Identities of a Christian Pilgrim in a Fallen World, Part 4

Manigong Bagong Taon sa iyo mula sa Pilipinas!  This is my first post from the Philippines, hopefully out of a few.  This has been my first time ever taking a vacation of at least a full week from work, and it is long overdue.  I have been here for about a week now.  The trip has gone well so far.  I've gotten some more ideas for things to do if I get to come back, most notably more island-hopping.

I was also pleased to see that December 2011 has been my highest-traffic month ever on this blog.  What a nice note for ending the year!  Whether you are a search indexer or a human - and I hope you are a human ;-) - thank you for reading this, and I hope you find that the posts here point you to the real gospel and push you to better know the God of the Bible.

Amidst sorting out the many photos so far from the trip, I have not had time to write an original post, so here is the next post in the "Identities" series.

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31.  I am hoping in Christ, not wealth.  The false prosperity gospel has taught that God will automatically rain expensive worldly possessions and a complete lack of illness on those who have enough faith, but some others, in reaction to this, have faith in God's salvation of their souls but not in God giving them any other sort of blessing.  But a God-focused faith teaches us that God does provide for what we need and He promises us many sorts of blessings.  Uniquely to us, this includes spiritual blessings.  "Our faith doesn't create prosperity, healings, and breakthroughs.  Our faith focuses fervently on God.  Biblical faith confidently - even ambitiously - asks God to act according to His promises.  True faith then accepts the answer.  Our faith stands on the unchanging character of God." - Dave Harvey, Rescuing Ambition.  (Ephesians 1:3; 1 Timothy 6:17)

32.  I am guaranteed persecution, at least to some level, for knowing Christ.  Yet God receives me even when others reject me.  "There is a great gulf between the Christianity that wrestles with whether to worship at the cost of imprisonment and death and the Christianity that wrestles with whether the kids should play soccer on Sunday morning." - John Piper, quoted in Dave Harvey, Rescuing Ambition.  (Psalm 27:10; 2 Timothy 3:12)

33.  I am confident to approach God's throne of grace, thanks to my High Priest, Jesus Christ.  The Lion of Judah is not even descended from Levi, but the Father has chosen Him to be my Mediator.  "Before the throne of God above, I have a strong and perfect plea: the Great High Priest whose name is Love, who ever lives and pleads for me!" - Charitie Bancroft, "Before the Throne of God Above".  (Hebrews 4:14-16; Hebrews 7:14; 1 Timothy 2:5)

34.  I am sure of what I hope for and certain of what I do not see.  This faith is in Christ, not misdirected to earthly things or wealth.  "We need an anchor to keep us sure and steady. Gospel hope is our anchor in the storms of this world. It is sure and steadfast, or it could not keep us so. The free grace of God, the merits and mediation of Christ, and the powerful influences of his Spirit, are the grounds of this hope, and so it is a steadfast hope." - Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary on the Bible.  (Hebrews 11:1; Hebrews 6:11-20)

35.  I am disciplined by my Heavenly Father, as His legitimate child.  I should not shy away from it, but should learn what the Lord is teaching me through it.  As my perfect Father, God will not leave me to my own devices when I sin against Him.  He cares about my staying on the right path and aims to purify my heart and sanctify me.  In order to show that I am God's workmanship, His masterpiece, He must cut away at me and mold me to reflect Him.  "If You love me, God, then chasten me." - DJ Official, "Chisel Me".  (Hebrews 12:7-11)

36.  I am intolerant of false gospels, called to separate from false teachers (who differ from me on closed-hand issues, such as the deity of Christ) and not welcome them or help their ministries.  The Lord Jesus Christ suffered and died for my sins, and God commands me to turn from my sins, not to other sins, but to Christ - to love what He loves and hate what He hates, which is a work that He must supernaturally do in me.  Realizing something of the cost that the Lord Jesus paid for my sins and the truth of this gospel makes me deeply grieved when false teachers add to it by saying that there are any good works I can do to gain salvation, reduce it by saying "Pray this prayer to accept Jesus into your little heart", or twist it to say that Christ died to give me better self-esteem or health and wealth.  "Avoid a sugared Gospel as you would shun sugar of lead. Seek that Gospel which rips up and tears and cuts and wounds and hacks and even kills, for that is the Gospel that makes alive again. And when you have found it, give good heed to it. Let it enter into your inmost being. As the rain soaks into the ground, so pray the Lord to let His Gospel soak into your soul." - C.H. Spurgeon on sugarcoating the gospel.  (Galatians 1:8; 2 John 1:7-11)

37.  I am committing my way to the Lord.  The true believer finds the yoke of obedience to Christ light and can rest in knowing that they have obeyed Him.  My only job is to do what He says when He calls.  He knows what I need and promises to sustain me.  "The ploughman sows and harrows, and then leaves the harvest to God. What can he do else? He cannot cover the heavens with clouds, or command the rain, or bring forth the sun or create the dew. He does well to leave the whole matter with God; and so to all of us it is truest wisdom, having obediently trusted in God, to leave results in His hands, and expect a blessed issue." - C.H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David.  (Psalm 37:5)

38.  I am in first love with the Lord, whether I realize it or not.  All new Christians have a stage where they have great passion for the Lord and little knowledge of theology.  But many lose this first love as they tie themselves up in meting out God's law to others - and in some cases adding to it - without giving them grace or being sidetracked by this present world and its little pleasures.  "The sin Christ charged this church with, is, not the having left and forsaken the object of love, but having lost the fervent degree of it that at first appeared. Christ is displeased with his people, when he sees them grow remiss and cold toward him. Surely this mention in Scripture, of Christians forsaking their first love, reproves those who speak of it with carelessness, and thus try to excuse indifference and sloth in themselves and others; our Saviour considers this indifference as sinful. They must repent: they must be grieved and ashamed for their sinful declining, and humbly confess it in the sight of God. They must endeavour to recover their first zeal, tenderness, and seriousness, and must pray as earnestly, and watch as diligently, as when they first set out in the ways of God." - Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary on the Bible.  (Revelation 2:2-4)

39.  I am guided as God sees fit to various geographic locations in order to make His name famous.  My Savior was homeless while He lived on earth.  Therefore, my happiness in Him cannot be tied to any earthly home.  "To me remains nor place nor time / My country is in every clime / I can be free from any care / On any shore, since God is there. / While place we seek, or place we shun, / This soul finds happiness in none. / But with a God to guide our way, / 'Tis equal joy to go or stay." - Madame Guyon, "My Lord, How Full of Sweet Content".  (Luke 9:58; Acts 1:8)

40.  I am dearly loved with an everlasting and unfailing love.  The love of the Lord for me is far greater than any love that I can have for Him.  "I find it very hard to sing about my love for God. ... For the most part you will just hear me sort of silent.  This puny thing I have, if you were to compare my love for God to the love that other men have had for God... I would be nowhere near the top. ... And then if I were to take my love [for God] and compare it to God's love for me, how could I even say, 'Oh, how I love You'?  But look what He says.  'How beautiful is your love, my sister, my bride!'  Love truly does cover a multitude of sins." - Paul Washer, "You Are Dearly Loved by God".  (Psalm 21:7; Song of Solomon 4:10)

"We need to keep theological thugs like you off the street."

As I have mentioned in some earlier posts, I finished switching churches a little more than a year ago. Since then, I have only had occasional contact with friends from my old church. One guy in particular became fast friends with me when he first started going there, when he had not really found his niche there yet. We have a similar educational background, do similar work, and have a similar interest in Reformed doctrine. Meeting him in a church that was pretty close to Arminian (believing only the P of TULIP) was a bit of a shock. When I met him, I was still a cage-stage Calvinist that went to Bible study each week with a long list of quotes from Reformed sermons that I had written down at work. The sermon quotes genuinely helped other members of the group, though others who took a less intellectual approach to Christianity probably felt beat up by some of them

We got back in touch a couple weeks ago for the first time since Next, when he wanted to show me the new place he is renting in preparation for his wedding next month. When he asked what was new, I told him that I was doing pretty well, working hard, and keeping busy serving in my church. And his reply started with this:

"Glad to hear you're keeping busy. Its best we keep theological thugs like you off the street, lol. :)"

Several weeks later, I'm still thinking about this. "Theological thug"? Wow. Is this really the legacy that I left at my old church when I left it?

This assessment is fair any way you look at it. When I was still going to two churches, I was learning a good deal about how to love the brethren. Yet I applied that love conditionally, toward people with a similar interest in theology. I am still doing that, to some extent. I don't enjoy pointless hanging out, talking about nothing, for hours on end. So my love becomes conditional and I become indifferent toward anyone who was not "last seen swimming in a sea of old books with Paul Washer blasting through his earbuds".

The word "thug" is interestingly applied. I'm not a thug in the conventional sense. I look like a yuppie, minus the Starbucks, plus a smoothie. I neither have nor want tattoos or piercings. I've never been in trouble with the law of the land, despite my paranoid nature around speed cameras. In short, some people might call me a model son for a white homeschooling Christian family in a lot of ways - minus, of course, that I graduated from a secular university. People might be surprised to find out that I spent a year as a pseudo-goth in high school and have a current affinity for Christian hip-hop.

When Jesus warns that few actually find the way to eternal life (Matthew 7:14), He is talking to a group of religious people that believe they are saved. It is worth it to keep this in mind. When armchair theologians engage in their version of thuggery, they often do so with no love at all. Pharisees had no love for those who did not reach their level of perceived holiness. Theological thugs of our day are often the same way. They only see love this way:

"And this is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, that you should walk in it." (2 John 1:6)

Without context, you can barely tell what the commandment is. If you are a theological thug, what do you do with texts like these?

"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God." (1 John 4:7)

"If someone says, 'I love God', and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen." (1 John 4:20)

And it all goes back to these:

"And a lawyer stood up and put Him to the test, saying, 'Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?' And He said to him, 'What is written in the law? How does it read to you?' And he answered, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.' And He said to him, 'You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.' But wishing to justify himself, he said to Jesus, 'And who is my neighbor?'" (Luke 10:25-29).

Here, Jesus affirms the whole point of the law in loving God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind, and in loving your neighbor as yourself. The lawyer realizes that he can't justify himself according to this. When have I ever loved the Lord my God with all my heart, all my soul, all my strength, and all my mind? At best, it is an imperfect passion. When have I ever loved my neighbor as myself? At best, my love for others is inconsistent. Even if I could master this over a lifetime, what about all of my frequent smaller-looking failings where I still acted in my own self-interests rather than in God's interests or the interests of others? What about the years of my life when I lived, not even knowing about this commandment from the law? God's standard still applies to me even when I was ignorant about it. I cannot trust myself for my own salvation!

"In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loves us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." (1 John 4:10)

You did not start by loving God. If you only love God's commandments and your own ability to keep them, your love is really for your own ability to get everything right. If you really love God, you will love what He loves - and who. You will not only hate outward sins that plague "the world", but the inward sins of your own heart that affect you deeply every day.

The tenses of "love" in this verse are interesting. Other translations might not capture it as well. "We loved God" - I can't tell which past tense this is in the Greek (I don't know Greek), but does this mean "one time", as in, "We never even once loved God"? "He loves us" - this is ongoing. Never failing. Eternal. Perfect love. He never fails to keep us sustained within this love that always protects us, always perseveres, and always ensures our full salvation from the wrath that we deserve to experience for all of eternity.

"His Son" - the object of the Father's love since eternity past and for eternity future. God's love is eternal because He did not have to create anything to make Himself a loving being. He has existed in three persons since before creation: eternally loving, eternally just, eternally all-powerful, eternally all-knowing, and eternally worthy of all praise and adoration. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have had a perfect love for each other for all of time. The only time the Father did not see the Son as perfectly worthy of His love was on the cross, when He saw Him as a sinner who was taking on the sin of everyone for whom He died. God does not need us to love Him (imperfectly) or worship Him (imperfectly) for Him to feel perfectly worshiped.

"propitiation for our sins" - Of everyone who has ever lived in a human body, only Christ is sinless. Only Christ lived the perfect life that we could not live and died the perfect death that we could not die. Therefore, only Christ could atone for our many sins against God. Only Christ could satisfy His Father's righteous, just anger against our sins against Him - including the idolatry of wanting to know everything we can theologically with the improper motive of lording it over others and condemning them for not wanting to have that knowledge or seeing side issues differently than we do.

"Did you know that hell is of infinite duration? The primary reason is because every sin you commit is committed against an infinitely worthy and good God. ...

"David sinned against his people. David committed adultery with a woman. David murdered a man, but in the end he said this:

"'Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned.'

"Why is sin so terrible? Because it is committed against God. Why don't we tremble? We don't know what that means. And why don't we know what that means? Because we do not know who God is. Such a glorious and blessed being!"

- Paul Washer.

Do we even see the sinfulness of theological thuggery - as sinful as any other sin against a holy, just, and merciful God? I'm not saying this about orthodoxy in and of itself, but of orthodoxy for the sake of being proud about it. We need to check ourselves against it and know what it means to be broken over it - not only so that our legacy with others will not involve "he was all law, without grace" or "he was all doctrine, without love", but because sin against the God who loves perfectly runs so much deeper than that. It is more than just an unbalanced application of Scripture. It is actually sin that God hates as much as He hates adultery and murder.

"Please hear my heart, like a stethoscope.

We're taking steps toward death, but looking for hope.

Because we were captured by sin.

We were seized. Now we need to be captured again.

That's why we need to pick them Scriptures up,

Start praying and fasting, and ask the Father to forgive us of -

Forgive us for laziness, forgive us Lord for our pride.

Forgive us for worldliness. Forgive us, cleanse us inside. ...

We confess our lack of love. We confess selfish ambition. ...

O Lord, bring us to repentance!"

- Flame.

My Trip Report from Next 2011: Part 1

Having a church camp and the Next Conference on back-to-back weekends is, to say the least, a great spiritual high. This year I was pleased to attend Next with three other young men who I knew from Bible studies at my previous church. The theme of Next this year dealt with God's sovereignty over all things and how that should influence our worldview and our work here on earth. The books that they sold at the conference this year all centered on that focus. Having a long reading list for right now and trying to concentrate on finishing Future Grace by John Piper and Abide in Christ by Andrew Murray, I decided to only buy one: The Heavens: Intimate Moments with Your Majestic God by Kevin Hartnett. So far, that book has been a blessing as it helps me to consider the vastness and beauty of the universe and how it reflects the beauty of the God who made and is sovereign over it all.

I felt like I had stepped back in time several years when the speakers addressed postmodernism. My previous church, which I attended for about 22 years, has tended to embrace evangelical fads throughout its ministry. When this means a change in worship style, they change their worship style. When it means catering to a particular audience, they cater to that audience. Their pastors quote teachers from many areas of the evangelical map, from Reformed theologians to moralistic therapeutic deists. Several years ago they became emergent-friendly, quoting Rob Bell and others from that movement. (This was before he wrote Love Wins and came out of the universalist closet.) Around the same time, I read Why We're Not Emergent by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck to become more educated about the movement and why I wasn't part of it either. I was only then starting to become Reformed and was still a cage-stage Calvinist. I was also reading the Pyromaniacs blog several times a week, where they often discussed postmodernism and "emerg*". But my current church, which has many international members from the Philippines, has to deal with different issues than postmodernism and the emerging church. Those issues don't have as strong of a hold in the Philippines. Our pastor preaches against Ang Dating Daan, Iglesia ni Cristo, the prosperity teaching of Joel Osteen and Joyce Meyer, and so on. So I felt like I had taken a step back to 2008. Are postmodernism and the emerging church still big problems across the wider scale of evangelicalism?

Since Next had five general sessions, three breakouts, and the Next conference website has most of the messages, I won't repeat too much of what was said on my blog, but just give thoughts about my general experience going to the conference and list what struck me the most from the sessions.

Before the conference started, I was reading my Bible and jotted down Hebews 12:4-6: "In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by Him. For the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and chastises every son whom He receives." I was still thinking about this in the context of my courtship. Ending my courtship in early March, I thought of Next as the big Reset button on my life that would save me from the memories and the sadness and let me get on with life. It was only on the way there that I realized that it could be discipline from the Lord. So I also wrote down a line from DJ Official's song "Chisel Me": "If you love me, Lord, then chasten me."

We were privileged to have a brother in the Lord drive us to the hotel. He only had a few short minutes with us and sought to really maximize that and encourage us in our faith. We will probably never see him again in this lifetime, but we knew that we had a brother in Christ there with a strong appetite for Scripture and a strong desire to encourage others with it. He got the four of us going on justification and the gospel. That really set the tone for us to glorify God at this conference.

Pastor Jeff Purswell spoke in the first session about how God will not relinquish His creation to evil. His first point was "The created world, though affected by sin, is nevertheless God's creation and is to be valued, appreciated, and cared for." I had become somewhat put off by environmentalists in the secular world, figuring, "I don't do anything that intentionally damages the created order, so I'm good. Why do you continue talking about this so much?" A biblical worldview does not merely acknowledge the existence of created reality, but joins God in affirming it as good as He did when He created it. When I put down my various kinds of entertainment to go on a hike in the woods, meditate on the beauty of God's creation there, and exalt Christ as more beautiful, that is a way of celebrating the most basic distinction in the universe, the one between Creator and creature. Without it, I would worship nature.

Pastor Purswell also mentioned that everything created by God is good, not amoral, as long as we receive it with thanksgiving and do not worship or exploit it. He applied this more specifically to our vocations. So do I thank God for my work as something good, not just something to give me money or keep me out of trouble? Do I still act like the work that I am given is a good thing when it does not go well, or do I curse in reaction to Adam's curse? How do I display the character of God as I work?

In session 2, Dr. K. Scott Oliphint spoke on "The Role of Reason in the Life of Faith" from Romans 1:18-32. If you follow the Next Conference on Twitter, you may have seen a quote from this session: "Western philosophy is simply articulate unbelief." Hegel and other philosophers like him have spent their lives attempting to explain, in all kinds of intelligent-sounding language, how there is "an absolute" but denying that God is that absolute.

Two other things also stood out to me from this session. First, everyone has a relationship with God. For unbelievers, this relationship is not saving knowledge. They will still relate to God on judgment day when they attempt to give Him a defense for their unbelief and He sends them to hell. No one can tell Him, "Not enough evidence", because His revelation of Himself through creation does not return void. Second, the words "worshiped" and "served" the creature rather than the Creator are very strong words and reflect how we are all creatures who must worship. Suppressing the truth forces people to create idols to worship and serve. In our culture, this rarely looks like an idol that people literally bow down to. Dr. Oliphint gave the example of addictions as a choice to serve something other than God, effectively saying, "I will pick my idol. This I will worship... because no one who is created in the image of God will worship nothing." Worshiping the true God, however, allows us to revel in the fact that we cannot figure Him out!

I attended Pastor Kevin DeYoung's breakout session titled "Jesus and Other Religions". This was my second time to see him speak. He summarized Christianity as believing in one God, two ontological realities, and three Persons. He contrasted "one God" with Buddhism, which seems to not believe in any God at all, and Hinduism, which believes in many gods. Most other religions are "one-ism", saying that man is at one with nature, but Christianity is distinctly "two-ism". He gave 7 reasons for the Trinity which are all in Scripture: there is one God; the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all God; the Father is not the Son; the Son is not the Holy Spirit; and the Holy Spirit is not the Father. I look at this as a concise way to defend those who do not believe that the Christian God is a Trinity. The other thing he said that struck me was that without a Trinity, love is not eternal, because if God were only one Person He would not have been able to express love to anyone before He created the world. This reminded me of the first chapters of The Pleasures of God.

He gave the practical application for the uniqueness of Christ:

1. The well-being and salvation of the lost is at stake; go where Christ has not been named, out of love for the lost (broken heart, not a clenched fist) (Romans 10:14). (And my parents, who are not Reformed, say that Reformed people are against missions and evangelism!)

2. The courage and joy of our missionaries. The uniqueness of Christ shows that their work is not in vain.

3. The health of your soul is at stake. It is never good to see what God's word says and find out a way to disbelieve it.

4. The glory of Jesus is at stake. "A Jesus of 'a way' is a Jesus of lesser glory."

During the session break, I worked out to some gospel rap from my Canon playlist: his features "Refocus" with Brothatone, "116 Canon Remix" with Pro, and "Blow Your High" with Lecrae, among others.

Dr. D.A. Carson gave a message called "The Gospel and the Postmodern Mind" in session 3. He began by stating, "Postmodernism is dead in some pretty fundamental ways", because postmodernism started in France and the French no longer buy into it. One thing he said that struck me was that when you talk about the gospel, you are not writing on a blank hard drive. When the Apostle Paul preached in Acts 17, he was preaching to pagan Biblical illiterates (like many in today's culture) and starting from their angle, discussing Christianity in terms of philosophy. He was cut off while he preached but continued taking questions about the gospel in the marketplace. He highlighted many important doctrines about God in his message in Acts 17. For brevity, I won't include it here, but please take time to listen to this session. One more point that struck me in the application was that good theology is like a well-oiled machine. If you take anything out to make it sound better, it falls out of line until the machine stops.

Later that night, I listened to a short message from Brother Paul Washer called "A Young Man's Invitation to a Life of Sacrifice." This message is only 10 minutes but deserves its own post. Young men and women, please listen to this one. Brother Washer does not go on the attack, necessarily, against people who speak at conferences but challenges us to do missions on the front lines where we won't be famous, but Christ has not been named there. We shouldn't be writing blogs where we discuss fine points of theology that we know nothing about when there are people out there. "Young man, go somewhere and die, where only God and hell will know your name - God because He loves you and His Spirit is powerful upon you, and hell because hell hates you." Oh, that I could go. I want to at least take one trip. Listening to this highlighted the tension in my life about whether I should continue attempting to glorify God in a secular job here or leave it all and go to the Philippines. I am speechless even now about what I should continue to write at this point.

But this post is getting quite long, so I will write about the rest of the conference next week, Lord willing.

Lessons Learned from My International Courtship, Part 2

9. My love for the Philippines is not tied to her. I still have a deep love for that country and its people! At nag-aaral pa ako sa wikang Tagalog... :-) More than ever, I want to take a missions trip there. In part, this courtship has helped me to define why I want to go and what work desperately needs to be done there. Their love for others is great, but their doctrine is shallow. I wish that they would learn our doctrine and we Americans could learn their love. Love is, in fact, a much greater sign that someone truly knows Christ than good doctrine; anyone can memorize. Although I am but a layman, I would love to go over there and teach young men about how to read Scripture in context and discern truth from error. Many preachers do not know how to do this, especially in the Third World. American Reformed Christians, we have an abundance of theological resources that we must use to reach the world and build up Christ's pan-national Bride!

10. My desire to go to the Philippines is now more about edifying specific brothers. After my church's young adult group's camp, I tweeted that one brother had made the trip from the Philippines to our church to help out with our camp. He was only here for a little while, but I grew close to him quickly. I honestly want to fly around the world just to see this brother and spend more time with him. And the original reason for wanting to go remains. I sponsor two children in the Philippines through Compassion and want to see them. There is only so much I can do for them when I am at a distance and only have small amounts of time to write. Even when I can't have intimacy with God very often, I still think about missions. Even when I am at work in my "secular" vocation, I think about missions. And what part of "go" don't I understand??

11. Loving the Bride of Christ is more important than finding love. When I met her, I had never been a member of a church and had barely any clue how to love the local church. I was also outside the will of God because the Holy Spirit had been prompting me for many years to be baptized and I didn't want to be. I was using this blog as a way to love the global body of Christ while not identifying myself with a local body. I signed my church's membership covenant last fall and took water baptism soon after. Since then, God has shown me more about what loving the church means, by putting me in a local church where no one looks like me and where the people my age are overwhelmingly male. If you think a young man should come to church to find a wife, you would say I probably went to the wrong church. But this church is a great place for me to serve.

12. Not delighting in God more than her during a courtship will result in idolatry. Not delighting in God more than her after a courtship ends will result in insanity and resentment toward Him. He is glorified, and I am properly happy in Him, when I delight in Him alone.

13. God can teach through the scars of self-inflicted wounds. I use this language to describe wounds of the heart; I have never cut myself, although I have recently found myself listening to emo! Although my friends initially looked at this courtship quite favorably, as we kept learning more and thinking about it more, we realized it really was not good. And I have realized that, as a man, this was all my fault.

14. Don't move too fast. Because she was only in the United States for 5 weeks, I felt like I had to be utterly convinced that she was right for me before she boarded her plane to return home. I felt like I had to spend every waking minute with her while she was here. This is infatuation, not love. Trying to do something like this will not allow you to look at the whole situation with your eyes open and determine which imperfections you are willing to accept. Everyone, aside from Christ, has them. Even as we follow Christ, we (especially in my generation) tend to find some aspects of Him that we do not want to follow. We want the crown, but not the cross. I want to worship Him, but I rarely want to evangelize; and some of my peers are the opposite.

15. Solitude with Christ is still precious, and I must fight for it to remain solitude with Christ. Before and during the courtship, solitude was a great luxury for me. I could spend whole days alone in the presence of the Lord. But during this season, when in solitude for extended periods, I have found myself thinking about her, about what might have been. And it has led me to resent God. I need time to just read and write and pray without distractions. Thoughts about her are crippling to my fellowship with Christ because they take my focus off of Christ, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross to bear the wrath of His Father for each of my sins - oh, to meditate on just that for days and to worship Him Who paid it all! He is worthy of all affection and adoration!

16. I must go on serving the Lord. We make much of God when we contribute to the work of the Bride of Christ on this earth. This does not only mean money; it also means using the spiritual gifts that He has given me to exhort and teach His followers. The work is still there even when I do not feel strong enough to do it. In fact, continuing to do it when my spiritual life is not going as well requires a greater trust in Him than it does when I feel strong. Who am I to ever call myself strong? I am weak by nature; I see something of this weakness every time I sin! The Lord calls the weak and the broken!

16. Even in despair, I must remain in gospel-driven community and keep that community gospel-driven. I need brothers in Christ to help me keep my focus on Him and not on myself. Sometimes I am discouraged by how little godly fellowship I actually get and how the people that I fellowship with tend to center it on things other than God or just talk about problems they see in the church. And hanging out talking about nothing only masks problems rather than solving them with more of Christ. I don't want to dwell on problems in the church, because she is the bride of Christ and Christ does not see His bride as unfaithful. Sometimes during this season, I really have not desired God. But He is still God. He is still my Lord and my Master. He still has a hold on me, even when I don't like that. He disciplines and chisels those who are really His. And the chisel only gets stronger until we meet Him in glory.

17. I should never boast to anyone about my love for Christ. Last year, I was listening to a sermon by Paul Washer where he mentioned that he finds it hard to sing about his love for Christ because it pales in comparison to Christ's love for Him. During this season, I have learned this more deeply and experientially. Christ died for my resentment of Him regarding her and having to give her up as part of the cost of following Him.

Lessons Learned from My International Courtship, Part 1

As I mentioned in the previous post, I have been putting together a list of 25 things I have learned during and after my international courtship. Here is the first part of that list:

1. Distance is not a bad thing in a relationship, as long as you maintain clear and regular lines of communication. If anything, distance can actually help because the relationship becomes based on words. It also helps maintain a higher standard of physical purity and takes away temptations to fall in that area. However, emotional temptations still exist and probably become stronger.

2. Trust between two partners in a long-distance courtship is critically important. A great deal of doubts and suspicion arise when you cannot trust the other person to stay committed in a courtship. For about 8 months, I never smiled with interest at another woman, lest I betray my trust to her. She and I were in a stalemate because I would not tell her that I loved her until she showed commitment to me, and she would not give me her commitment or her love until I told her that I loved her. So she allowed other young men to stay in the picture, although her only other suitor was an unbeliever. Ultimately, I did not tell her that I loved her (although I definitely did!) because our doctrinal differences would have left her unwilling to stay involved in my church and my first loyalty is to God, not to a woman. (To clarify, if I were married, I would not divorce my wife if she turned out to embrace false doctrine or be a false believer. Scripture forbids that. But this was a courtship.)

3. Do not use theology to manipulate a courtship partner. For most of this courtship, I gave her the benefit of the doubt because I had access to great theological resources and she did not. So in effect, I was using the courtship as a means to teach her sound doctrine. After a while, she felt like she had to earn my love. Men, you have to know what you believe and what she believes before the courtship begins. Do not bait her with, "If you will suddenly stop being an Arminian and believe the 5 solas and the 5 points, you can have a courtship with me" or "As soon as you say, 'I am a Calvidispiebaptogelical' or 'I am a hedonist. I seek my pleasure ... / not in wealth, no, He's my treasure!', I will have a rock for your finger!" (If you live on a gravel road, rocks are cheap. ;-) )

4. Know when to walk away. I spent a significant amount of time in prayer about her and fasted for probably a total of a week and a half to two weeks, spread over the whole courtship period. During the last month of the courtship, I realized that I already knew what was pleasing to God and was using fasting to try to manipulate Him. I really just needed to obey Him in faith.

5. "They are somehow our brothers, man." - Sho Baraka. Some people who subscribe to false teaching are merely trapped there and will accept the true Word of God when it is shared with them. However, to keep listening to false teachers, they refuse to discern. We cannot say that everyone who does not reject the teaching of a heretic is unconverted. Many people who accept false teaching bear more good fruit for the Lord than I do. Their communion with God is more uninterrupted; they are better at loving the brethren; they are more willing to serve. If I do not love them back, that reflects a problem with my heart, not with theirs.

6. Don't expect someone from an egalitarian background to suddenly become a complementarian because of love. I said in the previous post that her father is a pastor. Her mother is also a pastor and regularly preaches in their church's service on Sundays. To any Reformed Baptist, this is a red flag. Scripture does not permit women to teach or have authority over men in the church. Many people have said this instruction from the Apostle Paul merely applies to the culture of New Testament times, when he did his ministry. I would counter with this: if a church permits women to preach, that is often indicative of more important compromises in doctrine. Here, there were many. I never mentioned the issue of women preaching to her or her family, not wanting to start a fight over a side issue, but I kept this in the back of my mind. People put up a false front to get other people to love them.

7. Doctrinal differences that can be smoothed over between friends become magnified a thousand fold in a courtship, engagement, or marriage. Biblical manhood and womanhood is one very significant area for couples. She had never heard those terms or was unfamiliar with them, so I tried to explain to her what they meant. I showed her from Scripture that it is good for a married woman to be busy at home and have her heart at home, not in the workplace; to work only out of necessity and not define herself by her job. And I told her that my goal in working and planning my future is not to be rich, but to still give her no financial reason to need to work outside the home. Although she was possibly telling me this from a short-sighted point of view, she told me she wanted to always work and admitted to me that she is a workaholic before her long hours started. After the long hours started, she mostly only wanted to discuss her job and did not want to talk about God with me. That was when I truly realized that our visions do not line up. Having a common vision for the family based on a common understanding of Biblical manhood and womanhood resolves many conflicts.

8. I became deeply aware of the global theological famine and, in particular, its effects on Christians in the Third World. Desiring God International Outreach uses the term "global theological famine" to describe the inability of Christians outside the Western world to access theological resources that help establish them in sound doctrine. Even Christians who have access to a complete Bible do not always know how to read it in a profitable way that shows them the truth. They cannot learn the historical and cultural context of the Word. As a result, many of them do not realize that Jeremiah 29:11 was not written to them, claim it as their favorite verse, and believe that God has promised by it to get them out of poverty. And then when they have spent the whole rest of their lives in poverty, their faith is crushed.

What Happened To My Courtship

Back in the Godly Fellowship series, I mentioned that I was courting a young woman, praying about her, and seeking the advice of godly kuyas and ates from my church. I really wanted to write a "Preliminary Thoughts on Courtship" post describing what I have learned about a variety of topics - her, myself, God, the courtship process, our cultures, and so on - during the process.

For context, please permit me to write a short timeline of the events that took place. Last April, she took a truly providential business trip to the US. Initially, her company had selected other people to go. Yet that changed, and they chose her and several of her friends instead for the trip. The company initially slated them to go to a different state, halfway across the country. Two more changes later, the company sent her and her friends to my state for four weeks.

One of my kuyas at church is from the same city as this young woman. Their fathers are pastors and know each other well. My kuya's father, who has since returned to the Philippines, was in town for a short while and preached at my church on the day that I met her. He told me that he had someone for me to meet, a pastor's daughter. Initially, I said no. I was not looking for anyone to date or court. Late in 2007, I had repented of recreational dating and started to read good theological books and pursue God harder than I ever had before. But my friends convinced me to go meet her, and I decided to go with them.

That day still goes down in my life as a memorable day. I do not regret my decision to meet her. She is a quite beautiful, usually very nice girl. We had good godly fellowship from day one. And I started thinking in terms of the first question in the Desiring God article "Questions to Ask When Preparing for Marriage": "What do you believe about everything?" That Saturday, my church was having a special worship service. She, two of her friends, and one of my best friends came with me. Both of my pastors preached. She heard good, sound preaching on worship and liked what she heard. The next week, my seasonal allergies arrived and left me sick for a week and a half. Her company extended her stay for one week because at least one person in her group had arrived in the US after she did and they wanted to have all four of them come home on the same flight. I went out with her and her friends several more times during that week. While we were in an observation tower at an amusement park, we made our courtship official. The next Friday night, I took her to a large, peaceful park where I enjoy hiking and then out to dinner at one of the nicest malls in the area. We talked in the hotel lobby for a bit and then exchanged probably the tightest, most emotional hug I have ever had. That was the farthest we went physically. She waved to me as I drove off, and when I was out of sight of the hotel, I wept enough that I could barely see to drive.

We stayed in touch very regularly for a while after she went home. We would chat online five nights a week, and on Fridays after work we would talk on the phone for three, four, five-plus hours. It was an almost sacred night of the week for me. On my work calendar, I marked myself busy every Friday night and told my friends that if they wanted to spend time with me, they would need to do it on Saturday or Sunday. Friday nights were her time. We read through Joshua Harris's book Dug Down Deep together and talked about what we were reading. Throughout the summer and early fall, we became a lot closer to each other even though we were half a world apart.

Then her work told her that she was in line for a promotion. She was already working about 9-10 hours a day with a long commute on top of that, but in October her client increased her goals while she was also spending an almost full-time effort training new hires. Twelve hours became a short work day for her. This took a huge toll on her spiritual life, and our conversations lost depth as well. Our doctrinal differences became much more apparent, with one of my pastors becoming the new senior pastor of my church and my church's becoming much more focused on expositional preaching and the hard demands of Christ's Lordship over our lives. I was finding that, while she initially agreed with a lot of what I said, as I started to tell her what my pastor was saying, she had little to say and did not really agree with it. Around the same time, I was regularly in touch with her family, who would frequently tell me about prophetic dreams and visions, which they see as binding but often do not back up with Scripture.

As the long hours continued, we stopped chatting online. Another guy at her work, who is not a believer, became interested in her. She would not let him court her, but she never gave her commitment to me either. I stayed in touch with her mostly through her family and occasional phone calls during lunch or on Friday nights. And as I learned more about her doctrine from her family, the Holy Spirit (the one who regenerates dead hearts and convicts of sin, not the one Benny Hinn talks about!) convicted me and left me with a total lack of peace. In February, my pastor showed a video of Benny Hinn's services in church and explained how unbiblical they are. He is also well aware of the organization overseas that my friend and her family are part of and told me that they do similar things. Her family was constantly telling me that I need to fly across the world to attend that group's conferences. I told my pastor that there was no way that I could be part of that and I was going to end the courtship. For several weeks, I did not contact her at all except for one phone call. We both decided to end the courtship in early March.

So it has now been more than two months since the courtship ended. Our one-year anniversary would have been several weeks ago. Recently, she contacted me to inform me that she is now in love with her unbelieving suitor. This was very painful news to take.

God has been teaching me a lot through this. As I have been learning from Him, I have been writing. For the next several posts, I hope to show you, as my reader(s), what He has taught me in hopes that you may exercise wisdom.

Daughters and sons of Jerusalem, Washington, Manila, and every other city, I charge you, for the sake of the name of the King of Glory, the purity of the members of the Body of Christ, and the protection of young men and women's hearts:

"Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires,

Though it demand all cost of you and fires

On this fallen sphere."

On Laymen's Usefulness to the Kingdom

Recently I tweeted, "Who disheartens me more? People who want me to waste my life or people who think I need a seminary education to not waste it?"

I did not write that or this with the intention of appearing to be someone who makes a career out of criticizing the church; God has taught me a lot over the past year about how I should love the church instead of doing that. I write this instead out of love for the body of Christ and a desire to allow all of its parts to contribute what they can, for the glory of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We can be very good at times at saying to the other parts of the body, "I don't need you."

On one hand, many in the body of Christ are content with wasting their lives and helping others to do the same: working to provide themselves with as many of their material wants as possible, spending their spare time gaming or watching television, ending a Bible study after half an hour so that they can go eat ice cream, ignoring their own and others' spiritual needs for things that are not needs at all.

On the other hand, others tend to be the theological equivalent of an armchair quarterback. They fill up Biblical megachurches that burgeon with great doctrine, where every week they receive a course in systematic from the pulpit but they don't consider themselves or me to be qualified to teach others the truth of Scripture because they have never been to seminary or earned a long list of doctorates.

Here is a question: How useful are you if your head is full of sound doctrine, God has given you the ability to teach it to others, and all you do for the body of Christ is put away chairs in the fellowship hall, if even that? And furthermore, you tear down anyone who has a desire for the "higher gifts" but is not qualified in your view (regardless of Scripture's view) to use them?

All a Christian really needs to be used by God is a willing heart and a teachable spirit. Last night, a guest speaker preached at my church's Saturday night service for youth and young adults. He is college-age and has not been to Bible college or seminary. But our pastor has been discipling him, and he did a great job last night teaching us expositionally from John 17. I know I was blessed and challenged by his message. Yet many people would look down on him and would not have let him preach in their churches because of his age or the fact that his training was informal.

For every Biblical megachurch that has arrived at some lofty level, where the pastor has become a big name in Reformed circles, where thousands of people are able to gather after the service and discuss the finer points of the limited atonement over coffee, countless Biblical, Reformed churches exist where the work is just getting started or has grown slowly.

In my church, the work is growing steadily but not without cost. We began as a Filipino church plant, Reformed Baptist but emphasizing "Filipino" more than "Reformed Baptist". We became a great place for Filipino Christians who were just traveling through or recently settling in our area of the US to meet each other. As you may imagine, in uniting around "Filipino" more than "Reformed Baptist" we had many more non-Reformed Filipinos than Reformed Baptists. A new pastor joined our church last spring and took over our Senior Pastor role last fall. (I am not saying that either of my pastors is better than the other; they are both faithful servants of my Lord, and I love both of these men!) He shifted our church's emphasis to historic Reformed Baptist doctrine and has boldly proclaimed to us a gospel that costs us everything: our old way of life, ambitions, desires, everything; a gospel that makes the world oppose us. Most people do not want to hear that. So many of the old members of our church have left, some to go to churches where they just get an emotional high and hear what they want to hear. Praise God that He has brought many new people to our church, or there would not be many of us left.

On Easter, I did not write a new blog post because my church had a sunrise service. That was our only service for the day. Already awake, several of us decided to attend another service later that day. I decided to drive over an hour to one of the Biblical megachurches and hear about our Lord's resurrection from a well-known pastor. It was one of the most incredible church services I have ever attended. The worship was euphoric, singing songs with deep theological truth, with hands up all over the room! The sermon was on point as well. It really made me look forward to attending a conference later this year with some of the people that I met there. I also got to fellowship with two of my college friends who are members of that church.

God also used that service to, once again, confirm my calling to minister in my local church. Yes, it is good to go to a Biblical megachurch once in a while. I found that very encouraging and refreshing. Yet God has given me a Biblical church in the geographic area where He wants me to live and work during this season of my life. The work of ministry that He has given me to do is within my local church, to teach whenever I have the opportunity and serve as I can in the young adults' ministry, the men's ministry, and in the church as a whole. Starting the work is hard, and sustaining it when it does not grow as fast as we would like or I do not see all of the benefits I want to see from it is harder. And yet this work belongs to God, who alone determines its standards for success and its outcome. Those willing and qualified to be part of it work, knowing that God's Word does not return void and we do this for a God whose glory will never fade away. "Not unto us" can be a dangerous prayer indeed, with discouraging results if we look only to ourselves, but "for every look at self, take ten looks at Christ", and He will give us the strength to keep working.

My calling to travel to the Philippines still remains very much alive. Going to a church where I see many Filipinos allows me to fulfill my calling to the ones that live here, but I really want to go there and serve. But of course, one person (not from my church or Filipino) told me recently that I would basically be useless there because what their young men who want to do ministry really need is a seminary education, not just a layperson willing to show them, as much as possible, what right doctrine is. I'll let God determine that. All I know is there is a need to teach men there what true doctrine is because, although so many people in that country call themselves Christians, many heresies, false gospels, and false prophets have a very strong hold there and many people who think they are saved are on their way to hell because of that. Yet the desk where I sit right now to write this post has several wonderful theological books on it where I am learning much more truth than I am able to live out. Since I do my vocational work in America, I would not be able to stay in the Philippines for very long if I were able to go. But if I, even a sinful wretch as I, could go be an encouragement to those who can stay there and carry on or start that work, that trip would pay off in eternity.

Lord, for the sake of Your glory alone, please put me on that plane. Let me never say in the end that I have wasted my life or this calling.

Small Group Lesson: Titus 3:1-11

I tweeted recently that I would not have a new post this past weekend because I was preparing a small group lesson. Earlier this week, I taught my small group from the book of Titus. Here are my notes from the lesson:

Context of the book of Titus:

Paul identifies himself as "a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ" (1:2) and writes this letter "for the sake of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth". He is definitely writing to believers here. He considers Titus, a pastor in Crete, his "true son in the faith" (1:4) and co-laborer in the gospel. Titus, a Gentile, ministered to other Gentiles living in Ephesus, Macedonia, and Crete. He had traveled with Paul to Rome, but they had a shipwreck which forced them to take shelter at Crete. Paul left him in Crete to appoint elders in every town, that there might be churches in every town there. The churches there had significant problems with false teaching (1:10-16). Paul combated this by listing qualifications for elders in chapter 1 and instructions for cross-generational fellowship in the church body in chapter 2.

Titus 3: (ESV)

¹Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities,

"them" refers to those who Titus is ministering to in Crete. Crete, in this time, was under the authority of the Roman Empire. So were the recipients of Peter and Paul's epistles, where they were instructed to suffer well for Christ in spite of rulers and authorities (the government - like in Romans) who stood firmly against the truth of God and would even kill them for saying that Jesus is Lord.

to be obedient, to be ready for every good work,

So Titus needs to instruct them to not only submit to these leaders in actions but to use each opportunity they get to do these leaders good. They are not to be Christians whose job is to kick out an oppressive secular regime and put one of their own in power so that they will not be persecuted. Paul, in effect, wants Titus to tell these believers to suffer well for the sake of Christ under the oppressive rule of Rome. This is a practical example of living out Christ's words in Luke 6:28 ("bless those who curse you") and Paul's instructions in Romans 12:14 ("bless those who persecute you").

²to speak evil of no one,

Notice that it says "of" and not "to". "Of" implies that Titus is to instruct the church to not speak evil "about" anyone. This applies to speaking evil to another person or speaking evil about them when they are not looking. Speaking evil robs good works (vv. 1, 8) of their effect on their recipient. It shows an inconsistent walk.

to avoid quarreling,

As Calvin said, there are more ways to fight than with fists and weapons. Quarreling is fighting with words.

to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people

Again, Paul permits no loopholes. The Christian is to be gentle and courteous, both characteristics of Christ, to all people, even those who mistreat them and use them for selfish gain.

³For we ourselves were once foolish,

The word "for" implies that this and what follows serves as a justification for the instructions in vv. 1-2. "Ourselves were once" shows that, in the condition of our hearts and our actions, we were once just like the people that were speaking evil of us and doing wrong to us now. "Foolish", according to Calvin, seems to refer to their past ignorance of the gospel.

disobedient,

This is a contrast to "obedient" in v. 1, here describing their former way of life. Unbelief is inherently wayward and rebellious.

led astray,

Tying this into the next phrase, it seems to be referring to an ability to fall to temptation easily, maybe because of a lack of firm rooting in the faith and the body of doctrine.

slaves to various passions and pleasures,

Their desires ruled them. They did whatever felt right (passions) and whatever gave them joy (pleasures) without considering what the Word of God says is right. "Various" refers to the fact that many different desires were ruling them. It was not just a desire for sex, money, power, the praise of men, or anything else. It was a combination.

passing our days in malice and envy,

"Passing our days" means their lives were just passing by with them continuing in these attitudes of selfish motives and wrong intentions (malice) and being greedy or envious because, in the sinful desires of their heart, they were comparing themselves to others.

hated by others and hating one another.

And in that comparison to others, they were competitors against each other. This "hated by others" does not refer to persecution, because the world hates Christians for a different reason: we are not of the world. The test of assurance of salvation of loving the brethren is a test of true conversion because unbelievers cannot love in the way that we can love.

⁴But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared,

God, in His nature, is true love, not love on the surface like this world has. "Appeared" refers not to Christ's appearing to all men (elect and non-elect), but His work that the elect particularly benefit from in the gospel. We are saved because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. We must hear the gospel in order to be saved. I would say this refers to the hearing of the gospel and (v. 5) the work of regeneration in us that allowed us to say that we have truly been saved by God. I say this because the "But" stands in contrast to our former ways of life in v.3.

⁵he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,

His work in us is by His mercy, not by our credentials. We can thus say His election of us is unconditional. He saved us. We did not save ourselves. His justice to us was satisfied in the person and work of Jesus Christ, not in our own acts of self-righteousness which He sees as filthy rags. But He must work in us in regenerating our hearts, turning a heart of stone into a heart of flesh. The regeneration is a one-time occurrence. The renewal is day-to-day. As progressive sanctification takes place in us, we exhibit less and less of the characteristics of v.3.

⁶whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior,

"Whom" is the Holy Spirit; "He" is God the Father", and "Jesus Christ our Savior" is the means the Father used to save us. This is all of the Trinity acting as one God in three separate persons in one verse. Think about "richly". It means we have no idea how blessed we are with our salvation through Jesus Christ. "Poured out" also highlights the great extent and value of this work. The Father could have just forgiven our sins. But He has declared us "not guilty" and allowed us to enjoy all sorts of spiritual blessings in Christ.

⁷so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

The hope of eternal life is not past or present grace, but future grace. Our inheritance in Christ, made possible by God's mercy and His work in saving us, is that we have certain hope in eternal life. It is certain because we are not hoping in the accomplishments of ourselves, which are subject to inconsistency and never meet God's standards anyway, but in the finished and perfect work of Jesus Christ.

⁸The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things,

"The saying" is v.7. "Insist on these things" means defend them before your churches where you minister and before men. Do not bend on this gospel.

so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works.

Paul's motivation for telling Titus to insist on these things is so that the churches where he ministered - and he assumes the church consists only of believers - would live out their faith.

These things are excellent and profitable for people.

"These things" refers to sound doctrine rooted in the true gospel. This does a true church consisting of real believers a lot of good.

⁹But avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless.

These are all referring to side issues which pale in importance to the core doctrines of the faith. Genealogies were a particular problem in their day; people in that time, even Gentiles on Crete, had been giving allegorical and mystical interpretations to "he begat him". "Dissension" refers to stirring up controversy. "Quarrels about the law" refers to people making dogmatic statements about things that Scripture does not state clearly. In Judaism there are many commentaries on the Torah which have significant doctrinal weight. They deal with "here is what you should do in this very specific situation". In effect, it adds more law on top of the law. False teachers were also involved in using the law for their own gain by making assertions about it.

¹⁰As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him,

This is similar to how Corinth was to deal with the immoral brother, but without bringing this matter before the whole church. We are to treat such a person as a pagan and an outcast (Matthew 18:17). Warning someone twice emphasizes the seriousness of the warning. The warning means: tell them that they are in sin and if they continue down this course the results will be destructive. The "person who stirs up division" refers to someone who seeks to divide the Body of Christ by attacking historic Christian doctrine. The true church is united, but it must be pure by not allowing strange doctrines (in their day, the circumcision group who said people needed to be circumcised in order to be saved) to infiltrate it and over time, cause it to no longer stand for the truths that set it apart as Christian.

¹¹knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.

"Warped and sinful" refers to the condition of the person's heart. "Warped" means "twisted" or "perverted"; "sinful" refers to his persistent sin of rejecting the truth. The Greek word translated "a person who stirs up division" is the word from which we get our word "heretic", but in that day it referred to making a choice. This person is stubborn in their choice and not willing to submit it to the Word of God.

Application:

1. As Martyn Lloyd-Jones said, following Christ means "leaving yourself outside." This is not something that the natural man can do. God must work this in us.

2. v.3: From time to time, a Christian will fall into sin or struggle with it for an extended period. Realize that this stems from what you were before the Lord saved you. Fight to live out not your inborn identity, but the identity that Christ has given you.

3. v.3: Most sins come from envy (v.3), which has covetousness as its root. Desire God above all selfish ambition, and covetousness will become less of a problem.

4. vv.6-7: Think often of the significance of your salvation. Thank God for it in worship and prayer, and use it as a motivator for you to discuss the gospel with others, both nonbelievers and other believers. There should never be a time when we find the gospel insignificant and look for other things in Christianity (or psychology or sociology, etc.) to prop up our faith.

5. v.8: Defend the gospel. It is under constant attack from nonbelievers and, perhaps more than that, from fake Christians and misguided believers who think that something else is the gospel.

6. v.9: If you are in a disagreement with someone, consider the importance of the issue that you disagree about. Many Christians tend to fellowship well with another Christian until they happen upon one point of disagreement. Then their fellowship can turn bitter and they can even lose their friendship as they talk about that one issue at length. Also, see if your position is really in line with Scripture or if you have just been arguing based on feeling.

7. v.10: He is writing to a pastor. Most of us are people in the congregation. Have we ever been the person that stirred up division? If so, we need to repent and look at others in light of how God sees them.

Adorned

Envision the seraph:
A "burning one", unequaled in creation.
A "singing one" in constant worship celebration.
Yet to be praised has never been his concentration.
He will instead ascribe all glory to the God of every nation.

A perfect being, yet its perfections can't outdo
its God's, so worshiping a seraph is taboo.
Four of their wings hid their faces and feet from view,
Lest they be impure. They fly with the other two.

Do not think that in their presence you can be a passerby.
Isaiah himself cried out, "Undone am I!"
Supernaturally strengthened just so that he would not die?
He had to be when he saw the Lord nigh.

Consider their God:
There is one God in three Persons - with no brothers.
Not white, black, or Latin - this God checks "other".
But don't fit Him in our boxes. He has no mother.
And at His creations, we stare in wonder.

From the setting sun to the rising tide,
From the highest peaks to the lands' divide,
From the Challenger Deep to the deepest sky,
Creation spreads the fame of the Lord on high.

Now face down, I am entranced with the thought
That this God would call me holy like his priceless, sinless Son.
And more than a servant, He has made me one
co-heir with Christ, rejoicing in what He has done.

Examine the bride:
The world calls her a dirty girl in a dirty dress,
Full of sins not confessed and problems to address.
Many do not even call her a damsel in distress,
And concentrate only on her failures to impress.

The law is extensive. Even to focus on ten,
We would still break each commandment given then.
Liars, lusters, rebels - from each infant to each man
Whether living in Cannes, Iran, or Japan.

On that final day, we cannot point to house or lands,
Only to our Scapegoat who fulfilled the law's demands.
We could never walk next to Him along the ocean sands.
Each second, He carried us in His holy, nail-pierced hands.

And we make much of the Bridegroom:
The King of Glory, eternally co-existing with His Father,
Three in one with the Spirit in perfect pleasure. Why bother
To walk terra firma as a mortal man?
How could Judah's Lion on this mortal coil stand?

The Author of the law gave Him as sufficient grace.
This upholder of stars, planets, and interstellar space
Laid aside His glory to take on a fleshly case
And cast off our sins as far as east from west - erased.

He has named us sons and daughters of His own
And His perfect rule will never be overthrown.
Even as we think of sonship, are there tears,
Especially when our misdeeds large appear?
In this world, until we claim the shining Prize,
Realize that our joy comes through mournful eyes.

When You died there were stripes from a whip and thorns
Composed Your crown as You submitted to this storm
Of wrath for sin - our failures to conform.
Yet there, our lengthy process to transform
To future glory will be done - no more lukewarm.
We will see why You, Lord, suffered in this form:
Diamonds shine as coal compared to how Your bride will be adorned.

Each jewel of her necklace shines brighter than dawn.
Pure are her ways now. To her Savior she's drawn.
Joy on her face replaces her shame woebegone.
Once acting like Hester, she walks in like Esther,
Perfectly arrayed, with each scarlet letter gone!

What is it like to always live in the third heaven
with the Prince of Peace and no need for the weapons
of this war to kill sin, since temptation will die
and we will more clearly see the Christ's glorious eyes?

[This was inspired partially by Paul Washer's sessions on The Son's Glory (first session here) and a tweet by John Piper. I am also tweeting now.]