Preaching

The Pathway to Spiritual Maturity

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Pathway2The epistle of James is a remarkable document. He was the skeptical half-brother of Jesus who became a key leader in the church in Jerusalem. While Jesus was going through his season of public ministry, James thought he was mad. Then we discover that the risen Christ “appeared to James” (1Cor.15:7). Resurrection from the dead was enough to convince and transform skeptical James. He became a passionate follower of Christ and a leader who longed to see all who called themselves Christian living sold out lives for God.

The first chapter of his epistle starts as he means to go on. He gets right into the nitty gritty of life, but he does not want to simply offer pragmatic instructions.  James’ great concern was spiritual maturity. He wanted his readers to live fully for God.

So he launches into the issue of the various kinds of trials we face in life.  James sees trials as inevitable – for he does not write, “if you face trials,” but “when you face trials.”  James sees trials as painful – for otherwise why would he tell the reader to “count it joy when you face trials.”  The kind of processing resulting in a bottom line evaluation that this is a joyful thing is not an automatic response to suffering.  But James also sees trials as purposeful and fruitful.  Trials lead to steadfastness, which in turn brings about maturity.

That is a great promise, but how can we “count it all joy?”  How do we get there?  After all, most of us naturally will “count it all misery” when we suffer.  How can we get the perspective that James’ is advocating, and thus how can we move toward maturity?

First James counsels the reader to ask God for the perspective, or the wisdom, that is needed in times of trial (see vv5-11).  God is a loving father who loves to give good gifts, including the trials that mature us, so we need only ask.  Actually James really is at pains to underline the importance of pursuing 100% God’s perspective in these times.  Our natural approach will be to make sense of our trials from our own perspective, or with worldly wisdom.  Our natural approach will be to blame our lack of resources, or rely on our own resources to face the things that we have to face.  But James wants his readers to go 100% for God’s perspective.

God wants to give perspective to us in times of trial, and also hope to help us remain steadfast in the midst of it all (see v12).  But don’t miss where he goes next, for this is not describing some kind of Christian fatalism.  Yes God gives good gifts, including ones that feel negative, but God never gives us temptation.  I am more than capable of generating enough of that from my own heart, but it is a comfort to know that God has never once tried to get me to sin.

He gives good gifts like a Father loves to give his children good food.  He gives good gifts like a father loves his child and therefore gives the nasty tasting cough medicine when it is needed.  He gives good gifts – tasty food, nasty medicine, but never poison.  God is consistently and persistently a loving Father, so we should look to Him for perspective and hope in the midst of trials.

But when we ask for God’s wisdom in the midst of our trials, how do we hear from Him?  The end of the chapter shifts from vv19-25 to address the role of the Bible in our journey toward spiritual maturity.

He seems to begin with some slightly random relational wisdom – be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger.  Maybe you have worked or lived with someone who is slow to listen, quick to speak and quick to become angry.  It is very difficult.  Maybe you are that person around others? Know that this is a description of natural humanity, or what we are like in our spiritual immaturity.  James is not giving random relational insights, he is addressing the issue of our response to God’s word.  Verses 20-21 make it clear that he is addressing our natural default response of self-protective anger when confronted or challenged by God’s word.

Instead of flaring up in anger when God’s word challenges us, let us instead receive the implanted word of God with meekness or humility.  Notice two things here:

First, the word is “implanted” – which refers to it not being acquired, but natural. James is speaking of salvation and how the Spirit of God plants within us the word of God, through which we are saved. That means that we are now heart-level Bible people . . . we don’t instantly know everything, but we now have a heart-level resonance with the Scriptures. We start to find them beautifully attractive, and personally relevant. The Bible is not just an object to be studied, but a means to an encounter with God to be enjoyed and experienced.

Second, notice the attitude with which we are to receive this implanted word – with meekness.  This is a humility that is not defensive, not self-protective, not angrily resistant, but instead humbly receptive to how God wants to put His finger on issues in our life.

James goes on to describe a further aspect of truly receiving God’s word.  We are also to put into practice what is shown to us as we look intently into the Bible. This is the living word of God that will pinpoint issues in us that God invites us to responsively address.  James wants “doers who act” in response to the Bible. Notice two things in verse 25 that are really important as we mature spiritually.

First, he advocates a persevering approach to gazing into the word of God.  Like a man looking in a mirror, we won’t easily or naturally see ourselves clearly. Instead our inclination will be to see what we want to see in the mirror of the word.  But James wants the readers to really look intently and to get a clear sense of God’s perspective on us.  Seeing ourselves clearly in the mirror of the word of God is vital, but it is not enough.  In fact, to miss James’ point here and focus on ourselves would be dangerous.

Second, notice his reference to the “perfect law” which he calls the “law of liberty.”  This is not just a reference to the standard of God’s written word.  It is, I believe, a reference to the fulfilled law that we find after Christ came – a law no longer written on tablets of stone, but now etched into our newly living hearts, indwelt by the Spirit and characterized by intimacy with God.  It’s not that we must simply receive the word with humility and respond to it.  No, we go into our Bibles for more than information and self-diagnosis, we are to receive the word with humility and respond to Him.

The pathway to spiritual maturity is littered with trials – little ones like losing our keys, and big ones like losing a loved one.  How are we to engage with these trials?  By engaging fully with God.  We should ask Him for wisdom, relying solely on His character and goodness, not simply mixing that in with our self-protective narratives and self-reliant resources.  We ask Him for wisdom, and look to the Bible to hear his answer.

How easily we can make this passage a pragmatic set of suggestions, but really it is an invitation to a sold out, all for Jesus, God and God alone, fully-His relationship.  May we be leaders that seek God’s perspective alone in the trials of life.  May we be those who persevere in His word so that we hear from Him, and act on what He shows us.  Maybe then our lives and ministries will be reflective of His character as James summarizes at the end of the chapter – concern for God’s values and care for others, a genuinely Christlike maturity.

Don’t Fight the Wrong Battle

/ Peter Mead / 3 Comments

Battle2I wonder if sometimes we are fighting the wrong battles in our preaching.  For instance, ponder this quote from John Stott:

Many people are rejecting our gospel today not because they perceive it to be false but because they perceive it to be trivial.  People are looking for an integrated worldview which makes sense of all their experience.

This quote is from many years ago, but I suspect it still has a resonance for many.  Some of us get excited about proving the truths of Christianity, perhaps more excited than our listeners are concerned about those issues?  Some will need proof of truth, others will need ring of relevance, and I would suggest that all need to encounter Christ.

That is to say, many preachers present truth without offering the person.  God is not a statement of faith, He is a personal God.  Be sure that however you preach, you make sure to introduce people to the God we know and love.  It is in encountering Him that lives will be transformed.

Life Now

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Life2We can easily make the Martha mistake.  I don’t mean the Martha in the kitchen mistake though.  At the end of Luke 10 we see Martha graciously rebuked by Jesus for desperately trying to love her neighbor as her first priority, when she should have first loved the Lord and allowed Him to minister to her before she tried to minister to others.  We easily and maybe regularly make that Martha mistake, but I am not referring to that.

We can easily make the Martha in the street mistake.  In John 11 we see Jesus at a key point in his ministry coming to Bethany where Lazarus was ill and then died.  Martha runs to Jesus and expresses her grief, that if Jesus had been there, then Lazarus would not have died.  Jesus loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. But now Lazarus was dead and buried, Jesus was too late, and Martha understandably made a mistake.  What was it?

Jesus told Martha that Lazarus would rise again. What do you say to a grieving sister?  Maybe this was just one of those platitudes that we hear at Christian funerals.  Comfort, but distant.  Martha took it that way.  She assumed that Jesus comes to us and points off into the distant future – comfort for the by and by.  She was mistaken.

When Jesus told Martha that “I am the resurrection and the life,” he was not just referring to the far off future.  What she didn’t know was that this person stood before her was about to reinforce the Jerusalem leadership’s decision to kill him.  What she didn’t know was that this person stood before her was soon to enter into death deliberately and with dignity.  And what she didn’t know was that in a few weeks this person stood before her would stand up and walk out of his own tomb as the conqueror of death.

If Martha could have seen the next few weeks, then she might have anticipated more in the next few minutes.  Jesus is the resurrection and the life, and Lazarus was about to be miraculously resuscitated after four days of stone cold death.

We can easily make the Martha mistake.  We can assume that Jesus comes to us in the tough times of life and ministry in order to point our hearts into the future – that far off time when we will be with him and all the tears will be wiped and the presence of sin dusted away and we will forever enjoy what we were made for, fellowship with the Trinity.  This is all true.  But this is not all.

Jesus comes to us in the midst of hurt, and sorrow, and challenge, and struggle, and betrayal, and fatigue, and tears . . . and he comes to give us life now.

Too many gospel presentations offer only a ticket to heaven when you die. And too many Christians are walking around with hope of comfort tied exclusively to that end of life anticipation.  Jesus is the kind of Savior who comes to us, by his Spirit, in the midst of the mess we experience.  Jesus is the kind of Savior who gives us life now.

Martha misunderstood the physical implications of Jesus meeting her that day.  We can misunderstand the spiritual implication of Jesus meeting us today.

As conqueror of death and Lord of life, what is it that Jesus offers us today as his beloved friends and family?  He offers us hope for the future and a new standing with God, of course.  But never let the good news diminish into a merely status-based future hope.  Jesus offers us the loving intimacy of the Trinity by the Spirit poured out into our hearts reassuring us of God’s love, urging us to call God our Abba.  Jesus offers us eternal life now, which is to enjoy fellowship with God our Father and Jesus Christ whom he has sent.  Jesus offers us transformed hearts, filled hearts, tenderly loved hearts.  Jesus offers us his presence, his comfort, his concern and his companionship.  Jesus offers us life, now.

I thank God for Martha.  Her mistake in the kitchen in Luke 10 is a mistake I make all the time.  Jesus’ gentle rebuke of Martha resonates deeply as a loving rebuke for me.  And her mistake in the street at Bethany in John 11 is a mistake I make all the time.  I too tend to live my life as if Jesus’ presence is nice today, but the difference Jesus offers lies off in the distant future.  Jesus lovingly corrected Martha’s grieving error by giving her the embrace of her brother that day.  Jesus lovingly wants to correct our similar error by giving us his embrace, today.  That is life, eternal life.  It is not only life forever then.  It is, in the midst of all the mess I experience, life now.

Legalism’s 5 Misses

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Legalism4Legalism will always contain a rich dose of truth, but it will miss something far richer and more helpful.  Here are a few of the great misses of legalism:

1. Legalism is a misunderstanding of the Gospel. God did not offer us pardon on condition of ongoing obedience to His law. God offered us life as the bride of Christ, the children of God, the friends of God, and as members of the body of Christ. We enter into the Sonship of Christ and so desire to obey as He does – not to fulfill an obligation, nor to merit the Father’s love, but rather as the natural response of a loving heart. In the Gospel we are offered that transformation of heart, that union by the Spirit, and that freedom to enjoy pleasing Him.  Legalism pushes God into the distance and throttles the life out of our obedience.

2. Legalism is a misreading of the Galatian heresy.  Paul was so strong in his critique of believers who were drawn away from Christ and toward the flesh-driven pursuit of maturity via law-keeping.  Two thousand years on and many of us still live under the spell that says we get saved by faith, but then will grow by self-stirred effort.  Galatians is not just a critique of this law-based approach to living for God, it is also a glorious presentation of the opposite – of life lived in response to Him who loved me and gave Himself for me, the promised One who gives the promised Spirit so that we can be sons rather than slaves.

3. Legalism is a misrepresentation of initiative.  The Bible puts God’s grace up front as the initiator, but my legalism turns that around.  Now God is seen to be reticently gracious. He is hesitatingly good.  He must be conditioned into being kind by my initiative through a self-stirred obedience. God becomes the responder to us mini-gods who twist His arm by our self-starting acts of obedience.

4. Legalism is a misdirected gaze issue. When my life reflects an inner passion to gaze at the Law, or myself, or others, then I am living the lie that God himself, as revealed in Christ through the Spirit is not worthy of my loving gaze.

5. Legalism is a weird and twisted version of marriage. If I were to apply legalistic descriptors to a marriage, we would find it very strange. In a marriage we make a great effort for the sake of the other, but we don’t dwell on that effort.  We do it gladly because we love the person. A marriage defined by my obsession with my own effort is weird. It is also weird in union with Christ.

John Piper wrote that “the essence of legalism is when faith is not the engine of obedience.”  With that, let’s bring this series to a close.

10 Symptoms of Legalism

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Legalism3I had a good conversation on Twitter the other day about legalism.  I asked for definitions and got some great ones back, including:

Legalism says it is still I who live, for though the Son of God loved me and gave himself up for me I don’t really trust him.  (@davebish)

Elevating obedience to the level of (or even above) grace in terms of its value for our lives (@epaga)

Appealing to, living according to and demanding others live according to works-righteouness for salvation and/or sanctification (@marcushoneysett)

A mechanistic approach to my relationship with God. Do this get that. (@BearwoodChapel)

Obeying to stay loved, instead of obeying because loved (@richpitt_)

Anyway, the twitter conversation stirred a list of symptoms of legalism. Perhaps you recognise some?

  1. Negative attitude toward pleasing God – it is duty rather than delight (I feel like a slave not a son)
  2. Competitive attitude toward others – they don’t live up to my standard (biting and devouring one another)
  3. Prideful attitude towards self – it may be self-despising at times when I fail, but it is a self-evaluation that registers somewhere on the pride scale.
  4. Distracted focus of the heart – me and law and others, more than Christ Himself.
  5. Corrupted view of love relationship – I must obey in order to be loved, rather than I lovingly obey because I am loved.
  6. Broken representation of the Trinity – I obey to merit love, so I shatter the beauty that I am called to represent, of a Son lovingly obeying His Father in a loving response to love.
  7. Selective distaste for sin – I will express my dislike of sins that bother me (i.e. those that are “worse” than mine, or that I never struggle with), but I seem to harbour and nourish other sins (private, secret, “sanctified” gossip, or talk that tears down, or pride, or self-righteousness, or whatever).
  8. Disproportionate conversation – I have much more to say about rules, standards, laws and evaluation of others than I have to say about the wonder of Christ. Get me going on issues of sin and I wax eloquent, but raise the beauty of Christ and I don’t have much to say.
  9. Embittered personality – I reflect an inner tension, sourness, anger or negativity, rather than an increasingly effortless manifestation of the fruit of the Spirit.
  10. Restricted vulnerability – I may offer some token statements of my own failure and weaknesses, but I am reticent to reveal too much of my inner self.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the twitter chat. They may not agree with everything in these posts, but I do appreciate their input (@StephenColin @JonathanWest @Jim_Thomas @WhyBAnneB @PastorSproul @S_Crosthwaite @petetheirishone @LukeCawley)

Legalism and Preaching – part 3

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Legalism2Legalism is not only possible for Christians, it is likely.  The default leaning of our flesh is toward autonomy. That autonomy can manifest in overt rebellion (antinomianism) or in self-righteous religiosity (legalism), but both are manifestations of a separation of God’s Law from God Himself.

You probably see the label “antinomian” being used. It is a serious charge. It suggests that someone is anti-law and therefore, by implication, pro-sin. It tends to be used of those who don’t elevate the Law as much as they apparently should. Undoubtedly there are some antinomians who are genuinely pro-sin, but I haven’t met many. I have met a lot who might be labeled “antinomians” who do not see the Law as the solution to the profound reality of sin, and who, incidentally, live lives characterized by greater integrity and with more fruit of the Spirit evident than some who like to criticize them.

As preachers we need to wrestle with these issues. We stand and speak not only of how to be saved, but also about living the Christian life. For many those are two separate messages. We are saved by grace, they say, but we live the Christian life by determined obedience to the Law.  Somehow this two-part message should feel very awkward for us.

We need to devour our Bibles and get a sense not only of the instructions in there, but also the source of those instructions.  Jesus seemed to suggest that His way would mean a greater and a deeper holiness, one that would surpass that of the fastidious Pharisees.  Yet we tend to think of the Old Testament folks as having a far more demanding legal code than we could cope with. Are we missing something?  Should we demand more strongly that our listeners keep more laws?  Or is there something implicit in the New Covenant that Jesus instituted that leads to a greater awareness of sin, and a greater victory over it?

The New Testament is clear that this life will be a struggle between the flesh and the Spirit, so perfection is unrealistic.  But is there something in the New Covenant that means we can keep in step with the Spirit, that we can delight to please our God, that we can live lives of greater moral integrity out of a heart-stirred delight rather than through external pressure?

Let’s beware of an inadequate understanding of sin and a wholly inadequate approach to living lives that please God – for that is what legalism is: weak on the problem and a flimsy solution to it.

Perhaps it would do us preachers good to take a book like Galatians and read it through again and again. If we bring with us the question of what does it look like to live the Christian life, what is sin and what is the solution for the believer?, then these questions might gradually open up Paul’s teaching there and bring new life to our ministry. It cannot hurt. Twenty, thirty, fifty times through Galatians would help us all.  Shall we?