Christian Living Archives - Page 49 of 61

Three Chains I: Fear

Joe Harby on September 21, 2014

Introduction

Over the course of the next few weeks, we are going to be considering three chains that the enemy of our souls wants to use in order to keep us in bondage. But in Christ, we have been set free, and set free means set free from each of these chains, and from all of them. The three chains are fear, guilt, and shame. All three are common to the human frame, but different cultures can develop different emphases. The Western world is concerned with righteousness, and is therefore afflicted with guilt. The Eastern world is very concerned about honor, and is therefore afflicted with shame. The Southern world is concerned about survival and safety, and is afflicted with fear. The North generally does okay because it is cold and no one lives up there.

The Text

“And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt.10:28).

Summary of the Text

In this part of Matthew, Jesus is telling His disciples that He is sending them out as sheep among wolves. We need to be shrewd therefore (Matt. 10:16). We need to beware of men, because they will in fact persecute (Matt. 10:17-18). Even when we are delivered up, we need to trust God for the words we must use (Matt. 10:19). The persecutions will be both intensive and extensive, and if they treated Jesus this way, we cannot be surprised when they treat us in the same way (Matt. 10:20-25). Do not fear them, the Lord says, because everything is going to be revealed (Matt. 10:26). The entire story will eventually be told. Be bold (Matt. 10:27). Do not fear men, who can only kill the body and not the soul. Rather, fear the one who can wreck both body and soul in Gehenna (Matt. 10:28). We are told not to fear for two reasons. The first is that God will tell the whole story one day, and the second is that they can only kill the body, which means that all they can do is help you escape from them.

The Basic Issue

The devil is always a counterfeiter. He cannot create anything ex nihilo, not even sins. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, which means the fear of man is the beginning of folly. This means that the point of biblical wisdom is not to say that fear is bad so we should stop fearing. No, the ethical choice is always between fear of this and fear of that. If you are paralyzed by fear, this means that you do not fear someone else enough. What is the whole duty of man? It is to fear God (Ecc. 12:13).

The First Chain

Death is an enemy. It is natural to fear it. Death has been given dominion and power over a guilty world—and the sting of death is found in the law. It is not that we are subject to death. The problem is that we deserve to be subject to death.

“Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Heb. 2:14–15).

Notice that this fear of death is a lifetime fear. As Augustine noted, in this world the dead are replaced by the dying. Death brings in a bondage that extends throughout our lives. Jesus struck off that chain by dying for us. He destroyed the devil through His death, and the devil was the one who had the power of death. With him removed from that position of authority, we are released from our fear of death. If we have received the Spirit of adoption, this means that we have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear (Rom. 8:15).

Now it follows from this that we are in principle liberated from lesser fears as well. To reverse Jeremiah’s image, if we can run with horses, we can run with men also. Women, you become daughters of Sarah if you honor your husbands and do not give way to fear (1 Pet. 3:6). In particular you women should remember that anxiety is the wrong kind of fear in seed form. It is by fear of God that we are enabled to turn from evil (Prov. 16:6). Knowing the fear of God is what enables us to persuade men to turn to the Lord (2 Cor. 5:11).

Being Careful with the Word

We are supposed to fear God, which is not the same thing as being afraid of God. There is a kind of fear that is craven, crawling . . . and we are not to have that kind of fear, not even in the presence of God. So we are not to have a particular kind of fear toward God because perfect love casts out fear, because fear has to do with punishment (1 John 4:18). We need not fear this punishment from God, not because it is not fearful, but because it is not ours (Rom. 8:1). We are supposed to approach the throne of grace with boldness, it says, and we are to come boldly looking for mercy(Heb. 4:16). This is not possible apart from a robust doctrine of justification, where God declares us to be righteous in the righteousness of His Son (2 Cor. 5:20-21).

We are not supposed to “fear man” in any way that puts man in the place of God, and we are not to fear God in any way that puts Him in the place of executioner. We must fear Him as Judge, but if we do this rightly, we repent before we come before Him as executioner. When the Lord Jesus, the same one who bled and died for sinners, says “Depart from me, I never knew you” (Matt. 7:23), this will be a moment of absolute and abject terror in one sense, but a final and defiant refusal to fearin another. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Ps. 111:10). Terror is not the beginning of anything other than an everlasting and hellish downward spiral. Terror does not fear Godenough.

Jesus and True Fear

A story is told in Acts of some itinerant exorcists, some sons of Sceva, who tried to cast out demons in the name of the “Jesus that Paul preaches.” The demon replied appropriately by beating them up. And then Luke says this: “And this was known to all the Jews and Greeks also dwelling at Ephesus; and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified” (Acts 19:17). There is a kind of fear that is attracted to holiness, to the glory of God, to the numinous, to the wonderful. It is a fear that is filled to the top with an exquisite ache. “Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit,perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Cor. 7:1).

“Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, That the everlasting God, the Lord, The Creator of the ends of the earth, Fainteth not, neither is weary? There is no searching of his understanding” (Is. 40:28).

“Sanctify the Lord of hosts himself; And let him be your fear, and let him be your dread” (Isaiah 8:13).

But how are we to do this? Remember that we are Christians, and what we need to learn how to do we may learn by imitating Jesus. Jesus was a God-fearing man—He had to be. He was a true man, the ultimate man, a wise man. But the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. This was no less true in the case of Jesus.

But we do not need to rely on an inference. The Bible tells us explicitly in several places that Jesus feared God.
“And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, The spirit of wisdom and understanding, The spirit of counsel and might, The spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord” (Is. 11:2).

And the New Testament tells us the same thing:

“Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared; Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered” (Heb. 5:7–8).

Church Discipline and Life

Joe Harby on August 3, 2014

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Introduction

A church that does not or cannot discipline errant members of the congregation is a church with AIDS. It has no means of fighting off infections—whether those infections are moral or doctrinal or both. The infections can be in the heart or the head, but the church has to be able to deal with them.

To change the image, the church is constituted by Word and sacrament. A large number in the reformation tradition have also added discipline to this, but I would prefer to think of the garden itself as growing Word and sacrament only. Discipline is the fence that keeps the deer out. Discipline is not part of the very definition of the church, but without a fence, you won’t have a garden for very long. Fences are essential to gardens, but don’t themselves grow in the garden.

Obviously, a message like this is being preached for a reason—we do have some possible discipline cases in process, and we wanted you to be prepared for this as a congregation. But know that we do not operate on a hair trigger, and we would be delighted to have this be a message that turns out to be more theological than practical.

The Text

“I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner —not even to eat with such a person. For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? But those who are outside God judges. Therefore ‘put away from yourselves the evil person’” (1 Cor. 5:9-13).

Summary of the Text

Christians often get this text exactly backwards. Paul says that of course we are going to have to associate with dissolute pagans—but we try hard to be prissy about that kind of thing. And he says that we must of course not associate with those inside the church who live like this. This is in fact what distinguishes Christian morality from dry rot moralism. The former guards inside, the latter guards against the other. Pay special attention to that phrase near the end—do you not judge those who are inside? But what happens if we are diligent in this? Trying to guard the church against hypocritical profession is a sure fire way to draw the charge of . . . hypocrisy. Think about it for a moment.

The Five Reasons for Discipline

First, we are to discipline in order to glorify God, and this occurs because obedience glorifies God. We know from His Word that God intends discipline for His church (Matt. 18:15-19; Rom. 16:17; 1 Cor. 5; 1 Thess. 5:14; 2 Thess. 3:6-15; 1 Tim. 5:20; 6:3; Tit. 1:13; 2:15; 3:10; Rev. 2:2, 14-15, 20). God tells us what to do, and because we are His people we are called to obey Him. This answers the objection, “Who do you think you are?” We do not discipline in our own name, or on our own authority.

In the second place, we are to discipline in order to maintain the purity of the church. If we measure the “success” of discipline by whether or not the offender is restored, we will be forced to conclude that sometimes it “didn’t work.” But conducted biblically, church discipline always purifies the church (1 Cor. 5:6-8). It also prevents the profanation of the Lord’s Table (1 Cor. 11:27). It always works.

Third, we are to discipline to prevent God from setting Himself against the church. If we have a choice to distance ourselves from sin, and we choose rather to identify ourselves with it, then what will a holy God do with us (Rev. 2:14-25)?

Fourth, we are to discipline in a desire to restore the offender. We are not promised that the offender will be restored, but this end is nonetheless one of our goals. But at the same time I put this reason fourth for a reason. This rationale is clearly set forth in Scripture (Matt. 18:15; 1 Cor. 5:5; Gal. 6:1). This answers those who think “discipline is harsh and unloving.” The goal is not to destroy the offender; the goal is a confrontation in which we formally protest the fact that the offender is destroying himself.

And last, we are to discipline in order to deter others from sin. The Bible teaches that consequences for sin deter (Ecc. 8:11; 1 Tim. 5:20). The objection here is that “people sure wouldn’t want to mention any of their spiritual problems around those elders!” But the issue in discipline is always impenitence. But if he struggles against sin, as all of us do, then he will find nothing in church discipline except an aid and comfort in that struggle.

Conclusion

Many misunderstand what is actually being done in discipline, or what discipline requires. Discipline is not necessarily shunning or avoiding. It is rather avoiding company on the other’s terms. The heart of church discipline is a refusal of the Supper, which is why church discipline is called excommunication. The person is exiled from (ex) the Table of the Lord (communion). So the individual under discipline is denied access to the Lord’s Supper, as well as that general communion which that Supper seals. The offender must not be denied kindness, courtesy, opportunity to hear the Word preached, the practical duties owed to him by others, or anything else due him according to the law of love. Fundamentally, he is being denied only one thing: the right to define the authority of the Christian faith for himself.

Discipline is inescapable. Either we will discipline those who love what is sinful, or we will discipline those who love what is righteous. But as long as the antithesis between the two exists (which is to say throughout history) we must choose one way or the other. A refusal to discipline those who are threatening the integrity of the church is actually a form of discipline directed against those who love the peace and purity of the church, and who labor and pray for it.

One last thing—the encouragement that is found in this. The doctrine of adoption should be precious to us. And the Bible teaches that absence of discipline is a serious indication that God has not adopted us—which is far more terrifying than the prospect of discipline. This truth applies equally to congregations as to individuals.

“Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed” (Hebrews 12:4–13).

What then should our response to discipline be? God is our Father, Christ our brother. Therefore, lift up your hands that were hanging down. Strengthen your feeble knees. Walk on the straight path, with Christ just ahead of you.

Get Wisdom: Part 1 (Proverbs)

Joe Harby on July 20, 2014

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The central theme of the book of Proverbs is getting wisdom, which Solomon describes as the principle thing (Prov. 4:7). So what is wisdom? And what is the difference between wisdom and knowledge? That is what the book of Proverbs is about.

v. 1 King Solomon was the wisest man on earth (1 Kings 4:29-30, 34). People streamed to him from all over to hear his wisdom. And out of his wisdom he spoke these Proverbs. A proverb is a pithy saying that gives you insight into the way the world works, and from this insight, exhorts you to make righteous decisions.

vv. 2-3 Solomon gives the first half of a definition for Wisdom in v.2-3. Wisdom is justice, judgment, and equity. Wisdom is not just seeing what is, but seeing what should be. It moves from is to ought. This makes it an inherently religious virtue because it is not just looking at creation, but it is looking at creation and discerning the purpose of the Creator behind it all.

vv. 4-5 One of the bizarre things about the Bible in general, but the book of Proverbs in particular, is the way that it is suited for all ages.

v. 6 The Hebrew verbs for “to speak a Proverb” is marshal. But that same verb also means “to rule, or to exercise dominion.” There is an innate connection between wisdom and ruling. Solomon was wise and everyone came to submit themselves to him. But more specifically, it is not just wisdom in general, it is the riddling of Proverbs that goes hand in hand with kings.

That is what wisdom is – it is a blessed intuition that sees not just the facts of the matter, but the bigger story, the riddle that God is telling in the lives and circumstances around you. Therefore, wisdom is also a tool for dominion. People are drawn to a wise leader.

vv. 7-9 But remember the Gospel irony, the truth that the way up will be down. Wisdom and the power to rule come first to humility, to the one ready to fear God and to sit and listen to his father and mother. Fools will kick against this. The wise man is one who stops to listen.

Wisdom is particularly attached to faithful communities. We as a congregation are blessed beyond imagination with the privilege of living and worshiping in a community like this, with a wide range of ages and experience in life, living closely together. But you will find that receiving wisdom sounds a lot better on paper than it feels in real life.

Bedrock Discipleship VI: Identity in Christ

Joe Harby on April 20, 2014

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Introduction

Today is Resurrection Sunday, our annual commemoration of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus from the dead. We mark this annually, but it is important for us to remember that we also mark it weekly—every Lord’s Day is a celebration of the resurrection. But what exactly are we celebrating when we do this?

The Text

“Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 6:3–11).

Summary of the Text

When we were baptized, we were baptized into the death of Jesus (v. 3). Note that—our baptism, His death. When we were baptized, this was not just into His crucifixion, but also into His burial (v. 4). The reason God identified us with His death and burial was so that He could also identify us with His resurrection, enabling us to walk in newness of life (v. 4). For if we are identified with (symphytos, the word rendered as planted) His death, we must also be identified with His resurrection (v. 5). Our old man was crucified with Him (v. 6), and death liberates us from the death of sin (v. 7). And death with Christ goes together with life in Christ (v. 8). Christ rose from the dead forever, and it is that everlasting life that we have been identified with (v. 9). Death is once for all, but life is forever (v. 10). Therefore, reckon yourselves to be dead to sin but alive to God through Christ Jesus our Lord (v. 11). What does this newness of life taste like? It tastes like the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, and all the rest.This is the true liberation of Easter.

The Structure of the Exhortation

This is a typically Pauline manner of argumentation. He says that xyz is true of you, therefore you must consider or reckon xyz to be true of you. He says that this is what your baptism means and declares, and so therefore this is what you must mean and declare in your manner of living. This is what your baptism says . . . now you say it too.

Two Kinds of Substitutes

We are accustomed to think of Christ’s death as a substitutionary death, and so we should. He did die as our substitute, and this whole argument in Romans 6 depends on that assumption. But we have to be careful, because there are two kinds of substitution, and the death of Jesus was not like one of them.

When a substitute goes in during a basketball game, another player goes out. The substitute replaces the other player. This is not what Jesus did for us. The second kind of substitute is a representative substitute. When we elect someone to go to Congress, he goes there as our representative substitute. When he votes, I vote. When he stands true, I stand true. When he takes bribes, I take them. When he fails, I fail. Part of the reason things back in D.C. are as much of a mess as they are is that the American people have lost this sort of covenantal understanding. But the federal government comes from the Latin word foedus, which means covenant. It can also mean stinky or loathsome, but that is another topic for another time.

Adam was the representative kind of federal substitute, and Jesus, as the last Adam, was also this kind of substitute. When Adam disobeyed at a tree, so did I. When Jesus obeyed on a tree, so did I. “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). This is the offer of the gospel —Christ for you.

So then, Jesus did not die so that I might live. He died so that I might die, and He lives so that I might live.

An Identified History

In Scripture, union with Christ is not understood as a mystical connection to a cosmic force. Rather, Christ was our covenantal representative and substitute, and whatever He went through, we went through also. When we are baptized, that baptism declares that we have been joined with Christ in His biography—we are joined to Him in the events of His life. This did not kick in five minutes before the crucifixion started. He was our substitute when He was being flogged (Is. 53:5; 1 Pet. 2:24). He was our substitute when He was being insulted (Ps. 69:9; Matt. 11:18). He was our substitute when He was baptized, identifying as the true Israel right before His 40 days (years) in the wilderness. This is why He received a baptism of repentance (Mark 1:8). Theologians call this the imputation of the active obedience of Christ, but that is simply a technical phrase that expresses a glorious truth—which is that you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s (1 Cor. 3:23).

Conclusion

Death is an event. Life is a process. When it is the death of Jesus, it is a once-for-all event. When it is the life of Jesus, it is everlasting life, eternal life, ultimate cascading life.

This is your identity in Christ. The obedience of Christ is all yours. God offers it freely, and it is received by faith alone. The obedience of Christ is as much yours as the sinful disobedience of Adam was also yours, on the same principles. Do not fall into the trap of thinking that the federal unrighteousness is yours as a birthright, but that the imputed righteousness of Jesus is somehow a “legal fiction.” It is nothing of the kind. It defines who you now are.

Bedrock Discipleship V: Relationships

Joe Harby on April 13, 2014

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Introduction

On Palm Sunday, we remember the Lord’s entry into Jerusalem shortly before He was betrayed, condemned, and executed. As we reflect on this moment in His mission, we should take care to remember what that mission was. His mission was not just to save people, it was also to save a people.

The Text

“And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the Son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest” (Matt. 21:9).

Summary of the Text

There are many things that can be drawn out of this story, but this morning, we are just going to focus on one of them. When Jesus arrived in Jerusalem—where He was to be lifted up and draw all men to Himself—He was greeted by multitudes. Contrary to the popular assumption that the Triumphal Entry crowd and the “crucify Him” crowd were the same people, we have no reason for identifying them. These people who greeted Him were doing so sincerely. Jesus was approaching Jerusalem in order to save multitudes, and He was greeted there by multitudes. Their central cry was Hosanna, which means “Save, we pray.” In other words, we are praying that You would save us. “Yes,” He answered.

Two Questions

Back in the seventies, the great question was what is truth? Today the pressing question is where is community? Some might make this kind of observation in order to set the questions against one another, but rightly understood they are complementary questions. Truth is foundational to any true community, and community is the only appropriate response to the truth. “If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth” (1 John 1:6). Fellowship exults in the truth, and truth generates fellowship.

Koinonia

The biblical word for fellowship is koinonia, and here is how the idea connects to our text. To welcome Christ into Jerusalem you have to go down to the street He is on. When you do so, you are not just praising Him as He travels by. You also have a necessary relationship to those people on your right and left who are also praising Him. Christ was welcomed to the week of His passion by a crowd, and not by the last true believer. Save us, they cried, and that is what He did.

But the crowd had to come to Christ. They could not have gone two blocks over, turned and faced each other, and establish a little koinonia by themselves. It never works.

In modern church parlance, fellowship means coffee and donuts. But in the biblical world, fellowship meant mutual partaking and indwelling. Fellowship is what we have in the body together, as we are being knit together in love.

One Another

A body is what we are. We do not act in a particular way in order to become a body, we are to act that way because we are a body and desire to be a well-functioning one. “So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another” (Rom. 12:5).

Receive

When it comes to life in the body, there are all kinds of offenses. There are business offenses. There are family offenses. There is petty rudeness in the parking lot, and there is glaring sin within a marriage. What in the world are we to do with other people? “Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God” (Rom. 15:7).

It glorified God when Christ received us, and it glorifies Him when we receive one another. When we receive a brother or sister, we are not promising to “look the other way.” That is not biblical receiving. We are promising to let love cover it, when that is appropriate, and to confront it, when that is appropriate. We are promising tonot complain about it to others. We either cover it or confront it, and this principled communion is why it is possible to excommunicate in love.

Love

Of course the center of this is love. When we look at the “one anothers” of Scripture, this has a central place. “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another” (John 13:34). “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to
another” (John 13:35). “This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you” (John 15:12). “These things I command you, that ye love one another” (John 15:17). “Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law” (Rom. 13:8).

We can only love because we have been loved. And we can only know that we have been loved if we grasp— through a living faith—the glories of the gospel. Christ died and was buried, Christ was buried and rose, and He did it so that you might be put right with God. You are ushered into the fellowship of love that He offers, and this is what makes it possible for you to love your neighbor.

Strive

But it is very tempting for us to conceive of love as a generic disposition to “be nice.” But love rolls up its sleeves, and gets into the dirty work. If all we had to do was sit around and radiate love rays at one another, I am sure we would all be up to the task. But what about all those provocations that come from . . . you know, other people?

We begin by making sure that we do not rise to the provocations. We need to have peace with one another. One of the characteristics of the band that traveled with Jesus is that He had to caution them to preserve the peace with each other. “Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another” (Mark 9:50).

We should labor to think alike. We noted earlier that truth is the foundation of community, and the more we share in the truth, and walk in it, the greater will be our unity. “Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus” (Rom. 15:5). Our modern temptation is that of simply “agreeing to disagree,” which is fine as a temporary measure—but it is not the ultimate goal that Scripture sets out for us.

But the “one anothers” we pursue should not be limited to staying out of fights. “Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another” (Rom. 12:10). Scripture tells us to point the honor away from ourselves, and toward the other.

Conclusion

As the people of God, we are being gathered. But we cannot be gathered without being gathered together. And once we are gathered together, we face the glorious calling of life together. But in order to maintain this, we have to keep emphasizing the basics—gospel, love, forgiveness, truth.