Blog

I’m not sure that we can get a more famous scene in the book of Exodus than the scene of God speaking with Moses from the burning bush. The scene is dramatic, memorable, and gripping. It is perfect for movies. And almost everybody, even those who are not students of the Bible, know something of it.

 

Included in that scene is the question Moses asks the Lord about his name. Moses knows God is sending him to Egypt to bring out God’s people. Moses wants to know what name he should use for God. He wants to know what to say if they ask what is God’s name.

 

Exodus 3:13-14 – 13 Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ”

 

God tells Moses, “I am who I am.” On the surface, this does not seem terribly helpful. But, a bit of consideration here is very helpful.

 

First, let me not go down the often traveled road of many modern teachers. I’ve heard people say that the “I am” is open-ended so that we can know that God is everything we need. Certainly, God has no lack in his ability to supply our needs, our joys, our comforts, and all the rest. However, I do not know that this is behind the name.

 

I would think it more likely that God was letting Moses know that God is, well, God. Moses and the people of Israel living in Egypt do not get to define him. This is not to say that God is beyond being defined. But, it is the Lord, through his revelation of himself through his word, who will define himself. He is not going to be simply the God who rescues or the God who comforts or the God who heals or the God who judges. Such are pieces that are too small to be the entirety of the Lord. God is God, the ultimate God over all. He is Lord, and he will not be subject to our wishful thinking as to his ways or limits.

 

Consider how a restrictive name might have impacted Moses’ mission. He goes to Egypt and tells people that God has called the people to leave the land of their slavery. They want to know God’s name. Then, pretend that Moses does what we often do in modern Christianity and begins to define God based on what the people seem to want at the time. Would Moses be describing the reality of God? This is not likely. The people wanted rescue and freedom. They wanted to be out from under the yoke of their harsh task masters. But, did they want a God who would, in the next 40 years, watch them die in the desert for their refusal to obey his commands?

 

When we consider the phrase, “I am who I am,” we must consider the truth that God is God, whether we want him to be or not. We do not get to reshape him in our ways. We do not get to tell him how he should have done things. It is not ever our place to approve of or disapprove of his choices in our lives. God is God. He is who he Is. He is perfect, holy, righteous, and all the other things he revealed to us over the centuries of revelation in Scripture. He is not someone to be repackaged for a new generation.

 

In many ways, we have a Moses-like job. We are called by God to walk into a land of slavery and hostility. We are to locate people who belong to the Lord and call them to leave the land of their slavery for a place of life. In so many ways, this is evangelism.

 

As we try to tell the world around us about Jesus, about the call of the Lord to leave this land, they may question us as to the identity of the Lord. What is his name? How foolish we are to try to drum up a good ad campaign for God, shining on the Lord the light that we think the world most wants to see. He did not leave such an option open to us. We cannot rename God as a person who approves of things the world loves even though the Scripture has called it sin. We cannot reshape the image of God to make him into someone who would never judge, who makes human autonomy the ultimate good, and who expects no faithfulness from those he rescues. No, the Lord is the Lord, he is who he is. And we, if we are to be faithful, must present the world with the genuine picture of the God who calls them out of the land of slavery.

 

May we learn from the name of God given to Moses. May we present the Lord as who he is and not as what we think the world wants him to be. May we also serve him as who he is, and not based on how we want our lives to be. The reward is the promised land of eternal life, eternal joy, and eternal perfection. The reward is worth any of the hardships we face in the here and now as we find ourselves having to be reshaped into God’s image instead of us reshaping God into ours.

And, we must recognize that, in our own Christian walks, God is who God is. That means that when things do not go the way that we want, we have no right to declare God to have failed us or mistreated us. God is, by definition, perfect and holy. His ways are right. His understanding is beyond us. We cannot rightly redefine him as a different kind of being based on how we feel about what has occurred in our lives. God is God. God is Lord over all, even over our every moment. And we best honor him when we understand this: He is who he is, and he is always, always exactly right and pure and perfect in every way.

It seems that, every so often, I will run across a person who refuses to become a member of a local church because, as they declare, they do not see the concept of formal church membership in Scripture. Are such people correct? Is there a call in the Bible to go through the membership class, to declare commitment to a local body, and to affirm the beliefs and order of a local congregation? Is there a proper, biblical rationale to call people to formal membership. The membership skeptic demands proof. Can we oblige?

 

There are many arguments that can be made and have been made on behalf of church membership, and I do not wish to rehash them here. If you want to look at the question of church membership more fully, to wrestle through how it all works, visit 9marks.org and see the arguments that are put forward by that solid organization. However, in my reading today I was reminded of a verse in Scripture that, I believe, shifts the burden of proof off of the elders promoting membership and onto the shoulders of those who claim no such thing is commanded in Scripture.

 

Hebrews 13:17 – Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.

 

Now, first things first, that verse does not say anything about formal membership. There is no church covenant mentioned, no membership roll explicitly described. And, generally, at this point the membership skeptic feels confident.

 

The membership skeptic would say to us that the burden to prove membership rests on the shoulders of a membership proponent. I believe that there are things contained in this verse which powerfully shift the burden of proof for church membership off of the shoulders of the proponent of membership and onto the shoulders of the skeptic. Here are three phrases which I argue at least allow if not codify  church membership from this verse, and which a membership skeptic bears the burden of disproving:

·             Obey your leaders 

·             keeping watch over your souls

·             with joy and not with groaning

 

The verse says, “obey your leaders.” That is not a statement that says only obey your leaders if they can produce a specific prooftext for you. The verse is not telling folks, only obey if you see in Scripture that the instruction given to you is actually a direct instruction from God. If such were the intent of the verse, the command should not be “obey your leaders,” but rather “obey what you see in Scripture.”

 

Of course, we are not to follow a church leader who directs us against Scripture. We are not to follow a person as he leads us into sin or as he makes inappropriately restrictive commands. However, there seems to be, in the call to obedience, a right of leaders to lead, meaning they can instruct people’s behavior at some level so long as that instruction is not a violation of biblical principle.

 

Thus, if the leaders in a church say that they want people who are a part of that church to covenant together and become part of a formal membership roll, the burden of proof now falls on the membership skeptic to produce a biblical command against the directive of the leaders of the local church. It is not required that the elders prove that membership is required by Scripture. The burden is on the skeptic to show a proof against membership. And I have yet to ever hear any skeptic’s argument go further than to say they are unconvinced of the requirement for membership. Thus, “obey your leaders” makes the case for membership so long as the leaders are in churches that have formal membership.

 

Second, the phrase “keeping watch over your souls” indicates membership. Those who are leaders and to be obeyed in Hebrews 13:17 have a responsibility to keep watch over the souls of those they lead. Here is the simple question: Over whose souls are leaders to keep watch? As a pastor, am I charged with keeping watch over every human soul? Am I charged with keeping watch over the souls of all in my city, a town of around two million? Am I to keep watch over the souls of every visitor to our Sunday morning services? How many visits must they make before I know that I am watching over their souls?

 

It is apparent that the author of the book of Hebrews knew that there was some appropriate method for the leaders of the local congregation to know over whose souls they were to keep watch. How did they know? The only sensible way had to include a person’s voluntarily communicating to the leaders that they wished to be united with the local congregation and thus under the care of the shepherds. Call it what you will, that is membership. The burden of proof here shifts to the skeptic to come up with another, logical and biblical argument that proves that this is not some sort of formal membership that is understood by leader and led alike. 

 

Finally, the phrase “with joy and not with groaning” is a clincher. Those under the leadership of elders are to let them lead with joy and not to give them cause to groan. Simply speaking personally as an elder, I will say this: It gives me joy when a person formally, openly, and honestly declares himself or herself to be under our church’s care, committed to the body, ready to serve. The way that we do this is with membership. So, in our congregation, to let us lead with joy and not with groaning is not to be a visitor who has not declared commitment. Instead, to help us lead with joy is to declare formally that you are in, one of the family, under our watch care. The way we do this is through formal membership processes. To oppose membership is to make our jobs harder, causing groaning. Again, the burden of disproving this or overturning it with biblical cause is on the shoulders of the membership skeptic, not on the shoulders of the leaders who have agreed on a simple and formal way to know whom we lead.

 

There is, of course, much more in the New Testament that indicates that formal membership in the local church was understood. All of that is worth studying. However, it is also wise for those of us who have membership in our local churches to recognize that the burden of proof to oppose membership is on the shoulders of the skeptic who must be able to biblically and convincingly disprove the conclusions drawn from the three phrases in Hebrews 13:17. And, while I recognize that authoritarian and legalistic leadership is a danger to be opposed—a danger which Scripture also teaches us how to deal with—the general and clear call in this verse is to have leaders, acknowledged leaders, who have authority, acknowledged authority, over people who are voluntarily led. This implies membership, a membership which empowers leaders to keep watch with joy.

 

One objection to what I have written has come to me as I continued to think this issue through. Does what I have just written do away with the principle of sola scriptura? Would a proponent of the regulative principle in worship have to oppose this? My hope is not. I have no belief at all that the elders of a church have the right to develop a doctrine that is not present in Scripture. However, I would argue that the elders in a local church have every right to extrapolate from Scripture sensible practices that fit with the overall tone and purpose of the text. So, for example, while Scripture does not have a policy present for child pick-up from an event, there is nothing wrong with a church’s leadership developing a check-in policy for the protection of children. While Scripture does not say anything about how many cups to use in communion, the elders of the church may develop a plan that works best for the particular church and its context. The point of a membership roll is for the protection of members and the shepherding of the flock. The concept of a membership seems to be implied or at least allowed by Hebrews 13:17 along with many other passages. So, no, I have no intent to promote elder authority beyond sola scriptura. However, I deny that there is anything out of biblical bounds in leaders of a church organizing things for the more faithful shepherding of the flock.

 

Does this view that I am proposing allow for an authoritarian eldership? No, I do not think so at all. Praise God, the congregation as a unit has the right to speak into the lives of the elders to challenge them where they are in sin. Now, Paul puts clear checks in place. Accusations against an elder are not to be entertained apart from witnesses. Obviously, Paul wanted to keep the church from being rocked by the waves of every disgruntled person in the congregation. But, for sure, if the elders are developing requirements for church life that are improper or unduly harsh, the body has the right to speak back regarding that issue.

 

Now, let me go back and reiterate the main point I am making: opposition to formal church membership is something that the skeptic must prove, not the church leader. If someone wants to try to have a church without a formal membership, they are not necessarily in sin so long as they have a method of obeying the commands of body life in Scripture. However, I would suggest that such an attempt is far more difficult and less effective—thus less obedient—than it is to have a membership roll and policy. But, and this is the important piece for those who argue against formal memberships, the church that has wisely chosen a formal membership policy has every right to do so and to expect those who wish to be a part of the life of that church to go through the process.

Sometimes we forget the amazing things that God is doing in the small parts of the big stories of the Bible. Notice what happens as God wraps up the book of Genesis. Earlier, we have seen God make a promise in the Garden of Eden that a descendant of the woman would come into the world and crush the devil, thus setting things right in a world gone wrong. Then, centuries later, God made a promise to Abram (Abraham) that he would have a family through whom God would bring someone to bless all nations on earth. Then we saw Isaac and Jacob begin the nation-making process, but it was slow. And, finally, we watched Joseph sold to Egypt, preparing the way for the family to move.

 

In chapter 46, we see that God moved the family to Egypt, a total of 70 people in all. Joseph, because of his position in Pharaoh’s court, had the knowledge and influence to see to it that his family would live in the land of Goshen. And Joseph had the savvy to tell his family exactly what to say to the king to get things to happen the right way.

 

Genesis 46:33 – When Pharaoh calls you and says, ‘What is your occupation?’ 34 you shall say, ‘Your servants have been keepers of livestock from our youth even until now, both we and our fathers,’ in order that you may dwell in the land of Goshen, for every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians.”

 

All this seems neat. Joseph has landed a pasture for his family to keep sheep. They will survive the famine. That is nice.

 

But, God is doing something more, something quite special. Of all the places this family could have moved, Egypt was interesting. Egypt is not part of the promised land. Egypt is not the land flowing with milk and honey. Egypt is not where God promised Abraham that his family would live. So, why Egypt?

 

Only in Egypt was there a place that Israel and his family could move and be kept separate from the locals. The Egyptians had that interesting aversion to shepherds. So, Israel could move his family there, work, live, and be left alone.

 

One thing that God was doing was sovereignly moving things to allow the family of Israel to grow into the nation of Israel. God put them in a place where they could grow for hundreds of years without being noticed on the world stage. The family could grow, and be separated from the influences of the Canaanite religions and even from the Egyptian polytheism. As I once heard a teacher say, God placed the nation in an incubator where they could grow, free from pagan infection, for the centuries needed to become the nation of Israel we have come to know. God acted to preserve his promise, to keep the family alive, and to make it possible to bring the promised one into the world.

 

God is doing more in Scripture than we sometimes see. And we should learn from it to trust him and to know that he is on his throne. No, Jacob never planned to move to Egypt. He probably was not a big fan of leaving his homeland. But God used that move to build the nation. God used that move to keep his promise. And God can use our circumstances to work his will in our lives too, regardless of how well we realize what he is up to.

The honesty of the Scriptures is lovely to behold. God, in the inspiration of his holy word, did not remove from the lips or the pens of the authors of the various books the pain, hardships, foibles, and failures they faced. It is good, very good, that we see that they did not all have it easy. It is good, very good, that we understand that they had fear, doubt, frustrations, and all the rest.

 

In Psalm 17, as a simple example, the psalmist is praying to God for deliverance. Early in the psalm, the singer declares to God that he is asking for rescue because he has been faithful to the ways of the Lord. I think it fair to say that the psalmist, in declaring his uprightness, did not consider himself perfect, but simply understood that he had obeyed God’s laws in his dealings with those who are trying to wrong him and to kill him. The psalmist cries out to God for protection, knowing that he has never treated people in the wicked way the people are responding to him.

 

Now, a false religion, at this point, would have done a few things. First, the false religion may well have pretended that followers of God never face frustrations like the psalmist faced. But God’s word is honest, telling us that pain is a part of living in this fallen world.

 

Another thing that a false religion may have done is put in the psalm a perfect promise of absolute vengeance, restoration, and vindication. If I were making up a religion and shaping it to my whim, I would make sure that my poor, wronged psalmist could say that soon, very soon, all the bad guys will get theirs and my hero will ride off into the sunset victorious.   

 

But notice that, unlike the false religion of the prosperity gospel or the violent self-vindication of other religions, the Bible takes the psalmist down a different road.

 

Psalm 17:13-16

 

13 Arise, O Lord! Confront him, subdue him!

Deliver my soul from the wicked by your sword,

14 from men by your hand, O Lord,

from men of the world whose portion is in this life.

You fill their womb with treasure;

they are satisfied with children,

and they leave their abundance to their infants.

15 As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness;

when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness.

 

The prayer of the psalmist makes sense. He cries out to god to arise, fight, beat down the bad guys, and show that the psalmist has been right all along. That prayer is not a surprise. Nor is such a prayer wrong.

 

Then the psalmist points out how much ease the bad guys have. They have kids. They have money. They seem to be passing wealth down from generation to generation as they continue to have things their way.

 

And one expects the psalmist to see the tables turn and get his way. But, this is not what God has to teach us in this song of worship. No, God wants to show us something better, and it is not the false, worldly success promoted by man-made religion.

 

At the end of his prayer, the psalmist says, “As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness; when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness” (v. 15). Do you see what happened? The psalmist does not, at the end of the day, expect an earthly reversal of fortune. Instead, the psalmist stops, takes a breath, puts on an eternal perspective, and expresses a greater hope than money and kids and earthly success. The psalmist expresses that his soul will actually be satisfied, not in the stuff that the world sees as success, but in the sight of the face, the majesty, the glory of God. Seeing God in his glory satisfies. Having riches in this life does not.

 

I wonder how well we sing this truth today. I wonder how honest our songs are about the pain and hardships of life. I wonder how often, when we present the truth of the faith, we include for people that there is no guarantee of success before the return of Jesus and the ultimate resurrection. I wonder how well we show people that a glimpse of the glory of God is worth more than power, prosperity, or progeny. May we learn to sing songs like Psalm 17 and focus our joy, not on the here and now, but on eternal truth.

There is, among many well-meaning Christians, a common practice of creating commands, rules, and standards that the Lord did not make. If you have ever been in any church for any period of time, you will probably know of some of them. Years ago, church leaders railed against the playing of cards. In other settings, ministers taught against dancing. Still today, many Christians declare any drinking of alcohol to be a sin, or those who do not declare it to be sin will still passively affirm that view by only allowing non-drinkers to serve in leadership in their churches. When I was in a youth group years ago, I remember being taught that any listening to secular—read not intentionally Christian—music was a sin. Or some churches will apply very specific rules for what constitutes appropriately modest dress for ladies.

 

Why do we do these things/? Why do we make rules that God did not make? In all of the things listed above, the ones who made those standards for their churches almost always did so because they wanted to help. Church leaders saw the potential dangers in each area, and they wanted to set up road blocks to prevent their people from falling into sin. Ministers opposed dancing, not because dance is evil, but because, in dance halls of their time, dance had become sexually charged and lust inducing. My youth minister opposed secular music, not because of a desire to do any harm, but out of a desire to call his students to think on righteous things—a good desire. We all know that drunkenness is a sin, and some decided to say that any drink takes a step toward sin, a step that is better not taken.

 

There are two problems, however, with our tendency toward making extra commands. One is that they do not work. Another is that they dishonor the Lord.

 

Hear how the apostle Paul responded to a people who were trying to apply strict dietary standards to help prevent people from sinning against the Lord.

 

Colossians 2:23 – These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.

 

Paul says that the rules people were making up in Colossae had an appearance of wisdom. These did not look like stupid commands. But, Paul also said that they lack any power to turn a person from sin.

 

In an encounter in Matthew 15, Jesus was approached by the religious leaders of his day and confronted on not following their particular rules on ceremonial hand-washing. Jesus actually turned the tables on the religious folks, asking them in verse 3, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?”  “ It seems that the religious guys of his day had changed God’s laws to fit things that they thought were wise. Look at how Jesus described where they ended up.

 

Matthew 15:6b-9 – 6b … So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God. 7 You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said:

8 “ ‘This people honors me with their lips,

but their heart is far from me;

9 in vain do they worship me,

teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ ”

 

Jesus quotes Isaiah 29:13, , a strong condemnation in the Old Testament, which clearly says that God is not honored by people who teach the commands of men as if they are the word of God. This should lead us to a right conclusion that, whether from false or true motivation, to create rules and commands that God did not make is dishonoring to the Lord.

 

Allow me, at this point, to check the glee of the lawless among us looking for license to sin and to declare that nobody has any right to bind their consciences. To obey the Lord does not require a specific biblical prooftext. For example, while I would argue that no person has the right to tell another Christian that no Christian may watch a movie, I do believe that we can apply other biblical principles to call people to account for what they watch. If you are watching something full of sin and which leads to lust, if you are watching something that someone had to sin to make, you are probably violating principles of the word of God. This is not me making a rule, it is simply me applying Scripture to life. So, let us not pretend that there are no standards for modern living to be derived from the word of God.

 

However, and this should slow down the moralistic legalists among us, we make a major mistake the moment we start teaching as commands things that the Lord did not command. Man-made rules do not restrain sin. Man-made rules that are not clearly biblical commands or clearly and directly derived from Scripture dishonor God.

 

Am I saying that authorities will not develop and apply standards for their businesses or their homes that are not commands found in Scripture? Of course I am not. We have rules in our house about when bedtime is or what time a child needs to get home. Those rules are not Scripture. But, they are ours to make as parents. However, we are not foolish enough to pretend that our rules are God-given commands that must apply to all believers.

 

One more caveat: God commands us to obey our authorities. If, then, you are a child under parents with particular rules or an employee who is willingly employed by a boss with a certain standard, obey that standard so long as you are not violating Scripture to do so. To avoid drinking alcohol, for example, is not a violation of a biblical command even if a command to avoid alcohol for an adult is not biblical. If a parent has made a rule for the ladies of the house about what clothes are acceptable, a child must obey that command to dress modestly, even if it cramps her style. We obey authorities, and sometimes give up our rights to do so, and we honor God in the process.

 

Friends, love the word of God. Do not compromise Scripture. Obey the word with great faithfulness. Do not set for other, adult Christians standards that are not in the word. At the same time, do not pretend that we can disobey the things and principles the Lord has taught. The bottom line is this: Don’t play with the word of God. Fear the Lord and take his commands seriously. Love the Lord, and do not try to do his job by creating law.

The word Christian, perhaps first mockingly coined, is a word that means “little Christ.” The idea of the word is that those who are followers of Jesus are little models or imitators of the Savior. Of course that is not intended to call believers divine or to suggest that we take part in the work of saving people from their sins. But it does mean that our lives, as followers of Jesus, should mimic his character as we obey his teachings and model his values. We are not, of course saved by such obedience, but if we are saved, such obedience becomes part of our lives.

 

That concept, the concept of looking like Jesus, came to my mind as I read the little transition section between two particular stories in Matthew’s gospel. At the beginning of Matthew 14, Matthew tells of the murder of John the Baptist, a good man, at the hands of Herod. Then, Matthew tells of Jesus crossing the sea, meeting a crowd, and feeding the 5,000.

 

What we often miss is the little section about why Jesus crossed the sea. I think it is significant as we consider modeling our lives after the Savior.

 

Matthew 14:13-14 – 13 Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. 14 When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.

 

Matthew says that, when Jesus heard about the unjust execution of John the Baptist, he withdrew in a boat. This news was sad news. It seems that Jesus and his disciples got in to the boat to get away for a little while. It is fair to say that they needed a rest. It is fair to say that they needed some time to grieve.

 

But, the crowds figured out where Jesus was going, and they raced around the lake to be there before the boat. Thus, when Jesus got off the boat, aiming for a place of solitude, he found a clamoring crowd of thousands. The crowd was full of hurting and needy people.

 

What did Jesus do? He did not tell the people to go away. He did not declare that he had a right to some down time. He did not tell them that his disciples were his priority, they needed a rest, so the crowd would have to go away. No, Jesus taught and healed those who desperately sought him.

 

I wonder, then, how much we who call ourselves Christian really want to model the Savior? If we do, modeling his character will include giving up our comforts and our rights for the good of others in the name of God. It will mean letting go of a well-deserved vacation from time-to-time to love others in need. It will mean letting go of our rights and even our perceived needs for the honor of the name of the Lord.

 

This is not all about things we must do outside the church, by the way, as if this attribute of Jesus is all about mission trips or soup kitchens. We also need to model the self-sacrificial commitment of Jesus to the good of others in our church lives. God has commanded us to be a part of the formal worship of the Lord. When we attend church, we display that God is number one and we encourage other believers simply by being there with them—not to mention how great it is for us to get into each other’s lives for prayer and encouragement. But how many of us will blow off that commitment the moment we think we need a little down time or that we think some other priority presses? Modeling Jesus’s character would have us giving up our rest and even our convenience to invest in the lives of others, even other believers.

 

No, this is not a call to legalistic rules about church attendance. Neither is it a radical outcry against taking a vacation. Rather, the point here is that we must become a people who model Jesus by being faithful to the commands of the Lord and compassionate toward others, even when we have the desire to be left alone or to do our own thing. We must ask if we look like Jesus with the decisions we make.

How hard is it to be a part of congregational worship when you hurt? Stop and think about it. If you have not gone through deep pain as an adult believer, perhaps you have not experienced this. But, the truth is, when you really hurt, when the pain is real and sharp, it is hard, very hard, to join with the congregation.

 

Of course, part of this is a problem and even a sin on our part. When we hurt, we tend to want to hide. When we hurt, we want to go inward. Whether we think this way or not, we tend to soak in our misery, and we compound our sorrow with the loneliness that comes with grief.

 

But it would also be good for us to recognize, Christians, that we do not always make it easy for the hurting to join us in worship. We especially make it hard when we make our worship gatherings full of false cheerfulness. When people who hurt walk into a service full of vapid smiles, of vain sentimentality, of people declaring that every day with Jesus is truly better than the last, the hurting must wonder how they fit in. When we pretend that every Christian has great kids, happy homes, and blessed marriages, I wonder what those who are barely getting by in their sorrow feel?

 

Part of the problem is in modern music. We sing, and for the most part, we only sing songs of happiness. How often are our songs of worship aimed at helping us walk through the valley of the shadow of death?

 

Now, before you say to me that worship songs cannot focus on the valley of the shadow of death, remember this: the phrase, “the valley of the shadow of death,” comes from Psalm 23, an Old Testament worship song. So, obviously, there is room in worship for singing sorrow that looks forward to the dawning of hope.

 

Read the following Psalm, think about it as a worship song, and consider what it is saying.

 

Psalm 13

 

1 How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

2 How long must I take counsel in my soul

and have sorrow in my heart all the day?

How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

3 Consider and answer me, O Lord my God;

light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death,

4 lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,”

lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.

5 But I have trusted in your steadfast love;

my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.

6 I will sing to the Lord,

because he has dealt bountifully with me.

 

Hear the pain. “How long, O Lord?” The psalmist is hurting. He hurts at a level that makes him fear his own death. And he begs God to let him know how long it will feel like God is turned away from him, not hearing him, not answering him. The psalmist fears that God will let his enemies triumph, and it really, genuinely, honestly hurts.

 

But then the psalmist proclaims hope.  He says, “I have trusted,” and he declares, “my heart shall rejoice.” The hurting psalmist has not experienced a change in circumstances. But, after asking God about his situational pain, something has helped him to remember the good news of God’s salvation. The psalmist is reminded that he has trusted in the Lord, and that he can trust in the Lord’s ultimate protection. So, at the end, he can sing. Now, I doubt that singing in verse 6 is overly peppy. It is not false and grinning vapidly. But it is the song of a person who, with tears in his eyes, says that he knows that his God will be faithful regardless of whether or not he feels that faithfulness right now.

 

Church, how desperately do we need songs like Psalm 13? How desperately do we need songs that admit our sorrow, our pain, our fear, and our desperation? How greatly do we need to sing our pain with the reminder of the gospel in order to lead us to the hopeful strength of trusting the Lord from the midst of the cloud of our sorrow?

 

Imagine how much better it would be for a hurting person to know that his or her church has realistically thought about pain like we see in Psalm 13? How great would it be to know that, though there will be celebration in worship services from those whose lives are flush, there will also be a place for those whose lives are thin.

 

Christians, let’s learn from the psalm a few things. Let’s learn not to hide pain. God knows about our hurting enough to put it into the Bible’s song book. Let’s also learn to let the gospel give us ultimate hope and trust in our pain, even if our hearts are breaking at present. And, let’s make sure that, when we are doing well, we rejoice, but we rejoice with the sort of kindness and understanding that had to be in place among a people who could sing songs of sorrow and hope as an act of worship to the Lord.

What does it mean to repent of sin? If you are not careful, you will give a definition that only includes about one-third of what the word means. So, check your understanding to see if your definition includes the following three things;:

• A change of mind about your sin
• A sorrow over your sin
• A turning away from sin and toward righteousness.

 

At times, I have tried to help people understand that to repent is to recognize, reject, and replace sin. We recognize our sin, seeing it as actually sinful and not OK behavior. We reject sin, declaring that we hate it and do not want it in our life any longer. Then we replace sin, turning to a righteous opposite alternative.

 

Often, when you hear people talk about repentance, you will see them get the concept of recognizing their sin and rejecting it. But often people miss the key of replacing sin. People will get the concept of putting off their sin like dirty clothes, but they will fail to remember that we need to be dressed in righteousness (cf. Col. 3:5-17).

 

In an interesting illustration, I believe that Jesus shows us the importance of replacing sin with righteousness. He shows us that it is not enough to get rid of something bad for a while. You have to replace evil with good.

 

Matthew 12:43-45 – 43 “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none. 44 Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. 45 Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So also will it be with this evil generation.”

 

This odd-sounding passage comes as a part of a fairly intense discourse between Jesus and some Jewish religious teachers. The teachers saw Jesus cast out a demon, and they accused him of doing so by the power of the devil rather than by the power of God. For his part, Jesus told those teachers that they were failing to see the genuine power and compassion of God and they were missing that the kingdom of God was at hand. They were generally embracing laws and regulations, but they were failing to embrace the Lord himself.

 

In the odd little illustration, Jesus showed the Jews the danger they were in. As miracles were happening, it was as if God was cleaning up their house. God was freeing people from dreadful, spiritual calamities. But, if the people did not embrace the Lord, they would be leaving their lives empty. Without allowing the Lord Jesus to be at the center of their hearts, their hearts were in great danger of being reoccupied by evil, and even worse evil than they had in there already.

 

To make the application to our repentance, consider what happens when you have an evil in your heart. It will sometimes happen that you will try to turn from it. You will make a personal, moral decision. You are going to clean things up. You are going to repent. You are going to cut out your evil.

 

That is all good. In fact, it may work for a time. But, if you do not fill your life with the things of God, with righteousness, you will find that your life quite quickly slides back into your sinful habits. And, in fact, you will often find that your habits are worse than before because they are the old habits amplified by the discouragement of being back there again and again.

 

The only way to defeat our sin, to truly repent, is to find a righteousness to replace our sinfulness. So, for example, it is not enough for a man to stop being harsh toward his wife. For repentance to take place, the man must put on genuine kindness and love. It is not enough for a man to stop thinking lustful thoughts. He must seek out genuine purity—to see women as people made in the image of God and not to be exploited. A husband does not put off sin when he stops watching dirty movies. He has repented when he also starts delighting in his wife. Otherwise, he will find his heart drawn down the same old road, but it will go further each time.

 

In his illustration, Jesus was showing the Jewish teachers that they had a season of opportunity to embrace the Lord. They could turn to him, allow him to be central in their lives, and experience the blessing of God. Or, they could like the work he was doing in general, leave their hearts empty, and find themselves in a far darker place in the future.

 

For us, we can see our sin and work to clean it up. That is good. But, if we do not replace our sin, living to the glory of God, we will find that our sin comes back on us harder than before. So, in repentance, recognize, reject and replace.

It seems that many people declare that they would like a religion of love and grace and kindness with no judgment. In our modern world, it seems that many people want a God who gives to all and who could never, not ever, send anyone to hell. We want a spirituality of softness without consequences for wrongdoing.

 

But, do we? Do we really? The idea of a soft religion feels good to people who are living in soft circumstances. When life is easy, when our greatest hardships include trying to figure out what to stream on Netflix, we do not like justice. But what happens when the tide turns and life gets hard? What do we do when evil rears its head?

 

Psalm 10:1-2

 

1 Why, O Lord, do you stand far away?

Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?

2 In arrogance the wicked hotly pursue the poor;

let them be caught in the schemes that they have devised.

 

The psalmist writing here asks the question that we often ask when we see human cruelty. Though our world so often demands a deity without wrath, when the wicked crushes the helpless, we then turn and ask God why. How could you do this?

 

Psalm 10:12-15

 

12 Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up your hand;

forget not the afflicted.

13 Why does the wicked renounce God

and say in his heart, “You will not call to account”?

14 But you do see, for you note mischief and vexation,

that you may take it into your hands;

to you the helpless commits himself;

you have been the helper of the fatherless.

15 Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer;

call his wickedness to account till you find none.

 

Look what the psalmist goes on to pray. Rise up, God! Go get them! Put a stop to their evil! Don’t let them think you are not there or that you cannot act! Break their arms so they can’t hurt people anymore!

 

The next time you find yourself tempted to wish that God would not be a judge too, consider a psalm like this one. You do not want a God who lacks justice. You want a God who acts, who moves, who has a response to the wickedness of human evil.

 

The big problem is that we want a God who judges evil, just not our evil. We want, in our sin nature, a God who will let us make up our own morality until we do not like others making up their own morality. We want to be the determiners of morality—to be our own little gods. That is the problem with a throwing off of the idea of God as judge.

 

So, learn from the psalm. God is good. God is just. We want him to be just. So, it is wise and right to get under his rule and to embrace his judgment. Surrender to him as Lord. He is the one who defines morality by his own character. He is the one who sets our limits. He is the one who will rightly judge. We should bow to him, call him Lord, and trust that his justice will reign.

 

And, we also must recognize that, though I say that we want a certain kind of God, that really does not matter. We do not pick the attributes of holiness. We are not makers of God; God is the Maker of mankind. So, be sure, what we want in a deity is irrelevant when faced with the reality that God is. Thankfully, he also is good.

Have you ever noticed that we respond differently to warnings depending on the topic? For example, if you are about to cross the street, and you do not notice a car coming, you are pretty happy to be warned to watch out. But, when you are about to have a piece of your favorite dessert, and your spouse reminds you that you should be watching your health, the warning is less appreciated. Something about our desire, our love of what we are about to do, impacts how we respond to a warning.

 

In our modern society, warning people against sin is certainly not in favor. It is as if the world around us has decided that it is completely unloving to speak out against sin. The world loves rebellion against God like a man might love ice cream. And the world is upset if a warning is raised against the beloved activity.

 

Strangely, the world has decided, and some Christians seem to agree, that to tell people that what they are doing is destructive is an unloving act. The world would have us believe that to warn against sin is to lack grace, love, and kindness. But, is this true?

 

Paul’s letter to the Galatians is one of the most grace-oriented books in the New Testament. The apostle writes to oppose those who would make a submission to ritualistic law a part of Christianity. Paul points out time and time again in the book that we are saved by God’s grace and not at all through submission to law.

 

In our modern context, many in the world and many in more liberal churches would expect that Paul would not include any sort of sin list. How, after all, could he have a vice list in a book on grace? Aren’t we supposed to just love and accept each other?

 

But see the warning that Paul includes as he approaches the ending of his letter.

 

Galatians 5:19-21 – 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

 

Paul lists some sins that, honestly, many in our culture love. Yet, in verse 21, this apostle who is writing about grace after grace is telling people that those who participate in the activities in this list will not inherit the kingdom of God. Unrepentant participation in the sins in this list is a mark that a person is not saved.

 

What gives? Where is the love? Where is the grace? Is Paul undoing all the grace over law stuff of the previous chapters?

 

Paul is not opposing grace. Paul loves grace as much as any New Testament writer. But Paul knows something very important: true love warns. To love a person is not to allow them to continue in sin with no warning.

 

It would be unloving and unkind to allow a person to step in front of an oncoming bus without a warning. It would be unloving of a spouse to take no concern for their partner’s health. It would be unloving for a parent to allow their children unchecked freedom. It is unloving to let a person walk toward hell without a warning.

 

Grace warns. When the world embraces what opposes God, we must be honest enough to tell them that they are putting themselves in danger. This is not to be mean. This is not to be judgmental. This is not to be unloving. The most loving thing we can do is tell them the truth, even if we have to oppose the things they think they love. We have to be honest, even if we have to go against what the world decides is good. If we love, we will warn.