Applying the Gospel

The “first gospel” came immediately after the first sins, in the context of a curse on the serpent. “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring [LXX seed] and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15). Jesus Christ is the promised one who came “to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8), “God’s seed” who abides in the one who has been “born of God” (1 John 3:9). On the other hand, Cain (Genesis 4) was “of the evil one and murdered his brother” (1 John 3:12). Cain was the serpent’s seed.

Cain could easily have been mistaken for God’s promised seed. He was, technically, the first offspring of the woman. But by his actions he proved himself instead to be the serpent’s seed. It became evident immediately that ordinary physical generation alone was not what qualified one to be God’s promised seed. “Not all her offspring are her offspring” (cf. Romans 9:6).

This is the beginning of the gospel of promise; the gospel that works against our entitlements and expectations; the gospel of a God who has always worked through faith, not just flesh.

Last year five babies were born in our congregation. God willing, this year there will be four more. We’re a small congregation, so this is significant. It’s tempting to wonder how to get people mobilized for ministry when families continue to grow like this. It’s difficult for mothers of small children to engage in activities outside the home. Often these mothers feel absolutely overwhelmed, and wish they could attend discipleship opportunities and volunteer in more ways, but it’s just impossible. Consequently, one might look at the church from the outside and think that not much was happening.

We’re wrong to think that real ministry isn’t happening when mothers are busy caring for children. Mothers might feel like they’re perpetually treading water, barely keeping their heads up. They might feel like they have nothing to show for a day’s work but a pile of dirty diapers. They might feel the frustration of futility, like Sisyphus pushing the boulder, while they clean up the mess again. They might feel like the end of the rope just slipped out of their weakened grasp when screaming brother won’t stop hitting his screaming sister. They might feel fear and worry that these children might not grow up to be perfect. Could there be a more significant arena for the constant application of the Gospel? Could there be a better avenue for genuine, whole-life Gospel discipleship?

Mothers who are busy caring for their children are doing real ministry when they’re relying on the resources provided by the Gospel in ways that enable them to pour themselves out for the sake of love. Mothers are really ministering when they lift, play, read, hug, cook, feed, wipe, wash, brush, and tuck. Mothers are really ministering when they say, “I love you,” and when they say, “Hot! Ouch! No touch!” Discipline is real ministry. Teaching and training is real ministry. Comforting is real ministry. And pouring yourself out like that is exhausting.

Of course, when you’re exhausted it’s easy for things like anger and shouting to characterize your actions rather than joy and generosity. Exhaustion exposes what’s really going on inside our hearts, exposes our true motivations, because we’re just too tired to keep up appearances. Newsflash: exhaustion will expose your sin, at a deep level. Pay attention to what is exposed, and learn how to apply the Gospel to it like the proper salve to a wound.

Regrettably, we all sin, and we always will in this life. But we should know that the Gospel will always be true in spite of that. Knowing you inside and out, the Father sent his Son for you to win you back to himself. That’s a concrete, historical fact that won’t go away just because you may not be living up to your own standards of motherhood. You don’t live up to God’s standards, and he sent his Son anyway. And his Spirit doesn’t live in you to make you the perfect mother. The Spirit lives in you to assure you of God’s perfect, irrevocable love for you in Christ, and to help you to respond to his grace in ways that you never could without him, to help you respond to his grace in ways that magnify his grace.

So the ministry of motherhood is like any other ministry: sinners saved by God’s grace helping other sinners to learn the same saving grace. But the ministry of motherhood is more holistic, more constant, more draining, with greater potential for tremendous and lasting impact than many other ministries. I’d say that a congregation full of mothers is a congregation ministering the love of Christ in profound ways.

“Burnout” is a common experience in life and in the church. Church leaders and volunteers feel “burned out” when they feel the crushing weight of their responsibilities without any relief, when they feel trapped or stranded in their role, or when they’ve just taken on too many tasks. There are probably times when they just need a break, when they need to serve in fewer capacities, or when they need to say “No.” I want to be sensitive to people in those circumstances. But that’s not what I’m addressing here.

It seems to me that burnout is often linked to our motives for service, where we get our energy to serve. I recently had a friend tell me that he was feeling close to burnout in his role in the church, and he confessed it like one confesses a sin. He knew it was because he’s often compelled by the wrong motives to serve. He feels like his service is a duty that he has to perform, or else he’ll feel guilty, like a failure. (That kind of stress quickly becomes paralyzing.) Some would say, “He’s serving in his own strength,” rather than in the strength that God supplies. Even though he’s aware of that dynamic in himself, he still struggles to feel rightly motivated and energized in his service.

There have been times in my ministry when I’ve felt this way, too. I’ve gotten some gray hairs from some hard conversations over the years. Often I’ve just forced myself to continue, gutted it out, done the right thing, pep-talked myself, followed orders like a good soldier, et cetera. A couple years ago, while “venting” (read, “complaining”) to a fellow pastor about the hardships of ministry, he asked me, “So why are you doing this job?” I told him, “I’m happy to do my duty.” I actually felt good about that answer. He pointed out that it was, of course, the wrong answer. “If you’re not doing it to draw closer to Jesus,” he said, “then it’s probably not worth doing.”

So, my motives were wrong and things were becoming too stressful, almost unbearable. I was linking my identity to my ministry, finding my righteousness in my ministry, trying to maintain autonomy and manage my own life through my ministry, looking for approval and acceptance through my ministry. I had to do ministry, because my life depended on it. But when you’re called to minister the grace of Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit to others for their life, it would probably be good if those were the fuel source for your life as well. The Gospel should be amazing enough to motivate and energize us to serve. Let me rephrase that: the Gospel is amazing enough to motivate and energize us to serve. If we don’t find it to be so, there’s something wrong inside of us, and we need God to change that by his usual means of grace.

It struck me then—profoundly enough to have some lasting effect—that it was probably possible to do very difficult things without burning out. What happens when you ask God to help you to serve from a changed heart, with real love, his love? What happens when you ask the Lord to make you a joyful servant, to make his own joy your strength (Neh. 8:10)? What happens when you abide with delight in Jesus, in the Triune God of love? “I am the vine; 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).

Is this too cliché? “I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13). Paul wrote that from prison… to say that Jesus equipped him to handle all kinds of stressful circumstances with contentment… in a letter about joy. He’s saying that knowing God in Christ gives him fuel to persevere in service without burning out. You can know God this way, too, through the Gospel. Your relationship to him, your love for him based on his love for you, his own love in you by his Spirit who dwells in you, can strengthen you to pour yourself out like a drink offering in his service (Phil. 2:17; 2 Tim. 4:6). If you don’t know what that means, you should ask him to show you.

“I am writing to you, young men,
because you have overcome the evil one…
I write to you, young men,
because you are strong,
and the word of God abides in you,
and you have overcome the evil one.”
(1 John 2:13b, 14b)

The Christian life is warfare of a spiritual nature (Ephesians 6:12). Our enemy is evil personified, the devil himself (1 Peter 5:8). His main tactics are deceit (John 8:44), temptation (Luke 4:13), and accusation (Revelation 12:10). He wants us to doubt God’s love for us. He wants us to sin. He wants us to feel that our guilt is too great for God’s grace to overcome. And, in a hateful way, he wants for God himself to condemn us because of our sin. (It may be that he was Heaven’s Chief Prosecutor before he overstepped his bounds.) We can’t analyze what percentage of our temptation or sin is directly attributable to the devil, but we need to know that someone powerful is personally working against us.

John writes his letter to give us Christian confidence. The confidence he wants us to have is one that is grounded outside ourselves, in the person and work of Christ. The Gospel gives us a confidence that doesn’t depend on our potential or abilities or success, therefore a confidence that can’t be shaken, a confidence that stands in the face of all difficulties. So, when he writes to give us confidence in the face of temptation, he doesn’t write, “You can do it! You can overcome the evil one, if you learn all the right methods and try really hard!” No, he writes, “you have overcome the evil one.” Perfect tense. Already accomplished, with lasting effect.

He isn’t pointing to previous battles you’ve won, like that time last week when you resisted temptation. He’s pointing to the decisive victory over evil that is true of every believer in Jesus Christ. You are strong in his grace, not in-and-of yourself. His word abides in you. Jesus himself abides in you, and you in him. So the strength of the one who faced every temptation and never sinned is yours. The strength of the one who faced the devil himself victoriously is yours. The strength of the one who conquered sin and death in his resurrection is yours. The strength of the one who is seated on Heaven’s throne with power over all his enemies is yours, because the Spirit of God unites you to Jesus Christ by his grace. You have the resources you need to overcome the devil himself, because you already have overcome him in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ.

So, when you think about temptations and sins that you face frequently, what’s your perspective? When you face temptations to anger, covetousness, lust—again—how do you feel? Do you feel doubt and despair that you’ll ever be free of them? Do you fear that these things define you, that they constitute your identity? Do you feel demoralized and exhausted from the long siege of temptation, the drawn-out battle with sin and the devil? Or do you look at temptations, sin, even the evil one himself, as a conqueror looks in triumph over his trampled foes?

One of my favorite scenes in The Lord of the Rings is when Gandalf the White, back from the dead and reunited with his companions, recounts his battle with the ancient demon of the deep. It was a battle that claimed his life, but he had the victory. He fell, “through fire and water. From the lowest dungeon to the highest peak I fought him, the Balrog of Morgoth. Until at last I threw down my enemy and smote his ruin upon the mountain side.” That’s inspiring. We have better.

“Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, ‘Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them!’” (Revelation 12:7-12)

Jesus Christ threw down his enemy and smote his ruin upon the mountain side—on Golgotha, when he victoriously resisted temptation and sin and the devil himself to the point of his own death on the cross. And his victory is yours, vicariously, because of your spiritual union with him. You were in him when he defeated the powers of darkness. In him, you have overcome the evil one. By the grace of God you have confidence that enables you to look at temptation, sin, and the devil as defeated foes.

“Cross Chart” from The Gospel-Centered Life. Used by permission.

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Christian, if you are truly growing in God’s grace, it is normal to feel worse about yourself as time progresses. This does not mean you are actually getting worse. This is biblical sanctification, and you can even be encouraged that you’re noticing this about yourself! The image above is a diagram created by Paul Miller called “the Cross Chart,” and it is one helpful way of understanding growth in the Christian life. As you grow, your estimation of God’s holiness increases, your estimation of yourself decreases, and your appreciation for the Gospel of grace expands to fill the gap. These three things are not objectively changing, but your awareness of them is. (If you leave off or distort one of those three elements of the chart, you’re in trouble.)

It can be extremely discouraging to fixate on that bottom line, the decreasing estimation of oneself. Over time, God works against our self-deception, lifts our self-imposed blindness to what’s inside of us. Bit by bit, he allows us to see ourselves as we truly are. If he did this all at once, we’d probably go insane with depression. But, in his grace, he takes time to show us how bad things really are in our hearts, in our flesh (and he offsets that painful discovery by granting us deeper trust in his gracious love). We’re not actually getting worse, but we’re seeing our sin more clearly, so it might feel that way.

There’s another way to understand this dynamic of feeling worse about ourselves as we grow in Christ. The Christian life is a battle of spirit versus flesh. I’m not sure how to explain this on a metaphysical level, but we’re somehow torn between warring factions in our persons. There’s the self-in-itself, “the old man,” the dead and dying flesh indwelt by sin… and there’s the self-in-Christ, “the new man,” the reborn and living spirit indwelt by God’s Spirit. These two are locked in mortal combat. (The good news is, because of Jesus, there’s already a clear winner.)

As we grow in Christ, the battle becomes sharper, more defined, more intense. We learn no longer to “fight” the sinful flesh by means of sinful flesh. For example, we no longer suppress our sinful anger by means of our sinful pride. (That’s the only way to “fight” available before becoming a Christian—but it’s not really a fight, is it?) As Christians, we know the only way to kill our sin is by the Spirit, by growth in grace, by Gospel-changed motives. Our spirits grow stronger as we fix our eyes on Christ, but when we “let our guard drop,” our sinful flesh flails about unchecked, like a desperate, wild animal that sees an opening and goes for it. It is now less restrained by other sinful motives, so it lashes out more visibly and aggressively when not restrained by the power of the Spirit. So, in a sense, displays of the flesh may indeed grow worse; your angry outbursts might be louder or more heated. But, ultimately, your faith is on a general trajectory of growth, and those displays will probably be fewer and farther between as the fruit of the Spirit grow in you.

The key to encouragement through this war is fixing your eyes on the Gospel. Like the cross chart above, you need to have a greater vision of God’s grace to you in Jesus Christ, to keep you from despairing as your estimation of yourself tanks. “Look to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2). He has already gained the victory over all your sin, and he shares his righteousness with you freely as a gift of his grace.

Please feel free to use this in your personal or public Worship.

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Fountain of Living Waters, you give to all mankind life and breath and everything. But we have refused to honor you or give you thanks. We stubbornly pretend that we don’t need you, that we can help ourselves. We actively resist your presence and will in our lives. We thoughtlessly ignore you, which may be the worst slight of all. Yet you remain a God of light and life and love, and, in your grace, you have invaded this world to save us from ourselves. Your presence and will, as seen in Jesus, is better than our autonomy. We are sorry for our foolish rebellion. Please forgive us, and fix our eyes on Christ, who came to seek and save the lost, in whose name we pray. Amen.

Please feel free to use this in your personal or public Worship.

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Father, Son, and Spirit—our Triune God—you are the only true and living God. We know that you alone are good, yet we still turn to false gods for strength, for pleasure, for comfort, for life. But this is death. We confess that we have sinned, both in the evil we have done, and in the good we have done in order to avoid you. We do not know all the ways our hearts are far from you; we have deceived ourselves. We cannot even confess every sin, in order to turn away from all false gods to you. We are utterly at your mercy. O Lord Jesus, be gracious to us. O Father, assure us of your love that makes all things new. O Holy Spirit, dwell in us and have your way with us. We pray in Christ our Savior. Amen.

I wrote this a few years ago, based on a passage from Calvin’s Institutes (2.16.19). Please feel free to use this in your personal or public Worship.

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Holy Father, Son, and Spirit,
we have lived in open rebellion against your gracious rule.

Please, Lord Jesus, may we find our redemption in your passion,
the absolution of our guilt in your condemnation,
the cancellation of our curse in your cross,
the satisfaction for our sins in your sacrifice,
our purification in your blood,
reconciliation to God in your descent into hell,
the death of our flesh in your tomb,
immortality in your resurrection,
our inheritance in your ascension.

We believe, Lord. Help our unbelief. Amen.

The judgmental attitudes of Christians repel people. A friend recently and unexpectedly lost a dear relative, and a Christian in her life was quick to point out to her that, unless this relative had asked for forgiveness, he was now most likely in hell. That is appalling. I apologized that this had been said to her.

Unfortunately, people think that such condemning attitudes are representative of Christianity. I think there is an assumption that, since Christianity must be about being a righteous person, then self-righteousness is just part of the package. But being self-righteous is not reflective of Christianity. It’s reflective of being a sinful human being, and we can all relate to it in some form. Self-righteousness is evil, unchristian.

Christianity says that Jesus paid for our judgmental attitudes—and every other sin—with his very life. He died on the Cross, suffering the judgment that our judgmentalism deserves, the Truly Righteous for the self-righteous. Christianity is not about being a righteous person, but about trusting that the life, death, and resurrection of the Righteous One, Jesus Christ, counts for us in God’s sight. “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1), not because we don’t deserve condemnation. In and of ourselves, that’s all we deserve! Christianity says, though, that we are not “in and of ourselves,” but that by faith we are “in Christ Jesus,” and that is why there is no condemnation for us. In his body on the Cross he intercepted and absorbed the condemnation that was rightfully coming our way for our self-righteousness.

The one who realizes that Jesus was judged in his place has no room to be judgmental of others. There is no condemnation for us, so we have no condemnation for others. Let us be a people of “no condemnation.”