Moses’s sin and mortality made it so he could not finish the job he had spent most of the latter years of his life working toward. We are not all that different. The Lord has given us all work to do in this life and for his Kingdom. Though we may all do a decent job sometimes, we all struggle with our own sinfulness. And even though we are justified in Christ Jesus, we too will someday face death.

God’s promises to Moses came true, but only after his death. This truth should encourage us because God’s promises to us do not die when we die. Joshua chapter one opens by telling us that Moses was dead and Joshua was to take over and lead the people into the promised land. Moses had worked for 40-plus years leading the people. The Lord had even promised Moses that the people would enter their rest, but Moses never saw it.
Through the work of the Lord, Moses’s leadership was awe-inspiring, and he was extremely humble on top of it all. However, one day, he sinned against the Lord and struck the rock instead of speaking to it so that the Lord could provide water for his people. It may seem like a little thing to us, but it was a direct affront to God. Because of this, God said Moses would not go into the land with the people.
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As Christians, because we believe God greatly values the inner life of man, it’s a little easier to make peace with the physical peaks we face. Our aging bodies are calling cards from heaven to remind us of Who awaits us. But, lately, it’s the looming peaks in my inward life have caught me off guard. It seems as if some of me is fading away. My mind is slower. What I thought were inward strengths are not so strong.

Years ago, I wrote an article entitled, “You Don’t Peak with Jesus.”  I wrote it in the thick of our homeschooling days, as I was learning how to teach my children how to be curious.  My point was that in God’s created world, we never “peak” at knowing all there is to know because our Maker is infinite and He has put eternity in our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11). Writing that article helped me evaluate our little homeschool less with academic standards and more with a sense of wonder and curiosity. In those full days of home life, we sowed and sowed, and in my heart, I was expectant in the potential.
Potential is a powerful motivator. When we’re young, we set out with a vision to refine what God has given us. It’s a natural inclination: He planted this seed-vision in man when He told Adam to take dominion over the earth. It’s the same principle found in Jesus’ parable of the talents. We are to be active stewards, investing and developing our gifts according to the measure of grace He gives.  Sowing in the early years was much like sprinkling a bag of mixed wildflower seeds on fallowed ground (some with abandon!) and waiting to see what would take root. As a young woman, wife, and mother, the expectation of what could be was the excitement in our life’s adventure.
Skip ahead a few years.  Now, my homeschooling adventure is almost complete. God will complete His work in my children as He promises. Their lives still teem with potential. But what about mine?  While the premise, “You Don’t Peak with Jesus” is still true, lately I find myself on some mountains with the sun behind me rather in front. And it’s a strange, disorienting feeling.
It’s not like I didn’t see it coming. Time has an unforgiving nature, applied to us all because of Adam’s choice.  Just one look in the mirror or a brisk walk reminds me of his folly. Scripture, always honest with me, confirms what I experience: we are “outwardly wasting away.” While our bodies have value, they are only “jars of clay” holding the inward treasure of knowing Christ and His grace (2 Corinthians 4). For us women, the scriptures specifically remind us that “beauty is fleeting” and to adorn ourselves instead with the unfading inward beauty of meekness and a quiet spirit (Proverbs 31, 1 Peter 3).
As Christians, because we believe God greatly values the inner life of man, it’s a little easier to make peace with the physical peaks we face. Our aging bodies are calling cards from heaven to remind us of Who awaits us. But, lately, it’s the looming peaks in my inward life have caught me off guard. It seems as if some of me is fading away. My mind is slower. What I thought were inward strengths are not so strong. My motivations pulse weaker. Perhaps some skills are as honed as they will ever be. Perhaps some dreams will never be real. What I have stewarded as Potential has moved into the realm of What Is.  As I cross into this realm, it is as if I’m tottering on the fulcrum between young men’s visions and old men’s dreams.  I’m off kilter, trying to find my balance.
Thankfully, Scriptures refer to man’s soul as the imperishable inner part of who we are, not those things that are unseen in us. God values our inward soul so much that He came as Emmanuel and He sacrificed His physical body as an exchange for our hearts through forgiveness of His shed blood. His command to “keep your heart…for from it flow the springs of life” is a command to steward that for which He gave His life (Proverbs 4:23). So, the ultimate stewardship we have, regardless of age, ability or season, is to steward our souls with all vigilance.  Other stewardships come and go.
As I seek my balance in these middle years, I remind myself that the principle “We Don’t Peak with Jesus” is still true. My soul will never peak. My body, yes. My mind, yes. And at some point, everything else. But not my soul. The one constant stewardship throughout every season is to “keep my heart” and be loyal to the One who has brought me thus far. The beautiful paradox in the command to “keep my heart” is that the keeping of my heart is not a stewardship of Potential. My heart is wholly, eternally and irrevocably hidden in Christ’s complete and perfect stewardship of What Is.
I’m grateful for my old friends Peter and Paul who faithfully point me to that “better country” still far off and remind me that this life’s temporal downhills are its spiritual assents, where I learn to shed the layers I have relied on for the journey home. The Good Shepherd whispers for me to trust His rod and staff so His comforting presence can steer and steady me as He leads me into new country. So, I step out, more and more by faith and less by sight, trusting more in my Savior’s stewardship of me than in my own—a stewardship that is less tangible but no less expectant, and indeed eternal
Sharon Smith Leaman is a member of New Life in Christ Church (PCA) in Fredericksburg, Va.
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Written by Keith A. Mathison |
Tuesday, September 28, 2021
Many [evangelicals] are looking to the culture for direction on ethical questions. A century ago, Christian liberalism did the same thing. It looked to culture for its categories, its definitions, its standards. Liberalism did this because it self-consciously rejected biblical authority. Antinomian evangelicalism is doing this inadvertently because its hermeneutical principles effectively render four-fifths of the Bible ethically irrelevant.

I recently watched a short video of a lecture by my mentor and former pastor Dr. R.C. Sproul. In it, he explained that his ministry from the early 70s to the early 90s had been focused on addressing the catholic questions of Christianity—the doctrine of God, the doctrine of the Person and work of Christ, the doctrine of Scripture, and such. During those first twenty years, he wanted to minister to broad evangelicalism, and these were the foundational doctrines under attack everywhere. But having addressed all those issues over the course of twenty years, Dr. Sproul says in his lecture that he wants to begin focusing on the distinctives of Reformed theology. He believed that the broad evangelical church could never be truly healthy until it was Reformed. He made the point that “Unreformed Christianity has failed.”
One of the things he said in this lecture especially caught my attention. He said that the broad evangelical church has been “pervasively antinomian.” I’ve been thinking about this comment a lot since watching the video, and I believe it makes a point that we need to seriously consider, namely, the fact that there is a radical difference between broadly evangelical ethics and distinctively Reformed ethics. There is a difference in the way each addresses ethical questions, and there is a difference in the sources used to answer those questions.
One of the doctrinal issues that separates broadly evangelical theology from confessional Reformed theology is covenant theology. The majority of evangelicals reject Reformed covenant theology, often because of its implications for our understanding of the sacraments. Among those evangelicals who are dispensationalists, the differences are even greater. Why is this significant? Because a rejection of Reformed covenant theology results in a very different hermeneutical approach to the Bible. The impact of those covenantal and hermeneutical differences is evident when it comes to how each handles the Old Testament in general and biblical law in particular. And how we approach biblical law is enormously important for our approach to Christian ethics. This is where Dr. Sproul’s charge of “pervasive antinomianism” arises.
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