Christ Church Troy Exhortation

Your life will end. Every thing that you have done or have left undone will be left behind and your very soul will leave your body. The body that has carried you. The body that you know so well. Your body of twelve years or eighty years. Perhaps a prime body of eighteen. The body that is full of scars and muscles. The body that is bone tired or fit and fast. The body that is pregnant. The body that has seen the sun rise and fall so many times. That body will decay. Your teeth will fall out and clatter on the floor and you will be standing there mouth agape. At the same time you will notice the skin sag and you’ll not be such hot stuff anymore. Maybe not. Maybe you’ll be strutting your stuff when the lights go dim. Who will see your impressive body then? Your workouts and toning will be for naught. Forget about showering or bathing because the soaps and bodywash are no match for the death stench. Forget about changing the sheets on your bed. You won’t need those where you are going. Forget all the comforts you know. The coffee, the beer, the wine and cheese have all gone to waste. Landfill material. You. Will. Die.

But how will you die?

Will you follow in the footsteps of so many who have gone before you? Will you be as the chaff driven away by the wind? Will your life end in a flash like a North Dakota grass fire? After your life has been crawling along so slowly did you expect an abrupt end? You came into the world naked and you will leave just the same. We really are all equal at the end of the day because we all end up horizontal.

Your life will end.

There is another way. This way involves another death though and surprisingly it comes before the life slips away from your earthly home. Are you scared of death? Don’t be. For this first death is actually the second birth. “How can we be born again?” is actually a fair question but I don’t go in much for fair questions and that is because the answer is not fair. The answer to this first death and second birth is the wind. The wind blows where it will. You will not see it, you will not understand where it comes from. But you will hear it. And then you will be destroyed. You will die. This will be a death by water. I already told you not to fear death. Why? Because this first death brings about a glorious resurrection. After you come sputtering out of the water and gasping for air, your lungs will be filled with the sweetest oxygen that you have ever experienced. You will get more enjoyment out of your body than you ever thought possible. You will be on fire and your smoke will rise to the heavens and it will be a pleasing smell. You will not be the only one though. No. This earth will be filled with 8 billion plus little fires. All of them shining. All of them sending smoke to heaven. Yes, all of you will die. But how will you die?

Joshua Dockter – June 9, 2024

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I had already picked where I was going to aim this exhortation before I realized it was Mother’s Day. Surely the Spirit was at work in this. The exhortation comes from 1 Peter 3 where Peter has just finished saying this- You were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls…and then there is a pause and a transition…In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands. Feel the weight of that first. Peter says people straying and being brought back by the shepherd is not unlike women being submissive to their husbands. Wives are to follow their husbands like sheep follow the shepherd. And then there is this safeguard. If any of the husbands are disobedient to the word- win them over by your submissiveness as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior. So husbands, you have a massive weight of responsibility to lead the sheep in your home, like Christ leads the church. And women, you are to follow your husband like a sheep follows a shepherd. How are you all doing with this? Men with your responsibility and women with yours? For you women specifically think of all the things you could be doing for your husband. The laundry, the dishes, the cooking, working part time, all the things you could be doing. Good things. What Peter says is precious in the sight of God is a gentle and quiet spirit. How are you doing with that? This is what God desires. This is what pleases Him. Go ahead and do all the other things but if you are not doing them with a gentle and quiet spirit then you are doing it all in vain. A husband wants a wife that he can trust. He wants a woman who will do him good and not evil. He wants a woman who is diligent and wise. He wants a woman who opens her mouth in wisdom and kindness is on her tongue. He wants a wife who praises him. But above all, if he is a godly man, he wants her to have a quiet and gentle spirit. Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, But a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised. 

So women as you go about your duties taking care of your household and your children lay all of your vanity down at the foot of the cross and take up the righteous garments for your soul, the garments of being gentle and quiet in your spirit.

Joshua Dockter – May 12, 2024

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The Christian faith is a bloody faith. There really is no nice or polite way to put this. We could talk about the color crimson or red as so many hymns hint at but that would not capture the fact that the shedding of blood was a necessity for this world. 

Consider with me the beginning of Genesis when the God of all glory opened Adam up in order to create the necessary Eve. No doubt there was blood involved. This act does not necessarily point to our salvation but it does show us that our God is involved with the things that bring life and where there is blood there is life. Eve is after all named the mother of all the living.

We then have our gracious God who covers Adam and Eve’s shame from their sin with animal skins and though it is not necessary to shed blood when you kill and skin an animal the fact remains that the internal blood flow has stopped. 

Life has been taken. Sin has been covered. A return to a right relationship with God has been called for. 

But animals could really never satisfy our righteous God’s holy wrath, could they? They certainly had flesh and blood as indicated by the sacrifice laws. We see animal blood being splashed on the altar and being put on the extremities of the high priest. Blood is splashed here and splashed there. Blood is everywhere.  Day after day the priests offered sacrifices but they never truly took away sin. This is because all of the grain, oil, drink, blood and even animal life offered never was the substance of a man. 

No, only a man, a sinless man, a true man, a man with the blood of kings and the breath of God inside him could take away the filthy sin and shame of this world. 

And Jesus did just that… for you. He offered himself for you. With all of your pride and greed and lust and dirty thoughts. With all of your laziness and complaining. With all that marred you as a sinful creature. When you didn’t even know you needed him. He gave his life up. Could it not have been another man or woman to take away your sin? Perhaps you could give even your own life? No. Never. The only way back to a perfect Father is through the shedding of the perfect son’s blood. And he did it once for all. 

His body was spent. His spirit was given up. His blood ran red. And when this happened, the whole world came alive. A life taken to give life. Jesus offered himself once for all time and sat down at the right hand of God and entered his rest. 

And would you have that rest? Then trust in the blood of the sinless one and let it cover you from this time forth and forevermore. Amen.

Joshua Dockter – December 10, 2023

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