July / August 2010 Pastor's Highlander Column

JULY / AUGUST 2010
PASTOR'S COLUMN

Brothers and sisters,

Most of us have probably heard the old adage “Physician, Heal thyself!”

Well, that is indeed the way it works sometimes, and such moments of profound (and sometimes painful) self-awareness are frequently accompanied by now widely recognized head-knocking gesture that says, “Wow, I could have had a V-8”.

Back in May I addressed the Fourth Commandment’s call upon us to observe the Sabbath, and as I did I shared the story of the young lumberjack with the dulled axe blade who is challenged with the question, “When’s the last time you sharpened your axe?”

In the interest of self-disclosure, let me report that I had one of those “V-8 moments” two weeks ago when I attended a week’s worth of classes at Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge. I realized for the first time in quite awhile that we all need such moments of Sabbath, of down-time and of withdrawal from the general “busyness” of life.

For a week I was forced to pretty much detach from the over-scheduling in which so many of us engage, from cell-phone calls, text-messaging, e-mails, Facebook, the internet, meetings, television and newspapers. It was liberating, exhilarating and somewhat overwhelming all at the same time. I realized suddenly how dull my axe had become and how quick I’ve become at responding and reacting to 18 to 20 hour a day information overload.

And after reflecting on this opportunity to “disconnect” and really start to pray deeply and process again, I found it fascinating to watch a piece on cable news several days ago about a new book by Nicholas Carr called The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains that addressed exactly the place I was finding myself.

Carr talks extensively about the current “wired” phenomenon in which so many of us have become engaged. And his contention is that we’ve been so glutted by information that studies now show that the majority of Europeans and North Americans now have about a 14 second attention span. We see “the new thing”, we react to it very quickly and superficially on Facebook or Twitter using our cell-phones, and then we’re on to the next “new, new thing”.

In short we, as a people and nation, are suffering from cultural Attention Deficit Disorder.

So, do we all really need to have that Sabbath to re-connect with God, ourselves and the world around us? Let’s all, grandparents, parents and kids, ask ourselves some of the following questions:

• How many hours do we and our children spend on-line?

• How many hours of TV are we all watching?

• How many separate schedule items do we, as individuals and families, manage to cram into each day?

• How many phone calls a day do we and our children make and receive?

• How often do each of us receive text-messages on cell phones, and are we receiving or sending them at inappropriate times like when we should be paying attention to the friends and family with whom we’re sitting down to eat?

• Are we thinking about what’s going on around us, or are we just reacting?

In my week of “forced disconnect”, I spent a lot of time in study and prayer that forced me to look at myself in more realistic ways. And as I was thinking through these and many other issues I was in daily contact with a classmate, Bishop Jwan Zhumbes, head of a 69 church diocese in the Anglican Church of Nigeria.

Bishop Jwan’s diocese is out in the bush country, it’s about the size of the Slippery Rock - Moniteau area. Many of his people struggle through the day just to find day-work, food and the other necessities of life, and yet they are filled with great faith and their churches are growing at rates not seen in this country in more than 100 years. He said to me, “Rusty, consider this: in 1900, there were 7 million Anglican Christians in all of Africa. Now there are 77 million and that’s just Anglicans, that doesn’t count all the other kinds of Christians.”

Between this idea of Sabbath, of disconnecting from the world to be in touch with Christ our Lord and deep prayer about who I am, and who we are as American Christians, God smacked me upside the head and I was reminded of an old prayer that I had first seen when I was in high school. It was painted on the chapel wall at the Aspinwall V.A. Hospital, and says this:

A CONFEDERATE SOLDIER'S PRAYER:
I asked God for strength, that I might achieve,
I was made weak, that I might learn humbly to obey.
I asked God for health, that I might do greater things,
I was given infirmity, that I might do better things.
I asked for riches, that I might be happy,
I was given poverty, that I might be wise.
I asked for power, that I might have the praise of men,
I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God.
I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life,
I was given life, that I might enjoy all things.
I got nothing that I asked for — but everything I had hoped for.
Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.
I am among men, most richly blessed.

“Physician, Heal thyself!” Those words ring back to me. For a week, God disconnected me from a lot of things I’d begun to treat as essential, and made me realize afresh that what is essential is my full heart in His capable and loving hands so that I can be molded more in the image of my King.

“I got nothing that I asked for — but everything I had hoped for. Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered. I am among men, most richly blessed.”
Let’s all think about Nicholas Carr’s warning. Let’s make Summer 2010 the Sabbath we take from the world around us so that we can get “wired in” with Christ Jesus our Lord and be strengthened and renewed. See you in worship on the Lord’s Day!

Grace & Peace,
Pastor Rusty+

June 2010 Pastor's Highlander Column

JUNE 2010
PASTOR'S COLUMN

Brothers and sisters,

As we pass through Mothers’ Day and prepare to observe Fathers’s Day, it occurs to me that this would be a really great time to think not only on our personal parental relationships, but also on the ways in which they point us back to God the Father and to that portion of His Law that deals with parents and children.

The Lord commands in Exodus 20:12 that we are to “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.”

As we begin this study of the Fifth Commandment, I am reminded of a classic quote from celebrated humorist and author Mark Twain who, in the course of an 1874 essay carried in Atlantic Monthly observed that, “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.”

With some starts and stops we began looking at the First Commandment last year just after Father’s Day 2009, and while it may seem that a year is a long time to linger over just five commandments, I think it is highly significant that we have this conjunction of dates, times and studies. We noted last year that, rooted in the First Commandment’s imperative to remember and serve the God who alone redeemed Israel from Egyptian bondage, was the notion of His eternal Fatherhood over those whom He has created, claimed as His own and redeemed.

All of us are fallen individuals mired in our own egos, concerns, desires and plans. And, as such, all of us are fully able to become so self-absorbed that “we” become the measure of all that we see. When we do so, we lose sight of all else and come to over-value our own judgments and desires. This is the first casualty of our sinfulness — our relationship to and with God the Father and His rightful authority over us.

This situation is what imbues Twain’s quote with so much of its humor. At some level, most of us recognize our capacity for navel-gazing self-absorption and self-righteousness. We remember, with both humor and pain, the ways in which we have blown-off and ignored or rebelled against that authority. But that knowledge comes only with experience and self-awareness; experience of a few or many miles stuck in the mud of our own stubborn pride and sinfulness, and awareness of our inherent rebelliousness.

God, too, is supremely aware of this tendency on our part, and addressed it head-on in what the Apostle Paul calls “the first commandment with a promise” (Eph. 6:1-4). Paul’s rephrasing of the commandment is particularly apt for us in a day in which we see the unfolding disaster of family dissolution and dysfunction. He phrases it this way: “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ‘Honor your father and mother’ (this is the first commandment with a promise), ‘that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.’ Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”

God’s authority, wisdom, instruction and discipline are designed to be mediated to us through strong parental relationships. God is the ultimate Father. He is the proto-type and standard for all parents, and has created us in such a way that this bond is the centerpiece of all other relationships. Because of this, parents are supposed to be the representatives of God to their children, showing love, care, instruction, compassion, discipline and grace.

Children are called to honor, value and respect their parents. And when they do so, as St. Paul reminds us, they are called to do so “in the Lord”. This means that the honor, respect and value that they show to their parents is a recognition and reminder of that role that God has in our lives. It is vitally important to us to recognize and respect the sheer fact of our own being. God ordained and permitted our parents to be the agents of our existence. He used them to bring us into this world and, in a certain derivative sense, we owe them everything we have and are. Without them, we would not even exist.

This is a key lesson to which we should all pay primary attention. We must remember, celebrate and honor this commandment from our dual perspectives as both children and parents. As children we are called to honor and obey our own parents “in the Lord.” But, in a similar fashion, we, as parents, are called to emulate God’s example of righteous Fatherhood.

As children we are to listen, learn and produce the fruits of godliness in thankful answer and duplication of Christ’s example as obedient child. As parents we are to demonstrate that wisdom, love and grace that have been extended to us by a holy God who not only created us, but has also redeemed us at high personal cost. This is why St. Paul includes his final admonition: “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” He knows that there is an inherent balance in the commandment. Parents should not needlessly provoke their children to rebellion and discontent, but children are still to be respectful and obedient.

None of us is exempted from this command. It is of universal scope and significance. Whether the best or the most wretched, all parents are still representatives of God in this regard. And this is what makes broken familial relationships, child abandonment and abuse so horrible; they cut directly to the heart of this representative role and purposefully mar and scar it. Likewise, deliberate rebellion and disrespect by children towards their parents is equally destructive and hurtful.

Either the one or the other make mockery of the God of heaven, His creation and His work of our redemption. In fact, to demean, diminish or ignore this commandment is tantamount to deliberately pulling on that loose thread in a hand-knit garment. All of us know that pulling that thread will result in the eventual unraveling of the entire garment.

But, on the flip-side, there is hope in the midst of the worst of family tragedy and disaster: God, who is supreme, is our ultimate parent. Yahweh promises us repeatedly that He will both execute justice and provide for the widow and the orphan and that great curses will fall upon those who pervert that justice or ignore their suffering because it is God’s will that they should be provided for and cared for adequately.

So, in a day when more and more families are falling apart, when fatherless youth fall into rebellion, sin, crime and hopelessness or callous disregard, let us remember that God is not yet finished with us. He does hear the cries of the broken, crushed, dispossessed and wayward. Through the finished work of His Son on the cross, the transforming nature of the Resurrection and the awakening and illuminating work of the Holy Spirit He provides for our forgiveness, redemption and restoration.

Once, this word of command, served only to condemn and crush any of us who failed to meet its high standard. But on this side of the cross, it is a powerful statement of hope and purpose. Because God sent His only-begotten Son to die for us and Raised Him up again to His right hand, we have a hope that our relationships may be transformed and restored from even the most bleak circumstances.

As you study, reflect on and think about this command, take a look at the fantastic true story of Baltimore Raven Michael Oher and of his foster parents Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy which was so lovingly adapted and told in the book and movie The Blind Side. Oher was a functional orphan whose father deserted the family and whose mother, a crack addict, abandoned him to the “tender mercies” of Memphis, Tennessee’s foster system and the meanest of her worst streets. Oher never stopped loving and respecting his mother –– even in her most unlovable moments, and God provided to him two loving “parents” who took seriously their call as believers.

This story is nothing less than the marvelous outworking of God’s grace to supply the objective conditions of His command. And it is the dramatic demonstration of the instruction given to us in the Heidelberg Catechism’s “Q & A 104” which tell us:
Q 104: What is God's will for you in the fifth commandment?
A 104: That I honor, love, and be loyal to my father and mother and all those in authority over me; that I obey and submit to them, as is proper, when they correct and punish me; and also that I be patient with their failings — for through them God chooses to rule us.

So, as we remember Mothers’ Day just past, and celebrate this upcoming Fathers’ Day; as we worship, study, pray and act, let’s look to the nature and purpose of the Fifth Commandment. Let us be instructed anew and refreshed. See you in worship on the Lord’s Day!

Grace & Peace,
Pastor Rusty+

May 2010 Pastor's Highlander Column

MAY 2010
PASTOR'S COLUMN

Brothers and sisters,

Some months ago, I heard a story about a young, up-and-coming lumberjack who possessed the reputation for being among the fastest of new “axemen” in the business; he’d never met a tree he could not cut down, and he prided himself on his reputation.

After some months heavy work in a grove of redwoods, first his daily, then weekly, and finally monthly tally of felled trees began to decrease and then to fall precipitously. Greatly concerned over his growing lack of productivity, and feeling the stinging taunts of other “up-and-comers” whose tallies were beginning to catch him up, the lumberjack quietly cornered one of the older men on the job-site.

As the budding “Paul Bunyan” took the older man aside, he expressed his great consternation as he said, “Tom, I need help. I’m worried sick. I keep working as hard as I ever have, and at the end of the day, I’m as tired as I’ve ever been, but my tally keeps getting smaller and smaller. I’m afraid that I must be getting sick and that the foreman will fire me. What do I do?”

The more experienced lumberjack looked at him for a moment and then began to chuckle. “What’s so funny?” the younger man asked, heatedly.

“When’s the last time you thoroughly sharpened your axe?” he asked the younger man.

* * *

Now, as we return to our study of the Ten Commandments with a look at the Fourth Commandment, “Remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy,” I ask us to think about this story and answer for ourselves when the last time was that we really sharpened our axes.

Consider that we live in an age of non-stop momentum and movement. Every moment of every day is filled with a zillion different activities. From school to work, sports practices to shopping, our calendars are so full-to-bursting that most of us have no idea what’s next on our agendas until we physically consult our day-planners.

The largest selling cell-phone and computer applications — after music downloads — are calendar applications. Apple Computer’s calendars always sell out quickly because they will help one to synchronize calendars between and among cell phones, Personal Data Assistants and computers. And this phenomenon tends to indicate that we, as a society, are highly over-scheduled, so much so, in fact, that we now have to schedule and highly organize even our leisure-time activities.

And frequently, when we do so, we manage to disregard the needs of others for their “leisure time”. As a matter of fact, when we lived in New York State, we lived in a farming region heavily populated by “Buggy” Mennonites (close cousins to the Amish). You could find several Mennonite farm stands on just about any road in the county, and all of them had this in common: a sign that said, “Closed on Sundays”. I can’t tell you how many times I heard tourists from large urban areas get vocally angry that they couldn’t buy Mennonite vegetables, baked goods and cheese or maple syrup on a Sunday. “How can they be so stupid (fit other popular adjectives here such as: stubborn, narrow-minded, old-fashioned, etc) as to be closed on a Sunday? Who closes on Sundays? Why would they do something dumb like that? I wanted home-made bread!”

But let’s consider that such scenes and spectacles are not only unseemly, but also un-necessary. God made provision for our needed rest. The Fourth Commandment, as recorded in Exodus 20:8-11 runs as follows:

"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy."

This is the “bridge commandment” between the first three and the last six. In the first three; [1] You shall have no other gods; [2] You shall not make any idols; and, [3] You shall not take the name of the Lord in vain; God has vouchsafed His own reputation and reminded us of His absolute supremacy and sovereignty over the covenant He has made. Granted, as we have previously discussed these provisions, are for our benefit, but they are principally concerned with God’s role and rule over all creation.

This commandment, however, is concerned with our necessary rest. It references God’s own rest after creation, but in it, God expresses His concern that a people held in centuries of involuntary bondage and unmercifully forced to work without rest or recuperation might find refreshment and restoration. Let us remember the context of the commandment as God gave it to Moses. Yahweh calls Moses to Mt. Sinai in order to give him the tablets of the Law. And as He does so, He is establishing for Himself His people. They had been beaten down so long and so hard that they could scarcely see themselves as a people, and could barely remember the covenant promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. If Pharaoh had forgotten who Joseph was, the Israelites weren’t faring much better.

God steps forward and gives them His Covenant, and within that covenant, he provides them the rest they long for and need.

But, we, too, should re-consider the commandment.

The context of the command makes sense for the Israelites. We can understand why God might have given it to them under the circumstances from which they emerged. But, it goes further than that. The text of the commandment, itself, refers not to Egypt, but to creation, which means this command has universal application because all of us are products of creation.

Too often we humans look at God’s commands and see them as meddlesome and burdensome, or, alternatively, we try to add to them because we treat them chiefly as being tests of our ritual purity, devotion and personal morality and righteousness. But, here, God makes it clear that this is a responsibility not just to Himself, but also a reasonable way to ensure that we continue to live and function properly. This is the God-ordained “axe sharpening time.”

We can ignore the call upon us — and in contemporary America that is effectively what we have done. In a 60 - 75 year period we have moved from a national standard under compulsory Blue Laws that bordered on the “Pharisaic”, to a complete ignorance of the standard at all. Where once it was illegal for pretty much any business to be open unless an emergency health restriction could be proved in advance. Now, we have moved to a point where, thanks to a 1985 Supreme Court decision, any governmentally-mandated work schedule exemptions based on the Sabbath are an illegal imposition of religion. An employer may grant someone a Sabbath day-off, but he does not need to.

With that in mind, let us look briefly at the reasonable interpretation and understanding provided to us by the Heidelberg Catechism, which asks and then answers the question for us in a Christian and pastoral way that shows awareness of both Christ’s complete fulfillment of the Law and our personal need for refreshment:

• Q 103] What is God's will for us in the fourth commandment?
• A 103] First, that the gospel ministry and education for it be maintained, and that, especially on the festive day of rest, I regularly attend the assembly of God's people to learn what God's Word teaches, to participate in the sacraments, to pray to God publicly, and to bring Christian offerings for the poor. Second, that every day of my life I rest from my evil ways, let the Lord work in me through the Spirit, and so begin in this life the eternal Sabbath.

This answer takes awareness of our human need for rest, gives us God’s own example from Creation, and then reminds us that Sabbath-keeping should be a joyful celebration of God’s provision for us— not some dour, sour painful exercise in personal self-righteousness. Further it is a foretaste of, and personal participation in our future Eternal Rest with God in the New Heavens and New Earth. This is a celebration that will begin with the Marriage Feast of the Lamb and will continue forever more.

All of us need time to rest and recharge from our over-full lives of chaotic, hyper-scheduled activity. We also need time to study, pray, worship and celebrate the providence and grace of the One Who has redeemed us from our exile in a broken world of sin and death. Let us celebrate God’s provision for us and seriously ask ourselves, “When is the last time I sharpened my axe?”

See you in worship on the Lord’s Day!

Grace & Peace,
Pastor Rusty+

February 2010 Pastor's Highlander Column

FEBRUARY 2010
PASTOR'S COLUMN

Brothers and sisters,

As you read this 14 of us from Highland Church prepare for a week-long mission trip to Slidell, Louisiana, which actually gives us a wonderful opportunity to take up the second half of our study of the Third Commandment: “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.” (Exodus 20:7)

On first glance these two items may not seem directly related, but they are because we are about to look at the positive side to the negative prohibition.

This commandment concerns far more than merely avoiding the bringing disrepute to God’s name or rashly yelling “Oh my God!” when we’re shocked, terrified or overjoyed. It is about the ways in which we, as God’s chosen covenant people, reflect His name and character to the world around us.

Since the beginnings of the Christian Church, the world has labeled us as Christians, or “Little christs”. It’s a name with which we may not be entirely comfortable because of the great weight it places on our shoulders. But that name, in itself, allows us to interact more closely with the purpose and seriousness of the command.

Last month we examined the negative side of the commandment, observing that God takes it so seriously that He tells He holds “no one guiltless who takes His name in vain.” That’s an enormously large stick to place before us, but when we look further we discover that it is also just the beginning of what we are called to know, do and be.

Consider the importance that God places on His name in His dealings with people. Two instances from the Old Testament provide good illustration of the point:

• [1] In Genesis 15:17 - 20 God appears to Abram in a dream and guarantees His promise that an old man and his barren wife would have a son and a heritage. As He does so, God, personified as a flaming torch, marches between two cut halves of a sacrificial bull. In effect, God says to Abram, “I swear upon My own self and name. If I don’t fulfill My promises, I won’t be God anymore" (Gen. 15:17-20).
• [2] When God first appears to Moses in the burning bush (Exodus 3:13 - 17) Moses asks God by what name He should be presented to the elders among the Hebrew slaves. God orders Moses to tell them“I am Who I am” has sent Moses on his mission. “Yahweh”, which means “I am” is the very definition of all being and existence. God Himself created us and all that exists from nothing and His name reflects His total sovereignty over all things.

Practically speaking, when our 14 travelers go to Slidell, we will be going in the Name of our Lord. We will be bearing on us the name of “Christian”. We will be representing God’s majesty, righteousness, grace and providence to people who have been badly battered and are in great need of the comfort that God provides. This, then, is the positive side to the negative command. By the power of the Holy Spirit at work in us, we will strive to bring God’s name glory rather than to put it in disrepute.

And this is precisely what St. Paul talks about in Philippians 2:1-13 when he says:

• 1 Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, 2 fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. 3 Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. 4 Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.
• 5 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 Who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to equal with God, 7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
• 12 Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not as in my presence, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to do for His good pleasure.

The Shorter & Larger Catechisms ask us the question “What is man’s chief end?” and then answer with “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” This confessional statement distills the Bible’s teaching (and especially Paul’s words here) about how to live out the Third Commandment.

Paul addresses both positive and negative aspects of how we bring glory to God’s name and reputation rather than shame, but he does so with full recognition that some won’t believe or obey. Those who do not will not like the end to which they are brought.

Paul leaves unvoiced the question "How is it that we glorify God and enjoy Him forever?” and jumps right into the answer: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus . . .” This means that we can only approach and glorify God by the means He provides to us. The only glory we give Him comes through union with the incarnate Messiah. Emmanuel, God with us.

God saves us (justifies and makes us right with Himself) by His grace through the gift of faith in Christ, but we are called to follow and obey Him in all we do. Anytime we are disobedient and faithless, we devalue God’s name, reputation and the gift of salvation He gives. At first this may seem an overstatement of the case — surely we can honor God in the way seems best to us! Right?!?

NO!. That is exactly the strategy that God condemns as unacceptable. If we were to seriously argue this line of reasoning in purely human terms, it would be roughly the same thing as arguing that if we were to find some piece of exquisite craftsmanship, we could determine what we pay for it rather than paying the craftsman's stated price. Anyone who tried this would hear the craftsman yell, “STOP THIEF!”

Paul then hammers home the point with an analogy to the life and mind of Christ. Jesus of Nazareth was God “made man”. He voluntarily surrendered the use of His omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence so He could become one of us. He didn’t cease to be God, but He became fully human. But, in this dual nature, He chose not to exploit His divinity. He honored and glorified the Father fully. He was totally obedient, right up to the fact of His sacrificial death for our redemption. In all He said, thought or did, Jesus glorified His Father and never regarded God’s name, character or reputation vainly. Because of this, Jesus is supreme. He is the appointed King, Mediator and Savior for His Chosen People who are called by His name. He is God and yet He is also what we are. And for those reasons God has both established and fulfilled in Christ the promise He made to Israel.

Christ indeed is lord to the glory of God the Father, but He is also a King like no other. He not only commands obedience to the Law for all of His subjects (everything He created is subject to Him), but He also enables and empowers those who willingly approach Him and surrender their rebellion to do what it is that He has commanded.

Thus we are commanded and empowered to produce the fruits of repentance that bring honor and glory to the Lord of Hosts and never dishonor, disgrace and shame. This is what Paul means when He says "work out your salvation with fear and trembling." It doesn’t mean that we work to be saved. It means we have already been saved by grace by faith so we can do the work He assigns us.

The God who warns that “He will not hold blameless those who make His name vain” is the same God who says through Paul that “every knee shall bow and every tongue will confess”. As we do the work and spread the word of Him who predestines, justifies and will glorify us, we actively surrender to Him. We uphold His name, His character, His honor, and His sovereignty. In that resides True life and freedom. Take not the Lord's name in vain because every knee will bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is God to the glory of God the Father.

Grace & Peace,
Pastor Rusty+

January 2010 Pastor's Highlander Column

January 2010
Pastor’s Column

Brothers and sisters,

We have just celebrated “The Event” of Cosmic History — the incarnation of God in human flesh and His birth as an infant in Bethlehem two millennia ago — and with that in mind, this is the perfect opportunity to consider how we address and speak about our Emmanuel [God with us] as we also begin our study of the Third Commandment.

The Third Commandment warns us that, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.” (Exodus 20:7)

During the holiday run-up this year, while we should have been busy renewing our devotion to the Prince of Peace, advertisers’ commercials and circulars seemed to celebrate more than ever the basest desires to serve oneself before serving others. So far as contemporary Western culture is concerned, life really is “all about “ME”. Added to such trends this year was the 24/7 rendition of Tiger Woods’ indiscretions that seemed to be heralded by every conceivable form of media.

Even a quick survey of magazine titles seems to confirm the symptoms and the diagnosis of self-absorbed idolatry and vanity. Consider the following: a quick glance at modern American magazine titles of the last 75 years reveals the depth and breadth of our self-absorption and descent into the banal.

• Time. Life. (OK, we're doing all right so far. These make sense. Break down the study of the whole of creation into categories.)

• People. Us. (Now this is where we begin to get really vain. If there's a Us, then that implies that there must also be a Them about whom we have absolutely no interest. So now we have an Us and a Them.)

• Worse yet, a couple of years ago I saw a magazine with the title We. (Now we break down the category of Us in a smaller us and Them, and now we are We.)

• And if these weren’t enough among the popular media, there are Self and Oprah Winfrey's magazine titled O.

As we should be celebrating the birth of the King of kings and rendering Him due honor and allegiance, let’s stop to think about what it means “to take” or “to make” something “vain”. What then does it mean to make or render something vain? To make something vain is to make it smaller than life, to diminish or extinguish its substance, worth or value to such an extent that it is no longer useful or valuable.

Again, as God firmly and unequivocally instructs in Exodus, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.” This means that the Creator and King of the entire Universe utterly repudiates and forbids any and all attempts to render small, meaningless or valueless His own name and attributes.

For the purpose of this study, the positive statement of this negative command can be reduced to a single question and answer from the Shorter Catechism: “What is the chief end of man? Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” The question and answer from the Shorter Catechism clearly yet fluidly define the life, aim and goal of the Christian in such a way as to show how not to bring disrepute or shame on God's name and reputation, or on the faith we have been given. It gives us the positive side to the Third Commandment's negative command. It is the hardest challenge and easiest surrender in the universe. It is a work of faith that costs us nothing and yet demands everything that we have, are and ever will be.

And yet even as we look at the positive statement of the command, we must continually see and appreciate the stress and value of the negative. As we have seen previously, this form of command is called apodictic law. Apodictic law is a form of command that gives enormous stress to the negative proscription. It is akin to saying "Never, ever, never even think of doing the forbidden thing."

That’s why we need to remember the full seriousness of this commandment. We must do so, first, because God made it important by the way in which He issued His decree. We, as His creations and children through faith, must regard the issue with the same degree of seriousness that God does.

Second, we must regard it with that same seriousness because it is for our benefit and eternal health that God gave us the commandment. In the words of the Third Commandment, God safeguards not only His own name, character, reputation and value, but ours as well. God, the singular, perfect, holy, eternal, unchanging Creator of all that has ever existed, has exclusively created humanity in His own image. If, we are to have any ascribed or intrinsic value, then that value comes from the source and supplier of that value. If we diminish God's self-disclosed value and name, then we have diminished or abolished ourselves and our own nature. We become as Narcissus staring balefully at his own reflection in the pool until he dies of broken heart because there are none so perfect as himself.

But in reality, Narcissus died of a reflected delusion. And reflections, we must remember, possess only the pale image and value of the original.

This is a crucial point over which we really must labor.

It is crucial because so many people mis-perceive the true extent of the Third Commandment's power and authority and thereby truncate its real sphere of legal impact. Even many so-called Christians don’t recognize or perceive the solidly real way this commandment is an extension of the two commandments that precede it. Together they form the cornerstone upon which our later appreciation of and obedience to the rest of God's Law is subject. Practically, this means that most people argue that they keep the Third Commandment because they strictly avoid certain specific oral misuses of the Father's and Son's names. True, such abuses are flagrant, significant and severe, but we have to see that simply abstaining from and disapproving of these verbal sins are only the smallest fraction of the true scope of God's injunction against vainly using His name.

We all know individuals (perhaps at times even ourselves) who resolutely refuse to use the Lord's names and attributes in anyway that seems to them blasphemous. And in and of itself, this is a good, wholesome and commendable practice. Unfortunately, many of these same individuals can’t see or refuse to carry it any further. For them, the purpose of this commandment is limited to restricting themselves from uttering the words “God” or “Jesus Christ” in any venues except prayer or worship.

To define this injunction that narrowly is akin to saying that criminal statutes against theft only apply to the unauthorized taking of red sports cars when they are parked in well lit driveways next to residential dwellings and that all other vehicles are “fair game” for the “light-fingered of heart.” Such interpretations of criminal statutes would be so ludicrous as to set new heights in positive stupidity.

Yet we still see people do this all the time as they generalize, specify, rationalize and interpret law nearly out of existence because they dislike the clear trajectory they see coming from those laws. They would far rather have 9 zillion separate specific injunctions against or prescriptions for every conceivable behavior known to humankind. This is the generically human tendency to be like President Clinton and question the meaning of the verb “to be”. It is perfectly human and natural in a fallen world — and it carries absolutely zero substantive weight with the Creator and judge of the universe who has made Himself known by His name and attributes.

We will pick up this study more next month as we begin to see how it applies positively to us as we honor the name of our Triune God, Father, Son & Holy Spirit, and as we discuss how to live out our honoring of the One Who creates, redeems and sustains us.

Many you all have a blessed New Year!

Grace & Peace,
Pastor Rusty+

December 2009 Pastor's Highlander Column

December 2009
Pastor’s Column

Brothers and sisters,

Advent is upon us, and with it the regular round of discussions, debates and arguments between the civic and sacred spheres about how one should address and commemorate the “holiday season”: is it merely the “holiday season in which we are to wish one another “happy holidays”, or is it the sacred season during which we should bid each other “Christ’s Blessings” during the Christmas Season?

And as we contemplate the eternal and majestic mystery made manifest in the Infinite Word’s becoming incarnate in the mortal infant at Bethlehem, it is an excellent time to return to our study of the Second Commandment against idolatry; to see how it applies and is mediated to us through the Savior’s birth, life, ministry, sacrificial death and Resurrection.

Western Society at the dawn of the Third Millennium struggles and strives to reject God’s eternal Lordship and command. Collectively we seek to depose our creator from His throne and replace Him with idols more to our liking and comfort level. And, we do so at all levels of society from the family in “the living room” to the United Nations’ “hallowed halls on the Hudson”.

We see it in the faces of families that never darken the doors of a sanctuary on Sunday mornings but can always be found at the mall, on sports fields or in restaurants. So, too, we witness marketers’ efforts to replace Christ with Santa and mentions of Christmas to salutations of “holiday good cheer.” Even supposedly “Christian” governments throughout the West have gotten into the act as they pass ordinance after ordinance to supplant not only faith in an unseeable God, but to replace the dominant faith-based ethical system that has guided us for the better part of 2,000 years.

In October’s column we closed out with an observation from C.S. Lewis about theories of penal punishment versus the notion of “corrections”. Lewis noted that in a truly secular society in which God is either ignored or re-imagined (and thus idolized ) then genuine forgiveness, healing, re-birth and re-creation are functional impossibilities. In their place is substituted a theory of unchecked “corrections” in which full mental and social assent and conformity are absolutely philosophically mandated and where temporal punishment and re-education are both endless and brutal.

However, if one truly believes that the God of the Bible is God, and that His own incarnate Son made a penal substitution on our behalf and accepted upon Himself our due punishment, then grace and repentance become not only theoretically possible, but also functional realities. Other systems and theories cannot allow this. Sadly, we Christians have not always lived up to our own best ideals and have accepted, allowed and even perpetuated “Inqusitions” and persecutions too numerous to count. But that is due to our personal and corporate sinfulness and idolatry, not to the God who has outlawed precisely these things and can yet forgive and cleanse us of them.

This is well-illustrated by the wife of a former pastor-colleague of mine in Canisteo, New York. Chinese immigrant Esther Wei Haines describes watching her mother, grandmother and aunt being detained by communist troops after an underground worship service during the Cultural Revolution. When the Red Guards found a scrap of paper on the floor with John 3:16 written upon it, they spent more than an hour forcing the women to stand to attention reciting "Mao is our god and the party is our savior." Esther's mother finally spoke out, saying, "You can make me recite all the slogans for months on end, but that will not change what's in my heart."

That singular offense resulted in her being sent to a re-education center (labor camp) for the next several years. Esther reported that upon her mother's release from prison she was a broken woman.

When a people creates and fashions a God for themselves apart from the God of scripture the results are uniformly abhorrent and evil. Perhaps not immediately, but it only takes a small step to go from false worship of false gods to active persecution of those who worship the true Lord of Hosts — or anyone else who might resist the "New Order."

This is why God issues the prohibition against imagining, forming and fashioning our own gods in opposition or addition to Yahweh Elohim -- “I am that I am, the Almighty God.”

But in the face of such grinding daily assaults against the King and His Law, we have hope and a solid place to stand as we consider the once-for-all work of the One Who made manifest the wisdom and strength of our God in worldly weakness, foolishness and innocence. Christ’s completed work of salvation truly strengthens and empowers the Father’s prohibition of idolatry.

Now it is time for us to move on to a deeper look at God’s nature, His universal claim upon us and the empowerment He gives to us through Christ’s completed work of redemption.

Our review of the Second Commandment throughout Covenant History, from Genesis to Revelation, shows us that the one God of the universe sets the terms and conditions of a permanent agreement with those whom He calls to faith so that a continuing friendship can be maintained. He seals this agreement in the foundations of the friendship, redemption and salvation He has already delivered to those who approach Him in faith with a willingness to keep the covenant. He is our God and He chooses and calls us to be His special people.

We respond to the truth, grace and love of His offer by embracing Him as our only hope in life and in death, and by acknowledging in head and heart our total dependence upon Him as Creator, King and Loving Parent. We must respond to Him on His terms; not on our own.

To do otherwise is akin to having a signed sales contract with the car dealer and the banker. I know I must pay cash each month for the continued possession and use of the automobile. If I suddenly decide to pay several — or even one — monthly installment with farm-fresh roaster chickens because I "just know down in the cockles of my heart" that “everyone loves fried chicken”, I will find myself in a tight spot legally. Beyond that, I soon will be car-less when the re-possession agent catches up with me.

Similarly, the groom who makes vows to love, honor, cherish and support his new wife so long as she stays pretty, keeps a convenient schedule and is willing to make the marriage a three-some will find himself retrieving his teeth from the aisle right after he's regained consciousness.

God is even more demanding (and certainly not less) of His Chosen faithful than that banker is of the buyer, or the bride of her new husband. He has an inherent right to determine and designate not just the person of our worship, but also the manner and form. We may not willy-nilly determine for ourselves that we will worship God with pretty pictures or pretty words, nor may we decide that we will glorify Him in whatever fashion we see fit.

And this command is further strengthened, and we to keep it, by the Advent of God’s own Son. God has given us the only image we will ever need to worship. It is His own "Spitting Image", the only-begotten Son. Christ Jesus is the only acceptable image for worship and service. Apart from Him, as revealed to us in scripture, we are unable to create anything acceptable to God. And that knowledge IS available to us. As Paul teaches in Romans 1:16 -32, we know God's will — truly, if not fully, because in creation He engraved His own image upon us, and this is what makes our idolatries so pitiable. When we rebel against the truth that is so apparent to us and create idols to serve, it is our attempt to etch out and deface that engraved image of God stamped upon each of us when we were born and replace it with another of our own making.

Millions every day do precisely this, and it is called “suppressing the truth” which means that we actively hold it down and cover it over. It is the ultimate game of "cover-up" and the and a virulent form of ignorance. It is similar in nature but far more serious than diving under water and attempting to stay there. I can suppress the truth of my own need for air, but this can only lead to my death. Similarly, I can reject my own God-created existence (and by extension, that of everyone, and everything else around me) but this doesn't change who or what I have been created to be. It merely defaces and devalues it. Ultimately it means that I will treat everyone and everything else accordingly.

But, in His love and grace God has given us His Son who came in innocence to seek and save the lost, to break and banish idols and recover God’s defaced image in us. We must embrace the truth. We must put away our idols and idolatry. We must see and cling to the truth God gave to Moses and eternally confirmed in Christ Jesus.

Grace & Peace,
Pastor Rusty+

November 2009 Pastor's Highlander Column

Pastor’s Column
November 2009

Brothers & Sisters,

As I write these words, we as a community, the Body of Christ and the Highland Church family have just come out of an utterly awful week of personal grief, loss and pain.

At the same time we are in the midst of ramping up efforts to send a team to still-devastated parts of Louisiana all while we prepare for our annual stewardship campaign and get ready to celebrate Thanksgiving and the beginning of Lent.

As I looked at all of these competing difficulties, events and needs, I made the decision (hard-fought for me) to take a month away from our discussion of the Ten Commandments. Instead I combed my files and decided to engage in a bit of “literary stewardship and recycling”; I hope you won’t object.

But the message for us in terms of our collective human pain, hope, need, value and Christian duty is such that I think the approach is warranted this month. Toward that end, welcome back to December 2006 . . .

All last week I wracked my brain trying to link two seemingly unrelated intangibles in my head and then in print after Karen Christy reminded me that the deadline for my Highlander column was rapidly approaching, and I noticed that I still have an outstanding column due on the place and function of the Offering and Dedication in Worship at the same time that Christmas is approaching and I should say something about it.

Competing images battled in my brain and gave me a headache. “Great,” I thought, “one more holiday worry to file away! These two things don’t go together, at all!”

Well, I was wrong. They actually go together quite well if you think about them in the right way. First, though, I need to tell you of a holiday memory-flash I had from when I was about 17 years old.
It was after Christmas – the first full Christmas season after I had been working at my first job as a church janitor. I spent what then seemed to me as a lot of money on a Christmas gift for my Dad (I don’t even remember now what I got him). I do recall, however, feeling somewhat disappointed that he never displayed the new gift I’d gotten him — instead he kept some old gift I’d made him from sticks or clothes-pins when I was five or six. It was still on display in the spot in the dining room where to this day he keeps his nick-knacks.

I never said anything to him about it, but I just didn’t understand it. How could he keep up the crappy old piece of “whatever” and blow off the new expensive gift I’d purchased for him?

Well, as a parent now, I think I understand better. And this new understanding gives a certain insight into both the nature of our stewardship and God’s gift to us of Messiah and salvation, which of course is the reason for Christmas.

Over the past 12 years, my kids have given me — as I’m sure most of your kids have given you — certain pieces of their artwork, drawings, wood carvings and small trinkets. They are saved for posterity. Heck, the refrigerator looks like the Romper-Room version of the Louvre!

And I wouldn’t trade a single one of their gifts to Tina and me. They are priceless to us because we know that these items were made in love and “given from the top” of what our children could give to us. With that in mind, how could I desire a more costly replacement that didn’t take account of that all-important component — the heart?

Now then, the Presentation of Gifts, Tithes and Offerings during worship functions in that way for all of us.

Because God has created all of us in His own image; because He has redeemed us at high cost through the sacrificial death and resurrection of His only-begotten Son; because He claims us as His own adopted children through the gift of faith in that Son, we have a direct “heart-connection” that must be expressed.

And in expressing that connection, we are called upon by God to return to Him a portion (the first and best portion) of what He has given to us freely. We are His. We belong to Him and without Him we wouldn’t be here at all to have such conversations.

If this is so, and we genuinely love God and are thankful to Him for the life and gifts He has given to us, then it stands to reason that our gifts of love and thanksgiving should equally come from “the top and best” of what we have and are.

For adults with our practical minds, these gifts of money time and talent form the brick-and-mortar basis for the running of a congregation, the execution of important ministry programs, the maintenance of the Church building, and the care and feeding of the pastor. This is true, and all vitally important, but even more important is the fact that this functions in very tangible ways as the love gifts and offerings of God’s children to Him as Father.

He gives back to us the gifts we give to Him for our good, for learning to know Him better and for further spreading the Good News. And all the while He uses us and the building and ministry of the Church as His refrigerator. We and our love are clearly displayed for all the world to see.

Even the placement of the Presentation of Tithes is significant. It comes after the reading of the Scripture Lesson because it is the visible representation — the portrait, if you will — of our response to the Word of God given to us through Scripture reading and proclamation. This is how God gives Himself to us, and we are given the immediate opportunity to respond directly to Him.

Now, how does all of this tie in with Christmas?

Simply this; God gave us His greatest gift when He became a real flesh-and-blood person and was born of the Virgin Mary.

By doing so, He provided us with the possibility of forgiveness, genuine relationship with Himself and the promise of living as His children and not just as His creations.

Our response then to this act and gift of love on God’s part should be a deeper love, connection and devotion to the one Who is our Shepherd, Lord and Father.

As we enter this season and recall and recount the narratives of the Savior’s birth for each other and the world around us, we should be doing so with such joy and thanksgiving that we become again as children with their devotion and relative innocence. We should make ourselves, the talents God has given to us and the provision He places into our hands the very model of the best refrigerator art in the universe!

Such a re-emphasis on who we are in Christ is a far more fitting gift and display than near riots at high-end toy stores over the latest video games and fluffy stuffed critters that sing, dance and must be changed when tickled! These childish displays of greed, ignorance, ingratitude, spite and temper run 180○ in the wrong direction from everything we are called to be in Christ. They do not represent the love and care God demonstrates for us in the manger or the cross. And they make an evil and hateful mockery of the rightful stewardship we owe to God as creator and parent.

So this Thanksgiving / Advent / Christmas season, let us seriously reflect on the fact that our very lives and the salvation given us through the Holy Infant-become GodMan are a gift to us from a righteous and loving God. Equally, our lives as redeemed and revised by the Cross (everything we have and are) belongs rightly to God. Let us make ourselves and those lives fit gifts of love for the King of kings.

Brothers and sisters, especially in times when we are most distraught and in need of God’s continued and abiding grace and healing, let us remember that He first gave Himself for us and works redemption, healing and reconciliation in us. And in that vein, either we will be God’s blessed refrigerator art, or we will be cosmic graffiti. Good gifts of love are treasured, saved and well-used. Graffiti is an ugly stain that is of no good use; it is rubbed out or covered over as an eyesore and offense.

Remember the beloved holiday classic story based on the song, Little Drummer Boy. No gifts he brought fit for a king — except himself and the gift given to him by God. So, too, are we. We bring our whole selves to the table in thanks for God’s work in us. So which will we be? Are our lives fit gifts for the King to display, or will we become hideous wall-trash?

As the prophet foretold, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over His kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.” [Isaiah 9:6-7]

May you all enjoy a blessed and fruitful Thanksgiving and Advent Season!

Grace & Peace,
Pastor Rusty+

October 2009 Pastor's Highlander Column

October 2009
Pastor’s Column

Brothers and sisters,

In America’s current social and political climate, especially in the last two to three years, we have seen and heard a great many discussions revolving around the twin questions of whether and to what extent the United States is or is not a “Christian nation.”

Loud assertions are heard from all comers. Some contend that we are a firmly Christian nation rooted in Biblical faith and morality and that we should always remain such, while others argue with equal passion that, while we may possess a strong religious background, we were founded as a nation upon purely secular principles and that we should firmly resolve to keep it that way.

This is significant for us as a jumping off point for our current discussion of the Ten Commandments. As we wade deeper into these waters with the first part of a study on the Second Commandment (“You shall not make any graven or carved idols”) we, as both Christians and Americans, truly need to investigate what it means to engage in idolatry and discern how and why even we are guilty of this incredibly serious and dangerous sin.

Last month we closed our discussion of the First Commandment with the observation that we must “allow and put no other gods in our lives. The one we have is enough. He fulfills all things in Himself. Yahweh is the Eternal Word. All other things proceed from serving Him alone.” This concept or principle is the key bridge between that study and this. And it leads to a set of uncomfortable self-diagnostic questions:

• What are our idols and how do we go about carving them?

• How many things do we substitute for Almighty God and His supreme place in our lives?

• Where do we find or manufacture these idols?

As the Body of Christ, we all to often mistakenly assume that we are a “truly Christian country” and that we, especially as Christians, don’t really have much to worry about with regard to this commandment. Our quick mental answers to these questions probably run something like “Oh, I guess that they could be purchased from certain religious curio shops or temples in India or Burma or some such.”

Such answers widely miss the mark though, because idols and idolatry are not relegated only to “pagan nations and peoples” in other places. The cold reality is that they are found in every heart, mind and soul under heaven.

The very reason god forbids us from constructing such idols and false gods is because He knows full well that we will do precisely that. We are all Fallen and sinful, and as the Reformer John Calvin observed, “we are all idolorum fabricum, or idol factories”.

We humans are a contentious and proud bunch who are not content to allow God to be God. Though He has “engraved” His own image upon our hearts and souls (Genesis 1:26-27), we feel the need to return the favor. Everyday we, as both individuals and communities, attempt the impossible as we try to improve upon His nature, plan and design. And we do all of this despite the fact that His existence and unity are very well known to us in creation itself. God, and God alone, is One. He alone is the Creator and Supreme Monarch of all that exists. He created it by His own Word from nothing.

Scripture consistently and repeatedly tells us that such knowledge is integrally implanted in every human heart, mind and soul. We know that God is god, and yet we deny the truth and power of this knowledge. We feel the need to imagine, create and offer ourselves to other gods of our own making because we bristle under God’s easy yoke and constraint. We prefer to fashion physical, mental and spiritual idols of null authority, power and value. And when we do this we sell and indenture ourselves into harsh and perpetual slavery to them.

And this is what the world, and to often we, too, see and call "Genuine Freedom."

We see the effects of such idolatry all the time. As we attempt to “re-imagine” God according to the blueprints of our temptations and desires, we also refuse to acknowledge His image engraved on and implanted in us. Basically, we’ve all taken the collective pledge to join the Frank Sinatra Club: “We do it Our Way! ” We picture God the way we want; we worship the way we want; we behave the way we want — and all so our lives will be “more pleasing,” our worship “more enjoyable and fulfilling,” or “more spiritual and inspirational.” In short, we as a race of creatures continually seek after the warm and fuzzy Smurf-like god of our own fashioning.

It is the first temptation that led to our un-doing, and still we seem unable to resist it. In fact, the temptation Satan offers to Eve in the Garden of Eden is that very one: “Then the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’” (Gen. 3:4&5)

Regrettably, this way leads through a moral swamp in which our feet, hearts and minds are sucked down into the slime and our immortal souls are defaced and devalued. “It is the way that is broad and leads to death, destruction and damnation.”

The proof of this situation is literally “all around us”. We can see the results of our individual and corporate idolatry in microcosm by looking no further than the 100 years of the 20th Century:

• Muslim Turks murdered millions of Christian Armenians during World War I so they could rid the world of “inferior people” practicing an “inferior religion”. The world largely forgot or ignored the infamy.

• Josef Stalin engineered The Ukranian Famine that killed 10 million people as the “collective punishment” of a “collective treason.” The “crime” they committed was un-armed resistance to forced collectivization of their farms.

• In the 1930s and 40s Hitler’s Nazi Reich slaughtered between 7.5 and 10 million Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, Christians and other dissidents. Tens of millions of Chinese, Koreans and others were similarly slaughtered by Imperial Japan.

• Untold millions more perished in the gulags and re-education centers of Communist China between the Chinese Civil War and the present.

• ∙ The last 40 years lie witness to numerous further wars of extermination in Cambodia, Laos, Yugoslavia, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Rwanda and the Sudan.

In an earlier and less “politically correct” time we would have referred to this collective loss of probably 50 to 75 million people as their being sacrificed to the false god Molech. In many ways that would be a supremely accurate characterization. They died in blood and fire as sacrifice to the false gods of ideology, hatred, religious, ethnic or political purity, or, worse yet simple expedience.

The false gods constructed by human hands, hearts and minds inevitably lead to death and the destruction of God's handiwork. It is yet another example of the product of the functional atheism of which we have been speaking throughout the past two studies. Atheism creates a vacuum of belief, and because nature abhors a vacuum, falsehood and perversity fill the void. And, finally, creation of counterfeit gods inevitably leads to the worship of them.

This is the evil, ugly and real truth. It is the end product of our idolatry.

The perceived freedom we gain from overthrowing the holy, righteous and gracious God of all creation will always be illusory and lead to real slavery to sin and death. God created us according to His own will and with His purpose. We can try to evade those, but in doing so we unfailingly exchange genuine freedom within created servanthood for a false sense of well-being and freedom under the very real bondage to demonic false gods. And, as we can see, the results and consequences of such false worship are uniformly tragic.

This is a theme that C.S. Lewis hits upon in a discussion of theories of penal punishment and corrections. If there is no God, or some other god than the one who extends healing, re-birth and re-creation, then correction and punishment are endless and brutal. If one truly believes that the God of the Bible is God, then one makes allowance for grace and repentance. Other systems and theories do not. The best that can truly be hoped for is outward compliance and conformity. And the attempts to bring it about are virtually endless. Forgiveness, rebirth and transformation take place in a heart-beat. Re-education and Corrections may never stop until one is utterly broken or has learned to properly recite the correct answers every time without deviation.

Now that we have looked to the nature of the problem before us, we have set the stage for our continued discussion next month when we will look more deeply at God’s nature, His universal claim upon us and the empowerment He gives to us through Christ’s completed work of redemption and the abiding presence and intercession of the Holy Spirit.

In the mean time, let us look more systematically at the packed closets and dusty attics of our hearts, minds and souls so that we can identify and destroy the idols in our lives that struggle against God’s ultimate love and dominion.

Grace & Peace,
Pastor Rusty+

September 2009 Pastor's Highlander Column

SEPTEMBER 2009 / PASTOR'S COLUMN

Brothers and sisters,

As the Summer holiday ends, we all return to the regular rhythms of the school year and “normal” activity, it is a good time to consider the great gift God has given to us in His Law and requirements upon us.

In July, we looked at the First Commandment (“Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.”) form the perspective of the vows we make and obligations we bear toward the God of heaven who led the Israelites out of their bondage in Egypt, gave them His Law and statutes in their 40 years of desert wandering, and led them into the Promised Land.

This month we look at how it is that the eternal work and sacrifice of Jesus the Messiah enables us to more fully appreciate and live into the command and obligations settled upon us by that command. In other words, we will look to see how it is that Christ’s salvation applied to us enables us to remain faithful to the One True God.

In his gospel, the Apostle John tells us that Jesus is the eternal Word and Son of God — distinct from the Father and yet also one and the same with Him. He is one with the Father and the Holy Spirit. And he was fully present and active in the creation of the universe from nothing.

John spells all of this out for us tells us much the same thing in the opening 18 verses of his Gospel.

• John 1:1-18 [NKJV]
• 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
• 6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe. 8 He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. 9 That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world.
• 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. 11 He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become the children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
• 14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. . . .
• 16 And of His fulness we have all received, and grace for grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.

He tells us that Jesus is the eternal Word and Son of God who is distinct from the Father and yet also one and the same with Him. And this Jesus is also the God who made the entire universe (down to the smallest sub-atomic particle) from nothing according to His own specifications and design. In this Triune fullness, this God showed His voice and presence to the Israelites at Sinai with lightening, thunder and incalculable majesty and glory. He ordered the construction of the Tabernacle (the precursor to the permanent Temple) and its erection in the dead-center of the Israelite camp wherever they went. God was always in the midst of His people.

In His great love, this God came once-for-all to take on humanity's nature and share its burdens. Our God lives among us. And, when Jesus ascended to heaven to the Father after the Resurrection, the Father and the Son together sent the Holy Spirit to be present with and in the Church as its Guide and Advocate for all time. Thus, God is not only our God and our Father, but also our Companion and Guide, Friend, Lord and Savior.

John further tells us that when God made the decision to live amongst us in human form He maintained the full glory and power of His Godhood and that we have seen that glory. Because God Himself has chosen to live with us and be "like us," (Hebrews 4:14-16) and still maintains and displays that glory, we can be transformed from the frail and sinful mortal creatures we now are into the immortal human beings proudly carrying God's stamp upon us as He designed us to do.

Because God came down to us as a human — a real thinking, feeling, breathing human being — He (Jesus) acts as our elder brother. The Father accepts Jesus the God-Man. And because He is our older brother, God has broadened the family line by adopting us into it as His very own children. No longer are we mere creations.
And this is the essential piece in this present study. We all stand condemned for those times we have let anything take God’s sole place in our lives and have followed and obeyed them rather than the High King of Heaven. Until God made it possible for us to be adopted into His family no one — not even His Chosen People, the Jews — could truly follow where God led. It was impossible even when He was at the head of the column, or at the top of the mountain where they gathered.

In this, Jesus is shown to be fully human and fully God. And because He is fully God, He is able to administer His own Law and to be the righteous and just Judge over it. But in His perfect human nature He was also able to obey and fulfill that Law. And He did so on our behalf. Because He was sinless and sacrificed Himself for the repayment of our sin debt, He is able to account His obedience as ours when we approach Him with trust and faith.

He enacted the completed and perfect redemption of a people from slavery and death in the foreign land of sin. If the Israelites were called upon to obey out of gratitude for extended grace, how much more so are we called to that same obedience seeing how our redemption is so much the greater.

And this brings us to the last of our three strands of Scripture in this present study. Moving from John's gospel to his first letter we find that God is Love, and by extension His Law is an essential and perfect outworking of that love that is part of God's essential nature. This means that the commandments He gives are for our good.

In I John 4:7 - 5:5, John tells us that Christ is the propitiation, or atoning sacrifice, for our sins. He not only covers over our sin, but also eases God's righteous anger and disappointment with our failings. In other words we hand our broken and defective lives, affections, attitudes and actions to the King of kings, and He returns to us the perfect love and obedience that are demanded by the Father.

And such love will and does produce fruit and results. If we have surrendered our rebellion against God's Son, and asked Him for new hearts and minds, then we need have no fear of condemnation. He enables us to believe, live, and enact the perfect fidelity that are demanded of us in the First Commandment.

This is why John can say in 5:1-5 of the letter that:

• 5:1 Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves Him who begot also him who is begotten of Him. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. 4 For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world — our faith. 5 Who is he who overcomes the world but the he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

This is why anything short of total monogamous fidelity to our vows of love and obedience to the God of our Confession yields only broken or incomplete results. Without that love for God, we cannot love brother or sister, wife or husband, neighbor or stranger, countryman or foreigner. With that love we cannot do anything but love them and seek after their best interest.

Let us make them to God and to Him alone. Allow and put no other gods in your lives. The one we have is enough. He fulfills all things in Himself. Yahweh is the Eternal Word. All other things proceed from serving Him alone.

Grace & Peace,
Pastor Rusty+

July / August 2009 Pastor's Highlander Column

JULY / AUGUST 2009 / PASTOR'S COLUMN

Brothers and sisters,

As I write this, we have just celebrated Father’s Day, and I want to share again with you some eulogistic words penned in March 1942 by then Maj. Gen. Dwight David Eisenhower upon the death of his father, David J. Eisenhower: “. . . His finest monument is his reputation in Abilene and Dickinson County... His word has been his bond and accepted as such.... Because of it, all central Kansas helped me to secure an appointment to West Point in 1911, and 30 years later, it did the same for my son John. I'm proud he was my father.”

These simple words clearly and movingly describe the value of honesty and integrity. So, as we begin our study of the First Commandment, let’s all consider the following questions:

• How solemn, serious and secure are the vows that I have sworn and undertaken.

• How frequently do I forswear or break my oaths?

• What is the nature of those vows — are they vows of friendship and service? Are they made to man or to God?

These may seem odd questions with which to begin a study of the First Commandment, yet they are really some of the most crucial and probing questions that can be asked of anyone. Further, they are questions that demand not only answers, but correct answers because they are questions of the “first order” or first premise. This means that their answers define all subsequent understandings, relationships and principles that follow them. If these answers are wrong, then so, too, will be everything else coming from them.

This necessarily follows just as certainly as night follows day. It’s an immutable, or unchangeable law of existence. In the same way, one cannot correctly solve a long-column addition sum, if the first sum in the column is wrong. So, too, our lives are relational and demand that proper relationships and principles be established and maintained in order for them to be lived out in proper fashion.

It is a readily observable fact that this is not the way many, or even most, people's lives are lived. We are fallen, broken and sinful, and unable to fully (or even properly) understand the nature of our pledges, promises and vows. At best, we inadequately perceive their nature, permanence and importance, and then we fail to treat them with proper gravity and seriousness. In doing so we unleash destructive and tragic consequences that steamroller over every kind of relationship we have.

Billions of people fail to appreciate that a vow is a solemn declaration of future action or non- action. To make or take a vow means we are making a binding guarantee, by a solemn pledge or promise, to fulfill our declarations. And, because we, or they, misunderstand, misinterpret or ignore the proper nature of vows, we are plunged into the nightmare scenario of broken trusts, hearts, lives, homes, families, and nations.

All of us, men and women, even rulers and nations are torn asunder and dashed upon the rocks of convenience and self-interest because we have been infected by the misunderstanding of promissory obligation. In all kinds of ways and at every level, we abuse each others' trust, shattering our relationships because we have made promises with crossed fingers and hardened hearts.

If this sounds like a “litany of ills” in American culture in the first decade of the 21st Century, it’s because it is. But it is also the portrait of the entire human race since the Fall. Since then (all human history) people have failed to understand the sacred and solemn nature of vow and obligation. All of us are thus morally handicapped.

That “covenantal disabilty” results from our ignorance of the One to and in whom all vows are made and from whom they are derived.

The problem thus stated, we enter our the specific discussion of the First Commandment. Lets begin by looking at Exodus 20:1-3:

• 1 And God spoke all these words, saying: 2 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 3 You shall have no other gods before Me.

It is not some cosmic accident or coincidence that God gives this commandment first. He didn’t just happen to think it up during some cosmic brainstorming session. It is the First Commandment because it has an order of logical and essential precedence that makes it the cornerstone of our existence. All other things derive from this first premise, and it is the most important principle in the existence of the universe. Without God's authorship nothing else would exist.

God spoke creation into existence from nothing, creating all things according to His perfect will. He sustains them by His own authority, majesty and power. Beyond that, He extends His own grace to us for reasons sufficient unto Himself.

It is, then, wholly reasonable that He presents and declares this First Commandment to us as the foundation of all other things. As we noted previously in our study on the nature of God's Moral Law, God is the creator who has fashioned each individual in His own image. Therefore, we owe Him a debt of love and obedience that is both non-negotiable and non-transferable. We may either take up the obligation or rebel against and reject it.

Instead of the more familiar “thou shalt not!” commands, this is the ultimate “thou shalt!” Everything else springs from it. We are informed by the God of heaven that He and He alone is supreme — His word authoritative. We cannot allow anyone or anything to stand in the way of His total Lordship or His commandments. In other words, slightly “tweaking” the recent spate of roadside billboards: “What part of THOU SHALT didn't you understand?”

Theologically and practically, this means that all of relationships to anyone or anything else are mediated by our relationship to Yahweh, the Great I AM. This is the same God and Father who declared and revealed Himself to Moses by saying "I am that I am." The name, Yahweh, shows that because “He is what He is,” we are what we are. If we ignore God's existence and authority, then we become functional atheists, debasing our own existence and all our relationships to everything else. We become lower than even the rocks and the dirt which yield testimony to their Creator and their own createdness.

Such an attitude not only diminishes us, it also warps and destroys all our relationships to everyone and everything else. Again, we are in serious error if we say, “because 1+1=3, then 1+1+2=5.” The conclusion is flawed because the first sum was wrong. Similarly, none of us would attempt to cross a river bridge if we knew that the bridge was 40 yards short of the far river bank. Only a fool would try it!

And John tells us much the same thing in John 1:1-4 and 10-13:

• 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. . . . .
• 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. 11 He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become the children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

John tells us that Jesus is the eternal Word and Son of God — distinct from the Father and yet also one and the same with Him. He is one with the God the Father and God the Spirit who made the entire universe from nothing. This same God showed His voice and presence to the Israelites at Sinai with lightening, thunder and incalculable majesty and glory. He also, in His great love, came once-for-all to take on humanity's nature and share its burdens. Our God lives among us. He is not only our God and our Father, but also our companion and guide, friend and savior.

This is why anything but total fidelity to our vows of love and obedience to our God yields only broken or incomplete results. Without that love for God, we cannot love brother or sister, wife or husband, neighbor or stranger, countryman or foreigner. With that love we cannot do anything but love them and seek after their best interest.

Next month we’ll look more fully at how and why our faith in Christ and His grace actually both strengthen the requirements of the First Commandment and enable us to live into it in a way we never could before. Let us renew our vows to God and to Him alone as we strive to fulfill the first commandment to have no other gods but the one true God.

Grace & Peace,
Pastor Rusty+