Christ Church

Run that You May Win

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The Text

Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.25 And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible.26 I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air:27 But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.

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Sin & Dust (Easter Drive-In)

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Introduction

In the Garden of Eden, when God shaped the first man from the dust of the ground (Gen. 2:7), the Almighty was simply playing the part of a sculptor. He shaped Adam from the dust of the ground, but until the second half of the verse, this Adam was simply dust rearranged. After the semblance of a man had been fashioned out of dust, God breathed into his nostrils the “breath of life,” and it was then that man became a living soul. The dust was still there, but something else was not present. The image of God was now present.

But that image was soon to be marred. Despite the warning of God that if he ate the forbidden fruit he would “surely die,” our first father disobeyed, and in the curse was dragged back down to the dust of the ground. “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” (Gen. 3:19).

The Text

“For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins” (1 Cor. 15:16–17).

Summary of the Text

God brought Adam out of a state of “death” when He first created him. Adam was not, and then he was. He walked with God in the Garden, and was free to eat from all the trees but one, and so had free access to the tree of life. He and his bride were really and truly alive. When they sinned, they plunged themselves and all their posterity into the dust of death. In our text this death is equated with being in our sins. That is what spiritual death is—separation from fellowship with the holy God. And that is what sin is—separation from fellowship with the holy God.

Notice Paul’s logic. If the dead are not raised, then Christ was not raised. And if Christ was not raised, your faith is vain, and you are still in your sins. Now if you put all this together, you should see that when Christ was raised from the dead, and we were raised from the dead with and in Him, we were also at that moment raised from our sins. Our sins are our death; our death was our sinfulness.

The Death That Is Sin

This is how Paul describes our previous condition in Ephesians:

“And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others” (Eph. 2:1–3, NKJV).

Notice here that death does not mean being “stone cold out of it” because when we were in this condition of death, we were walking around in the course of this world. When we were dead, we were living in a certain way. That way, that path, was the way of death, which meant that we were walking in a condition that was separation from God. So death is not simple cessation; death is separation. Physical death is the separation of soul and body. Spiritual death is the separation of man and God. When we die to the ways of the world, we separate from her unholy ways. “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you” (2 Cor. 6:17).

So that is what death is. Death is distance, death is separation.

We used to live in a separated way from God, aliens to Him, enemies to Him. Christ came down to us in that condition, and in His passion and death, He experienced that death. “My strength is dried up like a potsherd; And my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; And thou hast brought me into the dust of death” (Ps. 22:15).

So Flip This Around, the Way Easter Did

Look again to the words of our text, and work the logic the other direction.

“For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins” (1 Cor. 15:16–17).

If the dead are raised, then it is not remarkable that Christ was the first to be raised. And if Christ was raised, then your faith in Him is not in vain, and more than this, you are no longer in your sins.

Ushered Out

Apart from Christ, what is the condition of man? Apart from Christ, where are we? Separated from God, what good is anything? We are the ones who reached for the forbidden fruit in our vain question to “be as God,” and what did we actually accomplish?

Now we live in the dry and choking places. Dust over everything. Broken bottles. The air is sour. The smoke of selfishness has left an acrid taste on your tongue. The walls lean in. There is scarcely any light. Ghostly shadows flicker faintly on the curtains, but they don’t mean anything. Nothing moves. The only sound we can ever hear is our own muttering, the bootless sound of endless complaint.

And in the middle of all of this dusty death, Christ suddenly appears. He speaks to the wall opposite you, and it vanishes. It had seemed immoveable and untouchable, and yet it just vanished. Christ turns to you, and speaks one simple word, and that word is come.

This is the day of resurrection. So what will you do?

This is Easter Sunday. Will you follow Him?

Today is the day of all reckoning. Christ embraced death. Christ descended to the grave. Christ has risen triumphant. That is the good word. That is the gospel. What do you intend to do?

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Sin & Dust (Easter A.D. 2020)

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Introduction

In the Garden of Eden, when God shaped the first man from the dust of the ground (Gen. 2:7), the Almighty was simply playing the part of a sculptor. He shaped Adam from the dust of the ground, but until the second half of the verse, this Adam was simply dust rearranged. After the semblance of a man had been fashioned out of dust, God breathed into his nostrils the “breath of life,” and it was then that man became a living soul. The dust was still there, but something else was not present. The image of God was now present.

But that image was soon to be marred. Despite the warning of God that if he ate the forbidden fruit he would “surely die,” our first father disobeyed, and in the curse was dragged back down to the dust of the ground. “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” (Gen. 3:19).

The Text

“For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins” (1 Cor. 15:16–17).

Summary of the Text

God brought Adam out of a state of “death” when He first created him. Adam was not, and then he was. He walked with God in the Garden, and was free to eat from all the trees but one, and so had free access to the tree of life. He and his bride were really and truly alive. When they sinned, they plunged themselves and all their posterity into the dust of death. In our text this death is equated with being in our sins. That is what spiritual death is—separation from fellowship with the holy God. And that is what sin is—separation from fellowship with the holy God.

Notice Paul’s logic. If the dead are not raised, then Christ was not raised. And if Christ was not raised, your faith is vain, and you are still in your sins. Now if you put all this together, you should see that when Christ was raised from the dead, and we were raised from the dead with and in Him, we were also at that moment raised from our sins. Our sins are our death; our death was our sinfulness.

The Death That Is Sin

This is how Paul describes our previous condition in Ephesians:

“And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others” (Eph. 2:1–3, NKJV).

Notice here that death does not mean being “stone cold out of it” because when we were in this condition of death, we were walking around in the course of this world. When we were dead, we were living in a certain way. That way, that path, was the way of death, which meant that we were walking in a condition that was separation from God. So death is not simple cessation; death is separation. Physical death is the separation of soul and body. Spiritual death is the separation of man and God. When we die to the ways of the world, we separate from her unholy ways. “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you” (2 Cor. 6:17).

So that is what death is. Death is distance, death is separation.

We used to live in a separated way from God, aliens to Him, enemies to Him. Christ came down to us in that condition, and in His passion and death, He experienced that death. “My strength is dried up like a potsherd; And my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; And thou hast brought me into the dust of death” (Ps. 22:15).

So Flip This Around, the Way Easter Did

Look again to the words of our text, and work the logic the other direction.

“For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins” (1 Cor. 15:16–17).

If the dead are raised, then it is not remarkable that Christ was the first to be raised. And if Christ was raised, then your faith in Him is not in vain, and more than this, you are no longer in your sins.

Ushered Out

Apart from Christ, what is the condition of man? Apart from Christ, where are we? Separated from God, what good is anything? We are the ones who reached for the forbidden fruit in our vain question to “be as God,” and what did we actually accomplish?

Now we live in the dry and choking places. Dust over everything. Broken bottles. The air is sour. The smoke of selfishness has left an acrid taste on your tongue. The walls lean in. There is scarcely any light. Ghostly shadows flicker faintly on the curtains, but they don’t mean anything. Nothing moves. The only sound we can ever hear is our own muttering, the bootless sound of endless complaint.

And in the middle of all of this dusty death, Christ suddenly appears. He speaks to the wall opposite you, and it vanishes. It had seemed immoveable and untouchable, and yet it just vanished. Christ turns to you, and speaks one simple word, and that word is come.

This is the day of resurrection. So what will you do?

This is Easter Sunday. Will you follow Him?

Today is the day of all reckoning. Christ embraced death. Christ descended to the grave. Christ has risen triumphant. That is the good word. That is the gospel. What do you intend to do?

Read Full Article

What is Family For? (Part 1)

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Introduction

This week and next week we will look at what the Bible says about what the family is for in order to better understand why God calls us to different tasks aimed at the same goal.

The Text

8 For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man.9 Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.10 For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels.11 Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord.12 For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God (1 Cor. 11:8-12).

Summary of the Text

In a somewhat challenging passage, Paul reminds the Corinthians that the creation details are important and significant, not arbitrary or ambivalent. The first woman was created fromman, and this is because woman was created forman (1 Cor. 11:9). Paul reasons from the order of creation to a telos or purpose of creation. Paul says that this is why a woman ought to have authority on her head (1 Cor. 11:10), especially in the context of worship and public prayer (1 Cor. 11:4-5). This is so significant that it in some way even reaches up to the angels (1 Cor. 11:10). At the same time, none of this can be taken to mean that man is independent of woman, as though only she needs the man. No, both need each other (1 Cor. 11:11). In fact, don’t take the “from” language in a sloppy way because every man after Adam literally came froma woman. And besides all of that, all things are fromGod (1 Cor. 11:12).

Because of the Angels

Riffing off of C.R. Wiley’s new book The Household and the War for the Cosmos, the Bible says that getting sex and marriage right has cosmic significance. This is implied at the beginning of our passage where Paul writes, “But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God” (1 Cor. 11:3). Paul insists that the order (or structure) of male and female in this world is constantly referring to Christ and God. To mess with male and female is already to attempt to mess with God and His Christ. We’ve been reminded of this many times when considering the fact that man (both male and female) is made in the image of God. Since rebel man cannot actually strike at the Infinite God, he strikes at His image – he burns the image in effigy, like some kind of blasphemous voodoo doll. But here Paul presses the point further: the blasphemy is not merely in the disfiguring and dismembering of image bearers themselves, but it is also in the attempted deconstruction of the orderof the sexes in marriage, in worship, and in the public square. To defy the orderis to defy Christ and God.

But it isn’t only that. Paul says that this order is even significant in some way because of the angels. Without pretending to understand fully what Paul had in mind with that phrase, we should understand that Paul is making a cosmicclaim. He is arguing that the order of man and woman and Christ and God is not an extraneous matter, but it reaches up and out into the fabric of the universe. While we have been trained to think of molecules and atoms as the fabric of the universe, a more biblical understanding recognizes that God’s Word is what ultimately holds all things together (Heb. 1:3), and the angels are His messengers, who carry out His word (Ps. 103:20), sparks of fire intimately involved in all of creation, fulfilling His will (Ps. 104:4). This is why in the Bible angels are associated with the stars (Jdg. 5:20, Job 38:7, Lk. 2:13, Rev. 22:16), and star-angels can be seen in this sense as having something to say/do with the births and lives and callings of people (Job 3:9, Mt. 2:2-20). Our lives are intertwined with the angels (Ps. 8:5).

All Fatherhood is Named

In another place, Paul again gestures at the cosmic significance of the family when he writes, “For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family [lit. all fatherhood] in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man…” (Eph. 3:14-16). As with angels and stars, moderns are frequently ignorant of the Biblical and cosmic meaning of naming. But going back to the original creation week, when God spoke and called the universe into being, He did so by calling it by name, and when He began to teach Adam what it meant to be made in His image, He taught him to imitate that creativity in the task of namingthe animals (Gen. 1-2). Naming in the Bible goes closely together with calling. To be called by God is frequently to be named by God with that calling (e.g. Gen. 17:5, 15, Mt. 1:21, Lk. 1:13-17). While we are not God, our words are still powerful like God’s words (e.g. Ps. 42:10, Prov. 25:15, Js. 3:5-6). So all fatherhood finds its meaning and purpose in the Eternal Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and this is how God grants strength in the inner man. Knowing the Father through His only Son is an invitation to put roots down, to know who your people are, to know what your nameis, to know what you and your family are for, to build a strong family.

What Are Families For?

“Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Gen. 1:28). A great deal of our confusion is related to the fact that we don’t understand what family/marriage/home is for. The word “economics” is from two Greek words “home” and “law.” So literally, an “economy” is the “law of the house” or we might say the “order of the home.” An economy is literally the way a household is organized. A household economy includes what is being produced, what supplies are needed, and who performs what tasks. And therefore, there must be a clear chain of command. We do not generally bat an eye at the idea of a boss having authority and giving instructions and pointed feedback to employees. But this is frequently because we have a great deal of reverence for money and market success. But if you don’t think that the family-economy is doing anything terribly important then you might think the man being the head of his wife seems arbitrary and tyrannical – like some roommate being appointed “head” of all the roommates. But if you see how high the stakes are, that we are participating in cosmic realities, then you are likely to appreciate the need for clear roles. But you might still wonder: businesses have services they provide or goods they produce. What are families for? The answer is they make people.

Conclusion

People are the most valuable resource in all of creation because they bear the image of the Eternal God. Lewis says somewhere that we have never had any dealings with a mere mortal. Everyone we come in contact with is either in the process of becoming a creature that we would be tempted to worship or to recoil from in utter horror. People are immortals. For two people to become one flesh, and create new people is to participate in something beyond reckoning: immortal souls are coming into existence and being fashioned for eternal destinies.

So the stakes are really high if we get this wrong. But on the flip side, to submit to God’s design for man and woman and family is to cut with the grain of the stars. It is to even honor the angels in some mysterious way. It is to participate in something that reaches all the way up to God in heaven, which is why it is such a threat to all the old systems of sin and unbelief. But none of this is automatic. Our families participate in that glory in the only way there is to the Father, which is through the Son. This is good news for every kind of household there is. We make people biologicallythrough the one flesh union of husband and wife, but we make people for everlasting glory and productivity through the gospel, by knowing the Father through Jesus His Son.

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