http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15653674/can-christians-please-god-by-our-behavior
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Does the New Testament Legitimize Slavery? Ephesians 6:5–9, Part 3
http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15183895/does-the-new-testament-legitimize-slavery
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Repentance for a New Year
I can remember my first time hearing Luther’s famous first thesis: “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent,’ he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” While others around me offered solemn nods, the less-sacred thought flashed across my mind, Well, that sure sounds like fun.
I knew the repentant life to be good for me, as I knew going to the dentist to be good for me. I did not look forward to a life of feeling bad about myself. Wasn’t it punishment to bring the dog’s nose back to its mess? My childlike faith heard, “The Christian life is one of sitting in the corner, muttering apologies.” Necessary? Perhaps. Exciting? Far from.
My life of repentance so far had been the same somber note on repeat. Whenever I felt an elevated sense of my own sin, I threw myself into the deep pit of penance. Like Jonah, I marked myself guilty and consented to being cast into the sea. Or like the prodigal, I made my long return home, rehearsing how unworthy I was to be his son, and how I ought to be treated as a hired hand.
I deserved despair. I wouldn’t, couldn’t pursue happiness. I had sinned. I needed to serve my time before I could freely smile again. I did not know — indeed, I am still learning — about the joyful life of repentance.
Have Mercy on Me
King David confronted how I think in his beloved psalm of penitence.
The desperate and fallen king wrote Psalm 51 in the bleakest of days, detailed at the very beginning: “To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.”
In the time when kings go to war, David saw the naked woman from his rooftop. He called for her and took her for himself; she conceived. To cover his sin, David arranged her husband’s death. After Uriah lay dead, God sent the prophet Nathan to confront David about his adultery and murder. Under sin’s thick clouds, David sits to pen this psalm, beginning the only way sinners can: beseeching God for mercy.
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love;according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. (Psalm 51:1)
Sinner’s Broken Bones
I understood David’s sorrow for sin. I knew how sin upbraids my spirit, sends my conscience to berate me, and lays a crushing weight of God’s displeasure upon my soul.
David describes this experience by saying God broke his bones (Psalm 51:8). The weight of sin pressed upon the very core of him, down to the bones, fracturing his inner man. Sin eroded him, as he describes in another psalm: “When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long” (Psalm 32:3). I’ve known how sin deteriorates a man.
And while some today might seek to rescue us from feeling the brokenness our iniquity produces, David knows such a severe response to sin as fitting.
You will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. (Psalm 51:16–17)
“The truly repentant heart, the one God will in no way despise, is broken and contrite toward God.”
The truly repentant heart, the one God will in no way despise, is broken and contrite toward God, not unconcerned and insensible. Brokenness I knew; the bitter cup of contriteness I tasted. Thus, when I pictured a life of repentance, I imagined living only in this dark and stormy night, sitting under its pouring rain, rubbing mud on my head remorsefully, waiting for God’s favor to return.
Make Me Smile Again
But David says more. He requests something that changed how I view repentance:
Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. (Psalm 51:8)
Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. (Psalm 51:12)
Joy and gladness? Let the broken bones rejoice?
David, you committed adultery with Bathsheba, and orchestrated the death of her husband — and you ask God to restore your joy? Are you taking your sin seriously? Do you care about the pain you caused? How can you so quickly ask for restoration of joy, while Uriah’s body still lies fresh in the tomb? Or so I am tempted to ask.
Behold the beautiful collage of true repentance: it bows low in brokenness and contrition, leads us to confess gross sin to the God we have offended, and yet it also bids us to request more happiness in this God. With broken bones, David boldly asks for the inheritance of the righteous: joy. He hears accusations and groans and torturing silence, but he asks to hear former music and festive song; he is caught in caves of guilt but wants to again feel the sunshine of salvation.
His repentance before God is a plea for mercy and a return to God for more joy in God. He wants forgiveness, cleansing, a renewed spirit — to walk again with God, as it were, naked and unashamed. This prodigal knows the scandalous love of the Father, and asks to be received as a son, as loved. Though unworthy in himself, he pants to return to his Father’s table, asks for close communion again, for his broken bones to laugh again, according to his Father’s steadfast love.
Restore Me, Then Others
In David’s prayer, I learned that Luther’s vision of lifelong repentance means turning from broken cisterns to the fountain of living water (Jeremiah 2:13). A life of restoration, renewal, happiness, closeness to God. I learned that the life of unrepentance leads us to take steps farther and farther away from God and hides us from happiness. And this joy, rather than being whipped cream atop salvation, is essential to continue in it, the fuel to persevere in faith and obedience.
And lest we assume this is selfish, note how he plans his joy extend beyond himself.
Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. (Psalm 51:13)
Though repentance is inescapably personal, it is not only personal.
Unlike a stagnant swamp, true repentance flows onward and outward. Here, David resolves that the cleansing, the joy, the renewed spirit, will send him forth to teach others caught in sin. He determines that if God grants him his pardon and presence, he will go forth and encourage the repentance of others, leading to their return.
New Year, New Repentance
Is your Christian life one of repentance?
Perhaps some of us need to resolve differently this year. Often, we look away from the past year and its failures toward what we hope to be a brighter future. The whole sense of New Year’s resolutions usually gives exclusive attention to what’s ahead — we resolve to do better, be better, live better, starting now.
“Sin needs to be acknowledged, confessed, repented of, not buried beneath a few good intentions.”
But as Christians, we remember that we can’t just leave everything behind us. We have said things and done things this past year — things maybe no person alive knows — that will not die quietly before promises of never again. Some of our sharpest disappointments this past year resulted from sin — and sin needs to be acknowledged, confessed, repented of, not buried beneath a few good intentions.
So let January mark a fresh beginning of repentance. Repentance is, in itself, a kind of January, a newness through which God renews a right spirit within us and restores our first joy in salvation. Take one or two sins to your gracious Father, ask for forgiveness through the blood of Christ, ask for freshness of happiness in your salvation, and go forth, telling others of the joyful repentance you’ve found in your Lord.
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Patience Will Be Painful: How to Love the Hard-to-Love
Patience is a virtue we admire, and even aspire to, from afar. The closer it comes to us, however — the more it invades our schedule, our plans, our comfort — the more uncomfortable it becomes.
Patience exists only in a world of disruption, delays, and disappointment. It grows only on the battlefield. We cannot practice patience unless our circumstances call for it — and the circumstances that call for it are the kinds of circumstances we wouldn’t choose for ourselves. We would choose convenience, speed, efficiency, fulfillment. God often chooses circumstances that call for patience. And he never chooses wrongly.
Impatience grows out of our unwillingness to trust and submit to God’s timing for our lives. Impatience is a war for control. Patience, on the other hand, springs from different soil — from a humble embrace of what we do not know and cannot control, from a deep and abiding trust that God will follow through on all of his promises, from a heart that is profoundly happy to have him.
“The kind of patience that honors God is so hard that we cannot practice it without help from God.”
In other words, the deepest patience comes from a humble and hopeful joy in God above all else. That means that real patience is not only inconvenient, difficult, and wearying, but, humanly speaking, impossible. The kind of patience that honors God is so hard that we cannot practice it without help from God. It grows only where the Spirit lives (Galatians 5:22–23).
Many Shades of Patience
What might we say, then, practically speaking, about real patience in real life? Where could we look in Scripture to see some of the colors and texture of patience in action? One verse, in particular, humbles me and bursts with lessons for everyday patience:
We urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. (1 Thessalonians 5:14)
The ways we approach each group — the idle, the fainthearted, the weak — are different, but we’re called to patience with them all. Which means we’re likely going to experience temptation to be impatient with them all (and many more besides them). So what might patience look like in each case?
Help the Weak
The weak test our patience because they need more from us than most. Many of us have an impulse, at least in the moment, to step in when we see a weak person in need, whether that person is young, or old, or sick, or emotionally or spiritually vulnerable. But weakness, we all know from personal experience, rarely stays contained within a moment, which means the weak need more than in-the-moment help; they need for-the-long-haul help — and for-the-long-haul help requires patience.
Paul does not charge the church to admonish the weak, but to help them, and the word for help here can also mean to hold firm or be devoted. There’s a tenaciousness in this help, a clinging to the weak, even after months or years of inconvenience and sacrifice. Where does that kind of patience come from? From knowing that “while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6) — in other words, he died for us. And that “God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong” (1 Corinthians 1:27) — in other words, he chose us.
Those who know how painfully and helplessly weak they are apart from God are more ready to endure the weaknesses of others. They don’t resent helping for the hundredth time, because they gladly trust and submit to God’s plans, including the weaknesses he has placed around them.
Encourage the Fainthearted
The fainthearted test our patience because they get more easily discouraged than most. Among the Thessalonians, some were beginning to wither while they grieved the loss of loved ones (1 Thessalonians 4:13–5:11). Discouragement was drying up their spiritual strength and resolve — and so they needed more from others (who were also likely grieving).
The fainthearted lack the strength or stamina others have in relationships and ministry. They bring burdens they cannot carry by themselves. They often despair of their burdens, struggling to see how life will ever be more bearable. And we all already have our own burdens to bear, so regularly speaking grace into someone else’s emotional and spiritual needs can feel especially taxing over time. The ministry of encouragement often requires unusual endurance.
Those who keep walking with the fainthearted, even when the path is slow and winding, demonstrate the strength of a supernatural patience. They have discovered, first for themselves, and then through themselves for others, that
[God] gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:29–31)
Anyone who has experienced the gift of strength and renewal longs for other fainthearted people to experience the same. And how much sweeter when God strengthens and renews someone through us?
Every Christian experiences discouragement, which means every Christian needs a steady stream of courage to endure suffering, to reject temptation, to sacrifice in love, to embrace discipline, to persevere in ministry, to trust and obey God. And those streams run low or even dry in churches when we lack the patience needed to persevere in encouraging one another.
Rebuke the Idle
It’s not hard to see how the idle test our patience. In the case of the Thessalonians, it seems, some thought Jesus was returning imminently, and so they started shirking their work and leaving it to others (2 Thessalonians 2:1–2; 3:6).
The idle test our patience because they refuse to take responsibility and initiative. They could do more, help more, carry more, contribute in more significant ways, but they’re content to do just enough (or less), which means someone else has to do more. And when we are that someone, we understandably grow impatient.
But Paul doesn’t let the impatient off the hook, even with the idle. He does say admonish them — warn them, exhort them, wake them up — even if you have to withhold food for a time (2 Thessalonians 3:10–11) or remove them from fellowship (2 Thessalonians 3:6). Nevertheless, he says to do so with patience. Be patient with them all. What might that mean? We don’t usually associate hard words or painful consequences with patience.
Why of Patience
First, we might ask, Why are we patient, even as we admonish the idle? We’re patient with sinners, in part, because we still are one. The idleness of others — or the greed of others, or the lust of others, or the anger of others, or the vanity of others — is never so evil that we cannot see something of their sin in ourselves. It takes very little imagination for us to see that, apart from an undeserved miracle, we would be them — and perhaps far worse.
Impatience with sinners betrays a small view of God’s mercy toward us. The same apostle that says we should rebuke the idle also says,
The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. (1 Timothy 1:15–16)
Even our rebukes should be seasoned with a humble awareness of our own sinfulness — of just how wicked we would be without the grace of God.
How of Patience
Knowing why we are patient, even with those we need to rebuke, how do we rebuke with patience? First, it probably needs to be said that good rebuke itself is an evidence of patience. It’s easy to give up on sinners. It’s easy to lash out and tear down someone who has sinned against us. Those who rebuke well — who aim to restore someone through honest and gentle confrontation and correction — demonstrate that they haven’t given up, and that they still have hope that God will grant conviction, forgiveness, reconciliation, and transformation.
Patience in rebuke, though, will also mean a willingness to wait for change. Sanctification can be painfully, sometimes excruciatingly, slow. We shouldn’t expect the slothful to become immediately diligent — or, for that matter, for the proud to become immediately humble, the angry to become immediately kind, the lustful to become immediately pure. We don’t overlook patterns of sin in those we love, or make excuses for their sin. We go to them, we warn them, we implore them, we even rebuke them sharply, if necessary — and we keep doing so — but we do so knowing, again firsthand, that change often comes slowly. We plant seeds knowing that they may need time to take hold, mature, and eventually blossom.
Patient God for Impatient People
We might welcome the opportunity to rebuke the lazy and negligent, but can we do so with patience? If we can’t, it’s likely because we haven’t meditated enough on the patience of God toward sinners like us — sinners like me.
“God never asks anyone to be patient who hasn’t already received the infinite riches of his patience.”
When Moses pleaded to see God’s glory, what did God reveal about himself? “The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness’” (Exodus 34:6). He has every reason and right to get angry with us, and yet he’s slow to anger. He’s patient with us, 2 Peter 3:9 says, “not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” God never asks anyone to be patient who hasn’t already received the infinite riches of his patience.
That doesn’t mean patience isn’t hard. It is. Whether in traffic on the way to work, or in a season of significant transition or uncertainty, or beside the hospital bed of someone we love, patience can require uncomfortable sacrifice and surrender. In the Father’s patience, after all, he did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us. As it was at the cross, so it is with us. The painfulness of our patience serves its hidden but beautiful purpose: to call attention to the beauty and power of God’s love.