Stop reducing your statement of faith to fit on your front marquee

There are many legitimate reasons to leave an organization.  Where I've been planted for over a decade, it would take quite a change of culture, ministry philosophy, or vision -- or a specific calling from the Lord -- for me to uproot.  However, I have made it clear to the team with whom I serve that there is one hypothetical situation that would unquestionably send me packing...

One of my biggest pet peeves is church marquees.  To borrow a friend's analogy, they are like the worst of Twitter (X).  The example included here (courtesy of ChatGPT) is far less offensive than some actual ones I've seen in my area recently.  But even this attempt at wordplay, though adopting a humorous posture, is nevertheless offering commentary about this imaginary congregation's not-so-generous view of other faith traditions.

Digital, screen-printed, or old-school plastic, marquees come in a variety of distasteful flavors.  In no particular order, here are just a few types of content that especially make me cringe, groan, and/or low-key rage every time I drive by:

• Dad jokes
• Political commentary or patriotic slogans
• Clunky attempts to make faith pithy
• Sappy invitations that presume to know the audience
• Out-of-context Bible verses or phrases
• Inflammatory or mean-spirited statements presenting one-dimensional theology
• Sadly out-of-touch attempts to be culturally relevant
• Weak efforts to de-legitimize other churches, faiths, or denominations

Who doesn't love a good dad joke, right?  I'm a dad.  It's like my emotional currency with my kids.  But is the church marquee where I want to unload those classic groaners, particularly in association with ideas that I believe are sourced from divine and timeless truth?

How imperative is it that passersby know that the unborn right to life is the capstone of your church's statement of faith, and why does that precede the gospel as the thing of first importance for the community to know about your belief system?

Is it truly helpful to encapsulate in simple catchphrases complex Scriptural teachings that entire volumes have been written to address and expound?

While the inspired words of the Bible have great power, and even an excerpt can be a mechanism the Holy Spirit might use to open eyes to the truth of the gospel, should we continue to feed into soundbyte culture that wants everything condensed into pill form?  Or should we instead make it our practice to be inviting them to participate in a much larger, longer, and richer conversation?

I'm just asking questions.  I may, in fact, share a church's viewpoint on a particular issue, and yet I cannot align myself with their manner of communication.

As far as I'm concerned, there is only one reason for a church to have a marquee, and that is to communicate relevant information about times for gathering.  Even then, I'd still be a proponent of ripping that thing out of the ground and planting a shrubbery instead.

Now that I've complained, let me do some explaining.

Everything communicates, and first impressions are often the most enduring (not the most endearing).  The Church's purpose -- being salt and light, a city on a hill, a redeemed and anointed priesthood to the nations -- does not mean we have to take an aggressively outspoken and public stand on every divisive cultural issue.  How helpful is it to proclaim what we stand against?  Shouldn't we strive to be known only by our love for the simple, uncluttered gospel of Jesus Christ: God Himself freely offered for sinners?  Those outside our gatherings need only the invitation to come.  There, they will hear from us -- personally and over time! -- our particular views on and practices of all other matter of ethics, faith, and theology, where they can be more fully treated and understood.

There is no possible way to encapsulate a rich and nuanced theological point in the amount of characters available on a marquee.  One-liners are a butchers knife or a cudgel while truly pastoral teaching requires a scalpel, wielded with laser-focused precision.  Churches should never prefer bluntness over carefulness, especially not in their most forward and exposed statements to the community around them.  It's easier than ever to be misunderstood in a TikTok-trained, media-saturated, ADHD soundbyte culture, so why feed into the trend?

Attempts at cleverness directly undermine compassion and care.  Is it really a good thing for people to get the sense that your church is "down-to-earth" and "doesn't take itself too seriously?"  Do we not cheapen or tarnish something precious and of infinite value by making light of it?  Are not the things pertaining to following Christ of eternal importance?  Is not the gospel a message of hope and rescue to hurting and needy people?  We should adopt the Apostle Paul's sincerity: he insisted that believers must not be like street peddlers of worthless trinkets, just trying to make a buck for themselves, but rather present ourselves as ambassadors of the New Covenant, proclaiming the triumph of Christ over sin and death, and inviting the lost into an eternal Kingdom of healing and hope (2 Cor 2.17).

Loud political opinions reflect poorly examined and badly applied theology.  It's worth remembering that there are genuine, grace-covered followers of Jesus Christ on both sides of almost every single issue that divides us.  After all, Jesus called both Matthew (a tax-collecting stooge for Rome) and Simon (an anti-imperialist Jewish zealot) to walk together with Him in their shared ministry to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.  Even if you can argue your view from Scripture as the "right" one, truth cannot be properly articulated without grace, because our beliefs are not isolated or disconnected from our conduct.  Our manner of speech, verbal or in print, should always reflect Christ's heart of compassion for those who are lost, and a willingness to pursue unity even in our various perspectives.  Broadcasted marquee opinions are, by their very nature, devoid of tact and opposed to the spiritual discipline of good listening (Jas 1.19).

Personal invitation is always more gospel-centric than enticement or provocation.  By their messaging, some churches seem to favor luring the spiritually curious into their services.  The marquee is like a movie teaser for the jaw-dropping blockbuster release of the sermon.  Others use intentionally divisive language as a challenge to outsiders, daring them to react.  Either approach reeks of arrogance.  If our goal is to be mysterious and coy, we reveal our pride over our own spiritual insight and imply that we delight to make theologically uneducated people feel small.  Faithful preaching is neither entertainment, nor should it be an opportunity to flex our spiritual muscles.  On the other hand, if our intent is to use our marquee to spout fire and brimstone, it may as well be a bullet-riddled "No Trespassing" sign, declaring to the community that anyone holding a different viewpoint is unwelcome and beyond the saving hope of the gospel.

Bottom line: it's problematic for a church to misrepresent Christ, the gospel, and God's intent for His people.  As churches, God's people should strive to be as clear, thoughtful, and intentional as possible in all of their communication efforts, especially those targeting the community outside, who have no context to understand our levity or passion.  As individual followers of Christ, it's likewise critical that we be purposeful and winsome in how we communicate.  Everything from bumper stickers to t-shirts to social media posts must be weighed carefully.  These things don't nearly point to Christ as much as we might think they do.  More often, they just serve to highlight our own ideas and opinions, not the gospel.

So!  I'm routinely grateful that our church doesn't have a marquee out front.  If we ever do get one, well...

Priests by His merit

I wrestled with a section of Leviticus 21 the other day during my morning reading.  There, the following instructions are given to Moses concerning Israel's priesthood:

No man of the offspring of Aaron the priest who has a blemish shall come near to offer the Lord's food offerings; since he has a blemish, he shall not come near to offer the bread of his God...  he shall not go through the veil or approach the altar, because he has a blemish, that he may not profane my sanctuaries, for I am the Lord who sanctifies them.” (Lev 21.21-23)

As we read earlier in the passage, a "blemish" might include blindness; mutilation; disease; impotence; crippled, lame, or deformed limbs; and hunched backs (21.18-20) -- anything that might render a man physically or mentally inept.  On a practical level, such a restriction makes sense, but when I read a passage like that, my heart reacts because it's difficult to read compassion and kindness into such a law.  In fact, it's (understandably) the exact type of passage a doubter might point to as an example of a biblical contradiction.

"You claim this god of yours is loving, but what about this?"

When I read a passage like this, I think about the way people with disabilities are treated in modern society.  Yes, there are programs, organizations, treatments, and caretakers designated to meet the needs of handicapped individuals.  Yes, every restaurant has special parking spots for folks with blue swing tags.  Yes, restrooms are designed to accommodate wheelchairs.  However, the average person moving at the average pace of American society doesn't have the time of day or the wherewithal to consider those needs.  In fact, we are either more annoyed by the inconvenience these individuals can represent, or we're simply too uncomfortable around them to be properly motivated to serve them.

It's an unfortunate reality that individuals born with physical or mental disabilities have been marginalized in every society.  Ironically, it is only now -- at the current peak of supposed human evolution, where the callous "survival of the fittest" path has supposedly brought us -- that we've reached a point in society where we now have programs and institutions that can effectively care for individuals who fall into the varying categories of special needs.  That is, instead of placing them in neglected, isolated communities; treating them like they're possessed; or ostracizing them entirely (as societies have done in the past), we are actually taking strides to provide the disabled and handicapped with a quality of life unprecedented in past decades.  In evolutionary terms, this can only be defined as regression, not advancement.  And yet, modern sciences, engineering, therapies, and social work altogether geared at assisting people with disabilities reveal a depth of heart that points to the warm fingers of a compassionate Designer -- not the cold randomness of survival.

Considering all this, when I read a passage like Leviticus 21, I desperately want a verse 24 to hurl open the doors of mercy and compassion, welcoming and inviting people with deformities and disabilities, allowing them direct access to the throne room of God.  If anyone should have love and a special place for for the deformed, the lame, and the outcasts, it should be God Himself.  But even though there is no verse 24 here to express that sentiment, that doesn't mean I can jump to the conclusion that there is no room in God's heart for servants with "blemishes."

A couple clarifying points will help.

One, this section of Leviticus is addressed specifically to those in the line of the priesthood -- that is, Aaron's descendants.  And in that regard, the command is only applicable to eligible males in the Aaronic line who would otherwise perform priestly duties in the tabernacle or temple.  In other words, this is no more a blanket statement prohibiting any Israelite with a deformity who wants to serve in the temple from doing so, than it is grounds for the community to ostracize any debilitated individual from worshiping with the rest of the community (keeping in mind that if he has a disease that is contagious, he must subject himself to rules of cleanness and purification).  This law does, however, prohibit those in Aaron's generations who have special needs from serving as priests in the tabernacle/temple.

Two, what seems on the surface to be a passage ostracizing Aaronic descendants with birth defects is actually a statement about the holiness and perfection of God.  In other words, the kind of physical, mental, and spiritual state an individual must be in to appropriately serve as a priest is a writ-small reflection of what God requires of each of us.  The equation is simple: no one is holy like God is.  No one -- not even the perfect specimen of human fitness, physique, or symmetry; not even the most law-abiding, moral citizen.  Even the High Priest himself could only enter directly into God's presence one day of the year to offer sacrifices for the atonement of all the people, and that was only after he performed extensive acts of ritual cleansing and offered sacrifices for his own sins and those of his family.

Across the Testaments of Scripture, the standard that must be met is perfection.  Which is and always has been impossible for humankind.  You must serve God, but to properly serve God you must be perfect, and you cannot be perfect because you are a sinner.  This is the original Catch-22.  And yet, if we study the Word of God carefully and take a deep, long look into our own hearts, we cannot honestly deny that this is a self-inflicted state, not the work of a cruel, merciless deity.

Now, enter Jesus.

Jesus' earthly ministry accomplishes what we ourselves could not do.  His perfection, holiness, and obedience fulfills all the requirements of God's just demands.  Where universal sin had earned death and judgment, He came to drink the cup of the Father's just wrath to its dregs.  In so doing, He took our punishment -- our wages.  And then, His resurrection from the grave verified His power over both sin and death, enabling those of us who believe to have new, restored life.  Instead of being regarded as impure sinners, we can now be righteous in the eyes of God, cleansed thoroughly by the blood of His Son.  Where all of our moral strivings have failed, one act of righteousness has become the salvation we all desperately need (Rom 5.18).

Here's the hope that we can only see in shadow in Leviticus 21: the perfection that God requires of His priests was fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

This means we don't have to be perfect, because He was perfection for us.

That especially includes people with "blemishes" -- permanent injuries, illnesses, or debilitations.  As a matter of fact, if we look through the pages of the gospel accounts, we'll find that these are exactly the people whom Jesus spent His time touching, cleansing, and teaching.  The helpless invalids -- the spiritual and physical outcasts from their own heritage -- were the ones to whom Jesus ministered specifically.  Those whom the entire Israelite community had rejected on the basis of deformity, illness, or stigma, Jesus drew back into the community, healing their infirmities and demonstrating what life without sin, within the restored fellowship of God others, is like.

According to Mosaic law, no one with a blemish could serve as a priest, and only those of Aaron's bloodline were eligible to be priests anyway.  And yet, even those individuals who were considered worthy to don the ephod needed their own sins atoned for.  In fact, the span of the Scriptures attests to the fact that the priesthood as an institution was ultimately insufficient to completely atone for human sin anyway.  The book of Hebrews elaborates on the profound reality that Jesus' atoning work completed the task of the priesthood, removing any further need for a temporary intermediate.  This is why God Himself, the Son, became our permanent intermediate: He became our sacrifice and He became our priest (see Hebrews 4.14-8.13).  For this reason, Paul makes the case that any distinction among believers based on class or privilege has been abolished (Gal 3.28), and Peter goes on to write that all followers of Jesus Christ, once living in the outer darkness of sin and rejection, have altogether been promoted to the status of the priesthood:

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.  Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. (1 Peter 2.9-10)

The beauty of this is that those who might once have been forbidden from serving in the capacity of a priest, whether because of a physical or a mental deformity, have now been given direct access to God by the atoning work of Jesus.  We are now able to be ministers to the faith community the way the Israelite priests ministered to the nation, regardless of blood heritage, regardless of disability, regardless of our sinful pasts.

As followers of Jesus, we all have our place in the Kingdom -- a place not determined by anyone's merit but His.

Jesus is the great equalizer.  The cross levels the entire playing field.  In the Kingdom of Heaven, there are no distinctions of sinner or saint.  Those who were once deformed have been transformed.  We are all now priests and esteemed family members, redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ.

This understanding should motivate us to have a greater compassion for both those with special needs, and also for those outside the community of faith.  As members of the royal priesthood, our responsibility is not to offer sacrifices on their behalf, but to proclaim the excellencies of light, truth, and the hope that Jesus Christ is the perfect sacrifice.

As we have been shown grace upon grace and unfathomable mercy by the God of all comfort and compassion (2 Cor 1.3), let us extend the same to the lost -- and especially to those with disabilities.

Thanksgiving, 2016

Thanksgiving is such a warm, nostalgic holiday for me, just in terms of its laid-back atmosphere and its proximity to the end-of-the-year season.  Specific moments are somewhat vague -- I can remember lying on my belly drawing cartoons out in our sun porch (the toy room), and another year putting together a cardboard, punch-out farm set that my grandmother got me -- but my appreciation for the holiday is a messy bundle of pleasant, quantitative recollections of rest and family time.

That said, I know I'm not the only one who can use the holiday like a checkpoint -- a momentary pause to say thanks for my blessings and fill up my gratitude tank before heading back into my normal, humdrum way of living.  It's easy on Thanksgiving to be thankful, because it's easy to be happy when thing are comfortable.  But normal life (and sometimes holidays too) isn't always (ever?) comfortable.  Outlined below are three questions that I need to be asking myself regularly, none of which will rock anyone back on their mental heels in revelation.  However, learning to be content isn't just about accruing new practical ways to don a brave face when things are ugly.  For Christians, it's about learning deeper appreciation for the reality that has always been in front of us.

How an I practicing "24/7/365 gratitude," not just "Thanksgiving gratitude?"

I heard the story of an elderly preacher who, after years of faithful ministry, suddenly began preaching the same sermon to his congregation week after week.  At first, the people were polite and said nothing, but they all wondered if their minister was starting to show his age.  Finally, as weeks turned into months, they began to grow concerned for his mental health, and one of the trustees was nominated to approach the pastor and inquire whether or not he thought it might be time to retire.

"...because you do realize," the spokesperson said nervously, "that you've been preaching the exact same sermon each Sunday for six weeks now, right?"

Calmly, the pastor replied, "Tom, I'll move on to another topic as soon as this one actually sinks in."

Personally, I don't need the reminder to be thankful every time Thanksgiving rolls around.  I need it every day.

According to the Apostle Paul, joy and gratefulness should be among the chief, distinguishing qualities of Christ-followers (Phil 4.4).  To be anything but grateful in the face of what we have been given is to be both self-centered and incredibly short-sighted.  We all know how easy it is to set aside just one day of the year to take a deep breath and re-evaluate the silver lining.  We also know that it's much harder to maintain that spirit of peace and thankfulness on a daily basis -- largely because we have a penchant for always expecting things to go our way.  We read, "All things work together for good for those who love Him" in Romans 8.28 and conveniently ignore the fact that the biblical idea of "good" is tied to our spiritual growth, not to our personal comfort.  And in the midst of such skewed thinking, our spirits become jaded to the lessons God might be trying to teach us and we sink to begrudging the hours rather than redeeming them.

But maybe it's not just our attitude that needs to be examined.

Maybe it's our view of the Almighty.

Faith and trust are key elements in maintaining daily thankfulness for God's provision.  But they aren't just attitude words.  They're belief words.  Together, the joint exercise of faith and trust logically expresses the reality that I don't possess all the knowledge, and that there are things completely outside of my realm of control.  In that regard, maybe my struggle with gratitude is not because my faith in God is weak, but because my conception of God is.  Do I really esteem Him to be good?  Faithful?  Omnipotent?  Or have I stunted my understanding of Him by inflating my own abilities, esteem, and expectations?  Forgive the not-so-latent Calvinistic flavor, but either God is sovereign or He is impotent.  Any in-between is a contradiction in terms.  And frankly, a God who is not in control is not much of a God at all -- certainly not one to place my faith and trust in.  Certainly not one to whom thanks and praise are due.

No wonder our faith is so small if we have such small views of who God truly is and what He can do!

Here's what I know.  The same God Almighty who expends sufficient mercy and grace to all sinners also gives the necessary resources that His children need for life and joy and worship (Matt 4.4; Luke 11.13; Jas 1.17).  He is good and He is big and He is holy and He is trustworthy.  As Christians, we can rest in His sovereignty even when circumstances are poor, because our faith is placed in what is truly "for good" -- not in the stunted, shortsighted promises of American consumerist spirituality, but in the aim of holiness that our Savior has sovereignly purposed for all of His children, and in the hope of eternity spent with Him.

How am I giving thanks for the little things?

Prayer, in general, is crucial.  Without a prayer life, I'll find it impossible to be truly grateful for anything.  Specifically, praying before a meal might seem like just a mundane habit -- more like family tradition or a teaching tool for children than a genuine expression of gratitude.  However, maintaining this kind of practice is a small way to live in constant dependence upon God.  Having this kind of discipline is an indicator that I don't just run to Him in a panic when the sky is falling, but have intentionally disciplined myself to be prayerful.  When relationships fail and work is a mess and my life seems to be in shambles, there are still fragments of goodness and hope to be found in commonplace things that altogether point to the bedrock fact that God is still working.  However, if I haven't learned beforehand that there is nothing I've been given for which I shouldn't be deeply thankful, I'll find it difficult to find anything meaningful in the rubble.

Conversely, what I'm quick to complain about (i.e. NOT pray about) also shines a spotlight in the direction of my values.  It's so easy to sink into irritation and downright bitterness rather than wait for the grain of sand to become a pearl.  However, if I train myself to express gratitude when things are good, by pausing to be thankful for the proverbial "little things," I can preemptively form a habit that's hard to dislocate.  If I teach myself not to take even the most mundane things for granted, suddenly those are the things on the tip of my tongue when I'm hard-pressed to find reasons to be thankful in difficulty.  Giving thanks regularly for the dispensable things makes giving thanks at all that much easier when things become difficult.

This kind of thinking involves a large measure of training and self-discipline.  It's not our natural inclination to express gratitude, not when things are difficult, and especially not when we live in the middle of a generation that feels entitled to only the best.  I must work at expressing gratitude by engaging when I don't particularly sense a need to, so that in the future -- when the world is collapsing in around me -- I can more naturally turn to my default response.

Praying before meals, for meals, is a tiny way to do that.

How does my gratitude (or lack thereof) reflect my response to the gospel?

My perpetual emotional/spiritual state should be one of deep-seated peace and joy in what Jesus Christ has done for me.  My response to poor circumstances indicates just how deeply the message of redemption has sunk into my heart.  Am I quick to complain and find it impossible to see past the sickness, the loss, the circumstance?  Well, maybe I don't truly understand the gospel.

No matter how unbearable life becomes, no matter how badly we screw up our own plans, no matter how poorly other people treat us... as Christians we rest in the confidence of knowing that our salvation is both unmerited (on our part) and unshakeable.  I didn't earn it, and so I can't lose it.  I was a wretch to whom God showed unfathomable mercy, and now I can rest my hope in eternity and be deeply, truly thankful -- even when the present is a frighteningly miserable experience.

The reality of what we've been saved from and saved to is cause for incredible joy and thankfulness.  No more am I a lost and broken enemy of God, earning wages upon wages of destruction and judgment for my lifetime of sinful investments.  Now I am a favored child -- a rescued and redeemed saint, a member of the priesthood of all believers, part of God's ransomed family, covered by the blood of Jesus.  The righteousness that His perfection attributes to me is a permanent state, and nothing can take that away.

With that perspective in place, it is far easier to be grateful for the little things, the big things, the good things, and even the bad things.  We can be motivated to express our deep gratitude for salvation and demonstrate attitudes of joy and contentment even when everyone around us is opting to complain and despair.  It's no wonder countless ministers of the Word have historically encouraged Christians to preach the gospel daily -- to ourselves!  It is by reaffirming what the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Christ has accomplished that the problems of life, the universe, and everything shrink in stark, almost embarrassing contrast.

Nothing can touch what God has done.  Nothing compares to the blessing of my sin -- not in part, but the whole! -- being nailed to the cross so that I may bear it no more.

This Thanksgiving, let's pause as always to reflect and refresh.  But let's also strive to carry that spirit into the day after.  And the day after that.

Divine Access

I'm not a huge proponent of evangelism methodology.

From my perspective, if I love people the way Jesus wants me to love them, and if I conduct myself the way Jesus wants me to conduct myself, then my conversations will naturally involve the gospel and will naturally point toward Jesus.  Of course, that isn't to say that methodology isn't helpful for shaping our thinking, nor am I implying that we should never employ a method to help us get conversations started, but typical evangelistic methods are intended to be universal, one-size-fits-all templates when people are far too unique -- far too individualistic thinkers with far too individualized experiences -- for a blanket method to influence them all the same way.

Certainly, the gospel is one-size-fits-all, but God's grace is not.  It is unique and personal and wonderfully, situationally suited to specifically and sufficiently meet the needs of individual sinners.  Do the Biblical standards apply to everyone?  Of course.  All have sinned, all need grace, and all must confess the name of Jesus personally as Lord and Savior.  But the point at which different people come to understand these truths is unique to each, as the Spirit moves in his or her heart via experiences, conversations, and -- above all else -- His Word.

Consequently, I find evangelistic methods sometimes more conducive to self-evaluation and worship than to making new disciples.  As followers of Christ, we should constantly be preaching the gospel to ourselves, after all.  Hebrews 2 attests that, the more we mature in our faith, the more we should focus on the core concept of the gospel to continue to impress the weight of grace upon our hearts.

In particular, the age-old evangelistic hypothetical strikes me as a humbling reminder:

If you died today and stood before God Almighty, and He asked you, "Why should I let you into my heaven?", what would you say?

The guy who partners with me to teach the college group at our church proposed this question the other week during our discussion time.  Whether or not standing before the Throne will literally involve such a query, my answer to it is nevertheless humbling to ponder.  Because if you believe as I do that access to the Kingdom of Heaven is determined not by any merit of my own, then I am required to answer that nothing but the cleansing blood of Jesus can grant me entrance.

"Why should I let you into my heaven?"

Please, gracious Father, let me overcome my tendency to stammer and "um" and mumble for just that one precious moment, and respond clearly and intentionally with something akin to this:

Gracious Father, in life I was dead and helpless in my sin.  Your Son took on Himself the atrocious iniquities I committed, every last one of them.  He also bore Your holy, righteous wrath, which I justly earned for those failures.  Because of that eternally ordained act of love, mercy, and grace -- Your wrath satisfied in crushing Your Son instead of condemning me -- I am now and forever Your child and my heart is Yours.  By no right of my own, I am an heir to Your Kingdom and all its splendor because Christ has claimed me and healed all the animosity between us.  And while this resurrection to a perfect body and beholding the glory of Your heaven is certainly an incomparable privilege, it is YOU whom my heart has craved and worshiped and adored.  Though I've failed and stumbled, Your steadfast mercy and grace have been sufficient to sustain my weary soul, perfecting me throughout my years until this very moment.  Now, perfected, I will spend eternity before You in humble, joyful, exclamatory celebration -- not to pay You back, because that would be impossible, but because I owe You everything.  Thank You, my Father.

~*~

Ephesians 2.1-10:

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Living in Victory

Sometimes I get the feeling that we're all defeatists.

That's kind of ironic for pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps Americans.  But it's also inevitable for a generation that prioritizes a feelings-based model of self-identification.  Boiled down, life is a continuous series of divinely ordained pass-or-fail challenges, and in this current frame of mind, we don't so much miss the mark as fail to even show up.

Here's how the formula works: I feel, so I do, so I am.

I don't feel like going to class.  So I barely achieve.  I'm an average student. 

I don't feel like having that conversation.  So I never address that relational problem.  I'm a cloistered, independent soul who needs no one.

I hate my job and my co-workers.  So I hang out on Reddit during work hours.  I am a fun-loving slacker (and proud of it).

I feel strong romantic connection toward a member of the same sex.  So I pursue a relationship  with that person.  I'm homosexual.

I'm twenty-six, still live at my parents house, keep a retail job and play video games, and don't know what I want to do with my life.  So I wait for an undefined opportunity to come along.  I am.... ?

This is how feelings-based living works.  I allow my notions and emotions to dictate my behavior, first in the moment, then as a habit -- a practice which, in turn, supplies me my identity.  That's how we're defeatists: we allow what we feel to control us, and allow those decisions to create an identity for us.  It's not proactive living, it's self-victimization.  And the only person I can blame is myself.

I just want to state the reminder -- a reminder that I constantly I need myself -- that what we feel does not need to determine our behavior.  Peter's words on this point are so poignant, that "whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved" (2 Pet 2.19).  In other words, if the voice that I answer to is my own desire, then my desire is my master.  If the notion seizes me to do something and I obey it, then that notion is my ultimate authority.  Even if I have my doubts, I must obey that imposition.  That thing becomes my master.

And ultimately, we all have a master.  We all subject ourselves to something.

As David Powlison puts it, "Human life is exhaustively God-relational."  In other words, all of our behavior stems from what we worship.  Even an atheist practices a form of worship -- devotion to what he/she perceives to be the inherint functionality of the evolutionary system, the laws of science, and the evolution of human reason.  Worship is inevitable for human beings.  If you perceive yourself as your own authority, then you worship your own logic, the relationships that give your life meaning, the desires that compel your decisions.  These masters are cruel, dictatorial, and unforgiving.  If, on the other hand, you are a follower of God, then Jesus Christ is your master -- but He's also your benevolent Friend, your joint-heir, and He is always leading you in victory over the things that formerly enslaved you.

Being enslaved to my own inner turmoil of doubts, fears, and wants is being a defeatist.  That lifestyle comes with a deluge of obscenities and regrets that, though I might pretend otherwise, I desperately want to escape.

On the other hand, being freed from those desires to voluntarily and wholeheartedly serve a gracious and merciful Savior is to be victorious.

This year, I want to live with that constant mindset.

Paul captures this idea by way of the following imagery:

But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing... (2 Cor 2.14-15)

I grew up in South Jersey going to the Pitman parade every year for Independence Day.  Compared to something like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, the Pitman 4th of July celebration is pretty dinky.  Admittedly, there's only so many times you can watch firetrucks creep past blaring their horns and "God Bless America" before the novelty wears off (or before the township tells them they can't play that kind of music anymore).

The Christian walk isn't a dinky Pitman 4th of July parade.

The Christian walk isn't even a gigantic Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.

The Christian walk is a march, a massive triumphal procession with glorious fanfare and angelic escort and soaring morale and the warm, rousing harmony of unanimous victory hymns -- all with Jesus Christ leading the way.  Once, He was the humble Lamb who died in our place; now, He is the conquering King who has returned to claim what He rightfully deserves!

We realize that this vivid scene has not yet literally occurred, but Paul speaks of it in the present tense -- as if the celebration has already started.  One day, it will be brought to this kind of literal completion.  But the total victory I will taste then is still mine now, in foretaste, through Jesus.

If Christ leads me in victory now, then that means I can overcome the sin that still besets me.  Jesus gives me the power to overcome -- His power.  That means I am free from my sinful desires, no matter how strong they might appear.  Through Christ, I have total mastery over them (Rom 6.14).

For the believer, sin is a choice, not a compulsion.  Sin isn’t something I “can’t help,” but something that I wrongfully choose to pursue instead of Christ.  It's a tooth-and-nail struggle with the flesh that requires constant vigilance, certainly, but it's a battle I can win should I choose to rely on Christ's strength rather than roll over and succumb.  Whether your struggle is laziness, gossip, pornography, same-sex attraction, self-pity, or any other item in a seemingly endless list of flaws, Christ through the Holy Spirit enables us to overcome them.

Victory might take time -- time spent unraveling my own motivations and tracing my patterns of behavior back to their source and ultimately reaffirming the truths of God's righteous character in my heart -- but it is not elusive.

It is not just out of reach.

What makes it feel far away is the emphasis and focus we place upon sin itself.  Is it a big deal?  Sure.  Is it compelling and desirable?  Unquestionably.  Will we ever be fully free from its influence?  Not this side of heaven, no.  However, we do need to replace it daily -- hourly -- with a deepening love of and adoration for the person of Jesus Christ.  I can't just shut down a negative desire: I have to replace it with a positive one.

The Puritan preacher Thomas Watson is accredited with saying, “Until sin be bitter, Christ will not be sweet.”  I believe strongly that his equation was backwards.  Christ must first be sweet in order for sin to be bitter.  In other words, my sin isn't going to be abhorrent to me until what I value more is my Savior's holy character, coupled with His love and mercy.  Sin doesn't become bitter on its own -- not unless I replace it with something else.  I will always want sin until I replace that desire with an ever-deepening love for something of eternal substance.

As a child of God, I have the opportunity and the responsibility to pursue righteousness.  That's a Kingdom-oriented attitude -- a focus on His Kingdom, not mine.  This means living for eternity: magnifying my Savior and minimizing the allures of this fragile, temporary existence.

That's living in victory.  That's leaving behind a lifestyle of defeat.

Praise be to the only One who makes this possible!

Dispelling the “Basically Good” Myth

Photo by Julie Moore [#julebugphotography]

I remember a now-ancient Berenstain Bears movie where Sister Bear learned about character via a Mama Bear object lesson on wormy, rotten apples.  The illustration is perhaps cliché, but is still revealing of the way human beings evaluate and judge one another.  Racism is based on ethnicity, speech, skin color.  Compassion (or lack thereof) for the homeless and the mentally ill is based on their physical condition, attitudes, appearance.  Most often, dating relationships begin with emphasis on the peripheral -- the looks, the interests, the tastes -- before any of the sinew and tissue and heart muscle of the true character beneath is ever exposed and valued.

Whether we ignore a book because its cover is lackluster or we leave an apple at the bottom of the grocery store barrel because it has lumpy flesh, we are presuming that the exterior says something true about the interior.  The way we shop for produce indicates how superficial our judgment values can be.  Is being a picky shopper a sin?  Probably not.  The reality, however, is that we don’t really know what the inside of that apple looks like until we take a big bite.  More often than not, a wrinkly skin hides great sweetness while a gorgeous exterior belies a deeply rotten core.

The world wants to subscribe to the theory that what is outside is separate from what is inside.  In other words, what I do does not (or should not) necessarily reflect who I am.  My mistakes shouldn't bear any reflection upon my identity -- they are the exception to the rule of my basically good character.  The world says, "My flaws are external to who I really am.  I’m a basically good person who happens to make mistakes.  To be human is to err.  Therefore, I’m not to be judged or held accountable to anyone for my failings."

"I'm a good apple with a lumpy, bruised skin."

This is flawed, self-deceptive human reasoning at its most basic level.  We deceive ourselves because we don't really know ourselves (Jer 17.9).  Socrates purportedly trolled the "unexamined life" as not being "worth living," according to Plato's Apology.  Whether we define that concept as the pursuit of self-knowledge or the exploration of options and potential, we are still acknowledging that, as individuals and as a society, we human beings lack a fundamental understanding of ourselves and must quest to find it.  In fact, the very school of philosophy and the countless world religions all exist because humanity recognizes the inherent holes in our self-identity as a species.  Though we feign otherwise, we are truly rotten to the core -- no matter how good the skin might look.

The very premise with which we operate is wrong: I am not a human who must go on a pilgrimage to define my own identity and transcend my own shortcomings.  Mistakes of character evidence an incompleteness that I cannot overcome on my own.  Evolutionary theory says humanity has not yet arrived at the “final state” of evolution and that, as a species, we will continue evolving toward a state of perfection.  This philosophy places man on an optimistic trajectory that goes against the grain of everything we see both in our world today as well as in ages past: immorality so severe that neither media nor individual nor historian can help but label it as pervasive, degenerate, pan-generational behavior.  Broken political structures and failed governments litter the pages of history and current affairs, altogether power- and/or wealth-hungry and drenched in blood.  "Harmless" selfishness corrupts on all interpersonal levels, deriding the beauty of and potential for personal sacrifice: look-at-me style social media; no-strings-attached, favor-my-preferences sexuality; broken family structures and utterly careless "parenting"; abortion as a thoughtless escape from personal responsibility; time theft and slander of employers; and countless other aspects of our self-centeredness are historically endemic of our species, even if they looked different in the past.

Things don't get better when they're perpetually flawed -- not over millennia, not over eons: they get worse.  Entropy isn't just a property of physics.

By contrast, the Bible says man isn't on a trajectory at all -- one mistake all by itself, one slip of the tongue or one impure thought is enough to condemn us to permanent spiritual death (Jas 2.10).  It's spilled wine on a white sheet -- it's irreparably tarnished.  And most of us have done more than just one bad thing with our choices.  Nothing short of perfection is "good enough" when you must stack up your filthy laundry against God's standard of holiness.

It turns out that we're not on a road headed somewhere.  We're standing in a quagmire and sinking deeper.  Those of us who think we're headed somewhere positive are doing headstands in their eagerness to get to the bottom of the pit.

If you've served in any branch of the military, you know that the standards of personal cleanliness and discipline are extraordinarily high: as soldiers, sailors, pilots, etc, our armed forces are expected to hold themselves to a higher standard than the average citizen.  To an even higher degree, that is what God requires: perfect conduct, perfect thought-life, perfect desires.

To make matters worse, we’re guilty of more than G-rated "mistakes."  Romans 1 attests that we act in full, albeit repressed, knowledge of what is true, right, and good.  In other words, somewhere deep inside, we all know the truth about a holy, omnipotent Creator God and yet choose to reject it.  Whether you've had rough experiences with faith and lost trust in religious figures or whether you harbor absolutely no animosity towards Bible-toters and have simply doubted the existence of God your entire life, there still exists within all of us an abstract knowledge of morality and cloudy, half-forgotten purpose.  These inexplicable fragments, coupled with the miracles of life and the miraculous order in a massive, clockwork universe, altogether point toward the reality that we are not the epitome of evolution we might otherwise think.

The harsh reality is that is that the kind of moral pit to which we have condemned ourselves comes with a tremendous penalty.  The Apostle Paul tells us that the toll for imperfection is death -- a soul-rending, eternal, spiritual death (Rom 6.23).  But instead of recognizing this reality for what it is, we choose instead to think we are the exception to the rule.

We say, "If you just understood what I’ve been through, you'd overlook what I did."

We insist, "God can't condemn me for my choices because my life has been absolute hell."

We obfuscate, "I am truly following the path that I believe to be right, so God will honor me for my faith -- even if it was 'misplaced.'"

The reality is that all of our reasons for why we chose what we did don’t change the fact that we still violated the law.

It's like getting a speeding ticket.  I get pulled over for going 45 in a 25 on my way to work, keep my fingers crossed as the cop runs my license and insurance through the database, and then feel justified outrage when he comes back to my window with a $250 ticket in his hand.

He doesn't know me, I scream in my head.  This is the first time I've been caught speeding in years!  He should let me go and go chase that Mustang that just raced through here instead -- THAT guy deserves the ticket, not me who's just trying to get to work on time!!

In my anger, I ignore the reality that, regardless of my reason, I've still broken the law.

"Breaking the law" is a little harsh... 

Was I speeding?

Well, yes, but --

Was I speeding?

...yes.

We don’t fully understand guilt or culpability.  Sin is not as gray as we might want it to be.  We over-contextualize our choices so that motivation becomes the hinge on which a guilty/innocent verdict swings.  We insist that we deserve better than what we are given because our motive was pure (and even that's doubtful).  I've been done injustice by this $250 ticket, I insist.  However, even if my wife is in labor and I'm racing to the hospital to get to her, I've still earned a speeding ticket for breaking the law.  If the cop listens to my story and gives me a break, he's granting me mercy, not justice.

In fact, if I demand justice, then I should write the ticket myself.

That's our problem.  We aren't "basically good" people who simply make mistakes.  We violate the law of God's eternal, perfect character, and therefore -- regardless of our reason for doing so -- we stand condemned to an eternity of spiritual isolation and condemnation.  This is our just reward for our inherent selfishness, arrogance, and ungodliness.

It is not murder that earns me hell.  It is placing myself at the center of my existence instead of God.

In light of all this, I must change my premise: I am not a pilgrim on a journey to self-realization; I am a hopeless sinner in need of redemption.

Here, then, is the hope that God gives: we have been granted mercy.  He has withheld justice from us and fulfilled it in His Son.  Jesus Christ, the Divine incarnate, accepted the wages we had earned and carried them on His own shoulders when He went to the cross on our behalf.

He didn't have to do this.  He chose to do it.

Jesus the Messiah forgives and restores: He accepts you just as you are and He loves you enough to not leave you that way.  He pays for our speeding tickets and then-some.  It doesn't matter if you've cheated on your spouse, shoplifted, or hated your brother.  His grace is sufficient to cover any and all sins.  His unmerited, redeeming favor teaches us gratitude and accountability for our previous wrong-doings.  It teaches us to love Him and others above all else, to grant forgiveness as we've been forgiven, and to restore to those we've wronged out of the abundance of grace and mercy now rooted in our own hearts.

The only condition God places on salvation is that I must believe, trust, love, and pursue Him alone.  I must surrender all my deep-seated notions about being a "basically good" person and instead embrace the reality of my own sinfulness, so that I can be covered by His holiness and renewed.  He did the heavy lifting; as His children, we bear an easy and light burden, because our righteousness is actually His righteousness attributed to our account.

He offers freedom -- freedom from having to work my way toward heaven, only to fall so far short in eternal disgrace.  Freedom from myself.

It takes humility to recognize that we need this -- to recognize that we are slaves to our own desires and helplessly lost in our own moral darkness.  Once we do so, we can breathe in deeply the fresh, aromatic air of redemption, stepping out of our dank, "basically good" prison cells and into the golden warmth of daybreak.