“The hallmark of authentic evangelicalism is not that we maintain the traditions of the evangelical elders. It is rather that we are prepared to re-examine even the most long-standing evangelical traditions in the light of Scripture, in order to allow Scripture, if necessary, to judge and reform our traditions. Evangelical traditions are not infallible; they need to be re-examined. They need to be judged. They need to be reformed.”
~ John R.W. Stott
Is is essential to keep together these two complementary ways of looking at the cross. On the human level, Judas gave him up to the priests, who gave him up to Pilate, who gave him up to the soldiers, who crucified him. But on the divine level, the Father gave him up, and he gave himself up, to die for us. As we face the cross, then, we can say to ourselves both, “I did it, my sins sent him there,” and “He did it, his love took him there.” The apostle Peter brought the two truths together in his remarkable statement on the Day of Pentecost, both that “this man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge” and that “you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross” Peter thus attributed Jesus’ death simultaneously to the plan of God and to the wickedness of men. For the cross which, as we have particularly considered in this chapter, is an exposure of human evil, is at the same time a revelation of the divine purpose to overcome the human evil thus exposed.
~ John Stott
The late great John Stott was asked: “What are the top three needs of the church today?”
Here is Stott’s prophetic three-fold response:
The church’s most basic need is to remember what kind of community it is, and in particular its double identity. For God calls his people out of the world to belong to him and sends them back into the world to serve and to witness. The first calling is to ‘holiness’ and the second to ‘worldliness,’ using the word as the opposite of ‘other worldliness,’ and meaning ‘involved in the life of the world.’ So the church is called to ‘holy worldliness’, for this is its double identity. It needs constantly to ensure that neither identity smothers the other.
The church’s second need is to be what it claims to be, and so to allow no dichotomy or conflict between its profession and its practice. Without this the church lacks authenticity and so credibility.
In response to the challenge of pluralism, the church needs to be faithful in defending and proclaiming the uniqueness and finality of Jesus Christ. If it does so, it will certainly suffer for its faithfulness. If we compromised less, we would undoubtedly suffer more.
In this video John Stott discusses what he calls one of the most neglected themes in the Bible: Distinctiveness.
With all the clamoring for church to be seen as relevant in our culture, perhaps we – the Church – have lost sight of the call to be different. Not different for the sake of being different, but different nevertheless. Christians are to be different because, rather than being conformed to the principles of this world, we are more-and-more to be conformed to the likeness of Christ – in character, in passions, and in perspective. We are to be formed by the Word, and consequently we become different from those around us.
Relevance has it’s place. There is no merit in being irrelevant – and even less in just being weird. But relevance must be considered as only one item, and it must be understood alongside with how we are also to be different from the world around us, and distinct in the communities where we live.
I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross. The only God I believe in is the one Nietzsche ridiculed as “God on the Cross.” In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? I have entered many Buddhist temples and stood respectfully before the statue of Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of this world. But each time after a while I have had to turn away. And in imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from the thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in God-forsaken darkness. That is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered into our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us.
~ John Stott
This video cracks me up… and it also makes me a little sad. It is sad because this critic is all too familiar – not just to me, but probably to most church leaders. In our consumer culture, where some people have little more allegiance to their covenant community than they do to Wal Mart, K-Mart, or Target, it is all too easy to complain and then cut-and-run.
Jesus calls the Church his “Bride”. Joshua Harris calls such nit-pickers “Church Daters”.
What are the Marks of Church Dater? In his excellent little book, Stop Dating the Church, Harris identifies three:
Harris goes on to write:
Church-daters don’t realize that what they assume is working for personal gain is actually resulting in serious loss – for themselves and for others.
The plain fact is, when we resist passion and commitment in our relationship with the church, everyone gets cheated out of God’s Best:
- You cheat yourself.
- You cheat a church community.
- You cheat your world.
And Harris suggests something about a lack of commitment to the local church:
Wouldn’t that be like telling your new bride that while your love is true, you have other priorities? Your heart of course is all hers, but as for the rest of you … well, you’ll be in and out.
But Harris also offers this encouragement:
When a person stops “dating” the church they’re not just adding another item to their “to do” list. …Instead they’re finally getting started on experiencing all the other blessings Jesus promised.
Harris is right, on all accounts.
I have no doubt that criticisms often leveled against the Church – the churches I have served, and all others – are probably aimed toward at least a kornal of truth. Churches have problems. Churches are filled with people, all of whom have problems. There is an old saying:
This church would be a wonderful place… IF it wasn’t filled with all these people!
So finding things to bash is not difficult. No question the local church has warts and scars that make her at times less than attractive. But she is the Bride of Christ. So it might be helpful for us all to remember how precious the Bride is to Our Lord. He is aware of the present realities – the ugliness. But he has also promised to make her beautiful. As John Stott reminded us about the Bride of Christ:
On earth she is often in rags and tatters, stained and ugly, despised and persecuted. But one day she will be seen for what she is, nothing less than the bride of Christ, ‘free from spots, wrinkles, or any other disfigurement’, holy and without blemish, beautiful and glorious. It is this constructive end that Christ has been working and is continuing to work. The bride does not make herself presentable; it is the bridgegroom who labours to beautify her in order to present her to himself.
There are the five parts of the Bible:
So I think we have to say the religion of the Bible is a missionary religion. The evidence is overwhelming and irrefutable.
Mission cannot be regarded as a regrettable lapse from tolerance or decency. Mission cannot be regarded as the hobby of a few fanatical eccentrics in the church. Mission lies at the heart of God and therefore at the very heart of the church. A church without mission is no longer a church. It is contradicting an essential part of its identity. The church is mission.
I remember very vividly, some years ago, that the question which perplexed me as a younger Christian (and some of my friends as well) was this: what is God’s purpose for His people? Granted that we have been converted, granted that we have been saved and received new life in Jesus Christ, what comes next? Of course, we knew the famous statement of the Westminster Shorter Catechism: that man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever: we knew that, and we believed it. We also toyed with some briefer statements, like one of only five words – love God, love your neighbour. But somehow neither of these, nor some others that we could mention, seemed wholly satisfactory. So I want to share with you where my mind has come to rest as I approach the end of my pilgrimage on earth and it is – God wants His people to become like Christ. Christlikeness is the will of God for the people of God.
So if that is true, I am proposing the following:
And it all relates to becoming like Christ.
So first is the biblical basis for the call to Christlikeness. This basis is not a single text: the basis is more substantial than can be encapsulated in a single text. The basis consists rather of three texts which we would do well to hold together in our Christian thinking and living:
Lets look at these three briefly.
Romans 8.29 reads that God has predestined His people to be conformed to the image of His Son: that is, to become like Jesus. We all know that when Adam fell he lost much – though not all – of the divine image in which he had been created. But God has restored it in Christ. Conformity to the image of God means to become like Jesus: Christlikeness is the eternal predestinating purpose of God.
My second text is 2 Corinthians 3.18: ‘And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness, from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.’ So it is by the indwelling Spirit Himself that we are being changed from glory to glory – it is a magnificent vision.
In this second stage of becoming like Christ, you will notice that the perspective has changed from the past to the present, from God’s eternal predestination to His present transformation of us by the Holy Spirit. It has changed from God’s eternal purpose to make us like Christ, to His historical work by His Holy Spirit to transform us into the image of Jesus.
That brings me to my third text: 1 John 3.2. ‘Beloved, we are God’s children now and it does not yet appear what we shall be but we know that when he appears, we will be like him, for we shall see him as he is.’ We don’t know in any detail what we shall be in the last day, but we do know that we will be like Christ. There is really no need for us to know any more than this. We are content with the glorious truth that we will be with Christ, like Christ, for ever.
Here are three perspectives – past, present and future. All of them are pointing in the same direction: there is God’s eternal purpose, we have been predestined; there is God’s historical purpose, we are being changed, transformed by the Holy Spirit; and there is God’s final or eschatalogical purpose, we will be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. All three, the eternal, the historical and the eschatalogical, combine towards the same end of Christlikeness. This, I suggest, is the purpose of God for the people of God. That is the biblical basis for becoming like Christ: it is the purpose of God for the people of God.
***
NOTE: The above address was the last message John Stott gave at the Keswick Convention. This address was given in Summer 2007
A video memorial for John R.W. Stott, who passed from this life today. Few if any have had as much influence on my Biblical understanding and holistic theology as did John Stott through his writings and lectures.
John R.W. Stott (April 27, 1921 – July 27, 2011)
R.I.P.
I have been spending some time thinking about how to revamp and ignite the outreach ministry of our church. One of the frequent dilemmas for a church that desires to become more externally focused, more missional, is the balancing of service and PR. There is nothing inherently wrong with advertising, but sometimes a sincere outreach can be perceived as a mere marketing strategy. When this happens it sends a distorted message to both those outside the church and those who go out from the church.
John Stott, in his book Christian Mission in the Modern World, offers the following insights about this dilemma:
To sum up, we are sent to the world, like Jesus, to serve. For this is the natural expression of our love for our neighbors. We love. We go. We serve. And in this we have (or we should have) no ulterior motive. True, the gospel lacks visibility if we merely preach it, and lacks credibility if we who preach it are interested only in souls and have no concern about the welfare of people’s bodies, situations and communities. Yet the reason for our acceptance of social responsibility is not primarily in order to give the gospel either a visibility or a credibility it would otherwise lack, but rather simple uncomplicated compassion. Love has no need to justify itself. It merely expresses itself in service wherever it sees need.
John Stott offers a reminder of the task and the tension we, as Christians, must continually navigate when he uses the phrase:
“spiritually distinct, but NOT socially segregated.”
And here is a quote expanding this perspective:
Your business and mine as Christian people is to be in the midst of this world and its affairs, and still remain true and loyal to God, and be kept from evil. …The task of the Christian is to be right in the midst of this world and its affairs in order that he may do the work of evangelism, spreading the gospel and the Kingdom of God, while the whole time, keeping himself un-spotted from the world.
~Martyn Lloyd-Jones, from Safe in the World
The Cross enforces three truths:
1. Our Sin must be extremely horrible.
Nothing reveals the gravity of sin like the Cross. For ultimately what sent Christ there was neither the greed of Judas, nor the envy of the priests, nor the vacillating cowardice of Pilate, but our own greed, envy, and cowardice and other sins, and Christ’s resolve in love and mercy to bear their judgment and so put them away.
2. God’s love must be wonderful beyond comprehension.
God could quite justly have abandoned us to our fate. He could have left us alone to reap the fruit of our wrongdoing… It is what we deserved. But he did not. Because he loved us, he came after us in Christ.
3. Christ’s salvation must be a free gift.
He ‘purchased’ it for us at the high price of his own life-blood. So what is there left for us to pay? Nothing!
– John Stott, The Cross of Christ
With our church having just come through the front end of our first missions conference in at least a generation there are a number of people who are sensitive to what God is doing in the world, and hungry to explore what part he has in mind for us – the average Christian. Wanting to take advantage of the high interest while it is still at its keenest, I thought I’d suggest a few books – some that are are almost must reads – for anyone wanting to learn about the advancement of the Gospel as a global enterprise.
And while I have in mind those people from our church, I know that there are many others out there searching the web for recommendations of good mission books. The following list is for those wanting to dig deeper, not necessarily for those who are experienced in mobilization and sending.
This is in no way exhaustive, so feel free to add to the list.
- Let the Nations Be Glad by John Piper
- The Church is BIGGER Than You Think by Patrick Johnstone
- A Mind For Mission by Paul Borthwick
- How to Be a World-Class Christian by Paul Borthwick
- Christian Mission in the Modern World by John Stott
- What in the World is God Doing? by Gordon Olson
- Transforming Mission by David Bosch
- Run With the Vision by Bob Sjogren and Bill & Amy Stearns
GRACE & PEACE 