Ben Zornes

Our Temptations

July 7, 2021 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

The modern church has trivialized corporate worship. Whether through the mega-church tendency of turning the service into a circus of pyrotechnics and entertainment lacquered in vaguely Christian sentiment; or in other orbits, the trivialization occurs through the ordination of lesbyterian bishopettes inviting their “congregation” into conversation about the lived experiences of oppression.

At present, those aren’t our temptations––and may God deliver our congregation from ever being enticed to head down those roads. But that raises the question: what temptations are we most likely to be enticed by? It is the temptation of assuming the blessing of God can be put on autopilot. Indifference, in other words.

A tidy table with a white tablecloth, bread & wine neatly arranged. Rows of families in their Sunday best. A liturgy which is structured after the order outlined in Scripture. All of those good things are just busy work if they’re devoid of true love for God Himself. The besetting sin of those who claim to endeavor to be faithful to God’s Word is to mouth the words while the heart wanders.

Make no mistake, God is still zealous for His house. God will still topple tables. God will still withdraw His glory from faithless worshippers. He who has commanded us to worship Him, will abhor that worship if it isn’t born of faith in Christ alone. Neither our liturgy, nor our Christian community, nor a beautiful sanctuary, nor a high view of sacraments, nor the expositional preaching of God’s Word can thrive without the new birth.

So, if we would enjoy God’s blessing upon our congregation, upon this service, upon this sacrament, we must come through the Blessed One alone. If we come through Christ all those distinctives we cherish come too, and our worship ascends as a pleasing aroma to the Lord.

So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…

Not About the Timing

July 5, 2021 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

I’d like to draw out an important aspect of the Reformed tradition’s teaching on baptism. As the WCF 28.6 puts it: “the efficacy of baptism is not tied to that moment of time where in it is administered.” What this means is that in certain cases regeneration and faith comes before the administration of the water, and other times the water is administered and later on comes regeneration and faith.

We shouldn’t think that baptizing someone is like the explorer collecting rare insects who rushes to suspend them in resin. We aren’t trying to lock in the faith before it gets away. We’re applying this water as a witness to Christ’s promise to beget and sustain the faith of those whom He calls. Regardless of whether that faith has already arisen or is yet to arise.

A Thousand Faces of Pride

July 5, 2021 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

Pride wears a thousand faces. But regardless of which face it wears, it is an affront to God. The birthmark of pride is defiance. Defiance of who God is and what God has said. Pride won’t acknowledge that God is Most High, nor will it heed what God tells us about ourselves.

The braggart, who can’t stop talking about his accomplishments, defies God by proud ingratitude. The sullen mope, who can’t take her mind off herself, defies God by proud unbelief. Boasting refuses to thank God for the blessings which have been received, and as such the blessings turn into chains and anvils. Self-pity refuses to believe God’s promise about those who are in Christ, and turns the promises into a poisoned well.

God reveals that He alone is worthy of praise, and to Him alone should we render our reverence and awe, and in the cross alone should we boast. Who God is reveals that we have nothing in ourselves of which to glory. Furthermore, what God says about us is the best weapon with which to combat pride, regardless of the face it wears.

To the one who glories in himself, God says, “Who are you, O man (Rom. 9:20)?” It reveals that our greatest glories are filthy rags. To the one who is self-absorbed with insecurities, God says, “if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature (2 Cor. 5:17).” God sees through all of our charades of pride and rebukes them all. One last thing, Pride is like a leg brace preventing us from bending low, but if it were removed, we’d crumple under our own weight. Humility, however, casts aside the crutch, and receives healing for lameness and by God’s grace is made to stand fast.

Grace to Works

June 30, 2021 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

God, in His great mercy, has given you life in Christ. He’s laid the table with the Bread of Life & the Wine of Relief. From this meal we rise & go forth to living works. To love our spouse. To raise faithful children. To build decks, websites, and investment portfolios. To write books, make movies, compose songs, photograph sunsets, establish just laws, and fight lawlessness.

All these good works, however, flow from the fountain of this table. We don’t scrap & claw to earn enough approval from the Father to score an invite to this table. False gospels say you must be good enough to come; but none of us are good enough to come, and all of our efforts to better ourselves only jam the gears even more. If you invert the doctrine of grace, you end up with a doctrine of dead works. Trying to do good works before receiving grace is like handing out blueprints for a cathedral in a graveyard. Corpses can’t build cathedrals, they can only populate tombs.

The Gospel says come without coin and buy bread. All of God’s infinite grace is here. Your sins are forgiven. Your shame is washed away. Your vices are crucified and you bear them no more. Your virtues are resurrected and sanctified to His glory. The abundant riches of God’s grace are all yours. All this is what gives rise to what some have called the Protestant work ethic.

You can’t earn what’s on this table. But you can receive it in faith, and then by God’s grace, turn a profit on it. So receive grace, in order to go forth with eager joy to do the works of grace, and then in grateful praise bring the fruits of grace to glorify God in the courts of His Kingdom.

So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…

Hope not Wish

June 28, 2021 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

We often speak of hope the wrong way. It’s not uncommon to hear Christian parents say of their children, “We hope they grow up to follow Christ.” That sort of use of the word hope is more akin to wish. However, that isn’t how Scripture speaks of hope.

Christian hope is certitude. It’s the rope of faith tied to the anchor of God’s promise. So, when we bring our children to be baptized, we’re to do so in evangelical hope. Hope that is assured that God’s promise is sure and steadfast. Hope that God will grant saving faith to those who are baptized into His Triune name. Hope that isn’t wishful thinking, but is true faith in God’s promise to be our God, and the God of our children, and the God of our children’s children to a thousand generations and beyond. That is our certain hope.

So welcome covenant child to Jesus Christ…

Look God in the Eyes

June 28, 2021 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

In Lewis’ Screwtape Letters he describes the temptation of praying to the “god” that is “up and to the left at the corner of the bedroom ceiling.” Our enemy wants us to worship anything other than the Triune God. He doesn’t mind if the god we’re worshipping closely resembles Jehovah, just so long as we aren’t worshipping Jehovah himself.

Man has the bad habit of thinking he can keep God in his pocket. Man wants a god he manage. One that fits with what he imagines a god should be. A god that coddles him, but strikes terror in his enemies. A god who sits only as high as the rafters.

But that isn’t the God we come to worship. We worship the God who made heaven and earth. The God who revealed Himself to our first parents and then to the patriarchs, prophets, and psalmists. The God who is not to be likened to another, and who has no equal. The God who came in human flesh, died in place of sinful man, and was raised by the Father’s power.

Have you been entertaining low thoughts of God? Have you been holding up a mirror and convincing yourself that that is what God must be like? Have you been settling for an Americanized god who is safe? Have you crafted idols so as to avoid making eye contact with God?

The remedy for all these vain imaginations is to forsake the habit of trying to pass off our knock-off idols for being the Triune God, and come to God on His terms. His terms are these: cast away all your idols, and then meet with God as He revealed Himself. In short, turn from your idols by looking God in the eye. Which is to say: look to Christ.

A Table not a Cell

June 23, 2021 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

When we partake of the Supper we should pay close attention to the obvious. Stick with me here, this is a table with a meal spread upon it. There’s a tendency in our evangelical piety to, in practice, completely overlook this glaringly obvious aspect of what we do.

Amongst our Evangelical ranks there are some who––in an effort to obey the call to “examine yourself” & to “worthily take the Supper”––have done some renovations to the furniture of this sacrament. They put the command to examine oneself into practice by acting as if the Lord’s Supper is like a crust of bread being slid under the cell door to a prisoner in solitary confinement. Instead of a table around which God’s elect children gather to commune with Him and each other, they turn this into an icy corridor of 6×6 cells of introspective piety.

The Lord summons us here to a joyful feast with more than plenty for all who He calls. He doesn’t send us to our rooms to think long & hard about how badly we’ve behaved and only get dinner if we are able to attain the properly morose disposition. Our Father wants us to pull in our seats around this table, facing Him and each other, to enjoy the manifold ways He has brought us, saved us, sustained us, and nourished us.

With beaming faces we fellowship around this table, reflecting Christ’s light back to Him in praise and towards each other in faithful encouragement. Introspection, however, thinks that the proper thing to look at during the Lord’s Supper is the blank cement of the walls of our atrophied pietism.

In faith, we look at Christ as we look at this bread & wine. In faith, we look at each other and see Christ’s bride.

So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…

Planting the Gospel Flag

June 21, 2021 By Ben Zornes Leave a Comment

Baptism is planting the flag of Christ’s conquest to declare that this one belongs to Christ. Of course, as territory claimed by Christ, certain obligations come along with that flag. Jesus is the liege Lord of this child. What that means is that as a citizen of the Kingdom of God these children are called to fealty to their King. He promises to grant them that faith, sustain that faith, and bring them at last, by faith, to their eternal rest.

By his death, Christ purchased these sons of Adam to be His own. Here we confess that in Christ their sins are paid for; in Christ they’re assured everlasting life. The duty of these parents, and this congregation is to say “Amen” to these promises, and thus call these children to live their lives under the shadow of this Gospel flag.

So welcome covenant children to Jesus Christ…

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