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Form and Freedom – Christ Church Exhortation

Jared Longshore on July 7, 2024

Any good leader will tell you that you want both form and freedom in an organization. The form without freedom approach sucks all of the life out of the room. Yes, the table is set perfectly. But the spirit of this dinner is such that all you can hear is the clinking of forks on plates amid those deafening silences. Everything is indeed in its place. But you should have seen the lash employed to make it so. In the face of this error, the libertine in us wags a finger and insists that freedom will be championed and all of that crusty form forsaken. But the freedom without form approach results in mom cooking no dinner, dad bringing home no bacon, and little Johnny throwing the steak knives at his sister’s door.

So form and freedom together is the target. But hitting that target is not simply a matter of balance. The goal is not 50% form and 50% freedom, as if you were cooking some soup putting in a dash of one or the other. After all, if you only have 50% form, then you’re left with 50% disorder, and only 50% freedom means 50% slavery. Yes, form and freedom must go together but in a way that you are entirely free and entirely formed. You’re looking for 100% form and 100% freedom. Our LORD said, “if the Son sets you free you will be free indeed” (John 8:36). And the same God said, “Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).

This is not easy, of course, and we might want to echo the disciples who once said to our Lord, “This is a hard saying, who can hear it?” His reply to them at that time is fitting to this teaching as well. He said, “It is the spirit that quickens; the flesh profits nothing” (John 6:63).

Jared Longshore – July 7, 2024

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Christ Church Downtown Exhortation

Jeremiah Jasso on July 7, 2024

As we all know, the fourth commandment is a wonderful blessing from God where we are commanded to rest and worship 1 day out of the week as we remember our redemption in Jesus Christ. But what’s striking about this commandment is that the majority of these two verses is devoted to exhorting those in authority not only to rest, but to GIVE rest. The commandment is quickly stated and then God focuses on giving instruction on how this is to be done. 

Those who have children, those who have servants, we can compare that to having employees, and those who govern any institution, whether it be family or business, are to make sure that those under their authority get to rest. So not only is this an opportunity to be blessed yourself by resting on the Lord’s day, it is an opportunity to bless those around you by giving them rest as well. 

This means that as husbands you ought to be looking for ways to make sure your wife rests on the sabbath. This could mean striking a deal with your wife that you will take care of the dishes, dinner & diapers on Sunday. Or not lingering late into the night at a social event on Saturday night ensuring tired, squirmy, babies on the sabbath. 

This means as mothers you ought to govern the household with the Lord’s day in mind, taking advantage of the day of preparation to free up time for rest and worship on Sunday for your children. 

Now of course, things will happen. Your Ox may be stuck in a ditch more than a few times and it’s important not to be legalistic about these things, but with that said, we should strive to obtain the blessings available for us in obeying these commands. Not because by doing these things we earn salvation, but because by doing these things we get to delight in the salvation wrought for us by God Himself.

Jeremiah Jasso – June 2, 2024

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Grace & Peace: Proverbs 21:7

Douglas Wilson on July 3, 2024

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

“The robbery of the wicked shall destroy them; Because they refuse to do judgment”

Proverbs 21:7

“The violence of the wicked will destroy them, Because they refuse to do justice”

Proverbs 21:7

The disparity between the KJV and NKJV (robbery/violence) is not the result of mistranslation, but rather the consequence of the underlying word having a broad semantic range—despoil, oppress, devastate, deal violently, rob, pillage. 

The principle here is that a certain kind of wickedness, greedy for gain, snatches at that gain in counterproductive and suicidal ways. Because justice is not their concern at all, they refuse to “do judgment.” They do not recognize any standard over them that arises from outside the realm of their own lusts and desires. All their guiding principles arise from within, and the end result of that is self-destruction. 

They fall into the pit they dug for others. Haman built a gallows for Mordecai, and yet he was the one who wound up swinging from it. They scheme and plot without reference to righteousness, which is why a righteous universe will not suffer them to get away with it. The way the world is recoils upon them. They get caught in their own traps, tangled up in their own wires, ensnared by their own tricksy hearts. 

All of this is because they would not tolerate that hateful word no. They refused accountability, and resolved to ignore any admonitions that went contrary to what they wanted in the moment. As it turns out, this is a very poor strategy for making your way in the world. It is an artificial feedback loop that provides you with nothing but lies to go on. 

There is only one thing that the violent robber does recognize that is outside of him, and that would be the shiny bauble that he is reaching for. But it, like everything else in this arrangement, is deceptive. 

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Now I Am Old – Christ Church Downtown Exhortation

Ben Zornes on June 30, 2024

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

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The Unmanning of Man – Christ Church Exhortation

Jared Longshore on June 30, 2024

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

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