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Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with Ah! Bright Wings.

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August 31, 2009

Humility: Courage in the Right Direction

“An argument arose among [the disciples] as to which of them was the greatest.” Luke 9:46

We are looking at sins common to disciples via the final six episodes of Luke 9.  The six deadly sins, you might say. Faithlessness. Foolishness. Pride. Divisiveness. Wrath. Worldliness. 
Ugh. I resemble these words. Do you?

Deadly in that they are ministry killers. Soul suckers. Where you see the flesh crawling out from under the rock in these areas, run to Christ. In each episode we find the failings and sins of the disciples and the ready rebuke, action, power of Christ to change their hearts and remedy the situation.

The third deadly sin in Luke 9:46-48 is pride. The disciples were arguing, as they often did throughout the earthly ministry of Jesus, about who was greatest. Who would sit where in Jesus’ kingly court. No doubt Peter, James, and John were asserting their primacy as the special disciples. The others were resentful. This struggle of the disciples will be a besetting sin of the church. Remember Diotrephes, who loved to be first? (3 John 1:9) Remember last week’s committee meeting where you were ticked that you didn’t get asked to open in prayer, or express your opinion on Sunday School curriculum, or felt that the pastor gave you the cold shoulder?

This is a core sin, pride. A core idolatry. It goes back to the garden where Eve was tempted to be like God. Or at the very least she and Adam felt they deserved that forbidden pomegranate. It is the sin that says you are better than him or her, and often in the darkest place it is ultimately a defiance against God.

In his helpful little book, Humility: True Greatness, C.J. Mahaney defines humility in this way, “Humility is honestly assessing ourselves in light of God’s holiness and our sinfulness.”

C.S. Lewis says this about pride and the human condition before the sovereign God,
    In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that—and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison—you do not know God at all.
    As long as you are proud, you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.”

I think we should go a bit further in our definition of Christian humility. Pride ultimately is a failure to see, feel, know, and demonstrate the truth of who you really are in Christ. Pride is the demonstration of who you are in the estimation of others. It is the exaltation of self over others for others to behold. Yes, you are a sinner. This is the first step. But in Christ you are a firstborn son. You are a member of the household of God. You have been set free from sin. The love of God has been shed abroad in your heart. You have an immovable, unshakeable position in this life and the next. So, when assailed - you need not retaliate for the sake of self. No one can assail your status before God! When slighted you need not assert your power or authority. No one can speak in such a way that would shake your standing in God’s eyes.  Why should those disciples who have beheld the glory of God and received the riches of his grace daily, and tangibly feel, see, touch, hear to power of God through the incarnate Christ?

“Humility does not mean thinking less of yourself than of other people, nor does it mean having a low opinion of your own gifts. It means freedom from thinking about yourself one way or the other at all.” William Temple.

There is also a biblical idea of the sin of pride called ‘feigned humility’  (Col. 2:18 and 23). It is the virtue of choice in our current milieu. It is a parade of what the bible calls ‘self abasement’. It is ultimately self protection and the exaltation of comfort above the assertion of truth in the face of sin. It is at it’s heart the pride of people pleasing above pleasing God. It is sanctimonious wimpiness.

Christian humility is not timidity; it isn’t wimpiness. 

Christian humility is what I call courage in the right direction. Courage before men only because we have power in God. It is not asserting self or protecting self, because we know God will do his work, and we know that we answer to him alone as we do ours. Regardless of the estimation of others, God is judge. And our judge is our Father, and our elder brother Jesus is at Dad’s right hand, pleading our case.

Tags: Sermon Notes

posted by Erik Braun

August 25, 2009

The Tyranny of Choice: Only Wanted Humans Allowed

This week I saw the bumper sticker again that sums up very adequately the state of the abortion debate in America. It is the motto attributed to the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, and reads “Every child a wanted child”. Now, granted, this may not be the driving philosophy or argumentation used by all abortion rights advocates, but I would assert that it is a sentiment rarely challenged in our culture of death. Let us take a moment and ponder the implications of these words.

First, this sentiment clearly affirms that what is at stake is, in fact, a child. Increasingly I find less and less resistance to the mounting medical evidence pointing toward the fetus as a living human being. The debate over life has been pushed further back to the earliest stages of development in our striving to harvest embryonic stem cells for various medical therapies. But, for the most part, there is consensus that the fetus is a living being at those stages of development where it is in most danger of being aborted in our society: from the sixth to the 14th week (though the child may be killed throughout the pregnancy ala the Supreme Court’s ruling on Roe v. Wade’s companion case, Doe v. Bolton).

In asserting that this is a child is not only to accept that it is a living human being, but it is also to tacitly admit to it’s ‘personhood’.  Now, I do not accept such distinctions over ‘personhood’ (the philosophical frontier in pro-abortion argumentation) in the case of unborn humans anymore than I do in the case of African slaves in antebellum South. Remember the famous argument removing the ‘personhood’ of slaves in the Supreme Court’s Dred Scot decision declaring blacks as ‘a subordinate and inferior class of beings’? Here is the deal,  all humans (fetus, infant, teenager, elderly, black, white, short, tall, fat, skinny, smart, stupid) belong to the animal kingdom, the phylum chordata, the class mammalia, the order primate, the family hominid, the genus homo, the species sapiens. The distinction over personhood is an ancient, arbitrary, and devilish effort to assert the tyranny of the strong over weak, the rich over the poor, the white over the black, the abled over the disabled, the adult over the child, you fill in the blank.

For the sake of argument, let’s say that such distinctions are valid.  Even with such distinctions, by and large people personify the unborn. And the popular pro-choice bumper sticker rhetoric is an illustration of this personification. It calls you to sympathize with a living, breathing, suffering, impoverished, unwanted child.  It personifies the fetus to make its argument compelling. This thing in the womb is a child! No arguments! Of course not, don’t we have fetal homicide laws in 32 states (including Florida, in a restricted sense)? Don’t we have Laci and Connor’s Law, fiercely opposing the wanton disregard for life of a husband and father who takes the life of a woman who is carrying an unborn fetus? Don’t we have neonatal units fighting for the lives of these unborn persons, going through extraordinary measures and exhausting money, research, knowledge to salvage their lives- all the while their cousins are being killed down the hall?

And now, the most devastatingly crass portion of this mantra: Every child a wanted child. Webster’s New Word Encyclopedia defines ‘genocide’ as “The deliberate and systematic destruction of a national, racial, religious, political, cultural, ethnic, or other group defined by the exterminators as unwanted.” Consider Planned Parenthood’s crassly hateful propaganda in our public schools, running ads stating: “Babies are loud, smelly, and expensive – unless you want one.” 
This rhetoric seeks to justify the cold and harsh reality of abortion in America - more than 9 out of 10 abortions are purely elective procedures chosen by parents who simply refuse to be burdened by the imposition of a child. So, are we to justify the killing of any child that is unwanted – unborn or born? (By the way, in America this is pure propaganda, there are no ‘unwanted’ children- we have plenty of parents eagerly waiting to adopt, we have more resources, time, energy, ability to care for little ones than any other society that has ever existed!) Can you sport a bumper sticker that reads: Every toddler a wanted toddler? Every black a wanted black? Every Jew a wanted Jew? Every Christian a wanted Christian? It might be argued that Erik Braun as a 37 year old is loud, smelly, and expensive (my wife would agree). Shall I be exterminated as well?

If you accept this tyranny in one case, be ready to accept this tyranny when it is crouching at your own door.

“If you falter in times of trouble, how small is your strength! Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter. If you say, “But we knew nothing about this,” does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who guards your life know it? Will he not repay each person according to what he has done?”    Proverbs 24:10-12

Tags: Abortion

posted by Erik Braun

August 24, 2009

Why I Preach Against Abortion

I was asked recently by a Four Oaks newcomer if I preach against abortion and why.  Interestingly, this is the same question that I will often pose to pastors that I meet.

Here is my response in five points.


1. I am convinced wholeheartedly on biblical, theological, philosophical, medical, and legal grounds that a baby is a human person made in God’s image at all stages of development from the moment of conception and should be treated with the same respect and rights of all other persons in our free society. We live in a society that either does not regard such beings as persons, or does regard them as persons and subjugates their personhood for personal comfort, economic stability, convenience, choice, emotional stability, etc.; and in fact is killing such persons en masse. To live in such a society and remain relatively silent and relatively inactive is a sin. 

2. I can think of no greater crime against humanity and rebellion against God than the legalized and systematic extermination of an entire class of persons (and that class of persons being those in greatest need of our care and protection). To not use the stewardship of this pulpit and my calling as pastor to prophecy against such crime and rebellion would itself be a sin.

3. To not address the sin of abortion publicly in the context of the assembling of God’s people and the worship of God would be to deny and ignore our corporate and individual guilt before God, and would withhold the promise of reconciliation and restoration for sinners and the promise of hope and joy through repentance and faith. It would be to withhold the greatest promise from the people in greatest need.

4. To refuse to address sin and destructive forces in our culture, city, churches, and homes for whatever reason - because it might raise the ire of people who might disagree with our convictions, or because it may cause discomfort, be received as politically incorrect, or might diminish my own influence and reputation would be the height of tyranny. It would be placing our own fears of disdain, our collective desire for comfort and convenience, or our desire for influence and reputation over and above the very lives of other persons, namely the 1.3 million unborn Americans who are killed every year in the womb.

5. Because I have ultimate hope in God that he uses His Word, and the Word preached to change hearts through confession and restoration, to inspire His people to love and good deeds, to save those lost in darkness, and bring justice to the needy. I have great hope in the instrument of His activity in the World, namely the Local Church, to accomplish his work by the power of the Holy Spirit.

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posted by Erik Braun

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