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The words are so familiar: “Jesus Loves me this I knowFor the Bible tells me so..”
Our nineteen month old daughter, Corrie, is beginning to learn the words to this song, which she has heard sung over her since her early days of life. However, her developing vocabulary fails to allow her to sing the words with mommy and daddy. Instead of the typical lyrics to the song, Corrie listens as we sing “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so…” Corrie catches the tune and echoes the final line. Instead of the typical words, she sings: “Bi…ble…me…me…me…”
Corrie picks up on the two words of the song that she knows and sings them with great passion while her mother and I clap in approval.
While her miscue is quite understandable to a young child with a developing vocabulary, it is quite penetrating to the modern predicament and serves to enlighten us as we investigate the true gospel and its counterparts. In words, Corrie makes the same mistake most of us make with our lives. The true lyrics to the song reveal one who is under the authority of Scripture as the guiding and compelling force of one’s life: “For the Bible tells me so.” However, for many of us, we approach Scripture much like Corrie sings it. Sure the Bible is still in the equation, but is quickly subsumed and relegated under the authority of the all important “Me.” It is clear that this deification of “Me” lies at the root of the modern practice of gospel substitutes. Rather than submit to the authority and supremacy of the one who is the Master of Heaven, we would rather exalt ourselves and pursue gospel substitutes. While we may affirm John’s words that “He must increase and I must decrease” (John 3:30) our lives reveal that we exist for one and only one person: Me. Clearly this is the antithesis of the gospel message. Rather than being about me, the presentation of the gospel in Scripture is all about Him. In fact, two particular Scriptures point out that true holiness does not come from an exaltation of me, but rather from a death of me. Matthew 16:24 – “Then Jesus said to his disciples, If any man will come after me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me.” “Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” Romans 12:1 Deny yourself…take up your cross…present your life to God…become a living dead thing… This certainly isn’t all about me. In fact, it seems that the gospel is the death of me. It is an oft-said comment that this move, from God to “Me” as the ruler of life, is the foundation and motivation for all sin. The great church father Augustine argued that the essence of all sin boils down to a supreme love of yourself. Where God should be, “I” am instead. Gospel Substitutes (i.e. ferret breeding) happen when we substitute “Me” for God. R.C. Sproul is quoted in this regard as saying that “Sin is cosmic treason”(R.C. Sproul, The Holiness of God (Wheaton: Tyndale, 1985, 115). Heavenly treason because we take something that does not belong to us - We are not God, and yet we act like it by being consumed by self-love. Even Shakespeare got it when he said “Sin of self-love possesth all mine eye.” (Shakespeare, Sonnet 62). With this in mind, I see two major problems: 1. We live in a world that teaches us to substitute “me” for God. This is nothing new. The massive tsunami of “Me” has been building offshore for hundreds of years. Its roots can be traced to the humanistic ideal of the Renaissance in which the philosophical underpinnings of the day taught that the future hope of humanity rested in man rising to his exalted status as the only true being worthy of respect, glory, and honor. Take, for example, Michelangelo’s famous sculpture of David (1504) which sat outside of the city hall of Florence. Michelangelo took a piece of marble which was thought to be so flawed that it was garbage, and instead carved out a towering figure, named David.
Interestingly this was no statue to the Biblical ideal of David – “a man after God’s own heart” – instead it was a statement about modern man. § Man is great. § Man deserves dignity. § Man is autonomous. § Man is the center and foundation for our world. § Even a simple look at the disproportionate size of David’s hands reveals the point: Man is all-powerful From the Renassiance onward, a wave that has been building offshore for hundreds of years has crashed into our modern American lives with great power and devastation. Simply look around: § Self-esteem is cherished § Pride is championed as a virtue § Top Best Sellers are devoted to telling you how great you are § Narcissistic personalities are lauded § There is a semi-god like importance placed on me § Politician’s platforms revolve around human rights, whatever that means. § Middle schoolers are taught that they deserve more: more clothes, more cell phones, more friends, and more popularity. § Everywhere you go, you find people telling themselves:
“I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and Doggone it, people like me” Stuart Smalley, Daily Affirmations with Stuart Smalley, Saturday Night Live. The god of “Me” is hard to hide in the culture at large, but it is much more incipit and deadly as a result of the second problem. 2. We go to churches that teach us to substitute “me” for God. Culture teaches it, and churches preach it! As I have sat through hundreds, if not thousands, of presentations of the gospel through the years, I am forced to ask whether or not most modern presentations of the gospel are actually more focused on man than they are on God. You may have heard them before: “You don’t feel loved? You don’t feel like anyone cares? Well, let me introduce you to Jesus. He loves and cares for you so much that He left heaven to come and die for you. In fact, if you were the only person on the earth, Jesus would have still died, just for you. And now He stands knocking at the door of your heart just waiting for you to let Him in. All you have to do is open the door by praying this prayer…” Now I am not denying that there is some truth in the above statement. However, I wonder if most of our gospel presentations don’t present God as man-centered and in so doing encourage the practice of gospel substitutes. We leave people saying: “Finally, somebody recognizes my worth, value, significance. No one has ever loved me, and now God does. How nice of God to love me as much as I love myself.” Even He revolves around you and His death on the cross is simply another stamp of your own self-worth. Here I find John Piper’s question particularity penetrating: “Do you feel more loved because God makes much of you, or because, at the cost of his Son, he enables you to enjoy making much of Him forever?” John Piper, “God is the Gospel,” pg. 11. Could it be that many within our churches have missed God altogether. Sure they got eight steps to a better marriage, seven steps to joy, twelve steps to freedom from addiction, four ways to serve in the church, and thirty eight new songs to listen to, and way too many free t-shirts. And what is the result? They simply love themselves more! Centuries earlier, Johnathan Edwards commented on the types of “false conversions” he noticed in the world around him. “They first rejoice, and are elevated with the fact that they are made much of by God; and then on that ground, God seems in a sort, lovely to them…They are leased in the highest degree, in hearing how much God and Christ make of them. So that their joy is really a joy in themselves, and not in God.” Johnathan Edwards, “Religious Affections”, pg. 250-51. Have we left out the main point? The point of the cross was not you or me. The point of the cross was Him. It was His glory, His justice, His humility, and His holiness that was clearly seen in the cross. And what is to be the result: Although He existed in the form of God, [he] did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of man…He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of the Father. Philippians 2:6-11 This sure doesn’t sound like it is about me. Yes, Jesus died for my sins. Yes. I am forgiven. Yes. I am going to heaven. No. It is not about me. What is the goal? Every knee bowing, every tongue confessing that HE is Lord, to the glory of God. My concern is that masked under much of our modern understanding of the gospel, are the seeds that contribute to the practice of breeding of ferrets. Certainly things like meaning, purpose, freedom, joy, community, mission, etc. are all implications of the gospel, but I’m afraid that we are dangerously close to presenting them as if they ARE the gospel. And they are not. This demands a few questions: § Can we encourage people that Jesus died for them without at the same time telling them that they must die for Him? § Can we tell people that Jesus has faith in us rather than exhorting people to have faith in Him? (I’m not making this up - http://www.nooma.com/Shopping/ProductDetails.aspx?ProductID=281) § Can we create a church that “honors people” and forget that we must first “honor God”? § Can we continue to assure people that they are going to heaven because they have affirmed a gospel that is all about them in the first place? My goal over the rest of her life will be to not simply teach my daughter how to sing the right words to the song. I will also attempt to teach her how to live them. I wonder how many individuals and churches are guilty of frivolously and joyfully singing “Bi…ble…me…me…me.”
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3 Responses to “Selfishness, Sin, and Ferret Breeding: An Inescapable Connection”Leave a Reply |
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July 29th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
no words from me- just sitting and asking questions internally and waitting to read others comments.
July 29th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
Great stuff Matt!!
I couldn’t help but be reminded of the first entires in “The Purpose Driven Life” and David Nasser’s “A Call to Die” which use the same scripture you talked about and speaks of how the Chrisitan life is based on the death of self and the “Its not about me” mentality. This truely is the way that we bring glory to God and not ourselves. Thanks again Matt!!
July 29th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
Matt,
I appreciate your passion for speaking the Gospel in truth! As a believer, I still find it extremely difficult to accept that it isn’t about me! Thankfully, God creates the desire in His children to make much of Him. There is no way my flesh could desire anything less than my own glorification apart from Christ. Having read your blog, I think I need to pray for God to change some attitudes and desires in my life that are wrongly motivated and are attempting to rob God of His glory…