August 2003 Archives

Quoted from John Piper's Freshwords mailing list. The original article can be found here.

Taking the Swagger Out of Christian Cultural Influence August 27, 2003

The fact that Christians are exiles on the earth (1 Peter 2:11), does not mean that they don't care what becomes of culture. But it does mean that they exert their influence as very happy, brokenhearted outsiders. We are exiles. "Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ" (Philippians 3:20). "Here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come" (Hebrews 13:14).

But we are very happy sojourners, because we have been commanded by our bloody Champion to rejoice in exile miseries. "Blessed are you when others . . . persecute you . . . on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven" (Matthew 5:11-12). We are happy because the apostle Paul showed us that "the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us" (Romans 8:18). We are happy because there are merciful foretastes everywhere in this fallen world, and God is glad for us to enjoy them (1 Timothy 4:3; 6:17). And we are happy because we know that the exiles will one day inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5). Christ died for sinners so that "all things" might one day belong to his people (Romans 8:32).

But our joy is a brokenhearted joy, because Christ is worthy of so much better obedience than we Christians render. Our joy is a brokenhearted joy because so many people around the world have not heard the good news that "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners" (1 Timothy 1:15). And our joy is a brokenhearted joy because human culture - in every society - dishonors Christ, glories in its shame, and is bent on self-destruction.

This includes America. American culture does not belong to Christians, neither in reality nor in Biblical theology. It never has. The present tailspin toward Sodom is not a fall from Christian ownership. "The whole world lies in the power of the evil one" (1 John 5:19). It has since the fall, and it will till Christ comes in open triumph. God's rightful ownership will be manifest in due time. The Lordship of Christ over all creation is being manifest in stages, first the age of groaning, then the age of glory. "We ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies" (Romans 8:23). The exiles are groaning with the whole creation. We are waiting.

But Christian exiles are not passive. We do not smirk at the misery or the merrymaking of immoral culture. We weep. Or we should. This is my main point: being exiles does not mean being cynical. It does not mean being indifferent or uninvolved. The salt of the earth does not mock rotting meat. Where it can, it saves and seasons. And where it can't, it weeps. And the light of the world does not withdraw, saying "good riddance" to godless darkness. It labors to illuminate. But not dominate.

Being Christian exiles in American culture does not end our influence; it takes the swagger out of it. We don't get cranky that our country has been taken away. We don't whine about the triumphs of evil. We are not hardened with anger. We understand. This is not new. This was the way it was in the beginning - Antioch, Corinth, Athens, Rome. The Empire was not just degenerate, it was deadly. For three explosive centuries Christians paid for their Christ-exalting joy with blood. Many still do. More will.

It never occurred to those early exiles that they should rant about the ubiquity of secular humanism. The Imperial words were still ringing in their ears: "You will be hated by all for my name's sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved" (Mark 13:13). This was a time for indomitable joy and unwavering ministries of mercy. 

Yes, it was a time for influence - as it is now. But not with huffing and puffing as if to reclaim our lost laws. Rather with tears and persuasion and perseverance, knowing that the folly of racism, and the exploitation of the poor, and the de-Godding of education, and the horror of abortion, and the collapse of heterosexual marriage, are the tragic death-tremors of joy, not the victory of the left or the right.

The greatness of Christian exiles is not success but service. Whether we win or lose, we witness to the way of truth and beauty and joy. We don't own culture, and we don't rule it. We serve it with brokenhearted joy and longsuffering mercy, for the good of man and the glory of Jesus Christ.

Snippet from an email I sent to a friend.

I read this yesterday and wanted to comment on it, I think Lewis is dead-on. I’m going to comment with the assumption that what is said in Future Grace is true…. In Letter XXI (21), which immediately follows the discussion of sexual immorality in 20, the topic of ownership comes up in this one. Here are some things he has to say:

Men are not angered by mere misfortune but by misfortune conceived as injury.

“Conceived” is the key word, here. In other words, that someone is driving slow in the left lane, that there is a long line at the grocery store, that you have an event you must attend… these are all conceived of as “misfortunes.” But a man is not angered by such things except to the degree that they seem to take away from his perceived rights.

“The left lane is for driving FAST, you moron!” means “I have a right to drive fast in the left lane, and YOU are preventing me from doing so.”

“Ugh, I’ll be in line forever,” at the grocery store means “I have a right to get my food and pay for it without being hassled by others who have to do the same thing.”

“I have to attend this meeting tonight when I would rather spend it with my friends,” means “I have a right to spend my time with my friends, and this meeting is preventing me from doing so.”

It’s all about thinking of these events as if they are injurious to us. Keep that in mind.

And the sense of injury depends on the feeling that a legitimate claim has been denied. The more claims on life, therefore, that your patient can be induced to make, the more often he will feel injured and, as a result, ill-tempered.

Playing off of that, to the degree we do not believe and delight in the promises of Romans 8:28-39, or Matthew 5:25-34, or Jeremiah 29:11, to that degree will these little things set you off. “I have a right to a computer that won’t crash,” when it is God who says, “I will work your computer crash together for good.” Poor us, our plans are not working out. Nevermind the fact that not one atom can move apart from the will of our Father in heaven (Matthew 10:29), who is working all things after the counsel of His will (Ephesians 1:11), for His glory and for our good (Ephesians 1:6; Romans 8:28).

Now you will have noticed that nothing throws him into a passion so easily as to find a tract of time which he reckoned on having at his own disposal unexpectedly taken from him. It is the unexpected visitor (when he looked forward to a quiet evening), or the friend’s talkative wife (turning up when he looked forward to a tête-à-tête with the friend), that throw him out of gear. Now he is not yet so uncharitable or slothful that these small demands on his courtesy are in themselves too much for it. They anger him because he regards his time as his own and feels that it is being stolen. You must therefore zealously guard in his mind the curious assumption “My time is my own.” Let him have the feeling that he starts each day as the lawful possessor of twenty-four hours. Let him feel as a grievous tax that portion of this property which he has to make over to his employers, and as a generous donation that further portion which he allows to religious duties. But what he must never be permitted to doubt is that the total from which these deductions have been made was, in some mysterious sense, his own personal birthright.

This is key. Remember how we’ve said in the past, “When you see God for who He is, man loses ALL his rights.” Like when Isaiah saw the glory of God and seems to delight in the fact that God is hiding His truth from people, keeping them from repenting… intentionally (John 12:39-41). We have no rights…. As much as we’d like to think we do (and I woke up this morning feeling that right very strongly!), we do not. We are slaves, either to sin resulting in death, or to obedience resulting in righteousness, with the outcome, eternal life (Romans 6:16-23).

Who are we? Who are we to think that our time is our own? We merely redeem the time which has been freely given us by God to gladly make others glad in Him (Ephesians 5:16). The very reason you and I exist today, that we have another hour to live, is to glorify God by enjoying Him. “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

You have here a delicate task. The assumption which you want him to go on making is so absurd that, if once it is questioned, even we cannot find a shred of argument in its defense…. And all the time the joke is that the word “Mine” in its fully possessive sense cannot be uttered by a human being about anything. In the long run either Our Father or the Enemy will say “mine” of each thing that exists, and specially of each man. They will find out in the end, never fear, to whom their time, their souls, and their bodies really belong - certainly not to them, whatever happens. At present the Enemy says “Mine” of everything on the pedantic [an ostentatious concern for formal rules], legalistic ground that He made it. Our Father hopes in the end to say “Mine” of all things on the more realistic and dynamic ground of conquest.

All from C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (Uhrichsville, Ohio: Barbour and Company, 1941), 106-110

I read this yesterday and was like, “Whoa. I am sooooo screwed up.” And it’s not solved by saying, “I’m going to just be better at this. Lord, make me more grateful.” It’s a moment-by-moment trust, and bringing ourselves back to that NOW that will fight unbelief in the form of impatience. What I do in ten minutes does not matter; what I do right now does. That’s all I can control, and I must live in the ocean of future grace, being poured out on me at every moment. What promises there are that are worth believing! And how by delighting in them will we overcome the sin of impatience!

I picked up C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters after having some thoughts over the second paragraph of the preface, in relation to the Wednesday night I spent in Haiti. More on that later.

This is the first time I've read this book in a while, and while my thinking has matured since the last time I read this, I do find some of it troubling. I did just read something that I wanted to put out for whatever purpose it might be noted. For those unfamiliar with the work, it is a collection of letters from an older demon (Screwtape) to his young nephew-apprentice (Wormwood) giving him advice on how to handle his "patient."

Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.

Chapter 8, p. 47

This is an important thing. One cannot expect to have the same level of intensity every single day for the things of God. To think that sin will have no effect on our joy, that our fallible human nature will not grow weary of the source of never-ending joy, is a bit naïve to me. However, it is not the norm nor should we believe that our joy is irrelevant. The fact that it is lacking is due to a problem in us, not that God's will is not a good thing. While we must obey God when we don't feel like it, to say that a lack of our feelings is a good thing is not from faith.

How many of us admire a husband who, despite the fact he has no emotions for his wife, performs all his marital duties to her? Certainly there are times where he will not feel the level of intensity he should, and that does not excuse him from his duties. But if this continues, we have a word for that type of person: hypocrite.

This is different from saying, "I do not have the joy now, but I will go ahead and perform in the hopes of my joy being rekindled. Weeping may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning." This is nothing like saying, "Do it anyway because feelings don't matter." And I think Lewis recognizes this, as evident in the next chapter.

If he is of the more hopeful type, your job is to make him acquiesce in the present low temperature of his spirit and gradually become content with it, persuading himself that it is not so low after all. In a week or two you will be making him doubt whether the first days of his Christianity were not, perhaps, a little excessive. Talk to him about "moderation in all things." .... A moderated religion is as good for us as no religion at all--and more amusing.

Chapter 9, pp. 50-51

Sound familiar to what I've written before?

Lewis seems to be making the point that joy is natural at the beginning of a Christian's walk, but then you enter what he calls the "Peaks" and the "Troughs." Ups and downs, we might say. Joy will wane. Affection for God will be cool down. But he takes pains to make the point that, with this law of varying emotions understood, we may say with the psalmist, "Why are you in despair, O my soul, and why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him for the help of His presence" (Psalm 42:5). This is the place where we always long to be, because "in Your presence is fullness of joy; in Your right hand are pleasures forever" (Psalm 16:11).

The sad fact of the matter is, we cannot dwell there forever. Our joys on earth come to an end due to sin. We are in a constant state of ups and downs, losing interest in even the most interesting thing (namely, God). But the solution is not that we should avoid the highs and lows and be "balanced." This is not, I repeat not the key to the Christian life.

When you speak of it in this way, balance could be equated with lukewarmness. And this is the "balance" that I have long railed against. It all but says, "You should be content with your mediocre feelings toward God, because you can't stay on fire forever!" Someone told me recently:

Gosh, Rob, you THINK too much. Hope you don't burn out before you're thirty.

And in response, I said:

Accurate thoughts of God, when aided by the Holy Spirit, produce accurate affections that result in godly living that commends Christ as valuable. They are so simple a child can understand them, but so deep that the wisest cannot plumb their depths.

In other words, because I think through a great deal the issue of God in relation to my life, I must be "out of balance" with "real" life. Which reminds me of the first chapter of this book.

Even if a particular train of thought can be twisted so as to end in our favour, you will find that you have been strengthening in your patient the fatal habit of attending to universal issues and withdrawing his attention from the stream of immediate sense experiences. Your business is to fix his attention on the stream. Teach him to call it "real life" and don't let him ask what he means by "real." ....

I once had a patient, a sound atheist, who used to read in the British Museum. One day, as he sat reading, I saw a train of thought in his mind beginning to go the wrong way. The Enemy, of course, was at his elbow in a moment. Before I knew where I was I saw my twenty years' work beginning to totter. If I had lost my head and begun to attempt a defence by argument, I should have been undone. But I was not such a fool. I struck instantly at the part of the man which I had best under my control, and I suggested that it was just about time he had some lunch. The Enemy presumably made the countersuggestion (you know how one can never quite overhear what He says to them?) that this was more important than lunch. At least I think that must have been His line, for when I said, "Quite. In fact much too important to tackle at the end of a morning," the patient brightened up considerably; and by the time I had added "Much better come back after lunch and go into it with a fresh mind," he was already halfway to the door. Once he was in the street the battle was won. I showed him a newsboy shouting the midday paper, and a No. 73 bus going past, and before he reached the bottom of the steps I had got into him an unalterable conviction that, whatever odd ideas might come into a man's head when he was shut up alone with his books, a healthy dose of "real life" (by which he meant the bus and the newsboy) was enough to show him that all "that sort of thing" just couldn't be true. He knew he'd had a narrow escape, and in later years was fond of talking about "that inarticulate sense for actuality which is our ultimate safeguard against the aberrations of mere logic." He is now safe in Our Father's house.

Chapter 1, pp. 12-14

This is probably not an easy topic to follow. I just wanted to express, out loud, some of my thoughts as I was reading this book and highlight some things I thought worthwhile. I needed to get some connection between what Lewis said in chapter 8 and then what he said in chapter 9 to make sure he wasn't saying, "Emotions don't matter." This seemed to be in contradiction to other things he wrote, so I'm trying to figure this out.

But what he says about "moderation" particularly hit a sweet spot with me. Is the key to avoid the peaks and troughs of the Christian life? Our hearts do not beat only once, but repeatedly. Picture a heart monitor: a flatline is bad. You need peaks and troughs. I usually begin my days hungry. So I eat to get strength for the day.

Is it so different to think of our souls in this manner? Our faith needs a jump-start each day. We do not enter into a right relationship with God by mere existence, nor are we kept in it by yesterday's grace. We must renew our minds (Romans 12:2). He (and an accurate view of Him) is our daily bread. Our lives should be spent in a pursuit of Him daily, and if this be radical or out-of-balance, then so be it. Call me a zealot.

I wrote this on a message board, and wanted to offer it for your edification (if anyone reads this anymore).

In the thread, "Coincidence or Providence?" on the Crossings...

For some odd reason, I cannot sleep tonight (trying to adjust from Haiti), so I logged on out of sheer boredom lying in bed, tossing and turning.

My opponent said:

Many of these things are inevitable, but so many people try pushing the blame on God because they say He controls everything. I have problems with that philosophy, but this isn't the thread for that.

This is completely the thread for that, so don't be bashful about bringing it up.

Regarding your most recent post, you are way, way oversimplifying one of the most complex theological issues to deal with.

That's why we have sin! In His perfect sovereignty, holiness, and wisdom, He made Adam and Eve sin! He controls everything, so since He made the first sin occur, sin must be according to His will. If sin is according to His will, then what's the point of saving us from it? Isn't living in sin also living in God's will if sin is God's will?

This is in reality a gross misstatement of what the will of God is, which relates directly to what Providence is. If God is working all things together for our good (Romans 8:28), He works all things after the counsel of His will (Ephesians 1:11), ordered and secured all things (1 Samuel 23:5), from whose hand all things come (1 Chronicles 29:14), who can do all things and whose purposes none are frustrated (Job 42:2), the God we cry to because He accomplishes all things for our happiness in Him (Psalm 57:2), to whom belongs all things (Psalm 119:91), through whom all things are possible (Matthew 19:26; Mark 9:23; 10:27), through whom all things came into being (John 1:3)....

And if our God is in the heavens and He does whatever He pleases (Psalm 115:3), and if He has shut up all in disobedience in order that He might show mercy to all (Romans 11:32), and if He was willing to make His wrath and power known on vessels of wrath prepared beforehand for destruction so that He might make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy prepared beforehand for glory (Romans 9:23-24), and if He inflicts pain and gives relief, wounds and His hands also heal (Job 5:18), and if no one speaks unless the LORD has commanded it, from whose mouth both good and ill go forth (Lamentations 3:37-38), and if He has even made the wicked for the day of evil (Proverbs 16:4), and if Job didn't sin by saying that we should receive both good and evil at the hand of the LORD (Job 2:10), and if He has mercy on whom He has mercy and hardens whom He hardens (Romans 9:18)....

Your objection ends up sounding just like the anticipated objections from Paul's opponents in the book of Romans.

But if through my lie the truth of God abounded to His glory, why am I also still being judged as a sinner? And why not say (as we are slanderously reported and as some claim that we say), "Let us do evil that good may come"? Their condemnation is just. (3:7-8)

What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we, who have died to sin, still live in it? What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be! Therefore, what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death. (6:1-2, 15, 21)

You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?" (9:19)

We must come to some sort of grip on these passages. Paul argues in Romans 3:1-6 and 9:23-24 that if you want to glorify God by sinning, prepare to see His wrath manifested against you. But that is not how His children glorify God. He is most glorified in us when we are recipients of His mercy. The outcome of sin is death (Rom. 6:23), but even the murder of Christ, the most sinful act of history, was ordained by God (Acts 2:23; Isaiah 53:10), which resulted in His receiving much glory.

Certainly God has a revealed will, His moral law, also called the "royal law" (James 2:8), the "law of Christ" (1 Corintians 9:21), the "perfect law" / "law of liberty" (James 1:25), and we may disobey it and suffer the results from doing so (as numerous passages have consequences to our actions). But we err greatly if this is all we think about the will of God being, for it is this same God who says:

Remember the former things long past, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, 'My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure.' (Isaiah 46:9-10)

The changeless omnipotent God said:

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," declares the LORD. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, And do not return there without watering the earth And making it bear and sprout, And furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; So will My my Word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, Without accomplishing what I desire, And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.

Do we all know for what matter God always sends out His Word? No, we do not.

The secret things belong to the LORD our God, the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law. (Deuteronomy 29:29)

All of this to say, do not limit your conception of God by boxing Him to being limited to the fallible, worthless whim of grass (Isaiah 40:6-7). There must be some sense that God ordains that evil be, but yet works it out so that He is just and man is guilty. I do not presume to exhaust this mystery, only highlight it with the above Scriptures (which are shockingly numerous). The cross that saved us from sin was not God's backup plan or second best. We have it so much better than Adam ever did (as Paul explains in Romans 5).

When I think of how God works all things according to the kind intention of His will, how He does all things to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy whom He prepared beforehand for glory, I have to agree with Paul in Romans 11:30-36 and give all the glory to Him who knows infinitely more than I do how to accomplish His purposes for His glory and my best good.

For just as you [Gentiles] once were disobedient to God, but now have been shown mercy because of [Israel's] disobedience, so these also now have been disobedient, that because of the mercy shown to you they also may now be shown mercy.

For God has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all.

Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, OR WHO BECAME HIS COUNSELOR? Or WHO HAS FIRST GIVEN TO HIM THAT IT MIGHT BE PAID BACK TO HIM AGAIN?

For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.