Self-Justification

"As long as your conscience is able to justify your [moral] failure, your soul will never vigorously attempt the mortification of sin." ~John Owen

The other day I was looking back over some past posts and realized that I was seeing a trend in what I have been writing about.  Due in part to a large influence by who I have been reading, I have noticed that many of my posts tend to deal with sin, and our fight against it.  In the past months I have come to the conclusion that American Christianity rarely, if ever, truly hates sin.  I have reached this conclusion for several reasons.  First, rarely is the "s" word ever mentioned in Christian circles.  Often times sin is treated like an ancillary problem that can be dealt with later after we have introduced teddy bear Jesus.  The problem is, no one ever seems to getting around to dealing with it.  Secondly, as I have pursued conversations about salvation, holiness and sanctification with people, the phrase I think I have heard the most (certainly in the top three), is along the lines of this, "I will never be perfect, that's why there is grace."  That is a true statement, but the context in which that statement is used the most is generally when people are making an excuse for a sin.  And I fear that it used to hide the fact that we rather enjoy the sin we are entangled in and don't want to give it up.  Finally, the fear of God is extinct in most churches.  A poor view of who God is, and our infinite distance from Him because of our sin, has bred a weird familiarity with God that lacks holy fear that He is God and I am a sinful man.  The fact that all of saints in Scripture who see God think that they are going to die is lost on us for some reason.

This has been crystalized for me in my reading of John Owen's The Mortification of Sin which has been abridged (and made easy to read thank goodness) by Richard Rushing.  I would recommend it to anyone who is serious about throwing off the sin which entangles us to easily and running hard after Jesus.  The line from the book that I quote above was kind of an "Aha" moment for me.  We are so quick to justify our moral shortcomings.  We are so quick to either look around us and find someone worse off than we are to compare ourselves to or to write off whatever is pressing on our conscience as just a byproduct of being human that will never be resolved.  And while I am not saying that we will be perfect in this life, I am saying that these excuses are silly because they do not create in us an appropriate hatred of sin that is necessary to run hard after Jesus.  Let me put it this way.  If my wife hates a television show that I insist on watching, I will be deprived of time spent with my wife while I watch that show because she will have nothing to do with it.  If we continually make excuses for indulging in something that Christ hates, what makes us think that we will not be deprived of His presence?  Stop making excuses for sin and start fighting it instead.  Or in other words, stop loving the things of this world and desire instead fellowship with Christ.  And if that last line creates in your heart a response of, "Christ cannot be more interesting than x, y, or z" or "Yes, but what about all that is good in life," repent and ask Jesus to reveal Himself to you and remove whatever idol has a grip on your heart.

Tim Tebow / Peyton Manning

I can't help myself.  All day long, and really ever since Peyton Manning was signed and the Tebow countdown clock started, I have been reading facebook and twitter posts from Tebow-ites raging that God will bless whichever team picks up Tebow and curse the Bronco's.  I'm sorry, I'm laughing at you and not with you.  I will play along with your train of thought and ignore the fact that Peyton Manning also claims to follow Christ (ouch, turns out Timmy and Peyton are in fact on the same team, looks like you can't hate the Bronco's anymore...), and address what I see as the silly premise at the base of a lot of this internet tough guy hate.  I think most of these statements reveal the truth, that many professing believers root for Tim Tebow because they see a man living his faith out in a way that makes them feel guilty because they don't live their faith out at all.  And they are rooting for his success because then the paradigm through which they see God is fulfilled: Do good for God and He will give you earthly blessings.  When that paradigm gets blown up, and the truth that has been proclaimed throughout scripture and history, that those who follow Christ adamantly and without reservation usually end up getting the brunt end of the stick, people get angry because they can't handle the idea that God's ultimate good for a person to get him to the place where he does not hold tightly to the things of this earth.  Thus the promises of a hard life, not an easy one.  I work in college athletics at a Christian University and so I can say this pretty definitively: I rarely see anyone interested in the hope we as Christians have after we beat them senseless at a game.  But when we bust our butts and get a raw deal, or when we give it everything we have and lose when we aren't supposed to, that's when people see something different.  Our hope isn't in a game or success in a game, it's in Jesus Christ.  Tim Tebow got a raw deal.  He was busy busting his butt to be the best he could be and got displaced by a first ballot Hall of Famer (who, once again, professes to believe in the same God).  Stop whining about it and start checking your gut to see what you hope in so that when life does the same thing to you, you run to Christ.

Home

Driving a bus from Lakewood, Colorado to Winona Lake, Indiana offers a person quite a bit of time to contemplate lots of things. That is a dangerous proposition when your brain already refuses to shut off. During this week long road trip with the CCU Women’s Basketball team I found myself often contemplating this question, “What am I doing?”  This was not a question arising from the obvious query regarding the sanity of one who voluntarily and joyfully drives a 37-passenger bus across the country (with help of course).  No, this is a question that I have been found asking myself for the better part of three years. Often the question arises during times of contemplation and reflection and serves as a way to, for lack of a better term, recalibrate my bearings towards Christ. Almost as often the question arises out of frustration with surroundings and circumstances. “The grass is greener” mentality is a struggle that I fight with at times. I think job statistics and the number of times a person is likely to change jobs backs up the premise that many people struggle with this, but that may just be me hoping that I am not the only one who struggles with that.

Regardless of what precipitates the question, my answer almost always leaves me longing for home. Not Alaska, where I grew up and still think about often, and not Colorado, where my house and bed currently reside. I find myself longing to be in the physical presence of Christ. I use the term “presence of Christ” instead of heaven on purpose.  Too often people speak of heaven and what they mean is a peaceful utopia where their sinful desires are met without resistance from conscience or fear of judgment. I long to be rid of my sinful flesh and look into the face of Christ for eternity. The more I ask myself the question, “What am I doing?” the more whatever it is I am doing holds less and less appeal. The more I look at my life and the world around me the more I find myself longing to see the face of Jesus.

Home is not here.  Home is in the presence of Jesus.  We are pilgrims.  We are sojourners.  We are here for a moment and then gone.  Why do we waste our time on anything that does not point us towards or bring us closer to home?

Hope pt 3

Last week when I preached I challenged people to test themselves to see what they put their hope in.  The two tests were these: First, if you knew you were going to die or that Jesus was coming back tonight, what response would that elicit?  Often, I think the response is, "That's great, but... there is so much I want to still do in life.  There is (fill in the blank)."  I know this because this was my response for the longest time.  While it is innocent enough, it belies the fact that we are actually hoping more in whatever we feel sadness for missing in life rather than in Christ.

The second test is one I have used on here before. If you got to heaven and it was everything you ever dreamed of, the streets of gold, the perfect bodies that never decayed or died, past friends and family, all the gifts of Christ you could imagine but Jesus was not there would you miss Him at all?  You see, it is possible to hope in heaven and the gifts of God and not in God Himself. 

These two litmus tests have blown me up this week.  I have an idolatrous heart and the world is an endless idol factory.  Thus the admonitions in scripture over and over to hold loosely to the things of this world and cling tightly to Christ.  We cannot serve both.  It is one thing to have mental conviction, and many have it.  It is another thing to have hope in Christ, and I am finding more and more that fewer and fewer people have it.

New Sermon

Got to preach at Westwood church this morning.... here is the link... it starts with a Three Amigo's sound bite, so don't think you clicked on the wrong link... about 25 minutes long.

http://www.westwoodscommunitychurch.org/web-storage/2012_Spring/12.03.04.mp3