Wheat and Chaff

How are you doing today?

I'm not asking to be polite. I really want to know. How are you doing?

Are you fulfilled in your life? Are you happy in your relationships? Are you content with the significance of your existence? Are you at peace with your past and confident in the future?

If you have no feeling at all that there is a problem in your life, a great problem, then there's not much point in reading this pamphlet. I'm not going to try to convince you that you have a problem. I believe that you do have one, and I'm going to identify it for you and provide a solution. But a doctor doesn't come to treat healthy people. So if you think you're healthy, then I'll bid you adieu. But I'll leave you with this thought- the time will come when the reality of this problem becomes undeniable to you. At that time, I hope you will remember what I said. Perhaps you should keep this pamphlet with you and read it again when that happens.

The problem you are experiencing at its heart is guilt. People are supposed to be a certain kind of thing, and it is all too apparent that we are not the kind of thing we are supposed to be. Why is that? A bird never fails to be a bird. A tree is always a tree. Sometimes some force from the outside like a bolt of lightning or a hunter's rifle prevents the tree or the bird from being what it is. But with people, it's different. It's not what is on the outside that causes us to fail to be what we are supposed to be. It's what is on the inside. We know we should not steal, yet we steal. We know we should be kind to other people, yet most of the time we care far more about ourselves than we do anyone else. We don't live up to even the moral principles we hold ourselves, and it's not because something else has forced us to. It's because there's something wrong inside of us. And we try to suppress the awareness of this very basic truth or to convince ourselves that it's other people's fault that we feel this way. But it's not anyone else's fault. It's our fault. People are special- different than birds or trees. We have souls. We are spiritual entities unlike birds or trees and were created in order to voluntarily give our love and praise to the God that made us. But a long time ago the first man decided that he would decide right and wrong for himself, live for himself and rebel against God's rule. And as a result, that man, Adam, and all of the human race after him, were separated from God and we all continue to live in Adam's rebellion.

At heart, guilt is an awareness of separation. When you were a kid and did something naughty and your parents were angry at you, you had this terrible feeling that your parents were now alienated from you, didn't love you anymore. The pain of a spanking didn't bother me all that much. I would routinely cause myself more pain than that just in the course of playing. When my parents would spank me, it was the feeling of disapproval, or worse- the idea that my parents simply didn't love me anymore- that was far more devastating than physical pain. That feeling would always pass soon, because I had loving parents who would reassure me of their love even when disciplining me. But the persistent feeling of guilt in our lives is the knowledge that we are alienated from God, that God is actually hostile to us. The desire to overcome this alienation is the reason people do most of what they do. Work, entertainment, religion and politics- all of it is so often pursued as different ways of either earning God's favor or distracting ourselves from the pain of His displeasure. But it will not go away. It cannot be ignored. And if we don't do something about it, it will kill us. God is the source of our life, and separation from Him will eventually destroy us.

The good news is, there is hope. God has provided a solution to the problem. Two thousand years ago, God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, who is God Himself, to earth to become a human being in order to bridge this gap. He came and pronounced the hopelessness of ever earning favor with God by our works, the need we all therefore have for a savior who can rescue us, and the fact that Jesus Himself is that savior. The self-righteous religious authorities of the day, in envy and hatred of Jesus for His exposure of their hypocrisy, murdered Him by falsely accusing Him to the political authorities of the day, leading to His crucifixion. But Jesus had predicted that He would die, and that He would rise from the dead on the third day after He was crucified, and this is what happened. When He rose from the dead He told His disciples that His death was necessary for the salvation of sinners and that they were to go out into all the world and spread the good news of Jesus so that the whole world would know of this salvation. And thus the Christian church was born.

Jesus had to die because God is just. He will not simply ignore sin. Wickedness must be punished. But God's great mercy is seen in that He sent His beloved Son, Jesus Christ, to voluntarily pay the price for our sins so that we could be reunited to God. When Jesus died on the cross He became a substitute for us and all the wrath of God against sin was poured out on Him. He said on the cross, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus, who was perfect and never sinned, felt the separation and guilt that we feel because of our sin. And the death that we deserve, He took in our place. When we believe what God has said, put our trust in the salvation of Jesus Christ, then we become part of the body of God's people on earth, the church, under the umbrella of Jesus' own perfect righteousness. And now God regards us not as individual wicked sinners, but as members of Jesus' people, and therefore beloved of God because Jesus is beloved of God.

So the Christian is freed from guilt. And when he is freed from guilt, he is also freed of all the self-destructive and evil thoughts and deeds that come from guilt, from the pain and despair of separation from God. With the love of God, we learn to love our fellow man, to love the creation that God has made, and to live our lives as God has intended.

This is all a process. Faith in Christ is just the beginning of the journey. Christians are still sinners, and hurt others and fail in many different ways. The journey can be quite painful at times. But it is the most rewarding thing any of us can do.

If you've stayed with me this long, and still think you'd rather stick with your old way of thinking, then the question I have for you is, “How's that worked out for you so far?” Is your life such a bang-up success that you can be confident rejecting this offer of rescue and salvation? Are you so secure in the meaning and purpose of your life that you feel content going back to your old way? Do you truly believe in your own ability to pull yourself up by your bootstraps? What in your own experience or in the history of the world gives you such confidence in man's ability to save himself?

But if it sounds like giving your life to Jesus is the way to go, then do it. And don't be half-hearted about it. It's all or nothing. Faith in Jesus means making a whole-hearted decision to believe what God has said. You don't have to understand everything right now. But you have to be committed to believing.

If you do believe what God has told you, then there are some important steps you need to take right now.

1. Pray to God, and tell Him what you have decided. He hears, and He has promised to answer every prayer prayed to Him in sincerity. He answers in lots of different ways, so be patient. But tell Him that you recognize your hopelessness, your guilt, and your need for a savior. Confess your sins, and ask for forgiveness. Tell Him that you accept His Son Jesus Christ as your savior, and pledge to make Jesus the Lord of your life.
2. Get into church. You need the support of like-minded people. A lone ranger is a dead ranger, and you need people in your life who will encourage and teach you to live your life for God. Find a church that believes and preaches the word of God, the Bible (unfortunately, not all churches do).
3. Get a Bible, and start reading it. It is God's message to mankind and contains everything you need to know. As a suggestion, start by getting acquainted with Jesus, in the book of Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. Then read 1 Peter or Ephesians to gain a great deal of instruction about Christian doctrine and life. Then just start reading from the beginning and go all the way through.

It is my great desire and prayer that more are added to the number of Christ's people. But don't wait forever. The guilt that I mentioned earlier is in fact God's warning to people that judgment is coming, and it could come at any time. Christ is coming again, and if you die or if Christ comes again before you have made this decision, then it is too late. Judgment has come, you have refused and rejected God's offer of salvation, and you will then receive the just penalty for your rebellion against the God that made you. I pray that you will instead receive the offered mercy, believe in Jesus Christ and live forever with Christ, and with all of Christ's people.

One of the most important lessons I ever learned in my life was taught to me by Paul Sondrol, a political science professor at the University of Colorado. I was rather notoriously tardy to things in those days, especially class, and I had Dr. Sondrol as a professor for some upper level political science classes that were small classes, where my tardiness would be noticeable. At the beginning of one such class, during the normal beginning of the semester lecture about class expectations, Dr. Sondrol told us that he hated it when students were late to class. He viewed it as a sign of disrespect. Even after telling us this, I was late almost every day to class by five or ten minutes.

Dr. Sondrol was the sponsoring professor for the Model OAS program at UCCS. Without going into all the details, it was a great program, a lot of fun, a great learning experience and a pretty desirable opportunity with limited slots. I applied for it. The summer before the fall semester, I met with Dr. Sondrol to discuss it. He told me that he thought I was a good fit for the program, but one thing concerned him, my tardiness even after he had told the class that he expected us to be on time. I assured him I wouldn't continue that pattern. I got into the program.

That fall, the first day of class for the Model OAS program, I misread the location of the class, thinking it was on the other side of campus. I was five minutes late. I apologized to Dr. Sondrol, and he graciously accepted. The second class period, I couldn't find a parking spot and was again five minutes late. Mortified, I again apologized to Dr. Sondrol. This time, he told me, "There's always an excuse."

And that's when it hit me. I realized a truth that I heard well expressed recently in the quote- "the maximum effective range of an excuse is zero." An excuse affects me and me only. It might make me feel better about why I didn't do what I should have done. But for everybody else, it has no real effect.

Everybody has challenges in their life. Everybody faces obstacles, has unexpected things happen. Everybody misreads a schedule sometimes or has trouble finding a parking spot. But the difference is, some people live their lives in such a way that any unexpected event, however trivial, throws them off their plans and prevents them from succeeding. Other people live in such a way that they can absorb such unexpected events without difficulty. When Dr. Sondrol said that to me, I resolved to become the second person. I realized I had been the first. And so, every day for the rest of that semester I showed up to class twenty minutes early, and then on the days when something unexpected happened, I'd only be ten minutes early instead of twenty.

Proverbs 26:16 The lazy man is wiser in his own eyes Than seven men who can answer sensibly.

To paraphrase- the lazy man has more answers than a committee of seven.

I'm still not the most organized guy in the world. But I try not to make excuses any more. If I forget something, or fail to get something done, the only acceptable response is to simply accept the blame, try to make it right and do better next time. An excuse serves the purpose of making me feel better. It serves no other real purpose. The other guy, who depends on me doing what I said I was going to do in order for him to accomplish what he wants to do, isn't interested in reasons for failure. He's interested in succeeding. And every successful man knows, there are people who succeed at what they say they're going to do and then there are people who are always making excuses. Guess which one he's going to do business with?

And to take a step back and look at the big spiritual picture- when I come up with excuses for why I can't do what I am supposed to do, it's ultimately God that I'm blaming. I'm saying, God has not given me the resources that I need in order to obey Him. King Saul was an excuse maker. He said, "the people made me do it" when he failed to obey God in the matter of the Amalekite war in 1 Samuel 15. But it didn't matter; God rejected him as king anyway. God always gives us the resources we need to obey Him. God gave me Christ, the most precious gift He had to give. The idea that He would withhold some other thing that I need to succeed is laughable.

And this subject is of course far more important than professional or academic success- spiritual success; though of course, faithfulness in my job or at school is just a subset of faithfulness in my spiritual life. All things are matters of faith. And my prayer to God is that He would grant me the faith and the strength to succeed in my spiritual life, rather than making excuses for failure.

Independence Day

Men will be ruled. There is no alternative; there never has been. The question has always been, by whom? The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the great founding principles of this nation were a statement that men of this nation would be ruled, must be ruled, by themselves.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. Among these are the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

This was truly a revolutionary concept for the ages. Its principle was and is that liberty is not a right that governments give to men, that liberty is a right which God gives to men, and which governments can then either acknowledge and defend, or attempt to deny and withhold. Therefore, any government which denies life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness is an illegitimate government, according to the principles of our founding fathers.

The theory is based on theism, at the least. It is based on the idea that God made men. Without the concept of creation, this statement makes no sense. If we are the products of chance or unthinking nature, then it is inevitable, natural, good, that some races, classes, kinds of men should be better than others and should oppress and rule over others. There is no consistent way of expressing the inherent equality of men except under the principle of a God who created them.

But there is no reason of itself why theism should lead to the belief in fundamental equality either. For if God made men, He may have made them unequal, making some races and classes better than others. Certainly many religions believe this. So it is not sufficient to have religion, but one must have a certain kind of religion, one that teaches equality, in order to make the statement made at the beginning of the Declaration of Independence.

Christianity is just such a religion. The Apostle Paul said, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28) The distinctions between mankind, the inherent inferiorities and superiorities are all there erased at the drop of a hat. With those distinctions and rankings goes the idea that one group of people should inherently rule over another. It took the church hundreds of years to work that out and put it into practice, and it has come in fits and starts, but the very concept is fundamentally Christian, fundamentally a part of the gospel and is inconceivable without it.

Certainly through most of its history Christendom has known the rule of kings, many of them tyrants, many more just incompetent. But God sharply criticized the people of Israel for desiring a king. The desire for a king, God said, was a desire to be like the nations around them, to share in their glory and to gain the sense of security that would come from a king with a standing army to go out and fight their battles for them. The desire for a king was fundamentally a repudiation of God's rule. (1 Samuel 8) For four hundred years before then, Israel was ruled politically by judges. There was no perpetual national government; government was handled locally and tribally, and figures known as judges would arise when the need existed for them. They would serve to unite Israel against their common foes and they would also serve to adjudicate disputes brought to them. As long as the people would follow God and not worship the false gods and idols around them, this was the only government they needed.

Think of the freedom they possessed! No palaces to pay for, no imperial guards, no bureaucrats consuming their wealth. No pyramids, no royal tombs, no huge projects erected to the vanity of the rulers. No officials telling them how to live their lives. They were free.

They threw it away, and subjected themselves to kings. First they had Saul who was terrible. Then they had David, who was a very good man, but who as a king was still not very good for the nation. His own sins inflicted war and plague on the nation. And he was the best; it was mostly downhill from there. Ultimately the kings of Israel were a disaster; their oppression split the nation, involved the nation in ruinous alliances and wars, were the avenue for a great deal of wickedness and idolatry entering the nation, and ultimately bringing on the destruction of both the northern and southern kingdoms at the hands of foreigners. The people of Israel threw away their freedom, and ultimately their security and prosperity as well. When they did it, this is what God said to Samuel, the last of the judges:

“.. they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them.”

Our founding fathers recognized that a free people could only be a people who would be ruled by God. Only when people voluntarily chose to be ruled by the principles of God's word would a representative government work. One could debate the philosophical underpinnings of this belief, but it really isn't necessary. We see around us in our nation today a people being brought into slavery. But we are not being brought into slavery by a political party, by a president, by foreign enemies or internal conspirators. We are being brought into slavery by ourselves.

You can, for example, trace a great deal of our present economic woes to the subprime mortgage crisis, where banks made loans to people who could not afford to repay them. When they defaulted on those loans in huge numbers, starting especially in 2007 and 2008, the whole credit industry was shaken by it. Some blame the banks for making irresponsible loans. That's true, to a degree. Some blame the government for coercing those banks into making bad loans. Also true, to a degree. But none of it would have been possible except for people who took those loans. People refused to be ruled by the principles of God's word, principles of hard work and savings as the source of wealth, and as a result those people, and the nation as a whole, are being brought into slavery.

Whether the subject is health care, education, abortion, homosexuality, war, civil rights, unemployment or anything else, the principles of right behavior are clearly contained in God's word. If people would follow them, there would be no need for government action to solve problems that don't need to exist. But we don't trust God to take care of us, and so we resort to government schemes. People say we need the government to handle our health insurance for us. But Jesus told us that God would always take care of us, if only we trust Him. If we follow the Scriptures in our behavior, if we lived godly lifestyles, if we were moderate and sensible in our eating, drinking and everything we do, if we worked hard and saved our money, if we were generous with the poor around us, then there would be no need to look to Washington and cry, “Save us from ourselves!” And there would be no need to turn a quarter of our wealth over to power-hungry bureaucrats just to give ourselves the false assurance that they can save us.

Because here's the dirty secret- they can't save us. If we rebel against God, nobody can save us. If we follow His word and submit to His law, then we have no need to worry about any threat, whether economic, foreign, or natural. But if we throw off His rule and resort to our own ways, then no government program in the world will rescue us from His judgment. Israel's kings did not bring them security or prosperity; on the contrary, they sucked up the wealth of the land to glorify themselves and made the nation even more exposed to invasions and oppression than they were before.

We must be ruled by God, or by God we'll be ruled. I bow to no one in my disdain for the current administration and congress. But they aren't the problem. The Democrats aren't the problem; the Republicans aren't the problem either, just as they obviously are not the solution. The problem is us. The problem is a citizenry that will not be ruled by the truth of God's word. The problem is a people who believe that it is their right to indulge in every lust, every desire, every evil dream they have, and that it is their right to have science or government or religion rescue them from the consequences of their bad behavior. The problem is a nation full of people who hear “you deserve to own your home” and believe it, and believe that a law should be passed guaranteeing them home ownership, and that someone else should pay for it. The problem is a nation full of people who do not trust God to protect us, God to give us health, God to give us prosperity, and instead look to false gods, who look to the Beast and Babylon to fulfill our every lust and protect us from every danger, trying very hard not to notice that Babylon is built on dead mens' bones. Whether we look to the monolithic state, or the promises of economic prosperity, or the pleasures of entertainment, it makes no difference. We are pledging ourselves to the empires of the world, the false gods of this age. The empires of the world, including the one we live in now, are built on lies and theft and murder. If we will not bow to the God who made us, then we will bow to tyrants.

The truth will set you free, Jesus said. The key to being free in our political and economic lives is to first be free in our spiritual lives. If we repent of our sins, throw ourselves on God's mercy and pledge ourselves to be ruled by Him in every aspect of our lives, then we will be free as individuals. We will be free of the lies and oppression of evil men in our minds and hearts. We will be able to live lives that are governed by God's gentle and just rule and can trust God completely to meet our needs.

This was the dream of America, a nation of free citizens, self-ruled and looking to the truth of God's word, working out in each of our lives individually, to meet our needs. A nation which recognized the God-given right of every individual to rule themselves by God's principles, and which exercised its governmental function only on those who refused to rule themselves. The pursuit of happiness never meant the untrammeled exercise of every lust, but rather the right to decide for oneself, according to God's truth, how to live one's life, and not have the course of one's life dictated by the state. The constitution isn't inspired by God, and it isn't the only way of living out these principles. But the government of this country was an expression of the Biblical truths of the equality and dignity of man created in the image of God. It certainly wasn't perfect. America's principles failed too often with regard to the American Indians, and completely with regard to the black slaves, at least for many years. But even this was not a failure of the founding principles but a failure to consistently apply those principles. But as we fell away from our Christian roots, as we failed to trust God, as we refused to be ruled by God's truth and came to see our right to indulge all our desires, we have gradually lost our freedom. We are no longer independent.

I fully support the separation of the institutions of church and state. But there can never be any separation between religion and state. We will be ruled by God in every aspect of our lives, public or private. Or we will come under the rule of tyrants, thieves and liars. This is the judgment of God who will not be ignored, and it is inevitable. We see it all around us right now.

If you are a patriot, if you love your country, the greatest service you can do for your country is to recommit yourself to be ruled by the truth of God's word, and to encourage those around you to do it as well. It can't be forced; it must be voluntary. Passing laws, choosing judges, electing officials and the like is all secondary; not unimportant, but secondary. What must be primary is that every one of us becomes citizens first of all of God's kingdom, repenting of our rebellion and submitting to the rule of Jesus Christ. Only then can we be free, and only when this nations returns to a belief in a God who made us and reclaims the rights with which God endowed us, the right to rule ourselves according to God's holy truth, only then will this nation again be independent of the rule of the tyrants of this world.

To separate faith from confidence would be an attempt to take away heat and light from the sun. I acknowledge, indeed, that, in proportion to the measure of faith, confidence is small in some and greater in others; but faith will never be found unaccompanied by these effects or fruits. A trembling, hesitating, doubting conscience, will always be a sure evidence of unbelief; but a firm, steady faith, will prove to be invincible against the gates of hell. To trust in Christ as Mediator, and to entertain a firm conviction of our heavenly Father's love, -- to venture boldly to promise to ourselves eternal life, and not to tremble at death or hell, -- is, to use a common phrase, a holy presumption. -Calvin's commentary on Ephesians 3:12

A great quote from Calvin, here. Real faith is going to produce confidence and ultimately boldness in my life. As he makes clear, that confidence will be weak at times, especially as my faith is immature and unformed. But he who trusts in God will know that no power on earth, in heaven or in hell can stand against God's will for our lives, and God's will for our lives is that we triumph; not in some carnal sense of fame or money or earthly security, but in God's completion of the work within us which He started.

This goes to the point I was making earlier about overcoming sin, as well. Overcoming sin is not a matter of working up the willpower to change, or changing my environment. The man who does not believe he can change, who fears to hear the exhortations of God's law, who sees only condemnation in God's standards of righteousness, is a man who lacks faith. Overcoming sin is a matter of faith, of believing in God's promise of forgiveness in Christ and empowering by the Holy Spirit. As I believe those promises, I will gain more confidence to tackle what previously seemed insurmountable, the sin in my life. And as that confidence grows, I will even gain boldness to believe and to do what I never before dared believe or do. I will come to believe that I can indeed be perfect, to be sin-free. Not in this life; not in the strength of the flesh, but by God's power and enabling, I am even now aiming toward that goal which is promised me in eternity, that I would be truly holy and a worthy image bearer of my perfectly holy savior.

That is, as Calvin says, a holy presumption.

For Memorial Day

Tommy, by Rudyard Kipling

I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o'beer,
The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:

O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
But it's ``Thank you, Mister Atkins,'' when the band begins to play,
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it's ``Thank you, Mr. Atkins,'' when the band begins to play.

I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,
But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls!

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside";
But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide,
The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide,
O it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide.

Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.

Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy how's yer soul?"
But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll,
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll.

We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints:
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;

While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind,"
But it's "Please to walk in front, sir," when there's trouble in the wind,
There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
O it's "Please to walk in front, sir," when there's trouble in the wind.

You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires an' all:
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country," when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
But Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool - you bet that Tommy sees!

One thing I deal with frequently and one question I hear often is how we overcome sin. This is nothing unique for a pastor; every Christian must struggle with this issue. I have some thoughts on the issue and I'm going to write them down purely for my own benefit. As irregular as I've been with this blog, I know I don't have a whole lot of regular readers left. And I also know I don't have any new insight into this question. But it helps me think through things to write them down.

This issue is fundamentally the same whatever the sin is. There are differences in the circumstance, and how particular temptations arise and therefore how they must be avoided. But the heart issues, at root, are the same. This should be broadly applicable, therefore, to all kinds of sin issues. Promiscuity, laziness, drunkenness or other kinds of substance abuse, anger, envy, lying- all of it arises out of the same kind of heart, and that is where we must start with our analysis.

There is an essential trinitarian aspect to overcoming sin in our life. Knowing God is of course foundational; the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, the Proverb tells us. The Father declares His law, which diagnoses us, tells us what's wrong with our lives. Further, the Father predestines us to receive the salvation of Jesus Christ from eternity. The Son, Jesus Christ, came to earth to live the perfect life of obedience and to die on the cross, freeing us from guilt and reconciling us to God by the removal of the curse of sin, the punishment of death and hell. The Son's death and resurrection also paves the way for the Holy Spirit, who implements the power of Jesus' death and resurrection in our lives. He comes into our hearts and transforms us, giving us a new heart, one with the power and capability of hearing God's word and doing it. He teaches us through the Holy Scriptures, which are, according to Jesus, “Spirit and life” (John 6:63). All three Persons of the Holy Trinity therefore work together to accomplish this goal of overcoming the sin and corruption in our lives.

I want to focus especially on that second aspect, the death of Christ and the removal of guilt. I cannot stress enough that we must learn to put away guilt if we are ever to overcome sin in our lives. Our natural inclination is to think that we can beat ourselves up with guilt in order to produce changed behavior. But this is to fail to understand guilt. Guilt is the awareness and knowledge of condemnation before God. And it is hopeless; it only works despair. It drives me away from God. This is the whole reason for the necessity of Jesus' death; I cannot overcome the penalty of my sin. As long as I am holding up the penalty of sin in front of myself or others as a motivator to change, all I will accomplish is hopelessness and more sin, since that penalty is an inevitable, insurmountable obstacle, unless it is removed by the death of Christ. And in fact, the sinful behavior itself is part of the penalty of rebellion against God.

Paul says in Romans 8 that there is “no condemnation” for those who are in Christ Jesus. And he establishes that point thoroughly before he goes on to the subject of changing behavior in Romans 12, just as he does in Ephesians. And the reason for putting off sinful behavior and replacing it with righteous behavior is presented by Paul as thankfulness for the reality of our salvation, the reality of the removal of guilt, not to accomplish that removal.

Therefore there is no condemnation by God for your failure to overcome sin. There will be discipline as God lovingly brings pain and consequences into your life in order to help you learn and grow, just as a loving father spanks his child to help the child avoid destructive behaviors. But if you are in Christ, nothing you do will ever cause God to hate or condemn you, since you are now seen in the merit of Christ, and not your own merit.

So once you have it firmly in your mind that a)there is no penalty for failure, since guilt is removed and b) you are guaranteed success by the power of the Holy Spirit in your life, you are ready to start thinking about overcoming sin.

Overcoming sin and changing behavior is described in the Scriptures in a lot of different ways. Paul talks about "renewing our minds" (Romans 12:2) and setting our minds on heavenly things and not on earthly things (Col. 3:1-2). John the Baptist calls his audience to repent (all 4 Gospels, first chapter or two). In 1 Peter 2, the apostle tells us to lay aside evil conduct and to practice righteous conduct. The similarity in all of these kinds of statements is that in each of them, changed behavior is the result of reprogramming our minds. It is necessary to change our values.

If a drunk wants to stop drinking, it's often because the earthly consequences are starting to cause problems for him. Maybe he's in legal trouble; maybe his marriage is failing; maybe his health is being ruined. So he tries to tell himself that all of these consequences are so terrible that he has to stop drinking. This rarely produces any long-term change, though. If the man's motivations are earthly, then the immediate pleasure of the bottle are probably greater to him than the long-term pain of poor health or relationship problems. Even in the gutter, having lost everything he has, the man can still escape into the bottle and feel just as good for a while as he would feel if he were drunk in a nice house with a loving wife. My brother Jim pointed out to me recently that the idea that you have to hit rock-bottom to change is wrong, because there is no rock-bottom. Things can always get worse. The only real rock-bottom is hell, and that comes too late for change. Earthly consequences, even the fear of hell itself, will never produce any real change.

Only when the man reprograms his values, when he starts to believe that the purpose of his life is not to please himself, not to experience pleasure in the things of this world, is real change possible. He must have some purpose that transcends himself, that transcends the world. Most addiction treatment programs recognize this, and it's why the AA program, for example, includes belief in a higher being as one of the necessary steps. But of course true change can only be based on truth; therefore to avoid simply changing from one destructive lie to another, it is necessary that this transcendent purpose be the true transcendent purpose, the God of the Bible. He calls us to glorify and serve Him with our lives. This is a call to a completely different set of values and priorities than those which come naturally to us.

I remember once talking to my dad about time management problems a few years back and I said something along the lines of, "I just feel like I waste a lot of time and then when I get done the things I need to get done, I don't have time left for God." And he responded, "Matthew, it all belongs to God." And then I saw the root of my problem. It wasn't that I was taking too much time for myself and not enough for God. It was that I had a wrong view of the purpose of my life. I was viewing my life as about essentially pleasing myself, while carving out enough time to placate God. Instead, I should view it as all of my time belonging to God and being for the purpose of serving Him; I just do it in different ways. I serve Him by reading my Bible, going to church, talking about Christianity to my friends when I have the chance. But I also serve Him by doing my job, by reading a book for relaxation, by talking to my friends about the weather. Everything I do must be for the purpose of serving God. I do not belong to myself. And this is what Paul means when he calls us to offer ourselves as living sacrifices and set our minds on things above. It means a reprogramming of our minds, of our values.

All sin at its root comes from this source, the belief that I am the god of my own life. My life exists to serve myself, and even my religious activities are seen in that light- to serve my ego, my self-righteousness, to assuage my guilt or to keep God off my back. When I am saved by Jesus Christ, instead I recognize that I am bought with a price and called to serve Him with my life. That is now my transcendent purpose. Putting away sin is only possible when the evil thought patterns that produce sin can be replaced by the truth, by the transcendent purpose of serving God with every aspect of my life.

A stirring article. Having just recently been through a discipline case involving slander, this really resonates with me.

Does the Lord really mean that it is not only OK but a positive good to get angry with those who destroy other's reputations by backbiting? Surely not. We must be patient, forgiving, kind, charitable, while our neighbor's reputations go up in flames--or so the message is in many churches. How long has it been since anyone in your church was disciplined by the elders for this unspeakable crime against God, the very sin of the devil himself against the church?

The problem with these kinds of sins, the sins of the tongue, first, is that they're difficult to prove. The other problem is that if you face them, then you have very public and painful conflict. But if you don't face them, then people in the church who are being victimized just quietly become disillusioned and drift away. So churches often choose not to face them at all, since the consequences of facing them are so much more visible and obviously painful than the quiet and subtle consequences of not facing them. But God rewards obedience. We should never be afraid to have a fight when we need to.

Here is some sound thinking on the real implications of government spending.

Dinesh D'Souza, a writer and thinker for whom I normally have a good deal of respect, got the relationship between evolution and Christianity exactly backward, and effectively, though inadvertently, demonstrated an important point I have tried to make many times in the past.

D'Souza's point about Charles Darwin is that his theory of evolution did not cause him to lose his faith, though he does assert that it has caused others to lose their faith. D'Souza bases this on the fact that Darwin was already angry at God for the death of his daughter at age 10, and also Darwin's refusal to believe that good men such as his grandfather who were unbelievers could be in hell. Darwin therefore was already moving away from Christianity when he started to formulate the theory of evolution. Therefore, says D'Souza, Darwin's loss of his faith and his belief in evolution are unrelated events.

I would posit instead that they are closely related, as Darwin himself said, though D'Souza has the proposed cause and effect backward. Many Christians who believe in evolution make this same mistake, and think that we creationists are just blindly holding onto ignorance out of fear of losing our faith if we realize the truth of science. No, instead we recognize that evolution was simply intellectual cover for what logically did indeed come prior, the rejection of the God of the Bible. If one rejects the God of the Bible then one must find a way around one of the most common and compelling arguments for the existence of that God, which is the nature and existence of the things we see around us. So Darwin is rejecting God, and being of a scientific mindset, he must answer the question of how everything came to be, and he hits on this idea, the theory of evolution. As some of D'Souza's own quotes of Darwin shows, he regarded any divine involvement in science as the death knell of his theory:

When Darwin's co-discoverer of evolution, Alfred Russel Wallace, wrote him to say that evolution could not account for man’s moral and spiritual nature, Darwin accused him of jeopardizing the whole theory. “I hope you have not murdered too completely your own and my child.” Darwin's ultimate position was that it was disastrous for evolution to, at any point, permit a divine foot in the door.

So Darwin certainly saw a connection between the two. But D'Souza merely says that it was "complicated", like the way people talk about their relationships on Facebook when they don't want to explain it more clearly. D'Souza likewise says that we have to distinguish between Darwin the unbeliever and Darwin the scientist. Why? Darwin didn't distinguish. To him, evolution was necessary to avoid the God of the Bible, and evolution serves this same purpose for many other scientists, as D'Souza's own quotes again demonstrate:

According to Richard Dawkins in The Blind Watchmaker, “Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.”

and

Biologist E.O. Wilson writes, “If humankind evolved by Darwinian natural selection, genetic chance and environmental necessity, not God, made the species.” Douglas Futuyma asserts in his textbook Evolutionary Biology, “By coupling undirected, purposeless variation to the blind, uncaring process of natural selection, Darwin made theological or spiritual explanations of life superfluous.” Biologist William Provine boasts that in the modern era, “evolution is the greatest engine of atheism.”

and

Darwin’s most ardent champion, Thomas Henry Huxley, took a different view. Huxley was vehemently anti-Christian, and he was attracted to Darwin’s theory precisely because they saw it as helping to overthrow the Christian case for divine creation. Huxley noted that evolution’s “complete and irreconcilable antagonism” to Christianity constituted “one of its greatest merits in my eyes.”

Christians or theists who believe in evolution are very anxious not to see this point, as some of my own interactions with them in the past demonstrate. They want to believe that they're just separate issues, but they're not. Evolution is one of the many tools, and one of the handiest tools for the scientifically minded, to avoid the truth about God. And those quotes above just demonstrate that without the theory of Darwin, one has little choice but to believe in a God who created everything. None of D'Souza's handwaving can change the fact that there was the very closest of relationships between Darwin's unbelief and his science. D'Souza never even attempts to examine whether the event that came before (anger at God over the death of his daughter) had any influence on the event that came after (the formulation of the theory of evolution). He simply assumes the wrong cause-and-effect relationship is what we theists believe and then disproves an argument that we don't make.

Now this doesn't mean that everyone who believes in evolution is trying to avoid the truth of the Bible. But this is the purpose of the theory, and the way it functions in most of our secular world. Peter didn't recognize that the Judaizers were trying to steal the faith, and he was led astray. Many Christians are likewise led astray by those trying to destroy the faith. Belief in evolution doesn't necessarily turn one into an atheist. But it sure helps a lot if becoming an atheist is what you're trying to do anyway.

So the point is not that we creationists are afraid of being turned into atheists if we believe in evolution. It's just that we recognize that the major engine promoting evolution is the atheistic impulse, the desire to avoid the truth of God's word, and we see no reason to go along. I see no reason to carry water for people who hate God and the Bible. I see no reason to justify their attacks against my Lord and Savior and call the theory something other than what it is. I see no reason to disbelieve Scripture's clear teachings in favor of this atheistic attack on God. And I see every reason to warn other Christians, like Paul warned Peter, not to fall prey to these deceptions. The evidence may seem compelling and the arguments may seem overwhelming. Satan has always been good at what he does. But their real intention is clear. And God's word is clear. He made all things by the word of His power in six days, some six to ten thousand years ago. Let God be true and every man a liar.

Labels: darwin, evolution, young earth creationism

Romans 6:14 For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.

Why is it the fact that being under grace instead of law has the effect that sin no longer has dominion over us?

Because, as Paul makes so clear in chapter 1 of Romans, sin is the consequence of our rebellion against God and our refusal to worship Him as God. We are "given over" to sin as a consequence. So far from being able to work our way out from under the covenant of law, the very sins we commit, part of the consequence for Adam's rejection of that covenant, continue to condemn us under the terms of that covenant, resulting in more punishment, which includes more sin. So it's hopeless.

We recognize then that grace, forgiveness in the blood of Jesus Christ, is the only way to get out from under that. And part of the result then of accepting the grace of Jesus Christ is that we will be released from the penalty of the covenant of Law, which means that sin will have no more dominion over us.

The believer continues to struggle with sin all of his life, as he realizes and lays hold of the effects of this salvation. The Holy Spirit applies the results of this salvation to us and the result is sanctification. Sin no longer has dominion over us.

And this shows the great foolishness of any that would say that the doctrine of justification by faith alone results in more sin; that statement demonstrates a complete failure to understand what sin is. On the contrary, any attempt to accomplish righteousness by works will result in more sin, since trying to accomplish righteousness by works is to operate according to the covenant of works, which requires perfection. And the failure to keep the covenant of works results in the penalty of that covenant being applied, part of which is being given over to vile affections.

Paul goes on to make this point in Romans 6. We are the servants of whom we obey, either of righteousness unto life, or of sin unto death. Being bought out of the covenant relationship of law, we are freed from obedience to that cruel taskmaster, which because of our failure would have destroyed us in sin and death. We are now bought into the relationship of grace, enabling us to begin to live righteously as we move toward eternal life in that covenant, which is characterized by perfect righteousness. Obeying our new master, grace and forgiveness, results in righteousness and life.

I stumbled across this excellent article reacting to a Newsweek piece on gay marriage and the Biblical witness. I really have nothing to say against it. I think that we Christians are going to have to deal with an increasingly hostile media and popular culture on this and many subjects. This article is a good example of how to do it.

My good fried Lee has written a post about Obama on his blog that is for the most part correct. But he says something that I don't believe is quite accurate-

Thus, I was right earlier about his new language just being a new attempt to keep religion out of politics. I did fail to see that he wants to keep religion out of everything. Now I know.

Obama, however, is not against religion. He is against competing religions.

From Liberal Fascism, p. 336-337:

...It is the progressive priesthood- not churches or synagogues- that must sanctify the quest for meaning and spirituality. Independent sources of moral faith are "divisive" and need to be undermined, walled off, excluded from our "common project." This means that liberal churches are fine because they are perceived- rightly or wrongly- to have subordinated religious doctrine to political doctrine. As John Dewey put it in his brief for a secular religion of the state: "If our nominally religious institutions learn how to use their synmbols and rites to express and enhance such a faith, they may become useful allies of a conception of life that is in harmony with knowledge and social needs." Hitler was more succinct: "Against a Church that identifies itself with the State... I have nothing to say."

Conservatives are fond of scoring liberals for their cafeteria Christianty, picking those things they like from the religious menu and eschewing the hard stuff. But there's more than mere hypocrisy at work. What appears to be inconsistency is in fact the continued unfolding of the Social Gospel tapestry to reveal a religion without God. Cafeteria liberals aren't so much inconsistent Christians as they are consistent progressives.

Jonah Goldberg is very perceptive politically. But his religious understanding doesn't go far enough. Fortunately, we have an even deeper analysis available to us:

Revelation 13:11 Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon.
12 And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence, and causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
13 He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men.
14 And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived.

Obama is not against religion. He surrounds himself with the trappings of religion constantly. I remember getting into a discussion with a fellow conservative about whether or not Obama was a secret Muslim. My argument was that it didn't matter. Whether his external trappings were Muslim or Christian, his true religion was the religion of the state, the worship of the beast. He does false signs and wonders to convince people to worship the power of man, which ultimately is the power of the dragon, the power of Satan.

Therefore, religion which serves the interest of the state is just fine with him- a useful ally. And it won't matter at all whether it's Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or Wiccan in outward appearance. The only thing that really matters is that it not compete with the ultimate power of the beast. Any religion can be an instrument of deceiving man to worship the state. Obama chooses to use the trappings of Christianity since most people in this country identify themselves nominally as Christian. But it is deceptive.

The various religious leaders who were used by Obama to prop up this image of himself as Christian then are just being used. When Obama said he never really heard Jeremiah Wright say these racist, anti-white, anti-American things in his sermons despite sitting in his church for 20 years, I happen to think that might just be true, because Obama was not there to listen to sermons. He was simply using Wright to further the power of the state, the power of his own political ambitions, just as he used Rick Warren and Gene Robinson and the rest. The false prophet in Revelation, just like the great Whore, use their deceptive powers to convince men to worship the beast.

Am I saying that Obama is the AntiChrist? No, but he is an antichrist, which means a substitute Christ. He is one of the manifestations of that belief that only the power of the state can solve our problems, and that all must be in allegiance to the state. All interests must be subordinated to the public interest, the needs of government, since only government can save us. Which is to say, that we must all worship the power of the state. When Obama attacks divisiveness, says that we all must unite in this time of crisis, that we must put politics aside and our petty personal interests aside to further the common good, this is what he is saying- that we must subordinate all, including our religious beliefs, to the needs of the state.

We worship Christ. He is our only king. He is our only hope. And therefore we will always be a threat to those like Obama, and they will exclude us as much as possible because we will always have a higher allegiance than our allegiance to the state, to the power of the beast. It's not because we're religious that he will exclude us from the body politic- it's because we're of the wrong religion. Ultimately then there are only two religions, and everybody belongs to one or the other. We are either sealed to Christ and worship Him alone, or we are sealed to the beast, and fall under the sway of the false prophets. I believe that in the coming years this choice will become all the more stark and obvious to the faithful Christian.

From Psalm 61:
"You will prolong the king's life,
His years as many generations.
He shall abide before God forever.
Oh, prepare mercy and truth, which may preserve him!"

This passage jumped out at me in Psalm 61. It seems like a non sequitur; doesn't really seem to fit. David was a king; was he talking about himself? Perhaps, but he has been talking about himself in the first person, "me, my", etc, and now he suddenly switches to the third person.

The Psalm has been a cry for help, for defense and preservation by God. It is also an acknowledgement and thanksgiving from David that God has truly been there for him, has been a shelter and a "strong tower" for David against his enemies.

The New Geneva Study Bible makes the point that a strong and good king was certainly a source of stability and safety for a people. When the old king died and a new king began to rule, it would be a time of uncertainty and fear. So the idea that the king would rule forever would be very comforting.

But David died. He did not rule forever. He was followed by Solomon who was a good king in some respects but allowed idolatry to proliferate in Jerusalem. And Solomon's son Rehoboam was a fool, whose oppression divided the nation.

God had given David a promise in 2 Samuel 7 that his son would sit on the throne of Israel forever. Solomon of course was not this son. It is Jesus who is the son of David, the king who sits on the throne forever. And now the passage makes sense in the context- David is not talking about himself; he is talking about the promised king, the seed of the woman, the Anointed one who would come and inaugurate an eternal kingdom of peace.

What should we take comfort in amid the difficulties of this life? We have a good and righteous king who rules in heaven, protecting us from all our enemies. We have a high priest mediating for us and reconciling us to God. We have a brilliant and effective teacher showing us the truth and teaching us the right way. All three of these offices are held by one perfect Man, Jesus Christ, and He will never die.

In a political era crying for change, crying for something new, so many look for some transcendent figure who will arise and solve all our problems for us. But change was precisely what David was worried about. He knew the turmoil and instability of this life could bring great danger and disaster. But with God's promises, he knew he was on a rock, on a high tower, from which he could not be budged. With Jesus enthroned in the heavens, we likewise can be confident that all of our needs will be met and nothing that we fear can ever touch us, because nothing can ever touch him.

"So I will sing praise to your name forever,
That I may daily perform my vows."

2008 was a tough year for me. My last note, which was a year ago, referred to the problems I had had in my church. Those problems only became more severe in 2008. A few individuals tried to have me removed from the ministry. Their attempt failed, but the conflict just escalated. The elders of my church took actions that we believed were necessary and right for the health of our church and the good of the people involved. The conflict just continued to escalate, going to the regional government of our church, which took certain actions that were a great disappointment to me. In the course of this conflict, many things were said about me and about my elders which were just false and very hurtful.

The result of it now is that all of the people who were so antagonistic to me and to the leadership of my church are out of my church and my denomination. Some of them are in a sister denomination. Others, I don't know if they're going to church at all. Looking back, I remembered how very hurtful it was to me, how disappointed I was when we suffered for doing what I believed at the time and still believe was the right thing to do. My father gave me a plaque for my ordination which is a quote from John Calvin which said, “By watching, and by patiently enduring afflictions, and by constant teaching, the pastor will succeed in having the truth of his ministry established, because from such marks all will acknowledge him to be a good and faithful minister of Christ.” At many points, it was all I could do to “patiently endure afflictions.” But the other result of it was that there is now a sense of unity, peace and joy in the church that exceeds anything I have ever personally experienced.

---

For the new year, I decided to read through the whole Bible, cover to cover. I'm using M'Cheyne's system, and I have subscribed to an RSS feed so the new reading comes to me automatically every day. M'Cheyne's system has you read four chapters a day, from different books of the Bible. It starts you out in Genesis, Ezra, Matthew and Acts. A few days ago, I had gotten a little behind and sat down to catch up on my reading. The reading in Genesis covered the murder of Abel by Cain. The reading in Ezra talked about the wicked people that slandered the Jews to try to prevent them from rebuilding the temple. The reading in Matthew was the first part of the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus says, among other things, “Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you for my sake.” All of this was really speaking to me. But it was the passage in Acts that really got me.

In Acts 5, the Sanhedrin tries to stop the Apostles from preaching the gospel. They of course refuse, and Peter is thrown into jail. An angel of God comes and frees him, and Peter continues preaching. The Sanhedrin goes and gets him again, and now they're talking about killing him. But Gamaliel makes the (very good) point that if it's of men, nothing will come of it, but if it's of God, then they don't want to be opposing God. So they beat the Apostles and release them. And it says that the Apostles left, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for the name of Christ.

Reading that, I felt a great sorrow at my own lack of faith. We firmly believed at the time, and still believe, that we did the right thing through this controversy. We lovingly called people to repentance and were ignored. When the conflict escalated and the decisions went against us, we “patiently endured”. And I don't want to speak for anyone else, but I know now I should have done more than that. I should have rejoiced, as the Apostles did. Instead I was downcast, depressed, at times feeling very much like Elijah must have felt when he prayed to God for death, because the trials he was experiencing were too great for him.

Why are we surprised as Christians to suffer for doing what's right? The expectation that doing the right thing will result in everyone loving you is a worldly assumption. Jesus told us the world would hate us, because they hated Him. And it jumps off of practically every page of Scripture; Godly men and women suffering because they stood by the truth. Abel; Noah; Abraham; Joseph; David; Daniel; the Jewish youths in Daniel; Esther; Ezekiel; Ezra; Mary; Peter; Paul; John. And above all, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We are told again and again that suffering for the truth of Christ is an absolutely expected part of the Christian life. It is one of the defining qualities of the Christian life. Paul says in 2 Timothy 3:12 that all who desire to live Godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.

And certainly the Lord has done so many good things for me. He has surrounded me with good people, people who have stood up for what's true and right. He has blessed me with a wonderful family. I was reading in Psalm 48 this morning and the psalmist is talking about the glorious city of Zion, the city of God. And he exhorts us, “Walk about Zion, and go all around her. Count her towers; mark well her bulwarks. Consider her palaces; that you may tell it to the generation following.” Zion is the city of God, a symbol pointing us to the living temple built on living stones, the church. And when I start to get angry or down again about the events of this last year, I am going to do what the Psalmist exhorts here. I'm going to walk around the walls, count the towers, consider the palaces. I'm going to meditate on the glories of God's church, and how He has protected me and defended me by His truth. The walls, the towers, the bulwarks of God's spiritual city are the people, the saints of God.

And I have an encouragement for you, dear reader. Always stand on the truth. Never compromise it; never back down; never shade or cloud the truth. You might think it will make things easier. You might think it will reduce conflict. But it never does. It just makes it worse; prolongs it. Through all of this conflict, the protection I had was the truth. I never had to worry about certain aspects of the story getting out, or certain people talking to certain other people, or anything like that. I never had to make sure that we had our story straight, or remembered what we'd told one person so we would tell someone else the same story. “Always tell the truth; it's the easiest to remember.” I made mistakes, no question. I didn't handle everything right. I had to apologize for some things, and I did. But I never lied. We stood on the truth, and so at the end of the day we were safe. When you start shading the truth, start pretending things are different than what they really are, you take the solid ground right out from under your own feet, and now you're just standing on swamp. Stand on the rock. Stand on the truth. You'll never have to wonder where you are. And you'll find yourself in the best company in the world, in the company of other people who do likewise.

We have had some fair amount of turmoil at our church here over the last year or so. It's been painful, and I think that may be one of the reasons I've been absent from my blog for so long. But we know of course that God's hand is in all things, and He is working His will in all things. I've seen this doctrine very much fleshed out through these turmoils, as I have seen the good things that God has worked in my life through them.

One of the things I have learned is the value of the visible church. God has put us in this institution, and sometimes people struggle to know what value it has in their lives. We know we're not saved by works but by faith; we know the sacraments do not work remission of sins; we know the church does not stand between me and God as mediator.

But for all those who understand and value sanctification in the life of the believer, the value of the church soon becomes apparent. In the church, the necessity of sacrificial love simply cannot be overstated. As we form relationships with other believers we are naturally drawn to people with whom we are compatible, and when relationships get to be difficult we often simply pull back for a while or end those relationships entirely. But the church doesn't allow us to do that. The church keeps us in close proximity with those that sometimes irritate us, sometimes hurt us, sometimes don't understand us, and sometimes take more work to maintain the relationship than we would really like. It brings us into contact with people that God has chosen for us, rather than just people that we chose ourselves, and God sanctifies us with those people.

It's like a marriage in a lot of ways. At first everything is lovey-dovey and tons of fun. But inevitably hard times come. Your spouse starts to irritate you, disappoints you and fails to live up to the fantasy version of him or her that you constructed in your mind. This is often a very difficult time to live through, but those who have stuck with it and made it through recognize those times as the growing pains necessary to get to the even better parts of marriage.

There's a reason why marriage is used in Scripture as an analogy for the church. Because, like marriage, the best times come with those that you've stuck with through the hard times, when you've laughed and cried together, when you've hurt each other and forgiven each other, when you've learned the truths of Scripture together and have been sanctified together. Marriage has been a very humbling thing for me. I've learned a lot of my own faults that I'm sure I never would have faced had I remained single. And my life in the church has been humbling as well. I've learned a lot of painful things about myself, that I wouldn't likely have faced about myself unless I'd been forced to, like I have this last year. When everything is going well and everyone loves you, it's easy to fool yourself and only think about your strengths. But to get through the hard times intact, you have to take a hard look at those unpleasant truths about yourself, and that's how we grow.

God didn't just send Christ to save us from the penalty of our sins; He sent Christ to save us from the sins themselves. The gospel isn't just justification by faith alone, but the sanctification and glorification that must inevitably follow justification. So if we believe that sanctification is a necessary part of the good news of our salvation, and we see that the church is a wonderful means of our sanctification, then we'll see just how much of an essential part of our salvation the church is. And not just when it's fun and enjoyable; but even more so when it's painful and difficult.