When man first sinned against God in the garden of Eden, there was a fracturing of relationship.  Not only was the relationship between God and man fractured, but the relationship between man and man was fractured.  (Gen 3:16)  You might have expected that having been in the presence of God, man would still have some lingering goodness in Him, such that the effects of sin would take a while to set in.  What do we see though?  You don’t have to go far from where you’re at, just flip over one chapter to Genesis 4:8 (14 verses later).  The first two children born to Adam and Eve are Cain and Abel.  It doesn’t take long for sin to manifest itself.  Cain gets jealous of Abel, Cain kills Abel.

Believe it or not, there is no difference between each of us and Cain.  If anything things may have gotten worse.  We live in a culture where the exaltation of self is glorified where even giving is seen as a means to bring attention to one’s self.  Leviticus 19:9 – “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.”  Now, if we’re honest with ourselves, this is a massive problem, because NONE of us fulfills this part of God’s law.  None of us loves our neighbor as ourselves, we don’t even love our “loved” ones that way.  We are born wicked to the core, where if societal constraints were removed we would rob, kill, and destroy in ways that would make Cain look like a saint.

God being rich in mercy did not leave us this way.  Christ entered the world to reconcile us to God, but in restoring that relationship, He also restored our ability to love one another.

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.”  Only those persons who know the fulness of Christ are free to love this way.  If you have any perceived “lack” in your life, you will always seek to fill that “need”.  However, if Jesus Christ is your ultimate treasure, and you truly believe on Him, then you have no real needs.  You are free to act out of fulness towards others, in the same way the fulness of the glory of God led Jesus to give Himself up on the cross.  What it means to “love” others will also change.  You will no longer seek merely to meet physical needs, but you will do everything, prayer, acts of kindness, exhortation, to bring people to God.  You will do all things to help them meet their greatest need, restoration with the King.

If you are a Christian, the gospel of Jesus Christ should compel you to love others; to desire their good along with your own.  When you love this way, there will be constant battles with your flesh, but know that these struggles are growing you closer to Christ.  Christ didn’t die to make converts, He died to redeem a people, a creation, and for their love for one another to reflect the glory of God.  Love the unloveable.  Love God, and love people.

Matthew 12:28-31 – “And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Grace and Peace,
Adam

It is sometimes hard for Christians to understand how God can be a protector, and at the same time allow so much suffering in their life.  In others lives.  In the world.  It is a fair question.  We see wars, famines, natural disasters… all of these things leave devastation in their wake.  If God is our protector, what is He protecting us from?

Matthew 10:37-39 – “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.  And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.  Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

During these fleeting moments of eternity, we call our life, often times what can seem important is infinitely inconsequential.

Matthew 16:26 – “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?”   The protection that we have from the Lord is this:  1 Corinthians 10:13 – “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”  1 Peter 1:3-5 – “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, andunfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”

Suffering, can be the means by which God strengthens the faith of believers, and at the same time, reveals the infinite worth of the glory of God over temporary physical comfort/pleasure through you.  In the Old Testament, we see God as the protector of Israel.  In Romans 9, we see that the true “Israel” are those who are chosen by God to know Him and delight in Him through faith.  How do know that God is our protector?  Look at how all the promsises of God for protection were fulfilled in Christ:

Proverbs 18:10 – “The name of the LORD is a strong tower;the righteous man runs into it and is safe.”
Deuteronomy 31:8 – “It is the LORD who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.”
1 Samuel 12:22 – “For the LORD will not forsake his people, for his great name’s sake, because it has pleased the LORD to make you a people for himself.”
Judges 6:23 – “the LORD said to him, “Peace be to you. Do not fear; you shall not die.”

The name of the Lord is Jesus Christ.  There is no other name by which man may be saved.  He has gone before us, to the cross in our place.  Christ is with us now, as the Holy Spirit.  The Lord has not forsaken us, He forsook His Son, pouring out Holy wrath on the spotless Lamb.  In this way, He has made a people for Himself.  His peace, the peace bought by the blood of Christ is with us by faith.  In Christ there is no fear, we shall never die.

God is the protector of faith.  Our greatest need was a savior, and “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Rom 8:32)

Romans 8:31-38 – “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?  Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised— who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”  No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Grace and Peace,
Adam

Nahum 1:2-6 – “The LORD is a jealous and avenging God; the LORD is avenging and wrathful; the LORD takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies.  The LORD is slow to anger and great in power, and the LORD will by no means clear the guilty.  His way is in whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.  He rebukes the sea and makes it dry; he dries up all the rivers; Bashan and Carmel wither; the bloom of Lebanon withers.  The mountains quake before him; the hills melt; the earth heaves before him, the world and all who dwell in it.  Who can stand before his indignation?  Who can endure the heat of his anger?  His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken into pieces by him.”

Hebrews 12:28-29 – “Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.”

Maybe there’s a fire and brimstone preacher lurking within me, I don’t know.  What I do know is that I truly believe that we suffer as a people of God for a lack of preaching His wrath.  If you read a passage like Nahum (or much of the Old Testament for that matter), you may say to yourself, “God is scary!”  It isn’t fear mongering to preach the wrath of God, God is scary!  He is also good.  Infinitely good in a way we cannot understand fully.

There is nothing scarier than an all powerful holy God, pouring out just wrath against a sinner for all eternity.  Just wrath.  We are God’s creation.  We were created to reflect the glory of God, and instead we have each gone our own way, rejecting God and all that He is for us.  God’s holiness cannot be in the presence of any amount of sin, and even our best “righteous” good moral work carries within it enough sin to damn us to hell for eternity.

Psalm 143:1-2 – “Hear my prayer, O LORD; give ear to my pleas for mercy!  In your faithfulness answer me, in your righteousness!  Enter not into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you.”

Isaiah 64:5-7 – “You meet him who joyfully works righteousness, those who remember you in your ways.  Behold, you were angry, and we sinned; in our sins we have been a long time, and shall we be saved?  We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.  We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.  There is no one who calls upon your name, who rouses himself to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have made us melt in the hand of our iniquities.”

Romans 3:23 – “for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”

We’re in trouble.  Big trouble.  To be reconciled to God we need to be righteous, and none of us are even close.  We need a new righteousness.  Not a “do-over” that simply wipes out previous sin to leave us to ourselves to mess up again, we need a once and for all time declaration of righteoussness.  We need our sin and the wrath of God removed from us, and we need to be clothed in a rightouesness outside ourselves.

Genesis 15:6 – “And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness.”

Philippians 3:8-9 – “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—”

1 Peter 3:18 – “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God”

Romans 3:21-22 – “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.”

This is the promise of God, that everyone who hopes in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, will be credited with His righteousness.  Rejoice that we are reconciled through Christ alone.  We are hopeless, hope in Him.

Grace and Peace,
Adam

John 15:4-11 – “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.  I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is thatbears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.  If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.  If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.  By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.  As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.  If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.  These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”

Sometimes I feel like my greatest task in encouraging others with the Word of God, is to simply remove myself and let the Word speak.  In the Bible, you will see terms like “abiding in Christ” and being “led by the Spirit”, to qualify those who are indeed children of God (Rom 8:14).  What does that mean though?  If indeed you are a child of God, then you eagerly seek to know what is the will of God for your life.  What is the work that you ought to do each day?  Thankfully, Jesus has given us His answer.

John 6:29 – “Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”

Now this believing in Jesus extends beyond merely knowledge that he exists, otherwise everyone would be saved, because Romans 1 tells us that everyone knows who God is, and rejects Him through their actions.  In James 2:19 we see even the demons know who God is – “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!”   So believing in Jesus is more than acknowledging who He is, and what he has done.  True believing in Jesus, is seeing all of the promises of God fulfilled in Jesus, trusting Him, and delighting in Him for who He is.  This is what it means to believe.

2 Corinthians 1:19-21 – “For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not Yes and No, but in him it is always Yes.  For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.”

Does it make sense now how trusting in the promises of God from His Word, that they are all fulfilled in Christ, and that we are joined with Him by faith;  these things together explain how our joy in Christ and His glory are inseperable.  He receives glory as we receive Him with joy as the fulfillment of all the promises of God.  The peace we live under is solely due to Christ.

Do you want to be doing the will of God in your life?  Do you want to fight the fight of faith each day?  Make it your task to dwell on the promises of God, and trust in their fulfillment for you through Christ.  Things like, Deut 31:6 – “it is the LORD your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.”  Gen 15:6 – “he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness”  Isaiah 53:5 – “But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.  All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”  Hosea 6:1-3 – “Come, let us return to the LORD; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him.  Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.” 

The Bible is full of the promises of God.  They’re all over the place, pointing a glad heart towards Jesus.

This must the first and enduring task of each day for you as a Christian.  Make your heart happy in God.  Come to Him in His Word to be fed by imperishable food, to renew you soul, to rejoice in the glory of God.  Everything else in the Christian life is only possible as an overflow of your love for God in this way.  If you serve the poor, are kind to others, and you do those things from willpower, rather than as an overflow of the love of Christ in you, that work will only serve to burden you and will be for your praise rather than God’s glory.  Abide in Christ.  Dwell on the promises of God, and the hope we have in Christ, the risen Son.  These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

Grace and Peace,
Adam

A barrier to true joy in faith is often our flesh’s natural desire to make God man-centered rather than God-centered.  We try to define God by ourselves, and run into a great many problems.  There are aspects of God that we simply cannot fathom.  For example, God is outside of time, He is eternal.  He always has been, and always will be.

Exodus 3:13-14 – “Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.”

God is infinite Himself.  We are separate from God, but we are contained within Him.

Acts 17:26-28 – “And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for “‘In him we live and move and have our being’;”

There is much about God that cannot be understood by man, because ultimately the finite is reaching into the infinite.  A cup cannot contain the entire ocean can it?  However, we are not without hope.  God has given us His Word, and in the fullness of time, His Son to reveal Himself to us.  He has also given us a mind with which to pursue Him, a heart to be led by joy, and a Helper, the Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth.

With that said, I want to attempt to give a helpful understanding of what it means for God to be sovereign.  It will be difficult to take in.  You may say at the end, “This guy is CRAZY”, and I want you to know that’s ok.  It’s not something I would press upon someone who is first coming to know the Lord.  My hope isn’t that you would ever believe something merely because I say it, but that you would be as a Berean (Acts 17:11)  However, understanding the sovereignty of God in all things is helpful in finding joy amidst all circumstances, knowing that God is working all things towards good for those who love Christ Jesus, for those who have been called according to his purpose.  (Rom 8:28)  Ultimately, knowing the sovereignty of God will expose you to be helpless in front of an all-powerful God, totally dependant upon his love and mercy.  Know that while difficult to take in, I say these things for your joy.

“Our God is in the Heavens, He does whatever He pleases.” (Psalm 115:3) “Whatever the LORD pleases, he does,in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps.” (Psalm 135:6)  “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.   For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”  (Isaiah 55:8-9)

Romans 9:17-24 – “For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?”  Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patiencevessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?”

I know this is very difficult for a secular humanist culture to take in, but this world, and even your own life is not about you – everything is for the glory of God.  Our God does not act out of compulsion, but of fullness for his glory.  Thus, everything that has been, is now, and ever will be is because in some way it serves to radiate the glory of God.  There is no set of circumstances that if changed would have better radiated the glory of God.

This is difficult to hear I’m sure, especially for those of us who have and will encounter loss and suffering.  While morally opposed to the sinful actions of man, a greater good was being served through them, that God desired and brought about evil.  God wanted man to fall, because the entire time He was looking forward to the cross, the greatest display of the glory of God.  Some will say, well God didn’t “want” such and such to happen, he “allowed” it to happen.  That is semantics at best, and at worst, diminishing the glory of God’s sovereignty.  When we are in Heaven, and perhaps we are able to see how things fit together, we will be able to look at history with a different lens.  We will condemn the evil actions of man, just as God does, yet we will praise God for bringing those things about for his glory.  Why?  Because the glory of God is our own treasure in Heaven.  We will see fully the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ for all eternity.

Let me be clear.  Am I saying that there is a part of God, that while morally opposed to sinful actions, desires that they occur, and actually brings them about through His providence/sovereign power?  Yes. Did God want Adam and Eve to fall?  Yes, for His glory.  Often times we hear in apologetics about the “problem of evil”.  How can evil exist if God is perfectly good and holy?  Answer:  Evil exists by God’s design to serve to display His glory in just wrath being poured out on sin for all eternity.  He is an all consuming fire.  Evil exists to display God’s justice on wrath poured out on sinners, and God’s mercy to those whom are covered by the blood of Christ through faith.  Can you take that in?

How else do you understand the cross?  The cross was the most horrific sin committed by man for all time.  A perfectly righteous man in essence and deed, tortured, nailed to a cross, and left to die in excruciating agony.  The wrath of God poured on a righteous lamb.  Are you saying God just “allowed” that?  Yet in that moment, what do we see?  Was God the Father sitting up in Heaven weeping?  Was Jesus sad about going to the cross?  God planned this from before eternity.  He brought it about.  God the Father was actively pouring out His righteous wrath against the Son, who bore the iniquities of many.

God the Father:
But the LORD was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, And the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand.  As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, as He will bear their iniquities.”  (Isaiah 53:10-11)

God the Son:
“looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2)

There was a greater goal of God being served through that horrible act – the glory of God.

When Joseph was sold into slavery by His brothers, what was his response to them?   “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.” (Genesis 50:20)

God has a good purpose in everything, even evil.  What man means for evil, God uses for good.  The question therefore is how your evil will be used by God for good…. and it will.   Your evil will either serve the glory of God as his wrath is poured out on you for eternity, or your evil will be found to have be put on Christ, and God’s glory will be displayed in His mercy and grace to you through Jesus Christ.  This isn’t license to sin, if your heart hears this and isn’t afraid of the all powerful righteousness of God, you only prove that you do not know Christ.  He is an all consuming fire, He does whatever pleases Him.  It is not our place to question Him or His motives, but to live under the mercy and grace of the blood of Jesus Christ to radiate His glory to a lost world.

My encouragement to those of you who read this and think “No way!” is to first humble yourself before God in His word, and make sure your “belief” is rooted there.  Read the book of Job, and let the Word speak.  Secondly, I would encourage you to think about this.  If God is not completely sovereign over everything, including evil, then how can we find any comfort when we endure suffering?  How will we be able to say to the world, “though He slay me, I will hope in Him” (Job 13:15)  My hope is that this does not uproot any of your faith, but serves to make it stronger.  The grace of God be with you

For your joy,
Adam

Follow up Reading:

Freedom of the Will – Jonathan Edwards
Spectacular Sins (and their global purpose in the glory of Christ) – John Piper
Are There Two Wills in God? – Geoff Ashley
http://northway.thevillagechurch.net/resource_files/study_guides/20070410DoesGodHaveTwoWills.pdf

Where do you hope?

I thought about making today’s WFTD titled Cling to the Cross.  It flows better, it’s more catchy, but ultimately it can be unhelpful.  Why?  The answer highlights how we can take a good thing, and make it an ultimate thing.  Where we can shift our hope even slightly away from Christ, and make an idol out of a blessing.  The physical cross never saved anyone.  I often wonder why we have crosses in churches, but no Jesus?  Do you know what I would do if someone gave me a piece of the actual cross to have?  I would throw it away.  Why?  Because Christ doesn’t want you looking towards a piece of wood or anything else, He wants every ounce to be focused on Him.  It was Jesus Christ who was crucified, it was Jesus Christ whose blood was shed, it was Jesus Christ who alone reconciles you to God.  Compared to His infinite value, what is a piece of wood?  So today, for your encouragement, I want to ask you to ask yourself where your hope is found.  If you’re hope in life rests on anything other than Christ, your hope is folly.

Each of us has struggles in life.  Each of us have times when things do not go our way, when people disappoint or hurt us, and when seemingly nothing is going right.  In those moments, and in those periods of life, where does your heart turn?  The default mode of many of us is to try to “manage” life’s obstacles.  This ultimately leads only to despair at being unable to do so, or a false hope from temporary success.  The reality is, none of us knows what is around the corner good or bad.  Rather than being reactive to struggle, we should proactively pursue the peace and joy of Christ.

Luke 12:16-21 – “And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.  And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’  But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’  So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

     Do you hope in your job?  Your marriage?  Your retirement account?  Your family?  What happens when you lose your job?  When your marriage struggles?  When the stock market crashes?  When a family member dies?  When you take something that was meant by God to be a blessing, and make your joy and hope terminate on that thing, you are lost.  Ironically, the most loving thing God can do for you is to remove that thing from you, and he often does.  Hold everything loosely, knowing where your Hope is found.

So, our encouragement is in nothing more and nothing less than Christ crucified.  He has made us a new creation in Him (2 Cor 5:17), He has purchased for us an inheritance (Eph 1:11-12), He has given us a new name (Rev 2:17), and nothing can separate us from the love of Christ (Rom 8:35-38).

1 Peter 3:5 – “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”

     My eager expectation is not that we as brothers and sisters in Christ would have lives absent from struggle or pain, but that our joy in Christ in those times would cause many to glorify God.  If you have been called by Christ to know Him, and enjoy Him, your inheritance is eternal.  Cling to Him, and the passing treasures and struggles of life will slowly fade, until nothing is left except joy in the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.  Grace and Peace be with you.

Philippians 3:8-14 – Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.  Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

I love this section of scripture.  It is the heartbeat of any true Christian.  If you ever wanted to know how you ought to think, feel, and act as a Christian who has been transformed by the gospel, surely this is it.  Change happens in this order:  Knowing, Feeling, Doing.  With your mind you perceived the Gospel.  By grace through the Holy Spirit, you felt the goodness of God in Jesus Christ to trust in Him alone for salvation.  Now you walk as a redeemed creation of God, led by the Spirit by your heart’s affections for Him, to obey Him, and live make His glory manifestly known.

I want you to see and feel the worth of Christ from this passage.  I want you to feel the weight of affection for Christ Jesus that was driving Paul to write this to the Church at Philippi, pleading with them.  Let’s step away for a moment to ask a question.  How captivating must Jesus be?  How glorious must He be, that literally everything that Paul had previously valued in life was seen not just as “less appealing” but as totally worthless garbage?  Do you feel that way about Jesus?

Would you eagerly seek out suffering if it brought you closer to Jesus?  Would you walk in His ways, even to your own death, joyfully secure in knowing your treasure in Christ in Heaven infinitely surpassed life in worth?  Not all of us will be called to be martyrs for Christ, but every one of us should strive to know Christ in this way.  To see and savor the unsurpassed worth of God in Christ Jesus so that we lose our lives, at least our own will for them.  We should have hearts that so delight in knowing Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior, that we eagerly discipline ourselves to lead lives that would manifest His worth to others, and share the hope we have in the gospel.

All this is from the gospel.  That we should make Christ our own, because He has made us His own.  It’s so important that you see the order in that.  We do not earn Christ, He has accepted us where we are, and made us His own through giving us hearts to believe the gospel.  Knowing the love of God is amazing.  The depth of love to know Christ died for us, even when we were sinners, to reconcile a hopeless people to a holy God.  This perfect life of sacrifice is credited to us.  Our righteousness and therefore our hope for salvation doesn’t rest on our laurels, but on the sufficiency of Him who died that we would live.

For some, my appeal is for you to press these truths beyond intellectualism into your heart.  For others I say this as a reminder and exhortation continue to be led by the love of Christ.  None of us should ever feel that we have “arrived” as Christians, because we’re not home yet.  I fall short, we all fall short, that is why Jesus came to die.  Do not lose heart, however, but as a brother in Christ, let me encourage you not to look behind, but continually look forward to Christ, who is our hope.  There will be a day where the anticipation of knowing Christ fully will be realized.  On that day, everything else will fall away, and joy in Him will be ours fully.

Philippians 3:20-21 – But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.

Grace and Peace,
Adam

Grace is a weighty matter.  It is the single point of theology that separates Christianity from every other religion.  What does it mean to you?  How would you define Biblical grace to someone if you were asked?

For those of us who hope in Christ, who have a pastor who preaches the gospel in truth, we should at least be familiar with the word.  Perhaps what comes to mind first is Ephesians 2:8-9, that “by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”   Many of you have memorized those verses, if not; I would greatly encourage you to.

My hope is that after today, you will have a greater understanding of what grace truly is Biblically, and we will correct what I perceive to be a common misunderstanding or misuse of the word.  Specifically, I am going to attempt to show, Biblically, how grace must always be Christo-centric, rather than self-centered.  Why is this important?  Primarily two reasons:  First, if grace is primarily spoken of as being centered on the individual, it robs God of His glory.  Secondly, if grace is centered on the individual, it ironically may cause a person to struggle with legalism, and lose faith in their salvation.  If that doesn’t make sense, I’ll explain why later.

What do I mean by self-centered grace?  If you think of grace as being this invisible covering extended to you daily, that is essentially thinking of grace in terms of self.  What I want to change is when we speak of or think of grace, before first dwelling on the implications of grace to us, I want us to see and savor the source of grace, namely, the blood of Christ shed for all who believe.  The color of grace is crimson.  Grace was fulfilled through pierced hands and feet on a cross.

While it is true that grace covers us daily, it would be a mistake to think of grace as growing as we sin.  This misunderstanding was present in Biblical times, as well as today.  Sometimes people misrepresent the intentions of the people of Rome when they respond to Paul’s explanation of salvation by grace through faith.  Romans 6:1-3 “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?”  If God’s grace grew with sin, then His work on the cross would be more glorious the greater amount of sin His death “covered”.  This is not necessarily an appeal towards licentiousness as some claim, rather a wanting to see the glory of God increase by grace abounding all the more over sin.  That is heresy by the way, because that was the misunderstanding Paul was correcting.

No, we cannot add to what was accomplished by Christ.  In one moment of time, the shed blood of the perfect spotless Lamb of God, bearing the wrath of God for sin, purchased grace for all time.  Limitless grace, infinite grace.  The infinite wrath of a Holy God absorbed by the infinitely holy, pure sacrifice, purchased infinite grace.  This is why whether Jesus died for 1 person or 20 Billion, His sacrifice would be the same.  The grace available would be the same.  His death would be no more or less glorious.

So when we speak of grace, it must not in our minds be separated from the once and for all sacrifice of Christ.  His broken body and blood is our grace, fully.  It is finished.

Now, with that established, it may be apparent how a misunderstanding of grace could lead one towards legalism.  On the one hand, yes it is true that we, as redeemed children of God, still sinners in the flesh, experience grace daily.  However, the belief that we are in need of “additional grace” to cover sins for today can be very unhelpful.  “I know Christ paid for all my sins before, but is there grace enough for what I’ve done today?”  “I was doing so well, but now I’ve fallen, I need to alter my behavior to make sure I don’t “run out” of grace.”  These are the lies of Satan to keep someone away from God, when they should be running towards Him.  Is Christ to be crucified again?  Was He just kidding when He said “It is finished” and sat down at the right hand of God?

You are not accepted because grace covered 90 sins, and you only committed 89… whew!  Just barely made it, right?!  In truth, you are much worse than you realize.  You haven’t offended God once, or twice, or 89 times; you’ve offended Him infinitely even on your very “best” day, because He is INFINITELY holy, and you are not.  It is not a matter of doing, but rather being.  Therefore, you need a new name, you need to be reborn, you need to be a new creation, a new being.  Jesus accomplished this for you on the cross.  His shed blood was and is sufficient.  Therefore, my position before God is not based on my number of sins vs available grace, but on the grace born from my reconciliation to God through Christ.   Let your hope be singular in Christ.  Look to Christ crucified, and see your salvation and a grace that is infinite.  Let your hope not be in “grace enough”, but in the all sufficiency of Jesus Christ.  He is our grace, and He is more than enough.

My encouragement is to retrain yourself to view grace in this way, as being complete and all sufficient through the blood of Christ.  Let every moment of every day be an opportunity to remember that you live because He died.  Let the peace of God, through the infinite grace of Christ’s shed blood, and love for Him rule your mind and heart.  Colossians 3:1-4 – “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”

Grace and Peace,

Adam