Christ Church


Our Culture, What Remains of It (State of the Church 2018 #1)

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Introduction

Instead of a stand-alone “state of the church” message this year, as has been our custom, I want to spend a number of weeks on the topic. Lord willing, I intend to drill down into the subject, and I trust that the reasons for doing so will become increasingly apparent as we work through the series. The point of these messages will be to help you, as members of Christ Church, to better understand the crisis of our times, along with the demeanor we as Christians are called to cultivate in the course of such a crisis.

We also must address an explication of the basic strategy that we have been using here in our community for a number of decades now. This is because we have been greatly blessed in our community, and so we need to equip ourselves in two areas. We must educate the immigrants, and we must educate the next generation. If we do not do this, then we will be faced with two disasters. The first is what might be called “Californians moving to Texas, but continuing to vote like Californians.” The second is the son of a billionaire growing up without ever breaking a sweat, or knowing what having calluses might be like.

As If There Were No Text

As you know, at this place on the outline, it is our practice to quote the text that the message is designed to unfold and apply. There is no text here today, not because we will not be bringing Scripture to bear shortly, but rather to illustrate the fundamental disease of our time. As a people, we have pretended to ourselves that a secular order is even possible. We have pretended that a people can exist without a transcendent Word. The deeper we descend into this folly the higher our impudence grows. To be without God is to be without hope in the world (Eph. 2:12).

In the spirit of having no text, here is a text: “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, That I will send a famine in the land, Not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord: And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it” (Amos 8:11–12).

A Minister’s Task

The message a minister is appointed to proclaim is the basic gospel message—the life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus (1 Cor. 15:1-4)—oriented, as it necessarily must be, to the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27). But the wisdom of God is not placed in our trust so that we may speak it into a void. The preacher is not supposed to learn what he is supposed to say the same way a parrot does, or an answering machine, and then say that, regardless of the circumstances.

No. Preachers of the gospel must also be students of the culture they are sent to. A minister must be a student of the Word, but he must also be a student of men. He must study them—not just men generally, but the men of his own era, the men to whom he is charged to bring the gospel. When the Lord speaks to each of the angels of the seven churches of Asia, the message for each church is different. Same gospel, different sins, different message applying that gospel.

And men are not to be studied so that the minister might best know how to flatter them. “For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is witness” (1 Thess. 2:5, ESV). Rather, they must be studied because their sins are different, their blind spots vary, and this is why their fortifications against the Spirit of God must be attacked differently.

“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:3–5).

A man who is charged with pulling down strongholds must be a student, therefore, of two things. He must be a student of the gear he is using, and he must be a student of the tower he is toppling. He must know the gospel, and the Scripture that houses it, and he must also know the state of the current imaginations. He needs to know where to attach the ropes.

Our Culture, What Remains of It

We are in the midst of a massive religious/political/cultural transformation. But we cannot assume that this is all downside. God shakes what can be shaken so that what cannot be shaken may remain. In the meantime, speaking of traditions, there are no pacifist traditions left. All traditions must be militant in order to survive this time of upheaval.

In such a time, Christians must be conservative when it comes to everything that the Spirit has accomplished in the history of our civilization. And we must be progressive with regard to all the things He has yet to do.

The Sinful Symptoms

It is difficult to make it through the evening news without encountering multiple examples of our contemporary follies—the blood guilt of abortion on demand, the insanity of transgenderism, the idea that more government can save us from the weather, the acceptance of socialist collectivism, the indulgence of snowflakes, the incompetence of modern educators, the epidemic of food guilt, and more. The disease lies within, but the splotches on the skin are pretty ugly.

The Disease Within

The root of every rebellion (in every culture) must always be identified as pride, and the lust for autonomy. But this central sin manifests itself in different ways in different times, using different methods, concepts, and techniques. These are the tools that are currently being used on us. Please be aware that there are areas of overlap between these.

• Secularism—the idea that a culture can be religiously neutral;
• Darwinism—the idea that we somehow arrived here by ourselves, and which makes secularism a scientifically respectable concept;
• Egalitarianism—the idea that blessings for others are tantamount to oppression for me;
• Value/Fact Distinction—the idea that “reality” is divisible;
• Admiration of the Cool Kids—the idea that what matters is copping a pose.

Some might worry that I am adding “intellectual” requirements to the simple gospel of Christ. Don’t worry—it is actually the reverse. You generally need a couple years of grad school before you can really buy into any of these mistakes.

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The God Who Stoops

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Introduction

The message of the gospel is one that not only brings us forgiveness of sin, but also one that upends all our categories. God unmakes our tawdry pasts, and replaces them with a fresh start, a new birth, a clean slate. But He also intends to unmake our officious assumptions about what all those things must mean.

The Text

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, Neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Is. 55:8–9).

Summary of the Text

Through His prophet Isaiah, God tells the Israelites that He does not think the same way that they do. His ways are not their ways, according to the Lord’s declaration here (v. 8). The reason for this is that God’s ways are higher than ours, and are higher in the way that the heavens are higher than the earth. The same thing goes for His thoughts (v. 8). God’s ways and thoughts are higher.

But this means that His thoughts are higher than our thoughts about what constitutes higher things. God, in other words, can be highly irreverent. Through the Incarnation, God has declared that He at any rate was not going to stand upon His dignity. We believe that for God to be higher means that He could not possibly dwell with the lowly. But this is far from the case. The Incarnation—even when we think we have gotten used to it—is profoundly unsettling.

A Different Calculus

What men think is wealthy and respectable is Mammon worship in the sight of God.

“And he said unto them, Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God” (Luke 16:15).

What men think is reverent and humble is thought by God to be arrogant and insolent nonsense.

“Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool: what house will ye build me? saith the Lord: or what is the place of my rest? Hath not my hand made all these things? Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye” (Acts 7:49–51).

What men call obedience is actually stiff-necked rebellion in the sight of God.

“And Saul said unto Samuel, Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and have gone the way which the Lord sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites” (1 Sam. 15:20).

A God of Reversals

So with all that in mind, consider this great juxtaposition from Isaiah:

“For thus saith the high and lofty One That inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones” (Is. 57:15).

Where does God live? He inhabits eternity. He dwells in the high and holy place. So far, this accords with our sense of propriety. But this high and holy one, this eternal one, also dwells with the contrite and lowly spirit. What is He doing there? He is reviving the hearts of those who are contrite. God stoops in order to pick us up. How far did He stoop?

In a Lowly Manger

And how does this apply to our understanding of Christmas? Take these thoughts from Martin Luther:

“If Christ had arrived with trumpets and lain in a cradle of gold, his birth would have been a splendid affair. But it would not be a comfort to me. He was rather to lie in the lap of a poor maiden and be thought of little significance in the eyes of the world. Now I can come to him. Now he reveals himself to the miserable in order not to give any impression that he arrives with great power, splendor, wisdom, and aristocratic manners.”

The Lord Jesus was born into our poverty so that He might liberate us from our poverty. And by poverty I mean poverty of all kinds—spiritual, financial, emotional, and intellectual. The Lord Jesus was no Little Lord Fauntleroy. He was not, as the French saying goes, like a “little Jesus in velvet pants.” Joseph and Mary sacrificed turtle doves at his dedication, which was the sacrifice that the Mosaic law set apart for the poor. What does this mean? He means that He is the Savior. Let us use a word that might hit us harder (because we have turned Savior into one of our “religion words”). He is our Shield and Buckler. He is our Deliverer. He is the Messiah. He is the Christ, I tell you.

So It Begins With a Child

When the first Adam was created, he was shaped out of the dust of the ground, and he was a fully formed man, but without the breath of life. When God breathed into him, he had sudden existence, and though he was just five minutes old, he looked like a thirty-year-old man (say).

But the Lord Jesus stooped all the way down to a single cell. The eternal Son of God, according to His Deity, was conjoined with a cell that had roughly the thickness of a hair. He was of the seed of David according to the flesh and declared to be the Son of God through His resurrection (Rom. 1:3-4). He was not only as small as we are, but He also became small in comparison to us.

“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: And the government shall be upon his shoulder: And his name shall be called Wonderful, Counseller, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, Upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, To order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice From henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this” (Is. 9:6–7).

The Zeal of the Lord for Salvation

What has been accomplished for us has been accomplished by the zeal of the Lord of hosts. He is the one who has performed it, and He began by stooping low. As C.S. Lewis put it so wonderfully.

“He must stoop in order to lift, he must almost disappear under the load before he incredibly straightens his back and marches off with the whole mass swaying on his shoulders.”

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The Potency of Right Worship

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Introduction

Many of the problems confronting modern Christians is that they diligently try to do the right thing . . . in the wrong categories. They try guitar fingering on a mandolin; they try chess rules on a backgammon board; they apply the rules of French grammar to English. And for us to draw attention to such mistakes is not to object to any of these things in particular—chess, guitar, backgammon, whatever. But this is the mistake we make whenever we try to “make a difference” and our activity does not proceed directly from a vision of the Almighty Lord, high and lifted up.

The Text

“The LORD reigneth; let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of isles be glad thereof. Clouds and darkness are round about him: righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne. A fire goeth before him, and burneth up his enemies round about. His lightnings enlightened the world: the earth saw, and trembled. The hills melted like wax at the presence of the LORD, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth. The heavens declare his righteousness, and all the people see his glory. Confounded be all they that serve graven images, that boast themselves of idols: worship him, all ye gods. Zion heard, and was glad; and the daughters of Judah rejoiced because of thy judgments, O LORD. For thou, LORD, art high above all the earth: thou art exalted far above all gods. Ye that love the LORD, hate evil: he preserveth the souls of his saints; he delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked. Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart. Rejoice in the LORD, ye righteous; and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness” (Ps. 97:1-12).

Overview

God reigns, and the whole earth is called to rejoice (v. 1). His holiness is not what we might assume—His righteousness and judgment are like clouds and darkness (v. 2). A fire precedes Him, and burns up His enemies (v. 3). Lightning flashes, and the whole created order sees it, and trembles (v. 4). In the presence of God, hills and mountains melt like wax in a fire (v. 5). The heavens preach, and everyone sees His glory (v. 6). A curse is pronounced—confounded be all false worshippers, and all gods are summoned to worship the one God (v. 7). When this is proclaimed Zion hears and is glad. The daughters of Judah rejoice (v. 8). Why do we rejoice? Because the Lord is exalted high above all the earth (v. 9). This transcendent sense of true worship has potent ethical ramifications—you that love the Lord, hate evil (v. 10). In this setting, God delivers His people from those who return the hatred (v. 10). Light is sown for the righteous; gladness for the upright (v. 11). We are summoned by Him to therefore rejoice, and to give thanks as we remember His holiness (v. 12).

Clouds and Darkness

Holiness is not manageable (v. 2). Holiness does not come in a shrink-wrapped box. Holiness is not marketable. Holiness is not tame. Holiness is not sweetsy-nice. Holiness is not represented by kitschy figurines. Holiness is not smarmy. Holiness is not unctuous. Holiness is not domesticated. But worship a god who is housebroken to all your specifications, and what is the result? Depression, and a regular need for sedatives—better living through chemistry.

Holiness is wild. Holiness is three tornadoes in a row. Holiness is a series of black thunderheads coming in off the bay. Holiness is impolite. Holiness is darkness to make a sinful man tremble. Holiness beckons us to that darkness, where we do not meet ghouls and ghosts, but rather the righteousness of God. Holiness is a consuming fire. Holiness melts the world. And when we fear and worship a God like this, what is the result? Gladness of heart.

Gladness for the Upright in Heart

Worship the god who does nothing but kittens and pussy willows, and you will end in despair. Worship the God of the jagged edge, the God whose holiness cannot be made palatable for the middle class American consumer, and the result is deep gladness. Do you hear that? Gladness, not pomposity. And, thank God, such gladness does not make us parade about with cheeks puffed slighted out, or speak with lots of rotund vowels, or strut with sanctimonious air. Gladness, laughter, joy—set these before you. This is deep Christian faith, and not what so many are marketing today in the name of Jesus. The tragedy is that in the name of relevance the current expression of the faith in America today is superficial all the way down.

Ye That Love the Lord . . .

Hate evil. So this is why an ethical application of the vision of the holy is most necessary. If we bypass this vision of who God actually is, the necessary result will be a prissy moralism, and not the robust morality of the Christian faith. The distance between moralism and true morality is vast, and the thing that creates this distance is knowledge of the holy. Those who content themselves with petty rules spend all their time fussing about with hemlines, curfews, and scruples about alcohol. But those who see this folly and go off in their own little libertine direction are no better. The former act as though their moralism is grounded on the dictates of a gremlin-like god who lives in their attic, but his word is law. The latter say that this is stupid, and aspire to become the gremlin themselves. There are two parts: love the Lord. Hate evil.

The Potency of Right Worship

In this psalm, how should we define right worship? The answer is that right worship occurs when the congregation of God approaches Him, sees Him as He is, and responds rightly, as He has commanded—in joy and glad submission. Such worship necessitates turning away from all idols (v. 7), and turning to the holy God who cannot be manipulated. And in this psalm alone, what does right worship do? What effect does it have? What are the results? The earth rejoices (v. 1). All the islands are glad (v. 1). His enemies are consumed with the fire that goes before Him (v. 3). The earth is illuminated by His lightning, and trembles (v. 4). In the presence of the Lord (and in worship we are in the presence of the Lord), the hills melt (v. 5). The heavens preach, and the people see His glory (v. 6). Idolaters are flummoxed, confounded (v. 7). The universal call to worship is even issued to the idols (v. 7). Zion hears and is glad, and the daughters of Judah rejoice (v. 8). The name of God is exalted above every name (v. 9). The saints of God learn to hate evil, and God preserves them from those who persecute them (v. 10). Light and gladness are sown in our hearts (v. 11). His righteous people rejoice, and are grateful when they remember His holiness (v. 12).

A Call to Worship

Those who serve graven images are confounded (v. 7). Those who worship false gods cannot be anything but confounded. Those who worship the true God falsely are missing the scriptural call as well. But those who worship rightly will inherit the earth.

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Nothing to Fear

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1 Hear this, all peoples;
Give ear, all inhabitants of the world,
2 Both low and high,
Rich and poor together.
3 My mouth shall speak wisdom,
And the meditation of my heart shall give understanding.
4 I will incline my ear to a proverb;
I will disclose my dark saying on the harp.
5 Why should I fear in the days of evil,
When the iniquity at my heels surrounds me?
6 Those who trust in their wealth
And boast in the multitude of their riches,
7 None of them can by any means redeem his brother,
Nor give to God a ransom for him—
8 For the redemption of their souls is costly,
And it shall cease forever—
9 That he should continue to live eternally,
And not see the Pit.10 For he sees wise men die;
Likewise the fool and the senseless person perish,
And leave their wealth to others.
11 Their inner thought is that their houses will last forever,
Their dwelling places to all generations;
They call their lands after their own names.
12 Nevertheless man, though in honor, does not remain;
He is like the beasts that perish.		 13 This is the way of those who are foolish,
And of their posterity who approve their sayings. Selah
14 Like sheep they are laid in the grave;
Death shall feed on them; the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning;
And their beauty shall be consumed in the grave, far from their dwelling.
15 But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave,
For He shall receive me. Selah16 Do not be afraid when one becomes rich,
When the glory of his house is increased;
17 For when he dies he shall carry nothing away;
His glory shall not descend after him.
18 Though while he lives he blesses himself
(For men will praise you when you do well for yourself),
19 He shall go to the generation of his fathers;
They shall never see light.
20 A man who is in honor, yet does not understand,
Is like the beasts that perish.

 

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