murder by the Bible and has always been prohibited by God’s Word and the consensus of the Christian Church. In the law of Moses, God explicitly required his people to protect unborn life, punishing any harm done to an unborn child, even if it was accidental: “you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe” (Ex. 21:22-24). Throughout Scripture, the fact that human beings are made in the image of God requires diligent protection (Gen. 1:26-27, 9:5-6). David declares that unborn infants belong to God, and His hand is upon them, knitting them together (Ps. 22:9-10, 139:13-16). Abortion is a violent crime committed against a precious work of God. The incarnation of our Lord Jesus is the supreme witness against the murder of unborn children: from the moment Jesus was conceived in the womb of the virgin by the Holy Spirit, His fully human, fully divine person was real and present with us. This was further demonstrated by His unborn cousin leaping in the womb of Elizabeth when Mary entered her house (Lk. 1:39-44).

In the Didache of the Apostles, one of the earliest extant post-apostolic writings, abortion is specifically listed among other sins/crimes prohibited. Likewise, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Basil, Ambrose, Jerome, John Chrysostom, Augustine, Justinian, Gregory the Great may all be listed as witnesses testifying clearly that the taking of unborn life is without a doubt murder. In fact, throughout Scripture, this particularly heinous form of murder is associated with the worship of idols and false gods: “You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way, for every abominable thing the Lord hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods” (Dt. 12:31, cf. 2 Kgs. 23:10, Jer. 7:31, 19:5).

The Abortion Industrial Complex

Unfortunately, one of the ways we do not think clearly about this issue is by failing to see how this atrocity is fed by a number of other sins and crimes. At the center of these sins and crimes is the “sex industry.” While some media claim that this industry grosses no more than $4-8 billion dollars every year (roughly equivalent to E-Bay and iTunes in 2012), other outlets report online pornography alone grossing $10-15 billion and prostitution grossing another 32 billion dollars a year. According to one non-profit organization dedicated to preventing the exploitation of girls worldwide: in America alone, somewhere between 300,000 and 400,000 children are victimized by sex-trafficking every year. The biggest weekend for sex trafficking in America is the NFL Super Bowl. The driving force behind all of this is the objectification and commodification of human beings made in the image of God. The bodies of men, women, and children are being stolen, bought, traded, sold, used, and thrown away like so much disposable merchandise. Do not miss the fact that drugs and alcohol are the mind and soul-numbing chemicals that prop all of this up. The physical, spiritual, emotional, and mental agony, chaos, and destruction that attends these sins and crimes is muffled with chemicals of every sort. All of this entails a hatred of God and His image, and hatred is the seed of all murder (Mt. 5:21-22).

Add to all of this, the acceptance of a massively sexualized culture which simultaneously despises the high calling of motherhood and fatherhood. In other words, children are viewed as a massive intrusion on the demand for sexual pleasure now. Everything from clothing catalogues, to sex education, to birth control, to sporting events have been systematically programed to divorce sexual love from motherhood and fatherhood. To the extent that the Christian Church in America has accepted or participated in or condoned the commodification of sex and the rejection of children, we are necessarily complicit in the abortion industry. There is blood on our hands. While it seems hardly possible to completely avoid every single instance of sexual exploitation in the world around us, as Paul said, “we cannot go out of the world,” it must still be said that we in the conservative Church are still far too complicit. How can we say that we hate the shedding of innocent blood while we continue paying for movies and television shows that pay women to undress in front of cameras? How can we say that we hate the shedding of innocent blood while we play along with their casual dating culture – pretending that you can treat sex and marriage as completely unrelated to the gift of children?

The Gospel for Sexual Criminals

While we must stand unflinchingly against every form of human exploitation, we do so holding forth the good news of Jesus Christ for every form of exploitation: the sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, homosexuals, thieves, drunkards, and swindlers will not inherit the kingdom of God: “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God… you are not your own, for you were bought with a price…” (1 Cor. 6:9-10, 19-20). And so we proclaim the infinite mercy of our God to every sex-trader, prostitute, pornographer, porn-user, sexual-abuser, and rape victim. We proclaim this mercy in Christ crucified to every abortionist, every mother who signed the death sentence for their children, every approving or pressuring boyfriend, husband, parent, and every cowardly lawmaker who cast a vote for its protection. Christ was betrayed for your betrayal; Christ was crushed for how you crushed innocent children with forceps; Christ was unjustly condemned and murdered for the injustice and murder on our hands.

But the gospel does more than forgive these sins. It is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes. And this salvation is not merely something inside of you; it is a salvation for the world, life for the world. When God begins living inside someone, His life begins to permeate everything – and that fullness of life we call salvation. “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (Jn. 10:10). So there is a culture of death and culture of life, and these cultures are at war. And this is why we must by the grace of God examine our lives, our thoughts, our actions carefully to destroy those arguments and lofty opinions that are raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ.

Only the Cross is Strong Enough

So there is a culture of death and a culture of life. On the one hand, the cross of Christ confronts us in our sin and rebellion and exploitation of other human beings, our obsession with serving ourselves and using other people for what we can get out of them, and it reveals all of that to be the way of death, shame, humiliation, and all of that futility, all of that emptiness, that culture of death is condemned and killed in Christ on the cross. “For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom. 8:3). This happened so that all our sin and guilt and shame might die. So when Christ died, we died in Him. Our old slavery to sin and death died. He died so that we might die, and therefore, if we have died with Christ, we have also been raised with Him. If we will faithfully and consistently fight the culture of death, it must be done God’s way and not our way. And God’s way is with the cross front and center, condemning all sin, all bloodshed, all injustice in the flesh of Christ. We condemn abortion not merely because it makes us feel bad or because it isn’t traditional. We condemn abortion, all exploitation of human beings made in the image of God because God condemned it in the flesh of Christ. And this is exceedingly important: God says that the law could not do this. When we vote for laws to protect the unborn (as we should), when we write congressmen and sign petitions and attend demonstrations (as we should), we must understand fully and completely that only the cross of Christ is strong enough, powerful enough to end this plague in our land. And this is essential for a culture of life.

What is simultaneously revealed in the sacrifice of Christ is that He did this out of His great love. He laid His life down in order to give His life for the world. And in so doing, we set the pattern for the only way of life. There is no other way of life. There is only cruciform life, there is only the way of the cross, the way of sacrifice, the way of love. If you want to find your life, Jesus says, you must lose it. But if you try to save your life, you will lose it. But if you lose your life for the sake of Christ, He promises that you will find it and much more besides.

A Culture for Life

So what does a culture of life, abundant life, life for the world – look like? Let’s look at two passages. First, in Ephesian 4, in the process of urging the Ephesians to put off the old self, the former ways of life and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God, he gives several examples of what that looks like: “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need” (Eph. 4:28). This is one of the central elements of a culture of life. When Christ saves you by His grace, and gives you the gift of faith, and God takes up residence in your life, one of the central works of reprograming and remodeling He is determined to do in you is to transform you from a taker into a giver. He is determined to turn you from a user and abuser into a lover and a friend. Users and abusers treat other people as objects, as only a means to an end, to get what you need or want. But when Christ died and condemned all our sin as utterly inhumane, He simultaneously freed us to look outside of ourselves and to see other people as human beings, who bear God’s image just like us.

In the death and resurrection of Christ we see that life is actually found in laying your life down for others. Christ found life because He laid His life down. And you should not miss the enormous and wide-ranging repercussions of what this means for a society and a culture. Stealing is not only an act of supreme selfishness and greed, but it implicitly dehumanizes your victims. Stealing does not think of those you are stealing from as human beings, made in the image of God, it treats them as objects, as things to be used and exploited. And in cultures where stealing and taking is normal, that society is seriously hampered and bogged down by all the selfishness, all the deceit, all the double-crossing, all the corruption and bribes. But when men and women become Christians, and they are turned from being self-centered and begin telling the truth and repent of their stealing, they work with their own hands and provide for themselves.

Of course there’s a way of working hard that’s only self-serving, but Christian work goes beyond that, and is for the sake of others, particularly being prepared to give to those in need. And the thing I want to note here in connection to building a pro-life culture is that all honest labor builds a pro-life culture. When you do honest work before the Lord, no matter how humble, you are contributing to this world. You are giving the gift of your labor, your creativity, your life, and that makes the world a better place, a safer place, a more beautiful place, and as you do that, you make a world that is more welcoming to those in need, to the most vulnerable members of our society: the unborn, the disabled, the elderly, the immigrants, the single moms, the widows. If you go to work computer programming or running an office or selling useful products or teaching or running a home full of little children – you need to get up in the morning and see that work before you as fighting for the little ones. When you do any honest labor, when you do it heartily unto the Lord, you are sacrificing, you are laying your life down, and when you do that in faith for the good of others, God promises to bless it and multiply it.

Often we don’t see how it’s all connected. We want to do the great things for God, but we often forget that God usually calls us to do the good things. And we can grow weary in doing good. We can grow weary in a career that isn’t as fulfilling as perhaps we had imagined, or grow weary changing diapers and doing dishes and wonder what we’re doing. Why am I here again? You’re here because you believe in the gift of life. You believe that life is found in sacrifice, laying your life down for others because that’s how Christ saved you.

Ministries of Mercy

In 1 Timothy 5, Paul gives Timothy instructions for caring for the widows in the Church, and he says, “But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Tim. 5:8). Biblically speaking the family is the first line of defense for providing for those in need. A man who works hard, pays the bills, keeping food in the pantry, a roof over head, and clothes in the closets is building a world where the needs of widows and orphans can be met. And a man who does not provide for his family is functionally widowing his wife and orphaning his own children – and this is why Paul says that guy is denying the faith and worse than an unbeliever. Providing for your family means providing them love, friendship, and providing for their physical needs.

But the point I want you to see is how your day to day decisions are part of making a world in which abortion is not only illegal but completely unnecessary. Everywhere we are honest, keep our word, work hard, and practice Christian love and generosity, we are making a world that has room for every child, every human being. This is because when we give our lives away, when we lay our lives down, we always get raised up. When you freely give, God always sees it, and there is always resurrection – there is always surplus. If you refuse to give freely and demand and scrutinize, you will never have enough. But if you work honestly you will have more than you need, and that means you will always have at least a little to share. That is the core of a pro-life culture.

There are many ways to share, many ways to give, and we are not all called to give and share in the same ways. This is the glory of the body of Christ. Many of you are sharing and giving primarily in the care of the little ones God has already given you. You are investing in them, and what you are investing in them will grow and multiply 30, 60, and 100 fold. Do not despise the powerful work you are doing clothing, feeding, loving, disciplining, teaching, laughing, playing as you do this, you are honoring the image of God. And that image is an eternal soul that will live forever. Your house will collapse. Your clothes will wear out. Your car will die. But your children have souls that will live forever. And people are the greatest resource in the universe. People build and plant and discover and create. The kind of love and care you pour into the people God has put into your home will overflow in great surplus.

But as you do this, do not miss the fact that you are also practicing mercy and hospitality and friendship constantly in your family. As you practice this well, like other things you practice, you can get good at it. And then you will be in a position to share that care with others. Maybe it will be the gift of sharing meals; maybe it will be the gift of assisting other moms with their children; maybe it will be teaching; maybe it will be sharing clothing; or maybe it will be opening your home to those without one. The point is that the Lord leads all of us in the way we should go, and that primarily happens by opening your heart to Him. When you open your heart to Him, He multiplies your small acts of obedience far beyond what you imagine. The point of the feeding of the five thousand with that little boy’s five loaves and two fish is that God always does that.

Conclusion

What I want you to see and understand this morning is that this is what makes a world in which abortion comes to an end. We are building a community, a culture of honest labor and loving homes where there will always be a spare room, extra food in the cupboard, extra to share with those in need. And as we build this community together, sharing what God has given us, and giving to those in need, we are building a community where orphans are welcomed and loved, where all children are welcomed and loved, where widows are loved and cared for, where the disabled are welcomed and loved, where refugees from the world will flee for safety and help, where the immigrants and the strangers find families and friendship, where the image of God is honored and protected.

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

An Armory for Modern Christians #2

2 Cor. 10:4-5: Taking Every Thought Captive

Introduction

We have been given divine power to destroy strongholds, arguments, and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ (2 Cor. 10:4-5). This means that we must learn to examine our own thoughts, assumptions, and intentions as faithful soldiers of Jesus Christ.

How Is This Possible?

“The inward mind and heart of a man are deep” (Ps. 64:6). “Who can discern his errors? …” (Ps. 19:12). So how is this possible? This task is only possible by the power of God: “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Ps. 139:23-24). “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness… the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit…” (Rom. 8:26-27). “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). The task of taking every thought captive is only possible by the power of the Spirit and wholly dependent on Scripture and prayer.

An Examined Life

“Every way of man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart” (Prov. 21:2). People naturally do and think what seems right to them. This usually arises from a combination of habits, lessons, instincts, familial and cultural routines, beliefs, fears, and so on. You organize the laundry that way because your mother did it that way. You speak that way to your children because of the way your father spoke to you. You sing, read, hunt, pray, eat, and cook the way you do because of the way you were raised, the influence of close friends or role models. But that doesn’t make any of it necessarily correct or immune to improvement. While apart from the Word and the Spirit, self-examination is ultimately futile, every person is still responsible to examine themselves, and the Lord uses this: “The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord, searching all his innermost parts” (Prov. 20:27). And even though it’s a massive and sometimes scary task, it is still our duty: “The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out” (Prov. 20:5). In order to know which “lofty opinion” must be destroyed and which thoughts must be taken captive to obey Christ, we must draw them out. Why do you love what you love? What do you think about the most? Why do you think that way?

The Chief End of Man

The Westminster Shorter Catechism famously begins: “What is the chief end of man? Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” That phrase “chief end” is referring to our most fundamental motive, intention, and purpose. To even ask the question this way is to assume that we have such a thing. The modern Disney catechism would say that our chief end is to “follow our heart.” The problem with this is that Jesus says our hearts are full of evil desires: “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander” (Mt. 15:19). And elsewhere, Jesus teaches that these sins grow from the sinful seeds of anger, lust, and envy (Mt. 5:21ff). Even casual observation and experience teaches that our hearts get many things wrong. The Disney catechism fails by assuming natural goodness and wisdom, but it also fails by assuming infinite malleability. Follow your heart wherever it leads; be whatever you want to be. The significant assumption is that doing this will make you happy. In fact, notice that this is what the Westminster Catechism is also concerned with: joy. Knowing your “chief end” is ultimately all about understanding what will bring you the greatest happiness and joy. Going all the way back to the Garden of Eden, the fundamental divide between the Christian answer to this question and all other answers is whether our joy and happiness is something we were made for or whether it is something we must make for ourselves. This is why the creation/evolution discussion matters so much. On an evolutionary assumption, “nature” is blindly seeking meaning, purpose, joy. Even on “Theistic evolutionary” grounds, the concept of “design” recedes into the mysterious will of God, whereas creationism grounds that design in nature itself. In other words, the “chief end” of all things is directly related to what they were designed for. As Robert Heinlein said: Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig.

Freedom and Joy

Happiness is basically another way of describing freedom, and freedom is really just another way of describing what God designed us for. And the Westminster Catechism is merely summarizing Scripture: “So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). “Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father, through him… Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ” (Col. 3:17, 23-24). Freedom is not doing whatever you want. Freedom/happiness is glorifying God in everything. So why do you do what you do? Why do you love what you love? Why do you think the way you think? There is no neutrality: you are either glorifying God or trying to teach a pig to sing.

Another temptation in this task is despair: self-examination can be a real jungle of ick. And this is why you must go to this task as faithful soldiers of Christ: armed with the truth, the Word of God, which is the sword of the Spirit. The temptation is to face your thoughts and be taken captive by them. But this is to believe lies and not the truth (Jn. 8:31-32). The truth is that Christ died for every evil or foolish thing you’ve ever thought or believed (or done). You must not be taken captive. You must destroy the arguments and lofty opinions raised against God, and you must take every thought captive to obey Christ.

Lastly, Christian soldiers are happy warriors. The joy of the Lord is our strength (Neh. 8:10). When the kings and rulers of the earth take their stand against God and against His Christ, God laughs at them (Ps. 2:4). We must learn to do the same, starting with our own rebellious thoughts. Remember, we live for Christ because He has taken us captive with His love. His love controls us. We take every thought captive because we have been purchased by His blood.

The Goodness of God: Luke & Christa

Luke and Christa,

Wow. We are finally here. And the fact that we are here is a testament, a glorious monument to the kindness and goodness of God. It’s what the Bible calls grace.

Every wedding is a testimony to God’s grace. Even unbelievers, Muslims, Mormons, Hindus, and atheists may receive this grace from God. He smiles down on all human beings, and when a man and a woman become man and wife, it’s always a gift. It’s a gift of friendship, a gift of love, a gift of children and fruitfulness and blessing both for them and for the world around them. The gift of marriage in this sense is like the gift of sunshine and drinking water and good burgers on the grill. This is part of the way God made the world, and it is, as He said in the beginning, very good. God gives like this all the time: He makes the sun shine on the good and the evil. As Paul explained to the pagans in ancient Turkey, God has allowed the nations to walk in their own ways, but He has never left them without a witness, having given them rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, even satisfying unbelieving hearts with food and gladness (Acts 14:17).

And yet, these gifts were always meant as invitations. Later, when Paul stood in Athens, he explained the same thing, that God made from one man every nation of mankind, “that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him” (Acts 17:26). The goodness, the kindness, the grace of God has always been an invitation to seek God, to feel our way toward Him, and to truly find Him. And Paul adds, “Yet he is actually not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:27).

In fact, what we consider normal, natural, ordinary is far from it. It’s a sort of dullness, nearsightedness, deafness that doesn’t see the glory, the wonder, the magic in the world and doesn’t labor to find where it comes from. It’s as though we’ve found gold flecks along a small mountain stream, and we never think to follow the stream up the mountain to find the source. It’s as though we find fresh, sweet apples lying all over the ground, and we never think to look up to see where they’ve fallen from.

The Bible says that we don’t look too closely, and we don’t tend to feel our way toward Him because deep down we already know what we’ll find. In a strange, twisted irony, we know that we will find pure and unending goodness. And the more goodness we find, the more we will find that we aren’t very good at all. We will find that we aren’t the source of goodness, and that all of the goodness we have is from Him.

And this is what sets a Christian wedding apart from all other weddings. At the center of a Christian wedding we set the greatest monument of God’s goodness in the history of the world: the cross of Jesus Christ. For on the cross the infinite goodness and love of God was expressed, and in the same monument the ugliness and emptiness of our sin was revealed. But once again, in His goodness, He took our sin upon Himself. He took our pride upon Himself. He took our blindness, our dullness, our folly upon Himself.

A Christian marriage is not immune to any of the calamities and diseases that any other marriage is susceptible to. But what sets a Christian wedding and a Christian marriage apart is that it begins here, already absolutely sure of these facts: that there is no good apart from God, that we have no good in ourselves, and that the only good news in all the world is the revelation that God in His goodness has come for us, that His goodness is coming for us.

If you’ve ever been lost in an enormous house or field or forest in the dark, looking for something or someone you’ve lost, it’s terrifying and scary and soon feels utterly hopeless. But what if you’re trying to find someone who is also simultaneously looking for you? What if they are calling your name, waving their flashlight, coming towards you in the dark? You suddenly feel a great relief and hope, and you know you’ll see them face to face momentarily. Living in this world is like that. It is dark out, and there are many dangers, many ways of going astray. But the best news in all the world is that God is coming for us, He’s looking for us, and very soon, we will see Him face to face.

This is no silver bullet. This is not a magic ring or a lucky rabbit’s foot that waves away the hardships and difficulties of life in this world, let alone married life in this world. But it does give us hope. In a world full of sin and failure and betrayal and pain, marriage can seem like a pipe dream, like an old fashioned fairy tale, and for many it’s just not worth the hassle, the pain, the risks. But we have tasted and seen that the Lord is good. There is goodness in this world, unmistakable, bracing goodness. And we are the seekers of that goodness. And so the great hope of Christian marriage is that we already have a deeper experience of goodness to hold on to. Because we see Jesus. We see the perfect love of God, and we see it in the face of our foolishness and pride. We are not good, and the mind-blowing thing is that His goodness just keeps coming anyway.

Luke, your job is to model this grace for your wife as a Christian man. It’s the grace of good gifts like flowers and chocolate and telling her you love her, but it’s also the grace of an alien righteousness, a pervasive goodness that you don’t possess but that completely possesses you. And what this means is that you can die freely, gladly for Christa. You can lead her by laying your life down for her because you have died and the life you now live is in Christ, in His goodness. So lay down your life for her. Your life is not found in you. Your life is hidden with God in Christ. And this manifests itself fundamentally in a joy and gratitude and humility and boldness that fills you, but that isn’t yours but just keeps coming. This is the joyful strength that will love and lead your wife especially when she is tired, when she is afraid, when she is disappointed. This goodness isn’t yours, and that’s why you can keep giving. There’s always more if you keep going back to the source.

Christa, your job is also to model this grace for Luke. But he needs you to model this grace as a Christian woman. This means above all else that you have been granted the power of beautiful fruitfulness. The strange thing is that you tap into this power in the same way. You lay your life down for Luke, but you do this in responding to Luke, in receiving Luke, in respecting Luke. In other words, your goodness is not in you either. Your goodness is from Another. Your life is not in you. Your life is found in Christ. Your meaning, your purpose, your goodness is from Him. And this frees you to give far more than you think you can because what you’re giving isn’t yours to begin with. You’re drawing from the infinite goodness of God.

Today, in the Christian Calendar, is the Feast of Epiphany. Epiphany means manifestation or a sudden burst of light. It celebrates the fact that when Jesus was born into this world, the Light of God shone forth from Him. This was particularly captured when the Wisemen showed up out of the East to worship Jesus, following that mysterious star. This was captured when Jesus was baptized, and God’s voice thundered out of Heaven: This is my Son! And this was also captured in the miracles of Jesus, especially that first one at a wedding in Cana of Galilee when Jesus turned the water into wine. Notice the goodness of God pulsating, gushing, breaking out everywhere. This is the God we serve. The God who has come, the God who is coming, the God who’s goodness overflows all the banks. He tells the best stories. And your story is already one of the best. So never forget this day. Never forget the goodness of God surrounding you. Look up at the stars, see the splash and glint of water, see glasses brimming full of wine and laugh and remember the goodness of God.

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

Dr. Voddie Baucham in Moscow January 26-28

Very excited about the end of this month. Very grateful to have Dr. Voddie Baucham coming all the way from Zambia, Africa to speak for our Epiphany Lectures on Friday and Saturday, January 27-28. This year the conference is titled: One Blood: How Christ Reconciles vs. The Liberal Agenda. The conference is FREE, but space is limited and therefore you must register to save your spot, which you can do here. You’ll note that it is possible to make a donation at registration to help defray costs which (if you are able) is most appreciated. Also, please like and share the Facebook event page, since everybody knows that events don’t happen if that don’t have an event page on Facebook.

Also of note: Collegiate Reformed Fellowship, the joint college ministry of Trinity Reformed Church and Christ Church, is hosting an event with Dr. Voddie Bachaum: Why Gay is Not the New Black on sexuality and civil rights and the gospel. This event is at the University of Idaho Sub Ballroom at 7:30pm on Thursday, January 26th. The Facebook event page for that can be found here. Share, share, share.

And if all of that weren’t enough: there’s one more opportunity to hear Dr. Baucham speak and that will be at the New St. Andrew’s College Disputatio at 3pm on Friday, January 27th at the Nuart Theater. This will be a unique event since (for some reason) NSA has agreed to allow Crosspolitic Studios take over Disputatio. Gabriel Rench (the waterboy), Chocolate Knox (aka David Shannon), and myself will be hosting a live recording of an episode of the Crosspolitic podcast with Dr. Voddie Baucham and Pastor Douglas Wilson. The general theme will once again be something related to race and the church, but it will likely also include the usual banter and discussion you’ve come to appreciate (haven’t you?) about Crosspolitic. Again, feel free to invite your friends, neighbors, etc.

An Armory for Modern Christians #1

2 Cor. 10:4-5: Let Earth Receive Her King

Introduction

All Christians are soldiers in the army of God (Phil. 2:25, 2 Tim. 2:3, Ph. 1:2). He is the Lord of Hosts, and we are His hosts (Rev. 19:11-16, cf. Ex. 12:51). Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but we are at war. We fight against principalities and powers, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places, and therefore we must put on the whole armor of God, that we may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil (Eph. 6:11-12, cf. Rom. 13:12). We fight the good fight of faith in order to lay hold of eternal life to which we have been called (1 Tim. 6:12). Our weapons are not of the flesh, but we have been given divine power to destroy strongholds, arguments, and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ (2 Cor. 10:4-5). In this new year, 2017, we want to renew our commitment to wage this warfare against every manifestation of sin, the flesh, and the devil.

The Gospel is the Good News that God Reigns

One of the most striking things about the way God works in history is that He loves announcing things as finished before anyone can see it. He does this because He is the Lord of All. When Abram was not yet a father of anyone, God revised his already awkward name to “Abraham” in order to underline this Lordship (Rom. 4:17). Likewise, when Isaiah was commissioned to proclaim “Comfort” to Israel, He commanded Israel to go up on the high mountains and announce the good news of God’s salvation before God’s salvation had actually arrived in history (Is. 40:9). They were to tell Israel to “behold” their God, to believe that He was coming for them with might and power (Is. 40:10), and that He would be tend His flock like a good shepherd (Is. 40:11). The Good News/Gospel of the New Covenant is similar. Jesus was born, lived, died, rose again, and ascended to the right hand of the Father, putting all things right in principle, and we announce this as a present reality before it can be obviously seen (Heb. 2:8). Paul specifically quotes Isaiah 52 to describe the task of preaching the gospel: How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.’ (Is. 52:7, Rom. 10:15-17). Preaching the gospel is announcing the good news that Jesus is Lord now. This is the center of our warfare and how we take every thought captive to obey Christ.

The Peace of the Lord

When you wake up each day, you do so as a servant of the King. You are a man or woman, boy or girl under orders. How is the Lord directing your days? How does the Word of the Lord direct your parenting? Your household management? Your financial planning? Your schooling and vocational pursuits? Your love life? Jesus is the Lord of every thought, and therefore every thought is either an act of obedience or an act of treason. In a wonderful juxtaposition, the central Word of the Lord to all men is peace. When Jesus rose from the dead, He said, ‘Peace be with you’ (Jn. 20:19, 21, cf. Lk. 24:36). As Isaiah had foretold, Jesus was announcing that Israel’s warfare was ended (cf. Is. 40:1-2). This is because the driving force behind every human conflict is our war against God. Every human being born in this world is born shaking his/her fist at our Maker. But God in His great love and mercy sent His Son to make peace with His enemies, and He made that peace by His blood (Rom. 5:1, 9-10). It is this peace that drives the Christian warfare against all remaining evil. The love of Christ that has reconciled us to Himself compels us to take every thought captive to this peace of Christ. Paul models this wonderfully when he speaks of his ministry as a treasure in jars of clay (2 Cor. 4:7), in which they carry around in their bodies the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may be manifest in their bodies (2 Cor. 4:10). Paul and the other apostles do not lose heart in the trials and tribulations of life because “this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison… for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:16-18). When we fight the good fight of faith, we are fighting for that eternal weight of glory. Every word, every action, every thought either bows the knee and blesses Christ or it resents Christ and shakes an angry fist.

Living For Christ

Paul describes this way of life as living for Christ: “For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: 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). This “living for Christ” is living out the peace of Christ, which is a “new creation” way of life (2 Cor. 5:17-18, cf. 6:3ff). In other words, obedience to Christ looks very different from the way unbelievers live: What partnership does righteousness have with lawlessness? What fellowship has light with darkness? What portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols (2 Cor. 6:14-18)? This means that it will not do to thoughtlessly mimic the ways of unbelief around us. We are soldiers under orders. In order to live for Christ, we live each day asking Christ to rule over every inch of our lives. We want every thought taken captive to obey Christ (2 Cor. 10:4-5). How does Christ want you to use your time? How does Christ want you to use your money? How does Christ want you to teach your children? How does Christ want you to organize your home? How does Christ want you to study, computer program, shovel your driveway, do your hair, spend your free time, watch movies, post on Facebook? How does Christ want you to think about all of these things? If the love of Christ controls us then we do not live for ourselves but for Him who died and was raised for us.

Conclusion

In this new year, may our firmest, fiercest resolve be to live for Christ, to be controlled by His love, to be holy as He is holy, to walk in His light, to fight the good fight of faith, and to take every thought captive to obey Christ. We want every thought, every word, every action to be a full-hearted profession and confession that all things have been reconciled in Christ, that He has made peace by the blood of His cross – even though we don’t see it yet. We want every thought to acknowledge that He is Lord. Which is why we sing: Joy to the world! The Lord is come! Let earth receive her King.

Grooming, Shame, and the Gospel

“Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed; they did not know how to blush.” (Jer. 6:15).

Part of what happens when societies turn away from God is that they become ashamed of the wrong things, and the things that really ought to be considered shameful become normal. And this has happened because America and the (formerly) Christian West have been systematically groomed. If you read any of the literature on abuse and sexual abuse in particular, you will know that perpetrators groom their victims. Small lines are crossed to establish new codes of loyalty, secrecy, and normalcy. A predatory youth pastor allows boys from his youth group to binge on soda and pizza and candy and then maybe they watch a movie that’s a little off color if they promise not to tell their parents: secrecy, indulgence. Then maybe there are video games that have a bit of foul language, maybe some indecency, brief nudity — again let’s not tell the parents: a little more secrecy, a little more indulgence. Then maybe after soccer night, they all go back to his place for pizza and movies, but showers turn into a naked towel-popping fight. Innocent locker room stuff? What is normal? Excitement, secrecy, loyalty, fun — all the lines are being blurred, on purpose, minimizing the danger. The boys are being groomed.

“Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret” (Eph. 5:11-12).

It’s worth pointing out that Paul says that we must take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness and that it’s shameful to even talk about what immoral people do in secret. And at the same time exposing those works of darkness means talking about them in a certain way. But we live in a world that is constantly talking about the works of darkness in another way, in a normalizing way. The Come Back of Lesbian Film was a headline in my Twitter feed just this morning. Also just this morning: the Time Magazine Twitter feed heralded this line: Marriage with Robots? Experts say it’s really coming. Notice the very careful rhetoric of the Time’s link: “Marriage” is a word full of meaning (or used to be), and who can be against marriage? But of course there is NO SUCH THING as marriage between humans and robots. That’s a laughable farce. This is not even a possibility. What they are actually talking about is SEX with robots. And even that is really giving them too much. What they are really talking about is masturbation with high-tech gizmos. But that headline would never fly; it’s much too gauche. But furthermore, when they say “robots,” what they are also really talking about is high-tech porn. A “fully functioning” (of course not really) “anatomically-correct” robot is not a real woman (or man) but is like the high-brow Hellenistic porn of yesteryear, cloaked (ha!) in the respectability (read: normalcy) of art and science.

But the second line in the Time link is also carefully chosen, particularly the appeal to authority: “Experts.” Who goes against the experts? Who do you think you are? Well of course everything rides on which “experts” we’re talking about. I can give Time Magazine a list of Christian and biblical “experts” who’d be more than happy to fill them in on the long term adverse affects of sexual individualism and pornography on teenagers, adult singles, families, marriages, etc. But of course those “experts” would be summarily rejected as fundamentalists, tyrants, bigots, backward, and so on.

But the thing to notice is that Time and many other “information outlets” are busy grooming the American people. Most of Time’s headlines are full of fairly normal links and articles. And then here and there, we have a headline seeming to cast — what ought to make ordinary people blush and turn red with shame — in some kind of pseudo-intellectual respectability. And buried in the rhetoric is an offer of secrecy and loyalty and new forms of normalcy.

Related, National Geographic recently ran a special issue on “Gender,” featuring a young boy dressed up as a girl on the front cover with the quote: “The best thing about being a girl is, now I don’t have to pretend to be a boy anymore.” Apart from the obviously appalling use of the comma, the real play is an appeal to your pity. Hypocrisy is bad, pretending is bad. The boy in the picture doesn’t look particularly nice or happy. It’s the finest of National Geographic’s condescending colonialism. Look at this rare breed of human we found out there in the wild. (Nevermind that this little boy has been treated like a lab rat and has been “doctored” in the worst ways.) Don’t you feel bad for this endangered species?

Here’s the play: first you pity them and feel sorry for them, then you protect them, then you celebrate them. This is exactly what has happened with homosexuality already in our culture.

And now we are at the point where Christians are nervous about saying that homosexuality is a disorder out loud, in public. Many folks know they would lose their jobs to say such a thing. But it’s the truth, and the fact that you know you can’t say so out loud means that you have been muzzled. You have been gagged. You are not free. You are a slave. But, make no mistake: homosexuality is a human disorder. It’s a sickness, a mental, spiritual, moral disorder. What practicing homosexuals need is therapy, counseling, repentance, and of course love. But when a man full of cancer comes in to the oncologist, the oncologist must love the man in the truth. This is why you want the best possible health care. You want to know the truth. This is what the tests are designed to do: to give us the best available information about what is going on inside the body.

But Christians have gotten to the point where they are embarrassed and ashamed about what the Bible actually says. It says that at the heart of every sinful disorder is willful rebellion against God. Original sin is inherited from your father Adam and it rages in every one of us, but the really offensive thing that the Bible says is that you have freely of your own volition chosen to indulge those twisted desires. You have chosen to do evil, and it is your fault. Everyone of us has, and so we have all fallen shamefully short of the glory of God. To say that National Geographic has just featured sexual abuse on its front cover as a normal thing to discuss at dinner is to break the code of silence. To say it out loud is to defy our cultural Masters. And right now, the fact that Christians have not completely flipped out about this “special issue” and the fact that Time Magazine can casually link to a brief story about “marriage with robots” only serves to further demonstrate that we have been thoroughly groomed. We’ve been groomed for decades with movies and television, and the fact that many Christians are tired of talking about it, tired of the “culture war” is another element of the same point. You’ve been groomed. You’ve been silenced. The Masters know they can get away with it, and the Christians will just shrug their shoulders and sigh and go along with it.

A generation ago, sodomy was a criminal offense in many states and homosexuality was a mental disorder (already down graded from sinful abomination), and now it is proclaimed from the highest court in our land that it is a fundamental human right to celebrate this abomination as “marriage.” We do not know how to blush anymore.

The answer to all this is not panic or despair. The answer is to do exactly what Paul says to do. He says to walk as dearly loved children in imitation of Christ who loved us and gave Himself for us (Eph. 5:1). To turn to Christ is to turn to child-like innocence. To turn to Christ is to be given your innocence back. That’s what forgiveness in Christ means. Satan is the accuser and he brings your shameful things to mind. He reminds you of the things you have done, the things that have been done to you, the things you have watched, the things you have thought about, and he says that once your innocence is lost it is lost forever. But that is a lie. The truth is that Jesus was born into the shame of this world in order to undo it. He was born in a shameful situation. He endured the shame of rejection and isolation and loneliness. He truly didn’t fit in. There really wasn’t anyone like Him, who could really understand Him. And He was betrayed by His friends. He was lied about. He was falsely accused. He was slandered. He was mocked and paraded before the crowds in shame before He was finally nailed to a Roman cross, the most shameful way to die. And there strung up naked and dying with His final breath, He announced, It is finished.

It is finished. That is the answer to the accusations that cause you shame, the lies that tempt you to give up trying to be pure, trying to be holy, to give up believing that in Christ you are innocent and without any shame. Shame is a gag order, but the righteousness of Christ sets you free.

This is the answer to the shameful things being paraded on our streets and in the movies and in our social networks. As dearly loved, innocent children we are called to expose them to this light. We come with the light that shined on us in our darkness. This is the light that restores hearts and minds. It heals the numbness that develops when we give in to sin. It teaches us to feel again, to love again, to hope again.

Christ is born; Christ has died; Christ lives again. Shame gives in to the silence and apathy of despair and allows the darkness to creep in, blurring the lines, twisting the truth. And then it seems hopeless. But Christ is the Light. He shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it.

The Greatest Conspiracy

Homily for Christmas Day 2016

Grace is the greatest conspiracy. It works right in front of your eyes constantly, boldly, and yet it usually goes unnoticed. It’s camouflaged in the ordinary, in the every day, in the mundane. It looks natural. It looks normal. Grace creeps in under the shadows, in the dark, when we’re distracted by pain, by disappointment, by loss. Grace is always there, moving into place, surrounding the location, mapping every route, and arranging for all the contingencies.

The world was still very young when evil made its move, when Satan deceived our first mother, and our first father plunged us into the dark, capturing the hearts and lives of the whole human race. We came under that power, under that dominion. We became slaves of sin and death, ordered around by those cruel masters, desires, lusts, and in our despair and insanity we killed and destroyed and shook our heads in agony and fear and fury at ourselves and one another.

Into that raging, haunted world, Grace came boldly. But the darkness is so insidious that it will latch on to anything. The darkness is parasitic, a tapeworm of sadness and destruction. And so Grace had to came undercover in order to free us. Grace came the only way possible, disguised in the ash and rags and weakness of this world. Grace came in the raving of old men and the barrenness of old women. Grace came in the appearance of slaves and convicts and refugees. Grace came in orphans and widows and the forgotten. But just in case the human race began to suspect, Grace also came in military victories, in an occasional king or ruler, often in poverty but occasionally in riches. Grace came in animals butchered, in middle eastern tents, in priesthoods that seemed at first glance rather like the usual religious rites and customs of desperate cultures looking for hope and answers in this sad world. Grace came under the guise of ritual and tradition and sacred stories and genealogies. Grace came dressed in colorful robes, in camel skins, eating lambs and unleavened bread, and locusts and wild honey. Grace came in weddings and pregnancies, in the babbling of babies, in boyish grins and little girls playing dress-up, in the usual noise and bluster of everyday life. And then just like that, Grace came in the wilderness, in the fields at night, in a rare star that blended into the sky that only a few apparently noticed. Grace came in fatigue and discomfort and contractions. Grace came as a baby, and then a man, a carpenter, a rabbi, a criminal, a gardener, a face in the crowd, you could have easily missed. And many did.

Grace came under the cover of flesh and blood in order to subvert all flesh and blood. It came that it might not be seen. It came that it might not be heard. And it had to. It had to because otherwise it wouldn’t have been grace. It had to be mistaken, misunderstood, missed, forgotten. Grace is the greatest conspiracy. Grace is God smiling down on us. Grace is His favor, His joy, His gladness, His goodness come for us, grasping us. But there’s something wonderfully subtle about it all. It must be: hidden and yet revealed, present and yet not entirely, already but not yet. And yet unmistakably, unshakably true, real, absolutely there.

From one angle it’s completely understandable that many don’t see what all the fuss is about. This is all there is, they insist. Stop dreaming, quit making things up, enough of this believing in things you can’t see or touch or prove, they say. They have a point. To varying degrees every one of us knows what it’s like to not know Grace, to not see it in the snow and in the wind, to not hear it in the trembling, aching melodies we sing, in the beauty of a godly woman, in the wonderful smell of a newborn baby.

It’s possible not to see because Grace really is the greatest conspiracy. You can’t look straight at it. If you try, it seems to vanish. Because fundamentally, most crucially, Grace isn’t something that we see. Rather, Grace sees us. That’s the whole point. Grace watches over us, surrounds us, grasps us, holds us. Otherwise, it isn’t grace, if we hold it, if we grasp it. Grace has invaded our world, taken up residence in this place, and Grace is multiplying every minute – in the glory of the galaxies spinning and exploding over our heads, in the mysteries of atoms and genes and molecules saying their spells in the micro-theaters of every living thing, in the hugs and tears, in the smiles, in the rain, in the flickering candles, in cups of hot chocolate in front of blazing fires, in presents wrapped and unwrapped, in water poured over the head of a baby, in a bit of bread and wine shared as a little bit of heaven right here on earth.

Grace is God smiling down on us. Grace is the presence of God with us, all around us, holding us, going ever before us, and keeping watch behind us. It lurks in the shadows. It greets us there with a quiet nod, a brief embrace. It isn’t easily seen, but if you look closely, you can see it’s traces everywhere. You can see His fingerprints everywhere. It’s as if He wanted us to realize that this whole world, life and everything in it is a gift and He’s not tricking us. He’s not crossing His fingers behind His back. He’s just smiling. He’s just beaming. That’s what all of this means, all of this goodness piled up around us, even in the pain, and through the tears. If you look out the corner of your eyes, if you squint just a little, you might catch just a little glimpse, and if you do, you will see that His arms are stretched open wide, with the biggest smile you can imagine, welcoming everyone home. And there’s a twinkle in His eye, and then you suddenly realize He was planning this all along and in His great love, He has taken care of everything already. He’s seen to all of the details personally.

Grace is the greatest conspiracy.

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