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Christ Church Downtown Exhortation

Joshua Edgren on December 24, 2023

The unbelieving world doesn’t know what to do with Christmas. It’s too big to ignore, but the world doesn’t know what it’s for. Sort of like Stonehenge. They stare at Christmas in perplexity. “It must meansomething…”

And so, they try all sorts of things on for size: Maybe if we involve a magically generous old man in a red suit, that will make sense of things. No? Add reindeer. Still no? Well shoot. Okay, well, let’s try to borrow the trappings of a Christian age and see if that will help. It’s like setting the table with your grandparents’ chinaware and hoping that will make food appear. When all else fails, go for the sentimental; appeal to the feels. Just go for what makes you feel warm and snuggly. Fill the dishes with whipped cream. That’s what Christmas is for. It’s for warm and snuggly feelings. Ahhh. Glad we got that figured out.

But it’s not. And this is a warning to us as well. We can give way to a certain self-indulgence around holidays. We can try very hard to capture a particular feeling and become very uncharitable and impatient with anyone who impedes us in achieving those feelings.

This is a putting of carts before horses. We ought to feel a certain way, but as a result of bedrock truths. So as we gather round our tables, let there be peace, not a veneer of peace or an impression of peace, but true fellowship that flows from peace with God. Let there be joy, not coziness or frothy sweetness, but true gladness of heart that is the result of God’s joy in us, the joy that Christ looked to when He was on the cross. Let there be charity, not niceness, but the true fruit and outworking of the Holy Spirit.

In short, the truth that the unbelieving world is blind to is that Christmas means sins forgiven.

Joshua Edgren – December 24, 2023

Beatitudes #2 – King’s Cross Church Exhortation

Zachary Wilke on December 24, 2023

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

As Christ opens the Beatitudes with the promise that the poor in spirit possess the kingdom of heaven, we cannot assume that in his reference to “those who mourn” here he means a generic sadness. Certainly, the “mourners” refers to those who mourn as citizens of the kingdom of heaven. Or, in other words, those who mourn righteously and in faith. Or even those who mourn what ought to be mourned.

Chiefly, of course, we are to mourn our sin against our holy God and our neighbors. Paul says that godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, while worldly sorrow produces death (2 Cor. 7:10). Godly sorrow in this instance is an acknowledgment of our own depraved states apart from Christ, by which we come to realize our need of him and his work on our behalf.

But there are other things godly saints may mourn over as well: Jesus wept at the death of Lazarus. Paul acknowledges the pain of lost loved ones experienced by the Thessalonian church.

So no, the Christian life is not one of being blissfully unaware of life’s hardships. Nor is it an attempt to hover above them or pretend that the loss we experience in life doesn’t really hurt. The Christian life is a life of sins forgiven, of brokenness healed, of the dead raised, and of mourners comforted. The promise of comfort is not a promise of immediate relief from hardships. Like Job, many of us will endure great and deeply painful trials. The comfort comes to us in the presence of Christ himself by His Spirit, whom he calls “the Comforter.” Our comfort is not that God will withhold trials and hardships from us, but that he will be with us through them and that he will use such trials for our good and that he will see them to completion whether in this life or in the life of the world to come.

A passage like this is always particularly relevant at Christmas time as many of us can no longer enjoy the fellowship of our friends and relations whose earthly lives have ceased. Whether parents or children, siblings or friends, many of us are currently mourning the loss of these loved ones as we remember past Christmas celebrations and feel the searing lack of their presence at our tables. Still, others of us are mourning the loss, not of the lives, but of the relationships that we once enjoyed that are now marred by years, even decades, of estrangement and bitterness. Each Christmas comes with a reminder of sin’s devastating effects on those around us.

In these and many other scenarios which we currently mourn, let us now look to Christ’s promise here that we shall be comforted in them that we might have peace that surpasses all understanding.

Zach Wilke – December 24, 2023

Ruined Nature Now Restore – Christ Church Exhortation

Jared Longshore on December 24, 2023

One of the truths that will be shocking to unbelievers on the day of judgment is that they missed out on what it means to be fully human. Some of them will have heard and rejected the truth that Christ came to save sinners from hell. But most of them will have not heard that Christ came to make man truly man. This part of the good news is ours to tell and it is to our shame that we neglect it.

Our hymn Hark! The Herald Angels Sing makes the point—

Rise, the woman’s conqu’ring Seed,

Bruise in us the serpent’s head.

Now display Thy saving power,

Ruined nature now restore

Jesus took on human nature to restore our nature. The Second Adam has come as a life-giving spirit that we might have life and have it abundantly.

Put it this way. Christians know the truest human who has ever lived. If you want to know what our race used to be before the ruin, look to Him. If you want to know what we Christians are becoming, then look to Him.

This is why we confess our sin.

You are not simply to kneel and tell the Lord what you did wrong as if there are marks against your clean record and you need to get them removed. We confess our sin because we are in the process of becoming more human. God made us an upright race, and though we have fallen, Mary’s Son has come to restore our nature.

How much sin should you confess? Well, how restored do you want to be? Look at Jesus the man, and you will want to be like Him. And because He became like us, we are free to become like Him.

Jared Longshore – December 24, 2023

Grace & Peace: Proverbs 19:27

Douglas Wilson on December 20, 2023

At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

“Cease, my son, to hear the instruction that causeth to err from the words of knowledge”
Proverbs 19:27

Scripture teaches us by implication that there are two distinct kinds of ignorance. One is the obvious sort of ignorance that is the result of not learning. This is borne out of laziness, or circumstances, or native inabilities. The person concerned simply does not know the truth. This ignorance consists largely of the absence of knowledge.

But the second kind of ignorance is what we see cautioned against in this proverb. There is a sort of ignorance that is the result of assiduous studying, note taking, lecture attending, and book reading. A person who is doing this is growing in his ignorance, layering lies on top of folly, and follies on top of lies. The person in this situation is told to cease listening to that kind of instruction. If you are enrolled in a school that actively promulgates ignorance, then you need to make a point of dropping out.

This kind of ignorance is largely the result of the presence of error. Those errors can be extensively footnoted, and there can be a broad array of widely recognized authorities who blurbed the book. The entire academic world might be all in when it comes to whatever the particular error might be—whether it is socialism, or Darwinism, or climate change studies, or computer modeling of pandemics.

Smart people, meaning people whose intellectual engine can hit a lot of rpms quickly—they can make the tachometer bounce—can make the most egregious mistakes. And when they are bent on making those mistakes, and they seek to browbeat regular folks with their expertise, it is important for regular folks to simply stay away.

This will be called anti-intellectualism, but that is not what it is at all. Going back to our first point, there are two ways to be anti-intellectual. One is to avoid the life of the mind, to not care about the truth at all. But the other way is anti-intellectual also, and that is to bury the truth under a rock pile of footnotes.

“I have more understanding than all my teachers: For thy testimonies are my meditation” (Psalm 119:99).

Learning How to Lose in Advent – Christ Church Exhortation

Jared Longshore on December 17, 2023

Advent season brings with it a good deal of extra labor. You still have your regular work rhythms. Added to those, you have gift purchasing, party planning, meal organizing, and the sense that you should have an eye out to bless those you are able to bless. This means that advent season is a grand opportunity to learn what our Lord teaches in Luke 9:24, “Whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.”

This teaching is a mystery. An unbelieving man calls it crazy. “By definition,” he says, “if I lose my life then it shall indeed be lost, not saved!” But, we can see just how wrong this man is around this time of year. Those who are spending and being spent for others are somehow growing in merriment and greatness of heart, while those who are hedging their sacrifices are not. As the Puritans used to say, “The way down is the way up, to be low is to be high, to give is to receive.” Advent, then, is an opportunity to learn how to lose. In the language of Scripture, it is a time to learn how to be poured out. According to the paradox, if you lose, then you will gain. If you are poured out, you will not only be filled up, but you will find that your vessel has been enlarged and then filled up, so that you might be poured out again.

This often catches us by surprise. But it shouldn’t. Our Father gave His only Son. The Son gave His life. And He received it back, along with the salvation of the world. We must do likewise. Lose your life for Christ’s sake, and you will find life abundant.

Jared Longshore – December 17, 2023