No Not One!

Sung this hymn in church on Sunday. Music to the sinners ears!

1. There’s not a friend like the lowly Jesus,
   No, not one! No, not one!
   None else could heal all our soul’s diseases,
   No, not one! No, not one!
2. 
   
3. Refrain:
4. Jesus knows all about our struggles,
5. He will guide till the day is done;
6. There’s not a friend like the lowly Jesus,
7. No, not one! No, not one!
8. No friend like Him is so high and holy,
   No, not one! No, not one!
   And yet no friend is so meek and lowly,
   No, not one! No, not one!
9. There’s not an hour that He is not near us,
   No, not one! No, not one!
   No night so dark but His love can cheer us,
   No, not one! No, not one!
10. Did ever saint find this Friend forsake him?
    No, not one! No, not one!
    Or sinner find that He would not take him?
    No, not one! No, not one!
11. Was e’er a gift like the Savior given?
    No, not one! No, not one!
    Will He refuse us a home in heaven?
    No, not one! No, not one!

Recovering Eden

Zack Eswine:

"But I commend to you that God has been about nothing but seeking to restore and recover what was lost in Eden."

In other words, grace restores nature. What was corrupt and lost in the fall, is now being regained in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Welcome to the Church of Brand Jesus

"A person is not a Jew who is one only outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code.Such a person’s praise is not from other people, but from God."

Romans 2:28-29

Commenting on these verses, Tyler Wigg Stevenson, author of Brand Jesus, asks, "...why are so many self-proclaimed Christians buying into the religious lifestyle, image, and identity, but not making the radical spiritual-ethical commitment to discipleship? How is it that there is so much Christian hypocrisy?"

The heart of these verses is that being part of God's family (Jew in the Old Testament, Christian in the New Testament) is not primarily an external matter, but is rather an internal matter with external fruit. In these verses, the Apostle Paul is critiquing the Jews of his day who claimed God, but did so only externally. They were good Jews because they were circumcised. Paul counters by saying that the external act of circumcision is ultimately meant to be an external mark of an inward reality, namely a life that has been transformed by the Spirit of God. 

Stevenson applies these verses to the contemporary Church by pointing out our tendency, much like the Jews in Paul's day, to rely on external marks as the evidence of our faith. For example, we might believe ourselves to be Christians merely because we belong to a church, or were baptized, or align with the religious right politically. We have external badges of honor, but our hearts are far from God. 

The problem, according to Stevenson, is that the Jesus we claim to believe in, is in fact, not Jesus as all:

"The startling question is, then, is Jesus Christ actually the one whom many self-proclaimed Christians have accepted? Or, as seems to be the case,  have consumer-minded Christians been led from the narrow road, drawn by the promises of an impotent spiritual commodity masquerading as the power of God? Welcome to the church of Brand Jesus." pg. 101

Stevenson's point: External badges of religion are insufficient. As Paul stated in Romans 2, the mark of a true believer is a circumcision of the heart, or, a transformed life. External badges (church membership, political affiliation, occasional acts of charity) are insufficient because they don't have any power. They give the mere appearance of Godliness, but are just as Stevenson describes 'impotent spiritual commodity masquerading as the power of God." These badges are not the result of a radical internal transformation. They are not the result of totally new, born again life in Christ. No, they are the rather feeble attempts to construct our self-justification. 

The only solution to this problem is the true gospel of Jesus Christ; namely, that our attempts to build our own kingdom, wherein we attempt to build our own identity, our justification, and our very sense of life before God is completely insufficient. But, in his great mercy and love, Christ came to give us life. Through his life, death and resurrection, Jesus has come to free us from this death sentence of self-sufficiency. 

But herein lies the problem. Stevenson's point is that if you look at the life of the American Christianity, it is clear that we are not living or preaching this true gospel, wherein lives are truly transformed. Rather, we are preaching and living a different faith; the faith of Brand Jesus. 

And this Brand Jesus fits in perfectly with our consumer mindsets in that it gives us exactly what our sinful selves want, all the while wearing a mask of true spirituality:

"Brand Jesus takes the promise of the Kingdom of God and offers another pseudo-Christian vision instead...Brand Jesus takes the tragedy of sinful life and without asking us to change our behavior in the plot, promises a happy ending. Brand Jesus takes everything our species' depraved imagination wants to believe is true about the world and feeds it back to us." pg. 104

"We are in fact, wholly conformed to the pattern of this world. So, while Christians should be radically different from everybody else, we find that Christians are no more different from practitioners of other lifestyles than those folk are from each other. We've made discipleship into one option among many, when it ought to stand separate, as different from other ways of living as Christ was from the world." pg. 103

In short, the American Church has submitted to a form of Christianity (Brand Jesus), wherein they are allowed to continue in their current desired lifestyle without any real transformation. Although they may have external badges, there is no power behind it. There is no real knowledge of the God. There is no real experience of God's grace. It is a pseudo-Christianity, giving the people enough religion to soothe their spiritual conscious, but denying the very nature of Jesus Christ. 

The only answer is to run to the gospel of God's grace. 

Tyler Wigg Stevenson, Brand Jesus: Christianity in a Consumerist Age (Seabury Books, New York, 2007). 

For the Love of Mammon

“No one can serve two masters. 

For you will hate one and love the other; 

you will be devoted to one and despise the other. 

You cannot serve both God and mammon.”

Luke 16:13

The word I highlighted, mammon, is translated in the English as 'money' or 'wealth'. I highlighted it because the typical English translation of the word really doesn't do justice to what Jesus is actually getting at. Tyler Wigg Stevenson describes the concept of 'mammon' in his book, Brand Jesus:

"The connotation when Jesus talks about 'mammon', therefore, is that of a proper noun. It is not a generic concept that can be translated between different languages; no, Mammon is the name of a force in opposition to God." pg. 46

Stevenson goes on to show the contrast in how Jesus talks about 'mammon' and other opposing forces, such as human government. Even though Caesar was in someway opposed to the Triune God, Jesus teaches his disciples to give to Caesar what is Caesar's. He never says you can't serve both God and Caesar. It is interesting then that Jesus would say that money, or 'mammon', are completely mutually exclusive. You cannot serve both. Mammon is a complete alternative to God in a way government doesn't have to be. Stevenson continues:

"For Jesus to isolate Mammon like this, and to such a degree, gives Mammon the force of a veritable super-idol. If Mammon and God cannot be served simultaneously, then Mammon must be an idol above all other things that can become idolatrous for us. For, while it would be true to say we cannot serve both  God and an idol, note that 'an idol' is not an independent entity. An 'Idol' describes something defined by improper devotion to it. A statue is a statue; only when people start worshipping it does it become an idol. It's idol-ness comes from its devotees rather than anything inherent to it...But Mammon, it is, in itself, necessarily idolatrous..."

"Mammon, as Jesus uses it here, is another name for the spiritual goal to which the original humans (Adam and Eve) aspired in their first sin...They wanted to claim something that could be their own; not as a gift, because everything they had was a gift. No, they wanted something free and clear, something they could possess, hang on to, say, 'I have rights toward this.' In the first sin, they tried to be owners rather than stewards that God had made them to be. They tried to become wealthy. They were willing to trade the stewardship of all God's gifts-in which they owned nothing-for ownership of one thing, knowledge of good and evil. And ownership depends on a concept of wealth, Mammon, to rule it. The first humans, in seeking to own themselves, gave birth to the one who would rule over them (Mammon)." pg. 47

In essence, 'Mammon', is in direct opposition to God because its very nature inverts the proper Creator-creature distinction. 'Mammon' is the driving force behind  humans wanting to be God. It compels us to live in self-autonomy. It is exactly what Paul was talking about in Romans when he wrote, "because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator" (Romans 1:25). The concept of 'Mammon' captures the absolute pride and arrogance of our human race in seeking to build our own kingdom (or system of wealth) over and against God's Kingdom. This explains why, when Jesus came proclaiming the Kingdom of God, the imperative to "repent" or turn from your own little kingdom was also given. These kingdoms are in opposition to each other. The proud continue their vain pursuits of 'Mammon', while God graciously reveals himself to the humble. Stevenson closes his chapter on Mammon by writing:

"Mammon embodies original opposition to God and God's wishes for us. That is why Paul writes in 1 Timothy 6 that the root of all evil is the love of money. I know many Christians reading this will say that they do love God and they don't love money. But in our culture, regardless of what we say with our mouths, the way that many of us live expresses most of all a love of money. We speak about our love of God, but we live out of our love of Mammon." pg. 48

I know these are all hard words to swallow, and I don't write as one who is innocent of these realities. No, I write as a fellow culprit. I haven't really processed a response to these strong claims, but I do know that I need to repent of my love of Mammon. 

Tyler Wigg Stevenson, Brand Jesus: Christianity in a Consumerist Age (Seabury Books, NewYork, 2007). 

The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness in Marriage

A couple great quotes from Dave Harvey's book, When Sinners Say 'I Do'.

"Mercy sweetens marriage. Where it is absent, two people flog one another over everything from failure to fix the faucet to phone bills. But where it is present, marriage grows sweeter and more delightful, even in the face of challenges, setbacks and persistent effects of our remaining sin." 

"Mercy takes people who are capable of open warfare over toothpaste tubes and toilet seats, and enlarges their vision to include a Savior. Mercy confronts a sinner wrapped in self pity and protected pride and shows him the way out of the darkness into the light. Mercy inspires us to move beyond the power and government of self love back to the nobler and benevolent principles of our new nature" 

"Forgiveness and repentance is the powerful tool that repairs the damage done to sin-torn marriage relationships. And where forgiveness is employed, and repentance is lived out, it transforms. Forgiveness humbly sought, and humbly given, profoundly expresses the glory of God. Why? Because forgiveness is at the heart of the gospel-the true demonstration of God's love for those who deserved his wrath....We have all been forgiven the greatest debt. Let's learn how to forgive the debtor we married." 

Dave Harvey, When Sinners Say 'I Do' (Wapwallopen, PA: Shepherd Press, 2007) 80, 82, 113,  

Thinking Lightly of Sin

A great quote from Charles Spurgeon:

"Too many think lightly of sin, and therefore think lightly of the Savior. He who has stood before his God, convicted and condemned, with the rope about his neck, is the man to weep for joy when he is pardoned, to hate the evil which has been forgiven, and to live to the honor of the Redeemer by whose blood he has been cleansed."

Arnold Dallimore, Spurgeon, A New Biography (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1987), 14. 

Losing Sight of Sin

"Christians are rapidly losing sight of sin as the root of all human woes. And many Christians are explicitly  denying that their own sin can be the cause of their personal anguish. More and more are attempting to explain in the human dilemma in wholly unbiblical terms: temperament, addiction, dysfunctional families, the child within, codependency, and a host of other irresponsible escape mechanisms promoted by secular psychology. 

The potential impact of such a drift is frightening. Remove the reality of sin, and you take away the possibility of repentance. Abolish the doctrine of human depravity and you void the divine plan of salvation. Erase the notion  of personal guilt and you eliminate the need for a Savior. 

John MacArthur, The Vanishing of Conscience: Drawing the Line in a No-Fault, Guilt-Free World (Dalles: Word, 1994), 11.

Simply put: If you minimize sin, you minimize Jesus.

Santa Claus=Bad News, Gospel=Good News

The declaration of Santa Claus goes a little something like this: Get your act together because whether you are naughty or nice determines the gift you receive, whether that be a good gift or a lump of coal.

The declaration of Jesus Christ goes a little something like this: You all alike have been naughty, and the reward you justly deserve is far worse than a lump of coal, it is death. On top of that, you can't possibly fix yourself or reverse your outcome. BUT, I lived the life you should have lived, and earned the reward or gift that you failed to obtain so that all who turn from their own act can receive me, and receive the ultimate gift, life in God. Whereas you deserve punishment for your track record, you can receive mercy, forgiveness, grace, and life in Jesus Christ.

My fear is that most of us functionally believe a Christianity that is more comparable to the Santa Claus declaration. If our good outweighs our bad, then we get a reward. This is not reality. This is not the gospel. This is, as John Piper puts it, actually very bad news. If you are banking on your own moral track record as your assurance, you can never be sure. You will constantly be wondering if you did enough, or if you are good enough. Simply put, you will never be good enough, and you will never do enough. All of us are sinners who are broken and distorted. But, there is one who did everything you couldn't do, and now freely offers himself to you. That is the good news of Jesus. Receive and rest in Jesus.

A little video from one of my favorite preachers of all time, John Piper:

Wealth and the Gospel

 A certain ruler asked him (Jesus), “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  

“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. 

You know the commandments: ‘You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.’”  

“All these I have kept since I was a boy,” he said. 

When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” 

When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was very wealthy. Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

Luke 18:18-25

For anyone who reads the Bible with an open heart, these are extremely hard words to swallow, especially for those living in the present Western World which is considered by many to be the wealthiest context in all human history. What does Jesus mean in this passage? Does he mean that if you are rich, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God unless you literally sell everything you own? 

As I've been going through the Gospel accounts, I am amazed at how frequently and directly Jesus approaches the topic of wealth and possessions. Jesus gets right at the heart and holds no punches back. At first glance, most of us (myself included) will mistakenly read this text in either a moralistic or relativistic way. What I mean is this: In a moralistic reading, we take Jesus' command to "go sell everything and give it to the poor" as a universal rule that must be literally followed by anyone who truly considers themselves to be a Christian. The story is then a direct moral imperative to be followed literally and universally. The other end of the spectrum many of us will fall on (especially if we have great deal of wealth), is a relativistic reading. We read Jesus command and instantly think that there is no way this applies to me or actually demands a change from me. Jesus didn't really mean what he said. In this reading, we relativize the text in such a way as to protect our self from being faced with our own sinfulness. I think it is important that we examine our hearts and be honest with ourselves in regards to where we fall on the spectrum. Like I said, for those who hold on tightly to their wealth, and are consumed with building their own little kingdoms of comfort, you are probably going to fall on the side of relativism. On the other hand, for those who are often discontented with the status quo of 'safe, individualized, lifeless, consumeristic Christianity', you might find yourself imposing pharisee like rules on people. For the person who struggles deeply with self-righteousness (like me!), you might read the text in a moralistic way as a way to justify yourself. 

At the end of the day, both of these ways (relativism and moralism) are incorrect ways to understand what Jesus is really getting at. The proper way of understanding this text is a third way, lets call it a 'gospel' reading of the text. When we read this text in light of the whole gospel story, it is evident that Jesus is getting at something much deeper than a simple moralistic formula for how to deal with wealth and possessions. Rather, Jesus is getting at the radical way in which the gospel completely reorientates everything in our lives. In other words, Jesus is saying "the gospel changes everything." Being in the Kingdom of God is a complete reordering of everything in our lives. 

The story of the Rich Young Ruler is piercing because along with the heart of the young man in the story, our hearts are also revealed. In the story, the young ruler goes away sad because he realizes that the cost of following Jesus is too high; he is not willing to sell all that he has to follow Christ. The problem here wasn't so much that the man had possessions or power, but that he loved and trusted his wealth above God. His hearts orientation was out of whack. His life was out of order. The purpose for this story isn't ultimately that we might all sell our possessions, but that we may see the way we, like the young ruler, trust and love things (like wealth) more than God. We put other things (in this case, wealth) at the top of the pecking order. When Jesus says that you can't enter the Kingdom of God if you are rich, this means that only way you can enter the Kingdom of God is if you are living under the loving and righteous reign of the King. For a disciple, or a person living under God's reign, all other compartments of life fall under this ultimate allegiance. Money, possessions, relationships, work, family, time, energy, food, religion, they all must be orientated under God. They all must be submitted. We can see by the rich young ruler's response that this is a hard pill to swallow. Here was a man who kept all the rules and who zealously tried to live for God, but there was just one area of his life that he trusted and loved more than God.

So, the take away isn't so much a moralistic rule to follow, but a paradigm shift. The gospel of Jesus Christ brings us into a completely new worldview. Wealth is no longer something that needs to grip our hearts affections, but is something to be freely given to our God. This story is a way to ask ourselves, "what is it that I trust and love in more than God," "what do I look to in order to gain significance," or "what compels or controls me?". For this man, it was his wealth and power. That was the barrier between him following Jesus. Is this true of us? How we respond to Jesus' challenge, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it," (Luke 9:23-24) reveals where are hearts are at. 

To close, there is good news in all of this. Just thinking about this now, I realize all the ways I fail to orientate my life completely under Christ's Lordship. It seems impossible. The crowd following Jesus thought the same thing. Read how the story finishes:

"Those who heard this asked, 'Who then can be saved?'

Jesus replied, 'What is impossible with man is possible with God'"

Luke 18:26-27

The good news is that Christ died in our place, and resurrected, that we, along with him could be resurrected to new life. Jesus lived, died, and rose that in him, we might receive a new heart, one that is orientated toward God. In our own strength and religious zeal, this is impossible. With God's supreme power and unfailing love, this is possible. 

5 Signs You Glorify Self

Very helpful insight from Paul Tripp as posted on The Gospel Coalition Blog. Here it is:

It is important to recognize the harvest of self-glory in you and in your ministry. May God use this list to give you diagnostic wisdom. May he use it to expose your heart and to redirect your ministry.

Self-glory will cause you to:

1. Parade in public what should be kept in private.

The Pharisees live for us as a primary example. Because they saw their lives as glorious, they were quick to parade that glory before watching eyes. The more you think you've arrived and the less you see yourself as daily needing rescuing grace, the more you will tend to be self-referencing and self-congratulating. Because you are attentive to self-glory, you will work to get greater glory even when you aren't aware that you're doing it. You will tend to tell personal stories that make you the hero. You will find ways, in public settings, of talking about private acts of faith. Because you think you're worthy of acclaim, you will seek the acclaim of others by finding ways to present yourself as "godly."

I know most pastors reading this column will think they would never do this. But I am convinced there is a whole lot more "righteousness parading" in pastoral ministry than we would tend to think. It is one of the reasons I find pastors' conferences, presbytery meetings, general assemblies, ministeriums, and church planting gatherings uncomfortable at times. Around the table after a session, these gatherings can degenerate into a pastoral ministry "spitting contest" where we are tempted to be less than honest about what's really going on in our hearts and ministries. After celebrating the glory of the grace of the gospel there is way too much self-congratulatory glory taking by people who seem to need more acclaim than they deserve.

2. Be way too self-referencing.

We all know it, we've all seen it, we've all been uncomfortable with it, and we've all done it. Proud people tend to talk about themselves a lot. Proud people tend to like their opinions more than the opinions of others. Proud people think their stories are more interesting and engaging than others. Proud people think they know and understand more than others. Proud people think they've earned the right to be heard. Proud people, because they are basically proud of what they know and what they've done, talk a lot about both. Proud people don't reference weakness. Proud people don't talk about failure. Proud people don't confess sin. So proud people are better at putting the spotlight on themselves than they are at shining the light of their stories and opinions on God's glorious and utterly undeserved grace.

3. Talk when you should be quiet.

When you think you've arrived, you are quite proud of and confident in your opinions. You trust your opinions, so you are not as interested in the opinions of others as you should be. You will tend to want your thoughts, perspectives, and viewpoints to win the day in any given meeting or conversation. This means you will be way more comfortable than you should be with dominating a gathering with your talk. You will fail to see that in a multitude of counsel there is wisdom. You will fail to see the essential ministry of the body of Christ in your life. You will fail to recognize your bias and spiritual blindness. So you won't come to meetings formal or informal with a personal sense of need for what others have to offer, and you will control the talk more than you should.

4. Be quiet when you should speak.

Self-glory can go the other way as well. Leaders who are too self-confident, who unwittingly attribute to themselves what could only have been accomplished by grace, often see meetings as a waste of time. Because they are proud, they are too independent, so meetings tend to be viewed as an irritating and unhelpful interruption of an already overburdened ministry schedule. Because of this they will either blow meetings off or tolerate the gathering, attempting to bring it to a close as quickly as possible. So they don't throw their ideas out for consideration and evaluation because, frankly, they don't think they need it. And when their ideas are on the table and being debated, they don't jump into the fray, because they think that what they have opined or proposed simply doesn't need to be defended. Self-glory will cause you to speak too much when you should listen and to feel no need to speak when you surely should.

5. Care too much about what people think about you.

When you have fallen into thinking that you're something, you want people to recognize the something. Again, you see this in the Pharisees: personal assessments of self-glory always lead to glory-seeking behavior. People who think they have arrived can become all too aware of how others respond to them. Because you're hyper-vigilant, watching the way the people in your ministry respond, you probably don't even realize how you do things for self-acclaim.

Sadly, we often minister the gospel of Jesus Christ for the sake of our own glory, not for the glory of Christ or the redemption of the people under our care. I have done this. I have thought during the preparation for a sermon that a certain point, put a certain way, would win a detractor, and I have watched for certain people's reactions as I have preached. In these moments, in the preaching and preparation of a sermon, I had forsaken my calling as the ambassador of the eternal glory of another for the purpose of my acquiring the temporary praise of men.

Poverty and the Gospel-Part 4: Life as Intended (continued)

My apologies on being a week since I last posted on this topic. Life has been a bit busy :). Continuing on our topic of what is really at the heart of poverty, and how it applies to the gospel, we have first established that at the heart of Jesus mission was to reclaim or restore life. He came proclaiming the good news of God's Kingdom, whereby everything that was lost in the fall would be restored. Since God came to restore us to our image bearing as God intended,  last week we asked what all does it entail to bear God's image. I broke it down into 4 relationships. In order to fully live as God's image bearers, we were created to be in a vertical relationship with our God, an internal relationship with our selves, a horizontal relationship with others, and also a relationship with creation.

So what did these 4 relationships look like before the Fall? What were they intended to look like? To see this, we will look at Genesis 1 and 2.

Let's start by looking at our vertical relationship. First, as image bearers, human beings were made to worship. This is innate inside of every human. We all worship something. In the beginning, before sin entered the world, God, our Heavenly Father and Creator was the sole object of our worship. In fact, God was so much the sole object of our worship that there wasn't even a need for a separate time for worship (like church on Sunday's) because Adam's entire life was worship. All of his days and in everything he did, Adam was worshipping God. It must have been awesome to be able to worship God in all activities in an unhindered fashion.

Something else that defined Adam's vertical relationship with his Creator was intimacy. Notice that in Genesis 1 and 2, Adam talked openly with God. There was no separation or barriers. Adam was able to stand and communicate with God with complete transparency, openness and confidence. There was complete harmony. God walked with Adam in the garden. Adam lived completely in God's presence.

Lastly, as it was intended, there was a proper Creator/creature distinction. The main reason why life was perfect before the entrance of Sin was the way in which Adam rightly lived under God's loving and righteous eternal rule. The only way life can be in order or harmony, is if we are living under our Creator's intentions. Now, at first this may seem like God is a bit like an overbearing task master who demands that we stay in line with him. To this, we must realize that God's intends for us to live under his loving and righteous rule because it is 100% good for us. He doesn't demand that we live under him because he's mad, or wants us to suffer. Rather, we suffer when we choose to be our own God. We suffer when we lose this Creator/creature distinction. When we look at the effects of the Fall, we will see this more clearly. But, it is safe to say that life as intended includes humans, as God's image bearers, living an unhindered life of worship before their Creator with constant relational intimacy between us and our God. 

Checking Yourself In

Then David confessed to Nathan, 

"I have sinned against the LORD."
2 Samuel 12:13

These are David's words following his horrendous actions in committing adultery with Bathsheba and then essentially killing her husband. To top it off, David lied and tried to cover the whole thing up before coming clean. 

This verse is also a bite-size preview of Psalm 51, wherein David confesses and repents to the LORD. The reason I love this story is because I think it gives a good snapshot of what Christianity is really about. This story shows one of the Bible's most Godly characters (David) fall into complete and utter sin and despair. It shows a hero of the faith fall.

But herein lies the beauty of the gospel. Where the seeming "hero" falls (David), the true Hero of the story is brought to center stage. The gospel is not about cleaning yourself up, hiding your sin, covering up your brokenness, or your own personal spiritual strength. Quite the opposite actually. It is about how we are all like David; ruined, broken, weak sinners who are in need of a divine act of grace on our behalf. The gospel is about us being honest with our sickness, sin, evil, and brokenness, and then turning and clinging to the only one who can actually save us. It is about looking to the true Hero for forgiveness and new life.

Think about it terms of a drug addict. It would simply be stupid for a drug addict,who is obviously addicted to keep living their lives as if they don't have a problem. It would be futile for them to attempt to clean themselves up on the outside, so they appear to be 'clean', but on the inside, they are still sick and addicted. The only solution is for them to ditch their delusion, be honest with themselves and realize they are jacked up and desperately need help. The solution is to check themselves in to rehab. Likewise, we are addicted to sin. We might not have killed anyone of committed adultery as David had, but I have absolutely no doubt, that if you look at your life honestly, and compare it to God's standard of love, truthfulness, compassion, and justice, you will cringe at your sickness. Like a delusional drug addict, our tendency is to live our lives as one big cover up. We try so hard to hide the inner sickness of sin that is ruining our lives. We try to cover up our inner brokenness with big houses, fashionable clothes, successful careers, relationships, alcohol, sports, the latest gadgets, and the list goes on and on. Our tendency is to cover ourselves up and save face, rather than be real with the situation.

The beauty of the gospel is that we no longer have to save face. You no longer have to cover up all the crap in your life. There is healing. There is redemption from this addiction and enslavement of sin. There is a solution. The solution is Jesus. Christ's death and resurrection on our behalf is the only solution.  All it takes is being honest with yourself, and checking yourself into rehab (yes that's a Lecrae reference :). All it takes is knowing your absolute need for him. Like David, when he was finally honest with himself, and turned and confessed to God, it was there he experienced what Christianity is really about.

Hallelujah, What A Savior!

Man of Sorrows! what a name
For the Son of God, who came
Ruined sinners to reclaim.
Hallelujah! What a Savior!

Bearing shame and scoffing rude,
In my place condemned He stood;
Sealed my pardon with His blood.
Hallelujah! What a Savior!

Guilty, vile, and helpless we;
Spotless Lamb of God was He;
“Full atonement!” can it be?
Hallelujah! What a Savior!

Lifted up was He to die;
“It is finished!” was His cry;
Now in Heav’n exalted high.
Hallelujah! What a Savior!

When He comes, our glorious King,
All His ransomed home to bring,
Then anew His song we’ll sing:
Hallelujah! What a Savior

Bad News From God

A couple nights ago my professor made the statement that "it is better to hear bad news from God than good news that is untrue."

This got me thinking to the common trend of our culture verses God's revelation of himself in the person of Jesus Christ. The trend of the culture is to mask our sin with relativism. Its mantras are: There is no real right or wrong, true and untrue. No one has the right to tell you you're wrong. Do what what feels good to you. Experience and feeling is more important than reality. You are your own god. Your own personal freedom of choice is more valuable than truth.

Compare this to what God reveals in Jesus Christ. The gospel (good news) is that Jesus did come, and with that comes bad news first. In fact, there is no good news without the bad news. The bad news is that we are wrong. There is One True God, and our entire beings are prone to wander. The bad news is that we are not god, and that one day, we will bow down before the King, whether willingly out of joy, or begrudgingly out of mandate. The bad news, as Romans put it, is that:

"For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools." Romans 1:21-22

"None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one." Romans 3:10-11

Just a reminder, this bad news is talking about us, not some other group of people. This is us.

But, this is a preface to the good news; the good news that Jesus Christ, who is the unique Son of God, has come to reverse this bad news. He has come to change it. Jesus bore our bad news, so that we could repent and receive the good news. Jesus took all of our unrighteousness, all of our evil, all of our foolishness and wickedness upon himself, so that we could receive his righteousness.

However, this is only possible when we accept the bad news. Receiving Christ means acknowledging the truth (often the ugly truth) about ourselves (as told in Romans 1 and 3). It is here that true freedom is found, true love experienced, and true life lived. 

Sins of the Age

Cornelius Plantinga touches on some of the sins of our present age.

"If we know the characteristic sins of the age, we can guess its foolish and fashionable assumptions- that morality is simply a matter of personal taste, that all silences need to be filled up with human chatter or background music, that 760% of the American people are victims, that it is better to feel than to think, that rights are more important than responsibilities, that even for children the right to choose supersedes all other rights, that real liberty can be enjoyed without virtue, that self-reproach is for fogies, that God is a chum or even a gofer whose job it is to make us rich, or happy, or religiously excited, that is it more satisfying to be envied than respected, that is is better for politicians and preachers to be cheerful than truthful, that Christian worship fails unless it is fun."

Cornelius Plantinga Jr., Not the Way It's Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin (Grand Rapids: Edrdmans, 1995), 126-127. 

Promises of Sin vs. Promises of Christ Part 3

What about pride?

Growing in the gospel includes fighting for a sense of true confidence. Pride says trust in your accomplishments, your awards, your approval for worth. Pride says you should have confidence based on your performance.

The gospel says that your confidence should come from the performance of another (Jesus). The gospel says your pride shouldn't be in yourself, your moral record, your job performance, your financial security, etc....Rather, your pride should be in the cross. Your only boast should be in the cross. The gospel says our sufficiency comes from Christ, and Christ alone.

"Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. 

Not that we are sufficient ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, 

but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient." 2 Corinthians 3: 4-6

*Much of this is taken from Jonathan Dodson's "Gospel-Centered Discipleship"

Discerning Your Idols

At the heart of every human problem is our desire to put something in the place of God. In other words, the root of our sinful and broken nature is our idolatry. From the Garden of Eden until now, we have a way with taking created things and putting them in the place of Creator. We take good things God made, and put them in the place of God himself. The Apostle Paul puts it this way,

"They exchanged the truth about God for a lie,

and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator,

who is forever praised. Amen."

Romans 1:25

But what are these 'things' that we worship and serve in the place of God. I know I don't physically bow down before statues or images, so I'm good right? Well, as I've been packing up to move next week, I came across this sheet buried in my room. It has been very helpful to me in discerning what the idols of my heart really are. How you answer these questions are very insightful in pointing you to what you really serve/worship. 

• What do I worry about most?
• What, if I failed or lost it, would cause me to feel that I did not even want to live?
• What do I use to comfort myself when things go bad or get difficult?
• What do I do to cope? What are my release valves? What do I do to feel better?
• What preoccupies me? What do I daydream about?
• What makes me feel the most self-worth? Of what am I the proudest? For what do I want to be known?
• What do I lead with in conversations?
• Early on, what do I want to make sure other people know about me?
• What prayer, unanswered, would make me seriously think about turning away from God?
• What do I really want and expect out of life? What would really make me happy?

Jesus Transforms

From Erik Most:

Sin deforms. Advice reforms. Jesus transforms. 

God created us for himself. We are made in His image. We were made to know and be known by God. Sin deforms this image. It deforms the entirety of our being. It severs the intended Creator/creation relationship we were made for. It causes us to hide rather than be known. A great reminder that the only remedy for this deformation is not moral reformation or behavior modification. We don't need an external band-aid or a temporary fix-up. We don't need a mask to where, so as to deceive everyone into thinking that we really aren't broken creatures; we aren't really deformed. What we do need is the gospel. What we need is to be re-made. What we need is new birth. The only remedy for sin is to be transformed by Jesus. We need new hearts. Only Jesus can re-make us as God's image bearers. Only the one who is in fact the perfection of God's image can transform us and bring us back to what we were created for. Good advice isn't good enough. We need new life. We need Jesus. 

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.