Gospel Freedom in Everyday Life

More Energy and More Power by Jarrid C. Wilson

The message that the gospel has in terms of freedom for a man’s everyday life is really a counter-intuitive message. You would think that knowing that the work is done, that the bar has been crossed, that the standard has been met by Jesus, and that we now totally measure up would lead us to go on autopilot.

However, what really happens is that, when a man understands that he measures up and the victory is sure, he actually finds more energy and more power. One great illustration is when you’re way ahead in a basketball game and you’re winning, the energy seems to come from nowhere. You just seem to have this boundless energy because the victory is sure.

On the flip side, the further behind you are—if you are losing the game—the harder it becomes. You see the mountain you have to climb to catch up and you just feel dejected and defeated.

I think the gospel works a bit like that. Somehow to know that we are totally justified—that the victory is won—actually empowers our hard work. There’s a joy and a freedom there. The man who has been set free by the gospel is really free and really empowered to work with a sense of worship.

Everyday Freedom

How the Gospel Sets Us Free in Everyday Life by Jared Wilson



How the Gospel Sets Us Free in Everyday Life from Crossway on Vimeo.

More Energy and More Power

The message that the gospel has in terms of freedom for a man’s everyday life is really a counter-intuitive message. You would think that knowing that the work is done, that the bar has been crossed, that the standard has been met by Jesus, and that we now totally measure up would lead us to go on autopilot.

However, what really happens is that, when a man understands that he measures up and the victory is sure, he actually finds more energy and more power. One great illustration is when you’re way ahead in a basketball game and you’re winning, the energy seems to come from nowhere. You just seem to have this boundless energy because the victory is sure.

On the flip side, the further behind you are—if you are losing the game—the harder it becomes. You see the mountain you have to climb to catch up and you just feel dejected and defeated.

I think the gospel works a bit like that. Somehow to know that we are totally justified—that the victory is won—actually empowers our hard work. There’s a joy and a freedom there. The man who has been set free by the gospel is really free and really empowered to work with a sense of worship.

(Jared C. Wilson is the director of content strategy at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri, and a contributor to the ESV Men’s Devotional Bible.)

Face to Face

From @DailyKeller

Down Dog, Down!

"If we have sinned, it is wonderful consciously to say, ‘Thank you for a completed work,’ after we have brought that specific sin under the finished work of Christ. The conscious giving of thanks brings assurance and peace. We say, ‘Thank you’ for work completed upon the cross, which is sufficient for a completely restored relationship.

This isn’t on the basis of my emotions, any more than in my justification. The basis is the finished work of Christ in history and the objective promises of God in the written Word. If I believe Him, and if I believe what He has taught me about the sufficiency of the work of Christ for restoration, I can have assurance, no matter how black the blot has been. This is the Christian reality of salvation from one’s conscience.

For myself, through the thirty years or so since I began to struggle with this in my own life, I picture my conscience as a big black dog with enormous paws which leaps upon me, threatening to cover me with mud and devour me. But as this conscience of mine jumps upon me, after a specific sin has been dealt with on basis of Christ’s finished work, then I should turn to my conscience and say, in effect, ‘Down! Be still!’ I am to believe God and be quiet."

           — Francis Schaeffer True Spirituality

Hat Tip: Of First Importance

More Than A Means to An End

"Where the gospel is not taken for granted, it is often a means to an end, like personal or social transformation, love and service to our neighbors, and other things that in themselves are marvelous effects of the gospel. However, the Good News concerning Christ is not a stepping-stone to something greater and more relevant.

Whether we realize it or not, there is nothing in the universe more relevant to us as guilty image-bearers of God than the news that he has found a way to be ‘just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus’ (Rom. 3:26). It is ‘the power of God for salvation’ (Rom. 1:16), not only for the beginning, but for the middle and end as well — the only thing that creates the kind of new world to which our new obedience corresponds as a reasonable response. "

— Michael Horton, Christless Christianity: The Alternative Gospel of the American Church

(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2008), 22

HT: Of First Importance

Love This Passage

2 Corinthians 5:17-21 - So much truth packed into one litle paragraph!

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All Blemished in Your Eyes

                           With Empty Hands

After earth's  exile, I hope to go and enjoy you in the fatherland,
but I do not want to lay up merits for heaven.
I want to work for your love alone.....In the evening of this life,
I shall appear before you with empty hands, for I do not ask you,
Lord, to count my works. All our justice is blemished in your
eyes. I wish, then, to be clothed in your own jusice and to receive
from your love the eternal possession of yourself.

         -St Therese of Lisieux, from The Story of a Soul

Out of Wrath, Peace

“Redeeming love and retributive justice joined hands, so to speak, at Calvary, for there God showed Himself to be ‘just, and the justifer of him who hath faith in Jesus’.

Do you understand this? If you do, you are now seeing to the very heart of the Christian gospel. No version of that message goes deeper than that which declares man’s root problem before God to be his sin, which evokes wrath, and God’s basic provision for man to be propitiation, which out of wrath brings peace.”

— J. I. PackerIn My Place Condemned He Stood (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008), 41




Hat Tip: Of First Importance

More than We Dared Hope

“The gospel of justifying faith means that while Christians are, in themselves still sinful and sinning, yet in Christ, in God’s sight, they are accepted and righteous. So we can say that we are more wicked than we ever dared believe, but more loved and accepted in Christ than we ever dared hope — at the very same time.

This creates a radical new dynamic for personal growth. It means that the more you see your own flaws and sins, the more precious, electrifying, and amazing God’s grace appears to you. But on the other hand, the more aware you are of God’s grace and acceptance in Christ, the more able you are to drop your denials and self-defenses and admit the true dimensions and character of your sin.”

— Tim Keller Paul's Letter to the Galatians: Living in Line with the Truth of the Gospel
(Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2003), 2

Hat Tip: Of First Importance

Start Working From Not For

"To make this as simple as possible, let me say it this way: Justification is all about Jesus. Jesus' work, not our works, saves us. Jesus' Life, not our works, saves us. Jesus' life, not our own life, is our hope. Jesus' death, not our religious works , is our payment. Jesus alone forgives sin. So, we're to repent of our sin to Jesus. Jesus alone gives righteousness. So we trust in Jesus for our justification. Our justification is not accomplished in any part by our own work, morality or religious devotion.  Justification is accomplished by Jesus plus nothing, and Jesus plus anything ruins everything.....

...You are free to stop working for your righteousness and start working from Jesus' righteousness."

-Mark Driscoll,   Who Do You Think You Are?: Finding Your True Identity in Christ, page 144

The Keys Are in Your Pocket

Great story from Tullian Tchvidjian:

On at least two occasions in the last year I’ve been late for a meeting or an appointment and haven’t been able to find my car keys. Certain that either my wife or one of my three children have misplaced them, I’ve frantically run from room to room blaming someone with misplacing my keys: “Has anyone seen my keys? I’m late for a meeting. Who was playing with my keys? I put them right here on the counter and now they’re gone. They didn’t just vanish into thin air! Who picked them up? Where are they? I’m late. ” And right about the time I’m ready to order mass executions in my home, I’ve walked into my bedroom one last time to look (huffing and puffing, moaning and groaning), put my hand in my pocket and found my keys. They’d been there the whole time.

Every time I tell that story, people laugh. And rightfully so. What forgetful moron falls prey to frantically looking for car keys that are in his pocket? Me. That’s who.

The truth is, however, that this is the way we Christians typically live: frantically and frustratingly searching for something we already have. The gospel is God’s good news announcement that everything we need we already possess in Christ. Because of Jesus’ finished work, Christians already have all of the justification, approval, significance, security, freedom, validation, love, righteousness, and rescue that we desperately long for, and look for in a thousand things infinitely smaller than Jesus.

Through the Holy Spirit, God daily delivers the gospel to forgetful Christian’s like me, declaring, “The keys are in your pocket.”

One Message, Many Forms

Is there one gospel, or are there multiple gospels? I'm not referring to the four books we call "the Four Gospels," but to the message about Jesus called the gospel. I think there is only one gospel, but many models or forms for expressing it. Found this quote in an article by Tim Brister, referencing a Tim Keller argument. I agree with it wholeheartedly.

One of the most significant articles Tim Keller has written on the gospel can be found at Christianity Today, entitled “The Gospel in All Its Forms“.  In this article, Keller borrows from Simon Gathercole’s chapter in God’s Power to Save to explain the various “forms” of the gospel. Contrary to liberal theologians, Keller says there is not multiple gospels, but one gospel expressed in different forms.

For instance, when Jesus speaks of the gospel in the Synoptic Gospels, kingdom language is employed (“gospel of the kingdom”). In this case, the gospel speaks to the inauguration of Christ’s reign as King, and the focus is more communal and social.  When the Apostle John writes about the Gospel, there is no mention of kingdom language but rather “receiving eternal life,” and the focus is more individual and personal. When you get the writings of Paul, you hear little emphasis on “kingdom” or “eternal life” but instead the focus is on “justification by faith“. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul are all talking about one message, but that message is expressed in different forms. Through an analysis of these forms, what you find is that the gospel can be expressed as story-arc focused (creation, fall, redemption, restoration) as well as content-driven (God, man, sin, Christ). Not to be left out, Keller stresses the eschatological implications of the gospel with the in breaking of God’s kingdom and renewal of all things...

Brister goes on to say:

When disciples are being made, they need to understand the whole gospel for their whole life to impact the whole world for Christ. I want them to know the content/nature of the gospel. But that is not enough. They need to experience it and find their identity in Christ personally. They also need to understand the implications and application of the gospel for all of life. In my paradigm of gospel-centered spiritual formation, here is how I break it down:

Message of the Gospel: stresses the doctrinal content of the gospel so that we can have a correct understanding of who Jesus is and what He has done (text/normative)

Story of the Gospel: stresses the experience/realization of the gospel so that we can have our affections moved and captured by who Jesus is and what He has done (subtext/existential)

Gospel of the Kingdom: stresses the implication/application of the gospel in the world so that we can have our world brought under the reign and rule of who Jesus is and what He has done (context/situational)

When the message of the gospel gives us right understanding, our minds are renewed through the glorious truths of Scripture.  When the story of the gospel gives us right affections, the story of our life is rewritten by the story of the gospel, redeeming and renewing our hearts. When the gospel of the kingdom is applied to our lives, we walk in repentance and faith so that the kingdoms of our world become the kingdom of our God.

  More at the link - Good stuff!.

The Comfort of Being A Sinner

“Luther taught that every time you insist that I am a sinner, just so often do you call me to remember the benefit of Christ my Redeemer, upon whose shoulders, and not upon mine, lie all my sins. So, when you say that I am a sinner, you do not terrify, but comfort me immeasurably.”

    — Thomas Oden, The Justification Reader
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 5

Hat Tip:  Of First Importance

Silly Story...Great Truth

Great story from Tullian Tchividjian:

A friend of mine recently told a silly story about a man standing at the gates of heaven waiting to be admitted. To the man’s utter shock, Peter said, “You have to have earned a thousands points to be admitted to heaven. What have you done to earn your points?”

“I’ve never heard that before: but I think I’ll do alright. I was raised in a Christian home and have always been a part of the church. I have Sunday school attendance pins that go down the floor. I went to a Christian college and graduate school and have probably led hundreds of people to Christ. I’m now an elder in my church and am quite supportive of what the people of God do. I have three children, two boys and a girl. My oldest boy is a pastor and the younger is a staff person with a ministry to the poor. My daughter and her husband are missionaries. I have always tithed and am now giving well over 30% of my income to God’s work. I’m a bank executive and work with the poor in our city trying to get low income mortgages.”

“How am I doing so far”, he asked Peter.

“That’s one point,” Peter said. “What else have you done?”

“Good Lord…have mercy!” the man said in frustration.

“That’s it!” Peter said. “Welcome home.”

My friend who used this silly illustration ended it by saying, “Teach the law. The Psalmist called it perfect. Teach it until people recognize their inability to keep it and cry out for mercy…Mercy always comes running.”

Justification By Faith According to the Church Fathers

Interesting article at Cripplegate by Nathan Busenitz entitled The Gospel according to the Church Fathers. Did you know that the leaders of the Protestant Reformation (Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, et al) all believed that their reform teachings on justification through faith alone were not only Biblical, but consistent with the teachings of the early church fathers? Check out this partial list of quotes:

1. Clement of Rome (30-100): “And we, too, being called by His will in Christ Jesus, are not justified by ourselves, nor by our own wisdom, or understanding, or godliness, or works which we have wrought in holiness of heart; but by that faith through which, from the beginning, Almighty God has justified all men; to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.”

2. Epistle to Diognetus (second century): “He gave His own Son as a ransom for us, the holy One for transgressors, the blameless One for the wicked, the righteous One for the unrighteous, the incorruptible One for the corruptible, the immortal One for them that are mortal. For what other thing was capable of covering our sins than His righteousness? By what other one was it possible that we, the wicked and ungodly, could be justified, than by the only Son of God? O sweet exchange! O unsearchable operation! O benefits surpassing all expectation! That the wickedness of many should be hid in a single righteous One, and that the righteousness of One should justify many transgressors!”

3. Justin Martyr (100-165) speaks of “those who repented, and who no longer were purified by the blood of goats and of sheep, or by the ashes of an heifer, or by the offerings of fine flour, but by faith through the blood of Christ, and through His death.”
.................

18. Theodoret of Cyrus (393–457): “The Lord Christ is both God and the mercy seat, both the priest and the lamb, and he performed the work of our salvation by his blood, demanding only faith from us.”

19. Cyril of Alexandria (412-444): “For we are justified by faith, not by works of the law, as Scripture says. By faith in whom, then, are we justified? Is it not in Him who suffered death according to the flesh for our sake? Is it not in one Lord Jesus Christ?”

20. Fulgentius (462–533): “The blessed Paul argues that we are saved by faith, which he declares to be not from us but a gift from God. Thus there cannot possibly be true salvation where there is no true faith, and, since this faith is divinely enabled, it is without doubt bestowed by his free generosity. Where there is true belief through true faith, true salvation certainly accompanies it. Anyone who departs from true faith will not possess the grace of true salvation.”

Much more at the link.

Salvation Top 20

When God saves you, He…

1. Regenerates you, moving you from spiritual death to life. (John 3:1-8)
2. Redeems you, buying you out of slavery to sin. (1 Peter 1:18-19)
3. Justifies you, declaring you innocent in His sight. (Romans 5:1-9)
4. Sanctifies you, setting you apart as holy. (1 Cor 1:2,30)
5. Forgives you of all your sins. (Ephesians 1:7)
6. Cleanses you, removing from you the stain of sin. (Hebrews 9:14)
7. Reconciles you to Himself. (2 Corinthians 5:17-19)
8. Seals you with His Spirit as a guarantee of your future hope. (Ephesians 1:13)
9. Indwells you, sending the Holy Spirit to live in you. (Romans 8:9)
10. Adopts you, making you His child. (Romans 8:14-17)
11. Baptizes you into Christ’s body, the Church. (1 Corinthians 12:3)
12. Illuminates your mind so you can understand the Scriptures. (2 Corinthians 4:3-4)
13. Makes you a new creation. (2 Corinthians 5:17)
14. Reveals you as one of His elect. (Ephesians 1:4, Romans 8:29-30)
15. Grants you eternal life. (John 11:25-27, 1 John 5:11-13)
16. Names you an heir with Christ. (Romans 8:17)
17. Grants you an inheritance. (1 Peter 1:3-4)
18. Declares you a saint. (Romans 1:7, Colossians 1:2)
19. Grants you new citizenship, making your home heaven rather than this world. (Philippians 3:20)
20. Makes you a slave of Christ, a slave with the greatest, most glorious Master that any could ask for. (1 Corinthians 7:22-23)

Praise God for the assurance that comes from these great truths.

HT: Jude St.John, Already Not Yet

Costly Grace

"Costly grace justifies the sinner: Go and sin no more.  Cheap grace justifies the sin: Everything is forgiven, so you can stay as you are."

Jon Walker, Costly Grace, page 25

Overcoming The Sin Underneath All Sins

In the midst of an on-going friendly disagreement and discussion with Keven DeYoung over grace and Christian growth (click here, here, and here for the details), Tullian Tchividjian dropped this wonderful little bon mot worth much attention:

"What is indisputable is the fact that unbelief is the force that gives birth to all of our bad behavior and every moral failure. It is the root. “The sin underneath all sins”, said Martin Luther, “is the lie that we cannot trust the love and grace of Jesus and that we must take matters into our own hands.” Therefore, since justification is where the guillotine for unbelief and self-salvation is located, we dare not assume it, brush over it, or move past it. It must never become the backdrop. It must remain front and center–getting the most attention."

From: First Things First – Tullian Tchividjian

It's the Beginning, Middle, and End

Some good teaching by David Paul Dorr  on "Justification’s Beginning, Middle, and End:

Most of us learned justification as the beginning of our relationship with God, saying “we trusted Jesus alone for our salvation; we were declared “righteous” in God’s sight, given the very righteousness of Jesus as a gift.”

But what if justification by faith has a beginning, middle, and ending? Meaning this: when we initially believe that Jesus is Lord and Savior and receive Him by faith we are in, what Douglas Moo, calls, “the initial phase of justification.” But our justification is proved true as we walk out our life by faith, all the way to our death.....

After some more good teaching from Galatians (read it at the link) he concludes:

So how do you know if you are a living a life of faith after beginning by faith? Look at the fruit of your life. If the fruit of your life is fear then you are not living by faith. If what is coming out of you is the works of the flesh: jealousy, envy, strife, hatreds, sexual immorality, impurity and other things like these — then you can know that you are not living by faith. But if the fruit of your life is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control as a whole, then you can know that you are living by faith.

These are not emotions. They are motives. If you are motivated by fear (If I don’t get life right then I won’t get the life I want) then you can must assuredly know that your initial faith is a of little use.. You are trusting the law, heaping condemnation on yourself.

Amen

Starting Wtth "You Are Accepted"

“Only a fraction of the present body of professing Christians are solidly appropriating the justifying work of Christ in their lives. . . . In their day-to-day existence they rely on their sanctification for justification. . . . 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.

In order for a pure and lasting work of spiritual renewal to take place within the church, multitudes within it must be led to build their lives on this foundation. This means that they must be conducted into the light of a full conscious awareness of God’s holiness, the depth of their sin and the sufficiency of the atoning work of Christ for their acceptance with God, not just at the outset of their Christian lives but in every succeeding day.”

Richard F. Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life (Downers Grove, 1979), pages 101-102, italics his.

Hat Tip: Ray Ortlund and Already Not Yet