Have you missed the point of Christianity?

If I thought family was there to make me strong,
if I thought friends could be there when family was shattered,

if I could give you a thousand verses for the reasons
God wants to make those elements part of our faith,

I would be right.

But 

since those gifts are not the Giver, 
they will cripple me if I use them to actually walk.

Until I am aware that my soul can be well and whole in my Jesus
without those earthly blessings,

until I learn that I am not broken without them,
that God will actually come through for me
and hear my prayers when I am utterly alone,

then I've missed the point of Christianity.

God's words to His children pierce through the pages of Deuteronomy.
He says He didn't love them
because they were "more in number than any of the peoples,"
because they were "fewest of all peoples."

He says He fed them in the wilderness,
because otherwise they might proclaim in their hearts,
"My power and the strength of my hand made me this wealth."

He says "it is not because of your righteousness
that the Lord your God is giving you this good land to possess,
for you are a stubborn people."

And it all comes home to me.

I have been guilty of assuming that life goes well for me
when I have God's gifts around me.

With those gifts for support, I become arrogant,
because I've never known isolation.

I assume that so many of the blessings of walking with God 
have something to do with my power to surround myself with His creations.

I forget.

He can take those things away at any moment.

The question is, will I fall then?
Or will He answer my prayers when I am in truth,
as thoroughly alone as Israel
eating manna that came out of nowhere in the wilderness?

--Kellie
a reformatted excerpt from her blog post, read her complete post: here

Beware of Serving God

We do not glorify God by providing his needs, but by praying that he would provide ours - and trusting him to answer. 

Here we are at the heart of the good news of Christian Hedonism.  God’s insistence that we ask him to give us help so that he gets glory forces on us the startling fact that we must beware of serving God and take special care to let him serve us, lest we rob him of his glory. 

This sounds very strange. Most of us think serving God is a totally positive thing; we have not considered that serving God may be an insult to him.  

...There is a way to serve God that would belittle him as needy of our service. “The Son of Man came not to be served” (Mark 10:45). He aims to be the servant. He aims to get the glory as Giver.

--John Piper
Desiring God, page 168

"The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth,
does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, 
as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath
and everything." (Acts 17:24–25)

Your faith is too small. Your pleasure is too small.

Well I did it again this past weekend.  I listened to two sermons.  And I again see an opportunity for discernment of the Good News by juxtaposing them.  But it's not all smooth sailing.  The two sermons differ quite a bit, and even conflict in ways that I hope sharpen your powers of discernment.  Each perhaps gives some insight into a weakness or two of the other.  But it's my hope that ultimately, by comparing the two, it's the gospel that you will be able to see more clearly.  What do you come away with?

Each sermon has been distilled to almost exactly 5 minutes of audio.

Part of our gathering might have something to do with our desire for faith. And that would be OK.  But again, what is it we're actually asking for?  Well, Amy was pretty sure she knew what a lot of people were asking for when it came to faith: I want something to help me.  I want some advantage from belief.  I want it to do something for me.  And I think this plays right into our deep insecurity, doesn't it?  Because isn't that, in fact, what some of us think?  If God is good for anything, it ought to be to give some advantage to people who believe in Him.  Well there was a time when I thought that way too.  And the more I showed my seriousness, and my willingness to commit, that the more likely it would be that God would give me more faith.  And I'd get the benefits of all that work.  Well, somewhere along the way, I was dis-abused of this false idea.  And faith became something quite different.

And today, He speaks to His disciples.  And they, like we, want some advantage from Jesus.  So they say to Him, "Lord, how about a little more faith."  Plug us into the power source.  Give us more faith.  At just at that point in the text, we can say some things about what Jesus is doing.  And of course what He's doing is He's exposing them.  And of course what the scenario here portrays in the text among the disciples is ... well if even a tiny bit of faith can do these huge, amazing things, then there really must not be much faith in us at all.  And that's what Jesus is trying to point out.

Well that poses a problem for me because I thought that faith is supposed to be that empowering thing, that trusting thing, that makes it possible for me to be all that I can be.  No, that's not what the bible talks about as faith.  That's what religion talks about as faith.  The power source to overcome the obstacles of life.  But remember some months ago we talked here about the paradigm of the christian faith is not from lower to higher, from immoral to moral.  It is from death to life.

Years ago a very wise person said to me words that were oh so true.  And have always been a great help.  "Never forget that you are a dying man preaching to dying people."  Don't ever forget it.  Because they are going to want you to pretend you are a living man who is there to make them live even better than they are now.  And that's the false gospel of glory.

The faith that we are talking about is not the message that says, "If you only had more, think of what you could do."  "You need to get your christian act together."  "You need to read the bible more."  "Pray more, spend more time around the church."  "It's all you!"  That's not our message.  The faith that Jesus speaks of.  That faith that is *in* Jesus, is precisely that.  It is trust, (faith means trust), it trust that the promises of God, for us, will be fulfilled, in His time, for His sake, for Christ's sake.

Faith and love don't require a list of do's and don'ts.  You see, Jesus was on to these guys, these young men of his, his followers.  And He's on to us too.  How many of us need lists, so to speak, to do something decent once in a while, the right thing.  If when left to our own devices we'd just as soon blow it off and forget about it.

So, God has not left us to ourselves in the Gospel.  In Jesus Christ, God who fully understands our inwardly turned ways, our profound self interest, our lack of love and trust and faith, has taken it upon Himself, thereby ensuring that God's word of 'yes' is greater that our word of 'no'.  That this faith, this confidence, does not have to reside inside ourselves, where we start questioning it, and spinning it, and distorting it.  But that it is given to us externally in these words of promise, and so there our inner doubts and our inner failures, and our inner uncertainties are met by the certainty of God's promise... The body of Christ, the blood of Christ, given and shed for you, which cannot be compared to any word of faithfulness on our part, where God is concerned.

This is what the bible says ... to our world ... "your pleasure is too small."  That's what the bible says.  Do you understand this as a believer?  You need to understand this.  If you are anchored in God, if you have tasted the joy of salvation, the world can't touch you.  You have tasted eternal pleasure.  You have tasted the joy of obedience.  There is nothing more pleasurable than holiness.   And if we are not, in other words, finding pleasure and delight and happiness (pervasive happiness), [not in a kind of smile on your face way, but deep abiding happiness that winds its way through the path of life, in other words that navigates the valleys and the peaks of life and is always cemented in God.]  Then we are cued up to understand why heaven will not be boring. 

This eternal life, has begun now.  You and I aren't waiting for pleasure to kick in.  Do you see this?  We have seen the eternal way of pleasure, of joy, begin now.  That's why the bible looks at this world and says to it, "Your joy is too small."  Show me joy that lasts forever, and you will have my attention.  But God never promised us, did He, that we would be safe and secure in a worldly sense.  Right?  Outside of Christ.  The only security and comfort and confidence we have in this world is at the right hand of God. 

So this way of life has begun now.  You have security and pleasure now.  As you go about your life... working, raising children, going through the small parts of your day that are seemingly inglorious, you are living the life of pleasure.  It's not the people in the club, who are leading the life of pleasure.  It's not the people who have way more vacation time than you do who are leading the good life.  It's you! 

But lastly, how do we get there?  I want to suggest to you that there is only one answer to the problem of pleasure in an ultimate sense and it is Jesus Christ.  He is the way to pleasure.  How?  How do we take control of our lives?  ... Jesus Christ, slain and ascended.  How is it that we become transcendently happy?  ... We enter into this world, by the grace of God, taking up our cross.  In Jesus Christ, in repenting of all your sin, turning your life over to Christ, trusting in His death on that cross and His resurrection from the grave, it is in Him, it is by that work, that we become truly happy, and truly holy.  We want as much as we can get, more that we can handle, of pleasure.  And where do we find it? ... We find it in doing the will of Christ.

So in application, four quick things.  Number one, remember that you were made for happiness.  You're not supposed to grimly discharge your duty as a christian until you get booted up to heaven.  Right now you are made for happiness.  Number two, know that you will grow in happiness as you grow in holiness.  Happiness will not ultimately come outside of holiness.  So number three, kill sin.  Kill every sin you can find.  If you are killing sin, you are undertaking truly pleasant work.  Ask a friend, if you're single, ask a friend how you can grow in holiness.  If you're in a marriage, have a conversation and say, "how could I grow as a believer?"  "How could I care for you better as a husband or wife?"  And then lastly remember that it is in setting our eyes on Christ, and daily taking up our cross, that we will be most happy. 

[Let us pray...]  Heavenly Father, we are pulled by the world, the flesh, and the devil today.  ... Father I pray for myself and for this congregation, that we will resist that temptation ... and we will recognize that your gospel is far more powerful than the flesh, and than satan.  You have made us, as Paul said, more than conquerors through Christ.  So we can conquer any setting, any trial, any sin, any challenge.

What glorifies Him most

“I am the vine; you are the branches.
Whoever abides in me and I in him,
he it is that bears much fruit,
for apart from me you can do nothing.”
(John 15:5)

Suppose you are totally paralyzed and can do nothing for yourself but talk. And suppose a strong and reliable friend promised to live with you and do whatever you needed done. How could you glorify your friend if a stranger came to see you? 

Would you glorify his generosity and strength by trying to get out of bed and carry him? No! You would say, “Friend, please come lift me up, and would you put a pillow behind me so I can look at my guest? And would you please put my glasses on for me?”  And so your visitor would learn from your requests that you are helpless and that your friend is strong and kind. You glorify your friend by needing him and asking him for help and counting on him. 

In John 15:5, Jesus says, “Apart from me you can do nothing.” So we really are paralyzed. Without Christ, we are capable of no good. As Paul says in Romans 7:18, “Nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.” 

But Jesus, as our strong and reliable friend — “I have called you friends” (John 15:15) — promises to do for us what we can’t do for ourselves.

--John Piper

Two preachers, one Gospel

I've listened to two sermons since Sunday.  And below is a two minute segment from each.  In length they differ by a mere second or two.  And yet perhaps you can see how they are different from each other in other ways.  Two pastors, both devoted to the call of the great commission and feeding Christ's sheep, both addressing the issue of us being too filled up with ourselves.  What do you come away with?


 Audio (2 min)

Now I've been speaking to believers this morning. I want to say, in closing, a word to any unbelievers in our midst. And I want to say straight up... that God wants to fill you with His glory and greatness. Did you hear me? My dear unbelieving friends, are you listening to me... God wants to fill you with His glory and greatness. But there's a problem right now. The problem is there's no room for Him because you're all filled up with yourself. In fact that's why you worship yourself ... because you're filled up with yourself. And naturally, given that that's whom you're beholding, that's who you worship.

Now I was once filled up with myself, so I'm not looking at you over my spectacles, wagging the finger. We're sinners. We need a savior, but if you want to be filled up with God, you've got to repent of this gross self idolatry. You've got to stop being filled up with yourself. Empty yourself, as the Lord Jesus Christ did, and let God fill you with His glory, with His greatness, with His power, with His dominion. Let Him fill you with His holiness, with His justice, with His love. Let Him fill you with salvation. He'll do it. He'll do it.

-------------------------


 Audio (2 min)

And so, the great reversal that Jesus speaks of finally comes to rest in the glorious gospel.  Because the greatest reversal of all is that He takes people like you and like me, the lukewarm folks tepidly existing in the middle, and He exchanges our sin for His righteousness.  He takes upon himself the brokenness of our lives, and on the cross He dies for our sin and He gives us the merits of His love and mercy and goodness and forgiveness.  That's the great exchange that matters. 

So we must end where we always must end in the proclaiming of God's word.  We must always point out how it exposes us for what we are.  And we see that the way of God is not really our way.  But that is precisely why He came in His Son.  Because, (as we stood in the threshold here of worship this morning and confessed), we are in bondage to this way of being in the world.  We cannot *not* do it.  I'm stuck in me.  And I confess that.  And then the glorious word comes ... In the name of Christ a great exchange has taken place.   He's taken that old broken you that's so full of yourself you can't see straight, and He said, "I'll take that one, you take Jesus." And everything that is His is now yours.

The great exchange of the gospel is that God has given Himself completely to us in Christ.  Holding nothing back.  Exchanging our broken lives and broken world for the promise of a new life, and a new world, and a new creation.

Faith... Between the Lightning and the Thunder

 Audio (2:23 min)

Someone once said that we live as christian people... we live between lightning and thunder.  What's the lightning?  The lightning is Christ.  The coming of Christ.  The flash of divine brilliance that came into the world in Jesus of Nazareth.  But now we're waiting.  We're waiting for that thunder.  Which is the end, the culmination.

We as christian people are people who live in the time between the times.  We live in that moment when the lightning has illuminated the world, our lives, and yet the culmination, the final stroke of power has not yet arrived.  Now when you're in that moment after the lightning flashes, what's that feel like?  It feels like a  ......huhAhhhhh.     ...   That's what the new testament's trying to talk about when it talks about the christian life ... what Jesus's trying to talk about ... that's the kind of attitude that the christian church is called to have in this world.

And so as people who live between the times, we are called to have a kind of posture of expectation, of waiting.  The bible talks about being in the world but not of the world.  Remember that language? Yeah, we fall in love with it [the world] far too easily and far too quickly and far too deeply at times don't we?  And when we do we start to think that everything depends on us.  That's the message we hear all the time is that it's all on our shoulders.  And that's what the world turns in to when it loses real hope.  It all falls back on us.

And then into that kind of a world and to people like you and me, Jesus says, "Don't be afraid little flock.  Your father has decided to give you His kingdom."    ...   Huh?  ... So I take a step back and I take a deep breath and I try to, I try to hear those words in a world of loss, a world of demand, a world of fear.  And by the miracle of the Holy Spirit, and by the miracle of God's grace among us in His Word ...  those words create something.  Suddenly, trust is born.  It's called faith.

----------

 Audio (1:37 min)

I was going to take out a key, as I have here, and I was going to say, "OK, there's a door here."  And we need to get through the door. [But] there's a problem.  There has to be a key.  Oh, here's a key!   But there's another problem.  The lock is on the outside, and we're on the inside.  So what good does this key do me now?  So what has to happen if I'm going to walk through the door?  And the answer is ... somebody on the outside has to open the lock.

That's what faith is!  Faith is not me opening the lock on the inside.  Faith is God continuing to open the lock on the OTHER SIDE.  The future coming toward us.  That's what the resurrection of Jesus means.  The future is let out ahead of time, so we can have confidence that even as Jesus was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life, the bible says.  Not because we crank up our faith and turn the key, but because we stand in trust in all the circumstances of life and wait for God to open the door.  And doesn't He?  Isn't that your experience as a christian?

Isn't that what it really means as a christian to live by faith and trust?  That God will bring His future in His time for each and all of us, and for the whole creation.  When the thunder finally rattles and rolls.

-----------

 Audio (2:15 min)

That's why Jesus can say, to this beleaguered band and young men, His disciples, who are about to face the greatest test of their lives, "Don't be afraid."  Don't be afraid little, vulnerable, flock, when the powers set themselves against you.  For your Father in heaven has decided ... has made the decision ... to give you the kingdom.

Well if THAT'S what's in store ... then [Martin] Luther would write, "Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also.  The body they may kill.  God's truth abidest still.  His kingdom lives forever. "  Remember that verse from "A Mighty Fortress is Our God"?  That's what he was talking about.  Let the world roll over you if it has to.  Let it have its works and its ways.  So what!  God has chosen to give us the kingdom.

That's what christians sing about and celebrate.  At least they used to.  I guess some of us still do.  For that's the heart of our message.  Jesus Christ crucified for sinners.  Crucified for people like you and me.  Who live in fear.  Who take life into our own hands, who think it all depends on us, and we live and act like it.  ... And was raised from death three days later.  And to say it was all done for you.  That when the [your] crosses come, and the suffering comes, and the struggles come, and the heartaches come, and the losses come, you may know and trust and believe, that they are not greater than the promises of God in Jesus Christ.

That at the end of the day is what the christian faith is all about.  It's daring to trust.  And we dare to do so, not because we have demonstrated to ourselves the verity and the veracity of this trust, but because as Paul says beautifully ... "The Holy Spirit has been poured into our hearts through Jesus Christ."  And knowing Him, and having the confidence of His presence among us, we can dare to trust His Word, and face every day and tomorrow that comes.

-- Pastor Mark Anderson
You can access the full 17 minute sermon: here

The anatomy of a changed life

In the end, it was not the dangers and sinful self-destruction
that brought about the change,
nor was it a visionary moment of super-powered reversal.

It was forgiveness.

Forgiveness preached, forgiveness confessed,
forgiveness sung, and forgiveness bestowed

over all my tears and failed attempts

[which] propelled me one day to wake
with my self-destructive habit far enough behind me
that it hasn't entrapped me again.

But I make no mistake: my sin is not gone,
nor will it be this side of the Last Day.
Nor do I believe for a moment that I came closer to God
by segregating myself from one addictive corner of this world.

It was because God had already come close to me,
just as I am,
that He was able to bring His success
in doing the one thing we in the world need most --

we need to be killed.
He killed me,
and He raised me in the person of His Son.
Right now. Already. By faith alone.

--Jonathan Fisk
"Broken - Seven "Christian" Rules That Every Christian Ought to Break as Often as Possible"
(formatting mine)

The cross is not a ... "good idea"

 Audio (3 min)

Your human agendas no longer hold water when it comes to what is finally important, and that's why [Paul] said in the same breath, "far be it from me if I preach anything but the cross."

The big mistake that the church has struggled with for twenty centuries when it comes to the crucifixion of Jesus, is thinking that the cross simply means something.  (We have to figure out what it means.) ... It wouldn't be wrong to say God loves us, but that's not what the cross is about.  The new testament tells us that the cross brings to an end ... human prospect.

The reason Jesus had to die is because we have to die.  And it was not in the meaning of the dying that we were to see what is happening, it was in the dying itself.  There is no way out.  The patient must die.  The great power of the cross is not that it's a message about how loving God is, although that's true!  It isn't even a great message about how giving Jesus was, although that's true as well!  The great power of the cross is that it shows you your future, no matter what you do in this life, no matter how high you climb, how much you amass, how beautiful you are, how big your bank account is:  The cross says, "this is your future".  Make no mistake about it.

You see, and that is why for centuries the gospel was actually good news.  Because you don't start from the standpoint [which says], "You know I have all of these little penultimate realities and I have to somehow prop them up... maybe God can help me do it."  It starts from the standpoint [which says], "I don't have any leg to stand on ... now what?"  And then God steps in and says, "Jesus ... that's now what."  The one who died and suffered as you must ... is the one who God raised from the dead.  And there is the promise that the christian faith has held out for all these years.

Of course nowadays ... we're spinning it other ways, aren't we.   Because the cross as a "good idea", as a nice symbol of what God means, is a lot more palatable to our generosity and our reason and our own projects.  That fits in a lot better with the way we go about doing things.  And so God in His grace saw fit not to set before us an example, but in His grace saw fit to die.  So that there would be no illusions left for us to hide behind and to play around with for these few short decades we dance here on this earth.

-- Pastor Mark Anderson

Listen to the entire sermon in context:
Audio (19:30 min)

What's so sufficient about Grace?

On Sunday I heard a sermon.  The topic was "The Real Gospel: It's Grace".  A summary statement printed in the bulletin went like this:

"What separates the real gospel from all other messages is grace which alone puts sinful man eternally right with a holy God."

In the actual sermon, the sufficiency of God's grace to believers was a topic that came up, and I'd like to use the words I heard on this topic as a starting point to try to touch upon the subtle wonders of the Good News.  Here is part of what I heard from the sermon to describe the sufficiency of God's grace for believers:

"It's all of grace... It's grace for unbelievers and it's grace for believers ... God's ongoing power through His indwelling spirit to say 'no' to sin, and to say 'yes' to righteousness - over, and over, and over again.

And to hear Him say, "my grace is sufficient for you" to be able to do that.  My grace is sufficient for you to say 'no' to sin, and to say 'yes' to righteousness.  I have given you my spirit.  He has circumcised your heart.  You are no longer under the tyranny of sin.  If the Son has set you free, you are free indeed - to say 'no' to sin by His amazing grace, His all-sufficient grace.  And to say 'yes' to righteousness."

My purpose in writing this post is not to tear down these words in any way.  I say let them stand.  Let them stand as a window that lets in precious light for believers to walk by.  And I say 'Amen' to that light.  But a window that lets in light is not always the same as a window that lets in fresh air.  And while it is light that I need to direct my path, it's fresh air that sustains me for my walk.

And so like a breath of fresh air, there is another kind of "sufficiency" to God's grace on behalf of believers that I would like to touch upon.  Perhaps a more "subtle wonder" if you will.  But first, let's look at these words from Paul in 2nd Corinthians:

"So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, to keep me from becoming conceited.

Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me.

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me."
(2 Cor. 12, 7-9)

Herein lies a subtle wonder.  What did Paul ask for?  He asked for power to render a thorn removed.  He wanted that which he could not say 'no' to ... dealt with.  What God provided, however, was an empowering breath of fresh air, and a sufficiency that comes not from a power sent, but by a promise given.  As in, "My grace is sufficient for you", and "It is finished" and "Your sins are forgiven for Jesus' sake". Period.

There is a kind of sufficiency to God's grace that does not depend upon a pathway for power to run into our daily lives.  This other kind of sufficiency lies in a reality completely external to you and me, concerning what God has done, outside of us.  We call this, The Good News.  We call this The Gospel.  And believing it is far more important than utilizing it.  Jesus is not just a sufficient means.  He is the sufficient end.  I was crucified with Him and it is no longer I who live.  It's not about me.

And as we walk in the light of sound doctrine, let us breathe in the new, the resurrected, the always fresh life giving reality that sin is not "dealt with" because I say 'no' to it over, and over, and over again.  Sin is dealt with because it was nailed to a cross in the body of Jesus.  And that's where true freedom in me is born. The Son has set me free, and so I am free indeed.  Does there reside in me "a freedom to" walk by the light that is given in His word?  Yes!  But there is "a freedom from" my sin that was accomplished long ago, and to which I contributed nothing, and continue to contribute nothing, and never will contribute anything, but my sin.  It's not about me.

So what were Paul's very next words in 2nd Corinthians? After receiving the promise of a sufficiency embodied, not in a means, but in an end:

"For the sake of Christ, then, I am ... content..."

Finally then, let us end where we began. "What separates the real gospel from all other messages?"  "A grace which alone [and all-sufficient] puts sinful man eternally right with a holy God."  Not by a sufficiency of power in me, but by a sufficiency of  promise in Him, concerning which God says, "it is finished". 

Real Gospel Life ... comes out of death, and God says, "I will do it"

Audio: (44 sec.)

Real Gospel Life:

This is a story of genuine hope in the midst of genuine despair.  It's at that crossroads where the finality of death and the end of all our hopes and dreams and prospects, meets God's grace ... God's desire to bring life where there is no life.

That's the great paradigm of the Gospel.  Not some moralistic call to spruce yourself up, but it's a promise to a dying world:  I will bring life out of death.  I will do it, for your sake.  That's the Gospel.  For you!  Not, you do it.  God will do it.

--Pastor Mark Anderson


Audio: (< 2 min.)


Real Gospel Life:

That's what gripped Paul.  That's what changed him.  That's what transformed the early church.  That's what over the centuries has gripped people, in the power of the Holy Spirit ...

... is that God is not asking me to be something, He is giving me a life.  As a gift.  He's not calling me to be righteous.  He's declaring me to be righteous.  There is nothing for me to do, but to say with Paul, "I count everything else as lost, as worthless, in comparison to knowing "that", to knowing Him, to being known, by the God who brings life out of the dead ones." 

One of my professors once said to me (preaching professor), "Never forget when you stand on Sunday morning you're a dying man preaching to dying people.  Don't ever forget it.  Don't call them to some kind of moral project.  Don't you dare let them think that they have something to offer in comparison to the cross of Jesus Christ.  But take them to that cross, and there remind them of what He has done for them."  For that's the story.  Out of the death on the old wooden cross, came the life of the resurrection. From death to life, that's the christian paradigm. Not from vice to virtue.  It is to glory in the cross of Christ and what He has done for us, the grace He has given us, the forgiveness He has given us.

--Pastor Mark Anderson

To hear these quotes in more context, here is a 15 minute version of Pastor Mark's full sermon:
Audio: (15 min)