My friend The Grace Guy invited me to write a blog post about grace, and I decided to reflect on some aspects of common grace. Here are a couple of snippets.
Ah, grace. At once a solid cornerstone and as slippery as an eel. Just when you think you have a handle on it, it slips through your hands and hits you in the back of the head all at once.
Some time ago I was reading a well-known Christian leader’s blog, and once a week he would put up some funny or interesting video that was largely unrelated to the usual fare of heavy topics such as sin and salvation. In this case it was a video of Eric Clapton performing some mind-blowing guitar solo during a concert.
I enjoyed the video but then scrolled down and started reading some of the comments. Now, in case you don’t know, there are few places in the vast interweb as un-grace-full as the comments sections of Christian blogs. I should have known better, but there I was reading the comments.
One person commented something along the lines of “Why would you put up a video of this unbeliever performing this song that almost certainly glorifies sin? How can watching this video glorify God in any way?” Clearly the commenter was disappointed by what he or she perceived to be a compromise, a slipping of standards; and, I suppose, he might have a point. Many Christians struggle with similar feelings of unease when dealing with a wider culture that is so comfortable with sin; and for those in the more conservative circles of Christianity, that unease extends to Christian groups that are any less conservative than themselves.
It is a fearsome reality that grace can rattle around in our songs, creeds, and conversations without the actual substance and essence of grace truly seeping down deep into the nooks and crannies of our hearts – our innermost thoughts and affections.
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Click here for thewhole shabang, and check out the rest of the site. A unique and fascinating site to be sure.
The silence of God is deafening. A great, insufferable poison cocktail of blinding, putrid, stinging vapidness. The child is concussed, disoriented. His arms are outstretched, but they reach only coldness where warmth faithfully met them once. Walk in this direction, guided by faith, reason, and experience, and walk on into nothing. Walk on and reach nothing. Confused, he turns to another direction. Try any direction you like and walk your strength and nerve away, until only raw neurosis is left. What is this abandon?
The Word will set me back on a right path. It will help me keep my way pure, will be a lamp unto my feet. Surely. It will be a light for me in this darkness. Show me again the great vistas, the mountain ranges and rolling hills and unbelievable sunsets that came alive to me as I took in this Word. But what trickery is this? Even the great Sword is become dull to me. It does not cut through this thick skin, does not separate bone and marrow and lay my heart bare. The words all run together and melt on the page, pooling together in tasteless soup. Even my beloved passages, my broken cisterns, my heavy laden and weary heart, my great redemption, are so intolerably familiar, so utterly known and not to be rediscovered. Every word has been read, and nothing shines forth anew. “You may as well turn away because the longer you wait the more emphatic the silence becomes,” as Lewis so properly put it.
If ever I have been thirsty of soul it is now, but nowhere can I find that which satisfies. If the preaching is good, I grow frustrated at my unaffectedness, my hardness and blindness of heart. If it is bad, I grow frustrated at the dispensers of such thin spiritual gruel, such shallow platitudes pretending to be balm for the aching soul.
The silence is screaming now with lies, voices not His but the others, the pestilence which stalks us in the night.
Atheism doesn’t scare or attract me, really. Maybe it is different for others, but for me it would only be a thin veil excusing my indulgence in every imaginable craving my heart ever had. A great justification, no not that one, for sin and rebellion. No, the fear is not of atheism but of flat, lifeless Christianity. Never revived, never renewed, just tired and fat and comfortable, suspicious of “all this excitement” in others. God, kill me first. But rather, be true to yourself and meet me in my distress.
“Their religious lives, however, do not satisfy their consciences at the deepest level, and so there is a powerful underlying insecurity in their lives. Consciously they defend themselves as dedicated Christians who are as good as anybody else, but underneath the conscious level there is a deep despair and self-rejection. Above the surface this often manifests itself in a compulsive floating hostility which focuses upon others in critical judgment. Thus a congregation of Christians who are insecure in their relationship to Christ can be a thorn bush of criticism, rejection, estrangement, and party spirit. Unsure in the depth of their hearts what God thinks of them, church members will fanatically affirm their own gifts and take fierce offense when anyone slights them, or else they will fuss endlessly with a self-centered inventory of their own inferiority in an inverted pride.”
“Sometimes with great effort [church members] can be maneuvered into some active role in the church’s program, like a trained seal in a circus act, but their hearts are not fully in it. They may repeat the catchwords of the theology of grace, but many have little deep awareness that they and other Christians ‘accepted in the beloved.’ Since their understanding of justification is marginal or unreal – anchored not to Christ, but to some conversion experience in the past or to an imagined present state of goodness in their lives – they know little of the dynamic of justification. Their understanding of sin focuses upon behavioral externals which they can eliminate from their lives by a little will power and ignores the great submerged continents of pride, covetousness and hostility beneath the surface. Thus their pharisaism defends them both against full involvement in the church’s mission and against full subjection of their inner lives to the authority of Christ.”
Ever since we moved into our new apartment here in Cambridge, we’ve been reading a lot more. I think it has to do with how comfortable and at-home we feel here compared to the place we were in for the summer. Knowing we were only there 3 months made it really hard to feel settled. And it was dark with small windows and cold floors – not exactly the kind of place that lends itself to quiet, comfy evenings on the couch with a book.
I just finished reading the political classic 1984 by George Orwell. If you’re not familiar with it, check out the wikipedia article, which aptly describes it as a “dystopian novel about the totalitarian regime of a socialist Party.” As far as politics go, I am a self-labeled cotton-headed ninny-muggins, so I don’t have much to say about Canadian politics or “how an offshore corporate cartel is bankrupting the US economy by design,” nor how a “worldwide regime controlled by an unelected corporate elite is implementing a planetary carbon tax system that will dominate all human activity and establish a system of neo-feudal slavery.”
Anyways, one thing that struck me was the part where the main character, Winston Smith, first has a sexual encounter with Julia. Any such relationship is strictly forbidden in that society. He asks her if she has done this sort of thing before, and she says that she has done it many times. Orwell writes, “His heart leapt. Scores of times she had done it: he wished it had been hundreds – thousands. Anything that hinted at corruption always filled him with a wild hope. Who knew, perhaps the Party was rotten under the surface, its cult of strenuousness and self-denial simply a sham concealing iniquity.” Winston then tells Julia, “I hate purity, I hate goodness! I don’t want any virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones.”
An early edition of 1984 by Eric Blair, better known as George Orwell
Now why does he hate purity and goodness? Does he have a devil-like hatred of purity and goodness, where his soul is so distorted and evil that he just hates anything which is right and good? I don’t think so.
All through the book he deeply rejoices in all kinds of things which are truly good and right – the beauty of nature, the song of a bird, a good cup of coffee. No I think the reason he hates purity and goodness is because of the hypocritical veneer of purity and goodness that the “Party” had.
I couldn’t help but see the parallels between this and some Christian environments. When Christian ‘righteousness’ is represented, taught and demanded by a hypocritical leadership, those under that leadership grow sour to such ‘righteousness.’ Having been exposed to a diseased version of righteousness, they then become allergic to anything which smells of it.
Can we be surprised by statements like “I hate purity, I hate goodness!” when the only supposed purity and goodness they have seen has been the impure, bad version of it. Likewise, can we be surprised when scores of people are turned off of Christianity when some of the most prominent and well-known leaders of Christianity turn out to be living lives so crazily out of line with the most basic teachings of Christianity?
From the extreme examples like evangelical super-pastors in sex scandals and Catholic priests involved in systemic child sexual abuse to the more mundane hypocrisy of legalistic church-folk, it all contributes to this effect.
The world of 1984 is a world run by the legalistic elder-brother (of Jesus’ parable in Luke 15) where younger-brother tendencies are illegal and punished by death. The problem is that the younger brothers can see through the fake facade of the elder brothers.
Without the gospel, all the state-enforced morality in the world can never produce an ounce of true goodness.
Without the gospel, the elder brother is lost in his morality, religion, and self-righteousness; and the younger brother is lost in his immorality and rebellion.
The sad part is when the younger brothers reject Christianity because they only know the Christianity of the elder brothers – and who the heck wants that?
Once again, the gospel breaks through every human system and offers the only true hope for humanity.
“The use of Fashions in thought is to distract the attention of men from their real dangers. We direct the fashionable outcry of each generation against those vices of which it is least in danger and fix its approval on the virtue nearest to that vice which we are trying to make endemic. The game is to have them running about with fire extinguishers whenever there is a flood, and all crowding to that side of the boat which is already nearly gunwale under.”
This short paragraph in letter 25 of the Screwtape Letters made me realize that I often watch out for the wrong thing, or guard against the extreme that I am in the least danger of falling into. For example, I am by nature a bit timid and reserved. I don’t like confrontation at all. If I’m honest with myself I’m far more often a coward than a bully, and yet I am usually far more worried about not being ‘too bold’ or ‘too forceful’ than being a coward. The error I’m likely to fall into is lack of boldness and yet I usually guard against excessive boldness. This seems backwards.
Likewise, in my spiritual life I tend to avoid structure, discipline, and rigid plans. I like my freedom. I guess I tell myself I’m guarding against legalism, but let’s be honest, I am far more likely to fall into laziness and complacency than ritualistic legalism. On top of that, one of the manifestations of the Holy Spirit is “self-control” (Gal. 5:23).
I think this is true corporately as much as it is individually. In some churches, worship times seem to be emotion-free.
“Leave your affections at the door please.” Worship is more of a cognitive assent to propositional truths. They say they are guarding against emotionalism, but let’s be honest – their danger is not emotionalism but intellectualism. The opposite is true of other churches of course. It seems that when there are two groups who emphasize opposite ends of a given spectrum, the effect is to polarize both towards extremes as they react against the other, which frankly leaves each one worse off than before.
We all land at different places on a number of continuums like this. I find it helpful to zoom out a little bit and gain some perspective on the whole.
This is what I read before the church on July 25th when I was baptized.
Hi, my name is Phil Cotnoir, and I was born and grew up in a loving Christian family. As I grew older and continued attending church and youth group, I came to the conclusion that I was a Christian, but just not a very good one. This is because I never read my Bible or prayed by myself at home. It’s not that I hated God or the Bible, I just found video games and sports far more interesting. I see now that my desire to live a good Christian life was not the result of the Holy Spirit moving in my heart, but it was due to the fact that in my family and church social group, that was the expectation. On a purely social level, it was expected and rewarded to act like a Christian, and so I did. It was out of self-interest, not out of my love for God.
As I grew older and went to High School, I began to struggle with and eventually became addicted to pornography. I was truly a slave to this sin, and I continued to be in slavery to it until Jesus – the Son – set me free, and then I became free indeed. But I am getting ahead of myself. This part of my life was hidden. I was one person at church and at home, and quite another at school with my friends, and then quite another still alone in the darkness of my private thoughts and life. It was during this time that I was baptized the first time. I wanted to get baptized because, again, that is what people my age were expected to do, and my brother was getting baptized, so I did too.
Things started to turn around in the Spring of 2003. I was driving home from school, when after a moment of inattention I plowed my car into the back of an SUV, making it roll over three times on the highway. By God’s grace no one was hurt even though both vehicles were totaled. I started to really ask myself if I was sure I was saved. What if I had killed someone? What if I had died? Over the next few months God revealed to me that I was not a true Christian.
On the night of September 21, 2004, God chose to open my eyes. I realized for the first time the depth and weight of my sin, as well as the holiness of God. I knew these things before, but that night they became incredibly real to me. I remember being overwhelmed with how sinful, rebellious, and proud I was – and I knew that if I died in that moment, and stood before God in all of his blazing perfection, I would have nothing to say for myself. All my good works seemed like straw next to the mountain of my guilt – and even my good works had been done for my glory, not God’s. Yet I was a very good person in everyone’s eyes. So if you think your good works will appease God, I feel compelled to tell you that you are incredibly mistaken. Like me, you don’t realize the depth of your sin OR the intensity of God’s holiness.
But as I realized these things, I suddenly felt how desperately I needed a Savior. And that is when I really understood why Jesus had to die on the cross. Nothing short of death was needed to pay for my sins; and nothing short of Christ’s perfect life was needed to clothe me and make me able to stand before God.
Since that night God has radically renovated the inner parts of my life. The next day I remember thinking “So this is what it feels like to ‘walk in the light.’” By God’s grace alone, I have been brought from darkness to light, and from death to life.
For the past 5 years I haven’t been sure whether I should get baptized again or not. But after Pastor John made it abundantly clear at the last baptism that if you came to Christ after you were baptized, that you needed to be baptized again, I decided to go through with it. So that is why I am here. Oddly enough, my Dad also came to know Christ after being baptized, in fact he was already a deacon and treasurer when he was born again. He was baptized a second time as well. I guess it’s something of a family tradition now…
In conclusion, I just want to say: We have such a wonderful, powerful, precious and beautiful Lord and Savior in Jesus Christ. I implore you to put all your hope and trust and faith in Him today.
The moralist and legalist pays his taxes and demands his rights from God. There are certain things God cannot ask of him. The gospel Christian has come to understand he deserves nothing good, and so relinquishes any concept of rights before God. In the gospel, there is nothing God cannot ask of us.
This is why the legalist cannot handle too much suffering. It is essentially a breach of what he thinks is the deal or contract between him and God.
Any insightfulness in these words should be attributed solely to Tim Keller.
Like soldiers in the trojan horse, selfish ambition and a desire for glory is often smuggled into a young person’s life through pious expressions like “I want to do something BIG for God!” or even “I want to serve God in ministry.” I’ve had these sinful desires within me revealed recently. It’s led me to think about how common this must be among young Christians, especially aspiring future leaders.
Winner of the Humility Award…
I’ve been trying to unearth some of the roots of this in my own life, and one of the things that blows me away about the apostle Paul is how deeply he identified with Christ. Let me explain. He writes in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” And in Philippians 1:20, “it is my eager expectation and hope thatI will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.” Paul’s personal ambitions seem to have suffered a decisive death-blow: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live.” And in place of his own personal ambitions are what we might call his Christ-ambitions: “I expect and hope that I won’t be ashamed, but that Christ will be honored.”
Paul had such a profound sense of his union with Christ. A sense that I certainly lack. My struggle reveals to me that I have not fully clued into the fact that my personal ambition for ministry success and recognition died with Christ at the moment I was born-again. And I suspect that I am not alone. Jack Miller told a young missionary, “You don’t have anything to prove to us or the world. The work is finished at Calvary, and that work alone has unlimited meaning and value. Keep your focus there” (p.44). But I think it’s fair to say that the vast majority of young Christian leaders feel like they do have something to prove.
Tim Keller insightfully points out that for many young pastors, the underlying subtext to their preaching is a desire for affirmation and approval, communicated very subtly in an almost imperceptible nervousness. Behind the words that they are saying, and in their heart, the message is “Do you like me? Do you think I’m a good preacher? Do you think I’m really called to ministry?”
Paul had a deep and humble union with Christ. The interests of Christ are my interests. The sufferings of Christ are my sufferings. The ambitions of Christ in the spread of the gospel for His glory are my ambitions.
Young people like me lack that. A lot of the time my heart sounds more like this: My interests will be furthered by adopting the interests of Christ for a while. My ambitions will be furthered by a willingness to suffer for Christ, if it’s noticed. My ambition for the spread of my name, for admiration and glory will be furthered by a commitment to spreading the gospel in a prominent way. Young people like me are likely tempted to see ministry as the place to distinguish ourselves and make our mark, as opposed to the place to crucify our selfish ambitions in order to further the purpose and message of Christ, who loved us and died for us.
In light of all this, the words of Peter to “young people” at the tail end of his first epistle have hit home like never before.
“Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.”
1 Peter 5:5-7
Young man or woman, you and I need to humble ourselves under God’s mighty hand like this. We need to daily repent of and put to death our desire for adulation, applause, and recognition, and be “asking the Spirit daily for the faith and humility to do Christ’s work Christ’s way.”
As I look back on my Christian life so far, I see a recurring pattern. Actually I see quite a few patterns, but here is one of them. It goes like this: I will come across a person, either in real life or through books or sermons or stories, who has something about them that I really like and admire. And then I go about trying to acquire it somehow. Sometimes it’s by osmosis – just hanging around them and watching them. Other times it’s by studying and reading whatever it was that they studied that made them that way. For me, it is usually – but not always – preachers and authors.
So for example, my good friend Steve Watts has a love for Jesus and people that is overflowing and contagious. I want that. John Piper has a passion for God’s glory that is pretty intense. I want that too. John Owen had a deep understanding of the flesh and the deceitfulness of sin. I want that too. There are many more, both alive and dead, and recently I’ve added another one to the list that I recommend to you as well: C. John Miller, who also went by Jack Miller.
I’ve been reading The Heart of a Servant Leader: Letters from Jack Miller, and it is stellar. It is simply a collection of many letters that he wrote to all kinds of people through the course of his ministry. There are some central and recurring themes, and the letters are organized and grouped according to those themes.
It is nothing less than a window into the heart of this man for those around him. It is deeply humbling and convicting for me to read the powerful, wise, humble, loving letters that this man wrote to friends, colleagues, and ‘enemies’. He was not always this way, and I think it is the story of his experience in ministry that really fascinates me about him. He served twenty years in ministry in various roles, as a church planter, pastor, and seminary professor, until he hit a wall in 1970 and ended up depressed and burned out.
“He had gradually become frustrated in both jobs. It seemed to him that neither the church members nor the seminary students were changing in the ways that they should, and he did not know how to help them. In desperation he resigned from both positions and then spent the next few weeks too depressed to do anything except cry.”
Pause: Wow. That is heavy.
It goes on:
“Gradually during those weeks it became clear to him that the reason for his anger and disappointment was his own wrong motivation for ministry. He realized that instead of being motivated only by God’s glory, he was hoping for personal glory and the approval of those he was serving. He said that when he repented of his pride, fear of people, and love of their approval, his joy in ministry returned, and he took back his resignations from the church and seminary.”
As a young dude who is pretty ambitious about ministry, this is scary stuff. The question that haunts me is: how do I avoid that? I know that I have a mingling of pure and impure motivations for ministry, I know that I desire personal glory, and I know that I want the approval of those around me. But even as I recognize those things and repent of them, I just sense that my repentance is not deep enough – it isn’t fundamentally a transformative repentance. I don’t know how to repent more deeply, how to really – really change. All I know is that what Jack Miller had after this terrible experience, I want. I wonder if God will grant me to learn it slowly or if it’ll take a crisis event like Jack Miller’s.
“He often returned to the theme of God’s glory” when mentoring leaders, because “he knew that if they did not start in ministry with the right motivation they would eventually end up as he did – full of anger and bitterness.”
This next sentence blows me away:
“Jack spent the first half of his Christian life attempting to do Christ’s work Jack’s way, and he spent the last half of his Christian life repenting of this tendency and asking the Spirit daily for the faith and humility to do Christ’s work Christ’s way”
C. John (Jack) Miller
I want to learn something of this. I’ve read a few modern leadership books and while they have their place, they don’t teach you this kind of stuff – at least not in a tangible, real way. This guy’s letters are so real and authentic, and his appreciation for the gospel is more real than frankly anything I’ve read. One line that has been working me over is the following, written to a young missionary to Uganda:
You don’t have anything to prove to us or the world. The work is finished at Calvary, and that work alone has unlimited meaning and value. Keep your focus there.
Phil's Scribblings 