The End of Performance-Based Love: John 2.12-22

Todd Marinovoch was the “first test-tube quarterback” (Sports Illustrated, “Learning to be Human Again”). Marv, Todd’s dad, stretched his son’s hamstrings at one month old, teethed him on frozen kidney, had him lifting medicine balls before he could walk, employed Eastern block training methods, and consulted with as many as thirteen experts (including biochemists and psychologists) to build his quarterback.

Now approaching fifty years old, Todd’s life is a wreck. SI says, “Todd has learned a term, ‘performance-based love,’ to describe the trauma of his youth.” Todd told his therapist about the time his dad grabbed him and ripped Marinovoch off his jersey screaming, “You don’t deserve to wear this name on your back!” Reflective Todd says, “The only time, perceived or real, that I felt loved, is when I was performing, which is super sick.” Todd believes if he had not turned to drugs, he would have killed himself. “No brainer,” he says, “I don’t know what else makes sense.” Performance-based love ruins lives and relationships. How do we break free from the dark power of performance-based love? How do we become human again? Welcome to John 2.12-22.

Many of you are thinking, “Geez Jeff! Pick the most extreme case possible why don’t you!” Ok, that is fair. However, what if the Bible picks the best people possible, the most moral people possible, the people everyone looks up to, the people you want your children to become, or the most successful people on the planet as examples of performance-based love? What would that mean?

In John 2.12-22 the most religious, moral, successful, bible-believing, respected, God following, law keeping, and holy people on the planet (the Jews) are blocking the Gentiles (non-Jews) from the gracious love of God. How? The answer is by placing all the animals necessary for the sacrifices, and all the money changers necessary to purchase those sacrifices with different currencies from all over the empire in the place of the Temple God reserved for Gentiles. How could these good people do such a thing, block others from God? The answer is because they are good people in their eyes. And the Gentiles are not. The good people are saying, “You don’t deserve to be here.” They are Marv. We are Marv. We build our lives and relationships around performance-based love.

This is why Jesus cleans out the Temple (verses 13-17). Jesus is driving performance-based love out of God’s presence, and the world. Jesus does what Adam failed to do. He drives the snake out of the world. He ends performance-based love. By making room for the Gentiles (the bad people, sinners) before God, Jesus unleashes a different kind of love into the word - a un-performed, unearned, unworked for love. In other words, a grace-based love. 

At the Cross, Jesus is consumed in the place of sinners (verse 17). Grace-based love has been set loose into the world. Be careful it might just reach and renew you.

Reaching the Churched

Perhaps the alarming exodus of church-going children exiting the Church today when finally on their own is not a rejection of true Christianity.  Perhaps the biggest barrier for the average person to a real and revitalizing relationship with God and His Church is something passing for Christianity but in truth is not Christianity.  Many of us might not be walking away from Christianity but a sassy substitute. 

Two months ago my wife and I had one of those “defining conversations.”  Husbands, you know the kind.  An “aha” moment of the uncomfortable kind.  If we were back in the church growth movement days of the 90’s my “aha” moment would have been called a paradigm shift.  If the days of fiery itinerant preachers, tents, and crisis decisions were back it would’ve been called a personal revival.  If time ticked backwards some 500 years to the birth of Protestantism itself, it probably would’ve been called a mini-reformation.  And today the “aha” moment would probably be described as encountering or experiencing God, spiritual formation, or movement in my personal narrative or spiritual journey.  Whatever you want to call it, it took.

Do you know what it was over?  You marrieds are probably inwardly cringing and thinking, “I bet it was over persistent patterns of unloving attitudes and behavior toward each other.”  I cannot deny being guilty of this in certain seasons of my marriage but this was not what the “aha” moment was over.  Lack of understanding, communication, tenderness, teamwork?  No.  Anger, bitterness, jealousy, personal offense?  No.  Feelings of neglect?  No.  

It was over reading the Bible.  Together.  As a family.  Yep, that was it.  Not the neglect of it, but the present practice of it.

The conversation went something like this:  “Honey it feels like there is a pressure from you to read the Bible together as a family.  Like you’ve got to do it, get it done.  The kids feel it too.”  My mouth went dry.  My stomach flinched.  Instantly, I knew it was true. 

The translation of these words to my heart were accurate:  “Jeff, are you pushing the reading of the Bible together as a family out of a heart seeking to justify your existence, to be OK, to not be a bum, to be accepted and blessed, to be righteous, to be happy and holy, to be a good father and spiritual leader?”  Nothing in the room moved.  Even the rollie-pollie scooting along the baseboard stopped and looked-up, waiting for my answer.

Yes.  I am a Pharisee.  Saved by grace.  

The Sassy Substitute Verses True Christianity

Jesus weaves a masterful story about two sons that is recorded by Luke that is very popular in Church circles today.  The common understanding of the story today is that the Divine drama centers primarily around the younger, born-to-be-bad son.  However, a closer look at the passage reveals that the Divine drama is not circling the bad son but the good son, the older son, the Bible-believing, Church-going, religious son.  The story of the two sons is a defining narrative of the human heart and a powerful introduction to a third way to live – true Christianity .

The two sons in Jesus’ story both wanted their Father’s wealth.  In the ancient near east at this time a Father’s wealth was everything to a son.  It was the son’s identity, status, sense of acceptance, meaning, personal well-being and flourishing, happiness, life, security.  If you were a son in the ancient near east and you had your Father’s wealth you were ok, you were not a bum.  Your existence was in a sense, justified.

Now the present day hearer might be surprised to find that Jesus sees nothing wrong with these two sons wanting their Father’s wealth.  It’s assumed, it’s expected, it’s a son’s DNA – inescapably him. 

As Jesus unfolds the story it becomes clear that the two sons are going about securing their Father’s wealth in two different ways, along two different paths of salvation, by trusting two different saviors or god-substitutes.  The younger seeks his Father’s wealth through his badness or disobedience.  He seeks to build his life around spending his Father’s wealth on unrestrained desires.  He trusts the functional savior of self-gratification.  

Meanwhile the older son seeks his Father’s wealth through his goodness or obedience.  He seeks to build his life around performing for his Father’s wealth - trying to be good enough to get it.  He lives by the fear of not being good enough to get his Father’s wealth.  So when he lives up to his assumed standards to obtain his Father’s wealth (i.e. is good enough) he feels secure and superior to others – especially his younger brother.  But when he doesn’t live up to his standards to secure his Father’s wealth (i.e. is not good enough) he feels insecure, he loathes himself or blames others for his failure.  The older brother trusts the functional savior of self-righteousness.  

By the end of the story we see the defining narrative of the human heart.  Both sons of the Father are self-absorbed.  Both sons are building their lives around themselves and in the process never secure the Father’s wealth and lose themselves.  And ultimately, which is the driving point of the story, both sons are avoiding the Father.  They are trusting in god-substitutes.  

There is a third, better way to the Father’s wealth, GRACE.  True Christianity.  Jesus, the Son of God, comes to freely give the Father’s wealth by the work of His own life, death, and resurrection.  Jesus, the God-Savior, gives the Father’s wealth to those who do not deserve it by grace.  Jesus’ work, performance, obedience, righteousness, life, death, and resurrection alone opens the way to the Father’s wealth.  This is true Christianity, the Father comes to find you by His Son’s life, death, and resurrection.  Grace. 

Building your life around the glory and grace of Jesus, the Son of God, is where you find the Father’s wealth.  It’s where you find the Father’s acceptance, approval, love, goodness, salvation, supra-life, vital relationship, and eternal riches.  It’s where you find forgiveness for your heart’s habitual efforts at self-salvation through either your badness or your goodness.  It’s where you find yourself.  It’s where you’re ok, not a bum, justified, really you.

Many of us might need an “aha” moment.  You can avoid God in two ways: by your badness and by your goodness.  Both are god-substitutes.  True Christianity is Jesus, the God-Savior, come to find you.  Building your life around His grace opens all the treasures of the Father’s wealth.

Jesus And The City

I’ve never liked Christian music nor the culture that goes with it.  I’m a pastor.  The truth is, I’d much rather listen to Coldplay, The Avett Brothers, country music, and even Van Halen.  I have my reasons, some good and some probably less than stellar.  But mostly, I’m just not sure Jesus would listen to it either.

The beginning of the outworking of the gospel in history is the event called the incarnation.  The Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, took on flesh and came down at a particular time in history to a particular place in the Middle East, adopting a particular language and engaging in particular cultural expressions.  In terms of the message he brought, he stood out like a sore thumb, proclaiming that he would suffer and die for people, thus removing the stain of their sin and gaining God's love and acceptance for them, regardless of their goodness or badness.  But in terms of the form he took, he fit right in.  He wore the clothes, ate the food, listened to the music, and spoke the language of the culture he was in.  

There are two things to note here about Jesus and culture:  (1) Jesus did not divinize the culture he was in.  In other words, he did not moralize or absolutize the culture.  The cultural expressions around him were not sacred to him nor did he make them sacred, but (2) neither did he denigrate the culture He was in.  The cultural expressions around Him that were not inherently evil, he did not condemn as evil nor boycott.  This is all to say that Jesus lived where he lived; he looked like a first-century Jewish man because that is what he was.  

What does this mean for the church and its engagement with the city, a city like Waco?  It at least means Jesus’ relationship to the culture he was in marks out the path that the church is to walk in the world.  The church gets to follow Jesus in his incarnation, in a small way, and put his incarnation on display to the world.  The pattern of the incarnation immediately rules out cultural superiority.  Jesus did not divinize cultural expressions, which should prevent the church from elevating them to the level of the sacred as well.  An example of this would be to moralize or absolutize personal and cultural preferences – like in music, art, literature, education, parenting, family dynamics, particular traditions, or certain programs.

The pattern of the incarnation also immediately rules out cultural escapism or separatism.  Jesus did not denigrate his culture; he dignified it by engaging it with joy: he ate and drank with tax collectors and messed up people.  It would run directly counter to the grain of the incarnation for the church to try to escape from the cultures of the world.  Just as Jesus embodied life where he was, the church is to express its life in the place where it has been divinely situated.

Another way Jesus’ relationship to the culture he was in should impact the Church’s
engagement with the culture it is situated in is this: he encourages us to live
where we live.  Jesus gives us the freedom to live where we live.  If Jesus neither
divinized nor denigrated culture, but dignified it, then we are free to do the
same.  The church and the individuals making up the church are set free from
worrying that they are engaging in inherently evil activities simply by enjoying a
concert or a pub.  We do not have to hunker down and wait until the new heavens
and the new earth to start enjoying ourselves.  The church can enjoy the world that
God has made and the creative gifts that God has given the world.  

Jesus also gives us the reason to live where we live.  Jesus’s incarnation was with a view to saving the world, and so is our cultural engagement.  As light in a dark place and as salt in food, the presence of the church in the life of the world brings some redemptive influence to it.  The church is to be “the-world-as-it-should-be” and we have the privilege of doing that right down here in the middle of where we are.  God made the world to be a happy place:  happy in Him and happy with his gifts.  The church is called to be that kind of community, not cordoned off in our own little enclave or Christian ghetto, but out there in public, so we can invite the world to enjoy God in Christ as well.  That is, we get to enjoy ourselves in the world for the sake of the world, in our communities for the sake of our communities, and in our city for the sake of our city.  So, go ahead and be a real redeemed person in a world that needs redeeming.

Christians should have the best parties.  There, I said it.  Let the stones fly!  

My churched friends now think I’ve compromised the call to a higher standard (or worse).  My unchurched friends are shaking their heads, thinking, “What do you know about partying?!  The Christians I know are only about keeping their lists and avoiding their sins, not my idea of a good time.”

Jesus’ first exercise of divine power was turning several large containers of water into the best wine in the whole county, so a great party could keep going.  This is what John wrote about this amazing event:

“On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee … when the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine’ … Jesus said to the servants, ‘Fill the jars with water’ … When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine …. (the master of the feast said) ‘Everyone serves the good wine first, and when the people have drunk freely, then the poor wine.  But you have kept the good wine until now.  This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested His glory.  And His disciples believed in Him.”

John calls this first miracle a “sign,” a dominating picture of what Jesus’ ministry is all about.  One writer asks, “Why would this be his inaugural act?  Why would Jesus, to convey what he had come to do, choose to turn 150 gallons of water into superb wine to keep a party going?”  Good questions.  How we answer these questions cements our understanding of Christianity for good or ill, and whether we’ll join the party or not.

Turning water into superb wine was a “sign” of what Jesus' ministry is all about because Jesus came to bring a feast of joy, a banquet of delight, a party of paradise.  Jesus is the Master of the Party, the Lord of the Feast, the welcoming Host of the Bountiful Banquet.  Jesus’ salvation is a feast.  His redeeming grace and loyal love are like wine, making the heart glad.  This is real Christianity.

Certainly, Jesus’ work of salvation is legal or objective.  In other words, something done FOR US that we cannot do for ourselves.  Jesus lived a perfect life for those who do not and cannot.  Jesus suffered cosmic abandonment at the cross for those who should.  Jesus rose from the dead and ascended to unleash and reign in the kingdom of God, bringing his helpless little brothers and sisters with him.   All this and more is certainly legal, objective AND deeply personal.  Jesus’ salvation reaches the depths of the God-shaped hole in our souls.

The Bible invites us to join this great party.  The Bible calls us to “taste and see” this salvation.  We are invited to deeply experience the wonder and work of the Master of the Party, the joyful feast of his love and grace.

Those of us who are churched need to see that we are not just called to agree and rationally believe in Jesus’ salvation, we are called to join the party - to personally experience it.  Therefore, rather than only agreeing and believing that Jesus is loving, we can come to a deep sense of the reality, the beauty, the power, the otherworldly joy of His love.  To borrow the words of a great American pastor and theologian from the 1700’s, Jonathan Edwards:

The difference between believing that God is gracious and tasting that God is gracious is as different as having a rational belief that honey is sweet and having the actual sense of its sweetness.

Jesus’ salvation is like the flowing wine of a great party.  “His love can become more real to you than the love of anyone else.  It can delight, galvanize, and console you.  That will lift you up and free you from fear like nothing else” (Tim Keller).  This is what Jesus’ ministry was all about.  This is what real Christianity is all about.

If you are a churched friend and are still hung up on the whole alcohol bit, be careful not to have higher standards than Jesus and not to miss His feast of joy, His party of a grace-salvation.  Only an ongoing taste of the wine of God’s love for us in Christ keeps us from becoming slavishly religious – dutifully performing for God to get his love, acceptance, and blessings.

If you are an unchurched friend and are still a bit confused by putting Christianity and party together in the same sentence, let me assure you that real Christianity is very clear about partying.  The Bible says that all things as we know it will end one day in the greatest party ever thrown, and it will never end:

On this mountain, the LORD Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine – the best of meats and the finest of wines.  On this mountain, he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever.  The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove the disgrace of his people from all the earth.  The LORD has spoken (Isaiah 25.6-8). 

Party on.

After eighteen years of researching pastoral trends, Dr. Richard Krejcir says, “Pastors are in a dangerous occupation! (It is) the single most stressful and frustrating working profession, more than medical doctors, lawyers, politicians…” Perhaps pastoral ministry has simply run its God-given course – its time is over. Perhaps it is simply not as effective as worship music, small groups, dynamic programs, or ministry activism today. Or perhaps, pastoral ministry needs to be re-envisioned and renewed by the prophetic wizardry of Elisha. Welcome to 1 Kings 19.19-21.

“Elijah passed by him (Elisha) and cast his cloak upon him (verse 19).” Elijah’s cloak is symbolic of the prophet’s office. The prophet’s office is an official God-given role to speak God’s words into Israel and the world. Today, we call it pastoral ministry. Elisha is being called to be a prophet, to speak people back to life again, to perform prophetic wizardry. 

“But I’m not a pastor and never will be!” you say. “What does this have to do with me?” Everything. The first part of verse 19 says, “So he (Elijah) departed from there and found Elisha…” “So” summarizes all the darkness, distress, desperation, depression, and destruction currently suffocating the ancient world at this time. In other words, when all is lost God sends someone to speak His words. There is something magical about the spoken Word. It speaks us back to life again.

Watch how the magic works. First verse 19, “Elijah passed by him (Elisha) and cast his cloak upon him…” We could say, Elijah casts the Word of God upon Elisha or smothers Elisha with God’s Word. Second verse 20, “And (the result of being “cloaked” with God’s Word) he (Elisha) left the oxen and ran after Elijah…” Third verse 21, “And (the result of being “cloaked” with God’s Word) (he) took the yoke of oxen and sacrificed them and (the result of being “cloaked” with God’s Word) boiled their flesh with the yokes of the oxen and gave it to the people, and they ate…” What is going on here? The answer is Elisha is changing on-the-spot by the power of God’s spoken words. Elisha is a very fit (i.e. he is handling 24 oxen!) and wealthy land-owner who not only leaves it all to follow Elijah into prophetic ministry, but who also feels his need for God’s grace (i.e. the sacrifice) and a self-giving love for others (i.e. the massive BBQ party for his neighborhood). Elisha is coming back to life again. Magic is happening. How do you plan on changing? 

Jesus preached this passage in Luke 9:62: “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” Startling words. Jesus is saying, “There is no looking back. Ever. The kingdom of God requires absolute devotion.” No wonder everyone who heard this sermon walked away. They knew they could not do it. Do you? 

But wait, how did Elisha do it then? The answer is he did not (verse 20): “And he left the 
oxen and ran after Elijah and said, ‘Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.’ And he (Elijah) said to him, ‘Go back again, for what have I done to you?’” This passage makes no sense without a Better Elisha who eventually puts his hand to plow and never looks back, for all those who do. When we are “cloaked” with these words, we come back to life again.

The UnVictorious Christian Life

Failure.  Rejection.  Weakness.  Pain.  Troubles everyone seeks to control and avoid, especially Christians.  Barbara Duguid in her book “Extravagant Grace” says Christianity today is terminally infected with a Disney like make-believe she calls the “Disney Delusion”:

“Every week I counsel young people from solid Christian homes who are undone by their sin.  As parents, we are sometimes more invested in protecting our children from the sinful influences of this world than we are in preparing them for the deep sinfulness of their own hearts…No wonder college campuses are overflowing with young Christian men and women who know that they are sinners in some global and lofty way, but who fall apart and are shattered with anxiety and depression when they fall into specific sin.  They are shocked by their own desires and behavior, and they find themselves turning to harmful addictions or to the manic pursuit of Christian disciplines in order to pacify their desperate feelings of failure and inadequacy.”

Moses was infected too.  His first public attempt at the victorious Christian life is widely known, ending in the murder of an Egyptian and his exile from Egypt.  His second attempt is more often missed.  

Moses stands victoriously before the most powerful man in the world, a notorious villain deeply engaged in international slavery and the mass murder of babies, and triumphantly says, “You’re done.  Game over.  You lose.  Let my people go!”  The stuff of super-hero movies!  But Pharaoh not only doesn’t flinch, he tells Moses to get out of his face while he barks out tyrannical orders to increase the affliction upon abused Israel.  Moses slips out of the palace traumatized.

Upon closer inspection, however, the problem is spotted.  Moses didn’t speak the words Yahweh gave him to communicate to Pharaoh, but rather spoke his own words.  Moses was addicted to bringing his own effort.  The old self-reliant Moses was back, or more Biblically, he never left.

How does God help Victorious Moses and those of us just like him?  He sends conflict – internal conflict, external conflict, or both.  God loves the wrong kind of people so much He brings real life to our lives in order to reveal our own hearts to us (our weakness, sinfulness, helplessness, brokenness, weirdness, lack of wisdom and power, great need for ongoing rescue and deliverance) and to reveal His own grace-filled heart for us.  For Israel the real life sent their way was more bricks without government straw.  For Moses it was more personal failure.  For Egypt it was ten powerful signs of creation in reverse.  For you and me it might be relational conflict, physical breakdown, overwhelming emotions, severe circumstances, and much more.  

Through it all however, as our trust eventually transfers from ourselves to God,  deep growth and change takes place in our lives.  Not the kind of growth and change that embraces greater personal victory and triumph, but the kind that embraces Jesus’ finished victory and triumph.  Biblical sanity in sanctification involves the kind of change that embraces your weakness and His strength at the same time!  Real change embraces your failure and His success, your messiness and His righteousness, your poor performance and His perfect performance, your lack of wisdom and ability and His wisdom and power at the same time.  This is living.  This is living the unvictorious Christian life.

What about those of us who know we are not living the victorious Christian life?  You blow it with your kids.  You struggle to love and respect your husband.  You can’t quit the porn.  You can’t forgive Jack and Jill.  You’re overwhelmed with life.  Your dreams didn’t come true.  God has let you down.  He won’t fix you.  He won’t fix your spouse or child.  He won’t fix your circumstances.  

Here’s what God is saying to you from Exodus 5.22:  “Then Moses turned to the LORD.”  The only difference between the defeated murdering Moses banished to Midian for 40 years, and the now deflated Moses standing before Pharaoh 40 years later is Exodus 5.22.  This time Moses turns to the LORD in his weakness, failure, sin, helplessness, need, and pain.  This time Moses turns to the power and life of God being for Him or His Redeemer/Rescuer at great cost to Himself (this is what Yahweh translated “LORD” means).  

However, the rest of the Exodus story hardly reveals a rescue that rises to the great cost announced in Exodus.  Some emotional energy on God’s part?  Sure.  Some signs and wonders?  Sure.  Some power and persuasion?  Sure.  But we have to keep turning the pages of the Bible to get to the rescue of great cost.  

Eventually we arrive at the greater Exodus.  Here we see the great cost.  God’s own life.  God’s own blood.  God’s own Son, Jesus Christ.  The rescue of weak, needy, helpless, sinners from the greater bondage and pain of sin, death, eternal justice, and alienation from God cost God everything on the cross.  There is only one person in all human history who lived the victorious Christian life.  And He did so for all those who know they don’t and can’t.

Improving Your Prophetic Record

I am a false prophet. Before you grab some stones, you are too.

I believe it happened about five years into my marriage, I had an “Aha!” moment of the
epic kind. The moment was traumatizing, not easy to face or embrace. I came to the
shocking realization (to my wife’s great relief) that my interpretations of reality were not
always right! In fact, truth be told, my prophetic successes were really very minimal. I
never would’ve been able to make a living as an Old Testament prophet.

All of us spin off a flurry of false prophecies daily. You go to work on Monday morning,
and Charlotte doesn’t say, “Hello!” to you. This startles you because Charlotte always
says “Hello!” to you. The more you think about it, the more it starts to bother you: “Is
Charlotte mad at me?” “Did I offend her in some way?” “What did I do?” “Is she
upset over my part of the project presentation we gave yesterday?” “Does she think I did
a bad job, even blew the project for both of us?”

You quickly rifle through your recent exchanges with her and can’t remember saying
anything stupid or offensive. Cleared of any blame, you turn it in Charlotte’s direction:

“How dare she treat me this way! Reject me and disrespect me?” “Does she think she’s
better than me?” “I’m the one who carried the project. She’s the one who stumbled
around in front of everyone. She was the liability not me.”...

You’re all worked up now. You plan on writing her an “honest” email to get it all off
your chest. Meanwhile, the next time you see Charlotte, you walk right past her, like she
doesn’t even exist – too inconsequential for your emotional energy.

Now for the rest of the story: when you saw Charlotte Monday morning, she had just
received some devastating news about her Father; when she walked past you, she was
consumed with pain and sadness; she never even saw you. What Charlotte needed was
our compassion and friendship, but instead she received our self-absorbed interpretations
of reality that materialized into dark emotions and unloving actions.

If we can become a false prophet over someone simply not saying “Hello!” to us, then
where else can we spin off false interpretations of reality? What events, situations, and
circumstances? What actions people do or don’t do? What things do people say or don’t
say? What relational issues, differences, and conflicts? What beliefs do we fiercely
hold about ourselves and others? What beliefs do we loyally serve to define success and
failure, happiness and sadness, pleasure and pain, and life and death? Furthermore, where
no soul sleuth really wants to go: what causes our false prophecies? Where do they
come from? Are they spun out of innocent ignorance, simple misunderstanding, human
weakness, or something deeper, darker, even diabolical?

What is the way out of our self-imposed flurry of “spin”? The gospel writers give us a
clue in recording an abnormal account of Jesus that strangely feels like a second Sinai
experience many years after the first one with Moses:

“And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high
mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus...and a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud, ‘This is my beloved Son; listen to him.’ And suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them but Jesus only (Mark 9.2-8).”

At this second, better Sinai, the two epic prophets of the past, Elijah and Moses, make way
for the arrival of the cosmic Prophet of whom their powerful prophetic ministries were an
advanced preview. Whatever Jesus’ transfiguration was here, it certainly was a cosmic
revelation of ultimate reality. Thus, the voice from the cloud says, “Listen to him.”
The voice from the cloud is making it crystal clear: there is only one true prophet, and
it’s not us. Jesus, the cosmic Prophet of God, will always tell us the truth, interpret reality
rightly for us, and graciously and personally restructure our own prophetic record by the
colorful world of His Word.

When we become aware of our addiction to try to be our own prophet (and everyone
else’s!) and begin to listen to the cosmic Prophet, we experience reality, the living and
colorful world of the Truth. Furthermore, this world of the Truth doesn’t exist in some
parallel and pristine universe disconnected from the messiness of life but rather breaks in
right in the middle of the mess with a cosmic surprise of redemption.

Therefore, when Charlotte doesn’t say “Hello!” to us, we aren’t quick to spin a web of
false interpretations, but rather are quick to rely upon and rejoice in the cosmic Prophet’s
words of redemption. The colorful world of unfailing acceptance and eternal affection
through the life, death, and resurrection of the cosmic Prophet breaks in upon us, deeply
reaching us. So we are persuaded that we don’t need Charlotte’s love and acceptance to
be OK; no need to crave it, fight for it, or protect ourselves from not receiving it. This
means we are free to love and accept Charlotte, to move toward Charlotte, to be for
Charlotte, even in the midst of a real or imagined slight.

“Truly, truly I say to you...” opens up a whole other colorful world.

Too Much Grace?

Can too much grace be a bad thing?  Won’t too much grace simply produce sons of anarchy, sin gone wild?  I mean, c’mon, if it’s grace, grace, and more grace what’s going to keep people in line?  What’s going to motivate us when there is no fear of punishment, nor hope of reward?  Isn’t the need always in living well a healthy balance between grace and law?  

The Apostle Paul says, no.  In Romans 6.1-2 he makes it crystal clear, “What shall we say then? (what should be the response to all the grace just unloaded in chapter 5)  Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? (won’t too much grace produce sin gone wild?)  By no means!  (that is pretty clear!) How can we who died to sin still live in it (this is the Apostle’s cosmic reason, and it’s not more law)?”

Paul’s answer to a Christian’s messy struggle with sin is more grace not more rules – “How can we who died to sin still live in it?”  Paul gives grace or gospel as the power to change lives, grace or gospel as the divine energy that empowers in the struggle with sin, grace or gospel as the new life-generator of true holiness, spiritual growth, and authentic human living.  Toplady’s hymn “Rock of Ages” says it this way, grace is the “double cure.” 

Grace is the “double cure” because sin is like Pharaoh and Jesus’ death on the cross led the one who has faith in Jesus out of Egypt, for good.  Living in Egypt for the Christian is now an impossibility.  Living in Egypt for the Christian is an impossibility needing to be recognized, not an impossibility still needing to be obtained through the balance of more law or effort.  Jesus’ death on the cross is the Christian’s death to sin; it’s done, it’s finished, it’s over.  Sin has been de-throned, defeated, crushed.  Sin is no longer the Christian’s lord and savior, Jesus is.

What does this practically mean?  Everything!  The normal Christian life is a messy life (Romans 7).  The normal Christian life is struggling with sin (Romans 7).  However, for the Christian the struggle is not a losing struggle but a winning one.  The struggle with sin for the Christian is now a struggle he or she cannot ultimately lose.  

One of our greatest problems in our particular struggles with sin is forgetting we are no longer in Egypt.  We allow sin to convince us that we’re back in Egypt.  We forget who we are.  We forget what Christ’s death has done.  We functionally disbelieve the gospel or what Christ has done and functionally believe we are on our own, it’s up to us, we are our own savior in our struggle with sin.

But the Apostle Paul gives us more grace in our struggle with sin, not less.  The grace to already be delivered from sin (it’s done), the grace to already be dead to sin (it’s over), the grace to courageously engage in a struggle with sin you cannot lose (it’s finished), the grace to bravely be who you already are (a deeply loved son or daughter of God) in your struggle with sin.

The Madness of Church

Sometimes the meanest people carry the biggest Bibles.  Czeslaw Milosz, a polish poet who wrote powerfully during World War II and the Stalinization of his country afterwards, once wrote to his American monk friend Thomas Merton that he would not let his sons attend church because he “did not want to make atheists out of them.”   Zack Eswine, pastor and seminary pastor, writes:  “It has often been in church and among church folks that God has recovered my sense of him…(but they have) also rabble roused me…I too have been tempted to quit them…Many nights, they’ve flopped me over like a fish and filleted me down the middle.  My innards have come out only to get quickly discarded in the trash.”  Sometimes the church adds madness to our lives.  Ecclesiastes 5.1-7 is an honest, uncomfortable, and yet needed look at the church “under the sun.”  

Some of us will think Ecclesiastes’ take on the church is too pessimistic, “No way!  Not my church.  Not my Baptist-Bible-Methodist-Charismatic-Presbyterian-Lutheran-Missional-Victorious life-Worship filled-First and Full Discipleship church!”  The temptation for you according to Ecclesiastes will be to over-spiritualize your church, a fancy word for delusion and denial.  Others of us who have been deeply hurt by the church will say, “Finally.  Finally someone is willing to tell the truth.”  The temptation for you according to Ecclesiastes will be to leave the church.  Ecclesiastes wants us to go to church, but to go in an honest redemptive way.  

Does the church add madness to our lives?  Yup.  “Guard your steps when you go to the house of God (v.1).”  The preacher in Ecclesiastes is saying, “When you go to church be careful.”  Why?  The answer is because there are fools in church:  “To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil (v.1).”  

Throughout the Bible a “fool” is a self-centered person to their own harm and the harm of others.  There are two important ingredients to “foolishness.”  The first is a deep suspicion of God, specifically His personal and active love.  The second flows from the first, a deep need to trust yourself instead of God.  Notice that the foolish person in Ecclesiastes is serious about God, enough to know they must bring a “sacrifice” to church.  So what is the problem with this churched person?  What is so evil about their approach to church?  The answer is doing the right thing for the wrong reason, or offering a sacrifice (right thing) of fools (wrong reason).  We can do ministry in the church (right thing) to be important or to be affirmed and adored by others (wrong reason).  The point Ecclesiastes is making is our heart is a big deal, we can do church for self-centered or foolish reasons, and those self-centered or foolish reasons end up flowing out of our heart and into our life, relationships, and the culture of the church in embodied ways – harming everything. 

Historically theologians have called churched self-centeredness legalism, moralism, or self-righteousness.  Some present day theologians call it “self-salvation” or a “religious spirit” that strives to be good enough, acceptable enough, pleasing enough, obedient enough, and lovable enough in order to be enough, loved, accepted, justified, and blessed.  One present-day pastor and theologian, Sinclair Ferguson, calls churched self-centeredness a “metallic spirit,” by which he means a spirit or heart that is metal-like.  The preacher of Ecclesiastes says a “metallic spirit” is always the last to know he is, even though it is painfully obvious to everyone else around him:  “they do not know that they are doing evil (v.1).”  Furthermore the preacher says a “metallic spirit” is chronically and addictively self-justifying, obsessively trying to prove herself in thought, word, and deed to God, others, and herself (vv. 2, 3, 5, 6, and 7).  

Good grief!  If church adds this metallic madness to our lives, why go to church?  The preacher answers with one powerful reason:  “draw near to listen” (v.1).”  Who are we drawing near to listen to?  God.  Why go to church?  The answer is because God shows up at church, because God breaks in to our lives individually and corporately at church.  Fasten your seat belts and put on your crash helmets when you enter church because divine collisions take place at church.  This is why we go to church.

When you went to Temple in those days everything about the Temple shouted, “You’re a fool!  You’re self-centered!  You’re so messed-up!”  You could smell it, the metallic smell of blood hanging in the air from the sacrifices.  You could hear it, the desperate bleating of the sacrificial animals as they smelled death all around them.  You could see it, every step toward the Most Holy Place in Temple increased the potency of holiness and a potential cosmic threat .  And yet the God of this Temple says, “Draw near.”  Today we go to church to draw near to God not because of temporary and ineffective animal sacrifices but because of the Better Sacrifice, who absorbed and dealt with all our self-centeredness on the Cross.  Let’s go to church, to find the kind of God who is already finding us through his Better Sacrifice, and watch our metallic spirits become human again.

Bipolar Faith

Many times Christianity just doesn’t work.  Many times we don’t get our best life now.  Now what do you do?  Psalm 42 and 43 offers spiritual resources to help us pick up the pieces.  

“Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I will again enjoy him, my salvation and my God.”  This three-peat refrain found in 42.5, 42.11, and 43.5 is the Psalm’s textual GPS leading us home to its big idea – life is bipolar, you need a bipolar faith to survive.  Pain and praise, wilderness and worship, despair and deliverance, horror and hope, it’s all packed in there.  Two completely opposite psychological or spiritual poles are included in a life before God.  Real life before God is both praise and pain while God is fiercely present in both producing a faith that is inherently bi-polar.  The ultimate goal of Psalm 43 and 43 is not to get rid of our pain but to inject faith into it, which is the deepest deliverance of all.

How do we live with a bipolar life?  Specifically, what do we do in pain? Do we just stand there and bleed (think Wyatt Earp in Tombstone)?  Psalm 42 and 43 says, “NO.”  We do something heroic:  pray your way through the pain.

In Psalm 42 the Psalmist is a Poet of Pain.  He releases several images of pain to pummel the reader with help.  The first image is pretty famous - a “thirsting deer” (verse 1).  Most modern eyes see this as a picture of passionate piety rather than of unbearable pain.  The image is of a desperate dehydrated deer straining to reach a reliable water source only to find it has dried up.  The image portrays the inescapable desperation and need of the human soul for God or “living waters” (verse 1), especially when his living presence appears to have dried up in our lives.

Another image of pain is, “My tears have been my food” (verse 3).  The thrust being, “Pain is my food.  I eat pain day and night.”  The Psalmist’s suffering is so fundamental to his life that it has become his daily nourishment or sustenance and even marks the passage of time (“day and night” – verse 3).  

The last image in verse 7 rules them all, “the great chaotic deep.”  This disturbing image has a long and notorious history in the Bible: the chaos of pre-creation, the great flood, the piled-up waters at the Red Sea, and the localized land of the dead (“Sheol”).  The Psalmist likens his pain to the most destructive de-creative force in the Old Testament being unleashed on his soul - “I am de-creating.  I am falling to pieces.”  The Psalmist is utterly helpless as the waves of pain roll over him.

How do you deal with your pain?  Most of us “stuff it.”  Deny it.  Clamp down on it.  Try to control it some way, and we are incredibly creative in our strategies.  Others of us “surrender to it.”  Pain sweeps us away.  Pain controls our lives.  Pain becomes god-like in its control and power over our lives, its dark rule painfully expressed in fearful avoidance and hopeless surrender.  Whatever our strategy for dealing with pain, pain breaks us down piece by painful piece.  

What is the Psalmist doing with all these images of pain?  He’s giving us a third way to deal with pain: Pray Your Pain.  Pray your pain to God in graphic personal detail.  Why?  It’s part of God’s appointed way to help heal us.  We actually feel God hearing us, seeing us, knowing us, being with us, and helping us when we pray our pain to Him.  God actually addresses, accounts for, speaks to, and describes in vivid detail your pain in His Word.  This means God knows your pain!  Pain might feel out of control to us, but it is under control with God.  There is healing in identifying and voicing your pain.  Psalm 42 and 43 helps you find your voice.

The placement of verse 8 after the “great chaotic deep” is puzzling:  “By day the LORD commands His steadfast love (hessed)…”  Why does the LORD command his love into the great chaotic deep?  Because the LORD’s love over-rules the deep.  The LORD over-masters the great chaotic deep with his greater deeper love.  God over-loves pain.

 Experiencing God’s deeper love injects healing into pain as God is discovered to be enough, to be an exceeding-pain joy (Psalm 43.4).  This is what the Psalmist has been thirsting for since verse 1.  This is what we thirst for.  

Years later on a cross outside Jerusalem God commands his love into the deepest darkest chaos of all - cosmic judgment against human sin.  There, God de-created his own Son so all who trust in him would never experience “the great chaotic deep.”  There, God’s love over-mastered sin and guilt for those who contribute nothing to the relationship but their sin and resistance.  Life is bi-polar.  Pray your pain to the God who not only hears but heals through the chaos of the cross.

High Places

Elijah is Israel’s Gandalf. He is like a wizard. Elijah’s world is magical and supernatural. It is a world of close encounters with strange things.  Before meeting Elijah, however, let’s enter his world (1 Kings 3).

What is the world of Elijah like? It is a world of “high places” (i.e. 1 Kings 3.2, 3, and 4). Verse 2 is an example: “The people were sacrificing at the high places, however, because no house had yet been built for the name of the LORD.” High places were places of salvation, places to fill the God-shaped and God-sized hole in the human soul. High places were also everywhere – in homes, caves, valleys, mountains, Asherah Poles, and portal stones. Why? The answer is because the ancient world knew anything and everything has the potential to be a high place. They knew people will look for salvation anywhere, not just in church.

For example, there were high places for fertility in the ancient world because children were believed to possess the power to save you. Children gave women worth and meaning, the love of their husband, and a life worth living. Children gave men honor, importance, wealth, security, and a worthy life. Infertility was devastating. It was a death.

Today, parents still make their children high places. This is why we become that parent in the stands. Today, teenagers make boyfriends and girlfriends high places. This is why they get sexually involved, unhealthily smother each other, turn into someone they do not even like, and then feel guilty and anxious all the time. Today, singles make marriage a high place. Longing for that someone to “love me, heal me, complete me.”

Notice the connection between high places and worship (vv.2-4). Whatever we look to for salvation we worship. We love and adore it. We celebrate and sing about it. We trust and serve it. We gladly sacrifice for it. We eagerly tell others about it. Every human being worships, not just those who go to church.

How do we fill the God-shaped, God-size hole in our soul? “At Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon” (v.5). Notice where God appears to Solomon: “And the king went to Gibeon…the great high place...At Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon” (vv.4-5). God appears to Solomon amidst his high place. God appears to Solomon in his mess. Solomon has a close encounter with the strangeness of the grace of God. The God of grace is salvation.

This chapter ends with the famous account of Solomon’s great wisdom to discern the true mom from the false mom amidst the horrific loss of a child and the compounded pain of the mother swapping her dead child for her friend’s living child in the middle of the night, and then claiming him as hers. “And the king said, ‘Bring me a sword. Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one and half to the other’” (v.24). The true mom says (v.26), “Oh, my Lord, give her the living child, and by no means put him to death!” The true mom endures loss for the sake of her child. The false gods of the high places say, “Divide her! Divide him!” And they do. The true God says, “I will divide my Son instead!” And so fills God-shaped and God-sized holes in souls with salvation.

Romans 7.13-25 is one of the most controversial passages in the Bible, namely because many thoughtful people disagree over what it means.  Even though those I disagree with are wrong (Ha!), they are still nice people.  Well, in a Romans 7 kind of way.  

Some people believe a Christian cannot experience what Paul experiences here.  Others believe Romans 7 is a Christian, except he is a defeated Christian lacking the needed spiritual boost of Romans 8.  So which is it?  Full disclosure, the view I am presenting views Romans 7 as the normal Christian experience.  In other words Romans 7 is not “Past Paul” or “Defeated Paul,” but rather “Present Paul.”  What difference does Romans 7 make in a life?  Everyone’s favorite theologian J.I. Packer says a lot, for Packer it was a matter of personal sanity.

Sue grew up in church, she never knew a day she did not know and trust Jesus.  Her testimony always seemed, well, boring.  Throughout her Christian life Sue has wondered, “Am I missing something?”  She will tell you she does not struggle with “bad sins,” and what she does struggle with a little extra self-discipline, determination, Bible study, and prayer can handle, which brings us to today and why she feels so spiritually desperate.  Those good things are no longer working.  They are no longer restraining her anger, suppressing her rising romantic desires and fantasies, nor helping her stress and anxiety.  “What’s wrong with me?”  “What’s happening to me?”  “What am I missing?”  Sue pleads.  Romans 7 can help.

Sam was a dynamic ministry leader in the largest ministry on campus, no one was surprised by his call to ministry.  Yet even during those times when God was using him greatly, Sam felt deep inside, “There must be something more to the Christian life.”  Fast forward ten years into his life as a pastor and someone says, “Hey Sam, you’ve got to read this.”  He did, and it changed his life.  What happened to Sam?  The book talked persuasively and experientially about something more to the Christian life, what Sam thought was missing in his Christian life.  Even though Sam appears to have found the secret to something more, to what was missing, Romans 7 solves the riddle of Sam differently.

Samantha has always felt the weight of her sin.  Those closest to her would say, “Samantha is unhealthily introspective.  She’s constantly wondering, “How am I doing?  Am I good enough?”  Therefore when Samantha did something far worse than anything she has ever done before, than anything she ever dreamed she could do, it was terribly traumatic.  She did not know what to do.  She had no categories for what happened, for her new level of evil.  What does Samantha do?  Romans 7 provides spiritual resources Samantha needs.

Stewart believes everyone is basically good.  “So,” he reasoned, “if someone does something really evil it must be because something bad happened to them.”  But then Stewart did something really bad, when nothing bad has ever happened to him.  Stewart’s view of human nature was crushed.  Stewart’s view of himself was shattered.  What does Stewart do now?  Romans 7 calls Stewart to do something healing.

In Romans 7 the Apostle Paul is not saying everything there is to say about the Christian life, but he is saying something crucial:  own your struggle with sin.  What kind of struggle with sin are we supposed to own?  The answer is the Christian has and always will (until heaven) possess conflicting desires in them:  “For I do not understand my own actions.  For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate (verse 15 and similarly restated in verse 19).”  It is like the Christian has multiple selves, a split personality.  Sometimes she wants this, and sometimes she wants that.  Sometimes he wants to be this, and sometimes he wants to be that.  

Why does the Christian have these conflicting desires within them?  The answer is because biblical life change is a heart transformation not a heart transplant.  Life change is not the removal of an old sinful heart and then the transplanting of a new uncorrupted one, thereby removing the struggle with sin or providing a victorious heart that lives above sin.  Life change is not dualism – old heart vs. new heart – leading to a lot of weird and harmful ideas about life change.  Life change is transformation - God restoring our one heart – God healing the one you.  

Practically speaking, life change for a Christian looks like the dethroned sin condition having desires and the being restored you also having desires all at the same time, which is why Paul says, “So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me (v.17).”  When the Christian sins it is no longer their true self, the real self in union with Christ, or their identity in Christ who does it, but rather the dethroned sin condition (the old false self) still dwelling within that does.

Own your struggle with sin because it is a gracious mark of being a Christian, not the shocking evidence that something is wrong with you or the ultimate proof that you are missing something.  Ultimately, if we want to get all technical about it, what is wrong with all of us and missing in all of us is the world finally made right (c.f. Romans 8.17-25).

The Christian is free to admit their struggle with sin, free to joyfully and fearlessly struggle with their sin in the same way the most godly man who ever lived did:  “Wretched man that I am!  Who will deliver me from this body of death?”  Not me, says Paul, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”  Paul’s cry is that salvation for the skeptic and for the believing is always received not achieved.  This pattern of grace-salvation is the normal Christian life.  Imagine living your life out of this kind of freedom, based upon someone else’s performance not your own.  Imagine relationships built around such realness, safety, acceptance, and encouragement.  Imagine a church culture of such humility and gutsy grace.  Imagine Romans 7 becoming real to you and me.

Good News or Good Advice?

Paul Harvey, radio personality extraordinaire, on January 15th 1982 reported a story from the American Medical News.  A patient complained of an earache.  The doctor prescribed eardrops (antibiotic eardrops).  The patient got the prescription filled.  The pharmacist wrote on the bottle:  “Three drops in r ear.”  “r” for right ear.  However in the pharmacist’s instructions there was no space and no punctuation in them so they actually read:  “Three drops in rear.”  The patient said later:  "I knew it sounded like a strange remedy for an earache but I dutifully applied the three drops to my rear for three days!"

Are you misreading Christianity?  Are you misreading the Bible?

 If Gallup polled the unchurched people in Waco, or say Dallas or New York and asked, “Is Christianity about good advice or good news?,” how do you think the majority of people would answer?  Good advice would be things like:  “5 Steps To Living The Victorious Christian Life,” “How To Do Hard Things For God,” “How To Kiss Dating Goodbye,” “How To Be A Man After God’s Own Heart Like David,” “Growing Kids God’s Way,” “Nehemiah’s Leadership Principles,” “How To Become A Sold-Out, Purpose-Driven, Passionate, Surrendered-All, Super-Saint, Fully Committed Follower of Jesus Christ,” and “1,000 Biblical Principles For Eliminating Stress.”  Things like that.

No poll needed, the statistics are actually already in.  Tim Keller in Prodigal God documents that young people are fleeing their Christian homes and Christian churches for refuge in the city (urban areas) because they are burned-out on “good advice.”  Young people are fleeing the church today thinking they are rejecting Christianity.

The book of Romans says to the burned-out, burdened, and broken, “You are not fleeing real Christianity, you are fleeing ‘good advice.’”  Welcome to Romans 1.16-17.  Welcome to real Christianity.  Welcome to good news:  “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.  For in it (the gospel) the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith’ (Rom 1.16-17).”

What is the gospel?  The word “gospel” literally means good announcement, good herald, good report, or good news.  In the Greco-Roman world it was used in a very specific way, as an emperor’s or king’s announcement of victory on the battlefield.  

The late Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones illustrated the difference between “good advice” and “good news” this way:  Barbarians invade your country (probably my ancestors the Vikings).  The initial report is not good – death, destruction, desolation.  Despair reigns in the land.  The king assembles his army, meets the foe, and his army is obliterated.  The king’s last act before a violent death is sending messengers back to the capital.  What do these messengers report when they reach the capital?  They herald, “Fight for your lives!  They’re coming!  Archers on the walls!  Calvary at the gates!”  The messengers bring good advice on how to survive a barbarian invasion, they bring good advice on how to save yourself.  

Gospel news is different.  In gospel news the king crushes the brutal invaders, slaughters them in a comprehensive victory.  He then sends messengers back to the capital to announce the good news:  “Victory!  The King won!  The war is over!  It is finished!  Peace!  Freedom!  Life!  No more fear!  No more desolation!  We won!”  

The Apostle Paul in Romans 1.1-4 says Jesus is the ultimate, universal, final King who won the war against the sinister power of sin (the enemy within) and its invading reign of condemnation and death.  The Savior-King levels sin and death, no contest; it is a massacre by the surpassing power of the Savior-King’s perfect life of righteousness, his cross, and resurrection.  

What is the gospel?  The gospel is good news of a Jesus-victory, a Jesus-deliverance, a Jesus-salvation already won.  Real Christianity is good news about what Jesus has done, accomplished, worked, or performed to save messed up people like us, not good advice about what we do, accomplish, work, or perform to try to save our selves.

This gospel changes everything.  This gospel is what everyone most needs.  This gospel is why Paul says he is “obligated” to preach it to those who are un-churched (verse 14), and why he is “eager” to preach it to Christians or the church in Rome (verse 15).  The gospel is not the A, B, C’s of the Christian life or only what an unbelieving person needs to hear, it is the A-Z’s of the Christian life or what a Christian needs to hear.  The gospel is both the power of God to become a Christian and the power of God to grow as a Christian.  Are you burning out on good advice?  Come back to real Christianity.  Come back to good news.

When I was a kid I could not wait for summer break.  Summer was the answer to the 
grind of school, crazy pace of life, little sleep, lack of space in life, the need for rest, and 
annoying people.  Then summer would come, and never live up to my expectations.  Summer let me down, again, just like the summer before.  But come September, I believed in summer again!  The dictionary definition of disillusionment is, “The feeling of disappointment resulting from the discovery that something is not as good as one believed it to be.”  Luke 19.1-10 is a story about someone who finally reaches the point of disillusionment, and it is a good thing.

Jesus was not planning on staying in Jericho, he was just passing through, on his way to Jerusalem (Luke 19.1).  Jericho is a fascinating place, a Mount Everest in reverse since it sits at one of the lowest points on the planet – 825 feet below sea level.  In those days Jericho was called “The City of Palms” because it was a lush, fertile, green oasis fed by gushing fresh water springs in the middle of nothing but desert desolation.  One lush, fertile, green tree in Jericho is the Sycamore tree, the only tree in the middle east with big green leafy leaves, excellent cover for hide-and-seek or for a small adult not wishing to be seen (vv.2-4):  “And there was a man named Zacchaeus.  He was a chief tax collector and was rich.  And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small of stature.  So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way.”  
 
Zacchaeus is disillusioned.  How do we know this?  The answer is because he has it all, but is still looking for something else.  Zacchaeus is a chief tax collector and very rich (v.2).  Of course he is, he runs Rome’s taxing operation for Jericho.  Roman rule meant taxing conquered colonies to increase Roman wealth and to maintain Roman subjugation by way of impoverishment.  Surprisingly however, tax collectors were not Romans but locals who collaborated with Rome’s oppression and got rich in the process.  Tim Keller writes, “Why would anyone take such a job as a tax collector?  What could seduce a man to betray his family and country and live as a pariah in his own society?  The answer was – money.”  Zacchaeus thought money could make him important.  However, when we meet Zacchaeus in verse 2 he does not believe in money anymore, money has let him down, he is looking for something else. What did he find?  

What Zacchaeus finds is breathtaking.  When important people visited a town in the ancient world they were greeted by the important people of the town.  Then all the important people would parade through town, like the celebrities they are, to a great banquet hall for a big important party, meanwhile the unimportant people would gather to gawk.  

Zacchaeus was planning on the crowd dispersing by the time it reached him at the edge of town hiding in the Sycamore tree - remember Jesus was just passing through.  The crowd, however, did not disperse.  They see him in the tree.  They yell out his name using colorful four letter words, which is how Jesus knows Zacchaeus’ name!  Violence is in the air – remember Zacchaeus is a hated man.  Jesus looks up at Zacchaeus and says, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today (v.5).”  Jesus invites Zacchaeus into his heart.  Jesus does not eat with the important people, he eats with a notorious “sinner” (v.7).  Jesus welcomes, accepts, and befriends Zacchaeus by sheer grace alone.  Zacchaeus spent his whole life trying to be loved, accepted, and important but could never attain it.  Now, Jesus’ love, acceptance, and importance reaches and heals him:  “So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully (v.6).”  Of course he did, Jesus just replaced money as his Savior.

Did you notice in verse 7 how the bad mood of the crowd shifted to Jesus?  “And when they saw it, they all grumbled, ‘He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.’”  Jesus absorbs the crowd’s rejection, he takes it away from Zacchaeus.  Several days later on a cross in Jerusalem, Jesus becomes rejected and unacceptable in our place so we can be accepted forever.  Jesus’ sacrificial love and acceptance replaces all disillusionment.  Hurry and come down to receive him with joy.

I know what you are thinking.  “Please not another Christmas message about world peace (has it happened yet?), good tidings to all (why does it quickly disappear at the customer service center on December 26th?), and other warm, fuzzy, but otherwise apparently meaningless stuff.”

Nope.  Nothing like that.  I promise.  I want to talk about a thing you do.

You do this all the time with your children.  You did it the first day in the hospital after your son’s birth.  You did it when your daughter fell down, skinned her knee and cried out your name.  You did it when she was dragging behind, trying to keep up with you.  You did it when he was hungry.  You did it when he woke you up in the middle of the night because of a bad dream.  You did when she sat down in the middle of the floor crying tears of frustration.  You did it when he stretched out his arms to you.  You did it when you stayed up late, foregoing sleep, because your child needed to talk.  You did it when you opened your wallet for them…again.  You did it when you drove them to their friend’s house, the ball game, the pizza place, the movies, and on and on.  You do this thing all the time with your children, regardless of their age.  You do it without even thinking.  You do it so often that you are going to think it odd that here’s an entire article on this one thing. 

What do you do?  You stoop.  Stoop?  Yes.  Stoop.  You bend down to pick your children up.  You serve them.  You carry them.  You lower yourself down to a level that situates you to speak to them clearly, to offer exactly the kind of help they need in this particular moment.  And you have not thought about it because it is so utterly unremarkable.  This is what parents do, and it goes without saying.  So why am I saying it?  Here’s why: we intuitively recognize this most obvious parental activity, but we are convinced that God does not do it.  

When we think of God, maybe we picture a grouchy old wizard long tired of impressing us with his tricks.  Or maybe we picture a very big, very distant relative who has got better things to do than listen to me.  Or some of us might see him as standing over us, arms crossed, frowning, waiting till we get our act together.  We certainly don’t picture him bending, stooping, coming down here to speak clearly to us, to offer exactly the kind of help we need in this particular moment.  But this is what we (unknowingly?) celebrate every year at this time; Christmas is when God stooped.  God, way up there, came all the way down here, became like you and me in every way except without all the failure, to pick us up.  He did what any good parent would do, and yet we struggle to believe it.  

Why?  Why is this so hard to believe?  I think as parents, when it comes to raising our children, we recognize that it is either them or us.  Either you sacrifice your physical energy, or you sacrifice theirs. You sacrifice your freedom or theirs.  You sacrifice your emotional energy or theirs.  You decrease or they do. You stoop or they stay put.  There is something inside of us that chooses to sacrifice self over our children.  So we take their place; love trades places and we suffer for them.  And we just can’t bring ourselves to believe that God sacrifices himself for us.  We can’t imagine that he would come down here as a man, live the life that we were supposed to live, die a punishing death for us who deserve it ourselves, to rise to God-life for us imprisoned in a God-death.  But this is what love does.  Love stoops, and God is love.
 
For those of you who are like me and want to gag at all the warm fuzzies that seem to multiply like rabbits during this season, anchor your heart in a God so immeasurably great He stooped.  He stooped low enough to become like you, so He could lift you up to a relationship with Him.

For those of you who hope that this Christmas will finally be the one you connect with God in a way that you deeply desire, stop trying to connect with God.  I know that sounds weird coming from a Pastor!  Here’s what I want you to consider instead:  Stare at the God who connects with you.  Stare, blink, and stare again at the God who won’t let you stoop, work, perform, or slave away for Him, but rather does all the stooping, working, performing, and slaving away for you.  Discover the God who stooped all they way down, until he could stoop no further.  Discover the God who stooped so low as to become a man who lived and died and rose for people like you and me.

For those of you who don’t give a rip about Christmas (you’re just reading this article because it’s in the way of the Christmas recipes), consider this:  Could the impulse to stoop with your own children be present because you are a chip off the old block?  Could the reason that your stooping seems so normal be that you were made to be like the one who made you: a heavenly father who stooped all the way down, low enough to reach you?

Christmas.  Stooping.  God or you.  God chose you.

“Love God?  Sometimes I hate Him!”  Startling words.  Honest words.  Words that instinctively compel you to create distance between yourself and the one who uttered them for fear of being collateral damage if fire fell from heaven. 

These religiously embarrassing words erupted from the heart of one who is universally recognized to have had one of the greatest impacts on the Western church and the world.  His name is Martin Luther.  Luther uttered these jarring words as a monk and theological professor in the service of God and the Church.

It was shortly after this moment, what was certainly an Alka-Seltzer for his fellow monks and wide-eyed students, that Luther discovered the message that forever changed his life; a message that shakes the church and the world to this very day.  The re-discovery of this Divinely empowered message amidst a very religious and yet spiritually dark age led to the greatest gracious work of God in all post-resurrection history outside of Pentecost.  What is this message?

The Question That Refuses to Be Suppressed

It is impossible to escape breathing the cultural air around you.  So take that into consideration when you hear that the most crucial question for Luther was, “If God is Holy and man is sinful, what hope is there for man?”

According to the Bible this ancient question finds its origins in the moment after the serpent slithered out of the garden, smiling as he left behind a man and a woman devastated by corruption and a creation flipped upside-down as a result.  I know, I know this ancient question is not “culturally relevant” like How do you raise your low self-esteem?, 10 Steps to a Victorious Christian Life, Seeking Coffee Shop Spirituality, God’s purpose and plan for your wonderful life, or Implementing the New Perspective on Paul into Your Church.   However, this pesky question has refused to be silenced in every generation since Adam against all cultural, academic, or churchy distractions.

Does Your Message Have Good News In It?

As out of touch with today’s issues as it is and as unhelpful for those of us still seeking “spiritual success”, the ancient question drove Luther to despair and eventually to discover the good news message that unleashed what he called “the clearest light of heaven.”  Before we look at this life-changing, world-shaking message of good news, let’s remember what good news cannot mean.  

For someone deeply wrestling with the question, “If God is Holy and man is sinful, what hope is there for man?” good news cannot mean “pull yourself up by your spiritual bootstraps.”  The key phrase that turns a message like “pull yourself up by your spiritual bootstraps” into “bad news” is “man is sinful.”  Therefore it is never good news to rely on your own goodness or righteousness to be right with God, even if it is footnoted with Divine assistance.

 The more common messages today that pass for good news are: Open the door of your heart to Jesus, surrender your life to Jesus, make a decision for Jesus, accept Jesus as your Savior, or make Jesus Lord of your life.  The confusion with these messages is that they sound like good news, don’t they?  The problem with these messages is that they are mostly about your responding to Jesus rather than what Jesus has done for you.

The good news in the Bible is not about what I do with Jesus or what I do for Jesus, but rather what Jesus has done for me.  Period.  None of my work creeping in anywhere, only Jesus doing, dying, rising, and reigning for me.  

The Good News Message That Changed The World is Justification

The message the changed Luther’s life is a biblical concept called justification.  What!?  What is justification?  When Luther was preparing to teach Romans 1 for his theology students, he was in the depths of despair, trying to live righteously enough to find God’s assurance, acceptance, and eternal life.  He despaired for he reasoned that if he saw that even his best efforts were saturated with self and sin, then what does God see?  “Love God?  Sometimes I hate Him!”  

Then he ran into verse 17 of Romans 1 during his lesson plan for the week: “For in it (i.e. the gospel) the righteousness of God is revealed …”  Luther’s reaction was instantaneous.  “What?  The righteousness of God is revealed?  The righteousness of God is revealed not in me but in the gospel?”  And he saw the answer like “the clearest light of heaven.”  Yes it is.  

This is justification: God provides in Jesus what no one is able to provide for himself or herself – perfect righteousness.  The Bible tells us that there is no salvation without it.  No Divine assurance, no acceptance, no eternal life without it.

If the good news of justification was a two-sided coin then the tails side of the coin would be “Debt Paid” and the heads side of the coin would be “Credit Given.”  “Debt Paid” is Jesus’ death paying the debt of sin, the holy and just wrath and curse of God.  “Credit given” is Jesus’ life of perfect righteousness credited to those who have no righteousness in themselves.

On a more tactical level justification means Jesus died on the cross for those who do not love God with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength, neither do they love their neighbor as themselves; that is the debt paid.  Jesus loved God with all his heart, mind, soul, and strength and his neighbor as himself twenty-four hours a day, 7 days a week, three hundred sixty-five days a year for some thirty-three years.  This is credit given for he accomplishes this on behalf of those who did not and do not do it themselves. 

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5.21).

 Wherever this message of justification is re-discovered, heaven is unleashed, the ungodly are justified, and struggling Christians arise from the ashes of working for God’s love.  Wherever justification is recovered, Christians are renewed with life and freedom, lives change in the context of Biblical community, and churches fill-up with unshockable people ready to minister to others and lead them to Christ.  Wherever justification is re-discovered, the world is changed and God gets the glory.

Is There One? 

Overflowing crowds.  Cutting-edge music.  High octane worship services.  Deeply moving experiences.  Signs of the Holy Spirit.  What works.  High church liturgy and tradition.  Egalitarian church leadership.  Hip youth ministry.  Re-doing Church.  Urban outreach and mercy ministry.  Strong missions emphasis.  Purpose-driven mission statements and ministry directions.  

At one time or another, all of the above have been offered as evidence of the presence of true Christianity.  But is there a singular, genuine spiritual litmus test for true Christianity, a test in which just one factor determines the presence or absence of true Christianity?   Wherever this ‘test’ is passed true Christianity is present and powerfully at work in an individual, family, or community; but wherever this ‘test’ is failed true Christianity is absent, regardless the level of spiritual excitement, spiritual activity, and deeply felt spiritual experiences found there.  Could there be such a test?  

The Apostle Paul says there is a spiritual litmus test, and what it is may surprise us:

“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel – not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.  But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.  As we have said before, so now I say again:  If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed” (Gal 1.6-9).

Paul is not mincing words; his tone is more at home in a street fight than in a fellowship hall.  Compare the way Paul speaks to the church at Galatia in the passage above to the tone he takes with the church at Corinth:

“I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge – even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you…” (1Cor 1.4-6).

In Corinth, the church was plagued by divisions and interpersonal conflict: they were suing each other, pursuing idolatry in various forms, engaging in a level of sexual immorality that embarrassed even those around them who were not Christians, and were drunk at the Lord’s Supper more than they were sober!  The church in Corinth was not the model of godly behavior, to put it gingerly.  Strangely, however, Paul treats more harshly the church at Galatia for accepting “another gospel” than the morally bankrupt church at Corinth who had not abandoned “the testimony about Christ”, that is, the gospel.  

Paul’s tone toward these two communities of Christians indirectly leads us to the spiritual litmus test that he directly identifies in his letter to the Galatians.  For Paul, the message of the Gospel is the spiritual litmus test for true Christianity, not the behavior or experiences of its followers. Those who prize, proclaim, and protect the message of the Gospel passed the spiritual litmus test for true Christianity because the Gospel alone is the power of God to save them.  Those who had abandoned the message of the Gospel failed the spiritual litmus test and unleashed a false gospel that only sours souls.   For Paul the message of the Gospel, more than even outward behavior and experience, is where the Church stands or falls.  

Why This One?

Why is holding on to the gospel the spiritual litmus test for true Christianity?  The answer is because the Gospel alone is the power of God that brings you into a right relationship with God, grows your relationship with God, continues heart-change in your life, creates community, and empowers you for service and ministry (Rom 1.16).  

This is why Paul’s response to the Corinthians’ bad behavior was to preach the power of the Gospel to them.  He preached the gospel to a “disorderly” church so that their lives would change and they would increasingly put on display the glory of God.  It is also why his response to the Galatians’ departure from the gospel was to hit them hard with a warning:  recover the gospel or be ruined.  What’s the answer in the case of bad behavior?  The gospel.  What’s the answer in the case of hardened unbelief? The gospel!

So What Is The Gospel?

OK, so Christianity is not ultimately about behavior or experiences but the power of the gospel.  So what’s the gospel?!  A good place to start is defining what its not: ask  yourself, “Is it something I do or something that happens in me?”  If the answer is “Yes”, then it is not the gospel.  The gospel is not something found inside of you, nor is it something done by you; in fact it is not natural to you at all.  The gospel is found outside of you, and it is something done for you.  The movement of the gospel is not upward, something done by you for God; nor is it inward, something done in you; but it is downward from above, something done by God, outside of you, for you.

Lexically “gospel” means “good news.”  Good news about what?  The answer is the good news about Jesus - his downward incarnation, his life of perfect obedience, his punishing death on the cross, his powerful resurrection, and his present reign.  In other words the gospel is the historical events of Jesus and the good message(s) about those events.  

In order for Jesus to do for us what he did for us, he had to be like us, human in every way, yet without sin.  Thus, the Son of God took humanity on himself, becoming man, the God-man, to represent us to God (the incarnation).  In order to make unrighteous people righteous and therefore acceptable to a Holy God, Jesus, the second Adam and perfect man, had to do that which God required of the first Adam and of every human since: perfect loyalty to God.  Thus Jesus obeyed the law at every point, offering a perfect life of loyal and loving obedience to the Father, so that his righteousness could be credited to the account of those who are not (the life of perfect obedience).  But because of our own disloyalty and disobedience, Jesus had to take on himself the punishment due sin.  Thus he humbly underwent the punishing death on the cross, taking the wrath of God in the place of those who deserve it (the cross).  Finally, since Jesus life was powerfully perfect, his death was itself victory over Death.  Thus, God raised him from the dead, vindicating his worth and work, and God spiritually raised us with him unto newness of life, over which Christ presently reigns (the resurrection and reign).  This is the gospel; this is the power of God for salvation!  If we hold on to this one thing, we have everything.  If we let go of this one thing, we have nothing.  That is why it is so important; that is why it is the spiritual litmus test for true Christianity.  That is why wherever the gospel is prized, proclaimed, and protected all heaven is unleashed on its hearers.

When my wife and I left Dallas fresh out of seminary almost eight years ago to look for a house in Waco, our wonderful (and very dear to us to this day) real estate agent asked me what I did for a living, “What brings you to Waco?”  I told her I was a pastor sent by our church in Dallas to plant a church in Waco.  With a warm smile she said, “Oh, you’re going to love it here.  Waco’s nickname is ‘Jerusalem on the Brazos’.”  After spending most of my young adult life ministering to un-churched Ivy League students and un-reached central Asian university students, this was the last thing I wanted to hear.  On the outside I smiled back, but on the inside I was frowning, thinking, “Great.  It’s just what I thought.  I’m in the land of the over-churched.  Can I still back out of my call to Waco?”

I have been changing in a very profound way since that conversation almost eight years ago.  The work in progress has become the vision of my life and ministry.  It is this:  The gospel is not only what brings you into a right relationship with God, but it is also what grows your relationship with God, continues change in your life, creates community, and empowers you for service and ministry.

The late Donald Grey Barnhouse, former pastor of historic Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, was once asked:  “What would a town or city look like if Satan took over?” Dr. Barnhouse responded, “Well, the streets would be clean.  The buildings would always be freshly painted and well maintained.  There would be no spitting on the sidewalks, no profanity used in public, no crime, no gambling, no prostitution, no drunks or homeless walking the streets.  Children would obey their parents …  And on every Sunday everyone would go to Church where Christ isn’t preached.”  What a startling answer.

For most of my Christian life I treated the gospel like the ‘rearview mirror’ in my car.  A couple times a year, usually at Christmas and especially at Easter, I would look in my ‘rearview mirror’ to see what Jesus did for me (behind me) in the past, namely dying on the cross for my sins.  This was usually followed by some sense of gratitude.  However, I couldn’t stare too long at the rearview mirror because I had to get on with the real business of living the Christian life.  Everyone knows you do not drive your car by looking primarily at your rearview mirror (if you do, you and possibly others will be in deep trouble!).  You drive your car by looking through the front windshield.  The problem is, depending upon your spiritual background and the current ministry menu you are consuming, there are as many ‘front windshields’ out there today to choose from as there are churches in Waco.

Is there a God-appointed power to not only bring you in to a right relationship with God, but also to grow you in your relationship with God, to continue changes in your life, to create community, and to empower you for service and ministry?  The apostle, who strangely calls himself “the foremost of sinners” (1 Tim 1.15) while not only being a Christian but also the greatest of the apostles, says, “Yes.”  

“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God … God made Him (Jesus) our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption.  Therefore, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord’.” (1 Corinthians 1.18, 30-31.)

Let’s briefly see how God shines on the page here.  First, notice who is being saved – “us.”  Paul is included in the ‘us.’  Paul is being saved.  Is Paul describing his past when he was Saul, the God belittler, persecutor of Christians, violent religious bounty hunter?  In other words is Paul looking backward through the ‘rearview mirror’ to see what Jesus did for Him in the past in terms of his conversion?  No.  “Being saved” is in the present tense.  Paul is describing what is happening to him right now not only as a believer in Jesus, but also as an apostle of Jesus.  Paul is describing what he calls in verse 30, “sanctification,” or growing in grace.  Salvation, according to the Bible, comes in a three-linked chain;  each link is distinct but not separate from the other links in the chain.  The first is justification, or coming to faith in Christ.  The second is sanctification, or growing in the grace of Christ.  The third is glorification, or being finally and fully with Christ forever.  It is sanctification or growing in the grace of Christ in the present that Paul is talking about here.  

Now notice what Paul does next.  He connects the gospel message (“the word of the cross”) to the power of God that is working on him in the present.  It is working in such a way that it is saving him.  In other words, the gospel message is the God-ordained power to not only bring you into a right relationship with God, but also to grow your relationship with God, change your life, create community, and empower you for service and ministry.

For many of us this just doesn’t make sense because the gospel is only the ‘rearview mirror,’ not the front windshield.  We treat the gospel as though it’s only a message for the un-churched, not a message for the churched and even over-churched.  We treat the gospel like it’s the ABCs of the Christian life, not the A to Z of the Christian life.  

But Paul saw it differently.  To him the gospel was rich in the infinite glories of Christ.  It was so powerful that when you came in contact with it God Himself nourished you, refreshed you, pressed in His presence amidst you, changed you, and empowered you for community, service, and ministry.

Our spiritual malnourishment these days is not due to our passion to hear the infinite glories of God’s gospel, but due to our innate drive to hear and try anything else.  The gospel is for Christians too.