Press Mute

By: Sarah Cates

It has been a busy fall for us. School, church engagements, work, friends and family coming in to town, doctor’s appointments and fall festivities all crammed into 2 and a ½ very short months. Busy busy busy and in the rare moments when not busy, we have craved some relaxation, some brain candy, some way to shut down and truly disengage from the overload. Hello, Facebook. Hello, Instagram. Hello, TV show, movie, book. Distract us, help us to unwind and relax.

All of this activity and hustle and bustle has worn me down. Where is the quiet? Social media is not quiet. Entertainment is not quiet. Even personal relationships are not quiet. None of these things are bad; they are not evil; they are not sinful by any means. But they are not quiet. I may be sitting alone in a quiet room with just my phone, and my ears are not working, but my mind is drowning in a cacophony of noise.

“And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.” (Mark 1:35)

“But he would withdraw to a desolate place and pray.” (Luke 5:15)

“In these days he went out to the mountain to pray.” (Luke 6:12)

“And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.” (Mark 6:31)

“And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone…” (Matthew 14:23)

Jesus withdrew countless times, over and over, to “desolate” places, to the wild, to nature, to places where His Father’s still small voice would be the only one in his ear. Do we do this? Do we find these desolate places that are empty of noise and full of God? Do we sit and pray? I don’t think so, partially because I think we over-complicate prayer. Yes, we are taught to speak to God and how to speak to Him. We are told to make our requests known, to bring all our worries to Him and leave them at the Cross with Him. But we are also told to listen. To be quiet.

“I think it is possible to learn stillness - but only if it is seriously sought. God tells us, ‘Be still and know that I am God’ (Psalm 40:10). ‘In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.’ (Isaiah 30:15). The stillness in which we find God is not superficial, a mere absence of fidgeting or talking. It is a deliberate and quiet attentiveness - receptive, alert, ready…” -Elisabeth Elliot

Do we think that in those quiet moments when our mind wanders and we actually take the time to hold our thoughts captive, that the Spirit does not speak? That He does not direct our thoughts to His will, His way? It is usually in those rare moments of quiet, after a time of speaking TO God that I hear FROM God the most in the simple turning of my thoughts. I come to realizations, to peace, to understanding that could not be found apart from Him.

We can’t always withdraw to desolate places and be alone. Stillness and quiet is hard to come by. But can we wake thirty minutes earlier? Can we turn the TV off while washing dishes? Can we sit without our phones while drinking our morning coffee? Can we drive with the nothing but quiet worship music for company? Can we intentionally seek the discomfort of quiet and listen for that still small voice?

I believe we can, and I know that we need to.

“My dear Wormwood: Music and silence–how I detest them both! How thankful we should be that ever since our Father entered Hell–though longer ago than humans, reckoning in light years, could express, no square inch of infernal space and no moment of infernal time has been surrendered to either of those abominable forces, but all has been occupied by Noise–Noise, the grand dynamism, the audible expression of all that is exultant, ruthless, and virile–Noise which alone defends us from silly qualms, despairing scruples, and impossible desires. We will make the whole universe a noise in the end. We have already made great strides in this direction as regards the Earth. The melodies and silences of Heaven will be shouted down in the end. But I admit we are not yet loud enough, or anything like it. Research is in progress.” -C.S. Lewis, Screwtape Letters

If thou could'st empty all thyself of self,
Like to a shell dishabited,
Then might He find thee on the ocean shelf,
And say, "This is not dead,"
And fill thee with Himself instead.

But thou are all replete with very thou
And hast such shrewd activity,
That when He comes He says, "This is enow
Unto itself - 'twere better let it be,
It is so small and full, there is no room for me."
Sir Thomas Browne

Review: REFLECT

By: Howard Cole

Why read a book about the identity and implications of Jesus?

I am thrilled to read great books in a community. Over the past two years I have been reading and rereading REFLECT by Thaddeus J. Williams with a group of guys at church. It’s been a real hit and I want you to see why. Maybe you’ll even go out and read it with a group of your friends.

What’s it all about?

Since God, like our sun, is the most glorious being in existence, we expand, grow and really live when we reflect him. R-E-F-L-E-C-T acts as an acronym and each letter explores what it would look like if we actually worship and thereby reflect Jesus, the son of the living God. Here’s a quick chapter breakdown to wet your appetite:

R: Reasoning like Jesus calls us to develop our intellectual virtues. Our thinking can be slippery and sloppy but when we think like Jesus we think straight and love God will all of our mind.

E: Emoting like Jesus calls us to feel joy at what brings him joy and outrage at what brings him anger. Since our emotions construe meaning, we need to allow Jesus to reshape our emotions.

F: Flipping our upside-down attempts to live meaningfully must occur when we align with Jesus. Following Jesus means flipping our views about power, pleasure and purity.

L: Loving like Jesus cultivates the relational depth we desire and struggle to achieve.

E: Elevating others reflects the grace of Jesus as we examine and apply the cross-work of Christ.

C: Creating beauty like Jesus fuels the fire of our own creative imaginations.

T: Transformation is explained, illustrated and applied since we all crave lasting change.

What I like most:

The author introduces you to 49 different and thoroughly interesting people quoting them in their areas of science, art, philosophy, music, politics, history, psychology, pop culture, literature and more. He relates the life of Jesus with their unique points of view provoking fresh thought about imitating Jesus.

Want to taste a sample of the book?

Page one begins like a pistol going off at the starting blocks with a thought experiment: “Imagine you are escorted through an underground laboratory into a controversial machine. You step inside a big silver cube and are told to think about whatever you love most in the world. A wall of glass rises out of the floor, dividing the cube into two equal chambers. Then everything goes dark. Your earliest memories project one after another on the glass. All your firsts and all of your favorites, side-aching laughs, heart-palpitating joys, gut-punching rejections- all of it beams from your consciousness and onto the screen. On the opposite side of the glass all of the flashing rays of your personal movie reel seem to cluster together and take form. As the defining ideas, feelings, and choices of your life speed through

the glass, your future self slowly materialized in the other chamber. Then the lights come up, the glass goes down, and you stand there, eye to eye with your future self….Would you see someone big-souled, caring and full of life or someone small, self-consumed and burned out?”

Any down-sides?

If you want to read a paint-by-numbers book with quick steps and techniques this is not the book for you. The author will deconstruct many ways you have pieced together your world and then reconstruct it through stories, quotes and the centrality of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.

How about exchanging the time you’ll spend binging on the next, best Netflix or Amazon TV series with a fascinating book you can read with friends? You won’t regret it!

Catch & Release

By: Sarah Cates

This summer my oldest started Kindergarten. My best friend moved to Japan. We dealt with a loss in the family. I’ve had friends in relational and financial crisis. So much is going on in the lives of so many people I love, and I can’t truly be involved in it. I’m not there to help my daughter navigate classroom rules for the first time. I’m not in Japan to share a margarita with my best friend when the military loses her entire shipment of household goods. We live far away from family.  I have my own, God-given top priority of my husband and my kids that means I can’t drop everything to help my mom friends who need support - and too often, I am the one who needs the support, anyway.

This summer has made me more aware than I have ever been that my people (even my children!) do not belong to me, they belong to Jesus. I am not their schoolmaster, their helper, their rescuer - Jesus is. He has and will set their curriculum - which will undoubtedly include great joy and great heartbreak. And no matter how much I want to, I cannot and should not interfere with that curriculum. The people I love are not mine, they are His. I cannot go with them always, He can. I cannot comfort them always, He can.

So if I am not to be the helper, the rescuer, who am I to be? If each of their trials will be as much a surprise to me as they are to them, if each of their growing strengths and revealed weaknesses are being cared for apart from my knowledge and involvement, what can I do? I can armor them. And I can give them rest. Each day I can catch them and help them prepare to be released back into a broken world.

I can arm them with truth. Teaching my daughter, reminding my friends, to not only know the Word of God but to wield it with wisdom as they learn about this world God has placed them in. I can remind them of who God is - and that He alone is sovereign. I can remind them of His faithfulness in times past, of His character and unchanging nature.

“Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” -Ephesians 6:13-17

I can arm them with their unshakeable identity. Not only that they are a beloved daughter, or wife or mother, but a beloved daughter of the One True King. Their value is set, more than priceless, and nothing they do can add or subtract from it.

“Consider the incredible love that the Father has shown us in allowing us to be called 'children of God'—and that is not just what we are called, but what we are.” -1 John 3:1 (Phillips)

I can give them the rest that comes from grace. A safe place to bring sin and fault and screw ups and learn repentance and how to get up and try again the next day. I can assure them that no matter what, Christ’s love does not fade, and that as they repent and seek Him, they will experience only grace and blessing.

“...but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.” - Romans 5:8-9

I can give them the rest of knowing that when they don’t know how, when they don’t want to or can’t - I am carrying them daily to the Cross in prayer. That I am watchful and present and pleading their case before a perfectly loving, all powerful Father.

“The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is workingt.” -James 5:16

Catch. Release. Repeat. My hope is that the many people I love, know that I love them even when I cannot be with them, because I give them over to God. And my greater hope is that I will know the love of God better, because I will see how He watches over and keeps those whom I love, even when I can’t.

review: the mortification of sin

By: Howard Cole

John Owen, the English church leader who worked at the University of Oxford once asked this provocative question in his book “The Mortification of Sin”: “Do you mortify? Do you make it your daily work? Be killing sin or it will be killing you.”

The words “sin” and “mortification” are words that we seldom hear in the conversations of our common culture. One might say “I was ‘mortified’” when he went the wrong way down a one-way street and was honked at. But that use of the word means that they were simply embarrassed. When Own used the word mortify he was referring to killing disordered desires that still reside in a regenerated Christian. Instead of the word mortify we hear words like “therapy” and “counseling” and “self-help.” All men, including unbelievers, want to experience change and growth and “prosperity” and the motives for self-growth are mixed and manifold. Can one find the words “mortification of sin” in the common conversation of the Christian community? Owen’s book will help us as we attempt to answer many crucial questions concerning sanctification (the process of progressive change) in the life of the believer. Where do we find the concept of the mortification of sin in Scripture? What is it? How do mortification of sin and “indwelling sin” relate to one another? How is mortification to be practiced personally and practically? Is the mortification of sin “legalistic?” What is the relationship of mortification to the law of God? Why is so little heard of it currently in the preaching and teaching of the evangelical church? How can this be taught and implemented in a congregation? By answering these questions, we will be better equipped to battle sin in our lives and grow into more fruitful followers of Christ.

The doctrine of mortification is mined from Romans 8:13b which reads, “…If you through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live.” The first half of the verse says, “If you live after the flesh, you shall die” (Rom 8:13a). According to Paul, the doctrine of mortification is a “life and death” issue. It is not a peripheral, optional nugget of truth for the Christian. Instead, Paul is expressing life-giving instructions on how to live and grow in the Christian life.

But what exactly is mortification? Literally, it means to “put to death.” It is not a positive command, but conversely it is a strong negative command to kill the sin that is within you. Paul uses other terms for this sin lodged deep in the core of believers like “old man” and “flesh” in his other epistles. Owen heightens the specificity of the killing by saying that the “faculties, properties, wisdom, craft, subtlety, and strength” of sin must be ruthlessly destroyed and slain.

Often, when giving good directions for driving toward a destination one tells a person where “not” to turn so that the true destination is reached. Likewise, to better clarify the exact meaning of mortification, we find help in defining what mortification is “not.” First, mortification is not the death and final elimination of sin. Paul taught the Philippians this clarification when he admitted “Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect” (Philip 3:12). Only Christ accomplishes the final change (cf. Philip 3:21; Col 2:10). Second, mortification is not a hypocritical faking that pretends sin is removed. Paul does not want us to live in a make-believe world with a make-believe sanctification. Third, mortification is not the improvement of a quiet, controlled, even-keeled temperament. Owen says it best when he remarks that we can look as though we have developed self-control and yet still be plagued by hearts that “still stink like a cesspool of corruption.” We are not mortifying sin when we refine a temperament that comes naturally to us. Fourth, a sin is not put to death when it is diverted by another sin. We are still in the same old state. Fifth, episodic conquests of sin don’t count as true mortification. When an episode of supposed success settles down, the latent lust will rear its head again.

Now that we know what mortification is not, we can attend to what it is. Owen helps us here by stating its composition in three ways. First, it is the habitual weakening of sin. Owen paints a gruesome word-picture to illustrate this. He reminds us that Paul speaks of crucifying the world and the flesh and he then paints the picture of a man who is nailed to a cross first struggling and crying out with his strength. As the writhing man bleeds to death he weakens. Second, mortification is a constant fight against sin. We need to take sin seriously and spend time learning the schemes of the devil. We need to examine our usual excuses, pleas and pretenses as we stay on guard and then attack the sin with fresh wounds daily. We are to “mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth” (Col 3:5). Third, mortification is evidenced by frequent success against indwelling sin. As mentioned earlier, it is not a total success. But one does find a decrease in obstacles to obedience and greater peace.

Much of what has been said rests on the reality of indwelling sin. Paul expressed, “I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me” (Rom 7:21). The reason we are to mortifiy sin is based on the admission that sin is still part of the regenerated son or daughter of Christ and actively opposed to the new life of the Spirit within. This indwelling sin seeks to drain the believer of vigor and joy and fruit for the glory of God. Like a thief or a fire within our home, indwelling sin resides and desires to control the life of the believer. Because of this indicative of our nature we must mortify our sin with resolve.

So how exactly can we practice mortification? Owen prescribes two directions for the practice of mortification. First, we are to live wholly and solely in trust of Christ. We need to fix our gaze on the provisions that are ours in Christ. The treasures and strength of Christ must be our focus if we are to fight the sin within. We can do nothing without Christ (John 15:5). By prayer and meditation, we must expectantly wait upon the ready help of Christ. We must also focus on the reality of Christ’s death and resurrection. He died so that he might “redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works” (Tit 2:14). The death of Christ is a power that will help you practice mortification. Second, mortification can only be accomplished through the Holy Spirit. Only the Holy Spirit of the living God can break through the deceptive heart and convince a person of actual sin and guilt (cf. John 16:8). The Spirit is the author and finisher of our progressive sanctification as He provides the rich resources of grace.

But have we placed the noose of legalism (the false belief that our behavior can be the basis of our acceptance by the Holy God) around our necks at this juncture? No. Owen spends considerable time explaining that sin often diverts the mind by emphasizing cheap grace. In other words, the good news of Christ is never divorced from ethics. When one starts to say, “I don’t need to live so strictly since God loves me and will forgive me,” then a carelessness concerning sin begins to take root. Owen explains that the doctrine of grace must be connected to its purpose. Paul said that we are not to continue in sin so that grace may abound (Rom 6:1-2). Instead, we are to live with hearts humbled by undeserved mercy and grace as we live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world (cf. Titus 2:11-12). Our fight against sin does not save us but our fight against sin evidences the reality of our regeneration and our gratitude for positional righteousness. The law reveals our sin and our

guilt but does not have the power to change us. Christ kept the law for His elect and took the penalty for the transgression of the law for His people. The people of God now love the law of God and live joyfully in God’s design and holiness. Holiness is possible! It happens when we reject our lifestyle of sin, and root ourselves into the life of Christ. As Jerry Bridges succinctly put it, it is not what we are against (sin), but what we are for (God) that counts. Because sin drives a wedge between us and God, we want to kill it to draw closer to Him.

If one were to analyze the content of the thousands of sermons that are preached each Sunday, why is it that so few would contain the doctrine of mortification? Primarily, our culture does not like the idea of sin and guilt. Our culture views man’s nature as basically good. Fish rarely consider the water that envelops them, and many churches fail to discern the worldly error that has darkened the clear light of Scripture with regards to man’s indwelling sin, guilt and need of saving grace.

But a more covert reason for the famine of familiarity with mortification is because of an “over-realized” sanctification. Many think they can achieve complete sanctification by disciplined acts of their will. They sincerely love God, so they pray more, sing more, fast more, evangelize more, give up this and sacrifice that. A subversive self-righteousness deceives them, and the killing of sin gets replaced by a false sense of achieving total holiness in their lifetime. This inflicts churches with elite classes of Christians and the more honest guilt-ridden underclass. A fresh submission to the word of God (i.e. Philippians 3:12) and the need for mortification will reverse this tragic trend.

Here are some tangible suggestions for the implementation of mortification in the life of a congregation. First, indwelling sin must be asserted as real before it is attacked. Second, we must explain the nature of mortification along with its practice. Third, we need to explicitly express mortification in our public worship during the time of confession and integrate its practice in our sermon applications. Fourth, our elders and deacons need to be trained in this important element of their devotional walk with God since they will be models to our people. May we be a people that grow in the mortification of our sin as we experience newfound vigor in our walk with God. Is there a specific sin that you can start killing today? Walk by the power of the Spirit and enjoy life that is found on the path of mortification.