Gospel culture
May 14, 2010 | Comments Off
Ray Ortlund posts today about the kind of culture the Gospel should create in us. In addition to some piercing comments from Philippians 2:3, he includes this quote from Jonathan Edwards:
“Spiritual pride is the main door by which the devil comes into the hearts of those who are zealous for the advancement of Christianity. It is the chief inlet of smoke from the bottomless pit, to darken the mind and mislead the judgment. It is the main source of all the mischief the devil introduces, to clog and hinder a work of God.
Spiritual pride tends to speak of other persons’ sins with bitterness or with laughter and levity and an air of contempt. But pure Christian humility rather tends either to be silent about these problems or to speak of them with grief and pity. Spiritual pride is very apt to suspect others, but a humble Christian is most guarded about himself. He is as suspicious of nothing in the world as he is of his own heart. The proud person is apt to find fault with other believers, that they are low in grace, and to be much in observing how cold and dead they are and to be quick to note their deficiencies. But the humble Christian has so much to do at home and sees so much evil in his own heart and is so concerned about it that he is not apt to be very busy with other hearts. He is apt to esteem others better than himself.”
Jonathan Edwards, Works (Edinburgh, 1979), I:398-400. Style updated.
How is your view of yourself versus your view of others? Read the whole post to see how Ortlund grounds humility toward others (read: Gospel culture) in the Gospel and in the very nature of God.
On spiritual gifts
May 6, 2010 | Comments Off
If you missed Tim’s sermon last night from 1 Corinthians 12 on the nature and use of spiritual gifts, go here immediately and listen to it (or go later to our sermonaudio.com page–it’s not there yet but will be soon).
And then check out these articles written by my dear friend and mentor Juan Sanchez, pastor of High Pointe Baptist Church in Austin, TX. He has been preaching through 1 Corinthians, and in connection with that series has written several blog articles answering frequently asked questions on spiritual gifts. They are sure to be helpful and edifying to you.
Ignorance is NOT bliss in matters of the Spirit
Are miraculous gifts for today?
Where do spiritual gifts come from?
What do we know about spiritual gifts?
What is the purpose of spiritual gifts?
How do you know God is present?
How do I discover my spiritual gift?
I hope these brief articles are a helpful resource to you both in personal study and in helping others to understand how God intends for us to live in the household of faith.
Christian community part 3: a couple of dangers
March 16, 2010 | Comments Off
We have said so far that Christian community is not something we create; rather it is created by God, and it is a reality of which every believer partakes. Christian community is not something to be merited any more than salvation; it is a gracious gift of God just as our salvation is.
Here we meet with danger. It is the same danger that befalls those who say that, since salvation is all of grace, it does not matter what the believer does after receiving Christ by faith. Grace means I don’t have to do anything, right? And if we understand sanctification correctly, we will argue back: “May it never be!” Grace is not opposed to works; rather, grace changes the kind of works we do. If we are under grace, we no longer work in hopes of earning salvation; rather, we work out the salvation we have already been given.
I’ll say it again: grace does not mean we stop working. Grace instead provides us a basis on which to work freely, without fear of failing. The grace of being united with Christ means that we are forgiven and perfected in Him, freeing us from having to work to earn forgiveness or perfect ourselves. Thus we can work out our salvation—we can begin to live out, to become like, what God has already made us in Christ. And the grace of the Holy Spirit’s presence in us provides us with power to work without fear of exhaustion, without having to rely on our own strength to see us through.
Sanctification is about living in the reality of what God has done for us in Christ, of who God is for us in Christ, and of who we are in Christ. It is a battle to live this way; our flesh wants to go back to the old way of living, the old way of relating to God on the basis of works. So it is hard work. But it is a decidedly different kind of work from the kind we do apart from Christ.
And here is how that relates to our practice of Christian community: If Christian community, like salvation, is a gracious reality created and given to us by God in Christ, then the practice of Christian community, like working out our salvation, is a matter of living in the light of what God has done for us. Realizing the grace of Christian community does not allow us to be lazy in practicing community, any more than understanding salvation by grace alone allows us to be lazy in practicing holiness. Rather, it provides us with the proper basis on which to found our practice of Christian community.
So we can avoid the danger of failing to live out the realities of Christian community by applying the same truths we apply to our sanctification: living in the reality of what God has done in Christ. But there is another danger that the truths I’ve been addressing help us avoid, which is the danger of thinking that our ideals of community constitute what Christian community should be.
What do I mean by this? Let’s continue the comparison to the Christian life: we acknowledge that salvation is not about meeting our felt needs, nor is it about realizing our ideals for this life. Rather, the Christian life is about greater, eternal realities, and how we live in light of them now. In the same way, Christian community is not about meeting our felt needs or realizing our ideals for this life.
We get tripped up very often here: just as we often enter the Christian life with unrealistic expectations (living on a continual spiritual high, winning every battle with sin, having our “best life now”), we even more often enter the Christian community with unrealistic expectations (having a continual sense of relational fulfillment, meeting all our felt emotional needs, gaining some deep experience of community). We treat the Christian community as if it should conform to our own personal vision for it, and when it fails to measure up, we find it unsatisfactory, and we complain against others in the community and ultimately against God, who has failed to give us what we think we should have.
Just as the key to combating the “best life now” view of the Christian life is to gain an eternal perspective on God’s plan for His people, so the key to combating the idealistic view of Christian community is to gain God’s perspective on community—namely, that it is a spiritual reality, not an emotional or relational one. It is to be received and practiced by faith, not by sight (or feelings).
The key in all of this is, as I have been saying, understanding that Christian community is a gracious gift of God. As we receive this gracious gift—on God’s terms, not our own, and realizing its (huge!) implications for how we live together as God’s people—we should give thanks for God’s gracious gift, and we should strive to live out the reality of what He has created for His glory and for our good.
Next time we will look briefly at what it means to be thankful for Christian community, and then begin to see its implications for how we live with each other.
Christian community part 2: community by works?
March 9, 2010 | Comments Off
Last week we saw that Christian community is an entity of which we are all a part; it is not an option but rather a reality for us. If we are in Christ, we are a part of his body. No room for debate.
A key to understanding and practicing the reality of Christian community is to understand how this community comes about. How did we become a part of the body of Christ?
The answer to that question is the same as the answer to how we became Christians. In fact, the two questions are basically one, since to be a Christian is to be a part of Christ’s body. So remember how we were saved: “For by grace have you been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)
Just as we were saved by grace, through faith, so we are part of Christ’s body by grace, through faith.
Don’t believe me? Read the rest of Ephesians 2; Paul moves directly from his great declaration of sola fide, sola gratia to a discussion of—wait for it—Christian community! Paul directly connects the work of Christ in reconciling men to God with the work of Christ in reconciling men to each other. Christ makes “one new man” at the cross, reconciling us “to God in one body through the cross.” (verses 15 & 16) The glorious work of reconciliation happens both upward—between God and man—and outward—between man and man. And thus we are made one.
Paul makes the point here to demonstrate the new unity between Jews and Gentiles; Christ has become the way of salvation for both groups, making both groups into one group. So there is a definite point of theology to grasp with regard to Israel and the universal church. But there is also a much, much larger point to grasp with regard to what it means to be in Christ, for as Gentiles become one with Jews in Christ, so every Christian becomes one with all other Christians in Christ, and “the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.” (verse 21)
And here comes the kicker: not a bit of this work is ours. Just as not a bit of the work of salvation is ours, so not a bit of the work of becoming part of the body of Christ is ours. Look back over 2:11-22; do you see one single thing done by us? Do you not rather see that everything stated here is done by God in Christ?
So why am I making such a point of this?
Well, for starters, it emphasizes and strengthens the point I made last week, which was that being a Christian automatically means being part of Christ’s body; the work of Christ accomplished both things.
But more than this, it means that we relate to one another on the same basis on which we relate to God, namely, the finished work of Christ on our behalf.
In other words, just as we approach God by grace through faith in the finished work of Christ, so we approach each other by grace through faith in the finished work of Christ. Just as we can experience grace and love and full acceptance from God to us because of Jesus, so we can experience grace and love and full acceptance from one to the other of those who are in Jesus.
Do we approach God by works? Well, then we don’t approach each other by works either. Do we need to earn God’s favor? Well, then we don’t need to earn each other’s favor. Does God accept us fully, seeing us through the perfect blood and righteousness of Christ? Well, we should accept each other fully, seeing others through the perfect blood and righteousness of Christ. Does our standing with God change based on our performance? Well, then our standing with each other should not change based on anyone’s performance.
Here is how Dietrich Bonhoeffer puts it in Life Together: “What persons are in themselves as Christians, in their inwardness and piety [read: their performance as a Christian], cannot constitute the basis of our community, which is determined by what those persons are in terms of Christ. Our community consists solely in what Christ has done to both of us.” (emphasis mine)
So, just as being a part of Christian community is not an option, since being a Christian is the same thing as being a member of Christ’s body, so also extending the hand of fellowship to other Christians is not an option, any more than God can refuse the presence of the Holy Spirit to anyone who is in Christ.
Next week I hope to flesh this out more. In addition, stay tuned to the Sunday School series that started this past Sunday, which will go a long way toward helping us to live out the Gospel in the specific relational context of conflict. (You can listen to the first session here.)
Christian community, part 1: stay out of my space?
March 2, 2010 | Comments Off
Who owns your life? To whom should your life be submitted?
I think we would all readily answer that God owns us (1 Corinthians 6:20), and our lives should be submitted in loving obedience to Him (James 4:7). But is there more to it than this?
What do you make of the passages that say we are members of one another? There are a few:
Romans 12:4-5
1 Corinthians 12:12, 27 (read in between too)
Ephesians 4:25 (but really, read the whole chapter)
Do you catch my drift? The Christian life is not just about me and Jesus doin’ our thing. I not only belong to Him; I belong to His body.
Note that none of these passages say we should be members of the body; they say we are members of the body. Being members of one another in Christ is not something to strive toward; it is something that is. Belonging to the Christian community is not an option, because it is the reality for all who are in Christ.
Let me say that again.
Belonging to the Christian community is not an option, because it is the reality for all who are in Christ.
If we are in Christ, we are in His body, which means we are members of one another. Period. This is the reality of Christian community: no one is exempt from the community except those who are outside Christ altogether.
This flips upside down our American sense of independence and individualism. Upside down, inside out, blown to bits—the reality of the body of Christ, the Christian community, totally subverts the American idol of personal space and time.
My space is not my own, my time is not my own, my life is not my own; it belongs not only to Christ but to His body, my fellow believers.
I hope this rocks your world today. And tomorrow. And next week. And next year.
I will continue writing about this idea, and how it is fleshed out, over the next several weeks.
John Piper on Small Groups
January 29, 2010 | Comments Off
I ran across this brief exhortation from Piper on the importance of small groups in the life of the church. I hope it will encourage you to deepen your commitment to living in community with other believers, because as he says, church is more than preaching.
The dangers of moralism
September 3, 2009 | Comments Off
In light of our Sunday School series on law and gospel, I thought Al Mohler’s blog article today was very timely and challenging.
No doubt many of you grew up, as I did, in a Christian home, surrounded by rules and standards for what “the Christian life” should look like. Coming from the South, I saw so often exemplified the problems Dr. Mohler brings up–the codification of Christian “morals” into the cultural norm is terribly dangerous, because people come to rely on their morality to save them rather than trusting the Savior.
Law is the default setting for human nature. But Gospel is the only true way of salvation. Praise God for hearts to understand and believe!
Light and Easy
August 25, 2009 | Comments Off
Kevin DeYoung (a pastor, and co-author of, among other books, Why We’re Not Emergent and Why We Love the Church) writes today a timely and deeply refreshing article addressing a common problem in the church–namely, the teaching that we need to “do more.” It occurred to me while reading the article that it fits quite nicely with the current series in Sunday School, which is addressing the Law-Gospel dynamic.
Here is one of the best lines of the whole thing:
“The secret of the gospel is that we actually do more when we hear less about all we need to do for God and hear more about all that God has already done for us.”
Read and be edified. His yoke is easy and His burden is light.
(via Between Two Worlds)
The gospel way versus natural religion
June 30, 2009 | Comments Off
The end of the parable of the prodigal son and the joyful Father examines the older son, the one who remained at home and served his father, thinking his service merited his father’s love. In other words, he was a legalist.
These few lines from the Puritan Thomas Boston capture the natural tendency of sinful human nature toward legalism:
“In the way of the gospel, the sinner must stand before the Lord in an imputed righteousness, but corrupt nature is for an inherent righteousness; and, therefore, so far as natural men follow after righteousness, they follow after ‘the law of righteousness’ (Romans 9:31-32), and not after ‘the LORD our righteousness.’ Nature is always for building up itself, and to have some ground for boasting, but the great design of the gospel is to exalt grace, to depress nature, and exclude boasting (Romans 3:27). The sum of our natural religion is, to do good from and for ourselves (John 5:44); the sum of the gospel religion is, to deny ourselves, and to good from and for Christ (Philippians 1:21).
–Thomas Boston, Human Nature in its Fourfold State (emphasis added)
Treasuring Him
June 25, 2009 | Comments Off
A video for your edification.