http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15285223/the-helmet-the-sword-and-the-seriousness-of-the-war
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Good Friday for Bad People
When Jesus went to the cross for you, you were not worth dying for. It wasn’t something in you that convinced him to bear the nails, the thorns, the wrath.
We’ve heard so much about his real and wondrous love for us that we might forget his love is wondrous precisely because we were not. Because, when he set his loving eyes on us, we were corrupt, defiant, repulsive. We were the treacherous wife prostituting herself out and then spending the husband’s money on other lovers. We should have been swallowed by holy rage, not by his mercy.
And yet he died for us, even us. “While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. . . . God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6, 8). Do you know that God loved you before there was anything in you to love? Do you know that Christ died for you when you were still at your worst, when your black heart had wandered its furthest and hardened near to cracking?
Good Friday bids us to stop and remember just how sinful we were — just how bleak it was for us before that darkest day in history — and to remember the wild and tenacious love with which we’ve been loved.
While You Were Weak
While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. (Romans 5:6)
When Jesus went to the cross for you, you were weak — and not a little tired or flawed, but lame and helpless. Incapacitated. This word for weak is the same word used for the crippled man whom Peter and John met on their way to the temple in Acts 3. He was lame from birth, and had to be carried to the temple gate every day so that he could beg for enough to survive another day. That’s the kind of weak you were when Jesus found you.
In fact, Jesus died only for weak people. “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick,” he warned those who thought themselves strong. “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:31–32). “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong” (1 Corinthians 1:27). He loves whom he loves to show us just how shortsighted all our “wisdom” really is and to expose the sickly frailty of our so-called “strength.”
While You Were Wicked
God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)
You were not only weak and helpless, however, but also thoroughly wicked. Your heart was deceitful and desperately sick (Jeremiah 17:9). Can you see that kind of darkness in your former self? Even your very best deeds were as filthy rags, because they were polluted with selfishness and pride. “Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin” (Romans 14:23). Everything you thought or said or did was an act of defiance. “Terribly black must that guilt be,” J.C. Ryle observes, “for which nothing but the blood of the Son of God could make satisfaction” (Holiness, 8–9).
“When Jesus went to the cross for you, you were not worth dying for.”
“Do not be deceived,” the apostle warns us. “Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9–10). And lest we think he has other, especially wicked people in mind, he says in the next verse, “And such were some of you” (1 Corinthians 6:11). All of that nasty, ugly evil was who you were, at least some of you.
And who you were was who Christ came to save. “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15).
While You Were Hostile
If while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. (Romans 5:10)
In our wickedness, we sinned not just against the laws of God, but against God himself. All of our sinfulness was (and is) intensely personal. Your life apart from Christ was one prolonged act of divine hostility.
When King David slept with another man’s wife, impregnated her, and then had her husband murdered, notice how he confesses his sin to God: “I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight” (Psalm 51:3–4). How could he say that? What about Bathsheba? What about righteous Uriah? What about the precious infant son who died because of his sin?
His prayer doesn’t diminish the awful sins he committed against the husband, the wife, the child — he sinned grievously against each — but it reminds us that the greatest offense in any sin is the offense against God. As awful as adultery and murder are at a human level, they’re a thousand times worse at a heavenly one. To be an unforgiven sinner, even a polite, socially acceptable sinner, is to be “alienated and hostile in mind” (Colossians 1:21).
And yet, while you were hostile, Christ died for you. In love, he walked directly into the arms of your animosity and bore its curse for you on the cross. He made his perverse and ruthless enemies his friends, his own brothers.
While You Were Dead
You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked. (Ephesians 2:1–2)
You were not merely weak and wicked and hostile, though. You were dead. Sure, you may have been moving and breathing and eating and talking, but in all the ways that matter most, you were empty, barren, cold. You weren’t gasping for air or hanging on in a coma. The doctor had called it. And while you were lying in your lifeless blood, Jesus stopped beside you. And he not only stopped, but he chose to bleed and die so that you might stand up and live. Christ took the awful thing that killed you — your sin — and then breathed his own life and joy into your unmoving heart.
“Do you know that God loved you before there was anything in you to love?”
Who would die for a dead man? The one who died for you. Who would die for his enemy? The one who died for you. Who would die for a sinner? The one who died for you. He found you at your very worst, saw all of you at your very worst, and then he made himself your worst, so that in him you might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).
There Is a Remedy
One reason we lack the depth, faith, and joy we long to experience is that we fail to confront the sinfulness of sin — specifically, the sinfulness of our own sin. When Ryle wrote his classic book on holiness, he believed he had to begin here, with our weakness, wickedness, hostility, and ruin:
Dim or indistinct views of sin are the origin of most of the errors, heresies, and false doctrines of the present day. If a man does not realize the dangerous nature of his soul’s disease, you cannot wonder if he is content with false or imperfect remedies. (Holiness, 1)
Why do people wander after false gods and false gospels? Because they don’t take sin seriously enough. If they saw sin for what it is — crippling our souls, corrupting and twisting our minds, seeding hostility, and breeding death — then they would see that the cross is the only cure. Then they would find in Jesus a God more lovely than they are wicked, more alive than they are dead, more forgiving than they are guilty.
There is a remedy revealed for man’s need, as wide and broad and deep as man’s disease. We need not be afraid to look at sin, and study its nature, origin, power, extent, and vileness, if we only look at the same time at the Almighty medicine provided for us in the salvation that is in Christ Jesus. (Holiness, 12)
So, this Good Friday, look deeply again into the awful weight of sin — and then look even more deeply into the loving eyes of the sinless Man of Sorrows, crucified and crushed for you.
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A Reason to Be Vaccinated: Freedom
My aim in this article is to encourage Christians to be vaccinated, if they can do so with a good conscience and judicious medical warrant.
The people I have especially in view are those who are not vaccinated because of fear of being out of step with people they respect, and in step with people they don’t admire. My message to them is simple: You are free.
So, I am not talking directly to everybody. If the shoe fits, put it on, check your conscience, consult your doctor, and go get vaccinated. If it doesn’t, go tearfully and cheerfully on your way. Tearfully, because over 4.5 million people have died from COVID-19 worldwide (including over 700,000 Americans). And cheerfully, because Christ makes it miraculously possible to love people by being “sorrowful yet always rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10).
What Fuels the Cooking Fire
Before I get to the biblical argument for radical freedom, consider a few statistics that fuel the fire over which this article was cooked.
“Nearly all COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. are now in people who weren’t vaccinated. . . . From May [2021] . . . infections in fully vaccinated people accounted for fewer than 1,200 of more than 107,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations. That’s about 1.1%. And only about 150 of the more than 18,000 COVID-19 deaths in May were in fully vaccinated people. That translates to about 0.8%” (Associated Press).
Indiana “saw 3,801 coronavirus deaths between [Jan. 18, 2021,] and Sept. 16 — 94% of them unvaccinated. . . . 97.9% of Hoosiers younger than 65 who died were unvaccinated” (Evansville Courier and Press).
In Montana, “from February 2021 to September 2021, . . . 89.5% of the cases, 88.6% of hospitalizations, and 83.5% of the deaths were among people who were not fully vaccinated, including those not yet eligible for vaccination” (KRTV — Great Falls).
“More than 95% of the 443 people under age 60 who have died from COVID-19 in Kentucky since early July were unvaccinated” (Lexington Herald-Leader).
The Pennsylvania Department of Health reports that between January 1 and October 4, 2021, “93 percent of COVID-19-related deaths were in unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated people” (FOX43).When people respond to this increasingly clear reality by pointing to untrustworthy and disreputable government and medical leaders, I respond, “That’s a non sequitur.” The team called “vaccination” just made a first down, even if monkeys are holding the chains. For friends around the world who don’t know American football, that means a win is a win even if all the coaches and referees are incompetent.
So let’s think about Christian freedom.
Peter’s Summons to Freedom
The apostle Peter said,
This is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as slaves of God. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor. (1 Peter 2:15–17)
“Live as people who are free.”
Peter had just said, “Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to the emperor as supreme, or to governors” (1 Peter 2:13). So how can you “be subject” and “be free” at the same time?
Peter’s answer is that Christians are “slaves of God.” In other words, when you submit to a “human institution” (1 Peter 2:13), you don’t do it as the slave of that institution. You do it in freedom, because you are slaves of God, not man. God owns his people — by creation and redemption.
“God alone owns us. And God alone rules us. We are not ruled by any man. We are free from all human ownership and rule.”
The apostle Paul makes the same point: “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 6:19). God bought you by the blood of Christ. He owns you. And if God owns you, no one else can: “You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men” (1 Corinthians 7:23).
Christians are owned by no man — no society, no company, no clan, no family, no school, no military, no government, no political interest group. God alone owns us. And God alone rules us. We are not ruled by any man. We are free from all human ownership and rule.
When we submit, we do so for the Lord’s sake. Because he said to. God’s ownership of his people strips every decisive entitlement from human authority. It turns every act of human compliance into worship. When we submit, we do so for the glory of our one Owner and Master. Life is radically Godward.
‘The Sons Are Free’
During his lifetime on earth, Jesus had taught Peter a lesson about freedom. Peter wondered about the two-drachma tax that Jewish men had to pay each year (Matthew 17:24). Jesus’s answer goes like this:
“What do you think, Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tax? From their sons or from others?” And when he said, “From others,” Jesus said to him, “Then the sons are free. However, not to give offense to them, go to the sea and cast a hook and take the first fish that comes up, and when you open its mouth you will find a shekel. Take that and give it to them for me and for yourself.” (Matthew 17:25–27)
“The sons are free.” That is, free from being controlled by any human authority. Sons obey their Father. He is their decisive authority. What they do, they do because of his will, not the will of man. The sons are free.
The King’s sons are not obliged to pay taxes to institutions created by their Father. They are obliged to obey their Father, not man. Therefore, when they pay the tax, they do so to honor their Father because he gave them the resources and the command: “Take that and give it to them” (Matthew 17:27).
Peter learned the lesson, and now he says to Christians, “Live as people who are free.” You are sons of God. You are slaves of God. Sonship implies privilege and love. Slavery implies God’s ownership and rule. And both imply freedom from man.
Liberation from Man Is Not Exaltation of Self
But woe to us Christians if this radical freedom makes us cocky. “Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil” (1 Peter 2:16). And the greatest evil is the pride of self-exaltation. Peter is clear about how God’s ownership and Fatherhood should affect his slave-like, son-like people.
Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. (1 Peter 5:5–7)
Christians are lowly because we are “under [God’s] mighty hand.” And we are joyful because “he cares for [us].” Our freedom does not make us brash. Bold, yes. Brash, no. There is a peculiarly Christian boldness — a brokenhearted boldness. Our freedom does not make us cocky. Courageous, yes. Cocky, no. There is a peculiarly Christian courage — a contrite courage.
Why contrite? Because our clothing is still singed with the fire of almost being condemned. We deserve condemnation. And grace alone saved us. We are utterly dependent on undeserved, unentitled mercy. And the promise of God to his children is so staggeringly great that we are, as they say, floored by it — floored. Made low by the promised heights.
So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future — all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. (1 Corinthians 3:21–23)
All things are yours! So no boasting! That is the paradox of Christian freedom. Our Father owns everything. We are his heirs. We inherit everything. We are sons. And the sons are free. Therefore, no bragging, no swagger. Just joyful tears. Because we don’t deserve any of it. And we want all others to join us in it. But so many refuse. This is the freedom of love. A freedom that makes us debtors to everyone (Romans 1:14). A freedom with radical heaven-sent obligations.
Freed from the Fear of Man — Left or Right
Now, we might think that the point of this biblical reality of bold, brokenhearted Christian freedom would be this: You don’t have to be vaccinated when the government tells you to. You are free. Live as people who are free.
“Don’t be enslaved by the fear of breaking ranks with ideological allies. You are free.”
That’s true, of course. If your Father in heaven makes it clear to you, by his word and wisdom, that his glory and your neighbor’s good will be better served by not being vaccinated, you are free to risk COVID for love’s sake. No Christian is obliged to bow to unwarranted mandates.
But that’s not my main point.
My point is this: Don’t be enslaved by fear of man. Don’t be enslaved by the fear of breaking ranks with ideological allies. The old name for this is peer pressure. You are free.
You have considered the risk of COVID as you watch hundreds of thousands of people die.
You have considered the short- and long-term risks of the vaccines as you watch millions get the shots.
You have compared the frequency of hospitalizations and deaths of those with and without vaccines.
You have thought hard about the implications of fetal cell lines in the production and testing of the vaccines.
You have rejoiced at the increasing evidence that natural immunity, developed after recovering from COVID, is as effective as vaccination immunity.
You have pondered the likelihood and unlikelihood of conspiratorial conjectures.Your conscience is increasingly clear. It says, “Get vaccinated.” But there is this niggling fear of looking left wing, or progressive, or Democratic, or compromised, or woke!
So, my message to such folks is this: “The children are free!”
Each of us stands or falls before his own Master (Romans 14:4). “Live as people who are free.” Free from the fear of man. Fear of being labeled. Fear of being called a compromiser. Fear of being doubted as not really part of the courageous resisters — especially when you know that thousands of those resisters really are courageous, wise, and thoughtful.
But fear is not freedom. “The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe” (Proverbs 29:25). The fear of man lays a freedom-snatching snare. Why? Because the fearing soul is already snared. Already caught. Already bound, enslaved.
I call you to something better. “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1). Not a government yoke, not an anti-government yoke. Not a left-wing yoke, not a right-wing yoke.
You are free to say with integrity, “My decision to be vaccinated is not a political decision. It is not right wing, or left wing. It is a biblically informed act of love.”
The sons are free. Tearfully, cheerfully free. Therefore, “live as people who are free.”
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Admire Before You Imitate: Resting in the Attributes of God
Becky lived with a nagging sense that there was a rule book to life, but she didn’t get her copy. Insecurity and a pervasive sense of uncertainty loomed over her like a perpetually blinking warning light on the dashboard of her car.
Eric tried to live with deep reverence for God, but it meant life always felt heavy. When conversations turned light, humorous, or casual, he felt like he wasn’t being a good Christian. How could he honor the holy God in such moments?
People who are interested in studying the attributes of God frequently feel like Becky and Eric. If we’re not careful, theology can become exclusively cognitive and lose its relational qualities. But we study the attributes of God to deepen our relationship with God. That’s why, in this article, I will write with highly relational images and metaphors.
Even when we try to think relationally about God’s attributes, we can still get emotionally conflicted. When we reflect on God being patient, for example, we can think, If God is patient, I should be patient. How can I be as patient as possible as quickly as possible?
“If we’re not careful, theology can become exclusively cognitive and lose its relational qualities.”
Do you catch the irony? We try to be patient for God as if God were impatient with our progress. We ask questions of emulation before we ask questions of rest. We try to imitate an attribute of God before we find security in it. When we do this, each quality of God becomes an intimidating standard rather than a source of refuge.
God Is Happy
Let’s flip the script with God’s happiness and simplicity. Nehemiah 8:10 says, “The joy of the Lord is your strength.” The reality that God is joyful steadied Nehemiah’s life. Life is hard. It requires endurance. Nehemiah drew resilience for the demands of life from the awareness that God smiled.
As children, we experienced this. If our parents were happy, we had the emotional freedom to play and explore the world. If we sensed our parents were displeased, we tried to determine what we did wrong or identify the stressor that troubled them.
In Ephesians 5:1, Paul draws on this parent-child imagery to illustrate how God’s character motivates change in our lives: “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.” In other words, let God’s delight in you fuel your efforts to be more like him. When we study each of God’s attributes, we are to be like children who put on our father’s oversized work clothes, smile, and say, “Look at me! I’m just like you,” because we find joy and security in the relationship.
“Let God’s delight in you in Christ fuel your efforts to be more like him.”
That works when we’re having a good day and the major decisions of life seem clear. But what about when we’re confused — when we are unsure what God expects from us? These are times when its hard to feel like the playful child trying on our parent’s attire.
God Is Simple
In moments of confusion, God doesn’t seem simple (plain, clear, noncontradictory). Our instinct, often, is to pit one attribute of God against another. We think, “Because God is loving, he would want me to do A, but because he is just, he would want me to do B. But I can’t do both A and B.” We feel torn because we think God is complicated.
God’s simplicity means that all of God’s attributes live in harmony with one another. As fallen people in a finite world, we’re not like that. We want the attributes of pleasure (eating whatever we want) and fitness (being thin). We want the attributes of spontaneity (purchasing something on a whim) and responsibility (saving for the future). Even when we’re not being sinful, we are not simple.
God is simple. God does not live with internal tensions. Therefore, God doesn’t have expectations of us that are in tension with one another. But life doesn’t always feel as simple as the character of God. We rightly get frustrated with people who conclude that because God is simple, life is too. They make life seem easier than it is.
Because we live in a broken world, with fallen people and as fallen people, life can feel complicated. How do we reconcile the reality that God is simple, but our lived experienced is complex? Let’s return to the image of a parent and child.
Admiration Leads to Emulation
Imagine a child who feels torn because he has chores to complete, homework to do, and its Grandma’s birthday. Let’s assume, for this illustration, that the child has not been negligent with his work. He is stressed because he wants to please his parents but doesn’t know what to do. The child thinks,
“My parents are smart and want me to do well in school, so I should do my homework.”
“My parents are neat and want me to be orderly, so I should clean my room.”
“My parents are loving and want me to value family, so I should go to Grandma’s birthday party.”
“My parents are going to be mad at me because I can’t do all three.”The child begins to fear his parents, dreads seeing them, and starts to cry. How do good parents respond to this child? They smile, pull him close, affirm his strong desire to honor them, and help him think through the situation. Since we are using this illustration as a metaphor, God’s happiness is revealed in the parents’ smile. Even though the situation is legitimately hard (paralleling the brokenness of the world), we see God’s simplicity in the response that values character more than immediate outcome.
Let’s continue to use our sanctified imaginations as we peer through the lens of Ephesians 5:1. How does the child feel about his parents after this interaction? Safe, trusting, and loved. Where does he want to go when life gets hard again? To his parents. This admiration (rest) leads to emulation (refined character and maturity).1 The emulation will always be imperfect — because of the limitations of the child and the conflicting responsibilities of a broken world — but resting in the parents’ character allows his progressive growth to not feel futile.
Exhale. We can be honest — life is challenging and complex, and God is simple. We can be perpetually in process and God can still be happy. This removes the sense of desperate striving that exhausts so many of us as we live with a felt sense that we’re not good enough. God doesn’t feel compelled to rush the process (after all, progressive sanctification was his idea). He delights in each marker of our growth as parents delight in their child’s first step.
Under the Happy, Simple God
How might we respond to this reflection on God’s simplicity and happiness?
When we pray about the parts of life that are hard and confusing, we can visualize God smiling like parents who admire the hard work and tenacity of their child. When we feel the conflictedness of our own hearts, we can reflect on Ecclesiastes 12:13 to regain a sense of simplicity: “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” We can wear this verse like a child wears his father’s shoes and tie, knowing God delights in imperfect, incremental emulation.
Savor the simple moments of joy and pleasure in your day and realize that, no matter how trivial, God’s joy echoes your joy in those moments like parents watching their child play with Christmas presents.