Grace, Truth and Healing, Part 2

Source: Redeemer City to City Blog

By Scott Sauls, Senior Director of Community Formation

Redeemer Presbyterian Church of New York City

Building an Atmosphere that is "Full of Truth"

This section is the second of two sections dealing with what it means to cultivate the "aroma of Jesus" in our ministries. We will consider how specifically to encourage a Jesus-like ministry atmosphere that is "full of truth" (John 1:14), to the end that people of all stripes (whether Christian or not) become convinced that there is nothing more wonderful, nothing more exciting, and nothing more life-giving than being an obedient follower of Jesus.

As we think about forming Christ-centered messages, we must keep in mind several key attributes of a message that is truly Christ-centered and therefore "full of truth," we must consider several factors with regard to our use and presentation of the Law of God. As was the case with Paul, our mission and primary dream for those under our ministry is that "Christ be formed in (them)" (Galatians 4:19), meaning that their character as well as ours become conformed to His, that they become obedient to God's commands as a way of life. But this is tricky, because true obedience that aligns with Jesus as "the truth," is obedience from the inside-out - the kind of obedience offered not to use God and put Him in our debt, but rather to experience in greater depth the riches of His loveliness and worth. In short, we must encourage an obedience that responds to the love of Jesus. Any other kind is religion, not Christianity.

First, it is important to discern and to reject the three primary misuses of the Law of God.

Following are three "misuses" that we would do well to discern and reject:

The liberal misuse of God's Law. Those who come from this perspective tend to be resistant to the actual commands of God. Instead, liberally-minded people will see God's commands as oppressive and will replace them with a new law - the law of tolerance. For the liberal person, the only real "absolute" is that there are no absolutes. All people should be tolerated and accepted, except for those who are intolerant! The problem with this approach to ministry should be obvious - to add to or to take away from the Word of God puts one in great danger (Revelation 22)!

The conservative misuse of God's Law. Those who come from this perspective tend to view the commands of God primarily in terms of duty. If you keep the commands, you have done your duty. If you don't, you will be judged and things will not go well for you. Period. God's Law by conservatives is viewed almost exclusively in legal terms and little if at all in relational terms. For the conservative person, there is generally very little if any dancing in the heart over the beauty of God's commands. In some conservative circles, a primary sign that you are in the center of God's will is that you are miserable and grumpy! The Bible gives such a different picture, however. Psalms 1 teaches us that the Law of God is the believer's delight! The writer of Psalms 119 says (you can almost hear him shouting it!), "O how I love Your law!" He absolutely adores God's commands and in no way sees them as a "burden that must be kept" or "a duty around which I must center my life." While the Law is duty, it is so very much MORE than duty! If we or those in our ministry are consistently burdened by our presentation of God's commands, then it is likely that we are missing the heart of the Law altogether. 1 John tells us that for the rightly-motivated believer, God's commands are not burdensome!

The antinomian misuse of God's Law. Those who come from this perspective tend to view the commands of God as being optional. Antinomian means "against law" - the thought being that one can receive Jesus as Savior yet refuse Jesus as Lord. The problems with this are obvious from Scripture. Jesus Himself said, "Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord' and not do what I say?" James reminds us that "Faith without works is dead." Martin Luther, the champion of grace himself, said that we are saved by faith alone, but never by a faith that is alone.

The following chart attempts to distinguish between the various uses (and misuses) of God's Law. We do well to labor passionately to present the Law of God, but to do so from the Christ- and Gospel-centered approach and none other.

Second, it is important to treat God's commands as an expression of His love.

Remember, God's Law is not merely legal. While it does have a legal thrust, it is also deeply relational. God gives us His law in order to set us free, not to burden us. Consider the following:

God's commands, rightly understood, are to be adored. The overwhelming testimony of the writers of Scripture was that the Law of God was a breathtakingly beautiful thing. To them, it was not oppressive and freedom-robbing, but life-giving. It was not merely "duty" but delight. It was not an option but a blessed treasure, the only thing that made sense!

God's commands are given to provide freedom. It is crucial to understand the original meaning and context of the word torah (Law). For the Jew who lived in the time of Moses, this was the word used to describe a loving father's instruction to his children. When presenting any command of God to people under our ministries, we need to start with the question, "What motivates a parent to tell his/her children to stay out of the street, or to eat vegetables, or to get 10 hours of sleep?" The answer to this question, always and forever, is that the parent has a deep desire for the health and well-being of the child. As such, the parent surrounds his/her children with loving, life-giving laws! This is a mere reflection of the heart of God who gives His Law from the same motivations toward His children.

God's commands are given to provide protection. God's Law communicates the Creator's design for what it means to be truly human. It tells us how we can pursue our potential, how we can "be all we can be!" If you take a fish out of water, what happens? The fish becomes anxious and afraid. All sorts of immediate distortions are introduced into the fish's existence. Only when you put the fish back in his designed habitat will the fish thrive again. Otherwise he will eventually die. It is no different with a human being where the Law of God is concerned. The Law is our habitat! So, when we present the Law of God to our own hearts and to the hearts of those under our ministries, we must constantly be communicating the following things about it:

- The Law will benefit you! Labor to show them how life "within God's design" will enhance the quality of their lives!

- The law will protect you! Labor to show them the inevitable distortions that will be introduced if they choose to depart from God's design. Show them how God's Law will "bite back" if they ignore or refuse it. As Francis Schaeffer was so well known for, learn to take people to the logical conclusion of their unbiblical worldviews and life-choices.

- The law is lovely! We must bring people to the place of seeing God's Law as the writers of Scripture saw it - as beautiful, the only thing that truly makes sense for those who wish to live life to the fullest.

Third, it is important to emphasize obedience at the motivational level, not merely the behavioral level.

Jesus Himself said that it is a good root that makes a good tree bear good fruit. The implication is that we obey God because of the people we have become on the inside, and for no other reason. We love (and therefore obey) God because God first loved us. It is only a clear vision of the loveliness of Jesus and the Gospel that we or the people under our ministries will obey in a way that will honor God and set the heart free. This has several implications for ministry:

We must encourage a "WANT to" obedience rather than "HAVE to" obedience. True obedience comes from a heart that loves and enjoys the things of God, not from a heart that is duty-bound. As leaders, we must not be satisfied with any kind of "obedience" except the kind of obedience that comes from a heart that desires to obey God and does so naturally, almost without even thinking about it. Think of Michael Jordan as an example. Michael is known as one of the hardest working athletes ever - he spent unparalleled amounts of time and energy honing his skills (just as we as believers must "train ourselves for godliness!"). But when Michael got to game time, basketball had become so much a part of him that he excelled without even thinking about it. When you become a certain kind of person rather than trying to be a certain kind of person, it completely re-orients your motivational dynamic. One example is the "methods" we choose to get people to share their faith with non-Christians. Evangelism technique seminars can be very helpful, but the truth of the matter is that most of them lead to a very short-term commitment to share the Gospel, one that will fizzle away sooner rather than later. Why is this the case? It is because many of our "training programs" fail to address the why of evangelism. We focus so much on technique and "how to relate to people" that we ignore the heart! Consider the primary evangelists in the New Testament on the other hand. The Samaritan woman (John 4) went immediately into Samaria to tell as many as she could about Jesus. The Gerasene demoniac (Mark 5), when told by Jesus to go and tell his family what the Lord had done to heal him, instead goes into the Decapolis (Ten cities!) to tell as many people as he could about the healing he had received! What motivated these people to "share their faith"? It was the fact that Jesus had become so breathtakingly beautiful and irresistible to them that they absolutely had to tell others! I remember when Mark McGwire was about to hit his record-breaking home run for the St. Louis Cardinals several years ago - when he got up to bat I just HAD to call my wife Patti in to watch it with me (even though she's not a big sports fan!). The point is that when things become beautiful to us, our enjoyment of them is not complete until we have shared it. So here's the application if teaching people to evangelize is our issue - we teach the heart first, and the behavior follows once the Gospel becomes beautiful to the heart! This is the case with any command of God as we present it. If we present the Law as primarily behavior-modification, the behavior will happen on the outside but the heart will not change, it will fizzle as soon as the guilt wears off. On the other hand, if we present the Law as a beautiful expression of God's care for the people we teach and lead, we will begin to see people change at the motivational level, which then produces lasting fruit that is in keeping with repentance. I think it was Steve Brown who once said, "I love to sin, but the reason I choose not to is because I love Jesus more!"

So, our "strategy" for encouraging people to obey God is to show them the beauty of Jesus on a regular basis! When Jesus becomes truly beautiful, truly lovely to people, they cannot help but follow Him! His commands become irresistible! We will always give our lives effortlessly to the things that give our lives the most meaning!

Fourth, it is important to emphasize the many rewards of obedience.

The truth of the matter is that God's commands, when followed from a Gospel-motivation, enhance life. Here are just a few of the ways we need to present this to be true:

The reward of fulfillment. As Augustine once said, "Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God." Obedience to God's commands gets us in touch with the "true us" - with the design of our Creator which gives life! Remember Joshua's words, "Do not let this book of the Law depart from your mouth. Meditate on it day and night, and be careful to do everything that is written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful (Joshua 1:8)! When we teach any command of God, we must be careful to highlight enthusiastically how that command will bring ultimate fulfillment and blessedness (happiness!) to those we teach and lead.

The reward of inner peace. There is no fear that God's Laws will "bite back" when we obey them! When we disobey God, it brings distortions, anxiety, and even misery to our inner lives. But when we obey and follow, there is inner peace - an integration of life! Remember the fish out of water example!

The reward of deepened intimacy with God. Once we belong to God through faith in Christ, our position with Him can never be threatened. Nothing in all creation (including ourselves) can separate us from His love (Romans 8)! However, our fellowship with God (our experience of intimacy with Him) is and will always be weakened by disobedience, and strengthened by obedience to His commands. Jesus said, "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him" (John 14:23).

Fifth, it is important to emphasize the relief that can come from knowing we have failed to keep God's commands.

It is both ironic and beautiful that both obedience and disobedience to God's commands can ultimately lead to deeper joy. The rewards of obedience are obvious (as stated above). And there are also deep rewards for those who have come to terms with the fact that they fall short of God's glory every day.

The reward of humility before God and others. As ironic as it may sound, there are few things more wonderful and life-giving than coming to terms with our failure to obey God's commands. As Paul says, "Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more." Knowing that we are saved by mercy and not by our best efforts is extremely liberating. What's more, it makes us tender rather than harsh, gracious rather than judgmental, humble rather than defensive. Don't we all want to be these kinds of people? I for one am absolutely convinced that the most miserable people in the Bible were those who could not bring themselves to admit their failures, because they had built such an identity in their supposed law-keeping. The Pharisees, rather than pleading for mercy and entering into the life of God's grace and forgiveness, chose instead the miserable path of performance, offering "moral and behavioral resumes" to God and other people (and to themselves - remember the Pharisee who prayed "to himself" in Luke 18, so as to feel confident in his own righteousness). This left them in the awful position of either being puffed up with pride (because they thought they were being righteous), despair (because they failed at the laws upon which they built their identities), or denial (because they couldn't handle the thought of being seen as sinful). Those whose hearts were set free, on the other hand, were those like the tax collector who prayed, "God have mercy on me, the sinner," and went home justified and healed.

The reward of knowing that even our most lame efforts evoke the smile of God. Isaiah reminds us that even our best efforts to obey God's commands are going to be tainted with motives that are sinful and therefore damnable - like "filthy rags" (lit., like a used menstrual cloth). Nonetheless, we have assurance that even our weakest desires and attempts to obey God's commands bring pleasure to God's heart! Zephaniah 3:17 is breathtaking, "The Lord... will take great delight in you... He will rejoice over you with loud singing!" I'll never forget the scene in the movie Radio, where the football coach tries to teach the mentally handicapped man (named "Radio") how to write his name. The coach writes it down for him: R-A-D-I-O, and then says, "Now you try it." Radio then smiles, takes a pencil and paper, and proceeds to scribble a bunch of inarticulate nothingness onto the piece of paper. He looks up at the coach and smiles, and the coach, rather than showing his deep disappointment or frustration, looks at Radio and says, "YOU DID IT!" If the people under our care and our teaching are to ever be motivated to attempt obedience (even while knowing their very best efforts will still fall short), we need to regularly pour grace all over even their weakest attempts to follow Jesus. This is how the Gospel is applied to the Law.

The reward of having a BIG Jesus instead of a little Jesus. Another thing that our failure to keep the Law of God does for us is that it enlarges our sense of Jesus, who He is, how much we need Him, and how willing and eager He is to meet our deepest need! The paradox of the gospel is that the more we see our sin, the more large and significant it becomes to our senses, our picture of Jesus and His infinite grace and mercy grows as well. Take a look at Paul's statement in 1 Timothy 1:15-17 to see the truth of this!