Being In Him

In Matthew 5 Jesus makes this statement, "unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees, you have no part in the kingdom of God". Take an honest look at this passage and you will see that what Jesus is really saying is that everyone is an adulterer, everyone is a liar and everyone is a murderer. His view of the law is so high that it includes our thoughts and motivations. If these are off, we’ve violated the whole law. Oh, and He tops his sermon off with this little exhortation, “be perfect, therefore, even as your heavenly Father is perfect.” What kind of a teaching is this anyway?

Suppose you tell a 5 year old to start up a 747, get it airborne and then land it safely. The child will do one of two things. Child A will either try to figure it out by pushing some buttons and flipping switches in the cockpit. Even if he somehow turns on the plane and pushes the throttle forward, he will only manage to crash it into something eventually. Child B will look at the enormity of this request and immediately recognize its impossibility. He will come back to the real pilot with shrugged shoulders asking for help and guidance. He knows he can't do it by himself.

Jesus lovingly invites people to fail. His gentle teaching method is to get them to realize for themselves the futility of ever meeting His standards (His law). Rather than asking the question, "Good teacher, what must I do to be saved," he wants them to come to a low place where they must ask a better question: "is there any way I can be saved? After seeing the failure that your perfect standards have made of me, is there any hope for a wretched failure like me?" This is the right question, a question that reveals the ripe condition of a person’s heart to hear the good news that there is a way , there is salvation for the sinner, healing for the broken, grace for the lawless, hope for the murderer, light for the lost. But it is not in us.

Only because of our unity with Christ are we able to say that all His righteousness is our righteousness. Only because of our oneness with Him can we possibly stand before the holy, righteous and just God with confidence. Only the gospel of grace grants us this blessed unification, which means our salvation. Only in Him do we have life. It is only as part of one body with him that we are perfect, even as He is perfect. Though sins remain, when we are in Christ God sees our sins no more, reckons us as perfect, legally justified and worthy to share in Christ’s inheritance. Apart from Him, though, we have no case in court against our failure, no advocate to defend us against our sins, and we can bear no fruit to justify ourselves. So, justly we die.

The grave importance of our unity with Him is precisely why Jesus makes such a radical, borderline offensive exhortation in John 6:53-54, saying, “truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day." This very statement caused many of his early disciples to turn away and no longer follow him. But lets follow Jesus’ metaphor for a minute. What happens biologically when you eat, let’s say, a piece of fruit? Molecules and nutrients are transferred from the fruit to your body. The fruit literally becomes part of your body. It’s strange to think that we literally are what we eat. Our eyes, for example, consist of food that we have eaten. Proof of this is that when you cease to eat your body eventually starts to break down and decay. In the same way unless we are constantly eating Christ spiritually, recognizing our unity with him, reminding each other of his life, death and resurrection, having fellowship and worshipping together in His Name…etc., we start to break down and decay spiritually. But I will argue, that there is no delicious food like Christ, and that once one has tasted Him one becomes a hopeless glutton. When He is the Center of our existence, the Anchor of our souls, the Object of our trust, our All in all, then He becomes part of us spiritually, in the same way the fruit becomes part of the body physically. We literally consist of Christ-ness, or Jesus-stuff. His nature becomes our nature, and the more we eat of Him the more our will is conformed to His. Even His glory dwells in us, as He says in John 17:22-23, “The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one…” Our unity with Christ is our only hope of salvation. No more is it about what I have done, or have to do to be saved. It is about what has already been done by Someone else for me. It is merely a gift to be received.

In Genesis God points to a tree and says to man, “eat of the fruit of this tree, and you will die.” Thousands of years later God points to another tree, and says to man, “eat of the fruit of this tree and you will live. Forever.”

True Confidence vs. Self-Justification

Self-justification is the index of a life floundering in insecurity. It pines for words of approval and cloaks itself in many guises: excuses, lies, inflation…etc. Approval, acceptance, affirmation, justification: Is this not what everyone is after in this world? We must prove that we are not as bad as we know we are. We bend the truth to seem better, we lie to cover our failure. We lie even to ourselves. The need for self-justification proves the absence of one’s functional understanding of the gospel. What do I mean? The world says, “you must show me your excellent qualities, and maybe I’ll accept you. Maybe.” We build résumés and cover letters to display our strengths, but perhaps even more to hide our inadequacies and failures. Again, the world says, “If you have these grades, received this scholarship, gone to this university, are a member of this club, then you are of value. Then I will applaud you.” These conditions are, quite frankly, crippling for most and cause for condescending pride in the few that do meet them. These few convince themselves that they are better than the rest because of their tireless work and smarts and look down on "those others." This is nothing other than their own version of self-justification. Note that these standards mentioned are the world's standards, not God's. In other words, even the standards that we build for ourselves are not achievable. How much less will we be able to reach God's standard, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." Matthew 5:48. Quite obviously, this is an impossible standard for every breathing human being. On their own.

The Gospel, on the other hand, says, “because of the perfect work and résumé of Another you are accepted. He scratched out His Name at the top and wrote down yours instead.” The Gospel says that you are far worse than your heart allows you to believe, but in the same breath recognizes your supreme acceptance by the only eyes that count; the eyes of the justice of God; those eyes from which no failure can be hid. God’s justice recognizes you as a rose with no blemish whatsoever; delicate, fragile and beautiful; the object of God’s adoring face. Better: as the adopted sons of God. How possibly, in light of our mountainous failures? These required the death of no one less than the Son of God; they required divine blood for the perfect justice of God to be satisfied. His death was voluntary and His blood bought our forgiveness. 

The need for self-justification evaporates in light of the gospel. If you try to qualify yourself for God’s acceptance, you are disqualified. If you recognize your disqualified state, you are qualified.

True confidence comes when we know-that-we-know whose face looks down upon us with favor and delight. That face, whose accepting gaze we all strive for without even knowing it. When we grasp that we are loved-worms, cherished-dust, adored-rubbish, justified-sinners, we can be utterly confident in who we are without worldly approval. In short, we are so bad that He had to die, but we are so loved that He did. 

Oh the glory of the riches of the gospel of His grace!

Thoughts On Crawling

As I sit on the floor and observe my seven month old learning to crawl, I imagine that I am much the same in God's eyes. I find great joy in every inch of progress that he makes toward me, though it is accompanied with many stumbles along the way. I find myself cleaning up the messes he makes as he constantly spits up little puddles of milk. There is no possible way he is capable of cleaning up these messes on his own without making larger messes in the process. No, as it is, he plays in these messes instead until I come with a towel to clean his face and wipe up the mess. He is also constantly (maybe purposefully?) losing sight of me and getting distracted by his surroundings, though I am ever reaching my arms out to him, beckoning him to come to me. There are dirty sandals and shoes to which he is somehow naturally attracted and wishes to put them in his mouth. I remove them, of course, since I foresee that his intentions are not in line with his well-being. In all of his shortcomings, however, (for, indeed, he falls short in reaching me) my love is not lessened. If anything it increases with compassion as my heart wells up with a deep sense of being for him. I feel joy in simply watching over him. In my 30 minutes of observation he never once made it to my arms, until I myself initiated and picked him up. It is only with my hands supporting him that he is able to stand firm on his two feet. 

As fatherhood is ultimately a metaphor for who God is to us, I am learning much about Him by observing my thoughts and feelings as I observe my son. If my heart is filled with love, joy and pride, though it is severely tainted with sin, how much more in degree and perfection is God's heart (untainted and pure) filled with these emotions as He observes me? 

1 John 3:1 (Amplified Bible) 

"See what [an incredible] quality of love the Father has given {shown, bestowed on) us, that we should [be permitted to] be name and called and counted the children of God! And so we are!"

Instead

Instead (2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Peter 3:18)

You took the form of a slave-bound man (Phil. 2:7)

Held our children in your gentle hands (Mark 10:16)

You came to us (Luke 2:11)

Opened the eyes of a blind-born man (John 9:6-7)

Touched our lepers and removed their ban (Matthew 8:3-4)

You walked with us (Luke 24:15)

And changed our hearts (Luke 24:32)

            You took all our sin and shame (1 Peter 2:24)

            Removed every ounce of blame (Psalm 103:12)

            And gave us new life in your name (John 1:12, Eph. 2:5)

            When we should have bled (Rom 3:10-12)

            You gave us your life instead (Isaiah 53:5)

You knew the heart and soul of every man (John 2:24-25)

And still you chose to come and be our Lamb (John 1:29, Isaiah 53:7)

And bear our pain (Isaiah 53:4)

Dead in sin our hearts were paralyzed (Eph. 2:1)

Couldn’t change them even if we tried (Romans 8:7-8, Ps. 51:5)

And there we remained (Eph. 2:3, Gal 3:22)

until you came (Eph. 2:4-5)

            And took all our sin and shame

            Removed every ounce of blame

            And gave us new life in your name

            When we should have bled

            You gave us your life instead

                        Bridge:

                        Well you bled and you bled (Luke 22:44, John 19:34)

                        And that blood washed the guilt from our head (Heb. 9:14)

                        And you made us clean (Isaiah 1:18)

                        You came when it wasn’t too late (Romans 5:6)

                        And you paid for our hate (1 Timothy 2:5-6; Gal. 3:13)

                        And you set us free (Hebrews 9:15, John 8:36)

            You took all our sin and shame

            Removed every ounce of blame

            And gave us new life in your name

            When we should have bled

            You gave us your life instead

Music and lyrics by Shawn Newby © 2010

Behold Your King Is Come!

Rise up my soul to praise the King
And cast away your misery
Though flesh be weak and heart forlorn
though limbs lay stiff and eyes be worn

Chorus:
Behold your King is come!
Lift up your head and see
He has come unto His own
To make with them His home

Oh sun you need no longer be
Your light is nothing now to me
For He has made his dwelling here
His light is life and casts out fear

Chorus

Fear not the anger of the foe
For he into the fire was thrown
His lies shall nevermore be heard
For he is bound by Yahweh's Word

Chorus

Behold the new Jerusalem
All things have been made new for them
Whose names the Book of Life reveals
And who the Lamb to God appeals

Chorus

Matthew 8:28-34

This is the account of two demon-possessed men being restored by the Word of Christ.

Often I wonder why Jesus accomplishes his purposes in the peculiar ways that he does. But I've learned that peculiarity is usually a clue to a deeper theological message that He is trying to convey to those who will "dig deep" and listen. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." (Luke 8:8)

Let's summarize this brief account:

Two demon possessed men come to him

He drives the demons into a herd of pigs

The herd rushes down the mountain and drowns in the lake

The people of the village plead with him to leave their region

First of all, the demons recognize Jesus as the Messiah instantly. They know He is omnipotent and immediately place themselves (appropriately) at his command. They assume he will drive them out of the two men and request their destination to be among the herd of pigs - implication: Anywhere, but hell!

The strange thing is that Jesus actually grants their request. Why even take notice of the request of demons?

His purpose (as in most cases) was in demonstrating a deeper theological truth: It was for the deliverance of the souls of the two men that he drove out the demons and to reveal the hardness of heart amongst the towns people.

He was showing the contrast of what the Kingdom of God values to what the kingdom of the world values.

First, the town's people naturally would have been quite upset that their "large herd" of pigs, most likely a significant portion of their economy, had just been eliminated.

Second, they were afraid of these two men, wanting nothing to do with them: "They were so violent that no one could pass that way." So naturally, the possibility of these men now living and dwelling with them was abhorrent and out of the question, despite the fact that they were now clean. (Isn't it characteristic of the human heart to disregard and reject what it once hated, even after it has been newly restored? Think of Jonah and the city of Nineveh)

The town is more distraught about the deceased pigs than excited about the restoration of the two men!

Do you see the sorry picture God is painting for us here? Pigs vs. Men! Not just any animal, but the lowest, most disgusting of all creatures wins out over the souls of two men in the perverse hearts of the town's people. They are blind to the fact that an amazing miracle of restoration occurred that day! There should have been shouts of joy and singing, welcoming what was lost back to life in community! Instead, "the whole town went out to meet Jesus. And when they saw him, they pleaded with him to leave their region" (italics added).

And so...With their minds on the welfare of their economy, instead of on the state of their own damned souls, they eagerly watched Jesus get back into the boat and leave from whence he came.

How tragic to eagerly bid adieu to the only One who offers true, abiding life. "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." (Luke 23:34, NIV)

But, before judging them, I must take a look into my own heart. Would I still welcome Jesus, even after He has, at my own cost, restored someone, whom I have for a long time purposefully rejected? Am I concerned with souls? Or am I concerned with my economy, my comfort, my status...?

Do I treasure what is valued in the Kingdom of God or in the Kingdom of this world?

C.S. Lewis once said, "You do not have a soul, you are a soul. You have a body."

Lord, help me to seek Your Kingdom first; to value souls, lest I am blinded by my own insecurities and ignorantly bid adieu to Your eternal blessings!

Amen.