Hearing the Music

Who's Your Boss?

Throughout the scriptures there are over 500 verses talking about prayer. Certainly talking about something 500 times underscores the weight of that thing. Similarly, there are roughly 500 verses referencing faith. That makes sense seeing that prayer and faith are closely linked. I highlight this because it provides a comparison to the enormity of the weight that the scriptures put on our topic for Sunday, money, as money is talked about over 2,000 times!

That's right, the scriptures talk about money, possessions, generosity and greed 4 times more than they talk about prayer! In fact, it is estimated that roughly 25% of Jesus' teaching had to do with money. 16 out of Jesus' 38 parables capture these themes. And so we are not surprised, as Jesus is detailing the lifestyle of those who would call themselves his disciples, that he tackles the topic of one's treasure (Matthew 6:19-24). These are pretty famous verses, "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (vs.19-21). I am sure that many of you are familiar with them. But why does Jesus put such an emphasis on money? Let's face it, if a church today focused 25% of it's teaching on money there wouldn't be much of a congregation left!

Jesus is so forthright on the issue of one's treasure because he know the power that it has. One writer puts it like this, "What Jesus is saying is that money gives orders. It bosses you around. If you have your priorities right, there is only one boss, and that is God himself" (N.T. Wright). And while an urgency, a force, exists to Jesus' warnings, there is also a strong invitation to the treasure that cannot be taken and will not be destroyed. There is an invitation to security and significance that goes beyond anything our world can promise and which will never fade. It is an invitation to be yoked to the best boss you could ever dream of. One that will never take advantage of you. One that will always provide, above and beyond what you could ask, imagine or deserve. As we traverse this Lenten season, it is an invitation to look at Christ who spent himself fully in order to ransom a people hijacked by an enemy. It is an invitation to have our hearts captured.

Photo by Adam on Unsplash

Mortification

Over the last several weeks as we have been tracking through the Sermon on the Mount, we have been confronted with the numerous ways in which our sin and rebellion plague us. Anger, lust, deception, revenge all finds ways to grow within our hearts and creep into our lives. So how do we go forward? How do we make progress against hearts that would betray us?

I want to mention two things. First, we need to anchor ourselves to the righteousness that is greater than the scribes and the pharisees, that is, the righteousness that Christ earned through his life, death and resurrection and which we receive by faith. Throughout our days we need to remember Christ (the Biblical term of remembering being that of an action directed toward someone, rather than a mental recall of a subject), being in awe of the love of Christ whose depth can't be plumbed or whose height cannot be scaled. We need to believe that we are watched over and cared for by our Heavenly Father.

Then secondly, being grounded in this love, we need to get to work putting to death the tendrils of sin. Or as generations past referred to it, to begin the work of mortification. John Owen asks it poignantly: "Do you mortify? Do you make it your daily work? Be always at it whilst you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you". Mortification has strong Biblical roots. We find it in places like Romans 8:13, Galatians 5:24, and Colossians 3:5. In each of these passages, we are to give sin no ground in which to grow, no space to get up the speed necessary to derail our happiness in Christ. Mortification is not easy work, but as Owen puts it, it is necessary work: "be killing sin or it will be killing you". For the believer it is also joyful work, for in the work of mortification we truly experience the nearness of Christ.

How Long, O Lord?

I confess I had to think through my weekly greeting this morning. As you know, Thursday we woke to the the news that Russia invaded Ukraine. Is it really a "Happy Friday"? I stuck with the greeting because we know that while the nations rage and peoples plot in vain, our God still rules and reigns from his throne! It is this fact that enables us to cry out with the psalmist: "How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?" (Psalm 13:1–2).

The psalmist David was a man of war and certainly knew in times of war to cry out to his God. Dr. Tom Gibbs, President of Covenant Seminary, reflects on these heart cries in scripture: "That such questions appear in Scripture reminds us that God not only understands our plight but validates the inscrutability of our suffering. More than that, however, God intends our questions to stir our faith and lead us to more dependent prayer. As we do, we discover that there is always a subtext to the profound suffering and evil experienced in this world. That subtext, of course, is God’s sovereign, gracious, and redemptive purpose centered on our perfect King, Jesus Christ, and the victory of the cross. Despite injustice, wars, or the evil of kings, thankfully, a deeper wisdom guides this world."

These truths, these reflections, certainly stir the heart. But I also know many are asking, "What can we do practically?". For starters, we continue with our rhythms of worship. This week we are focusing on Global Missions and Dr. Thurman Williams will be with us to open the Word and open our hearts to God's global work. As we sing and pray in union with Christ, we plant a flag of faith to the glory of God.

In addition, I want to commend a couple of initiatives that the PCA has put together:

Ukraine MTW Team Zoom Call - Doug & Masha Shepherd are Mission to the World (MTW) team leaders in Lviv, Ukraine, where they serve along with other alumni. They are hosting an open Zoom call at 3pm EST this Sunday to talk about the current situation and how you can pray. This is a good opportunity to hear directly from missionaries involved.

Ukraine Disaster Relief - learn more by visiting this MTW created webpage with regular updates from their Ukraine team where you can also give directly to the disaster relief plans they are quickly having to develop.

Let me close by again quoting Dr. Gibbs: "None of us can say what will occur in Ukraine or the world in the days ahead, but we can be confident in the character of our God who hears the prayers of his children and will finally extinguish the presence of evil."

Photo by Simeon Jacobson on Unsplash