Rejecting the Neverland Theology of Gospel Coalition Types

All right, so I hope you had a good Lord's Day yesterday. I wanted to start off this week by talking about something that I'm gonna call Neverland Theology. What I mean by Neverland Theology is that it's a theology that never grew up.

In the New Testament, Paul the Apostle says that, you know, when he was a child, he spoke like a child. He reasoned like a child, but when he grew up, he put away childish things. And, you know, we understand that our children can understand certain things at a children's level.

And so we need to sort of, not dumb it down, but speak to them in a way that they can relate to, in a way that they can understand. I would caution parents that, in my own life, I feel like sometimes I underestimate my child, my children rather.

And so, you know, you don't wanna necessarily talk, baby talk to them for too long. They understand a lot more than you think they do. At least that's been true in my family. But I wanna give you a perfect example of this, because I'm gonna read to you Psalm 139.

Psalm 139 is exceptional. It has a lot of very popular verses, some of the most popular verses in the entire Bible in it. But interestingly, it also has some of the most unpopular verses in the entire Bible in it as well.

Psalm 139 and the Problem of Selective Reading

And let me explain to you what I mean by Neverland theology. Let me read this to you. And actually, this is a Psalm that my children know pretty well. And the reason they know it pretty well is because there's a Slugs and Bugs song, which is a children's musician that pretty much uses this entire Psalm.

In fact, almost every single word of this Psalm is in the song with some exceptions. And we're gonna talk about those exceptions in just a minute. Here's what the Psalm said. These are the words of God.

You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit down and when I rise, you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down. You are familiar with all of my ways.

Before a word is on my tongue, you, Lord, know it completely. You hem me in from behind, and before you lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from your spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there. If I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me.

Your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me, even the darkness will not be dark to you. The night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.

For you created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, God. How vast is the sum of them. Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.

When I awake, I am still with you. Search me, God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there's any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.". It's a beautiful psalm, beautiful psalm.

You probably recognize a lot of those verses because some of those are our favorite pro-life verses. They're just favorite verses in general. And I wonder how many of you that weren't following along on the screen noticed that I skipped about five verses.

I just didn't say them as if they weren't even there. I just skipped right over them. I wonder how many of you noticed that because I have to be honest with you. If someone were to have read Psalm 139 to me and skipped the verses that I skipped, I would not have missed them.

And that's a problem. That's a real problem because the verses that I skipped are necessary to this psalm. They're necessary to understanding the psalm. They're necessary to God's word. They're necessary to understanding what it is to be a Christian.

Let me read to you. And the song that I'm talking about, it's a great song. I'm not gonna stop my kids from listening to it, but I have to think about how am I going to fill in the gaps here? Because the psalm intentionally leaves these verses out.

Let me read to you the verses that it leaves out. I'll read to you one verse before and then I'll read to you the whole thing. Here's what it says. It says, how precious to me are your thoughts, God. How vast is the sum of them.

Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you. Now here's the part I left out. If only you, God, would slay the wicked. Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty.

They speak of you with evil intent. Your adversaries misuse your name. Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord, and abhor those who are in rebellion against you? I have nothing but hatred for them. I count them my enemies.

Search me, oh God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there's any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. You see, you can't understand those last verses that most of us have probably had memorized without knowing the context here.

And the psalmist David, King David is saying, if only you would slay the wicked, God. If only you would slay the wicked, they speak of you with evil intent. Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord, and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?

I have nothing but hatred for them. I count them my enemies. This is us saying, God, your enemies are my enemies. If only you would slay them, God. Now, the reality is that I could at least in some way understand why we might want to maybe shield our children from those verses.

I don't agree with it. I think our children can understand this. But I can at least understand why, you know, maybe in Sunday school, the Sunday school teacher doesn't want to have to explain this to kids.

Again, I'm not justifying it, but I can at least understand the line of thinking. You know, our children, they're young, they're impressionable. They might not understand what's actually being said here about Christ slaying the wicked and how I hate the people that you hate, God.

I hate them with a perfect hatred, God. They might not understand that. They might take it too far. They might take it and run with it. I can understand the thought process there. Now, again, hear me saying, I don't agree with it, but I can understand the thought process.

So long as at some point, your theology circles back to this kind of thing. And it seeks to incorporate this kind of an idea, right? This kind of an idea about hatred and hating the enemies of the Lord and all of this kind of thing, how you can call God to slay the wicked and look forward to the day when God slays the wicked.

Like these are things that we can sing about. This book of the Psalms is a book of songs. The Psalms are songs. And so we ought to be singing these songs. There's just no question about it. Here's how I started thinking about this.

I saw this tweet from Jared Wilson. It's 2020, the year evangelicals decided hatred was a virtue. Now, this is the kind of tweet that is written intentionally to say essentially nothing, but to say something.

So you can inject all kinds of meaning into this tweet and you'll get the retweets, you'll get the likes. And really you haven't said anything of substance, but people are basically injecting what they want to inject into the meaning of this text.

So the word evangelicals, for example, what is that even supposed to mean? Nobody really knows. In fact, that's a hotly debated topic, but okay. Evangelicals, I guess just people that profess to be Christians that aren't Catholics, I guess is what that means.

Hatred, hating who? Hatred towards who? What do you mean by that? Virtue, I mean, what are you talking about? So are you talking about like disobeying God's law towards somebody or are you talking about just, I don't like this person or what exactly are you talking about?

You see, this is a meaningless tweet unless there's injected meaning into it, right? And the reality is I started thinking about Psalm 139 because somebody had responded to this tweet and said, no, it wasn't 2020 that that was the year.

It was whatever year that David wrote this Psalm, right? That's the year that hatred became a virtue. And, you know, it was a kind of a dunk tweet. No question about it, it was a dunk response, but it's a good response because here's the reality, guys.

Tweets like this, if you ask the typical evangelical leader, conference speaker about hate and a theology of hate, they're gonna say oversimplistic things. Like, you know, they're gonna say, you know, Jesus said to love your enemies, not to hate them.

Granted, he certainly did. So then what is all this about? Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord? As if it's a good thing, right? Do I not abhor those who are in rebellion against you? I have nothing but hatred for them.

So here's the reality. When you come to a place where this tweet, you feel justified in writing this meaningless tweet with no real people in mind. This is the big problem with Big Eva, in my opinion.

They never identify the specifics. They never apply it to specific people. This is so frustrating because all it does is seek to get pats on the back for yourself without ever putting yourself on the line and saying, no, this is what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about you. I'm talking about these people, this particular group and all of this kind of thing. This is what's so frustrating about this. This is not like, we shouldn't be the equivalent of a fortune cookie, right?

This is the thing. Like there's too many evangelicals that feel comfortable with wisdom that reads like a fortune cookie that you can't, there's no way to apply. It doesn't actually mean anything. It's just put out there.

It's just one of these truisms. And it's like, well, I'm just asking questions here. See, this is the thing. Like Jared's tweet here is proof that we never actually got around to going back to Psalm 139 and figuring this out.

We have a Neverland theology. This is how people get away with saying, okay the mask issue is very simple. Just love your neighbor. See, that's Neverland theology. That's childlike. That's childlike. That's actually sub childlike because I expect my children, you know when they're five years old to have a more nuanced understanding of things like this.

Recovering Adult Theology from Childlike Simplifications

Like this is sub childlike. We need to reclaim the adultness of our theology. This is what Paul was talking about when he said, look, I spoke like a child. I reasoned like a child and all of those kinds of things.

But when I grew up, I had to put those childish things away. We have to come back to Psalm 139 and we have to figure out this thing because when I say, God, search me, oh God. And know my heart, that's a beautiful verse.

We all love it. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there's any offensive way in me. That comes right after I say, God I want you to slay the wicked. I want those who have evil intent towards you to be slayed.

Those who are bloodthirsty, get them away from me. Do I not hate those who hate you? We need to reclaim the adultness of Christianity. We're not children. We need to stop thinking like children. How many times in the last six months have I said, that's childish.

Do you remember that article from Russell Moore where he's like, the lives are worth more than the economy. Lives are more important than the economy. Like that, I expect my five-year-old to think a little bit more deeply than that thought.

That's a ridiculous thought. It's ridiculous. It's childish. And the Bible gives us the tools we need to actually respond to that like an adult. We know from the Bible that a person's livelihood this is why we call it a livelihood.

It is their life. You can't make a statement like that. That's stupid. That's childish. And that kind of thing is proof. This, this tweet here, this tweet here is 2020 the year evangelicals decided hatred was a virtue.

This tweet is proof that we never actually got around to going back from the time of our Sunday school where we learned Psalm 139 or some of the key verses in Psalm 139 in Sunday school on our flannel board and all that kind of stuff.

We never actually got around to going back and filling in the meat. We're just, we're on a diet of vegetables here. We must figure out how to go back and make our theology in adult theology. We must do it.

And my suggestion, this is, look, I don't wanna only be about complaining, right? I don't wanna only be about the complaining. I wanna be about solutions, right? And my suggestion is one of the first reforms that the church in America should make, one of the first reforms that we should make is that we need to bring back the Psalms.

Bring Back the Psalms in Their Full Context

We need to sing these songs. I want my children to sing Psalm 139, but I want them to sing the whole thing. The part that includes God, if only you would slay the wicked. I want them from a young age to understand that God is not playing around.

God is not precious moments. You know what I mean? Like God is serious. He's serious. He loves you seriously. And He is going to slay the wicked. And not only that, but there are adversaries that misuse His name.

There are adversaries that are in rebellion against them. And though we should treat them fairly, we should treat them according to God's law, the second table of the commandments, right? We shouldn't steal from them.

We shouldn't covet what they have. We shouldn't kill them. It doesn't mean that we're on the same team. This is a war. And my children need to grow up in a context where they understand that this is a war.

This is a war. And they need to be able to understand and grow up in a way that from a young age, they understand in a child way that there's a way that we should hate those who hate Him. There's a way that we should abhor the rebellion against God.

There's a way that we can understand like David right before he says, Lord, search me to see if there's any offensive way in me that we can also say, do I not hate those who hate you? I have nothing but hatred for them.

Search me, O God. And know my heart. I want my children to understand that in a childlike way. And then I want them growing up in a context where that starts to make more and more sense as they get more and more exposed to what's going on in this world.

My son, the last few nights has prayed to God that he would keep us away from the place where babies die. That he would keep those people far from us. That we would never go there. You know, he's talking about abortion clinics.

My son knows what an abortion clinic is. In a five-year-old way. You know what I mean? He doesn't know everything, but he knows what happens at these abortion clinics. And he prays to God to keep that away from us.

My son, in a five-year-old way, knows that there's a war going on. And he knows that because I haven't tried to keep this from him. But when I saw this, man, when I saw this Psalm 139, when I saw the tweet that said, is this the year that hate became a virtue?

In such a smug, sort of typical Big Eva way, where it's just like, I'm not saying anything, but I want to get the pats on the back. And he certainly had his reward. Don't worry about that. Thousand retweets or something like that.

Thousand likes. I've got to do a better job at this. I just have to. I mean, the song that he sings about this Psalm, it speaks every word of the Psalm, except the ones that don't make it precious moments.

And so I need to be more intentional. I'm going to borrow a Big Eva word, being intentional about not hiding this stuff from my son. And that's the reform I think would have such a major impact in this moment right now.

If we just sung the songs of God, the songs that he gave us, that tell him what he's like. They're perfect in their theology. They're edifying. They build us up. They teach us what's right and how the world is and what it's not like and all of these kinds of things.

They teach us what to expect and what to hope for. They teach us what we ought to be like. These are perfect songs. And for the most part, we just ignore them. We don't sing them. How many of us would be uncomfortable singing about God slaying the wicked, right?

Probably lots of us would be. But they're here. And we have to do whatever we can to just reject the Neverland theology of Big Eva that never grew up. They don't want to grow up. Their livelihood depends on them never growing up because if they grow up and have an adult theology, they know that the world won't like that.

They won't be able to be on MSNBC anymore. They won't get invited to Obama's White House anymore. They won't be popular. They won't have best-selling books. They won't be on the conference speaking circuit because an adult theology is not a theology that tickles ears.

People don't typically like the adult theology. They like the precious moments theology of Psalm 139 that takes away verses 19 through 22. That's the theology that gets you a big following. That's the theology that gets you a big following.

And so, you know, you might think that I'm angry right now. I'm not angry. I'm just frustrated about, you know, this is the kind of thing that I realized that, you know, I've been lied to for a long time.

I have, even though I might want to say, like, act big and bad, act like a man, a real man, you know, I have a Neverland theology in so many ways, and I want to reject it. It's time to put away childish things and to do theology and to be a human being like an adult.

Anyway, I hope you found this video helpful. God bless.