Christian Geeks Unite

Friday, March 3, 2023

Three Tenses

Sometimes it is awkward belonging to a denomination that has never taken a stance on certain theological issues. One such issue is Calvinism (Reformed) vs. Arminianism. I hold firmly to the Reformed tradition, but I refuse to engage in debates with people who disagree with me. (Hence, I deleted a recent email criticism I received.) I listen to a few different podcasts from Reformed churches and theologians, and they often quote:

“We have been saved from the penalty of sin (justification); we are being saved from the power of sin (sanctification); we shall be saved from the presence of sin (glorification).”

Scripture uses all three tenses of the verb “save.” To say that salvation only becomes “real” at the final judgment for those who “endure to the end” (Matt. 24:13), is to miss out on all the nuances of language and the blessings of salvation in this life.

“Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned” (Mark 16:16).
“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor. 1:18).
“[God], who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of His own purpose and grace, which He gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began” (2 Tim. 1:9).

The book of Ephesians may be my favorite part of the Bible because it reminds us of all that God did to save us. He chose us before the foundation of the world. He made us alive when we were dead in our sins. He saved us by grace, not by our works. Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, He did all that was necessary to make us acceptable to God. We can add nothing to our salvation. All we can do is try to live out what is already true of us.

I find it encouraging to remember that since there is nothing I did to earn my salvation then there is nothing I can do to lose it. I chose to follow Him because He first chose me. I love Him because He first loved me.

Some people ask, “What about people who turn away after having professed faith in Christ?” My question would be who or what was their faith based on? They may be turning away from some form of cultural Christianity, vague “believism,” or something else. We can’t read another person’s heart, though God can. I believe that those whom God has chosen and saved will be enabled to endure to the end, and those who don’t remain were never truly saved to begin with.

Folks can argue Reformed vs Arminianism if they like, but I will not be convinced because “I know Whom I have believed, and I am convinced that He is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me” (2 Tim. 1:12b).

“Even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will” (Eph. 1:4-5).

Monday, February 20, 2023

Behold Our God

You may have seen the recent news stories about revival at Asbury University. I hope and pray this is true revival and has lasting impact on all those involved. It reminded me of a similar event during my years at Bethel College (now University). We received word of revival experiences at other Christian colleges. A number of our students decided we would gather to pray for revival at Bethel. I won’t go into any details, but suffice it to say that the results were less than spectacular.

Here’s the thing—we can’t manufacture revival. We can hold “revival services,” we can pray for revival (and we should), we can play great worship music, but we can’t force God to do anything. There is a tendency among Christians to think that if we meet certain criteria, God is obligated to do what we want Him to do. For example, how many times has 2 Chronicles 7:14 been taken out of context:

“If My people who are called by My name humble themselves, and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

Certainly all churches should be pursuing humility, praying, seeking God, and repenting from sin. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that we’ll see a visible movement of the Spirit in changing the multitudes, nor does it mean that He will somehow convert our nation into a God-fearing country. What we do know is that “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

There is a scene in the third episode of “AD: The Bible Continues” that really irked me, where the directors made it seem as though the arrival of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was solely due to the disciples praying the Lord’s Prayer over and over, louder and louder. God doesn’t come on command.

Are we truly humble if we think we have power to coerce God? He might be saying to us as He did to Job, “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” (Job 38:2). We don’t know how and when God will choose to work in our lives and the lives of those we love. We are responsible to pray for others and to share the truth in love when opportunities arise, but we have to trust that God will fulfill His own purposes for them and for us in His own good time.

Whether God will bring about life-change in a gathering that we would call a revival is entirely up to Him. Although it’s difficult to find statistics, I think it is safe to say that the majority of Christians were not converted through recognized revivals and awakenings. Most people come to faith through the everyday experiences of life, through encounters with faithful friends and family members praying for them and sharing the Gospel with them. God works in individual hearts and minds every day. This should be of great encouragement to us.

We don’t have to organize big events or get the conditions “just right” for the Holy Spirit to show up. As we follow the normal routine of obedience to God’s Word and guidance, we can trust that He is in control, present with us, and always at work. This is the God we love and serve, not one who comes at our command and obeys our wishes. “This God—His way is perfect” (Psalm 18:30).

“It will be said on that day, ‘Behold, this is our God; we have waited for Him, that He might save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for Him; let us be glad and rejoice in His salvation” (Isaiah 25:9).

***

Check out this hymn from Sovereign Grace Music, “Behold Our God.”

Friday, February 17, 2023

Not Me

Last Sunday at our church, Ron Thomas preached on Luke 9:

“And He said to all, ‘If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses His life for My sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?” (9:23-25).

As Ron pointed out, we have accepted a rather watered-down version of Christianity in the modern world. We settle for being “Christian-ish” rather than fully committing to Jesus as our Lord. During the sermon another passage came to my mind:

“After this many of His disciples turned back and no longer walked with Him. So Jesus said to the twelve, ‘Do you want to go away as well?’ Simon Peter answered Him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that You are the Holy One of God’” (John 6:66-69).

Do we truly believe Christianity is about life or death, or is it merely a lifestyle choice? If it is a lifestyle, then we have no grounds for asking others to make the same choice, no reason to share the gospel—for what is the “good news” of telling others to give up their comforts and pleasures? But if it is a matter of eternal life or death, our choice to obey Jesus as Lord really does matter. We don’t give up things that we enjoy simply for the sake of giving them up. We give up seemingly good things when we know that there is something supremely better to come. “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose” (Jim Elliot).

When the world is enticing, Lord, help us to choose holiness.
When people hurt or disappointment us, help us to seek only Your face.
When culture judges or ridicules, help us to look only to You for approval.
When life is hard, help us to look to eternity.

“The world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:17).

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You can listen to Ron’s sermon here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/8612/12235779

Thursday, January 26, 2023

Welcome to My World

In the November 2022 issue of Christianity Today, author John Koessler in his article “Truth, Love & Social Media” shares the following:

“After 18th-century literary icon Samuel Johnson had dinner at a friend’s house, his biographer, James Boswell, asked if the conversation had been any good. ‘No, Sir,’ he said. ‘We had talk enough, but no conversation; there was nothing discussed.’
“Johnson’s friend had offered one kind of hospitality at that dinner party, but not another kind: discussion. Conversation, whether remote or in person, is an exercise in hospitality, or welcoming the other. When we engage someone in conversation, we invite them into our thinking.”

Somehow, in the modern church we’ve gotten the idea that hospitality means inviting people into your nice clean home for a classy meal. While that is one expression of hospitality, it’s certainly not the only one. What most of us want is to be seen and known, to have real conversations about real issues. It doesn’t matter where those conversations take place. It could be in your home, your office, the church fellowship hall, or a table at Arby’s (or Chick-fil-A if you’re a “good” Christian).

I think the hardest times in my life have been when I felt like I had no one to talk to, no one who really knew me. Isolation is not only disheartening, but it can also be an enticement to sin. We may say, “If the church isn’t there for me, then I’ll find some other community that will be.” The Bible has more than 30 “one another” commands in the letters of the Apostle Paul alone, and there are another half dozen references to hospitality. That seems to indicate that it is important to God.

“God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together” (1 Cor. 12:24b-26).

How might we foster those kinds of “one another” conversations in our churches? Who do you see who might be living in isolation and need a listening ear?

“May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God” (Rom. 15:5-7).

Saturday, January 21, 2023

Clothed

In that first garden, long ago,
Our parents walked with You unclothed.
They were sinless and unashamed
To see and to be seen and known.

Into the garden the tempter came,
Sin brought with it all its shame.
Fig leaves were not clothes enough,
Hiding when you called their names.

The tree of knowledge with it brought
Death to all who knowledge sought.
You found them there, and sent them out,
Clothed in the death their sins had bought.

Another parent, another day,
In the manger gently lay
Her sleeping boy, snugly wrapped,
In swaddling clothes upon the hay.

He grew to face another tree
On the mount of Gethsemane,
Naked hung in our sin and shame,
Unclothed for all humanity.

One day soon will come to sight,
Our Savior returning in robes of white,
Clothed in His righteousness we’ll be,
To dwell in His eternal light.

May we seek to live as those
Who will be in perfection robed,
Free from every sin and shame,
Bowing now before His throne.

“I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall exult in my God, for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation; He has covered me with the robe of righteousness: (Isaiah 61:10a).

Monday, January 16, 2023

To Boldly Go

I admit I am a fan of Star Trek. Every now and then I notice some comment made by a character that stirs a recognition of either a biblical truth or a secular lie. Here’s a sampling:

“Mortality gives meaning to human life, Captain. Peace, love, friendship—these are precious, because we know they cannot endure” (Commander Data in ST:Picard S1.E10).

This quote is antithetical to Christian belief. We believe that it is the immortality found through faith in Jesus Christ that gives meaning to life. Love is eternal because God is love and God is eternal. As Paul wrote to the Corinthian church (quoting from Isaiah 22:13), “If the dead are not raised, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.’” If this life is all there is, then we can either choose the path of supreme enjoyment or the path of trying to make some lasting difference in the world. But in either case, our influence will soon fade. Which brings me to the next quote from the funeral for Dr. Crusher’s grandmother:

“Now we commit her body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in sure and certain hope that her memory will be kept alive within us all” (ST:TNG S7.E14).

Although some reviewers have characterized this scene as a Christian funeral, that’s certainly not the language from the Book of Common Prayer— “in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life.” Do we really want to put our hope in the memories of those who knew us? How many people who died 100 years ago are truly remembered aside from a name on a stone somewhere? But if our hope is in the coming resurrection, we know that God Himself will remember those who belong to Him, all whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life (Rev. 21:27).

Once in a while, Star Trek does stir more encouraging thoughts. In Deep Space 9 (S7.E2), Commander Sisko has a conversation with the “prophets,” who are almost god-like beings. He asks,

“You arranged my birth? I exist because of you? … Why me?”
“Because it could be no one else.”

This scene actually reminded me of parts of Ephesians.

“[God] chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him” (1:4).
“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (2:10).

Our lives have purpose because God chose to give us each specific work to do. Your role in this world can be filled by no one else. Sometimes we may be inclined to think that we are expendable, that our work doesn’t matter, but God says it does. That’s not to put undue pressure on us to live up to high expectations, but it should be an encouraging reminder that each of us is a unique and valuable contributor to God’s grand story. In that hope, we can boldly go into the day ahead of us—knowing that we have a purpose today and for eternity with Him.

“This was according to the eternal purpose that He has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in Him” (Eph. 3:11-12).

Friday, January 13, 2023

What’s Love Got to Do With It?

It is not uncommon these days to hear calls for tolerance and acceptance that say, in essence, “If you love me, you’ll let me do whatever makes me happy.” Although this isn’t a new idea, the voices are much louder than they used to be. Often this comes from a misconception of the biblical idea that “God is love.” C.S. Lewis wrote in The Problem of Pain:

“By the goodness of God we mean nowadays almost exclusively His lovingness… And by Love, in this context, most of us mean kindness… What would really satisfy us would be a God who said of anything we happened to like doing, ‘What does it matter so long as they are contented?’ …whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, ‘a good time was had by all’ …I should very much like to live in a universe which was governed on such lines. But since it is abundantly clear that I don’t, and since I have reason to believe, nevertheless, that God is Love, I conclude that my conception of love needs correction… If God is Love, He is, by definition, something more than mere kindness. And it appears, from all the records, that though He has often rebuked us and condemned us, He has never regarded us with contempt” (35-37).

David Powlison wrote something similar in Good and Angry:

“[God’s] mercy is not niceness. His mercy is not blanket acceptance of any and all. Mercy to us costs him—the blood of the Lamb. And mercy comes to us at the cost of our sins and pride. His kindness is an open invitation to turn to him in repentance and faith, to come to him in our need for mercies freely offered, and our trust in mercies freely given” (as quoted in Take Heart, Jan. 13).

God’s love is not benign approval of whatever we may love and enjoy. His perfect love means He puts divine boundaries on what is acceptable, because He knows what is best for us. We, in our sinful nature, often choose what is less than best—what is convenient, comfortable, and even corrupt. It is for this reason that we have His written Word to guide us, to help us understand what has been true from eternity, as opposed to what may appear true in our culture today.

The Apostle John wrote, “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:8-10).

God didn’t create the world so He could just smile down on whatever His creation wanted to do. He created us to be brought into relationship with Him. Because of our sin that relationship was broken, and so God sent Jesus to pay our debts, redeem us from sin, and make us right with God again. God’s love for us meant that He gave the ultimate sacrifice, not to simply make us happy, but to make us more like Himself, in the perfect righteousness that we’ll experience for eternity if we follow Him as Lord in this life.

So when we look to God’s model of love to guide us, we don’t choose indiscriminate niceness and acceptance of anything and everything our culture comes up with. It doesn’t matter whether the demand is from a child asking for unlimited cookies, or an adult wanting unlimited sex, or anything in between. In love, we should recognize that many things are off limits if we truly want what is best for one another. And we need to look at it from an eternal perspective—will today’s choices lead to ‘fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore at God’s right hand’ (Psalm 16:11), or will they lead to “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 13:42 & 50)? True love should make us do all that we can to point people to eternal life, not eternal death.

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).