A Mustard Seed's Worth of Faith

I am not one to encourage people to hang their assurance of salvation on their ability to recollect "a time and a place where they met God". There are far too many people today living like the world having never shown any signs of a change in their life thinking they are going to heaven simply because they wrote a date in the front cover of their Bible or can remember walking an aisle at some point in their lives. That said, I do not want to demean the spiritual value of being able to recall the circumstances of one's own conversion experience. It is a good thing for us to look back from time to time in wonder about the mystery of our salvation and to marvel at how God used other people to plant the Gospel into our fertile hearts.

I cannot recall the exact date and time, or even the exact sermon, but I can remember the circumstances of my own conversion more vividly than any other event in my life. I hope to share more about those events in greater detail in a later post, but for purposes of this post, suffice it to say I had been going through a six-month period of suicidal depression and extreme isolation from other people. I had been beaten down emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually to the point where I was at my rock bottom. A whole life of church attendance and being "the good son" (in my mind) was rendered useless when at that point I was cut to the quick by the realization that I had no clue what it meant to have saving faith in God. Everything in my life at that point came to a complete stop. I was in complete darkness.

Enter: God, and His Gospel, through a portion of a sermon preached by John Piper. I still can't remember the exact sermon (I've listened to hundreds of Piper's sermons since then), but what he preached stands out in my mind more than any other truth from Scripture. In referring to Luke 17:6, Piper said saving faith is a gift from God and not something we conjure up within ourselves on our own. It is the result of the work God is already doing in our lives at the point in which we believe. That's the reason that a mustard seed's worth of saving faith is enough. The faith that God provides is sufficient to save. The faith that comes from within man's corrupt heart is not. For the first time in 32+ years (at that point) of living the "church life" I had to completely resign myself to the fact that I had no assurance because I was living under the false assumption that I just needed to 'try harder at having faith', 'pull myself up by the bootstraps' and 'live right'. At my rock bottom I looked up, and there was Christ. The hand which had been pushing me deeper and deeper into that pit was now reaching down to pull me out of it.

The following quote comes from a sermon Piper preached on 1 Peter 1:22-25. It expresses exactly what I heard preached that day in 2005. It also expresses the point of this post regarding the value of looking back on one's conversion experience with wonder and awe, and exult in the glory of God through his work of regeneration.

Regeneration is God's work, not man's.

O, do you know what it means to be a Christian? Do you stand amazed and speechless that you are a Christian? Do you look back with wonder and awe at the miracle of your new birth? Or do you take so much credit for it yourself that it doesn't occur to you to fall on your face and thank God that you are a Christian?

Think on it! If you have any truly spiritual desire for God, it is owing to the work of God in regeneration. If you have any love for holiness, it is owing to the work of God in regeneration. If you have any hatred for sin, it is owing to the work of God in regeneration. If you have a mustard seed of faith in Christ, it is owing to the work of God in regeneration. To God be the glory for our conversion to Christ! Consider and be astounded, all you who by nature are children of wrath, that you believe in Christ and are new children of the Almighty.

Regeneration is a glorious work of God, not man.

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Some thoughts on James 2:18-26

Below is a blog post I wrote last September for the Feeding Jesus blog. It is part of a dialouge I was having with my brother-in-law regarding the role of works in faith. This is a question that comes up quite frequently in Sunday School classes and Bible study groups. At the outset I must give credit to John MacArthur's and F.F. Bruce's commentaries on James, which helped give me clarity on this often clouded passage.

The lines between works resulting from living faith and works resulting from legalism (dead faith) become blurred because people generally are looking at the wrong "line". I don't even like using the word line because it's so much more than that!!! James is calling us to be honest with ourselves about is whether what we are doing is being done from a desire to make much of God or to make much of ourselves. To simply say "well, this is biblical" is not enough. Just because I mimic something that was done in the Bible does not make it God-centered.

This is where living faith comes into play.

First, we know that living faith is a gift from God (Eph 2:8-9) and that's how we know it's alive. It's not the same kind of faith as me saying "I have faith that Danny will be a good husband to my sister". I know good and well that there will be times when Danny does something that ticks me off royally and my faith in him will wax and wane during the years to come. This happens because any faith that I generate is dead in the corruption of my sinfulness and in the process of being made alive (sanctification). Only the faith that comes from God is living and can produce righteous works.

Second, living faith ALWAYS results in righteous works. Pay close attention here. Notice I did not say that someone who has living faith ALWAYS does righteous works. Those who have authentic faith still fail. We still have the warts of our old nature on us. When we fail, it is always a result of acting out of self-centeredness rather than God-centeredness. But we have been given the ability to do works solely for the purpose of glorifying God and magnifying His name (the unsaved man does not have any desire or ability to do this). Therefore for anyone to expect a Christian brother or sister to live a legally sinless life in the eyes of the law represents a misunderstanding of what our justification is all about.

So from James' perspective (3:18), when an arrogant, legalistic Pharisee challenges him by saying "show me your faith without works", he responds by showing his faith BY his works.

James 2:18-26 is a wonderful description of the relationship between justification and sanctification. It can also be a dangerous minefield for the uninitiated. Paul had a lot to say about this too. I recommend comparing James 2:18-26 with Romans 4:1-16 and Galatians 3:1-9. You can throw Hebrews 11:8 and 11:17 in for good measure. This might give you a more "rounded" picture of what the Bible has to say on the topic.

Bottom line, as Ergun Caner once said "the difference between holiness and legalism is that legalism says 'you should be more like me', but holiness says 'you should be more like Christ'!"

God calls us to holiness, not legalism.
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"What you win them with....

...is what you will win them to." A well-known favorite Christian apologist of mine is famous for coining this phrase in reference to all of the gimmickery and showmanship that is so prevalent in church worship services today.

Consider the case of pastor Jeff Harlow of Crossroads Community Church in Kokomo, IN. Last Sunday, during an illustration of the concept of unity, he attempted to ride a dirt bike out on stage at the beginning of the circus. However, like many inexperienced bikers he probably overrevved the throttle and the bike took off -- down a 5-foot drop into the vacant front row of his church. Harlow sustained an injury to his wrist, for which he underwent surgery Monday. Of course, there is no humor in someone getting injured like this and we certain pray for pastor Harlow's recovery.

However, this does bring to mind once again the growing trends towards the use of gimmicks, gadgets, stunts and other forms of entertainment in an attempt to illustrate Biblical concepts to a postmodern, entertainment-saturated culture. While we are certainly under great Biblical mandate to take the message of the gospel into the "highways and byways" and to be "all things to all people, that by all means [we] might save some," the great risk with gimmick-based preaching is that we trivialize the depth and significance and mystery of the Gospel. Long ago our American culture lost it's sense of awe about things with the onset of mass communication (telegraph, telephone, radio, TV, internet, IM, text messaging....the list seems endless).

When we attempt to use devices and icons from this "aweless" culture we live in, we introduce this same awelessness into church life. We reduce the truths that God intended to be complex down to a level where it is devoid of it's intended meaning.

Many proponents of such practices cite Christ's use of parables during his ministry on Earth. However, this argument completely ignores Christ's own explanation of why he used parables as documented in Matthew 13:10-17. Specifically, in verse 13 Christ explains, "This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do no see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand." Why is this so? "For this people's hearts have grown dull" (v. 15). Parables were never intended to simplify Biblical truth. They were more like riddles, intended to expose the spiritual blindness of their intended audience, while illustrating complex truths to those who had been given the ability to percieve by God's grace.

I certainly am in no position to make any assessing statements about the spiritual condition of the congregation at Crossroards Community Church. But if current trends in church growth are any indiciation, the typical evangelical worship service today is part corporate worship and teaching, and part revival meeting. Most churches today have a sizable number of unregenerate people sitting in their pews each morning. This places pastors in the often untenable position of having to preach a message that both edifies and equips the saints and will also result in a good response during the altar call at the end of the service. Theologically speaking, this is very awkward. To overcome this awkwardness, many pastors feel forced to resort to showmanship in order to achieve some level of success in both areas.

"What you win them with is what you will win them to."

The Apostle Paul, the greatest theologian who ever walked this earth short of our Lord Jesus Christ, never worried much about putting on a show for people:

And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. (1 Corinthians 2:1-5)

Obama and McCain to appear at Saddleback

According to this news release, presumptive Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain are scheduled to make their first joint appearance on August 16th hosted by Rick Warren and his 22,000-member Saddleback Church's Civil Forum on Leadership and Compassion.

Warren states that the primary purpose of this event will be "to hear both candidates speak from the heart -- without interruption -- in a civil and thoughtful format absent the partisan 'gotcha' questions that typically produce heat instead of light." Warren, who will be the sole moderator and question-asker for this event, will not be asking many of the questions that typical presidential debates raise. Rather, he will be "pressing issues that are bridging divides in our nation, such as poverty, HIV/AIDS, climate and human rights."

These types of events and these issues for Warren are an outcropping of his "P.E.A.C.E. plan", which according to the Purpose Driven website is a 50-year plan to address "spiritual emptiness, selfish leadership, poverty, disease, and ignorance."

The fact that Warren, #1 on Barna's top 10 list of influential evangelical leaders, lists poverty, disease, climate, human rights, etc. as the most critical issues for Christendom is a clear indication of the pernicious and ubiquitous influence of two things: the Social Gospel movement and baby-boomer ethics. In a prosperous culture during a prosperous time like the one we live in today, the social gospel with it's emphasis on service and helping others (and it's corresponding deemphasis on salvation by faith alone, repentance and the substitutionary atonement of Christ) dovetails nicely with postmodern, baby-boomerism.

In the future, I hope to post a more detailed explanation of how these influences have harmed the advance of the one true Gospel by undermining propositional truth and supplanting it with service that assuages the pangs of a guilty conscience.

A Theology That Cannot Be Lived Is No Theology At All

Pastor Ray Ortlund writes about having a charitable Christian attitude regardless of where your convictions are regarding secondary doctrinal issues:

My Reformed friend, can you move among other Christian groups and really enjoy them? Do you admire them? Even if you disagree with them in some ways, do you learn from them? What is the emotional tilt of your heart – toward them or away from them? If your Reformed theology has morphed functionally into Galatian sociology, the remedy is not to abandon your Reformed theology. The remedy is to take your Reformed theology to a deeper level. Let it reduce you to Jesus only. Let it humble you. Let this gracious doctrine make you a fun person to be around. The proof that we are Reformed will be all the wonderful Christians we discover around us who are not Reformed. Amazing people. Heroic people. Blood-bought people. People with whom we are eternally one – in Christ alone.

Some years ago I heard a preacher say "A theology that cannot be lived out among others and that does not point people to Christ is no theology at all." This is my foremost conviction when studying and discussing theology with my Christian brothers and sisters. If my attitude does not demonstrate the love that Christ has demonstrated to me, then "my" theology becomes null and void.

The sole purpose of our apologetic as Christians is to "make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect." (1 Peter 3:15 ESV, emphasis added). If the first word that jumps out of that verse to you is "defense" (apologia), then I would lovingly exhort you to reexamine your motives for engaging in apologetics. If your manner of conversation with other believers is so negative and divisive that it draws their attention to you rather than to Christ, STOP RIGHT THERE! You are doing more harm to the Gospel with each divisive and angry word.

However, if the first words in this verse that jump out at you are hope, gentleness and respect (I even highlighted them to make it easy for you....you can thank me later!), then it should be clear to you that the only way we can display the hope that God has given us is through gentleness and respect. This is true regardless of whether you are relating to believers and nonbelievers alike. This is no more true than it is when we proclaim the Gospel to nonbelievers. In a non confrontational postmodern world filled with hate mongering terrorist religious groups, it is easier now than ever for argumentative, cranky, negative Christians to be marginalized in the minds of nonbelievers.

This is also true about proclaiming Gospel to believers. You do realize that we are to proclaim the Gospel to believers, don't you? Paul did. "So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome." (Romans 1:15 ESV). Why would Paul feel the need to proclaim the Gospel to those who had already believed? He answers that in verse 16: "for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes".

So how do we proclaim the Gospel to our believing brothers and sisters? By letting them see Christ alone in you and through you. By living Christ in front of them as both an example and an encouragement. By wanting the same things for their lives that God has gracious given to you - grace, joy, love, contentment, etc. If your theology is truly given to you by God by emerging from the pages of Scripture, the it will humble you. It will reduce you to Jesus only. It will make you a fun person to be around. It will give you a desire to get to know others intimately regardless of their understanding and convictions about secondary doctrines and matters of conscience.