Zack Eswine on Significance in the Ordinary

Zack Eswine on Significance in the Ordinary from Crossway on Vimeo.

Armstrong, Livestrong, Die Stronger

Lance. Big surprise? Um, No.

Baseball: Bonds, Sosa, McGwire, Canseco, Petite, A-Rod, Clemens, their mothers, and their dogs.
Football: Spygate, Bounty Hunting, Brett Favre's cellular indiscretion, Vick and the aforementioned HGH dogs .
Golf: Tiger.
Basketball.
This guy

(ps. government too!)

As earth orbits the sun, so do professional athletes orbit scandal--they cannot elude its inescapable gravitational pull. Don't believe me? Watch Sportscenter for a week.

But now that performance enhancing drugs have since devoured Floyd Landis and latched their tentacles around cycling's golden boy, the public reaction has taken on a particular flavor. The public has taken two distinct sides. The Armstrong's cry fraudulent disqualification, the Livestrong's proclaim result-driven qualification. Neither will suffice. In times of blatant failure (defiant in Lance's case), only dying stronger than you "armstrong" or "livestrong" will suffice.

Armstrong
Public outrage is climaxing at this point. After years and years of scathing, indignant refutation, Lance finally admitted to what he so vehemently denied for at least a decade. As with the rest of our athletes who have fallen so far off the pedestal we insist on elevating them to, Lance's heart has proved to be black. And the public is ready to exile him. Strip the jerseys! Remove the medals! Exterminate the awards! Impeach him from his nonprofit! CONDEMN HIM. Rick Reilly, an ESPN sports columnist and close friend of Armstrong who defended Lance the past decade, outright rejects Lance's personal apology and condemns him by publicly and permanently burning the bridge they so freely traversed in the past. "It does not matter what he's done," the Armstrong's say. "On the inside he's a liar and a cheat, and he's disqualified!"

Livestrong
In the midst of disqualifying accusations, there's a murmuring of those who say, "Hold on a sec, he still qualifies. Look what he's done for cancer. Look what he's done for the sport. He's been such an inspiration!" One tweet reads, "Beat cancer, raise millions of dollars for cancer research, bring back a dead sport, then judge Lance #Armstrong. People piss me off." 55 million wristbands! Millions and millions of dollars for research! "It doesn't matter what he's like on the inside," the Livestrong's say. "It's the external that qualifies this man! Look at all he's done!"

Here's the problem: According to the public, Lance has fallen so far and so fast that there is absolutely nothing he can do to rid him of this permanent and career-wrecking stain. The internal condemnation is thick and heavy and it is not going anywhere. Additionally, the external can clearly do no good in transforming the internal. Lance ran his Livestrong campaign brilliantly while doping with EPO for all 7 Tour de France victories. Polished and sparkly outside, moral decay inside. The yellow wrist band I bought in 4th grade can't change Lance's heart. At least everyone thought I was cool.

So it seems that when we judge others and ourselves, we go one of two options:

1. We recognize we don't measure up. We see that we're total failures. We drown in the cesspools of guilt created by our moral failure. We convince ourselves that we are unlovable. We collapse under the weight of condemnation, and cling to anything we can get our hands on in a vain attempt to pawn off the perpetual weight of ongoing failure. When we find out others are just as bad or even worse than us (based on our own faulty perception of morality), we make sure we drag others down with us. With an undeserved pat on the shoulder and a fake fleeting smile, we leap frog ourselves up a rung on the moral ladder. "At least I'm not as bad as Lance! He's horrible! I'd never do that!"

2. We think we do measure up. We fight and claw for a pristine moral portfolio to present to God and to others, and insist that they accept us. The external justifies the internal. "I'm a pretty good person. I don't lie, cheat or steal. I'm not a murderer or a rapist." When others are caught in a scandal (especially in a scandal we ourselves could be guilty of), we fight for their external records. We do this because by fighting for their external qualifications, we're actually fighting for our own.

Die Stronger
There's always a 3rd way isn't there? Scripture doesn't leave us with either of these options. Road blocks both ways. The Bible tells us to ditch ourselves entirely. Death to self, life in Christ. The imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ simultaneously rescues us from our self-loathing, and deflates the limp balloon of our self-righteousness. Christ forbids our despair and scoffs at our efforts to measure up. There are no options of self left.

"For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him" (Romans 6:5-8) 

We ask frenetically with word and deed our entire lives, "How do I qualify??" As my friend answers, "Know you don't." As Tim Keller says, "The gospel is this: we are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope."

It is time to decisively push off shore from our tit-for-tat legalism and self-atoning that has been unfortunately familiar to us our entire lives. We don't sulk in abject despair. Nor do we run the unending race of moral manipulation. We fling ourselves overboard the USS Self entirely, and cling to the only Vessel capable of navigating the tempestuous seas of despair, confusion, desperation, frustration, pain, disappointment, anxiety, fear, sin, and death. The liberating power of the gospel is that our qualification no longer has anything to do with us. Our spiritual portfolios are filled with the riches of Christ. We're invited to joyfully jump off the cliff of safe moralism. The world says it's death. They're playing it safe. Risk is good. Jump. Christ is all. "Hallelujah, all I have is Christ. Hallelujah, Jesus is my life."

Will Not Let Us Go

George Whitefield:

"Nothing could possibly support my soul under the many agonies which oppressed me when on board, except a consideration of the freeness, eternity, and unchangeableness of God's love to me.

I need not fear the sight of sin when I have a perfect, everlasting righteousness wrought out for me by Jesus Christ....

May he enlighten me more and more to know and feel the mystery of his electing, soul-transforming love. There is nothing like it, to support us under present and all the various future trials. But the Lord has apprehended us and will not let us go. Men and devils may do their worst; our Jesus will allow nothing to pluck us out of His Almighty hands."

HT: Dane Ortlund

Rest

"If you try to seize the day, the day will eventually break you. Rather, seize the corner of His garment."

Paul Miller

'You Are The Very Person'

Spurgeon:

I have no gospel to preach to the self-righteous, no, not a word, Jesus Christ Himself came not to call the righteous, and i am not going to do what he did not do, No, I ask you rather to look at that righteousness of yours till you see what a delusion it is. It is not half so substantial as a cobweb. Be finished with it! Flee it!

"They that are whole have no need of a physician, but they that are sick" (Mark 2:17). Is it not equally clear that the great remedies of grace and redemption are for the sick in soul? They cannot be for the whole, for they cannot be of use to such. If you feel that you are spiritually sick, the Physician has come into the world for you. If you are altogether undone by reason of your sin, you are the very person aimed at in the plan of salvation. I say that the Lord of love had precisely such as you in his eye when he arranged the system of grace.

He that is a dirty sinner is the kind of man that Jesus Christ came to make clean, Come in your disorder. Come to your heavenly Father in all your sin and sinfulness. come to Jesus just as you are: leprous, filthy, naked. Come, though despair is brooding over you, pressing upon your chest like a horrible nightmare.

-All of Grace

.....

That is a shot of joyful hope for sleepy souls such as mine.

"You No Longer Have to Spend the Rest of Your Life Chasing Your Tail"

I Want This

Marsden, commenting on the glories of God revealed to Edwards...

"The new sensibilities grew during the spring. As he wandered in the fields, woods, and hills near New Haven for his meditations he repeatedly saw the glory and beauty of God's love in Christ. He experienced an 'inward sweet sense' of Christ's love expressed in 'the work of redemption, and the glorious way of salvation by him.' He spent much time reading the love poetry of the Canticles or Song of Songs

..."The words seemed to me, sweetly to represent the loveliness and beauty of Jesus Christ." Such contemplations would carry him away 'from all the concerns of the world' into 'a kind of vision...sweetly conversing with Christ, and wrapped and swallowed up in God.' This new sense of divine things 'would often of a sudden as it were, kindle up a sweet buying in my heart; an ardor of my soul, that i know not how to express.'

What overwhelmed him was two seemingly opposite attributes of the triune God "in a sweet conjunction: majesty and meekness joined together: it was a sweet and gentle, and holy majesty; and also a majestic meekness; an awful sweetness; a high, and great, and holy gentleness."


...I'll have what he's having.

He Refuses to Play That Game

1 Timothy 1:15-- "Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief."


Keller comments,

"Not I was chief, but I am chief. Or 'I am the worst.' This is off our maps. We are not used to someone who has incredible confidence volunteering the opinion that they are one of the worst people. We are not used to someone who is totally honest and totally aware of all sorts of moral flaws--yet has incredible poise and confidence.

We cannot do that. Do you know why? Because we are judging ourselves. But Paul will not do that. When he says that he does not let the Corinthians judge him nor will he judge himself, he is saying that he knows about his sins but he does not connect them to himself and his identity. His sins and his identity are not connected. He refuses to play that game. He does not see a sin and let it destroy his sense of identity. He will not make a connection. Neither does he see an accomplishment and congratulate himself...So, although he knows himself to be the chief of sinners, that fact is not going to stop him from doing all the things that he is called to do."


Tim Keller, The Freedom of Self-forgetfulness, p.30 (emphasis added)

Galatians 1:15-16; Jude 1:24

Galatians 1:15-16 "But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles...

Jude 24 "Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy..."

It brings the Father pleasure and joy to both unite us with his son Jesus and present us as blameless before his glory. blameless. He's looking down on us in spite of all our screwiness, all our deficiency, all our lacking, all our frustration and insecurity, our confusion and shortsightedness, with pleasure and joy because of Christ. God delights in saving us.

Hallelujah, All I Have Is Christ

Hebrews 4:14-16

"Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need."

Hallelujah, Jesus is my life.

Lewis on Theology and The Gospel

C.S. Lewis, responding to an acquaintance who claimed his experience with God was all he needed to know him

"Now in a sense I quite agreed with that man. I think he had probably a real experience of God in the desert. And when he turned from that experience to the Christian creeds, I think he really was turning from something real, to something less real. In the same way, if a man has once looked at the Atlantic from the beach, and then goes and looks at a map of the Atlantic, he also will be turning from something real to something less real: turning form real waves to a bit of colored paper. But here comes the point. The map is admittedly only colored paper, but there are two things you have to remember about it. In the first place, it is based on what hundreds and thousands of people have found out by sailing the real Atlantic. In that way it has behind it masses of experience just as real as the one you could have from the beach; only, while yours would be a single isolated glimpse, the map fits all those different experiences together. In the second place, if you want to go anywhere, the map is absolutely necessary. As long as you are content with walks on the beach, your own glimpses are far more fun than looking at a map. But the map is going to be more use than walks on the beach if you want to get to America."

Later in the same piece Lewis expounds on the differences between other religions and Christianity, a thread that Keller has drawn out

For when you get down to it, is not the popular idea of Christianity simply this: that Jesus Christ was a great moral teacher and that if only we took his advice we might be able to establish a better social order and avoid another war? now, mind you, that is quite true. But it tells you much less than the whole truth about Christianity and it has no practical importance at all. It is quite true that if we took Christ's advice, we should soon be living in a happier world. You need not even go as far as Christ. If we did all that Plato or Aristotle or Confucius told us, we should get on a great deal better than we do. And so what? We have never followed the advice of the great teachers. Why are we likely to begin now? Why are we more likely to follow Christ than any of the others? Because He is the vest moral teacher? But that makes it even less likely that we shall follow Him. If we cannot take the elementary lessons, is it likely we are going to take the most advanced one: If Christianity only means one more bit of good advice, then Christianity is of no importance. There has been no lack of good advice for the last four thousand years. A bit more makes no difference. But as soon as you look at any real Christian writings, you find that they are talking about something quite different from this popular religion..."

Readings From C.S. Lewis, "The Joyful Christian." p. 33-35

Galatians 2:11-16

"For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel. For I id not receive it from any man, nor was I thought it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me..."


No explanation needed.

Identity, Idolatry, and the Gospel (part 2)

So put bluntly, in modern terms, Herod was a tool. Cocky. He thought he was the man, and wanted everyone to know it. He was that guy in the clubs with the popped collar, stunner shades on, hair gelled stiff, using money like napkins. Think Jersey Shore.

Throwing dirt Lebron style on the top of Mount Carmel

As Jeremiah and I considered this individual, we asked ourselves an important question. What about the human heart leads to action such as this? Herod’s behavior certainly isn’t anachronistic. We’ve seen power trips like this all throughout history, and we still see them today. Trump. Where’s the commonality? That common denominator is idolatry. The sin of idolatry subtly ravages the human heart. Idolatry can be defined as looking to other things to provide the comfort, satisfaction, joy, peace, security, and rest that only God can provide. Ask yourself the question, “If only I had _______, then I would be OK.” Or, “As long as _________ continues to happen, then I’m OK.” Fill in the blank. For Herod it was power. It was control. As long as he was in control, and could CLEARLY demonstrate it, he was ok. Herod was defined by lavishness and opulence. It could be different for you. Financial security? Family? Job? Marriage? Social status? Car? House? Education? Sex? Influence? What is the one thing in your life that if you lost it, you would be utterly devastated? An idol is anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give.

Now keep in mind Jeremiah’s last sentence. “We met Jesus.” We’re going there. I want to be clear on why we are going there before we do.

Jeremiah and I looked at Herod’s idolatrous situation, and ultimately ours, in terms of a two-fold identity. After a particular lecture in Caesarea, Jeremiah came up to me and applied these concepts of passive identity and active identity. Passive identity includes the factors you are defined by that are outside of your control. For example, your parents. Your neighborhood. Basically, the culture you were born into. This is very formative, and provides foundational nourishment through adolescence. Yet there comes a point where the individual delves deeper into personal autonomy.

We’ll call this active identity. From Jeremiah’s and my experience, we’ve seen this happen somewhere in the teens. At this point, the individual has had sufficient experience in the world, and starts making moves. Affections are stirred in particular directions, toward different things. Individuals start deciding who they want to be. What they want to be known for. This life long process of active identity and personal autonomy is an idolatrous incubator. You, me, and Herod place our identity and affections in these things that allure our hearts so effectively.

So what does Jesus have to do with this? In accordance with our trip, I want to demonstrate the character of God and idolatry through the Old Testament. This will help us make sense of Jesus. We are led to 1 Kings 18, where Elijah defeats the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel. This was a site we were blessed to visit a few weeks back.

The purpose for Elijah’s contest was to directly confront the idol of the Israelites.  King Ahab and Queen Jezebel were promoting a pluralistic society in Israel. They saw no problem with worshipping Baal one day, and the Lord on the Sabbath. The case is no different in our present day. We live in a society that is absolutely deistically pluralistic. In the text, Baal was not a concrete god as we see with other ancient gods like Zeus. Baal was understood in more of a generic sense. There was a Baal for everything, such as water, food, and land.  In our culture, these Baals still exist. Everything can be a Baal, and everything has been a Baal. How many times in our culture do we see success on TV, and think, “if only I had that, I would be ok?” When we see perfect women on billboards and think “if only I looked like that” or “if only I could date a girl that looked like her.” The possibilities are endless. There are Baals all around us. We undoubtedly live in Elijah’s pluralistic society.

            With idols all around us, it is imperative to identify these idols. In the text we see the NIV translation say “they danced around the altar they had made…so they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed.” In their calling to Baal, we see the prophets do three things. They danced, they shouted louder, and finally they slashed themselves until their blood flowed.  These are perfect characteristics and demonstrations of how we act with our Baals. Our Baals need appeasement. They are demanding. They require performance. We dance for them.  When something has captured our hearts so intently that we will do anything to acquire them, we have been enticed by a Baal.

 In recent years Madonna has expressed that the only reason she keeps going, the only reason she keeps writing new songs is because she can only stay on the top of the charts for so long. She needs the feeling of that number one spot. It’s the same with athletes who cannot bring themselves to retire despite an age that screams laz-e-boy (Jordan with the Wizards?). After the economic crisis hit in 2008, a string of suicides followed among the formerly wealthy. These included David Kellerman, the chief financial officer of Freddie Mac. Another suicide following the crisis was Cristen Schnor, a Danish banker who hanged himself in a London hotel. Their Baals were their identity. Their Baals demanded performance. When we do not appease our idols, or get what we want from them, we shout louder. We try harder. When our idols ultimately leave us empty, when we call out and get no response, our worlds crumble. Our idols demand our blood, and it gushes out in pursuit of them.

            In the midst of our despair, we have a more beautiful remedy than we could ever imagine, and it lies within the place in which the fire came down. “Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench.” The fire did not fall on the Israelites watching, or further off into the mountains, but the fire fell on the sacrifice. The sacrifice on the mount defeated the idol, and was the means by which people believed.” The character of God as seen through the Old Testament is to save idolatrous sinners by means of sacrifice. Familiar, huh? Enter Jesus.

 In the same way, Jesus sacrificed Himself on Mount Calvary to eliminate our idols. He took the fire of God’s judgment on our behalf, so that we may experience the fire of God’s love. Contrary to our false gods who say “slash yourself for me,” Jesus, out of adoration, slashed Himself for us. His blood flowed in our place. Not due to our performance, not because we deserve it, but because He already loved us-because of His pure, satisfactory delight in us as we are now. The remedy from our idols, the cure for our Baals, is not an increase in performance or effort, but instead resting in Christ’s finished work on the cross. “For He was pierced for our transgression, He was crushed for our iniquity. The punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed.”

The Only Thing I Want

One thing: I want God to make himself the sole object of my worship. The sole object of my thought. The sole object of my affection, desire, hope, emotion. I want God to make himself so evident to me, so obvious, so glorious-- that my sinful, jacked up, stupid, idiotic, idolatrous, self seeking heart will have no other choice but to submit to his graceful, sovereign will. I want God to show me the incomprehensible depths of Christ's sufficiency

Why I'm Thinking of Naming My First Son Isaiah

In reading the ESV Study Bible's introduction to Isaiah, the key themes as summarized by Ray Ortlund opened my eyes to the beauty of the book. Isaiah's name means literally "Yahweh is salvation"

Key themes (for the sake of brevity, just a few)

1. God is offended by religious ritual, however impressive, if it conceals an empty heart and a careless life (1:10-17, 58:1-12, 66:1-4)
2. God's true people will become a multination community of worship and peace forever (2:2-4,19:19-25, 25:6-9, 56:3-8, 66:18-23)
3. God opposes all manifestations of human pride (2:10-17, 10:33-34, 13:11, 16:6, 23:9, 28:1-4)
4. Though God's judgment will reduce his people to a remnant, his final purpose is the joyful triumph of his grace (1:9, 6:1-12:6, 35:1-10, 40:1-2, 49:13-16, 51:3, 54:7-8, 55:12-13)
5. The only hope of the world is bound up in one man--the promised Davidic king (4:2, 7:14, 9:2-7, 11:1-10), the lone victor over all evil (63:1-6)

Still gotta find a girl, but ill let you know when little Isaiah is on the way