Tag: The Gospel

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21st Century Evangelicalism

Look Who’s Talking Now!

What is Jesus saying to the Father about you? Is he telling him the worst about you? I think not. Since he died on the cross for you, your failures, weaknesses, mistakes, and lapses are covered by him. Jesus has taken on the role of saving you from the eternal and some of the earthly consequences of your humanity, and infusing his perfect life into you. Now he is telling the Father about that, because he continues to want the best for you. He gave you his righteousness, his life, his nature, even his name. He is your friend. So like a good father defending his child, a friend protecting a friend, or a competent lawyer representing a client, Jesus is for you. He is your advocate.

What do advocates do? They present the best possible argument on your behalf. They promote, defend, and support you. As your advocate Jesus offers you his counsel, and he also counsels others how to see you and respond more positively to you. He wants the best for you. As your advocate, he speaks for you and champions your interests. He maximizes your good and minimize what is negative about you. Actually, advocates do not even bring up the negative unless it is to your benefit. When you are the subject, Jesus is neither cautious nor suspicious, but is 100% sold on you. Though he knows you better than you know yourself, he presumes the best about you. So what is Jesus saying to the Father about you right now? All good things. He’s defending you. He’s spreading good news of hope about you. He believes in you.

So as a Christian, as a man who strives to be Christ-like, I focus on what is good in people, to see them through the love of God, to cover over their sins, to be their advocate, and to give the best possible argument in their defense. As a Christian, I feel no obligation to be an expert in someone else’s sins, to nuance my compliments with any negative I know about them, or to ensure they experience the full consequences of the weaknesses in their lives. That’s just not my role.

The Devil is their accuser, but since I’m not a Satanist, I’m not compelled to be their accuser. Journalists are in the business of telling all they know, but I’m not a journalist, so I have no obligation to broadcast every negative impression. The district attorney has a responsibility to hold those who violate the law accountable and ensure they receive the consequences they deserve, but I don’t work for the DA’s office, so I have no role ensuring others experience just consequences. Instead, I am a Christian, which means I am like Christ in that my role is to forgive, heal, infuse hope, defend, provide, protect, and give my life for those who have not earned it, and advocate for those who are guilty. That is exactly what Jesus did, and continues to do, for us. And it’s what we can do for one another.

It takes courage to be Christ-like. It’s actually easier emphasize the bad in others, but I’ve chosen to try to find the speck of gold buried in mountains of dirt and talk about the gold. Others can talk about the dirt, but I’m highlighting the gold. Why? Because Jesus did that in me. By his grace, we can have grace. Many accuse the gracious of lacking standards, condoning sin, and being ungodly. But in my mind, grace is God’s solution to our sin problem, not the cause of it. And since I want to be Christ-like in my response to another, I find the courage to apply grace. In other words, I am willing to apply the same Gospel to them I so deeply appreciate having been applied to me. Jesus is talking positively about us. We can do the same for one another.

Categories
21st Century Evangelicalism

Mandela Schools Modern Evangelicals

(This is an e-mail I sent to some of the members of St. James Church on December 9th, 2013)

Several people have written me today asking for the Nelson Mandela quote I used yesterday in church. When President Bill Clinton was going through his scandal, many world leaders withdrew from him and many Evangelical leaders were determined to use his sins against him in every possible way. Clinton asked Nelson Mandela why he remained such a faithful friend during that time, to which he responded,

“My morality does not allow me to desert my friends.”

I think this goes to the core of our message. Our response to another person’s sin reveals whether or not we are Christ-like. If we are authentic Christians, we respond to others the way Christ responded to us in our sin, with healing and redemption, desiring to befriend us.  In contrast, if we respond by seeing ourselves as superior and are willing to use others’ sins against them, we may actually become enemies of Christ’s work. We Christians are advocates of repentance, forgiveness, redemption, transformation, healing, and resurrection. Enemies of the Gospel, though they may call themselves “Christian,” reveal themselves by trying to deny another’s resurrection. Strangely, enemies of the Gospel’s work in another often believe in resurrection for themselves.

Another person’s sin is our opportunity to model what Christ is doing in us. When another sins, it should never be surprising to a Bible-believing Christian. Though we believers are to be dominated by His righteousness, we are perfected only when we see Him face-to-face. So another’s sin simply validates the Bible’s teaching about our human condition and every person’s need to grow in Christ. God saw our sin and revealed his heart toward us by sending Jesus, a sure solution for our sin problem.

For us to be like Him, we respond to another’s sins with the New Testament solution; forgiveness, hope, healing, and restoration. Another person’s sin is our opportunity to be like Christ, to be a healer and a minister of redemption. Too often, though, Christians have confused their morality as superiority and see another’s sins as the enemy, not the opportunity. Why? I believe many have not settled in their own minds the biblical solution to mankind’s sin problem, so rather than applying the Gospel, they naturally resort to natural law, which is judgement, punishment, humiliation, dehumanization, and death. The New Testament says we have a new and better way.

I do not know what Nelson Mendela’s faith position was, but I do know that the Holy Spirit has the ability to work with whomever He chooses (Acts 2:17), and that maybe during Nelson Mandela’s time in prison, the fundamental ideas of the Gospel and their inherent power came alive in him. As a result, he developed an understanding of friendship that makes allowance for the faults of others (see Ephesians 4:2 and Colossians 3:13), and helped advance the cause of equality under the law in South Africa through forgiveness of past grievances. He understood and demonstrated the power of forgiveness. He modeled healing as a response to the sins of others and as a result, changed the world one more time. And for this, the world honors him among its greatest men.

We all need to apply the Gospel, not simply believe it.

Blessings.

Pastor Ted

I Corinthians 13:4-7, “Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.”