Trinity Evangel Church

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

The whole subject of this to me is frustrating because I think it's so obvious that obviously we should be building and battling in all situations that God puts us in, whether it be political in your neighborhood, in your family, wherever he has you, you should be thinking, how do I behave and how do I relate to the people that are coming at me? And so therefore I think that some of these things where they're building you to pay attention to them in such a way that you have to join an organization or do this or do that kind of thing to actually make that happen. I'm not against those organizations. I think they can be very helpful.

But the issue is, what do you personally like, and what are you going to be like to that person you come in contact, the spheres of influence you have? The Great Commission is go and make disciples of all the nations, but does that mean that I need to run off to China to make a disciple, or do I have somebody in my circle of influence that needs to be discipled? And I think if each Christian is faithful in his fear of influence, your effect on the society will be far and large because God has a way of moving you around, moving the people you know around, and if you're blessed enough to live as long as I have, you see these people move and be connected and change their minds and really make an effect here or go over there.

So that's why I think that this should be an automatic thing that you think you should be doing. The title that I chose, The Build and Battle on the Foundation. The foundation is what does the Bible say about it to me? not with some political theory or Roos Juni or the seven points that they argue in some debate on YouTube is not the issues of what does the Bible say. And I think the Bible is just very clear that we should be engaged in taking dominion from the middle, I mean from the absolute beginning to the absolute end and in the middle in the church age, Christ gives us those things. So to reiterate that, the first thing is on Genesis 1.23 through 31, it says, and there was evening and there was the morning, the fifth day.

And God said, let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds, livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds. And so it was, and it was so. And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds, and the livestock according to their kinds. And everything could creep on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. All of these orders to me, the different animal things, they all have their place, and they should behave in their place. It's the old gag. Dogs don't make cats, and cats don't make dogs, that kind of thing. Everything's in its place, and they operate in that sphere.

Then God said, let's make man in our image after our likeness, the Trinity, I think, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him. Man and female he created them. And God blessed them, and then God said, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and then subdue it and have dominion over the fish and the sea, over the birds of the heaven, over every living thing that moves on the earth. And God said, behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of me, all the earth.

And every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food, and to every beast on the earth, and to every bird in the heavens, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has breath of life. I had given every green plant for food, and so it was. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. Right from the beginning, God said that we should take dominion. Now, to take dominion, is Adam gonna do that all by himself? Well, God said he needed to help her, so he brought him a woman. Then they have kids, and they help.

And even after the fall, he reiterates this to him, and we're gonna read the passage. Again, even after the flood, he keeps reiterating that we are here to have dominion and run this place. And as we get wiser and have generations, we realize we can't do it all by ourselves, so we create forms of government. We pass these things on to other people and supervise them and everybody operates in their sphere of influence. And it's Psalm 8, I think, also says this. And Psalm 8's in the middle of the Bible and after the Pentateuch and those things are written. But the idea in Psalm 8 is exactly over this whole thing where it says, oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.

You have set your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouths of babes and infants, you have established strength because of your foes to steal the enemy and the avenger. When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him and the Son of Man that you care for him? Yet you made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands, and you have put all things under his feet. All God's works are under our dominion. All sheep and oxen, even the beasts of the field, the birds of the apple and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the sea.

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. Again, it's restated. And as you read the Bible stories over and over, Yeah, the characters fail, but they get better. Some of them learn from their experiences. Other ones are really stupid, and hopefully we will be wise and learn from those things and get better at it. But we are to have interests in all the things that there are. So making a good product, serving whatever you're doing, do it as unto the Lord. That's just obvious, and we should be doing that. And to think that that is a lower thing than church is really stupid, because we've been commanded and given the order to have dominion over these things.

So cleaning the carpet is having dominion over that particular thing at that time. So doing those things unto the Lord is just obvious to me. And the same thing in government. We establish these things and sometimes they become bad. We'll talk about that in a little bit here. But right from the get-go, first chapter in Genesis. Then after the Old Testament is getting done, then God comes down and lives among us. And he then is risen and his last commandment to us, Jesus is Matthew 28, 18 through 20. And Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. Okay, this is the institution, I believe, of the church age. At this point, we are to make disciples and teaching them everything he commanded us. Jesus spoke about governments, taxes to Caesar, how to respond to your neighbor, all of the things that we relate to in contract law, in being a good neighbor, in how you take care of stuff, how you treat your animals, all that kind of stuff is all incorporated into Jesus' teachings in the Gospel and the letters, the church letters, in the New Testament. And he is with us till the end of the age. Then you end up, well, OK, now you've got me through that.

Now we end up going back to the end of the Bible at Revelation 21, 22 through 26. It says, now this is after the final battle, the whole thing, this is the new heavens and the new earth. Okay, this is the end of Revelation. And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God, the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives its light, and its lamp is the lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day, and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and honor of the nations.

For eternity, nations will come and worship God by doing whatever it is that he has them instructed to do at that time. So the whole nation thing, we Gentiles or the nations outside Israel, will be paying homage to Christ in the New Jerusalem, in the eternal creation. So right from the beginning to the end. And I think that if we never would have had the fall, This would have come about in Eden and all the rest of it. I mean, of course, that's conjecture, and I'm reading a lot in the white space. But just when you read the beginning to the end to the middle, it seems to me very obvious that we should be taking these things into account and be involved in them.

And there are spheres of influence as we study what the Bible says about these things in these instructions we have. Once you establish a government, you need to obey it and all of those kind of things, and God helps us understand what those functions are as the story goes on. In Genesis 6, we get to the point where God looks down on the earth after quite a period of time, and he says, the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord regretted that he made man on earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry I have made them.

Whoa, he's not pleased. But, he relents, takes Noah, puts him on the boat, tells him to gather two of every kind, and it starts all over again. But then as it starts all over, he realizes that he doesn't want man to do evil continually and be as bad as they were. So he starts to give a little more lesson to the people. Genesis 9, 1 through 6, and God blessed Noah and his sons. This is after they get out of the boat and they go, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. That sounds familiar. The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea.

Into your hands they are delivered. Interesting that the animals now have a fear of man. So there is an ingredient in there that lots of pages have been written about, but it's an interesting thought. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is its blood. And for your life blood, I will require reckoning from every beast. I require it in it from man and his fellow man. I will require a reckoning for the life of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed. For God made man in his own image.

And you be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply it." So all of a sudden, God now makes the rule, if you kill man, man should kill you, the death penalty. So he starts to make rules to keep the world, I believe, from getting to the point of every thought in their heart was evil continually back in Genesis 6. So obviously, God wants us to be related to the government, be citizens that are encouraged by it, and be good neighbors and all the rest of that. So now the problem becomes, okay, what if you live in a bad government? Well, it's interesting that the church starts with a government that really didn't know what to do with it, do with Christianity.

And at first, they just thought, oh, it's some Jewish sect that's going to go. And then all of a sudden, it came to the Gentiles and they realized they had a problem. And so during that time, Peter writes to the people, and Paul writes to the people, writes to the Gentiles in Rome, Peter, he's talking mainly to the Jewish believers that are out in the world, and he says, beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. So he knows they're having trouble, and people are starting to come after him. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, They may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.

So even though they're persecuting you, treat them well, okay? Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as, to the emperor as supreme or to governors as set by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. mostly governments, even the worst government, are there to put murderers in jail and protect the general population. Without a population that feels safe enough just to go to work and walk the streets, you're an anarchy. No government wants that, no matter how evil that government is. That's kind of an interesting thing to think about in this day and age.

I mean, just look at what happened in the George Floyd things. Oh, we're just having a civil unrest while the guy's standing in front of the burning building and the people are being killed in the street. Government's just quit doing its job. And that didn't work out too well. So now they say, governance and praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good, you should put silence to the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the emperor. That was at a time they were living on their emperors.

Now as time goes on, people said, wait a minute, let's do a different way. And let's have this part of government. And some people said, yeah, let's do that. And so it goes on and on. and we now live 2,000 years after that time, and we've had lots of different governments happen. And we happen to live under a government that is incredibly free, I think, in comparison to what we could have had 300 years ago, if you think about it. And when you think about time, sometimes we think our day and age is a big deal and everything. But I think it really is a wise thing to look back at just think of your great, great, great grandfather.

Do that back and figure out when that guy was walking around. And you realize, oh my goodness, that's in the ancient history book. I don't know what to do with that. And it's when you realize you're just in this timeline like that, you realize what an incredible age we live in to have the freedom that we have. Now, even in that respect, you got evil men doing evil things. But in the system of government we have, I think the good people want to stop that. And generally speaking, want to save society. And I think that as things have gone on and just common sense things, it's a sad commentary that we elect a president that says, OK, we're going to stop calling He, She, Him, and Vits and having 69 genders or whatever, and said, no, we got men and women.

We're moving on. The best guy gets the job, regardless of the color of his skin or his nationality or whatever. He gets the job because he's the best one at it. Well, duh, what an idea. But that kind of common sense over the past 50 years has eroded in a big way. And we are now in a really, I mean the last two weeks have been unbelievable what's happened. So how do we as Christians respond to that? A lot of this is just good common sense brought to you by a guy that I'm not even sure he's a Christian, all right, the President Trump.

You know, when they ask the question, are you a sinner? Well, he doesn't want to answer that. That's a problem. But the thing is, that common sense comes from Christian principles and biblical principles. So if God puts that guy in, you want him to do that, and we want to live under that, and so forth. So the other passage that everybody goes to is Romans 13, and let everybody, be subject, person be subject to the governing authorities, for as there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.

For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have to fear the one who is in authority? then do what is good and you will receive his approval. Now, we don't live under the Roman system that Paul's writing about. We live under a government that we have all kinds of different ways to question that government. We can say, we have this right, you can't do that to us, and use the system to protect yourself from it. But when the system just ends up declaring they're going to do this and take away those rights, you see how quickly that can be done away with. And we saw that over the past 10 years with the Justice Department going after people just because they wanted to and trying to shut churches down.

And we here at Trinity, at first we were trying to be wise, thinking, you know, we're hearing all this stuff that the plague is coming, we're all gonna die by next week if we get this stuff, what's going on? So we said, okay, let's be wise, but as we got into it more, we realized, wait a minute, this is a variation of cold virus, and yes, weak people could get really sick from it, and that sort of stuff, but does that mean that we should listen to people outside of our sphere? our sphere, our sphere is the church, and our country recognizes that, and they got out of that sphere telling us we couldn't worship. We at Trinity said, no, we're not doing that.

And we never quit a Sunday. We had the crazy thing of where we were doing the, what was that thing, video, and we'd watch it afar, and there'd be six people that were doing the service. It was really weird. But we ended up saying, no, we're not going to do that. And luckily, we had a strong sheriff in this county that said, I'm not going to arrest people to do that. We had the Pekinguses farm, so we met outside, and we did that. And looking back on it, I think we were even being really kind to do the way we did it to them. And yet, that's considered, oh, you were really scary. And it's just common sense. And it's also having people that recognize their sphere is this and the other sphere is over there.

And if I were a guy that was afraid, and I use this argument with people that after the COVID thing calmed down, I still see them around and see them in different places in the community, that they're still wearing masks, okay? They still got the cloth thing on that they made so they're just breathing through a piece of cloth and it really is not doing anything for them. But they, you know, were so upset that we meet. And I said, you know, you hate us so much. If this thing was really that bad and we were all meeting together, we would have all died. Why weren't you happy that we were meeting? And they kind of looked at me and went, well, I guess you're right.

You know, and I said, we weren't even wearing masks. You know, we could have really gotten it. And then they didn't want to talk about it because they realized I was going to turn the thing on the mask debate. But we live in a situation where just with common sense you can talk to people and talk with that, and it just, of course we should be involved in this kind of stuff. And even like in Russia, like Sergio and Anastasia, they go and visit in Moscow and stuff. And the people there, yes, Putin's a quote dictator and they got the oligarchs who are running the place and everything, and we're trying to use all these things to stop them.

Their economy is going and blowing. And what's happened is Putin realized he has to turn the capitalistic system loose enough so that products can move and people can eat and all of that kind of stuff. And when you do that, man's ingenuity just takes over. When the government clamps down and they're going to give you so much cheese and all that, that's when they add the lines in front of all those doors and you can only get meat on Tuesdays and, you know, all that nonsense. And it's just basic common sense to me anyway.

So now the next thing that happens as you think about this stuff in the build and the battle is there is the influence in this day and age right now of Satan and demonic influences also going on. Not just disbelievers, but I'm talking demonic and satanic influences. And I would justify that with 1 John 5, 18. And it says, we know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning. But he who was born of God protects him. Who was born of God protects him. And the evil one does not touch him. We know that we are from God and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. And we know that the Son of God has come and given us understanding so that we know Him who is true, and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ.

He is the true God and eternal life. Little children keep yourselves from idols. Mainly speaking, you have classes of people that are godless, and then you have ones that start to move over into worshiping idols. Most of them are worshiping themselves as an idol, But like climate change and all that kind of stuff, it becomes a religion to them. And the whole gender thing and all of that. And most of those things are based on just pure nuttiness. I mean, especially the whole gender battle and all of that. How do they think they came into the world, you know? With two kishearits getting together is just crazy. And the other one that demonstrates this is Ephesians 2, 1 through 3.

And you were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air. That's us. We were dead in our testament, following the prince of the power of the air. The spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. Again, those that don't follow Christ are in that group, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. So that's going on now, and that's out there also. And some of these things are just plain demonic, the abortion situation.

to have a discussion, even if you want abortion, that the woman has the baby, the baby's alive, and should we be able to kill the baby because the mom doesn't want the baby? To even have that discussion, you're so far out there on the edge that how crazy is that? So now, the whole thing that I want to say It's just these few passages should show you that we should be involved and we should be those citizens that other people look to us, why do you do that? Why do you want to make that product? Why do you want to talk to me about this and that? And that whole thing, that lifestyle, will make a better world. You should be the best farmer.

You should give the best service. You should treat those people like you want to be treated. You don't want to get cheated. Don't cheat them in the deal. And that whole thing, if you do that, will just change your life. I've been involved in certain negotiations with people, and they thought it was a fair negotiation. And I said, OK, you have this contract. What happens if we turn it around and you take the other side and you sign it? Would you be the other guy and think it's a good deal? Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, that's really kind of the way you should look at it. Do you think you're giving that guy a fair thing? I mean, profit is not a sin.

You've got to make money in order to make a good product and pay the people the wage to make it. And it's just, duh. And so out of that, the build in battle is everybody is related in the world to some situation where you can bring your Christian influence and God's making dominion into play in your situation. So with that, what questions do you have or whatever? Yeah. The political thing to me is, oh, Another interesting thing that I learned and heard, and I haven't read this commentary, but Martin Lloyd-Jones, big English preacher in the 40s and 50s, his commentary on Romans 13, he brings up that the American war of revolution was a biblical thing to do in America, being an Englishman, which I thought was interesting.

I mean, I thought, Jubal sent us a thing this morning to Sean and I about what he's doing. To me, it is such a perfect story. Jubal joins the Navy. You were a diver first? Is that right? Incredible thing. Enlisted diver, you know, doing the Navy thing, all this kind of stuff. Then he decides, did you then become a warrant officer? Or how did that work that you got into the medical part? Yeah, but then they paid for you to go to medical school and all of that. ends up to be an officer, retires as a commander, and then goes to work for Providence in the middle of the COVID thing and everything. And they look at him and say, you're obviously the best person for this job.

And right away, he's running the whole nursing staff and running them all. And pretty soon, they don't like it, because he's, you know, I'm sorry, you got to do this, you shouldn't do this, I'm not gonna do that. And they just couldn't handle it. And it's amazing. But I think it's a blessing because then I think it's going to give you a great business in a couple of years. I mean, these things are starting all over the Midwest, as far as I know. So yeah. So I have a question. Yeah. So one of the things that you kept saying was duh, or it's obvious, or it's common sense. Right. Right. Duh. That was like your theme.

Well, that's my theme all the time. Right, right, right. So, which I'm trying to- The answer's on page 46, look at it. Stupid kids, right? My students out there, right? Stupid ones, another one, yeah. So if it is duh and common sense and obvious, why are more people not building and battling? Specifically even in our context, why are we not doing more? Yeah, I think the real hope is that we have so deserted the common sense in our public education. I mean, kids can't, the latest test, an eighth grader cannot read four paragraphs and tell you what the paragraphs contain in America. That's the latest study, right, Gail?

I got that right. Yeah, that's, it was a news story yesterday. They came out with that. They have so deserted just common sense teaching. I mean, in 1986, I went to be a teacher helper in the best school district in LA in the second grade. Morgan was there. And a second grader, I was in the back, and I was told, Mr. Light, stay back there. You can help me whenever I need it. And his teacher was like 62 or something, getting ready to retire, nice lady. And this little kid got up out of his seat. And she said, Johnny, sit down in your seat. And the kid just looked at her and started wandering off. So I'm sitting in the back.

I said, no problem. And I went over. I got little Johnny, and I put Johnny back in his seat. I mean, this is 1986. And the lady comes up to me, and she says, we have to go outside, Mr. Lightman. And I said, okay. So we go outside and she says, you can't touch the children. I said, well, how are you gonna make little Johnny sit in his seat? Oh, I can't do that. That's why I'm retiring next year.

And I said, you're serious. I mean, when I went to school, they had a two-fisted wooden paddle that you get to go to the guy and grab your ankles and get whacked, you know? This is stupid. And that's in 1986. And now an eighth grader can't read four paragraphs. So just because they don't have that much common sense, that's why most of them can't do anything. They come to work for a guy like you and you say, well, you gotta show up at 8.05 or 8 o'clock or whatever. Oh, I just didn't feel like I got on an 8.30? Well, you're fired next, you know? Well, you can't do that. I could, you know. And so we're picking more and more from a smaller pool.

I had a, we went down to interview, we were going to have another person come and help Martin, our guy that runs our store down in San Diego. Nice young ladies coming in because a lot of it's secretarial because you're just doing computer work instead of handling these parts. And at that time, we wanted that kind of thing. And this girl was sharp. I mean, she looked nice. She was clean. She was talking the whole thing. And so I thought, and we have a little test to give them to see if they know the basic math of how to get the ID from the OD and that kind of thing. She did all right on that. And then I said, well, you're going to have to make change.

Can you make change? You know, I expected make change. What kind of stupid question is that? And she said, what do you mean? And I said, well, and I took some money out of my pocket. And I said, if I gave you $1 and the product was $0.75, what would you give back to me? She couldn't answer it. I literally went up in the cash drawer and got four quarters. I said, there's $1. And I said, I need to know, I'm giving you these four quarters, but I only need $0.75. She couldn't do it. I said, how do you buy anything? And she pulled it out of her purse and said, with this credit card. I just give them the credit card. I don't look at anything.

She was 18 years old? Unbelievable. And had her diploma and the whole thing. How do you get out of high school, and you can't do that? So that's why I say that they are that ignorant. And stupid is not, you know, I use stupid. They're ignorant. They're not stupid. But they aren't trained. But what about us T-seers? Why are we not building more? Why are we not doing more? Is it just time? I think a lot of guys are. And I think they're doing it on the level that they are. Everybody can't be a world beater. I don't expect that. Some people have different goals in life. They want to be a good employee, eight to five, and then I want to go home and be with my wife and that.

And they're just not motivated that way. Some of us want to have more free time to do something different. Some guys take a job so that they can earn enough money to, I don't know, go fishing or whatever, that their passion is. I meet with young people and they come to me and they say, what should I do? I say, do what you love and find a way to make a living from it, so that you're always excited about it. And a guy like you, well, I wanna make deals, I wanna make this, I wanna make this bigger and better, and that's interesting to you. But everybody's not gonna be like that. Because they haven't seen examples of it.

That's a big possibility. Because they talk about the feminization of men, And it's learn how to work, get your 9 to 5, earn a living, provide, and that's it. So have there been, I would ask Phillip, do you see a ton of examples where young men can see something different? Yeah, and it's interesting that over the years I've hired and worked with a lot of different people. And like one time I ran a factory, there was about 150 employees in it. And from all kinds of different backgrounds and really highly skilled people, fantastic wood carvers. They could lay gold leaf.

They could do carpentry like you couldn't imagine, making incredible like Louis 15 frames that were four by six foot and then all gessoed gold leaf and then antique perfectly, I had guys from the Dominican Republic that could hand watercolor French mats where you take and make super straight lines with watercolor in a French mat that is a very specialized mat that goes around drawings, stuff like that. All these guys were really artistic. And to run all those kind of people that really understood the talent they had and everything and yet to be part of it. And every one of them had a different thing that they loved doing. Whether it be play the flamenco guitar, they wanted to be the best at that. But that's what they could do was really match picture frames up with art.

So they sold picture frames, but they really wanted to be a flamenco guitarist. All of those people were following their particular thing. You do what you want to do. That's, you know, Sean has said that many times. But that's it. You do what you want to do. And if you really want it, you'll do something and go for it. I have a question, or I want your thoughts. I am a little bit, I see it as somewhat of a distraction, potentially, in terms of men building and battling, growing and progressing forward and planning for the future. Everything you're talking about. The thing that is in the way, I think, potentially for a lot of us men is a combination of recreation and family time and parties.

And none of those things are bad. I'm just saying, if you look around and you, maybe I'm not the norm, but I feel like I'm doing birthday party after get together, after some kind of vacation, all the time. Actually, too much, too much of that. So there's not enough time to grind out the productivity that you're trying to build, right? Because you can't let your kids down, you know? They're only little kids for so long, and you got other people who look to you to get yourself involved in their function or whatever.

So can you speak to that? I mean, men are... the conception I have is to be somewhat detached from the enjoyable while they're doing the hard thing because they have to, because they're thinking about everybody else doing the enjoyable things while they're planning, like the family can have vacations because the dad has thought about it and, you know, 20 years prior, right? So tell me what you think about that.

Oh. Ha ha ha ha. You know, it's supposed to work six days and then it takes the Sabbath off. Nowadays we're working five days and they're short days too, right? So we're just chock full of recreation and enjoyable leisure. Here's my answer. I think that those that are too busy with all of that, even when you have large families And the large family, you should be training that kid right away to be taking care of stuff. Ideally, if you live on a farm, it just happens because you gotta have the kids all doing that.

I've had kids work for me counting stuff, you know, little tiny round pieces of rubber and stuff. Okay, count this. Here's a bag of 10,000 or something. And you also put a scale by there, and you show them, hey, how much does that hundred of those weigh? And they, oh, look at that. Well, how fast could you count them now? So make them think. The whole thing with the birthday party and stuff, maybe I was raised wrong. I don't remember any birthday party I ever had. I really didn't care. The things I remember is when my dad and I had a relationship kind of thing. Like just driving to another horse ranch to look at a horse and sitting in the truck for five hours, driving over to New Mexico or something.

And him just looking over at me and going, this is kind of cool. He wouldn't have said that. This is really nice, isn't it? And then he papped me on the leg. And I thought, wow, that kind of thing. And that's the real thing that happens. The bouncy house and the, you know, going to, poke me in the eyes to go to Disneyland. I mean, not happening. That's just stupid. I mean, thousands of dollars are spent at Disney World looking at a bunch of fake stuff. You know, take them out, look at this tree, isn't that incredible? You know. Or pick up this horse poop and do something worthwhile. You know. But that kind of relationship where, you know, they know, because they want to be that thing too.

I, we're right now, well, you're involved in it. The idea that the camel farm can be something that we can have a few people out of our congregation help Linda make that a viable project and do farming that sustains itself in a small space and show that and make, maybe make some products and that kind of thing. It's a real opportunity. And I, it just, I mean, Aaron is so excited about it, he doesn't know what to do. And he went back to learn how to be a contractor and hated it, had a bad experience, It's then went to work for some guy in New York on a farm, loved it, and comes back and right across the street, he now has an opportunity to actually plant some corn and grow it and see what happens.

It's very cool. And what you and Max have done with the chicken thing, I mean, to me, it's crazy. And that's the kind of application. Being busy is good. I mean, we got now what, great grandkids and grandkids. And those kids know I love their birthday. And I hope they know we love them. I mean, we take them to lunch and all that kind of stuff. But I way more appreciate the special time in the morning or something when we're standing there and we just got up and we know we gotta go to school and we look at each other and laugh and say, you know, this is a bunch of nonsense. I don't want to go, you don't want to go, but we got to go.

And they learn that from you. Because they realize, well, sometimes I got to do stuff that I don't like. Well, yeah, welcome to the world. So I don't know if that really helps. But there are times where silliness and parties are fun. But to go after that, I mean, for those of you that went to college, how long did it take before you really got tired of the frat parties or whatever. Hey Dave. Not long. Yeah. Over here. I'm gonna take a shot at the other Dave's question as well.

We know that to be an image bearer of God is to develop, is to pour your life into relationship and responsibility. So when I think in terms of building, I need to be building relationship, I need to be building in responsibility. And so to me, birthday parties, within reason, I mean, there are the, you're going off on the crazy, you know, these days, you know, it's not a real party unless you drop $10,000 on it, you know, that's crazy. But those times, those birthday parties are building when they're done properly. As a grandpa of 14 kids, I spend a fair amount of time eating ice cream on dates with my grandkids.

But they are purposeful dates. We have meaningful conversations. You could argue there, are those frivolous? Are those purposeless? Could I be doing something better to build? Seven-year-old Chloe. One minute, I'm sitting down trying to show her how to make change out of $1, which she doesn't enjoy so much. And then other times, I'm sitting down having ice cream cone with her over at Dairy Queen. and talking about life, both are building when done properly. Yeah, but see, the ice cream cone purposely sitting across from, that's a whole different kind of discussion. But even the birthday party, which you might say is that frivolous, that's still a relationship.

That's building memories. That's, it's still establishing a relationship. You know, right now, and your focus is probably the same thing that RH is, If all I leave behind that anybody remembers is 14 grandkids that love Jesus, I'll be happy. That's going to be the benchmark. Whatever else I've done and built, all the code I've written, none of that stuff is going to matter. But those 14 souls are going to matter. And so, I think of it in terms of relationship and responsibility. She's got to learn how to do math. She's got to also understand that her grandpa loved Jesus, and she has responsibility to love Jesus too.

Yeah. It's interesting how different people view it. And I know it's from your experience, but for me, a much more important party was what it was last night. You clowns were all over there watching Scarlett Pimpernel, right? That was last night. Yeah, or two days ago or whatever. That to me is super good, because you're looking at that and I could tell you're all going, oh, this and that. But that kind of organization, you're building a foundation with each other. And it's not necessarily, it doesn't cost a lot of money. It doesn't have to be a big party. You're sitting down and having fun together and you made snacks and all that stuff.

But you're watching, I don't know, you're bonding together in a different way. So I'm not against fun. Don't get me wrong on that. Fun killer. I mean, that's all I, I'm just one big bag of fun. Okay, Phillip, just, I have one question. I am big on celebrating, and I think there is a time and place for a jump house. You're exhausting on celebrating. You're not big on it, you're exhausting on it. Here's the thing, what are we building and what are we battling? We are building the kingdom. How do we do that without relationship? How do we build relationship by telling people and showing people that we value them, we value their time.

We value the fact that they were created in the image of God. And if we don't have passport, if we don't have that relationship, that connection, our building is not going to be very fruitful, right? I keep going back to this jealous ability. And if we don't have that, like how fun would it be to go over to the Bikinis' and have, I don't even know, I know it's a book, I don't know anything about it, I'm not classically educated and classically learning how to teach. But it sounds amazing and like, I don't know, maybe we should do that. Mason, are you around somewhere? Yep, there she is. Okay, anyway, all that to say that it is, it's whatever we can do to foster relationship, to foster shared experiences, to encourage and provide opportunities for people to grow and be inspired to do something for the Lord.

And the rest of us get to benefit from that. But I mean, if you're trying to build in battle without your people, you're not gonna be very successful. Yeah, but what happens when you come in building, you want to build in battle like we all talk about, and everybody's sitting there thinking, oh, he must really have an incredible life because he's talking all this stuff. There's a lot of baggage all of us bring to this. We all come out of broken families and crazy stuff, and the build in battle for that person can be totally different than, That person may need the bouncy house and the goofy birthday party. I'm not saying they're all bad, but it's still that relationship and talking with that person.

More like Jim was saying that time when you go and have the ice cream with the grandkid and you're actually talking, or like I told you the times of my dad, long trips were always the best because then you had them cornered and you can talk and you could get answers. and willing to say things like that. My mom was totally different. She was very much the game player and wanted to do that kind of stuff, crawl under the thing with the kids and all of that. So yeah, one is not better than the other. But I think wisdom is good. You don't overdo something. But if you do have a passion for something, you can be looked upon as you're overdoing it.

And that's another problem too. I mean, I don't know if that's helpful, but it's real life. So I think where it can go wrong is, sure you can throw a huge party and all that. But when you're, I don't know, exemplifying or setting forth an example of basically teaching, without us even trying, teaching kids what is more important, getting what others have, or learning the actual important lessons. And it's easy to do the sometimes harmful former when you're indulging and all that, right?

And sure, maybe going and doing farm work as a birthday celebration, may look like anti-fun, But I mean, it's, yeah, but that's the, that is something to avoid though, is kind of accidentally teaching your kid that like, okay, like, do you know what I'm talking about? And... I think so, I'm not sure. Those accidental times, right? I mean, like when you went to work for the wire bending thing and you were successful and you were wearing the holes in the gloves and you didn't have the gloves. At that point, you were realizing, oh, look at that. That's very clever the way that machine bends that thing. Sam Rothenberger is that way.

I don't know if he works for the guy that bends wires that make vines go on the wire. Isn't that what that stuff goes? It goes on vines, right? Apple trees. So, and when you realize that's very clever, that kind of experience, And you may think the guy is a nutcase that thought this up, and he is a very unique guy, the guy who worked for it. But that's just, I don't know, but that's kind of what you're talking about, I think. I'm going to explain this, like maybe I should have thought of this before I took the mic. Yeah, exactly. All of the celebrations there are surrounded by, by or the focal is the end of a season is like experiencing the bounty or you know raising the barns and getting all of the syrup out of the trees you know like it every single festive thing that they are doing is all a kind of a grand and finale of some really hard work.

Right, it's all a work party. And those are my favorite. So if anybody wants to do a work party, let me know. But exactly. So anyway, yeah, it was just when you were talking about farming and doing the hard work, and is that really fun? Well, yeah, I mean, purposeful. And those shared experiences, again, are creating a lot of relational connections. Yeah, you're gonna live in the house and rewire it, I understand, right? How cool is that? I'm not sure I wanna go back in that house and touch a light switch, but other than that, no problem. What? What? What? So it is, it's interesting because, Mr. Light, in what you were talking about, for guys in particular, guys are not usually the people that even wanna go to the parties anyways, so they're probably not the ones who planned it, let alone the people that wanna go, So that already is starting off on the foot where it's like, this is taking me away from something else I'd rather be doing.

But building and battling in a non-dualistic where God cares about every square inch of what he's created means that you, going to the birthday party that was planned, even though you were at one the last two nights consecutively, is probably what God wants you to be doing. Now if you actually have something that has a deadline that actually needs to be done, well that takes priority, but it's not necessarily that one thing is better than the other thing, but there might be priorities that have to be fixed. So I used to be very much against all of the dances. I was a dance hater. I like dancing, but I hated that we were planning dances and everybody was going to I didn't want to go to that. I want to do something else.

But then when my mom in particular was like, but you don't see the cultural connection here between growing the community, getting guys invested in participating. Once I saw that connection, I was like, this is building too. This is building and battling for me to go to the dance. It's building and battling to go to a birthday party and also to go to work. So all of it is what God cares about. So it might not feel like the most productive thing to have to go to another birthday party, but it's still building something that you might not be able to see quite yet, which that's kind of cool, but that's the hardest part to understand, like to remember, is that the things that don't produce the obvious results, lots of times are the things that build the biggest and strongest foundations.

So it's one, it's under one, the same category. So three bullet points, one question. Mostly I don't like when my kids leave to other people's houses and I can't work with them. That's the annoying thing to me. They're always going to somebody's house for a party and I need their help on a Saturday, like every Saturday.

And then with regard to, like it's a work day, Saturday. I think that's the definition of Saturday, if any kids are listening. And then with regards to, I totally get the quality of time, there's value obviously in that. What Jim was saying and Calvin, actually everybody, Riva. Yeah, the relationships are eternal. We're dealing with human souls that are going to be around for eternity. And that's the product. Money's not the goal. I'm not trying to build a legacy without detached from human souls. But I do think that perhaps, you know, I'm getting sucked into distractions as a guy. And I think maybe it's a tendency of our community to err on the side of chumming it up with our pals and instead of grinding and plotting and building, doing the hard, less fun thing, perhaps.

There's a speculation on my part. And then, yeah, you think that's probably where I'll end it. But those were my thoughts. That's kind of a downer. I don't wanna end there. Make your kids stay with you and help you. Seriously. There are those times. And the thing is, they want to be grown up. What do kids want to do? They want to be, especially when they get to be 13 or 14, I'm a young man. I want to do that. The sooner you can let them be that, the better they like it. So you give them that thing. You kind of hold the reins loose, but still have reins. So when they get out there, they're going to fall off the cliff.

You can jerk them back. But you want them to be trying to do it a little more, a little more than that all. And also, where in that, I can't believe I'm talking about birthday parties, but as it is, they want to grow up. So I'm sure teach them how to decide, actually, guys, you get one party a month on Saturday. We'll let you choose which one, but the other ones, you'll need to work for whatever the percentage is. Just like that, you're gonna have to do whatever you want. Just like when it's your driving your kids around, you're gonna have to decide to point all of the options that are good things, which one is the best.

So here's your opportunity, we're gonna give you some three notes, we're not saying you can't go to any, and we're also saying we have things that we need you to do for our household. And so here's your opportunity to participate in that process, rather than all of you having to decide. Yeah, it's sad now that Cal got to a point where he was really capable of doing a lot of things. Now he finds a woman and he's going to move off. What the heck? Yeah. I'm going to tell you a few things. Here, anybody, and Dave, your question at the beginning also wasn't about whether celebrations of parties are problems. But when you are in a community where that makes it, helping our kids learn, OK, well, that's good.

For the ability for Aaron and all of them to maybe even work on a Campbell farm and make that happen. Just all the other things that I don't even know about. Help everybody understand that you have given them a job and that that job is good and that they should be that representative for you at that job. And yet, they can be a thing to make that even better. So we thank you that we live in a country where we can do that. And if you think you can do it better, go start your own. Let's still able to do that here. So we thank you for all of those things. And of course, we thank you most of all for your son. And it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

For the ability for Aaron and all of them to maybe even work on a Campbell farm and make that happen. Just all the other things that I don't even know about. Help everybody understand that you have given them a job and that that job is good and that they should be that representative for you at that job. And yet, they can be a thing to make that even better. So we thank you that we live in a country where we can do that. And if you think you can do it better, go start your own. Let's still able to do that here. So we thank you for all of those things. And of course, we thank you most of all for your son. And it's in Jesus' name we pray.

You can’t build/re-build a culture of faithfulness and be in bed with unfaithfulness. And as soon as unfaithfulness is exposed, further rebuilding requires repentance.

In Ezra 9-10 this is not a metaphor. Their mixed marriages brought covenants into conflict. As a nation they were in covenant with God, but many of their leaders made marriage covenants with other-god-lovers. They were in bed with those who practiced abominations. You can’t repair the ruins on a compromised foundation.

You can have a culture of unfaithfulness that doesn’t immediately collapse. Unfaithfulness can scale, but it isn’t sustainable. A culture that disregards God will be disregarded by God; it’s the Romans 1 road. In the other direction, faithfulness compounds, faithfulness builds, faithfulness recognizes graces, faithfulness resists compromise. Repentance rebuilds faithfulness.

Ezra and about five-thousand men, women, and children arrived back in Jerusalem as the second big wave of rebuilders to return from Babylon. It had been 80 years since Cyrus’ repatriation decree, and the Persian kings after Cyrus maintained his policy of aid. A lot had happened in Jerusalem, and a lot more work needed to be done. We haven’t even gotten to the city walls yet. The Jews had renewed their sacrifices, and worship at the house of God was to be at the center of national life. But whatever identity they were building via liturgy they were tearing down by their lives.

Chapter 9 records the initial report and then Ezra's representative response. In this chapter and the next we’ll consider the appearance of racism, the need for divorce, and the place of corporate confession.

Ezra was settling in, and so was some conviction.

What are the after these things in verse 1 ? The answer colors some of our perspective on what's happening, because Ezra 10:9 tells us that it was now the ninth month, though Ezra 7:8 tells us he arrived in the fifth month. How could this have escaped Ezra's notice for over four months? If he did know, then is his reaction an overreaction? Is Ezra's display sincere or theatrical?

One possible answer is that he'd been traveling most of that time around the province Beyond the River delivering Artaxerxes' commissions to the satraps and governors (see Ezra 8:36). Maybe he just got back again when the officials came to him.

Another answer is that he'd been busy teaching the law for four months, such as Nehemiah 8:1-8 describes, and which Nehemiah 7:73 took place in the seventh month. Maybe Ezra did not fully realize, and maybe these officials began to be convicted by the teaching.

Ezra was a “scribe skilled in the Law of Moses” (7:6), and the language in chapter 9 contains language from the Pentateuch. Even the names of the "-ites" in 9:1 are historical names of peoples found in the Promised Land when Israel entered after Egypt and the wilderness wandering (for example, Exodus 3:8). Not all these people groups dwelled in Israel when Ezra entered, but the law still applied. We've seen echoes in Ezra of a "second exodus," from Babylon, and now we see the same sort of temptations.

The sin is not a lack of racism (if “race” is actually the best term; I prefer “ethnicity”). The holy race, per the ESV, even as the ESV notes, is holy seed. This is a covenant term going back at least to Abraham.

The problem is described as a culture of worship problem. See abominations (1, 11) which are disgusting religious practices, faithlessness (2, 5) to the covenant, impurity (11), uncleanness (11). The Israelites were not allowed to mix with idolators. It's not a lack of shared language, or different physiognomy/skin color, but they didn't share the same God.

Laws that prohibited marrying a foreigner provide their own reasoning. See, for example, Exodus 34:11-16 (and Deuteronomy 7:3-4), not eating sacrifices to other gods, not taking “their daughters for your sons, and their daughters whore after their gods and make your sons whore after their gods.” Note Ezra 9:14 at the end of this chapter.

Some of the most “holy” men/patriarchs married non-Jews (not least of which, Moses and David). Some of those women became part of the Messiah's birth-line. But those women had to convert (Ruth, the Moabite, is a prime example). It was not okay to be unequally yolked, as an apostle put it later. The forbidden mixing was god-mixing, religious syncretism. Just as bad was worship apathy. So combining gods in worship, or neglecting the exclusive worship of the Jealous God (Exodus 3:14), was the sin.

A culture's god's matter. The God worshipped shapes the life of a people; we always become more and more like who or what we worship. This is true whether it’s Islam or secularism, paganism, mysticism, or humanism. This belongs in a political discussion about immigration, what defines a nation, and even more close to home, marriage and family.

Ezra's response included death-grieving behavior in verse 3: tearing clothes, tearing hair, not eating, and sitting in silence. He was appalled, “dumbfounded” (Fensham); he was at a loss for words; in a state of shock (Williamson). It is at least emphatic, if not dramatic. Nehemiah pulled other people's hair (Nehemiah 13:25), Ezra ripped out his own. (It hurts.) It was also public because many gathered around him, all who trembled at the words of the God of Israel (verse 4). The conviction of sin wasn't limited to Ezra. We might say Ezra could tell he had a mandate for repentance and reform.

His state of appalled-ness apparently lasted for some hours, until the evening sacrifice. Then he got down on his knees to pray, and spread out his hands to show need (verse 5).

The prayer was directed to God, yet public so that all could hear. It was also personal, though Ezra himself hadn't committed the sin. He knew that what happens to one part of the body will affect all the body. As a leader, and with the sins being committed by other leaders, Ezra identified as being part of the guilty party.

In verse 6, our iniquities have risen higher than our heads means they were drowning in sins, mounted up to the heavens, perhaps a reference to the flood. The sins have a long history, and even if you didn't sin like your fathers, there can still be generational consequences, to this day.

The fresh sins are especially wrong in light of fresh favor. God had given them a secure hold (verse 8), which is really a "tent peg”; now they could stop wandering. God had brightened their eyes, making us think of Jonathan's eating honey after a day of fighting without food (1 Samuel 14:27). There were obvious providences as God stirred the hearts of Persian kings to send the Jews back to their land, to repair (the) ruins, and to give a “fence” for protection (verse 9).

Verses 10-12 are the confession proper. There are half a dozen references to the law, written by Moses, who was a proto-prophet.

Again, the concern over mixed marriages was about the impurity and abominable practices, the uncleanness that didn't belong with Israel's required holiness. They couldn't be both set apart to God and be allies with those who loved false gods.

Two questions, clear answers come in verses 13-14. What they were doing had no excuse. What they were doing was deserving of complete destruction. God would be right if God showed no more mercy or grace.

No pulled confession. No defensiveness. And in prayer, no pleading, just acknowledgement. The conviction of sin that gets all the way down is what makes grace amazing. If it wasn't amazing, we probably are taking grace for granted.

The prayer ends in verse 15. A remnant existed because of God, and that remnant was guilty again before God. You are just.

You can’t build/re-build a culture of faithfulness and be in bed with unfaithfulness.

We are not in the same situation as the Jews, but we can invite false gods and abominable practices into our homes/families/culture without marrying into them. Marrying an unbeliever demonstrates an unbelieving world and life view regardless of a profession of faith. But again, we subscribe to streams that conform us to compromise, and unfaithfulness will yield its own fruit.

And, as for corporate confession, it is good to keep the liturgy of it. Every prayer doesn't need to be corporate, but remember the "Our" in "Our Father in heaven." Even more than Ezra’s corporate confession is the Messiah's identification with us sinners, He was “numbered with the transgressors” (Isaiah 53:12; see also 1 Corinthians 5:21 and 1 Peter 3:18).

What action Ezra and the people took comes in Ezra 10.

As God's chosen ones, you are beloved and holy. You are His saints. His grace is training you to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live godly lives in the present age. He is purifying a people for Himself. Work with the grace, unto glory and excellence.

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. (2 Peter 1:3–4 ESV)

The Scottish economist, Adam Smith, wrote about the “invisible hand,” his explanation for how men who invest domestically for their own benefit end up promoting the interest of society better than if society was their direct aim. The “invisible hand” is a kind of divine mechanism that causes the pursuit of personal good to result in more public good. Though raised Presbyterian—meaning he had heard about the true and sovereign God—Smith wasn’t a clear witness. We can do better than talk about the “Man Upstairs” or the “Supreme Being.” Ezra also saw an opportunity to prove a point. It was no invisible hand, it was the good hand of God.

God continues to fulfill His gracious promises to return His people to their land so that they can renew their worship and rebuild their nation. Ezra 8 records the second wave of returners, about 80 years after Cyrus’ decree (Ezra 1:1-2) and the first 50k (Ezra 2:64-65). We didn’t meet Ezra himself until chapter 7 though he documented this part of Israel’s history in both Ezra and Nehemiah. On the timeline, he came after Ezra 1-6 as well as the events in the book of Esther. Artaxerxes appointed Ezra a sort of secretary of state/foreign minister, giving him authority and resources to establish Jewish law in the province Beyond the River.

Ezra 7 introduced us to Ezra the scribe and included a copy of the letter that authorized what Ezra needed for the journey. Ezra 8 takes four months, with a focus on the first twelve days and the last three. They gather at the river (verses 1-20), they fast and seek the Lord at the river (verses 21-30), and then they depart the river until we see them safely arrived in Jerusalem (verses 31-36).

Ezra demonstrated himself both a praying and practical man. He carefully counted his men and money. He delegated responsibility. And He didn’t want to give any doubts to Artaxerxes about the power of God. About five-thousand souls depended on God directly rather than depend on God through a military escort. It was no invisible hand, but a witness to the Lord’s good hand for His people and house.

Verses 1-14 give the second genealogy in the book, much shorter than the one in chapter 2 with many less returnees. These are the ones who gathered to the river that runs to Ahava (verse 15), a phrase that repeats two more times in the chapter.

All the family names in chapter 8 are found in chapter 2, but these are a later generation. It’s a different return, under Artexerxes with Ezra (not under Nebuchadnezzar with Zerubbabel). The order is also different, with two priestly families named at the beginning (from the line of Aaron, and without number totals), then a royal connection (of the sons of David, Hattush, about twelve generations after David), and then twelve families of laity.

The heads of fathers’ houses, and only men explicitly counted, totaling about 1500. We know from verse 21 that children also journeyed, so likely women and children, making close to 5k.

It seems no one knows for sure where Ahava was. Ancient Babylon was known to have multiple waterways, so Ahava may have been a canal-suburb location on the edge of town (like we might say the port of Everett is on the outskirts of Marysville). Preparations, packing, etc. took place for three days.

As Ezra walked around and inspected the camp, he realized that there were no Levites. Levites were necessary for temple jobs. Some Levites were already in Jerusalem (verse 33), but Ezra didn’t want to go without more. This lack of Levites delayed the departure another nine days.

A settlement of Jews were in Casiphia, and Iddo was the leading man. Ezra sent other leading men and men of insight to talk (verses 16-17). Top men, intelligence guys, used their sway.

Ezra attributed the good outcome: by the good hand of our God on us (verse 18). Thirty-eight Levites agree to join, plus 220 temple servants.

As a Levite, you may not want to go back. The journey was difficult, the conditions in Jerusalem not secure, and from a temporal view, it meant a return to narrow duties. But God worked through the discussions and provided what was lacking.

Verses 21 and 23 say what and verse 22 says why.

Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek from him a safe journey for ourselves, our children, and all our goods. For I was ashamed to ask the king for a band of soldiers and horsemen to protect us against the enemy on our way, since we had told the king, “The hand of our God is for good on all who seek him, and the power of his wrath is against all who forsake him.” So we fasted and implored our God for this, and he listened to our entreaty. (Ezra 8:21–23 ESV)

They prayed for traveling mercies. A fast is a voluntary forsaking of a good thing in order to seek a good-er thing, and seek it directly from God. They weren’t fasting for health, for fat burning in the ketosis stage, but for humility and faith building. Fasting puts your need in front of your face rather than food. They were seeking a safe journey, a “straight road” (Fensham).

They had a long journey, around 900 miles, and we know it took them around four months. Children made them vulnerable, and so did their valuables. This part gets more attention in verses 24-30.

But more than what they had, it was what they didn’t have the made the fasting crucial. Ezra had not asked for a band of soldiers and horsemen to protect us against the enemy (verse 22). Ezra had not asked on purpose. I don’t take the I was ashamed to ask to mean that he now regretted his reluctance, but, as an awareness of a seeming inconsistency that could be avoided. He had told the king that those who trusted in Israel’s God need not fear. Which is, of course, true. Though it’s also true that God often uses means, like men with swords.

Ezra didn’t say, “Don’t give us gold; God will provide.” But there was something at this point that Ezra recognized as an object lesson for Artaxerxes. So we fasted and implored our God for this. These are witness protection prayers.

The priests and the Levites might not have known exactly what they had signed up for.

A talent was about 75 pounds. This was almost four tons of gold and over 24 tons of silver (in today’s U.S. dollars, the gold would be between $243 to $325 million, and approximately $23 million in silver). It’s so much that numerous people assume it’s false. But Ezra delegated responsibility, and said that it would all be weighed again upon arrive to make sure it was accounted for.

We know God listened to their entreaties (verse 23), and we know they had proof of arrival.

Ezra 7:8-9 gave the date, “on the first day of the fifth month he came to Jerusalem, for the good hand of his God was on him.” No particulars about the trip other than the emphasis that the hand of our God was on us, and he delivered us from the hand of the enemy (verse 31).

They rested three days (verse 32) and then brought the precious metals to the temple (verse 33), weighed it all and logged it into the books (verse 34).

The last two things were offerings to God and communication to the regional governors. Israel received support/aid from the authorities, because God enabled it.

An emphasis on twelve and multiples of twelve connect to the twelve tribes of Israel, even though not each of the twelve are named. It does seem to be an intentional reference to all of them, just as burnt offerings, which were consumed, represented all of the offerer.

Chapters 9-10 present a pressing, practical SIN among the people, so all wasn’t being obeyed.

Sometimes "the hand of our God is for good on all who seek Him" and we know it because He blesses us through other people's help. Sometimes "the hand of our God is for good on all who seek Him" and other people know it because He blesses us without their help.

Thank God for working through governing authorities, and look for ways to credit God working in front of governing authorities. Nehemiah took the troops (Nehemiah 2:9), and fine. Ezra saw not taking protection as an opportunity for witness. It was no invisible hand.

As God is your witness, you also be a witness for Him. His hand is for good on all who seek Him, and the power of His wrath is against all who forsake Him. Seek Him. Tell of His name. His hand is on you.

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:20–21 ESV)

When did Noah build the ark? Before it rained. When should a preacher preach about giving/tithing/offerings? My personal hate-to-be-pressured response is never. TV preachers appear to take the opposite of always. If we preached about money as frequently as the Bible refers to money, I am in debt. God says a lot about His gifts and our offerings. It’s not an option for the godly to disregard the subject.

Based on our many years of annual church budgeting, TEC is not only ahead of our anticipated income, we are ahead of what most churches hope for. We don’t live high on the hog, but we’ve also never had to beg. I’ve never preached an entire sermon on the subject (until now), and still the Giving Corner is as positive as any other part of the bulletin. Thank You, Lord.

As one of the pastors who is paid to be good (compared to others who joke that they are good for nothing, ha), I can’t remember ever praying for the flock to give. I have prayed for specific fundraisers, whether for an outreach opportunity or related to other institutions, but not for the church’s annual budget, except in thankfulness. That’s probably wrong. Yet based on our own expectations, you all exceed those regularly. Well done.

It’s possible that we are not actually meeting the Lord’s standards, but this is where we will trust the Spirit to lead, not where we will start examining your bank statements.

This will be the final message in Our Worship reminders this cycle; we’ll be back in Ezra next Lord’s Day. We have a Family Meeting tonight, planned with providence in mind, when we’ll see again our loves represented in income and expenses.

The wise get their wisdom from the Lord, and the wise also get their wealth from the Lord. They know the source, so they wisely thank God and decide how to direct their dollars with the Great Giver in mind.

Honor the LORD with your wealth

This text is not directly about giving to a church, or even about giving at all. More than a command, it’s a condition: if you honor the Lord with what He’s given you, then He will give you more. If the crop is blessed, and you bless with it, then there’s more blessing where that came from. These verses are the first specific application of the general principles in Proverbs 3:5-8 - lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him, be not wise in your eyes. That includes what you do with your money.

It’s true that one way God required the Israelites to honor Him was by tithing. Tithing might be benefited from the Tithing Proper and tithing principle categories just as Sabbath Proper and sabbath principle.

Tithing proper meant giving ten percent of one’s annual income (usually agricultural) for sustaining the Levites. The other tribes’ tithes were the only inheritance for the Levites, and the rest of the tribes depended on them for service since only the Levites were allowed to come near the tent of meeting (Numbers 18:21-24).

There was a second tithe (Deuteronomy 14:22-27) that belonged with an annual celebration, and men were to travel to an appointed place and then consume their tithe “that you may learn to fear the LORD your God always” (Deuteronomy 14:23). Every third year, in addition to the traveling tithe, they were to share with the Levite and sojourner and fatherless and widow in their own town (Deuteronomy 14:28-29).

All tithes considered, the required giving in the OT averaged over 23% of annual income.

The prophet Malachi rebuked the Jews for “robbing God” when they kept back their tithes and offerings (Malachi 3:8-10).

There is no command to tithe repeated from Jesus or from an apostle. There is not even a direct command to give to a church. There are expectations, there are offers of good that come from giving, but no imperatives.

The wisdom principle stands. Just as we stop from our normal work to honor the Lord who makes the world turn, so we start our budgets with a recognition of where all of it came from. This is the financial first fruits. Honor the Lord with your wealth.

Because God made and runs the world, those who love (by grasping) their wealth in this world will lose it, and those who “lose” (by giving) their wealth will gain it, in this world and the next.

The liberal soul shall be made fat:

[G]ive, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.” (Luke 6:38 ESV)

It’s not a financial formula that fits in an Excel sheet, but there is a spiritual formula behind it: we become like who or what we behold. When we behold God, and are transformed into His image, from one degree of glory to another (2 Corinthians 3:18), among other things, that necessarily—inescapably, theologically, practically, and other ways adverbially—means that our glory will level up from one degree of generosity to another. The elect have been chosen for learning how to spend like God, and of course, we’re only spending what is God’s. A steward of this Master can’t be faithful if he’s stingy. Won’t he think about how to get the biggest bang for his bitcoin to bless others? He will if he’s godly.

The first set of offerings in Scripture set the tone. God received Abel’s offering and rejected his brother’s (Genesis 4:3-6). The first murder on the planet was provoked by a wrong understanding of God and giving.

The emphasis is hard to miss. Abel brought the firstborn of the fat of the flock (Genesis 4:4). It seems to have more to do with the firstborn and fat than with the animal rather than vegetable. Abel’s offering was a priority and a sacrifice. He brought what was worth something to him. (Though Cain killed him, the Lord did bless Abel by being the first human brought into His heavenly presence.) Whatever leftovers Cain brought, corroborated by his immediate anger and resentment, shows that what was in his heart was wrong more than what was in his basket.

So Paul’s point about how God loves a cheerful giver has quite a history. So does the costly part.

The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. (2 Corinthians 9:6–8 ESV)

There is much in that passage, and Philip preached through it last year in: The Abundance of Alls. Sow out of get-to not got-to. Sow extra, not holding back, and in faith, not worried that God won’t see or care for. Can God only fill your hand once?

It’s not a competition between wisdom and faith, it is faith with wisdom knowing that carefully putting one seed in the ground isn’t going to grow an orchard. That would be foolish, actually, not faith.

Or, making ends meet. Or, the rubber meets the road. Or, a lightening round of particulars.

Paul told the Corinthians to do so.

Now concerning the collection for the saints: as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do. On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come. (1 Corinthians 16:1–2 ESV)

In context this collection was for a particular purpose, not a “general budget,” but is a good example.

There is flexibility in acceptable collecting practices. I love two parts of our preferred liturgical practice. One, we do not pass plates, or velvet bags. We put out a bucket and people fill it as they come in. There’s an intentional non-grabby vibe. Two, it’s part of the liturgy to present one collection to the Lord in thanks. Just as we try to emphasize corporate actions throughout the service, so the offering practice works toward the same.

Some don’t know how to give. Really, that is preferable rather than getting pressured on the spot.

We have entered the modern world by making digital giving possible. It really became a question/request during 2020 livestream only Sundays. There are great parts about it in practical terms, and that doesn’t make you any less part of the assembly. There’s also benefit in the “friction” of preparing an envelope/check and carrying it with you on the Lord’s Day.

We see this example in the book of Acts with people giving and the apostles distributing; “laid it at the apostles’ feet” (Acts 4:35, 37; 6:2). There’s also good reason to avoid lying and pretense about giving (Matthew 6:2-4; Acts 5:1-11). We do also have a designated fund for the deacons who likewise decide and distribute in places of need.

Are pastors allowed to say that? They have to if they don’t want to say things that God hasn’t said. As part of the assembly’s first day, first-thought dependence, it is GOOD. And, might the Lord lead you to sow a cheerful and bountiful seed that isn’t in the TEC corner of His field? Sure He might, for a portion, for a season.

ALSO! You cannot be saved by any amount of giving. Who cares how much you give apart from Christ?! Christ gave Himself for sinners, so take hold of Him before all else.

For Christ’s disciples, who are growing up in spiritual maturity and desire to grow in their giving, if you don’t know where to start, try giving first ten percent of your income to the assembly’s offering, and try to give weekly, or on a regular schedule, for sake of making it a priority to honor the Lord. So also, parents, teach your kids, when they earn money, show them to set aside the first ten percent for the Lord.

Remember that upon return from captivity in Babylon, after a good start, the people became complacent in the name of their own security. Haggai prophesied against them that they had sown much but harvested little, earned wages that fell through holes in their money bags (Haggai 1:6). It was because they were busy building their own houses and made excuses for not rebuilding the Lord’s house.

We do not have the exact temple building duty. We do not have Tithing proper requirements. But the sowing principle does apply. Will we honor ourselves with our wealth? Will we find our accounts strangely short? If you give, “it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over” (Luke 8:36).

We’re so scientific. We select our seed, sow it, wait a while, and only surprised when it doesn’t work. But are we spiritual? Do we sow sin and expect sanctified kids? Do we sow love and expect an empty harvest? Friends, God calls you to sow to the Spirit and He will bring life.

Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. (Galatians 6:7–9 ESV)

Is Sunday the Christian Sabbath? Are we in the church commanded to obey the 4th Commandment: "remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy"? (Exodus 20:8). If we are so obligated, how do we explain remembering the Sabbath on a different day?

I don't remember the first time I really wrestled with these questions. They are exegetical and theological, they are also—one way or another—attached to great blessing OR great judgment. There are numerous practical questions, and inevitable conflicts, less so with different convictions between fellow Christians and more so between Christian convictions and kids' sports and work schedules and all sorts of events planned for Sundays. What are the rules? What are the exceptions? What are the consequences?

There are good men who disagree, and good arguments to go around. And, good men should have a considered position derived from Scripture. “All are yours” does not include mutually exclusive answers, so Something is right. We ought to seek clarity and humility, loving the Lord and those who disagree. You should know what you think and remember that whatever we do (or don’t) it should be “in honor of the Lord” (Romans 14:8).

First, a preliminary point: Everyone who worships the Lord Jesus on Sunday is not a (strict) Sabbatarian no matter what they say (and some say a lot).

Sabbath doesn't just refer to Saturday, it refers to the day of rest, which is the seventh day. The first sabbath was at the end of the first week, after the six days of creation.

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. (Genesis 2:1–3 ESV)

There are some professing Christian groups who worship on Saturday (including some Jewish Christians), though even most of them don't follow all the additional OT Sabbath day specifics. No matter how simple someone tries to make it sound, transferring the holy day from Saturday to Sunday does not have any explicit grounds. The Sabbath command itself, however, is direct, and repeated. For that matter, Scripture demonstrates God’s calling a day from sundown to sundown, not 12:00am to 11:59pm.

Those who say that we are obligated to keep the Sabbath on Sunday as Christians also must explain why we aren't obligated to the other particulars of the OT commands (including no work-Exodus 20:10, no kindling of fire-Exodus 35:3, no carrying burdens-Jeremiah 17:21-22, no buying/selling-Nehemiah 13:15-17, no cooking/baking-Exodus 16:23, no traveling-Exodus 16:29). We have to "break" particulars to get here. We all do more "work" than was allowed.

So the real starting point: All Christians recognize a sabbath principle and then build looser to stricter practices around it. Even non-Sabbatarians can, and should, recognize a sabbath principle.

Let's distinguish. All doctrines of the Bible can be called Theology. When we talk about the doctrines specifically about God and His attributes we call it Theology Proper. Sabbath Proper is very specific, and if everything in “sabbath" discussion is Proper then things will get confused.

Let's distinguish again. There is a capital difference between Catholic and catholic. The latter means universal, the former refers to a particular institution with its own hierarchy and teaching and army. We would do well to identity Sabbath and sabbath in our communication.

The 10 Commandments include a requirement to keep the Sabbath.

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” (Exodus 20:8–11 ESV)

The Decalogue is often called the moral law, to be distinguished from Israel's civil law and ceremonial law. Don't murder but do wear tassels-Numbers 15:37-41, don't eat shellfish-Leviticus 11:9-12 and kings can't have too many horses-Deuteronomy 17:16, these are not all the same. These distinctions seem observable, though they are not distinguished as such anywhere in the Law itself.

There are 613 total laws in the Mosaic Covenant, not just 10. The apostle James, a Jew himself, said that to break one was to be guilty of all (James 2:10). In other words, number eleven was just as damning. The 10 were given uniquely in two tablets, they are GOOD, they are also, in context, part of the entire Mosaic Law/Covenant. Do these and don't do these for blessing (for example Leviticus 18:5), disobedience brings judgment/curse. The Mosaic Law is what Jesus fulfilled, and when we are led by the Spirit we are not under the law any more (Galatians 5:18).

But it is not surprising that the prophets regularly confronted Israel's sin for not keeping the Sabbath command.

It somewhat surprising that Jesus never did. In fact, He did teach about Sabbath related sins of adding man's restrictions, of extra-rules in the name of the Lord, and turning the Sabbath into a burden rather than a delight.

Jesus did not break the Sabbath law, and He didn't say it was done. He did challenge the self-righteous keepers and He became our sabbath rest. How do we put all that together?

Before the 10 Commandments were given at Mt. Sinai, the Lord prohibited Israel from gathering manna on the Sabbath. Moses said, “This is what the LORD has commanded: ‘Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the LORD’” (Exodus 16:23). That was the first Sabbath command. Before that, though, we do not see even one Sabbath observance in Genesis from Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, or Joseph. That doesn't prove that they didn’t. But when we observe God's rest on the seventh day, we see that He blessed it, but we do not see a command attached to it. God stops, and that pattern is recognized as the pattern for the law (Exodus 20:11), but doesn't seem to have been the law for Adam or the patriarchs, nor do we see anything about Sabbath rest while in Egypt.

How about after Jesus ascended, and sent His Spirit so that His apostles would remember His teaching? There are no apostolic imperatives, no apostolic instructions (even at the Jerusalem council), not even any apostolic examples of Sabbath observance on the seventh day in any epistle after Acts. There is also nothing about Sunday becoming the new Sabbath for the church. There are only two mentions of the word “Sabbath” in the epistles (Colossians 2:16 and Hebrews 4:9).

There are examples of first day meetings and ministry, travel (Acts 20:7) rather than rest, and some instructions that imply that churches were assembling on first days regularly (for reading of Scripture and teaching, for prayer, for the Lord’s supper, for giving).

I appreciate that the following observation is not sufficient, and sort of worn out, and could be misapplied. And still, the 4th Commandment is the only one of the 10 not explicitly repeated by Jesus or an apostle in the NT.

For that matter, Sabbath Proper is Mosaic Law for those who lived in Israel. They neglected it in disobedience, they added to it in disobedience. But it was theirs in a Proper way.

When Paul writes about Sabbath, he says:

Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. (Colossians 2:16–17 ESV)

So, in Christ: we are not under 4th Commandment Sabbath Law. Sunday is NOT the Christian Sabbath.

That said: we should recognize the creational pattern of one day in seven for work and rest, so that we remember that God alone makes the world turn, and humans and their efforts do not. It is good to give God attention in a weekly rhythm. We give Him direct attention through assembled worship on one day and integrated attention through work on the other days.

We should recognize the apostolic pattern of local church gathering on the first day of the week in remembrance that Jesus Christ our Lord rose from the grave, and we (Christians) have our life in Him. It is the Lord's Day.

We can also appreciate the history of the church, the generations of Christians that have followed these patterns, even the cultural and civil blessings that recognizing such a pattern has brought.

And we can appreciate our personal experience of blessing the comes from assembled worship on Sunday, how that punctuates the day and spins our week. We start with reminders of our salvation by grace and go out with God's favor and benediction for our work.

Our household aims to have a "sabbath dinner" on Saturday night. You might call it pre-Lord's Day dinner. It's not because we consider the day from sundown, but it is part of preparing for Sunday as unique. It's a little different: we sing a song, have a somewhat nicer meal, we all try to be there, sit at the table, and more often than not there's dessert. It's intentional, tasty, and sweet, just like we hope Sunday will be.

We had tried to get this rolling a long time ago when our previous church’s/Lord’s day liturgy not the same as it is now. At that point we had 8am to 1pm expectations and every 6-8pm evening expectations. The schedule itself was wearisome. For that matter, the emphasis of the day was on instruction rather than participation, and communion was both infrequent and introspective not faith-rejoicing. A good meal, any stories and laughter and fellowship, didn't fit with that sort of liturgical tone.

Our elders aim for progress and joy of faith, and do work so that the fat kid spins the week.

You should:

To the "You can't make me" crowd, and to the "How dare you" group, may there be such a gravity of godly worship with God's blessing that you are pulled in. May you want soul steak not skim milk. Honor the Lord on the Lord’s Day.

You are not your own, you were bought with a price. You can’t add an inch to your height or an hour to your life. You can sow, only God gives growth. You can plan, only God directs steps. So seek God first. Start on Sunday, and all the rest will be added to you.

Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. (Hebrews 13:20–21 ESV)

George Orwell wrote,

“[W]e have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.”

Whatever my level of intelligence, I do think some restatement of the obvious regarding the Lord's Day is an intelligent, as well as a spiritually and eternally important, thing to do.

Sundays matter. They matter in a different way than the other six days. They matter for the sake of the other six days. Sundays matter for every image-bearer, for every follower of the risen Christ, and for every local church who assembles for worship.

There is a liturgy to the week, not only to the worship service. We recognize the pattern of the Lord’s Day not only the pattern on a Lord’s Day. There is a lesson in the righteous structure and sequence of the week, and you should know and desire the blessings and make it your habit to hunger for them.

This isn’t to lord it over anyone, but it is for your progress and joy in the faith (see Philippians 1:25).

Even the phrase itself, the Lord's day is instructive. It isn't just Sunday, or the first day of the calendar week, or the last day of your weekend. It's not your day at all. It is the Lord's day. The name comes from the Bible, and though only found in one verse, it is an inspired designation. The apostle John wrote in Revelation 1:10,

“I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet.”

John was isolated on the island of Patmos; exiled as punishment for preaching the gospel. As he began to write the Revelation of the end times he tells us when he received this vision: on the Lord's day.

This is the only verse that uses this exact phrase. After reading it in English I had a question, because there is a similar phrase in many Old and New Testament contexts referring to "the day of the Lord." That “day” denotes a future day of judgment when the Lord comes back and pours out His wrath on those nations and peoples who rejected Him (as we sing in Psalm 98:9).

In many languages there are numerous ways to indicate possession. You can say "the desk of Bob" or "Bob's desk." Both constructions show that the desk is owned by Bob. In English we typically show possession by adding apostrophe+s. In highly inflected languages (like Greek) possession is expressed by this genitive phrasing: nominative+of+genitive.

So I wondered if it was the same phrase, and if so, why every other time in Scripture we read "the day of the Lord" but here in Revelation 1:10 it was translated "the Lord's day." There are at least a couple reasons for the difference. The first is word order.

In most of the references to the day of the Lord, "Lord" comes after "day" in the typical genitive construction.

ἡ ἡμέρα τοῦ κυρίου

But in Revelation 1:10, the word for "Lord" comes between the article and the noun. This is the first attributive position and is the principal way to accentuate or highlight the adjective more than the noun. The emphasis is on Lord's.

τῇ κυριακῇ ἡμέρᾳ

But word order is not the biggest reason why Revelation 1:10 is different. The biggest reason is because it isn't even the same word. The word in Revelation 1:10 is the dative form of κυριακός. While in the same family of words as the noun, κύριος, meaning Lord, this is an adjective that doesn't refer to the person as must as to what pertains to the person.

The word κυριακός is not a Bible-only word. It was used frequently in secular Greek writings in imperial, official language: "concerning the emperor" or “associated with the emperor," often referring to the emperor's accounts and what was rightfully related to his position. John applies the word to a particular day as “linked to the Lord; the Lord's." It’s a day set apart for, and distinctively connected to, the Lord. It is not my day, your day, or even the church's day; it is the Lord's day.

There is only one other place that κυριακός is used to describe something else so directly related to the Lord. In 1 Corinthians 11:20 Paul refers to "the Lord's supper" and transforms ordinary food and a common table into something that is distinct, something special. Paul admonished the Corinthians that they were treating His supper with disrespect and therefore treating the Lord with disregard.

Let us restate the obvious: the Lord's day is the Lord’s and our attitude toward the day cannot be separated from our attitude toward the Lord of the day.

The first day of the week, Sunday, was and is the Lord's day. While the title "Lord's day" is only used in Revelation 1:10, "first day" is a common identification of the day when believers gathered.

In the Old Testament, Israel was commanded to keep the Sabbath (Exodus 20:8-11). God required them to set apart the seventh day of the week (Saturday) and to rest from their work just as God rested from His work of creation (Genesis 2:2-3). There is no command to keep the Sabbath in the New Testament, and it is the only one of the 10 Commandments not repeated in the New Testament. Not only that, but almost immediately after the resurrection of Jesus on Sunday (Matthew 28:1) Christians started congregating for corporate worship on the first day.

At least a few New Testament passages demonstrate the first day focus of the apostles (for example, Acts 20:7-12 and 1 Corinthians 16:2). When the apostle John mentioned (c. AD 95) that his vision was on the Lord's day, it’s reasonable to think that he was longing for the corporate Christian fellowship and worship from which he was isolated.

We also see multiple references to the first day as the Lord's day from the early church fathers as well, spanning from the 2nd through the 5th centuries. Just one example comes from Justin Martyr (c. AD 150):

“On Sunday we hold our joint meeting; for the first day is that on which God, having removed darkness and chaos, made the world, and Jesus Christ our Saviour rose from the dead.”

Since the middle of the first century Christians have gathered on Sunday, the first day of the week, and recognized it as the Lord's Day. There is more to say about the relationship between Sunday and the Sabbath, which, Lord willing, we’ll consider next Lord’s Day.

Our whole lives are to be worship to God (per Romans 12:1); worship is more than just a Sunday activity.

But here’s the liturgical linchpin: The Lord's Day is a part of whole-week worship.

In everything we’ve noted so far about the Lord's day, maybe it seems like we're supposed to pause from life on Sunday for worship. In that case, Sunday could be seen like an overweight bully at the bottom of a seesaw, laughing at six little school girls of the rest of the week that he’s got suspended high above the ground. To be sure, Sunday corporate worship is weighty. The neglect of the Lord's day is a serious threat to our faith, endurance, and harmony.

But this is not an attempt at being "balanced," it's an appeal for being zealous/spoude. Don’t think of Sunday and the other six days as if they’re on opposite sides of a teeter totter. Instead, Sunday is like the fat kid spinning those little school girls on the merry-go-round faster and faster till they squeal with delight. First day gathering isn't an interruption of life for worship, it incites and impels whole-life worship.

To be jealousable you have to be blessed. And in order to be blessed, you must seek the blessing of the Lord on the Lord’s Day.

Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you in time. Fear the Lord, and wisdom will come into your heart and discretion will watch over you. Honor the Lord with your week, from the first day to the last. He will bless you, and you will enter into Your Master's joy.

[A]ccording to the riches of his glory may he grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:16–19, ESV)

There is no book more important than the Bible. It is the Book that saves your soul. It is the Book that made your world. It is the Book that makes our Boom!

We come to a bonus Sunday, a 53rd Lord's Day of the year, and, as has become our chosen practice, we give attention to our worship and liturgy as we turn the calendar. In the year of our Lord 2025, we want to be inhabited by the Word of the Lord. Let this Book be our meditation in both liturgy and life.

Lord willing there will be four messages this series of reminders. Today's point: the Word of God aims our worship against the gates of hell. Then we will consider the blessing of the Lord's Day on two Lord's Days, and the fourth message will be about cheerful and bountiful giving.

To start, here are three 5s for 2025: 5 parts of our Boom, 5 observations of our Book, and 5 habits for our Blessing.

At our evening service on December 1st I talked about how our faith overcomes the world (1 John 5:4), and how the negative world is hell. I won't re-preach that, except to remind us that the Word itself brings nike faith. The Word teaches us our confession that Jesus is the Christ, and it is by the Word that we overcome the gates of hell (Matthew 16:18). It's the truth that drives our "boom!”

Martin Luther’s hymn comes at it a different way:

And though this world with devils filled

That Word above all earthly pow'r,

There is disagreement as to what the “one little word” is. It certainly stands in for truth that triumphs and truth that abides. It is the divinely revealed truth that the “father of lies” can’t stand.

Hell is a place of eternal pain, in conscience and in body. But what are the “gates” protecting? Consider how the five main movements of our liturgy include truth that aims directly at the reigning paradigms of hell. These are five parts of our BOOM.

Hell is driven by unbelief, not faith, and the Word gives and grows our faith. Hell is hate, not love, and the Word exhibits love and forms our affections. Hell is hopeless, hell is death, not life. Our boom is everything against that, and it can only happen by the Book. One little word…BOOM!

There are many texts in our Book that are worth considering for sake of the value of our Book. Colossians 3:16 is just one great tree in the garden.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

The Word belongs with "God's chosen ones, holy and beloved" (verse 12 that opens the paragraph). Here are five observations.

Let dwell the word. It is not a life-hack. It is not a top-ten list from which we can pick a couple to try. This Word-indwelling is an imperative. This Word-indwelling is not less than elective, we must recognize our obligation to it.

Let the Word dwell richly. While I am a great believer in Bible-reading, the command to read Scripture is not in Scripture (except for those reading in public for those who didn’t have their own copies of the Word).

We are to meditate on it day and night (Joshua 1:8). We are to crave it (1 Peter 2:2). And it should dominate our lives of thought. The rabbis described that the man who dwells in a house is the master of the house, not just a guest. A dominus-master is lord of his domus-house. The Word is to be the Master of our soul-house, the Word must dominate. So this Word-indwelling is not less than reading, but so much more.

Note the one another. So-called “quiet time” should lead into conversation.

A teacher is an office, a gift of God to equip the saints for the work of ministry (see Ephesians 4:11; James 3:1; Colossians 1:25). And, part of that work of ministry is knowing and speaking truth in love to one another (Ephesians 4:15).

The structure of Colossians 3:16 shows the teaching and admonishing to be results (they are participles not imperatives). You'll know that the word is richly dwelling when it comes back out.

So we are not mere collectors of doctrinal facts, as good as it is for truth to inform. This Word-indwelling is not less than individual, but for more than one.

Memorize and quote Bible verses, yes, but our conversations (and even corrections/admonishing) certainly are not all rules and checklists. Our wisdom comes from the Word and the Spirit bringing us to maturity.

This Word-indwelling is not less than the obvious right and wrong, but it is more than using cookie cutters.

singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God

So Luther’s hymn, while obviously not available to Paul, fits with application of Paul. This Word-indwelling is not less than straightforward, but it is not tedious. It’s for more than teaching to the test. It is for each part working properly that the body would grow and build itself up in love (Ephesians 4:16).

So Psalm 1: “Blessed is the man!” He is known by what he delights to consume (and it’s not in the most “insightful” criticizers).

5 Bible habits for 2025:

The Bible is not just the blueprint for a blessed house, it is the load-bearing walls. It is not just the recipe for the good life, it is the milk and meat.

As a church we will continue to let Scripture call us to worship, remind us of forgiveness when we've confessed our sins, be read and taught for sake of our sanctification/consecration, inform our time of communion, and be the final benediction as the Lord sends us with blessing.

As disciples, be after Berean blessings (Acts 17:11). Jealousable Bible reading isn’t driven from guilt, but for fruit.

René Girard wrote, “Few people want to be saints nowadays, but everyone is trying to lose weight.” There’s nothing wrong with bodily training, but godliness is of value in every way.

Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Blessed and fruitful is the man who hungers for and delights in that Word. Marinate in the Word. Let it dominate your thoughts. Do all that is written in it, you will be blessed in your doing.

And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. (Acts 20:32 ESV)

Not only would I like you to not feel bad about what you know, I'd like you to take the whole tray of warm cinnamon rolls out of your apologetics oven and smother it with icing. You can explain, and enjoy, things that others can't. You understand the meaning, the explanation, the reasons, the realities. You can see. It's not because you are awesome, it's because—by God's grace—you are living and walking in the Light.

Darkness might be oppressive, heavy, an un-fun blanket of dankness. Darkness is powerful, but darkness can’t even talk its way out of the dark. Darkness can't make clear what it's doing. This is the nature of darkness: it doesn't see. Add the moral dimension, and it doesn't want to see. Even that invisible law is something all you Light-livers can see.

Advent is a light-party. “Proper” advent celebrations include five candles, and one by one each candle is lit on the four Sundays leading up to Christmas day and the fifth on the 25th itself. The birth day is the brightest day; all the light shines!

We've been working our way through Advent Amens. These are incarnation trues for you to treasure in your heart like Mary (see Luke 2:19). These are reasons to celebrate with feasting and giving and singing, but it all starts with being able to say, Yes! Amen!

Jesus is true God, true Man, true King, and true Light. Jesus is the "God of God, Light of lights." He is the one who created all things, who upholds all things, and therefore the one in whom all things make sense. Jesus reveals, like light, true God. Jesus shines on true man, with true authority as King, and He is the light of the world. He is certainly the light of Christmas. It doesn't matter how many watts are wrapped around your Christmas tree, without Christ, all is chaos not calm, all is dark not bright.

When you follow Jesus as the light of the world, you have the light of life (John 8:12). You have the light that reveals what’s what and who’s who. Christmas is not just plundering the Egyptians, it's plundering the Egyptians while explaining to the Egyptians that they didn't know what they had anyway.

There are three verses that are critical to the star on the treetop of our series, a few that you would even say are glowing.

Start with the gospel in John 1:5 and 1:9.

In Him (the Word/Logos) was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (John 1:4-5 ESV)

The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. (John 1:9 ESV)

So Jesus is true light. That He was coming into the world connects light to the incarnation. It's just a few verses later that we read "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14).

The life was the light of men means what? His light makes visible the life of men and is also the activating power of men. You could just as well try to live in this solar system without the sun as you can explain all the movements of this life without Jesus.

The darkness doesn't get it. The ESV translates verse 5, "the darkness has not overcome it." Other translations emphasize that darkness doesn't "comprehend" (KJV, NASB) or grasp it. Even though He was the light coming into the world, and though He was in the world, yet the world did not know Him. They couldn’t make sense of the one who makes everything make sense.

Darkness is a metaphor for the effect that sin and evil have: they keep men from seeing reality. Reality is there, just as the furniture is still there though the lights are off, it just isn’t seen. Sin keeps men in the dark.

The light was only good for those who were born of God's will, and then, they saw the light and see by the light.

Jesus said, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life" (John 8:12). He said, "I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness" (John 12:46).

Paul witnessed to what Jesus told him personally, "I am Jesus...I have appeared yo you for this purpose...delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles--to whom I am sending you, to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light" (Acts 26:16-18).

This is why we give "thanks to the Father, who has qualified (us) to share in the inheritance of the saints in light" (Colossians 1:12). So we are "a people for his own possession, that (we) may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called (us) out of darkness into His marvelous light" (1 Peter 2:9).

The last chapter of the Old Testament anticipates the rising of the Sun.

But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. (Malachi 4:2 ESV)

Those who heard Micah at first might not have realized how personal the Sun would be.

So we sing with Charles Wesley’s help:

Hail! the heav'n-born Prince of Peace!

Jesus is true light, amen!

By the Light we see that most of the Man-isms cannot stand; when it comes to lofty opinions raised against the knowledge of God (see 2 Corinthians 10:5), the darkest thoughts of men are that there is no God.

Materialism cannot stand in the Light. The Logos made the things. He was eternal, what He made was not eternal. So the world consists of things visible and invisible, but He is before all things, in Him all things hold together, and in everything Jesus is preeminent (Colossians 1:16-18). Stuff is not the meaning.

So Secularism cannot stand. There is no sphere in the world that isn't answerable to the Light, just as there is no spot in a planet’s orbit that isn’t dependent on the sun.

Likewise Humanism cannot stand. Human beings, while truly in a privileged position on the planet, are privileged by a given, not by their own bootstrapping. In their "wisdom" men did not know God. Even the Jews, who had been given special revelation to help them see, did not recognize the sent One (John 1:11). Men are not the meaning.

And Nihilism is proven as meaningless as it claims meaninglessness is the meaning. The Light reveals value and purpose. The Light itself will be praised, and so we learn to “take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5).

Abraham Kuyper argued that a comprehensive world-and-life-view must be able to do three things: 1) explain man’s relationship to God, 2) explain man’s relationship to man, and 3) explain man’s relationship to the world.

Last Sunday we rejoiced that the King was born! It was fun to reread in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe this past week, after Father Christmas had given his gifts his parting shot is, "Merry Christmas! Long live the true King!"

For that matter, the last words of David, the anointed of the God of Jacob, celebrated how a great king is a great light.

The God of Israel has spoken;

Jesus is, and will be on earth, the great dawn, and darkness will scatter. He is the Sun, shedding warmth and light. He is the one in whom all the planets of our lives revolve. We crash without His gravity. We stumble without His illumination. In Jesus our Life-operating System is oriented and calibrated for truth and joy.

We are not just aiming to remember Jesus on Christmas, which of course is good. See everything in Jesus’ light! You can take down your Christmas lights and store them in your garage for 11/12th of the year, but that doesn’t stop the Light.

Jesus is not just a historical figure to remember at Christmas, but the fundamental source of understanding reality itself. Without Him, there is only spiritual and intellectual darkness, but in Him, we find the illumination that makes sense of God, humanity, and all of creation.

The good news does not offer men something better than what they already have, though sometimes we act (evangelize) as if men have a life, like they “have” a car, but Christianity is a nicer life, a cleaner life, a life that gets better milage, that is better for the environment, that has a longer warranty, and all we need to do is convince them to trade up. The hard part is not getting someone to trade up, it’s getting them to give up the lie that they have any sort of life in the first place.

This isn't just about having a "better" way of seeing things, but rather the only way to truly see reality as it is. Believe! Behold! Receive your King! Turn to the light!

I have said before that apart from Christ, Christmas is hell. In Christ, all are yours. “In your light do we see light” (Psalm 36:9).

To see the Light and see all things by the Light is a great privilege; a blessing. You can see, you have answers. No need to be embarrassed, or proud. “Let the amen sound from His people again!”

The Sun of Righteousness has risen. He is dispersing the gloomy clouds of night. The Light of the world has come, darkness could not overcome Him, and He is coming again. Rejoice in His light. Live in His light. In Jesus’ name may your Christmas be merry and bright!

[A]t one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. (Ephesians 5:8–10 ESV)

It is part of the finite man’s frustration that he cannot say ALL the things all the time. We always select. Some good things must be left out and some other things are not emphasized that at other times deserve full focus. As listeners, maybe we need to charitably fill in what was lacking, maybe we need to ask for clarification, maybe we wait and see what comes up later.

Selections (summaries and TLDR;s and bullet points) have their place; Jesus summed up the entire Mosaic law in the Great Commandment. Most selections, though, shouldn’t become the replacement of the whole. A book of quotes is useful, reading some of the quotes in their original habitat usually does wonders for the quote.

Here’s another example. The Bible is often summarized as “The Story of Redemption.” I also appreciate the informal children’s catechism version of it. Q: What is the point of the Bible? A: Kill the dragon, get the girl. These are okay, and of course they don’t claim to be complete. There are any number of good starting points; all are yours.

Jesus Himself seems to baffle our attempts at back-of-the-brochure brevity. Jesus is true God, amen! Jesus is also true Man, amen! And Jesus is the Logos/eternal Word, the Lion of the tribe of Judah as well as the Lamb who was slain, the Good Shepherd, the only-begotten Son of the Father, the Head of the Church, the Savior of the world. Hallmark doesn’t make cards that fit the entire Definition of Chalcedon, and they don’t have to. But perhaps our nativities and narratives have accepted a less helpful selection for Christmas attention. What is the true meaning of Christmas?

We’ve come to address the third of four Advent Amens. We are not adding to your December to-do list, we are remembering/receiving the Incarnation Trues. In His person, Jesus is true God and true man. And in His purpose, Jesus was “born to reign in us forever.” Jesus is true King, amen!

It’s not that you need a special lens to see the reality of Jesus as King in Scripture, it’s more that you need some way to avoid seeing it. The most frequent way to miss it is to read Scripture’s storyline for sake of individual salvations rather than to read and see the increase of His no-end government.

I’m going to put these observations into a bullet-point list for sake of heaping them up.

Of course these all corroborate what God covenanted in the Old Testament, to give David a son who would sit on the throne and rule forever (2 Samuel 7:12-16). The psalms anticipate the Anointed one (Psalm 2, Psalm 89:3-4). The prophets anticipated the child born:

Of the increase of his government and of peace

So the angel Gabriel told Mary:

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 1:32–33 ESV)

Jesus is true King, amen!

Of course the kings of the earth set themselves and the rules take counsel together against the LORD and against His Anointed (Psalm 2). Of course the nations rage. And though Christians may not rage, they do often refuse to acknowledge King Jesus.

One lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, is motivated, just as many of the early church heresies, by trying to protect God’s reputation. Pietists quote Jesus saying “my kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36), and with that brush away all the earthly application. It’s as if Jesus came in the flesh to get everyone out of the flesh. He did come to save us from sin in the flesh, but so that we could live in sanctified bodies. “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). It is a false argument that Jesus is not King of the world because His kingdom runs on principles and energy that overcome the world.

Amillennialism is also pulled down. While it is true that Jesus reigns right now in one way, it is also true that His reign is not on earth as it is in heaven...yet, but it will be. That’s what we pray for (Matthew 6:10)! We acknowledge that He is currently King, but we are waiting for the King to return from the far country. His second advent will be to judge the world in equity. At least Postmils think that Jesus will come back, Amils think Jesus’ reign is spiritual.

The “virtue” of a sentimentalist’s panic at any whiff of discomfort is also destroyed. When you hear someone joke-imply, “Don’t talk about politics over the holidays,” ask them, Why? Because you’ve selected the wrong part of Christmas if you can’t say “the King is born” and only those who’ve been transferred into His kingdom have redemption, the forgiveness of sins (Colossians 1:13-14).

The truth is, Jesus is King, amen! I have assembled more bullet points, lines from just advent/Christmas carols in the Cantus that we sing, and only lines that reference the King/kingdom. I have left out the references to the “Christ,” even though Christ/Messiah means Savior-King, and I have also left out references to “Lord,” though, again, that includes His reign.

These are our songs! The Son is true King, amen!

There needs be no embarrassment about the true meaning of Christmas. The King has been born. There’s no undoing it.

All our loyalty belongs to the King, and then order all your loyalties in light of His kingdom.

Make disciples of all nations; Kiss the Son. Blessed are all who take refuge in Him. The incarnation is an international concern.

“Born that man no more may die”? Yes. And so that man will live unto what? Jesus came to redeem and rule. He died and rose to ransom captives to sin (including Israel) and to rule countries (from Israel). He saves us to serve Him as our King and we will reign with Him (see 2 Timothy 2:12; Revelation 20:6).

Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus”:

The kingdom of this world

King of kings

Or Paul:

To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. (1 Timothy 1:17 ESV)

Amen!

Men, employ your songs, the Savior reigns. Let every heart prepare Him room. Let no sins grow, let your sorrows be set in light of the King’s blessings that flow far as the curse is found. Love His truth. Live in His grace. Let your joy be heard in the world.

[K]eep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will display at the proper time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen. (1 Timothy 6:14–16 ESV)

"Let the Amen, sound from His people again, gladly forever adore Him!"

It's hard to get people to say, Amen!, and I don't just mean among our more reserved, reformed, Pacific Northwest preferences. It's hard to get people to agree to the reality and glory of the person of Jesus. Christmas would be a lot less complicated if we didn’t have to agree with all the details.

Even when Jesus fed 5000 men with five loaves and two fish, and had walked on water across the sea to Capernaum, the majority of the crowd couldn't say amen. They asked him, "What must we do, to be doing the works of God?" Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him who was sent." (John 6:28-29). As Jesus said more, they "grumbled about him" (verse 41) and "disputed among themselves" (verse 52) and "after this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him" (verse 66). The more He clarified who He was, the less amens He got.

The advent season reminds us of two great arrivals of this Jesus. The annual Advent-to-Christmas time points us to His Incarnation, and that points us to the King's return. While we do have so many good things to do during these days as our faith is embodied in feasting and singing and giving, these messages are Advent Amens.

The angel told Mary that “the child to be born will be called holy — the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). Jesus alone has the words of eternal life, and we believe that He is the Holy One of God (John 6:68-69).

Last week we considered the crazy true that Jesus is true God. Today let us meditate on the true that Jesus is true man, amen!

It seems impossible that Mary's baby could be God (though, yeah, she knew, see Luke 1:35). It seems no less impossible that God's Son could be born a human baby. The apostle Peter confessed that Jesus was "the Christ, the Son of the living God," and that confession of true divinity is the rock the church rests on. The apostle John recognized the other 100% and made confession of true humanity a dividing line.

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist.... (1 John 4:1-3a)

The test of the presence of God in a man is whether or not that man recognizes that God became a man in Jesus. The confesses is "to say the same thing," it's to say, Amen! Spirits that are not from God say something else about Jesus. False prophets deny that God came in the flesh. Rejecting the material nature is antiChristmas.

It is one of the reasons John starts his letter with earthy witness: "that...which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life" (1 John 1:1).

Jesus is true man, amen!

Not everyone could believe this true. It might have stemmed from a cosmological error about the inherent evil of matter, that plus a theological belief that God wouldn't be defiled and dragged through the material mud. This is the other side of the coin. Jesus couldn't be true God if He was really man, or He couldn't be true man if He was really God.

These are opinions raised against the knowledge of God as He Himself has revealed (2 Corinthians 10:5).

Early church heresies included denials of true divinity as well as denial of true humanity. Docetism, from a Greek word meaning "to seem," taught that Jesus only appeared to have a human body and nature, but was not truly God incarnate. He was ghost-like. Some form of this error seems to be what John addressed (1 John 4:2-3; 2 John 7). Modern day Christian Scientists deny Jesus “in the flesh” since the material world is just illusion.

Eutychianism (pushed by a man named Eutychus between the Council of Ephesus in AD 431 and the Definition of Chalcedon in AD 451) taught that Jesus was only partially human, that the human nature was "absorbed by” or combined with the divine nature, so that He was not truly man like us.

A practical “lofty opinion” is the argument that "no one knows how I feel," or "no one has ever been tempted like me." This denies that Jesus was true man who was tempted in all ways like us, except without sin.

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, … he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. (Hebrews 2:14a, 17-18 ESV)

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. (Hebrews 4:15 ESV)

Amen!

The true virgin birth is defended from both sides. Yes, Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit (Matthew 1:20), and just as true is that He was “born of a woman” (Galatians 4:4). This is part of how Jesus fulfills God's promise to Eve that her "seed/offspring" would crush the serpent's head (Genesis 3:15). God sent a man!

Denying Jesus "in the flesh" is the work of deceivers: "For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist" (2 John 7).

He "was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man." (Nicene Creed) Then the Definition of Chalcedon:

Jesus Christ, at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and truly man, consisting also of a reasonable soul and body; of one substance with the Father as regards his Godhead, and at the same time of one substance with us as regards his manhood; like us in all respects, apart from sin; as regards his Godhead, begotten of the Father before the ages, but yet as regards his manhood begotten, for us men and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin, the God-bearer; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, recognized in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.

Unless He came "in the flesh" He could not take the judgment we deserved. "For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh" (Romans 8:3).

Godliness is great "in the flesh."

Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory. (1 Timothy 3:16)

This is Jesus, amen!

There are at least three implications, along with His righteousness in the flesh that enabled Him to be a substitute for those with unrighteousness in the flesh.

The incarnation means we have one who identifies with us, and we see true humility. The Great Descent in Philippians 2:6ff begins with “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus” who embodied the humility to do do nothing from conceit (Philippians 2:3).

The incarnation means we are not useless, let alone abominable, meat-sacks. If the reality of image-bearer privilege in the creation account doesn't make it clear, God Himself taking on flesh in the Son certainly shows the true dignity of man.

Think The Book That Made Your World. Chapter 5 - “What is the West’s greatest discovery?” Humanity. As in, the knowledge of man (anthropology), his value and his problems, is “affirmed most supremely in the Bible’s teaching on the incarnation of Christ” (Loc. 1453).

So the incarnation means that the earth, and all the things on it that were made by the Logos (John 1:3), is good enough for the Logos to live in. Of course, materialism, as in, a view of existence that is material only, misses all of the story. But NO MATERIAL is the ACTUALLY ALTOGETHER OPPOSITE STORY. On one hand it doesn’t matter whether you make a big deal of the Advent season/Christmas Day, on the other hand, if you refuse Christmas because it’s not spiritual enough, you may be missing the man in the manger.

God “in the flesh” shows that the material earth and the material things on earth need not be avoided. Amen!

Christmas is a revelation of God's good design for man in Christ. That Jesus is true God seems crazy, that Jesus is true man, in the flesh, means God is close. Amen!

Learn to live with your given limits as you look to Jesus. Having a body isn’t the problem, though often our bodies have problems. Christianity is not an “out of body” experience and advent is not about perfect living in heaven. Saints, let your contemplations be embodied. Amen!

But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen. (2 Peter 3:18 ESV)