Literal Godlessness

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post on the godlessness of Republicans chanting "We Built It" at the GOP Convention. Not surprisingly, it wasn't only the Republicans who displayed godlessness. The Democratic Convention exhibited its own powerful example of godlessness.
Here is the quick summary:
1. In 2008 the official Democratic platform had one mention of God. It said, "We need a government that stands up for the hopes, values, and interests of working people, and gives everyone willing to work hard the chance to make the most of their God-given potential."
2. In the current platform, there was no mention of God, but the parallel phrase replaced "God-given potential" with "talent and drive."
3. After being criticized for the elimination of God from their platform, the Democrats passed a motion that put him back in with an amendment that also officially recognized Jersualem as the capital of Israel. If you watch the video of the amendment, it is not clear whether it actually did pass. There seemed to be just as many "No's" as "Aye's." (As a sidenote, this has caused me and my friend Jason to laugh every time a vote comes up on our elder board.)
Now, what strikes me most about this issue is not that God was eliminated. Sometimes it is better to admit that God is not a part of your grid, rather than to include him for political advancement.

What strikes me most is what replaced God. God was replaced by OUR talents and OUR drive. This is convicting to me because these are the things that I normally use to replace God in my own life. Ipractice godlessness when I believe that MY talents and MY drive will take me where I want to go. Nevermind that everything I have, including my talents and drive, are gifts from God himself.
Godlessness is arrogance. It is arrogance when Republicans practice it by shouting, "We built it." It is arrogance when Democrats practice it by replacing "God" with "talents and drive." And it is arrogance when I practice it I don't pray to God, don't rely on God, and don't thank God, but rather rely on my own wisdom and talents and internal motivation.
Those of us who are believers have the privilege of living in an unashamed, absolute display of our dependence upon God. We are free from the need to prove ourselves because God alone justifies. We are free from trying to impress others because we boast in God alone. We are free from the need to defend ourselves because we know that we are broken sinners saved only through the divine sacrifice of the eternal Son of God!
Praise God that we are not only called not to be godless, but we are also set free from the need to be godless. Let's respond with prayerful, humble reliance on an all-powerful, all-good God.

Are You Driving Sin Out, or Putting It to Forced Labor?

There is a strange passage at the beginning of Judges that sums up the state of Israel at that time. Here is an except from Judges 1:27-30:
But Manasseh did not drive out the people of Beth Shan or Taanach or Dor or Ibleam or Megiddo and their surrounding settlements, for the Canaanites were determined to live in that land. When Israel became strong, they pressed the Canaanites into forced labor but never drove them out completely. Nor did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites living in Gezer, but the Canaanites continued to live among them. Neither did Zebulun drive out the Canaanites living in Kitron or Nahalol, so these Canaanites lived among them, but Zebulun did subject them to forced labor. Nor did Asher drive out. . .
You get the point. It goes on and on from there. Simple formula:
1) They did not drive them out.
2) Instead, they subjected them to forced labor.
Why does this matter? Be patient.
In Numbers 33:55-56, this is what God told the people:
But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land, those you allow to remain will become barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides. They will give you trouble in the land where you will live. And then I will do to you what I plan to do to them.
God specifically warns the people. Drive out the surrounding nations. Otherwise they will ensnare you in their idolatry and immorality. They will drag you down.
So, what did Israel do? Instead of driving them out, they kept them around and forced them to be their slaves.
And what happened? Exactly what God predicted: they got caught up in the idolatry and immorality of the people they had refused to drive out.

Here is the purpose for bringing this up. This is the exact way that we often deal with sin in our lives. We are called by God to drive it out. If we are struggling with lust, we are called to be completely pure with our eyes, our bodies, and our minds. If we are struggling with drunkenness or drugs, we are called to stop using them for that artificial, quick-fix high that they bring. If we are struggling with gossip or slander, we are called to stop and to speak about others the way we want them to speak about us. If we are struggling with pride, we are called to be completely humble. While we constantly deal with temptations and struggles, we are not called to drive out most of our sin, but to seek complete purity, making "no provision for the flesh" (Romans 13:14).

This by no means indicates that we are expecting to find complete freedom from our sin. It simply means that we don't intentionally allow an "acceptable" level of sin to linger around. With the power of the Holy Spirit, with the leading of Christ in our lives, and with the partnership of brothers and sisters in Christ, we can experience increased freedom from the influence of sin in our lives. But sometimes we decide that a little sin here and there is relatively harmless. We treat it as if it is no big deal.
Often this is exactly what we do. Instead of driving out sin, we put it to forced labor. We say to sin, "I am going to take over and be in charge. That means that physical violence is out. And adultery is out. And drunkenness is out. But, since I am in charge, I am going to say that dirty jokes, occasional fantasizing, and minor gossip get to stick around and do hard labor. Make no mistake, I am still in charge. But I will let these guys hang around as my slaves so that they can make me feel good every once in a while."
And, then, inevitably, we learn a hard lesson. We are never, ever in charge of sin. We let it stick around to serve us, but we end up serving it. Anyone who sins is a slave to sin, as Romans 6 tells us. When the Israelites put the Canaanites to forced labor, they ended up ensnared. And when we let "little" sins stick around, we end up enslaved.
We do this when we drive out promiscuous sex and one-night stands, but let monogamous sex outside of marriage stick around and serve us. We do this when we drive out harsh and biting comments directed toward our family, but let the same comments directed to political figures stick around and serve us. We do this when we drive out flagrant boasting about our accomplishments, but let subtle feelings of superiority stick around and serve us.

We put sin to forced labor anytime we buy into the idea that we can control its impact upon us. The Israelites quickly learned that they were not in charge of the extent to which the Canaanites influenced them. And because of this, their lives and their nation became a shipwreck. Let's not buy the lie that we can let white lies, light lust, and subtle pride stick around and serve us. Sin never serves us. But we often serve it.

The Theology of "We Built It!"

Last week I wrote a post that was meant to be a warning against Christians (and all people) protesting too strongly to the "You didn't build that" statement of President Obama. At the time I knew that the statement had become a byword with conservatives. I did not know, however, that it would become the rally cry of the GOP Convention.

Now, by criticizing the Republican party it could seem that I am somehow endorsing the Democratic party. That is not my intention at all. That said, this battle cry of the GOP deserves some special attention.
In response to the president's statement, the key phrase at the GOP Convention has been, "We built it!" The phrase is on T-shirts and posters, and the three syllable phrase is being chanted during speeches.
As much as I believe it is a mistake to take exception to someone saying to us, "You didn't build that," I believe it is a far greater mistake to proudly proclaim, "We built it!"
Seriously? We built it?
And this is a party the is claiming to have a greater correlation with the Christian message?
I can think of nothing more godless than proclaiming, "We built it!"
Think of Nebuchadnezzar: Twelve months later, as the king was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon, he said, "Is not this the great Babylon I have built as a royal residence, by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?" (Daniel 4:29-30)
What is God's response to this pride-filled question?
Even as the words were on his lips, a voice came from heaven, "This is what is decreed for you, King Nebuchadnezzar: Your royal authority has been taken from you. You will be driven away from the people and live with the wild animals; you will eat grass like an ox. Seven times will pass by for you until you acknowledge that the Most High is sovereign over all kingdoms on earth and gives them to anyone he wishes." (Daniel 4:31-32)
Nebuchadnezzar proclaimed of Babylon, "I built it!" And God responded by humbling him in profound ways until he saw his smallness and God's majesty.
Think of the Tower of Babel: Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth." (Genesis 11:4)
The people said, "We need to build something great; otherwise we will be unimportant." God responded to this by thwarting their plan and confusing their languages. No one makes himself great. That is God's job.
Perhaps the passages that speaks most directly to the phrase, "We built it" is Psalm 127:1: Unless the LORD builds the house, the builders labor in vain.
Humility is central to the Christian life. We are humble because we recognize that everything we have is from God. Everything! The ability to breath, the skills to work, the intelligence to think. Everything is from God. And, most importantly, our righteousness, hope, and forgiveness is from what God has done for us through his Son, Jesus Christ.
We haven't built anything. Self-sufficiency is not a Christian value. It is an idol that distracts us from true Christian attitudes.
What if someone at the GOP Convention came out and said this: "We believe that God has gifted human beings with creativity and that greater governmental regulations stifle that creativity. Therefore, we believe that America will prosper in greater ways if we allow greater freedom for that God-given and God-directed creativity to flourish." This would reflect a disagreement with the president's policies without embracing self-sufficiency.
It is no surprise that the GOP disagrees with the president's policies and plans. What is a bit surprising is that their new slogan is so flagrantly godless. It is sad. Especially for a party the claims to be in line with "Christian values."
No Christian should ever proclaim, "I/we built it."

Unless, of course, you have a desire to eat grass for seven years.

"You didn't build that" and the Gospel

President Obama  made some waves about a month ago with his now infamous "You didn't build that" statement. In case you are unaware of the statement, here it is in extended format.

"If you've been successful, you didn't get there on your own. You didn't get there on your own. I'm always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something--there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in road and bridges. If you've got a business--you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet."

Many have taken great offense at this statement. In fact, one small business owner catered an Obama event while wearing a T-shirt that said, "Government didn't build my business, I DID."
Now, there is no doubt that many will take this post as a political exploration. That is not my intention. Let me try to be as clear as I can on the purpose of this post.
I am not terribly interested in the question, "What is the role of the government in the lives of Americans?" I certainly have my own opinions about that issue, but I don't want this post to be about whether or not the President was right in his statement, or whether or not he is right in the policies that follow this line of reasoning.

Here is the question that does interest me: "Why were we so offended by his statement?"

Let me share two reasons why the backlash against the president's statement concerns me:

1. In my own life, I see a lot of truth in his statement. 
I will speak of my own life for those of you who disagree. Let me give an example. I am a pastor and I preach sermons. If I got a lot of good feedback on a particular sermon, and then someone else said, "You didn't create that sermon," I would probably be offended. But then I would realize that they were right. First of all, the whole point of my sermons is not to come up with original thoughts, but to say what God has said. Beyond this, each of my sermons is influenced by professors like Will Varner and Tom Halstead and Paul Felix and Al Bayliss and Paul Metzger. They also draw heavily on authors like C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, F.F. Bruce, Edmund Clowney, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, John Piper, Tim Keller, and Randy Alcorn. And I never would have been exposed to any of these people if it weren't for my parents and my youth pastor and my friends, not to mention college and seminary presidents and book publishers.
My point is that I would be exercising short-sighted pride if I were to act as if any of my success in life was due only to my individual choices. Life doesn't work that way. Our actions impact one another in negative and positive ways. We are indebted to many, and this should bring humility.
It might not be correct for someone to say of my accomplishments, "You didn't do that." But it certainly would be correct to say, "You didn't do that alone."
Again, I am not saying that this justified big government, but it does justify humility.

2. The Gospel of Jesus says, "You didn't do that."
This is the more important point to me. For those of us who are believers in Jesus Christ, we must be careful anytime we start to say, "I did that!" When we get into the habit of using this phrase about our accomplishments and successes, we are in danger of undercutting the gospel of Jesus.
In Deuteronomy 8:17-18 Moses warns the people of Israel: You may say to yourself, "My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me." But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today.
The people are warned not to think that their success is due to their own strength and wisdom and diligence. It is all due to God.
Pause for a moment and answer this question. What is it called when we proudly proclaim, "I did that." It is called boasting. "I scored that goal," "I built that building," "I made that money." All of these are boasts. Consider what the Bible says about boasting.
Jeremiah 9:23-24 says, Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have understanding to know me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight.
Our boast must not be anything that we think comes from ourselves. Our boast is how great God is. Speaking of boasting, look at what the Apostle Paul says in Romans 3:27-28: Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. Because of what law? The law that requires works? No, because of the law that requires faith. For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. We are excluded from boasting because the whole message about Jesus is not that we did some great thing by embracing him, but that he did a great work by bringing salvation for us.
Perhaps most powerful are Paul's words in Galatians 6:14: May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
Once again, don't focus on what this means about what government should or should not do. Focus on the attitude of the heart that calls out, "You didn't do this, I DID THIS!" Whether it is about starting a business or preaching a sermon or parenting your children or staying sober, we make a mistake when we place importance on getting recognition. When we find ourselves needing that credit and affirmation, an idol has crept into our hearts.

And the most frightening prospect is that this deception would cause us to believe that we deserve some credit for being Christians. True Christianity can bring nothing but humility. Embracing Jesus is an open admission that we are wrong an sinful and and lost and needy. We throw ourselves at the mercy of God and ask him to save us. And he does. HE saves us. The Christian message is not, "You can do it"; the Christian message is, "God has done it!"
As individualistic Americans we have a hard time accepting the idea that we are nothing more than recipients when it comes to our salvation. We get no credit for it and we find no boasting in it. We boast only in the one who did it for us.
Let's not forget that this is the core of our message and the core of our lives.

Let's be slow to take offense whenever anyone says to us, "You didn't do that."

Broken for You

This past Sunday we had communion at Life Bible Fellowship Church. I was near the back as the elements were passed. The structure is that the bread (broken crackers) were passed, the the cups were passed, and then we were all going to partake together.
As the elements were being a passed, a man entered the back of the church. Because he was late, he had missed the passing of the bread and was only in time for the cup. I saw that he was going to miss out on the bread, so I broke my cracker in half and handed half of it to him.
As soon as I had done it, the significance of this struck me.
"While he was eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, 'Take and eat; this is my body.'" (Matthew 26:26)
The broken body of Jesus is what we celebrate when we take the Lord's Supper. It suddenly struck me that,  in this specific instance, this fellow church member would not have been able to partake if the bread had not been broken. Then, when I ate the bread, it struck me that the bread could do me no good unless it was further broken. Each bite, each chew, broke it further so that I could consume it.
Similarly, the cup could not benefit me unless it was poured out. It spilled into my mouth when I drank it.
Jesus body and blood cannot benefit us unless his body is broken and his blood is poured out. And in all the passages that chronicle the Lord's Supper, Jesus continually says, "For you."
When I take the Lord's Supper, I find no way around the fact that I am a consumer. You have no bragging rights when you are eating and drinking. The food and liquid do all the work, all the sustaining, all the enlivening. I simply receive. It is humbling. I bring nothing to the table except the ability to consume. There is no pride in benefiting as a consumer.
And you cannot consume food and liquid unless it is broken and poured out.
When I receive Jesus, I am receiving all his benefits. Forgiveness, hope for resurrection, the presence of the Holy Spirit, reconciliation with God and with others. I receive all of these. And I never could benefit from them unless Jesus was broken and poured out. . .for me.
The Lord's Supper is a humbling celebration that parallels what it is like to receive Jesus and respond to him. It is about humbling yourself enough to be a recipient. To celebrate him and his accomplishment, and to lose yourself in that celebration.

This is his body, broken for you. This is his blood, poured out for you.

Reviews of Recent Reads

I've enjoyed reading a lot of fiction lately. Here are a few of my recent reads, along with a quick review on each of them.

Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Summary: Because of my love for The Great Gatsby, I have wanted to read Fitzgerald's other novels. This was good, but not up to the level of Gatsby or This Side of Paradise. The basic plot is about a married couple and their clumsy quest for marital and mental health.
What I Learned: If you replace your God-given purpose for being alive with anything else, you are in danger of mental illness.
Rating: 3.5 Stars out of 5.

1984 by George Orwell

  Summary: I know, I also can't believe that I had never read this one. I had started it once, but I finally read through the whole thing a couple weeks ago. Of course, it is a great dystopian story about individual freedom being eroded by the government.
What I Learned: A correct knowledge of history is of great importance.
Rating: 4.5 Stars out of 5.

The Plague by Albert Camus

Summary: Tim Keller constantly quotes this book, so I had to read it. It is the story of an ordinary town dealing with--you guessed right--a plague. It delves into the different responses on an individual and societal level. Really profound and engrossing.
What I Learned: As Christians, we face mortality with grace and with hope; not denial or defiance.
Rating: 4.5 Stars out of 5.

The Confession by John Grisham

Summary: A book about a criminal secretly confessing that someone else is about to be executed for his crime. It started out okay, and then became preachy, not believable, and painfully lazy writing. I think it is possible to make a good case for being anti-death-penalty, but Grisham does not accomplish that in this book.
What I Learned: If you write some bestsellers at the beginning of your career, you write lazy, mediocre books for the rest of your career. . .and they will still be bestsellers.
Rating: 1.5 Stars out of 5.

Calico Joe by John Grisham

Summary: Unlike Grisham's other book on the list, this one was great. A novella about baseball, nostalgia, and redemption. You can read it in a day. If you grew up loving baseball, I think you will really love the story. If you like the idea of redemption, I think this story will resonate with you.
What I Learned: Our fathers have a huge impact on us, for better or worse.
Rating: 4 Stars out of 5.

Are the Ten Commandments for Today?

Along with many members at Life Bible Fellowship Church, I have been doing a Bible read-through. We are in Leviticus right now, leafing through many of God's commands. Earlier, when we went through Exodus, we encountered the Ten Commandments. Reading through this section reminded me of how frequently we associate the Ten Commandments with the core of Christian morality. We post them at our churches, we fight to keep them in front of schools and courthouses, we have our kids memorize them.

All of this leads me to a question: Are the Ten Commandments for us today? Are they binding for Christians? Are they the centerpiece of Christian morality?

The Law and the Christian

Whether or not the Ten Commandments are the centerpiece of Christian morality is up for debate in this post. But what is not up for debate is that the Ten Commandments are the centerpiece of the Mosaic Law. They come in the context of God communicating his law to Israel. Following the Ten Commandments are laws about sacrifice, priests, food, cleanliness, holy days, marriage, sexuality, property, and a number of other topics.

So, a starting question is this: Is the Mosaic Law binding?

As a whole, the Christian answer is No. The New Testament consistently reinforces this truth. Jesus fulfilled the Law (Matthew 5:17-20). It was a tutor, showing us our sin and bringing us to Christ (Galatians 3:23-25).  Jesus declared all foods to be clean (Mark 7:19, Acts 9:9-15). Sacrifice and the priesthood are no more because Christ is the ultimate priest and the ultimate sacrifice (Hebrews 5:1-10, Hebrews 9-10).

And Christians, since the time of Christ, have acknowledged this reality. We don't offer sacrifices, celebrate the holy days, keep the dietary laws, and observe the cleanliness regulations. We function as if the law is fulfilled and therefore done away with.

Some, But Not All?

Some, however, say that only some of the Mosaic Law is done away with. There is the observation that some of the Old Testament laws are ceremonial, dealing with cleansing and sacrifice and religious elements. Some of the laws are civil, dealing with life in a nation, issues of property and retribution. And some of the laws are moral, dealing with how people live uprightly before God.

The reasoning is that the ceremonial laws are done away with because Christ fulfilled them, the civil laws are done away with because we are not the nation of Israel, but the moral laws are still binding upon us today.

The problem with this is that the ceremonial/civil/moral tags are not biblical tags. They reflect an observation that we have about the laws, but the Bible itself does not label the laws this way.

And, on top of this, many of the civil and ceremonial laws seem to be treated as if they are as much a moral issue as the moral laws themselves. God is equally concerned with all of them.

When the New Testament says that Jesus fulfilled the Law, and therefore Christians are free from the Law, it is saying this about the whole law.

Including the Ten Commandments.

All of the Ten Commandments?

As you take in what may be some shock waves, let me just illustrate that we already practice this. First of all, do most observant Christians today keep the Ten Commandments? You might say, "Not perfectly, but yes." This isn't true, though. We tend to treat nine of them as if they are really important, and one as if it is not. Today, almost no Christians in the world remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.

Someone might say, "Yes, we do. We worship on Sunday. Many Christians also intentionally do not work on Sunday out of observance of the Sabbath."

There are a couple of major problems with this argument, though.

Problem #1: Simply not going to work on Sunday is not keeping the Sabbath. If you read the Old Testament laws about the Sabbath, you will see that people were not permitted to travel, light a fire, gather sticks, or do a host of other things. While some of us might take it easy on Sunday, none of us are truly keeping the Sabbath.

Problem #2: Sunday is not the Sabbath. The Sabbath is the seventh day. Sunday is the first day. We worship on Sunday because that is the day on which Jesus rose. Saturday is the Sabbath.

And the New Testament clearly says that we are no longer bound to keep the Sabbath (Romans 14:5-6, Colossians 2:16-17). That is a part of the shadow (according to Paul in Colossians), and now the reality behind the shadow has come. The Sabbath was the picture, and now the real thing has come in Christ. We now celebrate the reality and not the shadow.

Do We Then Have No Law?

A couple of big questions come up when we start to take all of this in:

1. Are none of the Ten Commandments binding today?

2. Do Christians have no Law at all?

These questions are related, and the answer to both of them is found in what the New Testament says about the Law for believers. 

Christians don't have ten commandments; we have one. Our law is the law of love. Jesus said this in John 13:34: "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another." He reiterates this in Matthew 22:37-40 and John 15:12-13. John reiterates this command in 1 John 4:7-21. Paul reiterates this in Romans 13:8-10 and Galatians 5:13-15. Christians now bind themselves to the Law of Love. Love God and, through his, love your neighbor.

Is Love Enough?

But isn't this horribly subjective? Can't people just say they're loving others through promiscuous sex, through appeasing false beliefs, and through a number of other vices? They can. But the New Testament brings clarity. You may realize that nine out of the ten commandments are consistently reiterated in the New Testament (as already stated, the Sabbath is not). Why is this? Because it is never loving to commit adultery. It is never loving to murder someone. It is never loving to steal from someone. It is never loving to bear false witness. The Bible directs us away from our puppy-dogs-and-ice-cream false definition of love to the the true definition of love, a robust sacrifice for others which is based on God's revealed truth.

So, In Conclusion

Do we keep the Ten Commandments today? Well, we keep nine of them. But the reason we keep them is not because they are the centerpiece of morality. They are not. The law of love fulfills Christian morality. The nine remaining commandments, as well as other imperatives in the New Testament, bring clarity to the law of love.

I want to suggest that we stop posting the Ten Commandments in our homes and churches. This is not because they are bad, but because this gives the impression that we are still living under law. "Believe in Jesus in order to be saved, and then do these ten things." That is not the gospel. The gospel is that the love of God, poured out through Jesus, sets us free to love others.

Perhaps we could replace our posters of the Ten Commandments with a poster of the One Commandment. Just a thought.