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Human Being versus Human Doing (Fit to Live, part 3)

Could you talk about how the Gospel changes us?  Where does the transformation begin?

In the beginning God created us--of all creation--to reflect him, we bore his image and likeness to the cosmos.  He declared it so, “Let us make man in our image.”  We trusted him.  We embraced this call.  Each evening we strolled and rested in this God likeness; we were children of God, and we believed God and found our identity in his goodness and in who he declared us to be. 

 A tree with beautiful knowledge-enhancing fruit was planted in the middle of the garden—its nectar offered knowledge of Good and Bad.  According to the story all we knew was good.  God centered the tree in Eden and warned us about the tree—“Don't eat from this tree for the day you eat its fruit you would certainly die.”  This tree kept the intimacy authentic and trust honest.  We could freely choose to trust God and what he said and rest in the identity he gave us; or, if we didn't want to live under the canopy of God’s Reign, we could simply go over and eat the fruit and make ourselves God and seek out an identity in our will and work. One day the Conspirator came along and suggested, “God knows that the day you eat of this fruit you will be like him.  That is why he has told you not to eat from it.”  This suggestion filled our eyes and hearts with doubts.  This new suggestion said that by doing more and asserting our will we could become like God.

We distrusted God’s word, God’s call, the God-given identity that we had.  We decided we would “become” like God through our work instead of “be” like God through his word.  As we grabbed the nectar, we put on display our disdain and distrust of God.  We seized the gavel of moral judgment and became the sole purveyors of determining what was Just and Evil, Right and Wrong, Good and Bad.  We decided that we, by effort and will, would discover within ourselves who we were instead of looking to God.    And with one bite we sunk out teeth into the lie that we could forge our own identity outside of God’s calling and purpose.  

Ever since then we identify ourselves either by what we do for ourselves (career, accomplishments, who we chose to marry, who we parented, what neighborhood we live in) or by what others have done to us (victims of crime and abuse, children of so-and-so).   In the latter category, victims are those who find their identity in how they were abused or victimized.  And this identity shapes their view of the world of themselves.    Victimization doesn't just happen to those who have been hurt, but it can happen to those who have been helped too much and they come to depend on help for their very sense of identity.    Then there are those who are the victors, these people define themselves and who they are by what they accomplish, where they went to school, how much money they have, their ranking in the gang or position in the corporation.   The lion’s share of the human quest, post-Fall, is to discover who we are.  Most people spend their entire life either in self-discovery mode or in self-justification mode (attempting to prove who they are or who they are not).  The Bible says the quest to find our identity in what we do or what someone has done to us is sin.

The Gospel changes and transforms our lives by going to our core and changing our identity.  The Gospel changes who we are and whose we are and thereby alters our story, world, self, destiny ... everything.   This offer from God is not inspiration to become more functional in our brokenness, its not supplemental to life; rather it's an alternative, a radical corrective.  God offers a new identity based on who Jesus is and who Jesus has declared us to be.  Jesus says that if distrusting God at the Tree flatlined our spiritual vitals then trusting in Jesus paddles our heart back to life, and renews our identity in God.  How can this be possible?  How can we trust God again?   “Because God loves the world so much that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life.”  

The church then is a community of “whosoevers” that have come to believe and trust God as the source of their identity, worth, life and hope.  And being in the church means you are no longer questing for your identity or languishing through self-discovery, but you have been baptized into the identity of Jesus Christ.   The transformation that the Gospel makes in our hearts goes to the core of who we are.  God does not demand behavior modification in order for us to be accepted by him; God calls us children, calls us his own and this call, this Word, this declaration like a seed planted in soil, begins to produce a different fruit from the one our selfish and sinful cores produced.   God gives us the right to be his children when we come back to trusting and believing in Jesus.  This transformation is not merely a Christian task or a Jesus goal or a converted wish; it's an identity shift.  It's a reality, a status we have been given.  Coming to trust and believe what God is saying over us heals us, restores us, transforms us.

The important question then to ask is not "What are we to do?" but “Who are we in Jesus?”  Jesus and the Apostles taught that God changes who we are (identity) and from that we are empowered and grow to change (the works of the flesh, the vices and destructive behaviors of our life).  For this reason, our church feels compelled to start with several identity statements of who we are in Jesus Christ.

 

Stay posted for those statements …

Fit to Live, pt 2

This is post-2 in a string of posts for the Beloved in San Francisco.  Its pretty much basic stuff we annually remind ourselves of.  Here goes the second question.

So you are making a case that we, as the Beloved, ought not find our value in actionable lists or an axiomatic lists?   Where then should we invest our value?

Jesus said, “whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.” (Mark 8:35).  It seems what Jesus is getting at is that our life-unto-death core value is the Gospel, and that living all out for the Gospel is salvation.   Whenever I read this verse I think of the Jack Kerouac quote:

They danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"

 

People that live for the Gospel are mad to live, mad to love, mad to be saved ....   Jesus' dialogue with  MLK’s quote (see previous post) might have been, “Yes.  And when you find your something to die for in the Gospel then you will really live.”  Unique to the Beloved is the invitation from the Creator to find our value ('salvation') in the Gospel.  The church is made up of people, across the globe, who are not defined and valued by what they do for themselves, but by what God through Jesus Christ has done for them!   Before I unpack the Gospel I want to make sure, that we as a community are unified around the superiority of the Gospel, to the degree that we see the Gospel alone is worth our value, the Gospel alone is worth emptying our lives out for.

Jesus adds another layer to this (Mark 10) when he says, "I assure you that everyone who has given up house or family or property, for my sake and for the Gospel will receive ..."  The News of God's radical rescue and intervention is the only good, just, beautiful, holy, pure act; so pure, that it's worth forsaking all the things that we tend to work for in life--houses, relationships, property, status.  Jesus challenges us to put all our value, all our faith, all our vision, all our sacrifice in the Gospel with such radical energy that what we are left with is a picture of abandonment of houses, things, and status.   Why?  Because the Gospel is sui generis!  It stands alone.

So what is the Gospel?  It's news, good news.  Not a list of things to do, but this time the Christian version.  It's history.  It's what God has done for us that when we believe it, changes the way we see God, the way we see the world, the way we see ourselves.  It's a story that subverts the dead-end story of our lives.  It's not an inspirational and supplemental feel-good story; but an alternative story!  When we believe it our present is rewritten.  The Gospel offers a radical corrective to the endings that litter the human race. 

The Gospel is the radical declaration that full-orbed salvation has come to us in Jesus Christ--past, present, and future.  The Gospel declares we are saved from the penalty of sin by faith, that we are being saved from the power of sin by faith, and will be saved from the very presence of sin by faith. 

 Romans 1¹⁶ For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. ¹⁷ For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.”

Notice the Gospel is God's power to save--not our work to accomplish, not a formula to administer, not steps of salvation--but a trust in God's saving power.  Paul's quote from Habakkuk is a summary of the redemptive theme of Scripture--man can ony be made right by trusting God--from Enoch to Noah, from Abraham to David--all made right when they came back to trusting God.  We see that being made right with God is revealed "from faith" (past), "to faith" (future) and "by faith" (present).  It is all a work of God that we participate with through trust. 

Mark unpacks three aspects of the Gospel in his first chapter--

(1) vs1-3, News.  This speaks to the historical nature of the Gospel.  Yahweh has entered into history through the womb of a woman, the blood relative of God was here to rescue us.  That work of intervention required God to subvert the human story by entering the human race, unjustly dying for our hamartia and then being raised from the dead and overthrowing death and all those who power depends on the threat of death.   Paul (1 Cor 15:1ff) declares the credibility of Christianity rests on its historical accuracy--'that Jesus died for our sins' and 'that he was raised on the third day'.  If this didnt happen Christianity is a sham and not worth even a philisophical discussion.  Therefore, Paul offers eyewitness testimony as evidence when he says, "he was buried" (proof of his death) and "was seen by..." (proof of his resurrection.)  

There are three images we should take from Mark reciting Isaiah's oracle (ch.40)--(a) Celebration and comfort of the end of war. “comfort, comfort my people … call out to her that her warfare is ended.”  Time’s up for the dark forces of death that occupy the land of time. In this image we imagine streets being filled with celebrations, confetti coming down from the buildings as the people dance and sing, "the war has ended."  (b) Second image is Yahweh's racing from his Sinai residence in the wilderness to rescue those who are under the occupation of death.  “Clear the way for the LORD in the wilderness; Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God.”  When a City was laid siege or a nation was under the occupational forces of another country the only help was from the outside, from a distant King and his army.   Isaiah says, "Yahweh's is coming to our rescue through the desert, make a highway for his arrival."  Final image ... (c)  Zion’s Messengers on the tops of mountains jouously shouting out, “Good News! the Lord is coming with an almighty army against the occupational forces, but like a shepherd to the little ewes and scattered sheep.”

(2) vs.9-11, Identity and a status received.  This speaks to the radical transformative nature of the Gospel.   Baptism was a way of forging a spiritual identity, a publci declaration of who you were as the people of God.  Israel was baptized into Moses in the Red Sea, the next generation was baptized into Joshua in the Jordon.  John the Baptizer's Jordon-washed-souls were going back out into the wilderness to be baptized as a way of reenacting the entrance into the promise land and reaffirming their identity as the people of God.   Even Jesus particiapates in this declarative moment, but when he does something different happens.  The heavens rip, a voice booms, and an dove appears.   God declares to us with great affection and pleasure, who Jesus is, "My son."  We see the whole work of God--voice, dove, flesh--in the water.  This moment in the text unpacks for us another aspect of the Gospel.  It is a status received, a declaration made.  This aspect of the Gospel speaks to how we are justified by faith in Jesus work.   We are given a new status, a new identity.  Think of a couple saying their marriage vows--one moment single and the next married.  Instant legal and binding status change.   Think of a child being adopted into a family, one moment orphaned the very next legally adopted into a family with all rights and priviledges.   

(3) vs. 14-15 Ethics.  Jesus steps on the scene and declares, "God's reign is here, now!  Repent.  Believe the Good News."   This aspect speaks to the way our lives change their allegiance and rhythm.  Tim Keller, calls this aspect the "reversal of values" and that when one believes the Gospel not only does the way they see the world change, but they do not hold near and dear the same things they once held near and dear.  Their whole world is upended! Everything is reversed; where they once lived selfishly for the American Dream they now live selflessly for the Kingdom of God.  It a Kingdom in which giving is more blessed that receiving, dying is living, humbling oneself is the way up, and self-promotion is the way down.  Its a Kingdom where leaders are servants and where the first are last.  To clarify we are not saying that we change our values, but that the when we value the Gospel every other value is upended and we are left with a radically different view of life, that is why Paul can say in a world where death represent the finality and end of all that is good, "For me to live it Christ and die is gain."