Church

Fifteen Years of Manual Labor: How Much Is Your Bible Worth?

/ davidsschrock

In Genesis, Moses records the way that Jacob spent fourteen years winning (read: paying for) the love of his life, Rachel.  In those days, it cost men a pretty penny to win the hand of their brides.  Yet, because of his love for Rachel, Genesis 29:20 says that the first seven years “seemed to him but a few days.” Likewise, Jacob agreed to the next seven years of manual labor, even after they were deceptively thrown upon him.

How long would you be willing to serve for the love of your life?  Or to turn the question from marriage to God’s mercy, how long would you work in order to have in your hands a copy of God’s word?

The Inestimable Value of God’s Word

This is a question that the English-speaking world cannot even begin to understand.  We pawn off Bibles at Goodwill’s and have no fear or remorse when a Bible is lost or left in the rain.  I know that the Bible in its inscripturated form is not sacrosanct, but I do think the commonality of the Bible blinds us to the ravishing truth of Psalm 19:10-11.

More to be desired are they than gold,
even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey
and drippings of the honeycomb.
Moreover, by them is your servant warned;
in keeping them there is great reward.

God’s word is priceless.  It is more valuable than the crown jewels; it is an infinite investment whose value never plummets and always promises to deliver. Yet, existentially, we still struggle to feel this value because the pages of God’s word are everywhere. Where can we go for help?

How Missionary History Reappraises Our Value of the Bible

One place we can find help for properly valuing the Bible is church history and the stories of missionaries bringing the Bible into foreign lands who do not have the priceless word of God.  This week I came across such a story in John Paton’s autobiography, John G. Paton: Missionary to the New Hebrides.

I hope you will take the time to read the following anecdote and marvel at the how the people of Aneityum (in the South Pacific) labored fifteen years to raise the necessary funds for the Bible.  Surely, these earnest men and women were spurred on by the same joy and anticipation that gripped Jacob.  In that time, many who endeavored to see the Bible printed in their languaged perished in the pursuit, but oh the joy for those who labored for a decade and a half to get the Bible in their own hands.

These poor Aneityumese, having glimpses of this Word of God, determined to have a Holy Bible in their own mother tongue, wherein before no book or page ever had been written in the history of their race. The consecrated brain and hand of the Missionaries kept toiling day and night in translating the book of God; and the willing hands and feet of the Natives kept toiling through fifteen long but unwearying years, planting and preparing arrowroot to pay the £1,200 required to be laid out in the printing and publishing of the book.

Year after year the arrowroot, too sacred to be used for their daily food, was set apart as the Lord’s portion; the Missionaries sent it to Australia and Scotland, where it was sold by private friends, and the whole proceeds consecrated to this purpose. On the completion of the great undertaking by the Bible Society, it was found that the Natives had earned so much as to pay every penny of the outlay; and their first Bibles went out to them, purchased with the consecrated toils of fifteen years!

Some of our friends may think that the sum was large; but I know, from experience, that if such a difficult job had been carried through the press and so bound by any other printing establishment, the expense would have been greater far. One book of Scripture, printed by me in Melbourne for the Aniwans at a later day, under the auspices of the Bible Society too, cost eight shillings per leaf, and that was the cheapest style; and this the Aniwans also paid for by dedicating their arrowroot to God.

Fifteen years.  Utterly astounding.  It should inspire us to reconsider the value of our Bibles.  Here is Paton’s pastoral charge:

Let those who lightly esteem their Bibles think on those things. Eight shillings for every leaf, or the labour and proceeds of fifteen years for the Bible entire, did not appear to these poor converted Savages too much to pay for that Word of God, which had sent to them the Missionaries, which had revealed to them the grace of God in Christ, and which had opened their eyes to the wonders and glories of redeeming love! (77-78)

Father, may we who are surrounded by your word never forget how priceless each page is.  May we invest our lives in the Scriptures and labor to make them know to the ends of the earth, so that those who do not have them would not have to wait decades before receiving them.  God gives us heart that love your word more than life itself (Ps 63:3).

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Evangelicals Redeeming St. Patrick from Rome

/ davidsschrock / 1 Comment

Maybe it is just me, but I don’t remember a year where Saint Patty’s Day has elicited such a response by evangelicals.

Previous years have collected a few blog posts.  See Russell Moore’s “What evangelicals can learn from Saint Patrick” and Kevin DeYoung’s “Who was Saint Patrick?”  But this year evangelicals have sought to deliver Patrick from the clutches of the Catholic Church, and have produced dozens of blog posts. (Okay, maybe not dozens, but in the spirit of exaggerated legends, like those of St. Patrick, we’ll say dozens).

Why?  Maybe it is the coordination of St. Patrick’s Day and the Lord’s Day; maybe it is the recent election of Pope Francis I; or maybe it is the fact that the paganization of America and (Western Europe) has stimulated evangelicals to find a new hero.  For all those reasons, Patrick is worthy of our consideration and imitation.  The following posts will give you a good introduction to Patrick and will spur you on to tell the lost about Christ.

David Mathis, “The Mission of Saint Patrick“

Mark Driscoll, “Get to Know Saint Patrick“

John Downey, “Get to know the REAL ‘Saint’ Patrick“

Philip Jenson, “Saint Patrick the Irish Evangelist“

Timothy Paul Jones, Church History Made Easy DVD

If you know of other evangelical blogs highlighting Patrick, let me know and I will update.

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day, dss

Saint Patrick: Separating Missionary Fact from Fictitious Malarkey

/ davidsschrock

What comes to mind when you think of St. Patrick’s Day? 

Leprechauns.  Ireland.  Wearing green.  Or drinking green beer.  If that is it, you may want to re-read the record books.  

A few years back, Russell Moore gave a brief history lesson on the real Patrick that should make every missionally-minded Christian sit up and take notice.  Drawing on the Philip Freeman’s 2007 book, St. Patrick of Ireland: A Biography, Moore summarizes Freeman’s work:

Freeman helpfully retells Patrick’s conversion story, one of a mocking young hedonist to a repentant evangelist. The story sounds remarkably similar to that of Augustine—and, in the most significant of ways, both mirror the first-century conversion of Saul of Tarsus. Freeman helpfully reconstructs the context of local religion as a “business relationship” in which sacrifice to pagan gods was seen as a transaction for the material prosperity of the worshippers. Against this, Patrick’s conversion to Christianity was noticed quickly, when his prayers of devotion—then almost always articulated out loud—were overheard by his neighbors.

The rest of the narrative demonstrates the ways in which Patrick carried the Christian mission into the frontiers of the British Isles—confronting a hostile culture and institutionalized heresy along the way. With this the case, the life of Patrick is a testimony to Great Commission fervor, not to the Irish nationalism most often associated with the saint. As a matter of fact, Freeman points out that Patrick’s love for the Irish was an act of obedience to Jesus’ command to love enemies and to pray for persecutors.

Likewise, Kevin DeYoung, also from the archives (ca. 2011), provides a brief missionary biography of Patrick.  He says,

Here’s what most scholars agree on: Patrick–whose adult life falls in the fifth century–was actually British, not Irish. He was born into a Christian family with priests and deacons for relatives, but by his own admission, he was not a good Christian growing up. As a teenager he was carried by Irish raiders into slavery in Ireland. His faith deepened during this six year ordeal. Upon escaping Ireland he went back home to Britain. While with his family he received a dream in which God called him to go back to Ireland to convert the Irish pagans to Christianity.

In his Confessio Patrick writes movingly about his burden to evangelize the Irish. He explicitly links his vocation to the commands of Scripture. Biblical allusions like “the nations will come to you from the ends of the earth” and “I have put you as a light among the nations” and “I shall make you fishers of men” flow from his pen. Seeing his life’s work through the lens of Matthew 28 and Acts 1, Patrick prayed that God would “never allow me to be separated from His people whom He has won in the end of the earth.”  For Patrick, the ends of the earth was Ireland.

According to one historian (again I am citing DeYoung’s research) “[Patrick] was the first person in Christian history to take the scriptural injunctions literally” (Richard Fletcher, The Barbarian Conversion: From Paganism to Christianity, 86)  meaning that he was the first person to take the Great Commission as a command.  Rightly, Patrick read Matthew 28:19 as a calling for him, and so he left home to take the gospel to pagans of Ireland. 

This literal and personal reading of disciple-making needs to be reissued today, because some still think Jesus’ words are for someone else. Tragically, they relegate Jesus’ missionary imperative to a bygone era or for some special class of people.  Yet, as Patrick’s life and labors show, when men take seriously the call to be a disciple-making disciple, God will bring great blessings.  Fifteen centuries later we have much to learn from Patrick.

I encourage you to read the rest of Moore’s blogpost (What evangelicals can learn from Saint Patrick) and DeYoung’s foray into history (Who was Saint Patrick?).  Together these two brief posts will help you determine fact from fiction.  They will give you many reasons to thank God for the missions-minded Brit who brought the light of the gospel to the whole nation of Ireland.

May Patrick’s brave example spur us on to share the gospel with our own pagan nation and hostile neighbors. 

Sola Deo Gloria, dss

Truth and Tradition: Or what Francis Turretin might say to Pope Francis

/ davidsschrock / 1 Comment

In light of the yesterday’s big news—the election of Pope Francis—it is good to be reminded why Protestants don’t have a pope but do affirm authority in the local church.

1 Timothy 3:14-15 reads, “I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that, if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.”

Paul with apostolic authority is writing a letter with Holy Spirit authority to Timothy, instructing him how to teach with didactic authority a local church that is called to have  ministerial authority as they guard the word of truth which has divine authority.  Sadly, somewhere in church history, roughly between the years 1100 and 1400, the Roman Catholic Church asserted its magisterial authority, arguing that church traditions are authoritative in matters of faith and practice.  Clearly, this went beyond Paul’s instruction to Timothy, and by the time of Martin Luther, the church had had enough.  The Protestant Reformation broke out, and that is why so many in the church today do not call Francis their ecclesial head.

Nevertheless, what kind of authority should the church have?  Timothy Ward in his illuminating book, Words of Life: Scripture as the Living and Active Word of God, provides a very helpful treatment on this subject. Discussing the historical debate between Protestants and Catholics, he cites another Francis, Francis Turretin, who lists five functions of the church related to Scripture.

  1. Keeper and preserver of Scripture
  2. Guide that points people to Scripture
  3. Defender of Scripture, vindicating the genuine canonical books from the spurious ones
  4. Herald who proclaims the truth of Scripture
  5. Interpreter given the task of unfolding the true sense of Scripture

These functions can be found in Turretin’s Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 1 (though all citations come from Ward, Words of Life, 152-53).  Turretin closes his explanation of the relationship between Scripture and the church by reaffirming the nature of the church’s authority: “All these [functions] imply a ministerial only and not a magisterial power.”  Explaining what this mean, he states,

If the question is why, or on account of what, do I believe the Bible to be divine, I will answer that I do so on account of the Scripture itself which by its marks proves itself to be such. If it is asked whence or from what I believe, I will answer from the Holy Spirit, who produces belief in me. Finally, if I am asked by what means or instrument I believe it, I will answer through the church which God uses in delivering the Scriptures to me. 

Rightly, Turretin and Ward point out the robust doctrine of church authority which is often missed by Protestants.  Yet, with biblical fidelity they show how the Scriptures are always the final, magisterial authority. No individual, nor any local church, can exist without tradition; the important thing to note, contra the Catholic Church, is that church authority is always delegated and derivative of the greater and higher authority of the Holy Scriptures.  Tradition is always under the review of God’s truth, even if tradition is what leads us to God’s truth.  In this way, it is the difference between the order of knowing (i.e., the church leads us to the truth of God, or it should) and the order of being (i.e., the truth of God creates and corrects the church).

Sadly, many Protestants will harden themselves against the legitimate authority in the church this week as they see the new pope take his seat.  Equally discouraging, many unassuming Catholics will continue to be misled by the vain notion that uninspired men can update and adjust the doctrines of the church, instead of standing on the foundation laid down by the apostles (see Eph 2:20).  May we be those who avoid both errors.

May we hold to Scriptures as the final source of authority, and may we benefit from and exercise the legitimate use of authority that Christ gave to his churches.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

 

Love the One You Write

/ davidsschrock

Are you a writer?  Do you want to write? Does your schooling, work place, or ministry call you to express yourself in words for the sake of others?

If so, John Piper’s counsel on how to write with others in mind is worth ten minutes of your time.  Pastor John challenges writers to love the ones for whom they are writing–even if they don’t know who they are.

This is a good admonishment.  When we write we should not write for the sake our name, but for the sake of Christ’s.  And when we write we should always consider it an extension of loving our neighbor as ourselves.  Since writing is often accomplished in a secluded office or in the interior of our mind (in a busy coffee shop), the reminder to think beyond the white screen is essential. Listen to the brief interview.

May we learn to not only to love writing, but to love others with our writing.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Hold Them Back (A Sanctity of Life Message by Denny Burk)

/ davidsschrock

If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small. Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, “Behold, we did not know this,” does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will he not repay man according to his work? (Prov 24:10-12)

Denny BurkLast Sunday night (January 20), our church (Calvary Baptist Church, Seymour, Indiana) heard a powerful message from Dr. Denny Burk, a professor at Boyce College, associate pastor at Kenwood Baptist Church, and a perceptive blogger, journal editor, and author (see his forthcoming  What is the Meaning of Sex? )

Basing his message on Proverbs 24:10-12, Denny’s sermon is a clarion call for men and women to get involved in the greatest civil rights issue of our generation.  In it, Denny challenges all those who love the gospel of Jesus Christ to  (1) Forsake Cowardice, (2) Rescue the Perishing, and (3) Reject Excuses.

Then in a time of Q & A (starting at 59:45), Denny tackled the issues concerning Hobby Lobby, Obamacare, and other matters pertaining to religious liberty.

The sermon and the Q & A lasts about 90 minutes, and is  worth your time!  Pass it on to others, and stand up to “rescue those who are being taken away to death!”

Hold Them Back (Prov 24:10-12) MP3

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Acts: On Mission with the Triune God

/ davidsschrock

[This is the most recent “Feeding on the Word” article for our church newsletter].

In most Bibles, Luke’s second book is entitled, “The Acts of the Apostles.”  However, as many commentators have noted, a more accurate title would be “The Acts of the Holy Spirit” because it is the Spirit who is responsible for convicting, converting, and creating the church. Yet, even this title is insufficient, because it tempts us to think that the Father and Son are absent. Thus, a better title might be, “The Acts of the Triune God Through the Church of Jesus Christ.”  While lengthy, such a title rightly emphasizes God’s work in and through the early church.

With this trinitarian framework in mind, lets consider how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit work together in Acts to convert sinners and create the church.

Continue reading →

Service That Pleases the Lord

/ davidsschrock

Repeatedly in Scripture, God calls his people to fear, worship, and serve Him.  In Exodus, Moses records that Israel is redeemed in order to serve the Lord.  So does Titus 2:14, which says that Christ redeemed a people who are zealous for good works.  Likewise, Paul says that those who were once slaves of sin are now slaves of righteousness (Rom 6:17-19).

These verses give us a starting place for understanding how we should serve.  But we need to dig a little deeper to understand how God intends for us to serve him.

True Service Is Radically Dependent on God

First, we must serve God as those who abide in Christ.  Jesus says, “I am the vine, you are the branches; if a man abide in me, and I in him, he will bear much fruit.  Apart from me he can do nothing” (John 15:5). We cannot serve unless we are getting are united to him.  God does not commission us to go and do great things for him.  He calls us to join him in his work; he gives us his Word and his Spirit; and he expects that we would daily feed on his grace and truth.

Second, we must come to get before we give.  We are leaky buckets and we need to be filled with the Spirit of God daily.  Too many churches have a history of putting people in places of service prematurely, and sadly these young believers never grow up (cf. Heb 5:11-6:3).  They burn out, fade out, or just eek it out.  Instead, churches need to do a better job shepherding the hearts of their servants so they serve out of overflow.

Third, service is as an extension of worship.  Church work should never detach itself from or replace worship.  Worship must always be the fountainhead of good works.  In fact, when Christians lose an appetite for worshiping God and put in its place works of service, their soul will soon shrink.  And what’s worse—they may not even be aware of their deadly condition.  By contrast, those who enjoy the Lord most are ready to serve—just as Psalm 100 indicates.

Psalm 100: A Hymn of God-Pleasing Service

In this hymn of praise, the Psalmist calls believers to “Make a joyful noise to the LORD!”  Thus, service falls under the banner of praise and worship.  Verse 2 extols: “Serve the LORD with gladness!” which presumes that joy is not self-generated but is a result of feasting on the grace of God (Ps 16:9-11; 32:11).

Verse 3 continues, “Know that the Lord, he is God!  It is he who made us, and we are his sheep; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.”  In this verse, there are a number of things that inform our service before to God.

First, you and I must “know” the Lord.  This is at the heart of what it means to be a Christian.  We do not know God like we know long division; we know God as a lover knows his beloved.  This personal knowledge requires conversation and the sweet exchange of personal knowledge.  Thus, if we are to serve God rightly, it must flow from love to him.

Second, God is our maker and we are his sheep (v. 3b).  We cannot serve unless he empowers and leads us.  In John 10, Jesus as the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep, describes how his sheep “go in and out and find pasture” (v. 9).  Applied to the question of service, this bucolic scene pictures God’s people feeding from the Lord and then going out to serve him.  Extremes fail in both directions.  Sheep who only feed grow lethargic and fat, while sheep who busy with empty-hearted service grow anemic and irritable.  Service needs sustenance, and true servants learn how to live on and for God.

Third, the location of service is in the presence of God.  In Israel, this was the temple courts (v. 4), but today, with God present wherever his saints gather, the location is the gathered church.  Many good Christians give their attention to ministries outside the church, but rarely should these Bible studies, missions, and para-church ministries overshadow service to the local body.  God has given Spiritual gifts for the upbuilding of his church (1 Cor 12:7), not other invented forms of ministry.

Last, thanksgiving is the fuel that drives God-pleasing service.  Psalm 100 describes thanksgiving as both a condition and a command (v. 4).  It is not an optional aspect of service; it is a requirement.  When Christians do service with ungrateful hearts, they do a disservice to God and those whom they serve (cf. Deut 28:47).  God’s people are a thankful people—thankful for the forgiveness and love found in Christ.  Those who please God with their service are effusive in their thanksgiving.

Overall, there is no greater gift than knowing God.  And by divine design, that knowledge leads to effervescent service.  Sometimes suh service is hard, even painful and deadly, but on the whole, the promise of serving with God brings the greater reward of resting with Him when the age closes.

This is our calling.  As you come to church this Sunday may you come thirsty for Christ, but may you also come with towel and basin ready to meet the needs of others.  In embracing such service, you are not only becoming like Christ, you are pleasing your heavenly father, who has redeemed you, given good works to do, and supplied you with his Spirit to accomplish those good works.  Rejoice in the Lord and perspire in his work—this is how we please God with our service.

Soli Deo Gloria, dss

Don’t Waste Your Summer: Read the Bible

/ davidsschrock / 1 Comment

What is your church doing to redeem the time this summer?  

Here is something we started last night called “The Summer Biblical Triathlon.”  Here is the invitation and explanation I gave to our church, Calvary Baptist Church (Seymour, Indiana)

Don’t Waste Your Summer: How Will You Build Up Your Most Holy Faith?

In the short but powerful epistle of Jude, Jesus’ half-brother commands: “Keep yourselves in the love of God.”  In his context and ours, this instruction is vital for Christians who are on their heavenly journey.  Only those who continue in faith, hope, and love will enter the gates of heaven (Matt 24:13; Col 1:23).  Those who start well, but leave their first love are in jeopardy of proving themselves wolves in sheep’s clothing, flowers planted in rocky soil.

To spur us on, Jude commands “those who are called, beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ” to “keep themselves” in the love of God.  And he gives three ways that Christians are to do this: (1) by waiting for the mercy of God to come in Christ (v. 21b), (2) by praying in the Holy Spirit (v. 20b), and (3) by building yourselves up in your most holy faith (v. 21a).  It is this last that we consider today.

One of the primary ways that your love for God will continue is to walk in faith, faith that is not self-generated, but faith that comes from the Holy Spirit (Gal 5:23) as a gift from God (Eph 2:8-9; Phil 1:29).  But this faith does not come like a digital download from the Internet.  It is an exercise of your Spirit-enlivened soul, such that Jude can tell us that we need to build ourselves up in our most holy faith.  So, how do we do that?

The theological answer is that we need to hear the word of God in Christ, for our faith comes by hearing his Word (Rom 10:17), but the practical answer is that every week we are summoned to come and hear the word of God—read, sung, prayed, taught, and preached.  In fact, faith is built not by weekly activity, but daily meditation (Col 3:16).  Still, it is from the weekly instruction that most of us have learned how to read and rightly interpret the Bible.  With that in mind, I am calling our church to go deeper in the Word of God.

The Spiritual Discipline of Learning

For the last ten weeks, as we have read Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, we have been considering how to discipline ourselves for the purpose of godliness.  We began by considering the central place of “Bible Intake.”  In the weeks that followed, we considered prayer, fasting, evangelism, and worship—to name a few.  And finally, our last lesson has called us to a lifestyle of learning.

The danger of learning the spiritual disciplines is knowing about them and not practicing them.  Christian self-deceit always lurks with learning (James 1:22).  The solution is not to stop learning, but to put learning to practice, and this summer I am calling our church to do just that.

With the Olympic spirit that will wash over us by August, I am challenging you to participate in a ‘Summer Biblical Triathlon.’  As with an athletic triathlon, the goal is to train and push yourself in three endurance activities.  In our case, we will fight the temptation towards lethargy this summer, and strive to build up our most holy faith.

Together, I am calling us to grow in our understanding and adoration of God’s plan of salvation.  Here are the three components.

  1. Beginning (or continuing) a Bible Reading Plan.  For those just beginning (or starting over), our reading plan will be the The Essential One Hundred Reading Plan.  This reading plan selects 100 Scriptures to move you from Genesis to Revelation in 100 days or 20 weeks (5 days per week).
  2. Attending one of two Wednesday Night classes.  These five-week classes offered in May/June and July/August will explain how the parts of the Bible fit with the whole.  It will give you a guide for seeing God’s drama in biblical history and current events.  If you have ever gotten lost in the Old Testament or wondered what God’s plan for the future is, then this class is for you.
  3. Reading a book (or three) about the Bible.  In the foyer are a selection of seven triathlon books, call them “Pastor’s Picks,” to help you better read the Bible.  For example, Tim Chester’s From Creation to New Creation is a helpful overview of God’s plan of salvation, while Michael Williams’s How to Read the Bible through the Jesus Lens gives 4-5 pages on every book of the Bible and how they relate to Jesus.

At the end of the summer, we will have a ceremony for those who complete the triathlon and those who read three books will receive a gift book.

As summer dawns, instead of just focusing on the vacation, the yard work, or the summer job, let’s build ourselves up in our most holy faith.  Before we know it, summer breezes will be replaced by falling leaves.  The seasons prove true Isaiah 40:8, “The grass withers and the flowers fade,” so let us resolve to live in the light of the rest of that verse: “but the word of God will remain forever.”

You will never regret spending more time in God’s word.  The investment is eternal.  And this summer we can protect ourselves from wasting our summers by running together and beholding the beauty of God in the pages of his Scripture.  I hope you join us!

For His Glory and your joy, Pastor David

Go and Hide No More

/ davidsschrock / 1 Comment

[This article was originally featured in our hometown newspaper, The Seymour Tribune].

When Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, they hid. And we, their children, have followed suit. Without even knowing it, men and women hide themselves behind alcohol, drugs, clothes, makeup, cars, accomplishments, hobbies, sarcasm, aggression and on it goes.

Instead of using God’s created world to glorify God, we have become masters at taking his creation and using it to serve our own purposes. With money we attempt secure our future; with success we try to hide our flaws; and with entertainment we cover up our loneliness and disappointment.

And yet, spiritually separated from God, we can never mine from the world what we lost in the Garden. Like Adam and Eve, we attempt to look good with fig-leaf fashion. But this only increases our vulnerability.

How many things do you do in order to avoid failure, increase status, or preserve your reputation? Left to ourselves, we are enslaved to our hiding places.

But there is a way out. In 1 John 1:9, the beloved disciple writes, “If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Amazingly, the root cause of our fears —sin — is the very thing that God tells us to bring before him.

Amazingly, even as objects of his wrath, God is not looking for us to do good works to regain his favor. The Bible does not say that God is a friend of good saints. It says he is a friend of sinners.

For those who come to him confessing sin, he promises pardon and cleansing. And notice what he says. Forgiveness in this verse is not based on his grace but justice.

This is the beauty of Christianity. At the cross, Jesus made it possible for those who live a life of hiding to be legally pardoned from their sin and lovingly adopted by God their Father. In Christ, there is no penalty left to pay, and thus there is no reason left to hide.

In short, when a sinner receives forgiveness, it unshackles them from the prison of their own making. Instead of micromanaging their world to set up a persona that protects them, they can be who God created them to be, and more. They can reach out to others with the same love they have received.

Friend, sin hidden will destroy you, but sin confessed to God will free you. Will you put down your fig leaf? God has a robe of righteousness to securely clothe you.