An example gospel presentation to someone who is shy/insecure

In previous posts I’ve been considering how we should present the gospel to postmoderns. I’ve argued that asking questions and listening is an important first step to try to understand what drives/motivates people. When we understand their idols we can present the gospel in a way which exposes the inadequacies of those idols.

Here's an example of what I might say to someone who seems shy and in need of approval from others. I might talk of how we were made to be in an exciting relationship with God but, because we are all selfish and self-seeking, God has withdrawn Himself from us. Yet that need for a relationship with God is still there, albeit now corrupted. As a result we end up insecure and yearning for acceptance but look for it from people instead of from God. Thus we are always worried about what people think of us or say about us. We need their approval. We need them to like us. We need to know we're 'ok'. That deep need is in all of us. But because we're all messed up we don't get the acceptance we crave. What little we get doesn't satisfy our need. We're still worried about what people think of us the next day. This is because we're trying to satisfy what we were made for with something that wasn't made to satisfy that need. The problem is because we've rejected God, we deserve His punishment, yet, because God loves us, He sent His Son Jesus who was perfect in every way, yet was killed for our rebellion against Him, so that God could be both just and merciful. Now you can have lasting acceptance with God, through faith in Christ Jesus. He will never reject you. Even in your darkest day, He will always accept you. After all he died for you for that very purpose. Man will never give you the ultimate acceptance and affirmation you long for because it requires them to be good to you and you to earn it. People make unreliable and crummy gods and, even if you do a great job some days, there's no guarantee you get the acceptance you think you deserve or desire. Even if the people from whom you seek acceptance are just and give “credit where its due”, what if you mess up? It’s a constant struggle hoping you’ll be accepted. It’s a form of slavery. To God, all our sin, including things that nobody else sees such as worrying about what people think of us, is adultery. And God is a God of justice. He has to do what is right. Justice has to be done. He has to punish sin. Yet He is also a God of perfect love. That is why Jesus bore the punishment we deserve, so that God’s justice is satisfied and He can have mercy on us. God is the only one who is truly good and loving, the only one would did all the perfect hard work for you and died for you so that you could be accepted for ever. Why would you reject that? Why worry about whether people accept you when you could rest in the perfect, unquestioning, unfailing love and acceptance of the God who never forgets about you or gets angry with you and who only ever works for your ultimate good?

Too much evangelism either glosses over the problem of sin or focuses on outward behaviour. Jesus said that it is what comes out of our hearts that defiles us thus the aim is to go after the motivations of their hearts not their external behaviour. Make sense?

Does desire really follow duty?

For some time I have understood that, when it comes to self-discipline, there are two types of people in the church: those who can and those who can't. I'm definitely one of the latter! Before I started to understand the implications of the gospel on every day life I used to beat myself up thinking I'd be never be a 'good' Christian like those organised folks. I think I knew that it was a motivational issue but my understanding of the Gospel was so limited that I didn't realise that it was the only God-given power to motivate me. When discussing this with other Christians who seemed so much better organised and committed than me I'd often be given the advice that "desire follows duty". In other words buckle-down and do your duty then you'll get the desire to do it! This felt like telling me that the way I could jump ten feet in the air is to jump ten feet in the air! I didn't know what to say at the time, but now I do: Rubbish! This is to get it exactly the wrong way round. The biblical way is always "duty follows desire".

The question we should ask is not, what duty do I need to perform, but how does my heart get so transformed that my greatest desire is to serve and glorify God? To answer this we need to start by recognising that we are born to worship. If we don't worship God, we will make our own 'idols' to worship. An idol is anything which we think we have to have in order to feel satisfied/accepted/valued. So, if we lack the desire to live the way God calls us to its because we have other desires which we love more than Him. Therefore the only way our hearts will be transformed is when we see the futility of chasing after our idols and see God as more desirable. How do we do that? Through the Gospel. The gospel reminds us of God's great love for us in dying in our place. It reminds us of His faithfulness and mercy and of our unconditional acceptance and adoption as His son or daughter and of our hope in Him that will never perish or fade. Transformation has two sides to it: we root out our idols and we replace them with love for Christ. To paraphrase Thomas Chalmers in his expulsive power of a new affection, the only way our hearts will relinquish their idols is when they are replaced by a greater love. A love born out of a deepening undertanding of the depths of our sin and the riches of His grace. So, in answer to the original question, in the words of Jonathan Dodson :
"until we clear the shelf of our hearts of subtle idolatries, discipline will not give way to desire".

What about you? What are you chasing after?
May Jesus be the treasure of your heart.

The Gospel for postmoderns (Part 2)

How do we present the gospel in a way which is uncompromising and yet culturally relevant to postmoderns? Some major on relevance others on doctrinal faithfulness. Few seem to wrestle with both at the same time. As a result, for those who concentrate on relevance, style becomes more important than content whilst, for others, content is king and style is largely overlooked. Unfortunately many gospel presentations trying to be culturally relevant end-up compromising the content of the message in the process. Yet those committed to representing the gospel in a way which is faithful to the scriptures often seem to assume that compromise is doing anything differently to how they’ve always done things.

However, this is not merely to argue that some happy middle ground must be found between these two camps. They are not two opposing views which must be reconciled. Rather they are both equally important. The Gospel is the power of God for salvation. To compromise is to rob it of it’s power. If Paul needed to warn Timothy to guard his doctrine, how much more should that warning apply to us? Yet the gospel must be intelligible to the hearer (1 Cr. 14:6-9). Consider Paul’s presentations of the Gospel throughout the New Testament. Each one is different, suited to the needs of his audience. Contrast how Paul presents the Gospel to the pagan / pantheistic men of Athens in Acts 17 with his sharp contrast of law and grace to his Jewish readers in Romans. It is not just about the language used or even the style in which it is presented, the message must make sense to the hearer. And that means more than merely defining terms. Presuppositions that will prevent the hearer from understanding may need to be identified and challenged. For example, it is of little use trying to explain how someone has broken God’s law if, to them, there are no moral absolutes. First we need to challenge that presupposition. To fail to understand and deal with objections rooted in the other person’s worldview will more than likely lead to charges of arrogance or irrelevance and the conversation will reach an impasse.

I am not, however, arguing for extended apologetics that trades arguments for and against the existence of God and so on. Instead it is a call to go after the motivations of the heart. After all, what is a breaking of any commandment other than a failure to honour God as Lord in your heart? The essence of sin is to go after another ‘god’, by thinking, for example, that the thing or neighbour’s wife we covet will satisfy the longings of our hearts. It seems to me that churches either hardly grapple with how to see holiness develop in their people or, through the omission of the gospel as the only motivation to holiness, they effectively teach that holiness is about outward conformance. It’s our hearts God wants to transform not our behaviours. Don’t get me wrong our behaviour should change but only as the result of a transformed heart not as a means to gaining one.

So what does this look like? How do we tell someone who has no belief in God nor in His laws that they have broken His laws and deserve His wrath? There is no right or wrong way but the key is to try to understand what makes your listener tick. What is the thing or things to which they have ascribed ultimate meaning? The thing which they just have to have? From what or whom do they get their sense of identity and purpose? The answers to these sorts of questions reveal the idols of people’s hearts. The things they worship in place of the Lord our God. Exposing how people’s idols do not satisfy their deepest longings can lead to a greater openness to hear what we have to say and begin to sow seeds of doubt in their own worldview.

In the next post I’ll give an example of what that might look like.

The Gospel for Postmoderns?

(Yeah, I know it's been a long while since I wrote something. :-)

If you go back a few decades in most western cultures, there was a time when most people knew something about God and His law. They may not have believed upon Jesus Christ but nevertheless they would tend towards the view that there is a God and would have known something of the Ten Commandments. In that context you could preach the gospel by reminding people of God's law and getting them to see they had broken it. You could then explain how Jesus had perfectly kept God's law and had been crucified for their sins. You could then urge them to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, assuring them that their sins will be forgiven and that they will be saved from eternal damnation (hell). Of course all was not rosy in the church garden, a decline had already begun in the 19th century with the advent of enlightenment thinking which claimed that science had all the answers and that man didn't need God or religion any more. Nevertheless, basic knowledge of the bible was widespread and the gospel could be presented this way.

Today it can no longer be assumed that people have even the most basic bible knowledge. In fact, western culture now seems to generate people who are predisposed to be opposed to Christianity - despite knowing very little about it. The irony is that, at the same time, the enlightenment thinking that led to the decline of traditional western Christianity is increasingly being rejected. God is no longer "dead", contra-Freidrich Nietzsche. Powerful arguments against aggressive opponents of Christianity such as Richard Dawkins are beginning to be raised from non-Christian philosophers. Soon Dawkins and his ilk will be 'dead'. (Unfortunately much of the church, as ever behind the times, doesn't see this so they're still expending their efforts vainly trying to counter Dawkins, disprove evolution and so on. In effect, relying on science instead of the Gospel.)

Though spirituality is good again, the 'god' that now 'reigns' in people's minds is manifold. At the centre, of course, is 'me'. What matters most are my feelings, my wants, my needs and my rights. Materialism, fame, self-gratification and wanton sex are the gods we worship. Just add in a bit of Oprah or some self-help pop-psychology with a hint of eastern mysticism to complete the mix. Relativism and pragmatism (what works for me) is the order of the day. Now spirituality is fine. Just as long as you don't make any exclusive claims of course. So is that it? After thousands of years on the earth, is that the pinacle of man's ability to answer the most fundamental questions like why are we here? or what happens when we die? Seems so!

So just how do we present the gospel in this context? How do we present the gospel in a way which engages with people? In a way which is relevant to the culture? The old ways just don't work. How do we engage with people in a way which isn't going to result in them immediately switching off? I say we need to listen to people, without confronting them, to understand two things:
- why they think Christianity has nothing to say to them, and
- what matters to them.

Increasingly with postmoderns, in understanding why they have dismissed Christianity, we find that the reason given isn't because they think science has disproved Christianity. Rather, they will have fundamental intellectual and philosophical reasons why they have dismissed it. Often, we'll find that what they have dismissed is not the gospel but religion. Religion teaches that we must do good works in order for good to accept us. But the gospel teaches that God accepts us, therefore good works will follow. Religion in effect puts God in your debt, he owes you, whereas, in the gospel, we owe God everything. As a result it is vital to spend time explaining the difference between the gospel and religion.

I hope to explore these issues further and suggest some example ways in which the gospel can be presented to postmoderns in subsequent posts.

No Regrets?

No regrets. So sang Robbie Williams a few years ago. But is it actually possible to go through life with no regrets? I don't think so. If anything, the older we get the longer the list of regrets becomes. The job we didn't take. The opportunity we turned down. The relationship we let slip away from us. Or, maybe for you, its the other way round - the job you wish you hadn't taken, the opportunity you wish you had walked away from...

Some of these regrets can be like deep scars that never fully heal. The things we wish we hadn't said or done. The hurt we wish we hadn't caused. We try to forget about them but they never completely go away. We try to suppress it but deep down the guilt remains, like Macbeth's damn spot. Regrets leave us bitter or defensive or both.

Regret comes when we realise we’ve made the wrong choice between two or more conflicting alternatives. We think, “If only I could learn to make the right choices!” Pop-psychologists tell us we need to move on and focus on new goals to combat the feelings of failure or guilt. It may work for a while, but ultimately this just sets us up for more failure. Sooner or later we’ll mess up again. Why does life seem to involve so many disappointments and regrets?

The answer lies in what we think life is all about. If we think we are here as a result of some amazingly complex series of random events and that therefore the way we find meaning is to seek our own happiness, health and prosperity then failure is inevitable. People let us down. We let ourselves down. Things break and go wrong. Eventually we die. The world we live in is broken and messed up. And we are the reason why. God made the world perfect but we live in rebellion against Him. We reject His purposes for our lives and choose to live for our own selfish ends. The result is chaos and decay, death and destruction. All our yearnings for happiness, health and prosperity are really our God-given desire for the restoration of His creation to the perfection in which He first made it. But because we want to tune God out of our lives we try to substitute our own goals to satisfy the longings that He gave us. It’ll never work!

So how does all this help us with our regrets? When we admit that we have rebelled against God and ask Him to forgive us, He gives us new desires. Or, rather, He restores our original desire to find meaning in Him. When we have Him, our other desires fade away. He is the only one who will never disappoint us or leave us with regrets. Of course, we still live in a messed-up world, but now the things of this world no longer have the same attraction. So when things don’t go how we’d like it doesn’t lead to disappointment or regret because we know our happiness doesn’t depend on the same things any more. Now we look forward to the day when God has promised to restore His creation back to its original perfection, free from decay and corruption.

What about the question of guilt? Sometimes our regret is because we know we’ve done something wrong. Perhaps other people got hurt. Guilt is a reminder that we deserve punishment. That’s why we try to suppress it for deep down we know we have sinned against God. Even when we forget what we have done, God doesn’t. But this is where something incredible happens. God is holy and just. Just like we know that justice must be done, so God must punish sin. Yet God loves us and wants to forgive us and so Jesus was punished in our place. Through Jesus’ death on the cross justice has already been done, all our guilt has been ‘paid for’ and God can be merciful to us. All we must do is turn to Him and confess our sins and put our trust in Jesus. When we do that God no longer counts our sins against us and He gives us His Holy Spirit as a guarantee that He will never again do so. The question then is have you turned to Him? Or are you still on a course that will inevitably lead to regret? To regret something means it’s too late to do anything about it. God has already provided a way by which you need never experience regret again but you must turn to Him – before it is too late.

Of course, even when we believe all this we can sometimes forget and go back to trying to find our meaning in other ways and yet, instead of lasting regret, it becomes an opportunity to see even more of the wonder of God’s great love for us. For God is patient with us and, like the perfect, loving Father that He is, He allows us to wander from His ways, lets us see the futility of seeking happiness apart from Him and then gently draws us back to Him to see that He is what our hearts need. Guilt is replaced by forgiveness. Regret becomes rejoicing. Instead of feeling bitter we become joy-filled and thankful. He never tires of us. He never rejects us. He always works for our good – even when we stupidly and blindly run in the other direction. Why would we ever turn from such perfect love as this?

In a sense, the pop psychologists are right - we do need different goals but the only goal that really matters, the only pursuit in which will find significance and happiness is to know Jesus Christ. Ultimately, it’s not about what you have or haven’t done, it’s not even about what you know, it’s about who you know.

A Confession

In my last post I spoke of how the gospel leads people to be honest about their failings. So I thought I may as well go right ahead with my first confession:

Some of you reading this know me well and yet have never heard me speak of the gospel. This is because God has slowly been teaching me that, despite what you see on the outside, deep down I am insecure. Consequently I hate anything that could lead to confrontation, rejection or ridicule. But now, the more secure I become in my belief in Christ, the less these things bother me. Every one of us has an in built need to feel accepted and to justify themselves but as I learn to marvel more-and-more at how God loved me enough to die for me and, because of Jesus' death, has declared me not guilty and accepts me just as I am, I realise that I don't need to seek to be accepted by or justified before other people. Also the more I come to be thankful for God's grace to someone as deeply flawed as me the more I want to share the good news with those I know.

So, expect to hear more from me on this. :-)

blogging and hypocrisy

One of the difficulties of writing a blog, particularly one shared with close family and friends via Facebook, as well as the world at large via the web, is the huge range of people that may be reading. Now I don't for one minute flatter myself by thinking I have a big audience. Indeed, from the number of comments I get, it may be that no-one is reading! (I write as much for my own benefit in any case). Nevertheless I am aware that some people will occasionally read it and that amongst those people are those who are Christians and those who are not. My aim in both cases though is to point people to the Lord Jesus Christ as their only hope in life and death. The only one who will unconditionally forgive and accept them. The only one who loves them enough to die for them. The only one in whom they will find real meaning, hope, peace and deep, lasting joy - even in life's difficulties.

No doubt amongst the non-believers are some that think I'm a nut-job and others still who perhaps know me better and think I'm a hypocrite. What they see me writing about here doesn't match up to what they see of me in person. Well, this may come as a bit of a surprise but I will readily admit that I'm a hypocrite. But in a very real sense, that is precisely the point. You see, Jesus came to save sinners. Those who are messed up, those who know they fail and let others down. From murderers to complainers. Rapists to occasional white-lie tellers. Yes, even hypocrites.

Most non-Christian's perception of Christianity is that it's for a bunch of fuddy-duddy, frowning, rule-keeping, freedom-robbing, fun-hating boring people. But true Christianity, when rightly understood, produces freedom and joy because it is based on recognising that we can't keep the rules but the Lord Jesus Christ has kept them for us.


Now I admit you may have met Christians who fit my dull description very well but that is no more representative of what a Christian should like than if I put a fluffy hat on my head and said I was a rabbit. A Christian is a real person like anyone else. They will mess up regularly like everyone else. Sometimes they'll get angry. Sometimes they'll do things that you'll think Christians shouldn't do. Maybe even things that most non-Christians wouldn't do. But the difference is that a true Christian is someone who knows how deeply flawed they are and isn't afraid to admit it. Why? Because Jesus accepts them just as they are. No need to try to clean themselves up or put on a show to impress anyone.


The sad irony is that the fuddy-duddies who are stuck on the treadmill of trying to keep God's rules in order to earn his favour are often the ones farthest from God and the ones who find the Gospel message so hard to accept. Like I said Jesus came to save dirty sinners - not those who are trying to scrub themselves clean.

As I work through the implications of growing in my own understanding of the gospel it means I may speak about my own failings. This is because not only is the need to protect my reputation of decreasing importance compared to my growing understanding of the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord (Philippians 3:8) but also because showing my failings and weaknesses is a great way to demonstrate how great the gospel is. Deep down, everyone knows there is a God and knows that they need to be right with Him - it's what drives so much of what we do - and the wonder of the gospel is that we are far worse than we think we are yet we are never so bad that we are beyond the reach of God's grace. Turn to Him. Turn from all your self-reliance and trust in His unfailing love. You'll never look back!

Oh, and to the one person who is reading, do feel free to drop me a comment - even if only to tell me that you agree that I am a nut-job and hypocrite. :-)

Do you have an image problem?

In Fight Clubs: Gospel-Centred Discipleship (The Resurgence. 2009), Jonathan Dodson writes:

"All too often, our online identity is very different from our offline identity. Our Facebook status projects what we want others to think of us, not who we truly are. Our blog posts are shrouded in airs of intellectualism or edginess. We all face the temptation to project a false image of ourselves because we find the real image inadequate. If we are honest, the real image is nowhere near as attractive as we want it to be. We want to be more beautiful, more successful, more creative, more virtuous, more popular, and more intelligent than we actually are. We all have an image problem. The problem, however, is not that we lack beauty, success, creativity, virtue, popularity, or intelligence. The problem is that we believe the lie that obtaining those images will actually make us complete, happy, and content people."

Having believed the lie, we endlessly exert ourselves trying to create and preserve the image we want others to see. But all the while we remain unsatisfied. Our deepest needs go unmet. The irony is that Christianity is also about image and identity. But it teaches that we are made in the image of God, designed to find our identity in Him. We have all failed to live in line with what God created us for yet in His great love for us God does not cast us into hell. Instead Jesus willingly suffers in our place and God raises Him from the dead so that, through faith in Him, we can be forgiven and given a new identity in Christ Jesus.

When we trust our lives to Jesus we are freed from the endless cycle of trying to impress others because Jesus has impressed God on our behalf. As Dodson says: "I can tell people my sins because my identity doesn’t hang on what they think of me. I can be an imperfect Christian because I cling to a perfect Christ".

Are you a legalist?

Everyone is a legalist. We're born that way. C J Mahaney defines legalism as "seeking to achieve forgiveness from God and acceptance by God through obedience to God" (The Cross Centred Life. Multnomah. 2002).

A Christian is someone who knows that that they have been saved by grace, that is, that forgiveness is an undeserved gift of God through faith in Jesus and not something they can earn. Yet in their daily walk with God many Christians seem to forget this and their perception of the degree to which they consider themselves accepted by Him varies according to how good a job they think they're doing of obeying Him. This inevitably leads to pride when they think they're doing well and despair when they're not. In other words it is just a more sophisticated form of legalism. They confuse forgiveness and acceptance and reverse the order of the gospel. This demonstrates how deeply the ideas of reward and acceptance for good works and punishment for doing wrong is ingrained in us. We are born that way. We think "how could God possibly love me after I've done that!" but the truth is that we don't realise that our sins are far worse than we imagine. And that is the wonder of God's grace for our sins against the Holy God are so bad that only the blood of His Son would be enough to pay the penalty and His love for us is so great that Jesus willingly suffered and died for us so that we don't have to try to 'measure up'. As a result we don't have to earn His favour or acceptance. If we have believed the gospel we are already accepted by the King of the universe! We cannot add to that or take away from it. Thus we are accepted every day - whether we do well or badly, whether we have a good day or a bad day. In one sense we can say that Christians are free to do what they please! Because Jesus lived the perfect life that we could not and bore the punishment that we deserve then, if we have put our hope in Him, God only ever loves us. He's not a tempramental monster who gets angry with us when we mess up as some imagine Him to be. God's attitude towards us is unchanging. If we have believed the gospel message then God is no longer angry at our sin. Sure, he disciplines us, but in love not anger. Now I'm not saying we shouldn't obey God - simply that it is crucial that we remember the gospel order: I am accepted by God because of Jesus, therefore I obey.

Of course, non christians will say "I'm not trying to earn God's acceptance, I don't need Him!" but the reality is that, in some way, we all want to be accepted. We all need to feel valued. And everyone spends effort on it: in the way they dress, in the things they say and do. We need to feel acceptance from our peers or those we look up to thus we try to hide, minimize or explain away our behaviour or blame someone else when we mess up. Its a never-ending struggle because we keep messing up and people keep letting us down. Its hard work and it never pays off. We never find what we really yearn for. People never love us or value us like we want them to. But there is one who loves us and is prepared to accept us unconditionally, one who never gets angry with us when we mess up. One who never has a bad mood or turns nasty with us. His name is Jesus. He longs for you to turn to Him. Just as you are. Why try to earn what will always elude you? Go to Him and discover the freedom and joy that comes from knowing and experiencing the radical, life-altering love of the God who made you so that you could know and be satisfied in Him.

Are you honest enough to admit how bad you are?

In Repentance and 21st Century Man, C. John Miller says that two concerns motivated him to write the book:

“First, many who call Jesus their Savior are loaded down with pretense and evasion, and have no heart for confessing their ways as God commands them (Prov. 28:13, 1 John 1:8-10). Secondly, many others have an awareness of their guilt but do not know how to go to Christ and rid themselves of their dark blots. In their secret heart God is viewed as an unsympathetic tyrant not as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ."

In my (admittedly limited) experience many Christians seem to know little of the deceitfulness of our hearts (Jeremiah 17:9) - the "secret heart" as Miller calls it. Thus many in his first category will readily assent to what he says but not even consider how it might apply to themselves. People are more than happy to talk about sin - just so long as it is't their own. How contrary to the gospel this is! The gospel is for people who acknowledge they are sinners in need of a remedy which they themselves cannot provide. So, having believed the gospel, why do many Christians try to cover up their sins? Surely we should be open about how bad we are so that we can speak of how great our Saviour is, so that the worst of offenders, the murderers, the rapists, the idolaters can see that the gospel is for them!

Common Myths

Jared Wilson has a great list of myths common in many churches: http://gospeldrivenchurch.blogspot.com/2009/08/25-evangelical-myths.html

I just wanted to add a couple more - very common amongst non-christians:
When you die, unless you were a really nasty criminal or something, you go to a "better place"

When you die God weighs up all the things you have done - good and bad - and if, on balance, the good things outweigh the bad then he lets you into heaven

Who do we love the most?

The answer is "me"! No-one takes more of our time, no-one gets more of our attention, we give no-one more care than ... ourselves!

Paul David Tripp wrote: "Only love for Christ has the power to incapacitate the sturdy love for self that is the bane of every sinner, and only the grace of Christ has the power to produce that love." (A Quest for More)

How true that is! Nothing else is powerful enough. Nothing else seems important enough to divert our attention from satisfying our own interests. I need to be reminded of this often else ME and MY interests and MY needs and MY desires will be the selfish motiviation behind everything I do. We love and make much of what we think is the greatest thing deserving our love and attention and the reality is we're all so me-centred that we think WE are the greatest and most deserving there is. But the truth is there is one who is greater. One who is God Himself who, though He was rich beyond our wildest imagination, yet became poor for our sake. One who was perfect in every way and yet took the punishment for our sins instead of us. No-one is more worthy of our love and attention. No-one is greater than the Lord Jesus Christ.

Of course the question could be asked how do we get such love? Love powerful enough to rescue us from our tedious little self-focused kingdoms where we never quite get the life we want, where we're never quite satisfied? C J Mahaney offers this simple yet profound advice:
"To grow in your passion for what Jesus has done, increase your understanding of what He has done. Never be content with your grasp of the gospel. The gospel is life-permeating, world-altering, universe-changing truth. It has more facets than any diamond. Its depths man will never exhaust"
(The Cross Centered Life)

It seems to me though that we face a challenge for neither the world at large nor the church in general seem to have much awareness of how me-centred they are nor of the destructive force it has. Most of the church seem to have at best only a superficial awareness of the extent of their 'sturdy love for self'. For some Christianity is not about what Christ has done for them but about what they can do for Him. Others seem to know and talk much about grace and yet there's little heart transformation. I think its because they've never been convicted of how self-focused they are. Its especially hard to detect when its wrapped up in a belief that one is about the Lord's business. There seems to be little experimental knowledge of the Apostle Paul's confession that when he wants "to do good, evil is right there" (Ro. 7:21). We are so consumed by self-love and self-protection that we can read a statement like this and automatically think it applies to other people but not ourselves!

We need to spend more time meditating on the gospel asking the Lord to shine his gospel light into all the dark recesses of our self-love. Perhaps if the world were to see a people in the church who are honest about their self love and who are increasingly growing in love for the Lord Jesus and for others then they might notice?

Are you in default mode?

We all need justification, we all need to be accepted by God. We don’t think about it much. At best we may think we’re trying to justify ourselves before other people or before our own conscience but deep down, our real need driving all we do is to be accepted by God. Taking his cue from Luther and Calvin Tim Keller says that the default mode of the human heart is “works-righteousness”, that is, trying to justify ourselves before God by our own moral efforts and/or our religious affiliation.

What is odd is that most Christians don’t seem to realise this. I can understand how atheists would reject this idea. After all, if they claim not to believe in God, they’re not going to admit that deep down their in-built need to be right with God motivates everything they do. Besides, the bible quite shockingly describes non-believers variously as blind, deaf and even dead. But why don’t Christians understand this?

Richard Lovelace wrote that most Christians have “so light an apprehension of God’s holiness and of the extent and guilt of their sin that consciously they see little need for justification, although below the surface of their lives they are deeply guilt-ridden and insecure. Many others have a theoretical commitment to this doctrine, but in their day-to-day existence they rely on their sanctification for justification ... drawing their assurance of acceptance with God from their sincerity, their past experience of conversion, their recent religious performance, or the relative infrequency of their conscious, wilful disobedience.” (Dynamics of Spiritual Life, IVP, 1979, p101)

I think many flip-flop between these two categories. I know I have done for years. Even now I can only say that as I am beginning to grasp how deep this goes so I am only beginning to experience some periodic joy-filled moments of not falling into either of these two traps.

It’s easy to illustrate how this works. For example, watch someone who is falsely accused of some horrible sin. Immediately they will rise to defend themselves, indignant at the slur on their reputation – as though their reputation actually makes a difference to whether God justifies them.

The basic problem, according to Lovelace, is that even Christians do not ordinarily live as if the gospel is true. We don't really believe the gospel deep down and so we live as if we have to save ourselves. We can even be crammed full of knowledge about the theological nuances of all that is entailed in justification by faith alone in Christ alone, yet its impact on our lives is more theoretical than practical. With our lips we say “we cannot save ourselves by our own efforts, therefore I obey because Jesus has already accepted me” but our hearts operate as if we have to live a good life for Jesus to accept us. This leads to defensiveness, judgementalism, intolerance, and bigotry and to pride, when we think we’re doing a good job, and to self-deprecation when we don’t. No wonder the world generally doesn’t think that Christians are worth listening to!

What we need first is an awareness of how our hearts constantly try to default to self-justification and thus a greater awareness of the true extent of our sin and second, in light of that, a renewed (and repeated) revelation of the wonders of the riches of God’s grace to us in Jesus Christ. The more we grow in both repentance and worship, the less we go back to default mode and the more we enjoy the freedom, joy and hope of the Christian life. The only kind of life capable of rejoicing in hardships and the only way of seeing real change in our increasingly messed-up world.

Why are we so stubborn?

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. Romans 1:16

The Gospel is that we are more sinful and therefore deserve God’s wrath far more than we realise and yet, through the sending of His Son Jesus, who died on the cross for our sins in our place, we see that God loves us far more than we dared hope.

This Gospel is the only power of God that will transform us and satisfy the longings of our hearts yet it appears so foolish to our natural wisdom and so offensive to our natural pride that we will ignore it and mock it and do anything except submit to it.

We refuse to accept that we are helpless, and, if we are without Christ, hopeless. Yet how odd that we should want to reject something which cost Christ everything, yet costs us nothing. How strange that we don't want to accept what has been done for us and instead try to save ourselves by our own efforts. How foolish that we should reject the only thing that would give us lasting joy, peace and confident hope and assurance, because its based on the perfect work of Christ, preferring instead to spend our efforts forever striving after happiness and acceptance that eludes us and worrying whether our own flawed efforts will measure up.

The thing is God's standard is perfection. We'll never measure up. Why try?

Glory Junkies

24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, 28 for “‘In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, “‘For we are indeed his offspring.'
Acts 17

In some way, every one of us is a “glory junkie”. There is within each of us a deep desire for something better, something glorious. The sports fan longs for his team to win the play-offs. The Father wants his children to excel at something. The Mother wants to be told what great kids she has. The ambitious politician seeks status and recognition. The business man strives for fat profits. Each great deal struck along the way becomes a foretaste of the ‘glory’ to come. The American Idol wannabe longs for fame and adulation. The adrenaline junkie dreams of his next big ‘rush’.

Even in ordinary, everyday life, the party or leisure trip planned for the weekend is awaited eagerly, the vacation / new car / new gadget cannot arrive soon enough. We desperately need something to bring meaning and hope to our lives. Yet the disappointment that follows isn’t far behind. The excitement wears off and the next ‘project’ enters onto the drawing board. We spend hours dreaming and planning how the next piece of ‘glory’ will be better.

If only ... then life would be better.
If only ... then I would be happy.
If only ... then I would really have ‘arrived’.
If only ... then people will like me.
You fill in the blanks. We all do it.

Our dreams rarely come true yet even when they do we soon move to the next dream because they never really satisfy the deep longings within.

It is no surprise really, we were made for glory. But that glory will never be found in ourselves, our friends and family, our jobs, our possessions, our vacations or even what others think of us. That glory can only be found in a person, the Lord Jesus Christ. God incarnate. Even after a tiny glimpse of His glory we are never the same again. When we have “seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14) all other ‘glories’ lose their appeal. Sure, we may be tempted back occasionally. Indeed, except for the grace of God we are like a sow washed clean who returns to wallow in the dirt (2 Peter 2:22). Yet the appeal of the things of this world has been broken. They’ve lost their sheen compared to the glory of God.

All because the only One who is spotless took all our ‘dirt’ on Himself so that God could declare us clean. Jesus set aside His glory and endured the cross so that we could enter in to that glory. All the obstacles have been removed. Now, He says, you can find me and I will welcome you. The glory you long for is found only in me. Seek me. Why spend your efforts on what does not satisfy? Seek my glory and your soul will be satisfied with the richest of fare (Ps. 63).

The reason for the name

I’m a strange hybrid. Part modern, part post-modern. Depending on whose definition you take I’m a late Boomer or an early Generation X-er. I’m a 60’s child, part rebel part traditionalist. I’m all mixed up for sure. Generally, relativism frustrates me. I need concrete answers. I often feel uncomfortable with ambiguity. Ask me a question and I might ask you to define your terms. Yet, in other ways I feel equally uncomfortable with precision and dogmatism – particularly the sort in the church that says you must believe exactly these things. One thing I have learned for sure: mere knowledge is never going to satisfy the deep longings of my heart. The ‘post-modern’ in me desperately yearns for authenticity and community, to experience God, to taste of His goodness, to be lifted way beyond the plane of mere knowledge. Yet the “enlightenment” side of me needs solid facts. I need to know that my experience is founded on ultimate truth. You could say I am too rational for mysticism and too mystic for rationalism! This is why I have benefited so much from two quite different streams within the church, one old, one new. Though the one that is old is still very much alive today and the one that is new has been around a long time.

The old stream is what we might call classical reformed soteriology in line with the early reformation. On the one hand this rejects what I believe to be the man-centred theology of Arminianism which elevates free will above the sovereignty of God. On the other it rejects the “limited atonement” beloved by many modern, and sadly, aggressive, internet ‘Calvinists’ who would have us proclaim an empty Gospel that would call us to repent and believe not knowing whether or not Christ died for our sins. It is NOT four-point Calvinism as some refer to it. (I suppose we are all prone to assign quick labels to things we don’t understand). This is classical reformed doctrine which can be neatly summarised with the old formula that Christ died sufficiently for all and efficiently for the elect. In one sense the atonement is limited, in another sense it is not but more of that some other time. This ‘stream’ is still alive today and I for one am thankful. It played a part in rescuing me from the clutches of cold hyper-Calvinism.

The new stream, which we might call “gospel-centredness” takes its cue from the likes of Tim Keller, the late Jack Miller and Jerry Bridges. From this I have learned that the gospel is not just the A-B-C of how we enter the kingdom and the thing we proclaim to unbelievers, but is, in fact, the A-Z though which we grow in sanctification. It has helped me understand why I have spent so much of my Christian life basically volatile and unhappy. More of that in due course too.

Of course, the doctrine of sanctification by faith isn’t new. It is a common theme amongst some of the puritans. Its just the terminology and the renewed emphasis that it brings that is new. And it is a much needed antidote to the superficiality and coldness of much of the church today. It can both expose the pride of the Pharisees and self-appointed guardians of orthodoxy on the one hand and lift-up the down-hearted and self-pitying on the other.

These are two recurring themes you will see here. In fact I’m excited about them both. I hope that if you stick around long enough you might catch some of that excitement. Of course, I don’t mean excited for excited sake. My hope is that together we may grow in love for the Lord Jesus Christ to the glory of God.

Size doesn't matter, the Gospel does

Jared Wilson wonders whether a fixation on size is a Texan thing. Interestingly, it would seem he is originally from Texas but has never noticed this before. Over here in the UK we've long had this stereotyped idea of swaggering John Wayne-like Texans in large Stetsons driving Oil Tanker sized cars lighting fat cigars with fifty dollar bills who boast about how big everything is in good ole' Texas :-)
Not sure where we got that idea. Maybe it was from the TV series Dallas. Anyway I wanted to raise a question about what is behind this concern with size and I don't think its a uniquely Texan thing. I've encountered it here in the UK. The numbers may be different (we would probably consider a megachurch to be one with over two hundred people!) but I suggest the underlying cause is the same.

In my opinion the idea that size matters is the product of a combination of poor theology and worldly thinking. Actually the two are closely related. There's an underlying assumption by many that size is an indication of God's blessing yet I can think of no biblical justification for that. Rather I suggest it is the product of our materialistic, performance oriented, western cultures. Now it is true that quality attracts, but the question is what are the criteria used to define quality? Good music? A great show? Some guy oozing charisma who tells funny stories and makes you feel better about yourself?

What we really need is deep, heartfelt repentance over sin and godly, Christ-exalting people who are patient and joyful in affliction. And when I say repentance I'm not talking external law keeping here. I mean the secrets of our hearts, those inward motives that we try to dress up as doing the Lord's business when its really all about making us feel good about ourselves. This isn't a popular idea in this day of sugar-coated superficiality on the one hand and cold, dead orthodoxy on the other. One thing such talk doesn't do, with one or two notable exceptions, is attract large numbers. Sadly some churches don't even mention the Word sin let alone talk about our inward desires.

What I think is really behind this fixation with size is the idolatrous belief that "I'm part of something big therefore I matter". It doesn't matter how much we might say that our trust is in Christ alone our sinful hearts will constantly be looking elsewhere for something to appease our consciences, inflate our egos and satisfy the longings of our hearts. Longings that only Christ will satisfy. What we desparately need are churches who will expose our idolatrous hearts and patiently, consistently, lovingly and constantly point us back to the cross as the only thing worth boasting about.