Throwing Mini-Banquets

Scotty Smith post:  A Prayer for Eating and Drinking with Tax Collectors and Sinners

     Levi [Matthew] held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Luke 5:29-32 

     Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, like men waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him. It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. I tell you the truth, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them. Luke 12:35-37

     Dear Lord Jesus, I can’t read this story without fueling my longing for the banquet of all banquets—the great wedding feast of the Lamb (Rev. 19). So who will be privileged to sit and be served by you on that great Day? A most unlikely list of dinner guests, indeed. A pan-national family ill-deserving men and women, just like me, who’ve been saved by grace alone through faith alone. Tax collectors and “sinners,” the sick and the weary, Pharisees and teachers of the law who’ve been clothed in the wedding garments of your righteousness. What free and joyful love, you lavish upon us!

     Lord Jesus, I praise you for making me a part of your broken-yet-beloved bride; for calling me, healing me, saving me. I have no problem acknowledging my sickness and receiving your remedy, for there’s no greater friend of sinners than you. Thank you for eating and drinking, reclining and dining, fellowshipping and communing with the likes of me.

     O that this welcoming gospel would taken hold more deeply in our churches; O that we would be criticized by Pharisees and “older brothers” (Luke 15) for all the sick people, broken sinners, and cultural misfits who gathered there. May we grieve when your welcoming heart is not extended in our churches, as you intend and the gospel commends. We’re not “used-to-be-sinners”; we’re those who still need your grace and mercy every single day. Never let us forget this, Lord.

     Oh, to be more like Levi—to be so impacted by your love, Lord Jesus, that I’m constantly throwing mini-banquets for friends and “outsiders”. Turn my lunch appointments into a threesome, with you and a friend. Turn my family gatherings into occasions where you’re always filling the empty seat. Make this concave heart of mine much more convex, much more friendly to outsiders, much more like yours, Jesus; much more accommodating, unrushed and joyful. So very Amen I pray, in your merciful and mighty name.

Soil of Constant Awareness of Need for Grace

Paul Tripp post:  Beware Your Delusions Spiritual Grandeur

I wasn't consciously proud. Maybe most proud people aren't conscious of how proud they really are. But I felt that I had arrived. In ways that now shock and embarrass me, I thought of myself as a grace graduate. I didn't minister out of my own need. I had done very well in seminary. I had planted a church in a very hard place. I had founded a rapidly growing Christian school. (Both the church and also the school were founded with others, but I didn't look at it that way.) I was getting invitations all over the place to speak. I often looked at the people I was ministering to with a self-congratulatory pity---assuming, of course, that they were essentially different from me. No, I didn't make fun of people, and I didn't spend my time bragging about my accomplishments, but an attitude of arrival still shaped my ministry.

I was incredibly impatient and often quietly irritated. I found it hard to delegate ministry to others. I wanted more control than was actually necessary and productive. I gave my opinion way too often. I treated the ministries God had called me to as if they belonged to me. I wanted people to quickly sign on to support my brainstorms. My sermons were rather arrogant lectures---you know, the final word on the topic or the passage. I once preached what I thought was the ultimate sermon on pride that was actually a living example of the same! My preaching and teaching was more law than gospel. This is typical of people who think they are law keepers.

Mistaken Self-Assessment

As a pastor, I was making a dangerous self-assessment mistake. I had bought into a fallacious, distorted view of my spiritual maturity. This view is both tempting and comfortable for people in ministry. Rather than looking at myself in the accurate mirror of the Word of God, the only place where you will get both an accurate definition of spiritual maturity and a reliable read on your own spiritual condition, I looked elsewhere. I looked to excellent grades and student prizes in seminary. I looked to ministry skill, forgetting that God gives gifts to whomever he wills. I looked to my ministry experience; the years of labor made me feel spiritually seasoned and mature.

Rather than humbly standing before the honest assessment of the Bible mirror, I looked into carnival mirrors. The problem with the carnival mirror is that it really does show you, but with distortion. You don't actually have a 20-inch neck and a 6-inch torso. Yes, it's you in that concave mirror, but it's not showing your actual appearance. Everyone in ministry must confront the danger of self-assessments that say you've "arrived." The danger that you would quit thinking of yourself as weak and needy is always near. The danger that you would see yourself as being in a different category from those to whom you minister is right around the corner. This danger greets you every day, because there are carnival mirrors all around you. And when you think you've arrived, when you quit being convicted of and broken by your own weakness, failure, and sin, you will begin to make bad personal and ministry choices.

The reality and confession of personal spiritual weakness is not a grave danger to your ministry. God has chosen to build his church through the instrumentality of bent and broken tools. It is your delusions of strength that will get you in trouble and cause you to form a ministry that is less than Christ-centered and gospel-driven.

What about you, pastor? How does your view of you shape ministry to those God has placed in your care? Does pride cause the "what you should do" to overwhelm the "here's what you've been given"? Remember, the tender ministry of grace grows in the soil of constant awareness of your need for grace.

Gospel

Trevin Wax Post:  Gospel Definitions: Trevin Wax

For several years now, I’ve been collecting definitions of “the gospel” on the blog. There are more than 60 definitions now. I’ve seen the collection referenced in multiple college and seminary classes.

From time to time, people have asked me to weigh in with my own definition. If you’ve readCounterfeit Gospels, this won’t be new to you. But here is my take on “the gospel” in a nutshell.

The Gospel Proper (The Announcement)

The gospel is the royal announcement that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, lived a perfect life in our place, died a substitutionary death on the cross for our sins, rose triumphantly from the grave to launch God’s new creation, and is now exalted as King of the world. This announcement calls for a response: repentance (mourning over and turning from our sin, trading our agendas for the kingdom agenda of Jesus Christ) and faith (trusting in Christ alone for salvation).

The Gospel’s Context (The Story of Scripture)

The Bible tells us about God’s creation of a good world which was subjected to futility because of human sin. God gave the Law to reveal His holiness and our need for a perfect sacrifice, which is provided by the death of Jesus Christ. This same Jesus will one day return to this earth to judge the living and the dead and thus renew all things. The gospel story is the Scriptural narrative that takes us from creation to new creation, climaxing with the death and resurrection of Jesus at the center.

The Gospel’s Purpose (The Community)

The gospel births the church. We are shaped by the gospel into the kind of people who herald the grace of God and spread the news of Jesus Christ. God has commissioned the church to be the community that embodies the message of the gospel. Through our corporate life together, we “obey the gospel” by living according to the truth of the message that Jesus Christ is Savior and Lord of the world.

All Together Now

Put these three things together and we have a gospel-focused summary of the entire Bible (which we used for The Gospel Project).

In the beginning, the all-powerful, personal God created the universe. This God created human beings in His image to live joyfully in His presence, in humble submission to His gracious authority. But all of us have rebelled against God and, in consequence, must suffer the punishment of our rebellion: physical death and the wrath of God.

Thankfully, God initiated a rescue plan, which began with His choosing the nation of Israel to display His glory in a fallen world. The Bible describes how God acted mightily on Israel’s behalf, rescuing His people from slavery and then giving them His holy law. But God’s people – like all of us – failed to rightly reflect the glory of God.

Then, in the fullness of time, in the Person of Jesus Christ, God Himself came to renew the world and restore His people. Jesus perfectly obeyed the law given to Israel. Though innocent, He suffered the consequences of human rebellion by His death on a cross. But three days later, God raised Him from the dead.

Now the church of Jesus Christ has been commissioned by God to take the news of Christ’s work to the world. Empowered by God’s Spirit, the church calls all people everywhere to repent of sin and to trust in Christ alone for our forgiveness. Repentance and faith restores our relationship with God and results in a life of ongoing transformation.

The Bible promises that Jesus Christ will return to this earth as the conquering King. Only those who live in repentant faith in Christ will escape God’s judgment and live joyfully in God’s presence for all eternity. God’s message is the same to all of us: repent and believe, before it is too late. Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, and you will be saved.

Rediscover God

Calmer Not Crazier

Kevin DeYoung post:  The Pastor as Peacemaker

The New Testament calls for the elders of the church to be sober-minded and self-controlled (1 Tim. 3:2). The elder must not be arrogant or quick-tempered (Titus 1:7). He must be gentle and dignified, not violent or quarrelsome (1 Tim. 3:3-4). In my experience this means that a good elder or good pastor has learned to be a calming presence in volatile situations. Of course, this doesn’t mean the pastor says “peace, peace” where there is no peace. Nothing in the Bible equates godliness with avoiding controversy at all costs. But on the other hand, there is no biblical evidence to suggest that maximizing disagreements and escalating tensions are marks of Christian maturity.

Quite the contrary.

God is not looking for more hot-headed, pugnacious gunslingers who specialize in shooting first and asking questions later. If God wanted us to fly off the handle all the time he would have given us wings. Scripture doesn’t ask pastors to kick butt and take names, but it does require the Lord’s servant to be kind to everyone and able to teach with patience and gentleness (2 Tim. 2:24-25).

I love courageous elders and fearless pastors. Heaven knows we need more of each. But bravery without brains is no good. Strength without sensitivity hurts the wrong people. I find that some leaders are non-stop relational intensifiers. Whether it’s because of their own emotions, their quick jumping to conclusions, their over-eagerness to size people up, or their penchant for making everything three sizes too big, some elders and pastors minister like kindling. Drop them into a conflict and the fire burns hotter. They experience thorny situations in exaggerated ways and then convey those experiences with the ever-present air of hyperbole. Choppy waters get choppier. Deep holes get deeper. Explosive problems go nuclear.

These elders and pastors usually don’t last long. They get run out, beat up, or burnt out. If they last, everyone around them feels tired, hurt, and eager to quit. We need church leaders ready to do hard things and wade into the toughest situations. But when they do, they should help serious conflict get calmer instead of making minor conflict get crazier.

Our Idols in Pieces on the Ground

Tullian Tchividjian post:  Freed From The Prison Of Why

There’s no doubt, the Why questions of suffering are utterly perplexing. And as we search the Scriptures and consider stories such as Job’s, we are tempted to see those as worst-case scenarios designed to help us get our heads straight in relation to our comparatively small “first world” problems. We look for ways to manage pain. We medicate; we minimize; we moralize. We rage, and we run. We develop theories to explain what is happening to us. While they may temporarily help us categorize and compartmentalize our thoughts and feelings, when true suffering comes, all our speculations fall flat. The Why’s of suffering keep us shrouded in a seemingly bottomless void of abstraction where God is reduced to a finite ethical agent, a limited psychological personality, whose purposes measure on the same scale as ours.

But since no one alive can see the beginning from the end, from the divine vantage point, we’re left stranded in a prison of inscrutability. And sadly, we often prefer our confinement to the disorienting possibility that our suffering is actually ordained, that God is involved in it. Ray Ortlund said:

When the righteous cannot connect the realities of their experience with the truths of God, then God is calling them to trust him that there is more to it than they can see. As with Job, there is a battle being fought in the heavenlies. Trust in God, not explanations from God, is the pathway through suffering.

Fortunately, we worship a God who is in the business of freeing captives and creating trust where there was none before. In fact, the cross tells us that He does so (and has done so)through suffering, not despite it.

Grace is available because Jesus went through the valley of the shadow of death and rose from death. The gospel engages our life with all its pain, shame, rejection, lostness, sin, and death. So now, to your pain, the gospel says, “You will be healed.” To your shame, the gospel says, “You can now come to God in confidence.” To your rejection, the gospel says, “You are accepted!” To your lostness, the gospel says, “You are found and I won’t ever let you go.” To your sin, the gospel says, “You are forgiven and God declares you pure and righteous.” To your death, the gospel says, “You once were dead, but now you are alive. (Justin Holcomb)

And let us not forget our friend Job, who was refused his Why so that he might recognize theWho. Oddly enough, even Job’s story testifies to the truth of that blessed little formula: Jesus plus nothing equals everything. Our hope is not Jesus plus an explanation as to why suffering happens or Jesus plus an explanation as to why your child or spouse is so difficult, why the cancer hasn’t gone into remission, why finances continue to be so tight. Thomas Merton once said, “The truth that many people don’t understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt.”

Think about it for a moment: What is that thing in your life that if God were to take it away, you’d feel like life was not worth living? When we’re able to answer that question, we will figure out what we are really worshipping, and what, by definition, might lie at the root of our suffering. It could be our children, our spouse, an ambition, or a dream of financial success. Those good gifts God gave us for our enjoyment that we have turned into idols. Suffering is often the process of these things being stripped away. Indeed, there is nothing like suffering to remind us how much we need God. What good news that His purpose and plan for our lives moves in a different direction from ours!

The good news of suffering is that it brings us to the end of ourselves—a purpose it has certainly served in my life. It brings us to the place of honesty, which is the place of desperation, which is the place of faith, which is the place of freedom. Suffering leaves our idols in pieces on the ground. It puts us in a position to see that God sent His Son not only to suffer in our place but also to suffer with us. Our merciful friend has been through it all. He is with us right now! And while He may not deliver us from pain and loss, He’ll walk with us through it. That is simply Who He is.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. (Heb. 4:15-16)

(Excerpted from my forthcoming book Glorious Ruin: How Suffering Sets You Free)

Confirming Mark of True Discipleship

Scotty Smith:  A Prayer for Freedom from Christian Cannibalism

     For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. Gal. 5:13-15

     Let no unwholesome word (gangrenous words) proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear. Eph. 4:29

     Dear Lord Jesus, we’re thankful the gospel is more like a binding subpoena than a mere invitation. Our need is so great that we could not respond to the gospel apart from such a strong life-generating summons. Indeed, the gospel is a life-giving subpoena—the means by which you call us from death to life, from slavery to freedom. We were just as dead and bound in grave-clothes as Lazarus was when you spoke the words “Come out” (John 11:43), and raised us from spiritual death.

     We praise you for the sovereign, death-defeating, liberty-giving power of the gospel. Those you set free are free indeed; and the freedom to which you’ve called us is to define the rest of our days and permeate every area of our lives. This is nowhere more necessary than in the world of our relationships.

     You’ve called us to love one another as you love us—the confirming mark of true discipleship (John 13:34-35). The world will know that we are yours by the way we treat one another. Therefore, as in Galatia, so in our churches, marriages, and friendships, it’s an unacceptable contradiction of the gospel when we fall into various degrees of “Christian cannibalism”—biting and devouring one another.

     Worse, it’s a sabotaging of your glory and a veiling of your beauty. It’s lying about who you are and what it means to be in relationship with you. Forgive us, Lord, when being right means more than loving well; when conflicting redemptively slides into fighting selfishly; when listening to one another gets crowded out by criticizing one another; when words are used to tear down rather than build up; when we nurse on grudges more than we drink from the living water of the gospel.

     Forgive us, Lord, when we nibble on others’ brokenness and inconsistencies more than we feast on the delicacies of your love; when we rehearse the sins of others more than we remember the remember the riches of grace; when what we don’t like about one another is more compelling than what we adore about you; when we get used to being irritable and edgy, cold-hearted and spite filled. Lord have mercy, have mercy on all of us.

     Lord Jesus, we’re free only because of you. Help us to steward this costly freedom today in a world of broken people and broken relationships. It’s because of the great hope of the gospel that we refuse to give up. May we never forget, one Day we will be as lovely and loving as you. Hasten that Day! So very Amen we pray, in your glorious and graceful name.