Gospel

Living & Loving to Please God

/ Dennis Griffith / 5 Comments

Steve Brown, professor at Reformed Theological Seminary and president of Key Life Network, penned a marvelous word picture of the motive and expression of a life gripped by God’s grace:

When I became a Christian, two things happened. I got saved, and I got loved.  I got loved so deeply that it still amazes me when I think about it. Because I got loved so deeply, I want to please the One who loved me that much. I may not always please him – sometimes I even run in the other direction, because his love can really hurt.  I may chafe against pleasing him; I may not even speak to him. But I’ll tell you something: I want to please him, and when I don’t please him, it hurts. Now if I really want to please him, I must know what pleases him. I find that out by reading the Word and listening to his commandments. When I know what he wants, I want what he wants. Love does that to you.  But I must know what he wants. That is why we must never soften the teaching of the Law of God. Holiness is a very important teaching as long as it is given in the context of God’s love.

~ from When Being Good Isn’t Good Enough

Transforming Power of the Gospel

/ Dennis Griffith / Leave a comment
“The good news of the Kingdom is that our King has won a marvelous victory for us. Through his sinless life, sacrificial death as our substitute, resurrection, and ascension, he has not only conquered death for us, removing its penalty, but he has also conquered sin’s power over us… Now through repentance faith, God means for us to tap into the powerful victory of our King, so that we might be transformed into true worshippers of God and more authentic lovers of people… Through faith we are always to be placing our affections on Christ”.

NOTE: This quote was taken from Steve Childers‘ unpublished paper True Spirituality: The Transforming Power of the Gospel. Steve is president of Global Church Advancement and professor at Reformed Theological Seminary – Orlando.  The whole article is well worth reading, and can be accessed and downloaded from GCA web page. Click: True Spirituality

Gospel-Driven Sanctification

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

by Jerry Bridges 

Early in my Christian life I heard someone say, “The Bible was not given to increase your knowledge but to guide your conduct.” Later I came to realize that this statement was simplistic at best and erroneous at worst. The Bible is far more than a rulebook to follow. It is primarily the message of God’s saving grace through Jesus Christ, with everything in Scripture before the cross pointing to God’s redemptive work and everything after the cross–including our sanctification–flowing from that work.

There is an element of truth in this statement, however, and the Holy Spirit used it to help me to see that the Bible is not to be read just to gain knowledge. It is, indeed, to be obeyed and practically applied in our daily lives. As James says, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (James 1:22).

With my new insight, I prayed that God would use the Bible to guide my conduct. Then I began diligently to seek to obey it. I had never heard the phrase “the pursuit of holiness,” but that became my primary goal in life. Unfortunately, I made two mistakes. First, I assumed the Bible was something of a rulebook and that all I needed to do was to learn what it says and go do it. I knew nothing of the necessity of depending on the Holy Spirit for his guidance and enablement.

Still worse, I assumed that God’s acceptance of me and his blessing in my life depended on how well I did. I knew I was saved by grace through faith in Christ apart from any works. I had assurance of my salvation and expected to go to heaven when I died. But in my daily life, I thought God’s blessing depended on the practice of certain spiritual disciplines, such as having a daily quiet time and not knowingly committing any sin. I did not think this out but just unconsciously assumed it, given the Christian culture in which I lived. Yet it determined my attitude toward the Christian life.

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Ways of Grace

/ Dennis Griffith / 2 Comments

We will never find God unless he first seeks us, but we should remember that he can do so in very different ways.  Sometimes, God jumps on us dramatically, as he does with the younger son, and we have a sharp sense of his love.  Sometimes he quietly and patiently argues with us even though we continue to turn away, as in the case of the older son.

How can you tell if he is working on you now? If you begin to sense your lostness and finding yourself wanting to escape it, you should realize that that desire is not something you could have generated on your own.  Such a process requires Help, and if it is happening it is a good indication that he is even now on your side.

~ Tim Keller, from The Prodigal God

The Therapeutic Gospel

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

What may be the most famous chapter in all of western literature portrays the appeal of a “therapeutic gospel.”

In his chapter entitled “The Grand Inquisitor,” Fyodor Dostoevsky imagines Jesus returning to sixteenth century Spain (The Brothers Karamazov, II:5:v). But Jesus is not welcomed by church authorities. The cardinal of Seville, head of the Inquisition, arrests and imprisons Jesus, condemning him to die. Why? The church has shifted course. It has decided to meet instinctual human cravings, rather than calling men to repentance. It has decided to bend its message to felt needs, rather than calling forth the high, holy, and difficult freedom of faith working through love. Jesus’ biblical example and message are deemed too hard for weak souls, and the church has decided to make it easy.

The Grand Inquisitor, representing the voice of this misguided church, interrogates Jesus in his prison cell. He sides with the tempter and the three questions the tempter put to Jesus in the wilderness centuries before. He says that the church will give earthly bread instead of the bread of heaven. It will offer religious magic and miracles instead of faith in the Word of God. It will exert temporal power and authority instead of serving the call to freedom. “We have corrected Your work,” the inquisitor says to Jesus.

The inquisitor’s gospel is a therapeutic gospel. It’s structured to give people what they want, not to change what they want. It centers exclusively around the welfare of man and temporal happiness. It discards the glory of God in Christ. It forfeits the narrow, difficult road that brings deep human flourishing and eternal joy. This therapeutic gospel accepts and covers for human weaknesses, seeking to ameliorate the most obvious symptoms of distress. It makes people feel better. It takes human nature as a given, because human nature is too hard to change. It does not want the King of Heaven to come down. It does not attempt to change people into lovers of God, given the truth of who Jesus is, what he is like, what he does.

THE CONTEMPORARY THERAPEUTIC GOSPEL

The most obvious, instinctual felt needs of twenty-first century, middle-class Americans are different from the felt needs that Dostoevsky tapped into. We take food supply and political stability for granted. We find our miracle-substitute in the wonders of technology. Middle-class felt needs are less primal. They express a more luxurious, more refined sense of self-interest:

  • I want to feel loved for who I am, to be pitied for what I’ve gone through, to feel intimately understood, to be accepted unconditionally;
  • I want to experience a sense of personal significance and meaningfulness, to be successful in my career, to know my life matters, to have an impact;
  • I want to gain self-esteem, to affirm that I am okay, to be able to assert my opinions and desires;
  • I want to be entertained, to feel pleasure in the endless stream of performances that delight my eyes and tickle my ears;
  • I want a sense of adventure, excitement, action, and passion so that I experience life as thrilling and moving.

The modern, middle-class version of therapeutic gospel takes its cues from this particular family of desires. We might say that the target audience consists of psychological felt needs, rather than the physical felt needs that typically arise in difficult social conditions. (The contemporary “health and wealth” gospel and obsession with “miracles” express something more like the Grand Inquisitor’s older version of therapeutic gospel.)

In this new gospel, the great “evils” to be redressed do not call for any fundamental change of direction in the human heart. Instead, the problem lies in my sense of rejection from others; in my corrosive experience of life’s vanity; in my nervous sense of self-condemnation and diffidence; in the imminent threat of boredom if my music is turned off; in my fussy complaints when a long, hard road lies ahead. These are today’s significant felt needs that the gospel is bent to serve. Jesus and the church exist to make you feel loved, significant, validated, entertained, and charged up. This gospel ameliorates distressing symptoms. It makes you feel better. The logic of this therapeutic gospel is a jesus-for-Me who meets individual desires and assuages psychic aches.

The therapeutic outlook is not a bad thing in its proper place. By definition, a medical-therapeutic gaze holds in view problems of physical suffering and breakdown. In literal medical intervention, a therapy treats an illness, trauma, or deficiency. You don’t call someone to repentance for their colon cancer, broken leg, or beriberi. You seek to heal. So far, so good.

But in today’s therapeutic gospel the medical way of looking at the world is metaphorically extended to these psychological desires. These are defined just like a medical problem. You feel bad; the therapy makes you feel better. The definition of the disease bypasses the sinful human heart. You are not the agent of your deepest problems, but merely a sufferer and victim of unmet needs. The offer of a cure skips over the sin-bearing Savior. Repentance from unbelief, willfulness, and wickedness is not the issue. Sinners are not called to a U-turn and to a new life that is life indeed. Such a gospel massages self-love. There is nothing in its inner logic to make you love God and love any other person besides yourself. This therapeutic gospel may often mention the word “Jesus,” but he has morphed into the meeter-of-your-needs, not the Savior from your sins. It corrects Jesus’ work. The therapeutic gospel unhinges the gospel.

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Gospel Fluency pt 2

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

I have been listening these past few days to the audio of Jeff Vanderstelt on Gospel Fluency.  The concept of Gospel Fluency is simply to learn to speak the language of the gospel, and gospel-centeredness, in every aspect of our everyday lives.

Like any language, the the vernacular surrounding gospel-centeredness may initially feel somewhat foreign, with all the theological concepts and jargon.  Compounding the uneasyness may be the fact that some of the words sound familiar, still it is not our native tongue. The only remedy, the only way to become fluent, is to immerse ourselves  in it.

In this second video Jeff builds upon a solid foundation of gospel understanding, and outlines the practical steps toward Gospel Fluency.  The message is just over one hour, but it will be an hour well spent.

I don’t know the dates and details yet, I do know Gospel Fluency will soon be released as a book.

Gospel Fluency pt 1

/ Dennis Griffith / Leave a comment

I have been listening these past few days to the audio of Jeff Vanderstelt on Gospel Fluency.  The concept of Gospel Fluency is simply to learn to speak the language of the gospel, and gospel-centeredness, in every aspect of our everyday lives.

Like any language, the the vernacular surrounding gospel-centeredness may initially feel somewhat foreign, with all the theological concepts and jargon.  Compounding the uneasyness may be the fact that some of the words sound familiar, still it is not our native tongue. The only remedy, the only way to become fluent, is to immerse ourselves  in it.

In this first video Jeff introduces the concept of Gospel Fluency, and lays a firm foundation of gospel understanding.  The message is just over one hour, but it will be an hour well spent.

I don’t know the dates and details yet, I do know Gospel Fluency will soon be released as a book.

The Determining Factor

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

In his magnificent and practical work, Spiritual Depression, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones provides this wonderful description of the dynamics of genuine Christianity:

“The determining factor in our relationship with God is not our past or present, but Christ’s past and present.”

‘How then does it work?’ It works like this. God accepts this righteousness of Christ, this perfect righteousness face to face with the Law, which He honored in every respect. He has kept it and given obedience to it [through his perfect life], and he has borne its penalty [through his death]. The Law is fully satisfied. God’s way of salvation, says Paul, is that. He gives to us the righteousness of Christ. If we have seen our need and go to God and confess it, God will give us his own Son’s righteousness. He imputes Christ’s righteousness to us, who believe in Him, and regards us as righteous, and declares and pronounces us to be righteous in Him. That is the way of salvation, the Christian way of salvation…

To make it quite practical let me say that there is a very simple way of testing yourself to know whether you believe that… [After] I have explained the way of justification…to them, then I say: ‘Well, then, you are now ready to say that you are a Christian?’ And they hesitate. And I know they have not understood. Then I say: ‘What is the matter, why are you hesitating?’ And they say: ‘I do not feel that I am good enough.’ At once I know that in a sense I have been wasting my breath. They are still thinking in terms of themselves; their idea still is that they have to make themselves good enough to be a Christian, good enough to be accepted with Christ. They have to do it! ‘I am not good enough.’ It sounds very modest, but it is the lie of the devil, it is a denial of the faith… The essence of the Christian faith is to say that He is good enough and that I am in Him!
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As long as you go on thinking about yourself and saying: ‘Ah, yes, I would like to, but I am not good enough; I am a sinner, a great sinner,’ you are denying God and you will never be happy. You will continue to be cast down and disquieted. You will think you are better at times and then again you will find that you are not as good as you thought you were… How can I put this plainly? It does not matter if you have almost entered into the depths of hell, if you are guilty of murder as well as every other vile sin, it does not matter from the standpoint of being justified before God. You are no more hopeless than the most respectable…person in the world. Do you believe that?” 

When God Speaks…Things Happen

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

In 2 Corinthians 4.6 Paul reveals a correlation between the Gospel and Creation:

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.

In other words, as Tim Chester helped me see:

At creation God spoke a word into darkness, and there was light. He spoke a word into chaos and there was beauty.  And now God speaks a word through the Gospel…

  • He speaks into the darkness of our hearts, and there is light.
  • He speaks into the chaos of our lives, and there is beauty.

How Faith Speaks

/ Dennis Griffith / 2 Comments

“We can put it this way: the man who has faith is the man who is no longer looking at himself and no longer looking to himself.  He no longer looks at anything he once was.  He does not look at what he is now.  He does not even look at what he hopes to be as the result of his own efforts.  He looks entirely to the Lord Jesus Christ and His finished work, and rests on that alone.  He has ceased to say, ‘Ah yes, I have committed terrible sins but I have done this and that…’  He stops saying that. If he goes on saying that, he has not got faith…Faith speaks in an entirely different manner and makes a man say, ‘Yes I have sinned grievously, I have lived a life of sin…yet I know that I am a child of God because I am not resting on any righteousness of my own; my righteousness is in Jesus Christ and God has put that to my account.”

~ Martin Lloyd-Jones

Gospel from Mars Hill

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

The gospel is like a multifaceted jewel.  Descriptions of it vary but the substance is never altered.  Our appreciation for it’s beauty is enhanced by viewing it from it’s different aspects.  We also see things fresh through the eyes of others, as we understand what they are seeing. For that reason I value whenever I encounter a rich and faithful explanation of the gospel.

The following explanation comes from Mars Hill Church in Seattle:

“Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures . . .”  ~ 1 Corinthians 15.1–4

What is the Gospel?

The word gospel simply means “good news.” The central message of the Bible is the gospel, or good news, about the person and work of Jesus Christ. In 1 Corinthians 15.1–4, Paul provides the most succinct summary of the gospel: the man Jesus is also God, or Christ, and died on a cross in our place, paying the penalty for our sins; three days later He rose to conquer sin and death and give the gift of salvation to all who believe in Him alone for eternal life.

The great reformer Martin Luther rightly said that, as sinners, we are prone to pursue a relationship with God in one of two ways. The first is religion/spirituality and the second is the gospel. The two are antithetical in every way.

  • Religion says that if we obey God He will love us.
  • The gospel says that it is because God has loved us through Jesus that we can obey.
  • Religion says that the world is filled with good people and bad people.
  • The gospel says that the world is filled with bad people who are either repentant or unrepentant.
  • Religion says that you should trust in what you do as a good moral person.
  • The gospel says that you should trust in the perfectly sinless life of Jesus because He alone is the only good and truly moral person who will ever live.
  • The goal of religion is to get from God such things as health, wealth, insight, power, and control.
  • The goal of the gospel is not the gifts God gives, but rather God as the gift given to us by grace.
  • Religion is about what I have to do.
  • The gospel is about what I get to do.
  • Religion sees hardship in life as punishment from God.
  • The gospel sees hardship in life as sanctifying affliction that reminds us of Jesus’ sufferings and is used by God in love to make us more like Jesus.
  • Religion is about me.
  • The gospel is about Jesus.
  • Religion leads to an uncertainty about my standing before God because I never know if I have done enough to please God.
  • The gospel leads to a certainty about my standing before God because of the finished work of Jesus on my behalf on the cross.
  • Religion ends in either pride (because I think I am better than other people) or despair (because I continually fall short of God’s commands).
  • The gospel ends in humble and confident joy because of the power of Jesus at work for me, in me, through me, and sometimes in spite of me.

This is the gospel.

Legalism in Light of the Gospel

/ Dennis Griffith / 3 Comments

In light of the gospel, let me especially demolish the myth that legalism is a blunder that’s associated only with our initial salvation—with our positional justification in God’s eyes. Most believers realize we could never earn such salvation; we’ve come to accept that no one can work his way into God’s kingdom… .

But when it comes to our sanctification, suddenly we become legalists. In the matter of maturing in Christlikeness—and in continuing to please God and find favor with God and acceptance with God—we suppose it’s all about what we have to accomplish ourselves and all the rules and standards and values we need to adhere to. We seem to inherently assume that our performance is what will finally determine whether our relationship with God is good or bad: so much good behavior from us generates so much affection from God, or so much bad behavior from us generates so much anger from God.

We get the Christian life all backwards. It subtly becomes all about us and what we do (which leads to slavery) instead of being all about Jesus and what he’s done (which leads to freedom). We may not articulate all this theologically, but it sure comes out in the way we live.

By their behavior, legalists essentially are saying this: “I live the Christian life by the rules—rules that I establish for myself as well as those I expect others to abide by.” They develop specific requirements of behavior beyond what the Bible teaches, and they make observance of those requirements the means by which they judge the acceptability of others in the church.

We’ve all become pretty adept at establishing these rules and standards that we find personally achievable. Legalism therefore provides us with a way to avoid acknowledging our deficiencies and our inabilities. That’s enough right there to make it attractive to us. But it’s also appealing to us in how it puffs us up, giving us the illusion … that we can do it—we can generate our own meaning, our own purpose, our own security, and all our other inmost needs. It’s what Michael Horton pinpoints as “the default setting of the human heart: the religion of self-salvation.”

It’s all so attractive because it’s all about us. Legalism feeds our natural pride. While abiding by our self-established standards and rules, we think pretty highly of ourselves …. And what’s especially fine about being in charge of our situation (though we wouldn’t admit it) is that it’s a way to avoid Jesus.

~ Tullian Tchividjian, from Jesus + Nothing = Everything