Comments on: Word, Spirit, Gospel and Mission (Part 10)

By: James Kim

James Kim — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 13:18:14 +0000

Thanks Joe, Ben for wonderful posts. These days we study Galatians. Gal 6:12,14 say, “Those who want to make a good impression outwardly are trying to compel you to be circumcisedâ€”” “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christâ€”” Our new identity in Jesus was highly elevated something like, “sons of God, co-heirs of Christ”. By the grace of God we were saved from the pit of despair, misery and darkness. Through conversion, our situation was greatly elevated from nobody to somebody, from infamous to famous as we often hear from many life testimonies. However, in reality, our sinful nature was not completely crucified. Because of our human sinful nature, when we have something that others do not have (comparatively speaking), we like to boast about it in our action or secretly in our hearts whatever that may be, wealth, intellect, outward beauty etc. In this world that kind of boasting is well accepted and often desired.
But there is another identity in God when we received his saving grace. Gal 6:3 says, “If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself”. According to Paul, we should come down from “somebody” to “nothing” like the incarnation of Jesus. There is no distinction, no class, no boasting in God. We are in the same ground, Christian or non-Christian, senior or junior. It is my task how to balance these two identities in Jesus. Of course, it is easier said than done. I find myself it is extremely hard. I see this as a process of growing into the image of Jesus.

By: Joe

Joe — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 16:07:55 +0000

Ben, thanks. Your comments make perfect sense.

I have found that when leading a ministry, it is especially difficult to trust Jesus as the real, functional, practical savior of others. The leader’s tendency is to try to step in and become the practical savior of the disciple, becoming his source of knoweldge, is source of encouragement, his conscience, etc. Although well intentioned, it can actually hinder their true sanctification and their personal relationship with God through Christ and the Holy Spirit. As James Kim has noted, the desire to hurry up, preach the gospel and make disciples quickly can be counterproductive. It’s so hard to truly entrust our disciples, our children, and ourselves to Jesus, because he often works more slowly than we want him to, and in different ways than we envision.

I guess it always comes back to the gospel. Whatever we need, at every point in our Christian life, is found in the gospel. And that gospel is always notoriously difficult to believe.

By: Ben Toh

Ben Toh — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 15:38:56 +0000

Thanks, Joe. I love these series of posts.

Indeed, the gospel has been opposed in history most damagingly by those who “believe in God” and “believe in the Bible,” such as the moral legalistic traditional conservative rigidly inflexible Jews, who persecuted the early “free of law” Christians. I’d like to propose a major reason why.

Richard Lovelace (one of Tim Keller’s mentors) explains why in his Dynamics of Spiritual Life. This quote which I’ve shared before best explains it, I think: “The culture is put on as though it were armor against self-doubt, but it becomes a mental strait-jacket.”

Simply speaking, we strongly and emotionally oppose Christ as Savior (though we say and insist that we believe in Jesus and the Bible), because practically and functionally, it is our religious practice, or method, or church/temple/synagogue/denomination tradition that is our real savior, security, stability, and sense of significance. (Sorry for my obsessive love of aliteration.)

I’ve found personally that it is always “so hard” to simply trust Christ as my only Savior. But it is so easy to trust myself, my church, my status, my tenure, my “fruitfulness,” my faithfulness, my “absolute attitude,” my sense of my own significance (or my church’s significance), my children’s success, etc, as my real functional practical savior. May God have mercy on me.

Sorry, if this “abstraction of sorts” doesn’t quite make sense.