Are you exasperating your children?

I'm a dad of two young children, a three-year-old boy who has been described by his "Gaga" as "butt-stubborn," and a three-month-old girl.  And as a dad of young kids, my go-to Scripture verse--the first our son memorized--is Colossians 3:20: "Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord" (NKJV).  However, Paul immediately admonishes dads: "Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged" (3:21).

There is, in other words, a way for parents (and the Bible especially warns dads) to demand obedience in such a way that will provoke them to anger and leave them exasperated, embittered, and discouraged.

I don't know how you as a dad (or any parent) fall into this trap.  But trust me, you do.  "We all stumble in many ways" (James 3:2).  Have you been praying that God would show you how you are demanding obedience in such a way as to discourage your kids?  Perhaps it will help to show how I do:

1. Do you react to disobedience quickly in anger?  Rather than being "quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry" (James 1:19 NIV), I often discipline my son in reactionary anger.  I don't wait to calmly talk with him about how he disobeyed so that he recognizes his offense and then understands the consequence accordingly.  This scares him because in the moment I am far harsher than I otherwise would be.  Fear doesn't create a place where he will listen.  As James continues, "Man's anger does not produce the righteous life God desires" (James 1:20 NIV).
2. Do you use harsh tones of voice?  "A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger" (Proverbs 15:1).
3. Do you assume your child is doing something wrong?  There have been many times where, knowing my son's track record, I interpret an action of his as disobedient, crafty, or mean-spirited, when the truth reveals it was something altogether different. I have often told my son to not go into the fridge by himself.  So when he opened the fridge a few days ago, I assumed he was disobeying.  It turns out that Mommy had asked him to get something for her.  I need to be "quick to listen" and fully investigate situations first, as God did at Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18:20-21).
4. Do you demand perfect obedience with no room for grace?  Psalm 103:9 says that God "will not always chide."  Do you nag and get on your kids for every single thing they do out of step?  Some days I'm like this for sure.  It makes even me feel tired and discouraged.
5. Do you fail to accommodate changes in your kids' environment?  Our son's behavior degrades when he is tired, hungry, or has had a change in routine.  God does expect us to do right all the time regardless of our circumstances.  But there's a level at which we must understand and approach our children as fellow humans prone to weakness.  "As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him.  For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust" (Psalm 103:13-14).  Fathers are supposed to know that their kids are weak!
6. Do you choose words that belittle your children?  I have often used words like, "How many times do I have to tell you ...?" or "This is the third time you've done this today!"  Talking this way can make the child feel like a worthless, incapable dolt.  Jesus warned that everyone who through insults degrades another's personhood and value is liable to the fires of hell (Matthew 5:21-22).  The better way is to simply acknowledge each separate act of disobedience without piling up a burdensome tally.  After all, love "keeps no record of wrongs" (1 Corinthians 13:5 NIV).
7. Do you speak over your children's heads?  I often orate my son with such long and complex explanations of his behavior and what is right and yadayadayada that even I get lost in my train of thought.  The kid is barely potty trained!  This doesn't leave our children with a clear understanding of what to do and what not to do.
8. Do you discipline before a child is fully trained so as to know right from wrong?  God gave his people his written word because all Scripture is "profitable ... for training in righteousness" (2 Timothy 3:16), and fathers are to "train up a child in the way he should go" (Proverbs 22:6).  God's Torah (instruction) was laid down for centuries through the priests and prophets of the old covenant before God's patience reached its limit and he sent them into exile.

When you realize these faults in yourself as a dad, remember that this is part of God's own fatherly care (Hebrews 12:5-11).  God has compassion on those who fear him and pardons all our iniquities through the blood of his Son Jesus (Psalm 103).  One of the best ways to show the reality of this good news to your kids is to go to them, explain how you sinned against God and also against them, and ask their forgiveness.  Then pray together, asking God for his pardon, trusting and thanking him for reconciling us to himself through Jesus, not counting our trespasses against us (2 Corinthians 5:19), and asking him to restore the relationship between you and your children (Malachi 4:6)--for we parents need Jesus' salvation just as much as they do.

Christ and Our Callings, Part 4

Life makes life complicated.  As my wife once said, "Don't you hate it when life gets in the way of, you know, life?"  In case I'm being opaque, life's demands and responsibilities and limitations always seem to get in the way of the joys we want to pursue.  But what if instead of hindering us, these help us find freedom?

Back in November, Olivia gave birth to our second child, our daughter Margaret.  That means more bills, more childcare, more family needs--and of course more love and joy in our home too.  But nonetheless it has made us grapple with our priorities about time, money, and calling.

For years I've felt a growing unrest and dissatisfaction with being a public high school science teacher.  Along the way, a nagging Sehnsucht plagues me on and off.  Most recently, my desire to pursue graduate studies and a career in forest and wetland ecology has reached its zenith.  I started looking at graduate programs, such as this amazing one at Virginia Tech.  But the reality is that grad school would put us in debt and likely force us to relocate--all for a government job that would probably earn less money and give less vacation time than my current job.  As I considered my dreams of spending days outdoors, I realized that it was impractical, if not inaccessible.  I felt stuck--and glum.

Some days I still do.

But around new year's I had a revelation.  What if, instead of thinking about what job would be most enjoyable and satisfying, I rather looked at what my real priorities were in life, and chose a job that best supported those priorities?  My foremost calling is as a disciple of Christ and a member of his body, the church.  After that, I've made a lifelong pledge to become one flesh with my wife.  Third, I'm a father to my children.  Only after that am I a worker.  So what job would best enable me to fulfill the higher callings?  It makes little sense to have a fulfilling job at the expense of things that really matter more.  While teaching doesn't pay a whole lot here in Virginia, it does afford me nine weeks off in the summer--plenty of time with my family, if I'm not teaching summer school or picking up other work in the summer.  And I wouldn't need to go to grad school or relocate or place those other demands on my family.

It was suddenly freeing to think that way--like that gray raincloud over me was starting to lift. Instead of feeling stuck in a dead-end job, I began to feel more hopeful.  That this was where God really wanted me for now.  (Olivia would be quick to tell me that dead ends are only for people who are considering their lives without Christ in view.)   I still don't super love teaching.  That hasn't changed overnight.  But it gives me a little more hope that God will equip me to do a good job in it and to find days of happiness too.

Then I began also to consider my life under God's providence, his guiding hand.  Of all the people in the world who have no choice over their occupation and who've had no chance at an education, I was able not only to go to a university, but also to choose my own career path and land not one, but four jobs in my chosen profession.  That's a remarkable privilege that few in history have had.  If through all the choices I've had and doors God has opened, I have this job, then it certainly can't be a bad thing.  Maybe it's the best thing for me right now.

On top of that, having the job of your dreams certainly can't be essential to being fully alive, worshiping God and living out his image in the world.  After all, most people have to simply take whatever job they can find or learn whatever trade their family has been in for generations.  If it's not something attainable to all mankind, then it's not essential to life the way God wants us to live it.

(Sorry, no great conclusion here today!  But check out my earlier posts in this series: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.)

Love = Holiness

In my previous post, I attempted to show from Scripture that in many ways, practical holiness involves living in love: sacrificial concern for the good of others that trumps concern for yourself.  It's living as God lives, holy as he is holy.  In other words, "holiness" equals love.

At the same time, the reverse is also true: "love" equals holiness, that is, living life under God's rule and under his law and promises and bearing God's likeness in the world.  If we live lives of love as "imitators of God" walking in Christlike love (Ephesians 5:1), then that means we aren't living like other people do; our love is to be holy as the Lord is holy (1 Peter 1:16).

While hippies waved banners about "free love," real Christian love is generous and costly.  It embodies grace and gives to others when they're undeserving.  Jesus said that love for one another and the world would be the mark of his disciples (John 13:34-35; 15:9-13).  And yet this same Jesus-styled love would cause the world to hate his disciples because it reminds them of him (John 15:18-25).  So there must be something inherently un-worldly about the way we are to love others.

Holiness = Love

In our effort to preach and live out the inclusive, merit-discrediting grace of God that welcomes real sinners into his glad home, it's easy to wonder what place things like holiness and obedience and God's law have in our lives as Christians.  But Scripture lays out two very clear truths: God's grace cannot be turned into license to sin (Romans 6:1-2, 15; Jude 4), and the chief virtue is love (Matthew 22:37-40; Romans 13:8-10).  We cannot whitewash God's call to holiness by saying, "It's all about love," but neither can we live out our holiness in isolation.  So what does biblical holiness look like?

The more and more I read the Bible and learn what holiness is--that is, living as one separated from the world to belong to Christ and live for his purposes, to beat with his heartbeat--I learn that living a holy life is living a life of love.  Our holiness consists in living the way Jesus did in sacrificial, compassionate, otherworldly care for others.

"As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, 'You shall be holy, for I [the Lord] am holy.'" (1 Peter 1:14-15, quoting Leviticus 11:44)

So we are to be imitators of God, following him in his holiness.  But does that mean a life of monasticism?  Self-flagellation?  A doctorate in theology?  Only listening to "positive Christian radio" and watching Kirk Cameron movies?  Teetotalling?

"Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.  And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God."  (Ephesians 5:1)

You see, being an imitator of God, being holy as he is holy, means to "walk in love."  That is, we live in love for others in daily, step-by-step reliance on the love our Father has for us.  (Note that in both imperatives, Christians are called God's beloved children.)

"Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.  And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony." (Colossians 3:12-14)

"Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again ..." (1 Peter 1:22-23).

If we are to live as those "chosen by God, holy and beloved," those who have "purified [our] souls," the clear command is to love others the way Jesus loved us.  (Heck, just skip the rest of this post and read all of 1 John.  Then read this book if you're ready to be humbled.)

If holiness involves both belonging to God for his purposes and being unstained by sin, then I think the Holy Spirit wants us to recognize that sin's core ugliness involves self-worship and self-concern that keeps us from seeking others' interests and good ahead of our own.  To be freed from the pollution of sin and really live in holiness is to live less and less with our own cares and needs in mind and look instead to how we can do lasting good to others.

The Hymn that Makes Me Cry (Almost)

This afternoon at church, we sang several amazing songs (including "Be Still, My Soul" by Katharina von Schlegel).  But our closing hymn was the one that almost always brings tears to my eyes (inasmuch as that happens for me): "For All the Saints" by William How.

For all the saints, who from their labors rest,
Who Thee by faith before the world confessed,
Thy Name, O Jesus, be forever blessed.
Alleluia, Allelu ...

Thou wast their rock, their fortress and their might;
Thou, Lord, their captain in the well-fought fight;
Thou, in the darkness drear their one true Light.
Alleluia, Allelu ...

O may Thy soldiers, faithful, true and bold,
Fight as the saints who nobly fought of old,
And win with them the victor's crown of gold.
Alleluia, Allelu ...

The golden evening brightens in the west;
Soon, soon to faithful warriors comes their rest;
Sweet is the calm of paradise the blessed.
Alleluia, Allelu ...

But lo!  There breaks a yet more glorious day;
The saints triumphant rise in bright array;
The King of glory passes on his way.
Alleluia, Allelu ...

From earth's wide bounds, from ocean's farthest coast,
Through gates of pearl streams in the countless host,
Singing to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Alleluia, Allelu ...

More than any other, I want this hymn sung at my funeral (preferably in Christopher Miner's tune, but I'll take Sine Nomine).  If songs about Jesus as Victor get my hands raised and my feet a-stompin', then it is songs about Jesus' faithfulness in leading his church to her eternal bliss in the news heavens and earth that bring a quiver to my lips.

Why We're Not Baptizing Our Children (Yet)

While on the phone with my mom a few weeks ago, she asked us again why we belonged to a Presbyterian church which baptizes infants, but we ourselves have not had our son baptized.*  I hope to explain here why I've chosen this path for our family.  I realize this is a huge issue that cannot be covered in a few paragraphs, but here's my best attempt to briefly explain it.  And I write this with great humility--I am fallible and could be wrong--and with great respect for the Reformed heritage and for my brothers and sisters in Christ at URC and City Church of Richmond.

What is the Presbyterian doctrine?

Presbyterian and Reformed churches see baptism as the equivalent of circumcision, which was applied to children to show their status within the Abrahamic covenant.  Start by reading Genesis 12, 15, and 17 to get a picture of God’s promises to Abraham.

Circumcision was the “sign of the covenant” God gave to Abraham (Genesis 17:11 ESV).  It served as a sign (visible representation) of the covenant relationship between God and Abraham and his offspring.  It was also a seal confirming the reality of this covenant relationship and God’s vow to “be God to you and to your offspring after you” (Genesis 17:7; cf. Romans 4:11).  Circumcision signified inner spiritual renewal and cleansing (Isaiah 52:1), as well as the need to live consecrated to God--or else one too would be cursed and “cut off” from life under God’s blessing (Genesis 17:14).  Through bloodshed it prefigured the bloody judgment of Christ that would ultimately earn this spiritual renewal and cleansing for God’s people.  

Of Bills and Babies: Hope for Parents Concerned about Money

Good news: Olivia is pregnant with our second child, due in November!

Of course, this leads me to always wonder how on earth we're going to support a second (or someday third, fourth, ... ) child.  This would require some major restructuring of our work situations, child care, etc.  God clearly has something up his sleeve for us in the future.  (Frankly, I hope it's money for a heat pump.  Two hundred dollars per month for heating oil is killer.)

But to still my anxious heart, God has lovingly been reminding me of Psalm 37:25-26 again and again.  Not that I ever intentionally memorized it, but it has somehow come to my memory almost every day for the past few weeks:

I have been young, and now am old,
     yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken
     or his children begging for bread.
He is ever lending generously,
     and his children become a blessing.

What a blessing!  To know that somehow, some way, God will always provide for us what we need.  I mean, how many families do you see at Walmart where a single, working mom is towing a whole flock of youngsters?  Sure, God's idea of "what we need" might not intersect with our ideas of comfort or convenience.  But when the goal of our life is the enjoy and glorify our Maker and Sustainer, those "c-words" are only added graces.  So I might not have any clue what our life will someday look like, or how he will provide, but I need to choose to trust that God will be faithful to us and look after our family--better and more lavishly than we could imagine (1 Corinthians 2:9).

You may ask, "Andrew, how do you know you're one of 'the righteous'?"  Fair enough--a good look at my life might reveal a whole lot that isn't close to righteous.  But in the Bible, the "righteous" aren't the perfect people, but those who recognize their sinful brokenness and humbly cling to God and follow his ways the best that they can.  And today that means trusting in Jesus, whose perfect sonship and obedience is credited to everyone who hopes in and follows after him.

For additional thought: 2 Corinthians 9:6-11; Philippians 4:10-20.

You Will Not Restrain Your Mercy from Me

This morning I read this in Psalm 40, and it blew my mind:

As for you, O LORD, you will not restrain
     your mercy from me;
your steadfast love and your faithfulness will
     ever preserve me!
For evils have encompassed me
     beyond number;
my iniquities have overtaken me,
    and I cannot see;
they are more than the hairs of my head;
     my heart fails me. (vv. 11-12)

What is so crazy?  David doesn't say that God will preserve him in spite of his own evils and iniquities.  I fact, he doesn't even ask God to preserve him, as if it were in question.  No, through the Holy Spirit, David spoke for God and testified that "You, O LORD, will not restrain your mercy from me ... For evils have encompassed me beyond number; my iniquities have overtaken me."  It is precisely because David is hopelessly mired the inescapable pit of in his own wretchedness (see vv. 1-2) that God remains faithful and steadfast.  God knew he was David's sole hope for rescue, and David knew it too.

Can you imagine that God is so full of mercy and compassion that when you're at your very worst, a stinking cesspool of selfishness, God is precisely at that point for you and full of love for you?  God delights in being faithful to the unfaithful, a rescuer to the hopeless.  This is what it means for God to be holy: when others would run away, that is when he is near. "The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit" (Psalm 34:18; see also Isaiah 57:15).  All he asks is for a needy and contrite heart that cries out for him.

How can we know that God will be like this toward us?  After all, we certainly might be tempted to at least begrudgingly hold back some good from a messy, undeserving person.  But God doesn't curb it at all: "You will not restrain your mercy from me"!  In fact, to restrain his own mercy would be essentially to deny it.  Mercy is compassionate deliverance from an awful situation.  If God restrained his mercy by waiting for us to get our lives together, that wouldn't be mercy at all!

But the sureness of God's mercy rests on more than just a definition of mercy, however.  It rests on Jesus Christ.  Speaking of his looming suffering and death by crucifixion, Jesus said that "I have a baptism to be baptized with" (Luke 12:50).  A baptism represented a chaotic deluge, often of God's judgment (cf. Psalm 69:1-2).  He was overtaken by our iniquities--yours and mine--the "evils beyond number" of fallen mankind, so that only mercy and steadfast love would remain for those who come to God through him.  So the next time your eyes are opened to your sin and life feels like nothing but a suffocating failure, take courage and run to God through Jesus.  He will gladly receive you and rescue you.

[Postscript, 2/14: I realize that in wanting to put the work of Christ at the forefront, I think I've sort of put his person in an erroneous light.  To begin with, saying that God's mercy rests upon Christ and his cross does not and cannot mean that God the Father and God the Son were somehow at odds with each other over whether to have mercy on sinners.  Jesus said that he only did his Father's will and what the Father himself does (John 5:19-24) and that he and the Father are one (John 10:30).  And Paul reminds us that "in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself" (2 Corinthians 5:19).  God himself was doing the reconciling.  And while in some sense that means the Father, it encompasses all three persons of the Triune Godhead.  And that very God is Jesus.

Second, I neglected to think of simply seeing mercy in Jesus' character--and in God's character throughout the Bible--as a testimony to who he is.  God "cannot deny himself" (2 Timothy 2:13); as he is, so he always will be.  We see God/Jesus doing concrete acts of mercy--raising widows' sons, providing bread to the needy, healing diseases--and that points us to his character as a person of mercy and compassion.]

The Sun of Righteousness

brightersidenow.com

In the final Old Testament prophecy about Jesus--some 400 years before his birth--God spoke through the prophet Malachi that the Messiah would be "the sun of righteousness" (Malachi 4:2).  Later on, the author to the Hebrews said that Jesus, God's Son and this promised Messiah, is "the radiance of the glory of God"  (Hebrews 1:3).  Somewhere a while back I read a quote from John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion.* Calvin said,

Christ, our righteousness, is the Sun, justification, its light, sanctification, its heat.  The Sun is at once the source of both, so that light and heat are inseparable.  But only light illumines and only heat warms, not the reverse; both are always present, without the one becoming the other.  (3.11.6)

I love this, because though it's not up to date with modern physics, it shows so many great biblical truths so clearly.

Those Who Sow in Tears Shall Reap with Shouts of Joy

Do you worry over your child's anger and behavioral failures, fearing he will be ruined by them, or that you are failing him as a parent?  What would it be like instead to rejoice in his failings as tools in God's hands to pave the way toward an infinitely brighter future?

Our 23-month-old son Ephraim has developed a recent fascination with blankets.  This evening he tried picking up the blanket my on which my wife was sitting.  When he was unable to do it, he protested vociferously.  Then he tried jumping off the coffee table onto the couch, but he couldn't bridge the gap, which sent him spiraling downward even further.  Exhausted and hungry, he proceeded into a bleary-eyed, wailing tantrum that would last about twenty minutes.

After I took him upstairs for "time out" in his crib, I prayed with him.  At first I asked God to be near to him and give him the ability to calm down because, as John Piper points out, anger "devours almost all other good emotions" and "numbs the heart to joy and gratitude and hope and tenderness and compassion and kindness."*

But then I thought, maybe I shouldn't pray for that.  So instead I began to pray, "God, in times like this when Ephraim can't control his own anger and emotions and tantrums, let him see his own desperate condition.  Let him see that he cannot restrain his feelings and the chaos that floods over him.  Let him see both your forgiveness for him in the cross and also how much he needs the power of the Holy Spirit inside him to give him peace and the ability to calm down."

This was really freeing.  As I thought about it over the evening, I gained a small bit of parenting freedom.  I've been reading through the book of Proverbs recently, which is mostly a book of how fathers should train their children in wise living in fear of the Lord.  Proverbs says that children who grow up to be unruly, disobedient, and unwise are "fools."  And of course I never want my son to be foolish or to be ruled by his desires (which is what anger reveals; see James 4:1-3).  But more than I want him to be "good," I want him to know and receive the goodness of Jesus Christ.  I want him to see how needy and sinful and evil his heart is, and that his outbursts reveal both how selfish his desires are and how he is mastered by his own desires--and that through this his only hope, and his sure hope, is the grace of God in Jesus.

I pray that God will keep this in my mind as the years go by.  Instead of fretting over every tantrum and display of self-will, I want them to become signposts confirming to him his need for Christ and the grace God offers to the humble.  I want to know that the more Ephraim sins--as atrocious as this is--the more cause there will be for him to crave the unfailing love of God.  "With weeping they shall come, and with pleas of mercy I will lead them back, ... for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn" (Jeremiah 31:9).
________
*John Piper, This Momentary Marriage (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2009) p. 150.

With Reverence and Awe

I drove past a church in Richmond last week that had a sign which read: "Worship just got better.  Casual.  Contemporary.  Comfortable."  Now when I read more on this church's website, I think their worship might still be pretty legitimate--that is, centered upon God's word to us in the gospel, led by the Holy Spirit, for the sake of exalting God's name through Christ our Lord.  But should we expect worship to be casual and comfortable?

Actually, if we stop and are honest, many of us might use words like mundane or boring.  How many of us can resonate with something so un-noteworthy as a group of ordinary folks sitting around as the preacher goes on and on about Melchizedek-this or Shechem-that ... and you start daydreaming ... and fall asleep. (This was even true when the Apostle Paul taught; see Acts 20:7-9.)

But Jesus reminds us that "where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them" (Matthew 18:20).  Now, in context he is saying this about the leaders of the church in exercising church discipline.  But in doing so, Jesus says that whatever they do on earth is also happening in heaven (see Matthew 18:15-20).  When the church gathers on earth, she is also meeting in heaven.

In Hebrews 12:22-24 we see an even more vivid portrait of what happens when the saints gather:

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly [or church; Greek ekklesia] of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

This is a present reality for the gathered church: you have come (v. 22).  Thus the author concludes with this exhortation: "See that you do not refuse him who is speaking.  For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. ... Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire" (vv. 25, 28-29; see also Psalm 50).

"There I am among them."  What should we expect when Jesus comes in the midst of his people?  What should worship look like?  Again, probably it will appear to our eyes very normal to us most of the time.  But we should never fail to remember that our Lord is active in our midst as one "from [whose] mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and [whose] face was like the sun shining in full strength" (see Revelation 1:12-20).

Source: Wintley Phipps, www.gospelbondservant.com 

When we believe that Jesus is a living person present with us in our worship, we should expect more to be shaken than to be comfortable; we're encountering heaven.  Church gatherings like those we see in the New Testament begin to take on a new light:

Praying saints are shaken and filled with the Holy Spirit to speak the word of God with boldness (Acts 4:31).

The power of the Lord Jesus is present (1 Corinthians 5:4).

Sinners are forgiven and the sick are healed (James 5:14-16).

The dead are raised to life (Acts 20:7-12).

Unbelievers are convicted of sin, the secrets of their hearts are exposed, and they fall on their face in worship because God truly is present (1 Corinthians 14:24-25).

Believers participate in the benefits of the crucified and exalted body and blood of Christ (1 Corinthians 10:16).

Sin-sick and life-weary hearts are refreshed and given hope (John 7:37-39; Acts 3:19-20).

Here in September, in the time between Pentecost and Advent, the church calendar says we're in "ordinary time."  However, right worship is anything but ordinary.  Or casual.  Or comfortable.

I'll Do Better Next Time

I recently finished reading Edward Welch's book Addictions: A Banquet in the Grave: Finding Hope in the Power of the Gospel (P & R, 2001).  I found it to be a really helpful guide to the fact that addictions--whatever biological and sociological components may be at play--are ultimately a worship disorder: We worship our own desires and cravings so much that they become our masters and enslave us.  Which, of course, means that there is hope for addicts of all kinds--not in AA, nor rehab, nor medicine, nor counseling, but in Jesus Christ, who died for us to break the power of sin over us, so that we would no longer be its slaves (see Romans 6:1-23).  Jesus sets us free to know and worship the true God.

Anyway, on page 282 amid some practical tips for remembering and applying the work of Christ to our daily battles, Welch paraphrases Martin Luther in offering this tough admonition:

Is Christ always in view when you talk about sin?  Commenting on Galatians 5:4, Luther asks, "What do you do when you are caught in some sin?  If your answer is, 'I'll do better next time,' then you have no need of Christ."  Luther then offers this alternative: "that you despair of your own righteousness and you trust boldly in Christ."

Nothing Can Hinder the Lord

This week I was talking with some other dads at our church about how difficult it is to rear our children to understand both grace and law.  We all recognized this is a tough tightrope to walk!  After all, nearly every New Testament letter was occasioned by either too much reliance on the law (human behaviors and efforts) or a perversion of grace into a license to sin or to live a lax life.  Both errors fail to do justice to the cross of Jesus.

Of course, this concern is even broader than understanding the gospel.  Any honest parent, I'm sure, would be led to some worries about whether they're doing a good job raising their kids rightly in all aspects of wise living.

But thank God I was reminded of this simple truth that evening: The God who gave us children in the first place, the God who has put authority and responsibility into parents' hands, who is himself a loving Father--it is this God who cares more about our children than we do!  He cares more about their faith and salvation than we ever will.  He is the one who designed his great saving plan and sent his Son to die for sinners, at great cost to himself.  He is the one who sends his Spirit to open the eyes of the blind to see the light of Christ's glory (2 Corinthians 4:4, 6).  He is the one who finds immense joy in recovering his lost sheep (Luke 15:3-7).  He is the one who delights in wisdom (Proverbs 8:30; 3 John 4).  As the Westminster Confession of Faith reminds us*, God uses our best efforts to rear our children in the way of the Lord Jesus without exasperating them (Ephesians 6:4), but he is not confined by how well we do.  After all, he is the one who, in his wisdom, has entrusted the passing of his covenant to the next generation into the hands of finite, weak sinners, and so he too will provide amazing grace to see that his purposes for our children are fulfilled.  Why are we sitting there looking at ourselves?  No wonder we have fears about parenting.

"Come, let us go ... .  It may be that the LORD will work for us, for nothing can hinder the LORD from saving by many or by few" (1 Samuel 14:6).
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* "God, in His ordinary providence, makes use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and against them, at His pleasure." (5:3)

Do Not Be Deceived

When I was preparing the walls of our new house for painting, I discovered the oddest thing: the new off-white paint and even the reddish paint beneath were added over the blue painter's tape around a light switch.  Who paints over painter's tape?  It seemed like no big deal, especially with the tape buried under two layers of paint and concealed by the switch cover plate.  That is, until I tried scraping the wall and taking off the paint. Now that tape is making it a lot harder, and its removal will probably do a lot more damage.

Have you ever done something wrong and tried to cover it up with a lie?  Of course you have.  We all have.  This leads to one of two almost inevitable additional steps--or both: You add to that lie by fabricating an entire deception-filled ruse so that your original lie won't become uncovered, or you repeat that original lie over and over again with greater force and confidence.  Either way, the original truth becomes so buried under a mountain of lies that we cannot even find it anymore.  Eventually we get to the point where we think it would require more work and damage to unravel our wicked web than to maintain the facade.  We come to the point where we've lied so much that our minds become reprogrammed, and the lie becomes our new functional truth.  We become no longer able to tell the truth from the lie; we believe the lie we keep telling is the truth.

Rather than deceiving others, you now have deceived yourself.

The Father's Day Gospel

Father's Day provides an annual chance to awkwardly think about why you love your dad.  But what if you are the dad?  Do you start shifting in your chair, wondering if you're doing a good job?  What if you fall short?

Maybe you're a dad who worships the living God and reads the Bible.  What would you do if you came across these passages in the Old Testament?

"You shall have no other gods before me. ... You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments." (Deuteronomy 5:7, 9-10) 

"And the LORD said to me, '... Oh that they had such a heart as this always, to fear me and keep my commandments, that it might go well with them and with their descendants forever!'" (Deuteronomy 5:29)

The Old Testament is rife with examples of poor fathers raising foolish children who don't fear the Lord, and of how indeed the sin of fathers consumes their whole families.  (Take, for example, the families of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram in Numbers 16, or the sons of Eli in 1 Samuel 2!)  God works in and through family relationships throughout the Bible, and for the most part, families rise and fall on the faith of the father who leads the home.

So when we as fathers read these passages about the God who is "the same yesterday and today and forever," how can we have good hope for our children after us?  How can we be sure we will raise a wise family who repent of their sins and embrace Jesus, who fear and trust God and call him Father?  How will we know we will see his blessing upon our households rather than curses?  After all, does not God threaten to return fathers' sins upon their children's heads?

Not in Temples Made by Man

This Sunday will be City Church of Richmond's last worship service at our current site before moving to another congregation's building (we rent the space).  This will be our second move.  (After our inception in 2006 we moved to our present location in February 2011.)  Honestly, this is bittersweet for me, just as the first move was.  And I'm really bummed because I left my camera at school and won't get any photos of our last worship service.

But as I was looking through the photos on our church website, it helped me remember that City Church is not a building; it is the "household of God" (Ephesians 2:19) and the "family of believers" (Galatians 6:10 NIV).  City Church is the Stacks, the Walkers, the Bourgeoises, the Bonkovskys, the Bryants, the Warshaws, the Blanchards, the Shays, the Crawfords.  It's Gabe and Ellen and Ruthie and Todd and Jessee--all the wonderful people who gather every week to hear the gospel of God's grace to us in Christ, respond in prayer and praise, and to gather around the table to eat dinner with Jesus.  The real church sits in the pews.
  
"The God who made the world and everything in it ... does not live in temples made by man," the apostle Paul reminds us (Acts 17:24).  "In him [Christ] you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit" (Ephesians 2:22).  It is the people of City Church that make the building special, not vice versa.  It is when we meet and because we meet in Jesus' name that the building becomes special, infused with the presence of Jesus by his Spirit.  "For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them" (Matthew 18:20).  That fellowship with Jesus and one another in him is what brings us joy (see 1 John 1:1-4).  And this is not mere sentimentalism, but some kind of holy mystery that exists among those who belong to God.

Olivia and I are in the process of closing on a wonderful new house God has provided us in the Lakeside area of Richmond.  Just blocks away in "the white house" we rekindled our relationship in 2007 and began our married life in Richmond in 2009.  Yet as sad as it is to leave the white house or even our current apartment of 3-1/2 years, it's not the house that is important.  The address is simply the context for the memories--the questions and anxieties of our lives, the gladness of marital bliss, the challenges faced in our sin and the sweet joys of forgiveness, the birth of a child and watching him grow.  But we are that house, so that house will never die no matter where it moves.

Our new house!

P.S. - Daniel, Jennifer, and Caroline -- Our prayers are with you as you move to DC!  You'll be missed!

In the Flesh I Live by Faith

Ever since I became a follower of Jesus in college, Galatians 2:20-21 has been one of my favorite passages in the whole Bible.

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.  The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.  I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!  (NIV)

It's one thing to be excited about a Bible verse that captures the essence of the good news about Jesus when you're new in the faith.  But it's another thing to look back eleven years later and see more of this.  I guess that's one of the many things I love about the Word of God, too: it's so rich that it never ceases to be relevant.  As I learn more about life, it speaks deeper truths.

Paul wrote Galatians sometime between A.D. 48-52, at least 17 years after he met Jesus on the road to Damascus (see 1:18 and 2:1).  And what did he learn in those 17 years?  "It becomes evident that we ourselves are sinners" (2:17).  When I first began to love the gospel I think I had some idea I'd have grown a halo by now.  But instead I'm pretty sure the opposite has happened.

What I never saw before--and what I love now--is that Paul says that "the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith" (ESV).  For years I read "in the body" (NIV) and thought, Duh.  Of course he lives in the body.  He's a human.  He has a body.  I never understood why that was relevant for Paul.  But seeing "flesh" (Greek sarx) made sense of it: "flesh" is Paul's one-stop-shop for referring to the powers and postures of a fallen world and a sinful nature that tries to exercise every way of achieving hope and peace and life and joy except for submitting to God and trusting in him.  Our flesh represents our self-serving desires bent against God.

So why do I love this?  Because Paul just spent 17 years becoming an even bigger sinner, growing daily in his debt to God.  He knows he still lives "in the flesh."  He still has a "body of death" that perplexes him with his conflicting desires that rear their head without warning (see Romans 7).  And yet he can say that even in the midst of that--in fact, precisely because of that--he lives by faith in Jesus, God's Son.*  He sees he can't earn God's favor and love by his moral rectitude and just gives up, casting his worn-out soul on Jesus who loves him.

And if Paul can do that, so can I, because Jesus is not dead but alive.  In the middle of my perplexing, senseless sin that just grows every day, I can and must live by faith in Jesus.  I can know that Jesus "loved me and gave himself for me."  His death has not only fully paid for all my sins but also served as the culmination of a life of obedient sonship that became a fragrant offering to God (see Ephesians 5:2 and 1 Samuel 15:22).  And now, somehow, mysteriously, by faith his very life replaces mine before God--his obedience, his sonship, his place in the Father's love.

So I can go on living in the flesh, a stinkin' mess of sin and brokenness, knowing and trusting in Jesus.  The gospel is good news indeed.

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*Paul's argument in Galatians 2:17ff. goes something like this: Because Paul and his company are sinners, people are accusing them of using Jesus' grace as an excuse for sin: When people have Jesus, they don't need to be law-keepers to earn God's favor, so Jesus is a "servant of sin."  But Paul denies this, saying rather that they were "found to be sinners," people who by very nature cannot keep the law wholly and so cannot earn a right standing with God through it.  Rather, Paul sees how the law shows him his own sin and then how Jesus fufilled it for him, so that he can say "through the law I died to the law."  That is, the law itself showed him the law was useless but that Christ was faithful in every way Paul himself had failed.

Gladly Being Spent

[Wow.  Blogging again.  At least this once, anyway.]

Today as Olivia and I were planning out our daily schedule, taking advantage of a day off work due to some snow and late-night ice, I realized that her plans to get an allergy shot and go shopping with a friend from work would ax my plans to go running around the golf course.  (Getting pegged in the head by a stray golf ball is not something I generally like to risk, so I rejoiced to think that no one would be out on the links today.)  After all, I had to stay home and take care of our year-old son Ephraim.

I was in a sort of funk for a while after that, which I now attribute to the selfishness of my own heart.  While Olivia was getting ready to leave, I commented on how I really find it hard sometimes to see children from God the Creator's point of view: that they are an unqualified blessing.  "And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth'" (Genesis 9:1; cf. 1:28).  "Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. ... Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them!" (Psalm 127:3, 5; see also Psalm 128).  Let's face it: we have it easy.  Neither of us is a single parent, and we only have one child, who sleeps probably 16 hours a day.  And yet how often all I think about is how having a child limits my freedoms and ease of living.  I might be anti-abortion, yet I still functionally imbibe the zeitgeist that unlimited convenience trumps the challenges of raising children.

Then, as usual, God's Word exposed the thoughts and intentions of my heart and found them wanting and selfish.  Yay, I love that.  In 2 Corinthians 12:14-15 Paul sets forth a different attitude for parenting to his "children" at Corinth:

And I will not be a burden, for I seek not what is yours but you.  For children are not obligated to save up for their parents, but parents for their children.  I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls. If I love you more, am I to be loved less?

As a father, my chief aim should be to love my son the way God loves us in Christ, pursuing us to win our hearts: "What I seek is ... you."  Am I seeking Ephraim's love, trust, and respect so that I can point him to the Father above who loves him far more than I ever will?  Or is my desire and prize to go running, explore the woods, sleep more, have a clean apartment, or watch Parks and Recreation?

And in that pursuit am I joyfully giving up everything I have and expending myself, just like Jesus did for me? "Though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich" (2 Corinthians 8:9).  Jesus gladly "emptied himself" of all his freedoms and lived each day in a death to comfort, self-will, and independence in order to win back the hearts of God's straying children (Philippians 2:5-11).  Will I too do this for my son by sacrificing my plans, my free time, my convenience, and my sleep and spending these to serve and care for him?

Thankfully, all of this came to me while Ephraim was taking a nap.  When he awoke, God gave me so much happiness as I picked him up, fed him, changed his stinky diaper, and danced with him to Caedmon's Call's 40 Acres album.  Thanks, Lord, for my little boy, and every moment with him.  He's growing up so quickly, and these days will soon be only photos and memories.

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Why is it that at times we may confess our sins to God in personal prayer, and yet feel no relief of forgiveness?  Doesn't Jesus teach us that "your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you" (Matthew 6:4 NIV)?  Isn't David's inspired psalm true when he attests, "I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, 'I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,' and you forgave the iniquity of my sin" (Psalm 32:5)?  Why then does our sin still feel like a burden on our shoulders, sapping our strength as the midsummer heat?  And why do we end up falling back into those same sins instead of experiencing a greater measure of victory over them?  (Surely I am not alone in having experienced this.)

It may well be that we're looking for Jesus in the wrong places.

When Saul was on the road to Damascus to persecute early disciples of Jesus, Jesus met him in a blinding vision.  "Saul, Saul," he said, "why are you persecuting me?" (Acts 9:4).  Wait a second.  Saul was causing trouble for Christians, not for the Christ, right?

But Jesus said Saul was persecuting him.

This is because by his Holy Spirit, Jesus lives inside his people and is organically tied to them, so that Jesus can say, "As you did it to the least of these my brothers, you did it to me" (Matthew 25:40).  The saints, Jesus' faithful followers, are in fact where we encounter Christ this side of heaven.  We speak his voice, with his words (see Romans 10:14 NASB; 1 Peter 4:10-11).  He has put into the mouths of his people the Word of the gospel, the proclamation of forgiveness.  He has given us power to release people from their sin or to exclude the unrepentant from fellowship with him.  Jesus said to his disciples after his resurrection,

"Peace be with you.  As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you." And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld."  (John 20:21-23)

Think about that.  Jesus commissioned his disciples with the power to proclaim or withhold his own words of forgiveness (see also Matthew 16:19).  Could it be that in our silent, private confessional times we do not break through to relief because we're not swallowing our pride enough to go to a brother or sister with our sins?  It's as if Jesus is saying, "I was standing there, ready to assure you of my love and grace, of the wonders of my cross, with arms open wide--if you would but come to me!  I was there, ready to be found by you in the arms and words of your brother, but you would not go to me there.  As you did not do to the least of these my brothers, so you did not do it to me."

Looks Can Be Deceiving

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness.  So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness." - Jesus (Matthew 23:27-28)