Psalm 37:25a doesn’t make its way onto many Hallmark Cards: “I was young & now I am old.” You are aging. Your body isn’t infinite. Very soon your earthly sojourn will be done. Aging is inevitable. This being the case, it’s imperative to make Moses’ prayer yours: “Teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom (Psa 90:12).” 

Paul tells young Timothy to flee youthful lusts. Elsewhere, he gives different warnings to aging saints.  Both older men and women are summoned to sobriety (Tit. 2:2-3). Older men are admonished to be patient, while older women are explicitly given a warning against drunkenness and being busybodies. 

Aging comes with temptations to grumbling, resentment, and regret. Life never adheres to youthful daydreams. Providence socks you on the jaw. Sin brings hard consequences. Others wrong and fail you. Thus, Paul’s stress on patience & sobriety. Older men are tempted to become impatient with youthful zeal, or else grow despondent and long for death in despair. Older women can become intoxicated with wine or pills or romance novels, seeking escape from their duties, regrets, or pains. 

Scripture paints another picture of aging righteously: “They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing (Ps. 92:14); When I am old and grayheaded, O God, forsake me not; until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation, and thy power to every one that is to come (Ps. 71:18).” Notice that combination of steadfast faith and undiminished fruitfulness in order to pass on both material and spiritual provision to future generations.

The chasm between aging righteously & unrighteously is found in that wonderful word: faithfulness. Faithfulness demands an object of faith and only the everlasting arms of Christ are strong enough to hold you steadfast through each year and enable you to truly age gracefully.

Ben Zornes – June 30, 2024

Read Full Article

As our society continues to stumble head over heels into the sexual abyss, we must be aware of the central play being run on us. It is not merely a cultural revolution. It is not merely an attempt to send our legal order base over apex. It is ultimately an attempt to unman man. We face an ontological anarchy that would erase the imago dei, if it could. Alan of Lille, the twelfth century French theologian, once said, “Large numbers are shipwrecked and lost because of a Venus turned monster, when Venus wars with Venus and changes “hes” into “shes” and with her witchcraft unmans man.” Alan was not referring to transgender surgeries, but homosexual practice. Such practice is itself a transgender activity as the active sex degenerates into the passive sex and man is turned woman.

Sodomy is fruitless, resulting in hollow wombs. It attempts to abolish man. By removing woman from the equation, man is stripped of his glory. His glory is discarded as entirely irrelevant. Men who engage in homosexual practice, then, are both misogynists, hating their glory, and effeminate, trying to be man’s glory.

Our answer to the work of this monstrous Venus is to put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Christ came to deliver us from sexual corruption and constitute a new humanity. This involves men acting like men, leading, providing, sweating, protecting, and bearing the glory of God as they sacrifice themselves for their wives. And this involves women bounding around like that woman from Proverbs with more fruit than she has baskets, and more children than she has rooms, as her husband comes home to discover, not only has she purchased a field, but she has vines from the Rhone valley coming in on Tuesday, oh, and for dinner she’s turned the leftovers into Turkey Tetrazzini.

This new humanity is a pleasing aroma, and the prophets of Baal had a better chance of calling down fire on Carmel than the rainbow revolution does of snuffing it out. 

Jared Longshore – June 30, 2024

Read Full Article

“But I say to you who hear: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you” (Lk. 6:26–28). 

These are the words of Jesus of Nazareth, and they have rightfully undergirded Christian ethics ever since he first spoke them. And so this morning, I want to encourage you in two specific ways regarding our Lord’s command to love your enemies. 

The first is this – you should live in such a way that you have enemies. Too many Christians think that Christ’s words mean that we should not have enemies. That something has gone terribly wrong when we receive opposition. But this is simply not the case. All the way back to the Garden, enemies have risen against the Lord and his Anointed. And if we are united to Christ, if all that is His is ours, then His enemies by necessity must be our enemies. As Jesus said, “A servant is not greater than His master. If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you” (Jn. 15:20). 

The second item of note is this – after rightly acknowledging your enemies, you are to love them in all sincerity. True love is not simply a vague feeling tucked away in the recesses of your heart. Rather, it is an inward disposition outwardly displayed. Love is concrete. Love can be touched. And here Jesus gives three tangible ways for you to love your enemies. You are to do good to them, bless them, and pray for them.

As Pastor Toby works through the Book of Acts, we have a great example of what this love looks like in the life and ministry of the early church. Consider the first martyr, Stephen, who prayed for his enemies as they stoned him to death. Or the Apostle Paul, who takes beating after beating, never returning evil for evil but relentlessly continuing to preach the gospel. 

Of course, their ultimate example, and ours in this, is our Lord Jesus. What enemies did He love? He loved you and me. And how did He demonstrate that love? He laid down His life – He did good to us – in order to make us His friends.

Shawn Paterson – June 30, 2024

Read Full Article

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away;may the name of the Lord be praised.”

Job 1:21

Job responds with this statement of worship at the loss of his children and all his worldly goods.  Given God’s commendation in Job 1:1 that Job was “was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil,” we can with assurance look to Job for an example, especially given the conclusion of chapter 1 that in all this “Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.” 

So, what is it that we want to imitate? One of our struggles is the natural temptation to assume that everything that happens is some sort of quid pro quo, or some sort of cosmic action/reaction.  On one level this is Biblical.  Consider Galatians 6:7 “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.” For example, if you break the law, you are at some point going to be held accountable.  Proverbs is full of warnings about the consequences of our actions — consider the truism from chapter 1 that bad friends corrupt good morals.  So, thinking about consequences for how we live makes sense and usually dominates the framing of our experiences.

But, how does this match with events that don’t seem to be connected to any of our actions?  Why did the tornado or range fire destroy my house but not my neighbors?  Why did my child get bone cancer and none of our other relatives?  Why did this person die prematurely but this other fellow live to be one hundred.  

David wrestles with something similar in Psalm 73 making comparisons between the fates of the wicked and the righteous.  The former appearing to have it better in this life than the righteous.  Still, David concludes in verse 17 “till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny.”  The God of justice will make all things right.

At least initially, Job reaches the same conclusion.  God is sovereign.  How can I complain if the potter remakes me by either giving or taking away?  Later Job’s friends can’t see beyond their assumed connection between Job’s calamity and some unconfessed sin.  Our lesson is to foster through worship that deep understanding that God is both sovereign and good.  He loves us and delights in us, and in Job’s case boasts.  So, as we process difficult circumstance we can confess with Job that God gives and God takes away but in all of this, He is just and good.

Matt Meyer – June 23, 2024

Read Full Article