Song of the Drunkards

JESUS FACED A CONSIDERABLE AMOUNT OF OPPOSITION FOR HIS HARD WORDS AND UNFLINCHING DEVOTION TO YAHWEH. NO SURPRISE THEN IF WE FIND OUR NAME FESTOONED IN BARROOM BALLADS (CF. PS 69:12).

Instruction & Correction

August 7, 2022 in Bible - OT - Proverbs, Meditations, Wisdom

Proverbs 12:1 

1Whoever loves instruction loves knowledge, But he who hates correction is stupid. 

The Proverbs direct us in the way of wisdom and teach us what it is to imitate the character of our Lord and Savior Jesus. Today we begin a series of exhorations through Proverbs 12. In v. 1, Solomon contrasts two types of men, men who are characterized by their loves and hates.

It is important to emphasize that love and hate are not, in themselves, virtues or vices. Though we often think of love as inherently virtuous and hate as vicious, the truth is that their praiseworthiness is determined by their object. To love Jesus; to love your wife and children; to love Scripture; to love truthfulness – all these loves are virtuous. However, to love wickedness, to love deceit, to love cruelty – these loves are perverse. Similarly, while it is vile to hate God, to hate the righteous, to hate truth and goodness and beauty, it is praiseworthy to hate deceitfulness, murder, covetousness, and sushi. God summons us, therefore, to be men and women and children who both love and hate – who love what is lovely and hate what is vile. 

So, on the one hand, Solomon lauds the man who loves instruction. So what does it mean to love instruction? I think we know. Kids, if you have a friend who loves pizza or loves soccer or loves Xbox, what does that mean? It means that your friend can’t get enough pizza, that he eagerly plays or watches or studies soccer games and scores, that he regularly seeks opportunities to play Xbox with his friends. So what would it mean to love instruction? It means he is eager to learn more and more. He readily listens to those wiser and more knowledgable than him. He cultivates a listening ear and an inquisitive heart. He wants to learn more of God’s Word, more of God’s world, more of his occupation. So he reads, he listens, he watches, he asks questions all in order to learn. This person, the one who loves instruction, likewise, Solomon tells us, loves knowledge. He grows in knowledge because he loves instruction. Tell me more; give me more; I want to grow.

On the other hand is the man who hates correction. This man thinks he knows it all. He is proud and unteachable. He refuses to listen to those wiser than himself. He closes his ears. “Yes, I know, I know,” he says even though it is evident that he does not. This man, Solomon tells us, is stupid. He is like a beast not a man. 

So what of you? Do you love instruction? Do you look for opportunities to learn? Let’s say you don’t know much about the Bible – are you striving to learn more, reading more, listening more? Let’s say you’re a new parent – are you asking seasoned parents for wisdom, reading good books, listening to good teaching? Let’s say you’re married – do you love to learn more about what makes a good marriage and how to make your marriage grow and flourish? Let’s say you’re an employee – do you strive to learn more about your job so that you can bless your employer more and more? Do you love instruction or do you hate it?

Do you hate correction? When your parents correct you, do you listen and repent or do you become sullen and angry? When your boss criticizes your work, do you listen and strive to get better or do you think you know it all? When your husband exhorts you, do you listen or do you become bitter and resentful? When your elders correct you, do you listen or do you just pack up your bags and find another church? Do you love correction or do you hate it?

Reminded that we are to love what is lovely and hate what is vile, let us confess to the Lord that our loves and hates are often disordered and distorted. Let us acknowlege, in particular, that we often hate instruction and correction, that we are stupid creatures. And as we confess our sin to the Lord, let us kneel as we are able. We will have a time of silent confession followed by the corporate confession found in your bulletin.

Neither a Revolutionary, Nor a Demagogue

June 26, 2022 in Bible - NT - Luke, Meditations

Luke 12:13–15 

13Then one from the crowd said to Him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” 14But He said to him, “Man, who made Me a judge or an arbitrator over you?” 15And He said to them, “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.” 

Our text today reveals that Jesus was neither a revolutionary leading an uprising nor a demagogue courting popular opinion. “One from the crowd said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.’” This man presented Jesus with an ideal opportunity to rile up the crowd. After all, money always gets people excited. Jesus could have used this request as a springboard to denounce the excessive nature of Roman taxation or the injustice of the inheritance laws. “Let us rise up; let us protest; I’m your man! Follow me!” But Jesus was neither a revolutionary nor a demagogue. The man in the crowd had misjudged Jesus.

Instead Jesus speaks bluntly to this fellow, “Man, who made Me a judge or an arbitrator over you?” Jesus reminds the man that there was a lawful way for him to handle his complaint – and that lawful way was to appeal to the magistrates, to appeal to the courts who would decide in such cases what was good and just. But courts take time and courts have rules – and this man wanted to supercede that process. He wanted to rile up the crowd. He was a revolutionary. But Jesus was not. 

Neither was He a demagogue – for notice what Jesus does next. He addresses Himself to the multitude: “Take heed,” He declares, “and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of things he possesses.” Jesus exposes the sin that was at the root of this man’s request and that is often at the root of our drive to revolutionary action: covetousness, envy, greed, the desire to possess that which lawfully belongs to others. Our politicians regularly use such envy as a tool to propel themselves into power. “Tax the rich; take from those who have more! We’ll make your brother divide that inheritance with you! He shouldn’t have so much! That’s not fair!” But Jesus exposes the origin of all this demagoguery; He exposes the sin at its root: covetousness. Jesus was no demagogue.

So listen to the words of Jesus, “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of things he possesses.” He delivers this warning to the crowd precisly because covetousness is not something that afflicts only politicians. The reason that we fall prey to the pleas of revolutionaries and demagogues is that we ourselves are covetous; we desire more than God has given us and would take that which God has given to others. But Jesus rebukes our covetousness and reminds us that our life does not consist in the abundance of things we possess. Instead, a meaningful life consists of loving God and loving one’s neighbor, of being content with what one has received and of laying up treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroy. And this is true for rich and poor alike.

And so reminded that we are to be neither revolutionaries nor demagogues, that we are to be content with what God has given us and not let covetousness drive us to take that which rightfully belongs to others, let us kneel as we are able and confess that we are often covetous and fall prey to revolutionaries and demagogues. We will have a time of silent confession followed by the corporate confession found in bulletin.

Triune Communion

June 12, 2022 in Bible - NT - John, Meditations, Trinity

John 17:1–6 

1Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You, 2as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him. 3And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. 4I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do. 5And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was. 6I have manifested Your name to the men whom You have given Me out of the world. They were Yours, You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. 

Today is Trinity Sunday, the Sunday the Church has historically set aside to remind the people of God that the God we worship is Triune – three Persons in one God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Later in our liturgy we will recite the Athanasian Creed together, one creedal attempt to give expression to God’s Triune nature.

In our Scripture today, Jesus prays to the Father and, in so doing, illustrates the interpersonal dynamic that has existed for all eternity among the Persons of the Trinity. First, we note that the Father and the Son – together with the Spirit, we might add – share glory. Jesus asks the Father – the Father who declared through Isaiah, “My glory I will not give to another…” (Is 42:8) – Jesus says to this Father, “Father, glorify Me together with Yourself…” And note that Jesus prays for a particular type of glory, “with the glory which I had with You before the world was.” Prior to Jesus’ incarnation, He existed in the form of God and, though His deity was veiled during His time on earth, now that He has risen from the dead and ascended into heaven, that glory has been restored to Him. Jesus was and is God Himself in human flesh.

Second, our text reveals that in eternity past, before the world was, when the Father and Son shared glory, they also shared communion with one another, they lived in a relationship of love. Jesus alludes to this eternal communion a couple times. Jesus prays, “I have glorified you on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do.” The Father gave Jesus a task to accomplish, a work to perform. So when did the Father give Him that work? The Scriptures answer: in eternity past, before the world was, when the Father and Son communed together. But there’s more. Not only did the Father give the Son a task to do, He also gave Him a people to be His own. Jesus prays, “I have manifested Your name to the men whom You have given Me out of the world. They were Yours, You gave them to Me…” So when did the Father give these people to the Son? Before the world was. The Father “chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world” (Eph 1:4).

This eternal communion between the Father and the Son prior to the foundation of the world is sometimes called the Covenant of Redemption or the pactum salutis, the “pact of salvation.” Louis Berkhof explains in his Systematic Theology: “Now we find that in the [plan] of redemption there is, in a sense, a division of labor: the Father is the originator, the Son the executor, and the Holy Spirit the applier. This can only be the result of a voluntary agreement among the persons of the Trinity, so that their internal relations assume the form of…covenant life.” (266) God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have dwelt in covenantal life, in communion for all eternity. 

So, consider, before the foundation of the world God thought of us, loved us, and gave us to be Christ’s own people – apart from any merit of our own; indeed despite the demerit which He knew we would deserve – ought we not to be humbled and awed that the Creator of all took notice of us and chose us as His own? As Paul writes, “But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth, to which He called you by our gospel, for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thes 2:13-14). Triune salvation.

And so reminded of the great love which the Father has bestowed upon us, and that He loved us before the foundation of the world and loves us despite our unloveliness, let us confess that we are unworthy His love and can only throw ourselves on His mercy in Jesus. And, as you are able, let us kneel as we confess our sins together.