Jesus the Cowboy Hero

An isolated town is in trouble. Maybe it’s a gang of outlaws. Maybe it’s a greedy rancher, or a dictatorial mayor. In any case, bad men are having their way with the townsfolk. More importantly, there’s a beautiful woman in town and they’re after her too. She’s resisting tyranny—of course she is—while working to help the oppressed.

Then a cowboy rides into town. He’s tough. He’s quiet. He’s got a heart of gold. He’s drawn into the conflict. He shoots a bunch of bad people and works his way up to the chief bad guy himself. A showdown ensues—of course it does. The town is saved. The beautiful woman asks the cowboy to stay, but he can’t. He has to ride on, back into the wilderness. There are other good deeds waiting to be done.

I have always loved Westerns. I will watch any movie that features a cowboy with a six- shooter. I was born and raised in West Texas, and that is partially to blame for this affection. As a boy I would watch an episode of The Lone Ranger, then I’d put on my sheriff’s badge, grab my cap guns, and walk out onto the range, ready for adventure.

I’m not alone either. Americans love Westerns. We are fascinated by the myth of the cowboy-hero.

But of all the cowboy heroes, my favorite was Captain James Tiberius Kirk. Wait. What? Don’t act so surprised. Surely you knew that Star Trek was a Western, right? The only difference is that Kirk beamed in with a transporter rather than rode in on a horse.

Let us investigate: Captain Kirk, accompanied by sidekicks, rides down to the lonely planet on his transporter beam. He fights the bad guys, rescues the planet, and leaves the beautiful woman behind. He beams back to his spaceship leaving grateful aliens to stare up at the sky and wonder what life would be like if only Kirk wasn’t such a busy hero.

I had another sci-fi cowboy hero when I was a kid. This one I heard about at church. His name was Jesus. The Ascension of Jesus Christ sounds a lot like the Beaming of Captain Kirk. You remember the story. Forty days after the Resurrection, Jesus meets his followers near Bethany (Luke 24:50-53). He tells them to return to Jerusalem and wait for the coming of the Holy Sprit. Then he’s gone, up into the sky. Luke describes it this way “he lifted up his hands and blessed them. While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven” (Luke 24:50-53, NIV).

Jesus the Cowboy Hero

Some Christians see the Ascension as the last page of a dime-store novel called Jesus the Cowboy Hero: Western Adventure. Earth was in trouble. The land was dominated by sin, the devil, and other ”bad men.” God’s people were trying to hold out and stay strong. Then one day Jesus rode into their midst. He conquered the bad guys. The people of God, the beautiful “Bride of Christ,” are grateful. They want him to stay but he can’t, he has to move on. So they are left staring up into the sky wondering if they will ever see him again.

Of course, most Christians don’t literally think that Jesus is a cowboy-hero. But unfortunately, some of our popular theology is so corrupt that we’ve essentially made him into one. We’ve created a cowboy god, a hero who cared enough to come down and save us from sin, but not enough to stick around. He left us tickets for the 3:10 to heaven, but staying in town to help rebuild after the showdown wasn’t of much interest to him, and off he rode, a beam of light into the sunset.

But that cheap dime-store novel is a lie. The God of the Bible stands in stark contrast to that irrelevant god. Unlike the cowboy who rides off when showdown is over, the Ascended Christ is now more invested in his Creation than ever.

It was an amazing thing for the non-corporeal God, a being who is not made of anything, to create everything. It was an act of incomprehensible humility for God to become a part of his creation by being made man. It was the greatest act of love imaginable for the God- man to die an insurgent’s death, to descend to the dead, and then to rise again to eternal life. It was absolutely inconceivable that this God-man would then take his whole self back into the throne room of his Father. One of the great mysteries of the universe is that Jesus Christ, who is fully God and fully man, now reigns forever in his corporeal body. When Jesus ascended he didn’t slither out of his skin, leaving the human part behind. God became a man and now that man is God. For God so loved his Creation (John 3:16), that he has now made himself a part of his Creation forever.

When Jesus was resurrected he appeared to his disciples in a perfect, eternal body, eating and drinking, but also walking through walls. Scripture says that when he ascended he sat down at the right hand of God (Ephesians 1:20). Because Jesus is still flesh he must be in some sort of physical location. But at the same time, he is God and sits at the right hand of the Father. Where is the “right hand”? Where is God? Everywhere. Christ is both present in a single place and also present everywhere. How? I have no idea. What I do know is that Christ is everywhere available, everywhere loving, everywhere knowable.

But “sitting at the right hand of the Father” is not simply about location; it’s about power. Jesus’ ascension is his enthronement. Paul writes: “(God) raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way is King of his Creation.” (Ephesians 1:20-23 NIV) Christ is the King who fills, with his own self, all that he has made. As Kuyper said. “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine!’”

The Ascension Changes Everything

The Ascension fundamentally changed the relationships between God, humanity, and the created order.Kirk comes and goes in fifty minutes. The planet he saves may be altered by his presence, but the Captain is always the same. Not so with Christ. The great Church Father St. John Chrysostom pointed out that the same Father who once said to flesh and blood “you are dust, and to dust you shall return” now looks at the flesh and blood of his Son and says “sit at my right hand.” Jesus’ story is the opening and closing chapter of the tale of us all. We were dust, now we’re flesh. We will fall to dust but be raised to a greater flesh than we can now imagine.

Chrysostom goes on to say that “we who were unworthy of earthly dominion have been raised to the Kingdom on high, have ascended higher than heaven, have come to occupy the King's throne, and the same nature from which the angels guarded Paradise, stopped not until it ascended to the throne of the Lord.” God has become Man so that humanity can now be welcomed into the divine life. Creation is already redeemed and awaits its coming restoration.

The Ascension is divine proof that the world matters. This world. The world of cowboys and townsfolk, bad men and heroes. If it did not, why would Christ fill it? Why would he reign over it? Why would he love it? Why would the Father accept the Created onto his own throne?

Because the Ascension changed the world it must also change the way we understand the world. The Ascension is like a new and better eyeglass prescription. When we look through it, we see what we have always seen; but we see it more clearly. This is especially true of our relationship to Creation.

Many years ago, I moved from Pittsburgh to San Antonio. I had to live apart from my wife for a couple of months. During this time I lived in an apartment with a month- to- month lease while I looked for a more permanent home. It was an old and dirty unit with broken appliances and dated wallpaper. I had several framed pieces of art with me, but I never hung any of them on the walls. I tried to ignore the walls and the faulty appliances. I never fixed the broken toilet in the second bathroom. Why not? Because it was a transitional place. I didn’t care about it.

Many Christians, lacking an understanding of the Ascension (as well as the Creation, Incarnation, and Second Coming) treat this world like I treated that apartment. While it’s true that we are sojourners (Hebrews 11:16), the Ascension must reframe our thinking. We are called to live here like my wife and I lived at our more permanent place in Texas. We bought furniture. We painted a room. We kept the place good repair. We hung up our pictures.

The Created World Matters

The Ascension shows us that the created world matters because it’s filled with Christ. As Christ’s brothers and sisters, we are called upon to care for creation. The curse is rolling back. Adam’s children may once again care for God’s garden. When some company wants to strip the land with no regard for our grandchildren, it should be the Church that rises up in opposition. When it comes to making decisions about how we consume the earth’s resources, it should be Christians who are most willing to sacrifice our convenience. Christians should be known for the creative ways in which we protect and restore the world we inhabit here and now.

We who bear the image of Christ should be leading the way in caring for our own physical bodies while also showing concern for the health of all people. Medicine, exercise, biology, nutrition, and a whole host of other disciplines are meant to bring glory to Christ. Eating disorders, drunkenness, and sexual immorality are symptoms of a population that has not been formed in the beauty of the Ascended Christ.

The Creation matters, and so does co-creation. By “co-creation” I mean our participation with God in bringing order, truth, and beauty out of chaos. All of Creation is now under the gracious dominion of Christ. When we co-create with him, our work becomes part of his glorious kingdom. Everything from our painting and songwriting to our baking and childrearing finds eternal significance at the Father’s right hand. The Ascension proclaims the validity of our work, our creativity, and the joys of this world.

The Ascension challenges us to rethink our cowboy mythology, our Captain Kirk worldview. Our stories, especially our fiction, should point to the Truth. The Hero of the universe is fully invested in building up his people, in loving his children, and in ruling all aspects of our lives. He hasn’t ridden off into the sunset. He hasn’t beamed back into the heavens. He’s moved in, and he’s done it in the biggest way we can imagine. When we tell our tales, are we representing this kind of heroism? When we consider the narratives of our own lives, what is it that we see as heroic? Is it the full engagement with, and care for, our communities, our families, and even our possessions? It should be.

All of us are storytellers, whether we have a large audience, or a small circle of family and friends, or even if we are simply whispering to ourselves. Some of us still tell our tales by the campfire, dusty from a day out on the range. We’re cowboys, but maybe we can be cowboys who stick around for a while. By the grace of God, maybe we can tell true stories. Maybe we reject isolation and self-sufficiency. Maybe we can know ourselves as fully accepted children of God, people whose work has eternal significance, and whose true value is a gift of pure mercy.

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Thomas McKenzie (@thomasmckenzie) is the founding pastor of Church of the Redeemer in Nashville, Tennessee. He's the author of The Anglican Way: A Guidebook. Thomas writes for several websites, including ThomasMcKenzie.com. He lives in Nashville with his wife and two daughters.

Blessed Are Those Not Offended by Christ

Matthew’s story of John the Baptist asking who Jesus was (Matt. 11:1-6) deserves our undivided attention. This is a familiar passage and one we should run to in time of need. John the Baptist was imprisoned at the outset of Jesus’ public ministry (4:12), so he had heard about the deeds of Christ (11:2), but is somewhat baffled he’s still in jail. He wonders why cataclysmic judgment has yet to occur. Many at that time thought that the Messiah who was promised to come would bring fiery judgment against God’s enemies and vindicate his people. The prophets before had promised it. John himself continued to herald that message. But things hadn’t panned out for John. He was imprisoned somewhere east of the Dead Sea because of Herod’s self-involved infatuation and egotism, and Rome was still occupying the land. With a hint of bewilderment, John’s disciples ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” (11:3).

A UNIQUE RESPONSE

That’s a loaded question—but one that would be asked several times until Jesus asks Peter, “Who do you say that I am?” How does Jesus answer this? His reply is puzzling. Jesus pulls from several passages in Isaiah describing what is happening under His ministry: the blind can see, the lame are now walking, lepers are cleansed, the deaf can now hear, the dead are raised, and the poor hear the gospel preached. Careful readers will note that in quoting Isaiah, Jesus leaves off two remarkable things: The day of vengeance (which would come in A.D. 70; cf. Is. 35:4 with Lk. 21:22), and the release of prisoners (Is. 61:1). No doubt John the Baptist would have been mildly shocked to hear that the Messiah’s work would not involve a rescue and release plan for him. A cruel fate under the Sovereign care of God would await John (Matt. 14:1-12).

CRYPTIC WISDOM

The real shock comes when Jesus sends John’s inquiring disciples away with this beatitude: “Blessed is the one who is not offended by me” (vs. 6). John was not offended with Christ; he was merely inquisitive about this Lamb who was to take away the sins of the world. Just prior Jesus had explained God’s Kingdom demands for his disciples (Matt. 10). Mockery, ridicule, slander, and even death awaits the disciple of Christ. John’s story is no different. Don’t we face real temptation to be offended by Christ? Or to be put off, embarrassed, or ashamed by him?

Jesus calls the one who is not ashamed blessed. Remarkable, isn’t it? In terms of worldly standards, Jesus was just a nice guy who got caught up in something nasty. Wrong place, wrong time. Why should we waste time giving him a second thought? He failed to meet so many people’s expectations, so why bother?

True Discipleship

Many are so offended and embarrassed they angrily persist in an unrepentant, unregenerate state. They find the claims of Christ to be a stumbling block and a waste of time. They are put off by Jesus’ followers, message, and truth. Ultimately they will never take up their cross and follow Him because to them there is no holy and righteous God and, because of that, his atonement is irrelevant. Who needs a savior if there is nothing to be saved from?

Others, as Spurgeon said, profess Christ, “Who join the Church of Jesus Christ [and] after a time are offended.”^[1] For them he explains, “The novelty wears off.”  Of course, it does. I’ve seen it in my church. People come, are excited about the music, the kids programs, the coffee, and maybe even the sermon! They commit to serving the body of Christ, even jumping head first into the next opportunity—then the novelty wears off. In a culture that thrives on discontinuous change, we must consider, whether or not with so many options inundating us we want to continue in this vein of pleasure. The modern church movement hasn’t helped. Flash-in-the-pan ministry may amp up a crowd and “prime the pump” with exciting commodities, but then things get hard because a loved one got cancer, a marriage fell apart, or depression sets in. Novelty won’t steer you through that pain—only a deep and wide understanding of the gospel will.

When it comes to being offended by Christ, Jesus envisioned this last category for blessings. For those not offended like John the Baptist, for those not put off by him, and for those not ashamed to call him “Lord,” Jesus had blessings in store. Counterfeit discipleship cannot, and will not, stand the test of time. True discipleship is not being offended with Christ. Discipleship does not get tripped up by Jesus’ message, demands, and calling. It does not look to the things of this world for happiness. It abides, not in the whims of man and the tides of contemporary culture—but abides in Christ. Because of that, the Lord Jesus calls all those who are his disciples blessed.

As a pastor, this is the type of discipleship I strive to promote. It’s the hard stuff of life that shapes us into disciples of Christ. It’s calling people to endure through the trials and tribulations, that inevitably come our way. Don’t expect worldly success. It’s not attractive. The culture we swim in here in America places high value on the new and shiny. We cater to this by giving the novelties, and get upset when we realize that it just doesn’t work. Success and blessings come in the form faithfulness. Faithfulness is found in refusing to be offended by Christ.

^[1] C. H. Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 24 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1878), 91.

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Rev. Jason M. Garwood (M.Div., Th.D.) serves as Lead Pastor of Colwood Church in Caro, MI and author of Be Holy and The Fight for Joy. Jason and his wife Mary have three children, Elijah, Avery and Nathan. He blogs at www.jasongarwood.com. Connect with him on Twitter: @jasongarwood.

The Foundation for True Reality

“I feel abandoned and forsaken by God.” I’ve heard this sentence in one form or another countless times from people overcome by their feelings in the midst of life. I find feelings interesting because they can infiltrate our entire being and hold us captive to whatever impression they give in the moment. Although they aren’t bad in and of themselves, our feelings become problematic when they don’t reflect true reality.

As a “feeler” by nature, God’s constantly readjusting my feelings-based perception of reality to the truth of his Word. Recently, he used the book of Ezekiel to do this. Yes, Ezekiel comes to us from a distant land in the ancient world far removed from anything you and I experience. And, sure, this book is full of confusing imagery, strange sign-acts, and language that makes many modern audiences blush. If you’re willing to overcome some of its cumbersome content, you’ll discover that Ezekiel has profound implications for what it means to think and feel rightly as a member of God’s covenant community.

The Book of Ezekiel

Ezekiel 1:1 begins “In the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month.” Why begin with this date? Thirtieth year of what? Though it’s debated, many scholars believe it refers to Ezekiel’s age. If so, it was the year of the prophet’s thirtieth birthday. The significance of this lies in verse three, “the word of the LORD came to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the Chebar canal.”

Historically, we know Ezekiel as a prophet. As the son of Buzi, he grew up preparing to be a priest—the greatest calling one received in ancient Israel. His years would have been spent in preparation for the day when he would enter the temple in Jerusalem in holy service to Yahweh. Numbers 4:3 explains that priests were qualified to serve from the age of thirty to fifty; therefore, everything Ezekiel dreamed of doing from childhood on would come to fruition on his thirtieth birthday.

However his birthday had come and he’s not in the temple. Actually, he’s not even in Jerusalem. He’s “among the exiles by the Chebar canal” (1:1), “in the land of the Chaldeans” (1:3). Get this—Ezekiel’s in Babylon! He wasn’t ministering in the presence of Yahweh. He wasn’t enjoying the prestige of being a priest. He wasn’t even living in the comfort of his own land. Instead, he’d been taken as an exile in the first wave of the Babylonian captivity. He was living in an unclean land as a refugee surrounded by every imaginable evil.

“It was the fifth year of the exile” (1:2). He’d been there five years! Don’t miss the weight of this. He was ripped from his country, taken from his livelihood, denied the privilege of serving as a priest, and isolated from the presence of God . . . for five years. No Word of the LORD. No temple. No access to God. Furthermore, in the ancient world the victory of a nation meant the victory of their god. Thus, Babylon’s victory over Israel implied its victory over Israel’s God. Needless to say, Ezekiel was experiencing defeat in every conceivable way.

Humor me for a moment—imagine how Ezekiel must have felt.

Take him off his prophetic high horse and think about him as a real person. Do you think he felt abandoned by God? Possibly forgotten? Do you think he felt as if God were out of control or had given up on his people?

Christopher Wright insightfully writes,

“There is no reason to imagine that Ezekiel would have been immune to the doubts and questions that would have settled like the dust of the Mesopotamian plains on the huts of the exiles. For five years he had mourned and wondered and questioned. Five years is a long time for a refugee. The conclusion that Yahweh had abandoned them must have been close to irresistible.” ^[1]

Everything around Ezekiel pointed towards the conclusion that Yahweh had indeed abandoned him. But life is not always as it seems, nor is everything we feel the ultimate reality. Circumstances have a powerful way of shaping our feelings, but God stands above our circumstances and often works in mysterious ways. Thus, it is God’s Word, not our feelings, which offers the true interpretation of reality.

The Word of the LORD

Such is the case in the book of Ezekiel. It’s only when the Word of the LORD comes to Ezekiel that he understands what’s going on. He discovers all of his training as a priest was to prepare him for his true calling as a prophet. He realizes Babylon and its gods had not won the day. Instead, Yahweh, the God of all the heavens and earth, used Babylon as an agent of wrath to discipline wayward Israel. He learns the exile wasn’t happenstance; it was God’s sovereign plan to bring Israel to a place of recognition of sin and repentance from idolatry. He finds out God has a plan of restoration for his people, which he will initiate under the New Covenant.

Without the Word of the LORD coming to Ezekiel how could he have understood this? Praise God his Word did come to Ezekiel! We now have the written record of God interpreting redemptive history through Ezekiel in such a way that it gives us a filter greater than our feelings to make sense of circumstances. Ezekiel teaches us that despite everything we see and feel we can now we serve a God who is in control, meticulously working all things out to his ends for the glory of his name and the good of his people.

Ezekiel speaks powerfully to me about what’s really true. When I feel like God has abandoned me, I’m reminded God will never forsake those who have entered into covenant with him. When I feel like I’m spiritually and emotionally exiled, I’m reminded God pursues his children to the remotest parts of the earth—even into “Babylon.” When I feel like God doesn’t have a plan for my life, I’m reminded God is working all things out (including my life) for his purposes.

The Gospel of Christ

Moreover, Ezekiel points me forward to the supreme truth revealed in Christ. The prophet held out hope to languishing exiles that abandonment wasn’t the final word. God was going to bring about a New Covenant in which he would cleanse them and give them new hearts so they could be in right relationship with him (Ezek. 36:22-38). Christian, we are now living in the New Covenant. We are partaking in what Ezekiel longed to see. On this side of the cross, we have witnessed the climax of God’s prophetic promises in the person of the Son. Hebrews 1:1-2 says, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.”

You see, Jesus and his redemptive work is God’s final Word to us! The gospel, the good news that we can be in covenant relationship with God forever on the basis of the Son’s merit, is God’s definitive Word. God has spoken with finality about his love and commitment to us through the Son. So, when our feelings seek to distort this truth we must choose to believe the Word of the LORD as revealed in the gospel. Whatever you’re going through and feeling in this moment I want to remind you that Jesus is God’s Word to you—he’s your ultimate reality. His work on your behalf is the lens through which you can (and should!) interpret all of life.

^[1] Wright, Christopher J.H. The Message of Ezekiel: A New Heart and a New Spirit. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2001. Print.

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Whitney Woollard has served in ministry alongside her husband Neal for over six years. She holds an undergraduate degree in Biblical Studies from Moody Bible Institute and just finished her Master of Arts in Biblical and Theological Studies from Western Seminary. She is passionate about equipping disciples to read and study God’s Word well resulting in maturing affections for Jesus and his gospel message. Neal and Whitney currently live in Portland, OR where they love serving the local church. Follow her on Twitter @whitneywoollard.

4 Inner Rings You May Be Pursuing

What are you pursuing with your life? C.S. Lewis talked about a set of "Inner Rings" or societal clubs that we long to be part of or included in, but often take a high level of expertise, time, or master ability to achieve. These Inner Rings often become a set of values, goals, and ideals that we spend our life pursuing so that we end up being known as a certain kind of person. Lewis said as we pursue these Inner Rings we often transform into people we never intended to be. The reality is it isn't the Inner Ring itself that is the destructive reality for us, it's really the pursuit of them. If we are going to understand our pursuit of the Inner Ring and how those pursuits motivate and manipulate our behaviors and beliefs, we must know what we are pursuing. Without being reductionistic or missing the nuances of individual hearts, there are four principle Inner Ring pursuits each of us gravitate towards. While many of these pursuits can be fundamentally good, their gravity will cause us to acquire them in unhealthy ways. Here are the four principle Inner Rings manifested in our everyday lives.

1. The Inner Ring of Acceptance

No one wants to be excluded. In fact, living in isolation and estrangement can be hellish. We want to be loved, included, thought of, and affirmed as “the right people.” Socially we’ve engineered all sorts of structures, tribes, and means to make sure we are people who are known and accepted. Often we know where we stand with others by the invitations we do or do not receive for group conversations and activities. If we discover a particular circle of friends got together without inviting or including us a sense of jealously and dismay can overcome our hearts. We might ask, “Why weren’t we invited? Why were they included and we weren’t?” That exclusion might very well bring us to change our behavior when we are in proximity to that tribe. We can begin to think that our exclusion and the inclusion of others has us on the “outs” socially and we need to change something to get back in.

The sitcoms of our culture often identify this desire and pursuit of acceptance. Consider The Office boss Michael Scott. While possessing the authority of the office manager, Michael deeply longs to be accepted as one of the guys within Dunder Mifflin. His employees often hold him at a distance and fail to include him in their social gatherings and activities. This drives Michael into many awkward situations as he attempts, often with disastrous results, to attain the acceptance and inclusion of his employees socially. All of this plays out humorously for our enjoyment and also reminds us of “that guy” at our place of work.

The Inner Ring of Acceptance displays itself in every social environment of our lives. Where ever people gather, we want not only to be part of the club but also to be accepted. The way in which we seek to be part of an Inner Circle of Acceptance is to find that group or community that we desire to be part of and do whatever we can to be accepted. To hear the words “We like you, let’s be together” is a sure indicator of our acceptance by others. To feel the disconnect, disinterest, and avoidance of that same group ruins us many times. You can identify your Inner Ring pursuit by asking:

• Who excluding you would hurt you deeply?
• Who’s acceptance does your day hang on?

The people you desire the greatest acceptance from are the same Inner Ring you pursue for acceptance.

2. The Inner Ring of Authority

While many find themselves chasing acceptance from others as an ultimate pursuit, for others the pursuit comes in a different form. The great pursuit of life doesn’t come in having the affections of others. It reveals itself in the leadership over others. Not satisfied to just be part of a team, these people pursue control and power at the highest level. They feel they have the insight, capacity, drive, resources, or vision to lead people to greater and higher things. This extends far beyond a business environment and can play itself out in practically every sphere of life. God has ordered all society levels to have leaders and followers.

We need leaders. We need direction. Someone must carry the responsibility for decisions in society. The government needs leaders. Corporations without capable leadership fail. The church needs leaders to shepherd people toward maturity in Christ. A home structure without proper authority and responsibility fail to raise children who contribute to society. It is a fundamental mistake to think authority in and of itself is bad.

The pursuit of authority consumes and drives many into dangerous territory. Some climb the mountain to stand alone at the top—just to be seen as the expert, leader, guru, or boss. The Inner Ring of Authority only invites a select few, and as an exclusive club itself the attraction of being part of that select few is intoxicating to those who would have it.

Often to those pursuing the status of authority an internal voice says, “You won’t be anybody until you are _________.”  That blank can be filled in with a whole host of titles. You won’t be anybody until you’re the CEO. You won’t be anybody until you’re an elder at the church. You won’t be anybody until you’re leading the MOPS group in your city. You won’t be anybody until . . . What’s yours?

The people you desire the greatest acceptance from are the same Inner Ring you pursue for acceptance. It’s a high stakes drive to the top that destroys, diminishes, and derails anyone in the way of attaining to the highest throne. In House of Cards, Francis J. Underwood pursues authority with force unmatched. This pursuit leads him to lie, murder, abuse, and manipulate anyone and everyone to achieve the Presidency. At the core, Underwood tries to sell himself that he is doing it all for good reasons. But as the saying goes, “Power corrupts, and ultimate power corrupts ultimately.” Ask these questions to identify your Inner Ring:

• If you never rose to the highest position of authority in your sphere of life would you feel your life was a failure?
• If you never had power to control and lead others as greatly as you would desire, would you feel like you missed the purpose of your life?
• What would you do to attain authority in different spheres of your life?

3. The Inner Ring of Applause

While some pursue acceptance and others authority there are some that have a uniquely different pursuit. Some people don’t care about authority or acceptance. They don’t care who they lead or even if people like them. They just want to hear applause and cheers. They love the spotlight. Often we think of these people as the artists from Nashville or the actors and actresses in Hollywood. Seeing your name in lights and having the crowd acknowledge your performance becomes a powerful drive. Yet it’s not just our stars that struggle with the Inner Ring of Applause. It’s found in stratus of life.

We want to be approved and applauded. We want our work to be noticed and recognized as exceptional. We want others to affirm we’ve done a good job in whatever we are doing. For the mother at home she wants to be recognized and applauded as having good children, a clean home, and happiness and joy to go around. The engineer seeks acknowledgement for his innovative design that advanced his company’s product above the competition. Pastors hope to hear “Great sermon!” from their congregation as they shuffle out the doors of the church building. This helps them feel like their preparation was not in vain.

Just as acceptance and authority are not evil within themselves, neither is applause. It’s legitimate for our words to be used to encourage and affirm others. We should celebrate beauty, creativity, excellence, and truth. Being applauded for excellence mirrors the way we should glorify and exalt Christ for his excellencies. The applause, by and large, isn’t the proverbial fly in the ointment that spoils everything.

What destroys, however, is the pursuit of that applause. What will it take for you to get noticed and awarded? This pursuit can lead us to do all sorts of subtle, compromising things. Social media has become, for many, an applause factory. Someone asked me the other day why I rarely “liked” their posts of Facebook. They noticed I wasn’t noticing them. They began tagging me in their posts so I would be guaranteed not to miss the opportunity to applaud them. They were keeping a scorecard of "likes" and "shares" by their friends. They longed for the affirmation of others and were discouraged when I didn’t hang on every word they wrote, picture they posted, and story they linked. They perceived my lack of a “thumbs up” as a lack of approval for their life narrative on Facebook. Frankly, their “I have an awesome cat!” posts were a little obnoxious and tiring. Yet they desired my applause and were willing to go to extremes to get it.

Like acceptance and authority, applause is a powerful and intoxicating thing. The person who chases applause will rarely have their fill of it. To the heart unchecked, the pleasantness of the first trickle of applause will soon desire an avalanche of ovation. It won’t ever be enough. The pursuit of it becomes the goal and not the having itself.

If you are pursuing the Inner Ring of Applause, it can be identified by asking yourself:

• If no one every affirmed or approved of your hard work would you despair?
• Would depression set in on your heart if you weren’t recognized for your beauty or creativity?
• Do you do things at your work, church, home, and in your community so that others will affirm and applaud you?
• Do you compromise yourself in ways so that others will affirm you?

4. The Inner Ring of Abundance

This final Inner Ring isn’t built around people but possessions. The old saying goes, “He who dies with the most toys wins.” Our culture reinforces and reiterates this position. Of course, Christians know he who dies with the most toys is still dead (Lk. 16:19-31), but that doesn’t mean we’re not impressed by those who have the resources to live up now. No one wants to live in poverty and I’m not saying we should. But the drive to acquire possessions and live in economic security and abundance crushes people those that live in our gravitational pull.

Scripture teaches us to pray for daily bread (Matt. 6:11) and offers this juxtapoistion between poverty and riches.

Remove far from me falsehood and lying;     give me neither poverty nor riches;     feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you     and say, “Who is the Lord?” or lest I be poor and steal     and profane the name of my God. —Proverbs 30:8-9

Pursuing abundance in the wrong way leads to “be[ing] full and deny[ing the Lord]” (v. 9), but that doesn’t mean all acquisition of material possessions is an ungodly allowance. Having a well paying job, a nice home, a reliable vehicle, and enjoying a quality steak while on vacation are not damning vices to be rejected outright. Poverty is not necessarily a virtue—but neither is abundance.

Like acceptance, authority, and applause the trouble comes at the heart level. It’s not enough that we have nice things. It’s that those nice things eventually don’t fulfill us the way we thought they would, so we end up pursuing more. The home isn’t big enough, the car not luxury enough, the television not big enough, and the vacation not exotic enough. We begin to compare notes with our peers and friends and find what they have doesn’t match what we have so we get and get and get to “keep up with the Joneses.” As we pursue the Inner Ring of Abundance, we find that acquiring stuff allows us to enter different circles of identity and more Inner Rings.

I remember the first time I saw someone with Apple’s iPhone out in public. I was riding the ferry boat from San Francisco to Alcatraz with some friends. The owner of the magical device whipped it out to make a phone call and I couldn’t take my eyes off it. The allure of that device was palpable. I could hear myself thinking, “If I had one of those I would be so cool.” The small circle of people who owned one of those devices was an attractive circle to join. The problem was the phone originally cost $599 with a two year contract. The price put it beyond the reach of so many of us. The iPhone was (and is) a status symbol and the pursuit of having it was a siren call to my heart.

Perhaps this is the trickiest pursuit to reveal and yet the most obvious at the same time.

• Could you do without something and be content? If your friend, neighbor, coworker or peer had all the things that you wanted and you did not would you be satisfied?
• Do you live beyond your means so that others will view you as affluent?
• When will enough be enough?

These are hard questions to wrestle with, but they can reveal a pursuit of abundance very clearly. The people you desire the greatest acceptance from are the same Inner Ring you pursue for acceptance.

Discerning Your Pursuits

Motives have to be questioned. Pursuits must be examined. If we will be people not driven by pursuits that will cause us to compromise and capitulate our convictions and values then we must understand where the battlefield lies. Ultimately, having acceptance, authority, applause, and affluence are not evil. We are hard-wired by God for them. Yet pursing these Inner Rings and the object of these pursuits may destroy our lives.

Ask yourself which pursuit do you most deeply identify with? Which “Inner Ring” do you deeply desire to be part of or known for? Do you want to be seen as someone with abundance and material possessions? Deep in your heart do long for people to applaud you and recognize your achievements? Are you eager to be part of a specific social group, network, or clique and have their acceptance? Are you frustrated if you aren’t the leader exercising authority and control over a group of people or organization?

Once we identify our core pursuits, we can address how to navigate those pursuits in a way that will free us from the ensnaring power of sin and death. To help us further diagnose our motivational drives and ambitions, we need to take a walk into the darkness. We need to step into our nightmares and look at our fears in the face. By moving the things that bring us the deepest fear and anxiety into the light, we can clearly see the pursuits that drive our daily lives.

—

Jeremy Writebol (@jwritebol) has been training leaders in the church for over fourteen years. He is the author of everPresent: How the Gospel Relocates Us in the Present (GCD Books, 2014) and writes at jwritebol.net. He is the pastor of Woodside Bible Church's Plymouth, MI campus. 

Living with Eyes Forward to That Day

“I just can’t beat it,” he said with his hands in his hair. He had been confronted with the reality of indwelling sin. “I’m just a guy. I’ll never break this porn habit.” I sat across from this man entranced by pornography’s mystical pull. As I look into the eyes of my brother, I want to say so many things. I begin, “You’re not alone” and go on “If I’m honest—the only thing that broke my porn habit was living in a van with three other guys when I was a traveling musician. There’s just not much room for porn when you can’t even change clothes in privacy.” Most of all, though, I want to ask him this question: “Can you imagine the Day when you will be physically unable to sin?”

Sometimes we are so overcome with our sin and so quick to make excuses we are in danger of overshadowing one of the most glorious truths of Scripture—one Day we will be made gloriously new, like our risen Savior.

Where the Discussion Starts

Without a robust understanding of depravity, we cannot have a correct understanding of the gospel. Recognizing sin as “within” rather than “without” must be the fuel that drives our desperation for redemption. In other words, we are not saved from the scary things out there; we are saved from God’s just wrath toward our own sinful nature.

This discussion is not new. Augustine argued in his own time that human free will is bent toward sin, and apart from a divine act of grace, humans freely choose evil. This is total depravity. The Reformation principle of unconditional election was founded on the same notion that man is totally depraved—nothing in any of us merits the gracious election of God from before the foundation of the world. We don’t bend toward him. He graciously condescends to us.

I’m all in on the discussion of total depravity, especially in light of today’s Evangelical climate—which for some can be summed up as simply, “You can do it.” Well, actually, you can’t. I can’t. That’s the point of grace. And without this understanding, when indwelling sin surfaces, we have no category by which to cry out for grace.

Where the Road Forks

However, there are two ways to frame the discussion of total depravity, as if we stand at a great fork in the road of Christian experience—one sign reading “slavery,” and one reading “freedom.” The first road is our default mode. It is a man-centered view of total depravity. Claiming to be wise, we show ourselves foolish when we declare, “wretched man that I am,” without also boldly proclaiming our redemption in Christ (see Paul in Rom. 7:24-25). Is that not the heart of what Luther was trying to communicate when he wrote to Melanchthon, “Let your sins be strong, but let your trust in Christ be stronger.”¹

The second way to frame this discussion must be God-centered. Here are the questions we need to ask: How long will God allow totally depravity to continue? What has he done to enter into our depravity and redeem it? What is the end of all this?

Where the Scriptures Meet us

And in the weeds of that discussion, we often find ourselves camping on this. Is this a post-Genesis 3 world, or is it a pre-Revelation 21 world?I completely understand that every fiber that God has intricately woven into his creation has been affected by man’s fall into sin. Total depravity is just that—total. However, as I look to the Scriptures, I see them more often pointing forward to a different world. I sense the longing of the prophets and the apostles for a time in which the effects of total depravity will be wholly reversed and when the redeemed of God will always choose righteousness.

When I read articles or hear sermons about the distortion of this post-Genesis 3 world, I want to scream out, “BUT A DAY IS COMING!” And I don’t think I am alone in this . . .

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. –Romans 8:18

But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. –Philippians 3:20-21

The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. –Isaiah 11:6

Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. –Revelation 21:3-4

Here’s what I don’t see—excuses. I don’t see Genesis 3 being used as a crutch by which we might cry, “I wish I could do better . . . but I just can’t.” That notion is just not present in the Scriptures. To be fair, neither is the notion that we can do better, at least on our own.

This beautiful doctrine floods the pages of Scripture—we will be made new. In fact, everything around us will be made new. And, characteristic of the gospel of Christ, this is all by grace! None of it hinges on our own earning. Rather, God will make all things new at the consummation of his redemptive work in Christ.

Also characteristic of the gospel of Christ, this truth is compelling. It compels us, or drives us, to holiness. Or at least it did so for the biblical authors.

Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. —2 Peter 3:11-13

Where the Rubber Meets the Road

Back to the young man in my office across the table, sulking over his porn habit and hiding behind a cup of coffee. When I asked him whether he could conceive of a time when he will be physically unable to sin, he answers honestly, “No.” I completely understand. I have no idea what that will feel like either. But here’s what I preach to him (and myself), “Don’t be driven to despair over your addictive habits. Look to that Day.” On that Day we will see our Savior face to face and be made new. We will simply be unable to sin. The physicality of the new earth should push us towards living holy now.

Christian, who does your depravity drive you to look? To yourself or your Redeemer? Where does your help come from? Are you looking back in despair, or are you looking forward with hopeful angst? Are you living in a post-Genesis 3 world, or in a pre-Revelation 21 world? Look to that Day, to your Redeemer.

^{1. Let Your Sins Be Strong: A Letter from Luther to Melancthon. “Letter no. 99, 1 August 1521. From Wortburg (Segment).” Translated by Erika bullman Flores. From Dr. Martin Luther's Saemmtliche Schriften. Dr. Johannes Georg Walch, Ed. (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, N.D.), Vol.15, cols. 2585-2590.↩}

—

Alex Dean (@AlexMartinDean) is a pastor in Lakeland, Florida. Holding an undergraduate degree from Dallas Baptist University, Alex is currently completing his graduate work at Reformed Theological Seminary. His book, Gospel Regeneration: A story of death, life, and sleeping in a van, is available on Amazon, iBooks, and other online retailers. Follow his blog at www.GospelRegeneration.com and follow him on Twitter.

The Secret to Making Kingdom Citizens

What is the Gospel? Some may wonder why I’ve started with such a simple question. Isn’t the gospel that we are justified by faith alone? Isn’t the gospel about personal salvation and faith in Jesus? Isn’t the gospel about how we can go to heaven when we die?

These are common answers to the question, but what if none of these are fully correct definitions of the gospel? What if these are true but minimize important aspects of the gospel needed to make disciples?

I want to contend that much of what we mean in evangelical Christianity by the word “gospel” is not how the word is actually used in the New Testament. Again, I’m not saying the emphases above are not true. They absolutely are! We are justified by faith alone; Jesus does give us personal salvation; and we will live forever with Jesus (in a resurrected body in a new heavens and earth). However, they cut short the full definition of the word “gospel” presented in Scripture

Allow me to explain what I mean. We often use the term “gospel” to mean one of two things:

1. Justification by faith – In this definition, the “good news” is that you don’t have to earn salvation.

2. Personal salvation – In this definition the “good news” is that you personally can be saved and escape punishment (usually by “inviting Jesus into your heart”).

3. Going to Heaven – Here, the "good news" is that your soul can go to heaven when you die. (Though people unfortunately forget about the Bible's teaching about bodily resurrection).

Now, some might respond with a possible fourth definition, which is much fuller than the other three presented, which is that the gospel is Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection. This answer is absolutely true (1 Cor. 15:1-5) and it strikes at the heart of the gospel. However, even it must be understood in a larger theological context. Even the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus must be understood in light of the larger gospel theme of the “Kingdom of God.”

How the word “gospel” is used in the New Testament

Allow me to give just a few passages from the New Testament that show the above definitions of the gospel don’t work on their own:

Galatians 3:8 - And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.”

What message was preached to Abraham in the Old Testament that Paul calls the “gospel” in this passage? Was it a message of personal salvation for Abraham? Was it a message of justification by faith? It is true that Abraham was justified by faith, but here the gospel message is that all the nations would be blessed by his seed and that “kings shall come from your own body” (Gen. 35:11).

Mark 14:9 - And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.”

What is the gospel according to this passage? Is it justification by faith? Is it personal salvation? I often like to tease my students and ask how many of them mention this woman’s story when they share the gospel with their neighbors. Jesus seems to think that her story will be proclaimed wherever the gospel is preached. Here the term “gospel” seems to be related to the entire ministry of Jesus and his program to renew the world.

Luke 9:6 - And he called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal. And he said to them, “Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money; and do not have two tunics. And whatever house you enter, stay there, and from there depart. And wherever they do not receive you, when you leave that town shake off the dust from your feet as a testimony against them.” And they departed and went through the villages, preaching the gospel and healing everywhere.

In this passage, the disciples must preach the “gospel,” yet they didn’t preach justification by faith. They didn’t preach personal salvation. And, just to add a spark of controversy, the didn’t even preach about Jesus’ death and resurrection! They preached a message of the Kingdom of God breaking into their current situation and demonstrated the Kingdom coming by healing people and casting out demons. This is a message about the Kingdom of God and Jesus calls it the “gospel.”

Galatians 2:11 & 14 - But when Cephas [Peter] came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned . . . [his] conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel.

This is a fascinating passage because Paul had to rebuke Peter because he forgot the gospel. Now, what did Peter forget? Did he forget that Jesus saves people personally? Did he forget that Jesus died for our sins? No, he actually forgot that God’s Kingdom is meant to go forth to all nations and that withdrawing from fellowship with Gentiles was tantamount to denying the gospel.

Then what is the gospel?

We have seen some of the definitions above don’t work on their own with the way the New Testament uses the word “gospel.” What is a better definition of the gospel? The way the gospel is described in the New Testament is a message about the Kingdom of God. It is a message about how God is reestablishing his perfect rule (Kingdom) over the cosmos and reconciling the world through himself by defeating his enemies and reversing the effects of the fall through the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of his Son, King Jesus. To give the best definition of the gospel I can, allow me to quote G.K. Beale:

“The Old Testament is the story of God, who progressively reestablishes his new-creational kingdom out of chaos over a sinful people by his Word and Spirit through promise, covenant, and redemption, resulting in worldwide commission to the faithful to advance this kingdom and judgment (defeat or exile) for the unfaithful, unto his glory. Jesus' life, trials, death for sinners, and especially resurrection by the Spirit have launched the fulfillment of the eschatological already-not yet new-creational reign, bestowed by grace through faith resulting in worldwide commission to the faithful to advance this new-creational reign and resulting in judgment for the unbelieving, unto the triune God's glory.” –G.K. Beale

Wow! What a robust definition of the gospel!

Yes, justification by faith is true. Yes Jesus saves individuals and yes it is good that we don’t have to be condemned when we die. Yes the gospel is absolutely the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. Yes and amen to all these things. However, these must be related to the larger gospel message to make any sense and to truly preach the “gospel” the way the Bible does.

Why is this important for discipleship?

Discipleship flows from the gospel message. Until we teach this larger Kingdom message we will never make the kind of disciples we were meant to. In fact, the reason the church produces converts and not disciples is because we preach a gospel that produces converts and not disciples—we preach an individualistic gospel of justification by faith instead of a holistic gospel of God’s Kingdom.

We often wonder why someone who claims to be a disciple of Jesus comes to church and reads his Bible but is also looking at porn and not serving the poor, not evangelizing his neighbor, and divorcing his spouse, and not studying theology. We often wonder why someone who claims to be a disciple of Jesus can so easily separate their “spiritual” life from their “secular” life.

We have preached a gospel that deals merely with personal salvation so once someone is “saved” there is not much else to think about. They “prayed the prayer” and now it is “mission accomplished.” However, if we realized that the gospel is not just about our “spiritual” lives but about Christ redeeming everything that has gone wrong in the universe it breaks down this sacred/secular divide.

Jesus isn’t just the “Lord of your heart.” He is the Lord of the universe. He is the Lord over your finances. He is the Lord over your sex life. He is the Lord over your marriage. He is the Lord over your hobbies. He is the Lord over your kids. He is the Lord over turtles, and chocolate, and electricity, and quasars, and grass, and everything that exists!

Before maturing disciples, we must teach the gospel in its fullness. A Kingdom gospel will produce Kingdom citizens.May King Jesus give us grace as we seek to love and obey him more.

—

Zach Lee is Associate Home Groups Minister at The Village Church and is married to Katy.  Follow him on Twitter: @zacharytlee.

Calling People to the Kingdom Through Feasting

“I’ll raise you a hundred,” Greg said as he pushed a stack of poker chips into the middle of the table to show he meant business. At the same time, laughter erupted from the next room, where the ladies were sharing stories about marriage and motherhood. Greg’s wife, Mary, listened as the women poured out their hearts to one another. This was the first time Greg and Mary had been at our house for one of our parties. Jayne and I had been in the Puget Sound area for about a year, and we were beginning to call people together to be the church in the greater Tacoma area. Parties and feasts were one of the means we were using to gather people and give them a taste of what it might look like to be the church in our community.

In the past, several of us in the Chicago suburbs had experienced community forming this way around meals and celebrations. Caesar and Tina had introduced us to the art of hospitality and the joy of the party. Tina is an amazing cook, and she and Caesar hosted the best dinner parties around. If they were hosting a dinner, you did not want to miss it!

A Kingdom Built on Celebratory Feasting

At one of these dinners, about three courses into an amazing five-course meal, it dawned on us: “This is a great picture of the kingdom of God!” While immersed in the feast of food and life together, we recalled Jesus comparing the kingdom of God to a feast where everyone is invited in (Luke 14:12–24). Together we started to imagine what the church would be like if we all believed we were a picture of God’s kingdom breaking into the world in ways that felt like a party. One of us said: “If the church believed this, it would radically change what we do and how we live! We would be known as the most celebratory people around. Word would spread. People who wouldn’t normally want to come to a church event would come to our homes. Who wouldn’t want to be a part of that?”

A seed was planted in our hearts at that moment, and the conversation never really ended. We began to ask questions: What if we were to start a church that feasted and celebrated around Jesus together? What if our homes were intended by God to be some of the primary spaces in which the ministry of the church should take place? People could be welcomed in, cared for, and experience belonging to a people who enjoy one another and life together. This would transform people’s perceptions of the church. Their understanding of who the church is and what she does would be very different from others’. As a result, people would come to understand Jesus in an entirely new way. If church were more like a feast and ministry took place regularly in our homes, everyone could join and anyone could do it. Everyone loves to feast and celebrate together, and anyone who knows and loves Jesus can host a party around him.

Jesus’s church celebrates and feasts together. His people live life to the fullest for his glory and learn how to do the normal, everyday stuff of life for his glory. Not just parties and feasts— everything!

Remembering God Through Feasts

This isn’t a new idea. God called his people Israel to remember him and show the world what he was like through the everyday stuff, the big and the small. The special feasts, which were extraordinary, were meant to remind them that everyday meals mattered as well. Parties are God’s idea. During the Israelites’ parties and feasts, they were to remind one another that all of life was to be done as an expression of their love for God. God called them to see their celebrations and feasts as an expression of their worship. He wanted them to use something mundane and everyday—eating—as a reminder that he is to be the center of all the everyday stuff.

God is brilliant, isn’t he?

He wants us to see that all of life, every aspect of it, is a good gift from him. He wants our hearts to cry out, “God is so good!” in the middle of everyday life. He wants us to eat, play, create, work, celebrate, rest, and relate to one another for his glory. God always intended that every part of life be a participation in his activity in the world and a celebration of his goodness to us all. So he told Israel to do all the stuff of life—working, resting, eating, and celebrating—in remembrance of him.

I love this about God!

I grew up believing that after I died, I would go to heaven, which would be like an eternal church service. As a teenager, I wasn’t too excited about that. All I could imagine was a bunch of us in white gowns floating on clouds that felt like hard wooden pews. We would forever listen to long sermons and sing songs from red hymnals. Later in life, as I read the Bible, I found out that this is not an accurate picture of our future with Jesus. The Scriptures tell of a day when we will dwell on a new earth and enjoy a sin-free existence, living life fully and abundantly with God in our midst. We will eat, play, create, work, celebrate, and rest in perfect harmony with God and one another. It will all be good and it will all be worship!

Imagine if the church was like this now.

— Jeff Vanderstelt (@JeffVanderstelt) is the visionary leader for the Soma Family of Churches and the lead teaching pastor at Doxa Church in Bellevue, Washington. When he isn't preaching or mentoring church planters, he and his family share life with their missional community. He is the author of Saturate: Being Disciples of Jesus in the Everyday Stuff of Life.

Jeff Vanderstelt, Saturate: Being Disciples of Jesus in the Everyday Stuff of Life Crossway, ©2015. Used by permission. https://www.crossway.org/.

3 Fundamental Reasons to Recover Fasting

Recently I was asked to preach on fasting. Better yet, I was asked to preach on fasting on Super Bowl Sunday. In my mind I was being asked to preach on a super spiritual topic to the super spiritual people in our church who would actually show up to our services. Because I’m still being trained for ministry and never turn a preaching opportunity down, I pursued this  curious assignment with excitement. As I studied and tried out what I was learning, I began to realize what a normal and important practice fasting was for believers in Jesus’ day, and more importantly I experienced why.

We talk a lot about spiritual disciplines (rhythms of grace, or whatever term you want to use for personal disciplines that help line our lives up with all that we have in the gospel) in the church today—and rightly so, because we need them. But for some reason we treat fasting as this abstract discipline reserved for only the spiritual elite, removed from normal, everyday Christian life and discipleship. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus only talks about three spiritual disciples (giving, prayer, and fasting), and treats them with equal weight (Matt. 6:1-18). In Matthew 9:15 Jesus explicitly states that he expects his disciples to fast.

So what is fasting? And why does Jesus treat it as important and normal in the Christian life? Fasting creates hunger to experience more of God.

Creating hunger

Creating hunger means we take something out of our lives for a period of time that will hurt. Usually this is food, but it can also be other morally neutral things that are staples in our lives and would hurt to go without (like Facebook, email after work hours, TV, shopping, etc).

To experience more of God

We are not ascetics that just enjoy pain. The hunger we create is so we can feast on something greater. So fasting involves not just the cutting out but adding in—you have to fill that space with something. Use the time you would have spent consuming food or something else with feasting upon God. It’s for this reason that fasting in the Bible is always tied to prayer.

Why fast? Here’s three ways we specifically see this play out in our lives:

1. To plead with God/seek guidance.

This is one of the most common ways we think of when we think of fasting. For me, it was the only way I had thought of fasting before this sermon. Some examples include the Jews when facing annihilation (Esther 4:3) and the church at Antioch considering whether or not to send out Paul and Barnabas (Acts 13:2-3).

In this way, fasting creates space for us and reminds us to pray. It helps align our soul with an appropriate seriousness and tunes us to hear from God. Martin Lloyd Jones says it this way, “One any important occasion, when faced with any vital decision, the early Church always seemed to give themselves to fasting as well as to prayer.”

2. To help fight besetting sin.

Just as we might train in a gym for a big triathlon, so God calls us to train ourselves for godliness (1 Tim. 4:7). Fasting is one of the ways we do this. When we say no to bodily urges in the form of food or something basic, we are exercising the muscle to resist in other areas (i.e., sexual temptation).

Fasting trains us to not just gratify our bodily urges. This strength to resist will transfer to other areas where we fight against sin. Martin Luther says, “Of fasting I say this: it is right to fast frequently in order to subdue and control the body.”

3. To remind us of God’s presence.

Have you ever gotten through a day and realized you forgot about God all day? Me too. It’s madness! You know when this doesn’t happen? When you’re fasting. The hunger pains serve as a reminder that there is more going on beyond what we can see. Fasting tunes us to a deeper and truer reality. The sovereign King of glory is with us, in spite of how we are doing, and this is where we find true life in the midst of our crazy circumstances.

As I got up to preach this sermon to my church family, I was really preaching to myself all that God had been teaching me . Fasting is not something we must add to our lives in order to earn God’s love, rather fasting is a gift to help us live more awake to the undeserved love of God in Christ and to stay clear of distractions that numb and take our life .

If we’re serious about walking in the joy, freedom, and life of the grace of God, how can we neglect fasting? Incorporating fasting as a regular discipline into my life has taken me into much more vitality in my walk with the Lord .

What do you need to take out of your life, where do you need to create a hunger, to help you tune your thoughts, affections, and energies toward God?

—

Chad A. Francis (@chadafrancis) serves as the Ministry Coordinator at Garden City Church, where he is being assessed and trained for future pastoral ministry. He’s obsessed with grace and passionate about being a waker where complacency exists. You can read more from Chad at www.chadafrancis.com.

An Open Letter to Justine Sacco on Grace

Can your life be defined by one moment? By one mistake? By one infamous decision? For Justine Sacco it probably feels like it can. Maybe you have heard her story, but in case you haven’t, let me tell it the best I can. On December 20th, 2013 Justine sent out the following tweet before boarding a plane en route to Cape Town, South Africa: “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!” Now what Justine tweeted was irresponsible and misguided. These are the obvious facts.

But what happened to Justine Sacco after that tweet revealed how much our society really loves to see people destroyed. Social media exploded with outrage over the tweet, and Justine’s life suddenly took a swift turn for the worse.

However, I want to focus on this situation from an explicitly Christian perspective. How should we, as Christians respond to Justine Sacco’s mistake? Is there grace for her? Would Justine have a place in your church?

Now I believe that most Christians would say that there is indeed grace for Justine Sacco. Grace is the centerpiece of the gospel—the central message of Jesus. However, are Christians simply using “grace-talk” or actually believing that grace is big enough to cover sins that have been deemed unforgivable?

Finding Grace and Freedom

According to a recent story on Sacco in The New York Times, she admitted to “crying out (what seemed to be) her body weight in the first 24 hours” after discovering that her tweet had been retweeted and shared thousands of times. Sacco inevitably was fired from her job, and spent a long time wallowing in the guilt, remorse, and shame that comes from making mistakes, sinning, and it being exposed to the world.

Now over a year has past since Justine Sacco made a grievous mistake that ruined her life. I do not know what Justine is up to now, and I’m sure she is fine with that. I’m sure she prefers not being in the limelight anymore. Nevertheless, I do wonder if Justine found grace and freedom. Has she experienced the liberation of having her past mistakes redeemed and forgiven? Has she felt the burden of shame and guilt lifted from her?

Many people will say the church is “a hospital for sinners.” This seems right in light of the way that Jesus lived his life. Christ said, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mk. 2:17). In other places, Jesus dined with outcasts and tax collectors (Matt. 9:10). He seemed to have no problem in keeping company with those who were considered to be marginalized and wrongdoers (Jn. 4).

So what does this communicate to current Christians in an age of internet shaming? In an age of public shaming, is it possible for Justine to start over? No doubt Justine was wrong, but what should the consequences be for her mistake? Exile? Excommunication? Expulsion?

The Mentality of Karma

It’s interesting to me that Christians regularly use grace-language, but live out a karma-like mentality. When situations like Justine Sacco’s are brought before our attention, we tend to immediately think, “She is getting what she deserves.” But what exactly does she deserve? Is it really punishment, exile, and condemnation? I don’t think so.

What’s alarming though is that Christians tend to display this same karma-like mentality online. The culture of shame has infected the way that Christians conduct themselves on the Internet (just take a look at Twitter or Facebook on any given day). To be honest, do we really believe that the gospel message is going to bear fruit in an atmosphere of humiliation and reproof?

Imagine if Jesus would have said to Matthew, “Clean up your behavior and then you can follow me” (Matt. 9:9). Or when Jesus encountered the woman at the well. What if he would have said, “You have been sleeping around a lot, so I’m not sure that this living water is for you” (Jn. 4). What about in the last moments of the thief on the cross’s life (Lk. 23:32-43)? This man would have been considered to be one of the worst of the worst. However, Jesus offered unconditional grace to this man, and did not withhold forgiveness from him.

What if this was what immediately was offered to Justine Sacco? Grace, forgiveness, and love. I know that everybody is not a Christian, and she still would have faced consequences at work and from the world, but why couldn’t the Christian church rally around her and say, “There is room at the table for you”?

Why couldn’t the overwhelming response to Justine’s situation be more centered on Jesus Christ’s undeserved grace instead of on her ill-advised tweet? We now live in a culture where one mistake, tweet, lie, or video can ruin your life. Is this really the message of the Christian gospel? Of course not. But if the Christian church isn’t careful, she will let the secular culture influence her more than the liberating message of Jesus.

This is why I hope Justine Sacco, wherever she is, is confronted by someone who has been grasped by the now-power of the gospel. I hope she is floored by the amazing grace of Jesus Christ. That is my hope and prayer for her, and for many more like her (i.e., Peter Jennings, etc.).The good news really is that good, even though Christians might not present it in that light always.

So Justine Sacco:

I pray that you will be liberated by the good news of Jesus Christ. He died so that we would not be defined by one mistake. He died so that we could be made alive (Eph. 2). If you are still experiencing overwhelming guilt, shame, and distress, I hope that you will recognize that the Christian God is a God who removes our sins as far as the east is from the west (Ps. 103:11-12). Our sin may run deep, but God’s grace runs deeper still. Realize that.

Your friend and fellow-sinner,

Matt Manry

—

Matt Manry is the Assistant Pastor at Life Bible Church in Canton, Georgia. He is a student at Reformed Theological Seminary and Knox Theological Seminary. He also works on the editorial team for Credo Magazine and Gospel-Centered Discipleship. He blogs regularly at matthewwmanry.com.

5 Easy Ways to Develop Gospel Habits

Can you say that you are truly satisfied with the way you live, or the habits you have formed? If we’re honest, most of us can’t answer that question with a positively. We often live from crisis to crisis, from reaction to reaction, or from bad habit to bad habit. The opposite of reactionary living (responding to the circumstances life brings) is intentional living (having a plan and being disciplined enough to stick to it).

There will be times in life when you are hit with a fast-pitch curve ball, and things will happen that we least expect to happen. Even then, though, we can live intentionally in how we respond. The Bible teaches us that there is a war going on—not against flesh and blood—but against the spiritual forces of this world (Eph. 6:2).  We are at war everyday with our own flesh (Gal 5:17). What you want to do, you don’t do, and what you don’t want to do, you find yourself doing (Rom. 7:15).

We live this way primarily because of sin, but also because of the bad habits we have formed. We don’t necessarily live each day from decision to decision, but from habit to habit—whether positive or negative, good or bad.

For example, when you’re at a restaurant, you might habitually order a coke instead of water. Or you might wake up in the morning with just the right amount of time to shower, jump in the car, and leave for work—with no wiggle-room for morning devotions or a morning workout . . . or any morning routine.

Even though you might have formed the habit of waking up late (or just being late everywhere you go), the habit you’ve formed the night before effects the habits you have in the mornings.. Think about it this way: You stay up late watching a movie, and then you sleep late. From here, you find yourself in a hurry to get to work on time, drive a little too fast to work, and then yell at a co-worker because you’re tired and grumpy. It all started the night before when you chose to stay up late and watch a movie instead of go to bed at a reasonable hour to be rested for the next day’s events.

At this point, you may be asking, “How is this a gospel issue?” When we talk about using our time well, we are talking about stewardship and dominion-taking issues. Taking dominion over your life also involves how you spend your time—how you redeem your time. It’s a Genesis 2-3 issue, redeemed in Christ. When we understand that Jesus changes everything, the gospel will affect all areas of our lives.

So, again, we all want to live with healthy, gospel-centered, and life-giving habits, but how can we do so? Here a few ways to go beast mode:

 1. Plan out your week—every bit of it.

 Here’s what this looks like for me. On Sunday evenings, I sit down with my computer and plan out my week. I sit down and plan out these things:

• Days and times I will exercise
• Breakfasts and lunches
• Doctoral work
• Other writing and work endeavors
• What I’m reading and learning that week
• Date night with my wife
• Daddy-daughter date (every Friday morning)
• And more . . .

Also on Sunday night, my wife and I have a “family council.” At this scheduled weekly meeting, we plan out our meals for the week, our calendar, our evenings at home, our date nights, our budget, relational nights with friends and family, etc. We want to be intentional about our week, not reactionary. This helps monumentally with communication.

On Mondays, I pretty much meet with people all day (from 9am to 5pm), but I prepare for those meetings before I go into them, because for me, they effect the rest of the week.

2. Plan for the next day the night before.

Before I go to bed each night, I plan out the next day. I look at my schedule (both morning, work, and evening) then get ready for the next day.

For instance, my Monday schedule looks like this on most Mondays:

• 5:30am | Wake up and Bible Reading
• 6am | Morning routine and get ready to leave
• 7am | CrossFit
• 8am | Allergy Shots (I’m literally allergic to the world), Kroger (for the weeks essentials), and get ready at the office

Work Schedule at FC

• 9am | Check-in meeting
• 9:30am to 1:00pm | Executive Tactical Meeting and Executive Lunch
• 1:30pm to 2:45pm | Student Ministry Team Meeting
• 2:45pm to 3:45 | Family Ministry Team Meeting
• 4pm to 5pm | Staff Workout

Home

• 5:30pm | Family Time
• 9:30pm | Nightly Routine
• 10pm-ish | Read and bed

Call me weird, but if I don’t plan accordingly like this, then I start to become reactionary over my time. I am prone to wonder . . . be lazy . . . procrastinate . . . be selfish with my time . . . get lost in entertainment. Planning out my days like this allows me to be disciplined, develop healthy habits for my life, and use my time in a redemptive manner.

3. Keep track of your tasks and plan them out accordingly.

It doesn’t matter if you’re relationally-oriented or task-oriented, you need a system for keeping up with everything you “have to get done.” Some people use a moleskin notebook, while others use a task-management app on their computers and phones.

Find what works for you and stick to it. The last thing you want is to be known as someone who lets things fall through the crack because you aren’t intentional about writing things down and getting them done.

I use a task management system that allows me to schedule tasks out into the future.  This allows me to plan accordingly, as well as know exactly what I need to get done that day, without having a million other things looming. I put the tasks in my system, plan my upcoming days, then go about my current day as planned.

4. Let your calendar serve you. Don’t serve it.

Here’s the deal with this—don’t be such a stickler that you can’t let unplanned things come up from time to time. Processes, procedures, task management systems, and calendars should serve us. We don’t serve them.

Try something out for a few weeks. If it doesn’t work, change it. Don’t do what I do. Do what works for you and allows you to develop good habits in your life.

5. Be disciplined enough to stick to it!

This is actually the hardest part of developing healthy habits for your life. The first four points are somewhat easy. The hardest part is actually being disciplined enough to live the way you want to live.

Again, the point is to not live reactionary. Live intentionally. Take ownership over your life. Redeem the time. Take stewardship over your week. Go beast mode.

When you do this, I promise you will look back in a month and you will see a mountain of gospel-centered, healthy habits you have developed because of your intentional planing and sticking with it.

When I plan this way, I am able to develop healthy habits in these areas of my life:

• Bible reading and devotional times
• Prayer time
• Date nights
• Work schedule
• Intentional times with family and friends
• What I eat
• When I exercise
• Morning routines
• Evening routines
• Healthy family routines
• Financial budgets for giving, savings, and spending
• And more . . .

Again, it’s all about living intentionally. When we do this, Christ becomes more of your life as you become less (Jn. 3:30). And when you live this way, then healthy, gospel-centered habits begin to form and become second nature.

—

Greg Gibson (@greggibson86) is married to Grace and is the father of Cora and Iver. He serves as an elder and family ministries pastor at Foothills Church in Knoxville, TN overseeing birth through college and marriages. He is the author of Reformational Manhood: Creating a Culture of Gospel-Centered Warriors and serves as Executive Editor, CBMW Blog, and Communications Director. Greg also writes often at ggib.me.

Why Does the Church Ignore Jesus?

If you missed part one in this series, check out “How to Ignore Jesus While Accepting Your Christianity.” We ignore Jesus because discipling takes a long time and it is very hard to measure. We’ve become a people who care more about measuring things rather than the hearts of Image Bearers.   We have become a church that looks more like American Business, than the church found in Acts 2.

American business has to count things because that’s how we get more business. We count profits, employees, customers, etc. If I showed you everything I measured in my business it’d make you dizzy. I don’t see much difference in the American Church.

The church has a CEO (which isn’t Jesus) that puts out the vision and directives then has the employees carry that vision out. If the employees start to question those things or the CEO, or if they get in the way, or they are struggling in certain areas of their lives, they are sidelined. Why? Because we have things we must count—attendance to our events, the amount of services we have, money in our coffers, and the size of our staff and buildings. If these things are growing, we are a success; if these things are stagnant or going backwards, then we are failing.

The problem is discipleship is very difficult to measure. Not only that, but many of those things that can be measured within discipleship will take years to measure their effectiveness and don’t fit nicely on a spreadsheet.  Because of this, many churches have taken discipleship from the mission of the church to a program of the church. That way, we can measure it in the way that makes the church in the West more comfortable.

Think of it . . . if you have a 12 week discipleship class, you can measure how many people are going through that class. You can determine success or failure.

Actual discipleship takes a lot of time and moves very slowly. Not only that, but people’s muck rises to the surface and might make the church look bad to many because of all the actual issues that are being dealt with. But, because the church is more like a business than the New Testament church, we don’t delve into those issues. We cover them up or just keep our church people at a surface level so that when you ask “How are you doing?” everyone answers, “Good.” Now we can move on to more important things . . . things that can be measured. This is why most churches like to count baptisms. Again. What’s interesting is that Jesus says, “Make disciples of all nations . . . baptizing them.” Baptizing is a byproduct of discipleship, not the other way around.

How Do We Change?

We are talking about a paradigm shift. We’ve been caught in this business mentality in church life for far too long. We are now attempting to u-turn the titanic, not a speed boat.

We must ask ourselves, “Is making disciples our very reason for being on this earth?”

Not only that, we must also ask, “Are we willing to be the first one to say ‘I need to be discipled’ and make our ‘Up’ relationship the primary in our lives and the lives of others?”

If we truly desire to make disciples who make disciples, then we have to . . . let me say this again . . . WE HAVE TO make it primary, no matter the cost, time, or sacrifice.

Are we willing to make everything else secondary to making disciples of selves, our family, our church, our neighborhood, our city, our nation, and our world?

To do this, we have to start asking, “What do I need to change to make this happen in my own life?” I need to lead change, not merely talk about it.

What in our lives, our churches should be kept, changed, or dropped for the sake of making disciples who make disciples?

For me. I have stopped putting multiplication first. I have stopped trying to put a timeline on when my missional community will multiply. Instead, I have decided to focus on a few and live a deep life with them until the Spirit releases them with his power to start another missional community.

I believe by doing this, I’ll be setting up a blueprint for what church life looks like and can say as Paul did, “Imitate me as I imitate Christ.”

By no means will I do it perfectly, but I’ll be doing it relentlessly asking how can I effectively be a disciple who’s primary reason to live on this earth is to make more disciples of Jesus. Period.

New Measurements

My friend Ben Hardman recently reminded me of this: What gets celebrated is what gets repeated. If we are going to try and change a paradigm so that discipleship is the central reason the church exists we have to change how we measure our “wins.”

I’ll give you one example that I’ve given before, in my article “Why I’m Tired of Church Planting.” Many of us know the parameters of success – the three B’s: butts, budgets, and buildings. If you measure the success of the church based on the fruit that only can be provided by the Spirit you will kill your church and its leaders. What do I mean? I think we should measure what we can actually control, standing amazed at the greatness of our God and the indwelling Spirit when we are blessed with witnessing the fruit that God allows us to see with our own eyes.

What if we measured the success of our churches by asking this question: How many people’s stories in your context do you know so intimately that you know exactly where they need the good news?

The reason that this is such a good measurement tool is that this gives everyone a fighting chance. This kind of measurement would require your people to be doing the work we’ve been called to do: to shepherd people to the only hope we have. It requires us to be involved with people. It requires us to invest deeply into a few people instead of too many on a surface level. In the end, if we have this as our measurement tool, we can see people being discipled instead of merely “making a decision” or just showing up to a church service.

We might see them actively bringing all areas of their lives under the lordship of Jesus by the power of the Spirit through the good news. This is discipleship! After this, you baptize. After that, you teach them everything that Jesus has commanded, but not before they have entered into a deep discipleship relationship with you.

The church could feel freed to do the ministry to which we’ve been called if we didn’t measure success through programs, conversions, attendance, and baptisms. These might all come, and we should be thrilled when they do, but statistics are not what we are primarily called to do. We are called to make disciples.

The Question

Here’s the question to end all this: How would you define yourself? What is your primary identity?

No matter how you answer this, anyone who is reading this needs to know, your primary identity that will never fail you is simply this: You are a son/daughter of the Creator God.

Whether you believe this or not is another question.

But, if we are sons and daughters of the perfect Creator God who loves us, is patient with us and has literally done everything in his power to show off who he is then there is only one thing we are left with: We GET TO show off who Dad is like to others around us. In other words . . . we GET TO disciple others.

That’s what we get to give our lives to. Everything else in our lives should pale in comparison. What in your life is above your identity as a son or daughter of God?

What do you need to start/stop believing about God so that you can be freed into the life of discipleship?

What needs to be added to/taken away/enhanced in your life so that you can make disciples who make disciples?

Who is discipling you and who are you discipling? Meaning . . . who are you living with so closely you know exactly where their idols are and where they need to hear the good news of redemption? And they know the exact same things about you . . . and you both speak up in these regards and are actively pursuing the power of the Spirit to bring these under the Lordship of Christ so you can be freed of them into the good news of Jesus.

—

Seth McBee is the adopted son of God, husband of one wife, and father of three. He’s a graduate of Seattle Pacific University with a finance degree. By trade. Seth is an investment portfolio manager, serving as President of McBee Advisors, Inc. He is also a MC leader/trainer/coach and executive team member of the GCM Collective. Seth currently lives in Phoenix, AZ with his wife Stacy and their three children: Caleb, Coleman, and Madelynn. He is also the artist and co-author of the wildly popular (and free!) eBook, Be The Church: Discipleship & Mission Made Simple. Twitter: @sdmcbee.

7 Extraordinary Ways the Father Loves Us

It’s difficult to grasp God's love for us. For many, the love of Jesus comes through loud and clear, but God the Father often seems distant or looming. Many of our perceptions of God have been distorted by earthly shadows—fathers, employers, leaders, etc. To move forward in loving and being loved by God, we must replace our false ideas with biblically-saturated truth. God’s attributes—including love—aren’t like human traits that strengthen or weaken nor are they like moods that come and go. God is all of his attributes perfectly, all the time. And yet, we still struggle to believe it can be true, that this great God can love us messy and stumbling sinners. Sometimes we don’t feel his love on a day to day basis like we desire, so walls of doubt begin to shut him out. Other times we unwittingly read the Word not through the lens of his love and grace to us in Christ, but through tinted lens of condemnation and guilt.

My hope is that by dwelling on God’s love for us, we’ll move from a general and vague idea to a sweet and personal experience. God desires as much, and once the fountain of the Father’s love is opened we’ll find ourselves stepping into new streams of gratitude, contentment, joy, and security. Here are seven examples from the New Testament of how God clearly and convincingly displays his fatherly love to his children.

1. The Father’s Love in Sending

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son.” (John 3:16)

The Father’s love for us is nowhere more conspicuous than in the sending of his only Son—freely, unprompted, and undeserved. The same Scriptures proclaiming Christ’s love in dying also reveal the immense love of the Father as the sending source. He so loved us that he gave his only begotten Son. This world-famous verse placards the pursuing love of the Father. And it’s not a nebulous or general love, but his particular love to actual persons like you and I.

Whether from the lies of the accuser or deception from our own minds, Christians can act as if Jesus is the good guy who convinces the fear-inducing Father to show mercy. In reality, the Father dearly wants to be in an intimate relationship with us so he dispatches the Son to bring us back. This unmerited love of God shines even brighter against the backdrop of our dark and ill-deserving condition. That’s why the Apostle John erupts with the words, “Here is love!” when he thinks about the Father giving Jesus to bring wayward children into his family. “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:9-10). The cross is the exclamation and the evidence of how much the Father loves us.

2. The Father’s Love in Revealing

“And whoever sees me sees him who sent me.” (John 12:45)

As the Word, Jesus is the self-expression of God. The incarnation points to the Father’s love because it proves he wants to be known in a way that is clear, intimate, and according to truth. Because God is not like us in so many ways and cannot be seen or touched there are moments he might seem remote or intangible. Jesus takes our vague or slightly distorted notions of God and gives us the real picture of the Father in his fullness of grace and truth. We should look to the incarnation of Jesus to see just how near the Father has come. The Son shows us the Father, and through Jesus the invisible God is finally visible.

It should astound us that the infinite, transcendent, and perfect God would make knowing us and being known by us one of his highest priorities. What a joy that God is a Father who doesn’t just show mercy—and that would be wonderful enough—but he wants a real relationship where we know and love him. Our perceptions of God become fuzzy and distorted when we look at earthly figures of fathers or authorities. However, when we look at Jesus the character and compassion of the Father is clearly and accurately put on display.

3. The Father’s Love in Adopting

“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God.” (1 John 3:1)

God the Father’s love can be seen in the friendly and familial vocabulary describing a believer’s relationship with God. We are called his sons and daughters. God wants to be known and seen in this way which is why he draws on the affectionate language of Father and children. “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying ‘Abba! Father!’ So you are no longer a slave, but a son” (Gal. 4:4-7). Paul was well aware how quickly we retreat back to fearing God as slaves so he presses home the truth we can trust him as children.

Imagine two people in your mind’s eye. First, imagine someone you feel comfortable with because you’re loved and accepted. When with them you don’t ever have to worry about being anything other than yourself. Now visualize a second person who creates an uneasy sense of the need to measure up or being on your best behavior. Think of the difference if you were just sitting in your living room with either person watching TV together or talking. How free do you feel with the first person versus how hesitant or anxious you feel with the second? Because of our justification in Christ, the Bible describes God the Father as the person in the room we should completely trust and therefore find rest with—awake to the fact we are truly known. The Father doesn’t hold back love until we change or earn it. It’s a full stream of God’s unconditional love to his children.

4. The Father’s Love in Comforting

“Blessed be…the Father of mercies and God of all comfort.” (2 Cor. 1:3)

The Father expresses his love in the comfort he gives, and even in the fact he calls us to find our comfort in his fatherly embrace. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort” (2 Cor. 1:3). It’s a slightly different nuance but in Romans 15:5 Paul also calls him the God of encouragement. He doesn’t turn his children away or pile up heavy discouragements on their backs. He’s not looking to criticize you or asking you to toughen up. Instead, he’s a gentle God who gives the comfort we need when we hurt and the encouragement we need when weary.

The discomforts in this world are no match for the comforts of our Father. He wraps his strong but soothing arms around us. The comfort of the Father never goes away. It is not wearied or exhausted by our sins and it isn’t based on our performance. The Father comforts because he is the God of comfort. His love is seen both in the act and in the warm heart that calls us. We might imagine God with arms crossed ready to criticize or condemn, but God assures us that he stands with arms opened ready to welcome and console us.

5. The Father’s Love in Giving

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father.” (Jas. 1:17)

The Father loves us by giving good gifts. He enjoys us enjoying him as we enjoy his gifts. This exhibits his care and provision for us but it also expresses his generous and glad heart towards his children. God hands out who knows how many gifts to us each day, but the problem is we either don’t see the gifts or we don’t stop to consider who they’re from. Gratitude happens when we open our eyes to an awareness of the gifts and then raise our eyes in a response of thanksgiving to the God who gave them. Our joy in gratitude becomes the joy of worship. The gift should always lead to the giver. David Pao says, “Thanksgiving in Paul is an act of worship. It is not focused primarily on the benefits received or the blessed condition of a person; instead, God is the centre of thanksgiving.”1

Jesus argues from the lesser to the greater to bring home the reality of God’s goodness. “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him” (Luke 11:13). The best examples of earthly fathers in their generosity and gifting are a tiny picture of God’s perfect love. God has blessed us with innumerable blessings, and the more we see them as gifts the greater opportunity we have to delight in the Father. In other words, one way to see God’s heart of love for us is to see the gifts that come from his hand to us.

6. The Father’s Love in Promising

“For all the promises of God find their Yes in [Jesus Christ].” (2 Cor. 1:19)

The Father’s love is seen in the making and fulfilling of promises to his people. All God’s promises to us are confirmed and secured in Jesus (2 Cor. 1:19). First, he loves us by being true and faithful rather than being unreliable or deceptive (Titus 1:2). Nothing gives a greater sense of safety and security than a trustworthy father. Second, he demonstrates his love in the promises themselves. He keeps his word and he offers some pretty amazing blessings. he promises to love us as his own children, to give us his Holy Spirit, to keep us secure in Christ, to wipe away our sins, and to one day come back and restore all things (see Eph. 1:3-14).

The Bible is stocked full of promises that are strong enough and sweet enough to carry us through each day. Promises are God’s caffeine kick to reawaken and energize Christians. One of the best things to do when studying God’s Word is to intentionally pick out the promises of God and to anchor your life on them. They are true and they are good. If we ever doubt God’s promises he calls us to look back to the pledge of his Son (2 Cor. 1:20; Rom. 8:31-39) and the down-payment of his Spirit (2 Cor. 1:22; Eph. 1:14). God loves us by promising us with countless blessings and assurances, and he loves us by always keeping those promises.

7. The Father’s Love in Disciplining

“For the Lord disciplines the one he loves.” (Heb. 12:6)

The Father loves us not despite discipline but through it. I know this point is a hard sell but the Bible connects the dots. God’s discipline is a calm but firm correction, never a fit of rage. He aims to teach us not reject or punish. The NT links discipline and love to help cement in our mind that they’re not irreconcilable enemies, but rather, they’re actually related (Heb. 12:3-11; Rev. 3:19). The fact that God corrects his children should encourage us just how much he cares and provide proof he will never give up on or leave us in our sin.

A beautiful scene in the TV show “Parenthood” depicts this idea. One of the families had adopted an abandoned young boy. Early on he misbehaves and continues acting out his bad habits. The mom thinks they should keep looking the other way but the dad reminds her they’re his parents now. He’s their child so they need to treat him like family, not like a guest or stranger. Since he’s now their boy and they want what’s best for him they make the tough choice to give correction and explain what he’s done wrong. As God’s children, we also need to remind ourselves that discipline isn’t the same as displeasure. In fact, it demonstrates God’s commitment to us. God treats us not as strangers or guests who he has no relationship with but as a father who deeply loves his sons and daughters.

Loving How We’ve Been Loved

When we don’t live in light of God’s love for us we’ll either shy away from Him out of fear or exhaust ourselves trying to win his approval. My hope is that as we let the truth of God’s love drip from our heads to our hearts we’ll be refreshed in security and rest. This is a game-changer when it comes to how we draw near to our God. It also transforms relationships and how we treat one another. As we experience the Father’s love in specific ways, we can give the type of love we’ve received.

There are a lot of great insights out there on parenting and marriage, but we cannot love children or spouses well unless the perfect love of the Father is a first-hand experience. In a culture desperate in its desire for “true love” and yet clueless in what that looks like, both single and married Christians can point others to a satisfying, unending love their souls are aching for. The application could be extended to the hard people in our lives or the unlovely in our families and neighborhoods, but in each case we can only love others well as we see them through the lens of how God has loved us: freely, undeservingly, and steadfastly.

—

Dustin Crowe has a bachelor’s degree in Historical Theology from the Moody Bible Institute and studied at the master’s level at Southern Seminary. He is Local Outreach Coordinator of College Park Church, a church of 4,000 in Indianapolis, where he also helps with theological development.

1. David Pao, Thanksgiving: An Investigation of a Pauline Theme (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2002), 28-29.

5 Ways to Discern a Shared Call to Ministry

When my wife and I first met, I didn’t know what I wanted to do after college. In fact, I was failing out of college. Now eleven years later, my wife is a pastor’s wife and any other children that we may have in addition to our daughter will each be a pastor’s kid. There was a whole host of things that happened in those eleven years, but one event made me say, “I think God is calling me to ministry.” I felt the internal call like many before me. Soon after that, I was looking into seminary and committing myself to four years of work. At times, seminary nearly made me want to commit myself. Prior to this, my wife and I had conversations about this call—what it meant and what it would mean. We talked about how it would change our lives, but we didn’t fully comprehend how. We can both attest to how God’s calling shapes us. It changes who we are, how we live, and how we maneuver through life. We essentially filter life through God’s calling on our lives. For example, if we are called to be a parent, we process decisions through that parental calling. This is a bit of what happens to the family of those called to ministry. Everything filters through that calling. My wife’s overall calling to Christ, to be my wife, and to be our daughter’s mother is also mingled with my calling to vocational ministry. My daughter will not be able to do certain things and will live a certain kind of life because of my calling. That’s why the call is a shared one.

A Shared Call

Much of what can be read in regards to assessing a call to ministry focuses on the individual person being primarily called into ministry, which makes some sense. However, other people are affected by a man’s call. I asked my wife several times, “Do you feel called to be a pastor’s wife?” That question was usually a part of the larger conversations and prayers regarding what God was leading me towards. Many who assess church planters will say to pay attention to the planter’s wife because she will tell the truth about calling and readiness. If that’s true, God calls not just the man, but his family as well.

Many pastors whose wives didn’t share the call could explain the importance of that shared call. For the pastor’s wife who doesn’t feel called to ministry, the pressures of ministry would only be expanded. Two people united in the covenant of marriage cannot successfully go in two, entirely different directions in terms of their service to Christ—at least not in separate directions that are not mutually supportive.

For children, I could not ask my daughter if she felt called to be a pastor’s kid. She was just born one. Nevertheless, my call will alter the rest of her life. Her walk with Christ and conversion will be vastly different than her mother’s or mine. Her call to be a pastor’s kid came through the sovereign will of God forming her and bringing her to us. The same could be said about all of us who consider ourselves to be partakers of the shed blood of Jesus. None of us, before we were saved, contemplated feeling called to be disciples of Jesus. Yet we were called. In the same way, no Christian should sit down to decide whether they are called to share the gospel, because every Christian is called to share the gospel in light of the Great Commission. Therefore, callings are entirely about God’s design and less about our feelings. Our feelings may reflect God’s design, but they are not sovereign over that design. Thus, we can see how children can also be a part of this shared, family calling.

In what can be considered an effort to speak to the ramifications of this shared call, the Apostle Paul exhorts the unmarried to stay unmarried and encourages marriage if one cannot exercise self-control (1 Cor. 7:8-9). Later in that chapter, he explains why he encourages the unmarried to stay unmarried, “The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided,” (1 Cor. 7:32b-34a). Paul says taking a wife and a family adds refinement to one’s calling. A married man cannot do certain things, because he has a responsibility to his wife and children. The Church has a husband and he died for her so we don’t have to. God as Father and as bridegroom exemplifies for us the importance that he places on those two responsibilities. In other words, God is concerned about husbands and fathers being about the business of being husbands and fathers. Thus, a pastor who is a husband and a father, as he works out his primary calling as a proper disciple of Christ, is first a husband and a father, before he is a pastor.

Additionally, it seems that Paul affirms this refinement of calling that comes through having a family. One could call it a limitation, but that could be misunderstood as a negative thing. Everyone who is trying to discern what God is calling them to is asking God for limitation of that calling or for God to set aside the things to which they are not called so that they might be limited to the thing to which they are called. Therefore, I think it is safe to deduce from Paul’s words as well that there is a collective or family calling that is placed on a couple and their children.

In light of this, it is crucial that those seeking to be in ministry or even those in ministry discuss the following with your wives:

1. Does your wife feel called to be a pastor’s wife? It can be helpful to look at other couples in ministry and examine their lives, their responsibilities, and their ministries. It can also be helpful to talk to those couples about what it is like being in ministry, both the good and the bad.
2. How will this impact your future or current kids? If you have kids already, how will this impact their lives? Will they be able to adjust to this new life? Perhaps it may be appropriate if they are old enough to process it, to ask what their thoughts are about this change. If you don’t have kids yet, in what ways can you start to pray and prepare to be raising PK’s?
3. Is your wife’s support simply an affirmation that she supports whatever you want to do or does she feel a shared passion for people and seeing them grow in Christ? There is a huge difference between the two. If the answer is the first, then it could mean that she will end up at least frustrated or possibly even resentful. To some degree, she should probably share in your passion for people and their growth in Christ.
4. Will you both be able to accept the change in financial means from what you either lived with before or what you expected to be living with? This can be challenging when switching from “secular” employment to vocational ministry. It could also be a challenge if you had an expectation for your financial life that is different from the life of vocational ministry.
5. Is your family ready to open itself up to a congregation? It is crucial to a healthy Christian life to be known by our brothers and sisters in Christ. However, in pastoral ministry, the pastor’s life as well as his family’s lives are on display for the congregation. This can be played out through opening your home in hospitality to those in the congregation or just the visibility of the little conversations with your wife, the outbursts of your kids, and the like.

In recognizing the shared calling that a life in ministry is, we can do well for our families and our ministries to keep these things frequently in our prayers and conversations. This gets to the root of the health of our souls when we talk about how on board our wives and children are with what God has called us to. It is near impossible or at least just incredibly challenging to be effective without a shared sense of calling in our marriages and families. If we take the time in our preparation for ministry to pray and talk through these things, God will bless that. Even if we find ourselves having been in ministry for some time, we would do well to begin or continue to pray and talk through these things. May God bless you in your service to him, whatever and wherever that is!

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Nick Abraham (DMin student at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) lives in Navarre, OH with his wife and daughter. He serves as an Associate Pastor at Alpine Bible Church in Sugarcreek, OH. He is a contributor to Make, Mature, Multiply: Becoming Fully-Formed Disciples of Jesus and blogs at Like Living Stones.

How to Ignore Jesus While Accepting Your Christianity

Jesus was straightforward with his mission when he left. And he gave us the Spirit to accomplish it. He didn’t mince words; he didn’t hide it in the book of Numbers (knowing most of us wouldn’t dare read that). He was and is clear on our mission: Go therefore and make disciples of all nations. If it is that clear, why do we ignore Jesus and pursue other things so far down the list of “to-dos”?

Bottom line: we don’t know how to make a disciple and/or we ignore how Jesus made disciples.

I haven’t written an article in a long while. I’ve been honestly rethinking everything I know about the missional “movement” and asking why aren’t we seeing more missional community churches multiplying missional communities to saturate a city? To ask this question though, I couldn’t just point fingers. I had to ask this of myself. I have multiplied missional communities and trained many leaders to do so, but the number of disciples made now making disciples is embarrassing low in my life.

However, I have found a way to surround myself with some pretty smart dudes that don’t mind me ranting and being honest about the missional community movement and my own lack of disciple making. But, now, I think I’ve figured out in my head and heart why this is and am starting the process of working it out with my hands.

The Cart Before the Horse

Think about that saying for a second. How stupid. Why would anyone put the cart before the horse? The reality is that most don’t know that is what they have done, because (I hope) they wouldn’t purposely put a cart before the horse. I know I didn’t, but that is exactly what I did for the past 8 years in this missional life.

For me, the cart was multiplication. For others it could be a church building, a church service, prayer groups, budgets, people showing up to an event or some sort of service, etc.

Let me focus on my cart. Multiplication. Like most of the things listed above, multiplication is healthy and a good thing . . . but it’s not the ultimate thing. With discipleship you will get multiplication, but just because you multiply doesn’t mean you necessarily get discipleship.

If the focus is on multiplication, we will do whatever we must to raise up new leaders and send them out. The focus becomes on what they do, instead of who they are and what they believe. This is a huge distinction for discipleship.

Training and our lives becomes: “How can I quickly give information to someone so that they can go do this themselves?” instead of “How can I disciple people so that they are bringing every area of life under the Lordship of Jesus and go to show off how great our Dad is?”

What’s even more crazy is when we put the mindset of multiplication first. When that happens the one thing that will really irritate you is when people don’t get it, or when they question things. When multiplication is made ultimate what happens when major, deep issues that are lording over people’s lives come up that need you to stop and take time to work through? In reality, when multiplication (and many other things) become our primary priority, then people aren’t seen as the Imago Dei, but a tool that helps you “win.” When it’s not primariy, discipleship gets in the way. Some discipleship may still happen, but becomes shallow instead of deep and life transforming submitting every area of life to the Good News.

I believe this is exactly why we see Peter and the other disciples saying some very stupid things while living with Jesus. Jesus desired discipleship over all other things, knowing this is exactly how others would see who his Dad truly was. They knew they could say whatever they desired to Jesus. He was with them, one of them and desired the best for them. They didn’t feel like a tool to be used or a project to be converted. They felt they were a person to be loved.  A person to be believed in. A person to be discipled. A person to be more like Jesus, so they could taste and see that the Lord is good.

Breakfast with a Beard

As I was downloading some of this information with a good friend of mine, Zac Gandara, over breakfast, he started to drop some knowledge on my head.

We’ve both learned a lot through our relationships with 3DM. Zach drew the familiar triangle with UP, IN, and OUT listed at the points:

He told me, the following. Seth, you will never have issues making friends with outsiders. You naturally have many relationships with many who are not yet believers. You will naturally have the “in” relationships found in community with like minded people who desire to make disciples . . . but what I don’t hear from your mouth is much of Jesus or Dad. Because you are so focused on the OUT portion of the triangle, you have really started to ignore the most important part of the triangle and the one that Jesus focused on primarily: the UP relationship with Dad. When that part is missing, true discipleship will not happen. Something is happening because you’ll always have many relationships, but the good news will not be at the center of these relationships. If that is missing . . . so is discipleship.

He then went on to show me the life of Jesus and how Jesus continually concentrated on his relationship with Dad (which informed his identity as God’s Son), which then informed his relationships with his disciples and the world.

Nailed it.

When we focus on our identity in Christ (the “Up” relationship), the “In” and “Out” will be informed and formed by the gospel . . . the good news.  If our “In” and “Out” relationships are informed by our “Up” relationship then discipleship will flow out of that.

Jesus’ Discipling Culture

Jesus wanted to fill the world with disciples who would show off his Dad in heaven. He did this by gathering twelve of the weirdest people he could have. Notice that he didn’t gather the smartest people, the ones with the most competency, but he gathered those that would actually follow him. He gathered the ones that would show up (a whole book could be written on this). What did he do with those twelve? He lived with them for three years before he ever released them on their own to multiply. Jesus knew that if multiplication was going to happen that would be like the original group, he would have to go deep with a few, instead of shallow with a lot.

To go deep with a few, Jesus knew the only way this was going to happen was to live life with his disciples and to teach them holistically where the gospel was hitting every area of their lives. In essence, Jesus knew he’d have to teach them head knowledge, heart knowledge, and hand knowledge . . . they’d have to know what Jesus was teaching, believe in what Jesus was teaching, and do what Jesus was teaching.

Jesus refused to put anything ahead of discipleship. He wanted those twelve men to have full access to him so they could see what he required of them. This meant these men were allowed into Jesus life at a very deep level, every day, and completely unchained. We see this was happening because of how comfortable these men became with Jesus. They yelled at Jesus on the boat when the winds and waves came. Peter said many things that got him in trouble. James and John asked their mom to make sure they could sit next Jesus in heaven. I could go on. Why do we see this? Because they were being discipled and when this happens all our muck and crap comes to the surface where the good news needs to be applied so we believe the good news and its power to set us free instead of being chained and enslaved to sin and guilt and shame.

Through 3DM and Launch, I’ve learned four stages of leadership development.

• I do you watch
• I do you help
• You do I help
• You do I watch

You can also use the MAWL method

• Model
• Assist
• Watch
• Leave

Here’s the big difference between us and Jesus. Jesus was willing to spend three years of life with the few in stages 1 and 2. He knew if he did when the disciples were sent out they’d look a lot like him instead of a muddy image of the original.

We want to hurry through the first two stages so we can send out more people, or we want to spend all our time in stage 1 so that we become a functional savior for people and they are never released.

David Rhodes showed me that if you look in the book of Acts you notice something pretty awesome. Look at what the dispcles are doing. They are preaching, taking care of the poor, praying, healing, being family, and suffering. What you’ll notice is when you cover up who is actually doing it you’d assume it’s Jesus. The “copy” or the multiplication that happened, looks almost identical to the original.

Why? Because Jesus actually discipled deep with a few, instead of shoveling information down the throat of many.

To be continued . . .

—

Seth McBee is the adopted son of God, husband of one wife, and father of three. He’s a graduate of Seattle Pacific University with a finance degree. By trade. Seth is an investment portfolio manager, serving as President of McBee Advisors, Inc. He is also a MC leader/trainer/coach and executive team member of the GCM Collective. Seth currently lives in Phoenix, AZ with his wife Stacy and their three children: Caleb, Coleman, and Madelynn. He is also the artist and co-author of the wildly popular (and free!) eBook, Be The Church: Discipleship & Mission Made Simple. Twitter: @sdmcbee.

Tools for Making War Against Spiritual Warfare

If we are going to make, mature, and multiply disciples of Jesus Christ then we must equip our soldiers with appropriate tools to do battle. Soldiers who are unequipped or even ill-equipped with no tools, or faulty tools, will do great harm to themselves and others. If we as disciples who make other disciples (this is, after all, our commission) are going to win the battle against the flesh and the enemy, we must make war.

TOOLS OF THE TRADE

One of my favorite passages of Scripture is Ephesians 6:10-20:

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.

The Apostle Paul is not saying that we wrestle only against rulers, authorities, and cosmic powers, but that those powers are the bigger picture. This passage is a call to arms—a call to do battle against the enemy. Like a general getting his soldiers ready, so Paul wishes to get the Church ready for war. The entire metaphor is built around the Spirit’s work of providing protection for us on our way to glorification.

First, he says that we are to be strong “in the Lord.” There is much in the world to drive us to despair, so we need strength in God, not in self or anyone else. Christ has called us to do good works (Eph. 2:10), and we have access to the Father by the power of the Spirit through the work of Christ (2:18). The road won’t be easy, since we have to walk as wise people, not unwise people (3:15), knowing that evil abounds (3:16). There’s much at stake in this battle of sanctification. The enemy is real.

Part of what the Apostle Paul is getting at in this passage is that, yes, strength resides in the Lord (vs. 10), and because of that truth, we can be strong in His might, and stand firm (vs. 13). “Strong,” “strength,” “might,” “stand against,” “wrestle,” “armor”—these are all words that Paul uses to paint the picture. So what is the armor the helps us do those things?

THE WHOLE ARMOR

Paul says to “take up the whole armor of God” (vs. 13)—not part of it, not some of it . . . all of it. A soldier who leaves behind part of his armor will be vulnerable. Paul starts the metaphor with the belt of truth because the word of truth is the gospel (Jn. 17:17). The gospel takes central stage because, like a belt, you need your armor to fit together properly on your body. Nothing works unless connected to the gospel. The belt holds everything together. More broadly, the belt holds the sword. Our confidence, then, is in the truthfulness of God’s word; we can rely on it with complete faith, knowing that it will sustain us during war.

Paul goes on to describe these tools by telling us to having a breastplate of righteousness. The devil is a slanderer and wishes to inflict harm on our hearts. Because of the imputed righteousness of Christ (Rom. 4:6-11; Phil. 3:9), Christians can believe the truth of what the gospel teaches instead of the lies of the Liar who wishes to stab you in the heart with a false identity. What Paul is getting at is that because of Christ’s righteousness given to us, we can withstand the attack on our identity by relying on the truth that our pursuit of righteousness is driven by Christ’s righteousness given to us. The breastplate prevails against any effort of the enemy.

The next tool of the trade are shoes of peace. Paul has already alluded to Christ being our peace (2:14), Christ’s work as the fulfillment of the temple sacrifices, thus making peace for us with the Father (2:15), and Christ’s preaching of peace to those far off (Gentiles) and those near (Jews), in fulfillment of Isaiah 57:19 (cf. Eph. 2:17). Peace is central to the gospel, for Christ’s work on the cross brought reconciliation to sinners who were at enmity with God (2:1-3). Paul’s allusion to shoes is certainly Isaiah’s concern (52:7), and the apostle quotes that very verse in Romans 10:15. Like a Roman soldier with tightened straps on his sandals, so is a Christian who walks in the peace of God offered in the gospel. In battle, we need this stability in our feet.

Paul goes on to tell us to take up the shield of faith (vs. 16). In the ancient times, particularly for the Romans, the shield was big enough to cover the entire body. Faith does that for the Christian. Faith covers everything as it works to defend any attack from the opposing army. Though the enemy will send flaming darts, a shield protects against those attacks. The apostle John says it best:

For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. —1 John 5:4

J.C. Ryle says that, “Habitual lively faith in Christ’s presence and readiness to help is the secret of the Christian soldier fighting successfully.” Faith overcomes.

The helmet of salvation is our next piece of equipment (vs. 17). Paul understands the past, present, and future nature of salvation (2:8; cf. 1 Thess. 5:8). The penalty has been paid, the power of sin is currently being subdued, and the future of the gospel at work will be a complete removal of sin from the planet. Salvation protects the head from thinking that any attack from the evil one will result in a change of mind. We have been given the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16). Protect it with the assurance and security of our salvation (Eph. 1:14).

It is impossible to win a battle when always in defense mode. Offensive strikes must take place if a Christian is going to make war on sin. Thus Paul tells us to take up the sword of the Spirit, the word of God (vs. 17). The word of God is sharp enough to cut to the bone (Heb. 4:12). Its precision is unmatched; its immutability unwavering. The word of God destroys all attempts of the enemy. When tempted by the Liar, Jesus uses Scripture to attack him (Matt. 4:1-11). Memorizing, studying, reading, contemplating, speaking, and learning God’s word is absolutely essential for the war. Use it often.

THE FINAL CALL

The equipment has been issued. The final call to battle is a call to militant prayer. Prayer is God’s means to shape His warriors. Prayer is a call to keep alert and persevere (vs. 18); praying for your friends, so that the gospel can be proclaimed boldly (vs. 19). Prayer is an admission that you are powerless to uphold and control your world. Militant prayer is for those who are needy—needy for the Lord of Glory to fight for us. These are the tools of the trade. If we are to make war on sin, we must prayerfully use this equipment.

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Rev. Jason M. Garwood (M.Div., Th.D.) serves as Lead Pastor of Colwood Church in Caro, MI and author of Be Holy and The Fight for Joy. Jason and his wife Mary have three children, Elijah, Avery and Nathan. He blogs at www.jasongarwood.com. Connect with him on Twitter: @jasongarwood.

Adapted with permission from Be Holy.

5 Integral Reasons Mature Disciples Sleep

We all have seasons of life where we might get less sleep than we should, but the right amount of sleep is integral for being a mature disciple. Mature disciples get sleep. D. A. Carson explains the importance of sleep:

Doubt may be fostered by sleep deprivation. If you keep burning the candle at both ends, sooner or later you will indulge in more and more mean cynicism—and the line between cynicism and doubt is a very thin one….If you are among those who become nasty, cynical, or even full of doubt when you are missing your sleep, you are morally obligated to try to get the sleep you need. We are whole, complicated beings; our physical existence is tied to our spiritual well-being, to our mental outlook, to our relationships with others, including our relationship with God. Sometimes the godliest thing you can do in the universe is get a good night’s sleep—not pray all night, but sleep. I’m certainly not denying that there may be a place for praying all night; I’m merely insisting that in the normal course of things, spiritual discipline obligates you get the sleep your body need. (Scandalous p. 147)

So why should mature disciples sleep? Here are five integral reasons.

1. Sleep allows us to be fully present in our home, work, and third places.

Being fully present means being ready to engage fully in whatever location you are. In Everpresent, Jeremey Writebol describes the importance of place:

“God has created this very place where I am writing. He has created the very place where you are reading. He has created it by his will. He has created it for his glory. Now, you might challenge that statement because you know some architect drew up the design for this building and a contractor came in and had carpenters, builders, electricians, and plumbers actually make this place. But under God’s authority, using the agency of humanity, he created and holds all things together (Col. 1:15). Place matters because God made it matter. You might feel indifferent to this place right now because it isn’t where you want to be or because it is somehow broken and in disrepair. This place might be a comfortable, quiet place for you right now. It might be a place that doesn’t belong to you; you are a visitor in it for only a season. Whatever the situation, because God has made it and made it for his glory, you are suddenly in God’s place.”

You cannot be fully present if you are half asleep. Mature disciples know this and get enough sleep.

2. Sleep allows us to work with excellence.

Springboarding off the point above. You cannot work with excellence when you are tired. Web MD says,

If you have a demanding job or are trying to get ahead on your responsibilities, you might be caught in a vicious cycle of skimping on or skipping sleep altogether to work longer. But it often tends to backfire, says Sean P.A. Drummond, PhD, director of Behavioral Sleep Medicine and Mood Disorders Psychotherapy in the Veterans Administration San Diego Healthcare System. "You're just not as productive when you lack sleep."

The article lists four ways lack of sleep affects your work:

• Attention and concentration
• Reaction time
• Decision-making
• Memory

You cannot do work that honors God and represents you well if you are tired. Because most of us spend a good chunk of our day at work, it’s also a primary sphere for missional endeavors. If you are constantly tired and doing bad work, it will make it hard to have a gospel witness and build strong relationships with co-workers.

3. Sleep makes this world our home.

God rested after six days of creating and ordering the world. In The Lost World of Adam and Eve, Dr. John Walton says God rested to make the world his home. As God was doing his creation work, the world was just a house, but when he comes down to rest in it—it’s his home. That backdrop should inform our rest. If God has commissioned our work to imitate his, then we must also imitate his rest. It’s one way we can honor God in the sacred spaces he has placed us in. They’re not just impersonal places. The world is our home. God has given us a certain number of hours in each day and its arrogant to assume we can fulfill the culture mandate as image bearers (Gen. 1-2) and gospel mandate as disciples (Matt. 28:18-20) without following God's ordering of creation.

4. Sleep allows us to demonstrate humility and dependence on God.

Sleep also shows dependence on God. We cannot do the work he has commissioned us to do on our own. We do not know better than him. We need sleep. We sleep to demonstrate humility and dependence. Furthermore as a parent, I have to remember I’m responsible to ensure my children get the proper sleep. They are disciples under my care. Douglas Wilson says, “Remember their frame (Ps. 103:14). Don’t skip naps, keep them up until 11:30, withhold a real dinner, and then paddle them for falling apart. Someone should paddle you for pulling them apart” (“Mechanics of Fatherhood”). Making sure our children get enough sleep prepares them to be mature disciples and teaches them dependence on God. Mature disciples get enough sleep and ensure those they shepherd get enough sleep as well. Humility and dependence starts in our beds.

5. Sleep promotes balance in life

Nothing is more practical than sleep. I have battled depression for most of my life. I had a break through 5-6 years ago—a good night sleep and a regular routine covered a multitude of sin. Several recent studies have linked too little or too much sleep with depression. Get the right amount of sleep. There will always be exceptions or a busy season, but the rule should be sleep is a priority. Sleep just keeps our bodies in good working order. Not everyone struggles with depression, but we all have our own issues. Doctors have made a connection between sleep and our overall health. 90% of people with insomnia have other major health issues. “[L]ack of sleep,” shows one study, “doubled the risk of death from cardiovascular disease.” Yikes! A good night’s sleep will help your entire life balance and that will help you as you stay on mission as a disciple of King Jesus. So don’t neglect sleep.

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Mathew B. Sims is the Editor-in-Chief at Exercise.com and has authored, edited, and contributed to several books including A Household Gospel, We Believe: Creeds, Confessions, & Catechisms for Worship, A Guide for Advent, Make, Mature, Multiply, and A Guide for Holy Week. Mathew, LeAnn (his wife), and his daughters Claire, Maddy, and Adele live in Taylors, SC at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains with their Airdale Terrier. They attend Downtown Presbyterian Church (PCA). Visit MathewBryanSims.com!

Tired of Yourself? Jesus Will Never Tire of You

We crave affirmation and praise. This is so because we are made in the image of God, who is both the object and source of love, adoration, praise and wonder. Yet we are haunted because there is much about us that invites shame more than it does admiration. We miss the mark and we miss the boat, failing not only to measure up to God’s standard, but also our own. To make matters worse, instead of facing our deficiencies head-on, we self-medicate with cover-up strategies to make ourselves look OK even we are not. We clean the outside of the cup while leaving the inside untreated. We are imitators of Adam and Eve after they got caught. Rather than humbly owning and repudiating our quest for independence and obsession with self, we become defensive, shift blame, and avoid relationships that might expose us. We hide the worst in ourselves at every cost. But the “safety” that comes from hiding also comes at a cost. We become alienated because every self-protecting cover-up erodes intimacy with God, other people, and our actual selves. Rather than live free, we schlep through life carrying the cargo of vague guilt and shame-induced anxiety. If we are somehow awakened to our condition, we will cry out for healing from these painful realities. We need help—a kind-hearted rescue from outside ourselves. We can’t get there alone.

rescue from outside ourselves

Enters Jesus.

Although we are exposed and found lacking, Jesus moves toward us as a living hope and ambassador of peace. It is his peace—the declaration that through him, all hostility between heaven and earth, the infinite and the finite, God and humanity, has been demolished—that makes us rich in the truest sense. His peace resources us with an emotional wealth that lets us face our deficiencies more honestly, and in a way that does not crush us. In Jesus, all negative verdicts against us have been reversed. Our vague sense of shame, both illegitimate and legitimate, the shame that comes from outside of us and the shame that comes from inside of us, has been neutered.

We are fully known and fully loved.

We are exposed and not rejected.

We are seen and embraced.

No need to run for cover. In Jesus, there is nothing left to fear, nothing left to prove, and nothing left to hide.

Several years ago, the American Music Awards featured an arrangement of the hymn, “Amazing Grace,” but with one very significant revision of the lyrics—“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved someone like me.” Perhaps you identify with the revision because you find the original lyric (“a wretch like me”) offensive. Non-religious people especially resist the idea that there is a wretched tone to the human condition. To err is human, but deep down all people are basically good, the assumption goes. Believing in the inherent goodness of people, a non-religious person might counter the vague sense of shame by denying that shame exists. Live and let live. Or, as Billy Joel famously sang, “I don’t care what you say any more. This is my life. Go ahead with your own life. Leave me alone.” The problem, however, is that in this scenario, shame is suppressed and denied, but it is not healed.

There is also a religious form of denial. Some call it self-righteousness, others call it hypocrisy. In Luke 18:9-14, for examplee, a religious Pharisee hides behind a résumé of good deeds. He prays about himself, or, according to the original text, he prays to his own soul, “Thank you, my God, that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers, tax collectors. No! I am a devoted religious man! I fast twice a week! I give away a tenth of my income! I attend church!” In this prayer he mentions God only once and himself multiple times. Strangely, his “prayer” neither sees nor savors the grace, truth, beauty, goodness, glory, and magnificence of God. Instead, it is a narcissistic moment of self-congratulation. In truth, the self-congratulation is also a self-salvation strategy, a desperate attempt to medicate a shattered and terrified ego.

Not only does the religious man rehearse his own virtues as he sees them, he also uses his virtue as a basis for looking down on other, “lesser” people with contempt. Rather than humbly confessing his weakness and need before God, he separates the world into “good people” and “bad people,” assuring himself that he is one of the good people. What ensues is a counterfeit feeling of superiority that makes him feel, at least for a time, that his shortcomings are not nearly as serious as the shortcomings of others. The problem, however, is that the vague sense of shame is merely suppressed, but not dealt with in a healing way. In the end, his “I’m good, they’re bad, I’m right, they’re wrong” posture corrupts worship and kills community.

Jesus Gives Graces

But Jesus doesn’t separate the world into good people and bad people. He separates the world into proud people and humble people. What’s more, he opposes the proud, and gives grace to the humble.

The Jesus gospel, unlike the false “gospels” of the non-religious and religious, assures those who believe that all is well, and that we are OK, not because we are superior to others or because we have accrued an impressive moral record, but because of Jesus’ self-substituting love for us. Jesus lived the perfect life that we were unable to live. Then, he transferred the merits of that perfect life to our account. Because of this, God “reckons” every Jesus person as a perfect person, not because we have lived perfectly but because Jesus lived perfectly in our place.

What’s more, Jesus absorbed the horrific, alienating punishment that was due to us—death on the cross and the removal of God’s smile. Now, because of Jesus’ substitutionary death on the cross, God looks at every Jesus person with pleasure. He hasn’t a shred of disappointment or shame toward us, because Jesus took the fall in our place. He has taken every negative verdict toward us and turned it into a “Not guilty.” He has released us from our own, self-imposed prison and told us we can live free. He has shown mercy to those once called, “No Mercy.” He has said to those once called “Not My People” that “You are my people.”

Because of Jesus, everything that’s true about Jesus is true about us in God’s eyes. He leaped over the bar of God’s law in our place, then got crushed by the bar of God’s law in our place, so that the burden of both would be lifted from our shoulders. Now, we who trust in Jesus are embraced by God as radiant, beautiful, lovable, and guilt-free, all of the time, on our best and also our worst days.

Because it’s not about what we do for him.

It’s about what he has done, and continues to do, for us.

He who began a good work in us will faithfully complete that work.

What better reason to start getting honest about our lives—that we are incomplete works in progress on the way to being made complete—without fear of being rejected or dismissed?

Take heart. In Jesus, you are loved. In Jesus, there will always be a seat for you at the King’s table. Jesus, your Elder Brother, is not ashamed of you.

—

Scott Sauls is senior pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tennessee, and author of Jesus Outside the Lines: A Way Forward for Those Who are Tired of Taking Sides. You can connect with Scott at scottsauls.com or on Twitter at @scottsauls.

Originally published at scottsauls.com. Used with permission.

Free Easter Edition of Raised?

Happy Easter. To celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, we are giving away, alongside authors Jonathan Dodson and Brad Watson, and Zondervan Publishing, an extended excerpt of Raised? for free. This gift is the entire first chapter in which Jonathan Dodson explores both our doubts and our hope in the resurrection of Jesus by pressing into the plausibility of the resurrection. Download the 25 page pdf excerpt.

Watch the four part film, download resources, and purchase the full-length book at raisedbook.com

Anticipating the Infinite Good News of Good Friday

In anticipation of Good Friday and in remembrance of the Giver of the gospel, we offer this simple liturgy. God bless you and keep you all. May you live out the good news of God’s infinite love to those around you this Easter.

The Last Supper

The sun sank over the olive groves in the west, and across Jerusalem the doorways were smeared with sacrificial blood. This was Passover, the culmination of high holy week, and though the city was ruled by Rome—occupied by soldiers under the command of procurator Pontius Pilate—families gathered to remember how Jehovah had liberated their ancestors.

When the table had been set and all of His followers had assembled, Jesus—who had been their Rabbi, their Lord—took a towel and a basin of water and washed the feet of his followers. They questioned this: it was a chore for a servant.

But, Jesus continued the task, saying, “You are right to call me Rabbi and Lord, but I tell you a servant is not greater than his master. A messenger is not greater than the one who sent him.”

Then the group took their places at the table, and as they passed the matzo, the unleavened bread, Jesus said, “One of you will betray me.”

His followers were horrified. It confirmed their fears. Hadn’t they heard rumors in Jerusalem? Weren’t the religious leaders conspiring in the temple? But, betrayal by a follower—this was unthinkable. Each questioned him, saying, “Not me, Rabbi. Tell me it’s not me.”

Jesus looked at Judas, who had already received his blood money from the conspirators.

He said, “Go. Buy what we need for the feast.”

And, Judas went out into the night.

Then Jesus took the matzo and blessed it and broke it and gave it to each of his followers, saying, “This is my body, broken for you. Take it and eat.”

He took the Passover cup of new wine and gave thanks to Jehovah God and offered it to His followers, saying, “This is my blood—the blood of the covenant, which is shed in atonement for many, for the forgiveness of sins.”

His followers did as he instructed, and Jesus said, “I will not eat or drink with you again until we meet in my Father’s house. After I’m gone, you will have each other. Continue to offer this bread and this wine in remembrance of me. You must love one another just as I have loved you. By this simple act, the whole world will know you are my followers.”

Prayer

Jesus, unite us in fellowship as we draw closer to you Unite us in communion by the power of your Holy Spirit.

Jesus, blessed is your name on high. Your love for us is infinite. Jesus, let us love one another as we know you love us.

To know this love, Jesus, to know the love of Your Father, to know Your Holy Spirit here among us now. This is eternal life. Hallelujah. Amen.

The Trial

That night Jesus walked with his followers through the olive groves of the Kidron Valley. Many of them were worried, and Peter approached him to say, “Rabbi, I will stay with you through any difficulty.”

But, Jesus told him, “Before the rooster crows twice, you’ll deny me three times.”

The hour was late. They rested in a garden outside the temple walls. Jesus often came to this spot to pray, and this was where Judas led the mob. They found Jesus, surrounded by a group of drowsy followers who all fled when they saw the swords and clubs of the crowd. Only Jesus remained.

Judas walked up to him, saying, “Rabbi,” and kissed Jesus on the cheek.

Then the mob seized him and brought Jesus to the religious conspirators. They proceeded to accuse him without due process of the law. Jesus listened to the accusations but said nothing.

Caiaphas, the High Priest, asked him, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed?”

Jesus said, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.”

Caiaphas tore his garments and screamed, “What further witnesses do we need? You have heard his blasphemy.”

At the first light of day, they hauled him to the Roman court. Pilate questioned Jesus and found him blameless, but the crowd began chanting, “Crucify him. Crucify him.”

To avoid a riot, Pilate washed his hands of the business and sentenced Jesus to death.

Jesus’ trial is troubling from a legal standpoint. Jewish law prohibited the opening of a trial at night. Jesus was assigned no defender. The allegation of blasphemy was not a capital offense, and trials for capital offenses required at least two days. Under Roman law, Jesus was found innocent, and yet he was sentenced with the most extreme penalty of the law simply to keep the peace. In other words, these proceedings were not merely unjust—the trial was illegal. Worse still, Jesus was abandoned by his closest followers. Even Peter denied him three times, cursing and insisting that he didn’t know Jesus.

Prayer

Jesus, You were a laughing stock to people who did not know you. Jesus, you were outlawed from human company. You were accused like a common thief.

Jesus, we have betrayed you to mockery, injustice, and disbelief. Jesus, we have belittled you. We have made much of ourselves.

We cry out to you, Lord Jesus. You understand our suffering and sorrow. Give us strength to remain in you Even in our own final dreadful trial. Amen.

The Execution

Following Pilate’s orders, the Roman troops took Jesus into the praetorium, stripped him naked, and forced a crown of thorns onto his head. They beat him with a barbed whip, flaying the skin off his back. As he stood there bleeding and trembling in shock, the soldiers laughed, bowing and calling him your majesty.

Once they were bored with this sport, the soldiers forced Jesus to march through the city streets, dragging the cross on which they would execute him. He was weakened by the beating. So the soldiers forced a passerby to carry the cross. In this way, they went to a rock quarry east of the city, a place called Golgotha because it looked like a human skull. There the soldiers tied Jesus’ arms to the cross and drove long metal spikes between the two bones of his forearms. His feet they pinned together with a single metal spike through bones of his ankles. Then they lifted the cross into the air, dropping the base into a hole, and left him there to die.

Death by crucifixion is slow. The body gradually suffocates. In order to draw breath, Jesus had to lift himself by the nails piercing his arms and legs.

A crowd gathered to mock him, shouting, “You’re the Son of God. Come down off that cross.” The carrion birds circled overhead. Dogs waited beneath.

After several hours of agony, Jesus said, “It is finished,” and bowed his head and gave up his Spirit. The soldiers thrust a spear through his abdomen into his heart and lungs, and he was officially declared dead.

Prayer

Jesus, You are the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For you Jesus all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, all things have been created through you and for you.

Jesus, you are before all things, and in you all things hold together. You are the head of the body, the church. You are the beginning, the firstborn from among the dead.

Jesus, God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in you. Through you we are reconciled. You made peace through your blood, shed on the cross. Jesus, in our sin, we were once your enemies. In your grace, we are now your Brothers and Sisters.

By your atonement alone we are holy in God’s sight. In you alone, we are without blemish, free from accusation. Lord let us continue in faith, established and firm, Lord Jesus, give us strength to remain forever in the hope held out in the gospel. Hallelujah. Amen.

—

Ben Roberts is a member of Austin City Life, and a follower of Christ. He rents in amazingly ugly house in Windsor Park where he lives with his wife (Jessica), son (Solomon), dog (Charles Bronson II), and two very angry chickens. A graduate of the Michener Center for Writers, he is currently working on a novel.

I Am Barabbas

Year after year, as Christians walk through the Passion week with Jesus, our hearts are knit to him. He is our greatest hero, at the climax of his greatest feat. As we relive the story with him, we pull for him, and against his enemies. We feel varying levels of disdain for Judas who betrays him, Peter who denies him, the chief priests who despise him, Herod who mocks him, the people who call for his crucifixion, Pilate who appeases the mob and washes his hands, and Barabbas who is guilty but gets to go free.

But wait. Barabbas — the guilty who goes free? Barabbas — the sinner released to new life while the death he deserves is paid by an Innocent Substitute?

Take careful note of where Luke is leading us in his carefully crafted narrative.

Jesus, the Innocent

Three times in Luke 23:15–22, Pilate declares Jesus’ innocence.

• First, in verse 15, he says, “Look, nothing deserving death has been done by him.”
• Second, in verse 20, Luke tell us, “Pilate addressed them once more, desiring to release Jesus…”
• Then, in verse 22, Luke says, “A third time [Pilate] said to them, ‘Why, what evil has he done? I have found in him no guilt deserving death.’”

Three times in this short span of eight verses, Luke, through Pilate, points us to Jesus’ innocence. Jesus has done nothing deserving death. Pilate cannot find in Jesus any guilt deserving death. Our hero is innocent.

And it’s not only in these eight verses. Throughout chapter 23, Luke seems at pains to draw our attention to Jesus’ innocence. We might even call it the major theme of his version of the story.

At the beginning of the chapter, in verse 4, Pilate had already said, “I find no guilt in this man.” Then verses 14–15 reflect back on what has already happened. Not only had Pilate previously declared Jesus innocent (verse 4), but also Herod had. So Pilate says in verses 14–15: “You brought me this man as one who was misleading the people. And after examining him before you, behold, I did not find this man guilty of any of your charges against him. Neither did Herod, for he sent him back to us.”

Then later in the chapter, the theme of Jesus’ innocence will be echoed again, by both the thief on the cross and by the centurion. The thief on the cross will say to the other thief in verse 41, “We are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And the centurion will say at Jesus’ death in verse 47: “Certainly this man was innocent!”

Why would Luke make so much of Jesus’ innocence? Why at least six clear declarations of Jesus’ innocence in this chapter? Why so carefully tell us that Pilate initially found no guilt in Jesus, then neither did Herod, then Pilate declared Jesus’ innocence three more times, and then not only the thief on the cross but also the centurion recognized this innocence? Luke is taking us somewhere.

Barabbas, the Guilty

Just after Pilate has said, “Look, nothing deserving death has been done by him,” Luke tells us in verses 18–19, “But they all cried out together, ‘Away with this man, and release to us Barabbas’—a man who had been thrown into prison for an insurrection started in the city and for murder.”

It is Barabbas who is the guilty, says Luke, “a man who had been thrown into prison for an insurrection started in the city and for murder.” Barabbas is the same man called “a notorious prisoner” in Matthew 27:16, and Mark 15:7 tells us that Barabbas was “among the rebels in prison, who had committed murder in the insurrection.”

Murder and rebellion. Rebellion is the precise thing the leaders and the people are charging Jesus with when they say he is “misleading the people” (verse 14) and “saying that he himself is Christ, a king” (verse 2). And murder is an offense that makes it clear that Barabbas not only deserves to be in prison, but he deserves death. Genesis 9:6 taught, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.” Barabbas is no mere offender in rehab, but a murderer on Death Row.

Luke then reiterates for us Barabbas’s guilt in verse 25. Notice the restatement of Barabbas’s guilt when he says, “[Pilate] released the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder . . . .” In other words, remember Barabbas’s sin. He’s guilty as charged.

One way we could summarize Barabbas’s plight would be to say that he is guilty of rebellion deserving death. In contrast with Jesus, who Pilate says in verse 22 has “no guilt deserving death,” Barabbas is the guilty who deserves to die.

A Horrific and Holy Substitution

Not only is Jesus the innocent, but Barabbas is the guilty. Jesus is innocent and has done nothing deserving death. Barabbas is the rebel prisoner, carrying with him guilt deserving death.

But here’s where Luke means for us to not only identify with Jesus, our Savior, but also to identify in some sense with Barabbas who so embodies our plight as rebels deserving death and our need for saving. Verse 25: “[Pilate] released the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder, for whom they asked, but he delivered Jesus over to their will.”

Jesus the innocent is delivered over to the punishment of death; while the guilty, deserving of death, is released and thus given new life.

Note Luke’s emphasis in the word “release” that appears five times in the story:

• In verse 16, Pilate first declares that he intends to release Jesus.
• But in verse 17, the people respond, “Away with [Jesus], and release to us Barabbas.”
• Then in verse 20, Pilate again expresses his intention to release Jesus.
• Then a third time, in verse 22, Pilate says he plans to release Jesus.
• But finally in verse 25, Luke tells us that Pilate “released the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder, for whom they asked, but he delivered Jesus over to their will.”

And so the people are pleased to exchange Jesus, the innocent, for Barabbas, the guilty.

The First Substitution of the Cross

As we’ve seen through the stressing of Jesus’ innocence and Barabbas’s guilt, Luke is leading us sinners, in his careful telling of the story, to identify in this significant way with Barabbas. As Jesus’ condemnation leads to the release of a multitude of spiritual captives from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation, so also his death sentence leads to the release of the physical captive Barabbas. It’s a foretaste of the grace that will be unleashed at the cross.

Jesus is manifestly innocent. Barabbas is clearly guilty—just as we also are clearly guilty before God. Rebels deserving death. Romans 3:23 says it’s not a few of us, or even many of us, but all of us who “have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” And Romans 6:23 tells us that “the wages of sin is death.”

So as Pilate releases Barabbas the guilty, and delivers over to death Jesus the innocent, we have here a picture of our own release effected by the cross through faith. In Barabbas we have a glimpse of our guilt deserving death, and a preview of the arresting grace of Jesus and his embrace of the cross through which we are set free.

Here as Jesus is delivered to death, and Barabbas is released to new life, we have the first substitution of the cross. The innocent Jesus is condemned as a sinner, while the guilty sinner is released as if innocent.

I Am Barabbas

So Luke, it appears, means for us to identify both with Jesus and Barabbas. Jesus in that by identifying with him, through being united with him by faith, his death is our death. His condemning of sin is our condemning of sin. And Barabbas in that we are sinners, criminals who have broken God’s law, guilty as charged, deserving death for our rebellion against our creator and the ruler of the universe. And Jesus, through the grace of giving himself for us at the cross, takes our place and we are released.

As we more greatly understand the depths of our sin, we see with Luke, “I am Barabbas.” I am the one so clearly guilty and deserving of condemnation but set free because of the willing substitution of the Son of God in my place. “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick,” Jesus says in Mark 2:17. “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

—

David Mathis (@davidcmathis) is executive editor for desiringGod.org, pastor at Cities Church in Minneapolis/Saint Paul, and adjunct professor for Bethlehem College & Seminary. He has edited several books, including Finish the Mission, Acting the Miracle, and most recently Cross, and is co-author of How to Stay Christian in Seminary.

Originally posted at DesiringGod.org. Used with permission.