Jacob Crouch

“I’m So Happy! I’m Going to Teach Children!”

My grandmother wrote this keen observation as she began her time preparing to teach children: “I quickly began reading and studying the teacher’s book, then the pupil’s book, then the teacher’s book – until I realized that I had forgotten the most important Book: the Bible. Believe me, I’ve started with that Book first ever since.” What a great reminder! The kids you teach need God’s word just like everyone else. 

In 1974, my Grandmother wrote those exact words in a magazine titled Children’s Leadership. Here’s the first sentence of that article: “Right now I’m so excited I can hardly concentrate on typing this article. You see, I’ve been asked and elected to teach children again next year!” This is the most quintessential Grandmother thing she could have written. As long as I knew her, she had a deep love for children. And she didn’t just love children, but she loved to tell them about Christ. I remember her talking to me after my sister had her first child. We were looking in the window at a newborn in the nursery and she said, “I wonder when he’ll give his heart to Christ.” Having recently come across some of her writings, and also teaching 5-year-olds myself this year, I wanted to share some encouragements from her about teaching children.
First, can we get onboard with her enthusiasm? You get the opportunity to teach children about the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ, and you’re bummed? We get to be among the first ones to plant those seeds that could grow into eternal life. We might be the first people to tell these kids words like justification. We are one stepping stone in the path that could lead to salvation, and that’s really exciting! When the children came to Jesus, He didn’t shrug them off like some major inconvenience.
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Addition by Subtraction

Christians, let’s be content with what we have. Let’s learn to be content in whatever situation we find ourselves. Remember, God has said that He will never leave us or forsake us. Let’s not seek contentment through adding to our possessions, but rather let us seek to add to our contentment by subtraction.

Have you ever noticed that somehow the richest people often seem the least content? Just this past week I saw an interview with a celebrity (two actually) who, at the height of his career, was the most unhappy he’d ever been. It’s amazing how those who have the most going for them, never actually seem to be content in their success. How does someone find contentment? Specifically, how does a Christian find contentment?
First, let me start by exposing what is our natural method of finding contentment. We start with a desire: a bigger house, more money, a better job. We assume that in order to find contentment, we must raise up our possessions to the height of our desires. “If I just had a better job, then I would be content.” Or maybe, “If my kids were more like this, then I would be content.” This is our natural tendency, and this is the way of the world. We think that contentment is gained by adding to what we have. But the Christian seeks contentment, not by addition, but rather by subtraction.
The Christian understands that the eye of man is never satisfied (Ecc 1:8).
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You Want People To Think Better of You Than You Deserve

What glory does God receive from our confession? First, confession is admitting that God is, “righteous in all his ways” (Psalm 145:17). Confession is glorifying to God because we are saying, “God, You are right, and I am wrong!” We are dethroning ourselves and coming to a right view of our sin. Second, confession glorifies God because when we confess our sins, we are acknowledging that only He can deal with our sin. 

A friend of mine once said, “You know why we don’t confess our sin? Because we want our lives to look like a George Muller biography.” What he meant was, we often fail to confess our sin because we so badly want to be perceived as strong in the faith. If we confess, then people will know that we are just as weak and sinful as the next man. And that kind of knowledge doesn’t work well with the image we are trying to maintain. It is an unfortunate fact that you and I want people to think better of us that we deserve.
The sad thing is, sometimes we get away with it. Sometimes we let the praise of men linger too long. We hear others speaking well of us, too well of us, and we love it. Sinful pride creeps into our hearts, and we begin to deceive ourselves and believe our own press. But deep down we know. We know that we are not good. We understand it theologically, but we also know it experientially. Even our best days are riddled with mixed affections and conflicted motives. Our willingness to hear our own praises, mixed with a lack of confession, presents a faulty reality to those around us. We set up a false image of ourselves for others to marvel at. And when we fail to acknowledge our shortcomings and allow people to think better of us than we deserve, we perpetuate a culture that lacks confession, sin remains undealt with, and ultimately God is not glorified.
A Culture Without Confession
When we fail to confess, others are less likely to confess. This same friend said to me, “It’s really hard to confess my sin when everyone around me just wants to go die for Christ.” Those extreme feelings of devotion are good and godly, but they’re not the whole truth.
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Order, Preparation, and the Spirit’s Leading

Believing that God moves in spontaneous ways is not unbiblical or sinful, but I think it has been overemphasized. The Spirit cannot be manipulated or placed under constraints (John 3:8), but a mark of the Spirit is that He works in an orderly fashion through means. He is the third person of the Godhead, meaning that whatever we see of God, we see of His Spirit. And if God is not a God of confusion, then we should expect for Him to most normally work through the orderly means of planning and preparation.

“Could you see how well that guy followed his outline? That dude was clearly in the Spirit!”
No one ever

Have you ever heard someone say that? I haven’t. Or what about this one? “That dude was really in the Spirit. Did you see how well-practiced the worship team was?” Normally, when you hear of someone being “led by the Spirit,” it is because that person was being spontaneous or bold or animated or loud. And where there is biblical precedence for the Spirit producing spontaneity (Luke 12:11-12) and boldness (Acts 4:31), I want to try to help balance the scales a bit on what “Spirit-led” preaching and worship can look like.
Spirit-Led Preaching
I often hear of preparation and planning for sermons in this way: “You want to prepare and plan your sermon out, but you need to leave room for the Spirit.” As I’ve already said, there is a place for willingness to be acted upon in the moment, but this type of language produces a false dichotomy between prayerful preparation and the Spirit’s leading. I want to push back here. Why is planning seen as non “Spirit-led”? This seems to be precisely the problem in the church at Corinth. They were really “spiritual” and had all kinds of things to prophesy about, but Paul tells them to stop the spontaneity and wait their turn (1 Cor 14:28). In other words, he wanted them to stop and think about it and carefully prophesy in order to help the church.
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Christian: You Have Peace with God

Don’t ever let it cease to amaze you that you, Christian, have peace with God. Don’t let another day go by still an enemy of God. Turn from your sin and trust in Jesus. He offers peace and reconciliation through His cross. May God be praised for His incredible grace.

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.Romans 5:1
I remember telling someone once that I was committed to reconciling with them. Their reply was, “I didn’t even know anything was wrong.” Sometimes that’s how it goes: You learn about a problem from someone telling you that they’ve found the solution. That’s the kind of thing that can happen when reading the Bible too. Paul tells the Romans something absolutely mind boggling. He says, “you have peace with God” (Rom 5:1). Before I get to how amazing this is, I want to tell you what this solution tells us about the problem.
War With God
For some, that verse might be the first time they’ve considered that they don’t have peace with God. “Wait a minute. Peace with God? Why would I need peace with God? I thought I was ok with God.” Wrong. Apart from Christ each one of us is at war with God. There is no one neutral with God. The Bible calls it enmity or war or rebellion. You are not just uninterested in God. You are at war with the living God.
And not only are you at war with God, but God is at war with you. You have broken his law. As R. C. Sproul famously said, you have committed cosmic treason against the King of the Universe. And God plainly tells us that the soul who sins will die (Eze 18:4) and that the wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23). God is a just Judge and is angry with the wicked every day (Psalm 7:11). God is not wicked so as to sweep your sin under the rug. He is just and will bring every deed into judgement (Ecc12:14). By nature you are a child of wrath (Eph 2:3). By default you do not have peace with God.
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It’s a Trap!

We are in a warfare that requires the prudent be on the lookout for evils to avoid. In your hearts, acknowledge the traps that are all around you. And if you really need to, say it out loud to shake you from your apathy and turn from the temptation. 

When I was in college, it’s very likely that people thought I was a little weird. Around 2008, I started to really seek the Lord. I had been saved a few years before then, but around that time I had someone show me that I could read and understand the Bible for myself. I was soaking up everything and growing like a weed. I was also a little weird (still am?). Put those two things together and you get an interesting outcome. Here’s what I mean: I used to wear one white sock and one black sock to remind me that the flesh warred against the Spirit (Gal 6). I made a little Bible carrying pouch to wear on my belt and called it my “sheath” for carrying around my “sword” (Eph 5). And if you were walking by me on campus, sometimes you might hear me exclaim, “It’s a trap!”
As anyone who has sought the Lord will tell you, the more you see of God, the better you see yourself. Specifically, the more you see of your own insufficiency.
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Lead Your Heart

The heart is deceitful and not worth following. Let’s replace a foolish heart-following with a bold and Biblical heart-leading. God gives us new hearts in Christ, and we are no longer bound to obey sin, so we can actually lead our hearts in a way that pleases God. 

It is popular to say (and mock) the cliché, “Follow your heart.” And while I’d love to mock the idea with all of you, I thought it might be better to provide an alternative. Honestly, it’s pretty easy to give the alternative, because the Bible gives the alternative. But before I do that, the Bible makes it plain that the heart is not to be followed. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick” (Jer 17:9). That deceitful heart is not to be trusted. So if we aren’t to follow our hearts, then what should we do?
Get a New Heart
The first thing that needs to happen is that you need to get a new heart. That old heart is deceitful and crooked. It doesn’t need to be reformed, it needs to be replaced. And by God’s grace, when someone turns to Christ for salvation, a spiritual heart transplant happens. “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh” (Eze 36:26). God has promised to remove that old, stony heart and replace it with a real, living heart. This new heart has new affections and new desires, and now has the capacity to respond to God in His word. If you don’t have this new heart, nothing else I say in this post will matter. So if you are not a Christian, stop here. The next bit of information is impossible without a new heart. Repent and believe the gospel. God always gives that new heart to those who turn from their sins and trust in the finished work of Christ.
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The Gospel of Genesis

God in justice dealt out curses because of Man’s disobedience. And within the curse of God towards the serpent we see HOPE. “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel” (Gen 3:15). God promised that there would be war between the serpent and the One that would come from Eve, but that seed of the woman would “bruise” the head of the serpent, though He Himself would be bruised. Death came because of sin, but God promised to destroy the devil and his work through the One to come.

I try to write short, concise pieces for my blog, but I would like to share something longer today. Can you handle it? Can you focus in for a few minutes longer to see something glorious from the book of Genesis? God, from the very beginning, has been revealing the gospel to His people, and I want to give you a glimpse into a tiny fraction of the glorious riches of Christ found in the very first book of the Bible.
Pre-Genesis
But before I do that, did you know that the gospel message was before the beginning? Before God ever spoke anything into creation, He had perfect Trinitarian unity with Himself, and He had all glory (John 17:5). He eternally existed as God over all things (Psalm 90:2). In this state, the Triune God waited to enact the gospel plan to save sinners through the death and resurrection of the Son, to the praise of His glory (1 Peter 1:20, Eph 1:4, John 17:24). So it should come as no surprise, that even “in the beginning” the gospel plan begins to be spelled out.
Genesis
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
Genesis 1:1
God is the Creator of all things who existed before the beginning. He created light, the heavens, water, land, plants, sun, moon, stars, sea creatures, flying creatures, land creatures… “Then God said, “Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness… So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them (Gen 1:26-27). In the next chapter we get a zoomed in picture of how God did this: “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. The LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed” (Gen 2:7-8). God gave mankind LIFE and FELLOWSHIP with Himself. God also gave a command to keep.
Gracious Command and Grievous Sin
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat…”
Genesis 2:16-17
God gave a very generous command. What gracious words: “freely eat”! But of one tree they were not allowed to eat. They were not allowed to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, “for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Gen 2:17). Despite the gracious words of God, we know the tragic story. The serpent deceived Eve, and Adam walked headlong into sin. “So when the woman saw that the tree [was] good for food, that it [was] pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make [one] wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate” (Gen 3:1-6). They broke God’s gracious commandment.
According to God, “the day that you eat of it you shall surely die;” but you might say, “I thought they hid themselves and were thrown out of the garden?” True, man and woman did not physically die in that day, though sin would surely bring about physical pain and death. There was a more serious death that occurred in their act of disobedience. “And you [He made alive], who were dead in trespasses and sin” (Eph 2:1). “For the wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23). Man became spiritually dead. They were air-breathing, heart-beating dead men. God had breathed into man, making him a living being and giving him fellowship with God. But now, because of man’s rebellion against his Creator, man was dead in sin and separated from God. Just as Adam and Eve hide themselves from God’s presence, so all sin separates us from God’s favorable presence. “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you, So that He will not hear” (Isa 59:2).
Hopeful Curses
God in justice dealt out curses because of Man’s disobedience. And within the curse of God towards the serpent we see HOPE. “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel” (Gen 3:15). God promised that there would be war between the serpent and the One that would come from Eve, but that seed of the woman would “bruise” the head of the serpent, though He Himself would be bruised. Death came because of sin, but God promised to destroy the devil and his work through the One to come.
Adam and Eve were separated from God because of sin, and they lost access to the tree of life and the presence of God (Gen 3:23-24). Yet the promised hope remained that One would come and to save. For now, Adam and Eve would live, work, and have children under the curse. And those children to be born would inherit something from their father: “And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth” (Gen 5:3). Adam was created with life in the likeness of God. After his sin and spiritual death, Adam had children in HIS own likeness, without life. And this progression continues on throughout the ages. Men have children in their likeness, with spiritual deadness inherited from their father Adam. “For as in Adam all die” (1 Cor 15:22).
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Is That Wise? A Test

The life that produces divisions because of bitterness, jealousy, selfishness, and ambition is not merely unwise, it is from the devil himself. Beware of bitterness; even it’s root “defiles many” (Heb 12:15). Beware of covetousness; it is idolatry (Col 3:5). Beware of the schemes of the devil, and don’t be ignorant of his schemes (2 Cor 2:11). True, godly wisdom is “from above”. It is from God himself. This wisdom is different from the world’s wisdom, because it produces “meekness” and a harvest of peace. When you reap the fruits of godly wisdom, brothers are restored, not divided. When you reap the fruits of godly wisdom, humility abounds.

Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom.But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice.But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.”
James 3:13-18
Solomon instructs us, in a variety of ways, to “be wise” (Prov 8:33 for example). But often I struggle to know what is the “wise” thing to do. In the book of James (along with the rest of Scripture), God has given us a litmus test of sorts to distinguish between what is true, godly wisdom, and what is earthly and demonic. To be sure, there are situations where wisdom will be more nuanced, but as a rule, the verses above describe what wisdom most naturally looks like. I want to spend a little time explaining the verses above and hopefully help us to better discern what is wise, and what is not.
Earthly, Unspiritual, Demonic
For the sake of this post, let’s think of a situation that requires wisdom. Someone comes to you looking for godly counsel.
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Promises So Certain

 I hope that you reach the end of your life and can say with Joshua, “I am about to go the way of all the earth, and you know in your hearts and souls, all of you, that not one word has failed of all the good things that the LORD your God promised concerning you. All have come to pass for you; not one of them has failed” (Josh 23:14).

Now Joshua was old and advanced in years, and the LORD said to him, “You are old and advanced in years, and there remains yet very much land to possess… Now therefore divide this land for an inheritance to the nine tribes and half the tribe of Manasseh”
Joshua 13:1, 7
Can you imagine promises so certain? The Israelites had wandered in the wilderness for 40 years because of their unbelief. God had promised them a land, and they refused to believe Him. Fast-forward and Joshua has brought them in and they have begun the conquest of Canaan. They had defeated king after king, but there was still work to be done. Joshua is too old to continue with the Israelites, so what is he to do? “…divide this land for an inheritance…”
Can you imagine promises so certain? Divide up the land. What land? The land you haven’t conquered yet, but the land that was promised.
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