How Shall We Live in Light of John 15:18ff?

John 15:18ff. (which was the sermon text at Covenant Church on Sunday) is a challenge: Jesus promises that just as the world hated him, the world will hate his disciples.  How do we live in light of that--especially in the public sphere?  What analogy or picture describes the life of a Christian in the world--in the world that rejected Christ?  And at the same time the world into which Christ came--not to condemn the world, but to save the world (John 3:17)?  How do we love the world, even as we love God more?
Here is an article from the journal First Things, written by Carl Trueman, who is a church history professor at Westminster Seminary, and a pastor of Cornerstone OPC in Ambler, PA.  And an all-around brilliant overachiever, if I may say so.  The analogy from Scripture that Trueman uses to describe our present situation is the Babylonian exile--where Jeremiah (ch. 29) urged those in exile to plant gardens and eat the produce, to seek the welfare of the cities they were in, even as they believed in God's promises for redemption (fulfilled in Christ--a redemption that was not geo-political, but spiritual).  Happy reading!

Think Your Educational Options Are Limited?

Try living as a Christian in China, trying to bring your children up in the 'nurture and admonition of the Lord," while your only educational option is a public school system that runs six days a week, twelve hours a day, and is openly committed to atheism!  Interestingly, and not surprisingly, churches and parents are searching for alternatives.  World magazine recently ran an article about that, and you can read it here. Read it prayerfully!

Prayer for the Day

This morning the Valley of Vision prayer I prayed ended with this good thought:
          "If my life should end this day, let this be my best day."
How very appropriate, when we face every day a myriad of temptations, and need daily such grace to love God.  Let this be the day in which Christ in me conquers sin.

Praying for Fruit in the Lives of Others

Over the last few weeks as I have preached in John's Gospel Jesus' promise for prayer has struck me several times.  Several times Jesus says: whatever you ask for in my name, I (or the Father) will do it.
The pattern in John goes from Jesus to his disciples; because Jesus receives whatever he asks from the Father, the disciples (who abide in him) have the same privilege.  So in John 11:22, when Jesus comes to Bethany after Lazarus' death, Martha affirms that for Jesus, "whatever you ask from God,. God will give you."  And Jesus, in John 14:16, will ask the Father for the Spirit, and the Father will give him to the disciples.
Along with that, and flowing from that (again, because of the disciples being "in Christ"), comes the promise of John 14:13-14, and 15:7, 16, repeated again in 16:23-24.
One thing we may certainly ask for, and know that God will grant it, is for good fruit in our own lives, and in the lives of other believers.  So here is one place where we can apply this: praying for our brothers and sisters in our own church.
So try this: Take your church directory, and pray for one column of families in church every day.  That is about five or six families a day.  Pray for their children, and adult children.  Pray for the fruit of the gospel in their lives.
For me, I also have a list of college students and young adults.  I pray for them a few a day.  Then I have a list of all the children in our church, broken down by ages.  I pray for them grouped by age.  In addition to praying for them, it helps be to stay on top of how old the children of the church are.
Now I confess, I mostly am a YOLF ("Ye Of Little Faith"); that is, I am not always convinced that much comes of these prayers.  I confess I pray with little expectation.  But that is something of which I must repent; for Jesus assures me that these prayers, said in his name, God hears, and God will grant fruit in the lives of others in response to my prayers.  Stand in awe!  How much else do we do in a day that has that much of a promise behind it?

The Sound of Silence...

You may remember that as the title of a Simon and Garfunkel song.  It is a sound that is rarely heard anymore by many of us.  One of the reasons is that we are surrounded by electronic noise.  It used to be that I would encounter "dead space" in life--down time, where there was nothing pressing on me, and I had a moment or two to look around, enjoy the flowers and grass, or look out the window and think, or just "chill."
One of the reasons there is less of that is technology that is always there.  So instead of looking out the window and chilling, I take my phone in my hand, check my email, see how the Phillies did last night, see what the stock market is doing, look at the weather....
Now someone has written a book called The End of Absence. It has a nice review in the Wall Street Journal that you can see here.  Pity no one has time to read books anymore.  But you can read the review on your phone--and if you do have some down time, you can probably find the book on an e-reader near you...

God in the Whirlwind, by David Wells

I have just about finished this book (you see it on the bar on the right).  Today I saw that Carl Trueman has a review of it.  It's theme is God's holy-love (hyphenated to emphasize that holiness and love go together in God).  This presents a challenge to us--we tend to emphasize God's love (for the most part) or his holiness (less common, but still we do it), often in isolation from each other.  To emphasize God's love makes him out to be a Santa Claus-like figure, always pleasing us but never making demands of us. To emphasize God's holiness leads to legalism or Pharisaism, usually combined with condemnation for those who do not measure up as we do.
God's love is holy, and his holiness is loving.  That is why both his holiness and his love compel and change us.  In Christ his love satisfies his holiness for our justification; by the same love, he transforms us in Christ toward greater holiness, what we call sanctification.  Both pieces go together.  There is that--and much more--in Wells' book.