Don’t forget that this Monday, July 13, at 7:00 eastern we begin a new study, working together through my father’s classic work, The Holiness of God. We will cover this week chapter 1. All are welcome to join us online. If, however, you are in the area, you are welcome to join us in our home. We serve a meal to our guests at 6:00. Do please let us know if you’d like to be here in person for the study or both the meal and the study. We hope to see you here.
Our view of the Lord’s Table is stunted, anemic. Too often we see this sacrament as merely quiet time with a snack. We reflect on our sins, which we ought to do. We reflect on what Christ has accomplished for us, which we ought to do. If we’re fortunate, we remember to reflect on the glory of coming into Christ’s presence, that we are at His table with Him. But it is a rare thing indeed for us to remember that it is we who are at His table. We usually come alone.
Communion speaks not only of our union with Christ, though it does speak of that. It also speaks of our union with each other. And the two are inseparably bound together. You cannot have union with Christ and not have union with His people. You cannot have union with His people without having union with Him. Communion is neither just me and Jesus, nor just me and my friends. It is Jesus and me and my friends.
Friends, of course, is not the right word for it. The communion of saints is not some sophisticated way of talking about fellowship. Rather we come to the table with all those who, like us, are in covenant union with Jesus. We come together as the body of Christ. We are not merely a collection of like-minded people, we are instead a collection of body parts, feeding upon the body of Christ.
Apart from the table of the Lord, however, we do not fly apart. We are still and always the body of Christ, knit together by the fact that we are knit together with Christ. And this ought to have a profound influence on how we see each other. Because we are in union with Christ we ought to look at our brothers and sisters as Christ looks at them, namely, as those who are in union with Christ. When the Father looks at us, because of our union with Christ, He sees Christ. When we look at our brother, we ought to see the same thing.
That’s not always so easy. How often we have heard, or made the lament, “Loving Christ is easy; it is loving Christians that is hard.” What we see in the church is not often terribly lovable. Our siblings in the church, like our siblings in our homes, have the capacity to get under our skin. We irritate each other. Worse, we sin against each other. How can our communion be sweet when we have to contend with so much contention and bitterness in the church? The answer is not found in some pop-psychology feel-good exercises to teach us to be nice. We don’t need sensitivity training. We don’t need a bootstrap effort to just try to get along. The answer instead, as is so often the case, lies in believing the gospel.
When we believe the gospel, first we believe that God Himself has already judged those sins our brothers have committed against us. There is no need to nurse a grudge when God Himself has been satisfied. Second, when we believe the gospel, we believe that we ourselves are utterly unworthy. We realize that we are still sinners, and that we get under the skin of others. We no longer take offense when we are not treated with the dignity and respect we deserve, because we know we deserve no dignity and respect. We know what we are, and we know that Jesus got what we deserve. And so we learn to forgive others as we would have them forgive us.
When we believe the gospel, we look forward in hope to the end of our salvation. We long for the day when we will be what we were redeemed to be, blameless and upright, when we will be in ourselves what we are in Christ. We will watch for signs that we are progressing, that we are growing in grace. And we will delight to see those signs manifest in our brothers and sisters. We will remember that we will be with them for eternity, and that we will, when we and they are fully sanctified, we will love them fully.
When we believe the gospel, we will believe that in union with Christ we can do all things, including loving the unlovable. We will not give in to carnal sloth, and rest in a merely future hope. We will believe that He is at work in us to give us faith and hope, and the greatest of these, love.
When we believe the gospel, we will, perhaps most importantly, believe that our brothers and sisters are in union with our heavenly husband, Jesus. When we look at them, if we would believe the gospel, we must see Him. He loves them as a husband loves His bride, and as our husband, commands us to love them as well. But we can do it because He is there. He is one with them. If we believe the gospel, we will not need Him to tell us when we gave Him food when He was hungry, when we clothed Him when He was naked, because we will already know that because of our union with Him, when we do these things to the least of our brethren, we do them unto Him.
When we believe the gospel, we will know that the Lord’s Table is not required to come coram Deo, before the face of God. We will know that we are before His face every instant we are in the presence of those who are in union with Him. We will enjoy the mystic, sweet communion of the saints whenever and wherever the saints are gathered. Wherever we are, He is there among us, because we are in union with Him.
As one reads through the history of Judah and Israel it is hard to miss the truth that Judah was blessed with many more good kings than their neighbors to the north. Often, however, these good kings do not escape their own history unscathed. After acknowledging their overall good behavior the text often says words to this effect- “King Jeunpronouncable did not remove the high places.” These were unauthorized places of worship. Sometimes that worship was devoted to the living God, other times not. It was never, however, authorized by the living God.
While our circumstances are different, we no longer are commanded to worship in just one place, our propensities are the same. We’re sinners just like God’s people in the Old Testament. We have blind spots and our own gods that we blend together with the living God. It has always been so. The practice of chattel slavery in American history, with the blessing of huge swaths of the church would be one example. God’s people should have known better.
In our own day I would suggest three high places that stand head and shoulders above the rest. First, there is the approval of men. We syncretize this with true worship by claiming we seek nothing more than to be all things to all men. But the honest truth is we crave standing, acceptance, respectability. We, on this high place, are willing to offer as sacrifices the plain teaching of God’s Word, to lay down our prophetic mantles. We cavort with that temple whore known as Political Correctness and take her diseases into our bodies.
Second we, not surprisingly, worship mammon. When Jesus warned His audience that they would not be able to worship both God and mammon He didn’t pick mammon by accident. He picked something with virtual universal appeal, something we love from top to bottom. Some of us are more crass, preaching a gospel in which the good news is the promise of health and wealth. Some of us are a touch more subtle, lifting up the well-off as the very model of Christian success. Some of us cut ethical corners to get more. Others of us burn the candle at both ends to get more. All of us are drawn to its false worship.
Third, we worship pleasure. More often than not, that pleasure is sexual in nature. We treat fornication as a rite of passage, adultery like a peccadillo. When reality doesn’t measure up to our imaginations we race to the airbrushed realm of the web to get our fix. And if the Bible says no homosexual behavior, well then, the Bible will have to go.
These are our high places. What we tolerate in the good times always becomes the deadliest of snares in the bad. Our calling, kings and queens as we are in the kingdom of God, is to tear them down ruthlessly. Our calling, as beggars, is to walk right past the poison repast and to long for the bread which comes down from heaven. Our calling is to return to our Father’s embrace and to feast at His table, as His children. Lord, help us to not be too easily satisfied. Help us to find our rest in Thee.
There’s a new division in town, and we’re talking about my g-g-generation. With the rise of sociology, demographics, and marketing we find the world is finding new ways to divide us, sift us, and put us where we belong. Which means in turn that the church is doing much the same. Add to the mix the potent brew of victimology and we are off to the races.
I was born in 1965. On more than one occasion I have seen statistics that suggest the baby boom ended in 1964, and others suggesting that Gen-X begins in 1966. That makes me, and others born in 1965 the Generation-less Generation. We don’t know who we are, or where we belong. We can set the clock on a VCR, but don’t know how to do a hard-drive refresh.
Which may explain why none of this makes any sense to me. What does being young have to do with being Reformed? What does my birthday have to do with my understanding of the biblical role of the state? What is the difference between being missional, and being obedient? And ultimately, isn’t the Bible, the church, the means of grace, aren’t these all for all of us?
I am not suggesting that there might not be similarities in outlook among some who were born in the same decade. I am not arguing against the notion that this group might have this weakness, and that group might tend toward that strength. What I am suggesting is it doesn’t matter a lick. Not. A. Lick. My calling before God transcends my generation, or lack thereof. My need from God is the same as those who were born before me, and as those who were born after me. My parents need every day to repent and believe the gospel. My children need every day to repent and believe the gospel. Skinny jeans and wool caps have nothing to do with it.
Pride and selfishness are driven by living for self, by a me perspective. By demanding attention in bulk, we haven’t moved to a you perspective, but a we perspective. That is, we are being selfish together. Which is still altogether selfish. “What about us and our needs” is no great improvement over “What about me and my needs?” Wrestling for my generation’s megaphone, to speak for my people is still wrestling for a megaphone, and worse, it misses who my people are. My people are old people, not the greatest generation. They are aging people, not boomers. They are young people, not millenials. And as many as are afar off.
What I need is to learn to recognize my family. What I need to learn is that what defines me is the same thing that defines every other Christian, whatever their age- the blood of Christ that washes us, the Spirit of Christ who indwells us, the Kingdom of Christ that welcomes us. We have been given a transcendent gospel that not only crosses barriers, but breaks them down. The gospel makes of the many one. We are no longer defined by what we buy, but by the One who bought us. May He give us the grace to toss overboard our generational markers, and may we recognize each other the same way those outside are to recognize us, by our love for each other.
I was blessed, over the years, to teach a number of the Great Works courses at Reformation Bible College. It is my contention that we ought to cover the great books of western civilization not so we can prepare students to join in what some call the “great conversation” that back and forth over the centuries that seeks to answer the most foundational questions of our nature, purpose and end. Instead I sought to prepare them for the “great confrontation.” I teach in light of the antithesis, the battle between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent that began in Eden and ends with the end of history. I want my students to understand the culture they are living in, the ideological water they are swimming in, so that they might both guard their hearts and press the crown rights of King Jesus.
One of the best shortcuts to understanding a given culture is to ask this question- in this culture, what does a man have to be or to do to be considered a hero? Such tells us a great deal. In ancient Greece you became a hero by courage and victory in battle. During the Renaissance you became a hero by dint of deep and wide study. In our day you become a hero by becoming the best in your field. Fame doesn’t hurt either.
The high virtues of the Christian hero, by contrast, have precious little to do with accomplishment. Indeed I would argue that the first and highest standard of the Christian hero is a passion for repentance. The hero is the one who knows from top to bottom that he is not a hero. The hero moves through his days not only aware of his moral failures, but of his dependence on the grace of God in all its manifestations. He must know, increasingly, how weak and needy He is.
Second, the Christian, or the true hero is about the business not of making a name for himself, but of lifting others up and magnifying the name of Christ. Which is why real heroes are so hard to find.
Third, the Christian hero forgives. It is likely much less difficult to do a good deed for another than it is to forgive an evil deed done to us. The former flows easily from a high view of the self- I can do this giving thing for you, because I have so much to give.” The latter flows more from a low view of the self- “ I can forgive this wrong done to me because I know my need for forgiveness for the wrongs I’ve done to others.”
The temptation that began in the garden has not yet left us. We are always eager to become more than we are. The solution then and now is the same, to recognize our need for the work of the one true hero, Jesus. May we learn to imitate those who imitate Him.
Thesis 32- We must teach our children the things of God.
It is true enough that all truth is God’s truth. When we affirm this we are affirming that we have not left God when we explore any truth, wherever it may be found. To study history or engineering is not somehow less spiritual than studying the Bible or theology. But there is a corollary we tend to miss. No truth is separate from God. That is, while we are not leaving God when studying “secular” truths, we are leaving truth when we study these truths separately from God. That all truth is God’s truth means that nothing, in the end, can be rightly understood outside of God. There is no body of knowledge out there that God loosely holds title too, but that we can understand apart from Him.
Moses understood this well. As he prepares to say goodbye to the people he ministered to for decades, as he delivers his farewell sermon, he impresses upon the people this simple truth, “Hear O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise” (Deuteronomy 6:4-7). Not only is all truth only in context when understood in relationship to the glory of God, but so is all teaching of this truth done in the context of life. We are to talk of these things with our children all day every day. We do not add “religious” instruction to the “secular” education they receive during the week. Instead it must be a part of the warp and woof of our lives.
For too long we have taught our children that they could understand the world without Jesus. We have taught them the decidedly diabolical “truth” that some truths were “neutral.” We have taught them, by our actions, that God is something we take into account on Sundays, and perhaps on Wednesday nights. We have taught them how to be idolaters.
One of the great blessings of speaking of these things with our children when they lie down and when they rise us, is that it helps us remember these things when we lie down and when we rise up. We need to teach our children to seek to see the world as God sees the world so that we will better see the world as God sees the world. When we teach our children that all truth is God’s truth, we are better able to see all truth as God’s truth.
An education that leaves God out of the picture cannot be fixed by drawing Him back in later. An education that leaves God out of the picture is not only an abomination to God, but is a lie to our children.
