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Christmas as Cornerstone (Christmas 2022)
Christ Church on December 25, 2022
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Unbelief on Christmas Eve (Christmas Eve 2022)

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Unbelief has a mysterious ability to tie knots in just about anything. Because unbelief is a function of the heart and will, it can operate in defiance of right reason, known facts, unambiguous texts, and just plain good sense. Unbelief knows what it wants, and what it wants most of all is the liberty to lock its knees and to just say no.

On one occasion, the Pharisees and chief priests sent out some officers to bring Jesus in (John 7:32). When they came back empty-handed, they were asked the reason why, and they said that no one ever spoke the way Jesus was speaking (John 7:46). The unbelieving rulers replied with a verbal sneer. Has anyone important or accredited believed in Him (John 7:48)? Nicodemus intervened and asked whether or not they ought to hear Jesus out before passing judgment (John 7:50-51). At this the rulers and Pharisees responded with another sneer. Are you from Galilee too? Check into it, bozo, and you will find out that no prophet arises from Galilee (John 7:52).

But what does Isaiah say, that prince of prophets? What did he say about Galilee?

And this was no obscure passage in an obscure book. We need to realize that this great light arising from Galilee is one of the brightest lights in the entire Old Testament—and it shines in words familiar to just about everyone here, because they are kind of impossible to miss.

That is what rises in Galilee.

And if we wanted to speak with a biblical trope, we could say that this passage has adorned a multitude of Christmas cards, in number like the grains of sand on the sea shore. It is one of the most well-known passages from the entire Old Testament.

What was the nature of this light? The light was going to begin small. Unto us a child is born. The light was going to start as a fertilized egg, and was going to appear in the world as an infant boy. This boy was doing to grow up in Galilee, but because the prophet Micah had also spoken, it was necessary for Caesar Augustus to wield what he thought was his prerogative, and to order that the whole world be taxed (Luke 2:1). As a consequence, this boy was born in his ancestral town, which was Bethlehem of Judea, but afterward His family returned to Nazareth, which was in Galilee.

Christ is that light who came into the world, and He did so in order to enlighten every man (John 1:9). Wake, o sleeper, Paul says, and Christ will shine on you (Eph. 5:14). This is the light of the kingdom that this child king brought into the world. This is the rule and realm of Jesus Christ, and the light of this kingdom is an ever-increasing light. Isaiah tells us this expressly. Does he not? “Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it.”

This rule of Christ is the light, and the rule is an ever-increasing light. Not only will it never go out, it will never stop getting brighter. Christmas lights are the future of the world.

But when we look at the stupidity of our race, coupled with our venality and corruption, we find this kind of staggering promise a little hard to believe. And this is why we must pay attention to the last phrase in this promise—the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. It will not be the wisdom of man that does it. It will not be the pure motives of our parliaments and presidents. It will not be the sophistication of our universities that ushers in this state of affairs. No, it will be the zeal of the Lord.

I spoke a moment ago about the stubbornness of unbelief. We think in our folly that we can brace ourselves in such a way as that such unbelief could put God off. No, remember that the zeal of the Lord is going to convert the entire world, and will never stop growing in that world.

And so I want to conclude with a word to the unconverted. Christmas is a time of year when you are reminded more often than usual of the centrality of Christ. So if the zeal of the Lord of hosts is coming for you, then realize that whatever you do to resist will be entirely futile. There you are, barricaded in the dirty little apartment of your heart, and you have all the furniture you possess piled up against the door. You think that will do it? You think you can hold out against this Christmas message? Christmas is just the first few words of the message, and the whole thing includes His life, His passion, His burial, and His resurrection. And after His resurrection, remember how He just appeared in the upper room, with no need to use the door. So when He wants you to follow Him, He can just come in, without so much as a “by your leave,” and start cleaning things up. The zeal of the Lord of hosts is up to whatever challenges you present.

And so here is your Christmas invitation. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved. Come. Come now. No need to hold out, and as you should realize, no use holding out. Christ is Lord. Give up your unbelief. Lay down your arms. A prophet does arise from Galilee.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, amen

And merry Christmas.

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Self-Deception in Marriage

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INTRODUCTION

Self-deception is truly an interesting psychological phenomenon. I mean, whenever it occurs in your life, that means that you are the one lied to, and you are the liar, and you buy it. “Seems reasonable,” you mutter to yourself.

Now at one level, Scripture teaches that every form of sin, disobedience or unbelief is a form of self-deception. You are living in the world that God made, with all of His self-disclosure operating, and yet you are steadfastly telling yourself that the world isn’t really like that.

“The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: But he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise” (Proverbs 12:15). “There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness” (Proverbs 30:12). Sin is the refusal to see your relationship to God and His world for what it actually is, and so it is a form of self-deception.

THE TEXT

“He feedeth on ashes: A deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?” (Isaiah 44:20).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

Isaiah is speaking the plain stupidity that cuts down a tree (v. 14), and which uses a portion of the wood to keep himself warm, and to cook his food, on the one hand (v. 15), and from the rest of the wood he carves an object of adoration (vv. 15, 17, 19).

A deceived heart is turned aside, meaning that a deceived heart is both deceived and deceiving. The end result is that the idol he has fashioned to deliver him will be unable to deliver him. He should have known this already because he carved his savior out of a piece of wood that he cut down himself.

FOUR KINDS OF SELF-DECEPTION

We have already seen that all sins are self-deception at some level, but there are certain forms of it that might be called “high-profile” instances of self-deception.

Forgetful neglect of application: “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was . . . If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain” (James 1:22-24, 26). The deception occurs in between the sermon and the moment this afternoon when application is called for.

Assumption of innocence: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). Everyone here is encased in a first-person-singular narrative. And everyone here has a strong impulse to trust the narrator, which is a bad idea.

Neglect of holiness: “Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. And again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain” (1 Corinthians 3:18–20). We are very prone to self-deception when it comes to the moral demands of the free grace gospel. “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9–10).

Self-serving flattery: “For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself” (Gal. 6:3). Every man wants to be the hero in his own story, and casting yourself in that role is the very worst way of accomplishing this.

A BAD MARRIAGE OR A BAD ATTITUDE

Not all Christian marriages are successful. Some really thrive, most are pretty okay, some struggle along, and a handful are what we would call “bad marriages.” If you would put yourself in that category, I want to suggest one more division that I hope you might find helpful.

One kind of bad marriage is the result of a real mismatch of persons. The conflicts and difficulties arise out of the clashes between very different perspectives. The communicate poorly and problems result. They assume too much in opposite directions and problems result. This does happen, and a lot of good pastoral help is available—in Scripture, with counselors, with good literature.

But the intractable problems are, in my experience, not strictly speaking bad marriages at all. The marriage is just the location where the badness is manifesting itself. What would you think of someone who gave a restaurant a savage one-star review on Yelp, and if you asked him why he did that, the response was that while he was there he got the worst toothache of his life? You should say, yeah, that wasn’t a bad restaurant experience. It was a bad experience in a restaurant.

Intractable marriages problems are often intractable problems in a marriage, not the result of the marriage.

PRIDE, THE GREAT ENEMY

When a self-deceived person marries, they are moving into a room filled with excuses. Opportunities for misdirection and blame-shifting abound. Remember that the heart is deceitful above all things (Jer. 17:9). The thing that deceives such a person is the pride of his heart (Oba. 3), and remember that pride goes before destruction (Prov. 16:18). The self-deceived husband compares himself to himself, and the wife measures herself with herself (2 Cor. 10:12). These are not wise.

I am talking about (and to) the husband who is sullen, grouchy, and angry all the time. He tells himself is not angry all the time because he is not yelling all the time, which tells us how much he knows about it. I am talking about (and to) the wife who is a lazy and undisciplined, and if any real work threatens to intrude, she is sure to develop a serious malady with ambiguous symptoms. These two examples are stand-ins for countless others. The problem, the central problem, is self-deception.

THE MIRROR OF CHRIST

The only remedy for such self-deception is to see yourself accurately, and this can only be done by looking into the perfect law of liberty (Jas. 1:5). But this should not be understood as a detached list of rules. Christ is the end (telos) of the law (Rom. 10:4). Your identity is in Christ. If you look at yourself there, in the mirror of Christ, you do not just see Christ. You also see yourself, perhaps for the very first time.

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Fear the Lord & Love Your Kids

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INTRODUCTION

God has made the world such that wisdom and understanding (and therefore power and influence) are to increase over the course of generations under His blessing. But when cultures rebel, God gives them over to a kind of drunken stupor, and this is where dark ages come from.

God’s blessing is on those who fear Him, and the center of all human rebellion is a refusal to fear the Lord. But we must be mindful of the fact that there is always a temptation among religious types to try to manufacture the fear of the Lord, which only prolongs the judgment. So our central task in parenting is to fear the Lord, and raise our children in the fear of the Lord so that God’s blessing may be upon them, and upon our children’s children.

THE TEXT

“Wherefore the Lord said, forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men…” (Is. 29:13-29)

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

Just before our text, we are told that God’s people are drunk with a spirit of illiteracy (29:9-12). This is because God’s people are drawing near to Him with words but not in their hearts, and the only kind of fear they have of the Lord is the kind that is taught by the precepts of men (29:13). Therefore, God has determined to do this marvelous work of striking them drunk, such that even their wisest men will be incompetent (29:14). And even though they squirm and pontificate, all of it will be used by God the Potter to turn everything upside down (Is. 29:15-17). He will cause the deaf to hear and the blind to see; He will lift up the humble and poor and put down the scorners and plotters (29:18-21). God’s people will not be ashamed, and when they see how God saves their own children, they will fear God rightly and fools will learn understanding (29:22-24).

COVENANT SUCCESSION & THE FEAR OF THE LORD

The particular thing this text zeros in on is a contrast between a faux fear of the Lord, the kind that is manufactured by men, and the real fear of the Lord, the kind that only the Lord can give (compare 29:13 and 29:23). This authentic fear of the Lord is taught through the earth-shaking, sovereign works of the Lord (23:14-21), but it is manifest particularly in the marvelous gift of believing children (29:23).

This sets up the goal of the increasing momentum of covenant succession: your job is to fear the Lord so that you might teach your children (Dt. 4:10, 5:29, 6:2), and this text says that the gift of believing children increases a right fear of the Lord (Is. 29:23). The goal is for this to snowball, to pick up steam, to turn into an avalanche of God’s blessing. This is not something that we can manufacture, and that is why the central thing is the fear of the Lord.

What is the fear of the Lord? Abraham did not withhold his only son from the Lord because he feared the Lord (Gen. 22:12). The midwives feared the Lord and disobeyed the king of Egypt and saved the Hebrew baby boys alive (Ex. 1:17). The fear of the Lord sings praises and glorifies God (Ps. 22:23). The fear of the Lord is to hate evil, pride, arrogance, and a perverse mouth (Prov. 8:13). The fear of the Lord is conscientious, joyful, believing obedience to God no matter what (Dt. 31:12).

SOME SCATTERSHOT PRINCIPLES

There are a number of temptations that face a community like ours where God has been in the process of blessing our families over generations. One of them is to take that blessing for granted, another is for new believers or new folks joining us to latch on to certain external forms without understanding or embracing the substance. Both of these temptations are variations on thinking that the fear of the Lord can be taught by the precept of men (Is. 29:13). But none of us should want that kind of cheap knock off. So, what we want to do is fear the Lord honestly and apply these principles, without getting wound tight about the exact method. “The fear of man is a snare, but whoso putteth his trust in the Lord will be safe” (Prov. 29:25).

  1. Christian parenting is like the rest of your Christian life: it proceeds from faith in the promises of God. So what are those promises? “And they shall be my people, and I will be their God: And I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me forever, for the good of them, and of their children after them: And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me” (Jer. 32:38-40, cf. Is. 59:21, Ez. 37:24-26). And faith in the promises means being calm and confident and no panicking.
  2. This faith in the promises goes together with the joy of the Lord: “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. For He knows our frame; he remembereth that we are dust… But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him, and His righteousness unto children’s children” (Ps. 103: 13-14, 17). This mercy is not begrudging: God rejoices over His people (Is. 62:5, Zeph. 3:17). Our joy is fundamentally in God’s covenant mercy. Christian parenting is sharing this kindness and joy with our children.
  3. The central command that God gives children is to obey their parents, and the central command that God gives parents is to teach their children to obey them (Dt. 6, Eph. 6). Obedience is right away, all the way, and cheerfully. This is the task of discipleship, and discipleship consists of both positive and negative discipline. Think of obedience like a skill, and parenting like coaching. Good coaches teach and practice a lot, before the game. Practice obedience regularly. Negative discipline must be used when a child refuses to obey. The rod of correction is love (Prov. 13:24, Heb. 12:6). And some children need lots of love. Remember also that we become like our friends (Prov. 13:20). Seek out godly covenant community.

CONCLUSION: THE WORK OF HIS HANDS

“Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain that build it… Children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is His reward (Ps. 127:1). Believing children are a gift from the Lord, the work of His hands (Is. 29:23). And it is a gift that God loves to give. So ask Him for it.

“Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thy house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table. Behold, thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the Lord” (Ps. 128:3-4). Fear the Lord, believe His promises, rejoice in His goodness, and love your kids and grandkids.

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The Virgin Birth (A Chalcedon Christmas #1)

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INTRODUCTION

In our denomination, all churches are required to adopt three creeds into their statement of faith. Those three are from the time of the early church, and are the Apostles Creed (2nd century), the Nicene Creed (4th century), and the Definition of Chalcedon (5th century).

If all the great figures of history were little pinpricks of light, small twinkling stars, Christ arrived 2,000 years ago as something of a supernova. His life, death, burial and resurrection transformed everything, and those who accepted the reality of that manifestation of divine grace still had to grapple (and grapple for centuries) on how to talk about it. The basic outlines of the gospel story were set down in the Apostles Creed, but there were still questions. By the 4th century, the Church rightly insisted on the full deity of Jesus Christ (as well as His full humanity). But that created another question—what was the relationship of this deity to this humanity, and so that was addressed by Chalcedon.

This is why we recite the Definition of Chalcedon during Advent, and this Advent season I am going to be showing the scriptural case for certain elements of this Creed, as well as the importance of those elements. Today we are going to consider the crucial doctrine of the virgin birth— “as regards his manhood begotten, for us men and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin” (Chalcedon).

THE TEXT

“Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, And shall call his name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14)

“But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins. Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us. Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife: And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS” (Matthew 1:20–25).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

In the passage from Isaiah, the word rendered as virgin is almah, which can mean either virgin or young woman. And in Isaiah’s case, with regard to its immediate fulfillment, the sign that he was offering to King Ahaz was a sign that involved a young woman and her young child, not a virgin. More than a few have pointed at this and said that it shows that the Christian insistence on a virgin birth for Christ is simply a pious superstition. But there was a double fulfillment involved, as Matthew shows us.

Joseph was betrothed to Mary and he was troubled about what to do. When she turned up pregnant, he knew as well as we do that this could not have happened unless Mary had been unfaithful to him. And yet, because Joseph was a righteous man, he was trying to figure out how to divorce her without humiliating her (Matt. 1:19). While he was mulling all this over, the angel of the Lord came to him in a dream and calls him a son of David. He also told him of Mary’s innocence by assuring him that the child was conceived by the Holy Spirit (v. 20). The child was going to be a boy, and His name would be Jesus because He was going to save His people from their sins (v. 21). We are then told that this was in fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy above (v. 22), but this passage was written in Greek, not Hebrew. Here the word virgin is the translation of parthenos, which means virgin, only virgin, and nothing but virgin. The result of this remarkable conception and birth was Immanuel, which means God with us (v. 23). That God with us there is the center of centuries of theological reflection and debate. When Joseph woke up, he obeyed the angel and took Mary as his wife—although he did not have relations with her until after Jesus was born (v. 25).

THE VIRGIN BIRTH OR THE VIRGIN MARY?

We know from elsewhere in Scripture that Joseph and Mary had at least six other children (Matt. 13:55-56). Although they did not believe in Jesus initially (John 7:5), two of the brothers went on to write books of the Bible (James and Jude). In fact, James is mentioned as one of the witnesses of the resurrection (1 Cor. 15:7). This means that for faithful Protestants, the confessional issue is the virgin birth. We do not hold to what is called the perpetual virginity of Mary, an understanding that makes his brothers and sisters into cousins or such like. But while we hold to the virgin birth simply, it is only fair to note that some of the Reformers did hold to Mary’s perpetual virginity (e.g. Luther, Calvin). But you will notice that in the Apostles’ Creed, as we recite it, there is a comma between Virgin and Mary.

BUT WHY A VIRGIN BIRTH?

In order to die for us wayward sheep, the Lord had to be two things. He needed to be a true Lamb, because the sacrifice needed to be one of us. But the problem is that if He were one of us, would He not be corrupted also, like we all are? The Lamb had to be one of our number, and yet the Lamb needed also to be spotless. This will likely come up later, but Gregory of Nazianzus said this” “For that which He has not assumed He has not healed.” But how could He assume human nature, which needed to be redeemed, without being contaminated by the state of the nature which needed to be redeemed.

We do not know precisely how, but it appears that the covenantal guilt for Adam’s sin descends to us all through our human fathers. And this is how God arranged our salvation, through a true man, but one who had no human father—“at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and truly man.” Apart from a virgin birth, this would not be possible.

“But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law” (Galatians 4:4, NKJV). And why? So that you might redeemed from the curse of the law.

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