Christian Living Archives - Page 53 of 61

Grace and Culture Building I

Joe Harby on December 30, 2012

Introduction

As a community of Christians we were all called and shaped by radical grace. One of the things that grace does (and which law cannot do) is build a culture with standards – which then presents a potent threat to grace. We are called to understand this dynamic because if we don’t, we will be continually frustrated.

The Text

“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Rom. 8:1-4).

Summary of the Text

For those who are in Christ Jesus, for those who walk after the Spirit and not the flesh, there is no condemnation (v. 1). The Spirit’s law of life sets us free from the law of sin and death (v. 2). The law was unable to fix us, because it was undone by our weakness. The law and the flesh are – to use the jargon – codependent. Law fails when flesh does. But what the law could not do, God did by sending His own Son to be condemned on the cross (v. 3). And why? The reason is so that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk according to the Spirit, and not according to the law (v. 4).

Stated Another Way

By not calculating on the basis of standards, grace enables us to fulfill the standard. And by insisting that every molecule of the standards be honored, the legal approach collapses in a heap of self-contradictory lusts. In other words, grace keeps the law, and the law is a lawbreaker.

But grace does not just “keep the law” in matters related to a person’s private ethical conduct. Grace enables men and women to marry and to bring up children properly. Grace enables people to build schools with genuine academic standards. Grace enables us to learn to love work, and to enjoy the consequent prosperity. Grace, in short, has a tendency to create subcultures within the culture of grace called the church, and a result creates a thorny theological and pastoral problem. Let’s tackle it now.

By Grace Through Faith

You cannot flunk out of the Christian faith. You can be expelled for high rebellion (which is what excommunication is), but you cannot be kicked out for being slow or lazy. You cannot even be kicked out for being sinful. How many times will God accept you back to this Table? More than 70 times 7? The church then is tailor-made for misfits. Robert Frost once defined home as that place where, “if you have to go, they have to take you in.” And this is why, in a fundamental way, the church is your home. You might be the king of screw-ups, but you are always most welcome here. Own your sin, and you are never on your own.

But at the same time, it is right and proper that a sluggard supreme be able to flunk out of a Christian school. It is right and proper that a profane child not be allowed to play with your kid anymore. Suppose you couldn’t carry a tune with a forklift – it is right and proper that you be denied the solo part in the church choir. In fact, it may be right and proper that you be frog-marched out of the church choir entirely. Suppose one of you gets a farm job this summer for your teenaged boy, the point to teach him the value of hard work. After two weeks, your farmer friend lets him go, and you go to inquire into the reasons. He gives his reasoning in this way: “If that boy had another hand, he would need a third pocket to put it in.” It is right and proper that he be fired. But how does all this with grace? Do you get the problem?

Fellowship and Leadership

The qualifications for fellowship are quite simple – faith in Jesus and sorrow over sin. The qualifications for leadership are different – and if disqualification has occurred, sorrow doesn’t address it in the same way. If a bank president embezzles a couple hundred thousand dollars, he doesn’t get his job back just because he feels really sorry about it.

Confusion over these two different kinds of qualification has led to a great deal of mayhem. Suppose a pastor disgraces his office, is defrocked, and when he wants to be reinstalled three months later and is refused, he then says something like, “where’s the forgiveness?” But the forgiveness is plainly seen in his access to the Table from that side of the Table.

Formal and Informal Leadership

So there is the grace-based standard of fellowship. But there are also the grace-created standards associated with the office. Once we have this down, there is the additional complication of seeing how the standards of office can be layered and hierarchical (husband, boss, owner, etc.), as well as being informal and not just formal (friends, role models, etc.).

Grace and Elitism

The church generally is like the militia, and it is like a militia where you pretty much have to take in anybody who shows up with a gun. Then there are the “parachurch” developments which wind up creating (at least initially) our Navy Seals-Knights Templar, or monasteries, or seminaries, or colleges, or Bible societies, or mission agencies, and so on. The Puritan experiment in New England began as an attempt to turn the militia into the Delta Force.

Strong and Weak

This problem manifested itself in the very first years of the Christian churches experience. This is why Paul had to distinguish between the “strong” and the “weak” (Rom. 15:1), and this is why he had to tell the strong to bear the weak.

There is a temptation to resentment that works in two directions. The strong get something going, and those who need that strength (for whatever reason) are attracted to it, and attach themselves. The strong resent “the drag.” Then the weak begin to resent the strong out of envy. Who do they think they are?

Strong and weak both are called to humble themselves under the mighty hand of God – and He will lift them up.

Joy and Melancholy

Joe Harby on September 30, 2012

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Introduction

What are we to make of a disruption of joy that does not appear to proceed from unconfessed sin, and which also appears unrelated to external afflictions? What are we to make of that broad category of minor depression, major depression, other forms of mental illness, the blues, or simply other forms of unhappiness? They are obviously all related to “joy,” but in what way? And what about demonic oppression? How does that fit in? If King Saul had gone to a modern shrink, what would the diagnosis have been? Would it have been “you have ‘an evil spirit from the Lord.’ Take these pills. Come back and see me in three weeks.”?

The Text

“And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. 5:23).

Summary of the Text

The apostle Paul is giving a string of practical exhortations at the end of 1 Thessalonians, and at the end of them he pronounces this benediction. Those exhortations include giving thanks for everything (v. 18), constant prayer (v. 17), testing everything (v. 21), and, to our point, to “rejoice evermore” (v. 16). The benediction then calls upon God to sanctify them entirely, and that they all be preserved, spirit, soul, and body, to the coming of the Lord Jesus.

In order to understand this benediction, we have to understand that the relationship we have with our bodies is not simply that of a guitar to its carrying case. It is not as though your soul is the guitar, and your body the case. In this sense, we don’t have bodies. We are bodies. But having said that, we also must recognize that Paul was once (likely) separated from his body (2 Cor. 12:2-3), and yet, the idea of such a separation creeped him out to some degree (2 Cor. 5:2-3).

All of this is to say that not only are we responsible for what we do with our bodies, we are also responsible for what our bodies do. There are varying degrees of responsibility, to be sure, but do not think that what your body is up to is somehow “over there.” Your body is part of what must be preserved in holiness. Your body is an aspect of you.

Agitated, But in a Resting Way

Some of you have no doubt picked up on a biblical tension as we have covered this sort of thing. On the one hand, we are to learn how to pray like the psalmist, pouring out our troubles before the Lord (Ps. 38:22). On the other, we are supposed to rest in Him, casting all our burdens on Him, because He cares for us (1 Pet. 5:7). How are we supposed to do both? The best way to summarize this is that we are to present all our concerns (whatever they are) to the Lord, but without the whiny voice. No grumbling, but a lot of discussion.

Better Living Through Chemistry?

Now your Christian discipleship includes everything, and this means it includes how and when you go to a doctor, when you get counseling and/or counsel, whether you go on medications or not, and what kind of medications you are willing to take. Be aware that the world—which is willing to tell you a lot

of things about what pills to take—does not know God. There is a strong tendency among unbelievers to medicalize simple unhappiness, as though a soma-induced bliss were a constitutional right. At the same time, it is not biblical worldview thinking to look at whatever non-Christians do, and then do the opposite. Non-Christian doctors do know how to set bones, and sometimes they know how to set brains. We need to think this through, submitting everything to Scripture as we do. This is part of what it means to love the Lord our God with all our minds. Think. Study. Learn. Discuss among yourselves.

Qualifications

Some Christians take a hard line, saying that they do not believe we should seek to shape and/or direct our moods through the ingestion of any chemical whatever. The problem is that the world is made out of chemicals. You can’t ingest anything else. Wine has chemicals in it, and it can make the heart of man glad (Ps. 104:15). Coffee has chemicals in it—some pretty neat ones.

Other Christians have all the discernment of a powerful vacuum cleaner. If worldly experts in a white lab coat say something is cool, then cool it is. This is how we have gotten to the place where so many Americans are on antidepressants in almost a routine way (about one in ten). And about 23% of women in their 40s and 50s take them. This, in a culture where human beings have never had it so good, at least when it comes to easy living. Something is clearly wrong with us. Some people are getting medicated up for the smallest little brain owie.

We need to make a basic distinction between masking drugs and restoration drugs. Some drugs simply dull the pain of what’s going on, while others are seeking to restore (say) a dopamine deficiency. That is no different (in principle) than getting braces for your teeth, or getting a broken bone set. But, having made this distinction, if you have a roaring headache and you take a couple of aspirin, you are not correcting an “aspirin deficiency.” You are treating a symptom, deadening pain. But why do you have a headache? And might the aspirin keep you from finding out what the real problem is?

A Broken Spirit

Returning to our text, the apostle tells us all these things in the context of community life, life together, koinonia fellowship. Mental health is a social affair, and all of us are involved in it. In v. 14 of this same chapter, Paul tells us to “support the weak” (v. 14). He tells us also to “comfort the feebleminded” (v. 14). The word that the AV translates as feeble-minded should be understood as something like fainthearted. The word literally is “little-souled” (oligopsychos). Comforting them is the task of the entire church community.

We should therefore be concerned about community joy, community singing, community gladness. This is not to ride roughshod over those who struggle, but rather to provide us with yet another example of how a rising tide lifts all the boats. We do not cultivate a merry heart so that that we might hoard it—we are called to share. “A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance: but by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken” (Prov. 15:13). “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones” (Prov. 17:22).

Joy and Affliction

Joe Harby on September 23, 2012

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Introduction

We have seen that one cause of disrupted joy is the fact of unrepented and unconfessed sin. The second cause, the one we will consider today, is the relationship of joy and affliction. And the third, covered next week, will be the relationship of joy and melancholy, joy when you have a case of the jim jams.

The Text

“Giving no offence in any thing, that the ministry be not blamed: But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, In stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings; By pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, By the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, By honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report: as deceivers, and yet true; As unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed; As sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things” (2 Cor. 6: 3-10).

Summary of the Text

This section of 2 Corinthians gives a list of some of the apostle Paul’s experiences. I want to concentrate on one phrase here—“sorrowful, yet always rejoicing”—but we also need to take a quick look at the context. For Paul, the mission was central. He did not want the ministry hampered because of offense that someone gave needlessly (v. 3). Ministers of God needed to show themselves approved across a range of difficult circumstances—showing patience, suffering afflictions, doing what is necessary, putting out fires (v. 4), getting flogged, thrown in prison, navigating riots, working hard, keeping vigil, fasting (v. 5). Moreover, this was all to be done with a particular attitude, and that attitude was not just one of hunkering down. A servant of God should be pure, knowledgeable, patient, kind, driven by the Spirit, and not a love-faker (v. 6). This can only be done by the power of God, dressed out in the armor of righteousness on the right side and left (v. 7). Servants of Christ must be a bundle of contradictions—honored and despised, slandered and praised, called liars, but truth-tellers (v. 8), as famous nobodies, as dead men walking around, as chastened death-defeaters (v. 9), as sorrowful men rejoicing all the time, as poor men scattering riches, and as those who carry the cosmos around in their empty bag (v. 10).

A Regular Nightmare

In short, the apostle Paul was a PR agent’s nightmare. The list above is not really raw material that lends itself to press releases. Imagine the apostle trying to get an interview today for any position involving significant Christian leadership. Such trials can bring about a godly reputation provided the turmoil was on the other side of the world, and was inflicted by heathens. But if it was “right here” (as the apostle’s adventures were), where civilized and respectable people look askance at the practice of putting floggings and prison terms on your resume, Problems arise when the sentencing judge belongs to the same country club you do, and he asks you questions about whether “the apostle” he recently dealt with has spoken at your church recently. Let the throat clearing begin.

The Solution

The first thing to note is that true biblical contentment, solid scriptural joy, is not a trivial bubblegum joy, pink and long-lasting. It is not happy, happy, joy, joy, all frothed up like a specialty latte. Joy is bedrock that goes down a thousand feet, and is grounded in a deep satisfaction with the will of God—His will as expressed in His Word, along with His will as expressed in what unfolds in the course of your story. With that kind of bedrock, a sturdy house can be built. The bedrock is joy, the house is joy, and it is built on the cliff facing the sea —where the storms come from. Count it all joy, James tells us, when the horizon is black at midafternoon (Jas. 1:2).

This tells us that joy in the midst of affliction is not stoicism. You don’t have to pretend it is not a storm; but you should stay in the house. You don’t have to lose all your nerve endings and act like a block of wood. Look at the passion expressed by Paul in our passage. At the same time, look at how he gets over his troubles by getting under the one who decreed them. This kind of joy in affliction is by the Spirit, this is by the power of God.

Distractions

To paraphrase Thomas Watson, we sometimes lose perspective when we focus on whoever it was that brought our trials to us, instead of the one who sent them. And to paraphrase Thomas Traherne, God is so benevolent and prone to give that He delights in us just for asking. Putting these together, learning the meaning of what has been brought is the way to learn why they were sent. Our problem is that we tend to ask for the diploma, and God answers by giving us the classes. But we didn’t want the classes, which seem too much like work.

Peace of God

Our hearts and minds do not protect the peace of God (Phil. 4:7). It is the other way around. We don’t shield the armor of righteousness with our bodies; it is the other way around (v. 7). God is our fortress, and God sends the tempest so that we will take refuge in Him. He teaches us to run to Him.

Avoiding the Theology of the Foolish Women

When Job’s wife urged him to curse God and die, she is acting the part of a tempting Eve to another Adam. But Job refuses the temptation, and stands fast in his integrity. “But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips” (Job 2:10).

But we live in a time when not only have we adopted the theology of the foolish women, we have adopted the sensitivities of those who think such a comparison is a misogynistic attack on women. So let’s make it even-handed, shall we?—let us reject the theology of the foolish women of both sexes.

Joy and Sin

Joe Harby on September 16, 2012

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Introduction

This message is the first of three on the subject of joy. I want to consider, each in turn, three basic challenges to a believer’s joy. The first challenge will be sin—disobedience. The second challenge will be suffering or affliction. The third challenge we will address will be melancholy, the blues, or what our generation frequently calls depression. It is important for us to avoid the easy trap of a pious assertion that personal sin must be the reason for everything bad. At the same time, let us not kid ourselves either. Sin does bring in lots of troubles.

The Text

“Make me to hear joy and gladness; That the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice . . . Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit” (Ps. 51: 10, 12).

Summary of the Text

The Bible teaches us that God chastises every son that He receives. If we do not receive discipline, then we are not true sons (Heb. 12:8). But what form does this divine spanking take? How does God deal with us when we have slipped or fallen into sin? Joy is a function of our unimpeded relationship with Him, and when our misbehavior disrupts that fellowship, the most evident thing about it is our loss of joy. We see that in David’s case here. This psalm is a great psalm of confession, where he is putting things right with God. What does he ask for in that restoration? He asks for joy and gladness (v. 10), that the spiritual bones which God has broken may be restored. He asks, not for his salvation to return, but for the joy of it to return (v. 12). Restore unto me the joy. Unrepented sin and joy cannot be companions. They don’t travel together at all.

The Solution

The solution to unrepentant sin is, not surprisingly, repentance. We should take care not to over-engineer this:

“I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin” (Ps. 32:5).

“He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy” (Prov. 28:13).

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 Jn. 1:9).

The central reason we don’t do this is pride. Pride has various shifts and evasions which we will get to in a moment, but the attitude that seeks out such shifts and evasions is the attitude that does not want, under any circumstances, to humble itself. It causes no end of trouble, and is the true enemy of all joy.

Traits of True Confession

In the verse from 1 John, the word for confess is homologeo, which means to acknowledge, to “speak the same thing.” If we confess, God forgives. If we confess, God is faithful and just in His forgiveness. If we confess, God cleanses us from all unrighteousness. If we confess, God restores us in our joy. So what are the traits of true confession?

First, true confession is honest, brutally honest. The wages of spin is death. Saying the same thing that God says about it is not the same thing as saying something different from what God says. Sometimes we say “different” in a way that is harder on ourselves than God is being, but this is rare. And when it happens, it is because we are being softer on ourselves with regard to the true sin that has us tied up. So confession asks God what it should say, and then says that.

Second, true confession is not something you get to apply to the sins of others. You can confess other people’s sins all day long and your joy will not be restored. Unwillingness to forgive, reluctance to let go of resentment and bitterness, and every other form of “contextualizing” your sin, is a good way to remain joyless.

And third, true confession occurs in the present. Today if you hear His voice . . . A man can know that his sin was sin, he can know that it was not the sin of another, and yet not confess it “yet.” He can say that the time for confession is “next Sunday,” or “soon,” or “after the circumstances are better.” In other words, there is a difference between standing on the high dive, knowing what you have to do, and actually doing it.

What Becomes Visible

We tend to believe that if we confess our sins, then others will know all about the sin and will think less of us. With the exception of hidden scandalous sins (like adultery or embezzlement, say), this is usually not the case. Usually, the people we are refusing to confess sin to are the people who know all about them already.

Confession would not bring them knowledge of your sin. It would bring them knowledge of your sorrow and repentance. Are you an angry person? Petty? Inconsistent? Vain? Dictatorial? Greedy? Lustful? What on earth makes you think that other people can’t see this? If you snap at your employees, or children, or spouse, and tell God how sorry you are about it in the middle of the night, how is it that you don’t see that it is your repentance that is invisible? The sin is right out there. Repentance humbles us, but not by making the sin visible. Repentance humbles us by making the humility visible.

What God Does

Scripture teaches us that God lifts up the humble, and He opposes the proud (Jas. 4:6). Those who refuse to confess their sins are proud, and this means that God is opposing them. He trips them up. He puts obstacles in the way. He makes things go wrong. He takes away their joy. Those who confess their sins are humble, and God exalts the humble. He lifts them up. He restores them. He blesses their endeavors. And measure these things by the video, not by the snapshot.

We think (in the carnality of our hearts) that confession takes us down a peg or two. We think that our sin put us in a hole, and confession would just dig the hole deeper. But this reveals our unbelief. God says the opposite.

What has happened to all your joy? Do you remember what it was like when you were first converted? Why would God want week-old Christians to experience that, but deny it to the older Christians? The answer is that He wouldn’t.

Run with Endurance

Joe Harby on July 29, 2012

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The Text

“Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Heb. 12:1-2)

Run the Race

The author of Hebrews here tells us that living the Christian life is like running a race. Scripture uses these kinds of athletic metaphors all the time to describe how we should compete with a single-minded focus on the prize.

1 Cor. 9:24-27, Gal. 5:7, 2 Tim. 4:7

The ultimate goal shapes our priorities, forces us to make sacrifices for that goal. In the end, single- mindedness will be rewarded.

Look to Christ

And Scripture says that this is the attitude that we are to have with our Christian life. We are to look towards Christ as our final destination. Everything else becomes secondary to that goal. And this single-mindedness for the faith will be rewarded with the ultimate reward. Christ is our example in this. This mental exercise of looking towards Christ and making everything second to him is what Scripture calls “faith” (Heb. 11:1). And the rest of Heb. 11 provides examples of men and women who did just that.

Run With Endurance

There are many ways that the Christian life can be compared to athletic competition. But the main point of comparison in this passage is the need for endurance. The main enemy for the athlete is not his opponent, but distraction from this single-mindedness.

What does weariness look like? Tired, no more energy to push on. It feels old. Distracted. You feel like you need a change of pace, something different. The Christian race slips to the back of your mind. It has become something that you still think is important, but it has become a very small part of your life – like oral hygiene.

We are tempted to think that this weariness, this distraction, is just the inevitable result of being in one place for a long time. It all gets old. But the author of Hebrews gives us an important insight into the real cause of these feelings. We must set aside the weights and sin, whose great strength is to ensnare.

Paul says to “take every thought captive” 2 Cor. 10:5. Too often we go the other way. We are held captive by our thoughts. We give our inner thoughts a pass, instead of confronting them. Is the floor of your mind a mess? What do you need to pick up and put away?

The Race Set Before You

You have a particular race set before you, where the temptations and challenges are custom suited to your particular needs. We are prone to think about getting past our current situation so that we can begin the real work of serving Christ. But you are already in the middle of your race.