This Week at Christ Reformed Church (June 8-14)

Sunday Morning (June 14):  We are wrapping up our time in the book of Ezra as part of our series on Ezra-Nehemiah.  Our text this Sunday is Ezra 10 and Israel's repentance.  Our Lord's Day worship service begins at 10:30 a.m.

Sunday Afternoon:  This week we will consider Lord's Day 21 (Q & A 54-56) and the holy "catholic" church.  Our catechism service begins @ 1:15 p.m.

Wednesday Night Bible Study (June 10):  We are continuing our "Run Through the Letters of Paul," and we are working our way through Galatians 5 and Paul's discussion of Christian liberty.

The Academy:  On Hiatus until Fall.

For more information and directions, check out the Christ Reformed website:  Christ Reformed Church

"O Lord, the God of Israel, You Are Just" -- Ezra 9:1-15

  Here's the audio from this morning's sermon:  Click Here

This Week's White Horse Inn

The Embassy of Grace

On this edition of the White Horse Inn we’re talking about the embassy of grace as Paul lays that out in 2 Corinthians 5.

Like worn coins that have lost their embossing with much handling, key words in the Christian grammar have lost their original meaning. “Gospel” has become a modifier like “gospel-music.” It means basically anything that is good or true or at least that we like a lot. It used to be that the “gospel” meant “the good news concerning Jesus Christ,” now we talk about “living the gospel” or even “being the gospel” ourselves.

“Grace” has increasingly come to mean little more than divine indulgence, like you know, your dad winking as he sees you take an extra piece of candy after your mom said “no.” “Grace” is basically God saying, “You’re okay.... I’m okay... Okay?”

And now, gold standard words like “redeem” and “reconcile” are no longer defined by the biblical drama. In the biblical story the triune God is the redeemer who has reconciled sinners to himself through the life, death, resurrection of the incarnate Son. Redemption and reconciliation are done by Jesus, and they are completed events, as in Jesus’ last words on the cross – “It is finished.”

But today, we hear a lot of calls for us to participate with God in the work of redeeming and reconciling the world. Tony Jones explains, “Our calling as a church is to partner with God in the work that God is already doing in the world, to cooperate in the building of God’s kingdom.” He cites Anabaptist theologian, John Howard Yoder: “the visible church is not to be the bearer of Christ’s message, but to be the message.”

Similarly, Jones’ own church transforms the traditional service into a conversation. He says, “The point is to jettison the magisterial sermon which has ruled over much of Protestantism for five hundred years. Here, the sermon is deconstructed, turned on its head. The Bible is referred to as the member of the community with whom we are in conversation, and the communal interpretation of the text bubbles up from the life of the community.”

Just as the definition of the gospel widens to include our person and work, God’s reconciling action in Christ, not only motivates, but includes in its very definition our own acts of social justice. Anglican bishop, N.T. Wright, expresses this view. “The church,” he says, “is called to do the work of Christ, to be the means of his action in and for the world. Mission in its widest, as well as its more focused senses, is what the church is there for. God intends to put the world to rights. He has dramatically launched this project through Jesus. Those who belong to Jesus are called, here and now, in the power of the Spirit, to be agents of that putting to rights purpose.”

Though still central, and even essential, Jesus seems to be more like the person who gets the ball rolling, than the unique person whose saving work in his first and second advents is unrepeatable and inimitable. Jesus dramatically launches the project, so the kingdom of glory is present, unfolding by degrees. Elsewhere he writes, “God is rescuing us from the shipwreck of the world, not so that we can sit back and put our feet up in his company, but so we can be part of his plan to remake the world.” However, it’s one thing to say that we’re partners with God in bringing the good news to the world, and loving our neighbors in our callings, and quite another to say that we’re partners with God in redeeming and reconciling the world.

Brian McLaren writes, “To say that Jesus is savior is to say in Jesus God is intervening as savior in all of these ways: judging, that is naming evil as evil; forgiving, breaking the vicious cycle of cause and effect making reconciliation possible; and teaching, showing how to set chain reactions of good in motion. Then, because we are so often ignorantly wrong and stupid, Jesus comes in saving teaching, profound, yet amazingly compact. What is this saving teaching? ‘Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength,’ Jesus says, ‘and love your neighbor as yourself.’ And that is enough. That,” says McLaren, “is what it means to say that Jesus is saving the world.” Although Jesus called this the summary of the law, for McLaren it becomes the summary of the gospel.

When the vertical relationship, that is our relationship to God, is eclipsed by the horizontal effects, that is our relationship to fellow human beings and creation, an opposite reduction occurs. Sin is not so much a transgression of God’s covenant that brings God’s judgment, as it is brokenness in our own interpersonal relationships. “On Good Friday, Christ’s crucifixion became the impetus for healed and healing relationships in a world that desperately needs them,” and “the concentration on correct doctrine is a reflection of an earlier time.”

So, in addition to phrases, such as “living the gospel,” and calls to continue Christ’s incarnation and saving work, we often hear these appeals to participate in Christ’s reconciling work. Often these calls to cooperate with God in the redemption and reconciliation of the world, draw these points from Paul’s reference to the ministry of reconciliation in 2 Corinthians 5. What does Paul actually say there and does it support or contradict this idea of our being co-redeemers and co-reconcilers? That’s our subject in this edition of the White Horse Inn. (Originally Aired Aug 21, 2011)

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Seventy-One Years Ago Today

The citizen soldiers punched through Hitler's Atlantic wall and freed a continent.

Friday Feature -- The Most Heroic Thing I've Ever Seen

Twenty-six years ago today this man stood up to government tyranny while the world watched.  To this day, no one knows who this man is, or what happened to him.  Reportedly, he told the tank driver to turn around and go back because the tanks would ruin the city (Beijing).  Notice too, he keeps hanging on to his groceries.

So Long Overdue and Well Deserved

A great injustice has been corrected.  Japan has officially granted Godzilla Japanese citizenship.  Godzilla Now a Citizen

Although the creature entered the country illegally, and has destroyed Tokyo several times, this poor misunderstood animal's rights finally have finally recognized.

One injustice remains, however.  Godzilla must be given free veterinary care under Japan's national health care system--provided he/she/it, as the case may be, is spayed and/or neutered.

If Godzilla is trans or multi-gendered, then, of course, gender reassignment will be provided at tax-payer expense.

Godzilla has rights!

"Lazarus has Died" -- John 11:1-16

The Thirty-Fifth in a Series of Sermons on the Gospel of John

Even Jesus could not keep his friend Lazarus from dying–or so it seemed.  All of Jesus’ disciples eventually died, as have all Christians since the time of Jesus down to the present day (including Lazarus, a second time).  This raises the question as to whether or not the curse has the final word and whether death ultimately wins in the end.  At times it sure looks that way.  If Jesus truly is the resurrection and the life, as he claims, then he must decisively defeat death and the grave.  When Jesus raises his friend Lazarus from the dead, we see the unmistakable proof that death does not win in the end.   Although his body has been in the tomb four days, when Jesus steps up to Lazarus’ tomb and commands “Lazarus, come out!” (and the dead man does) we get a brief glimpse of what will happen on the last day, when Jesus returns to judge the world, raise the dead, and make all things new.  The story of Lazarus is not only a critical turning point in the Gospel of John, this is proof that Jesus is who he claims to be, and the events surrounding the raising of Lazarus set the stage for Jesus’ own death and resurrection, soon to come.

We return to our series on the Gospel of John, and we come to the next section of John’s Gospel–the literary bridge between Jesus’ messianic mission to Israel, and the events which occurred during the Passover and Jesus’ final trip to Jerusalem.  This literary bridge includes the materials in John 11 (the account of Jesus raising his friend Lazarus from the dead) and chapter 12 (Mary anointing Jesus at Bethany, before Jesus speaks of the necessity of his being “lifted up”–a reference to his suffering upon the cross).  This two-chapter bridge prepares the way for the extended Upper Room Discourse in chapters 13-17, in which Jesus instructs his disciples about his soon-coming death, resurrection, and ascension, and when he promises to send the blessed comforter, the Holy Spirit.  

Then, in chapters 18-20, we come to John’s Passion narrative, in which we read of Jesus’ death for our sins, and his bodily resurrection from the dead.  Unlike the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) the first half of John’s Gospel is devoted to his messianic mission, while the entire second half is devoted to the Passover and the final week of our Lord’s earthly ministry.  We are entering that last half of John’s account of the word made flesh, and we will spend much of our time covering events which occurred during the last week of Jesus’ messianic mission, shortly before his death as the true Passover Lamb and his resurrection from the dead–the guarantee of our final victory over death.

Every preacher faces the same dilemma when preaching through John’s Gospel.  Throughout this gospel, there are long teaching discourses, like the 44 verses in John 11 dealing with the resurrection of Lazarus.  These discourses are best covered in one sitting because one event is being recounted.  Yet, these discourses (like that the “Bread of Life” discourse of John 6, and the “Good Shepherd” discourse of John 10) are so rich in content, that if we are to do John justice, we would spend about two hours covering chapter 11.  Given the shortness of the human attention span, the rhetorical skills of your preacher, the weakness of the human gluteus maximus, and the nature of our pews, unfortunately, we must divide John 11 into a number of sub-sections which we will treat over a four week period.  You will help me out, and you will get far more out of these next few sermons on John 11, if you read through this entire chapter several times in the coming weeks so as not to lose the forest for the trees.

To read the rest of this sermon, Click Here

This Week at Christ Reformed Church (June 1-7)

Sunday Morning (June 7):  We are continuing our series on the books of Ezra-Nehemiah.  We have come to Ezra 9 and his call for the separation of Israel from her Canaanite neighbors.  Our Lord's Day worship service begins at 10:30 a.m.

Sunday Afternoon:  We return to our study of the Heidelberg Catechism.  This week are discussing the importance and practice of catechism.  Our catechism service begins @ 1:15 p.m.

Wednesday Night Bible Study (June 3):  We are continuing our series, "Run Through the Letters of Paul," and we have come to Galatians 5 and Paul's discussion of our freedom in Christ.

The Academy:  On Hiatus until Fall.

For more information and directions, check out the Christ Reformed website:  Christ Reformed Church

“That We Might Humble Ourselves Before Our God” -- Ezra 8:1-36

Here's the audio from this morning's sermon:

Click Here

This Week's White Horse Inn

Consumerism, Pragmatism, & the Triumph of the Therapeutic

This week on the White Horse Inn we had the opportunity to talk with Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith. He is the author of several books including Soul Searching and Souls in Transition. In his research Smith coined the phrase "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism" to describe the faith of most religious teens, and the religion he fears of their parents as well due to the failings of church leaders and parents to catechize and teach the doctrine of life in Christ.

Many churches in our day attempt to make their services relevant and entertaining in order to attract people in the marketplace of competing options. The focus often centers on practical lessons designed to help us cope with life’s problems. But what are the social and historic roots of this particular approach to ministry? Join us this week on the White Horse Inn as we discuss consumerism, pragmatism, and the therapeutic within the church.

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