The Gospel Is NOT... A Set of Rules

Sometimes, I think it is helpful to understand what something is through negative understanding, or by understanding what something is not. Particularly, the more complex and important an issue is, the more beneficial it is that we hear something taught in a variety of ways. Therefore, I will be posting several posts on what the Gospel of Jesus Christ is NOT:

1. A set of rules: Commonly, it is said that Christianity is not a religion. By this most people mean that true Christianity is not simply a list of things that one must or must not do, which is entirely correct. While God's law certainly is still valid, those who try to abide by the His law will certainly die (1 Cor. 15:56). You see, the law was and is meant to show us our sin, because we could never keep it no matter how hard we try. This should lead us to depend on Jesus because He is the only one that was able to obey the law perfectly. It is by faith in Him that we are saved, not by anything we do or don't do (Eph. 2:8-9).

Does this mean that if we place our faith in Jesus, then we can do whatever we want? Paul asks it this way:
"Shall we sin that grace may abound more?", a question he then answers with an emphatic "By no means!" (Romans 6:1-2). You see, if we truly have an understanding of God's grace within our lives and the gravity of our sin, our failure to keep the law, then our faith will be real, and as James tells us, our faith will produce works as a result (James 2:26). In other words, it is out of our love for Christ that we will obey His law, not because we are seeking to prove ourselves to God or make ourselves good enough, because we never could. Jesus did what we never could, took our punishment for breaking the law and offers His free gift of salvation to all who believe.

Sam Harris Believes in God?

Newsweek has just come out with an article on the well-known militant "new atheist", Sam Harris and his belief in "God". The article explores how Sam Harris is not so willing to go by the label atheist because he "concedes he believes in something certain people call 'God'." While the article goes on to explain Sam Harris' belief in "spirituality" and that this belief is not in "God, but consciousness", the most troubling aspect I found was the statistic that "a quarter of Americans believe that God is 'an impersonal force'", and as Newsweek goes on to explain:

When polled about God, “people substitute in their own ideas,” says John Green, senior research adviser at Pew. “People have a vague, fuzzy notion of transcendence, and they substitute God for it...When you try to make the definition more specific, fewer people answer in the affirmative.” Or put another way, “If you let the concept of God float a little bit, almost everybody is a theist,” says Stephen Prothero, author of God Is Not One. What Sam Harris believes in—rationality, morality, transcendence, humility, awe, community, selflessness, and love—meets a fairly common definition of God.

My friends, this is the reality of living in a postmodern world. As time goes on, I believe that the real challenge to the Church will not be convincing people that there is a god, but showing people that the God of the Bible is the only true and living God.

Loving and Thinking

Here's a good quote from John Piper's new book, Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God

 The main reason that thinking and loving are connected is that we cannot love God without knowing God; and the way we know God is by the Spirit-enabled use of our minds. So to “love God with all your mind” means engaging all your powers of thought to know God as fully as possible in order to treasure him for all he is worth.

God is not honored by groundless love. In fact, there is no such thing. If we do not know anything about God, there is nothing in our mind to awaken love. If love does not come from knowing God, there is no point calling it love for God. There may be some vague attraction in our heart or some unfocused gratitude in our soul, but if they do not arise from knowing God, they are not love for God.

HT: Zach Nielsen

Treasuring Him- Sermon Jam

The Unspeakable Gift of Jesus

O God of grace,
teach me to know that grace

precedes,
accompanies, and
follows

my salvation;
that it sustains the redeemed soul,
that not one link of its chain can ever break.
From Calvary’s cross, wave upon wave of grace

reaches me,
deals with my sin,
washes me clean,
renews my heart,
strengthens my will,
draws out my affection,
kindles a flame in my soul,
rules throughout my inner man,
consecrates my every thought, word, work,
teaches me Your immeasurable love.

How great are my privileges in Christ Jesus.

Without him I stand far off, a stranger, an outcast.
in him I draw near and touch His kingly scepter.
Without him I dare not lift up my guilty eyes;
in him I gaze upon my Father-God and friend.
Without him I hide my lips in trembling shame;
in him I open my mouth in petition and praise.
Without him all is wrath and consuming fire.
in him is all love, and the repose of my soul.
Without him is gaping hell below me, and eternal anguish.
in him its gates are barred to me by His precious blood!
Without him darkness spreads its horrors before me.
in him an eternity of glory is my boundless horizon.
Without him all within me is terror and dismay,
in him every accusation is charmed into joy and peace.
Without him all things external call for my condemnation;
In him they minister to my comfort, and are to be enjoyed with thanksgiving.

Praise be to You for grace,
and for the unspeakable gift of Jesus.

—”Privileges,” from The Valley of Vision

HT: Justin Taylor

Doug Wilson on Glenn Beck

A good word from Doug Wilson:


Ask Doug: Glenn Beck from Canon Wired on Vimeo.

HT: Mere Orthodoxy

Jesus and the Elephant

There is an old Indian story that is often used to express relativity of or the impossibility of knowing truth.

Basically, the story goes that there were several blind men all touching the same elephant, wondering as to what it was.

The first man, touching the ear of the elephant said "Surely this thing is thin and papery."

The second man, feeling the elephant's trunk said, "I agree that the thing is thin, but it is certainly not papery, but rough and round."

A third man, with his hand on the leg of the elephant, responded, "My brother, I agree that this thing is round and rough, but I must say that it is thicker than my thigh."

Still another, feeling the tail of the animal, said "I don't understand how any of you could think this thing is thick or rough, it is clearly thin as my little finger, and besides that, it has hair on the end."

So the four of them debated the nature of the elephant, unwilling to back down from their convictions or to consider the possibility that any of the other men could be right.

At the end of this story the question is then asked, "Which man was correct?" The expected answer is that all of them were equally correct, they just didn't have the complete picture. Or if the answer is that none were correct, then the response is that this is because no one can fully comprehend the truth and, in that we are all equally wrong, we are all equally right in the part that we do know.

Then, to end the story, the point is revealed, "So is truth".

What as Christians, should we do with this old tale? We could just ignore it and say that it is not in fact representative of reality. Or we could use this story as a Gospel opportunity.

We, as Christians, clearly believe that the truth is knowable through Jesus Christ and that this truth excludes all other views claiming to be truth. So, how does Jesus fit into this story? I would alter the story as follows:

While the four men debated the nature of the elephant, a fifth man, who was not blind, came upon them. Hearing their arguments, he said "Brothers, I tell you that that which you debate about is an elephant, and the attributes that you argue about are all present in different functions within this animal; but none of you have seen the complete picture."

For a minute, the men considered what the new man had said. But, one of them replied, "Why should we believe you? How can you claim that you are any more correct than we?

The man responded, "I too was once like you, blind and stubborn in my way. But as I was hobbling about one day, a man named Jesus came and touched me, removing my blindness. Now I can see this and much more. And you too, can see, if only you'll believe in Jesus and his healing power."

"Why should we believe you? What proof do you have that you can see any better than we can? And even if you can "see", why should we believe that you're not just trying to take advantage of us?"

And so the man tried to reason with them, but could not change their stubborn hearts. He went away sad.

Without Jesus Christ, we are all blind to the truth. We may know some things that are true, but we will never know the truth unless He opens our spiritual eyes. And the truth is not an elephant, it is a person, Jesus Christ.