The Local Christendom Podcast with Aaron Ventura

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In this interview, Joe Stout and Aaron Ventura discuss family worship, liturgy, parenting, and more.

Sermon: Why We Work (2 Corinthians 9:6-11)

Why We WorkSunday, February 25th, 2024Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA
2 Corinthians 9:6-11
6But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. 7Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver. 8And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work: 9(As it is written, He hath dispersed abroad; he hath given to the poor: his righteousness remaineth for ever. 10Now he that ministereth seed to the sower both minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness;) 11Being enriched in every thing to all bountifulness, which causeth through us thanksgiving to God.
Prayer
Father, we thank you for creating us as your workmanship, and for re-creating us in Christ Jesus to do good work, work that serves our neighbor and brings honor to You. We thank you that we get to participate with you in the renewal of all things, and we ask now for your Holy Spirit to animate and inspire us as we seek to exercise dominion on the earth. We ask this all in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Introduction
Every Sunday, after the sermon, we stand up and recite the Ten Commandments. And by now, many of us have those ten commandments memorized and so if I ask you, what is the fourth commandment? You know that it is, “Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy.”
Now the version of the ten commandments that we recite is actually an abbreviated version of the full Ten Commandments as they are given in Exodus 20:1-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21, and so we don’t actually recite the totality of the 4th commandment in all of its context.
And so when most people think of keeping the sabbath, or obeying the fourth commandment, they typically think and think rightly that they ought to rest and go to church and worship the Lord. This is the essence of sabbath keeping in the new covenant.
However, going to church on Sunday is really only one-half, or perhaps more accurately one-seventh of the commandment, because the rest of the 4th commandment reads as follows:
“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: 10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.”
So not only are we commanded to rest as God rested one day in seven, but we are also to do good work on those six other days. Just as God worked and made heaven and earth in six days and called what he made “good,” so also he says, “six days shalt you labor, and do all thy work.” Meaning, you can’t actually have seventh day rest on the Lord’s Day, unless you have been busy working hard unto the Lord on those six other days. “Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work” is just as much a part of obeying the 4th commandment as the cessation from work on the seventh day.
And so I have titled the sermon this morning, Why We Work, and in it I want focus on the other half or rather the other six-sevenths of the 4th commandment. I want to explore what God’s Word has to say about the way we live our lives on the six days that we are not here.
There are three basic truths I want to expound for us from the Scriptures, and they are these:
1. Work is good.
2. Work is hard.
3. Good work is service to the Lord.
Survey of the Text
Now before we consider these three truths in depth, let us briefly survey our text in 2 Corinthians 9:6-11. And I have chosen this passage to frame our study of work, because in it we find this most precious promise in verse 8, “And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.”
Notice all the universals in this verse, the all’s and the every. Paul is telling the Corinthians in very comprehensive terms that they cannot outgive God. No matter how generous and loving and giving you are to others, the reward you receive from God in return, always surpasses whatever gift you gave. We pour ourselves out for others, and God makes us overflow even more than before.
He says in verse 6, “But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.”
In the immediate historical context of this letter, Paul is gathering funds from the various churches to help alleviate the poor Christians who are suffering in Jerusalem. He is taking an offering.
And so he holds out this agricultural truism to illustrate the way God’s economy works. If you sow a little, you reap a little. If you sow a lot, you reap a lot. So what size harvest do you want?
He goes on in verse 7 to describe the kind of sowing/giving God wants, “Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.”
When we give, or when we work, or when we sow a seed of whatever size, our sowing ought to be done without sadness in our heart for “losing” the thing we are giving. Because in God’s economy, no good thing is ever truly lost. And therefore, our giving should be done with cheerfulness and joy.
It would be a strange sight to see a farmer crying in his field, sorrowful at all the seed he is losing by planting it in the soil. And just so, it would be a strange sight for us to grieve at the gifts we offer to the Lord. God loves a cheerful giver.
This same principle of sowing seed cheerfully applies to every aspect of life. Whatever your vocation or calling or work is, God says in Colossians 3:17, “And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”
And again, it says in 1 Corinthians 9:10, “he who plows should plow in hope, and he who threshes in hope should be partaker of his hope.”
And most famously in 1 Corinthians 10:31 it says, “Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”
So our six days of labor in this world, at whatever job you have, whether it is scrubbing toilets, flipping burgers, teaching children, or milking goats, is a work that God wants you to do cheerfully, joyfully, with hope in your heart that whatever you sow in faith, God shall reward richly.
It says in Galatians 6:7, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.” This applies in the natural world with earthly things, and it applies in the supernatural realm with spiritual things.
God is always watching, God sees us at work when no one else does, and this truth allows Paul to encourage us by saying in Ephesians 6:5-8, “Bondservants, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ; not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, with goodwill doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men, knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free.”
If you are a wage slave, stuck in a job you do not love, with a boss or coworkers you cannot stand, you have the same opportunity and responsibility as the person who has their “dream job,” to do your best work for your Employer as serving the Lord.
God sees, and God blesses. Consider the life of Joseph. When Joseph was at the bottom of the pit, and then sold into slavery, and then unjustly accused and then put into prison, what was God doing?
God was preparing him to be ruler of Egypt. What looked like a downgrade or a demotion in the world’s eyes, was actually a promotion and preparation in God’s eyes.
In a similar way, our whole life in this world is a preparation for eternal life.We experience a taste of the eternal sabbath when we rest by faith in Christ, and from thr strength that God supplies we then do the good works God prepared in advance for us to do (Eph. 2:10).
So consider whatever vocation/calling/work you have now as the field in which God wants you to sow for six days, and remember that whatever harvest you do not receive in this life, you shall receive in the next on that eternal sabbath.
If you are a husband, your wife and children are your field. If you are a mother, your children and grandchildren and household are your field. If you are student, your studies and tests and books are your field. Whatever lawful work God has called you to, that is the field God wants you to sow and plow and water and weed. And when you do this in obedience and service to Christ, God is the one who gives the growth.
Proverbs 3:9-10 reminds us that if we “Honor the Lord with your possessions, And with the firstfruits of all your increase; So your barns will be filled with plenty, And your vats will overflow with new wine.”
So this is the encouragement and promise we have from God and must cling to when things are hard, that “God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.”
With that as the motivation for our work, let us turn to consider these three truths about the work itself.
1. Work is good.
2. Work is hard.
3. Good work is service to the Lord.
Truth #1 – Work is good.
One of the most common misconceptions that people have about work, is that work is a result of the Fall. Many people falsely imagine that if sin had never entered the world, our lives would be a perpetual vacation, lounging around, eating and drinking, playing games, and doing nothing productive with our time. But this is not the story that Scripture tells. Instead, we see in Genesis 1-2 that even before Adam sinned, Adam had a job.
Genesis 2:15 says, “Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it.”
This word for tend is the Hebrew word עבד (avad), which is a very common word that is elsewhere translated as working, or serving, or doing, or tilling the ground.
Moreover, when God calls Israel out of Egypt, the whole purpose for delivering them from slavery and bondage is so that they can serve (avad) the Lord (Ex. 3:12).
So this avad, this work, or service, or tending of the garden, is something God gives Adam to do prior to sin entering the world.
When God looked out at all that He had created, and said it is all “very good” (Gen. 1:31), this included the work (the avad) that Adam was given to do. It was very good that Adam had to tend and keep the garden.
And so essential to who we are as human beings, not just as Christians, but as men and women created in the image of God, work is our first purpose and source of meaning in life.
Whereas many people work in order to live, the biblical doctrine is that we live in order to work. We live to avad, to serve the garden and serve the Lord. Rather than separating work from worship, Genesis 1-2 unites these concepts as the one purpose for which we were created.
You were created to work for six days, just like God worked for six days, and then rested on the seventh. So those six days of avad, of service in the soil are very good. And when we participate in this creational pattern that is reaffirmed after the fall in the 4th commandment, we participate in the life of God and His work to renew the world.
So work is not just good, it is very good, and when done as service unto the Lord it becomes a spiritual offering pleasing to Him. One of the reasons we work for six days is so that on the seventh day, when God calls us to his throne room, we can offer to Him the fruit of our hands labor.
Remember the story of Cain and Abel. Genesis 4:2 says, “Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.” Both men worked, both men made offerings from their work unto the Lord, but Hebrews 11:4 says, “By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain.” And it says in 1 John 3:12, that Cain’s “works were evil and his brother’s righteous.”
So it is not enough to simply give God an offering from the labor of your hands (this is what Cain did), your work needs to be actually good (like Abel’s, and it needs to be offered in faith for God to accept it and be pleased with it.
So again you see that worshipping God every Sunday is an exercise in hypocrisy if you are not doing good work unto the Lord on the other six days. It is what we do Monday-Saturday that God judges and rewards (or punishes) on Sunday.
So work is good. Work is very good. And even before the Fall, the Bible teaches that we were created to work for six days and rest on the seventh. This brings us to a second truth about work which is…
Truth #2 – Work is hard.
If Adam’s original task as a bachelor was to tend and keep the garden, God added to him a second task after he was married, which was “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth” (Gen. 1:28).
This work of husband and wife is often called the Cultural/Dominion Mandate, which is God’s command to extend the order and beauty of the Garden of Eden to the four corners of the earth.
It says in Genesis 2:10-13, “Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it parted and became four riverheads. The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one which skirts the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good. Bdellium and the onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one which goes around the whole land of Cush.”
So Adam and Eve were placed in a beautiful garden, and yet God doesn’t want them to just stay there forever. He wants them to follow these rivers and find gold, and precious stones and build things out of them.
It is the work of man and woman together that transforms nature into culture. God put raw materials into the ground and commissioned the human race to go and find them, dig them up, purify them, mix them, match them, build things out of them. And it is this cultivation of God’s world that transforms it from one degree of glory to another.
When we do good work in obedience to Genesis 1:28, we are God’s instruments for glorifying His creation. This is part of what it means to be God’s image upon the earth. God created, and we sub-create. God provides the raw material, and we refashion those materials into art.
Now as glorious as this task is, sin has made everything harder. When God pronounces the curse in Genesis 3, He tells them how their sin has frustrated and made more difficult the unique task that corresponds with their male/female nature.
Genesis 3:16 says, “To the woman He said: “I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; In pain you shall bring forth children; Your desire shall be for your husband, And he shall rule over you.”
So because of our sin, being fruitful, bearing and raising children, becomes exponentially harder. And not only this, the woman’s work as a helper to her husband is going to be frustrated as well. Husband and wife will be tempted to blame one other when they get frustrated.
For the man, God says in Genesis 3:17-19, “Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it All the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, And you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread Till you return to the ground, For out of it you were taken; For dust you are, And to dust you shall return.”
So not only will everyone eventually die because of sin, it is now through toil that we will get our food, and thorns and thistles are going to fight against us. Instead of working without a sweat, now we must exert far more effort than we would have in our unfallen state.
So for all us who are descended from Adam and Eve, we still have the Cultural Mandate from God, work six days, be fruitful and multiply and subdue the earth, but now it’s just way harder. Our work fights us.
So work is good, but because of sin, work is now toilsome and sweaty. And yet it is this hard and difficult work that Christ prepared in advance for you to do. All of the commands and promises of Scripture are given to us with the effects of sin already factored in. And this should bring us great joy. It is possible and can even become habitual for us to work joyfully unto the Lord no matter how difficult the task.
Jesus Christ is the supreme example of what good work looks like in a fallen world. And it is He who exemplifies for us this third truth…
Truth #3 – Good work is service to the Lord.
When God came to earth in Jesus Christ, He did not immediately start preaching and trying to evangelize his neighbors. As important as evangelism and missionary work is, Jesus Christ spent his first 30 years living in this toilsome world, first as a baby, then growing as a child “increasing in wisdom and stature” (Luke 2:52), and then working with his hands as a carpenter in Galilee (Mark 6:3). Before Jesus preached to the multitudes, he served the Lord by working with his hands.
Now what kind of work ethic do you think Jesus the carpenter had? We know that as a perfect man, he worked with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength. We know that whatever he built or remodeled or fixed was done with all the care and attention to detail that the God who created the world could give. If Jesus Christ created the universe, imagine what kind of dining table he could build for you. Imagine the quality of the cabinets he installed. Imagine the excellence and craftsmanship of whatever came out of his shop.
It was the eternal and divine plan of salvation, that God would come to earth, and throughout his 20’s he would work with his hands building things, toiling in the same dusty and sweaty conditions that his father Joseph and every other blue-collar Galilean worked in. And yet that work was spiritual service to the Lord. It was not below the dignity of God to get his hands covered in sawdust. And this is the humble and excellent standard of work that all Christ’s followers should imitate.
Now there are two common misconceptions about work that many Christians have fallen into and must be rejected.
1. The first is that work is only a means to paying our bills or providing for our families. Many Christians view their 9-5 or 8-6 job as only a means to an end and that end is a paycheck. But this is not the biblical view of work.
Work is a means to many things, but work is also an end in and of itself. When work is done excellently, as working unto the Lord, it is of real benefit to the person you are serving, and of real merit in the eyes of God.
What is God going to reward believers for on judgment day?
Over and over again, the Bible says God is going to reward us for our works. Jesus says in Matthew 16:27, “For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works.”
Listen to 1 Corinthians 3:9-15 as Paul describes his own works. He says, “For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, you are God’s building. According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it. For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.”
So think about your vocation(s), whatever it is, ask yourself, what is the quality of my work? What material am I building with? Are you building with “wood, hay, and straw,” which the fire of judgment is going to burn up? Or are you working in faith, hope, and love, building with gold, silver, and precious stones, materials that will be refined and made more glorious by God’s fire?
When Jesus was literally working with wood in his carpentry shop, in spiritual terms he was building with gold, because he was working excellently for the glory of God.
And so however humble your literal working materials might seem, remember that anything you do can become gold, silver, and precious stones, when you do it with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, cheerfully unto God.
And this is how good hard work becomes spiritual worship. We treat it not merely as a means to a paycheck, but as an end in itself, that glorifies Christ.
2. The second common misconception about work, is that in order for our work to please God, we have to use it as a means to evangelism or ministry. Again, the error is turning work into a means to a spiritual end rather than a spiritual end in itself.
This is the false teaching that says, the only purpose in your work is to give a portion of your paycheck to the church building fund. This is the false teaching that says, you are only serving the Lord at your job if you are leading a Bible study with your co-workers.
And while it is not a sin to lead a Bible study with your co-workers, assuming it’s not on company time, and it is no sin to give to the building fund,we must not view our work as somehow “less spiritual” if we are not doing those more “pious” sounds things. Christian piety includes doing excellent and outstanding work. God wants you to be tired and to enjoy the satisfaction of a job well done.
Remember Romans 12:1, what is spiritual worship? It is when you present your your body, as “a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.”
Paul says in Romans 6:19, “present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness.”
This means that wherever your body is, wherever your members are, is a place of “reasonable service” or as the ESV translates it, “spiritual worship.”
So regard whatever it is that your hand sets to do as work for God. Whether you are changing a diaper, or pouring concrete, or typing code, or managing an office, or doing the dishes. All good work is spiritual service to the Lord.
Conclusion
What makes the sabbath sweet, is when we work really hard for six days, toiling, suffering, getting up early, plowing in hope, and then we stop, and we sit down with God around this communion table, and we give thanks to Him for the fruit of our hands. And we remember the promise is that is given in Revelation 14:13-14 which says, “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.’” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, and their works follow them.”
Dust we are, and to dust we shall return. But by faith in Jesus Christ, we shall leave this dust behind and shall attain to a resurrection harvest that will make these days of sweaty toil as a dream. And so in this life we plow in hope. We sow with joy. And we cling to the promise that in due season we shall reap God, if we do not lose heart.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen.

Sermon: The Generous Marriage (Proverbs 11:22-31)

The Generous MarriageSunday, February 11th, 2024Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA
Proverbs 11:22-31 (NKJV)
22       As a ring of gold in a swine’s snout, So is a lovely woman who lacks discretion.23       The desire of the righteous is only good, But the expectation of the wicked is wrath.24       There is one who scatters, yet increases more; And there is one who withholds more than is right, But it leads to poverty.25       The generous soul will be made rich, And he who waters will also be watered himself.26       The people will curse him who withholds grain, But blessing will be on the head of him who sells it.27       He who earnestly seeks good finds favor, But trouble will come to him who seeks evil.28       He who trusts in his riches will fall, But the righteous will flourish like foliage.29       He who troubles his own house will inherit the wind, And the fool will be servant to the wise of heart.30       The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, And he who wins souls is wise.31       If the righteous will be recompensed on the earth, How much more the ungodly and the sinner.
Prayer
Father, we thank you for this wisdom contained in Proverbs. We thank you for the blessing of marriage, and children, and the unique challenges that come from all these relationships. And so we ask now for your Holy Spirit to be upon us, that spirit of love which is the bond of unity and peace and the source of our joy. We ask all this in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Introduction
Next Sunday, Pastor Dave Hatcher from Trinity Church will be coming down to preach for me. And I asked Dave to preach on the topic of “Parenting in the Middle Years,” so how do you raise middle schoolers and teenagers into faithful adults. And then the Sunday after that, I will give a sermon on the biblical doctrine of work. And then after that we’ll try to get back into Mark’s gospel So consider today and next Sunday, and the Sunday after, a little mini-series on the family.
The title of my sermon is “The Generous Marriage.” And I want to consider this section of Proverbs from the perspective of the Christian Household, and particularly the relationship between husband and wife. So what does it mean to be a generous husband or a generous wife? That is the question I want to answer with help from Proverbs.
Now one of the things we all like about Proverbs, or at least should like about it, is that Proverbs is an eminently practical book. Or at least it appears to be. Proverbs “keeps it real” with how people actually are, with how life in the “real world” actually is.
You read Proverbs and get this sense that there is cosmic justice in the world. The righteous are rewarded, the wicked are punished. The good guys win, the bad guys lose. And for those of us who struggle to follow and understand long and complicated logical arguments (like Paul’s letters), Proverbs condenses things into two lines, or one sentence. Here is the cause and here is the effect. If you do this, this is the result. Proverbs is given to make simple people wise. It is the book for teenagers and young people with short attention spans.
So Proverbs is kind of like God’s twitter feed. Solomon has gathered all of the good common sense and street smarts that a young man needs as he enters adulthood and puts it all in one place.
And because finding a wife is high on the priority list for a young man, a young prince, Solomon has collected some sage advice about what to look for and what to avoid in a potential spouse. He also gives advice for how to maintain fidelity and love after you are married.
To give you one example, Solomon says in Proverbs 5:17-20, “Let your fountain be blessed, And rejoice with the wife of your youth. As a loving deer and a graceful doe, Let her breasts satisfy you at all times; And always be enraptured with her love. For why should you, my son, be enraptured by an immoral woman, And be embraced in the arms of a seductress?”
So God wants a husband to be intoxicated always with the love of his wife, to delight in her, to enjoy her, to find satisfaction in her, and that is the strongest antidote to infidelity (to the seductress) that there is. In modern terms, we might say, “In marriage, the best defense is a good offense.”
So that is just one example of Solomon’s marriage advice, and what we want to know is how do you get and sustain that kind of intoxication and enrapture of love in marriage, “until death do us part?” Is it really possible to have a happy and loving marriage all your days?
Well, the answer God gives in Scripture is essentially, “Yes, but it’s going to take a lot of work.” And the kind of work that a husband and a wife must engage in, is chiefly a work of generosity. A work of giving oneself to the other, a work of self-sacrifice and self-denial, and spending and being spent for one another. And this radical generosity is only possible with the help of One whose very nature is generosity, namely God.
Two of God’s essential attributes are that God is Good and that God is Love. And together this is what we call generosity, to bestow goodness upon another. Goodness is simply what all creatures desire, and love is the hand that satisfies that desire.
Psalm 145:16 says of God, “Thou openest thine hand, And satisfiest the desire of every living thing.”
Psalm 104:28 says, “You open Your hand, they are filled with good.”
So to be generous is who God is in His very essence. It is who God is as the Blessed Trinity. It is what God reveals by creating the world and calling it all “good,” and most supremely, it is what God does to redeem this fallen creation as that most famous verse of John 3:16 declares, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
So the foundation of all generosity, whether in marriage or outside of it, is the very nature of God. It is the very shape of the Trinity that the Father eternally gives/begets/communicates the Divine Essence, His very goodness to the Son, and together as one principle they breathe forth the Holy Spirit whose personal name is Love and Gift.
When the New Testament speak of spiritual gifts or graces, this is none other than the action of God’s love and goodness working within you.
Those who have the Holy Spirit, bear the fruit of the spirit, among which are love and goodness (Gal. 5:22).
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12 and 13 that there are many good and wonderful spiritual gifts, and you should earnestly desire them, but the greatest gift is supernatural love.
It is this love and goodness that descends from God that is the only way you can have a marriage full of generosity. Put another way, apart from Christ, there is no hope for your marriage. Both the power and example of Jesus Christ, and His bleeding love for the church, and the church’s submission to Him as bridegroom, is the engine for generosity between husband and wife.
We are such sinful and selfish creatures by default, that we need outside help. Left to ourselves, we will only make ourselves and one another miserable. You need divine help to dwell within you. And from that infinite ocean and superabundant goodness that is God, we too can pour forth goodness into others.
That is the foundation for a lifelong and joy-filled marriage. Now with that as the foundation, we can turn and consider each of these proverbs and try to make some application to our marriages. How specifically can we be generous in marriage?
Verse 22
22       As a ring of gold in a swine’s snout, So is a lovely woman who lacks discretion.
What a comical picture the Scripture paints. A pig, a muddy sow, with a valuable gold ring in its nose, and God says, if you lack discretion that’s what you are like.
Is that insulting? Yes. But it’s the kind of insult that comes from a father who loves you.
The first audience here is really a young man looking for a wife. Stay away from a woman who talks too much, who is immodest, imprudent, and indiscrete. If she follows a bunch of vanity accounts on Instagram, don’t ask her out.
The Apostle Peter states similarly in 1 Peter 3 saying, “Do not let your adornment be merely outward—arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel—rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God.”
So in Scripture and in reality there are two kinds of beauty. There is beauty that fades and beauty that does not fade. There is beauty that is corruptible, and there is beauty that is incorruptible. Both beauties are good but one is more valuable. External, physical beauty is good, but it does not last. Whereas internal and spiritual beauty is good now and forever.
Paul says in 1 Timothy 4:8, the all the men, “For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come.”
So external beauty, like physical strength, is good and glorious but temporary. You are going to get old. You are going to get weak. And therefore budget your time and energy accordingly.
God wants women to be beautiful, and he created you women to desire to be beautiful. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11, “woman is the glory of man.” Woman is the crown of all creation. And while external beauty is good and has its place, without discretion, without modesty, without a quiet and gentle spirit to accompany it, God says you are like a ring of gold in a ping’s snout.
So wives, one of the ways you can be generous to your husband is by cultivating this most excellent virtue and quality of discretion. Yes, do your hair. Yes, try to look pretty for your husband. But prize discretion above all of that.
What is discretion?
Discretion is verbal and emotional self-control. It is restraining yourself from the need to tell everyone everything all the time.
And this is not merely a personality difference between introverts and extroverts, discretion is about appropriate timing.
It says in Ecclesiastes 3, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven…A time to weep, and a time to laugh; A time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to keep silence, and a time to speak…”
Discretion is knowing what season it is, and what to do in it. It is the habit of constantly asking the Lord, in every circumstance, how can I please you with my attitude and actions? Do I really need to share/say this?
It says in James 3:6-8, “the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and creature of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by mankind. But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.”
How many petty fights and fruitless squabbles could have been avoided if you had simply kept your mouth shut? This goes for both husbands and wives of course, but either way, nobody wants to be a gold ring in a pig’s snout.
And so Solomon charges us, but especially beautiful women (who might be tempted to trust in their beauty, Ezek. 16:15) to learn discretion. If you want to be generous to your husband, become like the virtuous wife of whom it says in Proverbs 31, “The heart of her husband safely trusts her; So he will have no lack of gain. She does him good and not evil All the days of her life” (Pr. 31:11-12).
Husbands, can you say that about your wife? If not, it is your responsibility to figure out how to get her there.
Wives, if your husband cannot say that about you, why not? What needs to change in you, so that he can praise extol your virtues?
A generous marriage is built on love and trust, and we should all, husband and wife, be seeking to grow in our discretion of what season it is. Is it a time speak, or a time to be silent? Is it a time to sit down face to face, or is it time to work back to back and side by side in the work God has given you? Discretion is all about knowing what time it is, and what God wants you to do in that moment.
Continuing in verses 23-26 we have an assortment of proverbs about how God blesses the generous. As we give to others, God pours back into us. Or as Jesus says, “it is more blessed to give than to receive.” This is Solomonic wisdom.
Verses 23-26
23       The desire of the righteous is only good, But the expectation of the wicked is wrath.24       There is one who scatters, yet increases more; And there is one who withholds more than is right, But it leads to poverty.25       The generous soul will be made rich, And he who waters will also be watered himself.26       The people will curse him who withholds grain, But blessing will be on the head of him who sells it.
The vast majority of marital conflicts come from forgetting that you are one-flesh with your spouse. You and your wife are not on opposite teams, you are on the same team. And God says, you are as one person, husband is head, wife is the body. Just like Christ is the head, and the church is his body.
Paul says in Ephesians 5:28, “men ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.”
So when you love your spouse, you are in an indirect way doing what is best for you. By being a generous soul to your spouse, and giving to them, you are the one becoming rich! “By watering them, God waters you.”
Marriage is not zero-sum game. Marriage is not a competition between rivals. God intended marriage to be a win-win scenario for both husband and wife. And when you put your spouse’s interests above your own, you do as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10:24, “Let no one seek his own, but each one the other’s well-being,” then you are becoming like Jesus. And regardless of whether your spouse reciprocates or not, you are doing what pleases God and that is what all of us should be living for.
You cannot control how your spouse responds, but you can control you, and that is all God is asking you to control. If Jesus commands you to love your enemies, how much more ought you love the person who is one-flesh with you?
When we wound our spouse, we are wounding ourselves. No sane man shoots his own kneecap. And yet that is what you are doing when you sin against your spouse.
So this is the principle of marriage that you have to drill into your head: Genesis 2:24, “the two shall be one flesh.” We are one flesh together. “What is good for you in God’s eyes, is good for both of us.”
Consider verse 24 from the lens of marital generosity.  “There is one who scatters, yet increases more; And there is one who withholds more than is right, But it leads to poverty.”
In this proverb, one person is being stingy and tightfisted, and that stinginess actually impoverishes them. They hurt themselves by their own fear of relinquishing something they really want. Whereas, the one who scatters and gives and is open-handed with what God has given, increases more and more. You get richer by giving.
Now apply this to the marriage bed. When sexual intimacy becomes weaponized or used as tool or bargaining chip to get something else that you want, it is yourself that you are robbing.
God intended the marriage bed to be a place of mutual generosity. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7:3-5, “Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.”
So here is one place where there is “total equality” in marriage. The husband does not have authority over his own body, the wife does. And the wife does not have authority over her own body, the husband does. And what is this authority used for, bringing pleasure to the other.
“Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time.” This means communicate, talk about what your desires are, what do you hope for in this season of life. Ask your spouse, how I can be more generous to you in this part of our marriage? I’ll leave that there.
Continuing in Verse 25 it says, “The generous soul will be made rich, And he who waters will also be watered himself.”
So how rich do you want to be? How good of a marriage do you want to have? Many people are just content with the status quo and don’t realize that you can be enraptured and intoxicated with one another’s love if you obey God. That is the big if.
Now I want to highlight one potential pitfall for those who of you desire to be more generous.
Think of generosity as like a great fountainhead of water that is just gushing out of you.
Jesus says in John 4:14 to the woman at the well, “the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”
So the fountain of God’s love is flowing, and the question is who do you give this living water to first?
Well, this is where I have seen many people go wrong. They overlook those closest to them, because they think generosity is only for those outside and far away from us. They think that hospitality is just serving the poor and needy, but not your own household. This is the false dichotomy that well-meaning people can fall into.
This is the missionary who sells everything and goes to evangelize some distant foreign tribe but does so at the expense of his wife and children. The missionary thinks he is being generous, and to the tribe indeed perhaps he is. But the generosity that God wants us from us, is like a growing river. It starts in us and goes outward watering everyone along the way. Jesus says to love your neighbor, and that begins with the neighbor closest to you, namely your wife, and then your children, and from there on outward.
Generosity and hospitality must begin in our own soul, and only after we have drenched our own marriage and household with love and goodness, are we qualified to give real goodness to anyone else.
It does you no good to invite more distant neighbors into your home, if your home is a place of bitterness, resentment, and enmity.
Nobody wants to be a guest at your table if there is no love between husband and wife and children.
So prioritize your generosity as God commands.
Paul says in Galatians 6:10, “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.”
So do good to everyone but prioritize your church body.
Or consider Proverbs 13:22, “A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children, But the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous.”
So this is a charge to parents and grandparents. Plan, save, and be generous to your children and grandchildren. And don’t feel bad about it. Don’t be that wealthy billionaire who gives all his money to charity and not a dime to his own flesh. That is not biblically ordered generosity, and it will only provoke resentment.
There’s a great story from Jim Wilson (Doug Wilson’s dad), who was a marvelous evangelist. And he would have people over to his house for counseling. And one day little Doug Wilson kept running into the room and interrupting their meeting. And the person being counselled was annoyed and asked Jim, hey can do you something about this?
And Jim in his blunt way said, “He’s more important than you.”
Jim Wilson knew his priorities. He knew that his children were his qualification to minister grace to anyone else.
And it was that kind of thing that taught little Doug Wilson, what God the Father is like.
God is not too busy for you. God is not preoccupied with other people’s problems. God is not so far away that he will not drop everything, get down on the floor and wrestle with you. God is good and God is love in his very essence. It is the Father’s name and nature to give, to beget, and to pour forth very being.
And that is what we as earthly husbands and fathers should want to imitate and communicate (in our very finite and imperfect way) to our wife and children. “You are more important.”
Conclusion
God wants you to be happy. God wants you to possess a joy that no-one and no-thing can take from you (John 16:22). And that indestructible gladness and joy is found exclusively in God. It says in Psalm 43:4, “I will go unto the altar of God, Unto God my exceeding joy.”
The only way to participate in God’s superabundant and overflowing joy, is to first participate in God’s goodness and love. To become like the most blessed and happy God, you must acquire a generous soul, you must be willing as the Apostle Paul says, “to spend and be spent” for your wife, for your children, for your people, for your God.
For this is what God has done for us. He has given Himself, He has given His Son, He is the very Gift and Love that our hearts yearn for, and as St. Augustine said, our heart is restless O God, until it finds its rest in thee. May you know this peace, love, and joy in your marriage.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen.

Sermon: On Church Discipline (Hebrews 12:1-14)

On Church DisciplineSunday, February 4th, 2024Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA
Hebrews 12:1-14
Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. 4 Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. 5 And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: 6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. 7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? 8 But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. 9 Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? 10 For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. 11 Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. 12 Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; 13 And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed. 14 Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.
Prayer
Father, we thank you for the blessing of church discipline, which although is very painful and grievous and hard in the moment, nevertheless, as your word says, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness in those who are exercised by it. So as you exercise us as a congregation, we ask that by your Spirit, you would make us holy, without which, none of us shall see You. We pray this in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Introduction
As most of you know, this coming Wednesday night, we have a church discipline case that is going to trial, and because church discipline is something that many people have never witnessed, and many churches refuse to practice altogether, our circumstances warrant some instruction on this topic.
So there are three practical questions I want to answer in this sermon. And if you have a question that I don’t address, please do come and ask me afterward, or email me this week, I am happy to field whatever questions you may have.
I’ll also add that this is going to be a more topical sermon, so I won’t be giving a full verse-by-verse exposition of Hebrews 12, but I will reference it throughout.
So three questions I want to answer from the Scriptures, and they are:
What is church discipline?
Why does God command the church to exercise discipline?
What is the purpose of a public trial, like the one we will be conducting?
#1 – What is church discipline?
At the most basic level, church discipline is God’s way of treating us as His beloved children.
It says in Psalm 103:13-14, “As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.”
So when you became a Christian, and were baptized into Jesus Christ, you became an adopted child of God, and from that day forward, God promises to be Your God and to treat you as His beloved son or daughter. That is the promise of the covenant of grace, “I will be your God, and you will be by my people” (Ex. 6:7).
To become a Christian is to have God as your Heavenly Father, who loves you, and cares for you, and only and always seeks what is good for you.
David reflecting on this great truth says in Psalm 27:10, “when my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will take me in.”
In Psalm 68:5, he calls God, “the father of the fatherless, a defender of widows.”
How did Jesus teach us to pray and call upon God in time of need? As “our Father who art in heaven.”
So if you are a Christian, regardless of the status of your relationship with your earthly parents, however good or bad that relationship may be, God is now your Father. He has adopted you, and you belong to Him, body, soul, and spirit.
As it says in our text of Hebrews 12:9, God is the “Father of spirits.” Our earthly father and mother may have given us our flesh, our genes, our DNA, our looks, our hair color and eye color, our first and last name, but when God becomes our Father, He gives us a new name, a new spirit, a new heart, a new nature, a new family, a new destiny, and a new future that is glorious and everlasting. This is the new creation Jesus brings about in those who are united to him by faith.
Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”
To become a Christian is to receive a new Father.
Now we see in our text that one of the things a good father does is discipline his children. And it is this discipline from our earthly fathers, that tells us who our father is. Fathers do not spank, at least ordinarily they don’t spank, the neighbor’s children. A father disciplines his own children.
And therefore, Paul says that when God disciplines us, as grievous and as painful as it may feel in the moment, it is actually a sign of sonship and an act of love. The fact that God disciplines us, the fact that God loves us enough to spank us, is a sign that we are His children, and not children of the devil.
It says in Proverbs 13:24, “He who spares the rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him promptly.”
Likewise it says in Psalm 119:67, “Before I was afflicted I went astray, But now I keep Your word.”
And then again in Psalm 119:75 the psalmist says, “I know, O Lord, that Your judgments are right, And that in faithfulness You have afflicted me.”
If God spares the rod, then He hates us. If God never disciplines you, then you are not His child. We are so sick with sin, that we need God to cut us open, take out our heart of stone, and give us a new heart altogether.
And if you ever undergone surgery, you know that it’s not much fun. These days we have all kinds of drugs that can numb some of the pain, but if the doctor has replaced a ligament, or a limb, or an organ, or set a bone, you may never be the same.
When God wrestled with Jacob, and then blessed him, he put out Jacob’s hip. And while Jacob received a blessing and new name from God, Israel, from that day on, he walked with a limp.
So God plays rough with us. But He wounds us because He loves us, and as the Father Almighty who knows all things, beginning and end, He knows best what is good for us. Therefore, any pain that He permits into our life, we can patiently endure and receive as His way of lifting our eyes to heaven and the life to come.
Colossians 3:2 says, “Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.” And when our affections are stuck down here, God disciplines us to elevate our minds to Him.
Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1:8-9, that God permitted him to be “burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life. Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves.”
Paul was so burdened, that he despaired of life itself. But then he tells us why His Heavenly Father did this, so “that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead.”
The discipline of the Lord, in all its many forms, is given to all of God’s children, so “that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead.”
So if God is your Father, at some point, and throughout your life, He is going to permit pain, and use the rod, to purge out the sin in your life. And as it says in Hebrews 12:10, this is all “for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.”
Now that is God’s discipline in the broadest of terms, and then church discipline is one of the means or instruments that God uses to make us holy.
If we were to survey the entire Bible on this topic of church discipline, we would find that there are different kinds and degrees of discipline within the church.
For example, there is informal discipline and formal discipline.
Informal discipline is what we all receive every Sunday when the word of God is read, taught, and preached to us. For those with ears to hear, the Word cuts us, the Spirit convicts us, and we are moved to repent and change our ways so that we do what pleases our Father.
And just as parents should not spank their children for every little fault, so also God does not spank us for every little fault. God is patient. God knows what we can handle. And he often gives us a long time to repent and work on things that He wants us to change.
However, if we presume on this patience and kindness, if we don’t actually ever repent, well that is when God may bring pain into our life to wake us up.
So informal discipline is what all of us are constantly subjecting ourselves to when we hear the Word, pray, humble ourselves, and confess our sins each day.
Romans 8:13 describes this kind of informal self discipline when it says, “For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”
Now what happens when you refuse this informal self-discipline? What happens when you resist the Holy Spirit’s work in your life?
Well, the sins that we think are private or personal or hidden, do not stay hidden for long. And eventually these sins spread, like leaven, and can start to affect and infect other people. Jesus says, “out of the abundance of your heart, the mouth speaks,” and if you have a sinful heart, it won’t be long before you are sinning against others.
When we sin against someone else, Jesus gives us a process for dealing with it that starts with informal correction and escalates to formal discipline.
It says in Matthew 18:15, “if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother.” This is informal church discipline: you confronting and admonishing your fellow Christian.
Now if that brother refuses to repent, Jesus says in the next verse, “But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that ‘by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.”
Still at this point, this is usually informal church discipline. You take a brother or sister with you to confront the person again and call them to repent.
And it is only after that step, that if the person still refuses to repent, Jesus says, “tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector.” This would be where we enter into the realm of “formal church discipline,” because now the elders are involved.
The “church” here can refer both to the elders of the congregation, or to the whole membership, and if after refusing to listen to the elders and the whole church, then comes the last and final stage of discipline which is excommunication.
Excommunication is simply the announcement that someone is no longer a Christian. They refuse to repent, they refuse to submit to the government of the church, and therefore Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5:5, “deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.”
So there are degrees of discipline, ranging from informal self-discipline, to admonishment between brothers, to formal discipline from the elders which, if the person still is unrepentant, can finally lead to excommunication. But even then, when a person is put out of the church, the goal Paul says, is so that “their spirit may be saved.”
The goal of all discipline, up to and including excommunication, is that the wayward son or daughter of God may be restored to the family. Restoration is always the goal when God disciplines us.
Summary: Church discipline, whether formal or informal, private or public, when done in obedience to the Scriptures, is all God’s way of treating us His beloved sons and daughters. And therefore we are commanded in Hebrews 12:5-6, “My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.”
Do not despise your Father in Heaven, when he scourges you. Remember it is a sign of love and sonship. And this is true of church discipline as well. “He who spares the rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him promptly.”
#2 – Why does God command the church to exercise discipline?
We have already begun to answer this question, it is because God loves us. But there are additional reasons that Scripture gives for why the church must exercise both formal and informal, private and public discipline. So let us consider some of those other reasons.
The Westminster Confession, which is our church’s doctrinal standard, nicely summarizes these other reasons, so I’ll read this paragraph from the confession, and then elaborate on it.
WCF 30.3, “Church censures are necessary for 1) the reclaiming and gaining of offending brethren; 2) for deterring of others from the like offences; 3) for purging out of that leaven which might infect the whole lump; 4) for vindicating the honour of Christ, and the holy profession of the gospel; and 5) for preventing the wrath of God, which might justly fall upon the church, if they should suffer his covenant, and the seals thereof, to be profaned by notorious and obstinate offenders.”
So let me restate those 5 reasons for us and then point you to where they are found in Scripture.
God commands the church to exercise discipline why?
1. To call back the wayward sheep.
We saw in Matthew 18 and 1 Corinthians 5, the purpose of confronting someone is to call them back to Christ. We want them to return to Jesus who is the Good Shepherd.
2. To deter others from committing similar sins.
So one of the reasons God commands that certain unrepentant sins be made public and brought into the light, is to warn others against committing that same sin.
Paul says in Ephesians 5:11-12, “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret.”
Likewise in 1 Timothy 5:20 it says, “Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear.”
Proverbs 19:25 says, “Smite a scorner, and the simple will beware.”
So God commands the church to publicly rebuke, admonish, and bring certain unrepentant sins into the light, so that the offender will be ashamed and repent, but also so that we will stand in fear, that if we do not repent, the same discipline may come to us.
So church discipline, especially public and formal discipline, is God’s way of warning the rest of us. When you were a child, and your older sibling got in trouble for talking back to mom, the wise child observes and learns from that.
You can either learn from observing others or learn by personal experience. But either way, God wants you to learn that in his house, unrepentant sin is not tolerated.
3. To prevent sin from spreading to others.
The image Scriptures gives us is of leaven that spreads through the dough. Another image might be cancer that spreads to other parts of the body.
Jesus says in John 15, “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.”
So sin is a disease that must be cut out of the body. And either we can cut it out ourselves, disciplining our flesh, or, if we let it grow, we force the church to do the cutting.
If we are one body, and fellow members together, which God says we are in 1 Corinthians 12 and other places, then there is no such thing as a truly private sin. All sin is communal in that it impacts the body of Christ of which you are a member.
Therefore, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5, “Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Therefore purge out the old leaven…put away from yourselves the evil person.”
4. To Honor Christ, who is our Spouse and the Head of the Church.
Just as a wife’s actions reflect upon her husband, so also the church’s actions reflect upon the Lord Jesus.
When the church tolerates unrepentant sin and does not exercise discipline, we dishonor Christ and give him a bad name. The church is where repentant sinners can be cleansed and forgiven, the church is not the place where unrepentant sinners can continue to live comfortable in a life of hypocrisy.
When Jesus sends letters to the pastors of the seven churches in Revelation 2-3, a recurring theme is that if you don’t exercise discipline, and throw out false teachers and Jezebel, and fornicators, and liars, then I will come myself and remove your lampstand.
Church discipline is the immune system in Christ’s body. And the threat that hangs over every church, and every pastor and session of elders, is “you exercise discipline, or I will come and remove your lampstand,” Jesus says.
Many churches have a compromised immune system, because the elders are too cowardly to make anyone upset. They fear the displeasure of certain women in the church. They fear the disapproval of those who might think they are being too harsh.
And this is why God requires that 1) only men be elders, and then, 2) only men who are impartial, fair-minded, and who hate a bribe.
Churches are fraught with emotional bribery. And so God requires that His servants, His elders, those who rule and judge in cases of discipline, fear God more than man. Paul says in Galatians 1:10, “For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.”
Discipline as Hebrews says is “grievous.” It feels harsh, it feels painful, it feels uncomfortable because it is. And yet, this is the severe cure for severe sin. Romans 11:22 says, “Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.”
We exercise the Lord’s discipline to Honor Christ, because the purity of His bride and our testimony to the world is at stake, and that trumps all of our feelings.
5. Finally, the church exercises discipline to prevent the wrath of God from coming upon us.
Remember when Achan stole the spoils from Jericho and hid them in his tent. And then Joshua sent an army to destroy Ai, but instead of defeating them, 36 Israelite soldiers were killed.
Joshua cries out to God and says, God why did this happen?
Listen to what God says in Joshua 7:10-12, “So the Lord said to Joshua: “Get up! Why do you lie thus on your face? Israel has sinned, and they have also transgressed My covenant which I commanded them. For they have even taken some of the accursed things, and have both stolen and deceived; and they have also put it among their own stuff. Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, but turned their backs before their enemies, because they have become doomed to destruction. Neither will I be with you anymore, unless you destroy the accursed from among you.”
When there is sin in the camp, the church becomes impotent against its adversaries.
And so God commands the church to be holy as He is holy, so that when judgment comes, we are purified and spared like the land of Goshen, rather than destroyed like Egypt and the ungodly.
This is also why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11:31-32 regarding the Lord’s Supper, “For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world.”
Either the world will condemn you, or God will condemn you. Whose displeasure do you fear more, the world’s or your Father in Heaven? Because you cannot have it both ways.
Finally, we come to our third question…
#3 – What is the purpose of a public trial, like the one we will be conducting?
We already know the purposes for church discipline in general, but why do we need a public trial? Is that really necessary?
I should note first that the only sin that someone can ultimately be excommunicated for is unrepentance. And so a public trial for excommunication would only be warranted in two situations 1) when a person had said, “I am not going to repent,” or 2) their actions over time demonstrated that their repentance was not genuine.
And then, even if the accused is found guilty of whatever charges are brought, they can plead guilty, but then repent, and if that repentance is genuine, they would not be excommunicated.
So the fact that a trial for excommunication is taking place, does not mean the outcome is already a foregone conclusion. The point of the trial is to establish the truth or falsity of the charges and determine whether the accused (if guilty) is willing to repent.
So with that as an aside, let me give you two reasons for conducting a public trial as we shall have on Wednesday.
1. The first, is to protect the person accused from any mistreatment or injustice from the elders, and to protect the elders from any charges of injustice.
It is the most serious thing for someone to be excommunicated, and if the charges are false, or the person is innocent, a public trial allows them to defend themselves and even vindicate themselves against false accusations.
If the trial was done behind closed doors, and the elders simply announced one Sunday that so-and-so was excommunicated, and the church never heard from the person themselves whether they plead guilty or innocent, that would not be a transparent and honest process.
That was the process they used to crucify Jesus, rushing him through a trial in the night, and we want nothing to do with that kind of backdoor dealing.
This is also just following the basic command all throughout Scripture that judgment is to be established in the gates.
It was customary for the elders and priests to gather at the gates of the city to hear cases and render judgment. And by doing so in the public square, it has the effect of keeping people honest to their word. Whatever you say, or do, and whatever the judges judge, is open for all to see. It keeps elders, witnesses, prosecution, and defendant accountable to the broader community. This is healthy peer pressure.
2. A second reason is because excommunication is a public and communal punishment, as is restoration to the church.
So this is an opportunity for the accused to make known to the church, whether they are innocent or guilty, and if guilty, whether they are repentant or unrepentant.
If an innocent verdict is reached, then the person can be publicly restored to the body. They are vindicated against false or untrue accusation.
If a guilty verdict is reached, but the person is repentant, then they can begin the process of restoration with far more help, prayer, accountability, and encouragement than if was never made public at all.
Finally, if a guilty verdict is reached, and the person is unrepentant, only then is excommunication the punishment.
And in all these cases, by making this process public, the members of the church become additional witnesses to whatever takes place.
This is the due process that God’s justice commands.
Conclusion
The test for all of us is: Do you trust God’s Word and that His ways are better and more just than your ways? Do you trust the Lord Jesus to use this process to purify His Bride and glorify His Name? Do you fear the Holy Ghost and His power among us?
When Ananias and Sapphira dropped dead for lying to the Holy Spirit, it says in Acts 5, “And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things… And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women.”
Discipline is how God grows His church. It is how our Father raises us up from foolish children into wise kings and queens. So trust your Father, who loves you and knows what is best.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

Interview: Evangelizing College Students with Campus Preacher Keith Darrell

Find out more about Keith Darrell's ministry at https://www.campuspreacher.com/
 
 

Sermon: David's Lord (Mark 12:28-44)

David’s LordSunday, January 28th, 2024Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA
Mark 12:28-44
28 And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, Which is the first commandment of all? 29 And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: 30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. 31 And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these. 32 And the scribe said unto him, Well, Master, thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but he: 33 And to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. 34 And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. And no man after that durst ask him any question.
35 And Jesus answered and said, while he taught in the temple, How say the scribes that Christ is the Son of David? 36 For David himself said by the Holy Ghost, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool. 37 David therefore himself calleth him Lord; and whence is he then his son? And the common people heard him gladly.
38 And he said unto them in his doctrine, Beware of the scribes, which love to go in long clothing, and love salutations in the marketplaces, 39 And the chief seats in the synagogues, and the uppermost rooms at feasts: 40 Which devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayers: these shall receive greater damnation.
41 And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury: and many that were rich cast in much. 42 And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing. 43 And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury: 44 For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living.
Prayer
Father, we thank you for Your law which is perfect, converting the soul. We thank you for your testimony that is sure, making wise the simple. We thank you for Your statutes that are right, rejoicing the heart. And we praise you for Your commandment that is pure and enlightening to our eyes. Fill us now O Lord with love that descends from above, for we ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Introduction
This morning, we finish out Mark chapter 12, and this is the conclusion of an ongoing showdown between Jesus and the highest authorities of the Jews.
Jesus is teaching in the outer court of the Temple, it is Passover week, and so the place is filled with visitors. So far we have seen representatives from different Jewish factions take turns trying to stump the Lord Jesus.
First the chief priests, scribes, and elders (the Sanhedrin) challenged Jesus’ authority, “who gave thee this authority to do these things?” (Mark 11:28).
Jesus’ answer was “the same authority as John the Baptist.”
Next, the Pharisees and Herodians came along and asked whether it was lawful to pay tribute to Caesar.
Jesus’ answer was, “give to Caesar what belongs to him, and give to God what belongs to God.”
Then, last week, we saw the Sadducees come with an argument against the resurrection.
Jesus answered them by saying, “ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God?” and then proceeded to demonstrate the resurrection from Exodus 3:6.
So Jesus is as a great fighter in the ring, and when he knocks out one opponent, immediately another arises. And yet for all their persistent attempts to catch Jesus in his words, to stump him theologically, in every case they end up indicting themselves.
And so this section in Mark’s gospel, Chapters 11-12, are really intended to expose the falsity and wickedness and duplicity and hypocrisy of the entire Jerusalem establishment. There are still pockets of faithfulness here and there, God promised there would always be a faithful remnant, but on the whole, the powers that be are corrupt and unjust. These are the false shepherds in Israel who devour the sheep (Jer. 23:1). These are the wicked servants in Jesus’ parable of the vineyard who steal God’s stuff and murder his servants.
And what all of this exposing of sin is building up to is chapter 13, where Jesus is going to foretell that within one generation, the temple and its leaders are going to be destroyed. The powers that be will be shaken, the stars will fall from the sky. And the Son of Man shall come with power and glory to bring judgment on the old world, and usher in the new.
So this radical change in the authority structure of the whole cosmos, is what these doctrinal controversies are really about. The Jews recognized that Jerusalem and the Temple was the center of the world, they know the promise of Isaiah 2:1 that, “the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, And shall be exalted above the hills; And all nations shall flow unto it…For out of Zion shall go forth the law, And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”
The Jews also knew the many prophecies that a king would arise from the line of David, and that as it says in Psalm 72:8, “He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, And from the river unto the ends of the earth.”
So the Jews were primed for this universal king to come and reign. But as with the arrival of any new power or regime or kingdom, it is those who are currently in power who are most threatened by any change to the status quo. And it is that change that Jesus comes to bring about, but it is a change far more profound than either the populists (who love Jesus) or the upper classes (who hate Jesus) recognize.
What almost everyone is blind to is that Jesus is God in the flesh. In Jesus, God Himself has come to reign. And so in arguing with Jesus in the temple, they are arguing with God about His Law and doing so in His House. And this is what makes their opposition to Jesus so ironic and outrageous. These are the people who claim to speak for and represent God and His Word. And yet they cannot recognize God, or the Word incarnate, when he is staring them in the face.
So our text this morning is the conclusion of this public showdown, and there are four sections to this passage, and each has an important application for us.
1. In verses 28-34, Jesus tells us what the greatest commandment is.
2. In verses 35-37, Jesus tells us who the Messiah is.
3. In verses 38-40, Jesus warns us of seeking worldly honorand riches.
4. In verses 41-44, Jesus gives us the example of the poor widow.
#1 – What is the greatest commandment according to Jesus?
This is the question a scribe poses to Jesus in verse 28, and Jesus responds by saying, “The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: 30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. 31 And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.”
Notice that Jesus begins his answer with the most famous verse in the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 6:4, also known as the Shema. It was customary for Jews to say the Shema twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening, and it is the Old Testament equivalent to our Christian confession that “Jesus Christ is Lord.”
And so notice the first verb, or action Jesus commends for us as the greatest commandment, is “Hear.” Yes, love for God and love for neighbor is the great commandment, but even prior to love is the necessity of Hearing. We must hear and know the voice of God and believe that He is one Lord.
We cannot love what we do not know, and therefore you must know the One God and to Him alone should all your heart, soul, mind, and strength be given.
In other words, it is not enough to be radical in your devotion if the object of your devotion is false. If the object of your devotion is anyone or anything other than the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, then it is idolatry. And so Jesus says “Hear,” take heed to who it is that you are worshipping.
Now if you have ever read the Old Testament, you know that there are many strange laws and regulations and many of them are hard to understand. And what Jesus is giving us here is the answer to key to understanding all of those laws. Because when you reduce the divine intent behind every law down to its most basic principle, it is simply: love God more than anything, and love your neighbor as yourself. “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matt. 22:40).
The scribe recognizes that Jesus has spoken well, and in a surprising and refreshing turn of events, after all the aggressive opposition, he agrees with Jesus and adds that this is “more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
As it says in 1 Samuel 15:22, “to obey is better than sacrifice.”
God says in Hosea 6:6, “For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; And the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.”
And so here Jesus gives us the ultimate end of our existence. Why did God create you? What are you here for? What is life all about? What is my purpose? What should occupy your attention? One thing: God.
Man’s final end is to know and love God, there is nothing higher. And therefore, everything else, even and especially many other good things, must be subordinated and ordered towards that end.
Now, if knowing and loving God is our highest good, then what is sin? Sin is settling for any lesser good than God. There are many ways we can do this, but at bottom, sin is choosing to give your heart, soul, mind, or strength, to someone or something other than God.
Or to put it in terms of St. Augustine, sin is to have disordered loves.
So we exist to know and love God with all that we are, and to love our neighbor as ourself, and this Jewish scribe agrees with Jesus that is the first and highest commandment. And yet, according to Jesus, this is not sufficient for him to enter the kingdom.
In verse 34 it says, “Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God.” He is close, he is near, but he is not yet in.
And so what is this scribe missing? Well, that is what Jesus is going to address with a question of his own. And he poses it in the form of riddle, taken from one of the psalms.
Verse 35-37
35 And Jesus answered and said, while he taught in the temple, How say the scribes that Christ is the Son of David? 36 For David himself said by the Holy Ghost, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool. 37 David therefore himself calleth him Lord; and whence is he then his son? And the common people heard him gladly.
#2 – Who is the Christ?
The question Jesus is asking is, “How can the Christ be both David’s son and David’s Lord?”
If the Christ is David’s son, and no son is greater than his father, no father calls his son lord, how then can David call his son in Psalm 110, “my lord.”
Scripture teaches both of these realities about the Messiah. God promised in 2 Samuel 7, that David’s throne would last forever. And even after the kingdom was divided, and the Jews were in exile, God promised again in Jeremiah 23, “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth” (Jer. 23:5).
So whoever the Christ is, must be a fleshly descendent of David. And yet David, inspired by the Holy Ghost says in Psalm 110, “The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, Until I make thine enemies thy footstool.”
What the scribes could not understand, was that in this Psalm, David was extolling the Lord Jesus. David was contemplating the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation.
The Father who is God and LORD, said unto the Son, who is God and David’s Lord, “sit thou at my right hand.”
And so the answer to Jesus’ riddle is also the thesis of Mark’s Gospel. Who is Jesus Christ? He is the eternal Son of God (Mark 1:1).
And so only God could be both David’s son and David’s Lord, and that is who Jesus is.
It is this belief and faith in Jesus as both son of David according to the flesh and Son of God as a fully divine person, that grants us entrance into the kingdom. While the Shema is good and right and true, the Shema is not sufficient to enter the kingdom of heaven. Because to truly Hear and know the one true God and one Lord, one must also accept that Jesus Christ is that one true God and Lord.
This is why Jesus says in John 17:3, “this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” Jesus is the doorway into the kingdom.And so it is doubly true that this scribe was not far from the kingdom for indeed he was talking to the king himself.
Who is the Christ? He is both David’s son and David’s Lord. The Christ can be none other than the One God of the Shema.
Having posed this riddle so that the one who figures it out may enter the kingdom, Jesus now proceeds to do two things: First, he warns us of seeking worldly honor, and second, he shows us what keeping the greatest commandment looks like.
#3 – A Warning Against Worldliness
Verses 38-40
38 And he said unto them in his doctrine, Beware of the scribes, which love to go in long clothing, and love salutations in the marketplaces, 39 And the chief seats in the synagogues, and the uppermost rooms at feasts: 40 Which devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayers: these shall receive greater damnation.
There are two warnings here.
The first is to beware of the people who use religion for selfish and self-serving purposes.
There are scribes who pray and teach and look very religious, but in the eyes of God it is all a show. It is all a pretense to devour widows’ houses and gain status in society.
The church must be on guard against such hypocrisy both in ourselves and in our leaders.
Paul says in 1 Timothy 4:17, “keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching.” He says in 1 Timothy 3:8, that officers in the church (elders and deacons) must not be greedy for filthy lucre.
What is filthy lucre? It’s ill-gotten gain. It’s using your authority and influence to manipulate the widows in the church. To steal their deceased husband’s estate, taking their inheritance and putting it into your own pockets. This is what the teachers of God’s law were doing in Jerusalem. And so Jesus is saying, beware of those scribes, they are liars and frauds, not everyone deserves your trust.
The second warning is to beware of the temptation to worldly glory.
All of us are susceptible to vanity. All of us naturally desire to look good in front of others (make a good impression), and we all want people to think and speak well of us. And while none of those things is inherently evil, when that becomes our aim, instead of honoring and pleasing God, we quickly become slaves to the world and to our own self-image.
This is why Jesus says in Luke 6:26, “Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets.”
It is not a sin to care what people think of you. We should all aspire to have a good name and witness and reputation. Proverbs 22:1 says, “A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, And loving favour rather than silver and gold.”
So having a good name is not a sin, but it is a sin if you have a good name with the world, and a bad name in the eyes of God. And this is what the whole Jewish establishment was guilty of.
So how then shall we live? How then shall we keep the first and greatest commandment, and enter into the kingdom?
Well, we have had many negative examples, and many cautionary tales of what not to be like, and finally, Jesus gives us the positive example of the poor widow.
#4 – The Poor Widow
Verses 41-44
41 And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury: and many that were rich cast in much. 42 And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing. 43 And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury: 44 For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living.
So within the temple complex, there was a place to give your offerings. And tradition holds that there were thirteen of these “shofar chests,” which were large trumpet-shaped receiving containers where people could throw in their contributions. And as the coins went in, you could hear the clink-clink-clink and know, was that a large offering, or a small offering.
So Jesus is watching people bring their offerings (into His House) and put them into His treasury. And many rich folks come through and give large offerings (clink clink clink clink clink clink) very good. But then comes the poor widow, and she has the equivalent of what we could call pocket change, perhaps enough to buy a candy bar or a package of top ramen. Two mites. And she puts both of them into the treasury (clink clink).
And then Jesus says, “this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury. Because the rich gave from their abundance, but she gave all her living from her want.”
In other words, if ever it would have been reasonable for a woman to keep back at least one of her mites, this was the occasion. And yet, she so casts herself upon the mercy and generosity of God that she gives to Him what probably was her daily bread. She exchanges the totality of her temporal goods (“all her living”), which is not much, so that she might gain more of God.
What is the price of heaven? What is the cost to enter Christ’s kingdom? Well, Jesus is teaching us here that the price cannot be measured in dollars or coins or any worldly possession. It is measured rather, according to the intention and contents of the heart.
Not only is the gift measured in proportion to what God has given us, more importantly, it is measured according to the love for God we have for him in our offering. Do we regard God as worth all our living? When we give to Him our tithes and offerings, does it represent all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, or is it just 10% off the top to keep our conscience clean?
Two people can give to God the same 10% of their income, but in God’s eyes, one could be robbing Him (because they are giving it grudgingly), and the other could be offering their whole self to Him in that tithe. This is why God says, “I love a cheerful giver.”
So love for God is what makes an offering acceptable in His sight, no matter the amount. And this is what makes the widow’s offering of two mites worth more than a king’s ransom. And yet it is not just that the widow has given God all her living, it is that her gift represents her real spiritual state. She is both materially poor and poor in spirit, and thus the beatitude comes to pass as Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:3). This woman is not far from the kingdom, she is inside of it because of her love for God.
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:3, “though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.”
In other words, you could hear this sermon, and try to be like the poor widow and give God all your goods, but if you lack charity, then you haven’t actually given Him what He wants. He wants your heart!
This principle is crucial for us to understand because it means that all of our actions and attitudes all day long, can either be a pleasing offering acceptable to the Lord, or a foul smell in his nostrils.
Remember Cain and Abel. Both offered sacrifices, but one was accepted and one was not.
And so what are the two mites God has given you? Or what is the great abundance God has blessed you with? What is your livelihood and vocation? Because no matter how much or little you think you have, all of us have an equal opportunity to give all of ourselves in love to God.
Moreover, God Himself is the greatest reward any of us could receive, and the more we die to this world, and give him all our living, the more we make space in our soul to be filled by Him.
Remember what God said to Abram in Genesis 15? Abram had just returned from rescuing Lot from Chedorlaomer and three other kings. He defeated them, and thenMelchizedek came out and blessed Abram and Abram gave him a tithe. And yet he would not receive any gifts or reward from the king of Sodom. And then it says in Genesis 15:1, “After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, ‘Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.’”
This poor widow was a true daughter of Abraham, a true woman of faith. She had God for her shield and her exceedingly great reward. And so the more you divest yourself of worldly desire, and the more you love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, the richer you become.
This is how Paul can say in 2 Corinthians 6:10, we are “as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.”
The person who has God as supreme in their affections is the one who possesses everything. And God is the gift that Jesus Christ comes to offer.
Conclusion
Jesus Christ offered Himself on the cross for the life of the world. He loved His Father, and He loved you, even unto death.
And so what is two mites, or what is all your possessions, compared to so great a love?
Become like Abraham, become like the poor widow, and choose God as your shield and as your exceedingly great reward, for that is a reward that can never be taken from you.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen.

Lesson 6: As Knowledge in the Knower and the Beloved in the Lover (The Architecture of Reality: Sacred Time & Sacred Place in Holy Scripture)

The Architecture of Reality: Sacred Time & Sacred Place in Holy ScriptureLesson 6 – As Knowledge in the Knower and the Beloved in the Lover
Review of Lesson 5
Last time we were together, we started working on this question, “In what sense is God inside of us?” And we spent a good half hour studying all the ways God is not and cannot be inside of us. Does anyone remember some of the ways we said that God cannot be inside of us?
We looked at 8 modes/ways that one thing can be said to be in another:
As a body is in place. Example: Paul is in the Areopagus. Or, you are in this room and not at home.
As a part is in the whole. Example: A finger is in the hand.
As the whole is in its parts. Example: A hand is in the fingers, for there is no whole hand over and above the parts (fingers).
As a species is in its genus. Example: The species (man) is in the genus (animal).
As the genus is in the species. Example:The animal (genus) is in the man who is of the species rational animal.
As form is in matter. Example: The soul (immaterial form) is in the body (matter).
As an accident is in a substance. For example, whiteness is an accident that exists in the substance Socrates, and yet if Socrates goes out in the sun and gets dark/tan, he is still Socrates despite no longer being white, thus whiteness is accidental to Socrates. Substance on the other hand is the principle of unity and self-identity that persists across all accidental changes.
As agent is in a patient. Or put another way, as an efficient cause is in its effects. Example: As an author is in his story. As Tolkien is in Middle-Earth.
God is in us in this way, as the one who gives us our very existence (“in him we live and move and have our being,” Acts 17:28). However, this is God’s Common Presence in all things and all people, not His Special Presence in the saints.
Question: Did anyone think of some other ways that one thing can be inside another?
Lesson 6
Tonight, I am finally going to tell you the true and actual way that God is present inside the believer. So we are not talking about God’s common presence (as efficient cause) in that He makes us to live and move and have our being, we are talking now about God’s special presence in the saints by grace.
Remember the reason we are asking this question is twofold:
1) Because this is one of the two realities signified by God coming and dwelling in the Tabernacle and Temple (the other is the Incarnation).
2) Because there are a ton of verses in the Bible that speak of God/Christ/Holy Spirit being in us and us being in God. And because there is no higher joy or pleasure than being united to God, we should want to 1) understand what this union is, and 2) see if Scripture tells us how we can experience more of it.
So how does God dwell inside the believer?
The answer to the question is that God dwells in the believer as knowledge is in the knower and as the beloved is in the lover. God is in us as knowledge is in the person knowing, and as the object loved is in the person loving. God dwells in the saints by knowledge and by love.
Let me read you a few examples of this from Scripture, and as I read, listen for that connection between knowledge, love, and indwelling.
John 14:15-17, “If ye love me, keep my commandments. 16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; 17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.”
1 Corinthians 2:12, “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.”
1 John 4:12-13, “No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. 13 Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.”
Ephesians 3:14-19, “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, 16 That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; 17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; 19 And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.”
So when we become Christians and make God our refuge and dwelling place, He also comes and makes us His dwelling place. So there is a mutual indwelling of us in God and God in us.
Now to better understand what this means, that “knowledge is in the knower and the beloved is in the lover,” let us consider how this kind of indwelling work amongst creatures, and then work our back up to God.
So consider two people falling in love, we’ll call them Adam and Eve.
Adam is lonely, he has a knowledge of animals and even loves the animals, but something is missing in his life.Adam wants to know and love someone that is his equal, someone more like him. Well, it’s Adam’s lucky day, he falls asleep, and when he wakes up there is a beautiful something standing in his garden.
Adam sees this something, and what happens in his soul/mind/intellect?
First, he apprehends that this is no mere animal. This thing is shaped like he is, but a little different. He abstracts from the images that his sensory powers are feeding him, and judges, this animal has the same substantial form as he does: human. It speaks and laughs and reasons, and therefore must be like Adam as a rational animal with a human nature.
But despite having this shared human nature with Adam, there are also some real bodily differences. Adam sees that this naked woman has different organs for generation than he does.
And therefore, in his mind, proceeds this internal word or concept of understanding that we might call a name/definition.
You cannot name/define something until you have grasped and understood it’s nature. What is its genus? And what is its species? How is it like or unlike other things.
So Adam beholds this other person, and grasps both the similarity and dissimilarity that is evidenced in her body and pronounces externally what is said in Genesis 2:23, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” And then in the next verse Adam is married to this Woman, and the two become one flesh.
There is physical union and indwelling of husband and wife.
Now after the fall, in Genesis 3, Adam’s knowledge of his Wife/Woman increases, and he learns that she is the mother of all the living. And because of this increase in knowledge about her, he gives her a new name, which is Eve (Gen. 3:20).
And then in Genesis 4:1 it says, “And Adam knewEve his wife; and she conceived.”
So in what ways are Adam and Eve united?
1. They are physically unitedin the marital act.
2. They are legally/covenantally united as one household/family.
3. But they are also spiritually united as knowledge in the knower and beloved in the lover.
When Adam’s knowledge of Eve increases, and he knows her to be good, His desire for her is aroused and he freely chooses to love and delight in her. And so even if Eve is not physically present, she is present to Adam in his memory, in his affections, and in his enjoyment of knowing who she is and that she belongs to Him.
This is what we mean by the mingling of souls. Because love is a unitive force, it draws us out of ourselves and into the object of our love, so that the mind and will of the person we love, the more we know and love them, the more their mind and love is inside us.
We can know what they are thinking and feeling because they are inside of us a knowledge in the knower and the beloved in the lover.
To give you a couple non-romantic examples of this, Paul says to the Philippians, “It is right for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart.”
He says to the Colossians, “For though I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ.”
So the Philippians and the Colossians, and all the churches and people Paul knew and loved, dwelt within him. And so it is with us.
The things we know, remember, love and delight in, are inside of us, and that is how God wants to be inside of us. As the supreme object of knowledge, and the supreme object of our love.
Conclusion
It says in Psalm 10:4, “The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts.”
God does not dwell in the wicked, because He is not in their thoughts.
And unlike Eve, and unlike any other created thing that we can see and know with our eyes, God is invisible, God is a spirit, God is incorporeal, eternal, and infinite, and as it says in 1 John 4:12, “No man hath seen God at any time.”
So how God can the invisible Triune God come and well inside of us?
Well, this is why Christ came, he is the image of the invisible God. And as the true knowledge of God is proclaimed in the world, and as we increase in that knowledge of God through reading the Bible, hearing sermons, praying and meditating, God dwells in us personally as knowledge in us who know Him.
And then from that understanding of the truths that we know about God, proceeds the supernatural love that unites us to Him. And so Paul can say in 1 Cor. 2:16, “we have the mind of Christ.”
This is eternal life, this is the purpose for man’s existence, it is know God and love Him, and that is how God dwells within the saints.

Sermon: Because Ye Know Not The Scriptures (Mark 12:18-27)

Because Ye Know Not the ScripturesSunday, January 21st, 2024Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA
Mark 12:18–27
18 Then come unto him the Sadducees, which say there is no resurrection; and they asked him, saying, 19 Master, Moses wrote unto us, If a man’s brother die, and leave his wife behind him, and leave no children, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. 20 Now there were seven brethren: and the first took a wife, and dying left no seed. 21 And the second took her, and died, neither left he any seed: and the third likewise. 22 And the seven had her, and left no seed: last of all the woman died also. 23 In the resurrection therefore, when they shall rise, whose wife shall she be of them? for the seven had her to wife. 24 And Jesus answering said unto them, Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God? 25 For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven. 26 And as touching the dead, that they rise: have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? 27 He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living: ye therefore do greatly err.
Prayer
Father as we consider the life that is to come, and ponder what resurrection and eternity with you shall be like, we confess that we are far too carnal in our thinking. It is hard for us to imagine any joy or pleasure or love that surpasses what we enjoy in a good marriage or enjoy with our bodily senses. And yet, you have promised to us a life of bliss and fullness of joy in your presence, for as it says in Psalm 16:11, “at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore.” And so we ask now for you Spirit to be at work within us to make us into more spiritual creatures, with spiritual desires, that transcend this world which is passing away. Make us to live for eternity, for we ask this Jesus’ name, Amen.
Introduction
What will life in the new heavens and new earth be like? What will that future state of glory and resurrection be like for the saints?
The Bible teaches that when we die, and our soul is separated from our body, our soul (that immaterial part of us that knows and loves) immediately goes to heaven to be with God.
Paul says in Philippians 1:22-23 that to live in the body is fruitful labor for the Christian, but to depart and be with Christ is far better.
Likewise in 2 Corinthians 5:1-2 he says, “For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle [referring to the body] were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven.”
So in this life we groan to be with God. And when we die, our soul is welcomed into the Father’s House, and God Himself becomes our dwelling place, our habitation, our house not made with hands. We behold Him in His essence and our soul is made radiant.
And it is there in heaven with God, that our glorified soul awaits the final resurrection and reunion with the body.
This final resurrection is spoken of in 1 Corinthians 15:42-44 where the Apostle says, “the body is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: 43 It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: 44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.”
The final destination for the Christian, is not being a disembodied soul in heaven, though that is far better than being here. Our final destination is the resurrection of the dead wherein God by His power reunites soul and body never to die again. This is the eternal life that the resurrected Son of God has purchased for us, and it this power and resurrection that the Sadducees of Jesus day did not believe in.
In our text this morning, the Sadducees pose a question for Jesus that is a kind of reductio ad absurdum. What isa reductio ad absurdum? It is an argument where you take the premises of your opponent and follow them out to their logical end, and the intent is that the logical conclusion is so absurd or contradictory that it makes the premises invalid.
For example, against atheists we can run the reductio that if there is no God (as they claim), then there is no objective basis for morality, and therefore any moral objections they have against Christianity are purely arbitrary.
Or to give a very different example, if the world is flat, then there is an edge, but because no one has seen or found that edge, it is absurd to think the world is flat.
So that’s the basic structure of a reductio ad absurdum. And this is the argument the Sadducees deploy against Jesus regarding what is in their mind the absurdity of the resurrection.
Now before we look at their argument, let me first say a word about who the Sadducees were.
Who were the Sadducees?
The best we can conclude from what Scripture and other ancient sources tell us, is that the Sadducees were an upper class or aristocratic group of Jews, and they had strong ties to the high priesthood in Jerusalem (Acts 5:18). It is possible they received their name and lineage from Zadok and thus laid claim to being the divinely appointed heirs of the high priesthood (Ezek. 44:15).
As to their doctrine, Mark tells us here in vs. 18 that they did not believe in the resurrection, and we are also told in Acts 23:8, “the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit: but the Pharisees confess both.”
So the Sadducees were theological enemies of the Pharisees (Jewish heretics), and Paul actually uses this to his advantage when the Jews are trying to kill him.
Josephus (who was a 1st century Jewish historian) tells us, “But the doctrine of the Sadducees is this: That souls die with the bodies; nor do they regard the observation of anything besides what the law enjoins them” (Antiquities 18.16). Elsewhere he adds that they reject God’s sovereignty over man’s actions.
So the Sadducees rejected any Scripture outside of the law of Moses, the Pentateuch alone was their canon (Genesis-Deuteronomy).So they are already working with a truncated canon, and one of their great points of contention with the Pharisees was this doctrine of the resurrection and the existence of spiritual substances (angels, an immortal soul, etc.).
So those are their premises, and what they try to do against Jesus is take the Pharisees premises and run them out to absurdity.
How do they try to do this? Well let us turn to expound our text.
Verse 19
19 Master, Moses wrote unto us, If a man’s brother die, and leave his wife behind him, and leave no children, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother.
Note first the appeal to Moses and the law as their authority. What specific law are they referring to?
It is Deuteronomy 25:5-10, which we heard earlier in the service, and this is often called the “levirate marriage law.” This word levirate comes from the Latin word levir, which means “a husband’s brother.” So a levirate marriage is literally a marriage to a brother-in-law. Elsewhere the man who fulfills this law is called the “kinsman redeemer” (גאל).
We are given the purpose of this law in Deuteronomy 25:6, which states, “it shall be that the firstborn son which she bears will succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel.”
So because of the tribal inheritance each family received in the promised land, it was importantfor a male heir to carry on his father’s name and ensure that the inheritance God had given them stayed within the family.
One of the most famous instances of levirate marriage is the story of Ruth. Ruth is a Moabite who married into the tribe of Judah, but her husband dies, and her father-in-law Elimelech dies, and so both Naomi and Ruth are widowed and in danger of seeing their family line come to an end.
In God’s providence, Ruth meets Boaz, and Boaz fulfills this duty (after a closer relative declines) and raises up seed to carry on Elimelech’s name. And it is by this obedience to the law in Deuteronomy 25, that Obed is born, and Obed begat Jesse, and Jesse begat David, and from that line of Elimelech we eventually have the birth of Jesus Christ.
Now while this law might sound strange to our modern ears, it was God’s way of both providing for widows and also the means by which His promise to Abraham could be fulfilled.
God had promised in Genesis 15, to give Abraham seed as numerous as the stars, and also to give him the land of Canaan as his inheritance (Gen. 15:7, 18-21). And so for family name to die out, was like having a star go out in the sky.
We read in Galatians 3:19, Paul answers the question, “What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions, till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made.”
So God gave many ceremonial and judicial laws in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, laws like this levirate marriage law, as a temporary and typological safeguard to preserve the people of Israel until the Seed, the Lord Jesus Christ was born. Jesus is the seed God promised to Abraham, and by faith in Jesus, we also become heirs together with him.
So that is the background to this law that the Sadducees are now going to use to prove the absurdity of the resurrection.
Verses 20-23
20 Now there were seven brethren: and the first took a wife, and dying left no seed. 21 And the second took her, and died, neither left he any seed: and the third likewise. 22 And the seven had her, and left no seed: last of all the woman died also. 23 In the resurrection therefore, when they shall rise, whose wife shall she be of them? for the seven had her to wife.
So the argument of the Sadducees is that if there is a resurrection from the dead, then in that resurrected state, this woman will have 7 husbands. And because having 7 husbands is clearly contrary to God’s law and violates the one flesh monogamous union of marriage, there can be no resurrection.
How does Jesus respond to this attempted reductio of the Sadducees?
He begins by rebuking them for their ignorance.
Verse 24
24 And Jesus answering said unto them, Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God?
There are times when ignorant people ask stupid questions and the best way to respond is to not answer at all (Titus 3:9-11). As it says in Proverbs 26:4-5, “Do not answer a fool according to his folly, Lest you also be like him. Answer a fool according to his folly, Lest he be wise in his own eyes.”
This is one of those occasions where Jesus chooses the latter and will answer them according to their folly so that they are not wise in their own eyes. The way he begins then is with a stern rebuke: You are in error because you don’t know the Scriptures, neither the power of God. In other words, “You have no idea what you are talking about.”
And just in case they didn’t understand this rebuke the first time, Jesus will say again at the end of his response in vs. 27, “ye therefore do greatly err.”
So Jesus is challenging the false assumptions behind their question, which they have arrived at because they don’t know the Scriptures or God’s power. And remember he is saying this to men who style themselves experts in the Scriptures. In verse 25 he tells them what that false premise is.
Verse 25
25 For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven.
So whereas the Sadducees argued that there is no resurrection because that would make marriage eternal (and create all kinds of polygamous situations), Jesus says that they’ve got it backwards. Marriage is not eternal, but the soul is, and in the resurrected state men do not marry, and women are not given in marriage, but are like the angels who cannot die and find all their satisfaction in God.
The problem with the Sadducees is that they are enslaved to their carnal senses, and therefore when they read the law of Moses, they come to it with a warped and corrupt mind, and therefore warp and corrupt the Scriptures. In their minds, the only sense in which man “rises again” and “lives on after death,” is in his children. This is the only “resurrection” or “raising up” they can imagine.
And because the Sadducees denied that there even is a spirit, or an immortal soul,what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3:6 comes to pass, that “the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”
If you come to the Bible with false assumptions, you are going to read it and the letters will slay you. False assumptions lead to false conclusions which lead to ignorant questions, and this is the great error Jesus wants to expose.
So Jesus says that when we rise from the dead, we are not rejoined in marriage to the spouse (or spouses) we were married to on earth. Marriage is a temporal institution for the raising of children, for help and companionship, but as Paul says in Ephesians 5, marriage is a great mystery that will give way to something far greater, which is the union of Christ and the church, the union of God with the human soul.
Now many people find this teaching about no marriage and no sex in the resurrection to be a bit of a letdown. But that is only because we are thinking like Sadducees. We are allowing our carnal senses and sentiments to blind us to the far greater love and intimacy that we shall have with God and all the saints, including our former spouse (if they were a believer) in the resurrection.
The truth is that however great and pleasurable your marriage may be (and I hope that is!), it is not worthy to be compared with the love and pleasure we shall enjoy in the world to come. Even in this life, there are far higher pleasures than sexual intimacy and marital friendship, namely the pleasures of knowing and loving God.
This is why Jesus can say in Luke 14:26, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.”
To be a Christian is to love God in such a way that nothing and no-one else competes with God in your affections. You love God more than life itself.
And so if you have not experienced this pleasure of the soul, this pleasure of union with God that brings peace and gladness and indestructible joy, then search your heart. Consider what it is that you really love and are living for. Because no matter your state, whether single, or married, or widowed, or divorced, the love of God and abundant joy is constantly held out to you.
Unlike a husband or wife, whose time and attention and affections are limited, God is unlimited. God is not bound by time or matter. He does not grow weary, He neither slumbers nor sleeps, and therefore God alone can be your constant companion.
Moreover, whatever goodness or beauty you find in your spouse, whatever loveliness there is in them, God is the source and fount of that goodness and beauty and loveliness, for it is from Him that anyone has these qualities. God has all of those things essentially, infinitely, endlessly.
And so if you find it a letdown that there is no sex or marriage in the resurrection, consider that when you were a child, you thought that eating ice cream or chocolate, or playing in the mud was the highest pleasure there was. Before puberty, you thought girls had cooties. A newborn baby has no conception or ability to begin to understand sexual marital love.
Well in this life, we are babies, and we cannot even begin to imagine the joys that await us in the resurrection. When the Apostle Paul was caught up into Paradise, he says “I heard inexpressible words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter” (2 Cor. 12:4). The things that Paul heard and saw were so great, that God had to give Paul a thorn in his flesh, to keep him humble. And that was just heaven, not even the full consummation that awaits us.
Isaiah 64:4 says, “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man, The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”
In Isaiah 65:17 God says, “For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: And the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.”
The joys that await us in the resurrection are so great, that this life will become as a distant memory. As it says in Ecclesiastes 5:20, “For he will not much remember the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart.”
So again I say, if this joy is foreign to you, search your heart, consider your loves, and then ask God to help you re-order them so that He is utmost in your affections.
Returning to our text, Jesus having stated their errors regarding marriage and the resurrection, he goes on to prove from the law of Moses, that the dead rise again.
And it is a good test for us to pause here and ask ourselves, if we were in Jesus’ shoes, and had to prove the resurrection from the Old Testament, where would we go? What verses would we use?
Perhaps some of the Psalms comes to mind, David speaks of God not leaving his soul in Sheol in Psalm 16. Or we might think of Job who says famously in Job 19:25-26, “For I know that my Redeemer lives, And He shall stand at last on the earth; And after my skin is destroyed, this I know, That in my flesh I shall see God.”
Well of all the passages Jesus could have used to prove the resurrection, he limits himself to only what the Sadducees considered to be authoritative, namely the law of Moses.
Verses 26-27
26 And as touching the dead, that they rise: have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? 27 He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living: ye therefore do greatly err.
Now maybe, you are scratching your head, and wondering how is it that that verse proves the resurrection. What does Jesus see in this text that the Sadducees (and many of us) are blind to?
The passage Jesus cites is Exodus 3:6, where God speaks to Moses from the burning bush and reveals this name to him, “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”
There are at least two ways in which this passage proves the resurrection:
1. First, is from the fact that “God is the God of the living and not the dead.” The argument runs as follows:
Premise 1: Dead bodies cannot worship God or have him as their God.
Premise 2: When God revealed this name to Moses, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had been dead for hundreds of years.
Conclusion: Therefore, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob must still be alive in some sense, and this proves the existence of the immortal soul. And because it belongs naturally to the soul to be united to the body (since that is how God created it), by the same power of God, the body and soul of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob shall be reunited in the resurrection.
Summary: So if God is the God of the living, as the Sadducees accept, and if God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as they also accept, then Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are still alive and shall rise again.
2. The second way this can prove the resurrection, is by remembering the promises God made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This argument runs as follows:
Premise 1: God promised to Abraham in Genesis 13:15, “All the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever.”
Premise 2: Abraham died not having received that promise (Heb. 11:13-16).
Conclusion: Therefore, either God is a liar, or He keeps His Word, and one day Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob shall be resurrected and the whole land given to them.
So both of these arguments demonstrate that the Sadducees have not rightly interpreted their own Scriptures. And Jesus has used their highest authority, Moses, to prove what they reject.
In Matthew’s version of this same scene it says, “And when the multitudes heard this, they were astonished at His teaching” (Matt. 22:33).
Conclusion
One of the things that our world and our region is in desperate need of is hope.
Proverbs 13:12 says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, But when the desire comes, it is a tree of life.”
Our land is filled with hopeless people who think they can treat a sickness of the heart, a sickness of the soul, with medication, with prescription drugs, with surgery, with money, with things that promise to make us happy but cannot actually touch that spiritual part of us that needs healing.
Well Jesus Christ is the resurrection and the life. And it is He alone who can touch our soul and heal us. Only the God who never changes and who is infinitely happy in Himself can give us a new heart, with new desires, that shall be fulfilled and make us into trees of life.
As Paul says in Romans 5:5, the hope that God gives is a hope that shall never put us to shame, “because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.”
God wants to you give His very Self, His Holy Spirit. And when you receive the Holy Spirit, you are receiving thedown payment and guarantee of a resurrection to come. And so forsake your earthly and carnal hopes, lift your heart to heaven and say with the Psalmist in Psalm 43:5, “Hope in God: for I shall yet praise him, Who is the health of my countenance, and my God.”
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.