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Archives For Justice & Mercy

The Porn War

April 30, 2013 — 8 Comments

I’ve blogged about lust and porn before, but I thought I’d put a few more thoughts down here.

You should think about the porn war like any other war as having both defensive and offensive aspects. Defensive warfare is not a winning tactic, but it is a necessary tactic. And usually, when the Spirit has sacked a man, and he comes to his senses, repents, and wants to get out the prison cell of lust and pornography, the defensive angle has to be emphasized first. You need to get real accountability (pastor, parent, wife, godly roommate), change jobs, stop traveling so much, throw away your computer, put Covenant Eyes on your smart phone, cut off your hand or eye causing you to sin (Mt. 5:28-30). Jesus prescribes amputation, so don’t expect this to be very fun. This should be done right away while the Spirit is still burning within you. After about two weeks, the chances of you wanting to do anything drastic fall dramatically. But you should basically imagine your lust as a wild beast. You need to think about killing the damn thing, and that means you need to be your own worst enemy. Imagine the worst about your self. What are you likely to do in your weakest moment? Then cut that off. Pluck it out. Move out. Quit your job. Throw away your phone. Sounds crazy, but if it doesn’t look crazy, I don’t think you can say you’re actually obeying Jesus.

But the real problem is in your heart, in your mind, in the way you think about women, the way you think about sex and love. So after you slammed all the doors shut, padlocked them, run barbed wire around the tops of the fences, and dumped a bunch of broken glass around every entrance and exit, you need to do some hard thinking and praying about your heart and mind. Here’s a list to get you started:

1. God made women in His own image. Women are people. They are human beings. They are beloved daughters of God. He made them. He loves them. He values them. Do you think of women as God’s daughters? Do you recognize that they all belong to Him? They are His? And they are daughters, mothers, sisters, and friends of other people. They are real people. And this does not cease to be true when they are photographed or filmed. When you see a woman on the cover of a magazine do you remember that God made her? That she has an eternal soul, a story, a family, loves, hopes, dreams? Continue Reading…

In Bible - Matthew, Culture, Justice & Mercy, Manalive, Marriage Bed, Wisdom

Our Babel Moment

April 26, 2013 — Leave a comment

I’ve grown up in the middle of the Media-Lucy-and-Charlie-Brown game. So I don’t believe anything they say. I don’t believe the suits. I don’t believe the shiny smiles. I don’t believe your sexy low-cut blouse. I don’t watch the news. I don’t read it. I subscribe to no newspapers. I do not have cable television. And whenever I have a few minutes to catch a bit of what they call news, I’m always reassured that I’m still not missing out. Someone recently asked how I get my news, and after a minute I realized that the simple answer is some kind of combination of Twitter feeds and Facebook (though I’ll admit I’ve occasionally practiced a bit haruspicy in my son’s full diaper). I’m not saying I’ve got an edge on anyone here, but I am saying I don’t think it matters.

I’ve thought for some time now that living here in the 21st century watching the talking heads and not giving a rip about what they say must be what it was like in Babel a little over four thousand years ago when God came down on their building project to confuse them. We are living in a Babel moment. God has confused our words. He has done this partially through the advent of social media and the internet: the proliferation of news outlets, news sources, coupled with the fact that anybody and their grandma can post something on Facebook or Twitter or Youtube and it has the potential to go viral. And so we have pictures of kittens and political cartoon memes and people trying to speak straight-faced on the TV about snipping the spinal cords of living babies. And this leads to the other way God has sent confusion: sin. Down the street there’s a discussion going on about whether a man with a proclivity to hump other men should be granted a marriage license. Unmanned drones are dropping bombs here and there. Terrorists are blowing themselves up in various places, rumors of economic crisis and collapse, Christians being persecuted in other countries, nuclear crisis in North Korea, and government conspiracies to confiscate all our guns and turn America into a police state. Continue Reading…

In Bible - Genesis, Culture, Economics, Justice & Mercy, Politics, Prayer

A Prayer For These Days

April 22, 2013 — 1 Comment

Almighty and Most Merciful God: You spoke the worlds into existence. The mountains stand by your command. The oceans toss and foam because you tell them to. The earth shakes at the sound of your voice.

When we disobeyed your voice, when we did not love your Word, the world grew wicked and so you spoke a flood. When men despised your word again and lifted themselves up and built a great city with a tower reaching up into the sky. You came down and spoke a flood of confusion. When our fathers went down into a strange land, they became slaved by the gods, by the demons, by their sins, by a wicked tyrant who did not know you who refused to bow to your Word. So you spoke blood in their rivers and sores on their backs. You spoke flies and locusts and you destroyed their land. You put out the light of the wicked and they went down into the darkness of death, but you had mercy on your people and you shined your light upon them, and they walked through the sea unharmed with walls of water on their right hand and on their left.

Again and again, you have been our God. You have been our fortress, our rock, our stronghold, our deliverer, our judge, our Savior. When we have forgotten your word, you have risen up for us. When we have rejected your word, you have had mercy upon us. When tyrants and cruel men have oppressed us and taunted us and sought to crush us, though you have turned your face from us for a little while, your mercies are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.

And in the fullness of time, you sent your Word, and the Word became flesh dwelt among us. But sinful men hated Your Word again. They despised it. They rejected it. They spat on it. They mocked it. They condemned it. And finally, they crucified it. They hung your Word, Your Good Word, Your Life-Giving Word on a cross. They drove spikes through His hands and feet and they drove a crown of thorns into His head. They pierced His side with a spear. And they buried Him in a tomb, sealed with a stone, and guarded by a regiment of Roman soldiers. Continue Reading…

In Church, Justice & Mercy, Pastoral Theology, Prayer, TRC, Worship

What is a Christian?

April 17, 2013 — Leave a comment

A Christian is someone who believes that the answer to all the brokenness, pain, and evil in this world is the death of a man named Jesus two thousand years ago.

How could the death of one man be the answer to terrorism, abuse, betrayal, cancer, or crime?

The answer is that this man Jesus was not like any other man who has ever lived or ever will live. This man was actually the One who made this world.

Despite the horror, despite the pain, despite the senseless evil that has filled this world, this world is still filled with unexplainable, astounding glory and beauty. From sunsets to galaxies, from laughter to love, from music to dance to ice cream — this world is gut-wrenchingly good.

Christians believe that God made this world and loaded it with glory. He invented this place. He imagined this place. And He filled it with treasures and wonders and pleasure and beauty. But men and women have not listened to His voice. We wanted to go our own way. We wanted to be our own bosses, our own gods. Instead of listening to the words of the Inventor of the universe, we decided to listen to other words, to make up our own words.

This rejection of the Good God who made this good world is called sin. And since God invented life, and His word is what gives life to all things, to turn away from His word, to turn away from His life, is ultimately to embrace death. The wages of sin is death. Sin is asking for death. Therefore sin deserves death. Of course people don’t think that they are begging for death when they sin, when they disobey the voice of God, but still we sin and still death comes again and again and again. Continue Reading…

In Bible, Creation, Evangelism, Grace, Justice & Mercy, Preaching, Theology - Christology, TRC

Broken for the Broken

March 25, 2013 — Leave a comment

This table is for sinners. This meal is not for good people. This bread is not for people who have their act together. This wine is not for people who have never made enormous mistakes. No, this bread is broken because Jesus was broken for the broken. This wine is His blood because Jesus bled for the guilty. We do not gather here at this table as the top of the class, as the winners, the success stories, the clean, the innocent, the popular, the good looking. No, we are here as the failures, the losers, the guilty, the outcasts, the rejected, the ugly.

There are any number of ways we could get the idea of a new building wrong. As we prepare for this new stage in our story as TRC, we should be thinking and praying about the ways we will be tempted. One danger is the temptation that we will think we have arrived, that we are now a respectable church, full of good, squeaky clean people. Yes, we are a forgiven people. Yes, by the grace of God, we are healed and healing people. Yes, we have been given many blessings. But if we understand who we are in the light of God’s grace, we have to constantly remember where we have come from and how far we have to go. Continue Reading…

In Bible - Isaiah, Eucharistic Meditations, Evangelism, Justice & Mercy, Lent

Jesus Was Not a Victim

March 19, 2013 — Leave a comment

Rich Bledsoe writes:

The book of Hebrews speaks of the “deceitfulness of sin.” Once sin is unmasked one way, it transmutes itself like a virus into a slightly different form that is immune to the old antidotes. We live in the very odd day when the Christian Gospels have done a great deal of work to unmask what was invisible to the ancient world in regard to the victim. But now in many cases the garb of victimhood can be donned in order to victimize others, in order to persecute. The persecuted have in many cases become the persecutors, and it is necessary to understand that victimhood is not an automatic ticket to righteousness or moral superiority. Several recent theological perspectives have granted to victims a special status and even an “epistemological advantage”, meaning that only victims really see the world as it is. In all of this thicket, it is essential to highlight the fact that Jesus was not in the final analysis a victim, and He did not pioneer the way to make victimization profitable, but he opened the way to overcome and create a new social order that is truly based on righteousness.

Read the whole article here.

In Culture, ethics, Justice & Mercy, Lent, Manalive, Pastoral Theology, Theology, Wisdom

Everlasting Joy

March 11, 2013 — Leave a comment

“Therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and joy; and sorrow and mourning shall flee away.” (Is. 51:11)

One of my earliest memories in church as a child is singing a song based almost word for word on this verse. John Frame, one of the greatest theologians of our time, was our Music Minister at my family’s church in California, and I specifically remember him stopping us in the middle of singing this song one time, in order to teach us to properly clap on beat to the song. I thought about trying to teach it to you this morning, but maybe another time.

Every week, we celebrate our return from the exile of sin and death. Every week we come with singing unto Zion with an everlasting joy upon our heads. This world is still full of sorrow and mourning, but we gather here because Jesus has come back from the dead. Jesus has taken away our sins. And now even sickness and failure and shame and death cannot and will not have the last word. And because Jesus drank the cup of God’s wrath and gave His body broken on a tree, we have this bread that will never fail and this cup of everlasting joy. And as we share it together, we lift it up to God and remind Him of His promises to us in Jesus to put all things right, and we remind one another that sorrow and mourning will not have the last word. They shall flee away. So come and rejoice.

In Bible - Isaiah, Eucharistic Meditations, Justice & Mercy, Theology - Sacraments, TRC

Death or Death?

January 24, 2013 — 1 Comment

In various venues, in various talks over the last few years, I’ve found myself pointing out that God’s Plan A is death and resurrection. God’s Plan A is for Jesus to die and rise again. And Jesus told us clearly that following Him means sure death. To follow Jesus is to plan to die. Death is not a possibility. Death is the aim. We aim to die. We aim to run headlong for the glory of God and lay our lives down in love for the One who saved us.

This is not suicide because we do not take our lives in a rush of selfish bitterness. We don’t light ourselves on fire and hope for sympathy. We don’t slit our wrists and hope people will somehow hear our silent cries for help, for attention.

No, we have met the God of the Universe, the God who made this place, the God who runs this world. And He was born of a virgin, and willingly laid His life down for us. He died so that we might die in Him, and He rose from the dead so that we might live in Him. So the plan then is to die. And there is no Plan B. Plan B is only eternal sorrow and isolation.

And the gospel proclaims this grace, the gift of being taken up into the mission of God, the gift of offering up our lives as sacrifices of praise, in the life of the Perfect Son, the perfect sacrifice.

This is the center of the gospel which means that this touches so many different facets of life. But let me just point to two here. Continue Reading…

In Culture, Evangelism, Family, Food, Grace, Justice & Mercy

A Pro-Life Meal

January 21, 2013 — Leave a comment

Today around this country, many Christians are remembering the Roe vs. Wade decision from 40 years ago which left some of the weakest, most vulnerable members of our society undefended, unprotected. And millions of lives have been taken as a result. We stand with our brothers and sisters protesting this monstrosity, this barbarian holocaust. And we plead with Jesus to hear their cries, to forgive us, and to turn us from this great evil.

At the same time, I want to call us this morning to be more consistently pro-life. We are pro-life, but we have to recognize that there is more to being pro-life than merely protecting the life of the unborn. It certainly includes that, but there is more than that. And I want us to consider two areas in particular. First, we want to continue to grow up into a community that shelters and protects women, particularly those coming from abusive relationships, in crisis pregnancies, those most tempted, most vulnerable to considering abortion. And we also want to offer forgiveness and cleansing and healing through Jesus to all women who have had abortions. And there are many. There are some in our churches, and there are many in our community. Continue Reading…

In Eucharistic Meditations, Exhortations, Family, Food, Grace, Justice & Mercy, Theology - Sacraments, TRC

Looking for Jesus: Part 7

January 15, 2013 — Leave a comment

[Note: the first part of this sermon was The Gospel According to Water.]

How This Fits with Epiphany
Epiphany means “manifestation,” it means a sudden bolt of inspiration, understanding: “Aha!” One of the supreme places the Bible and the church fathers have pointed for one of these great manifestations is the baptism of Jesus. There the God who made the waters came down into the waters. The one who led Israel through the sea came down to be led through the sea. The One who cleansed and purified Israel, the One who was always clean and holy came to be washed clean for the forgiveness of Israel, to fulfill all righteousness. Then, right on schedule, as Jesus was coming up out of the water, the Spirit descended upon him and the Father spoke from heaven identifying for the whole world, His beloved Son. This beloved Son, filled with Spirit, became the Rock that was struck so that living water might flow out to the ends of the earth (Jn. 19:34). And when we read and hear this story of the rivers, the story of the waters, and we see Jesus standing in the midst of the waters, how can we not glorify Him? How can that not hit us? How can that not open our eyes? Jesus is our living water, our Spirit-filled water.

What Should Studying the Bible Be Like?
This why when you read the Bible rightly, when you are studying it prayerfully, it should be like drinking water, like cool fresh water on your face on a hot day, like a happy, gurgling stream in a mountain meadow, like riding in a fierce, raucous squall. It should be at turns refreshing, sweet, comforting, peaceful, unnerving, terrifying, and overwhelming. Because Jesus meets us in His Word. Continue Reading…

In Bible, Culture, Epiphany, Evangelism, Grace, Justice & Mercy, Politics, Sermon Outlines, Sola Scriptura, TRC, Wisdom