Tonight, 7:00, we conclude our study in Hosea, The Bride Wore Red at Christ our Treasure Church on Getz Road. All are welcome.
Some time ago I binge watched HBO’s ten part mini-series, Band of Brothers. It was most excellent and I commend it to you. Based on Stephen Ambrose’s book of the same name, the account, based on real persons and events, follows Easy Company, part of the 101st Airborne from training to D-Day to Bastogne in the Battle of the Bulge, to the liberation of a death camp to the occupation of Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest. The closing episode deals in part with an issue not many of us have had to think through- the American soldiers coming to grips with the humanity of the Germans. Turns out they’re human after all.
Which doesn’t undo what they did. We comfort ourselves in dehumanizing the Nazis because such makes them something other than us. If their great crimes are an aberration, an anomaly, then we are safe. Then we don’t have to see ourselves in them. Nazis, however, is what we are. It is our nature to hate our enemies. It is our nature to kill all who stand in our way. It is our nature to smugly assume all the world needs is to be reduced down to me, and people just like me. When the war ended, however, instead of realizing we are as bad as they are, we made the mistake of thinking they’re not so bad after all; they’re just like us. What we should have concluded is we’re not so good after all; we’re just like them.
I’m not arguing for a ham fisted moral equivalency. I’m not suggesting that no person can be more wicked than another, no government more wicked than another, no nation more wicked than another. What I am arguing is that all of those levels of wickedness are decidedly human manifestations. What I am arguing is that, as humans, we are all quite capable of all the sins other humans have committed, and more. Sin, no matter how heinous, is never simply a “them” thing but is always an “us” thing.
We don’t ever get past the storm because it goes where we go; we are the storm. Its being, its essence, its nature is sin, as is our nature. We carry the storm with us. It is joyfully true that in some circumstances, in some times, our Lord is pleased to declare to the storm, “Peace, be still.” But when He does, the peace we enjoy is what He wrought, not what we brought to pass. It is His grace, and His grace alone, that restrains me from killing my enemies, even those who merely inconvenience me.
Which, of course, leads us back to that immovable world changing calling- to repent and believe the gospel. I am the storm, He the peace. As I acknowledge, submit to both truths, I remember that He became the storm, and has blessed me with the peace. I remember that the real battle is within me, and rejoice in His assurance that He will win. Surrender.
Thesis 15- We must come together to renew covenant.
It was a wise man who first said that the good is sometimes the enemy of the best. Much of what has come to be known as the church growth movement fails to grasp this nugget of wisdom. It is a good thing to desire, as the great hymn, For All the Saints suggests, to “see our churches full.” It is a great thing to have a burden for the lost. It may even be a wise thing to construct a format for gathering the lost so that we might proclaim to them the good news of Jesus Christ. All of which can become a bad thing when it pushes aside the worship of the living God.
When God’s people gather together for the Lord’s Day, they ought not gather together for reaching the lost. They ought not to gather together to enjoy the blessings of fellowship. They ought not to gather together to receive sound teaching. All of these things are good in themselves. But when God’s people gather on the Lord’s Day, they ought to gather together to renew covenant.
There are essentially two schools of thought on how we ought to worship. The less conservative view holds that we may, when we gather together, do whatever we wish, so long as God does not forbid it. God does not forbid skits, interpretive dance, video clips and stand-up routines. Therefore, they must be okay. The more conservative view holds that we may only do those things that God commands in His Word. The trouble here, God nowhere gives us a new covenant order of worship. Folks who take this view find themselves constructing an order of worship out of bits and pieces culled from this text and that.
There is a better way. When the people of God move from the old covenant to the new, there is both continuity and discontinuity. God hasn’t changed. His way of dealing with us hasn’t changed. What has changed is that Jesus has come and made His once sufficient sacrifice for our sins. The Old Testament sacrificial system pointed forward to Christ and His work. Our worship should in turn point back to that work. They had symbols and we have symbols. The difference is that our symbols are now bloodless, for His blood needed to be shed only once.
If this is right, our worship should not be modeled after our own imaginations. Neither should we model it after what we guess synagogue worship might have been like. (While Scripture certainly recognizes that worship happened in synagogues, it nowhere suggests either that it should be done, nor how it should be done.) Instead, our worship should be modeled on that which God did command- temple worship.
Temple worship had very simple elements. The people of God approached, recognizing that God had called them. They understood, however, that they were not able to stand in God’s presence because of their sin. So they brought a sacrifice. God accepted the sacrifice, and those who brought it, and welcomed His people not merely into His presence, but to His table, feeding them with His sacrifice. The same is true when we renew covenant. We gather because He calls us. We confess before Him our sins. He pronounces, on the basis of the sacrifice of Christ for us, His forgiveness of us. And He invites us to dine at His table, as we partake of the bread and the wine.
Worship is not a pep-rally for the lost. Neither it is an academic lecture where information is downloaded from pastor to laity. It is a meeting with God, where we remember His grace in Christ. We enter into His rest, as we enter into His presence.
There are at least two different ways we struggle with assurance, two different truths we want and need to be assured of. The first is the truth of the gospel. What if the Bible is just the opinions of men? What if Jesus is still dead? This struggle is real, but rather rare. The far more common struggle is over this truth- I am a child of God. Our doubts typically are less about Him, more about us. We know He is faithful and true. We doubt our faith is true.
One of the sources of that doubt, or perhaps better, that fear, is the devil himself. I would suggest that even when the devil is seeking to tempt you toward some sin the end goal isn’t merely that you’d commit the sin, but that having done so, he can use it to assail you as unworthy of God’s grace (which is true enough) and outside of God’s grace (which is a deep lie.) Second, he uses hardship in much the same way. He encourages us to believe that if we had God’s favor our lives would look a lot different. We would, if He loved us, enjoy greater wealth, greater health, greater everything. Our lack in these areas is his exhibit A that we are not under grace.
A second source of doubt is ourselves. And that can be a good thing. When we find ourselves buried deep in grievous sin, it’s a good thing to stop and consider, “Am I a child of God?” When David received the report that Uriah was dead his conscience should have assailed him. He was a murderer and an adulterer. His assurance should have been plummeting. It should not, however, stay there. Grievous sin, like all sin, should drive us toward Him, should lead us back to the cross, and to a deep confidence in His grace, including His grace toward us. Of course we’re not worthy of grace. No one is, or ever could be. A person worthy of grace is a square circle.
The third source I’d like to consider is mysterious. It is something I know precious little about. What I do know is that more often than not, when doubt is present, so is this- OCD. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is a broad term describing that which drives some people to wash their hands over and over, others to never step on a crack in the sidewalk. The brain fixates on this or that, and is unable to escape. It can be the source of laughter, but it can also be debilitating. Where it comes from I don’t know. The cure for it I don’t know. I do know that I have had many conversations in which I am asked for counsel from someone who is afraid their faith isn’t deep enough, who fear they are not elect, who despair that they have committed the unpardonable sin. And when I ask them, “Have you ever been diagnosed with OCD?” they invariably reply, “How in the world did you know that?” Because the two, for whatever reason, tend to go together. And when they do, the sufferer doesn’t have an assurance problem, but an OCD problem.
God is always faithful. We never are. We are not repentant enough, trusting enough, obedient enough. Only Jesus is. If we rest in Him, we receive all that is His. One cannot “Rest harder.” One can only rest. We can all only cry out, “Lord be merciful to me, a sinner.” And then we can go home, knowing we have been justified.
We’ve all heard the accusation. If God has already determined the future, what is the point of praying? This comes from our evangelical brothers, who, recognizing us as members of that species reformandicus bibliotechus, are looking askance at our pointy heads. We, true to form, whip out our portable blackboard, and start explaining about primary and secondary causality. We start talking about how the sovereignty of God encompasses not just ends but means. The argument we give is sound enoughy. That our response is an argument, however, proves their point all too well. Our response might be better if we were to get on our knees and pray. Too many of us are far more adept at giving arguments for the efficacy of prayer than we are at practicing the efficacy of prayer.
We’re not like the disciples. Our logic chopping isn’t worthy of the name until we string together seventeen premises, four sub-conclusions, cite three axioms, and end up with a conclusion that comes complete with a footnote citing Augustine before us. They, on the other hand noticed two things. First, Jesus had great power. Second, Jesus prayed a great deal. And so they, simple fishermen that they were, asked Jesus, “Teach us to pray.” Jesus, perhaps because He hadn’t yet studied the wisdom of Paul, did not speak to them about why we should pray. Instead He told them what to pray.
“Our Father…” He began. How mundane. Where are the lofty allusions to His sovereign power? After all, we’re not addressing the sissy god of the Arminians. No, Jesus begins by telling us to pray to our Father. Already our world should be crumbling down around us. God, our Father? How can this be? Islam believes it beneath the dignity of God that He should have a son. We, on the other hand, aren’t even surprised that we are His sons. What follows is a list of five (depending on how you count them) requests. Before we get to them, let us remember that we make these requests of our Father. What father, when asked by his son for bread, gives a stone? What father, when asked by his son for an egg, gives a viper? We ask with confidence, for we are the children of the King.
First, because it is of foremost importance, we importune the God of heaven and earth that His name should be hallowed. This is our highest good, because it is His highest good. That we are His children does not change the loftiness of His name, and we would be wise to remember that.
Next, we ask that His kingdom would come, that His will would be done on earth as it is in heaven. This, having covered the foundation of all things, that His name be hallowed, covers the end of all things. This is an eschatological request, reaching fully and ultimately to that day when heaven and earth will be one, and new.
Third, we ask of our Father for our rather literal bread. We remember that He is the one who provides for us, that our food is not ultimately the result of our own labors, but that it comes from His providential hand of blessing. We ask that we might remember that He is the giver of every good gift.
Fourth, we give what may be the most dangerous petition, what may amount to a maledictory oath. We ask that we be forgiven as we forgive those who do us wrong. Here God warns us against nursing grudges, while reminding us of our need for His grace. We know that we have been sinned against. His prayer recalls to our memory that we sin against others.
Finally we ask this, that God would be pleased to not lead us into temptation, that He would keep us safe from the snares of the evil one. Note what is missing from this prayer. Jesus does not instruct us here that we should pray for our political leaders. Such is mentioned elsewhere in Scripture, but it does not make Jesus’ model prayer. We are not told to pray for our health, yet in most churches one could easily confuse the contents of the prayer chain with the roll call at the local hospital. Once again Scripture elsewhere does encourage us to pray for the sick, but not here. We are not told to pray for that promotion at work, or the bonus we’ve been hoping for. Nor are we told to pray, at least here, that our name might be vindicated. The discrepancy between the prayer of our Lord, and the prayers of His disciples is telling. It contrasts our priorities with His priorities. We want to be healthy, wealthy and happy. He wants us to be holy.
If we want to have our prayers answered in the affirmative, we need to ask for those things that God is pleased to give us. When we pray, “Lord won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz” the answer will probably be “No.” If, on the other hand, we pray that His kingdom will come, we can pray with confidence that He will indeed bring this to pass.
What will His kingdom look like? The prayer tells us. His kingdom is come where His will is done. There is then no tension between praying for big things like the kingdom and praying for little things, like not being tempted. There is no tension between praying for God’s goals, like that His kingdom would come, and our goals, like not being tempted. There is, in short, no tension between personal piety and the social gospel. All things will be made right, when I am made right. Every knee will bow and every tongue confess when my knee bows and my tongue confesses. There is no tension between looking inward and looking outward. Let there be peace on earth, the song used to say, and let it begin with me. His kingdom will come when His bride is made ready. She will be ready when I am washed of my sins.
So we ought to pray. We ought, as Jesus taught us, to pray with fervor, with purpose, with knee numbing zeal, that we would fall not into temptation. This in turn requires that we pray that we not be tempted to lie to ourselves. We are experts at measuring the importance of a particular sin in direct proportion to its distance from us. We think sodomy a grave sin and gossip a comparative peccadillo precisely because the thought of the one turns our stomach, and the thought of the other sets our tongues to salivating. If you want to know what sins you find most tempting, one way to discover such might be to measure what sins you find yourself repenting of with frequency. If I find myself losing patience regularly, would it not be prudent to pray that God, as He makes me bear the fruit of patience, would keep me from circumstances where my potential sin becomes actual?
Our prayers need to recognize the world we live in, and the battles we wage. We are at war with the world, the flesh and the devil. Temptation and its handmaiden the devil are real enough that Jesus taught us to pray against them. May we have the wisdom to pray that we might learn to pray aright. We need to have the passion of our Husband, that we would be washed clean.
Perhaps the greatest temptation the devil has given us is that we would forget that we are at war. He has seduced us into believing that the kingdom will grow as we do all that we can to disguise that which makes us distinct from the world around us. If we dress like them, talk like them, live like them, maybe the world will find its way into the kingdom. Quite apart from how this puts our light under the bushel leaving the lost in the dark, it further besmirches the bride. We are called to be set apart, distinct, holy, separate. Lead us not into temptation.
The clichéd sit-com gag of the devil on one shoulder and the angel on the other, like most clichés, became a cliché because it has a ring of truth. We must discern the voice of the Master from the hissing of the serpent. He does tempt us, and so we must be on our guard. He wants us to think, to feel to act as he would. If we would live in the Word, rather than the world, then we would better hear His voice. And His Word tells us to pray, deliver us from the Evil One.
We seek His glory, by His grace. We seek His kingdom, by His grace. This is why we must fight the wiles of the serpent. We want our Captain, our King, to behold a bride that perfectly reflects the radiance of His glory, even as He is the express image of the glory of the Father. This is why He came. This is why He spoke to us the words of life. This is why He died. This is why, in turn, death could not hold Him, and He burst forth from the tomb. This too is why He ascended on high. He who ascended will come down once more and all things will be made right. Then we will face no more temptation. Then the devil will be cast into the lake of fire. And we will dance. For His is the kingdom, and the power and the glory, now and forever. Amen.
