The Promises of Sin vs. The Promises of Christ part 2

Continuing yesterday's post, let's consider the promise of vanity. At the heart of vanity is the fight for true worth and beauty. We believe if we are attractive and beautiful, then we will have worth. However, as Jonathan Dodson points out, "Instead of relying on vanity for worth, consider the beauty of God."

"What we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears

we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is." 1 John 3:2

In the case of vanity, turning from the promises of sin to the promises of Christ means turning to God's beauty and resting in the beauty you have in him. It is turning from cheap beauty to true beauty. In fact, as humans, the pinnacle of our beauty can only be found in Christ. He is the perfection of beauty. The gospel is good news, because Jesus Christ came and took our ugliness upon himself, so that through faith in him, we could be clothed in his never ending true beauty. 

Vanity says: "Perform beautifully and you will have worth."

The gospel says: "Jesus performed beautifully for you; therefore, in Jesus you have never-ending worth."

*Much of the above is taken from Jonathan Dodson's, "Gospel-Centered Discipleship"

Fight Club

Here is a great excerpt from  Jonathan Dodson's, "Gospel Centered Discipleship." In this excerpt, he is referring to the motion picture, "Fight Club", written by Chuck Palahnuik.

"Fight Club does depict the struggle to recover identity in a post-modern, media saturated world. It shows us that the world is charged with bogus images of what it means to be truly human. In underground fight clubs, groups of men meet after hours in basements and back alleys to fight one another barefoot, bare chested, and bare fisted. It's a bloody ordeal.

In a speech just prior to a fight club, Tyler Durden charges the men, 'We are the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no great war, or great depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives. We've all been raised by television to believe that one day we'll all be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars-but we won't.'

In this speech, Durden pinpoints something that should confront Christians every day-the great depression of a life lived apart from a noble cause. Christians are tempted daily to believe the empty promises of the millionaire, movie god, and rock star lifestyles. We are tempted to believe that if we had a lithe more money, power, notoriety, respect, beauty, influence, or success we would be truly happy. We need to fight to believe in something better. Palahnuik's Fight Club was an attempt to fill a void left by the Church. In an interview he comments, 'I started to recognized that, in a way, support groups were becoming the new church of our time-a place where people will go and confess their very worst aspects of their lives and seek redemption and community with outer people in a way that people used to go to church...'

God is calling us to recover and redeem this confessional, redemptive, and communal role of the church. He is calling us out of our depressive, self-centered lives into the rewarding fight of faith, out of the great depression into a great spiritual war."

The Call to Fight

Regardless of who we are, or what walk of life we are in, everybody fights for something. Some of us fight for an image. Some of us fight for approval. Some of us fight to be heard. Others fight to have control. Whatever it is, we are all fighting for something.

The New Testament is filled with imagery of fighting. However, for those who have new life in Christ, the call to fight shifts drastically. Whereas before, we tirelessly fight for our own identity, with Christ, the call is to fight to believe that Jesus is our new identity. Further, we must daily fight to believe that in Jesus, everything we long for and desire, we have in Him. Christians are called to keep fighting to believe in Jesus.

We must fight because this is not easy. How easily do I go back to believing the lies of sin and idolatry! Sin says Jesus isn't enough. Sin tells us the idols of our hearts are what we really need. If I only I had that one thing then life would be OK. I'll be satisfied if I had more money, or if I gain the acceptance of this circle of people, or if I am successful professionally then I'll have people's respect and have joy. Or, if I get a girlfriend/boyfriend I'll find the love I'm looking for. I need to fight to believe the gospel over these idolatrous lies every single day.

The truth is that our hearts were meant to find satisfaction in God and God alone. Our hearts were fashioned in his likeness, and they will be restless until they rest in Him (Augustine). Even though I know this is true, my heart drifts towards my idols every day. Because of that, the Bible calls us to fight to believe, to fight for our joy in Christ. Jonathan Dodson summarizes:

"Disciples of Jesus are called to fight, not in physical or virtual combat, but for the noble cause of everyday faith in Jesus...We fight to believe that Jesus is more precious, satisfying, and thrilling than anything this world has to offer. This is faith in the gospel-the grand announcement that Jesus has defeated sin, death, and evil through his own death and resurrection and is making all things new, even us."


Jonathan Dodson, Gospel-Centered Discipleship (Crossway, 2012), 59-60.