Christ Church

Expositional

Real Ambition

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Introduction:
So we have considered desire, envy, and competition, and we now come to ambition. To address the subject rightly, we have to recall what we learned thus far. There is a certain kind of desire that every human being has to deal with, and this is a desire that tends to veer toward envy. If God has not given us the grace of being able to see this in ourselves, we will come into competitive situations motivated in the wrong way entirely. And the same thing is true of our ambitions. Our ambitions will lust after what God has never given.

The Text:
“And he put forth a parable to those which were bidden, when he marked how they chose out the chief rooms; saying unto them, When thou art bidden of any [man] to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room; lest a more honourable man than thou be bidden of him; And he that bade thee and him come and say to thee, Give this man place; and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room. But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee. For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted” (Luke 14:7-11).

Overview:
Christ tells us a parable that reveals His shrewd humility. But at the same time, if we understand Him, we see it is a true humility—this kind of thing offered up to God as a “trick that He won’t see through” is obviously crazy. This must be done before God openly. On one occasion Jesus saw a bunch of people jockeying for position somewhere, angling for that elusive place of honor (v. 7). He then told them a parable about the seating arrangements at a wedding, and He said not to take the seat of honor (v. 8). If you do, a more honorable guest will certainly show up, and the host will have to take you down a few notches, perhaps all the notches (v. 9). Voluntarily take the lowest place, He says, and you will be invited up—to the applause of all (v. 10). And having said all this, Christ gives the principle. The man who exalts himself will be taken down. The man who humbles himself will be exalted (v. 11). This is because God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble (James 4:6). This is a principle that runs throughout the Lord’s teaching, and throughout the Bible. “I tell you, this man went down to his house justified [rather] than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted” (Luke 18:14).

Up Pride Mountain:
Our culture has been profoundly shaped and affected by the Lord’s teaching. This is the case even though numerous individuals don’t have the heart of the matter within them. The obvious rightness of the Lord’s requirement is nevertheless reflected in our customs and manners in a way that was not true in the ancient world. But all this means is that the subtlety of sin has to take an extra hairpin turn in its way up Pride Mountain. We now have folks taking the lowest place as the way of manipulating situations and looking humble to boot. But just saying the right thing (like the Pharisee in the temple) is not good enough. We don’t want to be like the woman in the old blues song with “a handful of gimme, and a mouthful of thank you, honey.”

Confusion and Ambition:
We need to know what the adversary is—because if we have been paying attention, we already know where the adversary is: in our own hearts. “But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but [is] earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife [is], there [is] confusion and every evil work” (James 3:14-16). The word rendered as strife here is a particular kind of strife—it is not the strife of two armies colliding, but rather the strife that results from electioneering or campaigning. Positioning would be another word for it. The NIV renders it well as selfish ambition; we might say striving ambition. Now, who is the running mate in this campaign? Two times James tells us—envy, bitter envy. If this is the condition of your heart, don’t lie to yourself about it (v. 14). This ambition does not come from above, but is diabolical (v. 15). And where you have envy and this kind of ambition together, you have “confusion and every kind of evil work.” Always. This striving, this ambition, comes from a love of honors, a love of glory (Mk. 12:38-40), which is coupled with a hatred of the road that God has required for all who would come to His kind of honor and glory. We don’t like that road because it runs through a deep valley.

A Two Way Street:
The person who is ambitious like this is begging for the opposition of God. Confusion and every evil work will dog him. God does not just make positive promises (“if you humble yourself, you will be exalted”). He also makes negative promises also (“if you push yourself to the front, He will see to it that you are set back”). When the disciples on the road got into an argument over who was the greatest, He spoke to them this way. “And he sat down, and called the twelve, and saith unto them, If any man desire to be first, [the same] shall be last of all, and servant of all” (Mark 9:35; cf. 10:42-44). There are two ways to take this, both healthy.

Pyramid World?: 
We do not live in a pyramid world—which is another way of saying that glory and honor are not zero-sum games, any more than anything else in God’s plan is. If you think that only one can occupy the top spot, and that you want to be that one, this will result in confusion and every kind of evil work. But God has created a rich, textured, and organic world, with an almost infinite array of options for godly ambition. There are two things to recognize—the first is that God is the master composer, and His symphony is going to be glorious beyond all reckoning. The second, just as important for your joy, is to find out what instrument you have been assigned and stop starting greedily at the first violin. In his introduction to a discussion of spiritual gifts, Paul says, “For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think [of himself] more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith” (Rom. 12:3). Godly ambition does not mean that any Christian can be at the top of the pyramid (making faces at the archangel Michael) provided he just humbles himself enough. This is not the spiritual equivalent of “any child can grow up to be president,” which is (incidentally) a lie. Godly ambition means that those who humble themselves in accordance with God’s word will find themselves blessed to the maximum capacity that their gifts and calling will allow. To want anything more than that is to take hold of the wrong kind of ambition. Drop it; it is your death.

The Way Up Is Down:
Jesus does not teach us that there is a problem with wanting to be great in the kingdom (Matt. 5:19). On repeated occasions, He instructs how to strive for that. He tells us how live in such a way that God says well done. If you don’t want that well done, then something is really wrong. But if you want the well done, here is the thing—you have to do it well. And doing it well involves imitating the Lord Jesus, who certainly had more reasons to not “stoop” than we do.

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Loving Little Ones #3

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Introduction
Mankind has had, in various cultures, different metaphors to describe the workings of our internal psychology. For example, we easily speak of the difference between the “head” and the “heart.” The head represents propositional assent while the heart represents genuine commitment. But the biblical writers had a different set of internal organs to represent (roughly) the same thing—the “heart and reins” (e.g. Ps. 7:9), which is to say, the heart and kidneys. All this is to say that in using a particular metaphor for this message, it is important to note that this is a metaphor, and is not intended as any kind of “scientific” image.

The Text
“Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged” (Col. 3:21).

Overview
This text is parallel to the text we used for the message last week, which was Eph. 6:4. Here we are given additional information on the results of parental provocation. In both texts, we see the possibility of childish anger, but here there is the additional result of discouragement. Don’t discourage your children, St. Paul says. It would be very easy to falsely conclude from this that discipline is what discourages, but this is not the case. Children are provoked, either by the wrong kind of discipline or by no discipline.

The Metaphor
The parental task is to break the child’s will, without breaking the child’s spirit. The metaphor is taken—if you like—from the world of training animals. The thing to avoid is breaking the spirit, and the second thing to avoid is that of failing to break the will. All right, so what does this mean?
Given the constraints of this image, there are four possibilities. The first is that a child’s will and spirit could both remain unbroken, in which case you have yourself a wild banshee child—known to all your friends as the Demon Toddler. The second possibility is that a child’s will and spirit are both broken, in which case there is no overt disobedience because all the child can contribute is a lethargic and glassy stare. The child is cowed, like a dog that was beat too much. The third possibility is that of breaking the spirit without breaking the will. The result here is that the child is introspective, moody, self-absorbed, and discourage, but it is entirely impossible to encourage them. They cling to their lousy perception of themselves, as stubborn as the pope’s mule. And the last option, the one that all parents should strive for is that of a broken and submissive will and an entirely unbroken spirit.

Unbroken will and unbroken spirit—this is the condition of the rebellious and dissolute child. An elder with sons like this is disqualified from office (Tit. 1:6). The parents in Deuteronomy with a son like this would no doubt be greatly ashamed (Dt. 21:20; cf. Prov. 23:19-21).

Broken will and broken spirit—this is likely the condition of children in our text. They have been angered, and are discouraged. They are just beat up. When this happens, it is often the case that the father who is doing it has no idea that this is what he has done. He looks at other families, like the one above, and he shakes his head in disbelief. He has eliminated disobedience, he thinks, but there is no constructive obedience.

Unbroken will and broken spirit—when this happens, the children show their uncooperative “rebellion” by passive/aggressive means. In other words, they are not downtown shooting out the streetlights, but they are stubbornly limp and unmotivated.

Broken will and unbroken spirit—the children here are obedient and cheerful. Obedience is a matter of the will, and cheerfulness is cheerfulness of spirit.

It is important to note these four options because if you limit them just to two, you will make false judgments on any number of levels. If your gauge of assessment is simply whether the home is “calm” or “rowdy,” for example, you might find yourself misjudging things radically (Is. 5:20).

Loved and Loving It
Do your children like the discipline they receive? No, not necessarily in the moment of administration (Heb. 12: 11), but do they experience your discipline as an act of restoration and love? “He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes” (Prov. 13:24). The man who lets his kids run wild is hating them. He is disowning them in effect (Heb. 12:8). But a man who is clobbering his kid in the spirit, and leaving bruises there, and is making them say that “this is love” is catechizing them in lies. In other words, not spanking is a rejection. But that doesn’t mean that every kind of spanking is automatically love. Obviously not. And the difference between the two is the difference between love and creepiness.

Cheerful Discipline
With this as the standard, here are a few observations that will help parents in this important task with their children. And remember the context of all this that we set in the first two messages—love, grace, happiness, contentment, delight, and more grace.

Discipline should be restorative: discipline is corrective, not punitive. You discipline your children for the same reason that you bathe them. You are not meting out justice at the Last Day, you are teaching and training. And you can measure whether this thrust of this message is functioning in your home by whether or not your children want to be restored to fellowship with you.

Discipline should be simple to understand— predictable and consistent: now in applying this, don’t underestimate your kids. They understand a lot. But what they don’t understand is if spankings for a particular offense are connected to nothing other than the phases of the moon. They understand cause and effect. What they don’t (and can’t) understand is randomness. We tend to switch this around, thinking that they can follow random flukes, but that predictable causation is beyond them.

Discipline should be for disciples: since everyone in your home is a disciple, this means that everyone is under discipline, and everyone should be visibly under discipline. Put another way, the kids are not the only ones in the home who sin. When sin is regarded as the adversary, this prevents parents and children from developing an adversarial relationship.

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Loving Little Ones #2

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Introduction
We have considered the fact that child nurture, if it is to be healthy, has to occur in a particular kind of soil—and that is the soil of grace, mercy, and kindness. This is not indulgence or relativism, but rather is the only real basis for bringing up children who will love and worship God. You want children who love what you love, including your God.

The Text
“And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4).

Overview
The children of the church at Ephesus have just been reminded of their duty to obey their parents (v. 1), and the reason given is that of the fifth commandment (v. 2)—the first command that God gave that had a promise attached to it (v. 3). Paul takes the promise that had originally applied to Israelite children in the land, and he applies it to Gentile children in the earth. He then turns to the duties of the father, and says two things—the first is that fathers need to take care that they don’t provoke their children, and they need to bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (v. 4). In brief, they are to bring up their children in the Lord. But what does this mean?

Your Child In Adam
It has been God’s good pleasure to renovate the human race in Christ without making us move out. In other words, the fact that we as believers deal daily with the rubble caused by the collapse of the first Adam does not mean that the work of the last Adam is not in progress. Here is some of the rubble that we have to deal with. “Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him” (Prov. 22:15). Every believer has to deal with remaining sin. Because of Christ, inner sin is not reigning sin, but it is remaining. “For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16). Those who believe in infant baptism, or God’s covenant promises for our children, must never allow this to deteriorate into a covenantal presumption. Whenever covenant presumption settles in, one of the first things that happens is a blithe disregard of that rattlesnake Adam called your ego.

The common evangelical paradigm holds that evangelical conversion is chronological only. “In 2005, I used to be that way, and now in 2008 I am this way.” This is certainly true of those who were converted from a life of rebellion, but what does this paradigm do for kids who have grown up in the Church? The word conversion means “to turn.” For those who actually have lived in rebellion, they must turn from that, obviously. But this is not the only turning that we are called to do. Jesus said to take up your cross daily (Luke 9:23), and this certainly includes those who have been in covenant with God their entire lives. Those who have been in covenant their whole lives simply have more days in which they are called to do this.Every Christian—even Christians who have grown up in the Church, especially Christians who have grown up in the Church—must turn from sin daily, must turn away from that remaining Adamic substratum daily. Jesus said to take up your cross daily (Luke 9:23), and this certainly includes those who have been in covenant with God their entire lives. Those who have been in covenant their whole lives simply have more days in which they are called to do this.

Every disciple needs to mortify his members which are still on the earth (Col. 3:5). Little disciples simply need help with this from their parents, that’s all.

Your Child In Christ
In our texts, fathers were told to bring their children up in the Lord. They are not told to bring them to the Lord. The child’s covenant status with God is simply assumed—but as we just noted, this is not the same thing as assuming covenant faithfulness. Given this, the task of Christian parents is to teach your children faith, not doubts.The task of Christian parents is to teach your children faith, not doubts. The question is not whether Christ and sin are inconsistent—of course they are inconsistent. The question rather is which way we reason.

Do we say, “You just sinned. That is inconsistent with life in Christ. I wonder if you are really in Christ.” This is to catechize your child in doubts. Or do we say, “Son, you are in Christ, and this sin is inconsistent with that life. That is why your mother and I are going to help you to deal with the sin.” This is to catechize your child in faith. If Christ and sin are inconsistent in your children’s lives, and they are, then banish the sin instead of banishing Christ. And of course, if you say, “You’re baptized. It’s all good. Don’t worry about it,” you are catechizing them in presumption.

Coming to Worship
When we come to worship, the entire service is geared to be edifying to the entire congregation. Not one person here gets everything out of the service that they could—not even close. So why would we exclude little ones until they can get as much out of it as we do? This helps to create the temptation of them not wanting to join us at all. We tell children that if they grow up to be big and strong, we will then give them some food. When they keel over and die of starvation, we congratulate ourselves on not having wasted any food on them—because they were obviously going to die anyway. This is simply perverse.

No adult at your dinner table turns to a toddler in a high chair and demands to know why he, the toddler, is not eating as much as the adult is. We are nourished according to our capacity. It is the same here. God knows our frame.

When you bring your children before the Lord, you need to settle this in your own mind and heart. You need to carefully teach them that they are welcome to everything here that they can reach. This would include, but not be limited to, the low notes of the psalms, the high notes of the hymns, the central point of the sermon, some incidental point in the sermon, the Apostles’ Creed, the corporate amen, the lifting of the hands, and partaking of the bread and wine. Have you noticed that parents who bring their children for baptism promise to treat them, not only as their natural son or daughter, but also as a brother or sister.

Bringing up your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord means that you teach them this: “You are in. Let me instruct you further on what it means to be in. Let me model it for you, and teach you how to be faithfully in.” But, we worry, suppose a child grows up to reject all this. What do we do then? We do the same thing we would do with an adult who is baptized and who then falls away. Life in Christ and life in sin cannot be harmonized.

This worship service is the center of our lives, and consequently it ought to be the center of your child’s life. And by center, we do not mean the “central arduous duty,” but rather the central delight.

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Dealing with Sexual Guilt

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Introduction:
The gospel changes lives. Not only does it do this, but it has this impact on every aspect of our lives, which includes our sexual identity, our sexual lives. This fixes a number of problems, but if we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit it also creates some new problems, some new temptations.

The Text:
“Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:9-11).

Overview:
The unrighteous—continuing unrepentant—will not inherit the kingdom of God. This is basic; Paul addresses it in the form of a question. Don’t you know this? It was a good question to raise at Corinth, which was renowned in the ancient world for its immorality, and in the ancient world that was no small achievement. But the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom (v. 9). The entire first half of the illustrative list that he works through consisted of sexual sin in various forms. First was fornication, which was a broad term covering all kinds of sexual uncleanness. Second was idolatry, which was closely identified with sexual sin. Third was adultery. Fourth was passive homosexuality, the sin of being a catamite. Fifth was sodomy (v. 10). The second half of the list branches out— thieves, covetous men, drunks, revilers and extortioners will not inherit the kingdom either (v. 11). Don’t think that sin is only sexual sin. And then comes the word of hope. “And such were some of you” (v. 11). What made the difference? You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Holy Spirit.

So here’s the problem:
In the first century, sexual purity (in the Christian sense, with the biblical definitions) was virtually unknown. As a lifestyle, to the average pagan it was beyond comprehension. This meant that the new Corinthian believer, who had been baptized and had joined this new fledgling movement, did not need to be embarrassed about his past. If anything, in terms of peer pressure, he was going to be embarrassed about his future sexual purity, not his past immorality. Our situation is quite different—even with the deterioration of standards since the sexual revolution of the sixties, the unbelieving world still has an active memory of how things used to be. You don’t shake off a millennium or more of Christian civilization in a couple of decades. And within the evangelical subculture, sexual standards are still clearly taught and generally understood (with the problem compounded by biblical standards gone to seed).
Of course, we are not faulting Scripture for doing this, but this does create a new problem for us. Whenever standards of any kind come to a fallen race, it creates the problem of hypocrisy and/or hidden guilt. The more serious the standards are (Heb. 13:4), the greater the temptation. Overt hypocrisy is a problem to address another time. For now, let’s consider the problem of hidden guilt for two kinds of people. The first is the person converted to Christ, or put right with Christ, later in life. But she comes to this point with a good deal of sexual baggage, and whenever she comes to church, all she can see are squeaky clean people who would chase her out of the church “if they only knew.” The second kind of person is the person who grew up in the church, with sturdy sexual standards extending in every direction and disappearing over the horizon. But knowing the standard and having the resources to fight temptation are two very different things, and the appearances make it look like no one else you know is struggling with this temptation—whatever it is.

Forgiveness is complete:
In our text, the apostle Paul says of the Corinthians (a pretty raggedy bunch) that “such were some of you.” That past tense was made possible by God’s washing, God’s sanctifying, and God’s justification. This cleansing and the judicial imputation of Christ’s righteousness means that a whore can become a virgin, the pervert can be enabled to stand upright. As far as God is concerned, all your sexual sins are washed away. Nothing is out of His reach. Christ’s blood does not falter before certain sins.

Consequences and accountability:
There are two other relevant issues. The first is that complete forgiveness (which really is complete) does not necessarily erase all consequences. A woman can receive total forgiveness for her fornication, and after she has received that forgiveness, still be pregnant. A teacher of small children who is caught with a stash of child porn should be fired, but that does not mean that he is beyond forgiveness. Of course not. And a man can divorce an unfaithful wife without displaying an unforgiving spirit. These are consequences. Forgiveness means liberation from certain consequences, not from every possible consequence.
Accountability is a little different. Our practice of sexual behavior is and ought to be private, but the reality of our sexual expression is not to be private. We are connected to others. Fathers are responsible for the sexual purity of their daughters (Deut. 22:13-21). Husbands and wives have authority over one another’s bodies (1 Cor. 7: 4). So real accountability is found in the God-given places, and not in a “small accountability group” of drowning swimmers, all clutching each other going down. At the same time, remember what we have emphasized before—no human authority is absolute. For example, if a father has been guilty of sexual abuse, it doesn’t make any sense to demand that his daughter have to confess anything to him.
Another example of necessary confession is when a couple get to the “tipping point” in a courtship. Simply apply the Golden Rule, but don’t kid yourself.

Why we need to be reminded:
There is no sin that a human being can commit that Christ cannot forgive, and forgive readily. That is why He came to die. But we struggle with this kind of sin more than with other sins. Why? Part of it is the set of cultural expectations we have developed, and which we should have developed (Heb. 13:4). But the second reason is that sexual sin is like getting pine pitch on your hands (1 Cor. 6:18-19). Just like other dirt, it can be washed off, but you have to know how to do it.

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