Ideas

As American Christians [and Canadian Christians I would argue], we celebrate the idea that "all men are created equal." This statement from our Declaration of Independence is grounded in the biblical teaching that every person in the world has been formed in the image of God and therefore has intrinsic worth. It's a beautiful idea.

Subtly, however, this quality of persons shifts into an equality of ideas. Just as every person is equally valued, so every idea is equally valid. Applied to faith, this means that in a world where different people have different religious views, all such views should be treated as fundamentally equal.

In this system of thinking, faith is a matter of taste, not of truth. (Platt, David. Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream. Colorado Springs, CO: Multnomah, 2010. 141)

All ideas are not created equal; some ideas are better than others.

This week one of my daughters questioned me on how we could be confident that what we believed was right. She commented that other people had other religious beliefs that they believed were true. She also noted that other religions had their own scriptures and that they would use those writings to support their thinking. She queried: "Why should we as Christians have confidence we are right?"

To her general question, I gave her a personalized answer: "If you want to be sure what you believe is true, you need to do 2 things. First, you need to pray to God and ask him to convince you of the truth of the Bible and of Christianity. Without God's help, no amount of inquiry will convince you of the truth. We, because of sin, are unable to find truth without the grace of God. So ask the Holy Spirit to help you in this. Secondly, search these things out for yourself. If you find something about Christianity that troubles you, look into it. I will help you. Whether it is the existence of dinosaurs or the inerrancy of the Bible, study the problem until you get some answers. I am convinced that you will find the Bible and Christianity can overcome any challenge you have for it."

My confidence, which is real and not contrived, seemed to put her at ease. She proceeded to tell me where she thought dinosaurs came into play in the Biblical account of history.

I relay this quote from Radical and the anecdote about my daughter for a few reasons. First, to remind you that not all ideas are equal, and in Christianity I believe we find truth that is verifiable; the claims it makes hold up under scrutiny. Secondly, to remind us that logical investigation does not save people; God saves people. Humans, at the most basic level, do not have an intellectual problem with God; they have a moral problem with Him. They want to be their own god. And only God can overcome that type of defiance. And finally, when faced with inquiring individuals or challenges from children, you can be confident in the answers that the Bible provides, but you can be overwhelmingly sure that God can change people's hearts and minds.

We are not the end of the gospel

In this excerpt from Radical(Platt, David. Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream. Colorado Springs, CO: Multnomah, 2010), we see a Piper-esque appeal for us to realize that God is about making much of Himself and not about making much of us. This is a bitter pill to swallow for an arrogant and prideful creature such as myself. And yet, God's grace has opened our eyes, my eyes, to the fact that we are not the center of the universe; God is.

We live in a church culture that has a dangerous tendency to disconnect the grace of God from the glory of God. Cur hearts resonate with the idea of enjoying God’s grace. We bask in sermons, conferences, and books that exalt a grace centering on us. And while the wonder of grace is worthy of our attention, if that grace is disconnected from its purpose, the sad result is a self-centered Christianity that bypasses the heart of God.

If you were to ask the average Christian sitting in a worship service on Sunday morning to summarize the message of Christianity; you would most likely hear something along the lines of
“The message of Christianity is that God loves me.” Or someone might say “The message of Christianity is that God loves me enough to send his Son, Jesus, to die for me.”

As wonderful as this sentiment sounds, is it biblical? Isn’t it incomplete, based on what we have seen in the Bible? “God loves me” is not the essence of biblical,Christianity. Because if “God loves me” is the message of Christianity then who is the object of Christianity?

God loves me.

Me.

Christianity’s object is me.

Therefore, when I look for a church, I look for the music that best fits me and the programs that best cater to me and my family. When I make plans for my life and career, it is about what works best for me and my family When I consider the house I will live in, the car I will drive, the clothes I will wear, the way I will live, I will choose according to what is best for me. This is the version of Christianity that largely prevails in our culture.

But it is not biblical Christianity.

The message of biblical Christianity is not “God loves me, period,” as if we were the object of our own faith. The message of biblical Christianity is “God loves me so that I might make him-his ways, his salvation, his glory and his greatness-known among all nations.” Now God is the object of our faith, and Christianity centers ground him. We are not the end of the gospel; God is.(70-1)

Deep Wrestling

From David Platt's book Radical

The danger of spiritual deception is real. As a pastor, I shudder at the thought and lie awake at night when I consider the possibility that scores of people who sit before me on a Sunday morning might think they are saved when they are not. Scores of people who have positioned their lives on a religious road that makes grandiose promises at minimal cost. We have been told all that is required is a one-time decision, maybe even mere intellectual assent to Jesus, but after that we need not worry about his commands, his standards, or his glory We have a ticket to heaven,and we can live however we want on earth. Our sin will be tolerated along the way. Much of modern evangelism today is built on leading people down this road, and crowds flock to it, but in the end it is a road built on sinking sand, and it risks disillusioning millions of souls.

Biblical proclamation of the gospel beckons us to a much different response and leads us down a much different road. Here the gospel demands and enables us to turn from our sin, to take up our cross, to die to ourselves, and to follow Jesus. These are the terms and phrases we see in the Bible. And salvation now consists of a deep wrestling in our souls with the sinfulness of our hearts, the depth of our depravity and the desperation of our need for his grace; Jesus is no longer one to be accepted or invited in but one who is infinitely worthy of our immediate and total surrender.

As in a previous post, here David Platt deconstructs an aspect of modern evangelism that he feels is at best inappropriate and at worst a terrible tragedy. He begins with the possibilty of error; and I think he hits close to the mark. But what struck me is the positive correction of the alleged problem which he states. "the gospel demands and enables us to turn from our sin, to take up our cross, to die to ourselves, and to follow Jesus ... salvation now consists of a deep wrestling in our souls with the sinfulness of our hearts, the depth of our depravity and the desperation of our need for his grace." (38-9)

For me, I need these constant reminders. This is part of preaching the gospel to my self everyday. The depth of my depravity and the sinfulness in my heart is a source of constant contention, better yet warfare, in my soul.

Don’t we need him?

From Radical by David Platt:

So how do we respond to this gospel? Suddenly contemporary Christianity sales pitches don’t seem adequate anymore: Ask Jesus to come into your heart. Invite Jesus to come into your life. Pray this prayer, sign this card, walk down this aisle, and accept Jesus as your personal Savior. Our attempt to reduce this gospel to a shrink-wrapped presentation that persuades someone to say or pray the right things back to us no longer seems appropriate.

And that is why none of these man-made catch phrases are in the Bible. You will not find a verse in Scripture where people are told to “bow your heads, close your eyes and repeat after me.” You will not find a place where a superstitious sinners prayer is even mentioned. And you will not find an emphasis on accepting Jesus. We have taken the infinitely glorious Son of God, who endured the infinitely terrible wrath of God and who now reigns as the infinitely worthy Lord of all, and we have reduced him to a poor Savior who is just begging for us to accept him.

Accept him? Do we really think Jesus needs our acceptance? Don’t we need him?

I invite you to consider with me a proper response to this gospel. Surely more than praying a prayer is involved. Surely more than religious attendance is warranted. Surely this gospel evokes unconditional surrender of all that we are and all that we have to all that he is. (37)

When I first read this I thought, "Whoa, David. A little bit of an overstatement there." But the more I reflect on the excerpt and the more I reminisce about my church upbringing, the more I sense he is close to the truth.

We-as in my church and those other churches I had experiences with-cheapened the gospel in an effort to make it as easy as possible for people to "get saved". The motives, I'm convinced, were honourable; snatching souls from the hands of the devil. But the results indicate, at least in my feeble analysis, a cohort of Christians who really might not be comprised of as many regenerate souls as I once thought.

Which is more important?

In his book Radical, David Platt describes the woeful condition we as human beings find ourselves in:

No one who is morally evil can choose good, no man who is a slave can set himself free, no woman who is blind can give herself sight, no one who is an object of wrath can appease that wrath, and no person who is dead can cause himself to come to life. (31)

Platt continues by describing to radically different solutions to the problem above:

The modern-day gospel says "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Therefore, follow these steps, and you can be saved." Meanwhile, the biblical gospel says, "You are an enemy of God, dead in your sin, and in your present state of rebellion, you are not even able to see that you need life, much less to cause yourself to come to life. Therefore, you are radically dependent on God to do something in your life that you could never do." (32)

Platt then contrasts the difference in the two approaches:

The former sells books and draws crowds. The latter saves lives. Which is more important? (32)

Raising the dead

"An old preaching professor used to take his students to a cemetery every semester. Standing on the perimeter overlooking scores of headstones, he would ask his students in all sincerity to speak over the graves and call people from the ground to rise up and live. With some embarrassment and an awkward chuckle or two, they would try it. Of course, one by one they would fail. The professor would then look at his students and remind them of a core truth in the gospel: people are spiritually dead, just as these corpses in the cemetery were physically dead, and only words from God can bring them to spiritual life." David Platt from Radical

Drivel of entertainment

The gospel reveals eternal realities about God that we would sometimes rather not face. We prefer to sit back, enjoy our cliches, and picture God as a Father who might help us, all the while ignoring God as a Judge who might damn us. Maybe this is why we fill our lives with the constant drivel of entertainment in our culture-and in the church. We are afraid that if we stop and really look at God in his Word, we might discover that he evokes greater awe and demands deeper worship than we are ready to give him. (Platt, David. Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream. Colorado Springs, CO: Multnomah, 2010. p29)

I enjoy entertainment as much as the next guy. A good movie to provide escape is often something to look forward to at the end of the day. A well-contested hockey game or a adrenaline-raising video game might work the same for others. Or perhaps the latest paperback thriller or romance is more your thing. We all like to be entertained. And as I mentioned, the entertainment value to me is much about escape. I have always felt that this urge to escape was a retreat from the hectic pace and heavy pressure of life in North American culture; a brief time-out in the rat race of life. It never really occurred to me that the very thing I might be trying to escape is a confrontation with the personal God. A confrontation through His word or by His Spirit that might be a little too awe-inspiring or demanding. A little to real. But I think that far too often it ultimately must be God that my too-often roving and far-ranging heart is avoiding when I look for escape. God help me!