Threads & Grace

I currently own just two pairs of jeans.  Maybe that's absurd, I'm not sure.  It also says something about just how long I tend to wear pants without washing them.  Just this week, I managed to successfully rip new holes in both knees of one of those two precious pairs of denim.  Which means a trip to a thrift store is in order.

Ralphie and Randy will know better in just a few years.

Going out to buy clothes is one of my least favorite chores.  Consequently, it's one of Tara's favorites, which means the Lord is clearly working on our marriage.  To be fair, my in-laws have been keeping my wardrobe stocked since 2012, which proves my theory that being an adult can be boiled down to one thing: actually being excited to receive clothing for your birthday or Christmas, primarily because it means you don't have to spend that money yourself (or go out shopping yourself).

The imagery of being "clothed in" something is biblical terminology.  The passive voice in this often-repeated phrase is critical.  The first man and woman, for example, were clothed by God with the skins of a slain animal to cover their shame in nakedness (Gen 3.21).  The prodigal son in Luke 15 is clothed in a new robe by his father's servants.  Moses is commanded to clothe Aaron in the robes of a High Priest (Lev 8.7), and the believers are similarly called to a priestly role in God's kingdom, having received mercy and special anointing from Christ (1 Pet 2.9).  The book of Revelation repeats the imagery in multiple locations: the Bride of Christ is granted the right to dress in white (19.8); the martyrs are likewise given white robes as their consolation (6.11), and those who "conquer" are promised similar vestments (3.5).  Job speaks of God clothing him with skin and flesh (Job 10.11).  Jesus reminded the crowds that the Heavenly Father clothes the grass of the field, and likewise provides clothing and other necessities for His children (Matt 6.30).  Furthermore, in the Great Commission, Christ promised the disciples that they would be clothed with power that came from the Holy Spirit (Luke 24.49).  Isaiah, however, makes my favorite statement of them all: "My soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness" (Isa 61.10).  This messianic statement is a direct contrast to the clothing of the self-righteous elsewhere in the book of Isaiah, which the prophet decries as "filthy rags" or "polluted garments" (64.6).

Each of these instances communicates the reality of man's absolute dependence upon the Lord's provision: we can't clothe ourselves -- literally OR figuratively -- so God must do it for us.  He is the great provider for all of our physical AND spiritual needs.  That means we aren't truly in control of providing for ourselves -- regardless of the fact that I'm the one physically buying the pants from Goodwill.  Likewise, I'm not the one securing my eternal destiny by my moralistic living.  In fact, living like it's my inherent goodness that gains me heaven is what Isaiah explicitly calls revolting to a Holy God.  It's not flippantly that Jesus reminds the Pharisees that "there is only one who is good," and that "one" is God alone (Matt 16.17).

I've heard the sardonic expression, "I'm not impatient.  I just don't like to wait."  I sometimes make a similar quip: "I don't struggle with anxiety.  I just don't like not being in control."  The convicting reality is that ripped knees in my jeans are never a point of anxiety for me -- well, that is, until I check the bank account and see that there's no wiggle room in the budget for a new (or slightly used) pair.  There's never any anxiety in my heart... that is, not until the car is breaking down and I know I'll have to swipe the credit card to cover the repairs until the next pay period.  I don't struggle with worry until suddenly I have to pick and choose which bills get paid in full for the month.

I'm sick of the trite "God never gives you anything you can't handle" philosophy that Christians regurgitate to one another, giving themselves a paltry substitute for real reassurance.  God gives us more than we can handle all the time, and the point is that He calls us to trust HIM, not in our wallets or our abilities.  I must learn to trust Him and Him alone, or I make an idol out of one misplaced sense of security or another.  That's the lesson on anxiety that Jesus gives in the Sermon on the Mount: our Heavenly Father not only cares for the realm of nature, He also cares for the specific needs of the saints.  It's therefore our responsibility to surrender our illusions of control, and trust instead in His goodness.

God clothes me when it comes to matters of immediate necessity.  But more importantly, He has clothed me in eternal security.  The Christian is "clothed" in the very righteousness of the Messiah, by the Messiah, which makes us eternally acceptable before God the Father.  So when our cups seem empty in this life, we still have the ability to see God's incredible blessing -- a gracious and incomparable provision that surpasses any immediate trial -- and see that our cups are actually full when viewed in an eternal context.

I might have holes in my jeans, but there are no holes in my righteousness.  I might need to buy a new pair of threads every now and again, but I never need to replace the holy vestments given to me by my Savior.

I think it's appropriate to conclude this post with the words of the classic Christian doxology, because He alone DOES provide, and He alone is worthy of my worship.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow

Praise Him, all creatures here below

Praise Him above, ye heavenly hosts

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost

Amen

2017-2018 Philadelphia Eagles, Super Bowl LII Champions: "In all that he does, he prospers"

Bob Dylan's classic song, "With God on Our Side," resounds with cynicism.  It's an anthem against religious justification for acts of violence, racial subjection, and blind obedience that supersedes rational thought and conscience.  It exposes a sentiment that can be ultra-personal ("God won't judge me for this tiny infraction"), denominational ("Anabaptists deserve execution"), cultural ("God has called us to subject and educate the Native Americans"), or national ("The United States is the Promised Land").  Some of it takes the self-righteous positive stance, and some of it takes the damning negative stance against the other.  People often speak of God as a celestial cheerleader who lends support to a cause or grants divine favor to a particular group or movement.

More accurate is the position of Romans 3.10: "As it is written: 'None is righteous, no, not one.'"  Therefore, God's "position" is much more akin to the sentiment Treebeard expresses to the Hobbits in The Two Towers: “Side?  I am on nobody's side, because nobody is on my side, little orc.”

All that said, as a battered but hopeful Eagles fan, who has been soaking in all the hype leading up to and surrounding this phenomenal Super Bowl LII victory, the season has been a fascinating insight into what God does when people seek to worship Him in their personal lives.

It would, of course, be poor theology to suggest that God is an Eagles fan (despite jasper stones around the heavenly throne, just sayin'), and just as ridiculous to impose that God's attentions are riveted to our modern-day gladiator competitions.  But at the forefront of the 2017-2018 Eagles team are three incredible leaders (Pederson, Wentz, and Foles), surrounded by a united body of brothers in Christ, who have collectively gone out of their way to proclaim their love for and devotion to our Heavenly Father, giving Him the glory for their skills and their victories.  That is something absolutely extraordinary -- not just within the NFL, but in all pro sports.

It's one thing to have the stereotypical "I thank God and my family" media soundbites from your super-star.  It's a rare but great thing to have a single, sold-out believer on your team who radically speaks to the media about his or her faith.  But it's another thing entirely when you have a core group of player and coaches who -- in every single interview with the media -- unanimously credit Jesus Christ not only with gifting them with talents, but also with changing their lives and motivating them to humility, self-sacrifice, and servanthood.  The Eagles are on a whole other level with this.  The testimonies of Pederson, Wentz, and Foles have all received attention simply because they're the ones most often confronted with microphones, but there are so many others -- among them, Stefen Wisniewski, Jordan Hicks, Trey Burton, Chris Maragos, Torrey Smith, Marcus Johnson, Zach Ertz, and others.  This is a team where players like Chris Long not only donate their paychecks to charity, but also do short-term missions work (Carson Wentz, Torrey Smith), and aspire to become pastors post-NFL (Nick Foles).  This is a team where players not only attend team chapel (out of devotion rather than obligation), but also preach at team chapel.  These are teammates who have held baptisms in their locker room, who have taken every opportunity after games to pray on the field with members of the opposing team, and who deflect media ego-stroking with humble recognition of God's sovereignty.

And there's plenty to brag about, of course.  Their athleticism, team play, and individual stats -- setting franchise and league records -- all speak for themselves.  In fact, if the Eagles were just a bunch of decent players surrounding a star quarterback, there is no way their season could have continued after Wentz's injury, much less secured a Super Bowl victory.  Instead, they fought on, adapted, and continued to play their absolute best, having some incredible fun in the process, and proving that they truly had greatness.  In the process of losing key players left and right all season long yet going on to defeat the greatest team in recent NFL history, there have been plenty of opportunities for self-pity and arrogance alike, but so many players' testimonies of faith -- though tested by fire -- have all proven strong.

The implication of this is certainly not that God is an Eagles fan or that He's "on our side" simply because Eagles players repped Him in postgame interviews.  But it is certainly a biblical principle that God blesses the work of the faithful.  Psalm 1.1-3 attests to this: "Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.  He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers."  The beauty of this principle is that, in terms of God's kingdom, such prospering is both micro- and macroscopic.  It works like this: God shows Himself to be faithful by honoring the work of a righteous man's hands (i.e. career choices, ministry involvement, and even skill development).  As God shows Himself to be faithful, the righteous man gives God glory and worship and praise, not mistaking the tangible blessing as his ultimate reward, but as a small display of God's unfathomable grace.  As he does so, others see and testify, and they too give God glory and worship and praise.  And so the cycle continues.  It's not about God blessing the temporal things we do on this earth, it's also about Him blessing our eternal investments into His Kingdom, which isn't primarily about the big stuff -- missions trips, social work, etc -- but about our every-day, Romans 12:1-2 worship.  Don't make the mistake of seeing this as the absolute nonsense of prosperity doctrine: God does NOT always make us wealthy and healthy just because we're obedient or have strong faith.  He does, however, honor the righteous who aren't looking for an immediate reward, but who do their very best to worship God in everything, whatever the consequence, and keep their eyes on the REAL reward of eternity with Christ.

Nowhere is that principle more clearly illustrated than in our franchise quarterback.  Since Carson's injury in Week 14 against LA, I've been telling friends and family that he has an even greater testimony to give from the sidelines than he does from the pocket.  For a man whose love for Christ and joy in everything he does are so obvious to go out with a season-ending injury, but still maintain his demeanor and remain committed to being a coach, leader, and teammate from the sidelines -- and to rejoice with his backup as he assumes leadership and brings the team to a championship...  This is a much more powerful statement to who Carson Wentz is as a follower of Christ, and how awesome is the God we serve!  Interestingly enough, that's exactly the biblical model of discipleship: one leading and instructing while another watches and learns, then humbly stepping aside to allow the other to take the helm and become the leader.  Sometimes circumstances demand that the transition happens sooner than expected, and the real test of a man's maturity is in how he responds when things don't go the way he planned.

Dylan was right to criticize sins justified by religion and race.  The only one who can justify is God, and He didn't sweep our sins under the rug and pretend like they didn't happen.  Instead, He came in the form of a man to pay for all of our misdeeds, and to graciously give us His own righteousness instead of the eternal death we deserved.  The beauty of entering into new spiritual life with Christ is that He engages with us as we, by His Spirit, align ourselves to Him -- to be on HIS side.  He blesses the work of our hands for His glory and for our good.

I believe that's what we witnessed with this Eagles team all season long: God's blessing for honest and visible faith on the field.  While that doesn't guarantee a Philadelphia dynasty or even a repeat Superbowl run for 2018-2019, it does mean that God has always honored and will honor humble, righteous men for their love, devotion, and service to Him -- either in this world or in Heaven to come.

Miracles, Evolution, and Faith

The debate between scientific and religious communities on the function of the natural world is ultimately not a disagreement on biological processes.  It is a disagreement on worldview.  It is a debate between those who believe in a Designer and those who purport philosophical naturalism -- that is, the belief that everything has a natural (as opposed to super-natural) cause and organic life is solely the product of random forces.  Even non-religious scientists recognize the problems inherent to this view.  Furthermore, faith does not deny scientific reason, nor does it completely deny evolutionary theory.  However, it does deny a worldview that says, in sum, "None of this matters because it is all the result of chance."

I've written previously about faith as a worldview and the legitimacy of traditional, conservative beliefs.  I also intend to write a more extensive post on the topic of scientific reasoning.  For now, however, I wanted to briefly share something that I found immensely encouraging.

For those who wrestle with this debate, for those who have doubts about Jesus, or for those who have difficulty rationalizing scientific reasoning with the miracles of the Bible, the following passage from Timothy Keller's The Reason for God is a wise and precious analysis of God's operation in the natural world.

In Matthew 28, we are told that the apostles met the risen Jesus on a mountainside in Galilee.  "When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted" (verse 17).  That is a remarkable admission.  Here is the author of an early Christian document telling us that some of the founders of Christianity couldn't believe the miracle of the resurrection, even when they were looking straight at him with their eyes and touching him with their hands.  There is no other reason for this to be in the account unless it really happened.

This passage shows us several things.  It is a warning not to think that only we modern, scientific people have to struggle with the idea of the miraculous, while ancient, more primitive people did not.  The apostles responded like any group of modern people -- some believed their eyes and some didn't.  It is also an encouragement to patience.  All the apostles ended up as great leaders in the church, but some had a lot more trouble believing than others.

The most instructive thing about this text is, however, what it says about the purpose of Biblical miracles.  [They are not just a challenge to our minds, but a promise to our hearts.] They lead not simply to cognitive belief, but to worship, to awe and wonder.  Jesus' miracles in particular were never magic tricks, designed only to impress and coerce.  You never see him say something like: "See that tree over there?  Watch me make it burst into flames!"  Instead, he used miraculous power to heal the sick, feed the hungry, and raise the dead.  Why?  We modern people think of miracles as the suspension of the natural order, but Jesus meant them to be the restoration of the natural order.  The Bible tells us that God did not originally make the world to have disease, hunger, and death in it.  Jesus has come to redeem where it is wrong and heal the world where it is broken.  His miracles are not just proof that he has power, but are also wonderful foretastes of what he is going to do with that power.

Jesus' miracles are not just a challenge to our minds, but a promise to our hearts -- a promise that the world we all want is coming.

Come, Lord Jesus.

Forward-Thinking Spirituality

The blood drained from Saul's face so quickly he felt lightheaded.  Behind him, he could still hear the confused murmur of the crowds and his soldiers, although it suddenly seemed to be at a distance.

The victory parade had come to an unscheduled halt in the streets of Gilgal when Samuel had appeared out of the crowd, dressed like a beggar in his threadbare traveling cloak, but immediately recognizable as the Man of God.  Upon seeing the old prophet, an immediate sense of worry had begun clawing at Saul's guts.  Even though he knew he'd done nothing wrong, something told him that Samuel had come to rebuke him once again.  Harbinger of doom, that one.  Their relationship had been rocky at best since the sacrifice Saul had made on this very location at the darkest point of the war with the Philistines.  Admittedly, he'd acted hastily on that occasion, and he fully acknowledged that, but he still felt that the decision had been necessary and that Samuel had been too harsh.  The old man often took the Lord's word too seriously - too literally.

The conversation did not begin well.  Samuel seemed to think that Saul had not fulfilled the commandment that the Lord had given - to completely destroy the Amalekites and all their possessions.  Saul knew that he was working a loophole as far as the cattle were concerned, but he couldn't believe that God and Samuel both couldn't overlook such a little detail when the overall objective had been accomplished.  Enough slaughter had been done for one day.  Even he, Saul - a man of battle and carnage - thought so.  The Amalekites were beaten and their king was now Israel's prisoner of war.

And then, Samuel delivered the message he'd brought from the Lord, and the bottom fell out of Saul's stomach.

"W-what?" he stammered, searching Samuel's eyes for some sign of compassion, but the old prophet's face remained bowstring taught - full of anger, full of remorse.

"Because you have rejected the word of the Lord," Samuel said slowly, "he has also rejected you from being king."

The pronouncement felt like judgment.

Saul knew that his mouth was hanging open.  He felt the fury growing in the pit of his stomach - the fury of disbelief, the fury of acute unfairness.  Hadn't he done what was asked of him?  He'd sacrificed the lives of his own soldiers to defeat the enemies of Israel, but that wasn't enough?  The Lord's commands were impossible, then!

At the same time as he burned with rage, Saul began to feel the chill of dread sinking into his belly.  He has also rejected you from being king, Samuel had said.  What exactly did that mean?

"I - I have sinned," Saul said haltingly.  Was that what Samuel wanted?  A confession?  God forgave sins, right?  Maybe there was a way to rectify the situation.  "I have transgressed the Lord's command.  I gave the people what they wanted - hard-earned spoils for themselves and... and cattle for sacrifices!"

If Saul had hoped that last detail would ease the tension, he was sadly mistaken.  Something in Samuel's dark eyes seemed to break, like the snap of a twig that gives the hunter away.  It was like confirmation.  He said nothing.

Saul continued, more desperately this time.  "Please, Samuel - please pardon my sin and come with me to offer a sacrifice so that I can worship the Lord."

"I will not."  The old man's face crinkled with what could only be grief.  "You have rejected the Lord, Saul.  So the Lord has rejected you."

Without another word, the prophet turned to go.

The boiling rage made Saul act without thought.  Before he realized it, he had lunged at the old man and seized him by the cloak.

"Don't turn your back on me!" he roared.  "I am still the anointed king!"

Samuel responded, whirling back to face him.  As he turned, the fabric in Saul's grasp tore violently, travel-worn as the robe was from Samuel's repeated journeys from Mizpah to Gilgal.  The sight of the torn material halted Saul in his tracks.  In that moment, despite the untold horrors of war he'd witnessed, the frayed edges of the Samuel's robe were suddenly the most grotesque and terrifying sight he'd ever seen - the lips of a gaping wound, the worst he'd ever inflicted.

"The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you!" Samuel shouted, brandishing the torn edges of his robe at the disgraced king.  His voice was harsh and unsteady with emotion - fury or grief or both, Saul couldn't tell.  "He has given it instead to someone more worthy, Saul.  The Lord of Israel does not lie or have regrets, for He is not a man."

He left the statement ragged, as though implying the very words that Saul formed in his own mind: You, on the other hand....

~*~

Samuel's robe tears in Saul's grasp, foreshadowing the inevitable result of his disobedience

Saul's unfortunate story is representative of generations of people who have tried to follow God's command without fully giving their hearts to Him.  These individuals go through the religious motions, filling their agendas with ministry and obedience to God's commands at their own convenience, missing all along the fact that the Lord delights in the condition of their hearts over the quantity of their sacrifices (1 Sam 15.22).  However, God has always raised up leaders who have understood Him and His grace in a way the rest of their contemporaries have not.

The fact that the Lord desires worshipers who rend their hearts in sincerity, not their clothes in bathetic display (Joel 2.13), was undeniably harder to understand through the restrictions of the Mosaic law than through the gospels.  The law, after all, was designed to illustrate the impossibility of holiness, because sin makes it impossible to please God.  However, the point behind the whole process was to show the Israelites their need for God and to teach them dependence upon Him.  Yet while the rest of the nation was caught up in the methodology of sacrifice and ritual, of keeping every command down to the letter, there remained forward-thinking men and women who were able to understand so clearly this message of grace which God had offered from the very beginning.

These were the ones who earned their places in the Hall of Faith for the purity of their worship and their desire to please God above all else.  These were the men and women who were content to live in tents during their sojourn in this world, and to "die in faith," as Hebrews 11.13 puts it, "not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth."  These were individuals who saw what God truly promised - beyond the promised land of Israel, beyond the promise of Zion's protection, beyond the promised generations to come.  Moses chose to be "mistreated with the people of God [rather] than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.  He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward" (Heb 11.25).  Abraham was promised a nation as his descendants, and a matchless land as their inheritance, and he lived to see neither promise realized.  Even Rahab, a prostitute in a Canaanite nation, saw what wondrous works the God of Israel was doing, and her heart was drawn to him, awakening within her a faith that would save not only her life but also those of her family.  All of these individuals lived by faith regardless of their circumstances, and regardless of the consequences, because faith recognizes the possibility of unmet desires while relying on the unfailing promise of God's faithfulness.

And then there were men and women like Saul.

These are the men and women who have lived by their own religious standards, with the mentality that they are owed something for their faithful service and who are offended when they receive none.  These are the individuals who redefine faith depending on convenience, their generation, and their own terms.  They forget that it is impossible to please God without biblical faith and instead rely upon something more certain to them - their own morality, logic, and opinions.  The real issue is that their hearts, like Saul's, are far from God, even though their actions may correspond to the commands of Scripture - even though they may daily study the Word of God with a magnifying glass.  These are the individuals who can justify any action, who fail to be grieved by their own sin, who instead see themselves in the light of personal validation.  They don't exercise faith.  In fact, they don't even think much about the future at all, because they are absorbed in the now - in their current struggles, their current situations, their current possessions.

Saul was a people-pleaser.  He was wrapped up in his own self-worth.  He was jealous, impetuous, and angry.  He had no faith in God - in His timing, in His deliverance, in His commands.  Of course, he claimed to acknowledge all of these things, yet chose to interpret them according to his own standards.

Whom are we more like?

We who live in the modern era have the wonderful privilege of the completed Scriptures to enlighten our thinking.  We have the luxury of understanding grace through the manifested Christ.  It should be, I daresay, easier for us as believers today, because - as the apostle Peter asserted - we have something "more fully confirmed" in which to place our faith: the Word of God revealed.  But are we forward-thinking in our day, the way Moses and Abraham and David were in theirs?  Are we content with what we have, or are we insatiably greedy for more of God, ever looking forward to the time in which we will cross Jordan's stormy banks and rest in our Father's bosom?  Do we live to die in faith, recognizing that we still only live in tents - that our home is still on the other side, and that we might not see our hopes and dreams fulfilled in this life?

We should maintain the patriarchs' forward-thinking spirituality and live in joyful anticipation of our Savior's return.  We should be "ahead of our time" the way they were, giving our hearts fully to God in order to give Him the type of sacrifice He truly desires.

Micah 6.8: "He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"