Living out God’s Sovereignty

I was chastised by Buck this past week for being a horrible blogging partner, although not his actual words these words express his sentiment . . . “you’re pathetic at blogging”. In all honesty he’s right, this past year I haven’t felt much like writing, I find that writing as an expression of creativity comes easier than writing as a discipline . . . now I’ll see how writing out of guilt works.

One of the issues that we as a family (and obviously as an individual) have been dealing with is the progressive state of my dad’s battle with Alzheimer’s disease. The Monday before Christmas we moved dad to a nursing care facility and after many transitions over the summer and fall we are glad that this will be his last physical move. Over the years since dad`s diagnosis we have collectively learned more about Alzheimer`s disease than I ever had wanted to know about any physical ailment, but more than what we have learned about the physical and mental impact of this disease was also the spiritual implications that it had for us as a family.

It was difficult and interesting a year ago as dad’s condition progressed. For the longest time mom tried to cover up the symptoms of dad`s spiral, he had been diagnosed almost a year ago and even before that we as children were starting to see the signs. However when the night time wandering, depression and anxiety went out of control my mom tried to cover it up. Her answer when it came to a point (around Easter) as to why she tried to hide dad`s decline from us was `well if you kids knew what was going on I knew that you’d make me move from our house`. Then end result was that mom had compromised her emotional/mental health, they required 24 hr care for weeks before mom’s health improved and eventually over the spring and summer dad was hospitalized and we moved mom closer to one of my sisters.

I watched not only as a son, but as a son who had been brought up by Christian parents, attended Church and Sunday school every week (I even have a string of attendance awards to prove my/their faithfulness). I had been trained not only at church but also at home to trust in Jesus, to cast all my cares upon him, to lean on the everlasting arms of Jesus . . . yet here was my mom in her time of crisis not depending on the everlasting arms of her saviour but in her own strength and creativity to hide my dad’s condition so she could manipulate us as her children into thinking that everything was ok.

In the wake of those rough weeks and the months since the question I have asked has been “where was my mom’s trust in the sovereignty of God?” The chilling reality is that like many across our nation’s churches my mom never got past the fire insurance of the gospel and the morality code of church to integrate into her life’s practice the difference the gospel makes to us on a day to day basis. Whether from lack of teaching or that she had found a comfort zone in faith that sets one’s mind at ease (that they have done enough) my mom had never understood that the gospel life calls us to understand that all circumstances (even my dad’s disease) are under the directive hand of the maker of heaven and earth- there was a failure to understand and live out the great sovereignty of God.

This experienced has changed me. It has impacted me in the most deep and profound way (I as well as my youngest son have anxious tendencies) as well as in caring/teaching the congregation I shepherd. We have just walked through in our area a wild flood and still work through the implications of it (I will write on this maybe next year :0), as a congregation we continue to walk through terminal illness and daily crisis. Constantly we try to talk about the sovereignty of God and how he is at work in our lives and the world around us using our life’s circumstances to shine light on His Glory.

I guess the question I ask you today is how do you allow the sovereignty of God impact your life?

Rushing Through Christmas

Last night we had a full house for our Christmas Eve service.  As the service began, I became very aware of just how fast the whole season had gone.  I always seem to be really tired by the time Christmas Eve rolls around and last night was no exception.

The music and scenery was beautiful as usual, and as we finished the service and I walked to the back of the sanctuary, I noticed that there was a lady running ahead of me, obviously headed for the door.  She acknowledged me with a quick comment:   “That was nice…merry Christmas!” and bolted out of the door.

I am sure she was on some schedule that required her to leave, but she illustrated something to me that I really would like to change about myself.  I confess that I rush through Christmas, and every year, even despite my best intentions, I do it.  Oh, I prepare  my sermons and services diligently enough, but I catch myself getting tired and looking forward a bit too much.

As the service wound down, there was another lady who came through the line who was trembling and in tears.  We buried her son two weeks ago.  I embraced her as she came through the line,  and as we lingered a bit, I slowed down and spoke with her and consoled her the best I knew how.   Her son knew Jesus in this life and is now with Him in the next.

His widow came next an we repeated the same conversation.  “We don’t grieve without hope, but we sure miss him.” By the time we were done, I was still tired, but not so much in a hurry any more.  My mind was settled  and focused on the Gospel in a way it had not been all though the Christmas season.

I read these words from Martin Luther this morning:

This Gospel is so clear that it requires very little explanation, but it should be well considered and taken deeply to heart; and no one will receive more benefit from it than those who, with a calm, quiet heart, banish everything else from their mind, and diligently look into it. It is just as the sun which is reflected in calm water and gives out vigorous warmth, but which cannot be so readily seen nor can it give out such warmth in water that is in roaring and rapid motion.

Therefore, if you would be enlightened and warmed, if you would see the wonders of divine grace and have your heart aglow and enlightened, devout and joyful, go where you can silently meditate and lay hold of this picture deep in your heart, and you will see miracle upon miracle.

Merry Christmas!  May you slow down and “see miracle upon miracle.”

O Glorious Day

Like most people, I love music at this time of year.  As a kid, I can remember our family having a 8 track (yes, I am that old…) tape of Nat King Cole’s Christmas album.  I can even remember that the tape would pause and switch to the next “program” during the song “Christmas Bells Are Ringing.” (Those of you who remember 8 tracks know what I am talking about.) The funny thing is that when I hear that song on CD, I still expect to hear the pause.

As I got older, and became a Christian, I started to appreciate the depth and beauty of Christmas  hymns like “Joy to the World” (which wasn’t written as a Christmas song actually) and “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.” 

One night years ago, we were having a time of singing in the little church I was a part of at that time.  I enjoyed these gatherings in the church even though I was less than half of the age of anyone else there.  The folks would always sing loud and it was a great chance to learn hymns (because nobody would hear me singing.)

On this particular night, a lady requested we sing the hymn “Glorious Day.”  I didn’t think it was really a Christmas song at the time and I found the tune simply hideous.  I filed that song in my “do not sing again on purpose” category in my mind and for years would avoid the song when I saw it in a hymnal without really thinking much about why. 

Last year, as I was listening to what was then my new Casting Crowns album, I heard this song I really liked with vaguely familiar lyrics…

One day when Heaven was filled with His praises
One day when sin was as black as could be
Jesus came forth to be born of a virgin
Dwelt among men, my example is He
Word became flesh and the light shined among us
His glory revealed

When I heard the lyrics and realized that it was the same song,  I was a bit embarrassed.  I guess that lady who requested that song knew what she was talking about after all!  I love it these days, and I suppose I owe an apology to a lady whose name I don’t remember, who has almost certainly gone to be with the Lord now. 

It is so funny how we become accustomed to and even comfortable with our misconceptions.  It can be very difficult to accept that the way we have always seen the world might be less than accurate.  What a wonderful summary of the gospel story this song provides.  May we remember it.

Living, He loved me
Dying, He saved me
Buried, He carried my sins far away
Rising, He justified freely forever
One day He’s coming
Oh glorious day, oh glorious day.

Fashion, Phantoms and Common Consent

Romans 12:1-2 ESV

12:1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, [1] by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. [2] 2 Do not be conformed to this world, [3] but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Where in the world do we come up some of the tangential doctrines and practices that pass themselves off as Christian discipleship?  Perhaps the question itself is key: we get it from the world.  I know that many people have abused this passage and distorted it to meet their own minute legalistic standards, but there is a wealth of information in these verses.

Separation from the world is not to be reduced to a few petty legalistic things. It is wisdom to live untarnished in a world system that is dominated by selfishness, greed, pleasure, and indifference —all of which are directly the opposite of the Christian life. Ironically,  it goes both ways.  We can actually be conformed to the world by merely allowing our diametric opposition to “worldly things” to define our righteousness.

It is that state of mind of the world which dominates us and makes us worldly.  If my passion and intellect are shaped  by the way the world lives—to the exclusion of God—then I am conformed to the world.

When I fail to walk the freedom from the power of sin and in the forgiveness manifest in the Gospel, I conform to the world and its condemnation.  The Gospel has transformed my identity and this is vitally important.

“Faith involves both a renunciation and a reliance. First, we must renounce any trust in our own performance as the basis of our acceptance before God. We trust in our own performance when we believe we’ve earned God’s acceptance by our own good works.

But we also trust in our own performance when we believe we’ve lost God’s acceptance by our bad works–by our sin. So we must renounce any consideration of either our bad works or our good works as the means of relating to God.

Second, we must place our reliance entirely on the perfect obedience of the sin-bearing death of Christ as the sole basis of our standing before God–on our best days as well as our worst.”

–Jerry Bridges

We in the North American church seem driven by cultural trends far more than by the Scripture.  We are not called to engage culture or even shape it, at least in a direct sense. Many times we honor worldly sources of wisdom more than the Scripture.

Redeemed people are transformed, and as they change, they effect change on their environment.  The are transformed by the power of the Gospel.  This effect on society an implication of the Gospel, not the substance of it.  As Spurgeon wrote:

“The great guide of the world is fashion, and its god is respectability—two phantoms, at which brave men laugh. How many of you look around on society to know what to do. You watch the general current, and then float upon it. You study the popular breeze and shift your sails to suit it. True men do not so. You ask–Is it fashionable? If it be fashionable, it must be done. Fashion is the law of multitudes, but it is nothing more than the common consent of fools.”

–Charles H. Spurgeon

We see culture through the perspective of Scripture, not vice versa.  To do the opposite is nothing more than the “common consent of fools.”

A Gentle Tongue is a Tree of Life

One of my favorite poets growing up was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.  I went through a phase of my life in my teens when I was really into poetry and used to check out the “Works of Longfellow” book from the school library on Fridays so I could read over the weekend.

Around that same time in school, we were reading a number of Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories.  Poe’s tortured writing resonated with my own experiences as a young man, and I liked the macabre plot twists that were hallmarks of Poe’s work.

At one point that year, I had an assignment to do a biographical sketch of Poe as a report for my English class.  As I looked into Poe’s life, I saw the emptiness that was overwhelming my own soul at that time as well. 

Early in his career, Poe praised Longfellow and spoke very well of his work.  At a later point, as Poe’s personal life was degrading, he began to be very critical of Longfellow.  He took every opportunity to assail  him in many public articles of the journal he was editor of at the time and even wrongfully accused him of plagiarism.

As all this went on, Longfellow never responded.  After hearing of Poe’s untimely death , Longfellow expressed regret at hearing the news.  After being pressed about the way he had been maligned by Poe, he simply said:

“The harshness of his criticisms I have never attributed to anything but the irritation of a sensitive nature chafed by some indefinite sense of wrong”

What an amazingly gracious statement!  It is a wonderful example of the sort of “soft answer” that we are taught  to give in Proverbs 15

Proverbs 15:1-4

 ¹ A soft answer turns away wrath,
   but a harsh word stirs up anger.
²The tongue of the wise commends knowledge,
   but the mouths of fools pour out folly.
³ The eyes of the LORD are in every place,
   keeping watch on the evil and the good.
⁴ A gentle tongue is a tree of life,
   but perverseness in it breaks the spirit.

As a young man, I was a tortured soul, much like Poe.  As I get older, I am thankful that  by the grace of God, I am not what I once was .   When I read Poe now, I still appreciate his genius, but I don’t  really resonate any more with his angst.  I still enjoy reading Longfellow and hope that I can show the same grace in my behavior and speech that the old poet did when misrepresented by others.

These words of Longfellow I first read many years ago, are even more meaningful now:

TELL me not, in mournful numbers,
        Life is but an empty dream ! —
    For the soul is dead that slumbers,
        And things are not what they seem.

    Life is real !   Life is earnest!
        And the grave is not its goal ;
    Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
        Was not spoken of the soul.

Amen!

Drinking Deep From The Shallow Well

A few weeks ago, I went with our church youth group to “Seesalt and Missions” down in Myrtle Beach, SC.  The conference is run by Bill Cox an old friend from years gone by.  It was a bit surreal to see Bill’s children all grown up and actually leading parts of the conference.  (How time flies!)

Bill is one of the most gifted men I have ever known and he preaches Christ crucified to younger generations.  I have no idea if Bill is reformed or not and honestly haven’t had the compulsion to have a discussion on the matter with him.  Usually when I talk to Bill, it is to get an update on what is happening with his family and ministry and to share the same with him.

I had not been to one of his conferences for 17 years, but I did remember seeing many of my youth in former churches come to Christ years ago when we went.  I also remembered that there was always a nightly invitation.  Since I have SBC roots, I also remembered that the altar call is considered a vital element of most worship services in the south.

On the first night of the conference, Bill did indeed give an invitation.  The next morning , I noticed some guys who were having a debate over the issue. When they asked my views on the subject, I simply said: “Bill has a missional heart and preaches biblical salvation.” 

Over the years, I have become less inclined to give invitations, partly due to the fact that they are not as much a part of the church culture where I serve.  Also likely because of the excessive emotionalism of my younger days as a Christian.  There were times when I would urge people to “come forward” without really clarifying why they were doing it.

I was, at times drinking from the shallow pool of excessive emotion, sometimes at the expense of sound doctrine.  I saw people have emotional experiences that did not translate into life change.  Looking back, it seems that there was far too much focus on what needed to be done by the person rather than what has been done by Christ. 

Through the years, I read of the excesses of Finney and others who had reduced the gospel to a formula dependent solely upon our ability to effectively present it.  These are all valid concerns, but is it really wrong in all cases to give an invitation?  The short answer is no. 

I do think that many times invitations are mishandled for sure.  And when they become merely cultural expressions, they are of little value.  But, is it forbidden in Scripture to have people come forward to pray with someone?  I think some people take the regulative principle too far. (Note: I saw the fellow who seemed to object to the invitations go down on the last night with one of his kids, so he must have worked through his concerns.)  :)

Also, there is another equally dangerous shallow pool that we can drink from:  John Piper (not exactly an Arminian)  says:

We should be intellectually and emotionally more engaged with the person of Christ, the person of God—the Trinity—than we are with thinking about him. Thinking about God and engaging with him are inextricably woven together. But the reason you are reading the Bible, and the reason you are framing thoughts about God from the Bible, is to make your way through those thoughts to the real person.

The danger on the other side is to say, “All that intellectual stuff, no, no, no. Doctrine, no. Intellect, no. Study, no. Experience, yes!” People who do this wind up worshipping a God of their own imagination. It feels so right, so free, and so humble because they are not getting involved in all those debates. But it isn’t. It is losing a grip on reality. So we are compelled to think hard about God and the Bible…

Hanging on with the danger I am speaking of is pride—a certain species of pride. There are many species of pride, and this is just one of them. You can call it intellectualism. There is also emotionalism, but that isn’t the danger we are talking about right now. Intellectualism is a species of pride, because we begin to prize our abilities to interpret the Bible over the God of the Bible or the Bible itself…

So that would be my flag, the danger of intellectualism. And maybe the danger of certain aspects of it becoming so argumentative or defensive that it becomes unnecessarily narrow. That is funny for me to say because I think I am a really narrow guy, and a lot of other people think so too.

The other “shallow pool” is intellectualism.  Neither pool is where a mature Christian will dwell.  That being said, having drunk deeply from each at times in my life, I know that a sovereign gracious God can overcome both.  I leave you with a song from Andrews Peterson called ”The Good Confession.”  He basically tells the story of coming to faith as a child and then being called to a deep and genuine relationship with Christ.

 

Romans 8:38-39 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

When Infinite Mercy Interposes…

This week I have been pretty clingy with my children.  I am going away on a mission trip with the youth of the church for a week.  Though I am excited about what God will do on this trip, I admit that I have a bit of a melancholy spirit about the whole matter. 

See, I have never been away from my children for more than twelve hours or so.  Before you indict me as an emotional sap, please realize what we went through to have children.  Robin and I got married in September of 1990 with the intent of having at least four kids.  We both love children and figured we would have at least three before I turned thirty. 

But it didn’t work out that way.  For the first ten years, Robin did not get pregnant at all.  Around that time we starting seeing a doctor for some help.  Robin took different medications and I remember the first time she got a positive on a pregnancy test, I was so excited that I forgot to check the roof for icicles before I ran the snowblower (and got knocked out by one that fell 30 feet and hit me on the head.) 

But, we then found that the baby had not survived the first six weeks and Robin had the first of  three miscarriages that she would have over the next four years.  It was really hard for me to understand why there were so many people who didn’t even want their children who seemed to have no problem at all having them. 

What made it harder was the way some well-intentioned but misguided Christians behaved.  We knew one lady who was angry at God because she had only sons and no daughters even though she had asked God for a girl. She even complained to my wife about it (two days after Robin had  miscarried.) On two other occasions people “prophesied” that within a year that Robin would have a child and one of them even had the audacity to blame it on our “lack of faith” when it didn’t happen. 

The irony of the situation was that Robin did have incredible faith.  Not that she would have a child, but that God is sovereign.  The object of her faith was not her desire, but her Savior.  She understood that our faith is not based on what we wish for, but in what Christ has already done.  She was like Abraham (Romans 4: 18a ”In hope he believed against hope…”) Even if our Heavenly Father stopped blessing us today, because of the gospel, we have cause to never cease praising Him!  

Fast forward back to today as those of you who know us know, we have three beautiful children.  I love being a dad.  But now as I get ready to leave my little ones and my wife for a week, I remember vividly what those days before they came were like…and I rejoice, not just that they are over, but for the way God used those days to make me appreciate His strength. I really resonate with Spurgeon’s commentary on Psalm 38:10 

Psalm 38:10 My heart throbs; my strength fails me, and the light of my eyes—it also has gone from me. 

Sweet light departed from his bodily eye, and consolation vanished from his soul. Those who were the very light of his eyes forsook him. Hope, the last lamp of night, was ready to go out. What a plight was the poor convict in! Yet here, we have some of us been; and here should we have perished had not infinite mercy interposed. Now, as we remember the lovingkindness of the Lord, we see how good it was for us to find our own strength fail us, since it drove us to the strong for strength; and how right it was that our light should all be quenched, that the Lord’s light should be all in all to us.

So, I suppose the idea of being away from home for a week has triggered these emotions and I am actually thankful.  Remember I had said I wanted four children?   I actually have six, three here and three are with Jesus.   

Lullaby – Andrew Peterson

Well, I haven’t got a lot to offer
Just a rhyme and a melody
But I promised I’d write if it took all night
A lullaby for thee
 
CHORUS
They say there ain’t no sleeping in heaven
Baby, that don’t mean that you can’t dream
So when you close your eyes
Know your mother and I
Pray the Lord your soul to keep
And we never got the chance to hold you
And we never got to tell you goodnight
So we hope you can hear as Jesus cradles you near
Baby, this is your lullaby
 
So are you running with the angels?
Are you singing with the saints?
Are you throwing a ball against a heavenly wall
Maybe swinging on the pearly gates?
 
Well there’s so much love between us
And so much that I wanna say
I wanna ramble awhile with my beautiful child
Baby, I can hardly wait…
 
  

Do They Really Like Jesus If They Don’t Like The Church???

Dan Kimball wrote a book a few years titled “The Like Jesus But Not The Church.” While the book actually does make some valid observations, I think the overall premise is faulty.

People do indeed “like” Jesus as long as they get to define Him.  I am not for a minute saying that churches are not very much to blame for the most of the misconceptions that people have about Jesus.  But the cure for this problem is not a deconstruction of the gospel.  The remedy is preaching, teaching, and living the gospel.

When I say gospel, I am not referring to some sort of social action or morality, although a genuine belief will result in both at some level.  The gospel is about  spiritually dead people being made alive  Ephesians 2:1-3 ESV

 ¹And you were dead in the trespasses and sins ² in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in  the sons of disobedience— ³among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body  and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”

“The gospel can be summed up in two  words. Became-become.  Jesus became sin so we could become righteous in Him. 2 Cor 5:21″ (From JD Greear)

Ephesians 2:4-5

 ⁴But^[God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, ⁵even when we were dead in our trespasses,  made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved.”

 The church fails in its most basic function if it fails to proclaim the gospel.  Dead men need a resurrection, not a self-help guru. 

Perhaps this quote sums it up best:

“I can’t help but feel that lurking beneath the surface in much of the current disillusionment with the church is a dis-ease with the traditional message of salvation…People are passionate about the poor, the environment, and third-world debt. But they seem embarrassed by a violent, bloody atonement for sin, let alone any mention of the afterlife that hangs in the balance. Everyone, it seems, has a vision for the church that Jesus talked about in Matthew 16.18–the church against which the gates of hell shall not prevail. Many people read this today as a word about the church’s role in liberating the oppressed, bringing shalom, or storming ‘the authroity structures and control centers of evil.’ But the reference to the ‘gates of hell’ is a Jewish euphemism for death (see Isa. 38:10, which uses the Hebrew term sheol). Jesus’ initial description of the church focused not on changing the world but on the hope of eternal life.” (Why We Love the Church, DeYoung & Kluck), pp. 50-51

 It is not and has never been the mission of the church to give people what they want.  It is the mission of the church to give people what they need.  And many times it isn’t what they want at all.  May we say with the Apostle Paul: “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!”
…

One Hearted

I think  Rich Mullins did a pretty good job in this song of  interpreting  Matthew 5:8 “Blessed are the pure in heart,  for they will see God.”  The idea is conveyed is one of being of unmixed devotion or focus.

Everybody I know says they need just one thing
And what they really mean is that they need just one thing more
And everybody seems to think they’ve got it coming
Well I know that I don’t deserve You
Still I want to love and serve You more and more
You’re my one thing

Save me from those things that might distract me
Please take them away and purify my heart
I don’t want to lose the eternal for the things that are passing
‘Cause what will I have when the world is gone
If it isn’t for the love that goes on and on with

My one thing
You’re my one thing
And the pure in heart shall see God
You’re my one thing
You’re my one thing
And the pure in heart shall see God

Who have I in Heaven but You Jesus?
And what better could I hope to find down here on earth?
I could cross the most distant reaches
Of this world, but I’d just be wasting my time
‘Cause I’m certain already, I’m sure I’d find

You’re my one thing (one thing)
You’re my one thing (one thing)
And the pure in heart shall see God
You’re my one thing (one thing)
You’re my one thing (one thing)
And the pure in heart shall see God

Every night and every day
You hold on tight
Or you drift away
And you’re left to live
With the choices you make
Oh Lord please give me the strength
To watch and work and love and sing and pray

‘Cause who have I in Heaven but You Jesus?
And what better could I hope to find down here on earth?
Well I could cross the most distant reaches
Of this world, but I’d just be wasting my time
‘Cause I’m certain already I’m sure I’d find”

May the Lord grant us a heart of singular focus and devotion to Him.

Luther on Grace…

 

“Grace is not a gift given to the astonishingly virtuous, but to the morally threadbare and tattered.” – Martin Luther