day no. 17,411: hot opposition and cold collaboration

"Christmas has suffered much less from the heat of fanatical foes than from the coldness of frigid friends." — G.K. Chesterton, Christian Festivities and the Termite State (1935)

The war of Christmas is fought on two fronts. 

Hot opposition often calls the sons of the season to arms, but cold keeping quenches the fire of the season. An honest hater can, of course, do some damage, but not nearly as much as a dishonest lover can. If Christmas is under attack, it is an inside job. Thoughtless repetition is like a steady stream that wears away at the rocks. The solid, long-standing traditions of old are gradually glossed over, streamlined, and buried under a constant barrage of current. Fashions and fads drown our forefathers out. Christmas has much less to fear from those who take it seriously enough to fight it than it does from those who take it so lightly as to forget its origins.

"Fanaticism only encouraged the devout to be defiant, and they resolutely repeated it as a ritual; it was much more in peril of death where people only repeated it as a routine." — G.K. Chesterton, Christian Festivities and the Termite State (1935)

Those who are violently opposed to Christmas call the saints to war. They inspire the saints to Christmas even harder. The devout should not, however, need opposition to get excited. The goal should be to win over our opponents without everyone growing accustomed to the season by turning the yuletide into a yawn fest. Hot opposition is better than cold collaboration, but best of all is warm fellowship with God and each other.

day no. 17,409: too afraid to be festive

"The forms and rites of Christmas Day are meant merely to give the last push to people who are afraid to be festive." — G.K. Chesterton, The Illustrated London News (1910)

There are those who really are skeptical of festivals. Not just of the kind of fun that goes on during them, but the fact that fun is going on anywhere at all. They are suspicious of the delicious. The shy away from the fat and the sweet. They are too afraid, as Chesterton observes, to be any fun. But he is not the only one to have noticed.

"I begin to suspect that the world is divided not only into the happy and the unhappy, but into those who like happiness and those who, odd as it seems, really don't." — C.S. Lewis

Some people really don't like being happy. That is to say they are only happy as long as they aren't. Which is a step up from those who can only be happy if you aren't. Some people hate fun for their own reasons, but some hate it on a matter of principle and look to ensure that no one else has any of it.

"God threatens terrible things if we will not be happy." — Jeremy Taylor

But a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth awaits those who refuse to rejoice. Those who deny it for themselves and especially those who do everything in their power to withhold it from others. They are the fun-haters and the buzz-killers. But Santa Claus comes around once a year to grab those blokes by the scruff of their necks. He begs them to become childlike, if only for a morning, in order to remind them of the joy of joy.

"Father Christmas exists to haul us out of bed and make us partake of meal too beautiful to be called breakfast." — G.K. Chesterton, The Illustrated London News (1910)

If only once a year, we get up early on purpose. If only once a year, we eat more sweets. We enjoy the joy of the Lord and we find strength. But Father Christmas would not have us atrophy. He would rather prefer we stay in fighting trim, which is to say, that we would be growing more festive.

day no. 17,380: pentecost: what does this mean? (exhortation outline)

Christ Church Leavenworth

Pentecost

May 24, 2026

What Does This Mean?

THE TEXT

Our text this morning is Acts 2:1-12, these are the words of God:

When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?”

INTRODUCTION

According to the church calendar, today is Pentecost. But what exactly is Pentecost and why is it today? The word “Pentecost” literally means fiftieth and it occurs fifty days after Easter. Before it was a Christian holiday, however, it was a Jewish holiday, as we observed in our reading. It was often referred to as the Feast of Weeks since it took place seven weeks after the sabbath of the Passover, in other words, the day after seven sets of seven. In the English-speaking world, Pentecost has also been called “Whitsun,” which is a shortened form of White Sunday, since on this day those who were to be baptized traditionally wore white garments to church. According to the Jewish calendar, Pentecost was a harvest festival where the first fruits of the fields were reaped and enjoyed. According to the Christian calendar, it is also a harvest festival, but the first fruits are not those which come up from the ground, but those which came down to us from Heaven. On this day, the Holy Spirit came down to dwell with us just as Jesus had promised and the church was born. For that reason, today is also sometimes recognized as the church’s birthday. Let’s consider our text.

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

On the day of Pentecost, the disciples of Jesus were all together. They were in one place and they were of one accord. That peaceful scene, however, was violently interrupted by a loud noise. A nose so loud it filled the entire house and sounded like a blowing wind turned up to eleven. As they sat there, likely holding their ears, cloven tongues of fire appeared and rested on each one of them and they began to speak in other languages. Now, because it was a feast day, Jerusalem was filled with devout men from every nation under heaven who had gathered to celebrate, but the party at the apostles’ house was apparently such a rager that many of them came to investigate. What they discovered when they got there was a bunch of Galileans speaking in foreign languages. And if that were not shocking enough, what they were all talking about was the mighty works of God. As a result, they all looked at each other and asked the obvious question, “What does this mean?”

THE CURSE OF BABEL

In order to help answer that question, we need to go all the way back to the book of Genesis and the story of the tower of Babel found in chapter 11. After the flood, God told Noah and his sons what He had once told Adam, “Be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” Instead of spreading out, however, several of them decided to settle down. They decided to try to make a name for themselves instead of making a name for God. They did not want to look up to God for direction, they wanted other people to look up to them. Not surprisingly, God did not smile down upon this, but instead put an end to their attempted coup by confusing their language. 

C.S. Lewis, in That Hideous Strength, made use of the same tactic when he had Merlin invoke the curse of Babel on the bad guys at Belbury. Here is how he put it: “They that have despised the word of God, from them shall the word of man also be taken away.” We see this in our days as well; e.g. those who despise the Word of God cannot define what a woman is. Back to Babel, note that God did not tear down their tower, He broke down their ability to communicate. As a result, they voluntarily abandoned their group project and moved away in different directions. This got them closer to where they were supposed to be geographically even if it left far from where they were supposed to be spiritually.

THE CURSE REVERSED

Fast forward now to Pentecost. What happened there was not so much a reversal of Babel as it was a reversal of the curse of Babel. The languages remained, but the confusion was now gone. Pentecost did not reintroduce a common language, it introduced a way for people with different languages to understand each other. That way being the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. When God confused the tongues at Babel, the result was that men scattered, divided by their different languages. When God gave different languages at Pentecost, the result was that man gathered together to hear the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

Babel is the photo-negative of Pentecost. At Babel, men came together to defy God's command to fill the earth. In response, God confused their tongues in order to prevent them from working evil together any longer.  At Pentecost, men came together to hear God's command to come together in Christ. In response, they obeyed, and the church was born. In Christ our distinctions are no longer sources of division. Men and women can understand each other. Jews and Gentiles can reconcile. In Christ, the beauty of diversity destroys the curse of diversity.

APPLICATION

So, that is what Pentecost means, but what does it mean for us? It means diversity is not our strength, Christ is. It means that our particular way of doing things is not our strength, Christ is. In Him, diversity is a blessing, but outside of Him it is a curse. As Babel reminds us, unity among people is only as good as what unifies them, and diversity among people is only as bad as what divides them.

CALL TO CONFESSION

Well, since we often prefer the curse of individuality to the blessing of community, we are reminded of our need to regularly confess our sins, whether they be related to this or others. So, if you are able, please kneel with me and confess your sins, first privately and then corporately using the prayer found in your bulletin.

CORPORATE CONFESSION

Most holy and merciful Father, we acknowledge before You our sinful nature and our many offenses. We are prone to do evil and slow to do good. You alone know how often we have sinned in wandering from Your way, in wasting Your gifts, in forgetting Your love. Lord, we are ashamed and sorry for all the ways that we have displeased You. Father, teach us to hate our rebellious acts, cleanse us from our secret faults, and forgive our sins for the sake of Your Son. Help us to love You with all our heart and mind and strength. And give us the power of Your Holy Spirit so that we may walk in Your ways and serve You all of our days.

DECLARATION OF PARDON

Arise and hear the Good News! The assurance of pardon today comes from 1 John 1:8-9 “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” If Christ has paid for your sins, there is nothing left for you to pay. God would be unjust to charge you for something Jesus already paid for. But God is not unjust. He will not double bill anyone. And that is very Good News because that means in Christ your sins are forgiven… THANKS BE TO GOD!

Now, let us ascend to the presence of God in all worship and praise.

day no. 17,362: the chalcedonian

We confess our Lord Jesus Christ,

perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood,

truly God and truly man, of a reasonable soul and body;

consubstantial with the Father according to his Godhead,

and consubstantial also with us as according to his Manhood;

in all things like unto us, yet without sin;

begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead,

and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the virgin, Mary,

according to the Manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably;

the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ; 

as the prophets from the beginning have declared concerning Him, and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself has taught us, and the Creed of the fathers has handed down to us.

Amen.

— The Chalcedonian Creed (Cantus Christi pg. 819)

Jesus is not part man, part God like a centaur is part man, part horse. 

He is fully man and fully God. 

He is not a mixture of two things like an Arnold Palmer. 

He is God. He is man. 

day no. 17,339: but i repeat myself

Matthew 6:7

When ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

Repetition is not mala in se, but it can be, as Jesus points out. 

In fact, repetition is inescapable. 

So, the question then is not between vain repetition and sincere novelty, it is between vain repetition and sincere repetition. Something will be repeated. Liturgy is inescapable. The point Jesus is making is not that we must avoid repeating things, but we must avoid vainly repeating things and that we also must avoid repeating vain things. In other words, do not mindlessly adhere to orthodoxy and be careful to avoid being indoctrinated in heresy. Because repetition is given, you will either be repeating God's commands from the heart or you will be repeating them heartlessly or you will be repeating the world's pattern from the heart or by default. 

Faith has never been an accident. It requires intention and sincerity. Liturgy does not have to be hurdle to sincerity. It can be, but it isn't inevitable. In fact, sincere belief is the result of liturgy. Without repetition, you are left to novelty which is not, by definition, orthodox.

"Liturgies train our loves by aiming them toward a certain telos." — James K.A. Smith, You Are What You Love

No one falls in love. Affection is not the end result of inattention. You do not "fall for" anything you haven't been preparing to embrace. You don't spend your entire life feeding an affection for virtue and then fall head over heels for vice. You do not mull over an affinity for sports cars and then fall in love with a minivan. You don't love by accident. You can fall in lust, but not in love.

How we organize our days and how we regularize our delights determines our affections. It trains our hearts in a particular direction. You do not backslide into affection. You fall, in that sense, for what you have been hoping to trip into.

"The reason culture trains our heart is that, in a sense, it is a type of liturgy." — Raymond Simmons, The Confessional County

Culture is a kind of repetition. It is a smell that always accompanies a moment, a flavor that pairs with a routine. Culture is a liturgy of livelihood. It trains our affections in a certain direction. It provides the grammar of delight and the logic of loveliness. It provides the scripts and sets the expectations. 

"You can't not love." — James K.A. Smith, You Are What You Love

Love is inescapable. Liturgy is inescapable. Repetition is inescapable, .Culture is inescapable. You will love something. You will organize your days around something. Your will train your affections towards something. You will do something over and over.

"Christian culture is putting God's ethics into public action." — Raymond Simmons, The Confessional County

Christendom is Christ's commands incarnate. It is not merely private sentiment. Jesus is not only the Lord of the few inches between your ears, He is Lord and Savior of every inch inside of you and the world around you in which you live, move, and have your being.

Christendom is Christian civilization organized around a Christian calendar, fueled by a Christian culture, and built on a Christian foundation.

1 Corinthians 3:10-11

But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

day no. 17,200: mark your calendars

Genesis 8:22

While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.

This Sunday, November 30th will mark the first Sunday of Advent according to our liturgical calendar. It is also the time of year where all the calendar-mongers make most of their money. You can’t go anywhere without tripping over a calendar. It seems every bank, school, credit union, and local business has one of theirs they want you to have and every store has a special section set aside or an end cap stocked with calendars they want you to buy. It makes sense. Next year is right around the corner and it is much harder to sell a calendar in June. So, calendars this time of year are nothing if not ubiquitous. 

But that is actually true year round. We may see more of them this time of year, but they are always there in the background. Calendars are inescapable. It is not a question of whether you will keep a calendar, but which calendar you will keep, and more importantly who’s calendar it is.  Everyone’s year is dictated by some kind of calendar, but all calendars are NOT created equal. There are school calendars that run from August to May and often include two semesters. There are sports calendars, which depending on the sport, have pre-season, regular season, playoffs, and post-season rhythms. There are fiscal calendars that typically end in July and include four quarters. Whatever you are into, there is a rhythm to how it works and even for those who are content to march along with the traditional civic calendars, there are all kinds of options for what theme you’d like your calendar to come in. So, you may be content to march to the beat of the same drum as everyone else, but you at least want to do it with pictures of kittens as you do it. 

But we are Christians and we should not march to the beat of the world’s drums. We must march in the footsteps of Christ and to the tune of Here Comes the Bride. History is merely the time it takes the church to walk down the aisle. 

Our calendars will honor something and someone. So let us make every effort to tell our time to honor Christ. That is what we have in mind by setting aside this time of year as Advent. We are approaching the beginning of another liturgical year. It begins with the birth of Christ, the Word made flesh and continues until the birth of the church on Pentecost. In between we mark Epiphany, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Easter, and Ascension. Trinity Sunday follows Pentecost as the crown on the head of the liturgical year. Ordinary time are the months that follow until Advent again prepares us for another tour of duty in the trenches of doctrine and delight. The good fight is an annual engagement and we must make our time submit to the Son of God.

day no. 16,738: right worship by what standard? (aka worship wars)

Colossians 2:5

For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.

Worship is warfare: it is organized, intentional, and lethal against those who oppose it. It is not haphazard, sporadic, or poisonous, however, to those engaged rightly in it.

“'Let all things be done decently and in order' (1 Cor. 14:40). We want nothing to do with those who walk disorderly (2 Thess. 3:6-7, 11). 'For though I be absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit, joying and beholding your order, and the stedfastness of your faith in Christ' (Col. 2:5). That word for order in Colossians is taxis, a military term. Think regimentation. Christian worship should be disciplined, focused, intentional, trained, and powerful." — Douglas Wilson,  Christ and the Gods of Chaos

We have fallen prey to thinking that authenticity is the most important aspect of any emotive action and that authenticity is best tested by an action's spontaneity. In other words, we have been tricked into thinking that standing with everyone else and turning to #93  in your Cantus Christi to sing Psalm 47 is not worship.

"The gods of chaos are going to be cut into pieces, and it is going to be Christian worship that does it. So we do not want an ordered worship service because we are tidy-minded people who simply want an ordered worship service. We want an ordered worship service because we are putting the world in order. We do not fight against flesh and blood, but rather with the gods of chaos." — Douglas Wilson,  Christ and the Gods of Chaos

Right worship is not merely for right-brained saints and it is not right merely because right-brained saints might prefer it. Some might not. But that is beside the point. Right worship is not the kind that any particular personality type likes, it is the type that God likes. He commands what He enjoys. He isn't impressed by any and every act of spontaneity. He isn't against originality, but He is opposed to pride.

"The chief aim of order is to make room for good things to run wild." -- G.K. Chesterton

In my house, we have two rules: (1) obey, and (2) have fun! If you obey, I promise you'll have fun. If you refuse to obey, I promise you no one will be having fun. When discipline must be applied, I remind the kids that I don't want to discipline them, I want them to obey. What I want is alacrity: brisk, cheerful readiness to obey. When that happens, everyone is guaranteed to have a blast.

It is the same with worship. If you try to manufacture fun without obeying, it may be fun for a while... but then Dad shows up. And all the fun is gone. But if you do what Dad says, He promises us that we will have fun. We have no idea the joy He has planned for those who walk in His ways. He withholds no good things from those who love Him and one of the first and most obvious blessings is that His commandments are not burdensome, but a blessing in themselves. David delighted in the Law. He likened it to honey, only better. Honey is sweet, but it borrows its sweetness from God. So, if He can make something that good, how much better is He? All that said, God is a God of order, not of chaos. Chaos isn't as fun as it looks. You can only burn down the city for so long before you burn through all the real estate. But in Christ, the fun is sitting at the Father's right hand and His pleasures are inexhaustible, inextinguishable, and eternal.

"So if we are talking about worship of the God of the Bible, disorderly worship, unstructured worship, froth and bubble worship, is therefore oxymoronic. Right worship is stable, structured, firm, and formed."  — Douglas Wilson,  Christ and the Gods of Chaos

A saint may experience an extemporaneous emotion in the midst of his regular, right worship, but he doesn't push the buttons in the right order in order to produce it or feverishly try to go back after the fact to capture the recipe for replication. He doesn't trying to catch the wind and he doesn't confirm the value of order by its ability to produce the occasional spark. 

"The nations of men, with all their tumults, are a great ocean. This is a figure that Scripture uses for them often. The oceans stand in for the turbulent transformations and upheavals among the nations of the world (Dan. 7:3; Rev. 13:1). And so the difference between structured worship that is God-centered, Christ-honoring, and Bible-believing, and worship that is not, is the difference between an island in the middle of the ocean, like Hawaii, and a huge raft made out of balsa wood.” — Douglas Wilson,  Christ and the Gods of Chaos

Right worship is not aimed at eliminating our emotions, it is aimed at bringing joy and honor to God. He has, in His grace, told us what He likes. We may enjoy our right worship of Him, but we may not use our enjoyment as the metric by which we determine what is right in worship. The standard by which worship is measured is, "Would God like it?" If the answer is, "No," it does not matter how much we might enjoy it.

This all being said, orderly is not godly. Aaron had to fashion the golden calf, but that didn't make it any better. 

Exodus 32:4-8

He [Aaron] received the gold at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, and made a molten calf; and they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.” And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. And the Lord said to Moses, “Go down; for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves; they have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them; they have made for themselves a molten calf, and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’”

So, here we see that order can be heretical and personal fulfillment can be chaos. The golden calf was orderly and unorthodox. The dancing was decadent and unorthodox. The calf required special attention and the celebrating gave way to special inattention. There is a way to honor God in order and emotion and there is a way to dishonor Him in order and emotion. This is why it is particularly important to obey Him in order to delight in Him.

day no. 16,700: Thou crownest the year with Thy goodness

Psalm 65:9-13

Thou visitest the earth,

and waterest it:

thou greatly enrichest it

with the river of God,

which is full of water:

thou preparest them corn,

when thou hast so provided for it.

Thou waterest the ridges thereof abundantly:

thou settlest the furrows thereof:

thou makest it soft with showers:

thou blessest the springing thereof.

Thou crownest the year with thy goodness;

and thy paths drop fatness.

They drop upon the pastures of the wilderness:

and the little hills rejoice on every side,

The pastures are clothed with flocks;

the valleys also are covered over with corn;

they shout for joy, they also sing.

The Lord made the liturgy of life and the cadence of the calendar is crowned with Christ's kindness. The rhythm of rain falling and returning is grace upon grace. He sends His goodness on all of creation.

Psalm 145:10-13

All thy works shall praise thee, O Lord; and thy saints shall bless thee.

They shall speak of the glory of thy kingdom, and talk of thy power;

To make known to the sons of men his mighty acts,

and the glorious majesty of his kingdom.

Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,

and thy dominion endureth throughout all generations.

Creation constantly confesses Christ. It conveys faith in the power of resurrection. The routines of day and night, summer and winter, ebb and flow, wax and wane, seedtime and harvest all testify to the goodness of God.

Genesis 8:22

While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.

The cadence is our comfort. It is a reminder of His covenant. The liturgy of life is a faithful friend, a brother born for adversity. It calls our anxiety back to sobriety. It tempers our tempers. It reminds us of the goodness that has us surrounded and begs us to surrender.

day no. 16,696: keep the feast; taste and see

1 Corinthians 5:7-8

Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast.

Psalm 34:8-9

Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! 

Oh, fear the LORD, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack!

Keep the feast; taste and see.

day no. 16,632: love your next generation neighbor

"When you discipline your children correctly, you are loving your grandchildren." — Douglas Wilson, Why Children Matter

A man loves his great grandchildren by teaching his children to teach their children to teach their children. If you raise your children well, you will get to enjoy your grandchildren. If you do not raise your children well, you will have to raise your grandchildren. 

You do not love your next generational neighbor by failing to discipline their parents. If you are called to love those living next door geographically, you are called to love those living next generationally. Your children need you to be their parents so that they can parent their children someday. Your grandchildren will be owed the discipline and instruction of the Lord which means you must provide it to their parents. 

Psalm 78:4-7

We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done. For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children: That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children: That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments.

You cannot teach your grandchildren to remember the Lord's commands by forgetting to obey them. You cannot teach a future generation the value of the Lord by refusing to acknowledge it before the current one.

day no. 16,631: culture is the liturgy of livelihood

"Liturgies train our loves by aiming them toward a certain telos." — James K.A. Smith, You Are What You Love

No one falls in love. Affection is not the end result of inattention. You do not "fall for" anything you haven't been preparing to embrace. You don't spend your entire life feeding an affection for virtue and then fall head over heels for vice. You do not mull over an affinity for sports cars and then fall in love with a minivan. You don't love by accident. You can fall in lust, but not in love.

How we organize our days and how we regularize our delights determines our affections. It trains our hearts in a particular direction. You do not backslide into affection. You fall, in that sense, for what you have been hoping to trip into.

"The reason culture trains our heart is that, in a sense, it is a type of liturgy." — Raymond Simmons, The Confessional County

Culture is a kind of repetition. It is a smell that always accompanies a moment, a flavor that pairs with a routine. Culture is a liturgy of livelihood. It trains our affections in a certain direction. It provides the grammar of delight and the logic of loveliness. It provides the scripts and sets the expectations. 

"You can't not love."  — James K.A. Smith, You Are What You Love

Love is inescapable. Liturgy is inescapable. Culture is inescapable. You will love something. You will organize your days around something. Your will train your affections towards something.

"Christian culture is putting God's ethics into public action." — Raymond Simmons, The Confessional County

Christendom is Christ's commands incarnate. It is not merely private sentiment. Jesus is not only the Lord of the few inches between your ears, He is Lord and Savior of every inch inside of you and the world around you in which you live, move, and have your being.

Christendom is Christian civilization organized around a Christian calendar, fueled by a Christian culture, and built on a Christian foundation.

1 Corinthians 3:10-11

But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

day no. 16,630: if the dam don't hold

"If you can hold back the culture's influence long enough so that you can change it before it changes your children, you should stay. If not, you have no choice but to make some sort of change." — Raymond Simmons, The Confessional County

If your dam won't hold, you have to move to higher ground. If your walls cannot keep the evil out, you have to evacuate. The Gospel of God will conquer the world, but some fronts may be temporarily lost in the course of the campaign. You cannot begin by taking Berlin. Nor can you initially expect to keep Berlin out of your backyard if you live within shouting distance. You cannot defend that plot of land by dying in it. You must retreat and regroup in order to return with the Allies to your homeland. It will be won back and Berlin will fall, but only by those who consolidated their forces outside its city limits.

day no. 16,394 continued... The Apostles' Creed (original, metrical rendering)

Our God and Father

Did conceive

The earth and Heaven

I believe

His one and only 

Begotten 

The Lord, Christ Jesus

God the Son

Who by God’s Spirit

Was conceived

By virgin, Mary

Was received

By Pontius Pilate

Crucified

Under whom suffered,

Bled, and died

His body buried

In a grave

His soul in Hades

For three days

But then He rose

From the dead

And then to Heaven

Did ascend 

To God the Father’s

Right hand side

Where He now sitteth

And abides

Until the time when

He shall come

To judge the quickened 

And the slow

I believe in God

The Spirit,

And one church: holy,

catholic,

Saints of God in one

Communion,

Sins of saints in One

Forgiven,

And resurrected

Bodied men,

And life eternal,

And amen.

— The Apostles' Creed

Postmillitant original rendering

day no. 16,157: lex orandi lex credendi

Lex orandi lex credendi,

"The law of prayer is the law of faith."

Formal worship forms us. We are becoming what we worship and arriving where we're going more and more with each passing day. Liturgy shapes us. The way we worship establishes us. What we do in worship affects what we do elsewhere. Everything is going somewhere and sooner or later it is going to get there.

day no. 16,065: him who orders his way aright

Psalm 50:23

He who brings thanksgiving as his sacrifice honors me;

to him who orders his way aright

I will show the salvation of God!

There are things to be done and an order in which to do them.

Ordo amoris, or ordered affections, are the prescription through which we can see the salvation of the Lord. If your ways are out of rank or your desires out of proportion, you will be blinded. You won't see salvation around you or in your future. 

“A well-ordered life, regulated by God’s Word alone, through Christ alone, by faith alone, for God’s glory alone, is the only answer to our anxiety.” — John Calvin

Order is inescapable. What we call disorder is simply the wrong order. The one who does not intentionally order their life will reap disorder in their lives. But there is also order that is intentional and yet still disordered.

2 Chronicles 27:6

So Jotham became mighty, because he ordered his ways before the LORD his God.

You can order your ways wrongly. It is one thing to fail to put things in any particular order, another to fail by accidentally ordering things incorrectly, and another to insist that your preferred disorder be respected and received as orderly.

Matthew 6:33

Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

When we seek God first and order ourselves according to what He declares as righteous, we receive that which ranks lower. The lower things are retained by insisting on them remaining lower things. A properly ordered life is enabled to retain all of life.

Matthew 5:5

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

"Aim at Heaven and you will get Earth 'thrown in': aim at Earth and you will get neither." -- C.S. Lewis

If you aim at something other than Christ, you won't get to keep it. It isn't the case that we get to keep whatever we put in first place and that God just happens to be the best number one overall draft pick. No, if you don't pick God first, you don't get to keep anything. We aren't given one slot that we get to keep no matter what. If God makes the list, but isn't #1, you don't get Him or whatever idol you put before Him. But if you make God and His righteousness your top priorities, you will get to keep everything else.

Psalm 24:1

The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.

There is no square inch of any good thing that God is not prepared to give away to those who love Him aright.

Psalm 84:11

The Lord will give grace and glory:

no good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly.

day no. 16,063: seasonal scripts

Ecclesiastes 3:1-2

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven

The hearts of men are often compelled to write poetry in the Spring and philosophy in the Fall, vows in the summer sun and eulogies in the dead of winter.

Genesis 8:22

While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.

Liturgies are inescapable.

day no. 15,817: legacity: pack a punch

Yesterday (8/1/20), I concocted a new term, legacity.

Legacity - n, tenacious, legacy-mindedness. 

This is an assiduous approach to producing legacy. This is the long war -- aiming your efforts around training your children to raise up and train their children.

Deuteronomy 6:1-2
Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments, which the Lord your God commanded to teach you, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go to possess it: that thou mightest fear the Lord thy God, to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee, thou, and thy son, and thy son’s son, all the days of thy life; and that thy days may be prolonged.

God commanded Moses to teach fathers to teach their children to teach their children. So, a father's duty is to teach his children the commandments, statutes, and judgments of God. And one of these commands he is to teach, is that they are to someday teach their children the commandments, statutes, and judgments of God. Just as Jesus commanded His disciples to make disciples that make disciples, so He commanded His children to teach their children to teach their children. It is one in the same. Making disciples and training children are part and parcel, warp and woof.

Make babies.

Make disciples.

Train your children.

Train disciples.

Legacity is living your life in light of those lives who will bear your last name. It is creating a culture to be tangibly passed along, an inheritance in God, from God, and going to God -- something that has ancient stability, current fertility, and eternal applicability; that is, living for forever by living in the Lord right now -- loving those in front of you at your table by teaching them to love those that will be in front of them at theirs someday.

Manufacture ammunition for your great grandchildren. Store up and stockpile generational gusto.

In short, pack a punch.

You spend time and care packing your children's lunches for later?

Don't forget to pack a punch for them for dessert.

day no. 15,806: comfort comes out

2 Thessalonians 2:15-17
So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter. Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.

Comfort comes out. 

God provides eternal comfort in the completed work of Christ at the cross and continues to comfort us in the continued work of Christ at His Father's right hand. This comfort comes from without and goes within. But it does not stop there. Comfort come outs. The comfort we experience internally is meant to manifest itself externally. What God established on the cross of Christ, He means to establish in the work of our hands and the words of our mouths.

We were made for traditions.

God gave us the apostles: their beliefs and behaviors, their prayers and practices, and their words and works. We were meant to stand firm and hold tightly to what was passed along to us by them. What they said and did are to be what we now say and do. These traditions and liturgies were spoken, written down, lived out, and passed along. 

If we want our work to be established, it must be performed on the foundation of Christ and the teachings of His apostles.

Ephesians 2:19-22
Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

day no. 15,767: the army of the resurrected

Colossians 2:4-7
And this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words. For though I be absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit, joying and beholding your order, and the stedfastness of your faith in Christ. As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving

"In verse 4, Paul warns against the seductive power of a certain kind of religious approach, the kind that always fails to approach Christ. Even though Paul was not present with the Colossians (v. 5), he was with them in spirit. He rejoiced as he beheld their order (the word is taxis), and the rock-solid nature of their faith in Jesus Christ. This word taxis is a military term, and should be understood as a kind of regimentation. But note that this order was both disciplined and alive. It was not an orderly row of gravestones, but rather it was the order of a military troop, arms at the ready.

Worship is Warfare: the order (taxis) we are cultivating here is not the order of porcelain figurines in a china hutch, neatly arranged on a shelf. The order we are pursuing is alive and disciplined, the order of a well-trained military unit. And why? Because every Lord’s Day we go into battle. But as God’s people we fight on earth from the high ground of heaven."
-- Douglas Wilson, The Structure of Our Worship

1 Corinthians 14:33
God is not a God of disorder but of peace

The Church is the original order of the phoenix. We are the army of the resurrected marching with military precision and divine vitality for God's glory, our neighbor's good and the coming of His Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.  

day no. 15,567 continued... vespers

I was listening to a sermon last week and the pastor was speaking to the Biblical theme of "morning and evening." After pointing out several places where this rhythm is established and held, he then provided the anecdotal evidence of its observance in the church cadence of "lauds and vespers." Admittedly, I had to look that up. I was fascinated to discover the morning and evening prayers pattern that once was a staple of the Christian church. 

I bring this up because this past week I also floated the idea of beginning to pick up a pie at the Amish each week now that we've moved it to Saturdays and I get to participated. I thought it would be fun to add to our Sabbath liturgy. 

So we picked up a mixed berry and a pecan pie yesterday and today after having Wendy's frosties and fries for lunch, I decided to hold back the pies for a treat after dinner. So tonight we ate noodles for dinner as per usual, but then I busted out the pies and we had sort of a second Sabbath soiree. That led me to consider perhaps holding the pie back every week for dinner rather than adding it to our lunch liturgy. This connected me to the thought of vespers and the idea of an intentional Sabbath evening mini-liturgy.

While I was carving up the post-dinner pies, I led us in singing "All Glory Be To Christ" which I had originally attempted to include as part of our lunch liturgy, but it didn't work out as well as I had hoped as it delayed the feast longer than made sense. It's fun now to be able to include back in at a natural point and in anticipation of pie. I bought whipped cream earlier today in preparation and made funny designs on each kid's respective piece of pie. I then intuitively said, "Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!" The kids took to it and just like that, we have a Sabbath supper liturgy. I look forward to rounding it out a bit, but for now, I'm thinking less is more: singing, pie and Psalm 34:8 to cap off our Sabbaths sounds like a great Sunday tradition in the making. Some traditions you enjoy the first time you do them looking ahead to the thousandth time you do it. I am flirting with perhaps rocking the a la mode some week and calling it, "pie-ce cream." God is good and it is so much fun looking for ways to invite my kids into a life of wonder, welcome, good gifts and a whole heaping of gratitude to go along with it.

Psalm 34:8

Oh taste and see that the Lord is good!