The following recording is a chapel message to the CCS Middle School students from January 10, 2019.
What Duties Does The Congregation Have Towards Its Pastors?
The following is an excerpt from one of Jonathan Edwards’ most famous sermons entitled “The True Excellency of a Gospel Minister”. At the very end, Edwards gives a very helpful application of what the congregation’s responsibilities and duties are towards a minister who seeks to fulfill his calling as the local pastor. When the pastor seeks to teach the truth and walk in the truth, he is worthy to be followed.
It would be very helpful for anyone in our church to read and think about Edwards’ sermon in order to get an accurate picture of the high calling that our pastors are called to. This section, in particular, is worth relaying to you via the blog. I can say from my brief witness of our church that there is such great warmth, respect, and love that you have for your church staff that I commend this reading not out of rebuke but as an encouragement to see the work of the Spirit in your lives and especially in the lives of your elders and deacons who set the tone for the church.
And as it is your duty, to pray that your minister may…become such a blessing to you, so you should do your part to make him so, by supporting him, and putting him under the best advantage with a mind free from worldly cares, and the pressure of outward wants and difficulties, [in order] to give him wholly to his work. And by all proper acts of respect, kindness, and assistance, to encourage his heart and strengthen his hands [rather than to live in such a way as to] obscure and extinguish the light that would shine among you and to smother and suppress the flame by casting dirt upon it… And particularly when your minister shows himself to be a burning light, by burning with a proper zeal against any wickedness that may be breaking out among his people, and manifests [this zeal by speaking out against it] in the preaching of the word or by a faithful exercise of the discipline of God’s house, [then take it] thankfully…submitting to him in it, as you ought, [in order] to not raise up another fire of your unhallowed passions, reflecting upon and reproaching him for his faithfulness. [Here is how] you will act very unbecoming a christian people, and show yourselves very ungrateful to your minister, and to Christ, who has bestowed upon you so faithful a minister [that if you fight against your minister] you will fight against Christ and your own souls. If Christ gives you a minister that is a burning and shining light, take heed that you do not hate the light, because your deeds are reproved by it; but love and rejoice in his light… Let your frequent [attitude and action] be to your minister for instruction in soul cases and under all spiritual difficulties; and be open to the light and willing to receive it and be obedient to it. And…walk as children of light, and follow your minister wherein he is a follower of Christ (as a burning and shining light). If you continue to do so, your path will be the path of the just, which shines more and more to the perfect day, and the end of your course shall be in those blissful regions of everlasting light above, where you shall shine forth with your minister, and both with Christ, as the sun in the kingdom of the heavenly Father.
The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 2 (Banner of Truth: Edinburgh, UK 2009), p. 960
Meditations on the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:32-42)
Some of the best advice I have ever gotten for preaching preparation has been from Dr. Elias Medeiros and Dr. Guy Waters at Reformed Theological Seminary here in Jackson. Both of them give the suggestion that the beginning and most important part of all preparation must be to meditate on the verses before jumping to any commentary, sermon, or other helps. Dr. Waters specifically has given us assignments that tell us to give five “insights” for each verse that we go through. This is more than just “Jesus tells Peter to do _____.” This is more so thinking more deeply about what the text means, what it tells us about God, us, our sin, our hope, and the person and work of Jesus. This is the format that these meditations take on. Hopefully, this can be a tool for your own devotions and also something, although greatly flawed, of a model on your own devotional and Bible study/preaching preparation practices. In order to prepare for the sermon preached last night, I tried to give 2-3 meditations per verse in bullet format.
v32a
Gethsemane is literally “the oil press”. Certainly, many olive trees were in this area. Even without adequate knowledge of how olive oil is made, the meaning of Gethsemane no doubt tells us that olives are “pressed” in order for the juices and oils to come forth. This would be the type of soul anguish Jesus would begin to feel as He would be the one who would be “crushed for our iniquities” (Isaiah 53).
How strange this must have felt in that just a day earlier, Jesus was speaking on the Mt. of Olives about how He would be coming with the clouds of heaven with great power and glory (Mark 13). The temptation for Him here would be to take that glory without a cross.
It is the first time that Gethsemane is mentioned in the gospel. The Mt. of Olives is mentioned many times prior to this but not Gethsemane. Surely, we can presume somewhat that the gospel writers wanted to keep Gethsemane, “the oil press”, for the opportune time. The Mt. of Olives is a reminder of a fruitful and pleasant place but Gethsemane is a reminder of temptation, darkness, and the cup.
Imagine the familiarity that Jesus felt here. Often He came here to pray to the Father. Often the Mt. of Olives was a vivid reminder of the eternal dwelling He had with the Father prior to His incarnation. What tribulation it must have been to Jesus that in the hour when He most wanted His intimacy with the Father to be known that He then felt the foreshadow of the wrath of God that was to come on the cross.
It is also worth remembering that Jesus had just instituted the Lord’s Supper here. Earlier, He had just held up the cup which symbolized His blood (14:12-21). What was going on in Jesus’ mind and heart as He held up the cup? As He held it up before His eyes and the disciples’ eyes, what was going on in His mind? Certainly, it must’ve felt like a haunting dream waiting to come true as He uttered the words, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.” The cup that we would drink out of joy as a means of grace must first be a cup of wrath for Him on the cross. Gethsemane was the foretasting of this cup. Surely, as Jesus held up that cup, He must have had some inward anxieties and tremblings about that which was to come. It would have been like a prisoner sentenced to death by electric chair seeing a replica of it the day before going. It would have been like a man sentenced to death by guillotine shuddering as he saw someone slicing a vegetable the day before.
v32b
We should notice here that Jesus is enacting that of a High Priest in this moment. He comes the Great High Priest with the other future priests. He comes to meet with the Father through prayer, no doubt should be a reminder of the priestly duties, and He tells most of them to wait in the outer parts of Gethsemane. We will see in the next verse that Jesus tells the other three disciples to wait in the inner circle while Jesus alone goes before the Father to pray. The other three disciples are to be praying as He prays.
Prayer for Jesus was a private thing says RT France. Jesus did not pray in pomp and showmanship as the Pharisees did. Jesus prayed from the heart. It was an intimate moment for Jesus. No doubt, He did not object to public prayer but He certainly believed in private prayer and the necessity of it.
It is also worth noting too that the disciples heard just enough of Jesus’ prayer in the Garden to record the main portion of it. They were no doubt within listening range and yet it is as if they are only allowed to here the beginnings of the prayer before the sleepiness overtakes them. What else did Jesus utter in that prayer? Surely He said more than that during each of the hours that He prayed. We had the prayer of Jesus in John 17 graciously overheard and recorded for us. We know too that the disciples often prayed with Jesus and heard Him pray. They asked Jesus if they could be taught how to pray surely because they heard how He prayed. Yet, we are not giving access into this prayer. This was enough for us. Our sinful minds could not comprehend the battles that the Sinless One had with the temptation to take glory without the cross.
It is a good question to ask, “Why does Jesus pray?” Maybe it is the question that we must ask if we understand who He is. He does not pray to Himself but He prays to the Father. It is simply this, He is the dependent one. He is the Submissive Suffering Servant. He is the one that Isaiah prophesied of. This Jesus is the one who fulfilled all righteousness and did what Adam failed to do.
33-34a
This just needs to be mentioned that He took the other three with Him a little bit closer. This should remind us of the tabernacle and temple. Only the High Priest was allowed to go into the Most Holy Place. It could only be Jesus who could bring us into the presence of God.
This is also a reminder of what happened on the Mount of Transfiguration (Mark 9:2-11). There Jesus was showing His Divinity and here He is showing His humanity. There the disciples saw Jesus’ resurrection glory but here they would see His humiliation.
Jesus begins to feel greatly troubled, terrified, distressed. This word for “greatly distressed” is used for seeing something remarkable that has suddenly come upon you. This is a shuddering fear. This is not too unlike a panic attack. If something it is more than that. For surely His suffering is beyond anything any man has ever felt. It is His response to something that is utterly overwhelming. Fear pulses through His body. His heart rate would no doubt have sped up. His mind flooded with thoughts and the temptation to run from the moment. “Just forget about it. Just go back to heaven. Take the glory without the cross. Take the crown without the thorns.” Satan is coming back to tempt Him at the opportune time. Jesus was said to come under extreme anguish, mental and spiritual turmoil. Jesus was so sorrowful that He could’ve died. Literally, “my heart is ready to break with grief.”
What a stunning scene. Here is the God of Glory in fear. Here is the one who never blinked in the face of evil and persecution nor flinched before His enemies and yet now here, in a familiar garden going before the One who is most familiar to Him, He is totally turned upside down. Yet, He is sinless, perfect, and obedient.
34b
He asks Peter, James, and John to remain there and watch. This watching certainly involved praying. Jesus had just told the disciples earlier, on the same Mt., to stay awake for the Lord’s return (Mark 13). How much harder would it be to stay awake for the Lord’s return if they could not stay awake amidst the Lord’s presence? Oh, how they would need more than physical strength to stay awake but they needed the Spirit of Christ to come and abide in them to enable them to stay awake.
Why would Jesus ask for this? What would they add to Him? Once again, I think we see more of Jesus’ desire for company. We see here His desire for close friends to intercede for Him. But, why would they need to watch if Jesus was determined to give Himself over to the Pharisees and to Judas? It is most difficult to stay alert and to watch in the middle of the night. It had been a busy week for them and it was getting late. Jesus asks His closest friends to stay alert and to be like the watchmen in the night. Certainly, their actions were a great contrast to what Jesus was about to do. The disciples, especially the three who said that they would suffer alongside of Jesus (Mark 14:29-31), fail to do that which He does. It is only Jesus who is capable of doing the work of the High Priest. What a moment here where we see the ultimate failure of all other priests before Jesus! There is no one who fears God. There is no one who does good. No not one. All have sinned and turned aside (Romans 3:10-18).
35
Here goes our Great High Priest before the presence of the Father. Here goes the One who will intercede for us by giving Himself up for us. Here goes the Lamb who is also the Priest. Here goes the Temple embodied who is also the sacrifice. Here goes Jesus by Himself for it must be only Him who goes.
It is interesting that Jesus here falls to the ground. He does not graciously kneel before His Father. There is a weight upon His shoulders. It is as the one who tries to lift too much weight who then collapses underneath. It is a picture of what happened when He would carry the physical cross on the way to Golgotha. It is also interesting to note that Jesus here falls on the ground in distress of the cup and in just a moment the soldiers would fall to the ground as He would utter, “I am He.”
Here we see Jesus praying. Here is the one who is like the concubine in Judges 19 that falls before the door for help. She begs for help after being abused all night in the square by worthless men. Here, Jesus is awaiting being abused by worthless men. Here, Jesus is awaiting an even greater wrath--the wrath that was poured out on Sodom and Gomorrah and yet even more.
Jesus prays that the hour might pass from Him. This hour is the hour of the cup. It is the hour of the crushing the serpent but it is also the hour of the serpent striking His heel (as prophesied in Gen 3:15). Jesus sees here the cross in vivid colors. The Spirit gives Him a vision of the weight of the cross. And what happened on the cross? The wrath of God is poured out on Him. The wrath of God is that righteous and just separation of sinful man from the all-glorious God for eternity. It is a just repayment of what they desire and deserve. Jesus, who only knew eternal communion and infinite pleasure at the Father’s side for eternity is here tasting what He has never tasted before. He is feeling the wrath from His Father. He is feeling the enmity and separation. Yet, there is no one but Jesus who has such a desire to be with His Father and to worship His Father. He longs to give honor and glory to His Father and yet He gets a foreshadow of the wrath to come instead. Imagine this, what father among you, you who are evil, will give him a serpent when he asked for a loaf of bread (Luke 11:11-13)? Will not your Heavenly Father give you much more? The Heavenly Father gives much more to us than our best earthly fathers and we are sinful! Why then does the Heavenly Father here give His perfect Son a serpent (The Serpent!) rather than a loaf of manna from heaven? There is no injustice in the Father here and no rebellion in the Son. This is why the Father sent the Son and this is why the Son obeyed the Father. The mission, should He accept it, was to crush the serpent in order to redeem His elect. What love!
36
Jesus is never said to have uttered “Abba” until here. Surely, He did at earlier points in His life but not in the recordings of Mark. This is nowhere else in the gospels but only in the writings of Paul in Romans and Galatians. “Abba” is a very familiar term used only for a very familiar and intimate relationship with a father. It is an informal, yet not irreverent (as is often communicated in the Church today it seems), term that only a child would have the privilege of using. This is almost the picture of an orphaned child walking around a city market amongst all the men searching frantically for his daddy. In a way, there is no “Abba” here. It is only the Judge of sinful men. Jesus cries a familiar title to a familiar person in a familiar place and yet is met with only a foreshadowing of what it means to be disowned by God and abandoned by Him on the cross. Here is Jesus taking on Himself the punishment that was due to the children of Israel who abandoned God. Here is the deportation of Israel to Babylon beginning to happen to the Son. He is about to be thrust into the hands of unclean Gentiles rather than taken up into the hands of a loving Father. The gore must happen before the glory. The cross must happen before the crown. The blood must be spilt before the body is risen from the dead.
All things are indeed possible with the Father but not all things are permissible. It is possible surely for Jesus to remove the cup from Himself, for the Spirit to remove it from Him, and for the Father to remove it from Him but this was the eternal plan of God. The Son voluntarily decided and was determined to take the cup even amidst the height of this temptation. Now, some say that He asked for the cup to be delayed here until the cross for remember He told His disciples that He was sorrowful “unto death”. Maybe Jesus was worried that His frame would not enable Him to make it to the cross and that He would die in the Garden.
This is what the culmination of world history has boiled down to. This is exactly where God has sovereignly brought all things. This is the moment of all moments and all three persons of the Trinity have agreed passionately upon this plan as a perfect union. Yet, here is the Sinless One feeling the weight upon His humanity to take the cup.
Jesus does not ask the Father to take away the cup. He uses an imperative. Peter obviously hears Jesus say not only “if it is possible please take it away” but he also hears Jesus pleading with the Father in the imperative tone. What anguish Jesus must feel here! He is praying according to the attributes of God. Jesus understands that He must be the One to take away the wrath of God. He knew from reading the Scriptures that He was the Messiah and that He has come to drink the cup and to take away the sins of the world. So, what is this statement here that Jesus makes? Here is the height of all temptation. Here is the apex of every strategy of Satan culminating here in the face of Jesus asking Him to take the glory without the cross. The temptation is to be the King without being the Suffering Servant. Here, in the height of this temptation, is Jesus fulfilling all righteousness. This prayer is not a weak point of Jesus’ obedience but rather is exactly what He must have gone through in order to give us His perfect righteousness. What wonder this is!
Derek Thomas has us imagine the utter silence of all creation after Jesus utters this sentence: Remove this cup…All eyes turn to the Father. What would He do? Would He say, “Come Home Son! These wretched vile sinners aren’t worth it. They are only our enemies (Rom 5:6-11). They add nothing to our glory! Retreat from the moment. Let my just wrath come upon them for rejecting me.” God would remain God and gloriously God if He did so. He would still retain His infinite beauty and goodness if He called His Son away from the moment but this is not an arbitrary decision that the Triune God came up with in the moment but rather this was a covenant made. God bound Himself by His Word that He would redeem worthless men and women. The moment could not be denied. It must be fulfilled. What did all of heaven do during the pause between this sentence and the next? Had Satan won? Had God relented? Had Jesus given up? Did God really love us enough to die for us?
Yet…. Oh, what a wonderful word! How all of heaven must have gained so much adrenaline and the hearing of that word. “Yet”! Amidst all the temptation Jesus was facing to walk away from the wrath that He did not deserve… “yet”. What faith He had in His Father even amidst the Father’s silence. What gracious courage the Spirit gave Him to pursue the eternal plan of salvation. This is the epitome of faith. Against all logic, all feelings, all temptations, all persecutions, all sufferings, all evil assaults, Jesus here gives His life into the hands of His Father out of love for us. Love moves Him. Love for His Father and love for us moves Him. It’s “go time” now. It’s time to move from the locker room and to the playing field. Pre-game warm ups are over and the moment has indeed come. Here is the Lamb led to the slaughter now approaching the cross like a Lion. His soul is distressed and troubled beyond we can ever imagine yet here is faith. Here, we see His body come up off the ground. Here, we see the drops of blood that He sweat be wiped from His face. Here, we see Jesus glorifying His Father. What a Savior!
37
What a disheartening feeling this must have been. How much this added to the distress. He had gotten some courage back to face the cup and then it seems to go away from Him as He sees His disciples sleeping for “again he went away and prayed, saying the same words.” These were His closest friends. These were the ones who said that they would never leave Him nor forsake Him. These were the three who said they would suffer alongside Him yet the two who surrounded Him on the cross were thieves not disciples. Jesus had asked them to work and stay alert but they had decided to rest. They had acted like the first Adam in the garden when Jesus was acting the way the first Adam should’ve acted in the garden.
Notice that Jesus looks to Peter and calls him Simon. Why? It is because this sleeping man is not acting like a sturdy rock but more like his old self. Jesus had given Peter his new name which meant rock and yet here he is looking more like a sloth. It is also significant because here is Peter acting more like his old sinful self than the one who mightily confesses that Jesus is the Christ.
For one hour they could not watch. This means that Jesus prayed for at least one hour. One hour is not a long time to watch but it certainly can be when it is late at night. The disciples couldn’t endure one hour and yet Jesus was about to suffer for the next 10-20 hours. Once again, Jesus is the only one who can perform the atonement for us. He alone is the substitute. He alone is the submissive one to the Father.
38
What is the temptation that they would enter into? Would it be to betray Him? Certainly this has got to be the closest to it. The temptation that they were facing might have been very similar to the temptation that He was facing--take the glory and not the suffering. This after all is what they wanted. They had asked Jesus to sit at His right hand in heaven (Mark 10:35-45). They had desired Jesus to take the kingdom in an earthly way. They wanted glory but not the suffering. Surely, this temptation had it’s similar root with them as well. Again we see that all others will fail. Only Jesus can withstand the devil’s temptations.
Surely, Jesus knew first hand about the spirit being willing but the flesh being weak. He was experiencing it in the moment. His sinless soul greatly desired to glorify the Father in redeeming His people and yet the human flesh felt all of the temptation to flee from the wrath of God to come.
39
Again, Jesus went to the Father no doubt wrestling again as Jacob had wrestled with the Angel of the LORD in Genesis. Again He goes and asks about the cup. Again He pleads according to who God is. Again He submits and says, “Yet.” Again, He sets His face towards Jerusalem and to Golgotha.
40
Again Jesus found His best friends failing as disciples, failing as friends, failing as worshipers of God. Again, His soul is no doubt filled with anguish. There is no one to help Him. It must be Him alone. This is not like the movies where there is always another person who is eager to stand by someone’s side or to go instead of someone else. No one else wants this job. No one else wants this position. There is only One who is capable of doing this. There is only One who can take in an eternity’s worth of wrath in a matter of hours. There is only One who can reconcile God and man. There is only One who can love sinful man like this.
Oh, how sin leaves us in a position where we are unable to give an excuse to what we have done. How our own sin leaves us in a position unanswerable to God! All those who do not trust in Jesus will not be speaking back to Jesus on that Great Day. No one will have an answer back to Him. All will be silent as He opens the books. All will be silenced in hell. Jesus is the only one who answers for us in our place before the Father if we trust in Him.
41
Again, the third time He found them sleeping but this time it was enough. The hour had indeed come. No matter how much we try to delay the time, it inevitably comes our way. The moment is so fixed before His eyes. There is nothing but a Cross ahead for our Lord. It is time to wake up the disciples for the last time. It is time to give Himself over to His enemies. The hour would not be passing away. It was there in that moment. This is the moment why He came. This is why that precious baby, the gift to the virgin and the gift to the world, came. He came to die. He came to give His life up for us. He came to extinguish the wrath of God upon Himself rather than to let His loved ones die. It is for these sleepy ones that He would die. Ironically, it is for these sleepy ones that the Lord of the Sabbath would experience eternal unrest so that they might enter into into His eternal rest.
The Son of Man has gone willingly but His will was that He be betrayed by yet another close friend. He had chosen Judas to be His friend and disciple and yet Judas here is a picture of all of us. God chose to create us. He chose to have fellowship with us and every day we rejected such fellowship. Every day we sold the infinitely worthy one for the price of a slave. Here goes Jesus into the hands of sinners and of the unclean ones.
42
A moment ago, Jesus fell before the Father but now it is time to rise and go to the cross. They cannot stay in the Garden forever. They must be thrust out from the Garden in order to enter into the New Garden. He came not to be served but to serve.
The Joy of the Incarnation - What One Great Hymn Teaches Us
This past Sunday evening I had an opportunity to comment upon one of the hymns we sang after the Cherub Choir pageant, Paul Gerhardt’s “All My Heart This Night Rejoices.” This hymn is not as familiar as some, yet its words richly repay our contemplation and meditation. Gerhardt begins by declaring his joy in the birth of Jesus:
All my heart this night rejoices
as I hear far and near
sweetest angel voices.
“Christ is born,” their choirs are singing
till the air ev’rywhere
now with joy is ringing.
In the next six stanzas, Gerhardt give us several reasons why the incarnation of our Savior brings us such great joy.
1 – Because the incarnation was an act of war. Gerhardt sings in the second stanza,
Forth today the Conqu’ror goeth,
who the foe, sin and woe,
death and hell o’erthroweth.
We probably don’t often think about the incarnation in this way (Herod certainly did when he sent his soldiers to kill all the babies in Bethlehem two and under; see Matthew 2:16-17). Yet we see the connection between the incarnation of the Word of God and His conflict with His and our enemies all the way back in Genesis 3:15, and even more particularly in Hebrews 2:14-15 – “Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.” Jesus became a man to deal the deathblow to Satan, sin, the woe and misery of sin, death itself, and the pains of hell forever.
2 – Because the incarnation is permanent. The second stanza continues,
God is man, man to deliver;
His death Son now is one
with our race forever.
Jesus’ incarnate state did not cease with His death, or His ascension to glory. He remains a man, and the dust of earth sits upon the throne of glory. He knows intimately what it is to be human still, and so can sympathize with us in our weaknesses. When the eternal Son of God took on human nature, He was affirming the goodness of our humanity, and He was assuring us that we too will live an embodied existence for all eternity. Though the intermediate state is disembodied, our souls being with Jesus while our bodies rest in the grave till the resurrection, yet for eternity we will walk on a new earth with our Savior.
3 – Because the incarnation was for the purpose of substitution. The third and fourth stanzas are rich indeed:
Shall we still dread God’s displeasure,
who, to save, freely gave
His most cherished Treasure?
To redeem us, he hath given
His own Son, from the throne
of His might in heaven.He becomes the Lamb who taketh
sin away, and for aye [forever]
full atonement maketh.
For our life his own he tenders;
and our race, by his grace,
meet for glory renders.
We must never separate the birth of Jesus and the death of Jesus. He was born in order that He might die. He became a man not only to be like us and with us, but also to die for us, as our substitute. The incarnation is for the purpose of atoning for the sins of His people. The wages of sin is death, but God cannot die. So the only way for God to reconcile sinners to Himself was to become us them in our humanity, so that He might obey and suffer in our nature. Because Jesus has died, the beautiful truth in stanza three is ours: we have no need to fear the displeasure or anger or wrath of God, for He has poured it all out on His beloved Son in our place. He gave His greatest Treasure for us, to make us wretches His treasured possession.
4 – The incarnation meets our deepest sadness. The fifth and sixth stanza ring out,
Hark! a voice from yonder manger,
soft and sweet, doth entreat,
“Flee from woe and danger.
Brethren, from all ills that grieve you,
you are freed; all you need
I will surely give you.”Come, then, banish all your sadness,
one and all, great and small;
come with songs of gladness.
Love him who with love is glowing;
hail the star, near and far
light and joy bestowing.
Isaiah 53:3 tells us that Jesus was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He carried our griefs and sorrows, so that we might be freed ultimately from them forever. Because Jesus was born, we have hope, joy, gladness, and light. In this world we have sorrow, for Jesus has not returned. But by His incarnation, and all that flowed from it in His ministry on earth and in heaven, our sorrows are overwhelmed by the joy He gives us. We are called to banish our sadness from our hearts, for He has freed us from the penalty and power of sin, which cause our deepest sorrow, and promises to give us all we need for life and godliness – even the gift of gladness in times of distress.
5 – The incarnation gives us hope beyond the grave. Gerhardt closes his song with these words:
Dearest Lord, thee will I cherish.
Though my breath fail in death,
yet I shall not perish,
but with thee abide forever
there on high, in that joy
which can vanish never.
As those who trust in Christ Jesus the incarnate Word of God, we have absolute confidence that when we die, we will be with Him forever. And beyond that, as we have already mentioned above, we too will have a resurrected body on the last day. “He will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body or His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself” (Philippians 3:21). And so with this confidence we rejoice with exceedingly great joy, now and forevermore.
Was John Chau A "Fool For Christ's Sake" or Merely A Fool?
If you have been watching the news, you have noticed the recent death of the Christian missionary John Chau. There has been much said about Chau and his mission, motives, and preparation. There have been several people who have written about him and my thoughts would do nothing to turn the tide nor add much to the discussion. What is unfortunate, in my opinion, is the amount of articles and responses that have come out so quickly before we have even looked into the entire story. Whether we would be justified in our opinions or not, our social media and immediacy age has warped how we critically think about events in the world. How often we develop our own theories and opinions based on hearing only a fraction of the story and background which can be blown out of context. There has even been one article that I have read recently from a very solid evangelical writer and ministry who wrote more scathingly about Chau and his mission. If one reads the article, you would come away thinking that we should never take any risks whatsoever in missions and that we should only do so if it makes total logical and logistical sense to us. I came away thinking, “This author doesn’t want me to leave the 99 sheep to go and find the 1.”
Yes, there are many things that need to be thought about and learned from this situation. Jesus Himself tells us to count the cost for following Him and certainly this should be our thoughts for the mission field as well. There is a grand difference between being a missionary for your own glory and truly desiring to serve Christ and His kingdom. Nevertheless, who are we to discern Chau’s motives from afar (from very far) especially when we have very little information nor have talked to people who knew him and helped him prepare. We need to see also the many positive lessons to be learned. If we are honest, some of our reactions against Chau might be because of our idolatry of comfort and only wanting Jesus to be apart of our resume and reputation rather than our Sovereign Lord and Infinitely Glorious King. What both “sides” (this article is certainly another example of our polarizing and side-taking culture that we have in America and in American evangelicalism) need is to learn from Chau. Through all this, let’s remember, this is a man who died. From all accounts of Chau’s walk with Christ, this is a man who we will delight to be with in heaven to come. This is not a lab rat for our Christian culture.
That brings in Ed Stetzer’s article at the Washington Post. Stetzer has written the best article by far, that I have come across in my very limited research, that gives us careful considerations and also challenges us. You might have your own reactions to the mission and death of Chau but I would encourage you to read Stetzer’s article before coming to your own conclusion. And when you do, and when you pass it on to others, ask yourself these questions:
What does it mean to be a wise “fool for Christ’s sake”?
How much do I idolize my comfort?
Do I seek to evangelize only on mission trips or am I doing so in my everyday life?
Was this a tragedy?
How has my own culture shaped my view of missions?
How has my own culture shaped my view of what it means to be a Christian?
How do we take this and use it to teach our children and grandchildren about missions (whether to learn from mistakes or to learn from good example or both)?
Are we remembering that this is a man (and a Christian on top of that!) that has died and not merely a missionary lab rat for us to talk about?
Do we think of heaven or are we consumed with this life?
How does this prepare us to live and raise children in our own culture that is beginning to persecute Christianity more and more?
What can I learn from the rest of Christian history and other biographies that might help me grow in wisdom and passion for missions?
The following is an excerpt from Stetzer’s article and the part that I think we need to hear most. For the full article, click here. Stetzer will challenge both “sides” and leave us thinking more humbly about John Chau.
There are certainly differences between [Jim] Elliot and Chau, but what has really changed is our culture. People are much more negative about missions, partly because of mistakes that missionaries have made, such as colonialism, a lack of cultural awareness and more. But, for many critics, it is the core goal of conversion itself they object to.
I grieve for John Chau and his family. He made his choices because he loved the North Sentinelese. You might see it as a waste. You might point out his mistakes, even after learning that he had worked hard to prepare for his mission.
But, as I write this, less than 100 feet away is a letter Jim Elliot wrote. As a Wheaton College graduate, he has a special place here. As Elliot wrote (and Chau experienced), “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”
Here at Elliot’s alma mater, we still believe and train missionaries. To some, that makes us the fools. But we pray our students will engage in their culture and others well and in appropriate ways, with care for the health and well-being of all, and with others in partnership.
If that makes us fools, we will be “fools for Christ” (1 Corinthians 4:10).
Youth Ministry Sermons
To access Youth Ministry Sermons, download the Podcast app on your phone and search for “Wilson Van Hooser Audio”. Here is a link to the website page. You can download and listen to the sermons onto your phone or computer. For other messages and audio lessons, check the link for Other Audio Messages.
Where Do You Find Yourself on this Idolatry Chart?
Stephen Speaks, the pastor of Trinity Presbyterian Church in Jackson, MS, recently shared with me a chart he developed based on material from Tim Keller, founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City.
On the left hand side four broad categories of idols are listed: comfort, approval, control, and power. These idols are at the root of our sinful choices, feelings, and words. Along the top six categories unpack the idols in their practical outworking in our lives.
These idols so often go unrecognized in our lives because they masquerade as good qualities in our hearts and lives. Someone with an idol of comfort can often present themselves as a laidback, easygoing person. Likewise, someone with an idol of control can come across as very competent. In each case, the idolatry tends to be hidden by the genuine good character trait(s) that we can possess when enslaved by the idol.
The next column shows the price we are willing to pay to serve our false god. Those worshipping power are willing to bear enormous burdens and responsibilities to get their lust fulfilled. Those who long for approval will tend to sacrifice independence if only they are accepted by others.
The third column is the inverse of the second - what is it that we most fear when we are ruled by these idols? What do we not want to happen? This column can be most helpful in identifying which idol(s) has captured your heart.
The fourth and fifth columns speak to how our idolatries affect us and other people. What are the emotional manifestations that we will struggle with, and how will others be impacted by our functional idolatry? The person living for control will typically be filled with anxiety, and will make others feel condemned. The person living for the approval of man will be filled with fear and cowardice, and will make others feel smothered. In neither case will we actually get what we want, either in relation to ourselves or others.
The final column of the chart depicts the gospel reality that each idol counterfeits. Our idols promise us what only can be found through faith in Jesus Christ, by the grace of the Holy Spirit. Recognizing this truth day by day, moment by moment, moves us from idolatry to repentance and trust in God’s mercy.
Spend time meditating on your own life in relation to this chart, and pray that the Lord would expose and root up the idols of your heart.
20 Quotes on Corporate Prayer
The following is an excerpt from an article that was originally posted by The Gospel Coalition featuring 20 quotes from John Onwuchekwa's new book Prayer: How Praying Together Shapes the Church (Crossway, 2018). The reason why I wanted to repost this is not merely to recommend what seems to be a resource that would be worth our time but also to inspire us with these quotes. As you read these, you might be struck with many thoughts about your prayer life as an individual and own prayer life as a corporate body.
A couple of weeks ago, I was in a seminary class on Ecclesiology. The professor was pointing out to us some of the earliest mentions of the Church in the Bible. He took us Genesis 4:26 where it says, "At that time people began to call upon the name of the LORD." He then said something like this (which I am paraphrasing to the best of my ability), "What makes the Church the Church? It is a corporate body of people who pray or call out to God. When we withhold prayer from God we withhold worship from God." Essentially, what he was saying is what Onwuchekwa will expound on in a greater form in his book. So as we read these quotes, here are some of my own questions for us to reflect on:
Do we pray (not do we just say our prayers)?
What does it look like to have a life of prayer with our family and church family?
If I did not pray for a week, would anything change about me?
If we as Pear Orchard did not pray for a month, would there be any difference?
Do we pray only or mainly for physical needs or do we pray for the ability to live the Christian life, conversion of unbelievers, protection against temptation, deliverance from sin, or anything that involves the spiritual aspect of life?
Here are 20 quotes from John Onwuchekwa:
“Of all the books that have been written on prayer, this one has a very specific purpose: examining how prayer shapes the life of the church. So much has been written about prayer as an individual discipline. Not much has been written about prayer as a necessary and communal activity that shapes local churches, either by its presence or absence (though Megan Hill’s Praying Together is helpful [Crossway, 2016]).” (15)
“It’s so much easier to read about prayer than to actually pray.” (16)
“Prayer is oxygen for the Christian. It sustains us. So it follows that prayer must be a source of life for any community of Christians. It is to the church what it is to individuals—breathing. Yet many of our gatherings could be likened to people coming together merely to hold their collective breath. This would explain why people seem to have so little energy for actually living out the Christian life.” (23)
“Prayer was never meant to be a merely personal exercise with personal benefits, but a discipline that reminds us how we’re personally responsible for others. This means that every time we pray, we should actively reject an individualistic mindset. We’re not just individuals in relationship with God, but we are part of a community of people who have the same access to God. Prayer is a collective exercise.” (41)
“This prayer for God’s presence to be seen and enjoyed is quite startling to a world that prefers for God to be an absentee Father that just sends a big child-support check each month. Because we’re sinful, we would prefer God to give us our demands while demanding nothing in return. We love to set the agenda. But Jesus teaches us here that God’s presence precedes his provision. His agenda is far better than ours.” (48–49)
“The Lord’s Prayer is supernatural. Sure, anyone can parrot the words, but only those who have been internally changed truly desire what it asks for. The words are not a magical incantation. Saying them out loud isn’t the goal. Slave owners probably recited the Declaration of Independence’s ‘All men are created equal’ hundreds of times. Parroting words does no good. Jesus isn’t creating parrots, but pray-ers.” (51)
“The local church is the best way to define the ‘us’ in our prayers. . . . The Christian in covenant with a local church is never alone. As long as the church endures, which will be for all eternity, the Christian is always part of an ‘us.’ The local church takes the theory of Christianity and makes it tangible—in love, deed, and especially in prayer.” (62)
“Jesus stared death square in the face, knowing his fate was inescapable. How did he face it? On his knees in prayer.” (70)
“While prayer may start with believing God can do the impossible, peace is never found there. If we only imagine what God can do and then judge his goodness by how often he does the impossible for us, we’ll never find true peace. His ability should cause our hearts to soar and ask for the impossible. But his sovereignty and wisdom should keep us grounded. They remind us that although God can do the impossible, he doesn’t have to—and we can trust him regardless. Peace is found here and only here. Any other arrangement ends only in discontentment, especially if we hold God hostage to an outcome he’s never promised. We’ll always lack peace when we judge God’s love for us by how many of our prayers are answered with a ‘yes.’ False hope is the most fertile soil for a crop of discontentment.” (71–72)
“The story of Gethsemane is as much about the power of prayer as it is about the inevitable failure that comes from prayerlessness. . . . Jesus’s faithfulness to do God’s task is directly tied to his prayer. The disciples’ faithlessness is directly tied to their prayerlessness.” (75)
“You can’t shout about God’s forgiveness if you’re stingy with your own.” (83)
“God wants a deep relationship with his people. And the deeper the relationship, the more varied the communication. We explore the wonder of who God is during our prayer of adoration. We embrace the mercy he provides during our prayer of confession. We reflect on all he’s done for us during our prayer of thanksgiving. We lean on him and feel his strength during our prayer of supplication. By including these prayers in our Sunday service, we display the width and depth of our relationship with God.” (88)
“A church that practices prayer is more than a church that learns; it’s also a church that leans. . . . We learn dependence by leaning on God together.” (92)
“Prayer is mentioned no less than twenty-one times in Acts. Furthermore, these prayers are inherently corporate. Whenever prayer is mentioned, it overwhelmingly involves others.” (95)
“[A prayer meeting] is different from praying during corporate worship, but it’s just as necessary. Prayer during corporate worship is the potatoes to the steak of the preached Word. In the prayer meeting, the roles are reversed. Now our prayer with one another becomes the main dish. We care for each other best as we lean on God together.” (96)
“The prayer meeting isn’t meant to be a theme park. It’s more like a storage facility, and we’re all cars without trunks. We were never meant to store up our concerns within ourselves (see Ps. 13:2). We were meant to offload those things to God. The prayer meeting isn’t a place of attraction, but a place of necessity. It’s a place where people come with burdens and leave without them because they’ve been placed in God’s hands. Here, we come together to lean on God with each other, for the sake of each other. Where’s that space for your church?” (96–97)
“The prayer list—not the Sunday service elements, not the preaching style, not even the ethnic makeup of the leadership of the church—is often where the battle for diversity is won or lost. What makes the prayer list is often a reflection of who’s praying and whose problems are seen as real, relevant, and important. A friend of mine was a part of a church that refused to pray for anything related to Mike Brown, Trayvon Martin, Alton Sterling, Eric Gardner, Laquawn McDonald, or any other African American who was killed at the hands of law enforcement, because those issues were ‘too politicized’ and would cause division in their church. This frustrated her. She didn’t want her church to march on Washington or hang a Black Lives Matter flag from the steeple. She simply wanted them to pray corporately on these matters because she knew they were deeply significant to many of the minorities in the church. . . . The battle for diversity is still won or lost here today. Diversity is more about priorities than programs. And a church prays for what it prioritizes. Your prayer lists essentially serve as price tags on current events and church concerns—assigning value or diminishing it. Therefore, don’t populate the prayer list in isolation. Populate the list with the concerns of all the flock. The honorable strides toward diversity are maximized when we pray together to our Father who has no favorite children (see Acts 10:34).” (101–02)
“As we pray for salvations, we realize that God’s sovereignty diminishes only our anxiety and apathy, not our activity.” (113)
“When it comes to singing, everybody wants a composed song. But when it comes to prayer, many insist on improvisation. Preparing prayers beforehand isn’t the enemy of authenticity. It’s an ally of clarity and an expression of love, not just for God but for others. Writing prayers beforehand and offering them up to God in the presence of his people isn’t any less authentic than writing a letter to your wife and giving it to her the next day. The words of the letter are heartfelt. She might even be more appreciative that you took the time to clarify your thoughts and put them down on paper. Preparation is a helpful way to communicate your heart clearly.” (123–24)
“The power of our prayers isn’t found in the number of people praying, but the willingness of the One to whom we’re praying.” (126)
For the full article, click here.
John Donne's Holy Sonnets Are A Rich Feast for the Soul
Poetry probably isn’t the first thing we rush to read every morning, and yet we all know the power of a poem. What is a song, but a type of poem set to music? And which of us has not been impacted deeply by the lyrics to some song?
If you’ve never read any of John Donne’s “Holy Sonnets,” you’ve missed out on a rare source of spiritual nourishment and soul-formation. Here are three that set forth Christian truth in such a memorable and vivid way - make sure to read them slowly (even out loud), and more than once, to taste the full sweetness of Donne’s imagery and word choice.
Wilt thou love God as he thee?
Wilt thou love God as he thee? then digest,
My soul, this wholesome meditation,
How God the Spirit, by angels waited on
In heaven, doth make His temple in thy breast.
The Father having begot a Son most blest,
And still begetting—for he ne'er begun—
Hath deigned to choose thee by adoption,
Co-heir to His glory, and Sabbath's endless rest.
And as a robbed man, which by search doth find
His stolen stuff sold, must lose or buy it again,
The Sun of glory came down, and was slain,
Us whom He had made, and Satan stolen, to unbind.
'Twas much, that man was made like God before,
But, that God should be made like man, much more.
Death, be not proud
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
Batter my heart
Batter my heart, three-person'd God; for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurped town, to another due,
Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
Why Do Youth Stay In Church When They Go To College?
Former Youth Minister Jon Nielson writes an article for The Gospel Coalition about why some of his students stayed in the church when they went to college and why some of them didn’t. I couldn’t agree more with him on this. To read the full article, click here. Here is an excerpt:
“What do we do about our kids?” The group of parents sat together in my office, wiping their eyes. I'm a high school pastor, but for once, they weren't talking about 16-year-olds drinking and partying. Each had a story to tell about a “good Christian” child, raised in their home and in our church, who had walked away from the faith during the college years. These children had come through our church's youth program, gone on short-term mission trips, and served in several different ministries during their teenage years. Now they didn't want anything to do with it anymore. And, somehow, these mothers' ideas for our church to send college students “care packages” during their freshman year to help them feel connected to the church didn't strike me as a solution with quite enough depth.
The daunting statistics about churchgoing youth keep rolling in. Panic ensues. What are we doing wrong in our churches? In our youth ministries? It's hard to sort through the various reports and find the real story. And there is no one easy solution for bringing all of those “lost” kids back into the church, other than continuing to pray for them and speaking the gospel into their lives. However, we can all look at the 20-somethings in our churches who are engaged and involved in ministry. What is it that sets apart the kids who stay in the church? Here are just a few observations I have made about such kids, with a few applications for those of us serving in youth ministry.
Article: "Technologists...are increasingly wary about exposing their kids to screen time"
I am no technology expert nor am I a cultural expert but merely a mailman delivering documents from the experts. Nevertheless, this is an article, and a topic, that we need to heed. We should never do something just because the masses are doing it as well. How would you react if I suggested the following:
Students should not have a phone until they can drive. OR Students should not have a smartphone until college.
We believe in Christian freedom but can our resolve for Christian freedom with technology actually enslave us? I wonder how many of us, even myself, read the comments of this article and shrink back from it. Here is an excerpt:
Some of the people who built video programs are now horrified by how many places a child can now watch a video.
Asked about limiting screen time for children, Hunter Walk, a venture capitalist who for years directed product for YouTube at Google, sent a photo of a potty training toilet with an iPad attached and wrote: "Hashtag 'products we didn't buy'." Athena Chavarria, who worked as an executive assistant at Facebook and is now at Mark Zuckerberg's philanthropic arm, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, said: "I am convinced the devil lives in our phones and is wreaking havoc on our children." Ms Chavarria did not let her children have cellphones until high school, and even now bans phone use in the car and severely limits it at home.
She said she lives by the mantra that the last child in the class to get a phone wins. Her daughter did not get a phone until she started ninth grade.
"Other parents are like, 'Aren't you worried you don't know where your kids are when you can't find them?'," Ms Chavarria said. "And I'm like, 'No, I do not need to know where my kids are every second of the day'." For longtime tech leaders, watching how the tools they built affect their children has felt like a reckoning on their life and work.
For the full article, click here. For a previous post on technology by Caleb Cangelosi, click here.
This Getty Hymn Helps us Remember Who We Are and Whose We Are
One of the foundational principles of the Christian life is our union with Christ. We are in Him, and He is in us by His Spirit. We are accepted in the Beloved, and belong to Him. Our unbreakable relationship with Him supplies to us the surest ground of significance, and our deepest identity.
One of the songs that so beautifully speaks of this reality is the Gettys’ “My Worth is Not in What I Own.” This hymn covers a variety of topics: stewardship, accomplishment, youth and beauty, idolatry, worth, and the atoning work of Christ on our behalf. The Gettys have written about the back-story of this hymn here. Read and be encouraged as to who you are and whose you are, and sing out with joy the next time we use this song in corporate worship!
The Gospel and Sports (RYM Youth Leader Podcast)
Last week, I was able to record a series of podcasts with John Perritt on the issue of sports and youth culture. We discussed my testimony in the sports world, the good aspects and blessings of sports, the bad aspects of sports, how the prosperity gospel has affected the sports world, and finally about some tips for parents who have children who play sports. Each podcast is around 15 minutes on average that is a good resource to listen to in the car. To listen to the podcasts, download the “Podcast” app from the App Store on your iPhone, search “The Local Youth Worker Podcast”, and look for the podcast label that has the RYM logo on it. There are five episodes, one for each day of the week, and they are episodes 231-235. If you prefer to listen to them online, click here to listen to them.
Aging in Grace - two quotes from my sermon
Several of you asked for the quotations from the end of my sermon this past Sunday morning. The first was from Archibald Alexander’s “Letters to the Aged,” which I’ve just reprinted under the title Aging in Grace: Letters to Those in the Autumn of Life. Here’s an expanded version of his encouraging words:
As an aged man, I would say to my fellow-pilgrims who are also in this advanced stage of the journey of life, endeavor to be useful, as long as you are continued upon earth. We are, it is true, subject to many peculiar infirmities, both of body and mind, to bear up under which requires much exertion, and no small share of divine assistance; but still we have some advantages not possessed by the young. We have received important lessons from experience, which if they have been rightly improved, are of inestimable value. The book of divine providence, which is in a great measure sealed to them, has been unfolded to us. We can look back and contemplate all the way along which the Lord has led us. We can now see the wise design of our Father, in many events, which, at the time, were dark and mysterious…I would affectionately entreat my aged brethren to make the dealings of God’s providence towards themselves, a subject of careful study. There is within our reach, except in the Bible, no source of instruction more important.
The second was from Thomas Brooks, in his book Precious Remedies for Satan’s Devices, a Puritan Paperback published by Banner of Truth. It’s a marvelous exposition of all the ways Satan seeks to tempt us to sin, and I’m benefiting greatly from it in my morning private worship. Here is what Brooks said:
Your life is short, your duties many, your assistance great, and your reward sure; therefore faint not, hold on and hold up, in ways of well-doing, and heaven shall make amends for all.
May the Lord encourage us as grow older in the strong arms of His grace each day!
Quote of the Day
This quote from Francis Grimke (1850-1937) comes from Caleb Cangelosi’s compilation of Grimke’s “Meditations On Preaching”. This is not necessarily about preaching but rather it is a quote that I think strikes at the heart of our culture today.
The man to be respected and held in high estimation is not the one whose home is expensively furnished but the one whose soul is arrayed in the beautiful garments of righteousness, however meager his material resources may be. It is the man of upright character, of sterling worth, that is to be respected and honored.
Suffering and Psalm 63
If you are suffering today, or this week, or this year, and you haven’t spent time in Psalm 63 recently, I encourage you to do it! David’s words are refreshingly realistic and filled with hope and God-centered joy in the midst of dryness and weariness. On the Desiring God website, staff writer Marshall Segal has written a helpful meditation upon this psalm entitled, “The Joy We Know Only in Suffering.” Make use of it as you walk through the wildernesses. God is present even there, and our longing for Him demonstrates how satisfying He is.
Thanks to ruling elder Adam Adcock for recommending this article.
What Is Missing In Much Of The Church Today?
The fruit of the Spirit is not love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control. That’s right. This is not what the fruit of the Spirit is. There is something missing in this list. Did you catch it? It is often one of the most overlooked character qualities that we miss today in America and in the Church. Galatians 5:22-23 says, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” Gentleness is not something we typically gravitate towards in the American Church today. We often think that a church needs to be strong, loud, relevant, loving, wise, but not gentle.
Dane Ortlund has written a great piece on this theme of gentleness. Ortlund sees the undervaluing of gentleness, especially in men, as he writes, “As we picture what it means to man up and be a leader in the home and in the church, gentleness isn’t, for many of us, a defining element of that picture.” When we think of raising our boys into real men in an age that has redefined what manhood is, do we emphasize gentleness? Here is a larger excerpt from Ortlund’s article:
The way forward isn’t by choosing gentleness over against manliness, but by rightly defining manliness according to Jesus Christ. After all, if anyone was ever a man, a true man, he is. And while he could drive money changers from the temple, he also delighted to gather up into his arms the little children whom his disciples tried to send away (Matt. 19:13–15). He dealt gently with outsiders. He wept over the death of a friend (John 11:35). He welcomed healthy, manly physical affection with his dear disciples. The apostle John, for example, was (to translate the text literally) “reclining . . . at Jesus’s bosom” (John 13:23—the very relationship said to exist between Jesus and the Father earlier in John 1:18).
The supreme display of Jesus’s manhood, however, was in his sacrificial laying down of his life on behalf of his bride, the church. When the apostle Paul defines what it means to be a husband, he can speak simultaneously of the husband’s headship and also the husband’s sacrificial, Christlike laying down of his life on behalf of his bride (Eph. 5:25–33). Such sacrifice isn’t unmanly: it’s the supreme display of masculinity.
Any immature man can be a forceful, unheeding, unloving “leader.” Only a true man can be gentle.
This article is definitely worth a read. For the link, click here.
Technology, Idolatry, and Eternal Life
Paul is clear in Romans 1 - if we don’t worship the one true Creator God, we will worship the creation. One way that idolatry is manifested today is in the secular search for eternal life - not found through faith in Jesus Christ, but through faith in technology. Technology leaders in America are on the hunt for a cure for death, and they are willing to sacrifice huge amounts of money to find the secret elixer that will allow them to live forever, according to Jacob Banas, author of “Disrupting the Reaper: Tech Titans’ Quest for Immortality Rages Forward.” Banas references an article about Christianity in Silicon Valley that observes, “Traditional religion in the Bay Area is being replaced with another sort of faith, a belief in the power of technology and science to save humanity.” Banas comments, “Combine this new governing philosophy (what others have called a “religion of technology“) with leaders who are too young to find peace in the concept of death and who haven’t experienced the kinds of traumas that might inoculate them against some of that fear? You get a perfect storm of longevity obsession.”
God tells us that He has set eternity in the hearts of mankind (Ecclesiastes 3:11). Made in his image, and created with a soul that will never die, Christians understand that the desire to live forever is not wrong. The problem is that because of Adam’s sin, death has entered the world. There is no escaping the grim reaper, for “it has been appointed for the die once and after this comes judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). Every single person will live forever, in a body - either in eternal joy on a new earth, or eternal misery in hell. What determines our destiny? The way we respond to Jesus Christ in this relatively short life. If you have friends that long to live forever, if you have friends that put their hope in technology to give them eternal life, point them to the only Savior from idolatry, the only giver of true life, Jesus the Son of God.
How Much Are Teens Bullied On Social Media?
There is no doubt that students are facing a world of trials in today’s world but one of the more common trials is the presence of bullying on social media. I have learned more and more about the presence of bullying on social media the more I have heard from our students. To be sure, we need to constantly ask our children about their presence on social media. Much of the social lives of youth today happen on the Internet which is hidden from plain sight of parents and mentors. The following is a brief excerpt of this article from The Atlantic:
No app is more integral to teens’ social lives than Instagram. While Millennials relied on Facebook to navigate high school and college, connect with friends, and express themselves online, Gen Z’s networks exist almost entirely on Instagram. According to a recent study by the Pew Research Center, 72 percent of teens use the platform, which now has more than 1 billion monthly users. Instagram allows teens to chat with people they know, meet new people, stay in touch with friends from camp or sports, and bond by sharing photos or having discussions.
But when those friendships go south, the app can become a portal of pain. According to a recent Pew survey, 59 percent of teens have been bullied online, and according to a 2017 survey conducted by Ditch the Label, a nonprofit anti-bullying group, more than one in five 12-to-20-year-olds experience bullying specifically on Instagram. “Instagram is a good place sometimes,” said Riley, a 14-year-old who, like most kids in this story, asked to be referred to by her first name only, “but there’s a lot of drama, bullying, and gossip to go along with it.”
Teenagers have always been cruel to one another. But Instagram provides a uniquely powerful set of tools to do so. The velocity and size of the distribution mechanism allow rude comments or harassing images to go viral within hours. Like Twitter, Instagram makes it easy to set up new, anonymous profiles, which can be used specifically for trolling. Most importantly, many interactions on the app are hidden from the watchful eyes of parents and teachers, many of whom don’t understand the platform’s intricacies.
For the full article, click here.
New Resource: RYM Student Podcast
Our very own John Perritt has launched a new podcast for RYM aimed at students. Parents and mentors can use this resource to listen to with their kids, small groups can use this to launch into a good discussion, and students can listen to it in the car on the way to and from school. These short podcasts will answer such questions as:
Who is Jesus?
What has Jesus done for us?
What is my purpose in life?
What is mercy?
What is the Bible?
How do I know God?
For more information and to listen to the podcasts, click here.