Changed By Glory

A Home Anchored In Reality

Anytime we seek to understand the life of a person it is helpful to explore the seeds that were sown in their youth and what type of environment those seeds took root in. Rather than be biographical it is my desire to simply expound upon factors in the life of Edwards that I find interesting, timeless, and helpful not only for my own life but also for the lives of my wife and children as I desire to provide for them an environment where the seeds of the Gospel can have deep roots and distractions are few.

As I looked at the colonial, puritan home of Edward’s childhood, the first thing that struck me was that it was a home anchored in realities, namely harsh realities. In a time when the mortality rate was high and life expectancy was short it was hard to escape the specter of death from which we so easily and eagerly insulate ourselves in modern, western society. Now there is nothing new under the sun and we would be fools not to observe that even in the 18^th century there was no shortage of vanity or exhibitions of futility. When we observe the excesses of European aristocracy and even the largesse of the American upper crust, we see that even with the grim reaper near at hand man has sought to escape the reality of the inevitable through “the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the boastful pride of life”. So though it may have been hard for young Edwards to ignore the grim realities of life at that stage in history, it was still possible. The fact that he seems to have faced those realities with a certain matter-of-fact calm I believe can  be found partly in the fact that the puritan home he was raised in was anchored in and elevated the value of objective truth, God’s truth revealed in the Holy Scriptures.

The practical result of creating an environment, home or church, where objective truth is central is that there is little room for self-deceptive insulations from reality and wasting of thought, energy, and time investing in fantasy. The desire to depart from reality and withdraw into the safety of our own illusions is a form of idolatry. When we do not create a life, a reality based in objective truth, we are creating something that we believe is better deserving of our affection and attention than God. Death, for example, is one of the harshest realities that we face and we try our best not to think about it or to insulate ourselves from it, rather than facing it in light of the objective truth of God’s word. As believers a view of death that is  bold and based in truth should first of all replace fear with joy and anticipation of glory and secondly motivate us to mission as we consider the true end of Christ-rejecting mankind.

A life rooted not in fantasy but in objective truth is a life unwasted. It is a truly happy life and one that frees us to use the greater capacity of our mind and emotions for the glory of God. It is time that we stop daydreaming and we begin meditating on God’s word. We should consider our last breath, only taking consolation in the Gospel and examining in light of truth if we are in Christ. As parents we can do our children a great service by feeding the young minds of our children with glorious reality. They will not be morose, but truly joyful in time as the Gospel takes root. We should take care what movies they watch, what books they read, lest we find that they go into their adult lives without a firm grip on the realities in life viewed through the glass of God’s absolute, objective truth.

I am challenged to examine my own life. I am shocked with the amount of time that is spent in petty fantasies and imaginations and the urges I feel to feed that desire for non-reality. May God grant us the grace to be joyfully sober, rooted in God’s truth. That is true reality and is above and beyond the bounds of our feeble, vain imaginations

II Corinthians 1:1

“Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God , and Timothy our brother. To the church of God that is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia”

  In his second letter to the church in Corinth, Paul begins by declaring by what authority he writes to the “church of God which is at Corinth”.

   It would be good for us, in understanding what exactly Paul is asserting here to exam two parts of this passage, namely the characteristics of who he claims to be, which are:

1. “An Apostle of Christ Jesus”
2. “…By the will of God”

An Apostle of Christ Jesus

In nine of the thirteen books that we know Paul wrote (with the possibility of Hebrews being a fourteenth) he introduces himself in a variation of this greeting, affirming himself to be “an Apostle of Jesus Christ”. I am not a Greek scholar, but if I trust what I am told this noun  “Apostle” comes from the Greek verb apostello, which means “to send out”, making an Apostle a “sent one”.

  Even though Paul had not been numbered among the original twelve that had walked with Christ, he had received a personal call on the road to Damascus from the risen Christ himself (Acts 9:3-16). Paul saw this event as his commissioning, as he states in the defense of his apostleship in I Corinthians 9:1 “…Am I not an Apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?”

   It is easy to ask the question “Why would Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit to write each word, choose to open nine of his letters with this claim? Why here to the Corinthian church, whom he had already written in defense of his apostleship (I Cor. 9)? The answer lies in the centrality of Christ in his claim of apostleship. I believe Paul wanted to be clear that he was not just any “new kid on the block” and that the words he wrote were not on the basis of his own authority, but the authority of Christ. Paul was not an apostle of the church in Jerusalem or Antioch, he was not an apostle of his own learned philosophy. He was an apostle of the one who had died for these Saints in Corinth, an apostle of the resurrected God-man, an apostle of Christ Jesus. Paul was not speaking on his own authority and he desired that from the beginning his audience would know that, even at the risk of being redundant. Finally, Paul was not an apostle by his own appointment or the appointment of mere men. He was “an  Apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God”.

…by the will of God.

  It is one thing to say that you have been sent out by someone. If I go to the store and say to the clerk, “I have been sent to buy diapers by the will of my wife”, it would sound humorous and perhaps in the culture I currently live make me appear weak. Let’s say on a higher level, that I walk down to the park and see a man sitting on a bench and I walk up to him and say, “I have been sent as a messenger of Christ”, that ups the ante a bit. What if I then have the audacity to tack onto that, “I have been sent as a messenger of Christ, by the will of God”, I might get a different response. The man on the bench may think I am just that much more crazy, but it may be intriguing. It is a powerful assertion to the say that you are appointed by the will of God. I myself feel a little uncomfortable when people go around saying that they are doing this or that because it is the will of God, as if they had received special, extra-biblical revelation.  Paul was not content to just make the general statement that he is a sent one, but goes on with the bold assertion that it was the will of God. That confidence was not just rooted in his Damascus road experience, in Galatians 1:15-16 in the midst of the account of his calling he says “…he (God) who had set me apart before I was born and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his son to me….”  Paul’s understanding of his calling went beyond the words of the risen Christ to Saul, the enemy of the church, the roots of his calling went deep into his understanding of the sovereignty of God. Paul new his Bible, what we call the “Old Testament” well, so when he heard the voice of Christ, declaring that he was God’s chosen instrument to the Gentiles, his scripture saturated mind must have gone directly to the words of another chosen mouth-piece, Isaiah, when he declared “The Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name” Isaiah 49:1

   Paul wished to make it abundantly clear to the church in Corinth that he was not writing to promote his own agenda and he starts by making a bold assertion, that he was sent out by Jesus Christ according to the will of a sovereign God determined before he was even born. It may be asked how he could substantiate such a bold claim and he addresses this issue and spends much time presenting fruit of his apostleship later in the letter, but that is for another day.

   Paul, who admonished against false-teachers (i.e.Galatians 1:9), I am sure wished that his readers would indeed test his apostleship and make certain that his teaching and conduct were consistent with that of an Apostle of Christ. His introduction serves to clarify on what basis and authority he spoke, in order that his teaching would be authoritative and his conduct be glorifying to God and not to himself. He wished that we would be able to go into the letter with the knowledge that these words are not merely good ideas or vain philosophies, but words inspired by God and spoken through his chosen instrument, commissioned by Christ.

  Holding dear to the doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture, we now look to these words in II Corinthians, inspired by the Holy Spirit through a Christ appointed apostle and we should test all teaching by them. May we only give ear to teachers who root their authority not in themselves, but in Christ and his word, teachers that can make a clear substantiated claim that they in fact are striving to teach on that authority and not their own.

Doctrine should never be understood from our experiences but we should always understand our experiences through sound doctrine. -or- The way we understand our life and all it contains should be on the foundation of sound doctrine. We err when we draw conclusions about the scripture from what we have felt, needed or experienced. Instead we discern the truth about what we feel, need and experience through the truth of scripture.

As I was walking to language school this morning and thinking over my life, the recent words of a friend and some experiences I have had I came to a conclusion that I hope to further explore. That is that whether a person is in error by minimizing the doctrine of holiness and sanctification on one hand or in error by minimizing the fullness and completeness of Justification by faith alone apart from works on the other hand, they basically stray on the same basic issue, having to do with whether Salvation is mostly or primarily man-centered or God-centered. If your basic understanding of God’s eternal purpose in salvation is to make much of man you will err in either of these camps. On the one hand you will believe that God’s aim in loving you and saving you is to make much of you, primarily, and to give you happiness and eternal life in heaven or perhaps even many earthly pleasures in this life. The other ditch, stemming from the same problem tends toward the belief that I must work and fight sin in order to make myself pleasing to God, thus worthy of obtaining eternal life. The fear of turning the grace of God into licentiousness will often drive a person that errs in this way to not trust God’s grace at all in reality, but to carry the burden of making themselves holy on their own, though perhaps admittedly “with God’s help” (I speak from experience).
Both are man centered views, on one hand God is condescending and benevolent, at work to show mankind their worth through abounding grace without accountability and on the other hand by requiring man to prove his worth and to attain to a certain standard, working to show himself deserving of God’s mercy.
I would argue that both are symptoms of the same poison. A Gospel that does not hold up a holy, just, sovereign God who alone can save, who alone can justify, sanctify and preserve to glory those whom He has chosen by His mercy according to the glorious council of His sovereign plan for the glory of His name. A gospel that exalts this God who saves men from all tribes and nations for His glory and the praise of His glorious grace. A God who with such mercy saves by grace through faith alone freely and doesn’t stop there but works to sanctify that person day after day more into His likeness so that He may have a holy people, called out from corruption for His glory! How great is THE Gospel and Oh! How great is the God of the Gospel!

Luke 18:1-8(ESV)

And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. 2 He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. 3 And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ 4 For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’” 6 And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. 7 And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? 8 I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

The point of this parable is not that God’s arm can be twisted into doing something other than what He has ordained, but that God is faithful to vindicate the cries for justice from His elect.

The point in the comparison between God and the judge is not that God is like the judge in His actions, motives, or progression of thought to action, but that God is greater than this judge, who though an earthly judge may be moved to action by being wearied by the persistent pleas of this woman, God is not wearied by the cries for justice from His elect. In fact He will not delay, but I would argue is always at work unfolding His justice and deliverance to be fulfilled at the end of the age. Again, this parable is not saying that God is moved by repetitiousness and that if only His elect would plead more and ask more He would be moved to do something, but that His elect should pray and have faith, not losing heart, having the knowledge that their God who waits on them is not like an earthly judge who must be swayed, but that God “works all things together for good for those that love God and are called according to His purpose”, that God is not in need of persuading, but like as the perfect, just and good Father that He is He answers the pleas of His elect speedily.

Now that begs the answer to the question, “What does speedily mean?” In light of eternity and the scope of God’s vision and our own personal experience as His children we know that this can not be defined as within a week, twenty-four hours, a year…. I believe the answer could be found at the end of the parable “when the Son of Man comes will He find faith on the earth?” We He find faith? Will He find those who have prayed and not lost heart after years of toil? As God’s elect we are to be heavenly minded, having fixed our eyes on that which is to come. We often experience the direct answers to our pleas here on earth, but yet I believe we are to pray and not grow weary knowing that “speedily” all will be made right and we should live with that perspective. That if God chooses to reveal His will and answer and vindicate me in a instant that is well, but that I can as one of His elect rest in His goodness and justice that when I pray to Him He cares and is speedily at work to right the wrongs, to come to my aid, to defend me… even if I do not see it or experience it tangibly until the moment when Jesus wipes all tears from my eyes.
Note: It has been a long time since any post. I hope and pray that I will have more chances to write in the coming days. May God be glorified.

A Hyper-Arminian’s Theological Transformation

Introduction

With my shirt clinging uncomfortably to my skin from sweat, I walked through the heavy night air of a city in the Middle East. My heart was heavy as I surveyed the apartment buildings around me and listened to the sounds of passersby speaking a language of which I had no clue. This wasn’t the moment I rebuilt my entire doctrinal viewpoint, in was just another buttress being added to the structure of biblical understanding that had been forming, consciously or unconsciously for the past several years. I think in that time and place something, be it pride or merely lack of understanding, was stripped from my heart.

In that place, foreign and new, I was faced with a very real task that God had laid in front of me. I was overwhelmed. How could I do anything for God? In the states it seemed easy enough to fulfill “my calling”; lead some bible studies, occasionally share the Gospel, go to community group. Suddenly, in a step of obedience I found myself at a place in my life where I had to reevaluate how and why I did things for God simply because God brought to a place where I did not have all the knowledge, all the answers. Many of my theological arguments were tested in that moment. As dramatic as that may sound, it is very true. That night, walking through that city that I had been called to bring the Gospel to, I felt very, very small; very, very insignificant. I think the reason why that moment stands out to me is because for many reasons I had never felt that helpless before. I couldn’t explain how I had got to that place or how anything was going to come of it. The foundation of my transformation was coming to the place where I really, really, really began to see that nothing was about me and everything was about God. Everything in my life that had led up to that moment had been by a grace that despite all odds and all my wretchedness had grown me, worked in me, moved me to that place. I looked into the future and I looked at the Word and then I looked at where I was and I felt that if anything was to come of this work it must have nothing to do with me.

That night I went home, a feeling of hope welling up in my heart. I had considered my life with all of it’s ups and downs and how God had led me. I considered the unknown of the future and I felt at peace. God was in control. I was there in that city, married to that wonderful woman, with that beautiful daughter not because of choices I made, but because of a grace greater than I could comprehend. I knew that by sovereign appointment God had called me to that place for the sake of the glory of His name. All that had been and all that was to be had been preordained by God, the just and loving sustainer of the universe. I was filled with hope. I knew that whatever lay ahead, I existed for God’s glory. To borrow familiar words, it was grace that had brought me safe thus far and grace would lead me home…. It was irresistible….

Following Chapters To Come Soon…

How are we faithful in unrighteous wealth? Many use this as an excuse to save money and invest it, thus increasing your wealth, but the prior parable shows that this is not how a son of light uses his wealth, but he uses it for those things which are eternal. This is faithful management of earthly wealth for the believer. If a believer cannot give away and invest in what is eternal, God will not entrust such a one with true, spiritual riches. Thus when challenged in the area of say, missions, they will say “That is not my ministry” and right they are for until they can learn how to manage their earthly possessions in an eternal way God will not entrust them with a place in his great eternal purpose. What they do not realize is the money which they thought they had was not theirs to keep. No one can serve God and money.

The message is not popular. The religious men of that day were no doubt faithful to tithe, but they loved money and it was proved in the way they used what they had. We justify ourselves before men with the excuse of using sums of money for that which is eternal, yet the lifestyle we lead proves where the majority of our money and earthly affections go. The dilemma is that God knows the heart (Luke16: 15) and he knows our motive behind the use of money; so that if one spends money on houses, lands, cars, entertainment, above that which they invest in the eternal it shows where their heart is and they cannot hide. God sees and discerns the question “why do you need those things?” We dare not justify ourselves as the pharisees did. Take care, all of us, for the word speaks of the deceitfulness of riches.

Here is a final note to chew on when we consider how we are to steward our unrighteous wealth. In Luke 16:19-31 we see perhaps one of the more disturbing stories in scripture. The rich man and Lazarus. We are all very familiar with this story, but before we skip over it as we often do the common stories that perhaps make us uncomfortable let me clarify a couple of things about our usual approach to this story. One, we usually say “I am not rich, like that.” If you live above what you need to have; your house bigger than you need, your car is nicer than you need, your clothes are nicer than you need… than you are rich. Okay, so maybe we admit that we are rich and so that is not a hang up, well let me drive it close to our hearts, where I have gone in the past with these verses. When we read this passage we are quick to say “If there was such a man outside my house of course I would help him! I wouldn’t leave him there all those years, that would just be wickedness!” Here is where it gets gritty for us here in the west. Please here this! Don’s shut me out, read on! In the context of the day we live in, this age of rapid globalization, we are surrounded by hurting, hungry people on our doorstep, don’t be msitaken. Jesus made it clear who our neighbor is. Turn on CNN or any other major news channel, hear of the calamity in Haiti, the children starving in Africa, the poor, the widows, the orphans! Oh! We say “Selling my house and living in smaller one isn’t going to make that big of a difference. We can’t help everyone. God has given me my family as my responsibility. Even Jesus said ‘the poor you will always have with you!”

Shame on you! Shame on us! Shame on the church! Shame on all the western Christians blinded by the deceitfulness of riches who will one day wake up in the midst of a flame because they didn’t catch the gravity behind the truth “You cannot serve God and money.” If you can make a difference for one or a hundred you have done it for Christ and I guarantee you God will take care of your family. Seek first His kingdom.

People get upset when I talk about this subject. I am accused of being judgmental, harsh. Many I am sure think that it is my attempt as a person working as a church-planter to guilt trip people into giving me money for my work. Where here is to those that may think that this is simply a fundraising appendix of mine; I don’t need your money. God has always, always been faithful to provide, even when things get really tough. He has always done what he promised to do and it only grieves me that I have not trusted him and given more.

I could go on and on, but let me just say this; if we can turn on CNN and hear of the misery to those on our doorstep and we do not weep, groan, and are driven to forsake our stuff in order to be the hands an feet of Christ to as many as we can… well, read Luke 16. There was a man who did just that, see how it worked out for him. Praise God, we have one who has come back from the dead who empowers us to live our lives for him if we are his. We have the words that this rich man longed for his brothers to hear.

Over the past few weeks there has been a growing joy that has shaped in my life, hanging over me. I find myself smiling and trusting God more, weeping as I read his Word as I consider this miracle of sovereign grace. I think of my ways of thinking in the past and the defeat I had over sin back then, despite very sincere attempts to overcome. Now walking in victory and growing in the Lord I consider His grace and mercy to me. Here are some thoughts that I had at the airport in Amsterdam last week as I was waiting in line to board. I jotted them down quickly.

How dangerous it is to trust in anything but sovereign grace, for being by nature utterly depraved I am incapable of defeating sin on the basis of free will. If I truly believe in inherited depravity then I must believe that my will, left to itself, will always choose destruction and rebellion against God. In fact on the basis of my own free will even the good which I would seem to do would be tainted with the stench of my inherited depravity. Reliance on free will not only fails to exalt Christ to his rightful place as the “author and finisher“ of our faith but it leads down a path that could result in hearing “I never knew you, depart from me you who practice lawlessness” (Matt. 7:23) I always assumed that this was talking about people who preached or confessed some form of the gospel, but they must have lived in some hidden sin or something like this, but could it be that these well-meaning folk, denying the work of God’s sovereign grace, were followed to the judgement with a trail of good deeds tainted by depravity instead of shining with the imputed righteousness of Christ? That “having a form of godliness” they denied it’s power? That they were found at the feast, but were thrust out because their garments were of their standard and not suitable for the presence of a just, holy God? Sobering thoughts on one hand, but wait!!!!

Behold! The thought of divine grace to me! An undeserving wretch! What joy! What victory! An offender of the Almighty, enemy of God, chosen in my depravity, made righteous by the Judge and empowered for good works sweetened with the purity and goodness of Christ!

What Joy!!!!