As many know, the letter of Paul to the romans is a glorious book, chapter after chapter of gospel truth. When we read it, we see amazing, deep, lovely truths of how we are saved by God’s grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. We see the sovereign hand of God behind our salvation. We see God’s plan to bless the entire world through his Son who came through the nation of Israel.
For the first 11 chapters, Romans is nearly all gospel. Most of the beginning ¾ of the book is about how we are saved and the beauty and glory of the gospel. But, once we turn into chapter 12, we see that God also will then help us to apply the gospel. Because we are saved by his grace in Christ, there are ways that are proper to live. There are things to be and to do that will honor Christ. No, they will not buy us salvation—Christ bought our salvation. But the obedient Christian life is the only proper response to the good news.
So, in chapter 12, Paul begins to talk to us about life in the local church. We are to give ourselves completely to the Lord as living sacrifices. We are to recognize that we belong in the body of Christ and our lives are to be lived together as we serve the Lord as a unit. Each of us is to use the special spiritual gifting and shaping we have received from the Lord to benefit the body as a whole.
Thus, it is a surprise when we see a call to competition arising so early in all this talk of body life and humility. In fact, to me, competing is the last thing I would think Paul would tell us to do. But he does.
Romans 12:9-10 – 9 Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. 10 Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.
Paul calls us, under the inspiration of God, to love one another. We are to hate evil, love good, and live with familial affection toward one another. Then it comes, the competition.
God commands us, “Outdo one another in showing honor.” Now, I can tell you that I have been in several churches all over the globe. I’ve been in big ones and little ones, in formal ones and contemporary ones, young ones and old ones, urban ones, suburban ones, and rural ones. But I have never been in a church where I saw this competition take hold. I cannot recall a time or a place where I thought to myself that the local body of Christ had its members striving to outdo one another in showing honor.
What would this look like? In this picture, the local church members would have a hunger, a desire, to show a deep and genuine love for each other. Because of the grace of God in Christ, these members would love to give love. They would not battle for position. They would not seek to be personally revered. They would not strive to have things shaped according to their liking.
Instead of the kinds of selfishness that so often marks groups, the church that took this competitive command seriously would be full of people who were actively looking for ways to show others their value. Can you imagine sitting down with another couple of believers and plotting out just how you might make your Sunday School Teacher feel loved? Can you imagine working for ways to make the pastor feel appreciated in a month not labeled as pastor-appreciation month? Can you imagine a church where people are just used to hearing thanks given for the service of the musicians, the nursery workers, and the prayerful senior adults?
Now, I’m not complaining. I love the church that I serve. And, in many ways, I believe we are growing better and better at showing each other honor and doing each other kindness. But I cannot say that we have risen to the level of trying to outdo one another in showing honor. So, though life here is great, we have work to do.
What about you? When is the last time you really put forward an effort to show somebody honor in your church? When did you last remind somebody that you all need to do some kindness to someone who is working hard and giving a lot of themselves to the body? Have you taken this challenge seriously? May we learn to outdo one another in showing honor for the sake of the body and the glory of Christ.
The Danger of Pragmatism
You have probably heard the old saying, the end justifies the means. That is a simple definition of pragmatism. Often in our lives, we will be tempted to do whatever it takes to accomplish the plans we have. We assume that a good goal will allow us to bend the rules a bit to get something worthwhile accomplished.
A look at Scripture will show us that God is not happy when his people break his laws and ignore his commands, regardless of their reasoning. God does not smile on us when we turn away from his instructions to accomplish a task, even if our intent is to accomplish a big task that he commanded be accomplished.
One example of dangerous pragmatism occurs in the book of 1 Samuel. Saul is king over Israel. He finds himself in a bit of a pickle. He knows that the people need to fight a battle against the Philistines. He knows that his army is growing restless. They need to make a particular sacrifice to the Lord before heading out. And the prophet Samuel has not arrived. The whole schedule is being messed up. The army is in danger of falling apart.
What does Saul do? Does he wait? Does he obey God’s instruction that only Samuel can make the particular sacrifice? No, he does not. Saul decides to take it upon himself to make the sacrifice. After all, Saul is King. After all, isn’t it better to get the sacrifice done regardless of whether every little rule is observed? Isn’t it better to be sure to keep the people together so they can go fight their enemies?
1 Samuel 13:11-14 – 11 Samuel said, “What have you done?” And Saul said, “When I saw that the people were scattering from me, and that you did not come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines had mustered at Michmash, 12 I said, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the favor of the Lord.’ So I forced myself, and offered the burnt offering.” 13 And Samuel said to Saul, “You have done foolishly. You have not kept the command of the Lord your God, with which he commanded you. For then the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. 14 But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be prince over his people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.”
Samuel asks Saul what he has done. Saul explains his pragmatic decision. The Philistines were coming. Saul didn’t want to break the rules, but he found he had no choice. Surely Samuel will understand.
Samuel tells Saul that he has done foolishly. The king has dishonored the Lord God. Saul has refused to keep God’s commands. He most certainly should not have made the sacrifice that he was not called by God to make. Saul most certainly should have waited for the Lord, even if waiting made things tremendously more difficult. Saul found out that the end of keeping the army together did not justify the means of him making the sacrifice rather than waiting on Samuel. And Samuel shows us that the consequences of this decision would be Saul’s eventual loss of dynastic rulership over Israel—a gigantic loss.
And we should learn from this as modern Christians. We have things we want to see get done in the church. We have things we want to see accomplished in our lives. We have rules we would prefer not to have to follow. WE have compromises that we see other churches make that we think might draw people to our church. Maybe we can ignore some doctrines? Maybe we can lighten up on our criticism of some sins. Maybe we can remove the preaching of the word from being so central. Maybe we can focus more on application than on content. Maybe we can just cut a few corners to accomplish a bigger goal.
God shows us that he is not honored when his people ignore his commands. His word is vital. The Scripture is our authority for life and worship. We dare not compromise our commitment to the word of God for any outcome, not even for evangelistic purposes. We must be faithful enough to the Lord to trust him to work out his will for his glory when we are faithfully committed to the things he has commanded. We must not give in to the temptation toward dangerous pragmatism.
A Clear Picture of Sovereignty
There are some Bible passages that are difficult to interpret. We wonder just how to handle them, especially when they say things that are uncomfortable for us to hear. This, of course, is especially true for those passages that speak of the sovereignty of God over our salvation. For most of us, the first time we see such a thing in Scripture, we will twist and turn and battle against that truth, because it is a very uncomfortable notion the first time you try it on.
In my daily readings, I recently ran across one of the passages that did the most to convince me of the biblical teaching about God’s sovereignty over our salvation, Romans 9. In that chapter of Scripture, we see that God is moving behind the scenes in human hearts to accomplish his will in a way that shows us that God, not man, is the ultimate decision-maker. This is not at all to remove human responsibility; nor does it relieve us of the command to share the gospel. But it is most certainly something that shows that God is ultimate.
What I found most helpful and convincing in Romans 9 regarding sovereignty was the way that Paul handled the argument. You see, Paul makes a declarative statement that, if left to itself, looks like God is fully sovereign over salvation, and I mean sovereign in the way that Augustine and Calvin talked about. But the question is whether or not Paul was trying to say what Calvinists think he was saying.
Romans 9:18 – So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.
In verse 18, it looks as though Paul is saying that God has mercy on some and hardens others according to God’s will. Again, note that this has nothing to do with the question of human responsibility. It has everything to do with who, at bottom, is responsible for our salvation. But how could this be true? How could that hardening and mercy be what God is telling us. That just feels wrong when compared to what I was taught growing up.
But then comes verse 19. Paul anticipates the objection to what he was saying. If Paul was not saying that God is ultimately responsible for saving people, then Paul would have been wise to clarify his point.
Romans 9:19 – You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?”
Does Paul fix the problem for us? No. Instead, Paul knows that our objection to what he just said would be, “That’s not fair!” Paul knew that what he had said would smack against human autonomy and be terribly off-putting to many. He saw that. We would interpret verse 18 as God being over all and we would not naturally feel it to be appropriate for God to treat us that way.
The anticipation of the natural objection is an indication that verse 18 should be, must be, taken at face value. God has mercy on whom he has mercy. God hardens whom he hardens. We object that this seems unfair. We object that our own freedom is not apparently taken into consideration. We object that God seems to be the ultimate decision-maker when it comes to salvation. We object that God seems to be choosing in a final sense. We object that his choice appears ultimate where our choices are secondary.
And Paul after seeing that objection, does not do anything to clarify for us and take off of our shoulders the discomfort.
Romans 9:20 – But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?”
Instead of comforting us in our objections to ultimate sovereignty being in God’s hands, Paul responds with a question that puts us in our place. Who are we to question God and his ways? If God is the potter and we are the clay, he is the one who has all the rights. He is the one who shapes us. He is the one who is free, more free than us.
Again, I will say that this actually has nothing to do with human free will. God, in his sovereignty, shapes our free will. Thus, those who come to him will feel they are doing so based on their desires. We will not, however, be able to see that it was God who first moved our hearts to desire him. Those who reject the Lord will also do so based on their freedom, a perfect and uninterrupted freedom to continue in the direction they most desire. At no point does Scripture tell us that God pushes people toward sin they do not desire to commit—that is not what hardening is about (see Pharaoh). In fact, Scripture shows us the opposite, that God holds people back from being as sinful as they naturally would be. And, Scripture shows us that God reaches into the hearts of some people to change them so that they will desire to come to him in faith and repentance.
Sovereignty in salvation is and has always been a tough issue. Some simply believe this doctrine to be terribly unbiblical. And, most often, the reason for the argument is that it appears to make God unfair and unloving. How could God choose to save some and not all? It must be that God leaves all the decision-making up to us. But that is precisely what Paul refuses to say here in Romans 9. Instead, Paul owns the emotional friction and finally declares the ultimate freedom of God as the potter and our lack of rights to question him as to how and why we were shaped as we are.
This Changes Everything – A Review
Jaquelle Crowe. This Changes Everything: How the Gospel Transforms the Teen Years. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017. 160 pp. $11.86.
Little scares me more than a Christian book targeted at teenagers written by a teenager. The concept is utterly terrifying. But, thanks be to God, it can be done well, very well. In This Changes Everything, young author Jaquelle Crowe addresses her peers and challenges them to see how the gospel of Jesus Christ impacts every single part of their lives.
This work is simple, straight forward, and clear. The author, over eight main chapters, addresses eight arenas of life where Christianity makes that part of a young life completely different. This is basic discipleship written very well and targeted for young believers who are tired of simplistic, watered down, cotton candy lessons.
In this book, Crowe does a fine job of interweaving her own life stories, experiences with her family, strengths and weaknesses with solidly applied passages of Scripture and quotes from valuable Christian books. She speaks to how the gospel impacts our identity, our story, our community, our sin, our disciplines, our growth, our time, and our relationships. These are major life areas in which Christian discipleship is necessary and in which a commitment to Christ will radically alter our thinking and acting.
I’m a pastor, husband, and father of three. And I’m extremely happy to have read this book. It was good for me and challenging on a number of personal levels. I’m even happier to make sure that my own daughter will soon read this book and work through the areas of discipleship for herself. I’m happy to know of other parents in our church who are taking teens through this book as a way to open up solid discussions of growth toward maturity. I’m happy that a youth pastor friend of mine just ordered 25 copies of this book for his students to read. And I would happily recommend this book to others.
I received a free audio copy of this book from ChristianAudio.com as part of their reviewers program. I love the sound quality and the perfect choice of Susan Hanfield as narrator for this work.
Propping Up Dagon
Human beings are not logical. We make bad, irrational, foolish decisions. Some of them are pretty funny. Many of them are harmful.
Some of the worst decisions that we make involve us doubling-down on sin. We find ourselves doing something that is foolish, that is ungodly, and that does not work. Instead of repenting, however, we seem to like to give it one more try just to see if what failed us before will work this next time.
Consider a sort of funny story from 1 Samuel. The Israelites had sinned against God, and the Lord allowed the Philistines to have victory over them. The Philistines, in an amazing encounter, go home with the ark of the covenant. (By the way, I have no idea how they carried off the ark without dying—God does not tell us.)
At one point, they set up the ark of the covenant in the temple of Dagon, a Philistine idol. What happens next is a perfect example of human foolishness.
1 Samuel 5:1-5 – 1 When the Philistines captured the ark of God, they brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod. 2 Then the Philistines took the ark of God and brought it into the house of Dagon and set it up beside Dagon. 3 And when the people of Ashdod rose early the next day, behold, Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the ark of the Lord. So they took Dagon and put him back in his place. 4 But when they rose early on the next morning, behold, Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the ark of the Lord, and the head of Dagon and both his hands were lying cut off on the threshold. Only the trunk of Dagon was left to him. 5 This is why the priests of Dagon and all who enter the house of Dagon do not tread on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod to this day.
Get the story. The Philistines put the sacred box belonging to God in their temple. The next day, they come into the temple, and the statue of the false god Dagon is face down on the ground in front of the ark. What would be a good response? I’d suggest that a good response would be to realize that Dagon is a false deity, and they ought not mess with the God of Israel. But that was not the Philistines’ response. They decide that the best move is to prop Dagon back up and see if things are better the next day.
Of course, the next day, they enter the temple to find Dagon on the ground again, this time with his head and hands broken off. Does this lead them to try to worship the Lord? Does this lead them to get under God’s grace if possible? Nope, it just leads them to come up with a plan to ship the ark of the covenant back so that they do not have to keep having Dagon broken. O, and they won’t step on the threshold of the door anymore since that is where Dagon’s head was knocked off.
We want to laugh. It is funny. But it is not funny when we do it. How often do we as a people see that something in our life is sin, failing and destructive, and yet we do not turn from it? How often do we keep going right to the place that hurts us? How often do we see a sin that crushes our parents or our families, and yet we decide to repeat it as soon as we get the chance?
Friends, we have a choice. WE can continue to prop up Dagon, to fall into the same sins that have never brought us life. We can set the idol back up on its pedestal, continuing to bow to things that only bring us death. Or we can change. We do not have to be the Philistines. WE can let the idol lie there in the dirt and turn our attention to the God who made us. He is willing to receive us in Christ and help us turn from our sin. He is willing to give us life and hope in a way that the Philistines never experienced. May we not prop up Dagon, but instead bow to the Lord Jesus in surrender for life.
Groaning and Hope
Life is hard. Nobody who has lived a real life for any amount of time can honestly think that this world is an easy place to live. Consider the evils that we face:
- Natural Evil – disasters, disease, and death.
- Spiritual Evil – the devil and his army intending to do us harm.
- Physical Evil – Nasty folks out to hurt us and corrupt the world.
- Personal Evil – the evil in our own hearts that we battle to defeat.
Surrounded by all sorts of pains, we see that life is hard. We see that things are not what we want. Whether it is a sickness, a divorce, or a global strife, we know that the world is not what we want it to be.
What does God say to Christians about the pains that we face?
Romans 8:18-23 – 18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
Consider that passage in sort of a backward fashion. Creation groans. The universe, all of creation, has been subjected to futility ever since the fall of man. The very substance of the universe shakes and quakes and shows us that things are not right. From the moment that mankind first rebelled against the Lord, the universe has been tainted with the corruption of sin.
What was the impact of that corruption? Everything that hurts came about. Disease and natural disasters exist because the first humans turned away from the Lord. Adam and Eve brought death in all its forms to nature and to people. If Adam does not rebel, there is no such thing as a destructive tornado, a killer earthquake, a crocodile attack on a river bank, a baby that does not breathe, or a cancer that cannot be stopped. Without Adam’s sin, no evil would have come.
So, even as we face the ugliness of the world around us, even as we face situations we hate, we ought to be reminded that these situations are reminders of the ugliness of sin. Hatred of the Creator has brought on us destruction. It is God giving humanity what we demanded to have from him, autonomy, that has brought on us the hardships of life. And every evil, from the biggest catastrophe to the annoyance of a sinus infection can trace its roots to a people telling God that we will not listen to him but we will have charge of ourselves.
But then return to the beginning of the passage. Paul opened with hope, not pessimism. He wrote, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Rom. 8:18). What is he saying? The ugliest of the ugly in this life does not compare with what is to come. The pain of the present cannot compare to the joy of the future. Here, and in other places in Paul’s writings (c. f. 2 Cor 4:16-18), Paul shows us that the Lord will more than make up for the sorrow and the hardships we face in the here and now. If you are a child of God, you must understand that you have awaiting you in eternity a weight of glory, a repayment of joyful kindness, a return on your sorrow that will so far outshine the hardships that you have faced as to make them look small. Remember, this is the God who made you and thus knows how to fulfill you in ways you do not even grasp. This is the God who created the universe and who knows what perfection is all about. This is the God who loves in a pure way that you have never loved or been loved. He will give us more than we have ever lost. He will fill us with joy far more deeply than we have ever sorrowed. He will grant us life and peace that will make all the death and pain we have ever seen look tiny. In eternity, the weight of God’s glory will obliterate all the pain we have ever felt as we finally see the reason we exist and we receive the reward of his holy glory.
In those words, I’m not at all belittling your pain or mine. We experience things in the here and now that hurt us deeply. The losses we face are gut-wrenching and significant. But the truth of Scripture is that those losses are evidence of the groaning of creation under sin. But when the curse of sin is removed, the groaning is gone. When the glory of God is fully known, our pain will no longer define us. Instead, our pain will be the shadow of a shadow of a memory that only serves to highlight for us the greatness of the joy of the love and the kindness of God that we live under for eternity because of the finished work of Christ.
Do you want to know a good reason to come to Jesus for salvation? There is a reason that is easily as great as to avoid the punishment we deserve for our sin. The best reason to come to Jesus is to have as an eternal hope, the promise of a forever life that will far exceed any pain that any human has ever experienced at any time in human history. We want to be on the side of those who are given peace and relief from the groaning of this age. That can only come for those who are under the grace of Christ, freely forgiven and joyfully promised eternal life.
Free to Obey
It is funny how easily we turn ourselves to rules and regulations. We always claim not to like extra rules. Yet, when we think about our lives, rules are the things we turn to when we consider Christian character.
But looking at the New testament’s handling of the concept of the law, we find that rules occupy a very strange place. The law of God convicts us of sin. The rules of the Old Testament serve to demonstrate for us that we are not able, on our own, to live out the perfect righteousness of God.
But then came Jesus. The Savior fulfilled the law for us. And, the Scripture is clear that we are now free from the law.
Romans 7:4-6 – 4 Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. 5 For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. 6 But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.
We have died to the law. We are released from the law. In Christ, we are not subject to the demands of law.
Of course that leads to the commonly asked question: Since we are free from the law, are we now free to sin? Of course we are not. God does not free us from law to allow us to turn to sin without consequence. God does not save us in order that we might then rebel against him and his ways.
What then do we do with law since we know we are free?
Romans 6:15-18 – 15 What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.
We are made free from the law, but not to be free to sin. Instead, the call is for us, in our freedom, to refuse to present ourselves as slaves to sin. You see, when we sin, when we disobey the clear commands of god, we become slaves to sin. But God did not free us from the law so that we can become enslaved to sin. Instead, God freed us from the law by fulfilling its requirements on our behalf. However, we now actually are to live in obedience to the law, but in a totally different way. Now we obey because we are free.
Consider this illustration. It is a law that we must eat. If we do not eat, we die. We are under that law. Now, pretend that you have been freed from that law. Consider that your body was given a miraculous ability to survive and keep functioning without food. Would you then choose never to eat? Or might you still choose to eat, not because it is required, but for the pleasure of food and fellowship? I think we would continue to have meals together for the joy of it all, even though we are freed from the very requirement that calls us to eat.
In the same way, we are freed from the law. We do not have obligation to the Lord to fulfill. Jesus did all that for us. But we will not find our lives to be full and pleasing to the Lord if we intentionally turn away from the Lord and toward that which dishonors the Lord. God has called us family members. He has adopted us. Why then would we declare a freedom to insult him and act hatefully toward him?
God has freed us, but in a special way. We are freed from the law, but not to reject the ways of God. We are freed from the requirements of the law so that we can freely obey the very principles that the law demonstrated. We are free—free to obey. And when we obey out of freedom, God gives us joyful fellowship with him.
Counted to Us
One of the key results of the Protestant reformation is our modern understanding of the concept of imputation. Yes, that’s one of those theological terms that some have heard often and others ignore right away. So, let me try to make it simple, because it is a term you need to understand in order to understand the gospel.
Sometimes the concept of imputation is shown to us in our translations with the word “counted.” Here I do not mean counting, 1-2-3-4-. Instead, I mean counting as in crediting something to your account.
Think of these lines from the Old Testament.
Genesis 15:6 – And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.
Psalm 32:2 – Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.
Notice how the word counted is used. In Genesis 15:6, Abraham simply believed God, and God counted that belief as if it were righteousness. In Psalm 32:2, David exults in the concept of God not counting iniquity against him. These are two sides of the same coin. In Abraham’s case, God credits or counts to Abraham a righteousness that he had never lived. In David’s case, God does not count against him the sin that he had actually committed.
The concept of imputation is this counting that we see here. Imagine your life on a balance sheet, positive and negative acts and thoughts all laid out in columns. In order to please the Lord, you must have all positives and no negatives. Not only must you have no negatives, but the positives have to add up to a perfection that equals that of the holy God of the universe. Thus, left to ourselves, we are hopeless. WE cannot get rid of our negatives, and our positives do not add up to infinite perfection.
Thus, we need God to impute to us a perfection that is actually foreign to our existence. We need our sin to be forgiven, and we need the righteousness that will please God to be credited to our accounts, even though we cannot possibly live that righteousness on our own.
One of the major issues at stake during the reformation is this issue of counting, of imputation. Does God credit us with righteousness by his grace through faith alone, even if we have never been able to live that righteousness? Or does God forgive our sins, but then require us to live out a certain level of goodness through participation in sacraments in order to actually walk into the righteousness that will please him? Is salvation a gift that is by grace alone through faith alone, or must the good works of ourselves and others be added to faith to bring us into heaven?
Interestingly, Paul uses the two Old testament passages that we read earlier to help us know the answer to this question. The apostle was particularly talking about the question of whether or not a gentile must be circumcised to be saved. But the ultimate question at hand is whether or not our doing good works has anything to do with our justification.
Romans 4:1-8 – 1 What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? 2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” 4 Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. 5 And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, 6 just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: 7 “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; 8 blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”
Romans 4:23-25 – 23 But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, 24 but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, 25 who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
Notice the point that Paul makes at some length. Our salvation is not about works. Works would earn something, earn a payment. But having righteousness credited to us shows us that it is a gift from God apart from works.
Thus, salvation is a gift. When God brings us to a point where we believe in Christ for salvation, God credits us with a gift. He erases our negative side of the ledger because of the sacrificial death of Jesus. He also fills the positive side of our ledger with perfection, crediting us with the perfect life that Jesus lived. But you and I have never lived that perfection. The crediting is imputation, and it is a beautiful and marvelous thing.
2 Corinthians 5:21 – For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
God treated Jesus as if he had committed our sin. He treats us as if we lived Jesus’ perfection. This is biblical Christianity. This is cause for worship. This is a God worth loving.
The Imperfect Disciple – A Review
Jared Wilson. The Imperfect Disciple: Grace for People Who Can’t Get Their Act Together. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2017. 241 pp. $12.85.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I love to read Jared Wilson. Why? Wilson writes like somebody you know. He does not just write like somebody you know, he actually writes like somebody you like. Wilson writes like a guy you would have a cup of coffee with, talk about life with, and be honest with. Wilson does not write like a hero. He admits his frailty and weakness. And in that honesty, he lets us see a genuine picture of a real guy wrestling day-to-day with the simple stuff of the faith.
In The Imperfect Disciple, Wilson helps us to look at basic discipleship from a realistic point of view. So many discipleship texts out there are handbooks or workbooks. So many texts out there tell us to apply these few principles, in this order, and we will be disciples. But so many of those books do not work for real people. Wilson tells us, “I tend to think that a lot of the ways the evangelical church teaches discipleship seem designed for people who don’t appear to really need it” (13). He goes on to say, “I want to write a discipleship book for normal people, for people like me who know that discipleship means following Jesus—and we know that following Jesus is totally worth it, because Jesus is the end-all, be-all—but we often find that following Jesus takes us to some pretty difficult places” (14). And I think he pulls it off. He actually writes a discipleship book for honest people.
The structure of the Imperfect Disciple is not that of a textbook. Rather, it is a walk through spiritual living in a sensible order. Wilson, through the chapters will call us to see the need to constantly preach the gospel to ourselves, to recognize that rules are not the answer, and to rely on the grace of Christ even as we work. The author challenges believers with a call to deep Bible study and prayer, but he calls us to these things for the joy of the glory of God and not for the purpose of checking items off of an accountability checklist. Wilson will show us the need to participate in genuine, honest, seriously not fake Christian community. He will wrap up the book with chapters pointing us to the fruit of the Spirit, the depth of God’s grace, and hope of how we will be transformed and completed in heaven.
In this book, Wilson does a great job of reminding us that our growth is not something we work on our own. He tells us that we cannot rely on self-help advice to shrug off sin and grow into Christ’s image. Wilson declares, “Do you know why there are a thousand fresh self-help books every year? It’s because they don’t work. We keep looking for the answer within us, as if we’ll find it in the same place as the problems” (28). The author warns, “When we turn the Sermon on the Mount—or any of Jesus’s teachings, really—into a handy compendium of pick-me-ups for spiritual go-getters, it proves we don’t get it. It proves we don’t get the gospel” (51). Again, Wilson says, “Self-help doesn’t help. My self is the problem” (148).
Do not, however, confuse the grace offered in this book with a lack of challenge. The chapters on prayer, Bible reading, and Christian community are full of strong calls to take the Christian life seriously. The author calls us to genuine fellowship by declaring, “To abide in Christ necessitates embracing the body of Christ as God’s plan for the Christian life. Abiding in Christ can’t be experienced as it’s designed to be experienced apart from abiding in the community called his very body. And the further good news is that embracing kingdom rhythms becomes easier and more sustainable when it is done alongside others” (128). Wilson also calls on Christians to put to death the false wish dreams of our lives so that we can experience the genuinely better rewards that the Lord has for us. Wilson reminds us of how easy it is for us to allow our own vision to make us miss God’s best, writing, “We all have a vision for how life is supposed to go, what life is supposed to be like—what we want and how we want it and the way we want to feel about it—but then actual life happens, and when our heart is tuned to only find joy in the dream we will never find joy, because we’ve placed it in a mirage” (183).
Jared Wilson summarizes his purpose behind his book by writing, “I wrote this book for all who are tired of being tired. I wrote this book for all who read the typical discipleship manuals and wonder who they could possibly be written for, the ones that make us feel overly burdened and overly tasked and, because of all that, overly shamed” (230). He wanted to write a discipleship book for normal people, and I think he pulled it off. And I would happily recommend this book to anybody who feels like the typical discipleship manuals only have pain to offer without actual hope or help. No, this book will not relieve you of the responsibility to work toward growth. But this book will challenge you to grow in the gospel and not by your own strength. This book will give you a realistic way to look at growing from day to day. And this book will offer you comfort as you realize that you are not the only one who does not find all the disciplines of the Christian life easy.
*I received a free audio copy of this work from ChristianAudio.com as part of their reviewers program. The quality of the audio book is excellent, as are all the books I have heard from this company.
*I received a free print copy of this book from Baker Books as part of a reviewer’s program in exchange for an honest review.
Blessing Sin
The Book of Judges is a book full of stories of how the people of God rebelled against the word of God to do that which they found right in their own eyes. Of course, it is also a reminder to us that, if we are not careful to follow the word of God, we will be just like these folks. It is a natural human tendency to turn away from the revealed truth of God and to call good that which God calls evil.
Judges 17:1-3- 1 There was a man of the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Micah. 2 And he said to his mother, “The 1,100 pieces of silver that were taken from you, about which you uttered a curse, and also spoke it in my ears, behold, the silver is with me; I took it.” And his mother said, “Blessed be my son by the Lord.” 3 And he restored the 1,100 pieces of silver to his mother. And his mother said, “I dedicate the silver to the Lord from my hand for my son, to make a carved image and a metal image. Now therefore I will restore it to you.”
Here we meet a man named Micah. He confesses that he stole money from his mother. His mom blesses him in the name of God, I suppose for his honesty in owning up to what he has done. So far, so good.
Then mom decides to give Micah back the money. But she has a plan for what he will do with the silver. She declares that the money is now dedicated to God. So, Micah is to use that money to fashion an idol.
Just let that sit there for a moment.
Because the mom wants to honor god, she is commanding her son to intentionally, specifically, completely violate the command of God never to fashion an idol.
What we should grasp from this is just how warped we will get if God leaves us to ourselves. Romans 1:18-ff shows us what happens when God gives people over to their own desires. In each instance, when God takes his hand of restraint off of people, they come up with more unbiblical, more self-destructive, more God-dishonoring ways to live. We are just naturally good at doing the very opposite thing of what we should.
Christians, does this not make you see just how desperate you must be for the word of God? If you do not have the Scriptures and the Spirit of god, you will do stuff like this. If you do not submit to the authority of Scripture, you will turn away from God just as easily. If you do not see that the word of God is your authority, you will make human opinion your authority. And the moment you let human opinion be your authority, you will start walking toward blessing something God calls pure evil.
One of the key principles of the Protestant Reformation is sola Scriptura. This principle states that the final authority for life and doctrine for Christians is the word of God. Scripture alone is our authority. This is not to discount solid teaching or valuable traditions. But, at the end of the day, every human teacher is flawed. But the word of god is perfect (cf. Psa. 19:7).
If you know that, on your own, you will bless evil if not informed by the word, how should that impact your life? This should make you study the word regularly and seriously. It should make you see that the most important way for you to evaluate your church is whether or not the word of God is central, faithfully taught, and intentionally obeyed. It should cause you to evaluate every modern, hot topic issue, every moral and ethical dilemma, by the simple standard of Scripture alone rather than your best guess.
And this passage should make you look at every life decision through the lens of Scripture. Does god say that what I want to do is good and right? Does god command against it? The word outranks your opinion. The word outranks your personal experience. God will never, not ever, lead you to disobey Scripture. God will not call us to call good that which God calls evil.
Pastor Travis Peterson 