When We Use Finishing Tools On Demo Day

“We urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all.” 1 Thessalonians 5:14

That’s tough, isn’t it? It’s difficult to use the right tool for the right job. It’s so easy to get busy and frustrated and end up doing something dumb and immature–like using a sledge hammer on a finishing nail. In these moments we put on a prophetic edge when we probably should have been a bit more pastoral. We chide when we should have been comforting.

But there is an equal temptation on the other side of this. We can also pamper when we ought to be prophetically proclaiming. In these times we are trying to pick up our finishing tools when it’s still demo day. There are some things we shouldn’t be moderate about. There is a time for no longer deliberating but to act upon the sure foundation of God’s Word. We coddle when we should be striving for conviction.

This is a tough balance and it takes biblical wisdom to know how to walk this tight rope. If you use the wrong tool at the wrong time we can wreak some serious havoc. Paul warns us of this much in 1 Thessalonians. It shatters community when we go about beating our struggling and hurting brothers with truth grenades and sledgehammers. Likewise it weakens our body when we call for moderation on issues which aren’t muddy.

I appreciate these words of Richard Sibbes:

And yet often we see a false spirit in those who call for moderation. Their doing so is but to carry their own projects with the greater strength; and if they prevail they will hardly show that moderation to others which they now call for from others. And there is a proud kind of moderation likewise, when men will take upon them to censure both parties, as if they were wiser than both, although, if the spirit be right, an onlooker may see more than those that are in conflict. (Sibbes, 30)

I thought of this quote after preaching on Sunday. I thought of it because I spoke very passionately about the need for not having a party spirit. In preaching on Exodus 2:11-25 I said something like this:

This is what happens when we try to solve things on our own and in our own way and in our own wisdom. When we use unholy methods to try to accomplish holy ends. We lose our moral authority to speak into things. When we identify ourselves with evil and evil actions we lose this ability. The most persuasive church is the one that looks the least like the world. The one that is radically centered on Jesus Christ. The one that is not tied to anything except for Jesus. The one which can speak into the evil from the Left and evil from the Right. We cannot sell this birthright for a pot of stew. We can be zealous like Moses and have the heart of a deliverer…to have your heart in the right place…and set your rescue mission back 40 years. Moses has the disposition of a deliverer but not yet the dependence of one. For, it is only God who can accomplish this rescue mission.

Was I guilty of Sibbes’ moderation? Or was I simply taking a prophetic posture? As I’ve thought about it I think, at least in this instance, it was the former. And what motivates me to say this are words from Zack Eswine. In Preaching to a Post-Everything World, Eswine says, “what drives prophetic feeling and imagination is concern for covenant faithfulness to God and neighbor. The prophets are passionate for relational faithfulness. Double love stirs the prophet’s heart” (121).

So that’s why, for that moment during the sermon on Sunday, I took up the tone of the prophet. I believe that is the tool the job called for. I see far too many of us selling our birthright for a pot of political stew. I see us calling for moderation only when it serves our political ends and taking what we assume is the prophet’s tone when we are good and fired up towards our enemies. But neither are biblically faithful. The prophet isn’t partisan. He’s tied to the word of God alone. And that’s a sword that doesn’t merely hang on the wall of any party. It cuts us all.

My aim in writing this is to give an example of the difficulty of knowing how/when to use each tool in the preacher’s took kit. And, frankly, I’m better at using some than I am at using others. But none of them should remain on the shelf. And that’s my point. When we call for moderation we should check our hearts and make sure we aren’t guilty of the type Sibbes referenced. Likewise, when we take up the prophet’s tone we should check our hearts and make sure that what has us boiling is a passion for kingdom faithfulness and love for our fellow man.

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