Thesis 82 We must expect to be changed.
It is such a common take to have become a cliché. Many clichés, however, reach that status by virtue of being true. How many times have you heard a preacher say, “The indicative drives the imperative”? Well, maybe not that way exactly, but something like that. Throughout the New Testament we believers are told that we have been declared just, and so should live just lives, that we’ve been declared holy, and so should live holy lives, that we have been made the children of God and so should live as His children. What we are told, when it is true, should change not only what we do but what we are.
Which is where the preaching of God’s Word comes in. Our perspective on it has taken a significant tumble. We think the sermon is where the pastor, or someone he has chosen, shares their thoughts. We can find them informative, entertaining, inspiring. Or not. We sit in our pews assessing a performance before delivering our verdict.
A sermon, however, is no mere message. It is grounded in God’s Word, grounded in His authority and given with authority. It is that God ordained means by which we are increasingly changed into the image of Jesus. It tells us what He has said that we might be what He has called us. Understanding this not only ought to change how we prepare and how we bring a sermon but how we prepare for and how we listen to a sermon.
Consider it this way. I receive, from time to time, feedback on the things I write. I want to listen because it will likely help me in the future. But, however much I might give an ear, a reader has no authority over me as a writer. An editor, on the other hand, does. The reader may be wiser, have more insight but the editor has authority. I expect to be changed by the editorial remarks, even though the editor is far from infallible.
There’s a third ingredient in my writing. I may read books on writing. In fact, I have. Some of those books have even been written by professional editors. But those book writers were not my editors. They, again, even if they have far more credentials than my editor, are not my editor. I don’t expect them to make my writing better. I don’t give them authority, even though they might have that authority over writers they work with. So it is with the preaching of other pastors. They have authority over the sheep God placed under their care. The rest of us may benefit from their wisdom, but they are not the ones who will give an account for us.
We must then come as the sheep that are eager to be fed by the under-shepherd that the Great Shepherd has placed over us. We must come expecting to be changed by the authoritative preaching of His Word. The church will reform as we are re-formed by the ordinary means of grace and their extraordinary power.
Tonight, 7 eastern, we continue our ABCs of Theology Study, looking at U is for Unconditional Election. All are welcome in our home or on FB live, RC-Lisa Sproul. We pray you’ll join us.
First, confession time. I am not 100% confident that I have read all his more than 100 books. Most of them to be sure, many of them when they were in manuscript form. Like most people I too delight over my father’s capacity to make complex things clear. I too find his style engaging. I too come away from all his books the better for it. Which doesn’t mean I don’t prefer some over others.
I typically divide my father’s books into two categories- those he couldn’t not write, and those his publishers persuaded him to write. They’re all good, but there is something special about a book that came out of his own internal zeal. Not A Chance, for instance, grew directly, though not exclusively, out of a Christmas present I helped my mother pick out for him. She gave him a telescope. The joy he took in that led to reading widely on the philosophy of science and, coupled with his pre-existent penchant for piercing logic, out came the book. It is among my favorites. Faith Alone was another that burned inside him and had to come out.
Among my favorites, certainly in my top 5, are two that are not as well known. If There’s a God, Why Are There Atheists? and The Soul’s Quest for God. The former was one of his earliest books, having been released in 1974 as The Psychology of Atheism. He was still developing both his voice and his ideas, and that’s part of the pleasure. You can see The Holiness of God in its larva stage in its pages. The Soul’s Quest for God I love for its subject matter. My father’s skill at explaining things is only a small part of his gift. He could also, when he wanted to, move us with what he informed us of. Too many look to my father as a source of good arguments for good theology. This book demonstrates he was a good goad to a closer walk with Jesus.
My favorite, however, may be the most obscure of all the books he wrote. It is the one I could not put down. It is the one I was most eager to share with others (which explains why I don’t even have a copy anymore.) It spent not very long in print, either as a hardback or a paperback. It’s original title, Johnny Come Home. In paperback it was Thy Brother’s Keeper. It’s a novel, a virtual roman a clef. It tells the story of two young men, best friends who encounter Jesus. One leaves Jesus behind, the other goes on to have a national ministry. And it is very good.
With this book my father let himself free as he wrote. The beauty that undergirds the gospel is its foundation. The characters are real and well-developed, the story-line compelling. What I love about it most, however, is all that it showed me about him. The façade of a novel opened the door for my father to reveal himself as he did nowhere else. It was, as I read it in manuscript form as a teenager, the first time I realized that my dad wasn’t perfect, that he wasn’t as self-assured as he seemed. It revealed also, however, that in his humanity he was a beautiful man, redeemed by a beautiful Savior. I miss him. Not the charming teacher of theology. Him.
My reputation is often savagely assaulted in the Devil’s great gossip tool, the world wide web. There’s plenty to talk about, since I not only have plenty of sin in my life, but some of my most spectacular sins are widely known. Entire websites have been created for the sole purpose of trumpeting my weaknesses, some real and some imagined. When my reputation is being mauled all over the internet, friends express their dismay and concern, wondering why, oh why I don’t answer my critics. The answer is simple enough- I believe the Bible says not to.
Proverbs tells us to answer a fool according to his folly, lest be become wise in his own eyes. It likewise enjoins us not to answer a fool according to his folly, lest we become like him. Wisdom is the ability to know when we are to do the one, and when the other. Here is one piece of evidence that it is better to not answer a fool in this case. Internet critics like nothing more than to be answered. They love being thrown into the Bre’r patch to dicker over arguments, and they are tarbabies that will not let go. The best way to silence these fools is to give them nothing to talk about. Soon enough, they’ll start arguing with each other.
But what if they’re right? David, while fleeing his own son, is harassed by Shimei. Shimei scurries along the cliffs while David and his men travel through the valley. He is exposing their position. He is throwing rocks and dirt upon the King. His tongue is wagging, rejoicing in the hardship of the one who took Saul’s throne. Abishai, one of David’s men, offers to silence this fool with his sword. But David sees the hand of God in this. “He is cursing because the Lord said to him, ‘Curse David.’… “Let him curse, for the Lord has told him to.” Nothing that has been written about me, whether it is true or false, has been written outside the will of God. Even when it is all lies, but especially when it is not, perhaps God might humble me under this barrage. That’s a good thing, not something to fight against.
Last, I won’t fight back on the internet for this simple reason- I don’t want to get in God’s way. My response should be prayer and more prayer, each time affirming, “Nevertheless, not my will but Thine be done.” If God wants to protect my reputation among my friends, He will do so. If He wants to restore my reputation among former friends, He will do so. If He wants to bring judgment against those who spread gossip and calumnies, He will do so. If He does none of these things, yet will I praise Him. Naked I came into this world, and naked I will return. Blessed be the name of God.
One wise man told me many times, “Never let your critics set your agenda.” So far, God has given me work to do. He has given me friends to teach, to exhort and to encourage. He has given me friends who are willing and able to work beside me. I intend to so serve Him as long as He will allow.
I know they do this. In a world where a new crop of dissertations is needed every year and research grants can make or break a university I’m sure there have been extensive scientific studies into laughter. Without so much as a quick google search, however, I’m equally sure that they missed the joke. Laughter is precisely the kind of thing that will always confound scientists because it is so intensely human. It is that which bubbles up to the surface from the parts of us too deep to fit in a test tube. To put it another way, you can’t get there from here.
Which is why it’s so funny, and telling, that they try. One of the most common forms of humor is when the prideful take a fall. The Emperor’s, shall we say, exposure, comes from this fertile field. How much more ridiculously prideful can man be then when he thinks he can come to a fundamental understanding of man? How can we not laugh when one of us takes another of us and earnestly tries to squeeze us under a microscope? And when our bellies begin to shake, instead of joining in the fun, the fool scientist sits down to take notes.
The Bible says we are fearfully and wonderfully made. I’m enormously grateful for those who make careful study of our bodies, who develop skills in healing and making well. I have nothing but admiration for scientists who seek to think God’s thoughts after Him. Trying to grasp laughter, however, isn’t seeking to think God’s thoughts after Him but seeking to think himself god. It is a baby dressed in a business suit, an ant driving a car.
God, in His glory, has done something glorious with us. He has made us so complex, so grand in bearing His image, that every one of us that seeks to diminish us by claiming to master us, sits on a whoopee cushion. Anyone who claims humans are simple enough to understand doesn’t understand that humans are too simple to have that understanding. Anyone who rightly professes that we are too complex to understand shows himself a fool when he claims to understand.
This is not just true of laughter, but all that we are. The behaviorists who insist we can shape people by shaping their environment first must confess that the only reason they believe that is because they’re conditioned to. The people in favor of big government, on the grounds that people are so terrible, seem to forget that big government is led by terrible people. Those who insist that our denial of our racism is proof of our racism find themselves hoisted on the same petard. People are people and what’s sauce for the geese is sauce for all the other geese. It’s funny, you know?
One last thing. Don’t know if you’ve heard, but Buzz Lightyear recently got engaged. He and his fiancee’s bridal registry is at Bed, Bath… AND BEYOND.
By calling them, along with the marrieds, to repent and believe the gospel. I don’t want to diminish the hardship that can come with being single, nor to diminish the calling of churches to minister to people in all stations of life. I do, however, want to suggest that such questions mean little to the work and calling of the church.
The church has a call to deal with people as people. Each of us, parent and child, married and single, man and woman, tall and short, do not have our final identity in those distinctions, but in Christ. What I needed as a single person is what I need as a husband is what I needed as a boy- the Word. The problem the church is called to help me with wasn’t my singleness but my sanctification, not my aloneness but my growth in grace.
That is not to say, of course, that the church has no calling relative to different life circumstances. Widows in certain circumstances are to be cared for. Both the elders and the deacons have a calling to serve faithfully those who are not blessed with husbands. Younger men are to be taught by older, younger women by older. Certainly a church vibrant with family life can lose sight of these specific callings, and ought not to do so. The danger, however, on the other side of the horse, is dividing our congregations into different demographics with different programs. Isn’t it ironic that the one place the Bible speaks of older and younger men, older and younger women, it speaks of bringing them together rather than keeping them apart (Titus 2)?
For those who feel that awkwardness, my best counsel is that we get over it. We may not feel like we have much in common with whatever the majority demographic is of our church. But we have in common all the things that matter most- we have been reborn, redeemed. We are being remade, and will all one day be like Him, seeing Him as He is.
The church is a family of families. It is one family together, and thus no member therein is without family. Families, however, don’t need programs. They merely need to love and welcome one another, to practice hospitality. They need to sacrifice one for another, and encourage one another on to righteousness. But the “they” I’m speaking of is all the members of the church. Singles need to not merely ask of the church, “What are you doing for me?” but also, “How can I serve this body?” Every family member participates in the work of the family. Those called to lead the church lead the church to do the work of the church:
And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; (Ephesians 4:11-13).
