FYI - cross-blog announcement

FYI to you, dear readers.  Kelly, over at www.wearegraftedin.com has picked up the blog posts I wrote on adoption from a dad's perspective.  They are good folks who do good work over there, so jump on over and check it out.

Trent

Lies Preachers Tell: Forgiveness and Grace are one and the same...

I guess technically I haven't heard a preacher equate the two.  But I hear them all the time use the words interchangeably.  Grace and forgiveness, in their minds, are functionally the same.  Let me do some explanation...


Forgiveness, according to the Scriptures, is a release of debt.  You owe me $5.  I say don't worry about it.  Debt forgiven.  You didn't pay it off over 30 years at 5%.  You didn't negotiate it down to $2.50.  I forgave the debt.  So it is with God as He forgives our debt.  He does so because Jesus has paid it, not because He has swept sin under a cosmic rug and not because it wasn't a significant offense (more on that tomorrow).


Grace, on the other hand, is something much larger.  Grace is help.  The best definition I know:  it is God at work on our behalf.  It's fuel to do what God desires.  Now certainly forgiveness is a part of this.  When we need help with forgiveness, grace is available and expresses itself as forgiving grace.  But the two aren't the same.  Grace is a broader category.


So consider the following notes from a sermon I preached from Colossians about the broad-ranging nature of grace.  It's more or less a NT survey of where "grace" (Gr. charis) is used.  And what an amazing list it is...

Electing Grace – 2 Timothy 1.9

• God at work to purpose our salvation in Christ from eternity.

Proclaimed Grace – Colossians 1.5-6

• God at work to let the entire world know of the Truth of the Gospel. 

Calling Grace – Galatians 1.6, 15

• God at work to reveal Himself to us through the Gospel.

Regenerating Grace – Ephesians 2.1-5

• God at work to make the spiritually dead alive in Christ.

Repenting Grace – 2 Timothy 2.25

• God at work to turn people from sin to Him. 

Believing Grace – Acts 18.27

• God at work to create trust in Christ.

Justifying Grace – Romans 3.24

• God at work to justly punish sin and declare the sinner not guilty.

Redeeming Grace – Ephesians 1.7

• God at work to purchase forgiveness for His people.

Adoptive Grace – Ephesians 1.5-6

• God at work to make rebels into His children.

Sanctifying Grace – Romans 6.14

• God at work to make us more like Jesus.

Gifting Grace – Romans 12.6

• God at work to grant us with divine enablements to build up His Body.

Ministry Grace – 1 Corinthians 3.10

• God at work to accomplish His purposes through us.

Energizing Grace – 1 Corinthians 15.10

• God at work to fulfill the calling He has given us.

Miraculous Grace – Acts 6.8

• God at work to do the unexplainable.

Relational Grace – 2 Corinthians 1.12

• God at work to restore authentic relationships between us.

Verbal Grace – Ephesians 4.29

• God at work to edify others through spoken words.

Marital Grace – 1 Peter 3.1-7

• God at work to create intimate marriages.

Strengthening Grace – 2 Timothy 2.1

• God at work to fortify the oppressed.

Sustaining Grace – 2 Corinthians 12.9

• God at work to support the weakened.

Suffering Grace – Philippians 1.29

• God at work to identify us with Christ through suffering.

Comforting Grace – 2 Thessalonians 2.16

• God at work to bring hope to the discouraged.

Vocational Grace – Ephesians 3.7

• God at work to employ us in meaningful, helpful roles.

Financial Grace – 2 Corinthians 8.1, 6-7

• God at work to provide for the needs of His people.

Everything Else Grace – Romans 8.32

• God at work to meet every need.

Persevering Grace – Philippians 1.6-7

• God at work to keep His people in right relationship to Him. 

Glorifying Grace – Ephesians 2.7

• God at work to put on display His goodness to us for all eternity.

The thing we must do in light of this truly amazing grace is lean into Christ for all of it.  We need God's help in having full, fulfilling marriages.  We need God's help in doing our work with purpose and ability.  We need God's help in dying well.  We need God's help in using our words to make other people better people.  


You see, the mature Christian is the one who uses the most grace.  The more you lean into Him, the more grace you get.  Grace would certainly be amazing if it were only forgiveness.  But it's not.  And that makes it even more amazing.


But that's just me thinking thoughts...

Lies Preachers Tell: One sin is the same as the rest...

Continuing on today, I thought I'd pick up this little beauty:  all sins are the same in the eyes of God.

If you've heard this, raise your hand.  Now put your hand down because you look silly raising your hand in front of the computer screen.  People get this idea from Bible passages like James 2.10-11 where the Spirit-inspired apostle reminds us that if we break one part of the law we are guilty of all of it.  You also might have heard the logic that since God is completely holy, any offense is a capital crime against Him.  Also true.

But this line of thinking is only half the story.  Half-truths are still full lies.

Certainly any sin is an impurity before the white hot holiness of God and cannot be tolerated.  But all sins are NOT the same.  Read the OT law:  some sins required restitution, some required death.  On every level you can think of, there was some delineation of sin.  Socially, some sins were worse than others and the consequences reflected it.  When someone stole because they were hungry, they were treated differently than stealing because you wanted what another had.  On the familial front, same thing (watch out all teens, because dishonoring mom and dad was - and is - seriously bad news).  Even Jesus Himself said that Judas had committed a "greater sin" (John 19.11).

I guess I point this out because sometimes we get into conversations and say in a well-intentioned manner, "Well, all sin is the same before God."  When we do that, depending on the conversation and context, we can sound like idiots and make God look bad.  The question forming in the non-believer's mind goes like this:  "So this God of yours thinks that the homeless guy stuffing a twinkie in his pocket is the same as Usama bin Laden masterminding and funding terror plots which kill thousands of unsuspecting non-combatants and leave thousands of children as orphans?  What kind of God is that?"  Fair question.

Does this leave us on shaky, relativistic ground?  Absolutely not.  Sin is still sin.  God still burns with anger against it.  Because of it, we all stand in desperate need of a Savior.  Jesus had to die for the "big" ones and "little" ones because they all separate us from God.

And thankfully He did.

But that's just me thinking thoughts...

Lies Preachers Tell: It ain't about you...

So this week, I thought I'd bring up a series of lies that you and I have heard.  The content is interesting, for sure.  Even more so the source of the content:  preachers.  Maybe they mean well, maybe they don't, but they're not telling the truth either way.

Lie #1 has many expressions and corollaries and goes something like this:  if you were the only person in the world, Jesus would've died for you because He loved you that much.  Or, while He was on the cross, I was on His mind.  Or, popularly set forth in this song (key line:  you took the fall and thought of me above all).

Here's the biblical issue:  while the love of God for us, demonstrated in Christ, is beyond description and overwhelming, what appears to be happening at the cross is a dual display.  Certainly, God shows us His love for us there.  And we should never forget that.  Therein is the lie, though, because there was more happening at the cross than the demonstration of God's love.  I guess it's technically more a half-truth.  I'm for emphasizing God's love!  But I'm quite confident that putting us at the center of God's affections distorts what's happening at the cross.

A demonstration of God's love?  Absolutely.  But the cross also is a defense of God's justice.  According to Romans 3.21-26, God set Jesus forward as a propitiation (a sacrifice to satisfy God's just anger against sin) to demonstrate His righteousness.  Had God not dealt with sin at the cross, He could've been accused of being unjust.  As it is, He is both just and the justifier of the one who has confidence in Jesus.

I don't think we can preach enough about that.  I'm 1000% percent for preaching about the love of God.  But I'm also for preaching it in its context.  Jesus died displaying God's righteousness and demonstrating God's love.  In both cases, it's not about us but about Him.

But that's just me thinking thoughts...

Sermon Notes from Sunday, 5.8.11

Here are the notes from today's sermon on the goal of parenting.  Sermon audio and these notes in PDF will be available sometime close to midweek at sermons.heritagepark.org or you can download the podcast at iTunes.

Taking Aim at Parenting

Part 1

Deuteronomy 6.1-9

Question:  What do your kids need most in this life?

Answer:  They need to know God through the Gospel.

• The focus of the Gospel keeps us from idolatry.
• The gratitude from the Gospel keeps us from entitlement.
• The clarity of the Gospel keeps us from distraction.
• The result of the Gospel, transformation, keeps us from worldliness.

How do we get there?

• Modeling
• Praying
• Teaching
• Training

Snakes are Scary: Mother's Day FAIL

Quite obviously from the UK.  Also quite obviously, a fail of epic proportions.  Again, from failblog.org.

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms.

Forgiving Sin, Redeeming Sinners

I had this conversation with someone yesterday and got up this morning still thinking about it.  So I'll post the essence of it because it might encourage you today.

Jesus Christ forgives sin and redeems sinners.

You may need to hear that as this:  Jesus Christ doesn't just forgive sin, He also redeems sinners.

I wonder if sometimes we forget that when we sin against God, confess our sin, and receive His forgiveness, that there's also a reconciling of the relationship.  The Enemy would want us to think that we might be forgiven but God's not really on our side anymore, that He's brooding and pouting, that He's still mad even though he went through the machinations to say, "You're forgiven" (not unlike my kids do sometimes - say what they're supposed to say to their siblings even though it's not coming from their hearts).

I offer to you that when He forgives, He also reconciles and redeems.  He brings you into right relationship.  He's not angry.  He's not pouting.

If He still held relational distance between Himself and you, then Jesus' death was merely judicial and not relational.  Jesus only bought us the legal forgiveness, not the relational wholeness.

That's clearly not the case.  Jesus purchased for us forgiveness.  And reconciliation (2 Cor. 5.18-20).  And adoption (Eph. 1.4).  And redemption (Eph. 1.7).  And we could go on.

Right standing.  Right relationship.  Forgiving sin.  Redeeming sinners.

But that's just me thinking thoughts...

Color this Dangerous: Spiritual Superiority

I had a conversation with two of our guys on staff at Heritage Park about a situation arising around here.  It's classic spiritual superiority.  There's a group.  They reach out to hurting and wounded people.  They declare themselves the real church, posture as real Christians, and talk about what the real message of the Bible says.

You know where this is going?

They have this rhythm.  Include you through friendship.  Exclude you through message.  Include you when you sign onto what they're selling.

Beware.

Beware the guy or gal who has some secret knowledge about the Christian life.  Beware the man who looks and talks spiritually, but primarily when he criticizes Jesus' bride.  Beware the woman who will not submit herself to any sort of pastoral authority because she and her compadres have their own little church going that's "closer to the New Testament model."  Beware the crew that doesn't fellowship outside of themselves.

It happened in Galatia (see Galatians 4.16-20).  It's happening around here.  It will happen around you too, though I hope not.

The cross should humble us not cause us to feel superior.

But that's just me thinking thoughts...

When we won't come clean...

We had a moment at our house one morning.  It started with a simple question and turned into quite the drama.

One question about what was going on.

But then the insecurity-fed lie.  Then the feigning of ignorance.  Then the guilty look.  Then the defensiveness.  Then the new line of argumentation.  Then the illogical jumps between one thought and another and another and another and another.  Lie followed lie.  Cover-up led to cover-up.

Wait.  I've heard this story before.

A man.  A woman.  A garden.  A serpent.  Deceit.  Cover-up.  Hiding.  Blame-shifting.

Anything but confessing.  Anything but owning up.  Anything but coming clean.

But like in my house and like in the Garden, the father in each situation knew what was really happening.  The only thing that lying did was put distance between the father and children.  Telling the truth might have had consequences, but the truth is the path of relational wholeness.  Keeping it hidden only keeps the division in place.

Honesty precedes intimacy.  True in parenting.  True in marriage.  True in the Kingdom.

See it at work in the Scriptures...

Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.  

Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.  

For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.  

For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.Selah  

I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah  (Psalm 32.1-5)

But that's just me thinking thoughts...

Usama Bin Laden is dead...

I'm not celebrating the fact that an expertly fired bullet ripped through human flesh.  But I am celebrating that he will mastermind, fund, and/or carry out no more murders.

I'm not celebrating that he is, by all accounts, separated forever from his Maker.  But I am humbly celebrating that God is a God of justice.

I'm not celebrating the death of +/- 5 people.  But I am celebrating the courage of American Special Forces operators.

I'm not celebrating that he probably had an untold number of Pakistani officials and military officers on the payroll.  I am celebrating that our President said we'd go get him if we found out he was in Pakistan and that's exactly what we did.

I'm not celebrating the reality that anyone lost anyone.  I  am celebrating the fact that there are a lot of families, from 9/11 victims to military families since, that have a sense of closure.

I celebrate the fact that technology made more loss of life unnecessary.

I celebrate the fact that, maybe, his organization will really struggle from this point forward since it lost its visionary and primary funding source.

I celebrate the fact that the world might, and I do say might, be a more peaceful place when I wake up in the morning.

But that's just me thinking thoughts...