Rosemont Baptist Church

Some of our men enjoyed a great time of Bible study together last night, honing in on the sovereignty of God in the life of Joseph.  Most Christians know this story well.  In fact, those of us who are slightly older remember the Joseph story, flannel-graph style.  Remember that mode of Sunday School teaching where the paper characters were stuck to that fuzzy board on an easel, and Joseph looked like Daniel, who looked like Moses, who looked like Peter, who looked like Abel?  Ah, the good ole days!

Well, even though I know the story well I was still amazed again at all those circumstances which were out of the control of Joseph but were completely under the control of God.  I was moved to worship just considering how God used the sin of so many different people to accomplish His good ends, all the way back to Sarah, who couldn’t wait for God to fulfill His promise of a son, and gave her handmaid to Abraham, who bore Ishmael, who was cast out with his mother and rejected in favor of the promised seed, Isaac.  Remember who Joseph was initially sold to by his brothers out in the wilderness?  Ishmaelite traders - direct descendants of Ishmael, the product of Sarah and Abraham’s sin.  From our perspective, if not for Sarah’s sin there would have been no Ishmaelite traders, Joseph would not have gotten to Egypt, would not have interpreted Pharaoh’s dream, Jacob’s family would not have survived the famine, the tribe of Judah would have disappeared, and the lion of the tribe of Judah would not have come to act as the Lamb of God to take away our sin. 

With the apostle Paul I humbly bow and confess, “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!” (Rom 11.33).  It saddens me to think of all those professing Christians and churches who are scared of the sovereignty of God, who deny it, who avoid it, who try to explain it away as though it’s a threat to our faith.  We were created and redeemed to see the glory of God, to enjoy it, and to worship Him for it.  The sovereignty of God is His glory.  To reject it is to deny God the worship He rightly deserves, to deny ourselves the only assurance of something stronger than our sin, and to deny ourselves the only pleasure which can ever satisfy our longing hearts.   

Embrace and enjoy the God who is even bigger than our sin.  Marvel at His absolute control over all things!

What do cookies and time have in common?  I’d love to hear your spontaneous answers to that question!  Talk about random!  Let me tell you what cookies and time have in common to me.

My wife and I took our two ( and only ) sons to college this past weekend.  We had anticipated and talked about and planned for this day for a long time.  We had heard all the horror stories from friends who lived this event in the past.  But we shrugged off their warnings because we had already experienced and conquered the dreaded “separation anxiety” last year when we dropped off our oldest to his first year of college.  How much worse could this be?

The whole weekend led up to that awkward moment in the parking lot after our goodbye hugs when he didn’t want to walk away and we didn’t want to get in the car.  We all did what we had to do and we watched the back of him walk into the dorm as we drove slowly away.  We did well!  Sure, some tears, but not the “melt-down” we were warned about!  No pulling off the side of the road to cry uncontrollably.  The 400 mile trip home was quite pleasant with even some conversations about how to enjoy our newfound freedom.

But then it happened…meltdown!  As we were unloading the car I walked into the kitchen and noticed a package of cookies on the counter.  Understand, these are no ordinary cookies.  These are actually two cookies in one: two chocolate chip cookies held together by some of the sweetest birthday-cake-icing you’ve ever tasted!  But that’s not the point.  They were given to my youngest son by his coworkers last Wednesday, his last day of work.  I first noticed them last Thursday at lunchtime, when it was all I could do to restrain myself from eating the whole package!  But my fatherly instincts prevailed and I left them for him to eat that evening or on the trip to college the next day.  Now, after dropping him off at college, I walked into the kitchen and there, right where he had left them, was the package of cookies.  Meltdown ( me, not her ).

I won’t bore you with all the thoughts that came over me in the ensuing minutes ( or all day today ).  Simply put, those cookies stood to me as a monument to the end of an era.  Last Thursday, he could eat them.  Last night, he couldn’t.  For nearly 20 years we’ve had one or both of our boys under our roof at all times.  Now, those cookies were reminding/shouting at me that neither of my sons will be back in this house for at least two months, and never constantly again.  20 years, done.  Where did it all go?! 

My point - No, not “eat the cookies as soon as you see them”!  Redeem the time.  I heard a quote this weekend that stuck with me - “Today is just one more day…and one less day.”  We tend to live as if we’ve got an infinite supply of days on this earth, but we all know it’s not true.  Our days are limited and set, and we don’t even know how many there are.  The five minutes you’ve spent reading this is gone.  Your life is that much shorter.  You’ll never get it back.  Besides, 20 years might as well be one day.  One seems to move about as quickly as the other, and we have no guarantee of either.  So use what you’re sure of - now.  Buy up the time you have and use it now.  Teach your kids now.  Teach your grandchildren now.  Love your neighbor now.  Glorify Christ now.  Repent of sin now.  Trust in Christ now. 

Learn from the cookies!  Redeem the time.

I've been informed by my two greatest critics that I did not make myself as clear as I intended in our Bible Study last night.  For those of you who have no idea what that means - we are studying the Christian's relationship/responsibility to civil government.  Paul and Peter stress "honoring" those who are in authority over us (Rom 13.7; I Pet 2.17 ), the same word used by Jesus in the commandment to children to "honor your father and mother."  Last night we were trying to figure out how that honor plays out in our lives politically.  What would it look like to honor a Senator who supports abortion?  How do we honor Representatives who are in favor of the proposed health care reform bill?  Evidently, in our discussion and with my suggestions I was assuming some things to be understood which were not.  So here is a summary of what I meant to say:

1. Christians should oppose evil.

We must never approve or endorse sin of any kind, in any sphere of life.  God has graciously and providentially placed us under a governmental system which allows for us to oppose sinful, unrighteousness legislation.  We have the freedom to ask questions, to voice our views/opinions to those who represent us, to vote leaders into and out of office.  We should use that freedom and those means in gratitude to God and faithfulness to His righteousness.   2.  Christians should oppose evil with holiness.   How we oppose sin is just as important as what we oppose.  Unfortunately, the same system which allows us to oppose sinful legislation also allows us to oppose the legislators sinfully.  We must not agree with wrong legislation, like abortion and euthanasia.  But we can disagree with those things and the legislators who support it and still honor them at the same time.  Never forget - the authorities above us (righteous and unrighteous) have been placed there by God.  Because of that, and that alone, they deserve our genuine, active respect, esteem, and care.  Honor is due them because of their position, not because they earn it.  We can ask questions and carry on discussions and state disagreement, but we must do it with kindness, reverence, humility, grace, and love.  There is no place for a Christian trying to intimidate, or frustrate, or humiliate a government official - that's not honor.  There is no place for a Christian creating or circulating demeaning pictures of government officials - that's not honor.  There is no place for perversion or exaggeration of the facts - that's not honor.  While we may agree with some of the views of conservative talk show hosts, they are not our guides or models for action, Christ is.  Our goal is not to look at the world politically, but Biblically.  Our goal is not the change of policies and legislation, but the change of hearts.  Do we want the world to see us opposing sin? Of course.  But we don't want the world to see us opposing sin sinfully.  If we dishonor our leaders, our sin is just as bad as the abortion or euthanasia they support.  All of us have lost family and friends who are blatantly involved in sin, yet we still eat with them and invite them to our homes and play golf with them, etc...Does our action mean we approve of their sin?  Of course not.  We manage to show them that we value them without valuing their sin.  So how can we actively honor governmental officials without approving their unrighteousness?  How can we show them that we appreciate them, that we value them highly, that we honor them even when we don't agree with their decisions?  That is the question.  Not if we should honor them, but how we should honor them, genuinely, actively.   Everything we do should look radically different from the way the world does it, even in politics.  Follow the Spirit and the Word on this matter, not your flesh and the world.