RELIGION:  I obey-therefore I’m accepted.

THE GOSPEL:  I’m accepted-therefore I obey.
-
RELIGION:  Motivation is based on fear and insecurity.

THE GOSPEL:  Motivation is based on grateful joy.
-
RELIGION: I obey God in order to get things from God.

THE GOSPEL:  I obey God to get to God-to delight and resemble Him.
-
RELIGION:  When circumstances in my life go wrong, I am angry at God or my self, since I believe, like Job’s friends that anyone who is good deserves a comfortable life.

THE GOSPEL:  When circumstances in my life go wrong, I struggle but I know all my punishment fell on Jesus and that while he may allow this for my training, he will exercise his Fatherly love within my trial.
-
RELIGION:  When I am criticized I am furious or devastated because it is critical that I think of myself as a ‘good person’.  Threats to that self-image must be destroyed at all costs.

THE GOSPEL:  When I am criticized I struggle, but it is not critical for me to think of myself as a ‘good person.’  My identity is not built on my record or my performance but on God’s love for me in Christ.  I can take criticism.
-
RELIGION:  My prayer life consists largely of petition and it only heats up when I am in a time of need.  My main purpose in prayer is control of the environment.

THE GOSPEL:  My prayer life consists of generous stretches of praise and adoration.  My main purpose is fellowship with Him.
-
RELIGION:  My self-view swings between two poles.  If and when I am living up to my standards, I feel confident, but then I am prone to be proud and unsympathetic to failing people.  If and when I am not living up to standards, I feel insecure and inadequate.  I’m not confident.  I feel like a failure.

THE GOSPEL:  My self-view is not based on a view of my self as a moral achiever.  In Christ I am “simul iustus et peccator”—simultaneously sinful and yet accepted in Christ.  I am so bad he had to die for me and I am so loved he was glad to die for me. This leads me to deeper and deeper humility and confidence at the same time.  Neither swaggering nor sniveling.
-
RELIGION:  My identity and self-worth are based mainly on how hard I work.  Or how moral I am, and so I must look down on those I perceive as lazy or immoral.  I disdain and feel superior to ‘the other.’

THE GOSPEL:  My identity and self-worth are centered on the one who died for His enemies, who was excluded from the city for me.  I am saved by sheer grace.  So I can’t look down on those who believe or practice something different from me.  Only by grace I am what I am.  I’ve no inner need to win arguments.
-
RELIGION:  Since I look to my own pedigree or performance for my spiritual acceptability, my heart manufactures idols.  It may be my talents, my moral record, my personal discipline, my social status, etc.  I absolutely have to have them so they serve as my main hope, meaning, happiness, security, and significance, whatever I may say I believe about God.

THE GOSPEL:  I have many good things in my life—family, work, spiritual disciplines, etc.  But none of these good things are ultimate things to me.  None of them are things I absolutely have to have, so there is a limit to how much anxiety, bitterness, and despondency they can inflict on me when they are threatened and lost.

Adapted from sermons by Tim Keller.  HT: Tullian Tchividjian.

In preparing for this week’s Sunday School class on 1 Peter 1:13-2:3, I was seeking to discern what this one important imperative truly means:

“Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God.”
–1 Peter 1:22-23

What, then, does it mean to show sincere love to each other as brothers and sisters, to love each other deeply with all your heart?  What does such brotherly affection look like?  How do we believers live out this important biblical command (something my frequently dad tells me I must do and not just say!) ?

In my reading I came across this long but enlightening quote by Richard Niebuhr.  His explanation is apt and profound:

What then is love and what do we mean by God and by neighbor when we speak of the ultimate purpose of Church, and so of theological education, as the increase of love of God and neighbor among men? By love we mean at least these attitudes and actions: rejoicing in the presence of the beloved, gratitude, reverence and loyalty toward him.

Love is rejoicing over the existence of the beloved one; it is the desire that he be rather than not be; it is longing for his presence when he is absent; it is happiness in the thought of him; it is profound satisfaction over everything that makes him great and glorious.

Love is gratitude: it is thankfulness for the existence of the beloved; it is the happy acceptance of everything that he gives without the jealous feeling that the self ought to be able to do as much; it is a gratitude that does not seek equality; it is wonder over the other’s gift of himself in companionship.

Love is reverence: it keeps its distance even as it draws near; it does not seek to absorb the other in the self or want to be absorbed by it; it rejoices in the otherness of the other; it desires the beloved to be what he is and does not seek to refashion him into a replica of the self or to make him a means to the self’s advancement. As reverence love is and seeks knowledge of the other, not by way of curiosity nor for the sake of gaining power but in rejoicing and in wonder.

In all such love there is an element of that “holy fear” which is not a form of flight but rather deep respect for the otherness of the beloved and the profound unwillingness to violate his integrity.

Love is loyalty; it is the willingness to let the self be destroyed rather than that the other cease to be; it is the commitment of the self by self-binding will to make the other great.

H. Richard Niebuhr, The Purpose of the Church and Its MInistry, Reflections on the Aims of Theological Education (New York: HarperCollins, 1956), pp.34-36.  Quoted in David R. Helm, 1 & 2 Peter and Jude (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008), pp.69-70.  Emphasis mine.

Definition:

Used predominantly by Christians in order to not break the commandment “You shall not make wrongful use of the name of your God”.

Used when in awe or surprised by an event and when something unexpected happens.

“Oh my word, did you see that Kayla is pregnant again?”

Source: Urban Dictionary

Life Together:

Their fellowship is founded solely upon Jesus Christ and this “alien righteousness.” All we can say, therefore, is: the community of Christians springs solely from the biblical and Reformation message of the justification of man through grace alone; this alone is the basis of the longing of Christians for one another. (12)

Thus the very hour of disillusionment with my brother becomes incomparably salutary, because it so thoroughly teaches me that neither of us can ever live by our own words and deeds, but only by that one Word and Deed which really binds us together—the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ. When the morning mists of dreams vanish, then dawns the bright day of Christian fellowship. (26–27)

Letters and Papers from Prison:

Over the destiny of woman and of man lies the dark shadow of a word of God’s wrath, a burden from God, which they must carry. The woman must bear her children in pain, and in providing for his family the man must reap many thorns and thistles, and labor in the sweat of his brow. This burden should cause both man and wife to call on God, and should remind them of their eternal destiny in his kingdom. Earthly society is only the beginning of the heavenly society, the earthly home an image of the heavenly home, the earthly family a symbol of the fatherhood of God. [...]

In a word, live together in the forgiveness of your sins, for without it no human fellowship, least of all a marriage, can survive. (31)

The Cost of Discipleship:

Thus it begins; the cross is not a terrible end to an otherwise God-fearing and happy life, but it meets us  at the beginning of our communion with Christ.  When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. . . .

“Rejoice and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven.” There shall the poor be seen in the halls of joy.  With his own hand God wipes away the tears from the eyes  of those who had mourned upon the earth.  He feeds the hungry at his Banquet. There stand the  scarred bodies of the martyrs, now glorified and clothed  in the white robes of eternal righteousness instead of the  rags of sin and repentance. The echoes of this joy reach  the little flock below as it stands beneath the cross,  and they hear Jesus saying: “Blessed are ye!” (99, 128)

Dietrich Beonhoeffer, as quoted in John Piper, This Momentary Marriage: A Parable of Permanence (Crossway, 2009).

Saved by the Gospel: Becoming Trophies of God’s Amazing Grace (Eph 2:1-10) from Alex Leung on Vimeo.

Title: Saved by the Gospel: Becoming Trophies of God’s Amazing Grace
Scripture: Ephesians 2:1-10

Date: Sunday, June 7, 2009 - Joint Communion Service
Location: North Toronto Chinese Baptist Church - Melville Mission

File Size: 29mb

 

 Saved by the Gospel: Becoming Trophies of God’s Amazing [42:16m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Introduction/Context

In chapter 1 of Ephesians, we have already seen how God blesses us so that we could bless him. The Father has graciously chosen us to be adopted to be his own sons and daughters, through His Son Jesus Christ He has redeemed us, and by His Spirit He has marked us out as his own people with his seal.

In the last half of chapter 1, God has shown us his power by raising Christ from the dead, and putting all the cosmic powers under his feet.  Jesus thus now reigns over all things as Lord, and he’s given to us as the head over the church and all believers.

And now, in this famous passage—Ephesians 2:1-10, about salvation by grace through faith–the Bible tells us how undeserving sinners become trophies of God’s amazing grace.

So let us be amazed this morning by two things: