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Monday, August 29, 2005 posted by R.C. 4:51 PM link |
Death in the Mourning It may be because I’m preaching through Exodus that I see this nail everywhere, and gratitude has become my hammer. It seems we are an ungrateful lot, and that’s a bad thing. We had a houseful of guests last night, feasting together, which is always a good way to remember to give thanks. But we do need to be reminded. We do become accustomed to His grace. We, and by we I mean me, do fall into half-empty thinking, and then God says, “Rejoice, and again I say rejoice.” In a few minutes I’m making “big breakfast,” farm fresh eggs (from a family that actually knows how to care for chickens) sausage and biscuits for my six children. I woke up this morning beside my dear wife, whom I could have easily lost last year. And in between waking up and making that breakfast, I got the news that Earl died. I don’t feel so grateful. Earl was a giant of a man, with a matching heart and mind. Like many Presbyterians he was something of a theology wonk. Unlike most, he engaged in his discussions like a child playing with trains. He’d certainly focus, squint, line things up properly, but in the end it was the fun of seeing the trains go. In his heart Earl knew that the grace of God was more than a doctrine. He knew that predestination established God acting in history, it didn’t cancel it out. And so as he grew older he prayed with vigor, and some confidence for a godly woman that would be his wife. God gave Him one. He prayed for a son that he might raise, and God gave Him one. And now Earl has even more, the unveiled presence of His Lord. Which leaves the wife and son. Earl was in so much pain for so many months that I want to rejoice for him. He won our contest. From time to time he would confide that he was praying to go home. I told him I was praying that he would get well. The prayers of a righteous man avail much, so now we know who was the better man. Over those same months, however, I not only watched him die, I watched his family deal with it. Sue has been a rock. Better yet, she was a fruitful vine, showing forth the fruit of the Spirit like she were some Canaanite vineyard with grape clusters so big it would take two men to carry them. Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control pretty well describes Sue to a T. Jake was equally a delight, somber infrequently, curious and joyful often, but always respectful. Of course he almost beat Earl home. He came to visit our home, and wasn’t here five minutes before he was careening down our mountain on a tricycle, straight toward a barbed wire fence. He tumbled over the handles bars, ate some dirt, and the bike landed on his back and he said, “Wow! I don’t suppose I ought to do that again.” We don’t grieve as those who are without hope. But we do grieve. Death, make no mistake about it, is an enemy. It has taken from a great woman a great man, and from a precious boy his great hero. But praise God death once took a greater Man, and a greater Hero, and found that it couldn’t keep Him. And this same Hero who has power over death, has the power to comfort this woman, to comfort this boy, and to comfort all we who mourn with them. Better still, He will fully one day put death to death, and gather all of us together where we will only rejoice, and feast, and give thanks. Today He reminds us to mourn, to rejoice, and to long for that day. [comments] |
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Tuesday, August 23, 2005 posted by R.C. 11:14 PM link |
Fool Me Once The Bible is right. It tells us that the serpent was more crafty than any of the beasts of the field. He still is crafty, and we still just fell off the rutabaga wagon. A case could be made that what we seek to do at the Highlands Study Center, in encouraging people to be more deliberate in how they live their lives, is expose the games of the devil. He sells barrenness, and we celebrate fruitfulness. He sells autonomy, and we enjoin submission. His craftiness, however, isn’t always fought best through reaction. If the devil says, somehow with a straight face, impersonal non-forces unintentionally collided and out came life, and we look to Genesis 1 and 2 simply as the antidote to this folly, we have already lost the battle. Genesis 1 and 2 is the true story of creation, because it is the story of God. If we miss God in defense of creation, we’ve missed the point. The devil also likes to mock us. We are told by the serpent, often through his respectable mouthpieces, men like Marx and Freud, that religion is a superstitious reaction to forces beyond our control, an opiate. We are told that Jesus is a crutch, and that religion is for the weak. The devil wins best, however, not when we concede the point, but when we fight it. We beat our chest, and become macho for Jesus, showing ourselves again to be fools. We whip out our strength credentials, and the devil laughs. Jesus isn’t a crutch for me, not because of my strength, but because of my weakness. A crutch is no help to a dead man. Jesus is more than a crutch, more than a wheelchair, more than a cure for cancer. He is life. Not only is He necessary to give my life meaning, but only in Him does meaning have life. Is He a means to help me face up to the harshness of this world? Yes indeed, but far more than that, He makes me able to face the harshness of the next world. It isn’t that He makes this world bearable, but that, because He bore my sins, He allows me to miss an unbearable eternity of anguish. We are the fellowship of the weak, who rejoice in our weakness, for once we were fully dead. We were dead, and now we merely stumble. We are the ones who can’t face reality, the reality of His wrath. Because of Him, we won’t have to. We who once dwelled in darkness now live in light. And we who were once fools, are fools still. When the devil accuses us, of weakness, of fear, of hypocrisy, of selfishness, let us speak with boldness that it is all true. We’re guilty as charged. But it is not true of Jesus. [comments] |
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Tuesday, August 16, 2005 posted by R.C. 8:42 PM link |
Building Booths When one is given to an inordinate love for the past we call such a person a romantic. Nostalgia has its place, though it rarely knows it. When one has an inordinate longing for the future, we might call such a person naïve. Hope too is a virtue, but that the sun will come up tomorrow, and that they might have silver linings doesn’t mean there won’t be clouds. What, though, do we call someone with an inordinate love of the present? This is, after all, the day that the Lord hath made. We would be wise to rejoice and be glad in it. But time stands still for no one. If anyone ever had an excuse for trying to stop time it was Peter, James and John. As they witnessed the glory of God at the Mount of Transfiguration, as they beheld Moses and the Elijah, Peter first stated the obvious, then asked for too much, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You wish, let us make here three tabernacles.” Wouldn’t you want to stay, had you been there? But there was work to do, and more glory to behold. I too have been blessed to witness the body of Christ in resplendent glory. For more than nine years I have been graced with the opportunity to serve that body that is known as Saint Peter Presbyterian Church. For most of that time we were a teeny-tiny little body struggling to survive. During those early years, however, the Lord was at work. I watched that small body practice true religion, caring for a widow in our midst, and ministering to her two small children in Jesus’ name. I watched young men and women mature, marry, and be blessed with new blessings. But things began to change. That small, tight-knit group gave way to a growing tight-knit group. God sent us sheep from all over the country. That in itself wasn’t the shock, but that with each successive wave we were able to assimilate, to welcome the newcomers in the name of Christ. As we grew we still saw God at work. God opened wombs that had been long closed. God birthed new Christians in our midst, of all ages. Health scares were dealt with both faith and faithfulness. Disagreements were handled through agreement, all sides eager to honor our one King. Eventually, however, we faced a problem—our growth. Whatever advantages they might have, large churches are not given to close relationships. Plus, we were running out of room. Even then we faced the temptation. Some wanted to bar the doors, to no longer welcome new folks to our body. We wanted time to stand still. Instead, about a year ago we went back in time, and tried an ancient concept, we opened a second parish. We split off about sixty folks, all of whom lived in Mendota, Virginia, and began worshipping there as well. Oh the weeping and wailing that went on when first we divided the congregation. Of course few wept more than me. One of the strange twists we added to this ancient concept, however, eased my pain. Laurence Windham, who replaced me as the senior pastor, not coincidentally, right as our growth started, and I determined that we would switch pulpits every three months. I am halfway through my current run in Bristol, having preached in Mendota from April through June. This unconventional arrangement has been a delight to me, as I get to serve not only the local and newer congregation, but the congregation at the church that I planted. I could go on like this forever. But I won’t. For God has continued to bless us with growth. Yesterday was the last Sunday of the two parish system at Saint Peter. Next Sunday a new parish begins worshipping in Abingdon, Virginia. With this addition the pulpit flopping comes to an end. We will still seek, as much as we are able, to cross pollinate between the parishes. We will still maintain a single session. But I will get to worship with the saints in Abingdon only on rare occasions, and the same with Bristol when my current tour there ends. It was a joy and a delight to be one congregation. It was a joy and delight to birth a daughter parish. And now we have birthed a third. God may, in His grace, stop us here. He may in His grace shrink and consolidate us. Or, we may, in the next year or two, open still another parish. Whatever His plans, I pray this. That I will remember His grace with gratitude. That I will enjoy His peace with gratitude. That I will look to His future with hope. That I will do this together with that body of saints known as Saint Peter Presbyterian Church. [comments] |
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Tuesday, August 09, 2005 posted by R.C. 9:45 PM link |
Slander to the Left of Me, Snares to the Right, Here I Am, Stuck in the Middle with You There’s always the tension. When it comes to eschatology and how it affects our lives, we must balance the already and the not yet. When it comes to us and the world around us, we are, as the saying goes, in tension trying to be in the world and not of it. We strive for obedience, while remembering we live by grace. We rest in that grace, while trying not to presume upon it. And so it is with the world around us. That is, not that they have the same struggles, but that they are yet another area filled with tension. I have said a time or two that the spiritual gift God has given me is thick skin. I am able to say some challenging things because I am perfectly content to have people get mad at me. I have embraced the Joshua theory of rhetoric. I do not try to sneak up on error or sin, “Why, you’ve almost got it right, and we’re not so far apart. Why not just take a step or two in this direction? You’ll be glad you did.” Instead I try to communicate, with all due salt and grace, “Choose ye this day.” Syncretists become syncretists precisely because they want to have their cake, while getting crumbs caught in their beards. They don’t want to choose, and don’t like being told to do so. This is especially so in a post-modern age. Some who read what we write, or hear what we have to say cheer us on. Others think we are crackpots. But then what do I do with this? Paul, in describing the qualifications of an elder says, “Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil” (I Timothy 2:7). What are we to make of this? Am I blessed when men say all manner of evil for His name’s sake, or am I disqualified from office? The answer, of course, goes to the cause of the ill will. Do my neighbors think ill of me because I think sodomy is disgusting perversion, or because I don’t pay my bills on time? I’m afraid, however, that this isn’t a complete solution. Who decides which category we are operating out of? For some time now there have been some inside and outside the church who have either insinuated or said outright that Saint Peter Presbyterian Church is a cult. Our tendency has been to laugh this off, and to weep for those who say such things. We, after all, affirm the ecumenical creeds. We are firmly committed to the Westminster Standards. We are under the authority of a denomination that is terribly serious about the Confession, and committed to church discipline. We submit to our presbytery on matters dear to our heart, on issues of communion and church discipline. How could we possibly be a cult? And who gets to decide? Now doubt Jim Jones found it amusing that others thought that he was leading a cult. On the other hand, the Romans thought the early Christians were cannibals. Which is why we are left with our consciences, and our creeds. The latter I am comfortable in, the former troubles me, which, I suppose is a good thing. Some people may think me a big fat jerk because they are big fat jerks. And others may think me a big fat jerk because I’m a big fat jerk. The key is to have no fear that others think me a jerk, but to always fear that I am being a jerk. Spurgeon had a young pastor come to him for counsel. It seems that a whispering campaign had begun against the poor young man. He poured out his heart, highlighted the slanders that had been spoken. Spurgeon, in his characteristic wisdom replied, “What you need to do is get on your knees and pray. In your prayers give deep and hearty thanks to God that those who speak this evil against you don’t know you. For then they could speak even more evil against you, and speak it truthfully.” In short, repentance is always a good thing. Look for the sin. Hear the accusations. They may expose something you’ve missed. And always remember that your Father loves you as His only Son, and nothing can take that away. [comments] |