Tag: God

God: Our Greatest Gift

Silva

Part II.

Previously on 24…I was making the point that we all live with goals in life.  Those of us who believe in Christ include in our goals spiritual ones: less of this, more of that.  That we would put on more goodness and put off more yuck.  These are not bad in any universe. Until…

Until we arm ourselves with the incorrect tool.  I was talking about Radio Man Stan and his commitments in Lent.  Once again, to buckle down to more Bible study is a good thing.  To use Lent as a means to spur one on to that end: good thing.  What struck me at a visceral level was both how charming he thought he was being in doing so and the fact that it might be true that his (our) failures had more to do with him (us) than with God.

So, in that universe of thinking, God is a tool: the means to a better you or your best life now.  In that universe of thinking, what’s most important is that I be better.  We aren’t actually living for His glory but for our own ever increasing glory (or happiness).  We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to do and be better.  We watch other parents and spouses and co-workers and etc. and tell ourselves that we should and can be better.  We even see others who serve more and love more and die-to-self more and we tell ourselves that we should and can be better.  (And we’re probably right.)

Then we realize (quickly) that we aren’t.  Or, if we are, we might’ve picked the ones against whom we stack up pretty nicely.  In this universe of being better we are always looking for tools.  Of course we need them because without them (i.e., status quo) we aren’t better.  According to the laws that we set down for ourselves, we fail to keep them at best or we regularly break them at worst and God as our tool to better selves doesn’t work too well.  We end up still screaming, pouting, failing, manipulating and getting caught.  So the problem must be God – He’s just not enough.

Now, I don’t know anyone who actually talks that way, but, I do know a whole lot of people who are disgusted with the regularity of their sin and they don’t know how to stop or change.  (Hint: They’ve “used” God and it hasn’t worked.)   Suggest to them something simple and they get the glazed eye look.  I once had a seminary instructor who was livid after a guest chapel preacher mimicking James 5 told folks that if they are sick, they should confess their sins and see if it is related.  He was blathering on about how simplistic and stupid this man was!  The thought that sin and sickness could be related (even though it’s clearly in the passage).

I’ve seen something shocking in the faces of believers who are desperate for something different: gospel boredom.  The life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ means little.  It means a lot when we talk about eternal address, but parenting?  Communication?  Mercy ministry?  Forget about it.

We have become a people who demand something complicated.  How is that so when folks are typically clamoring for the books and teachers who have the easiest and most practical messages?  They are the ones who say citing simplicity and relevance, “Sermons must have applications that are relevant!”  These balk at those who beckon them to something more mysteriously complicated (they think) because we want it complicated not simple. We’d never say that though.

Check your heart: is the life, death, resurrection, ascension, and return of Christ where you turn when bombs start exploding in your marriage?  If I were to tell you what Paul tells us in the Scriptures, you would be skeptical.  You’d accuse me of oversimplification.  You’d tell me that maybe that works in seminary but not here.  Really?

The greatest gift we could ever have is a perfect life, an atoning death, a completed resurrection, and an assurance of an exorbitant inheritance, right?  Do we not see that in Christ that is exactly ours?

For us, in Him; in us, for Him.  It’s all done.

You with Us, We with You

Silva

I continue to be provoked by a discussion about parenting in light of eternity.  The affect it has had on me as a parent has been to clarify the things of parenting.  I will (and do!) still struggle in making mountains out of molehills and vice versa, but I definitely believe that the picture of my destination as a parent is clearer – under the specter of eternal judgment, all things are clearer.  Interestingly, Paul wrote this way in his letter to the Thessalonians (1:9, 2:16, 3:13, 4:13-17, chapter 5).

Just the other day, I found out that one of my children had been participating in mean-spiritedness against another child from our church: covenant children victimizing others, who’d have thought?  Nonetheless, once I found out I was surprised by how much more quickly we moved to handle this (Judgment day still fresh in our minds).  I whipped out the church directory, found the relevant phone number, made the call, connected with the parent and passed the phone along to my child who asked for forgiveness from the other.  The mom told me that my child had acted courageously.  I responded, “It takes courage to do the right thing.”  I might’ve said it differently, “It takes a Judgment-Day perspective to do the right thing.”

In a resource designed to help parents bring the gospel to their covenant children, I read a quote from Richard Mather, English-born American congregationalist preacher (c. 1600) in answer to the question, “What might covenant children on their way to hell say to their parents?”

All this that we here suffer is through you.  You should have taught us the things of God and did not.  You should have restrained us from sin and corrected us and you did not.  You were the means of our original corruption and guiltiness, and yet you never showed any competent care that we might be delivered from it.  Woe unto us that we had such carnal and careless parents.  And woe unto you that you had no more compassion and pity to prevent the everlasting misery of your own children.

I have said in class before that even among those of you who do not have children, your commitment to your covenantal vows at the many baptisms you witnessed in our worship obligate you to help parents with children in their tasks of parenting for Judgment Day.  I pray that in and through our faithful covenant parenting (you with us and we with you) in light of eternity, our children will have no opportunity to speak words like these.  May God grant us the grace and strength.

Pastor Gabe

Do you know?

Silva

In our knowing, do we know?

A problem may arise if we are not careful. It’s about “gospel.”  I’m afraid that in our knowing we might not know it.  This will look different for different people – at least initially.  Maybe some among us are not converted and that’s serious.  You may not ever have repented of your independence and rebellion against God.  You’d never considered Isaiah’s words when he said, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6).  Think about that: if that’s true, then now is the time to turn to Jesus Christ and plead with God that He would credit Jesus’ perfection to you – and save your soul from the wrath of God.  If your parenting was changed because your heart was changed then Hallelujah!

For the rest, my fear is that familiarity with the gospel will breed contempt for it.  Maybe contempt is too strong; how about a passive kind of ho-hum attitude?  Do we believe that the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Christ was what we needed to be converted but, beyond that, we’re talking about something fundamentally different to actually live?  The Galatians did: 3:2-3.  If we hold this view, we may, in fact, not understand the gospel’s place in our lives.  If we misunderstand what it means to live in the gospel as converted Christians, then we risk living for the glory of something else.  The stakes are high!

We need to ask ourselves why we are interested in studying the Bible; say parenting, for example.  Let me oversimplify to make a point: are we more concerned about being equipped to parent or is our interest more about God?  Think about it.  I mean, clearly, parents need help parenting; no parent knows what in the world he’s doing while he’s doing it!  (The sheer number of parenting books published in the last decade (75K??) proves the hunger for help.)  But God apparently doesn’t believe that parenting-ignorance is our biggest issue (I know there are times when it feels like it!).  The fact that the Bible contains so few verses about such a significant subject proves that.

At the same time, it’s not as if God isn’t concerned about it either!  His message is different, even strange to us.  Paul preached this message to his churches.  We should take note because they were like us with pressing needs in every area of life: they were parents, employers, employees, children, friends, soldiers and artisans.  They all needed to know how and what to do.  They looked to Paul to provide help.  Yet, his message was:

For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. (1 Corinthians 2:2)

Ask the Lord to reveal your interests here.  Do you want to know Him as Paul prayed for his Ephesians brothers (1:15-19)?  Or do you just want to know how to better parent?  Desire to be a better parent less than you desire to know Jesus Christ; that the details of His life, the gospel, become your preoccupation – and that in which you bathe your family.