The Grammar School of Faith

“The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.” Romans 3:22

It is a strange thing indeed and might be an oxymoron were it not true. How knowing more about Jesus can lead to forgetting about Him. And how followers of Christ can often leave their leader behind. Neither makes sense. And both are owed to a conflict within us – the battle between the flesh and the spirit, the physical and the transcendent.

John Bradford, a sixteenth century English reformer and martyr, was well acquainted with this very human phenomenon. Bradford described what he called “Christless talkers.” Those who seemingly forget the elementary principles of faith and repentance. He was well acquainted with those who were full of “a bare head knowledge of sound words [that] availeth nothing.” Christless talkers. A moniker we would do well to avoid.

The constant challenge of the Christian life is to take a great journey of faith without forgetting the starting point. To walk a great distance with Jesus without ever getting far from the cross. For his cross is the source of his grace to us, and his grace is the source of our life in him.

This journey is not without its pitfalls. It is a journey with Jesus, but our flesh is always along for the ride. This flesh that would rather do than be. This flesh that would rather achieve than receive. The flesh that desperately wants a righteousness of its own rather than a righteousness that comes through faith.

And that is why a bare head knowledge of Jesus will never do. Because head knowledge often leaves the heart untouched. In this way it offers a sense of well-being, but fails to confront the pride-filled flesh. Paul noted a group of people in his second letter to Timothy whom he described as “always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth” (2Tim 3:7). Knowing about Jesus. But not knowing Jesus. Giving lipservice to him, but serving ourselves.

If we want to be more than “Christless talkers,” we must remember the lessons from return regularly to what Bradford calls “the grammar school of faith and repentance.” We must return frequently and remember where it all began for us – where it can begin for you today – with a Savior on a cross and a sinner on his knees. It began with a heart crying out and Jesus answering her pleas.

This vision of Savior and sinner, the Righteous and unrighteous, must be woven daily into the very fabric of our hearts, lest we forget our need for him.

I speak from experience, because my struggle is not in knowing that I have been saved by grace through faith (Eph 2:8). Neither is my struggle in knowing that justification is a free gift (Rom 3:24). I have been taught that many times and read it countless more.

No, my struggle is in convincing my pride-prone heart that I need Jesus as much today as I did the day I met Him. My struggle is in remembering that today – in my own flesh – there is nothing to commend me to God (Rom 7:18). My struggle is in remembering that it is only by grace that I have been saved. And that is not my own doing. That is the gift of God.

My best days are the days that I live with an awareness of this fact: I am still an empty sinner in need of grace.

I like the way Roy and Revel Hession frame this in their classic work, We Would See Jesus:

“Grace permits us to come (nay, demands that we come) as empty sinners to be blessed: empty of right feelings, good character and satisfactory record, with nothing to commend ourselves but our deep need, fully and frankly acknowledged… The struggle, of course, is to believe it and to be willing to be but empty sinners to the end of our days…”

Empty sinners. To the end of our days. Seeing ourselves as empty sinners will keep us closer to the cross. Closer to the place where Jesus can be found. And closer to the source of his grace.

As Roy and Revel put it, when “our deep need (is) fully and frankly acknowledged… Then grace, being what it is, is drawn by that need to satisfy it, just as water is drawn to depth (by gravity) that it might fill it.”

How long has it been since you have allowed the grace of God to plumb – and replenish – the depths of your heart? Taking some time for a clear picture of your Savior in light of your sin can do wonders for the soul. Return again and again to the cross, in both humility and gratitude, and drink your fill of His glorious grace.

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A bare head knowledge will lead us away from Jesus,
blind to our need for Him.
But a heart that is mindful of its own poverty will keep us returning to the cross and the source of his grace,
that we might be filled again and again with the person and character of Christ.

For the Spirit says,
“I am the vine and you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:5

Where's My Miracle?

And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well;
go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” Mark 5:34

The Gospel of Mark.

A man with too many demons to count. Tormented day and night, he lives among the tombs. Written off. Alone. Yet at the feet of Jesus he is made whole again.

A woman plagued by bleeding for more than 12 years. She is drained – physically, emotionally and financially. With a touch of Jesus’ cloak, she is healed.

A ruler of the synagogue whose only daughter is at death’s door pleads with Jesus. Word comes of her death, but for Jesus death is no different than sleep. He “wakes” the girl and gives her back to her family.

These are wonderful accounts from the life and ministry of Jesus. The kind that make me wish I could spend just one day watching Jesus move mountains. The kind that make me stand in awe of the God of the universe. Faith. Healing. Resurrection. Great stuff!

Yet if we are honest, these accounts can leave a weird aftertaste. The kind of aftertaste that begs the question, “Where is my miracle?” or “Where was my miracle?”

Where was my miracle when my mother battled cancer for three and a half years? For that matter, where was her miracle?

Where is my brother’s miracle as he battles cancer today?

Where was my aunt’s miracle as her husband battled Leukemia?

Where are parents’ miracles as they watch their child slip away?

Where was your miracle? Where?

But caution is in order here. Miracles are part of the story, but they are far from the whole story. Is it possible that the miracles are there to show us who Jesus is – God in the flesh – but that the other details show us what He came to do?

Jesus’ day was no different than our own. It was often some kind of personal need that brought people to Jesus: One of life’s fearful storms. Relentless demons. A debilitating disease. A loved one on the brink. These were the things that drove many to seek Him out. Yet Jesus always addressed a deeper need – a spiritual one.

Let’s take a look at the woman in these verses. She has secretly touched the hem of Jesus’ garment and has been healed. The story could have ended there: Jesus keeps walking. She goes home. Great story.

But it’s not the end. Rather, Jesus turns a secret healing mission into a public confession of faith. He moves from something good to something great. He takes a temporary physical fix and leverages it for permanent and eternal significance.

Her mission may be finished, but His is not.

Jesus stops the whole procession and calls out, “Who touched me?” She tries to hide, but she knows He knows. And He knows she knows He knows. So He asks again, looking her way this time, “Who touched me?” The compassion and gentleness of Christ compel her. She can hear it in His voice and see it in His eyes. She squeezes through the crowd, falls before him and “tells him the whole truth.”

And what is the result? She is saved. For eternity. Jesus makes it explicit. Although it is often translated “your faith has made you well,” we could just as easily translate it “your faith has saved you.” In this case, it meant both.

She could feel the physical healing in her body (v. 29) and now Jesus brings spiritual healing to her soul. He pronounces “shalom” or “peace” to her, a term with fantastic significance for the people of Israel. It meant that all was right between her and God – wholeness, unity, a restored relationship. Shalom. He calls her “daughter” – a child of God (something her disease had convinced her she wasn’t).

As the text says, the woman told Jesus the “whole truth.” I imagine “this whole truth” was quite a story. We don’t know where her story began or how long it lasted, but we know where it ended – at the feet of Jesus Christ – testifying of her faith and His redeeming work.

Jesus offers that same shalom, that same salvation to us. And He offers it the same way. The Apostle Paul tells us that “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”

It’s a promise. And the miracles of Jesus are here to show us that He will make good on that promise.

"The Lord your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save." Zeph 3:17

Can't Get Away from Love

“So now faith, hope and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:13

As I look at the life and preaching of Jesus and consider its echoes in the rest of the New Testament, the prominence of LOVE is absolutely striking. You just can’t get away from it.

For Jesus, it is the way to fulfill all the Law and the Prophets (i.e. the entire Old Testament). By loving God and loving your neighbor, every other commandment just falls into line. It is the very core of living the way God desires!

John’s Gospel mentions love more than the other three Gospels combined. One of his relatively brief writings, a letter we refer to as First John, does too. (These two writings mention love 103 times combined)

Love plays a central theme in the writings of the Apostle Paul as well. The book of Romans – Paul’s magnum opus – mentions love sixteen times. The first ten chapters or so refer repeatedly to the love of God toward us, while the remaining chapters mention love even more. This time it is all about how those who love God are to love others – the way God loved them.

Many of Paul’s other mentions of love are familiar to us. The fruit of the Spirit is love (Gal 5:22). Jesus’ sacrificial love for us is the example of how a husband should love his wife (Eph 5:25). More than that, Christ is to be the example of every aspect of a Christ follower’s love (Eph 5:2).

As one of my professors put it recently, love is the apex of Paul’s writing in First Corinthians. Without it, we are just a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal (1Cor 13). Let those images sink in for a moment. The passage is so familiar to many of us, that we tend to pass right over the images. A noisy gong. A clanging cymbal. These things are loud, right? But not just loud… violently loud – to the point of causing people to flee from their presence. At the very least, they cause anyone close by to want to cover their ears.

Do you hear what Paul is saying here? He is saying that all of our efforts to represent Christ and the Gospel will come off as a clanging cymbal if love is not the foundation. It will drive people away from us instead of towards Jesus. Because love is the foundation of Jesus. And if the love of Jesus isn’t our foundation, something else is. Pride. Rivalry. Empty glory. Self-interest. Self-righteousness. Self-something.

Let love be the hallmark and the very tone of all you do. Then and only then will you be a true Christ follower and not just a clanging cymbal.

In the words of Peter, “Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, for love covers a multitude of sins.” (1Pet 4:8)

"The Right Foundation"

[This entry is Part Two of a three-part series entitled "Put to the Test"]

Figuring that the resource had not been tapped for all it was worth, I continued crock-potting on Jesus’ analogy regarding the wise man who builds his house on the rock and the foolish man who builds his house on the sand (Matthew 7:24-27). Like we talked about in the last blog entry, one of these men that Jesus describes built according to the plans of the Master Builder – according to the words of Jesus. The other did not put Jesus’ “life-construction guidelines” to work and so, we can suppose, relied upon something else for his design and construction plans. Whether he relied upon his own knowledge and reason or some kind of human philosophy we don’t know. What we do know is that he did not put Jesus’ words into action despite having heard them.

As I continued to ponder the men described by Jesus and the outcome of their lives, an important truth was revealed. According to this parable, the long-term sustainability of this construction was not really proven until the houses were exposed to the elements of this world over the course of time.

It is possible that the house built on the sand looked really promising for a time. As a matter of fact, it may have been the most beautiful home in town when construction was finished. But eventually the storms of life came along and tested that construction. Jesus’ description of the storm sounds quite similar to the hurricanes and tropical storms hitting the Caribbean and portions of the United States as I write this. Rain falling in sheets. Flood waters rising. Winds blowing and beating on every structure in sight.

This brings back memories of the widespread damage in the Midwest this past Summer as rivers paid no heed to their banks and brought powerful currents to bear against homes as well as entire towns. Thinking back to the news coverage of these floods, I was reminded of amazing video footage of two houses along the Wisconsin River. The power of the flooded river’s current had been pounding the earth supporting two particular homes for days. Eventually so much ground was washed away that both homes literally snapped in two and crashed into the river one after the other. We’re talking entire homes…snapping in two and being carried away by the river. Amazing.

Interestingly, even moments before their fall, these were two beautiful homes. But their long-term sustainability was intimately tied to the ground underneath. The future of these homes was inextricably linked to their foundations. Much like those who hear Jesus’ words but choose to go their own way, certainly these people had been warned of the inherent risks of construction in this area. It was obvious to anyone standing there. Despite the assurances they may have received from others around them, building here was a roll of the dice. It might be 100 years before a big enough flood came, but eventually it would come. They knew the risks and chose to take their chances. They decided that the potential pleasures outweighed the risks.



The same is true of those who build on a foundation other than Christ. This is described for us in Romans chapter 1. Here Paul tells us that what can be known about God is plain to everyone, because God’s nature is revealed to all people by the world around us – the world He created. But some, despite knowing that God exists and knowing what He desires, choose not to honor him as God or give thanks to him, but instead they choose to go their own way (Romans 1:19-21). They roll the dice.

Having a foundation built solidly on Christ – the Rock – has daily implications for a home’s sustainability as well as eternal ramifications. The worldview (and Godview) presented by Jesus gives us a healthy guideline for living whether we’re celebrating a sunny day at the beach, enduring a cloudy, humid Midwestern day or holding on in the midst of a Category 4 hurricane. This worldview and Godview help us to answer questions like: What really matters? What should be truly important to me? Where should I place my priorities and my energies? How should I view God, myself and others in light of the storms of life? How do I handle difficulties in my finances, family, and marriage? How do I make sense of the death of a loved one? Jesus has answers for all of these questions. Answers that give sustainability and solidarity to our daily lives.

But Jesus isn’t just concerned about today. He’s concerned about eternity. According to Jesus and other New Testament writers, many will hear the words of Christ and yet choose to construct their own worldview and trust in themselves rather than God. Unfortunately, this will only end in disappointment and separation from God and all that is good It is not a roll of the dice that anyone should take, yet, like the people who built on the banks of the Wisconsin River, many will pick up those dice and take their chances. And many houses will crumble.

If you’re still reading, there’s a chance you’re saying, “Gee, Troy. Thanks for the uplifting message today.” I’m with you, but while this all may sound like gloom and doom, there is a bright spot to the story: People can move! Just because you built a house on the banks of the Wisconsin River doesn’t mean you can’t put that house on the market and move to solid ground. It’s not too late to realize you’ve made a mistake and relocate.

When those two houses plunged into the river, they were unoccupied. The people who had at one time decided it was a good place to invest had abandoned that thinking and taken everything they could salvage. As soon as they realized the foundation was crumbling, they moved to higher ground. They were going to start rebuilding on a solid foundation.

If this is you… if you have been building a foundation and a home on your own building plans – your own wisdom, intelligence or perception of reality – it's not too late to abandon ship! Now is the time to move. The offices of the Master Builder are open 24/7 and your bad credit and flood insurance history are no problem. He is always interested in developing a new neighborhood to be part of his Master Planned Community (he calls it “The Kingdom” – sounds spectacular doesn’t it!?). A heart that is ready to follow him is just the location He is looking for. You'll never tire of the views (you can see for an eternity!) and likely begin to wish that you could stay forever. The Good News is that you can. His Son already has your mortgage taken care of. It’s a family business and you are now part of the family. Welcome to the neighborhood.

Crock Pot Theology

My mind is kind of like a crock pot. Ever tried to make a quick meal in a crock pot? It doesn’t work. Microwaves are better suited for that. A crock pot works best when things are given a chance to marinate and stew over time. Often the longer you let the ingredients stew, the better they taste in the end. Like a crock pot, my mind often needs time to think and process things. I like to make observations, ask questions, ponder, listen… ask more questions, make more observations, then ponder and listen some more.

Over the last 7 months or so I have been pondering the “Kingdom of Heaven” as Jesus painted it in his preaching and parables. I have been making observations, asking questions… you get the point.

After 7 months of “crock potting”, there is one thing that I am convinced of: the Kingdom of Heaven is not being manifested in the world today the way Jesus envisioned and preached it. The questions become, “Why?” and “What can we do to change this?”

I think the Kingdom agenda is failing to be realized because too many Christians have missed the boat. We are content with what some have called “good enough Christianity”. We think it’s great that Jesus died for us and that we are going to heaven. Now that we have the salvation box checked off of our “to do” list, we can get back to our regularly-scheduled lives. Eternal life? Check. I’m in.

But we miss the bigger picture – the whole point really. Jesus didn’t just come to get us into heaven. He came to get heaven into us. Eternal life? It starts now. It could be translated “never-ending life” and it begins when God’s Holy Spirit takes up residence in your heart. You are re-born into a new life – never-ending life. It is not something we are waiting to acquire, it is something we are to walk in today.

Back to the “Kingdom of Heaven”. Why was Jesus so popular among the crowds? Certainly some of it was the miracles he performed. But thousands of people also gathered to hear him teach and preach. Did Jesus lower the morality bar to get people to follow him? No. He raised the bar higher than anyone had raised it before. Forget about “do not murder”. If you are angry with your brother, you are in danger of the fire of hell (Matt 5:22). Adultery? Do you have eyes? You’re done (5:28). Jesus was honest about the reality of sin in our lives – the sin that resides deep down where few will ever see. His honesty resonated with people.

But if Jesus created awareness of peoples’ sinful nature, how was it that so many were drawn to Him? Jesus represented the grace of God in human form. He didn’t just make people aware of their sin, he represented (make that embodied) the solution for it too. Matthew says that “when [Jesus] saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.’” (Matt 9:36-37)

Do you desire to be a laborer in the harvest? If so, are you embodying the grace of God which you have so freely received (Matt 10:8)? Are you looking on the people as Jesus did – with compassion, recognizing that they are harassed and helpless? Or are you looking from an “us versus them” perspective? “Sinners and tax collectors” aren’t the enemy. They are victims of the enemy in need of a Savior. In need of the grace of God and someone who will show them that grace.

Is it just a coincidence that Matthew describes Jesus’ compassion just one verse before the appeal for laborers to go into the harvest (Matt 9:36-37)? Or was it intentional - to describe the kind of laborer Jesus is looking for?

As those laboring for the Kingdom, how can we be more effective laborers and increase the harvest? Or can we? I think it’s a matter of the heart. Having the heart of Christ. It is this kind of heart that will allow us to see people the way Jesus sees them. Then and only then will they be drawn to us in any sense of the way they were drawn to Him.