Grosey's Messages

Lord's Day 21

Q. What do you believe
concerning "the holy catholic church"?

A. I believe that the Son of God

through his Spirit and Word,1
out of the entire human race,2
from the beginning of the world to its end,3

gathers, protects, and preserves for himself

a community chosen for eternal life4

and united in true faith.5

And of this community I am6 and always will be7

a living member.

1 John 10:14-16; Acts 20:28; Rom. 10:14-17; Col. 1:18
2 Gen. 26:3b-4; Rev. 5:9
3 Isa. 59:21; 1 Cor. 11:26
4 Matt. 16:18; John 10:28-30; Rom. 8:28-30; Eph. 1:3-14
5 Acts 2:42-47; Eph. 4:1-6
6 1 John 3:14, 19-21
7 John 10:27-28; 1 Cor. 1:4-9; 1 Pet. 1:3-5

Q. What do you understand by
"the communion of saints"?

A. First, that believers one and all,
as members of this community,
share in Christ
and in all his treasures and gifts.1

Second, that each member
should consider it a duty
to use these gifts

readily and joyfully
for the service and enrichment

of the other members.2

1 Rom. 8:32; 1 Cor. 6:17; 12:4-7, 12-13; 1 John 1:3
2 Rom. 12:4-8; 1 Cor. 12:20-27; 13:1-7; Phil. 2:4-8

Every November 1^st is All Saints' Day, a critical moment in the life of the church. Why exactly? That should be an odd question to ask, shouldn't it? In the The Apostles' Creed we confess, 

"I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints..."

Why All Saints' Day? We believe in the church and that church is catholic. In society today, death is often that termination point which severs the living from the dead. Not so in Christianity, at least classical Christianity. There is a cord of participation between the living and the dead, so that we participate in the communion of those saints before us. Listen to the Book of Common Prayer and the way it instructs us to pray on All Saints' Day:

Almighty God, you have knit together your elect in one

communion and fellowship in the mystical Body of your Son:

Give us grace so to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and

godly living, that we may come to those ineffable joys that you

have prepared for those who truly love you; through Jesus Christ

our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns,

one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

Did you know that a day is coming when you and I will stand side-by-side in the communion of the saints as that mystical Body and together we will gaze at the beauty of our Lord? Yes, we ask for grace now to "follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living," but that grace is for a purpose, namely, that we may participate in all of the "ineffable joys" God has in store for us. Our joy will one day be complete in the Beatific Vision

Why 380 million Christians are being persecuted

Whenever stories of innocent suffering make headlines, I wonder if I should once again write on the perennial issue they raise: How can an all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful God allow such evil to exist? Even though I have done so often in books and articles, the question persists because the issue persists.

And the closer to home it strikes, the deeper the doubts it raises.

Today, let's take a different tack. As I noted yesterday, Halloween week seems an appropriate time to discuss Satan and his strategies. And causing innocent suffering is one of his most nefarious activities.

Jesus called him "a murderer from the beginning" (John 8:44), one who comes "only to steal and kill and destroy" (John 10:10). Note the word "only"—everything the devil does expresses one or more of these three actions.

He can cause natural disasters (cf. Job 1:12–19) and disease (Job 2:7) and inspire sinful acts against God's people (cf. Luke 22:3–6). Because he cannot attack our Father, he attacks his children (1 Peter 5:8–9). Consequently, according to Open Doors, more than 380 million Christians are suffering persecution and discrimination around the world today. As John Stonestreet notes, such persecution affects one in five Christians in Africa and two in five in Asia.

As you can see, much innocent suffering in the world is caused by Satan. But you may be asking: Why, then, does an omnipotent God allow the devil to act in such horrific ways?

Here's one factor: the deeper our suffering, the greater our transformation when we trust it to our Lord.

Surviving the Bataan Death March

Our Bible study teacher last Sunday recommended Bill Keith's Days of Anguish, Days of Hope, which tells the incredible story of Chaplain Robert Preston Taylor's experience as a POW in World War II. Reading it was a deeply moving experience, especially since my father experienced the horrors of war in the South Pacific as well.

Rev. Taylor, with an earned doctorate from Southwestern Seminary, was an established pastor in Fort Worth, Texas, when he sensed God's call to devote a year to military chaplaincy on behalf of American soldiers in the South Pacific.

He was serving in Manila when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. They soon assaulted the Philippines as well, taking Taylor and more than twenty thousand other Americans captive. He was subjected to the Bataan Death March, three and a half years of horrific imprisonment, and unspeakable torture and deprivation. When he was finally liberated at the end of the war, he learned that his wife had thought he was dead and remarried.

Early in his captivity, Colonel Alfred Oliver, chief of the Philippine chaplains, said to Dr. Taylor and the other chaplains imprisoned with him, "Men, I want us to pray and thank God for the confidence he has placed in us by letting us be in this place at this time." The wisdom of such confidence was soon revealed: God used them to spark a spiritual revival in their prison camp that touched thousands of lives and became known across the region. Soldiers who began the war with no spiritual interest became deeply devoted believers in the midst of their suffering.

Colonel Oliver said to his fellow prisoners,

"Men, I've learned never to doubt in the darkness what I believed in the light."

Because he and his fellow chaplains experienced such deep darkness, the light of their faith was transforming for thousands. And God continued to use Dr. Taylor: he was ultimately promoted to Air Force Chief of Chaplains with the rank of Major General.

"Thank God I'm not the one in charge"

What Joseph said to his brothers, every Christian can say to Satan when he does his worst: "You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good" (Genesis 50:20). The greater our suffering, the greater our impact when we trust our pain to our redeeming Lord.

The old hymn therefore rightly declares:

The powers of darkness fear,

When this sweet chant they hear,

May Jesus Christ be praised! . . .

The night becomes as day,

When from the heart we say,

May Jesus Christ be praised!

Cybersecurity has a term for its hooded hackers – they're called "bad actors." You can now read how government and online communities are plagued by "bad-faith actors." In lay terms, these are people who do mean and selfish things. What's fascinating is that the preferred shorthand for these villains is a type of actor. It infers they are playing a role, rather than actually being bad themselves. 

Language reflects culture; in this case, a culture that has abandoned the category of sin. We can admire the impulse toward linguistic restraint. It stems from a moral reasoning that avoids judgmentally-sweeping statements about a person's character. We often don't know enough about a person to assign them a moral category. All we know is that here, in these particular places and times, this person acted badly when they scammed people for millions of dollars.

Though moderation is healthy, the philosophy behind this terminology, however, is based on a desire to separate being and doing. We have to make moral judgments and call certain actions bad, yet we refuse to imagine a world where someone (including me!) might actually be bad. We believe the humane and humble attitude is to assume that everyone, deep down, is really good. We just act bad from time to time. 

The trouble with this, of course, is that as long as people subscribe to a "bad actor" perspective, they'll be shocked and confused by those bad actions. It will appear as if people are continually breaking out in random anomalies of destructive insanity. Describing people as "actors" implies a dangerous detachment from the outset. It's the idea that my behavior (my words and deeds) is some outward performance that may or may not be linked to my always-good inner person.

Into this confusion, Tim Keller's latest book – "What Is Wrong with The World?" (Zondervan, 2025) – serves as a gentle guide of counter-therapy. It provides categories to help people in the 21st century understand sin not as some archaic religious points system, but as a complex cancer that explains my deepest problems – why I am unhappy, addicted, and stuck in dysfunctional relationships.

It is easy for a seminary-trained pastor to circumnavigate a text with sound theology and then pull on some general redemptive thread – "This is sin. We sin in a similar way. Jesus died for that. Trust Jesus more." We can trace through a progression of covenants. We can connect to Jesus' threefold fulfillment as prophet, priest, and king. What all of these protect us from doing, however, is the hard and painful work of heart-reckoning. 

One of Keller's greatest preaching strengths was his steady and patient hand as a spiritual surgeon. He took the time to cut deep instead of prescribing the pills of pat answers. Based on a series of sermons Keller preached in the 1990s, "What is Wrong With the World?" does this slow work of reflecting on human nature to show why sin is still the issue. We may start by seeing ourselves as "occasional bad actors," but if we're willing to do an inward dive, we will discover a heart poisoned by sin. It's only when we find that root problem that we can do real repentance and then get real healing. 

 Keller identifies several thematic lenses the Bible uses for portraying sin, and they can surprise us enough to change how we see ourselves. Sin is a predator, self-deception, leaven, mistrust, self-righteousness, leprosy, slavery, and pride. If we have eyes to see it, we will notice that our lives are riddled with sin. 

But I don't want to merely observe this phenomenon like a disinterested scientist. I want to practice what Keller is preaching and do the work on my own heart in order to find healing. 

I'll start with a sin that comes naturally to me: self-righteousness. I'm a pastor, which though a noble calling, also gives me plenty of reasons to view myself as more righteous than others. It is a thought I harbor though it's not something I would verbalize. My calling requires me to sacrifice time and money for God. I spend hours studying the Bible and caring for other people. I might not be perfect, but I've got the inside track when it comes to holiness. 

That's self-righteousness. That's sin. Self-righteousness is one of the easiest ways sin creeps into the hearts of those in ministry. And it doesn't stop there.

I'm a pastor in a particular denomination, in a particular church, with a particular vision and values. Those can be more layers of self-righteousness. Being in the PCA is the right denomination. I am one of the few church leaders who have struck a perfect balance between high church and low church, between living in the freedom of grace and the constraints of God's law, between robust theology and a love for people. We're doing it right! We're part of the inner ring. We don't say it, but we all know we stand a few spiritual inches taller than everyone else. 

In one of his sermons, Keller notes that one of the first signs of repentance is that your sense of humor starts to return. You're able to laugh more quickly and easily at yourself, and then you discover more healthy laughter more often (instead of sickly snickering). When you place the burden of fixing you onto Jesus, you become less fragile. Instead of taking your failures so personally, you take them to Christ. You can be so much more than a bad actor; you can be a bad person. But on account of Christ, you can still live with comfort and confidence.

We never stop needing to repent because we never stop grabbing for self-righteousness. Just like Harold Abrahams in "Chariots of Fire," I wake up every morning training for some sprint in which I hope to save myself—the "ten lonely seconds to justify my whole existence." In "What is Wrong With the World?" Keller defines sin as merely "putting our roots into something besides God" (59). And roots are always growing, and new ones are always beginning.

Here's some diagnostic questions Keller suggests to find sin in your life:

• "What do you worry about most?
• What scares you the most?
• What would make you feel like you didn't have substance anymore, or that your life wouldn't be worth living?"

What other religions are you practicing?

Keller spends so much time identifying the problem because the solution (repentance and intimacy with God) happens more quickly and easily the better you get at identifying the problem. You will never get to repentance if you do not see anything you need to repent of. 

Do you still sin? Of course you do. We have no problem admitting that. But let's press on from doctrinally acknowledging this reality like it's the hypostatic union. Let's engage in the healing heart work of seeing specifically where you and I want to put our hope in something other than Jesus. Then let's walk through the daily process of repentance so we can enjoy intimacy with God. 

As we engage in that process ourselves, we will have more relevant and powerful gospel hope to share with others. We will know what's wrong with the world because it's the same thing that's wrong with us. And you will have a solution that didn't come from way back one time in Bible camp, but one you received yesterday.

1. The enemy wants you to stay unforgiving so your prayers are hindered. Jesus' words were clear here: "And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven will also forgive you your wrongdoing" (Mark 11:25). Satan delights in anything that harms your own walk with God and halts your prayers. 
2. Your bitterness is sin. When you stay angry and unforgiving, you are living in disobedience. That sin has a way of becoming a foothold, and then a stronghold – even while you deceive yourself that your continual anger is just. 
3. Your stronghold of bitterness can quickly become an idol. If you choose to stay bitter when God demands a change of heart, you are choosing to serve your emotions over God's command. You may not have a carved idol sitting on a shelf in your living room, but you're just as much an idolater.  
4. You carry the bitterness wherever you go. Even when you separate yourself from the person who's offended you, the bitterness resides in you—and affects the rest of your life. 
5. Your bitterness affects every other relationship you have. Few of us are so intentional and strong that we can compartmentalize every relationship. Your bitterness affects all your relationships, even if only by others seeing your continual anger. 
6. Even stifled bitterness is still present in you. You may have pressed it down, but all someone needs to do is "push the right button" in you—and all that anger rises to the surface again. It's still there, slowly eating a hole into your soul. 
7. Our sinful egos naturally protect our "right" perspectives. Few people want to admit their own failures, especially when someone else has clearly been in the wrong. So, we refuse to forgive rather than even suggest that we may have been wrong. 
8. Bitterness hinders living in faith. Bitterness usually looks backward, but faith looks forward. It's hard to look in that latter direction with hope when bitterness has captured you.
9. Bitterness opens the door to other sin. That's just naturally the case—one unforsaken sin dulls our senses to the work of the Holy Spirit, and other sin begins to invade our lives. 

If you are holding on to bitterness today, I encourage you to repent and ask God to change your heart. Holding on to bitterness is not worth the cost. 

1. Has someone deeply hurt me or one of my family members? Many of us must answer "yes" to this question – which means that we also must (or have had to in the past) decide what we will do with our pain. Thus, we must ask the following questions, too. . . . 
2. Do I still get angry or anxious when I think about that person? The pain may be so recent that you've simply not fully worked through it yet, or it might be that you're just holding on to it because you feel justified in doing so.  
3. If that person has already passed away, am I justifying my continued anger? He or she's gone, so what's the big deal about dealing with your feelings now?  
4. Do I quietly hope that that person also hurts like I have? That's a harsh question, I know, but I've known people who would only "forgive" after their offender also experienced some kind of similar pain.  
5. Would I help that person if he or she needed ministry? An unwillingness to serve a perceived enemy is an indication of a disobedient heart. 
6. Can I pray for that person? I don't mean a "may God get you" prayer, of course. If that person is a non-believer, can you pray for him or her to be saved? If he or she is a believer, can you pray that God will use him or her for His glory?  
7. Would I be frustrated if God blesses that person? If you would dare wonder what God would be thinking if He blessed your enemy, your heart is out of tune with Him. 
8. Would I probably avoid that person at church this weekend? If so, you know you still have some forgiveness work to do.  
9. Am I willing for this post to confront me and convict me? What you do with this post will show you something about where you are. Increased anger is a sign that you need the Lord to keep working on your heart this weekend.