Comparsion, Mickey Mouse, and the Holy Spirit

Comparing myself to others can be a good thing.  We look at the lives of the godly and mature around us and attempt to imitate them in our own life.  Inevitably this involves comparison.  To say that all comparison is wrong is to fall into the trap of Mickey Mouse Theology--i.e., I'm great exactly the way I am and I never need to change or let anyone tell me how to live my life.  Not a Biblical idea at all.

However,  comparison frequently becomes a great spiritual chain that we freely wrap around our hearts.  We constantly assess others as better or worse than us in any number of different areas.  He's more fit than I am. She's less attractive. They eat less healthily, more organic, with higher salt, or less fat, than we do.  He knows more than I do. She might have a great mind but she has a terrible personality.  I'm the funniest person in this room.  On and on and on.  Instead of humbly using our weaknesses as an occasion to ask for help and using our strengths as an occasion to celebrate grace, we turn to self-exaltation or self-pity.  Two sides of the same coin of pride. 

So, how do we know the difference between valuable comparison and the chain?  Two of the easiest indicators are peace and gratefulness.

Helpful comparison that cultivates godly conviction is accompanied by peace....not frantic self-improvement anxiety.   I truly want to become more like the godly examples I see around me, not frantically, not anxiously, but trusting in the peaceful conviction and power of the Spirit.

Helpful comparison that reveals a "strength" leads to gratefulness...not self-exultation.  Seeing certain weaknesses in others that I don't share to the same degree reminds me that all that I have comes from grace and that all good fruit comes from the Holy Spirit. Not a token "there but for the grace of God..." facade, but a true, heartfelt, humble gratefulness for God's faithful work in our lives.

The Spirit uses the examples of others to show us our weaknesses and to reveal how much work he has accomplished in us.  Anxiety and self-confidence are not fruit of the Spirit but of the flesh.
Let us ask ourselves the question the next time we are comparing ourselves to others.

Am I feeling peaceful conviction and humble gratefulness right now?

When the Sunlight Comes

Have you ever been sitting in a darkened room, perhaps in the early morning or on a cloudy day?  Do you remember that moment when a shaft of sunlight breaks through and catches your eye?  The whole room, sometimes the whole day, suddenly feels different.

This is how I view a sudden gift of hope from the Holy Spirit.  Our day may be darkened by doubt or temptation or the slow creep of condemnation. Suddenly, perhaps requested, perhaps surprising, the hope of eternal life and our union with Christ breaks through.  Nothing changes, but everything changes.

Lord, break into our life with your eternal hope today. Show us the gleaming inheritance of eternity.  Give us a glimpse, Lord, of the greater light to come. 

Preach Grace in Sight of the Cross

All reformed preachers love to preach the free grace of the Biblical gospel.  We love declaring that salvation is accomplished solely based on the eternal love and undeserved favor of God.

Occasionally, the message of God's grace begins to sounds similar to mainstream American optimism, in which all people receive a second chance from "the Man upstairs." 

What is the difference? 

Biblical grace is purchased grace. It is costly grace.  It is free for the sinner, completely free, utterly free.  Yet it is infinitely costly.  The favor of God, grace, toward sinners, was paid for by the atoning blood of Christ.  God could not, would not, fulfill his eternal plans for grace toward us without the definite plan of payment for our sins at the cross of Christ. 

If our preaching of grace begins to sound like a moralistic payment plan--be righteous and God will give you a hand out--we've denied the freedom of grace.

If our preaching of grace begins to sound like American second chance optimism--we have muted the eternal chorus declaring the worthiness of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb that was slain.

Many people love to hear that something is free.  They're uncomfortable when the price of that freeness is highlighted before their eyes.  But the price of grace is the cross of Christ and the cross of Christ is detailed in the worship of heaven. 

Therefore, for his glory, we must preach grace in sight of the cross. 

Owen Strachan on the Church

I love the following excerpt by Owen Strachan about the church.  Quoted on www.9marks.org

But what is the local church, then? Well, first and foremost, it’s a group devoted to worshiping the living God according to his inerrant Word, the Bible. It’s an outpost for weary people burdened by sin to meet God and be transformed by him. The church building may not look exciting from the outside, or it may be an aesthetic masterpiece. Whatever the building looks like, though, I can assure you that the local church truly is exciting, because when it’s devoted to God’s Word, it is the body of Christ. It’s a tangible, visible sign that God is real and working and moving in our world.

You could say it this way: the church is created by the gospel, and the church is edified by the gospel. God loves the local church. He made it, after all. It’s his brainstorm. God is super-creative. He’s the ultimate aesthete. He loves beauty and full-orbed, surround-sound faith. He wants all our senses and emotions to be engaged in weekly worship. So we pray, sing, hear the Word read and preached, eat the bread and drink the wine, and share fellowship together.

The Lord wants these blessings for us. We experience them when we join local churches (see 1 Cor. 5 and its discussion of those “outside” and “inside” the Corinthian congregation). What’s called “church membership” is very important in Scripture. Our redeemer wants every born-again Christian to be in fellowship with others so we can build one another up in the faith. He wants us to be baptized as our public declaration that we’ve passed through the waters of judgment and have risen from spiritual death through Christ. He wants us to partake of the Lord’s Supper to remember Jesus’ death on our behalf.

I didn’t grow up in a massive congregation. I grew up in a small church on the coast of Maine. There weren’t many believers around. But I was trained to see the church as an inherently dignified gathering regardless of how many people attended on Sunday. My father was steadfastly committed to the First Baptist Church of East Machias. He went every week to prayer meeting; he and my mother were faithful to the church even through troubled times. They modeled covenantal commitment to their church. I am grateful they did.
It made a mark on me.

Church was a natural part of my youth; without really knowing it, I was formed in the worldview we’re discussing here. I was being trained in the holy rhythms of a Godward life. I heard the preaching; ate the tiny little communion crackers barely visible to the human eye; sang in the Christmas choir. We weren’t a large body, but we were devoted to the Lord.

More important, he was devoted to us.
He is devoted to every church, to every local expression of the global people of Christ, however humble, however popular. So should we be.

Owen Strachan is Assistant Professor of Christian Theology and Church History at Boyce College in Louisville, Kentucky and the Executive Director of the Council on Biblical Manhood & Womanhood.

Christmas is a Birthday Party

Have your kids every gotten jealous at someone else's birthday party?  Mine have. Little brother is opening his present and the older sibling desperately wants to have a present too.  The birthday girl gets lots of attention today, but its our turn to simply wait and be happy for her.  For some reason I always feel disappointed in my kids when they aren't excited about a celebration for someone else.

But....that's actually the way I am most of the time during the Christmas season.  I think about presents and decorations and Christmas movies and Christmas treats--mostly in terms of how much I enjoy them for myself.  Nothing against any of these joyfully anticipated Christmas traditions--I'm looking forward to them again this year! However,  last night I was talking to my son and felt the urge to tell him that Christmas is really big birthday party for Jesus. Even as I said the words I realized how much I needed them as well.

We should enjoy all the celebration--the gift giving and songs and feasting--just like we do at a regular birthday party.  But we enjoy it with him at the center of our attention.  Its his birthday we're celebrating---the birth of God in human form. Heaven on earth. The Messiah condescending to save.

It's your birthday Lord Jesus.  We'll be feasting and singing and giving and receiving in your honor.

Anti-Legalism Legalism

"What a weird blog title!  Isn't that like a double negative...a not, not, cancelling itself out???"

Wait, wait, let me explain.  A lot of blogging space has been used recently to defend the importance of grounding our ongoing growth in the gospel.  This is a cause I resonate with--as I said in a recent message,  we simply do not grow apart from our union with Christ.  Only gospel grounded growth is growth in true maturity, growing up into Him who is the Head, into Christ. We also must always guard against making our progress or lack of progress in maturity the center of our meditation, the basis for our approach to God, or our hope of eternal life.

My worry is that in an attempt to preach the gospel of freedom in Christ, both for justification and as the source of our growth, some language that is used can create an unbiblical restraint, a "you'd better not" where God says "yes."  This happens when the commands, or imperatives, of the Bible (even the NT ones) are questioned or even dismissed as unhelpful in our view of Christian growth. If our teaching about growth makes it sound like it is dangerous for Christians to meditate on or seek to obey the commands that the Bible intends to give Christians, we are creating anti-legalism legalism. 

Of course this is not the intent of the teaching--the goal is to free Christians from extra-biblical rules and especially from a works centered spiritual experience.  However,  if Christians walk away from our warnings about commands and the danger of rules with the thought that truly spiritual, truly gospel centered Christians grow without ever focusing on the Biblical calls for godliness issued to Christians--we have placed a fence around part of their identity in Christ.  We have cut them off from part of the good pasture of God's Word, opened to them in Christ. To be in Christ is to be under his headship, to embrace his Word, all of it, with freedom, fueled by his Spirit.  We are not free to misuse his Word in any way, nor are we free to make it sound as though Christians should be able to grow only using part of their Bibles.  This is anti-legalism legalism, and it will produce the same death and condemnation that it is our goal to fight against.

Who is United to Christ?

The man or woman united to the Lord Jesus Christ is one with Him in their legal standing before God.  They are one with Him in their spiritual newness of life. The righteous obedience of Christ and his perfect fulfillment of God's law is credited permanently to their account. The willing death of Jesus Christ absorbed the full punishment of God for every one of their sins. The Lordship of Christ is their rule and authority.  The Spirit of Christ is their lifeblood, their new life and vitality.  The sonship of Christ is their new family identity, in which they can freely call God Father. The character of the Lord Jesus is their standard of living.  The inheritance of Christ has been granted to them, which is their hope of glory. 

Who is United to Christ?  A person who has been given all of these blessings in full, irrevocably, freely, by the grace of God and through the power of the Holy Spirit.

*Originally posted at Redemption Hill Church