Archive for the ‘iFaith’ Category

Apr
23
2013

The Rhythm of Forgiveness and Repentance

This past Sunday, in our sermon series Teach us to Pray, we looked at this phrase in the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”

Now this phrase of this prayer would be really wonderful if it stopped at “Forgive us our debts.” That’s how most of us pray, if we’re honest. The Bible tells us we enter life with a debt–a massive gap between us and God (Romans 3:23; Romans 5:12, among others). Christ’s death on the cross and resurrection erased paid that debt and offers reconciliation with God. Anyone who has put their faith in Christ can pray this prayer with hope, knowing his debt has been forgiven.

But the prayer doesn’t stop there. Jesus says that we’re to pray “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” This word “as” is not just a fill-in word here. It’s a real Greek word, hos that means , wait for it, . . .  as. So Jesus is saying exactly what we think He is saying, “Forgive us our debts in proportion to the way we forgive our debtors.” And just to be sure we understood what Jesus is saying, Jesus comments on this verse in verse 14—the only additional commentary he offered on any of these requests in the Lord’s Prayer—with this:

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, Matthew 6:14 (ESV)

Jesus talked like this over and over again. He is communicating some very hard truths here. They are difficult to swallow. He seems to be saying to us this: you are only forgiven as much as you forgive. Augustine called this a “terrible petition” because in this, we are really praying for God to withhold his forgiveness of us in proportion to how we forgive others. Charles Spurgeon said of this passage that to pray this, without practicing forgiveness is to “sign your own death warrant.”

What exactly does this passage mean? I think it can have several implications.

First, it can mean that if you have no ability, no desire to forgive others, perhaps you have not been forgiven yourself. One of the effects of the gospel is that it softens our heart and causes us to forgive, to let go of grudges. Jesus said in the Beatitudes, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” The mark of a true believer is his ability to forgive. Not that you’re not struggling with forgiveness. Not that you don’t wrestle with it. I like what Kent Hughes says by way of explanation in his Preaching the Word commentary on Matthew:

I am not referring to those who find that bitterness and hatred recur even though they have forgiven the offender. The fact that you have forgiven and continue to forgive is a sign of grace. We are not talking about people who are struggling with forgiveness. It is those who have no desire to forgive who are in soul danger. There may also be some who have been recently offended and are still in emotional shock and so have not been able to properly respond with forgiveness. The point is: If we are Christians, we can and will forgive!

These are hard words by Jesus, but words needed for those who perhaps may act religious, who have gone through the motions and think they are close to God yet have not been truly regenerated. One way to test your heart is to see if you are willing, able to forgive. This was the case of the Pharisees. They were religious. They kept the moral law. They were the conservatives of their generation. And yet Jesus said their hearts were like open graves. They couldn’t forgive.

And yet we know it can’t be saying that the way to get to Heaven, the way to earn God’s forgiveness of us is by forgiving. It’s not teaching a “works-based” salvation. It’s not saying, to earn favor with God, go forgive people. The point of this passage really is saying that as you are forgiven, so you forgive. A great parallel passage is in Matthew 18 and the parable Jesus shared of a king who forgave a man who owed a tremendous debt and then could not forgive the man who owed him a little one. To quote my friend, Ray Pritchard, “it was the king who first forgave.”

This is how the gospel begins in us. First, we’re forgiven by the king and then we forgive. We can’t ever forget the ordering of these two things. If we are to believe the gospel, we have to say that we can’t truly forgive until we’ve been forgiven. We don’t have the power. Romans reminds us that God “sheds the love of God abroad in our hearts by faith.” The gospel is the wellspring of forgiveness. This is what Paul means when he tells the Ephesians in 4:32: “Even as Christ forgave you, so also do you.” You forgive as you’ve been forgiven.

Secondly, this is a diagnosis of a Christian’s heart. We know Jesus’ primary audience is his disciples, who, by virtue of faith in Christ’s coming death and resurrection, will receive forgiveness. This is why they can call God abba to begin with. The gospel restores us to that intimate relationship with God. So in this phrase He asks us to pray, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors,” He is saying that we will feel and understand the full weight of God’s forgiveness of us as we forgive others.

In other words, God has forgiven us in Christ, but we often don’t fully enjoy that grace, we can’t rest in it, because we are committing the sin of unforgiveness.

At the same time, this prayer diagnoses the reason Christians hold grudges and can’t forgive. Why? Because they’ve forgotten the debts they’ve been forgiven of God. It again relates to Jesus’ parable in Matthew 18 about the King who forgave an enormous debt of one man, who then couldn’t forgive a smaller debt. Jesus is speaking to us, saying, “I’ve forgiven you the equivalent of trillions of dollars, say several times the national debt and you can’t forgive your brother five bucks.”

The reason we don’t forgive, the reason we harbor it in our hearts, is simple: We’ve forgotten the gospel. Forgiven people forgive. The problem is that we, like the Pharisees, often think God forgave us because we were already pretty good to start with. This pride keeps from forgiving others. This is especially a problem of longtime Christians. We hear the gospel and get converted and then we think we have to “move past it.” We don’t see ourselves the way God saw us before we came to Christ. We see ourselves as deserving of His mercy and grace. We don’t realize the great huge debt God forgave us.

That’s why I love Paul’s declaration that he was the “chief of sinners.” In other words, Paul looked around and said this, “As bad as others are, I’m worse. I’m the worst. God needed more grace for me than anyone else.” And that attitude kept Paul in the flow of God’s rich grace and able to forgive others.

You will not experience the full weight of God’s forgiveness of you until you learn how to forgive others. And you will not learn how to forgive others until you understand the full weight of Gods’ forgiveness of you.

Our forgiveness of others demonstrates how much we understand how much God has forgiven us. Our ability to forgive others tells God what we think of the gospel. If we think it was cheap, then we’ll forgive others cheaply. But if we see the cost, then we’ll forgive deeply

To pray and to live out this prayer is to be in the rhythm of repentance and forgiveness of the Christian life. We are constantly in need of repentance and constantly called to forgive. You will find this spiritual rhythm over and over in the Scriptures. It is the way of grace. And every relationship we have depends on this: repentance and forgiveness are the oil of human relationships.

This concept can radically change your marriage. If you recognize that you are a sinner in need of your spouses’ forgiveness and that your spouse is a sinner in need of forgiveness. So often Christians forget this principle and they let their relationships sort of harden and calcify. They’ve forgotten the gospel in their marriage and this is why there is bitterness, anger, and detachment. Marital intimacy depends on the gospel, this life cycle of repentance and forgiveness.

This concept also radically can alter your parenting. You as a parent must constantly ask your children for forgiveness and you must constantly forgive them. And on and on it goers throughout all of our relationships. This is why Jesus mentions this in the same context as our need for bread. Because a tranquil heart, right with God and man, is as vital as bread.

Mar
06
2013

Prayer That Starts With God

On Sunday I started a brand-new series on the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13) entitled, “Teach Us to Pray.” Let’s remember that this is not a prayer Jesus prays, but that a prayer He offers for his disciples to pray. One of the things that really strikes me about Jesus’ model prayer is just how God-centered this prayer is. The Lord’s Prayer contains six humble requests, the first three are God-directed and the last three involve human needs. This is very similar to the structure of the Ten Commandments, which first begin with our vertical relationship to God and then end with our horizontal relationship with our fellow man. It’s similar to the way Paul constructed his letters to the churches: he often began with who we are in Christ before fleshing out how that affects the way we live.

A.W. Tozer said this (and I paraphrase), “The first thing that comes to your mind when you think about God is the most important thing about you.” I hear a lot of Christian says things like, “I don’t worry about theology.” Well, yes you do. Everybody has a theology, whether flawed or otherwise. Sadly, most of our theology begins with me. We start our prayers with what we think we need and then, if we have time, throw in a few God cliques. But the most healthy theology begins where the Bible begins: with God. You will notice that the first words of the very first book of the Bible begin like this, “In the beginning, God.”

It’s easy to subtly devalue God by our prayers and our life. We say things like, “I don’t imagine God is like this.” Or “The God I worship doesn’t do this.” But if God is truly God–that is to say if God is sovereign, powerful, holy, compassionate, just–then it behooves us not to define God on our terms, but to bow before the God who is already there.

How does this affect our prayer life? Why did Jesus say to start our supplications with God? Because the way we view God affects the way we live. How much we reverence God informs the respect we have for our fellow man. And beginning with God in our prayers filters out the frivolous. It considers prayer as an act of worship, an acknowledgment that we are, in deed, not God. That God is God.

It means our prayers are in God’s will. It keeps us from destructive theology. It prevents us from saying foolish things like, “God told me to (fill in the blank)” when really it was our own fleshly desires that spoke. I once had a person tell me, with a straight and somber face, that God was telling her to divorce her husband of 15 years and go marry a convicted felon. Um, God won’t tell you to do something against His sovereign will.

Praying God-centered prayers takes some discipline and practice. I’ll admit that this is a struggle for me. I often want to begin what I think are my own needs rather than letting my Father in Heaven shape my them. But there is something refreshing about beginning with God. It reminds us of the awesome miracle of access to the throne room of Heaven, purchased at great price by Christ on the cross. It reminds me that God takes great delight in hearing my prayers and meeting my needs, needs he knows well before I know them. It comforts me to realize that I do, indeed, have a Father in Heaven with a hallowed name.

Nov
05
2012

The Sin About Which No One Will Speak

Envy is like a fly that passes all the body’s sounder parts, and dwells upon the sores. – Arthur Chapman 

There is a sin that nobody in our world really wants to discuss. It’s the fashionable sin, that fuels our great social movements and has become an engine of our politics.

It’s the sin of envy. We love to talk about greed. I mean if you google the word, “greed” you’ll get a thousands sermons, news articles, political speeches, blog posts, etc. We assume that anyone who is wealthy is greedy, simply because we attach greed to success as if the poor can’t have bad attitudes about money.

Now, to be sure, greed is a horrific problem. And there are some in positions of power and wealth who have money as their god. But greed’s cousin, envy, is just as powerful a master, only it is disguised in more noble clothing. Envy masquerades as populism. Just listen to some of the ways we talk today. If a certain CEO makes a lot of money, we call it injustice because WE can’t have it. If a politician is in a position of power, we hate him because he is where he is and I am where I’m at. If a popular pastor gets more popular, we have to go digging for doctrinal sins to discredit him and thereby bring him to our level. We can’t abide someone else having something we don’t have.

Envy is an insidious sin. And yet we don’t preach about it. We don’t warn of it’s dangers. Instead, we let it have its reign in our culture, because it drives our economy. Watch the commercials on prime-time TV. What is at the heart of every single one? Is it not envy? Is it not the lie that “You deserve this new thing. You’ve worked hard. Why shouldn’t you have what others have?”

As followers of Jesus, we should rightly eschew greed. And we should promote justice, we should get our hands dirty and serve the poor. We should work hard to alleviate human suffering. But we must make sure envy doesn’t fuel our activism. We must ensure that we are not preaching a false gospel to the downtrodden that says: “God has been unfair to you. Others have what you don’t have. Jesus will even the score.”

The real gospel offers something richer than envy. It offers new and abundant life in Christ. It offers a hope that transcends the cheap, plastic euphoria that earthly possessions promise. It offers God Himself, in the Person of Jesus. It offers an “eternal weight of glory” (2 Corinthians 4:7). When we get to Heaven, no blood-bought, ransomed sinner will every say, “Wasn’t it a shame I didn’t have as much money as Bill Gates?” No, likely, we’ll say, “Can you believe we longed for such fleeting idols?”

Let’s not stop preaching against greed. But let’s also not forget to preach against envy. Let’s be glad for the wealth God has granted to others. Let’s be thankful for what we have, whether great or small. Let’s welcome the rich into our churches without assuming they are criminals. Let’s give our money to the poor without attaching the soul-destroying bacteria of envy. Let’s find our pleasure in Jesus only. Let’s point people to that pleasure and not temporary pleasures in other’s possessions.

Yes, let’s ask the Spirit to eradicate this sin, the one about which no one will speak.

Jun
04
2012

Parents and Facebook

I recently posted a guest-blog for Covenant Eyes on the role of parents in establishing Facebook parameters for their kids:

According to a recent survey, 75% of teens have a Facebook profile, 54% check their status once a day, and 65% of them access Facebook through their mobile devices.

Teens are living, increasingly, in a social world. So how do parents handle this? Some have tried to ban their children from Facebook outright. This may work, for a time, but ultimately, I think, it only serves to isolate the child from life in the 21st century and ill prepares him or her to making discerning life choices

You can read the rest here: A Parent’s Role in Preventing Facebook Addiction: | Covenant Eyes.

May
03
2012

God’s Favor Versus God’s Love

I think the current “gospel-centered” movement is one of the best things to happen to the church in a long time. The push for more expository preaching that grounds every imperative in the indicatives of the gospel–this is important. For too long the Church has preached a gospel of moralism, of legalism, of do-it-yourself lite Christianity.

However, if there is one concern I have with the movement, I might say that there is a danger of a pendulum swing. As a reactive measure against the idea that you must work really hard to earn God’s love (a frustrating and often false gospel), it seems we are saying that obedience has no connection to your day-to-day walk with God. I’m not sure this is either helpful for biblical. Let me explain.

I was recently listening to a message by J.D. Greear, lead pastor of Summit Church and author of several books including, Gospel. I love J.D.’s preaching, his clarity and his love for God and the gospel and missions. I’ve listened to several of his sermons that have really challenged and convicted me.

I was listening to a sermon he gave to the Southern Seminary Chapel entitled, “How Real Spiritual Growth Happens.” It’s a terrific message that I highly commend. But I left with a few questions. Particularly I wondered if we are not being clear enough about the distinction between God’s love and God’s favor.

J.D. was right in saying that humans are oriented toward works righteousness, that our default thinking is, “I’m messed up my life. God hates me now.” Or “I’ve had a really good week with the Lord. He loves me this week.” And so we guilt ourselves into what we are supposed to do for God rather than grounding our obedience in what God is, the radiance of His glory, and the radical nature of his sacrifice on our behalf. I agree with this.

What puzzled me a bit was J.D. talking about worship experience in church. There are Sundays, he says, when you walk into church and you’ve had a great week–you were faithful in your Bible reading, you were fervent in prayer, you shared Christ with others–and so you feel God’s love and glory wash over you. Then there are Sundays when you walk into church and you’ve had a rough week, you’ve had an argument with your spouse, you’re boss yelled at you for messing up the reports, you kicked the dog, etc. And you, while worshipping, start making promises to God, “I’ll get this right. I’ll do better.” You feel a bit of a disconnect from God. I’ve had these experiences all of my Christian life. J.D. says that this is the result of a faulty view of God’s love. We think he loves us more when we’ve had a great week and He’s mad at us when we’ve had a bad week.

This is often true, but I wonder if we’ve skipped over another reason for a bit of distance in our connection with God. Could it be that we enter worship with unconfessed sin? And the dissonance we experience is the result of a break in our relationship? Psalm 68:18 says, “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” The Apostle John urges us in 1 John 1:8-10 to not ignore unconfessed sin, to rush to the Lord, prevail upon His grace, and find renewal in our relationship.

Sin breaks the relationship we have with God. It doesn’t negate God’s love. It doesn’t lessen God’s love. But it does cloud our view of God’s love and make us feel as if God loves us less even though He doesn’t. I think this is the difference between the love of God and the favor of God.

There is nothing you can do to earn the love of God. Obeying God faithfully for your whole life doesn’t earn you one more ounce of His love. He loves you and accepts you because of Christ. He has accepted the perfection and sacrifice of Christ for you and so you have nothing left to prove.

However, God does extend favor, I believe, to those who obey Him. All through the Scriptures you see the reward of God toward those who follow his precepts (Psalm 5:12; Psalm 90:17; Genesis 6:8; Proverbs 18:22). That doesn’t mean obedience helps you avoid trials and suffering–those too are often good gifts of God to shape our character. But you can safely and biblically say that those who obey the Lord will experience more blessing and favor than those who don’t.

I’m guessing J.D. Greear would agree with this and perhaps it was just his emphasis on law in that particular message. But I do think the gospel-centered movement would do well to further explain the purpose of the law, the need for obedience, and the importance of holiness. It doesn’t affect the way God loves us, but it does affect the way we view God’s love. Another way of stating this might be to say that when we sin, we have lost sight of the gospel and God’s glory and have chosen other idols to worship. Therefore we get the sense that God loves us less and we feel disconnected from Him because our view is clouded by the sin of idolatry.

Apr
03
2012

Why Christians Are Not the Point of Easter

I’m studying for my Easter sermon. I have to be honest, sometimes I get intimidated by Easter sermons. It’s not that I don’t enjoy preaching about the pivot point of our faith: the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It’s just that I know on Easter there are those people sitting and listening to my message that probably don’t want to be sitting and listening to my message. (My friends could joke and say this is the case every Sunday!).

Some preachers get really fired up by a crowd of nonchurch people. They are gifted evangelists who are always at ease sharing their faith with hostile hearers. In a Christian sort of way, I envy them. I get nervous. This is a big moment. This could be the only time that some people will hear the gospel. I don’t want to mess it up. This is where God reminds me that He can use my clumsy gospel efforts and form the words to penetrate the heart of sinners. He is sovereign and for that I’m glad.

This year, God has impressed upon me this central idea of the Resurrection: Christianity is not about Christians, but about Christ. Let me explain:

Perhaps the biggest reason that nonbelievers give for not putting their faith in Jesus Christ is the shoddy faith of his followers. I believe it was Ghandi (but don’t quote me) who said he’d follow Christ, were it not for Christians. This is a sad commentary on Christians and the state of the church. And it’s the cause for much lament in the evangelical community today, with competing perspectives battling to define the church’s mission.

There’s a place for this introspection. And it’s true that our lives as believers must adorn the gospel well (Titus 2:10; 1 Peter 3:33-4). It’s true that we, Jesus’ followers, are the only Jesus the lost will see.

And yet, the point of Christianity is not that it produces the best, most disciplined followers (though history might actually argue that point well). But let’s assume that, over all, Christians haven’t done the best job of representing Christ. It’s a big assumption, but let’s go there. This, still is not the point of Christianity.

The point of Christianity is that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. He’s alive. He defeated sin and death.

The truth is that there may very likely be more disciplined adherents in other religions. There may be more moral, more socially responsible, kinder, gentler souls. But, the point is not that Christianity makes the best people. It’s that Christianity points to Jesus is risen.

Because the point is not that God needs more highly disciplined religious people. Even the highest, most disciplined people fall far short of perfection. Even the most religious can’t be religious enough to erase the curse of their sin. The best of us, regardless of religion or system or code, falls way short. This is why Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3 that even he, the most spiritually astute, religiously devout man of his day, needed to be supernaturally regenerated by a power that could only come from above. This is why the rich, young ruler in Luke 18 went away sad. He had followed the law, point by point, and still Jesus poked holes in his righteousness. This is why Paul said he counted his strict adherence to the law as “dung” (Phillipians 3:8). His works were good, but as a covering for his sin, were as useful as dung. This is the message of the prophet, Isaiah, who proclaimed in Isaiah 64:6 that our best attempts to satisfy God with our goodness are like, “filthy rags.”

The point is that we need something supernatural. We need God Himself to provide a solution. And God did. Jesus came to this earth, in the flesh, absorbed the just wrath of God against our sin, finished the work of atonement, and rose again from death on the third day. Jesus defeated sin and death and His life gives life to dead souls.

The Resurrection is not just a nice capstone to a wonderful religious story. The Resurrection is the story. Jesus wasn’t merely a good example to show us how to be better people on the earth. Jesus lived, died, and rose again so that our dead, spiritually unprofitable souls could experience the regeneration of new life.

So, to the Christian who constantly chafes at his inability to be a good example at work, at home, at play, who broods over the incomplete picture He is giving of Christ, take heart. Know that you’re not the story of Easter. Jesus is. You don’t have to be perfect on Holy Week, because Jesus was. Draw on his love for you and when you do, that love and life will naturally flow out in a way that will point others to the Resurrection they need.

And to those who read this who have rejected Jesus. I say with tears, don’t wait to acknowledge your sin, God’s coming judgement against it. Don’t wait to fall on your knees in faith at the foot of the cross. Don’t wait to accept the rescue of salvation Jesus offers freely. And most importantly, don’t confuse the inconsistencies of Christians like me with the perfection and life of Jesus Christ.

Because us sinful, sometimes nasty, flawed followers are not the story of Easter. Jesus is. He’s alive.

 

Nov
30
2011

More Grace Is What We Need :: New Hope Digital

I wrote a guest-post for the New Hope Digital blog on my life verse. Here’s a key quote:

We think that if we come, like Cain, with our best works, that God will favor us. But pride—boasting of the goodness in us—invites the resistance of the Almighty.

Instead, the way to God lies in humility. In brokenness we realize our need. Only the humble find their way to the Cross. And once we’ve received salvation, humility continues to be the path to intimacy with the Almighty.

Read the rest here: More Grace Is What We Need :: New Hope Digital.

Jul
22
2011

Talking to Yourself in a Trial

In trials, you cannot directly control your emotions, but you can change them indirectly by leading your mind toward the right biblical considerations. Thinking about trials God’s way generates the proper inner and outer responses. As you begin to see trials more and more from God’s viewpoint, eventually you will read the place where you can rejoice in them.

This doesn’t just happen; it takes a deliberate act to wrench your mind out of the pagan cesspool of thought into which you have allowed it to wade. Over the years, perhaps you have slackened the reins and allowed your mind to much around the swamps along the well-worn pathways of sin and misery—but now, redeemed by the good of Christ, regenerated by His Spirit and given a new heart oriented toward God and capable of living for Him, you are able to seize control for the reins and lead your mind to the pure, refreshing waters of life.

- Jay Adams, A Thirst for Wholeness, pp 18.