What we embody in our lives is what we truly believe and resolve to live out. And how we respond when we fail makes the argument all the more valid (or invalid).
What is your argument? How are you stating your case?
To whom are you pointing?
[Do you agree with this? Discuss.]
Time for installment four of our What Drives Us series looking at why we do, think and feel the way we do. The core idea is this: we either make our decisions based on God’s promises in the Gospel, or on something else.
We’ve looked at Preference, Perfection, and Protection. Now it’s time to consider the strongest force among my generation: apathy.
Perhaps ‘nothing’ drives me? And perhaps the greatest danger facing my generation and those who will follow us is not the threat of terrorism, nuclear proliferation, a down economy, or a tsunami. No, we are being washed away by wave after wave of triviality. We’re a generation deeply committed to being entertained, and thus prone to taking very little seriously. Perhaps our priorities may be a bit askew? (I am asking myself this question too.)
Let’s look at how this may play out in life.
Situation … response:
What is the antidote?
The maturity process brought to us through accumulating responsibilies in the normal course of life. Paul talks about the transition to manhood specifically when he writes, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways” (1 Cor. 13:11). That comes in the middle of a poetic section on love. Love takes courage, putting away childish ways marked by a perspective of greed and one’s feelings of personal pride. We move past our sense of entitlement when we continually recognize all that we have comes by grace. Our hearts will overwhelm with gratitude, and we will live in humility before others and God. Maturing people grow in gratitude and humility because what drives them is something greater than themselves.
So, when a young man, for example, has not developed the skills necessary to enter a career, but has completed his college degree — something’s clearly wrong. The system has failed him and parental influences have not prepared him well for life as a responsible adult.
And it’s not just that the economy is down, though that could be the reason for joblessness for a season. Let me suggest that the real issue is that for years this young man was coddled into thinking the world revolved around him, and he was happy to live in that fantasy world. (“You can do and be anything you want to be,” his parents told him.) Things came easily, as he didn’t have to work or sacrifice too hard.
Then when a real challenge comes along he will escape into the world he knows best. This may help explain why for some men their hobbies are self-oriented (and take valuable time from their families to go ‘recreate’), while for maturing men their hobbies are renewing and constructive (the true meanings of ‘re-creation’).
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It’s not every year the the events of Holy Week align with Earth Day. But, when we think about it, it makes more than a little sense that Earth Day (today) is also Good Friday. Tonight I get to speak a meditation on the crucified Christ. We will gather to sing about the day God-in-a-bod died, the climax to the Story of the world.
The created world we live in has a stake in what happened on the day the Creator suffered at the hands of His creation. We not only trash the earth with our consuming and wastefulness; we trash the Creator with our willful sin and rebellion. (Seems like one is the symptom, while the other is the cause.)
Paul helps us see this connection:
18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we await for it with patience.
—Romans 8:18-25
While we know the Holy Week leads up to Easter, the day to celebrate the ultimate Victory, we recognize we live in a good-friday-world, full of suffering and rebellion. We suffer not as complete victims, while the created order was not complicit in our rebellion. So, we meditate on Earth Day as part of the truths of Good Friday, in hopes that the full weight of what happened on Resurrection Sunday will be ours. Christ conquered all His enemies — sin, death, Satan, and our rebellion — to bring us to God. The Creator makes us His change agents in this world, as we experience the power for transforming coming not from us but from Him and through us.
In this hope we who trust in Christ have been rescued, and are being rescued. Celebrate Earth Day by looking to the Cross where our Savior — our only Hope — willingly gave Himself for us.
Kari writes:
“Fear and desire are the motivators of all that we do. And of course they are connected. We desire that which will take us as far as possible from our fears, and we fear that which will take us as far as possible from what we desire. Both can be good, both can be bad. But we are wise to consider them and get down to the bottom of both–because whether we like it or not that’s what will drive all that we do.”
“[God] raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms. 21 Now he is far above any ruler or authority or power or leader or anything else—not only in this world [age] but also in the world [age] to come.” —Ephesians 1:20-21, NLT
A question for you: How can Jesus rule over something both present and future?
He is not limited in the ways we are. We have a hard time reigning over our emotions during the morning commute.
The Present Age is where sin reigns and everything is disintegrating.
It began with the Fall in Genesis 3; as soon as Adam and Eve sinned, they experienced spiritual alienation from God, emotional alienation within, social alienation from others, and physical alienation from creation. (They were defeated and dejected in every area of life, in place of where they were created to experience joy, peace, and harmony.)
In other words, the present age is when everything is falling apart (eventually) — spiritually and emotionally, socially and physically. Social alienation from one another, and physical alienation from nature/the created world. (Psalm 96 helps us see about what the created world will experience when all things are made right and God heals it.)
The Age to Come will be where total victory is complete. It is both when and where,’ in that when Christ fills all things and we are complete in Him, and the whole created order has been judged and redeemed, then we will be fully in God’s glorious presence.
When Jesus came to earth He brought the power of the age to come, so we can experience it now. In Ephesians 2:6 we read that when we are in Christ we are now seated with Him (in the place of victory we will enjoy in the age to come). Victory is eventual and future, but it is now present and real. We stand in victory as we stand in Christ, for He stands in total victory.
Right now we live between these two ages. We see glimpses of what ‘shall be,’ and even hope for that world to enter our world. The only way we will live with the hope of the world to come is if we are enthralled with the One who is our Victory. Jesus won the fight against sin, Satan, and death. He purchased the life to come by completing the life that is. He is the one we believe in. Our imperfect faith is in the Perfect Savior. As Tim Keller reminds us, “We are not saved because of the quality of our faith but because of the object of our faith.”
Jesus is the one who has redeemed, is redeeming, and one day will redeem all things according to His good pleasure. We cannot want one aspect of this without the others. So, for the person who ‘trusts’ Jesus for eternal life but lives as if this life is all there is — that person does not have Jesus ruling over his or her life. (He is not actively saving this person today, so has this person been saved? Seems like that person will go on trusting in their decision to believe in Jesus, but not actually believe in Jesus.) For that person there is no victory now, so how shall there be victory awaiting in the life to come?
When we recognize how we are alienated from God (in every way possible) through own own choices and desires, and that this dysfunction leads our social alienation from others whom we were designed to love, we will come to realize how broken our whole lives really are. We will begin to recognize what an emotional wreck we are (I am). So, we turn to Jesus. Today. Right now. And again this afternoon, and tomorrow morning. Every day, and every moment we recognize our continual need. We’re disintegrating. He is bringing us back together, reconciling us to God and making us whole. He is our victory. He rules our hearts today. One day He will right all things and rule the world the way it’s meant to be.
That’s how He is able to rule all things in this age and in the age to come.
(Some of these notes from Gospel in Life — Witness: An Alternate City)Photo Credit: lucianotb
One Thousand Gifts
In the most recent NY Times best seller list of hardcover advice & misc. category, #10 is The Secret (the “Law of Attraction” as a key to getting what you want) while #7, One Thousand Gifts has a much different theme. That book is all about gratitude, which isn’t about getting what we WANT; it’s on becoming who God designed us to be through continual gratitude. We attract God’s will by living each moment in the present, grateful for all things.
In reality, the secret to a successful life of joy and purpose comes not through greed (even attracting self-defined ‘good things’). The secret is gratitude.
Having read much of both books, I can highly recommend one [a thousand times over] but not the other.
Because millions of kids go everyday without shoes, as I mentioned last week.
Why all the fuss? Who needs shoes?
TOMS Shoes founder Blake Mycoskie says that not having shoes puts kids at a heightened risk of injury, disease and infection. Among the soil-transmitted risks that most can’t afford to prevent and treat are:
Our family supports the intentional Gospel-driven work of great organizations such as World Vision, Compassion, Africa New Life (Rwanda), and Open Arms (Kenya). We intentionally focus on the needs in Africa, but there are opportunities all over the globe for us to curb our consumerism and give joyfully to a cause greater than ourselves.
Maybe your Tuesday without shoes will go something like this:
For we who trust Jesus as Savior, we are awakened to the reality that every day we need Him. Not just on that final day, to take us to heaven. He came to rescue us from the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of God’s beloved Son (Colossians 2:13-14). And he keeps on rescuing us. We have been saved, we are being saved, and we shall be saved completely in the end.
In theology these experiences are summarized as justification, sanctification, and glorification. We have been saved from the penalty of sin, justified with God through Jesus’ perfect live, sacrificial death, and victorious resurrection. We are being saved from the power of sin in our daily lives, being set apart (sanctified) by God for wholeness to join in His mission in the renewal of all things. We will one day be completely rescued from the presence of sin, no longer able to bow down to idols for Christ will be all-consuming, even being the light of all eternity. These experiences overall in a convergence of grace words cannot adequately describe!
There are deeper nuances to this thrilling doctrines, for we will never stop learning of the greatness of God’s kindness towards us in Jesus (Ephesians 2:7). (If embracing these truths bores you, consider if you are alive to God. We will dwell on them for all eternity.)
Today we have a great gift to sing of these amazing truths. A musician friend reminded me that when we sing good theology we “feel a thought.” Words alone or musical sound alone cannot produce this experience. The collision of the two takes us deeper into the truth; opportunity to embrace it through and through. We who were dead in darkness have now seen a great light; He’s made us alive again. Let’s continually sing about it.
Alive Again
(by Matt Maher)
You called and You shouted
Broke through my deafnessNow I’m breathing in and breathing out
I’m alive againYou called and You shouted
Broke through my deafnessNow I’m breathing in and breathing out
I’m alive againYou shattered my darkness
Washed away my blindnessNow I’m breathing in and breathing out
I’m alive again
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Our family fridge, July 15, 2010 {the last day of our grocery month}
10 How I praise the Lord that you are concerned about me again. I know you have always been concerned for me, but you didn’t have the chance to help me. 11 Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. 12 I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. 13 For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.
—Philippians 4:10-13, NLT
Trevin Wax has a helpful summary of three ways we can summarize the Good News of Jesus (the Gospel):
Which one do you tend to emphasize? I am convinced we need all three to be faithful to God in proclaiming His message. The Gospel is more than heaven’s minimum entrance requirement, and we must proclaim Jesus as the Hero and center of the storyline. How do we do this faithfully, making it more than about one individual?
When sharing the Gospel with people, I seek to find common vocabulary and see where their story intersects with God’s Story. And then I ask questions tailored for the situation to explore and explain this chart (a combination of all three ‘Stories’ listed above):
The Big Story of God & the Gospel
[Download three page document as a PDF: The Big Story of God]
I get this question all the time (or some form of it): “If we are rescued by Jesus through grace, and not because of good works we have done, what is the purpose of good works?“
Those of us who worry about whether our good works will be enough, are not quite grasping the Gospel nor the purpose of our good works. A few things to point out:
We ARE saved by good works.
Just not our good works.
Jesus lived the life we should have lived but haven’t, and died the death we should die but don’t have to. Those are part of His good works, the fruit of which we get to partake. (In theological terms, we are made right with God — justified — through Jesus’ active righteousness and His passive righteousness. His record of perfect obedience is credited to our account — see Romans 3:21-26, and Romans 4-5. More than that, we share in His life, through union with Christ, which is the anchor for our secure place in God’s love and the primary way He changes us.)
Jesus does much more than get-us-into-heaven-when-we-die, and His is greater than our perfect Example. The life He has He shares with His people, who are being remade into His image (Colossians 3:10). Because God is good and does good, we share in His character and inevitably do good towards others.
What is the place of our good works in relation to His good work?
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