Be the seed...

I can almost hear some coach chanting to his athletes before the big game: "Be the seed. Be the seed." Well, maybe not. This morning while at the gorgeous Keystone resort in Colorado, Keith Bubalo shared his thoughts on 2 Corinthians 4.4-12. In a time of prayer and reflection afterward, the Wind of God directed me to these words of Jesus recorded in John 12.23-33:

"The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.
"Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name." . . .
"Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself."

Jesus said that it was his death that cast down Satan (see also Rev 12.9; 20.1-3 if you're an amillenialist like me) and would draw all people to himself. And as his servants and followers whose goal is to live for and continue his purposes, we also are to carry around in our bodies the death of Jesus, in order that his life may be manifested within us (2 Cor 4.10-12).

Jesus teaches here that bearing fruit for God is contingent upon "death". A few days later after celebrating the Sedir he said, "By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. . . . These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full" (John 15.8-11). In other words, it is by our dying that we glorify our Father. Willingly surrendering all rights to our selfish comfort, ease, and painlessness is necessary, for our weakness allows God to display his power through us so that there's no fooling anyone as to our source of strength and competence.*

But Jesus says all of this out of love for all of his followers: "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you". What did his Father's love look like? God's love sent his only Son through suffering, blows, lacerations, nails, mocking, and asphyxiation--but ultimately to the place of incomparable blessing, joy, and adoration at his right hand (Heb 1.8-9; 12.2). It was truly through the cross that the Son of Man was glorified (John 12.23). It is always his love that motivates Jesus to call us to the cross and to denial of our selves and the worldly desires that would otherwise be fully legit if the Resurrection weren't true (see Mark 10.21).

But by God's power Jesus did triumph over the grave and is reigning from heaven (Eph 1.19-23). In our dying he calls us to join him in these same unblushing rewards as he received. "Where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him." We will be with him at home forever, accepted, approved, and beloved in him by our holy Creator and Sovereign, who calls out the stars by name and is storing up great wrath to crush the skulls of those who set themselves up against his reign (Rev 6.15-17).

Jesu, may we know and believe that in his love your Father didn't spare you the cup of suffering on your path toward joy's eternal increase. With that very same love you call us to die to ourselves and share in your pains and sacrifices for the gospel and bringing all men to yourself. We must know and feel the unsearchable riches of your hesed, your loyal covenant love that surpasses all comprehension (Eph 3.8,16-19). And may our hearts' experience of it compel us to be fools for your sake in bringing the gospel to the people of Turkey, Bangkok, Michigan, or wherever else you've called us, with boldness and clarity. Amen!

*On a side note, another insight I gained from 2 Cor 4.5-7 this morning is that it is not we who have adequacy or effectiveness, but our message does! For it is the power of God for salvation for all peoples, bringing the truth of God as seen in the crucified and risen Christ Jesus.

Definitely not a theological post -- but whatever

I've never been in the mindset that we should only listen to "Christian" CD's. Frankly, I've never been much for the CCM scene. Prompted by R. T., here are the top discs in my collection:

The Beatles, Abbey Road - I don't know if this qualifies as a theme album, but it just fits. It's incredibly innovative, with the final several songs all blending together into one long track.

The Smashing Pumpkins, Mellon Collie & the Infinite Sadness - The Victorian artwork fits this double album perfectly. There is more summertime sweetness, more raw vocals, more textured guitars on this album than any other. A beautiful work. Their previous work, Siamese Dream, is close behind.

Anathallo, Holiday at the Sea EP and Sparrows - No one, and I mean no one, tops Anathallo (Greek for "renewal"). Guitar, xylophone, drums galore, clapping, horns, piano, and even scissors and chains--ya just can't ask for more. Only you do get more, like tremendous builds and crescendoes, songs in Japanese, and perceptive my-deceptive-heart-is-cut-open-and-my-sin-is-bleeding-out-so-I-surrender lyrics make these guys the best. Their live shows must be witnessed. Props to having lyrics based upon the greatest essay of all time, C. S. Lewis' The Weight of Glory. These guys know the Old Testament.

Radiohead, OK Computer - This is when they made it out of their already-good Brit rock days and into the bigtime with their innovate, post-apocalyptic tones.

Dispatch, Silent Steeples and Who Are We Living For? - These New Englanders redefine musical talent. Beautiful harmonies, rich hand percussion, and haunting lyrics make these two the most listened-to discs in my collection. Pick the former for their older, acoustic sound, and the latter for something electrified.

Guster, Goldfly - Forget Pedro the Lion; these are the guys who first took downcast lyrics and merged them with upbeat, poppy music. Songs about consciously manipulating others and the like create an odd lyrical content that makes up the Somerville, Mass., trio's first two discs. Plus Brian "Thundergod" Rosenworcel is the best hand percussionist around, hands-down.

Jars of Clay, Who We Are Instead - I would've said their self-titled debut was their best, but there is a something about their fifth studio album that leaves me in tears. Dan Haseltine sings from the perspective--an honest and personal one, from what I believe--of a man who's seen his sin, lived low in it, but has found hope in the faithfulness and bloody grace of his Savior. "Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet" cannot help but move someone -- it was based on an audio recording they heard of a homeless man singing this simple line to himself for hours as he fell asleep on the streets. This disc echoes of Johnny Cash. Their second LP, Much Afraid, is well worth a listen if you want to be broken of your sin and be left weeping before God.

Honorable mention: Pearl Jam, Vitalogy; Weezer, Weezer (blue album); R. E. M., Document; U2, The Best of 1980-1990; Blue Merle, Blue Merle; anything by Dan Tyminski.

Monergism I: The human condition

Okay, as promised, here's my first installment into the biblical truth known as monergism, that is, the fact that salvation is 100% God's decision and work, and we have no part of it. I will not argue that the word "grace" means that we are blessed apart from meeting some set of conditions. Indeed, Scripture says there is a condition that must be met for salvation: belief in the gospel. But just because there are terms involved does not mean that the recipient deserves the blessing he is receiving. With that said, hear me out…

Watch any of today's popular movies, and what's a main theme? Isn't it that, in the end, despite some evil character's ploys and schemes, the inherent good of man triumphs and wins the day. Pick a movie--Armageddon, Braveheart, Happy Gilmore--somehow a person is able to dig within himself and pull out a measure of altruism or self-sacrifice or golf skill and save the world. We want earnestly to believe in, though often hidden, the goodness of mankind. Call me a pessimist, a skeptic, or what you will, but I don't buy it one bit.

What we really need are more books that expose true human nature, such as William Golding's Lord of the Flies. This novel exposes what happens when people are left to themselves rather than being subject to social law's restraints: young boys riot, insult each other, and finally slaughter their friends.

Enter many of today's megachurches and sit through a sermon or praise songs, and some things might strike you as they did me: the sermons are mostly based on self-help or self-betterment or how to live more holy. Not only is this a bastardization of the gospel of grace, but there's often an underlying current of how we're really able to make these things happen. We want earnestly to buy that we aren't so bad, so we fill bestseller lists with fecal pop psychology that says "You can do it!" Jesus becomes only a teacher on how to live well rather than also a prophet of divine fury (Luke 19.41-44) and the One who makes the dead come to life.

"Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sins is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed" (John 8.34-36). The first thing we simply must know in order to get the gospel right--and all of life and eternity beyond--is that we are by nature slaves to sin, period. Part of the Fall of man was that all humans have inherited a corrupt nature (Rom 5.18), Mother Theresa and Mohandes Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., included.

This therefore renders us not only evil in heart—just look at Gen 6.5—but also unable to desire and choose God. The whole question over whether or not we can choose God by free will is moot; how can one's will be "free" while a "slave" to sin and corruption? Let me briefly cover a few texts that back this up more fully:

Romans 8.7-8: "The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God." Here Paul is speaking of flesh (sarx; NIV "sinful nature") as our existence and way of living apart from the Holy Spirit. Without the Spirit of God, we are hostile and unsubmissive to God. Man in this state is not just rebellious; he wants mutiny! He is hostile to God (see also Rom 1.30; Col 1.21).

Moreover, he cannot possibly have saving faith in this state. Why, do you ask? I've got two reasons. (1) Fulfilling God's true law has always required faith and a God-honoring spirit (Rom 3.27; 4.1-12). How can someone do this when he is hostile and unsubmissive to God? No, he cannot, for "the mind that is set on the flesh…does not submit to God's law." In other words, it cannot have faith. (2) The writer of the letter to the Hebrews (Apollos?) instructs us that without faith it is impossible to please God (11.6). In other words, the only way to please God is through faith. Pleasing God once again presupposes faith, yet those in the flesh not only do not, but cannot please God. If you have faith, maybe you don't always please God, but you are able. But "those who are in the flesh cannot please God."

Ephesians 2.1-3: "And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind." Here is the complete fallenness of all of mankind, every man, woman, and child. All of mankind, by nature (apart from the Holy Spirit), walks in transgression (not merely unknowing error, but deliberate crossing of God's boundaries). To emphasize the universality of this, note that Paul says that Satan (the "prince") is of the air: he is everywhere. "We all once lived in the passions of our flesh"—no one is exempt.

In the middle ages many philosopher used to have humans divided into two separate faculties, the body and the mind. "We may succumb to bodily appetites such as disordered sexual lusts, laziness, overeating, covetousness, greed, and so forth," they would say, but they believed their reasoning and ability to grasp true goodness with their minds lay intact. However, note that both the desires of the body and mind are associated with evil and are separate from God's Spirit. Even the reasoning and ability to appropriate and embrace truth is corrupt in natural man (see Eph 4.17-24!). Clearly the mind of natural man is unable to understand the proper weight and gravity of our sinfulness and the weight and gravity of the person of Jesus Christ. Our mental abilities ("the mind set on the flesh"; Rom 8.7) are even so enslaved to the lies of Satan that we have all failed to perceive God's communication to us through his created works (Rom 1.19-20). Does this leave us an excuse? No! It only furthers condemns us for our blindness.

Perhaps the most obvious thing pertaining to our utter inability to know God and believe in him is that Paul twice (2.1,5) says that we are dead in our sins. Not wheezing or weak, not feeble and maimed, but stone-cold dead. Our bodies have grown cold, our skin is ashen and waxy, and our joints have gone stiff. Some like to soften this teaching by saying that we are like drowning people to whom God throws a life preserver, but we need to take hold of it. Au contrere, mon frere. Corpses floating in the ocean cannot grab life presevers!

What are we to do? "But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved" (Eph 2.4-5; cf Col 2.13). It is God who makes us alive, entirely by his own decision and calling, for dead men cannot resuscitate themselves. Praise the Son, because he is the only one who can set us free from sin and death (John 8.36; Rom 7.24 - 8:4)!

[Dig deeper: Ezekiel 37.1-14; The Bondage of the Will, Martin Luther; The Bondage and Liberation of the Will, John Calvin; The Freedom of the Will, Jonathan Edwards; The Canons of Dordt]

You know you're a Lutheran if . . .

Serious support-raising mania has begun. Tonight I really needed a diversion from it, so I came up with the following based upon my own wonderful heritage:

You know you're Lutheran if…

1. … you celebrate both your natural birthday and your baptismal birthday.

2. … the only things the woman of the household can make are Jell-O, casseroles, bratwurst, or lutefisk.

3. … you own Lederhosen.

4. … you've got your Bible in one hand and a beer in the other.

5. … your children are named Martin, Philip, and Katherine.

6. … you believe the real problem with the local courthouse is not that there isn't a monument to the Ten Commandments, but that there isn't an equally prominent monument to the Gospel on the other end of the building.

7. … you end all of your stories with "This is most certainly true."

8. … you receive roses from your boyfriend/husband but complain that they're not white with red hearts in the center.

9. … you live in Frankenmuth, Michigan.

10. … you know what the words Bier, Scheisse, and Schnitzelbank mean.

11. … instead of trick-or-treating on October 31, you nail complaints against your neighbor onto his front door.

Sola gratia. Sola fide. Sola Scriptura.