"One day by God's grace we may have churches full of Christians who can discuss, apply, and live the doctrinal teaching of the Bible as readily as they can discuss the details of their own jobs or hobbies--or the fortunes of their favorite sports team or television program."
"The prevailing notion of justification in Western culture today is justification by death. It's assumed that all one has to do to be received into the everlasting arms of God is to die."
Justin so enjoyed the poem I wrote him a couple years ago (he is easily pleased!), I promised him I'd do it again this year, especially since I was out of town this whole week and missed his birthday! We had a little party for him today, at which time I presented him with this new gift. He's been studying American Indians in school, so the setting seemed to fit. Enjoy!
The Indians’ food was running low.
For weeks, no deer or buffalo
Had left a track upon a land
Oppressed by winter’s icy hand.
The chief called all his warriors near,
Each armed with bow, flint knife, and spear.
He greeted them with hardened eyes
And said, “Our people’s hope now lies
With you. Be cunning, swift and strong.
You must not fail. We won’t last long.”
So just before the light of day
A dozen warriors slipped away—
Some through the woods or the long grass
In search of trails where game might pass.
But one young brave, the chief’s son, took
A path along a frozen brook
And through a canyon deep with snow
Until he found a cave below
A cliff. He climbed a nearby oak,
And wrapped tight in his fur-lined cloak.
He waited, silent, on a limb,
Alert to all surrounding him.
The noonday sun had warmed the ground
When down below he heard a sound.
He clutched his knife; he raised his spear,
And crouched as a great bear drew near.
The black bear stopped—a foreign smell…
But just then with a mighty yell
The warrior hurled his spear and leapt
Onto the creature’s back. He kept
Free of its slashing claws and teeth
And plunged his knife in just beneath
Its arm and deep into its chest.
The tribe was saved! They ate the best
Meal that night that they’d had in weeks
With songs and smiles and bulging cheeks.
Now in that land of Indian lore
They sing about a chief who wore
A necklace made from black bear paw—
The chief they call Justin Bearclaw!
A Gospel-Centered Wedding Address
These instructive words about marriage—this phenomenon of becoming one flesh—imply both a demand and a promise.Genesis 2:18 - 25 Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him." So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man." Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his
wife, and they shall become one flesh.
Another Email Q&A
Got this question in an email earlier this week. Here's my answer:
Well, it’s not a simple yes/no answer. On the one hand, you have the logic of God’s role as Creator and Designer of all things which almost requires us to say that, yes, in some sense, God created/planned the existence of evil in our world. Verses like Isaiah 45:7 put Scriptural foundation underneath that logic: “I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the LORD, who does all these things.” Pretty hard to make that go away.
But then you have the truth on the other side that God is not evil, all He does is good, and He couldn’t possibly be the direct cause of something He Himself forbids. You have verses like James 1:13 to support that idea: “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.”
So my answer is a good, solid “No.” And “Yes.” No, in the sense that He cannot be charged with wrongdoing or held responsible as the direct cause for sinful, evil things in our world. But yes in the sense that all that happens is part of His pre-ordained plan; His plan works in perfect harmony with the personal choices of His free creatures; and ultimately He must be seen as the ultimate reason for all things that have happened, are happening, and ever will happen.
In attempting to say “No, God doesn’t cause evil in any sense whatsoever,” some people suggest that He simply knows what is going to happen and He allows some evil things. I have two questions for these folks.
1) (related to “God knows it”) How is God’s “knowing” that something is going to happen all that different from His “causing” it to happen? To explain what I mean, here’s an example… this morning I had a bowl of grapefruit with my breakfast instead of a banana. God certainly knew I was going to have the grapefruit rather than the banana; and if you think about it, just by KNOWING what I was going to choose, He guaranteed it was going to happen that way. Even though I felt free to choose banana or grapefruit, there was never really any option because the future was already all mapped out in His mind before it ever happened. So the problem isn’t solved by saying “God knew about it, but He didn’t cause it,” because the mere fact that He knew it was coming guaranteed that it would come. Of course, some people object, “Yeah, He knew it, but He didn’t cause it. He just allowed it.” Next question…
2) (related to “God allows it”) If the all-powerful God knows something bad is going to happen and He allows it anyway instead of stopping it, isn’t He guilty of at least negligence, like a police officer who stands passively by while a civilian gets mugged? In other words, saying “He allows it” doesn’t really get Him off the hook in any truly meaningful way. For anyone who disagrees, I would suggest they talk with a skeptic of Christianity and see if the skeptic is really satisfied by an all-powerful God who COULD step in and stop evil but chooses not to. That God sounds like a cold-hearted jerk who acts like it’s not his problem. It’s obviously not a truly helpful answer.
This is still true even when it comes to the “free will” answer that says, “God preserves our free will; that’s why He doesn’t prevent evil things that we choose to do.” That answer doesn’t help, because not all evil is caused by human free will – e.g., the 2004 tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, etc. Some really bad things happen without any people involved whatsoever, and so we still have to answer the question, “What did God have to do with this?” Saying “He just allowed it; He didn’t cause it” makes me wonder what kind of God He must be, if He could have stopped it and simply chose not to.
My brother-in-law's cancer is a very personal and very real example here. If God simply “allowed” it when He could have stopped or prevented it all along, I have to ask why He doesn’t love my neice and nephew enough to prevent the horrible pain of losing their daddy. But if in some sense He actually brought it about deliberately as part of His great but mysterious plan to bless and increase their sense of His love in the long run, that’s a God I think I’ve seen reflected in my own experience as a child – suffering short-term pain and loss from my father in order to experience greater joy and blessing in the long run.
If all this seems very troubling and confusing, take heart, because your question deals with probably the largest and most perplexing issue that has faced Christianity for its entire existence—the classic “problem of evil.” We are hardly the first ones to ask the question, and we won’t be the last. And men and women far brighter than we are have struggled and argued and written books by the score trying to answer it.
The ultimate answer is, I think, that He is God and we are not, and we just plain can’t figure out everything about Him or the universe He has created.
An Email Exchange with a Friend
I've obviously moved blogging down on my list of priorities. I'm a husband, dad, pastor, and friend before I'm a blogger, so what I'm going to have to do is relegate blogging to those leftover corners of my life and write only as the occasion presents itself.
That said, I received an email this morning from one of the high school students at our church following up on a conversation he and I had after my sermon yesterday. He asked:
Stated bluntly, will there be any one person that will be rewarded as the "best" Christian or the like in heaven? I've heard people support or allude to this concept in many places, and it seems to be at least slightly supported by 1 Cor 9:24, which is still confusing me. I don't know if you've ever heard people talk about the whole idea of "everyone's cup running over in heaven, but some people having bigger cups" or something of that sort, but I'd appreciate any insight into it you can give me.
Thanks for discussing this with me!
I answered:
RE: Ordinary People Making Extraordinary Claims
I have a flurry of new posts I'll probably put up on the blog tonight... posts I wrote earlier this week but I've been saving in the hope that I'll get a few more comments on my question from Friday.
[UPDATE: This has been done, but they are all postdated to the day I originally wrote them. Check 'em out below. 11:29 PM MST]
Special thanks to everybody who has commented thus far. It's been helpful for me to think through your answers as I try to formulate my own. I'm not sure I'm there yet, but I'm going to posit my answer tomorrow.
So... what would YOU say if a skeptic of Christianity asked you: "If your Christ has not succeeded in making you better men and women, have we any reason to suppose that he would do more for us, if we became Christians?"
Why Christianity Requires Storytelling
Apparently I had fallen into a boring and predictable opening for my G&G stories, but only one of my boys noticed it: our four-year-old jokester, Braidin. But he didn’t just come right out and tell me I was getting dull. Instead, on this particular night when someone asked, “Dad, would you please tell us a story?”, his quick little wit went into action. Before I could launch into my latest and greatest tale, he butted in and, lowering his voice like mine, he began with my predictable line: “Well, one time…”
He stopped right there, but the other boys were already giggling and wiggling under their blankets. Of course, I laughed, too, appreciating both his keen observation and his comical style. He was funny, and in his own little way, he was making a good point: “boring” and “story” shouldn’t go together.
Everybody loves a good story. Postmodernism, with its schmaltzy enthusiasm for “narratives” over against propositions, hasn’t stumbled upon anything new or profound here. People have always been this way. No matter where or when they live(d), people of all ages love stories. Yesterday I picked up three new books at the library—all fiction. Why? Because I, too, love a good story.
I’m pondering storytelling for a couple reasons. First, I’m having a very hard time preaching these days. We are studying through the book of Acts at our church, and I’m finding it very tough to write good sermons on the great stories in this book. I think a major part of the problem is my badly conceived notion that a sound, expositional sermon has to frame up the text in a number of distinct propositions that make a nice outline. “Point one: Jesus sees the lame man. Point two: Jesus speaks to the lame man. Point three: Jesus heals the lame man. Conclusion: A poem about lameness.” How lame. (This isn't a real outline of mine, but the point is I need some help badly!)
I bought four books today about how to preach narratives. Hopefully, help is on the way! I need to get this figured out, because well over half of God’s word has been revealed in narrative form. Theological storytelling is what it is really, and I believe it calls for a type of preaching that honors the form in which it was originally given. God could have revealed all our theology in abstractions like an encyclopedia of systematic theology, but He didn’t. I think good preaching will honor that, not only in how the passage is interpreted but also in how it is presented. That’s my theory anyway; I just need help working it out practically.
The other reason I’m interested in storytelling right now is that I’m seeing more and more how the whole Bible is one big story. One conflict: sin ruined God’s good creation. One plot: God redeems a people for Himself. One Hero: Jesus Christ. One resolution: the cross.
In other words, the Bible isn’t a collection of nice little tales about heroic feats and noble characters. It’s not like Aesop’s Fables—a bunch of random stories each with a helpful little moral at the end. No, the Bible tells one unified Story—the Story of redemption. Sometimes the Bible’s main Story develops in a straight line, as new details are revealed and the plot slowly moves forward. And sometimes the Bible’s main Story moves in a circle, retelling the same plot with foreshadowing or typology.
Many narratives in the Bible actually do both: they move the main Story’s plot forward (in a line) and rehearse its basic features (in a circle) at the same time. For example, the story of David defeating Goliath does both: it shows us a little bit more of what Jesus will be like in the person of David (moving the Story along a line), and it also retells the main Story where God’s people are delivered from their enemy by a single Champion (moving the Story around a circle). It adds to the Story and retells the Story at the same time.
If this is all just a bunch of mumbo-jumbo to you, I’ll try to clear it up by offering this excellent analogy from professor Bruce Waltke:
The
The kite string represents, you might say, Genesis’ description of salvation, while the rest of Scripture represents the developing bridge—first strings, then ropes, then steel girders.
So, I hope you’ll learn to approach the Bible as one great story, THE great story, the Classic of all classics. And if you tend to shy away from fiction as somehow less spiritual than theology, let me encourage you to reconsider. Read good stories. Tell great stories.
How Ice Cream and Good Questions Help My Parenting
I love being a dad. My kids are one of the clearest ways God has shown His lavish kindness and blessing to me. Now please understand, Aundrea and I have five children—four boys and a girl—so you can be sure that having kids doesn’t always make us feel lavishly loved and blessed by God! Sometimes it’s pretty rough going, but we know by faith (cf. Ps 127:3) and by experience that children are a gift and parenting is a privilege.
About once a week I take one of my sons out for ice cream after supper. We usually head over to Carl’s Jr. or McDonalds, where we get a booth and just hang out for 45 minutes or so. It gives me a chance to affirm my love for them verbally and nonverbally, to praise them for areas of growth Aundrea and I have seen in their life, to talk with them about concerns we have about their character and behavior, to ask them about their relationship with us and with the Lord, to counsel them about significant issues in a young boy’s life (like choosing friends, honoring girls, respecting adults, working hard in school, etc.), and just to make sure we’re still connected as father and son. I think it’s an important habit even with our three-year-old, because even though my discussions with him don’t get much deeper than how cool it is that hot fudge sundaes can be both hot and cold at the same time, we are forming the habit of talking one-on-one on a regular basis; and I think that is going to be a really crucial foundation for us when he’s older and we really do have some important things to discuss.
I want to make these little chats as meaningful as they can be for my boys, so I’m always looking for tips and ideas. Last weekend at the DG Conference, John Piper mentioned a list of questions for drawing out your kids and shepherding their heart. The list was originally developed by Rick Gamache, a friend of Piper’s who also pastors in the Minneapolis area. Here’s the list, for those interested:
• How are your devotions?
• What is God teaching you?
• In your own words, what is the gospel?
• Is there a specific sin you’re aware of that you need my help defeating?
• Are you more aware of my encouragement or my criticism?
• What’s daddy most passionate about?
• Do I act the same at church as I do when I’m at home?
• Are you aware of my love for you?
• Is there any way I’ve sinned against you that I’ve not repented of?
• Do you have any observations for me?
• How am I doing as a dad?
• How have Sunday’s sermons impacted you?
• Does my relationship with mom make you excited to be married?
(HT: Justin Taylor)
From Mark Dever's The Gospel & Personal Evangelism
"I think many times we don't evangelize because we undertake everything in our own power. We attempt to leave God out of it. We forget that it is his will and pleasure for his gospel to be known. He wants sinners saved." (p 24)
"We share the gospel because we love people. And we don't share the gospel because we don't love people. Instead, we wrongly fear them. ...We protect our pride at the cost of their souls." (p 27)
"When we don't sufficiently consider what God has done for us in Christ—the high cost of it, what it means, and what Christ’s significance is—we lose the heart to evangelize.” (p 28)
“The good news is that the one and only God, who is holy, made us in his image to know him. But we sinned and cut ourselves off from him. In his great love, God became a man in Jesus, lived a perfect life, and died on the cross, thus fulfilling the law himself and taking on himself the punishment for the sins of all those who would ever turn and trust in him. He rose again from the dead, showing that God accepted Christ’s sacrifice and that God’s wrath against us had been exhausted. He now calls us to repent of our sins and to trust in Christ alone for our forgiveness. If we repent of our sins and trust in Christ, we are born again into a new life, an eternal life with God.
“Now that’s good news.” (p 43)
“The love that the New Testament community of believers shared is presented as an integral part of their witness to the world, as we see in John 13:34-35. …In fact, the outworking of faith through the community of a local church seems to be Jesus’ most basic evangelism plan.” (p 50)
“It’s not manipulative or insensitive to bring up the urgent nature of salvation. It’s simply the truth. The time of opportunity will end.” (p 58)
“Clarity with the claims of Christ certainly will include the translation of the gospel into words that our hearer understands, but it doesn’t necessarily mean translating it into words that our hearer will like.” (p 64)
“It is important to remember that the message you are sharing is not merely an opinion but a fact. That’s why sharing the gospel can’t be called an imposition, any more than a pilot can impose his belief on all his passengers that the runway is here and not there.” (p 70)
“An account of a changed life is a wonderful and inspiring thing, but it’s the gospel of Jesus Christ that explains what it’s all about and how it happened. And it's the gospel that turns sharing a testimony into evangelism.” (p 73)
“We don’t fail in our evangelism if we faithfully tell the gospel to someone who is not converted; we fail only when we don’t faithfully tell the gospel at all.” (pp 81-82)
“As we so experience the gospel, we find ourselves loving others more, and we want to share this good news with them.” (p 100)
“Ultimately, our motive in evangelism must be a desire to see God glorified.” (p 101)
“As one Puritan said, ‘Outside of Christ, God is terrible.’” (p 103)
“You and I aren’t called to use our extensive powers to convict and change the sinner while God stands back as a gentleman, quietly waiting for the spiritual corpse, his declared spiritual enemy, to invite God into his heart. Rather, we should resolve to preach the gospel like gentlemen, persuading while knowing we can’t regenerate anyone, and then stand back while God uses all his extensive powers to convict and change the sinner.” (p 109)
“When the message of the cross captures your heart, then your tongue—stammering, halting, insulting, awkward, sarcastic, and imperfect as it may be—won’t be far behind. As Jesus said, ‘Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks’ (Matt. 12:34).” (p 112)
In an appendix to pastors at the end: “Certainly, we pastors sacrifice personal opportunities to do evangelism when we work full-time in ministry. We are, in a sense, willing to be pulled behind the front lines in order to equip others. We realize the front lines of the contest, the ‘skin’ of the church, if you will, is represented by the members of the local congregation after they leave church on Sunday. It is then, throughout the week, that the church presses in on the kingdom of darkness as believers live out their callings around hundreds or even thousands of non-Christians each week. It is our task as pastors to lead all believers in accepting, embracing, and using the opportunities that God richly gives them. In all of this, we should work not so much merely to implement programs as to create a culture in our church. We want our congregations to be marked by a culture of evangelism. In order to do that, we are going to have to watch how many nights we encourage our members to be doing some program at church. We must give our members time to develop friendships with non-Christians.” (p 118)
What Is a Real Christian?
A while back I was troubled to read a certain exchange between a Christian missionary and a Hindu. The Hindu complained: "You Christians seem to us Hindus rather ordinary people making extraordinary claims."
When the missionary replied that the extraordinary claims are made about Christ, not about us, the Hindu replied: "If your Christ has not succeeded in making you better men and women, have we any reason to suppose that he would do more for us, if we became Christians?"
Hmmm...
My original plan with this post was to launch off into a discussion of the essence of real Christianity. Is it just about being made "better men and women"? Is that the heart of our faith, the irreducible minimum of what it means to be a follower of Jesus of Nazareth?
But instead of pontificating away and pretending like I've got it all figured out and you need to learn from me, I think I'm going to leave the question unanswered. It will be far more thought provoking for all of us that way.
I'm going to take some more time and just ponder. I'd love it if you'd think along with me, reflect a little bit about your own life, and consider some ways this Hindu's comment is about you. And I'd really love it if you'd leave a response in the comments section about how you would answer this criticism that Christians are just ordinary people making extraordinary claims.
Why “New” Just Doesn’t Cut It
“I have always loved this particular hymn [‘Fairest Lord Jesus’], and though written in 1677, its message is still relevant today.”
I balked when I read those words in the booklet of a recently released hymns CD. What is it about our Christian culture that equates “new” with “relevant”? Just listen to the voices in the Christian market. We are obsessed with everything novel, fresh, different, innovative, and original. The ads, the local church promotions, the programs… Last week I heard a Christian radio DJ gush: “Coming up next, a sizzling set of hot new releases so fresh, they will rock your world for Jesus.” *yawn*
The conference Aundrea and I attended last weekend reminded me once again that relevant isn’t always new. Helen Roseveare is 82. Jerry Bridges is 77. John MacArthur is 68. John Piper is 61. In my assessment, the relevance of each speaker’s talk increased in proportion to their age. Perhaps we should suspect that the newer a thing is, the more risk it has of being irrelevant.
Reminds me of a book by Os Guinness I read a couple years ago: Prophetic Untimeliness: A Challenge to the Idol of Relevance. Just three pages into the Introduction, he writes:
After two hundred years of earnest dedication to reinventing the faith and the church and to being more relevant in the world, we are confronted by an embarrassing fact: Never have Christians pursued relevance more strenuously; never have Christians been more irrelevant.
By our uncritical pursuit of relevance we have actually courted irrelevance; by our breathless chase after relevance without a matching commitment to faithfulness, we have become not only unfaithful but irrelevant; by our determined efforts to redefine ourselves in ways that are more compelling to the modern world than are faithful to Christ, we have lost not only our identity but our authority and our relevance. Our crying need is to be faithful as well as relevant.In context, he is talking specifically about faithfulness to the gospel message. In other words, redefining and recasting the gospel in new and “relevant” ways is not the key. Relevance is not found by emphasizing those elements of the gospel that resonate with the culture and then excluding the rest—for example, making Jesus out to be the missing ingredient to a life of peace, joy, and prosperity and neglecting to mention that He demands repentance and He promises suffering.
A Meditation on Hebrews 7:16
This verse has captivated me for a long time. The paragraphs around it aren't easy reading, but they aren't total misers with their spiritual treasure either. They will yield and yield richly, if you read and think and pray long enough.
The subject in view is the priesthood, those men who mediated between God and His people. Granted, it's not exactly a common topic in our culture, but the point is still very relevant: namely, if we have any sense of God's transcendence, we innately sense the need for help when we have to deal with Him. Mysterious things can be attractive and intriguing, but when they possess awesome power and present potential danger, they can be very frightening. It's very nice to know we have a representative, an advocate, a defense lawyer, if you will.
And when it comes to priests, Jesus is the best of the best.
Here's the writer's argument in a nutshell: He points out that Jesus is from the tribe of Judah, which is an aberration on the Old Testament pattern: Levi was the tribe of the priests, not Judah (7:13-14). But that's OK, because Jesus is from a different order of priests. He doesn't follow Levi; he follows a guy called Melchizedek (7:11-12, 15-16). The writer of Hebrews finds it very significant that Melchizedek has no recorded birth or death—he just appears out of nowhere like an immortal (7:3). (More on that in a moment.)
I just love the wording of verse 16, where the writer brings his point home:
Jesus has become a priest, not on the basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent [like the Levitical priesthood], but by the power of an indestructible life.Like Melchizedek, our Priest had no beginning or end, but the writer uses this great language to convey that image: "the power of an indestructible life"!
Unrelated Thoughts of Debatable Coherence
I thought about shutting down the blog today, but my wife talked me out of it. One of the effects of last weekend's conference was to cause me to examine how I am using my time. I judge blogging to be of low relative value; she judges it to be high. She wins. I blog on.
Speaking of blogging and last weekend's conference, I'm intending to do a "Monday Quotables" of lines that caught my attention - verbal incendiary bombs, if you will. Stay tuned.
Still speaking of the conference, it was very encouraging to see former classmates from college (and even two from high school) there. It caused me to reflect on what a work of grace God has done among my friends. It's amazing and wonderful to me that so many of my classmates are still walking with the Lord and serving Him faithfully.
We're heading up into the mountains again later this week. A couple friends are visiting, and we're going to show 'em a good time, Colorado style!
Speaking of little ventures into The Wild, I posted some new pictures of our last trip in the post from a few weeks ago. Check 'em out! ...and then get yourself some plane tickets out here for your own visit!
Still speaking of our last visit to the mountains, here's another picture. Although I refuse to turn this blog into a family photo album (not that I have anything against blogs like that - this just isn't that kind of blog!), I can't help but post this one of me and my precious little girl. We were hiking along a trail at an elevation of 12,000', and it was pretty cold and windy so I tucked her inside my coat and zipped her in. Must have been pretty comfy in there, because she fell right asleep and dozed all the way up and back! Special thanks to the friendly photographer we met along the way who snapped this picture (and the ones I added to that other post below).
The sky is incredibly clear here today. Because our church building is perched atop a sizeable hill, I can see the mountains all the way from the Fort Collins area in the north nearly to Pueblo in the south - around 175 miles. It's stunning. Did I already say something about plane tickets and a visit?
My son got his stitches out yesterday. We're working hard to keep his forehead from scarring (no scratching, daily applications of Vitamin E oil, etc.), but it occurred to me today that he might grow up looking a bit like Harry Potter. That's cool with me, as long as the resemblance ends right there.
Earlier today I sent my wife a text saying, "Callify me when you canify." Weird, I know, but at the time of the text I was working over a memory from my college days. Student Activities Director Rich Akins pointed out to me that you can turn any noun into a verb - and sound rather intellectual in the process - by adding "-ify" or "-ize" to it.
"Honey, would you please bagify my lunch?"
"This room is dark. We'd better chandelierize it."
"Someday I'd like to bookify all these great thoughts of mine."
My Plans for the Weekend
Aundrea and I are headed to Minneapolis for the Desiring God National Conference this weekend, and are we ever looking forward to it! Want to know why? Here are a few reasons for starters:
1. The theme. Endurance isn't applauded much these days. The method of choice for 21st century Americans to improve their lives is to change something: upgrade, trade in, relocate, divorce, enhance. Who ever lists endurance as a personal value? As John Piper writes in his conference invitation: "A long, hard, steady, hold-the-course obedience is a rare and wonderful thing."
2. The speakers. John MacArthur, who has persevered at a single church for almost four decades; Jerry Bridges, who has suffered the illness and death of his first wife; Randy Alcorn, who has endured significant cultural oppression for his pro-life activism; Helen Roseveare, who has served in missions ministry and recruitment for over 50 years; and John Piper, who has endured a thing or two in his own 60+ years and still seems to speak to whatever subject with heated, Christ-centered passion.
3. The corporate worship. Desiring God's lead musicians and worshipers always help us see and savor the supremacy of Jesus Christ.
4. The opportunity to enjoy some spiritual meals together as a pastoral team. Pastors need to be pastored, too, and Bret and I are anticipating some rich nourishment this weekend!
5. Continuing something of a tradition. Aundrea and I have attended this conference three of the five years it has been held. I know many pastors who have never attended a conference with their wife even once. I pity those men.
6. Three whole days with my wife and without kids. Enough said!
Pray for us! We'll tell you how it went when we get back.
The Alluring Alternatives to Everyday Faith
In last Friday’s post I asserted that we all show exactly what we believe by how we live. It’s a mistake, in other words, to try to change what we do to match up with what we believe. What we do already matches what we believe. Our actions never contradict our real beliefs; they simply manifest them.
Suggest whatever example or hypothetical scenario you’d like. Let’s say a pro-life couple decides to get an abortion for financial reasons. Are they really and truly pro-life? Hardly. Their actions prove what they believe: that they value financial security more than their baby’s life.
Or the guy who sings to God, “Here I am to worship, here I am to bow down, here I am to say that you’re my God, you’re altogether lovely, altogether worthy, altogether wonderful to me” and then never cracks his Bible or prays for the rest of the week. Does that dude really believe God is completely lovely and worthy and wonderful? Not if he doesn’t even have the desire to seek God outside of a church building.
So far, so good. We live what we believe.
But here’s what has me really puzzled. Why do my actions so often show that I don't really believe what I say I believe? What are the greatest hindrances to believing, and thus living, what I say I believe? There are probably lots of answers, but I’ve been especially convicted about three.
NOTE: Even though I’m writing this to you, I’ve left these musings in the first person because this post is a sort of journal entry for me. Hopefully, you might catch a glimpse of yourself here, too, as you peer over my shoulder while I look into the mirror of God’s word a bit…
1. I live by feelings more than by faith. More often than I care to admit, I am "feelingful" instead of faithful. Some of these "feelings" are genuine emotions; others are just plain old desires. For example, if I don't feel like (read: "want to") reading my Bible, I'm easily tempted not to. The point is, it’s easier to live by what I feel rather than what I say I believe. Or, to put it another way, I tend to believe my feelings more than I believe God. The problem lies in what I believe.
2. I also tend to live for the present more than the future. Sure, I am aware that God says sin is bad for me, but that seems so doubtful when I'm caught up in the dailyness of life. After all, sin doesn’t usually bring immediate consequences. That means I can sin and seem to get away with it—no retribution from God, no apparent consequences in my life… all is well. Or so it appears…
Why? Because when I say “all is well,” what I really mean is “all is well right this moment, at least as far as I can tell.” But what I fail to realize is that all is NOT well in the bigger picture. For example, my sinful coveting is setting me up for financial disaster, or my sinful anger is fracturing my relationships, or my sinful laziness is beginning to get noticed by my employer, or my sinful lust for approval is weakening my ability to stand for the truth. Disaster is right around the corner; but since I can’t see it, I don’t really believe it. The present seems so much more real to me than the future. Or, to put it another way, I tend to believe my experience of the present more than I believe God’s prediction of the future. Once again, the problem lies in what I believe.
3. Finally, I live by my assessment of myself more than the Bible's assessment of me. In other words, I tend to rationalize away verses that correct me, rather than see them as indictments of me personally. I’m quite an expert at this game of making excuses for myself and slowly squeeeeezing out from under the pressure of conviction.
I apply some verses to other people: "Give money? That's for people who actually have some extra." Or I excuse myself on the basis of a good heart: "Disciple my kids? Well, I really want to do that. Is that good enough?" Or I postpone my obedience: "Witness? I will, when unsaved people begin dropping into my life." Or I present God with conditions: "Ask for my wife's forgiveness? OK, I will, right after she asks me for mine."
In other words, I often fail to live out what I say I believe because I excuse my behavior as “not the real me.” Or, to put it another way, I tend to believe my own excuses for my sinful actions more than I believe God’s indictment of my sinful actions. Yet once more, the problem lies in what I believe.
If you’re still reading, I’m impressed. I’m also indebted to offer you a solution. What should we do if any of these false beliefs have captured our own soul?
Three suggestions:
1) Get in the word. To paraphrase Romans 10:17, “True belief arises in our heart through hearing the word of God.”
2) Pray for faith. Be like the man who asked Jesus for a miracle, and when Jesus asked if he believed, he pleaded: “I believe! But help my unbelief!” (Mk 9:24)
3) Connect to others. As Hebrews 3:13 recommends: “You must warn each other every day, while it is still ‘today,’ so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God.” It’s much easier to be deceived along the way when you’re walking it alone.
Do you really believe that what you believe is really real? If not, what are you believing instead? And more importantly, how do you plan to change it?
Viewing the Pain of Earth Through the Eyes of Heaven
I had a different post planned for today, but this afternoon I read through tears the news of a young couple who lost their full-term daughter the day before she was due to be born. I only met this young father once at a conference a few years ago, but I have prayed for him earnestly because I know very well the expectant hopes and joys of fatherhood. And since yesterday’s mishap with my own son, I’ve been especially aware of the fragility of our lives and the importance of grounding our joy in something other than prosperous circumstances.
As we come to the end of the book, we find that Job is a broken and changed man (42: 1-6). He affirms God’s freedom and sovereignty, and he repents of his reckless and reactionary words. He forgives his three friends and prays for their forgiveness by God (vv 7-9). And then we find an amazing and complete reversal of Job’s fortunes (vv 10-13). Here we learn the sixth theme of the book of Job:
Someday God will right every wrong and repay every hurt.
Should we conclude that this restoration here is normative and means that all of our sickness will give way to healing, all of our loss will be regained, all our hurt will be soothed in this life? Not quite. Job’s restoration in his lifetime is, I think, an accommodation to the era in which Job lived, before the Scriptures were given in their full form. Job’s restoration is God’s way of vindicating him and demonstrating what we know from the revelation of the rest of the Scriptures, which Job and his friends did not have.
How? Well, we’re not quite sure, but what we do know is that He is the God who imagined and carried out the details of the gospel. And in the gospel we see that our God wounds, but He also heals and will someday welcome us to His everlasting joy.
Rom 8:16-18 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs--heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. 18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.Oh, how glorious is the good news of the gospel for those in suffering! The final answer to the book of Job and the ultimate consolation for all of the Jobs who have suffered like him is that our Lord Himself embraced and absorbed all the undeserved consequences of sin and evil in this wretched world!
2 Cor 4:16-18 16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
Behold the mercy of our King,
Who takes from death its bitter sting,
And by his blood, and often ours,
Brings triumph out of hostile pow’rs,
And paints, with crimson, earth and soul
Until the bloody work is whole.
What we have lost God will restore—
That, and Himself, forevermore,
When He is finished with His art:
The quiet worship of our heart.
When God creates a humble hush,
And makes Leviathan his brush,
It won’t be long before the rod
Becomes the tender kiss of God.~ John Piper, The Misery of Job and the Mercy of God
Giving Thanks for God's Kind Providence
Until this month, we hadn't been to the emergency room much at all, especially considering we have four boys age eight and under. But on Labor Day our 3-year-old got bumped off the porch by his three brothers and landed right on his arm. After lots of tears and howls, a trip to the hospital, and a few x-rays, we learned that we had our first broken bone. But a few days ago he abandoned his little sling, and all was well.
Until today, that is, when our 5-year-old tried to climb a tree with the aid of a bungee cord. He hooked it on a branch above his head, grabbed on tight, and started to pull himself up. (Go ahead and cringe now, because you know what's coming next.) Just as he started to lift himself off the ground, WHAM! That deadly metal hook slipped off the branch and nailed him right between the eyes.
It was pretty gory there for a while: a trail of blood through the house, a jagged hole in his head, blood in his eyes and running down his nose… Once again my truck became an emergency vehicle, carrying one of my precious little treasures toward rescue. Ironically, he had just been at his doctor’s that morning for a scheduled visit, so they were all ready with his chart and insurance info.
I’m amazed at how tough these little boys of mine are. Our youngest didn’t take another drop of pain medication for his broken arm after leaving the hospital, and this little guy today took four shots of anesthetic directly in his torn forehead. Phew! Six stitches and a vanilla shake later, and we were on our way home again, not too much the worse for wear.
But what amazes me more than anything is the goodness of God that watched over both my boys during their mishaps. All the way to the doctor’s today, I couldn’t help but imagine what would have happened if that metal hook had hit him an inch or two to either side. As he himself said at the doctor’s office: “Yeah, then I would have needed to get a wooden eye!”
I will say to the LORD, "My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust."Psalm 91:2
From R.C. Sproul’s The Holiness of God
“We tend to have mixed feelings about the holy. There is a sense in which we are at the same time attracted to it and repulsed by it.” (p 42)
“God is the ultimate object of our xenophobia. He is the ultimate stranger. He is the ultimate foreigner. He is holy, and we are not.” (p 45)
“It is one thing of fall victim to the flood or to fall prey to cancer; it is another thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” (p 53)
“Holiness provokes hatred. The greater the holiness, the greater the human hostility toward it. It seems insane. No man was ever more loving than Jesus Christ. Yet even His love made people angry.” (p 68)
Commenting on the death of Uzzah when he steadied the Ark of the Covenant with his hand: “An act of heroism? No! It was an act of arrogance, a sin of presumption. Uzzah assumed that his hand was less polluted than the earth. But it wasn’t the ground or the mud that would desecrate the ark; it was the touch of man.” (p 108)
“The Old Testament list of capital crimes represents a massive reduction of the original list. It is an astonishing measure of grace. The Old Testament record is chiefly a record of the grace of God. How so? …In creation all sin is deemed worthy of death. Every sin is a capital crime.” (p 114)
“God put Adam and Eve on probation and said, 'If you sin, you will die.' Sin brings the loss of the gift of life. The right to life is forfeited by sin. Once people sin, they forfeit any claim on God to human existence.” (p 114)
“Sin is cosmic treason. Sin is treason against a perfectly pure Sovereign. It is an act of supreme ingratitude toward the One to whom we owe everything, to the One who has given us life itself.” (p 116)
“We become false witnesses to God. When we sin as the image bearers of God, we are saying to the whole creation, to all of nature under our dominion, to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field: 'This is how God is. This is how your Creator behaves. Look in this mirror; look at us, and you will see the character of the Almighty.'” (p 116)
“…the most mysterious aspect of the mystery of sin is not that the sinner deserves to die, but rather that the sinner in the average situation continues to exist.” (p 117)
“[God] is indeed long-suffering, patient, and slow to anger. In fact He is so slow to anger that when His anger does erupt, we are shocked and offended by it. …Instead of taking advantage of this patience by coming humbly to Him for forgiveness, we use this grace as an opportunity to become more bold in our sin.” (p 117)
“The most violent expression of God’s wrath and justice is seen in the cross. If ever a person had room to complain of injustice, it was Jesus. He was the only innocent man ever to be punished by God. If we stagger at the wrath of God, let us stagger at the Cross.” (p 121)
“As soon as we talk about deserving something, we are no longer talking about grace; we are talking about justice. Only justice can be deserved. God is never obligated to be merciful. Mercy and grace must be voluntary or they are no longer mercy and grace.” (p 127)
“God is not obligated to treat all people equally.” (p 128)
“Access to the Father is ours. But we still must tremble before our God. He is still holy. Our trembling is the tremor of awe and veneration, not the trembling of the coward or the pagan. ...We are to fear God not with a servile fear like that of a prisoner before his tormentor but as children who do not wish to displease their beloved Father.” (pp 153-4)
A Distinction Without A Difference
"Do you really believe that what you believe is really real?"
So ended the first session of The Truth Project, a DVD-based worldview study from Focus on the Family which we are beginning at our church. Dr. Del Tackett, who incidentally is one of the most effective and inspiring teachers I've ever heard, concludes his first lecture with this haunting question; and I've been pondering it ever since.
It reminded me of a thought that first came my way about 15 years ago, in a course taught by one of my favorite college profs, Dave Hershberger. He opined, "We don't need to live what we believe. We already do. We can tell exactly what we really believe by how we live."
At first I thought he was loony; but after about 5 minutes of raising and answering objections in my own mind, I concluded he was absolutely right. …and brilliant.
About 10 years later I read John Piper's Future Grace, with its central thesis that sin gets its power from the pleasures it (falsely) promises us and so the way to fight for holiness is to believe the promises of superior satisfaction from God. That book literally changed my life. (Someday I would like to write about the five books that have changed me the most and why. Interested? Stay tuned. Maybe I will.)
Suddenly, I saw that the key to fighting sin was not the gargantuan effort required to deny myself pleasure and "Just say no" to sin. Sure, the Bible exhorts us to say no, but a more biblically complete approach requires us to say "yes" to the promises of a far surpassing joy and fulfillment that God offers in His word. So once again, I was pointed back to the ultimate question: "What do I really believe? My feelings? The siren song of sinful desire? The culture? Or God's word?"
For example, Dr. Tackett suggested that if he himself really believed all that the Bible says about the fatherly nature of God and the power of prayer, he wouldn't have a problem NOT praying. The difficulty would be getting himself to stop praying!
I think he’s right. Do you? I think his question is one that’s well worth asking.
Do you really believe that what you believe is really real? …about God? …heaven and hell? …the Bible? …the final judgment? …the gospel?
Prove it. Live it.
...Means We Occasionally Hit the MOUNTAINS!
I'm bummed that I missed posting for a day or two, but we've been visiting family in Granby, which is up in the mountains not too far from Rocky Mountain National Park. We came up to go hiking, enjoy the sights, and watch the elk bugle. The elk watching was pretty amazing. We were often within 20-30 feet of whole herds - usually a bull and his harem, along with several calves.
The kids loved it! Along the way we also saw several moose, deer, and a red fox.
It's been a wonderful couple of days. Hiking, four-wheeling, relaxing, and being amazed at the handiwork of our God:
O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
From the lips of children and infants
you have ordained praise
because of your enemies,
to silence the foe and the avenger.
When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?
You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.
You made him ruler over the works of your hands;
you put everything under his feet:
all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field,
the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.
O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!Psalm 8
Another Look at How a Christian Reads the Psalms (and the rest of the Bible)
My friend Jeff asked a really good question about this post from last week. Specifically, he gently challenged the notion that OT saints didn’t (or couldn't) have the same level of awareness of their sinfulness as we do. I had written:
…these men and women didn’t have Romans 7 or Ephesians 2 to help them understand how truly awful they are without Jesus. Thus, we should not expect them to have the same level of intimacy with the wretchedness in their own heart as we have, viewing it through the lens of these later Scriptures.
It’s a great question especially when we remember that, when Paul wants to prove that the whole world is desperately sinful in the early chapters of Romans, what does he do? He quotes the Old Testament extensively! Romans 3:10-18 is a collection of OT quotations all demonstrating his point that Jews and Gentiles are alike under sin. He writes (with OT references added in parenthesis):
10 as it is written: "None is righteous, no, not one;
11 no one understands; no one seeks for God.
12 All have turned aside;
together they have become worthless;
no one does good, not even one.” (Psalm 14:1-3)
13 “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” (Psalm 5:9)
“The venom of asps is under their lips." (Psalm 140:3)
14 "Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness." (Psalm 10:7)
15 "Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 in their paths are ruin and misery,
17 and the way of peace they have not known." (Isaiah 59:7-8)
18 "There is no fear of God before their eyes." (Psalm 36:1)
So obviously, these readers of the OT had plenty of material to show them their sinfulness. Paul sure thought so anyway! But I still contend that they failed to see the depths of their depravity clearly, even with passages like these right before their eyes. Why? Because the average believer—both Old Testament era and New Testament era alike—would read these passages and assume that these words do not apply to them.
I am the woman at the well, I am the harlot
I am the scattered seed that fell along the path
I am the son that ran away
And I am the bitter son that stayed
I am the angry man who came to stone the lover
I am the woman there ashamed before the crowd
I am the leper that gave thanks
But I am the nine that never came
My God, my God why hast Thou accepted me
When all my love was vinegar to a thirsty King?
My God, my God why hast Thou accepted me
It's a mystery of mercy and a song, the song I sing(lyrics by Andrew Peterson and Randall Goodgame, from the album Back Home)
From John Stott's Between Two Worlds
