Live out the gospel of grace

The following question came through via email:
As I thought the application of Luke 18:9-14 to those who are now followers of Christ, I tried changing the parable (NIV with changes in italics) to:

"Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The tax collector stood up and prayed about himself: `God, I thank you that I am not like other men--robbers, evildoers, adulterers--or even like this Pharisee who fasts twice a week and gives a tenth of all he gets.'

But the Pharisee stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, `God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'

I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Q1. Does changing it this way change the purpose for which the Lord Jesus used the parable?

Q2. If it does not essentially change the purpose of the parable, does it (either as it stands in the text or with my changes) apply to me as one who is already justified by grace alone though faith alone and therefore knows he does not earn God’s approval by his works?


Answer
Two interesting questions here!
The purpose of the parable seems to be grounded in v14
For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he whom humbles himself will be exalted

So, on the one hand, no the purpose of the parable doesn't change if you swap the Pharisee and Tax Collector around. But, on the other hand, Jesus uses these people for a particular reason. The Pharisees were at least known for their rigorous pursuit of the law and in a way that placed there trust in it. For example

Luke 11:45ff

One of the experts in the law answered him, 'Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us also'. Jesus replied, 'And you experts in the Law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not life one finger to help them . . . When Jesus left there, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law began to oppose him fiercely and to besiege him with questions, waiting to catch him in something he might say.

Luke 16:14

The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. He said to them, 'You are the one who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in God's sight.

Or in Philippians 3:4ff

If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more; circumcised on the 8th day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law,a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.

It seems this problem of being confident in their own righteousness and looking down on people was a particular Pharisee problem and therefore Jesus is directing this parable towards a faulty view of salvation and justification which these people hold. Jesus corrects it by using a 'filthy' tax collector being justified before God.

Which brings us to question number two - does the parable apply to you who know salvation by grace through faith?

A wholehearted YES! For two reasons

1. All Scripture is applicable to our lives!

2. It is a common enough problem in my experience of Christian ministry that people always default back to their own merits and righteousness to describe their relationship with God and to describe how God thinks about them. I have sat with some people in the last few months who are struggling in their Christian life and one told me that God doesn't approve them or is angry with them. Another, when I've asked them whether they are going to heaven they have told me they are not good enough. And these are people who have articulated the gospel of grace to me at one time in the past.

And not to mention them but it can easily be a position I find myself thinking and feeling before running back to the Scriptures and to the cross of Christ. So, while we know in our heads the truth of grace alone and faith alone - living out these great truths in our daily Christian life as we struggle with sin and temptation from the Devil is not always easy. So, I think, we constantly need to be reminded of the life of grace.

John Piper says it way better than I ever could:

Therefore, what we need in the church is not front-end regulations to try to keep ourselves pure. We need to preach and pray and believe that neither circumcision nor uncircumcision, neither teetotalism nor social drinking, neither legalism nor alcoholism is of any avail with God, but only a new heart. The enemy is sending against us every day the Sherman tank of the flesh with its cannons of self-reliance and self-sufficiency. If we try to defend ourselves or our church with peashooter regulations, we will be defeated even in our apparent success. (Brothers we are not professionals, p155-6)

Somewhere on my sermon notes every week I put the words - 'preach grace'. And I pray in God's strength that I do.

Where is John 5:4?

Question: Why is John 5:4 not there except for the italics down the bottom?

Answer:
The answer to this question lies in how the New Testament is put together. There are many manuscripts that make up the New Testament as we know it. Lots of manuscripts agree with each other over the overall content of the New Testament which SHOUTS to its reliability as a document.

However there are some minor discrepencies between manuscripts and here in John 5:4 is one of them. Hence the note at the bottom of the NIV, b3.

Some less important manuscripts .... and then they add in v4 the piece of text from those other manuscripts.

In each case you have to weigh up with it should be included in the narrative or not by looking at whether it fits into the the book (internal evidence) and then whether it matches up with other manuscripts (external evidence) e.g. is it the only manuscript with this rendering. The NIV sometimes puts it at the bottom but most of the time it is totally unseen in the English translations.

I've got the joy joy joy down in my heart! Where? Down in my heart!

Question: What does it look like for God to be the object of our joy? Is it wrong to get joy from the things that God has blessed us with (material, positions, friends, so forth)?

(I have just got the Flanders kids singing the above title in my head - now it's in yours!)


For those reading who did not hear what I was talking about on Sunday I said two things about joy.


1. God is the object of our joy


2. God is the giver of our joy

These questions get down to the 'nitty-gritty' of God as the object of our joy. Maybe to rephrase the statement will help: Does knowing God personally bring you joy?

God does indeed give us many good things in this life and in the here and now. But even in the best of times with those things there joy is only momentary. Even in friendships or a marriage relationship - if the place where I always and only look to joy from is in them, then when their sinfulness inevitably shines through that joy is halted. So, it is not wrong to be thankful for them and yes some of them may bring joy, the Scriptures at various points warns against making any of them into idols.

Realising this then helps us to see how God is the object of our joy. I think (which means I haven't done the work to really justify this) but joy and satisfaction are linked together. Think about a time when you hung out with good friends and ate a wonderful meal - you were satisfied. You have that feeling inside that 'all is good'. You know you are well fed and you know that you have good friends this satisfaction consequently leads to joy. One follows the other so to speak.

The same is with God, if we are satisfied with where God has placed us in this life (and I guess flowing from this is a complete and real trust in his sovereignty) and with what he has given us will lead to joy. God has given us something worth rejoicing over - his Son. Let's examine Scripture to see how this is overwhelmingly true:

Luke 1:14 when the angel speaks to Zechariah about Jesus' birth

He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his
birth

Luke 1:44

As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb
leaped for joy

Luke 2:10

Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all
the people. Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is
Christ the Lord

John 3:29

The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom
waits for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegrooms voice. That joy
is mine, and it is now complete.

Luke 10:17, 20

The seventy two returned with joy and said, 'Lord, even the demons submit
to us in your name....(v20) Jesus replied, 'However, do not rejoice that the
spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.'

This is a key verse in seeing that joy flows from our redeemed nature. Luke 15 shows this with 'rejoicing in heaven over repentant sinners'


Joy flows out of being 'in Christ'. Maybe this doesn't always seem the case because we often forget (me included) what a remarkable thing it is to be a Christian. To remember again what are sinful state means for us and how great and wonderful an act of God it was in sending Jesus to be the 'saviour of the world' (John 4:42)


Even as you look at the book of Acts and the early church you see that joy is found in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Acts 2:26 (quoting Psalm 16)

Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will live
in hope

Interestingly David's joy in the Psalm is ultimately grounded in Jesus Christ.

Paul shows us that joy is not static but a daily practice - Phil 3:1, 4:4

Rejoice in the Lord always, I will say it again: Rejoice!

Peter says something similar - 1 Pet 1:8

Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see
him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious
joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your
souls

Over and over again we see that our joy is because of the great acts of salvation in Jesus Christ.

John Calvin says,

Joy is a quiet gladness of heart as one contemplates the goodness of God's
saving grace in Christ Jesus

So, what practical advice can I give you to discover this joy - it must be to discover Jesus Christ, not just once but again and again, every single day, always.

Next post: we will see how joy is also future looking as we answer the question - what does it mean to rejoice through thick and thin?

A religious experience

The Question:

When Dave talked about a religious experience, I was just wondering what he meant by that?

Let's put it into context, I was talking about what being born again is not and so as part of my talk I said 'being born again is not having a religious experience'.

Many churches around the world and indeed in our own backyard can produce a gathering that only aims to produce a particular experience or feel that would make someone believe they are born again just by being part of that experience. There are some groups that operate whereby they take away your watch, keep you up late and have emotionally, intense and draining preaching just to produce in you a particular experience.

But my question is what is the substance of being born again? As I said on Sunday it is a radical transformation from the inside out (or you could say that it is change in attitude to Jesus as LORD). It is God working to produce in us a new identity, a whole new person. 2 Corinthians 5:17

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation: the old has gone, the new has
come!

How does this come about?

The experience that is worth seeking out is an experience of the Word of God. It is only through this 'experience' that someone can be transformed, not by music, not by raising hands, not by any other means but by the Word of God. Pushing further we see that this is the work of the Spirit, which is what Jesus goes onto say in John 3 anyway:

Spirit gives birth to Spirit

New birth (regeneration, being born again whatever you want to call it) is wholeheartedly connected to the work of the Spirit. But how does the Spirit work? Scripture seems to clearly tell us that the Spirit and the Word are intimately connected (in fact I would say that you cannot and should not cut them off from each other!). Take for example Ephesians 6:17

Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word
of God

To divorce these two has the potential to land us in danger of misunderstanding the Spirit and the Word. Hopefully this clarifies to a certain degree what I meant by 'being born again is not a religious experience'. It is an experience but not in the sense most people would say it is

Born Again: Water and Spirit

The Question:
What does the 'water' in John 3:5 refer to? Is it human birth?

Great question!
Firstly we can see that John has repeated this phrase from v3

I tell you the truth that no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is
born again

And v5

I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of
water and the Spirit.

There are a raft of interpretations put forward by various people but only two seem main contenders:
1. The water can refer to human birth (as in the question) then it becomes a reference to the amniotic fluid that happens at childbirth. So, consequently there are two births, one natural and the other supernatural. However, this connection is not supported by any other places in Scripture to make it a viable option. Due to the close connection between v3 & 5 the water and Spirit need to be taken as a reference to the 'born again' (or as the footnote in the NIV says 'from above')
2. Water may refer to Christian baptism. A lot of commentaries go down this line and understandably because of the various references to baptism that surround this passage. However if the water = baptism and therefore a necessary role in entering the kingdom of God it is surprising that it is never mentioned again. But that is not to completely right this off altogether, there may be some allusion to baptism.

Having seen that neither of these two options are completely satisfying the third option seems to be the go
3. We have to take seriously the parallel with v3 'from above'. There seems to be a unity in how the words are put together that show that water and spirit are talking about the origin of regeneration (that is being born again). And Nicodemus is in trouble as Israel's teacher for not getting it, so the answer must lie somewhere in the Old Testament.
The Spirit in the Old Testament is God's principle of life and there will be a time when it is poured out upon all. It is a source of righteousness. Water is used figuratively to refer to renewal or cleansing. The two ideas come together in Ezekiel 36:25-27

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse
you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new
heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone
and give you a heart of flesh. And I will pour my Spirit in you and move you to
follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws

This seems to depict individual and corporate regeneration (born again) was an idea presented strongly in the Old Testament. Regeneration that was of water and of the spirit. That is cleansed pure by the metaphoric washing of water and by the very real presence of the Holy Spirit (although not until Jesus returns to the Father read John 14-16 to see this).

The Word

Question: I still find the concept of 'the Word' confusing!

John 1:1-18 introduces the reader to 'The Word'. Why would John use such a concept to describe Jesus?

There are a number of reasons put out there as to why:
1. It could be capturing some thoughts of that current day. Some people, called the Stoics, understood the word to be the rational principle by which everything else exists. That is everything that was on this earth was the seed of the Word.
2. Another group of the day were those who believed in Gnosticism although this is less likely
3. Some think John was leaning on a guy called Philo who made a distinction between the world we can see and the ideal world. The world we can see is a copy of this ideal world. And the word was the ideal man from which all other human beings are derived from.
4. However none of these seem to be the forefront of John's mind, the place to begin is the Old Testament. It is there we see God's word connected with

• The powerful activity in creation
• Revelation of himself
• Deliverance
• Judgment
• Healing
• Rescuing from the grave
• The Word is personified in Proverbs (see 8:22ff)

To quote Don Carson from his commentary on John

In short, God's 'Word' in the Old Testament is his powerful self-expression
in creation, revelation and salvation, and the personification of that 'Word'
makes it suitable for John to apply it as a title to God's ultimate
self-disclosure, the person of his own Son.

And again,

The term had a semantic range so broad that they could shape the term by
their own usage to make it convey, in the context of their own work, what they
knew to be true of Jesus Christ.

So, it seems that John takes a term commonly used in his era and uses it convey something of the majesty and glory of the revelation of the Father in his Son, Jesus Christ.

Cumberland Unichurch

During my years at Moore College I helped begin a church for university students at Cumberland College in Lidcombe called Cumberland UniChurch. My old pal Izaac is blogging about some of the history so I thought I would give it a plug
http://izaacta.blogspot.com/

Enjoy the read.