This is the Christ (Christmas)
A Christmas Creed
I believe in Jesus Christ and in the beauty of the gospel begun in Bethlehem.
I believe in the one whose spirit glorified a little town; and whose spirit still brings music to persons all over the world, in towns both large and small.
I believe in the one for whom the crowded inn could find no room, and I confess that my heart still sometimes wants to exclude Christ from my life today.
I believe in the one who the rulers of the earth ignored and the proud could never understand; whose life was among common people, whose welcome came from persons of hungry hearts.
I believe in the one who proclaimed the love of God to be invincible.
I believe in the one whose cradle was a mother’s arms, whose modest home in Nazareth had love for its only wealth, who looked at persons and made them see what God’s love saw in them, who by love brought sinners back to purity, and lifted human weakness up to meet the strength of God.
I confess my ever-lasting need of God: The need of forgiveness for our selfishness and greed, the need of new life for empty souls, the need of love for hearts grown cold.
I believe in God who gives us the best of himself. I believe in Jesus, the son of the living God, born in Bethlehem this night, for me and for the world.
Help Me Follow the Savior
God of all grace,
You have given me a Savior,
produce in me a faith to live by him,
to make him all my desire,
all my hope,
all my glory.
May I enter him as my refuge,
build on him as my foundation,
walk in him as my way,
follow him as my guide,
conform to him as my example,
receive his instructions as my prophet,
rely on his intercession as my high priest,
obey him as my king.
May your dear Son preserve me from this present evil world,
so that its approval never tempt,
nor its disapproval terrify,
nor its vices defile,
nor its errors delude me.
May I feel that I am a stranger and a pilgrim on earth,
declaring plainly that I seek a country,
my title to it becoming daily more clear,
my desire for it more perfect,
my expectations of it more abundant;
and whatsoever I do may it be done
in the Saviour’s name.
From: The Valley of Vision
What is Your Moral Gauge?
Here is a provocative article by Ben Stevens for the Huffington Post: Two Lesbians Raised a Baby: A Response.
The premise behind Stevens’ piece is derived from the logic of a video of an Iowa college student named Zach Wahls that has gone viral. Wahls makes a compelling argument that he, though having been raised by two lesbians, has turned out well. As Stevens writes:
Wahls is arguing that a practice is not necessarily bad if something good can result from it, and that his similarities to other people (others who were raised by heterosexuals) constitute a strong argument for the normative and morally upright nature of homosexuality, and indeed of homosexual parenting.
There seems to be little or no debate that Wahls has indeed turned out well. And if you have seen the video you will have no doubt about his intelligence or his oratory abilities either. But, as Stevens explains:
We do not evaluate things simply based on whether good or bad may be fostered in their wake. In every sector of life and policy, regardless of the debate, we evaluate them on their own merits and moral qualities.
This is a thoughtful and thought provoking article, with a moral one friend expresses this way:
Evaluate your beliefs, not on whether or not good can result from them but, whether or not they are good in and of themselves.
Disinfecting Ourselves of Spiritual Malware
In his masterful work, Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin observed:
“Man’s nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols.”
That may seem to be a peculiar notion. Some will, no doubt, simply chalk it up to “O, that Calvin guy had a lot of strange ideas”. Some, being a bit more charitable, may concede that this might be true of man in his fallen nature, but certainly no longer the case once we have been made new creations through faith in Jesus Christ. Some may go even a little further, admitting that sometimes Christians do struggle with issues akin to idolatry, such as lust and pornography, love of money or materialism, or co-dependency and fear of man.
But Tim Keller, in his book Counterfeit Gods, goes even further and deeper:
We think that idols are bad things, but that is almost never the case. The greater the good, the more likely we are to expect that it can satisfy our deepest needs and hopes. Anything can serve as a counterfeit God, especially the very best things in life.
What is an idol? It is anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give.
A counterfeit God is anything so central and essential to your life that, should you lose it, your life would feel hardly worth living. An idol has such a controlling position in your heart that you can spend most of your passion and energy, your emotional and financial resources, on it without a second thought…
If anything becomes more fundamental than God to your happiness, meaning in life, and identity, then it is an idol.
While Keller clearly states that idols are often the good things in our lives, I have found that many people, godly people, may accept this as truth yet still fail to recognize the idols that drive and shape them. They get caught up by phrases such as “more important that God”. To their minds, nothing is more important to them than God. And while in many cases I have no question that this is true of them when it comes to their professional faith (the faith they profess, and actually intellectually believe), they are unaware of the idols that influence them and their functional faith (the faith that effects the moment by moment emotions).
It is somewhat like a malware virus I have had on my computer on a few occasions. Once the virus infects the computer it automatically blocks any attempts to identify the problem. In fact, every attempt to clean it out only serves to further strengthen and entrench the virus. Likewise, in some people I have encountered such a powerful block that any attempts to identify the spiritual malware – the idols – is met with a greater resolve that they are not infected. This especially seems to be the case when the malware is something good, something very good, something even godly, such as a powerful desire for church growth, evangelism, doctrinal purity, etc. Malware in such guise seems to almost always shut down any suggestion that these are problems.
The Virgin Shall Conceive and Bear a Son
Here’s a poignant insight from Martyn Lloyd-Jones regarding Christmas:
What is taught in Scripture is not that Mary had been either born or made sinless, but that portion of Mary, that cell out of Mary that was to be developed into the body of the Son of God was cleansed from sin; and that only.
So Mary remained sinful, but this portion that she transmits to her Son has been delivered, set free from sin; and it is to that that the Son of God is joined. That is the human nature He takes unto Himself. It is a miracle, of course; and we are told specifically that it is a miracle. It was because she did not realize that a miracle was to happen that Mary stumbled at the announcement of the Archangel Gabriel, and his reply to her is: “Do not try to understand this. The power of the Highest shall overshadow you, the Holy Ghost will come upon you, you are going to conceive of the Holy Ghost” – who has power to work this cleansing so that the body of the human nature of the Son of God who is to be born of you shall be entirely free from sin.
So we reject the so-called doctrine of the “Immaculate Conception”; but we assert with all our power the doctrine that the human nature of the Son of God was entirely free from sin.
Scandalous Freedom
I have been listening to Steve Brown‘s Scandalous Freedom podcasts over the past couple weeks.
For those not familiar with Steve, let me issue a warning: Don’t listen to him if you take yourself too seriously or think Christianity is about putting a stamp of approval on your goodness. I guarantee that if you think that way Steve will offend you, so just save yourself some time and aggravation.
For those who think they can handle him, these messages coincide with Steve’s book of the same title, Scandalous Freedom. In both the book and podcasts Steve challenges the idols and ideas that rob us of joy and enslave us. He reminds us, in his masterfully colorful way, how the genuine gospel sets us free.
Here are link to the archived series, which can be listened to online or downloaded.
- Free Means Free
- Free…Really Free
- Freedom’s Power
- Some Gods Need Killin’
- Struggling with Truth
- The Real Deal
- The Perfection We Desire
- Give Up
- Be Still and Be Loved
- “The Church is a whore…
- The Good News of Cheap Grace
- The Masks We Wear
- The Power to Stop Pretending
- Masks and Gurus
- The Punishing Plagues of Putting People on Pedestals
- Guilt and Isolation
- The Enemies We Demonize
- Three Startling Statements
- The Humanity that Sets Us Free
- The Boldness We Fear
- The Way to Boldness
- Bring the Pain
- Kiss that Demon on the Lips
- The Failure We Foster
- The Law and Success
- The Path We Avoid
- Holding the Land
- The Fellowship of the Free
Practitioners of Love
Studying love is exciting, being taught the doctrines of love is enlightening, praying about love is heart moving, and seeing love modeled is motivating, but in the end, we must lovingly obey God and sacrificially serve people. We must be practitioners of love, not theorists. We must be doers of love, not talkers. We must forge a connection between words and actions.
~ Alexander Strauch, from Love or Die
A Social Network Christmas
The Advent of Humility
The following article, by Tim Keller, first appeared in the December 2008 edition of Christianity Today Magazine. In this article Keller explains why the Advent of Jesus gives us reason to stop concentrating on ourselves.
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Innumerable Christmas devotionals point out the humble circumstances of Jesus’ birth—among shepherds, in a crude stable, with a feed trough for a bassinet. When Jesus himself tried to summarize why people should take up the yoke of following him, he said it was because he was meek and humble (Matt. 11.29). Seldom, however, do we explore the full implications of how Jesus’ radical humility shapes the way we live our lives every day.
Humility is crucial for Christians. We can only receive Christ through meekness and humility (Matt. 5.3, 5; Matt 18.3-4). Jesus humbled himself and was exalted by God (Phil. 2:8-9); therefore joy and power through humility is the very dynamic of the Christian life (Luke 14.11; 18.14; 1 Peter 5.5).
The teaching seems simple and obvious. The problem is that it takes great humility to understand humility, and even more to resist the pride that comes so naturally with even a discussion of the subject.
We are on slippery ground because humility cannot be attained directly. Once we become aware of the poison of pride, we begin to notice it all around us. We hear it in the sarcastic, snarky voices in newspaper columns and weblogs. We see it in civic, cultural, and business leaders who never admit weakness or failure. We see it in our neighbors and some friends with their jealousy, self-pity, and boasting.
And so we vow not to talk or act like that. If we then notice “a humble turn of mind” in ourselves, we immediately become smug—but that is pride in our humility. If we catch ourselves doing that we will be particularly impressed with how nuanced and subtle we have become. Humility is so shy. If you begin talking about it, it leaves. To even ask the question, “Am I humble?” is to not be so. Examining your own heart, even for pride, often leads to being proud about your diligence and circumspection.
Christian humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less, as C. S. Lewis so memorably said. It is to be no longer always noticing yourself and how you are doing and how you are being treated. It is “blessed self-forgetfulness.”
Humility is a byproduct of belief in the gospel of Christ. In the gospel, we have a confidence not based in our performance but in the love of God in Christ (Romans 3.22-24). This frees us from having to always be looking at ourselves. Our sin was so great, nothing less than the death of Jesus could save us. He had to die for us. But his love for us was so great, Jesus was glad to die for us. Continue reading
What Sort of People?
The day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up. Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God…? [2 Peter 3.10-12]
You and I are on a journey, and only two destinations are possible; we will either arrive at eternal life or eternal destruction. Whatever problems we think we have, whatever decisions we think we face, all merge into one problem, one decision: will we take the path to life or death?
We forget this easily, however, because the big issue is disguised as all the little issues we face every day. We can lose sight of the momentous nature of the choices we make throughout our lives. Sometimes our theology helps to blur our vision. “We are saved by faith,” we say, as if faith could be separated from the way we live our lives. But of course they cannot be separated. Peter clearly believed in no such separation; he showed this in the quote above. To him, the doctrine of the day of the Lord, the Christian belief that God will judge the world and make new heavens and a new earth, leads inexorably to an obvious question: “What sort of people ought you to be, in holy conduct and godliness?”
Of course, it is crucial that I don’t give the wrong picture. You and I are not saved because we are morally successful. Eternal life is not something we can earn or accomplish for ourselves. The gospel is, first of all, about God’s great mercy, how He has forgiven us for our many sins. I am not here to say, “Join me in sinless perfection.” I could never get away with it; I am a sinful, foolish man in many ways. (I know of many ways, and you all could probably show me more ways that I don’t know yet.) I am not saying that we must prove how good we are in order to get eternal life. I know I am not good enough, and I thank God that He is willing to save me anyway.
Yet, as Peter implies, there is a connection between what we believe and how we live. Saving faith and holy living are joined with an unbreakable bond; what we want and believe will inevitably show itself in how we act. We are still sinners, and our lives will show this clearly. But if we are regenerate children of God, our lives will show this as well. Some of us at McKenzie Study Center have been emphasizing this for some time: in Jack Crabtree’s groundbreaking paper “The Anatomy of Sainthood”; in Jack’s teaching on 1 John and Hebrews; in my teaching in James and Matthew; and in the book I expect to finish soon. I sometimes feel as if I teach on nothing else. Even so, it is still easy, perilously easy, to forget what is at stake, to lose sight of the life and death journey before us. And so I want to remind us all again: our faith is something that must be lived out. Today each one of us must take another momentous step in our journey toward life or away from it. My purpose is not to draw a roadmap for the holy way; I just want us to remember Peter’s question: What sort of people ought we to be?
Gospel from Mars Hill
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
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.
GRACE & PEACE 