Author Archives: Christopher J Wiles

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About Christopher J Wiles

Hey there. My name's Chris. I'm a teaching pastor at Tri-State Fellowship, and a research writer for Docent Research Group. Thanks for stopping by; be sure to stay connected by subscribing to blog updates and more.

Mercy and justice (Psalm 85)

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Justice is something we typically want for others; mercy is something we typically want for ourselves.  If you’re married, you probably see this played out on a daily basis.  When faced with your spouse’s shortcomings—sometimes as simple as an unfinished task—the “law” comes out.  “The dishes aren’t done,” you might insist, or, “the lawn needs mowed.”  But when the shoe’s on the other foot, you expect leniency.  A friend of mine told me that he’d come to realize that “law for you, grace for me” had become one of the defining features of his marriage.  And it hurt.

Earlier this week we’ve observed that God gives blessings to his people, and we’ve also seen that it’s only natural for us to desire justice for wrongdoing.  How these two traits fit together is a thing of beauty, so much so that it’s been sung even in the ancient worship songs of Israel:

Steadfast love and faithfulness meet;
righteousness and peace kiss each other.
11 Faithfulness springs up from the ground,
and righteousness looks down from the sky.
12 Yes, the Lord will give what is good,
and our land will yield its increase.
13 Righteousness will go before him
and make his footsteps a way. (Psalm 85:10-13)

The unnamed writer tells us that “righteousness and peace kiss each other.”  This same righteousness that demands justice for sin is unified with the peace of God’s salvation.

Nowhere do we find that more clearly demonstrated than in the cross itself, where God’s love and God’s fierce justice intersect on a hillside just outside the city.

John Stott writes:

“It is the Judge himself who in holy love assumed the role of innocent victim, for in and through the person of his Son he himself bore the penalty that he himself inflicted. As Dale put it, “The mysterious unity of the Father and the Son rendered it possible for God at once to endure and to inflict penal suffering.” There is neither harsh injustice nor unprincipled love nor Christological heresy in that; there is only unfathomable mercy. For in order to save us in such a way as to satisfy himself, God through Christ substituted himself for us. Divine love triumphed over divine wrath by divine self-sacrifice. The cross was an act simultaneously of punishment and amnesty, severity and grace, justice and mercy.”[1]

At the cross we find both mercy and justice.  Justice, because Jesus paid the debt of human wickedness, and mercy, because this payment wipes our slates clean.  We therefore are released from the weight of our own shame, but we are also released from the weight of our social outrage.  That is, when we are confronted with radical evil—whether in the headlines or our own households—we look to the cross and recognize that true justice is found there, that when we demand blood God offers his own.

No matter the headline, no matter the circumstance, justice is ultimately found in the righteousness of God.  And so is mercy.  I don’t mean to say that there are no earthly consequences—as if God does not use such events even to discipline his own children.  But as Christians we extend mercy and grace to our brothers and sisters knowing their debts have been paid the same as ours.

 

[1] John Stott, The Cross of Christ, 158-9.

The desire for justice (Romans 2:1-8)

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When confronted by radical evil, or usual talk of tolerance and moral relativism slide right out the window.  Morals, we’re often told, are the products of social forces—certainly not the works of an absolute God.  But this kind of skepticism fails to equip us to deal with the sorts of evil acts that have confronted us in the news cycle even of late.

No one is calling out for mercy or tolerance of sexual criminals or drunk drivers.  Both nationally or locally, we have many people crying out for blood, for retribution, for justice.

Christianity tells us that there is true, lasting justice found in the character of God.  In Paul’s famous letter to the church in Rome, he writes:

Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. 2 We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. 3 Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? 4 Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? 5 But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.

6 He will render to each one according to his works: 7 to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; 8 but for those who are self-seeking[a] and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.9 There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, 10 but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. 11 For God shows no partiality. (Romans 2:1-11)

If you’re a skeptic or simply new to the Christian faith, you may struggle with the idea of a God who expresses things like anger and judgment.  Those of us who grew up in the self-esteem movement have been assured—sometimes from birth—that we are a unique and beautiful snowflake.  Surely you and I are worthy of God’s love?

But again, the cries for justice are right and proper when dealing with human depravity.  In recent years, one of the most popular TV programs was Breaking Bad, a show that depicted a high school chemistry teacher who starts manufacturing illegal drugs to pay for his mounting medical bills.  At first you pity him, but as the story unfolds evil takes hold of him.  Viewers watch as this ordinary man becomes a man of extraordinary evil.  Why would such a show become so popular?  The show’s director explains that it has everything to do with our innate sense of justice:

“If religion is a reaction of man, and nothing more, it seems to me that it represents a human desire for wrongdoers to be punished…. I feel some sort of need for Biblical atonement, or justice, or something. I like to believe there is some comeuppance, that karma kicks in at some point, even if it takes years or decades to happen. My girlfriend says this great thing that’s become my philosophy as well. ‘I want to believe there’s a heaven. But I can’t not believe there’s a hell.”[1]

Christianity tells us that our desire for justice is right and proper—it’s just not broad enough.  It’s easy to see evil in the papers; it’s much harder to see it in the mirror.

But the Bible tells us that God is a God of justice, a God who is ferociously angry at anything and everything that defies the goodness of his character and his creation.  And that includes you and me.

For those of us that trust Christ, this brings us both the relief of having escaped God’s judgment (because Jesus took our place), and it brings us the hope of future, final vindication (because there will be a final resurrection and justice).

To paraphrase something often said by pastor and author Tim Keller, even if Christianity weren’t true, we should want it to be true.  All man’s attempts at justice are little more than cause-effect types of punishments.  Only the gospel promises final, eternal justice.  Are you angry?  Hurting?  Dissatisfied by the state of our hurting world?  Then we have only to look to the cross, look to the hope of God’s future, knowing that our destiny is as secure as God’s justice is swift.

 

[1] Segal, David (July 6, 2011). “The Dark Art of ‘Breaking Bad'”. The New York Times. July 25, 2011.

The uncommon goodness of common grace (Matthew 5:45)

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Due to technical difficulties, this post got lost along the way, so we’re posting it a little out of order this week.  Enjoy.

Not terribly long ago I was thumbing my way through the catalog for a Christian bookstore when I ran across an advertisement for “Guitar Praise,” the Christian version of the popular video game “Guitar Hero.”  The game’s tagline read: “Solid Rock—Join a Christian band!”

The whole thing made my mind wander back to a poster I’d seen in youth group.  The poster was a long list of bands, broken into genres and sub-genres of music.  The left column featured a list of “secular” bands; the right column featured a list of “Christian” bands.

But really, what made me drop my jaw was when I discovered that they also made a Christian version of the video game “Dance Dance Revolution.”  I already forget what it was called, I only remember the series of surprises that it elicited.  First, I was surprised that such a product even existed.  Second, I was surprised that my seminary bookstore carried and sold such a product.  And third, I was surprised that my seminary bookstore was sold out on the day that I first learned about it.  The school across the street was Southern Baptist, and you know those guys ain’t buying a dancing game (if you’re reading this as a Southern Baptist, I kid!  Those Gaither boys can really cut a rug…).

We are right, of course, to be cautious about the sorts of media we consume and the messages it contains.  I’m not objecting here to discernment; I’m objecting to labels.  It’s like the song from Derek Webb, where he asks: “Don’t teach me about truth and beauty…just label my music…I want a new law.”  Stuff like this only reinforces the wrong-headed belief that there is a “secular” world out there and we are safe if we only absorb “Christian” books, music, and movies.  But “Christian” isn’t an adjective; it’s a noun.  It doesn’t describe the quality of something; it refers to a follower of Christ.

In one of his most famous sermons, Jesus tells his audience that we can’t treat people differently on the basis of a simple division between “neighbor” and “enemy.”  Why?  Because God shows mercy and provision to all people:

43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. (Matthew 5:43-45)

In a society whose economy depended on farming, sunlight and rain represented the promise of blessing and prosperity.  The ancient rabbis believed that God showed blessing by sending rain on all people—even non-believers—by virtue of his loving character, and as something of the by-product of his love for his people, Israel.

But this sort of blessing is seen not just in God’s provision, but also in the way that he equips men and women with skills suited to the world they inhabit.  Listen to what God says through his messenger, Isaiah, roughly 700 years or so before the birth of Jesus:

Give ear, and hear my voice;
give attention, and hear my speech.
24 Does he who plows for sowing plow continually?
Does he continually open and harrow his ground?

25 When he has leveled its surface,
does he not scatter dill, sow cumin,
and put in wheat in rows
and barley in its proper place,
and emmer as the border?
26 For he is rightly instructed;
his God teaches him.

27 Dill is not threshed with a threshing sledge,
nor is a cart wheel rolled over cumin,
but dill is beaten out with a stick,
and cumin with a rod.

28 Does one crush grain for bread?
No, he does not thresh it forever;
when he drives his cart wheel over it with his horses, he does not crush it.
29 This also comes from the Lord of hosts;
he is wonderful in counsel
and excellent in wisdom.

(Isaiah 28:23-29)

Don’t miss what Isaiah is saying here: God is the source of all skills, all abilities.  If human beings are made in the image of a God who creates and shapes the world into order (Genesis 1:26), then it only makes sense that God created all people to create and shape the world into order.

Roughly 500 years ago, the reformers would dub this concept “Common Grace.”  Common grace has nothing to do with salvation—not directly, anyway.  Common grace refers instead to the creative and artistic gifts God grants to all people.  John Calvin would write:

“Whenever we come upon [truth] in secular writers, let that admirable light of truth shining in them teach us that the mind of man, though fallen and perverted from its wholeness, is nevertheless clothed and ornamented with God’s excellent gifts.  If we regard the Spirit of God as the sole source of truth, we shall neither reject the truth itself nor despise it wherever it shall appear….Those men whom Scripture calls ‘natural men’ were, indeed, sharp and penetrating in their investigation of inferior things.  Let us, accordingly, learn by their example how many gifts the Lord left to human nature even after it was despoiled of its true good.”(John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion)

What does this mean?  It means that we see God as the ultimate source of goodness, but we shouldn’t neglect the immediate evidence of this goodness in things ranging from books to movies to our favorite Eric Clapton riff.  The baseball player that swings for the fences is likewise reflecting the image of his Creator—even if the player doesn’t even recognize this.

What am I getting at?  Again, I realize there are plenty of examples of areas that demand thoughtful discernment.  But what if, just what if, we had a greater desire to celebrate our culture as sourced in God’s goodness rather than condemn it as another example of human wickedness?

This is important, because Christianity goes one level even deeper.  The Christian teaching of the so-called “end times” is really a teaching about God’s new beginning—a new plan for a new creation.  The very best things we experience now only point to a far, far greater fulfillment in this new world, the way that a budding flower hints at a greater beauty to come with the changing of seasons.  In one of his most celebrated sermons, C.S. Lewis talked about what he called his “inconsolable secret:”

“In speaking of this desire for our own far off country….I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence…Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter…But all this is a cheat….The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things…are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.” (C.S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory”)

Art, music, sports, even the craftsmanship that goes into motorcycle repair—these skills and creations all point beyond themselves to a brighter and more glorious world.  We call it “Common Grace” now—but what lies ahead is an uncommon treasure.

 

 

Chewbacca masks and Gorilla moms (Luke 13:1-5)

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If social media has taught us anything, it’s how rapidly public opinion can rise into a tidal wave of joy or outrage in blink of an eye.  And this shows us a little bit about how our society tends to function, morally speaking.

Exhibit A.  A young mom goes to Kohl’s and ends up walking out with a Chewbacca mask.  Once she gets in the car, she uses her cell phone to film herself putting it on and laughing hysterically at the sounds the mask makes.  After posting the video to the internet, the video “went viral,” as they say.  Within 2-3 weeks, the “Chewbacca mom” garnered the attention not just of social media users, but companies started giving her all sorts of gifts.  One college even awarded her children full college scholarships.  Time magazine estimated the sum of all her gifts to be well over $400,000.

Exhibit B.  A mom takes her child to the zoo.  Somehow, some way, the child ends up in the gorilla pit, forcing the zoo to kill the gorilla in an effort to save the child.  And once again, on the internet, the crowds went wild.  Only this time, not as a cheering section, but as a lynch mob. People were irate over the “Gorilla mom’s” apparent negligence.  Why should an endangered animal have to die just because she can’t be a parent?  Online petitions were circulated, demanding justice for the fallen gorilla.

So there we have it.  Sit in the car in front of Kohl’s and you can be an internet hero.  Let your child fall into a pit and you become tabloid trash.

I know, I know, I know; there’s something to be said here about parenting skills and protecting your child from doing something stupid (and risky).  It’s just that when things like this happen everyone leaps to assumptions and accusations, as though we all possess a perfectly-tuned moral compass and the needle’s pointing toward the Chewbacca mom and far, far away from the gorilla mom.

When tragedy comes, the natural thing to do is look for a cause.  If we can ascribe blame, then maybe we can prevent the tragedy from ever happening again.  And maybe—just maybe—blame can help us feel better about ourselves.  We like a world that’s neatly divided between the Chewbacca mom and the Gorilla mom, because it feels good to associate ourselves with laughter and to distance ourselves from perceived negligence—and tears.

We find a similar collision of values in Luke’s portrait of Jesus:

There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2 And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. 4 Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? 5 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” (Luke 13:1-5)

There are many times when Jesus’ biographers detail historical events that we can find evidence for elsewhere.  This isn’t one of those times.  We know nothing of these two incidents save for what we find here.  First, there had apparently been a time when Pilate had killed a group of Galileans when they were offering their sacrifice—most likely Passover, the only time when non-priests would make such sacrifices.  The temptation that Jesus’ admirers faced was to assume that God had caused this to happen because these guys deserved it somehow.  Jesus will have none of it.  He reminds them of another, previous incident, where a tower fell and killed eighteen people.  But, Jesus asks, are we really willing to say that these people deserved it while others did not?

The Chewbacca mom and Gorilla mom debate goes chillingly deep.  When more severe tragedies strike, it’s tempting to try and separate the world into black and white categories of right and wrong—and of course we’re on the right side.

After his release from a Russian Gulag, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn found himself wishing for such a gap to emerge.  “If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary to separate them from the rest of us…But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.”[1]

The famed writer is onto something.  The line between internet sensation and tabloid trash has nothing to do with Chewbacca masks or gorilla pits.  The line slices right through the human heart.  By God’s grace, we experience the exhilarating joys of life, and by our weakness, we taste all the bitterness life can muster.  The gospel shatters our weaknesses and replaces them with God’s strength.  Our feelings of inferiority and superiority wither when we recognize that we will be measured not by what we’ve done, but what has been done for us.

And as Christians, it’s up to us to make that message go viral.

[1] Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulad Archipelago.  (New York: Harper & Row, 1974), 168.

Teaching our children “success” (Deuteronomy 6)

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  • What does success in life look like? If you are a mother or father, how are you modeling success in front of your child?

It’s only natural to crave success.  After all, no one sets out in life to be just “average.”  But success can mean different things to different people.  Success depends entirely on one’s goals.

If you’re a mom or a dad, I’d wager that “success” means that your son or daughter comes home with a solid report card, or gets a lot of cheers on the soccer field.  Success means they grow up to marry a good, moral Christian spouse and raise kids who likewise are upstanding little achievers who don’t drink or lie or swear.

All of this, of course, is achievable without Jesus.  “Success,” when measured this way, is little more than external performance at best and a form of self-righteous idolatry at worst.

When the people of Israel were about to enter the Promised Land, Moses led the people in something of a “revival service,” a way of reiterating their role in their relationship with God.  In one of the most famous sections of Deuteronomy, God tells his people what successful parenting looks like:

“Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the rules—that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, 2 that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son and your son’s son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long.

3 Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey

4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (Deuteronomy 6:1-9)

Success, in the Christian sense, isn’t about achieving a list of goals—as worthy as that may be.  Success is about being faithful to the character of God.  Now, that doesn’t mean we raise a generation of monks and ministers.  But it does mean that we raise a generation of men and women who see their career as part of God’s larger story.  There was a puritan proverb long ago that said: “God loveth adverbs.”  The meaning, of course, is that God is as concerned with what we do as he is how we do it.  How do we raise soccer players who show God’s love to their teammates and coaches?  How do we raise boys and girls who honor the boundaries set by God (and their parents) when it comes to dating?  How do we raise young adults who choose a career path that doesn’t merely maximize their potential, but becomes an avenue for living out the gospel in their workplace?

I realize this is a larger conversation, but for the purpose of this summer we would like to challenge you to get involved in our Vacation Bible School program here at Tri-State Fellowship.  You can click here to find the details through our Facebook page.  Our prayer is that we impact the hearts and lives of the children who participate, as well as their parents and those in the community who might be entering our walls for the very first time.

And even if you’re unable to participate directly, we ask that you pray diligently for the success of this event.  After all, our children will grow up to believe in something.  We pray that God’s story would be the one that takes root.

Garden to Garden (Revelation 21-22)

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  • Do you believe humans have a destiny? What destiny do you hope for?

Having worked with a lot of college students over the years, I’ve noticed that a prevailing challenge is the sense of homelessness that comes with the years of transition.  I don’t mean that college students lack a place to stay.  If anything, I can name young adults that have made an art out of “couch surfing,” crashing on random friends’ couches as they navigate life in their early 20’s.

No, I’m talking about what happens when the home you grew up in, the home you made memories in, starts to feel unfamiliar.  It’s the college student that returns home for Winter or Summer Break, and begins to realize that the building they once knew as “home” has become just another place to store their stuff.

It’s hard to feel “at home” in a world like ours.  The Bible tells us that we began life in a garden, but its beauty seems presently eclipsed by a lot of thorns and grey.

But the Bible tells us that there is one big story.  What began in a garden defiled culminates in a garden restored.  In John’s Revelation, we read that the destiny for God’s creation is to be made new again in the presence of God and Jesus:

22 And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. 23 And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb.24 By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, 25 and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. 26 They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. 27 But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 3 No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever. (Revelation 21:22—22:5)

While not all of John’s imagery makes immediate sense to modern ears, his central point is unavoidable: that God’s world has a future, and that if we trust Christ we, too, can find hope in a greater kingdom.

Why is this so important?  Because fear begets fear, but hope springs eternally from the handiwork of God himself. There is no shortage of things to inspire fear or anger or sorrow.  But in Christ there is an incredible promise of lasting joy.

  • Additional question(s) to share and consider:
    • When you pause and consider the destiny of your family, of America, of the world, what emotions does this stir? What might that tell you about your beliefs about human progress?
    • How might hope in God’s future plan change the way you respond to your circumstances at present?

 

 

The True Word (John 1:1-5)

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  • What is the greatest problem in our world today? How might it be fixed?

The fact that the world is broken (or, at least, that it contains brokenness) is not easily disputed.  We find evidence as readily as the evening news.  The fact that so much squabbling goes on only testifies to just how unable we are to pinpoint just what the problem really is—let alone how it may be fixed.

If we believe that our greatest problem is a political one, then we need a political solution—and we have quite a few jockeying for position as we speak.  If we believe our problem to be a moral one, then we need a religious teacher or self-help program.  If we believe our problem to be social, we might long for a great revolutionary or another Gandhi.

We might point out that over the years, there have been many who have attributed these and other roles to the person of Jesus.  In the ancient world, one of Jesus’ closest followers was a man named John.  John lived in an era where the stories of Jesus were widely known, but their meaning was gradually slipping away.  In John’s own community of Ephesus, Jesus’ followers knew only the teachings of John the Baptist (Acts 18:25).  So when John set out to write Jesus’ biography, he doesn’t merely chronicle Jesus’ life from birth to death, he takes us all the way back to the very beginning so that we might see Jesus on the broader landscape of eternity:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (John 1:1-5)

John’s opening words would have meant something different depending on your cultural background.  Jewish readers would have understood the “Word” to be the voice of God in creation and in Scripture; Greek readers would have understood the “Word” as the voice of reason in philosophy.  Both would have understood the Word to be the beginning of all things.

John tells us, then, that Jesus is the starting point for all that we see and know.  “In him was life,” John tells us, underscoring the fact that life comes only through God.  But John also warns that there is an element of darkness at work in the world today.  For John, this represents the intellectual darkness of disbelief as well as the moral darkness of man’s wickedness.

In that sense, sin brings darkness and doubt to the world; it clouds our minds and darkens our hearts such that a profound brokenness reigns.  Jesus, however, appears as a light that drives away the clouds of sin and despair.

Paul picks up on this same theme when he writes to the church in Colosse—a people that had grown increasingly confused regarding the true character of Jesus:

19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. (Colossians 1:19-20)

Jesus takes everything that’s been broken and puts it back together again, beginning by bringing you and I to the foot of his cross for forgiveness and transformation.

Many people offer a solution to the world’s problems.  But Jesus—the true Word—comes to us not just with a promise, but Jesus is the promise.  He is the solution, and not with a press kit or a national bestseller, but the wood of the cross.

In the darkness, his light shines.

  • Additional question(s) to share and consider:
    • Do you see sin as the greatest problem of the world today? How does this influence your view of politics, entertainment, etc.?
    • How is Jesus more than simply a “good moral teacher?” When did you come to understand Jesus the most?

 

 

Identity–God as the source of life (Genesis 1)

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As we said yesterday, we realize that many of you may be following along from the beach or from your boat.  Our format is designed to give you a question or two to think about and possibly discuss with your kids or your neighbors. 

  • What do you want to be most known for?  Where do you find your identity?

The question of “identity” is fundamental to our humanity.  Every child that has ever played dress-up, or put on a mask and a cape has sought to answer a very basic question: Who am I? 

This question never really goes away as we enter adulthood.  And—perhaps tragically—the great temptation is to continue to look for identity in the things we wear or the things we own.  “[Where] do we derive identity today?” asks Barry Taylor, artist and professor:

“I content that it is largely derived from our imagination. We shop for ‘ourselves’ in the marketplace of ever-expanding ideas brought to us when we enter cyberspace or media culture, or when we engage with the seemingly endless possibilities presented to us by a global consumer culture.”[1]

In short, we look for approval for wearing name-brand jeans and driving a luxury SUV.  Still others will seek identity not from a store but from a sports arena, or from a political affiliation, or from a report card.

The Bible says that God is the source of life.  As we saw yesterday, Paul emphasized that in God’s kingdom, “from him and through him and to him are all things” (Romans 11:36).  God is the source of life, he is the means of life, and he is the goal of life.

In the very first pages of scripture, we find the story of God creating man and woman:

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. 3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. (Genesis 1:1-3)

God then spends the first three days forming the environment of the earth, and on the next three days he fills the world with birds, fish, plants, animals, and—on a much more personal level—human beings.  “Let us make man in our own image,” God says (Genesis 1:26).  And so God forms man to be the earth’s unique caretaker—a divine representative of God in the world:

15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:15-17)

The rest of the story, as we know, is one of brokenness.  Man came to doubt the very Word of God that had spoken creation into existence.  Now man sought identity not through obedience, but by consuming a piece of forbidden fruit.  Thus began man’s long search for contentment in created things rather than the Creator himself.

The gospel is a story of how this brokenness can one day be put back together again.  C.S. Lewis once spoke of this distinction between what he called bios and zoe life.  “Bios,” he says, is “the Biological sort which comes to us through Nature, and which…can only be kept up by incessant subsidies from Nature in the form of air, water, food, etc.”  “Zoe,” on the other hand, is “the Spiritual life which is in God from all eternity.”

Biological life demands to be fed and maintained.  But spiritual life requires complete transformation.  Lewis concludes:

“A man who changed from having Bios to having Zoe would have gone through as big a change as a statue that changed from being a carved stone to being a real man.  And that is precisely what Christianity is about. This world is a great sculptor’s shop. We are the statues and there is a rumor going round the shop that some of us are some day going to come to life.”[2]

The gospel, of course, tells us that this is far from a “rumor,” but a promise made by the very Word of God.

What this means for us is that we cease looking for identity in the things around us, but look instead toward the Creator for a sense of wholeness and purpose.

  • Additional question(s) to share and consider:
    • Have you ever felt tempted to find identity in something other than God? What were the results?
    • What advice would you have for your children when they become wrapped up in their athletic or academic performance?

 

 

[1] Barry Taylor,Entertainment Theology, p. 46

[2] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity. New York. Touchstone (Simon & Schuster), 1943. 138-140.

Does life have meaning? (Romans 11:23-26)

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As with last summer, we realize that many of you may be following along from the beach or from your boat.  Our format is designed to give you a question or two to think about and possibly discuss with your kids or your neighbors. Here is the first one:

 

  • Does life have meaning? How do you explain the meaning of life?

It’s not hard to imagine two people who don’t agree on the meaning of life.  But in a nation that prizes “individualism,” it’s become hard to find two people who even agree that life has meaning at all.  “There is not one big cosmic meaning for all,” writes international novelist Anais Nin.  “There is only the meaning we give to our life, an individual meaning, an individual plot, like an individual novel, a book for each person.” [1]

On the surface this sounds like the ideal for a society whose greatest value is personal freedom.  But for many people this just isn’t enough.  In his recent book Present Shock, NPR’s Douglas Rushkoff writes of a young women who felt that the events of 9/11 had “disconnected her generation from a sense of history and that they ‘needed to connect with people from before that break in the story to get back on track.” [2]

This doesn’t sound that different from Paul’s description of life without Jesus.  He tells a group of new believers that before they found Jesus, they didn’t share the privileges of ethnic Jews.  “Remember,” he tells them, “you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. (Ephesians 2:12)

Meaning must have seemed far away.

Today it’s hard to feel grounded and rooted in a world of touch screens and Netflix binges.  Every piece of technology we own promises greater connection but only leaves us feeling more and more adrift in a digital sea.  What we need is a story, a master plot that helps us bring our seemingly random experiences together into something that makes sense.

For Paul, it was his own experience with Jesus and the gospel.  As he writes the letter to the Romans, Paul spells out God’s plan of salvation, his desire to transform hearts into something that resembles his Son Jesus.  And after describing God’s sovereign influence over human history, Paul’s words veer quite near poetry

33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been his counselor?”
35 “Or who has given a gift to him
that he might be repaid?”

36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. (Romans 11:33-36)

Life is sourced in God.  It comes through God, and finally, it exists for God.

It’s like the old story of the carpenter who loses his hammer.  He removes his pocket-watch and uses it to drive a nail.  The nail goes in halfway before the watch falls to pieces.  “Huh,” he says, scowling.  “What a lousy watch.”  And of course that’s silly, because that’s not what a watch is designed for.

Maybe it’s a silly illustration, but don’t you see?  You can never judge your life as good or bad unless you know your purpose.  Christianity says that man’s purpose isn’t just an idea; it’s a Person.  Without God our lives seem chaotic at best and miserable at worst.  But when we begin to understand that our purpose is to know God, then our lives will begin to take on new meaning.

  • Additional question(s) to share and consider:
    • Have you ever felt unhappy because life seemed meaningless?
    • If you are a Christian, how has knowing God given meaning to your life?  Explain.

 

 

[1] Anaias Nin, The Diary of Anaias Nin: Volume 1 (1931-1934) (New York: Harcourt, Inc., 1966), vii.

[2] Rushkoff, 18.

Moving from Spectators to Participants (1 Corinthians 12)

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Having grown up in the age of the internet, it always amazes me how technology designed for communication so quickly becomes a vehicle for self-expression.  Social media, for example, was originally designed to connect college students to one another.  Now it’s become something of a deafening, online buffet of inane rants and pictures of cats.  One of the things I’ve seen pop up more and more are the little quizzes like, “Which Lord of the Rings character are you?” or those obnoxious “Free online IQ test” types of things.  Why do we bother wasting our time with stuff like this?  It’s simple, really: we like things that make us feel special.  The only thing more valuable than self-expression is self-discovery that leads to self-satisfaction.

Too often church becomes a little bit like this—maybe even a lot like this.  Since the days of the big tent revival meetings, we’ve come to think of church as a bit of a spectator sport.  We line the pews because we believe the church’s messages and programs will offer us a sense of affirmation and a chance at discovering our identity.  When our church fails to meet these expectations, we wring our hands a bit, mention something or other about “not being fed” and head for the church just down the street.  The end result is that people change churches just as casually as others change dry cleaners.

Not that American church culture doesn’t share some of the blame. In an age where people measure church success by personal affirmation, churches must compete for members with all the fervor of a fast food corporation.  Over time, this leads not to a culture of discipleship, but a culture of consumer wants and fancies.  All of which is predicated on the misunderstanding that church leadership is about “professionals” who do the work of the ministry so that church-goers can reap the benefits during a Sunday morning service.

BEYOND MERE CONSUMERS

In Paul’s day, the church in Corinth struggled with confusion over the role of the Holy Spirit and empowerment for ministry.  Even today, it’s tempting to think of spiritual “gifts” as the things that make us unique or special.  But that’s missing the essential purpose of the diverse gifts God’s people have.  Spiritual gifts aren’t a mark of personal identity—at least not primarily.  They are a way of understanding the question: How can I contribute? 

Paul tells his readers that though the church body is very diverse, there is equally an essential unity among its members:

12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

14 For the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15 If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? 18 But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19 If all were a single member, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. (1 Corinthians 12:12-19)

The gospel removes any assumptions we might have of spiritual superiority or inferiority.  No gift—no person—is insignificant.  We may all contribute.

A CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS

Let’s get real for a second.  Some of you have been coming to church most of your life but you come as a spectator, not a participant.  You might place some of your money in the offering plate, but your time and energies are spent elsewhere.

Granted, everyone has busy seasons of life that prevent their involvement in service roles.  And we get that.  But there are times and seasons in which you have the opportunity to throw in with us as an active participant in the body of Christ.

We need each other—perhaps now more than ever.  In an age of Netflix binges and touch screens, human interaction is at a premium.  We need the members of the body working together, serving together, loving together.

We invite you to consider how you might be a greater part of our body here at Tri-State Fellowship.  There are volunteers needed in such places as the children’s ministry and the High School youth group.

Could you prayerfully consider how you might become a part of church leadership by serving the body?  You may contact one of our staff, or contact the church at info@tristatefellowship.org.