A Paradox of Christian Living, Part Two

Last time, we began looking at the paradox of godliness in Christian living. We saw that in 1 Timothy 4, we're told to train ourselves to be godly, but Titus 2 says God's grace trains us to be godly. Both are simultaneous realities. The grace of God in Christ is training us for godliness and yet we are to strive for this very same godliness. Both occur together.

We examined some ways God's grace trains us to live godly lives. His work in us is decisive. It is the determining factor in whether or not we will be godly people. Because God's grace trains us from within, we can train ourselves. We also saw that God's grace in Christ is foundational, the cornerstone upon which we build our godliness. Because of Christ's death, our sin has already been defeated! We are free to live righteous lives; Christ purchased us and cleansed us to do so. Here's how Paul says it:
"...waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works." (Titus 2:13-14)

Now we turn to look at 1 Timothy 4:7, where Paul says, "Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness."

The command here is straightforward and simple. Train, or discipline, yourself for godliness. What sort of training is this?

A glimpse at the language shows us what kind of training Paul is referring to here. The Greek word used here in 1 Timothy is gymnazō, which is used to speak of the type of training and exercising aspiring Olympians would do. Those who wished to compete in the Olympics had to keep their bodies in top condition to be approved for competition and perform well. What Paul is saying here is that we must train ourselves to be godly the way an athlete trains to compete in their sport. Godly, righteous living is the playing field, the court, the racetrack for those who follow Christ. It is our boxing ring, where we compete against the world, the flesh, and the Devil. Therefore we must discipline and train ourselves in order to perform well.

We know we must train to be godly, we also know grace is training us. How should we train in light of God's grace?

Our training is responsive. It isn't a self-motivated effort. Our discipline is in response to God's grace in Christ. We see our sin and the power of the flesh, crippled and impotent because of Christ's death. We recognize our new life, spiritual vigor bestowed upon us by Christ's resurrection (Romans 6:2-7). We see God's Spirit at work in us, writing His Law on our hearts (Jeremiah 31:33, Ezekiel 36:26-27). The glorious sight of all these things motivates us to live godly. Faith in the effective work of Christ invigorates and empowers us for godliness.

Our training is also intentional. No successful athlete ever became skilled on accident. They endure grueling workouts. They watch film tirelessly. They spend hours, days, even years doing various drills and exercises. These athletes hire coaches to help them and then put in the time and effort it takes to get better. As followers of Christ, we too have a coach called God's grace. We too must put it in the work of bible meditation and study, prayer, fasting, and church fellowship if we will be godly (These are called spiritual disciplines or means of grace). Godliness will not grow overnight. Aimless wandering will not bring us to our destination. It takes consistent, intentional, focused effort.

God's grace in Christ is our coach. We are the spiritual athletes. Our workout is the aforementioned spiritual disciplines. This is how we train to perform well on the field of godliness.

A Paradox of Christian Living, Part One

While reading the Bible, we sometimes come across passages that seem to butt heads with one another. Consider 1 Timothy 4:8, in which Paul exhorts us to "...train yourself for godliness." Now place that alongside Titus 2:11-12, "For the grace of God has appeared...training us...to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age." Who's doing the training here, us or God through His grace?

Philippians 2:12-13 and 1 Corinthians 15:10 are no different. In Philippians, Paul says "...work out your own salvation in fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure." Paul tells the Corinthians "...I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Huh?

In these passages, God is showing us a divine paradox about the way Christian life works. It's not that only one of these can be true. On the contrary, both are true. Together, these truths form a beautiful, powerful picture of the Christian life. Seeing one without the other leads to either legalism (trying to work to earn God's favor) or apathetic laziness, as if we don't need to do anything at all. This week, we'll begin looking at the way God's work and our's combine to drive our spiritual growth.

In Titus 2:11-12, Paul tells Titus the reason Christians can (and must) live holy lives is because "The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age." So we live and grow spiritually because God's grace is training us and enabling us to do so. This is what Paul meant in Philippians 2:13, saying God is at work in us. 

The enabling "training" of God's grace is different from the hard-working training in 1 Timothy 4:8. Let's look at some specifics about the way God's grace trains us.

The training God's grace gives us in Titus 2 is God's foundational effort to make us more like Himself. God is the one working here. He is constantly present, working in our souls and our lives to make us will and do what pleases Him. He is molding our hearts, helping us desire more of Him and less of this sinful world. Think about that. Right now, the Lord of all creation, the righteous King of the universe, is literally working in you and I RIGHT NOW to make us forsake worldly passions and do what glorifies Him! God's effort is decisive, without it we would have no power to train ourselves for godliness.

Because God's grace is decisive, it's also foundational. In Titus 2:2-10, Paul presents the high standard for those who are in Christ. Our lives are to "adorn the doctrine of God our Savior" (v. 10). Our lives should make our God look like the magnificent, glorious God He is. The only reason we can do this is because God's grace is at work in us. Picture the construction of a building. What is the first, fundamental, and most important step? Isn't it laying the foundation? Without the foundation, the building would sway, shake, and eventually collapse, because there was nothing to uphold it. No progress can be made without there being a foundation first.

In the same way, God's grace is the foundation for our godliness. When Jesus, who is the grace of God, lived, died, and rose from death, He defeated sin. When we place faith in Him, receiving Him as Lord and Savior, His death and resurrection become ours. God killed us when He killed His son. We have been resurrected, we have a new life and no longer live according to the passions of sin! This is what Paul says in Romans 6. Because of this great work of God in our lives, we can pursue holiness. We can work hard, for God has already done the heavy lifting by defeating sin in Christ. Believe this truth, let grace train you.

Sanctified Sexuality, Part Three

A few weeks ago, I began to discuss how our culture treats sexuality and why. I said our culture has sanctified sexuality, elevating it to a point of near-untouchability. That's why sexuality is guarded with such defensiveness, it is holy, and not to be subject to regulation or disapproval. I then began to search for the source, the reason why sexuality became sanctified. We sanctified sexuality because somewhere along the way we began to view sexuality as the ultimate form of self-expression. A person's sexuality has been tied to their identity in such a way that rejecting or disagreeing with someone's sexuality is to reject them as a person altogether.

But the problem, as we saw in part two, is that sexuality is not the fundamental, ultimate form of self-expression. Worship is. We serve and revere what we worship, which, in our (culture's) case, is actually humanity itself. We are our own gods. Therefore, we guard what is most precious to us, namely sexuality. We must honor ourselves because we worship ourselves. And to fully honor ourselves, we exalt sexuality, our ultimate self-expression. So, as I said a couple weeks ago, sex becomes the worship service of our religious humanism. We are caught in this vicious cycle of self-worship, unless we behold something greater than ourselves to worship.

We have things backwards. We, as created things worship ourselves and other created things, rather than the Creator. This is what God calls "suppressing the truth in unrighteousness" (Romans 1:18). How do we do such a thing, especially in the way we exalt sexuality? It starts with God. We all know God by nature. "For what can be known about God is plain to them...For His invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived in the things that have been made." (Romans 1:19-20) This means we innately know their is a Creator who is worthy of our worship. Sadly, we don't respond to Him in worship although we know God, we don't honor Him as God. We choose to exchange the truth of God's glory and worthiness of worship for lesser things. We worship and serve creation rather than the Creator (Romans 1:21-25). It's like esteeming the sculpture or painting above the artist. The mind and skill of the artist produced the masterpiece, therefore it is the artist who deserves praise. We would rather praise the artwork (humanity) than the Artist (God).

We are stuck in this backwards mentality and we are powerless to get ourselves out. Even if we could, we wouldn't want to. This is why the wrath of God is on us, why we are separated from God because we treat Him as less than His creation, and we delight to do so. This is why Jesus came. God sent His Son to show us His glory, to broadcast the superiority and supremacy of God over all things. He showed the sovereign power of God over demons, winds and waves, life and death. He demonstrated the righteousness of God by living a perfectly moral life, loving God flawlessly while also loving mankind rightly as well. He portrayed the great love of God by dying on the cross, bearing God's wrath for us and bridging the gap between us and God. Through Jesus, this great and glorious God is made ours!

Once we believe Jesus for reconciliation to God and forgiveness of sins, accepting Him as the most precious, valuable treasure, we see something greater, someone greater. Thus we are freed from our self-worship conundrum.

So if we will be freed from our sanctified sexuality, we must see the glory of God revealed in Christ. When we see Him for who He is, we will see ourselves for who we are, and sex for what it is.

I hope you've enjoyed this brief series! If you have any questions or remarks, don't hesitate to comment.

Sanctified Sexuality, Part Two

Last week, I introduced an idea about the way sexuality is treated in our culture. We have sanctified it, elevating it above many other aspects of personhood and human experience. The times of sexual accountability are gone. To disapprove of anyone's sexuality is to hate him/her or at least to condescend. Evidence is seen in the defensiveness surrounding any discussion on sexuality.

But why has this happened? Why does it matter?  These are questions we will tackle this week.

Think of the movie Happy Feet. It's a story about a penguin named Mumble who is born amongst a tribe of singing penguins. Singing is what they do. When they are moved with passion and wish to convey strong emotion, they break out in melodious harmony. Singing binds them as a group. Singing is their identity. Our friend Mumble, on the other hand, sounds like a bird moaning in excruciating agony when he tries to sing. It's something like a whining squawk. To make matters worse, he has no desire (understandably) to sing at all. But he can tap dance something fierce! When he is filled with joy or overtaken with exhilaration, his feet move with a creative cadence that would make a jazz drummer jealous. He loves dancing. It's his identity. So how do you think he feels once he's rejected by his tribe, alienated by those closest to him, because of his tap dancing? He's devastated. Tap dancing is identity. To reject it is to reject him.

Our culture's view of sexuality is similar to the penguin tribe's view of singing. It is seen as the foremost and fundamental form of self-expression. Therefore to reject a man's sexuality is to reject him. To tell a woman her sexuality isn't what it should be is to tell her that she isn't what she should be. This is what has made sexuality so sanctified. I have no clue about how this has happened or what small steps we took as a culture to arrive at our current location, but I do believe this is how sexuality is treated.

As a result of this view, we encourage people to embrace their sexuality. "Explore and experiment, express and enjoy," we tell them. Why? Because if they don't, they are detracting from their own experience, as if they had their inner man in a prison that can only be escaped by pursuing sex and expressing those desires.

Knowing our culture sees sexuality this way matters. Like a skilled physician, once we diagnose the disease itself, we can begin to provide a cure.

The problem is twofold, we are ignorant about true self-expression, as well as its context.

True self-expression is not seen in sex, but in worship. As humans created in God's image, we are worshippers at our core. We were created to adore greatness and respond to it in admiring love and submission. We worship every day. Worship drives what we do. Life, what we pursue and love, is like smoke arising from the flame of worship. We worship whatever is the most glorious to us, whatever is most valuable and lovely. For some, it's fame or reputation. For others, it's approval. Our hearts are idol-factories, as John Calvin said. We will always worship something, whether it is family, fortunes, or football. Worship is at the core of human experience, the true self-expression.

Our second issue springs out of the first. We esteem sex so highly because we worship ourselves. The god of our culture is not sex, but humanity itself. If a man or woman's sexuality is their ultimate form of expression, then sex is the worship service of our religious humanism. To defy my sexuality, or restrain it, is to stomp on the flame of my worship. So we are caught in this conundrum, this ceaseless downward spiral. We worship man and human experience, thereby enslaving ourselves to whatever we believe life is. The only hope of deliverance is to fix our self-worship. Our eyes must turn to something greater. That something greater will be our subject next week.

Sanctified Sexuality, Part One

With a title like this, you'd think I was writing about sex, marriage, or some combination of the two. But today, that ain't happenin'. I want to talk about a phenomenon we've noticed in our culture. We've all seen it and probably have commented on it in some way. I'm talking about the sanctification of sexuality. What an appropriate topic with the 50 Shades of Grey movie on the horizon.

The sanctification of sexuality. Sounds intellectual, right?  But on a more serious note, what does it mean? We have a sort of intuition of what sexuality is, the expression of sexual desires. As for sanctification, that may require some explaining. It's a churchy word derived from the Bible that means "to set apart." Israel was sanctified as God's first people. They were set apart for communion with and service to God. Christ sanctified believers by dying on the cross. Christians are now set apart to God, offering their lives up as sacrifices to worship Him. So, when I say sexuality has been sanctified, I am saying it has been set apart by the culture.

Sanctification has with it a connotation of sacredness, a sort of holy untouchability. This is what has happened to sexuality in our culture. It was once seen as a beautiful, yet serious treasure to be treated with great care. Society guarded it by stressing the appropriate context (marriage) and expression (heterosexuality). This limitation was not perceived as intrusive or hateful. It was right.

Now, sexuality is treated differently.  To tell a person "Your sexuality is not appropriate" and disapprove of perversions of God's creation is to hate him. People call it a vicious crime. A man's sexuality is to be accepted and affirmed. Any other action is seen as unholy. There is an untouchability about sexuality these days.

Think on your own experiences, what you've read, seen, and heard. Don't we speak freely on regulating the way people relate to one another without much trouble, until sexuality is mentioned? It has been elevated these days.

Next week we will talk about why/how this has happened and the implications of it.

What do you think are the implications of this? Do you disagree? Feel free to comment!

I'm Back!

Jeez. It's really been a while. Felt like I got choked by a cloud of dust coming onto this blog again; it's been so long. However I'm back now.

In recent months, I've noticed a greater yearning in me to write, to grow in the ability to think clearly and communicate those thoughts to others. I've also grown in a desire to serve the church in some teaching capacity. Add to these desires my constantly having thoughts and analysis about the culture and Scripture (I'll let you decide if the analysis is good or not) and you get this blog. The union of these desires have birthed this blog, and it is these that will serve as motivation.

It is my aim to publish one post every Thursday on a subject of my choosing although I'm more than open to suggestions. Due to my chronic outspokenness and urge to speak on many things, there may be other posts in between. However, there will definitely be a post every Thursday.

Like most people, I am a voice wishing to be heard, so feel free to lend an ear. Join me on this journey of thinking about the Gospel,  the culture, and Christian living. I pray you are edified through interacting with this blog.

Ephesians 1:3-4 (cont.)

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him."
-Ephesians 1:3-4

On Monday, we saw the source of God's provision in Jesus Christ. What a wonderful place to find rest for our souls! Today we will look at another portion of this passage and see the type of blessings God has blessed us with. May we be encouraged by this wonderful truth.

Paul says that in Christ we have been blessed with "every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places." Before we explore the implications of this portion of Scripture, we need to look at its meaning. The word for "spiritual" refers to things that happen through the Holy Spirit. The same word is used to explain the "spiritual" person in 1 Corinthians 2:15. Due to the use of this specific word, we see that God the Father has used God the Son to bless us through God the Holy Spirit. The entire Trinity is not only active in our salvation, but also the blessings that result. The Holy Spirit is the vehicle through which we receive all of God's blessing.

The next word that is important to discuss is the "heavenly places," which simply alludes to the supernatural realm. God has acted kindly toward us (that is what the word for the verb "blessed" means) by not only blessing us with life and strength physically, but with every blessing in the supernatural realm!

 When Paul says "every spiritual blessing," he means every type of every kind of blessing. What abundance! God, who is perfect in faithfulness (Isaiah 25:2) provides us with every kind of blessing in the heavenly places. As the Psalmist says in several places, God answers from His holy mountain (Psalm 3:4), a place of infinite glory, power, riches, and splendor. Because God provides us with blessings in the heavenly places, our corrupt, decaying world has no impact on God's perfect and sufficient provision.  It is at His throne that we find mercy and grace at our time of need (Hebrews 4:16). It is His Spirit that strengthens us (Ephesians 3:16, Acts 1:8). Walking in the Spirit (living out of the strength and wisdom He provides) allows us not to fulfill the lusts of the flesh and bear the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:16-23). Praying in the Spirit allows us to commune with God and fight this spiritual war effectively (Ephesians 6:17-18, 1 Timothy 2:1, Psalm 77:1). 

Friend, you have absolutely everything you need to have peace, joy, strength and contentment. Let us take hold of the blessings God has blessed us with through His Holy Spirit. There we will find both peaceful rest and invigorating strength, both of which are needed for us to live for the kingdom of God.