Month: October 2012

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Lord's Day Liturgy

Right Behind Isolation

One of the great virtues in Scripture is hospitality. Faithful families in the Old Testament received visitors into their homes, sometimes hosting them for days, providing for and protecting their guests. The apostle Peter urged his readers to “show hospitality to one another without grumbling” (1 Peter 4:9). Paul identified hospitality as a necessary qualification for elders in a church (1 Timothy 3:2).

Hospitality includes welcoming, receiving, hosting, and providing for guests. It means showing kindness to others, be they friends or even strangers, as was often the case in the Bible. Hospitality is better experienced than exegeted, but it means that we open our homes, give of ourselves, and share our goods for the good of others. We don’t show hospitality because our guests deserve it as much as because they are benefited by it.

Where do we learn hospitality? Why is it such a valued virtue? Because hospitality is divine. Who receives others like God does? Who provides for others, not because they are great but because He wants to treat them greatly? Who has spared no expense to give good things to strangers? Who makes guests feel more welcome, strangers feel more at home, better than our God?

Stinginess is one of the great vices of our Christian culture, right behind isolation. Calculating how to share the least is not wise, it is ungodly. Paul chastised the well-to-do Corinthians for not doing so well as they hoarded for themselves (1 Corinthians 11:20-22). The communion meal, meant to illustrate lavish grace, great cost, and abundant provision, was instead used as an opportunity to serve self.

There is a lesson learned around the Lord’s Table that we should take to all our tables. Give as has been given to you. Invite the undeserving, shower guests with care. Treat others with the portion you would enjoy. Christ is a great host and He invites us to eat and drink with Him at His cost.

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Lord's Day Liturgy

Our Last Names

Many men have made the following observation: we–the people–always get the candidates that we deserve. That perspective is put forward by both unbelieving and believing political pundits. For Christians, the conversation relates to our worship and how our worship relates to our culture.

The biblical principle is that we reap what we sow. The candidates on our ballots are the cream of the crop, so to speak, the fruit of a culture.

Many Christians bristle against the connection. We would like to be counted differently than our unrighteous neighbors. In one sense, we are. We get into heaven by faith in Christ, not by citizenship of any nation, including the United States. Believers are saved even if the national ship sinks.

But in another sense, believers are responsible for the hole in the hull. We want to be counted different because we have isolated ourselves and privatized our faith. No wonder, then, that we have candidates who privatize their faith. We, the people of faith, have modeled how to keep it quiet and then we complain, in private, that we don’t have more faith-driven men to vote for.

As Americans, we get the candidates that we our culture produces and culture takes its shape from worship. As American Christians, we have not worshipped in such a way that honors Christ as Lord everywhere. We are to be salt, but the taste we’ve left on our neighbors is bland. We hide our light under a basket and then complain that it is so dark around us. Nominees for office are likewise wishy-washy and undiscerning but, when we locate their birth certificates, we see that they have our last names.

One Sunday of sin confessing will not altar one Tuesday of vote casting. But what we do Sunday after Sunday will inevitably affect who makes it on our ballots in years to come. If we really want to change our government, our culture, our country, our county, it doesn’t end at church (or in the voting booth), but it most certainly begins with us, with our repentance.

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Lord's Day Liturgy

An Accountability Table

The Lord’s Table is a table of community accountability. By God’s grace, our local church has not yet needed to remove anyone from fellowship due to church discipline. He has guarded our flock from gross, ongoing, unrepentant sinners. We have been able to enjoy the sweetness of communion without too much sadness.

This is fellowship worth preserving, worth protecting, and that means that not everyone is invited. In particular, when professing brothers refuse to repent from their sin after they have been personally, lovingly, and repeatedly pursued, they may be formally uninvited from participation.

The Lord requires one brother who sees another sinning brother to confront the sinner (Matthew 18:15). The Lord instructs more people to get involved if there is not repentance and, eventually, the (local) church must acknowledge the immorality and discipline the sinner by removing him from fellowship (Matthew 18:16-17). Those inside the church judge those inside the church (1 Corinthians 5:11-13). This is part of mutual accountability.

The church gets it wrong sometimes, more often than not by failing to deal with sinners. According to 1 Corinthians 11:29-32, God sometimes intervenes directly rather than through the church toward those who profane the body and blood of the Lord by unworthy participation at His Table. God is not mocked even if the church gets it wrong. Death is an even stronger statement about the value of the Lord’s Table than church discipline.

Of course, it is not much of a discipline to keep someone from something that we don’t value or enjoy. Our enjoyment of communion now sets the tone for later. The offender will miss out to the degree that we make much of this meal. We will give an account for how we participated, and it ought to be with righteous rejoicing.

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Every Thumb's Width

Four Bases

I started reading The Odyssey last week. This is yet another book I’m sure I was assigned and am even more sure I ignored. Like Roy Hobbs said to Harriet (sports star serial-killer) Bird, “The only Homer I know has four bases.” While the poem hasn’t “knocked the cover off the ball” for me yet, I’ve still got a couple thousand more lines to swing at.

The part of the story that provoked this post finds our hero, Odysseus, stranded on the island of the Phaiakians trying to get back to his wife, Penelope. He meets Nausikaa, a young girl out doing laundry, who seemed to him to be someone who could help him get home. Odysseus addressed her with the following flattery.

May the gods give you everything that your heart longs for; may they grant you a husband and a house and sweet agreement in all things, for nothing is better than this, more steadfast than when two people, a man and his wife, keep a harmonious household; a thing that brings must distress to the people who hate them and pleasure to their well-wishers, and for them the best reputation.

Here in Washington state, on a much less epic level, imagine a man outside of Safeway who needs gas money to get home. He observes a young woman with well-ordered hair coming out of the store with her friends and figures that she might be able to help him. If he flattered her about her marriageability, not only is it possible that she’d be frightened, she might be outraged. “How dare you assume that a woman would even want to be married!” or, “What gives you the right to say that marriage is between a man and a woman?”

Homer wasn’t a worshipper of the true God. The gods of his culture were nominally moral, and inconsistent at that. The stories told for entertainment included all sorts of the worst sexual immorality. And yet, these winged words from Odysseus reveal a worldview that still had some original, Genesis 1 and 2 image-bearing residue.

I’m discouraged that civilization in Homer’s day had a more civilized appreciation of marriage than ours. But the biggest whammer is that the first spouses to blame are within the church, not outside of it. If Christian husbands and wives actually enjoyed each other, if they demonstrated the glad dance of sacrificial love and submission, then maybe more people would desire marriage rather than deride it. Perhaps married life would once again seem natural.

I’m not arguing that Homer’s message makes it around all four bases. I’m arguing that Christians need to repent and take their marital image-bearing more joyfully for sake of our society and the next generation. May God grant such sweet agreement.

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Lord's Day Liturgy

God Never Wants to Say No

I don’t always want to forgive someone who has sinned against me, at least not immediately. I know the verses about God forgiving us as we forgive others (Matthew 6:14-15). I know the parable about how my offenses against God are far greater than any offense against me (Matthew 18:23-35) and that, if He forgives me, then I certainly should forgive a lesser offender. I know a lot of biblical truths about forgiveness and yet that doesn’t always translate into my obedient, ready response of forgiveness.

I may not have sinned first (this time), but I may very well sin second. His sin invites my sin to the sin party and I respond angrily or unkindly or impatiently. Then the Holy Spirit convicts the other person, he desires reconciliation, and confesses his sin. But by now I have my own sin that makes me want to hold off forgiving him while I huff around the resentment track a few more laps.

As bad as that is, I mention it mostly to make a contrast. God never wants to say, “No, not yet.” When we confess our offense to Him–offense that can’t be completely calculated since we can’t calculate His infinite righteousness–He never needs a minute to get His own heart right. He never needs to calm down or collect Himself before responding. He isn’t hassled or peeved by our confessing sin again. He doesn’t postpone forgiveness in order to prove a point.

Our Lord abounds in mercy and steadfast love (Psalm 51:1). He patiently and gladly hears us. He forgives us because He is faithful and righteous (1 John 1:9). He does it because He is who He is, because of what Christ has done, and because His name will be honored. He never sins in response to our sin, let alone our confession of sin, and that’s good news for us sinners.

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Lord's Day Liturgy

His Kids’ Table

We’ve all been to family events where the table wasn’t big enough to fit everyone. When I was younger, I remember throwing a fit (on more than one occasion) at being relegated to the “kids’ table.” Looking back, I think that the kernel of my desire to be included was good. What I failed to grasp is that was being included.

My parents could have left me at home, could have left me in the car, could have left me in the kitchen doing dishes. In order to be at the kids’ table, it meant that they brought me along, gave me a seat, and set a plate full of food in front of me. Why? Because I was their son. I was part of the family.

Slaves (and enemies) don’t get included like that. Paul reminds Christians of their family status in Galatians 4.

when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. (Galatians 4:4–7 ESV)

God’s Son took on flesh, fulfilled the requirements of the law, and then sacrificed Himself on the cross so that we could be sons. Jesus paid the adoption costs and we are family.

The Lord’s Table is a good sort of kids’ table; it’s a table set for His kids. Believers are included in every way in His divine family. He brings us here, He provides for us, and it all confirms that an inheritance is ours. That inheritance is only for redeemed, adopted sons, and our Father wants us to mature into manhood so that we’ll be ready to receive it.

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Lord's Day Liturgy

Guilty of All

The apostle James explained our comprehensive accountability to God in his letter.

For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. (James 2:10).

Of course this affects our confession of sin since, even if we’re doing every other part of the law but we find one sin, then we must admit complete guilt. If a man dies of a heart attack, it doesn’t mean he died in every way he possibly could. One way of death is enough to make a man completely dead. Likewise, one sin is enough to make us accountable for all of the law.

Remember the context in which James gives this explanation. Consider what he had in mind when he said “fails in one point.” While the application follows for many sins, the sin James was addressing was a failure to “fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture.” James was confronting the sin of partiality (in the church) since the start of chapter two. The royal law violated was, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

If we obey everything else in the law but neighbor-loving (which is unlikely, but go with the argument), then we are fully disobedient. Why? Because the law requires love. The law requires love because God is triune. The triune God made us for relationships, with Himself and with each other. That’s why the law and the prophets can be summarized as love God and love your neighbor.

We’re not permitted to “choose” our neighbor based on his money, personality, or position. We must love those out of our box, love the not-so-lovely, love those who need loving. Otherwise, failure in that one point makes us guilty of all.

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Lord's Day Liturgy

A Real Mess

Soldiers gather to eat in mess halls or mess tents. In this setting, the word “mess” does not refer to clutter or disarray, though it may eventually look that way. Mess comes from an old French word, mes, meaning “portion of food” or “meal.” The French word comes from the Latin participle missum meaning “something put on the table.” “Mess” eventually appeared in English during the 13th century identified with “liquid or cooked dishes, like soup or porridge. And by the 15th century, the same word ‘mess’ was used to describe any group of people who dined together.” See here for more info

As Christian soldiers we come to the Lord’s Table for strengthening. The mess of food, the portion before us, is Christ Himself. We eat His body and drink His blood by faith and for faith. We believe that Christ alone saves and we go away ready to work and battle even more on His behalf.

Our mess hall, so to speak, centers on the portion on the table. It also is about us; we are a mess, in both the 15th and 21st century senses of the word. We gather together as fellow soldiers to eat this common portion, and we are often a difficult, sad, and sinning bunch. We doubt and our faith gets weak. We are troubled and we trouble one another. But Jesus has done something about the mess. He gave Himself for us on the cross.

We may not be in the same unit, but we are in the same battle wearing the same colors. There is camaraderie around His Table because we hold something in common, we have communion in and with Him. Christ is our mess–our portion of food, that cleans our mess–our separation from Him as well as from one another. It is a meal of supernatural uniting and strengthening of His army.

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Lord's Day Liturgy

Ready to Run

The author of Hebrews urged his readers to join him and “run with endurance the race that is set before us.” While our leg of the race is ahead of us, we know what sort of race it is by looking behind us. The “great cloud of witnesses” are done with their runs, runs that included conquering kingdoms, enforcing justice, escaping the sword’s edge, and putting armies to flight. Others had less visibly successful runs, being tortured, mocked, imprisoned, stoned, sawn in two, and other afflictions. Not only is the race ahead of us long, it is demanding and requires us to be ready for conflict.

Our readiness to run by faith with endurance requires repentance. Not only must we “lay aside every weight,” getting rid of bulk and burdens, we must also “lay aside…the sin which clings so closely.” Other translations refer to “sin which so easily entangles” (NAS) or “sin which so easily ensnares” (NKJV), sin that gets around us and trips us up.

The word euperistaton (εὐπερίστατον) itself includes the nuance of how easily the entangling happens. Sin has a way of circling in close, of making itself seem desirable so that we wouldn’t expect that sin to cripple our run. For example, the cape of super-competency we drape over our shoulders turns out to have cords of pride at the bottom that hamstring our legs.

The run of faith is a good one as we look to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. For the joy that is set before us, let us put off sin that keeps us from becoming like Him.

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Lord's Day Liturgy

Joy That Cannot Be Lost

Jim Elliot famously journaled, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” There is much wisdom about forsaking temporal things for eternal things in Elliot’s quote. I think the same truth applies to forsaking sinful things for righteous things: “He is no fool who repents from what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”

When we choose sin we choose a fool’s paradise. Like the Laodiceans in Revelation 3, we imagine that we are rich, that we’ve prospered, that we need nothing (verse 17). But we cannot keep our dream alive no matter how long we pretend to sleep. The reality is that we are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. Only a fool would build his house on an hallucination.

When we repent with zeal (Revelation 3:19), we turn toward true joy. We turn toward Jesus who makes us rich with gold tried by fire, who clothes us with white garments and covers our shame, who anoints our eyes so that we may see (Revelation 3:18). When we come to Christ, He lines us up with a new reality, a true reality that cannot be lost.

The gospel not only demands that we repent from sin that we cannot keep, it also promises us joy that we cannot lose. To get from the losing to the keeping, we must confess and forsake our sin. It’s the least lukewarm decision we could make.