Toby J. Sumpter's Blog, page 87

Sin, Trauma, & God’s Grace for Parenting

[These are my notes from my talk for the 2016 TRC Parenting Conference]

Introduction

When I was sixteen years old, the summer before my senior year in high school, I worked during the days for my high school grounds keeper doing manual labor from 7am to 3pm. Then, most days, I drove 45 minutes south into Silver Spring, Maryland, just outside of Washington D.C. to work a second job at art and framing shop. I usually worked until close at 8 or 9 in the evening, and then I would drive the 45 minutes back home, crash into bed, and repeat. That summer is a blur in my memory, but one of the things I do remember are the drives home. Or rather, I remember the fact that so often I didn’t remember the drive home. I would get in the car in Silver Spring and it felt like I woke up 45 minutes later, as I pulled into our driveway in Glenelg.

Child psychiatrist Bruce Perry, describes this sensation as the “power of association.” God made our brains to learn and recognize repeated patterns. This is actually a great gift so that we are not constantly overwhelmed by all the data our senses are receiving. Rather, we tend to be conscious of new data. This is how we can drive a particular route for 45 minutes and not remember any of it. Your brain automatically associates this drive, these surroundings with previous experiences and quite literally, autopilot kicks in. This is how we can do the dishes or take a shower and not remember many of the details.

Bruce Perry and others in the field of child psychiatry have spent a lot of time in recent years studying the ways trauma affects the brain, particularly in children. As my wife and I have been involved in foster care over the last several years, this has been one of the areas of emphasis in our training. When it comes to foster care, you are often asked to take in children that have experienced some kind of trauma: violence, abuse, neglect, and so forth. What Dr. Perry and others have noted is that these patterns of trauma tend to wire children’s instincts or associations in a particular way. What many of us take for granted as normal or acceptable human behavior, many children have no conception of. Whether through certain repeated experiences or through various coping mechanisms, their brains have been trained to consider some data and associations as “normal” that are not all normal or good, and on the other hand, due to the same experiences, there may be good or normal things which have come to be associated with trauma and stress and fear.

Now why do I begin here?

The theme of this conference is Parenting Challenges. One sort of parenting challenge is the challenge of caring for children that have been through some form of trauma or another. But the more my wife and I have learned from our training, the more we have learned from our own experiences, and the more we study Scripture, the more we are convinced that what modern child psychiatry is just coming up to speed on, is what the Bible teaches about training up all of our children. The Bible teaches that this traumatized condition is fundamentally the result of sin. Every human being is born with this trauma impressed on their minds and hearts and souls. We exhibit our symptoms in different ways, but every human being struggles to think, feel, act, and react rightly. Childhood is a particularly significant time of training those instincts and habits, but as Bruce Perry, a secular evolutionist, points out becoming humane is learned not instinctive.

In other words, many of the very same lessons Bruce Perry and other child counselors are explaining to us in our foster care training are the very same lessons God gives to every parent. I certainly don’t mean this to flatten out all childhood experiences and pretend that they are all the same. Not at all. Some experiences truly are horrific. Some children truly are particularly difficult. And there are many, complex spiritual, social, psychiatric, and biological components to these challenges. But what I do mean is that despite these differences and despite the fact that children do need to be addressed uniquely, there is still an underlying commonalty to what all these children need. What traumatized children need is actually what all of our children need. What abused children need is what all of our children need.

A Case Study from Isaiah

One place to go to study what the Bible says about difficult children is the book of Isaiah, where we find God lamenting over His difficult children: “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord has spoken: ‘Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.’ Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the Lord, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged” (Is. 1:2-4, cf. Is. 30:1-2, 8-9). “Whom are you mocking? Against whom do you open your mouth wide and stick out your tongue? Are you not children of transgression, the offspring of deceit, you who burn with lust among the oaks, under every green tree, who slaughter your children in the valleys, under the clefts of the rocks?” (Is. 57:4-5). The thing to note is that God’s children have all the signs of severe trauma. Their instincts are all wrong. They have devolved into a nation that is thoroughly inhumane. And this state has become normal to them.

What I find particularly interesting is that there is another theme of children in Isaiah. Children are the problem, but Isaiah also depicts the solution in children, or rather, in a Child: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace…” (Is. 9:6) And a little later the solution is once against pictured in a child: “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them… The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Is. 11:6, 8-9). Here, we see what should be a horrific, traumatic event (a child playing with fierce, wild animals) turned into a picture of peace and salvation through the knowledge of the Lord.

As Isaiah comes to a close in the last chapters, God’s determination to save and heal His children comes pouring forth: “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me” (Is. 49:15). “Sing, O barren one, who did not bear; break forth into singing and cry aloud, you who have not been in labor! For the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of her who is married,” says the Lord… For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left and your offspring will possess the nations and will people the desolate cities” (Is. 54:1, 3). “All your children shall be taught by the Lord, and great shall be the peace of your children” (Is. 54:13). “And as for me, this is my covenant with them, says the Lord, My Spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouth of your offspring, or out of the mouth your children’s offspring, says the Lord, from this time forth and forevermore” (Is. 59:21). As Isaiah closes, He pictures Israel as a woman suddenly giving birth, and the Lord asks, “Shall I bring to the point of birth and not cause to bring forth? Shall I, who cause to bring forth, shut the womb?” (Is. 66:9). And the Lord answers, “Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream and you shall nurse, you shall be carried upon her hip, and bounced upon her knees. As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you… (Is. 66:12-13). Though God holds His children responsible for their actions, their choices, He is still full of compassion for them and promises to comfort them.

Applications

God has rebellious/difficult children. He understands what it’s like. He sympathizes with us. Do you ever feel like you don’t know what to do? Do you feel powerless, empty, overwhelmed by your children? God knows what that feels like. God’s love for His rebellious children is fiercer than any mother’s in this room. The stress and fears and tensions parents feel are fundamentally rooted in our love for our children. But God’s love is stronger and fiercer and therefore, His pain is greater. In fact, Jesus Christ as our High Priest sympathizes with us in our weakness (Heb. 4:15). Though Jesus had no biological children, He certainly felt the grief of parent over difficult children: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem… How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing” (Mt. 23:37). Therefore, let us draw near to Him and seek grace in our time of need (Heb. 4:16).


Every one of us were (and often still are) one of God’s rebellious children. Not only does God sympathize with us, but that sympathy ought to drive us to sympathize with our children. While we were still enemies, Christ died for us (Rom. 5). If God has compassion on you and your hard heart, how will you not have compassion on your children in their hard hearts? Hard-hearted children are an opportunity to display that gospel. God loves His rebellious children. He loves them more than a mother loves her nursing child, or like a gentle father: “As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust” (Ps. 103:13). Sympathy and compassion must not make allowance for sin. Sin is poison and always destructive; it is always an enemy. But sympathy and compassion give us the grace to understand why sin is often so difficult, so powerful, so alluring. This is your storehouse of forgiveness, kindness, patience, stability, and lots and lots of conversations.


Part of God’s love is displayed in delivering painful consequences. Sometimes, God uses physical discipline (Is. 10, cf. Is. 30:31, Lam. 3:1). Likewise: “Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him” (Prov. 13:24). “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him” (Prov. 22:15). “Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die. If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol” (Prov. 23:13-14). “The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother” (Prov. 29:15). “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord… for the moment all discipline is painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Heb. 12:5-11). Notice that this discipline is not incompatible with compassion and sympathy. In fact, this discipline truly is a form of compassion and sympathy: save his soul from Sheol. Give him wisdom. Instead, refusing to spank your child is actually refusing to be compassionate and merciful. A child left to himself is a child neglected, a child allowed to grow up in ignorance and confusion. Finally, Hebrews confirms that this is still a pattern of faithful, loving discipline in the New Covenant. Spanking is a quick painful “trauma” meant to correct sinful behavior, in order to prevent greater pain and trauma down the road. This is one area where we are still waiting for modern child psychiatry to catch up with the wisdom of God. We should note here that in the state of Idaho spanking your own children is legal, though in foster care/adoption training, it is often listed alongside various forms of abuse. Therefore, Christian parents should administer this discipline in a way that is unmistakably loving.


The book of Isaiah ends, we should note, with promises. So often, parents want to-do lists, methods, when this happens what should I do? And of course there’s a place for that. But one of the lessons of Isaiah for parenting is that the fundamental solution is to simply believe God’s promises. “Then they said to [Jesus], ‘What must we do, to be doing the works of God?’ Jesus answered them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.’” (Jn. 6:28-29). So what exactly is God promising? God is promising to save our children. And Luke quotes Malachi’s prophecy that God’s salvation will include turning the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers (Lk. 1:17, Mal. 4:6). And Peter repeats it at Pentecost: “For the promise is for you and for your children…” (Acts 2:39). Jesus is the Child who was born, the Son that was given, and therefore, if we believe in that Child, we must also believe that God is in the process of teaching all our children to know Him. (41)

 

Conclusion

As my wife and I have listened to former foster children talk about their experiences having grown up in different homes, having grown up separated from family members, experiencing various forms of trauma and abuse, the thing that stands out above all else is how they describe their deepest longings to just belong, to just have a family, a home, meals together, love, friendship, stability, boundaries. One girl I met described how she could still remember the smell of a man’s flannel shirt, the first man she’d ever known who modeled a father’s love to her. She told me that she’d only lived in that home for around 30 days before being moved to another home. But that she’d never forget the smell of that man’s love. This is the power of associations going the other way. God used those few days to begin remapping this young girl’s mind and heart. Sin and trauma can distort our perceptions of reality, but the love of God can reorient our hearts and minds.

It’s no different with the children growing up in all of our homes. They are hungry for love, for friendship, for acceptance, for boundaries, for direction, for security. They often don’t know how to express that, and they often don’t know that’s what they want or need. But we know that’s what they were made for because fundamentally we all know that’s what we really need. And by the death and resurrection of Jesus, that is exactly what God has done for us. We have been imprinted on His hands. He has brought us home, and we are learning to recognize and be comforted by the aroma of His love. And through the power of that association, God is restoring us to the glory of being fully human again.

Jesus and Our Demons

Luke XLI: Lk. 11:14-28

Introduction

Perhaps C.S. Lewis put it best when he said that people tend toward two opposite dangers when it comes to demons: unbelief on the one hand and unhealthy obsession on the other. Lewis said he thought the devils were equally pleased with both errors and “hail a materialist or magician with the same delight.”

The Inhumanity of Idolatry

The scene opens with Jesus casting out a demon that was mute, and when the demon had gone out of the man, the mute man began to speak (Lk. 11:14). Given the previous scene, the implication is that this man has been enslaved by the demon, preventing him from praying. While Jesus cautions us against certain snap judgments about the results of sin (and presumably demons) (cf. Jn. 9:1-3), the gospels still often associate demons and sickness (cf. Mt. 4:24, 12:22, 17:15-18). In fact, the Bible warns against idolatry precisely for its deformation of human beings: “Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see… Those who make them become like them” (Ps. 115:4-8, cf. Ps. 135). In this sense, while there is clearly not a direct demonic/sinful cause for every sickness, there is a general sense in which the healing of Jesus is a war on the idols and demons enslaving and deforming humanity (Mk. 1:34, 39). This is fundamentally because the image of God is for communion with God and others.

The Divided House

Luke points out that people are divided over Jesus (Lk. 11:14-16). So Jesus addresses this division by addressing the suspicions of some, that He is empowered by the “prince of the demons.” Jesus is addressing that accusation, and revealing the folly: that kind of kingdom is laid waste; that kind of household falls (Lk. 11:17). And besides, by that logic, by what power do their sons cast out demons (Lk. 11:19)? At the same time, Jesus is clearly talking about their own divisions about who Jesus is: whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters (Lk. 11:23). So His point is also about Israel. Israel is a house and a kingdom. The parable-like image is Jesus describing what is actually taking place: Israel has become the palace of a “strong man” who is fully armed, guarding his goods (Lk. 11:21). It’s simple logic to note that the only one who can take out that “strong man” is “one stronger,” and the clear implication is that Jesus is claiming to be that “one stronger” – this was how John foretold Jesus coming as “one stronger,” baptizing with the Holy Spirit and with fire, winnowing the wheat and the chaff (Lk. 3:16-17). Perhaps the Israelites might have thought of their oppressor as being Rome, but Jesus is implying that there is an even more insidious power at work in Israel.

Clean Houses & Blessings

Clearly, the warning that follows is for Israel: Jesus has come cleaning the house of Israel, casting out demons and healing the sick, but this is only good if Israel embraces Jesus and follows Him into the Kingdom. Otherwise, the demons will return with a vengeance, bringing seven other spirits more evil than the first, and the last state will be worse than the first (Lk. 11:24-26). It seems that a woman in the crowd wished to express her loyalty to Jesus and honors his mother (Lk. 11:27), but Jesus redirects the beatitude to hearing and obeying the word of God, just like Mary did (Lk. 11:28). This is how Israel can keep her house clean and free of demons and all evil powers: through obedience to the word of God.

Conclusions & Applications

This scene reminds us of the Exodus, when Pharaoh was the “strong man” who had enslaved the Hebrews in the house of bondage under the power of the Egyptian gods (Ex. 12:12, Num. 33:4). When Jesus says He casts out demons by the “finger of God” (Lk. 11:20), He seems to be alluding to the Egyptian magicians giving up after the third plague, telling Pharaoh “this is the finger of God” (Ex. 8:19). God proved Himself to be the “one stronger” by attacking Pharaoh, overcoming him in the plagues and in the sea, taking away his armor and plundering him (Ex. 12:36). But God did not merely strike down their oppressor and leave them with a clean and empty house waiting for a new oppressor to arise. Rather, he brought them to Himself, so He might be their Lord, so they might open their mouths in praise, build His house, that He might live in their midst and restore them to life (Ex. 15:26). This is what Jesus has come to do: to turn us from death to life, from the power of Satan to God (Acts 26:18), to build His house instead of another.

Sin is not just making bad choices; sin is allowing evil powers into your life. There is a reason we refer to particularly difficult sins as our “demons.” Or sometimes people experience various seasons of darkness that seem overwhelming and hopeless. The Bible clearly teaches that Jesus has disarmed all evil powers (Col. 2:14-15), and yet we still struggle against them (Eph. 6:14). Jesus disarmed all the evil powers by canceling the record of debt that stood against us, nailing it to the cross (Col. 2:14-15). Paul says that we were “dead” in our trespasses, and that God made us alive by forgiving us all our trespasses. The forgiveness of Jesus is deliverance from death and all our demons because Jesus died for our sins, that “through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery” (Heb. 2:14). Satan shuts our mouths with the guilt of sin, but by the cross, Jesus opens every mouth in praise.

If your mouth has been opened and you have been delivered from death to life, from the power of Satan to God, then you have received the Holy Spirit who is at work in your house filling it with the fruit of repentance: putting off the old man and putting on the new man (Eph. 4:22ff). Repentance is the work of Jesus dwelling in our hearts through faith; He is the power at work within us (Eph. 3:17-21). This means you can’t stop it, and it means that He is granting you power to gladly obey Him. This is why you let in the Light of God’s Word. This is also why you invite the Body of Christ to walk with you. The Holy Spirit indwells the people of God, and therefore, when you invite them into your life, to know you, to speak into your life, you are inviting the power of Christ into your life, and together we are being built up into a new temple, a house of mouths that speak, filled with prayer and praise.

Sophisticated Fire

Jer. 7:30-34, Gal. 5:16-23

Jeremiah describes the wickedness of Judah as beginning in the sanctuary. When people turn from listening carefully to what God says to do, they necessarily begin to substitute their own ideas, their own inventions and innovations. And this inevitably results in imitating unbelief and idolatry. It seems like an extreme, unthinkable thing to begin sacrificing children to pagan gods. But if Israel can get there, so can any nation. Perhaps our fires and altars get more sophisticated, but the children murdered in abortion clinics and the children disfigured by the push for gender neutrality and transgenderism are being offered to the god of absolute autonomy.

And the fact that many conservative churches are afraid to say out loud that God created men and women with different glories, and therefore they have different roles to play in the family, church, and society, that children are a blessing from the Lord and welcome in our in our communities, that marriage is sacred and to be honored among all men – all of this tells you we are already deeply compromised by the idols of our land.

This battle begins in every human heart, which is where all true worship begins. We will either be under the reign and rule of the Spirit or we will submit to the flesh. We will either serve Jesus or we will serve ourselves. The flesh demands a certain kind of blood, found in the works of the flesh. But the Spirit proclaims the blood of Christ and assures us that we belong to Him. The former is inherently violent and coercive, the latter is the only way for human societies to function or flourish. One is the kingdom of man where the voice of mirth is slowly silenced and the voices of bride and bridegroom cease from the land, but the other is the kingdom of God where the voice of gladness never ends.

Learning to Say, “My Gospel”

[Here are my notes for the talk I gave at the TRC Evangelism Conference 2016, recordings coming soon.]

Introduction

I don’t remember a time when I did not love Jesus. One of my earliest memories is being interviewed for membership in an Orthodox Presbyterian Church by a couple of elders when I was four years old. I was baptized and became a communicant member shortly thereafter. I’ve always loved singing worship songs and hymns. John Frame led worship with my dad in my early years in southern California. Part of how I’ve always known the presence of the Holy Spirit is through the many times I’ve been convicted of sin. I remember getting angry at some neighborhood friends on one occasion, riding my bike furiously away and wiping out about hundred yards down the street. In my seven year old heart, I knew it was God throwing me down, and I got up and went back to my friends to ask their forgiveness. One of the first times I remember sharing the gospel with someone was a neighborhood boy in Alaska who prayed with me and my brother to receive Christ. I was probably nine years old; he was probably around seven. So much of my testimony is bound up with the grace of God ministered through my dad, an OPC minister, who often took me around with him knocking on doors or walking through the park to share the gospel. Sometimes we would do a literature table at the local shopping mall. My dad is two parts Alaskan hockey roughneck, one part Louisiana-Texan cowboy, and three parts simple, patient, Christian love.

Why do I begin here? Because “by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain” (1 Cor. 15:10). This, in part, is my testimony of God’s grace in me, and if you have met Jesus, you have a story to tell as well – you have a story of God’s grace toward you. This is my gospel, the gospel of free grace, the gospel of blood-bought forgiveness and freedom and unending goodness, the gospel of Jesus. This is also your gospel. It’s the same Jesus, the same grace, but you have a different story of the same grace. This is why you need to learn to say, “this is my gospel.”

We Proclaim Jesus with Ourselves

There are important ways in which the gospel is a public, political announcement to the world about facts that are objectively, historically true, which have an inevitable glorious culmination (e.g. Phil. 2). There are also important ways in which the gospel transforms individuals from the inside out, granting them healing, hope, and new hearts (e.g. 1 Pet. 1:3). There are times and places where either side of that coin may be the appropriate emphasis, but by themselves, the former can lack any personalism or else the latter can veer into over-personalized subjectivism. An overly objective emphasis can tend to discourage evangelism because it seems to be based on getting certain facts and theological truths right. An overly subjective emphasis can tend to discourage evangelism because it seems to be based on having a “great testimony.” One of the glories of gospel proclamation is how the objective, historical God-man Jesus grabs hold of men and women and turns their lives into uniquely shaped vessels of His grace. Jesus saves in such a way as to make His gospel your gospel. And therefore we need to learn to say, “This is my gospel.” It’s striking to notice how often Paul talks about himself in his letters. Sometimes he is defending himself against false accusations (2 Cor. 2:17, 4:2), sometimes he is defending his apostolic authority (Gal. 1), sometimes he talks about his imprisonment (Phil. 1), sometimes he reviews how he came to the Lord (1 Tim. 1), sometimes he compares his ministry to the ministry of others (1 Cor. 15), sometimes he names people who have helped him, and other times he names people who have harmed him. This is why Paul sometimes has to protest that he is not preaching himself: “For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake” (2 Cor. 4:5). But there he goes, mentioning himself again!

Paul’s Gospel, Our Gospel

Paul refers to the gospel of Jesus several times as “my gospel.” In Romans 2:16, Paul refers to the day of judgment which is coming “according to my gospel.” Later, in Romans 16:26, Paul writes, “Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages…” And again in 2 Tim. 2:8: “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound!” Something similar seems to be implied a number of other places in Paul’s letters. “And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing…” (e Cor. 4:3). “For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction…” (1 Thess. 1:4-5). “To this he called you through our gospel so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thess. 2:14). “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you… Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me” (1 Cor. 15:1, 10). “And the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life” (1 Tim. 1:14-16).

Sharing Your Gospel, Our Gospel

The point is that when God saves, He saves particular people, with particular backgrounds, personalities, gifts, strengths, and so on. He saves you from your sins, but the shape of His grace in your life is on purpose. He has given you a unique and glorious story of His grace.

How should you share the gospel? You should share your gospel. This is not a different gospel than the one Paul preached. Nor is it a different gospel than all the faithful saints have preached down through the ages. It’s still Christ crucified for sinners; it’s still Jesus raised and seated at God’s right hand, Lord over all. But this glorious reality takes a particular shape in particular people.

In other words, as I am fond of telling my homiletics students: you cannot give what you do not have, but the wonderful thing is that you can always give what you do have (cf. Acts 4:6). Have you received mercy? Then share that mercy. Have you received hope? Then share that hope. Were you raised in a Christian family? Tell that story of grace. And do not say that your testimony is boring. There is nothing boring about the grace of Christ. Were you saved out of addictions or abuse? Tell that story of grace. Your story of grace is your gospel for the world. With Paul, learn to say, “This is my gospel.” And as we do this, we are sharing our gospel, the only gospel there is.

The Challenge of Christian Community

Luke XXXVIII: Lk. 10:25-42

Introduction

Christian community is hard. It’s hard because of sin. It’s hard because of different personalities and gifts. It’s hard because the stakes are high. Christian community aims to be and claims to be a sharing in the fellowship of God Himself (1 Jn. 1:3). So the choices we make in community are necessarily claims about our God and what eternal life looks like.

The Question

Jesus has just announced something very much like this about His community (Lk. 10:21-22) when a lawyer stands up and puts Jesus to the test (Lk. 10:25), just as Jesus had been tested by the devil at the beginning of His ministry (Lk. 4:2). The question is ‘What shall I do to inherit eternal life?’ (Lk. 10:25). While the question is intended as a setup, it’s important to understand this passage as Jesus answering that question. Jesus points to the law and turns the question back on the lawyer (a student of the Jewish law) (Lk. 10:26). The lawyer summarizes the law as love of God and love of neighbor (Lk. 10:27), and Jesus agrees with his answer: do this and you will live (Lk. 10:28). Here it’s worth noting that the notion of “eternal life” should not be understood as merely “going to heaven when you die.” Eternal life should be understood as the life lived under God’s blessing and prepared to endure God’s judgment (e.g. Ps. 1) – which would include heaven and the resurrection. But this is why many of the Jews had come to see this blessed life primarily in sectarian categories: not walking, standing, or sitting with sinners (Ps. 1:1). It had been syncretism with the foreign nations that caused God’s great wrath that drove Israel into exile (2 Chron. 36:15-16), and when the people came back into the land, they were so concerned not to repeat their past sins, they divorced their foreign wives (Ezra 10). In fact, the Samaritans were those who remained in the northern kingdom of Israel in Samaria after the Assyrians conquered the land and resettled it with other nations (2 Kgs. 17:24). While a very compromised Israelite religion continued, it was practiced alongside the worship of various pagan gods (2 Kgs. 17:29-33). So when the lawyer wants to justify himself and asks, ‘Who is my neighbor?’ – the question is all about how a faithful Israelite should live before God given the long-standing problems of Israelite compromise.

The Neighbor

It’s in this context that Jesus tells one of His most famous stories. A “certain man” was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho (Lk. 10:30). Given all the particular identities of the other characters in the story, the generic identity of the man underlines the fact that it could be anyone. The man is ambushed by robbers who strip him, beat him, and leave him half-dead on the side of the road (Lk. 10:30). Jesus begins at the top of Jewish culture with a priest, proceeds to a well respected member of society, the Levite, and finally comes to one of the most despised members of Jewish society, the Samaritan (cf. Jn. 4:9). The priest may have been on his way to the temple, and may have been concerned about ceremonial purity. Priests were explicitly prohibited from becoming unclean by touching anyone who had died outside of his immediate family (Dt. 21:1-11). The Levite may have been concerned for the same sort of thing: contact with the dead required a period of isolation outside the camp of Israel (Num. 5:2) and could keep someone from celebrating Passover at the usual time (Num. 9:6-10). Jesus seems to imply that each passerby comes a little closer: the priests only “sees” the man and passes by, the Levite “comes to the place and sees him” and passes by, but the Samaritan comes to him, sees him, and has “compassion” on him (Lk. 10:31-33). And the compassion is further illustrated in the extravagant care the Samaritan has for the stranger: He binds up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them, sets him on his own animal, takes him to an inn and cares for the man himself for the night (Lk. 10:34). But that’s not all: the next day, he leaves money with the innkeeper to continue caring for the man and promises to come back soon to pay any remaining balance and presumably to make sure the man is continuing to recover (Lk. 10:35). It’s particularly intriguing that Jesus shifts the lawyer’s question. The lawyer asked, ‘who is my neighbor?’ but Jesus asks him, ‘which of these proved to be a neighbor?’ Whereas the lawyer wanted to define love of neighbor by particular people, Jesus defines love of neighbor by compassion and mercy.

On Their Way

The following episode with Mary and Martha fits with the Good Samaritan for a couple of reasons. First, notice that it is concerned with needs and priorities. Martha assumes that serving is more needful, more important than sitting at the feet of Jesus (Lk. 10:38-40). Interestingly, Jesus doesn’t rebuke Martha for serving; He corrects her for being anxious and troubled about many things (Lk. 10:41). One of those things may have been Martha’s concern that it was unseemly for a woman to be sitting at the feet of a Rabbi. Notice also that Jesus doesn’t say that Mary has chosen better than Martha, only that what Mary has chosen is good (Lk. 10:42). This story fits well here because Martha is in effect accusing Mary of being like the Priest and Levite in the previous story: so caught up with “serving God” that she doesn’t see her own sister in need. But Jesus says that what is needful and necessary is defined by God and not by our feelings. Second, it doesn’t seem like an accident that this episode with Mary and Martha occurs “as they went on their way” (Lk. 10:38). The natural question of course is: on their way where? Luke told us in the last chapter that Jesus has set his face to go to Jerusalem (Lk. 9:51). This is the road they have been going along (Lk. 9:57). And just before Jesus finally arrives in Jerusalem, He will pass through Jericho (Lk. 19:1). In other words, they are on the road that leads through Jericho and then up to Jerusalem, and on that road, Jesus has stopped to care for the needs of Mary and Martha. Jesus teaches and corrects, and by His words, He brings cleansing and healing (cf. Eph. 5:25-26). Jesus is the Good Samaritan.

Conclusions & Applications

Whatever the motivations of the lawyer, his question still stands: What must I do to inherit eternal life? The answer is to love God with all that you are; sit at His feet; see your need for His Word, His mercy, His compassion.

Christian community is not defined by people but by compassion. We love because God loves. And this love gladly suffers and dies and gives generously. But true compassion is defined by what God says we need and not by what beggars demand they be given. We live in a world that is increasingly hostile to Christian love because it is hostile to Jesus. It wants the right to define love for us, but this is to demand that they be our Savior, which they cannot be. But this must not discourage us. When we choose Christ that can never be taken away.

Safe in the Circle

Jer. 4:1-10, Gal. 3:10-14

Jeremiah says that if Israel returns to the Lord, they can be saved. This returning to the Lord is described as breaking up fallow ground and circumcising the foreskin of their hearts. But if they don’t do this, the wrath of God will come like fire that cannot be quenched. God promises to bring disaster on the people. He will come like a lion from the thicket, to lay waste the cities, shocking the inhabitants with His ferocity.

This cut-to-the-heart repentance is what evangelical faith is. The works of the law are attempts to build straw houses to protect us from the fury of God’s wrath. But it won’t stop the fire; it won’t keep out the Lion. The only way the law can save is if it is kept perfectly. But since no one keeps the law perfectly, it is just more flammable material. Clinging to your goodness is clinging to the very thing that paints you with a curse.

But Christ became our curse in order to take away the curse, so that the blessing of Abraham might come to the whole world. Faith clings to that promise.

There’s an old story of a father who was hiking in the foothills of California with his kids when a wildfire came up over the horizon. They headed in one direction and then another, but the fire was coming too fast and would soon overtake them. So the father took out a pack of matches and began setting the ground around them on fire, slowly burning a large circle until the flames of the wildfire were nearly upon them and then he huddled with his kids in the middle of the circle that had already been burned, until the wildfire had gone by, leaving them unharmed.

That’s what faith does. It knows that it cannot outrun the fire of God’s wrath against sin, and the only way to escape the fire is to somehow find a place where the fire has already burned. The cross of Jesus is that place where the fury of God’s wrath has already burned, where the curse has already been paid for and justice has been completely satisfied.

Do not try to find safety or meaning or security in your good works, in your goodness, or by comparing yourself to other people. Find your meaning, your security, your peace in clinging to Christ who is your righteousness and who has taken away the curse. Huddle in the middle of that circle.

Facing the Future like a Christian

1 Sam. 2:1-10, Heb. 11:32-12:2, Jn. 14:1-17

Introduction

Fall is a busy time of new beginnings: new school years, new seasons of life, new living situations. Add to this the regular (but significant) transitions of new marriages, welcoming new children into your home, sending children off to college, or various goodbyes, and then of course there are broader cultural and political transitions afoot we can point to. It can be tempting to fear the future, and often in order to cope with fears, we attempt to distract ourselves or grow apathetic. But the gospel of Jesus Christ is an invitation to know the One who holds the future, to trust His sure promises and obey Him, and walk with Him by faith into the future.

The Song of Hannah

Perhaps the most striking thing about Hannah’s song is when she sings it. I think I’ve always subconsciously thought of it as primarily a response to her miraculous conception, to her prayers being answered, and the birth of Samuel. And of course all of those things are in the background and certainly part of the meaning of the song. But notice that she doesn’t sing her song at the point of conception or at the point of Samuel’s birth. Rather, she sings her song at the point of leaving her son at the Tabernacle with Eli (1 Sam. 1:21-28). That context adds even more weight to her words. A barren woman has given birth to a son, and now that same miracle son is being given to the Lord. Humanly speaking, it can seem like a sad end to what might have been a happy story. But that’s not what Hannah thinks or believes. She sings a song of triumph, a song of victory at the point of leaving her young son to be raised by Eli’s family in the tabernacle. She says that her heart exults in the Lord; she says this is a moment of glory and victory for her (1 Sam. 2:1-2). She says this story proves that God is holy and a rock and there are no other gods like Him (1 Sam. 2:3-4). She says that she’s convinced by all of this that God is on the move. The powerful wicked are being broken down, and the feeble righteous are being raised to seats of honor (1 Sam. 2:4-8). This is all because the “pillars of the earth” are the Lord’s, and on them He has set the world (1 Sam. 2:8). This means that He watches over every details: from the steps of His faithful ones to the wicked plotting (1 Sam. 2:9-10). He judges the ends of the earth through the strength of His Anointed King (1 Sam. 2:10). It’s particularly striking that Hannah sings of God’s anointed king in the days of the judges, when there was no king in Israel and everyone did what was right in their own eyes (Jdg. 21:25). But Hannah sees God’s answer to her prayer as proof that God is near and at work, and so she smiles at the future (Prov. 31:25).

Cloud of Witnesses

Hebrews 11 famously lists many of the men and women who lived obediently by faith. When confronted with the apparent threats and dead ends of the world, they chose to believe the promises of God for the future. There is much here, but for now simply notice that the way of faith sometimes leads down a path of miraculous victory and escape (Heb. 11:32-35), and sometimes it leads down a path of suffering, wandering and death (Heb. 11:35-38). And this means we have to hold two things together: First, we need a faith that is big enough for victory through triumph and that is big enough for victory through suffering. We can get this wrong by assuming that faith always means bracing for suffering, and we can get this wrong by assuming that faith always means glorious success. We can also get this wrong by doubting the blessings that God bestows or by resenting the glory of the cross. But all of these get it wrong by putting too much weight on the immediate circumstances. Whether winning a particular battle or losing a particular battle, we triumph through faith: through believing that God has something better ahead us (Heb. 11:39-40). This is what it means to keep your eyes fixed on Jesus. Whether we win or lose the particular battles we face, whether we are raised to positions of authority or whether we are driven into exile, we aim to be faithful to Jesus, laying aside all sin, and running the race that is set for us. And this is the second thing: remembering that there are no accidental races. For those in Christ, there are no administrative hiccups, no mistaken registrations (Rom. 8:28). The pillars of the earth belong to the Lord, and He sets the world upon them. He guards the feet of the righteous. The thing that makes our running particularly hard is not the race, but the sin that clings to us and weighs us down. Our job is to lay aside the sin and look to Jesus the author and finisher of our faith Who is just ahead of us and will never forsake us (Heb. 12:2).

Conclusion: Jesus Just Ahead

Jesus says, “Let not your heart be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me” (Jn. 14:1). He was speaking at that moment of the immediate future awaiting Him and the disciples, but the source of His assurance remains the same for us. He has gone to prepare a place for us, and He will come again to take us to be where He is (Jn. 14:2-3). And He assures us that we know the way (Jn. 14:4), but if we are uncertain, He assures us that He is the way, the truth, and the life of the Father (Jn. 14:5-7).

There is a way to read and hear what Jesus says and think that He is merely talking about taking us to heaven when we die. But this is to dramatically misunderstand the mission of Jesus. Heaven, where believers go when they die, is a wonderful but temporary lodging (2 Cor. 5:1-10). But Jesus died and rose again in order to renew this world, to make all things new. When John sees the vision of the New Jerusalem, it is a city coming down out of heaven to earth (Rev. 21:2). Paul says that Jesus must reign in heaven “until He has put all things in subjection under His feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Cor. 15:25-26).

Putting all of this together, Jesus has gone ahead of us to prepare a place for us, and that place is here. The new heavens and new earth will be far more than this world, but they will not be any less. We believe in the resurrection of the body; we will stand with Job on the earth and see our Redeemer God in new flesh (Job 19:25-26). Jesus sent His first apostles into the world with His full authority, and He still sends His people into the world with the same certainty of His presence. Believe in Him, and if you love Him, obey His commands. This is what the Spirit is for. He knits us together with the Father and Son and all the saints. Let not your hearts be troubled. Jesus is just ahead of us.

One Body With An Immune System

“For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body— Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not consist of one member but of many” (1 Cor. 12:13-14).

Paul immediately goes on to explain that this is why we need one another. The foot cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you. This is wonderful and challenging to live out. Because of the work of the Spirit, we must have the eyes of faith like Boaz, looking for and expecting the fruit of the Spirit in people very different from us: Jews, Greeks, slaves, free, young, old, male, female, disabled, etc. If the Lord welcomes us to His table, then who are we to despise His grace? We must not be like the older brother refusing to come to the feast, when our Father has received back any of His prodigal sons.

But Paul does not intend for God’s people to go on thoughtless auto-pilot. Just before this portion, he has rebuked the Corinthians for abusing the Lord’s Supper and mistreating one another and having rivalries. He said that there is a way to live that basically undoes the Lord’s Supper – “When you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper…” They were an apostolic church, planted by the Apostle Paul, and yet Paul made it clear that certain forms of disobedience completely nullified their sacrament and for this reason people in Corinth had died. This is why when Churches proclaim their high-handed disobedience to God’s Word, we should not say, but at least they have weekly communion. Why would we wish them to continue taking God’s judgment on to themselves week after week given their sin?

In other words, the grace and blessing of the Lord’s Supper is not unrelated to the people we are sharing the meal with. When we share the bread and wine, we are saying that we need one another, and in some way the Spirit is knitting us together. This is wonderful and glorious when the Spirit is alive and well, but just like a body with cancer, the same circulatory system that is meant to spread life can become the means of death. When we take this meal we are committing ourselves to receive all that Jesus receives, and we are also committing ourselves to deal with sin in our own lives and in the lives of those sitting all around us. So as we assemble at the Table of the Lord this morning, let us recommit ourselves to receiving one another and dealing with our sins honestly before the Lord.

Helen Green R.I.P.

Graveside Service Homily

“Then Jesus told them plainly, ‘Lazarus has died, and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe…” (Jn. 11:14-15)

Every death is a period at the end of a sentence. And because we are human, and we communicate with one another using words, it is natural to scan the sentence of someone’s life to see if it made sense. Was it meaningful? Everyone who knew Helen Green could speak many sentences about the value and meaning of her life, speaking to her kindness, her good sense of humor, and so on. For my part, I’ll always remember how when I was a young, scraggly college student, Grandma Green gave me one of Grandpa Green’s old sport coats. It was my only sport coat for many years until my wife finally retired it.

But here, Jesus said that He was glad that Lazarus had died before He had arrived so that the disciples might believe. Every death is an invitation not merely to believe that someone’s life made sense and had meaning to us, to our family, or to our local community – hers certainly did, but Jesus goes on to claim that He is the resurrection and the life. He says, “Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.” Jesus does not only claim to offer Jewish men a meaningful existence. Jesus says, “whoever believes.” Not just Jews, not just men, but whoever believes in Him. So the question is not merely whether Helen Green’s life meant something to us; the question is will Helen Green’s life go on having meaning after all of us are gone? And not only that, but is this the final period, the last period? Or does Helen’s story go on?

A great deal hinges on what kind of story we are in. If you are reading a tragedy, then you expect the story to end in sadness and despair, but if you are reading a comedy, then you know that everything will turn out well in the end. There will probably even be a wedding. Jesus came into the world claiming that the story of history is a comedy. He claimed that through His death and resurrection everything sad, everything evil, everything broken was coming undone and that everything good, everything true, everything beautiful would be restored and put right in the end. Helen believed in Jesus, and she experienced the beginning of that eternal life in this life, and so her story is not finished. But if Jesus were standing here with us today, I suspect that He would say, Helen has died, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. And if Helen were standing here, I know she would agree.

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

International Resistance Movement

“The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 Jn. 3:8).

Every week we gather here because we believe this. We believe that Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil. The works of the devil are anything and everything that is not love, beginning with the seed of hatred culminating in the violence of murder. Now either that is true or it isn’t true. Either Jesus really is the Son of God who came into the world, who died on the cross to take away the sins of the world, and who rose from the dead to make all things new – or it isn’t true. Why do we believe it is true? Because for nearly two thousand years, the evidence continues piling up: men, women, and children continue to be changed, freed, and healed. How do cycles of violence, addiction, poverty, and brokenness change? Jesus. How do people reconcile? How do people make peace? How do people forgive – what seems unforgivable? Jesus. How are guilt and shame overcome? Jesus. The Church is not a gathering of good people. The Church is a gathering of people who know the power of evil, hatred, and violence, and we gather together because we believe that only Jesus, the Son of God, can destroy it.

So we are gathered here today and every Lord’s Day to stand against all hatred, all violence, all injustice, all bitterness, all shame, all evil, and all the works of the devil. There are protests and elections and rallies and petitions to sign, but for the last two thousand years, the Christian Church is the only international resistance movement to withstand all the changes of time. We still lift up the cross of Jesus as our sign of resistance, our sign of justice, our sign of certain victory. We stand here in solidarity with those who have no voice, with those crushed by the violence of evil men, with those cut down by lies and greed and envy. We kneel down and confess our complicity in the evil, and then we stand and sing our war songs and we listen to the story of mercy our God has told, and we offer our prayers as we sit down to eat and we drink in the presence of our enemies at the table of the King of all Kings and Lord of all Lords, and then we leave here under His invincible blessing. This is our resistance movement. This is our protest, our petition, our rally. We entrust ourselves to the One who already suffered and died for all of it, who sends us into the world to announce His certain victory over all of it.