Made Alive To A Living Faith

Recently with Heirborne, the middle school ministry here at The Bridge, I have been teaching through the book of James. A couple weeks ago we came to a passage James that is hotly debated among Christians and theologians. The passage is James 2:14-26, where James talks about dead faith. The reason why it is debated is because James makes a bold statement in verse 24 when he says "You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone." This verse should make alarms go off in your head since the rest of the New Testament seems to fight against the passage, especially the Pauline epistles. What James is seemingly saying is that works have to be present in salvation, something that the evangelical church disagrees with vehemently. Because of this church fathers, such as Martin Luther, have questioned James' biblical-canonical authenticity. The reason why is when you read a passage like Galatians 3:16 which says, "Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified." you notice a contradiction between Galatians and James. Thus when you juxtapose that passage next to James 2, you have a contradiction, at least an apparent one. However, does this mean that the Word of God contradicts itself?

I do not believe so. The Word of God is completely inerrant and infallible and when you understand it in its proper context you realize that these apparent contradictions end up complimenting one another. In regards to these two passages, Paul is talking about justification in a different way than James is. Paul is talking about the moment you are justified before God in Christ, the moment of salvation, while James is talking about the proof of this salvific event taking place. Paul is speaking and complimenting a living and real faith while James is condemning a dead faith. Paul is speaking of faith vs. no faith while James is speaking of dead faith vs. living faith. For example if you are at a restaurant with a friend and your friend pays that bill, you are free to leave the restaurant with no obligations, but if you ask your friend for proof of the payment he will show you the receipt, the proof that he paid the bill. In the same way Paul in Galatians speaks of salvation, the debt (our sin) being paid for in full, and James is talking about the proof that salvation took place. So if you are truly saved you will live differently, not because you are trying to earn God's favor, but instead because you already have God's favor so you are free to live a free life in Christ. Another way to put it is Paul is saying that you are saved by faith alone in Christ, and James is saying that the faith that saves is never alone.

A great example of this is the biblical story of the healing Naaman, a man with leprosy (2 Kings 5:1-19). Naaman goes to this great man of God, Elisha, and and asks to be healed, and Elisha tells him to go dip and wash himself in the Jordan River seven times. Naaman reluctantly does so and is healed. Now the question is poised, what saved him from leprosy? Was it his faith in the fact the God could heal him, or was it the fact that he dipped himself in the Jordan River seven times? Obviously it was his faith in God that saved him, but what proved that he had faith in God was that he was willing to wash himself seven times in the Jordan river. This is precisely what James is explicating in James 2. In essence he is saying, "If you truly believe, live it out!" So ask yourself do you believe, and is that evidenced in your life with action?

This Side of Perfect

If you ask anyone who is not a Christian, what they think about Christianity and Christians they will rattle off a list of things, mostly negative, but undoubtedly they almost always will say one thing: that Christians are hypocritical. This is indictment of hypocrisy is due to the fact that we are all hypocrites. We are hypocrites in the sense that we say we love God and believe what the Bible teaches, but don't always live out what the Bible teaches. We say one thing and do another which by any definition makes us hypocrites.

However, as Christians we are called to be perfect, to be holy as God is holy (1 Peter 1:16). So how do we remedy this problem? Is there a way we can reach perfection, to stop being hypocritical. The Bible teaches that we as Christians are being renewed everyday into the image of Jesus Christ, i.e. into perfection. This is what Romans 8:29 means when it says, "For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed into the image of his son" and what does the image of his son, Jesus look like? Just go to Colossians 1:15-20 to see this, where the writer emphatically says that Jesus is the exact imprint and image of God. So to be Christian is to be made into the image of Christ, who is the image of God. This does not mean we do not still sin, but it means that every day we are being made to look more like Christ and act more like Christ in every way. It means that everyday as Christ perfects us we sin less, and become like him more. Our wills, thoughts, and desires are being radically changed to reflect Christ's wills, thoughts, and desires. See the Bible never calls us to become something we're not but instead it always calls us to become increasingly who we already are in Christ.

Of course this isn't something that happens overnight, it's a process called sanctification that will one day end in glorification when we reach heaven. So when someone calls Christians hypocritical they are sensing this fact that we claim to be perfect, but are not truly perfect and they call foul, but as Christians we look at this and rejoice because we know that one day we will be perfect, we're just on this side of perfect right now. It's all in the perception of hypocrisy, the outside world might call Christians hypocrites, but God calls us perfect, just not perfect yet. We're in the process of being sanctified for the purpose of one day being glorified. So, Christian, embrace this perfect perfection that we have in Christ that is at the same time here perfect and not yet perfection, and as the Bible does on numerous occasion I call you to live and become who you already are in Christ.

The Age Old Story

In the few years I've been in ministry I've noticed a pattern in our churches. I see people wearing out, burning out, or sinning out of ministry and gospel community all the time. Why does this happen? Is it because they weren't living out the Bible, or weren't praying enough? Is it because they didn't have enough gospel accountability in their lives? Or is it because they just weren't truly Christians at all? 

I don't think those answers account for what I see happening in churches everywhere. I think we've been inadvertently preaching the wrong message to one another. The mantra of "try harder" and "do more" isn't peace on the ears of those who have given their all in trying to live out what is taught in the Bible. A friend of mine was reeling in pain after his marriage fell apart and he told me that some of the most hurtful advice that was given to him was from Christians. One person told him to "just do what the Bible says." It's not that easy is it? The weight my friend felt and the weight that so many people feel in the church is the impossibility of living out the commandments of our Lord. 

We need to get back to the gospel. The gospel in essence is that because of what Jesus did we are able to live the way he lived. Not by trying harder, not by doing more, not by living better. The glorious impossibility of the gospel is that we can't do it on our own. We can't, so to those who feel burned out, or worn out, or sinned out I give you a message of hope. We need the gospel more than ever. We need to preach that age old story. It hasn't changed because we haven't stopped needing to hear it. Paul in Galatians 6:9 tells the Galatian church to not grow weary in doing well, and the way we do this is to reap the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. Paul is saying the way that we prevent ourselves from wearing out when we are doing good things or are in ministry is to plug into the Spirit for our source of strength.

This is the gospel, he doesn't give a reason such as do more, or read the Bible, or pray more, but instead he says live without your power and instead to live in the power of God. The moment we realize that we can't do it alone, we truly understand the gospel. See the most beautiful thing about the gospel is just that, that because of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross we are now eternally accepted by God and we no longer live under the weight of trying to earn acceptance from him. Instead we can live our lives free in the power of the spirit. This is the age old story, it hasn't changed, and we still need to hear it. 

I am initiating a blog series to, well keep myself on track with blogging. I'll be going through the epistle of Colossians found in the New Testament and giving practical application from whatever verse we look out. So stay tuned in and I hope you get something out of it.

Colossians was written to a very diverse church located in a central marketing hub. Colossae was located in the Lycus valley and was one of three major cities in that area. This city was important because this was a marketing and business hub at the time of Paul's writing. Paul never physically went there, but his influence reached there through Epaphras, who most likely heard the gospel from Paul in Ephesus and carried it to Colossae. Colossians is an amazing book because it deals with the reality of the gospel and the application of the gospel. The book is summed up in the phrase coined by Pastor Tulian Tchividjian in his book which is entitled, "Jesus Plus Nothing = Everything." The false teaching that Paul was exposing in Colossae was that of Judaizing Christians who taught that faith in Christ alone was not enough and there had to be some physical obedience from the faith. The error here is that the gospel teaches the exact opposite. We don't have to try to live up to some standard of moral perfection so that God might love us because he has already accepted us and saved us before the foundations of the world. Our wills and desires changed due to our status before God, not in order to achieve some kind of status. This is the power of Colossians that we will explore in our study of this wonderful epistle. What does it mean to live as if all we need is Jesus? I implore you to find out by applying the principles found in Colossians.

My dad is a pretty strong guy, always has been. When I was a kid I used to argue with my friends all the time about who's dad was stronger. I was always so confident that in a fight my dad would win against anyone. I see this as the idea behind Romans 8:31 which says, "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?." "These things" refers the copious amount of pages that Paul (the writer of Romans) had just spent on the theology of salvation, i.e. what God has done to save us. In response to these truths he resounds that we should not fear anyone since God is for us. Literally Paul is presenting a rhetorical question of if God is for us is it even possible that anyone could truly be against us. This is a great verse, but I think that we all face times when we have advisories or conflicts in our lives so how do we apply this to our life?
The biggest way we can actively apply this to our lives is through faith. I believe that the biggest reason that we get caught up in conflicts is that we don't believe that God can and will deliver us from them. Secondly we don't apply biblical principles to the situations. Over and over again in the gospels Jesus shows and explicates a different way of dealing with enemies and conflicts. Instead of being antagonistic we should be loving, caring, and helpful to our enemies. Lastly we don't realize the power of God. It's unbelievable to me that so many Christians still see God as this benevolent yet far-off deity who doesn't intervene in human affairs. The sad tragedy is that most of us live our lives in fear of worldly consequences when we should be concerned with eternal ones.

Hard Prosperity

I've been hearing a lot of preachers recently who proclaim a certain type of "gospel." This gospel tells its followers that blessings from God come in monetary and tangible ways. It claims that if you follow an obscure prayer in the middle of a book of genealogies from the Old Testament that God will "expand your borders", and it also claims that if you are obedient, faithful in church then God will bless you exponentially by material means. Before I go on I want to add a couple qualifiers. First there is nothing wrong with having money, owning nice things, or anything like that, unless that comes before your relationship with God. Secondly I do think that God can bless in tangible ways and that he does.

However the problem with this type of teaching is that it engenders a mentality of God almost as an amazing credit card rewards program. If you spend enough time and money (tithing) at church then you'll get that back even more. The real issue here is that this flattens the way that God does interact with his creation. By saying that if you believe in God and do everything right he will bless you monetarily is excluding the majority of Christians worldwide who are desolate, poor, and weak. It's like saying that God is like that father who is never around, and tries to compensate this by showering his family with expensive gifts. I've known people who have had parents like this and all they wanted was for their dad to be around. In the same way if we truly worship this awesome, all powerful, and amazing God as is revealed in Scripture then if the only way he interacted with us was through tangible blessings then I would react just like the child of that father. By saying, "Dad I just want to be with you."

Thankfully we know from the Bible that God is a loving father who wants to see us grow to be more and more like Jesus Christ our Lord. Going back to prosperity gospel preaching, sometimes the most loving thing you can do for your child is to discipline them. We see this concept more throughout Scripture than the type of blessing this false gospel proclaims. In Hebrews 12 the Scriptures say, "It is for discipline that you must endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline then you are illegitimate children and not sons." This is just one biblical example of this poignant and true concept, that if you are loved by God then he will discipline you. I don't know how this will come to fruition in your life, but I know it will, and I write this in the hope that you guard yourself against this pop theology that is grossly misaligned with the Word of God.