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Archives For September 2012

How Confession of Sin Can Make Things Worse

September 26, 2012 — 6 Comments

So I tweeted a couple days ago that there’s a way to do a weekly confession of sin that actually makes things worse rather than better. And there were a few questions. So here are a few thoughts on the matter.

First, the Bible verse: “For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.” (2 Cor. 7:10). In other words, you can have two different guys come into your office (say you’re a pastor) or two different kids sit down to talk to you (say you’re a parent), and they might both be sorrowful, sad, in tears and make confession to you about some particular sin in their life and ask for forgiveness. And on the surface both situations may look entirely identical, but Paul says that one guy will be forgiven, cleansed, saved, while the other guy is actually closer to death. Now that’s the principle, and I believe worldly sorrow is even more likely to creep in whenever you schedule repentance, like say, a weekly confession at the beginning of the service. Now I happen to believe that the dangers inherent in the planned weekly confession are to be preferred to not planning it at all. There are other dangers on the other side, and given the full biblical witness, I’m convinced that weekly, corporate worship should normally include a confession of sin and assurance of forgiveness. But, the Bible says to watch out for worldly sorrow, a kind of false repentance that actually produces death. There’s a way to do confession of sin that actually makes everything worse.

Second, there’s a deep down human nature sin problem that people have that wants all the glory. This is the self-god problem. I want to be my own god, my own lord, the master of my own fate. And this translates into being your own savior, your own deliverer. And we are so sophisticated with this idolatry that we can twist perfectly good things into a moments of self-worship. And confession of sin is just as good as any other, if not better. So there we are called to remember sin, called to remember our sinfulness, and the self-god doesn’t mind lots of vague guilty feelings. Lots of vague guilty feelings are an opportunity to be magnanimous, to bear up under it. And the advantage is that vague guilty feelings are completely worthless as far as getting rid of them. Jesus died for particular sins, particular offenses, specific transgressions, but guilty feelings hover and cloud and remain ambiguous. And if you have a fairly distorted picture of God as the great angry Zeus in the sky, then you have vague, generalized guilt coupled with a vaguely angry God, always rather annoyed with all the stupid people and all their stupid sins. So what a weekly confession serves up is a big pile of mud and invites all these false, distorted versions of confession and who God is to lumber into the room. This doesn’t mean that everyone just gets morbid and depressed (they might), they might actually have some kind of false version of joy. But what the absolution, the declaration of forgiveness becomes isn’t a release, a promise of free grace, it becomes, rather, a sort of pep-talk. Of course that’s not what the words mean. But if sin is vague, and God is vaguely mad, then when the pastor says joyful words, the only way to grab joy is to assume that you’re just supposed to feel joyful and try your best to force it. And this is just old fashioned self-righteousness, the surest way to Hell. Continue Reading…

In Bible - 1 John, Bible - 2 Corinthians, Bible - Psalms, Church, Grace, Justice & Mercy, Lent, Pastoral Theology, Wisdom, Worship

The Gospel of Pain (Feat. Fun & Rihanna)

September 25, 2012 — 4 Comments

Take a pile of songs on the top of the Billboard Charts at random, close your eyes, and pick one, and chances are you’ve found a song that celebrates something ugly, abusive, hurtful, full of pain or at least fairly confused. Don’t misunderstand: I know the world is full of hurt, full of sin, full of abuse, and I think there’s even a place to sing about it. The Psalms are full of laments, Job was not shy about his complaints, and Jesus cried out to His Father in agony. So I don’t have anything against laments, the blues, or a downer song on occasion. But what is increasingly obvious to me is that we’ve got something else going on. It’s not piles of songs about misery per se, it’s piles of songs that celebrate misery. In other words, there’s something deep down sick about the human soul that doesn’t want to be delivered.

So take a fairly innocuous song like Fun’s Some Nights, a sort of indie pop ballad/anthem for 20 somethings who are a little too self-aware to go in for the full on boy band. This is like what would happen if One Direction and Greenday were genetically grafted together. Or maybe it’s just what happens when you wish you could have been a boy band, but now you have some chin stubble and at least three chest hairs and a little more angst.

At any rate, take Some Nights, full of vaguely sad, confused, uncertain lyrics maybe about a girlfriend, maybe about the world and life in general, probably about nothing in particular, all set to a driving rhythm and slightly effeminate group vocals. And it’s obvious that this is supposed to be an uplifting song. The song essentially says, I’m confused, I’m misunderstood, lot’s of bad things happen to me, I don’t know what I stand for… and look at me, I’m cool. If you hop over to Youtube and check out the music video (with its tens of millions of hits), you find a civil war era story unfolding (with short cameos of the lead singer rocking out in fields and forests), and the song’s metaphor takes on a *slightly* more sophisticated flavor.

But the point is actually even more clear: my life is uncertain, I feel a raging war inside of me, maybe in my relationships, it’s confusing, I don’t know what I stand for, I don’t know what’s going on, etc. But, and here’s the point: I’m a hero. I’m like a soldier battling through. Look at me with my war wounds, my scars, my pain. I’m a victim of my circumstances, and it sucks most of the time, but sometimes, some nights, I always win. In other words, it’s actually pretty awesome. And you can tell because I’m leaning up against this tree with my acoustic guitar and my shirt is not all the way buttoned up. Or now, watch as my sweet band and I rock out in this field together in our Union Army duds. And now we’ll flash to a war scene where I’ve just bayonetted the poor confederate sucker in front of me. This is awesome. It’s totally awesome to be misunderstood, to be unsure, to suffer. I don’t know what I stand for, and it totally rocks. Continue Reading…

In Creation, Culture, Evangelism, Grace, Wisdom

Justification & Glory

September 24, 2012 — Leave a comment

Christianity & Culture Sunday School: Session 2

Romans 5: Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Introduction
Last week we saw how God is full of glory, loves glory, and made the world and people to share and enjoy that glory. Glory is success, honor, praise, beauty, and God plans to give glory to those who patiently seek it by doing good. Ultimately this means clinging to Jesus in faith because He has been given all glory. In Romans 5, Paul describes this “hope of glory” in terms of justification and peace.

Jesus, Justification & Glory
When Jesus died on the cross it didn’t look like glory. In fact, it looked like the opposite. It looked like shame, defeat, loneliness, loss, complete despair: the opposite of glory. But there are two things that change all of the appearances: First, we have to understand why Jesus suffered shame, defeat, loneliness, loss, etc. Isaiah 53 says that He was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. In other words, the “defeat” of Jesus was actually the defeat of our sin and guilt. That means that what looked like defeat was actually victory. This is why Paul can say in 1 Cor. 2:8 that if the rulers had known what God was planning, “they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” Secondly, the resurrection of Jesus is His justification/vindication proving Him right: He was “declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead” (Rom. 1:4). In other words, the shame of the cross is undone by the victory of the resurrection. Our salvation and His resurrection justify the glory of the cross. Continue Reading…

In Bible - Romans, Culture, TRC

No Other Savior

September 24, 2012 — 1 Comment

Our sermon text today demands that we, like Israel of old, reckon with the question: is there any other god? Is there any other Savior? That is the fundamental question, the most important question in your day to day life. When the kids are screaming and disobeying, the question is: is there any other god? When temptation hits in the form of pornography or peer pressure or loneliness, the question is: is there any other god? When your wife is critical of you, your boss at work, or no one has had a nice thing to say in days, the question is: is there any other god? Is there any other Savior? When storms hit: cancer, job loss, broken relationships, when you are hurt, abused, sinned against, in your confusion, despair, fear, the question is the same: is there any other god? Is there any other Savior? And the answer to that question determines how you will respond every time. If there is another god, if there is another Savior you may despair, you may sin, you may give in to temptation, you may snap, you may blow up, you may be bitter, you may nurse your grudge. Continue Reading…

In Bible - Isaiah, Exhortations, Pastoral Theology, Prayer

Strange Hospitality

September 24, 2012 — Leave a comment

When we say that this table is God’s hospitality to us, and is therefore the motivation and driving force behind our hospitality to one another and the strangers, orphans, and widows around us, we are talking about a kind of hospitality that is actually very foreign to the world. It was foreign in the Old Testament when God first commanded Israel to keep the feasts and to keep Sabbath, and it was foreign in the first century when Jesus proclaimed that all those feasts and Sabbaths were being fulfilled in Him and the apostles took Him seriously. And it ultimately got Him and most of the first missionaries and apostles killed. They got killed for their hospitality; they were killed because of who they ate with. So what is so foreign about the hospitality of Jesus? What’s so threatening? It’s strange and foreign because it’s all based on grace. You don’t belong at this table. If you think you belong here, that’s just another reason you don’t belong here. We don’t deserve a place at the table of the Lord. We are sinners, we are fools, we are whiners, we are awkward, we are difficult to get along with. And if you don’t think so, probably even more so. Continue Reading…

In Church, Eucharistic Meditations, Evangelism, Food, Grace, Justice & Mercy, Theology - Sacraments, TRC

God Made People for Glory

September 20, 2012 — Leave a comment

Christianity & Culture Sunday School: Session 1

Romans 2: Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? 5 But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, 6 who “will render to each one according to his deeds”: 7 eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality; 8 but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness—indignation and wrath, 9 tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek; 10 but glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works what is good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

Introduction
Paul says that in the end there are only two ways: the way of glory and the way of wrath. Those who by patient continuance in doing good, seek glory, honor, and immortality receive what they seek. But those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, they receive the evil they have done.

What is Glory?
When we hear the word “glory” we frequently immediately collapse into pseudo-spiritual land thinking of halos and ethereal clouds. While it is true that God is full of glory, this means that the world He made is also full of glory. Glory is beautiful, impressive, overwhelming, awe-inspiring. In creation we see glory in hurricanes, sunsets, solar eclipses, tornadoes, rainbows, animals, insects, etc. But since people are made in the image of God, people reflect His glory. People are beautiful, handsome, attractive, strong, skilled, impressive. People accomplish great feats: climb mountains, invent things, perform pieces of music, athletic triumphs, are courageous in battle. Other glories: stories, plays, jokes, fine food, babies, love, etc. Continue Reading…

In Bible - Romans, Creation, Culture, TRC

The Hospitality of Jesus

September 17, 2012 — Leave a comment

This coming week, we’re beginning Parish Groups. One of the central reasons for Parish Groups is this table. And this year, we’re focusing on this particular theme. In a sense, every Sunday we meet as one large Parish Group. We sing together, pray together, study Scripture together, and eat together. Jesus invites us to His house, He shares hospitality with us, He shares His life with us. And when Jesus shares His life with people, they are changed. They become different people than they were before. When you trust in Jesus as your Savior, you receive a new life, new loves, new passions, even new gifts. One element of that new life that Jesus gives is the desire to share it. The new life that Jesus gives isn’t static. It has no shelf life. If you have no desire to share it, you don’t have it. You’re just going through the motions. You’re a liar, a hypocrite, a Pharisee. But maybe you’re just nervous to share it, scared, unsure, afraid of doing it badly. Well, here’s a suggestion: pay attention to the way that God welcomes you, and then ask God to give you that same kind of love, grace, and welcome for your neighbors, the strangers, and the hurting around you. Continue Reading…

In Eucharistic Meditations, Food, Justice & Mercy, Sabbath, Worship

Jesus Calls You

September 17, 2012 — Leave a comment

This Church belongs to Jesus. This is His church. Our senior pastor is Jesus Christ. Jesus is the head of the entire Church, the Chief Shepherd, and by His Word and Spirit, directly oversees and governs the affairs of every single Christian congregation in the world. This isn’t just a nice, pious thought; this is the truth. We exist at the pleasure of our Master Jesus. If Jesus wants to shut us down, there’s nothing we could do to stop that. Jesus is our Captain or Leader. And we follow our Leader wherever He leads. We listen to His voice, we obey His Word. And right now, your Captain, your Leader, your Master calls you to worship. The Call to Worship as we begin worship every Sunday is not merely a way to say “let’s start now.” The Call to Worship is God’s call to everyone within earshot to come into His presence, to come into His house, and this is why we say “I rejoiced when they said to me, let us go into the house of the Lord” and “our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem.” We are announcing this fact to one another: let’s go to God’s house: yes, let’s go there! How do we go to God’s house? By trusting in Jesus, by turning our hearts and minds and bodies towards Him. Continue Reading…

In Church, Exhortations, Grace, TRC, Worship

David & Emily

September 16, 2012 — Leave a comment

“Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. 32 And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. 5:1 Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.” (Eph. 4:31-5:2)

David and Emily, there are really only two ways, two roads, to paths, two stories in the history of the world: the way of bitterness and the way of forgiveness, the way of wrath, anger, revenge, clamor, malice or the way of kindness, tenderness, grace.

Now stated like that, most people don’t gleefully sign up for the first list. Let me see, you mean I get to be malicious too? Wow, what a deal. Sign me up for that one. But the problem is that many people don’t really understand the second list. It’s the happy list, the gold star list, the smiley face list, with rainbows and sunsets and puppy dogs and happily ever after music playing in the background. Of course that’s what we want, we say, when we’re dressed up in fancy suits and ties and lovely dresses. Of course that’s what we want when we’re in love, when the sky is blue and there’s not a cloud in the sky.

But you can tell that people don’t really get what that means when the clouds come rolling in, when the offenses come, when sin happens, when there’s disappointment, when there’s failure, when there’s hurt. I think lots of people have somehow gotten the idea that being a Christian just means being happy. God is a big buzz word that means “sunshine and bunnies” and being a Christians means pretending the world is a Thomas Kinkade painting, complete with lamp posts on every corner and manicured lawns. Continue Reading…

In Bible - Ephesians, Culture, Family, Grace, Wedding Exhortation

Peter Leithart, TRC, and Taking Over the World for Jesus

September 12, 2012 — 2 Comments

Dear Trinity Saints & Friends,

About month or so ago Peter Leithart told me about a plan that he and a few other men had begun talking and praying about, and tonight Peter announced that plan to the heads of households of Trinity Reformed Church. The plan is called Trinity Institute, a pastoral/theological study center to be founded in Birmingham, Alabama with Peter as the director of the program. You can read more about the plan in Peter’s own words here. This plan includes the Leitharts moving to Birmingham sometime during the summer of 2013.

If that were not enough, Joshua Appel, our newly appointed Pastor of Parish Life and Christian Education – in addition to giving us helpful overviews of the Sunday School program for the year as well as our Parish Group big picture plan – made mention that he has agreed to go through a pastoral candidating process with our sister congregation, Trinity Church, in Wenatchee, Washington. This does not mean that either Joshua is committed to moving to Wenatchee or that Trinity Church will definitely extend that invitation, but both parties have agreed to discuss that possibility. He hopes a decision, one way or the other, may be reached around the beginning of the year.

There are obvious ways in which both of these announcements evoke piles of mixed emotions. It’s exciting to see the opportunities that God seems to be laying before these men, and it’s challenging and difficult to hear, Peter Leithart’s news especially, as the founding pastor of Trinity.

But after the initial shock wore off a bit and I growled and shook my fist at Peter a few times for good measure (Joshua too, just in case), I stood back and looked at the last couple of years and nearly laughed in amazement, as I saw how clearly God has been leading us up to this moment, blessing us, organizing us, equipping us for the next stage in TRC’s story.

I’m thinking of several things: First, about two years ago, the leadership faced some of the most challenging pastoral counseling situations we have ever faced. It was a veritable storm of marriage implosions and hard heartedness and immorality and rebellion that ultimately resulted in a heads of household meeting where we made around 5-6 announcements regarding different situations where we were calling people to repentance, rebuking men in deep sin, announcing church discipline, etc. But looking back, that was God blessing us with the grace to be faithful to His word, faithfully love and protect the flock of God, and graciously calling erring brothers and sisters to repentance.

Sometime during that busy spell, I remember talking to Joshua Appel about what was going on, and we both marveled at what God had given us and wondered what He was up to. In that moment, one of us (I can’t remember who) said, “I wonder if God is getting ready to give us a building.” We’ve been ‘the church that meets in the hotel conference room’ for 9 years, and we’ve prayed for a building of our own since the beginning, and that idea seemed to make sense at the moment. But we had no prospects for any building at that time. But that conversation started an avalanche of praying and meeting and discussing how we could more faithfully organize our ministries, our leadership, and focus our priorities as a church. This led to the beginning of Parish Groups last year, a kickstart of Sunday School, an expanded diaconate (from 3 to 7 deacons, with 2 more in training), and refocusing of pastoral duties for the pastoral staff.

What’s more exciting is the fact that this isn’t just a lot of shuffling papers and administrative flow charts, we’ve seen real ministry taking place. God has been blessing families both inside and outside the church in some pretty startling ways. I have seen people come to the Lord and people come back to the Lord who had turned away from Him. I have seen marriages healed that looked like they were beyond fixing. I’ve seen huge sins confessed and forgiven and the way that the grace of Jesus transforms men and women and children in real life. I’ve seen the love of Jesus in action in our church through ministries of mercy to outcasts and lonely, hospitality to neighbors and strangers, and I’ve seen bills paid, children sponsored to attend Christian schools, and most recently, I’ve been supremely grateful to watch Trinity stand up and surround the Grieser family in love and prayers and support when their son, Jonah, was diagnosed with Leukemia.

And then if all that wasn’t good enough, this summer God gave us a building. The story is wild and crazy. I’ve said several times that the entire saga was like a really bad dating relationship, on again/off again, and by the end, I was just laughing at God’s sense of humor. In the end, it turned out that God was determined to give us the building at a cost far below reasonable for the simple reason that He can.

All that to say, when I look at the big picture, I see God having poured enormous blessings on our church, but not just any blessings. I see God having set us up for some of the most significant ministry and outreach and growth we have ever seen. I believe that God has organized our forces, galvanized our energies, lined us up on a field of battle and intends to use Trinity in bigger ways than ever before. And the building is a huge part of that. And after seeing the initial sketches of the site plan for the new building tonight (see Roy Atwood if you missed it), I am more convinced than ever. God has planted us here in a permanent way, in a public way and has prepared us for the next stage. In other words, I believe that we are on the verge of Trinity’s biggest work yet. And all because God has led us here, God is blessing us immensely and equipping us for more important tasks ahead.

Now when I look at all that, I certainly would not have written into that story any major character changes. But God writes His story better than we do, and He knows best. Of course there’s a huge part of me that would love to continue to stand up with Peter week after week leading worship, sharing counseling and preaching duties, etc., but when I stand back and look at God’s enormous blessing on our congregation, I am absolutely certain that this too is part of God’s blessing. God is blessing us even in this transition. And so we should pray and work to see Peter’s transition as part of the way we get to share this blessing with more of God’s people around the world. This new exciting calling is part of the way God intends to bless us at Trinity and bless others through us, extending to the Trinity Institute and beyond.

The wonderful thing is that Jesus is our Head Pastor, our Chief Shepherd and Overseer. He looks after all His saints, all His sheep, and He leads and directs and blesses. He knows where we need to be, and He puts us there for our good and for the advancement of His Kingdom. He can be trusted. He is a faithful leader.

I am so thankful for Peter and Noel, and for the supreme privilege and gift it has been and continues to be to serve with Him. And I ask you to join with me in praying God’s blessing on this new venture, this new work: for its organization, for its funding, for its curriculum and instructors, for the Leitharts’ transition, their family and all the details that go into a move like this.

I am also enormously thankful for Joshua and Sara, and the gifts and enthusiasm they bring to Trinity. I will continue to bribe and threaten in all the ways I can imagine (Sara, did you see those building plans and all that choir space?), but I have such great love and respect for them, that I am certain however the Spirit leads them will be for their blessing and the blessing of God’s people whether here or in Wenatchee.

What does all this mean? It means God is blessing us. It means that God is hearing our prayers to be used, to become ministers of His grace and justice. And thankfully we have a solid nine months or so to work on details, continue planning for the future, move into our new building and then get ready for whatever God has up His sleeve next. But I’m pretty sure it has something to do with taking over Moscow (and the world) for Jesus.

Much love and blessings,

Pastor Toby

In Church, Exhortations, Grace, Justice & Mercy, Misc, Pastoral Theology, TRC, Why I Won't Convert