Clowning around in the Pulpit…literally.
May 13, 2009
Clowns in the Pulpit
A recent column by Josh Rottenberg in Entertainment Weekely sighted the awkward and many times blasphemous crossroads where Hollywood and faith have met. In it, he discusses the failure of Christians to attend movies primarily for religious reasons. Attempts to make Christian-targeted films resulting in massive box-office smashes have failed. This was Hollywood’s pragmatic attempt to use the pulpit to find a market for its movies.
“‘After The Passion, there was a gold rush,’ says Phil Vischer, a co-creator of the Christian-themed cartoon franchise VeggieTales. ’Hollwood thought, ‘This is great! We can market movies to pastors and they will get up on Sunday and tell their whole congregation to go see them! It’s a new button we can push, and money will fall from the sky! It was doomed from the get-go.”
As a result, though somewhat successful, Christian-themed movies (however blasphemous or vague) like The Chronicles of Narnia, Evan Almighty, The Da Vinci Code, The Golden Compass, and The Nativity Story, have largely fell short of expectations in this theory. Instead, the Christian community has found identification with the Edenic-themed WALL-E, the amoral The Dark Knight and the strangely pro-life comedy Juno. Why can’t Hollywood capture Christian audiences when it means to?
“Hollywood still hasn’t quite figured out how to crack the Christian code. ‘With a snap of his fingers, [mega-church pastor] Rick Warren could deliver hundreds of thousands of people to a movie,’ says Matthew Crouch, producer of the 1999 Christian film The Omega Code, ‘Hollywood is trying to figure out how to reach them. But how do you get Rick Warren to sign on to a script? That’s the six-million dollar question Hollywood’s trying to answer. But they don’t know how easy it is to offend that faith. You have to realize you’re playing with fire.”
Could I suggest something? The reason Hollywood cannot reach the Christian community is the reason that Rick Warren can reach so many people. Nominal Christians want the gospel and _________. Hollywood fails to understand the power of the gospel. That though they classify us as a “faith,” our faith is real because it has an object–the person and work of Jesus Christ, the only name given under heaven whereby men may be saved. Rick Warren does not understand this, hence EW ’s citation of his success. Rick Warren wants a faith-based program ministry that forgets that we are a people who are not of this world. Though we want to help alleviate the ailments of this world, we understand that the most important ailment is sin, and its only remedy is the gospel of God. Rick Warren does not get this. Hollywood does not get this. We are not of this world. We are passing through; the gospel is not. God has a purpose for the gospel in this world–to save sinners for himself and therefter to hear the praises of his glory in his Son.
What we have here in this article is a sad realization of the modern liberalism that has crept so pervasively into our churches–a watered-down version of Christianity that defines itself merely on a works-based mantra-”follower of Christ.” Any attempts to “reach people” are found in sweeping them through a gospel doorway right onward to an unoffensive life of service. Before I continue, let me be clear: I believe that we are called to a life of service to mankind. I do not believe that we are called to this life of service apart from a clear and uncompromising proclamation of the gospel. This is our purpose: to lift up the Son for all to turn to and so be saved. Christians are the only people in the world who have a reason to do service–namely, to testify to the power of God to save sinners because of the person and work of Christ.
I have made quite certain that I am at odds with Rick Warren. His gospel is watered-down, empty, and cursorily. He has “bigger fish to fry,” namely, the PEACE plan. A acronym that basically stands for the gospel + good works. We note the way he popishly declares people saved who read his book if they said that prayer at the end of his book. “Welcome to the Family of God!” He then ushers them on to service as if to say, “Now that you considered the gospel (a very thin one at that), you need to move on to bigger things, like service to mankind.” Foolishness…
There is no experience of weight under the law of God, there is no sense of shame for sin before a holy God, there is no mediating advocate through the finished and complete work of Christ, there is no repentance, there is no faith. The gospel of Rick Warren is dead because it is natural. It not the supernatural faith once for all delivered to the saints. It is pragmatic and cursorily.
I find in this interesting article from EW an indication that many clergy are reaping what they have sowed. By ignoring the supernatural power of God’s purpose in the gospel, we have turned to all manner of natural elements to reach the carnal mind. We will even dress up like clowns to entertain it. Note the interesting testimony Rottenberg uses to begin his article:
“It’s one thing for some nerdy fanboy who lives in his parents’ basement to show his enthusiasm for The Dark Knight by dressing up as the Joker. But for a pastor to stand before his congregation in full Joker regalia, complete with ratty wig and gruesome makeup, and deliver a sermon on good and evil–that’s something else altogether. Last summer, in a radical attempt to engage his young congregants at the Christ Chapel Mountaintop Church in Manassas, Va., pastor Rob Seagears did exactly that. Each Sunday, Seagears dressed up as a character from that weekend’s top-grossing film and used the movie–no matter how vulgar, violent, or ungodly it seemed–as the basis for a discussion of Christian morality.”
Reading this with as much charity as possible, I acknowledge that I don’t know this pastor’s heart and intention. I also don’t know the content of his message (or even if there was one). He might have had a clear presentation of the gospel in his message, but based on this information, it was probably what it said-”a discussion of Christian morality.”
This is not the gospel. This man, literally, was clowning around in the pulpit. This is not the charge of the pastor. The pastor is called to preach the gospel (2 Timothy 1:8-14; 2:15; 4:1-2). Paul himself refused to turn from it in the name of “contextualization.”
As Mark Dever once so wisely proposed: “Here’s a good measure to see if your contextualization is a good contextualization that honors God. Does it make the offense of the gospel clearer or does it disguise it?”
For the Corinthians, Paul refused to talk to them in the style of some Greek orator and so titillate their carnal intellectualism. For the Galatians, he refused to have them think the gospel must be added to circumcision and other Judiaic laws and so massage their carnal desire to be self-righteous. For the Colossians, he refused to allow them to think that wisdom, knowledge and spiritual experience was found anywhere but in Christ–not in the worship of angels, mysticism, or aceticism–and so “transcend” to the upper realms of spirituality. Paul wanted to know nothing among his people but Christ and him crucified (1 Corinthians 2:1-2). Indeed, this was of first importance to Paul (1 Corinthians 15:1-3).
My first reaction to the story given of this pastor is to call him a false teacher who is disqualified from the ministry, but after I calm down, I remember this quotation he gave to EW:
“Pop culture is the language they speak…This was about meeting them where they are and trying to build a bridge back to God.”
I will trust what he said and take it to mean that he truly wants to reach people. But what does it mean when we say “reach people”? Does it mean that we want to help them live their best life now and so ignore their need for Christ’s righteousness? Does it mean we want them to have a purpose-driven life and so forget the cross in the dust of our service projects? Or does it mean that we want to reconcile them to God through faith in Christ by an open and pleading proclamation of the gospel (2 Corinthians 5:20-21)?
My purpose here is not to attack cultural engagement. My purpose here is not to attack this pastor (though I still will contend that he requires church discipline for mocking the pulpit). My purpose here is to call pastors back to their charge in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus: Preach the Word! (2 Timothy 4:1-2).
This man wants to discuss Christian morality by dressing up like a clown, or by dressing up like Indiana Jones, or by driving up to the pulpit in a motorcycle dressed up like Batman. What foolishness, what a shame, what a mockery to that sacred desk…
Paul wants to know nothing among his people but Christ’s death and resurrection. Don’t ever assume that your people know the gospel. Unpack all of its glorious facets for the rest of your preaching ministry. This is your charge. People will respond to the gospel because this is where God has placed his power. Either they will respond to it with derision or they will respond to it in faith. This is what we have been promised from the beginning (2 Timothy 4:3-4; 2 Corinthians 4:1-6).
Hollywood can’t reach the carnal mind for Christ–the gospel can. The Men of God, however, must guard that good deposit entrusted to them (1 Timothy 6:20). Don’t make a mockery of that good deposit. We are not clowns; we are preachers. Let Hollywood mock the Cross, but we will stand by it until our Master returns.
Working with you for the gospel,
Vince R.
It has been in my experience that when I am most sorrowful for the sinner, I love him the most, and I am moved to plead for him before the throne of the Most High Judge. We are often uncomfortable around the carnal man. His words offend our sensibilities. His ideas counter our convictions. As he converses, obliviously and ignorantly, we begin to see his heart. As a man speaks, so he is. Why do our hearts sometimes despise him? Do we hate him? Why does he anger us? It is here that we see our hearts. It is easy to see the sins of others; it is more difficult to see our own. Hatred, jealousy, bitterness, wrath, backbiting, slander, and gossip are carnal works. They proceed from an unloving, wicked, and impure heart. If one wishes to break this heart, he must know the love of God in the gospel. Consider the following passages of Scripture:
Elisha looks at the messenger Hazael and begins to weep. He experiences great sorrow for the sinner:
And he fixed his gaze and stared at him, until he was embarrassed. And the man of God wept. And Hazael said, “Why does my lord weep?” He answered, “Because I know the evil that you will do to the people of Israel. You will set on fire their fortresses, and you will kill their young men with the sword and dash in pieces their little ones and rip open their pregnant women.” And Hazael said, “What is your servant, who is but a dog, that he should do this great thing?” Elisha answered, “The Lord has shown me that you are to be king over Syria.” Then he departed from Elisha and came to his master, who said to him, “What did Elisha say to you?” And he answered, “He told me that you would certainly recover.” But the next day he took the bed cloth and dipped it in water and spread it over his face, till he died. And Hazael became king in his place. (2 Kings 8:11-15)
Elisha wept because he knew the great sins that Hazael would committ. What sorrow the man of God will experience! He weeps because he loves.
Note, next, the way in which Jeremiah weeps for the wicked Israelites who recieved the just recompense for their unbelief:
Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people! (Jeremiah 9:1)
Note next the way in which Paul spoke to the Philippians about the enemies of the cross:
For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. (Philippians 4:18-9)
He speaks of the enemies of the cross with tears! Do we?!
Note next the way Lot related to the sinners around him in 2 Peter 2:7-8:
and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard)
Lot was greatly distressed by the conduct of the wicked; his soul was tormented by what he saw and heard. Do our souls feel a tormenting weight and sorrow for a lost world?
Note next the language of the Pslamist in 119:136, 158:
“My eyes shed streams of tears, because people do not keep your law.”
“I look at the faithless with disgust, because they do not keep your commands.”
The Psalmist has a great zeal for the Lord’s law. Tears fill his eyes when it is broken. Do we share in his heart?
Indeed, there is a real hatred for sin in the Christian’s soul, even as his hatred is tempered by love for the sinner’s soul. It is not some fuzzy love stripped of all justice and righteousness. It is a perfect love, the kind of love that comes from God (1 John 4:7-8). No Christian can say he loves God if he does not love the wretched sinner. For so was the Christian in times past! (Ephesians 2:1-7; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11)
Application:
The key to loving the sinner and hating the sin is to know the heart of God. Do you know his heart? Perhaps, you just know his mind. Perhaps, you just know his truth but walk ignorantly of his person. The man who has not the heart of God will become a Pharisee with his doctrine. Meditate, therefore, heavily upon the love of God in the gospel. Love is from God, and thusly, he sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 John 4:10). You were not looking for God, but he was looking for you. You were not loving God, but he was loving you. He demonstrates his love for you in the gospel, even when you were still a sinner. You who have been enlightened by the gospel: Walk with grief-stricken joy, and love the heathen around you. He knows not what he does.
Whoever . . . has tasted of the love Christ, and has known, by his own experience, the need and the worth of redemption, is enabled, Yea, he is constrained, to love his fellow creatures. He loves them at first sight; and, if the providence of God commits a dispensation of the gospel, and care of souls to him, he will feel the warmest emotions of friendship and tenderness, while he beseeches them by the tender mercies of God, and even while he warns them by his terrors.
As to your opponent, I wish, that, before you set pen to paper against him, and during the whole time you are preparing your answer, you may commend him by earnest prayer to the Lord’s teaching and blessing. This practice will have a direct tendency to conciliate your heart to love and pity him; and such a disposition will have a good influence upon every page you write. . . . [If he is a believer,] in a little while you will meet in heaven; he will then be dearer to you than the nearest friend you have upon earth is to you now. Anticipate that period in your thoughts. . . . [If he is an unconverted person,] he is a more proper object of your compassion than your anger. Alas! “He knows not what he does.” But you know who has made you to differ.
Working with you for sorrowful love,
Vince R.
How to Love One Another when there are Differences Among You
April 17, 2009
John Piper’s recent “Taste & See” article truly captures the kind of humility it takes to be around those who differ from you. I am greatly thankful for this helpful articulation; and I am very humbled by God’ s grace, even as he continues to rescue my sinful heart by teaching me these principles in application. This side of glory, I will never be finished learning them, and neither will you.
Working with you for Love,
Vince R.
I haven’t been living under a rock or anything, but on many issues, my cultural engagement is pretty weak. Embryonic Stem-Cell Research has been thrown around near my ears, but only over the past year or so have I given myself to trying to stay informed. Here’s an article summarizing the history and controversy of Embryonic Stem-Cell Research since the first invitro fertilization baby was born in 1981. It is very helpful for people like me who need a little bit of help understanding the basic facts of the issue. This is a much needed review in light of President Barack Obama’s woeful decision on Monday March 9, 2009 to repeal President George W. Bush’s 2001 ban on federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research.
Here is an exhortation for the Church:
We are called to stay informed. We are the people who know the dignity of human life from conception until natural death. We are the people whose love for the glory of God in all things must stay engaged in this issue in which the glory of God in the Imago Dei is being destroyed and dishonored. We are the people who are called to love our neighbor by warning them of lies and deceit while working to think through the same concerns that even the lost world cares for. We must work to provide biblical and honest answers while not straying or compromising from the integrity and truth of God in his word. This is a time for God’s people and his scientists to rise up and provide, for the glory of God, an honest alternative. Pray for the scientists, pray for those whose hurts and afflictions have called for these questions, pray for the families who just wanted to have children but did not think through the reprecutions of this issue, and most of all, pray for the lives that will be intentionally destroyed in the name of human progress and human glory.
I’m still praying for you Mr. President. God have mercy on you.
Working with you for life,
Vince R.
Albert Mohler and the City of Man: A Book Review
March 4, 2009
"In the end, the culture and its challenges will pass away. But our Lord has left us here for a reason-as His people, we are to be salt and light to a dying world."
As I finished Dr. Mohler’s book Culture Shift: Engaging Current Issues with Timeless Truth, I realized the unrelenting importance of cultural engagement. I may not be one called toward academic cultural apologetics, but as a Christian, I have a responsibility to know the place where the people dwell. As I recall Discern Your Culture at New Attitude 2007, I remember a profoundly affecting and simply stated truth Dr. Mohler brought, “The only reason we care about the culture is because the culture is where the lost people are.” Very simple; but often overlooked. In the name of cultural engagemet, Christians often forget their responsibility to holiness and Christ-centeredness. And just the same, in the name of holiness and Christ-centeredness, Christians often forget their responsiblity to love their neighbor.
This book heightens my intensity and passion for engaging the City of Man. Here is an excerpt that powerfully portrays the necessity for Christian engagement with the culture. Dr. Mohler springs off the shoulders of St. Augustine with simple theological dexterity:
“The City of God is eternal and takes as its sole concern the greater glory of God. In the City of God, all things are ruled by God’s Word, and the perfect rule of God is the passion of all its citizens.
In the City of Man, however, the reality is very different. This city is filled with mixed passions, mixed allegiances, and compromised principles…citizens of the City of Man demonstrate deadly patterns of disobedience, even as they celebrate moral autonomy, and then revolt against the Creator.
Of course, we know that the City of God is eternal, even as the City of Man is passing. But this does not mean that the City of Man is ultimately unimportant, and it does not allow the church to forfeit its responsibility to love its citizens. Love of neighbor–grounded in our love for God–requires us to work for good in the City of Man, even as we set as our first priority the preaching of the gospel–the only means of bringing citizens of the City of Man into citizenship in the City of God…
Love of neighbor for the sake of loving God is a profound political philosophy that strikes a balance between the disobedience of political disengagement and the idolatry of politics as our main priority…we are concerned for the culture, not because we believe that the culture is ultimate, but because we know that our neighbors must hear the gospel, even as we hope and strive for their good, peace, security, and well-being.”-pp.3-4
If you are looking for a work that serves as a nice introductory seque into worldview apologetics and cultural engagement, I strongly suggest you begin with Dr. Mohler. He is a nice bridge into more thorough and dense works from Francis Schaeffer, C.S. Lewis, David Wells, and many more. As C.J. Mahaney puts it in his review of the book,
“Al Mohler is a unique gift to the church. His writing combines penetrating theological discernment and insightful cultural analysis with a passion to faithfully proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
I must agree. Dr. Mohler refuses to leave the gospel. For him, cultural engagment means that we go straight to the need of the lost–a regenerated soul. For without that happening to us first, our worldview would not be any different from theirs.
Working with you to bring a gospel-centered worldview to the market place,
Vince R.
The Root of Roe v. Wade: The Contraception Mentality
March 2, 2009
Here is a powerful examination of the current “contraception mentality.”
Check out this compelling excerpt:
“We submit, therefore, that children are now being aborted in the flesh, because they have already been, in large measure, aborted from the mind.”
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Thank you to Bro. Hank for bringing this the current issue of Touchstone Magazine to my attention. Go visit his biblicaly charged engagment with the Pro-life movement over at Lawn Gospel.
Working with you for Life,
Vince R.
Preaching to Heart Part II: Watching Pastor Paul at Colossae
February 27, 2009
“For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you…” Colossians 2:1
There is a great struggle spoken of in this passage. Pastor Paul writes of it to these believers. It is a great struggle he has for the church at Colossae and for the believers at Laodicea. He must be struggling inwardly. Paul was a man of the heart. His messages emitted naturally from a newborn heart–a heart suffering for the sake of the church, a heart filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions. His is a heart that received from God a certain calling. He is as he said earlier, “a minister.” What is the main focus of his ministry?
“And you who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which you has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.” Colossians 1:21-23
Here we see that Paul ministers to God’s people for their sanctification. God is working through Christ to present his people “holy,” “blameless,” and “above reproach” before him. The main end of the minister’s work, therefore, is help God’s people reach these fruits of sanctification–holiness and blamelessness. If the minister is not aiming for this, what is he doing? He is not following the lead of Pastor Paul; and likewise, what Bible is leading him?
More particulary, we see that Paul exhorts the people toward these fruits by way of three qualities–faithfulness, stability, and steadfastness. If a minister is not exhorting his people to these three qualities, what is he doing? He is not following the lead of Pastor Paul.
But this is made even more particular. Look at what the people are told to be faithful to, stable in, and steadfast for:
“not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which you has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven.” v. 23
This clearly demonstrates the way for a people to be holy, the way for a people to be blameless. The way for a people truly to be God’s people is found in their faithfulness to the gospel, their stability in the gospel, and their steadfastness for the gospel. Paul says at the end of this verse that he was made a minister of that gospel. If we say we are ministers of the gospel, are we even preaching it? If we are not preaching the gospel, we are not ministers of it. Indeed, we cease to be ministers of anything the Bible has any knowledge of. We have fallen from our ministership.
Paul says a little later that he is suffering for the church because “[he] became a minister [to it]” (1:24-25). He then clearly acknowledges the nature of that ministry. It is a “stewardship from God given to him for [the church]” (1:25). The minister who calls the ministry his own with no heart-felt knowledge of the stewardship of it, ceases to be the minister the Bible speaks of. He is a selfish man, building a kingdom, not God’s, but rather his own.
Stewardship signifies reception. If God has called you to this ministry of the gospel, why is there no reception? You spurn the calling of the Lord, like some disobedient Jonah. Away to Tarshish, yet God will find you! A giant fish awaits the called runner. But Paul did not run. It says in Acts 26:14 that upon the call from the Lord, he had “fallen on the ground.”
Stewardship signifies holding. The minister of the gospel holds something that is not his own. He has had something “entrusted” to him (See 1 Timothy 1:11). It is not his own, yet why do some ministers act as though they invented the gospel?
”Man never could nor would have invented and devised a gospel which would lay him low, and secure to the Lord God all the honor and praise.” -C.H. Spurgeon
If any man has forgotten the nature of the gospel as here explained by Mr. Spurgeon, what is he preaching? The end of the preaching of the gospel is the glory and praise of the Lord God, not the praises of men to the minister.
Stewardship also signifies selflessness. “the stewardship from God that was given to me for you.” It is not given by God for the ministers own personal parading prideful pulpiteering! God has given the minister the stewardship for the sake of others. Pastor Paul understood that he was given the ministry for the church, not himself.
Stewardship also signfies faithfulness. “…to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints.” Paul refused to do the ministry half-heartedly. He declared the whole counsel of God! He made it fully known! This is the faithfulness of the minister. He knows his mission, and he does it, fully. What mystery has been made known to us! Yet we preach some other thing as though there is no mystery and all people knew of it. Don’t ever assume your people already know the mystery; and don’t ever think they know it well enough.
“Never be content with your grasp of the gospel. The gospel is life-permeating, world-altering, universe-changing truth. It has more facets than any diamond. Its depths man will never exhaust.” - C.J. Mahaney, The Cross Centered Life
The minister of God also has one proclamation for his people. “To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.” (1:27-28)
What message do we preach? Is it Christ and him crucified? For Paul would know of nothing else! (See 1 Corinthians 2:1) What goofy, moralizing, cream-puff exhortations fill the pulpits of men who preach something other than Christ! They want growth of church, but they forgot the seed–the gospel! People may have ears for moralistic exhortation, but their hearts will be far from Christ and closer to their own self-righteousness. “Stop complaining” is no sermon content! Even the pagans don’t like complainers. God’s people will stop complaining when they understand the gospel, when they see that the rock guiding them in the desert is Christ (See 1 Corinthians 10:1-11).
The minister of God also has one process for his people. “warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom.” The only wisdom Paul knows of he gets from Scripture. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding” (Psalm 111:10). Also, Paul knows that his Lord is a truine Lord. He goes on to say, “Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (2:3). If a minister wants wise and knoweledgable people with good understanding his process should be to warn them and teach them with this wisdom; that is with this Christ.
The minister of God also has one purpose for his people. “that we may present everyone mature in Christ.” That is the purpose the minister of God has for others–their maturity in Christ. For indeed, he must present them before God! Will they be mature in Christ? But yes, they will with God’s help.
The minister of God also has one power for his people. “For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me” (1:29). The minister of God knows that two very difficult truths exist together.
1.) I must work, toil, and struggle. (This is our responsibility.)
2.) God gives the strength to endure that toil and struggle. (This is his sovereignty.)
And so, this was the struggle Paul had within him for the church. He wanted to declare to them the riches of Christ for their joy and God’s glory. What else is the minister to do?
Working with you to preach to the heart,
Vince R.
100% Gospel: Jonathan Dodson on “Gospel and Method”
February 25, 2009
Jonathan Dodson contributed to The Resurgence web blog with these two articles. I had a verbal “wow” when I read them. Check out both parts. I have provided excerpts from both. Think hard especially about part II. It is there that I was even more convinced of this simple equation: Preach Word -> Church Growth.
“Perhaps we need to be debating the strength of the gospel that is being preached, taught, shared, and shown in our churches. Are we incarnating and attracting people to a diluted gospel or a strong gospel? Are we incarnating kitsch gospel or kerygmatic gospel? In the end, what are we calling people to? Is our gospel both missional and communal or inward and individualistic? If it’s the latter, then something is wrong with our gospel. What would happen if we stopped debating methods and started debating gospel—winsomely and charitably?”
“Each concoction of the 50/50 gospel is actually quite dangerous. They all produce churches that attract people to morality messages, missional activities, and communal experiences. The goal of the church is reduced to converting people to a better way of living, not to a better God to be believing.“
Working with you for the gospel method,
Vince R.
A Feeble Attempt at Humility: A Loss of the Gospel
February 19, 2009
Christ humbly washing his disciples feet
“God honored His trust and did all for Him, and then exalted Him to His own right hand in glory. And because Christ humbled himself before God, and God was ever before Him, He found it possible to humble himself before men, too, and to be the Servant of all. His humility was simply the surrender of himself to God, to allow Him to do in Him what He pleased, regardless of what men might say of Him or do to Him.” -Andrew Murray, Humility: The Journey Toward Holiness, 33.
This morning I read out of Andrew Murray’s book, and I was particularly astounded at this section. I had a verbal “wow” as I read it. I find in today’s Christianity a tendency to make the gospel man-centered rather than God-centered. I find it in my heart so many times. We take the grace right out of salvation and treat the work of the gospel as exactly that–work.
Here’s what I mean. Let’s take a passage of Scripture that is often thrown around in evangelicalism to promote service and humility before men. Philippians 2:3-11 says this:
“Do nothing from rivalry and conceit, but in humility count other more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not account equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
We often focus on one aspect of this verse. We focus on Christus Exemplar, that is, “Christ the Example.” We focus on how Jesus is the perfect example on how to act toward our fellow man. Look again at this part here that says, “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not account equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.”
What we do here is we automatically turn this into an order for service and humility apart from the gospel message itself. This is a result of man-centered Christianity that says the gospel is all about us. The misinterpretation comes when we see Jesus Christ’s first advent as that which is specifically about us. We have been taught that Jesus Christ died for me because of me. This is not the biblical teaching. Rather, the gospel is primarily and wholly about the confession of Jesus Christ the Son in mind, heart, and will to “the glory of God the Father.”
When any man confesses (and a true confession must come from the heart or it is false, see Romans 10:8-11), “Jesus is the Christ the Son of the Living God,” we must note that Jesus himself attributes it to the grace and glory of God. After Simon Peter makes this same foundational confession on which the Church of God is built, Jesus answers him with that very understanding: “Blessed are you Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my Father who is heaven.” (See Matthew 16:15-18)
Jesus completely attributes the gospel-changed believer to the will and work of his Father in heaven. So let us ask: why are we saved at all?
“In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in [Christ], were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1:13-14).
This passage attributes our salvation’s end to the glory of Christ, but we also see something else is true when we read this passage in 1 Corinthians 15:27-28:
“For ‘God has put all things in subjection under [the Son's] feet.’ But when it says, ‘all things are put in subjection,’ it is plain that he is excepted who put all things under [the Son]. When all things are subjected to [the Son], then the Son himself will also be subjected to [the Father] who put all things in subjection under [the Son], that God may be all in all.”
We see that God the Father is working to place all things under the feet of Christ. But this does not mean that God the Son will have God the Father under him, too. “It is plain that he is excepted who put all things under him.” Rather, the Son himself will also be subjected to the Father in that day. For what reason? “That God may be all in all.”
Clearly, we see that God the Father is given the glory for all that he does for the Son, and we see also that God the Son submits to God the Father. Look at the way Jesus spoke when we was on the earth:
“The Son can do nothing of his own accord…” John 5:19
“I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.” John 5:30
“For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.” John 6:38
“My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me.” John 7:16
“But I have not come of my own accord.” John 7:28
“I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me.” John 8:28
“I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me.” John 8:42
“Yet I do not seek my own glory; there is One who seeks it, and he is the judge. ” John 8:50
“Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works.” John 14:10
In all of these passages, we see that in the life and teaching of Christ, he was in total submission to God the Father. But I do not have to go outside of Philippians 2 to show you that. Look at what it says:
“And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Philippians 2:6-11
To whom was the Son “obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross”? The answer is obviously God the Father. Why did God the Father highly exalt him? Was it because Jesus was being humble before men? The answer is obviously no because we have seen that Jesus was humble before God the Father! Who gets the glory for Jesus’ perfect humble work? It is done to the “the glory of God the Father.”
Now, if we view Philippians 2:3-11 as a call to just be humble toward man for the sake of man’s good we have placed obedience to the gospel at the center. We have said that our highest focus is not what God has done in Christ. We have said that our highest focus is what we do! How shamefully man-centered!
A proper reading of this text must be read with gospel-lenses. Christ was completely humble to his Father in heaven. As a result, he could say that he practiced what he preached, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 18:14). If we look at the context of that verse we that it speaks of a justified sinner, whose conscious and panging shame over his sin caused him to beat his breast and look to God for mercy. The man who is justified humbles himself before God because a man who humbles himself before God knows that God is his only way for salvation. Jesus Christ’s perfect humility fell in line with his own teaching (a proper understanding of Christus Exemplar), but it also enabled him to pray with confidence to his Father, “I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed” (John 17:4-5).
Obedience to God comes from humility before God. Disobedience to God comes from pride before God. I have said it many times: Pride is the root of all evil.
Jesus was highly exalted because he was humble on earth, not before men but before his Father in heaven. “Are you saying that we shouldn’t be humble before men?” asks one. If you have to ask then perhaps you don’t understand the gospel yet. Paul said in Philippians 2:3-4 “Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”
Paul’s call for humility finds its root directly in the humility of Christ before his Father. Our obedience is both humbled and exalted because of the perfect obedience of Christ.
When we make the gospel a message expressing our worth and a message all about us, we can sing with many fuzzy feelings words that say Christ was crucified thinking ”of me above all.” We should be uncomfortable with such words because in singing them we imply that God is not concerned with his glory. In becoming comfortable with such an ide, we will begin to manifest our own glory because of our obedience rather than Christ’s. Our obedience to Philippians 2:3-4, then, becomes our feeble attempts to conjure some kind of humble demeanor toward our fellow men. Friends, our humble demeanor is a false one if we are not humble first and foremost before God. A humble and contrite heart, God will not despise this.
Working with you to be humble before God,
Vince R.
Why Revival Tarries by Leonard Ravenhill: Book Review
February 18, 2009
"No man is greater than his prayer life. The pastor who is not praying is playing; the people who are not praying are straying."
