Another Outlet
I've started writing again on my Illogical Theology site. It's a bit different from what I've done before, but if you're interested, stop by and share your thoughts.
Which is Easier…?
1 And when he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. 2 And many were gathered together, so that there was no more room, not even at the door. And he was preaching the word to them. 3 And they came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. 4 And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him, and when they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay. 5 And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven." 6 Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, 7 "Why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?" 8 And immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they thus questioned within themselves, said to them, "Why do you question these things in your hearts? 9 Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Rise, take up your bed and walk'? 10 But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins"--he said to the paralytic-- 11 "I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home." 12 And he rose and immediately picked up his bed and went out before them all, so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, "We never saw anything like this!"
Mark 2:1-12 (ESV), emphasis added
To the audience in the story, the answer would be obvious. They believed in healing. Spiritual redemption, however, was not something that was easily attained. While we may look at this as one side just being words (forgiveness) and the other requiring a miracle (walking), the audience knew that the forgiveness was truly the greater work of the two.
It's interesting to me, how relatively easy it is to trust Christ for the spiritual healing and not the physical. Which is truly easier, though: to pay a debt that you incurred at birth and will never be able to repay or to pay off you credit card bill? to mend the only relationship that truly matters that you can never men on your own or to heal the relationship between you and your spouse/family/friend?
This is an area in which we often show ourselves to be practical atheists. We "believe" that God has saved us, but we don't live as though he can take care of us and our stuff. I tend toward being a "fixer" but the reality is that I can never fix anything of any value with lasting or permanent results. I'm in need of fixing. Would that I lived like I believe the the things I say I believe.
We’re All Alike
There are two powerful effects that the gospel of grace has on a person who has been touched by it. First, the person who knows that he has received mercy while an undeserving enemy of God will have a heart of love for even (and especially!) the most ungrateful and difficult persons. When a Christian sees prostitutes, alcoholics, prisoners, drug addicts, unwed mothers, the homeless, the refugees, he knows that he is looking in a mirror. Perhaps the Christian spent all of his life as a respectable middle-class person. No matter. He thinks: "Spiritually I was just like these people, though physically and socially I never was where they are now. They are outcasts. I was an outcast."
Tim Keller
Ministries of Mercy
excerpted in Gospel in Life, 107
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This is Illogical Theology.
"...because God doesn't make sense"
An Arm Alone is Useless
12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slavest or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
14 For the body does not consist of one member but of many.15 If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body.16 And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body.17 If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell?18 But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose.19 If all were a single member, where would the body be?20 As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.
21 The eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you," nor again the head to the feet, "I have no need of you."22 On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable,23 and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty,24 which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it,25 that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another.26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
1 Corinthians 12:12-27 ESV
I realized, a few weeks ago, that I don't feel very reliant on others. While I like to connect with other people and enjoy sharing life together, for the most part my life would go on without them. At first pass, that sounds kind of cold, but I think that it is very much the way that many of us live. We are trained to be fiercely independent and even the most relational among us may be able to fly solo.
What I read above, tells me that this independence is completely counter-intuitive. Just as an arm, alone, is useless, so is a man who relies on no one.
This passage is easy to affirm just in reading it... But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves (James 1:22). There is no quick fix to this one. The only way we can be grafted back into the Body is through time spent with its other members.
Simple Truth
The opposite of selfishness in not selflessness.
The opposite of selfishness is gospel-focused living.
So long as I am trying to be selfless, I'm still focused on myself. Gospel-focused living will take the attention off of me and my behavior will be transformed as a result.
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This is Illogical Theology.
"...because God doesn't make sense"
A Helpful Reminder
For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.
Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.
Colossians 2:1-7 ESV
Continue Standing Strong
- Battle in Prayer (v.1) - "struggle", a determined effort, not giving up when faced with exhaustion
- Spur to Unity (v.2) - deeply united with one another
- Center on Christ (v.2-3) - "boredom is finding your satisfaction in something other than Christ" - Ray Stedman (paraphrase)
- Discipline in Truth (v.4-5) - so that you will not be deluded or mislead by things that sound good but are not true
- Rehearse the Facts (v.6) - remind yourself of the gospel and respond accordingly; it is personal truth, not just general
- Grow in Christ (v.7) - deeply rooted, so that you are not uprooted when it storms
- Overflow with Gratitude (v.7) - if you are a chronic complainer, then you have missed some part of the gospel
Adapted from Ross Sawyers, 121 Community Church
Sermon, Feb 20, 2011, "Standing Strong"
Smitten
"What is 'true virtue'?" It is when you are honest not because it profits you or makes you feel better, but because you are smitten with the beauty of the God who is all truth and sincerity and faithfulness. It is when you come to love truth-telling not for your sake, but for God's sake and its own sake. That kind of motivation can only grow in someone deeply touched by God's grace.
Tim Keller
referencing Jonathon Edwards
Gospel in Life, 23
Jesus, John, and Grace
Have we become so refined and so civilized that the benefits of our faith have become more precious and valuable to us than the benefactor of our faith?
Erwin McManus, The Barbarian Way, 49
Imagine these two scenarios.
Scenario 1:
I have this friend, his name is John. He's a musician and he travels, so I don't get to see him much. When he is free, though, we hang out and it's cool. We'll go see a movie or get dinner or whatever. Every now and then we'll bust out the guitars and play some songs, but it's rare because that's like his job. When he comes to town to play a concert, he gets me in and we'll get to hang out a bit after the show, but it's always really late and he's tired. I wish we could hang out more. He's got some problems in his life, but who doesn't? I think that if he had more stable friendships that maybe his life would be a bit less crazy. So, even if it's just a matter of being there, I try to make it a priority because I know that relationships are important.
Scenario 2:
Dude, my best friend is John Mayer. Seriously, new albums - get them before the come out. Bootlegs, check. Songs you'll never hear - all over my iPod. It's pretty sweet. When he comes to town, backstage passes. I always take my guitar and after the show we'll jam. That song "Daughters", I was there when he wrote it. People hassle him for saying and doing stuff, but I'm just like, "that fool is hilarious."
I think it's obvious that the second scenario smells a bit foul. And yet, I think that this is about how we treat Jesus. He's forgiven our sins and gets us into Heaven, so we're pretty well set. In short,
Grace has become better to us than Jesus
Or, rather, we've made grace and end unto itself.
There's this apologetic methodology of moralism that challenges someone to realize that they can't uphold the law. Even if they say that they could meet the 10 commandments, there's the challenge from Jesus
21 You have heard that it was said to those of old, You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment. 22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, You fool! will be liable to the hell of fire.
Matthew 5:21-22, ESV
We can never live up to such a law. So, this is our grace that Christ imputes His righteousness to us so that God would accept us. Sadly, one the other side of salvation, how quickly we slough off this law and say, "God, I'm so thankful for your grace that a) my sins are forgiven, b) I'm going to Heaven, and c) I don't have to worry about that darn "Law" thing. Oh yeah, Jesus is cool too."
On the List
19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds,22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him,
Colossians 1:19-22
It's hard for me to view myself as having ever been "alienated [from] and hostile in mind" toward God (22). I think that where I live (Texas) God is often just accepted and most of us were raised to behave and act right. So, for quite a few people - myself included, along with most of the people I know - there was really no behavioral difference between the day before we became Christians and the day after. That is to say, not much really changed on the outside. Couple this with our teaching kids that God wants to be your friend and this alienation and hostility becomes even more difficult to comprehend.
There is a gap between the psychological and the spiritual. Our behavior and teaching have led us to believe that we are mostly good. We know that we have to have Jesus to get into heaven, so (as my friend Clay so brilliantly said it) we rely on our best effort and then "sprinkle a little Jesus on top." This should be enough to get us into heaven and so Jesus basically serves as our backstage pass. [I'm reminded of a scene in the movie Down to Earth where people are lined up waiting to get into heaven - which is a night club - and this girl tells them her name and says "Mike said he'd put me on the list" and they find her name and let her in.]
The spiritual reality, however, is that no matter how good we act, we are still alienated and hostile toward God. This rips right through any entitlement mentality that we may develop due to our own good deeds. This goes directly back to the question of motivation, only, I think that to truly grasp the grace and redemption that should be our motivation, we must first grasp the depth of the depravity from which we've been saved.
If I don't really know that I'm sinful, then I don't really know and am not truly encouraged by the fact that I've been saved. Because, saved from what?!? If I'm not really sinful then what's the big deal? What's the Good News? It's just news... Charles Spurgeon once said 'if your sin is small, your savior will be small also; but if your sin is great, then your Savior must be great.'
A Band-Aid or a Whip
I was listening to Tim Keller contrasting Relativism and Moralism and he had a great analogy. He said, "One makes Christ a Band-Aid, the other makes him a whip."
For example: The moralist says, "Behave this way because this is what Jesus wants you to do." The relativist says, "Oh, you messed up, that's ok, Jesus forgives you."
In contrast to both, the Gospel says, "You could never behave the way you hope to, only Jesus can. What you need is not to try harder or be less hard on yourself. What you need is Christ in you, the hope of glory."
What we need is a remedy.
Disclaimer: I'm not quite behind the last line, "make us the remedy."
