“God, I marvel that You want anything to do with us, we are so stupid and sucky.”

I picked the title for this post from the session-opening prayer by Jocelyn Wallace, director of Vision of Hope Residential Treatment Center here in Lafayette, because it reflects a refreshing attitude in contrast to our self-esteem culture.

Mrs. Wallace works with young women from age 14-28 who struggle with a wide range of problems. She taught a workshop called "Counseling Those Struggling with Their Sexual Identity." I chose this topic for today's post because those of us who belong to the generation doing the parenting and counseling of young people are largely ignorant that those very young people are immersed in a sexually explicit and sexually confused culture.

The challenge is to both teach a biblical view of sexuality as well as model it. If we do not respond we are pushing the problem off on the next generation of Christian parents and teachers. We tend to fear a number of things:

1. Falling into the immorality we are fighting in the culture
2. Becoming exposed because we have become absorbed in our own forms of immorality
3. Having to provide an example in our own homes of how a marriage ought to run
4. Having to overcome our laziness and inattentiveness in failing to teach our children how to biblically define family, sexuality and marriage

Jocelyn pointed out that we should resist calling people "gay" or "lesbian" because that is a subtle indication that we accept those terms as the identity of those people. In truth, these are people who have been caught up in sexual sin, but their identity is not wrapped up in their behavior. For example, you do not become "country" or "goth" just by dressing that way. The confusion over gender roles may be reflected in the unisex dress of our world, but the real issue is the attitude of the heart. Many (most) young people have grown up thinking we get to decide what we are and do not know what it means to be masculine or feminine.

Rather than cave in to the culture, the Church needs to communicate that the greatest pleasure in this world is to to find our identity in the way God made us and to delight in the boundaries He has established for our good and His glory.

Don't Be Afraid of Romans Nine

            The ninth chapter of Romans has been the subject of much debate through the centuries because a person’s view of divine sovereignty, human responsibility and the place of Israel in God’s plan may hinge on its interpretation. The exercise of interpreting Romans nine is so disturbing to some that they have opted to ignore teaching it. It is a lot easier to attack the interpretive work of another teacher if you haven’t done the exercise yourself. 

            This blog regularly deals with biblical counseling issues. Embracing what this chapter teaches will bring you to have a God-centered approach to any struggle you could ever bring into the counseling room

            Does God really have the right to do whatever He wants with people, including choosing to save them or leave them in their sins? Later I am going to answer, “Yes,” but let me illustrate.

            I grow rhubarb. I have a thriving stand of it in my garden. It belongs to me. I created a space for it with my tiller. I planted it. My family tends it. We pick some of it and use it for our purposes.

            We can use it for whatever we want. My wife makes killer rhubarb pie, rhubarb torte, rhubarb crisp and rhubarb crunch. I have even sampled some delicious rhubarb punch. I occasionally eat it like a stalk of celery, as disgusting as that might sound to you. Its large leaves, when picked, work well as a mulch to keep down weeds or as a hat to prevent sunburn.

            Rhubarb is valuable to me as long as it accomplishes my purposes. But it tends to shade some of my other garden plants and make them pale. It sometimes encroaches on the territory of other plants. When this happens I have to take action.

            What if rhubarb had a personality? Can you picture those red and green stalks meeting under cover of darkness to plot my overthrow and replace me with the garden rake or the largest tomato plant?

            What if I use my self-propelled Toro lawnmower to take out a section of the rebels? Would those stalks I left complain that the others never had the chance? Would they accuse me of violating the free will of those stalks that really wanted to be in a pie of only they had been given a chance?

            Get this: Even you rhubarb lovers would not take their side against me because the issue is not the free will of the rebels but the free will of the master. It is not what my rhubarb wants but what I want that makes the difference.

            This is where my illustration breaks down. Rhubarb does not have personality. It was not created with a mind, emotions and a will. It has not used its will to replace me. That is why the story of God’s redemption is so much more vivid.

            The story of the Bible is not about great people who achieved great things for God. The story is of a great God, period. We are allowed in His story because He decided to let us in. We belong to Him. He created a space for us. He put us here. He takes care of us and makes us thrive here. He uses us for His purposes.

            Are you ready for this? He has the right to do whatever He wants with us because He is God. Bad thing for us, we have darkened minds, self-focused emotions and depraved wills. Our fallen wills have chosen to replace the living God with anything from statues made of stone to sports to sensuality. Good thing for us, this God does what He wants in complete harmony with His character. And that changeless character is merciful as well as holy.

            The content of the chapter is summarized in verse 18, “So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.” Does this mean that God actively chooses the people who get to be saved while passing others by, or is there another way of looking at it? Two primary views emerge: Either (1) God saves individuals on the basis of His character and sovereign plan or (2) God saves nations on the basis of His character and sovereign plan. The second view leaves open the possibility for God to rescue or condemn nations independent of His dealings with individual people.

            It is true that God judges nations while saving His people inside those nations, but that is not the message of Romans 9. While there are national aspects to the election of God (Deuteronomy 7:7-8), this text will demonstrate that viewing God as the Savior of individuals is the interpretation that best fits the purpose of Paul’s letter. The story of God’s redemptive plan for the nation of Israel is an illustration that directs us to His redemptive plan for individuals, not the other way around. Romans nine contends that God is the sovereign ruler over nations and individuals within those nations for His own good purpose and His own glory.

            We humans, like so much rebellious rhubarb, are not running to submit to God’s rule. People who are troubled with talk of election and predestination have an incorrect view of the nature of man and the nature of God. Men are not crawling over one another to get into the kingdom of heaven and God is not standing outside with a stick, beating those poor willing souls away from the gates.

            God has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy, and He hardens whom He wants to harden because He is God and because we are rebels. As the book of Romans has clearly illustrated, the shocking reality is not that God would dare allow rebels to suffer eternal punishment but that He would dare save any of us.

            Does this make sense to you? Does it make sense that this is God’s world and that He can do whatever He wants? Beware if it does. When you take this point of view you need to be ready to answer some questions. If God is indeed sovereign, every event in His world is subject to the scrutiny of the people in His world.

            How, for instance, do you answer the skeptic who asks you how you can believe in a God who would raise up wicked men like Herod the Great, Adolph Hitler and Osama bin Laden to kill so many innocent people? What kind of God would allow earthquakes and tsunamis and hurricanes to kill children? “If that is God, I choose not to believe in Him,” your unbelieving friends might say.

            You could take the current theological way of escape from hard questions and say that God has limited His knowledge of some future events. Redefining God’s attributes by giving Him this “openness” might make you think you are protecting His reputation from blame for events you cannot explain. But you can never satisfy a sinner whose heart is hard by cutting God down to the sinner’s level of understanding.

            There are some questions we can never answer. Can you be satisfied with that and still run to your Savior even when He has left you hurting and weak?

            The Gospel of Luke (13:1) records an instance where some men questioned Jesus about a horrible crime Pilate reportedly committed against some Galileans in the Temple. Jesus replied reminding them of yet another tragedy in which a tower fell and killed eighteen people. We cannot know why they asked Him about this but we can know what our response to such events needs to be. Jesus said that such events call us to repentance. Catastrophes are a reminder that our lives are short and unpredictable and that we are accountable to God. While men are shaking their fists at the Creator they should be kneeling in shame, pleading for forgiveness.

            So this begs the question: Do you want a God without a plan and without control over His creation? If He is not in charge, the alternative rulers deserve more fist-shaking than God is currently getting. Do you want a God Who chooses not to control nature or Who is surprised by the wicked plans of wicked men? When your unbelieving friends look at a sin-cursed world and seek to accuse God of wrongdoing, turn the tables like Jesus did. The burden is on them. Unless they repent they will perish in similar fashion.

            This is Paul’s argument in Romans nine. Man says, “That’s not fair.” God says, “Don’t ask for what’s fair.” Man says, “What about my free will?” God says, “What about my free will?”

            Consider some thoughts that may help you as you approach what has been called “the most neglected chapter in the Bible”:

            There are some things you can know for sure when you approach this difficult chapter:

1.   It does not contradict what the Bible says elsewhere. The Bible has proven itself immune to the charges of its critics. This does not mean that there are no difficult passages, only that those passages are part of a unified body of revelation from God.

2.   It presents God as He is, whether you like it or not. Romans nine does not seek to accommodate those who seek to create a lesser god.

3.   God is never confused or in error. Whenever there are charges of wrongdoing, God is never the defendant.

4.   It is possible to correctly understand the hard texts. Your confusion over circumstances or biblical texts does not change God’s character or His word. The emotions stirred by a difficult text should never determine your interpretation of that text. Your theology or system of belief must bend to the plain reading of any Scripture text, not vice versa.

5.   The safest action for hurting or confused people is to run into the presence of God, never away from Him.

Reaching People Who Have Made the Trade

Evangelism has never changed since sinners first needed forgiveness. Even before the cross the message was always about a saving God bringing that which does exist into existence and bringing the dead to life. Abraham believed that and it was credited to him as righteousness.

Certainly we have more of the story unfolded in our day, so we call sinners to run for mercy to a risen Savior who bore our sins in His body on the cross. But is there any difference in the way you reach Sunday School kids and the way you reach people who have never darkened the door of a church? The gospel does not change, but the very concepts of God, Jesus, sin and forgiveness are either foreign or redefined to the average unchurched person. You cannot believe a message you cannot understand.

I have seen this firsthand because I have been working with men in our community who have been in trouble with their families, in trouble their girlfriends or wives, in trouble at work, in trouble with the law…drugs, etc. There are many church members who have a hard time finding Habakkuk in their Bibles. That’s a shame, but I'm talking about high school graduates who don't know what the Garden of Eden is.

Where do you start? “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life”? But who is God?

I usually start in Genesis instead of John or Romans. I want these men who are in trouble with people to understand what kind of God made man and what God’s kind of man looks like. Once they see that, we have defined our terms and I can explain why they are also in trouble with God. The message of redemption only makes sense once you understand you are in trouble.

Working with troubled men over the last year has brought me to make some general observations:

1. Most of these men grew up without an active father.
2. Most of these men have not been able to hold a steady job.
3. Most of these men are very angry.

Based what I know about the Bible's estimation of men, I think my last two observations are related to the first. But simply protecting the girl from his wrath or getting the guy to work are not the primary objectives. Regeneration, not behavior change, is the solution to these big problems.

So one of the first homework assignments I give to an unbelieving man is to read Genesis 1 and 2. I often ask them to lead in that reading with his wife or girlfriend. That starts some interesting discussions. After reading those chapters I ask him to answer some questions:

1. List all the conclusions you can make about this God when you read these chapters (for example, “He must be very ______________ because He _______________.”).
2. What were the things God gave Adam to enjoy? List them.
3. According to Genesis 1:26, what was Adam's job?
4. What were some other jobs God gave Adam to do (see Genesis 1:28; 2:15; 2:19-20)?

If you do his homework assignment yourself you may or may not be surprised to see that work came before sin. God commanded Adam to rule over the earth. He told Adam and his wife to have babies. He told Adam to cultivate and keep the garden. Men are wired to love one woman and work hard for the glory of God. Go figure.

Something else worthy of note here is that before they took the forbidden fruit their exclusive delight was found in God and God's gifts. In other words, they had unlimited pleasure inside the boundary. I often illustrate that as a fence labeled “boundaries of legitimate pleasure.”

Then we work together to see all that Adam and Eve had inside those boundaries. Inside they had fellowship with God and all that he is. They had companionship, work, food, the beauty of the garden and even marital sexual pleasure.

Then we talk about the consequences Adam and Eve experienced outside “the fence.” Outside they found guilt, pain and death. When you see what they traded for a piece of fruit I usually say, “That must have been some piece of fruit.”

Talk of that exchange readily takes us to their own lives and the consequences they are reaping. It is easy to see how God defines idolatry and it is easy to see the “exchange” of Romans 1 in living color when you work with men who live there. It is also humbling to wake up to the fact that I have made the same trade.

Overcoming Fear

“It was a beautiful day on the beach, but you couldn’t be there because of embarrassing toe fungus.”

What do the advertisers of that product know about us that would motivate them to put a commercial together that way? We are afraid. We fear the opinions of others. We fear weakness. We fear vulnerability. We fear pain. We fear death.

I took a thoughtful look at today’s news headlines and advertisements and assessed how many of them play on our fear of economic loss, fear of sickness and death or fear of man. Just a scan of the big news outlets this morning produced these potential fears:

• “This is the food that heart attacks are made of.”
• “Doctor on Swine Flu: Be Alert, Get Vaccinated”
• Fashion errors can get women passed over for job promotions.
• “Durable goods orders tumbled in June”
• We have had no hurricanes yet this season, but the worst-ever hurricane season started this way.

David may have been sitting on his porch watching a storm blow in from the Mediterranean when he penned Psalm 29:

¹Ascribe to the LORD, O sons of the mighty,
Ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.
²Ascribe to the LORD the glory due to His name;
Worship the LORD in holy array.
³The voice of the LORD is upon the waters;
The God of glory thunders,
The LORD is over many waters.
⁴The voice of the LORD is powerful,
The voice of the LORD is majestic.
⁵The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars;
Yes, the LORD breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon.
⁶He makes Lebanon skip like a calf,
And Sirion like a young wild ox.
⁷The voice of the LORD hews out flames of fire.
⁸The voice of the LORD shakes the wilderness;
The LORD shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.
⁹The voice of the LORD makes the deer to calve
And strips the forests bare;
And in His temple everything says, "Glory!"
¹⁰The LORD sat as King at the flood;
Yes, the LORD sits as King forever.
¹¹The LORD will give strength to His people;
The LORD will bless His people with peace.

This is personal because I am working with a child in my own home who has developed an inordinate fear of lightning (and, hence, the outdoors). My wife wisely told me not to jump all over the issue with a little person. I realize that I may be demonstrating more fear (What will people think if the pastor’s kid has panic attacks?) of what might happen if my child persists in fear than my child is showing toward lightning. Specks and planks.

I will be gentle with the child, but fear is a serious sin. It becomes life-dominating. When I live in fear I rob God of His glory. Here are some examples:

• When I am afraid of bad weather I miss the chance to delight in the power God displays in nature.
• When I am afraid of what others think of me I ignore what God’s opinion is and what changes He wants to make in me.
• When I am afraid of sickness I not only risk making myself sicker from worry, I also ignore the fact that God might want to show His power in my weakness.
• When fear of losing my investments or other economic security consumes me, I reveal a heart that finds its security in a substitute savior.

Look at the text of Psalm 29. After the description of a loud storm that tears down trees, starts fires, throws pregnant forest mothers into labor and brings floods, the heavenly (I take it as heaven’s temple) audience shouts “Glory!” What a contrast. The crowd in the presence of the King gets to see every event on earth from God’s perspective (see Revelation 19:1-4). Talk about a big-screen, multi-media adventure! How can you have two individuals looking at the same event with one paralyzed in fear and the other energized in worship? Perspective.

Our problem is that we look at the things we fear as threats to our peace when we should be looking at them as displays of the glory of God. That is why the Christmas shepherds who feared an angelic appearance and twelve panicked disciples in a storm-tossed boat could go from terror to worship. They saw the King.

When you get to the end of the psalm you see where you need to be if you are prone to fear. You need to see that “the LORD sits as King forever.” His subjects go to Him for strength and peace.

Practically speaking, there is some homework you should do if you are prone to fear’s paralysis:

1. Make a list of the good (God-pleasing) activities you are avoiding because you are afraid. Be thorough. The size of the list may surprise you.
2. See your fear for what it is and confess it as an attempt at preserving self instead of glorifying God. It is a serving-two-masters matter. Repentance is in order.
3. Memorize Psalm 29:9-11 (or others: Psalm 23:5; 27:1; 34:9-10, 19; Proverbs 21:1; Matthew 10:28; 2 Corinthians 1:8-10; Hebrews 13:6; 2 Peter 2:9) and call the text to mind when you feel fear taking control.
4. Do what someone who trusts God would do in the fearful circumstance. This is not being fake. It is practicing trust. It is the fruit of repentance. For example:

• When you least feel like being around other people (work, church, small group fellowship), step into that situation and find a way to serve them. Stop living a life that is controlled by feelings. You will find the “glory” in the storm.
• When you are troubled by that person whose presence is intimidating or whose strong personality changes the way you talk or act or dress, remind yourself whom you should be seeking to glorify.
• When the doctor says you have a deadly disease or the meteorologist says there is a devastating storm headed your way, remember the inhabitants of heaven are shouting, “Glory!” and echo heaven’s song.

The Cross and My Trouble

What do you do when life doesn’t go your way? What do you think when an ordinary day or week or life turns into a nightmare? Let’s imagine, for the sake of illustration, that you’re living in circumstances that look like the part of a great American novel where the hero gets in trouble and the trouble is getting worse.

·         You uncover a shameful truth about your spouse or one of your children.

·         You face unexpected and overwhelming expenses at a time when your income it at its lowest.

·         You get bad news from the doctor about yourself or a family member.

How will you think and behave at a time like this? What will determine how you will think and behave? Can you prepare yourself to respond biblically to such circumstances or must you wait and see what comes out?

Then there are the questions about God’s perspective. What kind of reaction does He expect of his children when they are suffering? Does He say, “It’s okay to be mad at me” or does He say, “Suck it up. It could be worse”?

Our trouble is that we tend to gravitate toward one of those extremes. Either we crumble under the pressure and enter a mindless, faithless despair or we become bitter and cold, steeling ourselves against further hurt by refusing to feel emotion.

Many in the Church have attempted to answer the problem of pain. Some say our pain is as much a surprise to God as it is to us. Others say you suffer because you do not have enough faith. Still others blame territorial or ancestral spirits.

The world has its own answers. We are told there are predictable stages of grief—that anyone outside the pattern is likely in denial. We are taught to pamper ourselves when we hurt, to take a break from responsibility until the hurt goes away. To suggest that there might be a wrong way to respond to suffering is to be labeled judgmental. Among people “in the know” there is no consensus of what “normal” is, so almost anything goes, which raises an interesting question: Is there a “normal” way to respond to suffering? Is there for a follower of Jesus Christ a pattern which, if lived out, makes you God’s kind of sufferer?

Without hesitation we must say, “Yes. Normal is Jesus.”

Mark 10:45 (ESV) records these words of Jesus: “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” What is your task as a follower of Christ who is suffering? It is to serve and to give. That is what Jesus did.

Take special care in noting all the people Jesus ministered to as he hung on the cross:

 

·         To his tormentors

·         To the repentant thief

·         To the unrepentant thief

·         To John

·         To Mary

·         To the people he died to save

 

Developing an “other-focus” in prosperous times will prepare you for lean times.

To his tormentors (“Father, forgive them…”), He served a healthy portion of grace. He could have had them destroyed by the angels under his command, but He prayed for them. Following His own counsel to “pray for your enemies,” Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34, ESV).

In our nation of religious freedom it may be hard for you to imagine someone having a murderous hatred for you because you are an outspoken Christian. It isn’t hard to imagine the rolling eyes and verbal jabs that come toward Christ’s evangelists.

To the repentant thief, He granted a pardon (Luke 23:43, ESV), saying, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”

When you are hurting it is often because of the sins of others. To refuse forgiveness to them when they honestly repent is to say that what Jesus did on the cross was an insufficient price. The words “I forgive you” are a ministry to a repentant sinner.

If you are hurting because of your own sin, you need to view yourself as guilty as the thief hanging next to Jesus.

To the unrepentant thief, He offered common grace. This ministry was not in what Jesus said or did but in His silence. That is, Jesus allowed the man to live even in the midst of his blasphemy. He was witness to the same things as the repentant thief, yet he persisted in unbelief. Luke 23:39 (ESV) records it this way: “One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, ‘Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!’”

Common grace is what God gives every man—even the worst among men—by allowing him life, sustenance and pleasure. You may have lived long enough to have had someone wrong you terribly. You cannot grant them full forgiveness without their repentance, but you can give up the right to become bitter. You can grace them by refusing to take revenge—even if they sorely deserve it.

To Mary, He ministered material provision. As the eldest son of Mary, Jesus took the responsibility to secure her a place to live. As Mary and John stood at the foot of the cross, He said (John 19:26, ESV), “Woman, behold, your son!”

As with everything else Jesus said and did at the cross, His focus here was on others. Facing unimaginable pain, He considered what His widowed mother would need to sustain her into old age.

To John (giving ministry is a ministry), He entrusted the care of His mother. John 19:7 (ESV) “‘Behold, your mother!’ And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.”

Suffering people might be tempted to give a job to everyone available to help themselves. Jesus commissioned John to carry out a task he would be unable to carry out.

To the people he died to save, He gave a completed work. He said, “It is finished” (John 19:30). He absorbed God’s wrath toward their sins. He purchased them from slavery to sin with His blood. He secured eternal life for them. He became sin so that they could be declared righteous in God’s sight. He washed their sins away.

This you cannot do. If you are one who has realized personally the washing away of sins, you can use the suffering of your master as a pattern for your own suffering, but you can add nothing to a work that perfectly satisfied the Father’s righteous demands. With these words of Jesus, yours is but to joyfully bask in the light of a completed work you had no part in.

If you are a stranger to this pleasure, yours is to see the unspeakable disparity between the holy Lamb of God and your helpless, guilty soul—to see yourself as an object of wrath. This is no exaggeration of the facts. Run to Him now for mercy.

Something More Important Than Avoiding Insanity

Noreen,

First, let me say that I was very sorry to hear about your mother’s passing. I know these past few months as your mother’s primary caregiver have been very hard. It surely is good to know that our God uses hard times in the process of making us more like his Son. He is in the business of doing what is for our good and his glory and he never makes mistakes.

To get right to the point, you tell me that after all those months in the tropical South surrounded by mosquitoes and the potential for malaria, you are still hearing the creatures at night. You cannot sleep. “They” will not go away. Trouble is, this is Wisconsin in the winter. We both know there is no way you are hearing mosquitoes in your room. You have asked me for help because you think you are going crazy after all the trauma with your mother. You say you wonder if you need some sort of medication. You have essentially said you would do whatever it takes to stop the buzzing.

First, let me assure you that I do not think you are going crazy. Unfortunately I also cannot tell you why you are hearing mosquitoes at night. I am not sure you could find anyone anywhere who could give you a definitive, authoritative answer as to why people hear things that do not exist. Take, heart, though. As hard as it may seem, there are more important issues at hand than stopping that horrible noise.

If I did not think you were a follower of Christ my counsel would be evangelistic, but since you do love my Savior I can offer this: You exist for him. He alone has the absolute right to rule you and make you what he wants (Daniel 4:35; Romans 9:19-21). Because he is God he never makes mistakes. Because he is God he is never unkind. Do you believe this?

If so, let me ask the hard questions. What if the mosquito noises never go away? Can you still glorify our great God? What if you have to live out your days with some other illness? Is God still just as good and worthy of worship when he chooses to send hard times that make you like his Son? This is my point. Your passion to please God must be greater than your passion to make the mosquitoes go away.

Here are the words of Paul to the Philippians:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice! Let your gentle spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. Philippians 4:4-8

Here is some homework to work on until the two of us can get together with my counseling apprentice:

1. Find delight where you were intended to find delight. Using Scripture, make a list of ten good things God has confirmed about himself through the hard times at the end of your mother’s life. Be specific. Spend time before you go to bed for the next ten nights praising him for each of those gifts.
2. Replace worried and anxious thoughts with true thoughts. Put Philippians 4:8 on a note card and memorize it. Quote that verse out loud whenever you hear the buzzing. Keep a journal of your thoughts each time you do this.
3. Find ways to begin loving others in tangible ways. Re-establish your service with the children’s ministry at church. Ask Mary Jones how you can make her job as preschool Sunday School teacher easier each week. Since you are single and not working right now, call the local pregnancy care center and ask to be put on the volunteer list and agree to pray for specific client needs as you are notified. The more you spend yourself for others the more your own troubles pale.

Be assured that I am praying for you in this. Let’s both ask God to take this away, but also ask him to do his perfecting work in you first.

Letter to a Young Single Man

Lanny:

I have been thinking about you and putting myself in your shoes. You need to know how similar our backgrounds and personalities are. There is hope in learning your problem is a sin identified in the Bible because then you have a solution. Jesus died to rescue us from sin. I do think the primary reason for the conflict with your parents and depression is because of your undisciplined personal life. God designed you with a conscience in your soul that works like the nerves in your body. There is a warning signal when things are not right.

It is this idea of discipline that I want to address with you. Generally speaking, this is the time of your life that you become what you will be for the rest of your life. That is why the way you respond to the biblical counsel you get now is vital.

I know all too well that sexual temptation is intense when a man is 19. I want to help you fight that battle. I think the combination of unfulfilled desires and a lot of disposable time is dangerous. The abundance of impure images available to your eyes or already in your mind are like gas on the fire.

Paul warned Timothy: “Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.” He also said, “train yourself to be godly.”

In those areas where you have behaved sinfully you need to humbly repent before God and those you have wronged. Then you need to establish some good habits to keep you from going back down the same road. Paul calls it "putting off" and "putting on." Would you consider a challenge to let me help you set some goals during this year you are taking off of school?

Some ideas to consider:

1. Beyond your regular (and indispensable) devotional time, develop a list of Christian non-fiction books you know would be a challenge to read, but also good for you. Set aside twenty minutes each day (even during lunch breaks) to work that goal. It might even make people ask questions if you are reading a Christian book. I recommend you start with Desiring God by John Piper and Passion and Purity by Elizabeth Elliot.
2. Talk to your pastor about finding a place of ministry at your church to pour many hours into (college ministry, teaching kids, doing research for your pastor, starting something new or making something old better). Whether you realize it or not, you have a lot of valuable time on your hands because you are single and not in school. To use it for selfish ends primarily playing video games or watching movies is a tragic waste of a precious gift God gave you. Jesus died to rescue us from selfish living.
3. Develop goals for your money (like saving for a house or land) and get yourself on a disciplined budget. My forced savings plan I started when I was in my twenties is why my wife and I were able to come up with a significant down payment for our house.
4. Find recreation that requires something of you. When it does not consume you, recreation can be productive. I have observed that men who are passive in their free time are typically passive with the rest of their lives. Working hard is good, but so is playing hard. Hunting, fishing, running, weight lifting, and making things with your hands are worthy things to keep you engaged during free time.
5. Make out 3x5 cards with Scripture verses pertinent to your current temptations. Take a few minutes every day to review them all. You will be surprised how quickly you start calling to mind what God says when you need it most. Start with 1 Corinthians 10:13, 31; 1 Thessalonians 4:3-12.
   

Every one of these pieces of homework could be simply an outward diversion unless they are driven by the highest motivation: a love for your Master. He is worthy of a disciplined life.

Hope for a Depressed Thief, Part Two

Jordan...continued

I want you to consider God’s diagnosis of what is going on inside your heart. I know enough of your background to say that I would be surprised to read in the paper that you were arrested and charged with retail theft. I know that you would bristle at the thought of that. However there are other ways to steal.

Just like Jesus taught that hatred is heart murder and lust is heart adultery (Matthew 5:21-22, 27-28), he also taught that stealing is more than stuffing a DVD into your shirt at Wal-Mart. Listen:

For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God; and that no man transgress and defraud his brother in the matter because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, just as we also told you before and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification. So, he who rejects this is not rejecting man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you. (1 Thessalonians 4:3-8, emphasis mine)

It is that word “defraud” that I want you to see. You could substitute the words “cheat” or “swindle” or “con.” I honestly think that you fall into this category for these reasons:

• You stole from your employer because he had to go without services he hired you to perform. Instead having you, a trained staff member, complete a task, he had to get a less-than-satisfactory job done when you were not there to carry your portion of the load.
• You stole from your girlfriend when you became “too physical.” You may claim that you did not go “all the way,” but any sexual pleasure you get from her robs her and her future husband (even if you think that future husband is you) of something that belongs only to them.
• You stole from your parents and your church because as a member of both of those families you selfishly kept back simple service that should have been theirs because you thought you were too busy to serve (busy playing games and doing what pleased you).
  

I do not intend to judge you, but God’s word is the best judge of any of us. What does this text say? Because you have repeatedly turned from the instruction you grew up with, I give you the words of the Holy Spirit written about Jordan through the apostle Paul: Jordan “is not rejecting man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you.”

You may question what I am about to say, but I think I have your attention now. There is a solution to this problem. Jesus did not die for victims of other people’s sins. He died for sinners. If you think the things you are going through right now are the fault of someone else, I am not going to be able to help you. But if you are one of those sinners, I can offer you hope for a solution. Jesus died to rescue sinners from their sins. Thieves are sinners. Jesus died to rescue thieves from their stealing. Here is one text that gives the way out:

He who steals must steal no longer; but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with one who has need. (Ephesians 4:28)

Here is the bottom line. You need to find your pleasure in a better place. Follow the logic of the text I just gave you:

• You do not stop being a thief when you stop stealing, but when you start doing something useful with your hands.
• You do not start doing something useful with your hands until you have an internal desire to share with those in need.
  

I will take you elsewhere in Scripture to show you that you will not have that internal desire until there is a fundamental internal transformation that only comes when you run from the judgment you deserve to the mercy provided by the one who died to rescue people like you from things like stealing.

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (2 Corinthians 5:16-21)

The gospel of the Redeemer who conquered sin and death turns thieves into givers. It makes you do useful things with your hands for the good of others who need what you do.

My call to you, Jordan: run to the only one who can not only rescue you from the judgment you deserve, but to the only one who can rescue you from yourself.

Hope for a Depressed Thief, Part One

Jordan:

You have given me a great deal of information and first let me say that I know you are hurting. I want to assure you that the kind of depression you are experiencing is all too common and that I have great hope to offer you.

Just to list some of the information you gave me about why you are so depressed:

• You were fired because you regularly decided not to show up for work. Aside from the legitimate excuses like your sudden illness and your car trouble, you admitted to skipping out on work numerous times to be with your girlfriend and sleep late because you stayed up watching TV and playing video games. This is not the first job you have lost because of this.
• Your girlfriend has broken up with you saying your relationship was “too physical.” You have threatened suicide in an attempt to get her back.
• Your parents want you out of their house because they say you do not help. Your church ministry and attendance is only because of house rules and even that has ceased despite pleas from your parents and pastor.
  
  

When I offer you hope, you should know that I am not talking about finding a place to live, landing another good job or getting your girlfriend back.

You claim to be a Christian. You certainly do have a good grasp of things that are in the Bible and can even point to a time when you prayed to ask Jesus into your heart.

Please follow through with what I am about to say. I am calling your profession of faith into question. I have one primary reason: Your life has shown a pattern of delighting most in the things that please you and you have consistently run from the consequences rather than turned from the sinful behavior.

Christians are not those who have prayed the right prayer but those who have turned from sin to Jesus Christ. That does not mean Christians are sinless but it does mean Christians do not live in sin. First John 1:5-8 says:

This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself 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 that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.

In the Garden of Eden (a story you know very well) Adam and Eve had one main passion: delighting in the living God and what he had provided (food, home, family, fellowship…). The first time that main passion was replaced (by a piece of fruit), the whole problem started. The Bible calls it idolatry and it shows up in innumerable ways among Adam’s kids.

In your case, the guilt you are feeling right now is in part because you are guilty of a specific kind of idolatry. It is called stealing. Let me explain.

To be continued...

Rise, the Woman's Conquering Seed

The news on December 1, 2006 included a report that the city of St. Albans, West Virginia had decided to include in its holiday display a scene of a manger, a star, shepherds, camels and a palm tree. Missing because of concerns over “the separation of church and state,” according to an Associated Press report, were Mary, Joseph and the baby. The park superintendent who apparently ordered the unpopular omission argues that this is not “technically” a manger scene.

I can agree with him on that. What is a manger scene without Jesus? You can have your bath-robed herdsmen and your incandescent spotlight. But what kind of centerpiece can you have in a crèche without a Savior who is Christ, the Lord? Do you shine the light on the camels? The palm tree?

Stories like this irk traditionalists because they think secularists in our nation are trying to take away the familiar things we hold dear. But is liberal tampering with sentimental traditions the greatest reason to bristle at a baby-less manger scene? People might be just as angry if they tried to ban something of less consequence, like church spires over fifty feet tall or Easter egg hunts.

I make this contrast because I even wonder how many professing Christians understand why Jesus has to be at the center of Christmas. It is more than a story, you know. I fear that many treasure Jesus like they treasure drawing a “Get out of Jail Free” card in Monopoly—only this card says “Get out of Hell Free.” If the baby in the manger merely serves to stir my memories of flannelgraph stories or comes to serve my man-centered theology, then I take his removal personally. I might even start a war over it. The nerve of those liberals and secularists!

But if the baby in the manger set the aside the worship of angels to die and absorb in his body the full wrath of the Father that I deserve, his omission mainly sickens me rather than makes me angry. It is not only a reminder that I live in a world that fails to treasure Jesus, it is a reminder that I have also sought satisfaction in lesser treasures than Jesus. The people he came to save are not only those of European descent who go to church. The people he intended to rescue come from every tribe, tongue and nation and include liberals, secularists, Muslims and other enemies of God like me who can only find an end of the enmity by grace.

Maybe I get angry when I hear “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” at Walmart because it takes attention away from my own idolatry. It is a lot easier to question what happened to the plastic Jesus in the public park than it is to wonder why he has been replaced by a ballgame or a TV show or a good novel in my home.

Should We Give Sinners Proof Texts or Unfold a Bigger Picture?

It is difficult when people reject the truth. You deliver God's word as clearly as you can and still people persist in their rebellion. You wonder if you used the right texts or presented them in the right way. This believer is frustrated because he is trying to biblically admonish a friend who is planning to marry an unbeliever and is not responding to the confrontation. His statement reveals his dilemma: "I have already taken him to several places in the Bible that have something to say about this, to no avail. I'm wondering if I'm missing something that I should be reminding him of."

Guido:

Thank you for taking on this ministry. This is the way things are supposed to work: people in the church counseling other people and repentance hopefully happening privately before the matter ever has to be spoken to someone else or brought before the church. Sadly, I already know the situation and know that your friend is not a church member. Our hands are somewhat tied.

My job is to equip you and others to do just what you are doing, so please do not hesitate to ask questions.

I will give you an Old Testament command and a narrative that both underlie the New Testament commands not to become yoked to unbelievers:

When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than yourselves, and when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them. You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly. Deut. 7:1-4 (ESV)

Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, f rom the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, "You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods." Solomon clung to these in love. He had 700 wives, princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart. For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not wholly follow the Lord, as David his father had done. Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem. And so he did for all his foreign wives, who made offerings and sacrificed to their gods. And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods. But he did not keep what the Lord commanded. Therefore the Lord said to Solomon, "Since this has been your practice and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes that I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you and will give it to your servant. Yet for the sake of David your father I will not do it in your days, but I will tear it out of the hand of your son. However, I will not tear away all the kingdom, but I will give one tribe to your son, for the sake of David my servant and for the sake of Jerusalem that I have chosen." 1 Kings 11:1-13 (ESV)

See also the life of Samson. The big issue, however, is not specific “proof texts,” but where your friend’s desires lie. This is less a matter of following biblical commands than it is a matter of a having a heart wants to follow biblical commands. What does he think he must have?

• A life that loves and glorifies the Savior?
• A trophy girl on his arm?
• A good time?
• Female attention?
• Sexual gratification?
  

Answer those questions and you will see the altar at which he worships. Why would a believer want to date an unbeliever? What fellowship does light have with darkness? Can he glorify God in the relationship? Assuming he understands that romantic male-female relationships lead to (pardon my bluntness) either married or unmarried sexual relationships, there are only a few options on this road:

• He is going to marry someone who absolutely cannot be God’s kind of wife and invite much long-term misery.
• He is going to become sexually immoral and invite much long-term misery.
• He is going to stir sexual feelings in a woman and in himself that cannot be satisfied in a holy way. He will then be stealing (“defrauding”) what belongs to God and her future husband.
  

Which one is he going to choose? Proverbs 13:15 says, “The way of the transgressor is hard.” Your friend is already miserable if he is a believer. Ask him why. Point out that the happiness he is seeking is only found in one place (and that place is not finding a girl).

Let me encourage you not to be afraid of making him angry. Love him enough to call him on his inconsistent claim to worship Jesus Christ and yet live apart from accountability to his church and obedience to his word. He needs to make a choice.

If he chooses to reject biblical counsel, you have fulfilled your responsibility. As much as it hurts to see people reject God’s word, it hurts far more to avoid confrontation and have an uneasy conscience because you did not give someone God’s word. Leave the door open, but make sure he knows that he cannot wean himself off of idols and onto Jesus. You have to cut idols down and run to Jesus for mercy.

Keep me posted.

Can You Be a Virgin and Have a Promiscuous Heart?

Dear Boris:

I have been brewing on the sexual abstinence rally at our local high school. I do not wish to take away from what was a needed and well-presented challenge, so I will not address the rally in particular.

My thinking relates more to our long-term strategy for challenging teens, particularly those who follow Christ, to remain sexually pure. The standard reason we are given from well-meaning evangelicals for remaining pure is that we are valuable. The biblical teaching is that we should remain pure because ­he is valuable. There is a radical difference between the two.

Christian teenagers need to hear that the very reason for their existence is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. You cannot adopt that worldview if your greatest pleasure in God is that he makes much of you. He created us to find pleasure in making much of him. Is it possible that we have youth-grouped a generation of children into theological ignorance?

It is a man-centered theology which says that Jesus came and died because we are so special. This is error. Jesus came to please his Father and to rescue people who had no worth apart from him. You do not have to learn to love yourself in order to love others. The Bible says we very naturally love ourselves.

Our selfish generation must come to terms with the truth that we must be holy --different, entirely "other"-- not because we are valuable but because our Savior is valuable. We are called to be holy because he is holy. We are called to be holy because he is our greatest treasure. When he is not that treasure, young people are in bed in their hearts long before they violate their abstinence pledges.

How does this look in shoe leather for ministry to teens? For the promiscuous girl coming to our Crisis Pregnancy Center for a pregnancy test it means that her counselor points her to a Savior who is all about his own glory rather than about filling her emptiness. The picture to be painted is not of a pale, anemic Jesus waiting outside the door of her heart to be let in along with all her other gods (Revelation 3:20 is about a group of believers, not a sinner’s heart). The accurate picture is of a condemned sinner on the outside of the only ark of safety with a flood on the way. Sinners who repent do so because they recognize the worth of Jesus and their own corruption, not a Jesus who came to bring people personal fulfillment.

Can that message be delivered in the context of love? It has to be. For the abstinence instructor, giving the earthly “acceptable in public school” reasons for abstinence (avoiding STD’s, unwed pregnancies and disrespect) is helpful for public health. It is a good start at neighbor loving. Let’s do that, but not stop there. A God-centered theology demands that we present a Jesus who is glorified by those who give up the lusting that leads to fornication and the anger that leads to murder. We do our community a favor by promoting outward abstinence. We do our community an eternal favor by promoting a Savior who enables inward transformation.