Category: Gospel

Still in school: Learning from a book about failures

TBLeave a comment

And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” — John 8:31-33

There is a tendency for me not to get it. And not only to I not get it, I do what I don’t want to do again and again. That is why I am encouraged when I take up the Bible and read it. Why? Because over and over I see people who fail miserably yet are able, with God’s help, to come back to God. I agree with Scotty Smith, who prays “As you dealt with Peter, so deal with me. Give me all the life-giving rebukes I need to keep me living in gospel-sanity.”

We have not graduated from the gospel. We need it each day. The hard lessons are a good thing for me. I am glad for the imperfect people of the Bible who are there to show me that only God can make me what I need to be, what I hope to be.

Scotty’s prayer is a great one. Read it all and let it soak it.

Believing is the evidence of new birth

TBLeave a comment

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. — I John 5:1

Being liberated from the hard yoke — by the easy one

TBLeave a comment

I have been enthalled again rereading and listening to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “The Cost of Discipleship.” Bonhoeffer streches and challenges my mind when I read sections like this:

When the Bible speaks of “following Jesus”, it is proclaiming a discipleship which will liberate mankind from all man-made dogma, from every burden and oppression, from every anxiety and torture which afflicts the conscience. If they follow Jesus, men escape from the hard yoke of their own laws, and submit to the kindly yoke of Jesus Christ. But does this mean that we can ignore the seriousness of His command? Far from it! We can only achieve perfect liberty and enjoy fellowship with Jesus when His command, His call to absolute discipleship, is appreciated in its entirety. Only the man who follows the command of Jesus without reserve, and submits unresistingly to His yoke, finds his burden easy, and under its gentle pressure receives the power to persevere in the right way. The command of Jesus is hard –unutterably hard — for those who try to resist it. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, xxxiii)

There was a conversation we had the other day at my house. We were talking about reserve and how people’s personalities change. It was my contention that, while there are always instances of indecision, a person who comes to Christ (and follows him as a disciple) has a boldness that goes beyond his own personal inhibitions because Christ has already secured everything for him. The irony is that you are freed from oppression only by complete surrender.

You will not be disappointed if you read “The Cost of Discipleship.” At the very least, go download it for free and listen. If you are like me, you will be rewarded for the effort.

Our record of good deeds doesn’t save us

TBLeave a comment

And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. — Col. 2:13-14

There is a way that people of many faiths blur the lines among them. It happens when they mistakenly think that their good deeds can one day outweigh their bad deeds. As Christians, we are told through the Bible that this is not possible. Indeed, rather than paying our debt (through good deeds), it says we are only saved through the cancellation of our debt by God. And that is only done through Jesus taking that debt on the cross.

We are fooling ourselves when we think our good deeds outweigh our bad deeds because, the Bible says, even our good deeds are defective when they are not done in faith. (Romans 14:23). Besides, that is not the way God saves. Rather, we are saved through Jesus Christ, who took the curse of our sin upon himself on the cross. In that act, the debt of our sin was erased before God. We will never be able to save ourselves through the law, as Romans 8:3-4 says: “For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

Look to Jesus Christ, the only way for you to erase the debt of your sin.

A love story with a happy ending for those who believe

TBLeave a comment

[He]  loved me and gave himself for me. — Galatians 2:20

I love the blessing God has given me in that I have two females in my house who love romances. More than once I have been persuaded to sit with them and watch a movie (usually something based on a Jane Austen novel, the favorite around here) about a young woman who struggles in a relationship with a man. At first, she thinks he is rude or cold or something unattractive like that. But, as the movie progresses, we see that he has been working — usually without her knowing it — on her behalf out of his deep love for her. When she comes to this realization she swoons, her heart melts and they end up marrying. The movie ends there and my women are pleased.

The idea that someone does something for us not just out of duty but out of love is something that is hard for any of us to resist. We know that God demonstrated his great love for us in sacrificing the most precious person to him for our sins. (Romans 5:7-8). But it wasn’t just God who showed an incredible love. Time and again the Bible points to the great love Jesus himself showed on our behalf. It certainly wasn’t because we deserved his love. After all, we are the ones who have rebelled against God. We are ones with a heart of stone, doomed to a just punishment for our sin. (Romans 3:23) But the Bible tells us that Jesus “loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galations 2:20), that he “loved the church and gave himself up for her.” (Ephesians 5:25) and that he “(laid) down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13).

Is that you, or me? Are we his friend, the church?

And I hear the answer, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31). “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13). “Everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name” (Acts 10:43). “To all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12). “Whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). (from Fifty Reasons Jesus Came to Die by John Piper, p. 31)

The story is moving along. We are being wooed by the perfect suitor. If we look, we can see it unfolding before us. Will you let Jesus melt your heart with his love?  Jesus died because of his great love for you and prayed, near the end of his life: “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me.” (John 17:24) There is a glorious future with Jesus for those who see and believe.

Getting a grip on how much we’re not worth it: You’re looking the wrong way.

TB1 Comment

For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. – Romans 5:7-8

The other day I saw a portion of a new book by D.A. Carson called “Scandalous.” In it, he says “Those who draw really close to Jesus think of themselves, first and foremost, as those loved by him rather than those who profess their love for him.” He is talking about the instances in the New Testament where writers described themselves as being loved by Jesus. The point is is that the attention is focused not on them and their efforts but on Christ and what he has done. This is a good thing to think about because we — me, you, all of us — have a tendancy to inflate our self-worth when talking about our salvation.

But, if that’s the case, then how do we read and understand the verse above? When it says God loved us “while we were yet sinners” it doesn’t mean that we were especially valuable. Rather, it points to the depth of his grace and love. We have a tendancy to get it backwards because we are so intent on protecting our self esteem. In Fifty Ways Jesus Came To Die, John Piper addresses this kind of thinking:

I have heard it said, “God didn’t die for frogs. So he was responding to our value as humans.” This turns grace on its head. We are worse off than frogs. They have not sinned. They have not rebelled and treated God with the contempt of being inconsequential in their lives. God did not have to die for frogs. They aren’t bad enough. We are. Our debt is so great, only a divine sacrifice could pay it.

There is only one explanation for God’s sacrifice for us. It is not us. It is “the riches of his grace” (Ephesians 1:7). It is all free. It is not a response to our worth. It is the overflow of his infinite worth. In fact, that is what divine love is in the end: a passion to enthrall undeserving sinners, at great cost, with what will make us supremely happy forever, namely, his infinite beauty. 

Christ’s death on the cross is a magnificent event. We should all look at it and marvel. But if we come away thinking it’s a lesson about our worth, then we’ve tragically missed the point.

What does the resurrection of Jesus prove?

TBLeave a comment
If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.  — I Corintians 15:17 
In Fifty Ways Jesus Came to Die,  John Piper says that Jesus’ resurrection didn’t merely follow His death, it was the seal of God’s approval:

 Now what is the relationship between this shedding of Jesus’ blood and the resurrection? The Bible says he was raised not just after the blood-shedding, but by it. This means that what the death of Christ accomplished was so full and so perfect that the resurrection was the reward and vindication of Christ’s achievement in death.

Jesus’ death so satisfied God’s wrath that his resurrection was not the final payment but the reward for and vindication of that death. We can rest assured knowing that the shedding of Jesus’ blood fully covers our sins and that now he lives forever on our behalf.

  
  

 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why the obedience of Jesus matters for us

TBLeave a comment

Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. — Hebrews 5:8

Obedience gets a bad rap in some corners in this age. After all, if you are an assertive, goal-oriented person in the Western World, obedience is not one of the virtues that ranks high on your list. A quick search with Google of news stories about obedience brings up warnings to avoid “blind obedience” when it comes to the president or else a series of stories regarding pets.

Yet, when we look at Jesus and his death, we are told in verses like the one above that he learned obedience through his sufferings. Does that mean he had to learn to stop disobeying? No, because the Bible again and again teaches that he was sinless. In I Peter 2:22 it says Jesus “committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth.” He wasn’t getting rid of some imperfections. Instead, Hebrews 2:10 gives some insight behind what his sufferings were accomplishing:

For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.

Rather than making Jesus into a more perfect person, God was making Jesus into a more perfect sacrifice for us through the things he suffered. Even though Jesus was perfect and God, he still was human. And we can see that he experienced everything as we do when he lived on earth: hunger (Matthew 21:18) anger and grief (Mark 3:5) and pain (Matthew 17:12). The ESV Study Bible concurs on this view: In saying that Jesus was made perfect, the author is not suggesting that Jesus was sinful  but that as he lived his life, his maturity and experience deepened, yet always with full obedience to the Father. As a human being, he needed to live his life and obey God (which he did perfectly) to become the perfect sacrifice for sins.

In Fifty Reasons Jesus Came To Die, John Piper puts the perfect obedience of Jesus into perspective:

If the Son of God had gone from incarnation to the cross without a life of temptation and pain to test his righteousness and his love, he would not be a suitable Savior for fallen man. His suffering not only absorbed the wrath of God. It also fulfilled his true humanity and made him able to call us brothers and sisters (Hebrews 2:17). (Page 25)

So, we can rejoice in the obedience of Jesus to His Father. Through it, we were not only given a perfect sacrifice for our sins, but we were also given a special closeness to him that goes beyond advocate. He can understand and sympathize with our situation like no one else can.

The demand for justice: He had to die. The bountiful love: He provided a substitute.

TB1 Comment

whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. — Romans 3:25 (ESV)

Continuing from our post yesterday, we are looking further at the death of Jesus and why it matters so much to us today. There are two sides to the death of Jesus, namely: It is a just act and it is a loving act.

The reason it is a just act is because God is just and the punishment for sin demands a price. After all, in Deuteronomy 6:5 it says “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” That is a high standard that no one has achieved. It’s not that we don’t try to achieve that, it’s that we can’t fully. Sin itself is preferring something else to God, and we do it all the time in the choices we make. We show our love is greater for other things rather than for God. That is why the Bible also says in Romans 3:23: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

So what is that price? The price is death and punishment. In Fifty Reasons Why Christ Suffered and Died, John Piper says “[S]in is not small, because it is not against a small Sovereign. The seriousness of an insult rises with the dignity of the one insulted. The Creator of the universe is infinitely worthy of respect and admiration and loyalty. Therefore, failure to love him is not trivial—it is treason. It defames God and destroys human happiness.”

If God were to brush sin aside or put it under the rug, it would make Him smaller and make him less worthy of worship. But God is at war with sin and has made clear through the Bible what that means. “For the wages of sin is death” it says in Romans 3:23 and “The soul that sins shall die” it says in Ezekiel 18:4. Clearly there is a consequence to sin, and justice is demanded from a holy God.

Read More »

The purpose in the passion of Jesus Christ: Why one man’s death matters

TB1 Comment

This month, like every other month, christianaudio.com is offering a free download of an audiobook. In fact, this month’s deal is even better than in past months because they are offering not one but two free downloads: Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “The Cost of Discipleship” is free along with John Piper’s “Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came To Die.”  If these books are not in your library, then this is a great time to add them. To get them for free, all you have to do is go to the page for each audiobook, add it to your cart and then when asked for add coupons or promotion codes enter MAR2010 for the Bonhoeffer audiobook and MAR2010B for the Piper audiobook. After that you will be given a page with the files to download.

Since we are in the lenten season and Easter is just over a month away, I thought it would be good to look through “Fifty Reasons” and see why it matters — not just for Christians, but for all of humanity — why Jesus came to die. It has been said that there is no one who has anyone against Jesus. After all, he is viewed by people of all stripes favorably depending on your world view and what you seek to advance. His death by crucifixion brings the most important question of that time or any time in history: Why did Jesus have to die?

Beyond the human cause, which some would point to, there is a deeper cause if you explore the Bible. John Piper explains in the introduction of  “Fifty Reasons”:

The Hebrew prophet Isaiah said, “It was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief” (Isaiah 53:10). The Christian New Testament says, “[God] did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all” (Romans 8:32). “God put [Christ] forward . . . by his blood, to be received by faith” (Romans 3:25).

But how does this divine act relate to the horribly sinful actions of the men who killed Jesus? The answer given in the Bible is expressed in an early prayer: “There were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus . . . both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place” (Acts 4:27-28). The depth and scope of this divine sovereignty takes our breath away. But it is also the key to our salvation. God planned it, and by the means of wicked men, great good has come to the world. To paraphrase a word of the Jewish Torah: They meant it for evil, but God meant it for good (Genesis 50:20).

And since God meant it for good, we must move beyond the question of human cause to divine purpose. The central issue of Jesus’ death is not the cause, but the purpose—the meaning. Man may have his reasons for wanting Jesus out of the way. But only God can design it for the good of the world. In fact, God’s pur- poses for the world in the death of Jesus are unfathomable. I am scraping the surface in this little book as I introduce you to fifty of them. My aim is to let the Bible speak. This is where we hear the word of God. I hope that these pointers will set you on an endless quest to know more and more of God’s great design in the death of his Son.

There is so much to learn from the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is my hope that we will spend less time thinking about meals, clothes, candy and gatherings at Easter and more about what the Jesus Christ accomplished not only in history but for our lives. In the coming days I will be going through the chapters of this little book. If you are not a big reader (and it is not a big book at all to read), you can go download the audiobook for free so you can follow along. If you do like to read, Desiring God offers the book for free online as a PDF download. Either way, take some time to think about the death of the most important man in history and what purpose it served.