Not to Be Served but to Serve...

This is a post that, I'm afraid, will not make much sense if you haven't been there. But let me at least try.
We have had VBS this week, for the first time, I am told, in at least nine years. And it has been amazing to me to watch the goings-on. It began a few months ago when Melissa said, "We're going to have VBS." And began getting the word out about how we needed people to serve. Pete pointed the young people to a sign-up sheet, and they signed up. Other people signed up. It all came together. And what a joy it has been to see.
This being the first time in such a long time, and the bulk of the next generation at Covenant being passed the VBS age, on the first night there were a lot more orange "Truth Trek" T-shirts than all the colors of shirts worn by the children put together. But that changed quickly. On the first night, some enterprising souls determined to seek out more children in the surrounding neighborhood. They went looking for parents who would like their children to participate. Parents, you see, are required to give their permission, and to sign in their children, and sign them out--or designate someone to do so. Security is tighter than it was for me as a child in rural Lancaster County, reflecting the changed culture we live in. It seemed to me at first a burden to ask parents to do that, but now I am sold on it. It keeps parents involved. After all, we desire to minister to whole families, not just children. And the children came.
I have been co-teaching the oldest group, grades 4-5. By this time of the week, yes, I am tired. So is Priscilla, who has been teaching grades 1-3. Tired, somewhat frazzled, but also excited. It has been a joy to serve--and, more than that, to serve alongside so many at Covenant. The young people are doing a great job with the drama, the crafts, and in the recreation pit. The parents--many of whose children are past VBS age--leading crafts, recreation, and serving snacks. The children are having a great time, all of them--the Covenant kids, their friends, and the neighborhood kids. Even the ones that, shall we say, require special oversight.
And of course is not this what it is all about: to follow our Lord and Savior who came, not to be served, but to serve (Mark 11:45). I know for myself--and I expect you, the reader, know this for yourself as well--that I spend a great deal of energy making sure I am being served. Not only in a restaurant or in the store, but even in church, even in the context of worshipping God. We live, after all, in a service economy, as it is often called. How refreshing--and convicting--to see so many of my brothers and sisters serving this week.
Let me close with a challenge: We have been privileged to serve, and to get to know, a number of children for the first time. They have enjoyed the excitement. They are hearing the gospel. Some are responding to it. So what are we going to do next? We work hard to make sure our own children are continually exposed to the gospel. How can we serve to make sure they are as well?
You see, it is a weakness of VBS materials that they often focus on "closing the deal," on producing what are termed "decisions." But the Christian life is not a matter of a decision once made; it is a matter of a lifetime of decisions. One key part of following Jesus is persevering in faith and repentance. We need the gospel not once, but continually--each Lord's Day reminds us of that. Faith, love, hope, joy, reverence, etc. are holy affections that are developed over a lifetime, by digging consistently and ever deeper into the gospel, into Christ, into God's grace, and applying it to the sin that remains in our own hearts. We know that to be true for ourselves, and we know it to be true for our children. How much more true is it of children who do not grow up with regular gospel input! Our challenge, then, is to continue in our service. Will we take it up?

Prayer

Here's another prayer from Valley of Vision for today (language slightly updated):

Everlasting Creator-Father,
I have destroyed myself, my nature is defiled, the powers of my soul are degraded; I am vile, miserable, strengthless, but my hope is in you.
If ever I am saved it will be by goodness undeserved and astonishing, not by mercy alone but by abundant mercy, not by grace alone but by exceeding riches of grace.
And such you have revealed, promised, exemplified, in thoughts of peace, not of evil.
You have devised means to rescue me from sin's perdition, to restore me to happiness, honor, safety.
I bless you for an everlasting covenant, for the appointment of a Mediator.
I rejoice that he did not fail, nor was discouraged, but accomplished the work you gave him to do; and said on the cross, 'It is finished.'
I exult in the thought that your justice is satisfied, your truth established, your law magnified, and a foundation is laid for my hope.
I look to a present and personal interest in Christ and say, Surely he has borne my griefs, carried my sorrows, won my peace, healed my soul.
Justified by his blood I am saved by his life, glorying in his cross I bow to his scepter, having his life I possess his mind.
Lord, grant that my religion may not be occasional and partial, but universal, influential, effective, and may I always continue in your words as well as your works, so that I may reach my end in peace.

It's finally here!

It is of course possible to make too much of John Calvin. Perhaps I already have stepped over that line! But today is his 500th birthday, so one more quote from him, very apropos to what I am preaching on this Sunday (the elder brother in the parable of the prodigal son):
"We are ready to seize and grasp God's grace when we have utterly cast out confidence in ourselves and rely only on the assurance of his goodness--when, as Augustine says, 'forgetting our own merits, we embrace Christ's gifts.' For if he sought merits in us, we would not come to his gifts. Bernard is in agreement with this when he neatly compares to faithless servants the proud, who claim even the slightest thing for their own merits because they wrongfully retain the the credit for grace that passes through them, as if a wall should say it gave birth to a sunbeam it received through a window. Not to halt any longer with this, let us hold it as a brief but general and sure rule that prepared to share the fruit of God's mercy is he who has emptied himself, I do not say of righteousness, but of a vain and airy semblance of righteousness. For to the extent that a man rests satisfied with himself, he impedes the beneficence of God." (Institutes, 3:12:8).

John Calvin's 500th

Three days shy of Calvin's 500th birthday, here is an excellent excerpt of the Institutes I read today:
"That joining together of Head and members, that indwelling of Christ in our hearts--in short, that mystical union--are accorded by us the highest degree of importance, so that Christ, having been made ours, makes us sharers with him in the gifts with which he has been endowed. We do not, therefore, contemplate him outside ourselves from afar in order that his righteousness may be imputed to us but because we put on Christ and are engrafted into his body--in short, because he deigns to make us one with him. For this reason, we glory that we have fellowship of righteousness with him." (III:9:10)

Take up Your Cross

"But it behooves the godly mind to climb still higher, to the height to which Christ calls his disciples: that each must bear his own cross (Mt. 16:24). For whomever the Lord has adopted and deemed worthy of his fellowship ought to prepare themselves for a hard, toilsome, and unquiet life, crammed with very many and various kinds of evils. It is the Heavenly Father's will thus to exercise them so as to put his own children to a definite test. Beginning with Christ, his first-born, he follows this plan with all his children. For even though that Son was beloved above the rest, and in him the Father's mind was well pleased (Mt. 3:17, 17:5), yet we see that far from being treated indulgently or softly, to speak the truth, while he dwelt on earth he was not only tried by a perpetual cross but his whole life was nothing but a sort of perpetual cross. The apostle notes the reason: that it behooved him to "learn obedience through what he suffered" (Heb. 5:8).
"Why should we exempt ourselves, therefore, from the condition to which Christ our Head had to submit, especially since he submitted to it for our sake to show us an example of patience in himself?"
--John Calvin, Institutes, Book 3, Chapter 8, section 1

Michael Jackson

I don't know about you, but I am blown away by the worldwide tribute Michael Jackson has received since his death yesterday. He was surely given great common-grace gifts in music and dance. But his story, like that of most such gifted people, tended toward, and ended in, tragedy. What do you think?

What Is Preaching About?

As a pastor, what I do most is preach. T. David Gordon has written an excellent book on preaching that is afflicting to me (I resemble very much his remarks!), but that also has helped clarify a great deal. One of the most brilliant--and biting--sections of the book (one that did not afflict me as much as other parts did), and one that might afflict you, the reader of this, is his section on "Social Gospel/Culture Warrior" preaching. Here are some (rather lengthy) excepts:

"An alternative... to real Christian proclamation is what would have been called the 'Social Gospel' in the early 20th century, but what is more likely to be called the 'Culture Wars' today. [It is where] the Christian pulpit is devoted to commenting on what's wrong with our particular culture, and what ought to be done to improve it, either by individuals or (worse) the coercive powers of the state. Since... the function of religion for many people is analogous to the function it had for the Pharisee (who always thought himself righteous and despised others), there will always be a warm welcome for such preaching. Many people love to live in their imagined and self-made world of good guys and bad guys, to be reminded that there are good people and bad people and that they are among the good.

"What's wrong with our culture and every culture, and all human culture since Genesis 3, is that all of us (not some of us) in Adam have revolted against the reign of God, and that each of us (not some of us) prefers his own will to the will of God. Worse, we are utterly incapable, in and of ourselves, of changing. The government cannot change us or rescue us from our revolt; education cannot deliver us from our darkened understanding that considers our own way better than God's way; and surely coercive human governments cannot cure souls. Only the God-man, the last Adam, by his perfect obedience and sacrifice and present intercession at the right hand of God, can rescue us from our revolt. So the one inadmissible thing to a culture warrior (that culture change is out of our hands) is the basic subtext of everything the Bible teaches...."

"Culture Warriors are not content with the two legitimate ways in which humans may exert influence on the behavior of others: through reasoned discourse and the power of example. The power of example is much too costly and too slow, and besides, we don't wish to be around unbelievers much anyway. And reasoned discourse is beyond the capacity of most of us today; most could never explain convincingly why one behavior choice is wiser than another. Se we resort to coercion: using the coercive power of the government to enforce external compliance to the ways of God...."

"The culture warrior's religion and his patriotism are in conflict. His Christianity teaches him that God is not pleased with mere external confession of insincere religious faith; but his patriotism just cannot accept the fact that his culture is moving in directions of which he disapproves. He desires to be proud of his nation; and he therefore concludes (wrongly, in my estimation) that it is better to have a public display of commitment to Christianity that is the result of coercion than to have a decline in the public display of commitment to Christianity.

"Haven't we already had a historical experiment that is precisely what the culture warriors want? Wasn't ancient Israel a nation whose constitution demanded obedience to the revealed laws of God, and didn't its executive branch use coercion to attain such obedience? Did Israel not, effectively, have the Ten Commandments in its courthouse? Yet which prophet ever had anything good to say about the nation? Indeed, as Jesus and the apostles more bluntly put it, which of the prophets did they not kill? If theocracy didn't work in Israel, where God divinely instituted it, why do people insist on believing that it will work in places where God manifestly has not instituted it?"

If you have read this far, and been able to digest what Gordon says--what do you think? does that afflict you? It helps me, as a preacher, especially the emphasis that the solution to all our ills--including cultural ills--is in the last Adam, Jesus Christ, and not in the coercive power of the state. 'Him we proclaim," Paul says rightly.

Prayer

O Holy Spirit,
As the sun is full of light, and the ocean full of water, heaven full of glory, so may my heart be full of you.
Vain are all divine purposes of love and the redemption wrought by Jesus except you work within, regnerating by your power, giving me eyes to see Jesus, showing me the realities of the unseen world.
Give me yourself without measure, as an unimpaired fountain, as inexhaustible riches.
I bewail my coldness, poverty, emptiness, imperfect vision, languid service, prayerless prayers, praiseless praises.
Do not permit me to grieve or resist you.
Come as power, to expel every rebel lust, to reign supreme and keep me yours.
Come as teacher, leading me into all truth, filling me with all understanding.
Come as love, that I may adore the Father, and love him as my all.
Come as joy, to dwell in me, move in me, animate me.
Come as light, illuminating the Scripture, molding me in its laws.
Come as sanctifier, body, soul, and spirit wholly yours.
Come as helper, with strength to bless and keep, directing my every step.
Come as beautifier, bringing order out of confusion, loveliness out of chaos.
Magnify to me your glory by being magnified in me, and make me redolent of your fragrance.
(from Valley of Vision)