What's The Goal Of Being A Christian? - Part seven of Questions From the Lifehouse Youth Group

Last night, I asked the youths at Lifehouse a question every Christian should consider. We read 2 Timothy 2:4-6. "No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops."

These three people, the soldier, athlete, and farmer all work hard. But they have motivation to reach a goal. The soldier wants to please his superior officer. The athlete wants to become a champion and win his contest. The farmer works hard so he has a good crop. But what's the goal of being a Christian? A few said, "telling other people about Jesus."

Telling people about Jesus is good, I replied. Jesus himself commissioned us to do just that. But why would Jesus want us to tell people about him?

Some other youths suggested, "So we can go to heaven?" One even said, "So we can have all that great stuff up there."

I decided to stay away from breaking down the idea of Beverly Hills Heaven. Instead, I remembered something I had heard from John Piper a few years ago. "What if you could go to Heaven and know for certain you would have the sweetest house, with the best skatepark and a chocolate fountain? What if you could never feel pain again and see all of your dead loved ones? If Jesus wasn't there, would you still want to go?"

Some of them immediately responded with "No", but I really appreciated one of the guys saying, "Well, I know the right answer is 'no', but I don't always think about it that way."

How many of us do think of it this way?

Maybe the goal of a Christian is simply to know God and have a relationship with Him. Maybe the goal of evangelism is so we can introduce other people to God and help them to know Him. I told the youths, "Don't read your Bible or pray or come to church just because you think you have to. At the same time, you won't have much of a relationship with God if you don't put any effort in getting to know Him. We should do the stuff because we want to know Him."

What do you think is the goal of Christianity?

Relief Or Responsibility - Wondering about the motive of an argument

Way back in the days of 2009, I worked at an assisted living home. I didn't make a lot of noise about my faith, but if you talk with me long enough, you'll learn what I believe. Sometimes the residents and co-workers would ask me questions and I would readily answer them.

Once, a girl in the activities department asked me, "Do you think Jesus is the only way to go to heaven? What about people who won't have the chance to hear about Him? Do you think God is just going to send them to Hell?"

If you ask me this question because you want to know what I really think, then I will say this: Yes. Jesus is the only way. Scripture leaves no room for discussion on this. In John 14:6, Jesus, who is God, said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." 

I thought about my conversation with my co-worker the other day and realized something. I had never considered her motive for asking this question. At the time, I recited the verses and explained the theology to her. But I didn't take the time to look through her question to see the reason why she asked it in the first place. 

It's a common enough question, to ask about those who won't hear the gospel. I wonder if people ask because they knowingly or unknowingly want the conversation to stay abstract or hypothetical. Maybe they don't want to talk about where they stand with Jesus and use this as a diversion, sort of like people who want advice for "their friend" who "has a problem". 

Do people ask this question because they want me to tell them it's okay to not follow Jesus? That all is not lost if they don't want to follow Him? Are they looking for relief from their conscience and want me to give it to them? I couldn't say it. I can't. I won't deny or diminish Jesus to make people feel more comfortable or make myself more likable. 

Whether it applies to my friends or strangers who haven't heard the gospel, I think these questions should constantly remind me of my responsibility to tell them about Jesus. If I really believe the Bible is true and Jesus is the only way, what keeps me from sharing the gospel? I may be quick to answer a question, but I'm not so quick to bring up the topic outright. 

Do you find yourself asking those questions about Jesus? Or are you like me, sure in your faith but aware of your shortcomings in sharing it?

Three Recent and Hasty Conclusions - My stumbling way of encouraging other restless believers.

Last week, my friend Jamie and I talked about vision for our church, evangelism, and boldness. At one point, he said, "We should hang out more often. It only took ten minutes of talking with another believer for me to feel encouraged." I felt it too. Spending time with other passionate Christians does encourage me.

I've realized a few things since that conversation.

1. I'm restless and I think more Christians should also feel restlessness. Until Jesus actually comes back, we should always feel a tug in our insides like there's something for us to do. The commission Jesus gave in Matthew 28 to make disciples, baptize people, and teach is called the Great Commission because it's such a dang big job. The world lives in darkness. People walk calmly to their destruction. Doesn't that make you want to do something? It makes me want to do something.

2. I don't feel like I do very well when it comes to telling people about Jesus. I get hung up by telling myself it's not the right timing or that the direct approach would only make the gospel noisome to unbelievers. I felt especially lame after reading Hebrews 10:38. "But my righteous one shall live by faith; and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him." Yeah, I know the author was referring to a messianic prophecy given to Habakkuk, but that doesn't make me feel better. It says elsewhere in Hebrews that without faith it's impossible to please God. But isn't faith a gift from God? It has to be. I need encouragement to live out my faith. I need the Holy Spirit to give me boldness.

3. I sometimes allow people to intimidate me. But who intimidates me more? People or Jesus? Lame people like me or the risen and triumphant King of all creation? Where does my confidence lie? I asked myself these questions this morning while reading 1 John 2 when it said in verse 28, "Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming." John's tone is gentle, like he's talking to his kids. I think he knew these people loved God. I think he knew these believers may have already recognized their lameness. I think he knew people needed encouragement to live out their trust in Jesus. This is a comfort. God's aware of my shortcomings, so He offers encouragement instead of making me feel like a loser. He wants to help me do good with my restlessness.

You can expect me to think about how to spur you on to live our your faith and tell people about Jesus. And, you know, if any of you feel compelled to do that same for me, I'd totally appreciate it.

Have you ever come to any of these three conclusions?

Has anyone or anything encouraged you to live out your faith in a new way?

Miracles - Some questions on differing opinions.

Before I begin, I want to let you know that I’ll do my best to lighten up. The past several posts have dealt with issues that really messed with my faith. After a couple of months wrestling with scripture in prayer and discussion, I realize that I might have laid it on pretty thick. Ever tried to chew a peanut butter sandwich with a solid inch of Jiffy?

So I thought to myself, “I want to write about something fun, light. Enough with this heavy stuff for once.” For some reason, I figured miracles might make for an easier post. A breather. Everyone likes to hear about miracles, right? And as stories, they’re a snap to write. “Someone had cancer, people prayed, God healed the person.” Everyone applaud! “A single mom doesn’t have money to feed her kids and prays for provision, then money or an opportunity seemingly materializes out of thin air.” God be praised!

I’ve personally witnessed dozens of testimonies like the ones above. When someone gives a testimony of God’s power moving, God receives the glory. That’s how it’s supposed to work. But I’m going to tell you about a few instances where testimonies of miracles had a different effect.

Since reading 1 Corinthians 2:4-5, I’ve tried to change how I communicate Jesus with others, “my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.” Instead of merely rattling off The Romans Road (which I agree is effective in certain situations), I’ve begun to share my testimony of God’s miracles and then offer to pray for people. If God moves (and He often does), then the person would see the power of Jesus for himself. They would have a harder time claiming that I cast a spell over them with “persuasive words of wisdom”. God be praised.

God healed my back of severe scoliosis after a church service in 1997. I mean, it was severe, folks. It’s a miracle I don’t have rods in my back. God has miraculously provided for my needs ever since I moved to Nashville. When people ask about my story, I automatically this stuff. Graham Cooke explained, “Your testimony is not what God once did in your life years ago. Your testimony is who God is in your life all the time.”

One night after an IKAIK concert, these girls invited me to hang out with them at another bar. They probably didn’t expect me to talk about God as much as I did, but that’s what happens when you ask about my life. I tell you about my relationship with Him. After about half an hour, a guy came over to our table and asked, “What are you guys talking about?”
The girl who invited me replied, “He’s talking about how lucky he is.”
“Luck,” I laughed. “I wouldn’t call it that.”
She said, “What would you call it?”
“God’s blessing,” I said.
She immediately responded, “Well I wouldn’t call it that.”

As I wrote out the notes for this post, a guy at work asked what I was writing. When I told him I intended to write about miracles, he asked, “which do you think it is, miracles or chance?”
“I think miracles are a part of God’s rational order,” I said.
“It’s all random chance,” he said.
I started laughing. He asked, “How can you believe in an ordered and reasonable God?”
“For one, I’ve seen Him miraculously answer my prayers.” I told him about how God healed my back. He then, whether on purpose or not, shifted the focus of the discussion. To me, the story of my healing is God’s power displayed. My co-worker’s only argument against it was to claim randomness, which no person in their heart can truly have faith to live by. A cook’s job requires a high degree of precision. If he were to apply his belief in Random Chance on cooking, chaos would burn his buns.

These stories might not surprise you. To be honest, they don’t surprise me, either. 1 Corinthians 1:18 says, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” Cornelius Van Til wrote extensively on the problems of explaining the Christian faith to those who don’t know Jesus because they have no context with which to give meaning to facts. I understand that without the Holy Spirit’s revelation, people cannot know God. Even so, I’ll continue to share my testimony, pray for people, and yeah, even reason with them.

My main concern here isn’t for people who don’t claim to know Jesus. I want to know how people in the church can claim to know Jesus but deny the miraculous today. In a piece written by First Fruits of Zion called “The Fingerprints of God”, the author writes, “As believers in a Divine Creator, we must learn to sharpen our sense of wonder to detect the inherent godliness that is infused into every particle of creation.” In one sense, a person can look at the world around them, recognize God’s order in creation, and praise Him for that miracle. Beyond that, though, I believe that God has control over every particle of creation. It’s not that miracles work outside the laws of reality, but rather God in His perfect knowledge of creation can work in ways we are sometimes unable to comprehend.

Did God ever give up this control? If God only does things that will bring glory to Himself, would cessation fit in with His plan? In this life we will experience hardships, pain, and suffering. We will pray to God and we won’t always see the result we expected. Does that mean God has somehow given up His sovereign control over creation? Does it mean that He decided to make the universe a dice game after the Apostles died? Replacing the miraculous with coincidence at any level, I think, would call God’s majesty into question. It allows for something to exist outside of His control.

Now, for the Christian, if you accept that miracles do happen today, what’s stopping you from asking for them? If you’re worried about pulling a Simon from Acts 8, then you’ve already got a good start. Your motives should be to glorify God and advance His kingdom. Are you worried that you might have to defend God if He doesn’t move the way you asked Him to? Well, He’s the one in charge. You don’t own the result of your prayers.

Think about this. Before Jesus sent out His followers in Matthew 10, He said, “As you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Freely you received, freely give.” Hebrews 2:3-4 reiterates Jesus’s pattern with preaching and miracles. The verse I quoted from 1 Corinthians 2 shows Paul and his companions demonstrating God’s miraculous power. In chapter 12, he even promises the gift of performing miracles to those in the Corinthian church.

I know I wanted to keep this light, but the seriousness of Matthew 11:20-22 kept nagging me. “Then He began to denounce the cities in which most of His miracles were done, because they did not repent. ‘Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles had occurred in Tyre and Sidon which occurred in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. Nevertheless I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you.’” Why was Jesus so hard on His own people? Because they knew God and should have recognized the power of His Spirit when it manifested in miracles. But they denied it, called Jesus the carpenter’s son, and shrugged off the message of salvation He intended to send with His miracles.

This post doesn’t really have a final point. I never intended to write on why I believe in the existence of miracles. Like I said earlier, they happen around me all the time, so I know they exist. But the reactions I get from both cessationists and unbelievers seemed too similar to ignore. What do you all think about this? Do you have any stories that can only be explained as miraculous? Do you think God lost interest in surprising people? Let me know.

A Working Faith

Even though I write about my life as a Christian, I spent a good deal of my life detesting books listed under “Christian Living”. The books I would take off of my dad’s shelf sometimes had phrases like “living by faith” or “taking steps of faith” or “developing faith”. There are certain phrases that I had heard enough Bible teachers say without ever explaining what they meant, eventually my mind would pass over the topic whenever I encountered it. So I could never explain “faith” whenever my friends outside of the church ever asked me about my faith. The word had meaning the same way that “glory” has meaning in some churches. They know it means something, and that it has to do with God, but they stutter whenever you ask them to define their terms.

I’ve begun to see the importance of defining terms. I recently told a story about a man challenging me on how I used the words “belief” and “faith” interchangeably. It took me months before I could understand the difference. I felt a certain satisfaction in finally understanding a word that I had used hundreds of thousands of times in ignorance while unknowingly (or secretly) hoping that listeners would understand.

Think about this in your own life. How many times have people asked you to explain or define faith and you find your mouth hanging open absolutely puzzled? And how about this brain bender: if we’re saved by grace and not by works, then why does the Bible say that faith without works is dead? Like a college essay question, I used to BS my way through the whole thing.

As I write this, I am sitting in the lower level of the library at Belmont University. They’ve hidden all of the theology, religion, and philosophy books in the depths of the building behind inconspicuous doors marked “Not An Exit”. Not many of my friends on campus are even aware of this place, which means it’s really quiet. I’ve been coming here nearly every day since last week to study and write. But today, for some reason, I’m unable to use my usual online study guides. I think maybe the shadowy lords of Belmont Wi-Fi have figured out that I’m not a paying student. All of this to say that I will be using the Complete Jewish Bible for my scripture references. For the sake of the reader, though, I’ll use the glossary to translate names and words that might not be familiar. I just made you read this whole paragraph to make that one point. Now, moving on…

Here are a few things Paul states in Romans 10. In verses 9 and 11, he says, “that if you acknowledge publicly with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and trust in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be delivered.” Then, “For the passage quoted says that everyone who rests his trust on him will not be humiliated (referring to Isaiah 28:16).” If you read this in other translations, note how the Hebrew translation uses the word “trust” for “faith”. Many people have heard what Paul says a few verses later how faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God (Romans 10:17).

Hebrews 11:6 says, “without trusting, it is impossible to be well pleasing to God, because whoever approaches him must trust that he does exist and that he becomes a Rewarder of those who seek him out.” To restate my definition of terms, “belief” is mentally ascribing yourself to something. My belief rests on the truth that I find in the Bible. I demonstrate this when I tell people that the Bible is absolutely true. “Faith” is acting upon the truth to which I have mentally and verbally given myself. This is why the Bible can say, “believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved” and that a public acknowledgement of Jesus as the risen Lord delivers us.

But “faith” is something else. Faith takes the truth of the Bible and stirs a real change in our day-to-day lives. That means we have to act as if we really believe ourselves when we say that the whole Bible is true. I mean, to say we believe it and live as if we don’t places us in a frustrating situation. That’s why James says faith without works is dead. Without evidence of some change by the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives, a person who claims belief in the Bible speaks empty words.

So if living by faith, as a Christian, means living in moment-to-moment reality trusting that the whole Bible is true today, this presents a question of responsibility to believers. Hebrews 11:6 made it clear that it is impossible to please God outside of faith. If faith means that we have to base our actions on what we read in the Bible (Romans 10:17 again), then doesn’t that mean it would be sin for us to read something in the scripture and not apply that to our everyday lives? If I make a decision about a situation on my own wisdom apart from the Bible, am I not basically saying that I don’t need God to figure it out? Isn’t that ethically living outside of faith? Isn’t that sin?

Now what if we could depend on the Bible as truth, that it does apply in reality today? Let’s look at a few verses. Matthew 10:1, “Jesus called his twelve disciples and gave them authority to drive out unclean spirits and to heal every kind of disease and weakness.” And what about the redemptive work of salvation? Because Jesus came to earth, lived, died, rose again, and ascended into heaven, those who trust in this have great promises. Not only will their sins be forgiven, but according to Isaiah 53:5 and Psalm 103:3 says that salvation brings physical healing. James 5:14-15 says, “Is someone among you ill? He should call for the elders of the congregation. They will pray for him and rub olive oil on him in the name of the Lord. The prayer offered with trust will heal the one who is ill – the Lord will restore his health; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.” Notice also how salvation refers to sin and sickness each time. That happens a lot in the Bible. I think it’s safe to say that salvation and healing are not two separate things.

Beyond healing miracles, what about simply hearing the voice of the Holy Spirit? Isaiah 30:21 says, “With your ears you will hear a word from behind you: ‘This is the way; stay on it, whether you go to the right or the left.’” John 16:13, “However, when the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own initiative but will say only what he hears. He will also announce to you the events of the future.” That last part refers to prophecy. Paul talks at length about this and other gifts of the spirit in 1 Corinthians 12-14. And for you dispensationalists out there, was Paul writing about this for the benefit of the exclusively gifted apostles, or to a church of former pagans that needed to understand a reality that God had shown of himself?

Healing the sick, casting out demons, raising the dead, prophesying, speaking in languages unknown to the speaker, a personal and verbal (even if unspoken) relationship with the Holy Spirit. I mean, even going out preaching the gospel, baptizing people, and discipling them. The Bible instructs people to do that stuff. If you say that you believe the whole Bible, are you willing to read it and trust that God will enable you to do it? Remember that only God makes us able to live by faith. But when we resist Him, what does that say about our belief in the Bible? I won’t demand that you answer for this, but I can tell you that one day you will have to give an answer, just like I will have to give an answer.

I’ll leave you with this, though, in hopes that you won’t be all bummed out at the end. There’s a reason I quoted Romans 10:11. If you do put your trust in God and live it, you won’t be humiliated. Well, that doesn’t guarantee you won’t be embarrassed sometimes. But God has stated the truth of the Bible and called us to live accordingly so that He will be glorified. Believers are a part of His plan to reveal Himself to the world because we demonstrate the reality of who He is in our lives. That’s the way He set it up. So when we live based on our trust in the Bible, we get to be a part of what He’s already going to do.