Things Evangelicals Think: Only God's Kindness Leads to Repentance

We are back to another installment in the series: things evangelicals think.  I love evangelicals, I am one, and I love people who make these mistakes.  I myself have made many of these mistakes, including this one.  So in some ways, you can consider this as a retraction.  Also, there are surely other mistakes evangelicals make that I am currently making without knowing it.  I hope someone will write a blog  post about it to point it out.

This one has been floating around the internet quite a bit lately for several different reasons, so I thought it would be a good one to talk about.  It is usually stated as, "it is God's kindness that leads us to repentance."  The implication is that kindness is the sole means God uses to bring about repentance.  It is often quoted in response to someone who has spoken (or written) a hard word, to remind them that God instead uses kindness to bring about repentance.  It is important to note that it is this specific use and understanding of this idea that I am objecting to.

Before moving on, it must be emphatically stated that all we have in Christ is the result of God's grace and mercy towards us.  Our salvation is founded first to last on the rock of God's mercy, and we have no other hope.  And further, in the practical living of the Christian life, God's kindness is incredibly powerful to lead to repentance.  His smiling, forgiving face has tremendous power to melt our resistance to him.  My point here today is that sometimes, in his grace and mercy, God afflicts us.  Sometimes he warns, rebukes, instructs, and disciplines us to bring us to repentance.  So while this is all done in mercy, it is too narrow to answer warnings, rebukes, and instructions by suggesting that they are out of place because only God's kindness leads to repentance.

The idea comes from a verse in Romans 2:4, which says in part, "God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?"  As always, context is important.  Two immediate clues let us know something more is going on in this snippet.  They are (1) the question mark that ends it, and (2) the phrase "is meant to."  We might add the lack of the words "it is" to begin the statement.  Let's look at these things one at a time to see how the common use of these words often results in a misunderstanding.

1. First, the question mark.  The fact that it doesn't seem to belong means we don't have the complete sentence.  Let's get Romans 2:3-5 in front of us now.  

Do you suppose, O man--you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself--that you will escape the judgment of God?  Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?  But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed.

What now becomes clear is that this statement is a rebuke to those who presume upon God's kindness by thinking God's patience means he isn't going to judge their sin.  They should have known that his kindness and patience was designed to lead them to repentance.  In this case, that wasn't happening. His kindness was instead leading them to presumption.  

2. Second, the phrase "is meant to."

God's kindness is meant to lead us to repentance.  Turning away from our sin is the proper response to God's patience with us.  Sometimes instead, we presume upon it.  

3. Third, the lack of the phrase "it is."

The reason we often add "it is" to the start of this is to narrow the point.  When we say, "don't you know it is God's kindness that leads to repentance," we are implying that his kindness alone does this, as opposed to his rebukes, judgments, warnings, etc.  But this is not at all the point of the saying in its context.  What should jump off the page before our eyes is that the whole thing is a rebuke and warning.  "Do you suppose you will escape the judgement of God?"  "You are storing up wrath for yourself..." etc.  God's kindness was supposed to lead them to repentance.  They instead presumed upon it and thought it made them free to stay in their sin.  So Paul rebuked and warned them.  Why?  I suppose to lead them to repentance.  Because sometimes God's admonitions lead to repentance.  Isn't that the goal of all the warnings in the book of Hebrews, for example?  It seems that Paul's rebuke of Peter in Galatia worked like this.  Peter seems to have repented.  I can imagine someone taking Paul aside after he publicly rebuked Peter and saying "Paul, don't you remember that it is the kindness of God that leads to repentance?"  I suspect Paul would have patiently asked them to go read the verse again.

God's patience and kindness are meant to lead to repentance.  When they don't, rebuke may be necessary, though it too should be characterized with patience.  But lets stop quoting Romans 2:4 at each other as though it means that the wounds of a friend are not faithful.




*Image credit: http://www.brokenfollower.com/one-defense-righteousness/

Truth in Love

I love truth and knowledge and wisdom.  

In the Spirit I love them because I want to love God with all my mind, and the truth shows me more about him and his ways.
In the Spirit I love them because I love righteousness and want to understand it more fully.
In the Spirit I love them because God sanctifies us by his truth, and I want to be completely devoted to God and his glory.
In the Spirit I love them because I love to delight in them with others, knowing that God's word is a light to our path, leading us in pleasant places.
In the Spirit I love them because they are so beautiful in their arrangement and pleasant in themselves.  
In the Spirit I love them because I hate lies and how they attempt to distort reality and blind us.
In the Spirit I love them because Jesus is the Truth and his Spirit is the Spirit of truth, and the Father is the God of truth.

But,

In the flesh I love them because I love being able to be right.
In the flesh I love them because I love a massive distraction from sacrificially loving God and people.
In the flesh I love them because they can be a means of personal gain.
In the flesh I love them because knowing stuff makes me feel good about myself.

This knowledge fills me up like a balloon waiting to be popped, but truth-in-love fills me up like a fountain waiting to overflow.  I want all my desire for truth to be undergirded by love for God and love for others.  

I delight in the truth that because I am justified in Christ I don't have to try to prove myself to be right.  
I delight in the truth that God has sacrificially loved me first, and is teaching me to be like him.
I delight in the truth that no amount of personal gain I can secure for myself can match the gain God has promised to me in Christ in the resurrection.  
I delight in the truth that my feeling good about myself doesn't depend on how much I know, but on how fully I am known and loved by God in Christ.

This truth is for all, to be freely received by turning from the lies and daring to believe it.

I May Not Have _____, But At Least I Have ________.

Americans are some of the most secure people in the history of the world.  We have a powerful military, strong police forces, houses with solid locks and alarm systems, we have powerful weapons to defend ourselves, and a system designed to keep these things from turning against us if we pay attention.  

We have storehouses of food and supplies, emergency responders in case something threatens our abundance, and rooms or closets full of food in our homes.

We have advanced medicine and doctors specialized and trained to cure sickness and alleviate suffering.  We are constantly working on cures for everything under the sun, and we have household remedies for almost any imaginable ailment that are actually quite helpful.  

We could go on.

But Americans have a crippling sense of insecurity.  Despite all of this, we don't feel confident within our hearts.  Many feel vulnerable and scared.  We struggle with anxiety.

And those who don't struggle with anxiety often paper over their insecurity with a false show of bluster.  We lack confidence and so we over-do it with exercise, with intellectual pursuits, with social climbing, with career, with money, with religion, with sex, with whatever we think will fix our problems.  And some even come to feel quite secure in these things for a time, despising the insecure and boasting in their own confidence success, strength, etc.

Where do you put your confidence?  What is your boast?  Is it your physical achievements?  Your career?  Your religious practice?  I may not have _________, but at least I have more ___________ than others.

All such boasting is foolish and evil.

For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.  But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.  And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord."*

Where is it written?  In Jeremiah 9.

Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth.  For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.

There is one appropriate place for your confidence and boast.  It is in God and in his mercy towards you in Christ.  Some of you will read this and think I am saying it is in your religious practice.  This is a deadly mistake.  Your spirituality, your morality, your religious practice are useless places to put your confidence and boast.  They will not hold up on the day of accounting.  Furthermore, putting your confidence in these things will make you a terrible person to be around, constantly trying to prove how spiritual, how moral, or how religious you are.

Deep down you know that you are not safe, that your own resources are not enough.  Deep down you know that you don't really add up.  If you have convinced yourself that this isn't true, then you need to be humbled, and you will be eventually.  

But Jesus offers good news for those who will lay down their vain boasting in their own resources.  He says, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.  Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.  Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.  Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied..."

Jesus is the only safe boast, he is the only true shelter in this storm.  You were made to rest in him.  When your boast and confidence are in him, you can be truly confident because he is mighty enough to keep you, and he is merciful enough to love you forever in spite of the worst in you.  And when you are this safe in him (even if in danger from every side) you can be humble and confident at the same time.  

The only way to get here is to repent of confidence in our strengths.  It is one thing to repent of our weaknesses, the things we know are deplorable in us.  Coming to Jesus involves repenting of confidence even in our best, even in what is most commendable about us.  It doesn't mean not using our gifts and strengths, it just means not putting our confidence in them.  And when we repent like this, our gifts are free to be what they were made for, our strength finds its proper place, and our confidence is unshakable.  

What glorious freedom there is in Jesus.

*1 Cor. 1

Sexual Rebellion, Sexual Confusion, Sexual Truth

As Christians in a world full of sexual rebellion both inside and outside the church, we have a lot to reflect on.

1.  Maybe we have shriveled marriage, forgetting to be amazed by the profound mystery in which God makes a man and a woman into one new person by means of their public vows and physical consummation, for the purposes of companionship, raising children, and enacting the ultimate Marriage.  Maybe we have shriveled it into a personalized, silly, public expression of warm romantic feelings in whatever form the couple may choose.  It is no wonder that everyone with warm romantic feelings wants to know why they can't play too.

2. Maybe we have communicated that God only cares about the inside, and not the outside of a person.  We have not clearly and joyfully rejoiced in and talked about the goodness of created stuff and the hope of the resurrection of the body.  We forget that the Bible has commands for our hands as well as our hearts.  We close our eyes tight when we feel a spiritual wind blowing, and try to block out the world in which Jesus took on flesh.  It is no wonder that a man who feels like a woman on the inside should try to force his outside into that mold.

3.  Maybe we have failed to stand in happy wonder at the reality of the Trinity.  We have chosen to talk to and about Jesus as though he is the only member of the Godhead, and so we have failed to communicate the inherent beauty of unity and diversity together in perfect harmony.  We have failed to talk about the glory of the reality that the center of all things is a God who is three totally distinct persons, perfectly united together in love as one God.  It is no wonder that people forget to glory in the diversity and unity of men and women making up marriage.

4. Maybe we got embarrassed about the truth that men are made to be manly and women are made to be womanly.  Maybe we started hedging on hard boundaries between them, feeling like it was mean or unfair to rejoice in different roles given to each of them.  We decided that whether someone is a man or a woman has no bearing on whether they should lead a family or a church.  It is no wonder we now can't tell whether it has any bearing on whether they should be married.

5.  Maybe gaggles of 'evangelical' husbands have long been spiritual versions of Bruce Jenner, failing to be the leading men God called them to be, instead treating their wives like their mothers to whom they go for permission and instruction.  It is no wonder men in our world don't want to be men, and women lose interest.

6.  Maybe we stopped talking about the beginning, and how God made everything according to its kind and for its purpose.  Maybe we got embarrassed about creation as we bowed before our priests in white lab-robes.  Maybe we started asking if Adam and Eve are even real people.  And so maybe we stopped talking about the beauty of the way people are created by God and forgot that marriage is not a human construct but a divine pattern and gift.  It is no wonder that people think marriage, gender, and family are things we invented and therefore things we are fully free to re-invent.

7.  Maybe we have not really been experiencing and talking about the offer of reconciliation and salvation for everyone in Christ.  Maybe it got easier to just try to be really nice or really cool and hope people stumble to conversion on their own.  It is no wonder that people are looking everywhere they can to find something to satisfy, something to make their life make sense, something to save them.

Since increasing sexual immorality and confusion are an element of the judgment of God upon a people, our first instinct should be repentance.  This is not to say we shouldn't speak hard truths in love to our homosexual and transgendered friends.  The whole point is that we haven't been speaking or delighting in the truth sufficiently.  Repentance from that looks like speaking and loving the truth on a whole host of related issues, recognizing that if the room is dark, there may be something wrong with the light.  And when we speak, we should make sure we speak out of bold love rather than fear, insecurity about our world, or as a smokescreen for our own failings in these regards.  My life has contained sexual rebellion and confusion.  It is because of this that I delight in sexual truth and in Christ who redeems sinners and shows us a more excellent way.  May God be merciful to us.

Things Evangelicals Think: Jesus Is Hoping To Be Your Lord

If you missed the last post introducing this series on things evangelicals think, you can get the main idea back here.  It includes my trying to be clear that I love evangelicals and the movement, and consider myself part of it.  So these posts are an exercise in taking the plank out of our collective evangelical eye.

Today we are going to think about Jesus and his lordship.  We often talk about Jesus' reign as though the kingdom of God is a heavenly democracy.  Jesus is running for the office of Lord of the universe hoping to get enough votes to win, though he has a backup plan of rapturing his voters out if things get western down here.  

And usually, it is more individualistic than that.  We talk like Jesus is not so much interested in running for Lord of the universe, truly he would be satisfied just to be Lord of your heart.  You hold all the cards, all eyes eagerly wait, and heaven holds its breath to see what the computer will read after you step out from behind the voting booth curtain.  Did Jesus win?

But this gets it all backwards, because Jesus is not hoping to be your Lord.  Jesus is the Lord of lords.  The question is whether or not you will acknowledge that reality and bow to him now willingly under his mercy, or later when he comes to consummate his kingdom with armies of angels in his wake.

Jesus is not outside your life, hat in hand, hoping that you will accept his campaign for Lord.  He is not running for the title of Lord, needing your vote.  His Lordship is not in question.  God has demonstrated it by raising him from the dead.  Even though we are all born under the kingdom of darkness, Jesus has been given authority even over the ruler of that realm.  He has bound him and is plundering him, bringing about his kingdom of love and righteousness and joy.

Remember what he said after his resurrection?  "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations..." (Mt. 28:18-19a).  All authority belongs to Jesus, all nations are to be discipled to observe all that he has commanded.  Jesus commands the nations.  It is worth noting that Jesus doesn't say, "I am hoping for all authority on earth, go therefore and campaign for me, glad-handing and asking people if they would consider letting me save them and tell them what to do, if they find me to be nice enough."

Or remember when Paul writes about the power of God "that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.  And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all" (Eph. 1:20-23).  It does not say that he is being offered to all as a lord, but that all things have been put under his feet who has been placed far above all rule and authority, power and dominion.  He is over all in this current age, and in the age to come.

But what about Romans 10:9?  Doesn't this teach that Jesus wants you to believe in him as the Lord?  In a way.  I am afraid the common idea is something like the picture of Santa's sleigh at the end of the movie Elf.  If enough people believe that Santa is real, then his sleigh will be able to fly out of Central Park.  We just need an adorable Zoey to bat her eyelashes and sing carols to stir up our sentiment enough to get Jesus' lordship off the ground.  

But what does Romans 10:9 say?  It says that "if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."  Notice it doesn't say that if you confess him to be Lord, then he will become Lord.  This is about how we are rescued from our rebellion.  We are rescued when we openly acknowledge the Lordship of Jesus over all, and believe in our hearts that God raised him from the dead.  Jesus is Lord, and at the heart of our sin is a refusal to submit to his authority.  "The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead" (Acts 17:30-31).

As the Lord, he is mercifully offering the nations terms of reconciliation and eternal life, despite our cosmic rebellion against his lordship.  His terms are simple: faith and repentance.  If you will trust in him, look to his sacrifice for the forgiveness of your rebellion in sin, turn from your rebellion, and bow your knees in repentance, you will be welcomed freely into his kingdom.  In light of your track record, this is amazingly merciful.

Jesus is sitting on his throne in heaven, and you are in rebellion against him by nature.  He is willing to take you as one of his subjects on his terms, and he went to incredible lengths to open the way for you.  He has become one of us.  He has suffered and died on a cross as a substitute for sin.  This Lord, this King, this Sovereign is the one who came to die.  He came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.  

So the offer stands today; repent and believe and be welcomed into the kingdom of God not only as a servant, but as a son, adopted into the family, delighted in, loved, rejoiced over, and given eternal joyous life in this sovereign King.  

Jesus is the Lord, and his kingdom is coming.  It will not be stopped.  It is not up for a vote.  The goal of the Father is that "at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Phil. 2:10-11).  This does not establish his lordship, it is the outworking of it.

Do you see how the Bible presents to you a merciful Lord and not a pandering candidate?  Do you see how this shows you to be a rebel in need of bowing before the sovereignty and steadfast love of Christ, rather than a guy in charge of whether Jesus will be his Lord or not, deciding whether he wants a more abundant life by voting for Jesus to sit on a throne in his heart?  God is incredibly gracious and merciful.  His throne is a throne of grace.  And it is a throne of grace.