Mark Scholten

Future Glory and Present Evil

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Communion Meditation

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” Romans 8:18

The sufferings of this present time are real.

Evil is real. Sin has devastated God’s original design.  Sin has wounded you.  Evil has been visited upon you. Your sin and evil have spilled unto others as well.  Pain, suffering, injustice are real and they are weighty.

They are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed in us. I have done a quick review of my own life.  I have experienced more of the evil than I have of the glory.  The present suffering is tangible, I can touch and feel it.  The glory to come is distant; I do not fully experience nor understand it.  When I compare them, the evil seems larger, more substantial – it is real.  

Why is that? Because I do not rightly value the glory. It is a future glory; a glory that is yet to be revealed.  It is a promised glory. But I begin to see that glory is Jesus Christ. In the suffering and the victory of Jesus Christ. I see it at the cross.  He swallowed death, and sin and evil. He has overcome it.  That is the glory. 

The glory of God is the answer to the problem of evil; but many do not see it, because we do not see him.

In the cross, we see evil overcome.  In the cross, we see the love of God and the painful victory of the weeping savior.  We see the glory that is to be revealed to us.

Paul considered that the sufferings of this present age are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.  How did he do that? By faith.  Faith in the promises of God.  Faith in the victorious Christ. Faith in the glory that will be revealed to us.

That is the faith that we come to the table with.  If you have no faith, you have not seen the glory and none of this makes sense.  Don’t come to this table. 

If you have faith, even weak faith, you can see something of God, and something of the glory of Christ; you must come to this table for more.

Evil is real; God has overcome it. And God is dismantling it even now.  Glory is coming.

Nothing Shall Separate Us …

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“We are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:37-39

The foundations of our civil order may crumble, but nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The church seems weak, hesitant, confused, divided; but nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

My own walk with Christ is wavering, inconsistent; but nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

My temptation grow stronger, my faith weaker, but nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I am growing old, physically weaker than I have ever been; but nothing shale able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

In communion, heaven and earth meet. Time and eternity dwell together.  This communion lifts our heads above the turmoil and discord of this fallen world and can see Christ, high and lifted up, sitting on the throne, unopposed; with our salvation safely in his hands.

Nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.  That is what communion speaks to us.

A perfect righteousness has been achieved by Jesus, approved by God, and given to us by the Holy Spirit.  

The blood of Christ has already been shed, accepted by the Father, and applied by the Son.

At this table, we look back at a full, and complete salvation – and rejoice!

If God has ever truly singled you out for salvation and given you the gift of faith – this table shouts peace and joy to you.

Killing Sin

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When God’s Spirit gives us his presence and his salvation he also calls us to war.  War with sin. War with our sinful nature. War with our flesh. War with ourselves. To grow is grace is, in part, to kill the flesh – the vestiges of our old nature. We are either feeding the flesh and starving the Spirit, or feeding the Spirit and starving the flesh.  

The Puritans called this mortifying the flesh. “Do you mortify; do you make it your daily work; be always at it while you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you” (John Owen, Overcoming Sin and Temptation). Most Christians acknowledge this warfare as necessary and we give passing attention to it, but ….  That but is the problem.  We fight our sin like we fight our favorite unhealthy food; occasionally, half-heartedly, and with a secret plan to taste it again.

But this duel to the death with sin in not merely an old Puritan obsession, it is a Biblical command. “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Romans 8:13). “For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do” (Galatians 5:17).  We have been set free from the guilt and shame of sin, and we are being delivered from the power and presence of sin. “If you by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body…” Romans 13.  It is “by the Spirit” that we kill sin.  We are not left to our own resources, we have the full armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-20), but we must put the armor on and enter the lists. We are passionately active in this duel with our sin. God works in us and with us, but in sanctification, He will not work without us.

The Hebrew Christians had suffered greatly for their commitment to Jesus as their Messiah.  They “endured a hard struggle” “being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction.” They had “compassion on those in prison” and they “joyfully accepted the plundering of (their) property” Hebrews 10:32-34.  They were in the trenches, standing with Christ and supporting his people.  But they were wavering, and uncertain because following Christ was increasingly difficult.  Yet, even in their sincere difficulty, they are exhorted to fight sin. “In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood” (Hebrews 12:4).

It is football season and you can always tell who is winning by glancing at the scoreboard.  So, how are you doing in your battle with sin? Are you on the gridiron with your pads, your fresh bruises, and your blood, sweat, and tears? Or are you in the stands, with a greasy burger and a cold beer watching your team lose? What is the score? Brothers and sisters, to arms! The war is won, but our battle remains. Kill sin, or it will kill you.

Session Summary September 2021

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September 21, 2021

We began our meeting together with a meal in celebration of Ted Kuhn’s birthday.  We passed around a Westminster Photo Directory from 30 years ago. Three of our elders were in that book.  They are elders!!  Carla and Sharon attended our meeting and gave their input. Bryan led a devotion one the 3 R’s – Ruin, Redemption, and Restoration. We approved a new and improved Ministry Team Structure.  We are now recruiting Ministry Team Leaders and will eventually search for Ministry Team Members and other helpers.  Look for more information in the next few months.  Five special offerings were approved for the next year.  Two each for Debt Reduction and Missions, and one for Mercy.  We approved 5 elders and men from our church to fill the pulpit in the next year.  The Network of Prayer was discussed and commitments to prayer for our homes and neighborhoods were made.  A prayer map of the Augusta area will be up soon. On October 31, Laura Dekle will visit us from Engaging Disabilities Ministry.  We will also have a Reformation Day Celebration at the church that night.  No fellowship meal or prayer meeting that day.  Home Groups were discussed and preparations will be made to launch them in the next 3 or 4 months.  Our library Room is nearing completion.  A separate AV room is also in the works.  New pamphlets are available in the Narthex. The respect that our elders have for the church and for each other and the joy that they have in serving the bride of Christ is very evident and it is truly a blessing.

Hospitality

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“Hospitality is not simply inviting guests to your house, but welcoming people into your life, often at great cost to your own comfort, time, and plans. Hospitality is service to, interest in, and compassion for others.”

Joe Thorn

You’ve Got a Heart Problem

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Sin is a matter of the heart before it is ever an issue of our behavior. Tis means that your and my biggest problem in life exists inside us and not outside us. It’s the evil inside me that connects me to the evil outside me. So I must confess that I am my greatest problem. And if I confess this I am saying that I don’t so much need to be rescued from people, locations, and situations. I am in desperate need of the grace that is alone able to resue me from me. I can escape situations and relationships. But I have no power to escape me. Ths is exactly why David prayed in Psalm 51 that God would creaet a clean heart in him. God’s grace is grace for the heart, and that is very good news.
Paul David Tripp, New Morning Mercies, March 7.

Got Friends?

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The Bible’s first pages show our inescapable need for relationships. Several times the creation story in Genesis 1 repeats the phrase “and God saw that it was good” (1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25). It climaxes with the seventh occurrence: “It was very good” (v. 31). Then in chapter 2, we read of one thing that is not good: “It is not good that the man should be alone” (2:18). Adam, the first human, lives, but he lives in isolation. And that’s a problem. As Martin Luther put it, “God created man for society and not for solitude.”[1]Thus we can each make this statement our own: it is not good that [your name] should be alone.
God announces Adam’s problem and then parades the animals before him. Why this, and why now? So that Adam might feel his need for community. The animal parade made a point: apparently, pets alone won’t do. Even “man’s best friend” passed by without special notice. This was because Adam didn’t need a pet; he needed another person. Animals are special, but human friendship is of a higher order.
This takes place before sin enters the world. That’s significant. Satan has not yet slithered in, the forbidden fruit has no fingerprints, and Adam’s conscience remains clear. The first problem in human history, the first problem on the pages of Scripture, the first problem in any human life, was not sin—it was solitude.
This means that the not-goodness of Adam’s aloneness was not a result of his fallenness. Adam stood there in Eden without fault, yet he also stood alone and therefore incomplete. He was missing something essential enough to warrant the divine declaration of “not good.” Adam, untouched by sin, needed a friend. Every soul reverberates with the echoes of this Edenic ache for friendship. It’s an ancient and primal longing. We are inescapably communal.
The opening chapters of Genesis cast a vision of the good life, full of shalom—a Hebrew concept referring in its fullest sense to flourishing, joy, and harmony. And this shalom exists between God, humanity, and creation. Each sphere of the physical world—land, sea, and sky—teems with life. Yet Adam stands in the middle of this exuberant wonder world—alone. Adam has life, and that’s a start. But he also needs community.
Drew Hunter

An Encouragement for Disciples to Study

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An encouragement for disciples to study? That title is redundant. A ‘mathetes’, the Greek word for a disciple, is a learner. A disciple of Jesus Christ is committed to following him and his teaching. As Christians, we submit to Jesus and the Word that proclaims him. To be a disciple, a ‘mathetes’ is to study, to learn. Jesus in Matthew 11:29 commands us to “take my yoke upon you, and learn from me.” John 6:45 tells, “It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.” To be a disciple is to be a learner, to be a student.

The truth as it is in Jesus has never been more accessible to the church and perhaps never more neglected by the church. Neil Postman writes about the “Low Information – Action Ratio,” or LIAR for short. We are bombarded by so much trivial information that we cannot act on any of it. We are progressively trained not to act on what little we learn.  We can drink from the firehose of knowledge and get very wet but stay very thirsty. The information is out there and the truth of Jesus is available.  But our problem, I think, is the opposite. We are not drinking from a firehose, although it is accessible, we are merely dipping our little toe into the ocean of knowledge.

Do you, as a student, a disciple, have a plan or a purpose in your study of God, his Son, and his Word?  Much of our learning program as Christians, if we have one at all, is rather spontaneous, haphazard, and random. We listen to our pastor once a week, and Christian radio during the week; that is nourishment enough, we think. What is your plan to grow as a disciple, a learner of Jesus?

In seminary, pastors were encouraged to study God’s Word in a devotional manner.  We must feed our own souls first before we could prepare a meal for others.  One student read through bible commentaries for his devotions.  Another pursued Systematic Theologies for fun.  Others devoured technical treatises for their growth in grace.  Now, we are not all pastors or teachers, and I am not encouraging my brothers and sisters to study in that manner.  But there are hundreds of good, godly, and edifying Christian books designed to assist you as a disciple of Christ. Do you read them? any of them? Are you consistently and fruitfully studying the Word of God? Not merely reading it, but studying it, and growing the fruit of the Spirit because of it?

As a young Christian when I read the Bible or other Christian books I would circle the words and concepts that I did not understand.  And then, I would study until I figured it out.  So my encouragement to you, as a fellow disciple of Jesus Christ, is simply this – study to know God better. Find the time. Have a plan. Read the Bible. Begin to chase down the knowledge of God. For some, “have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus (Ephesians 4:19-21).

Don’t know where to begin to be a disciple? Pray. Read the Bible. Start with the Gospel of John.  Need more? Ask your pastor for a book. It will make his day!

Knowing God Encourages Better Friendships

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If God can make friends of us, we can make friends of anyone! We are better friends and we seek deeper friendships because we have a friendship with God. Exodus 33:11, “Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.” 2 Chronicles 20:7, “Did you not, our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel, and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend?” The Covenant of Grace has been called the Covenant of Friendship by some.  God, through the Gospel, has made us his friends.

God has also made us friendly. He has given us the tools to make friends with anyone – even the worst.  Jesus has even lead by example by befriending us. God has befriended us in this fallen world and has called us to make friends with others.

How does the gospel of grace make us better friends?

We know ourselves. We freely acknowledge our weaknesses and needs. We are finally honest with ourselves. The problem isn’t out there somewhere, but in here somewhere. And the gospel solves the problem. Through God’s grace, we begin accurately to understand our broken nature. We don’t hide the truth about ourselves from ourselves or others anymore. Knowing truth allows us to be honest, to be correctable, to drop our selfish emotional walls and phony self-protection. We can be open and brutally forthright about who we really are because we are forgiven and accepted in Christ – and he knew the worst about us. That honest self-scrutiny helps us to form better friendships in a fallen world.

We know the truth of the human condition. Fallen human nature does not surprise us because we acknowledge our own fallenness and sin.  We know that everyone struggles to live uprightly, to do the right thing, and to fight against temptation. Children of Adam know God but they selfishly suppress that knowledge and then live in fear that their sins will find them out. Their conscience speaks, somewhat accurately, and they can’t live up to its dictates let alone fulfill the law of God. Therefore, as redeemed sinners ourselves, we expect to find dirt, struggle, pain, and remorse in everyone that we meet. We can meet friends in their brokenness and need and “paraclete” them. (Paraclete is a Greek word that means to be called alongside to help, as the Holy Spirit has done for us).

We know where the medicine is found.  We are very much like hungry beggars showing other hungry beggars where to find bread.  We don’t have it all together either but we know where help resides. We are starting to heal from our brokenness and sin and we can lead others to the hospital of grace.

We don’t need a friend, so we can be a friend. Because we have found a perfect friend in Jesus, we don’t ‘need’ or crave another one.  We can be friends with anyone but we don’t need to be friends with anyone else. We don’t require co-dependents because we depend on Christ, and he is enough. To be a friend means to give yourself away in self-sacrificing love. And Christians have experienced that love in Christ and have an ever-increasing capacity to show that love to others.  We are no longer needy, so we can meet the needs of others around us.

When two growing, maturing Christians begin a friendship they can go really deep.  Mutual, self-giving love is the best soil to grow a deep and satisfying friendship.  “Iron sharpens iron.” “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.” “…There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother” (Proverbs 27:17; 17:17; 18:24).

So, dear Christian friend, you have experienced a perfect friendship, and you have the tools to form deep, abiding, eternal friendships, and, because your needs are all met in Christ, you can make friends of the friendless and needy. Through the Covenant of Friendship, we can make friends. 

Parenting by Grace

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Parenting by Grace

It’s done every day in Christian homes around the world. W

ell-meaning parents, zealous to see their children doing what is right, ask the law to do in the lives of their children what only grace can accomplish. They think that if they have the right set of rules, the right threat of punishment, and consistent enforcement, their children will be okay. In ways these parents fail to understand, they have reduced parenting to being a law-giver, a prosecutor, a jury, and a jailer… In their zeal to control behavior, they look to the tools of threat, manipulation, and guilt.

 

This way of thinking denies two significant

things that the Bible tells
us. The first is that before sin is a matter of behavior, it is always a matter of the heart. We sin because we are sinners… The second is that if threats, manipulation, and guilt could create lasting change in the life of another person, Jesus would not have had to come. (They) really do ask the law to do what only god in amazing grace is able to accomplish. 

Thankfully, God hasn’t left us to our own power to change. He meets us with transforming grace and calls us to be tools of that grace in his redemptive hands. He lifts the burden of change off our shoulders and never calls us to do what only he can do. So we expose our children to God’s law and faithfully exercise authority while we seek to be tools of heart change in the hands of a God whose grace is greater than all of the sin we’re grappling with.

Paul David Tripp