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Dec

2018

The Church Part II

The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God . . . it pleased God through the foolishness of what we preach to save those who believe . . . not many of you were wise according to the flesh, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are. (I Cor 1:18, 21, 26-8)

Lord, open our eyes, as those who stand in the righteousness of Christ, to see the power of the gospel that transforms. May we as your church stand and not waver in the task of bringing light to a dark society and salt to an empty people.

The last blog introduced the doctrine of the church and concluded by saying that the church has an obligation to take the gospel to the people. To do this, the church must live where the people live. She is to infiltrate society and rub elbows with the common man. Monkery is not a long-term viable option for the serious Christian. Light does no good under a basket, and salt has no effect until it is rubbed on the decaying meat. Thus, the church traffics in the world. Yet simultaneously the church is not of the world. She lives in the world as a foreigner, and as such, is governed by the priorities and principles of her homeland. She dwells here but is a citizen of another place. In matters with no moral consequence she conforms to the place she lives, but in spiritual and moral issues she stands apart from her culture. In America she may wear jeans and eat burgers. In the Middle East, she may wear a robe and eat hummus, but wherever she is, she does not abort her children or defile the marriage bed. She may live and work in the midst of the world, she may obey local laws, work ordinary occupations, and speak the same language as everyone else, but, ultimately, the church is counterculture. She consists of everyday people living everyday lives in everyday places, but she transcends the everyday.

The church lives in the world, but God has not called her to be like the world. Rather, He wants her to transform the world. Because the church exists to bring Christ to the world, she constantly points the world to something beyond the world. The church is separate from the world and calls the world to a higher standard and power than the world can ever know. She is a lighthouse telling a society where the rocks are. She is a guide pointing a lost troop to the only path home. She is a nurse nursing the wounded back to health. She is counterculture because society wants to sail where the rocks are, travel down the path that leads only to a great morass, and practice those habits that only inflict further wounds.

The church is counterculture because while she points people to what is best, the people shut their eyes and ears to it and want nothing to do with her. The church is laughed at, scorned and mocked for calling the world away from its desires. In most places of the world, she faces persecution. She is beaten, robbed, killed, discriminated against and thrown into slavery, all because she insists on saying that the resurrected Christ is the only way out of the hellhole called self. But the world loves the hellhole. The world is an alcoholic who cannot see that his habits are destroying him. The church is a relative who comes alongside and points the way out. But the alcoholic loves the very thing that is killing him and sees the relative as a threat. So he abuses her. It may be quite safe to never speak to the alcoholic about change, but it is also quite immoral. When the church does her job properly, she will experience backlash.

The church is the only institution on earth that can do deep and lasting good. The Red Cross can help alleviate suffering, but it has nothing to offer the human heart. Political groups may help reform a wicked practice, but they cannot reform the human heart. A father and mother may instill in their children good manners and citizenship, but good manners and citizenship do not change the heart. When we divorce our values from spiritual ultimacy, we become sugarcoated and hollow. Do not misunderstand. These other institutions can do good things. I would prefer to live in a place where wicked practices are reformed and people are polite, but I do not suppose that polite people obeying decent laws is the essence of life. The church is the lone institution that can bring ultimacy to all the other institutions on earth. It is the only institution that can offer something more than redecorating the living room. It can raze the house and build a new one. The church has at its disposal that kind of power. That power is inherent in the gospel through the Spirit. The church merely carries the power and brings it face to face with another person, like a medic who carries life in his bag and brings it to fallen comrades on the front line.

Nov

2018

The Church

. . . on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (Mt 16:18)

How precious is your church, O Lord. She is your jewel, your Beloved, the ones you ransomed from the pit and made your own. May we see her in all her glory, clothed in the righteousness of Christ and living as sons and daughters of the High King. And may we honor her as one honors the bride of royalty.

A picture is worth a thousand words. You have heard the saying. And though Jesus predates the saying, He, too, understood the power of its message. When He taught, He taught with pictures. When He gave us baptism and communion, He gave us visual representations of spiritual truths. Indeed, even His very person was “the image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15). He was Himself the picture of God.

Now I believe it quite helpful to think of spiritual truths in visual ways, and the doctrine of the church provides a good example of such a truth. Therefore, I wish to begin this blog with a series of pictures. Some are direct from Scripture; others are not. But all reflect some aspect of the biblical doctrine of the church. Here we go:

The church is like a great temple composed of many living stones. Christ is Himself the chief cornerstone, and He has laid for us a foundation in the apostles and prophets (Eph 2:19-22; I Pet 2:4-8). By grace, the builder builds his temple, and by grace he then dwells in it.

The church is like a body with many organs and parts, but one head. The eyes see for the feet, and the feet walk for the eyes, but all follow the head and all need the others (I Cor 12).

The church is like the shoots and saplings that sprout from the root of a great oak. These then become stately oaks themselves and produce more shoots and saplings, which, in turn, grow and produce more and so on until this oak covers the earth from east to west.

The church is a great faucet through which living water flows.

The church is the light of the world shining in the darkness.

The church is the salt of the earth, preserving righteousness and truth.

The church is like an army spread out by squads in enemy territory and working to turn the natives away from their ruling prince and to their rightful king who will soon take over. Each member is a soldier working in some capacity to accomplish the mission of his commanding officer.

The church is an adopted family from all languages and cultures, full of variety, but whose members share a oneness that not even identical twins share.

The church is like an athlete whom the coach trains, puts in the game, calls his play, and gives him the ball. And the crowd cries, “Run! Run, church! Run!”

The church is a bride who has walked down the aisle and given herself to her groom. She belongs to him and he to her. He is her only love, and she has committed her life to go where he goes and has submitted her soul to his lead.

The church is a gathering too numerous to count of men and women singing, cheering, rejoicing, falling on their faces, all because of one man who is on the platform.

I suppose we could go on. The church is a group, a family, an army, whose task is to honor her king, to live in His ways, and to ultimately help raise others to do the same. Different members have different functions, but all work toward the same goal. They are teammates.

The church did not merely pop into existence. She had a beginning, a source. Jesus said to Peter, “upon this rock I will build my church” (Mt 16:18). The church was not yet formed at that time, but Jesus is clear that it was coming, and He was equally clear of who the builder would be. When the church grew, Luke tells us “the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved” (Acts 2:47). The source of the church is Christ Himself. He is the object and the impetus of its worship. He gives to the church its purpose and the power to accomplish that purpose. He goes to the quarry, selects His stones, breathes His life into them, fashions them as He pleases and places them where He wishes in order to accomplish His purpose. He is the church’s beginning and fulfillment.

He is also the church’s head (Eph 5:23; Col 1:18). He calls the shots. He tells the feet to go or stop, the eyes to look to the front or back, the hands to steer left or right. He is commander in chief. He is Lord. And Lord means head. He never directs the church to act against her best interests. Just as any sound head never destroys its own body but cherishes and nourishes it, so does Christ do with His own body. He may at times give directions that require us to suffer just as a sound head may for a time command the feet to march 50 miles a day in the snow. But we must remember that He knows what He is up to. When He commands what we do not understand, when He directs us to suffer, we must remember that He is looking out for the best interests of His body. It is helpful to remember that we truly are at war. Sometimes to us the war is invisible, but to our head, it is never invisible. He always directs us as if we are in combat, not as if we were at a neighborhood garden party. When we question Him, it is often because we have forgotten that we are in the thick of a firefight.

Because Jesus is head of the church, He gives to the church her purpose. He has said, “The greatest commandment is this, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind’” (Mt22:37-8). His final instructions to His church were these: “All authority in heaven and earth is given me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations” (Mt 28:19). The church exists, then, to love and worship God and to make disciples. In fact, there is a sense in which we can say that the church is to love and worship God by making disciples. If the church says she loves God but does nothing to complete the main work God gave her, she is a mouth without a heart. This mission means that she is to evangelize the lost and disciple the saved, to bring others to a greater knowledge of Jesus Christ, to help them be obedient to Christ, to help them worship and witness and pray and understand the Scriptures, and to help them, ultimately, help others do the same. As an army she is to obey her commander, recruit new soldiers and train them. If she obeys without recruiting and training, she is not obeying, for she is commanded to recruit and train. If she recruits but does not train, she ends up with a host of people who cannot do anything, but no real soldiers. If she trains but never recruits, she has a spiritual force focused on itself, not on its commander or mission. If she does not die first from self-centeredness, she will die eventually from the neglect of the next generation. The church is called to take the gospel to all people.

These are some aspects of the church. We will talk more in future blogs.

Oct

2018

On the Third Day

. . . he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures (I Cor 15:4)

Praise you, Father, for you have revealed your power and have conquered sin and death. You have brought your people hope and shown that you reign over history.

I suppose it is a tad strange to think that an executed criminal somehow rescues the human race from its most dire problem, but then truth is a bit strange. Christian doctrine doesn’t claim to be plain or ordinary. It claims to be true. And besides … the “strange” story of Jesus doesn’t end in a tomb.

Anyone who has read even the slightest bit about Jesus or Christianity knows that the central thing about Him is that on the third day He was raised from the dead.

This claim is the lynchpin of the earliest teaching (see Acts). Paul says it is so central to the faith that “if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (I Cor 15:14). He even goes so far as to say that if Christ has not been raised, we are liars because we said God raised him (v 15).

The central message of the earliest church was not that the Cross saves us from our sins or that we are to love our neighbor or that Jesus is coming again. The central message of the earliest church was this: “this Jesus, whom you crucified, God has raised from the dead.” The disciples were beaten and imprisoned for saying this. They were ordered to cease this teaching, but they refused. “No!” they said. “Jesus is risen from the dead, and we are witnesses of this fact.” Over and over in the face of persecution and death, they insisted that Jesus of Nazareth was raised on the third day.

It is this belief that gave birth to Christianity. If there had been no Resurrection, there would have been no Christian faith — ever.

The Resurrection is the foundation of a new birth (I Pet 1:3). Without it, we are still dead in our sins (I Cor 15:17). Belief in the Resurrection is essential to knowing God (Rm 10:9). Christians see the Resurrection to have this sort of importance.

The Resurrection is the real-life conquest of sin and death. God is not playing a word game. He is not offering a new philosophy or a spiritualized truth. He is obliterating sin and death in real space and real time. It is a real conquest — an actual event in history. It is not a symbol or a myth.

In fact, it is such a real event in history, that the early church named the day. It occurred on the third day after Jesus’ death, on the first day of the week. Jewish believers, whose Sabbath was Saturday, were so convinced of this fact that very early on they began worshiping on Sunday.

This is significant, for Christians did not believe that the Resurrection was a nebulous activity in people’s hearts. If that were the case, then the Resurrection occurs on different days for different people, and it cannot be tangibly recorded in history. But every Biblical source we have says that something big happened on the third day after Jesus’ death. It was a Sunday. It was early in the morning. It was in Jerusalem. It was a few days after the Jewish Passover meal during Passover week when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea and Caiaphas was high priest. Something happened that day to make the entire body of Jesus’ followers claim that this third day is where everything changed.

Their basic claim is that Jesus of Nazareth bodily rose from the dead. You cannot read the New Testament without this claim slapping you in the face. It is so obvious that one hardly needs to say it is what the Bible claims, yet people still try to invent a christianity without the bodily Resurrection. Such is silly talk. It is like talking about an ocean without water, men without blood, or trees without trunks. Perhaps some people want Christianity without the Christianity. But read the gospels and be honest. They are too clear on this point.

This much is certain. The belief that Jesus bodily rose from the grave on the third day is basic to Christianity. All Christians share this conviction. It is simply part of what it means to follow Jesus.

And yet the Resurrection is more than just a body coming out of a tomb. It is the ultimate victory over the strongest foe we face (I Cor 15:25-6). It is tied up with our justification (Rm 4:25). It is part of removing sin (I Cor 15:17). It is the foundation for a new life in Christ (Rm 6). It is the hope of our future resurrection (I Cor 15:20-2). It reveals who Jesus really is (Rm 1:4). It is the beginning of the fulfillment of history (I Cor 15:20-4). It shows that God cares for the human race holistically — body, soul, and spirit.

Two in One

The Cross and Resurrection go together. In God’s plan, we cannot have the one without the other. On the Cross Jesus fulfills the just penalty for our sins. He is executed in our place, and sin dies. But on the Cross, Jesus also dies. If the Cross is the end of the story, it is not a victory. It is a tie game. The score is zero to zero. Jesus knocks sin out, but sin also knocks Jesus out. The Resurrection, however, means that sin gets shut out. The Resurrection ensures that the Cross is a victory. Jesus crucifies sin, but sin can’t keep Jesus in the tomb. It is not strong enough. In Jesus, sin and death have met a power that overwhelms them. They cannot handle Him.

Thus, the Cross and Resurrection are really two parts of the same event. They need each other. The Resurrection makes no sense without the Cross, but the Resurrection also brings hope and victory to the Cross. The Resurrection is part of the work of the Cross. If you want to think of it this way, the Resurrection completes the work of the Cross. When Christians talk about the work of the Cross, they never mean a Resurrectionless Cross. The Cross is sufficient, but understand that that sufficient Cross is always a Cross that ends in Resurrection.

I don’t want to get into a philosophical “what if” game. You know, “What if the Resurrection had never occurred? Would the Cross still retain its efficacy?” I am saying simply that, to the follower of Jesus, that “what if” game is unthinkable. It makes no sense. In Christianity, a Cross without a Resurrection doesn’t exist.

The Resurrection, therefore, is just as much a part of the removal of sin as the Cross is. If Jesus is not raised, we are dead in our sins (I Cor 15:17), and we are not justified in the eyes of God (Rom 4:25).

For the Future

The Resurrection of Jesus is the hope of our resurrection. In I Corinthians 15, Paul writes to people who have received the basics of the Christian message and who stand in it (v. 1). They have believed the fact that Christ died for our sins, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day, and that he appeared to many people — even 500 at one time (vv. 3-8).

Paul is then astonished that some in the Corinthian church can accept the basic teaching of the bodily Resurrection of Jesus but deny the general resurrection of the dead in the future (v. 12ff). He is showing how inconsistent they are. It is as if he is saying, “You believe that Jesus is raised from the dead. How then can you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Jesus is not raised. And if Jesus is not raised, everything falls apart.” (vv. 11-19) This is Paul’s argument.

He continues by saying that the Resurrection of Christ is the firstfruits of all who belong to Christ (20, 23). In other words, it is the first of the same kind. It is the beginning of resurrection, not the end of it. In Christ, God’s people will participate in a resurrection of the body simply because Jesus did. Our future resurrection depends on His. If Jesus is raised, and we are in Him, then we, too, will be raised. If His Resurrection was bodily, then ours will be, too. If, however, Jesus remains buried in the tomb, then we have no hope of a resurrection at all.

Paul then continues by discussing the nature of the resurrection body. He says that it will not be the exact same flesh and blood that we currently have, for “flesh and blood will not inherit the kingdom of God.” (v. 50) It will be, however, an incorruptible body. Our current bodies are buried in the dust, but they shall be raised incorruptible. The reason for this is that by faith, we are in Jesus, and He died and was buried, and His body was raised incorruptible.

The corruption of our current bodies comes from sin, but the Cross and Resurrection have done away with sin. Consequently, they have also done away with the corruption of the body. This is why our current bodies, which already have been tainted by sin, dissolve into dust, and we receive new bodies incorruptible in Christ.

Therefore, for those in Christ, death is not the end of the story. The Resurrection means that no one can hurt us, even if they kill us. The Resurrection means that in Christ we can boldly face lions, swords, or cancer. It means that we look at funerals with a different eye. We may still weep, for we still miss our loved ones, but behind the sadness lies a confidence, even a joy, that one day we shall be reunited in Christ with those loved ones. And that day shall be greater than this one.

We who are in Jesus may live on Earth, but we do not live for Earth. We live for eternity, of which this present world is but a shadow. We live this way because we know that we shall be raised incorruptible in Christ. We live for a new era, an era in which we shall see His face. This new era is the fulfillment toward which this present era is rushing. It is the end of the story — at least the story of this Earth. But it is the beginning of a new story — the real story, of which all of history is but a preface.

This new era, this new story, begins when we are raised incorruptible. The resurrection of the dead sets it off (I Cor 15:21-4), and the Resurrection of Christ is the firstfruits of that era. In other words, in the Resurrection of Christ, the new era has come to Earth. The Resurrection of Jesus foreshadows the general resurrection to come. Jesus’ Resurrection is like a movie trailer that comes out months in advance of the full movie. It is just a little appetizer for the full meal.

But the Resurrection of Jesus is more than a picture. It is the power of God. Our Resurrection is tied to His. We rise because He rose. This means that the Resurrection of Jesus also plays a causal role in the future resurrection of God’s people. History is like a novel in which the grand climax at the end is the natural consequence of a powerful event that occurred way back in chapter four. The Resurrection of Jesus is not just about Jesus. It is the basis for our resurrection and the new era to come. It brings about the fulfillment of history itself.

For Today

The Resurrection of Jesus is not just about the future. It is also power for today. It is a practical part of overcoming sin now. Scripture teaches that we have been raised with Christ. This is not a symbol but a reality, and it is not just a future reality but a present one. It is a work that has already taken place. The tenses in Scripture are in the past: “God … made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved — and raised us up with him …” (Eph 2:5-6) “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above …” (Col 3:1)

We already are resurrected with Christ, and this has implications for sin. Sin and death go together. Sin is the sting of death (I Cor 15:56), and death is the wages of sin (Rm 6:23). They are inseparable. Therefore, Christ has overcome the power of sin through His Resurrection. In like manner, those in Christ have also overcome the power of sin through His Resurrection. When Christ was raised, we also were raised. In Christ, we live in a new realm. We are in that realm because we have been raised with Him into it. In Christ, we are also a new person. We are new because we have been raised with Him anew. Because we have been raised with Christ, our entire relationship with sin changes. No longer are we slaves. Now we are free. This is why Paul so adamantly opposes the idea that grace frees us to sin. It is the other way around. Grace frees us for righteousness. Sin is a complete violation of who we are in Christ. The Cross and the Resurrection are the means God uses to make us new in Christ (Rm 6).

When a butterfly comes out of its cocoon, it no longer lives as a caterpillar, crawling on sticks and chewing leaves. To go back and live that way would be a violation of what it has been transformed into. In the same way, we in Christ have been transformed through His death and Resurrection. In Christ, we have received wings to soar above sin, and that is now what we are made for. To go back and sin would be unthinkable.

The Resurrection is central in this transformation. It has made us into something different from what we used to be. We have power over sin because we are in Christ and are, thus, raised with Him to be part of the new human race of which He is the head. The Resurrection ushers us into this new race. The Resurrection of Jesus, thus, has application for how we deal with our boss, whether we worry about money, how we overcome our anger or bitterness, and much more. The Resurrection of Jesus has practical application for how we live our lives today. It is common for us who follow Jesus to forget what the Resurrection has done for us. We forget that we have wings and too often revert to crawling on sticks.

Holistic Healing

The Resurrection of Jesus is a victory in the spiritual realm and in the physical realm. God cures humans holistically. He does not cure our souls only. He redeems our bodies as well. The problem with the human race has affected both the physical and spiritual worlds. Sin is a spiritual condition that is often acted out in physical ways. Sin has brought physical death. Consequently, any real victory over sin must also overcome death. Physical death.

God made the body. He loves it. That is why the redemption of the body is part of God’s solution. To exclude the body would have been incomplete. The bodily Resurrection of Jesus brings the power of God to the entire person — body, soul, and spirit. It does this because God cares for the entire person.

Thus, the Resurrection of Jesus is a powerful and multifaceted event. It is not just a body coming out of a tomb. Nor is it just the basis for a new life in Christ. Nor is it just an infusion of the kingdom of God on Earth. Nor is it just the fulfillment of history. Nor is it just a part of our justification. Nor is it just our hope for a future resurrection. It is all of these things simultaneously. It is physical and spiritual all at once. It is a physical event in history, but it is a cosmic event with the power to change the entire world order and usher in a new era. It declares the lordship of Christ. It changes our very nature from the inside out. It brings about the resurrection of an incorruptible body, and a new type of human. It ensures that the penalty and power of sin are gone.

We must not think of the Resurrection of Jesus in simplistic terms. We must not emphasize this or that spiritual teaching of the Resurrection to the neglect of its bodily nature. This results in a resurrection without teeth. The Resurrection then becomes a quaint metaphor that can mean whatever we want. We cannot rip the power out of the Resurrection and talk in nice spiritual language and think we still have the same Resurrection that turned the world upside down. Jesus’ Resurrection shocked the world.

Nor must we so focus ourselves on the bodily aspect of the Resurrection that we neglect the cosmic power and significance of what happened on that third day. Sometimes Christians spend so much time and energy defending the bodily resurrection that they have no time left for what it means. They have a body coming out of a tomb but little else. It doesn’t affect how they live. It isn’t involved in forgiving their sins. It doesn’t even give them hope at funerals. It is just an intellectual argument.

The bodily Resurrection of Jesus has immense spiritual power. A follower of Jesus holds tightly to both the bodily nature of the Resurrection and the spiritual significance of that Resurrection. The Resurrection heals us body, soul, and spirit because God loves us body, soul, and spirit, and we will not let go of any of it.

Oct

2018

Why the Cross?

the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. (I Cor 1:18)

There once was a man who wanted to build a bridge to the sun, so he fit stones together and began to raise up a bridge from the ground. His bridge looked beautiful, and much effort went into it, but in the end, the man failed. His goal was hopeless.

Such is the story of those who think their works will get them to heaven. And yet, ironically, most people don’t see their works as building a bridge to the sun. Why not? Is it that people do not fully understand the holiness of God? The infinity of God? The justice of God? Maybe our God is too small. A God whom we can reach through our own efforts is a small god indeed.

This is why we need the Cross. The Cross is necessary because a holy God is beyond our sinful reach. We cannot remove the stains of our sin. The difference between the Cross and works righteousness is the difference between a big God and a small god, and a small man and a big man. With the Cross, God is everything, and we are nothing. With works righteousness, God is much smaller, and we are something.

The Cross brings salvation to Earth. Works righteousness builds salvation toward heaven. Their starting points are different. God is fully capable of reaching across the chasm between Himself and sinners, but we sinners are utterly incapable of reaching across that chasm to a holy God. How many good works do you need to do to be good enough for holiness? That is one reason for the Cross.

Sep

2018

Discerning Christians From Imposters

Beware false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing (Matt 7:15)

Father, grant us your Spirit to discern our hearts and the hearts of others.

Christians are new creatures in Christ, sanctified and made clean through our Savior. Yet Christians still struggle with sin. We do not always find it easy to live out our identity in Christ. The past several weeks I have given some principles to help us in our fight for holiness.

I now want to address a related question. If Christians still sin, how do we tell the difference between a genuine Christian wrestling with sin and an imposter who claims to follow Christ? On the outside, both people may look the same, but one is a mushroom and the other a toadstool. Here are some principles to look for:

Is the person engaged in the fight? In a war, sometimes you know who is on your side not by looking at who is winning or losing but by looking at who is fighting whom. Imelda may have lesbian attractions and even give in to them, but is she fighting? Does she acknowledge the sin and truly want to change? Or does she justify her sin and live in it without a fight? Those are two different people. Christians don’t have to win every battle, but they do have to fight, even when they lose their battles. When you sin, get up, confess, be clean in Christ, rest in Him, and move on. Our response to our sin reveals much about who we are. Genuine Christians take responsibility for their sin and actively pursue righteousness in Christ.
Has the person changed in any way? Christ changes us. Plain and simple. He may not change everything all at once, but He does change some things. So perhaps Kellen still has that temper of his. Have you seen changes in other aspects of his life? Sometimes we expect God to work on the things that are on our list, but God does not consult us when he deals with Kellen. Maybe you have noticed that Kellen has gained much peace concerning the work situation that he used to be so worried about. Maybe he has a desire to seek forgiveness from someone he has hurt. These are significant changes even if they may not be the change you were looking for.
Do you see positive change over time? Sometimes we want everything now. Maybe you notice no difference in Kellen’s temper, but give him five years. Or ten. Or thirty. God does not always work on our timetable. To God thirty years is a millisecond. So God had to wait a millisecond to change Kellen’s temper. Big deal.
Do you see negative change over time? Time is one of the great tests of faith. Some seed fell on rocky soil and it quickly sprang up, but when the sun beat down on it, it withered because it had no root. And other seed fell among thorns, but the thorns grew up and choked them out (Matt 13). Understand that in the beginning stages, genuine Christians and imposters look more alike than they do thirty years later. Genuine faith lasts, and time has a way of weeding out many imposters. I don’t mean that everyone who has been in church his whole life is a Christian. Heavens no. But sometimes we have to wait to see how sincere people are. Samantha may be exuberant for Christ in her first years. But where is she twenty years later? That is a clearer indicator than her exuberance in the beginning.
What is the heart like? Jesus wants the heart. As much as possible, we need to get beyond external sin struggles like anger or sexual sin and perceive the heart in the midst of those struggles. This type of perception requires the Holy Spirit. It means we have to walk with Christ ourselves. It does no good for an unregenerate person to apply the principles listed here. That person does not have the Spirit and, thus, will be limited in what he or she can see. We must walk in the Spirit of God to apply the principles of God.
What is the doctrine? Right hearts want right doctrine. Wrong doctrine is a heart issue. Therefore, does this person accept the plain teachings of Scripture? Or does he dance around texts to deny the plain teaching of Scripture?
Where are this person’s priorities? This person claims to be a Christian, but does she live for money? For entertainment? For comfort? For a job? Or is she willing to sacrifice those things for the kingdom of God? Now, make no mistake. Christians struggle with money, entertainment, and the rest, but you want to look at a person’s priorities over time and not necessarily over a season. And you want to look at whether this person struggles with these issues or just blindly lives for them.

Everything I have said is meant to be a guiding principle and not a lock down law. Life is messy, and sometimes you can’t tell the difference between a genuine Christian and an imposter. And that’s OK. Stay in the fight and walk with God. As John said, “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.” (III Jn 4)

Sep

2018

The Fight Part III

Fight the good fight of the faith (I Tim 6:12)

Father, take my mind off of this world and put it squarely on your precious Word.

We are victorious in Christ. But we must fight.

We are holy and clean in the Beloved. But we struggle to live out our holiness.

So far I have been giving principles for the fight. 1. Understand that we are sinful and weak on our own. 2. Rest in the work of Christ in us. 3. Walk by faith, not by sight.

Today, let’s add a couple new principles for fighting the fight of holiness.

1) Be careful whom you listen to. Your close friends influence you more than you think. Choose them wisely. Jesus was the friend of sinners, and in one sense, we, too, should have some friendships with unbelievers, but our closest friends need to be people who will encourage us in righteousness and push us in the faith. We need good models and godly advice from people who are not immersed in the world.

Do not listen to the world. American culture at large promotes sin and encourages you to leave God. If you continually feed your soul a diet of social media and pop culture, you are asking for emptiness and failure in your fight against sin. American culture has no spiritual power to produce righteousness. And American culture is not alone in this. Chinese culture, Korean culture, Indian culture, Muslim culture, European culture, and every other major culture in the world are powerless in the spiritual realm. Let me explain.

If you want to fight pornography, you will never do so with a steady diet of pop culture. That culture encourages sexual stimulation, which only makes your problem worse. In China if you want to fight greed, do not listen to the values of the culture. That culture officially denies the existence of anything beyond earth, and if earth is all there is, then grab as much of it as you can. Chinese culture feeds greed. In a Muslim country if you want humility, do not listen to your culture. That culture pushes you to work your way to God, and works never produce humility (Rm3:27; Eph 2:8-9). It doesn’t matter which culture you live in. The prevailing culture in every country rejects Christ, and when it rejects Christ, it steals your power to fight the fight of faith.

Your culture promotes ideas, values, and attitudes that are not Christlike. Do not fill your mind with them.

2) Instead fill your mind with the Word of God. “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” (Rm 12:2) Read that again. “Do not be conformed to this world . . .” In other words, “do not be like your culture.” Instead “be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Your mind is the battleground for this fight for holiness. Your spiritual health begins with your mind. Fill the mind with junk and your soul will grow spiritually weak. Fill the mind with godly thoughts, and your soul will rejoice, be at peace, and be ready to fight for righteousness.

If you want the mind of God, you will find it in the Scriptures. The Bible is where God talks in plain words. Fill your mind with it, and you fill your mind with godly thoughts and strengthen your soul for the fight.

This means read the Scriptures for yourself . . . daily. This means regularly attend a church that faithfully preaches the Word of God. This means regularly commit to memorize passages of the Bible. This means sing and listen to songs based on Scripture. This means talk about Scripture when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise (Dt 6:7). You want Scripture in your mind. If you want to walk in holiness, this is essential.

Aug

2018

The Fight Part II

Fight the good fight of the faith. (I Tim 6:12)

Lord, grant me a greater faith to hold onto your precious promises.

We have been talking about the fact that the Christian life is a fight for holiness. In the last blog I discussed two principles that help us in this fight: 1) Understand that apart from Christ we are sinful and weak. 2) Rest in the work of Christ in us. Today I will focus on a principle that helps us do number 2.

Walk by faith, not by sight (II Cor 5:7). The Christian life is a life of faith. And one of the goals of Satan is to get us to live our lives without faith. That goal is not particularly difficult to achieve, for faith involves realities we can’t see, and distracting us from realities we can’t see is not a complicated task. Just show us something we can see.

God has done a new work in the life of the Christian. In Christ we are dead to sin and alive to God (Rm 6:1-11). In Christ we were washed, we were sanctified, we were justified (I Cor 6:11). These are truths we have already discussed, but the only way we can hold onto them is by faith. We do not exactly see with our eyes that we are clean in Christ. But we are. We see it only by faith. Nor do we see with our eyes that we are forgiven in Christ. But we are. We see it only by faith. Faith is how we hold onto what God has done. Faith sees that we are dead to sin. Faith sees that we were washed, sanctified and justified. Faith sees that we are new creatures. Faith sees that we have been perfected forever (Heb 10:14). Faith sees that we are saints in Christ. Faith sees that we are part of the radiant Bride of Christ. Faith sees that we are adopted children of God. Only by faith do we see our identity in Christ. This is crucial because it is this identity that helps us live in holiness.

So let’s get practical. When Satan deals with a genuine believer, he wants that believer to doubt the realities mentioned above, and in order to do this, he simply shows us realities we can see. And one of the biggest realities he shows us is our own sin. He has to be careful in his game, of course. When we are unaware of our sin, he will often do what he can to keep us blinded, but when we know we have sinned, he will use our knowledge against us. If Satan cannot tip the scales to the extreme of ignorance, he will then try to tip them in the opposite extreme and make us despair and doubt what God has done. He is the accuser of the brethren.

So here is what Satan does. Let’s say, I get in an argument with my wife and demean her. Or let’s say a genuine believer gets caught up looking at pornography or finds in his heart an arrogant attitude or fails to help a destitute person or compromises her integrity at work or . . . fill in the blank. With a genuine believer who sees his sin, Satan wants to magnify that sin. He puts it in big bold letters and thrusts it on a billboard in front of our face. That sin is now part of Satan’s marketing strategy for his own agenda. If we then say, “I am washed, I am sanctified, I am justified,” or if we say, “I am clean in Christ” or “I am part of a holy Bride,” Satan immediately puts the billboard before us in neon lights. He then says, “How can you say you are holy in Christ when you just treated your mother that way?” Or “Dead to sin in Christ Jesus? That Scripture must mean something else because you are quite alive to sin.” Or . . . you get the strategy. All he wants to do is make us doubt God’s Word.

It is precisely at this point that the believer has to choose what he or she believes. Do we believe what we seem to see? Or do we believe God’s Word?

We walk by faith, not by sight. If we are God’s people, we must hold onto what God says about our identity, and we must hold onto it even when we sin. Our sin is real. I am not denying it. But what Christ has done in us is also real, and that work has changed us. A bride is no less a bride when she has a fight with her husband. Her standing in the home does not change.

Therefore, we fight Satan by faith, which means we fight the fight for holiness by faith.

This also means that when we sin, we must handle it a certain way. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins.” (I Jn 1:9) The first thing we must do is acknowledge our sin. We do not walk in holiness by denying sin. That’s what politicians do, and you see how well it works for them. Honest admission of our sin is crucial, but if we are in Christ, honest admission of our sin must never cripple our souls. If we confess, He forgives. We are now clean. If we are now clean, why can’t we be washed, sanctified, justified, perfected forever, a radiant bride, a saint, a child of God, dead to sin? The sin is gone. The sin is real, but the sin is wiped away. We hold onto forgiveness, sanctification, and all the rest only by faith.

When we let Satan make us doubt who we are in Christ, we hurt our ability to fight. The truths of what God has done are great weapons on our side. If we set them aside, it is like a soldier going into battle without a rifle. He will now charge the hill with his fists. That soldier is no threat to Satan. The billboard worked.

Aug

2018

The Fight

I have fought the good fight . . . (II Tim 3:7)

May I fight, O Lord, your fight — the fight for holiness.

Last week I discussed the fact that Christians are holy but mentioned as well that we still sin. Such talk may raise an eyebrow or two, for how exactly can holy people sin? Doesn’t holiness mean we don’t sin? To address this question, I want you to think of a bride at a wedding. When she says, “I do,” she becomes a wife, and her identity changes for the rest of her life. At the wedding, she may have become a wife at a particular moment, but after the wedding she will spend the rest of her life learning how to live as a wife. Living with a man is not easy, and this new wife will quickly discover that fact.

Something like this is true of the Christian life. I have been discussing the fact that in Christ we have a new identity and that new identity includes the fact that we are holy. We are the Bride of Christ, and Christ gave himself up for his bride “that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Eph 5:26-7). Christ has already cleansed us. He made his bride holy so that she might be his bride, for Christ will not marry into sin. This is our identity. But this new identity does not mean that we live a perfect life. We now enter into the hard part — living out our identity. Just as a wife spends a lifetime learning how to better live out her roles and responsibilities, so do we as Christians spend a lifetime learning how to better live out our identity in Christ. This means struggle. Living in holiness is not easy, and the new Christian will quickly discover that fact.

Therefore, we are holy, but we are becoming holy. The first part of that statement is a fact we must rest in. The second part is the application of that fact. The first part is done. Christ has procured our holiness for us. The second part is yet to be lived. The writer to the Hebrews put it this way: “For by a single offering he has perfected forever those who are being sanctified” (Heb 10:14). In other words, the people who are becoming holy have already been made holy. Because we have been made holy, God now calls us into a fight. It is fight for holiness.

What then, are some principles for this fight? Here are a couple for this week, and we will discuss others in future blogs.

1. Understand that apart from Christ you are fallen. You are a broken creature, bent toward sin. You are weak, but sin is strong. If you think you can simply overcome sin by being strong, you have already lost the battle. You are like a cocky eight-year-old who thinks he can play in the NBA today. You are an alcoholic who thinks he can overcome alcoholism himself. You will never defeat sin by taking it on yourself. You need Christ. Without Christ, you lose. In Christ, you have already overcome. The fight is too big for you. You will win the fight only by the grace of God.

We cannot wage the battle for holiness in our flesh. This is one of the biggest mistakes Christians make in their fight. They fight in the flesh and with their own strength. “Are you so foolish?” Paul said. “Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” (Gal 3:2) We understand that salvation is by grace through faith in the work of Christ, but we often then live as if sanctification is by our own good works. It is not. It, too, comes by grace through faith in the work of Christ.

This concept that we are weak doesn’t tell us so much how to fight; rather, it tells us how not to fight. But this lesson in how not to fight is crucial, for virtually everyone at some point tries to be holy in their own strength. In fact, most people have to beat their fists against the wall before they see that their efforts are futile in producing real holiness.

2. Rest in what God has done. You are not just forgiven from your sin; you are dead to it in Christ (Rom 6:1-11). Hold onto that fact. It may seem strange when you sin to think that you are dead to sin, but if your faith in Christ is real, then you are dead to sin. Period. Even when you may sin. Satan will use your sin against you to make you think that God’s Word is ridiculous. He will say, “How can you consider yourself dead to sin when you are so alive to sin?” He will want you to focus on your behavior and then use your behavior to make you doubt your identity. He wants your behavior to be the foundation for who you are. He does not want Christ or His Word to be the foundation for who you are. Satan wants your behavior to drive your identity. God wants your identity to drive your behavior. If you want to see holy behavior in your life, you must hold on to your identity in Christ. That identity is the work of Christ in you. Christ has made you part of his spotless bride (Eph 5:26-7). He has made you a son or daughter of God Almighty (Rom 8:12-17). In Christ, you are dead to sin but alive to God. In Christ, you are cleansed, holy, sanctified (I Cor 6:9; I Pet 2:9). In Christ you are a new creature (II Cor 5:17). In Christ you are seated in heavenly places (Eph2:6). All of these things are God’s work. If you want to live in holiness, then start believing what God has done. If you doubt these truths, you cripple your ability to walk in holiness, for you are doubting the very Word of God.

Jul

2018

The Consequence of a New Identity

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality,nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (I Cor 6:9-11)

Lord, you have made me new. Praise to your name. Now, by your grace, may I live new.

The Cross and Resurrection are powerful. They have changed us. We were hyenas. We are now men and women in Christ, a royal bride. This is our new identity, and it is a truth we must hold onto.

Now God is a realist. He expects that a fish will swim, that a lion will eat meat, and that a bird will fly. In other words, God expects a creature to live in accordance with its nature. In this sense, God is no different with humans. He expects people to live in accordance with who they are. Thus, He expects unconverted people to live like unconverted people, and He does not expect converted people to live like unconverted people. This means that when God converts us, He expects us to live a different way. The business of holiness is God’s business, which means that it must also be the business of everyone who follows Jesus. Salvation without a new life is not salvation. It may be a religious experience; it may make us feel good; but if we still live just as we used to live, or if we still live as the rest of our culture lives, who are we kidding? Holiness is the natural consequence of salvation. It is the common call for all disciples of Jesus. I need to talk some about this issue because people often misunderstand it, and sometimes for different reasons.

Some people, in their desire to emphasize the grace of God, make salvation nothing more than forgiveness. To them, any talk of holiness smells like earning our way to God. To them, holiness is a sort of code word for works righteousness. What they do not understand is that when salvation comes, we receive forgiveness by grace, but we receive a new life also by grace, and these benefits are a package deal. You can’t receive forgiveness without also receiving a new life. This means that holiness is not opposed to grace but is rather the fulfillment of grace. By grace God forgives our sins, and by grace He remakes us into new creatures. Once He remakes us, He expects that the new creature will live like one.

Others think that any talk of holiness somehow minimizes grace for a different reason. They look at the fact that Christians still wrestle with sin and conclude that holiness is not a reasonable expectation. If we talk about the importance of holiness, we might burden someone’s conscience and make him or her feel guilty for failing to measure up. The New Testament writers, however, had no problems mentioning holiness constantly. To them, holiness does not undercut grace or place an excessive burden on the disciple. Indeed, to them, holiness is the most normal and natural thing to talk about. It’s like teaching a boy to be a man. It is what you are called to, what you have been made for, and what you are growing into. It is your new nature. To neglect the teaching of holiness is to call people to an insipid mediocrity. To neglect the teaching of holiness is to deny the very thing we were made for. We are his workmanship, created for good works in Christ (Eph 2:10). To neglect the teaching of holiness is not from God. He has remade us, and He calls us to live out the new life He has made. God actually expects us to live in holiness.

We are to be holy because, in Christ, we are already holy. One of the operative words in the New Testament for a follower of Jesus is “saint.” It is used about 60 times, and means “one who has been sanctified” or “one who has been made holy.” Paul speaks to the Corinthians and says, “you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (I Cor 6:11). To Paul, the washing, sanctification and justification come as a package, and they are the foundation for living a new life. Paul says that the Corinthian believers were once one type of people, but now they are a new type. That’s why they are no longer sexually immoral or idolaters or thieves. The natural consequence of a new identity is a new life. In other words, holiness has already happened (v 11). In God’s sight, we are holy in Jesus Christ. Right now. The call to holiness, then, is nothing more than a call to be who you are. It’s like telling my son, “You are a Demchsak. Live like one.”

Thus, the man addicted to pornography must change; the woman who is so full of herself must die to self, and the person dominated by anxiety must trust God. These changes in lifestyle must take place because a change in identity has already taken place. We can no longer continue a life in sin because that is not who we are. We are one in Christ.

The idea that we can be in Christ and remain in sin is both inconsistent and treacherous. To Paul, a lifestyle of sin disqualifies someone from the kingdom of God (I Cor 6:9). It’s that serious. Christ and sin do not mix. If we are in Christ, we begin to come out of sin. If, however, we are content to keep living in our sin, then we have good reason to think that we are not in Christ. If nothing changes in our life, then nothing likely ever changed in our salvation, for salvation brings a new life.

Jul

2018

From Hyena to Human

Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. (Rm 3:14-18)

Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. (Rev 21:3)

Lord, we praise you for the depth of the change which you have wrought inside us.

Look at the news today. Wars, murders, corporate greed, celebrity scandals, politicians quarreling like alley cats. I could go on. Sometimes it seems as if the human race is nothing more than a pack of hyenas.

Of course, we have a knack for distancing ourselves from all that. After all, the news is out there. It’s about all those other evil people, but it’s certainly not about me. I’m just a normal guy or an average girl, and I don’t make the news.

No. You and I don’t make the news. But it is precisely normal guys who look at pornography and average girls who turn their backs on their roommates. It is people who never make the news who slander you before your coworkers, lie to get an estate, or abuse their wives. All these behaviors are people acting like hyenas. It thus seems that the main difference between the news and us is that the news shows our behavior on a macro level. You know. The whining and corruption in Congress is how many of us behave when we don’t get what we want. Or sometimes the news shows our behavior taken to an extreme. The bitterness of a gunman who kills school children is an extreme version of the same bitterness many people have for that person who cheated them. Or sometimes the news merely shows our behavior in someone famous. After all, that scandal between the politician and the other woman? That’s how Bill lost his marriage, and Bill is just a normal guy. There are a million Bills out there flirting with the same thing, but the consequences haven’t stung them yet; and when they do, those men will never make the news. It seems then as if there is a bit of hyena in all of us. In one sense, the news is just a mirror for the heart.

So what are we to do then with the human heart? If you listen to the broader world speak, you would get the impression that the main solution is for people to simply be good. Now I’m all for being good, but the crucial question we must ask is “how do you make people good?” It is precisely here that Christianity and all other religions and philosophies part company, for Christianity insists that the human heart is really, in one sense, subhuman — that is, it is not what God intended the human heart to be. We are much closer to hyenas than we are to the heart of God. This is not an issue of behavior but of essence. Our problem is not what we do but who we are.

Other religions and popular secular moral thought revolve around the idea that people ought to be better and that we ought to do what we can to help them improve. Different systems have different ideas about how to do this, but they agree on the fundamental issue that we ought to make people better.

Jesus, however, has a fundamentally different approach. He is not trying to make people better. He makes people new. Most moral systems try to reform us. From a Christian perspective, this is like reforming a hyena. No matter how “good” you make a hyena, it is still a hyena, and a “good” hyena sooner or later falls back to being a hyena. And no matter how pretty you dress up the human race — and contemporary culture works overtime to try and dress us up — underneath it all we are corrupt. Faith in Jesus does not make us a better version of the same species. It creates an entirely new species. In Jesus, the old “you” is dead, and you become a new human — the type of human God originally intended.

One large misunderstanding people have about following Jesus is that they turn it into morality. They think that a Christian is someone who is nice to his neighbor, remains a virgin until marriage, stays off drugs, or is responsible at work. In short, they believe that being a Christian is nothing more than being good. Therefore, to follow Jesus, one must be good, and any person who is good is just as much a follower of Jesus as the next.

A second misunderstanding people have about following Jesus is that they define Christianity purely in terms of doctrine or church affiliation. They think that a Christian is someone who merely adheres to a particular creed or who belongs to a particular organization. People who think that this is what it means to follow Jesus sometimes divorce morality from their definition. To them, a pedophile may be just as much a follower of Jesus as St. Peter was. They have a low standard for their definitions.

The reality is that doctrine, participation in a church community, and morality are all aspects of following Jesus, but none of these things is the real issue. One can have any one or all of them without having any real faith. If Christianity is a marriage to Jesus, faith is the point at which we say, “I do.” Faith is where you stand at the altar and pledge your life. It is also where you entrust yourself daily to the One who has pledged His life to you. By faith, we enter into a union with Christ. By faith we walk daily in that union.

When we enter this union, we change. Christ will not marry a hyena — even a good one. He insists on a completely different kind of being, and He creates that being in us. He does this through death and resurrection — not just His own but ours as well. A Christian is someone who has died with Christ and who has been raised anew to live a new life (Rm 6:1-11; Gal 2:20; Col 3:1-3). In Christ you are a new creature. The old “you” is gone; all things have become new (II Cor 5:17).

It is something like this. If we were a car and Jesus the mechanic, He decides not to tinker with the engine to make it more reliable. He says that the engine is beyond salvage, removes the whole thing, and replaces it with a new one. If we were a house, and Jesus the contractor, He decides not to remodel but to replace. He says that the whole house is condemned, razes it to the ground, replaces the foundation and begins to build a new structure. The Christian word for this is “conversion.” It means much more than “be good” or “accept some teachings.” It means what it says. We have converted. We used to be one type of being; we are now a new type.

Jesus speaks in terms of being born again (Jn 3). A new birth begins a new life that has a new spiritual DNA. We are a new creature (II Cor 5:17).

Therefore, when we enter into this union with Christ, we receive a new identity just as in many cultures a bride receives a new identity when she marries. Our life changes, and we are no longer what we were. Now we belong to Jesus.

This is why a follower of Jesus lives in a new way, but the new life is not a product of the old human straining and striving to achieve a moral end. The new life is a product of a new DNA, a new person, a new identity, a new you. God is more interested in who you are than in what you do. He knows that behavior follows identity. If you change a wolf into a sheep, you change the essence, but when you change the essence, you also change the behavior. The new behavior is the natural result of the new identity.

Thus, Christianity has a different focus from everything else. The woman who follows Jesus is not trying to be good. She is merely trusting in the work of Christ within her.

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The Church Part II

The Church

On the Third Day

Why the Cross?

Discerning Christians From Imposters

The Fight Part III

The Fight Part II

The Fight

The Consequence of a New Identity

From Hyena to Human

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