BreedingFerrets.net

Periodically I find it helpful to alert you to some guys and gals working to promote the gospel in our world.  The web can be an endless maze of mental drudgery, so when I come across things that are profitable for the furtherance of the gospel I will attempt to highlight them.  Here are a few examples from this past week:

1.    North Wake Church in Wake Forest, North Carolina is doing an incredible series on the atonement.  Sarah and I attended North Wake during my time at seminary and were amazed by the depth of teaching the elders consistently brought to the table.  Larry Trotter, the senior pastor of North Wake, is one of the most excellent communicators that I know and I am confident that you will find the teaching both challenging and convicting.  If you want to understand the truths of the gospel check out their teaching series online.  As a supplement, “In My Place He Stood Condemned” by JI Packer and Mark Dever is a must for any library. 

2.   Last night I finished the book “Sacred Marriage” by Gary Thomas.  The premise of the book is that God’s design for marriage is not to make you happy, but to make you holy.  Needless to say, the challenge for growth and maturity is explicit throughout and the book is a fantastic resource for anyone at any stage in the marriage journey.  Particularly engaged couples and those in the early years of marriage can find great benefit from establishing marriage on the truths of this fine, gospel-centered, resource. 

3.   Get it on your radar now.  Restore Conference 2009 is coming to the Clemson area.  February 19-21 the campus of Clemson University will be inundated with a conference on marriage and family issues.  Living in a world in which issues like marriage, family, sex, and dating have been distorted beyond recognition, it is important that we restore a Biblical picture of these critical concepts.  Mark Liederbach, professor of ethics at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary will be our keynote speaker with topics including: dating as worship, marriage as worship, parenting as worship, and sex as worship.  You can find out more details online at http://www.restoreconference.org/over the coming weeks. 

4.   Deeper Devotion is an online source for students to interact with the gospel.  My friend, Glenn Ansley posts regular devotions for students, along with music reviews and articles. 

5.   Two of my good buddies, Justin Perry and Drew Tucker and their families are heading to Tampa, FL to plant a church.  These guys have been groomed to plant for several years and will do an excellent job.  You can keep up with their journey on Drew’s blog.  It is always encouraging to see the church on the move.

If you know of other churches, bloggers, or individuals who are making much of the gospel, let me know.  My next blog, “Has the church lost its mind?” should be out by Friday. 

Worship Well,

It’s one of those catchy 90’s songs that just sticks in your head and you can’t get it out.  Written and performed by Alison Krauss the song is a love poem to her new man.   The central line of the song tells her love that “you say it best, when you say nothing at all.”  Alison Krauss’s song became a hit on the modern air waves and could equally become the theme song of many modern churches.

Rather than a sentimental lyric from a smitten lady, these lyrics reveal one of the primary causes of the poor knowledge of God evident in most churches.  In order to properly understand the causes we must begin by looking at the top – those that are leading and teaching in the church.  Having listened to thousands of sermons over the last ten years, I am often left humming Krauss’s song lyrics.

The modern pulpit is filled with trite spiritualism, redundant three point outlines, and emotional manipulation which amount to little more than really saying nothing at all.  Many pastors, while attempting to preach and lead their people, seem to have lost their minds in the process.  In so doing, style replaces substance and the truth of the gospel is hidden behind a veil of false pretense.  I am amazed by the amount of teaching in the church that amounts to saying nothing, really well.   As Shakespeare said in Macbeth, modern sermons are often “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

I see two primary poles on the pendulum of style replacing substance.   One faulty approach occurs when pastors trained in a certain style of preaching and teaching get so locked into their style that if it is not a three point alliterated outline, they cannot preach it.  Often found in traditional, orthodox churches the rote repetition and mind numbing redundancy of most teaching seriously cripples the mind of the average congregant.  In this approach, the constant amen from the choir and the deacon to your left does not make up for the obvious laziness that went into your preparations.

The other approach is more common in young, attractional church models containing “pastors” with an edgy, hip, relational delivery, with 40 minutes of clever monologue and two minutes of Bible.   For them, the Scripture of the day is a great way to launch into their own personal anecdotes and parade their charisma.  Sure, it is baptized behind a superficial use of the Scriptures, but in failing to prominently teach the Bible, people get much more of the preacher than they get of the Bible. 

Aristotle had a great way of helping us think through this dichotomy of style vs. substance in his teaching on the art of rhetoric.

In order for one to effectively communicate any message, Aristotle felt that he must have three characteristics.

1.      Ethos – By this Aristotle referred to the perceived credibility of the communicator.  The modern English word “ethics” is derived from ethos and refers to the authority of the one delivering the message.  Is the speaker an authority on the subject?  Is this person worth listening to?  Does this person actually live and believe what they are saying?  Is the speaker likeable and worthy of respect?

2.      Pathos – Here he refers to the passion and intensity with which one communicates the message.  Examples of pathos include emotional or motivational appeals, vivid language, and numerous sensory examples.  Here the critical question is: Does the speaker have passion for his subject?

3.      Logos – Finally, Augustine refers to the actual spoken word and the content of the communicated message.  Is the speaker saying something that is logically and factually accurate?  Does he/she have any substance behind the message?

According to Augustine, for a successful rhetorical claim to be made, it must contain each of these characteristics.  How prone we are to miss these vital elements. 

·         Guys with solid theology that are lifeless and dead as they teach. 

·         Guys with great passion and charisma that fail to live out the reality of their teaching. 

·         Or guys with great integrity and great passion that don’t teach the Bible but rather use the Bible as a springboard onto their own soapbox.

Often, when I hear my peers talk about selecting their church or their preferred style of preaching it seems that the checklist for a pastor in their eyes looks something like this:

ü  Flamboyant

ü  Funny

ü  Charismatic

ü  Good Story Teller

ü  Hip

ü  Edgy

ü  Creative

ü  Sharp

ü  Passionate

I am left to wonder how many of those things would have been on Paul’s radar as he placed guys as elders of his church plants.  It seems that these are not the characteristics that consumed him.  Instead, he writes,

“You will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, constantly nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound doctrine which you have been following.” 1 Timothy 4:6

“Until I come, give attention to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation and teaching.” 1 Timothy 4:13

Growing up in an age of dead orthodoxy in many churches, many of my peers are deceived by the siren song of style and inadvertently miss the need for Truth to be prominent in the pulpit.   Most of us live life like a sponge, ready to suck up and absorb any and everything that enters our worldview with no method of determining what should remain.

For now a few examples will suffice.

1.      The past month as seen numerous writings on the Lakeland Pentecostal Revival and its developing controversy.  Early in April a Canadian evangelist, Todd Bentley, spoke at the Ignited Church of Lakeland, FL.  Instead of staying for the week, Bentley stayed for three months, in what has been dubbed the largest revival of its time since the Azusa Street revivals. 

However, the reports from the revival of mass healing, people being raised from the dead, and other miraculous work have been roundly criticized.  While people have been drawn to Bentley’s sharp charisma and rebellious style, it seems that this simply disguised some clear evidence of disqualification from being an elder.  Particularly in light of Bentley’s recent separation from his wife  and confession of an inappropriate relationship with another woman.

Ed Stetzer’s insightful blog comments of the “Evangelical Gullibility” are represented in this supposed revival.   It seems that many within the church are drawn to men with attractive personalities and lack the discernment to test everything by the validity of the Word of God.  Gathering a crowd is not hard.  Put a sharp personality, with the right resources, in the right place, at the right time and a horde of people are bound to follow.  What seems to be more difficult is training people in the Word of God such that they have the discernment to respond wisely to those teaching them. 

2.      For those of you with a more musical bent, I have one for you.  Music is the language of our culture and is often a medium by which the truths of the Scripture are communicated.  The current worship craze has placed God-exalting songs in the hands of millions of people.  It seemed that the latest Hillsong CD, “There is Our God” would be another in a long line of such music.  Particularly, in light of the emotionally charged hit, “Healer” in which Michael Guglielmucci sings about the healing power of our great God.  The song debuted at No. 2 on the ARIA charts.  What makes this song particularly powerful is that Guglielmucci was struggling with his own battle with cancer at the time of writing and signing the song. 

      Or so we thought.  300,000 YouTube hits later, it seems that the reality is that while Guglielmucci sang this song with oxygen tank in hand, he was all the while lying about his battle with terminal cancer.  In an effort to drum up support for his song, he created a lie about his own cancer and propagated that lie to all who would listen.   While the song became a source of inspiration for millions battling cancer worldwide, it seems that the author was all style and no substance. 

3.      A final classic example was found on a CBS interview with Joel Osteen, megachurch pastor and millionaire author in Texas, who was asked about the theology and doctrine he teaches people through his sermons and books. 

      In this interview, Osteen states that is goal is to bring people up…to make them better husbands, fathers, etc.  In the process, Osteen is confronted by the lack of mention of God or of Jesus Christ in many of his principles and teaching.  Osteen responds that he sees it as his job to inspire and motivate, and not to teach the Scriptures.  He says, “there are a lot better people to explain the Scriptures to you.  I don’t think that is my gifting.” 

What? Not your gifting.  Can you imagine a New Testament pastor saying it was not his gifting to teach the word of God?  Then what do you do?  The answer is simple.  You replace substance with style and convince people to follow.  Now you would think that people would catch on to this principle, but all you have to do is read the responses to the interview on YouTube and you will see just what I am talking about.  But, Osteen helps me.  But, Osteen is good at what he does.  But…

Why do many people within the church fail to know God and love him with their minds?  I think it is because many pastors fail to teach about God and train people to love him with their minds.  How I long for the day when pulpits are filled with the Word of God rather than clever personalities.  How I long for the day when blogs are filled with discussion about the Word of God and not about how to attract more people to your church.  How I long for the day when people choose churches to attend based on accurate theology and doctrinal fidelity rather than based on personality and ascetics. How I long for the day when quality exposition of the Scriptures replaces sound bites in the pulpit.  How I long for the day when the content of the message is judged based on its adherence to the scriptures and not on its effect on the hearer.

May we remember that the Spirit of God was not sent to make up for our laziness and sloppiness.  As pastors, we must analyze whether we can say that “we are not like many, peddling the Word of God, but as from sincerity, as from God, we speak in Christ in the sight of God.” 2 Corinthians 2:17

I have a confession.  The other day I actually watched almost a full episode of King of the Hill.  While I do find the show moderately funny, this is way out of the norm for me.  Typically, if it does not involve ESPN I am not interested in the TV, but this show caught my attention.

As you may know, Hank works at Strickland Propane and is passionate about his job of selling propane and propane accessories.  After seeing an ice cream store that appeared to be a fun place to work, Hank’s boss, Buck, decides to make a few changes to the store in an effort to make it a “fun” place to work and for people to shop.  In order to do this he forces his workers to wear costumes to work, have sleepovers in the office, use stupid selling jingles, ring a bell and sing a song when some buys a tank of propane, and sell the propane in three sizes: Like it, Love it, Blow Your Hair Back It’s So Big.   In this episode, Hank’s job is to somehow convince his co-workers that their boss has gone mad and that people have forgotten why they work at Strickland Propane in the first place.  For Hank, it’s not about the extra stuff, but the propane. 

As I read and write, I often feel like Hank Hill in this episode.  If I could only have the hours of my life back that I have wasted learning stupid church sells tactics.  We have missed the point.  Somehow in the process of “doing church” we have missed God and we have taught other people to do the same. 

As the summer comes to a close and the school year begins I want to suggest that maybe the church needs to go back to school. 

I am weird, but I miss it.  This week many young men and women will get the opportunity to go back to school and I won’t.  The year marks the second year since I was five that I will not be in school and I don’t like it.  Now granted, I did not like school in middle and high school, but when I finally got to the point that I actually cared, school became a lot of fun.  I loved learning, loved reading, and loved challenging myself. 

And this passion carried over to the church.  As a young man beginning to walk with the Lord I found myself consumed with learning all I could about my newfound faith in Jesus. However, it was quickly apparent that this was not the case for everyone.  People did not seem to desire to know God.  They showed up for Sunday School, survived church, and enjoyed the week, only to repeat the process again the following week.  They did not know their Bibles, much less how to apply them to their lives.   And to make it worse, many of these people I observed had been Christians for 30-40 years.  I have to agree with Alan Bloom when he says “As the respect for the Sacred - the latest fad - has soared, real religion and knowledge of the Bible have diminished to the vanishing point.” (The Closing of the American Mind, p. 56)

Now most people would not admit it, but they are more than satisfied with some various emotional experiences and a pervasive lack of knowledge of God.  However, when you look at Scripture, this is foreign to the Biblical discussions of what it means to love God.  In fact everywhere you look, Scripture connects love for God with obedience to his commands.

• “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15)
• “If you abide in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31-32).

And these statements are not hidden in Scripture.  The need for the church to love God with their minds is even found in the two “great” statements in Scripture: the great commandment and the great commission.

The Great commandment states that “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30).  Did you see it?  You are to love him with your heart and soul, but also with your mind and strength. Clearly, loving God is not just a heart thing, but a head thing as well.

And the second “great” is the Great Commission in which Jesus says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:19).  Now this verse is a little more difficult to see the point I am trying to make.  We are told to go, make disciples, and baptize them, and then what?  We are to teach them to do everything that God commanded us to do.”  While this passage is often cited as providing the foundation of the mission of the church, many churches fail to work towards the accomplishment of the task of teaching people to do everything that Jesus commanded, a failure Dallas Willard calls the “great omission from the great commission.”[1]  Os Guinness, in his marvelous work Fit Bodies, Fat Minds, points to a condition he calls anti-intellectualism in the church, which he describes as “a disposition to discount the importance of truth and the life of the mind.”[2]  Unfortunately many Christians and churches fail to love God well with their minds and do not associate learning with the love of God. 

Charles Malik, speaking at the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College, poignantly says: “I must be frank with you: the greatest danger besetting American Evangelical Christianity is the danger of anti-intellectualism.  The mind, as to its greatest and deepest reaches, is not cared for enough.”[3]  Granted, knowledge of God is not an end in and of itself.  But knowledge of God leads to proper worship of God, which helps to fight against gospel substitutes. 

So over the next few days (or weeks or months) I am going to ponder some of the reasons for the overwhelming lack of knowledge of God in our world and in our churches.  If you have some suggestions, I would love to hear them.

[2] Os Guinness, Fit Bodies, Fat Minds: Why Evangelicals Don’t Think and What to do About It (Grand Rapids: BakerBooks, 1994), 9.

[3] Quoted in Guinness, Fat Minds, 11.

Here arnge a couple of outstanding talks to assist parents in discipling your kids. 

1.  Kenneth Maresco gave an talk at Covenant Life Church on the issues related to Facebook and other social networking sites.  His message “Facebook - Blessing or Curse - Technology and Teens”is an outstanding resource for both parents and teenagers alike to learn how to redeem technology for the gospel.

2.  Gregg Harris at Covenant Life Church spoke recently on parenting in a fabulous message entitled “Don’t Waste Your Kids”.   Parents will find this helpful in encouraging and exhorting them in the journey.

Worship Well,

Matt

I think they are stupid.

“To be honest”                                   Do you typically lie?

“In my opinion”                                  Who else’s opinion do you normally give?

“In the final analysis”                         Then why are you still talking?

“Subject to Availability”                      Is there anything not subject to availability?

“Without Further Delay”                      Aren’t you delaying me further by saying that?

“Willy Nilly”                                        Is that a person’s name or just exposing your ignorance?

“A rose by any other name”                Would no longer be a rose.

I think they are stupid because I have no clue what they mean.

“As beautiful as the day is long”        My days are short, so is it ugly?

“Be there or be square”                      If I don’t show up am I a circle?

“Cat got your tongue”                        No. never.  I hate cats and they would never touch my tongue

“Clean your clock”                             How does a timing devise relate to making a football tackle?

“Even Stevens”                                   Is he related to the stunt man?

“Fly by the Seat of Your Pants”          What about wings? A plane? Or a magic carpet?

“If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times.”  What if you only said it 995 times?

You know what I mean?  Stupid clichés that people use all the time and yet I have no clue what they mean.  This one’s my favorite:

“You are what you eat.”

Well I like Kraft Macaroni and Cheese with a little 2% milk.  I eat it right out of the pot, sometimes with a side of pinto beans.  What does that make me?  Fat? Sloppy? Cheesy?

Clichés are not my thing, so I am surprised to be giving you one for my blog today.  However, I understand this cliché because it is lifted right from the pages of Scripture.  It goes like this:

“You are what you worship.”

Fortunately, I didn’t make this one up.  The Psalmist tells us this one is true.

“Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands.  They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see.  They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell.  They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat.  Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.”  Ps. 115:4-8

Clearly the Psalmist does not think much of the things that you and I worship. In fact his description is that they are impotent to meet any of our expectations.

And, that’s not the bad news.  The bad news is in the last phrase: “Those who make them become like them.”    He says that we become what we worship.  In other words, the things that we worship direct the trajectory of our lives and ultimately determine the type of person that you and I develop into.

Latin scholars had a maxim by which they expressed this concept: lex orandi, lex credenda, lex vivendi.  The statement literally says that the law of prayer (what we worship) leads to the law of belief (what we believe to be true) which leads to the law of life (how we live).  More succinctly we can say that what we worship determines what we believe which shapes how we live.

We take on the qualities and characteristics of what we worship.  As a result, it is important that we think about some of the characteristics of the gospel substitutes that we worship.  Here are a few:

1.      Temporal

Have you ever known one of your gospel substitutes to last?  No.  That is the folly of gospel substitutes.  They always promise something that they can’t provide.  Be it lust, power, pride, anger, or whatever, it never provides the fulfillment that you thought it would.  As Dr. Christopher Wright says, “False gods fail. That is their only truth. For although false gods never fail to fail, it seem humans never fail to forget that this is indeed the case” (Dr. Christopher Wright, The Mission of God, p. 171). And if you worship these gods you will become just like them – you will promise something that you can’t fulfill due to your faulty worship.  Maybe that is the underlying cause of the epidemic divorce rates, absentee fathers, and moral compromise.  We, like them, always fail.

2.      Lifeless

False gods give the appearance of life while lacking the reality.  People become convinced that gospel substitutes actually possess the life they are looking for, but in the end the false gods reveal their true, dead nature. Same with you.  If you worship false gods long enough you will prove the reality of your death by your actions.  While you may give the appearance of life – nice marriage, well adjusted kids, smiles at the right time, you might be just like your gods. We, like them, are lifeless.

3.      Powerless

We think that these gospel substitutes are going to come through for us.  If we only had a happy marriage, a life free of pain, more money, people who respected me, or children who obeyed then I would have the life I desire.  However, like all false gods, these objects of our sinful worship lack the power to provide that which our hearts long for.  We, like them, become powerless.

4.      Fragile

False gods break so easily.  Drop a golden calf on the ground and what happens?  It shatters into a million pieces.  It’s sad when a golden cow shatters, but I have seen much worse.  Our world is littered with people whose lives shattered due to their poor worship.  The storms of life came and because they worshipped at the feet of the god of comfort, fulfillment, happiness, or security their lives crumbled as well.  We, like them, become incredibly fragile.

Maybe this is why the first commandment says that we are not to have any other gods besides the one true God.  Far from an unreasonable command, this command truly has our best interest at heart because it protects our very humanity from being like the things we worship.  If I am going to be like someone, I would much rather be like the One True God than some silly gospel substitute.

Watch out.

“You are what you worship”

One of the roles of a pastor in Scripture is that he would equip the saints for the work of the ministry (Eph. 4: 11-12).  I see the role of this simple blog and others like it as being a conduit for equipping men and women throughout our world for the work that God has called them to do.  One of the best methods for such equipping is to redeem the web.   While the web can be used for endless amounts of wasted time, effort, and energy or for outright sin, it can also be utilized to further enhance the cause of furthering the gospel.  While I am far from the most technologically fluent or well networked individuals around, I will try to use this platform to expose you to some folks in our world that are getting it done:

1.  Anyone interested in the church and theology should consistently and intentionally read two blogs:  Justin Taylor’s blog entitled Between Two Worlds and Tim Challies blog Challies.com.  If you are looking for more of the endless stream of banter about how to attract more people to your church building, then this stuff is not for you, but if you care about thinking rightly about the church, it doesn’t get any better than these guys.  Find you a good blog reader, download their rss feeds, and enjoy a steady diet of the gospel. 

2. Steve Wright is the student pastor at Providence Church in Raleigh, NC, where he has been for several decades.  Steve is a regular blogger at Lasting Divergence and his thoughts are insightful, wise, and timely to anyone attempting to raise kids in our time.  His book, ReThink, is in my opinion the best book written on rethinking the model of ministry to children and youth typically done in the church.

3.  For any teenagers and college students, I encourage you to check out the work of Alex and Brent Harris.  Their blog, the Rebelution, is written to encourage young adults to rebel from societies low expectations and live boldly for Jesus.  “Do Hard Things“, a book I am working through with some of my friends, provided a huge challenge for the modern student.

4.  As we at Crosspoint Clemson gear up for students to come back to the University this weekend, it is helpful for us to remember that there are other churches doing great work on other colleges and universities around the world.  In our geographic region one such church is Midtown Fellowship in Columbia.  Dustin Willis is the pastor of Midtown and I encourage you to read his stuff and pray for the church has students begin class in the Columbia area.  These guys have a heart for their campus and do a fabulous job of permeating their community with the gospel.

5.  My good friend, Austin Poster and his wife leave this weekend to head to Shelby, North Carolina to begin planting a church there.  Austin is a young stud and is going to make a fabulous pastor.  I encourage you to pray for he and his wife as they begin.  

I pray that these guys will help you and your family get rid of gospel substitutes in your life.  If you have any suggestions for future “Ferret Killers” please comment below.

Worship Well,

Matt

TSHusker at Doctrine Matters has put together a reading list for children and youth - categorized by age.  Be careful not to allow yourself to read this through a modern lens that tries to dumb-down everthing we do in the church to make it friendly to “seekers”.  You might be shocked at what your 5th grader can read and understand.  Their work here is outstanding.

http://doctrinematters.blogspot.com/2008/07/essential-reading-curriculum-church.html 

In a 2004 session of the Resurgence Conference, Mark Driscoll discuss the theme of gospel substitutes in the book of Genesis.  He clearly points out that false gospels are the natural result of fallen humanities rebellion from God.

http://www.theresurgence.com/reformission_2004-11-10_session_04_audio_driscoll  

My wife is really sick.  Typical symptoms: headache, nausea, vomiting, aches, pains, tiredness…the works.  You name it she’s got it.  For the last three weeks, she has been sick nearly every day: sometimes multiple times a day.  She can only eat a little bit of food at each meal and is going to bed early in order to avoid another round of sickness.  I wanted to ask her for sickness pictures, but I was afraid I would get punched.

But I’m not worried.  In fact, I’m encouraged.

No…I am not some insensitive, ruthless husband.  I am encouraged because I know what is causing the sickness. 

My new little baby is the culprit.  This is our next baby…right now at 10 weeks and 4 days old.

Sarah is struggling with the typical sickness associated with the first trimester of a new pregnancy.  And while she is experiencing all of the above symptoms and is miserable at times, her symptoms are not cause for concern. We are not running out and filling her full of medicine, rushing her to the hospital, or doing multiple medical tests.   We know where the symptoms come from and that gives us great encouragement to know how to deal with the symptoms.

And this is vital knowledge.  In life, in order to properly address any symptoms, you better know what the real problem is or you will find yourself missing the diagnosis. Were we to treat the symptoms, we might believe that Sarah has some type of horrible virus.  But she doesn’t, she is pregnant. 

UNDERSTANDING THE CAUSE EXPLAINS THE SYMPTOMS.

It is the  distinction between the symptoms and the cause that is critical to understanding Paul’s explanation of the human condition in Romans  1 as he writes:

26For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

28And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

What a fun passage!  All kinds of juicy sin.  If you are like me, when you read this passage you have a picture of some overweight dude in a tie, behind a pulpit, pointing fingers at a humiliated audience, while further exposing the intense sweat stains that are gathering on his overly starched shirt.  All the while he is pointing out all the things that people typically think of when they discuss sin.

And we must admit that the sin list is impressive:  Homosexuality, unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice, envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness, gossip, slander, hate of God, insolence, haughtiness, boastfulness, inventors of evil, disobedience to parents, foolishness, faithlessness, heartlessness, and ruthlessness.  Horrible sin. The real problem. Avoid these.  Right?

Maybe not.

While this is a clear picture of sinful humanity, I would argue that this list is not the point of the passage.  This list comprises the symptoms of the human condition and not the cause.    Notice two critical phrases in this passage which serve as the foundation for its understanding: 1. “For this reason” and 2. “And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God.”  Both of these phrases reveal that the sin list (the symptoms) is the result of something else (the cause).

Clearly, the impetus of these phrases is that the sin list points to something else which undergirds, motivates, and causes these sinful actions.  The main problem is actually much deeper than any individual sins.  The list of items above is rightfully labeled as sinful, but they are not the SIN.  The SIN is the fatal exchange that humanity makes when they exchange worship of God for the worship of gospel substitutes.  Anytime a person elevates himself to the place rightfully belonging to God, SIN has occurred.  This SIN leads to various sinful actions described in the sin list above. 

If we were to diagnosis the human condition, we could rightly say that everyone is guilty before God of SIN, which leads to guilt of sin.  This SIN which leads to sin is a result of a worship disorder inherent to all makind. (Paul David Tripp and Timothy Lane, How People Change, 153).   We are all born with a nature inclined to worship ourselves.  As with our ultrasound, the symptoms (sin) reveal something deeper (SIN).  For my wife, the developing life on the inside motivates and causes symptoms on the outside.  For you and me, the rotting death of SIN on the inside leads to sin on the outside.

With this in mind, I would make a few observations about how we should respond to SIN and sin.

1.      Repent of SIN and sin.

The main problem between each of us and God are not the individual sins that we commit, but the one fatal SIN of worshipping ourselves rather than God.  Therefore, when each of us is convicted of sin, we must acknowledge our guilt before God for SIN and sin.   For example, in times of anger, the response to God should be: “God, I have sinned against you not simply because I got angry, but because I attempted to take a place that rightfully belongs to you.  I have made myself God in my life and that has led to my angry actions.  Would you forgive me for worshipping and serving someone other than you?”  This is the same way to respond to lust, pride, doubt, or any other sinful action mentioned above.  We must address our repentance to the heart of the problem and not simply to the symptom.

2.      Apply the gospel to SIN and sin.

The gospel is not about changing your behavior.  The gospel is about changing your worship.  Due to the sacrificial death of Jesus on one’s behalf, that individual is given the privilege of having someone other than themselves to worship.  And this change in worship should be the focus of our understanding of the gospel. Now certainly behavioral change should result from a rightful understanding of the gospel.  But this behavioral change happens when one begins to rightly worship God and not the other way around.

3.      Teach about SIN and sin.

Whether you are discipling someone else, preaching a sermon, or raising kids, we must begin to teach people that the problem with humanity is SIN.  Rather than endless railing about the ills of video games, movies, music, sex, and drugs, we must understand that those are symptomatic of a deeper issue.  If this was not the case, the hope for humanity would be better schools, a new president, or purging our world from the steady stream of godless media.  While these may be good things, they will do little to change the human heart.  It is only when people are taught that their problem is not their “sin list” but their SIN.

And praise God that Jesus died to pay the price for our SIN.

“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.”

1 Corinthians 15:3

By the way…this is Corrie, our now 19 month old daughter, at our 8 week ultrasound. 

Amazing!

Baseball’s trading deadline came and went this week with the typical shuffle of overhyped and overpaid players all attempting to make a run for the World Series. Outside of Stuart Scott and Colin Cowherd, I am not sure anyone really noticed or cared. Except me. Yes, I am that sports geek that analyzes ESPN2, listens to The Herd in my truck, and secretly fantasizes about being a basketball commentator after Dicky V hangs it up.

While I love sports, professional sports trades make me angry. As soon as I begin to pull for one team, the star player is shipped out to the West coast to play for a team that I hate, and now I am left with a goofy looking, lanky, overpaid scrub. And the trades don’t make any sense. A great player is traded for four players I have never heard of, the proverbial “player to be named later” and some money. What?

In spite of the stupidity of many trades in American professional sports, trades don’t get any better than one made by a soccer team in Romania. The Romanian second division soccer club, UT Arad, sold a player to another team in exchange for 15 kilograms of meat. And to make matters worse, the player who was traded resigned before ever playing a game for his new team. The coach is quoted as saying: “We are upset because we lost twice – firstly because we lost a good player and secondly because we lost our team’s food for a whole week.”

Stupid trades are commonplace today: both in the sporting arena and in a place you would not think to look – your life. It seems that this concept of a trade forms the central metaphor Paul uses to explain what humanity has done to God. In the first chapter of his treatise on the gospel to the church at Rome he writes:

21For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

24Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

Romans 1:18-25

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