Or, What’s a Citizen/Sojourner To Do? 1 Peter 2:11-17 December 5, 2021 Evening Service Jim Martin

Or, A Christmas Call to PraiseLuke 1:44-55 December 5, 2021 Lord’s Day Worship Sean Higgins

Introduction

Hindsight is 20/20; reporting accurately on what happened is easier than predicting accurately (even though these days the “news” may exhibit more creative license than a charismatic preacher’s work in an abstract pottery class). The point is, before and after really are different positions.

One of the ways that God distinguishes Himself from idols is by telling the future (“Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them” – Isaiah 42:9). One of the ways the godly distinguish themselves is by praising God based on what he said before He brings it to pass. This is faith, yes, but it is not sleeping or silent. It’s faith that goes all in, in obedience and also in reverence and joy. We worship God on the first day of the week for a number of reasons, but we don’t hold back our praise until He “produces” later.

We are in the season of advent. From our historical perspective, Christ has already advented once—He came to earth. Christmas day is our marker of Christ’s birth, born of a woman, miraculously born of a virgin. Isn’t December 25th sufficient? Do we really need to extend our excuses for being distracted in December and shove in extra shopping and make extra work for ourselves by raising kids’ expectations for almost a whole month? Doesn’t this make us worldly, not godly?

Of course it could. Religious people have always been good at ruining religious gifts. We win at religious ways to sin, as if that were a competition unbelievers cared about. But advent—lowercase a, as in an advent principle with many opportunities not a rigid one-size-fits-all box of traditions—gives us reason to meditate on what to do before the big day.

The New Testament has much more to teach about Christ’s second coming, His next advent, then His first. The church should be actively waiting for His return. The Bride longs for he Bridegroom. We can learn from the epistles and the Apocalypse, AND we can learn from Israel’s example of waiting for the Messiah. The NT may not be overflowing with first advent details, but the OT certainly anticipated it. We are looking in Luke’s gospel for some of the pre-birth pieces which include faith, Mary’s more ready than Zechariah’s, and praise.

We saw the Annunciation (1:26-38), we will still consider the Birth (2:1-7) and the Choir of Hosts (2:8-20), but today let’s consider the Magnificat (1:46-55) along with a key doctrine and a call for us.

The Magnificat – Luke 1:46-55

Based on the numbers, Mary went to see Elizabeth not long after Gabriel gave her word about her pregnancy. We, the readers, know Gabriel visited Mary when Elizabeth was six months pregnant (1:26), Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months (1:56), but there’s no indication that Mary was there for John’s birth.

It was around 75-100 miles from Nazareth (1:26) to Judah (1:39), where Mary came to Zechariah and Elizabeth’s house (1:40). Miraculously, in utero, John recognized Mary and “the baby leaped in [Elizabeth’s] womb” (1:41). It’s probably a good thing that Elizabeth “was filled with the Holy Spirit,” because, even though I’ve never had the privilege of having a womb, I wouldn’t want anyone jumping around in there. The Holy Spirit made clear to Elizabeth that the leaping was a sign (1:44), making this John’s first witness to Jesus. The Spirit also made clear that Mary was carrying a son, well before 20 weeks and no ultrasound required.

Elizabeth shouted, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? …Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord” (1:42-43, 45). Two (and a half) #blesseds f[...]

Or, A Christmas Call to FaithLuke 1:26-38 November 28, 2021 Lord’s Day Worship Sean Higgins

Introduction

Christmas is a double-edged story that cuts off both the legs of Gnosticism and materialism in the same swing. God, clothed in flesh, endorsed the physical world, perhaps in a deeper way that even the creation itself. Yet how the Incarnation comes about, and what it points to, calls us to live on earth by faith, not by empiricism. Even though we don’t really have another good, consistent option (than living in the flesh like Christ by faith in Christ), too many Christians are exactly bad at this balance.

Also, let me acknowledge that I do appreciate John Calvin’s exegetical tenacity. He apparently never broke off of a verse-by-verse sermon series no matter the occasion. He once picked up in the next verse after a three year banishment from his pulpit in Geneva (see The Legacy of Sovereign Joy, 139). But as relevant as Romans remains, in holiday season and out, I think there is some pastoral purpose to take these advent Sundays and mediate together on the Incarnation, its story and theology and application.

Last year, 2020, was my first time preaching four advent/Christmas sermons. We spent all four Sundays looking at the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1, from four different angles. This year I’d like to take a look at a different gospel and four different passages. We will, Lord willing, work through the Annunciation (Luke 1:26-38), the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55), the Birth of Christ (Luke 2:1-7), and the Heavenly Host (Luke 2:8-20).

Each message will have three related but distinguished parts: the passage in its gospel context, the doctrine in its biblical context, and the call for us in our present context, how the realities of Christmas should shape our celebrations in these next weeks and shape our faith in the flesh year-round.

The Annunciation – Luke 1:26-38

Luke wrote his history for Theophilus (1:3), and gathered eye-witness reports in order to provide an orderly account. He began with an announcement from the angel Gabriel to the priest, Zechariah, about the birth of John the Baptist (1:5-25). Following that is an announcement from the angel Gabriel to a young woman named Mary about the birth of a child who would be her son and also God’s Son (1:26-38).

Gabriel was sent by God when Elizabeth was six months pregnant (1:26), not to the temple city of Jerusalem, but to a small polis called Nazareth. Luke probably added “a city in Galilee” because most people probably wouldn’t know Nazareth by name, and if they were famililar with it, they wondered if anything good could come from it (see John 1:46).

The greatest surprise comes in verse 27. Gabriel came to a virgin, betrothed but unmarried. The Greek word parthenos could refer to a young girl, but verse 34 leaves no doubt that she had not “known” a man. She was promised to Joseph, but they had not consummated any covenant. It was one thing for God to give a child to Elizabeth, old and barren, but somehow that seems more possible than pregnancy for a virgin.

Gabriel greeted Mary, and affirmed her, not because she deserved God’s favor, but because of God’s election.

As we might expect, she was “greatly terrified” by the angelic saying. But Gabriel continued:

the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” (Luke 1:30–33 ESV)

This is the annunciation, the announcement. It wraps up various promises given to God’s people in our Old Testaments, not only that are astounding, but that is impossible.

“Jesus” is Jeshua, a[...]

Or, God’s Witness in Every Conscience Romans 2:12-16 November 21, 2021 Lord’s Day Worship Sean Higgins

Introduction

C. S. Lewis referred to it as the Tao in The Abolition of Man. Augustine and Aquinas called it “natural law,” and it ought to be seen as a complement to the presuppositional apologetic as taught by men such as Cornelius Van Til and Greg Bahnsen. You don’t need to read any of those men, you can read these five verses to the Romans. Whatever label we give it, or how many more pages can be written about it, the point is this: God’s moral law for all men is inside every man. No Bible is required to know what’s right or to judge men for not doing what’s right.

Paul has really been sticking his authorial finger into the sores of unrighteousness for a while. The opening of Romans started on such a positive, even buoyant, tone exalting the power of God to salvation for Jews first and also Gentiles who believe the gospel. In the gospel God’s righteousness is revealed from faith to faith (Romans 1:16-17). Then Paul turned onto Judgment Juncture, Condemnation Corner, Wrath Road.

It’s more of a superhighway of sin, lots of lanes and packed with traffic. The apostle starts putting up huge billboards by the side of the road pointing out where men are and where they’re headed. Blinking lights: “Bridge Out Ahead”

Men know that God is and that God doesn’t approve of their lusts. In what can only be appreciated as ironic, God lets them have so much of their “freedom” from Him that they’re enslaved by it. Yet even then there is some individual and cultural sense of right and wrong, and this continues to reinforce that men will have to give an answer for that.

In the previous paragraph (2:5-11) Paul showed that everyone will be judged by his works, endurance of work of good as well as obedience to unrighteousness, no matter one’s religious background, Jew or Greek, for God shows no partiality.

This paragraph (Romans 2:12-16) drills down further and reveals that every man has a built-in, factory model moral GPS system that keeps repeating to him every time he misses a turn, which is a lot of the time. How often do we hear a man try to excuse himself by saying he had “no idea,” so he shouldn’t be held accountable? But everyone has listened to the little voice coming from his internal dashboard, at least enough to prove his final culpability.

God Is Impartial (verses 12-14)

Verses 12-14 extend the explanation for why God’s judgment is just, in three steps.

Why can we trust that God is impartial? How do we know that His judgment is giving every man a fair shake?

1. Because everyone is judged according to what they know is right, not according to what they don’t know.

In particular, all men are judged accurately and fairly regardless of their access to God’s Word.

No one in Paul’s audience had a New Testament. It is very unlikely that anyone in Rome had his own copy of part of the Old Testament, let alone a complete copy. Most of the Roman population wouldn’t have been curious about Moses, even if they had wanted to download the Torah app onto their tablet just to check it out.

The Jews—and there were some in Rome—were a people specially gifted with what we call special revelation. All had general, creational revelation (as described in Romans 1:19-20, similarly in Psalm 19:1-6), but to Israel God gave prophets and parchments, and two stone tablets (Psalm 19:7-9).

He declares his word to Jacob,his statutes and rules to Israel.He has not dealt thus with any other nation;they do not know his rules.Praise the LORD!(Psalm 147:19–20)

Israel had a covenant with the LORD, Yahweh, and His law provided the instructions for the covenant. Paul doesn’t refer to the Mosaic Law by name, or even to its summary in the Ten Commandments. “Law” can refer to a number of things, but in verse 12 it distinguishes between the Haves and the[...]

Or, Ambition, (Affliction), and Accurate AccountsRomans 2:5-11November 14, 2021 Lord’s Day Worship Sean Higgins

Introduction

When I was a new Kuyperian I was a naïve Kuyperian. By Kuyperian I mean someone who acknowledges that Jesus is Lord of all and that Jesus is interested in it all. This means that sermons and reading Scripture aren’t the only spiritual or significant things. God can be served and glorified by any lawful activity, by every good work done by faith. All vocations, and side projects and leisure time, has meaning before the Lord, not just so-called vocational ministry.

I was naïve to think that every Christian would be relieved, even excited, about this reality. What I thought would open skylights for sun and windows for fresh breeze became a weight of glory too burdensome. Some Christians prefer a more manageable guilt over not reading their Bibles as much as they could so long as they could consider the rest of the day their own. It was better for the rest of the day to be mundane than to think of it with eternal meaning, as something that the Lord cared about. “Can’t I just listen to country music on my commute without all this pressure?” You might be able to keep the radio on, but you can’t turn the reality off; God minds (see Proverbs 15:3).

Whether or not we want God’s attention, He sees, and unlike men, He sees the heart of man. Google may have a record of every place on the internet you’ve visited (and every place your mobile device has gone), but God has a record of that PLUS every word you’ve ever spoken (see Matthew 12:36-37).

I’ve been reading about digital data in a couple places, about how words such as exponential and logarithmic aren’t really sufficient to cover the explosive expansion of data day over day. I’ve been reading about the blockchain as a way to capture and even certify accuracy, for financial transactions and for events. It’s referred to as the “ledger of record,” with Who-What-When fixed (see here), and it’s expanded my imaginative boundaries. Mostly, these thoughts have increased my awe at God’s omniscience. Algorithms/AI/Big Tech will always be impersonal, finite, and always only be a program dependent on a programmer. AI will never offer glory to those who serve it. God is not the Great Server in the Sky, He is Lord in heaven and of the Cloud. He does not miss anything; “God will judge the righteous and the wicked” (Ecclesiastes 3:17).

The fact that men can’t help themselves from judging incriminates them, yes, but it connects to the greater reality that we all know judgment is inevitable. The fact that men keep doing what they condemn, that they keep disobeying the truth, is an investment in their coming judgment.

Invested Judgment (verses 5-8)

In verse 4 Paul referred to the riches of God’s kindness. God has a treasury of responses to draw from, an arsenal of patience and mercy and minutes. Here is another treasury, where man heaps up a pile with daily deposits.

But you are treasuring up wrath to yourself according to your stubbornness and hardness of heart on the day of wrath and revelation of righteous-judgment of God.

The key word is wrath, and the main idea is storing up to realize later. God’s wrath has actually been the key word since Romans 1:18, but in most of chapter 1 it referred to God’s abandoning wrath, an expression of judgment where God gives men over to their lusts (1:24-32). He also lets men loose in their litigiousness, as they compare and condemn one another (2:1-4). That they dispute with each other and make all their petty decrees demonstrates that they know judgment is deserved. Though they know better, they keep doing the things that deserve judgment.

It’s their stubbornness (σκληρότης, only found here in the NT, so we diagnose arteriosclerosis, “hardening of the arteries,” which derives from this word, so Paul describes a sort of “spiritual sclerosis”, the “ha[...]

1 Peter 2:4-10November 7, 2021 Evening Service Jonathan Sarr

Or, Man’s Incriminating MoralityRomans 2:1-4November 7, 2021 Lord’s Day Worship Sean Higgins

Introduction

It’s been said that the more you know, the more you realize how much you don’t know. That has some truth in it, but there is a related second-cousin axiom, that the more you know, the more you realize how much other people are wrong. The Information Age has increased the amount of information we have to judge others with.

This fault-finding bent is a corruption of the imago Dei in all of us. As much as homosexuality is a front-door assault on any reminder of the righteous Creator, so a critical sprit is like mirroring God, He who is the righteous Judge, under six feet of motor oil. We’ve really have done it; mankind has lowered the standard of what it means to be God so successfully that not only can we define good and evil like a god, we have also rigged it so that it’s always someone else doing the evil. It’s not whether or not there will be judges, but what degree of hypocrisy can cover your judgy-pants.

Paul moves from describing obviously immoral men to addressing ostensibly moral men. An immoral man might try to present himself as an honest thief or as a man-she, a “moral” man proclaims himself as judge and jury. It’s genius, even inspired, how he does so. A “therefore” bridges what we have as a chapter break between Romans 1 and 2, arguing from those abandoned to their own lusts without excuse to those living according to their own laws without excuse. The immoral know better than they act, the moral prove their guilt as they judge.

Who are these judgy-pants persons? Are they Jews rather than Gentile/Roman pagans? Paul calls Jews out by name in verse 17, and contrasts the Jews with the Gentiles before that (verses 9-11), so it’s not clear that he constrains his concerns to Jews. Are these “conservative” pagans? Maybe, though any conservatism is hypocritical because, as Paul points out, they do the things they denounce. Are they the abandoned, debased-mind, fully oblivious to the irony of their cognitive dissonance pagains? It applies to all of them, to any man making judgments of others. If the gavel hits, you can’t acquit.

While I don’t think that this paragraph is about Christians, we do know that sin still dwells in our members (Romans 8:23), so you can find church ladies of both sexes wearing judgy-pants as well.

For Paul’s purpose starting in Romans 2:1, it doesn’t matter what their (ethnic or religious) identity is, and it doesn’t even matter what standard they use. The judging habit incriminates them. It would be like a man claiming he’s not bound by Constitution law pleading the fifth (amendment). His appeal to the law shows he’s under it.

It’s worth a moment, for your edification, to ask if Romans 1:28-32 or 2:1-4 (and following) better describes our current cultural condition. My pastoral perspective says that it’s this paragraph. Self-righteousness is a cardinal reality and just a different sort of threat than unrighteousness. It is always harder to repent from what you judge to be your virtue. The majority of our neighbors and nation love judging the sins of others, and that doesn’t require agreeing on what sins are.

The Caesars were wicked, yet the wise knew that the emperor had no clothes. Today we have our own little Caesars, holding court wherever we think we can, and the yet the judgy-pants have no pants, or no leg to stand on.

No Excuse for Judging (verses 1-2)

Unlike the descriptions of the revelation of God’s wrath, chapter two is more personal; it’s second-person.

Therefore, O man, every judging-one, you are without excuse, for you judge yourself in which you judge another, for the judging-one does the same things.

Some form of “judge” is found four times in this first verse (four more times in the next three verses, along with a couple more related ideas). Paul isn’t writing to a specif[...]

Or, Cultural Cognitive DisobedienceRomans 1:28-32October 31, 2021 Lord’s Day Worship Sean Higgins

Introduction

We have to work extra hard to ignore the moral collapse of our culture, like ostriches burying our heads in the sand. The madness doesn’t just affect our so-called elites, the politicians and professors and media personalities. A good portion of our fellow citizens want what we’re getting; they vote and march and donate to get it. We think they are out of their minds, and we are right.

We also need to remember how it happened, where it all started. It wasn’t the 2020 election, it’s not the current presidential administration, or a generation of public schools, or the 60s sexual revolution, or Darwinism, or the Enlightenment with its enshrining of human ability. It started with the Serpent. He said we could be like gods, judging for ourselves good and evil. We wanted that, in our federal head, Adam. We chose the lie in Adam. And God Himself established hostility between the offspring of the serpent and the offspring of the woman. What our culture needs is not mandated equality, but a heavenly Father. Our culture doesn’t need to redistribute wealth, or not, but to repent from our ingratitude to the Maker. Our society is full of sin, though a lot of it is legal, and so we need a Savior.

The gospel has changed hard hearts and then leavened neighborhoods and nations. We are seeing the leaven go stale, both as unbelievers are given over to their lusts and as believers are flattened by their own little-faith. Christians are to live in righteousness from faith to faith. We’re to live in our righteousness by faith, confessing Jesus as Lord. Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth. Our worship of Him is exactly what the world needs and what they hate.

God’s wrath is revealed against knowers, and He says all men are knowers (Romans 1:19, 20, 21). He judges fools, not the ignorant, but the willfully ignorant. As they exchange the truth for the lie (1:25), God delivers them over into a life of chaos and confusion controlled by darkness. They are consumed by their own desires, gladly deceived by the sins that destroy them.

In verses 24-27 God gives them over to dishonorable and unnatural relationships. Homosexual desires and wanna-be transgenders are signs of regression, not progress or liberty or fruitfulness. It is not about equal rights, it is evil. As I said, it is not ignorant, it is willful hostility toward their Creator. They’ve been seeking religious exemption from gender and gender roles.

Verses 28-32 are an expanded vision of the debased mind and of a debased culture. Arguments could be made that we have it much better than the first century Romans, as bad as Paul’s description is. At least we have Romans, and we have 2000 years of gospel leavening to give thanks for. We also have the ugliness of knowing better. Men reject not only the Creator, but the gospel of Christ. God is giving men over to a debased mind that not only refuses to acknowledge His sovereignty, but also the Son of His love.

Their Comparative Cognitive Disobedience (verse 28)

The third refrain of abandon begins:

And just as they did not (approve) to have God in their thinking, God gave them over to an (unapproved) mind to do that which is not approved.

Dokimazo (δοκιμάζω)/“test” or “approve” is a word frequently used in the NT. It refers to testing something to find its value, as with metal, so “fit to acknowledge” (ESV) or “think it worthwhile” (NIV), “approve of having God in knowledge” (YLT). Men made themselves judges over God and decided that He wasn’t worth keeping in mind. As a judgment, God gave them over to an adokimon mind, to an unapproved, worthless mind. Different translations take it as a depraved, reprobate, debased mind. They think they are hot snot intellectuals but really they just have cold boogers for brains.

[...]

Or, Lies, Lusts, and Cultural LunacyRomans 1:24-27October 24, 2021 Lord’s Day Worship Sean Higgins

Introduction

We have every reason to hope in the gospel. The gospel is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes (Romans 1:16). Unlike Paul’s recipients in Rome, we have two thousand years of gospel history, of gospel blessings, and those blessings have mostly moved west from Jerusalem through Rome and through regenerated men and the cultures they’ve forged. Many have tasted that the Lord is good, and then they have walked in the good works prepared beforehand (Ephesians 2:10).

God gives blessings to individual believers and their communities, some hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty (see Matthew 13:23). But when men throw that fruit back at God, when men thrown that fruit down on the ground, or when men come to think of themselves as producing their own fruit, individuals are damned and cultures are dismantled, gutted. We are living in a brand new set of ruins. We are not climate-deniers, we are Creator-deniers.

The complement of the righteousness of God being revealed (Romans 1:17) is the wrath of God being revealed (Romans 1:18). The Apocalypse proper unveils eschatological, final, eternal wrath. The unveiling of wrath here in Romans 1 is a trajectory wrath, not the telos wrath. The wrath that God reveals against those who conceal what they know about God corresponds with the lies they use to do the concealing. It’s been referred to as abandoning wrath, it results in a web of lies and lusts and cultural lunacy that defines itself against truth and goodness and beauty.

Paul repeats a simple but awful phrase three times starting in verse 24: “God gave them over.” It marks three factors of God’s abandoning wrath; we’ll consider the first two today.

Given Over to the Lie That Corrupts Them (verses 24-25)

Paul’s argument progresses with a Therefore, but this is anti-progress for mankind.

God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to uncleanness, to the dishonoring of their bodies among them,

In verse 24, the lusts are a consequence of God’s wrath, not the cause of His wrath. It does not mean that God implanted desires that were not there. It means that God not only does not restrain those desires, He positively puts men in a position to be more and more dominated by their own desires. He gives them what they think they want. He gives them the desires of their hearts. Abandoning wrath could also be called delivering wrath. God gives over, as in He transfers custody (for example, “committed to prison” Acts 8:3; or when He delivers Israel’s enemies into her hands, Exodus 23:31). See Psalm 81:12 – They won’t listen to the Lord? He lets them eat confusion and corruption.

The resulting status of being given over is: uncleanness (KJV), the sort of decay found in graves (see Matthew 23:27), filth, “impurity” (ESV). Their practice: self-dishonoring. It is not an adjective, it is their activity. The verb starts with honor and then removes it (ἀτιμάζεσθαι). Note the “their,” the “them,” and the middle voice of the infinitive in Greek, pointing toward a reflexive action. They are doing it to them-selves. They are victims in so far as they are also the victimizers.

Such dishonoring happens to their bodies. There are physical manifestations of God’s wrath, just as there are physical, bodily obligations of worship for living sacrifices by His mercies (Romans 12:1). Sometimes you can see when someone has lived a hard life.

Verse 25 finishes the sentence, and qualifies the “them” who are being given over as those who chose against the truth.

those who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, who both worshiped and served the creation rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever, amen.

Exchanged was found in verse 23, it is used again in verse 26. In all three uses it is a bad trade; immortal for mortal, natural fo[...]

Or, The Living and Abiding Word of God1 Peter 1:22-2:3October 17, 2021 Evening Service Dave Light