Uncommon Sense

Definition of COMMON SENSE

: sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts

There is a lot of concern about the decline of what we call ‘common sense’ these days. One half of society sees the other half as lacking in sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of facts. Of course the other half reciprocates. Judgment based on perception is entirely dependent on how you perceive the situation or facts. I would define common sense in a different way, even as Solomon did; There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death (Proverbs 14:12 ESV).

The problem with common sense is that it is led by the nature of Adam. It is called common because it is supposedly shared by all mankind, but ask a hundred different people what to do in a given situation and you are likely to get a hundred different answers. So the commonality in common sense is this: Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the heart (Proverbs 21:2 ESV).  Jesus came to destroy what we call common sense. He came not to bring peace, but a sword, and often the first thing he divides us from with that sword is ‘common sense’. He desires to cut away what we see as ‘right’ and pare us down to the heart level. It is a painful process.

If you want to see how painful the process is, you need look no further than Matthew 5-7, the Sermon on the Mount. In the first few pages of the New Testament we get the idea that Jesus is not a big fan of common sense. In this famous sermon of counter intuition, he starts by telling us who the happy ones are: the poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure, the peacemakers and the persecuted. There is nothing common sense about that list. Common sense would tell us that exactly the opposite is true. Jesus came to bring uncommon sense – thinking that is not of this world and does not submit to the rules of this world.

He goes on to tell us that our outward actions – murder and adultery – are the result of inward sin – anger and lust. Common sense cares little why a person does something so long as he is doing the ‘right’ thing. He tells us that we are not to retaliate but to offer ourselves in humility to those who mistreat us. He goes so far as to tell us that we must love our enemies and those who persecute us - that it is easy to love and respect those who love and respect us, but that God expects us to love those who hate and disrespect us. Finally he makes the greatest statement of uncommon sense of all time: You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48 ESV).

In chapter 6, he tells us not to practice our righteousness before men, not to lay up treasures for ourselves on earth, not to be anxious about anything. Chapter 7 reveals that we are not to judge others, we are not to be too proud to ask God for the things we need, we are to treat others as we desire to be treated, that many who have endeavor to serve him in ministry will be turned away in the last day. A great load of things which have nothing to do with ‘common sense’ and a heavy burden to those who are enslaved by it. Clearly, in order that Christ’s yoke might be easy, we must be loosed from the foolishness of common sense. Otherwise his words will crush us.

The last two verses of chapter 7 are these:  And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes (Matthew 7:28-29 ESV). By what authority was he speaking? Clearly not by the authority of common sense from the Adamic nature. He spoke only what the Father had given him to speak. The crowds were amazed because his teaching was abrupt, piercing, counter-intuitive. The words were the words of God and blew common sense out of the water! Anyone who has ears to hear these words ought to have a desire to get away from the deadly snare of common sense. Paul said:

    Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.
   The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. (1 Corinthians 2:12-16 ESV)

One of the gifts of God that is received through faith is godly wisdom. Common sense is nothing but worldly wisdom. I am not surprised at the lack of ‘common sense’ we see in society today, but that the church embraces common sense as if it were the wisdom of God and mourns the loss of it. If you can interpret Matthew 5-7 as being something of common sense or common decency then you are seeing Jesus as a common man, which he was not. Until we recognize that he spoke the words of God and accept his otherworldly  ‘uncommon sense’ as the only kind of thinking that matters, we will never become uncommon people. That is the gospel truth.

God Bless 

Maturity

The first chapter of 2 Peter is an amazing chapter. I have really come to appreciate the depth of Peter’s thought in the last month or so. In this chapter, he defines Christian maturity and places great emphasis on what makes Christian growth possible.

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. (2 Peter 1:3-4 ESV)

He begins with an all-encompassing indicative, namely that through the knowledge of Jesus Christ God has granted us all we need. It is our knowledge of what God has done for us through Christ that allows us to escape worldly corruption and partake in the divine nature. This knowledge is the very foundation of Christian maturity. As Paul states in Romans 1:16 and 1 Corinthians 1:18, this knowledge (the good news of the gospel) is to us the power of God.

For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. (2 Peter 1:5-7 ESV)

He then moves on to the imperatives of Christian maturity, very clearly tying them to the indicatives of verses 3 and 4 in stating “For this very reason”. He wants us to understand that the process of maturing is completely dependent upon God. While we are to make every effort, the power behind our effort is the gift of knowledge which allows us to become partakers of the divine nature.

For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. (2 Peter 1:8-9 ESV)

Here he sandwiches the imperatives with indicative again. If we lack these qualities, it is because we have focused on our maturity to the exclusion of the very thing that makes our maturity possible. If ever we forget that we have been cleansed from our sins, if ever we cast aside the gospel power in our lives, we lose the ability to move forward. It is in looking back to the first things that we find the ability to see the second things come to fruition in our lives.

Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. (2 Peter 1:10 ESV)

Indeed it is the first things that we are to be diligent in confirming. Our calling and election are what set us apart from this world where such things as faith, virtue, knowledge of God, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection and love are rare commodities. These are fruit of the Spirit, and without the Spirit reminding us to abide in Christ and what he has accomplished, we cannot bring them about. To be fruitful, we must embrace “the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence”. We must walk in the gospel truth.

God Bless

Walking in the Light

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

(1 John 1:5-10 ESV)

So today I am a post abuser. Things are coming fast and furious around this passage and I want to get the thoughts down before they escape.

One of the truly striking things about this passage is that John nowhere alludes to the fact that we have no darkness. He does state that God is light and that in Him there is no darkness. But the reality is that he doesn’t even hint that there will be a time when darkness is not present within us. In fact, the last verse makes clear that we are saddled with sin, and to think otherwise is to make God a liar.

John’s warning to us is that we are not to walk in darkness. This really harkens back to Christ’s words in John 3 that men hate the light and refuse to come into it. By this we can conclude that it is not the darkness within us which God abhors (which He clearly recognizes) but our desire to remain in darkness, to walk in darkness.

And so we, though we have darkness within us, are instructed to walk in the light. Who’s light? Our own, no, God’s light. When we walk in the light we realize two benefits from it; we may freely fellowship with one another – without shame, guilt, hiding or lying to each other and; the blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin. Does that then mean that we are cleansed to the point where there is no darkness within us? John answers with the next verse. ”If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” So at no point in earthly life should we expect that we shall be free of darkness. Our striving to be free of darkness is futile. John’s encouragement is simply this: walk in the light.

We all struggle with sin. Our natural response when we encounter the identity crisis of sin is to withdraw from the light. As a child, if we had done something we knew was wrong, which of us did not naturally try to avoid our parents as long as possible. Which of us did not attempt to lie to cover our wrongdoing? We did this because we feared the consequences of our wrongdoing. But God’s love, unlike that of our parents, is perfect. As John states in chapter 4 and verse 18 of this same book, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.” To be perfected in love is not to be sinless, but to walk without fear before God understanding that the act of walking in the light is more important to God than our wrongdoing.

Again, this is no license to sin. To walk in the light is to know Him. In chapter 3 John states, “Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.” Those walking in the light make no habit of sinning. But when we do sin, for we will sin, we must not recede to the darkness. We must understand and accept the fact that God knows us, all of us, and that more than anything He wants us to walk in the light of his perfect love. To confess our sin to the one who loves us without flaw, without condition, without cost is to walk in the light.

Christian maturity is not sinless perfection, but honest interaction with God. Faith in Christ’s work keeps us in the light because it is undeniable proof that God loves sinners like us perfectly. It is the gospel that proves God’s love for us and draws us from darkness into the light. From the punishment meted out by the law to the love of God demonstrated by His mercy. And though sin remain, it is no longer that which forces us further into the darkness, but that which should create in us the desire to run into the light. 

God Bless

The Wisdom of Christopher Hitchens

Author and renowned Atheist Christopher Hitchens died last Thursday. He was outspoken against God and the gospel, finding the entire idea of substitutionary atonement completely repulsive.

I was listening to the NPR news piece about his life and death while driving last evening and heard several things that fascinated me about the man. One was his recount of what it was that first turned him away from belief in God. A teacher at his school when he was nine years old, according to Hitchens, explained that God had made the grass and leaves green as a gift to mankind. He told C-SPAN:

"She says, 'This is an excellent thing and proof of the glory of God, because he could have made vegetation orange or red, something that would clash with our eyes, whereas green is the most restful color for our eyes!' And I sat there in my little corduroy shorts, and I thought, that's absolute nonsense."

Strike one for apologetics. This is the best reason for not using apologetics in trying to convince people of the existence of God. As a former Atheist, I can tell you that no intellectual argument, regardless of how sound it may seem to the mind of the believer, is going to truly convince people of the existence of God. If it were able to intellectually convince them of the existence of God, it still cannot lead them to redemption – only the gospel can do that. And from experience I can tell you that the scriptural gospel can penetrate even the hardened heart of the intellectual. Only the gospel can do that.

Interestingly, Hitchens intrinsically understood some of scripture’s great presuppositions. In 2007, he compared what he called “this supposed God” to the North Korean dictatorship - "an absolutely impermeable dictatorship that couldn't even be criticized, let alone overthrown, that went on forever, that supervised and invigilated your every waking moment and would not stop torturing you even after you were dead. To wish this to be true is to wish to be a slave."

Compare that to the language of Paul in Galatians 3 and Hitchens was three-quarters of the way there: “Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed.” (Galatians 3:23 ESV) Hitchens had recognized a truth that many Christians still have not dealt with; God has enslaved the world under His law. I am sure that Hitchens heard many times over how much God loved him, but intellectually it was impossible to get past that fact that God, when approached on the basis of law (the only basis he could understand) is an impossible task-master. Intellectuals tend to recognize this and avoid God specifically because of it, where your run-of-the-mill believer finds the idea of slavery preposterous. The mushy love of God we frequently preach has none of the audaciousness of biblical grace that destroyed the dictatorship of law and fear.

He recognized one other thing that many Christians fail to realize – that Christianity is not moral. Not that it is immoral, but it might be more accurate to describe it a supramoral; above morality. Late in his life, as he battled cancer, he said this: "Under no persuasion could I be made to believe that a human sacrifice several thousand years ago vicariously redeems me from sin. Nothing could persuade me that that was true — or moral, by the way. It's white noise to me." He was correct. There is nothing moral (morality being man’s sense of right and fair) about the substitutionary death of Christ. It is preposterous from a human standpoint. And that is the very thing that makes it so amazing. When we moralize the gospel, we strip it of amazing.

I am sorry that Hitchens had to die lost (if he did). He was a man of incredible intellect and courage. But he leaves lessons that we may use to consider how we should reach people like him for the gospel. I am sure that he was very hardened toward the gospel and would never have allowed anyone to get very far into it without shutting them down. Still, I can’t help wondering what might have happened if the teacher who had soft-peddled apologetics to his class had instead introduced them to Paul’s gospel? What could a man with his gifts have done for the Kingdom?

God Bless

The Benefits of Grace

As I look back over my posts, I sometimes think they are very negative. Seems as if I am always complaining about something. I always try to end on an up note, but today I want to start on an up note.

God’s ridiculously extravagant grace has many, many benefits. In fact, the benefits of grace are all the things that we seek to accomplish ourselves in vain, even as Christians. I thought I might run down a list of a few things that are substantially changed when we enter into a relationship with God that does not take our performance into account.  Here goes:

Guilt

Think for a moment about Adam and Eve, who used to walk through Eden with God, completely naked. Without shame. What was the first thing they did after they had sinned? Hid themselves because of guilt and shame.  Romans 8:1 states: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Once we accept the fullness of what Christ has done, we once again stand naked before God without shame.

Sin

When we come under God’s unending grace, we are freed from the law. That freedom from the law ends the dominance of sin in our lives. “For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.” (Romans 6:14 ESV) Not that sin isn’t still alive in our flesh, but it can no longer dominate us.

Evangelism

The message that sets us free is the gospel – the announcement of God’s grace. Once we understand the depth of that freedom we will never again look at evangelism in the same way. It will not be a ‘have to’, but a passion to see captives set free from their bondage to the law and sin. There is no need for methods because it is natural for us to want to share that which has brought us great joy.

Worship

This calls back to guilt. When we are under the guilt of the law, even the smallest bit, we can never worship God freely.  When we are become sons of God, we worship naturally in all that we do. Christ said that the true worshippers would worship in Spirit and truth. We too often worship under an obligation to law and so with falsehood.

Charity

Once any kind of slavish activity is removed from our lives, we no longer feel the need to place a cap on our charity. We can be hilariously charitable, even as God has been toward us.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, etc.

The fruit of the Spirit. I’ve heard people say that you should never pray for patience, and they are correct. Neither should we pray for the other fruit of the Spirit if we do not live under the full and free grace of God, because they will not come. Grace is the power the releases God’s work in our lives.

Understanding

Like every good thing in our lives, our knowledge of God is a gift. Once grace is embraced in our lives, our minds are open to receive the alien knowledge that is imputed along with alien righteousness. By alien I mean unnatural or supernatural. This knowledge comes through the Holy Spirit, the anointing of Christ, who works to renew our minds. The more we understand grace, the greater our capacity to understand grace will become. If we close ourselves off to grace, our understanding becomes dim. You may know when the Spirit is working when the scripture starts to ‘meld’ together in your mind in larger and larger pieces until it all becomes one glorious story of grace and redemption.

Relationships

Eventually, as God intends, all of this begins to work out in the relationships you have with those around you. “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” (Romans 13:10 ESV) As the free and extravagant love that we have gratefully received from God in our lives begins to work itself out, we will truly fulfill the law in our love for others. It can be a torturous process, because it will mean your having to accept others as God has accepted you – unconditionally.  It all begins with the understanding that God has, in Christ, accepted you without condition.

And the list goes on and on. There is not one part of life that is not improved by the acceptance of God’s overwhelming grace. Sometimes that means that you will have great patience in dealing with trials. Sometimes it means you will have great joy in the midst of heartache. It does not mean that God works everything out to your satisfaction, but that you become satisfied by God’s gift of grace to the point that you no longer look to circumstances or things or people for your satisfaction. You simply need to recognize that God’s abundant, liberating, completely unconditional, never-ending, undomesticated grace is way more than sufficient for you!

God Bless