RELATIONSHIPS
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Mark 12:30-31

These central words of Jesus point clearly to the ordering of human relationships. We should love God first and with the greater passion, then love other people as a result of loving God. Our love for God shapes and orders our human relationships. To the extent that we love and honor the Lord our God, our human relationships will have harmony and order. The opposite is also true. To the extent that people rebel against God and rebel against His purposes in ordering human relationships their lives will be thrown into a chaos of struggle and sadness. God’s design in human society is a fixed truth and cannot be altered by the rebellion of people – even the rebellion of whole nations.
             
The first and highest order of relationship is a human being to God. We have each been created in God’s image and given a soul. By this we have an awareness of God and a heart’s desire to be in relationship with Him. When we humble ourselves, turn away from our sins, and believe in Jesus as Savior, by grace through faith we pass from death to life. We pass from being estranged from God by guilt, to being in relationship with God by grace. This new relationship must become the defining relationship of our life, and one that we pursue first and with the greatest heart passion. The good authority of God will direct all other aspects of our relationships.
             
The second order of relationship is a biological man and biological woman to each other in marriage. God created marriage before sin entered the world. God created men and women, equal in worth, dignity, and standing before God, but different in their persons and roles. They were created different to complement each other in the divinely designed relationship of marriage. Two halves creating one whole. After God, any married person must next be devoted to the love of their spouse. The love of God will direct and rightly form the way we love our spouse. Finding our primary identity in God will allow each married person to love their spouse for who they are as a sinner – and not put their spouse in the place of God. When husbands or wives look to each other for what only God can provide the relationship will begin to crumble.
             
The third order of relationship is a husband and wife together as parents, relating to their children. When dad and mom love the Lord God first and each other second, they are set up for success to love the children next. It should be said that a basic love for children within the context of marriage is right. Marriage was not designed by God just for two people to join finances and enjoy recreational fun. One of the primary purposes of the marriage relationship is to establish a God-honoring, loving, stable, nurturing, and safe home. This home then becomes a healthy place to raise children. These may be biological children or adopted children, or both. These children will thrive best when they are not the center of the family. They must actively see dad and mom loving God first in their lives, then loving each other. In this context they will find their place as a loved and protected child. When a parent looks to a child for the love and affection that a spouse ought to provide the parent-child relationship will begin to fracture.

The fourth order of relationship is the family in relation to other families in the context of the local church. The local church is not a creation of American culture, but the design of God under the New Covenant of grace. God has designed our relating together as Christian families to primarily happen within the setting of the local church. Families are right to seek out community within the local church. When husband and wife love the Lord, then love each other, then love their children, the family is in a healthy place to then develop healthy life-giving friendships with other Christians. These relationships are most natural because we share the common bond of salvation in Jesus Christ. What we value and what we understand as morally right and wrong are aligned through Scripture. We share a common salvation and life direction.

The fifth order of relationship is members of the family in relationship to non-Christians in general local society and local government. This is the next step because it relates to people that we do not share a common salvation with and that we are so often at odds with over moral decisions. With this group you shift from being near friends and co-laborers in Christ, to those you are seeking to believe in Jesus Christ. We have meaningful relationships with the lost in our workplace and community, but it is with a missionary mindset. We are taking the joy, hope, and peace that we receive from the Lord, our family, and church, and ministering that gospel to the lost world.

The sixth order of relationship is members of the family in relationship to non-Christians and the federal (or highest level) government. The reason this is included relates to aid in times of need. Much could be said here, but when considering the ordering of our relationships we are also considering who we go to in times of need. It ought to be that we seek the Lord first, our spouse next, (if they are adults) our children, and then the local church or local charity. The distant and impersonal federal government should be the last place we go for our needs to be met. However, today the default response of an unbelieving world is to look to the federal government to solve problems that should be taken to the Lord, the family, or the local church. In this the federal government is put in the place of God. The unbelieving world (literally) puts its faith in government to fix problems and heal struggles that God designed to be meet by His own hand, by marriage, by the family, or in the local church.

The final order of relationship relates to people and their relationship to animals. I mention this because it is essential to understand that animals are not people. Animals do not have a soul and are not created in the image of God. We often have meaningful relationships with animals and a certain appropriate love for them, but an animal does not have moral equivalency with a person. An animal is not your child and can never be your child. The greatest tragedy of failed relationships seems to be multiplying in America. This is the situation where you find a person in rebellion against God, has a failed marriage(s) behind them, their children won’t speak to them, they choose not to be a part of a local church, they have no meaningful interpersonal relationships, but have a dog or cat that is the most important relationship in their life. This situation is the nadir of relational dysfunction.

In closing, these are biblical norms. This means that these are the normal, or regular, ways in which God intended for us to live in relationship to others. This does not mean that people are in sin if some of these things are absent, such as they are single or do not have children. Sin enters in when we transgress, or cross over these boundaries, not when we are unable to fully live them out. We live in a culture of lies today. In such a culture it’s very important that we cling to the Bible for truth and think deeply about the truth we find there.

Second, because of our sinful nature all our lives tend toward disorder. The process of sanctification, becoming more like Jesus in the affections of our soul, relates so much to striving daily to keep our relationships in order. It’s the struggle to love what God would have us to love, and value first what God says is valuable. May God help us to live Christ-honoring and holy lives in the midst of a chaotic and crumbling society. In this we must hold out the hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ, extending the hope of salvation to a lost and dying world.
 
May our relationships and families be strong in Christ,
Pastor Vic

EFFECTIVE COMPASSION

“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”
James 1:27

               
Today we’re celebrating with Pastor Justin as he reaches a milestone in his life of completing two Masters of Arts degrees from Dallas Theological Seminary – Christian Leadership and Christian Studies. Congratulations Pastor Justin! These studies were taken up during the midst of a busy adult life, but for the sake of making a major effort to be better prepared for his calling to Christian leadership. The Redeemer family is so thankful for your gracious nature and rejoice in your diligence. We pray for your endurance in ministry, knowing that you and Molly will continue to greatly bless those you minister to.
             
Years ago, Justin had an assignment in one of his classes to create a ministry initiative. He came to me with the idea of creating a foster care and adoption ministry. Based on James 1:27 and the consistent Bible theme of adoption as a comparison of God’s love for us, Justin wanted to start an intentional ministry at Redeemer. The elder group approved of the idea and Justin got a B on his write up! However, Justin and Molly’s true and undying love for orphaned, neglected, and unloved children is of the Lord. In the spirit of missionary William Carey – Justin expects great things of God and by faith attempts great things for God.
             
Years later the passion and organization of the Redeemer foster care and adoption ministry has grown to be one of the defining aspects of our church. Proving out the true work of the Holy Spirit, beyond another church ‘program.’ Once Justin went out from Redeemer to take up the pastoral call to plant Redeemer Stafford, the ministry was taken up by another couple. Under the leadership of Nick and Alissa Bultinck, the passion to foster and adopt needy children continues to grow. Today, the call of Jesus to sacrificial discipleship – to die to yourself and take up your cross to follow Jesus – is displayed all over Redeemer by involvement in caring for orphans (Matthew 16:24-25). We are substantially contributing to make sure no child in Spotsylvania County is without a loving home.
             
This is a work of faith. Few people look at foster care and quickly say, “That looks like something I want to do!” Because the closer you get to the reality of it, the more it becomes clearly sacrificial. Your life will not be the same when you commit to taking a needy child into your home in Jesus’ name.

It’s a work of love. The work of love begins with an earnest love for Jesus. We love the weak and needy, because Jesus first loved us – who were ourselves weak and needy. We take the initiative to adopt orphaned children, because Jesus first took the initiative to adopt us into His family (Romans 8:15-23, Ephesians 1:5, Galatians 4:5). These children bring nothing to us but their brokenness. We bring them into our homes and love them for Jesus’ sake

It’s a progressive work. Everyone who has raised children knows that it’s a long journey. It’s a journey of discipleship. A journey of progressive love, training, discipline, and support. It’s a walk of faith, trusting in the Holy Spirit to bring spiritual change to the hearts of our children. And so it is with fostering and adopting. It’s a run of unknown distance. We pray each day for daily bread – what is needed for today. By His own hand and through the fellowship of the church all that is needed will be provided. In this way, many people in the church play vital support roles of providing respite care, meals, organizing a support closet, and praying for those amid the struggle.

This God-honoring, faith-filled, loving, sacrificial, and rewarding work has worked to bring us all closer to Jesus. If you are not involved on any level with this aspect of true religion, then I press you to get close to a family that is. Pray for them and help them as you are able. Talk with Nick or Alissa. Find a way you can personally care for the poor and needy in the name of Jesus.
 
I also want to bring to your attention a podcast and book related to these subjects. The podcast is: EFFECTIVE COMPASSION – Season 4: Orphan Care. It is available on Apple and Spotify. This podcast is produced by World News Group (WNG).

WNG was founded decades ago and managed by Marvin Olasky. Olasky wrote a book entitled The Tragedy of American Compassion that has many important lessons for the church when considering the ministry of foster care and adoption. Let me summarize a few of those points that are important for us to consider:
First, government can never provide personal, compassionate, accountable aid to the poor. The tragedy Olasky is tracing is the shift from personal church-based aid for the poor to government-based aid for the poor. There is much to be said here, but in short, impersonal government agencies staffed by under-paid workers can never have the same personal love, compassion, and accountability as aid provided by people in the Christian church who do the same work for Jesus’ sake from a sense of calling. By entering into foster care in a significant way, we are working to redeem this aspect of aid for poor children by infusing it with vital virtues that government can never provide.

Second, this work takes much time, energy, and effort to provide compassionate and accountable aid for the poor. In the past, the majority of this organized aid came from women’s organizations. Olasky spends much time outlining the various women’s community aid organizations that had a dramatic impact on America at the turn of the 20^th century. This was a time preceding so many women choosing to leave the home and enter the workplace. There was substantially less need for government aid programs because these charitable needs were largely met by Christian women who had the calling, time, and energy to do such things. We can see this principle working its way out in Redeemer right now. It takes significant time to foster a child well. That can only be accomplished when a family makes intentional Christian choices to work and earn less, in order to serve and give more time to a child in Jesus’ name.
             
Third, Olasky explores the idea of “Compassion Fatigue.” This relates to two different aspects of the same struggle. First, in our information age we’re inundated with every terrible need in the world constantly. We feel like there is nothing we can do to affect such need – so we do nothing. Or we feel that we have been taxed by the government to provide aid by the government, so we have no other obligation. Olasky argues that both these ideas are non-Christian. We are called by God to obey Him personally where we are, despite what may be happening in the world at large. Our actions are meaningful! Second, Olasky urges his readers to not grow weary in doing good. Duty and guilt are the motivation of the world for doing good. For the Christian, love and faith in Jesus are the greater, proper, and enduring motivations for Christian charity.
 
May the joyful sacrificial love of orphans and widows continue to grow,
Pastor Vic

OLD TESTAMENT GRACE

“Incline your ear, O Lord, and answer me,
for I am poor and needy.
Preserve my life, for I am godly;
save your servant who trusts in you – you are my God.
Be gracious to me, O Lord,
for to you do I cry all the day.
Gladden the soul of your servant,
for to you, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.
For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving,
abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you.
Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer;
listen to my plea for grace.
In the day of my trouble I call upon you,
for you answer me.”
Psalm 86:1-7 

             
I was asked a very good question by a student in our youth group this past week, “How did people in the Old Testament come to salvation?”
             
The answer is that they came to salvation in the same way we do – by the grace of God alone, through faith alone. The major difference relates to the forward-looking nature of their faith. A God-fearing person in the Old Testament was looking forward to the salvation of God yet to be accomplished in a Messiah to come. Each believing person recognized their sin in the same way we must now, and every believing person called out to God for forgiveness. The basis for their hope of forgiveness was not their own good works, or religious rites and rituals, but the grace of God toward them. Old Testament believers did not know the name of Jesus or have an understanding of the cross that we have now. However, they did have a symbolic picture of the cross in the sacrificial system of the Old Testament temple and were reminded of the grace of God to forgive sins by every prophet the Lord sent to them.
             
The Old Testament system of sacrifices was instituted by God from the earliest chapters of the Bible. We see Abel in Genesis 4 bringing before God the acceptable sacrifice of a lamb. This basic sacrifice is expanded into an entire system of sacrificial worship revolving around the Tabernacle (movable) and later the Temple (permanent). These sacrifices for sin all revolved around one life substituted for another, the life of the animal for the life of the sinner. The person was guilty because they knew the rebellion of their heart before God, but the animal is innocent because they have no moral sense before God. But all these sacrifices are symbolic and inadequate. No lamb or ram can truly stand in the place of a sinful person before a holy God. Each sacrifice pointed symbolically in faith to the final and perfectly sufficient substitution of Jesus our Savior.
             
Generation after generation looked in faith for the Messiah to come. Countless Old Testament believers prayed the prayer of Psalm 86 – “save your servant who trusts in you … be gracious to me, O Lord.” This went on until faith was nearly lost and encrusted over by tradition – 400 years of silence with no word from the Lord between the time of Malachi and John the Baptist. Yet the Lord is faithful and will fulfill His purposes in His own time. In the fullness of time, John the Baptist was sent as the final prophet to proclaim the coming of the Messiah, to make straight the way of the Lord. John finally proclaimed the words awaited for thousands of years, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world!” (John 1:29) It is for the sake of Jesus that sins are forgiven, whether that faith was forward looking (Old Testament) or is backward looking (New Testament). However, let us be quick to remember that our faith today is still a forward-looking faith. Though we look back to the cross, we still look forward in hopeful expectation to the second coming of Christ. Though the day is dark and much has been lost, know that the purposes of God remain and will be accomplished in His own time. On a day already appointed, Jesus will come again, “with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God” (1 Thessalonians 4:15-18 / 2 Thessalonians 1:5-12).
             
For other passages in the Old Testament that speak to the grace of God in saving sinners see: Numbers 14:18-19 / Deuteronomy 4:31 / 2 Kings 22 / Nehemiah 9:17 / Joel 2 / Jonah 4:2 / Micah 7:18-20.
 
Praise the Lord for His salvation given to us by grace alone through faith alone,
Pastor Vic
 
              It’s important to ask questions you may have about the Bible and Christianity. I will be hosting a question-and-answer session at 12:30pm, May 21 at the church. If you would like to submit a question beforehand, you can write it down and put it in the offering box near the main entrance or email your question to, info@redeemerVA.org. See you there!

“Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as it fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.”–Ephesians 4:29

Words are a strange thing, but words matter deeply. When you listen to a person speak who speaks a language you don’t understand, the words sound like non-sense. This is especially true with non-phonetic languages. To you these sounds have no meaning, but to those who speak the language, each sound has meaning. The sounds have an agreed upon meaning between those who speak the language. The sounds are formed to express words and those words fit together to express matters of the heart. All human beings want to express themselves. Living together requires that we be able to communicate with each other. However, the Bible tells us that our hearts are corrupt (Jeremiah 17:9) and that we cannot openly communicate all that comes to our heart. Some people pride themselves in, “Just telling it like it is!” Christians cannot do this. We must pray for the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts to have self-control.

The words that we say, which are verbal expressions of what is in our mind and heart, have a moral quality. Our words are seldom neutral. Our words either tear down or build up. Our words either honor the Lord or dishonor Him. Our words affect those around us. Our words clearly tell the people around us how we feel about them. Jesus tells us (Matthew 12:35-37) that a person speaks out of the overflow of the heart. A person with a good and godly heart will speak words of blessing and encouragement. A person with a rebellious ungodly heart will speak evil words that destroy and tear down those around them. Jesus goes further to say that at the day of judgment we will be held accountable for every careless word we speak.

Every word matters. Christians, those who have confessed with their mouth that “Jesus is Lord” (Romans 10:8-10), will go forward by the powerful working of the Holy Spirit with a changed heart. This changed, and changing, heart will overflow with different words. The difference in how a Christian speaks is a big part of what sets them apart from the world. Our different words demonstrate a different heart toward God and others. Authentically different words – same words spoken at work, at home, at church, and with friends – demonstrate an authentic change of heart.

Let’s look first at some examples of bad speech that dishonor God. These words demonstrate a deeper struggle with sin in the heart. First, is using the name of the Lord Jesus as a curse word. All Christians are forbidden to use the name of the Lord in vain (Exodus 20:7). The name of Jesus is a sacred and holy name, chosen for Jesus, and to be used for the sacred purposes of prayer, worship, and thanksgiving. Next, is the common practice of using vulgar, obscene curse words to express your emotions. Every language has different curse words, but every culture agrees that certain words are understood to be obscene and are used for that purpose. Obscene words are used for their force, power, and shock value. But the vulgar nature of these words takes us as Christians away from the sacred, or holy/set apart, place we ought to live in as Christians. When we use these words, we are convicted because they take us into the perversion and anger of the world and away from Jesus as we vent our anger or perversion.

We must be very mindful in this perverse day that our words never joke or speak about sexual matters that are inappropriate. We are directly warned in Scripture against “crude joking” (Ephesians 5:4) and are admonished that the sexuality of the marriage bed is to be held in honor, set apart from common talk (Hebrews 13:4). In our words we must have the self-control to not give vent to our anger, to hold back from a complaining spirit, and not gossip about those around us. You must not whisper about the latest rumor you heard that undercuts the character of a co-worker or neighbor (Proverbs 16:28, 18:8, 26:22). If these ungodly words are a consistent and growing part of your life, you need to examine your heart before God. You need to confess these sins and pray for the Holy Spirit to help you speak in a different and Christ-honoring way.

On the other hand, Paul admonishes the Ephesians to only speak in a good way that builds up those around us and honors the Lord our God. If we know Christ as our Savior and have spent time drawing near to Him today, it will change your heart. When your heart is changed from being near Jesus and being filled with the Holy Spirit – your words will be different than this dying world! By the work of Jesus, you will go about today blessing those around you. Your words will honor Jesus and shine like light in darkness. You will be one who offers wise counsel. One who holds your tongue when you should. One who gives thanks instead of complaining. You will be a person of encouraging good humor. You will speak with honesty but also with compassion.

In these things, the Christian will strive by wisdom and self-control to speak well timed words. We must return blessing for cursing, lead with words filled with grace and love to diffuse angry situations. “A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger” (Proverbs 15:1). Our words are to give grace to those who hear. Grace is undeserved favor. Even when – especially when – others come at us with angry sinful words, we must come back to them with undeserved words of kindness, encouragement, and love. Our words must bear witness to the salvation of Jesus that has changed our heart. Our words must overflow with the eternal life that is ours in Jesus.

Taming our words will be a life-long struggle of sanctification (James 3). May the Lord give us progress everyday for His glory and for the blessing of those around us.

Soli Deo Gloria,
Pastor Vic