First, that it be a church. The Reformers argued that there are three distinguishing marks of the church- the Word, sacraments and discipline. That means your campus ministry isn’t the church; your podcasts are not the church; your family sitting around the table is not the church. But it also means that those institutions claiming to be the church that lack these things are not the church. If a church refuses to exercise discipline, excommunicating the unrepentant of gross and heinous sins, it’s not a church.
Second, that it be a body marked by repentance. If the marks of the church define its structure, repentance defines its heart. We are a people in need of God’s grace in Christ. We are not those who successfully found our way to God, but those whom He has rescued, those He continues to rescue. If sin is seen as something behind us, not a continuing struggle, we’re missing it. A local church should be a group of men, women and children acutely aware of their failures and weaknesses.
Third, that it be a body marked by joy. Given the above, the joy we speak of is the joy of our redemption, adoption, and the surety of the promises of God. Our joy isn’t in how good we’ve become, but in knowing how fully we are forgiven, how infinitely and immutably we are loved. While there is certainly a place in the church for careful theological parsing, that parsing should never be a mere intellectual exercise. Instead it should be the font of our joy. Zeal without knowledge is dangerous indeed. But knowledge without zeal is a sure sign that pride is gumming up the works.
Fourth, that it be a body with a passion for those yet outside the kingdom. Too often when we are rescued, when the gates of paradise open for us, we are content to close the door. The world is seen merely as either danger or wood, hay and stubble. Such once, however, were we. Insofar as we remember our rescue we ought be eager to see others rescued. If we aren’t telling other beggars where to find food, we show that we think ourselves the master of the feast rather than undeserving guests. This doesn’t mean, of course, that we design our worship services for those outside. Worship could rightly be understood as the family meal, where He feeds His children.
Finally, that it be a body. Too many churches resemble more a movie theater than a family meal. We’re together, and are having something of the same experience, but we aren’t truly together. Our eye, our attention is fixed up front, and those around us do the same. A family meal, however, is something we all do together. We engage one another, indeed we delight in one another. This doesn’t mean, of course, that the first time you visit a given church you will feel immediately at home. But you should feel welcome, and you should be able to see the body sharing life together.
If you find this list disheartening, if you feel there is no such body near you, get to work. A good church is less something you find, more something you build. The work of the ministry, the call of the elders, is to equip the saints to do the work of the ministry. It’s not meant to be all on their shoulders.
It is our fears that reveal to us our treasures, and the shape of the idols of our hearts. And the devil likes nothing more than to prey upon those fears, even through the medium of our purported friends. I am, like I suspect most of you, what can rightly be considered politically conservative. Indeed it’s unlikely that any of you are more conservative than me. As such it has been known to happen from time to time that I turn on my car radio to conservative talk radio. I started listening to Rush back in the early 90’s. Today, however, I find that there are three things that frustrate me deeply about conservative talk radio.
First, it isn’t very conservative and is often reactionary. Most hosts in my judgment do not have a principled understanding of the appropriate limits to the government, both domestically and abroad. They want smaller federal programs, smaller educational footprints, smaller entitlement systems. They want to stay out of wars favored by Democrats, but go to war when the Republicans want to go to war. They may bluster and mock, but these are not thoughtful, principled men.
Second, the most potent reason I believe them to be not principled is because if they were they would talk about the greatest evil in our day. Trillion dollar deficits are horrible. COVID is a train wreck. But babies are being murdered, 2500 of them every day. They may talk about Gosnell. They may cover Supreme Court nominees. But they don’t talk about the babies.
My third concern, however, is what it does to us. How easily we fall for the fallacious notion that we are the customers of talk radio, and conservative talk is the product. The truth is we are the product, being sold to advertisers. The talk is just the bait to catch the product. They do this, day in and day out, by exposing the vulnerability of our idols. Our standing in the world as a nation is threatened, and we grow fearful and so tune in. Our 401k’s are threatened and we grow fearful and so tune in. Our entertainment is threatened with gross immortality, and we grow fearful and so tune in. What will we do without national pride? How will we make it with worthless federal reserve notes? How can we enjoy our music, television, movies and games when they are created by moral barbarians?
I like a strong national defense (and a non-existent offense). I’m all in favor of people saving money, investing for the future. And I listen to music, go to movies and watch some television. But why would I fear losing any of these things? If they all go by the wayside they would do so because the real King determined that they should. The real King would only do so if such were good for my sanctification. It’s all just stuff- wood, hay and stubble. But Jesus reigns. Nothing will change or even challenge that. And He loves me with an unbreakable, everlasting love.
Paul was able to sing songs of joy and praise while imprisoned by that brutal nation that would over the first 300 years of the church martyr over 2 millions saints. While we sing dirges in our car about who won the right to spend us into oblivion in Washington. Jesus wins. He has already overcome the world. Therefore be of good cheer.
Thesis 56- We must do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with our God.
Extraordinary times call for ordinary measures. When things go as we expect them to go we generally know what we are called to do. When, however, the world outside our control gets out of control we often find ourselves in a panic, unsure of how to respond. The ordinary things we know how to do, but they not longer bring the results we desire.
For more than a year now I have been laying out a list of theses, affirmations open for debate on how to bring about another Reformation in the church. I have been arguing that things need to change, laying out what some of those things are, and the way they need to change. As I write the church is drowning in a sea of controversy, inanity, worldliness, fearfulness. The world, not surprisingly, is in the same condition. What do we do now? Now we remember that the most calamitous of times call for the most plain of responses. What we need to do is what we always need to do, the right thing.
The prophet Micah provides for us a concise summary of just what the right thing is:
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“He has shown you O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). That we live in unjust times, in a land of unjust rulers does not change our duty to do justice, but intensifies it. That we live in merciless times, in a land of merciless rulers, does not change our duty to love mercy, but intensifies it. That we live in an age of arrogance, in a land of arrogant rulers does not change our duty to walk humbly with our God, but intensifies it.
We don’t have to figure out what is going to happen next. We don’t have to discern who is telling us the truth and who is lying to us. We don’t have to guess the results if we embrace this strategy or that. For He has already told us what He requires of us. When we fail to do so, when we fear that obedience to the Lord will lead to bad consequences for us we call God a liar. We demonstrate that we do not live in fear of Him, but in fear of the world. We demonstrate that we worship the same idols of the world around us.
To do justice we must study justice, which is revealed to us in His Word. The judge of all the world has given us His law. It, and it alone, defines what is just. To love mercy we must grasp the scope and horror of our own sin, to cherish the great cost that was paid that we might be redeemed. To walk humbly with God, all that takes is submitting to what He says. All three are built from one thing- faith. We believe God when He tells us what is right. We believe God when He tells us we have failed to measure up. We believe God when He shows us His mercy and invites us, as His adopted children, to walk with Him. We believe God, who is true.
What if I told you that on September 12, 2001 terrorists in the United States killed 3000 people, and the story didn’t even make the news? What if I told you that on January 7th terrorists killed 2500 people in the United States and it didn’t even make the news? What if I told you that every day in between terrorists killed between 3000 and 2500 people in the United States, all with the full knowledge and legal protection of the United States federal government, and it didn’t even make the news? What if I told you that every voter in the country, for both parties, knew this was going on?
When my wife and I watched the President’s first press conference on COVID I came away shocked. The sheer audacity of suspending travel, of ordering lockdowns was like nothing I’d seen before. Then, a few months later, protestors not only took to the streets across the nation, in a few jurisdictions they took the streets, establishing their own autonomous regions. That was something I’d never seen before. A few months later an election left us wondering not only who had won, but if we would ever know. That question culminated in citizens storming the Capitol building. Something I’d never seen before. All of which, added together and multiplied ten times is not worthy to be compared with the ordinary, banal truth that over the past 48 years more than 60,000,000 times parents hired trained assassins to murder their own child with the full legal protection of the federal government.
What we accept we have every reason to expect. A culture that hasn’t the moral capacity to end the greatest atrocity in its history is not a culture that can expect peace on its streets, an orderly transfer of power, the blessing of the God of heaven and earth. We got in this mess because we determined that the state had an obligation to protect our right to pursue our sexual appetites as we see fit, without a thought for our victims. We got in this mess because we refused to submit to His created order. We got in this mess because we think we know better than He does. We got into this mess because from top to bottom, in our streets, in our churches, in our homes we are in rebellion against God.
It was a great shock to me and to just about everyone else to see private citizens storm the Capitol Building, to see elected representatives seeking cover. It was not, however, a shock at all to the living God. First, He planned it from before all time, for His glory and the well-being of His children. Second, every one of His children, and every one not His child daily seeks to break into His most august chambers and wrestle Him from His throne. We all do this with every sin. January 6th, 2021 may be remembered for some time in this country, but for all the wrong reasons. The great evil, the true affront, the most wretched display of lawlessness was the legally protected murder of unborn children. Pearl clutching over the Capitol is just one more manifestation of our guilt.
Accuse me of “what about-ism” all you like. Until babies are safe in their wombs from the assaults of their parents, nothing else should shock us. Until this greatest evil ends we can expect nothing but judgment. How do we get out of this mess? We repent, and believe the gospel.
It is bad enough that we are such suckers for the bait and switch. The devil has been playing this gag on us for millennia. We should have learned by now. When the angel comes along and says, “You know, God is love. And what He wants you to do is to love one another,” the devil doesn’t show up on the other shoulder and say, “Love, ah, that’s for suckers. What you really need to do is some good hating.” He’s not that dumb. Instead he shows up on our shoulder and says, “Of course, I want nothing more than for you to love everyone. Love is my favorite thing as well. Why, just the other day I was composing a haiku about love. Let’s see here, how did that go? Love one another; If your lover is not there, love the one you’re with.” He fills God’s words with his meanings, and, because we miss the switch, we end up tied in knots.
What is worse, however, is that he sometimes comes along and actually gets us to substitute a whole different word for the good one. He switches not just the meaning, but the word itself. Nice, though some have called it the cardinal evangelical virtue, is not, I’m afraid, a command from the Bible. God never said, “Whatever else you do, be nice.” Instead it is a command from the culture. And like love, it is a command we have allowed the devil to define.
There is only one thing required to be nice, and only one sin against niceness in the culture. You certainly never have to go out of your way and be a neighbor to anyone. You never have to make personal sacrifices of any sort. All you have to do is repeat the mantra of the age, “If that’s the way you see it, that’s fine.” See how non-threatening that is? It allows both of us to keep our pride, to keep our convictions, to keep our sins. And it costs so little. In short, to be nice is always and only to embrace relativism. Once you’ve swallowed this one, nothing else will ever get caught in your throat.
Actually though, you’re only half the way home. You have to study the other half of the nice rulebook, the side they only talk about when they have to. You see, there is one thing that still must stick in your craw. That, of course, is when some blamed fool refuses to play nice, to abide by the rules. When someone says, “It doesn’t matter how I see it, or how you see it, or how a billion Chinese see it. What matters is how God sees it, because He is the one who determines reality. Our job is to get our own perceptions in line with His, which are of necessity true. And all perceptions which do not match His are of necessity false,” you are not nice if you respond with a polite, “If that’s the way you see it, that’s fine.” Here, according to the devil, and he ought to know, the correct, and only nice response is, “Crucify him.”
If you can accuse all those who don’t abide by the nice rules of relativism of being mullahs, and terrorists and Nazis and threats to our way of life and fanatics who must be hunted down like rabid dogs, then you earn that most coveted of sobriquets, “Nice.” It’s not enough to be relatively relativist. You must be absolutely relativist. It’s not enough to have some humility about your or my convictions. You must arrogantly assume that all convictions, by their very nature, must be false. As a nice relativist you must be absolutely certain that any and all absolutists must be stopped, no matter what the cost. Otherwise you may as well be a fellow-traveler with those who just aren’t nice.
It’s important for us to remember this the next time we feel the sting of the accusation that we somehow aren’t nice. The answer isn’t to protest, to get out our relativist credentials, and show how up to date they are. Our response the next time some syndicated columnist tries to connect the dots between us and Hamas is to say, “If the objection is that both of us affirm objective truth, objective right and wrong, we’re flat guilty.” If the reason Islam is hated is not because it is false, but because it simply claims to be true, we ought to be in a panic that we as Christians aren’t the most hated group on the planet. If the powers that be insist on hanging all those who reject relativism, then our calling is to charge the gallows, not to tear them down, but to place our own necks in the noose of the not nice.
We can’t play nice with those who define niceness this way. We cannot keep both their rules, and the rules of Him whom we say we serve. When Jesus said, “If you confess me before men…” He didn’t mean standing up at some flag pole and saying, “This is what Jesus means to me…” When Jesus said, “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake,” He didn’t mean that we should do everything we can do to change their word, nice, into one that we can affirm, and act upon. He didn’t mean that we should tone down His exclusive claims so that we can wear our nice pins to the nice meetings. He meant we will be blessed when they throw us out.
If we will serve Him our goal ought never to be that when we are gone they say of us, “You know, that so and so sure was nice.” The epitaph we should seek for our grave marker should be Faithful. Instead what needs to be buried is the virtue they call nice, that the name of Christ might live on in the west.
