Posts Tagged ‘ Grace ’

Designated For Assignment

Some afterthoughts from last night’s sermon:  How did you end up in the ministry you now serve?  This isn’t a question aimed at a specific people group, because all believers are serving in one ministry or another.  If you’re a mother, that’s a ministry.  The same goes for husbands, workers, children, pastors, elders, deacons, teachers, etc.  So who put you in the ministry?

The Apostle Paul speaks about his role in the ministry as having come not through himself — he didn’t decide “I can be just as good an apostle as Peter or Thomas.  I’ve got a better education, I read poets & philosophers… I’m going to do it!”  No, Paul affirms in 1 Timothy 1:11 that it was God who entrusted him with the gospel.   He goes on to say in 1 Timothy 1:12 “I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service…”

Paul understands his ministry not as something he hasto do, but assomething he gets to do by the grace of God.  Having to do something versus getting to do something makes a tremendous difference.  My kids have to eat their veggies.  They get to eat dessert.  Very often, it’s the same with Christians who lose sight of what Paul sees — that these opportunities to serve the Lord Jesus Christ are gifts bestowed through grace, not the fine print accompanying salvation.

It’s easy an easy trap to fall into:

If you’re a Christian mother, you may well ask yourself if you really have to be cleaning up another mess right now, or waking up yet another time in the middle of the night.   But shifting the perspective leaves room for bitterness and resentment, both which play a large role in the modern tendency to forsake the ministry of motherhood for a foray into the work world (something husbands often feel they have to do).  How much greater is the home where raising children is something we get to do by the grace of God(Psalm 127:3)?

Christians husbands all too regularly are guilty of the same “Do I really have to?” when it comes to parenting and couple it with a similar attitude with respect to investing into the marriage relationship.  Football season is upon us, and being a guy who used to wonder why I “had” to talk with my wife when the game was on, let me encourage husbands to wake up, realize that the ministry they tend to in marriage is a gift by the grace of God and acknowledge that they get to serve their wives because while the Direct TV has given you access to game upon game, God’s Grace has entrusted you with one woman.   And who are we to choose the 12th man over God?

2010
09/13
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A Fear of Works

Does the Reformed tradition breed an unbiblical fear of works?  Perhaps fear is the wrong word.  Let me elaborate: When I write a particular sermon that  I call  the “If you’re a Christian, act like it” sermon, my Reformed cohorts can get kind of squirrelly.   Eyes dart back & forth.  Eyebrows raise.  Thumb and index finger move to stroke the chin.

I preached one on Sunday evening.  1 Timothy 1:3-11.  Paul’s charge for Timothy to live out true doctrine out of faith & love naturally leads for a call to repentance and obedience to the Christian and a proclamation of the Gospel to the unregenerate.  But why the discomfort?

That works have no part in our justification is a doctrine clearly taught in the Scriptures (Ephesians 2, etc.).  This truth was obscured by a hegemony in the church that valued tradition and non-biblical authority more than the Bible itself.  It took a Reformation to give an unfiltered gospel to the masses.  Reformed Christians today continue in the Reformation tradition, but perhaps we have become something of an overprotective mother when it comes to justification and works.

How so?  Raise your hand if the mere mention of works made your doctrine alarms go off sending you into full apologist mode, scanning to see if I’m about to get all Pelagius up in this blog.  Go ahead.  I can see you through your webcam.

And that response is what I’m talking about.  I’m thinking that we’ve become so careful to guard against the ever popular heresy of salvation (full or part) via works that we get all itchy whenever works are brought up.  ESPECIALLY when works are brought up in conjunction with a call to, you know, actually do them.

As a result of this, we are constantly having to put caveats in our speech whenever we discuss works.  Just like the good Calvinist knows to say “providence” and never “luck” so the good Reformed believer knows never to mention good works without adding “Not that [works] will provide you with salvation.” — Not that there’s anything wrong with that!  I’m a Presbyterian, so naturally I’m fond of precision.  But too many caveats sometimes lead us to bend our thinking away from Biblical doctrine and into a warped theology that allows us to declare “We are not saved by works.  Therefore, I don’t need ‘em!”

A few weeks ago I tweeted that I see far more Christians struggle with antinomianism (armchair definition: Faith in Christ makes the moral law irrelevant. Sin and be free, faith will bail you out).  Several folks replied that they were shocked that such was the case, having grown up in churches where salvation was offered for those who ne’r took a sip of beer.  They wondered where I was going to church.  While a legalistic attitude (if not legalism) is common among certain groups — I think w\ us Reformed peeps it can be just the opposite.  We get that we’re not saved by what we do.  It’s a part of our heritage.  Salvation by Grace alone through Faith alone is the gigantic belt buckle of the Reformed cowboy.   In some cases the buckle is getting too big for the britches, and we overreact when someone points out that you still need to wear chaps when you’re riding the trail.

//end cowboy illustrations

Anyone seeing this, or am I making things up again?  If you have noticed it, how do you deal with it?

2010
08/11
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Trent Makes Some Orange Juice

How does one go about the unpleasant business of determining whether or not they are anathema?  Perhaps the first step is to discover exactly what it means to be anathema.  To be declared anathema is to be cursed on an ecclesiastic (church) level and then excommunicated.

In the Roman Catholic Church, there are several ways in which one might be anathematized.  Tim Prussic reviewed one in particular over at Providence this morning.  While Tim deals with Canon XII of the Council of Trent, I want to look at Canon XI which states:

If any one saith, that men are justified, either by the sole imputation of the justice of Christ, or by the sole remission of sins, to the exclusion of the grace and the charity which is poured forth in their hearts by the Holy Ghost, and is inherent in them; or even that the grace, whereby we are justified, is only the favour of God; let him be anathema.

The Scriptures declare that we have been saved by Grace through faith alone, apart from any works, lest we start saying that we had some part in our own salvation and boast about it (Eph. 2:8-9).  Believing the Scriptures to be true, I’m left anathema by the Roman Catholic Church. That’s to be expected.  I grew up Lutheran, danced with Roman Catholicism before actually studying my Bible, and ultimately became Reformed.  What’s unexpected (and funny) is the posthumous anathematizing of folks like the apostle Paul (who wrote Ephesians 2:8-9) and Augustine, who had declared in the Council of Orange (centuries before Trent):

CANON 6. If anyone says that God has mercy upon us when, apart from his grace, we believe, will, desire, strive, labor, pray, watch, study, seek, ask, or knock, but does not confess that it is by the infusion and inspiration of the Holy Spirit within us that we have the faith, the will, or the strength to do all these things as we ought; or if anyone makes the assistance of grace depend on the humility or obedience of man and does not agree that it is a gift of grace itself that we are obedient and humble, he contradicts the Apostle who says, “What have you that you did not receive?” (1 Cor. 4:7), and, “But by the grace of God I am what I am” (1 Cor. 15:10).

So let this be a cautionary tale to those who put their foundation in something other than the Word of God.  The time may come, as it did for poor Augustine, when you may be declared anathema for adhering to a Magisterial decree closer in line with the Scripture than what the present age Powers-that-be feels like believing.  And really, what can you say to stop them?

2010
07/15
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