Ben Zornes

A Weekly Habit

August 3, 2021 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

Our practice of weekly observing of the Lord’s Supper might jostle loose a few reactions. In talking with many new families, reactions have ranged from deep gratitude for this practice (as they’ve come from churches where the Supper was only taken whenever there’s a fifth Sunday of the month). Others might react, however, with asking whether this weekly observance turns the Supper into a mindless tradition of men. I hasten to add this is a concern we share.

This concern, however, can arise from a common misconception not only about “right partaking” of the Supper, but also human wiring. First, weekly Supper observance is no more a “tradition of man” than a husband’s daily goodbye kiss to his wife before heading to work. Frequency doesn’t mean thoughtlessly or meaninglessly. Any man who’s had a long business trip knows the gnawing ache just to plant a kiss on his wife & bear hug his kids. The pain of his absence reveals the presence of his affections.

Another angle on this is that the broad Evangelical approach to the Supper is all about getting into the right frame of mind; perhaps this explains irregularity of the Supper in some circles. If you have to do evangelical Zen to get into the right pietistic headspace just to attain “right partaking,” you aren’t rightly partaking.

Just because something becomes habitual, doesn’t mean it’s drained of all enjoyment. Muscle memory enables the musician to come to deeper enjoyment of the music. Regularity doesn’t impede right partaking, it fosters it. We’re wired to form habits. The danger, then, in weekly observance of the Supper isn’t in frequency, it’s in the adverbs. Is the Supper taken faithfully, or unfaithfully?

A weekly Supper is intended to form the habit of faithfulness. Faithfulness isn’t discovered in the rare air of mountaintop pietism. It comes from Christ, and So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…

Unripe Fruit

August 2, 2021 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

This world is a vast orchard, filled with all variety of fruit bearing trees. But it’s an orchard whose tenants are an unruly and greedy lot. The trees are laden with abundant blessings. The inhabitants, however, continue to harvest the fruits well before they’re ripe.

They can’t seem to help it. As soon as they see the fruit emerge from flower, they rush to snatch it before someone else does. They gobble it down even though the fruit is hard, dry, and bitter.

This is man without the self-control which arises from the regenerating grace of the Spirit. It isn’t that the blessings on the trees are to blame. God placed them there for our enjoyment. Sleep, exercise, food & drink, sex, song, humor, art, architecture, and a million other good things were put upon this earth––like fruit in an orchard––by God Himself. It is man’s unrestrained desire which receives them wrongly both in time and manner. We reach for the fruit prematurely, and we reach for it from a heart of envy, lust, greed, and covetousness. We reach because we have no self-control.

Parents of children often admonish their children to self-control, as they should. But self-control isn’t merely abstaining from foolish behavior. It is supplanting unrestrained desires with desires born from above. Instead of being steered by the impulses of our sinful desire, the twice born man is steered by the Word of God.

Self-control allows us to inhabit this orchard as husbandmen of the blessings God has filled it with. To flip the metaphor around, when God converts us He begins to ripen us for the fruit He’s prepared for us. He ripens us by restraining our carnal desires, and in so doing ensures that we enjoy His blessings at their ripest.

What misery has filled this world all because we wouldn’t have our lusts restrained by God’s Word. Instead we’ve corrupted ourselves and others by grasping for the blessings through avarice and envy. The premature fruits we’ve partaken have rotted in our nation’s belly. If we would but have the Holy Spirit restrain us, we would find that the blessings we’ve hunted tirelessly for and only tasted in their unripe & bitter form, are placed in our hands ripe and whole. Instead of heeding our sinful desires, we must submit all our desires to the Word, and so receive true happiness, pleasure, joy, and delight from God’s hand.

Sin robs all the earthly joys of their pleasure. The only thing an unrestrained man, dead in his sins, can get is the bland husk of misery. Christ, however, calls you to come to Him, be washed in Him, and taste in Him the source of all the Joy.

A Glimpse of What’s to Come

July 28, 2021 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

If we turn outward and look at this world we see ruin, destruction, hopelessness, and the crumbling towers of man’s project to save himself. That world, the one ruled by man’s sinful ambition to be as God, is fading like a mist. But if we turn and look at this table we see the seed of how God is remaking the entire world. He is doing so by means of the broken body & spilled blood of Jesus of Nazareth. Sinking down into fertile soil are the roots of the perfect righteousness of Christ, fulfilling all of God’s holy law on your behalf. Bursting forth into flowering branches is the reconciliation between God and man and between man and his brother. Here is the seed from which it all springs, and its branches are spreading out to fill the whole world.

This supper offers us a glimpse of how things will one day be. Christ ruling over every individual. Christ subduing all enemies. Christ casting out all your sin, and not yours only but every last sin of every last saint, casting them all forever into the sea. Christ establishing His kingdom, where all the saints share the joy of His presence in the company of the sons and daughters of the Most High God. Christ on High and Christ within. Christ enthroned, and Christ indwelling.

In partaking of this Supper we partake of everlasting life. We taste the sweetness of joy fully ripened. We catch the wafting aroma of heaven’s perfect peace as we commune with Christ and each other here at the Lord’s table. All of Christ, for all of life, for all the world. That is this redeemed world’s final destination. So now partake of how things shall soon be, for Christ is here, given for You.

So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…

Look to Christ

July 27, 2021 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

The story goes that Charles Spurgeon was converted upon hearing a sermon on the text from Isaiah 45:22, “Look unto me, and be ye saved.” This endures as the potently simple Gospel of salvation: Look to Christ.

Here in this child’s infancy, before he’s even able to fix his eyes firmly on anything, we are turning his eyes to Christ in applying these covenantal waters. As these parents raise him, they’re commanded to continually point his eyes to Christ. As the body, we’re admonished to encourage him to fix his eyes on Christ. All of this so that, someday, when his children & grandchildren close his eyes in death, his whole life will have been one of looking to Christ. So, what we are saying in this baptism is what he must hear and do each day of his life: look to Christ, and be ye saved.

So welcome covenant child to Jesus Christ…

Circular File Your Fear

July 26, 2021 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

One of Scripture’s most poignant statements is: “fear hath torment (1 Jn. 4:18).” Fear is perhaps the most visceral sensation we humans experience. It chokes us with its force in the dark of midnight. It freezes us with its presence in the midst of hardships. It paralyzes us with its threats when surrounded by the might of wicked men.

John insists that fear is the portion of slaves. It belongs to slaves to have fear as their constant companion. Fear of God’s just wrath. Fear of past failures being found out or future failures bringing embarrassment. Fear of fiends real & imagined. Fear of loss, shame, guilt, sickness, or sorrow. But it is for slaves to live in the grip of fear.

Those born of God, on the other hand, are promised boldness (1 Jn. 4:17). Those born of God are those who believe that Jesus is the Christ. Boldness, then, comes by faith. And this brings the assurance that God is your Father. While the slave of sin is apportioned fear, the child of God is apportioned boldness. Your sin is covered. Nothing can separate you from God’s love. Your shame is removed. You are unfettered from fearing your former taskmasters of sin, the devil, the world. Love casts out fear.

So, pull out your files. Spread them out. Take out the financial strain file, and the one labelled “health challenges.” If the file named “Unconfessed Sin” is full of entries, bring it too. Grab the volume called “Family Dynamics” from the very back of the filing cabinet. Show them all to God. Then hear His words, “Do not fear.” Hand all your files to God. Then follow His instructions as to which ones to trash and which ones to keep. But when it comes to the “keepers” let God be the One to tell you where to file them.

Our world is gripped by fear. They are fearful because their guilty conscience gnaws at them, reminding them of the judgment that awaits their sin. They are fearful because they worship mankind instead of God. They are fearful because they have wrapped themselves in chain after chain of shame after shame. Yet we in the church have been complicit, because in too many ways we have feared man instead of fearing the One True God. Instead of walking in the boldness of our sonship, we have cowered in the fear of unconfessed sin and unrepentant shame.

But the Apostle John assures you that fear is no longer your inheritance. If you are in Christ, your inheritance is all the blessings which Christ has won for you. You are no longer a slave, but a son.

The Correction in Baptism

July 23, 2021 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

The Word of God gives fathers this instruction: “Correct thy son, and he shall give thee rest; yea, he shall give delight unto thy soul (Pro. 29:17).” Christian baptism is the ultimate correction to the crookedness of the human condition. We bring our children to Christ, because apart from Christ they remain bent by the folly of sin. Christian parents are commanded to correct (or instruct, discipline, train) their children, and that begins here at these waters.

All the corrections which you’ll give your son must spring from the correction declared in his baptism. He’s covenantally transferred from the headship of Adam to the headship of Christ. The promised blessing which accompanies this covenantal correction is that of rest and delight. For a son who walks in the faithful discipline offered by baptism into Christ will indeed be a fountain of God’s tender-mercies to his parents.

So welcome covenant child to Jesus Christ…

Not a Sin Offering

July 20, 2021 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

The Roman Catholic error as regards the Lord’s Supper is in seeing it as a reoccurrence of Christ’s sacrifice for sin. In that respect, they come to an altar, not a table. That view leads to treating these elements as a means of appeasing God. You take the Supper to avoid God’s anger. The problem with that take is that Jesus instituted this sacrament at a meal in the warmth of an upper room, not at the altar for burnt offerings.

In terms of Israel’s sacrificial system, this isn’t a sin offering before us, it’s a peace offering. We don’t take this sacrament to appease God, but because God has already been appeased. Christ’s blood covers your sin, so that you might enjoy a feast of His presence in His presence. This Sacrament isn’t the means of atoning our sins, it is the blessing purchased by Christ’s atonement. Your sins have already been washed away, consumed in the fire, and now you are invited to sanctify and celebrate the name of Yahweh. In the peace offering, the worshipper partook of a portion of the offered animal. It was a shared meal of gratitude, not a ceremony to cover guilt.

But as a peace offering, we should ask what is it that is ascending to God? The answer is that we’re told that in our worship we are to be living sacrifices (Rom. 1:1-2). Since in this Supper we hold forth the token of our union with Christ, it follows that in Christ, we are the offering, we are the sacrifice. In Christ the true Sin Offering our guilt is washed away, in Christ the true Peace Offering we ascend to the Father as a pleasing aroma. The glory displayed here is God delighting in us, as we delight in Him.

So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…

Receiving as Feminine Virtue

July 19, 2021 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

The church receives grace, and then produces good works. A godly wife’s disposition mirrors this in her marriage: she receives favor, then bears fruit. She receives in marital intimacy from her husband, and then bears children. She receives her husband’s authority, then sets about to fulfill his will for his household. She receives his provision and transforms it into a beautiful home, scrumptious table-spreads, rich adornment for her family, and a wlecoming refuge. Because we’ve been breathing the noxious fumes of feminist egalitarianism, we might flinch at the plain statements of how Christian households have always been ordered.

Feminism, because it’s a false religion, corrupts this ordering. It wants good works without grace. It wants the ability to make glory without empowering favor. Progressives call it empowering for a modern woman to both rip out her offspring while freezing her eggs, all so that she can get her career established. This is the prime example of the fact that we’re being sold a lie that independent women are so powerful they can create ex nihilo. The future is female, we’re told. Nevertheless, this disordered madness can’t even define what a woman is, let alone what she’s here for, or what her unique role is in the purposes of God.

Christian women must resist these lies. So wives, let me ask you: would your husband describe you as receptive to his favor? Do you receive from him in all the spheres of your marriage? Or do you relish zigging when he asks you to zag? A godly wife is one who excels at receiving. She first receives God’s grace, thus receiving power to walk in holiness. But then she receives God’s ordering of the home, and thus gladly receives her husband’s favor, as it is revealed in his authority, provision, and protection.

We have failed, both as men and women, to obey and defend God’s design for femininity. He made the world in such a way so that as a women receives her husband’s favor, what springs from this favor is children, lush gardens, lovely homes, and bustling hospitality. We have opted for mutilated bodies; both of men carving themselves into women, women carving themselves into men, and all while butchering our unborn babies. We’ve called this progress, justice, and freedom. It’s anything but. Even in your church we have capitulated to this madness in ways both great and small. We truly deserve the hot anger of God’s wrath for such compromise. Nevertheless, the saints of God should turn from this compromise and ask that God would turn back His wrath and remember mercy.

True repentance can be described as grace restoring nature. We are fallen, but by grace God is restoring us––both male and female––to His created design. So whether it be the sins of men or the sins of women, grace is not only the washing of those sins away, but it is also the restoration of us as male and female to God’s purpose for us as male and female.