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I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” Rom. 1:15-17

Dear Lord Jesus, even as Paul was eager to preach the gospel to believers in Rome, so I’m eager to preach it to my own heart today. There was a time when I thought the gospel was only for nonbelievers—simply the doorway for beginning a relationship with you. I now realize believers need the gospel just as much as non-believers. From beginning to end, our salvation is entirely dependent upon the grace, truth, and power of the gospel. Indeed, there’s nothing more than the gospel, there’s just more of the gospel.

So I praise you today, Lord Jesus, that you’ve already accomplished everything necessary to completely redeem us, and restore us to your image. You’re not primarily our model to follow; you’re our substitute to embrace—not our second chance, but the “second Adam.” You lived a life of perfect obedience on our behalf, fulfilling all the demands of God’s law for us. And when you died upon the cross, you became sin for us—completely exhausting God’s righteous judgment that stood against us. Hallelujah, many times over!

Through faith in you, I know for certain, that all of my sins have been forgiven—sins in the past, present and future; not just the 4% I’m aware of, but the other 96% as well. And I’ve also been given the gift of your perfect righteousness—as though every good thing you did, I did. Astonishing! God has already declared me to be righteous in his sight; and he cannot love me more than he does today, and he’ll never love me less.

In fact, because of your work for me, Lord Jesus, God now loves me just as much as he loves you, for he’s hidden my life in yours. Amazing! He’s adopted me as his child and placed his Spirit in my heart. The Holy Spirit constantly reminds me I’m God’s beloved child, because I’m so prone to forget. And he’s also present in my life to make me like you, Jesus, for I can no more change myself than I could’ve ever begun a relationship with God on my own.

As our great high priest, you are ever living to pray for us—praying what I would pray if I knew what you knew. As the resurrected and reigning King, you are working in all things for our good and your glory. All of history is bound up with your commitment to redeem your Bride from the nations and make all things new. Nothing is left to chance; all things are left to you!

One Day, (hopefully soon), you will return, Lord Jesus, and usher in the new heaven and new earth—the world of perfect peace, love and joy. My heart leaps and longs for that Day, when your people, every place and all things will exist for the praise of your glorious grace. Keep pressing this gospel into my heart. So very Amen I pray, in your priceless and peerless name.

*****

From Scotty Smith. HT: Collin Hansen

P.S. Scotty’s Everyday Prayers: 365 Days to a Gospel-Centered Faith is available on Kindle right now for $1.99. Get it!

Membership in a local church is a healthy and important part of living out our faith and serving Christ together. One cannot be joined with Christ by faith without also becoming part of Christ’s Body, the new humanity in Jesus, whom God has redeemed for himself, in whom he dwells by his Spirit, and through whom he displays his glory to the world. And our union with Christ and his universal Body is meant to be lived out in commitment to and communion with a local expression of that Body.

It is through our membership with a local church that we show our commitment and willing submission to the church’s leadership, care, and discipline—to the support and accountability of the rest of the body, and to the elders who have been called by God to shepherd and watch over our souls (Acts 20:28; Heb. 13:17). Membership helps align our hearts and vision with the local church’s vision, and enables us to participate fully in the life, fellowship, leadership, and direction of the church.

Yet not all are convinced of the importance of membership, or whether it’s the right step for them at this time or in this place.

When you’re new to an area, it’s a good idea to take some time to truly get to know a church before making a commitment. Don’t just passively observe during a worship service or two. Kick the tires, look under the hood, get to know the leadership, examine the doctrinal statement, participate in the life of the church.

Yet for a variety of reasons, a number of church-goers remain on the fringe for years, attending (even serving) but not joining a local church. It’s for this reason that I offer four invitations to you who remain on the fringe, in hopes of encouraging you to take the step of church membership.

To the Biblically Unconvinced:

You have heard the reasons for membership before, and have had friends invite you several times to become a church member, yet you remain skeptical of the whole idea. If all believers are members of Christ’s universal body, what’s the point of local church membership? Is the modern convention of church membership necessary, or even biblical?

I’ll admit it—there’s no chapter and verse citation that addresses the convention of church membership as we know it in the West. But that doesn’t mean the idea is absent from Scripture, nor that such a convention isn’t wise and even necessary in our present culture for the church to function as God has designed it to function. Consider just a few implications:

1. The pastoral responsibility of oversight implies some form of recognized membership. In Acts 20:28, Paul charges the elders at Ephesus to “Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.” Similarly, Peter says to the elders in 1 Peter 5:2, “Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, serving as overseers . . .” How can the elders and pastors know which sheep of God’s flock they are responsible to shepherd (and for whom they must give an account, cf. Heb. 13:17) without some form of recognized membership?
2. The practice of church discipline implies some form of recognized membership. One of the difficult but necessary aspects of oversight is disciplining members who are walking away from God in unrepentant sin. For the sake of the church’s holy witness, and as a warning against the deadly path they’re on, Paul instructs the church to “remove” or “expel” the unrepentant sinner (1 Cor. 5:2, 12-13; cf. Matt. 18:15-20). When he later speaks of restoring a repentant sinner, he says “the punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient for him,”—i.e., he need no longer suffer, but be forgiven. But in order to remove someone, or to speak in terms of a majority, there must be some form of recognized membership. 
3. The functions of guidance and accountability require some form of recognized membership. In the church, the shepherds are also sheep. Though they are set apart to lead the flock, they are still part of the flock, and therefore accountable to the flock as they follow the Chief Shepherd and head of the church, Jesus Christ. For instance, Paul speaks of the necessity of weighing charges against elders carefully, and rebuking those who persist in sin sharply, which requires the flock to raise those charges when necessary (1 Tim. 5:19-20). But how do the sheep know whom to hold accountable, or whom to pray for and submit to (cf. Heb. 13:17-18)? And which sheep should shepherds seek insight and feedback from as they lead the flock? Can anyone off the street walk into a meeting and vote? What if they don’t hold the confession of faith? And how will you know? Without some form of recognized membership, guidance and accountability in the church are impossible.

So though the precise form that membership takes may vary, some convention for recognizing membership seems both wise and necessary for churches who seek to fulfill their calling as the body of Christ.

To the Young and Transient:

You’re only going to be here for another couple years, or even less. Why go through the trouble of a membership process, or make a commitment you’re probably going to have to excuse yourself from when you graduate college, or otherwise move out of area?

Here are three reasons:

1. Just as youth and transience are no excuse for putting your Christian faith on hold, neither are they a good reason to put off the most basic relational commitment of the Christian faith—membership in a local body. You need your congregation. You were designed for gospel-centered community, and it’s in the context of such community that spiritual growth happens best. Moreover, the guidance and shepherd care of pastors, elders, and fellow church members is an indispensable resource for the significant decisions you’ll be making during this phase of life (e.g. career, college, spouse, etc.).
2. Your congregation needs you. Don’t think solely in terms of what benefit you’ll derive from membership, and don’t think that your youth or transience disqualifies you from making a significant impact for the kingdom (cf. 1 Tim. 4:12). Think about how you can uses the gifts God’s given you to contribute to the building up of the local body he’s placed you in for this season.
3. The sooner you learn how to function as a healthy, contributing, and submissive church member, the easier it will be to engage deeply in a new congregation later on. You’ll have a better sense of what to look for in a church, what to expect in terms of teaching, care, and relationship from their pastor and elders, and what ways you might contribute to your new church family.

To the Wounded and Wary:

You’ve recently been chewed up and spit out by another local body. Maybe you were a leader who bore the crushing weight of a conflict. Or maybe you turned to church leadership during a severe personal trial, only to feel neglected, dismissed, or even judged. And maybe this painful experience wasn’t so recent, but the scars are deep and still sensitive. You’re here now seeking respite and refuge, and the idea of membership triggers old wounds and creates all sorts of fear and anxiety.

First, you need to hear that being neglected, slandered, or mistreated by church leaders or fellow members is not okay. It’s sin—the kind of thing the shepherds and sheep of Israel were condemned for in Ezekiel 34. Second, you need to know that Jesus is not unfamiliar with your suffering. He knows what it’s like to be misunderstood, mistreated, and even abused. It pains him to watch his Body biting and devouring itself. Yet as the chief Shepherd, he took it all onto himself on the cross so you no longer have to bear the weight.

It’s okay to take some time to rest and heal. But it’s not a good idea to remain on the fringe forever. You were created for community, and God has appointed shepherds to care for you and help you bring the gospel to bear on all your life and relationships. Membership is an important way of availing yourself to that care, and an important step in learning to love and trust Christ’s Body again.

To the Uninformed or Embarrassed:

It’s not so much that you’re against the idea of membership; you simply had no idea it was important because no one has ever talked to you about it until now. And now that you’ve been a part of a local church for several years without having become a formal member, it’s kind of embarrassing to think about going in front of everyone when most of them assume you did this a long time ago.

First, it’s probably not your fault that you were uninformed. It is probably much more your leaders’ fault—and we’re trying to make that right at Westgate. Second, I understand the embarrassing aspect. I experienced the same thing when I was finally baptized—5 years after I became a Christian, while preparing to enter full-time ministry. But I encourage you not to let any sense of shame or embarrassment hinder you from following God’s call to submit yourself to a local body of believers. First, Christ has done away with your shame, taking it onto himself on the cross. Second, most of your fellow congregants will have nothing but joy and excitement over your membership.

WHERE DO I GO FROM HERE?

If you’ve been attending Westgate Church, and you’re looking to take the step of membership, or just explore the church further, please join us for our upcoming New Members Class, beginning Friday evening, May 31^st, and continuing Sunday mornings, June 2^nd through the 23^rd. Click here for more information.

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Today we have a rather sensitive but very significant topic before us: What does it mean to honor Jesus as King with respect to sex, marriage, and divorce? It’s a sensitive topic because it’s rather personal. And it’s an area in which so many of us have made mistakes, or have been directly affected by the mistakes of others. Some of us grew up in homes torn apart by marital unfaithfulness or divorce. Some of us are living in those homes right now. Some of us have been divorced. Perhaps we’re remarried, or maybe married to a divorced person—and some of those divorces were not for the right reasons. Some of us are involved sexually with someone who is not our spouse. Some of us just dream and think about that. This passage is going to raise some uncomfortable questions that touch each of us in one way or another.

It’s a sensitive topic. Yet it’s also a very significant topic, because contrary to popular opinion, marriage, sex, and divorce are not just ideas out there up for grabs. Jesus has an opinion on them. In fact, he not only has the authority to determine what purpose and shape they should take, but also to judge those who ignore or overturn his design or purpose for marriage and sex. I don’t think many of us believe that today. And yet right here, as Jesus lays out his vision for life in his kingdom, under his authority as King of heaven and earth, he gives us his decree: that marriage is a holy covenant, that sex is a holy activity—both having been designed by God and for God and his kingdom purposes.

My prayer here is that we would deal sensitively with this topic, recognizing that we’re all sinners in need of grace. And yet that we would deal seriously with it—that to whatever extent we’ve ignored or overturned or rewritten God’s rule, his vision for marriage and sex—that we would be convicted by his Spirit, and that we would be strengthened by the same Spirit to repent, to turn away from our sin, and to joyfully follow Jesus.

The Heart of the Law and the Kingdom of God

We’ve been going through the Gospel of Matthew at Westgate Church for a few months, and this passage is part of the famous Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7). Jesus began his sermon with what’s called the beatitudes—the family portrait of life under his rule and reign. After reminding us that the purpose of that portrait is to show the world what God is like, Jesus then transitioned to connect the dots between that opening portrait and ancient Israel’s Law, found in the Old Testament. Jesus wants to show how what he’s saying doesn’t overturn God’s law, which God had already given to his covenant people, Israel. Rather, Jesus and his kingdom bring God’s law to fulfillment. The whole thing was pointing to this.

He also wants to point out a significant difference between how his kingdom and how the religious leaders in his day (groups like the scribes and Pharisees, cf. Matt. 5:20) handled God’s law. The scribes and the Pharisees were content to keep their obedience on the surface, where everyone could see it and praise them for it. They would keep the letter of the law, and announce it with trumpets and post it on Facebook. But it didn’t come from the heart, and therefore it didn’t really reflect the purpose of the law. It wasn’t real; it was show.

But Jesus goes below the surface. Just as the law itself is but the tip of the iceberg expressing God’s character underneath, so obedience to the law must go below the surface. True righteousness comes from a heart changed by the gospel. So Jesus says in Matthew 5:20, “For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” And from that verse to the end of the chapter, Jesus offers six corrections to the way the religious leaders of his day handled God’s law, forcing us to drill beneath the surface—beneath the surface of the law to see the heart and purposes of God, and beneath the surface of our own lives, to expose our hearts and show us what it looks like to truly honor Jesus as King.

Last week Pastor Bruce Daggett showed us how keeping the sixth commandment (“You shall not murder,” Exod. 20:13) is not about checking the box that says, “Yeah, I have never physically done that,” but about the posture of our hearts toward one another. To call someone “Fool” is to be liable to the same kind of judgment as killing them. What goes on in the heart matters just as much as what happens with our hands.

The two sections that we’re looking at here (5:27-30 / 5:31-32) deal generally with the seventh commandment from the Old Testament: “You shall not commit adultery” (Exod. 20:14). Notice how that word comes up in both sayings, specifically in vv. 27-28: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” And then again in v. 32: “But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.”

Adultery and the Purpose of Marriage

By adultery, the Bible is talking about engaging in sexual activity with someone other than your spouse, or with someone else’s spouse. It is a breaking of the marital covenant, and under the Mosaic Law it was punishable by death (cf. Lev. 20:10). And the reason that the punishment for adultery is so severe is because marriage and sex are so holy in God’s design. Marriage is a holy covenant; sex is a holy activity. Both were designed by God, for God and his kingdom purposes. They are holy to him—which means, by the way, that he has the right to say what they’re for and how they should be shared in and enjoyed.

To treat something as holy, means you recognize its purpose, and you respect its value. We don’t typically use the word ‘holy’ to describe things in our households, but we do this on a small scale every day. There are items in our home that we attribute special value to and use just for special purposes. For instance, you don’t drain your lawn mower oil into the crystal salad bowl. Neither do you toss the china into the trashcan when you’re done with supper. There’s a big difference between china and Chinette—and the wise husband will not get them confused. One is a family treasure, the other is just trash when you’re done. One has a special purpose—you don’t eat on it every day, but for special occasions like an anniversary or holiday meal. And it has a precious value—you don’t just toss it into the dishwasher, you place it gently so there’s minimal clanging and bumping so that it doesn’t get chipped. And to recognize its special purpose and respect its precious value is to treat it as holy, if you will.

So it is that marriage and sex have a special purpose and a precious value, which have been assigned by God himself. Marriage was God’s idea, and within marriage, sex. Look at Genesis 2:20-24:

. . . But for Adam no suitable helper was found. ²¹ So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. ²² Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. ²³ The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman, ‘for she was taken out of man.” ²⁴ For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. (Gen. 2:20b-24)

So God is the author of marriage. He designed it for the deepest level of companionship and completion, not least for our calling to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth (Gen. 1:28). According to God’s design, marriage is a permanent, exclusive, and public commitment between one man and one woman to share every part of their lives with each other. It is a holy institution, and within marriage, sex is a holy activity—the consummation of that deepest union and commitment within human relationships. There is no other relational context in which sexual activity is ever permissible in Scripture than marriage between a man and woman.

But as beautiful and important as all that is, the purpose and value of marriage go far beyond the human plane. They were designed by God not merely for oneness and commitment at the human level, but as a display of God’s steadfast commitment to us, and as a foreshadowing of our spiritual union with Christ.

When the apostle Paul is giving instructions on how husbands and wives are to treat each other in Ephesians 5, he continually ties the various roles in marriage to how they display our relationship with God. “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church” (Eph. 5:25). “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord” (5:21). And then he comes right out and says it in Eph. 5:32: “This mystery is profound—but I am talking about Christ and the church.”

In other words, the love that we express to one another in marriage, the sacrificial love, the covenant loyalty, is designed to be a living sermon to each other and to the world of what Christ is like and how he relates to his people. Just as Jesus laid his life down for us on the cross to rescue us from our sins, so husbands are to reflect that love to their wives, laying their lives down and serving them and pointing them to Christ. Just as God will never leave nor forsake his people, so the permanence and commitment of marriage is to reflect his undying love and commitment. Our marriages represent Christ.

And within marriage, as Jay Thomas and Gerald Hiestand explain, “God created sex to serve as a living portrait of the life-changing spiritual union that believers have with God through Christ.”[1] Just as the husband and wife become one in sex, so through faith in Jesus we are united with God in the most intimate spiritual way (see 1 Cor. 6:15-17). Which is why one of the most common metaphors for unfaithfulness to God in the Old Testament was adultery and prostitution. Jeremiah 3:9 says, “Because Israel’s immorality mattered so little to her, she defiled the land and committed adultery with stone and wood.” Her idolatry, bowing down to false gods of stone and wood, was spiritual adultery. They broke their covenant with God.

Marriage and sex are designed to display God’s covenant faithfulness and our spiritual union with him. God’s commands about the exclusivity, permanence, love, and loyalty of marriage and sex reflect God’s “single-minded connection and devotion to his bride”—the church.[2] And when sex is removed from marriage, or when marriage is broken and dissolved, what happens to the picture? The picture is ruined, the purpose is thwarted, and the value is despised. The wine flutes used to celebrate the wedding day toast become a bedpan, and we chuck the whole thing out the window. And of course, not only is the picture destroyed, but the lives of those through whom it was displayed. And so God prohibits adultery because of the holiness of marriage and sex.

Now come back to our passage in Matthew 5. It’s not as though the scribes and Pharisees were okay with adultery. They all agreed that it was wrong (unlike our culture today, which tends to be rather unimpressed with the sin). They just thought they could keep the letter of the law on the surface while ignoring the heart underneath. Jesus takes significant issue with this. And it’s important to note that Jesus’ criticism in this passage is not against the world around us. That’s easy enough to do. There’s no question that this world has gone insane with respect to sex and marriage. But that’s not Jesus’ concern here. His concern is the extent that that insanity has overtaken his people—the people who claim to be part of God’s kingdom. The problem here is not merely ignoring or overturning God’s purposes, but thinking that one can do that and still be okay with God. In other words, as we look at this passage, our first response should not be to wave a finger at the world around us in its godless trajectory (godless as much of it is). Our first response should be to search our own hearts, and invite God to do so as we look at his Word.

There are two ways the religious leaders were overturning the holiness of marriage through their surface-level obedience; two ways that we are tempted to do likewise today. The first is with respect to lust.

Adultery and Lustful Desire

Verse 27: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matt. 5:27-28). See again the depth at which Jesus is operating; the depth of his concern—the heart.

This may seem prudish to some. What’s the problem with looking? As one of the women’s basketball coaches at my high school once said to a friend of mine, “I figure I can read the menu as long as I don’t order.” No harm done, right?

But it’s this very sentiment that Jesus is correcting. The problem here is not noticing an attractive person, or even feeling the impulse of lust when you see someone attractive. The problem is following that impulse. Feeding it with your imagination. Looking, as the ESV puts it, “with lustful intent.”

Neither is the problem sexual desire itself. Again, sex was God’s idea, and the desires that go with it. And within the context of marriage, those desires are a very happy and holy thing. They are pure desires. The problem is when we feed those desires outside of marriage and direct them toward someone that doesn’t belong to us—someone we’re not bound to by the holy covenant of marriage. So you might think of lust as sexual covetousness. To covet something is to want for yourself what rightfully belongs to someone else. It’s not wrong to want for yourself what is yours. It is wrong to want what belongs to someone else. Lust is wanting someone sexually who doesn’t belong to you. Whether we direct those desires toward someone we see on the street, or on the cover of a magazine in the checkout line, or toward the women who are objectified and dehumanized through the porn industry. And though we may never touch the person, to desire them sexually is to commit adultery with them in our hearts. It removes sex and sexual desire from the holy bond of marriage, thwarting the purpose and cheapening the value. Moreover, lust is one of those secret sins that we try to hide, but that eats away our souls from the inside. And it sets us up for greater failure. As Kent Hughes, writes, “Sensual sins are preceded by sensual fantasies. . . . No sensual sin was ever committed that was not first imagined.”[3]

It is not enough to say that one can honor Jesus as King with respect to marriage, and still feed our lustful desires. We must repent and turn away from lust and turn to Jesus instead. We’ll talk more about that in a minute.

Adultery and Divorce

The second way that the religious leaders in Jesus’ day thought they could keep the letter of the law and honor God and marriage, but still get what they wanted out of life and sex, was by making sure they filled out the proper paperwork for divorce. Verse 31: “It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’”

Here Jesus is quoting Deuteronomy 24:1, part of God’s law. But what he’s challenging is not the law itself, but what the religious leaders were doing with it. Later in Matthew 19, some of the Pharisees tested Jesus by asking him “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” or “for any cause?” (Matt. 19:3). In other words, what are the legitimate grounds for divorce? Their question reflects a debate between two schools of thought among the Pharisees, some of whom thought the only proper ground for divorce was sexual sin, others who thought it could be something as trite as burning dinner. We have our own lists today: ‘I don’t love her anymore.’ ‘I’ve found someone else.’ ‘We got married too young.’ ‘My expectations were too unrealistic.’

But Jesus says to them, ‘You’ve missed the point. Go back to the beginning. Look again at God’s design.’ Matthew 19:4-6: “‘Haven’t you read,’ he replied, ‘that at the beginning the Creator “made them male and female,” and said, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh”? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.” Because if you do, the picture is ruined, the purpose is thwarted, the value is despised, and lives are destroyed. So stop trying to find loopholes, Jesus says, and start being faithful to the promise you made before God and man, and the very purpose and value of your marriage.

Now the Pharisees still want to know, “‘Why then . . . did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?’ Jesus replied, ‘Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness [or sexual immorality], and marries another woman commits adultery’” (Matt. 19:7-9). In other words, divorce was not part of the design, but because we live in a sinful and fallen world, it was a concession made in order to protect the divorced wife.

In the ancient world, an adult woman’s means of support was pretty much contingent on being married. If her husband should for some reason divorce her, Moses wanted a document stating so, so that she could be free to remarry and be provided for. Without a document proving the divorce, who would marry her and risk being killed for adultery? It was a concession made in order to protect the vulnerable.

But as Sinclair Ferguson clarifies, “A law that was clearly intended to safeguard the women in Israel was turned into an escape clause for self-indulgent men.”[4] And Jesus will have none of it. That is not true righteousness because it does not come from a heart that reflects God’s character and purposes. Simply going through the motions and filling out the right paperwork doesn’t mean you’re keeping the heart of the law. In fact, Jesus says in both Matthew 5:32 and 19:9, that if you divorce your wife without proper cause, and she remarries someone else, you make her an adulterer. Because she should still be married to you. And if you, in a similar way, marry a divorced woman, you commit adultery, because that woman should still be married to her husband.

But notice I said “without proper cause.” Though there is disagreement among pastors and scholars, I believe that there are two clear exceptions in Scripture in which divorce is not sinful. It’s always caused by sin, but it is not always sinful. And if it can be said that the divorce is permissible, then I believe that in such cases, remarriage is permissible as well, since the whole purpose of divorce in Deuteronomy 24 was to free the woman for remarriage.[5] Paul deals with one exception in 1 Corinthians 7, when a non-believing spouse abandons a believing spouse (cf. 1 Cor. 7:12-16). And Jesus deals with the other, here in Matthew 5 and later in ch. 19—namely, sexual immorality.

And I think he retains this exception for the same reasons Moses made a concession in Deuteronomy 24: for the protection of the vulnerable. Divorce is not required in cases of sexual immorality or adultery. Forgiveness and reconciliation is always preferable, even as God sought after his wayward wife—that is, you and me, as we give our worship and devotion to things other than God. And yet because we are still in a fallen world, waiting for the final wedding supper of the Lamb, divorce is permissible in cases of sexual immorality, where one party has broken the covenant through sexual activity with someone else (including, but not limited to intercourse).  And sadly, there are times when a vulnerable spouse needs such protection—the wife whose husband can’t stop sleeping with every new client he meets. The husband whose wife decides to up and leave to be with another man. This is not the way it’s supposed to be, and anyone who has experienced it will be the first to tell you so. Yet because of the hardness of our hearts, that exception remains.

Marriage is a holy covenant, and sex is a holy activity. It was designed by God, for God and his kingdom purposes. And so we look at all of this, and who among us stands innocent? Whether our adultery takes a literal form, or the form of looking lustfully at someone, or perhaps the form of an inappropriate divorce and remarriage? How do we, with unclean hands and impure hearts, dare draw near to God, or call Jesus King? How do we honor Jesus as King with respect to marriage and sex?

Adultery and the Gospel

This is where we must remember again what the whole purpose of marriage is—what it’s all about. Even though we are so often and in so many ways unfaithful, Jesus Christ, our bridegroom, will remain faithful to the end. He is the great King who crossed the divide between heaven and earth to slay the dragon and win his bride. And he did so at the price of his own life. On the cross he took every lustful glance, every bitter word, every broken promise, every act of adultery—physical, emotional, or spiritual—onto himself to pay the death penalty we deserved, and to cleanse us of our sin and unite us with him. Ephesians tells us that Christ, our bridegroom, “loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless” (Eph. 5:25-27). Through faith in Jesus we are forgiven, we are cleansed and purified, we are united with God in the most intimate way possible. Through our union with Jesus we are poised to treat marriage and sex with the honor and respect they deserve—to recognize their holy purpose, to cherish their special value, and so honor Jesus as King.

And so if you are married, I want to say this to you today: Stay married.[6] Cherish your marriage and nurture it. Spend time together in God’s Word and prayer. Get time away from the kids. Younger couples, spend time with older couples, learning from them. Older couples, take the younger couples’ kids off their hands once in a while so they have time to get away. Think about the promises you made, and think about God’s covenant commitment to you, and by his grace seek to reflect that faithfulness and love to each other. And if you need help, get help. There’s no shame in that. If you’re thinking about divorce, slow down and talk to someone who’s going to counsel you from the gospel of Jesus.

If you are divorced because your spouse committed sexual immorality, or else denies the faith and has abandoned you, I want you to know that our hearts break for you. It’s not right for you to be treated that way. We don’t look down on you, and don’t want anyone to look down on you as though you’re the sinner when in fact you’ve been sinned against. We love you and want to come alongside you, to be family for you, and help you find healing in Jesus Christ.

If you are divorced and you shouldn’t be, perhaps even remarried now, but your divorce was not caused by sexual immorality or having been abandoned by a non-believer, I want to say this to you: we love you too, and there is forgiveness with repentance. Sinful divorce is no small offense—to tear asunder what God has joined together. But neither is it the unpardonable sin. If that is your situation, then I think repentance means acknowledging your sin for what it is, seeking forgiveness from those against whom you committed it, and remaining as you are. That’s what Paul indicates in 1 Corinthians 7. If single, don’t pursue remarriage unless it’s with your former spouse. If remarried, don’t add the sin of divorce to a sinful remarriage. Confess, seek forgiveness, remain as you are, and find grace and forgiveness in the gospel.

To everyone—single, married, divorced, remarried—I want to say this: honor the holiness of marriage, and flee from sexual immorality. Do not cozy up to it and see how close you can get to it without getting burned. Fight. Fight with all the power of God’s Spirit and all the vigilance of fighting for life itself. It’s not always easy. It is often a grueling battle that requires prayer and accountability, and that calls for radical steps of obedience. Listen to Jesus’ exhortation in Matthew 5:29-30:

If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.

That’s an incredibly graphic image. And while Jesus is obviously using hyperbole, we don’t want to lose the gravity or urgency of what he says. Marriage and sex are that holy—honoring them require that kind of radical action—not mutilation, but what Paul calls “mortification.” John Stott offers a helpful clarification and application on this point:

‘Mortification’ or ‘taking up the cross’ to follow Christ means to reject sinful practices so resolutely that we die to them or put them to death. What does this involve in practice? Let me elaborate and so interpret Jesus’ teaching: “If your eye causes you to sin because temptation comes to you through your eyes (objects you see), then pluck out your eyes. That is, don’t look! Behave as if you had actually plucked out your eyes and flung them away, and were now blind and so could not see the objects which previously caused you to sin. Again, if your hand or foot causes you to sin, because temptation comes to you through your hands (things you do) or your feet (places you visit), then cut them off. That is: don’t do it! Don’t go! Behave as if you had actually cut off your hands and feet, and had flung them away, and were now crippled and so could not do the things or visit the places which previously caused you to sin.” That is the meaning of “mortification.”[7]

Honoring Jesus as King with respect to marriage and sex calls for radical repentance, and radical dependence on the gospel of Jesus. “What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. . . . This is all my hope and peace . . . This is all my righteousness. Nothing but the blood of Jesus.”[8]

Hours later, came the sober and shocking reminder that we still live in a fallen world—a world filled with what the psalmist simply calls “trouble.” There’s evidence enough of that every day. But tragedies like this get our attention in a special way. That’s why we can often remember where we were when we first heard the news about these kinds of events. Just getting out of class in Richards Hall my freshman year of college when I heard from a former classmate about the Columbine shooting. Sitting in the dentist’s chair watching the news while the second tower fell to the ground on 9/11. Heading home for lunch when I heard on the radio that the department store my sister-in-law worked at in Omaha, Van Maur, had been shot up, and there were several casualties. And you grab the phone, and you pray, “Lord, don’t let it be Jessica.”

This post is from my sermon delivered at Westgate Church on April 21, 2013. To download the audio or notes, click the icon.

Many of you grabbed your phones on Monday, and prayed, trying to locate friends and family. Friends and family from around the country tried to locate you. And the fear that grips you in that moment. The uncertainty. The sudden realization that we’re not as safe as we thought we were, and we’re not really in control of any of this. Our hearts are flooded with fear—the fear of losing someone you love, the fear of life never being the same again, the fear of pain, even death.

We breathed a sigh of relief on Friday night, as the last of the suspects was apprehended. And we praise God for the incredible work of our local and federal authorities. But we’re still left with some unsettling questions. What do we do with all this? How do we make sense of it all when tragedy strikes so close to home? When the earth seems to give way around us, like it did on Monday? When it’s not just happening on the TV in some other part of the world, but in the city we love, on the streets we walk on, in the neighborhoods we live in?

The psalm that we’re looking at this morning is very honest about how this world is filled with trouble. With disaster and tragedy. How it does not work the way it is supposed to. And yet, how amid that chaos, amid the crises, there is hope, there is stability, there is security so strong that we need not live in fear. A hope and security that come not from within us, but from the presence of the God who is with us.

The Tragic Presence of Trouble

When this song was written, what we call Psalm 46, God’s ancient covenant people, Israel, were facing a deep and tragic trouble. We don’t know precisely what that was, and I think that the author did that on purpose. Because this song was written not just for Israel’s trouble, but for our trouble—for any trouble God’s people may face in life.

The imagery he uses to describe it is quite dramatic. In vv. 2-3, he describes it in language of natural disaster: the earth giving way, mountains falling into the sea, the waters roaring and foaming and overtaking the earth, the mountains quaking—it’s the imagery of creation being undone. Of chaos. And it’s a good description of what so many experienced at the finish line on Monday—the earth giving way beneath them, a city trembling, shaking, at the shock of the explosion, and the senseless loss of life.

The second imagery that the psalmist uses also captures the situation rather dramatically. In v. 6, we see Jerusalem, the city of God, the city of his holy temple, the place of King David’s throne, being attacked by foreign nations. Just as the waters roared in v. 3, so the nations roar in v. 6 (same word); just as the mountains fall in v. 2, so kingdoms fall in v. 6 (same word). It’s a picture of violence and warfare that sets an entire city on edge.

And that picture touches even closer to home. There was nothing natural about this week’s disaster. It was an act of evil, intent on wounding and terrorizing the people of this city, and all the guests gathered from across the globe, right under the view of the watching world. This was an act of terrorism.

We call it terrorism because that is what it seeks to do—strike terror and fear into our hearts. And to be honest, it often works. We’re thankful that the present threat has been removed, but we spent much of the past week in fear—the unknown of who did it for the first few days, and then the fear of knowing the perpetrators are hiding in some of our neighborhoods. We fear for our safety. We fear losing those close to us. We fear the loss of life as we know it.

Several of the early reactions captured in the local papers express this very fear. A local Natick man told reporters he was afraid the Marathon he knew was gone. The bombers “had stolen it.” “It’s never going to be the same,” he said. “Once something like this happens, nothing goes back. Not like the way it was.”[1] The world is different now.

One letter to the editor in the Taunton Daily Gazette asked, “Can we ever truly feel safe again?” The author, who lives in Quincy, writes:

What has become of our society? I ask this question because I don’t have the answer. . . . In the ’70s I remember walking to school just a few blocks away from home when I was 6 with my 8-year-old brother, something that just doesn’t happen anymore. As a young boy of 9 or 10, I felt safe and secure in my home, in my city, in my state and in my country. Monday was just another example of how times have changed. . . . When and where will we ever feel safe again?[2]

And I think this man speaks for so many of us as we try to process all that has happened this week. When and where will we ever feel safe again? This question is the brick wall we crash into when it dawns on us how unstable, unpredictable, and unsafe the world we live in really is—a safety that we can no longer take for granted. This is the insecurity of life in a fallen and broken world, surrounded by other humans who, just like us, are corrupted by sin.

When we speak of living in a fallen or broken world, or say that all humans are corrupted by sin, we’re not saying that it’s as bad as it could possibly be, or we’re as bad as we could possibly be. In many ways the heroic actions of the first responders on Monday outshined the darkness and evil of the bombers. Rather, what we’re saying is this is not the way it’s supposed to be. When God created this world it was good. When he created humans, he made us in his image—to know and love him as a child loves a father, and to reflect his love to the world. But when the first humans chose to doubt God’s love, and to disagree with what he said was good or not good, and decided instead that they should call the shots, that they should be king instead of God—that’s when what we call ‘sin’ entered the world. Rebellion against God, high treason against the king of heaven. And the result of that rebellion was judgment for sin—death, and eternal death. Instead of enjoying the blessing God created us for, humanity brought God’s curse upon themselves—and not just on themselves, but on the very fabric of God’s good creation (cf. Gen. 1-3).

And so it is that the world doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to. It is fallen, broken, stained, corrupt. We see it in the torn fabric of creation—diseases that ravage our bodies, natural disasters that devastate lives. Tragedies like the fire and explosion at the fertilizer plant in West, Texas, on Thursday that has claimed at least 14 lives, with 60 people still missing.[3]

We see it in humanity’s ability to accomplish great evil—the atrocities of war, genocide, murder, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and of course, terrorism. The evil that killed Krystle Campbell, Martin Richard, and Lingzi Lu, and injured 176 others, resulting in at least 13 amputations. The evil that took the life of 26-year-old police office Sean Collier at MIT, and severely wounded Officer Richard Donahue. And an evil that stretches far beyond Boston. On the same day as the marathon bombing that claimed 3 lives, 55 people were killed across Iraq in a string of coordinated bombings,[4] and another 27 died on Thursday from a bomb in a coffee shop in Baghdad.[5] What we experience as a momentary shock and national tragedy is daily life for far too many in this world.

And yet the fallenness of this world is much, much closer than any of us would like to admit. The same sin that drove these men to do what they did lies in every human heart. But for the grace of God, there go I. Though we may not as bad as we might be (by God’s common grace), every thing we do still bears the mark of the fall in some way—whether it’s our subtle pride when we do good, our selfish motives, our grumbling or bitterness, perhaps even our idolatry of treating something other than God as our ultimate thing. We’re all affected by sin, and we all participate in it. And as long as there is sin in this world, there will be trouble.

The Hope and Security of God’s Presence

But as honest as this psalm is about the problems that mark this fallen world, the note it sounds again and again is not one of fear, but of hope and security. But not just a hope and security in our circumstances—“the threat is removed, we can sleep well tonight.” And not just a hope and security in our own strength and resolve—“we’re Boston Strong; we’ll get through this.” But a hope and security deeper and more stable than anything our circumstances or city can provide: the hope and security of God’s very presence with his people.

This is the central message of this psalm—that God is present with his people to protect them in all trouble. Verse 1: “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.” Verse 7: “The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.” And verse 11 is identical to it: “The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.” God is with his people to protect us. He is our refuge—the place we turn to for shelter amid the storm. He is our fortress, the place we run to for protection and safety when this world wars against us.

We see God’s presence depicted in this psalm in the temple of ancient Jerusalem, “the holy place where the Most High dwells,” the picture of living waters flowing from God’s presence to his people (46:4-5). The temple was the place where Israel went on earth to speak with God in heaven. It was the place that represented God’s covenant promises to bless his people in the land and to dwell with them. Verse 5 tells us, “God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day.” And from Jerusalem, God’s protective presence for his people extended to the ends of the earth. The temple stood as a reminder of God’s promise to be with his people.

But as we follow the story of the Bible we see that all the promises of God’s blessing and protection and presence represented by Jerusalem point forward to a day when God himself would come down to earth. They point to the incarnation of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, who was called “Immanuel,” which means “God with us” (Matt. 1:23). All that God promises about his presence and protection in the ancient temple is available to us today through faith in Jesus Christ—in his life, death, and resurrection. When God’s people look for God’s presence today, we don’t look for a building on the other side of the world that was destroyed thousands of years ago; we look to Jesus Christ—God with us—God for us. We look to the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us. The Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us on the cross to rescue us from all sin and redeem us for God. The one who rose from the dead in victory over the grave, and who sent the Holy Spirit to dwell in us that he might be “with us to the very end of the age” (Matt. 28:20).

So in what ways is God our refuge amid the trouble? What does that security and protection look like? First, it means that the God who made us is close enough and powerful enough to protect us and to rescue us from harm. Verse 1 says he is a present help in trouble. He’s near; he’s accessible. He’s not far off, somewhere way out there beyond the stars, just out of earshot of his people. God is everywhere at all times, and especially close to his people—to hear us, to protect us, and to rescue us. The Lord Almighty is with us.

For all the trauma of this past week, there are also countless stories of God’s protection and intervention. From an “untenable crowd” that thwarted the Brocks and Ozunas from being able to reach the finish line to watch the race, to the television set that intercepted a bullet that might have penetrated Pastor Steve McAlpin’s bedroom during Thursday night’s shoot out in Watertown, God answers prayer to protect his people.

God is present to protect us from experiencing trouble. But second, he is also with us when trouble strikes. Psalm 46 doesn’t actually promise us there will be less trouble, but it does promise us that, in Jesus, we are never alone in our trouble. The waters will still rage, the nations will still roar, until our Lord returns. But he has not left us as orphans; and he is not unfamiliar with our suffering (cf. John 14:18; Heb. 4:15-16).

Jesus knows what it’s like to ridiculed, rejected, and mocked. He’s knows what it’s like to slandered and ignored. He knows what it’s like to be betrayed by those closest to him, to be falsely accused, wrongfully imprisoned, and unjustly condemned. To be beaten and brutally murdered as a public spectacle for others. More than that, we knows personally and intimately the trouble you face—the disease, the fear, the rejection, the terror—for on the cross your trouble became his trouble. Just as your sin became his sin, that he might pay the debt we owed and fully exhaust his Father’s holy anger against our sin, so also your sorrow and suffering became his sorrow and suffering—he bore it in our place, to bear the weight for us, and free us from its effects—in part now, and fully when he returns.

He is not only with us to sympathize and to bear our trouble on our behalf, but third, his presence provides a security and safety that nothing on this earth can shake.

Cities can be shaken, quite literally. Kingdoms and nations can be shaken. Businesses can falter, bank accounts can be drained, relationships can be broken, bodies and minds can fail us. When the world around us is rocked, these are the very things we tend to cling to (quite ironically)—our own strength and resolve. Even in the aftermath of Monday’s bombing, this is much of the message we heard.

“Nothing can defeat the heart of this city,” we were told by Mayor Menino. “Nothing will take us down because we take care of one another.”[6] President Obama told us “Your resolve is the greatest rebuke to whoever committed this heinous act. If they sought to intimidate us, to terrorize us, to shake us from . . . the values that make us who we are, as Americans—well, it should be pretty clear by now that they picked the wrong city to do it.”[7]

While I want to add my voice of praise for the strength and resolve of this city—for the courage of the first responders, moving toward the wounded with the possibility of further bombs; the care and expertise of the medical personnel who cared around the clock for the victims; the tireless and dauntless effort of local, state, and national authorities in identifying and tracking down the criminals who committed this evil crime; the selfless cooperation of the public, the support of our President; the solidarity of cities and people across the country and across the world—there is so much to be thankful for. I agree with Governor Patrick when he said that “the grace this tragedy exposed is the best of who we are.”[8] This is a great city, a strong city, and I’m proud to be a part of it.

But the reality is that none of these things can restore the deceased victims to their families. None of it can undo the pain of the tragedy. And none of it can actually protect us from something like this happening again. We are no safer today than we were last Monday morning, before anyone knew what was about to happen. And if we put our ultimate hope and security in things on this earth that can be shaken, we set ourselves up for devastation and disappointment.

But there is a God who can raise the dead, and who promises to do so on the last day. There is a King whose death on the cross was enough to cover all our sins—your sin, my sin, even Dzhokhar’s sin. There is a kingdom that cannot be shaken, a heavenly city that no bomb can touch, and no terror can overcome (cf. Heb. 12:28). There is, as the Apostle Peter describes it, “an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Pet. 1:4-5, ESV). And at the center of it all is the God who made us, the God who rules over us in justice and goodness, in holiness and love, the God who sent his eternal Son to save us, the God who is with us by the Holy Spirit, if Jesus is our Savior and King.

God alone is able to make wars cease to the ends of the earth, to break the bow and shatter the spear, and burn the shields with fire (Ps. 46:9). And though this world may take away from us all that we hold dear on earth—our way of life, our loved ones, even our own lives, it cannot take us away from God. Not if we belong to Jesus. And it cannot take from us our inheritance in heaven—the coming new creation where God himself will dwell finally and fully in the midst of his people, when all wrongs will be brought to justice, and his peace will triumph over all. Where “He will wipe away every tear from [our] eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Rev. 21:4, ESV).

God is present with his people to protect us in all trouble. There is hope and security available, even in a fallen world. And for that reason, we need not clamor for control amid the chaos, nor live out our days in fear or terror of what might happen.

The Peace of God’s Presence

Look with me again at v. 1: “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging” (Ps. 46:1-3). If God is with us, and if he is stronger than the chaos and trouble of this world, if there is nothing in this world that can separate his people from his love (cf. Rom. 8:31-39), then we need not live in fear. Even though trouble comes; “the Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress” (46:7, 11).

We need not live in fear, nor clamor for control amid the chaos. Look at vv. 8-10: “Come and see the works of the LORD, the desolations he has brought on the earth. He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters the spear, he burns the shields with fire. ‘Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth’” (Ps. 46:8-10).

If God is the one who can put down evil, and who will be faithful to establish his purposes in the end, to exalt his name over every nation, to display his glory and reclaim his fallen world… In other words, if God is God, then we don’t have to be. We can be still. We can cease striving, stop clamoring as though the fate of the whole world lay on our shoulders. That doesn’t mean we don’t work hard to fight against injustice and violence. That doesn’t mean that we don’t want or value the highly skilled authorities who did such an excellent job providing civic protection. But it means that we keep in mind all the while who it is that’s actually able to do something about the situation. It means that our trust is not ultimately in horses or chariots, in tanks and armored cars (Ps. 20:7); it’s not in the resolve of our city, or the strength within our hearts. It’s in God. He will be exalted among the nations. He will be exalted in the earth.

If Jesus is your Savior and King, if you have recognized the wickedness of your sin, and turned to Jesus in faith, trusting in what he has done to rescue you through his life, death, and resurrection in your place, then take heart. “In this world you will have trouble,” Jesus says. “But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Fear not, and rest in Jesus. Cry out to him in prayer. Let his presence calm your heart and give you perspective. And let his gospel shape your response to tragedies like this—both with an honesty that calls sin and evil what it is, but with a compassion and grace that flows freely from the cross. Pray for your enemies.

If you’re reading this, but your heart is unsettled, or perhaps locked in anger or fear, or hardened with indifference, because you know deep down that you do not have the peace that this psalm is talking about because you do not know Jesus as Savior and King—then take Jesus. Cast your life and faith on him. And find the hope and security that nothing in this world can shake or take away. Find the peace and rest of knowing that God is God, that he is with us by his Spirit, and he has conquered sin and death by the blood of his Son, Jesus Christ, and that he will be exalted in the end. And rest joyfully in him.

May all of us heed the words of 1 Peter 5:6-11:

Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.

God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,
though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble at its swelling. Selah
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy habitation of the Most High.
God is in the midst of her;
she shall not be moved;
God will help her when morning dawns.
The nations rage, the kingdoms totter;
he utters his voice, the earth melts.
The LORD of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah
Come, behold the works of the LORD,
how he has brought desolations on the earth.
He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
he breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
he burns the chariots with fire.
“Be still, and know that I am God.
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!”
The LORD of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah (Psalm 46, ESV)

Gracious Father,

Today we’re faced with the painful reminder that we still live in a fallen world.

Today the earth gave way as an explosion tore apart the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Yet this was no natural chaos; this was an act of evil, intent on wounding and terrorizing the people of this city and her guests, while the rest of the world was watching.

We call it ‘terrorism’ because that is what it seeks to do—strike terror and fear into our hearts. God, we confess, sometimes it works. We are afraid. We fear for our safety. We fear losing our loved ones. We fear the loss of life as we know it.

Yet there is one thing on earth that no bomb can shake, and no terror can overcome: your presence. “The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.”

Because you are with your people, we need not be afraid. Though the waters roar and the nations rage, you are a refuge and fortress to your people. Though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, those who take shelter in your presence will not be moved. Though this world may take away from us everything we hold precious, even our lives, it cannot take us away from you. You are our refuge and strength, our very present help in trouble.

As our city quakes from the effects of sin in this world—the evil, the violence, the injuries and loss of life, we pray that your holy and healing presence would be made known.

We pray for the victims of this tragedy. We pray for healing for the wounded, and comfort for the bereaved. We pray for loved ones sitting in waiting rooms or watching the news at home. May hearts and eyes turn to you at this time, as you make your power and presence known by your Spirit in the face of Jesus Christ.

We pray for those who have come to the aid of the victims—the police officers, the bystanders, the response teams and medical personnel. We pray for the doctors and nurses administering care late into the night. We thank you for their courage, on a day when our Commonwealth celebrates the heroism of the patriots of the Revolutionary War. We pray that you would be with them to guide them in their care and treatment.

We pray for churches in Boston, that together we would be light for this city. As you dwell in a special way among your people, may your people be to this city an expression of your compassion, care, and shelter for those who are scared and hurting in this city. May Jesus be on display in our words and deeds—he who wept at the death of his beloved friend, who in his own death took on himself the evil and sorrow of this world, mixed with his Father’s holy anger against our evil rebellion, yet conquered death and brought new life when he rose from the grave.

And we’re reminded that our hope rests in another city—a city that cannot be shaken.

So we look forward to the day when we will rest and rejoice in your glorious presence in that heavenly city, the New Jerusalem, as it comes down from heaven in your new creation.

We look forward to a day when you will make wars and violence cease to the ends of the earth. When all wrongs will be brought to justice, and your peace will triumph over all.

We look forward to a day when all will recognize your rightful rule over creation, when your enemies will be put under your feet, and your name will be exalted to the ends of the earth.

And we pray in the meantime that we would rest in you. Give us the grace to be still, to cease striving amid our helplessness, with the knowledge that you are God. You are our help. You will be exalted as God. Your kingdom will triumph in the end. Your name will be exalted in all the earth.

Be present with us now. And come quickly, Lord Jesus. Amen.

****

     And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. And he spoke this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” Mark 8:31-33

Dear Lord Jesus, one of the many things I cherish about the Bible is the way it robs me of my penchant for hero worship. Who but God would write a book documenting the foibles and failures of so many of his sons and daughters? Who but God would chronicle the ways his chosen leaders limp along and prove themselves to be in constant need of mercy and grace?

This gives me great encouragement and hope. It also gives me freedom to acknowledge that I need the gospel today just as much as the first day I believed it. This will be just as true tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. Keep me convinced, Lord Jesus, because I’m much like Peter. In my own ways, like Peter, I try also try to “keep you from the cross.”

When I mute my heart to the insult of grace—minimizing my need of the gospel, I deny your cross. When I think, even for one moment, that my obedience merits anything, or makes you love me more than you already do, I deny your cross.

When I put others under the microscope and measure of performance-based living—coping a critical spirit and judgmental attitude, I deny your cross. When I wallow in self-contempt and shame—disbelieving and dismissing your great love lavished upon us in the gospel, I deny your cross. When I’d rather do penance than repent and collapse upon the riches of grace, once again, I deny your cross.

Lord Jesus, by the power of the gospel, help me to mind the things of God more than I’m influenced by the way men normally think. May your cross get bigger and bigger to me, and may my boast in it grow louder and louder. Jesus, you’re the only hero in the Bible, and I’m more than fine with that. We matter, but you alone are the point. Hallelujah! So very Amen I pray, in your patient and persistent name.

I’m not interested in (or qualified for) discussing the biblical and historical nuances of revival (there are good books available for that). But as I and my colleagues at Westgate Church have been reading through Tim Keller’s Center Church, I’ve been struck by the necessity and beauty of revival, or as he phrases it, “gospel renewal” in the life of the church.

We often limit the scope of revival to nonbelievers coming to faith. That’s certainly a significant fruit, and part of what I’m praying for, even in our church. But as Keller notes, “Gospel renewal does not simply seek to convert nominal church members; it also insists that all Christians–even committed ones–need the Spirit to bring the gospel home to their hearts for deepened experiences of Christ’s love and power” (Center Church, 60). Elsewhere he says, “all revivals are seasons in which the ordinary operations of the Holy Spirit are intensified many-fold. In revival, the ordinary means of grace [e.g. the preaching of the Word, prayer, the sacraments, the fellowship of the community] produce a great wave of newly awakened inquirers, soundly converted sinners, and spiritually renewed believers” (Center Church, 55).

In other words, revival begins when the Spirit of God moves a people to freshly discover and depend upon the gospel of Jesus. When that happens, Keller says, the result is that sleepy Christians wake up, nominal Christians are converted, and non-believing outsiders come to faith, being attracted by the “newly beautified Christian congregation” (74).

He explains further:

“Often, the first visible sign of renewal is when nominal church members become converted. Nominal Christians begin to realize they had never understood the gospel, experienced the new birth, or entered a living relationship with Christ by grace. . .

“Soon, ‘sleepy’ Christians also begin to receive a new assurance of and appreciation for grace. They wake up to the reasons they have been living in anxiety, envy, anger, and boredom. They gain a sense of God’s reality in their heart as well as higher, immediate assurances of his love. Along with a new and deeper conviction of sin and repentance . . . they have a far more powerful assurance of the nearness and love of God. The deeper their sense of sin debt, the more intense their sense of wonder at Christ’s payment of it. As a result, they become simultaneously humbler and bolder.

“Of course, the church also begins to see non-Christian outsiders converted as people are attracted to the newly beautified church and its authentic worship, its service in the community, and the surprising absence of condemning, tribal attitudes. Christians become more radiant and attractive witnesses—more willing and confident to talk to others about their faith, more winsome and less judgmental when they do so, and more confident in their own church and thus more willing to invite people to visit it” (79-80).

It’s a beautiful picture. It’s also the heart of the church’s mission to make disciples. And God is the one who has to do it. So we pray.

We also work hard in gospel ministry, laying our lives down and holding forth the Word of life. (Keller has a whole chapter on “The Work of Gospel Renewal.”) But we cannot afford to stop praying for gospel renewal in our churches—a lesson that in my arrogance and self-dependence I continually have to relearn.

We pray that the Spirit of God would open our eyes to see more clearly the beauty of his holiness, the ugliness of our sin, and the sweet sufficiency of the grace we have in Christ. We pray that the gospel would become the center of our affections and relationships, that we might be drawn deeper into communion with God and one another, and propelled on mission for the glory of his name. In other words, we pray for revival.

Rob Bell made headlines again yesterday with his public affirmation of same-sex marriage. Bell, who is the former pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and author of the controversial book,

“I am for marriage. I am for fidelity. I am for love, whether it’s a man and woman, a woman and a woman, a man and a man. I think the ship has sailed and I think the church needs — I think this is the world we are living in and we need to affirm people wherever they are.”

For those who have followed the development of Bell’s theology, even from a distance, this comes as no surprise. We saw the same shift in Brian McLaren last year, who has long been a figurehead of one stream of the so-called emerging church. In a day when even the President of the United States has made the approval of gay marriage part of his agenda, Bell and McLaren seem to be on the winning side of culture. As Bell suggests:

“I think we are witnessing the death of a particular subculture that doesn’t work. I think there is a very narrow, politically intertwined, culturally ghettoized, Evangelical subculture that was told ‘we’re gonna change the thing’ and they haven’t. And they actually have turned away lots of people. And I think that when you’re in a part of a subculture that is dying, you make a lot more noise because it’s very painful. You sort of die or you adapt. And if you adapt, it means you have to come face to face with some of the ways we’ve talked about God, which don’t actually shape people into more loving, compassionate people. And we have supported policies and ways of viewing the world that are actually destructive. And we’ve done it in the name of God and we need to repent.”

What I find ironic about Bell’s post-evangelical rhetoric (and that of others like him) is that the Christian faith they are now espousing, the fruit of their postmodern experiment, has turned out to be nearly identical to the results of the modernist experiment from over a hundred years ago. In other words, what we’re looking at is humanism 2.0. 

Strange Philosophical Bedfellows

The reason this is ironic is that postmodern philosophy has long identified itself as a rejection of or correction to modernist philosophy. The modernism of the past few centuries was built on the idea that absolute truth could be discovered and known through rationalism and empiricism. Reason and modern science held the key to understanding the meaning of life, the world, and everything. When applied to the Christianity, the obvious implication was that anything supernatural must be rejected. Science and reason, we were told, have no room for the divine. And so the biblical text was “demythologized”—any traces of miracles or the divine were removed. Jesus and his life had to be reinterpreted through modernist lenses if they were to bear any lasting contribution to a modern world.

In other words, the church was told to adapt or die. The result was either an outright rejection of Christianity, or a reconstructed Christianity that Richard Niebuhr famously described as “a God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.” In either case, the fruit of the modernist experiment was humanism—a way of looking at and living in the world that begins and ends with humanity. What we might call Christianity from below. The heirs of this new kind of Christianity, liberal mainline Protestantism, are at present experiencing their own slow death.

Then along came postmodernism. Postmodernists recognized that underneath the bold claims of modernism lay a cultural preconditioning that not only blinded them to their own cultural arrogance but threatened to bind them to their particular worldview, essentially rendering any claims to truth as suspect. While it’s true that we all carry with us deep cultural and personal presuppositions that affect the way we read and interpret everything, including the Bible, postmodernists suggest that those presuppositions are so deeply embedded in us that we can never escape them; we are slaves to our conditioning. In that light, any claims to absolute truth are nothing more than a power play in disguise. The dominant culture gets to tell the story, and the story they tell is designed in part to keep other cultures in subjection.

Quite contrary to their own framework, postmodernists suggest that they have seen through this ruse. Their aim is therefore to bring liberation to the marginalized and oppressed. This begins by rejecting the notion that any one grand story of meaning exists (whether it’s the story of European Colonialism, American Capitalism, or biblical Christianity). From there the postmodernist deconstructs the dominant story, rereading it in order to identify the oppressed cultures or individuals and liberate them. This happens through a simple two-step process: demonize the dominant story, exposing their power play for what it is, and elevate the oppressed stories, giving them equal (or more often higher) footing. The claim is that no one is right, no one is wrong; everyone is welcome at the table of ideas. Unless you happen to be part of the dominant culture.

Applied to the church, postmodernists come to the Bible and champion the liberating values of justice, peace, and love, but then strip away from it all the unseemly parts—things like wrath, penal substitutionary atonement, sexual ethics, gender roles—anything that fails to promote their particular vision of love and friendship. Boiled down, Bell’s enterprise is nothing more than textbook postmodern deconstruction: identify the oppressed characters (e.g. homosexuals) and demonize the oppressors (e.g. conservative Christians), in order to liberate the oppressed and give them a place at the table of Christianity that they have long been denied (e.g. gay marriage). This is the flow of the culture. We must adapt or die.

But then comes the irony. The differences between the modernist and postmodernist experiments with Christianity are scarcely distinguishable. Niebuhr’s critique of old liberalism is equally true of new liberalism. The ethical flavor may taste different at places (like gay marriage), but it flows from the same basic ingredient: humanism. This is Christianity from below—the Christian faith retold by the people for the people. To hell with hell, and the God of the Bible for that matter. We’re offering people a new kind of Christianity—one that can swim with the new cultural current. But as Kevin DeYoung has said, this new kind of Christianity is really an old kind of liberalism.

Which raises a significant question for postmoderns: What if the present decline of liberal Protestantism is a sign and portent of postmodern Christianity’s future demise? Folks like Bell claim to be on the winning side of culture. And as far as the course of the world goes, they’re probably right (cf. 1 John 2:17). But will their new and improved Christianity—“a God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross”—really carry the day? Or will we read forty years from now the triumphalistic claims of an even newer kind of Christianity—humanism 3.0?

Christianity from Below

The fundamental flaw of both the modernist and postmodernist Christian experiments is their ground-up approach—that is, their humanist commitment. Rather than beginning with God and his vision for creation, his diagnosis of the problem, and his divine solution, as he revealed it in Scripture—his grand story—they start with humanity on humanity’s own terms, and build up from there. But humanism fails in two critical ways: authority and sufficiency.

First, humanism lacks authority. Constructing the faith from the ground up opens Christianity up to the whims of whoever is doing the constructing (another ironic twist in postmodernism—they fall prey to their own power play critique). Beyond lacking guidance, it lacks the ability to hold others to account. Who’s to say this is what Christianity should look like, and who’s to enforce it in the end? Any humanist expression of Christianity is destined to break down over time—whether modern or postmodern.

Second, humanism lacks sufficiency. It is incapable of dealing adequately with the problems in the world that it is trying to solve. The world longs for justice, peace, and love—we all resonate with those postmodern longings. Yet whatever new prescription humanism offers is doomed to failure for two reasons: (1) it is dependent on human ability and resolve, which are insufficient for the task due to sin; and (2) it is unable to deal with the fundamental problem of sin—both the holy anger of the Father against sinners and the pervasive defilement of his creation. It takes a dying and rising Savior to reunite us with the Father and remake the world.

In contrast to humanism, biblical Christianity offers both authority and sufficiency—not in and of itself, but as it submits to God above, the Creator who is both King and Savior. He has the authority to rule and judge his creation, and the mercy to save unfaithful sinners.

Christianity from Above

Christianity is and always has been a revealed religion—not a faith constructed from below, but one revealed from above. As such, Christianity requires recognizing and submitting to God’s authority, and the grand story he is telling in Scripture. That means that it’s not for us to rewrite it when it becomes personally or culturally unpalatable.

Yes, culture changes. And some of those changes can reveal blind spots in various cultural appropriations of Christianity and the Bible. It’s important to learn from these and repent. It’s also important to think creatively about how to apply the truth of Scripture in different cultural contexts and communities (i.e. contextualization).

But in all these things the Bible remains God’s authoritative, revealed Word. We may not be able to know it exhaustively, but we can know it accurately and sufficiently. Because God in his Spirit has chosen to make himself known. And whatever we do to engage changing cultures with the truth of Christianity, what we’re not permitted to do is change the truth because the culture doesn’t like it.

Second, Christianity from above affirms the sufficiency of Jesus to deal decisively with all that is wrong in this broken world, which he accomplishes through his life, death, and resurrection. If the problem in this world is that God’s vision for creation has been spoiled—his vision for his kingdom, including our relationship with him, then we need someone who has the authority and wisdom and power to fix it properly. No human person or strategy can pull this off. We need someone who was there in creation, who was active in it in the first place, who has been active in sustaining it ever since. Only someone like that can properly restore it and bring it to completion. Only someone like that can accomplish God’s purposes and establish his kingdom.

As “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation” (Col. 1:15), only Christ is qualified to do this. And he does it through is cross and resurrection. “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross” (Col. 1:19-20). And only through faith in Christ can we share in his redemptive work, being reconciled to the Father, “who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Col. 1:12-14). “And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister” (Col. 1:21-23).

In this light, Paul’s encouragement and warning in Colossians 2 are timely and necessary: “Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ” (Col. 2:6-8).

In the end, the question has never been about who wins the culture. For much of the church’s history, Christianity has been viewed negatively in significant parts of the world. Biblical, historical, orthodox Christianity. And yet it’s still here. Jesus told us in Matthew 16 that the gates of hell would not prevail. And when he returns, the saying will come true: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever” (Rev 11:15).

I first got hooked on Heller with her song, “Your Hands.” Below is a song from her new album, Loved (released today), called “Who You Are.” You can read the lyrics below the video.

“Who You Are”

All she wanted was a baby to hold
She’s still waiting, at 41 years old
Her life feels like a tragedy
And it’s driving her down to her knees 

She says I don’t know,
I don’t know what you’re doing
But I know who You are

Sometimes I don’t know
I don’t know what you’re doing
But I know who You are

This Sunday our journey through the Gospel of Matthew brings us to the foot of the mountain from where Jesus gave the famous address recorded in Matthew 5–7. The Sermon on the Mount is perhaps the best known portion of Jesus’ teaching, with its ethics of peace, love, and humility celebrated by Christians and non-Christians alike. And yet so often we focus on the ethics of the kingdom without connecting them to the King who gives them out of his own authority and power. This can take several shapes.

For some, we celebrate the ethical vision, lamenting that if only everyone would live this way, all the world’s problems would disappear. But we fail to recognize that these are no mere principles for peaceful living, but a call to utter submission to the King of heaven and earth. In other words, we want many of values of the kingdom, but we don’t want the King. We make the Sermon on the Mount about us, hijacking its teaching and using it to advance our own vision for life, which invariably results in throwing out the ethics we don’t like. What we’re left with in the end neither resembles the sermon’s content nor respects the teacher’s authority.

For others, we shy away from this ethical teaching because we know we are utterly incapable of living up to it. In response, we might find ourselves softening the sharp edges, or even relegating the teaching to a different time and people so it no longer applies to us. But this is likewise to focus on the commands while neglecting the King who gave them—the King who is presently establishing his kingdom on earth (cf. 4:17) and whose kingdom work will climax in the cross, resurrection, and sending of his Spirit.

So before we can say anything about the message of Sermon on the Mount, we have to first reckon with the messenger—the King who speaks as God.

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus is portrayed to us as a new Moses, who comes out of the wilderness and ascends the mountain (5:1-2) to give God’s instruction. Jesus came not to relax or remove the Law, but to fulfill it (5:17-20).

And yet, Jesus is more than a new Moses, for he speaks with the authority of God himself (cf. 7:28-29). He is no mere prophet shouting, “Thus says the Lord.” Rather, Jesus says, “You have heard it said before  . . . but I say to you” (e.g. 5:21-22). Throughout the sermon Jesus speaks on direct behalf of his Father in heaven (e.g. 5:45-48; 6:1-18; 7:7-10). He speaks as the divine law-giver and judge (7:21-23). And he speaks as the one in whose words we find wisdom and life (7:24-27).

Jesus is the King who speaks as God. Which means that there can be no real adherence to the Sermon on the Mount without first recognizing and humbly submitting to the authority of Jesus.

Join us at Westgate Church, beginning this Sunday (March 10), as we spend the next several months walking through Christ’s vision for life in his kingdom—life in joyful submission to the King of heaven and earth.