Rug-yanking applied to modern arrogance

Well, just when I think I am reading something by C.S. Lewis that is sub-par, he comes out with a quote that really gets my wheels turning… in  a good way.  In his Problem of Pain (Harper-Collins, 2001), Lewis is discussing how the typical modern man tends to magnify his own virtues and magnify his forefathers’ vices.  But then, Lewis puts us all in our place with this:

“From considering how the cruelty of our ancestors looks to us, you may get some inkling how our softness, worldliness, and timidity would have looked to them, and hence how both must look to God. (p.58)”

It is hard for all of us when we are faced with the reality that we must repent of what we perceive to be our virtues… repent of our softness that we have been mistaking for compassion… repent of our worldliness that we have fooled ourselves into thinking was relevance… repent of our timidity that we have falsely labeled humility.  May the Holy Spirit give us wisdom to tell the difference between our virtues and our vices.

10(?) Reasons to go to Church

Here’s a good Sabbath activity for all of us.  My wife, having had to miss church today because of stomach issues, came up with the following nine reasons she goes to church.  See if you blog-surfers out there can come up with the tenth and final reason.

1) After a hard week (isn’t every week a hard week when you have children at home?) I need to be recharged. I need to go see other believers and be reminded that we’re all doing this “hard-life” thing together.

2) After a week of sinning, I need to go to church and hear about God’s forgiveness and mercy. I know that I can get this by reading my Bible or with encouragement from my husband, but it’s just not the same as being in a sanctuary filled with other sinners who all need to hear the same thing.

3) I need fellowship with the saints. Many times, the only face-to-face conversations I have with people outside my own home are at church. I need to hear that other Christians are struggling just like I am, and I need to discuss with them how to deal with life biblically.

4) I need to sing. I love to sing, and doing so with other believers reminds me that it’s not just “Me and Jesus”, but I’m just one small part of the whole Body of Christ, and that we’re all working together to glorify God.

5) I need to take communion. This is a *tangible* reminder of God’s grace and mercy – something you can’t get anywhere else. It is also a reminder of my need to forgive others.

6) I need to hear the preached Word. I want to learn more about God, myself, and how to apply Biblical teaching to my life.

7) I need to pray with the saints. There’s something about all of us praying together that brings us not only closer to God, but closer to each other, too.

8- Because I get to. I grew up thinking it was something I “had” to do. Now, I think of it as something we “get” to do. What a privilege that the Creator of the universe would want us to meet with each other once a week to worship Him! He didn’t have to do this for us. He could have left us to ourselves. But instead, He wants to remind us of His tremendous love for us, that He wants to have a relationship with us, that it is His great delight to forgive us and to hear our prayers.  And I want my children to grow up excited about going to church and being confident of His love for them.  (Another aspect of the “get to” concept is there are many nations where Christians have to worship in secret and don’t have the freedom that we have.)

9) Lastly, because God commands us to in His Word, not because He wants to add another rule or duty to our lives, but because it’s what we need from Him. Why deny myself this blessing?

Anyone run a small business?

Although I don’t hate big companies, I think the small, locally-owned businesses ought to be rewarded for their hard work and investment in the community.  Check out this link to the 3/50 Project which suggests a modest investment by many locals could re-invigorate local struggling economies.  Of course, I may just think this is a good idea because I was raised by a father who supported us through working with and owning a small optical business.

Battle Hymn of the Treasury

Having learned the ungodly origins of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” a couple years ago, I haven’t been able to sing it ever since.  But I think I found a way to redeem the tune to which it is written.  Here is my version of the Battle Hymn, only this time I have tried to turn the polemical aim on our culture of greed and entitlement:

Battle Hymn of the Treasury

 

Mine eyes have seen the glory of what richer men afford;

I will dip my hand with fervor where their hard earned wealth is stored;

We will call upon the tax man to unleash his awful sword;

Their bankroll dwindles on!

Glory! Glory! To the Treasury! Glory! Glory! To the Treasury!

Glory! Glory! To the Treasury! Their bankroll dwindles on!

I have seen the glow of power in the socialistic camps

They have built themselves an altar to their Presidential champ

For his glow will light our country by eight hundred billion lamps

His bailout marches on.

Glory! Glory! To the Treasury! Glory! Glory! To the Treasury!

Glory! Glory! To the Treasury! His bailout marches on.

 

I have read the gospel story of how borrowing can heal;

“Under auspices of selflessness our motives we’ll conceal.

We’ll sleep okay at night as long as we don’t call it ’steal’”

Delusion marches on.

Glory! Glory! To the Treasury! Glory! Glory! To the Treasury!

Glory! Glory! To the Treasury! Delusion marches on.

Bolstering the “Not With My Tax Dollars” craze

I think if you are around along enough, someone else will put the same good idea you had to work. Here’s a website by a West Virginia representative who is suggesting the very thing that my colleagues and I at the local public high school have talked about over lunch many times. (http://www.notwithmytaxdollars.com/)

“Amazing State!”

Here is a poem that was published, not in the heat of our current economic dilemma, but in 1984… the nostalgic days of Reaganomics.  It was drawing attention to the failure of Lyndon Johnson’s “The Great Society “and the “War on Poverty” that the federal government began during that era.  But oh how apropos it is today!

“Amazing State ” by Marlyn Marshall

Amazing State! Spread wealth around
To save a sloth like me!
I once was poor, but now I’ve found
My trade: Egality.

‘Twas welfare taught me work to fear,
The same my fears relieved;
How precious did that State appear,
Whose wealth have I received?

Thro’ many strangers’ toils, their shares
Mine own have now become;
Their work hath paid my way thus far,
‘Twill pay beyond my tomb . . .

As we’ve spent thousands o’er the years,
State-son begets State-son;
We’ve no more ways fat funds to raise,
We’re paupers everyone

–as quoted in George Grant’s Bringing in the Sheaves (Atlanta, GA: American Vision Press, 1985).

some solid Kingdom thinking

Here is a good (and fairly short) article (This World and the Kingdom) by the late Dr. Greg Bahnsen that should go toward correcting some imbalanced beliefs about whether the Kingdom of God is completely internal or not (i.e. confined to such things as prayer, meditation, and piety) .  He makes good biblical distinctions and stays away from some of the more controversial topics that would simply muddy the waters. 

It’s a Huxley-Postman World

Aldous Huxley painted a picture in his A Brave New World of a world, not where information is tightly controlled and censored, but where there was so much information that it was hard to discern what was good.  And when one found something good, no one really cared about any of it.  Combine that with Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death and we have a decent composite picture of where our nation is as it relates to the economy.

We have so much to learn from the past, and we have so many wise advisors who have summarized vast amounts of data into digestible portions, and yet we (present company included) often don’t care.  So in order to carry forward the problem of too much information, here is a great article  on how Bush was a big-government-interventionist-who-claimed-to-be-Mr-Free-Market and how Obama is proving to be Bush-on-steroids. (“The Myth of the Laissez-Faire Bush Years”).

“A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government.” — Thomas Jefferson

latest sermon manuscripts

Posted below are the sermon manuscripts I have preached since early November.  Taking a break from the gospel according to Mark, I preached a series of advent sermons.  After the first of the year I stepped down from my pulpit supply duties at Christ Pres and am now only preaching once a month.

gods putting on a new face-mk3.7-192

christ-the-light-of-hope-isa-9.2-7

joy of promise in a not-yet world-Luke1.46-55

god is spelling it out for us-John-1.1-5,14

Life in Christ:retrospect/prospect-col-1.15-20

family is family…or is it-mk3_20-35

Please pray that the LORD continues to prosper His Bride here in Danville as well as grant me wisdom as I seek a call into full-time pastoral ministry.

Great quote about church-bashing

Although I haven’t read the book myself, The Shack is a bit of inspirational fiction that has tapped into the evangelical desire for spirituality that is accompanied by a general disdain toward the organized church.  The following is a quote by reformed pastor in Lynchburg that I came across when surfing the blogs.

“[The author of The Shack] goes out of his way to say that God is not interested in institutions or rituals. He thinks that those sorts of things are hollow solutions to man’s ills. The problem is that the God of the Bible has indeed created institutions and established rituals in those institutions. Of course, these should not be empty institutions and empty rituals. The Church needs to mean something. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper must do something.”

What would the bride of Christ be like if more evangelicals sought their authentic Christian experience in the common walks and means of the church?  I can only say “Amen” to my brother in Christ in Lynchburg.  May your tribe increase!