Dennis Tuuri

Old Testament. And so Jesus Christ certainly gives us a knowledge of the true God that the true God is triune. And so we sang “Holy, Holy, Holy” and “Lord’s Prayer” today. Jesus Christ is the true God.

Now this is a very—I’ve got a couple of quotes here from different commentators in our text. You know, we read that we may know him who is true. We are in him who is true in his son Jesus Christ. And so this is the true God.

The text goes on to declare. So the son Jesus Christ—this is the true God. And so at the conclusion of this epistle of John, we have this strong statement of the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ. As two commentators say, this is a grand affirmation of the deity of Christ or another, a remarkable testimony to the divinity of Christ. And the texts I give you right underneath those two quotes are texts that show that both in the Gospel of John, which we’re more familiar with, and in this epistle of John, you have these bookends to these books that talk about Jesus and his divinity.

Remember in John’s gospel in chapter 1 verse 1: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God. The Word was God.” So we have a strong affirmation of this doctrine of Jesus’s deity at the beginning of the gospel of John. And then at the conclusion of John’s gospel, Thomas is brought to saving faith in Christ and Thomas says the affirmation, “My Lord and my God” to Jesus Christ.

So we have at the beginning and end of John’s gospel strong statements about the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. Here at the end of John’s epistle, we have this strong statement that Jesus Christ is the true God. And again, in the opening of this epistle, just like in the opening of John’s gospel, we also have a text that asserts the same thing. 1 John 1:2 says, “The life was manifested. We have seen and bear witness and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us.”

So at the beginning of John’s epistle here, the declaration is that the life of God—that Jesus Christ is God and that he’s with the Father—and this is what has been revealed to us. So in both the epistle and John’s gospel, we have these strong statements of the deity of Christ both beginning and concluding these particular sections or books of our Bible.

And so first, what Jesus reveals—and for my emphasis today—that Jesus reveals about the true God is that the true God is triune. So God is three persons and one God. I can’t take the time now, but if you were here for the upper room discourse, we saw the Holy Spirit being taught about from Christ in terms of his equality with God as well. And so this “we know” statement asserts that Jesus has revealed a triune God, and that’s important to us as we’ll talk about in a couple of minutes.

Jesus Christ has revealed these things to us. Jesus Christ is God—firmly stated—so in our text. And so the first thing that we want to think about in terms of the development of this text is to say that Jesus has revealed that God is triune. Now, secondly, Jesus reveals the power of God. We don’t want to leave that out. I wanted to put that in here just briefly. There’s other things about God that he reveals, but he reveals the power of God.

And we’re thinking of that particularly because as we preach through the crucifixion narrative, it’s really a coronation narrative, right? That’s kind of the point. The arrest and the trial of Christ is really the coronation of Christ. And the crucifixion of Christ is not portrayed at all in John’s gospel as Jesus’s victim. Jesus is fully in control from the moment of the arrest through the trial. When those mock robes are put on him, showing us who’s reading the text with understanding that Jesus really is God sitting on the pavement where Pilate had placed him in mockery.

And yet Jesus is on this stone pavement just like God would indwell the temple and the tabernacle and judge his people who came before him. Jesus is there judging Israel. Jesus is not on trial in the passion narrative. Judaism is on trial. The Jews who rejected Christ—that’s on trial. And so Jesus is in control. And on the cross, the same thing. Soldiers fulfilling prophecy, etc. Jesus reveals that God is sovereign. He’s triune. And God is sovereign. He has all power. He’s not out of control. Somehow all that’s happening is according to his predetermined ordination of all events. He determined that these things would happen.

So his power and then third, his self-offering nature. And again, you know, you may get tired of hearing me bang this drum, but I think it is so very important that what we have in the exegesis of the Father is a Son who is giving of himself to die for his people. It is a self-offering. This is the very nature of God.

We’re going to sing the offering song—a Wesley song that has as its chorus, “Amazing Love”—the song that says, “Thou my God hast died for me.” And so the question becomes: is that good to sing or is that bad to sing? Some churches change that wording because they don’t think that God died for us. And from one sense we would say that could be misinterpreted. But from another sense we do ought to fully assert that the second person of the Trinity was incarnate in a human body and in that human body suffered and died for us.

You know, the picture—the question is: where was God or where is God during the crucifixion of Jesus Christ? Where is the second person of the Trinity? And some people think of it as if God is raised above all of this. Jesus is down here suffering only in his humanity and God is observing this—the triune God, second person of the Trinity included. And you know, there’s a purpose for it. They’re doing it out of their love for mankind, but somewhat at a distance from the suffering of Christ.

But the text seems to indicate that Jesus Christ becomes incarnate, and he doesn’t get rid of his deity. He’s still the second person of the Trinity. And so the second person of the Trinity is united to his humanity in his suffering for mankind. So I think that the song we’re going to sing is correct, and that’s why we’re singing it.

It is to emphasize again this nature of God that is self-offering, that is gifting. It is prone to gifting and prone to receiving gifts. And again, we’ve talked about this text several times, and I think it’s so important to understand that’s what Philippians 2 is saying.

Philippians 2 says very importantly, beginning in verse three: “Do nothing from selfishness or rivalry or empty conceit, but with humility let each of you regard one another as more important than himself. Do not merely look out for your own personal interest, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in you which was also in Christ Jesus.”

Now, that has to come into our understanding, our exegesis of what follows this text in terms of what it’s going to say about Jesus. It’s telling us to have the mind of Christ, right? And it’s telling us that the mind of Christ, the second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, is not to be selfish, right? Not to regard its own interest above others, right? This is telling us something about what it’s going to assert about the nature of the second person of God.

God. And as a result of that, God—Jesus—is declaring to us the nature of God. It’s triuneness—the tri-trinitarian God being sovereign and the trinitarian God is being executed by Christ. This isn’t just the second person of the Trinity. We see the second person of the Trinity suffering for mankind and dying on the cross. And we see then that God—that the nature of God is to be regarding others as more important than himself.

And that may sound odd to you, but that’s again what the text goes on to say. “With humility, let each of you regard one another as more important than himself. Do not merely look out for your own personal interest.” Now, this is a balance. “Do not merely look out”—it doesn’t say, “Don’t look out for your own personal interests,” but “regard other interests as more important than yours.” You see? So you’re important. Each person of the Trinity is important, but we regard others as more important than ourselves.

“Do not merely look out for your own personal interest, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in you which he’s just described, which was also in Christ Jesus who, because he was existing in the form of God—” and now this could be interpreted as now taking up—what are we talking about? Are we talking about the second person of the Trinity in eternity existing? No, it seems like the context of this is all about the incarnated Christ. As the incarnated Christ, Jesus Christ was existing in the form of God. Okay, so if you know, “No man has seen God,” but Jesus reveals him. The second person of the Trinity dwelt among men, became incarnate in the flesh. Jesus was existing in his incarnate state in the form of God.

“And yet he did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped.” Remember that first Adam grasps after rule and authority. He wants what he wants first. He doesn’t regard the interests of others and particularly the interest of God. He regards his own interest and grasps after power and rule.

Jesus doesn’t do that. He exists for 33 years, right? And he doesn’t grasp after power. In fact, he does the very opposite. He pours himself out to death for his people.

Now, as a result of that, he knows—and he’s moving toward glorification and receiving power, dominion, and authority. We have our own interests. God has called us as rulers in the world. But how do we get it? Adam tried to get it through being powerful and through asserting power and his own power to choose. Jesus does it with submission to the heavenly Father and with love and giving himself, pouring himself out to death for us.

So it says he emptied himself which—if we wanted to look at Isaiah 53:11 and 12—it seems to be parallel language. In Isaiah 53:11 and 12, the Servant of God pours himself out for his people. And Jesus is going to say here in a moment that he took upon himself the form of a servant. And so we can see this almost as kind of an extrapolation of what Isaiah 53 is saying. Jesus pours himself out.

This is the verse again. We’re going to sing “Amazing Love.” And there is one lyric that is changed in our version of it. In the old version that Wesley wrote, we read that Jesus emptied himself of all but love. And the idea was that Jesus exists in eternity and glory and divinity. And when he becomes incarnate, the second person of God—he empties himself of his deity just by becoming incarnate. You see, and this text is one that people have used to use that.

But you see, that’s difficult because the word “empty himself” means void—to make himself void. It means you can’t just have Jesus emptying himself of part of his omniscience or his omnipresence or one of the attributes of God. Not from this text. This text says that he voided himself. He emptied himself. And it seems more probable to see this in connection again to the suffering servant from Isaiah who will pour himself out to death for his people.

This is what the Lord Jesus Christ has done. This is what he reveals about himself, and this is what he reveals about the true God—to use the language from our text. Jesus has given us an understanding. He has helped us to know who the true God is. And the true God is trinitarian. The true God is sovereign and powerful. But the true God is not self-grasping. He’s not self-centered. He’s looking out for the interests of others. He is given to gifting other people. Okay?

So this is the nature of the triune God. And then Jesus being made in the likeness of men, being found in appearance as man, he humbled himself becoming obedient unto death—on the cross. So Jesus reveals the nature of God to us here. And by doing that, we understand not just his trinitarian nature in an abstract sense. We understand the self-offering that goes on in the context of God himself.

And what we want to say is that these two points—the triune nature of God and the self-offering nature of God—are deeply related because God is three persons. The eternal God exists as three persons, and those three persons—what is their relationship like? As Jeff Meyers said at the ministerial conference I was at a couple of weeks ago, “What we see in the Gospels is a slice, a little piece of how the interactions of the triune God occur. It is normative. Jesus is telling us this is life in the Trinity.”

And you’ll know from John’s gospel at least that we’ve talked about—life in the Trinity is the Son seeking the well-being of the Father and the Father seeking the glorification of the Son. Life in the Trinity as declared by the Lord Jesus Christ is a self-offering of Father to Son and Spirit, Son to Spirit and Father, and Spirit to Father and Son. The triune nature is to be giving gifts to each other in community perpetually. That is the nature of God.

This self-offering that Jesus declares to us—First John: the Son of God has come. He has given us an understanding. God is triune. And in that triuness, God is gifting each other. And as a result, his very nature is to gift and to bring us into that as well.

The eternal Son of God experienced suffering and death in the flesh for us, and that this is not contrary to the nature of God. This is not the exception clause of what it means to be God. “You can be God and you can be self-centered and you can want all glory, and in a way that is selfish, and just—you know, except that one time because Adam screwed up, you’re going to have to go down there and die.” That’s the way we can tend to think of it.

And the scriptures say no. Scriptures say it is the nature of God to be self-giving and self-offering. And so it’s very important to understand the centrality of the revelation of God through Jesus Christ.

Calvin put it this way: “He justly ascribes to Christ the office of illuminating our minds as to the knowledge of God. For as he is the only true image of the invisible God, as he is the only interpreter of the Father, as he is the only guide of life—yea, as he is the light and light of the world and the truth. As soon as we depart from him, we necessarily become vain in our own devices.”

And too often, I think, we think of Jesus as a departure rather than, as what Calvin just said, as the way to understand the nature of the God who created us, redeemed us, and whom we worship and serve. Jesus has brought light—that light of the new creation.

2 Corinthians 4:6 says: “It is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

The new creation that Christ affects—that John’s gospel talks about—is referred to here again, just as light shone out of darkness in the first creation. Jesus comes to bring light to the darkness. And what is the darkness that’s being driven back by Christ? It is the darkness of ignorance of God and worshiping idols. The light that Jesus brings—that is the basis for what we live in terms of the new creation of Christ—is the knowledge of God and the revelation of the person of God. Nothing more critical—what’s we’re doing.

So what do we do in worship? What’s going on in worship here? Is God receiving or is God giving in worship, or are both going on? You see, it’s very easy for most of us—particularly who have been versed in reformational theology—to be struck by the majesty of the God we see and to be understanding that in many ways, the God we used to serve who is needy and weak and not majestic, you know—that it’s very easy for us to want to turn worship into our giving to him, ascribing to him praise and glory and that’s it. The primacy of our serving God.

But what I’m saying is that the image that Jesus—the true knowledge of God that Jesus has brought to us—tells us that it is the nature of God to bring you here not to say, “Give me everything. It’s that the nature of God to selfishly say, ‘We want you here because we want things and you better offer up everything to us.’” God comes to us and receives our praise. But God comes to us every Lord’s day to gift us.

We’ve tried to make this point over and over again. Worship is the divine service of the self-offering God who comes. He’s brought us into relationship with the triune God and he gifts us. This is Christmas morning. Every Lord’s day, Jesus has gifts.

Elder Wilson was saying that—you know, in some of our churches that we were in prior to coming to RCC, there may have been more of an anticipation of how God would move that day, particularly in the charismatic churches. Other churches: “What will God do for me today? You’re kind of excited about going to worship.”

Now we’ve got a formal liturgy, and it would be easy to think that somehow we don’t want to have that excitement, but we do. The liturgy reflects the gifting of God throughout it. We actually have specific citations now about God’s gift in that liturgy. You should be thinking Saturday night in preparation for worship. And you should be thinking as you drive to church on Sunday, “What’s he going to give me today? What will be under the tree? What will be the blessings that God gives?”

We know the general categories. We know he’s going to give us glory. He’s going to assure us of the forgiveness of sins. He’s going to give us some kind of knowledge of his word today. What more could we ask for? And then he’s going to give us life at the table. But it’s going to be applied in specific and diverse ways every Lord’s Day service for you, for your family.

What do you need gifting from God? God works in the context of us corporately, but we’re also individuals who come together. And so it should be our anticipation. We know the nature of God because of how Jesus has revealed him. It is the nature of God to give us things. He gave us the most precious of gifts—the one that cost him dearly—beloved son, the one that cost Christ separation from the Father. Somehow the second person of the Trinity, united to our humanity, suffered and died for us—the greatest gift of all.

Of course, and we should come anticipating, knowing the nature of God that Jesus has brought us into a knowledge of—we should come anticipating, eagerly looking forward to what gifts God will give us this Lord’s day. That God comes to give us gifts. Now, that hand that extends to us those gifts also receives our praise. He receives that praise as well. We’ll talk about that in just a minute.

So, Roman numeral II: Jesus has brought us into the community of the Trinity. So he’s brought us a knowledge of who God is. The text tells us, but he’s also actually brought us into that life—”that we may know him who is true. Revelation of that to us. And we are in him who is true.” So the second aspect of the text, at least the way I’ve understood it, is that not only has he given us an understanding of who God is, he has actually brought us into relationship with the triune God.

Jesus Christ has brought us into this community that he has described to us that exists in the context of the eternal God, the trinitarian God. And so, on your notes, exegeting the Father: Jesus Christ has also exegeted true humanity. We’re made in God’s image. We were designed to be the bride for the son, brought into that trinitarian fellowship. And so as we look at Jesus, who is also—he is divine, but he is also human. He’s incarnated. He is humanity. He exegetes to us not just the nature of the Trinity, but as a result of that, our very nature as well, right? He’s redeemed humanity. He is humanity, rather.

And so Jesus shows us what we are to be like. And that can only be understood in terms of Jesus’s relationship with the Father and with the triune God. So he shows to us that he is indeed—he brings us into the community of the Trinity. We are living in community then with the triune God and we’re to live in community with one another, reflecting that inner trinitarian life—gifting and being gifted.

Jeff Meyers’s definition is on your outline. Jeff Meyers’s definition of the covenant is this: “God’s covenant is the bond of union, communion, self-giving love, and humble receptivity between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

So, let’s just stop there. I love the fact that Jeff puts into his definition humble receptivity because it is the nature of the triune God to give gifts to one another. It’s also of the nature of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost to be a humble recipient of gifts, right? I mean, if I give you a gift and you don’t take it, it’s broken down. Not only is God a giver; God is also a receiver. And it’s important to understand that we’re brought into that relationship being gifted and giving.

You see, again, God is giving us gifts today in Lord’s Day worship. But he is also receiving the praise of his Son’s bride who praises his name in the context of worship. That’s what worship is. Father’s receiving the praise of the Son’s bride.

“So we’re brought into this kind of relationship into which God sovereignly and graciously brings Christians and their children through Jesus Christ so that they can live with him and enjoy mutual love and faithfulness forever.”

So we’re brought into that inner trinitarian relationship. True humanity executed by Christ reflects the image of the triune God. And it is our job to enjoy and understand that reality. We are to be gifts to one another and receive humbly gifts from one another, right? This is the nature of who God is that’s been revealed by Christ, and he has brought us into that relationship.

So we sang the “Lauda” today. You know the old confession of St. Patrick. Beautiful song. Everything is mediated in terms of his relationship—being brought into relationship with the triune God. And the focal point of that is the personal work of Jesus Christ.

So we break into that next to last verse: “Christ within us, Christ behind us, Christ everywhere is Christ to us,” bringing us into this inner trinitarian fellowship. And the “Lauda” is a beautiful song to meditate upon. And that’s why we sang it today.

Now, if I would like to take just a couple of minutes to sort of flesh this out, looking at 1 Thessalonians 5:12-13, so you could turn there.

We read in 1 Thessalonians 5: “We urge you, brethren, to recognize those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake. Be at peace among yourselves.”

Now, I wanted to do this because we just, you know, installed a couple of new officers last Lord’s Day, and it’s good to think about that a little bit as we look at today’s text and the gifting and being gifted. And what we have here, of course, you can immediately see where I’m going with this. What we have is a picture of the life of the church. And that life of the church, again, reflects the gift-giving that goes on between officers and members of the church.

I mean, we could talk about the relationship of parents and children, husband and wife, children to children. You know, today at our prayer meetings, I’m sure that at least 10, 15, 20 prayer requests in the different regional prayer meetings will be that kids don’t fight with one another—sibling rivalry: “Help me get along with my sister. Help me get along with my brother.”

You know, it’s going to happen. Well, I think that what we’re talking about today is at the heart of what that is. The nature of God is to not just get along with—we’re not just not fighting with brother and sister—but to gift brother and sister and to receive gifts from brother and sister.

So here at the very life of the church—which is one place we could talk about—but it talks about this right, and it helps us to understand what are the gifts. You know, that Elder Shaw and Deacon Payne and the rest of us—what are the gifts we’re giving to you? Well, the text tells us. It talks about these officers. It says they do three things, and I think that the primary emphasis here is on elders, but I think that we could see secondarily application of deacons as well.

You know, what officers do is they engage in self-sacrificial toil and labor. That’s very instructive. You know, “those who labor among you”—and the word “labor” here has at its root meaning to cut and bleed. It is sacrificial toil. It is hard work. It’s putting the interests of others above your own interests. This is the nature of God. So the officers who are reflecting the nature of God in the sense of the office of the church—the very thing that Paul puts forward here is that they’re involved in self-sacrificial labor.

Now he goes on to say that they preside over you, who rule over you. So there is functional ruling and that kind of stuff. We’re not talking about communal perspective on Christian culture and society. There are functional relationships within the triune God. The Son always does the Father’s will, right? Not because he’s different in essence, but there’s a functional differentiation. His particular form of gifting is receiving the functional gifting of the Father to issue commands, one way to put it.

And so, but those commands are based upon the self-sacrificial love of these officers to you. They are the point men. That’s what that second phrase means—those who rule over you. Those who are the ones who stand in front of you and maybe not facing away from you because they’re leading the division into Baghdad. They’re the point men going ahead.

One of the things we talked about at the CRE, you know, was probably the point man in the particular broader assembly that we’re part of, the Confederation of Reformed Evangelicals, you know, Doug Wilson. God bless Doug Wilson. The wonderful gifts he has given to so many people. But, you know, and he’s self-sacrificially labored and toiled. No doubt he’s a point man. More and more shots being taken at him. Latest came a week and a half ago: “Oh, he believes in slavery,” and they’re going to have this history conference on slavery. Just a bunch of lies and slander—probably shouldn’t even repeat them. But you see, he’s the point man. We got to understand that your point men are going to take shots. These elders, the officers over you—they’re going to receive difficulty. Not just their self-sacrificial toil, as pointed out, but their gift to you is to take one in the chest so you don’t have to.

They’re going to go out there first, you see. And then the term has as its implication that they’re commanding you in some sense. They’re standing before you to lead you in a particular direction. They’re the gift of God to you to self-sacrificially labor, cutting themselves and bleeding for you, but also ruling over you in the context of giving legitimate commands in the context of their particular sphere of authority.

This is a gift to you. It is a gift to know what direction to go. It is a gift to have somebody else kind of take the point for you. It’s a gift to submit to their leadership, right? It’s a gift of the Father to give commands to the Son. So that’s what these men do.

And then, thirdly, it says that they admonish you or exhort you. They equip Christians. This is the Greek word here—the basis for what Jay Adams calls nouthetic counseling: “nouthetic”—to call to mind, to get to remember. It can be an admonishment, strong language. You know, part of the formal discipline of the church—when somebody’s sinning and won’t respond to pastoral oversight, that is normally pastoral and urging. The elders may call somebody before them at this church and admonish them. Put them in mind by strong language: “You must start loving your wife in this particular direction, in this particular area that you’re deficient in. You must do this.”

And so there’s real, you know, commands being given. There’s leadership, but this is the gift of God to you. You need somebody—and I need somebody—to put me in mind of what God would have me do because we’re prone to self-deception. We need a sharp rock from God. Sometimes, children, this is why your parents do this. It is a gift of God for your parents to admonish you and, if necessary, to apply stinging pain to your backside, to your bottom. That is the gift of God to you because you need it. You need to be saved from your sins.

So these are some of the gifts. This is the gifting that the officers bring. And in response to this gifting, the gifting back to the congregation means you’re supposed to do several things. First, you’re supposed to know them. It could be, you know, knowledge of—get to know them. Don’t avoid having them over. You know, you don’t want to have distance between you and the officers. You really want to know them, right? Because when they need to admonish you or lead you, they can’t self-sacrificially toil for you if they don’t know you much.

So you’re supposed to want to know them. And the word—said the context of acknowledge them—to know them—that they really are the men who are going to gift you in this particular way. And you gift them by acknowledging them as such. And secondly, you gift them by esteeming them very highly—by regarding them and evaluating them, loving them very highly. And the term “very highly” is a super-abundant term. It’s like beyond all measure—honor them. You see, you gift them by honoring them very strongly. The way Jesus gifts the Father by esteeming the Father’s will and his person very highly. You see, and then finally, you do this with your love. You’re to do this—esteem them very highly in love.

So you’re to love them actively. Remember, love is both patience with foibles and mistakes. It’s not just “Don’t walk away. It’s kind of about another one that doesn’t matter.” No, love is patience. Looking over minor matters, and love is usefulness. How can you help that deacon get a little more time? How can you help the elder have more time to spend on the sermon instead of doing it last minute and other stuff? So you can help them practically. That’s what love means—patience with problems and kindness, usefulness to these men.

So there’s just a small picture of what I mean when we understand that the end result of this is how to live at peace with one another because that’s how the text ends: “Be at peace among yourselves.”

How are we at peace among ourselves? By recognizing the gifting and receiving of gifts that we’re supposed to do in the context of the church—specifically here in Thessalonians, with officers and those who are not officers. But certainly, this has immediate application to our families, right? Dads toiling in self-sacrificial labor. You’re going to have to bleed for those kids. And on the basis of that, you also command them. You take hits. You’re the front. You and the wife are the front point people for your family. You admonish your children. These are gifts that you’re giving to them. It’s not your natural privilege—you asserting, “I’m the dad. Get in line.” It is a gift to you, son, to follow my lead. God has provided me as a gift to you. This is your well-being.

Now, we know that, but we so easily slip into the other. And children, you know, in your families: “Honor your parents. Acknowledge them. Call them mother and father. Acknowledge their position, their superior position in terms of their placement by God as overseers of you. Give them the gift of honor. Give them the gift of esteeming very highly what they have to say to you. Not just because you know you want to be a good moral child, but that’s your gifting. You can give that to your parents, you see, and give them your love, you see.

So this is an example of this inner trinitarian love being played out in the context of our lives. And then so Jesus has brought us into this life. And then, third, idols are contrasted in the text with the true God and with eternal life. So we’re going to sing, as I said earlier, “Let God Arise.” God will smash idolatry and unreality. Reality is the person of God. He is the true God. And idols are contrasted with this.

And then comes the admonition. And note, once more in your outline, I put this—that the gospel message that’s proclaimed in Lord’s day preaching is always promise. It’s always blessing, rather. It’s good news. What I just said is reality. Jesus really has revealed the Father in these ways. He has really brought us into trinitarian life. You don’t have to do anything to get this. This is the blessing of God upon you. It’s a gospel message.

Now the gospel brings implications. It brings a necessary response to it. But you don’t—the response is not necessary to get the blessing. You see, the order is blessing. Then this is the correct response to make in light of this statement of blessing. And so the response is to keep ourselves from idols.

And you know, on your outline there under point four, I’ve got “Ephesian idols”—literal idols, right? I mean, the Ephesians that this was written to—these guys were very literally idolatrous. Temple of Diana there, soothsayers everywhere—that kind of thing. A pagan culture moves into superstition because in your slavery to sin you want some kind of relief, and you offer up more and more of your blood to the idol hoping for some kind of relief. But of course it doesn’t work. It’s a cycle of depravity and enslavement.

So there are literal idols that’s being talked about in the first sense in the text, but I think it’s proper to say that there are other kind of idolatries that the text can be properly applied to. There are tamer, so to speak, American idols. We don’t have the Temple of Diana. We do have, however, a rampant commercialism. Money is seen as an idol for many people. This is what they’ll break God’s word to accomplish—is more money.

Food can be an idol. They break God’s word in terms of how they eat because they want to gorge themselves. Or on the other hand, food is seen as a source of life. Probably there are more people idolatrous with food who are thin than are fat. I don’t know about that. But you can’t tell by looking at someone because idolatry with food means that you think you’re going to get life directly, immediately without a moderator from the food you eat. Whereas God says that everything is mediated through that “Lauda” song—through the Trinity. We eat dead stuff and ask God to give us life with it. He demands that in the Old Testament: “Get rid of the blood, which is the life. Eat dead stinking dead food that you got to refrigerate or it’ll go completely rotten on you. Eat that stuff and I will give you life graciously.”

But in America, more and more we think we can get life and longevity through what we literally eat without reference to the Creator. And, of course, sex can be an idol. As we’ve seen with the sweetheart shop in Oregon City, there are various tamer American idols that men are enslaved to.

You know, it was a proper application of Proverbs to rescue those being led off to the slaughter—to close down this pornography shop in Oregon City—because men are enslaved to that idol of sexuality. Now, these things are all good things. Sexuality within marriage is wonderful, a delight, and anybody that says otherwise is just messed up in his view of the Christian faith. Food is a great thing to be delighted in. Money is a good thing. Why do people like money? Because it reflects the glory, the weightiness, the shininess—the gold coins, at least—of God. All these things are images, symbols of some aspect of the life that God has given us to rejoice in.

But when we worship the creature more than the Creator, this is idolatry. And the way to diagnose that is: what are we willing to break God’s word to accomplish in our lives?

See, politics—you know, when the state is God, true religion is political action. Gary North, one of the pastors in the CRE, said at the meeting this last week that one of his parishioners came up and said, “You know, pastor, I really think you shouldn’t be a preacher anymore. You really ought to go into politics. You’d be great at it, and that’s where you can really affect change in the world.”

And Gary was so disappointed, you know, because the point is that God’s word informs the civil magistrate, right? We don’t get power through the grasping after of political power. Politics is a good thing just like food, money, and sex, but only in the context of it being done in subservience to our greater responsibility to see that action as well—subjugated to King Jesus. And then it’s good and proper.

So there are these tamer American idols that we all need warnings against. But then there are Christian idols. We just sang Psalm 115. The reason for that was I really wanted to recite that poem—that Psalm, rather—in worship and sing it because of what it instructs us about in terms of these idols.

It says: when you worship an idol, you become like that idol. That’s what the text says, right? What did we sing in Psalm 115? You know, “You worship these idols. You ascribe life-giving properties to them, but they have no life in them. They have hands they do not handle, feet—they have feet they do not walk. They have ears they do not hear. Noses they do not smell. Those who make them, verse 8, are like them. So is everyone who trusts in them.”

If we have a perception of God that we’ve formulated—that is, whatever it is that we’re worshiping in that sense—we become like that thing, right? The object of our worship and adoration—that’s what we become like. Jesus, when he comes in the Gospels, deals with an idolatrous nation who were worshiping Yahweh—but not Yahweh. And he shows them their idolatry because they had become deaf, dumb, blind, and they couldn’t walk. The healing ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ is one picture that the nation had become idolatrous because he knew Psalm 115. They’d become like the idol, the image in their mind.

So you see, you can be worshiping Yahweh. We should have known this from the Old Testament—the syncretistic worship of the northern kingdom. You worship Yahweh by using images taken from, you know, a golden calf symbol, etc., jazz up the worship. They think they’re worshiping Yahweh, but they’re really not. And what happens is—we, you become like those idols.

Well, Christian idols: You know, years ago, one of the first churches my wife and I were regularly attending, you know, God is presented as a lonely God. “Why did he make man? Because he’s lonely. He needs relationship. He needs fellowship. He’s a lonely God.” And so he creates mankind for fellowship with themselves. Well, this is a huge problem because it represents a needy God in eternity, which is bunk. And it’s not a God. God is not lonely because Father, Son, and Holy Spirit exist in eternal community. God is not lonely. But people that think that God is lonely and alone and isolated—not having community—they acknowledge the Trinity. It’s an orthodox doctrine you have to believe in, but he’s kind of just one God up there, not three persons. One person, and he’s lonely.

Those people become like that God they worship. As much as they try to jazz up community, they’re going to get more and more isolated in the context of the world. And our problem in America is this tremendous sense of isolation and no community. And I think it’s a reflection of the idolatrous view that God is somehow needy—or that God is self-centered, God is self-absorbed. God made us just so he can get people to praise his name, and he wants to hear that all day long. And he just sits—”Yeah, that’s right. Give me praise.”

You see, I know that for years I labored under that idolatrous view of God. And maybe some of you do. It’s true that God is not self-offering but—he is self-absorbed and self-centered. We do not have a God who exists outside of community in eternity. He is a triune God who exists in community, and it is a self-giving—not a self-centered—community that is existing there.

And so, if you worship a God that you think—even though you say, “Well, he’s God, I’m not”—but if my God, the God I’m worshiping, is a God who wants everything for himself and is totally self-absorbed and wants everything for himself—you’re going to become like that God, and you’re going to become self-absorbed and individualistic and wanting everybody to serve you. And you won’t articulate it, of course, because you’re in some evangelical or reformed church. But that’s the idol you’ll start to become like.

So if you’re becoming like that, the idea is: look at the God you’re worshiping. What’s your perception of God? Nothing more important than understanding that Jesus gives us a knowledge of the triune God as he really is. And when we worship that God, we become like him. We become those who live and exist in community. We become the ones who can’t wait for Christmas—well, I don’t know about that part—but at least can’t wait for the opportunity to give each other gifts. Not just, you know, presents, but I mean, the gifts of the officers and the members of the church—honor and labor. These are the gifts we give. If we understand that’s the nature of God, we become those kind of people, you see.

Reformed idols: Briefly—almost done. Sorry, I’m going a little long. Reformed idols, you know, big brew, ha ha. The last two years about, you know, Doug Wilson said, “It’s visible church and not visible” and “it’s visible.” It should be “historical” and “eschatological” church. And what is some of these guys saying about justification? It doesn’t meet the definition in the Westminster standards—to take the secondary standards of God’s word as delightful, beautiful, “what a great gift of God to his church they are”—but to use those to cut off discussion of the biblical language of justification in the New Testament or the biblical language of what’s going on with sanctification or what the Bible says about baptism—to cut off the use of biblical language for the sake of the secondary standard.

You must be very careful when you make those assertions that you’re not—you haven’t exalted that secondary standard above the word of God and made it idolatrous to you. And you’ll become just like—if your perception of the secondary standards is “it gives us all we ever need to know now and forever,” you’re going to be one closed-up individual who is not growing and understanding more of the great God whom we serve.

Now, that’s not a necessary conclusion of the Westminster Standards. But if you make it idolatrous—like gold or silver or money or sex—that are good things, the Westminster Standards are good things, but if you exalt that above biblical language, it’s idolatry, and God will judge it.

But secondly, we have the sovereign, unmoved God. We’re not going to make the mistake of the evangelicals. We know that God doesn’t need us. We know his eternality and all that stuff. And but we have this—well, our image is prone to be—is that there’s this sovereign, unmoved God. That God really did not get actively involved in the suffering of Christ. That was just his humanity. God is sovereign. We’re supposed to come before him and give him majestic praise and worship, not be silly about it, because God is great and sovereign and unmoved by his people.

And you see, that is an idolatrous version of God. To fail to acknowledge that God has great love, compassion, and gives himself all the time to us—not just in Lord’s Day words. God is not unmoved about your concerns. And you are liable to think in some Calvinistic churches that he is. Now, you won’t assert that, but the God you’re worshiping is somebody who is unmoved, sovereign, everything’s taken care of, the decree is working itself out. “I don’t need, you know,” that’s what’s going on.

And as you do that, not only will you not have the comfort and assurance that the Lord God deeply cares for you—the text says, “Little children, dear children, keep yourselves from idols.” That’s God speaking to you. You’re his dear children. And if you don’t perceive that, you’re going to number one, have problems within your own psyche because you need that assurance that God loves you and is always thinking about you and is always gifting you—no matter how bad it seems, you need that.

And secondly, you’ll become like that idol you’re worshiping. You’ll say, “Why does that guy have need of me?” You’ll become as unmoved and uncompassionate—and you know, the “chosen frozen”—as the God, the idolatrous form of God that you’re worshiping.

You see, that will kill community to have that perception of God. So how do we sin? You know, how do you sin? Are you cut off from people? Do you not have emotional connection to them? Do you—are you—is it difficult for you to humbly receive gifts from other people, whether they’re literal gifts or service gifts to you? Are you isolated, alone, uncaring?

Well, it’s a way to analyze—to find out where our idolatries lie. And the tremendous thing that this verse has told us is that Jesus Christ has revealed the true nature of God. He brings the corrective, and then urges us to apply that knowledge in fleeing from idols.

And as we do that, God will bless us. We’re to avoid idolatry. We’re to live in biblical community by gifting others and being gifted by others, humbly receiving those gifts, just like the community in the context of the eternal Trinity.

Remember the singles. Psalm 68:6: “God places the solitary in families.” It’s much more difficult for our single people to enter into this kind of community. Remember them. Have them over on a regular basis. Bring them into your homes. Remember the singles as a direct application of this.

And finally, you know, like I said, I’m looking forward to a long Christmas season. I’m going to talk a lot in the next couple months about gifting and giving and being—looking for what you can do, how you can gift other people. Take it as a picture and image of how you’re to live your life all the time—thinking of how you can gift other people and anticipating what gifts they’re going to bring to you in the church, in the family, and in our broader culture. It’s what worship is all about.

Come here every Lord’s day. Yes, anxious to give God the gifts of your tithes, the gifts of your offerings, the gift of your praise, the gift of the work of your hands. Do that. But come with great anticipation of the particular gift that this wonderful God that Jesus has revealed him to be will give you this Lord’s day.

Let’s pray. Father, we do pray that you would, by your Spirit, keep us from idolatry. Help us, Father, to diagnose our sins, and on the basis of that, to recognize the idolatry that so easily creeps into our lives. Help us, Father, to improve and increase in our knowledge of you—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—that we may live like you. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.