I have some degree of sympathy with the argument because I once made it myself. I was in high school, and served faithfully as the poster child for the National Sophomoric Self-Important Blow-Hard Association. I dressed in black, listened to Pink Floyd albums. I wrote morbid poetry, wore my hair over my eyes. And I made this incredibly profound discovery- the church is full of hypocrites. I know it’s shocking, but I was the one who blew the lid on the whole hypocrisy in the church thing. That was me. Jesus was more than alright with me. But those friends of His, how déclassé. Jesus and I were just too cool for the rest of those hypocritical geeks that claimed to be His friends.
It is powerful evidence of the potency of His providence that God could use my pomposity to illustrate two important points. First, it highlights the importance of our collective image. I’m not suggesting that we play to the crowd, pander to the audience around us. We will do Jesus no favors if we try to out world the world so they’ll like us. But that doesn’t mean complete indifference. While our goal is to be pleasing in the sight of God, we can know something of how we are doing by our reputation among the heathen. We are called to love one another, for instance. Whatever the world might think of this, we are still to do it. But we are likewise told that by this, our love for each other, the world will know we are His. Our obedience, steeped in a happy indifference to the thinking of the world, leads in turn to a happy difference in the thinking of the world.
We need to understand that while the lost may have some foolish ideas of what we are supposed to be about, we are nevertheless the incarnation to them. We are the Jesus they can see. That we are His body not only means that we ought never to have a war between the toes and the nose, it also means that we are the image of Him to all the world. If they would see Jesus, they must look at us. We not only make visible the invisible kingdom of God, but we make visible God’s invisible King.
This also answers, however, my own previous dilemma. Or rather it exposes my former folly. In another context Paul admonishes us that no one ever hated his own body. But for me to look down my nose at the church, and try to marry that with a love for Jesus, that just shows that I don’t know Jesus. His identity with the church isn’t limited to double imputation of our sin to Him, His righteousness to us. Remember how He responded to Saul, “Saul, Saul, why dost thou persecute Me?” Jesus so identifies Himself with the church that those who persecute the church, persecute Jesus. We tear asunder what God has brought together when we claim to love Jesus, but despise His bride, His body, the church.
The two of these points, that we must be lovely because we are the body of Christ, and that we must love the body of Christ, come together when we consider our call to be prophetic. We all ought to be like Jeremiah, the weeping prophet. Or perhaps better still, we ought to be like Hosea. When we take the church to task, whether it be for worldliness, for faulty thinking or doing, we are not speaking to them out there. We are instead speaking to ourselves, to the body of Christ. It is because we are the body of Christ that we must bring the Word of God to bear in our common life. Our love isn’t a permissive love that allows us to continue, without challenge to besmirch the image of our husband. But neither is it a mean-spirited love that denies that we are the body of Christ.
When the church succumbs to the wiles of the world, we chasten her/us, but never disown her/us. Do you ever read the gospels, and long to be there? Do you ever think, “If only I could have been there to see this or that, then I would love Jesus better.”? To paraphrase Jesus with respect to His Father, “Has He not been with us this long, and still we do not know? He who has seen the church has seen the Son, for the Son and the church are one.” We haven’t learned the lesson enough if our response is merely to be less cynical about the church. We are called to love the church, to be filled with a holy passion.
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Our last study in Romans is postponed until next week. Tonight I’ll be speaking at County Line Church at 7:00.
Christians are called to be counter-cultural. Which means there’s only one way to respond to pride month. With humility. Which, of course, is the same way we should respond to every situation and circumstance. Humility for the believer operates on two axes, the vertical, that is, before God and the horizontal, before man. We ought always to begin with the vertical as it defines our obligation on the horizontal.
Humility before God in all things begins with our Amen to whatsoever He has spoken. Our Lord Jesus emphasized over and over, including when He was being assaulted by His enemies, that He only spoke what the Father told Him to. If God says, and He does, that homosexual behavior is shameful, an abomination, perversion, our first calling is to say “amen.” We don’t take the position, as so many otherwise Bible believing churches do, that what God has said is shameful and we won’t repeat it.
If God says, and He does, that we are to expose the works of darkness, we say “amen” without fear of the judgment of men. Just as the hatred against the Father fell on the Son as He told the truth, so it falls on us as we tell the truth (Romans 15:3). That we are hated for recognizing that the Pride Emperor has no clothes changes our obligation not at all. We have to have the humility before God to be willing to be hated.
Connecting the horizontal and vertical planes, we need to remember that what the left calls humility and what God calls humility are not the same. They will tell us that if we were humble, we wouldn’t be so sure of what God said. Which is, of course, just the latest version of the serpent’s question to Eve, “Has God indeed said…”. We are not guilty of pride when we refuse to allow the Pride Paraders to define what humility means.
We do, however, have a proper humility on the vertical plane. When we speak God’s words of judgment against perversion we do so not from His position of absolute holiness, but from our position as sinners just like them. The message to those ensnared by their perversions is both, “There but for the grace of God go we” and “Such once were you” (I Cor. 6:11). We are not, in ourselves, morally superior to those lost souls. We would be with them, in fact, were it not for the sovereign work of the Spirt on and in us.
Without losing sight of the sinfulness of sin, there is an element of pity in our response. Whether it is boy fools who think they are girls, girl fools who think they are boys, or all the other lost souls splashing about in the LGBTQ+ alphabet soup, one ought to see immediately the insanity of it all. Normalizing their insanity is what this month is all about. It’s only normal, however, where the lunatics rule the asylum. The sane, however, don’t mock the insane. We surely don’t validate their insanity, neither do we laugh at it.
Jesus cried over Jerusalem for their lostness, their refusal to acknowledge their need for Him. In humility before Him, let us do the same, knowing we too would have cried out “Crucify Him!” Let us live not by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from His mouth. And let us tell other beggars where we found this bread of life.
Though He is the potter and we are but clay, this does not keep us from complaining about our station. When the God of heaven and earth, the One who made all things, asks if the clay will ask of the Potter, “Why have You made me thus?” the implication is crystal clear—clay is not supposed to do that. Indeed, it is comically out of place. The Apostle Paul takes up this imagery from Isaiah to answer that thorny question at the very heart of God’s sovereignty over men— why does God find fault with us, when He is sovereign over us?
Paul does not so much answer the question as remind us questioners of our utter lack of standing to ask it. But even we who embrace Paul’s answer, who delight in God’s sovereign power over us, still find ourselves grumbling against the Potter.
We are willing, of course, to leave our eternal destiny in His hands, remembering that He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy. We know ourselves well enough to know that if we were left to ourselves, we would speed headlong into the abyss, and so we give thanks that the Potter reshaped us in our regeneration such that we would freely but unalterably embrace the work of Christ on our behalf.
What it means that we are but clay and He is the Potter, however, runs much deeper. Paul is not just affirming that we need to be changed by God, though that is certainly true. He is not just arguing that God has the authority to do so, though that is certainly true as well. Instead, Paul is asserting that God has absolute authority over us, that we are not only under His power but under His ownership. We belong to Him. He may— indeed, He will— do with us exactly as He pleases for precisely His purposes.
In times of hardship I’ve been known to quote Job, “The Lord giveth. The Lord taketh. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” This is not being cavalier, not dismissing appropriate sorrow. Neither is this throwing up our hands as if to say, “Well, He’s God. Sometimes He’s good to us. Sometimes He’s mean. There’s nothing we can do about it.” Instead, this is an attempt to enter into our very purpose.
The Lord does give. He does take away. His name is to be blessed, however, not ultimately because of what He gives or what He takes away but because of who He is. He is worthy to be praised for His being, before He has blessed us or cursed us, before He has done anything at all. He is praiseworthy not because He is the perfect means to our own ends but because He is the end Himself.
That— His glory in who He is— is the ultimate reason why He makes some vessels for mercy and some for judgment. What we have to learn, however, is that— His glory in who He is— is the ultimate reason for our own existence. Our purpose, our telos, our reason for being, is not merely that we would speak words of praise while we live our lives but that our lives and everything in them would manifest His glory. He does not exist for our sake. Rather, we exist for His glory.
Job was, at the beginning of his story, the very picture of what our culture would call success. He was surrounded by family who loved him. He had servants in his employ. He was a man of character, and he was likely one of the wealthiest men in the world. In an escalating series of brief moments, as tragedy followed calamity on the heels of a dark providence, he lost it all. Well, almost all. The character remained.
Near the end, he slipped and brought his accusation against God. This piece of pottery did ask the Potter, “Why have you allowed my life to be smashed to pieces?” Quickly enough, though, he repented, recognizing whose life it actually was. He came to grasp that his calling wasn’t to pursue his wealth or his health, but that he was to pursue first the kingdom of God. His kingdom is that place where our Father’s absolute authority is joyfully recognized, humbly submitted to, and fervently celebrated, in all circumstances.
When we lay down our lives and take up His cross, we put to death our own agenda. His kingdom is our all in all. And this ought to put to death our every fear, for our single end is certain— He has been given all authority in heaven and on earth. He is bringing all things into subjection. He will come again, and every knee will bow, every tongue confess that He is Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
It is no surprise that when Paul seeks to summarize the scope of the unregenerate man’s sinful nature that he says, “Neither were they grateful” (Rom 1:21). That failure remains an ongoing enemy of the Spirit even when we’ve been born again. We are insufficiently grateful for His grace in redeeming us. We are also often all too blind to the many more “ordinary” gifts that He gives both the just and the unjust. He gives us all rain, and sunshine. He gives us all our daily bread, and the butter we spread on it.
And He gives us ice cream. We are woefully weak in our gratitude for ice cream. First, the bad news. It is addicting. It is not conducive to lean, healthy bodies. It can be messy. Some ice cream is not as amazing as other ice cream. That pretty much covers the bad news.
The good news is that it can cool us down on a hot day. It can actually save us calories. Stick with me here. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come to the end of a restaurant meal and studied up on the dessert menu. I’m as tempted by fruit pies, tiramisu and chocolate cake as the next guy. But I almost always pass, thinking, “The ice cream we have at home will be better, fewer calories and cheaper.”
The best news, however, is that it is delicious. Creamy, rich, often paired with chunks of other goodies- pralines, caramel, strawberries. Whether it’s a DQ Blizzard, a Marble Stone Almond Joy or a mixed bowl of my three favorite United Dairy flavors with a cake cone broken up on top, it’s all good. Because it’s so good.
I suspect a huge part of our lack of gratitude is grounded in ice cream’s ubiquity. It’s not hard to find. The grocery store has a whole row dedicated to it. Gas stations and fast food joints offer it up. And if you live in the right areas, there are even trucks that come to you with it, music blaring from a speaker on the roof so you don’t miss out. It hasn’t always been this way. Refrigeration is what made it possible for us to find ice cream most everywhere. King Louis XIV, in all his splendor, didn’t have ice cream at his disposal. Caviar, champagne, exotic peacocks beautifying the gardens of Versailles. But not ice cream.
I come from ice cream Mecca. The first banana split was served in Latrobe, PA, just over the ridge from my childhood home. Another 40 minutes away is Pittsburgh, birthplace of the Klondike Bar. My teenage hangout, my “Arnold’s Drive In” if you will, was a beautiful blue Victorian home dolled up as an ice cream parlor with candy-striped chairs and servers in candy striped dresses and bloomers.
But my own experience doesn’t set me above anyone else. Ice cream is a decidedly democratic treat. I, after all, scream for ice cream; you scream for ice cream; we all scream for ice cream. God is good. Ice cream is one way we know this.
There has to be balance. There is a fatalism that simply shrugs when Rome’s imperial army is parked outside Jerusalem’s door. The destruction of the city in 70 AD was plenty bad. On the other hand, there are those who mourn and bemoan over every bit of God’s providence as if He somehow were taking a nap. Bad things are truly bad things. All things are truly God things. Yeah and amen to both says I.
The question each one of us needs to ask ourselves is this- which error are we more prone to? If you’ve been hiding under your covers since the 2020 election, you’re probably in the latter category. If you go about your daily routine while joyfully channeling your inner Doris Day singing “Que Sera, Sera” you’re probably in the former category.
Those who are prone to be accused of being Christian nationalists, who spent more time and energy the past the Trump administration talking about the President than the king of kings, are more likely to be ranking officers in the Chicken Little club. Those who are prone to be accused of being Wokey McWokerson, who spent more time and energy under Trump distancing themselves from their conservative evangelical peers than they did trying to bring the lost into the kingdom are more likely to be the ones voted, “Most likely to rat out Christians to the thought police.”
Before, however, we can get the log out of our own eyes we first need to stop looking for the speck in our brothers’ eyes. That is, conservatives need to stop suggesting that those who are not as outraged as they are aren’t really concerned, while those more lefty need to stop suggesting that those who aren’t as at ease as they are somehow are denying God’s sovereignty. Not everyone who never heard of Epoch News or Infowars is therefore a card-carrying member of the Communist party. Not everyone who has heard of Epoch News or Infowars takes off his white sheet each evening before putting on his tinfoil nightcap. There’s nobody here but us regular people. And we all get better when we all worry more about ourselves than everyone else.
There is, at the end of the day, more damage that Joe Biden can do to this country, over the next seven months or over the next four years, to my neighbors, to the redeemed by Christ than I ever could. Not because I’m morally superior, but because I’m power inferior. On the other hand, there is more good that I can do for my own sanctification than the President can do for my sanctification. It starts here- when I realize that whatever prophetic calling I might have, whatever justice I might be called to fight for, whatever my role is in discipling the nations, my greater calling is for me to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness.
To butcher an old Jesus People song, “Let there be obedience on earth, and let it begin with me.” The monster I’m called to slay, the one I have been given the power to slay, is the one whose face I see each time I shave. Politics matters. Genuine evil still comes out of the swamp. But the swamp inside me is mine, the one inside you yours. Let’s beseech the Spirit that He would lead us to drain them all.
Tonight we continue our look at the monumental, towering book of Romans. All are welcome to our home at 7 est, or you may join us for dinner at 6:15. We will also stream the study at Facebook, RC-Lisa Sproul. We hope you’ll join us.
