Practical Advice for the Christian Life

Readings for today: Colossians 3-4, Psalms 14

Yesterday I spent time with some young people after worship. They had been deeply touched by the sermon. When I challenged our church family to choose life and not death, good and not evil, and to not give the devil a foothold in their lives, these young people were moved to tears. When I shared that because of the power of the Holy Spirit living inside us we are not at the mercy of our circumstances or trapped by any situation or enslaved to our desires or without hope when it comes to battling anxiety, depression, fear, or any other chronic condition; they felt empowered for the first time in a long time in their lives. We talked about the hope we have in Christ and how He gives us the strength to overcome all life throws our way. We talked about the promise of God not being perfection but being sustained and sanctified in the midst of our imperfection. We talked about how to walk with Christ. Setting our minds and hearts on things above and putting to death that which is earthly in us. We prayed together for the Holy Spirit to fill them with everything they need to meet the challenges they face.

I didn’t come up with this advice on my own. I simply adopted what the Apostle Paul shares with his Colossian friends. Listen again to what he says in Colossians 3, “So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Therefore, put to death what belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry….Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self. You are being renewed in knowledge according to the image of your Creator….Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and dearly loved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a grievance against another. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you are also to forgive. Above all, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.” (Colossians‬ ‭3‬:‭1‬-‭5‬, ‭9‬-‭10‬, ‭12‬-‭14‬ ‭CSB‬‬) Paul understands that growth in the Christian life requires two things. It requires us to cling to that which is life. That which is love. That which is light. And it requires us to reject that which is death. That which is sin. That which is darkness. In Christ, we’ve died. We no longer live. Christ lives in us and so our hearts naturally seek that which is above because they are naturally drawn to where Christ is, seated at God’s right hand. At the same time, our earthly body remains with all its earthly desires. And our earthly body is drawn to things on earth. Things like lust and greed and idolatry. So we get pulled in different directions.

The Christian life requires us to make a choice every single day. From the moment we wake up, our sinful nature is struggling against our spiritual nature. The sinful nature is entirely focused on gratifying Self. This leads to all kinds of lust and greed and selfish living. The spiritual nature is entirely focused on glorifying Christ. This leads to all kinds of love and generosity and selflessness. And God gives us the freedom to choose. Which nature will we feed? Which nature will we satisfy? Which nature will we encourage? As God’s chosen ones, we have been set free from the enslaving power of sin and death so we actually have the power and authority to make this choice. Will we choose to set our minds on things above? Will we choose to put to death our sin nature? Will we choose to put off the old self? Will we choose to put on the new self? Choose Christ that you might live, friends!

Readings for tomorrow: 1 Thessalonians 1-2, Psalms 15

Who is God?

Readings for today: Colossians 1-2, Psalms 13

In early December, I have the privilege of chairing the board of the Petros Network. The Petros Network is an organization dedicated to bringing the gospel to unreached villages all over the Horn of Africa by empowering and equipping indigenous church planters. I’ve been part of this ministry for almost fifteen years now and it is one of the greatest blessings of my life. Literally thousands of churches have been planted in that time and over a million new believers have come to faith. It’s incredible. One of the ways I get to serve when I go on a trip is to teach on the character and nature of God. Specifically, I spend a lot of time teaching on the doctrine of the Trinity which declares that the One True God exists eternally as Three Persons. Distinct yet undivided. Different but not separate. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit…all are God. But the Father is not the Son. The Son is not the Spirit. And the Spirit is not the Father. Though they are diverse in their personalities and roles, they all share in the same essence or being. It’s a paradox to be sure and a stumbling block to faith for many. It is also notoriously difficult to translate into local tribal dialects!

The term “Trinity” was coined by a 2nd century African theologian named Tertullian. Considered by many to be the “Father of Western Theology”, Tertullian attempted to put into human words what is ultimately a divine mystery. From the opening pages of Scripture, the One God reveals Himself as a plurality. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth...and the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters...then God said...” The Apostle John affirms this central truth in the opening verses of his Gospel. “In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” And then comes these words today from the Apostle Paul, “Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For everything was created by him, in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and by him all things hold together. He is also the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile everything to himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross..” (Colossians‬ ‭1‬:‭15‬-‭20‬ ‭CSB)

Why is all this important? In the consumeristic and materialistic mindset that marks American Christianity, what is often lost is our wonder and awe at what God has done in Jesus Christ. The magnitude of the miracle of God becoming one of us is something that should bring us to our knees. It should cause our stomachs to flip flop and our hearts to skip a beat. We should all fall face down on the floor in worship and adoration of the Resurrected Christ. And yet, we can barely get to church on Sunday morning. We can barely bring ourselves to pray or read God’s Word on a regular basis. Even during the Christmas season, we spend most of Advent prepping for Santa Claus, decorating the house, and going on spending sprees we cannot afford.

Jesus is the very image of the invisible God. He is the perfect representation of God’s being. In Jesus, the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. He is preeminent over all creation. Jesus is the Word of God Incarnate. The God of the universe taking on human flesh and entering into our world. Jesus is before all things. He created all things. He sustains all things. He reconciles all things. And He will one day glorify all things, whether on earth or in heaven. It is utterly amazing and beyond words that this God...this Jesus...would bend the heavens to come down and become one of us. Be born of a virgin for us. Suffer hardship and pain for us. Shed His own blood for us. Die a humiliating death on the cross for us. Spend three days in the grave for us. Descend into hell itself for us. And rise again from the grave for us. But this is our God. He is faithful and true and nothing can separate us from His love.

As I prepare to enter yet another Christmas season, I find myself asking why is Jesus Christ still not enough? Why do I not spend more time at the manger? More time at the foot of the cross? More time at the empty tomb? More time in silent awe and wonder and worship at what the Triune God has done in giving His only Begotten Son for the sake of the world?

Readings for tomorrow: Colossians 3-4, Psalms 14

The End of Slavery

Readings for today: Philemon, Colossians 1-4

The Bible has often been used to justify the horrors of slavery. Southern slave owners and their preachers in the 18th and 19th centuries proof-texted from all over the Scriptures to justify their crimes. Even well-known pastors and theologians like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield were blind to the sin of slaveholding. Many over the years cite these examples as reasons not to believe the claims of Christianity. After all, if Christianity is the “slaveholders” religion then surely it’s not worth following. I’d agree. At the same time, the Bible birthed the abolitionist movement. Christians like William Wilberforce, John Wesley, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Charles Spurgeon, Charles Finney, and many others relied on passages like the ones we read today from Philemon and Colossians as they launched and organized a movement that put an end to the Atlantic slave trade and brought an end to the practice of slavery in the United States altogether. Furthermore, Christians remain on the forefront of the abolitionist movement to this day through organizations like the International Justice Mission as they battle slavery in all its forms around the world.

In my opinion, the Apostle Paul doesn’t get near enough credit for how radical he must have sounded to his contemporaries. As we’ve said throughout this year, though the Bible was written for us, it was not written to us. And Paul was preaching and writing and theologizing at a time when almost one-third of the world was enslaved. Slavery was normative in Paul’s day. It was part of the economic fabric of the empires of the ancient world. The idea that every human being was made in the image of God and therefore all human beings equal in the eyes of God was radical and far-reaching and had yet to fully take hold. Aristotle himself believed that some people were born to be kings and some were born to be slaves and this was just the natural order of things. And then along came this fiery little apostle whose life had been transformed by his encounter with the Risen Christ and what he preached and taught literally turned the world upside down.

Listen again to what Paul writes to Philemon about his runaway slave, Onesimus. “Maybe it’s all for the best that you lost him for a while. You’re getting him back now for good—and no mere slave this time, but a true Christian brother! That’s what he was to me—he’ll be even more than that to you.”(Philemon‬ ‭1‬:‭15‬-‭16‬ ‭MSG‬‬) Paul’s vision of the Kingdom subverts and undermines every other kingdom on earth. His understanding of the ways of God’s Kingdom radically de-centers all natural human relationships. He upends cultural norms by pressing those he loves deeper into the ethics of Jesus. Philemon has come to Christ under Paul’s preaching. He himself was set free from slavery to sin and death in the name of Jesus and should therefore rejoice and embrace the emancipation of his former slave Onesimus now that he too has become a believer. This is the key for Paul. Because Christ has set us free, we must be about the business of setting others free. Spiritual realities should lead to physical and cultural realities. They are not separate entities.

Listen to how he describes it to the Christians in Colossae. “God rescued us from dead-end alleys and dark dungeons. He’s set us up in the kingdom of the Son he loves so much, the Son who got us out of the pit we were in, got rid of the sins we were doomed to keep repeating.” (Colossians‬ ‭1‬:‭13‬-‭14‬ ‭MSG‬‬) In other words, Christ has set us free. We are no longer slaves to fear. No longer slaves to sin. No longer slaves to the evil one. As a result, every relationship we have in this life is no longer bound by the rules of this world. No longer bound by the cultural practices of this world. No longer subservient to the ways of this world. Relationships are no longer about power or honor or shame or guilt. They are about love and freedom and service. All because we have become new creations in Christ. This is why Paul addresses the core relationships of his day when he talks about marriage and family and work. “Wives, understand and support your husbands by submitting to them in ways that honor the Master. Husbands, go all out in love for your wives. Don’t take advantage of them. Children, do what your parents tell you. This delights the Master no end. Parents, don’t come down too hard on your children or you’ll crush their spirits. Servants, do what you’re told by your earthly masters…Keep in mind always that the ultimate Master you’re serving is Christ…And masters, treat your servants considerately. Be fair with them. Don’t forget for a minute that you, too, serve a Master—God in heaven.” (‭‭Colossians‬ ‭3:18-4‬:‭1‬ ‭MSG‬‬) Paul is not reinforcing existing power dynamics here. He is helping the believers see that they are set free to serve so this world no longer has a hold on them.

Fast forward to our day. How does this same principle apply? Well, the world seems hellbent on the accumulation of wealth and power and influence and control. Christians push the opposite direction. Because we have been set free from the principalities and powers of this present darkness, we are free to give and share and serve and love. In this way, we are still about the business of setting people free.

Readings for tomorrow: Ephesians 1-4