March 27, 2008 - "Reasons For Good Friday"

I was moved by a little poem by Jane Kenyon and surprised to find it quoted at the end of a washingtonpost.com column by Michael Gerson in which he reviews Timothy Keller’s book, The Reason for God. The column’s title is “Reasons for Good Friday”, and here is the poem—

The God of curved space, the dry

God, is not going to help us, but the Son

whose blood spattered

hem of His mother’s robe.

March 19, 2008 - "Let Judas Shake You"

“Then one of the twelve, whose name was Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, ‘What will you give me if I deliver Him over to you?’ And they paid him thirty pieces of silver.”
Matthew 26:14-15

Today Chris Quinlan, our great Communications/Technology Director, reminded me that he will portray Judas in the Passover presentations on March 21 and 22. That conversation came just minutes after reading this brief commentary by John Piper, found in the blog section of desiringgod.org:

“Judas left the fellowship of the twelve apostles after the anointing in Bethany and arranged to betray Jesus for 30 pieces of silver (Matthew 26:14-15). But when they met again at the last supper, there he was! Near enough to dip into the Savior’s cup.”

“When our family read this for devotions last night I was angry at the absolute wickedness of Judas coming back to eat Passover with the one he had just sold. I said to my daughter, evidently with more emotion that she was used to, ‘That is utterly wicked!’”

“She said, ‘What is so wicked?’ I said, ‘What if I went out tonight and arranged for a cruel man to kill you on the way to school tomorrow morning? That would be horrible. But then would it not be wicked to high heaven if I came home, after arranging your murder, and had devotions with you and prayed with you?’

“She was shaken.”

“Small wonder that Jesus said, ‘It would have been better for that man (Judas) if he had never been born’ (Matthew 26:24).”

“Let us be shaken this week, again and again.”

Powerful. O Lord, that I may not pretentiously follow you and call you my Lord and then sell you out for the temporary pleasures of sin! Shaking is good, so do shake me at the thought of such betrayal. Amen.

March 13, 2008 - "Taking Sin Seriously"

Since March 9^th’s sermon my mind has returned again and again to Matthew 7:1-5 and I’ve been amazed at the Lord’s thorough knowledge of human nature. It is common to all of us—an unwillingness to take logs out of my own eyes and a ready willingness to search for and extract specks from others’ eyes. Why? Is it because the logs are to close to really see? Have we become so used to having eye logs that they don’t irritate us anymore? Is it ego protection and fear to admit our sin and wrong, born out of stubborn pride?

Judge not that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of you eye, when there is the log in your own eye?’ You hypocrite, firs take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. Matthew 7:1-5

On March 11, Rynette and I read this in Spurgeon’s Morning by Morning devotional:

Beware of light thoughts of sin. It is sadly true, that even a Christian may grow by degrees so callous, that the sin which once startled him does not alarm him in the least. By degrees men get familiar with sin. The ear in which the cannon has been booming will not notice slight sounds. At first a little sin startles us; but soon we say, "Is it not a little one?" Then there comes another, larger, and then another, until by degrees we begin to regard sin as but a little ill; and then follows an unholy presumption: "We have not fallen into open sin. True, we tripped a little, but we stood upright in the main. We may have uttered one unholy word, but as for the most of our conversation, it has been consistent." So we palliate sin; we throw a cloak over it; we call it by dainty names. Christian, beware how thou thinkest lightly of sin. Take heed lest thou fall by little and little. Sin, a little thing? Is it not a poison? Who knows its deadliness? Sin, a little thing? Do not the little foxes spoil the grapes? Doth not the tiny coral insect build a rock which wrecks a navy? Do not little strokes fell lofty oaks? Will not continual droppings wear away stones? Sin, a little thing? It girded the Redeemer's head with thorns, and pierced His heart! It made Him suffer anguish, bitterness, and woe. Could you weigh the least sin in the scales of eternity, you would fly from it as from a serpent, and abhor the least appearance of evil. Look upon all sin as that which crucified the Saviour, and you will see it to be "exceeding sinful."

As we at RBBC give ourselves to growing in biblical peacemaking and development of a culture of peace as a church family, let us beware ego-defensive pride that leads to destruction (Proverbs 16:18) and invite the Holy Spirit to apply Matthew 7 to our calloused consciences so that we may obey Christ’s command to take logs of sin out of our own eyes. We know that Jesus Christ took our sins seriously; let us take our sin seriously, too.

“Look upon all sin as that which crucified the Saviour, and you will see it to be “exceeding sinful”.

March 3, 2008 - "Unity and Sound Doctrine"

On Sunday morning we saw in Ephesians 4 that there are five commitments needed to cultivate and demonstrate peace and unity in the body of Christ. I want to expand on thoughts regarding the second one, commitment to sound doctrine (see verses 4, 5, 14 and 15).

Last year doctrinal controversy erupted in our church, causing much pain and loss in our fellowship. So should we just step around doctrinal questions for the sake of unity and peace? No! The apostle Paul would say, “Absolutely not!” “Without sound doctrinal teaching, the body of Christ will dissolve into a myriad of personal opinions on issues that God Himself has defined in His Word” (The Powerful Witness of Unity, March 2, 2008).

But God’s Word calls us to deal with doctrine humbly, gently, patiently, and lovingly, as we eagerly maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. “There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Ephesians 4:2-4). Such a God-given disposition of humility is the attitude necessary as priorities of doctrine are discussed and decided upon.

Humility, but not wishy washiness… We must “beware of a modern mistake here. Humble does not mean wishy washy when it comes to truth…It is a great mistake to confuse humility with uncertainty. But many today do confuse them. They think that the only humble demeanor is the uncertain, vague, iffy demeanor.”

“Is that what Paul meant? The only way to preserve the unity of the Spirit is to be vague and uncertain in your grasp of truth? He didn’t seem to be that way…G.K. Chesterton put his finger on the problem…in a little book called Orthodoxy:

“What we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled on the organ of conviction, where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert—himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt—the Divine Reason.”

“The humility that leads to unity is not uncertainty and doubt and vagueness and confusion. It is the demeanor that says: I am not the center; truth is the center and I submit to the truth and go where it leads. I am not king; God is King. My will is not the law; God’s Word is the law. I don’t tell God how many faiths (beliefs) are acceptable to Him; He tells me. I don’t define the foundation of the unity of the Spirit; God does.”

(Sermon by J. Piper, Nov. 8, 1992)

Therefore, let us humbly pursue God-honoring peace and unity in the Spirit, committed to sound doctrine.