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Renewing Your Mind
BONUS: Reflections on the Christian Life with Sinclair Ferguson, W. Robert Godfrey, and Ben Sasse
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- [00:00]
Ben Sasse
Jesus, obviously, as the Great Physician, came not for those who were well or for those who naively claimed to be well, but for those of us who admitted that we are sick by the work of the Spirit and the work of the law to convict our consciences. A Christian can't boast because all we can do is tell another beggar where the food is. We are not claiming that we are the author of the Harvest.
- [00:30]
Host/Narrator
Many of you may be familiar with former Senator Ben Sasse. In December of last year, he announced that he had been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer and had only months to live. You may also know that Ben is a Christian and an avid proponent of Reformed theology. He has benefited greatly from the teaching of Dr. R.C. sproul and Ligonier Ministries for decades. Since making his announcement last year, Ben has publicly shared how his faith in the Lord Jesus and his trust that God is sovereign and working all things together for good have been his comfort in this period of suffering. While attending a recent Ligonier event, Ben was gracious to host a question and answer session with Drs. Sinclair, Ferguson and Double D Robert Godfrey on the Lord's Day. They discussed a range of subjects including the importance of gathered worship, the way Christians can engage with culture, and more. So we are pleased to share that conversation with you on this bonus edition of Renewing youg Mind. Let's join them now.
- [01:34]
Ben Sasse
What are the best practices of the Lord's Day you see right now that you think could instruct us when we wish every Sunday afternoon could feel like 2:30 and 4:00 clock today in addition
- [01:45]
Sinclair Ferguson
to the morning worship we're going in age you first.
- [01:51]
Robert Godfrey
You'd think Sinclair youngster that he is wouldn't be so pushy. I think one of the disciplines to cultivate is appreciating what God has given us in our local churches. Not expecting every Sunday to be super full Sunday, but to look forward to the fellowship of God's people. What a wonderful thing it is to go to church and see smiling faces or frowning faces of brothers and sisters in Christ. To have that formal and informal fellowship, to be able to sing together and praise God together and then to hear the Word expounded to us. Many of us will have been in churches where the preacher is not as profound as Sinclair, but nonetheless opening the Word, speaking out of the Word is always a blessing and that's what we have to appreciate and cultivate. It seems to me morning and evening.
- [02:57]
Sinclair Ferguson
Yeah, so I began my Christian life with morning and evening worship. I think the sign I was being awakened was. I went to church twice. And evening worship has always been very important to me because my family didn't go to church. But about a year after I was converted, and to my astonishment, in a way, because I thought the Lord wasn't doing anything in my mom and dad, my dad said to me, can I come to church with you on Sunday night? So I've got kind of family memory reasons for loving Sunday night. And I think it's one of the great tragedies of the 20th century church, not least evangelical churches, that they've abandoned that. And one of the reasons the bigger churches have abandoned that. And I think what Bob was saying earlier on today is actually relevant about simplicity is because of the music, people think they couldn't do that twice on the Lord's day, as though they are even necessary for worship. So to me, I'm not sure I am mature enough to live the Christian life on the basis of one worship service and one sermon a week. And therefore I feel I need that. And also it changes. I think it changes the way you live the day. So I've had ministers say, well, you know, we want to give our own people time for their own spirituality. And I don't have the kind of personality Bob has. So I'm not in your face and saying, do you not think most of them are actually watching American football on Sunday night? That we're not. We're not helping people by land? So that to me is just those regular things. And while I'm almost as grungy as Bob, but not quite, I happened to see an interview recently where the person asked various people if they were to listen to one preacher for the rest of their life, who would it be? And they were all notables. And I thought, this is tragic that none of them is actually saying my own minister, because that's who I'm listening to. And I think I would want to say that I don't want to listen to me for the rest of my life. I wouldn't mind listening to Bob for the rest of my life. Actually, he's much better than he lets on.
- [05:29]
Robert Godfrey
I'm much better than I appear to be. Or sound is what he's saying.
- [05:34]
Sinclair Ferguson
And then I think how you spend the rest of the day is going to be somewhat more individual. It's going to, you know, you get older and you're not able. You don't have the same. You know, the battery doesn't last as long. You maybe need to lie down. Some are gregarious families, some are Quiet families. I don't think there's any regulation in scripture about that. But just being with God's people is such a treat, I think. And the mixture of them, and certainly as a pastor, often people in our congregations don't realize how much we are watching them. I think most people who sit in church don't realize the simple law of physics. If you can see me, I can see you. And I've always loved just what you can pick up from watching, the way some people with, like, huge intellectual gifts are just loving speaking to people who have very little education. And I think that's just part of the beauty of Christchurch and why we love it.
- [06:47]
Ben Sasse
How many of you are a part of a local congregation that has an evening service?
- [06:51]
Sinclair Ferguson
Raise your hands.
- [06:53]
Ben Sasse
So that's a lot more than I would have thought, but I still pegged that at about 27%.
- [07:00]
Robert Godfrey
Is that a sociological observation?
- [07:03]
Ben Sasse
For those of you who don't know, Bob has decided if he uses the word sociologists, it's an insult that somehow sticks me directly. I've never been a sociologist, so I feel like the dart slid by. But regardless, you should know that an attempted insult was leveled to the 73% who don't have a local congregation with an evening service. Advice on, not alternatives, but what you would do if you were for a year worshiping in that community. How would you spend the late afternoon, early evening hospitality, opportunities, other ways to assemble?
- [07:41]
Sinclair Ferguson
I think it's difficult for somebody who's been a pastor to advise people on how they can do something I've never had to do. And certainly neither of us is the fountain of all wisdom. Certainly I know Bob isn't. But, you know, I mean, many of the men here will be in positions of some influence in their congregation. And I do think, especially in some larger congregations I've seen, I think many elders are just frightened it's not going to be a success and we just have to hold onto the promise of Christ. If two or three are there, he will be there. The size doesn't matter, the band doesn't matter, the organ doesn't matter. As long as you have a decent presenter, even a decent presenter isn't going to be important, but that gathering together is. And I have been a bit like Bob since. His friendship has rubbed off on me. And sometimes I've been somewhere where the minister's gone on and on about the quality of their Sunday morning worship and I thought, well, in for a penny, in for a pound. And so I've actually developed a test for the quality of Sunday morning worship. And they're eager to know what it is, you can guess. It's the quality of Sunday evening worship. And they'll start talking to me about legalism and nothing in the New Testament of evening worship. And I say, well, it looks to me as between the resurrection and the ascension, it was the evening service that Jesus seemed to turn up at most frequently. But it's got nothing to do with law. You know, when I fell in love with someone who is now my wife, I didn't want to say to her, it's okay if we meet at 11 o' clock a week from now. I wanted to see her later on in the day. And I think it's just a matter of aspiration and desire. And if you have to start small, if your elders, your pastors are willing to take the risk, because there's no other way that it will ever take off than if you start.
- [09:54]
Robert Godfrey
At the Great Synod of Dorda in 1619, we look back and think these were the good old days, the golden age. At the synod Dort, the question was asked, do we have to hold the second service if hardly anyone is showing up? So it was a problem in the 17th century. And the Great Synod of Dort, in its nearly infinite wisdom, responded by saying, the evening service is to be held even if only the minister's family are in attendance. And out of that commitment, people began to come and people learned to come. And so I think one way of proceeding on this is to ask your minister, could we have some study discussion of what it means for Sunday to be the Lord's day, how the Lord's day relates to the fourth commandment, and does that influence the way we think about gathering maybe twice on Sunday for worship. So try not to be obnoxious, which Dr. Ferguson would say, try not to be like Dr. Godfrey. Try to be like Dr. Ferguson and be winsome, be encouraging. Say to your minister, you know, I'm not asking right now that we have three services on the Lord's day. I'm only asking that you think about two.
- [11:22]
Ben Sasse
Could you parse a little bit the types of preaching, the types of sermons, catechetical, expositional, et cetera.
- [11:31]
Sinclair Ferguson
I don't know whether this is right, but I thought I noticed something in American congregations I didn't notice in Scottish ones. And that is that people tend to be naturally more attracted if they know what it is they're going to learn. So saying we're going to do haggai in Sunday evenings was, well, you know, ho hum, but we're going to do X or Y that both provides instruction for the Christian faith and also direction for the Christian life. To be a wee bit more concrete, I think I found helped. And another thing, a lot of American churches, the senior minister preaches in the morning and the boys at night. And I felt in our church that was sending all the wrong signals, embarrassing though it is to think of yourself as the senior minister. And I think one of the things that made a big difference in our church was I actually. I opened my heart a wee bit to the people about what I was going to preach. And to be honest, looking back, Ben, I think it's the only series I ever preached in my life that I thought actually made a difference to the church as a church in distinction from individuals being helped by individual settlements. And it was a kind of last gasp effort because I'd been preaching in the evenings and the congregations had been growing. But it was kind of. I thought, there's only one thing left now, and I've got to open my heart a little to the people to say, as I did, I've never done the series I was going to do. I've never done this before with the congregation. And I did it at a time when I felt I had a close enough bond to them that they would realize that what was going to happen was not just me saying, this is important to you, but this is important to me. So I think, you know, the bond that you have with your people can make a huge difference.
- [13:43]
Robert Godfrey
One factor in the Dutch Reform tradition that I think is worth thinking about discussing is, is historically, it's been a requirement that one of the two services on the Lord's Day is a catechetical sermon, as we put it, a sermon following the Heidelberg Catechism. And some people say, well, you're not preaching the Bible. Some people say, doesn't it get boring if you do it over and over again? Yeah, both those things are possible. But what I've often thought is how important it is for ministers to give thought to covering the basics and the range of truth through the year for the congregation. So the Heidelberg Catechism, for example, contains an exposition of the Apostles Creed, of the Ten Commandments, and of the Lord's Prayer. And so it takes you through those foundational biblical and historical documents to think about the basics of the Christian faith. It means every year you hear a certain number of sermons on baptism and on the Lord's Supper. I greatly admire pastors who preach through books of the Bible, but you can preach through an awful lot of books of the Bible and never have a sermon on the Lord's Supper. And so I think it's very important that topics are covered. They need to be covered biblically, they need to be covered out of biblical texts. But I think that's something that churches really need to think about. How do we ensure that the basics of the Christian faith are regularly covered? And I always appreciate it if we're going to sing a hymn that we sing, for example, a trinitarian hymn or a explicitly christological hymn. Because if you're going to make any argument for hymnody, it's that those more clear New Testament teachings should be integral to our hymnody.
- [15:42]
Sinclair Ferguson
So, yeah, maybe I can add to that, Ben, because I was kind of reared in my student days on the notion that in the group of churches I belong to, we'd really recovered what they did at the Reformation. And so there was lectio continua preaching, that is, preaching consecutively through books of the Bible. And I didn't know except to take that in until I discovered that Calvin never thought that, even though he was preaching every day of the week, every second week. So he was really doing lectio continua, continua, continua, continua, continua. But there was also catechism. There were also other ways. And it kind of the penny eventually dropped into my mind that, as Bob said, you could preach for three years lectio continua and not be covering some of the most important things about Christian faith and Christian life. You'd be much better at speaking about this than I would. But I've really, really come to the conviction of how important it is that we teach our young people to live better, that is, as a Christian life is better, but also to think better than their contemporaries. And that is one thing catechism does. It teaches people to think from first principles. And some social historians, I wouldn't go as far as to say sociologists, but social historians have kind of concluded that the reason the Scots invented almost everything is because all these people had been catechized. And catechism not only taught them truth, from which some of them wandered, but it actually taught them how to think from first principles. And I think that has fallen out of education now. And youngsters amass phenomenal amounts of information. But the ability to think from first principles makes a young person stand out. And if you think from first principles, it's not so difficult to see through so much of the flim flam of what's happening in Our world today.
- [18:06]
Ben Sasse
Well said. I will not go to one of my hobby horses, which is the shortening of attention spans. We know we have tons and tons of data about the growing illiteracy in our time and place. But I will go back to Bob, you mentioned the Lord's Supper. One of the things that we lacked this morning, since we're not a particularized congregation, is we didn't get to celebrate the Lord's Supper. Melissa and I have two daughters in their mid-20s, and our son Breck just turned 15. As we head to church on Sunday mornings, as a part of catechesis, we're telling them what to look for. One of the devices we would use is we would say, there's a super injection of the Gospel coming three times in this service. There's more than that, but there's a moment where you're going to get to confess your sins individually and then corporately and afterward, the pastor is going to announce that your sins are forgiven and you are not under the condemnation of God. There's a super injection of the gospel. There's the sermon, super gospel explanation. And there is a moment when you are invited to the Lord's table and to come bringing, as Luther would say, nothing but the dung. We bring nothing to the table. In the exchange, we get to substitute our sin to Christ and his righteousness for us. When we look at those different moments of the Gospel in the service, all of them at the Supper come, Luther would say, only to the earth the gospel would come. It comes to all five senses. And Calvin obviously had a theory of how we should think about this. Could you reflect a little bit on how you would have a catechized congregation think about what is happening in the Supper?
- [19:41]
Robert Godfrey
Well, I was struck in Sinclair's most recent presentation where he talked about, what profit is it to us if we were to go up and bite Christ and drink his blood? Which obviously set my mind thinking about the Supper and the debates about the supper in the 16th century. And what exactly do we receive in the Supper? One of the things I used to do, because I am mean spirited, would be in class with the seminary to read to the students a statement from a confession. I said, now tell me what confession says this. And I would read the statement that says that in the Lord's Supper we received the true and natural body and the true blood of Jesus Christ. And that was easy for the students. They all said, that's the Roman Catholics. I said, no, Then they look mystified. And then they would say, oh, that's the Lutherans. And I would say no. And then they didn't know what to say. I said, that's the belgic confession, that's the Reformed confession. Now, what does it mean when we're saying we're communing with the body and blood of Christ? Well, I think John six is the great text that helps us think that through. I think what it really means is we're communing with Christ, who in his body and blood accomplished redemption for us. We're connecting with Christ, we're receiving Christ, he's giving us himself in the supper. And that's why it is a gospel moment, because Christ comes to us and he brings that promise not only to our ears, but to our eyes, to our hands, to our mouth. And it is reassured to us. It's not a different grace, it's not a greater grace, but it's grace in a different way to comfort and assure us that Christ is with us and Christ loves us and Christ is feeding us with himself.
- [21:46]
Sinclair Ferguson
Yeah, I think I've a long standing, lingering and now too late concern to be able to do anything about it, that the Lord's Supper has, in my tradition, always come at the end of the service when a lot has already happened. And I felt we're not spending enough time here just to enjoy this and to be able to enjoy it together. We wouldn't come to any other meal with friends, tuck in and get out of there as quickly as we can. And I've only once been able to dislodge the Lord's Supper from what you would call the end of the regular service. And if I were beginning again, I mean, I don't think I would try it when I was 23, but maybe by the time I was 43, if I'd been in the same congregation, I would try to introduce celebrations, administrations of the Lord's Supper, where we spent more time at the table. And I think, in a way, because, like, not in every Reformation tradition, and I don't know what the Dutch did, but in the Scottish tradition, people actually came to a table, so they still got the bill for the carpenters that would build the table and they would sit round the table. And I've experienced the administration of the Lord's Supper like this. Where you're sitting at a table, there's time, there's leisure, there's a little sermon. And it's magical is probably not a big theological word, but it really is a magical experience that we tend not to experience. And now in some places where you know, I've been in some big churches where the celebration of the Lord's Supper almost made my head stand upside down. It's been so ghastly. Unlike fellowship with the Lord and with each other. The other thing I've done. I'm sure Bob. Bob would need greater Christian liberty to do this. I've kind of eschewed the liturgy. I mean, the traditional. Can I sit on the other side
- [24:05]
Ben Sasse
of you, Ben, protect you?
- [24:08]
Sinclair Ferguson
I'm feeling the love just to be able to have a little more time for a few minutes that. Because the Lord's Supper is meeting Christ and Him meeting us. Just to be able to reflect on what it means to be in his presence and who he is and what you can do is endless. But for me, as a strategy, it's been a wee bit like drip feeding the blessings of coming to the Lord's table.
- [24:38]
Moderator/Prayer Leader
And
- [24:41]
Sinclair Ferguson
that's helped me just to be able to do that for myself. So that, I mean, I guess Bob. I assume it's the same for Bob. The Lord's Supper has just meant more and more and more to me in my Christian life. And I love what Robert Bruce, who was one of Knox's successors, said. You don't get a better Christ in the Supper than you do in the Word or a different Christ in the Supper than you do in the Word, but you may get the same Christ better that is better than you did, because he presents Himself to you, to all the senses, as you said, and not just to the healer. And so for me, celebrations of the Lord's Supper are real hand points.
- [25:28]
Ben Sasse
Can we bridge from there to eschatology a little bit the five senses? We need to be patient and contented with the earth overwhelmingly for this time. For we see by faith and not yet by sight. And yet there is a tree growing in heaven that reaches here. Talk about Calvin's pictures of what happens in the Supper.
- [25:54]
Robert Godfrey
You know more than I do.
- [25:56]
Sinclair Ferguson
Well, we all know that except me. I'm the one who knows. You know a lot more than I do.
- [26:08]
Robert Godfrey
Well, one of the really remarkable things that Calvin taught about the Supper is that whereas traditionally, in a lot of Christian thinking about the Supper, the emphasis was somehow on how Christ comes down into the bread. The stress of Calvin was the bread by the Holy Spirit lifts us up to Christ. So the communion really takes place for Calvin in heaven. And of course, a lot of people thought this was silly or excessively magical. Was the word excessively mystical? But that's what Calvin wanted to stress. Again, stressing the importance of the work of the Holy Spirit in this whole process, that it was the Holy Spirit bringing us to Christ and communing with Christ through the Spirit and by faith, not through. Well, through the bread, but not in the bread. And so that was an important picture, an important emphasis that Calvin wanted to have.
- [27:15]
Sinclair Ferguson
This touches me deeply because when I sat my theology finals, one of the questions was, discuss Calvin's view of the sirsum carda, lift up your heart. And it was really basic to his thinking. And part of the reason why he had such reservations about Luther, never mind Rome, was because he felt that was bringing Christ down. But Christ has once and for all ascended to the right hand of the Father, so that if we are to fellowship with him, that can only take place if the Holy Spirit bridges the gap between heaven and earth. And this is why I think for him, the ministry of the Holy Spirit was important in terms of general application of redemption, but was also really significant when we came to the Lord's table, that by the Spirit we're being lifted up into the presence of Jesus and we are communing with his real flesh and blood, because there isn't any other Jesus than the Jesus who dwells at the right hand of the Father in his exalted humanity. And so we really are embraced by him in his humanity for our salvation. And so you find that actually then even going, I mean, sometimes say the Puritans had no interest in the Lord's Supper, but they had a great interest in Lord's Supper. And Owen says at one point, you know, the truth of the matter is that all true worship is going to be experienced on earth by the Spirit, bridging the gap between earth and heaven. And so as like Hebrews 8:2, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, but we have. Hebrews uses the word leiturgos, which means the. The liturgical priest. That we have a liturgical priest in heaven who is conducting and leading our worship here on earth. And this is why we think when we gather together, we do actually gather with angels and archangels worshiping the Lord. And I mean, I've often pondered, I mean, the whole business about, is it hairstyles or veils or head coverings or whatever. And Paul says, you need to think seriously about this because of the angels. And often that is referred back to what happened in Genesis, that some people think are angels intermingling with humans. But I think it's got more to do with his consciousness that when we worship, when we're together, whether they're just two or three, Christ is there in the midst of us because we've been brought into his presence by the Holy Spirit. And in his presence there are also angels and archangels. And we need to be conscious no matter the number of where we really are. And when that happens, as you were hinting earlier on, when that happens, when the service is over, we are going out to live on earth as those who have tasted heaven. And that I think that injects a different atmosphere into the way we live.
- [30:48]
Ben Sasse
We are pilgrims, we are resident aliens. We are not yet home. Bob, I want to go back to your sermon this morning and in particular I liked the little picture when you said John is doing a lot more in his gospel than just adding to the synoptics. But he's also telling stories that haven't already been told through times in texts that people have. There's a debate in Judaism about how you make sense of all these Old Testament texts about the Messiah and how do you make sense of a suffering servant and a reigning king? And so some Jewish communities that take serious messianic promises think there must be two messiahs. And we think we have the answer. It's one Messiah, but it's two comings. And when we live between those two comings as Christians, we have as you when you went to Peter to deal with our desire for the eschaton to be here, now I don't wanna wait any longer. And so when you went forward to Peter, I thought you might go to him cutting off the ear in the garden of Gethsemane because he's ready to take on Rome. And I think when you said at the end of your sermon, we have to recognize that we are not called to violence. Obviously you could work as a, an executioner, you can work in the military, you can do a bunch of things, but that's in the kingdom of the left hand working at the hands of the state to restrain evil, not because it brings about the kingdom. We don't bring violence because we're not bringing heaven. I wonder if you would go further from what you said on your sermon this morning and then let Sinclair correct you.
- [32:28]
Robert Godfrey
Well, I have coming out from Ligonier soon, eight more lectures on church history. So I thought when I finished my lectures on church history in 2015, I was done and I little expected that there would be enough happening in church history in the next few years to justify an addendum to this series. I am persuaded and you don't have to agree with me, but you'll be wrong. I am Persuaded that we have lived through in the last 10 years a most remarkable moment in Christian history, where in America, Christendom has come to an end. I don't mean Christianity has come to an end, obviously not. But the legal establishment of Christianity in a way that coerced people in various ways to conform to Christian practice has amazingly come to an end in the west after about 1700 years. So we're living through a big deal, and it's not surprising that lots of people are surprised this has happened and don't know how to relate to this new world. So I've tried to think about it. One of the things that struck me going back to the New Testament, is that Jesus, with maybe the one exception of cleansing the temple. Well, that's why it's been on my mind. Jesus never is coercive in the Gospels. He's only persuasive. And I think maybe this is the model we have to think about now, in the time in which we live, that we have to give up on the temptation of coercion to force people to conform to Christian ideas, Christian ways of living, and we have to try to be persuasive. Being persuasive requires a whole different level for us of understanding, of thinking, of figuring out where they are and how we can connect with them. So I think this is a really critical moment in church history, and it's going to be very challenging for us. And we shouldn't be surprised by that. Some Christians are going to have trouble figuring it out.
- [34:54]
Sinclair Ferguson
Well, I'm not an American, but I think one of the things I appreciated about what Bob said this morning is I find it's very tempting for people who really struggle with what is happening to point back to great Christians. So the reference to the wars of religion in France, I mean, there were somewhere between eight and 10 of them, waves of them, and not just all because there were these militant Roman Catholics. The same would be true in periods in Scotland and in England. And it's very easy for people to point to great Christians in the past who were very militant, and to use that as a kind of leverage to say, you're just a bunch of wimps if you're not like that. But it seems to me to be very, very striking, as Bob was saying, how unlike that Christ was, how unlike that Paul was. I mean, it just very much strikes me the number of issues that there have been raised that have caused antagonism among evangelical and even reformed Christians in the last 25 years, that some people have never stopped and Thought, if I condemn him for saying nothing about that, then I'm surely condemning Jesus for saying nothing about that and Paul for saying nothing about that. And I need, therefore, to be much more cautious, try and work my way into the context in which they are living, and ask myself, I've actually felt this for many years now, that one of the kind of paradoxical, exciting things about being a Christian today is it actually feels a bit more like living in the New Testament, that we are a minority, that our views are not appreciated, that we do not have power. And then I think that when we look at the places where the gospel has spread with amazing power, it's actually been among people who have had no power, persecuted Christians in Korea, Japan, Africa, all these places. But because we have this history, we assume that we need this power for the gospel to grow. And therefore, I think there's a tendency for us to think that that power needs to be the way it used to be, as a kind of quasi political power. That said, Ben, many years ago now, when you were in the Senate, I heard an interview with you, and I thought, I hope Ben Sasse becomes president of this country one day. And it was because of the balance in what you said and the clarity of it and what seemed to me to be the biblical principles in it. And I think at the end of the day, that's what's going to win, not by intimidating people with power and the bigness of your argument, but by Sean Force. As I remember, the Romanian Christians wrote to Ceausescu saying, please stop persecuting us because we are the very best citizens you have. And that may be one of the great tragedies of evangelical Christianity in the United States, that evangelicals have not actually necessarily been the best citizens the country has had.
- [38:52]
Robert Godfrey
Yeah. Just add one little point relative to the French Reformation. It was the decade of the 1550s that saw the dramatic growth of the French Reformed Church. And in that decade, the French Reformed Church grew from really very tiny roots to being somewhere between 2 and 3 million members. That's remarkable growth in a decade. And at the end of that decade, in the early 1560s, many noblemen had joined the Reformed Church. Those noblemen, sort of in the nature of the case, took leadership in the Reformed Church and turned it political. And that political turn is part of what led to the wars of religion that began in 1562. And the French Reformed Church stopped growing at that point. When it moved from persuasion to politics, it stopped growing. And there are many reasons for all these things, but I think it reminds us that it's when we're suffering and trying to be faithful and persuasive that the Lord is more likely to bless than when we turn to the world's methods.
- [40:11]
Ben Sasse
I think of you getting choked up reading the text this morning, Bob, and I think of Sinclair, your great line that all boasting is now excluded. Jesus obviously is the great physician came not for those who were well or for those who naively claimed to be well, but for those of us who admitted that we were sick by the work of the Spirit and the work of the law to convict our consciences. A Christian can't boast because all we can do is tell another beggar where the food is. We are not claiming that we are the author of the harvest. And when you talk about this move to persuasion, there are more believers today in China under the oppressive CCP regime. But 1.4 billion Chinese, there are more believers there than there are in the US And I think it would be interesting for us to close by both of you giving a letter, sort of an open admonition to we have some Dutch folks with us. We have some Europeans, we have some Brits, we have a lot of Americans. Those of us who have had the myth of Christendom now have the opportunity of again recognizing ourselves to be weak because Jesus will accomplish his kingdom in due time, not because we are gonna adequately manage the power structures. And so curious as to what word each of you have for this generation as we close.
- [41:36]
Sinclair Ferguson
Ben, what comes to mind, and some people will have read me writing about this, is I think if you look down through the people who have been influential in history, almost none of us can name the person who was influential in their lives. And I think we need to understand that our own personal influence is not a matter of our own personal greatness or notoriety. That's one thing I think. Another thing is I've many years now been struck by the way in which I think Paul's theology was crafted out of the witness of Stephen. And I could spend hours, actually, I think, demonstrating that from Paul's preaching, but especially from his letters, and not least from him describing to the Corinthians how lives become fruitful when he says death works in us and life works in others. And I think the place where he learned that, he saw that in Christ, but more proximately he saw that in Stephen. But actually his own life is woven by Luke in the Acts of the Apostles, into what he must have seen in Stephen. And I think Paul is really saying that is Christ's way, or to put it another way, that was the Father's way with His Son. And therefore we ought to be able to conclude that will be the Father's way with us all, that it's not strength and power and position at the end of the day, but being molded into the image of Christ that ultimately will bear most fruit. And I think when you see that, you. You just live out your Christian life in an antagonistic world in a completely different way. Instead of kicking back, you think you have no idea that by your opposition you're actually in the process of sanctifying me or by demeaning me, that you're actually producing situations in which people will see Christlikeness. In my response, so that the Lord's ways and our ways are not characteristically the same.
- [44:20]
Robert Godfrey
Well, as I've gotten older and grumpier, the thought keeps coming to my mind, how can it be that the church is such a mess in our time? And it has finally dawned on me, because I'm slow, that Christ makes the church a mess so that we depend on him. Not on our wisdom, not on our structures, not on our theology, not on our catechism preaching, not on all the things we try to put in place to make ourselves strong and faithful, good things, things we need to work on. But Christ shakes it up, I think, so that we have to turn back to Him. And we used to sort of jokingly say at the seminary, not we. I used to jokingly say at the seminary, I shouldn't blame the seminary. When all else fails, trust the Lord. And that sort of describes in many ways, the way we live, isn't it? We try to find things to trust. We try to find structures and things that we can rely on. And the truth is, nothing in this life can ultimately be relied on. And so Jesus brings us back to Himself, and it's a good thing.
- [45:43]
Moderator/Prayer Leader
Amen. Amen.
- [45:46]
Ben Sasse
Mr. Larson.
- [45:48]
Moderator/Prayer Leader
Thank you, brothers. Before we get away from this time, I'd like to ask if there are any pastors or elders present, if you could come forward. And let's just close this time in prayer for Ben, for his family will come up and lay hands on him. So just take a moment, and then, Sinclair, if you would pray for us. So take moment. Come on up.
- [46:22]
Sinclair Ferguson
Lord, we thank you that you are our Heavenly Father and that you know what is best for your children. Thank you that we can commit ourselves to you. And we thank you that this afternoon we are able to put our hands on our dear brother Ben. And thank you for the Gift that He is to us more for the gift that he is to his family, for the gift he is to the country that he served, to the institutions that he served. But chiefly the gift that he has been to you, our beloved Jesus. From your Heavenly Father, we thank you. That you love him because your Father gave him to you. That you have kept him because you love him. And that he is bound to you because your Holy Spirit works within his heart. And we place our hands on him today and gather around him as brothers and sisters in Christ to pray that by your Holy Spirit you would sustain him and in your mercy keep him. That you would make his life shine for the Lord Jesus, that others may be drawn to Him. That in the bond he has at home with family that you would give to them a sense of supernatural sweetness and grace. We're bold to pray that in your mighty power you might do wonderful things for them and in Him. And we commit him to you. Thank you. That even those of us who know him little love him much. And for this bond of grace, this reality that, yes, we can sing, that heaven came down and glory filled our souls. But what we mean is that by your Holy Spirit we were brought up to heaven and had these precious moments together. In anticipation of your final revelation of glory. We pray our Father, that the Lord Jesus will be more and more precious to Ben, to his family, to those who especially know and love him in his church. And as we regard these moments as sacred and would wish that they would just last forever in your presence, we do bind ourselves together to uphold them and to pray for him. And we pray that in your mercy you might do hitherto unexpected things in his spirit and in his body and sustain him in the life that you have given to him and in the life that he has lived for you and for us. So we confess our love for you. We confess our love for him and in and through him, our love for his family. Pray that you would be with him as you have promised and that you will never, ever leave him and never forsake Him. And we pray this in our Saviour's strong name.
- [49:59]
Moderator/Prayer Leader
Amen.
- [50:08]
Host/Narrator
Amen. What a remarkable thing it is to witness a Christian who is determined to glorify God in the midst of great suffering. As you just heard, Dr. Sinclair Ferguson pray. We rejoice in the knowledge that the Lord Jesus has promised never to forsake any of his beloved children. We are grateful that you could join us for this conversation with former senator Ben Sasse. I'm grateful that our God uses the prayers of his people to accomplish his purposes in the world for our good and for his glory. And in the coming weeks, we will certainly be keeping Ben and his family in our prayers. Thank you for joining us for this special episode, and I hope you'll make plans to join us again next time here on Renewing your Mind.