1. The Lord making Heaven more real to me
2. Sabbatical time in Montana
3. Seeing our adult children making good choices
4. Hosting the Art of Marriage at 3 churches
5. Being nominated and approved as a deacon of our church in Little Rock
6. Being given the privilege of focusing on strategic technology direction at FamilyLife
7. Watching my daughter tee off in front of former President Bush
8. CCCI US Staff Conference at Colorado State University with Francis Chan and David Platt
9. Getting to teach an adult class again for the first time in Little Rock
10. Watching a brother in Christ grow in absolutely remarkable ways
11. Seeing the impact that eMentoring is having in thousands of lives
12. Being a Scoutmaster and seeing the growth in the young men that are part of Troop 99
13. Dreaming about new types of digital content that I can help FamilyLife develop in the future

What were your highlights in 2011?

March 21, 2011

How Firm Is Your Foundation?

by Dave Boehi

Like many of you, I’ve watched the news from Japan in trepidation and amazement over the last two weeks.   The home videos of tsunamis raging through Japanese villages—tossing boats and cars about like toys, uprooting buildings from their foundations in seconds—are like nothing we’ve ever seen. And then the disaster grows even worse with the ongoing crisis at the nuclear plants.

If it seems more than I can comprehend, just think of what the Japanese people have experienced. Overnight, a prosperous nation was rocked to its core. As one reporter noted last week, “Torn up and terrified by a disaster that keeps on getting worse, Japan has transformed … from one of the world’s most comfortable countries into one of its most distressed.”

Disasters like this always seem to remind me of how powerless I am in life. In our modern, affluent culture it’s easy for me to put my faith in the Great Modern Myth that “I am in control”:

I can create my own private world of peace and harmony …

I can build a solid marriage in my own power …

I can raise my kids so that they will not make mistakes or wrong choices …

I can control myself so that I won’t pay the price for overindulging in life’s pleasures …

I can be captain of my soul …

And then I read about a 9.0 earthquake in Japan and I remember that my existence is far more fragile than I am willing to admit. I think of Proverbs 16:9, which tells us, “The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps.”   I need a firmer foundation for my life than the philosophy offered by the world.

Last week in a post on FamilyLife’s blog, MomLife Today, Barbara Rainey wrote:

Watching the 24/7 news channels can make one depressed.  The images are beyond comprehension, unimaginable tragedy, though our eyes tell us it is all too real.  Truly the foundation of the entire nation has been shaken. So as you pray for rescues, the recovery of the wounded, the restoration of a nation, I want to encourage you to think about the strength of your own foundation.

Jesus spoke of getting ready while it is still day, for the night is coming.  How are you preparing your heart and life for the darkness that will come?  I’m not a prophet, but Jesus did say, “In this world you will have trouble.”  That’s a fact.  So while it may not be an earthquake or a tsunami, a future death or disease could be just as devastating.

Like you, I watched in disbelief the images of houses being lifted off their foundations and washed away with everything within smashed to bits.  Gone in an instant.  Literally.

But for those who are believers, there is hope.  If Christ lives in your heart, no natural disaster or political upheaval or economic crisis can rip Him away.  If His word is hidden in your heart, it is safe.  Forever.

Barbara’s words evoke the imagery of the story Jesus told in Matthew 7 about the wise man who built his house on the rock—a foundation of knowing and following God’s Word. Floods and winds could not shake the home built on the rock. However, “everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it” (verses 24-27).

This passage reminds us that the storms of life are inevitable. You and your spouse cannot control or prevent them. But God provides a rock of stability and refuge.

You may not understand why God allows you to experience sorrow or hardship. But you can cling to the truth of His Word. And you can turn to Him for strength and wisdom.

I can’t help but think of the classic hymn, “How Firm a Foundation.” These are words every couple, every family, should take to heart:

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said—
To you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?

“Fear not, I am with thee, oh, be not dismayed,
For I am thy God, and will still give thee aid;
I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
Upheld by My gracious, omnipotent hand.

“When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of sorrow shall not overflow;
For I will be with thee thy trouble to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

“The soul that on Jesus doth lean for repose,
I will not, I will not, desert to his foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.”

I’m not sure I fully understand why, but those final lines touch me deeply every time I read or sing them. What a comfort it is to know and serve a God who loves us that much!.

© Copyright 2011 by FamilyLife.  All rights reserved.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Really good short book on the essential elements of the gospel as distinguished from some popular errors in modern evangelicalism. Short, too the point, and inspirational.

View all my reviews

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the best book I’ve read on dealing with lust and sexual sin. I highly recommend it.

Josh Harris, author of I Kissed Dating Goodbye, deals transparently with the roots of lust and the real issues behind it. Then he equips the reader with the tools needed to fight it.

The biggest problem we have in the fight for moral purity is that we’ve let the lies of the world influence our thinking. Josh helps us see where we’ve gone astray and realign with God.

One other key point about this is that it is not just for men, but for women as well. We all battle it in different ways and Josh deals with it evenhandedly.

Read it!

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Piper postulates that there are two possible reasons why they would not be ashamed. First, it could be because the effects of sin had not yet blemished them and so they had perfect bodies. “In other words, their freedom from shame was because they had absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. Is that the main point” (p 32)? Piper argues no for three reasons:

1. No matter how perfect your spouse is, if you’re selfish and unkind you can make comments that shame them.
2. Verses 24-25 are intended to be relevant after the fall, not just for these two pre-fall individuals
3. Verse 24 (covenant one-flesh union) creates the relationship where verse 25 (naked and unashamed) can happen.

So instead Piper opts for the second possibility, that they are free from shame because they have no fear of being shamed by their spouse. Because each of their spouses was sinless, they would not fear the other doing anything to shame them.

So what relevance does this have for us. Notice that there is much more power for living without shame in the second reason than in the first. We might think that if I were sinless and perfect I could live shame free, but that is both untrue (I am sinful and imperfect) and insufficient (my spouse could probably still shame me). Instead the hope for living without shame is found in a covenant love that does not fear being disapproved by the other, in spite of my imperfections.

Marriage was designed from the beginning to display the new covenant between Christ and the church. We have seen this in Ephesians 5:31-32. The very essence of this new covenant is that Christ passes over the sins of his bride. His bride is free from shame not because she is perfect, but because she has not fear that her lover will condemn her or shame her because of her sin. (pp 33-34 emphasis added)

But when they sinned, each instinctively new that the other had chosen independence from God and was now selfish at heart and no longer trustworthy. They also knew they had done that and that things were no longer as they should be. Their nakedness was the first effect of their sin (Gen 3:5-7). They felt both vulnerable to shame from their spouse and defiled and unworthy because of the loss of fellowship with God. They clothed themselves with fig leaves in an attempt to deny that shame, but God foreshadowed his redemption by killing a sacrifice and using the skins to make them new clothing.

A couple of questions for thought and comment below:

• Have you ever thought about the two possible sources for shame?
• How have you been guilty of putting shame on your spouse because of your own sinfulness?
• If “the very essence of new covenant love is that Christ passes over the sins of his bride”, are you willing to reflect Christ in this way?

Foundationally, marriage is God’s doing. Piper illustrates this in four ways:

1. It is God’s design. He saw the solitude of the man and knew that he needed a helper suited to him (Gen 2:18). When Adam realized none of the animals would do, God created another creature in His image for Adam (Gen 1:27)
2. God gave away the first bride. I’ve never seen this before but, as the Father of the bride, God “brought her to the man.” (Gen 2:22)
3. God spoke the design of marriage into existence by saying “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” (Gen 2:24)
4. God performs the one-flesh union. The preacher doesn’t make the couple one flesh and it doesn’t happen at the consummation. God joins them together and it is not in man’s power or prerogative to destroy (Mark 10:8-9).

But ultimately, Piper argues, this marriage that God has created is designed for God’s glory. That this holding fast and one flesh union is a sacred covenant is implicit in Genesis but becomes explicit in Ephesians 5.

Christ thought of himself as a bridegroom coming for his bride, the true people of God (Matt 9:15; 25:1ff; John 3:29). … Christ knew he would have to pay for his bride with his own blood. He called this relationship the new covenant … This is what Paul is referring to when he says that marriage is a great mystery: “I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” Christ obtained the church by his blood and formed a new covenant with her, an unbreakable “marriage.”

The ultimate thing we can say about marriage is that it exists for God’s glory. That is, it exists to display God. Now we see how: Marriage is patterned after Christ’s covenant relationship to his redeemed people, the church. And therefore, the highest meaning and the most ultimate purpose of marriage is to put the covenant relationship of Christ and his church on display. That is why marriage exists. If you are married, that is why you are married. If you hope to be, that should be your dream.

Staying married, therefore, is not mainly about staying in love. It is about keeping covenant…Therefore what makes divorce and remarriage so horrific in God’s eyes is not merely that it involves covenant-breaking to the spouse, but that it involves misrepresenting Christ and his covenant. Christ will never leave his wife. Ever. There may be times of painful distance and tragic backsliding on our part. But Christ keeps his covenant forever. Marriage is a display of that! (pp 24-25)

So the most important thing about marriage is showing in real life the glory of the gospel. Let me share a couple of questions for reflection and comment below:

• How does the idea of marriage as a display of Christ’s covenant keeping love change the way you think about your own marriage?
• Does this mean that it is not important whether you stay in love? If not, what role should your feelings play in your marriage?

In her forward to the book, John’s wife Noel Piper shares about their own marriage and how their extreme differences have led their marriage to swing on a pendulum between “How in the world did I get such an amazing husband?” to “How in the world did we get into such a mess?” However, in spite of the ups and downs, she affirms that marriage is ultimately a reflection of Christ’s relationship with the church. That’s all marriages, regardless of sin. So the question she asks is, “How clear and well-focused is the portrait of Jesus that our marriage is displaying?”

The Introduction begins with the story of Dietrich Bohnoeffer, who was engaged to be married when he was hanged at dawn on April 9, 1945 by the Nazis for his involvement in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler.Piper writes:

So he never married. He skipped the shadow on the way to the Reality. Some are called to one kind of display of the worth of Christ, some to another. Martyrdom, not marriage, was his calling. (p 13)

Piper then shares the story of John and Betty Stam who were martyred in China leaving behind an infant daughter. They were reunited in heaven, but not as husband and wife for there is no marriage in heaven (Mark 12:25).

The shadow of covenant-keeping between husband and wife gives way to the reality of covenant-keeping between Christ and his glorified Church. Nothing is lost. The music of every pleasure is transposed into an infinitely higher key. (pp 14-15)

In “A Wedding Sermon from a Prison Cell,” Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote

Marriage is more than your love for each other…In your love you see only the heaven of your own happiness, but in marriage you are placed at a post of responsibility towards the world and mankind. Your love is your own private possession, but marriage is more than something personal – it is a status, an office. Just as it is the crown, and not merely the will to rule, that makes the king, so it is marriage, and not merely your love for each other, that joins you together in the sight of God and man.

So this is the theme of the book:

to enlarge your vision of what marriage is…The meaning of marriage is the display of the covenant keeping love between Christ and his people. … It is a good gift from God, but it is only one possible path along the narrow way to Paradise. Marriage passes through breathtaking heights and through swamps with choking vapors. It makes many things sweeter, and with it come bitter providences. Marriage is a momentary gift.

In the coming weeks, I will be blogging through the fifteen chapters of this short 180-page book, sharing some of the most meaningful insights that I have gained as a result of reading it. I hope they will be meaningful to you as well.

If you’d like to read the entire book, which I highly recommend, it is available for free in PDF form on Piper’s web site, or you can purchase it from the common sources.

Some questions in the meantime:

• Does your own marriage swing on the pendulum from idealism to pessimism? Do you spend more time on one end or the other?
• Have you ever considered marriage as a picture of the relationship of Christ and the church?
• What do you think about Jesus’ words that there will be no marriage in heaven? Does that disappoint you? What about Piper’s comment that in heaven “the music of every pleasure is transposed to an infinitely higher key?”
• Bonhoeffer talks about marriage as more than a personal thing but as a responsibility toward the world. How does that strike you? How would it change things if you approached it that way?

Share your thoughts or comments below

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So, honestly I was really looking forward to having some quiet hours alone this morning to do business with God. I started by going over some of the key Scriptures we covered at the conference and let them minister to my soul. Then spent some time meditating on Colossians, including a verse that has ministered a lot to me over the past few months. In Col 1:29, Paul speaks of his ministry and says, “For this I toil, struggling with all His energy that He powerfully works within me.” That’s a perspective that I need to be reminded of repeatedly. Our work here is often a struggle and toil, but it is done with energy that is provided by God. Even just now I was reminded to stop and pray for God to provide the energy that I need for each day because otherwise I’ll be overwhelmed.

There are so many exciting things happening at FamilyLife and some days are truly inspiring. Others are just work. That’s what Paul said even his ministry of the gospel was like: toil and struggle. That’s normal. It isn’t all easy just because you’re walking with God.

So what should I do about it? Part of it I’ve already mentioned: realize that it’s normal and ask God for the strength to persevere. But I also think about Jesus’ words to the church of Ephesus that had lost its first love. In Rev 2:4-5 he counsels them about how to reverse that spiritual apathy by saying:

But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.

So what does Jesus tell the Ephesians to do:

1. Remember where you have fallen from
2. Repent
3. Do the works you did at first

I think that’s not only something we need to do when we find ourselves bored with the gospel (God forbid!) but also when the work of the kingdom seems arduous and unpleasant. We need to think back to the times in the past where we had a passion for doing His work and repent of the wrong thinking that has led us away from that point. Then, we need to get busy doing the things that we did back then. Notice that Jesus addresses a lack of love by a call to repentance and action. When the actions are right, the feelings will come.

So pray for me that I will be able to live in this truth. I need it often.

What have you learned during times when God’s work seems like drudgery? Share your comments.