8 Reasons why your friendships should (mostly) be at your local church

  Most people would agree that community is a good thing; something that they want. But we simultaneously chafe under limitations or restrictions on what we do and when we do it.  We erroneously believe that we can have deep, committed relationships while basically running our lives in autonomous, independent ways without intentionality, limitations or restrictions. Consider how well a marriage works when each partner wants to do whatever they feel like doing regardless of their partner’s thoughts or feelings. 

While Christian friendships do not rise to the same level of exclusivity as a marriage, we are fooling ourselves if we think we can have the friendships we want, or exemplify the kind of love we are commanded to without sacrifice and commitment (Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends - John 15:13). Biblically speaking, we are meant to have that relationship of sacrifice and commitment with at least our church community. 

I hope that you will be able to keep in mind that what I want is your joy, your flourishing, and the glory of Jesus Christ as you read the following explanation. 

So why should (most of) our friendships be at our local church? 

1. Your local church is your place of safety. 

In God’s wisdom, He has placed specific people in leadership at your church. Those men are charged to give an account for your soul at the end of all things . They are charged to protect you. To the extent that you spend your time and energy in relationships outside of the church, you limit the ability of the elders to watch over you (Heb 13:17). Like a teenager that doesn’t talk to his parents, isn’t home for meals, and basically only sleeps at home, the elders can only guess what you are thinking about, what you are doing, and what ways your character is being shaped if you spend much of your time away from your church. But it is through your service, your interactions with others and with them, that they can discern your spiritual health, pray for you, encourage you, and if necessary, correct you. 

Furthermore, the elders are responsible for protecting you from false teaching. If in a single month you listen to one sermon from your church, one on youtube, one at your friend’s church, and one podcast, how can you be protected from false doctrine? God has given elders to protect you from false doctrine and from many other things. 

2. Your local church is your place of provision.

In James 2 he is talking about dead works. James paints a picture: a professing Christian says he has faith. Yet, he encounters a brother or sister starving and without clothes. What does he do? Says, ‘Be warm and well fed!’ James says that is not real faith that is functioning in the life of that man or woman. 

But now, what does that mean? Is James saying that our faith is dead (i.e. I am going to hell) if we walk past anyone who is hungry and poorly clothed? Well, first, James says, ‘brother or sister’—so that narrows it to Christians at least. Second, at a time where there is no internet, no news, no TV, James would certainly not have been talking about Christians in another country or even city. He would have been speaking of people in that church community. 

In other words, if me and my family fall upon hard times, and we can’t buy food or clothes, God will hold Waverley church accountable (if I have made my need known), and all people do is say, ‘Be warm and well fed’. He will hold us accountable if we ignore your needs as well. He will not hold Church of the Rock accountable for neglecting your needs. I am not saying that we should not help people who are not Christians, or that we cannot support those outside our church. But what I am saying is that we are held primarily accountable for caring for the needs of those in our community. 

Another Biblical example that shows that the Bible assumes our primary place of provision and generosity is 1 Timothy 5:3-8 where Paul gives Timothy instructions for how to decide which widows should be given care, and which should not. The level of understanding that Paul assumed Timothy will have of these widows clearly shows that there needs to be a relatively profound level of engagement before giving can occur. 

In a culture like ours, our resources will not likely be depleted by a few freeloaders. But what we do lose is the ability to minister to the whole person. People are not simply bills that need to be paid. People are creatures in the image of God, and they have complex and nuanced needs—needs that can be ministered to by collection of people called a church. Christians who do not commit to a church should not expect financial help—even though it is good to give it if we can. Churches should not feel guilty when people express feelings of being neglected or let down, when they never committed to a church in any tangible way. But those who are committed can be sure that God hears their cry when their local church ignores it. 

3. Your local church is your place of direction. 

Have you ever felt as though you have so many areas to grow in that you just get overwhelmed? Or you feel that there are too many issues going on in the world that you just can’t choose which one? God has given you your local church. Again, it is not wrong to have a heart for something that is not a major emphasis in your church right now. However, the Lord is leading your leaders, and through them leading you through the Word of God; through the preaching of the Word. 

To give an example, imagine you are committed to a church in which the pastor and elders sense a deep need for Biblical literacy. The sermons, the small group material, and the literature available in your church all centres around Biblical literacy for a time. You are able to hear from many people how the Lord is blessing them through deeper engagement from the Word, and are able to gain wisdom as they offer counsel to you. You know you have other areas to grow, but you are confident that this is the area to focus on for now. 

Compare that to the person who is transient in their church attendance. They have a few friends at a church that is focusing on deeper prayer. A few friends at a church that are focusing on evangelism. And then their church focusing on Biblical literacy. Not only does that person not have time to engage in all of these, they lose the depth of understanding they would have if they were really invested in one church. Furthermore, the conviction to really grow in all of these areas is likely to be either overwhelming and deeply discouraging, or overwhelming and conscience deadening. 

Certainly, the Lord often convicts different individuals in different ways. However, in our culture we have dispensed with the possibility that God can and does lead an entire church to focus on a certain aspect of their walk at the same time, in community, and it is a truly beautiful thing. When it happens, those who are more hard-hearted are convicted by the buy-in of those around them. Those who are soft-hearted are encouraged by brothers and sisters who help them silence an overly-condemning conscience and make practical steps of growth. We lose all of this when we have our relationships spread across churches. 

4. Your local church is your place of harvest.

Closely connected to the last point is that your local church is your place of harvest. That is, it is one of the primary places you can expect to find the fruit of your ministry. Fruitfulness biblically moves out in spheres. The first place is your own character, the next is your family (if you have one), and the next is your church. Again, in rare cases our primary ministry will be outside our church. But most Christians will see God affirm and bless their ministry by bringing out fruit (growth in those they disciple, people that are reached, etc.) by what is going on in their local church. 

If you have relationship with a couple people from church A, a couple people in church B, and you float around in different para church ministries, then you are less likely to see the long-term, God ordained fruit of your ministry. It is like trying to see growth in a certain instrument when you are learning 3 or 4 instruments at the same time.

5. Your local church is your place of accountability.

Church discipline falls apart in Christian relationships that run across churches. 

Let’s say you have a friend that sins against you, and you want to follow the pattern Jesus laid out in scripture. So you go to him one on one and confront him in his sin. He doesn’t listen, so you bring another person who has witnessed the same sin—which would already be really hard if you don’t go to the same church. He still doesn’t listen. Now what? You are supposed to ‘tell it to the church’, but what church? Are you supposed to go with your friend to that church’s elder board and expect them to discipline their church member based on your testimony? They don’t even know you. 

It is not just practicality that we are talking about. Jesus’ instructions assumes that we will be part of a local church. He assumes that this discipline will be done within the context of a community that you are both known and loved in. 

Furthermore, when the Bible commands to be subject to our leaders (Heb 13:17), who are being spoken of? The pastor at Grant Memorial? The elders at Whyte Ridge? No, the Biblical authors assume that we have leaders that we submit to, and they are limited to one, local congregation. 

6. Your local church makes the command to love attainable. 

1 John is primarily a book that seeks to give assurance to those who doubt their faith, and give the tools needed to remove those who are making a false profession of faith. He presents three tests of true Christianity. One of them is that we ‘love the brothers’. Now the big question is, ‘what does that mean?’ Does it mean that you shake hands with them on a Sunday morning and say, ‘The family is doing well’? Is that what John means when he says, ‘this is how you can tell that you are a real Christian: you love other Christians’? It has to be deeper than that. It has to be a warmth, an affection, and desire to be near them.  

How can you obey the command to love other Christians in this way if there are no boundaries to that command? Are we responsible to love all Christians in the entire city the way described? No, for the most part, we are called to make sacrifices of time, energy, and emotion for the people in our local church. Frankly, most of us even have churches that are too big to honestly love everyone in. So how much more should we limit the time, energy, and emotion we put into relationships outside the church? The gift of the local church limits the range of our responsibility to love other Christians, to challenge them when they are walking in dangerous behaviour, and to encourage them when they are down cast. 

    7. Your local church forces Christ-centred relationships. 

Often times, not always, when we have friendships outside of church, it is because it is a sort of rival community: a sports team, employees at a specific place, a social justice cause. What happens then is that your friendship begins and is sustained by something other than Christ. You don’t talk about Christ, you talk about sports. You don’t talk about Christ, you talk about work. When you commit to a church, you often are forced into close quarters with people that you have nothing else in common with other than your love for Christ. Which makes the relationship Christ-centred. Our wise Lord uses your lack of common preferences to make Himself the centre of our conversation and friendship. 

    8. Your local church exposes our need for the Gospel

Question: 

• What does the world do when they sin against each other? 

Answer: 

• Offer vague, differing apologies (I’m sorry you were hurt). 
• Avoid people that hurt them. 
• Pretend everything is okay (Oh yeah, no big deal!)
• and on and on. 

There is one community where conflict and sin should be dealt with nothing less than the atoning work of Jesus Christ: the local church. The more you spread yourself out, the easier it is to avoid conflict. The easier it is to hide sin. The easier it is to pretend everything is fine. The local church is God’s tool, putting us all in one room every week, to remind us that we need the Gospel. We need the Gospel to forgive, and be forgiven. The Christian who is ‘all in’ at their local church has no where else to go when he or she is hurt, and must deal with the sin with the Gospel. The Christian who has 2 or 3 other places they feel they can, ‘meet with God’ will likely spend a lot of time in those places when some conflict arises, and will wait too long to deal with the issue, or never deal with it at all.  

My desire is that people would know that Jesus Christ walked on the earth, and Jesus Christ says, ‘just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34 - 35). I want you to experience the joy of the Christian community. I want you to be cared for. Protected. Led well. Encouraged. To the extend that you give your time to relationships outside the church community, these things will suffer. I would urge you to evaluate the time you spend in relationships outside your local church, and prayerfully consider if perhaps you need to redistribute that time.  

 

A Father's Day Prayer, for Fathers who feel like failures.

Great and Merciful Father, 

I approach Your holy throne today despite my many failures, my many sins, in the name of Jesus Christ. Thank You for the glorious truth that His pure, noble, and honourable life has been attributed to me by faith, and He has paid the unfathomable price of my sins with His very blood. Thank You. 

Father, today I want to lift up my brothers who feel the immense gap between their conduct in relation to their wife and children, and Yours. 

Those who would confess freely that no one will ever attain to the perfect and holy care that You provide, and yet feel as though their inability to overcome sins such as anger, criticism, lust, selfishness and pride have simply been clinging to them for so long, and with so little improvement, that there must be something deeply wrong with them—maybe that they are even not one of Your people. 

I am lifting up those who are up at night wondering what sort of damage they have done or are doing to their children as they grow, and even sometimes if it would not be better for their children to grow up fatherless, than to have a father such as they. 

Please meet us Father. Please meet us in those moments of crushing failure and sin. Bring Your presence, even if You must come with rebukes as you did with Job, it is better to have you speak a rebuke than remain silent in our day of doubt and distress. 

I ask for those of us who find refuge in self-pity rather than in You, that You would lift our eyes. Lift up the eyes of those who find a strange sort of refuge in rehearsing our shortcomings and telling ourselves that we might as well quit. 

Remind us that Your normal, everyday way of glorifying Your name on this earth is by finding the biggest failures and doing the greatest work through their incompetence and even their sins. 

Remind us that our one job is to keep fighting, no matter what lies we encounter. 

Remind us that no matter how often the sword of the Spirit slips out of our hands, or how often we let the belt of truth come loose, while we are alive there is always opportunity to tighten them back up, and replace the armour through repentance and faith. 

Remind us that the one who is found fighting is the one who will be given the crown, and that although we may experience some victory in this life, our experience of victory is waiting for us. 

Remind us also that for us to need to see a probable victory in our future to persevere, means that we may be worshipping victory, and not Jesus. That it is in the moments that we endure with no possible victory in view, are the moments we declare that “Jesus is worth it, even if my whole life is nothing but failure…”

Finally, remind us that our families are in Your hands. That though we dare not slacken our vigour as we fight our sin, even our sins are part of Your plan to shape and mould our families into the kind of people that You want them to be. 

Strengthen us for the next step today, and give us eager hope that You will be there for the step after that. 

I ask these things in Jesus name, Amen. 

Corona 2020

***rush draft***

I know that some of the people I most respect in the world are telling me that I need to have some 'epistemic humility'. That is, that since I'm no expert and I have not been trained in anything relating to contageous diseases and reading patterns, I need to have the words, 'I don’t' know,' very close at hand. 

However, I really feel convicted about this. So this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to write down my view, and if I'm wrong, it will help me be more humble. I don’t know what will happen if I'm right. Perhaps that is the danger. 

I am quite certain that in the years to come, we will find that here in North America, we will find that we majorly over-reacted to the COVID 19 novel Corona virus. Here are my reasons. 

1. We have a health cult in our culture.

There has been an advertisement up in Winnipeg called, "#savethe100". It is an add sponsored by our provincial tax dollars put into our car insurance company. At face value, this is something everyone can get behind: "100 people died in car accidents last year in Manitoba, let's all drive safer and get that number down to zero!" But the subtle undertone is this: in our hands is the power of life and death. If we just take the right precautions, if we just eat the right food, if we just do the right exercises… we'll live even longer, healthier, etc. No one would ever say, 'we'll never die,' but there is a strong implicit message: we are gods. It follows to me that when a virus comes through our culture, we will try to do something only God can do: extinguish death. But the problem is we can't. So we just keep adding restrictions and health measures, we keep banning more and more substances thinking that if we just find all the things that lead to death and make them illegal, we can live forever. I've seen this pattern in our culture long before Corona virus, and this to me is just the latest manifestation of it. 

2. We are narcissistic as a culture

If you want to hear language that is the most historically narcissistic then watch sports. You will not get in more than ten minutes and you'll hear something like this: 'This is the first time a left handed pitcher has gotten three strike outs in Baltimore in history'. Who really cares about this? But the point is that the commentators have to make you feel as though you are watching moments that will be talked about for generations to come. That is one of the main things that makes live sports intoxicating. You were there. Certainly, there are some moments that live on a few generations. But those are few and far between, and most of even these will be forgotten in the next 60 - 70 years. What does this have to do with Corona virus?

We have been trained to think in terms of making history, being present for the great moments of history, etc. We say things like, 'this has never happned before,' and it stems from a subtle narcissism that wants to make ourselves the centre of history. We want to be the ones that were THERE for the great ____________ of 2020. But for the most part, we live pretty uneventful lives. Therefore, knowing that tendency in our culture, I am predicting that Corona virus will be something that is a relatively small blip on the historical map, perhaps only demonstrating how foolish we all were to lock down the culture for something like this. 

3. The news is inflammatory

I'm really sorry, but this is the one that I just can't see how people can't see. I have spoken to many people about this simple fact: 'remember, one of the most powerful tools of news media is fear. If you are afraid, you will tune in. So they will always hype things up'. Everyone responds with a sort of, 'Yes, I know that! Do you think I’m stupid or something?' But all of a sudden, the news media is gospel truth. Even worse, some people think that the Corona virus is likely WORSE than the news media is saying. But if we consider news media for the past 20 years, it has almost always overblown events in the world. On this basis alone it is worth considering that the Pandemic is overblown. 

These are my reasons for beliving that the Corona virus Pandemic is being overblown by our culture. I want to be clear and say that I'm not saying that there will not be big issues that come from this. I don't know what is going to happen in our culture and in our economy because of this. But I am quite certain the restrictions and the lock down have been a great exercise in folly. 

Miscarriage

It has been about a month since my wife and I lost our first child in a miscarriage. To be more specific, in the first Trimester. My wife went into the doctor's office in week 9 after a bit of bleeding, and there was no heart beat. It looks like the baby stopped growing at six weeks. 

We lost a member of our family. Certainly, the loss is very different from losing my son or my wife. But it is a real loss. 

There are many struggles and many thoughts. Some of these thoughts make me feel ashamed of myself, others make me feel angry. But as I seek the Lord, and take some time to process, there are a few things that are clear, and I hope they can be helpful to others some day. 

1. I must be wary of the impulse to grab for control.

It may feel right to dwell on thoughts like, ‘Next time we’ll pray more fervently,’ or ‘next time we’ll be more careful with our diet,’ But these thoughts are almost all a reaching for control that we cannot have. While we may be able to learn something from this miscarriage, it was ultimately not up to us, and it is very unlikely that God’s sole or even primary lesson is, ‘don’t eat soft cheese next time…’ If anything, the obsessive plethora of pregnancy rules foisted upon young mothers is our godless culture's attempt to believe that we can control which babies come to term and which do not. That is a power only God has. 

2. Not all discipline is punitive

We have wrestled with what kind of discipline this may be. We cannot deny that there has been some pride in our hearts that ought not to have been there. We certainly did expect this pregnancy to be like the last one to some degree. See, there are two reasons to run laps in a sport, and both could be referred to as 'discipline'. One is to grow in conditioning and endurance. Another is because an athlete was disrespectful to the coach and now has to run laps. Sometimes our Father disciplines us in a way that is more akin to the disrespecting. We were just being rebellious and hard-hearted and we know it. Other times, He is disciplining us for endurance. We are never sin-free, but sometimes the hardships He allows are more to train us in righteousness then to punish for rebelliousness. In our case, we have come to believe this is the second kind. We could be wrong, but that is where we believe we have been led. This takes discernment. 

3. We must resist the temptation to go back to confidence in probability or ourselves; and seek to move toward confidence in Christ. 

We are feeling really intensely the fear of losing our next child now. The fear where there was no fear before. The temptation is to get back to the lack of fear as quickly as possible, as if the absence of fear is always good. But it is not good if we are confident and fearless because we are trusting in probability or an idol. 

For example, what do we tell ourselves when the fear that we may not have any more children comes up? Do we say, ‘that is very unlikely. Look at our family history! Look at our health! There is no point in worrying about that’. Those thoughts betray where our confidence truly lies: in probability. Very pragmatic. How is that trusting God? Or, God forbid, we might say, ‘Okay God, You win. We needed that correction. We were getting proud. But we’re good now. You can give us more children’. That is trust in self. In self-righteousness. So where do we go? What are the sorts of thoughts that indicate a heart that is comforted by God, and not by these replacement gods?

They sound like this: ‘We don’t know what will happen, and there is nothing to guarantee that we will continue to have children or if we will have miscarriage after miscarriage from now on. But this is what we do know: God is good. So good. He loves us. He is completely in control. We are His servants, and He commands us not to be anxious about tomorrow.” 

These are truths from His Word that we know beyond a shadow of a doubt. We must turn our minds toward these truths. But even then, we have so little control. We cannot cause these truths to do anything in our hearts. Better men and women than me have read and considered the truth of God’s Word and remained unmoved by it. We need the Holy Spirit to apply the truth of God to our hearts. To open our hearts to the comfort and strength that is in them. 

I could keep going in listing all the ways we need the Lord to make this happen, to apply any part of these lessons. For example, will we even be aware of what we are doing when we start to cling to probability or idolatry for comfort? Will we even find the motivation to reject that, or will we just give in because it is too hard? It is all up to the Lord. All of it. 

So, even as we have learned some things, we are in the same place that we always have been: in complete dependance on God. 

An Open Letter to a Christian Opponent of the Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel

Dear friend, 

I have not know you too long, but I deeply respect and admire you. 

I have seen how you have chosen to take your large family into the inner city, and squeeze them into an over-priced, under renovated house, with nothing for a yard and a back alley that constantly smells like urine. 

I have seen how you have done it not reluctantly, but joyfully. Joyfully sharing the love of Christ with your neighbours. Joyfully modelling love of and for your family; how you have opened your crowded home to single mothers, kids with absentee parents, and others who have turned around and criticized you after you have shown them hospitality. 

I think that the thing that has been harder than all of these things though, is how abandoned you have felt by the church. 

You have a call from God, and you would say freely that your call is not for everyone. Yet, you must be asking sometimes: ‘is there anyone who will join me in this call?’ How many friends have joined you in this mission with great enthusiasm, only to tap out and move to the suburbs a few years later? How many have come in saying, ‘we really believe in what your doing, but we can’t handle all the FAS kids in the service?’ I know you have said, ‘it is God’s church, not mine,’ but it has to hurt. I just has to.

I know how you have fought to stay true to the Gospel when organizations that you feel so much in common with have abandoned it. You have ended up ministering by yourself because you refuse to compromise the Gospel, and then other ministries criticize you for being too liberal! I has to hurt. 

Then one day, a group of men—some influential, some not so much—put out this ‘Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel’. All at once you see the loneliness, the isolation, and the criticism of your ministry getting worse. You see the indifference for what matters so much to you heading in the opposite direction you were hoping it was heading. 

You see even more church members settling on their comfortable fundamentalist couches. You see even more brothers and sisters leaving for the suburbs. You see even more broken people stumbling in your church with stories about how they have been treated by such and such a ministry. 

How could these men do such a thing? Don’t they see that we need MORE Christians to take seriously the call to care for the poor, to love those different than themselves, and to reach out to the broken? How could they encourage such selfishness and apathy? I get it. I do get it. 

No doubt you are right about some of this. There will be Christians, who are self-righteous arm chair theologians, who will use this statement as an excuse to do less loving and more criticizing. There will be some Christians who will withdraw the few dollars that they have been giving to spend it on a better desk chair from which to troll on social media. 

But brother, please don’t lump us all in with this group. 

There are some of us who really do care about those who are left out, hurting, and broken. There are those of us who have intentionally placed ourselves around people like you, because we value your correction to our imbalances toward teaching, study, and prayer. 

Yet we care about something else: that Christians be led to serve the orphan or the widow from the joy and gratitude that the Gospel gives, not by the whip of guilt and shame (language stolen from Doug Wilson). 

Please consider that we desire the longevity of the mission to serve the poor, cloth the naked, feed the hungry, and reconcile the alienated. Longevity that will only come if the Gospel is kept free from works righteousness; even works as precious as the ones you advocate

Please hear me: the Bible is clear that the fruit of a life transformed by the Gospel is a person who cannot ignore the plight of the suffering brother or sister (Matt 25: 21 - 46). But what else? We should love our brothers and sisters much more (1 John 2:10-11). We should love the Word (Psalm 119). We should walk in consistent gratitude and joy (2 Cor 6:10, Phil 4:4, 1 Thes 5:16). We should not have any unforgiveness (Matthew 18:23 - 25). We all are growing the behave in line with what we say the Gospel has done in our lives. 

I’m not asking you to sign the statement. I’m asking you to see that behind this statement, and the desire to keep the Gospel pure is a heart that does want the ministry that you want. That does want the societal healing that you want. That does the glory of Jesus Christ as He is shown to be the catalyst for a transformed culture. 

Please trust that the Lord sees the work you are doing, and He will reward you. Please trust that for those of us who are using theology to justify our apathy, indifference, and self-righteousness, we will be held to account. But please join us in fighting for a Gospel that says, ‘nothing in my hands, I bring, simply to the cross I cling,’ whether or not you sign any statements. 

We need Jesus to celebrate #Canada150

Canada 150

As some may know, the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary has stirred up a lot of things in our nation. 

At the risk of being overly simplistic, amongst those who are more thoughtful, there are two extremes. There are those who see ‘Canada’s Birthday’ as a chance to celebrate the many privileges and blessings that we enjoy in this country, and even express a bit of national pride. On the other end of the spectrum, there are those who feel as though celebrating Canada’s birthday is akin to celebrating Hitler’s tenure as dictator of Germany. And of course, the majority of introspective people fall between these two extremes. Then, I must also briefly mention a third group, who have spent barely 30 seconds thinking about these issues, and are just happy to have an extra day off. Maybe I am most jealous of the last group; I’m certain they sleep better than I do. 

I was, and to a certain extent still am, not sure how to react to this birthday. On the one hand, when I look at the struggles of many nations in the world, I see much to be thankful for and to celebrate; yet I cannot deny that there is likely a direct link between the wealth and ease of Canadian life, and fact that it cost so little for our forefathers to take this land. That is, in the normal course of things, taking someone else’s land would deplete the occupying force’s resources and man power. However, in the case of Canada, there was a confusing mix of military superiority, along with a lot of deception, betrayal, and abuse. When wealth is acquired honestly, it grows slowly and steadily, through wisdom and hard work; with a few exceptions. Where wealth is acquired quickly, there is often a party that has been wronged. 

Therefore, one could argue, by simply enjoying the blessing we enjoy, we are part of the problem. 

So the question is, how do you respond to this dilemma: being blessed through past wrongs? 

The only answer is that you repent and believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

See, the Gospel says that we are wretched people. We are selfish sinners, and we deserve eternal judgement. That is the penalty for being perpetrators of the injustices against the first nations people, or being complicit in those atrocities by blindly enjoying the benefits of them. The Gospel says that the cost for those sins is nothing less than the death of the infinitely valuable life of God. That the first nations people are God’s Creation, created in His image, and when they are wronged, God’s image is slighted and maligned. 

But we receive Christ’s death offered for us in our place. He died the death I should have died for my sins. So now, I no longer live under those sins. To continue to walk around with my head down, moping around, paying a kind of penance for those sins, is to say, ‘Christ’s death was not enough for me’. So is trying to pay penance by haranguing people who are celebrating Canada day, or being overly politically correct. I can now celebrate the blessings that I have been given in this country, even without celebrating the way that I received them. I have to be able to. The Christian should be used to celebrating this sort of thing. 

For example, I have someone close to me who is very generous. He gives generous gifts, he is loyal to family members who are struggling, he is long-suffering. Now, I don’t know his heart, but there is much evidence to suggest that a large part of his motive in doing these things is to declare himself a good person with no need of God, no need of Christ. That is blasphemous self-righteousness, and it is a lie. So what do I do then? Do I spurn all of his kindness and generosity? No! I commend it. I commend it because even though there are likely sinister motives behind it, they are still good things. Then, when given the opportunity, I will encourage this person to repent and believe the Gospel. 

So we as Canadians must celebrate our streets which can be traversed in the night without fear, the medical care we and our loved ones can attain without question, our ability to make more money than we need to survive, and on and on down the list. These are good gifts that we do not deserve. 

And, when we are confronted with the continued struggles of the first nations people, we do not respond with a, ‘well, if they would just get their act together,’ kind of attitude. We remember that the entire basis of our identity is a God who looked down and saw how helpless and hostile we were, and had mercy on us. So we fight that tendency to see ourselves as better, or more deserving, and we look for opportunities to use the position we have been given in Christ to serve the first nations people. We do that to all people. 

I know that i have not answered one crucial question. I don’t know that I can do it here, or that I even have an answer for it. 

If I stole someone’s truck, then some years later, find that I was wrong and repent and say sorry, what now is my obligation to that person as an act of restitution? Maybe he lost his job because he didn’t have a truck and couldn’t afford a new one. Maybe his wife got sick and died, and he couldn’t pay for her medical care, in part, because I stole his truck. What does it look like to make restitution for my sin of stealing his truck?

I think you know where I am going with that illustration. What does it look like to make restitution?

I think it will look different for everyone, and that we do need to be willing to make sacrifices for the sake of restitution. Sacrifices of time and money. but I know that for everyone it will start with the Gospel. We cannot simply force people to live under guilt and shame. The repentant tax collector in Matthew gives his money away with joy. That is what the Gospel produces: restitution with joy. Guilt is a horrible motive for change and healing. Lasting healing will come  through the believing and preaching of the Gospel. 

So if you got nothing else: preach the Gospel, not unquenchable guilt and shame. 

Thomas & Alana Wedding Homily Transcript by Suhail Stephens

Thomas and Alana, this is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it!

It is with great anticipation that you have looked forward to this moment. Alana, about a week ago you memorialized your own excitement in that hallowed cyberspace called Facebook, writing to Thomas for all the world to see and saying – and I quote – “Wow Exclamation mark. I get to call you quote husband unquote in like 8 days triple exclamation mark. I'm so incredibly excited triple exclamation mark. Triple heart emoticon.” To which, two hours and forty seven minutes later, Thomas, you replied “It barely feels real exclamation mark I hope I can get my head around it before next week... squiggly face… I love you exclamation mark”

As you have fallen in love, it has been a delight to see your joy in each other and most of all, in the prospect of marriage. Marriage is a divine institution – God’s idea, birthed in his very imagination, upheld and honoured by his word, and uniquely embodied in you as you stand here on this your wedding day. In the presence of these witnesses, you shall be joined together, and the two of you will become one, to be regarded – as C.S Lewis says – “as a single organism.” It is God who joins you together and what he joins together, no one can separate. 

As such, marriage is not something to be undertaken lightly. It is entered into before God and is accountable to Him. It is a permanent state of affairs whose vows and commitments are to be faithfully honoured – regardless of prosperity or adversity - till your dying breath. Your marriage – the profound mingling of your hearts, souls, minds, and bodies; indeed of your whole lives – is a picture of the unbreakable union Christ has with his church - whereby as the Apostle Paul says, “We are members of his body, of His flesh and of His bones.” 

Today is rightly a celebration of this great and sacred mystery, and it’s a celebration imbued with holiness, a day that will forever be set apart in the trajectory of your lives. God is here. And just as Jesus first revealed his glory at a wedding, by turning water into wine, he is here with you now, in the power of His Spirit, excited and eager to affirm and bless your union; that you two, similarly, may be turned into something new.

When I asked you if there was a particular verse of scripture that resonated with you, you shared Philippians 1:6: He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it. It’s a wonderful verse that characterizes your relationship and will likely be a theme you revisit many times in marriage. 

Thomas and Alana, it is obvious that God has initiated a very good work in you. You are a relationship of his making, the work of his hands, and an answer to each other’s prayers. There is already such an abundance of goodness between you. It’s been inspiring to see your passion for Christ and his kingdom, the honesty and maturity of your communication, and to see how well your personalities complement each other. And who could forget the passion with which you love each other – emoticons, exclamation marks and all, these two are crazy about each other! Thomas, your willingness to move to Winnipeg; Alana, your willingness to join a new church community – these are things our self-centred, entitled culture scoff at, but this mutuality of support and your prioritizing of one another is the best kind of crazy, and will serve you well. 

God has indeed began a good work in you. We recognize and rejoice in it, and give thanks for all that has brought you to each other in this moment. 

And though God’s work will always be good, as you well know, this does not mean that it will always be easy. Marriage is a unique and powerful mirror by which God reveals the truth of who you both really are. Without any illusion, you will come to know the reality of yourselves and each other - you’ll see the very best, and the very worst.  

Our world says that when the latter happens, once the giggles and goose bumps of being in love subside and happiness fades, that you are no longer bound by the commitment of marriage and are free to look elsewhere. No! Especially in these moments where weakness is revealed, where shades of darkness are exposed, remember that this, too, is a good work of God. Your marriage is doing what it should, helping you discern darkness that you may know where the light of Christ needs to shine. 

Thomas and Alana, through marriage, God will reveal darkness in you - some of which you are aware of and some of which you never even knew existed. Regardless, welcome these moments. Vulnerable and difficult though they may be; consider them pure joy. For in this revealing, God’s desire is not to shame, harm, or disappoint you, but to heal, strengthen, and transform you; that you may become whole. God has chosen and called you together to serve each other in this ministry of wholeness, day after day, forever. 

So, as you navigate darkness, remember that coming face to face with the truth of things gives you the privilege of loving truly and being truly loved.. Be utterly devoted to one another. Be truthful, diligently attending to and nourishing the trust between you. Be completely humble and gentle; patient; and bear with one another in love, not keeping a record of wrongs but forgiving from the heart. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. And pray with and for each other, in full assurance that even the darkness is not dark to God; the night will shine like the day; and he who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.  

Remember, too, that marriage will bring out your very best. Notice, affirm and celebrate each other’s interests, talents, and character. Recognize and honour differences in personality, preference, and ways of being with others and with God. And encourage, even rejoice in each other’s growth, blessing one another to shine with all the strength and beauty that God has purposed. May your marriage be a safe place where both of you become all that God wants and has destined you to be, trusting that in Christ, all things hold together; and that it is to his glory and for your good that you go from strength to strength till you each appear before him.

Finally, I encourage you to continually receive each other as good and perfect gifts of God, trusting that he knows your deepest needs and desires, and that in giving you to each other, he is giving you the absolute best. Just as he did when he turned water into wine. May you savour and enjoy each other to the fullest. May your marriage age well. And may you be filled with the love of God, knowing that it is his delight to join and sustain you – that the fullness of his joy may be in you, that your joy may be complete. Amen.