The Rest of the Old Old Story

Sometimes something will just click. I finally get it.

There are people who think that being a Christian means asking Jesus into your heart, and then struggling through this life attempting to obey him the best you can. In fact, perhaps most Christians think that.

Somehow that never dawned on me.

I was told many years ago, then told over and over throughout the years, that it’s impossible to live the Christian life that way. I was told over and over the proper way to live the Christian life, and it has given me hope, sustenance, and occasionally the most amazing power from heaven, even in my weakest moments–no, especially in my weakest moments.

Yesterday, as I was reading Roy Hession’s The Calvary Road, I got it.

Not everyone knows these things!

What Are “These Things”?

These things are the very Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These things are the power and foundation of your Christian life.

If you don’t know these things, then, my friend, it’s no wonder you struggle so much.

The Way is hard even when you do know your utter reliance upon Jesus Christ and the greatness of his power in you. How impossible it must be if you do not know!

Here are “these things” in Roy Hession’s words:

Revival is just the life of the Lord Jesus poured into human hearts. Jesus is always victorious. … Whatever may be our experience of failure and barrenness, He is never defeated. … And we, on our part, have only to get into a right relationship with Him, and we shall see His power being demonstrated in our hearts and lives and service, and His victorious life will fill us and overflow through us to others. And that is revival in its essence.

The Christian life really is about believing. It’s about believing that in you—that is, in your flesh—nothing good dwells (Rom. 7:18) and that in him, everything good dwells. It is about believing that we really can die to self and that Jesus Christ can really live his life through us.

And it’s about believing there is no other way than that.

Our flesh can never please him (Rom. 8:5-13). If he doesn’t do something miraculous, if we don’t really and miraculously become "his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works," then we have no hope. We will thoroughly fail and embarrass ourselves in the process. We won’t have a shot.

The Call of Jesus Christ

Jesus has a high and difficult call. Read it yourself: Luke 14:26-33. He asks for everything.

If you’ve struggled just to give God merely what the typical American church—perhaps the First Church of Goats Who Don’t Help People and Rich Men Who Can’t Be Saved—asks of its members, then the thought of trying to give Jesus what he asks for in Luke 14 must make you want to run and hide!

That’s why the Christian life starts with dying!

The Calvary Road goes on about that:

Dying to self is not a thing we do once for all. There may be an initial dying when God first shows these things, but ever after it will be a constant dying, for only so can the Lord Jesus be revealed constantly through us. … It will mean no plans, no time, no money, no pleasure of our own. It will mean a constant yielding to those around us, for our yieldedness to God is measured by our yieldedness to man. Every humiliation, everyone who tries and vexes us, is God’s way of breaking us, so that there is a yet deeper channel in us for the Life of Christ.

Did you know that’s the life Jesus Christ called you to?

If you don’t, then you’ve been lied to. There isn’t any other Christian life. There’s only the one that Roy Hession just described for you.

The Impossible Christian Life

What’s worse is that often supposed Christians turn away from the call of Jesus Christ, thinking that kind of life is impossible. The exact opposite is true!

It’s the "easy" Christian life that isn’t possible. The Scriptures teach us that the mind set on the flesh cannot be subject to the law of God. The person who’s in the flesh cannot please God (Rom. 8:7-8).

And if you’ve found some other way than the one Christ preached, you’re in the flesh! He’s sure not going to help you live your own brand of Christianity!

The impossible Christian life is the only one that can be lived because it is the only one God gives grace for. That would be the life Christ preached, where you turn the other cheek, deny yourself, serve everyone, forsake your family and possessions, keep all your promises (and your idle comments), and basically take up your cross, follow him, and never do your own will.

How can that be possible?

Just one way.

You see, the only life that pleases God and that can be victorious is His life—never our life, no matter how hard we try. (Calvary Road, p. 25-26)

That last thing. You have to know that.

There is no other way.

“Therefore, I … mak[e] mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ … may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, so that you may know … the exceptional greatness of his power toward us.” (Eph. 1:17-19)

This is a response I just sent to someone. There’s nothing personal in it, so I wanted to post this here. I hope there’s something helpful in it:

The thing that helped me most with baptism was comparing it to the sinner’s prayer, something I believe Peter does in 1 Peter 3:21. Peter says baptism now saves us, and then he explains how it saves us. It saves us by being the appeal to God for (or from) a good conscience.

The KJV and other versions have answer or pledge in the place of appeal, but after reading through several lexicons, I would argue that the NASB’s “appeal” is the only reasonable translation there.

So, baptism is an appeal to God for a good conscience.

That fits very well with the verses on baptism in the NT. In Acts 2:38, Jews ask Peter what they should do since they are convicted about crucifying Christ. He tells them repent and be baptized for (eis – into) the remission of sins, and they’ll receive the Holy Spirit. See how that fits with 1 Pet. 3:21? They wanted a clean conscience. He told them to be baptized, and their sins would be forgiven, and they’d receive the Holy Spirit.

Baptism was the way they carried out their faith. It was their “sinner’s prayer.”

Of course, you know there’s no sinner’s prayer in the NT. Read through Acts, and you’ll see that everyone was baptized immediately, the same day. Baptism was the apostles’ sinner’s prayer. The Philippian jailer was baptized in the middle of the night!!! (Acts 16)

When Paul had been convicted by Christ on the road to Damascus, Christ sent him to wait there. Ananias came and told him, “What are you waiting for? Arise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord!” (Acts 22:16).

So Paul, too, washed his sins away in baptism, despite having seen the Lord 3 days earlier. Baptism was his sinner’s prayer.

The early church believed the same way. All Christians believed in baptismal regeneration, including the Reformers, all the way into the 17th century. A symbolic baptism has to be the worst-attested doctrine believed by any large group of Christians ever. It’s new, it obviously violates many Scriptures on baptism.

Baptists and others like them deal with this by using verses on faith to teach about and argue for their version of baptism. They have to. Pretty much all the verses on baptism clearly disagree with them. Church history disagrees with them–100%, across the board–all the way until a century AFTER the Reformation.

So here’s how what I teach differs from the Roman Catholics. One, the Catholics baptize babies. That’s an indication that they think baptism does something spiritual even apart from faith. I don’t believe that.

I believe baptism is an appeal to God for a good conscience. Babies can’t do that. We believe, and then we join ourselves to Christ in baptism. In the beginning, it was really that simple. It wasn’t that baptism was a magic rite. It was the baptism was the proper response of a believer to hearing the Gospel of Jesus Christ and believing.

Okay, so here’s the real difficult issue:

What about those that don’t know?

What about me personally? I was witnessed to by pentecostal believers. They believed, like the Baptists, that baptism is symbolic. So rather than have me respond to God with baptism, as the Bible teaches, they had me pray a prayer. Of course, even the prayer was ineffectual, because like Cornelius in Acts 10, I had received the Holy Spirit as soon as I heard the Gospel and said I believe it. The power of the Spirit fell on me, gave me a good conscience, and changed my whole world as soon as I said, “Yes, I believe.”

I was baptized a month later, wondering what good such an act was, because doing the “public testimony” seemed so meaningless as to be ridiculous. What sort of public testimony is baptism nowadays? Lots of people have been baptized. Many of them repeatedly. Most of them live lives that are a testimony AGAINST Christ.

So baptism is a lousy public testimony. Live a holy life! That’s a great public testimony.

And, Scripturally, how does one explain Paul baptizing the Philippian jailer in the middle of the night? What sort of public testimony was that? How about Cornelius with Peter? It seems clear Cornelius was baptized in his house, on the spot. What sort of public testimony was that?

I believe God makes exceptions. I believe he made an exception for the thief on the cross. I believe he made an exception for Cornelius, pouring out the Spirit on him before baptism.

I believe he makes exceptions for us ignorant 21st century Christians who think baptism is symbolic and can be waited on. He forgives our sins and fills us with the Spirit because we ask him to by a sinner’s prayer or a prayer to be filled with the Spirit. Being merciful, loving, and kind, he answers that prayer.

Scripturally, though, the example set for us–and the command of Christ–is that baptism be the appeal to God for a good conscience, not something else, not even an actual verbal prayer.

I hope that answers your question. Justification does come upon faith, but faith always acts. So responding to the Gospel by an act of faith, such as baptism or the sinner’s prayer (one being biblical and one being the tradition of Charles Finney and D.L. Moody) does not contradict justification by faith. Instead, it shows us what justification by faith looks like.

Remember, Peter didn’t say in Acts 2:38, “You don’t have to do anything. You have already believed, so you’re justified.” No, he said, “Repent and be baptized.”

Clearly, those Jews believed . How could the be cut to the heart, as the Scripture says, unless they had believed what Peter taught? Yet, Peter still told them to repent and be baptized.

One needs to perform an initial act of faith.

I’d love to say more about Peter’s initial act of faith, but this email is long enough. The first time Peter received a command of the Lord, it was to throw his nets on the other side of the boat (Luke 5). When he did so, the effect was incredible. He acknowledged he was a sinner, and then, when the boat got to land, he forsook everything and followed Christ.

Amazing, isn’t it? Jesus didn’t tell him to be baptized, to read the Scriptures, or any such thing. Instead, he told him only to throw his nets on the other side of the boat. Peter said, “At your word, I will do it.”

He did it. The response to the Word, by obeying it, was like eating it. The Word was implanted in his heart like a seed and he was born again (Jam. 1:21 w 1:18). At that point, because he responded/obeyed, he didn’t need to be told he was a sinner. He didn’t need to be told to follow Christ. The Word of God was now in him, and so he knew what he was supposed to do!

Of course, I know there’s issues with me saying he was born again there and not later, after he repented for denying Christ. But Jesus said that Zaccheus was saved (Luk 19) right there on the spot. There, once again, the Word of God (Jesus) told Zaccheus something simple. He told him to hurry, to come down, and that Jesus would eat with him. Zaccheus complied, and the Word of God was planted in his soul. Jesus didn’t have to teach him to repay those he’d cheated. He knew already because the Word was in him.

Then, as I said, Jesus said that salvation had come to him that very day. It had! And it was because of his positive response to the Word of God.

Baptism is our positive response to the Word of God. It’s like eating it. When we respond, the Word of God will go down in us like a seed, saving our souls.

Well, I guess I did say all of that about Peter. Sorry for the long email. I hope it’s a blessing to you.

In one of the comments, someone asked:

If one finds oneself constantly failing in the Christian life (ie a constant Rom 7 experience) what should he do? How (practically) do you obey through the power of the spirit and not your own flesh?

I’m about to show you what my answer was. I wouldn’t mind some input—John C, I’d love it if you’d add to this in the comment section.

Until then, it’s my hope that this will help some. Going forward in Christ is above all a matter of knowing and pursuing him. He that wishes to please God must know that he is, the writer of Hebrews says, and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.

So here’s the answer I gave:

This is a difficult question to answer from a distance.

The Christian life was never meant to be lived alone. It is good to have brothers (or sisters) speaking into your life. If there’s an ongoing struggle, they can see what you’re lacking.

If you don’t have that kind of fellowship, then the question I would usually ask is what one thing that God is asking you to do.

If you don’t know, then you need to find out. It’s very hard to fix everything in your life at once. It’s much easier to know exactly what God is asking of you, work on that, then move on to the next thing he gives you as soon as he has you moving on.

For example, let’s say that I seek God, and I believe the one thing he’s got for me is to really pay attention to those that I’m with: to listen, to let there be love in my eyes, and to really seek to let Christ reach them through me while I’m with them.

Then, when a person begins to talk to me, it’s a reminder to set my eyes on God. It’s a reminder to ask God for grace, and to focus on doing his will.

That act will carry over into other parts of my life, and the successes will strengthen me and draw me closer to God.

I don’t say this out of some system I’ve developed. I say this out of what I’ve watched God do with people for 27 years. He’s always got something that he wants you to learn or change in. You’re his student, not your own, so you have to focus on what he’s focusing on.

That’s all you’ll have grace for. You won’t have grace for the lessons you’ve assigned yourself. You’ll have grace for what God is asking of you, and God only asks what he knows you can give, no matter how difficult it is.

Focus on that. Make it the goal of your life. If you fail, then repent, get up, and ask him for even more grace. God knows you may be weak and need some time, but if he’s asking something for you, it is within your power–as long as your eyes are on him.

That’s a specific answer. I have one much shorter general answer.

Walking in the Spirit means trying to keep one eye on God all the time. It means checking inside to see if God has dropped anything in your heart in every situation and conversation you find yourself in. Sometimes there will be nothing. Other times, there will be something there, and you must obey.

One obedience leads to another. He who is faithful in little will be faithful in much.

We have to give ourselves time to grow. We can’t be crushed by failures. We have to allow ourselves to be forgiven by God (mercy), and we have to rely upon his help (grace).

John, a friend of mine, has a blog on this topic as well.

Apparently, I let out a deep, light secret last night.

God loves you.

Well, okay, everyone—especially those so hungry for God that they’ve come to a Christian community like Rose Creek Village—knows that God loves them.

Somehow. In some way. Certainly in a way worth talking about.

But apparently we don’t know it in a way that produces real believing.

Don’t get me wrong. There are people who walk around in joy all the time. They know God loves them, and they know it the right way. They’ve got it inside, and they’re pouring it out in their lives day by day.

But there’s a good chance you’re not one of them. So let me let you in on the secret:

God’s Not Disappointed in You!

Okay, I’m going to narrow my audience down here the way Paul did. I’m speaking to those who "love God and are the called according to his purpose."

But for those of you that have repented, but you still can’t seem to get it right, I have good news for you …

You never will.

For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. (Col. 3:3)

If you’re in Christ, then the reason you’re not getting it right is because you need someone else to live your life for you. You’re dead. Your life is safely and permanently tucked away with Christ inside of God.

No wonder you’re a hopeless failure!

Give it up!

For I am crucified with Christ; neverthless, I live. Yet not I, but Christ lives in me, and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal. 2:20)

We all know that verse, but do we do it?

Do we hopelessly give up on ourselves and let Christ live in us … through us?

Coming Boldly to the Throne of Grace

So you just sinned. One more time you opened your big mouth. You got your feelings hurt, and you mistreated the perpetrator. You chickened out and didn’t confess the Lord when a good opportunity arose. You looked at the wrong thing or in the wrong place.

Or, worst of all, you failed to help a person in need.

So what now?

Well, now you have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous. That’s what 1 Jn. 2:2 says. And surely you’ve heard that the word "advocate" there means a defense lawyer. Jesus Christ is on your side against God.

What a bunch of poppycock and slander against God!

You don’t need a defense attorney against God. God’s on your side! And if Jesus is defending you before God, then he’s doing it because God commanded him to. Jesus only does what he sees his Father doing.

"If God be for us, who can be against us?" Do you remember that verse?

If not, go look it up. It’s in Romans 8:31. Read it. Read the verses around it. Eat them (Jer. 15:16). Let them become part of you. Let them become the rejoicing of your heart.

I looked up th. Greek word in 1 Jn. 2:1. It’s parakletos.

For those of you that don’t know, that’s what the Holy Spirit is called in John 14. It’s comforter.

Oh, yeah, in some situations it can mean a defense attorney. But not before God! Not for you! You don’t need a defense attorney before God.

God’s on Your Side

God already knew, from the foundation of the world, that you were going to be weak and fail.

When you are weak and fail, you have to look up at God. He already knows you’re helpless without him. He knows you can’t repent—and follow through on that repentance—without his grace.

So what does he want you to do? Hide because you think he’s going to punish you?

Never! All God’s punishment is redemptive. None of it is just punitive—at least not with disciples.

If God is ever disappointed with you, it is because he wants you to repent. It’s not even because you haven’t repented yet. It’s because he wants his displeasure to motivate you to what you desperately need, repentance.

Then, once you’ve repented, he wants his love to fill you. He wants you to love him because he first loved you.

Quit thinking God feels bad about you. Once you desire the good, knowing you’re helpless to produce it, but also knowing that Jesus Christ is you deliverance, then God feels GREAT about you.

Is All This True?

Yes, yes, yes!

Let us come boldly to the throne of grace so that we may find mercy and grace to help in time of need. (Heb. 4:16)

Notice the order. Mercy is first, grace second.

What’s grace?

The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age. (Tit. 2:11-12)

Mercy is God forgiving us. Grace is God teaching us, empowering us, and using us.

You can’t do righteousness without God. You are evil.

Yes, you are evil.

If you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, then how much more does your Father in heaven know how to give the Holy Spirit to those that ask him. (Matt. somewhere—6:11?)

Don’t worry, God already knows that.

That’s why mercy is first, and then grace to help is second. He forgives you so that you will stick around, with your eyes on him, obtaining the power you need which God calls grace.

Aargh! There’s sooooo much to say on this subject and not enough time to say it!!!

Sin will not have power over you, for you are not under law but under grace. (Rom. 6:14)

There is now therefore no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. (Rom. 8:1)

If you want to have joy, peace, and righteousness, I highly recommend believing these things and coming boldly to the throne of grace to obtain the grace you need.

Tags: disappointment, grace, mercy, righteousness

 

This morning in Bible study a few of us were looking at Galatians 2. Obviously, as we go further in Galatians, we need a good working definition of justification, and we went after that.

The Greek word justify is just the word righteous used as a verb. Thus to justify is to make righteous.

Really, though, that doesn’t answer any questions. What’s righteousness?

Some say that righteousness is simply right standing with God, and it has nothing to do with what we do. The apostle John, however, has made it clear that’s impossible:

Little, children, let no one deceive you; he that practices righteousness is righteous just as [Christ] is righteous. He that practices sin is of the devil. (1 Jn. 3:7-8)

Can that be said any more clearly?

On the other hand, it is clear that the only righteousness God wants is his righteousness. Isaiah 64:6 says that our righteousness is like filthy rags. Paul says that the problem of the Jews was that they were ignorant of God’s righteousness and seeking to establish their own (Rom. 10:3).

So how does all this apply to us?

No Confidence in the Flesh

I feel like Paul explains it well in Philippians 3:

We are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and put no confidence in the flesh. (v. 3)

Paul then explains that if anyone was going to have confidence in the flesh, he could. He was a Jew, a pharisee, and concerning the righteousness of the Law, “found blameless.”

Things can’t get much better than that for a follower of God, can they?

But look what Paul’s righteousness got for him. He was a murderer. He was an enemy of God, persecuting God’s Son. Jesus told a story of tenants that were stealing a king’s field, hoarding its profits so greedily that they were willing to drive off his servants and kill his son. Paul, “found blameless” in the righteousness of the Law, was one of those tenants.

Our own righteousness is worthless.

Knowing Christ

So what did Paul do about it?

He doesn’t leave us wondering. He goes on to explain it …

I count all things loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.

There is one thing Paul pursued; it was knowing Christ.

This is the one and only route to righteousness. We’ll never work ourselves into righteousness. There is not some other law better than the Mosaic Law that will give us righteousness. Paul says that if there were a law that could have given life, then righteousness would come by the law. He says this because there is no law whatsoever that will give life and produce righteousness.

Does this mean that we can’t do righteousness?

Of course not! Only those who do righteousness are righteous as Christ is righteous, says John.

So how do we do it?

We know Christ! We actively and avidly pursue Christ!

So It’s Not by Works?

Let’s talk about works.

Our life is about works. James says they’re necessary to be justified (2:24), and Paul says that we’re to be zealous for good works (Tit. 2:14) and careful to maintain them (Tit. 3:8).

Someone gave a great example in our Bible study today. Jesus told the story of a Levite who was in the synagogue giving thanks that he wasn’t like the tax collector who was in there with him. The Levite believed he was righteous, while the tax collector was unrighteous.

The tax collector, on the other hand, dared not even look up to heaven. He hung his head, beat his breast, and asked for mercy from God.

Jesus finishes the story by telling us that the tax collector went back to his house justified—made righteous—and not the other.

But let me add one twist to the story …

There is a difference between the tax collector that’s in the synagogue, head bowed to God, crying out for mercy, and the tax collector that’s sitting at home, counting his coins, and not pursuing God.

Zaccheus was a tax collector. I tell you that there was a difference between Zaccheus before he went up in the tree to see Christ and Zaccheus when he came down from the tree having glimpsed the living Word of God.

Zaccheus the day before was a cheat. He did not have salvation. Zaccheus after he saw Christ repented for his cheating, determined to return what he had stolen and more. He was transformed by knowing Jesus Christ.

And Jesus Christ said, “Today salvation has come to this man’s house.”

Our righteousness must come from Christ. We must pursue him.

If we pursue Christ you will see good actions. Those who pursue the knowledge of Christ are those who count everything else but dung. Their desire is for Jesus. They set aside all else. They repent for their wickedness, and they repay those that they have wronged.

There is not a law for righteousness, but there is a Christ to know who produces righteousness; real, tangible righteousness that can be seen and experienced.

Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord! … There is now therefore no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit, for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the Law could not do [make me "perform what is good" - Rom. 7:18], God did. By sending his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, as an offering for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the righteous requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit … For if you walk according to the flesh, you must die; but if, by the Spirit, you put to death the deeds of the flesh, then you will live. (Rom. 7:24-8:4; 8:12-13)

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God has prepared beforehand for us to do. (Eph. 2:10)

Sometimes I don’t get around to blogging because everything I write is so long and takes an hour to write.

I wrote the following on a
young friend’s blog, and I thought I should make it my own blog post.

She wrote:

I was just thinking about how we say that we want to follow Him, and we deny ourselves, but only one time. And then when someone asks us what we’ve given up to follow Him, we bring up the one big thing we’ve given up to follow Him, but in our daily lives, there’s so many things we hold on to.

Insightful, isn’t it?

Anyway, I didn’t leave it alone. I added, in her comment section:

One thought on giving up things. One other way that we fool ourselves is to give up things that are easy and never notice the places that we don’t let God in.

The example I think of is the rich, young ruler. He came to Christ, and he’d kept all the commandments, but he knew he was lacking something. When Jesus asked for that something–selling his possessions, giving to the poor, and following Christ–the young ruler went away sad.

There’s a righteousness that’s ours, and there’s a righteousness that is from God by faith. The righteousness from God will touch the areas we don’t want touched. Our own righteousness will sacrifice where it’s easy, gloat over it, condemn others who aren’t where we are, and hide the “one thing you lack” in our self-righteousness.