This is for many reasons, but take just one. Men were made to be strong and to lead their wives. But men are sinners and foolish, and they marry sinful and foolish women and that’s just for starters. But the gospel is good news for sinful men and women, even the kind who get married to each other. And so you have to remember the gospel.

Paul says as much to the Ephesians: Husbands love your wives like Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for her. This means that husbands are called to die for their wives in order to be strong for them and lead them. The problem is that dying sounds like losing. Far too many men plunge into a conflict and after suffering for a bit, after they feel that they have felt the sensation of dying enough, jump off the cross and start barking orders and demand to know why no one is listening.

But when Jesus was mocked as weak, Jesus refused to jump off the cross. The problem many men have is that they jump off the cross thinking that the sensation of dying is the same thing as having died. And unfortunately this is the worst of both worlds. Now your wife’s miffed and you feel like you’ve been through death but haven’t actually fixed anything. And so many men, even Christian men, secretly conclude that it just doesn’t work for them. But that’s like shooting yourself in the foot, and concluding that guns just don’t scare bad guys away. Yeah, good luck with that.

Jesus didn’t jump off the cross. He stayed there and suffered and bled until it was finished, until He died. If you have conflict over how to train your children, where to go to church, what your sex life should be like, how to spend your money, how to spend your time, you need to remember the gospel. Not like some kind of mantra. Not like some kind of good luck charm. You need to remember how the gospel works. Jesus died for sin. He took the shame. He took the false accusations. He took the lies. He took your mess. And He died for it. Now that’s your job, husband. Not that you take away your wife’s sin, not that you’re some kind of perfect savior. No, but it’s your job to imitate Christ to and for your wife. So it’s your job to patiently, graciously listen to her, talk gently to her, pray with her, study the Scriptures with her, get counsel with her, and then make the best decision you can muster for her, remaining calm, cheerful, gentle, affectionate, good humored, full of tenderness and kindness. No matter what. And stay there. Stay there. 

At first it might seem awful, horrible. Maybe she’ll accuse you of untrue things. Maybe her version of the story will seem wildly inaccurate to you. Maybe she’ll melt down emotionally. Maybe she’ll just disagree. Maybe she’ll refuse to listen. Maybe she’ll get mad. Maybe she’ll clam up. Maybe she’ll talk behind your back to her friends. Stay there. Confess any sins you’ve contributed, admit your own failures, but don’t back down. Don’t walk away. Don’t give up. Stay there.

Why?

Because that’s the gospel. Jesus stayed there for us. Jesus hung on that cursed tree for us. He stayed there.

What are you waiting for?

You’re waiting to get buried. You’re waiting for the tomb to get sealed. You’re waiting for the soldiers to line up outside in their cute little Roman togas. You’re waiting for it to get dark. You’re waiting for morning. And remember: you don’t bring the morning. You wait for the morning.

The gospel is that on the first day of the week, an angel descended from heaven and rolled away the stone and scattered the soldiers. And the Holy Spirit of the Father raised Jesus from the dead by His infinite power.

The gospel is not that Jesus suffered for a while and then got His own way. The gospel is not that Jesus was misunderstood but then eventually everyone felt bad for Him and gave Him His fair share. The gospel is that He gave it all up, and then it was all given back with glory upon glory.

If you want to be a man, if you want to be a husband, remember the gospel. It’s good news for you and for everyone. And the good news is that if you stay there, if you stay in Christ on the cross no matter what, you’ll get buried. But you know what happens to people who get buried who are in Christ. They always get raised.

Don’t jump off the cross. Don’t throw your hands up in frustration. Don’t give up until you’ve actually given it all up. And then wait in the dark for the light to come. Wait for it to be given. Stay there, and then you’ll begin to be a real man, a real leader like Jesus.

And since at the center of the world is Jesus Christ, there is no life outside of Him. All things exist and cohere in Him. Therefore, all counterfeit forms of life have to borrow from Jesus. Jesus said that in order to find your life you have to lose it. The greatest in the kingdom is the servant of all. In other words, because the cross has become the center of all human history, everybody is forced to reckon with it. Everybody, even people with qualms, have to live with this fact. And this means there are really only two options. Some bow before it, in true humility, confessing their sins, receiving forgiveness and cleansing, and then they rise bearing that same cross as God works His life into and out of their lives, joyfully following their Savior. Everybody else, failing to actually bow before Christ, must pretend to have humbled themselves. They must pretend to bear a cross. They muster up some kind of limp. They wear it like a cheap toupee. Ever since Jesus came into the world, the old pagan mythos of arrogant strength has been fading away, and now all true power and strength is found in the cross, or else some kind of faux version made with aspartame and a bad aftertaste.

In other words, everybody likes the idea of humility. Ever since Jesus, humility is heroic. Everybody likes the idea of being humble, but nobody really wants to be humbled. In other words, the popular form of humility is a sort of aw-shucks-taint-nothing sort of demeanor. In the broader Christian world it consists of apologizing for everything as often as possible. It’s telling and a little more than ironic that people often describe being humbled at the very point at which they are receiving some kind of recognition, honors, praise. But this is faux humility. This is humility with a combover. Real humility means being humbled, taking on shame, being misunderstood, misjudged.

I wrote recently that we could use more people being mistaken for being *that* guy than we currently have. As was pointed out in the comments (and which I completely agree with), there is a way of being “that guy” that is not faithful to Jesus, not a good testimony, and not helpful. It really is obnoxious, rude, condescending, judgmental, self-righteous, and so on. And everybody knows somebody like that. They are obnoxious about courtship. They wave their Federal-Husband-Headship flag with their wife and children flinching and cowering behind them. They are obsessed with health fads and constantly posting stuff about the dangers of gluten. They are political gamers, addicted to their news feeds like some kind of porn problem. Maybe they’re even really in to Bible studies, evangelism, and outspoken about the gospel at work. But they are also unkind, sloppy, and poor workers. He’ll get written up by his boss, his wife will leave him, his children will rebel, and he’ll have no real evangelistic fruit over the years, and he’ll call it being persecuted for the sake of Jesus, but he deserves every bit of it. In so far as “that guy” really is rude and unkind, the dismissal he or she receives is completely warranted. As St. Peter says, if you suffer for doing wrong, what credit is that to you?

But the problem is, and what I was trying to get at, is the fact that far too many Christians are unfaithful in the other direction because what terrifies them more than sinning is the potential of being mistaken for one of those fruitcakes. They don’t want to be the nerdy courtship family, so they make a point of talking about “Christian dating.” You don’t want to be one of those chest thumping, red-bearded patriarchalists giving the egalitarians their blogging fodder, so you go soft on the headship language. When Paul talks about submission, he’s talking about mutual submission after all. And well, everybody’s known the eager-beaver in Bible studies who’s just a little too talkative, so everybody wants to be casual, not the evangelistic, psalm singing nerd. He was probably home schooled.

This is all related to a thought I tossed out the other day about Jesus laughing at Obama based on Psalm 2. There’s a lot here but suffice it to say that I stand by what I said, even though there’s nary a partisan bone in my body. I have to work up political opinions, and it’s generally the sensation of getting sick. I try to put it off for as long as possible, but eventually I realize I’ll feel better if I just get it over with. I think Obama represents us well, and so we have no one to blame but ourselves. Obama is slick and sexy, and that’s what sells in our country. I also don’t think his predecessors from either party were bastions of righteousness, and frankly, I suspect that Jesus has been laughing at our country for a good while. But when the president’s own prophets, Jon Stewart among them, erupt in laughter, we should realize that Jesus was laughing first. A ruler who has the audacity to call God’s blessing down on the organization responsible for spearheading the genocide of unborn children in our land and throughout the world, is a ruler who has taken counsel against the Lord and His Anointed. He who sits in the heavens laughs. But to make the statement is to run the risk of sounding like a partisan, sounding like a conservative screecher, looking like I think Obama is the anti-Christ or something.

One friend asked what that sentiment meant with regard to God’s compassion towards evil rulers, and I agreed that God’s laughter in judgment doesn’t preclude his mercy and patience, holding out for repentance and salvation. And it should be said that if Obama was actually converted and turned to Christ it would be glorious and very quickly an enormous and wonderful sort of mess in DC. But the point that I was actually quick to make was that even if pointing out the fact of Psalm 2 caused some to wonder if Jesus was anything like Rush Limbaugh – we shouldn’t be ashamed because Jesus is not ashamed to be mistaken for Rush.

Now truth be told, I don’t really know much about Rush other than the fact that he’s known for being an obnoxious conservative talk show host. Some of my friends talk/write about him in more messianic/prophetic terms, but I can’t say that I’ve listened to more than five minutes of the man in my life. But this was the point: Even though in many respects, I’m confident that Jesus isn’t anything like Rush, Jesus isn’t afraid of being mistaken for “that guy” – whoever that guy is. He is not ashamed to call us His brothers. He’s not ashamed to be associated with us, to be mistaken for us. He is not ashamed to humble Himself to take the form of a slave. He’s not ashamed to be thought worthless, obnoxious, revolutionary, blasphemous, whatever. He died the death of a convicted rebel, a heretic. If Jesus had more thought for His reputation, He would have spoken more clearly at His trial. But He didn’t because He had more thought for us than Himself. He didn’t because He truly humbled Himself, even to the point of death. He died accused falsely in order to take away all the accusations, all the lies, all our sin.

And this brings us back to the beginning of this post. Real humility confesses real sin and follows Jesus wherever He leads. False humility pretends to. False humility doesn’t really die, and you can tell because there are limits to it. It doesn’t mind smelling a little like death, but it doesn’t actually want to die. It wants the grave clothes and none of the rot. And everybody knows that there are certain orthodoxies in certain circles, certain shibboleths, certain passwords, certain uniforms, and everybody knows there are certain bad words, certain lines you don’t cross, certain associations you don’t make. But there are wheels within wheels. You can tell where the real currents of cool are by which geeks people are willing to be mistaken for. For many it’s hip and trendy to be into health food, farming fads, homeschooling, liturgy, sacraments, indie-hipster music and sensibilities, soft-liberal politics, mercy ministry, soft porn television shows, and casual cussing.

There are other ditches of course. There are nationalistic sins, conservative blind spots, Christian school arrogance, moralistic self-righteous legalisms, libertarian conspiracy obsessions, low church abominations, and militaristic romantics to name a few. But you can tell a lot by what someone is willing to be mistaken for. In a messy world full of sin and weakness and short attention spans, you will always be mistaken at some point for something you’re not. Jesus said that if they misunderstood Him, they will misunderstand you. Deal with it. Get ready. It’s coming.

So who are you willing to be mistaken for? Why? Would you be given a pass for it in the Huffington Post? Would you get a place at the table at the Food Coop? Would you get invited to the next Tea-Party meeting? What do your parents think?

And this gets us back to my previous post on being “that guy.” You shouldn’t actually be that guy, but if you’re faithful, you will be mistaken for that guy. If you actually call sin sin, if you tell the truth in love, if you honor your father and mother and elders, if you study issues in the light of God’s word and honestly come to conclusions and profess them and obey Jesus, you will be misunderstood. You will be mistaken for that guy.

Part of the trick is to keep your eye on multiple circles at once. Where is the wind blowing in the broader culture? Then zero into your own church and community. Where are you required to stand? Where does obedience require that you be the party crasher? But you have to connect the dots. Wisdom requires that you ask the Spirit to show you how your faithfulness is connected to the big picture. And you have to practice being brave. You have to practice being courageous. But practice on obvious things. Practice sharing your faith. Practice inviting your neighbors over for dinner. Practice where unbelievers might misunderstand. It’s not brave to do something that slightly bothers your mother. It’s not courageous to get your hair cut like Nate Ruess.

This isn’t an argument for obscurity or sloppiness or ignorance or apathy (or crankiness!). Christians should take care, love the brothers, watch their words, learn from mistakes, confess sin and repent, be bold and courageous and joyful, but – and this is the point – we should love Jesus most of all. We should keep our eyes fixed on Him. And if we do this, because we are human, it will look to some like we are blinkered, blind, not paying attention. We will be accused of not noticing when in fact we do notice, but we have concluded that faithfulness to Jesus is worth the sacrifice. We esteem the reproach of Christ greater than the treasures of this world because we have already died and our lives are hid with God in Christ. And that’s true humility.

The Text: Psalm 50 begins with God calling Israel to court (Ps. 50:1-7). His complaint is not with their sacrifices per se (50:8), but with the fact that they don’t understand what they mean. God doesn’t need their sacrifices because He’s hungry or poor (50:9-13). He wants their sacrifices to embody their worship, their praise, their loyalty, their need for Him (50:14-15). God’s complaint is with the fact that they take His covenant in their mouth, but they are wicked, hate instruction, are friends with thieves and adulterers, and love lies and slander (50:16-20). God has not kept silent because He doesn’t know about it, so they need to do some serious thinking and seek His salvation or be destroyed (50:21-23).

While the occasions for Psalms 50 and 51 are very different, the themes match perfectly. David opens Psalm 51, pleading for mercy (51:1). David not only asks for mercy but also cleansing (51:2). He acknowledges his sin as sin (Ps. 51:3). He also recognizes that the greatest evil is his treason against God (Ps. 51:4). Godly sorrow that results in real repentance is before the Lord not just a fleshly sorrow about consequences (cf. 2 Cor. 7:9-12). David acknowledges that his sin problem goes all the way back to birth (Ps. 51:5). He doesn’t have truth in his inward parts, and only God can cleanse him all the way down (Ps. 51:6-7). Another sign of true repentance is real, abiding joy (Ps. 51:8). David knows that if God forgives him, gives him a clean heart, and covenant is renewed and restored (Ps. 51:8-12), not only will that give him joy, but he will be in a position to teach others about this salvation (Ps. 51:13). This covenant renewal in Ps. 51 is what God had called for in Ps. 50: it includes crying out to God in need of salvation and singing and praising with a broken and contrite heart (Ps. 51:14-17). God keeps covenant by His mercy which means that the foundational way people keep covenant is by confessing their sins. When this happens, God builds the walls of Jerusalem and receives our worship (Ps. 51:18-19).

Covenant By Sacrifice
Asaph says that God’s saints make covenant by sacrifice (50:5), but he agrees with David that true sacrificial worship flows out of broken and contrite hearts (50:15, 51:17). And David knows that the Holy Spirit is essential to this process (51:11). Putting this all together, we can see that one of the purposes of the Holy Spirit is to be the mercy of God in us and for us for confession of sin and covenant keeping for true worship (cf. Jn. 4:23-24, 16:8). Confession and forgiveness is the flammable material the Spirit loves to ignite. When Jesus came, God came “to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember His holy covenant, the oath which He swore to our father Abraham…” (Lk. 1:72-73) God came to do in Jesus what He promised in covenant to Abraham (e.g. Gen. 17:1-8). But the whole Old Testament teaches that the sons of Adam cannot keep covenant on their own. This is why Jesus had to come. He came to keep the covenant perfectly, to listen to the words of His Father. He came to be and do what Israel was always supposed to be and do. But the reason why the Old Covenant couldn’t fix our problem was fundamentally because it didn’t take away sin. The sacrifices pointed to the fact that God would take away sin and that we needed sin taken away, but the blood of bulls and goats doesn’t actually do the trick (Heb. 10:4). Man sinned, and therefore man needed to die (Rom. 6:23). And so in the greatest act of covenant keeping, Jesus offered His own blood to cleanse us from all our sin (Mt. 26:28, 1 Jn. 1:5-9). By the Holy Spirit, God gives this mercy to us: the gift of broken hearts and true worship.

Conclusions: Keeping Covenant & Walking in the Spirit

A broken and contrite heart flows from honest confession, complete forgiveness, and restorative repentance in the power of the Spirit (Eph. 4:30ff) and results in:

1. Joy of Salvation (51:8, 12)
2. Evangelism (51:13-15)
3. Worship (51:17, 19)
4. Justice (51:18-19)

Where is heaven? Where is heaven? We often ask what heaven is like. What is it like in heaven? What will it be like when we die? But perhaps an equally or more important question is: Where is heaven? And actually, I think answer the question where, goes a good ways toward answering the what.

The answer of the Bible, as illustrated in stories like this one with Elisha and his servant and the armies of Syria, is that heaven is here. Heaven is not far away, on the other side of the galaxies. Heaven is close by, nearby, all around us. But we can’t normally see it. The problem isn’t that heaven is far away. The problem is that we are like the servant of Elisha, and we can’t see it though the heavenly presence of God is all around us.

When Jesus ascended into heaven, fire didn’t shoot out of the soles of his feet. He didn’t blast off like a human rocket into outer space (as cool as that might sound). Luke says He was taken up, but He also says that a cloud received Him and He was taken from their sight. Remember other events like this: Enoch walked with God, and then he was not for God took him. Or God’s heavenly presence in the burning bush and the cloud and fire leading Israel out of Egypt, coming to rest on Mt. Sinai, and then later the glory of the Lord filling the tabernacle and temple. Or Elijah was taken up in a whirlwind. Or Stephen who gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. We gesture upwards, we look up, we lift up our hands and hearts, but the heavenly presence of God seems to break out in various places at various times all around us. Heaven is above us and all around us. Heaven seems to overlap with earth in some sense.

In the beginning, God created the world, and Adam and Eve would walk with God in the garden. If you had asked Adam, Where is heaven? He wouldn’t have understood the question. Walking and talking with God in the Garden of Eden was heaven. He was in the presence of God, in perfect fellowship with God. Heaven and earth mingled together in harmony. But notice that it was centrally located in the fellowship between God and man. When man ruled the world under the blessing of God, heaven leaned heavy on the world. The glory of God pierced through creation at every point. When man walked and talked with God, heaven and earth were married. Perhaps angels walked in the garden with Adam and Eve. Perhaps angels would have taught Adam how to build boats and sail down the rivers looking for gold and treasure. Perhaps the angels would have been visible to the naked eyes of Adam and Eve, signaling the clouds and stars and wind, orchestrating their dances.

But something awful has happened. Adam and Eve disobeyed, and their eyes were opened. But instead of seeing God more clearly, instead of heaven and earth drawing closer, their eyes were opened, and they saw that they were naked and they were ashamed. Guilt entered the world. Fear entered the world. And they hid themselves from one another and from their God. Instead of walking with God, they hid from Him. Instead of unending life, now death would come. There would be pain in childbirth, thorns and weeds would grow, and now Adam and Eve were sent out of the garden, out of the presence of God, down into the world. And so the whole human race and creation with us were plunged into darkness. The curse of death and sin and suffering was not merely a matter of bad habits. It was not merely a matter of personal offenses. It was a cosmic fall. The whole world careened out of joint, out of orbit. It skipped a beat, and heaven was no longer visible, no longer in harmony with this world. To be dead in sin, to be under the curse of death, to be enslaved to the forces and powers of the devil and demons – all of these are ways of describing the whole world warped, bent, leaning away from the God who made it, leaning away from His presence, His glory, His word, His power. It’s a great darkness, a blindness that doesn’t allow us to see rightly, truly the way heaven is meant to mingle with this world.

This is because God created man and woman to rule the world. With Adam and Eve and all their descendants far from the presence of God, there was no man at the helm, no captain of the ship, no King on the Throne. And the Bible says that when Adam listened to the voice of the serpent, in some sense, Satan, the Great Accuser became the prince of this world. God was certainly not dethroned, but man certainly was. And in his place stood a fallen angel. The Bible calls him by many names: the prince of the power of the air, the strong man, the god of this age, and in places like Job and even in the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness, we see him wielding significant power and authority, though certainly not an exhaustive power and authority. But this great curse, this great darkness, this great shadow fell over the world. And we could no longer see heaven. We could no longer see the glory of God but for mere fleeting glimpses.

In this story Death swallows every thing and everyone. In the early years men lived for hundreds of years, but one by one, death conquered them all. Their bodies disintegrated, to dust they returned. Darkness always came. The light always went out.

This is why for Paul, the resurrection of Jesus is such a big deal. Paul has heard that there are some in Corinth who say that while Jesus might have risen from the dead, that doesn’t mean anyone else will or that anyone else needs to. Paul has heard that some say that the resurrection is already passed or that isn’t really that important or it doesn’t really matter.

But Paul understands that the resurrection of Jesus was not a random miracle. It wasn’t merely God flexing His supernatural powers, showing off His repertoire of tricks. It wasn’t like Jesus came doing a bunch of magic tricks like a fireworks show, and the resurrection was the grand finale at the end. As great as fireworks shows are, and as glorious as some grand finales are, when the fireworks show is over, the sky remains dark. It’s still black. Darkness still covers the world. You see, if the miracles and life of Jesus were like fireworks exploding the in night sky of the Old World held in darkness, the resurrection was an explosion of light that managed to launch a new sun into orbit. The difference is that when Jesus rose from the dead, centuries of Night time came to an abrupt end. At the end of that fireworks show it was suddenly Morning and completely New Day was dawning.

In other words, for Paul, the resurrection of Jesus is the answer to the great cosmic curse. The gospel – the appearance of God in this world as a man walking among us, talking to us, a man we can see and feel and touch – this takes us back to the Garden, back to Eden, back to Adam and Eve. This is heaven breaking back into this world. This is the glory of God revealed in a way that we can see again. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. We see flashes of heaven in the Old Covenant. We see flashes of glory breaking out, but for the most part, we are like the servant of Elisha, and we can’t see the glory. It’s too bright. We are blind.

The gospel isn’t merely a “spiritual experience.” It isn’t a story you tell yourself merely to make yourself feel better, a sort of calming fairy tale, a bed time story to keep away the bad dreams. Paul says that the resurrection of Jesus means the resurrection of the whole world. When God created the world, heaven was joined to earth in Adam and his family. The glory of God, heaven itself poured out of the fellowship of God with man. As long as God and man walked together, as long as a man ruled the world with God, there was no death, no dying, no growing old, no sin, no betrayal. But under the curse of sin and death, there was only darkness. A man might be resuscitated here and there. You might have someone stop breathing for a bit, go into a deep coma for a bit, and then come back out of it. But these, however miraculous they may have been, were not resurrections.

Resurrection, by definition, is the defeat of the power of death. Resurrection means going all the way down into the heart of death, down into the earth, dead as dead can be. And then from that point, from that nothingness, from the impotence, from that point overcoming the darkness for ever.

This is why Paul insists that the resurrection of Jesus necessarily means the resurrection of all men. You can’t have the resurrection of Jesus and no general resurrection of all men. If there will be no resurrection of all men, whatever happened to Jesus, it wasn’t resurrection (15:13). If all men will not rise, then Jesus was not really dead. And if Christ is not risen, this gospel that Paul and the other apostles are preaching is empty and worthless and their faith is empty (15:14). In other words, Paul says he would be a liar (15:15). If the problem is the entire world gone wrong. If the problem is death. If the problem is the grave swallowing, swallowing, always swallowing up life and light and joy, it does absolutely no good for one man to do an isolated magic trick and someone cheat death. If Jesus just got lucky, then there is no gospel. There is no good news. It’s still dark out. It’s still Night Time. And we are still in our sins (15:16-17). If all Jesus did was give us warm, happy thoughts for a few a years before we get checked in to our nursing homes to slowly fade into oblivion, then the gospel is worthless, and we are a bunch of fools (15:18-19).

But that is not what met Paul on the road to Damascus. Paul was not interrupted by a heart warming story about a brave man who someone escaped death. Resurrection doesn’t mean escaping death. Resurrection means conquering death, overthrowing death, defanging death, gutting death, binding death, swallowing up death. Jesus went down into death, down into the grave, down into the darkness and with His own body so destroyed the power of death, that now all those who die in Him merely sleep. They are not lost. They are not gone forever. They are not swallowed into the abyss. They are not forgotten. They are only asleep. Because death has no more dominion over this world. Death does not rule like it once did. Death has been tamed by the Master of this World. Therefore the resurrection of Christ is the first fruits of turning back the tide of death (15:20). The resurrection is about reversing the curse that Adam brought into the world (15:21-22). Between the first resurrection and the resurrection of all who are in Him, Christ reigns, putting the entire old, cursed world and its powers under His feet (15:23-25). In other words, at last a man walks and talks with God. And not only does a man walk with God, that man is God walking with us. But what’s so crazy about the resurrection and ascension of Jesus is that now not only has heaven burst into this world, but now this world has also ascended into heaven. In other words, heaven is even closer now than it was in the Garden. Because now we have a Man in glory. We have a man with flesh and bones and hair and a belly button in heaven. He’s sitting next to the glory of God the Father. He is one of us. And He is there for us. And He is there until He finishes the work He set out to do. You see Jesus did not die so that we might die and go to heaven. Jesus did not die so that when we die we may go to heaven. No, Jesus died so that the power of sin and Satan might be broken forever. Jesus died so that our sins might be carried away, paid for, forgiven, so that Satan cannot accuse us though our sins may be many. Jesus died so that when our bodies finally die, they cannot stay dead. Jesus died and rose again, so that death cannot keep us. Death cannot hold us. He died so that we might rest in His presence while watch and wait and cheer His conquest of every square inch of this universe. And the last enemy will be death itself (15:26). Then Jesus will wake us all up. Then He will summon us like a great harvest from all the fields and all the seas and all the dust of the earth. And we will stand up on this planet, in this world with life unbreakable, forever life, eternal life. Salvation is not merely assurance that you will be with Jesus when you die. Salvation is God’s determination to undo death for you and this whole world. Then Jesus will deliver the kingdom to God the Father that God may be all in all (15:27-28).

What does that mean? It seems to mean that God’s plan is to make this world heaven once again. The mission of Jesus, and therefore our goal, our mission, is for God to become all in all. It’s for this world to be shot through with heaven.

Our hope is not to “die and go to heaven.” We are certain that to die in this life is to be with Jesus (Phil. 1:23, 2 Cor. 5:8), but our hope is in the “resurrection of the body.” Our hope is to get our bodies back, indestructible forever. The conquest of death now means that we live our lives free from the power of sin now. We are forgiven and therefore forgivers. This is how God invades our darkness.

The Ascension is God’s affirmation of the goodness of His creation, and His commitment to see it all healed, all restored. There is a physical man in God’s presence now and forever, the beginning of the reunion of heaven and earth. This is one reason why we want a beautiful building of our own to worship in. A building is not absolutely essential to worshiping Jesus, and sometimes in some contexts it’s not possible or advisable. But all things being equal, buildings can be memorials of the resurrection and ascension of Jesus. We plant bodies in the ground like seeds, waiting for the great harvest. But this is what we do with all of our labor, with the gospel, with our love, with our creativity. When we strive for excellence and beauty and glory, under the blessing of God, our labors can become signposts, pointing into the future when God shall be all in all. This is why you should write poetry, this is why you should play musical instruments, this is why you should bake bread, this is why you should tell your neighbor about Jesus, this is why you should spend time in prayer and fasting, this why you should throw big Sabbath dinner parties and invite your friends and neighbors, this is why you should serve the unlovely, the downtrodden, the mentally handicapped, this is why you should sacrifice time and visit the elderly in nursing homes. This is why you should sacrifice time and money for our new building. Whatever we do it, we do it in the name of Jesus, lifting it up with thanksgiving asking God to make it a place where His glory shines, where heaven breaks out here, where we are joined to the life and love of God more and more.

Lastly, remember how this new world breaks out here: the preaching of the gospel. We announce the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. We announce that death and sin have been conquered, and we call the world into this grace. Jesus rides forth throughout the earth conquering His enemies with the sword coming out of His mouth (Rev. 19:15). It’s all about God’s power, God’s word, God’s glory. It’s not about us. It’s not about our reputations. It’s not about our limitations or weaknesses. Jesus is our King. Jesus is our Lord. Jesus is ascended, and He sits at the right hand of the Father until all His enemies are beneath His feet.

Where is heaven? It’s right here. It’s getting brighter every minute of every day. We pray that God’s Kingdom would come and His will would be done on earth as it is in heaven. In other words, Jesus taught us to pray that the earth would become heaven, that the darkness of sin and death would be fully driven away, and in it’s place would shine the light and glory of God forever. And so we also need to pray that God would open our eyes to see the world as it truly is. We need to ask God to show us His glory piercing the shadows. We need to pray for our eyes to be opened so that we can see the horses and chariots, God’s armies surrounding us, protecting us, and see Jesus our King up ahead of us ruling and reigning until all is put right.

In the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.

One of the points we should gather from this instruction is that sin clouds our vision. Sin does not allow us to see clearly. If you have unconfessed sin, unrepentant sin, outstanding sin, you can’t see clearly. The world is distorted. Your judgment is impaired. Confession of sin and repentance is God’s ordinary way of healing moral blindness. But one of the other lessons is that sometimes those most interested in confronting others do so precisely because they can’t see clearly. The plank in their own eye distorts the world, distorts the situation, and in that state it appears that the problem is the other fellow, your brother and his speck. Are you constantly evaluating others, constantly judging their behavior, spotting inconsistencies, comparing yourself to them? Jesus says beware, with the judgment that you judge, you will be judged. Do you want to be evaluated the way you evaluate others? Do you want to be scrutinized the way you scrutinize others? Do you want others to assume about you what you assume about them? Jesus says we should always begin with ourselves, confessing our own sin, our own complicity, our own faults, our own weakness. Maybe your brother needs help, maybe your sister really does need your assistance, but before you offer to get out your tweezers, you should make sure you’ve used those tweezers a number of times on yourself successfully.

So we’ve come to confess our sins. This means that we are here to confess our own sins and not our brother’s sins. And secondly, we confess our own sins so that we might see clearly so that we might love our brothers and sisters as we ought.

We do this because Jesus is our King. He is our Lord, and He has delivered us out of the darkness into the kingdom of His light.

All sin makes matters worse. But we momentarily pretend that sin is the solution, our salvation, our deliverance. Things are not going my way, so I will get angry. Things are taking too long, so I will demand them. I am sexually frustrated so I will serve my lusts. I do not feel respected or honored enough, so I will criticize the success of others. I am depressed and lonely so I will drink until the pain is numb. I have no direction so I will sit here and watch movies and play video games and check facebook every five minutes. I was late to work, so I will lie to my boss. It’s all insane. It never makes sense.

But this isn’t the same thing as saying that sin is completely random. From the perspective of grace, walking in the Light, sin can look horribly schizophrenic and at times completely out of nowhere. But grace also teaches us wisdom, and that wisdom can see the way seeds are planted, sprout, and grow up into big problems. While sin is a certain breed of insanity, it has it’s own predictable logic and trajectory. And that logic includes the need for justification.

Because God is good and righteous and holy, and we are made in His image. We have an inherent need and deep desire for goodness, righteousness, and holiness. In other words, we like being right. We like when things come together, are harmonious, make sense. Only those who are truly mentally handicapped can be at ease with being wrong or inconsistent. And even then, we probably don’t realize or understand how it’s still not that simple.

So a sinner sins, but he needs to be vindicated. He needs a reason why it’s OK, why it’s fine, why it was the only way, the only solution, the only way of escape. Christians can and do have momentary lapses into this self-justification, but the Spirit doesn’t allow it for long. The Spirit yearns jealously, and we wake up with a headache and we can see the bone sticking out and know that we contradicted the grace of God. Our sin dislocated His goodness and kindness. And so we repent. We cry out for mercy. We claim the blood of Jesus that cleanses us from all sin. And we take steps to restore what we have broken and precautions to prevent it from happening again. But the Christian repents out of gratitude. The Christian repents up to his armpits in grace. The Christian repents because he sees how his sin is a detour away from the blessing and goodness of God. Grace is sweet, and sin is bitter. Repentance is just spitting out the moldy peaches as quickly as possible, and gulping down God’s goodness as quickly as we can, trying to get that foul tast out of our mouths. For the Christian, repentance is like going home, and sin is being lost in the woods. Repentance can be hard, but it’s always comforting, refreshing.

But one of the surest signs that someone doesn’t really know God is the fact that they don’t get this grace. It’s not light and darkness, sweet and bitter, joy and sorrow. Unbelievers sin but don’t really understand what sin is. They touch something hot, and it hurts. But then they touch it again. And maybe over time, they learn a little bit of cause and effect, but not much. And you can tell they don’t understand grace because they’re still trying to justify themselves. They compare themselves to other sinners. They explain their actions away. They are still defensive and prickly, very concerned about being misjudged, misunderstood.

But grace is the goodness of the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful God of the universe. Grace isn’t just a lucky break. Grace isn’t a close call. Grace is the personal blessing of a personal God. He looks down, knows you’re a screwup, knows you deserve hardship, knows you deserve to eat your hat, and then He decides to give you grace. He gives mercy. He gives kindness. He gives relief. But unbelief doesn’t see this. Unbelief just sees random hardship, random lucky breaks, and ultimately unbelief does this because unbelief doesn’t understand grace.

There’s no need to be defensive. There’s no need to explain. There’s no need to compare yourself to others. We’re all screwups, but God is good. We’re all sinners, but Jesus died for sinners. We’re all guilty, but God justifies the ungodly.

We do need justice. We do need justification. But our justice isn’t big enough. We need a justice grounded in love, grounded in grace.

Wright notes that this phrase might also refer to the drama of the event: “He was, as it were, ripped from the womb in a traumatic way, blinded by the sudden light like an infant whose organs had not yet developed sufficiently to cope with the demands fo the outside world… Paul explains the difference between himself and the others not in terms of his seeing Jesus being a different sort of ‘seeing’, but in terms of his own personal unreadiness for such an experience. It took an emergency operation, he may be saying, to bring him into the list of witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection; his ‘seeing’ of Jesus was the same as theirs in terms of the Jesus they saw, but it was radically different in terms of his own experience, being ripped from the womb of zealous Judaism, to come face to face with the crucified and risen Lord.” 

The phrase is used twice in the Septuagint. First, in Job 3:16, where Job laments his life wishing that he might never have been born alive — that he might have been still born. In that sense, Paul could be referring “not to the process of his ‘birth’ as such, but to the condition he was in immediately before it: he was like someone as good as dead, unable to see anything, but all that was changed in a fresh act of life-giving grace.” Wright points out that the other possible allusion may be Numbers 12:12 where Moses prays for Miriam who has been struck with leprosy for her insurrection against Moses. This actually fits quite well with Paul’s situation: “If Paul is alluding to this story he is doing so in order to align himself with Miriam, and the early church with Moses, the ones who have seen the Lord face to face. Hosper to ektromati, again, would then allude, not so much to his experience of being ‘born’, as to the state he was in as a result of his persecution of those who had rightly claimed to have seen the Lord.”

If the church identifies its structures, its leadership, its liturgy, its buildings, or anything else with its Lord — and that’s what happens if you ignore the ascension or turn it into another way of talking about the Spirit — what do you get? You get, on the one hand, what Shakespeare called, ‘the insolence of office’ and, on the other hand, the despair of late middle age, as people realize it doesn’t work… Only when we grasp firmly that the church is not Jesus and Jesus is not the church — when we grasp, in other words, the truth of the ascension, that the one who is indeed present with us by the Spirit is also the Lord who is strangely absent, strangely other, strangely different from us and over against us, the one who tells Mary Magdalene not to cling to him — only then are we rescued from both hollow triumphalism and shallow despair.

- N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope, 113.

When God planted the Garden of Eden and placed Adam and Eve in it, He explained to them that the river flowing out through the middle of the garden actually split into four different river heads. God said, down the first river Pishon, you will find the land of Havilah which is full of gold. It’s good gold and there is bdellium and onyx stones there as well. Adam didn’t even know what gold was. He didn’t know where Havilah was. He didn’t know what bdellium and onyx stones were either. But God gave him these descriptions and pointed into the distance and said, You’re gonna want to go that way. What God did was give Adam the very first treasure map.

But God wasn’t done. He pointed to the other rivers: Gihon goes down to Ethiopia. Hiddekel goes toward Assyria. And the fourth river is called Euphrates, and I’m not even telling you where that one goes. This is glorious. God created the universe and the first man and the first woman, and He set them down in this lovely garden and immediately points out the world to them. But He doesn’t tell them everything. He just points and gives clues. But the point is clear. This world is loaded with glory. It’s loaded with goodness, and it was made for us. And God wants us to find it.

Solomon says that it’s the glory of God to conceal a matter, and it’s the glory of kings to search it out (Pr. 25:2). That’s what this world is for. That’s what people are for. They are for hard work. They are for late nights and early mornings. They are for digging in the dirt: inventing and discovering and uncovering and planting and building and birthing. They are for trial and error. They are for learning. They are for uncovering the glory of God in this world.  

God buried treasures unfathomable in this universe. Gold is only the beginning. He buried the glories of food in the ground, and the magic that makes it grow. He buried the glories of animals in this world, and the magic that makes them live and breed. He breathed electrical currents into the world that we might learn to harness them and tame them and ride them. We whisper in their ears, and they carry messages to friends on the other side of this planet. When God saw what He made and said it was good, He saw all that was there on the surface but He also saw all that might be found, all that might be discovered, all that would one day be uncovered. And He saw that it was good. Under the blessing of God, hard work is glory. Under the blessing of God, hard work is grace and more grace, gifts piled on top of gifts.

But you know that this treasure hunt has been interrupted, this glory has been lost. God invented the world and put his first son and daughter in a beautiful garden, and gave them the run of the place only forbidding them the fruit of one tree. God said wait. Not yet. Learn to ride the rivers first, then I will teach you wisdom. Learn the secrets of the gold beneath the earth first, then I will teach you the knowledge of good and evil. But Adam and Eve didn’t listen to the voice that spoke the treasures of the universe. Instead, they listened to another voice, a lying voice, and they ate. Now, instead of glory there was shame. Instead of joy, there was sorrow. Instead of unending life, there would be an end and death would come upon them and all their children. They would still work, but now the ground would fight them. Thorns and weeds would grow, and their work would be cursed. Lives would be spent in futility. Men would lie and steal and cheat. Men would murder and be murdered.

And ever after, death hangs over all, the curse lies heavy on the world: Lies, betrayal, addictions, false gods, thorns and weeds – sin tangles and chokes it all. But God in His great mercy came for us and came for our broken world. He came down into this world. He came to do the hard work of salvation, the job we could never do. He came as a new Adam and rode the waves of the sea. He learned the magic of fruitfulness and taught the water to become wine. He unearthed His good friend Lazarus like gold from under ground. He told the lying serpent voices “No” and rescued those under their sway. And finally, to redeem us all, He climbed up that ancient tree. He died like a thief, like a robber, like a Cain, like an Absalom, like a traitor. He took the death, He took the pain, He took the curse, and He took it until there was no more, until it was all finished. He went down into the ground looking for treasure, and on the third day He rose victorious leading a host of captives free. Alive forever. Our King forever. And He sat down, having finished His work of the New Creation, establishing a new Sabbath forever. And now the curse is breaking. Now all things are made new. Now death is swallowed up in victory.

Sometimes people pretend that it would be fun not to work. People talk like retirement and endless vacations would be so nice. But we know this is a lie. We were not made to rest continually. We were not made to sit back and relax all the time. We were made for work and for Sabbath. We were made to be busy. We were made to be industrious. We were made to run. We were made to study. We were made to learn and invent and cultivate and build. We were made to find gold in the ground, and to paint the air with glory. Remember the Sabbath, but now the Sabbath is the first day, the day of resurrection, the day we begin to be men and women again, the day we begin to hunt treasure again.

Jeremiah, you were made to work. You were made to create. You were made to rule in this world as a King in our Lord Jesus. It’s the glory of God to conceal a matter, but it is the glory of Kings to search it out. This is why you are strong. This is what you are strong for. You are here to find glory, to dig up glory, to discover glory, to grow glory, to invent glory. But you are not good alone. You need help. And God has made a woman for you named Lesley. She is your helper. She is made for you. She was made to work with you. But what you need to see today is that she is your first glory. She is your first crown, the first fruits of all that the Lord will give you. Love her, cherish her, guard and protect her, listen to her, study her: she is your gold. She is your treasure from God. She is your chief counselor, your wisdom.

Lesley, you were also made to work. You were made to create. You were made to be fruitful and rule in this world as a Queen in our Lord Jesus. You were made to search out the glories of God. But what you need to understand today is that you are one of those glories. You have been uncovered. You have been searched for. You have been found. Jeremiah has found you, searched you out, and won you. As you look to your husband and seek to be his helper in this world, you will grow in that glory. And your children will be like jewels in your home, in your crown. Do not be afraid, Jesus has made a way, and now not even death can hold you.

And as your children and grandchildren and your neighbors and co-workers and friends watch you chasing after the glory of God, chasing after Jesus and His Kingdom, chasing after beauty and goodness and truth – may they be caught up into the great treasure hunt. May they be caught up into the race, into the joy of discovery, the glory of this world. This world has been remade in the death and resurrection of Jesus, and His work is finished. But this means that our work has just begun. And God is still pointing out the rivers. And He says: There’s gold down there.

In the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.

You should think about the porn war like any other war as having both defensive and offensive aspects. Defensive warfare is not a winning tactic, but it is a necessary tactic. And usually, when the Spirit has sacked a man, and he comes to his senses, repents, and wants to get out the prison cell of lust and pornography, the defensive angle has to be emphasized first. You need to get real accountability (pastor, parent, wife, godly roommate), change jobs, stop traveling so much, throw away your computer, put Covenant Eyes on your smart phone, cut off your hand or eye causing you to sin (Mt. 5:28-30). Jesus prescribes amputation, so don’t expect this to be very fun. This should be done right away while the Spirit is still burning within you. After about two weeks, the chances of you wanting to do anything drastic fall dramatically. But you should basically imagine your lust as a wild beast. You need to think about killing the damn thing, and that means you need to be your own worst enemy. Imagine the worst about your self. What are you likely to do in your weakest moment? Then cut that off. Pluck it out. Move out. Quit your job. Throw away your phone. Sounds crazy, but if it doesn’t look crazy, I don’t think you can say you’re actually obeying Jesus.

But the real problem is in your heart, in your mind, in the way you think about women, the way you think about sex and love. So after you slammed all the doors shut, padlocked them, run barbed wire around the tops of the fences, and dumped a bunch of broken glass around every entrance and exit, you need to do some hard thinking and praying about your heart and mind. Here’s a list to get you started:

1. God made women in His own image. Women are people. They are human beings. They are beloved daughters of God. He made them. He loves them. He values them. Do you think of women as God’s daughters? Do you recognize that they all belong to Him? They are His? And they are daughters, mothers, sisters, and friends of other people. They are real people. And this does not cease to be true when they are photographed or filmed. When you see a woman on the cover of a magazine do you remember that God made her? That she has an eternal soul, a story, a family, loves, hopes, dreams? Think about your own mother, sister, or daughter.

2. God made women, and their beauty is their glory. God created them to be lovely, attractive, glorious. That’s their God-given glory, their God-given duty. They do this in their words, their actions, their appearance, their creativity, the way they adorn places and people and events with grace. Do you resent this? Do you think there’s something wrong about this? Sometimes men fall into lust because they think there’s a design flaw in the system, that God goofed when He made women lovely. Get over yourself, chump. Open your eyes and give thanks for the beauty of the feminine. Sometimes one of the best ways of killing lust is just accepting the glorious but simple fact that God made women beautiful and then recognizing the fact if you’re really blessed, God will give you one (if He hasn’t already) and all the others aren’t yours.

3. Lots of guys think like the evolutionists are right. They think they have this animal instinct super charged with hormones that needs to just get muzzled and straight-jacketed until they can be properly unleashed in marriage. But this is false. If you’re thinking like this, you’re preparing to use and abuse your current/future wife. While there is certainly a physical/chemical element to this, men are not actually animals. Sin drives men to act in beast-like ways (see above), but this is not how you were created to live. To live like an animal is to become less of a man not more of one. The man who goes to a whore shrivels up like a crust of bread (Prov. 6:26). Do you think of your sex drive as a generic force to be held in check? Or do you think of it as a God-given desire to have a wife? God invented sex to be like a sacrament in marriage, an enactment of the love, commitment, loyalty, transparency, joy, friendship, and fruitfulness found in marriage. That’s what that desire is for. It reminds you that it’s not good to be alone. It should drive you to find that companion, that friend, to become more human by sharing life together.

4. Every woman immodestly displayed on magazines, in movies, in internet pixels is being exploited, used, and abused. Pornography is socially accepted gang rape. Playboy pinups, swimsuit calendars, and the like are mistreatment of someone’s daughter, mother, sister. Women were not made to be used for a couple of minutes and then forgotten. Women were not made to be dishonored like that. I don’t care what her face seems to be saying. I don’t care how much she got paid. I don’t care that she did it “willingly.” It doesn’t matter what sins she committed in the process. Prostitutes get trapped in the system like that. They can’t find other work. They are addicted to drugs and alcohol. They have manipulative pimps. There are spoken and unspoken threats. They have no where else to go. They have been enslaved with lies about themselves and the world. When you see a picture of a woman stripped of her modesty, you are seeing a woman stripped of her honor, a woman defaced, a woman hated, a woman abused. When you walk by the airport terminal news stands, when you flip through the channels, when you are checking out at the grocery store, what could be arousing about seeing a woman, made in the image of God, strung up for the world to see? Far from seeing an image of illicit beauty, you are actually witnessing a brutal crime. Yes, God made her body. It is beautiful. But the fact that a bunch of cruel men are making millions off her abuse should make you sick to your stomach, give you deep sympathy for her plight. If you saw a woman being gang raped in a back alley, would you stop and masturbate? Why is it any different when Sports Illustrated does it?

5. God made men to protect and sacrifice and honor women, children, and all who are weak. God created women to be honored and protected by their men. You were not made to abuse women, to crush them, and join with their oppressors. These porn models are orphans and widows. They have lost or been abandoned by their fathers, brothers, and husbands. Will you see them as victims of abuse or will you join in with their abusers? God is the God of the orphan and the widow, the Defender of those in distress. He will hear their cries for mercy. He will rise up to their defense, and He will judge the wicked men who did this to them. Whose side are you on? Will you stand up and defend them? Or do you keep going back to the scene of the crime for another quick thrill?

6. As shown in this short movie, many women who end up in the porn industry were victims of the sex trade. They were kidnapped, raped, drugged, and broken down until they gave into their abusers. When you support this industry with your money, time, or pleasure, you are supporting more than just a perverse business venture. You’re supporting a widespread, underground slave operation. But you were made for freedom, and you were made to be a freedom fighter. You were made to be a man.

More could be said, but hopefully this gets you started. It’s not enough just to build a fortress of defense, you need to be transformed by the renewing of your mind. You need to learn to see the world the way God does.