Holiness and the Spirit: Part One (Galatians 2)

When was the last time you spoke TO someone ABOUT a difficult person? Maybe your supervisor spoke disrespectfully to you in front of your colleagues and during lunch that day you had several conversations ABOUT your supervisor instead of speaking WITH your supervisor. Perhaps you had a strong disagreement with your spouse and instead of working things out WITH your husband or wife, you hashed it out with a friend. Edwin Friedman calls this "an emotional triangle" - speaking ABOUT a difficult situation to an uninvolved person rather than speaking to the actual person in a way that could lead to resolution. These triangles form because we are uncomfortable with one another and this discomfort MUST work itself out in some way. In families, churches, neighborhoods, and businesses these "triangles perpetuate treadmills, reduce clarity, distort perceptions, inhibit decisiveness, and transmit stress." Triangles may feel good for a moment, but they are bad news. They will not make the situation better. In fact, triangles affect communities like a virus. They attack. They spread. They compromise the health of the entire system. Likewise, a virus was threatening the church in Galatia and Paul's letter is medicine that is designed to boost the Galatians' immune system so the virus can be eliminated. This virus was a distortion of the Gospel as it required Gentiles to submit to Jewish Law in order to be fully accepted members in the Christian community. Interestingly, in his book A Failure of Nerve, Edwin Friedman argues that to remain immune to emotional triangles, what a leader needs is a healthy sense of self. This is exactly what Paul helps us build in Galatians - a Gospel sense of self that is rooted in the faithfulness of Jesus the Messiah (Galatians 2.16, 2.20). This message speaks directly into our exploration of Holiness. We will realize a Gospel kind of holiness, only when it is rooted in the faithfulness of another, namely, Jesus the Messiah. Here's how Paul's message of Gospel holiness works.

The Gospel is about our sense of self.         

Peter's sense of self was wobbly and this is understandable. When we follow Peter's story in the book of Acts, we notice that Peter had a number of run-ins with Jewish leadership (see Acts 4 and 12). What's more, this conflict always surrounded how the Apostolic Gospel welcomed Gentile believers. Peter's conviction regarding the inclusion of Gentiles in the people of God was rooted in the word of God that was spoken to him in Acts 10.9-16. Not too long (God had to say it three times!) after the vision, Peter visited a Gentile man named Cornelius.  Peter had this to say. 

You know it's forbidden for a Jewish man to associate with or visit a foreigner, but God has shown me that I must not call any person impure or unclean. That's why I came without any objection when I was sent for (Acts 10.28-29a, CSB). 

This was quite a transformation of identity for Peter who had previously responded when God was telling him to eat something that used to be considered unclean: "No , Lord! I have never eaten anything impure and ritually unclean" (Acts 10.14, CSB). It took a while, however, for Peter's identity (his sense of self) to be fully overwhelmed by the Gospel. Paul records Peter's struggle in Galatians 2.11-14. Peter was faithfully obeying the Gospel and did not have any objection to regularly eating with Gentiles (2.12). He wavered, however, when pressured by Jewish leaders who came from Jerusalem and objected to Peter's new found identity. In this moment, Peter forgot what the Gospel says about him and others and out of fear "he withdrew and separated himself." Because Peter's identity was not strongly rooted in the Son of God who loves Peter, who gave himself for Peter, and who was faithful unto death on Peter's behalf, Peter forgot who he was and listened to others' evaluation of him rather than the evaluation of God. Paul calls this heresy. Indeed they were deviating from the Gospel. Tom Wright's translation is helpful. He writes: "When I saw that they weren't walking straight down the line of gospel truth." Did you catch that? Prejudice and favoritism are gospel issues. RACISM IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH THE GOSPEL! Prejudice is a denial of orthodoxy! Brothers and sisters, may the voice of God drown out the loud competing voices that try to make us forget that the Son of God loves us (and them), that he gave himself for us (and them), and was faithful unto death on our behalf (and their behalf). What gospel consequences will God produce through this truth in our lives?

Two Gospel Consequences

First, the gospel will necessarily create hospitality in us toward those who are different from us. What is your posture toward those who are clearly different from you? What about the person whose yard hosts a political sign for a cause or candidate you do not support? What about the cashier or waitress who just seems too different from you to establish a connection? What about the person at work with whom you just experienced conflict this morning? What about your infuriating spouse? If we have truly been changed by gospel, we will find ourselves supernaturally drawn to connect with these people. This is why "welcoming the stranger" is one of the things that will distinguish between sheep and goats "when the Son of Man comes in his glory" (Matthew 25.31-46).

Secondly, we must return, again and again to who the gospel says we and others are. A good summary of the Gospel is found in Galatians 2.20. "I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So the life I now live in the body, I live because of the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (NET). When the world seeks to name us - that is, when the world seeks to give us our core identity, we must remember that we are not who the world says we are. We are not first and foremost, American, Republican, Democrat, Married, Single, Divorced, etc. We are first and foremost the ones in whom Christ lives because he loves us and gave himself for us. One of my favorite films is The Help. In this movie, Viola Davis plays Aibileen, a Nanny to "little white girls" who are mostly neglected by their mothers. Aibileen loves these girls like her own and wants to "give them a chance." At pivotal moments in the story, Aibileen will repeat these words to these neglected children: "You is kind. You is special. You is important." Aibileen understands the good news. She grasps what Peter was failing to grasp and what had turned Saul of Tarsus' life upside down. In order to become what God has gloriously planned for us, we must have a Gospel sense of self. We must believe a different self-narrative than the world is giving to us. Beloved, if we are in Christ, we live by the faithfulness of the Son of God who loves us and gave himself for us. Nothing else matters! Thanks be to God. 

Click to here download and listen to our message, Holiness and the Spirit: Part One  

Monday Morning Thoughts about Sunday: Communion

Here’s the deal about Communion.

As a teenager and “young” adult, I was often disappointed to learn we were “celebrating” communion. In fact, celebration would never have been a word I associated with communion. It seemed back then the Lord’s Supper was usually offered during the evening service. Our family always arrived early to every Church service, and we would walk into the sanctuary with plenty of time to spare. Often times the Deacons would still be preparing the Table by setting out the shiny silver trays that contained the tiny shot glasses of Welch’s and the plates of tiny, tasteless communion wafers. I usually felt an inner exhale of disappointment when I noticed the stacked trays, because they symbolized one thing and one thing only - guilt. Think about the irony of that for a moment. Paul writes that as often as we eat this bread and drink this cup we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes (1 Cor 11.26). Something that proclaims the means of our atonement is something that makes us feel guilty? Houston, we have a theological problem!

As Baptists, we didn’t officially believe in anything that resembled what the Romans Catholics describe as penance. However, at Sunday evening Communion services, that’s basically what we practiced. My overly-general understanding of penance goes something like this. You’ve done something wrong. You’ve acknowledged the error of your ways and requested forgiveness. At this point a spiritual leader - call him priest, pastor, or brother so and so - tells you all is forgiven, just go do thus and so and “It’s all good!” Now, for Roman Catholics this exchange takes place in a confessional, on Saturday afternoon. For Baptists, on the other hand, this exact same deal is cut, albeit not in a confessional. It happens in the Sanctuary at 6:55 on Sunday evening. Even though we didn’t call it penance, the result was the same. The time of self-examination revealed some inward sin and we had work to do before we could experience the hospitality of God at the Table of the Lord. The Gospel, on the other hand, is quite different than both scenarios. The good news is this: God unconditionally accepts the Gospel-believing sinner. James Torrance captures this provocative truth this way:

In the New Testament forgiveness is logically prior to repentance. Because Christ has borne our sin on the cross, we are invited to repent - to receive his forgiveness in repentance. That is, repentance is our response to grace, not a condition of grace. The goodness of God leads us to repentance.

This is the truth of the Gospel and this has chaperoned our reading of 1 Corinthians 11.17-34. Without submitting our interpretation to the Gospel, we have sometimes used this passage to keep forgiven sinners from coming to Table of the Lord. After considering the historical context of 1 Corinthians 11, and looking closely at what the text actually says, we have learned that Paul is not discouraging us from coming to the Table because of some unresolved issue in our Spiritual lives. Rather, this text invites us to see the Table as Jesus’ gift to us, to help us come together in Gospel unity as the one Body of Christ partaking of the one loaf. How we approach the Lord’s Supper must be faithful to the Gospel.

Thus, as our week begins let us meditate on two Gospel Realities.

1. The mercies of God in Jesus have made us worthy family members at God’s table.
2. The Lord’s Supper has reminded us of the reality of us.

Regarding this second reality, I believe the Spirit is reminding us of the horizontal dimension of being reconciled to God. In other words, when God reconciles us to himself, that upward movement also propels us to live in reconciled relationships with all who have been reconciled to God. Paul teaches this clearly in Ephesians 2. Verses 1-10 describe our reconciliation to God by grace through faith (2.8-10). Verses 11-22 describe the horizontal result of our vertical movement toward God. Describing the two groups of Jews and Gentiles, Paul writes:

For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace (2.14-15, NIV).

To summarize: When God broke down the barrier between him and humans, he also broke down barriers that divide humans. This helps us make sense of why God requires us to live in reconciled relationships with others, because those relationships are the necessary result of living in a reconciled relationship with God (see Matt. 6.14-15). This is why communion is not about me and my overly-individualized relationship with God. Instead, communion is a gift from Jesus to sustain us within the family of Jesus, because communion is a time for me to discern the body (1 Cor. 11.29), and an opportunity to extend hospitality to all members of the Body who share the one loaf (1 Cor. 10.17).

So thanks be to God that his mercy has made us one with him and with each other.

Take a listen to our exposition of 1 Corinthians 11.17-34.

Here’s what I’m reading.

The Pastor Theologian: Resurrecting an Ancient Vision, by Gerald Hiestand and Todd Wilson

An Eastern Orthodox Summary of the Gospel

In the July edition of Christianity Today, David Neff interviewed Bishop Kallistos Ware, the metropolitan archbishop of the Eastern Orthodox Church in the U.K. Ware had just visited North Park University and Wheaton College, where he lectured on the relationship between Evangelicalism and Orthodoxy. Neff asked the Archbishop to succinctly summarize the Christian message. This was his moving summary. I’d love to hear your thoughts.   

I believe in a God who loves humankind so intensely, so totally, that he chose himself to become human. Therefore, I believe in Jesus Christ as fully and truly God, but also totally and unreservedly one of us, fully human. The love of God is so great that Christ died for us on the cross. But love is stronger than death, and so the death of Jesus was followed by his resurrection. I am a Christian because I believe in the great love of God that led him to become incarnate, to die, and to rise again. That's my faith. All of this is made immediate to us through the continuing action of the Holy Spirit.