Blind Guides in a Blizzard – Joint Outdoor Worship Service Exhortation
While there is no good time to have a blind guide, there are worse times to have one. If you must have a blind guide, then have him when you are meandering through a meadow, making your way through Kansas on a calm sunny day. Unfortunately, we are not in that story at the moment. Our situation is more like traversing the Rockies in a blizzard, with snipers on the ridge, and it is almost certain that several in our caravan have come down with a nasty case of cholera. Now is not the time to have a blind guide and it is not the time to be one.
You can easily spot the blind guides. They are the ones who leave their big gnarly sins festering, only to wake on Sunday and open the spice cabinet to measure out the oregano tithe. They use the sieve to strain the gnat out of the coffee while sitting down to a camel breakfast. The blind guides have lost all sense of proportionality, distance, weight, size. They have lost their vision, but they are still eager to talk to you about what you need to see. Well, how did they become such visionless visionaries?
Jesus told his disciples that the Scribes and Pharisees said, but did not. There was plenty of talk about what ought to be done without the doing of it. They would strap others with burdens, but they wouldn’t move a pinky to move those burdens.
When the LORD shakes the things that can be shaken, as He most certainly is doing, the people who have been laboring away at the things that cannot be shaken really do have a lot to teach others. But the only way to guide others is to do the good works God has called you to do.
Grace & Peace: Proverbs 25:9-10
At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)
“Debate thy cause with thy neighbour himself; And discover not a secret to another: Lest he that heareth it put thee to shame, and thine infamy turn not away”
Proverbs 25:9-10
“Debate your case with your neighbor, and do not disclose the secret to another; Lest he who hears it expose your shame, and your reputation be ruined”
Proverbs 25:9-10
This is a proverb that warns us about that dangers of talking out of school. If you have a dispute someone, your neighbor, say, this text says that you should go to him directly. Deal with him, the one with whom you differ.
While you are doing this, Scripture says, deal with him alone. Do not play to the nickel seats. Do not canvas the surrounding population to see what they think. In short, do not be political.
The assumption made here by the Word of God is that if word of your behavior gets out, it will be seen for what it is—disgraceful. When a problem arises, one of the ways you can identify the responsible people in the situation is by looking closely at how they handle the situation with others. Apart from the merits of the dispute, are they handling the manner of the dispute responsibly?
It is important not to let the dispute spread any more broadly than it needs to. There are many who like to style themselves as peacemakers when they are actually agitators. Say that someone comes to the pastor with “a concern.” You know, one of those. They talk about it for a while, and when the pastor fails to give satisfaction, what should we conclude when the person then says something like, “You know, there are many others who feel the same way that I do . . .”
To which the pastor should say, “Ah, I see. You’ve been talking to a lot of people about this then?”
That’s not peacemaking, and it truly is disgraceful.
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A Glutton and a Drunk – Christ Church Exhortation
It is universally accepted that Christians should be Christlike. But you will not find universal agreement on what it is like to be Christlike. Many young boys have grown up being reminded by the church ladies that they should follow in the ways of Jesus, these church ladies being the type who will not abide a foul tongue and never miss a ladies’ luncheon to discuss The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Homemaking. But the boys eventually come across the gospel truth that Jesus came eating and drinking, and was accused of being a glutton and a drunk, only to have the church ladies look on in dismay as the young men’s bible study marches off to the local pub singing, “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus.” The church ladies wag their fingers. The boys continue, “Though none go with me, I still will follow.”
The charges against our Lord were false. But they were reasonably false. His first miracle was turning water into good wine in order to keep a wedding party going. He multiplied fish and loaves to feed 5,000 and made sure there were leftovers. Of all of the sacraments He might have left us, He gave us bread to strengthen the heart and wine to gladden it. He had nothing to do with the self-made religion which flies the three banners overhead: Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch. That self-righteous religion has the appearance of godliness and it is plenty tough on the body. But it isn’t the least bit tough on the flesh.
If you would truly crucify the flesh, and if you would genuinely be Christlike, then you must know what it means that the Son of Man came preaching the year of the Lord’s favor. Believe Him and you will be as new wine skins swelling with His new wine. Disbelieve Him and you will be as old wine skins burst apart by His fermentation.
Christ Church Troy Exhortation
Why do we get tired?
On long summer days working on projects, filling the weekends with adventures and making the most of Idaho summers before school starts up again, it is inevitable that you will get worn out.
It is easy to think about exhaustion and see it as a consequence of the Fall. Our bodies break down with time, we get sick, we get tired. Tiredness is a little form of death, and every night we lie down to sleep, and we die, but like death, that is not the end. You rise back to life in the morning. Death and resurrection.
But unlike exhaustion, rest has a very different picture in Scripture. God rested on the seventh day from His work. God was not worn out and in need of a break. And man was given this pattern of six days labor and one day of rest before man fell. Work was good. And rest was good and there was no sin. The Israelites looked forward to their rest in the promised land of Canaan when their work of conquering the land was complete. The new Israel, the church, looks forward to rest in this land, when the last remaining strongholds of sin are removed. Rest is the reward. Rest is sweet.
So, when you are dead tired from long days of work well done, thank God for the rest that He gives each night. Thank God and take rest on the Sabbath. Ecclesiastes 5:12 – “The sleep of a laboring man is sweet…”
But when you are exhausted because you have been living with sin, fighting and falling to temptation, when there is no rest in your marriage, when you are filled with stress and can’t relax on Sunday, this exhaustion gives you the picture of the only place that sin will lead to death. If you want rest, if you want peace, then first go and fight the giants in the land, the giants in your house, the giants in your heart. Do not be ok with a few sins on the edges that are currently out of site and not causing trouble. The command is to kill every last one, and the God who gives the command is the same God who has promised you rest. The reward is sure.
Zach Browning – July 14, 2024
Trauma-Mongers – Christ Church Downtown Exhortation
The therapeutic worldview which prevails in our society views trauma as the operating system. Your every action is caused by underlying trauma. But the demand for trauma outstrips the supply. So, the priests of this new religion contrive new sorts of trauma. Everything becomes a tangled web of traumas inflicted upon you, and trauma for trauma you’ve inflicted on others due to your privileges.
It’s hard to keep up with such a system, because, at its core, it’s an incoherent system. It’s a system which wants any evil in you to be pinned on someone else.
But evil doesn’t come from outside you. Each of us are quite capable of innovating some of the worst scum known to mankind. Have others wronged you? Most certainly. But in your response to that wrong have you always and in every way responded with innocent motives. Have you never harbored bitterness, wishing for evil to befall those who wronged you, lusting for revenge?
God’s Word gives us an entirely different route for dealing with evil. Ironically, God calls you to pin all your evil on Someone Else. You must put all your sin on the only One who never sinned, but first you must also confess that all your sin is, in fact, yours. You can’t blame shift. You can’t pin it on your parents, your culture, your skin color, your socio-economic class, or anything other than you. Your sins, every last one, is yours, and God welcomes you to put it all on Jesus. He who knew no sin became sin, that we might be made righteous. Confession of sin, then, is taking responsibility for all the vile things you’ve done as well as all the vile things you’ve desired to do. And then Christ gladly takes it upon Himself, and pins it to His cross, that it all might die there.
Ben Zornes – July 14, 2024
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