Gospel-Centered

Sad State of Evangelicalism

/ Dennis Griffith / Leave a comment

Broken Cross

An excellent, “must read”, article by Mark Galli for Christianity Today:  The Troubled State of Christian Preaching.  This is a great example of a “I Wish I’d Said That”.  All of Galli’s insight resonate …

Here is the gist of Galli’s tought, set within the context of the Presidential Inauguration and Louie Giglio being put on the un-invite list:

Even when we try to make Jesus first, we end up inadvertently making ourselves first.   …Unfortunately, in a desire to reach the world for Christ, some inadvertently …make much about our ultimate significance. Jesus becomes merely the means by which we feel better about our place in the universe. Need purpose and meaning? Follow Jesus, that will do the trick. In this subtle shift, we become the first and the last, the Alpha and the Omega.

2 Mistakes Christians Make

/ Dennis Griffith / Leave a comment

Redemption Acccomplished But Not Applied

People tend to make two mistakes when they think about the redeemed life. The first is to underestimate the sin that remains in us; it’s still there and it can still hurt us. The second is to underestimate the strength of God’s grace; God is determined to make us new. As a result, all Christians need to say two things. We admit that we are redeemed sinners. But we also say boldly and joyously that we are redeemed sinners.

~ from Cornelius Plantings, in Beyond Doubt

The Difference That Makes All the Difference

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

Francis Schaeffer, of his own testimony, writes:

“I became a Christian once for all upon the basis of the finished work of Christ through faith; that is justification. The Christian life, sanctification, operates on the same basis, but moment by moment. There is the same base (Christ’s work) and the same instrument (faith); the only difference is that one is once for all and the other is moment by moment…  If we try to live the Christian life in our own strength we will have sorrow, but if we live in this way, we will not only serve the Lord, but in place of sorrow, He will be our song. That is the difference. The ‘how’ of the Christian life is the power of the crucified and risen Lord, through the agency of the indwelling Holy Spirit, by faith moment by moment.”

An important -even essential – distinction. It’s not just for the sake of doctrinal precision. It makes all the difference in how we live out our lives.

Center Church

/ Dennis Griffith / 7 Comments

I picked up Tim Keller‘s newest book, Center Church.  It hit the bookstore shelves this morning.  I have as yet read only a few chapters. But as expected it is an excellent expression of holistic gospel-centered ministry.  In short it is a book about forming a Theological Vision for ministry, and living out that vision faithfully in whatever context one may live and serve in such a way as to be fruitful.

In particular I appreciate how from the outset Keller explains the difference and navigates between the two common ministry measuring sticks, success & faithfulness.  It seems to me that too many act as if we should assume these are mutually exclusive  – as if either is a sufficient goal or gauge.  Keller instead prefers fruitfulness, seeing both benefits and limitations of success and faithfulness as the simple objectives.  Fruitfulness is the end result of the complex web of faithfulness, competence, and the work of God’s Spirit. Success, whatever that really is, is not eschewed, but seen in light of the components of fruitfulness within a particular social context.

Now while I have not read the entire book, I did have one criticism from the outset.  While the book is less than 400 pages, and the chapters are easily readable (in other words, one need not be a theological scholar to follow along), the size of the book has the odd dimensions of a textbook.  This will look strange among most of the other books on my shelf.  But, I guess, if that remains my chief gripe, there is not much to complain about.

Paradoxes of Grace

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

In his excellent, perspective shaping book, Broken-Down House, Paul Tripp reflects some of the amazing paradoxes of the gospel.  Take some time to ponder these; feel the tension. This is what genuine grace is and does:

So grace is a story and grace is a gift. It is God’s character and it is your hope. Grace is a transforming tool and a state of relationship. Grace is a theology and an invitation. Grace is an experience and a calling. Grace will turn your life upside-down while giving you a rest you have never known. Grace will convince you of your unworthiness without ever making you feel unloved.

Grace will make you acknowledge that you cannot earn God’s favor, and it will remove your fear of not measuring up to his standards. Grace will confront you with the fact that you are much less than you thought you were, even as it assures you that you can be far more than you had ever imagined. Grace will put you in your place without ever putting you down.

Grace will enable you to face truths about yourself that you have hesitated to consider, while freeing you from being self-consciously introspective. Grace will confront you with profound weaknesses, and at the same time introduce you to new-found strength. Grace will tell you what you aren’t, while welcoming you to what you can now be. Grace will make you as uncomfortable as you have ever been, while offering you more comfort than you have ever known. Grace will drive you to the end of yourself, while it invites you to fresh starts and new beginnings. Grace will dash your hopes, but never leave you hopeless. Grace will decimate your kingdom as it introduces you to a better King. Grace will expose your blindness as it gives you eyes to see. Grace will make you sadder than you have ever been, while it gives you greater cause for celebration than you have ever known.

Grace enters your life in a moment and will occupy you for eternity. You simply cannot live a productive life in this broken-down world unless you have a practical grasp of the grace you have been given [in Christ].

What If We Omitted Gospel, Community, or Mission?

/ Dennis Griffith / 3 Comments

The refrain from an old song says: “Two out of three ain’t bad.”  But would this be true for a church, or a Christian, who incorporates 2 out of 3 of the core values: Gospel, Community, Mission?

Consider these thoughts, framed as a mathematical equation:

Gospel + Community – Mission

If we have a Gospel Community, without the mission or ‘sent’ aspect in our DNA, then we become a church that is all about ourselves.  We may love the gospel, and love that the good news has impacted our minds, and even desire to live that out with other people like us.  But living as ‘sent ones’ to our neighborhood seems too difficult.  When this happens a Christian ghetto surrounds the church, and an “us vs them” mentality is created.  This misses the entire point of the “go” in Christ’s great commission. (Matthew 28.17-21)

Such communities of believers are often very good at living as gospel families.  They take care of each other well: they provide for one anothers’ needs, and they draw very close to one another. But the lack of  engagement with the world, and and absence of multiplication,  is  vividly evident.  Sometimes such an inward focus is even worn as a badge of honor, since it may be believed by our isolation we are not being ‘polluted’ by the world.

Such communities usually have a heavy emphasis on bible studies, men’s groups, women’s group, children’s programs, etc.  The groups will usually have an “open invitation” to those on the outside. But because they don’t believe they are “sent” to their community, they rarely see disciples made of the un-churched people around them.   Numerical growth typically comes from like-minded people moving into their area, or through having children, or stealing the members from other churches that may offer fewer activities or which may be going through some turbulent times.  Rarely will they be faced with the general public pushing into the Kingdom, because they never engage general public with the gospel message outside the walls of their church building.

The overall goal is usually to prompt a great understanding of the Word and theology, but it is often intellectually gluttonous and missionally starved… because the reason for the Word and theology is to drive us to glorify God and show us our role in God’s redemptive drama.  If it’s not being used towards that end then it’s being misused.

Continue reading →

Take a Repentance Tri-p

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

On a few occasions I have posted some thoughts and things about the concept of Tri-Perspectivalism.  Tri-Perspectivalism (or, as some call it, Tri-P) is a fancy word for the simple concept of looking at our spiritual lives, and the ministry of our churches, from three distinct perspectives.  Introduced by John Frame and Vern Poythress’ monumental work on the nature of knowledge, known as perspectivalism, the concept of Tri-P simply reminds us that Jesus perfectly embodies God’s authority, compassion, and wisdom, and expresses these through his offices of prophet, priest, and king, respectively. Guys like Dick Kauffman, David Fairchild, and Drew Goodmanson, among others, have provided significant insight about how Tri-P can be – and should be – applied to build well-balanced and gospel-centered ministry teams and congregations

I like the way a guy named Will Little summarizes the perspectives reflected by each office:

  • Prophets enjoy studying the Word of God, protecting sound doctrine, and preaching/teaching others about God with influential passion and enormous vision.
  • Priests appreciate and understand the needs of people, counsel them toward the Gospel, and get intimately involved with caring for the church and those around it.
  • Kings love to plan, organize, and implement systems in order to get things done on time (and within budget).

Will recently composed an article for The Resurgence, titled Triperspectival Repentance, where he warns about some dangers of misapplying this concept, particularly agianst the notion of using Tri-P as a personality or temperment label, like a DISC or Myers-Briggs; and where he explores how we can deepen (if that is the right word) our experience and expressions of repentance when we see ourselves – or rather when we see Jesus more fully – though the lenses of Tri-P.

Little points out how misuse of Tri-P can easily feed the commonly held counterfeit gospel of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism that is plaguing the contemporary church:

  • Morality: The Prophet’s Idol.

In their flesh, prophets preach graceless rule-following, or stale doctrine, for the purpose of good behavior and/or right belief.  They will themselves be prone to derive identity and joy from success at (and control over) their personal legalisms rather than in those of God, our ultimate authority.

  • Therapy: The Priest’s Idol.

Apart from the Spirit, priests will preach the value of emotional stability and felt needs being met over truth being proclaimed. They will miss Christ’s gospel and fall into liberalism as they derive identity and joy from counseling, serving, and caring for people, rather than the person and work of God, the Wonderful Counselor.

  • Deism: The King’s Idol.

Kings are prone cast vision for numbers, systems, and goals. When detached from the gospel these things are often for the purpose of success rather than or more than for resting in the King of kings. King-types will succumb to deriving identity and joy from getting things done, as if God were a distant deity who isn’t involved in getting things done on our behalf.  (See Psalm 127.1)

Martin Luther, in the first premise of his 95 Theses, observed:

“When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’ (Mt. 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” 

With this in mind, Little points out that ultimately, repentance is God’s work of changing us to focus on God, rather than on our measly attempts at performing, whether theologizing, rule-following, serving people, or getting things done. As we focus on God, we can deepen our lives of repentance by perceiving him more completely than we do now.

  • Prophets easily perceive God as the Word of God, fulfilled and embodied in Jesus as the perfect voice, vision, and revelation of God. Prophets can repent by meditating on God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, resting in the most powerful prophet, and by seeing Jesus as our perfect King and priest.
  • Priests easily perceive God as the Wonderful Counselor, working intimately as the Holy Spirit as the perfect servant of God. Priests can repent by meditating on God the Father and God the Son, resting in the most compassionate priest, and by seeing Jesus as our perfect prophet and King.
  • Kings easily perceive God as the King of kings, ruling and reigning with the authority of a perfect Father who plans, organizes, implements, and manages the universe. Kings can repent by meditating on God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, resting in the most organized King, and by seeing Jesus as our perfect prophet and priest.

Little concludes with wonderful application:

Too often, we reduce TriP into three buckets, give ourselves a 20-50-30 percentage breakdown (or whatever) and then work to improve our scores to try and be more like Jesus. But remember, “It is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Phil. 2:13) If we focus on ourselves, we miss the whole point. We can instead see our gaps in the three buckets as opportunities to repent and perceive Jesus’ whole gospel, loving in deed and in truth (1 John 3:18), resting in the God who saves us and shapes us to image him as he sees fit.

Gospel-centered Foundation

/ Dennis Griffith / 2 Comments

Tom Wood and Scott Thomas explain the essence and importance of being truly gospel-centered:

We are persuaded that the gospel must be the central foundation for effective, God-honoring biblical [leadership].  It is imperative, therefore, that we know what the gospel is and how it informs our practices. Terms like justification, adoption, sanctification, and sin are often clearly defined in several historical church documents, creeds, and confessions of the church. But there are surprisingly few classical definitions of the gospel.

There is a reason for this.  Some have attempted to distill the deep truths of the gospel in terms of laws (the “Four Spiritual Laws, for example) or have tried to visually illustrate the message by means of a bridge.  Others summarize the main points with headings like: God, Sin, Christ, and Faith, or by giving the high points of the story arc of the Bible.  This approach communicates the gospel through movements in redemptive history and is often summarized by creation, sin, and redemption, or by creation, fall, redemption, and restoration.

In truth, the gospel is more of a story than a simple definition.  In order to really grasp the gospel message, you have to immerse yourself in the narratives of the Bible, because transforming faith is more than just a statement that we accept; it is something that connects with both our minds and our hearts. It is a true story, rich with drama, action, and eternal significance.

This passage is excerpted from their excellent book, Gospel Coach.

Recovering the Grand Cosmic Significance

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

“We need to recover the grand, cosmic significance of Jesus’ saving activity that moves the gospel out of the narrow realm of self-preoccupation. One of the marvelous things about the gospel is that He has saved us so that we can be a part of His redeeming activity. The gospel, properly understood, is much broader than our concerns for personal survival, security, significance, success, or even self-centered sanctification. It presents us with a plunderer, and it bids us to throw ourselves away in the pursuit of this new world order.”

~ Bob Heppe

For Love of the Savior

/ Dennis Griffith / 2 Comments

“What ultimately keeps our motives biblically prioritized and holy before God is the profound conviction that obeying God will merit us nothing. This is why Jesus tells us that, when we have done all that we should do, we are still unprofitable servants. Jesus does not nullify the value of duty in order to dissuade us from serving God, but to keep is from depending on duty to gain God’s acceptance. When we understand that our works in themselves earn us no merit with God, then the only reason to do those works is love for Him. Thus we learn to serve God not for personal gain but for His glory – not for love of self but for love of the Savior.”

~ Bryan Chapell

Diving Deep Into Gospel-Centered Living

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

Last week I confessed my envy of a book written by J.D. Greear, Gospel: Recovering the Power that Made Christianity Revolutionary.  I admitted that I wish I had written the book.  Here, in J.D.’s words, is a synopsis of Gospel-centered Christianity that expresses exactly what I would want to communicate to everyone in my church, to everyone who reads this blog, to everyone who I encounter:

Living a life centered on the gospel is not about praying the Sinner’s Prayer to make sure you’re going to heaven and then learning a bunch of new principles to master the Christian life.  Gospel-centeredness is about saturating your heart in the good news of Jesus – letting it so remake your mind so that you see everything about yourself and your life through its lens.

Growth in grace is not going beyond the gospel, but deeper into it.

Make the gospel the center of your life. Turn to it when you are in pain. Let it be the foundation of your identity. Ground your confidence in it. Run to it when your soul feels restless. Take solace there in times of confusion and comfort there in times of regret. Dwell on it until righteous passions for God spring up within you. Let it inspire you to God-centered, death-defying dreams for his glory.

My soul has found its resting place. No longer do I struggle, in anguish, over what I must do for God to be pleased with me. Christ has accomplished it all on my behalf. I can add nothing to it, and I can take nothing away.  I have a lot of room to grow in my Christian life, but my position in Him is secure.

Having found (or better yet, been found by) Him, and overwhelmed at his grace, my heart is growing in love for him and others. Generosity is like a stream that flows ever stronger in my heart.  I give away more money now than I ever have, not because I have to, but because I want to. I think about myself less now than I ever have – mainly because I have found a greater, more captivating kingdom to live for than my own. The splendor of his Kingdom has made me bored with mine.

So I invite you to dive deeper into the gospel. Study it deeply – [not just] like a seminarian studies doctrine, but like you study a sunset that leaves you speechless; or like a man who is passionately in love with his wife studies her, until he is so captivated by her that his enthrallment with her drives out any allurement toward other women.

The gospel is not merely the diving board off of which you jump into the pool of Christianity; the gospel is the pool itself. So keep going deeper into it. You will never find the bottom.

Centering Our Lives On Something

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

“Since we are made to worship, we are always centering our lives on something whether we realize it or not.  It is like a fire hose that is stuck in the ‘on’ position and shooting water out endlessly with great force. We must decide where we aim the hose as the focus of our worship. The idols of our modern world are not necessarily the hand-carved statues of the ancient world.  In our autonomous self-seeking ways, people have instead come to serve or worship the self-erected idols of approval, comfort, and security.  We must ruthlessly inspect the sin in our heart for these idols… so it is vital that [we] get to the heart. As Tim Keller puts it, ‘The solution to our sin problem is not simply to change our behavior, but to reorient and center our entire heart and life on God.’  Therefore, we must go after the nature of the sin by going after its root and not just the fruit of the sin. Oftentimes people repent of sin that is simply the fruit of the idols in their hearts. We must find out the why of the behavior and not just the what”.

~Tom Wood & Scott Thomas, Gospel Coach

From Graced Again

Children of God With Orphan Mentalities

/ Dennis Griffith / 2 Comments

There is a scene I recall from Little Orphan Annie worth taking note.  Annie has just arrived at her new home, a virtual palace that has been set up for her and for her enjoyment by her adopted father, Daddy Warbucks.  Upon entering the foyer, with household staff lined up to greet and welcome her, Annie gazes at her new surroundings.  Daddy Warbucks asks: “What do you think, Annie?”  “It’s beautiful”, she replies.  “Well, where do you want to begin?”  She muses for a moment, then shrugs her shoulders: “Bring me a bucket. I will start with the stairs.”

This scene presents a vivid illustration of the way many Christians, those adopted by God the Father through the blood of Jesus the Son, view life and their relationship with our Redeemer-Creator.

Jesus makes the promise:

“I will not leave you as orphans.” (John 14.18)

Yet, like Annie, we are conditioned to think like orphans and feel we must do something to earn our keep, or else face some kind of rejection.  Even if our theology tells us otherwise, this is a common dilemma.  This cognitive dissonance is the difference between our confessional faith and our functional faith.

What does it look like to be a Child of God with an Orphan Mentality?  Consider the distinctions from the two lists below:

ORPHAN FAITH

  • Confidence in Self, People, and/or Circumstances
  • Confidence constantly shaken by disappointments with circumstances, people, or self.
  • Fears increase through life; fears fluctuate depending upon circumstances.
  • Confused handling of criticism from others – moving back and forth between denial/self justification and self flagellation/discouragement/depression.
  • Gossip and lack of tongue control reveals defensiveness and judgmental attitudes.
  • Lifestyle characterized by insecurities, jealousies, and concealed grudges.
  • Ignorance of the potency of prayer in securing the Spirit’s presence and power.
  • Purpose of life is living for our significance (sometimes even erroneously basing our identity & reputation on Christian endeavors & successes rather than in our Union with Christ…) and/or our own comfort.

SONSHIP FAITH

  • Confidence in Christ ALONE.
  • Confidence in Christ increases even as self, people, and/or circumstances disappoint.
  • Fears are increasingly overcome by faith and love.
  • Sifting through criticisms, and discerning in light of the gospel, rejecting false and misplaced allegations, while accepting valid criticisms, finding even the kernels of truth in them, and repenting of sin while believing the gospel anew.
  • Speak the language of Praise to the Father, affirmation of others and, when wronged, forgiveness & reconciliation (directly to the persons involved whenever appropriate).
  • Gospel is made the center of motivations and the basis for behavior.
  • Lifestyle characterized by forgiveness, blessing, and prayer for our enemies and those who have wronged us.
  • Understanding the potency of prayer in securing the Spirit’s presence and power.
  • Purpose in life is to discover true happiness, and understands that true happiness is found in laying down life for Christ and for others.

As we think through these two lists we will likely notice, if we are honest with ourselves, that even on our better days we have characteristics of both, or that we fluctuate between them.  This is not cause to despair, but rather opportunity to believe anew what Jesus has done for us.  Don’t make the mistake of unreflectively assuming and assigning to self only the better qualities.  The psalmists provide us with a model worth emulating of raw honesty – both confessing and believing.   Honest reflection is the essence of spiritual authenticity and genuine vitality.