Brokenness From Brokenness

This past Sunday our "Family Matters" series continued the discussion on New Testament marriage by focusing on the difficult issue of divorce & remarriage. It's a topic we don't like to talk about because it hits so close to home. All of us have been impacted by it in some way to the point that it's sadly become almost normal. Even in the church, we've adopted cultural views of marriage, divorce, & remarriage that when we take an honest look at Scripture, are in direct conflict with God's Word.

Jesus directly addressed the issue of divorce & remarriage multiple times throughout the Gospel. His message was consistently clear. His message was that the disposable view of marriage that His culture & our culture hold is in defiance of God's design. Our sinful approach to marriage doesn't negate God's design. In fact, Jesus says repeatedly that divorce was permitted, not approved. Divorce became a reality because our heart are hardened toward one another & toward God. Our broken marriages are the result of our broken hearts. Even when the New Testament discusses the grounds on which divorce is permitted, we find that divorce should be the last resort. As Gospel people, reconciliation should always be our goal. That's why in multiple places throughout the New Testament, divorced couples are instructed not to remarry but to stay single or pursue reconciliation. After all, divorces that are on unbiblical grounds only create sin on top of sin as we enter into adulterous remarriages. Based on the New Testaments warnings & instruction on this issue, there is one thing we have to recognize:

"Protecting Your Heart Protects Your Marriage."

If you're single, protect your heart now so that you know how to protect it later. If you're married, protect your heart against unforgiveness, pride, unrepentance, & selfishness. If you don't, they'll eat away at your marriage. If you're divorced & single, take God's word seriously. Was your divorce on biblical grounds of sexual immorality or abandonment by an unbelieving spouse? If not, acknowledge that your divorce was outside the New Testament parameters. Divorce is not an unforgivable sin, but we do need to call it what it is & seek forgiveness. Even if your divorce was on biblical grounds, did you pursue reconciliation? If not, confess your failure to reflect the Gospel, even in such a difficult situation. If you're divorced & remarried, was your remarriage biblical? If not, confess it, find forgiveness at the cross, & then seek to model an Ephesians 5, Gospel marriage. 

We must take God's word seriously. We must spend time in it & asking God to reveal its implications for us & our situations. If not, we are doomed to embrace the cultural view that marriage is for us & about us, & therefore no matter your situation, you have every right to marry, divorce, & remarry as many times as you want until you find that elusive thing: happiness. Instead, let's pursue holiness by protecting our hearts & as a result, protecting our lives & our marriages.

Where Do You Draw The Line?

People are funny, & by funny, I mean strange. We all would say that we would like detailed information or instructions when making a big life decision. In fact, those of us who are Christ followers are perhaps more likely to say that. We want God to give us clear guidance, maybe even step by step instructions to follow in order to not only make a good decision but a decision that is in God's will. This is where the funny/strange part kicks in. My life & my work with other people tell me that as badly as we want detailed instructions from God, we are still prone to end up doing what we want in the end.

1st Samuel 15 gives us a painful insight into this truth about humanity. Though we would read this passage & point our fingers at King Saul, if we're honest, Saul is an empathetic character. We know what it feels like to be Saul. We've been there; we've done it. We've decided to pick & choose which part of God's word we'll follow & which parts we'll ignore or reject. We, like Saul, give reasons/excuses as to why we don't do what God has shown us in His word, but the result is the same: When we reject doing God's word, God rejects using us. We need to understand a powerful spiritual truth at play when it comes to our faith, love, & obedience to God.

"The Line Where Our Obedience To Christ Ends 

Is The Same Line Where Our Love For Christ Ends."

Jesus makes it very clear when He said, "If you love me, you'll keep my commands." What's Jesus mean here? It's pretty simple. If you love Jesus, you'll trust Jesus. If you trust Jesus, you'll obey Jesus. Simply put, your obedience to Christ & His word is a reflection of your faith in & love for Christ. This is an uncomfortable truth. We don't like to acknowledge that our love for Jesus has its limits. We somehow think we love Jesus the way He loves us: eternally & unconditionally. Well, I hate to break it to us all, but we don't love Jesus like He loves us. Wherever we choose to disobey is a place where we're choosing not to love Jesus. You see, Scripture doesn't present an emotional view of love. Instead, love is presented as an act of someone's will. Therefore, you can choose to love even when you don't feel it, which also means you can choose not to love even if you claim to "feel" it. 

Where is that line in your life? Where is the line where your love for Christ ends? We all have that place, & we owe it to ourselves to identify where that place really is. After all, we need to be aware of just how far we have left to grow, & we also need to recognize that place where we don't yet trust or love Jesus because that's exactly the place where God is going to press into us, stretch us, & challenge us to greater depths of faith & love. So where do you draw the line?

The Gospel & Your Family

Family is a hot topic issue right now. What is a family? What constitutes a family? Who has the right to get married & start a family? All these questions are currently being debated, & many people are sounding the alarm that the "family is under attack." To me the alarm is a little late. Families have always been under pressure. Take a look at Genesis 3 & the account of how sin entered into the world. The enemy's very first tactic for leading humanity into temptation & sin involved a family. It was the classic divide & conquer approach, & once sin had entered the world, God reveals that a primary consequence was going to be strife & conflict in the family, between husband & wife. So the pressures on family aren't new. The current issues may be new, but the tactic is literally as old as dirt. 

The new wrinkle that many of us have to struggle with is that some people evidently have ideal, perfect families. After all, look at their Facebook or Instagram feed. They're always smiling. Their children are so talented, smart, & well behaved. It's as if everything in their world is just right. Here's the problem though: they're only showing you what they're OK with you seeing. The perfect family is a mirage, & social media has helped perpetuate it. So we go to the local book store or jump on Amazon & comb through the bottomless pile of self-help & how to books, both spiritual & secular, to help us figure out how to make our families stronger, yet we end up feeling frustrated. The problem isn't so much that we're looking for a solution, but that we're looking for a solution from the wrong source. You can't build a stronger marriage or family by mastering 12 steps or becoming a better you. You become a better spouse, parent, child, or sibling by going back to the transforming power of the Gospel.

"You Don't Build A Stronger Family By Being A Better Spouse Or Parent.

You Do It By Becoming More Like Jesus."

If you're working hard to become a better you, there's a pretty good chance you'll only make things worse because you're still about you. Thankfully, Jesus came to redeem you & transform you to become more like Him. The Gospel isn't just the means by which you & I are saved. The Gospel is the means by which are lives are transformed so that we experience life to the fullest, the way God desires us to. What do I mean by all this? It's simple: Husbands, you don't become a better husband by just unloading the dishwasher, doing laundry, not yelling so much, or bringing home a bigger paycheck. You become a better husband by becoming more like Christ as you sacrificially love your wife & children the way Christ sacrificially loved us. Wives, you don't become a better wife by always agreeing with your husband, doing all the housework, or any other stereotype that you can think of. You become a better wife by becoming more like Christ who was submitted to the will of His Father & to the desperate need of humanity for a Savior. Parents, you don't become better parents just by being super strict, & it definitely doesn't happen by being your child's BFF. You become better parents by becoming more like Christ who loves us, even in our sin, but who also comes alongside us & teaches us what obedience & faithfulness looks like. 

Ephesians 5 & 6 are loaded with incredible pictures of how the Gospel shapes & transforms us as families. Men, you can't love your wives as Christ loved the church in your own strength. Ladies, you cannot submit to your husbands as you do to the Lord in your own strength. Kids cannot obey their parents in their own strength. Parents in their own strength will not train their children up in the ways of the Lord. None of this happens in our own strength because our strength is tainted & twisted by sin. However, when we find new life in Christ that's not just about eternity. It's about right now too. When we keep our hearts & minds focused on & rooted in the Gospel, we'll be constantly reminded of the lavish grace & love poured out on us, & that can't help but move us toward real life transformation.

Stop trying to be a better you, & start pursuing Jesus. Root yourself in the Gospel. Live from the power of the Gospel, & as you become more like Christ, you'll see your family become healthier, stronger, & more glorifying to God.

The Gospel Isn't An Appetizer

Most of us have a terrible problem with our faith. It's something that we all tend to drift toward if we're not really careful. In fact, Martin Luther called it our "default mode". Even 500 years ago, Luther understood that it's as if our hearts come with a factory setting that we will constantly be tempted to go back to in our relationship with God. That default mode is religion, the pursuit of a right standing with God based on our own hard work & goodness (which is just a toned down, less offensive word for self-righteousness).

So how does this work? Typically it goes something like this. Somehow we recognize our sin. We may be like the younger son in Jesus' Parable of the Lost Son, & we've rebelled & chased after all the stuff this world promises only find a bunch of broken promises. Through the Gospel, we're humbled, & we return to God repentant & looking for restoration in Jesus. Or maybe we're the older, morally upright brother. We've been working really hard to do the right thing & be a good person, but at some point the Gospel reveals the futility & emptiness that lurks at the end of that road as well. So we stop trying to slave away for God hoping to earn a place in His family, & instead we embrace that through faith in Christ we are His child. In an instant our sins are washed away, & we're justified before God through Jesus.

Then it begins to happen. And it usually doesn't take very long. We begin to drift toward the default mode of hard work, self motivated moral goodness, & religious goodness. We begin to measure our growth by how hard we try or by pointing out "those things" that others do that we don't. Starts sounding strangely like the religious, yet lost condition that some of us were rescued out of, doesn't it? In fact, for many of us it becomes so extreme that we begin to act as if our relationship with God is reliant on how good we are. Somewhere along the way we think we outgrow the Gospel. Sure, the Gospel is what saves us, but it's our hard work that keep us saved.

"It's Time For Us To Stop Viewing Our Justification As An Extension 

Of Our Sanctification & Start Viewing Our Sanctification 

As An Extension Of Our Justification."

What do I mean by that? Well answer this question? What saved you? Your hard work or the power of the Gospel? Well if the Gospel is the only thing that saved you & brought you into the family of God, why would you think that all of a sudden you can grow & become more like Christ in your own strength & goodness. Instead of outgrowing the Gospel, we need to be camp out in the Gospel. If you're trying to become more generous, it doesn't happen by just trying hard or by beating yourself up for being greedy. You & I become more generous by constantly meditating on the Gospel that reminds us of the generosity of God revealed in Jesus. When we walk with a constant awareness of how sacrificially generous Jesus was on our behalf, becoming more generous with something as trivial as our stuff will start to become second nature. The same is true in our marriages. We don't become better husbands or wives by working harder. We grow by constantly reflecting on the incredible love of Christ toward us & His submission to the Father's will. As we see the lengths Jesus was willing to go to for us, we'll become more loving toward one another & sensitive to each other's needs.

The Gospel isn't the appetizer to your relationship with God. It's not something that gets you started. It's the appetizer, soup, main course, & dessert! Tim Keller says it this way, "The Gospel then isn't the ABCs of the Christian faith. It's the A to Z of the faith." If you think you've grown to the point of moving on from the crucified & resurrected Jesus, then you might want to think about what exactly it is that you are growing. So stop snacking on the Gospel, & feast on the glorious depth & riches that it holds for us as we not only come into the family of God but as we grow as His children.

That Doesn't Mean What You Think It Means

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." Ah the brilliance of Inigo Montoya. Most of us have either been in Inigo's position or Vizzini's. A word gets used, but maybe we're not exactly using it correctly. After all, when someone says, "I could care less..." there actually saying the opposite of what they mean.

There's a word kind of like that that we have thrown around for centuries in regard to one of Jesus' stories, but it's nowhere in the actual story, & the way we've used it has actually hurt the meaning of the word. That word is "prodigal." It's a famous word because it's in the Bible, & it has made it's way into our culture, but very few people even know what it means, but if they did, it may make a big difference in how we understand Jesus' parable. If you were to ask someone on the street what "prodigal" means, you'd probably get responses like "rebellious", "runaway", or "wild child". But that word doesn't mean what you think it means, & it doesn't really apply to who you think it does.

"Prodigal" means "extravagant, reckless, lavish", & in the story Jesus told we assume that it applies primarily to the younger son who ran away from home & wasted his inheritance on wild living before he had to humbly come home. The truth however is far more complicated & more beautiful. You see that son was prodigal. He was reckless. He did live extravagantly, but when the money ran out, & he came home what he found was a far more extravagant, reckless, & lavish father than he could have predicted. Instead of being shunned or run off the property because of the dishonor he had brought on the family, the father welcomed him home, restored his place in the family, & threw a lavish party to celebrate. And Jesus uses that story to illustrate the graphic, extravagant, reckless, & costly grace that God has extended to us.

You & I have sinned lavishly, reckless, & extravagantly. The human heart has devised some ingenious ways to dishonor & rebel against God. However, when that rebellion or self-righteousness leaves us empty & we're brought to a place of repentance, what we find is that our extravagant sin is met with even more extravagant grace. Paul tells us in Romans 5 that "where sin increased, grace increased all the more." What that means is that no matter how rebellious or self righteous we are we are met with more than enough grace to cover the cost of our sin & restore us to our Heavenly Father.

"God Responds To Repentant Rebels & Pursues Religious Rebels With Reckless Grace."

In Jesus' parables both sons are cut off from their father. One is cut off by his rebellion, the other by his self righteousness. However, the father reaches out to both with reckless, extravagant, lavish, over the top grace. In Christ that same grace is being offered right now to all of us who've run away & chased our own path & to all of us who have tried to put God in our debt due to our own goodness. No matter which son you identify with, there's grace enough for us all if we will simply come back to the Father.

Good Kid, Bad Kid

We just started a new message series at Zebulon Baptist Church called Prodigal. The thing about Jesus' "Parable of the Prodigal Son" is that most of us have heard it (or some version of it) so many times that it's kind of gotten stale. Let's face it, if you were reading through the Gospel of Luke, when you got to chapter 15, you'd at least be tempted to think, "I know this story inside & out, so I'll just skim through to get to chapter 16." It's totally natural. It's why movies that we've seen over & over begin to lose their punch & books that we've read over & over begin to lose their appeal. Familiarity may not always breed contempt, but it does lead us to a "been there, done that" attitude, even about the Bible.

The problem with that mindset is that we end up missing out on the depth that is present in so much of God's word, but especially in this parable. After all, most of us think that the parable is about a punk bratty kid who demands his inheritance, blows it on a wild lifestyle, humbly returns home, & is greeted by a forgiving father who restores him to the family. That's almost always the way this parable is portrayed both in the church & in pop culture. However, when you dig beneath the surface, you'll start to realize that his part of the story isn't even the point. The part of the story we've romanticized is basically a vehicle Jesus uses to get to the real point. The real point Jesus is trying to make is centered around the older brother who stayed home, not the younger brother who ran away.

Take some time this week to go back & read this parable in Luke 15. When you really read it, you discover that these brothers aren't that different. Neither of them were interested in their father. They wanted their inheritance, but they didn't want their father. The younger son simply was open & honest about it. The older brother, on the other hand, was much more subtle & manipulative. He didn't dare ask for his inheritance early. Instead he would simply hang around, do what he was supposed to do, so that he could eventually get the pay off. In the end all either of the brothers wanted was the payoff. You see it in the older brother when he scolds his father for welcoming his brother home. After all, the younger son is the bad kid; he doesn't deserve all the fuss, but he, the older brother, was the good kid. He did everything he was supposed to do. He "slaved away". Therefore he deserved good things. 

At the end of the story, the son who is "lost" isn't the bad kid who came back home. It's the older son who never left, but who assumed that his good, obedient behavior put the father in his debt. Jesus had a powerful spiritual truth He desperately wanted His audience of "sinners, tax collectors, & Pharisees" to understand.

"You Can Be Just As Lost In Your Goodness

As You Can In Your Badness."

Look at this way: Both of these brothers were trying to make their own way in the world. The younger son was going to make his way by rebelling against his father, wishing him dead, & taking his portion of the inheritance so that he could make his own way. The older son, although he stayed home & did everything he was supposed to do, was still trying to make his own way. He viewed his relationship with the father as a slave/master relationship. "I do A, B, & C for you, therefore, you need to do X, Y, & Z for me." In the end the older son was trying to secure his own way in the world. 

Spiritually, most everyone does the same thing. Many of us run away from God, tell Him we don't want to have anything to do with Him (unless an emergency pops up), & set out to live our own life by our own standards. Then there's the rest of us. We're religious. We embrace traditional, Judeo-Christian morals & try to be "good people." And somehow we think that the pursuit of being good people puts God in a position of debt toward us. We've been good. Therefore, God has to bless us, & ultimately God has to forgive us for those few times we weren't good people. All that is is another attempt to make our own way in life. We've just chosen a moralistic path, but we've never submitted ourselves to our Heavenly Father. In the end, both paths are dead ends. Whether you're a wild child or the good child, if you reject the Father, He has no choice but to reject you as well. That's why self-righteousness is so dangerous. It subtly leads us to believe we're in a right relationship with our Father, but the truth is that we're trying to manipulate Him. When we think that practicing our religion or good morals somehow puts God in debt to us, it only blinds us to our own debt to Him.

Who are you in the story of two lost sons? Are you the good kid or the bad kid? How have you tried to make your own way or manipulate God? Here's the good news: our Heavenly Father is the same loving, gracious, pursuing father we see in the parable. He graciously welcomed the rebel back home while also pursuing the self-righteous son to finally embrace their relationship as father & son rather than thinking he somehow had to work for the father's love & blessings.

Say What?

Obedience is always a tricky thing in Christian circles. On one hand, you've got the group that is all about obedience. In fact, they're usually so into obedience that it's taken to unhealthy, unbiblical levels. For them obedience is the key to God's love, not the response to God's love. On the other hand, you have the group that responds to any call for obedience as a call for "legalism" or "being a Pharisee". They point to grace. And they're right; we're saved by grace alone through faith alone, but again shouldn't experiencing that love & grace move us toward greater faithfulness & obedience to the one who has been so gracious & loving to us? So which is it, who's right? Should we be obedient or should we just trust in grace?

Maybe we're asking the wrong question. Maybe we should instead ask ourselves "why do i obey?" What's the purpose of my obedience? What does my obedience say? What does it say about me? What does it say about God? Here's an important truth about obedience.

"Obedience Is Always A Declaration Of Faith."

If obedience is always a declaration of faith, it demands that we discover the motivation for our obedience, & when you do that, you'll learn where your faith really lies. Legalistic obedience declares faith in self. Loving obedience declares faith in Christ.

The tension between obedience & grace almost always boils down to a misunderstanding of grace. For those of us who operate in the obedience system, we've either severely underestimated God's grace or our need for it. Either way, we think we have to bridge the gap rather than trusting in Christ's atoning death. For those of us who operate in the grace system, we tend to either severely underestimate the effects of our sin or the incredible cost Christ paid at the cross. Therefore, we don't pursue a holy life that reflects Christ's holiness. So wherever you fall on the spectrum, spend some time looking at why you do what you do. Do you obey because you think it makes God love you? God's love for you was settled at the cross. Nothing you do changes that. The only question is if you'll place your faith in what He's done.

Are you so afraid of becoming a legalist that you don't really worry about whether you're growing in holiness & obedience? Take a look at what Paul says in Titus 2. Paul tells us that the same grace that reveals salvation to us is the grace that teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness. That means if you've really grasped the grace poured out at the cross, you'll not only receive it for salvation; you'll also walk in it as it leads you to greater holiness. So obedience isn't about obeying for obeying's sake. It's a loving response to a gracious Savior. Your obedience doesn't have to be a vain declaration of faith in self. It can be a beautiful declaration of faith in the Savior who saved a hopeless sinner & who is transforming that sinner into a new creation that reflects his holiness & grace.