“I Don’t Deserve This”

How do I know if I am self-righteous? I’m concerned with Christian counselees that are focused on their own good deeds, but don’t realize it. For this blog I’m defining self-righteousness as the belief that I have earned some favor with God through my behavior, character, thoughts, or deeds. So how would I know if I’m self-righteous? What would one symptom be?

There might be a few tests, but one is this: do you believe you don’t deserve your past or present suffering? Let me clarify. I’m not saying that if you were sinned against by another person, that you must agree that you deserved that from them. “Kraig, my friend betrayed me and stabbed me in the back. I didn’t do anything to them. I didn’t deserve that.” Yes, on a human scale—peer-to-peer—there are things that we don’t deserve. That happens all the time. A husband may yell at his family when it’s completely unprovoked. An employer may fire you just because he can and you didn’t deserve that. You could even be accused of a crime and go through the court system when you are not guilty.

But if you look at your past or present trials and believe that you don’t deserve them, then you are probably self-righteous. Here’s why I believe I can say that. In order to think that you don’t deserve what has been providentially brought into your life, you must believe also that you have lived in a way that deserves better from God. You are living by a spiritual formula that says good Christians don’t suffer the way you’re suffering. You’re a good Christian, so God owes you the easy, blessed life. God has disappointed you.

But that’s incorrect. What do each of us deserve because of our sin? We deserve hell. Isn’t anything less than hell—even suffering and trials—better than what we deserve? So God owes you nothing. And God has given you a lot! He’s already given you everything in Christ. You have all spiritual blessings in Christ.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, Eph 1:3 (NASB95)

Any good, and I mean any good thing in your life has come from God.

Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. Jam 1:17 (NASB95)

So he’s given you a lot of good that you don’t deserve. You cannot plead that you don’t deserve this or that suffering.

Now maybe you object that King David seemed to plead with God in several psalms that he didn’t deserve what he was facing. It does seem that way. But I think we find that David pleads for God’s mercy. Mercy by definition is undeserved.

David pleaded God’s mercy after his adultery with Bathsheba. Of course this is David’s psalm of repentance so he was acknowledging his sin. He knew he didn’t deserve God’s mercy.

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Psalm 51:1 (ESV)

But we see other examples of David pleading for mercy. David prayed for God’s mercy when he fled from Saul. He didn’t claim that he didn’t deserve this since he was God’s servant and therefore God should change his circumstances. No, he asked God for mercy.

Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me, for in you my soul takes refuge; in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge, till the storms of destruction pass by. Psalm 57:1 (ESV)

In Psalm 86 David prays for God’s mercy.

But You, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, Slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness and truth. Turn to me, and be gracious to me; Oh grant Your strength to Your servant, And save the son of Your handmaid. Psalm 86:15–16 (NASB95)

David seems to do both in this psalm: point out he deserves help and also pray for mercy.

Preserve my soul, for I am a godly man; O You my God, save Your servant who trusts in You. Be gracious to me, O Lord, For to You I cry all day long. Psalm 86:2–3 (NASB95)

So David claims he is a godly man, but he also asks God for grace. His godliness didn’t mean he was undeserving of his circumstances. He knew he needed God’s mercy, and he asked for it.

Jeremiah hoped in God’s mercy after describing his own suffering in poetic detail.

This I recall to my mind, Therefore I have hope. The Lord’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. Lam 3:21–23 (NASB95)

Can you ask God to end your trial? Of course you can. But we don’t demand anything from God as if we deserve better than what we’re facing. We cannot make that claim. Thankfully God is abundantly merciful, and it’s his mercy we plead when we pray, not our deserving better circumstances.

So if your regular thought has been how you deserve better than what you’ve experienced, maybe you’re self-righteous. At least consider that you might be. And if so, you should repent of your self-righteousness. It’s better to plead God’s mercy anyway. His compassions fail not Jeremiah tells us. His mercies are renewed every morning. And we can come confidently to him and ask for mercy. Confidently?! Yes, confidently!

Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Heb 4:16 (NASB95)

Matchbox Cars, GI Joes, and Jesus

And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us….

It’s an amazing truth. Jesus became human. The Word created the world, but He became part of our world. The incarnation is the enfleshment of the Word. Remaining what He always had been—God, He became what He never had been—human, ever so to remain—the God-man.

I played with Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars when I was a kid. We had a sandbox in our backyard and I remember carving out roads and tunnels and caves. It seemed so cool to me. And, as a boy would, I imagined what it would be like to actually live in my little sandbox world. It seemed cooler than the real world I actually lived in. After all, in my dreams I would be able to drive these Hot Wheels cars.

I also played with G.I. Joes—the full size one with a stubbly beard and a realistic facial scar. Oh, and for the record, they are not dolls; they are action figures. My brother and I would play in our basement with them. We strung string all over the basement imagining that our GI Joes could go hand over hand wherever they needed to go to fight. And again I imagined what it would be like to actually be a GI Joe. As a child it seemed pretty epic.

But I never entered either of those worlds. I was stuck with being human. I was always outside of those worlds I created.

Maturity helped me understand that entering those worlds would not have been good. For one, our sandbox world sometimes ended with plastic soldiers placed all over it and me and my friend throwing baseballs at them. The sandbox world got laid waste.

And for the GI Joes, they got lost, misplaced, or laid aside for years. Sometimes they lost arms—they always lost shirts and boots for some reason. On the coldest day in our basement, my GI Joe was shirtless.

In retrospect, it wouldn’t have been a good idea to enter those worlds. It was good to be above them, apart from them.

…and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Did you ever watch ants as a kid? Maybe you even had an ant farm where you could see them construct their vast tunnel structure underground. Maybe, like a lot of kids, you wished you could be an ant even if just for a day so you could crawl around their tunnels.

But entering that world isn’t a good idea either. Lots of ants get squashed by humans. Some get fried by the magnifying glass in the hand of a young boy in Green Bay, WI in the summer of 1980… just an example. No one in specific. 😉

What’s the distance between you and a Matchbox world? … What’s the distance between you and a GI Joe world? … What’s the distance between you and an ant world? It’s a pretty big distance, right? It sounds fun to experience for a 10-year old, but if you could actually do it, you wouldn’t. It would be so far beneath you. You wouldn’t become “enfleshed” in plastic to save your Hot Wheels from certain death from a baseball. You wouldn’t become an ant to lecture them on the benefits of capitalism or how democracy could change their world.

Why would God become human? It’s way more ridiculous than a boy becoming a GI Joe. I use ridiculous respectfully. It’s an outlandish idea. It’s preposterous. It’s so far beneath the God of the universe. He created this world; he wouldn’t enter it.

And yet exactly that is what we celebrate at Christmas. God the Son became human. The distance between you and an ant is finite. It’s a big distance, but it’s measurable. The distance between God and man is infinite. And God became man. Jesus was born in a stable—a world he created he came to rescue.

And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. … No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him. John 1:14, 18 (NASB95)

Which Jesus at Christmas?

There are lots of wrong ways to think about Jesus at Christmas, aren’t there? There’s the sentimental Jesus. This is the view that the baby in the manger is just a nice story. We repeat it because it’s part of Christmas folklore. The Jesus story gives us warm feelings at Christmas time. Sentimental Jesus is very popular. He doesn’t ask anything of you, and he just gives good feelings. We feel warm and cozy thinking about sentimental Jesus.

There’s the view that Jesus was just a good man. He was better than most people and that’s why we celebrate His birth. We talk about Him on Christmas to motivate all of us to be better too. His story might help me think about others at Christmas. Good Jesus is popular too. Good Jesus is good by our definition of good. Good Jesus certainly wouldn’t call anyone a sinner. He wouldn’t demand your repentance. Good Jesus doesn’t judge anybody for his or her rebellion against God.

There’s the view that Jesus wasn’t a real, historical figure. His existence is a myth that grew up over the centuries. Oh there probably was a real person named Jesus, but we’ve mythologized Him—kind of like Paul Bunyan. Well, really, kind of like Santa Claus. Christians just tell some tall tales about Jesus—walking on water, healing the lepers. Those are the types of stories that are told about mythical characters. Mythical Jesus is just a story that we can take or leave. He wasn’t real, but it’s really harmless and even quaint that people still believe in Him.

Hopefully, Christians are not tempted to think of Jesus in those terms. But there’s another wrong way to think about Jesus that Christians are susceptible to. This is Sunday Jesus. Who’s Sunday Jesus you ask? It’s the belief that Jesus was real, but all He asks of us is our Sundays. We give Him a Sunday—and not even all of them. I think He’s fine with just a Sunday once in a while. It’s more of a courtesy, a tip so to speak. We give Him a Sunday and the rest of the week we’re on our own. Sunday Jesus doesn’t make a difference the rest of the week. We sing about Him on Sunday, but we’re on our own on Monday. Well, it’s not that we’re on our own, but that we can ignore Him on Monday.

Sunday Jesus is King in the same sense that most men are the “kings” of their houses. His wife and kids kind of wink and allow the man to pretend he’s in charge. We nod and wink and let Jesus pretend He’s in charge. “King of kings” is more of an honorary title than a real description of Jesus.

Sunday Jesus isn’t Lord either. He doesn’t really call the shots in our lives. Again, I’m giving Him some of my Sundays. If He’s Lord, it’s on those days. It’s not all the time. I determine His lordship, which means He’s not really in charge.

Sunday Jesus doesn’t demand that we become like Him. That’s more of a suggestion. When it works out, if you can without much effort or inconvenience follow His lead, then by all means do so. But only if the cost is low enough, only if it doesn’t disrupt your plans.

Really Sunday Jesus is a shriveled Jesus. He’s a shadow of the Jesus described in the Gospels. He’s a shadow of the Jesus described in the Christmas story.

Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” Acts 2:36 (ESV)
On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords. Rev 19:16 (ESV)

Are you worshipping Sunday Jesus or the real Jesus who is King and Lord and Savior?

A Pastoral Prayer

Each Sunday morning I pray publicly for the congregation. My own devotional time, Scripture reading, and Christian reading provide some thoughts each week. I want to pray genuinely and also teach my congregation how to pray. For example, I want them to understand how to confess sin in prayer. Here’s one from a few weeks ago.

Dear Father, Our hearts have so many other loves, but only one is necessary—Jesus. Like Martha we are distressed and moved about by many things, but one thing is needful—time with Jesus. Remind us again this morning of Jesus’ love for us, and help us love Jesus most of all.

God, Ephesians describes you as rich in mercy. Some here this morning may think that’s good poetry but not true in their lives. Some bear more of the marks of a sin-cursed world than others. They’ve been mistreated, betrayed, attacked, diminished, and hurt. And it’s easy to wonder where is the evidence of your mercy in their life. But Father, the evidence of your mercy is your mistreated, betrayed, [and] attacked Son who died for us. And through his death we all know your mercy.

God, we have hearts that are stubborn and hard. Please make us pliable and teachable. We need your truth. You tell us that your Word is a light for our path and a lamp unto our feet. We need spiritual truth to make sense of life and yet we don’t seek your Word and we don’t listen when it’s presented to us. Soften our stubborn hearts this morning. May your truth sung and preached be used by the Holy Spirit to change us.

Father, don’t let our worship this morning to be perfunctory, habitual, dead. Instead may our worship be passionate, fervent, earnest, and intense. We are able to work up excitement and emotion on our own, but only you can give us genuine worship. So banish any thoughts except those that are focused on you. Eliminate any distractions that would keep us from thinking about you. May we be thrilled with you this morning.

Your Word says that people love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. We need to be people that live in the light. First John tells us to walk in the light and it ties that to confessing sin regularly. So Lord, convict us when we hide our sin. We hide it by not admitting we’re wrong to others and to you. We hide it by actually keeping it secret from others. Convict us and let us know the sweet forgiveness that comes when we admit our sin.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.

What a Blanket Taught Me About My Heart

Have you heard of Pendleton Blankets? I hadn’t until a few weeks ago. Laura and I were at a regional pastors conference in Cannon Beach, OR. It was our first time to this conference and we met another couple who had been in this church association in the Pacific Northwest for about a year—just like us. While talking about places to see, the wife mentioned that Pendleton Blankets were made in Oregon. We hadn’t heard of them, so she told us how they are American-made wool blankets with creative designs that sell for $300 to $550 and are made by Pendleton Woolen Mills in Pendleton, OR. It’s a company that has a history in the Pacific Northwest—they’ve been making blankets since 1909, and they have a special niche for National Park blankets. Their Glacier National Park blanket began production in 1916. You’ve probably seen it on TV or in a movie.

It was an interesting conversation, but, honestly, I’ve never thought about the blankets we have in our house probably ever.  

We were driving home and serendipitously saw a Pendleton Outlet so we stopped. We saw the blankets (and shirts, coats, and sweatshirts, but especially the blankets). The sales lady offered to roll out any blanket we wanted. This is not the type of store where you can unroll a blanket yourself. We left the store without spending any money. That was a victory.

I don’t think I’ve ever coveted a blanket before. As long as it kept me warm, I’ve never given it a thought. My wife has wanted a particular duvet or quilt or bedspread because it fit the aesthetic she has created in a particular room, but that’s not really been of interest to me.

Until now. As we drove away I really, really wanted a Pendleton blanket. I settled on the Zion National Park one because I liked the colors, the simple design, and our family has visited that park.[1]I’ve since changed my mind and coveted another design. My heart got me again! When our kids were in our house, we visited lots of National Parks. I wanted that one, but I would have been “happy” with the Glacier NP or the Grand Canyon NP or even one of their other designs. I could see it nonchalantly tossed across our downstairs sectional, beckoning to be used on a cold winter night.

We had a several hour drive to get back home, and after I imagined how I would get one, I started to reflect. I went from never having heard of a Pendleton blanket to coveting one pretty quickly. Literally a fortnight ago I didn’t know they existed; 13 days ago I had to have one!

My heart, like yours, is discontent and covetous. Now maybe you’re still not tempted by Pendleton blankets. Good for you. But I know you have your custom designed desires too. I know this because James says so.

But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. James 1:14 (NASB95)

“His own” translates the Greek word from which we get our English word, idiot. It doesn’t mean stupid in Greek. No, it means a person that goes their own way. James is saying that we have designer desires. Things that tempt us that don’t necessarily tempt others. Maybe you live for respect and affirmation more than your spouse does. Maybe you love custom cars. Lots of people couldn’t care less about custom cars. Maybe you like Pendleton blankets. Turns out I do.

And what’s amazing is my heart can go from apathetic/content to covetous in about 90 seconds. Jesus is good, but a Pendleton blanket seems even better. I know it’s silly, but that’s how my heart is wired by my sin. Yours is too.

Haven’t you heard about the accomplishment of a child in another family and suddenly you wanted your kid to accomplish that too? Maybe you never thought about your kid winning the Inter-Oregon Cheese Princess title before (I made it up), but now you want the acclaim that comes with having a Cheese Princess in the family. Only you’re saddled with a talentless kid that could never be a Cheese Princess. 😉

Or maybe another mother is relating the thoughtfulness of one of her children, and you want that same thoughtfulness to come from your own child. But your child isn’t that thoughtful. In fact, he seems especially selfish. He would never do what this other kid did, but now you want that. And you’re soon discontent with your child–you know, the one God gave you.

Or it’s a vacation in a location you never even heard of before but one of your Facebook friends posted her pictures, and now you can’t be content with going to Wisconsin again. I don’t know what your Pendleton blanket is—I didn’t even know what mine was until two weeks ago, but I know you will have one. You will be tempted. Your heart is wired for greed, for covetousness, just like mine. The only difference, according to James 1:14, is what we covet.

My heart is twisted. When I covet a Pendleton blanket, my heart doesn’t find satisfaction in what Jesus has already provided me. It doesn’t find satisfaction in Jesus. I forsake the fountain of living water and pursue a broken cistern that can’t hold any water (Jer 2:13).

Father, help me find satisfaction in Jesus. May my quickly covetous heart remind me that Jesus is better. May Pendleton blankets remind me that I have all I need in Jesus.

…In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever. Psalm 16:11a (NASB95)

References

References
1 I’ve since changed my mind and coveted another design. My heart got me again!