Christ Church (Moscow, ID)

This is session 4 of 4 from our Grace Agenda 2021 Women's Seminar in Moscow, ID.The last several years Christ Church has tried an experiment in grace and has not charged for the Grace Agenda conference. In keeping with this spirit of grace, we are accepting free will donations at https://www.graceagenda.com/donate.

Remember Pharaoh—we still don't remember which one he is, but we do remember Shiphrah and Puah. We need to be like the holy women of old who are not afraid with any terror.This is session 2 of 4 from our Grace Agenda 2021 Women's Seminar in Moscow, ID.The last several years Christ Church has tried an experiment in grace and has not charged for the Grace Agenda conference. In keeping with this spirit of grace, we are accepting free will donations at https://www.graceagenda.com/donate.

INTRODUCTIONAs we come now to the last chapter of Micah, we are in the judgment section of the last cycle. As before, the judgment that is going to fall on Israel and Judah both was going to be a fearsome one. This is found in the first seven verses of the seventh chapter.THE TEXT“Woe is me! for I am as when they have gathered the summer fruits, as the grapegleanings of the vintage: There is no cluster to eat: My soul desired the firstripe fruit. The good man is perished out of the earth: And there is none upright among men: They all lie in wait for blood; They hunt every man his brother with a net. That they may do evil with both hands earnestly, the prince asketh, and the judge asketh for a reward; And the great man, he uttereth his mischievous desire: So they wrap it up. The best of them is as a brier: The most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge: The day of thy watchmen and thy visitation cometh; Now shall be their perplexity. Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence in a guide: Keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom. For the son dishonoureth the father, the daughter riseth up against her mother, the daughter in law against her mother in law; A man’s enemies are the men of his own house. Therefore I will look unto the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation: My God will hear me” (Micah 7:1–7).SUMMARY OF THE TEXTThe devastation will be complete. The land will look like it has been completely harvested, but there is nothing to show for it in the barns (v. 1). There is no food in the fields, and there is no food in the storehouses. There are no good men left in the land, and those remaining seek to trap others with their nets (v. 2), in order that they might shed their blood. These scoundrels pursue evil with both hands (v. 3). The prince and the great men come to the judges with their desires, and all the corrupt judges have to say is how much? The best of these miscreants are like a hedge full of thorns (v. 4), a thicket of brambles, but their day of perplexity is about to fall down upon their heads. Do not trust in your friends, or even in the wife who lies in bed with you (v. 5) because the days are so treacherous. As Harry Truman once put it, if you want a friend in Washington, get a dog. A man’s adversaries are the members of his own household (v. 6). Trust no one. Things are really dark and hopeless, and this is why the prophet says that he will wait upon the Lord (v. 7). Salvation is from the Lord, and only from there.OPEN CRUELTYWhen sinful men first begin to drift away from the ways of the Lord, they claim to be able to fulfill, better than the Lord can, what believers value. In other words, the initial claim is that the Deuteronomic blessings that God promises are actually promises that our imaginary sky-friend will not be able to perform, while their enlightened way of approaching government will be able to fulfill them. Do you want peace, love and understanding? Then away with your reliance on ancient texts! Do you want a society governed by mutual respect? Then it needs to be a neutral society, with a secular public square.But as time passes, it turns out that the peace, love and understanding were actually the values of a white supremacist culture. The cruelty that was implicit in the abortion clinics all along comes out in order to parade in the open. Hostility to others who differ becomes a feature, not a bug. The only thing that is necessary for sinful men to come to boast in their cruelty is the opportunity to do so. When they get their rebellion green-lighted, they pursue their wickedness with both hands.They will at first mock you for thinking that peace and love can only come from Jesus Christ. They can generate the milk of human kindness just as well as Christian faith can. But then, after what seemed like a very short time, they start mocking you for valuing peace and love at all. Cruelty becomes their badge of vaunted pride.CORRUPTED COURTSTruth and justice are objective realities, and they can only be objective realities if there is a transcendent God over all of us. The moment you allowed justice to be a relativized value, settled by human voices down here below, that moment was the time when you put justice up for sale.And as Micah points out, the only ones who can afford the prices that relativistic judges charge will be the princes and great men. The lowly cannot get justice because they have been priced out of the market. If you want the common man to be represented in the courts, the great need is not public defenders, but rather judges who cannot be bought.But if you live in a time where this is the case—and you do—do not despair. The day of their perplexity is approaching. It is about to come crashing down on their heads because the ultimate court, the court of Heaven, cannot be corrupted. And God issues decisions from behind His bench.NO HELP IN FAMILYWe are Christians, not sentimentalists. There is no innate power in human relationships. If we are out of kilter with our Maker, then we are also out of kilter with every aspect of His world. Jesus taught that His coming was intended to recalibrate everything. This is why we are summoned to love Him more than we love father or mother. “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26). And worldlings, for their part, return the favor. “The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law” (Luke 12:53).The only way to love your family properly is by loving them less than you love Jesus Christ.WAIT ON THE LORDThe prophets end with hope, anticipating the hope of the next section. God does not abandon His people, but He does leave them in situations longer than they really wanted to be in them. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Afterward, it yields the peaceful fruit of an upright life (Heb. 12).But the only way to look forward to that time of harvest is through looking toward the Lord of the harvest, who is the Lord Jesus. We can look forward to the great reckoning, to the time of harvest (v. 11) if we have obeyed the earlier exhortation (v. 2). We are took toward Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. That is the only way to wait on the Lord.

INTRODUCTIONThe Sin Offering taught us that the guilt of sin not only needs to be paid for but also cleansing. Here, the Reparation/Guilt Offering teaches us that sin must always be repented of and some sins require us to do restitution.REVIEWLeviticus 1: Ascension Offering – God invites us to draw near with all that we are: the whole animal goes on the altar.Leviticus 2: Tribute Offering – God provides our daily bread and all things, and therefore, He claims our full allegiance: bread on the altar.Leviticus 3: Peace Offering – God invites us to have fellowship with Him and one another with a meal: the fat goes on the altar and we eat together in the presence of God.Leviticus 4: Sin Offering – Our sin defiles us and our land, but God takes it upon Himself so we can be clean: the blood goes in front of the veil and on the altar for cleansing and the carcass is burned outside the camp.THE TEXT“Now if a person sins after he hears a public adjuration to testify when he is a witness, whether has seen or otherwise known, if he does not tell it, then he will bear his guilt…” (Lev. 5–6:7)SUMMARY OF THE TEXTIt is unclear how the Reparation Offering is related to the Sin Offering (if at all), but the clear emphasis here is on the effects of certain sins: failure to testify (5:1), thoughtless oaths (5:4), sins against the sanctuary (5:2-3, 15), sins of deception, theft, or damage (6:2-3). In these instances, it seems that a sin offering would ordinarily be offered and then depending on the exact offense, a Reparation Offering would also be required (5:6). For those who could not afford the ordinary Sin Offering, two birds or even a grain offering without oil might be offered (5:7-13). The Reparation Offering was always a ram without blemish and included twenty percent restitution (5:14-6:7).PUBLIC TESTIMONY & OATHSOn the one hand we know that “whoever meddles in a quarrel not his own is like one who takes a passing dog by the ears” (Prov. 26:17), but we must not close our eyes or remain silent when injustice is being perpetrated right in front of us (Lev. 20:4). Here, the first situation seems to be a public hearing presumably for a crime (Lev. 5:1). The law requires two or three witnesses to convict someone of anything (Dt. 19:15). Failure to speak up when you know that a witness is lying or else you were a witness that can provide other crucial information is not only bearing false witness but participating in the miscarriage of justice and unjust penalties. False witnesses are liable to receive the punishment that would have fallen on the falsely accused (Dt. 19:16-21). This is part of the problem with anonymous witnesses: they cannot be held accountable.RESTITUTIONWhen someone is convicted of their sin, they are to confess their sin to the one they sinned against and to God (Lev. 5:5-6), and they are to restore what was damaged in full plus twenty percent (Lev. 6:1-5, cf. 5:16). The principle is full replacement plus a double tithe. The double tithe seems to be based on the ordinary requirement of the law of double replacement for stolen items that are found (Ex. 22:4). This is based on the lex talionis (“eye for eye”): what you intended to do to another is done to you (but no more) (Lev. 24:19-20). When a thief repents, he restores what he stole plus the double tithe as an admission on his part that he deserves to have to restore double. If there is no one to give the restitution to, it is given to the Lord (Num. 5:5-8). But unrepentant thieves who sell or destroy stolen goods can be required to restore up to four or five times the value (Ex. 22:1), which Zacchaeus did when he repented (Lk. 19:8).WHAT IS REPENTANCE?Don’t miss the fact that when Zacchaeus announced his restitution, Jesus said, “Today salvation has come to this house… For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Lk. 19:9). Notice that Jesus didn’t say that Zacchaeus was being legalistic and shouldn’t worry about paying people back since we’re under grace and not under law. No, Jesus calls this “salvation.” In fact, the New Testament repeatedly calls unbelievers to “repentance” for salvation (Acts 3:19, Lk. 24:46-47). Repentance means turning away from sin and turning to God (Acts 26:18). Faith in Christ is the first movement of repentance, but a faith that does not follow through with the fruit of repentance is no real faith (Lk. 3:8ff). Also notice that this restoration process is part of what Jesus came to save. When Jesus saves lost people, He also restores economies, livelihoods, and families through repentance.CONCLUSIONOnce again, Jesus is the fulfillment of this sacrifice. Isaiah 53 says that the Suffering Servant (Jesus) would become our Reparation/Guilt Offering (Is. 53:10). And just as God provided the ram as the substitute for Isaac on Mount Moriah (Gen. 22:13), Jesus is our ram on Golgotha, our full restitution to God, so that times of refreshing may come (Acts 3:19).While the notion of “reparations” has been highly politicized in our day, Christians do not object to concrete wrongs being put right, even old ones. We believe in the healing of real restitution, but we object to the tapeworm of reparations: guilt that can never be forgiven and grievances that can never be put right. And part of this means trusting that full justice awaits the final judgment.Many Christians wonder why they feel like they’re running on fumes; one reason is often failure to fully repent and do restitution. Christ died not merely that you might be made right with God, but also that you might go make it right with anyone and everyone you have wronged. This fruit of repentance is not a harsh duty but the real fruit of Christ in you. When Christians live consistently in that kind of repentance it is truly refreshing to everyone, and when millions of Christians begin living that way, we will have a Reformation on our hands.

Your loyalty has to be one place, and one place only.Listen to the full message, 'The Gospel of Winning,' here on the app.

A striking instance of Scripture’s potency to convict us of our sin is described in Ezekiel. Ezekiel is first shown a vision of the heavenly temple. Then the prophet describes the great and awful majesty with which the glory of the Lord enters this sanctuary. So, after multiple chapters of tedious description of the various dimensions of this temple, the fine details of the wood carvings, the number of doors, the Lord tells Ezekiel to show the vision of this house to the house of Israel. The reason for showing Israel these blueprints? “That they may be ashamed of their iniquities: and let them measure the pattern (Ez. 44:10).”

You can weed-whack a field infested with Canadian thistle, but the seeds are so deeply embedded throughout the soil that the weeds will keep sprouting up until some radical treatment of the soil takes place.

As we seek to build our new city walls in the midst of a ruined and ruinous old order, we will be attacked in ways that seek to divide us. We will be accused of being cultic, in thrall to charismatic “leaders.” But the Scriptures do require us to cultivate like-mindedness, and also require us to maintain a solid distinction between things of first importance, things of secondary importance, and things indifferent.One of the things that modern Christians have a hard time doing right is loyalty. We don’t know how loyalty is supposed to work. We don’t understand the spiritual requirement of personal allegiance to your church and its leadership, and in addition we have a very poor understanding of what disloyalty actually smells like.In addressing this subject of a man and his church we have to start with the subject of loyalty. And this goes double if you are the pastor. Enjoy message 4 of 5 from GA2021 Men's Pre-Conference Seminar in Moscow, ID.The last several years Christ Church has tried an experiment in grace and has not charged for the Grace Agenda conference. In keeping with this spirit of grace, we are accepting free will donations at https://www.graceagenda.com/donate.

At the end of our lives, when we look back on all the hours and days given to us, and the responsibilities God gave to us, we want to be able to say, "I chose wisely. I did what was right in light of my family obligations, and my obligations to Christ and His church. I did what was right so as to be able to fulfill those things rather than the satisfaction of my flesh."Enjoy message 3 of 5 from GA2021 Men's Pre-Conference Seminar in Moscow, ID.The last several years Christ Church has tried an experiment in grace and has not charged for the Grace Agenda conference. In keeping with this spirit of grace, we are accepting free will donations at https://www.graceagenda.com/donate.

Enjoy message 2 of 5 from GA2021 Men's Pre-Conference Seminar in Moscow, ID.The last several years Christ Church has tried an experiment in grace and has not charged for the Grace Agenda conference. In keeping with this spirit of grace, we are accepting free will donations at https://www.graceagenda.com/donate.