Redemption

11For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, 12training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, 13 waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, 14(who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.
C.S. Lewis in his book The Great Divorce says those who end up in hell look back on their lives and see that all was hell, and those in heaven look back on their lives and see that all was heaven. What he was saying is that for those of us in Christ at the end when we look back at our whole lives, at everything that happened and know that it was for bringing us into the Kingdom of God, into adoption as sons, into the very presence of God. And those who at the last find themselves outside the gates, condemned by a just God, all of their lives, even the good that they did and that happened to them was actually condemnation and hell on earth. Some pretty bold, but I think accurate words from one of the 20th century’s greatest minds.
I was the type of kid in school who always had a girlfriend. And every one I had was THE ONE. I don’t think I dated a girl that I wasn’t going to marry. And every time the relationship ended I was devastated. I looked at that as my hell on earth. Until one day the girl I was dating actually was THE ONE. And suddenly those other times of devastation and hurt and loss were actually gain. The hurt and loss could have, and probably would have, been far greater if I had actually married one of the other girls. I can tell you I would not be here where I am today with a life in pursuit of our great God and King, the Lord Jesus. So as I look back all of the hurt and regret and sense of loss, was actually God’s grace toward me. Looking back it was all “Heaven”.
In his letter to Titus Paul describes how Jesus brought the grace of God to give us a hope, (“waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ…”) and also has given us a present purpose (“training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and live self controlled, upright and godly lives in the present age…”). Redemption assures us of hope now and in the future. We don’t have to wait until we die to see how the grace of God changes everything in our lives for good, it happens as we live, even the very moment we are born again. God redeems us from sin and death, from lawless hearts and He gives us grace to train us to die to this world and live as a present citizen in his Kingdom, as his people (v. 14). He cleanses and purifies us from the defilement of sin and suffering. Step by step these are the facts of redemption.
Sadly sometimes because of sin, or even through no fault of our own, we lose sight of this present reality of redemption. We do not see what God is up to or how far he has brought us, how far we are in the training from verse 12. And we tend toward despair or worse apathy. This is where the hope of the return of Jesus sustains us because for you Christian that hope is sure, like an anchor for your soul (Hebrews 6:19). When we cannot see present redemption at work in our lives, we should cling to our final redemption and place our faith in the sure promise of verse 13, Jesus will come back.
Now lest we think that this is all about us, at the end of this great paragraph Paul brings the ultimate end into clear focus for us. Verse 14 tells us why Jesus“…who gave himself for us “came; “to redeem us from all lawlessness” (that’s about us) “and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works” (that’s about Him).It is amazing that God redeems us when we are in rebellion against him (Rom. 5:6) and by his grace trains us, “to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions,” (because we don’t just renounce them automatically) and this brings him glory and pleasure (Ps 147:11, Luke 12:32). What?!? That is beyond my understanding! And this means, to go back to Lewis’ quote, that all of the junk in our past that seemed to be “Hell”, wasn’t just over looked for our happiness, but has now been repurposed to bring God great glory. In Christ your pain and hurt and suffering and the sin that results from all of that is not pointless or trivial but serves the highest purpose that exists, to bring praise of the glory of His grace. This is the God we serve, and what a Great God he is.
Amen and Amen.

The Crawl

I have a person that I know, they aren’t really in my life on a regular basis, but enough to bug me to no end. They are the person in my life that I find it difficult to extend grace to them. The general attitude is one of selfishness, being the center of every decision, and if others don’t like that then tough for them. This person is very direct and blunt. They come across as rude, inconsiderate and self absorbed. This person is a believer in the Lord Jesus and so there are attempts to encourage or reprove them unto holiness. Yet these are almost always met with strong resistance and in most cases a cavalier attitude toward sin. That is most frustrating because they are in leadership roles over people young in their faith, and they claim to love community and being open and honest about what they struggle with. Being authentic about our sin is good and fine if it leads us to our knees to plead with the Lord for grace and growth.

Now my beautiful gracious wife points out to me every time I file these complaints (which seems to be any time I have spent an extended period with this other person) that I am being “too harsh”. She acknowledges that my frustrations with the general attitudes of this person are well founded and good, but that I personalize them is not fair. And after I am done trying to justify myself I come to see she is right. And I don’t intend here to try and justify myself either, but to confess my own pride and self-righteousness.

This week in my home group we are going through Matthew 18. At the end of the chapter Jesus tells this parable about a servant who owes ten thousand talents to his master. But the servant begs and pleads with his master and the master completely forgives the debt. The servant then turns around and throws a man in jail for one hundred denarii. I am that servant. I , every time I grow so frustrated with this person, am trampling and presuming upon the grace and forgiveness I have been shown. At the beginning of Matthew 18 Jesus says that the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven are the little ones, the children, who were the least in the society of the 1st century.

In CJ Mahaney’s little book called Humility he says that one of the primary ways to cultivate humility in your life is to intentionally notice the grace of God in other people’s life. We are to call out sin to be sure (Matthew 18:15-20) but we are to do if from a place of humility. We are to know and treasure the grace we have received and extend it to those who are in desperate need, knowing that one day the roles may well be reversed. I stink at noticing the grace in other people’s lives. I expect change immediately. Someone says you did this wrong and you should change it, end of story. But I forget or deliberately overlook the facts. Sanctification is a crawl.

History and The Glory of God

I recently finished a biography of Jonathan Edwards and I learned not only about a man but I also learned quite a bit about the time the man lived in. I'm not sure who told me this but I have found it to be true, biography is a great way to learn history. As I read about Edwards' life one of the things that was consistent throughout his life was his Biblical worldview on history and the happenings of his own time. Edwards lived in pre-Revolutionary America and so was well acquainted with French and Indian battles with Britain and was not far from the English civil war of the seventeenth century. All of the battles and changes in the political and economic landscapes he saw as God working out his sovereign plan. He was not without bias but was so convinced of his positions that he never wavered from his Biblical worldview. Defeats for his side were seen as God's judgment or reproof; victories were God's blessing and all glory was given back to Him. This is motivating in itself for me to see all that is happening around through the lens of God's sovereign and good plan for his creation. But it made me want to look back throughout history to see the fingerprints of God's past out workings of his plan.

I am starting this endeavor where I have left off. Edwards was born October 5, 1703 and died March 1758. I mean to pick up just after that time with the biography of John Adams. From here I intend to stagger my biographies and work my way up to as close to present day as I can and try and gain an understanding of America and see if I cannot search out the sovereign hand of the Lord in our own brief history. I would also encourage anyone reading this to be acquainted with history for several reasons. 1) It gives you insight into who you are. We are all shaped by our culture and our culture was shaped by those who came before us. So if Christians want to impact the culture we would do well to understand it as best we can. 2) History helps us to see God's personal involvement in human lives. Seeing great men and women of the past encounter the Lord inspires and motivates us to seek after the Lord if only to know him half as well. And in political history we can see him "turn the heart of the Kings wherever he will" for his purposes. 3) It is immensely entertaining and interesting and makes us smarter. Who doesn't want to be smarter? 4) Finally I think it gives God great glory and pleasure when his people steward well the knowledge and information he has supplied for us. We have more at our disposal than any other time with books, and podcasts and blogs and college courses. We are without excuse when we live in ignorance. Plus to see God throughout the ages, what a privilege.

To get started find something in history you are interested in. Men there were many wars, start with some great battle and work out from there, World War 2 is a great place to start. Ladies, I;m sure the European royalty will be of endless intrigue. It was like a 24/7 soap opera. Start with eighteenth century Europe and lead up to the French Revolution; plenty of scandal during that time period. Or for more sanctified history, find a biography on a great saint of the past. Edwards, Luther, Calvin, Spurgeon, Muller, Taylor, Moody, Graham, one of the puritans, Whitefield, any of those men's wives, just pick one and you will be greatly blessed. What is the worst that happens; you find you don't like that person or that time and you move on. But don't neglect to at least try. That you may regret.

Sovereignty

I find the sovereignty of God a warm blanket. That God is all powerful and eternally sovereign and all good at the same time is comforting to me. Recently Rebekah and I had a big decision before us. It was not a decision between a bad thing and a good thing but between two good things. However this decision was not solely dependent on us just choosing, there were other factors that went a long way towards determining what we would do. The outcome was disappointing and we felt a little bit of a letdown but just before all of this happened I was listening to a podcast of Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology. He was talking about God’s purposes and his sovereignty and he used as an example his trip to England and how they had a schedule and there were pretty tight on keeping up with it. He said that they seemed to just catch the last train right before it rolled out, or they arrived just minutes before they needed to at the restaurant to meet friends for dinner. His point was all of these little details fall under the jurisdiction of God’s sovereign purposes. He also coupled that with the great truth for believers that everything that happens is his grace. So even though Rebekah and I were disappointed by this situation we found ourselves in, we can rest in God’s purposes, knowing that he is working out his plan. This really frees us up to be obedient and not anxious about our lives as if they were totally dependent on us. I can avoid anxiety knowing that God is in complete control and never acts apart from his goodness. I can be thankful and praise him even in disappointment. He is still God even when I don’t get what I want and that is why I praise him, because of who he is, not what he gives me. I pray that you would find rest in and trust the all-good, sovereign creator of the universe to work out the details of your life and there find peace.

Voting

Every two years around election time Christians stir up old debates about voting (except our Catholic brothers and sisters) and what requirements we should have for if we vote or not and who we vote for. It seems to me that there is an increasing view that has followed on the heels of this Reformed Theology resurgence we are going through in America that says God is sovereign and therefore I won’t worry about voting because He will establish the government of his choosing. This I find to be particularly dishonoring on a couple of levels.

1) It seems to me to be dishonoring to God and his glory. To say, “I will not vote because God is sovereign in setting up the government,” implies that you know how the sovereignty of God works. One of the biggest disagreements I have heard regarding Reformed Theology is that people think because one believes that God is sovereign over the salvation of sinners that evangelism will be neglected if not completely done away with. This is a false accusation against the Doctrines of Grace. In fact it is precisely because God is sovereign that one should engage in evangelism. A God who is in complete control can save anyone he wills, so why we would not bring the gospel to all we can? And we learn from Romans 10 that the primary means by which he rescues sinners from death is through preaching of men. It seems to me to follow that if God exercises his sovereignty over the salvation of sinners through human agents, why would something like the setting up of governments be any different? To assume we have no part in bringing the will of God to bear on earth is, in my mind arrogant and does harm to the glory of God.

2) Using God’s sovereignty as a reason to not act dishonors you. You are trying to excuse your own ignorance and laziness under to guise of depending wholly on the sovereignty of God. This is really the same point as above but from the other point of view. God’s sovereignty is not a means by which we can absolve ourselves of the responsibility of our actions or inactions. And to try and use God’s sovereignty in this manner does harm not only to God’s glory but to your honor in trying to follow him. To make my point, imagine there is a proposition on the ballot about Hate Speech (in the not too distant future we may see such a proposition and we have already seen such laws be created in the UK and be used to silence those who would proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ). So you don’t go vote against such a proposition and it passes. Did you do all you could for the glory of God, the body of believers in this country, or those who need to hear the message of repentance and forgiveness? And do you think your ignorance of such a proposition would excuse you? We have an obligation to seek the best for our country and the people who live there (Jer. 29).

Now all that being said, do I think not voting is a sin? Probably not; however the enemy does use many means to try and derail the advance of the Kingdom of God including plausible arguments. Watching TV is not sinful innately but how many of us have allowed too much TV inhibit our pursuit of God and holiness and justified it as not sinful? And when in the past has self-justification worked out well for us?

Think. That is my big point. Think about what God would have you to do. Pursue him and he will let you know what you should do. And please do not use God’s sovereignty to try and excuse your irresponsibility.

Hell

This morning I woke up thinking about Hell, it was Monday after all. But in all seriousness I was thinking about Hell this morning, and the occasion for my thoughts turning to that dreadful reality were two sermons I have listened to recently. One titled “Did Jesus believe in Hell?” by Kevin DeYoung, and the other this week’s (Oct.31st) sermon by the pastor at my home church. During the sermon at Providence this weekend Hell was referred to several times as separation from God. While I do not deny that in Hell there will be separation from God and this is punishment in itself, what I do doubt is that separation from God is the only or worst punishment in Hell. As I was thinking through this topic this morning my thoughts turned to people who have received 3+ degree burns on their bodies. Those people must be put into a coma basically to be able to withstand the pain and agony of their flesh being burned that badly. From scripture we can determine that Hell is place of consciousness and physical existence. That is how Jesus refers to Hell. And the word Jesus uses is gehenna referring to a valley to the south of Jerusalem that in Jesus’ day was basically a trash heap that burned continually. Before that this particular valley was the valley where the Israelites who were caught up in idol worship would sacrifice their babies by placing them in the hands of a giant idol to be burned alive. This is what is in the mind of our Lord when he speaks of “outer darkness” or Hell, this is where is saying are those where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. To be sure, as in the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, separation from God is a huge part of the torment of Hell, I think it is insufficient. If separation from God were all the punishment man could expect from Hell then why did Jesus suffer so on the cross?

So why am I thinking about this? 1) If Hell is merely separation from God and not more, then what effect will it have on those Christians wish to see come the Christ? Plenty of people live perfectly normal, “happy” lives who are separated from God and they don’t feel any punishment. Granted separation from God will be different once people see him face to face and KNOW what they would be missing out on. However I think Christians do a disservice to the people they wish to see converted if they speak of Hell only as separation from God as this is the state they are in presently, most without any remorse. 2) That Hell is a place of everlasting, conscience torment in the form of burning, weeping, gnashing of teeth, should motivate the believer to be more urgently “preach” the gospel. One thing about living in America is that we are isolated from much suffering, and especially the type of suffering that most of the rest of world sees daily. As this is the case we often don’t know how to handle witnessing such suffering and in fact we avoid it as much as possible. This weakens our understanding of what those who don’t know Christ are headed for. Knowing then what Hell will be like should stir the believer’s compassion for the lost in such a way that we are compelled to share the gospel. 3) Just because Hell is a reality doesn’t mean anyone should be resigned to going there. If Jesus is God, and is thus all-good, and all-powerful, who then is out of the reach of his grace? Jesus is a victorious Savior. He has overcome sin and death. Are you living in that victory, not your own victory over besetting sin, but the victory of Jesus? And are you speaking of Jesus in this way to those who are lost? Believer’s experience this victory through humility and helplessness. The refrain should be, “God did for me what I could not do for myself and he can do it for you too.” Do you care for the lost around you? Then why are you not telling them of the rescue they have from an eternity of torment? Why are you afraid to tell them of Jesus who is the only way to eternity with God? The loving thing to do would be to tell them of their fate as it stands apart from Jesus and then live out the fate of those who know and love this victorious Messiah.

I am done but I would encourage you to listen to the song I have linked here by Billy and Cindy Foote. Make it your prayer. And if you don’t know this victorious Jesus, ask me or someone you know who is a Christian if they will tell you the story of his victory over sin and death.

For our Joy

Community

This week in Home Group we start tell out stories. Most of the Bible was written in narrative. God chose to reveal himself through the stories of his called people. Jesus told his disciples that if they wanted to see the Father they need only look to him. So we also, if we would see the Father, his character, his commandments, his power and purpose, we need only look at Jesus. And where is Jesus seen more clearly than in the 4 narrative books that open the New Testament.

So there is something about stories that are revelatory. That I married my wife on October 18th, 2008 is a fact. You can check that in some marriage record database and verify it, I'm sure. But that fact alone doesn't give you any clue as to how beautiful my bride was, or how nervous and excited I was reciting my vows. Those details of the story of my wedding are the things that let you in, give you a glimpse into who my wife and I are.

"Why would we want people to know our stories?" you may ask. "What difference does it make where I grew up, or what my dad was like?" Or some of you may think you story isn't very exciting or dramatic or wouldn't be useful for anyone else to know. The reality is, God gave you the story you have, not for your glory, or so that you could feel important, but so that Jesus would be made much of. Your story is meant to be shared to the glory of the author. And you don't have to worry about how it will impact anyone, he will work that part out. Our stories not only reveal us to the world, they also reveal Jesus to the world. Our lives, in a way, are just a continuation of the scriptures. This is why in home group we will be telling out stories, for the glory of the author.