Live your theology.

Does the Reformed tradition breed an unbiblical fear of works?  Perhaps fear is the wrong word.  Let me elaborate: When I write a particular sermon that  I call  the “If you’re a Christian, act like it” sermon, my Reformed cohorts can get kind of squirrelly.   Eyes dart back & forth.  Eyebrows raise.  Thumb and index finger move to stroke the chin.

I preached one on Sunday evening.  1 Timothy 1:3-11.  Paul’s charge for Timothy to live out true doctrine out of faith & love naturally leads for a call to repentance and obedience to the Christian and a proclamation of the Gospel to the unregenerate.  But why the discomfort?

That works have no part in our justification is a doctrine clearly taught in the Scriptures (Ephesians 2, etc.).  This truth was obscured by a hegemony in the church that valued tradition and non-biblical authority more than the Bible itself.  It took a Reformation to give an unfiltered gospel to the masses.  Reformed Christians today continue in the Reformation tradition, but perhaps we have become something of an overprotective mother when it comes to justification and works.

How so?  Raise your hand if the mere mention of works made your doctrine alarms go off sending you into full apologist mode, scanning to see if I’m about to get all Pelagius up in this blog.  Go ahead.  I can see you through your webcam.

And that response is what I’m talking about.  I’m thinking that we’ve become so careful to guard against the ever popular heresy of salvation (full or part) via works that we get all itchy whenever works are brought up.  ESPECIALLY when works are brought up in conjunction with a call to, you know, actually do them.

As a result of this, we are constantly having to put caveats in our speech whenever we discuss works.  Just like the good Calvinist knows to say “providence” and never “luck” so the good Reformed believer knows never to mention good works without adding “Not that [works] will provide you with salvation.” — Not that there’s anything wrong with that!  I’m a Presbyterian, so naturally I’m fond of precision.  But too many caveats sometimes lead us to bend our thinking away from Biblical doctrine and into a warped theology that allows us to declare “We are not saved by works.  Therefore, I don’t need ‘em!”

A few weeks ago I tweeted that I see far more Christians struggle with antinomianism (armchair definition: Faith in Christ makes the moral law irrelevant. Sin and be free, faith will bail you out).  Several folks replied that they were shocked that such was the case, having grown up in churches where salvation was offered for those who ne’r took a sip of beer.  They wondered where I was going to church.  While a legalistic attitude (if not legalism) is common among certain groups — I think w\ us Reformed peeps it can be just the opposite.  We get that we’re not saved by what we do.  It’s a part of our heritage.  Salvation by Grace alone through Faith alone is the gigantic belt buckle of the Reformed cowboy.   In some cases the buckle is getting too big for the britches, and we overreact when someone points out that you still need to wear chaps when you’re riding the trail.

//end cowboy illustrations

Anyone seeing this, or am I making things up again?  If you have noticed it, how do you deal with it?

My sermon from Sunday evening is posted over at the Tacoma BPC site.

It’s an introductory sermon.  As far as introductory sermons go, they can be really good, or really bad.  The really bad ones are basically history lessons.  You get background information about the city, the economic conditions, what was happening elsewhere in the world at the time the letter was written.  Who was emperor, what their reign looked like, etc.  All this might be interesting, but if it’s the meat of your sermon, you missed the mark.  Widely.  After all, we’re called to preach Christ Jesus.

Here’s how I went about it.  First, who is Paul writing to?

Timothy, duh.  But not only Timothy.  His declaration of his apostleship is an indicator that this pastoral epistle was meant to be read by more than just Pastor Timothy, but by the churches in the region, as was customary or the apostolic epistles.  Timothy didn’t need the reminder that Paul was an apostle.  With that bit of info we’re able to look at who Timothy was (and shake the idea that he’s nothing mroe than a weak-stomached inexperienced Pastor unable to decide what he should do next).  We also get to look at the authority of Scripture every time we do a sermon on an epistles introduction.

The gospel meat of the message has to do with Paul’s specific decision to show Jesus as coequal with God the Father as well as his declaration that he’s working under marching orders from God  (both found in 1 Timothy 1:1).  Paul isn’t writing this epistle just because he loves Timothy as a true son, but because Christ has commanded him to do so according to the office he called Paul into.

Unbelievers have marching orders from God.  They are to turn away from sin via repentance and put their faith in Jesus Christ (Acts 2:38, Acts 3:19, 2 Peter 3:9, to name a few instances).

Believers have marching orders from God too, and 1 Timothy deals with a number of them.  So the message calls for repentance and obedience through the proclamation of the Gospel as well as an exhortation to serve Christ in love by remembering what the standing orders God has given us are (think Commission, Great).

Give it a listen. Let me know what you think, about this post or about the sermon in general.

My most recent sermon on Ruth chapter 3, The Threshing Floor, is available for streaming or downloading on the TBPC website.

So I don’t buy into the “Naomi is urging Ruth to commit a sexual encounter” interpretation of this chapter, though I do acknowledge that Ruth goes into a situation that I would be unwilling to encourage my sisters of daughters to do themselves.

Also: Naomi! Love how she’s empty in chapter 1 and we’re seeing God (alone) fill her back up. Great picture of the grace of God working in our lives through those God has chosen as his Saints around us… apart from any worth or our own.

Also, Also: Ruth! This book is often touted as a love story. It’s possible that the reason Boaz notices Ruth working in the field is because she’s pretty, but it’s just as possible that she’s just a hard working dynamo (something the foremen of the field mention) and that grabs his attention.   We don’t have any indication that suitors are coming on to Ruth but she’s holding out for Boaz… it just doesn’t seem to fit the stereotypical Hollywood love story of a (particularly) attractive girl winning the heart of an otherwise unassuming career minded man with her looks and determination.  I mean, Ruth is the kind of girl who can sling an 80 lb. bag of grain on her back and hoof it back to town.  Gwynneth Paltrow she was probably not.  But that makes the marriage of Boaz & Ruth even more awesome, because it’s such a wonderful depiction of the marriage between Christ & his bride.  We’re not beautiful starlets captivating any who look upon us.  We’re covered with blood and sin and ugliness and it is Christ Jesus alone who takes us from that state & adorns us beautifully (see Ezekiel 16:9-11).

So the sermon – Let me know what you think of it.  I’m done with homiletics… I’m going through feedback withdrawals.

My most recent sermon on Ruth chapter 2, Enter Boaz,  is available for streaming or downloading on the TBPC website.  You’ll find themes of providence, faith, and godliness encompassed within the framework of the gospel. My seminary homiletics professor always stresses having a clear sentence that can sum up your sermon, for this sermon the sentence is: “God uses Ruth’s faithfulness & Boaz’s kindness to providentially bring the Messiah closer to incarnation.”

So give it a listen! Or, if you prefer, simply read a review of it!

Dreams & Instincts (Jude 6-8). I have a blog? Huh. Well, here’s the last sermon I preached…

Dreams & Instincts

Jude 5-10

5 But I want to remind you, though you once knew this, that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. 6 And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day; 7 as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
8 Likewise also these dreamers defile the flesh, reject authority, and speak evil of dignitaries. 9 Yet Michael the archangel, in contending with the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” 10 But these speak evil of whatever they do not know; and whatever they know naturally, like brute beasts, in these things they corrupt themselves.