Seedplots

Here’s a helpful posting on the cross by Pastor DeYoung,

The Cross of Christ
Several years ago I started the habit of beginning my devotional time each morning by reading from a spiritual classic for 10-20 minutes. This has been a great way to read through longer, denser books. With this method, I’ve managed to learn from men like Athanasius, Gregory the Great, Calvin, Edwards, Bavinck, Lloyd-Jones, Sibbes, Owen, Baxter, Chesterton, and Machen.

And in learning from them I’ve been better prepared each morning for the word of God and prayer.  Currently, I’m reading through a more recent book, John Stott’s The Cross of Christ. It is truly a modern day classic. How anyone could read this book and not be convinced, from the Scriptures, of the validity, centrality, and glory of penal substitution as the heart of the gospel is beyond me.

Here are two of the best paragraphs you’ll ever read on the atonement. Meditate on them. Pray through them. And don’t go to a church that doesn’t preach them.

We strongly reject, therefore, every explanation of the death of Christ that does not have at its center the principle of “satisfaction through substitution,” indeed divine self-satisfaction through divine self-substitution. The cross was not

• a commercial bargain with the devil, let alone one that tricked and trapped him: nor an exact equivalent,
• a quid pro quo to satisfy a code of honor or technical point of law; nor
• a compulsory submission by God to some moral authority above him from which he could not otherwise escape; nor
• a punishment of a meek Christ by a harsh and punitive Father; nor
• a procurement of salvation by a loving Christ from a mean and reluctant Father; nor
• an action of the Father which bypassed Christ as Mediator.

Instead, the righteous, loving Father humbled himself to become in and through his only Son flesh, sin and a curse for us, in order to redeem us without compromising his own character.

The theological words satisfaction and substitution need to be carefully defined and safeguarded, but they cannot in any circumstance be given up. The biblical gospel of atonement is of God satisfying himself by substituting himself for us.

The concept of substitution may be said, then,
to lie at the heart of both sin and salvation.

For the essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man. Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be; God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be. Man claims prerogatives that belong to God alone; God accepts penalties that belong to man alone (158-59). (Original posting)

Here’s a practical article by Tim Chester with suggestions on how to encourage “cross-centered” living in the community of God’s people that you lead,

Someone recently asked me this question: ‘Do you have any suggestions for practical, tangible first-steps that churches or missional communities can take to implement a cross-centred practice’.  Here are some thoughts …

1. Model cross-centred living and make it explicit what you’re modeling
Tell people you are doing something because it is the way of the cross. We were looking at Philippians 3 recently in church and it’s interesting how 3:17 in which Paul invites people to follow his example follows on from 3:10-16 in which Paul talks of wanting to know the power of the resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in Christ’s sufferings, becoming like him in his death. I.e. when Paul tells people to follow his example he also tells them what that the framework that shapes that pattern – resurrection power to follow the weakness of the cross – and striving for this as something not yet fully attained.

2. What’s the loving thing to do in this situation?
In all sorts of decision-making situations or pastoral occasions, ask people, ‘What would it mean for you to follow the way of the cross in this situation?’ ‘What’s the loving thing to do?’ ‘What would it mean for you to serve, sacrifice, deny yourself, submit or suffer in this situation?’

I’ve found the question, ‘What would be the loving thing for you to do?’ a great question to ask because it immediately gets beyond what is just, right and fair, what I deserve and what they deserve. So, for example, someone is wronged by someone. They come to you with their complaint. They want justice. They demand condemnation. Talking about what is right or ethical just circles people back to what they deserve. But ‘what is loving?’ what is gracious?’ ‘how has God treated you?’ breaks beyond this self-centeredness.

3.Extol Christ
Above all exhort people to treasure Christ. Extol Christ to them so that service, sacrifice, self-denial, submission and suffering seem worth it. Matthew 13:44 and Philippians 3:8 are so helpful.

(Original article)

The following posting is adopted from an article by Jerry Bridges.  The original article, posted in Modern Reformation magazine, is here.

Bridges argues that evangelicals commonly think that the gospel is only for unbelievers. Once someone believes the gospel, they then need to focus on discipleship, i.e. on living the Christian life.  This leads to a mentality of “performance-based discipleship.”

His article is pretty searching.  Take a look at the following chart and see if you don’t agree.

Performance-Based Discipleship

“As evangelicals, we tend to live performance-based lives. The more deeply committed we are to following Jesus, the more deeply ingrained the performance mindset is. We think we earn or forfeit God’s blessing by how well we live the Christian life.  Take a look at the following chart – do you see yourself in one of these three groups?”

The Gospel and Believers

Bridges writes, “[These three groups need the gospel too], but they don’t realize it is for them. I know, because I was in the [third] group.  Gradually over time, and from a deep sense of need, I came to realize that the gospel is for believers, too.”

“Eventually I learned not to look to my “own performance but to Christ’s ‘performance’ as the sole basis of his acceptance with God.”

I learned that Christians need to hear the gospel all of their lives because it is the gospel that continues to remind us that our day-to-day acceptance with the Father is not based on what we do for God but upon what Christ did for us in his sinless life and sin-bearing death.

I began to see that we stand before God today as righteous as we ever will be, even in heaven, because he has clothed us with the righteousness of his Son. Therefore, I don’t have to perform to be accepted by God. Now I am free to obey him and serve him because I am already accepted in Christ (see Rom. 8:1).

“Even when we understand that our acceptance with God is based on Christ’s work we still naturally tend to drift back into a performance mindset. Consequently, we must continually return to the gospel.

To use an expression of the late Jack Miller, we must “preach the gospel to ourselves every day.” For me that means I keep going back to Scriptures such as Isaiah 53:6, Galatians 2:20, and Romans 8:1. It means I frequently repeat the words from an old hymn, “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.”

Take a look at the article to see how Bridges then deals with the need for growth in holiness.

I read a challenging article on Sanctification (the term means the process by which God changes us to make us holy, or more like Christ).

The author described a problem we face as believers – the problem of “time.” At first, when we become followers of Christ, especially if our life has been ungodly, we have a pretty accurate view of ourselves and our sin. We don’t “look down on other people” because we’re so aware of our sin and how God, in grace, has rescued us. We find it natural to look up to Jesus and focus on him.

Then, the article went on to say, something happens – time. The memory of our sin fades, and with it the memory of the cross. We sing about it, but it loses its centrality in our daily lives.  We become more “mature” believers and our “knowledge” of Christian things increases, but we stop looking up at Jesus and the cross, and start looking “down” at other people and their failures. When this happens, the article concluded,

Real sanctification ceases. This doesn’t mean that we stop being moral or that we quit gaining in theological knowledge. What it means is that we begin to equate our morality and our theological knowledge with sanctification.

Instead of becoming like Jesus, we become proud. I think the author hit the nail on the head. The article ended with a challenge to contemplate God’s holiness. It is there we see again our own sinfulness and wickedness. And that brings us back to the cross. Thankfully, the author concludes, when our awareness of the greatness of the chasm between us and God increases, “the cross becomes larger,”  large enough to fill the chasm and provides us not only a place of justification, but also place of sanctification and glorification. “The key to our sanctification is the gospel. If we are going to become more like Jesus, we will do so at the foot of the cross as grace flows down.”

Thanks be to God for the cross.

In 1 Corinthians 2, Paul described his determination to avoid the “lofty speech and wisdom” so popular in the Corinth of his day.

In the book The Cross and Christian Ministry, D.A. Carson comments,

Such oratory made Paul nervous.  It affords far too many temptations to pride to be safe for anyone interesting in preaching the gospel of the crucified Messiah.  So Paul made a choice.  He “resolved” to adopt a more restrictive course, even though he was cutting across the stream of cultural expectations.  When the pressure to ‘contextualize’ the gospel jeopardizes the message of the cross… the cultural pressures must be ignored (pg 34).

In this book, Carson, in a wonderful section on “The Preacher of the Cross” (2:1-5) draws four conclusions that are worth pondering:

1.  Proclaim the testimony about God
“There is nothing wrong with sharing.  But something important is lost if we never speak or think of preaching and proclamation… if we focus on the powerful proclamation of the gospel, we shall be less likely to be seduced by siren calls to soften the sheer non-negotiability inhered in preaching.”

2.  Focus on Christ crucified
“What he means is that all he does and teaches is tied to the cross.  He cannot long talk about Christian joy, or Christian ethics, or Christian fellowship, or the Christian doctrine of God, or anything else, without finally tying it to the cross.  Paul is gospel-centered; he is cross centered.”

3.  Do not fear weakness, illness, or a sense of being overwhelmed
“Such experiences are often the occasions when God most greatly displays his power.  As long as people are impressed by your powerful personality and impressive gifts, there is very little room for you to impress them with a crucified Savior.”

4.  Strenuously avoid manipulating people
“[Paul] avoids persuasion that is manipulative… It is the truth and power of the gospel that must change people’s lives… Deal straightforwardly with the gospel.”

5.  Recognize that a cross-centered ministry is characterized by the Spirit’s power and is vindicated in transformed lives
“That is what we need: unction, the anointing of the Spirit, the demonstration of the Spirit’s power.  Where that power is present, people cannot help but know it, and the faith of those who turn to Christ is safely anchored in God himself.”

Today, as we think about what Jesus did for us on the cross, the following exhortation from John Piper seems especially appropriate.

He challenges us to “never let the gospel get small.” We do this by seeking “to see and feel the gospel as bigger as years go by rather than smaller.

Our temptation is to think that the gospel is for beginners and then we go on to greater things. But the real challenge is to see the gospel as the greatest thing—and getting greater all the time.”

The Gospel gets bigger when, in your heart,

• grace gets bigger;
• Christ gets greater;
• his death gets more wonderful;
• his resurrection gets more astonishing;
• the work of the Spirit gets mightier;
• the power of the gospel gets more pervasive;
• its global extent gets wider;
• your own sin gets uglier;
• the devil gets more evil;
• the gospel’s roots in eternity go deeper;
• its connections with everything in the Bible and in the world get stronger;
• and the magnitude of its celebration in eternity gets louder.

So keep this in mind: Never let the gospel get smaller in your heart.

Pray that it won’t. Read solid books on it. Sing about it. Tell someone about it who is ignorant or unsure about it.

Here’s the original link.

Looking back over my journal from a year ago, I was challenged afresh my entry from January 2008:

“Looking back over the past year and reflecting on what God has taught us caused me to give  thanks for God’s care and faithfulness.  Then I looked ahead, trying to set goals and make new resolutions.  Moses, the man of God, put it this way:  “So teach us to number our days, that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12).

This past year has been a challenging one for me personally.  The most important lesson I learned is the need to make Jesus the center of my life and ministry.  Last month I memorized John 15.  In that section, Jesus himself says, “Abide in me… for apart from me you can do nothing.”

My New Year’s resolution is to be more centered on the Cross of Christ – personally, and in my teaching and ministry. This week I listened to a helpful lecture giving practical suggestions on just how to do that:

• Memorize sections of Scripture that focus on the cross
• Reading and re-reading the Gospels
• In-depth exegesis of Biblical books like Romans
• Reading a new book on the Cross yearly
• Studying the holiness of God, the doctrine of sin, and the relationship between the Old Testament and the Cross
• Singing a hymn at the start of each day (during one’s personal Quiet Time with God) about the Cross
• Listen regularly to sermons that are Cross-centered and
• Regularly review the story of your own conversion and the grace you have received from Christ (Paul refers to his testimony in his last book – 2 Timothy, some 30 years after his conversion!)

My goal during 2008 is, by God’s grace, to practice more of these disciplines than I am doing now.

Although it’s now a year later, this goal still challenges me.

Probably the most important thing I’ve learned over the past few years is to need to make the cross central in my life and in ministry to others.

What Professor Carson wrote about “many evangelicals” was true about me:

For too long, many evangelicals have viewed the cross exclusively as the means by which God in Christ Jesus achieved our redemption.

from The Cross and Christian Ministry, D.A. Carson 2004

I’m learning that the cross is of first importance to those who lead God’s people.  Currently I’m reading Carson’s The Cross and Christian Ministry, a short reworking of a series of messages given to Christian leaders on selected texts from 1 Corinthians.  The book contains five chapters:  The Cross and Preaching, The Cross and the Holy Spirit, The Cross and Factionalism, The Cross and Christian Leadership and The Cross and the World Christian.

There’s a lot to chew on in this short book.  I’m finding I need to read it slowly and in small sections.  Here’s a great quote from the Preface,

Of course, no Christian would want to minimize the centrality of the cross in God’s redemptive purposes.  But if we view it as the means of our salvation and nothing more, we shall overlook many of its functions in the New Testament.  In particular… we shall fail to see how the cross stands as the test and the standard of all vital Christian ministry.

• The cross not only establishes what we are to preach, but how we are to preach it.
• It prescribes what Christian leaders must be and how Christians must view Christian leaders.
• It tells us how to serve and draws us onward in discipleship until we understand what it means to be world Christians.

[as Christian leaders] it is utterly imperative that we self-consciously focus on what is central – on the gospel of Jesus Christ. That means we must resolve “to know nothing… except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2), in exactly the same way that Paul made that resolution.  This will shape our vision of ministry as much as it will shape our grasp of the centrality of the gospel.

Leadership is about influence, the experts tell us.

Where does spiritual influence come from?  Listen to the wise words of the Scottish pastor Robert Murray McCheyne (1813-1843),
.

Men return again and again to the few who have mastered the spiritual secret, whose life has been hid with Christ in God. These are of the old time religion, hung to the nails of the cross.
.

In other words, The depth of our relationship with Christ, and the extent to which the cross is operative in our lives determines the extent of our spiritual influence on others.

I first heard this quote from my Bible School president and teacher, L.E. Maxwell (1895-1984).  He was a man of considerable influence in his time.  I think McCheyne’s quote was his favorite saying.  It has stayed in my memory over the past 35 years and come to mind often.

Maxelll probably came across this quote in Oswald Chambers (1874-1917) devotional classic My Utmost for His Highest. This book is still in print (available in over 40 languages) and is read daily by Christians around the world.  McCheyne’s quote impacted Chambers, is highlighted in the forward as the reason the book was compiled.

This one quote, written 170 years ago, influenced Chambers, who influenced Maxwell, who influenced me.  And by God’s grace, it will pass from me to others.  It has been influential because it is true.  The cross in our lives makes a difference.

I found this to be a helpful article on legalism,

No one leading God’s people wants to be accused of “legalism.”  But what is it and what does it mean?  I found the article that follows by Tony Reinke helpful in better understanding just what legalism is.

Rules and Scripture
Almost 900 passages in the Bible contain the phrase “do not” …  There are a lot of rules in the Bible… If you apply the entire Bible to the Christian life, you can end up with a long list of helpful rules and reminders (i.e. the “one anothers”)… The fundamental danger of legalism is not living or not living by rules… Legalism points to a much deeper heart issue.

A false gospel
At its most dangerous level, legalism is a soteriological problem. That is, legalism is a false gospel and a false hope. Legalism is the lie that says God’s pleasure and joy in me is dependent upon my performance rather than the finished work of Christ.

It is legalism that causes the Pharisee to look proudly into the sky in the presence of a tax collector. It is legalism that causes a poor missionary in Africa to think God is more pleased with him than an American Christian businessman driving a Mercedes. It is legalism that causes the preacher behind the pulpit to think God is more pleased with him than the tatooed Christian teenager sitting in the back row.

Legalism causes the heart to forget that God sings over us because of the work He has done, not because of what we have done (Zeph. 3:15-17).  Believers equally bring pleasure to God because the pleasure He receives in us is the purchased pleasure of the substitution of Jesus Christ. Any imagined superiority to other Christians (not rules or a lack of rules) is the sure sign of the legalist.

Rules are not the problem
And whether our convictions are biblical or unbiblical is another issue altogether. Legalism is not so much objective (are my convictions biblical or not?) but subjective (what do my convictions get me?).  And this is what makes legalism dangerous whether your convictions are biblically accurate or not.  From what I hear, often what is labeled as legalistic too often focuses primarily upon rules or a lack thereof rather than the gospel.

As I’ve seen in my own heart, what sustains self-righteous legalism is a failure to boast only in the righteousness of the Cross of Christ. Once I take my eyes off the Cross I begin boasting in my list of rules or boasting in my lack of rules. Either way, I know I have fallen into legalism.