Death throes of the Republic on Huffduffer: Recent Episodes
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TranscriptHow are we? Doing well? Excellent. If you have your Bibles, go ahead and grab them. We’re going to start in Ezekiel 37. If you don’t have a Bible with you, there should be a hardback black one under your seat or around you. Go ahead and grab that. It’s always of utmost importance that you see the things we say in here aren’t really my ideas or something I’ve come up with but rather something we’re reading straight from the Word of God. So if you’ll grab that, we’ll get going.As a refresher, if you’re a guest with us, if maybe this is your first time here, we’re in the middle of our fall series. We’ve called that series A Beautiful Design. What we’re looking at is when it comes to humanity, specifically when it comes to manhood and womanhood, how has God, as our Creator, designed us in regard to origin, purpose, and design?We’ve covered origin and the purpose of man. We haven’t gotten to women yet. We’re going to turn the corner in the next couple of weeks and, where the last three weeks we’ve just focused on manhood, we’ll then start to discuss and look at what the Word of God has to say about womanhood.What we’ve already laid down is that, yes, in some ways, my biology makes me male, but there is something else that has to be present for me to be a man. Agreed? You have to agree if you have sons. Otherwise, you have to call my 8-year-old boy a man, and I wouldn’t do it. I know him. I wouldn’t do it. And there are little girls and there are women, so something is taking place that moves males to manhood and females to womanhood. This is what we’ve been digging into.We started out talking about God as Creator. If our God is Creator, that means he alone has the authority to determine design and function. It’s God the Creator’s role to say, “Here’s how it works best.” He is the designer of the machine, if you’ll remember the C.S. Lewis quote. He’s the one who designed the machine. He’s the one who knows how it works best. When we take matters into our own hands and say, “No, no, I know how to use the machine best,” we’re like someone telling the creator how it’s actually supposed to be used.So we covered that, and then we got into the imago Dei, what it means to be made in the image of God, that you and I have an elevated position among the rest of the created order. I made the joke for two weeks in a row that if the budget got tight and I had to decide between the horse, the dog, my wife, or my kids, it’s kind of a no-brainer on who has to go, right? It’s not my wife.That decision isn’t a mathematical decision. I don’t look at the budget and go, “Money is tight. Who’s costing me the most money? She has to go.” That’s a no-brainer. No one would argue to make decisions like that. Why? Because my wife, made in the image of God, has an elevated worth over any animal in the world.In fact, I used sweet Darrin… My boy Darrin here is worth far more than Secretariat. Literally, the most amazing horse that has ever been on the planet earth, just blowing by fools, a “movie made about him” kind of horse, a million-dollar horse, is not even in the same ballpark as my friend Darrin. Not even close. Why? Because Darrin has been made in the image of God. Secretariat hasn’t.God was pleased with the horse, right? I mean, repeatedly in the Bible he’s like, “I nailed that. That thing is awesome.” In Job he says, “How magnificent is the horse with its snorting? It makes men feel terror.” God kind of feels like he nailed it. Yet it’s an animal, and it’s not in any way any human being’s equal.All humans, male and female, bear the image of the Creator and have an elevated value and worth over the rest of creation and are stewards of creation, which is why, despite the fact of our elevated position, any type of abuse or neglect of the created order is wicked and not in accordance with our design. Where we are acting as image bearers, we will then cause humanity and really the created order to flourish.So that was being made in the image. That becomes imperative for a thousand reasons. Where the imago Dei is understood, almost all that we call wicked starts to vanish. Pornography is an imago Dei issue. Prostitution is an imago Dei issue. Abortion is an imago Dei issue. Genocide is an imago Dei issue. Racism is an imago Dei issue. Discrimination is an imago Dei issue. All of the horrors of humanity can be drawn back to a failure to understand that all mankind has been created in the image of God. In his image he created them, male and female he created them.Then, from the imago Dei, we moved into man and what is the purpose of man, and straight from the Bible we looked at the call on the man to work and keep the created order. I wanted to stay away from the word leadership when it comes to men, because women can lead. In fact, I’ve seen some women lead out in spectacularly amazing ways. So we pulled out this idea that’s a faithful idea to the Word of God of male headship.We defined male headship like this. Headship is the unique leadership of the man in the work of establishing order for human flourishing. Here’s what I said, and I’ll stick by it. No one even tried, because I don’t think you can argue with this. Where men refuse to be men, the world breaks down, and where men will step into what God designed them to walk in, mankind flourishes.Now I’m not speaking simply as a Christian, because if you want to study that economically, go ahead. You’ll see it’s right. If you want to study it sociologically, go ahead and study it. You’ll find out I’m right. When sociologists and economists are saying men need to be present in the home, in the neighborhood, for human flourishing, they’re simply tapping into the good design that is revealed in the Scriptures.As we read the economists and sociologists, I’m going, “Exactly,” because that’s what God said. Of course it’s not working. Of course absentee fathers create a crisis in identity in little boys and little girls. Now single moms, widows, I don’t want to say that again without saying this again. Where the ideal is lacking, grace abounds. Some of the godliest men I know right now did not grow up in homes where Daddy was overly engaged or grew up in homes where his engagement was dark. Don’t lose heart, sisters. The Lord enters into dark spaces and makes things new. Don’t lose heart.But in every domain of study, God has designed the man to have a unique role in human flourishing. He orders things for flourishing, and where men fulfill the role of biblical manhood, women also flourish in their gifts, in their zeal. In fact, the Bible would tell us that a wife married to a good man would flourish like a well-watered vine. So men, that’s a good little litmus test to your leadership. Is your wife flourishing?Now from there, Beau, Angry Beau, came out of nowhere last week… (I’m just kidding. I totally assigned him that topic. I know he outed me in his sermon too.) He comes and starts talking about the hurdles of men, because we can look at the data and say, “Yeah, yeah, men need to play this role,” but we can look at reality and see that they don’t and that they’ve punted on this responsibility and refused to fill this space.Instead of having biblically-formed, Holy Spirit-strengthened men, we have boys who can shave. We have little boys in grownup bodies. We have 8-year-olds in 50-year-old bodies. We have the abject refusal to enter the difficulty of manhood, because being a boy is easier. In fact, the frequency at which men are giving themselves over to comfort and couches when there is a war waging is staggering.The frequency at which men refuse to lead spiritually in the home. Men, you know that’s on you, right? God has not deemed your wife as spiritual priest of the family. That falls on your shoulders, men, to set the spiritual climate. The frequency at which men refuse to emotionally connect to wives and children. We’ll talk more about this in the future, because sometimes it’s not refusal. Sometimes we just don’t know how. But again, this refusal to even pursue being emotionally connected. Poor wives living with robots.The frequency at which single men refuse to pursue godly single women for deep friendships that might lead to marriage. These are all of those places where men are refusing to step in and deciding to stay in this extended adolescence, despite the fact that their bodies have matured to what would be defined as manhood. The voice has dropped. We have to shave, some of us more than others. Our physical bodies look like men, but our behavior would define us as boys.Beau began to unpack how this plays itself out, and he correctly defined it in two ways. (By the way, he killed that sermon. If you didn’t listen to that, he was unbelievable.) He said that men’s errors, men’s hurdles, are we’re prone to selfish passivity or selfish aggression. Because sin entered the world and marred the image, because sin has entered into the world and broken the man all the way down to the cellular level, where our iniquities, our bents, take us is toward a type of sinful selfish passivity or toward selfish aggression.Then he had such a brilliant little caveat, that even the passive man is not actually passive; he’s actively choosing not to fulfill the role God gave him. It comes off as passivity. It comes off as, “I’m going to refuse to engage,” but what he’s actively doing is refusing to engage as the Lord would have him engage, and it looks like passivity. In the end, it’s selfish passivity. Where this happens and men are given over to selfish passivity or selfish aggression, the stench of death lingers. It lingers in homes. It lingers in churches. It lingers in communities. It lingers in countries. Where men refuse to grow up, humanity’s chance at flourishing is nearly nonexistent.Now ladies, let’s chat for a second before we dive into Ezekiel 37. If you’ll remember, when we started manhood a couple of weeks ago, I said here are the two ways you really need to be engaged in this conversation about manhood and what manhood is. There are really two parts you play as we flesh this out.The first is expectation. As we walk through what the Word of God says about biblical manhood, your expectations of men should rise. The bar should be raised as you hear, “This is what God says a man is.” The bar should raise. Men will rise to the occasion if the bar is high enough. If you set it low, you’ll find some moron running in a herd of other morons who steps over that tiny little bar you have.You’re more valuable than that. Remember the imago Dei. Put the bar high. “Well, sometimes I feel lonely.” Get a cat, because that cat will not cause you the heartbreak that some boy who can shave will. Don’t treat yourself so cheaply. Expectation should increase as you hear and learn what biblical manhood is.Then, as members of the covenant community, your role is to not just expect, but to encourage men in this. Wives, encourage your men. We’ll talk more about this later. Speak life into him. Where you see him doing these things, on the way home you should be like, “Baby, thank you for how you’re trying to lead in these things. I see you working at this. Thank you so much for how you’ve filled this space, how you’ve engaged our children like this, how you’ve pursued my heart like this, how you manage things so well. Thank you, baby.” Encourage.Then single women, encourage our single men to be these things. In fact, if they’re pursuing you and they’re a boy who can shave, you have straight-up permission from Pastor Matt to go, “Well, once you grow into your body, we can have this conversation, but for now I’d rather stay at home with my cat than go out with you.” All right? Just lay it down. Expect those boys to grow up, and I think you’ll be surprised at them going, “Oh dang, I need to grow up.”Here’s what I want to do now. This is the stench of death. Men who are actively walking in selfish passivity or selfish aggression, the stench of death in the home, in the church, in the community, in the city, in the country, in the world… Now that Mad Beau is done, I get to come along, and now I want to give you good news. I want to give you the good news that the history of our God is God stepping into dead spaces, stepping into the darkness, reaching his holy pure hands into the stench of death, and eradicating it and calling back to life.So brothers, my hope is to encourage you today to be what God has you to be and to lay before you that the Holy Spirit of God will empower you to pursue. Perfection is yours in Jesus Christ, but pursuit has been given to you by the Holy Spirit dwelling inside of you. Now with that said, let’s look at Ezekiel 37, starting in verse 1.“The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones. And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry.”I like the detail in which the story goes. The bones that are lying all over the valley floor are very dry. Let’s say it this way. They’ve been there a while. These aren’t freshly picked-off bones. These are like “CSI found this body from 70 years ago” kind of bones. Are you tracking with me? These are dry, dry bones.“And he said to me, ’Son of man, can these bones live?’ And I answered, ’O Lord God, you know.’ Then he said to me, ’Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews [tendons, ligaments] upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.’So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was a sound, and behold, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. And I looked, and behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them. But there was no breath in them.Then he said to me, ’Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.’ So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army. Then he said to me, ’Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel.’” “These bones are my people.”“Behold, [my people] say, ’Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the Lord.”Now this story out of Ezekiel is being prophesied by Ezekiel when he is in exile after the nation of Israel has fallen apart and been carried off into exile. Ezekiel is promising this, prophesying about this, in a time in which all the world’s powers that were known are at war with one another. The world was on fire. You had superpowers colliding. You had an ancient superpower in Egypt that had gotten involved in the mix.You had world war, and you had world war without television cameras. You had world war without Twitter and Instagram, which means you had a type of darkness and depravity that’s hard to get the mind around. The people of Israel, who had seen their entire country burned to the ground and had been exiled, deported, out of their country and put in another country, felt like all was lost.Yet the promise from God to dry bones is, “I’ll put you back together, an exceedingly great army. I’ll enter the chaos, enter the fray, enter the brokenness, and bone by bone, sinew by sinew, muscle by muscle, flesh by flesh, I’ll breathe life into you, and where you have been dead and where the stench of death has reigned, you will live, and the stench of death will change to the aroma of my presence.”Now that sounds awesome, but my question is always, “Okay, how?” Right? Because that’s kind of an ethereal idea. “Okay, God can enter dark spaces and bring to life, but I want to know how. How does that work? I hear you and I even believe you, but what now? Praise God. So when does this happen? When do I get breathed on? My bones are feeling dry and brittle. When does that happen?” Well, I’m glad you asked that, because that’s the rest of my sermon.One of the things Beau said last week… He tied sin and death together, and this is reality. Where there is sin, its dark partner death is always there. That’s part of what God warned Adam before sin had entered into the cosmos. In fact, in Genesis, chapter 2, verse 16, here’s what God told Adam: “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ’You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’”If sin enters the cosmos, you’re going to die, and we know that death is a type of holistic death. You have physical death that’s a reality, but you also have spiritual death, which is really the underlying issue that pushes men toward selfish passivity and selfish aggression. Then this will be one of the themes found in the book of Romans. Romans, chapter 5, verse 12, says, “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned…”This was covered at length last week. Where there is sin, that sin is leading to death, and where there is death, there is the stench of death wherever that sin is playing out. If we go back and look at Beau’s beautifully-built-out, on-the-ground examples of selfish passivity and selfish aggression, all of these things are sin leading to death or they are simply the stench of death on men who know better than to operate this way. We’ll address both in our time together.So this is selfish passivity. This is such a great list. The refusal to worship God. The refusal to enjoy, honor, serve, know, obey, and delight in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. That is a sin leading to death that carries with it the stench of death. He also said engaging fantasy instead of reality.Your fantasies are always going to be a lot better than your reality, correct? Unless your fantasy is things being more difficult for you in the world, in which case come see us. We need to walk with you a bit in some counseling if your fantasy is like, “Man, I had a couple of things that went right today. Let me just sit here and think about what if those went wrong too. There we go. I’m going to drift off to sleep thinking about that.” Right? No. Fantasy is always more comfortable and easier.The Bible is going to say that’s sin that leads to death and, therefore, carries with it the stench of death. Do you want me to put this on the ground? Show me a man who spends time in fantasy rather than engaging in reality and I’ll show you a home that has the stench of death as Daddy refuses to engage Mom, engage the children, and engage the spiritual climate of the home. The stench of death.It goes on from there. Checking out emotionally and spiritually, self-pity, silence in a moment where wise words are needed, like saying something encouraging to your wife or children or friend or confronting sin in your wife or children or friend. Of course, such silence means we are actively avoiding conflict, we are avoiding vulnerability, or we are avoiding work.Excuse-making or complaining. Those are sins that lead to death and, therefore, carry the stench of death. Disorganization and procrastination. That one stung me. I almost took it off this weekend. Busyness to avoid responsibility; being lethargic in work, service, or ministry; not getting out of bed when the alarm clock goes off; leaving difficult labors to others; refusing to help someone in need; silence in a moment where words are needed.Gluttony or apathy; lack of ambition about matters truly important to God and others; either not being excited about God, worship, the gospel, and his Word, or not being appalled about false worship, child abuse, abortion, racism, oppression, and sexual immorality, especially in our own lives. These are selfish passivity actions that men give themselves over to that are sins that lead to death that carry with them the stench of death. This is how that plays out.If we go over now to the selfish aggression side…pornography, domestic abuse (one in three women are abused by their spouses), thoughtless criticism, correction, nitpicking, and vocalized displeasure to get other people to change and do what we want. Withholding affection and attention when someone fails; using money, power, and a host of other devices to control others.Mocking, belittling, and demeaning others to exalt ourselves; slandering or harming another person’s reputation to get ahead; the whole spectrum of retaliation toward others when we don’t get our way, from the silent treatment to blatant acts of violence; veiled anger disguised as sarcasm; abandoning your wife; deriving pleasure from watching other people suffer. These are sins that lead to death and, therefore, carry with them the stench of death.Where they are present, rather than the aroma of the gospel and life and flourishing, you get the stench of death and a stunted beauty. To top that all off, all of this takes place in a very broken world. So not only do we have selfish passivity and selfish aggression that we’re wrestling with, but both of those are being played out on a created order that’s broken itself. Genesis 3:17-19 tells us about that.“Then to Adam He said, ’Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ”You shall not eat from it“; cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; and you will eat the plants of the field; by the sweat of your face you will eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.’”So not only do we have sin leading to death that carries with it the stench of death, but all of creation actually is warring against us as we go. Now here’s what I’ve always appreciated about the Bible. It never tries to paint a picture that’s inconsistent with reality, because all we just read is what you’ll see anytime you log on to CNN.com. This is the world we live in. This is our experience. This is how life actually works.The created order is broken. We see it in a thousand ways every year, as the earth, according to Romans 8, groans and looks forward to its own reconciliation. We see this often, as men abuse or refuse to engage. We see this. We live this. We wrestle with this. We have to work in the midst of this. Yet it’s in this kind of “Mad Max in the Thunderdome” type of picture… (I can’t wait until the new one comes out, and then the other half of you will actually get that illustration. Most of you don’t remember Mel Gibson when he was like 23, or however old he was when they shot that.)It’s in this kind of apocalyptic, “everything is broken” mess that God begins to call the bones to come back together. In fact, I want you to see this. Ephesians, chapter 2, starting in verse 4, says, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)…”So what has God done for us in Jesus Christ? It is in Jesus Christ and his life, death, and resurrection that God says to the bones to come back together, says to the dead to wake up, says to the dead, “You’re alive again,” grants the breath, puts the bones back together, and gets those tendons and ligaments to connect.On top of our spiritual resurrection, he seals this in us. Romans 6:6. Not only are we not dead men anymore. Listen to this. “We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.” Here’s where things get really interesting for us, men.Here’s what has just happened. In Christ, we have been raised from the dead. All that whole list, sinful passivity, sinful aggression… Now we’ve been saved from that. We’ve been called out of death and into life by Christ. His death absorbs all of God’s wrath toward us, his righteousness imputed to us so that God sees us as positionally perfect. On top of that, God gives to us the Holy Spirit to strengthen the inner man to pursue our God-given place as walking in headship.Now that we have the Holy Spirit inside of us strengthening us, we don’t have to say yes to any of this anymore. Before God saved us, before Christ raised us from the dead, before the Holy Spirit was given to us, these things were going to own us. They were going to get us. Now that we have the Holy Ghost, we can say, “No.” We can say, “I’m not doing that again,” and it’s the Spirit’s power that strengthens us.That means, men, you have not been created for comfort or the couch. When I said early on, “The frequency men give themselves over to comfort and couch,” I’m trying to help you process and understand that God has created you for war, not comfort. In fact, the more comfort you have, the more you lack genuine biblical masculinity. The more you give yourself over to comfort… And don’t go all Braveheart, “paint your face blue,” on me.Sometimes the war men have been called into is that type of war. Most of the time the war is to get up off the couch. The war, more often than not, is me getting up and pursuing my wife’s heart when I’m exhausted and don’t feel like it. A lot of times, the war for me is to manage our budget in a way that our family can flourish and don’t have to worry about those things.Sometimes the war for me is to go tuck in the kids and pray for them and talk to them about their day and what the best part was and what the worst part was and ask, “How is your heart? What are you wrestling with right now? How are you thinking about God?” There are some times I’m just tired, and I’ll be really honest so we can be friends here. Sometimes by that point of the day they’re getting on my nerves. There’s not a lot of good going to happen if I go in there. (Oh, you guys are so awesome. I’ll try to be the type of parent you are one day.)There are some times I’m just like, “I don’t want to go in there. I want to just sit here. I’d like to start getting ready for bed myself. I’d like to finish reading this book I’m in.” Right? Sometimes the war is on that ground. It’s not face painted blue, running into the field to slaughter the Lord’s enemies. Sometimes it’s just getting up and going and sitting across the table with my wife and asking how she’s doing.“What has the Lord been showing you? What has he been teaching you? What are you struggling with right now? Are you encouraged in the Lord? Are you in a dry space? Where are you, babe?” Sometimes that’s where the war is taking place. In fact, most often that’s where it’s taking place. The temptation that even now I wrestle with is staying on the couch.Now men, let me help set you free here to pursue this. Look at me. You are not going to be able to do this. This is the Lord’s expectation and command, but you will not be able to do it. You will fail. You will fall. You will choose the couch. You will choose to not engage. You will. You’re going to fail. But let’s make sure we understand what the Bible is teaching here.Christ has granted to you, because of his death and resurrection, positional perfection and has now freed you up to pursue. If you think the goal is perfection, that every time you will nail this and do it perfectly, you will lose heart and stop trying. You will fall back into the stench of death, especially around self-pity, and you will refuse to engage like you should. But if you understand that perfection has been given to you in Christ and what God has called you to is pursuit, then you can get up and start pursuing again.In fact, I said this a couple of weeks ago. I just love it. God has so brilliantly designed the pursuit of him that when we choose the couch, when we choose comfort, and we own it and realize we did it, the gospel has an opportunity to take even deeper root in our homes if Dad is honest about where he has failed, if Husband is honest about where he fell short. In fact, let’s look at that right now.Ephesians, chapter 5, verses 13-14, says, “But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, ’Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.’” Men, this is where we need to camp out. Here’s what we’re doing here. We are being exposed by light.Over the course of the last three weeks, as we’ve unpacked what biblical manhood is and talked about what it means to work it, what it means to keep it, as we looked at what our hurdles are and now we’re looking at redemption, here’s what should be happening. The Word of God and conversations are bearing weight on you. They’re exposing areas where you are falling short.Now here’s the good news. Perfection has been provided. Pursuit is empowered by the Holy Spirit. Let me use the word strengthened by the Holy Spirit. I don’t want you guys going to Oprah on me. Holy Spirit strengthening the inner man for pursuit, for the war, for the fight, to get into the mix, to keep getting up and going.There’s a reason we love Rocky Balboa. Not parts seven, six, or five, but the early days. Those were awesome. He has no real skill and he’s like five-six or something, but he just keeps getting up. He just gets drove in all of those fights. That dude can take a beating. The reason we love that is we’re designed for it. Get up. You’ve been knocked down, yeah. Listen, you’re going to get knocked down again. The Holy Spirit will strengthen you time and time and time again to get up.The light shines on us. We are exposed. Therefore, arise. It’s of great irony that pretending to be more of a man than you are actually makes you less of a man than you are. Here’s what I mean by this. He says, “Arise. Get up. Wake up, O sleeper.” Now we need to walk. Now that we’re awake and walking, let’s move. Oftentimes, what that means is I don’t know how to do what God is asking me to do. I just simply don’t know how to do it.It’s no real secret that men are, in many ways, emotionally stunted. Fellows, how often are you asked, “How are you feeling?” and you don’t even quite actually know what you’re being asked? Let’s do it. Let’s go. Let’s get them up. Don’t lie. Your wives are raising your hands for you. This is sinful passivity. We just don’t know. Sometimes we don’t know. We’re emotionally stunted for a lot of different reasons.So I’m like, “Pursue your wife’s heart,” and I might as well be speaking in some language you don’t know. You’re like, “Well, I do. We live in the same house. I’m doing that all the time. Like, Chandler, the other day I put a coaster under my glass because that’s what she likes. I pursued her heart. Nailed it.” We don’t even know what we’re talking about here. We don’t even know what I mean when I say to pursue our wives’ hearts.A couple of things. Men, biblically speaking, masculinity in this moment is to find a man who does know and ask. Not to pretend that you have it all together, but to acknowledge that you don’t and you need help. That’s hard for men, isn’t it? It starts early. Even my boy now was trying to untie his cleats before his game. I was like, “Do you need help?”“I got it.”“Okay, buddy, I’m here when you need it.” Then I was hearing him go, “Uuh!” I was like, “Hey, we talked about this. Give me your shoe. I’ll help you out. Why do you get so angry? Let me untie that.” It’s passion; it’s not anger. Right? We start early. So first, men, find men who can help you.Secondly (this is going to sound crazy to you), have a conversation with your wife. Wives, be gracious. Here’s what I mean. I don’t want to start preaching to women yet. That’s coming in a couple of weeks. But there is a way in which you can help your husband that will bring a lot of life into your home, and there’s a way to handle your husband that’ll bring the stench of death. We’ll talk about that in the weeks to come.I have a good friend of mine who, whether it be home issues or other things, is really emotionally stunted. You’re going to giggle at this, but he has a chart that has emotions and definitions for those emotions listed out on it. When his sweet wife and him talk about how they’re doing, she’ll let him use the chart. “How are you feeling, John?”“Um, it’s kind of a mix between this one and this one. It’s like happy but frustrated. There’s not one that actually fits exactly how I…”“Okay, John, what are you frustrated by? What’s making you happy then?” And now they’re in a conversation about what’s going on in his heart. Praise God for her, because if she wasn’t that gracious, this would be conflict all the time, even though he earnestly desired to learn how to do it. Talk to your wives, men. Ask them, “What kind of question should I be asking you that I’m not? Can you help me? Can you ask questions of me? Can you pull on my heart? Because I don’t know how to answer what you’re trying to get to.”If we’ll serve one another like this, we have an opportunity to step into that space that God has called us to step into as men. This might sound crazy, but the same thing is true with your children. Children are hard, because you have to think of ways to ask questions that can’t be answered “Yes” “No” or “Fine.” You have to spend a lot of time going, “How do I word this? Then what am I going to do when they (not if they, but when they) say, ’I don’t know’?”Then the consistency of being there… Men, the reason I tell you to climb into your children’s bed at night with them for just a few minutes is because it’s in that quietness you can show empathy, you can engage, you can ask questions about their day, you can ask how that made them feel, and you can then engage their feelings in a way that says if those feelings are legitimate or not.What I mean by that is not that we lie to them. We don’t tell our daughters when we’re lying in bed with them and they’re like, “This girl at school is mean to me and…” We don’t go, “Well, one day you’re going to be prettier than her and they’re all going to be jealous of you. I’ve seen her mama. Trust me.” You don’t say that. Here’s why: because it might not be true.Here’s what you do say, fellows, and here’s what’s funny. I get made fun of this in my house now. It happened this week at our dinner table. I was cuddled up with Audrey, and these girls had been mean. They had called her a name. I said, “I remember when I was probably a little younger than you and I was out at the playground and these boys called me names. I remember it hurt my heart. I remember what that feels like. I’m so sorry.”She said, “What did they call you?” So I said, “Well, they called Daddy a spaz.” So now, anytime one of my kids acts crazy, my wife just looks at me like, “That’s you, spaz.” Yet that empathy with Audrey made her squeeze into me. Me saying, “Daddy remembers that. I remember what that feels like. That’s awful. Daddy knows…” In that moment, she nuzzled in even deeper.I didn’t say, “Well, you’re smarter than they are. Well, you know what?” No. Just, “I remember. I’ve been there. It hurts, but it’s not true. I know you. I know you better than they do.” Not, “I know you better than those little trollops do out at the playground.” No. “I know you. I’ve seen your heart. It’s not true about you.”Men, that’s why we climb in bed with the babies. That’s why we put them down if at all possible: to engage their hearts. “Arise, wake up, walk, and the glory of Christ will shine on you.” This will never be easy, men. If you’re hearing me say that following Christ and filling our space as biblical men is going to be easy, I want you to hear me say it is never going to be easy, but it will be worth it.As your wife flourishes, as your children begin to understand the things of the Lord, you begin to understand that all of this is worth it, and then it just gets reinforced. Even when things go badly, you feel that kind of hardwired call to battle pushing you back toward the front. Don’t give in to selfish passivity. Don’t give in to selfish aggression. You don’t have to. Strengthened by the Holy Spirit, fight. It will be one.For some of us today, here’s the reality. For some of us, this isn’t even a chance, because we haven’t given our lives to Christ. We haven’t been resurrected at all. We’re still walking in death. As long as you’re walking in death, the stench of death will always be there. So for those of you who have not put your faith in Christ… Maybe you’ve just been hanging out with us for the last six months, and maybe over the last few weeks or last few months something clicked.You’re like, “I think I’m a Christian. I’m not quite sure what to do with that. I think I believe. I think God has done a work in my life. I’m just not sure what to do with that.” We need to do something with that today. The Bible says that what’s going on is God is transferring you out of the domain of darkness and into the kingdom of his beloved Son. God is giving you a new heart, a new spirit. We need to do something about that.For many of us in this room, we are Christians. We have just refused to get in the fight, and we have allowed the stench of death to float around us, to float around our homes, to float around this church, as we refuse to enter into the space God has called us to because it’s hard. For us, the light shines on us, we confess, repent, and start pursuing again.Husbands, daddies, there are things we might need to own this afternoon. Wives, I would encourage you, on the way home, where you see your husband filling these spaces, thank him. You have such power over the mind and heart of your man. (I don’t want to start preaching my message for two weeks from now.) Use that power on the way home to encourage him.“I see you pursuing in this way. Thank you for this. Thank you for this.” Don’t go, “Did you hear what he said when he was saying about getting those kids to bed?” That’s not helpful. Ladies, look right at me. You are a terrible Holy Spirit. Don’t fill that space. You’ll actually jack up what the Lord is trying to do in your man’s heart. Stop. Encourage where he’s doing these things well.When is the last time you said it to him? When is the last time you encouraged him in that way? Where he has rejected passivity, where he has rejected aggression, where he’s pursuing the Lord… He’s not perfect. No man is perfect. You’re not married to Christ. Just thank him for how he’s pursuing. Single men, we seek to become this. Single women, expect this of them. May we rest in the resurrecting work of Jesus Christ that redeems men from their hurdles. Let’s pray.Father, thank you for these men and women. I pray specifically for my brothers, that we would arise, that we would get up, that we would wake up, that we would let the light of Christ shine on us, and that the glory of Christ would be seen.For my brothers in here, maybe my sisters in here, who over the course of the last few months or weeks have said, “I think I’ve become a Christian. I think I’ve laid my yes down. I think I am one. I just don’t know what to do with that,” Father, grant them the grace to move today, to grab the hand of a pastor or minister and just say, “I think I’m a Christian. Can we talk about that?”I pray for the boatload of us men today who although we have been resurrected continue to carry with us the stench of death. Might we be quick to confess? Might we be quick to repent? Might we be quick to get up and start to pursue again, as imperfectly as we always will? Grow us. Help us. It’s for your beautiful name, amen.https://www.tvcresources.net/resource-library/sermons/mans-redemption
We can entitle our study for tonight, "Reconciliation to God," or "Reconciled to God", because that's precisely what Paul talks about. You will note that in verse 20 you see the word, about two or three lines down, "reconcile." At the end of verse 21 you see it again ‑‑ reconciled, past tense. This particular term, reconcile, is the verb reconciled, is the past tense of the verb and the noun is reconciliation, is a very important term in Christianity. You perhaps have heard about it in terms of the divorce courts and perhaps when a divorce is begun there is an effort on the part of the court to try to bring about a reconciliation, that is, to put two warring partiesback together again. It also is used that way to speak of marriages that is being put back together in Greek days. It is a word that meant reconciliation, and the Greeks used it when they wanted to talk about their own marriage relationships; in fact, in Chapter 7 of I Corinthians it says, "If she depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. Let her husband not divorce her." And now there you have the same terminology that the word finds in our culture today.But the word reconciliation goes far beyond a relationship between two human beings. It is used in the Bible to speak of a man's relationship to God in terms of the restoration of the right relationship between a man and God. Reconciliation, then, is God being reconciled back to man, or man, if you will, being reconciled back to God ‑‑ either way.Now the term, the familiar term in the Bible is katallasso, and I only mention that because I want to make a distinction in a minute. And Katallasso means "to reconcile", among other possibilities. It can mean to change, or to exchange. It has been used in terms of exchanging coins. But basically, in the sense that we will use it in its figurative sense, it means to "reconcile". Now that particular term is used in the New Testament only twice in the reference between God and man; that is, reconciling God to man, that term is only used two times. It occurs in 2 Corinthians Chapter 5 and verse 19. It is used in that sense there, and it occurs in Romans Chapter 5 and verse 10. And in both of those passages the general basic word reconcile is used when a man is reconciled to God, or when God and man end their battle and declare themselves partners again as they once were before the fall. But there is another term for reconcile that is used here in Colossians, Chapter 1. It is not katallassothat is used, it is apokatallassoand again I point out to you that whenever a preposition is added to the front of a word it intensifies the word, and so what you have here is the word reconciled intensified, so that it means thoroughly reconciled, completely reconciled, totally reconciled. And that is the terminology that is used here in Colossians; the word is different than the normal word reconcile. It has a greater intensity. And there is a reason for that, and I need to point that out to you. When Paul is writing in Romans about reconciliation, and when he is writing in 2 Corinthians about reconciliation, he is not fighting against anything. He is not arguing against a false teacher. He is merely making the point of reconciliation, that's all. But in Colossians he is fighting a counter‑attack from false teachers. The false teachers that were really confronting the Church at Colosse had said that it could not be possible for a man to be reconciled to God by Jesus Christ alone. Now you remember that there were some issues that Paul is hitting in Colossians in relationship to false teachers, and the false teachers that had brought about the problems in Colosse had taught that there were a series of emanating spirits descending from God, that God sort of spawned an emanating spirit and then another one came and another one and another one and they just kept getting lower and lower and lower and lower and lower. And Christ was one of those descending emanating spirits; they were good at the beginning and then somewhere along the line they started getting less good and less good and less good and then bad and then worse and then worse and way down at the bottom is somebody like Satan, and that in order for a man to ascend to God he had to climb back up that escalating ladder of spirits. No one of those spirits could do the job. No one of those aeons, no one of those emanating spirits, no one of those angelic beings, if you will, was sufficient to reconcile man to God. Man had to ascend the ladder of many of those to reach God, and the point that Paul is making here is this: that there is total and absolute and complete and full reconciliation through that one who is Jesus Christ. That's the reason he uses a much more intense word. So Paul is showing that Christ is God; in verses 15 through 19, and he closes that section: "For in Him should all fullnessdwell,because that's what pleased the Father. He is God, He is not a spirit, and He is able, only and without any other assistance, to reconcile men to God." And that's the point that he wants to make. "Having made peace," verse 20 says, "through the blood of the cross, or His cross, by Him." There it is: "By Him, to reconcile all things unto Himself." That is God reconciling all things to Himself by Christ. You don't need to climb an ascending scale of angelic beings. There isn't some kind of escalating ladder of beings that you climb up to get to God. There is only one, and He is able to fully reconcile a man to God. Now we have already seen what Paul is doing here in this particular section in our discussions in the past. They had attacked the deity of Christ, they had attacked the sufficiency of Christ to save. So first of all, Paul has already cleared the area of any doubts about deity, and he cleared that in verses 15 to 19, and now he's going to say not only is He God, but He is able to save, and that was the second point of attack. So, from verse 20 to verse 23 he establishes Christ's sufficiency to save, to reconcile men to God.Now I want to talk about the theology of reconciliation for just a moment, if I can, because it's needful that you understand it. In the New Testament, I'm trying to sum this down or draw this down to just the simplest way I can. There are probably five terms that summarize our salvation, and you ought to jot them down. Five terms that summarize our salvation. And you can talk about these five terms in various ways throughout the New Testament. They're illustrated and elucidated to us many times. Five terms, here they are, and I'll go over them again so you don'tneed to worry about writing them all at once. Justification, redemption, forgiveness, reconciliation and sonship, or adoption, same thingAll right, let's look at the first one. The first term that's used to summarize our salvation is the term justification. In justification, and I'm just going to say it briefly so stay in there, in justification the sinner stands before God as the accused and is declared righteous. In justification, the sinner stands before God as the accused and is declared righteous.The second term is redemption. In redemption, the sinner stands before God as a slave and is granted freedom by a ransom. In redemption, the sinner standsbefore God as the slave and is granted freedom by ransom.The third term that summarizes our salvation is forgiveness. In forgiveness, the sinner stands before God as a debtor and the debt, having been paid, is forgotten. In forgiveness, the sinner stands before God as a debtor, and the debt having been paid is forgotten.Fourth, is reconciliation. And this is beautiful. In reconciliation the sinner stands before God as an enemy and becomes a friend. Peace with God is made. In reconciliation, the sinner stands before God as an enemy, and is led to peace as a friend.Fifthly, the term sonship summarizes our salvation. In sonship, I love this, the sinner stands before God as a stranger and is made a son. The sinner stands before God as a stranger and is made a son. Think of it. We stood before God as the accused and He declared us righteous. We stood before God as a slave and He granted us freedom. We stood before God as a 0 debtor and He forgot our debt. We stood before God as an enemy and He made us a friend. We stoodbefore God as a stranger and He called us a son. Now that sums it up, people. That sums up salvation.Now let me come back at it again. I'm going to run by those terms again in a different way. Listen. Forgiveness deals with the fruit. Redemption deals with the root. You know what I mean by that? Forgiveness deals with the sins of our lives. He forgives them. Redemption deals with the root, the condition of our nature. As slaves to sin He frees us. We're no longer slaves to sin. Forgiveness deals with the fruit, redemption deals with the root.Now reconciliation deals with our condition, and sonship deals with our position. Reconciliation deals with our condition. We become His friends, we experience fellowship. Sonship deals with our position. We become heirs and joint Heirs.Now listen forgiveness deals with the fruit, redemption with the root, reconciliation deals with our condition, sonship deals with our position and altogether it spells justification. Now you just had a course in soteriology in three minutes. And you didn't even know it (laughter). So you see, when you were saved, everything was taken care of ‑‑ fruit and root, condition, position. (Laughter) It's all been taken care of. And you call it all justification. It's great, isn't it? Zinzindorf said, and I agree, "No one is holier than a sinner who has received grace." Fruit and root, condition and position. No one's holier than a sinner who has received grace. Now out of those five glorious terms we're going to pick one. We could pick five and study them. We pick one because it's in the text ‑‑ reconciliation. And let's make it the theme, because Paul makes it the theme right here. And though the section is brief, boy, he covers it well. Four aspects of reconciliation.Four aspects of reconciliation. The plan of reconciliation, the means of reconciliation, the aim of reconciliation and the evidence of it. The plan, the means, the aim and the evidence. This is exciting because this is like, it's like the song, "I Love to Tell the Story". It doesn't matter how many times you've told it before, and the song that says, "Tell Me the Old, old Story." It's just the reiteration of what it means to be saved, to be reconciled to God. The plan, the means, the aim, the evidence. Let's look at the plan. And we're going to be kind of jumping around in the text here and not necessarily going chronologically through it, and incidentally some of it in the Greek is inverted; that is, some of the Greek form of the verse is different than the English. The words are the same and the translation is basically the same, but some of the phrases have been switched around. So we'll just jump around and get the picture of it in total.Number one, the plan of reconciliation appears in verse 20: "And having made peace through the blood of His Cross, by Him, to reconciled all things unto Himself; I say, whether they be things on earth or things in Heaven. And you that were once alienated, or estranged, and enemies in your mind because of wicked works, yet now has he reconciled." Now there you have the basic plan of reconciliation, and the key phrase is this; "... to reconcile all things unto Himself." And you'll notice after the phrase, the word "by him", you'll notice before the phrase the word "by him", and the "by Him" is reference to Christ and to Himself to God. God reconciles all things to Himself by Christ. We'll explain that.Now I want you to see that that's a big subject, to reconcile all things Panta all things unto Himself. Now we can't explore all of this. I mean that would be so vast, but we'll just kind of pick out some major truth. Let's go back. God made everything good, right? God created and He looked on it and said, it's good. Made it all good. Made it for His pleasure. And He possessed it all, and He owned it all, and it was not estranged and man and woman walked in the garden in the cool of the day and they walked in the presence of the Lord. It was all verygood. But sin entered and the world rebelled and the universe was cursed and alienated from God. And we live in a cursed earth. And our earth occupies a place in a cursed universe. Even the heavens are polluted, did you know that? They're occupied by Satan, they're occupied by His demons. God's going to clean it all up some day, and that's why when the Bible talks about the restoration of everything it calls it a new heaven and new earth. It's got to all be redone. It's in rebellion now. But the Bible says right here that God is going to reconcile everything back to Himself. If you want the simplest explanation, God is going to make friends with the universe again. That's the broad idea or reconciliation. God is going to end rebellion and make friends with the universe. It's going to come back into harmony. How's He going to do it? By Him. By whom? By Christ. Christ s the agent. He will carry out the reconciliation.Now I want you tolook for a minute at "all things", because that interested me when I read that ‑‑ to reconcile all things? You got to be kidding!You mean everything is coming back to God? That's right. And all of it by Christ, a totally redeemed universe. Fantastic. Listen to Romans 8:19. This adds help to that because it helps us to see what he's talking about; "For the earnest expectation of the creation waits for the manifestation of the sons of God."Did‑you know that all of the universe is waiting for us to be glorified because they're going to get in on it? The creation was made subject to vanity, in other words, the created world, plants, animals and so forth, the created world was made subject to vanity, not willingly. I mean, it certainly wasn't any animal fault. It was just man that fell and messed up everything, and it was Satan that fell and messed up everything, and the created world apart from man and angels had nothing to do with it; they were made subject to the curse unwillingly, But they're waiting, because the creation, verse 21 says, "...itself shall also be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God."When we get turned around and reconciled the whole creation's going with us, and the curse of the earth will be halted and there will be the glorious liberty of the children of God extending to the fact that the earth itself and the heavens around us and its planets that occupy it will all be released from the bondage of corruption and decay that they all suffer from. And you know that our universe is winding down, and you know that it's dissipating energy. The sun is dissipating energy, all the planets are dissipating energy, all the stars are, because the law of entropy is in operation in the entire universe because of the curse, and verse 22 the whole creation is groaning and having birth pains until now. They're waiting to be restored, they're waiting to be reconciled to God to know that kind of eternal existence with no loss of energy that they realized before the Fall. In Ephesians 1:10 it says: "That in the ages or the dispensation of the fullness of time He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in Heaven and which are in,earth, even in Him, again, it is because of Christ and it is by Christ that the whole universe comes back to God. The restoration of the entire universe. Now this is a tremendous point, because the heretics in Colosse and Laodicea and Hierapolis the cities around that area, the Lycus Valley, those heretics were saying that the true analysis of the universe is dualistic, that spirit is good and matter is evil, and Paul is saying, forget it. Jesus Christ is not only going to reconcile man but He is going to reconcile the material universe to God. It's only temporarily suffering a curse; some day it will be reconciled to God. Sin ruined this universe. It destroyed harmony between one creature and the other, between all creatures and God. But through Christ the universe is going to be brought back, it's going to be restored to the right relationship to God. You can see that if you read the Book of Revelation. What happens during the Tribulation? The plagues that come during the Tribulation, they come out of the bowls and the trumpets and the seals, those judgments that come on the earth are judgments that come out of nature. For the most part, they come out of the world. Now some of them are demonic, but the majority come out of natural phenomena gone wild, and what happens is that in the Tribulation period the earth begins to disintegrate, the universe begins to fall apart, the stars fall out of the sky, the Heaven rolls up like a scroll, the planets plummet out of existence like plums on an untimely fig tree that is being shaken. The entire universe falls apart. The fresh water turns bitter, the grass burns up. The sun scorches the earth. The sun goes black and people freeze. It becomes totally dark. All these bizarre things that happen as the curse finally reaches its climax, the whole earth falls apart, Christ comes, sets up His Kingdom and at the end of that creates a new Heaven and a new Earth. That's the plan. That's the reconciliation of everything. And you just need to read your Bible a little bit to find out what it's going to be like when there's a restored world. It tells us. I could give you a few that you're familiar with, but I'll just remind you. Isaiah 11 says, "The wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, a little child leads them and the cow and the bear shall feed, young ones lie together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and little babies will play with snakes and so forth and so forth. They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, and no more war, no more killings, all these things in a restored earth. Isaiah 35:9. Futherword no lion shall be there nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon. That's going to be the end of all ravenous beasts. Not going to be any more of that, any more in the restored earth. Sixty‑five of Isaiah, verse 25: "The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the bullock and dust shall be the serpent's food, they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord." You see? There's going to be a total reverse of the curse, they're going to be animals there. Animals that somehow managed to get through the tribulation. And they'll go on into the Kingdom and man when the Kingdom hits they're going to be different animals. There's going to be a restoration of the animal world. And not only that but the earth and the solar system. Outside just the animal world here, the whole thing is going to take on dramatic changes. The Lord will create upon, this is Isaiah.4:5 "The Lord will create upon every dwelling place of Mount Zion and upon her assemblies a cloud and smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night. For upon all the Glory shall be a defense. There shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from the heat and for a refuge and for a covert from storm and from rain." I mean, I don't know what all that means, but it's going to be something. Lights in the sky and things, super‑giant heavenly umbrellas that don't let the rain get on you and mess you up, and everything's going to grow like mad; food is going to flourish. In Isaiah 30 verse 26: "The light of the moon shall be like the light of the sun." Now think about that ‑‑ it's going to be just the same at night as it is in the daytime. When will we sleep, you say. (laughter) Well. And the light of the sun shall be sevenfold like the light of seven days.Super light. You know what that's going to do for crops? Oh, man. Just don't plant a garden. (laughter) When's that going to happen? In the day the Lord binds up the breach of His people and heals the stroke of their wound, the day of restoration. It's going to be an exciting world, I'll tell you; I'll be thrilled to be there. In Isaiah chapter 60 verse 19: "The sun shall be no more thy light by day, neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto me and this of course goes into the eternalheavens; the Kingdom is where you're going to have the sun and the moon; and then in the final Heaven it's going to be the Glory of God, the everlasting light, "Thy God shall be the Glory and then the sun will be no more. So after the sun becomes seven times bright, the moon gets like the sun, the Kingdom ends then they go out of existence and God lights the universe. Fantastic transformation is going to take place. In Zechariah, I think, there's one more here. He talks about in the Kingdom around Jerusalem God says, "I will be a wall of fire, and I will be the Glory in the midst of it." The heavensare going to be different, the earth is going to be different, the animals are going to be different, the people are going to be different. A tremendous dramatic change is going to take place in this world in the reconciliation of the creation of God. When God makes friends with this universe again, things are going to happen like you never dreamed possible. It's going to be a world like it was before the Fall.It's going to be a world like it was before Adam sinned. And all of this is going to pass into the new Heaven and the new Earth.I mentioned I think a week ago II Peter, but I have to go back there for a second. II Peter, 3:13, 1 love this: "Nevertheless, we look (according to His promises, because we believe His promises) we look for a new Heavens and a new Earth in which dwells righteousness." That's what I'm looking for. A new Heaven, and a new Earth, and if you were to go to the end of the book of Revelation, you'd get a little glimpse of it. John says in 21:1 "I saw a new Heaven and a new earth. The first Heaven and the new earth had passed away, and there was no more sea, and I, John, saw the Holy City New Jerusalem coming down from God out of Heaven prepared as a bride adorned for her husband." I saw it, hesays, I saw it. I, John, just plain old me, I saw it. Fantastic thing. "New Heaven and a new earth, and dropping intoit was the new Jerusalem, the Crystal Palace of God."Eric Sauer says in his book, The Triumph of the Crucified he says, "The offering on Golgotha, that's the death of Christ, extends its influence into universal history. The salvation of mankind is only one part of the world embracing counsels of God. The heavenly things will also be cleansed through Christ's sacrifice of Himself. A cleansing of the heavenly places is required if on no other ground than that they have been the dwelling of fallen spirits and because Satan their chief has for ages had access to the highest regions of the heavenly world." God's just going to clean the wholething. The earth is going to be the capital of the universe, the dwelling place of God, the center of eternity. A new earth. Fantastic. Sauer says, and I love this statement, "The other side becomes this side. Eternity transfigures time. The earth, the chief scene of reconciliation, is reconciled itself and becomes the palace of the universal Kingdom of God forever. Fantastic.Now you say, something bothers me about that "all thing" Colossians 1, What bothers me is "the all things", Nov there are some people that say, well that means "all things". And they turn out to be Universalists, who believe that in the end everybody's going to get saved and all the fallen angels are going to get forgiven, and we're all going waltzing into Heaven. What about fallen angels, are they going to be restored, are they going to be reconciled?No. What about fallen men, are they going to be restored, are they going to be reconciled? No. You see, you always have to interpret the Bible in the light of the Bible. When it says all things will be reconciled, it means all things for whom reconciliation is possible. If you read Revelation chapter 19 verse 20: "And the Beast was taken and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him received with which hedeceived them that had received the mark of the Beast and them that worshipped his image and they were cast into a Lake of Fire burning with brimstone." They're not drawn to God, they ' re drawn into a Lake of Fire, chapter 20 verse 10, and the Devil joins the false prophet and the beast. He was cast into the fire, tormented day and night, listen, forever and ever. And whosoever, verse 15, wasnot found written in the Book of Life was also cast into the Lake of Fire. When it says all things are reconciled, it doesn't mean fallen angels and unbelieving men, because it can only refer to those things which can be reconciled. But you know something? There is a sense, beloved, in which everything in God's universe will be reconciled, and I believe that Hell, if you can think of it this way, is a place outside God's universe, It is a place where God is not, Is that right? And since‑God is omnipresent, Hell is some place where God is not. Now that's just a technicality, don't think about that. (laughter) I see Ted over here going "wait a minute".(laughter) But everything that's in His Kingdom is reconciled to Him. The evil beings are stripped of their power, slammed into subjection by Christ's act of reconciliation; Christ's act of reconciliation, Colossians 2:15 says, that He spoiled principalities and powers on the cross. It says in Romans 16:20: and the God of peace will bruise Satan under your feet. The good angels, the redeemed men, will joyfully submit to the rule of God, the evil angels and the evil men will be cast outside the sphere of His rule, stripped of their power. So the reconciliation affects everything ‑‑ physical world, holy angels, holy men. It will even affect evil angels and evil men, as they will bow the knee... believe me... they will bow the knee to God, won't they? Not welcoming it, but despising it, nevertheless having to do it.Now you know what I believe? I believe this verse teaches, where it says to reconcile all things. I believe the act of Jesus Christ on the Cross provided a forensic reconciliation for everybody. In other words, I thinkthe death of Christ potentially can reconcile the entire universe, every creature in it. That has to be what it's saying. But I think it's only going to be valid to those who believe, don you? And 2 Corinthians 5:19 says this: "To wit, that God (listen to this) was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself," the cosmos. More than just believers. Christ in death made a forensic, that means a forum, a popular announcement, involving everybody. He made a provision for the entire world, and made a reconciliation for all, not just for the elect, but only those who come to Christ can claim that reconciliation. And so he said, that's the plan.Now look at verse 21, and he stops talking in that generality and he gets very specific and he starts out, "And you (and he wants to show us some flesh and blood reconciled people) so he can get a kind of feeling for the plan) and you that were once alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works yet now has He already reconciled." You want to know what it's going to be like? Look at yourself. He reconciled you to Himself. ‑The living, breathing, reconciled Colossians were evidence enough that Jesus Christ was sufficient to reconcile men to God. You see?Jesus can do it. Look at yourselves. He's done it to you. What have you needed other than Him? By Him you who were estranged and enemies because of your wicked works yet now has He reconciled in the body of His flesh through death. Did you need any other eon, did you need any other angelic spirit, did you climb some emanating ladder back to God? No, You are living, breathing proof that Christ is sufficient to reconcile men to God, and that is essentially what He's going to do some day when He reconciles the entire universe.Now let's see what it tells us in verse 21 about reconciliation, "Andyou who were once alienated." You know before we came to Jesus Christ we were alienated. The word means estranged. Before you were a Christian you were alienated from God. You were estranged, you were cut off, separated. Ephesians 2:12 "At the time you were without Christ aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenants of promise having no hope without God in the world." But, and I love it, now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off are made near. Beautiful Jesus Christ came and found you, and drew you to God. You're living proof of the power that Christ has to reconcile and if He can reconcile you He can do what He said some day and reconcile the universe. Chapter 4 of Ephesians, verse 17, verse 18, He talks about the gentiles, He says, "They walk in the vanity of their mind (verse 18) having the understanding darkened, alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart who being past feeling have given themselves over to lasciviousness. Unsaved people are alienated from the life of God, cut off from Him. Now I want to tell you something. It isn't due to ignorance. It isn't due to innocence. There's no such thing as an innocent heathen. There's no such thing as an innocent unbeliever.Look again at Colossians 1:21: "And you that were once alienated and enemies in your mind." Translate it this way: hostile in disposition toward God. Your own fault ‑‑ you were alienated because you hated God. You say, why did we hate God? You hated God vs. 21 because of your what? Wicked works.See what happens? Men love darkness rather than light because what? His deeds were evil. You sin, you love your sin, you hate God, He rebukes your sin, you hate God, you are alienated. Cut off by wicked works. There is nobody who is an innocent heathen. There is nobody who is an innocent unbeliever. Wicked works suppress the truth, create hostility toward God, and that brings alienation, and that's why people are alienated. In Romans chapter one it says, "When they knew God they glorified Him not as God but were vain in their own imaginations, their foolish hearts were darkened, professing themselves to be wise they became as fools, God gave them up.What happened? They knew God, but they loved sin. Because they loved sin, they became hostile toward a righteous God, and their hostility toward a righteous God alienated them from Him. That's the way it is in life. Such inexcusable, human hostility is a result of the sin‑ love of his own sin. In Isaiah there's a verse that I want to mention. It's I think 59, yes, 59:2, here it is: "But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and here it is, your sins have hidden His face from you and He will not hear, for your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity. Your lips have spoken lies, your tongue has muttered perverseness. It is your sin that creates the hostility toward a righteous God that creates the alienation. Now I hasten to add this: if this is true, and it is in Romans 8:7, Paul says: "The mind of man is enmity against God. If this is true, if men are cut off from God because they are hostile, because they love their sin, then if you're going to reconcile them, what are you going to have to deal with? Sin. That is the root cause of the problem, and so reconciliation, then, as a doctrine, must deal with the sin of man. If sin can be dealt with, then that frees me up from my hostility toward God which frees me from my alienation. Now something's going to have to happen with sin. And I'm the problem, not God. But God does have a problem. People have often discussed who gets reconciled to whom. Does God get reconciled to me, or do I get reconciled to God? I think I get reconciled to God and God gets reconciled to me. Whenever I can't figure out one of two things I always take 'em both, (laughter) And the reason I say that is because I think there's enough scriptural justification to do that, For example, in order for me to be reconciled to God, now watch. In order for me to be reconciled to God, then I'm going to have to be transformed from being a sinner to being righteous, right? My sin has to, be dealt with, and in order for God to allow me to enter His presence His attitude toward sin is going to have to be appeased.You see what I mean? I've got to be transformed first. That's why it says, 2 Corinthians 5, don't look it up, you'll remember it, 2 Corinthians 5:17 "if any man be in Christ he is a what? New creation, and the next verse: "And all things are of God who has reconciled us to Himself. He has to make us new creatures before He can reconcile us. So man has to be dramatically, transformed, but God also has to have His attitude dealt with because God cannot look upon iniquity and iniquity is going to have to be dealt with, right? Something has got to modify God's wrath. Something's got to deal with God's attitude. The Old Testament, for example, as you read it in regard to the doctrine of reconciliation, you'll find that the Old Testament shows a widespread understanding that man could not be reconciled to God unless something is done to appease God's wrath, as well as change man's nature. So our alienation from God is due to #1, I'm a sinner, and #2, God hates my sin, and requires punishment. You say boy that's a tough problem. How can a holy God and a sinful man be reconciled? You've got to change the sinful man; you've got to appease the wrath of a holy God. You know, that's precisely what God did. God appeased His wrath by pouring it out on whom? Christ. God made us new creations by faith in whom? Christ. If any man be in Christ he's what? A new creation. Christ bore in His own body our sins, Those things, beloved, and I just thought of this this second, you'd be surprised how much of that goes on up here (laughter) but in II Cor. 5:17 here you have in verses 18 to 20 a study of reconciliation, and on one side of it verse 17: "If any man be in Christ he is a new creation. On the, other side of it, verse 21, for He hath made Him who knew no sin to be what? $in for us,, Now you have on one side God makes us‑new on the other side God puts our sin on Christ and appeases His wrath.; those are the two sides of reconciliation in the middle you have the doctrine of reconciliation, Both have to take place.Beloved, what a fantastic thing occurred at the Cross, He bore our sins in His own body and the power of His own life is poured into our lives and we're transformed. Both are taken care of ‑, fantastic, And you know, you can't reconcile yourself. You can't say, well, I'm going to be reconciled to God. I'm going to go on a spiritual diet, and eat no sin, going to discipline myself to be righteous. Forget it, it will never happen. You know why? Look at Romans 5, I'll show you something interesting, Verse 6. Boy, it's really fun to study the Bible, isn't it? Aren't you enjoying this? Thank you, both of you. (laughter) Romans 5, I mean this is exciting to me. Now I want you to see, now there are four reasons here why you can't save yourself. It's a good outline some time if you want to use it with an unbeliever. Four reasons you can't save yourself. Number one, lack of strength. "For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died." First thing, you can't save yourself; you're not strong enough. No strength. Lack of merit. Lack of merit. "When we were without strength in due time Christ died for the what? Ungodly." You know what you are? You're ungodly. You can't save yourself, you're not good enough. O.K.? Verse 7: Lack of (we might say this is lack of righteousness, for scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet perhaps for a good man some would even dare to die, but God committed His love toward us in that while we were yet what? Sinners. You can't save yourself because you don't have any righteousness. And I'll tell you something else. You can't save yourself because you can't even get into God's presence on your own; you're an enemy. Verse 10. "When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His son. Four reasons you can't save yourself: Lack of strength, lack of merit, lack of righteousness, lack of friendship with God. You can't even enter His presence. Now if you're going to be reconciled, you're going to have to go to verse 10, "When we were enemieswe were reconciled to God. It was by the death of His son." Now folks, that leads us to point two in the outline. The means of reconciliation. This is really rich. The means. Verse 20 again, Colossians, here's the means ‑‑ hang on, here we come. "And having made peace (listen now) the Blood of His Cross." How did Christ take God and man who were enemies and make peace? He made peace between God and man through the Blood of His Cross, now go down to the end of verse 22, it says it another way: "In the body of His flesh through death." Stop there. Two phrases, two phrases. Number one, the Blood of His Cross; number two, the body of His flesh through death. These two phrases show how God dealt with sin. First of all, through the Blood of His Cross. Blood is the metaphor for sacrifice. It is His death for sin that saves us. Peter even says we were redeemed with precious blood. But what he is saying is in a metaphorical sense; the blood is the symbol of the sacrifice of Christ. The reason the Bible talks about the blood of Christ is because that connects Christ's death with the entire sacrificial system of the Old Testament and says He is the final sacrifice. You see? He died a violent death, and blood speaks of violent death as a Hebrew metaphor. But even more than that it speaks of the death of a sacrifice. The blood was put on the doorpost andthe lintel, the blood was sprinkled. But it was the death that was the atonement, the blood was the symbol of the violence of it. And all of those sacrifices were saying when the final sacrifice comes He will die a violent death, and it wasn't the violent death like an animal where He bled to death. An animal just bled to death, Jesus did not bleed to death, But it was the violent death of sin‑bearing. That's important. In Hebrews 13:11: "The bodies of those beasts whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the highest priest for sin are burned outside the camp, wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate, and here it shows the violence of His death and the sacrificial comparison as the sacrifices were shedding blood so shall Christ come and shed blood, not that the shed blood is the literal saving thing, but that it connects His death with the Old Testament sacrifices. Now all Old Testament sin offerings were bloodshed, that's how the killing was done ‑‑ violently. And the animals were pictures of the coming final sacrifice of Christ, who would die a violent death for sin. That was God's plan. Sin was to be paid for by death. The price of ransom was to be blood ‑‑ sacrificial death. And the reason, and I just want to make it clear ‑‑ the reason it speaks so often in the New Testament of Christ's blood shed is not telling us that Jesus bled to death. He did not bleed to death. You know how He died? He willed Himself dead. Don't ever forget that. He said, "No man takes my life from me... I what? I lay it down by myself." And listen to me. When that soldier came over and pierced the side of Jesus, what came out? Blood and water. The blood was still in His body long after He was dead. He did not bleed to death, And the point that I think the Bible is making there is Jesus was never bled to death as a victim, He died because He willed Himself dead. "Father (what?)into Thy hands I commend my Spirit." He died as the fulfillment of the Old Testament sacrifice, and that's why it talks about His blood. And please, I'm not on the first leg of liberalism. I'm not denying the precious blood of Christ. (laughter) And I mean that seriously, I know that whenever you talk about something you should talk about something that's very sentimental to us. I just want you to understand what it means. His blood saves us only in the sense that His death was the sacrificial death of the final lamb, And you want to know something, He never lost His blood ‑‑ the majority if it, Apparently only some of it came out of those wounds, and those would have sealed up pretty fast with nails there. The majority of His blood remained in His body at least a half an hour and maybe longer after His death, and it was His death that was the issue. And as I say, the blood only connecting it with Old Testament sacrifice and so when we come down to verse 22 we read this, "In the body of His flesh through death. And this is an exact statement. His death as a man, His death incarnate in human flesh, is the thing that reconciled us to God, for what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the flesh. Christ died not just as a sacrifice but a perfect substitution. He didn't die as an animal, nope. He didn't die as a spirit. He died as a manfor men. You see, that's what 22 means. He died as a sacrifice in verse 20. He died as a substitution in verse 22. He paid the penalty as a substitute. A perfect substitute. And so you know what happened? God said, that takes care of my wrath. That substitutionary death takes care of my wrath. And then Jesus Christ came flying out of the tomb three days later and moved into the lives of His people so that they might be transformed and that takes care of that side of it. And I can say with Paul, "For to me to live is (what?) Christ." God has been appeased and I have been transformed. All because of the Cross. Our salvation is possible only through the death of Christ,Now, I'm just going to comment very quickly on the final thoughts here. Now watch. We see the plan and the means of reconciliation. I want to show you the aim of it. Why did He reconcile us? Oh, I love it, verse 22. The middle of the verse: "To present you holy and unblameable and unchargeable in His sight." God said, "Look, if they're coming up here to be with Me, they've got to get cleaned up. They've got to be holy; that means cleansed from all sin. They've got to be faultless, without a blemish, blameless, above reproach," You say, why those three words? Well, I thought about it a long time, and this is what I thought. Holy has to do with our relationship to God. Unblameable, faultless, has to do with ourself, and that last one, unreprovable, seems to extend to others. There has to be a holiness between us and God, there has to be a faultlessness within our own selves. We have to be above reproach if you will in terms of others, because who is it that's ever at the throne of God accusing us? Satan. And you know something, when you put your faith in Jesus Christ instantly at that very moment you become holy, unblameable, unreprovable in His sight. Now that little phrase at the end is ‑‑ careful, we want to watch that one, don't come outand say I'vejust been saved, I want you to meet me, I'm holy, unblameable and unreprovable. (laughter) You are holy, unblameable, unreprovable, what's the rest of the verse ‑‑ in His sight. Don't you forget it. In reality, you've got some problems (laughter). But you see, who does God see you in? In His sight, you're where? You're in Christ. So He sees you in Christ, so in His sight you are Holy and faultless and blameless, and that's why He says, "There's therefore now (Romans 8:1) no condemnation." And that's why He says in Romans 8:33 "Who shall lay any charge to God's elect, it is God that has declared you just. Is there a higher court in the universe? No. Great truth. That's basically positional, and I think it has a positional meaning right now ‑ listen to it: "To present you holy, unblameable, unreprovable in His sight," but you know something else? I want to just throw this in free for nothing. I think it also has a future meaning. I think some day when we get to Heaven we're going to become in practice what we are in position, right? We're going to be able to go into Heaven and say, "Hi, I'm John MacArthur, holy, unblameable, and unreprovable ‑‑ finally!" (laughter) There's going to be that aspect of it. What a great reality, and that's what Jesus had in His heart when Paul writes that He wanted to present as he says in 2 Corinthians, a "chaste virgin to the Lord", or as Paul writes, "husbands love your wives as Christ loved the Church" that He might make the Church without spot, without blemish. Some day we're going to be in practice what we are in position. That's why He reconciled us, to fit us to meet Him. That's the purpose of it, the aim of it.Lastly, the evidence of reconciliation. You say, boy, reconciliation is super ‑‑ who gets it? Who gets in on that? How do you know you've got it? How do you know you've been reconciled to God? Verse 23: "If you (what are the next four words?)continue in the faith. Grounded, settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel." Stop there. You know how you can tell the true Christian? One word, continue. Continue, continue‑‑I don't know how many times I've gone over that; I'd go over it again. Who's reconciled? The people who continue. In Luke 8:13 we have the parable, "The seed fell on the rock, they who when they hear receive the Word with joy and have no root, who for a while believe and in time of testing (what?) fall away." You know something? Never saved. True Christians will what? Continue, continue‑‑don't forget it. Continue, continue. Jesus said, John 8:30: "Many believed on His name, but He said, if you continue in my Word than you are my real disciples." You can tell the true Christian‑‑he continues. True branches in John 15 do what? Abide. Judas branches are there a while and gone. James 1, James says: "Be doers of the Word, not hearers only." You want to make sure that there's more than just listening, but that there's a continuity there. You don't you're not like somebody who's a hearer, who looks in a glass, sees himself, walks away, forgets what he was. There's continuity there‑‑there's continuance. Listen to I John 2:19: "They went out from us, but they were not of us. If they had been with us they would no doubt have continued with us, but they went out from us that it might be manifested that they never were of us." Verse 24; "Let that therefore abide in you which you have heard from the beginning, if that which you have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, you also shall continue in the Son and in the Father and this is the promise that He promised eternal life. Who gets eternal life? Those who continue. It's repeated many times in Scripture. The person who is grounded, settled, and not what? Moved away from the hope of the Gospel. Contrast John 6:66 after a certain incident, Jesus speaking, it says "And many of His disciples walked what? No more with Him." True Christians continue. And so He says to the Colossians, hey, Jesus can reconcile you. And they might say, but how do we know He has? How do we know who are the reconciled ones, and He nails them down. The ones who continue. And it's almost like a warning‑‑don't you fool around with false teaching. What are we to believe, what is the Gospel we are to continue in, look at verse 23: "The Gospel which you have heard, the apostolic Gospel, and which was preached to every creaturewhat is under heaven, and that is hyperbole, for everybody in your world, the universal Gospel, and the Gospel of which I Paul am made a minister." You know what Gospel‑‑the apostolic Gospel, the declared Gospel, the one that I preach‑‑that's the one you want to continue in, So the Gospel they've heard, the Gospel that's been preached, the Gospel that saved Paul, the Gospel that Paul is a minister of, that's the Gospel. The Gospel that made me a minister, he said. The Gospel that redeemed me, the one the apostles preach. That's it. Continue in that one. And Paul said to the Galatians, if anybody preaches any other Gospel, let him be what? Accursed.Now I want to close by having you look at 2 Corinthians, 5 and this is the key to everything for Christians. II Cor. 5:17;and this summarizes our study, reconciliation, Listen to this‑‑I'm going to give you the simple principles‑ about reconciliation. Number one, it transforms men. Verse 17: "if any man be in Christ, he's a new creation." It transforms men. Secondly, it appeases God's wrath, verse 21; "He hath made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." He bore our sins, and God could give us righteousness. It satisfies God. Thirdly, it comes through Christ. All of it is through Christ, verse 18. "And all things are of God who has reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ", verse 19: "to wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." Stop there. It changes us, it satisfies God, it comes through Christ, I'll add a further thing it is for anybody. Verse 19, He reconciles the world. Back up to verse 14. "The love of Christ constrains us because we thus judge, that if one died for all then we're all dead." You know what that says to me? There's two alls in that‑‑He died for all and all are dead. How many are dead? Everybody. How many then did He die for? Everybody.Those alls have to mean the same thing. What do we say then about reconciliation? It transforms men, it satisfies God, it comes through Christ, it's for everybody. Now I want to add one more thing. It is our ministry. You and I who have been reconciled, look at it folks, verse 18, the end of the verse, "He has committed, or given to us, the ministry of (what?) reconciliation." The end of verse 19:"... and has committed to us the (what?) the Word of reconciliation," verse 20: "Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us, We beg you in Christ's stead be ye(what?) reconciled to God." Listen, beloved, the story of reconciliation won't end till Jesus comes because you and I are carrying it out. We are sent into this world as ambassadors; we represent God in a foreign land, and what's our ministry? To beg people to come to Jesus Christ. That's what it is. To beg people to be reconciled to God. To tell them that Jesus Christ in His death satisfied God's wrath and can transform their lives. And to say that to the world because He did it for the world. That's the ministry of reconciliation. Listen, the doctrine of reconciliation doesn't end when you get saved; it just becomes yours to give away to somebody else. Father, thank you for our time tonight. Thank you for reconciling us to yourself. Father, right now I pray for anybody who might be in this place who is not reconciled to you, who is estranged, alienated, hostile in their mind, because of wicked works. I pray your Holy Spirit would extend to them that wooing, that gentle love that shall draw them to yourself. I pray that they may somehow begin to experience conviction, that they might begin to understand what it is to face sin, to open their hearts to the one Who alone can transform them, make them righteous. Father, I pray for them right now that they would open their heart and receive Jesus Christ, and be reconciled to God. And I ask, Father, too, for those of us who are Christians,, that we might know the ministry committed to us, the ministry of reconciliation. That we might go out to the world to carry the message of reconciliation to those who need to hear that God wants to bereconciled to man, and the broader word that God some day is going to make friends with the whole universe again, and you can be a part of that. Help us to be faithful. We pray, in Christ's name, Amen.https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/2136/reconciled-to-god
The Longest Shortest TimeEpisodesExtrasAboutParticipateResourcesEPISODE #65: Kids Ask About DeathParenting truth: kids ask crazy questions.My kid’s latest kick? Death. She asks when I’m gonna die, when she’s gonna die. Will we be buried together? How many WAYS are there to die? No, I mean it, Mommy. How MANY?Most kids go through a death phase, and often it starts young. So I found someone with the magical combination of death-expert and former-preschool-teacher to answer kids’ questions about death.Sarah Troop, pictured left (the live one) is the executive director of The Order of the Good Death, a self-described group of funeral industry professionals, academics, and artists “exploring ways to prepare a death phobic culture for their inevitable mortality.” You may know their fantastic video series Ask a Mortician. Sarah researches answers for those videos.Tune in to this episode to hear Sarah’s answers to YOUR kids’ death questions. And her first time speaking publicly about her deep inner conflict over her own pregnancy loss.More by Sarah TroopSarah co-founded Death & the Maiden, a blog about women and death, and founded Nourishing Death, a blog about death and food.Sarah at Barts Pathology Museum in LondonSarah’s homemade Victorian funeral biscuitsSarah has also written for the website Modern Loss, and was a contributing author for Three Minus One: Stories of Parents’ Love and Loss, a book inspired by the film Return to Zero, about stillbirth.Part of Sarah’s role at The Order of the Good Death is to speak at their “Death Salons“—events where Good-Death-ers share their knowledge about mortality through lectures and art. Their next Salon is in October at the Mütter Museum (my favorite museum of all time!), where Sarah will be talking about the unique rituals and beliefs surrounding the death of children in Mexico during the early 20th century. Sarah tells me this topic is close to her heart. “As a Mexican-American,” she says, “I talk and write a lot about the ways my culture engages with death by making it a part of life.”Makes death sound less scary, right? Yeah, that’s why we got Sarah for this one.Resources for Easing Anxiety About DeathFor young children with questions about death, there are lots of picture books on the subject. Sarah curated her favorites for us in this post.For parents experiencing anxiety about your own death, listen to our episode The Mortality of Motherhood with war correspondent Kelly McEvers. She gets it.Also check out my Q&A with grief counselor Joseph Primo on talking to kids about death.And if you feel like your anxiety, or your child’s anxiety, is overwhelming, therapists are there to help. A good place to start looking for a good match is Psychology Today. Sarah found her match in Megan Divine, a licensed, clinical mental health therapist who specializes in death, loss and grief and she is an extraordinary individual to boot. Megan’s website, Refuge In Grief, also has a lot of great information about grief and loss.Resources for Bereaved ParentsSarah says that these resources were invaluable to her after her pregnancy loss:The MISS Foundation provides support, education and counseling for bereaved parents. There are message boards where you can talk to parents who have been through similar experiences. You can also speak privately with a counselor.Reconceiving Loss is a website where bereaved parents can share their stories, watch videos and webinars, and submit questions to an in-house doctor. There is also a private resource center that features guided meditations and suggestions on how to work through your grief using art, photography, writing, and music.Standing Still is an online magazine for bereaved parents with sections for siblings, fathers, and grandparents.Resources for Any Kind of LossSarah found a death doula to be incredibly helpful through her loss. For baby loss, find one at Baby Loss Family Advisors; everyone else can go to National Home Funeral Alliance. Sarah adds that many death doulas are not officially listed anywhere, so you should also try Googling your location and the type of doula you’re seeking, to see if there’s someone near you. If you don’t need someone to be physically present, you can also find death doulas who will counsel you over the phone or Skype.Finally, Sarah suggests Teamotions Tea. These are teas created to provide emotional support during loss and grief. The company was founded by a mother whose twins died shortly after birth. Sarah says these teas helped her tremendously after her loss. And they are safe for kids to drink, too.What questions do YOUR kids ask about death?Or what are your your own anxieties about dying? Please share them in the comments. Also seeking solidarity for Sarah in her brave sharing of her own story.Top photo: Johnson Cameraface; Sarah with skeleton: Sarah Waldorf; Sarah at Barts Pathology Museum: Megan Rosenbloom; Victorian funeral biscuits: Elli Papayanopouloshttps://longestshortesttime.com/episode-65-kids-ask-about-death/
Huffduffed from http://www.dancarlin.com//disp.php/hharchive/Show-35---Death-Throes-of-the-Republic-II/%20podcast,Rome-Marius-Sulla
The first of six shows about the collapse of the Roman Republic. Not to be confused with the fall of the Roman Empire.