My friend and co-author Paul Derry said it, and I’ll never forget it. We were talking about working together on a book, that book which became Call Me Barabbas. I was concerned my battered reputation might hurt his chances to tell his story. He listened patiently as I told him about my grievous sins that led to my “cancellation.” But then he asked me this, “RC, have you ever killed a man? Because I think I’ve got you beat.” I knew then I was dealing with a man who understands grace.
The truth is, however, that I have killed a man. That said, Paul is still ahead of me, because he’s killed two. The one we killed together, however, is far worse than the one he killed without me. The difference between the two victims was this- one was a drug-dealing, hit making, woman abusing Hell’s Angel. The other was much worse. He was a killer. He was an adulterer, idolater, liar, thief. He spewed forth the vilest curses and falsely accused others. The worst thing He ever did was kill an innocent man, Him.
The second victim was Jesus, who died under the curse of every sin I ever committed, that Paul ever committed, that the Apostle Paul ever committed, that David ever committed, that Abraham ever committed, that you ever committed. He was those horrible things because our sin was imputed to Him, and we are those horrible things. In Himself, He was innocent. Paul, and I, and you if you are His, crucified the Lord of Glory. None of the innumerable other wrongs I’ve ever done are worthy to be compared.
Some, even professing Christians, bristle under this accusation. They want to throw their guilt on the Pharisees or the Romans. They’re willing to cop to their own lesser sins, to admit they fall short of perfection. But this? Do we really have to admit our responsibility for His death? Can’t we be better than those who really are guilty? No, no we can’t.
In His coming to die for our lesser sins we are the cause of the great sin. We crucified the Lord of Glory. He came to rescue us by name, one by one. And as the saying goes, He would have gone to the cross were I, or you the only one. Had we not sinned He would not have needed to suffer in our place. Which places His suffering on our rap sheet.
I honestly don’t understand why anyone would be reluctant to own this sin, of crucifying the Lord of Glory. What are we afraid of? Do we think it’s too awful a sin to be forgiven? Ah, there’s the beauty of the gospel. It is precisely because it’s such a horror, the suffering of the innocent Christ for us, that the suffering of the innocent Christ for us atones for our sins, all of them.
I crucified the Lord of glory. He laid down His life for me, murderer of an Innocent Man though I am. Death, however, could not hold Him and the third day He rose again from the dead, vindicating Himself, and me, His crucifier, with Him. Hallelujah, what a savior.
Not much. Here is yet another place where we ought both to define our terms and to put the question in context. The majority of pulpits in this nation are filled with people sharing their own personal thoughts, with sprinklings from the Bible that they think will support their thoughts. Expositional preaching is a vast improvement over such “preaching.” If the question is, “Should we preach from the Bible or from our imaginations?” the answer is easy. When, however, the question is, should we preach the ingredients or the meal, we’re getting closer still.
Another defining quality of expositional preaching is that it goes verse by verse through books of the Bible. Instead of choosing a “topic” the preacher preaches what’s next. This too is a good thing. It serves as a hedge against the first problem. It doesn’t allow the pastor to simply avoid preaching texts he’s not enamored with. I’m not suggesting there is never a reason to preach a topical sermon. I’ve preached many an advent, Reformation Day, Resurrection Day, Ascension Day sermon in my day. Generally though, I go through books of the Bible.
What then is the problem with expositional preaching? It’s not that it’s very expositional. It’s that it’s not very preaching. It is like lining up all the ingredients of a great meal and confusing that with feasting on the meal. Expositing is an important first part of a sermon.
It can, however, become all tree and no forest. It is vital, in understanding a text, to understand its grammatical structure, and its historical context. Before we can know what a text is saying to us we first must know what the original author was seeking to tell the original audience.
What the text says to us is intimately tied to what it said to the original audience. We, however, live in a particular spot in history, between His ascension and return. We can’t understand any text in the Bible until we understand what it tells us about Jesus. Every text exists to exegete the life, death, resurrection, ascension and return of Jesus.
To exposit any text we need not only to understand what it tells us about Jesus, but what it tells us about ourselves and our relationship with the living God. Which is why it is my practice to preach from the text to the table.
The Lord’s Supper is infused with the life, death, resurrection, ascension and return of Jesus. It reminds each of us of our horrific guilt, that we crucified the Lord of Glory. But it is also a celebration not only of our forgiveness, but our adoption as we sit at our Father’s table, His children in whom He is pleased.
The life and richness of His grace shines through our preaching when we are not merely sharing the good exegetical work that goes into preparing a sermon. We taste and see that He is good, rather than look at all the ingredients. Every sermon should unpack the text and remind us, down to our toes, that we are great sinners, redeemed by a great Savior and beloved of the Father. Because such is what every text teaches us. The application is, believe these truths more fully. This is fertilizer for the Spirit’s fruit.
This is the twenty-fourth 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 December 15 at 10:30 AM at our new location, at our beautiful farm at 112811 Garman Road, Spencerville, IN. Please come join us.
We are all by nature Pelagians. Like the heretical monk Pelagius, we like to think we are basically good. Help in fighting this temptation is one of the great blessings that comes from embracing Reformed theology. Now we understand not only that we are in ourselves only evil, but God is sovereign over all things.
However, this shift in our thinking, itself another gift from God, doesn’t send the devil scurrying for cover. Embracing Reformed theology doesn’t make one immune to sin. Indeed, when we embrace sound, biblical thinking with respect to God’s sovereignty, we find ourselves walking a peculiar tightrope. It is a short but dangerous step from, “God ordained whatsoever comes to pass” to “I know why.”
I once read a sermon from a Puritan that was a classic example of this error. The parson came into the meeting house and found the tattered remains of the Book of Common Prayer. This was the very symbol of the Romish tendencies the Puritans wanted to purify out of the church. It seems a mouse had gotten to the book, and he chewed it to pieces.
The pastor, rightly, expounded at great length on how God’s sovereignty descends down to such details. God, from all eternity, determined that that mouse would find that book on that day, and that the mouse would tear it to shreds. So far so good. Then the pastor went on to explain that God brought this to pass to show us how evil the Book of Common Prayer is.
Had I been there that Sunday I would have loved to ask the pastor: “Isn’t it possible, pastor, that God had this happen so we might learn that even the mice are sensible enough to feed upon the wisdom in the Book of Common Prayer?” We need, when trying to interpret history, to remember the wisdom of Calvin who said, “When the Almighty has determined to close his holy lips, I will desist from inquiry.”
There is, however, an equal and opposite temptation. We rightly affirm that God not only controls all things, but that He planned whatsoever comes to pass from before the beginning of time. God’s celestial plan, down to the color of my socks, was down in stone before God even said, “Let there be light.” Again, so far so good. The error is when we take one small step from affirming that it’s all decided to affirming, at least in our hearts, if not with our lips, that God doesn’t act in history.
Too many Reformed people are practical deists. We rightly believe that God is the ultimate cause of all things, and then wrongly believe that He is the proximate cause of no things. God did indeed write the grand screenplay that is history. But He likewise wrote a rather large role therein for Himself.
The history books of the Bible, thankfully, practice exactly the right balance here. God is not passively watching, while man determines the future, as the Pelagians would have us believe. Neither is He providing easy-to-read captions beneath each of His actions so that we might know what it means. And neither still is He passively watching because He did the hard work of setting up the dominoes long ago. God is actively bringing to pass that which He planned from the beginning. Sometimes He tells us how, and sometimes He doesn’t.
Decades ago Tonga was assaulted with a tsunami, something insurance adjusters wisely call “an act of God.” Why there? Why now? That He hasn’t told us. We ought to shy away from speaking for Him. We honor Him better as we confess we simply don’t know.
What we know is this. God has three great goals as He acts in history. There are three certainties that have been planned from the beginning. First, He will gather a bride for His Son. There are precious few acts of God in space and time more precious than when He gives life to the living dead, when His Spirit quickens those chosen before all time.
Second, He will destroy all His enemies. Psalm 110 tells us that Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father until all His enemies are made a footstool. We serve a God of vengeance and destruction, to the praise of His name. He destroyed the Canaanites, and He still destroys His enemies. And third (of this we can be sure), He is about the business of purifying His bride. He acts in history so that history can reach its end, the marriage feast of the Lamb, when we will appear, without blot or blemish, and we, because we will see Him as He is, will be like Him.
They were heady days, the first decade of the internet. The market seized on this new technology to do what it does best, spread pornography. The Reformed seized on it to do what it does best, skewering our brothers. I was there for the rise and fall of Federal Vision, regularly pilloried by both sides. I watched it unfold first in discussion forums, later in blog pieces and their accompanying comments.
Now we live in the world of social media. Podcasts, the occasional blog and the ubiquitous social media outlets have multiplied voices, venues and vituperations. That multiplication of venues has created not only more opportunities for battles, but more pressure for EVERYONE to have a take. It’s not just Team Webbon and Team Wilson but everyone else insisting they know how to divvy up the fault.
Though I’m confident even fewer people would care where I come down on the latest imbroglio than did with respect to Federal Vision, I did want to throw my two cents in. Ready? I haven’t the faintest idea who is at fault, or for what. That’s my two cents.
I consider Pastor Wilson to be a friend, and he has certainly had a profound influence on me over the years. That said, my first concern about him would be my perception that he doesn’t get an A+ in Discernment Class when it comes to picking friends. I serve as exhibit A. Pastor Webbon’s perspectives cross my timeline from time to time, but we have never met. I’d never heard of Pastor Tobias before this dust up.
Which means not only do I not have to have a take, I am blessed to not actually have one. It is profoundly freeing to be able to walk away from someone else’s fight without taking a dog by the ears (Proverbs 26:17). The Bible says we ought not to do so. Even if someone said something he shouldn’t have said. Even if someone shared a meme. Even if sharing said meme is done for honorable purposes. Even if someone is guilty of untempered key rattling.
When you grab a dog by the ears, it doesn’t matter which side is right and which wrong. You are wrong. Even if you actually know which side is right. Even if you, no, because you take it upon yourself to pronounce judgment on the people and the situation you run afoul of God’s command to mind your own beeswax.
I’ve often wondered why this biblical account doesn’t get more interest:
Then one from the crowd said to Him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”
But He said to him, “Man, who made Me a judge or an arbitrator over you?” (Luke 12: 13-14).
The Judge of heaven and earth bowed out of this dispute. He did not feel the need to enter the fray. If nothing else, shouldn’t this account slow down our incessant need to have a take on every controversy coming down the pike? Shouldn’t we feel some sense of embarrassment over our eagerness to spend our time down at the Dog Ear Grabbing Emporium and Circus?
I’m guilty too. Lord, forgive me and teach me to not meddle in the affairs of others.
* Nebby
You can call it a re-run if you like. I prefer “Greatest Hits.” We’ll be posting more greatest hits the rest of the month. Most of you haven’t listened to this one, and its themes are ever green.
It probably says more about what defines our moments, the television, than the moments themselves, that we keep multiplying defining moments. For my parents’ generation, it was the death of John F. Kennedy. Everyone remembers where they first heard, or more likely saw, the news. Since that time we have added a moon landing or three, two shuttle disasters, and 9/11. We no longer can be certain what will follow, “Do you remember where you were when you first heard…”
Each of these events, however, was more startling than shocking. That is, while we weren’t expecting these things to happen, neither were we thinking, “It will never happen.” Presidents have been killed before, and technological marvels, and failures, are virtually a staple of American life. What truly shocked me, on the other hand, was the collapse of the Berlin Wall, and all that it symbolized, the collapse of the Soviet Union. There we had the curious marriage of both bang and whimper. The speed was bang-like. The events themselves were but a whimper.
Because we are such an a-historical people, we tend to forget that empires come and go. Greece and Rome, because they were both so long ago, and so long lasting, are given virtual immortal status. Because we can still find Greece and Rome on a map, we think they’re still with us. The Ottoman Empire, along with the sundry dynasties of China, are just too far east to really count. What we are left with then is the Soviet Empire, and the American Empire.
As a child of the Cold War, this was the very air that I breathed, the very water in which I was swimming. Until we woke up one day to discover that the evil empire was no more. We watched the hammer and sickle brought down as hammers and chisels chipped away at that wall. And like the good Americans we are we thought, “Wow, I wonder what those little pieces of the wall will sell for?”
We tend to make one of two mistakes in contemplating our corporate cultural future. A few of us, being hip to the rickety nature of our economy and who ironically have an optimistic view of the long-term future, lean Chicken Little. In the 1970’s we were sure inflation would destroy us. In the 1980’s, we learned to fear AIDS. Then in the 1990’s we feared a far more deadly virus, the millennium bug. In the 2000’s we were waiting for the Muslims to overrun us. And now reset, Russia and a sea of make believe money.
When Chicken Little meets an ostrich it never takes long for the ostrich to ask, “Don’t you believe in the sovereignty of God?” The unspoken assumption is the same one that messes us up individually. God is in control. Everything is supposed to be comfortable for me. Therefore nothing bad will happen.
It is true for the Christian that God is in control, and that nothing bad will happen to the Christian, understanding that “Bad” should be defined as anything that isn’t helpful in the believer’s sanctification. Comfortable is another matter altogether. But when it comes to this nation, things are different. God is in control still. But everything isn’t supposed to be comfortable for this nation. And of course bad things can happen here.
With both of these mistakes, however, comes a third mistake. Whether you are waiting for judgment, or are sure it will never come, in both circumstances what you’ve missed is the judgment that has come and continues to come every day.
What might cultural judgment look like? Like growing sexual insanity as described in Romans 1? Like a culture where thousands of people each year are murdered by their neighbors? Would a culture under judgment be one where tens of thousands of people each year take their own lives? A culture where nearly a million moms and dads murder nearly a million babies every year? We keep waiting for God to judge us for these things, and miss the obvious truth, that these things are His judgment against us.
That the economy continues to teeter along, that foreign powers do not rule, at least openly, within our borders, that the better man won the election isn’t a mitigating of the judgment, but an exacerbating of the judgment. Because He has not yet chosen to topple our idols we are fooled into thinking we’ve avoided His judgment, and so we continue down the path of destruction. We miss the opportunity to repent, and that is judgment at its most severe.
When He was but a boy, Jesus performed the first anti-exodus. God’s people had sinned so deeply, that the only safe place for the boy was in the nation of Egypt. Then He returned, and over the next sixty years or so systematically drove out the children of Israel, just as they once drove out the Canaanites. The world was turned upside down.
In like manner, not long after the demise of the evil Soviet empire, where do we find ourselves, but at home and at peace in the evil empire? We now impose our will not over a few satellite nations in eastern Europe, but over the whole of the middle east. We now impose our own cultural decadence on nations that haven’t bowed the knee to our particular utopian scheme. They spread communism, while we spread consumerism. Which is more dangerous to the soul?
Judgment has come. Judgment is here. And judgment will come. The only escape is repentance, recognizing that we are Egypt, a stubborn and foolish nation of hardened hearts. We wait for judgment while missing the judgment all around us. We are judged but do not learn repentance. In due time our feet shall slide.
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.
One complaint against the doctrine of unconditional election is that it seems to make God out to be capricious. The late great John Gerstner, in trying to emphasize the sovereign grace of God in election once, with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek, described that moment before time when we were chosen as “our lucky day.”
The Reformers, however, in arguing for unconditional election were dealing with a particular argument from the other side. They were more interested in denying something than affirming something. The driving motive here was to ensure we understood election is not done on the basis of any good in the chosen. There were no meritorious conditions in the elect that motivated God to make them the elect.
He did not peer down the corridor of time to find out which among us were good enough to choose Him. He didn’t then, on that basis, choose us. Total depravity, of course, is sufficient to undo that notion. If He peered down time’s corridor to see who would have themselves choose Him, none would be elect.
That God looked for nothing good in us, however, does not mean that He looked for nothing at all. The goal of the doctrine is not neutrality, but humility. If we look to God’s Word, we find that God just may have used a particular criteria in choosing us. Paul writes about God’s choosing His people,
“For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty, and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not to bring to nothing the things that are” (I Cor. 1: 26-28).
That’s us. Were we more honest, we would give up our dignified church names, like Covenant Church, First Church, Trinity Church, and adopt more honesty in our labeling. We ought to tell our neighbors, “We worship each Lord’s Day with the saints down at First Church of the Ignoble.” We ought to put bumper stickers on our cars advising “Follow me to Base and Despised Community Fellowship.” God did indeed have a reason for choosing you and choosing me- He wanted to choose losers.
Does the church acknowledge this painful reality? Do we embrace our inner loser? No. He chooses us because we are fools, and we, because He was right, think ourselves wise. We come up with elaborate marketing strategies for the kingdom of God. We divide up the congregation by market tastes, setting up the hip, urbane fancy coffee gathering place over here, and the country/western place over there. We’ll serve this group lattes and the other group Mountain Dew, and we’ll send the satellite feed of Pastor Sweater to both.
He chooses us in our lack of nobility, and we pat Him on the back for choosing such fine fellows such as we are.
This is why it is wise to come together at the table each Lord’s Day. How can we go on thinking so highly of ourselves if, each week we see the body we broke, and the blood we shed? How can we persuade ourselves God’s kingdom needs us, when we need our Captain not just to provide for us, but to feed us His own body? How can we perceive ourselves to be a net gain for the body, when we cannot stay alive without the Body? The table, for all its joy and delight, powerfully reminds us of who we are, the weak, the foolish, the ignoble.
Why would God choose losers like us? Is it because of His compassion? Was it sympathy that drove Him to overlook the stronger, wiser, nobler of His creatures? No, the text tells us how God reasoned this out- “that no flesh should glory in His presence” (verse 29). God’s motive for picking us is the same as His motive for all that He does, that His glory might be made known.
When we preen about, thinking too highly of ourselves, therefore, we are not merely showing our foolishness by misunderstanding ourselves. Rather we fall under the very curse of Malachi, “Will a man rob God?” (3:8). A failure of humility is a failure to render unto God the things that are His, glory.
We’re not, by the way, fooling anyone anyway. The world knows what losers we are. God knows what losers we are. Losers that we are, we’re the only ones that don’t seem to notice. We’re too busy trying to impress each other. May God have mercy on our souls.
The answer, of course, isn’t to get all Puddleglum about ourselves. That we are losers isn’t cause for mourning, but for rejoicing. We should move not only from grace to grace, but from shocked to stunned- ME? He chose ME? But I’m awful. I’m a bundle of dust and rebellion. What did He see in me?
What did He see in us? Losers so awful that He was our only way out. He saw in us an opportunity to make known His glory. An opportunity to shine forth the riches of His grace by bestowing them upon we the poverty-stricken. We now have no more reason to pretend. We need no more put on a show for others. All we need to do is to repent and believe. And having believed, all we have left to do is rejoice and give thanks. We are losers, every one of us. But by His grace and for His glory, were His losers.
This is the twenty-third 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 December 8 at 10:30 AM at our new location, at our beautiful farm at 112811 Garman Road, Spencerville, IN. Please come join us.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, “Black Friday is proof that Thanksgiving didn’t stick.” I understand the importance of proper qualifications. One should not hear in that pithy phrase a condemnation either of getting a good deal, or having nice things. I’m in favor of both. No “bah, humbug” from me.
What concerns me isn’t the thriftiness of finding the best deals but our propensity to feel dissatisfied, to believe that things can bolster our contentment. It’s one thing to get up early in the morning to go in search of bargains, another thing altogether to go in search of meaning. One you can find almost anywhere. The other, you’d be looking in all the wrong places.
We’re all familiar with the story of John D. Rockefeller when he, who was at the time the richest man in the world, was asked, “How much money is enough?” His response, “Just a little bit more.” If you think this a lesson on how greedy the rich are you’re missing who you are in the story. It is true enough that the rich are greedy. So are, however, the middle class. Even the poor don’t escape. Greed is a human heart problem, not a income bracket problem. We would all answer as Rockefeller did, were we honest.
There are always things we’d like to have that seem just out of our reach, a kind of mental shopping list for when our ship comes in, “If somehow I had X dollars, then I’d buy Y.” Perhaps because this isn’t necessarily a look we like to see in the mirror, we may instead tell ourselves, “If somehow I had X dollars, then I’d give Y to Z.”
We tell ourselves what great givers we’d be, if we only had more. But here’s the thing. Precious few of us have ever found ourselves in debt because we were donating too much to others. Precious few of us are financially upside down because of what we wanted to give. It is instead what we wanted to get. We fault the Pharisees for making a grand show of their giving, while we hide our merely hypothetical giving in our minds.
There are two portentous signposts that show us what we value, rather than what we like to think we value- what do we spend our time on, and what do we spend our money on? On Black Friday the two come together as we give up time sleeping in order to purchase more stuff.
Please do not hear me scolding anyone. Rather hear me confessing. I have confidence in my assessment of your heart simply because of the ugliness I see in my own. That said, here’s something we all ought to be thinking about as we wake from our feast-induced coma. Maybe we should be thinking about what we can give rather than what we can get. Maybe we should be looking for bargains, those organizations that provide great bang for your buck. Maybe we should put the gratitude we expressed yesterday to work today.
