Tag: Gospel

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Just Smile More

I was greeted in the dining hall line that day at Bible College by a friend who was smiling big. That was notable because she wasn’t really known for her smile. That’s not a criticism. Some people, like my wife, have a beautiful, sparkling smile that they share with everybody. [That’s her in this blog.] Others are more like me—I have to think about smiling. My resting face is a scowl. This friend’s smile was between my wife’s smile and my own. Maybe the reason we were friends is because we shared similar senses of cynicism and sarcasm.

But she was smiling brightly and told me why. “A friend told me that I needed to smile more and be happier and so I am.” I probably said something like, “Oh, sounds good” and we got our food. On the inside I might have been thinking, “good luck with that.”

I’ve thought about that simple exchange over 30 years ago just recently. Some Christians—I am one of them—have the tendency to mistakenly believe we can change ourselves with just the right amount of willpower. Not smiling enough? Just work at smiling more. Spending too much time on social media? Just stop it. You can do it. Struggling with pornography? You don’t need to tell anyone. You can defeat this on your own. And wouldn’t that be better than admitting your sin to a friend and asking for help?

We do need to put effort into our growth. The New Testament is clear on that.

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Phil 2:12–13 (ESV)

Work out your salvation means to put effort into your growth; to work hard at change. But it’s always God’s work in you that actually results in your work making you more like Christ. 

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. 1 Cor 15:10 (ESV)

Paul gives us a grace sandwich. It was God’s grace—but he worked harder than anyone—but it was the grace of God. The lazy Christian is not a growing Christian. We have to work.

But you have never changed yourself. It is always the Spirit through Scripture that changes you. So if you’re struggling with a besetting sin, it’s better for you to pray more than to work more. Prayer shows dependence upon God. Of course you need to do both: pray and work. But it’s God’s work that makes your work effective. We don’t even want to change (Phil 2:13) unless God changes us. He has to give us even the desire to change (“to will and to work”).

Why is this so important? Why write a blog on a smile from 30 years ago? Because this view of sanctification emphasizes me and my work, not God and his work. It’s a gospel problem because the gospel doesn’t go far enough. It gives me a future, but I don’t really need it right now. I’m able, through my own willpower, to change myself. Not very happy; decide to be happy and presto, I smile more.

You and I need the gospel for our salvation, but also our sanctification. Your salvation should work out in your sanctification. The gospel changes you (2 Cor 5:17) and keeps changing you. Are you stuck? Don’t put on a big smile. Work hard and ask God to make your work effective.

I’ve written on imitations of biblical growth that aren’t real growth here.

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Identity in Christ Fuels Vulnerability

I have two stories that might not seem related, but I think they both illustrate something important in relationships. In my first pastoral ministry the church owned a Christian camp in the Colorado Rockies. It was a gorgeous location with a view of the Continental Divide, and they provided some Rocky Mountain activities like rock climbing. Now I had never rock climbed in my life, but they trained me, and I belayed campers along with the rest of the staff. My own first experience involved me really trusting the rope and the belayer on my way up. When it came time to rappel, I had a hard time taking that first step off the rock face. Eventually, rappelling became my favorite part of rock climbing. With both climbing and rappelling, because I was tied to the rock at the top, I could venture out. I could take a risk. I could scramble all over the cliff face because I was tied to the rock.[1]That’s a vintage pic by the way ;).

The second story is set in my college and seminary years. I had various student leadership positions in the small college and seminary I attended and even in the Christian camp I worked at for five summers. I didn’t reject these roles, but I knew something wasn’t right about how insecure I was in them. I had a hard time taking initiative and risks. In the camp I was eventually put in charge of our comedy sketch show where I felt this stress to make apathetic teens laugh on a weekly basis. It was great when they did, but when they didn’t… it was a long night. I knew something was wrong inside me, but I couldn’t put it into words until I read Ed Welch’s 1997 book, When People Are Big and God Is Small. That was the first time that I understood that I wanted others to like me more than I wanted to please God. It helped me make sense of a lot of angst in those years

I’m thankful that Welch’s book has given many of the college students I disciple a biblical category to describe their battle with sin. One primary way the fear of man shows up is in a fear of rejection. College students won’t pursue relationships because they imagine that it will eventually fall apart, and they might be rejected. This affects potential dating relationships, but it also can affect even godly same-sex relationships. A girl is afraid of starting a potential iron-sharpening-iron relationship because the other girl might eventually decide she doesn’t like her. Guys can think this too. They fear this, and therefore, they won’t risk.

That’s the problem, and Scripture has the answer to it. One passage to consider is in Ephesians.

Ephesians 1:3–6 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. (ESV)

“Beloved” is a term of affection for Jesus Christ. He’s the darling and special Son of the Father. So you being in the Beloved means you are in union with Christ. The New Testament often says we are in Christ or He is in us. It means we have a union with Christ that allows us to receive all of these spiritual blessings from God. It’s in Christ that God has poured out his grace on us.

Jesus is the supreme object of God’s love—that’s why he’s called the Beloved. Since we are in Christ, we are also the objects of God’s love. Do you wonder why God the Father would ever love you? I’ve wondered that about myself. It’s because He loves his Son, Jesus Christ, and you are united to Christ. I’ve blogged before about the practical blessings of our union with Christ (see here and here).

In Ephesians 1:6 the Apostle Paul thought God was worthy of praise because God loves you and me. It is pretty amazing, isn’t it? God loves you. You with all of your failings, weaknesses, rebellion, wanderings, apathy, misplaced values and priorities. You with all of your love of the wrong things and carelessness towards the right things. God loves you.

Good theology should lead to good practice.

Your relationship with God through Christ won’t ever change. God’s love for Jesus doesn’t ebb and flow and therefore his love for you doesn’t vary. The relationship that matters the most in your life is the one that is rock solid; it’s secure. Therefore, you can risk relationship with others.

Identity in Christ fuels vulnerability. Because you don’t fear being rejected by the Father, you can handle rejection from others. God won’t ever reject you because he won’t reject his Son. So, like a rock climber, with that anchor point, you can venture out and hazard relationship with others. They might reject you, and that is not preferable. We all prefer people loving us to hating us. But it also doesn’t have to be devastating. Your relationship with the Father is most important, and it’s secure.

If you’re not vulnerable, if instead you’re self-protective, could it be that you don’t see the security of your relationship with the Father through Christ? But if you do, you can be vulnerable with others. Your identity in Christ can motivate vulnerability with others.

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References
↑1 That’s a vintage pic by the way ;).
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Are You Having a Good Day?

I’ll bet you’ve been asked this question or a question like it in the past week. Have you ever wondered how to answer? It seems a bit superficial for a believer to base their evaluation of a day just on how circumstances have worked out so far, right?

My wife and I worked with our kids when they were single-digit ages on what they meant when they said they were having a good day. How did they know whether it was a good day or not? As you could expect, often their criteria for having a good day included things like playing in the McDonald’s play-place or not having chores around the house.

I asked my six-year-old daughter one time if she could have a good day even if she got in trouble at school or if lunch wasn’t one of her favorite meals? She thought about it and said, “Maybe… if I got to go to a birthday party later that day too.” Her answer was different in the details, but not much different in the thought of many Christian adults. We evaluate whether it’s a good day or not by whether life goes as we planned that day.

My wife works in the student life office at the Bible College I teach at, and she has had opportunity to have this conversation with some female college students. She’ll ask them what makes a good day. Some have been surprised by the question; they’ve never thought about how God might define a good day. Recently a student answered Laura that a good day is a day when she gets all her to dos done. My wife wisely pointed out that if that’s your criteria, you are setting yourself up for failure because rare is the day when we get to check off all of our jobs.

So what’s a better evaluation? Well it can’t be based simply on fortunate circumstances. That’s how any unbeliever would evaluate their day. I like what the Apostle Paul said.

2 Corinthians 5:9 (ESV) So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him.

Our ambition is supposed to be summed up in pleasing God. So it’s a good day if you can go to bed knowing that you pleased God that day.

So how does one please God?

  • Did you rest in Christ’s righteousness or did you try to earn favor with God through your work? (2 Cor 5:21) It’s an easy temptation to think our spiritual disciplines earn us God’s blessing. And since we’ve served God and worshipped God that morning, shouldn’t he make our day go the way we want it to? But the only reason God can bless you on your worst day or your best day is because you have Christ’s righteousness. Did you live today believing that?
  • Did you love your neighbor or did you have tunnel vision on your own problems? (Mt 22:34-40) I get very self-focused when trouble comes my way. Yet Jesus doesn’t tell me to love my neighbor only when my plans are thriving. During Christ’s worst physical suffering on the cross, he was able to specifically and practically love his neighbor (Jn 19:26-27). It’s often my closest neighbors—my family—that get ignored at best and blamed at worst when my plans are falling apart.
  • Did you trust God’s sovereignty or did you fret because your plans were thwarted? (Rom 8:28-29) This is the ground zero of pleasing God. Do you live what you believe? Do you hold your plans for the day with open hands allowing God to change them? Can you make plans and also think, “if the Lord wills…” (Jam 4:13-17)?

If you can answer those questions positively for any day—no matter how much suffering you experienced or how severely someone sinned against you or how many plans went up in smoke—then you had a good day.

So, are you going to have a good day today? Are you going to please God? I pray so.

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Massaging the Message: Believing the Gospel Needs Our Help

Have you ever been to a tent revival? When I was a child our church joined with other city churches to hold a tent revival for a week. Maybe it surprises you, but some churches were still holding tent meetings in the late ‘70s. They actually set up a tent in the parking lot of Lambeau Field where the Packers played, which for residents of Green Bay was about the best location ever. Since it was a tent, we got to use the bathrooms inside the stadium which I thought was really cool. An elderly evangelist and his college team came in to conduct the nightly services, and he led come-forward invitations at the end of each service. This means that when he finished preaching the gospel, the audience would sing several verses of a Christian song (a favorite was Just As I Am) and people were invited to come to the front and get saved. Lots of people have trusted Christ that way.

I found out later that the evangelist had some directions for the churches to make the invitations more effective. Each church was supposed to assign certain people to come forward on each line of the first few verses of the invitation song. So as the audience starts singing, a few adults were supposed to leave their chairs and come forward. Then some more on the second line, and more on the third, and so on. They weren’t coming forward to talk to those that might be genuinely repentant and need some help understanding the gospel. No, they were essentially pretending that they were genuinely convicted by the Spirit. It was supposed to make it easier for an unbeliever to make the decision to come forward and talk to the evangelist and be directed to someone that could help them walk through the gospel.

I don’t know what you think about that. The deceit bothers me—pretending to be moved by the Spirit when you are not. I think it’s a gimmick. I think it’s manipulative. And I don’t think it’s how Paul presented the gospel.

And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. (1 Cor 2:1-5, ESV)

Paul didn’t shape his message to appeal to the Corinthian culture. He didn’t try to manipulate his audience into trusting Christ. In fact, he was doing it all wrong. He didn’t come to Corinth and share the Gospel in any ways that took away the shame of the message, the unimpressiveness of the called, or the foolishness of his own presentation.

This should be encouraging. Paul didn’t do anything “right” and yet the Gospel took root in people’s lives, and a church was planted in Corinth. The success of the Gospel doesn’t depend upon you and your cleverness.

Sometimes we think that if we only had the exact right word at the right time, our neighbor, friend, or family member would trust Christ. Not so. Everything was against the Gospel in Corinth and God still planted His church. Paul didn’t have a great delivery—nobody was coming to hear his amazing oratory—and people still trusted Christ. Paul didn’t have a powerful personality—nobody was impressed by his charisma—and people still trusted Christ.

We share the Gospel and trust God for the results. We do have to share the Gospel, but the success of it doesn’t depend upon your words or your personality. Both Paul’s delivery and his message weren’t persuasive by the world’s standards. That’s encouraging. Frankly, if the success of my witness depends upon me, I will feel a lot of pressure. I know I’m an inadequate witness, and I will get discouraged from even sharing the gospel. But I just need to be faithful in sharing. God will do the work.

From the world’s perspective they had a terrible message, embarrassing converts, and a poor salesman in Paul. Yet, the gospel changed lives. The Spirit’s power is the only explanation.

If God can use Paul’s feeble presentation to save some in Corinth, he can use your awkward presentation with your neighbor. So trust God and take courage. You and I can do this. By God’s grace we can share the crucified Christ, and by the Spirit’s power we can see some trust Christ.  

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Gospel Parenting

It’s a weakness in our parenting that sometimes we think our efforts will eliminate sin from our kids’ lives. What I mean is I think if I’m faithful in discipline, my kids will sin less often. God-pleasing parenting involves discipline, but our hope isn’t in our discipline. Our hope is in Jesus Christ.

Someone has said this better than I could.

We talk a lot about training our children and raising them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and we should be doing that. But we must never forget that we cannot train sin out of our kids. Their sin must be atoned for. We also talk a lot about the importance of spiritual discipline and being in the Word regularly, about training ourselves in godliness and righteousness. We should do that, too. But friends, we must not forget that we cannot discipline ourselves out of sin. Our sin must be atoned for.

Parents, as you work with your children, and Christians, as you go about your own spiritual disciplines, do not forget to apply the gospel to your life and to your children’s lives. It is the atoning death of Christ that they need and you need. Do not depend on training; depend on the work that Christ did. And realize that this is a work that only Jesus Christ could do. Only Jesus can make atonement for sin.
–Mark Dever and Michael Lawrence, It Is Well: Expositions on Substitutionary Atonement (Crossway Books, 2010), 95.

It’s always a great time to renew your resolve in the spiritual disciplines both for your own life and for your children’s lives. But keep in mind that your self-discipline doesn’t earn you any favor with God—it isn’t the Gospel. Your sin was paid for by Christ’s death. That’s your hope of change.

Use the times of discipline to regularly remind your children that they are sinners and that they need Christ’s death. Good parenting confronts children with their need of the Gospel. Remember, you don’t discipline them because their disobedience has inconvenienced or irritated you. You discipline them to please God and see their hearts changed by the Gospel.

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