Blind Man's Fancy

“Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.  And let endurance have its perfect  (Gk. teleios) result, so that you may be perfect (Gk. teleios) and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1.2-4).

“And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature (Gk. teleios) man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4.11-13).

We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete (Gk. teleios) in Christ” (Colossians 1.28).

God’s reason for saving anyone is to make them like Jesus so that Jesus is seen as most worthy to be like (Rom 8.29; 1 Co 15.49; Phil 3.21; 1 Jn 3.2-3).  And if that is God’s greatest desire then he puts that same desire in the Christian by the Holy Spirit.  Therefore, the Christian’s greatest desire is to be conformed to Christ in all spiritual maturity.  We want to be like Jesus because God is making us like Jesus.

We’ll not be perfectly like Jesus in this life.  Rather this life is a proving ground of Christ’s worth so that when we see him we will be most prepared to worship him for eternity (1 Peter 4.13).  Until then, God is in the process maturing us so that we stand more firm in the gospel.  We will find more strength in and need for Christ who has saved us.

In one sense, spiritual maturity is like our physical maturity.  It takes a long time, daily discipline and a thousand unseen progressions.  But in another important sense, spiritual maturity is not like our physical maturity.  Maturity in this life is growing more independent from those things we were once dependent.  We want our children to grow less dependent on us, able to make wise decisions on their own, provide for their needs with their own hard work and ingenuity.  We must not liken God’s maturing us in the same way.

God is not maturing us into independence and self-sustenance.  God matures us into greater dependence on him and all he is to us in Jesus.  (Of course, that is our goal as parents as well, but we guide our children prayefully hoping they’ll “own” the same convictions).  Spiritual maturity is not the growing ability to handle life on our own, without help from God and his means of grace.  Spiritual maturity is the growing dependence on God and his means of grace.  God matures us by the decrease of self and increase of Christ, his excellencies and provision.  We mature when we grow less fearful of this world, less wobbled by circumstances and more secure in Christ, trusting all the more God’s sovereignty to bring us home safely for eternity.

But, like phsyical maturity, spiritual maturity (completeness, perfection) doesn’t just happen.  As much as we’d like otherwise, we don’t wake up one morning complete or mature in Christ.  God uses means of completing or maturing his children.  And two of those means are identified in the biblical references above.

God matures us through trials and suffering (James 1.2-4; cf. Romans 5.3-5; 1 Peter 1.6-9).  If we want to mature in Christ (and if we’re Christians, that will be our greastest desire) then we will welcome anything that serves our greatest desire.  Therefore, we consider trials “all joy” because they serve our greatest desire: being made complete in Jesus.  And James is clear that trials themselves don’t necessarily mature us in Christ, but only insofar as those trials are considered ”all joy.”

How can Christians consider terminal cancer, fatal car wrecks, miscarriages, lost jobs and house fires ”all joy”?  Because they are God’s means of serving our greatest joy: conformity to the Lord Jesus Christ, of whom we are bondservants.  The reasons why we would not consider them “all joy” is because either (1) our greatest desire is not conformity to Christ, or (2) trials are undeserved or purposeless to serve joy.  All the while God is on record, like it or not, that in order to be like Jesus we must be forced to consider the worth of Jesus over all things.  And God will have his way in the Christian soul.  Considering any and every trial “all joy” is part of the working out of our salvation, the salvation God himself is working out in us (Philippians 2.12-13).

God also matures us through the church (Ephesians 4.11-13; Colossians 1.28).  The same word is used to describe the goal of trials and the goal of the church.  The Greek word teleios (complete, mature, perfect) describes the result of both trials and the purpose the church.  Trials and the church serve the same end: our completeness or maturity in Jesus.  God certainly uses other means (Scripture, prayer) but these two are probably the least considered in considering spiritual maturity.

In fact, most often when trials come up on us we try to escape both the trials and the church!  We don’t want the pain or letting anyone see us “off our game.”  And when we do so we abandon two of the primary means of God’s grace to make us like Jesus.  As long as we stiff-arm trials and maintain a weak view of the church we will perpetuate spiritual immaturity.  We want to be like Jesus but not if it means the Calvary Road in front of everyone.

Yet, God has provided trials and the church to help us become like Jesus.  The church helps us (or should!) let endurance complete its work (James 1.4) so that we enjoy maturity in Christ.  The church must refuse to let us give up, bail out or escape trials.  Rather our brothers and sisters come alongside to help keep pace in the journey.  We shouldn’t always try to help folks escape trial, but help them remain joyful as it serves their greatest desire:  being like Jesus.

Christ’s joy was to see the Father glorified for all he is and has done in the Son (John 17.1).   Jesus left us his joy (John 15.11; 16.24; 17.13), which means our joy is to see the Father glorified for all he is and has done in Jesus.  We rejoice to be made like Jesus so he will be made much of by all those he saved.  If Christ’s joy was served by the cross (Heb 12.2) then how will trials not serve the same for us?

Let us repent from retreating from trials.  And let us avail ourselves fully of God’s means of grace to make us like the Son.  Receive trials from God with great joy and do so in the community of faith whose goal is the same: maturity in Christ.  We are all part of the exilic community, traveling together in the wilderness until God brings us into the new heavens and earth.  Until then, as strangers and aliens in this world, this journey is one big trial in itself.  Let us endure well so that the Promised Land will be all the sweeter.

“…as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom 5.21).

It’s stock language in the Christian life that we’re to “hate sin” and “kill sin.”  Sin is indeed an interloper in the Christian soul, a squatter in the Spirit-indwelled heart.  Because of Christ, sin has no rights, privileges or legal claim on the Christian.  Therefore, it must be rooted out and put to death.  We are strengthened by the Holy Spirit to make progress against particular sins and toward Christlikeness.  Though a lifelong process, the mortification of sin is a hopeful process because Jesus has removed its sting (1 Cor 15.55-57).  I’m far more empowered to kill something that I’m assured cannot kill me back!

But, as pious as hating and killing sin sounds how do we go about it?  What metric do I use to determine how much I hate sin?  Is it enough to merely say we categorically hate sin really, really bad?  Is our hatred of sin to be measured by how bad we feel after committing it?  Does killing sin mean spending our days not sinning in certain ways?  Are we to wake up each day trying not to sin as a means of mortifying it?

Jesus taught us to be violently aggressive against sin.  We’re to cut out the wandering eye and cut off the offending hand, as it were (Mt 18.8-9).  Guerrilla warfare has no rules and sin is our fiercest guerrillero; therefore, killing is rarely easy and often messy.  We’re not merely to hate the category of sin, but to kill “the deeds of the body” in the power of the Holy Spirit (Rom 8.13).  It’s one thing to hate weeds in my yard while staring at them from the kitchen window, but quite another to get dirty pulling up the particular weeds.  We’re called to hate and mortify sin by being done with sins.

That said, I might suggest one metric to measure hatred for sin and a corresponding tactic for killing it.  Sin reigns in death, grace reigns through righteousness.  The grace that saves is the grace that demonstrates its power (reign) in sin-killing righteousness.  In other words, saving grace is not only measured by how much sin we get away with while still remaining God’s children.  Grace is measured also by the amount of righteousness that replaces sin.  Grace doesn’t reign through licentiousness, but through righteousness.

How can my hatred of sin be measured?  By the amount of opposing righteousness demonstrated in my life.  For example, I show how much I hate greed or theft by my level of generosity (Eph 4.28).  I show how much I hate sarcasm, gossip and slander by how much of an encouragement I am in any conversation (Eph 4.29).  I demonstrate how much I hate bitterness, wrath and anger by how kind, tender-hearted and forgiving I am (Eph 4.30; Col 2.8, 12).  I demonstrate how much I hate selfishness and conceit by the amount of humble service I offer (Phil 4.3-4).

The tactic, therefore, for killing sin is not simply not sinning.  Like trying not to think of a pink elephant immediately causes me to think of a pink elephant, trying so hard to avoid thinking about sin focuses our attention on the sin.  Laying aside entangling sin doesn’t mean focusing on sin’s knots, but fixing our eyes on Jesus (Heb 12.1-2).  Killing sin means defeating it by grace-reigning righteousness.  Sin must be evicted by the soul’s rightful resident: the Spirit of Christ putting Christ’s righteousness on display through us.

Killing sin is not a matter of waiting on God to “zap” the sinful desires out of you.  How many times have I prayed, “God, just take the desires away so I can’t be rid of this sin!”? If I had a nickle.  God typically doesn’t mysteriously take sin out of us while we sleep like he did Adam’s rib.  God has provided means of killing of sin; namely, grace.  And grace reigns through righteousness.

Therefore, if I want to kill angry it will be futile to spend every hour trying hard not to get angry.  Doing so will probably only make us angrier!  We kill anger with tender-hearted compassion.  Instead of trying not to be angry, exercise compassion and our anger will run out of food to eat and move on.  If I want to kill greed it will be futile to avoid shopping.  We kill greed by being generous.  Instead of trying hard not to be greedy, give yourself away and greed will slowly shrivel.  Killing gossip will take more than lip-zipping.  It will take gossip being evicted by Christ-centered encouragement of others.  Rather than trying hard not to gossip, try hard to encourage and gossip will become far less gratifying to our selfish soul.

Grace is freedom.  Liberty.  We don’t wake up each day with the burden of killing sin by sneaking around it or ignoring it or being enslaved to its orbit.  That’s like trying to evict a squatter by trying hard not to see him.  We wake up each day in the power of God’s grace to pursue righteousness.  Christ’s righteousness.  We will enjoy far more freedom from sin by pursuing those things that evict sin in the power of the Spirit than we will trying not to sin by our own power.  Grace reigns through righteousness.  Long live the King.

“And all [in the synagogue] were speaking well of [Jesus], and wondering at the gracious words which were falling from his lips” (Lk 4.22a-b).

“And all in the synagogue were filled with rage as they heard these things; and they got up and drove Him out of the city, and led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city had been built, in order to throw Him down the cliff” (Lk 4.28-29).

Jesus’s public ministry began with a whirlwind itinerary of preaching the arrival of God’s kingdom.  He eventually toured back to his hometown synagogue where his Sabbath text was Isaiah 61.1-2 (cf. Lk 4.18-19).  His preaching thrilled the hometown crowd.  Joseph’s son has made it big and would put Nazareth on the map.

Six verses (four Greek sentences) later, Nazareth wanted nothing to do with Jesus.  In fact, we find them responding Satanically to Jesus.  In Lk 4.9, Satan ushered a beleaguered, haggard, famished Jesus to the tippy top of the temple.  It was a sonship test.  God promised that his Son would always be protected by the angelic cohort.  If Jesus was indeed God’s son then he could hurl himself off the temple mount and watch angels swoop in to his rescue.  Jesus’s sonship, however, would not be proven by silly, superstitious games but by resurrection from the dead.  Satan would have to wait “until an opportune time” (v13).

Jesus’s encore sermon in Lk 4.23-27 was not received as well as his first one.  What do we find the townsfolk of Nazareth doing to their visiting preacher?  They led him to the top of their hill in order to chunk him down the cliff to his death.  At least Satan gave Jesus the choice of doing it himself!  These hard-hearted Nazarenes wanted to lynch Jesus. Unbeknownst to them, they were in league with Satan just as Jesus spent Lk 4.23-27 implying.

Like any upstanding Jew in Jesus’s day, the Nazarenes assumed they were part of God’s kingdom for external reasons.  They had Torah, temple/synagogue, sacrifices, Jerusalem.  They awaited their Messiah who would finally put the rest of the world to rights and restore Israel’s fortunes.  Jesus had a different agenda.  Just as Elijah bypassed all the Israelites to bless a Sidonian (Gentile) widow and just as Elisha snubbed all the Israelites to cleanse the Syrian Naaman, Jesus brought God’s kingdom to the nations.

God’s kingdom would not be recognized according to borders, walls, temples, armies or kings.  It would be recognized by repentance and faith in Jesus.  Messiah would not change the world around them, but change the world inside them.  Jewishness was irrelevant now that the new creation had dawned in Jesus.  So, whereas the Nazarenes thought Jesus to be making much of them, he was actually making much of himself despite them.  And those were fighting words.

How we like preachers who make much of us!  We love those who praise our external religion.  But if ever a word pierces through the veneer of our superficial religiosity, we turn quickly from friend to enemy.  Any suggestion that we are unfit for God’s kingdom because of our sin opens the floodgate of rage.  With a religious résumé like mine, how dare anyone question my Christianity!  Where is the nearest hill on which our city has been built?

How well do you receive God’s word?  Do you consistently consider a threat against you?  Do you regularly feel condemned  by it and therefore enraged at it?  Do you direct your anger toward the preacher rather than the message?  Is your spiritual disposition fickle like the Nazarenes, who are happy one minute and livid the next?  Can you not receive difficult, confrontational, pride-killing messages from God?  Do you react impulsively as though God (or the preacher) is picking on you, or do you seriously meditate on God’s word as a means of grace for salvation and sanctification?

For those of us who are preachers, we should take great comfort from Jesus’s ministry.  In fact, Jesus ended his ministry the same way he began.  He was welcomed into Jerusalem on Monday with cries of “Hosanna!”.  By Thursday, those same folks cried, “Crucify Him!”.  God’s word is indeed a two-edged sword which wounds as well as and as quickly as it heals (Heb 4.12).