Wrong Side of History?

“They warn us that we are on the “wrong side of history.” They insist that we will be judged by future generations the way we today judge those who championed racial injustice in the Jim Crow South. But history does not have sides. It is an impersonal and contingent sequence of events, events that are determined in decisive ways by human deliberation, judgment, choice, and action. The future of marriage and of countless human lives can and will be determined by our judgments and choices—our willingness or unwillingness to bear faithful witness, our acts of courage or cowardice. Nor is history, or future generations, a judge invested with god-like powers to decide, much less dictate, who was right and who was wrong. The idea of a “judgment of history” is secularism’s vain, meaningless, hopeless, and pathetic attempt to devise a substitute for what the great Abrahamic traditions of faith know is the final judgment of Almighty God. History is not God. God is God. History is not our judge. God is our judge.

One day we will give an account of all we have done and failed to do. Let no one suppose that we will make this accounting to some impersonal sequence of events possessing no more power to judge than a golden calf or a carved and painted totem pole. It is before God—the God of truth, the Lord of history—that we will stand. And as we tremble in His presence it will be no use for any of us to claim that we did everything in our power to put ourselves on “the right side of history.” ”  Robert P George

 

Also, here are three wise men also discussing the common trope of being on the wrong side of history:

Resistance to the King

“Massacre of the Innocents” Giotto, from the Scrovegni Chapel, 1305

Last year around Christmas I was enjoying with my then four-year old a beautiful book which retold the life of Jesus.  It featured on every page, paintings by pre-renaissance master Giotto from his Scrovegni Chapel.  We were flipping through and came upon the Massacre of the Innocents.  This disturbing scene (a pile of dead babies) was difficult to explain to my little one.  We quickly moved past it but later it gave me pause and caused me to question:

What Does A Pile Of Dead Babies Have To Do With Christmas?!?!?

Why did Matthew record this account?  That is, other than the obvious that it really happened in history.  But what does it tell us about Jesus, the Christmas story, and the Gospel?  Quite simply, it is that when God came into the world to rescue it – He was resisted.  As it was then, it is so today.

He Was Resisted.  King Herod, puppet king of the Roman Empire, is the great villain of the Christmas account.  He was asked by the wise men where the king of the Jews was to be found.  He, being the false king of the Jews, was afraid and enraged.  He resisted this coming king by ordering the slaughter of all potential candidates for the title in the region.  In doing so, Herod knew something that many Christians are not even fully aware of:  that this Baby was a king and His life/rule would have bearing on the entire world.  He was not some mere administrator of a personal and private spirituality.  Herod certainly didn’t know everything about Jesus but he did know that.  And whatever else, Herod knew that he was against it.

He Is Resisted.  But is God coming into the world resisted today?  Again, it is often those resisting Christianity who understand more about it -in one sense- than many of those committed to it.  Many know that Christianity comes as a package, a Gospel arriving alongside a Great Moral Tradition.  It involves views on human dignity, abortion, poverty, justice, marriage, sexual ethics, what to do with your money, and so much more.  Some aspects of this may grate on us.  Other aspects may grate on others.  But what is often sensed is that accepting Jesus means submitting to a worldview which may put us at odds with the surrounding culture or with our own pre-held views.  He comes as a king.  And his rule is demanding and counter-cultural, which is why it is also resisted today.

Stop Resisting.  Even Christians can resist, although they may do it more subtly.  When Christ is made into a candy machine (we get what we want), or a jukebox (he says what we like), or a butler (he serves us with no demands) than we, like Herod, are also resisting the full expanse of what Christ is.  He is King of the world.  When he is diminished in any way, when the public nature of the Gospel is muted, he is resisted.  So no matter what we believe, whether skeptical or committed Christian, we need to understand fully the implications of his lordship.  Understand, wrestle with, and then lay down our resistance.

Full Sermon – Resistance to the King – Matthew 2:13-23 – Week 4 of Advent

The Wise Still Seek Him

“The Magi Journeying” James Tissot, 19th C

When I drive to my parent’s house my route takes me past a wholesale shingle distributor.  Outside his business each December he places a simple sign that reads:  WISE MEN STILL SEEK HIM.  It’s a true enough statement for a traditional Christian like me to believe, but it’s also in danger of becoming a cliche.  But spiritual searching in our culture also runs the danger of becoming cliche.  To be a “seeker” has even become commodified.  If you don’t believe me, just head to your local bookstore.

But what does a true spiritual search look like?  When one searches after God, what is found?  And what does a true search produce in us?  With respect to these questions, those wise men from the East (Magi) still have a lot to teach us.  Matthew records their search and their discovery, and what their search produced.

Great Humility.  It is often assumed that humility means being uncertain of what we believe or whether truth can be found at all.  Isn’t it arrogant to say that we can seek God and truly find him with certainty?  Well, no.  True humility means the willingness to search after what we do not know but also to look with the intention of finding.  These wise men went on a search but also came to a destination.  Endless searches with no goal actually are not humble because one never needs to submit to any found truth.  But when we search for a true destination, it creates true humility because when we find we must kneel.

Great Generosity.  If there is only a few things known about these men, one will certainly be that they brought gifts. Gold, Frankincense, Myrrh.  These were expensive gifts, royal gifts.  They came out of an overflow of honour and affection the wise men had for the baby they found.  Why does a true search for God in Christ produce such rich generosity?  It is a response to the immense  generosity first shown to us by God.  The Christian Gospel is one God’s grace – he came to us, he lived for us, he died in our place.  Even the faith we have for him is a gift to us.  Everything is a gift.  And upon the receiving of the gift we become more like the Giver.  God showered us with his generosity – we spend for others.

Great Worship.  When the wise men searched they were humble enough to know they had found.  When they arrived they poured out generously in response to the gift that had been given the world.  And they also kneeled and worshipped.  When we search after truth (truly search) and then find (truly find) we discover that truth is a person.  That which is ultimate, absolute, divine is not abstract ideas or an ephemeral something.  It is a Someone.  And when we seek him, find him, we will love him.  That worshipful love is the result of a true search.

Wise men sought him.  Wise men still still seek him.  May we be like them.

 

Full Sermon – Still Sought By The Wise – Matthew 2:1-12 – Week 3 of Advent

Through the Eyes of Spurgeon

Stephen McCaskell (who is a friend) has just completed a very good documentary on the 19th Century preacher, Charles Spurgeon.  If you know of Spurgeon and his significance, it’s worth your time,  If you’ve never heard of him, it would do you well to learn about this man from church history.  Click on link below for film website

Are there Moral Absolutes?

Are there such things as moral absolutes?  Things that are truly wrong and those that are truly right?

It’s often popularly believed today that there are not.  But this is not the case.  Every great moral mind (pagan,  Christian, other…) has acknowledged the existence of objective, ultimate, and transcendent moral truth.

Here it is from one greater than I:

“But I’m here to say to you this morning that some things are right and some things are wrong. Eternally so, absolutely so.”  Martin Luther King Jr to 2nd Baptist Church of Detroit.

 

Also…   This.

God’s With Us – He Really Is With Us

 

What does it mean for God to be with us?  Was he ever not with us?  And does it ever get more personal than God just visiting all of humanity?  Is God ever with us, that is, with you and me?

When Matthew gives his account of Jesus’ birth, he leaves no doubt as to the significance.  This is just like Isaiah has said, reports Matthew, the virgin’s son is “Immanuel”.  For those not versed in Hebrew nomenclature, he spells it out:  (which mean, God with us).  But what does it mean for us?  I’ll suggest three things:

God Really Wasn’t With Us.  This may seem like it goes against the Xmas story but wait, it has to be true.  Think about it.  You can’t announce that someone has just arrived home if they were never out, right?  The same is true of God.  In the various forms of paganism, God/the gods/spirits were always present in the world.  The divine lived in the rocks and trees and rivers.  Or in Eastern type religions, there is no distinction between the world and God.  But Christianity (Judaism and Islam as well) reveals something different about God.  There is a distinction between Creator and Creation.  He really is God and we, his creatures, really are not.  So for the power of “God with us” to hit you, first it must be acknowledged that he was kind of far away before.

God’s Really With Us.  But now God really has come – in the person of His Son, Jesus.  When that newborn baby was placed down in that manger, God was truly in the house.  In the world in a way He’d never been before.  That’s why it is such a big deal.  God has always been involved in His creation, acting in it and sustaining it by his word.  But now his feet had really touched the dusty ground.  God’s perfection isn’t sullied or lessened by entering the world.  There’s no hint of negativity that he shows towards the material, the physical, and the ordinary.  This world was good from the beginning, and even though it’s been broken, God has come into it.  He is really with us in his creation.

God Is Really With You.   Really.  God in the world and with humanity is a great truth but does it get more personal than that?  Is God really with me?  or with you?  To really grasp and enjoy his nearness we must acknowledge that he really has cause to be far away.  As sinners, we are estranged from God and have no right to come before him.  He really was far away.  But now, through the Gospel of his son, he has near to us.  Not counting our sins against us, not withholding his presence from us, he is with us.  If you believe God is at your service, easy to stroll right up to, you’ll never grasp that incredibleness of his grace and his condescension to us.  In Christ, he is really with you!

 

Full Sermon – God With Us – Matthew 1:18-25 – Week 2 of Advent

 

Russell Moore’s Address at the Vatican – Humanum 2014

Pope Francis invited religious leaders from around the world to address issues of sexuality, marriage, family, and our changing culture(s).

Here is what Southern Baptist Dr Russell Moore said as representative of Evangelical Protestants.

God’s Extraordinary Ordinary

Christmas time (or more specifically Advent) is filled with many other concerns.  But not least should be the remembering of God’s greatest gift – Himself coming into the world and takig on human flesh.

Christianity makes extraordinary claims – miracles, existence of God, uniqueness of Christ.  But we’d be making a mistake if we were to believe that it is all extraordinary.  We’ll be disappointed tif we expect it to be.  This is because God often works through the ordinary.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the opening passage of Matthew’s Gospel, which is the opening of the entire New Testament.  It is just a long list of names – generations of those who form the family line of Joseph, Jesus’ legal and adoptive father.  If you were going to write the most important story in the world, would you go for an opener like that?  Not very catchy.  But it shows us something profound about God’s work in the world.

God’s work is ordinary.  Nothing is more ordinary than baby-making.  In fact, the most significant thing most of us will ever accomplish is to reproduce and continue the species.  That’s a pretty humbling thought.  But God entered the world, began His greatest work, and took on humanity precisely through the ordinariness of being born.  But that within that ordinariness He was doing something extrordinary.

God’s does something extraordinary.  Matthew shows us that even though this genealogy is about human reproduction there is something far more significant going on.  The entire history of Israel is contained here.  The origin of the nation with Abraham.  The high point and golden age through David.  The greatest humiliation through the Exile to Babylon.  There is a far greater significance going on even though it appears just as a long list of names.

There’s an extraordinary ordinary.  Most of us will never accomplish anything more lasting than carrying on the species.  Most of us will be nothing more than dust under a tombstone one hundred years from now.  But yet, we can find the greatest and most extraordinary significance by embracing God in Christ.  Every other religion/philosophy offers a sort of ladder up to heaven – through spiritual enlightenment, through good deeds, through ritual, etc. But the Christian message is that God has come down to us, into this world, so that He might lift us up.  He entered the ordinary, so that we might be saved into the extraordinary promises of God.  That means that even our lives may seem mundane, they can be filled with God.

 

 

 

Full Sermon – The Extraordinary Ordinary – Matthew 1 :1-17 – Week 1 of Advent

The Most Outlawed Prayer

If you had to guess which was the most outlawed prayer in the world, what would you guess?

In fact, it is the prayer of Jesus’ mother, Mary, from Luke chapter 1.

Mary prayed this upon visiting her cousin Elizabeth.  She had realized the magnitude of the promise that had been given her and the significance of her unborn baby.  It is a beautiful expression of worship and a profound declaration of truth.  But why has it been outlawed?

The public praying of this prayer has often been outlawed (mostly in Latin America).  It is because it proclaims the Lordship of Jesus over every other authority.  This makes tyrants nervous.  It is about the coming of a different kind of King – one who will scatter the proud, and bring down the mighty.

We must never forget that the Gospel proclaims that Jesus is a King.  Those who resist His rule will hate that fact but it is a glorious truth.  As we head closer to Christmas, let’s not forget that it is not all about warm fuzzy holiday sentiments.  It is also the celebration of the coming of our King.

 

“My soul magnifies the Lord,
     and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
 for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
    For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
 for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
    and holy is his name.
 And his mercy is for those who fear him
    from generation to generation.
 He has shown strength with his arm;
    he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
 he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
    and exalted those of humble estate;
 he has filled the hungry with good things,
    and the rich he has sent away empty.
 He has helped his servant Israel,
    in remembrance of his mercy,
 as he spoke to our fathers,
    to Abraham and to his offspring forever.”

 

Why Strive for Purity?

Recently a young man messaged me with a question.  “I have a question for you? Why do you strive for purity?”  Why questions are always the most important ones and this one was a good one.  I assumed he meant purity of a sexual nature.  I answered as quickly as I could with four points.

Here they are:

1) Out of love for the Lord. I don’t want to distance myself from Him experientially.

2) Out of the desire to please God. I want to please the Lord. Obedience pleases the Father.

3) Out of the fear of God. I have assurance of my salvation and yet… there is a holiness without which no one will see the Lord (Heb 12:14)

4) Out of Self-Preservation. The knowledge that my sins, unless resisted, will destroy my soul.

Be killing sin, or sin will be killing you.  – John Owen