Tim Keller: "The Gospel is not advice."

Keller, in the second chapter of King's Cross, makes the point several times that the Gospel is not advice but news. He must feel it is necessary to make this point because our churches are so flooded with advice instead of news.

Two weeks ago I went to a church in which the preacher talked about removing the obstacles from our lives that keep us from serving in the church. In that same church, at the start of communion, as the ushers passed out the little quarter-swallows of grape juice and tiny flakes of “bread,” an elder of the church talked to us about how God had spoken to him during his quiet time about . . . the need to have a quiet time. The elder then tried earnestly to impress upon us the importance of having our own special quiet time each day. No one ever seemed to think that maybe communion might be precisely the time to stop thinking about what we should do, and start thinking at last about what Jesus has done for us. In other words, rather than talking about quiet times, actually being quiet.

What I mean to say is, we're flooded with advice. So far, my on-again/off-again search for a new church home has been pretty disappointing on this score. No news, lots of advice. Either it's we should defend the faith and return America to its Christian roots, or we should be more generous, or we should examine our lives to see if we are pleasing to God, or we should remove the obstacles to service because the church needs us, or . . . well, you get the pictures.

I have no mind to be a church basher or a professional critic, but I will say this. By and large, people in the church accept this sorry status quo because they like it that way. I get the feeling that if a church service was focused on the announcement that Jesus Christ is Lord of all creation, they would walk away feeling they haven't been helped or strengthened in any way. I have seen Christians move happily from one system of advice to another with great enthusiasm. Seven steps to this, four steps to that, now let's everybody do this, now that, and each new set of principles is of course most definitely “life-changing.” And they hop on each of these bandwagons without the slightest sense that there all this seems deeply divergent from the New Testament model of discipleship.

In an interesting article about accountability groups, Tullian Tchividjian says this:

Paul understood that Gospel-driven change is rooted in remembrance. What Paul did for the Colossians is what we all need our Christian brothers and sisters to do for us as well: remind me first of what’s been done, not what I must do.

Tullian also quotes Sinclair Ferguson:

Historically speaking, whenever the piety of a particular group is focused on OUR spirituality, that piety will eventually exhaust itself on its own resources. Only when our piety forgets about us and focuses on Jesus Christ will our piety be nourished by the ongoing resources the Spirit brings to us from the source of all true piety, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Even the first disciples did not understand the this-changes-everything nature of the good news, and none foresaw the cross as anything but a horrible defeat and failure. To understand the nature of the victory Christ won on our behalf is at least one part of discipleship, and it is one task of the church to teach exactly that understanding and its implications for all of life.

[One book that might serve as a helpful reminder here: Grounded in the Gospel: Building Believers the Old Fashioned Way]

"He looked therefore and looked again..."

From John Bunyan's, Pilgrim's Progress:

Now I saw in my dream that the highway up which Christian was to go was fenced on either side with a wall, and that wall was called Salvation. Up this way, therefore, did burdened Christian run, but not without great difficulty because of the load on his back. He ran thus till he came to a place somewhat ascending. And upon that place stood a cross, and a little below, in the bottom, a sepulchre. So I saw in my dream that just as Christian came up to the cross, his burden loosed from off his shoulders and fell from off his back and began to tumble, and so continued to do till it came to the mouth of the sepulchre, where it fell in, and I saw it no more. Then was Christian glad and lightsome, and said with a merry heart, "He hath given me rest by His sorrow and life by His death." Then he stood a while to look and wonder, for it was very surprising to him that the sight of the cross should thus ease him of his burden. He looked therefore and looked again, even till the springs that were in his head sent the water down his cheeks.

"Pour it upon the ground."

Check this out. They are the words of 1th century Puritan preacher Thomas Goodwin:

If a man had killed your friend, or father, or mother, how would you hate him! You would not endure the sight of him, but follow the law upon him. Send out the avenger of blood with a hue and cry after thy sin; bring it afore God’s judgment seat, arraign it, accuse it, spit on it, condemn it and thyself for it, have it to the cross, nail it there, if it cry I thirst, give it vinegar, stretch the body of sins upon his cross, stretch every vein of it, make the heart strings crack; and then when it hangs there, triumph over the dying of it, show it no pity, laugh at its destruction, say, Thou hast been a bloody sin to me and my husband, hang there and rot. And when thou art tempted to it, and art very thirsty after the pleasure of it, say of that opportunity to enjoy it, It is the price of Christ’s blood, and pour it upon the ground.

[HT: Tony Reinke]

Wow!

Found this over at Gospel Muse:

What does this mean, our being “in the wilderness before the cross?” Simply put, it captures something of what our existence is here. As sojourners, exiles, we find our place outside the camp, outside Jerusalem, outside those alleged strongholds along with our Lord, dying to the World and the World to us. In this dying in (because of) Christ’s dying, there might be found then something of a genuine working of God in making us alive.

The goal is not our getting as alive as we can, as if somehow we entirely (or almost so) put off mortality and corruption. Rather, there is a proper ongoing dying, because of our being brought to the Cross; a dying that only the Cross itself can bring about and sustain. What subsequent making alive that takes place is in spite of us, but only insofar as the dying is ongoing by the Sovereign (albeit merciful) hand. Fact is, oftentimes, there is little of either genuine dying of self or divine life-giving going on.

Our existence now is before the Cross, where we are in ourselves naked (natural condition fully exposed) and yet not ashamed, for Christ alone is our boast and covering. Amen.

Cross Shaped Living

Here's a brief but very wise post from Tim Chester called A Cross Shaped Culture. This one is timely for me, with its call to ask oneself not What is the fair and just thing to do? but What is the gracious and loving thing to do?

I'm going to apply this in a particular workplace situation of mine, but I have to admit it complicates matters a little. I was going for justice. Now I'm out for love.

Dang.

Death, where is thy sting?

I don't want to break anyone's heart, but I hope you all know you're probably going to die someday.

I recently heard a Christian friend of mine say, "I just don't understand how God can allow so-and-so to get cancer." I wanted to say, do you really think certain people should be immune from the normal frailties of the flesh? Or that being a believer should mean not getting cancer, heart disease, MS, etc.? The real question is, why shouldn't he or she get cancer? Or you? Or me? Or anyone else?

Where did we get this idea that it should be disturbing when a wonderful Christian believer gets sick or dies like everyone else in the history of the human race (with a couple of Biblical exceptions)?

I think I know where we get it. Three kinds of teaching in the church: Poor teaching. Lousy teaching. And downright creepy teaching.

Here's an example. In certain Christian circles it's very common to hear talk about the Christian life as if it were a battlefield between God and the devil. Good things happen, and that's obviously attributable to God, the author of all good. Bad things happen, like serious illness, and clearly the devil is trying to get to us. The universe, in this view, is pretty clearly a dualistic place. Good vs. evil in a fight to the finish. Mankind in the middle, choosing sides.

But much trouble comes of this dualistic cosmology. For one thing, the devil is given way too much credit for the world's evil. It's as if the greatest problem we face is "the enemy." It's the devil makes us sick, causes us to lose our jobs, messes up our relationships, causes automobile accidents . . . I've heard it all. But this view makes us out to be more or less innocent victims. We wind up crying out to God (who apparently should have been protecting us better), "How could you let this happen!"

Let me go at the problem from a different angle. If the sickness and death is from an enemy who means us harm, then the greatest problem we face is that enemy. We need God to stop him in his tracks. We have a powerful assailant, so we need an even more powerful protector (God). And we call it faith when we firmly believe that it is surely that protector's will to protect us from every harm.

Therefore, whenever someone gets sick and dies, it seems a kind of failure of God's. "How could you let this happen?"

But what if our greatest problem is not "the enemy"? Or, what if, like Pogo, we have met the enemy, and he is us? What if death is really directly related to sin (Rom 6:16)? Billions of people, throughout history, sinning. You. Me. Everybody. Ever since Adam.

If the devil is our main problem, repentance is not really necessary. We're victims, that's all. The solution is to get on God's side, because He's the more powerful one, and He will protect us. To put it another way, our most pressing need, in that case, is not grace, but power. Superior Spiritual power for vigorous devil-rebuking. If only we had more power! And here good old fashioned legalism has a chance to rear its hoary head, as we study how to coax this needed thing, power over sickness and death, from an apparently somewhat uncooperative deity.

But of course our most pressing problem is not the devil, but sin. And therefore that which we most need is not superior power for fighting the devil, but grace. Again and again grace. Again and again the knowledge of Jesus and his cross, and its victory over every enemy, including death.

I want to insert here Ray Ortlund's brilliant metaphor for the process of sanctification. Read this carefully:

I think of my inner self as a globe, a world, with many dark continents still unexplored, uncivilized, vast jungles of primitive impulses. But Jesus the Liberator steps ashore on the coast of one of those continents, plants the flag of his kingdom in my consciousness and declares peace. That is justification.

Then sanctification begins. For example, it doesn't take long for a half-naked savage to run out onto the beach with spear in hand to attack Jesus. This is some selfish desire in me rising up against the King. But he declares peace all over again and subdues that aspect of me by the force of his grace. "Clothed and in his right mind" (Mark 4:15) is the picture.

The King starts moving steadily inland, planting his flag in ever new regions of my being. He brings one dark thing after another into my awareness, declares peace again and again and again, and thereby establishes civilization.

Here's my point in inserting this passage. One of the darkest regions of our interior continent is that place where we harbor our thoughts about death. Our selfish feeling that death is just not fair, and our childish fear of it, which only reveals the shallowness of our faith. We just don't want to give up this cherished complaint. We don't want to let Jesus plant his flag of grace here, for then we'd have to admit that death for us was justice after all. But Jesus will plant his flag, nevertheless. See, the wages of sin is death, but when Christ took care of sin on the cross, he took care of death. The crosswork of Christ took care of both sin and death.

I know a fellow whose ministry it is to "walk with the dying." He befriends and advocates for dying people, and he's often at their side when they pass from this world. He told me once, "Bob, there's no way to predict how someone is going to die. I've seen atheists die peacefully in their beds and lifelong Christians die in abject terror. You can never tell."

I am not foolish enough to claim to know in what way I will face my end, whether in terror or in peace. But I know how God would have me go. Giving him the glory right to the end! I hope I go out whooping and hollering like a rodeo cowboy riding Elijah's whirlwind heavenward. I pray that before my last day comes, whenever that shall be, I will have so feasted on the grace of God, day in and day out, that in the end it will be clear to all who knew me that for me, as for Paul, to die was truly gain (Phil 1:21).

Can we talk?

Nate, inspired by Michael, made a list of the things we tend to edit out of Jesus. He's de-editing. Here's a sample:

[Jesus] is more interested in what he did than in what we are doing.

He was not under the illusion that he would never die.

"Repent" was a major theme of his ministry.

He easily and willingly exposed people's sin to them.

He was completely unafraid of other people's opinions about him.

There's more where these came from, so do check it out. I've been saying for a long time, to anyone who would listen, that if we are not brought up short by Jesus, if his words do not cut us to the quick, if his teaching does not challenge us and convict us and even cause us at least a pang of grief from time to time, then we are probably toying with a very "edited" Jesus.

Why do we do this? Why do we never hear the word "repent" in our churches? Why is sin not spoken of as the fundamental dilemma in all our lives, the dilemma from which the cross alone saves? Thus, lacking a robust understanding of the sin-problem, the cross itself only merits an occasional mention. I know scads of Christians who will go on ad nauseum (every single Easter) about Mel Gibson's whipping post scene, but who shy from all discussion of the cross as their fundamental need now. This moment. Every moment.

For these folks, the church experience is simply a happy get together of wonderfully nice people, where they remind themselves that God is very very pleased with them. In their small groups they talk about how to be a success, or how to be a leader, or how to romance their spouses. They quote their favorite "encouraging" Scriptures back and forth to each other and tell themselves they're doing ministry if they wear a Christian t-shirt or something.

They like to talk about their "Spiritual gifts," but when shall we hear about the precious "withering work" of the Holy Spirit, for example, that Spurgeon talked about?

The Spirit blows on the flesh, and what seems vigorous becomes weak. What was fair to look at was smitten with decay, and the true nature of the flesh is discovered. Its deceit is laid bare, its power is destroyed. There is space for the dispensation of the ever-abiding Word and for the rule of the Great Shepherd whose words are spirit and life.

Oh, don't let me go on. I don't know if all this complaining is the least bit righteous, but I think perhaps there is a holy unrest mixed in there. I just don't want to settle for Christianity-lite. It occurs to me that if we must never be critical about church, then we are condemning ourselves to a smarmy dishonesty concerning one of the things about which we ought always to be searingly honest.

Like Jesus was.

Essentially Christless

So here's a typical sermon I heard recently:

Title of the sermon was, "Trust God, He's Got Your Back." The gist of it was, Hezekiah trusted God when Jerusalem was under attack. The enemy taunted the Jerusalemites and told them that their God would not protect them. But King Hezekiah trusted God, took certain practical steps to help the situation (diverting the water supply), and God pulled them through.

Moral of the story: we should trust God. All of us are facing stuff, tough stuff, and perhaps the enemy is taunting and threatening. There may be certain practical steps we should take, but above all, trust God, because he's got your back.

I can assure you that people loved this sermon. There was the requisite empathy for the "stuff" we're going through, and the heartfelt urging to do something. The reference to "the enemy," who is apparently responsible for all our bad breaks. But did you notice anything, ummm, missing?

Who was the hero of this sermon? Clearly, it was Hezekiah.

Where was Jesus in this sermon? Nowhere.

The cross? Forget about it.

Sin? You must be joking.

I give this example because it is typical. It is a sermon that I imagine would not be out of place in a modern synagogue or Mormon gathering, not to mention the most liberal mainline denominations generally (to which we evangelicals consider ourselves so superior because we're so true to the Bible and all). There is nothing in it that is essentially false, but there is nothing in it that is essentially Christian.

I would that every preacher got up in the morning with the words of Paul stirring his heart: "Him [Jesus] we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ." [Col 1:28]

"If you don't make it to the cross . . ."

The following quote comes from an old post (Nov 07) over at Justin Buzzard's aptly named Buzzard Blog. Read it slowly and carefully, because it's something we need to remember always. Justin's topic here is Bible reading:

If you don't make it to the cross, you'll make your Bible reading and your relationship with God about your performance rather than about Jesus' performance. You'll gravitate away from the gospel and towards religion. Anxiety and fear will take the place of confidence, joy, and rest. Legalism will replace freedom. If your eyes don't catch a glimpse of the cross as you turn the pages of Scripture, you're likely to spend much of your day staring at yourself, wallowing in endless introspection, rather than staring at your Savior, delighting in his costly love.

Justin is talking about Bible-reading here, but I want to expand the theme to preaching. It hits home for me because yesterday I listened to a sermon about generosity. "Let us be a people of generosity," was the gentle imperative here, and all the relevant Bible passages were cited, but in fact we never made it to the cross. Jesus was expressly held out as a model of generosity that we would do well to emulate, but this was nothing more that the winsome legalism of today's be-a-better-you-Christianity.

So let me take Justin's words and substitute "preaching" for "Bible-reading." Now it goes something like this (altered text is in italics):

If you don't make it to the cross in your preaching, you'll cause your hearers to think that their relationship with God is about their performance rather than about Jesus' performance. They will gravitate away from the gospel and towards religion. Anxiety and fear will take the place of confidence, joy, and rest. Legalism will replace freedom. If you don't give them a glimpse of the cross as you preach, they're likely to spend much of their day staring at themselves, wallowing in endless introspection, rather than staring at their Savior, delighting in his costly love.

I think preachers make things difficult for themselves and for their flock when they fail to take them to the cross each and every Sunday.

Hats off to The Gospel Trust for directing my attention to Justin's powerful blogpost.

C. H. Spurgeon said:

The more we live beholding our Lord’s unutterable griefs, and understanding how he has fully put away our sin, the more holiness shall we produce. The more we dwell where the cries of Calvary can be heard, where we can view heaven, and earth, and hell, all moved by his wondrous passion—the more noble will our lives become. Nothing puts life into men like a dying Savior. Get you close to Christ, and carry the remembrance of him about you from day to day, and you will do right royal deeds. Come, let us slay sin, for Christ was slain. Come, let us bury all our pride, for Christ was buried. Come, let us rise to newness of life, for Christ has risen. Let us be united with our crucified Lord in his one great object — let us live and die with him, and then every action of our lives will be very beautiful.

Found at The Shepherd's Scrapbook

"Discover your true selves in the death of Jesus."

I'm still working my way through Dietrich Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship. The latter part of the book had been a bit of a struggle for me, but on p. 276, in his chapter called, "The Saints," in the midst of a discussion of Romans 3 (and how the righteousness of God Himself is ours through faith), Bonhoeffer says this:

Discover your true selves in the death of Jesus, in the righteousness of God which is granted there to us.

I facilitate a small-group and in that setting especially I see again and again that we need to make this great discovery anew each day. It is at the cross that burdens are lifted, fear and worry washed away, and the majestic mercy of God is on full display.

Come, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and he who has no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price. Isaiah 55:1

Implementing the Cross

Dan Edelen is asking good questions. In a post entitled Preaching for Results he suggests that preaching the Gospel without addressing the issue of praxis, making the Gospel real ("work out your salvation in fear and trembling"), is often the missing ingredient. Dan writes:

People in the seats are dying to know how the Gospel works in a practical way in their modern lives. They might hear the world’s best theological explanation of the cross, but if no one will tell them what to do to make that explanation real in their own lives, the message becomes like seed sown on hardened, baked soil.

A bit later on in the post he adds this:

I’m not sure we’re preaching what to do next in Gospel-centered churches. I think we sometimes spend too much time filling people with knowledge they can’t figure out how to use. But if the difference between the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25 is what they did and didn’t do, then the people in the seats have to know what the godly next step is for what they have learned. They must have a clearly directed outlet for praxis.

I'll just share some of my first thoughts about this. I don't want to be glib and certainly I don't want to be impractical, but I think you have to start with the Spirit. I think the practical flows from the spiritual. That means that when we receive the truth of the Gospel, and when we respond in genuine praise and thanksgiving, we are soon interceding for people in prayer, and in turn we are also interceding in a hands-on way as the Spirit begins to transform our minds and hearts.

I do not want to imply that suggestions for practical application are not helpful, but they may not be helpful when they do not come within the normal flow of transformed/transformative living, which is "from above." In fact, there seems to be more than enough "practical" advice type preaching that is essentially disengaged from the Gospel, and when that happens it always takes on the familiar colorations of legalism.

It so happens that something I was reading last night addresses this very matter. In N. T. Wright's Following Jesus, we find these relevant thoughts:

How can we celebrate and put into practice this victory [of Christ over the world's powers] today? How can we follow this Jesus into genuine victory? It is surprisingly simple. Every time you kneel down to pray, especially when you pray the prayer of the kingdom (which we call the Lord's Prayer), you are saying that Jesus is Lord and that the 'powers' aren't. Every time you say grace at a meal you are saying that Jesus is Lord, and that the world and all it offers is his, and has no independent authority. And every time we celebrate the Eucharist, we celebrate the victory of Jesus in a way which, by the power of its symbolic action, resonates out, into the city, into the country, into the world, into our homes, into our marriages, into our bank accounts -- resonates out with the powerful message that God is God, that Jesus is his visible image, and that this God has defeated the powers of evil that still enslave and crush human beings today. 'Eucharist' means 'thanksgiving'; thanksgiving for the work of Christ is the most powerful thing we can ever do. The task of the church is to get on with the implementing of the cross; and if we grasped this vision and lived by it, we would be able at last to address some of the problems in the Church and in the world that look so large and seem so intractable. p.21-22(emphasis added)

More thoughts on worship

So the new vision statement at my church is, you may recall, "A people for Christ, for the kingdom, and for the world." And in the first installment of a 5-sermon series intended to "unpack" this statement, our pastor focused first of all on all-out worship as a characteristic of such a people.

Now, I've been saying on all along that modern evangelical Christianity is losing its Christ-centeredness. In a nutshell, we have decided not to talk about sin as sin, and therefore we do not convey an accurate and profound understanding of the human condition. In fact, much of the time we gloss all this over, and in doing so, the cross itself and the doctrine of justification (sorry, I've stopped trying to "winsomely" avoid using such terms) gets shunted aside as no longer quite serving the needs of the moment. With the human condition misunderstood, and the cross thus "deconstructed," the very ministry of Jesus is narrowed and misunderstood.

With these thoughts in mind, I want to go back to the matter of worship. If we combine these two matters -- 1) the imperative to worship the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and 2) the centrality of the cross to all matters of faith and understanding -- then we see that the cross (and the justification it bought for us) becomes the indicative upon which the imperative to worship is based. We worship God, in other words, because Jesus saved us from our sins.

If, on the other hand, we focus on worship while shunting the cross aside, we will probably focus instead on ourselves (since there must, there will always be, something in the focus). We will begin to talk and sing about ourselves worshiping, will begin to describe attitudes of worship in terms of our fervor, rather than in terms of what God has done in Christ. We will even speak routinely of worship without reference to Jesus at all, or routinely interchanging the name of Jesus with that of God in a blurring of the trinitarian persons.

But back to the sermon last week. Under the heading of worship, our pastor spoke among other things of being a people who "celebrate Christ." He cited 1 Peter 1:8, and then the passage in 2 Samuel in which David says to the chiding Michal, "...I will become even more undignified than this..." Also, he cited Ps. 100:1-3, not stopping to show what Christ had to do with either of these passages.

So, I was a little disappointed about this. Not angry, not disgruntled, not terribly put-out, but a little disappointed. It was a missed opportunity. If I were going to speak about celebrating Christ, I might speak of his supremacy in all things, about his being the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. I might note Hebrews 10:10, or Romans 3:21-26, or Philippians 2:1-11, or especially Colossians 1:15-23. I would go to Christ's upper room talk with his disciples ("for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God"). Perhaps you can think of a few dozen more passages that show the worthiness of Christ, or the centrality of the cross for our worship.

The point. Yes, let us celebrate Jesus. But we will never come close to understanding his worthiness until we understand the depths of our own unworthiness. If it was necessary that Jesus go to the cross for sinful men, that is then the fundamental basis of all our celebration. Our joy is based on nothing less.

Mission and Vision . . . so far

I want to spend a few moments summing up the "mission and vision" series of posts so far. But before doing so, I want to snip a quote from C. J. Mahaney's latest post (Cross Centered Books) over at his brand spankin' new blog:

We awaken each day with a tendency to forget that which is most important: the gospel. All of us should assume this tendency and be aware of this tendency. Because of the Fall and due to the effects of remaining sin, we have a daily tendency and temptation to forget stuff in general and to forget that which is most important in particular.

It took about 15 of my first 17 years as a Christian to realize that this was a simple truth about us all and to begin to pattern my reading, my prayer, and my devotional time around this fact. It also became that which I looked for, sought after, hungered for, in all preaching. You can call it cross-centered, gospel-centered, Christ-centered--these are all useful terms, and they all represent a way of seeing, a way of living, and a way of understanding that in my opinion jibes with the New Testament.

But focusing on one thing causes you to look askance at others. Some things stand very near to Calvary in their importance, so that focusing on the cross brings these things into focus as well (think of the whole "tagcloud" of keywords that hover around the concepts justification and sanctification, for example), while other things sort of move to the periphery. Preaching and praxis that is void of the cross is simply a lapse and a failure, and it leaves me cold, hungry, and sometimes a little irritated. As my wife likes to say, "Just give me Jesus."

Any time I listen to a sermon I go into the experience with one question uppermost in my mind. Where is the gospel in this message? Where does Christ shine forth, rising like the Day Star in our hearts even as we listen to mortal speech?

But what I have found among church-goers is a deep distrust of any response to a sermon that is not all-out enthusiastic. As if the only correct response to the sermon must be, "Wasn't that incredible?" In my opinion, we don't know how to think about sermons. That is, we don't know how to test them, question them, subject them to thoughtful consideration, or apply Bible standards to them. We mistrust such practices as divisive. Criticism is a dirty word.

My first church after getting saved, a very Lutheran assembly, was racked by division, with charges and counter-charges, threats, name-calling, and pastorally pronounced anathemas filling the air. So I do understand the danger of divisiveness. I have seen rampant criticism in the church that was essentially self-centered and schismatic in nature. I have seen the harm it can do. Ever since, I have been determined to avoid that sort of thing like the hellish plague that it is.

But the alternative is not to unthinkingly applaud everything that goes on in your church. If that were so, we should remove all references to "discernment" from our Bibles.

Getting back to the "mission and vision" series of sermons at my church: since these messages express what my church leadership deems to be of central importance, in fact, to be definitive of ourselves as a church, this series is an opportunity for me to discern once and for all whether my own view of things lines up with my church's view. I have been very dissatisfied with the preaching-focus there for some time, but perhaps this "recalibration," as my pastor calls it, will be in fact a refocusing on "that which is most important: the gospel." If so, I'll join the celebration with a glad and eager heart.

But for now I move forward as one who listens, as one who, yes, thinks critically, as one who questions, and as one who hungers for the gospel. As I continue this series, I will be asking the key question: where is the cross in all this? Where is the gospel? Where is Jesus?

[The series so far: first, second, third. Next post in the series should come by Tuesday.]

Passing it on . . .

Peter found it at Of First Importance and shared it with his readers at Already Not Yet. I found it there, and thought I'd share it with you:

“In light of God’s judgment and justification of the sinner in the cross of Christ, we can begin to discover how to deal with any and all criticism. By agreeing with God’s criticism of me in Christ’s cross, I can face any criticism man may lay against me. In other words, no one can criticize me more than the cross has. If you thus know yourself as having been crucified with Christ, then you can respond to any criticism, even mistaken or hostile criticism, without bitterness, defensiveness, or blame shifting. Such responses typically exacerbate and intensify conflict, and lead to the rupture of relationships. You can learn to hear criticism as constructive and not condemnatory because God has justified you.”

- Alfred J. Poirier, The Cross and Criticism from The Journal of Biblical Counseling, Vol. 17, No. 3, Spring 1999, p. 17.

Help, Lord! I need to be holy!

It's a fundamental building block in the foundation of the Christian faith: the belief that a Christlike life is actually possible, or at least approachable, when one is "in Christ" (to use Paul's characteristic descriptor). We say it is God Himself who makes this possible, God who empowers us for righteousness, and yet, of course, there is this gap--I'll call it the righteousness gap--between the life we believe to be possible in Christ and the life that we actually live.

Now here's another fundamental belief we Christians have: God is powerful to save, and desires to rescue us from all our troubles. Of course we may be quick to qualify this statement by quoting verses like John 16:33 ("in the world you will have tribulation") but the fact is, when a man is drowning, God is the one he calls out to for help.

Now, I do not want to disparage this, for who am I to parse and criticize the cry of a drowning man for help! I only want to point out that these two aspects of God that are fundamental to our understanding. Empowerment for righteous living, and his strong arm to save us when we're in dire need. Now, I think we're pretty good at crying out to God when we're drowning, or when we're surrounded by the proverbial bulls of Bashan. The fundamental prayer of this type is simple, "HELP!"

But I think we Christians run into trouble in the other matter, the matter of righteousness or Christlike living. Everyone's familiar I'm sure with the illustration of salvation in which the gap between men and God is bridged by the cross of Christ, but we don't often think that this righteousness-gap between the lives we live and the lives that God would desire for us is also a chasm that can only be bridged by the cross. This one, we fancy, we'll bridge ourselves. We imagine ourselves to be great bridge-builders, and the plans we devise for spanning this righteousness-gap are wondrous and diverse. But the problem is, very few of them actually work. We get about half way out on the rickety structure, trying not to look down, and the wind picks up, and the bridge starts swaying dangerously, and before you know it we're doing our best Wile E. Coyote imitation, falling into a yawning gorge.

"HELP!"

Hmmm, do you see how these two fundamentals of Christian belief relate to one another? Sometimes, at least, our situation of dire need is connected to our attempt to build our own bridge across the righteousness gap. We do this, I think, by imagining the life we think we ought to be living (and, by the way, we don't really have a very good imagination in these matters), and then trying to live it. The trouble is, this life we imagine has everything to do with the world's definition of happiness and nothing to do with Christlikeness. The life we've imagined turns out to be something to do with health, prosperity, kids that never get in trouble, a job in which we get to be our own boss, etc. No wonder the bridge always fails!

Well, I sense that I'm about to stretch this bridge-metaphor to the breaking-point, so I'll just quit while I can. The point is, I know a lot of Christians who seem never to get beyond the prayer for help and move on to the prayer for holiness. There may be many reasons for this, but one reason can be inferred simply from the way I phrased the problem: I spoke of moving on from one to the other, as if the prayer for help must be answered before the need for Christlikeness can be addressed. This is a fallacy that we need to put aside once and for all.

Here's the thing: our need, our crisis, our distress, is the absence of righteousness in our very fiber. In our own, and in everyone else's. The cry for holiness IS our most urgent distress signal. I am not suggesting that we ought to point out a drowning man's sin before throwing him a life preserver, I am suggesting that in our personal prayers we ought to be deeply concerned with this righteousness-gap I speak of. Help, Lord, for I stand before this great chasm that I cannot bridge. And the governing principle here is that this gap too is bridged by Christ's cross.

What if . . . ?

Over at Internet Monk:

If our great need is to be delivered from the wrath of God, then Jesus is our mediator. But what if our big problem is losing ten pounds? Finding a bigger house? Paying for college? Getting out of debt? What if the guilt that concerns us is the guilt of not having a pool like our neighbor? What if the center of our prayers is the moral life of our kids or our physical health? Do we actually need a crucified Jesus for any of these things?

Just Be a Son: On Holiness and the Cross of Christ

It isn't particularly hard to tell someone how to live. It's not difficult to set forth a high standard of moral righteousness. It is easy enough to say that people ought to be more patient, or forgiving, or caring, or generous, or . . . you get the picture. Every one of these sentiments is valid, and to support and avow such sterling behavior is quite inspiring at times. Nevertheless, a good man, as Flannery O'Connor has said, is hard to find.

But to hear such recitations in the form of a Sunday morning sermon leaves me feeling deeply sad. He's missing it, I find myself muttering. Is he really going to keep missing it? He should have got to it by now. When will he get to it? He's almost finished and he still hasn't got to it. He's still talking about the importance of patience [love, generosity, etc.]. He's finishing up now and by golly he really has completely missed his chance to speak of the cross, the new life in Christ, or the Gospel.

Oh well, perhaps I'm just being negative. Perhaps all I really need to hear is how absolutely fine it would be if I just guarded my tongue more often (okay, I give you that). Nevertheless, I need to say it: a sermon without the Gospel is not a Christian sermon at all. It may quote the Bible from start to finish, but it is simply a Biblical values-statement and nothing more. My problem is, however hard I try to live up to that standard you're so keen on, I fall flat on my ever-lovin' face! I need something more, I guess, than a restatement of the standard.

Pastor, I'm just speaking for myself here, but it would be safe for you to make that presumption about all of us. The question for us is not, "What is the good life?" But, "How do we live it?"

It's the "how question" that counts for something. That actually leads somewhere other than a stark and lonely dead end. And where then does it lead? Well, if we're thinking Biblically, it leads to the cross. What difference does the cross make? How can the cross possibly help me with my usual quick-to-talk/slow-to-listen approach to life? Well, I would say the answer to that question has everything to do with access.

Remember Romans 8:15? "For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back again into fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship by which we cry, 'Abba! Father!'" Listen, after the cross, all the many imperatives of righteousness found in the Bible are replaced by one and one only: Be a Son.

And what distinguishes a son? Simply this: his status with, and access to, the Father. He's a chip off the old block, sometimes without even trying. The very characteristics so noteworthy of the father in time begin to show themselves in the children. More importantly, when he fails--when he strays, rebels, or just misses the mark--he can always cry "Daddy!" His father is incredibly patient, mind-bogglingly forgiving. This patience, this acceptance, this access, is founded on the historical fact that all the failings, rebellions, and mark-missing of his wayward children were anticipated by the Father long ago and taken care of. At Calvary. Negated, put aside, wiped out. In actual fact, nailed to the cross--put to death there.

Conclusion: because Jesus became sin for us, all discussion of God's holy standards should lead our gaze inexorably toward the cross and thereby to thanksgiving for his wonderful grace.

Booksnip (4)

From Brennan Manning's The Importance of Being Foolish:

The French poet Paul Claudel said that the greatest sin is to lose the sense of sin. The man without a lively sense of the horrow of sin does not know Jesus Christ crucified. The knowledge that sin exists and that we are sinners comes only from the Cross. We can delude ourselves into thinking that sin is only an abberation or a lack of maturity; that preoccupation with security, pleasure, and power is caused by oppresive social structures and personality quirks; that we are sinful but not sinners, since we are mere victims of circumstances, compulsions, environment, addictions, upbringing, and so forth. The Passion nails these lies and rationalizations to the Cross of Truth.

Grumpy Post (1)

A grumpy sense of estrangement, that's what I'm feeling these days. Like the one guy at a "pool party" who can't swim. I once felt at home in the church. Now not so much. Why is that? What has happened? Once I felt that God was orchestrating my life. Now I feel set aside. Alone. Why is that?

I think I know the reason. I think I do. I think I've been missing the preaching (singing, praying) of the Gospel for a long time. I think I am missing the Cross. It was long ago and far away, and it seems but a vaguely affectionate memory in the church. Or that's how it seems to me.

The most common compliment that people have for my church is that it is free of legalism and judgement. Good. But it seems we have jettisoned a good portion of the New Testament in order to achieve that claim. My pastor seems embarassed if he lets the word sin slip out in a sermon, or a reference to the "blood" (heaven forbid). The cross that bought for me eternal blessings has not exactly been forgotten, not entirely, but it has been placed on a shelf. It is considered, or so it seems, problematic. The wooden cross that used to stand in the sanctuary was long ago removed. When someone asked the pastor about it, he said, "That's just not the kind of church we are."

Oh.

In its place we have the promise of God's love and power . . . a very hopeful and "positive" message. But it is airly disconnected from the life and death of a savior at Calvary. People pray, "I'm believing for . . ." and "I claim it in the name of Jesus," as if these were magic formulas. People talk about impressions and say "God gave me a word." People sing songs about how much they love God rather than how much, and why, God loves us. Enthusiasm is encouraged, but not so much thinking. The Word is taken in very small doses. Rather than discussing the full thrust of Ephesians, say, people say, "God showed me the word unity, and then I heard it again on TBN. Amazing!"

Okay, I'm grumpy. But I'm trying to get to the bottom of my grumpiness here. I'm looking for something better than positive thinking dressed up as faith. I don't want appeals to emotion to replace standing on the whole Word, unalloyed. And I don't want charismatic gifts that merely distract, detract, or subtract from the Gospel-centrality of the cross.