Fear can be a potent motivator, or conversely, a great de-motivator. Many of us have a deep fear of change. However disappointed we may be in ourselves, in our circumstances, in our walk with the Lord, in our church, we can always imagine it getting worse. We end up paralyzed, set in our ways, stuck.
When I find myself challenged in terms of my biblical understanding of something I do this. I remember to distinguish between changing my mind about what the Bible teaches and changing my mind about the Bible. We all ought to be open to the reality that we might misunderstand the Bible. We all ought to be confident, on the other hand, that the Bible is right in all that it teaches. A disagreement about the meaning of a text between two people sharing a commitment to the authority of the text means no one is slipping away from the Bible.
In the same way, when we seek Reformation, in our own lives, in the lives of our family, in the church itself, we aren’t letting go of our lives, our families or the church itself. How much less are we letting go of the living God? “We’ve been doing this wrong” doesn’t mean, “so God has rejected us.” It may well mean, “And our loving Father is gently correcting us, because He loves us.”
When Luther stood on the Word of God, when he could do no other, he understood this point. He was defying the power and authority of the whole of the western church. He was securely resting in the power and authority of the God of heaven and earth, and His Word. He not only, however, was securely resting there, he knew he was securely resting there. The first Reformation came because of a courage resting on a faith in the absolute trustworthiness of God.
Like the rest of us, Luther was prone to feeling God’s distance, if not absence. It happens to all of us. That we feel His absence, however, is no evidence whatever that we are experiencing His absence. In fact, we have His Word that such can never be. He has told us He will never leave us nor forsake us (Hebrews 13: 5). He has promised that He is with us, even unto the end of the age (Matthew 28:20). He has assured us that nothing can take us from His hand (John 10:28).
It is not the bold who go forth and do great things for the kingdom, for they depend upon their own strength. Rather it is those who embrace the gospel truth we learned as little children, “We are weak but He is strong.” It is not just those who come as little children who see the kingdom, who enter the kingdom, but who make manifest the invisible kingdom to the watching world. We are used for Reformation as we remember that He has you and me brother, in His hands.
Tonight we continue our study on I Thessalonians. All are welcome to our home at 7 est, or you may join us for dinner at 6:15. We will also stream the study at Facebook Live, RC-Lisa Sproul. We hope you’ll join us.
I, along with many others, hopped on the liturgy bandwagon back in the day. I haven’t, in fact, hopped off. I have, however, come to a more modest understanding of the relative merits of high liturgy. Having spent the better part of the past four years with the option of either millennial shaped contemporary worship or liturgical services so scripted that even I couldn’t take it, I’m now left trying to lead the way at Sovereign Grace Fellowship.
I’m not at all surprised that the first thing I held tenaciously to, not that anyone has raised any objections mind you, is weekly communion. We celebrate it at Sovereign Grace. It does not cure all that ails us, but it faithfully points us to the One that does. I’m grateful to have the opportunity each week to preach from the text to the table.
What has surprised me was the next most important thing to my own spirit. I’m used to singing the Apostles’ Creed, chanting the Agnus Dei, coming forward and kneeling to receive the bread and the wine. What I have missed the most, however, is perhaps the most common bit of liturgy, that part of the liturgy that has survived the longest even in low-church services, the pronouncement at the end of the service of the benediction. In all the churches that the Sproul family has visited or joined in the years we’ve been in Fort Wayne, this was the one thing I asked every pastor for- can we have a benediction?
The purpose of worship is to glorify God, to bless and magnify His name. That’s why we sing, why we preach. It’s why we break into doxology, speaking words of praise to Him. Benediction, on the other hand, is God speaking to us, pronouncing His blessing on us. It is not something we give, but something we receive. And, it is important to note, that even though the pastor may be speaking it, he is not the one giving it. He is speaking it for the Lord, in submission to the Lord’s command in Numbers 6.
We depart from the worship of the living God having had Him pronounce His blessing over us. I want all those under my care to receive that blessing every Lord’s Day. Yesterday, at the end of the service of Sovereign Grace Fellowship I pronounced that benediction. It is such a delight, such a soul feeding thing that I get to do. It is here, however, that I miss being on the other side. Which is why I always remember one particular night of blessing.
Our family drove through the snow to attend a night of worship at another church. It looked nothing like what I was used to. There was dance going on, both formal and informal. Banners were being waved by small children throughout the service. There was no preaching and no sacrament. This was just about as low-church as a local body could be.
Until the end. Then the pastor raised his hand and spoke for God, “The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.” And so the Lord did.
This is the nineteenth installment of an ongoing series of pieces here on the nature and calling of the church. Stay tuned for more. Remember also that we at Sovereign Grace Fellowship meet this Sunday November 10 at 10:30 AM at our new location, at our beautiful farm at 112811 Garman Road, Spencerville, IN. Please come join us.
There are any number of ways that cultural confusion always walks down the aisle with relativism. Divorce, in this instance, isn’t an option. If, for instance, we all agree that there is no such thing as right and wrong, then what do we do with, say, people who like to torture animals? Or, better yet, what do you do with people who like to hijack airplanes and kill thousands? After all, jihad is “right to them.” How can we object, when all we object against is objecting?
The same is true theologically. Time was that even those outside the church were interested if not worried about the proliferation of various cults. We’re a nation that holds this truth as self-evident, that no religion is more or less true than another. How then can we distinguish between a religion and a cult?
The broader culture won’t draw the line at the doctrine of the incarnation or the Trinity. (Indeed, many inside the church won’t make that their line in the sand either. Several of the most influential “evangelicals” of the past fifteen years have denied the doctrine of the Trinity.) So where will they draw the line?
The mark of a cult, in the minds of the West in the twenty-first century, isn’t the assertion of gross error, but the gross error of assertion. Respectable religion is that religion that is held loosely, that may, if it must, assert this belief or that, so long as it does not deny any other assertion or belief. Rome gets a pass because John Paul II, Benedictus and Francis affirm that there are many pathways to heaven, that what counts is sincerity.
The sad truth, however, is this same thinking has found a home in the church. We don’t determine something is a cult by the doctrines it affirms, but the way in which it affirms its doctrines. The distinguishing mark of the cult is authority.
How far we have come. Once cults were defined by a failure to submit to an objective standard. Now a cult is that place that affirms the existence of an objective standard. Which ought to help us understand the true nature of our culture’s embrace of relativism.
Relativism isn’t merely an errant philosophical understanding of epistemology and ethics. It isn’t a mere wrong turn in someone’s sincere journey looking for the truth. It isn’t a silly, yet benign, embracing of folly. It is instead a false religion.
Irony of ironies, it comes with a confession of faith, and law written in stone. The confession is this, “All confessions are not true.” The law is this, “Thou shalt not affirm anything.” Failure to keep the law will bring forth at least social ostracism, and at worst, jail time. And no religion has proponents with greater evangelistic zeal. They will not stop until everyone affirms in unison that each of us constructs our own reality. They will tolerate no intolerance, except of course their own.
They are winning. Already, according to George Barna’s polls, more than 50 percent of people who describe themselves as evangelical Christians, affirm as true the claim that there is no objective truth. That number will surely climb, as the rest of us more and more get marginalized first as fundamentalists, then as extremists, and finally, as cultists.
God has not called us, however, to paint ourselves as reasonable. We don’t whip out our relativist credentials, and insist that we are no danger to the reigning religion. We confront the false religion. We tear down the stronghold. We take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. We do this, because we fear no man; we fear God.
He calls us to believe this objective truth, that those who are persecuted for His name’s sake, are blessed. He commands that we confess that name before men, not as an option, not as God-to-me, not as something true in my heart. No, we must confess that Christ is Lord over all, that He speaks all truth, and that we must obey — right away. To put it another way, we must confess before men that He is the way, not a way, the truth, not a truth, and the life.
Dependence on the grace of God is not a one and done kind of thing. On this, the anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation, let us celebrate the grace of God in the life of Luther, in redeeming him and uplifting him as he faced his greatest battle at the Diet of Worms.
Having been commanded to recant of his writings by all the imperial power of Rome, he did not, at first, give his “Here I stand” speech. Instead he asked for time to pray over the matter. Below read the prayer he made, the prayer God answered in power. May we continue to so pray.
Almighty, eternal God! How dreadful is the world! Behold how its mouth opens to swallow me up, and how small is my faith in You!
O the weakness of the flesh and the power of Satan! If I am to depend upon any strength from this world, all is lost. O my God! Help me against all the wisdom of this world. Do this, I beg You.
The work is not mine, but Yours. I have no business here. I have nothing to contend for with these great men of the world! I would gladly pass my days in happiness and peace. But the cause is Yours, my Lord; and it is righteous and everlasting! Stand by me! O faithful and unchangeable God! I lean not upon man. It would be vain!
You have chosen me for this work. I know it! Therefore, O God, accomplish Your own will! Stand by me in the name of Jesus Christ, who will be my shelter and my shield, yes, my mighty fortress, through the might and strengthening of the Holy Spirit.
I am ready, even to lay down my life for this cause, patient as a little lamb. For the cause is holy. It is Your own. Though this world be filled with devils, and though my body, originally the work and creation of Your hands, go to destruction in this cause — yes, though it be shattered into pieces — Your Word and Your Spirit they are good to me still! It concerns only the body. The soul is Yours. It belongs to You and will also remain with You forever.
God help me.
Amen.
I won’t say it’s certain, but it seems likely there will soon be some unrest in our nation. We are in an era of profoundly contentious politics, a day when frustration and dissatisfaction is paraded down our burning and blockaded streets. There are myriad questions about how we got here, about how Christians should view their voting strategies and political alliances. There is also, however, the here and now. We need, as some of our own hotheads love to remind us, to know what time it is.
While irrational racial animosity certainly played a part, the wedge between the Jews and the Samaritans was hammered in place by genuine conflicts and disagreements. There were surely centuries of debates between the two sides. Note how the woman at the well, a Samaritan, jumped quickly in her conversation with Jesus to the question of where worship was to take place (John 4:20). Note too, however, how His answer rose above geography.
The same is true in the parable of the Good Samaritan. Finding the Jewish gentleman battered, bruised and bereft, the Samaritan didn’t try to solve that riddle of where worship was to take place. He didn’t say, “If you hadn’t been headed to Jerusalem, this wouldn’t have happened. This is God’s judgment on you for making such a big deal out of Jerusalem.” No, he helped. Because his neighbor was in need. Were there answers to the questions dividing these two peoples? Yes. Did they matter at that moment? Not especially.
If unrest comes, we would be wise to keep this in mind. We ought not ration our care for those who are deemed to be on what we consider the correct side of our cultural divide. We don’t add to the turmoil in support of “our side.” Instead we remember our calling to live in peace and quietness with all men, as commanded (I Thess. 4:11). Instead we rest in the promise of Jesus that both peacemakers, and those persecuted for His sake are blessed (Matt. 5).
I’m not arguing for pacifism. I’m not suggesting there’s anything wrong with self-defense. I am arguing that we walk in gospel offense.
Anger will likely spike in our country post-election. We may find it mostly among those deemed to have lost. We may find it among those deemed to have won. Either way, Christians must embrace this opportunity to shine our light before men. We must embrace the opportunity to follow the example of the true Good Neighbor. We mustn’t let our political allegiances, as important as they may be, cause us to lose sight to our ultimate allegiance, to the Lord of Glory, the One who commands us to love our enemies.
It is both an important time and an easy time to remember that we are engaged in the great war between the Seed of the Woman and the seed of the serpent. It is likewise an important time, but a difficult time to remember that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, that we war not with flesh and blood. Let us put on the full armor of God (Ephesians 6). May we walk by faith, and serve our neighbor in need.
Tonight we continue our study on I Thessalonians. All are welcome to our home at 7 est, or you may join us for dinner at 6:15. We will also stream the study at Facebook Live, RC-Lisa Sproul. We hope you’ll join us.
