Missio Dei Suburbia

God's Goal is Your Pleasure

From 'Divine Support' in The Valley of Vision

Keep me walking steadfastly towards the country
    of everlasting delights,
    that paradise-land which is my true inheritance.
Support me by the strength of heaven
    that I may never turn back,
    or desire false pleasures
        that wilt and disappear into nothing.
As I pursue my heavenly journey by thy grace
    let me be known as a man with no aim
    but that of a burning desire for thee,
    and the good and salvation
        of my fellow men.

Why is this the land of pure delight? Because there is where we come face-to-face with the God who satisfies every desire (Psalm 16:11).

Grace and Suffering

Grace withers without adversity. The devil is little more than God's drill sergeant, teaching us to handle our weapons.

- Adapted from Samuel Rutherford, The Loveliness of Christ, 1909.

Doubting Your Doubts

'...it seemed good to me...to write an orderly account...that you may have certainty...' (Luke 1:3-4)

Everyone struggles with doubt. No one should want to stay there. Because of Christ, no one has to stay there.

May that hope make us compassionate and courageous in 2009.

Putting the Happy Back Into Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is miserable for those who spend the day feeling judged by family who barely knows us. Our hope and delight and joy and happiness is recovered and experienced when it sinks in that the Judge who knows us better than we know ourselves finds delight and joy and happiness in us.

'There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.' (Romans 8:1)

The Strange Kindness of God

Most weeks, 9:00 on a Sunday morning would have me wrapping up preparations for our Sunday morning worship gathering at Christ Church. I'm usually skimming over my sermon manuscript and praying for God to make something of the mess on paper.

This morning I'm not preaching. And neither is anyone else. At least not at Christ Church because our leadership made a decision last night to cancel our worship gathering this morning because of the probability of icy conditions on the roads following yesterday's outbreak of wintry weather. The only problem is that there doesn't seem to be much ice on the roads...and it's bugging me.

So here's my brain - on the one hand I know that our decision was made based on the information we received and due to the fact that a couple other churches around town had already made the same decision or were very much considering doing the same. On the other hand, we're all sitting at home on a cold but relatively dry day. I don't like how that looks...does it mean we don't take God seriously? Does it mean that we don't value worshiping God together? Were we looking for an excuse to take a Sunday off?

These are the grenades getting launched at my head and heart - and at times I've felt like a coward and the very thing I don't want us to be...willing to set God aside at the first sign of trouble. But in the midst of that comes the strange kindness of God that reminds me that while he certainly could work in and through the fact that a nasty head cold has left me with almost no voice and a hacking cough, maybe this morning was his way of sparing all of us the adventure of me trying to preach through that. My wife gets a rare Sunday to sleep in and I get to have breakfast and play with Jonathan. Spending a morning away from everyone at Christ Church has reminded me how much I love being with these friends every week.

So while it is good and normal to gather with people to be made new once again by God's covenant love, sometimes he loves us in ways that aren't normal. To those of you who are able to gather in worship this morning, enjoy it and don't take the privilege for granted. For those of you at Christ Church this morning or in other places where gathered worship isn't going to happen, would you rest in the love of your Father who provides all we need even when we doubt ourselves and the place our decisions have left us.

The Bible As Messianic and Missional

From Christopher Wright's The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible's Grand Narrative:

Jesus himself provided the [interpretive focus] within which all disciples must read these texts, that is, in the light of the story that leads up to Christ (messianic reading) and the story that leads on from Christ (missional reading). That is the story that flows from the mind and purpose of God in all the Scriptures for all the nations. That is a missional hermeneutic of the whole Bible. (41)

Why We Open the Bible

What is the 'win' for someone when they study the Scriptures? What should people walk away with at the end of a worship gathering?

God has given his word as a revelation of himself;  if then I use his word rightly, I will long to see him, and he will be the focus of my study. (Dale Ralph Davis, The Word Became Fresh, 121)

'We Need Not Run From God...'

More from Kelly Kapic's introduction in John Owen's, Communion with the Triune God.

...when talking about the believer’s struggles with sin, Owen powerfully reminds his readers of the great difference between their sad expectations and the Father’s reality: “I mourn in secret under the power of my lusts and sin, where no eyes see me; but the Father sees me, and is full of compassion.” We need not run from the Father, but rather to his open arms of love, for by his Son and Spirit he can renew and strengthen us. He stands not over us in judgmental silence, but he sends his Word and Wisdom, that we might know the power and degree of his redeeming love. Run from him? That is the last thing he desires. Run to him—this is to understand the glory of the gospel: “Assure thyself, then, there is nothing more acceptable unto the Father, than for us to keep up our hearts unto him as the eternal fountain of all that rich grace which flows out to sinners in the blood of Jesus.”

To have communion with the Father—since communion consists in mutual relations—means that we must respond to his love. This is done, according to Owen, by receiving his love, and then by returning love to him. The order is essential: our love is always “consequential” to God’s love—he does not love us based on a contingent condition that we love him, but we only and always love him based on his prior love for us.

The great revelation of Christ to us is that of “God as a Father,” and this matters greatly, “for the love of the Father is the only rest of the soul.” Elsewhere Owen proclaims, “the souls of believers exceedingly magnify Jesus Christ, that they can behold the face of God with boldness, confidence, peace, joy, assurance—that they can call him Father, bear themselves on his love, walk up and down in quietness, and without fear.” This statement comes in the context of Owen’s noting that before we are brought into the faith, our thoughts of God are full of fear, uncertainty, and disquiet. But to encounter the heavenly Father in his love, grace, and fellowship, we are transformed, and that transformation is understood in the context of relationship. The redeemed stand in the surety of God’s full love, acceptance, mercy, and empowering grace. We need not run from God but, rather, rest in him.

Stop, Drop and Run to Christ

From Jonathan Edwards' Religious Affections (quoted in Sam Storms' Signs of the Spirit):

A little child is easily affected with grief at temporal evils, and has his heart melted, and falls a weeping. Thus, tender is the heart of a Christian with regard to the evil of sin. A little child is easily affrighted at the appearance of outward evils, or anything that threatens its hurt. So is a Christian apt to be alarmed at the appearance of moral evil, and anything that threatens the hurt of the soul. A little child, when it meets enemies, or fierce beasts, is not apt to trust its own strength, but flies to its parents for refuge. So a saint is not self-confident in engaging spiritual enemies, but flies to Christ. A little child is apt to be suspicious of evil in places of danger, afraid in the dark, afraid when left alone, or far from home. So is a saint apt to be sensible of his spiritual dangers, jealous of himself, full of fear when he can't see his way plain before him, afraid to be left alone, and to be at a distance from God...A little child is apt to be afraid of superiors, and to dread their anger and tremble at their frowns and threatenings. So is a true saint with respect to God...A little child approaches superiors with awe. So do the saints approach God with holy awe and reverence.

He Gives Redemption Before He Imposes Requirements

The day I told the search committee at Christ Church that Lindsey and I accepted the offer for me to come serve as pastor was the day that my previous church, Faith Presbyterian in Birmingham, was dedicating a new building - a project I had been very much involved in. That night, Dale Ralph Davis, pastor of Woodland Presbyterian Church in Hattiesburg, MS, preached on the anointing of David as king in I Samuel 16. It was simply a masterpiece - a work of art that cast a familiar story in a new light, throwing our attention on God's faithfulness to his people.

When I started work this summer on our next preaching series in Genesis, I very quickly grabbed Davis' The Word Became Fresh: How To Preach From Old Testament Narrative Texts. I'm re-reading it and was blown away again as Ralph walks us through the book of Exodus. A few excerpts:

As we walk into Exodus it is obvious that Israel needs deliverance...this strikes the keynote for the opening section: Here is Yahweh, the God who delivers.

But how far does the 'deliverance' section go? [After laying out the case for the theme of deliverance carrying through the end of chapter 18 and the visit of Moses' gentile father-in-law, Davis writes the following...] The climax of the deliverance section consists of a gentile confessing his faith in Yahweh as the supreme and saving God. So Yahweh has not only delivered Israel from bondage but delivered a gentile from blindness. We needn't wait for those stories of Rahab and Ruth and Naaman - already in and with Israel's salvation Yahweh is at work bringing light to the nations. Already he is bringing the riff-raff under the truth of God and into the kingdom of God. And there's the bad news: you can enjoy marvelous experiences of God's power and yet be walking in unbelief. That is the import, for example, of the marked contrast between unbelieving Israel and praising Jethro. Jethro's faith stands over against not only the hatred of Amalek but also the cynicism of Israel and therefore serves as an alarm to those who keep enjoying multiple privileges and yet can't stop bellyaching against God. Sackcloth time for Presbyterians, Baptists, Anglicans, Pentecostals, and such ilk.

In Exodus 19-24, God gives the covenant law, both the ten commandments (chapter 20) and more detailed stipulations (chs. 21-23). What is significant about the fact that God's law is not given until chapters 19 and following? Why are there 18 chapters of 'deliverance' before 5 chapters of 'law'? Exodus is simply giving us the good news: always remember that the grace of God precedes the law of God. What Yahweh has done comes before what Yahweh demands; he gives redemption before he imposes requirements; he first sets you free, then shows you how a free people are to live...law-keeping is not a device for obtaining grace, it is merely a response to grace already given. Get that settled and the whole Bible will make sense.