What Really Counts?
Even in gathered churches, hearers must be warned as well as being cheered; the Gospel is always relevant to ongoing life in church; flaws in practice may red-flag faulty profession; the best proof of a state of grace is Christ’s own progressive, inward, spiritual, loving, renewing, life in us.
Sorry Introduction
I recall a few years back having a quiet conversation with a shocked, disappointed, chastened, and influential fellow-pastor. Following the tragic demise of a famous Christian leader, his serious, solemn, words struck an unforgettable note: “Never again,” said added, “will I preach to a church and assume everyone is saved!”
Gospel Battlefield
It takes us to the heart of what the Apostle Paul is saying in his epistle to the Galatians – during one of his missionary visits, occasioned by his own ophthalmic problems, the people welcomed the message and were gathered into God’s Church. Then twisters came along to corrupt free grace with works – conflict was the result.
Distinctive Traits
Two groups are distinguished by paradigmatic statements made in a legalistic context: mere profession may be accompanied by legal rites, religious feasts, pulpit texts, winsome acts, religious pomp, flowery prayers and loud claims, but without new birth, and faith at work through love, there is no justification by saving grace.
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How to Respond When Your Faith Is Questioned
Our responses matter, but only Jesus saves people. We all need to recall and rest in these familiar words from Proverbs 3:5: “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.” Love, prayerfulness, humility, and other Christlike traits matter infinitely more than appearing to know all the answers.
Has the prospect of sharing your faith ever intimidated or scared you? I think if we’re honest with ourselves, all who have tried to be faithful in the realm of evangelism would answer with a resounding “Yes!”
One of the reasons we may be fearful of engaging others in conversation about the Gospel is that we imagine we need to have all the answers to the questions people will raise. It is, of course, good to be well-prepared, but we should always remember that only God opens blind eyes and softens hard hearts (Ps. 146:8; Eph. 1:17–18). When men and women are born again, it is by the mysterious work of the Spirit of God (Ezek. 36:26–27; Rom. 8:1–11). Without that, all our arguments are quite useless.
However, as Gresham Machen observed, “Because argument is insufficient, it does not follow that it is unnecessary. What the Holy Spirit does in the new birth is not to make a make a man a Christian regardless of the evidence, but on the contrary to clear away the mists from his eyes and enable him to attend to the evidence.”1
As you prayerfully consider your own evangelistic efforts, I hope this quick list of practical—and, I believe, biblical—tips for dealing with objections and questions while sharing your faith will be a help. Perhaps it will prompt you to be bolder and more loving in your next conversation with a neighbor, a loved one, or even a stranger.
1) Be patient.
In seeking to deal with difficult questions, it is important that we avoid launching into somebody’s face, attempting to answer before they’ve even fully asked the question. If we’re going to be sensitive, loving, and understanding, we must have the patience and courtesy to allow someone to complete a thought or question (Prov. 14:29; 1 Cor. 13:4).
2) Don’t drown people in details.
It is more than possible to smother an inquirer with a vast array of information, drowning him or her with all we’ve managed to learn.
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The Cross and the Believer’s Home
The blessings of Christ on the land are really typical of His blessings on His people. It will be fully realized in His dwelling with His people in the new heavens and new earth—a completely renovated habitation in which only righteousness dwells. It is image bearers with which God is most concerned. The environment of God’s dwelling with redeemed mankind is the totality and comprehensiveness of His riches in Christ Jesus.
By the time I turned forty, I had lived in twenty-five different houses in seven different states. Relocating became standard fare for me during what many call “the formative years.” By way of contrast, my wife lived in the same house until she left for college. For the past nine years, I have pastored a church in a military town that has 400 percent turnover. I suppose that my upbringing helped prepare me for weathering the unique dynamics that come with pastoring a church in such a town. Nevertheless, where Christians live is not something incidental or unimportant. The Scriptures actually have a great deal to say about the significance of where we live. Jesus went to the cross to prepare a final home for believers in the new heavens and new earth.
As He approached Jerusalem and the sufferings that He was about to endure there, Jesus told His disciples: “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (John 14:1–3). The imagery of “the Father’s house” is drawn from the language about the temple in the Old Testament. Solomon’s temple was the place of God’s dwelling with His people. In the temple, there were rooms for the priests to live in and from which they served. Jesus was eternalizing what the temple had typified and speaking about the implications of it for the believer in the hereafter. He had come into this world to “prepare a place” for believers. He was going to the cross to make room for those He came to redeem by shedding His blood for their sins. By shedding His blood, Jesus made room for His people in the everlasting temple—the new heavens and new earth in which He would dwell with His own for all eternity.
In turn, Jesus’ teaching about securing a dwelling place for His people in the eternal temple is built on the biblical teaching regarding the various dwelling places of God with His people throughout redemptive history. The biblical metanarrative carries us from the garden of Eden (the place of man’s original dwelling) to the new heavens and the new earth. As it does, it moves us from the garden of Eden to the land of Israel, from the land of Israel to the incarnate Christ, from the incarnate Christ to His dwelling in and with the church by His Spirit, and from His dwelling in and with the church to His dwelling with His bride in the new heaven and earth. The Scriptures carry us along the stepping stones of these various “dwelling places” until we finally arrive at the garden-city bride (Rev. 21–22). The Apostle John envisioned the church—the redeemed bride of the Lamb—coming down out of heaven to dwell with Him in the new heaven and earth. The connection between the garden of Eden and the new heaven and earth is the theological significance of “the ground” out of which God made man.
Eden was a special dwelling place—a unique land—in which God placed man at creation. God had created man from “the ground” outside of the garden and then, by His grace, placed His image bearer in this paradisiacal sacred space. It was a precursor to the promised land. God formed man out of the dust of the ground (Gen. 2:7). The ground (Hebrew adamah) was man’s original environment. In fact, there seems to be an intentional play on words in Genesis 2:7, where we are told that the Lord formed adam (man) out of the adamah (the ground). There is a clear connection between the ground and the man who was formed out of the ground. The name Adam means “red.” Since he was made out of the reddish clay of the ground, the name is a play on the word “ground” (adamah).
The ground was the sphere of blessing and fruitfulness for mankind at creation. Eden was the sphere of God’s richest blessing. God intended to create an image bearer who would work the ground and who would turn the world into the temple, extending the borders of the garden-temple out into the far reaches of the earth.
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The Wonder of the Word
It’s a wonderful truth that the Word “became flesh and dwelt among us” in order to reveal God’s glory. But it’s even more amazing that “from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace” (John 1:16). When Israel stood around Mount Sinai, when Moses received the law of God, His glory was so terrifying that they “said to Moses, ‘You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die’” (Ex. 20:19). It remains true that “our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:29). But “grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17), so that we no longer need to fear approaching God the Father.
Christmastime often gives believers more opportunities with family and friends to discuss the true wonder of the season. We can tell them that we need not wonder who God is and what He is like. He has condescended to us through both the living Word and the written Word. If we want to know the triune God, we must search the Scriptures and ask the Holy Spirit to show us Christ, who in turn reveals the Father. The gospel of John is a good place to start.
Strikingly, the apostle John tell us that the Word who “was in the beginning with God,” through whom “all things were made,” and who is “the true light,” also “became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). Conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary, the Son of God “emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Phil. 2:7). In fulfillment of all that the tent of meeting and tabernacle represented in the Old Testament, most notably God’s presence (see Ex. 25:8; 2 Cor. 6:16; Rev. 21:3), Jesus “dwelt among us” in order to reveal God’s glory. Just as “the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle” in Moses’s day, so too the glory of God the Father filled the Son of God, “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Without grace the truth would be terrifying. We are sinners that stand condemned before God’s holy law. But the gospel of grace testifies that the Son of God “gave the right to become children of God” to those “who believed in his name” (v. 12).
The entirety of the Old Testament Scriptures “bear witness” about Jesus (John 5:39) and there are numerous prophecies that speak about His coming. So important was the arrival of the Word that God sent a witness to prepare His way.
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