Sometimes it’s tough to learn our lessons. Don Lemon, some years ago, said this on national TV (if you count CNN as national TV)- “Jesus Christ– if that’s who you believe in— Jesus Christ admittedly was not perfect when he was here on earth.” Embarrassment ensued, but apparently didn’t stick for long. Also, around that same time, the Pope, who is Catholic, let it be known that the Roman Catholic church would not be blessing same-sex unions.
Rome, of course, believes that the Pope is the vicar of Christ on earth. Being said vicar, I suspect the Pope believes the same about himself. As such it should not surprise us when he seeks to let those under his authority know what he thinks Jesus thinks about this and that. Jesus told us this when certain snakes, seeking to avoid the plain teaching of the Bible asked Him about divorce,
“And He answered and said to them, ‘Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?” Matthew 19:4,5).
The Pope is no dummy. Yes, there is great social pressure on him. But it can get embarrassing when Jesus’ vicar clearly and obviously disagrees with Jesus. Don Lemon has none of the concerns of the Pope and all of the hutzpah. He, apparently believing he is the vicar of Christ on earth, explained to the Pope, his minions, and all evangelicals who happen to agree, this time, with the Pope, that
“I think that the Catholic Church and many other churches really need to re-examine themselves and their teachings. That’s not what God is about. God is not about hindering people or even judging people.”
Some claim he was also heard to say, “So let it be written. So let it be done.” The truth of the matter is that Mr. Lemon made one small mistake. He confused the true and living God, the God of the Bible, with his own idol, that god called “god-to-me.” Don Lemon is in fact the vicar of that god on earth. He is, in his own religion, infallible. He speaks perfectly for god-to-me because he is god-to-me. They are co-terminus. It’s like I’ve always said, scratch and idol and you find a mirror.
We who belong to Jesus must not find ourselves intimidated by such silliness. We must not fear such a paper god nor his vicar. Nor a culture plunging headlong into the same foolishness. Don Lemon, like the rest of us, is a mirror cracked. In embracing a perverse sexuality he shakes his tiny fist at God. Then he turns around and scolds us about our theology. This is what a mind turned over to its own depravity looks like.
Our calling is less to scoff, more to weep. The true and living God has the power to rescue, redeem, remake, even the most vile sinner. He’s done it for me. May God have mercy on Don Lemon’s soul, lest Don find himself face to face with the Judge of all the universe, who is, yes, all about judging.
Tonight we continue our study exploring God’s book of Hosea. As always, all are welcome in our home for dinner at 6:15, and the study begins at 7:00 eastern. In addition, we will livestream on Facebook Live, RC-Lisa Sproul, and eventually post said livestream right in this cyber space. One way or the other, we hope you’ll join us, as we will feed upon the Word of God.
No. We must not confuse worship with evangelism.
All those opposed to evangelism raise your hands. It would be, if it even existed, a rather lonely clique, the “Christians against evangelism” club. Every believer believes in evangelism. And when we believers get together every Lord’s Day, wouldn’t it be a great thing to have an evangelistic service? I mean, we’ve got a band there ready to play. We’ve got a pastor there ready to preach. We even have counselors standing by to pray. Perfect timing, right? Wrong.
There are any number of good things, great things, gifts from God most high that are not designed to be a part of a worship service. Preparing a Thanksgiving feast is a good thing. But not something we should all be doing at church Sunday morning. Steam cleaning the carpet is a great thing to do. But not while God’s people are gathered for worship. Worship is family time, the people of God gathering in the presence of God, drawing near to Him in a posture of intimacy. Evangelism is the people of God being used to draw those yet outside the kingdom in. That’s a whole different thing.
Is there overlap? Of course there is. I’m not suggesting that every church install a Holy Spirit detector at their front door and only let in those who pass the test. Nor would I ever suggest that the gospel doesn’t need to be preached every Lord’s Day. Of course it does. Every mother’s son of us needs to hear the gospel, not just because we might not be saved but because it is the power of God.
The goals, however, of worship and evangelism are different. I rejoice when those gathered with the church come to saving faith. I rejoice also when those in the faith, when doing the work of evangelism, are moved to worship. But those are collateral benefits, the fruit of the richness of God’s grace. They are not each other’s reason for being.
Marva Dawn has wisely and insightfully described worship as “a royal waste of time.” It is royal, of course, because we are appearing before. and by the redeeming power of, the King of Kings. It is a waste of time not in the sense that it has no meaning, but because it is no means. It is strictly an end. That is, we don’t worship for the sake of some other thing. Every other thing exists for the sake of worship. It is the final end, the ultimate telos, our very reason for being.
Let us never be found denigrating either evangelism or worship. Let us never be found, however, confusing them. Evangelism, like missions, exists, in the words of John Piper, because worship doesn’t. We don’t worship that people might be saved. Rather we long to see more people saved that they might worship. Remember that soteriology serves eschatology. And eschatology serves Christology. We are saved for the sake of the kingdom. The kingdom exists for the sake of the King.
This is the twenty-ninth 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 January 26 at 10:30 AM at our new location, at our beautiful farm at 112811 Garman Road, Spencerville, IN. Please come join us.
There is a great divide between the city of God and the city of man. We all, however, have this much in common — we’re all sinners. One source of the gap may be found in how we look at sin. If we were to poll those outside the kingdom of God on the question of evil, most would begin thinking through their pet answers to this common question: why do bad things happen to good people? For the world, the problem of “evil” is more about the problem of human suffering. “Evil” is defined in their minds by things like hurricanes, or what we call “acts of God.”
Were the same polling to come before God’s people, we would see that we are hearing a different question. What puzzles us isn’t hurricanes and famines. We don’t wonder why bad things happen to good people because fundamental to our confession is this truth, that the only time a bad thing ever happened to a good person was when He volunteered for it.
To us, the “problem of evil” isn’t destructive acts of God, but the primordial destructive act of man. The question is, how did good people become bad? How did Adam and Eve, created righteous and upright, come to rebel against their Maker? Once we have established that they have, there not only are no more good people, but there are no more bad things. Where there is pain, we who have been redeemed look to our faults. Those outside the camp point their fingers at God.
This explains perhaps why we tend to do better at weathering the storms. When sorrows like sea billows roll we may feel pain, but our universe isn’t turned upside down. Instead, we are at peace, for we know the promise of our God, that all things work together for God for those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. We know that for us, in short, that not only are there no good people, but there are no bad things. And we know that for them, even the bad things redound to the glory of our God.
The problem of evil, in short, is the problem of us. And the answer to the problem is the answer to every problem: repent and believe the Gospel. We who have done so, if we have learned anything, must have learned that we must continue to do so all the days of our lives. Martin Luther was right when he affirmed this as the first of his 95 theses: “When our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, said ‘Repent,’ He called for the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” We repent all our lives because repentance is life. But we do not stop there.
We are to believe. We are to believe not only that if we confess our sins that He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, but that He will indeed cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:8–9). This is His promise. And it has the power to overcome all the evil in the world. The bottom line, then, is this. While every calamity that comes our way does indeed come from the hand of God (see Isa. 45:7), the problem of evil is our problem. And Jesus is the solution.
As we trust in Him to rescue us from the wrath to come, so we trust in Him that what we experience in the here and now isn’t wrath at all. He merely wishes our dross to remove and our gold to refine. There too we find the answer to our evil. Suffering and hardship exist for His glory. Just like sin. He will be glorified in the judgment of the wicked. As well as the cleansing of the other wicked — we who have been called according to His purpose.
NIMBY is an older acronym, born well before the dawn of texting and the internet. It means Not In My Back Yard. It describes an attitude people take where they want this service or that, but they don’t want it close to them. Everyone loves bacon. No one wants a pig farm right next door. Everyone squeals when their property values go down because of something happening next door. No one writes his neighbor a check when their property values go up because of something happening next door.
It is true enough that no man is an island. We do not and cannot live hermetically sealed lives. If my pigs poop in the stream that is upstream from your property, that’s a problem. What NIMBY often fails to understand, however, is that my property is not your property. We can and should object all day long when someone who doesn’t own our back yard impacts our back yard. My back yard, however, doesn’t extend to your property. I have no rights over what you do on your property, nor do you have any rights over mine.
It is bad enough that the state seems to believe that every inch of ground is its back yard. The practical truth is that we don’t actually own our property. We rent it. Only our landlord calls rent “property taxes.” Fail to pay your rent and you will be evicted. The good news, you can see these thugs coming. What’s worse is when they invite the neighbors into the fray.
It’s been said that good fences make for good neighbors. Trouble is, these days you can’t get approval for the fence until the neighbors have the opportunity, at public hearings, to voice their objections. These gripe fests inevitably pit neighbor against neighbor. The “neighborhood coalition” shows up demanding democracy, that they the people get to decide what you do on your property. Remember, democracy is two wolves and one lamb deciding what is for dinner.
I confess that I would much rather look out my window at a neighbor’s rose garden than at her container box. I’d rather listen to buzzing bees than a buzzing chainsaw. But it is wrong to seek the power of the state to get my way with your land. It is a failure to love one’s neighbor when you seek to control what they do with what is theirs. Christians would be wise to learn the boundaries of our back yards. Conservatives would be wise to conserve property rights rather than their own preferences.
What is not ours is neither ours to give nor to take. Nor is it ours to control. You can read how Davy Crockett learned that lesson here. Or, check out this brief introduction to how the Bible and economics intersect here.
Jesus, just as His Father did before on Mount Sinai, is not, in pronouncing law in His Sermon on the Mount, laying burdens on us. He is instead instructing us in how we can lead a good life. He is telling us the pathway to blessing. Who, though, would ever think of suggesting that the way to have a good life is to mourn? Jesus would, and did.
We are a woefully woe-less people. That is, we are set on walking not the via dolorosa, the way of sorrow but the via media, the middle way, on staying steady, on avoiding looking too deeply into that which causes sorrow. This, however, will not lead us to the good life. It will instead lead us to a banal life, a useless life, a life that suffers from the unbearable lightness of being. Instead we are called to enter into mourning.
For what should we mourn? Not that our March Madness bracket has turned to rubble. Not that our name is being dragged through the mud. Not that our outgo is outpacing our income. Instead we ought to mourn over two hard truths. First, we ought to mourn over our own sin. We ought to enter into our sin, facing it squarely.
When Jesus told us that a man loves more who has been forgiven more He wasn’t giving an invitation to sin more. Instead He gave an invitation to see our sin more. We need to know our sin. We can rest assured that however far we chase it, we will never catch up. No matter how deeply we enter into our repentance, we will never hit bottom. Nor will we ever outrun His grace.
The second thing we ought to mourn over is the collective power of our sin. That is, not only am I a sinner, but I live in a planet full of sinners. Not only am I destructive to the Eden God created for us, but so is everyone else. Here is my proof that we do not mourn as we ought. Today, in strip malls and offices on tree-lined streets across this land, more than 2000 mothers and fathers will hire doctors to murder their babies. Today more than 2000 hundred babies will be intentionally burned, vacuumed or torn to pieces.
Each of us will go about our business, measuring our happiness for the day on the basis of whether we like the weather, whether our work is rewarding, whether our spouse speaks kindly to us, whether our side plays well in some twitter war, whether the traffic is light. All is not right with the world.
The end result of entering into this woe, Jesus promises, isn’t a life of misery. Instead He promises that we will be comforted. It is fair to suggest that a corollary to this promise is this- cursed are the blasé, for they shall be afflicted. Ignoring the evil, whether it be in the world, or in our own hearts, won’t make it go away. It won’t allow us to live in a fool’s paradise. Instead it drives us into a fool’s hell. Only entering into the mourning will bring us toward dancing. God forgives the contrite. God humbles the proud. Look away, and be scourged. Enter in, and be comforted.
Tonight we continue our study exploring God’s book of Hosea. As always, all are welcome in our home for dinner at 6:15, and the study begins at 7:00 eastern. In addition, we will livestream on Facebook Live, RC-Lisa Sproul, and eventually post said livestream right in this cyber space. One way or the other, we hope you’ll join us, as we will feed upon the Word of God.
Sin. The book of Hebrews commands of us both that we not neglect the gathering together of the saints (10:25) and that we remember those who rule over us in the church (13:7). If you don’t go to church, you are forsaking the gathering of the saints. If you are not a member of a church, then you are not ruled over in the church. Thus ends my defense of church attendance and membership. What though are the sins that lead so many fail in these two spots?
1. Laziness.
Though we live in an age of immeasurable conveniences that would make our forefathers green with envy, it does take some effort to get to church. While you’ll be looked down on if you dress up, you do have to get dressed. You have to drive, park, walk. It’s exhausting.
Can’t we get some rest on Sunday? Weird though, isn’t it, that getting dressed, driving, parking and walking don’t seem to wear us out the other six days of the week? If we think the hard work we do six days a week allows us to be lazy on the Lord’s Day, we have admitted what matters most to us.
2. Fear.
It may be social fear, not wanting to interact with others. It may be a fear of judgment. It may be, though I hesitate to use an overused buzzword, PTSD. Maybe someone did us wrong in church in the past. If no one has done you wrong in church in the past, however, that can only mean you haven’t been going.
Everyone in the church has been wronged in the church. Everyone in the church has wronged others in the church. We are, after all, a gathering of sinners. That we have been sinned against is never a license for us to sin. God doesn’t say, “Do not forsake the gathering together of the saints, unless the saints have in the past have done you dirty.”
3. Pride.
None of us likes being told what to do. We especially don’t like being told what to do by other people. To be under the authority of the leadership of a local church means acknowledging that we need such leadership. Just who do these church “leaders” think they are anyway? I hope they think they are precisely what Hebrews 13 says they are, those who will have to give an account for our souls.
It’s easy, and a pretty clear sign that we are likely wrong, to think we are spiritually superior to those who lead in our churches. Our church leaders are indeed terrible sinners, dragging around the stench of their old man everywhere they go. Just like us. When we think ourselves better than those who lead us, we are not only likely wrong, but demonstrate our need for biblical teaching and discipline. Which brings us to…
4. Ignorance.
Many folks haven’t learned enough about all that God requires of us to know He requires of us that we not forsake the gathering together of the saints, that we be under authority. Which is one reason why I’m trying to help, by writing this piece. All believers have a duty first to be in submission to His Word, all of it. It, in turn, reveals the duties we have to gather with the saints, in submission to our leaders.
This is the twenty-eighth 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 January 19 at 10:30 AM at our new location, at our beautiful farm at 112811 Garman Road, Spencerville, IN. Please come join us.
