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Covenant Life Together #1

Christ Church on April 11, 2021

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INTRODUCTION

One of the things that happens when you move into Reformed or Presbyterian settings is that you start hearing the word covenant a lot. I had a friend who once accused us of talking about covenant peanut butter and covenant jelly. He wasn’t wrong, but then again, neither were we.

THE TEXT

“The meek will he guide in judgment: And the meek will he teach his way. All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant and his testimonies . . . The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him; And he will shew them his covenant” (Psalm 25:9-10, 14).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

The Scriptures are covenantal from front to back. The Old Testament is actually the Old Covenant, and the New Testament is the New Covenant. God made a covenant with Adam in the Garden, but Adam transgressed that covenant of life (Hos. 6:7). God made a covenant with mankind, promising not to inundate the world again (Gen. 9:8). God made a covenant with Abraham (Gen. 17:9), and we are gathered here this morning because the covenant-keeping God continues with His faithfulness (Rom. 4:13). And marriage is described as a covenant (Mal. 2:14; Prov. 2:17), not a mere contract. In short, our lives together in this community are a tight weave of covenantal bonds.

It is our responsibility to understand what this means. But if we must learn to judge rightly, it must begin with meekness (Ps. 25:9). If we are meek—teachable, humble, receptive—then God will teach us His way (v. 9). For those who learn what He is teaching, and who keep His covenant and testimonies, all His ways are mercy and truth (v. 10). This shows us that what we learn dictates the way it goes with us in the way as we walk there. We learn mercy and truth, and the Lord shows us mercy and truth as we walk in that way. A few verses later, we are told that the secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him, which adds another component (v. 14). We are to fear God, walk before Him in meekness, and He will surround us with mercy and truth. And He will show us His covenant.

COVENANT BONDS

A covenant is bigger than the sum of its parts. A covenant is stronger than the mere agreement that caused the parties at the first to enter into it. The covenant over-arches everything, and exists in its own right. Your families are held together by covenant. This congregation is a covenant community. We are in covenant with all the saints all over the world, and every week we partake of the cup of the new covenant.

I said earlier that a covenant is not a “mere contract.” The signatories to a contract could together decide that neither of them wanted to be under contract anymore, and this means they could shake hands and be done with it. Smith didn’t have to deliver the widgets any more, and Jones didn’t have to pay for them. This is because the parties to a contract (mutually) have authority over it. But this is not true of a covenant. A landlord and a renter could mutually agree to tear up a lease, and nobody did anything wrong. However a man and woman could not decide that neither of them wanted to be married any more, and just walk away. A covenant has objective existence outside the current wishes of the parties.

The covenant of grace is like the peace of God—it passes understanding (Phil. 4:7). Also like the peace of God, it serves as a shield. Certain evil darts simply cannot get near you.

MULTITUDE OF SINS

Now one of the things we have commented on frequently is the fact our church community is enjoying extraordinary growth. We are grateful to God for it, and yet one of the first things we should reflect on and anticipate is the likelihood of increased friction and difficulty. Why would the devil want to leave us alone? “Now in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplying, there arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists, because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution” (Acts 6:1, NKJV).

A multitude of people means a multitude of sins. And why is God bringing us a multitude of sins? So that our love might have something to cover.

“Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins” (James 5:20).

“And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8).

“Hatred stirreth up strifes: But love covereth all sins” (Prov. 10:12).

Love “beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7).

FERVENT CHARITY AMONG YOURSELVES

This is Peter’s express instruction to us. Forbearance is characteristic of koinonia fellowship, and it grows out of fervent love, it flourishes because of fervent charity.

When a new member comes into fellowship with us, he is looking out over a sizeable lake of sins and foibles. Not only so, but he is bringing some new ones in. The next new member to come in after him will be looking out over a sizeable lake of sins and foibles, but one that is a little bigger now.

This is not an arrangement where we all come together once a week, with the implicit agreement that we will all pretend that nobody has ever struggled with anything. Not at all. That is not what church is supposed to be. The covenant community is not a place where nobody sins. Neither is it a place where everybody has acquiesced in their sin, surrendering to it.

THE CHRIST OF THE COVENANT

I said earlier that a covenant has objective reality outside the will of the parties to it. It would be more accurate to say that this objective reality is one of the parties to it—Christ is Lord of the covenant. He is the Head of the church, the new covenant community, but He is also involved in all our lesser covenants, such as marriage.

The reason we are able to love one another fervently, covering a multitude of sins, is because Christ is here.

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Friendship and Accountability

Christ Church on October 8, 2020

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The last several years Christ Church has tried an experiment in grace and has not charged for the Grace Agenda conference. In keeping with this spirit of grace, they are accepting free will donations at https://www.graceagenda.com/donate.

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When Desire Divides

Christ Church on August 2, 2020

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INTRODUCTION

You should recall that at our previous joint worship service earlier this summer, the emphasis was on two kinds of unity. The first is a unity that we are given by grace, and are called to preserve (Eph. 4:1–3), and the second is a unity that we are called to establish or build (Eph. 4:11–13). We preserve the existing unity by dealing with sin properly—resisting temptation, seeking forgiveness, and extending forgiveness. The second kind of unity is the maturity that the Holy Spirit is in the process of bestowing on us as He grows us up into the perfect man.

In the message today, we need to drill down into some of the issues surrounding that first kind of unity. And that means we have to talk about sin. But I want to focus on a particular kind of sin, the kind that consistently thinks of itself as always somehow in the right. You know, sins that are common in church. This kind of sin actually causes a lot of havoc in conservative churches—far more havoc than selling cocaine does, or running a brothel, or robbing banks.

THE TEXT

“From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts. Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble” (James 4:1–6).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

As our community continues to grow, and is growing rapidly, we are likely to find ourselves with increased conflicts with the town, whether we want them or not. One crucial thing to avoid, therefore, would be conflicts with one another.

When Christians collide with one another, what is going on? You would think that when Christians ask that question, they would immediate think of James 4, which actually asks and answers it. Where do battles and fights among you come from (v. 1)? You have certain desires down in your members, and these desires are waging war (v. 1). You want, and don’t have. You kill, and still want, and still don’t have (v. 2). The reason you don’t have is because you don’t ask God (v. 2). And when you do get around to asking God, He doesn’t give it to you because you are asking for it all wrong, in order that you might consume it on your lusts, your desires (v. 3). “You adulterers and adulteresses,” James says. Don’t you know that friendship with the world and friendship with God are mutually exclusive (v. 4)? You cannot have both, so choose and choose wisely. For v. 5, I am following the AV, taking it as “the spirit within us veers toward envy” (v. 5), but God gives more grace (v. 6). God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. But if you take v. 5 in the way other translations do (“the Spirit within us yearns jealously”), it doesn’t really affect the broader flow of the argument.

TWO KINDS OF DESIRE

James tells us that the central villain here is our “desires.” And that means we have to take a moment to understand those desires in the context of this passage.

There is one kind of desire that everyone here has, and there is nothing wrong with it. Let us call it creational desire. You have a desire to breathe, for example, or to drink when you are thirsty, or to eat when you are hungry. This kind of desire can function without anybody else being present. It is not socially rooted. If you are thirsty in the desert, the nature of that thirst will not be affected by the presence or absence of other people. You have these desires simply because you are a creature with a nature. You have lungs, and muscles, and nerve endings.

But there is another kind of desire, and it is the kind of desire being addressed in our text. Do not be thrown by the use of the word lust. In modern English, the word has a strong sexual connotation, but that is not required here. Take it as simply a strong desire, desire for anything. But in this context, it is desire for things that are socially situated. It is mimetic desire, imitative desire. James is asking why fights arise among you (v. 1). He says that we covet (what someone else has) (v. 2). We fight (with somebody else) (v. 2). Then he locates the root problem—the problem is friendship with the world (v. 4). It is friendship with the world, and all of its lies, blandishments, advertisements, fashions, fads, and entertainment stampedes. You could be quite godly if it were not for all these other people out there.

COLLISIONS RESULT FROM CONVERGENCE

But it is not just other people. It is the other people we know, the people who are up close, in your neighborhood, in your school, or in this sanctuary together with you.

The secularists, when trying to give an account of human fractiousness, have a quaint myth that they love to appeal to. They believe that we collide with one another because of our perceived differences, and if we could only come to see how many similarities we share, then the fluffy clouds would suddenly appear, and attractive woodland creatures would caper in the meadow. And so it is that they sponsor international student exchange programs, and food fairs where we sample one another’s exotic foods, and they love to solve problems with diplomacy. Let’s hug it out.

But what if conflict is caused, not by dissimilarity, but rather by similarity? You bonk heads with someone precisely because you were both reaching for the same thing. And you were reaching for the same thing because your tastes were so similar.

If you will allow me, a few autobiographical illustrations might help. I have been in the education business for some forty-odd years now. During that time, guess how many scrapes or collisions I may have had with advocates of the Montessori approach to education? Why, zero. And how may tangles have I had with classical, Christian, Latin-loving, logic-teaching, Trivium-applauding, Sayers-appreciating educators? No idea. Too many to keep track of.

How about theology? How many battles have I waged with ministers from the Assemblies of God? Again, zero. And how many head bumps with Reformed, postmillennial, presuppositional, paedobaptistic, and Presbyterian brethren? Heh.

You have collisions with your roommate because of the things you share. And that would include the things he borrows without asking.

Similar views, similar tastes, similar opinions, similar doctrines cause people to converge. And when they converge, conflict is hard to avoid. I also cannot tell you how many times I have counseled a young man who is interested in a young lady, and he wants to know if he should contact her father, and I am trying to figure out what to do with the fact that I had a very similar conversation the previous week with this fellow’s roommate, and about the same girl. This kind of thing does not happen because everybody is so dissimilar.

REMEMBER THE EARLIER WARNING

In the world of education, we are now have a cornucopia of options—Logos School, Logos Online, Kepler, New St. Andrews, White Horse, Jubilee, and I am sure some others. Do you think that any James 4 elbows might get thrown? Why, yes. Remember what I said about those distributing “the biblical worldview” by various other means (publishing, video, etc.)—we have Canon Press, CCM, Huguenot Heritage, Gorilla Poet, Roman Roads, CrossPolitic, Having Two Legs, New St. Andrews, Blog and Mablog, and there will soon enough be even more points of friction. And also remember what I said about all the restaurants, realty companies, medical practices, software companies, light manufacturing, contractors, and so on. And don’t forget Christ Church, Trinity Reformed, CCD, and so on. You cannot have this type of cloud form without it becoming a thunderhead.

BRING IT TO THE CROSS

In ungodly societies, and in ungodly times, the electrical charge that builds up is dealt with by means of catharsis. Sometimes it is artificial catharsis—plays, movies, grand sporting events. So let’s cancel all those. And sometimes it is real time catharsis—riots, executions, wars. Of necessity, apart from Christ, there is an endless cycle of it.

But the last verse of our text says that God “gives more grace.” And how does He do that? The ultimate and final cathartic event was the crucifixion of Jesus. Even Pilate was keen enough to see that Jesus was turned over to him because the Jewish leaders were envious of Him (Matt. 27:18). And in that ultimate death, we see—by faith we see—the death of death. But there is no death of death apart from the death of sin, and there is no death of sin apart from the death of envy and striving.

In the death of Jesus, every form of envy died. In His resurrection, we have God’s assurance that it need never come back.

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What Kind of Friend Are You?

Christ Church on July 1, 2020

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The Text

“And they came to Bethsaida. And some people brought to him a blind man and begged him to touch him. 23 And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, “Do you see anything?” 24 And he looked up and said, “I see people, but they look like trees, walking.” 25 Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. 26 And he sent him to his home, saying, “Do not even enter the village.” (Mark 8:22-26).

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Unity in Two Forms

Christ Church on June 28, 2020

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Introduction

As the church of God grows and increases in the world, there will be problems that are associated with that increase. You cannot have growth in this fallen world without having the associated growing pains.

The Text

“I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:1–3).

“And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Eph. 4:11–13).

Summary of the Text

The therefore in v. 1 is the hinge of the book. Because of all the grand indicatives, Paul says that we are to therefore walk worthy of our vocation (v. 1). We are to walk in patient humility, in meekness, and in love (v. 2), which is how we endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit (v. 3) in the bond of peace. This is the kind of unity that is kept by personal godliness. It is the kind of unity that is disrupted by personal ungodliness.

After Jesus ascended into Heaven, He gave gifts to men. He did this, equipping the church with apostles, prophets, evangelists, and then pastor/teachers (v. 11). They were given in order that the saints might be perfected, and the body of Christ might be edified (v. 12). The end result of this process of maturation and edification is that we all come into the unity of the faith (v. 13). This unity is not yet here, and it is not supposed to be here yet. A premature insistence on this kind of unity has been, ironically, one of the greatest sources of disunity in the church to date.

Two Sorts of Unity

The book of Ephesians is divided into two great sections. The first three chapters describe our position in Christ, and gives us scarcely anything to do. The only thing we can do with the great indicative statements there is to believe them. The last three chapters are filled with imperatives, with commands. These are the things we are to obey. They are commands, but they are commands built on the foundation of the first three chapters. And as the commands are grounded that way, so should your obedience be.

The fourth chapter contains a reference to two different kinds of unity, and consequently two different kinds of commands are associated with them. The first sort of unity is simply given by the Spirit, and we are commanded to preserve it. The second kind of unity is set before us as an eschatological goal, and we are commanded to strive for it, leaning into the long process of edification.

Two Paths

So we have two kinds of unity, and two paths are given for us to walk. For the first kind of unity, the task we have is that of preserving it. We already have it, and we do in fact have it here in our church community. The way to keep it that way, the way to preserve it, is the way of humble confession when you have done wrong, and humble forgiveness when you have been wronged.

The second path is the way of godly cooperation and competition. This may require explanation, so I will say a few words about that shortly.

Confession and Forgiveness

“Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted” (Gal. 6:1). Remember the humility Paul urged earlier in our text. Patience. Love. Meekness. Humility. Deal with sin when you sin. And deal with sin when you are sinned against.

And in a community like ours, where so much good is going on, the great sin to guard against is the sin of envy and striving. “Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous; But who is able to stand before envy?” (Prov. 27:4). One of the more common manifestations of this is the idea that you can participate in the Moscow Christian community by means of hooky bobbing. That way you can get down the street without being associated directly with that Wilson character.

Cooperation and Competition

In the early church, the first thing that happened as they began to grow is that a conflict developed. “And in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration” (Acts 6:1). But because the church handled it in a godly and responsible way, selected godly deacons to oversee the work, what was the result? The result was more growth. “And the word of God increased; and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly; and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith” (Acts 6:7).

Many of you have heard me say that our congregation has grown to the size of a small town. I mean, look around you. And consider this number over against the total size of Moscow’s population. Not only so, but because of the Puritan hustle that is involved, we have all the problems that come with growth and multiplication, and we are going to continue to have them. With regard to Christian education, we are now an educational boom town—Logos School, Logos Online, Kepler, New St. Andrews, White Horse, Jubilee, and I am sure some others. Do you think there are any opportunities for cooperation and competition there? Why, yes.

When it comes to distributing the biblical worldview by other means (publishing, video, etc.), we have Canon Press, CCM, Gorilla Poet, Roman Roads, New St. Andrews, Blog and Mablog, and you get the picture.

And then a number of you—wanting to feed your families and all—have started a number of other ventures. We are talking about restaurants, realty companies, medical practices, software companies, light manufacturing, and so on.

Given this glorious set up, if a bunch of you don’t bonk heads, I will be greatly disappointed in you. But I will be even more disappointed if you don’t handle it the way Christian disciples are called to do. Whenever disciples quarrel on the road about who is to be the greatest, just remember that Jesus is just there ahead of us on that same road.

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