Grace and Community

I would like to underscore 2 things; Grace and Community. In the last 2 years, I have seen the grace of Christ come alive in the works of his saints, specifically at CBC, And I have been challenged to consider what church really is. So first, God’s grace, which exploded on the scene when Christ came to earth, is now being manifested in his chosen people the church. “The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1.14).” Because of Christ-dominated or I could say grace-dominated believers at Colonial, God’s grace has become more real to me these last 2 years. From the faithful prayers of a dear saint(she introduced herself to me when I first moved down here and on numerous occasions has approached me at church and told me that she was praying for me), she has probably spent more time on her knees in the last month than I have in the last 10 years, to a sacrificial homeowner allowing me to live with him for a fraction of what he should charge me, to the generosity of a single woman giving me her second car for a dollar when it was worth who knows how much more than that, to the loving confrontation of a professor at the seminary when I really needed it, to a family having a burden for our community of believers and starting what we now call grace supplies, to the philosophy of grace giving, to the text saturated preaching, to the many families that have opened up their homes to me while I have been here. And, the grace list goes on. These are testimonies of God’s grace at work in the local body of believers in VB. Praise God for a grace church.

The second thing is community. If the church is to be marked by unity AND love for Christ and for each other, then what does that look like on a week to week basis? Is church a building we go to or a community of brothers and sisters that we laugh with, cry with, pray with, sing with, confront, exhort, weep, and rejoice with. Through conversations with friends and professors at the seminary as well as conversations with believers and just watching the body of Christ grow I have been challenged to read and reread the New Testament asking the question: what did the church really look like in the first century and how should it look today? Yes, culture changes but essential components transcend time and culture. Christ prays in John 17 that we would be one just as He and the Father are one. Does that become a reality through casual relationships and once a week interaction? Heb. 3.12-13 “See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ!” The lone ranger mentality is out when it comes to true Christianity. We pursue Christ together. We seek his kingdom together. We persevere in the faith together. So, through conversations and watching different believers live out true Christian community I have realized more and more that we must be the church for each other. And what is the main thing that the church does for each other? We speak to each other in ways that help us not be deceived by the allurements of sin. We speak to each other in ways that cause us to have hearts of faith in the superior value of Christ over all things. We fight to maintain each other's faith, by speaking words that point people to the truth and value of Jesus. Unbelief means failing to rest in Jesus as our greatest treasure. Helping each other believe means showing people reasons why Jesus is more to be desired and trusted and loved than anything else. Jesus is not a vaccination that we take at one point in our lives and then forget about. God does not want his Son to be forgotten like a vaccination, but celebrated daily as the greatest treasure in the universe. And as believers, we are here to help each other pursue that end.

Hallelujah, All we have is Christ. Hallelujah, Jesus is our life.

(Some of my thoughts under my second point come from a Piper sermon.)

A Model of Repentance from Rev. 2

Reviewing the letters of Revelation this afternoon. The proscribed errors and the prescribed solutions. Jesus's prescription for the Ephesian church seems the most universal of all.

Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. (2.4)

Three steps: 1) Remember from where you have fallen, 2) Repent, 3) Return to the first works. The prescriptions for the other churches include things like being faithful unto death (Smyrna, Thyatira) and buying treasure from Jesus (3.18) (which is the most unique and abstract of the of the prescriptions). But the most programmatic and typical seems to be the one given to Ephesus.
1) Remember. What does a mountain climber see when he has fallen? Looking up he can see where he was, and this sight stirs a desire to return. There is the depression of knowing he was once there, and must re-step his steps; but there is also the pressing sense that he was once there, and can be again. This assumes he is an actual mountain climber who wants to climb the mountain. Those out for a stroll who happened to climb part of the mountain because the trail happened to go that way are unlikely, having fallen, to continue that direction. The casual hiker looks up and feels only stupidity for having fallen down the mountain he didn't want to climb in the first place.
But the Christian wants to climb, and so desire and remorse, not stupidity, is stirred up in him when he looks back up. And even more so by the fact that it was his own careless disregard and waywardness that caused the fall, and not some loose rock he happened to step on. It was no accidental fall; he had in some way chosen it (though he could not have had the pain and bruising and eventual length of it in mind when he made the choice). So he 2) Repents of the cursed choice that has brought him low. Of course the repentance means he thinks evil of the choice; he turns the choice over in his heart, despising it from every angle and shoving insults and cuss words into it like prayer slips in the Western Wall. But to a greater degree his repentance consists in a simple resolution not to make again the same choice. This second part is really more valuable than the first. He can insult and cram full the choice until it's nothing but a wad of paper vibrating with expletives, but as often as he makes the choice he shows it to be his master. He must resolve not to do it again, and the most sure resolution not to do it again is the act of not doing it again. A mere internal resolution is only another passing insult if it is not acted out. A resolution indeed is a resolution in deed.
Which makes the third step: 3) Return to the first works. Instead of the work that caused the fall (or more accurately all the works that caused all the inches of the fall, because the fall was probably more like a tumble than a cliff-drop) do the "first works." In this context, the works of love (2.4). (It looks like these are works of love for each other and/or Christ, or works of love for Christ through love for others; cf. Matt. 25.45; 1 Jn 4.7). No belaboring the repentance in the first sense. No prescription of wallowing or self-flagellation for the shame of the act(s). The best repentance is not hatred of sin but acts of righteousness.

We see the hill where we once stood and long to be again
A quiet curse we whisper on our choice of knowing sin
And glare in hatred up the skids where tumbled bodies ran
Then turn to do the works we did back when we first began

The God of Fun

I would love to get your thoughts on this.

http://conservativechristianity.wordpress.com/2010/07/01/the-god-of-fun/

The God of Fun
By David
When we think about the affections, we are thinking about what our hearts value: their desires, inclinations, dispositions, and tastes.

One value which we seem to seek to shape in our children is the value of fun. Fun is an unquestioned, undisputed right of children. When we think of children, it seems we regard fun as the greatest good.

Fun, fun, fun. Learning at school must be fun, and curriculi are now judged on how much fun they make the learning process. School holidays must be fun, and a veritable industry of holiday activities and entertainments now exists. Sports must be fun, and it is the supposed inherent fun of beating others at games that I suppose makes sports so central to our culture. Eating breakfast must have fun pictures on the box, fun toys inside and fun sugary food to boot. Observe the mountain of toys in the average Western child’s bedroom. What he or she needs most is fun, and Mom and Dad will buy it. Brushing our teeth must be done with fun-shaped toothbrushes, and fun-tasting toothpaste. Bathing must include toys, so that fun may be had in the act of cleaning oneself. Pajamas must have fun pictures on them, and so must the blankets. And at the top of this fun-list is television. Television producers have been masters at satisfying and creating the appetite for fun. Immediate, interesting, amusing, startling, comical, rambunctious images keep the fun going. And a child without a steady diet of TV has no fun, you see.

Perhaps I am not exaggerating when I say that our culture regards fun as the greatest good when it comes to children. Fun is the supreme goal for children. I am not sure at what point this supreme value loses its centrality, but at some point, the bored young humans are introduced to the truth, “Life’s not all about fun, you know!” This cynical statement is a rather heartless and violent introduction to reality, since nothing in all the child’s existence could have revealed this fact. From the rising of the sun to the going down of the same, the child is to have fun.

I don’t know all the origins of this fun-as-supreme-value ethic. I suspect much of it began with Romanticism’s idealising of the child as the paragon of innocence and virtue, and therefore thinking it deserving of a childhood of uncomplicated play. However, as a parent and pastor, I am concerned with how this idea will shape the religious imagination of my children, and the children in my congregation. I’m worried about how teaching our children to love fun above all else will become a major stumbling-block to their worship. Because the fun-ethic has not escaped church life.

Observe what we ask our children when they come out of Sunday School. “Did you have fun?” Indeed, that’s what we expect from our children’s programmes: fun. The materials must be colourful and fun to look at. The activities must be interesting and fun to do. Fun games need to be played. The songs must be full of movement, comical gestures and catchy tunes. They must be fun to sing. The lessons must be funny, zany and fun to listen to. And we judge them a success if our children return with the ultimate value statement: “That was fun!” When someone has a talent for fun-making, we remark, “He’s really good with the children!” Yes, if a child thinks church is fun, they will like it. And hopefully, we reason, they’ll become Christians.

The problem is this: at what point, and in what way, do we graduate our children to the understanding that God is not fun? The fear of the Lord is not a “fun” experience. Singing “Holy, Holy, Holy” is not fun. One thinks of words like sobriety, awe, hope, or adoration to describe the experience, but fun is not one of them. Preparing sermons is not fun. I enjoy doing it, and am greatly enriched by the intense study of God’s Word. But it isn’t fun, like Tetris, or playing fetch with my dog. Nor is listening to a patient explanation of God’s Word. Illuminating, encouraging, disturbing, challenging, provocative, perhaps, but not fun. Prayer is not fun. Intense concentration, focus and meditation on God’s revealed character is penetrating, revealing, satisfying, exhilarating and exhausting. But it is not fun. And the Lord’s Supper is never fun. Daunting, intimidating, heart-rending, welcoming, refreshing, but never fun. Worship is not fun, and yet we think fun is the key to creating little worshippers.

We face several large obstacles to overcome the fun-ethic.

First, our culture simply takes it for granted. It is the way we do things. Therefore, to question it is to disturb the way the machine runs.

Second, pragmatism guides our methods. We want our children to be in church, and to worship, so we figure that fun ought to be brought in to hook them on church. This is not different from using rock and pop music, promising your best life now, or offering a car raffle in the foyer of the church. We think that ends justify means.

Third, we create and sustain this appetite in so many ways outside of church. I grew up in the fun culture, and pass it on without thinking. But what did children do before the world smothered them with its overflowing, laughing box of fun in the last two centuries? They found things to do and make. They learned things. They helped at home. Where they could, they read. They played music with their families. They worshipped at church. And they played. In other words, they were little humans preparing for their adult lives. We, on the other hand, consciously look for ways to entertain and amuse our children, to keep the fun levels high.

If the affections of our children seek fun above all else, they have inordinate affections. And it is up to those who shape children to think about how to shape what they value.

We are always shaping our children’s affections, by what we love, and what we expect from them. If we expect them to not only play, but work and serve, they learn that fun is not central to life. If we insist that they must learn, even when that learning is not fun, we teach them what learning is like in real life. If we send them out to amuse themselves with sticks and rocks and mud and dead birds, like children always have, we shape them to find and create enjoyment, not wait for it to be given to them. And more to the heart of the matter of the affections: if we teach them to be motivated by the truth, goodness and beauty of things and actions, we teach them to value things for what they are, not merely for what they supply. If we remove fun as the governing arbiter of value, we prepare them to love things for what they are worth, not merely for what kind of ephemeral thrill they provide. If we insist that they learn to live with their boredom with worship, we teach them to postpone their judgement on what they do not yet understand. In other words, we prepare them to be worshippers, not consumers.

And perhaps we will see them still worshipping in twenty years.

Packer on preaching

From the T4G blog:

A sermon is “an applicatory declaration, spoken in God’s name and for his praise, in which some part of the written Word of God delivers through the preacher some part of its message about God and godliness in relation to those whom the preacher addresses.” (J.I. Packer, “Truth and Power: The Place of Scripture in the Christian Life,” chapter 5: Mouthpiece for God, page 162)

A New Kind of Christian

http://shar.es/maWVG

Hey Guys,

The link above is for a tremendous article by Kevin DeYoung reviewing McLaren's book "A New Kind of Christian." Read part one to get his summary of the book.

Two quick thoughts:

1. Theology is important...really important. I have read a few parts of McLaren's book and it is very easy to see why his writing appeals to people. While they are enticing thoughts, they are almost entirely misrepresentations of orthodox theology and shoddy exegesis of the Biblical texts.

2. I was hit by the weight of this error after reading the review. There are thousands of people who have bought into this misrepresentation of the Gospel. McLaren makes Jesus out to be a lot of things, but refuses to make him our sin-bearer. In short, a new kind of Christian loves the wrong Jesus.

I would love to read your thoughts about this.

AB

Considering Vocational Ministry

I came across this in one of the letters from C.S. Lewis in A Severe Mercy. He's talking to Sheldon Vanauken (the autobiographer), who is considering both Christianity and switching his field of study from history to theology. I think these thoughts are particularly applicable to us as we are all right now determining our life's work.

Lewis to Vanauken:

"We must ask three questions about the probable effect of changing your research subject to something more Theological.

(1.) Wd. it be better for your immediate enjoyment? Answer, probably but not certainly, Yes.

(2.) Wd. it be better for your academic career? Answer, probably No. You wd. have to make up in haste a lot of knowledge which wd. not be v. easily digested in the time.

(3.) Wd. it be better for your soul? I don't know. I think there is a great deal to be said for having one's deepest spiritual interest distinct from one's ordinary duty as a student or professional man. St. Paul's job was tent-making. When the two coincide I shd. have thought there was a danger lest the natural interest in one's job and the pleasures of gratified ambition might be mistaken for spiritual progress and spiritual consolation; and I think clergymen sometimes fall into this trap. Contrariwise, there is a danger that what is boring and repellent in the job may alienate one from the spiritual life. And finally, someone has said 'None are so unholy as those whose hands are cauterised with holy things; sacred things may become profane by becoming matters of the job. You now want spiritual truth for her own sake; how will it be when the same truth is also needed for an effective footnote in your thesis? In fact, the change might do good or harm. I've always been glad myself that Theology is not the thing I earn my living by. On the whole, I'd advise you to get on with your tent-making. The performance of a duty will probably teach you quite as much about God as academic Theology wd. do. Mind, I'm not certain: but that is the view I incline to.

[Second Letter] Look: the question is not whether we should bring God into our work or not. We certainly should and must: as MacDonald says 'All that is not God is death.' The question is whether we should simply (a.) Bring Him in in the dedication of our work to Him, in the integrity, diligence, and humility with which we do it or also (b.) Make His professed and explicit service our job. The A vocation rests on all men whether they know it or not; the B vocation only on those who are specially called to it. Each vocation has its peculiar dangers and peculiar rewards. Naturally, I can't say which is yours. When I spoke of danger to your academic career in a change of subject I was thinking chiefly of time. If you can get an extra year, it would be another matter."

This directly addresses at least my position. I have for a long time been planning to go into the ministry of some sort. Funny, I've never pictured myself as a pastor, at least not that I remember. I just pictured "gospel ministry" in some vague way, as if I would make my living reading the Bible and having conversations on the street. The more I've seen, the more the term "ministry" has included. Even a "secular" job. If you can be called a "missionary" for going to Turkey and running a sign-making shop and sharing the gospel when possible, can you not be called a "minister" for running a lawn care business in Dover and sharing the gospel when possible? The NT doesn't talk about being a pastor as a vocation does it? Apostles, traveling founders of the church receiving pay ("the ox is worthy…" etc.) yes. But pastors? I imagine that the elders appointed in churches were supported very little by the lay people. So the hard distinction of "minister" and "layperson" that refers to the positions vocationally must have come with the advent of (sufficiently) paid ministerial positions.

Not that this is bad: having vocational ministers is a luxury and great benefit to the churches. It must be an advantage to have pastors who can spend all their time working on improving and strengthening the church rather than thirty or forty percent. So it can't be a question of whether we should have vocational ministers or not; if we can have them we should have them. The question for us (or maybe just me) is then, should we be them? I think we should consider two things from Lewis's letters: 1) Can we handle the difficulties he mentions in question #3? Would it be better for our souls not to be vocational ministers? 2) Are we called?

Has someone written something on a theology of calling? It would be good to read on call in the NT.

Praying for Justice

I read this article a few days ago in the bathroom while I was waiting for the water to get hot and I ended up taking an angry shower. At first it seemed funny – someone stole baby Jesus. No doubt a car of guys riding around and someone had a dare to pay back, or maybe Dr. Williams's "dumb David" was in the car, but whatever the case some idiot got out, ran up to the nativity scene, and jumped into the back seat with Jesus. Haha, ok take it back the next day. But then I read the prayer from the church prayer list. Did you read it? This was printed, size 18 font, on the top of the Daily Break section: "PLEASE PRAY FOR WHOEVER STOLE BABY JESUS FROM THE MANGER AT THE BRITT HOUSE. They've had that baby Jesus for 25 years. Pray that whoever has it experiences such guilt and dis-ease that they have to take it back to get relief." Kristin Davis obviously saw the irony: she highlighted that the request sat alongside soldiers and cancer patients on the prayer list. Is it right for them to pray for the "guilt and dis-ease" of the perpetrator? Or, larger, is it right, ever, for any reason, to pray for the guilt and dis-ease of anyone?

The irony of the Jesus figurine: Jesus had his life for 33 years and prayed, "forgive them, they don't know what they are doing" for the people who took it. The Britts had a piece-of-plastic baby Jesus figurine for 25 years and prayed, "bring them guilt and dis-ease" for the people who took it.

As an aside, it does smack a little of the birth of a relic doesn't it? That some object loosely connected to something holy grows in sanctity year by year, until after 1000 years it is nearly God itself, worthy of worship, pilgrimage, and awe. Today a cheap figurine, 25 years out something to be prayed about for return, 1000 years out… what?

Clearly the Britts were wronged, but what should we say about their reaction? Or how should they react if the boys were caught and they had the chance to press charges? And how should we react in similar circumstances?

A few propositions:

We should always love seeing Justice itself demonstrated, and never love seeing someone punished.
I heard someone a while ago say, "I really like seeing people brought to justice." I wonder if he would include himself? Or his son? Justice is immutable – it is giving what is due. Reward for righteousness is justice; punishment for wrong is also justice. So if we take delight in seeing justice bring pain down on someone's head, we must delight only in the first half: seeing justice. We must not delight seeing pain being brought down on someone's head. The only way Hell can bring God glory is if Justice is demonstrated in it, or some other virtues. The ultimate destruction of any of God's creation, especially that only piece made in his image, cannot bring him glory in itself because it does not represent any essential part of him. Justice does. This might seem a little hair-splitting but I think it's the difference between smug satisfaction in seeing someone "get their due" (a horrible and callusing attitude), and a distraught and weeping exaltation in God's commitment to himself, shown in someone "getting their due."

We should pray for Justice on a criminal only for a demonstration of justice and for the criminal's good.
We should delight in seeing Justice because we are seeing God in it. We should delight in seeing Justice because Justice can reform a person, and we should pray for God to use it to reform. We must not delight in seeing Justice because it returns our beloved baby Jesus figurine to our beloved and ancient (25 years!) nativity scene. We must not delight in seeing Justice because it brings pain down on the head of that guy who, for whatever reason, we feel satisfied to see in pain.

We should never pray imprecatory prayers, or pray them very carefully for Justice's sake alone.
We should not follow the Psalmist in praying, "Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!" (Ps. 137.9). Or with Isaiah: "Prepare a place to slaughter his children for the sins of their ancestors" (14.21). Or: "O God, break the teeth in their mouths; tear out the fangs of the young lions, O Lord! Let them vanish like water that runs away; when he aims his arrows, let them be blunted. Let them be like the snail that dissolves into slime, like the stillborn child who never sees the sun" (Ps. 58.6-8). The only possible way these prayers cannot be poison from the darkest corners of human depravity is if they are, somehow, aimed not at the destruction of the subjects described, but at the vindication of God's justice and goodness over his creatures' depravity. That is, if depravity has gotten so bad in the world (that, by the way, God made and sustains) that the only way to vindicate God's goodness is to destroy the depraved people, then only then can I see how such prayers could at all be construed as right. If we pray anything at all like these biblical prayers, we should stop and repent. The only way (that I can see) that we could rightly pray any prayer one-tenth as brutal as these is if we had an ultimate, eschatological, abstract love for the vindication and display of God's Justice and Goodness.

If the only real consequence of your being wronged is your own pain, absorb it and use it to imagine the pain Jesus wrongly felt. If some other consequence is at stake (the dignity of your daughter, the safety of the public), bring pain on the head of the criminal only as far as necessary and take no delight in his pain. And above all, love Justice because it is of God.