Christ Church Washington D.C.

Our first reading comes from Job chapter 1 verses 4 through 5.
And then from Colossians chapter 3 verses 13 through 14.
The word of the Lord. Our Lord and our God, we do thank you for your word. Holy Spirit, the very God who inspired these words, we pray that you would place them where they are most needful in each one of us. It is in the strong name of Christ that we pray these things. And amen.
As we establish some foundational, load-bearing, biblical truths that structure our life together at Christ Church DC. And today is a continuation on the trust, on the theme from last week. Namely, on the need to recover a robust, covenantal vision of life. We saw last week how God created a world with covenant structures when he first created it.
Of marriage and family. Of church. And of the civil realm. But most importantly, he made a covenant between himself and humanity. With Adam as humanity’s federal head. But Adam transgressed that covenant. He broke the covenants. And very quickly, all the other covenants started to come apart at the seams within one chapter, throwing the world into chaos. Because that is what sin does.
It is a corrosive. It brings disconnection, disunity, and ultimately despair. However, God in his loving kindness did not leave us in this chaotic disconnection that we inherited from Adam. Rather, he so loved the world that he sent his son, Jesus Christ, on a cosmic rescue mission to redeem the world and the entirety of it.
Jesus came not as the divine savior of disconnected mass of human individuals. He came as the last Adam, as 1 Corinthians 15 says, the new covenant head of a new humanity to bring us back into covenant with God and to go to work redeeming and restoring all the structures within the world. The family, Genesis 12, 3,
or 2, 9, you, the church are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. And he came to redeem nations as nations. Revelation 21, 4, by the light of the lamb will the nations walk and the kings of earth will bring their nation’s glory into it. So yes, Jesus saves us as individuals, but he is not individualistic. He is making all things new,
the structures that God built into the world. And part of our work then as ministers of reconciliation sent by Christ into the world is to strengthen and repair on purpose these structures as well for the glory of God and for the joy of our great grandchildren. So that’s all review for our time today. I want to get more practical, pull it down to earth. What does it look like for us as a church community?
To continue growing into a sturdy, healthy, joyful covenant community together on purpose in this city. And I’m really going to narrow my focus to two specific angles today. Two specific exhortations. First, a word to heads of home or soon to be heads of home. Second, a word to every one of us in the church as the church.
First, heads of home. A church is fundamentally made up of households. And so a healthy, covenantally minded church means having healthy, covenantally minded households. And that means heads of home who gladly and sacrificially start taking responsibility for the state of their entire household.
Protection, their physical provision, but also for their spiritual protection, their spiritual provision. And of course, he takes his cues from the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Jesus took full responsibility for us as God’s people in our provision on the cross, in our protection through his Holy Spirit.
In that text, verse 4 of chapter 1 of Job, we’re told that his children had a sort of feasting tradition around their cul-de-sac, as it were, where the sons would take turns hosting feasts. They would invite their sisters over as well. And we’re not told if they would invite their servants or friends over. We could probably assume that. But apparently, it was a festive affair of eating and drinking. And then we were told in verse 5,
that afterwards, Job would send and consecrate them afresh, likely some sort of ceremonial washing. And then he would go and he would offer sacrifices on their behalf, just in case they had done anything at all that offended God during their feasting. This is a picture of a covenant head taking responsibility before God,
for those God has placed under their care, just as Christ does for his people. Job does not say, well, I wasn’t there. I didn’t make the party. So I have no idea what happened. Therefore, how can I possibly be responsible for any of that? None of this. If something happened, it’s not my problem. That is decidedly what he does not do. Rather, he stands before God.
For forgiveness, should there even be any, which we’re not told that there even was. And Job stands as an example for us of having a spiritual pulse on our people, of taking initiative to protect and provide for them. But husbands and fathers, taking this kind of responsibility, if we are honest, does not come naturally. As sons of Adam, our instinct in our flesh is abdication,
and blame shifting. By nature, we don’t like taking responsibility for our own sins, let alone sins of other people or cares of other people. And this is why we need to pursue this together on purpose. Because God has called us to it. He has sent us as sentinels for the souls in our household. So a few thoughts on embracing your responsibility
and future head of home. Because if you aren’t a husband or father yet, you likely will be. And now’s the time to start preparing. One, you must live with a clean heart before your God. You must live with a clean heart before your God. Which means you must deal with your own sin quickly and thoroughly.
As head of home, if you are constantly bogged down with guilt. You cannot take responsibility for the souls of others. If you are gunked up with undealt with shame in your own hearts. Unconfessed sin will sap your spiritual strength. And it will leave your people without a covering. Unconfessed sin will sap your own spiritual strength.
Unintended. This is something King David recognized. A covenant head who knew great sin in his own life. When his own heart was not clean before his God. He says in Psalm 32.4. Day and night your hand was heavy upon me. And my strength was dried up. As by the heat of summer. And he goes on in the Psalm 32 to talk about how he confessed. And there was this great lifting. This great strengthening.
He goes on to exhort people to seek God while they may be found. Undealt with personal sin will sap your strength and make it impossible for you to lead well. In this generation, there are many fathers who simply will not address things in their home that do need addressing. Because they feel hypocritical. They feel disqualified. They feel inadequate. They won’t confront a son when they suspect a pornography issue.
Because they struggled in the past. They won’t instruct or correct their wives, but will rather fall into a low hum of passive aggression. Because they’re sick of the constant fighting because they won’t address anything. They won’t lead in family prayer now, though they really do want to. Because the first one will be awkward when the kids ask, why are we just starting this now? If that’s you, the first thing you need to do is go back two weeks ago and listen to that sermon on the podcast, on the gospel.
How God chose Paul for the purpose of showing the world he draws straight with crooked lines. This is the freedom of the apostle Paul in his ministry, not because he was a perfect man, far from it, but because he had repented and received forgiveness of sins and was free to do his ministry then. You do that, so far as the east is from the west, so far I’ve removed your transgressions and then turn afresh.
And embrace with faith the office God has called you to. He chose you of your head of home. And that is an objective fact. So it doesn’t really matter how you feel about it. Just embrace the responsibility confidently and cheerfully. And know this, other than Christ, there’s no such thing as a sinless head of home. Other than Christ, there’s no such thing as a perfect head of home.
That’s not possible, but it is possible to be a faithful head of home. And that’s a really important distinction. It’s not possible to be a sinless head of home. It is possible to be a faithful head of home. And that requires having a clean heart before God and your family so that you’re not bogged down and sidelined with sin and shame. Now, suppose some things have gotten wonky in your home and you’re realizing it perhaps is because you’ve not been leading well.
Embracing your responsibility for the home is the first step forward, like Job did. However, it doesn’t magically bring everything into immediate order. That will take some work. But you need to be careful here because it’s easy to swerve from the ditch of abdication into the other ditch of being an overbearing tyrant.
You don’t want to do that. No, you need to have a patient passion as you work by God’s grace to bring about spirit-empowered reformation, one conversation at a time, one hour at a time. Like Job, it begins with specific prayer about specific things, specific patches of weeds that you’ve identified in the garden. Own it before God and then ask him to help you.
Make change in the coming week. Identify one or two ways that you can lead better. And then just focus on them. And don’t make a big grandiose statement about how there’s a new sheriff in town now and things are going to change. Don’t do that. Just start walking more faithfully. Perhaps you aren’t praying with your wife. That’s something you can start doing tonight. To move towards taking responsibility as a head. Just simply say,
tomorrow morning at 6.15 a.m. or whatever works for you, I would love for us to pray together. And then follow through and ask specifically, how can I pray for you today? And pray for her. Or if the logistics in the house are a bit wonky, say, let’s plan a family meeting 7.30 to 8 p.m. on Sunday night so we can look together into the coming week. We can pray for each other. If there’s exams coming up, if there’s an interview coming up, what’s going on that we can be with each other in together? And let’s pray
for each other. Small areas of taking responsibility start by God’s grace, restoring godly authority. And that’s because, to borrow Pastor Wilson’s wonderful phrase, authority flows to those who take responsibility. It’s how God built the world. Authority does not flow by pointing to your place on an org chart while waving your hands around it. Even if it’s true, that’s not how it comes. It comes by
gladly, not grudgedly, taking responsibility for yourself and all the souls that God has placed under your covering. And here is something that’s important to have clear in your mind. And it’s the difference between responsibility and guilt. Responsibility and guilt are not the same thing. But as the head of home, you’re being responsible for everyone in the home
but it does mean that you’re responsible to correct, to shepherd, to pray for. Here’s another way that you can communicate I am taking responsibility for our home in a way that actually makes authority start to flow towards you in the way God designed. It’s by using we language when you address sins in the home. Using we language. You discover your child has been lying about something.
Don’t do that. That’s a bad idea. Instead, you say we have a problem with deception in our home that we need to address and we need to pray together to get our hearts clean together. You see how that lands differently? And it is not a small difference. It is the difference between how Satan addresses humanity and how Christ addresses humanity. Satan is the accuser.
He is the one who peddles in shame. His goal is to discourage and destroy, not Jesus. He addresses sin for the sake of restoration, for the sake of fellowship, and he already took responsibility for it on the cross for us. So deal with issues within your family like Jesus, the faithful covenant head, not overbearing, not finger pointing joyfully, faithfully, using we language.
Now another note before switching gears. Taking responsibility also means heads of home, future heads of home, you must put to death all grumbling and all complaining. You have to put to death all grumbling, all complaining. You must see it for the authority kryptonite that it is. Now grumbling is unbecoming of all Christians, men, women, teenagers, toddlers.
But it’s especially unbecoming ahead of home because leadership, headship, by definition, means bearing burdens for others. Leadership, by definition, means you’re the one who bears the burdens for their others. When a fog descends, you’re the one who sees light on the horizon and you cast a hopeful vision for the home.
The exact opposite about the issue. You say, it’s not fair, I’m not strong enough, and I don’t see any good way out of this. Well, let’s just say that does not inspire confidence in the rest of the household. Instead, we should always have Paul’s exhortation to the Corinthian men ringing in our ears because it’s for us as well. He tells them, 1 Corinthians 16, 13 through 14,
This is captured well in that great King Loon quote from The Horse and His Boy, which we love so much in these parts. He says this,
Now that’s playing the Christlike head. Eager, jovial assumption of responsibility for the good of your people, even when it gets tough. So that’s the word to the heads of home as we look to establish thick,
covenant, joyful community here. Now a call for all of us. Because we all, every one of us, have a role and a responsibility in strengthening our covenant bonds as a church that we might be a force for the kingdom for decades to come. And for this, I want to offer a metaphor that I hope to lodge in our collective imagination. And it’s that of being a Roman concrete church.
I want us to be a Roman concrete church. So what does that mean? What in the world? It doesn’t mean Roman Catholic. I promise you that. But it does mean a Roman concrete. And it comes from something that fascinated me. We were in Rome several months back. And I’m looking at these ancient, massive, awe-inspiring structures that are thousands of years old, 2,000 years old, like the Pantheon, for instance,
entire world that has withstood earthquakes for 2,000 years. How did it do this? Well, I did a little research. I was just wearing Grok out on this trip, trying to figure out how all this stuff works. And the reason Roman structures have lasted so long is because of a secret ingredient that they learned to mix into the mixture. When the mixture was incredibly hot,
clasps, lime clasps, and it would distribute small chunks of lime all throughout the concrete. And this is the secret to its resilience. When tiny cracks formed in the concrete, which was inevitable, water would start to seep into it, which inevitably happens. This is how deterioration happens. But this actually wouldn’t weaken their structures. It had the exact opposite effect. And here’s how.
This is an amazing thing. You can look it up later. I promise. This is real. It is incredible. And that’s how it stood for thousands of years. Because the cracks didn’t actually weaken the structure. The lime re-reacted, strengthening the structure. And this is a wonderful picture of the secret to longevity of a gospel-infused,
covenant-minded church. Because no matter how great a church is, no matter how solid her worship is, how lovely her liturgy is, cracks will happen. Saints still sin. People are going to people, no matter where you are. Someone will annoy you or disappoint you. They’ll say something that lands on a nerve ending. The honeymoon will wear off. Their feisty political engagement will make you uncomfortable.
Or your kids might have a squabble that causes a hairline crack in the fellowship. Or God forbid you find out that one of the parishioners actually gives candy to their children that has artificial dye in it. Or something like that. I mean something serious like this. These things cause squabbles in the church. Whatever it is, be assured in your time at Christ’s church. I’ll try to offend everybody by the end of it if I can. Your time at Christ’s church, someone will give you something to overcome. Just as you will give something.
Someone to overcome something. And this is why Paul commanded the Colossians in our text at the start. To bear with one another in the church. It’s not if you’ll have to bear with someone. It’s when. And this is why our covenant bond in Christ is such a blessing and such a protection if we will walk faithfully into it. It removes the exit ramps when a scuffle comes. Even more,
it turns scuffles into opportunities to strengthen the church like Roman concrete. And it’s because we have the ingredients of covenant-keeping love that the Spirit empowers us to show. Notice Paul’s language again. He says,
But it is not a vague, sentimental, theoretical love. It is genuine, covenantal, Christian love that has walked out in actual relationship. And in that Colossian text, Paul actually gives a very practical, on-the-ground way that love is played out in the church. If one has a complaint against another, forgive each other.
You also must forgive. Or to use the phrase we love around here as well, we must keep short accounts with each other. Just as Jesus keeps short accounts with us. Forgive as you have been forgiven. And this is how cracks become opportunities. Not to, not only keep us from crumbling, but to strengthen the structure. It’s because mature covenant community doesn’t happen by never having any drama.
It comes by actually choosing to honor Christ, by dealing with things like Christians. Either by pouring the gospel water of gentle confrontation, repentance, forgiveness, humility, or choosing to let love cover issues, if you can, which is a live option. See, I’ve been here for a few weeks, and I’ve been tremendously encouraged by the reports of how much you guys love Christ’s church.
I’ve been doing here. I’ve heard multiple people say, I just love this church. I’m so thankful I found Christ’s church. I love it here. And that’s great. But here’s what’s true. You’ll truly be able to say, I love Christ’s church. When a disturbance in the force comes, someone offends you, there’s a squabble, there’s a disagreement. And in Christian love, rather than finding the next closest church in town, you stay.
Work it out. That’s when you’ll be able to not just say, I love this church, but I have loved this church. And this is how these scrapes actually become a blessing. Because it gives us a chance to actually flex the muscle of Christian love. Because we do need practice here. We really do. It’s easy to think that you’re humble and patient and gentle and the picture of Christian charity when it’s 72 degrees
outside with a slight breeze and a cappuccino’s in your hand and the business is doing well and the kids are coloring while quietly reciting catechisms back and forth to one another in the background. It’s easy to say I am the picture of Christian love. The actual test comes when you’re provoked, when you’re put out by someone, when you’re sinned against, hurt feelings arise, misunderstandings flare, the business deal goes poorly between parishioners.
That’s the test. And the mature Christian, the Christian who pulses with Christ’s love by the Spirit, sees it as a Roman concrete moment. This is a crack that will not weaken us. By God, this is a crack that will strengthen us as far as I’m concerned. And beloved, this will bear witness to the watching world of the active, living power of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the power of His Holy Spirit who bears this fruit.
As our Lord said in John 13, 35,
for the mission that you have called us to, help us to pulse with true Christian love. And now we would pray the way our Lord taught us to pray.