We must take worship seriously.
He may be the most dangerous and still unrecognized among all the ghosts that haunt us. We are on guard against Darwin, Freud, Marx, and now even Derrida. Our antennae are alert for these worldview monsters. Our radar stands guard against their peculiar brand of folly. In the meantime, we march to the beat of Rousseau without even knowing it. We are all, whether moderns or postmoderns, romantics. And that’s not a good thing. It doesn’t mean we are given to walking on beaches during sunset. It means we are given to being taken for a ride by our emotions.
To the romantic mind, all that matters is the heart. The goal is emotional intensity. A romantic would rather be morbidly depressed than mildly happy. Worse still, the romantic believes that for emotions, (or anything for that matter) to be authentic, they must be spontaneous. That which is planned, ordered, formal, to the romantic mind, is of necessity insincere, inauthentic and interminable.
Romanticism, of course, did not begin with Rousseau. It began with the serpent. God said, “Don’t eat.” But Eve found that the fruit was pleasing to the eye, and desirable to make one wise. And she did eat. That same spirit was at work in the ministry of Nadab and Abihu. These two sons of Aaron had been given the plain and explicit instructions from God Himself regarding how He is to be worshipped. The young priests, however, found God’s instructions cramped their style. Surely what matters to God is the heart, they emoted. Surely if straying from His instructions draws us closer to Him, if such touches our hearts, it must be a good thing. And so they entered the tabernacle taking with them “strange fire.” They drew far nearer to God than they had planned. They had a far more emotional experience than they had hoped for. God killed them, on the spot.
And Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the LORD spoke, saying:
‘By those who come near Me
I must be regarded as holy;
And before all the people
I must be glorified.’”
So Aaron held his peace.
We have in our day the waning end of the worship wars. Those committed to a more modernist understanding of worship, wherein the goal is simply to convey information from the professional to the laity, have been roundly defeated by those with a postmodernist approach, wherein the goal is to create an emotional experience from the professional worship leaders to the audience. Both sides, however, have missed this text. We will not take worship seriously until we learn that He must be regarded as holy by those who come near Him. We have all lost the worship war because both sides have come to the war to get, rather than to give. Some want an intellectual experience, while others want an emotional one. Either way we have sought our own glory, rather than His. Both are strange fire.
I’m trying to fulfill the great commission. I’m writing a blog, six days a week. I’m trying to put the gifts God has given me to work to edify the saints. I’m growing a fledgling ministry, Dunamis Fellowship. I’m seeking to exercise dominion over the creation. I’m publishing a 25 minute podcast, Jesus Changes Everything, every weekday. I’m repenting and believing the gospel. I’m teaching Bible studies and Sunday school classes, and training others to do the same. I’m seeking to better reflect the glory of my Savior. I’m preaching the gospel, in 280 characters or less, to 40,000 of my closest Twitter friends. I’m laboring to love my Lord, my wife, my family, more faithfully every day. I’m teaching a philosophy class at a secular college. I’m daily seeking to mortify my flesh. I’m writing books, and helping others to do the same. I’m wrestling with the devil, answering his accusations with His grace. I’m stewarding my failures.
And I, knowing you have a similar list, would like your help. If you believe the list above is a fruitful one, and if you believe I can be of use to the kingdom, would you consider an end of the year gift? Better still, will you commit to a monthly gift? All those who make such a commitment will receive, as a thank you from Dunamis, an autographed copy of one of three books- Growing Up (with) RC, The Call to Wonder or When You Rise Up. All donations to Dunamis are tax deductible, and can be made through the donation portal on the homepage of rcsprouljr.com.
Dunamis Fellowship labors to see the church filled with and led by humble servants who are well trained biblically and theologically, consumed by His glory, captured by His grace and compelled to spread His gospel. Dunamis recently had its inaugural board meeting and will be meeting again in a week. Our board members include my own pastor, Mike Drury, two more local pastors that are also my friends, Jamie Hart and Jason Baueuerle and my dear wife Lisa. This group, as well as the elders of my local church, hold me accountable for my life and for my teaching. We are working together to create an organization committed to an honest acknowledgment of our failures, a humble dependence on His strength and an immovable trust in His promises.
My prayer is that over the past year the work we have been doing has been a blessing to you, that you have been encouraged in your walk, that you have been equipped to bless others. My prayer is that such will describe the coming year as well. Help us to grow. Help us to serve. Help us to help. And please, pray for us, that God would bless our efforts and that we would be found faithful. Pray that we would not just teach the truth, but rejoice in it, that Jesus really does change everything.
I am neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet. I am, however, a student of history. Based on where we were as a people five years ago and where we are now, here are ten things I suspect we will see in the coming year.
1. A stampede among powerful and influential “evangelicals” to affirm homosexual affections. We have seen already a trickle but I believe the dam will burst this year. If there is one thing we evangelicals cannot stand it is being considered unsophisticated by the sophisticated. We, corporately, will cross this line in the sand in large numbers. Complete and abject surrender, however, is still a few years off.
2. A Trump victory and a strong Republican majority in both houses. The increasing democratization of media has given a strong leg up to the young, restless and unabashedly socialist. Someone of that ilk will get the democratic presidential nomination. That, along with the impeachment sham will drive every centrist to turn red. Not saying this is what should happen, just my best guess as to what will happen.
3. Kyle Howard will take offense.
4. Awards shows will continue to slowly go the way of variety shows. The proliferation of outlets for media make the awards themselves increasingly insignificant. And the persistent political posturing and virtue signaling by presenters and winners make them increasingly unwatchable.
5. The Pittsburgh Steelers will enjoy a bye the first week of the playoffs, and in 2021 will win their seventh Super Bowl.
6. The SBC will grow increasingly polarized, specifically on the issue of what women may and may not do in church. Alliances will be formed and battle lines drawn. Most on both sides will long for the good old days when they used to bicker over Calvinism.
7. The Jeffrey Epstein story will die, and no one will be able to say how.
8. After the election many evangelicals will turn on Trump like the Pharisees turned on Judas. They will stump for him, vote for him and cheer on his victory. Once he’s in office, however, there will be nothing to gain and popularity to lose with the popular crowd if they don’t denounce him.
9. Some young discernment blogger, podcast host, self-promoter will have some scandalous sin exposed.
10. Snowflakes of all sorts will continue to melt into puddles when confronted with basic logic and a profound indifference to their feelings of being unsafe. Like Frosty the Snowman, however, they’ll be back next year.
Whatever happens in the coming year, however, is known for certain by the Lord. He wrote the story. He is the hero of the story. And He is in absolute control of everything, down to the tiniest detail, of every event in the story. Which is why every believer is called to be at peace, to rejoice in all things and to praise His name with a glad heart. May He bless us with the wisdom and power to rest in Him.
It is natural, though altogether wrong, to think that somehow when we turn the pages that separate the Old and New Testaments that we are entering into more gentle times, that God in the interim somehow became kinder and gentler. We do not see in the New Testament, as we do in the Old, flaming mountains with flashing lightning and earth shaking thunder. We do not see the first born of a given nation all wiped out in a single night, nor the earth’s whole population save one family suffer death by drowning. We do not see Uzzah struck dead for touching God’s ark, nor the prophets of Baal struck down by God’s own prophets. Instead we meet there Jesus. Jesus, we are told, would not break a bruised reed, nor quench a smoldering wick (Matthew 12:20). He is gentle, and mild, and utterly determined to bring all His enemies under subjection, to silence every pretender to His throne.
It was when Jesus brought law down from the mount, at His sermon there, that He first commanded us that we should seek first His kingdom, and His righteousness. But it was in Psalm 2 where we are told that Jesus was given the nations for an inheritance, the ends of the earth for a possession, and where we are told that He will break the rebellious princes and potentates with a rod of iron.
These two perspectives are not at odds with each other. Indeed they meet together in the book of Acts. Jesus is conquering the world, but the weapons of His warfare are not carnal. If you step back a bit from the book of Acts one can discern a curious pattern. Just as the book of Joshua tells the story of God’s people conquering the land after a great deliverance, so too does the book of Acts. In both instances, the great leader, after leading the people out of slavery, the one that God has used has gone on to His reward. Moses is taken to heaven, and Jesus ascends to His throne. In both instances there is trouble from those outside the camp. The Canaanites fought against Joshua even as both Rome and the Jews fought the Apostles. With Joshua the walls came tumbling down. In Acts angels rescued the apostles from the prison walls that kept them in. In Joshua there was sin in the camp as Achan seized the plunder of Jericho and was killed. In Acts Ananias and Sapphira lie to the Holy Spirit and die.
Both books are stories of conquest. In both instances it is Jesus Himself, the Captain of the Lord’s Host who goes before His people in conquest. The difference is here- Joshua, at God’s command, fought with a literal sword. The Apostles, at God’s command, fought with the Word of the Lord. Because we are worldly, we find the Joshua story more dramatic, the New Covenant context a toning down of the war. The reality is far different. The warfare is intensifying rather than waning, the stakes growing more deadly. Now it is not a question of dead bodies, but of dead souls.
For all the parallels between the books of Joshua and Acts, there is this difference as well. Joshua finished his conquest. The land was subdued under his leadership. In the book of Acts, the war begins in Jerusalem, spreads to Judea, and from there to Samaria and the outermost parts of the world. Never, however, has this battle ended. Indeed it will not end until the end. Jesus is bringing every enemy under subjection. He is conquering the whole of the promised land, not a narrow strip of land in the Middle East, but all the earth.
It is because the battle continues that we must continue to hear the battle call of our Lord. From that first mount He commanded all that were there that they would set aside all their worldly worries, and set their hearts on the battle. He commands of us the same. He has drafted us into His army not as the war is cooling down, but as it is heating up. And He has equipped us not with sword and spear, but with that spirit of liberty that is ready to die. He has not called us to go out and kill the enemy, but to die for the enemy that they might be won. He has called us to follow His supreme example.
The “bloodthirsty” God of the Old Testament, we would be wise to remember, wisely, rightly, executed the guilty. He never practiced an uncontrolled fury. He never punished the innocent with the guilty. For in the Old Testament, there were no innocent. The next time you are tempted to fall for that folly that sees God getting soft in the New Testament, remember this. Only once did God kill an innocent man. And that was in the New Testament.
In the New Covenant, it is we who are called to be bloodthirsty. We do not subdue His enemies with carnal weapons, but with spiritual. Joshua’s soldiers were sustained by the bread from heaven. So are we. Their thirsts were sated by the rock that was struck. Our thirsts too. We must hunger for His body, and we must thirst for His blood. We must, if we would conquer in His name, conquer in His way- by dying to ourselves, by picking up our cross.
Three things. The first is to give thanks. Like most clichés, this one became a cliché because it is a powerful and pithy truth- I cried for having no shoes, until I met a man with no legs. This does not mean that all of us should find one person who is having a harder time than we are, and all of us, save one, the winner of the Job of the Moment award, would perk up. And when the winner loses his title for some other Job, he can begin to cheer up. Rather it reminds us that we all have much for which we should be grateful. Being joyful for what we have doesn’t tempt us to rest on our laurels, but motivates us to act, to get up and fulfill our calling. If we are in Christ and are ungrateful, we are being blinded.
Which brings us to the second thing we ought to do- repent and believe the gospel. We should in fact be ashamed when we are overcome with that “pull the sheets over our head” feeling. Jesus told us that His yoke is easy, His burden light. When we are feeling overwhelmed we are calling Him a liar. Having faced our failure, having entered into our shame, however, we move quickly to believing the gospel. Jesus died for our shameful feelings. He died for our calling Him a liar. And He not only forgives us, but loves us with an everlasting love. He knows everything there is to know about us, including those sins we can’t even face ourselves, and still, He loves us.
This, of course, brings us back to step one. That is, as we believe the gospel, we once again must give thanks.
The last step is as simple and easy as the first two-I must do the first thing on my list. When it is done, I must do the next thing on my list. Of course, when we give thanks, when we repent and believe the gospel, we notice a few things about our list. It begins to shrink. What we discover is that the more we are persuaded that we have all that we could ever want or imagine in Christ Jesus we discover we don’t need to do this or do that to try to satisfy our souls.
All that ought to remain on our list is loving our neighbors. That may mean doing dishes, or folding laundry, but when we do these chores we are actually loving our neighbors. We are serving them. And, at the same time, without having to squeeze more into our schedule, we kind that we are also getting the gardening done, cultivating the fruit of the Spirit. As our garden grows, at the same time all things are being brought under dominion. As all things are being brought under dominion, the glory of our King is made all the more manifest. In short, when we do the right thing, we are doing all the things we are called to do, and doing them well.
One last thought- if just may be, especially if it is the Lord’s Day, that the thing you’re supposed to do next is rest. He sets His table before us in the presence of our enemies. They, whether they are chores to be done, bills to be paid, or assaults on our character, cannot hurt us so long as we joyfully, peacefully feast at His table. He is with us, and calls us to be of good cheer, for He has already overcome the world.
