The Glory of God in the Lifted Up Christ (Part One)

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Sunday’s message from John 12:27-33 is now on the web. You can listen to the audio here.

I summarized the first three points of the passage this way:

The glory of God went on stunning display in the lifted up Christ, in the passion of His suffering, the prayer of His heart, and the pleasure of His Father to glorify His name. The last two points – in the profit of His crowd and the purpose of His death – will have to wait until next time. Can you remain unmoved by the passion and prayer of Jesus crowned by the Father’s pleasure? Though agonized by the prospect and tempted to abort, yet He kept His appointment with the hour. Believe in the One whom the Father so relentlessly and continuously glorifies, the lifted up Son, Jesus the Christ.

Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift that buoys us through temptation with His unlimited resources as our great High Priest and in and through whom we enjoy the Father’s delight and pleasure.

The Law & Looking to Another Quarter for Help

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If the means of grace (prayer, study, etc.) constituted some form of bartering/payment with God for His favor, I’d be in deep weeds. At least in term of the excruciatingly slow pace with which I’ve been slogging through Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion. To my chagrin I’ve yet to work my way through this classic in its entirety. A long time ago I decided to take a mere paragraph a day as part of my daily devotions. To date I’ve managed to get only as far as Book Two, Chapter 8. I can’t honestly remember when I started on this pilgrimage.

That present chapter concerns Calvin’s exposition of the moral law of God. Paragraph three of chapter 8 addresses one of three uses of the law in our lives that, as he puts it, causes us to descend into ourselves.

When, under the guidance of the Law, we have advanced thus far, we must, under the same guidance, proceed to descend into ourselves. In this way, we at length arrive at two results: First, contrasting our conduct with the righteousness of the Law, we see how very far it is from being in accordance with the will of God, and, therefore, how unworthy we are of holding our place among his creatures, far less of being accounted his sons; and, secondly, taking a survey of our powers, we see that they are not only unequal to fulfill the Law, but are altogether null. The necessary consequence must be, to produce distrust of our own ability, and also anxiety and trepidation of mind. Conscience cannot feel the burden of its guilt, without forthwith turning to the judgment of God, while the view of this judgment cannot fail to excite a dread of death. In like manner, the proofs of our utter powerlessness must instantly beget despair of our own strength. Both feelings are productive of humility and abasement, and hence the sinner, terrified at the prospect of eternal death (which he sees justly impending over him for his iniquities), turns to the mercy of God as the only haven of safety. Feeling his utter inability to pay what he owes to the Law, and thus despairing of himself, he rethinks him of applying and looking to some other quarter for help.

Altogether null. Despair of our strength. Utter inability to pay.

These words and phrases describe the descent into self brought about by the effect of the law leading to the sobering admission that we stand no chance whatsoever of fulfilling the law in our own pitifully paltry strength.

Reformers call this the pedagogical use of the law for a reason. It teaches us of our absolute need for the mercy of God in Christ as the only haven of safety. It guides us to the cross.

Romans 8:3 – 4 says

[3] For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, [4] in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

The Son of God is that quarter of help, in His work on the cross, the only quarter and the completely able quarter of help at that, which can relieve us of the misery of our conviction before the crushing weight of the Law’s righteousness and make us acceptable in a holy God’s sight. There is no other quarter of help that can do that for you and for me.

Whether we read through Calvin at breakneck speed or a snail’s pace, the grace of God in Jesus Christ remains the same. He is mighty to save. Mighty to save. No condemnation now I dread. I am my Lord’s and He is mine. Grace, all is of grace.

The Glory of Overlooking an Offense

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That’s what Proverbs 19:11 calls it. Glory.

Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense.

The starting place to biblical peacemaking over and over again is the glory of overlooking – choosing to forgive an offense without transacting any communication with the offending party. Proverbs calls that good sense. The Hebrew word means that which reflects prudence, insight, skillful understanding. Few things make us more insightful in relationships than the grace of overlooking offenses.

But when is overlooking appropriate?

Ken Sande suggests the following:

Overlooking is not a passive process in which you simply remain silent for the moment but file away the offense for later use against someone. That is actually a form of denial that can easily lead to brooding over the offense and building up internal bitterness and resentment that will eventually explode in anger. Instead, overlooking is an active process that is inspired by God’s mercy through the gospel. To truly overlook an offense means to deliberately decide not to talk about it, dwell on it, or let it grow into pent-up bitterness. If you cannot let go of an offense in this way, if it is too serious to overlook, or if it continues as part of a pattern in the other person’s life, then you will need to go and talk to the other person about it in a loving and constructive manner.

Overlooking offenses is appropriate under two conditions. First, the offense should not have created a wall between you and the other person or caused you to feel different toward him or her for more than a short period of time. Second, the offense should not be causing serious harm to God’s reputation, to others, or to the offender.

Taken from The Peacemaker: A Biblical Guide to Resolving Personal Conflict
by Ken Sande, Updated Edition (Grand Rapids, Baker Books, 2003) p. 83.

Whenever you can, practice the good sense of patient overlooking of offenses in others. By so doing you will reflect the glory of the gospel manifest in your life like few other things can.

No More "Nike" Christianity

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After the picnic on Sunday I crashed in front of the tube to watch the final round of the Masters golf tournament.

Have to admit, I was curious to see if Tiger would rise from the ashes and win his first major since his crash and burn.

As always he sported the Nike insignia on his person, a living billboard for the sportswear giant. Who doesn’t know the motto that goes with the logo?

I wonder how many Christians approach their spiritual lives with the same mentality. I just need to do it. I’ll just try harder. I’ll spend more time in the Bible, pray more, memorize more Scriptures, etc, etc, etc. Just do it. That’s the ticket to God’s being pleased with me.

Don’t get me wrong. These means OF grace matter. But when they become means FOR grace we’ve missed the boat altogether. Means of grace serve to connect us to the One who died for us to wipe the slate clean of the guilt of our sin AND to apply the 100% righteousness of Christ to our spiritual accounts. This is huge. It means that God looks on us and deals with us as if we had perfectly obeyed the law because Jesus obeyed it for us. He is our righteousness and we are complete in Him (Colossians 2:10). They do nothing in the way of meriting acceptance before God. There is nothing more we can do in that regard. Jesus did it all for us.

This is why we must not live a “Nike” form of Christianity, but rather a Cross-centered form of Christianity.

Lane and Tripp explain in How People Change:

Do you know what it means to live a Cross-centered life on a daily basis? Some Christians think that the Cross is what you need to become a Christian and get to heaven. They think, I need my sins forgiven so that I escape God’s judgment when I die. But once that is taken care of, what matters is that I follow Christ’s example. I need to roll up my sleeves and get to work! The tricky thing about this perspective is that it is partially correct. You do actively pursue the obedience that comes from faith (Rom. 1:5; 16:26; Gal. 5:6). You do engage in spiritual warfare! However, you are never to minimize your continuing need for the mercy and power of Christ in the process of becoming like him (emphasis added, p. 183).

This means that we need daily to keep coming back to verses like Romans 12:1 – I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. The mercies of God make us holy and acceptable in His sight. That’s why we can present our bodies to Him for His use.

We need daily to keep coming back to verses like Hebrews 10:14 – For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. Jesus’ death accomplished our perfecting in God’s sight. The tense of the verb communicates a past action with ongoing consequences. This status never changes regardless of our goof ups! It’s on that basis that we experience the ongoing transformation that is our sanctification, being made holy as He is holy.

We need daily to keep coming back to verses like Romans 8:1 – There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. But PC, I just lost my temper for the umpteenth time. I just took another look at that website I had no business clicking on. I just turned yet another time to my idol of choice for comfort in the face of temptation. What do you mean there is no condemnation for me in Christ Jesus? Just what I said. Paul’s words not mine. This deal is not about our performance; it’s about His provision.

Forget about “Nike” Christianity. Just do it gets you no where. Why not rather adopt the Cross-centered Christianity motto?

Just believe it.

I’d like somebody to make a logo for that. I’d put it on my sport shirt in a heartbeat.

The Not-So-Dreaded "P" Word

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By “P” word I mean potential.

I used to dread hearing from others, “You have so much potential.” This implied in my mind far too painfully that I still had a long way to go in more ways that I could imagine.

Lately I don’t hear that so much any more. I suspect getting older has something to do with it. If I haven’t reached my potential by age 58, well, it’s probably too late.

But today I found myself contemplating an old-friend verse of Scripture that puts the “P” word in a different light, one that a follower of Jesus and a treasurer of His gospel never outlives or grows.

Galatians 2:20 – I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

This text declares some radical things. By faith in Christ we gain more than the benefits of the cross; we get united to Christ in His death. So much so that we no longer live. That is to say that Christ doesn’t just make us new and improved persons, but that he makes us utterly different at the core.

Lane and Tripp, in their book How People Change, drive home the significance of this truth for understanding the exciting prospect of gospel potential:

When you grasp the fundamental nature of this change within you as a believer, you will begin to grasp your true potential. You are not the same as you once were. You have been forever changed. You no longer live under the weight of the law or the domination of sin. Christ’s death fulfilled the law’s requirements and broke the power of sin. You do not have to give in to sin. You can live in new ways amid the same old situations, because when Christ died physically, you died spiritually. This constitutional change is permanent! Do you view yourself with this kind of potential for a new life in Christ?

Suddenly the “P” word doesn’t look dreadful. It looks downright delightful.

Amazing Grace Behind Bars

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As I prepare today for another Lord’s Day and the challenging preaching assignment God has given me from John 12:20-26, particularly vv. 25-26, I find myself decidedly grateful for the grace of Christ and His gospel. That and that alone enables anyone to hate his life in this world that he might keep it in the next.

Reminder that only the grace of God can empower extreme devotion to Christ came to me today from some reading I did in Bryan Chapel’s excellent book, Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon. In the chapter entitled Developing Redemptive Sermons, he writes of John Bunyan, the famous hymn writer, noting how much of his theology came into focus with clarity from behind bars.

Historians tell us that one of the amazing features of the life of John Bunyan was his refusal to let prison deter him from his pursuit of ministry. The author of Pilgrim’s Progress wrote many of his most influential words while incarcerated. In fact, prison helped strengthen and galvanize much of his thought. Bunyan’s theology took more concrete form when, though facing great deprivations, he debated with fellow religious prisoners whether the assurance of God’s love promoted holiness or license. Fellow prisoners challenged Bunyan saying, “You must not keep assuring people of God’s grace because they will do whatever they want.” Bunyan responded, “That is not true for God’s people. If you keep assuring God’s people of his grace, then they will do whatever he wants” (p. 313).

Guess who is praying for grace this evening that tomorrow God will help him assure His people of His grace that they will do whatever He wants?

The Insignificance of the External

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Last Sunday we kicked off yet another edition of Discover OGC, our newcomer orientation series.

Per usual I started by presenting a brief apologetic for why church membership is biblical. I took the group to 1 Peter 2:4-5.

[4] As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, [5] you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

Peter uses the word picture of a temple, borrowing from Old Testament imagery of the Jews’ place for worshiping God, to describe the nature of the church. God is building a spiritual temple out of living stones. This describes the true nature of the church, not the sticks and bricks of a literal building.

This imagery remains a pertinent reminder as we draw now one month closer, Lord willing, to the opening of our facility on Maitland Avenue. Someone recently sent me this quote by J. C. Ryle that expresses the truth well:

Let it never be forgotten that the material part of a Christian Church is by far the least important part of it. The fairest combinations of marble, stone, wood and painted glass, are worthless in God’s sight, unless there is truth in the pulpit and grace in the congregation. The dens and caves in which the early Christians used to meet, were probably far more beautiful in the eyes of Christ than the noblest cathedral that was ever reared by man. The temple in which the Lord Jesus delights most, is a broken and contrite heart, renewed by the Holy Spirit.

Well said. May we not forget it even as we look forward to the fairest combination of materials we can assemble in a building to house our assembly of living stones.

A Greek Guide to Getting Close to Jesus (Part Two)

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Today’s message from John 20:20-26 is now on the web. You can listen to the audio here.

Here’s how I summed things up:

Following the Greeks’ lead will bring us closer to Jesus and faith in Him – similar focused intentions, personal connections, and altered perceptions – He came for the world, Jew and Gentile alike, and He saved us through His sacrificial death for its sins and that only. Satan didn’t win the battle with Christ’s death; God did by raising and glorifying His Son.

May the Lord give us grace to seek Jesus and draw close to Him with rightly framed perceptions about Himself as the Messiah!

Among Masculinity's Greatest Excitements

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Most exciting things about manhood?

Easy.

Hunting, fishing, shooting, football, basketball, baseball, most other balls, biking (motorized or mountain), climbing, diving, flying, camping, riding, cooking (hey, it’s my list), lots of things.

Oh, did I say hunting?

But what about holiness?

You want to put spiritual growth on a list of masculinity’s greatest excitements?!

Richard Phillips does in his book The Masculine Mandate. He argues from 2 Corinthians 3:18 this way:

God is increasingly working His own glory into us degree after degree, and He is doing this by the ministry of the Holy Spirit, whom God has sent to make us increasingly holy.

One of the most exciting things in my life is my growth in holiness, called sanctification, which the Bible identifies as the glory of God in me. . . . How exciting that God is working in me with the power of His Holy Spirit, to make me more like Him. What I am now is not all there is–praise the Lord. There is increased glory ahead for me, as God works in me through His word and through prayer by the power of His mighty Spirit (p. 38).

This Saturday Oxford Club for Men at OGC continues its study of Phillips’ book in chapter four, Man As the Image of God.

It’s not too late to get in on the action. Join us at 7 AM at the church office this Saturday for a bring-your-own breakfast and group discussion.

You might end up putting your experience of the doctrine of sanctification up there along side or even above dressing a white tail deer as a result.