All posts by dax

Auld Lang Syne

Grace, Righteousness,

2010 has officially begun. Every year seems to go more quickly than the last; it will probably take me three months just to get my mind to think of this year as 2010 and not 2009.

Thinking about the New Year and times passing makes me think of Auld Lang Syne. The song is an old Scottish one, and the phrase is, loosely translated, Times gone by.

Times gone by. 2000 years since my Savior was on earth. 233-odd years of the United States as a country. 4-some odd years since my grandparents went to be with the Lord. 3 years since we were blessed with our first child.

Times gone by.

Theologically, I wonder about humanity in all these years. Are the issues the same, through the centuries? Does the church struggle with the same doctrinal questions? Were people of years past more strongly planted, more firmly founded, than we in our day are?

I’ve just finished reading a book which speaks to that question… it’s called The Christian Leaders of the Last Century. But it’s not about the 1900’s. It was written by J. C. Ryle in the 1800’s, of Christian leaders in the early 1700’s. So it is fascinating to see what he (in the 1800’s) thought the issues of church leaders were 100 years prior… what he brings out, and how the men are presented. He details 11 men in England, all clergy, including a couple that you’ve heard of (Whitehead, Wesley) and many that you (probably) haven’t.

I’ve been amazed at the piercing commentary that Ryle has of the spiritual walk and foundation of these men who lived before the United States existed. He could be speaking of people I know, of concerns I have, of struggles seen all around me.

Let me quote just a couple:

On John Berridge, curate of Stapleford:
“Berridge entered on his duties with great zeal, and a sincere desire to do good, and served his church regularly from college for no less than six years. He took great pains with his parishioners, and pressed upon them very earnestly the importance of sanctification, but without producing the slightest effect on their lives. His preaching…was striking; his life was moral, upright, and correct. His diligence as a pastor was undeniable… (but) the fact was that up to this time he was utterly ignorant of the gospel. He knew nothing aright of Christ crucified, of justification by faith in His blood, of salvation by grace, of the complete present forgiveness of all who believe…”

Berridge himself relates that He “saw the rock on which he had been splitting for many years, by endeavoring to blend the Law and the Gospel, and to unite Christ’s righteousness with his own.” His ministry over the next thirty years then bore much fruit as he preached Jesus Christ alone and salvation by faith alone.

It is striking and helpful to see J.C. Ryle, in the 1800’s, look at spiritual growth in John Berridge, in the 1700’s, and positively represent the necessity of the gospel – faith alone, imputed righteousness alone.

It’s not only with John Berridge. Another example is another clergy, James Hervey of Weston Favell. Ryle relates his early ministry as one of sincerity and purity of mind and zeal… but one who had not yet got his feet on the Rock. He relates a letter by George Whitefield, a contemporary, to Hervey:

“I long to have my dear friend come forth and preach the truth as it is in Jesus; not a righteousness or holiness of our own, whereby we make ourselves meet, but the righteousness of another, even the Lord our righteousness; upon the imputation and apprehending of which by faith we shall be made meet by His Holy Spirit to live with and enjoy God.” (Whitefield, to Hervey).

Hervey, like Berridge, was preaching morality and self-righteousness mixed into the gospel.

The wonderful account that is recorded by Ryle is… that Hervey grew.

At a later date, Hervey wrote to Whitefield:
“I own, with shame and sorrow, I have been a blind leader of the blind. My tongue and my pen have perverted the good ways of the Lord, have darkened the glory of redeeming merit and sovereign grace. I have dared to invade the glories of an all-sufficient Saviour, and to pluck the crown off His head My writings… presumed to give works a share in the redemption and recovery of a lost sinner…”

Ryle notes how interesting to see the work of the Spirit slowly in the life of Hervey, moving his theological opinions more in line with God’s truth in the grace of His Son.

How fascinating! This is the 1700’s!

From reading this book about men I do not personally know who lived before my great-great-great grandfather was alive, I’m encouraged. The issues are the same: the gospel vs. anything else. And the Spirit worked then, as now, in opening eyes and changing hearts… some quickly, some slowly, but all who are His come to know His redeeming grace from which truth, righteousness, and salvation flow.

Happy New Year, all. And as Auld Lang Syne, may you (and I) continue to grow in the grace and truth that is in Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, now and forever.

Joy to the World!

Christmas, ,

We were out in the freezing rain early in the week, 16 or so brave souls from our church, in the dark, wielding little LED candles, singing Christmas Carols. The sidewalks were icy-slick, and we slid and skated from house to house. It was cold and wet and dark and… really a lot of fun, singing of our Savior.

What is 'Joy to the World'?
What is Joy to the World?

I was particularly struck by singing “Joy to the World.” I have always thought of it as a song singing of how joyous Christ’s coming to earth was. What a joyful event, the angels singing, the shepherds rejoicing, the wise men gathered round.

But when I actually listened to what we were singing… it is certainly joyful… but for other reasons.

“Joy to the world, the Lord is come! Let earth receive her King…”

“Joy to the world, the Savior reigns!”

“He rules the world with truth and grace, and makes the nations prove…”

Isaac Watts, who penned the hymn almost 300 years ago, is clearly proclaiming the joy of Christ’s kingship. The King has come! The Savior rules! Sing, sing, everyone – the Lord is come!

And that got me thinking about the wondrous nature of God’s plan in Christ.

Over a thousand years before the arrival of Jesus in Bethlehem, our God made a promise to an individual: David. David was king over Israel, and God said to him: “Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.” (2 Samuel 7:16)

And it seemed that those words had been forgotten. Israel swallowed up by Assyria, Judah overrun by Babylon. Disarray, confusion, and above all… time passing.

And, a thousand years after God’s promise to David, come these words from Luke 2:
“In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered… and all went to be registered, each to his own town” (vv.1-3).

Not a very auspicious beginning to the coming of Christ.

But it goes on: “and Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.” (vv. 4-5)

And it is here, the next verse, that the birth takes place “And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.” (v. 7)

Most of us focus on the swaddling clothes and the manger.

But the heartbeat of this passage is a birth in all of the gathered remains of David. Joseph, of the line of David, comes to Bethlehem. Who else would be gathered there, registered? The rest of those of the line of David. Out of the gathered lineage of David, comes a child.

It isn’t the swaddling cloths and manger scene that is gloriously revealed here… it’s the gathering of the line of David to witness the fulfillment of one of the most incredible promises ever given to man by God: a throne forever for David’s line.

The King has come.
The promised King.
He rules and will rule forever and ever!

May our hearts proclaim the glory and majesty of our Savior, the King, come to earth as a babe, ruling forever and ever!

I think Isaac Watts got it just right.
Merry Christmas, all… and joy to the world, the Lord has come. The king will rule forever.

Thoughts from a Gospel-Driven Life

Grace, Quotes,

I’ve been blessed recently by Micheal Horton’s The Gospel-Driven Life.

Some excellent quotes:

“It is not Christian orthodoxy but moralistic liberalism that reduces the surprising news of the gospel to the bland repetition of what people already know.” (p.25)

“The bible is not a collection of timeless principles offering a gentle thought for the day. It is not a resource for our self-improvement. Rather, it is a dramatic story that unfolds from promise to fulfillment, with Christ at the center. Its focus is God and His action. God is not a supporting actor in our drama; it is the other way around…. Has it really hit you that no matter what your inner voice, conscience, heart, will or soul tells you, God’s objective Word on the matter trumps it all?” (p. 26)

“God’s law is not a tool that we can use; it is the rod by which God measures us. God’s law says, ‘Be perfect.’ God’s gospel says, ‘Believe in Christ and you will be reckoned perfect before God.’ The law tells us what must be done if we are to be saved; the gospel tells us what God has done to save us.” (p. 60)

“‘God justifies the wicked’ (Rom. 4:5). As counterintitive as it is simple, that claim which lies at the heart of the Good News has brought immeasurable blessing – and trouble – to the church and the world. Be nice, take out the trash, stop nagging your spouse, try to spend more time with your children, don’t get into credit card debt, lose some weight and get some exercise. Every one of these exhortations might be valid… however, it is not the big story. No wonder people – especially younger folks – are bored if this is the ‘news’ that the church has to bring to the world. This kind of news need not come from heaven; there are plenty of earthly sages who can communicate it better than most preachers.” (p. 64)

“So God justified the wicked — not those who have done their best yet have fallen short, who might at least be judged acceptable because of their sincerity, but those whare are the very moment of being pronounced righteous are in themselves unrighteous… Protestants [that’s me] are just as likely today to assume that the gospel gives us something to do rather than [sic] an announcement of something that has already been fully, finally, and objectively accomplished for us by God in Jesus Christ.” (p.73)

“I often hear believers say that it was wonderful when they first believed. Then and there they were promised forgiveness, God’s favor, and eternal life. But over time the message changed. Now it’s time to get busy. The gospel is for unbelievers, but Christians need a constant stream of exhortations to keep them going. Yet this is far from what the Bible itself reasons. Not only in the first instance, but throughout the Christian life, faith is born and fed by the gospel alone. Christ is sufficient even for the salvation of weak and unfaithful Christians.

The great divide… is between an objective, complete, perfect and finished justification by God alone in Christ alone and a subjective, progressive, incomplete and unfinished justification by the believer’s cooperation in grace.” (p.75)

“On my best days, my experience of transformation is weak, but the gospel is an announcement of a certain state of affairs that exists because of something in God, not something in me; something that God has done, not something that I have done; the love in God’s heart which he has shown in his son, not the love in my heart that I exhibit in my relationships.” (p.77)

“The gospel is not a general belief in heaven or hell or hope for a better life beyond… it is the announcement that Jesus Christ himself is our life, for he is our peace with God. He does not merely show us the way; he is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6).” (p.80)

“We all want to be and to do something rather than to be made and to receive our identity from above. It is a blow to our spiritual ego to be told that everything has already been done. Yet that is the glory of the gospel! That is why it is Good News.” (p.93)

“It is often said that we must apply the Scriptures to daily living. But this is to invoke the Bible too late, as if we already knew what ‘life’ or ‘daily living’ meant. The problem is not merely that we lack the right answers, but that we don’t even have the right questions until God introduces us to his interpretation of reality.” (p.111)

Well… I’m only about halfway through the book right now. But what a refreshing and thoughtful treatment of the Gospel! How I need to hear it every day… as I, by God’s wondrous grace, am a light in a world that needs to hear the good news.

 This is not to say that I’m not progressively being changed, or that don’t I engage my will (gladly!) to follow my Father’s guides… but the center of our lives as believers is the story of the Gospel. May we hold on to the truth every day!

On Christ’s Righteousness (again)

In Christ, Righteousness

It seems I am always in need of remembering the righteousness of my Savior.

This is because I know a Christian must do the following things:
    • Surrender to God’s will (Romans 12:1-2)
    • Truly die to sin and live to righteousness (2 Peter 2:24)
    • Do whatever God says (1 John 2:3-5)
    • Love God more than anything (Luke 14:26)
    • Be God’s instrument for righteousness (Romans 6:13)

I am a Christian. The difficulty is, at any given point in time, these statements do not seem to describe me. I understand that they need to be true, and I continue to try and try to figure out ways to make them true.

I get discouraged, sometimes, when they don’t seem to be true. Quite honestly, at least one of them (loving God more than anything) never really seems true.

Faith: trust in the righteousness of another... we don't make our own
Faith: trust in the righteousness of another... because we cannot make our own

This seems to be the Christian equivalent of low self-esteem. The problem isn’t that I don’t love myself… oh, I do. The problem is that I continue to see that I don’t match up to God’s requirements. My self-love combines with my continuing guilt to add up to real doubt that I’m headed anywhere but bad.

I try to convince myself that I have supernatural power to do these required things.
Then I don’t do them. And I’m really in trouble again.

And I can doubt that I’m really saved.
Because saved people have supernatural power.

Sermons about God’s enabling power to do good seem to rub wrongly, because I don’t do good. Well, I do some good… but loving God to the extent that my love for my kids seems like hate (Luke 14:26)? Hmm.

Is there anything that helps this?

Yes there is.

Consider this quote, from William Newell:

“Christ’s work, though on behalf of man, was wholly His: glorious and perfect, yet to be received by man in its blessed results of eternal pardon, peace and blessing. To be received, we say, by simple Faith, unmixed with human effort. A humbling process, indeed! For man must go out of the righteousness-producing business, and rest wholly and forever on the work of Another, even Christ” (Hebrews, pp. 238-239).

This is important foundational knowledge. What saves me is the grace of God. This grace of God is seen in the death of Jesus Christ for my sin. I brokenly and humbly put my trust, my faith, in Jesus. I am not only forgiven of all my sin against a holy God, but also I am given Christ’s righteousness.

His perfect work saves me… really, Jesus Christ saves me… not my commitment, not my work. Because I’m justified freely by His grace, I measure up to the full demands of God’s righteousness in Christ (2 Cor 5:21). Right now. Done.

How I am amazed… that it isn’t my commitment that saves me, but my Christ. That it isn’t my really hard effort that saves me, but my Savior does. That it isn’t what I do for God, but what God has done for me.

This puts a little different twist on the start of this post.
The righteousness I have to stand before God isn’t my own. All those requirements listed above, they are what happens in the life of one who is already saved. Not one who hopes to be saved. That’s an incredible difference.

My increasing knowledge of the incredible grace of God that has been and continues to be poured out on me, my increasing knowledge of the overwhelming love of Christ for me… results in me actually more and more desiring those top things. I can actually trust that God will work in me, even if on a day-by-day basis I seem stalled. Patience, believer. Keep after the knowledge of God’s incredible love for you in Christ.

Because this is the truth:
The sure result of His perfect work for me is that I will surrender to His will (Romans 12:1-2)
The sure result of His perfect work for me is that I will learn to truly live (2 Peter 2:24)
The sure result of His perfect work for me is that I will want to do whatever He says (1 John 2:3-5)
The sure result of His perfect work for me is that I will love Him more than anything (Luke 14:26) (!)
The sure result of His perfect work for me is that I will want to be His instrument (Romans 6:13)

Perfection isn’t had right now. Perfection is not to be had on earth. And I have to trust…when my will is engaged, and yet I flop again. This is the work of faith. I have to trust forgiveness really is full and free. Growth makes faith easier, but faith must continue even when growth seems so slow. I know that the sure result of His perfect work for me is that I will have an eternity of perfection, worshiping Him forever.

If Christ’s righteousness is worth anything.

And it is. It is worth everything.

Grace, behavior, and unity

Grace, ,

 

I’ve been thinking on unity this week. In Ephesians, unity is the first response that we’re to have as  Christians to the overwhelming grace of God. God who in Christ raised us from the dead, abolished the law of commandments against us, and promises us eternal life.

 

What God has done is so powerful; His one-way love for me so incredible! It has birthed in me a deep desire to respond, to have my life be about whatever my Savior wants it to be. And right away, the Word says, be humbly, gently, kindly focused on unity.

 

I’ll save an exposition of Ephesians 4 for Sunday morning… but that begs an immediate question… what is unity?

 

Most of the teaching I’ve heard on unity focuses on what I’d call “behavioral unity.” Eagerness to maintain the bond of peace with each other, I’ve been told, should lead to giving up any action that might be in a “gray area,” and hence avoid causing one’s brother or sister to stumble.

 

What this practically leads to is uniformity. One develops a rather narrow subset (out of all possible behaviors not specifically prohibited by God) of approved behaviors to be done for the sake of unity.

 

I’m not talking about sin, the clear prohibitions against immorality, lust, and evil. I’m not even talking about the wisdom of whether to do some specific behavior (as in 1 Corinthians 10:23). I’m talking about behavioral unity in the sense of conforming to the “lowest common denominator” of what anyone might think is unacceptable. If you don’t conform, you are quickly judged as lacking unity, humility, or violating a “weaker brother” principle.

 

A personal example is rowing crew. I was strongly urged to consider stopping this athletic endeavor because some of my non-Christian associates imbibed too much alcohol and spoke too crassly. It was suggested that the behavior (rowing) was therefore unacceptable because the association might cause other believers to stumble.

 

Scriptures such as Romans 14, 1 Corinthians 8 or 1 Thessalonians 5 are quickly brought to bear. “Avoid every appearance of evil” (1 Thessalonians 5:22). Conform to the scruples of the weaker brother, so that there is unity; it doesn’t matter if something actually is evil; beware the appearance (as defined by another believer). This will preserve unity.

 

This thinking seems on closer examination to be a distortion of the Bible, and a sullying of what is a beautiful, amazing response to what Christ has done for us.

 

In the case of 1  Thessalonians 5:22, it is important to see that false teaching is in view, not lifestyle or behavior. An accurate capture of the thought  might be, “avoid every kind of false coinage.” The thought is not that the believer should avoid gray-area behavior, but that Christians should test teaching to make sure it is biblical. Dan Wallace, author of a widely-used intermediate Greek grammar, has an excellent article on this here, showing how wrongly this verse is twisted.

 

Similarly, Romans 14 seems to have a different focus than avoiding possibly criticized behavior for the sake of unity. The point Paul is making that we should be doing all that we are doing for the Lord. “The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord… the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord.” (Romans 14:6). You see, you could eat or not eat, and both would be for a single purpose: honoring the Lord. The unity is found not in the behavior, but in the purpose, and Paul urges the Romans not to judge one another in their behavior (Romans 14:10-13), nor to impose one’s own conscience on another (Romans 14:15-19).

 

Neither the “strong brother” (joyfully eating) or the “weak brother” (joyfully abstaining) is to judge the other. The “strong brother” isn’t to eat if it will destroy the weaker’s conscience by making the weaker one partake in it (1 Corinthians 8). The 1 Corinthians passage isn’t about conforming to behavior standards, it is about not actively enticing your weaker brother to do what he thinks is wrong (do you see how this is different than avoiding a behavior because it might be judged by the weaker brother)?

 

So if behavioral unity isn’t the response we need, then what unity are we really after?

 

This is where Ephesians 4 is so helpful. Our response to God’s power on our behalf is that we are to be “eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3). This is immediately followed by a list of “ones” – one body, one spirit, on hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, on God and Father. Using an asyndeton, a seeming lack of connection, Paul emphasizes the critical connection between unity and the list of “ones.”

 

So the thought is that unity is unity of truth. Unity is unity of reality, seeing what is actually true. We don’t always see what is true… but we are helping each other, day by day, see what the truth is. Reality is that there is only one body, only one Spirit, only one Lord. Though we are bombarded with differences in appearance and behavior, we have unity at our core because that is what reality is.

 

Even the rest of the passage stresses the strengthening of that unity through equipping, through the teaching of the Word. The unity is “of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God.” We have the exact same God, the exact same calling, the exact same Spirit sealing us, the exact same Savior. Unity is a fact.

 

So this isn’t lifestyle unity, uniformity of behavior. If anything, this unity is peaceful – Christians will lovingly tolerate each other, even when they have differences. This tolerance is because believers already have true unity, which is a singleness of faith and knowledge, and are maintaining it by growing in faith and knowledge, seeing reality as God sees it. We have a one-ness because there really is just one body, there really is one God, there really is just one Spirit. This unity of faith and knowledge won’t be knocked off by winds of human fancy, but will allow us to love each other even though we have different interests, different joys, different behaviors.

 

Unity is a fact to be understood, a truth to be walked in. We should not aim to destroy it by our petty desires for others to submit to our ways of doing things, when they aren’t backed up by God’s clear instruction. But the truth of unity is a together-submission to God’s truth, which means we all submit to God’s ways of living, when the instruction is there.

 

The fact of unity means that you and I can live to glorify God and truly enjoy Him forever… even as we live lives of different circumstances, experiences, and preferences.

 

Praise God for the reality of grace: true unity in a world of diversity!

Grace in knowledge

Grace,

We live in such an age of information. I was moving my office last week, and packed up just a few of the medical tomes that have followed me wherever I’ve lived for the past years… thousands of pages, each page filled with accumulated information and specific knowledge.

Though I’ve benefited greatly from education, I think I’m probably not alone in having grown up in a Christian culture which doesn’t value knowledge much. “Book learning” is looked at with a skeptical eye. Seminary, I was warned, is often better called “Cemetery.” Knowledge is cold stuff, making the head big and the heart small.

This is in the Bible, I’ve been told, and 1 Corinthians 8:1 quoted: “knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.”

Does knowledge just puff us up?
Does knowledge just puff us up?

So… why a post on knowledge in a site dedicated to grace?

Because as I’ve grown in my Christian walk, I’ve come to see true knowledge as the single greatest gift, the very ground of the grace in which I stand.

How can this be? Because knowledge, true knowledge, is a gift of God. And true knowledge of Christ is the center of my life. All the true knowledge of Christ I have is from God, from His Word. All the experience of Christ, of His love, understood in light of this knowledge.

It’s not hidden knowledge, special knowledge, in the sense of Gnosticism. But it is fantastically special, and hidden in the sense of being thought foolishness by those who don’t know Jesus. I pursue it with all my heart, mind, soul and strength.

Consider a brief survey:
“For you know the grace of the Lord Jesus” (2 Corinthians 8:9). Knowledge leads us to consider what Jesus did for us.

“We know that a person is not justified by works of the law” (Galatians 2:16). Is this not a marvelous truth that we have to know to be saved?

“I count everything loss for the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:8). Everything loss, for the sake of knowledge.

“We know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true” (1 John 5:20). Jesus himself gives knowledge.

We are told that the Holy Spirit is primarily a teacher, a passer on of knowledge. We are prayed for by Paul (Ephesians 1, 3), to understand (know) God’s working on and for us, and to know the love of Christ. We are urged to grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ (2 Peter 3:18).

Every single one of these passages… involves knowledge.

Well, the argument goes, it needs to drop the 18 inches from your head to your heart. Because if it is in your head, it puffs up.

Well… maybe. But don’t use 1 Corinthians 8:1 for that thought. There, the thought is that the knowledge of food offered to idols is puffing up; the context is that those folks thought that they knew what God required… and they didn’t. What puffed them up was false knowledge.

You could say that false knowledge puffs up.
True knowledge, knowledge of Christ, is different. That knowledge pushes us to respond in love, because of the grace that Christ has poured out on us. That knowledge “fills us to the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:19).

So… the greatest grace I’ve experienced is knowledge. Knowledge with a particular object: Christ. Knowledge of who He is. Knowledge of what He’s done. Knowledge that knocks my socks off, that changes who I am, that alters my perception of reality. Knowledge that is so huge, that God himself, in the person of the Holy Spirit, is the one who must impart it to me.

May this knowledge strengthen us, grow us, cause us to change… as all things pertaining to life and godliness are “through the knowledge of Him” (2 Peter 1:3).

Happy studying, and much grace be yours… in the knowledge of Christ!

Counting Blessings… and settling on one

Grace, In Christ,

I was counting blessings today. I don’t know if you do that. But as I was walking from where I park my car to where the church is, I had a really beautiful view of South Hill, with Western Washington University aglow, and the crisp green of trees contrasting the clear blue sky with just an occasional puff of cloud.

I thought, what a blessing. I live in such beauty.

And then, as I strode along, I was thanking God for being healthy. Big long strides, no problem.

What blessings do you count?
What blessings do you count?

And the church came into view, with the sign lit up, and I was praising God for a place to meet, a place to grow. And all the people who He has stirred up to be involved. Great blessing.

And my kids. Hope & Grace are so wonderful. Even when they’re not sleeping. I can’t believe that my wife and I get to raise these precious children.

And my wife. She is such a fantastic companion and helper and friend.

These are real blessings. And there are so many more… a mind to think, fingers to type, air to breathe… endless really.

But I thought if I had to pick one this morning, it would be knowledge.

That’s a funny one, you might say. Aren’t wife and kids and health and job the real blessings? Why would you want to count as your major blessing some dry, intellectual thing like ‘knowledge’?

Well, it is because of the object. I know Jesus. I know, in the way that counts, who he is. What he’s done. I know him relationally. I know him because he’s shown himself to me. I know him when so many people don’t.

Another way to say it is that my major blessing is the Bible. The teaching of the Word. Because the Word of God is about my Savior. The Word of God reveals our need for him, his coming to earth, his life and death for me, his living right now interceding for me, his glorious return. The grace that changes everything comes through this knowledge. 

True, deep, life-changing knowledge of my Savior is the ground of my faith, revealed in the Word, implanted in my heart by the Holy Spirit, and it is all I need for life (2 Peter 1:3). This knowledge drives me to repentence, shapes my actions, motivates my heart, causes me to sing. This knowledge doesn’t make me perfect… but it works on me, and it promises a glorious future.

This is a blessing that can be counted… and is why I love to spend time in my Bible.

In the words of Sinclair Ferguson: “It is essential for us to realize that God’s word is the central gift Christ gives to the church. The major gifts of the New Testament era were given either to write that word (apostles), apply it (prophets) or teach it (pastors and teachers). We must see to it that our gifts are fed on the teaching of Holy Scripture, so that they grow strong and are channelled in the right direction, and so bring glory to Christ.” (Ferguson, Grow in Grace)

Count some blessings with me today… yours may be different than mine… but don’t forget the incredible blessing of our knowledge of our Savior.

Grace in Humor

Grace, Uncategorized, ,
Is my joy really in plumbing?
Is my joy really in plumbing?

I’m so thankful my Father in heaven has a sense of humor. I know that things like discipline are signs of His love (Hebrews 12:6), and I know that there are many serious aspects to the Christian life.  But I’m also struck by circumstances in my own life that are… well… humorous, in a good way, in a teaching way, through which my Father teaches me.

I think of the example of Jesus, who often used wit to season his teaching. After Nathanael had pestered Philip in John 1 about Jesus being from Nazareth (“can anything good come out of Nazareth?”), Jesus pokes at him: “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” We might not get the humor, but it is there: Jacob, who became Israel, has a name which means deceit. “Behold,” Jesus says, “a son of Jacob indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” Hmm. Just a little sarcasm, Jesus… and Nathanael may have rethought his statements about origin right there.

For me, I have to go no farther than this last weekend, when I was speaking on the joys of plumbing. Enjoy it, I was telling those around me, but don’t think it is your major blessing from God. Our blessing from God is our election, our redemption, our sealing… and we need to hold onto the hope of His calling, the riches of His inheritance, the greatness of His power toward us. Grand things all, and there are many who don’t have plumbing… but hold onto eternal life.

So, last night, I went downstairs into the kitchen… and lo, a veritable pool of water was on the dining room floor, having dripped down from the ceiling. It seems that our upstairs tub has sprung a leak, soaking drywall and letting water make its way down the wall and onto our floor.

I was tempted to be quite frustrated… and I was immediately reminded… my blessing is not plumbing. It is God’s certain call, His treasuring of me, power exerted on my behalf. How quickly I forget His real blessing, that ought never make me move from grateful praise.

Nothing to drive it home like water on the floor.

Thanks, Father. You always know what I need. I enjoy plumbing, running water… but I need to find my joy always in You.

Grace in plumbing.

Grace in Bellingham

Grace, In Christ, peace

So, I’m sitting in an empty building in downtown Bellingham. It is our new church plant – and we’ve now had two services – joyful, exciting, hopefully Christ-exalting. Many people are engaged and helping… wow!

A new beginning... what is around the corner?
A new beginning... what is around the corner?

And yet… the building is covered with blemishes on its walls, and a big loading-dock door on one end. There are mountains of things to do. And I’m thinking through the joy of fellowship at the community church we’ve been at for many years, the comfort of it, the ability to focus just on teaching and counseling, the many fun times we had… and I get a wave of doubt. A heaviness of heart.

Why are we doing this?
What is the purpose of “planting” a church?
Can’t we just live life, and not worry about all the details and struggles and obstacles that go with starting a new work?

I’m not much of a rabble-rouser or rebel; I’m not up in arms about this or that. I’m not very political, though I believe in fulfilling my obligation as a citizen to vote.

So what cause is so great, what passion so high, that we do push through the obstacles? That it overcomes doubt? That we dependently stand, hoping and praying and desiring to proclaim God’s Word, clearly and truly?

For me, that doubt-banishing motivation is reflected in the very first greeting of Paul in almost all of his letters, echoed in Ephesians (1:2):

“Grace to you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

There really is grace to us from God Himself, maker of the universe, the one who is offhandedly referred to as He who “made the stars, too” (Genesis 1:16). The Lord of Lords, who became flesh and lived among us and died for us and rose again and is forever making intercession, He declares peace to us, and has grace for us.

The “us” in this are those who have been set apart by God, those who in the realm of Christ Jesus are faithful, who believe that our only hope is Christ and our lives truly are united to His.

The motivation is – we know this grace. We know this peace. And the “we” and the “us” is not a big enough group. Everyone should know this grace! Everyone should know this peace! Could it be that there are many in Bellingham who don’t really grasp this grace and peace? Could it be that God would have us proclaim this message to them?

And even beyond that – we need to remind each other of this grace from God. We need to put specifics on it, explore the depths of its truth and show the reality of its experience. What has He really told us in His Word? How does that lead to our actions and encouragement of each other?

Actually “need” is perhaps the wrong word in the little paragraph above. We will remind each other, we will put specifics on it, because we can do no other.

This is what banishes doubt for me. The depth of knowledge that I, by God’s grace alone, have tasted peace and grace from God. That my life – yours, too – has purpose. That purpose is not toward doubt and fear but toward standing as heirs… by which we cry ‘Abba, Father’ (Romans 8:15).

May we be used by our God to proclaim His truth to those around us, in word and deed. May our love for Him lead to love of others, glorifying Christ in all things. May we truly be motivated by the grace we have received.

Ok… I’m stepping off my excited mini-platform now. But I’ll come back when my heart is tempted by doubt, or when my eyes want to dwell on shadows.

What grace we have received!

Avoiding despairing (un)belief

In Christ, Quotes

Dr. Rod Rosenbladt, who is one of the hosts of The White Horse Inn, a popular reformation discussion/radio program, warns of the dangers of giving morality lessons instead of the Gospel in our churches. We as believers must continue to grow in our knowledge of the Gospel… and indeed beware the return to morality-based salvation, even as we produce fruit through the working of the Spirit in us.

Here’s an excerpt from his The Gospel For Those Broken By The Church :

“If the Ten Commandments were not impossible enough, the preaching of Christian behavior, of Christian ethics, of Christian living, can drive a Christian into despairing unbelief. Not happy unbelief. Tragic, despairing, sad unbelief. (It is not unlike the [unhappy] Christian equivalent of “Jack Mormons” i.e. those who finally admit to themselves and others that they can’t live up to the demands of this non-Christian cult’s laws, and excuse themselves from the whole sheebang.) A diet of this stuff from pulpit, from curriculum, from a Christian reading list, can do a work on a Christian that is (at least over the long haul) “faith destroying.” You might be in just this position this evening.

Many of us have friends whose story is not a far cry from this. We all regularly rub shoulders with such “alumni of the Christian faith” who are sad that the Gospel of Christ didn’t (for them, at least) “deliver the goods,” didn’t “work.” In a Christian context, the mechanism of this can be, I think, a very simple one:

1. You come to believe that you have been justified freely because of Christ’s shed blood.

2. Freely, for the sake of Jesus’ innocent sufferings and death, God has forgiven your sin, adopted you as a son or daughter, reconciled you to Himself, given you the Holy Spirit, and so on. Scripture promises these things.

3. Verses like “Be ye perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect” seem now – at first read – to finally be possible, now that you are equipped for it. Or you hear St. Paul as he writes, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Same thing.

4. You realize that you might have had some excuse for failure when you were a pagan. But that’s over. Now you have been made a part of God’s family, have become the recipient of a thousand of His free gifts.

5. And then, the unexpected. Sin continues to be a part of my life, stubbornly won’t allow me to eliminate it the way I expected.

6. Continuing sin on my part seems to be just evidence that I’m not really a believer at all. If I were really a believer, this thing would “work!”

We start to imagine that we need to be “born again again.” (And often the counsel from non-Reformation churches is that this intuition of ours is true.) Try going again to some evangelistic meeting, accept Christ again, surrender your will to His will again, sign the card, when the pastor gives the “altar call,” walk the aisle again. Maybe it didn’t “take” the first time, but it will the second time? And so forth…

Are we Christians saved the same way we were when we were baptized into Christ, or when we came to acknowledge Christ’s shed blood and His righteousness as all we had in the face of God’s holy law? That all of our supposed “virtue” – Christian or pagan – is just like so many old menstrual garments (to use the Bible phrase)? But that God imputes to those who trust Christ’s cross the true righteousness of Christ Himself? We are pretty sure that unbelievers who come to believe this are instantly justified in God’s sight, declared as if innocent, adopted as sons or daughters, forgiven of all sin, given eternal life, etc. But are Christians still saved that freely? Or are we not? We are pretty clear that imputed righteousness saves sinners. But can the imputed righteousness of Christ save a Christian? And can it save him or her all by itself? Or no?”

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I’m not sure I’d agree with Dr. Rosenbladt, a reformed Lutheran, on everything… but I love his representation of Luther’s conviction that Christ is the “center and circumference of the Bible,” and resonate with his rueful statement that we in the church (including me personally) continue to struggle over solus Christus (and clicking the link there takes you to one of his articles where he talks about what solutions are)…

May we be overflowing with the glorious depths of what Christ has done for us!