Posts Tagged ‘faith’

Feb
05
2013

If There is No Sin, There is No Grace

Be of sin, the double cure, save from wrath and make me pure - Augustus Toplady

There is a hesitance, actually more like a firm resistance, to calling any behavior, “sin.” When the issue of sexual lifestyles are discussed, even evangelicals are wary of labeling any one behavior as sin. It’s the word we want to run far, far way from. Nobody sins anymore. They make mistakes. They were born that way. They are misunderstood.

The Bible, however, has clear categories. And some things are sin. Sexual license is sin. Murder is sin. Libel is sin. Gossip is sin. Furthermore, the Bible doesn’t just say that humans commit sin, but that humans are actually, by nature, sinners. That is they aren’t naturally good people who sometimes fall off the wagon and sin. We are sinners by nature.

But what about grace? Isn’t the church supposed to be about spreading the good news that God has accepted sinners by grace? Isn’t the message of the church that God’s grace covers even the vilest of sins? Yes, it is. And this is a message we should shout from the rooftops. It should be the core of what we evangelicals do and say.

Here’s the rub. If you stop acknowledging that some choices are sinful, you stop needing that wonderful thing called grace. In other words, if everything is okay, is just a different lifestyle, but not actually a gross violation of the righteousness of God, then why would you need grace? You wouldn’t, because nobody is doing anything wrong.

This is why the Church must talk about sin and about grace. At times, followers of Jesus have talked more about sin, as if God was violently angry at sinners and they have no hope. As if we were gleeful, like the Pharisees, to catch someone abusing God’s standard. This is the wrong message and denies the gospel.

And yet, we seem to be in a moment in the church when we want to talk about grace in a way that acts like sin is no big deal. Let’s not talk about sin, after all we’re suppose to be the people of grace. Wait a minute, though. If there is no sin, there is no need for grace.

The point I’m making here is this: Unless I realize I’m a sinner deserving of God’s just wrath against sin, I cannot experience the richness and fullness of His grace. If I deny my sin, I shut the door on grace. This was Jesus’ message to the woman at the well. Yes, you are a woman who is living in sin. Yes, you are just the kind of person I came to save. 

We have to acknowledge both realities. This is why talk of the word, “sin” should not frighten us who believe in the gospel. Because it was not mistakes or missteps or misunderstandings that Christ came to conquer and defeat. He came to defeat sin and sin’s awful child: death.

I’m not proud of my sin, but I’m glad to recognize that I’m a sinner. Because sinners are the only people eligible for Jesus’ unlimited grace.

Nov
27
2012

What We Really Should Be Teaching Our Kids

Last Thursday, during the Thanksgiving meal we hosted at our house, my son, Daniel Jr (age 4) had an epic meltdown over a superheros costume. My brother, Tim, was the recipient of much of this. After dealing with Daniel’s tantrum, we both went our way, sharing times with our family members, eating more pie, and watching football. About 30 minutes later, something wonderful happened. My son, Daniel voluntarily walked up to my brother, Tim and said, “Uncle Tim, I’m sorry for my attitude before. Will you forgive me?”

Nobody forced Daniel to do this. He just did it. For me, it was a proud moment as a father. Because it tells me that Daniel is learning one of most important lessons in life: How to apologize when you have wronged someone.

It seems to me that Christian parenting can often be so caught up in behavior modification that we forget to instill in our kids the real and important things they will need to live a healthy spiritual life. The tools for dealing with their own sin. Because, brace yourrself parents, our kids will sin. They will sin today and they will sin for the rest of their lives. Hopefully they will come to faith in Christ and experience His sanctifying work so that they sin less. But as fallen creatures, they will sin.

Sadly, much of our parenting techniques miss this important point. We parent as if we can actually iron out sin, as if we could just stumble onto the right system so that we’ll produce perfect little angels. In doing this, we rob our children of the most important truths they will need to succeed: the reality of the gospel.

You see, it is good that we have rules and laws in our homes. After all the law was originally given by God as an act of grace toward his children. And good parents demonstrate their love for their own children by having laws. Not running in the street is a pretty good law that protects their welfare.

However, if we are only about law and talk and model and enforce nothing of the gospel, we are crippling our children. We are giving them no mechanism for dealing with the inevitability of their own sin. I think much of this is the due to the tragic misapplication of Proverbs 22:6 (Train up a child in the way he should go . . . ) which is a proverb of wisdom, not a promise of perfection for kids.

We must, as parents, embed the gospel in our parenting. We must first evangelize them so they come to Jesus in repentance and faith. Then, we must teach them to apply the gospel in their lives: the vital cycle of repentance and forgiveness. In other words, we must teach them to live life as it really is, not as we often wish it would be.

We all know the dangers of a lawless, boundary-less household. But we seldom think about the impact on kids of a childhood that sees no grace. Parenting simply fixated on behavior modification–with  no gospel-based mechanism for dealing with sin, failure, and weakness–has two equally devastating effects. Kids either reject the legalism of the law and live a miserable life with no boundaries or they embrace a lethal mixture of Phariseeism and perfectionism, holding themselves to an impossible standard and thumbing their nose at anyone who doesn’t live up to their standard.In both cases, you have children who are shocked by their ability to sin and have no idea where to go with it.

The point is this. We are not simply training our kids to be good kids. We are modeling for them the relationship God has with us. We’re introducing them to Christ, who is their sin-bearer, the champion has defeated sin and death, and their only way of victory over sin.

A parenting model that focuses only on right behaviors, at the expense of the gospel, is a parenting model that treats every offense as Armageddon, that is horrified and surprised when their little angels commit sin. It’s a parenting model that ruins parents with dangerous introspection (what did I do wrong). It’s a parenting model based on fear, not faith.

But, a parenting model that features a mix of grace and law looks much different. It applies and enforces God’s law in the home, but introduces the concepts of grace, repentance, and sanctification. And what it celebrates is not necessarily little Johnny’s ability to not throw tantrums, but little Johnny’s voluntary expressions of remorse and repentance afterword.

Sep
26
2012

Chocolate Faith

 Within the church of the living God, we must become excited about the gospel.  That’s how we pass on our heritage

– D.A. Carson


If you want to impress the woman you love and happening to be traveling through the northwest suburbs of Chicago, my advice to you is to spend a significant amount of time in the quaint village of Long Grove and its famous Confectionary. This niche candy shop is a must-stop for those who live and visit the Midwest. I know because my wife considers chocolate as important as oxygen and I consider my wife as important to me as breathing. Those two factors have kept me visiting and browsing the Confectionary’s many aisles of cocoa creations.

Interestingly, it wasn’t my wife’s longings that first acquainted me with this tiny slice of chocolate heaven. When I was around six years old, my father, a licensed plumber, was contracted to work at the Long Grove Confectionary as part of the team that built and installed the chocolate pipelines. I remember him coming home every day with large boxes filled with “bricks” of chocolate. We had a supply of chocolate in the house that looked like it would last until Lord returned. Or at least until the next church potluck.

Dad regaled us with stories of working at the plant. I found most interesting the intricate work involved in building a complex chocolate-making system. Dad and his crew created the chocolate channels with threaded steel. When they were finished, however, they didn’t flush the system with the usual mix of water and bleach. Instead, they pumped piping hot cocoa through the lines. The highly secretive chocolate recipe was so precisely engineered that any water that hung up in the lines could alter the formula. They would rather waste several batches of chocolate than risk diluting their recipe.

This is a story I think of often when I contemplate the difficult task of passing the gift of faith from my generation to the next. I wonder if we stop long enough to consider the purity of the faith send through the parenting pipeline. Are there any impurities that might dilute or even pollute the Bible’s central message?

What Do We Believe Anyways?

Jay Leno’s “Jaywalking” is one of my guilty entertainment pleasures. It’s interesting to see how people answer seemingly easy questions about life and history and current events. Perhaps it is a way to feel better about myself, because surely I could ace such an easy quiz.

But I wonder what we’d hear if we “Jaywalked” the average person on the street and asked the simple question, “What is Christianity really about?” Perhaps they’d say something like, “Christianity is about being good.” Or “Christianity is a set of moral codes.” Or “Christianity is about politics.”

Some of this can be chalked up to our culture’s warped sense of our faith or perhaps a skewed portrayal of Christians by the media. But I wonder if much of the blame can be laid to rest on the Christian community itself. Perhaps we’ve not been as clear about defining our faith. What is the big story of the Bible?

But even more important than articulating our faith in the broader culture is how we articulate our faith to ourselves, to the generation that now sits at our feet, the children we teach who will one day form the pillars of our culture.

What is it that we are passing down to our children? I wonder if we have cluttered up the gospel’s central message with good, but not ultimate things, such as our methodologies, our systems, our denominations.

And perhaps we don’t even know we’re doing this. I think of the steaming hot mix of chocolate coursing through the steel pipes at the Long Grove Confectionary.

Imagine, for a moment, if the proprietors of this chocolate shop weren’t as rigid in their guarding of the recipe. they pushed bleach and water instead of chocolate through those new pipes? What if they were careless about what they sent on as finished product, thinking, a little water or pipe residue won’t be noticed.What if

I’m guessing that little confectionary would cease to be one of the most visited places in the Chicagoland area. Retailers would probably stop filling their shelves with Long Grove creations. And the chocolate factory would probably close its doors.

Since chocolate is the lifeblood of their business, they guard the formula with critical care. And so it should be with the faith we stream from one generation to another. We have the recipe for life eternal—the gospel message. Jesus was both God and man who came to earth in love, bore the wrath of a holy God, rose from the dead and now offers new life.

It’s a simple message with profound implications. But for some reason, we think we have to clutter it up with good, but not ultimate, things. And we wonder why the next generation tastes what we’re offering and pitches it. We think they’re rejecting the gospel, but it could be that they’re simply rejecting the impurities we’ve attached to it.

Excerpted with permission from Real, Owning Your Christian Faith

Jul
11
2012

5 Reasons to Rejoice in an Election Season

Yes, you read that right. There are actually reasons to rejoice in a presidential campaign season filled with rumor, innuendo, nastiness, and vitriol from both sides. Like you, I’m a bit tired already and the campaign has hardly begun. But, I’ve been thinking that there are many silver linings in an election season. Here are five:

1) You can rejoice because you live in America and not Cuba. Think about it, nations governed by totalitarian regimes don’t feature nasty political campaigns. Nobody in Cuba or North Korea is complaining about dinner-time robo calls, nasty mailers, or grainy, fear-inducing half-true TV ads. There are no elections, real elections. Only strong-armed dictators who rule by the sword. Consider that in our country you can utter the most vitriolic statements about the current politicians in office and not get sent to jail or have your business taken away or have your family threatened with death. I hate the vitriol as much as anyone, but it’s very presence reminds us that we live in a rare time and place where freedom of speech is guaranteed.

2) You can rejoice because this seasons affords you an opportunity to be different. Even though you can utter vitriolic speech about a politician you don’t like, you don’t have to and so you have an opportunity to be different than everyone else. Because you’re a Christian, you can demonstrate what it looks like to hold staunch, truthful positions and still exhibit love and respect for those with whom you disagree. You might be the only one in your office, among your social circle, or among your social network tribe who isn’t routinely disparaging one candidate or the other. Think about that. Your winsomeness during this election season might afford opportunities for further discussion about your relationship with Jesus.

3) You are filled with constant reminders to pray for your leaders. Think about this. You don’t have to write sticky note for your car’s dashboard or your refridgerator, reminding you to pray for the President and his opponent. Why? Because you’re inundated with reminders that they exist! This is a wonderful reminder to fulfill the biblical commands (1 Timothy 2). Just think what would happen if every Christian used every mention of the President or his opponent to stop and pray. Imagine the revival that might take place.

4) You’re reminded of the longings we have for our home in Heaven. What fuels our politics is the innate sense that things can get better in America. They are good, but not as they should be. We instinctively know that there is a better world out there. As Christians we know this longing won’t ever be fulfilled until Jesus comes as reigning King. We know no earthly leader, no political party, no platform, no movement can bring about the utopia we crave. But the craving is good. It reminds us that we’ll forever be unsettled in this fallen, sin-cursed world. Like Abraham, we long for another, better city, whose build and maker is God (Hebrews 11:10). Not only should this longing drive us to deeper intimacy with Christ, our Creator, but it can provoke conversations among the lost about their own desire for utopia and in Whom that longing may be satisfied.

5) We should rejoice in the opportunity to look inward and not outward. Elections get us thinking that the problems we face are outward. If you’re a conservative, all social ills are the fault of the liberals. If you’re liberal, all social ills are the problem of conservatives. So we tag any problem with a face, the face of the politician we oppose. But as Christians, we know that the real problem with America lies in human hearts. Not just the hearts of Hollywood or Wall Street or Occupy or the Tea Party. No, the problem lies within my heart. My heart. Paul, imprisoned by the tyrannical, hedonistic butcher, Nero, nevertheless fingered himself as the “chief of sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15). Elections afford us the opportunity to survey the vast array of social ills and their perpetrators and then turn inward and say, “No, I’m the bigger problem.” Then we can look upward and weep at the grace God affords to us through Christ.

Jun
01
2012

Friday Five: Andrew Wheeler


Today I’m delighted to talk about prayer with my good friend, Andrew R. Wheeler. Andrew organizes the prayer ministry of the elders and Sunday service teams for Willow Creek Community Church–McHenry County. A member of the Church Prayer Leaders Network, he maintains the website Together in Prayer as a resource for churches growing in prayer ministry. He is the author of the excellent book, Together in Prayer. 

How important is it for Christians to pray together?

The early church set the pace and the importance of praying together.  In Acts 1:14 we see how the disciples joined together in prayer as they waited for the Holy Spirit (Luke 24:49).  This prayer formed the backdrop of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2.  Again, we see in Acts 2:42 that praying together was one of the four pillars of the early church, along with the apostles’ teaching, the breaking of bread, and fellowship.  All through the book of Acts we see a church at prayer – interceding for Peter’s release from prison (Acts 12:12); commissioning Paul and Barnabas as the first missionaries (Acts 13:1-3); Paul and Silas praying together while in prison in Philippi (Acts 16:25).

The epistles continue this emphasis on praying together.  We tend to read the epistles with Western eyes – individualizing the commands and teachings.  But the original audiences for most of the epistles were churches – communities.  Generally, the commands and teachings have their primary application to bodies of believers, and secondary application to individuals. So, for example, when Paul exhorts the Colossians to devote themselves to prayer, and to pray for him (Colossians 4), he’s not referring primarily to the prayer closet.  We apply these commands to the prayer closet, and that’s not a bad application, but that’s not the original focus.

In many churches today, the best place to really pray together in a meaningful way is in the small group setting.  This is the setting where we are at our most vulnerable and accountable.  I really think that the strength of the prayer movement within a church’s small groups will help determine the ceiling on the church’s effectiveness.

Why do people have trouble praying in a group setting?

Many people have difficulty with prayer in a group setting because of the difference in the relational dynamic from a private prayer setting.  Private prayer is basically a one-dimensional activity, with the only relationship in play being the one between the pray-er and God.  Community prayer – praying in a group setting – adds a horizontal dimension.  I like to think of community prayer as “praying to God, with people”.  Each of those aspects has implications for how we pray together, and balancing those two dimensions is the key to praying effectively.

When we pray alone to God, we pray to One who sees our hearts and is able to move past the words to the thoughts behind them.  God tracks with our prayers because, ideally, He is the One leading us to pray in the first place.  But when we gather to pray, we pray with others who cannot see into our hearts and who cannot necessarily track with us.  When we take the “anything goes” mentality from our prayer closets to the group prayer setting, it doesn’t translate well.

Paul recognized a similar problem when it came to the worship service.  He gave specific instructions to the Corinthian church in the second half of 1 Corinthians 14 as to how they were to worship together – in an orderly way that glorifies God.  The theme of those instructions was that individuals needed to rein in their own participation in the worship service to make room for everyone to participate and allow God to move through multiple people.  This same theme applies to our group prayer times today.

What are your “top tips” to help groups pray together more effectively?

I like to think in terms of the “ABCs” of community prayer – Agreement, Brevity, and Christ-centeredness.

Agreement means that we’re praying together in one accord and it’s really the main ingredient that distinguishes community prayer from private prayer.  It means that we come together seeking God’s agenda rather than each person bringing his own agenda, that we listen to each other as we’re praying rather than focusing our thoughts on what we’ll pray when our “turn” comes, and that we’re praying alongside each other, picking up the theme rather than skipping around with each person praying a different topic.

Brevity may be the single biggest hurdle for most groups to overcome in praying together effectively.  We tend to take our somewhat long-winded closet prayer patterns and bring them to the group setting.  This is where the idea of submitting to each other and valuing the contributions of others in the group – as in 1 Corinthians 14 – comes in.  When I pray briefly, I make it easier for other group members to track with me and to pray alongside me in agreement.  When I limit my own prayer time, I communicate to the group that I value their contributions to the prayer time and foster the environment of really being together in prayer.

Christ-centeredness is the key to honoring God with our prayers and seeking His will.  Matthew 6:33 tells us to seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness, and God will take care of our physical needs.  Focusing on kingdom prayers is a way of seeking God’s kingdom first.  This isn’t to say that we don’t bring material needs before God, but they should not dominate our prayers.

Christ-centeredness also means that we’re addressing God in our prayers rather than addressing group members.  We’re asking for His intervention rather than putting pressure on group members to change.

Can you expand a bit more on the idea of praying to God rather than praying to people?

Perhaps the biggest subtlety to community prayer is keeping straight the vertical and horizontal dimensions.  Going back to the idea of “praying to God, with people,” we often skew this a bit and end up praying more for people to hear than for God to hear.  Usually, this isn’t a heart problem with pride the way it was for the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable (Luke 18:9-14) but it still shifts the focus away from God and onto people and circumstances.

Here’s an example.  Suppose John, a member of our small group, is struggling financially and has been out of work for some time.  A typical prayer for John might sound something like this: “Father, may John have the faith to trust in your provision in his time of need.  May he be diligent in his search for a job and may he grow spiritually through this time of trial.”

Did you notice how this entire prayer was about what John needed to do?  Have faith, be diligent, grow spiritually – these are all things that the prayer directs at John.  John, if he’s present, is going to feel more burdened after this prayer than before it; more importantly, this prayer asks nothing of God and leaves no room for His work.

Consider a different frame of reference.  “Father, please strengthen John’s faith and encourage him as he goes through this difficult time.  Provide for his needs and guide him to the job that you have for him.  Open doors for witness to others in need and bear much fruit in this chapter of John’s life.”

This prayer asks nothing of John, but everything of God.  Strengthen faith, encourage, provide, open doors, bear fruit – these are all things that God is being asked to do.  A prayer like this will encourage John as he senses God on his side.  Further, such a prayer anticipates God’s work in John’s life and gives Him the glory.

How important is praying briefly?  How do you encourage it?

As I mentioned earlier, for most small groups, getting in the habit of praying briefly will make the single biggest difference in their effectiveness in prayer.  Prayer is conversation with God, and group prayer is the group’s conversation with God.  Any conversation dominated by one or two people is far less engaging and less interesting than a conversation in which multiple people are participating.  And in a prayer setting, praying briefly encourages others to participate and values the work of the Holy Spirit in the entire group rather than just in one individual.

Most small groups can benefit from a brief period of instruction or “rules of the road” prior to praying together.  I encourage brief prayer by emphasizing the need to value the prayers of others in the group.  I invite people to pray multiple times on a single topic if they feel so led, limiting each individual prayer to allows others to participate.  And I stress the need to stay on one topic at a time, allowing others to come alongside that prayer in agreement.

For example, suppose a group member is in the hospital.  A typical prayer for this situation would cover the group member’s health and healing, the doctors and nurses, peace for the family, financial provision, etc.  Covering the topic so completely leaves little room for others to come alongside the prayer in agreement – they’re left with either repeating what was already said (which God does not need) or moving on to another topic.

But suppose a group member opened the prayer time by praying for God’s healing, then another added prayer for the doctors and nurses, another prayed for the family and someone else prayed for financial provision.  Such a prayer gets the whole group involved and enables a level of agreement that you don’t see when one person dominates the prayer.

In a small group setting where we’re praying for each other, I like to break up the time and focus on one person at a time.  Rather than have everyone read a litany of prayer requests (which tends to take most of the prayer time and causes everyone to forget the things that were mentioned early on), I divide the time up by person.  So if we have 6 people and 30 minutes to pray, each person gets 5 minutes.  I have them share what’s on their heart for the first half of that time (or less) and then the group prays for that person for the remainder of the time.  That way, each person is covered in prayer and the time really moves, keeping the group engaged.

May
17
2012

We are Believers Instead of Disciples

I’m currently reading Your Church is Too Safe by Mark Buchanan. I was deeply, deeply convicted by this section:

At some point we stopped calling Christians disciples and started calling them believers. A disciple is one who follows and imitates Jesus. She loses her life in order to find it. She steeps in the language and culture of Christ until His Word and his world reshape hers, redefine her, change inside out how she sees and thinks and dreams and, finally, lives. Whatever values she brought into his realm are reordered, ofttimes laid waste, and kingdom values take their place. 

Friends who knew her before scarcely recognize her now.

A believer, not so. She holds certain beliefs, but how deep down these go depends on the weather or her mood. She can get defensive, sometimes bristlingly so, about her beliefs, but in her honest moments she wonders why they’ve made such scant difference. She still feels alone, afraid, sad, self-protective, dissatisfied. She still wants what she’s always wanted and fears what she’s always feared, sometimes more so. Friends who knew her before find her pretty much the same, just angrier.

You can’t be a disciple without being a believer. But—here’s the rub—you can be a believer and not be a disciple. You can say all the right things, think all the right things, believe all the right things, do all the right things, and still not follow and imitate Jesus.

The kingdom of God is made up of travailers, but our churches are largely populated with tourists. The kingdom is full of disciples, but our churches are filled with believers. It’s no wonder we often feel like we’re just going in circles. 

pp 54-55, Your Church is Too Safe by Mark Buchanan (Zondervan, March, 2012)

May
10
2012

Who Are You Calling a Culture Warrior?

“People are tired of the culture war.” “The culture war is over.” “Christians need to stop being so political.” “Christians are damaging the brand with their involvement in politics.”

Have you heard any of these statements lately? I have. And I’ve made these statements. Our generation is in the midst of a good discussion on the connection between faith and politics. We’re a bit weary of a previous generation’s highly partisan nature. We feel the Christian brand has been badly damaged. We’re not culture warriors.

Or so we think. Except isn’t interesting how hypocritical we actually are. I was thinking about this the other day. There are some issues that have been labeled divisive. For instance, to be loudly pro-life is to be considered too partisan. Stop fighting the culture wars. Preach the gospel instead. Love people.

And yet, if you were to replace your advocacy for the unborn with, say, advocacy for starving children, both here and overseas, you’d be lauded as a hero. You might even have one of those blog widgets where you encourage everyone to get involved. You’d be considered a compassionate Christian–a different kind of Christian than those angry, right wing types that talk too much about those babies being killed every day in increasingly heinous ways.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Child poverty is a tragic social ill, one that the Church should quickly work to alleviate. Those organizations that compel us to sponsor children are on the side of angels.

But . . . isn’t this a social issue too? Isn’t this a cultural thing, too? Aren’t those who harang the church for not doing more to alleviate poverty, aren’t they culture warriors like the prolife folks are?

Do you see how easily we dismiss issues we wish would go away? Or issues we lazily engage without fully knowing the facts?

Truthfully, we are all culture warriors. There are issues we are all passionate about, about which we compel our leaders to act. But I sense, in my generation, a bit of smugness. That we’re not going to do things the way our fathers did. We’re smarter, better, more Christlike.

Perhaps we’ll avoid some of the unhealthy lust for power and unnecessary party loyalty of the past. Maybe the Christian brand might be more distanced from the conservative movement. Perhaps we’ll talk less about “swinging elections” and more about gospel transformation. If so, that’s a good change.

But if we are to be faithful to what God has called us to do, there will be times when our advocacy will have the media and the opinion makers singing our praises. And there will be other moments when our faithful positions will bring us derision.

Which will make us, yes even us enlightened ones, culture warriors. We’d better get used to it.

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.