Tag: Gospel

all about the pronouns

Anywhere you find an anemic church, the problem can easily be traced. The issue is certainly not with Jesus, or his Word, or our mission statements. When Jesus said “I will build My church…and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it“ he meant exactly what he said. Peter said some pretty cool stuff in that exchange, but the church isn’t built on him. The church is built on My.

We gotta get the pronouns right. Weak churches have switched the pronouns from “His” church to “our” church. They love their ‘us-four-and-no-more’ little kingdoms or their mega-fancy Sunday events.

Wherever the church operates as His, flying under his banner, you can rest assured mountains are being moved, exiles are finding a home, bondages are being broken, devils are sent into pigs, the poor are being prioritized, the last are first, the first are last, nets are dropping, the gospel is thriving, and Christ is all and in all.

To be “His” Church requires ongoing repentance, faith, and being led by the Spirit. To say that “Jesus is Lord” is to say in the same breath “I am not.” It requires absolute reliance upon and unashamed allegiance to Christ. In essence, “not about me” becomes “all about You, Jesus.” Pronouns.

A powerless church has a nasty flesh-eating disease. Cancer, too-long undetected, has metastasized throughout the system and the body slowly dies.

The late Francis Schaeffer explains:

The central problem of our age is not liberalism or modernism, nor the old Roman Catholicism or the new Roman Catholicism, nor the threat of communism, nor even the threat of rationalism and the monolithic consensus which surrounds us. All these are dangerous but not the primary threat.

The real problem is this:

the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, individually or corporately, tending to do the Lord’s work in the power of the flesh rather than of the Spirit.

The central problem is always in the midst of the people of God, not in the circumstances surrounding them.1

Good News

The gospel won’t allow us just to leave that hanging there, as if there were no hope, no remedy. ‘Twould be easy to harp all day about all the wrongs in the church, but we cannot ignore the fascinating picture of the end-time Church.

Paul said she’s still His church and he takes responsibility to bathe her and iron her garments and heal her disease-ravaged body. Our bridegroom Lord is not finished with his bride. Right now she’s “prone to wander,” but his love in the end makes her stay.

There is coming a day when we will see her high up in the bridal chamber “making herself ready” for eternal matrimony with the Lover of her soul. Her destiny is enfolded into Him.

O to grace how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be!

Let thy goodness like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee

Prone to wander Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love

Here’s my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above!2


Gospel grammar is important. This is our hope: He is Lord and we are made for him. Selah, beloved

1 Francis A. Schaeffer, No Little People (Wheaton, 2003), 66.

2 Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, Robert Robinson, 1758

weak-shaming

I can’t walk.

It’s not a temporary condition. It doesn’t only afflict me on certain days. It’s lifelong. If my overhead lift in the bedroom loses power I have to wait for it to recharge just so I can perform the simple task of getting into bed. If the ramp on my van quits working I’m stuck inside until somebody comes by to help (hopefully someone who understands basic mechanics).

There are days my paralysis gets the best of me. A good cry usually gets me back to center. The Good Lord knows and I feel seen.

I’m weak. It’s my lot in life. Don’t cry for me, Argentina, it’s all good. One of the reasons I know so is because there’s a verse in the Bible about me.

Look at your situation when you were called, brothers and sisters! By ordinary human standards not many were wise, not many were powerful, not many were from the upper class. But God chose what the world considers foolish to shame the wise. God chose what the world considers weak to shame the strong.1

Don’t let my pastor hear this, but while he was preaching this morning I dug into the text he was expositing (Gospel of Mark, chapter 2, verse 13, yes I was listening) from my Bible app. I came across this beautiful nugget of a story from The Preacher’s Commentary:

“To see Michelangelo’s Pietà—the sculpture depicting Mary holding her son, Jesus, after He was taken down from the Cross—is an overwhelming experience. Yet, the legend behind the stone is an inspiration in itself. Early in his career, Michelangelo was too poor to buy the marble for his sculpting. He had to pick his way through the rejected or ruined stones of other sculptors. As he eyed the marble, he said that he could see the figure inside waiting to be released by his chisel. Dragging it home, he freed the figures of Mary and Jesus that he envisioned and thus produced one of the miracles of artistic creation—from a reject.”2

Paul, the apostle, knew something about weakness. But he also knew something about God‘s workmanship. He said we rejects and castoffs are really God’s “masterpiece,” his artwork…his poem.3

Here’s N. T. Wright to add some flavor:

Those who are grasped by grace in the gospel and who bear witness to that in their loyal belief in the one God, focused on Jesus, are not merely beneficiaries, recipients of God’s mercy; they are also agents. They are poems in which God is addressing his world, and, as poems are designed to do, they break open existing ways of looking at things and spark the mind to imagine a different way to be human.


“A different way to be human.”

My, my, my. Sign me up because the world’s way of being fully human is turning into an inbred mess! There’s no rhyme or reason to humankind left to itself.

Are you feeling pretty weak about yourself today? Yeah, I bet you are. Losing the same battles over and over again, bumbling and fumbling and stumbling your way through life. Overlooked, unappreciated, dismissed. You’re mild-mannered Clark Kent in a superhero world. Nobody sees who you are on your way to becoming.

Newsflash, God specializes in weak-shaming.

First, he goes into the junkpile and finds the most unlikely materials and says, “I’m going to make something beautiful.” Next, he takes his chisel and chips away all the hard edges and smooths and grinds out all the rough spots. It takes some doing, but he gets us there.

All the patrons of the ages will see it and know they’re witnessing a miracle. They are hushed by the pure poetry of sight in graceful curves and righteous detail. The glory of the Artist shines through and they can’t be in the same room with all that glory; they know they don’t belong there. They bow and take their exit.

If I could tell you that you are one of the lyrics in God’s Epic Poem or a statue in his gallery you’d be happy as a pig in mud. Well, you are, right along with all us other weak sauce saints. Right now its all rough draft, but I know the publishing date is set and the unveiling is scheduled and your scars and embarrassments and deficiencies will make sense on That Day. There’s rhyme and reason for it all. Just you wait and see.

I can’t wait.

———————————————————————

1 1 Corinthians 1:26-27, Common English Bible

2 The Preacher’s Commentary, Dr. Stuart Briscoe, New Testament, Mark 2, Ministry of Hope

3 The Greek word for workmanship in Ephesians 2:10 is poiema.

Timothy Keller asks “Do you know what it means that you are God’s workmanship? What is art? Art is beautiful, art is valuable, and art is an expression of the inner being of the maker, of the artist. Imagine what that means. You’re beautiful, you’re valuable, and you’re an expression of the very inner being of the Artist, the divine Artist, God Himself. You see, when Jesus gave Himself on the Cross, He didn’t say, “I’m going to die just so you know I love you.” He said, “I’m going to die, I’m going to bleed, for your splendor. I’m going to re-create you into something beautiful. I will turn you into something splendid, magnificent. I’m the Artist; you’re the art. I’m the Painter; you’re the canvas. I’m the Sculptor; you’re the marble. You don’t look like much there in the quarry, but I can see. Oh, I can see!” Jesus is an Artist!” And you beloved are His crowning achievement, His masterpiece! (Precept Austin)

mercy from a thousand directions

©️ Scott Mitchell

Moody’s my guy. I grew up reading his sermons, learning about his life, quoting him, reading stories about him. D.L. is my categorical “can’t wait to meet him when I get to heaven” people.

One of my favorite anecdotes was when Mr. Moody had an encounter with the Lord far too wonderful for words. Older saints would call it the “baptism of the Holy Spirit” or a “deeper experience of faith.” To describe that New York City event he borrowed an illustration from his childhood. Young Moody’s job for the family was to fetch water when the well ran dry. Now as an adult living on that same property, he remembered back when he had to carry pails of water to and from that spring. He got smart and laid pipes from the source to the house and just let the water come to him!

I was all the time tugging and carrying water. But now I have a river that carries me.

Moody said the rivers of heaven deluged him with the manifold love of God. It felt like tides and waves of mercy coming from every direction, so much so he begged God to make it stop!

‘Ah, what a day! I cannot describe it, I seldom refer to it, it is almost too sacred an experience to name. Paul had an experience of which he never spoke for fourteen years. I can only say God revealed himself to me, and I had such an experience of his love that I had to ask him to stay his hand.’”

Now that’s some mercy!

Moses got a jolly good dose of it when he asked for a vision and God gave him a VIP seat to the greatest show on earth. His request is not for more fireworks, thunder, blood, wind, locusts, armies, manna, or burning bushes. He wanted something more personal, so God did a really cool thing: he said “Do you really want to see me, Moses? I can’t do that because it would kill you; the weight of it would crush you.”

“However, this is what I’ll do… I’ll send a tidal wave of a thousand mercies at you ALL AT ONCE, the likes of which you’ll never, ever forget.”

Oh yes, some of that, please.

I imagine in eternity during one of our chats with Jesus, he will take us back to a moment on earth when we were going to work or headed to the mall. He’ll describe that day to a tee and tell us there were maybe four or five different times we could have been injured or worse but he dispatched angels of mercy to protect us. I like to think about stuff like that.

For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption. Psalm 130:7, ESV

Why don’t we hear this psalm quoted more often? I cannot recall the last time I heard/used this verse as a text in a sermon. It’s powerful. It’s delightful. What a promise!

My only low-key gripe with the Passion translation (photo at the top) is why did it stop at 1000? Why not 10,000… (hmm, sounds like a song Matt Redman should write) Or 1 trillion? I get that it’s poetic, and I quickly back away from my soft criticism. Truth told, I love how its lyrical gentility sits on my tongue:

“He has a thousand ways to set you free!”

Of course we all know he has way more than a thousand mercies at any given moment. I like how John Piper puts it: “God is always doing 10,000 things in your life, and you may be aware of three of them.”

With God are “plentiful redemption[s].” Beloved saint, worry not; you have not, nor will you ever, use up your quota of rescues at the hand of the Father! He longs to show you mercy…

the LORD longs to be gracious to you;

therefore he will rise up to show you compassion.

For the Lord is a God of justice.

Blessed are all who wait for him! (Isaiah 30:18)

A word. There are times when God’s mercies do not come in the form of hugs and rainbows, but rather in the form of chastisement or adversity. I would hardly be loath to tell you how God has saved me from myself many times by taking me through deep waters.

I told my son one time, “as long as you are looking for a way out rather than the way home, you’ll always be a prodigal.” There are times when we will not see the Lord’s banner of victory in our life until we wave the white flag of surrender.

Mr. Spurgeon has something to say about this severe mercy:

Take this in the very starting, that whatever thy trouble, or thine affliction, there cannot be anything punitive in it, thou must never say-“Now God is punishing me for my sin.” Thou hast fallen from thy steadfastness when thou talkest so. God cannot do that. He has once for all done it. “The chastisement of our peace was upon HIM, and by HIS stripes we are healed.” He is chastising thee, not punishing thee; he is correcting thee in measure, he is not smiting thee in wrath. There is no hot displeasure in his heart. Even though his brow may be ruffled, there is no anger in his breast; even though his eye may have closed upon thee, he hates thee not, he loves thee still. He is not wroth with his heritage, for he seeth no sin in Jacob, neither iniquity-in Israel, considered in the person of Christ. It is simply because he loves you, because ye are sons, that he therefore chastises you.1

Yes, a thousand times yes, God is fully willing to send a stranger to fix your tire on a rainy night when the highway is so busy you cannot get out of your automobile because of your disability. You can be jolly well certain God has you on his radar when you’re on your sickbed and the devil is terrifying you with fevered dreams of despair. He’ll also use your sickbed to find his Beautiful Face in the dark.

Start making a list of the times when you see God‘s mercies come to you, in big and small ways. Before you know it your list might grow to a thousand. Or more.

1 Charles H. Spurgeon, Chastisement, https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/sermons/chastisement/