A Time to Laugh

Wow. This sermon nails it:

On the one hand, legalism means treating biblical standards of conduct as regulations to be kept by our own power in order to earn God’s favor. On the other hand, it means erecting specific requirements of conduct beyond the teaching of Scripture and making adherence to them the means by which a person is qualified for full participation in the local family of God, the church. In the first case, we use our own power to make ourselves moral. In the second case, we use our own power to make the church moral. In the first case, we fail to rely on the power of God for our own sanctification. In the second case, we fail to rely on the power of God for the sanctification of others. Therefore, what unites these two forms of legalism at the root is unbelief—unbelief in regard to ourselves that it is God who works in us to will and to do his good pleasure (Philippians 2:12, 13); and unbelief in relation to others that God will make his will known and incline them to do it. As Paul says in Philippians 3:15, “Let those of us who are mature be thus minded, and if in anything you are otherwise minded, God will reveal that also to you.” He confidently entrusts the purification of the church to God. Wherever happy confidence in the sovereign power of God for our own lives and the lives of others grows, weak legalism creeps in. For we inevitably try to compensate for loss of dynamic faith by increased moral resolve and the addition of man-made regulations. But wherever joyful confidence in the power of God is waning, the flesh is waxing. Which means that the very morality that we had hoped would save ourselves and the very regulations we hoped would purify our church fall victim to the massive power of the flesh, and become its instruments of self-reliance and self-sufficiency.

SYMPATHY

by Paul Laurence Dunbar

I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals—
I know what the caged bird feels!

I know why the caged bird beats his wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting—
I know why he beats his wing!

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings—
I know why the caged bird sings!

By Keith Getty & Stuart Townend

IN CHRIST ALONE my hope is found,
He is my light, my strength, my song;
This Cornerstone, this solid Ground,
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My Comforter, my All in All,
Here in the love of Christ I stand.

In Christ alone! – who took on flesh,
Fullness of God in helpless babe!
This gift of love and righteousness,
Scorned by the ones He came to save:
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied –
For every sin on Him was laid;
Here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground His body lay,
Light of the world by darkness slain:
Then bursting forth in glorious Day
Up from the grave He rose again!
And as He stands in victory
Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me,
For I am His and He is mine –
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

No guilt in life, no fear in death,
This is the power of Christ in me;
From life’s first cry to final breath,
Jesus commands my destiny.
No power of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home,
Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand!

From John Milton’s Areopagitica: 

Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul whose progeny they are; nay they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them.

As good almost kill a man as kill a good book; who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God’s image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye.

And though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play on the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously by licensing and prohibiting misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?

I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.

The Great Gatsby was just a better fake. His Gothic library didn’t have cardboard facades of books, but the books themselves. Yet all the pages were uncut and unread.

We try to talk smart or act pious. We create salons and recite poetry and collect art. But we really are just snake-handlin’ “bumpkins” making God over into our own image.

It’s going to stop very soon. The Gatsby’s great-grandchildren have cut the pages and are reading those books. And the illusion can’t last. The chaff will blow away. The goats will be separated from the sheep.

He walks!! Gavin has been cruising and taking 3-5 steps here and there, but he finally did the deed confidently and with that perfect beginning toddle! Congrats, Gavin!!

Isaac’s walking video was more a tribute to Mom’s hometown. Gavin’s remembers Dad’s neck of the woods.

Last summer’s Letter of the Week was great fun, but we’ve been there, done that. This summer we’re a tad more ambitious: a Children’s Catechism.

After our morning walk, we sat slurping “possipickles.” The conversation went like this:

Mom: “Isaac! I thought of something we could do. We could learn about God with some questions and answers. It’s called a catechism.”

Boy: “Mommy! Cats live in the animal hospital with their Mommies and Daddies until we’re ready to go get them.” :kitty

Okay. . . . So that didn’t work. So we just jumped in with the answer to “Who made me? God.”

We started with a roll of blank newspaper where we traced around the real Isaac and Gavin in order to color a Flat Isaac and Gavin. Note the very serious expression:

Gavin colored too, but he mostly colored the real Gavin:

And while cutting and coloring we wondered about the differences between the paper Isaac and “God’s Isaac.” Paper Isaac rips and you can fold him up and put him in a book. God’s Isaac loves PB&J and can walk around. Paper Isaac is all one color and his hands don’t look right. God’s Isaac has brown hair and was made just right.