It is quite easy to think of the Bible as a book of rules — things to DO. Yet, it is far greatest The Story of God, of His coming near to us, and in that way is not primarily about us. The Bible is about GOD. And not just facts, figures and fables — as if God were a science experiment, a idea to be calculated, quantified and categorized. In reality, God has acted in history — in this real world — and as we read Scripture we discover the stories are true, the characters are generally failures, and God is always faithful. That’s step one, reading the Bible as if it’s about God and not just “me.” Of course, it must be experienced, taken into our whole lives, if we are to learn what God says.

There’s another needed emphasis, more likened to a simple priority: know the WHOs before the DOs. Jesus came to show us the way by BEING the way. No five step (or 12) plan for salvation here. He’s the plan, the whole plan. So when we read, we see the what, why, how, and especially the Who of God’s Story.

This “happy tension” of sorts is recognizing the why the Bible is written. Take the New Testament, written in common day (Koine) Greek. The most common mood of the verbs is in what’s called the indicative mood. Stating facts, making declarations (e.g., “God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son…” John 3:16). Later, and less frequently we get into the imperative mood, of commands (”Do this … do that…”; e.g., “Be holy…,” or “forgive one another” Eph. 4:32). I say later because we must recognize that every command of Scripture is rooted in a promise, in the prior work of God with us and for us. A couple examples…

Ephesians 4:32:

“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another” // a very good command; do it!

But how and why?

“…as God in Christ forgave you.”

We can only forgive out of the resources of the self-sacrificing God who forgives sinners at the greatest sacrifice the world has ever known. We can think of the “other,” because God is all about the “other,” modeled in relationships among the Trinity. Furthermore, as an application, we can begin with forbearance, because Christ has gone before us — the WHO before our DO — throwing away His convenience to suffer as a servant in our place (Phil. 2:1-11).

Digging into the Word: Paul’s Letter to the Philippians

Another example of this indicative-imperative correlation is Philippians 4:1:

“Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved.”

(We just taught this passage to our high schoolers.) Do you see what Paul did there? He could have said it so simply, like: “just stand firm in the Lord. Do it!” Why does he wax eloquent — is it just poetic or is God doing something deep and meaningful here? He’s talking about identity… their true (and new) identity.

That’s the only way to be read the Bible as one alive, and to teach it to others for transformation. Every single command in Scripture is rooted in  God’s prior work, for His commands become His enablements. Just as Paul waited unto the twelfth chapter of Romans to give the very first command in that great letter (Romans 12:1-2), we recognize Christianity is far more about WHO Jesus is than what we DO. Plus, our doing comes out of our being, which comes from being remade into His image (Colossians 3:10) and embracing our new identity.

Below Darrin Patrick, summarizes this necessary approach to reading and teaching the Bible in a 9 minute video. He was asked to collaborate with about 80 other church leaders across the country on a day of training called “The Nines” (on 09.09.09), put on by the Leadership Network and Catalyst. Darrin serves as lead pastor of The Journey Church in St. Louis, a Gospel-centered missional church he and others founded less than a decade ago, and has become a catalyst for church planters and leaders globally.

We used this video to spark a discussion last week with high school leaders and students. Bits of it may have been over their head — there’s those happy tensions — as real growth comes from being challenged. This sparked a great discussion, and spiritual and mental lights were going on all over the place. So, that’s what it means to work from significance and not for it, according to the Gospel (as I seek to remind them).

He covers the ground quickly, so open your Bible to Luke 24, and grab something to take notes. Enjoy!

I say it will be The Triune Creator God. How so? As They work out the unified mission in this world, for our good and to the glory of God the Father, Son and Spirit. More and more people will take notice and be renewed to a saving knowledge in Jesus. It’s not trendy but will become more increasingly the trend as the future becomes the present.

This new year presents endless opportunities for good and bringing hope to a dark work. It will be quite an adventure. It’s always good to start new adventures with some essential theology:

Missio Dei is Latin for “mission of God” and captures the reality that God is the one who initiates and sustains His mission (restores His image marred by the fall and reclaims His kingdom marred by the kingdom of darkness).  God the Father sends the Son, God the Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit; God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit send the Church. The church is being sent and sends itself into the world as God’s ambassadors to restore the image of God and recapture the ‘reign of God’ through God’s redemption and reconciliation in our Savior Jesus Christ.

—summarized from Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative (Downers Grove, Ill: IVP Academic, 2006), 5.

That’s why missional theologians can be quick to remind us that the Church doesn’t have a mission. Rather, God has a mission, and for that reason He created the church to participate in fulfilling it (Matt. 28:18-20).

Or, in simple terms, as Jesus prayed:

“As You sent Me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” —John 17:18

By the way, Happy New Year!

We don’t know. One day we shall see Him as He is, and become like Him (1 John 3:2). (Doubt He looks like the blue-eyed, blond-haired version sold here in the States as “Jesus junk,” that is, as trinkets.) Yet, we do have some clues as to what He is like. His character shines through brighter than His physical appearance. He’s full of compassion (Matthew 9:36: σπλαγχνίζομαι = moved with compassion), which is much deeper than mere emotion. More broadly, He’s full of grace and truth. He is the living embodiment of Grace, and Truth became a Person. Grace is meant to be experienced, truth intended to be known in the same way. We are to “receive” them as we receive Him. God’s grace never fails, and as wholly true He is completely faithful. (He’s not like us.)

Yet, He became like us. One of my favorite passages of Scripture is in the Gospel of John, first chapter, verses 14 & 16. It reads:

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth…. And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.

In His incarnation, Jesus stepped down into our world, showing us the worth of God in real-time. Someone has said the Incarnation is “deity for dummies.” God made Himself obvious and visible. Jesus was overflowing with the two essential qualities of perfect humanity: grace and truth. Those twin perfections remind us of God’s essential character: “steadfast love [Hb. hesed] and faithfulness [Hb. ’emet]” as revealed about 1,500 years prior in Exodus 34:6 (cf. Exodus 33:18–19). Moses asked to see God in all His glory. Yet the great patriarch was only  able to see the back side of God’s presence passing by. Here in Jesus we see God making Himself known as a person. To be known, experienced, treasured and loved. If God is a theory or His Son simply a business transaction to get us to Heaven, we we’ll miss everything in between. This relationship of love is founded on endless grace and rock-solid truth. God intends Jesus to be sufficient for our failures and sweeter than our failures. He is Grace & Truth in action, making life worth enduring until the end. The Triune God enjoys a fullness that spilled over into this world.

A few years back pastor John Piper wrote about these Scriptures and the Incarnation in a short article on these verses (read the entire thing here). Here are some highlights:

• …the one from whose fullness I am being drenched with grace is the Word that was with God and was God (John 1:1-2), so that his fullness is the fullness of God—a divine fullness, an infinite fullness;
• …this Word became flesh and so was one of us and was pursuing us with his fullness—it is an accessible fullness;
• …when this Word appeared in human form, his glory was seen—his is a glorious fullness;
• …this Word was “the only Son from the Father” so that the divine fullness was being mediated to me not just from God, but through God—God did not send an angel but his only Son to deliver his fullness;
• …the fullness of the Son is a fullness of grace—I will not drown in this fullness but be blessed in every way by this fullness;
• …this fullness is not only a fullness of grace but of truth—I am not being graced with truth-ignoring flattery; this grace is rooted in rock-solid reality.

As I savor this illumination of Christ’s fullness, I hear Paul say, “In him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Colossians 2:9). I hear him say, “In him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” (Colossians 1:19). And I hear him say, “In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3).

Can we see how deeply that God’s glory resides in Jesus? He intends us to seek Him in that one place alone: in Christ. Piper continues:

Paul prays that we would experience Christ’s fullness. Not just know about it, but be filled with it. Here is the way I hear him praying for me:

That I “may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:18-19).

The “fullness of God” is experienced, he says, as we are given the “strength to comprehend” the love of Christ in its height and depth and length and breadth—that is, in its fullness. This is remarkable: The fullness of God is the spiritual apprehension (experience) of the fullness of the love of Christ. This love is the grace and truth that fills the Son of God and pours out on us.

• Read the rest of Piper’s meditation on John 1:14-16.

Experiencing the fullness this Christmas. Pray you are as well.

The crux of the Christian response is that God came and entered the suffering of this world, suffering with us. Christ is the ultimate proof God is good and powerful. He sees all is not right and will be made new and perfect in the end. Why? How long, O Lord? Those are the cries of every human heart. (My take on this “Story of Sovereignty.”)

If God is Good…

Author Randy Alcorn’s new book If God Is Good: Faith in the Midst of Suffering and Evil tackles these questions head-on. From the sections I’ve read, it is personal, pastoral, academic and certainly thorough (about 600 pages!). Few can write like he does, for a popular audience yet with a scholar’s acute sense of finer theological points.

In this short video Alcorn talks about our questions, “WHY?” and “HOW LONG?” Partly, because we live between Eden and the New Earth, where there is suffering, but only for a time. All things will be made new, and no more curse. Everything in us cries out for all to be made right. That’s a natural and God-given impulse. Alcorn shares some highlights:

Good word. Looks like a good book. Eager to crack open my copy after the New Year.

An enlightened king in ancient India invited four men into his court who were blind and set before them an elephant and asked them to say what it was. The first man grabbed the elephant’s tail and said “It is long and flexible – an elephant is like a rope.” The second man took hold of the elephant’s leg and said “No, it is thick and round – an elephant is like a tree.” The third man felt the elephant’s side and said, “No, it is nothing like that at all. It is large and flat – an elephant is like a wall.” The fourth man grabbed the elephant’s tusk and said, “No it is hard and sharp – an elephant is like a spear.” And the king described to all the hearers in his court how we all are like these men in our understanding of God. We see only in part. Indeed, all the religions of the world are but the gropings of blind men after a truth much too great for any human mind to grasp.

Is this how you see truth claims in the world?

Let’s consider the characters in this story. The key players seem to be the four blind men. Let’s call them representatives of the world’s great religions. We have a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Christian, and an Atheist. (Or, include a Jew, a Hindu, a follower of Confucius, a Sikh, a Zoroastrian, etc.). But are the blind men the key players? Not really. The main character is the king, who described for them what they perceived, completing their knowledge, and having a full understanding.

Is it not ironic that religious pluralist — in seeking to illustrate that all paths lead to the same destination — places himself or herself in the place of the all-wise king. He alone can see what is going on. The religious pluralist basically says, “Each of those people are blind, and they are stupid. I am the only one who sees what’s really going on.”

It is in fact an extremely arrogant claim. Far greater than any claim that any of these specific religious leaders could make. Only someone outside of all religious truth-claims makes that carte blanche statement. The devoted followers of these philosophies do not make these claims, for their truth claims are exclusive (and declared wrong). The un-believing king is the so-called expert on God. How so?

The story wants us to reject the notion (the claim) that a specific religion can know the whole truth about God. However, in order to tell the parable the storyteller has to make the claim that he knows all there is to know about God. He’s the only one not blind. Somehow, religious pluralism knows that God is, in fact, an elephant and not a rope or a wall or a tree or a spear. Religious pluralism has placed itself in the seat of the enlightened king while the world’s religions are blind men! A person who believes all paths are equally true (or equally wrong, all of them) is quite arrogant. This person knows everything about God and is the only enlighted one.

(Many thanks to the late Lesslie Newbigin, British missionary to India, for snippets of this reasoning.)

Next time, a reflection on the nature of revelation. We no longer have to be blind! It is quite cool in our culture to search for God, but uncool to have found Him. Even less cool is to be found by Him. Revelation is His coming our direction — finding us — and for that we need humility. It’s not “my” truth, and I’m not “right.” It’s His truth and He’s come to rescue us.

“All of our personal & church problems come because we don’t come continually back to the gospel to work it in and live it out.” — Tim Keller, The Centrality of the Gospel

(We work out what God has first worked in — Philippians 2:12-13)

“Most necessary it is therefore that we should know the gospel well, teach it unto others, & beat it into their heads continually.” — Martin Luther

(Let’s beat it into our own heads first — Ephesians 3:14-21; Romans 12:1-2)

The video makers write:

The challenge was to go out and shoot a whole month of sunrises in a row and put them together in a video. we both heard the talk on September 30th and the next month was already set.

Too many times we forget that with passion comes dedication and hard work. what we learned is that it’s often in these small moments of beauty, that we are able to peek into the glory of an amazing God.

Song: “Phos Hilaron (Hail Gladdening Light)” by the David Crowder*Band

Reminiscent of Lamentations 3:19-24

19 Remember my affliction and my wanderings,
the wormwood and the gall!
20 My soul continually remembers it
and is bowed down within me.
21 But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:

22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
23 they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.”

And of Psalm 19:1-6:

19:1 The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
2 Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
3 There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.
4 Their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.
In them he has set a tent for the sun,
5 which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber,
and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy.
6 Its rising is from the end of the heavens,
and its circuit to the end of them,
and there is nothing hidden from its heat.

Tim,

Thanks for your patience on this response. Let me consider your two scenarios, then one of your questions. You asked about two types of people:

1. What do you think God thinks and does to an atheist who lives his or her life feeding the poor, clothing the naked and healing the sick?
2. And what does God think or do to a Christian who attends church every week, and professes their faith, but other than doesn’t do much else to speak of?

I say both are being inconsistent with their worldview. (I’ll be much harder on one of them, and I know you have a degree in comparative religion and I could employ much more technical language here. Seems that here and on Facebook we’re both writing for others to track along, so I’ll present an argument as straightforward as I can. For those who follow for the pictures, sorry to disappoint .

Again, both are being inconsistent with their worldview. First, let me be blunt: the atheist has no actual moral basis to value people. (That isn’t to say atheists don’t have morals and high standards and do good. They can and do often. Very much so.) But, what is their foundation for these selfless acts of feeding, clothing and healing? If there is no design to this world, and therefore no cosmic justice, then what is right and wrong? Who’s to say? By what standard can an atheist say something is right, and something is wrong (universally)? I don’t think all atheists are relativists, but wonder how a standard of morality can arise from a belief that no God has acted in history and revealed Himself as Creator (law-giver, judge, ruler, Father, great love and source of all).

Can we all agree that we know these acts of compassion demonstrated by this loving atheist are noble and good? But from where does this love come? I don’t have much of a problem with that first scenario, because some of the innate sense of goodness and rightness in all of us is the residual traces of the image of God (the Imago Dei). Let me consider a parallel issue: our fallen, sinful nature (Depravity). The teaching of Depravity (according to God in the Bible) is not so much that we are horrific, awful beings. Most of us  really aren’t as bad as we could be, for sure. We’re bad and capable of terrible acts and thoughts (read the newspaper, follow the Police blotter around a college campus, tune into the evening news); most of these acts are trivial, and many destructive. We are also capable of so much good. Which is why sin and moral evil is such a riddle for this world. Enter Jesus who entered this Grand Story to show us the way, and reverse the curse of our ways. What does God think of this person #1, the selfless atheist? This person needs to turn from trusting in himself, to confess his evils, and especially his good works that are not done to make the true God known. It’s the same for a religions person.

It seems that Depravity is more that everything we do and are is tainted with sin. Our intellect is limited (“fallen” we call it), and our bodies break down towards death. Our spirits are not acutely aware of spiritual movements. The reality is more complex and deep than words can describe. What does it take for us to be renewed and become un-depraved? A total renewal of all things, which is one key reason why Jesus came. He offers His life to us to re-make us into God’s image, to pattern of life He granted us in the beginning. Much more to say here, but I want to underscore the other scenario you mention…

The bigger problem is with the Christian you mention who does all the “good” so-called-Christian things, but “doesn’t do much else to speak of.” In that way he/she actually isn’t acting as a Christian, for this new life should be God-centered and others-directed. Love gives its life away, as Jesus did. That person generally described by life before Jesus struck my soul like lightning (age 18). I was generally a “good” person by many accounts, at least by horizontal comparison to others. People would say I was “Christian” but I wasn’t. Not inwardly, and not outwardly. But, I was selfish, arrogant, and very much desirous to seem like a good person while using others to get my way.

Any person who names Jesus as Lord but lives a pathetic, lifeless, overall selfish existence (according to Christ’s standards) is actually in rebellion and defiance to whom they claim to belong. This cannot be the envisioned by Jesus, that moves from death to life, from purposeless to purpose, from self to others. This person #2 cannot be “professing their faith,” for the Christian message is more than mere words. Someone sold them a raw bill of goods, or they just want a ticket to heaven and nothing more. May get neither.

I’ve been thinking on and meditating the last week on a specific passage: 2nd Peter 1:1-10, which speaks to this kind of person, and the great potential for God’s live to shine through a person who submits to Him through Jesus. We must be profitable and fruitful in our experiential knowledge of our shared life in Jesus. If we aren’t growing and reproducing Christ-like love towards others, we have to wonder if we belong to Him.

This is the bigger scandal of the two people you mention, and I cannot make any apologies for a person who lives like this. What does God think of this person? Probably more than I might I regularly sit and speak with church-going people who are battling to not go the path of the quasi-Christian route you describe. To some I can give an urgent appeal and encouragement; to others I offer no immediate encouragement but a loving plea to turn to Christ, abandoning both their sin and their supposed goodness.

Let me wrap this up by pointing past my limited perspective and experience. I’ve appealed to God’s revealed Word — written in the Bible and come in human form in Jesus. I’ve aimed to represent them well.  Also, I’d like to suggest two current resources for reflection. One is a fast paced movie-documentary called COLLISION (came out last week, actually). Deals with this exact scenario you are talking about (the two people), and not distinctly from a Christian standpoint. Well-known anti-theist Christopher Hitchens (author of God is Not Great, et al) debates in a civil manner with pastor/theologian Douglas Wilson. They don’t just speak past one another; they care and come together like friends, it seems. They wrestle with the crux question, “Is Christianity good for the world?” One says no, the other yes. Find the trailer on YouTube or Vimeo (or my site). I’m happy to mail you a copy of the DVD to borrow for a bit.

The other is a book, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, which is a fascinating read. New York City pastor and author Tim Keller shows how everyone has exclusive beliefs. He carefully argues that embracing the exclusive truth claims of Christ do not make someone an intolerant, threatening neighbor. And that is part of why Christianity (as Christ brought to us) should be good for the world. We above all people should refrain from seeking any privileged status and give our lives for justice, mercy, truth, and the good of others. We have everything to gain and nothing to lose, for our lives are hidden in God. (Again, I’m happy to send you a copy you can keep.)

Tim, you earlier made a point by asking that if Jesus has done everything for us (His believers/followers), then what is the point of doing anything? Well, He is the whole point. He is the new humanity, as God sent Himself to show us what He is like and how the world shall be. This is what the best human life looks like, how being connected to others in harmony should be. Jesus coming towards us makes life now worth it. (What did we do with Him? How did we respond to the most selfless one? We rejected Him.) It was through this self-emptying act in Jesus that God was reconciling the world to Himself, making good works possible. The message is Good News for us because He made us alive and rescued us from sin and death (Ephesians 2:1-9), because of His performance not ours. But are we just rescued from bad things (eternally)? What about the good (now and forever)? We read that He intentionally rescued us so that our lives would be His works of art to display His goodness, empowered by His love and walking in the path of good works He planned for us in advance (the very next verse: Ephesians 2:10; also 2nd Corinthians 5:9-16+).

Forgive me if I’m being unclear here. Thanks for reading along.

“My love of consistency with my own doctrinal views is not great enough to allow me knowingly to alter a single text of Scripture. I have great respect for orthodoxy, but my reverence for inspiration is far greater. I would sooner a hundred times over appear to be inconsistent with myself than be inconsistent with the word of God.”
—Charles Spurgeon (more via Randy Alcorn, Spurgeon’s Theology: Embracing Biblical Paradox)

What’s more, documentaries of this type don’t normally have a rock soundtrack. Awesome.

New trailer (Oct. ‘09):

From collisionmovie.com:

In May 2007, leading atheist Christopher Hitchens and Christian apologist Douglas Wilson began to argue the topic “Is Christianity Good for the World?” in a series of written exchanges published in Christianity Today. The rowdy literary bout piqued the interest of filmmaker Darren Doane, who sought out Hitchens and Wilson to pitch the idea of making a film around the debate.

In Fall 2008, Doane and crew accompanied Hitchens and Wilson on an east coast tour to promote the book compiled from their written debate titled creatively enough, Is Christianity Good for the World?. “I loved the idea of putting one of the beltway’s most respected public intellectuals together with an ultra-conservative pastor from Idaho that looks like a lumberjack”, says Doane. “You couldn’t write two characters more contrary. What’s more real than a fight between two guys who are on complete opposite sides of the fence on the most divisive issue in the world? We were ready to make a movie about two intellectual warriors at the top of their game going one-on-one. I knew it would make an amazing film.”

In Christopher Hitchens, Doane found a celebrated prophet of atheism. Loud. Funny. Angry. Smart. Quick. An intimidating intellectual Goliath. Well-known for bullying and mocking believers into doubt and doubters into outright unbelief. In Douglas Wilson, Doane found the man who could provide a perfect intellectual, philosophical, and cinematic counterpoint to Hitchens’ position and style. A trained philosopher and and deft debater. Big, bearded, and jolly. A pastor, a contrarian, a humorist–an unintimidated outsider, impossible to bully, capable of calling Hitchens a puritan (over a beer).

It was a collision of lives.

What Doane didn’t expect was how much Hitchens and Wilson would have in common and the respectful bond the new friend/foes would build through the course of the book tour. “These guys ended up at the bar laughing, joking, drinking. There were so many things that they had in common”, according to Doane. “Opinions on history and politics. Literature and poetry. They agreed on so many things. Except on the existence of God.”

13-minute preview:

I’ve been looking forward to this release for months. A group of us are gathering to watch in Friday night the 30th. Let me know if you want to join in for the fun and discussion.

Here’s a quick teaser trailer:

As for God the Spirit, He is “Holy” because He is perfect, pure and without any defect. He’s God. Holiness also connotes wholeness. God is whole in its purest sense. God is the standard for a whole Being, Jesus the standard for a whole Person (He modeled a holistic life), the Spirit the One who brings rhythm and meaning so we can be holy like Him, broken beings being made whole.

Let’s bring balance into view when we consider the Person of the Holy Spirit. Here’s a couple paragraphs from Francis Chan’s new book:

“Some people talk a lot about—even boast of—the Spirit, but their lives do not bear His fruit. Others speak of the Holy Spirit in theoretical or scholarly terms, yet do not experience Him at work. Still otehrs ignore Him for all practical purposes and, as you might expect, rarely experience relationship or intimacy with the Spirit. And then there is that rare person who doesn’t talk frequently about the Spirit, yet whose life is a powerful display of His presence and activity.

Some of you would like it if I said we were going to find a healthy balance between unhleathy extremes. That’s not what we’re going to do. When we are referring to God, abalce is a huge mistake. God is not just one thing we add to the mix called life. He wants an invitations from us to permeate everting and every part of us. In the same way, skeeing a “healthy balance” of the Holy Spirit assumes that there are some who have too much Holy Spirit and others who have too little. I have yet to meet anyone with too much Holy Spirit. Granted, I’ve met many who talk about Him too much, but none who are actually overfilled with His presence.

Is it possible to get enough or even too much God? Is there a point when a person can be satisfied with the amount of intimacy, knowledge and power of God he and she experiences? I don’t see how there can be, because doesn’t every encounter with God only cause us to thirst for Him more?

Let me be clear. This is not a call to misinformed extremism, but an acknowledgment that as believers we can never be ‘done’ with God. He is infinite and we are finite; there will always be more of His character to discover, more of His love to experience, and more of His power to use for His purposes.”

—Francis Chan, Forgotten God: Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit, p. 20.

Living Our True Identity

“Church” in our culture has come to mean an event or a building. “Worship” is thought of as the singing that takes place inside that building. Yet, Scripture teaches that the church is not merely an event or physical structure and that worship extends beyond words on a screen and the walls of a building. Everyone worships. We worship whatever it is that we most value.  We all devote our lives to that which we esteem most worthy.

So who are we, who worship the true and living God? We are the church. A people, rescued by grace, sent on mission to follow His Son. Our great mission is to spread the Good News of Jesus (Matt. 28:18-20). Fueled by thankful hearts, we make it our aim to make known the greatness of this One we’ve come to love.

Our identity is singular; our roles are many. We are God’s people. Our identity is found in Him.  As His, we are also worshipers, family, learners, missionaries, servants. Do we take our roles seriously? As the church, let us not forget our true identity. We exist for God. For people. For the city. For the world. Because we are His. Are you?

On Friday a new website launched:  rethinkmission.org. Team Rethink Mission, led by church planter and pastor Jonathan McIntosh, is all about “inspiring Gospel-centered missional churches.” I’ve been tracking Jonathan’s preaching and articles for a few years (he recently transitioned from the pastoral and teaching team of The Journey Church in St. Louis). His message is consistently about Jesus, and reaching people in our culture.

Jonathan notes the commitments of a Gospel-centered church:

1. Reading & teaching the entire Bible in light of the gospel.
2. Preaching the gospel to believers, not just unbelievers.
3. Leaders applying the gospel to themselves first; church leaders are the first repenters
4. Cultivating a leadership culture marked by ever increasing “gospel astonishment.”
5. Being known for an atmosphere of grace; gospel-centered churches are safe places for seekers, skeptics and those outside the faith.

Check out rethinkmission.org, perhaps starting with two key articles:

• What is a gospel-centered church?
• What is a missional church?

Team Rethink Mission writes that a missional church is committed to:

• Cultural exegesis – becoming humble students of the varied people & cultures surrounding the church.
• Faithful contextualization – communicating gospel truth in ways the culture understands.
• Producing missionaries instead of consumers – equipping people to live out the gospel through their daily lives and work.
• Building a great city, not just a good church – the goal being more than a full church, but a transformed city.
• Social justice – healing real wounds and righting injustices in the community around them.
• Church planting – multiplying to new towns, cities, states and countries by starting new local churches.

(If some interaction would help, then read an interview on Missional Preaching, an interview on suburban church planting, or a 3 min clip discussing “The Hipper Than Thou Church.”)

Another feature sticks out to me: the advisory board is a mixed bag of pastors and thinkers (at least Baptist, Presbyterian and Methodist pastors). It seems each is committed to inspiring Gospel-centered missional churches—and committed to one another and the good of the Kingdom of God.

Looking forward to more challenging content from Team Rethink Mission.

—

For those in a suburban context (like me), see The Subtext (thesubtext.org) for similar Gospel-centered content and practical encouragement.

Here’s the fourth song of this series of reflecting on great God-centered lyrics, Songs of Sovereignty. The last one had the same title, “You Never Let Go.” This second song of the same name is completely different (except for the link of suffering—joy), and comes from the David Crowder*Band.

If I could own only one album it would probably be DCB’s Can You Hear Us? This song comes from their latest release, Remedy, a close second favorite.

I remember first hearing of DCB as simply the UBC Band, that is the University Baptist Church (Waco, TX) worship band. A friend had a cd with songs like “The Heights,” “The Color Song,” “Light my Eyes, ” and one that totally resonates with my soul, “All I Can Say.”

One thing I appreciate about the DCB’s music is the lyrics make you think God’s truth, and the arrangement draws you to know this truth experientially. I don’t know enough about music to tell you if they break the rules, are original, or even play on/off key. All I know is that when Kari asked me last when have I encountered God’s presence the most, I thought back of dozens of times crying in the car as I worshiped through pain to the God-centered words of the DCB. For me, thinking about theology, encountering the words of the Bible, coming as face-to-face with Christ as we can in this life — those are the places I see Christ the most. This broken world makes the most sense when seen threw new eyes. The DCB helps me to see better. How? They point me past themselves, which is probably what I appreciate about them the most. They aren’t concerned with impressing you, me, or God. Christ has already impressed the Father. (The band has a silly side too, as seen in their rockumentary, “twitter_will_kill_you.”)

As for the song, “You Never Let Go,” the part that resonates with my soul the most is near the end:

Oh, what love, oh, what love
Oh, what love, oh, what love
In joy and pain
In sun and rain
You’re the same
Oh, You never let go

Truth satiates our souls and takes us past ourselves to see that more is going on in our trials that we ever realized. God is for us, for if we are in Christ we see that His was all the joy, AND all the pain, He went through the sun and the rain (which perhaps could be a reminder that neither is enjoying to an extreme: the rhythm of seasons makes for life.) Exploring the mysterious union of joy and pain will no doubt become a great part of our learning for all eternity. IN any event, through every event, God the Creator is the same. His Love never fails, His promises always come true, and His hands will hold us through everything.

You Never Let Go

When clouds veil sun
And disaster comes
Oh, my soul
Oh, my soul
When waters rise
And hope takes flight
Oh, my soul
Oh, my soul
Oh, my soul

Ever faithful
Ever true
You I know
You never let go
You never let go
You never let go
You never let go

When clouds brought rain
And disaster came
Oh, my soul
Oh, my soul
When waters rose
And hope had flown
Oh, my soul
Oh, my soul
Oh, my soul

Oh, my soul
Overflows
Oh, what love, oh, what love
Oh, my soul
Fills hope
Perfect love that never lets go

Oh, what love, oh, what love
Oh, what love, oh, what love
In joy and pain
In sun and rain
You’re the same
Oh, You never let go

You’ll notes echoes of Psalm 23 even from the first line. This song connects the heart, the mind, and speaks to them both while moving past self to sing to God: He’s the reason He never lets go. We must speak this truth to ourselves repeatedly. Perhaps we tend to think that it is because of our steadfast faith that God doesn’t abandon us. Nope. It is because of His faithfulness to the Covenant with His Son Jesus. Psalm 23 is primarily about Jesus, not us. And since it is about Him, it can be about us.

You Never Let Go

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
Your perfect love is casting out fear
And even when I’m caught in the middle of the storms of this life
I won’t turn back
I know You are near

And I will fear no evil
For my God is with me
And if my God is with me
Whom then shall I fear?
Whom then shall I fear?

Chorus:
Oh no, You never let go
Through the calm and through the storm
Oh no, You never let go
In every high and every low
Oh no, You never let go
Lord, You never let go of me

And I can see a light that is coming for the heart that holds on
A glorious light beyond all compare
And there will be an end to these troubles
But until that day comes
We’ll live to know You here on the earth

Chorus

Yes, I can see a light that is coming for the heart that holds on
And there will be an end to these troubles
But until that day comes
Still I will praise You, still I will praise You

Chorus (2x)

(Note: this isn’t a book built for just one person. You won’t be able to “fight” alone. So, send the link to a friend, read it together and fight for one another, together, through the Gospel.)

Here’s the table of contents of Fight Clubs:

Introduction

1. Why Fight?: The Call to Fight

2. Fighting for the Church: The Failure of Accountability

3. How to Fight: Motivations for Discipleship

4. Fighting with the Church: The Three Conversions of the Church

5. Fight Club: Practical Gospel-centered Discipleship

Appendix 1: Gospel-centered Questions to Ask

Appendix 2: Gospel-centered Resources

[bio from theResurgence]:

Who is Jonathan Dodson?

Jonathan Dodson is a former window washer from East Texas, happy husband to Robie, and proud father of two children, Owen and Ellie. He is also the lead pastor of Austin City Life church and directional leader for PlantR, an Austin-based church planting network. Jonathan holds a B.A. in Anthropology and M.Div and Th.M degrees in Theology, and has published articles in various journals and webzines such as The Journal of Biblical Counseling, Boundless, Next Wave, and The Resurgence. He blogs at Creation Project and Church Planting Novice. Jonathan likes listening to Midlake and M. Ward, reading, writing, watching sci-fi, and following Jesus.

While some of the songs will be well-known (new and old), let’s start with a yet-to-be-recorded song by one of my favorite bands. (This is also the only band in this “Song of Sovereignty” that I know personally.) Rend the Heavens came out West from Nashville a year+ ago. Aaron (& Jillian), Matt & Sarah, and Luke are awesome lovers of God, and true friends.

Their song “Oh Mystery,” has yet to debut on an album — maybe the next one? Here are the God-centered words, followed by a grainy video of them playing it live earlier this year.

While I won’t try to interpret the intentions behind the song, consider the opening line, “Who could ever know You? Bright as the sun, Invisible One.” Deposit that line in the middle of contemporary spirituality were we are told that each of us has valid claims on truth, that we should empty our minds and label whatever appears as “god.” No, revelation that has come straight from God — in a Book and in a Bod — the Scriptures and Jesus. Who could ever know the Creator? (Only those He discloses Himself to, by special revelation.) It is a mystery how He could invite us to the Story. As if we could wrestle with the depths of the truth, love and beauty the spring from all He is. He has invited us, we can come, and while we tend to come full of ideas and logic, in a true encounter we shall exclaim, “Oh Mystery! Always wanted Your chains holding me. Tell me something that I can’t believe, but fills my heart.” Thanks to Rend the Heavens for writing us God-centered music we can enjoy and sing along. Reminds me of how we will never stop learning of the kindness God has shown believers in Christ — Oh Mystery.

Oh Mystery

Who could ever
know You?
Bright as the sun
Invisible One
The hands that
made the heavens
What can I say?
I’m turning away
But I can see
You reaching out
See the light coming
through that door
Oh Mystery
Always wanted your
chains holding me
Tell me something
that I can’t believe
But fills my heart

Oh Mystery
How can it be?
That the darkness,
the poison in me
Turns to light and tastes
beautiful and free

Oh Mystery
Everything is holy
God of darkness
God of the light
You know what’s
deep inside me

Frozen with fear
I’m trembling here
But I can see
You reaching out
See the light coming
through that door
Oh Mystery
Always wanted your
chains holding me
Tell me something
that I can’t believe
But fills my heart

Oh Mystery
How can it be?
That the darkness,
the poison in me
Turns to light and tastes
beautiful and free

Oh Mystery

I hear the sound
of angels singing “Holy!”
The living creatures joining
I hear the sound
of pardoned
sinners shouting
and every knee
is bowing
I can hear them sing
I can hear them sing

Oh Mystery
Always wanted your
chains holding me
Tell me something
that I can’t believe
But fills my heart

Oh Mystery
How can it be?
That the darkness,
the poison in me
Turns to light and tastes
beautiful and free

Oh Mystery

• My post “A Story of Sovereignty” is up now

It’s a bit longer than a normal blog post. Won’t blame God for that …

(The revised version posted is a bit shorter than the full version I’ll start posting here tomorrow, bit by bit.)

Here’s the heart of my argument:

Again, the problems are many — not for God, needing to explain Himself — but for us in passing judgment on the Creator. Where were we when He set all this in motion? We lack a representative sampling of data to draw conclusions. At least not enough experience from a few decades living in affluent suburbia (or anywhere else). What do we have? God’s Word. Both written and Incarnate. The Designer has left the Story of His glory for us to know, experience and be satisfied with Him. What’s more, He entered this Story, the Designer willing to become part of His design, to experience the full brunt of the brokenness of our existence. Who suffered more evil that Jesus? Who deserved more good than He? Let’s focus this discussion on the primary truth God does.

The crux: God has entered our suffering
So much talk about sovereignty (or theodicy) seems to miss the chief argument. If His attributes were to be aligned (goodness, power, knowledge), we see all three to be all-good, all-powerful, and all-knowing. I’m not imposing presuppositions here — for those are the very perfections God asserts Himself (Mark 10:18; Psalm 115:3, Matthew 19:26; Psalm 147:5, Ephesians 1:11, et al). We don’t make a solid case based on our finite (read: tiny) experience; it must come from God’s words, the Scriptures.

If those are the three legs of this 3-legged-stool (that never wobbles), then the intersection at the top — where the world sits — is the greater truth. (Don’t miss this.) God has entered His Story. All stories have depths of conflict and triumphal resolution. In comes the Hero, the conflict and resolution all centered around Him. The worst of the evil? He received it. The harshest rejection? He felt it all. He was willing to empty Himself of glory, to take the lowest place possible — a slave, condemned to die — and walk through this furnace of suffering as we should. In total submission to the Triune God, the second Person of the Trinity became the one worthy of being called the name above every name (Philippians 2:1-11).

This all-good-and-powerful-and-knowing God, who is above all holy (altogether separate, distinct, and well, whole) saw that it was not enough to be outside the suffering and evil overtaking His fallen creation. At an intersection of transcendence and immanence we see a God who cares. Enough to take our place, bear our shame, and reassert His claim as the Sovereign King of the universe. Compelled by love and for His one glory, He must draw near. He must enter this mess, and He must make it beautiful. How? (I state it again, if only for my own reminder.) By entering our suffering. By turning evil on its head. The greatest evil ever devised was used (permitted, designed and caused) to accomplish the greatest good this world has ever known. God did not just overcome evil on the cross. The Creator forced evil to serve the overcoming of itself. He made evil commit suicide in doing its worst evil.

The apex of God’s revelation of Himself is the suffering God-Man on a cross, forsaken, beaten, spit upon, and in our place taking the full wrath of God. Oh what depths of judgment vented on Him! Those present sufferings in the physical realm from human hands were but a drop in the bucket of the cup of the Father’s wrath. Joy and love mingled down in His blood, He took death (the inevitable goal of evil and sin) and threw it away like a rag doll. Death could not defeat Him. He conquered the grave. He is the Man — the God — no one can kill. Jesus is the Hero. The Good, Knowing, Sovereign One — totally free and able — did all this on purpose (Acts 2:23). The Author wrote Himself in the script, right next to us.

God entered not as an unwilling capture, but as the Creator turned Rescuer who designed a world He would rule completely, through love, mercy and justice.

• Read the whole thing: “A Story of Sovereignty”

Let’s together celebrate our independence today through our dependence upon the Sovereign King of all.

Here’s what I wrote then, and swim in now:

[Fall '08] Greek has seemed to be a little disjointed until we arrive in the relative deep-end of participles this semester. I am certainly still wading around in the shallow end, but being pushed further into learning how to swim in this new language (but still with those orange arm-floaties!). Last week I read a couple fascinating notes about the participle of means (”by means of”) while reading Wallace’s Greek Grammar (p. 630).

Humble yourselves … by casting your cares upon Him

The first illustration comes from the oft quoted passage in 1 Peter 5:6-7: “Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God …” Many times I’ve heard the next clause quoted in isolation: “Cast your cares upon Him, for He cares for you.” Do this! Yes, how needed and true it is, for He does care for us. But “cast your cares upon Him” is not an imperative clause (casting is a participle, not a verb). We miss the point when we think of the phrases separate as “Humble yourselves.” [And] “cast your case upon Him.”

The point of the Apostle seems to be that the specific way we humble ourselves before God is to cast our cares upon Him. We show humility by casting our cares upon Him. Dependence and submission in all of life — even the small stuff — reveals an attitude of humility (and creates it too).

He emptied Himself … by taking on the form of a servant

The next illustration came right underneath, where the famous kenosis passage is in view (Phil. 2:6-8). Specifically, in verse 7, where the participle should be translated “he emptied himself by taking on the form of a servant.” Debate has gone on for at least the last two centuries as to what it means that Christ emptied (ekenosev) Himself. Wallace notes the typical pattern of this specific participle, that it follows the verb, and that the verb is vague, even needing (’begging’) to be defined. “By taking on” shows the means of Christ’s emptying Himself. He did not subtract His deity, but rather added the form of a slave, willingly, becoming a man, suffering and dying — even death on a cross (v. 8).

But wait, isn’t emptying normally thought of as subtraction, not addition? Wallace notes that as well, and points out the poetic features of the whole passage (most likely it was used as an early hymn). Earlier in verses 1-4 he commanded them to think and do “nothing from selfish ambition and vain conceit.” The word for conceit (kenodoxian or “empty glory”) is used by Paul to remind them of what not to do. Then Jesus comes along and shows them what to do — what it means to empty His glory (the words almost rhyme) — they are to have that same mind towards one another. Brilliant and powerful insights, Dr. Wallace!

The opposing directions in view in both passages are startling. We receive God favor by humbling ourselves, and specifically by casting our cares and burdens upon Him. (He opposes us directly even second if we go the other way, which is revealed in our not taking our cares to Him.) The antidote to seeking empty glory is to stare at the One who emptied His own glory to reveal His infinite worth in the lowliest form of all, a slave unto death. He will change us. Let this mind be in us, continually, Lord Jesus.

“The shattered relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit at the cross provides the basis for our reconciliation. No other relationship ever suffered more than what Father, Son, and Holy Spirit endured when Jesus hung on the cross and cried, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ Jesus was willing to be the rejected Son so that our families would know reconciliation. Jesus was willing to become the forsaken friend so that we could have loving friendships. Jesus was willing to be the rejected Lord so that we could live in loving submission to one another. Jesus was willing to be the forsaken brother so that we could have godly relationships. Jesus was willing to be the crucified King so that our communities would experience peace.”

- Timothy S. Lane and Paul David Tripp, Relationships: A Mess Worth Making (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2006), 13.

What we often call peace with God , is really just a subjective sense in the mind that all is calm. It is a kind of peace, but is it really having peace WITH GOD? To be at peace with God demands the removal the the enmity we by default live in. Not only are we indifferent, we are at war (Romans 8:7-9), and probably in more passive-aggressive ways than even play out on human and family levels. If insanity is defined at doing the same things over and over yet expecting different results, then we are functionally insane if our thinking is "Hey, I had a good day, things are running smoothly … God and I must be cool."

One huge problem with this is with all our change in feeling and attitude about the situation, the one Person whose perspective matters — God the Creator — has been left out. Real barriers exist between us and Him, and these must be overcome. The barriers must be removed, which means our sins (acts) must be forgiven AND our sinful bent reversed. We are guilty of both breaking God’s laws, but more than that: we break them because we are selfish, sinful people. We prefer anything and everything over God and His best. So God must not only remove the barriers of our sinful actions, He must conquer our "old man" and remake us as new people (Colossians 3:1-11).

Okay, that was deep. How about a change-up real quick? This came in my email (from something who "never" sends forwards, which I also hardly ever read):

"By following simple advice heard on the Dr. Phil show, you too can find inner peace. Dr. Phil proclaimed, ‘The way to achieve inner peace is to finish all the things you have started and have never finished.’ So, I looked around my house to see all the things I started and hadn’t finished,and before the morning was over I finished off a bottle of White Zinfandel, a bottle of Bailey’s Irish Cream, a package of Oreos, the remainder of my old Prozac prescription, the rest of the cheesecake, some Doritos, and a box of chocolates. You have no idea how good I feel right now."

That’s obviously a joke, but is that not how we think of true inner peace, and how so many seek it: by numbing ourselves from our real brokenness. It’s been noted that about 1 in 4 Americans are on tranquilizers of some kind — eradicating the natural alarms in our body that are there (pain!) to remind us that something is wrong. Some people would rather listen to

A short meditation for this morning:

With that in mind, we look at the previous couple verses:

I battle fear — a form of UNBELIEF — everyday, and must wage war in my mind and heart according to 2nd Corinthians 10:5, taking every though captive to the LORDSHIP and mind of Christ.

What an amazing dynamic to ENJOY (v. 4) God in the mundane details of life ("always"), to POUR OUR MY HEART to Him (v. 6), and to EXPERIENCE His peace. This peace is both an objective standing (having peace with God ), and subjective reality (peace from God , and here, the peace of God ). Startling to think we can enjoy the very peace God Himself enjoys. Wow. We can experience God’s peace daily because we live in God’s peace because of Jesus has unconditionally chosen and redeemed us.

First, a snippet of an old hymn:

Holy Father, holy Son,
Holy Spirit, three we name you,
though in essence only one;
undivided God, we claim you,
and, adoring, bend the knee
while we own the mystery.
(Holy God, We Praise Your Name ; Latin text, 4th century; English translation by Clarence A. Walwort)

“The Trinity isn’t a technicality but the central relationship of the Christian faith.” — J.I. Packer

Because God is a tri-unity of co-equal, co-eternal persons, we could rightly say They is one and He are three

He is a community of persons, which sets the Christian God of the Scriptures apart from any other deity in religion or elsewhere. The Trinity is the distinct and mysterious basis of all of our relationships. God is both knowable yet incomprehensible. He is bigger than us. We do not worship three gods, but one God who although He dwells in inapproachable light, has by His own initiative come near to us. God seeks to be known, as Father, Son and Spirit.

At this point it may be helpful to say that Christians have no need to apologize for the Trinity. In fact, it is a key feature of the self-revealing God that He let’s us relate to Him in all three Persons. Don’t apologize for the Trinity because you can’t understand it. I don’t understand the Gospel of grace; but that won’t keep me from exploring it and speaking of it always. The Trinity provides us the clue to all relationships. Don’t ignore the Trinity (as merely an idea); explore the Father, Son and Spirit!

God, a community of persons

Community as a divine-human phenomenon is traced back to the nature of God. God is not, as many assume, a disinterested Scientist, a removed Observer or an impersonal Energy. According to the Bible, God is three Persons in relationship—God the Father, Son and Spirit. God has always existed as a community of persons, self-sufficient, self-delighting, self-honoring, with no need of others. When He created the universe, he made man like Himself, “in His image.” This means many things. In particular, it means is that man was created with a need for community. This can be observed among abandoned children. Kids that are abandoned in the wild make friends with animals. We are social creatures.

The Trinity shows us that God existed before all things, in complete harmony with Himself (Themselves), and lacking nothing. Creation comes out of the overflow of His love and joy, rather than be necessary to meet one of His needs (or Their needs).

God is also purposeful. He designed the universe for redemption. New life comes out of dying stars. In a divine covenant, the Trinity agreed that Jesus would die to rescue the world that humankind would mar. Jesus died “before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4). As a result, Jesus put the creation project back on track. He began restoring it right away. Healing lepers, stilling storms, balancing the unstable, drawing people back into community with God and with one another. God is missional; He sent Himself. One of His purposes is to redeem and restore community by saving humanity from their broken relationships with Him and with one another. Will you join in His/Their Story?

Read Jonathan Dodson’s excellent post, "Confessions of a Failing Disciple ." Here’s an excerpt from the middle:

The Gospel is for Disciples Not Just Sinners

Fortunately, Jesus is big enough for my misunderstanding of what it means to follow him. As I continued to “disciple” and read the Bible, I was struck by the fact that the disciples of Jesus were always attached to other disciples, that they lived in community. This community was authentic. They confessed their sins and struggles alongside their successes. But they also seemed to continually come back to Jesus, not merely as their example, but also as their identity, their entire sense of self. The New Testament is filled with exhortations to keep Christ at the center of our discipleship, not only for instruction but also for transformation. I began to realize that Jesus is not merely the start and standard for salvation, but that he is the beginning, middle, and end of my salvation. He is my salvation, not just when I was six, but every second of every day.

Contrary to the unforgiving demands of religion, Jesus forgives us when we fail. He doesn’t kick us when we are down, but dies to lift us up. Unlike the deception of worldly pleasure, Jesus offers true satisfaction and joy. Instead of wooing me into death, he leads me into life, his resurrection life. It slowly became apparent to me that the gospel of Christ was where I was meant to find my identity, not in impressing God or others. Refusing to share my life with others, especially my failures, was a refusal to allow the gospel of Christ to accomplish its full breadth of redemption in my life. Very simply, God was leading me into a kind of discipleship with the gospel at the center, a constant, gracious repetition of repentance and faith in Jesus, who is sufficient for my failures and strong for my successes. Jesus frees me from trying to impress God or others because he has impressed God on my behalf. I can tell people my sins because my identity doesn’t hang on what they think of me. I can be an imperfect Christian because I cling to a perfect Christ. As it turns out, the gospel is not just for sinners; it’s also for disciples, disciples who sin.

Re-read that last part (emphasis added):

Very simply, God was leading me into a kind of discipleship with the gospel at the center, a constant, gracious repetition of repentance and faith in Jesus , who is sufficient for my failures and strong for my successes. Jesus frees me from trying to impress God or others because he has impressed God on my behalf. I can tell people my sins because my identity doesn’t hang on what they think of me. I can be an imperfect Christian because I cling to a perfect Christ. As it turns out, the gospel is not just for sinners; it’s also for disciples, disciples who sin.

Former Portland Trailblazer Brian Grant — one of my favorite players from the teams of a decade ago — lives with early onset Parkinsons. He’s 37.

• Parkinson’s changes game plan for ex-Trail Blazer Brian Grant (The Oregonian frontpage, 5/21/09)

• Watch a clip of Brian Grant’s story on ESPN’s Outside the Lines

Is there a link between doctrinal understanding and passionate devotion?

It’s simple. Know God and know theological doctrines and out of that flows an ardent, fiery, zealous, passionate and loving pursuit and walk with God. Clear understanding corresponds to a burning devotion and embracing. Greater light shining in our minds leads to a greater kindling of heat in our hearts. Doctrinal understanding and passionate living are friends. They are kin and they work together in cooperative relationship. Here’s why doctrinal understand is linked to passionate living.

Biblical evidences that doctrinal understanding promotes passionate living

1. The greatest commandment (Matt. 22:37)

What is clear from this verse is that God desires His people to love Him with the entirety of their beings. This includes knowing God with our minds, and using our minds for His glory. It also includes embracing God and His plans with our hearts, as well as serving God with our hands. The different aspects of loving God (head, heart, and hands) are not in contradiction to each other. Rather they are complementary avenues through which God is supremely loved and treasured with everything that we are.

2). Romans 12:1-2

Romans 12:1-2 is probably the most important verse written by the apostle Paul on the subject of spiritual growth and transformation. Here, Paul combines the ideas of:

1. a total and continual submission to God (12:1),
2. an exercise of our mental and cognitive faculties to think and reflect upon God’s truth (which Paul calls the renewing of the mind ), and
3. the result of spiritual transformation (literally, spiritual “metamorphosis”).

Genuine biblical transformation includes both a surrendered and devoted life and a renewed mind. The surrendered life is the basis for spiritual growth, and the mind is a primary means for spiritual growth. God’s design in Romans 12:1-2 is for spiritual transformation to take place by means of the renewed mind. So, it is not more holy, nor is it even consistent with the biblical pattern, to suggest that we should circumvent the mind in the process of Christian growth. There is a biblical union between thinking and establishing sound doctrine and igniting and fanning spiritual fervor; between understanding with our minds and embracing with our hearts; between developing a sharp and critical mind and cultivating a warm and affectionate heart.

3. The nature of the human soul that includes the faculties of the mind and heart (Gen. 2:7; Ps. 39:3; Luke 24:32)

The nature of human persons is such that we are composed of a material body and an immaterial soul (Gen. 2:7). The human soul is multi-faceted and includes the heart (Matt.15:19-20), the mind (Rom. 12:2), the conscience (Rom. 2:15), and the will (Rom. 6:12-13).

Two primary functions or operations of the soul are (1) understanding and (2) being affectionately inclined or disinclined . These two operations normally work in this order. Through our soul’s operation of understanding, we are capable of perceiving, discerning, categorizing, and clarifying. After the understanding is exercised, the soul can then be either affectionately inclined or disinclined toward the object of understanding. We are not unaffected spectators with a passive indifference towards the things that we know and understand; but we either like or dislike those things, we approve or disapprove of them, we are pleased or displeased with them. With the affections of our soul we either like or dislike the thing that we understand, but we are also capable of liking or disliking it with different degrees and measures of intensity. For example, it is possible for me to grow in my perception and knowledge of my wife. It is also possible for me to grow in my appreciation, affection, and lively love for my wife, so that my heart is more favorably and zealously inclined towards her. As we grow in our perception and understanding of God, we position ourselves to then be able to better enjoy and vigorously incline ourselves to like and delight in what we have clearly perceived. We must then take care then, to pass on what we (1) know in our understanding, (2) onto our affections, so that we can enjoy, embrace, and take increasingly delight in the God and the truth that we are learning. God is particularly glorified when we (1) further understand Him and (2) increasingly embrace Him.

4. The example of the Book of Psalms

The Psalms are unique in that they, like no other biblical genre, combine human experience and emotion with rich theology that centers upon God and His revelation. The Psalms strike the balance and capture the dynamic combination between intense human emotion (both good and hard) and God-centered theology. The Psalms are far from being classified as containing cold and sterile intellectual concepts; but by no means do they plunge into mindless emotional whirls void of doctrinal truth. Rather, they uniquely and dynamically combine God centered theology with heartfelt deep emotion and expression to God. What an example to us!

John 3:16 gives us a short-hand version of the Gospel. The Good News is made ours to experience and live in when we believe in Jesus. Consider these four observations about “believing in Him.”

Not everyone will be saved

Not everybody will benefit from what Jesus came to do. But “whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” The rest will perish—and not have eternal life. They won’t have eternal life, because they won’t have God – who offers Himself in this one way.

Embracing something (or Someone) as true

The word “believe” itself means to embrace something as true; and when it’s a person, it means to trust them to be what they are and do what they say.

“Receive” explains believe

Read John 1:11-12 together. There Jesus shows another concept He has in mind – to believe is to receive.

“[Jesus] came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”

So receiving Jesus and believing Jesus explain each other.

Receive Jesus as what?

Many people want to “receive” or “accept” Jesus into their lives, but only in a fringe role. Jesus becomes part of their lives, not the whole purpose and center of their lives (see Colossians 3:3-4). Perhaps an analogy would be helpful for teaching the small group.

There are many ways to receive someone into your home. Who comes into your home in a given month?

• When the roto-rooter or furnace repair technician come, what is your expectation of their stay? (Fix it and leave, please. That’s what I am paying you for.)
• How about a Comcast cable technician? (Can’t wait until you’re gone, so I can enjoy the fruit of your labor!)
• Your in-laws? (Just put up with them, and get back to ‘normal’ life when they leave.)
• Some people we don’t receive into our homes. We don’t have time for them, or we don’t know them. What about the person who is a dear friend? How do you receive that person into your home? They are an honored guest who you long to converse with and know deeply. Time flies because you love this person. You poor out your heart and life experiences to this person, trusting him or her to listen as your confidant. You share meals and life, swapping stories and you realize, “I can’t live without this person!”

Everyone should candidly ask themselves:

Do I treat Jesus like He is a Comcast cable guy, doing things for me so I can enjoy life without Him?

If we ask, “Receive Him as what?” the answer would be, “Receive Him as what He is.” He is Savior and King. We must receive Him as who He is. We see this type of discussion in Scripture with another analogy. Like when Jesus says in John 6:35: “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” So here believing means coming to Jesus and receiving him as the food and drink that satisfies our souls. We need Him just as much as the basic food to sustain us. This is why faith is so transforming. Everything we receive changes us.

When we receive Jesus by faith, does He transform us, and nourishing us so we become different people?

Note: Saving faith always requires repentance from sin. Our response to the Gospel can be summarized in different ways. Sometimes faith alone is named as the one thing necessary for salvation (see John 3:16; Acts 16:31; Rom. 10:9; Eph. 2:8–9), other times repentance alone is named (Luke 24:47; Acts 3:19; 5:31; 17:30; 2 Cor. 7:10), and sometimes both are named (Acts 20:21), as they are one. Genuine faith always involves repentance, and vice versa. Repentance includes a change of mind that ends up trusting God (i.e., having faith).

(Many thanks to Pastor John Piper for illuminating these points.)

The root problem is that we see the source of our solution as in us. It’s not. It’s in Christ, who is God come to live and die in our place. When He is our motivation, and what He did becomes the basis of what we do , then life begins to make sense, and we will be transformed in the process. Consider this:

“All change comes from deepening your understanding of the salvation of Christ and living out of the changes that understanding creates in your heart. Faith in the gospel re-structures our motivations, our self-understanding, our identity, and our view of the world. Behavioral compliance to rules without heart-change will be superficial and fleeting.”
- Timothy Keller, The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith (New York: Dutton, 2008), 121.

The author of a book they use in group students wrote:

"The blessing of God was upon Aaron’s line, upon the priestly role in the old covenant until the Messiah came.  So central was this that some of the Jews in the centuries before Jesus speculated that there would be two Messiahs, a priestly one and a kingly one!  Jesus is the root and offspring of David but he is also the root and offspring of Aaron and the priestly line."

The leader asked: Since the Bible is clear Jesus came from the tribe of Judah we’re thinking the above is just metaphorical and not actual genealogy. Or are we missing something?

Here’s most of my response:

Good question. I think I agree with the author here.

There are three OT Offices Jesus had to fulfill:

• Prophet
• Priest
• King

In Him is the full embodiment of God’s revelation. As Prophet He speaks as God (Heb. 1:1-3). As Priest He comes to mediate between God and man, as the God-Man (1 Tim. 2:1-7), and as King His Name is above all names (Phil. 2:8-11) . Could plug in dozens of Scriptures for each of those.

Some highlights in the OT give us clue to the connected identity of the One Messiah: Prophet (Deut. 18), Priest (God is the only holy priest), King (2 Sam. 7). But the amazingness to the Jews must have been how this could come in one person. Thus, many had a tradition and commentary that there must be two! Add to the mix this one caveat: Only God (YHWH) is the Savior (Isa. 45; notice the connection between v. 23 and Phil. 2:10-11). Someone must come Who is all of these, and so much more.

The thing is that Jesus had to come from both lines, in some sense. He could be a King, in the line of David. But not a priest. That is part of the argument in Hebrews 7 + 10, regarding Melchizedek and Jesus. The Covenant promises to David, and the lineage of His Son to establish the (Theocratic) Kingdom of God to rule and reign forever are so key. The other lineage is symbolic, for as you mention, Jesus came from the line of Judah (from which no priest had/will ever come). Think of Aaron’s budding rod/staff as a signpost on the way to Jesus (Heb. 9:4), the fulfillment of true worship and priestly service to God. In the context of Numbers, notice in that this event is the exact opposite of Korah’s rebellion — strange fire, religion coming on man’s terms. Aaron’s rod budded out of God’s free will and initiation.

(Speaking of the 3 offices, it is interesting to note that in the Psalms David essentially writes time and again that he would gladly trade in both of his offices (Prophet + King) for the one he longed to be — a Priest. In Christ we have The High Priest, the only Mediator (1 Tim. 2), and as the God-Man is both of the others as well.)

This help?

I’d share the first paragraph I wrote above ("As Prophet/Priest/King") if you want to share any of this with your group.

Digging into the Word with you!

Jeff
p.s.- If you need another handy reference as you study all the Scriptures on the way to Jesus (OT), I have a copy of From Creation to the Cross , which you could borrow. One of my professors wrote it, and it is an extremely helpful book, and full of charts, summaries and maps.

For those wondering what "triperspectivalism" means, it is essentially the emphasis of ministering from all three perspectives: prophet, priest and king. Only Jesus is all Three, yet we can follow His example and share leadership on those trajectories. There is a wealth of good resources on the topic here . Especially helpful as a primer is this diagram .

I have more a doctrinal and administrative (prophet and king, respectively) bent, so I must always come back to the Gospel, to see people through the lens of a loving priest (pastor) — just like Paul did in 1 Cor. 1:1-9. (Note that I normally don’t use the big "T" word in communicating with people, but seek to embody it in all I do. Another example forthcoming from another question I received.)

- Tremper Longman III & J. Alan Groves (foreword) in George M. Schwab, Hope in the Midst of a Hostile World (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 2006), x.