Jesus’ Resurrection Has Implications for Your Life

A few decades ago, a lot of scholarly research was dedicated to finding the answer to the question, “Did Jesus really rise from the dead?”  Now, it seems as if everyone in this postmodern, relative society is not asking, “Did he?” but rather, “So what?”

Let’s answer this practically: If a man died from a brutal execution — so much so that his body and face were hardly recognizable as human — and then rose from the dead with a healed and restored body, then this man must be more than just a man.  “So what?” you ask.  Well, if he is more than a man, then he must be loved, honored, and obeyed for who he is, namely God himself.

What do you love, honor, and obey?  Money?  Sex?  Relationships?  Food?  Praise of man?  Hollywood?  Sports?  Status?  Technology?  Cars?  Children?  Body image?  Knowledge?  Religion?  Yourself?

If these things died, would they rise from the dead like Jesus did?

I doubt it.

If Being a Real Man Means Watching UFC, Then I’m Out

If you are a Christian dude, you’ve probably talked about what being a “real man” means.  Other than the obvious (reading your Bible, praying, repenting of sin, etc.), here are some of the more curious things I’ve heard.  A real man: watches UFC, never wears bright colored shirts, does not listen to contemporary Christian music, smokes good cigars, owns a shotgun or rifle, and drives a Jeep or an F-250.  There are others, but you get the idea.

It seems that we encourage men at retreats and conferences to do these types of “dude things” so they can “live missionally” in the culture.  I’m not saying that these things are sins (though they may be).  I’m not saying never go to the bar to hang out with your non-Christian neighbor.  My point is that there are huge oversights in the male Christian community that would help young men grow in holiness and make some non-Christians scratch their heads.

I’m thinking about service and responsibility, particularly regarding how you live your life in your home.

Most of this list comes from what I’ve observed as I’ve lived with other men for the past seven years.  Basically, it comes down to common sense, courtesy, and responsibility.  Real men:

• Know how to wash the dishes and put them away.
• Sweep the floor when it’s dirty.
• Take off their wet shoes when they walk in a house.
• Do laundry instead of using Febreeze.
• Make the whole bed instead of just throwing the comforter over the messed-up sheets.
• Wash their facial hair down the drain after shaving.
• Keep their clothes in their closet, not on the arm of the couch.
• Take out the garbage (without being asked).
• Do not treat their vehicle like a garbage can.
• Offer to let someone else use the TV remote for a change.
• Do not insist on always seeing a shoot-em-up flick with their girlfriend/fiancee/wife.
• Vacuum and dust on a regular basis (not just before Mom and Dad come to visit).

If you are that guy who says, “This is chick stuff,” thank you.  You just proved my point.  I’m not talking about being a domesticated she-man who stays at home wearing an apron while his wife brings home the bacon.  Not at all.  But let me be honest: if you can’t do these things, you aren’t a man, and you aren’t ready to take care of a household, wife, and kids.

You don’t need to be Mr. Clean, but be quick to serve and regard others as more important than yourself (Phil. 2:3).  A true leader is a servant.  Are you the guy with two-week old pizza boxes on the carpet, playing Xbox in a t-shirt that hasn’t been washed since May?  There’s a remedy: get off this blog, go pick up a broom, and serve somebody.

Think about this: if you were to ask 100 Christian women if they’d prefer a man who could do a UFC move while smoking a cigar or one who knew how to keep an organized, tidy house, how do you think 100 of them would answer?

“I’m Called To Love Them, But I Don’t Have to Like Them!”

Have you ever heard a Christian say this?  I’ve not only heard it, but said it many times. Yesterday, talking about Barack Obama, a friend told me that they love Obama but don’t like him.  (By the way, this was right before he called Obama a “self aggrandizing, arrogant socialist…who is a piss-poor leader.”)

Sometimes I wonder if we say “I love him, but I just don’t like him,” so that we can justify our sinful and selfish attitude or behavior toward an individual who is hard to love.  We say we love them and that love is a matter of the will, not an emotion.  That is, we argue that love is a choice, not a feeling, as my friend did.

But don’t feelings necessarily arise from the choices of our will?  I think they do.

I don’t see a difference in the Scriptures between liking and loving.  I think that we say things like this simply because we don’t want to do the hard, messy work of actually loving.  Consider though how God has loved us — the untouchable, unlovable sinners that we are.  He never said, “Well, I quite dislike this group since they are a stench to me, but I guess I’ll send my Son to show them how much I love them.”  The call for us is to be like him: “You therefore must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48).

In an article from 1970, John Piper talks about how it is impossible to have the will to love someone if we dislike them:

If we dislike another person it will be impossible to consistently will the loving thing for that person. Sometimes we will simply forget to restrain our feelings and other times when we think we have willed the loving thing, our dislike will have sneaked in through a patronizing tone of voice or a depreciating glance. We cannot love consistently if we do not like (emphasis added).

Jesus said, “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven,” and also, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,” (Matt. 5:16; 44).  He did not say, “Love your enemies, but feel free to not like them if want.”  No one will glorify your Father in heaven for that.

What are your thoughts?

The Problems with Simon the Pharisee

Simon, in Luke 7:36-50, has a two-fold problem. He isn’t merciful (as opposed to Jesus’ command to be so in 6:27-36), and he’s proud (as opposed to the centurion in 7:6-8).

He probably invited Jesus over for dinner because he thought he was a religious big shot in the community.  Yet in a matter of moments he condemns himself as an arrogant and judgmental man who hasn’t been forgiven of much, barely loves his Lord, and is unkind to house guests (vv. 44-46).

Simon didn’t live by faith, but by religious traditions, rules, and accomplishments.  There is only restlessness in religion.  But in Christ, there is great peace.  “Your faith has saved you; go in peace” (v. 50).

Was Anyone Saved at the Cross

A guest post by Jordan Esmay

Below is a link to an article written by James White.  James White is a leading Protestant Christian apologist.  His ministries website is here.  A friend of mine who is not explicitly Reformed in his theology read it and said it was the first time he had thought about the issues discussed like Mr. White presented them.

Was Anyone Saved at the Cross? by James White

Guest Post – Jordan: “The Prodigal God”

Hi, my name is Jordan and I’m a guest blogger while James is gone.  I’m on facebook and am always up for having more friends, so if you want to have private conversations with me then facebook would be the best medium for me.

I’m going to try and post more and to write a better, but to start I thought I’d just share a book that a group of friends and I read through and discussed.

The book is The Prodigal God by Timothy Keller.  It’s a good read and great for conversations in a small group.  I’ll just give the basic jist to see if anyone can relate. 

Jesus tells a parable to a mixed group of people of ’sinners’, tax collectors, Pharisees, and Scribes.  We find this parable recorded in the book of Luke, chapter 15, verses 11-32.  Keller renames this parable as “The Parable of the Two Lost Sons” because that’s how Jesus starts the story out, “there was a man who had two sons”.  So here we are looking at this story with the well known sinner brother who basically robs his father and could have been put to death for what he did, he goes off and spends it all on parties and prostitutes.  But the elder brother stays to work hard like he always has.  Little bro comes back and big bro is angry that his father is throwing him a party… So we’ve got two basic kinds of people listening: Those who are Licentious and those who are Moralists.  We’ve got two brothers: the licentious  one and the moralist.  Both brother need the Savior and one is repenting.  The book serves a few different purposes, one to teach what Jesus was saying, one to figure out which brother you are more like, and one to challenge you to be like Jesus.   Are you an elder brother or a younger brother?

Jordan

Thinking About Truth and Love

I don’t have time right now to really write down my thoughts, but maybe I will sometime.  I’m not just “not perfect” at the truth and love combo.  I’m not close, and nobody can really say they are.  Anyway, in the meantime, I did want to pass along a few resources that have helped shaped my thinking.

First, here is a short article by John Piper, in which he says the Bible teaches that truth is the foundation for love.

And here is a 3-minute video from Desiring God where Mark Driscoll tells us about the art of speaking the truth in love:

MacArthur Finishes His Attack

John MacArthur has finished up his series on the Song of Solomon, and consequently, his berating of Mark Driscoll.

You can read parts two, three, and four on the Shepherd’s Fellowship site.

I already shared my thoughts on this discussion, but I will add a few more thoughts and observations:

1. The main sermon that MacArthur is discussing is one that Driscoll preached in Scotland a few years back.  Evidently, it was quite crass.  Driscoll was not aware that it was available online.  Driscoll offered an apology and said that the content has been removed from the internet.  MacArthur perhaps was unaware of this (I’m told he’s not that into the internet), however he could have been told by a GCC staffer.  Nevertheless, the discussion should have stopped with Driscoll’s apology.
2. I find it interesting that MacArthur’s series is called, “The Rape of Song of Solomon.”  On the first post, a female commenter wrote, “Brother MacArthur, I’m not going to address the rest of it (not worth my time) but I will say this. If you’d ever been raped, you wouldn’t use the term so casually.”
3. MacArthur obviously does not understand Driscoll’s humor in addressing preachers who teach Song of Solomon as a purely allegorical work.  It’s not blasphemous to say that Jesus would be gay if this book was strictly allegorical.  Let’s be honest: if the book was only allegory, it would put sexual connotations on Jesus’ relationship with the church.  That’s nonsense.  That’s disgusting.  And, to be sure, we would laugh at people who think that — because they are grossly wrong!  But that’s exactly what preachers (some very good ones!) have done in the past.  Driscoll is trying to show how senseless their interpretation is.
   
4. It seems as if MacArthur is calling for Driscoll’s resignation from the pastorate in a few of his posts because of his preaching style and delivery.  I’m sure you can guess what I think about that.
   

The Folly of Idolatry

We have heard over and over again that anything can be an idol.  It’s not only a sculpture, a carving, or a cast-iron statue.  It’s been jammed into our brains.  But how many of us believe it?

Isaiah 44 shows how foolish it is to worship an idol.  Isaiah’s logic goes something like this: a carpenter cuts down a tree, he cuts it into a log.  He uses half of it to make food and keep warm.  He uses the other half as a god to worship.  How stupid!

Well, that’s primitive and we (21st century people) would never do such a thing. Or would we?

Consider this: instead of cutting down a tree and worshiping it, we use “half” of our job, if you will, to give our families warmth and food.  We use the other “half” to obtain worldly success and fame and the praise of man.  What we are actually doing is sacrificing our family and our spiritual life so that we can worship at the altar of profit and recognition.

More than that, think about what we “love” (i.e. worship).  We “love” sports teams so that we can feel good when they win, and have an excuse to have self-pity when they lose. We “love” people so that they can be an avenue to get what we want.  We “love” our jobs so that we might receive the praise of man and get a fat paycheck to suit our ridiculous life-styles. We “love” food so that it can be a comfort to avert our attention from the sadness and depression in our lives and around the world. We “love” movies because it puts us into a fairytale story where life always ends up rich, happy, safe, or in love.  The list goes on and on.

Idolaters have fooled themselves into believing that idols can make their life fulfilling and satisfying. Instead, an idol is a life-draining, murdering, deceiving thing, because true idol-worship is actually self-worship.  We worship idols for our benefit.

These functional saviors cannot and never will deal with our greatest problem: sin.  Idols merely expose our sin and pride and desire to worship ourselves rather than God.  And the worst part is that when we get so deep into idolatry, we are like this man in Isaiah 44 who “cannot deliver himself or say, ‘Is there not a lie in my right hand?’ (v. 20).

Jesus is the only Savior who can bring satisfaction and happiness.  He said, “I came that you may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10b).  Jesus made this promise, and he still delivers today.  Every idol makes that same promise everyday, but not one has ever come through for anyone.

You Are Weird to God

When you hear the word “alienated,” what comes to mind?  You probably think words like of “strange,” “foreign,” or “different.”

How about “weird”?

If you look up “weird” in the dictionary, you might find something like this: “involving or suggesting the supernatural; unearthly or uncanny: a weird sound; weird lights.”  Interesting.  That sounds like they are describing a UFO or an alien.

Well, in Colossians 1:21, Paul writes that we “once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds.”  The previous six verses describe the incredible attributes of Jesus — his divinity, supremacy, and preeminence.  Because Jesus is all those things, and we are not, it makes us different than he is.  How do we respond to something that is different  from us (in the negative sense)?  We usually say, “That’s weird!”  When God sees sin, he says, “That’s not right.  That’s not how it’s supposed to be.”

Because of our sin, we do not belong in the same universe as God.  He is so perfect.  We are so sinful.  That’s a huge difference.  Our sin separates us from him; it causes us to not be able to experience relationship with God.  We are estranged.  We are lost.  Simply, in God’s eyes, sin makes us weird.

But the good news of the gospel is that Jesus, the righteous God-man, came to die for us, the unrighteous weirdos.  That’s what Paul tell us in verse 22:

[And you, who were once alienated]…he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him.

Jesus died that we might be holy and blameless before God.  Jesus’ death takes away alienation and brings on a new nature.  His death reconciles us to God.  His death secures our relationship with God.

Let’s praise God that his criteria for receiving love isn’t that we are like him.  He loves sinners.  He loves weirdos.  And he sent his Son to make us right with him, so that we might become more like Jesus for all eternity.