26 Men: What’s the Key?
Last week Dane Ortlund asked 26 men to provide a one-sentence answer to the question: “What is the key to healthy Christian growth in godliness?
Here’s Dane’s explanation of the question:
That’s the question I asked a handful of thoughtful men of God last week.
Please understand: I explicitly asked our brothers to keep it to a single, short sentence. Of course, whole volumes could be (and have been!) written addressing this question (here’s my favorite). So we gladly receive these wise statements remembering that sanctification is not a math problem. There is no formula. Every answer below needs a hundred footnotes. Point taken.
The purpose of this exercise is not to provide an opportunity to nit-pick but to re-center, refresh, encourage, spur on, help one another.
Here is the answer I gave:
Trusting and enjoying God as your Father, living as his son/daughter, on account of Christ’s work.
Maybe my favorite answer came from Justin Taylor:
The key to healthy growth in godliness is to seek and to enjoy fellowship with the Father, in union with Christ, through the power of the Spirit, in accordance with the Word, with the body of Christ.
Go to Dane’s blog to read and think through all 26 answers.
The Shade of Jesus
That’s a picture of my 2nd son, Hudson. He doesn’t do well in the heat. He’s used to Bay Area weather. I took this picture a few days ago on a 92 degree day in Sacramento, where Hudson’s face quickly turned so red he looked like he was going to explode (Phoenix will be an adjustment for him).
Hudson was so hot, I decided to give him shade. As we walked under the hot sun I positioned myself above him, taking the heat so that he could walk in my shade.
It immediately struck me that this is what Jesus does for us: he takes the heat so we can walk in his shade.
Innocent Jesus absorbs the hot punishment we deserve for our sin, allowing us to walk forward in the cool of his shade.
Friends, remember that Jesus casts a big shadow. No matter who you are or what you’ve done, his shadow is bigger. His shade of grace can cover over any sin, any sinner.
A Christian is someone who wakes up each morning secure under the shade of Jesus. When the Father look at you, he sees you covered in the Son’s shadow. That’s your new identity. This good news never grows old! Now, the trick is to really believe this news and behave accordingly…
Jesus took the heat so that you could walk in shade.
Your Insecurity and Jesus
For the past 30 days I’ve been reading a few pages every morning of Richard Lovelace’s Dynamics of Spiritual Life. Of all I’ve underlined in the book (which is a lot), I keep coming back to a few paragraphs in the front half of the book. This is analysis that could turn many lives around:
In the New Testament… justification (the acceptance of believers as righteous in the sight of God through the righteousness of Jesus Christ accounted to them) and sanctification (progress in actual holiness expressed in their lives) are often closely intertwined… However, they are quite distinct: justification is the perfect righteousness of Christ reckoned to us, covering the remaining imperfections in our lives like a robe of stainless holiness; sanctification is the process of removing those imperfections as we are enabled more and more to put off the bondages of sin and put on new life in Christ…
Only a fraction of the present body of professing Christians are solidly appropriating the justifying work of Christ in their lives. Many have so light an apprehension of God’s holiness and of the extent and guilt of their sin that consciously they see little need for justification, although below the surface of their lives they are deeply guilt-ridden and insecure. Many others have a theoretical commitment to this doctrine, but in their day-to-day existence they rely on their sanctification for their justification… drawing their assurance of acceptance with God from their sincerity, their past experience of conversion, their recent religious performance or the relative infrequency of their conscious, willful disobedience. Few know enough to start each day with a thoroughgoing stand upon Luther’s platform: you are accepted, looking outward in faith and claiming the wholly alien righteousness of Christ as the only ground for acceptance, relaxing in that quality of trust which will produce increasing sanctification as faith is active in love and gratitude…
A conscience which is not fully enlightened both to the seriousness of its condition before God, and to the grandeur of God’s merciful provision of redemption, will inevitably fall prey to anxiety, pride, sensuality and all the other expressions of that unconscious despair which Kierkegaard called “the sickness unto death.” [So] we start each day with our personal security resting not on…the sacrifice of Christ but on our present feelings or recent achievements… Since these arguments will not quiet the human conscience, we are inevitably moved either to discouragement and apathy or to a self-righteousness which falsifies the record to achieve a sense of peace.
Much that we have interpreted as a defect of sanctification in church people is really an outgrowth of their loss of bearing with respect to justification. Christians who are no longer sure that God loves and accepts them in Jesus, apart from their present spiritual achievements, are subconsciously radically insecure persons — much less secure than non-Christians, because of the constant bulletins they receive from their Christian environment about the holiness of God and the righteousness they are supposed to have. Their insecurity shows itself in pride, a fierce, defensive assertion of their own righteousness and defensive criticism of others. They come naturally to hate other cultural styles and other races in order to bolster their own security and discharge their suppressed anger. They cling desperately to legal, pharisaical righteousness, but envy, jealousy and other branches on the tree of sin grow out of their fundamental insecurity…
It is often said today, in circles which blend popular psychology with Christianity, that we must love ourselves before we can be set free to love others… But no realistic human beings find it easy to love or forgive themselves, and hence their selfacceptance must be grounded in their awareness that God accepts them in Christ… [There is much evidence in our experience against the idea that we are children of God, but] the faith that surmounts the evidence and is able to warm itself at the fire of God’s love, instead of having to steal love and self-acceptance from other sources, is actually the root of holiness…
Presented in this context, even the demand for sanctification becomes part of the good news. It offers understanding of the bondage that has distorted our lives and the promise of release into a life of Spirit-empowered freedom and beauty. Ministries that attack only the surface of sin and fail to ground spiritual growth in the believer’s union with Christ produce either self-righteousness or despair…
Live FROM Feedback, Not FOR Feedback
We live in a feedback culture. Move your eyes to the right or the left and you’ll spot someone looking for feedback. There’s nothing wrong with feedback. The problem is most people are living FOR feedback, rather than FROM feedback.
We live FOR feedback when we base our identity/happiness on the evaluation others give of us.
This is the plot line of every reality TV show. A group of contestants have a job to perform (sing well, dance well, woo a woman’s heart, etc.). At the end of each show the contestants stand before the judges panel, anxiously awaiting the evaluation, their identity hanging in the balance (will I get a rose, or will I be rejected and sent home?).
I fear that many of us live the Christian life this way. We live FOR feedback. The deep feedback of the gospel hasn’t invaded our hearts, so we spend each day following the plotline of reality TV, anxiously unsure of what the people we’ve placed on the judgment panel of our lives really think about us. We feel the same lack of assurance with God.
Jesus creates a paradigm shift in our relationship to feedback. Jesus shows us a new way: living FROM feedback, not FOR feedback.
On that day that Jesus got a hold of your life, he gave you a rose that will never wilt or be taken back. He gave you feedback that transformed your identity and remains true with each ongoing day of your Christian life. And what God wants from us, what gives him so much glory, is for us to be a people who live FROM his deep feedback, rather than FOR feedback.
As the good news evaluation of the Father seeps deeper into the caverns of our feedback craving hearts, the Spirit empowers us to live radically confident lives, lives that look very different from a feedback-starved world. If we could only begin each day remembering the feedback we’ve already received from the Father.
Today, live FROM feedback, not FOR feedback. Begin your day remembering that your name is already written in the book of life! You don’t have to go out and make a name for yourself today. When you’re tempted today to base your joy and identity on how others evaluate you/your performance, catch yourself, stop yourself–make a decision to live FROM feedback (the feedback of your Father), not FOR feedback.
Understanding the Human Heart
I like reading anything Mike Emlet writes. Mike has written, in my opinion, the best short treatment of the relationship between the human heart (you were created to worship God), physiology (your brain chemistry), relational influences (your alcoholic, absent father), and societal-cultural influences (you grew up in a poor, urban neighborhood). Mike’s diagrams (pictures) are particularly helpful. Take 20 minutes this week to work through his article: Understanding the Influences of the Human Heart.
Using a series of diagrams, Mike Emlet shows the relationship between human responsibility (the “heart”) and the impact of physiological, relational and societal-cultural influences. Mike’s goal is to help us avoid the two extremes that ultimately short circuit the process of biblical change: either ignoring the context in which we live or concluding that the context is determinative of the way we live. Either extreme truncates the transformative message of the gospel.
The Gospel vs. Religion
I had this Gospel vs. Religion list typed up from Tim Keller’s Gospel in Life curriculum (which is excellent; make sure you get the DVD and the study guide).
Here’s a pdf of the list: religion_gospel
The Mercy Spiller
Once in a while a sentence of Scripture stabs your heart and wakes you up to realities you hadn’t quite felt before.
This morning I sat on my porch reading and praying through a few psalms. Eventually I came to a sentence, Psalm 40:11. I’m sure I’ve read this sentence many times. This time the sentence read me.
As for you, O Lord, you will not restrain
your mercy from me;
Seriously?
I restrain mercy. I hold back mercy, grace, and love from other people, even the people I say I love the most. My mercy-giving has a limit.
And, other people restrain mercy. Other people have restrained mercy from me. Instead of receiving mercy, I’ve received judgment, punishment, and shunning. My mercy-receiving also has a limit.
But a relationship with the Lord has an entirely different operating system.
His mercy-giving has no limit. He doesn’t restrain his mercy from his children. He never runs out of mercy! There’s an eternal supply! He doesn’t hold back and conserve his mercy, the Lord spills his mercy all over me.
This means my mercy-receiving has no limit. Because the Father spilled all his wrath on Jesus, he can spill mercy all over me every single day of my life, even on my days of greatest failure. So far, today has been a big day of failure for me.
Guess what? News Flash. This just in: At approximately 9am this morning in the San Francisco Bay Area, there was an oil spill of God’s mercy, poured out all over Justin. You should see the spill. It’s beautiful.
God isn’t in the mercy-restraining business, he’s in the mercy-spilling business.
This is so, so hard for me to believe. I’m so used to a life of limiting the mercy I give to others and rationing the mercy others give to me. I’ve been so afraid of running out of mercy. I’ve been a Mercy Miser.
I don’t want to be a Mercy Miser.
Miser
Function: noun. Etymology: Latin miser miserable
a mean grasping person; especially : one who is extremely stingy
I want to be a Mercy Spiller.
Steve Smallman Interview: The Walk
I have been so impressed with Stephen Smallman’s book, The Walk: Steps for New and Renewed Followers of Jesus, that I decided to interview Steve here on the blog. I hope this brief interview persuades you to buy Steve’s book. I’m preparing to plant a church right now and I’ve decided that Steve’s book will be part of the backbone of reading we do as a core team as we learn to be disciples and make disciples.
Here is Tim Keller’s endorsement for the book:
This is the fruit of a lifetime of experience in ministry. I recommend this warm, practical, gospel-centered, and very useful manual on discipleship.
Steve has served for over forty years in pastoral ministry and has served as executive director for World Harvest Mission. He currently teaches for CityNet Ministries of Philadelphia. You can learn more about Steve at his website, Birthline Ministries.
Q Why did you write The Walk?
P&R Publishing asked me to write a book for new believers. They had already published some things I had written for “beginners” and thought I would enjoy taking on this project. They were right. I started with a typical list of things new Christians should know, but, with P&R’s encouragement, the book gradually took on the “Dummies” approach that I then tried to follow. I think most of our churches have people with a genuine interest in following Jesus but who have much less understanding of what that means that we realize. They nod when we use our fancy terms, and may even use the evangelical vocabulary themselves, but at a heart level there are many, many questions. So I started to write for “new followers of Jesus,” not assuming any prior knowledge, but soon added the idea of “renewed followers” because I think there are lots of “old believers” around who would like a chance at a fresh start.
The other major idea behind the book was a desire to spell out as basically as possible what it means to apply the gospel to those who already believe it. I think the idea that we are to “preach the gospel to ourselves” seems to have taken firm hold in many evangelical circles. But most of what I have seen is that “preaching the gospel to ourselves” means essentially repeating over and over the great truths of justification. Without question that is the rock of our salvation, but the gospel is the revelation of God’s grace in all of it’s truth–all of the riches we have in Christ (Col 1:6). I don’t know if the four steps I outline are the final word on that topic, but I feel it was a step in that direction.
Q How do you envision pastors and church planters making use of The Walk in their churches?
First of all, I hope those who are “making disciples,” whether pastors, church planters or others, will take the time to understand and embrace the more “process” approach to working with people that is at the core of the book. This is explained more in Appendix C (which should be studied in preparation for any use of the book) or in my book Spiritual Birthline. It is remarkable how people are freed up to just walk along with others as the Spirit does the real work, once they move away from the mindset of need to find the “moment” for the big “decision for Jesus.”
There are a number of approaches going on right now, so it is too early to suggest the best “model” for how to use the book. But I want to see it used in a setting where a leader (who is still a learner–not one with all the answers) spends quality time, say one evening a month, with 2-4 others who are willing to read the chapter and do the suggested projects. I think a chapter a week is to too fast, and I have learned from experience that the typical Sunday School class is not the kind of environment where real discipling can take place.
In a few weeks I’m going to make a presentation at a men’s breakfast in a church where the pastor wants to have his elders begin by studying the book with one another as a preparation for each of them taking several newer people through it. I will be anxious to see how this works. I hope people will do a quick read of the book and then pray about how it can be put to use.
Q How did you grow through writing The Walk?
For one thing, I fell in love with the Gospel of Mark. I say in the Preface of The Walk that I couldn’t escape the force of those first words: “The beginning of the gospel …”. The gospel is a story whose central character is none other than Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God. And that story can be told in a hundred ways as long as it always points the way to him. I think as obvious as that truth should be, it can keep us on track if we keep it in front of us. Even in the great issue of discipleship, it is amazing to see how quickly the discussion can move to techniques and programs, and suddenly the essential mission of following Jesus himself gets obscured. Mark relentlessly keeps us on that path.
I also think the writing of the book has opened the larger question of how discipleship is so much greater than a book or a program. Isn’t discipleship just another way of speaking about being a Christian? and if that is the case, we need to view the whole life and ministry of our churches in terms of how we are “making disciples.” This is how I would define a “missional church.” I’m pleased and honored that you and others are finding The Walk a useful resource–but it can only be one part of a larger vision for a church that views itself as a community of disciples of Jesus, called to make disciples even as they grow as disciples themselves. And our communities are one small part of the great kingdom our Lord is building among all the nations.
Surprised by Grace
My friend Tullian Tchividjian has written a new book, Surprised by Grace: God’s Relentless Pursuit of Rebels. It’s a great book. You should buy it.
This is the first book I’ve written an endorsement for. Here’s the blurb I wrote for the book:
The gospel is a surprising message of news seemingly too good to be true. Tullian shocks us with the gospel as he retells the story of Jonah, the story of a God who pursues, rescues, and even uses people who run away from him. What makes this book stand out is how Tullian presents the gospel in story form, carving deep grooves in one’s memory. I will not forget this book, and I will recommend it to all the “Jonahs” in my life, which is most everybody I know.
Go here to buy the book and read the rest of the endorsements.
Get Your Joy Back
Get your joy back.
What happened to all your joy? Where did it go? Who (or what) did you let steal your joy?
This is the question a missionary named Paul asked a group of Christians living around Galatia:
What has happened to all your joy? (Galatians 4:15)
These people used to live with joy, but something happened to it. Their joy was lost, stolen, snuffed out, buried.
What about you?
What has happened to all your joy?
You need to answer this diagnostic question before you can answer the remedy question: How do you get your joy back?
The Galatians lost their joy because they lost a firm grip on the freedom and grace they had in Jesus. Therefore, the remedy for their joylessness was to rediscover Jesus.
Get your joy back. Answer the first question, find out how you lost your joy. Then you can answer the second question and get your joy back.
Your diagnosis and remedy might be the same as the Galatians.
Or, it might not be. You may simply be overworked and in need of a long vacation and change of pace. Even if that’s the case, getting your joy back will have everything to do with rediscovering Jesus.
I’m 31 years old and have finally realized that you can’t do anything well without joy. At least not for the long haul. Or, maybe it’s more the case that I don’t want to live life and do work without joy. If joy isn’t fueling the work I do as a pastor, I will quickly burn out.
A little while back I realized I’d lost my joy. I didn’t like this. I wanted to get my joy back. So I did.
It felt like cutting my way through a dense jungle at the time, but looking back I see the process was simple:
1. I asked, “What has happened to my joy? It took months to come to clarity on this question.
2. Once I had that clarity, I asked, “How do I get my joy back?” I knew what I needed to do. It took months to feel like my old self again, to regain a sense of stable, steady joy in the Lord, but it came.
We’ve got work to do. We’re on a mission to make disciples of all nations. It’s not going to happen without joy. Joyful Christians are what this world desperately needs.
…the greatest need of the hour is a revived and joyful Church…Unhappy Christians are, to say the least, a poor recommendation for the Christian Faith; and there can be little doubt but that the exuberant joy of the early Christians was one of the most potent factors in the spread of Christianity. -Martyn Lloyd Jones (writing in 1964)
Go. Get your joy back. It’s the most important thing you can do today, it’s the most important thing you can do with the rest of your life.
