day no. 17,448: secular utopia and other oxymorons

"Limited government is a specifically Christian political concept, and the secularists aren’t Christians." — Douglas Wilson, Darryl Hart, the Wall Street Journal, and the First Person Singular Pronoun in the Objective Case

The Definition of Chalcedon declared that Jesus was fully man and fully God without confusion. This confirmed that man did not become a God, but that God became a man. As such, men are limited. They are not gods in process. This is the foundation for the doctrine of limited government in every sphere. God has designed four spheres of government: self, family, church, and state. They all have genuine authoritative spheres. 

The will belongs to the self. You can say "No" to yourself and only you can say "No" to your will. Someone else can force you to do their will, but they cannot force you to surrender your will. They can make you do the thing, but they cannot make your heart into it. They can demand that you do it and that you mean it, but they can only make you do it, they cannot make you mean it. 

Education, health, and welfare belong to the family. Fathers are commanded to provide their children with a Christian education. They have options on how to provide it, but it must be provided. A distinctly Christian culture must be passed along to one's children. In addition, medicinal decisions are within the jurisdiction of the family. What to serve for dinner and what to take (or not take) when you have a headache are the decision of the family. There are some limitations on this, for sure, but only inasmuch as they encroach on the jurisdictions of others. So, you cannot serve your neighbor for dinner as God has forbidden you to murder them or to eat them if you should find them already deceased. 

Word and sacrament belong to the church. They are the Lord's Word and Table, but He has deputized the church to administer them. The Word does not belong to the church per se and the bread and wine are not the private possession of the church, but they are uniquely qualified to distribute them and declare, "Thus saith the Lord."

The sword belongs to the state. It possesses the ability and responsibility to execute vengeance as the deacon of God's wrath. Those who are convicted of a crimes deserving death are executed by the state. The state does not get to define what deserves death, but they are responsible to carry out the executions of those God has declared deserve to die.

All this to say, no earthly authority is absolute. Said another way, all earthly authority is limited. Or most succinctly -- only God is unlimited. As such, limited government is a Christian concept. Secularism will not produce a limited government, it will produce a state that imagines itself to be a god. The are no secular utopias because secularism cannot produce peace. Might makes right cannot make peace, but it can break things into pieces... and it often does.

day no. 17,447: adjectival affections

"I don’t want my faith to be deeply American. I want America to be deeply Christian." — Douglas Wilson, Darryl Hart, the Wall Street Journal, and the First Person Singular Pronoun in the Objective Case

Ordered affections require adjectives. It is a question of what is substantive and what is descriptive. Are you an American who has faith or are you a Christian who in America? Do you want American flavored Christianity or do you want Christian flavored America. Jesus commands us to disciple the nations. In order for them to remain nations, they will retain some sense of nationality. That means you will have French flavored Christians and Chinese flavored Christians, but the Christianity will be the constant. The nationalities bend and bow to Christ and die to themselves. Each has a treasure to offer their King, but all have the same King. Christianity does not bow to cultures, cultures conform to Christ. He is the constant, the arche, the One to Whom all things are being drawn, and to Whom all things will submit.

I love America and I love Christ and because I love Christ, I love Him before and more than America. I would rather see something American die in order to be more like Christ than to see anything Christian compromised in order to exist in America.

day no. 17,446: catholicity, depravity, and liberty

"Liberal political orders have, ‘in God’s providence,’ secured religious liberty, limited political power and recognized human dignity—and one of government’s duties is ‘to protect the free exercise of religion, including liberty of conscience.’ Government should “not interfere in matters of faith” despite having a responsibility to encourage ‘piety, justice, [and] public order.’” — Darryl Hart, The Presbyterian Middle Way, WSJ

"But liberal political orders did nothing of the kind. They did not secure religious liberty, they inherited religious liberty. They were certainly on third base, but they did not hit that triple. Christians secured religious liberty on account of what they had to work out between rival Christian factions. And Christians limited political power because they believed in the depravity of man instead of the perfectability of man." — Douglas Wilson, Darryl Hart, the Wall Street Journal, and the First Person Singular Pronoun in the Objective Case

The prodigal made a few friends on his father's dime, but he didn't make single penny of what he spent. He inherited all of it and spent it liberally. Secularism is not the root of religious freedom, religious liberty is the fruit of Christendom. Freedom of speech is the unique product of Christian culture and governance. Liberty is not a value of Islam or Judaism or Secularism. They cannot produce it even if they wanted to and they wouldn't even if they could. They don't want their neighbors to be allowed to peacefully disagree with them from the comfort of their own homes.

Religious liberty is the product of the only holy catholic and apostolic church. The protestant vision of unity and charity among brothers allows for liberty of conscience without condoning any unconscionable libertarian nonsense. In order for Christians to coexist, liberty of denominational preferences had to be permitted without providing a blank check for heresy to be tolerated under a guise of catholicity. In addition, limited government sprang from the doctrine of total depravity since no man is good, not one and ergo no one man should have unlimited power to rule without restraint. Christendom is the source, therefore, of both religious freedom and checks and balances and distribution of power in the government. In other words, trust your brothers to be Christian even when you disagree on secondary matters and do not trust your neighbor to be honest when he has more power than you do. Those two instincts pair well and have produced one of the best attempts at Christendom thus far.

May God lead us, like the prodigal, home before we spend all of His riches and may it not require a famine to motivate us to move, but may we get a famine if that's the only way to point us back in the right direction.

day no. 17,445: resurrection does not do fractions

"A corpse is not partly resurrected, and dead faith is not most of the way there.” — Douglas Wilson, Concise and to the Point

Being resurrected is like being pregnant: you either are or you aren't, but there is no such thing as kind of resurrected just like there is no such thing as kind of pregnant. Dead faith is not faith and dead works do not work. 

We are not drowning and in need of a lifeguard, we are dead at the bottom of the pool and in need of a miracle. Resurrection does not do fractions. Faith is not incremental. You can have more faith than someone else, but you cannot have less.  That is to say, everyone who has faith has a completed faith even though some of more of it and no one has an incomplete faith. Dead faith is just another way of saying, "no faith."

day no. 17,444: did Adam bring about death or did death bring about Adam?

“There is also a deep theological problem with the view that death antedated mankind. The Bible teaches that Adam produced death. The opposing view has to say that in some manner death produced Adam.” — Douglas Wilson, Concise and to the Point

Darwinian evolution assumes that death is not an enemy, but a friend, who helped God produce people, but that also presupposes that death came before the Fall. We are told that the Fall of Adam led to the introduction of death for all men and the world around him. Even the ground and that which grew out of it was changed as a result of Adam's sin. As Pastor Wilson points out, either Adam's sin lead to death as the Bible says or many deaths led up to Adam as Darwinian evolution says. Death is either an enemy to be defeated or it is a savior to be praised. Death either delivers man into the presence of God or it delivers man out of nonexistence. It either takes him out of this world or it brought him into it. That is the chasm between the Biblical creation account of the world and what followed versus the atheistic, Darwinian account of existence and what follows.

day no. 17,443: unorthodox obedience (exhortation outline)

Christ Church Leavenworth

Jenny Geddes Day

July 26, 2026

Unorthodox Obedience

INTRODUCTION

Our text for this morning is Numbers 25:1-13, these are the words of God.

“While Israel lived in Shittim, the people began to whore with the daughters of Moab. These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. So Israel yoked himself to Baal of Peor. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Take all the chiefs of the people and hang them in the sun before the Lord, that the fierce anger of the Lord may turn away from Israel.’ And Moses said to the judges of Israel, ‘Each of you kill those of his men who have yoked themselves to Baal of Peor.’

And behold, one of the people of Israel came and brought a Midianite woman to his family, in the sight of Moses and in the sight of the whole congregation of the people of Israel, while they were weeping in the entrance of the tent of meeting. When Phinehas the son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose and left the congregation and took a spear in his hand and went after the man of Israel into the chamber and pierced both of them, the man of Israel and the woman through her belly. Thus the plague on the people of Israel was stopped. Nevertheless, those who died by the plague were twenty-four thousand.

And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Phinehas the son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, has turned back my wrath from the people of Israel, in that he was jealous with my jealousy among them, so that I did not consume the people of Israel in my jealousy. Therefore say, “Behold, I give to him my covenant of peace, and it shall be to him and to his descendants after him the covenant of a perpetual priesthood, because he was jealous for his God and made atonement for the people of Israel.”’”

This past Thursday marked the anniversary of one of the most memorable episodes in the history of the Scottish Reformation. The time was July 23rd in the year of our Lord 1637 and the place was St. Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh, Scotland. That morning, James Hannay, the dean of the church, ascended to the pulpit, the same one behind which the great John Knox himself had once stood and preached; and standing there, he opened his mouth and attempted to supplant the liturgy of John Knox's Book of Common Order with a newly published Scottish version of the Church of England's Book of Common Prayer. I say “attempted” because he never finished. Before he could finish the reading, a simple milk maid in the congregation thwarted his attempted coup. Who was she and how did she do it? Her name was Jenny Geddes and the way she stopped him was by throwing her stool at his head. The Ballad of Jenny Geddes, a poem by John Stuart Blackie, colorfully recounts the details of that day.

‘Twas the twenty-third of July, in the sixteen thirty-seven,

On the Sabbath morn from high St. Giles the solemn peal was given;

King Charles had sworn that Scottish men should pray by printed rule;

He sent a book, but never dreamt of danger from a stool.

The Council and the Judges, with ermined pomp elate,

The Provost and the Bailies in gold and crimson state,

Fair silken-vested ladies, grave doctors of the school,

Were there to please the King, and learn the virtues of a stool.

The Bishop and the Dean came in wi’ muckle gravity,

Right smooth and sleek, but lordly pride was lurking in their e’e;

Their full lawn sleeves were blown and big, like seals in briny pool;

They bore a book, but little thought they soon should feel a stool.

The Dean he to the alter went, and, with a solemn look,

He cast his eyes to heaven, and read the curious-printed book:

In Jenny’s heart the blood upwelled with bitter anguish full;

Sudden she started to her legs, and stoutly grasped the stool!

As when a mountain wildcat springs upon a rabbit small,

So Jenny on the Dean springs, with gush of holy gall;

Wilt thou say mass at my lugs, thou popish-puling fool?

No! No! She said, and at his head she flung the three-legged stool.

A bump, a thump! A smash, a crash! Now gentle folks beware!

Stool after stool, like rattling hail, came twirling through the air,

With, well done, Jenny! Bravo, Jenny! That’s the proper tool!

When the Devil will out, and shows his snout, just meet him with a stool!

The Council and the Judges were smitten with strange fear,

The ladies and the Bailies their seats did deftly clear,

The Bishop and the Dean went in sorrow and in dool,

And all the Popish flummery fled when Jenny showed the stool!

And thus a mighty deed was done by Jenny’s valiant hand,

Black Prelacy and Popery she drove from Scottish land;

King Charles he was a shuffling knave, priest Laud a meddling fool,

But Jenny was a woman wise, who beat them with a stool!

Simple obedience to God will sometimes require a radical defiance to men. We saw this both in our text with Phinehas and in our story with Jenny Geddes. Walking with God will sometimes require you to step outside of your cultural moment. In the days of Phinehas, some people were laying down with the wrong people and the rest were weeping about it. The moment called for someone to stand up, and that’s what Phinehas did. In the days of Jenny Geddes, some people were compromising with Rome and the rest were silently watching it happen. The moment called for someone to take a stand, and that’s what Jenny did.

Where disobedience has become orthodox, obedience will look unorthodox. If everyone around you is compromising, taking a stand will make you stand out. Being moved by the world requires nothing more than drifting along, and nothing is easier to do than nothing. So, compared to those around them, the faithful will often appear unconventional. Our neighbors may find our faith a bit too much, but our descendants will honor our zeal as they admire the stars in the skies that stand out against the blackness.

Here is your application: if you don’t like the way things are going, don’t complain about it, do something about it. Consider Philippians 2:14-17, “Do all things without grumbling or complaining, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life.” Phinehas and Jenny are numbered among the stars. There are, of course, many others; so many, in fact, that Abraham could not count them, and if you stand up in the midst of this crooked generation, you will join them in standing out against the darkness. In order to do this, however, you will have to be willing to look unorthodox. When darkness is the reigning paradigm, light can break the pattern.

Douglas Wilson once noted that, “Desperate times call for faithful men, not for careful men. The careful men come later and write the biographies of the faithful men, lauding them for their courage.” There is a reason people write poems about Jenny Geddes and name their sons after Phinehas. We honor those who stood up when others were laying down. We recognize their courage and their unconventional approach to unconventional times. When the situation is desperate, a doer is more necessary than a documenter, but once the doing has been done, someone must document it. That is how good stories are made and that is how they are preserved. I am grateful for the actions of Jenny Geddes and for the words of John Stuart Blackie, and I stand on them both. I am inspired by the stand of Phinehas and by the words of Moses that tells his stor.

There is a place for both kinds of people. So, make sure you are telling the stories of our brothers and sisters who stood with God and then do something your kids will want to write stories about. We do not honor the likes of Phinehas and Jenny Geddes by compromising with our culture. We honor their unorthodox obedience by defying the darkness in our own day. This will require you to be unconventional, but all heroes are. That is why we tell their stories. So, preserve the memory of our ancestors by celebrating their achievements and bless the work of our descendants by giving them something else to celebrate.

CALL TO CONFESSION

Well, since we are so often too scared or too shy to take a risk in standing out and because we are often too quick to take for granted and forget those who did, we are reminded of our need to regularly confess our sins, whether they be these 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

Almighty and merciful Father, we confess that we are by nature sinful and unclean. We have sinned against You in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done and what we have left undone. We have not loved You with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We justly deserve Your present and eternal punishment. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent. For the sake of Your Son, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us. Renew us and lead us by Your Holy Spirit so that we may delight in Your will and walk in Your ways to the glory of Your holy name.

DECLARATION OF PARDON

Arise and hear the Good News! The assurance of pardon today comes from Romans 5, “While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person— though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.” 

Jesus did not die for those who deserved it, He died for those who didn’t. That is good news for sinners like you and me. He stood out as a light in the darkness and He now calls us to walk in a manner worthy of that reality. That begins by stepping out from the darkness within so that we might stand up to the darkness that is without, and that is what we just did. So now, having done that, go forward in the light of Christ, because in Him your sins are forgiven… THANKS BE TO GOD!

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

day no. 17,442: choose for yourself this day from which cup you will drink

1 Corinthians 10:21

Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of devils.

You must choose which cup to partake in, but you cannot choose not to partake. Partaking is inescapable. It is woven into the warp and woof of the world. Covenantal realities are not optional. You are either in covenant with God or you are in covenant with devils. There is no neutrality. You are either in the old Adam or you are in the new One. You are either grieving the Spirit or you are glorifying God. You have a choice, but you do not have the choice to not choose. You have to choose and you are choosing. 

So, choose wisely. Where do you want to eat? Who do you want to sit by? Whose table do you want to be at? What do you want to eat and drink? The rule of Heaven is that God determines the menu and He has provided His Son as the meal. The rule of Hell is the illusion of choosing what you want to eat only to discover that it is was you who was on the menu. 

The Spirit of Christ says, "This is My Body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of Me, and this cup is the new testament in My blood, which is shed for you."

The spirit of antichrist says, "Bite and devour one another before you are consumed by another."

day no. 17,441: smart enough yet dumb enough

"We must begin by establishing our priorities... Sen. Eugene McCarthy once said that being a senator was a lot like being a football coach—you had to be smart enough to understand the game and dumb enough to think it was important." — Douglas Wilson, Athletics and Christian Community #1

Politics are like playing a game, you have to have the wherewithal to know how to play and to remember that's just a game. Politics is not altogether unimportant, but it is less important than the people playing the game think it is. Christ is King which makes everything political, but politics cannot save, only Jesus can... and politics itself needs to be saved.

“I doubt whether the best men ever would devote themselves to politics. The best men would devote themselves to pigs and babies and things like that.” — G.K. Chesterton

Politics is not just a game, because it has to be played. You don't have to play football and no one else necessarily does either, but if you don't play politics, someone else will and that just means your concerns won't be represented. The stakes are high and someone has to play, but only someone of low caliber would devote their everything to it. It's a job you take of of necessity in order to accomplish something else, not an end in itself.

"No one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians are not trying to solve our problems. They are trying to solve their own problems -- of which getting elected and re-elected are number one and number two. Whatever is number three is far behind." — Thomas Sowell

Only a scoundrel would see politics as an end in itself. It is necessary to legislate, but it is also necessary to realize that life is more than legislation. In fact, legislation should largely stay out of our lives. Legislation is for those who wants to infringe on the ability of others to live, be free, and pursue property and happiness.

day no. 17,440: fake and gay (pre-ripped jeans and post-mortem genes)

“Our culture has become as gay as pre-ripped jeans." — Toby Sumpter

We like the look of productivity without the work. Pre-ripped jeans require someone else to do more work so that you can look like you did more work than you did. 

"We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful." — C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

We make fun of productive people and then wonder why the cost of production has gone up. We refuse to shoulder our share of the burden and then we wonder why everything has gotten so heavy. We want the rewards of responsibility without the sacrifices of being responsible. We are fake and gay. We have become fruitless trees and castrated geldings and then we have the audacity to mock husbandry.

"This is modernity's barbarism - hollow hearts led about by sterile matter, perversely mocking those with full lives." — Douglas Wilson, Angels in the Architecture

The childless cat ladies mock the mothers of six. They abort their own children and call themselves cat moms. But wisdom is justified by her children. You can leave your life's work to your cat, if it happens to outlive you, but your cat cannot do the same. You can throw your pearls before pigs you like, but you can't make a pig appreciate them.

day no. 17,439: panic is a portent

Philippians 1:28 (Moffatt)

Your fearlessness is a clear omen of ruin for them.

The fear of God makes it possible to be fearless. If you bow before Christ, you can stand before any man, any plan, any plot, etc... The fact that they are plotting and you are not is a sign of their impending doom and your eternal security. The propaganda is proof that the power of the Gospel is indomitable. They would not have to be trying so hard if they weren't worried. Hurry up offenses and hail mary's are not run by people who feel like they are in control. They are plays run by people who are in a panic and feel like their window of opportunity is running out.

Their irritation is a clear omen of their pending devastation.

Hebrews 12:27

And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. 

God is about to shake things up. And when the boat begins to rock, the unstable will come crashing down. The established will be proven by their ability to endure. God has laid a foundation that cannot be quaked and anything built on it will stand the test of time and the shake of the quake that is coming.

day no. 17,438: real, limited authority

“I believe that, as Christian emissaries come to each of these nations to be discipled, the foundational cornerstone proclaimed by them is that Jesus is Lord. The first corollary to this is that Caesar isn’t lord, and so the first gift the Church brings, and the first point of repentance for the established authorities of each nation, is the liberating doctrine of limited government.” — Douglas Wilson, Concise and to the Point

Christ is the King of kings, so Caesar needs must get off his high horse. He has authority because Christ has invested it in him, but he has limited authority because it comes from somewhere else. Christ has authority in Himself. He deputizes lesser magistrates to particular jurisdictions: husbands to marriages, fathers to homes, governors to regions, and elders to churches. There is real authority in the head of the home because the Head of heads says so. There is real authority in the head of state because the Head of all states put it there. There is real authority in the head pastor because the Chief Shepherd stands behind him.

No earthly authority is absolute which is to say that all earthly authority is limited authority. It is real, but it is really limited. All masters answer to the Master and all rulers are measured by the Ruler of rulers. He is the measuring stick because He is the standard. And so, because God is good, we are able to tell when a governor isn't or when a husband isn't or when a pastor isn't. God is good, all of the time; all of the time, God is good. And so we set every lesser authority up against its Author to determine whether it is acting lawfully or rebelling against its jurisdiction. When a lesser authority goes to far, it is out of step and in sin. When a lesser authority does not go as far as it is required, it is not keeping up with what God has for it. In either case, it is in sin by falling short of its lesser glory or by attempting to take glory that does not belong to it.

day no. 17,437: from within and from without

“We have met the enemy and he is us.” — Walt Kelly’s comic strip Pogo

If we are going to triumph over our enemies out there, we must first triumph over our enemies within. Traitors and haters in the camp must be addressed before we can successfully repel our invaders. The sin within did not invade us, it is native. It is more legit than an anchor baby. It was born of the blood and soil of its host. Your sins are truly yours. They have your last name and they share your DNA. If you do not deal with those, you will not be able to righteously deal with those who have invaded your world. 

“A recovery of the old sense of sin is essential to Christianity. Christ takes it for granted that men are bad.” — C.S. Lewis, The Problem if Pain

If you assume that other men from other places or from other races are bad, but fail to see that natives are as well, you will never build anything that can survive. You cannot win a war against reality. If you do not accept your own depravity, you will not be able to defend yourself against another's hostility.

"One last point. Remember that, as I said, the right direction leads not only to peace but to knowledge. When a man is getting better he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him. When a man is getting worse, he understands his own badness less and less. A moderately bad man knows he is not very good: a thoroughly bad man thinks he is all right. This is common sense, really. You understand sleep when you are awake, not when you are sleeping. You can see mistakes in arithmetic when your mind is working properly: while you are making them you cannot see them. You can understand the nature of drunkenness when you are sober, not when you are drunk. Good people know about both good and evil: bad people do not know about either.” ― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

If we are blind to how bad we are it is a sign of how truly bad things are for us. But when we begin to acknowledge and accept and take responsibility for the wickedness within, we will know that we are on the right path toward dealing with the wickedness that is coming at us from without.

"A civilization is not destroyed by wicked men; it is destroyed by weak men who cannot defend what is good.” — G. K. Chesterton

Men who do not acknowledge their own weakness are too weak to resist the strong temptation of becoming like our enemies. Weakness is worse than wickedness. Good men who are not good at being men are no better in the long run than wicked men for they will one day be just as wicked as their current enemies. Wickedness, for all its faults, never skips leg day. It is always raring to go and it keeps its eye on the prize. Goodness, for all it virtues, sometimes gets soft. It prefers peace to war and so it sometimes forgets that it is in war. Wickedness never forgets.

“Every high civilization decays by forgetting obvious things.” — G.K. Chesterton

Society's are smashed from without because they have gone soft from within. Men who ignore their own evil are hardly equipped to defeat the evils of others. Men who are regularly conquered by their own lusts will not be able to conquer men motivated by their respective lusts.

They end up with rosters rounded out by round men who cannot rise up to defend their people. Civilization, if it is not in shape, will be overcome by barbarism. You cannot be in good shape without first acknowledging how bad of shape your are within.

“If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism.” — Thomas Sowell

If you are not yourself civilized, you are merely one barbarian meeting another in battle. Civilization requires civilized men. Those men are not soft because they admit defeat before God, rather they are empowered by the Spirit of God in destroying evil strongholds within and without.

2 Corinthians 10:3-5

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.

If you have lost on the battleground of imagination, you will lose on the battleground of infiltration. You cannot defend the world from demons without when you are defeated by your demons within.

day no. 17,436: do the dishes (sermon outline)

Christ Church Leavenworth

Song of Solomon 2:15

7/19/26

…

OT READING: Proverbs 27:1-18

NT READING: Matthew 5:21-32

Do the Dishes

READING OF THE TEXT

Our text this morning is Song of Solomon 2:15 these are the words of God:

“Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, for our vineyards are in blossom.”

The grass withers, the flowers fade, but the Word of our God stands forever.

PRAYER

Our Father and our God, we come before You this morning through Jesus Christ, our Lord, and in the Holy Spirit. Thank You for Your Word. Help us to hold it in high and reverent esteem this morning, persuaded that by it we live and not by bread alone. We ask these things in Jesus’ Name, amen.

INTRODUCTION

Imagine with me two homes. They are in the same neighborhood with the same blueprint. Each house is occupied by the same number of people: a husband, a wife, and three children. Life happens in both houses; and because of their similarities, it produces roughly the same amount of mess in each: clothes are worn, meals are made, toys are played with, dishes are dirtied, grass grows, and toilets are flushed.

Now imagine that one of these homes has an overgrown yard, a sink full of dishes, a hamper full of dirty laundry, and toys all over the floor. The other household, however, has freshly mown grass, a clean sink, clean dishes in the cupboard, clean laundry in the dressers, and a clean floor. What is the difference? The difference in these two homes is not the rate at which things are getting dirty, the difference is the rate at which things are getting cleaned. In both homes dirty clothes end up in the hamper, but in one they also get laundered and folded. In both homes dishes get used, but in one they are washed and put away after meals. In both houses the kids play with toys, but in one they are cleaned up before dinner. Even though they generate the same amount of mess, they look, feel, and smell very differently. Life is messy and how you deal with that fact, or in some cases, how you don’t, can make it even messier.

The same thing is true of marriage. If you see two marriages and one is happy and pleasant and the other is not, the difference is not that the one has sin in it and the other one doesn’t, the difference is that the one has dealt with its sins and the other one hasn’t. The difference is not that there is no sin in the happy home, the difference is that there is no sin in it anymore. Why? Have the people in that marriage stopped sinning? No. They still sin, but they deal with it… daily. In other words, they do the spiritual dishes. Ephesians 4:32 says it this way, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you.” That is how you address the messes as they happen: you forgive others as you have been forgiven by God in Christ. A house where sin is regularly shoved into the closet or under the bed will eventually begin to stink, but a house where sin is dealt with in Christ’s name will smell like fresh bread baking in the oven.

So, why doesn’t everyone just do that? Doing one night’s worth of dishes tonight is easier than doing two night’s worth tomorrow, right? Sure, but you know what’s even easier? Not doing the dishes… at least at first. But life still happens and things add up and eventually you have a sink full of dirty dishes that is threatening to invade the countertop. As hard as it was to do dishes last night, it is that much harder now that another day’s worth of dishes have been added to them. Not to mention that they are literally harder to do now that the gunk has had some time to harden. If you don’t rinse oatmeal off day one, you might as well throw the plate away. They should build houses out of old oatmeal. The same can be said for ketchup. It rinses off with some water now, but later it will require some muscle.

The same is true of sin. It is hard to repent when you’ve done something wrong and it is hard to forgive when you’ve been hurt, but it is much harder to repent once you’ve allowed that sin to harden and it’s a lot harder to forgive when you’ve allowed a crust to form over your heart. Life is made up of little things and they all add up. What we call a long day is usually just a lot of short trials added together. And that is why long days call for short accounts. Those little things, if left unresolved, can become a big deal. And that is where our text comes in.

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

Everything has its problems. If you are single, you have the kind of problems single people have and if you are married, you have the kind of problems married people have. In our text, foxes are the problem. If you have a garden, you will have foxes and the more fruitful the garden, the more critters you will have to contend with. Now, you can either watch them destroy your garden or you can deal with them. It is the same with marriage. If you have a fruitful marriage, you will have sins that try to sneak in and wreck it and the more fruitful the marriage, the more attractive it will be to poachers. Keep in mind: the foxes are the problem, not the fruit. And sometimes, it’s the little ones that end up causing some of the biggest problems.

The good news is that little foxes cannot do as much damage as the big ones and they are much easier to stamp out. The problem with little foxes is that they are much harder to catch and easier to take less seriously. It’s just a little fox. It’s actually kinda cute. Can we keep it? What should we name it? But if you cater to them simply because they are little, they will end up devouring your entire garden. Over time they will only grow bigger and stronger with every bite, and if you wait too long, they will grow too strong for you. This is the same when it comes to sin. The time to deal with little sins is when they are little. Their size makes it easy for them to sneak in, but it makes it easier for you to deal with them. Consider James 1:15-16 “Desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. Do not be deceived.” Little sins are not little evils. They are just as evil as the big ones, they just lack the ability to do as much damage as they would like to. Sins are evil from the moment of conception. They are wicked even when they don’t seem like that big of a deal. When they are that little, they cannot be seen by others and the one who has them might not even notice them. But eventually, they develop into something no one can ignore.

A woman who is 3 weeks pregnant might not even know it herself, and a woman who is 2 months pregnant might be the only one who knows, but a woman who is 9 months pregnant cannot hide it from anyone. The same is true of sin. Once conceived, it will grow in secret, but it won’t stay a secret forever. It will eventually be born and when it grows up, it will kill you. “Do not be deceived.” Your sins will slay you the first chance they get. You cannot domesticate your disobedience. There are no tame sins. So, as John Owen once put it, you must “be killing sin or it will be killing you.” That means catching the little foxes and tossing them out of your garden before they become big foxes. Repent of your little sins and walk away from them before they get strong enough to destroy your life. Weeds will grow. Foxes will come. Rabbits will get in. And if you do not deal with them, you will be one of those unfortunate souls who used to have a garden. So, put up fences, pull up weeds, and spray for bugs. What a good gardener would do for his garden, you must do for your marriage. Let’s change the metaphor for a moment.

CHANGING THE METAPHOR

Consider Ecclesiastes 10:18 “Through sloth the roof sinks in, and through indolence the house leaks.” Laziness leads to the roof caving in and indifference leads to leaks. When a roof caves in, it appears to happen all at once. It was there a second ago and now it’s all over the floor. Anyone can see that. But what they don’t see is the years of neglect that led to that final collapse. Anything that can be put off, often is, unless someone takes the initiative. You don’t have to change the oil in your car this afternoon, for example, but if you put it off long enough, you will have to replace the engine. You don’t have to get a new roof on your home this afternoon, but if you neglect it long enough you will have water in your house. Many emergencies were actually years in the making. In other words, they were avoidable, but no one took the initiative to avoid them because they weren’t demanding anyone’s immediate attention. It reminds me of something one of Hemingway’s characters said after being asked how he went bankrupt. His response was, “Two ways: Gradually, then suddenly.” That is how it often happens. 

Clutter builds up over time. Remember our two households from before. Both were making messes at the same rate, but only one was addressing them as they came up. As a result, one of them was slowly falling apart and the other was thriving. The condition of the one was deteriorating over time and someday, someone is going to look around and ask, “How did we get here” I’ll tell you how: gradually and then suddenly. It added up and then all of a sudden it was too much. That is what can happen in a home where disrespect, neglect, unforgiveness, unkindness, selfish ambition, and bitterness have been accumulating. Every unforgiven sin is like another dirty dish in the sink. If that is your home, you are in a rough spot, but even still, you are not yet without hope. Your house has not been condemned yet. So, confess your sins, forgive your spouse, grab a sponge, and get to work. Start with the dishes on top and work your way down. You don’t have to do the dishes at the bottom of the pile yet. You can only do what you can do, but you must do what only you can do. There is no such thing as cruise control Christianity and there is no such thing as a set it and forget it marriage. Some assembly is required. 

To repurpose one of Chesterton’s observations, “Can you hate your marriage enough to want to change it and yet love it enough to think it worth changing?” Some people hate the state of their marriage, but do not love it enough to change it, and so they seek a divorce. Some love their marriage, but do not hate their sins enough, so nothing changes. So, can you hate its faults and love it enough to fix them? Can you hate the sins that come against it, even if they are your own? If your marriage feels like a sink full of dishes, you need to hate the habits that led to that enough to change them and you need to love your marriage enough to start doing the dishes. All spouses have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. No marriage is perfect. But if that is the case, you’d expect all married people to be miserable, right? But look around, some aren’t. Why? The grace of God? Sure, but not if by that you mean something like “They got lucky.” No, it really is the grace of God, but the grace of God is the hard and humbling work of getting into the habit of confessing our sins and forgiving the sins of others, just as God in Christ has done for us. So, if you want that, but you don’t know where to start, what should you do? That is where our NT reading from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount comes in.

SHORT ACCOUNTS FROM THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

In :21-26 Jesus is clear: our disposition to God is connected to our disposition to men. So much so, in fact, that if you are bowing before God in prayer and realize, at that moment, that you owe someone an apology, you should stop what you are praying, get up, and go to that person in order to ask them for forgiveness. If you are not already in the habit of doing that, someone else is in the habit of giving you more grace than you realize… and much more than you deserve. Understand how important this is: obedience is better than sacrifice. God wants you to get right with those you have wronged before you give Him anything. He doesn’t need what you are trying to give nearly as much as your neighbor needs that apology or as much as you need to learn to humble yourself.

And notice that there is an urgency to this. “Come to terms with your accuser” How? “Quickly” Not when you get around to it or when you feel like it, but right now, this very instant. If anyone has an accusation against you, go to them and come to terms with them right now. Do not allow any accusation against you to linger. If you were in the wrong, you are in debt. You owe them an apology. Do not force them to extend a line of credit to you for another day. Pay what you owe and say, “I’m sorry.” In other words, keep short accounts. Do not let debts go long unpaid and do not refuse someone who is attempting to pay you what they owe. Ask for forgiveness as quickly as you are able and accept an apology as soon as it is offered. Make a habit of addressing things in real time and do not put them off until later. It will never be convenient to have an uncomfortable conversation and apologies are always inconvenient. But it doesn’t get any more comfortable later. In fact, it usually gets worse. So, pay what you owe as soon as you owe it. Consider Proverbs 3:27 “Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it.” Is an apology a good thing? Yes? Is it owed to someone you have wronged? Yes. Is it within your power to say, “Sorry.” Yes. So, pay what you owe. Do not withhold a good apology from one to whom it is due.

Ok, but how many times do I have to do that? As often as you need to dingdong. And if you are on the other end of the equation, the answer is the same. How often do you need to forgive someone? As often as they ask. Consider Matthew 18:21-22 “Then Peter came up and said, ‘Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I do not say to you seven times.’” Phew, dodged a bullet there, right? Wrong! Let the Man finish. As He was saying, ‘I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.’” What? That’s way more! Peter thought he was being generous by offering to forgive his brother up to seven times, but Jesus turns it around and condemns him for his stinginess. Here’s the point: in Christ, there is more forgiveness than there are sins… thanks be to God! And we need to learn to imitate that reality.

Now, if being sinned against seventy-seven times by the same person in the same way seems hard to imagine, you’re probably not married and you definitely do not have kids. When we’re upset, we’re tempted to say things like, “You always…” which is more than seventy-seven. But what if instead of exaggerating, you’ve actually been counting… and this is the seventy-eighth time, are you now justified in being upset? Maybe, a little; but are you justified in withholding forgiveness if they say they’re sorry again? No. How many times have you sinned against God? And how many times has He forgiven you? Go and forgive one another like that.

What is more likely? Someone saying the same hurtful thing to you seventy-seven times or someone saying something so hurtful that you remember it seventy-seven times. They only said it once, but it left a mark… a mark you remember often and still think about it a lot. So, what should you do? Forgive them… again. Each and every time you remember it, you need to remind yourself that you have already forgiven them. You must resist the temptation to make them apologize to you again. Instead, you must force yourself to forgive them… again. Your unforgiving heart is your problem, not theirs. Your bitterness is your fault.

Where short accounts are not kept, long days will follow and that can lead to a longing for a change. And that is the next thing Jesus addresses in :27-30. When you are discontent with your spouse, you will be tempted to look lustfully for another. You might wonder if it would be easier to end your marriage than it would be to try to mend it. Rather than apologize to your spouse, you might look for someone you haven’t wronged yet and instead of paying what you owe, you might look for someone you don’t owe anything to…  yet. 

And that is why you have to take this business of short account more seriously. You need to get radical. If your right eye is always critical, you need to cut it out. If your right hand is always clenched in a fist, you need to cut it off. If your right way of thinking is leading to bitterness in your heart, you need to take those thoughts captive and force them to obey Christ. It is better for you to lose an argument and save your marriage than it is to win the fight and lose your spouse. Strictly speaking, there is no winning against your spouse. A loss for one of you is a loss for both of you. Your team doesn’t get any points when you dunk on your own basket. And if you make a habit out of embarrassing your teammate, you won’t have a team left, and that is where Jesus goes next.

:31-32 Divorce only looks attractive after things have gotten ugly. But even then, it is NOT an easy out. It is more than paperwork. As painful as gouging an eye out is, it can be survived and as hard as losing a hand off would be, you could learn to live without it, but a divorce is a death. It is not a surgery, it is an autopsy. Divorce is more like a murder than a mutilation and that is why this is urgent. You must be more willing to lose a limb than you are to lose your life. You must be more willing to cut yourself off from things today than you are to kill your marriage tomorrow. 

WISDOM FOR WEDDINGS

And that leads us to our OT reading. Let’s walk through Pr 27:1-18 and apply it to our topic du jour. :1 Do not put off until tomorrow what you know should be done today. Do not presume upon the patience of your spouse. If you owe an apology now, give it now. Do not boast about how humble and repentant you will be tomorrow, be humble and repentant right now. :2 Also, do not boast about how reasonable you’re being, that’s not a reasonable thing to do. Be reasonable and allow your spouse to praise you for it. Do not spend a lot of time giving yourself credit for all that you do. Instead, spend more time thinking about all that your spouse does. And then make sure you are recognizing and honoring them for it. Do this often and it will lighten the mood of the home. :3-4 Holding grudges, however, will make everything feel heavier. Every little thing will be a big deal. So, if you have an issue with your spouse, either bring it to them or let it go, but whatever you do, don’t sit on it. If it’s big enough to bring up, bring it up. If it’s small enough to let go, let it go. But do not add it to an ongoing list of wrongs. 

And while you’re at it, ditch that list. “Love keeps no records of wrongs” (1 Cor 13:5). If you come to me with a long list of everything your spouse has done wrong, I know at least one thing to put on the list of things you’ve done wrong. The sins of others do not justify our own. If they did, Jesus died for no reason. We wouldn’t need to look to the cross, we could just look to the list of all the times we’ve been wronged. Instead of a cross necklace, we could keep a list of complaints on a chain around our necks. If that sounds ridiculous, it is because it is. So, if you’re doing that, knock it off. We are not justified by being victims. We are justified by confessing our offenses and forgiving those who’ve offended us.

:5-6 An open rebuke is better than hidden love, but a hidden rebuke is worse than either. A hard word can sting and a good word that is withheld can hurt, but a constant grumbling under the breath is unbearable. Either let it be known or let it go. And expect the same treatment in return believing that it is better to feel stupid about being bad than it is to feel good about being stupid. But rebukes require relational bank. Giving a rebuke is like writing a check. If you have bank with someone, you can make a withdrawal every once in a while; but if you don’t have money in the relational bank, your relationship will not be able to clear the check. Relational bank is built up over time through consistent, kind, and encouraging words that serve as deposits. Someone who regularly invests in you can say hard things to you without bankrupting the relationship. But keep in mind, flattery is fiat. Do not try to steer your spouse with fake praise. Make your corrections and your kisses count. Your spouse is not your opponent.

:7 When you are satisfied at home, you can say, “No” to other offers, even if they are attractive. Just as the one who is full after dinner can say, “No, thanks!” to dessert, the one who is happy with his marriage can say, “No, thanks!” to all that devil’s food cake that shows up on his phone. But the one who is desperate cannot say, “No.” Just as a hungry person might be willing to eat bitter herbs in order to avoid starving to death, a discontent person might be willing to drink poison to quench his thirst. And so, :8, it is good for a man to spend more time at home with his wife. If he is always out with the guys or in the garage, he is in danger. A marriage is more than having a cute roommate who can cook. If you don’t like being home, work on making it somewhere you want to be. And you can’t do that from somewhere else. As Martin Luther once said, “Let the wife make the husband glad to come home, and let him make her sorry to see him leave.” That is the goal.

:9 Just as a nice bouquet adorns a room, so good advice adorns a good friendship. Blessed is the man who finds a wife who is also his friend. After all, there is only so much febreeze can do. It can make a stinky situation more tolerable, but it does not flush the toilet. Better to have a friend who helps you deal with the problem than one who merely tries to make it sound better. :10 So, do not take your spouse for granted. Once upon a time, they loved you enough to say, “I do,” and you loved them enough to say it back. Don’t let your “I do” become an “I did.” Pick up your “I do” daily and say, “Yes,” to your spouse again. Do not depend on the title of “husband” or “wife” to do all the work for you. A close friend is better than a distant spouse, but best of all is a spouse who is a close friend. So, how are things going at home? Good question. If you have kids, ask them. :11 Wisdom is justified by her children. What do your kids think of your marriage? Do they like what they see? Do you want your kids to someday have a marriage like you have right now? :12 If not, what are you going to do about that? If you see danger coming, what can you do to prevent it? Are there sins you need to confess? Habits you need to break? Are there words you need to start saying? Like “Sorry” and “ Good job.” The simple sees all of this and does nothing about it and he suffers for it… and his marriage suffers for it… and his children suffer for it. You cannot be in a covenant and keep things to yourself. I don’t just mean that you shouldn’t do that, I mean you CAN’T. Your decisions affect others.

:13 Anyone who looks for security outside of a covenant is asking to lose his shirt. If you put your trust in strangers instead of your spouse, you are begging for trouble. And if anyone outside the covenant is trying to convince you to put more trust in them than in the one you vowed to trust, that person is an adulterer. They are attempting to separate what God has joined together. :14 So, work harder to understand your spouse than you do to understand yourself. You cannot bless them without getting to know them. Just because you like early mornings doesn’t mean they do. It doesn’t matter what you call it, they will call it a curse. You can say, “I was just trying to be nice” all you like, but if they do not like what you’re doing, it isn’t nice to keep doing it. So be considerate and do unto your spouse what you would have them do unto you. That means taking the time to figure out what they like and then doing that for them, whether you feel like it or not. After all, Isn’t that what you wish they would do for you?

:15 There is a big difference between a lawn sprinkler and a leaky faucet. Both involve water, but one grows grass and the other grows tiresome. Ladies, nagging your husband is not the way to help him grow. You can call it fertilizer all you like, but its only resemblance is the smell. :16 And that’s because a nag is impossible to satisfy. Once you address one of her concerns, another one is locked and loaded. A nag never runs out of ammo. Trying to satisfy her is like trying to hold the wind in your hands or like trying to pick up spilled water with your fingers. So, do not nag.

:17 Instead, be helpful. Iron sharpens iron because they are the same. When you presume to be better than your spouse, you can cut them, but you cannot sharpen them. So, do not come in on your high horse looking to help; instead, come alongside them. If you do that, you will both grow sharper together. And lastly, :18, if you take all of this to heart and invest in your marriage, you will enjoy its fruit. As Ephesians 5:28 reminds us, “He who loves his wife loves himself.” Because you and your spouse are one, a win for them is a win for you. Looking to their interests is looking to your own. So, tend to your own fig tree and you will eat its fruit. Mind thine own beeswax and you will find more honey at home.

CONCLUSION

So, let’s end where we began. If you have a sink full of dishes waiting for you at home and you’re wondering what difference cleaning one cup will make, keep this in mind: there will always be dishes. The question is not IF there will be dishes, but HOW many and WHAT will be stuck to them? You can control some of that by what you serve, but you cannot get away from it altogether. If you think you can ever do the dishes so well that they never have to be done ever again, you don’t understand how life works. Life is messy. Do the dishes. In a similar fashion, if your goal is to repent of sin so well one big and heartfelt time that you never have to do it again, you do not understand how sin works. As Luther’s first of The 95 Theses reminds us, “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’ (Mt 4:17), He willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” So, if something gets knocked over, pick it up. If something spills, clean it up. If something breaks, sweep it up. If you lose your temper, confess it. If you get impatient, admit it. If you get grouchy, own it and don’t get even grouchier if we all notice. You’re not as good at hiding your moods as you think you are. Just admit it and move on. Moods do not go by making excuses, they go by kicking. So, have some faith and get to work: the dishes are not going to do themselves.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. 

Amen.

PRAYER

Heavenly Father, help us to be kind and compassionate to one another and to forgive one another just as You have forgiven us in Christ. Bless our marriages and help them to be faithful pictures of the Gospel. Let grace reign in our hearts and in our homes on earth as it does in Heaven. We ask these things in Jesus’ name and we offer up the words of the prayer He taught us to pray singing…