Christ Church (Moscow, ID)

Talk 2 of 6 from Missions Conference 2022: As the Waters Cover the Sea.Consider donating to our Missions Conference fund: https://bit.ly/missions-conference-donation.—James Rayment was born in England, but has lived in Seattle for 10 years with his wife and 5 kids. Since 2012, James has been building relationships with Muslims in Seattle and around the world. Because of this ministry he founded The Al-Ma’idah Initiative (https://www.al-maidah.org), a Christian nonprofit that equips the church to understand and communicate better with Muslims on a range of religious, political and worldview issues. His goal is to create genuine friendships without shying away from the exclusivity of Jesus’ message.—The gospel is good news for all people, in all lands, at all times. The call of the church is to obey Christ’s command to teach the nations obedience to Him, as the King of all the earth. The great promise of the prophet Hosea is that the knowledge of the glory of the Lord shall cover the earth as water covers the sea. But between the commencement of Christ’s kingly rule of earth and the day when he comes again to judge the living and the dead, there will be ebbs and flows.While initially in the gospel’s advance it centered in Jerusalem, and then took root in the West, we see in more recent decades how the gospel is rapidly advancing in South America and in the Eastern lands. But oftentimes, Christians in the West are often unsure of how to take the gospel and share it with their fellow Westerners; but more so are stumped by how to share the good news with those from very different cultures and religions.Missions Conference 2022 is intended to help answer those questions, while equipping the saints where they are to be ready to share the word with not only their neighbor but the foreigner in their midst as well.

Talk 4 of 6 from Missions Conference 2022: As the Waters Cover the Sea.Consider donating to our Missions Conference fund: https://bit.ly/missions-conference-donation.—Francis Foucachon was born and raised in France, and trained as a young man to be a chef in the elite world of lyonnaise gastronomy. After working in that field for seven years, he was mentored and trained for the pastoral ministry by a missionary church-planter. He moved to the United States after marrying Donna Rapacz, a high school French teacher from Florida, but they returned to France a few years later for Francis to attend the Reformed Seminary in Aix-en-Provence. During this time, he was part of a church-planting team with one of his professors, and helped start a French-speaking Christian school. After graduation, Francis was ordained as a minister in the Presbyterian Church in America. Under the auspices of the PCA, Francis and Donna and their five children planted a church in the suburbs of Montreal, Quebec and a church in Lyon, France. Francis completed the course work in the Doctorate of Ministry program at RTS Orlando, and was the Evangelism Explosion Director for Quebec.Francis and Donna returned to the United States to be with their children as they went through college. To support his family during this time, Francis created a high-end French restaurant called West of Paris, which he sold in 2011 to return to full-time ministry. He is President of Huguenot Heritage, working in partnership with Third Millennium Ministries as French Project Coordinator, with the mission of training francophone church leaders worldwide.—The gospel is good news for all people, in all lands, at all times. The call of the church is to obey Christ’s command to teach the nations obedience to Him, as the King of all the earth. The great promise of the prophet Hosea is that the knowledge of the glory of the Lord shall cover the earth as water covers the sea. But between the commencement of Christ’s kingly rule of earth and the day when he comes again to judge the living and the dead, there will be ebbs and flows.While initially in the gospel’s advance it centered in Jerusalem, and then took root in the West, we see in more recent decades how the gospel is rapidly advancing in South America and in the Eastern lands. But oftentimes, Christians in the West are often unsure of how to take the gospel and share it with their fellow Westerners; but more so are stumped by how to share the good news with those from very different cultures and religions.Missions Conference 2022 is intended to help answer those questions, while equipping the saints where they are to be ready to share the word with not only their neighbor but the foreigner in their midst as well.

Talk 6 of 6 from Missions Conference 2022: As the Waters Cover the Sea. Consider donating to our Missions Conference fund: https://bit.ly/missions-conference-donation.—The gospel is good news for all people, in all lands, at all times. The call of the church is to obey Christ’s command to teach the nations obedience to Him, as the King of all the earth. The great promise of the prophet Hosea is that the knowledge of the glory of the Lord shall cover the earth as water covers the sea. But between the commencement of Christ’s kingly rule of earth and the day when he comes again to judge the living and the dead, there will be ebbs and flows.While initially in the gospel’s advance it centered in Jerusalem, and then took root in the West, we see in more recent decades how the gospel is rapidly advancing in South America and in the Eastern lands. But oftentimes, Christians in the West are often unsure of how to take the gospel and share it with their fellow Westerners; but more so are stumped by how to share the good news with those from very different cultures and religions.Missions Conference 2022 is intended to help answer those questions, while equipping the saints where they are to be ready to share the word with not only their neighbor but the foreigner in their midst as well.Visit our website: https://christkirk.com.

Saints from ancient days have punctuated their prayers, both spoken & sung, public & private with “Amen.” An early church father, Jerome, described the early church’s practice of hearty “Amens” this way: “Where else does the ‘Amen’ resound in the likeness of thunder of the divine heaven & the empty temples of pagan idols are shaken?”So then, adopting this practice isn’t just keeping a tradition alive. Rather, as we declare in unison hearty Amens we’re doing a few things. A temptation in Western Christianity is to limit faith to what happens between our ears. But by shouting joyful amens, we use our body to vocalize our agreement with both God’s promises & what He’s produced in us by grace.

Talk 3 of 6 from Missions Conference 2022: As the Waters Cover the Sea. Consider donating to our Missions Conference fund: https://bit.ly/missions-conference-donation.—James Rayment was born in England, but has lived in Seattle for 10 years with his wife and 5 kids. Since 2012, James has been building relationships with Muslims in Seattle and around the world. Because of this ministry he founded The Al-Ma’idah Initiative (https://www.al-maidah.org), a Christian nonprofit that equips the church to understand and communicate better with Muslims on a range of religious, political and worldview issues. His goal is to create genuine friendships without shying away from the exclusivity of Jesus’ message.—The gospel is good news for all people, in all lands, at all times. The call of the church is to obey Christ’s command to teach the nations obedience to Him, as the King of all the earth. The great promise of the prophet Hosea is that the knowledge of the glory of the Lord shall cover the earth as water covers the sea. But between the commencement of Christ’s kingly rule of earth and the day when he comes again to judge the living and the dead, there will be ebbs and flows.While initially in the gospel’s advance it centered in Jerusalem, and then took root in the West, we see in more recent decades how the gospel is rapidly advancing in South America and in the Eastern lands. But oftentimes, Christians in the West are often unsure of how to take the gospel and share it with their fellow Westerners; but more so are stumped by how to share the good news with those from very different cultures and religions.Missions Conference 2022 is intended to help answer those questions, while equipping the saints where they are to be ready to share the word with not only their neighbor but the foreigner in their midst as well.

Talk 5 of 6 from Missions Conference 2022: As the Waters Cover the Sea. The gospel is good news for all people, in all lands, at all times. The call of the church is to obey Christ’s command to teach the nations obedience to Him, as the King of all the earth. The great promise of the prophet Hosea is that the knowledge of the glory of the Lord shall cover the earth as water covers the sea. But between the commencement of Christ’s kingly rule of earth and the day when he comes again to judge the living and the dead, there will be ebbs and flows.While initially in the gospel’s advance it centered in Jerusalem, and then took root in the West, we see in more recent decades how the gospel is rapidly advancing in South America and in the Eastern lands. But oftentimes, Christians in the West are often unsure of how to take the gospel and share it with their fellow Westerners; but more so are stumped by how to share the good news with those from very different cultures and religions.Missions Conference 2022 is intended to help answer those questions, while equipping the saints where they are to be ready to share the word with not only their neighbor but the foreigner in their midst as well.Visit our website: https://christkirk.com.

We are a congregation that is resolved to make a mark for Christ in this world. We see the futility and folly all around us. And we want to see salvation spring up from the ground. We anticipate the budding forth of redemption. And this anticipation is biblically warranted. Isaiah says, “Let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation. And let righteousness spring up together” (Isaiah 45:8). But we must remember what happens prior to the growth of wheat in the fields and grapes on the vine. And that is: rain from heaven. Just before Isaiah speaks of salvation springing forth from the earth, he says, “Drop down, ye heavens, from above, And let the skies pour down righteousness” (Isaiah 45:8). Christ has ascended into heaven, and our salvation is in him. All blessing comes from the Father through the heavenly seated Son to us by the Spirit. God rains down righteousness upon us. He pours out grace upon grace. He rejoices over you with loud singing. Your job is to listen. Do you hear him? He is your Heavenly Father. So turn your ear up. He makes his face to shine upon you. So turn your face up and behold his glory without a veil. Lean back your heads, spread wide your arms, and receive the Father’s grace by faith. C. S. Lewis once said, “If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next... Aim at heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’: aim at earth and you will get neither.”

INTRODUCTIONLeviticus 19 is sometimes called the Sermon on the Mount of the Old Testament, since like the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, it is a collection of moral instructions for God’s people, including the specific command that is the second greatest commandment: “love your neighbor as yourself.” Repeated twice in this chapter, we should understand the whole chapter (and Jesus says the whole Old Testament) as a lesson on that point.THE TEXT“And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them, Ye shall be holy: for I the Lord your God am holy…”SUMMARY OF THE TEXTSince piety begins at home, God’s people are to fear their mother and their father, keep God’s sabbaths, and not turn to idols (19:1-4). When they offer peace offerings, they may only eat the feast for two days, preventing overindulgence, laziness, and greed – probably implying the need to share and be generous (19:5-8). Related, God requires business owners to leave leftovers for the poor (19:9-10). God’s people must not steal, lie, swear falsely, or rob anyone, even by being slow to pay what we owe, particularly to the poor (19:11-13). All cruelty, especially to the disabled, is condemned, as well as all injustice through favoritism or partiality (19:14-15). All gossip and slander are prohibited as forms of murder and hatred, and if you have a problem with someone, you must talk to them directly (19:16-17). God’s people are to reject all vengeance and grudges, and love their neighbors as themselves (19:18).While mixing seeds and fabrics may have been prohibited as a sign of distinctions between Jews and Gentiles, this law also points to God’s insistence that His people not confuse and mix the “fabric” of the way God made the world, e.g. male and female (19:19). While justice is to be without partiality, God insists that those with less power (e.g. slaves) be granted greater benefit of the doubt, particularly in cases of sexual immorality (19:20-22). The people were required to trust God for the fruit of their newly planted trees, waiting until the fifth year to eat it (19:23-25). All idolatry is prohibited: whether through consuming blood, pagan hairstyles, tattoos, prostitution, or witchcraft (19:26-31). The chapter returns to where it began, reminding the people to keep sabbath, rise up before the elderly, love strangers as themselves, and keep justice, since God is the Lord and brought them out of Egypt (Lev. 19:32-37).LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELFJesus and the New Testament writers repeatedly insist that the whole law is found in this summary: love your neighbor as yourself (Lk. 10:27-28, Gal. 5:14, Js. 2:8). This is the law and the prophets, and all the laws are summarized and fulfilled in this one: love your neighbor as yourself (Mt. 22:39-40, Rom. 13:9-10). Love is more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices (Mk. 12:29-33). This completely contradicts those who claim that the law of God is opposed to love, or that the Old Testament was not about the love of God. Love is obedience to God from the heart. But to truly understand the law of God is to see how far short we fall of God’s love.This love requires strict justice and fairness in some matters (19:11-13, 15, 35-36), but also loves mercy and generosity (19:9-10, 20-22). Even manners are love in the little things: clothing, hair, standing for the elderly (19:19, 27, 32). Love works hard, honestly, avoiding the need to receive charity, with the goal of being able to give generously to those in need (Lev. 19:5-6, 9-10, 34, cf. 2 Thess. 3:5ff, Eph. 4:28). While civil magistrates have a duty to love God by enforcing strict justice, they have no business coercing the “love” or charity of others. Government programs and the taxation they require only robs people of the opportunity to love freely.WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?When the lawyer asked Jesus who his neighbor was that he was to love, Jesus famously answered with the parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk. 10:29-37). The striking thing is that Jesus shifts the question from “Who is my neighbor?” (object) to “Who acted as a neighbor?” (subject) (Lk. 10: 29, 36). The point is that we are required to have a certain disposition, ready to love. Notice that the so-called rule-followers (the Levite and Priest) are the ones who fail to be neighbors, and the one notorious for breaking rules (the Samaritan) is the one who loves the nearly-dead Jew. The Samaritan is incredibly lavish, and Jesus emphasizes this: bandages, oil, wine, transportation, lodging, further care, future care, and all expenses paid (Lk. 10:34-35).Most interpreters take the Samaritan to be a type of Jesus, an outcast, come to rescue the nearly-dead human race in Adam, which certainly works. It may also be the case that Jesus intends to be prefigured in the stripped, beaten, and robbed man among the thieves, setting the goal of neighbor-love as ultimately aimed at loving Him, through the least of these my brethren (Mt. 25:40). In either case, the conclusion is that in order to love your neighbor as yourself, you must reckon yourself an outsider, a foreigner, a threat, a criminal, already rejected, having nothing to lose (Gal. 2:20). In other words, love means reckoning yourself as among the rescued, as among the slaves because you were freed from Egypt (Lev. 19:34, 36).CONCLUSIONSAs we consider our duty to love, we should remember the difference between refugees and apostles from the world. Refugees are fleeing from the world and frequently show up looking like the world, talking like the world, and full of the confusions of the world but they are teachable and hungry to learn. Apostles show up with a message from the world about how backward and narrow-minded Biblical thinking and living is. Refugees are welcome to come and learn and grow; apostles should be corrected a couple times and then not given the time of day (Tit. 3:10).Throughout the text, the line is repeated: “I am the Lord,” and it seems that this should be taken as shorthand for the bookends: “I the Lord your God am holy” (Lev. 19:2) and “I am the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt” (19:36). God’s holiness is directed at saving His people, and God’s holiness is bound up with His love. But this holy love is not content to merely “affirm” anyone just as they are or in whatever they want to do or be. No, this holy love is determined to bring Christ into every moment, to see Him in those around us (however weak or foreign or unlovely) until His image emerges clearly in them. We are called to this love because it is precisely the kind of love that God has bestowed upon us.

"Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Therefore it is also contained in the Scripture,'Behold, I lay in ZionA chief cornerstone, elect, precious,And he who believes on Him will by no means be put to shame.'Therefore, to you who believe, He is precious; but to those who are disobedient,'The stone which the builders rejectedHas become the chief cornerstone,'and'A stone of stumblingAnd a rock of offense.'They stumble, being disobedient to the word, to which they also were appointed.But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy (1 Pet. 2:4-10).

INTRODUCTIONAs the people of God, we are partakers of Christ’s sufferings. Because of this, we are partakers of one another’s sufferings. And because of that, we are partakers in one another’s comforts. But in order to receive the comfort that we ought to receive, the apostle’s doctrine here requires some unpacking.THE TEXT“Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ. And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer: or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation. And our hope of you is stedfast, knowing, that as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so shall ye be also of the consolation” (2 Cor. 1:3–7).SUMMARY OF THE TEXTThis is a passage that is saturated in comfort. Paul begins by blessing God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (v. 3). By way of apposition, this God is called the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort (v. 3). As the God of all comfort, the Father comforts Paul and his company so that they might be able to pass on that comfort to those who are in any kind of trouble (v. 4). The comfort that is passed on is explicitly identified as the comfort that was received (v. 4). It is the same comfort. Paul then says that as the sufferings of Christ abound, so also his consolations abound (v. 5). Paul then presents a very interesting line of thought. If the apostolic band is afflicted, it is for the Corinthians’ “consolation and salvation.” If the apostolic band is comforted, that too is for the Corinthians’ “consolation and salvation” (v. 6). This can work because the afflictions and the comforts are the same for Paul and for the Corinthians (v. 6). Paul’s hope concerning the Corinthians was therefore steadfast, because as they were partakers of the suffering, they would also be partakers of the consolation (v. 7).THE RABBINICAL BLESSINGIn the first century, the first of the nineteen synagogue blessings began this way: “Blessed art thou, O Lord our God and God of our fathers, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob . . .” He is also called the Father of mercies. What Paul is doing is taking those words and recasting them in order to rejoice in God as the God of all comfort. This recast synagogue blessing also appears elsewhere (Eph. 1:3; 1 Pet 1:3). Remember that Paul is dealing with some Judaizing adversaries here, and so he is showing Christ as the fulfillment of the Old Testament, not a continuation of it.Simeon and Anna both were waiting for the consolation of Israel (Luke 2:25). The Messiah Christ was the promised comfort of Israel (Is. 40-66). This sets the stage for the comfort that Paul is talking about. It is an explicitly Christiancomfort.PRESENCE OF COMFORTThis short passage accounts for about one third of all the New Testament references to comfort. The word is used here in both noun and verb forms, and it is a peculiar kind of gospel comfort. We are servants of the suffering servant, after all, and a servant is not greater than his master (John 13:16; 15:20). A few verses earlier (John 15:18), John says that if the world hates us, we should know that it hated Christ first.In the verses immediately following in this chapter, Paul records his gratitude at being delivered from a deadly peril in Asia (2 Cor. 1:8-11), which we will get to soon enough. But he was also greatly encouraged by the good news that Titus had brought back from Corinth (2 Cor. 7:6-7). The revolt at Corinth had been quelled, and Paul was comforted in that as well.AUTHENTIC MINISTRYThe charge against Paul is that he must not be a genuine apostle. How could he be? If he had been a genuine apostle, he wouldn’t be getting into so much trouble, would he? And certainly, by any reasonable measurement, the apostle Paul appeared to be genuinely snake bit. He lived on the lip of perpetual death—“For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh” (2 Cor. 4:11, NKJV).This was a ministry that was constantly on hairpin turns at high speeds on two wheels. That’s right. Authentic ministry careening down Rattlesnake Grade. What had Paul endured? He goes into it in depth later in this epistle (2 Cor. 11:23-30).  Flogged five times. Beaten with rods three times. Stoned. Shipwrecked. Hungry and thirsty, cold and naked. Jail time in various places. Should we put all this in the glossy prospectus that we send out to prospective donors? If you were on a pastoral search committee, what would you do with an application like this? If you were looking for a spokesman for your church, is this the man you would send out to the cameras?THAT OLD DEVIL RESPECTABILITYIf we are biblical Christians, we should always want to maintain in our own ministries the same tensions that were in evidence in biblical ministries. On the one hand, we are told that an elder must have a good reputation with outsiders (1 Tim. 3:7). But then Jesus tells us that there is a kind of honor and respect that is a stumbling block. “How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?” (John 5:44).The apostle Paul told the Galatians that he wished that the false advocates of circumcision would go whole hog and cut the whole thing off (Gal. 5:12). But in the very next verse, he urges them “by love [to] serve one another” (Gal. 5:13-15).And he told the Philippians that he wanted them to have their love abound more and more in knowledge and in all judgment (Phil. 1:9). This was shortly before he called the false teachers he was dealing with evil workers and dogs (Phil. 3:3).We are servants of a crucified Messiah. This did not happen because Jesus got along so well with the established authorities. And if we accompany Him in the pathway of His sufferings, as we are called to do, we are invited to partake of all the comforts that the God of all comfort might offer.