Where I've been; where I am

I recently rediscovered the Bayly blog - 2 brothers and pastors in the PCA.

Check it out.

Their last 3 posts were especially close to home.

This one is on Rob Bell a pastor in Grand Rapids, MI, close to where I grew up. Brace yourself.

This one is on the latest unfaithfulness in the CRC at Calvin College, my alma mater. Ouch.

This one is on Doug Wilson. Surprising stuff in here. In case you're wondering, I basically agree with Tim Bayly. There are disingenuous people out there who warn you (like they are your friend) that associating with guys like Wilson could marginalize you... and then they turn around and marginalize you themselves. Contrast this with the courage to speak loudest on the most intense cultural-pressure-point issues.

Your daily Calvin

Don't forget my summarized daily reading of Calvin's Institutes over at

calvinreadings.blogspot.com

The Lord and Giver of Life

Based on Ezekiel 36:25-27

Without the Holy Spirit this meal is useless. He unites us to Christ as he gives us faith. He makes us members of His body, sharing in Christ. That union brings all His benefits to us. We receive His righteousness; His death covers our guilt. We are justified, we are being sanctified. He seals and assures the truth of all this in our hearts. He gives us these sure and concrete signs of His Fatherly favor and kindness toward us.

The Spirit is poured out on us and He restores the years the locusts have eaten. The Spirit is the Omnipotent God, equal and power and glory to the Father and Son. And His unique work is giving life and times of refreshing, a new heart, through the Word, the waters of baptism, and this meal.

This should give us hope in the midst of any situation. God can straighten any crooked heart in your life. He can smooth out any relational wrinkle you have. So this meal not only looks back to the cross; it also leans into the future, to the time when Jesus comes to judge the world with equity, and set all things right, when He drinks of this cup with us in His Kingdom.

The Spirit's Work

On Pentecost, the Spirit did His work of making the apostles bold to speak the Gospel of Christ. He did His work of making the people understand and take to heart the sermon Peter preached. He granted repentance of sin and faith in Christ, He gave joyful fellowship and communion together with His saints, a devotion to the apostles’ teaching in the word. This is what true repentance looks like, not just in the emotional moment, but down the road.

The question is the same for us. Are our lives characterized by repentance, or self-justification? Faith in God or self-reliant pride? Joyful fellowship, or at-a-distance criticism and judgment? Devotion to the Spirit’s teaching in the Word, or assuming we know what it says and going with our gut?

The Spirit cuts hearts to the quick. Let Him cut into yours now. This Jesus, whom you crucified by your sins, God has made Lord and Christ. This reminds us of our need to confess our sins.

5/31/09

Divorce and death defeated

Based on Hebrews 12:22-24

You are not just in this room, gathered and assembled together as Covenant Heritage. The Word tells us that our assembling is greater than any rebuilt earthly temple ever could be. Being at Sinai when God spoke from the mountain His 10 commandments, that isn’t as awesome as this. Being in Jerusalem and worshiping at the temple before its destruction, that isn’t as great as this. For you have come to the heavenly Jerusalem. You are gathered with the angels in heaven, with all the saints who have gone on before us, from Peter to Cyprian, Alfred, Augustine, Tyndale, Bucer, Edwards, your faithful family members. You have come more importantly, to God the Judge, to Jesus the mediator. And the last thing mentioned you now hold a token of in your hand. You have come to the blood of sprinkling. That blood was shed on earth, on the cross, but it is remembered and brought to heaven. The living, resurrected, body and blood of Jesus ascended to heaven and sits right next to the Father. The divorce between earth and heaven has been undone. Jesus is the ladder between them, the new and living way. Sin, death, and divorce are defeated by Christ. You HAVE COME to heavenly Jerusalem. We are at one with the Father. And that is changing things on earth. One day all wrongs here will be set right. Believe this. Eat and drink of the bread from heaven to strengthen your hope.

5/24/09

Putting away, and taking back

Based on Jeremiah 3:1, 8-10 - sermon on divorce

God searches our hearts completely. He knows every way in which we have been unfaithful to Him, committing adultery with other gods. We try to get out of our covenant obligations to God. He knows every lame resolution we make to ourselves or to others change, while still clinging to our sin. He knows all our pretended or exaggerated sorrow for our sin that we work up to convince ourselves that we will be forgiven. God put away Adam and Eve from the Garden. He cuts off fellowship with us outside of Christ. Our sin warrants divorce. But God in His mercy will take us back. He has shown us His mercy and favor in Christ at the cross. He provides us with the faith to believe in Him. He gives us a soft, faithful and repentant heart. This reminds us of our need to confess our sins.

5/24/09

For mother's day

Based on Rev 19:7-8; 22:17

The Church as mother

We are God’s children. He is raising us, preparing us for marriage, to live in His house forever. The Church is our mother, which helps prepare us, with the Spirit and the Word.

The Church has nothing to offer that doesn’t come from our Father

The Church is subject to her husband’s direction in the Spirit/Word

The Church teaches in the apostles’ teaching

Believers should honor and obey their mother the Church

Many Christians today try to do what naughty children do: go around mom and appeal to dad. But every wise father will ask, “Did you ask your mother?” If they already did, dad will take that child right back to mom, with admonishment to respect her: “What she says, I say.” Jesus Christ said this to all believers when He told His disciples, “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven.” Does that mean we make infallible perfect judgments? No. It means believers should respect their mother church with more than lip service.

The Church is fallible, but to be followed and generally trusted, like earthly mothers.

She feeds and nourishes, communicates love and emotional security. The Church is to support its members, encouraging them in hard times, assuring them of God’s love for us in Christ.

She disciplines and corrects. The Church disciplines according to the Father’s teaching.

She is fruitful

She bears children – conversion and multiplying new spiritual life

She is productive – not idle until our bridegroom’s return

5/10/09

Backsliding

Based on Jeremiah 3:12-13

We usually equate backsliding with apostasy. But it isn’t so much a major break as a gradual slide, as the word suggests. Backsliding comes as naturally as breathing, to all of us. We do not obey God, we scatter our charms to other gods. That means we seek our satisfaction elsewhere. We desire earthly things, thinking they will satisfy, but they don’t. This reminds us of our need to confess our sins.

5/10/09

Without trying to

"What makes us think that we could worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness in the midst of our culture without shaking things up a bit? This is especially true in these disintegrating times. The more the kingdom is the kingdom, the more a longing world will ask questions about it.... The most effective way for the church to transform the culture outside her walls, discipling the nations, is to quit being a lobbying agency. The fastest way to change the nations is to quit trying to. I am not talking about the church turning inward in some impotent way. I am talking about the church being the church..."

Douglas Wilson

Cool Weather = Warm Woolies

The crisp air makes me want to snuggle up. Here's what's been flying off the knitting needles the past few weeks, ready to keep me and some loved ones warm from head to toe.

(Groovy Stripe Socks, Chunky Dean Street Hat, Vine & Leaf Beret, Chunky Braided Button-on Scarf, Herringbone Button-on Scarf.)

Tradition!

So in the October 2009 Tabletalk issue, Michael Horton explains the phrase "Reformed and always being reformed according to the Word of God." He explains for us that the first word refers to a static thing that was accomplished in the Reformed confessions. "We don't need to move beyond the gains of the Reformation." Doctrinally, he means. We got it. We're set. The "always being reformed" part refers only to our ongoing sanctification, not to new doctrinal truth we could learn.

There are many adjectives I want to use for this, but I'll restrain myself and just say this is... unusual.

I understand his point that the Reformed interpretation of Scripture is set, and different from Lutherans, baptists, etc. And that interpretation can't be a wax nose to fit any crazy idea. But he essentially makes tradition infallible, which he later denies. He allows for no doctrinal development at all. Are the confessions all we need to say, doctrinally? No. Sometimes we need to take exception, clarify, or expand, depending on who we are talking to, and why.

Fairest Jesus

Based on Psalm 45

The best thing for dealing with our sinful desire is not to try to totally suppress it, but to re-direct it according to God’s Word. We see in Ps 45 where our attentions and desires should be. We long for the coming of the King, the Bridegroom. We rejoice that He is blessed by God, that He has the sword and arrows and throne of strength, that He loves righteousness and hates wickedness, that He has more oil of gladness than anyone. He is our FAIREST Lord Jesus.

We would do well to leave our father Adam’s lineage and brokenness and seek refuge in the Messiah’s house. This we do every time we partake of this meal. We act out that we want to be in His house and fed at His table.

5/3/09

Victory that feels like defeat, at first

I'm watching The Ten Commandments with the kids while Sara is downstairs hosting Ladies' Night at our church. Pharoah just commanded Israel to make bricks without straw, and I had a thought.

When Jesus died, rose and ascended, and sent the Spirit, things also got harder first. Persecution from the Jews, stoning of Stephen, whose face shone like Moses' did. But greater freedom for the church came 40 years later, as most of Israel died from disobedience in Jerusalem in 70AD. In the same way, greater freedom came for Israel when they entered the promised land.

Yet neither of these was a complete victory, as Christ has yet to come and consummate His kingdom...

Making it right

Ephesians 2:12-16

It was our sin that caused the enmity from God to us. Where we are often angry without a good reason at others, God had every reason to be angry with us in our sin. But He initiated and came down to us to make it right.

Reconciliation was on Jesus Christ’s mind as He went to the cross to set it right with you. Reconciliation should be on your mind as you hold this cup – God has reconciled Himself to you in Christ. This Supper will also bring to the surface things you need to make right with your brother. Listen to the Lord prompt you as you sit at His table. I don’t believe you need to put the cup down if you become aware of a conflict. But you must resolve to set it right as soon as possible, instead of let it sit and fester. It may be painful to set right, but God didn’t leave His enmity with us alone, and stand apart from us. He so loved us that He gave His own Son, so we wouldn’t die but live forever.

4/26/09

The cup as gadfly

Based on Leviticus 19:9-18; sermon text: Matt 5:17-20

These words are just another way of saying what Paul says in 1 Cor 11; he rebukes them for having factions, for despising those with less, for communing unworthily by not discerning or regarding the other members of Christ’s Body. Notice especially vs 18: the second greatest commandment has a flip side: don’t hold a grudge but love your neighbor. If you harbor feelings of ill will toward any here, resolve now, with cup in hand, to set it right. I don’t say all this to bring guilt and condemnation upon you, but to show you specifically how Christ has fulfilled the Law for you. He loved His neighbor; we have a hard time doing so. He loved His enemies; we are tempted to think it a virtue to hate them. Christ reconciles us to God, by His blood, the symbol of which you hold in your hand. That cup is a gadfly to bring complete reconciliation. That cup is also assurance that you are set completely right with the Lord. It also removes all excuse to set things right with one another, and it paves the way for you to do so.

4/19/09