Slavery is Alive and We're the Slaves

This leads to slavery to your own perfection

"What do you do with the person who says, I’ve asked God to forgive me, but I still feel guilty? A noted writer (RC Sproul I think) was asked once. 'Well, if You still feel guilty, then pray to God again, but this time don’t ask Him to forgive you for the sin that is haunting you. Rather ask Him to forgive you for insulting His integrity by refusing to accept His forgiveness. Who are you to refuse to forgive yourself when God has forgiven you…it is often a very difficult thing to accept the grace of God. Our human arrogance makes us want to atone for our own sins to make it up to God with works of super-righteousness'”. ~Steve Brown

Galatians 3:10-11: "For all who rely on works of the law [rule keeping] are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith."

Why is it so hard to believe this truth of Scripture?  Why can't we just live by faith?  What does that really mean anyway, "live by faith"?  Well let's look at what Paul says regarding this - in Galatians 3:2-3 he asks "how did you become a Christian?" And they as we would answered "by believing in Jesus and His life, death and resurrection and by believing in His forgiving my sins."  Then something happens.  Paul knows the church at Galatia (and where I pastor and in my heart) is now working to try and become "perfect".  They are doing stuff to make God happy with themselves and forcing others to obey by their rules too.  They and we are adding to what Christ did. "His forgiveness wasn't enough...let me atone some myself" is what we say. We add, "If you want to be a real Christian and be really really good, then do what I tell you."  They were enslaving the church to do works.  They were teaching the body of believers that Christ's work wasn't enough.

You see Paul says, "you started out so well...believing and now you're actually trying to be perfect by doing something for God?"  Why do we do this to ourselves and to others?  Why do we enslave ourselves to "doing something"?  Because we don't believe.  We don't believe that we've been "credited with Christ's righteousness" for all of life so we "do".  And when we "do" it's never ever enough, good enough, consistent enough or often enough so we "try try again" (or when we do it we become arrogant, prideful and judgmental because we have our act together and "they don't").  As Tullian Tchividjian wrote: "Law says, 'I'll love you if you meet my standards.' Gospel says, 'I love you in spite of the fact that you can't meet my standards.'"  Jesus met them for us!

We work because we don't believe

But Paul tells us something so simple, so powerful yet so hard to grasp: "the righteous [that is the believer...we ARE righteous!!!!] shall live by faith."  We are to believe/have faith in our declared state...that we are righteous and so we don't have to be a slave to our good works.  We are set free by Christ to love Christ and our neighbors.  The curse is gone and the captives are set free.  We are no longer a subject of Satan and sin but a child of the living God.  A slave set free by the purchase of the blood of Jesus doesn't run wild but : "When I realize God loves me just the same when I'm disobedient as when I'm obedient, it doesn't make me want to obey less...but more" ~Tullian.

Learning to read all over again

I've had the opportunity to learn 4 languages.  Two of them, English and Spanish, I use almost everyday in conversation and "normal" communications.  The others (Greek and Hebrew) I learned in seminary and use less frequently and in different ways.  Yet other than my "native" language of English, learning these other languages was very hard.  Reading them takes constant study and review because they are not natural to me. Sentence structure and vocabulary is very different as are the idioms for each language.  I must learn and re-learn how to think like a native speaker so as I read those languages I can make sense of it all.

Well I am now learning another language...the language of the Gospel.  I am learning to read the Bible in a new way that is changing me in so many ways.  I am learning to see who I am, what has been done and more importantly the impact that has on my daily living.  I am learning to read all over again.

Now I hunt for verbs...verbs that say so much to us and verbs that we tend to just skip over and regulate to "habit reading" - meaning we just gloss over them because we're in the habit of seeing them but not resting on their meaning.  I hunt for nouns that declare who I am in Christ. For example:

• Rom 5:1 -  Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Go slow and re-read this text that you've read so many times before. What do you see? "since we have been justified by faith" - Do you see the verbs?  The verbs (present perfect) mean that an action happened in the past with continuing action for now!  We have been justified and we are justified.  And what is the effect or result of this justification?  We have peace!  God is no longer angry or mad or waiting for you or me to "get better". IT IS FINISHED!!
• Eph 2:8-10 - "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."  Slow down again and read it again. "We have been saved" - it's over and done with so now what? God is working on us for what purposes? To sit in Sunday School classes and just learn? NO..."for good works".  But whose good works? Mine? Yours? No, we are doing God's good works!  He is working through us.  That is why we take care of the poor because He cares for them (read Proverbs and Psalms for this).  And where do we get the power to do this?  Read Ephesians 1...all of it really really slow.  Soak up the verbs of what happened and to the nouns of who we are now!
• Col 1:12-14 - "Giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."  Paul just encouraged us to be strong....but how? No words of "study harder" or "be better" or "don't smoke" but he reminds of the "indicatives" (our state of being) of God's word...what has been done! We have been qualified; have been delivered; transferred us to the kingdom; have redemption; forgiveness. IT IS FINISHED!!!
  

When I start to believe these words (these ARE the words of God), I start to really act differently and behave "better".  So learn to read all over again.  Learn to see what Christ has done to give us power to live through our Lord and Savior.  It will humble you and empower you...everyday!

Finding the Gospel in Bowling!

Recently the youth of The Bridge went bowling.  It was a fun night as the group as able to come together after a great day of serving the needy in our community.  They were tired and ready for some fun!

Most in the group bowled before and were able to relax and enjoy the night...but for one person.

This poor kid just couldn't get it.  He had never bowled before and just bowled gutter ball after gutter ball. No doubt seeing time after time, throw after throw of the other kids knocking down pins made it worse for him.

But then I noticed something.  He was walking up to the foul-line and then would stand there trying his best to aim the ball down the middle of the alley.  He feared the gutter lanes.  He feared throwing his ball and it running down the gutter knocking nothing down but his ego and pride.  He was frozen in fear.  He couldn't break into double digits for his entire game.  The gutters were the very things he was trying to avoid and the more he tried to avoid them, the more he threw the ball into the gutters.

So a wise person (my wife) suggested we set up the bumpers on one alley and some of us bowl there while she asked this bowling rookie to join us. (Bumpers are rubber guides that won't let the ball get into the gutter...ever).  So some of us bowled on this alley and what happened next was amazing!  His score rose from less than 10 to over 100.  What happened?  First, he did hit the bumpers, guaranteeing some pins would fall - but he only hit the bumpers 3 or 4 times so something else had to happen!

When he saw the bumpers, he knew he couldn't fail so he lost his fear of making a mistake.  He was set free!  He was set free to just "throw the ball" and he did just that...right down the middle time and time again.  He knew if he "erred" and threw towards the gutter the bumpers would guide his ball back to it's intended target.  I saw the gutters as the law (you perform or else) and the bumpers as the Gospel...the demands have been met by Christ and His righteousness protects us from the wrath of gutter balls!  We may throw one in the gutter but it is only Jesus who can rescue us (Rom 7: 24-25).

And this is what the Gospel does to us...it sets us free!!  When we concentrate on the law (the law condemns and tells us we came up short - the "gutters") we will be so fearful of not breaking it, we will do nothing and live in fear.  Yet because Jesus gave us His performance and His righteousness we are "a new creation" and "have been raised up".  We can't make ourselves any better than He made us when we were...well made new.

Paul puts it this way in Galatians 5:1 "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by the yoke of slavery."  The slavery was the slave to law and performance.  For the young bowler it was the slavery of messing up and throwing the ball in the gutter and the bumpers set him free.

The law demands performance "or else" and the Gospel supplies the grace we need to live free.

When we get this and believe this, like this young bowler, will be set free to live an abundant life because "Therefore there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."