Christ Church

A Fortified City (CC Downtown)
Christ Church on January 24, 2025
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State of the Church 2025 (CC Downtown)

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INTRODUCTION

Many passages of Scripture require us to have a sort of double vision. The problems of heresies and schisms arise when one group sees the text one way, while another group sees it another way. Meanwhile, when viewed with the right sort of double vision both aspects fit together perfectly with no contradiction or violence to the distinctions between them. Our task is to receive such texts humbly with both hands.

THE TEXT

That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth; that our daughters may be as corner stones, polished after the similitude of a palace: That our garners may be full, affording all manner of store: that our sheep may bring forth thousands and ten thousands in our streets: That our oxen may be strong to labour; that there be no breaking in, nor going out; that there be no complaining in our streets. Happy is that people, that is in such a case: yea, happy is that people, whose God is the LORD. (Psa 144:12-15 KJV)

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

This Psalm is a prayer for deliverance from enemies (vv1-11). There are echoes of the prayers found in several prior Psalms. The second part, which we are considering, is the reason David gives to God for why the Lord should grant a gracious deliverance. Why should God condescend and consider man (v3)? The reason David gives to the Lord for why God should answer this prayer is so that the sons of Israel might become stately cedars, and the daughters of Israel may become ornate pillars of a stable civilization (v12). Additionally, David reasons with God that this deliverance from “strange children” will allow Israel to enjoy barns full of grain and grapes, innumerable herds (v13), strong oxen for next year’s sowing and harvesting (v14a), and streets that are quiet and undisturbed by warfare (v14b).

David concludes his argument with God by prevailing upon the Most High to consider the happiness of those whose God is Yahweh. David echos Moses’ blessings upon Israel at the end of Deuteronomy: Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people saved by the LORD, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thy excellency! and thine enemies shall be found liars unto thee; and thou shalt tread upon their high places (Deu 33:29 KJV). God delivered His people in order to bestow upon them everlasting happiness by covenant fellowship. David points at the surrounding enemies and then invites God to consider His covenant promises, calling upon God to establish the joy of His people.

SONS, DAUGHTERS, AND WEALTH

We should see this picture with double vision and both are good. Some might take this to be David being too consumed with temporal and earthly blessings of children, crops, and herds. Someone might snark that David seems to have made his family, material comfort, and happiness an idol. Others try to scrub these verses with lysol wipes of etherealism: David means metaphorical flocks and is envisioning the flock of the NT church. Still others see the promise of full barns, and get dollar signs in their eyes and conclude that earthly wealth is the top floor of the joy elevator. But both the prosperity Gospel swindler, and the thinly sliced pietist miss what is going on here.

The promise of sons that are strong as oak trees, daughters ornate as palace pillars, and flocks as numerous as the sand no the seashore is not an automatic blessing. This blessing is downstream from blessing God. David blesses God, David sings a new song to the Lord (vv1, 9-10). The legacy of healthy offspring and earthly prosperity is not automatic. But it is promised by God, and our response should be one of true faith. But here is where the double vision is needed. The reasons David gave God for delivering Israel was so that Israel could have robust sons and daughters and earthly wealth; but if you look at it rightly you can see that everything in David’s list is, in part, what is necessary to maintain the sacrificial worship of the tabernacle.

The prophet Joel portrays the inversion of these covenantal blessings, and explicitly highlights that the devastation of the locust army had consequences when it came to continuing the sacrifices which God had commanded (Joe 1:8-10 KJV). David then sees children and earthly wealth as the means whereby worship of the living God might be carried on to all generations. He is not the short-sighted hedonist, nor is he the severe exegete. David summons us to consider that sons and daughters and material blessings are the means whereby God’s kingdom is continually built up and prospered and advanced.

OUR GROWING BODY

We have been worshipping together as a distinct service for two and half years. Our aim should be that as this congregation grows, as a microcosm of the broader Moscow growth, we must get the order right. Bless God first and foremost in order for your vineyard to be well-laden with fruit. But don’t stop there. The fruit of children and the fruit of your labors are not ends in themselves, they are the continuation of God’s promise to fill the world, from one side to the other, with worshippers.

We have many young families. Our vision for what God is doing here at CCD must be that these sons will soon be running the institutions the previous generation established, these daughters will soon be raising their own brood, all your wealth will soon be handed down to your heirs. The question is, will they be steadfast in the worship of the living God? Will they love the standard? Will they be more courageous and bold than you? Will they treasure God’s Word as great spoil?

Our prayer for deliverance from enemies of woke policies, globalist tyranny, deluded sexual ethics, and vain fiscal measures must always be aimed at the intention that we and our children might worship God in all peace and quietness. But deliverance from evil is never a permission slip to longer naps, lazier work ethic, gentle parenting, or hazy Bible reading practices.

TEMPORAL AND ETERNAL HAPPINESS

All this demands three things. Do not let off the gas when it comes to teaching your family to walk in the ways of the Lord, and filling your home with joyful songs of praise, the truthful words of sincere confession, and the rejection of mindless worldly entertainment. Secondly, work hard. David’s request to God to spare Israel from the destruction of invading armies is so that next year Israel can get to work again on another season of plowing, sowing, watering and harvesting. Do not avoid hard work, find another gear, and do so for the reasons described in this Psalm: supplying the needs for the mission of God’s covenant promises to a thousand generations.

Lastly, blessing God and being made happy by God are the brackets of this Psalm. This is true living. Bless God. Receive His blessings with true faith and gladness in order to bless Him once more. But don’t fall into the trap of viewing the temporal and eternal as enemies. You are raising children who will either live forever in the bliss of heaven, or forever damned due to unbelief. You are working to bring glorious treasures into the heavenly Jerusalem (Rev 21:24). This is because if the Lord is your God, happiness is both your present and everlasting reality.

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A Christmas Sunrise (Advent #1) (Christ Church)

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INTRODUCTION

And the evening and the morning were the eighth day. We should not be surprised at the pattern of darkness and then light, a pattern which we see not only in the creation of the world, but also in the re-creation of all things.

THE TEXT

“I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star” (Revelation 22:16).

THE SETTING AT NIGHT

A number of the events of the first Christmas occurred at night. The angels announced the good news to the shepherds as they watched their flocks by night (Luke 2:18). The wise men followed the star to Jerusalem, and then to Bethlehem, which meant that they were observing it at night (Matt. 2:9). Joseph fled to Egypt with Mary and Jesus, and he did so at night (Matt. 2:14). And one of the most obvious things about Christmas, when we step back and look at it, is that the first Christmas happened in the world’s dark night. Evening, then morning, the eighth day.

It is not for nothing that our Christmas carols have picked up on this theme—“it came upon a midnight clear,” “wake, awake, for night is flying,” “how lovely shines the morning star,” “as the Light of light descendeth from the realms of endless day, that the pow’rs of hell may vanish as the darkness clears away,” “amid the cold of winter when half-spent was the night,” and “disperse the gloomy clouds of night, and death’s dark shadows put to flight.”

THE SUN RISES SLOWLY

When the sun rises, it does not happen the way a light comes on in a room when you flip the switch. The sun rises slowly. First you do not know if anything has happened or not. It may be just as dark as it was a moment ago, but maybe not. And some time later, you notice that the eastern sky is not what it was. There is some kind of light there. The stars that have been visible all night begin to disappear. Soon there is just one left—the morning star, the planet Venus, the last indication that day is coming. The next event is for the sun to actually rise, for the day to come.

Christ was born at night, and His arrival was the arrival of the morning star. Note John’s language again. Christ is the root and offspring of David and He is the morning star. He is the one who was born at night, and His birth was the arrival of the morning star. It is important for us to allow Scripture to tell us what time it is. If you did not already know, you could not tell the difference between a pre-dawn darkness and a twilight gloaming. Is the sun going down or coming up?

CHRIST THE MORNING STAR

Christ Himself is the Word of God, and yet you have the Word of God in Your hands. Christ Himself is the day star, the morning star, and yet Peter tells us that to take heed to Scripture is to have the day star arise in our hearts.

“We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (2 Pet.1:19-21)

THE LIGHT OF EVERY MAN

Jesus Christ is the light of the world. In the heart of every converted person, He is the light within, the day star in the heart. But whether men are converted or not, blind or not, He is the day star of the world. But it is also important to note that He is the rising sun of the entire world.

“In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended [overcame] it not. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world” (John 1:4-9, emphasis mine).

We ought not to think that when men are converted, they each become a little lamp, and if enough of them get converted, they will be able to form a consortium and pool their lamps to try to make a sun. The vision of the coming noontime glory does not depend at all on us trying to get some momentum up. The sun has risen, and it will continue to do what rising suns do.

INDIVIDUAL RESPONSE

Of course, individual response is important, but it is equally important to note what the response is to. The sun has risen. Christ has come. He is the king. The light covers the world. A return to heathen midnight is actually an impossibility. Those who walk in darkness now are doing so in a world suffused with light. This is hard to do—you have to remain blind, or hide in root cellars. There are ways to stay out of the sunlight, but they are difficult to accomplish. Not only so, but as the day passes, they will get increasingly difficult.

“Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth. He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him. But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes” (1John 1:8-11).

The task of evangelism, now that Christ has risen, is not so much to run around at night, poking our flashlights into corners and cellars. Rather, the task of evangelism is more like pulling back the curtains. “But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light. Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light” (Eph. 5: 13-14). Get out of that bed! Christ will shine on you!

SO PASS A LAW?

So the secularists don’t like the first Christmas, and they certainly don’t like the subsequent ones. What are they going to do? Pass a law? This would be worse than King Canute’s acted out parable when he commanded the tide not to come in—this would be Congress passing a law commanding the sun not to shine on places where the First Amendment was in effect.

Such laws, such foolish resistance, can cause short-term grief. Think again of Herod and the little boys he slaughtered. But think also about how ineffectual it all was. Did he stop the morning star from appearing? Did he stop the day from coming? In the same way, we must know that the message of Christmas is not that we have to persuade anybody of anything. The message is far more good news declaration than it is argumentation.

The message is plain. Christ has risen in two distinct senses. He has risen from the grave. He has also risen over the horizon, and He is the sun that will never set.

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What is Man? (Advent #2) (CC Downtown)

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PSALM 8

1 O Lord, our Lord,

How excellent is Your name in all the earth,

Who have set Your glory above the heavens!

2 Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants

You have ordained strength,

Because of Your enemies,

That You may silence the enemy and the avenger.

3 When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,

The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,

4 What is man that You are mindful of him,

And the son of man that You visit him?

5 For You have made him a little lower than the angels,

And You have crowned him with glory and honor.

6 You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands;

You have put all things under his feet,

7 All sheep and oxen—

Even the beasts of the field,

8 The birds of the air,

And the fish of the sea

That pass through the paths of the seas.

9 O Lord, our Lord,

How excellent is Your name in all the earth!

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