New Covenant Promises in Our Homes

The promise of the new covenant is one of the most precious of the entire Bible: “‘Behold, days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,’ declares the LORD. ‘But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,’ declares the LORD, ‘I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, “Know the LORD,” for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them [only those who know Him will be in the covenant],’ declares the LORD, ‘for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more’” (Jeremiah 31:31-34).

In the new covenant, He writes His Law on the heart of the covenant people (see also Deuteronomy 30:6,8; Proverbs 1:23; Ezekiel 36:26,27)! This promise is fulfilled in Christ (Hebrews 8:6-12; 9:15; 12:24), and proclaimed weekly at the Table of the Lord (Luke 22:20; 1 Corinthians 11:25).

His Law is on the hearts of those who are truly the covenant people. But it doesn’t stay there. Remember this other great promise: “It will come about after this that I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind; and your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on the male and female servants I will pour out My Spirit in those days” (Joel 2:28,29//Acts 2:16-18). This promise is for all those who “repent” and are “baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins” (Acts 2:38).

The writing of the Law on the heart is parallel to the pouring out of the Spirit. The Word and Spirit cannot be separated. The presence of the Spirit is manifested by the presence of the Word in the heart. The Law, written on the heart of those in the new covenant by the Lord Himself, does not stay in the heart. The Spirit manifests His Word from the heart of the new covenant community members through “prophesy,” “dreams,” and “visions.” These three manifestations will not deviate in the slightest from the Word of God (or they show themselves to be of a different spirit that is not holy).

In the new covenant, the Lord Himself (through His Word/Law and Holy Spirit) works out obedience to His own command: “These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” (Deuteronomy 6:6-9). I just read this passage to my children last night (we are considering Q.42 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism this week). The Spirit-spoken “prophecy” is none other than the teaching “diligently to your sons” and the “talk...in your house...by the way.” The “dreams” and “visions” are the “talk of them...when you lie down and when you rise up.” This is the blessed man who delights "in the Law of the LORD," and this delight manifests in his "day and night" meditation (Psalm 1:1,2).

Don’t miss the fact that we are to teach our children not just any “words,” but “these words,” commanded by Moses: the Law of God. They will never know their need for Christ apart from “these words” (Galatians 3:22-24). At the same time, don’t miss the fact that you cannot “teach them diligently,” “talk of them,” “bind them,” or “write them” apart from the Holy Spirit, Who speaks His Word/Law from the hearts of those who are the new covenant community in Christ.

“...be filled with the Spirit...fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 5:18; 6:4). The instruction to our children of the Law of God in the power and help of the Holy Spirit in Christ is His great means of grace in our homes.

We Must Do More Than Weep

“By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion” (Psalm 137:1).

Not all of them. Some of them assimilated into the culture and people of Babylon and vanished into history. But there were some who, despite being born in Babylon, clung to the teaching of the ways of God passed to them from their parents and grandparents... including the great leader of the return, Zerubbabel (Haggai 2:1-9; Zechariah 4:6-10), whose name means “born in Babylon” - not a good name for a Jew!

Mourn that Zion is not fully unveiled, but do not let that mourning for the apparent reign of the City of Man keep you from teaching the ways of Zion to the next generation. May it be that God raises up one “born in Babylon” who will mightily lead the children of Zion tomorrow.

We must do more than weep.

“Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon, ‘Build houses and live in them; and plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and become the fathers of sons and daughters, and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; and multiply there and do not decrease. Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf; for in its welfare you will have welfare...when seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you,’ declares the LORD, ‘and I will restore your fortunes and will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you,’ declares the LORD, ‘and I will bring you back to the place from where I sent you into exile’” (Jeremiah 29:4-7,10-14).

Lord, raise up from among our children and grandchildren Zerubbabels who are not at home in Babylon, but will be used of You to faithfully and powerfully lead us home to Zion.

Obey Instead of Manipulate, Parents

If you were to look through the journal I use to keep prayer requests for the congregations I serve, a common petition would be for children and grandchildren not following the Lord. We are – by practice, not by official polity – family-integrated congregations. Does this guarantee that our children will stay in the Lord? No. In fact, nothing will. Not AWANA. Not family worship. Not the latest program or curriculum. Nothing guarantees that the children of the covenant family will grow up to be faithful confessing members of the covenant family.

From the repeated prayer requests and my own heart’s desire, I can guarantee one thing: we would do anything if we could guarantee their future faith. But we can’t. How can we make sense of this frustrating state of affairs? I’ve been wrestling with it recently, and connected – by the Spirit’s light in His Gospel – the dots yesterday on a 5K struggle of a run (it gets harder when you don’t do it every day - both running and keeping the Gospel front-and-center of everything).

“Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6, NASB). “See?! See?!” We’re tempted to force the Sovereign’s hand by our consistent efforts to train them in the faith, thereby manipulating Him by our works to keep the next generation in the faith. This is my definition of magic, or witchcraft: doing things in the physical realm to influence the spiritual realm. This does not honor God. Proverbs 22:6 (or the rest of Proverbs, for that matter), is no cause-and-effect contract between God and His people.

“So I turned to consider wisdom, madness and folly; for what will the man do who will come after the king except what has already been done? And I saw that wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness. The wise man's eyes are in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. And yet I know that one fate befalls them both. Then I said to myself, ‘As is the fate of the fool, it will also befall me. Why then have I been extremely wise?’ So I said to myself, ‘This too is vanity.’ For there is no lasting remembrance of the wise man as with the fool, inasmuch as in the coming days all will be forgotten. And how the wise man and the fool alike die! So I hated life, for the work which had been done under the sun was grievous to me; because everything is futility and striving after wind. Thus I hated all the fruit of my labor for which I had labored under the sun, for I must leave it to the man who will come after me. And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control over all the fruit of my labor for which I have labored by acting wisely under the sun. This too is vanity” (Ecclesiastes 2:12-19). Wisdom (as in Proverbs) is better than folly, but it doesn’t make any promises. Despite what pop culture’s wisdom says, our destiny is not up to us. But, the Preacher of Ecclesiastes tells us, wisdom is still better. Why? If the results aren’t guaranteed, what’s the point of being wise in the rearing of future generations? All of our “labor under the sun,” be it in business or child-training, may be passed onto fools who will deny the existence of God. Is it time to hate this grievous life? Well, if we keep pursuing wisdom as a means of a religion of works (witchcraft), then yes, go ahead and start hating. That’s where you’ll end up in your bitter frustration. I know. I have longed to change the hearts and minds of those who leave the faith more times than I can tell. It does hurt.

But that’s not why we train up our children (and grandchildren) in the way they should go (the way of the Lord). We train our children because God has commanded us to, regardless of the results. Before we can expect our children to obey Him by faith, we must obey Him by faith (as opposed to evangelizing them in an effort to manipulate them or God).

"Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the judgments which the LORD your God has commanded me to teach you, that you might do them in the land where you are going over to possess it, so that you and your son and your grandson might fear the LORD your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged. O Israel, you should listen and be careful to do it, that it may be well with you and that you may multiply greatly, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey. Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” (Deuteronomy 6:1-9).

“Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4).

Beloved, there are promises attached to obeying by faith, but we are not the executors of the estate! We teach them because we have been commanded to do so, not as a part of a religion of self-effort, but as a Gospel obedience to the King Who has saved us and given us commandments.

Back to the prayer-journal I keep for our little congregations (I just remembered getting a question about prodigal children from a mother at a Q&A in the Philippines – this is a universal heart-break). It is right to pray for the lost: “Brethren, my heart's desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation” (Romans 10:1). At the same time, we proclaim the Gospel to them; both those who know it already (Romans 1:15) and those who don’t yet (Romans 10:8-15,17). Teach them every day of the Lord, His wise ways, and His gracious Gospel. Pray for them. Worship with them.

And trust that God is in charge, even when things aren’t as we wish they would be (or feel, in the works-religion that we must crucify every day in our hearts, that God must make them be because of our efforts).

Believe and obey, commanding others to do the same, starting with our families and going throughout the world. Train them because you’ve been commanded to by the One Who loves you and has saved you, not because you’re trying to force the King to obey your will. This is the Great Commission. It is built upon faithful obedience to the One Who is King over heaven and earth (Matthew 28:18-20).

7 Abominations on a Monday Morning

“He that hateth, will counterfeit with his lips, but in his heart he layeth up deceit. Though he speak favorably, believe him not: for there are seven abominations in his heart. Hatred may be covered by deceit: but the malice thereof shall be discovered in the congregation” (Proverbs 26:24-26, Geneva Bible).

One of the results of being gathered into a group is that our inner nature is eventually brought out. In the Church we are shown to be servants or power-hungry, no matter what flattery or smiles we use. Our actions and motivations will be shown. This is one of the reasons God commands us to congregate with people who are different from us in race, socio-economic status, education, entertainment preference, etc., finding our unity in a common confession of the faith alone. God uses our differences in unity to expose us for what we really are as we interact with one another in the gathering of the Church. Those who cannot tolerate this nakedness will either be increasingly shamed in this nakedness (I’m still – after twenty years – reminded of Anne Rice’s description of vampires: they don’t change, they just become more of what they are) or will depart from the congregation of people different than themselves (the more we build a congregation on elements outside the confession – or refuse to be unified by confession – the less accountability there is as we build a group of people very much like ourselves by non-confessional standards).

God commands His children congregate in Him so that the non-Him elements in the members of the congregation are revealed for what they are...so that we may grow past them together.

I am struggling in this area of discipleship this morning. I’m on my third night of sleep deprivation, taking care of little ones in their illness. My bride leads a ladies’ class on Monday mornings, so I prepared a healthy breakfast for the children. While they were eating, I mixed some green chile in with an egg and threw it on the griddle for myself. Just before I put the mixture on a tortilla, the youngest gagged and vomited forth his banana, apples, milk, and honey-bun mixture (okay, the breakfast was mostly healthy). I remained calm in this, but I confess it was a fake calmness. In my heart, I was yelling, “what?! I don’t get to sleep or eat?!” Mess cleaned quickly for the benefit of the other children. Little one bathed and re-dressed. I took out my inner anger on the now-unappealing meal, throwing it away with more aggression than necessary (out of sight of little ones). Grrrrrr...deep breath. Lord, I am an impatient man. I can fake it so many times, but I am impatient deep down...sometimes to the point of feeling pretty unloving toward folks who trigger that impatience. I am a sinner in need of a Savior at every moment, and being around people who aren’t as enlightened and perfect (read heavy sarcasm here) as I am shows this very clearly.

It may not be vomit, but being in the gathered Church means that people will do things around me and say things to me that trigger my inner un-Christlikeness very quickly. It’d be easy to leave them and identify with a group of people as awesome as myself, but I wouldn’t grow there...except in the area of my own self-worship and self-righteousness. I need you to show me to be what I am, that I may be thrown more and more upon God’s mercy and grace in Christ and molded by the Spirit into the image of the One Who loved me and gave Himself up for me. I cannot do that alone, and I cannot do that with those who are more or less clones of myself. What I am will be discovered in the congregation, that I may be conformed to the image of the Son.

On Monday mornings and many other times, there are seven abominations in me that I will never be rid of apart from the Spirit’s means of exposing them and excising them from my being: the gathered Church.

Parents, Echo the Lord

“My son, forget not thou my Law, but let thine heart keep my commandments. For they shall increase the length of thy days and the years of life, and thy prosperity” (Proverbs 3:1,2, Geneva Bible). Parents, may our “commandments” be echoes of the Lord’s commandments.

• “Honor thy father and they mother, that thy days may be prolonged upon the land, which the Lord thy God giveth thee” (Exodus 20:12).
• “Honor thy father and thy mother, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee, that thy days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with thee upon the land, which the Lord thy God giveth thee” (Deuteronomy 5:16).
• “Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honor thy father and mother (which is the first commandment with promise) that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest live long on earth. And ye, fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in instruction and information of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:1-4).