A World Apart – Preaching Christ

The purpose of the church comes out of the purpose of Christ (thank you Steve), and to that end I’ve decided to spend a few posts looking at what happens when Christ is preached, when Christ preaches (thank you Bible study) and what exactly that means. I was out for lunch with a good friend today, and one of the subjects of discussion was the preaching of Christ to the sick, the need for Jesus in this place particularly and in the world more generally. Because I think the way I do, I felt I needed to start reflecting on that more thoroughly here, so you get content for the next little while. This first post is going to focus on the church preaching the church and not Christ (apologies for the brief return to lament – it won’t be happening again this subseries), and then we’ll move from there outwards.

I may have mentioned it before, but I’ll return to it briefly – I grew up in the church, and I can’t honestly say that I also grew up in a personal relationship with Christ through that. I’m having to learn what that means now, but thank God that I’m able to really reflect on it and bring content out of it at this time and in this way. Equally unfathomable is the superfluity that I was satisfied with, when the heritage I call my own has such a weight of doctrine and tradition to draw from. It’s really a shame, but at the same time, it’s a gift. So why have I been satisfied with the milk of Jesus Christ for so long? The answer, faithful readers, is that I was never given to understand why I should crave the meat of Christ. There had to be meat beyond what I could ken, but I had no fundamental hunger for knowing who Christ is and was.

Looking back over that paragraph, I realize I’m using terms that seem strange, even frightening to those who have no Biblical background. Take this as an invitation to stay with me and learn more as I go onward and inward – but not to morbidity, as I’m also learning. So let me close with this: By saying that the church preaches the church and not Christ, I am declaring that the life led as a Christian and the life led as a churchgoer are not always the same thing. I am declaring that many of those who want to hear the church preached will and do not want to hear Christ preached, or Christ preaching.

Keep a weather eye out, my friends!

Blessings;

Christ-bearer

A World Apart – Rock and Salvation

There are some things that we don’t have the strength for in ourselves. I was just reading the story of Polycarp’s martyrdom in Christianity Today – I had no clue who he was prior to that – and it struck me anew that we just can’t do the things that God provides for us to do without looking to Him, and – cliched as it may be – fully relying on Him.

For those of you who may not be aware of the FROG phenomenon, there was a time when initials were all the rage in fashion accessories…What Would Jesus Do (WWJD), Fully Rely on God (FROG), Pray Until Something Happens (PUSH). You would see them on bracelets and necklaces, shirts and Bible cases, and in many cases the proliferation of these adornments left them without the weight of meaning that they should have. They became trendy in youth circles. They still appear now and again, though not with as much frequency.

But I digress. My point here is that the initials FROG or PUSH are sound doctrinal statements. You can PUSH and see tangible results, if God wills it, or maybe you may just find a new perspective of the heart. You find that to FROG becomes your nature. All of this, however, is meant to indicate one thing:

I can do all things through Him who strengthens me (Philippians 4:13)

Praying until something happens is indicative of faith, as is to fully rely on God. But in all of it, nothing of our own merit is considered. Look at the verse again…I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Nothing in me is able to do all things. Martyrs are strong witnesses for one reason only: They, by dying, glorify God, the strength by which they have lived.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

A World Apart – Prayer

There’s so much that we think we can handle on our own, under our own power, with our own resources…you know. But can you buy your way out of exhaustion, or conquer misery with a credit card? And what happens when we run out of steam, when we are destroyed by tragedies within our families or in our communities? Where is our own power in the hospital wards?

We can’t do anything when it really counts, when it really matters to the heart. We sit helplessly by and watch loved ones go through pain and torment in illness and in addictions. We try so very hard to be a friend to those who feel they don’t need it. How much, then, can we really do, and with what?

That’s the first step in prayer. Admitting that we need help, seeking to find it in talking things through with God and watching in amazement as the solutions to our problems seem to unfold. Acting on realizations and in poverty of spirit, calling on God to help and then crying as He does.

Who cares if people think we’re crazy…God loves the prayerful heart, because the prayerful heart is more and more capable of loving Him and giving Him glory.

Next time – We stand on His strength.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

A World Apart – Sanctification

This is the second of two posts on fundamental doctrines to the Christian. The first is justification, the second sanctification. If justification is the gift of freedom, then salvation is opening the package. It is a process, sometimes a very long one (if any one of you have played the party game Hot Potato, you’ll know what I mean!) and it leads ultimately to satisfaction, though sometimes through frustration.

Sanctification is not an immediate thing, by any means. We are not transformed in thinking, in heart, in mind overnight. And we are certainly not intended to be that way. Generations of sin are not easily broken as we live our lives, nor are the patterns of sinfulness that work back through our culture overtaken in one go. I’m going to spend a post, maybe two, on types and means of sin, and what they mean for both Christians and non-Christians, but for now, I’m simply going to look at the means whereby we are enabled to overcome. This is sanctification.

Just as it takes time to accomplish the work of learning to play an instrument, it takes time for sanctification to transform the lives of justified, born-again believers. I do not want to suggest that we have to work at our own sanctification exclusively – Biblically, see Philippians 2:1-12, which is reproduced in part below – but that it is a process, one which we can’t expect to see completed in our lifetimes, until we come before the Lord after death. We are not perfect. We are not complete. But we are on our way there.

Philippians 2 gives an eye-opening example of what the process of sanctification is meant to lead towards. I’m going to include vv. 5-12 for context:

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Therefore my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling”

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

A World Apart – Justification

I promised last time that I would spend a post each on justification and salvation. This is the first of those two posts, and I’ll try and give it some qualification for the post-Christian mind.

Justification is essentially the gift of freedom, offered by Christ in His death and resurrection. It is not automatic in the life of every human being, and must be accepted in the heart – which is itself a tricky understanding – in order to have any effect. That freedom is not an immoral one, and it is an effective one. If you are in Christ, as the Bible declares in Galatians 5, you are free. Specifically, the verse declares “For freedom, Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Gal. 5:1). The freedom we possess in Christ’s justification is not one that we can live under without acting in it. Worldly understandings of freedom are very different from the Christian understanding of the same word, and I would suggest that they are incredibly shortsighted. Freedom to non-Christians is often through wealth, power, celebrity, or rebellion, and seldom leads to any lasting changes in the lives of those who embrace it. You can certainly call me out on such a statement, but from what I have seen, freedom in the sense of the world is merely a different set of slaver’s chains. Interest rates on credit cards, for example, penalize the freedom of lent cash. Partying, sexual promiscuity – these enslave the mind and the body by destroying recollections, ending lives, imprisoning anger and dissatisfaction in a web of light, sound, emotion and oblivion. The natural inclination of the enslaved, however, is to escape, to be set free. And so the curse buries itself ever deeper in the mind of the hedonist.

Justification is not an end. but a means to an end. It is the access to salvation, and it is the way in which Christians can claim to be Christian.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer

A World Apart – Hearers and Doers

I cited a passage from James 1 last post, and I want to change your focus slightly, to look at it from the perspective of how it sets Christians apart, and why their lives must be different from what is ‘natural’ to the world. James speaks of hearers and doers of the word, and commands the Christian to be not just a hearer, but a doer also. Because Jesus Christ is writing Himself into the lives of Christians who are also believers through their reading and prayer into and out of the Bible, the outworking of His nature and character into the lives of those with whom they are surrounded is natural. I regret to admit that this has become less the case for me over the last little while. Hypocrisy is a true plague amongst the followers of Christ, and I have too many moments where this applies to me. Nonetheless, the command remains the same, and in that convicts me of where I stand without Christ at the center.

James’ command to be a doer and not simply a hearer is of fundamental importance to the Christian, because it should spearhead the actions that they must take to demonstrate the outworking of Christ’s power. It often leads to a legalistic understanding of what salvation means, however, and whether or not it is under God’s sovereignty or under man’s, which I don’t think is the intent. This and hundreds of other passages fuel an ever-raging debate on the topic.

To be a doer of the Word does not mean that in doing, you will achieve salvation OR justification, terms which I’ll spend a post each on. It is an effect, rather than a cause, which is why James’ letter commands us to ‘receive the implanted word with meekness’. Doing, in addition to hearing, should also be an effect of the transformed and transforming life.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

A World Apart – The Implanted Word

If the Word of God is truth and fact, and if Christ is at work in it and through it, then the passage as found in James 1:19:25 takes on new relevance. Here’s the passage:

“Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.”

Now, this passage inclusion comes to you on the heels of me listening to John Piper’s Desiring God sermon audio messages on the new birth, and in fact this passage was at the core of one of them. Specifically, he talked about the implanted word, which I believe is a fact of life. It gives the moral law argument some real credence Biblically. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, I summarize the effects thusly: One central, unassailable fact of human existence is that every code of behaviour, every society, is ultimately subject to the constraint of morality. There are always permissions and taboos which guide acts and thoughts within that culture, and which exist as inherent points of development from childhood. Call me on it if I’m wrong, clarify if I’m not presenting it accurately, but this is the essence of the argument. That’s a bunny trail for another time, however. My object now is to look briefly at what ‘the implanted word’ means.

As I’ve said, I believe that the implanted word of God is a fact. I articulated, a long time ago, my own understanding of how predestination and free will work together, and this passage, looked at now with older eyes, really reminds me of that meditation. I reconciled these seemingly opposing points of view by saying to myself that predestination is the outworking of the choice to accept providence in one’s life (in more words than that, mind you!) Actually, what I should say is that this passage makes the mental leap to accept that possibility an achievable thing. To accept that the Word of God in morality, in myth and in practices is already present within every culture and every human being suggests a fascinating understanding of what mission should consist of; not a preaching of the Word to a collection of new hearers, but an awakening of the understanding within a culture of where the Word of God has already touched the lives of nonbelievers. My minister here calls it the traces of the Spirit, and I can think of no better phrase for it. Truly, the Word has gone before.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

A World Apart – Christ, The Author

There’s a passage in Hebrews 12 that I’ve seen translated a number of ways. The version I see most often in my own translation of the Bible is ‘founder and perfecter’ but I’ve also seen it as ‘author and perfecter’, and that’s the translation that keeps sticking in my mind. Why?

I would suggest that it’s because Christ writes Himself out of the Bible into the hearts and minds of Christians. Furthermore, as it says in 2 Corinthians 3:2-6, the life of a Christian is a life of recommendation, if lived correctly:

“You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all. And you show that you are a letter from Christ, delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills but the Spirit gives life.”

What I take from this is twofold. First, that the covenant of ‘the letter’, that is, the law of do’s and don’ts, kills, but the spirit of God – the Holy Spirit – as sent by Christ – gives life. Second, that as we are transformed inwardly, Christ becomes more evident, more visible, outwardly. Further, that as this happens, we become more and more a recommendation for the life lived in the Holy Spirit and in Christ. What this means in the life of a Christian is that although the Bible was written and completed thousands of years ago, by different authors and at different times, it is essentially a work that remains actively writing and being written by our lives. This is not to say that we are expanding the Word, modifying it or controlling it, but that the Bible is a book of truth that shows up in the day to day life of the believer, a Word written both in words and in actions, and containing both.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer

A World Apart – People of the Word

I’m going to try and keep these posts short but potent, a concise burst of information for the short attention span of the modern world. I could write for hours on this, but you wouldn’t be able to stand reading it, I think.

Question 4 of the Westminster Larger Catechism is this:
‘How [does] it appear that the Scriptures are the word of God?’
‘The scriptures manifest [make obvious] themselves to be the word of God, by their majesty and purity; by the consent of all the parts, and the scope of the whole, which is to give all glory to God; by their light and power to convince and convert sinners, to comfort and build up believers unto salvation; but the Spirit of God bearing witness by and with the scriptures in the heart of man, is alone able to persuade fully to persuade it that they are the very word of God.’

To paraphrase: Why can I, or any Christian say that the Bible is the inspired and true word of God? I can say it because it is historical, complete in its contents and clear in its arc and scope, and by it people have had their lives changed; the Holy Spirit, spoken of in its pages, is the agent of conversion and the means by which people receive what it has to say, and with which people learn more about the person, nature, power and sovereignty of Christ, and the untainted benevolence of the Father.

How many times have we questioned the things that we have always received as true? How many times have we looked at what we see on television, hear on the radio or read on the internet as less than factual? For that matter, how many times have you questioned the Bible, questioned yourself or examined the nature of your faith and its reality? I’d wager that such self-reflexivity is not a natural feature of the human, but something that has wormed its way in to the heart and mind since the Age of Enlightenment. It’s second-nature to the postmodern person to question the reality within which they find themselves working , living and moving, but in living apart from the world, as people of the Word, Christians should no longer be bound by such painful insecurity. Not to say that they aren’t…God knows I’m not…but the truth and the hope of the matter is that it’s no longer necessary.

Next time – Christ writes himself out of the pages of the Word, into the hearts and minds of those who love Him.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

A World Apart – Argument

In an earlier post, I mentioned that there has been a gross overbalance in my subject matter, tending towards a lament at the state of the church in the West rather than bringing what Christ really means to the believer to the fore. With A World Apart, I’m hoping to rectify that somewhat. The title itself has two meanings: The first is to distinguish, to sequester. The second is perhaps more subtle, but also more interesting. I’m using it to suggest the loss of a consciousness of Christ in the contemporary Western world, and what that means.

A world apart is what happens when the church becomes wrapped up in itself, but also what happens when the Christian experiences Christ. The ‘new birth’ of being born again
A) changes desires
B) creates knowledge of sin, for ‘we know that whatever the law says it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin’ (Romans 3:19-20)
and
C) creates a new understanding of the world within which we live and interact with others. It creates an understanding that there is a world apart from the sin, darkness and destruction we find ourselves in on a daily basis, and that we can and must live for the coming of that world.

Thus the Christian is distinguished from the world of sin by being separated from it for a new and better purpose than the trivialities and amusements that we so often define as our lives. That purpose is to live for the joy of the world redeemed from all of its follies, its shortsightedness, its injustices, and its many troubled souls.

The second meaning of ‘a world apart’ is one that will occur throughout these posts, and that is the essential quality of being without God, losing or rejecting a consciousness of Christ. In a world that is self-centered, there can be no room for others. This is the state taken to its logical extreme, which may not always be the case. While there are many who serve others without a consciousness of why they do it – that is, without knowledge of the Servant King – and in so doing call themselves good people, what I intend to suggest here is that this is still a selfish aim, a reward-oriented rather than love-giving life. Here is the first tricky step of what’s going to become a long journey – Biblically, part of the reason that service is rendered to others freely is to gain a reward in heaven…but that reward is not for us. It’s to give God glory, and to do that by praising Him. Essentially, our reward is to celebrate the purity and holiness of the eternal Lord without being constrained by sinful selfishness. It’s very hard to wrap your head around this, sometimes.

Digression aside, I began speaking here about the essential quality of being without God. I’ll return to that now, but I needed to lay some groundwork. This is, without doubt, a world without the consciousness of Christ as sovereign, as supreme, as messiah and intercessor. It contains things which we call good, but also a terribly disproportionate amount of what we call bad. We use these terms because we are aware of right and wrong, but not why. I mentioned, some time ago, the moral law that guides us. Those foundational posts are going to return here, augmented with some new value-added.

A World Apart is intended to celebrate the hope of redemption for a lost world, to imbue its readers with a sense of truth in a sea of falsehood, and to express a sense of awe at the power and glory of God the Father, Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit. To do this I may have to break one or two of my unwritten rules, take some risks in presenting what amounts to my perspective as connected to what truth is, and go deeper than I have before in my posts. But I can’t believe that what you’re going to get here is going to be without purpose or product, because I have been promised, in Isaiah 55, that God’s going to use what He has purposed to be used:

“Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him when he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:6-11)

So you’re going to see more Bible, for sure, because uncompromisingly, I believe that the Bible recounts truth, and is the inspired Word of God, which both tells the story of Jesus and brings Him to those who seek Him in it. He is real both in the Word and in writing Himself to us through it as people of the Word. And that’s where I’m going to start off.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.