Or, A Mind to Work in the Negative World
Scripture: Selected Scriptures
Date: September 1, 2024
Speaker: Sean Higgins
One great temptation for me are work montages in movies. I get that the scenes aren’t only edited together to make it look like a lot happened in a short period of time, but that what happened in the scenes was fake anyway; it took a crew of people just to get props in place. But there’s something about productive productivity, things getting built, projects being accomplished that tempts me both to believe the lies and to envy the false images. It’s not that easy, and it’s never that fast.
There’s also a part of me that wishes/feels guilty that I’m not skilled enough, or patient enough to learn the skills, for a bunch of building things. I used to do demolition decently. As long as I can keep getting back surgery when I need I can still mow. I’ve said many times, it’s not only the smell of freshly cut grass that excites me, it’s the visible progress with every swath. “Look, I’m getting somewhere.” Most of my big building projects are invisible (though eternal), intangible (though sometimes results are visible later). My work is soulcraft, maybe institution-craft, and that is a privileged calling and comes with its own furrowed/stressed, if not sweaty, brow (Genesis 3:19).
Genesis 3 is a decisive point, in human history of course, but also for this discussion. It’s in Genesis 3:15 that we get the first gospel hope (a Seed is coming who will crush the serpent’s head), but that’s also where God establishes a perpetual enmity and hostility between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. There will be, there is, a God-ordained battle.
And battle sells. Crisis/crises sell, especially to people who get that there is no neutrality. Not only do we spend and donate money to our cause, we spend and donate all kinds of our attention. We can easily pass our days in political malice and envy. We love our side, we’re loyal to our team, we shout our preferred slogans/propaganda.
It’s a military and marketing strategy. Identify the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. Put a single spotlight on the cause of someone’s problems then sell him the solution. It’s (part of the reason) why conservative media thrives in selling advertising when progressives are in power.
Even if we can’t win, even if there is no product that fixes the problem, we also still like the feeling of complaining. The more righteous the complaint the more cathartic we tell ourselves our complaining is. How much energy do we waste by getting worked up again?
Bricks don’t brand. By which I mean, adding another brick to the wall doesn’t sound fun, or fulfilling, or as necessary as THE FIGHT™️. Besides, our adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, ON GUARD! That’s not entirely wrong.
It’s maybe especially not wrong in our day. When it comes to understanding the times (like the king’s counselors in Esther 1:13 and the men of Issachar in 1 Chronicles 12:32), our time is no good. There are other times (and places) that have been even more no good. But in the 21st century West, we happened not just to imagine, but to experience times of blessing. These blessings were connected to cultures that honored Christ as Lord even though not all individuals were Christians. But we are being systematically unburdened of many of these have-been blessings.
Our first book for Men to Men in October and November will be Life in the Negative World by Aaron Renn. This Sunday evening series is connected to the categories Renn proposes.
It could, it will, get more negative before Christ returns. That could be soon, or we might see God grant revival in our age. But we are in a stage of negative world. What should we do?
We should not hide our light under the basket/modius (Matthew 5:15).
In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 5:16)
We should adorn the doctrine of God our Savior (Titus 2:10). We should preach the gospel, knowing that it is foolishness to some and offensive to others, “but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24). We should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, not just in our hearts but before men (Matthew 10:32-33).
And in our land, we have opportunity and responsibility to use our economic and political talents, not bury them in perfectionism or panic. We should “do justice…love kindness…and walk humbly with our God” (Micah 6:8). We should honor God in what is natural (cf. Romans 1:26-27), we should receive with thanksgiving all the things God says are good (1 Timothy 4:4-5).
That is key. We fight for something, it’s not just that we fight. Jacob wrestled with God to get blessing. Back in Genesis 3, while God judged Adam with difficulty in his work, it did not change the mandate to work, to be fruitful and multiple and take dominion (Genesis 1:28). Adam was given responsibility to build. When sin entered, bricks might have fallen and made his shins bloody, the serpent might have tried to make him proud of his wall or to make him depressed by pushing it over, but building was still Adam’s project.
I get fired up when I think about it, and pray for God to move among us like in Nehemiah. We’ll get to Nehemiah on Sunday mornings in a few months. Habakkuk prophesied that Judah would be taken captive. In Ezra and Nehemiah, the first couple cycles return from Babylon to rebuild Jerusalem. It was risky, it was rough, it was ridiculed. Being a Jew in Jerusalem was living in the negative world.
What didn’t they have to build? It included a wall around the city for protection so that they could turn attention to all the internal work. And “the people had a mind to work” (Nehemiah 4:6).
They got to see the progress of the wall. We don’t always get to see such community progress. It’s not quite so all-or-nothing, and we ought to seek wisdom to see trajectories, as well as to give thanks for all we can. But also, you can dance like no one is watching, but we must build like the Lord Jesus will call us to account for what we did with what He gave us.
“each of the builders had his sword strapped at his side while he built” (Nehemiah 4:18)
One of my favorite 145 second videos is this old NSA ad, swords and shovels. Spurgeon also had The sword and the Trowel as a regular newsletter. Build and battle.
This isn’t the first time we’ve tried to talk about these things. The “Centers and Circumferences” messages are related. See also To Take Dominion, and the whole series from 2019 on A Mind to Work.
Some building is financial and some figurative, some short term and others for when we’ve been dead 500 years. So we build:
Takes faith. Good thing we are believers.
If there’s anything to be learned to this point in the negative world, it’s that secular culture will not allow us to have a private faith. (Life in the Negative World, Loc. 2860)
Good thing we didn’t want to have only a private faith.
Those who can, build. Those who can’t, criticize, ha! But according to Titus 2:14, God Himself is purifying for Himself a people zealous for good works. Get after doing goods, for such a time as this.