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What about sin in the church?
What does it mean when we say that the church is “holy”? I encourage you to press through some of this (kind of thick) language from Thomas Oden, to get to the meat within. The basic idea is this: though the church does not willingly love, tolerate, or ignore sin within its membership, that does not mean that there is not any sin in the church–in the lives of those who are attending the different gatherings of people in the church, from Sunday mornings on down. If there were absolutely no sin in the church, it would disqualify any of us who sinned at all the day before from getting up and coming to gather, and it would bar anyone who’s life was not what it should be from entering at all (especially non-believers, who then couldn’t even come to hear God’s word).
But, if nothing else, the life of Jesus shows us a different path to holiness. Though he was the holiest man to ever live, if you know his life, you know that he was most certainly not avoiding sinful people. Quite the opposite. Oden observes:
The fullest disclosure of divine holiness is beheld on the cross. God does not evidence holiness by utterly separating from the history of sin, but by engaging and transforming it.
Isn’t this true? The holiness of Jesus was not to avoid sin by avoiding sinful people, but to reject and defeat sin by refusing it for himself while at the same time engaging sinful people to rescue them out of it.
Oden notes:
The [church,] being “called out,” is required to be separate and distinct from whatever is alien to God, precisely while working to save it…
Indicators of holiness in the church are often imperfect and embryonic. Signs of an imperfectly emergent holiness may appear in one who is as yet still noticeably lacking in behavioral righteousness.
The church on behalf of its holiness does not say to this person: Please come back when you are fully holy and then you will be baptized and invited to the Lord’s table.
Rather, the church on behalf of its holiness must draw as near to this person as possible so as to bring God’s goodness to sinners, and sinners to God’s goodness at each step along the way. This is seen in Jesus’ own attitude toward notorious but penitent sinners, whom he held to be closer to the kingdom than those who feign righteousness.
The deeper irony is that the signs of sin that attach to the church are indirect evidences of its holiness. It could not be a holy church if it had clean hands, as if separated from its mission and task of saving sinners. The very purpose of the church is the transformation of sinners; hence the paradoxical proximity of sin to the church.
The distinctive mission of discipling is to bring sinners to the way of holiness. This requires that the church should love at close quarters the sinners it is calling to refract the redeemed life.
The church appearing to have no sin within its boundaries is likely to be a church that has forsaken its mission. Sine the Christian community remains salt, light, and leaven within the world, it cannot remove itself wholly from the world without removing itself from its arena of apostolic mission. It purifies and cleanses its life only by a constant rhythm of distance and closeness to the world, gathering for worship and scattering for vocation.
As in triage, those most desperately wounded are those first cared for. The church has repeatedly found in the most notorious sinners its most brilliant and winning advocates (from Mary Magdalene and Paul to Saint Francis and John Newton). The skid row missions have nurtured many saints, who would not have been blessed had the church abandoned the skid rows.
And, finally, this:
There are few sins in the world that are not also found among the baptized. No church has yet become purified from lust, nationalism, envy, pride, or racism, and the list could go on. The Bible does not characteristically try to [cover up] the sins of the people of God, either publicly or before God.
Rather, the church is precisely the place where believers are brought to the specific awareness of the depths of their own shortcomings in order to receive convicting and forgiving grace.
The temple is no place for the pretense of righteousness.
— from Classic Christianity, by Thomas Oden
Beyond Agreeing to Disagree
Do you ever feel like the opportunity for Christian witness is closing down—like the doors that might have been cracked open are slamming shut, as we try to find ways to spread the message of Christ with people we know? Check out this “boldness and clarity” from Rosaria Butterfield:
In this post-Christian world, our theology is on display in everything that we do and say. Take, for example, the attic door that was swinging from a broken hinge at the Butterfield house on Wednesday, November 9, 2016, and Phil, the neighborhood handyman who came to fix it. When Phil answered my call to take a small job, I welcomed him in, pointed out the attic door, made sure that he knew the coffee in the pot was his to finish, and then returned to homeschool my children.
But then I heard it. Someone was crying.
Phil was in tears. He had finished the job, and was sitting in my kitchen, head buried in calloused hands, sobbing. I asked why and it all tumbled out: Christians are dangerous people, and this past election proved it. How could we move forward as friends if we don’t agree on basic values? How could I believe the things I do?
More:
In order to live with boldness and clarity as a light to the world, we have to love our neighbor sacrificially and live our lives with gospel transparency. We must risk loving our neighbors well enough that they know where God stands in our sin and our suffering. Our neighbors need to know who we really are and who we serve.
Not so that we can agree to disagree.
But so that we can disagree and still eat dinner together, at the end of the meal opening God’s Word and discussing what we find therein. We need to be transparent in sharing the Scriptures, which God has ordained to speak to His people. It is in these places—these uncomfortable, honest, awkward places of seeing the image of God in each other across the wide divides—that the gospel could travel with integrity, if we took greater risks than we do. Because in order to reflect God’s image in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, we need to do more than smile and nod.
In our post-Christian world, our words cannot be stronger than our relationships. This means that we prepare for the hard work of building strong relationships and the clear dangers of speaking gospel truth. We lean into conflict. And we aren’t overly sensitive about what people say to or about us. We proclaim Christ crucified, and we take every opportunity to do so. This is what it means to offer our post-Christian world authentic and bold Christian truth.
Everything she writes is great. I recommend reading the rest of this article.
Have You Heard the News?
Check it out everyone:
So, while we are aware that we’re in a bit of a volatile time in terms of the changing nature of public health needs, we are tentatively moving forward with plans to hold our Philly Young Adults conference again this year. Obviously, if it becomes clear that we need to change course, or cancel, we will do so in a timely manner, and refund everyone’s money.
Here’s the basic info:
Theme: Learning to Love the Old Testament
Dates: November 13-14
Location: Calvary Chapel of Philadelphia
Speaker: Dr. Dominick Hernandez (Southern Seminary)
Ages: 18-29
Website with all details and Registration: PYAC20.COM
QUESTIONS? : ebrown@ccphilly.org
More info:
Tentative Conference Schedule:
Friday, November 13:
7:00 pm Doors Open
7:30 pm Session 1 – “What’s the Old Testament ‘God’ to do with me?”
Post Session 1: Group Worship
Saturday, November 14:
9:00 am Doors Open
9:30 am Session 2 – “What do we Learn from the Women of the Old Testament?”
11:00 am Session 3 – “What do we do with the Law?”
1:00 pm Session 4 – “OT Wisdom Doesn’t Seem to ‘Work’!”
Post Session 4: Group Worship
3:00 pm Conference Ends
Who Should We Listen To?
Great to see everyone last night. Next week we’ll be back in home groups. Here are the notes from the study:
Psalm 1
Psalm 1 lays out two paths…The Blessed life is the life we want. What “blessed” means—“This is the truly blessed life.” The life to be envied, to be admired. “Happy.” This is “the good life.” We say: “They have the best life.”
Verse 3 helps us define what this means:
- Fruit: Your life is producing all the things it’s supposed to produce.
- Leaf: You are healthy, you have what you need.
- Prosper: Your life is successful, according to God’s design for humanity.
The way to it is to ignore the counsel of the ungodly, and spend your life meditating on God’s word, because you love it.
What is the counsel of the ungodly?
- It is advice about how you should think, act, or live your life that comes from people who don’t know God.
- It is when people who don’t actually acknowledge God as their king tell you who you should be.
- It is when people who don’t make following Jesus a priority tell you where you should be headed.
Today, the counsel of the ungodly doesn’t just come through people we know, but also through a whole network of technologies and media and all that that keeps all these ideas pressing on us 24/7.
How do we actually, practically avoid the “counsel of the ungodly” and instead “meditate on the law of the Lord”? Here are some scriptures for food for thought…
Deuteronomy 6:1-9
- Keep these words in your heart… by actively involving them in your life as much as possible. (v.7-9) Talk about them everywhere, teach them, center your family around them, start your day with them, end your day with them, make them central in your identity, let them shape your home… This is how to avoid “walking in the counsel of the ungodly.”
Psalm 119:11, 97-100, 104-105
- Saturating yourself in God’s word is how you avoid all kinds of traps.
Jeremiah 17:5-8
- This is a meditation on Psalm 1. Notice the parallels: “Walking in the counsel of the ungodly” becomes “trusting in Man” and “meditating on the law of the Lord” becomes “trusting in the Lord.”
Jeremiah 23:16-28
- There is such a thing as people who speak with an air of authority, but everyone who listens to them is worse off (v.16)
- The antidote is verse 18.
- There are all kinds of voices out there. There are people who offer all kinds of advice. There are people who claim to have higher knowledge and insight… God calls it all “chaff.” The Word of God, spoken faithfully, is the only thing that matters.
Matthew 7:24-27
- Why would someone ever build on the beach? Maybe everyone told them it was a great place to build. The Counsel of the ungodly will tell you where to build your house. They’ll tell you the sand is a perfect place to build. They’ll give you all kinds of advice about how to build on the sand, where to build on the sand. But they’ll never acknowledge that it’s a bad place to build your house, or that there’s even another option. In other words, they’ll never acknowledge that someone should base their whole life on Jesus’ words.
John 8:43-47
- A possible interpretation of verse 43: If you can’t listen to God’s word, you won’t understand the things Jesus said either. If the Bible is uninteresting to you, you’ll misunderstand Jesus.
John 15:11
- How does Jesus protect our emotional life? What provision has he made to keep us happy? His words. He spoke the things we needed to be inwardly whole. And he made sure those words were written down so we could meditate on them day and night, and be ok. Even if everything around us got tense or anxious or angry or lit on fire… we can have inner joy.
- For instance, see…
John 16:1-4
- What has he given us to make sure we don’t give up or freak out when we face real opposition? His words. Remember them, and you won’t stumble.
Sum Up: Psalm 1:1-4
“The counsel of the ungodly” doesn’t just come through people we know, but also through a whole network of technologies and media and all that that keeps all these ideas pressing on us 24/7.
God is calling us to ignore all of that, in terms of anything that really matters about our lives…and give ourselves to reading, knowing, thinking deeply about, loving, talking about, and even spreading… God’s words. That’s how you’ll avoid being ruined by the counsel of the ungodly. That’s how you’ll have a life that isn’t weightless and worthless like chaff. That’s how you’ll be healthy, strong, resilient and fruitful… till Jesus comes.
How to make sure you make it.
The other night I read this sentence in Thomas Oden’s book Classic Christianity:
“The Christian life requires simple surrender of the will to God on a continuing basis.”
There is so much in that one sentence–so much that is true. How will you possibly defeat sin, especially those sins that seem to have your number? (You know, the ones that are really hard for you to actually give up?)
Well, the only answer I have discovered is, one moment of temptation at a time.
How will you trust God, live for him, witness for Christ, know what to say, be led of God, love people, bear fruit, handle heart break, press on, and make it all the way to your death bed or Christ’s coming–having remained faithful? One moment, one decision, one prayer, one act of faith at a time. By the power of the Spirit. One moment of dependence on God, in which he meets you with his life and power and guidance, at a time.
Simple surrender of the will, on a continuing basis.
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.” That’s how Paul said it; and doesn’t that “day by day” also mean “moment by moment”?
I really think we need to constantly remind ourselves of this–or we will lose heart. And we need to constantly remind each other too. We need to be encouraging each other to press on. “He who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.”
Press on, friends. Don’t grow weary. Reaping time will be here soon.
And here is that quote from Oden, in its full context:
Faith requires a daily attitude of being yielded–a full readiness to respond to the promptings of grace by the Spirit. By this daily yielding, one is enabled to become more fully conformed to God’s will ‘that we may share in his holiness’ (Hebrews 12:10).
One may grow in yieldedness to grace by daily surrender and obedience. ‘Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation-but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God’ (Romans 8:12-14)
Under the tyranny of sin we were previously committing our bodies daily to a kind of ‘slavery to impurity and every kind of wickedness.’ Now that grace has come in Jesus Christ we are free to commit our bodies totally ‘to righteous leading to holiness’ (Romans 6:19).
The Christian life requires simple surrender of the will to God on a continuing basis (Matthew 6:10).
In proportion as God’s will is done in one’s life, one is walking in the way of holiness. In proportion as one is able honestly to say ‘Nevertheless not my will but thy will be done’ (Luke 22:42), just in that degree is one receptively cooperating with maturing grace.
Could Jesus come at any time?
Pastor Joe’s began teaching through Revelation on Sunday. In line with that, here’s a good concise explanation (from this book) of what we mean when we say that Jesus’ coming is imminent…
It is important that the difference between “immediate” and “imminent” in the English language be understood. “immediate” as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary” means “taking effect without delay.” Thus an immediate return would not allow any intervening events.
“Imminent”, on the other hand, means “impending”– it may happen at any time. Other events may intervene but this does not affect the impending nature of the return. The coming of the Lord in the NT is presented as imminent rather than immediate.
If it had been spoken of as immediate, saints would have cause for disappointment, as years have now run into decades and decades into centuries since the promise was given and the Lord still has not come. But the imminent return has been the hope of the church from apostolic times since it did not await the fulfillment of any intervening spiritual event.
God, with events in His own hands (Acts 1:7) could have so ordered matters that the return of the Saviour could have occurred at any stage. The perfect tense of [the word for “drawn near” used in] James 5:8–which can be literally translated “the coming of the Lord hath drawn nigh”–shows that with the divine calendar is His coming. It does not have to be immediate but it is certainly imminent. Believers in each succeeding age enjoy the glorious anticipation of His coming. The truth of imminence demands that a moral and ethical answer be seen in the life (1 John 3:3). God designed it so.
Sadly, in successive ages misinterpretation of scripture has robbed many saints of the joy and stimulus of the imminence of his glorious hope.
Loving the journey, but not the destination.
Adolph Saphir:
Christian maturity shows itself in knowledge. We are to be men in understanding.
The apostolic prayer is, that believers may be filled with the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God. We are to “go on unto perfection.” We have received the unction from above, from the Holy One, and therefore possess the power to know all things. It is through the truth that the Father sanctifies us. Growth in the knowledge of Jesus Christ is the necessary manifestation of life. This knowledge increases not merely in compass, but in depth; it assumes the character of intense conviction.
In this respect mature Christians form a strong contrast to a peculiarity of our present age. A keen observer thus describes this feature of our day: “A weak generation feels it pleasant to be waved to and fro by every wind of doctrine; a childish and effeminate race deems it an advantage to have no fixed conviction, and would find it tiresome to continue with life-long loyalty in the one truth, and to find peace in the one thought.” It is constant change—the intellectual activity and excitement in the search after truth, and not truth itself—which is their great object. Hence words, brilliant and subtle dialectics, negative doubts, and attacks on old opinions afford the nutriment of many minds.
This tendency affects even Christians; but God has revealed to us by His Spirit Himself and the spiritual realities of His heavenly kingdom. We know the things freely given to us of God. Jesus is the Truth. And the Spirit, whom we have received, leads us into the whole truth, according to the Savior’s promise.
It does not become the Christian, with Christ his light, with the Holy Ghost his teacher, with Scripture his manual, to speak as the children of the age, who possess opinions, but not truth; who, seeking to establish a wisdom of their own, have not submitted themselves to the wisdom of God. But to be established in the truth is the characteristic of Christian manhood, the result of diligent, earnest, and conscientious study of God’s word.
“Therefore…let us go on to maturity.”
Good things to ponder, friends…
Bound into the Shared Reality
Here’s more gold from Alec Motyer. Reading Isaiah 56:1-12, he asks, what are the distinctive marks of God’s people?
His answer:
First personal decision, (“joined himself to the Lord”, v. 3, 6), and love of his name (v.6), the determination to go the Lord’s way (“choose”, v.4).
And what does it mean to “take a firm grip on my covenant”? Two things: his “covenant” is first and foremost his outreach to us in grace and love, his gracious promises made our personal possession, and then secondly, as a result, our life of obedience, living for his good pleasure (Col. 1:10).
Our hearts, given to the Lord and full of love for all he has revealed about himself (his name); our wills, committed and choosing what we know will please him; our lives, as their basic principle, resting on his grace, living out his Word.
We are joined to the Lord himself in spiritual union; pondering, loving and reveling in his revealed truth; committed to going his way; saved by grace; obedient in life.
Listen to his last point, as he sums up what this all means, and ponder how relevant this is in our day of anxious, spreading division and isolation:
These are the things
that bind us
into the shared reality of being the one, universal people of the Lord,
the blessed company of all believers…
We need to give careful attention to all that unites, and to be wary of things that make differences and divide.
Prescient, wise words.
Focus.
This follows on a post from a few weeks ago. Here is Francis Schaeffer, speaking life!
God willing, I will push and politic no more….
The mountains are too high, history is too long, and eternity is longer.
God is too great, man is too small, there are many of God’s dear children, and all around there are men going to Hell.
And if one man and a small group of men do not approve of where I am and what I do, does it prove I’ve missed success?
No.
Only one thing will determine that – whether this day I’m where the Lord of lords and King of kings wants me to be.
To win as many as I can, to help strengthen the hands of those who fight unbelief in the historical setting in which there are placed, to know the reality of ‘the Lord is my song,’ and to be committed to the Holy Spirit – that is what I wish I could know to be the reality of each day as it closes.
Refuge, and Strength.
Psalm 46:
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