Looking bad and looking to Jesus

Yesterday afternoon a well assembled fleet of volunteers helped Amy and I move out of our rented condo to a house. So until we get the place more liveable, or until our refrigerator arrives, we'll be staying with some good and hospitable friends. After spending a day of packing and unloading, we were quite tired but began to reflect with the other couple on the joys of raising children. 

As I read in Gospel Powered Parenting-and this was probably the best part of the book-parents and those involved in Christian Ed (Sunday school teachers, nursery or youth volunteers) parent and teach with eternity in view. Paul beautifully sums up this mission in Colossians 1:28: "that we may present everyone mature in Christ."

So while our goal for parenting and teaching is for the gospel to save our children and students from sin's punishment/power/presence, God's goal for children/students actually looks quite similar.

We were discussing how Connar would some day soon, if not already, make us look bad. That's a sad way of looking it at, but I think probably fairly accurate until we regularly repent. Part of his behavior will be our own shortcomings as parents and part will be his own strong will. Then Amy and I reflected on this with our present company and had these thoughts:

1.) Parenting/teaching will make us look bad (like Madonna pictured above), but the plus side of this is that we'll have to look elsewhere for our righteousness. Instead of looking to Connar to make us feel worthy, we have to look to Jesus for all (NOT JUST A GOOD PART OF IT) our righteousness and approval. So in some ways, children are just as influential in the parents/teachers grasp of the gospel as parents/teachers are influential in their children/students' grasp of the gospel.

2.) We all agreed that parents/teachers with children who are well behaved and look good on the outside will have a harder time not remembering Jesus' righteousness. Instead such parents will have to take special pains to keep from parading their children around as "poster children" and looking to them to find worth before others.  Such parents/teachers will remember their own hard work, prayer, study-and they should because these are necessary-but may forget the X factor: the work of the Holy Spirit. The longer I've been involved to some degree in children/youth/college ministry over the last 10 years, the only way to explain why kids get none/some/all of the gospel is the ministry of God's Spirit. So I guess that's a good place to start in prayer.

Getting back soon

Finally heading back to West Virginia after vacationing in sunny Florida for a little over a week. We'll hit the ground running by moving stuff into the new house and then closing on Friday. Hopefully I'll be back blogging again early next week.

Another reason I hate vampires

My family is enjoying some much appreciated, if not much needed rest and relaxation on vacation down in sunny Florida. But just when we thought we could relax on baby names, a stupid vampire movie had to come out and ruin everything. Last night at the dinner table my brother broke the bad news to me that "Cullen" has now become one of the most popular boy names due to it being the Vampire surname of one of the toothy protagonists.

So with that name most likely gone (I just don't want "Cullen" to be among a zillion other "Cullen's"), it's back to the drawing board. This is unfamiliar territory for Amy and I, since we had Connar picked out before we were even engaged. And let's just say there's not been quite the consensus on names this go around.

Well I guess the age old proverb is proved true, "Once you get a great boy name picked out, you always need to first check the box office to see if it will become too popular." I wonder why "Frodo" never took off with the Lord of the Rings trilogy?

Steve Jobs the Porn Nazi?

"No porn for you....," says Steve Jobs, well in so many words. He doesn't want porn to be available on his mobile devices, and is willing to hold his ground against many critics. This might not be enough for you to shell out the money for an apple product, but it certainly makes you think about it. While pornography is an offense to a holy God, it is also a sin against men, women, and children. I don't know if Jobs is a Christian or not, but if he isn't, 3 out of 4 isn't too bad, eh? Another example of how humanity might be Totally Depraved (inability to ultimately please God and choose Jesus), but not Utterly Depraved (as bad as we could possibly be), and so it is still able to do numerous socially "good" actions. And we should be thankful for this truth, especially for people in powerful positions.

Wine on a Saturday morning?

I had a glass of wine this past Saturday at 10 am. Now before you think I'm an alcoholic, let me explain. 

In I Corinthians Paul gives us a warning from the Lord about taking the Lord's Supper in an unworthy manner. It seems that some of the folks were hogging the bread, while others didn't get any, and some were apparently getting drunk (I Cor 11). So obviously they used real wine, and probably plenty of it-at least some did! Now I don't think I had I've ever been a part of a celebration of the Lord's Supper where I've even had the opportunity to overeat or get drunk. That is until Saturday, kind of.

At presbytery, the gathering of the PCA elders and pastors (Teaching elders) in a given geographic area-which for us is basically the whole state of WV-we celebrated the Lord's Supper in a different manner. Instead of small grape juice cups, we had an actual glass of wine: half-filled. 

I was actually sipping it even while we sang the concluding hymn. It was great.

This was quite a unique experience, and one which wouldn't jive in many places. And I get that (for alcoholics and logistics of larger churches who actually HAVE to get out of the movie theater by noon), and I'm not arguing it necessarily should. But I also wonder if maybe it shouldn't be too unique.....I wonder if it more closely resembles what Jesus intended when He instituted the Lord's Supper. A meal and a drink (that is bigger than a tiny communion cup).

One of the purposes for this church celebrating this sacrament in this way was clearly to give us a foretaste of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb at the end of time. Jesus alludes to a future meal of which this meal is but a foretaste (Matthew 26:29), and that is why they have wine glasses of grape juice and wine to get the "feeling" of a real meal.

Having a glass (half-full or half-empty depending on your perspective!) of wine certainly gave me a greater foretaste and got me more excited NOW of what is to come THEN. In fact, I'm still kind of excited. I really am.

Should your church ever happen to celebrate the Lord's Supper with a glass or small cup of wine, it is 100% more enjoyable when a decent bottle of wine is used as opposed to an officially Jewish wine called Manichewitz. Believe me, I know from experience.

Friday for Prophecy

When I preached my sermon "Stand in the place where you live" on Jonah 3 a few weeks ago for the conclusion of our missions week, I didn't really touch on something that has caused some confusion and perhaps heresy along the way. Since the prophets section in the Christian bible make up a decent, but largely mysterious part of the bible, I figured it might be worth revisiting a verse in Jonah:

"When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it."

There are a few questions which arise from this passage which will may help us understand the overall purpose of prophesy, and in turn the prophetic books, and ultimately the New Testament as well.

1.) Is Jonah a false prophet because what he said didn't come true? Because Moses reminded the people in Deuteronomy 18:22 that a false prophet's prophesy would not come true. That's one way you could tell he wasn't from the Lord. But prophesy isn't primarily for prediction but for covenant mediation. If the prophet prophesies disaster, destruction, or death, it is usually out of God's love, calling the people to repent. If they repent, then the disaster, destruction, or death could be averted, prolonged, or dismissed. 

As I was reading Jeremiah 18 this morning, I was reminded of one of this truth. A potter was doing his thing and making pots and made some different than others. By way of analogy, God said based upon the level of the repentance of the people, the ultimate Potter would determine how he should shape the pots (outcome). Even if the destruction of the city were prophesied, God could reverse that. And he often gave multiple chances for repentance and restoration. And if the success of the city were prophesied, and then they continued dwelling in sin, then it could be destroyed. That's why Nineveh was destroyed and you have what I call the "sequel" of Jonah: Nahum. This is about the prophesy of destruction of Nineveh. 

Why? They didn't continue in repentance but turned away from repentance/faith and fell into their previous sins of injustice and cruelty, among others.

The take away from seeing prophesy as covenant mediation and not primarily prediction is that you spend less time trying to match current events with OT prophesy and more time actually examining your own heart or the heart of your church and regularly repenting. Even when personal or corporate disaster seems certain, who knows, perhaps God would relent and bring about a change or revival? Some cal this the "Who Knows Principle?" David's son's life was not spared, but Hezekiah's life was prolonged even after direct, seemingly concrete prophesy of death.

Or when times are smooth sailing (church is doing well, family life is great, Bucs are back on top, etc....), we might not get lulled to sleep and neglect regular repentance like Nineveh and Jerusalem.

There are other questions like, "Does God really change his mind but not character?" and will be addressed another day. Definitely not a Friday.

Boy

There was a commercial-though I can't remember who it was for-that featured a man with an opportunity to receive a "collect" call from Bob Gottababieetzaboi. The man promptly did not accept that call and passed the info on to his wife. He said, "It was Bob, he had a baby, and its a boy." After the results of the ultra-sound yesterday, consider me Geoff Gottababieetzaboi.