When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
Let all that suffer for Christ and with Christ comfort themselves with this, that yet a little while and they also shall say, "It is finished.”
Christians are to be eager and enthusiastic in dreaming up ways to do good for others. We are to not just to do good when the opportunity comes to us—although we are to do it then, also—but we are to think hard about ways we can be proactive in serving people. And we are to do this because we are excited about it and because we love to, rather than begrudgingly.
Jonathan Edwards makes this case very well in his book Charity and Its Fruits and his sermon “The Duty of Christian Charity to the Poor.” Charity and Its Fruits, in fact, is just as comprehensive in pulling together the Scripture’s teaching on love and good works as Edward’s other works are on God’s sovereignty and glory and other such doctrines. Edwards is a model for keeping teaching on both theology and practical deeds of lovetogether, rather than focusing on one at the expense of the other.
Anyway, one of Edward’s arguments on how we should be eager in doing good comes from Paul’s discussion of giving in 2 Corinthians 8-9. In his discussion on giving, Paul speaks of how good it is that the Corinthians not only started to be engaged in the work of giving, but that they desired to do it (2 Cor 8:10). He encourages them to excel in the grace of giving (2 Cor 8:7). He speaks approvingly of how Titus was very earnest in his care for the Corinthians (2 Cor 8:16-17). Paul exhorts them to sow bountifully (2 Cor 9:6) and to give not reluctantly but cheerfully (2 Cor 9:7).
What Edwards brings to light is that what Paul is saying here about giving applies to good works in general. That is, we are to be earnest and eager and cheerful and bountiful and thoughtful and sacrificial in regard to all of our good works, not just giving.
In other words, Christians are to be thoughtful people who are eager to do good and proactive in it.
That God normally operates the universe consistently makes science possible; that he does not always do so ought to keep science humble.
Our primary calling as followers of Christ is by him, to him, and for him. First and foremost we are called to Someone (God), not to something (such as motherhood, politics, or teaching) or to somewhere (such as the inner city or Outer Mongolia).Our secondary calling, considering who God is as sovereign, is that everyone, everywhere, and in everything should think, speak, live, and act entirely for him. We can therefore properly say as a matter of secondary calling that we are called to homemaking or to the practice of law or to art history. But these and other things are always the secondary, never the primary calling. They are "callings" rather than the "calling." They are our personal answer to God's address, our response to God's summons. Secondary callings matter, but only because the primary calling matters most.This vital distinction between primary and secondary calling carries with it two challenges-- first, to hold the two together and, second, to ensure that they are kept in the right order. In other words, if we understand calling, we must make sure that first things remain first and the primary calling always comes before the secondary calling. But we must also make sure that the primary calling leads without fail to the secondary calling.
Let me begin this post by asking you four direct questions about the condition of your soul right now:
- Do you sense that your affections for the Savior have diminished recently?
- Has your appetite for Scripture weakened?
- Does your soul seem dry?
- Does God seem distant from you?
If so, you are not alone. These struggles are common to even the most mature Christians—so common that Scripture anticipates them. But these are serious problems and must be addressed and not ignored. They don’t just go away over time.
So how should we respond?
Tucked away in the short (and often neglected) letter of Jude we find help and hope:But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. (Jude 1:20–21)In these verses we find a command and three practical ways to obey the command.
Our passion is the glory of God in Jesus ChristSavored through worshipStrengthened through discipleshipSpread through witness
The message of this book is that change takes place in our lives as we turn to see the glory of God in Jesus. (19)So whom do we want to be like? What would you like to change? Please don't settle for anything less than being like Jesus and reflecting the glory of God. And what must we do to reflect God's glory? Look on the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Most of us don't live lives that are considered great by the world. For us, holiness consists not in heroic acts but in a thousand small decisions. But God gives us the opportunity to fill the mundane and the ordinary with his glory. We can be radiators of God's glory in a drab world, reflectors of his light in a dark world. (20)
4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.John Piper:
Six observations that clarify how human thinking and divine revealing work together in awakening saving faith (based on 2 Corinthians 4:4-6):
- The glory of Christ is seen in the gospel. The revelation of the glory of Christ is not a mystical experience cut loose from our thinking about Christ in the gospel. If we stop thinking about the gospel, we will not see the glory of Christ.
- The glory of Christ is really there. This divine glory is really and objectively there in the gospel. Otherwise, Paul would not speak of the god of this world blinding the minds of unbelievers. If something is not really there, you don’t need to be blind to miss it.
- The glory of Christ is seen through the facts of the gospel. The glory of Christ in the gospel—is not seen in a vision or a dream or a whispered word from the Holy Spirit. It is seen in the biblical story of Christ as the inspired apostle preaches the gospel of Christ. Verse 5: “What we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.”
- The decisive ground of saving faith is God’s gift of sight to the eyes of the heart. Our hearts are transformed and brought into harmony with the truth of Christ’s worth. This is why our thinking can now stand in the service of the gospel and become the humble agent of saving faith.
- Saving faith is reasonable. It goes beyond what mere thinking and reasoning upon the facts can produce, but it is itself reasonable. Jonathan Edwards explains, “By a reasonable conviction, I mean, a conviction founded on real evidence, or upon that which is a good reason, or just ground of conviction.”11
- This is the only path to spiritual certainty. “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13). We are meant to know that the gospel is true and that we are saved, not cross our fingers.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.Tim Chester, in You Can Change:
What does it mean for us to be a new creation? It means we're re-created in the image of God. It means we're given new life so we can grow like Christ. And being like Christ means being like God, reflecting God's glory as God's image. (17)
[You were taught in Christ] to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
How much have your dreams been personal, earthbound, physical, and here-and-now? Have you been motivated by your kingdom more than God's Kingdom? How is your present discouragement, disappointment, confusion or grief a window on what has actually captured your heart? Have you really wanted God to be your wise and loving Father who brings into your life what he considers best, or have you wanted him to be a divine waiter, the all-powerful deliverer of your dreams?
Could it be that you have prayed for grace, but that you don’t really like the grace that you have been given? Divine grace doesn’t always make your life simple or your pathway clear. God’s grace doesn’t always provide you with release or relief. God’s grace often brings you hardship, confusion, and surprises. These things are sent to you, not by a God who is messing with you because he’s more powerful than you, but from the hand of a God a glorious grace, who is exercising his power for the purpose of your transformation.
So, the next time God surprises you, don’t doubt his goodness, faithfulness, and love. No, lift your hands to the heavens and celebrate. You are being rescued. You are being loved. You are being delivered. You are being transformed. And be thankful that since nothing can separate you from his love, there are more gracious surprises to come!
I want to be like Jesus. I can observe him in action as I read the Gospels. I can study the life he lived and the love he showed. I could try very hard to imitate him. But at best that would lead only to a small, short-lived improvement, and indeed even that small improvement would probably only make me proud.I need more than an example. I need help. I need someone to change me. Trying to imitate Jesus on its own only leaves me feeling like a failure. I can't be like him. I can't match up. I need sorting out. I need rescuing. I need forgiveness. (16)
The Bible makes it clear that God's call is not primarily about geography. Indeed, that comes way down the list. We are called:According to God's purpose (Romans 8:28)By His grace (Galatians 1:15)Through the gospel (2 Thessalonians 2:14)Heavenward in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:14)Out of darkness (1 Peter 2:9)To belong to Jesus (Romans 1:6)To be saints (Romans 1:7)To be holy (1 Corinthians 1:2)To live in peace (1 Corinthians 7:15)To one hope (Ephesians 4:4)To His eternal glory (1 Peter 5:10)Even in this brief selection, it is apparent that God is more concerned about what is happening than where it is happening. We need to be thinking theologically rather than geographically.
28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
In Romans 8, Paul says that God uses everything that happens to us to make us like Jesus, both the good and the bad. Indeed, the bad things become in some sense good for us because they make us like Jesus. In themselves they may be evil, but God uses them for the good of those who love him, and that good is that we become more like Jesus. [...] The secret of gospel change is being convinced that Jesus is the good life and the fountain of all joy. Any alternative we might choose would be the letdown. (14-15)
Vision is fundamental to the health of your church, but I'll tell you right now it's probably not the kind of vision you're thinking about.
Dallas Willard was asked by Gordon Cosby of Church of the Savior why so many churches and movements end badly, and his answer was so brilliant they made it into a little booklet.
It all begins with a vision. A Francis of Assisi or a John Wesley is gripped by a vision that will not let them go. But it is not a vision of what they're going to do. It is not a vision of a preferred future. It is not a vision of human activity. It is a vision of what already is. It is a vision of God, and how good he is, and how wonderful it is to be alive and a friend of such a Being.
Out of this vision flows a desire to do good things for such a God. And sometimes these activities may lead to results that look quite remarkable or impressive. And then other people may gather, and some decide they'd like to be involved in such activities because it might give them a sense of significance. People begin to pay more attention to what they are doing than to the reality of God.
At this point the mission replaces the vision as the dominant feature in peoples' consciousness. Once this happens, descent is inevitable. For now people are living under the tyranny of Producing Impressive Results.
The number one "vision problem" with churches today is not (as is widely held) leaders who "lack a vision." The real problem is when our primary focus shifts from who God is (a vision that alone can lead to "the peace of Christ reigning in our hearts") to what we are doing.
For Jesus, holiness meant being set apart from, or different from, our sinful ways. It didn't mean being set apart from the world, but being consecrated to God in the world. He was God's glory in and for the world.
Up to the age of 30 or beyond it, poetry of many kinds . . . gave me great pleasure, and even as a schoolboy I took intense delight in Shakespeare. . . .
Formerly pictures gave me considerable, and music very great, delight.
But now for many years I cannot endure to read a line of poetry: I have tried to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me.
I have also almost lost any taste for pictures or music. . . .
I retain some taste for fine scenery, but it does not cause me the exquisite delight which it formerly did. . . .
My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts, but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain alone, on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive. . . .
The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.
Paul's language here is loaded with the biblical motif of the divine image. In Scripture, image and glory are interrelated ideas. As the image of God, man was created to reflect, express, and participate in the glory of God, in miniature, creaturely form.
He [Jesus] is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.
If we stress the love of God without the holiness of God, it turns out only to be compromise. But if we stress the holiness of God without the love of God, we practice something that is hard and lacks beauty. And it is important to show forth beauty before a lost world and a lost generation. All too often young people have not been wrong in saying that the church is ugly. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ we are called upon to show to a watching world and to our own young people that the church is something beautiful.
Several years ago I wrestled with the question of what was wrong with much of the church that stood for purity. I came to the conclusion that in the flesh we can stress purity without love or we can stress the love of God without purity, but that in the flesh we cannot stress both simultaneously. In order to exhibit both simultaneously, we must look moment by moment to the work of Christ, to the work of the Holy Spirit. Spirituality begins to have real meaning in our moment-by-moment lives as we begin to exhibit simultaneously the holiness of God and the love of God.
Created in God's ImageBroken ImageTrue ImageRe-created in God's ImageSeeing Glory and Reflecting Glory
We were made to be God's image on the earth: to know him, to share his rule over the world, to reflect his glory. The idea is probably that of a statue of a god that represents the authority and glory of that god. But we're not to make images of the living God precisely because we are his image. We're God's representatives on earth. We're God's glory, displaying his likeness.
So when you work with people in great pain, do you encourage them to let go of the desire to be healed?We can certainly ask to be healed. Even I ask for healing regarding this pain, regarding this cancer. Anyone who takes the Bible seriously agrees that God hates suffering. Jesus spent most of his time relieving it. But when being healed becomes the only goal — "I'm not letting go until I get what I want" — it's a problem. There comes a point at which if you don't start living, your whole life is spent jumping from one healing crusade to the next. And I believe I have been healed — just not in the way that others expect.
This book is about hope. It's about the hope we have in Jesus, hope for forgiveness, but also about hope for change. (9)
The atheist also uses assumptions about God’s laws for the world, but they differ from Christian assumptions. Typically, the atheist says that the laws are impersonal. What effect does this have on his thinking about the future of the universe? It typically means that an atheist thinks of the present system as going on indefinitely, without interruption.But if the laws actually were impersonal, they would not be laws at all. They might be anything. Irrationality lies at the bottom of this assumption. If “laws” come out of the void, why should we have any hope that they will in any respect match what the human mind can think or imagine? It is as if a plant on earth tried to grasp the thinking of a human being, or worse, the thinking of a martian. Why should we expect that the sun will rise tomorrow, just because we have seen it rise before? Maybe the laws governing human memory are changing on us, and our memory of the past is completely off base. Or, if our memory is okay, maybe the laws will change tomorrow. Maybe light will never return, or the face of a jack-o’-lantern will replace the sun! Once we abandon the idea of a personal, trustworthy God, little prevents our wildest nightmares from taking his place.The atheist must ignore this difficulty, and believe in spite of himself that he can grasp the laws.
One of our problems is that we think of holiness as giving up things we enjoy out of a vague sense of obligation. But I'm convinced that holiness is always good news. God calls us to the good life. He's always bigger and better than anything sin offers. The key is to realize why change is good news in your struggles with sin. (9-10)
Worship dare not be glib or superficial, ought not to dispense false assurances or manipulate emotions. Instead, genuine worship always offers the true hope of the Gospel—neither entertainment nor escapism, neither diversion nor another sort of consumerism, but the terrible truth about sin and evil and the even greater truth (in all its glory) that on the cross and through the empty tomb Christ has been victorious over iniquity, injury, and death. Worship will then enfold all of us who search for hope in God’s present cosmic reign and challenge us to engage in God’s sovereign purposes of ministry to the world. Finally, worship’s celebration of God’s governance will equip us with patience and endurance to endure the hardships of this life as we await the culmination of God’s kingdom. This is all, indeed, good news for us each and together to tell our neighbors. Our goal is to bring the world to worship our God with us.
1. You love Jesus.2. You hate sin.3. You love God's Word.4. You love truth.5. You love believers.
Such divine freedom is one of the things meant by grace. Notice how deeply imprinted this aspect of grace is, even into our language: When something is gratuitous (from gratia, grace) and given to us gratis (for free), the appropriate response is gratitude (responding to gratia) or gratefulness.
Sometimes when a person gets a surprise gift, he blurts out, “You didn’t have to do that!” Well, of course. That sentiment, too obvious to need saying, is a tiny meditation on the nature of the freedom that lies behind a true gift.
So is the redundancy of describing something as a “free gift,” as if there were any other kind of gift. Grace calls forth gratitude, and we answer with “thank you.”
This is also, by the way, why we say the word please when we ask for something. It is a shortened form of the expression, “If it pleases you,” which is a way of recognizing that the person you are asking a favor from is not your servant but a free person who isn’t required to do your bidding.
Good manners are good theology.
For example, the cross of Christ occupies its central role in salvation history precisely because it has Christ’s preexistence, incarnation, and earthly ministry on one side and his resurrection and ascension on the other. Without these, Christ’s work on the cross would not accomplish our salvation. But flanked by them, it is the cross that needs to be the focus of attention in order to explain the gospel. The same could be said for the Bible within the total field of revelation, for conversion within the realm of religious experience, and for heaven as one of the benefits of being in Christ. Each of these is the right strategic emphasis but only stands out properly when it has something to stand out from.
******
Instead of teaching the full counsel of God (incarnation, ministry of healing and teaching, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, and second coming), anemic evangelicalism simply shouts its one point of emphasis louder and louder (the cross! the cross! the cross!). But in isolation from the total matrix of Christian truth, the cross doesn’t make the right kind of sense. A message about nothing but the cross is not emphatic. It is reductionist. The rest of the matrix matters: the death of Jesus is salvation partly because of the life he lived before it, and certainly because of the new life he lived after it, and above all because of the eternal background in which he is the eternal Son of the eternal Father. You do not need to say all of those things at all times, but you need to have a felt sense of their force behind the things you do say. When that felt sense is not present, or is not somehow communicated to the next generation, emphatic evangelicalism becomes reductionist evangelicalism.
The Bible, as far as I can tell, mentions one account where religious texts are thrown to the flames (Acts 19:11-20). On the heels of the great work of God in Ephesus, the people had come to fear God and to trust in the Savior. As a result, “a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted the value of them and found it came to fifty thousand pieces of silver” (v. 19). In modern terms they ignited a bonfire using very expensive magic books.
What were these books? According to Eckhard Schnabel, they were occultist documents that described how to make amulets to protect against demons and how to make love charms (Early Christian Mission, 1221). The books gave directions for casting spells on others, either for good or ill, and they would have been quite expensive, which highlights the effect of the gospel upon the wealthy inhabitants of Ephesus. That Paul went toe-to-toe with the owners of documents, which later led to a book burning, tells me they qualify as religious texts, and probubly comprised the pop religion of the day.
From this account here are six points to ponder:
1. The Ephesian people burned their own books. These new believers renounced their past. This was not an act of Christians barging into homes to ransack libraries for kindling, or weeding out the public library, or buying up all available copies from the local bookshop. They gathered the valuable books from their own houses.
2. No Christian leader encouraged the book burning. At least the text doesn’t say it. Or would have been better for the books to be sold and the money given to the Apostolic ministry? Perish the thought. There there is no indication that Paul advised the people to burn (or sell) their occultist books.
3. The books posed no threat to the gospel. The gospel overcame the magic power of the books. The gospel is like a hurricane and nothing will stop its wind, certainly not a book of demonic spells.
4. God’s display of power convinced the people that their books were worthless. There was no need to address the value of the magic books directly. Once God’s power and his gospel were seen in the city, the matter was settled.
5. The book burning was a display of godly sorrow. The recently converted Christians wanted to confess their sin before “all.” The high value of the books (50,000 days wages worth!) made a strong statement. It was an act of personal sorrow for their own sin.
6. The burning illustrated the victory of the gospel. The magic books were burned because the gospel was spreading like wildfire: “So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily” (v. 20).
These six points should make us very hesitant about burning other people’s religious books.
May God give the Church open doors to preach the gospel, and may he bless his Word with self-authenticating gospel fruit. If we take our eyes off the priority of the gospel, we will be tempted to settle for the sparks of a small bonfire in a church parking lot, a miniature replica of what happened in Ephesus. The true gospel spreads like a wildfire, if we are faithful to lovingly and boldly proclaim it.
As long as one is a Naturalist, “Nature” is only a word for “everything”—And Everything is not a subject about which anything very interesting can be said or (save by illusion) felt...
But everything becomes different when we recognize that Nature is a creature, a created thing, with its own particular tang or flavour...
The Englishness of English is audible only to those who know some other language well. In the same way and for the same reason, only Supernaturalists really see Nature. You must go a little away from her, and then turn round, and look back. Then at last the true landscape will become visible. You must have tasted, however briefly, the pure water from beyond the world before you can be distinctly conscious of the hot, salty tang of Nature’s current.
You'd think Carla was a respectable Christian. She doesn't swear, steal, get drunk, commit adultery, or commit any of the sins by which we measure one another's godliness. But her Christian service has little joy. Often she's irritable, often complaining. (7)
A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony.
But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.
The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical ENCORE.
Archibald Alexander asked why we grow so slowly as Christians. First, he rounded up the usual suspects: “The influence of worldly relatives and companions, embarking too deeply in business, devoting too much time to amusements, immoderate attachment to a worldly object,” etc. But then he drilled down further and asked why these things get such a hold on us, “why Christians commonly are of so diminutive a stature and of such feeble strength in their religion.” He proposed three reasons:
1. “There is a defect in our belief in the freeness of divine grace.” Even when the gospel is acknowledged in theory, he wrote, Christians depend on their moods and performances rather than on Christ alone. Then, in our inevitable failure, we become discouraged, and worldliness creeps in with nothing to counteract it. “The covenant of grace must be more clearly and repeatedly expounded in all its rich plentitude of mercy, and in all its absolute freeness.”
2. “Christians do not make their obedience to Christ comprehend every other object of pursuit.” We compartmentalize our lives, and Jesus becomes a sidebar to the really compelling things of every day, like making money. “The secular employments and pursuits of the pious should all be consecrated and become a part of their religion.” That way, our work Monday through Friday is no distraction from Christ but more activity for Christ.
3. “We make general resolutions of improvement but neglect to extend our efforts to particulars.” So, how is the sermon tomorrow going to change us tomorrow? How specifically? Rather than be satisfied that we haven’t sinned hugely on any given day and therefore we must be doing okay as Christians, we should be strategizing for specific, actionable, new steps of obedience on a daily basis.
Here's another free audio book download from christianaudio.com. This month is a classic: Spiritual Leadership by J. Oswald Sanders. You can download it here, using the code SEP2010 to get it for free. How marvelous it is [that is, something to be marveled at] that we do not hate sin more than we do! Sin is the cause of all the pain and disease in the world. God did not create man to be an ailing and suffering creature. It was sin, and nothing but sin, which brought in all the ills that flesh is heir to. It was sin to which we owe every racking pain, and every loathsome infirmity, and every humbling weakness to which our poor bodies are liable. Let us keep this ever in mind. Let us hate sin with a godly hatred.
