All posts by Bruce Henry

Gospel Centrality, Growth/Pursuit

Deconstructing Religion

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“There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”” (Luke 13:1–5 ESV)

Two seemingly obscure events are mentioned in this text that we find nowhere else in scripture.  In the first event, Pilate had apparently murdered a group of Galileans who were trying to offer sacrifices.  The second event involved what appears to be an accident at the tower of Siloam which was probably part of the wall in Jerusalem near the pool of Siloam.  Jesus, after each event, asks “do you think that they are worse sinners than you are?”

What is He doing?  He is deconstructing the popular idea that accidents, tragedies, sickness & suffering is directly traced to personal sin (see John 9:2).  Our common logic is that bad people get bad things and good people get good things.  Jesus deconstructs that belief with this story.  He presses on us to evaluate if we really are deserving of the good in our lives as we tend to look down on those who are experiencing hardship and travesty in their lives.  This is the same logic that Job’s friends used on him, “Job, you obviously have unrepentant sin in your life or else you would not be suffering like you are.”

We seem hardwired to look down on others who are going through difficult circumstances and reckon (though we’d rarely say it) that they probably deserve it.  Conversely, we think that we deserve to be spared from difficulties because we are pretty good people; we cry “foul” when things go badly, because we didn’t deserve that turn of events!  This belief is cancerous to our souls because when things are good, we become puffed up & self righteous, and when things are difficult we feel condemned (or unfairly treated) and jump on the treadmill of good works to remedy the situation and earn some of God’s blessing & favor.

Jesus shatters this thinking by saying, “no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”  What?  Were those people blatant sinners?  They were no worse than His hearers and no worse than you or me.  Jesus connects this with the broader truth that a final judgement is coming and that we should be prepared.  This is jarring & sobering and should cause deep introspection because not all who proclaim Jesus as Lord are really redeemed (Matthew 7:21-23).

Nothing that you can do will earn God’s favor or affection.  Jesus earned that at the cross when He cried, “It is finished.”  When something is finished there is nothing else that needs to be done.  The beauty of grace is that we get what we do not deserve (and could never earn) based on the performance of Another.  Religion says, “you must work hard to keep the approval of God.”  Grace says, “there is nothing that you can do to keep the approval of God, it was secured at the cross and can never be lost.”

Gospel Centrality, Growth/Pursuit, Meditations

Chosen to be trophies of His grace

“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.” (John 15:16 ESV)

“If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” (John 15:19 ESV)

In case you have forgotten, the bible explicitly proclaims from Genesis to Revelation that He chose us, we did not choose Him.  He was the initiator, He was the one that sought us – we did not seek Him.  No one seeks God (Romans 3:11), we were spiritually dead (Genesis 2:17, Ephesians 2:1-10).  This means that if you are a Christian, then you were chosen according to God’s sovereign electing purposes which are mysterious to us.  You were not chosen because you were more spiritually attuned, more moral, had the right upbringing or because of what you would become after God saved you.  You were chosen to be a trophy of His grace.  You were (and still are) undeserving.  When you present yourself as worthy before God, He finds it disgusting (Isaiah 64:6) because you are not and the fact that you are trying to present yourself that way indicates that you have a fundamental misunderstanding of grace.

He foreknew you and predestined (determined before He created anything) you to be conformed into the image of His Son.  He predestined, He called, He justified and He will be faithful to glorify (Romans 8:29-30).  There is nothing about you doing anything in Romans 8:29-30, the emphasis is upon a gracious, saving, adopting God who redeems enemies and adopts them as family.  The more we understand this, the more that we worship God with hearts of gratitude.

A few passages to consider:

  • Deuteronomy 4:37-39 (God loved & chose Abraham & his offspring), 7:6-9 (it is not because we are awesome that He set His saving affections upon us, but because of His love & sovereign choosing), 10:14-15 (God owns everything and yet, He set His heart upon us), 14:2 (the Lord chose you as His treasured possession out of all of the people of the earth)
  • Isaiah 41:8-10, 44:18-20 (God blinds those who worship idols), 48 (God uses Cyrus, a pagan king), 57:18-19 (God creates repentant hearts), 65:1 (sought by those who did not ask for God)
  • Ezekiel 33:11 (God desires that all be saved and finds no joy in those who reject the Gospel)
  • Luke 24:31 (their eyes were opened, and they recognized him)
  • John 3:27 (A person cannot receive one thing unless it is given to him from heaven), 8:47 (those of God hear God), 10:26 (you don’t believe because you aren’t part of Jesus’ flock), 13:18, 15:16 (You did not choose me, I chose you), 15:19 (I chose you out of the world), 18:37
  • Romans 10:20 (Gentiles, who did not seek God found Him)
  • Ephesians 1:4-11, Ephesians 2:1-9 (But God, being rich in mercy, made you alive)
  • Colossians 2:11-15 (He made you alive)
  • 2 Thessalonians 2:13, 14 (God chose you to be first fruits)
  • 1 Peter 1:3-5 (He has caused us to be born again)
  • 1 Timothy 2:4 (God desires that all be saved and finds no joy in those who reject the Gospel)
  • 1 John 4:6
Belief, Gospel Centrality, Growth/Pursuit

We do not lose heart

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:16-18

Gospel Centrality, Growth/Pursuit

Singular devotion, first affection

““If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter or the wife you embrace or your friend who is as your own soul entices you secretly, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which neither you nor your fathers have known, some of the gods of the peoples who are around you, whether near you or far off from you, from the one end of the earth to the other, you shall not yield to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him, nor shall you conceal him. But you shall kill him. Your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. You shall stone him to death with stones, because he sought to draw you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. And all Israel shall hear and fear and never again do any such wickedness as this among you.” (Deuteronomy 13:6–11 ESV)

Loving God with our whole heart precedes the closest of human relationships (siblings, children, spouse or friend).  In this passage, if someone close tries to draw their affections & obedience after a false god then they were not to follow them, listen to them, pity them, spare them or conceal them.  This is radical in a culture where high value was placed upon family.  Singular devotion to God comes before family.

Radical measures are again called for when they are called to stone the tempter, and they are called to be the first one to cast the stone!  Imagine casting a stone against your sister, husband, child or best friend.  The standard of God’s holiness is HIGH.  Do we pursue holiness with this fervor today?  Do we aggressively eradicate the idols in our midst today?  

Singular devotion is of such importance that He instructs the people to completely destroy  one of their own cities if it is given over to following other gods (v 12-15).  Are we this violent with the competing affections in our hearts?  Probably not!  God longs to bless His people by showing them His mercy & grace (v 17-18).  But, the people must obey God – obedience starts with loving the Lord with all of our hearts and not having any other gods. 

They were never able to obey out of a heart of love and we persistently fail also.  Thankfully Someone did obey perfectly out of a heart of love.  He not only took our sin, but also gave us His perfect obedience so God continually showers us with mercy & grace.  Thank God for a substitute.  Be thankful that His grip on & delight in you is not contingent upon your grip on & delight in Him.  Your spiritual performance does not direct His love, approval & affection for you; Jesus imputed that to you so you can stop striving!

Growth/Pursuit, Meditations, Mortification

Cooling affections

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““If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the LORD your God is testing you, to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall walk after the LORD your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him. But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has taught rebellion against the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of slavery, to make you leave the way in which the LORD your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.” (Deuteronomy 13:1–5 ESV)

This section warns the Israelites not to listen to or follow prophets who do miracles and tells them to follow & serve other gods!  This seems easy and straight forward to us, but at this point in history the scriptures had not been fully given to the people so prophets played a major role in God revealing His will to His people.  The Israelites were called to follow God (who was familiar), to fear God, to obey God and to hold fast to God.  In the western world, there is little cost to count for this, but for the Israelites it would be their lives and their very existence.

God calls them to take radical steps to purge the evil in their midst, in this case a false prophet.  That false prophet shall be put to death!  Scripture always paints the removal of evil & the killing of sin (mortification) in violent ways.  It paints pictures and uses words like murder, annihilation, mutilation & amputation (Colossians 3:1-11, Matthew 5:29-30 & 26:41).  This was physical for the Israelites – a picture of what we should pursue in our walk with the Lord.

We tend to minimize our sins & idols as “not being that big of a deal.”  But, God’s standard is holiness and He is completely devoted to conforming His children into the image of His Son.  Far too often we are content to bring our sins & idols into our hearts (Ezekiel 14:3) where we dream about them, place our trust in them & rely upon them for our well being in life.  In short, we worship them.  Killing sin always starts in our hearts and is aimed at ripping out the things that we have come to rely upon for our identity, safety, well being (emotional, physical or spiritual) – the things that we have placed our hope for deliverance in.  When things get ripped out of our hearts, pain is involved because a part of us is dying.  Dying is painful.  But the person who is willing to endure the pain will find true life, abiding joy & deep satisfaction (Psalm 16:11, Matthew 16:25, Mark 8:35, Luke 9:24).

What tugs at your hearts affections?  Do you find your affection for the Lord cooling, while your affections for other things warming?  We must flee those things that create competing affections in our hearts.  This is done practically by removing ourselves from the situation & exposure, and by cultivating a deeper love for God.  The answer is to see God more clearly (sovereign, holy, merciful, good, gracious) so that the things that vie for our affections become less attractive because they pale in comparison.

Gospel Centrality, Growth/Pursuit

A deceived heart

“Take care lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them” (Deuteronomy 11:16 ESV).

The warning to guard their heart comes back up again (see 8:11-17).  It seems that abundance has a way of drawing the heart away from the Almighty.  In this situation, it is likely that the Israelites would attribute the bountifulness of the land to the Canaanite’s fertility god.  Allowing their heart’s affections to be pulled off of their God and placed upon another will enrage God, Who has been so long suffering & gracious toward a persistently rebellious people.  We aren’t much different today.

The risk of abundance & affluence has always been a danger to authentic faith; the heart looses its wonder with the provisions of God.  It begins to attribute the abundant blessings to something else like hard work, intelligence, education, savvy, etc.  When this happens the heart’s affections are pulled off of God and placed upon something else – something else becomes the object of our worship.  How do we battle this?  We go to the Scriptures to see God and We beg God to show us His sovereign majesty.  We ask Him to imprint our souls with His goodness & faithfulness.  We seek to understand, at a deep heart level, that we are totally undeserving of the unearned affection of the Creator of the universe because our hearts are prone to want His good gifts far more than we want Him.  When we begin to understand and embrace these truths, our hearts will marvel at His goodness & grace towards us.

Gospel Centrality, Growth/Pursuit

Law doesn’t inspire the heart

““You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens are above the earth. For if you will be careful to do all this commandment that I command you to do, loving the LORD your God, walking in all his ways, and holding fast to him” (Deuteronomy 11:18–22 ESV)

The way to avoid our hearts from wandering is to lay up the words of God in our hearts and souls, teaching them to our children and placing practical reminders around us.  This isn’t just the law (or a moral checklist) because the law, on its own, does not inspire the heart.  God is after a heartfelt love for Him.  This has to also include the constant, persistent recalling of God’s goodness, faithfulness & provision to an undeserving people (you & me).  This is a major theme in Deuteronomy – Moses continually unpacks the majestic power & greatness of God and the Israelite’s rebellion & hard heartedness. He anticipates that they will be prone to rob God of His glory by attributing the abundance in their lives to something else – and they did.  We do the same thing today.

Perhaps, we should follow the pattern of intentionally recalling God’s goodness, faithfulness & provision to us despite our persistent hard heartedness toward Him.  We need constant reminding that we are not deserving, but objects of His mercy – not because of anything that we did or will do.  He chose us because He is gracious and is working good, not because we did/do good.

Gospel Centrality, Growth/Pursuit

I Believe…

This excerpt from a post last January from John Piper is a good way to start the new year of right!  Enjoy!

I believe I am so spiritually corrupt and prideful and rebellious that I would never have come to faith in Jesus without God’s merciful, sovereign victory over the last vestiges of my rebellion. (1 Corinthians 2:14; Ephesians 2:1–4; Romans 8:7).

 

I believe that God chose me to be his child before the foundation of the world, on the basis of nothing in me, foreknown or otherwise. (Ephesians 1:4–6; Acts 13:48; Romans 8:29–30; 11:5–7)

 

I believe Christ died as a substitute for sinners to provide a bona fide offer of salvation to all people, and that he had an invincible design in his death to obtain his chosen bride, namely, the assembly of all believers, whose names were eternally written in the book of life of the Lamb that was slain. (John 3:16; John 10:15; Ephesians 5:25; Revelation 13:8)

 

When I was dead in my trespasses, and blind to the beauty of Christ, God made me alive, opened the eyes of my heart, granted me to believe, and united me to Jesus, with all the benefits of forgiveness and justification and eternal life. (Ephesians 2:4–5; 2 Corinthians 4:6; Philippians 2:29; Ephesians 2:8–9; Acts 16:14; Ephesians 1:7; Philippians 3:9)

 

I am eternally secure not mainly because of anything I did in the past, but decisively because God is faithful to complete the work he began—to sustain my faith, and to keep me from apostasy, and to hold me back from sin that leads to death. (1 Corinthians 1:8–9; 1 Thessalonians 5:23–24; Philippians 1:6; 1 Peter 1:5; Jude 1:25; John 10:28–29; 1 John 5:16)

Growth/Pursuit

The outward expression of an inward reality

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“You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 6:5–9 ESV)

The laws, statues & commandments of Deuteronomy 6-11 should be viewed as the outward expression of the ultimate command:  to love God with all of your heart, soul & strength.  Obedience to the commands demonstrated that the people loved God.  The law was not given to save.  In the same way, we should strive to obey out of love rather than duty or obligation.  Jesus said the same thing – if you love me, you will obey what I command (John 14:15).  This is not a way of earning Jesus’ blessing – this is an increasingly natural outflow of a heart that has a growing love for God.  “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”” (John 14:21 ESV)

Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:5 in Matthew 22:37-38, Mark 12:30, and Luke 10:27 and summarizes it by saying that to love God is the great and first commandment (Matthew 22:38).  The thought is completed by indicating that this is not some cognitive, head knowledge, but is to penetrate all the way to the heart.  We are to love God with every fiber of our being – all of our obedience was designed to flow out of a heart that loves God.  The work is to love God and the scripture addresses this from different angles – abide in Christ (John 15), our work is one of belief (John 6:29), as we behold Him we become more like Him (2 Corinthians 3:18).  These are ways in which we grow in our love for God.  Loving God is not produced by our hard fought, white knuckled discipline – it is a Spirit wrought, utterly dependent, monergistic endeavor that glorifies God because we can’t produce it on our own.  Loving God involves our begging Him to produce in us that which we can not produce on our own.

God’s requirement for a heart that fully loves Him is seen throughout Deuteronomy as it is looking forward to a day when God will write His laws on the hearts of His people and they will worship Him with their new hearts (Jeremiah 31:31-34, Ezekiel 36:25-27, Romans 2:25-29, 8:14; Galatians 5:16, 18, 25; Colossians 2:11; Hebrews 7:18-19, 8:8-12, 9:9, 14 (purify our conscience), 10:1, 15-18, 10:22 (draw near with a true heart); Deuteronomy 6:5, 10:16, 29:4, 30:6-8).  Jesus fulfills this promise as He makes our dead hearts alive to God – He regenerates us.  We are not only to have these commands on our own hearts, but are to teach our children and those around us the same thing.  This is the foundation of discipleship.  Many of the Jews did this externally, but missed it internally.  How often do we pass down a code of moral conduct to our children that is void of a passionate love for God?  The thing(s) that we love, we talk about.  What do you love, really?