The Power of Words

It has become cliche to talk about the power of our words. We say that our tongue holds the power of life and death, and that is true. But our words are not merely a matter of transitory life and death. On the contrary, they shape and indicate the character of the reality in which we choose to live. I’m not talking about the circumstances of life: a financial situation, a sickness, or a difficult family circumstance. I’m talking about the reality of the Kingdom of God. Our words indicate whether or not we truly desire to live as if that Kingdom is an in-breaking reality. The Church is called to be a witness, to testify to the truth of the Gospel of Christ. We succeed or fail at that mission with our words. With our words we testify to the reality of a Kingdom that the world sees as foolishness, or we deny the truth of the gospel and acquiesce to the world’s version of truth. With our words we bring the Kingship of Christ to bear on a world in which His Kingship is not always fully evident to us, or we allow the world to again assert that Caesar is lord and should be worshiped as such. With our words we look forward to the day when Christ will be all in all, or we lose the only hope that is able to sustain us. Our common confession–in Father, Son, and Spirit–binds us together and molds our imaginations around the reality of Christ and resurrection.

The saints in the book of Revelation overcome the enemy by the blood of Christ and the word of their testimony. Through our confession, the Holy Spirit strengthens us to withstand any trial or temptation. When that confession fades and our words become unimportant, unbelief and apostasy are sure to follow. That is why the author of Hebrews exhorts us to “hold fast to the confession of our hope.” Constant confession, a constant agreement with the Spirit at work in us, shapes us into the true body of Christ, and it is only through that confession that the church can become the light of the world and the salt of the earth. So when we say that our words hold the power of life and death, let us remember what is truly at stake, and let us always be the community that declares, in accordance with the Scriptures that:

We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen. 

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end. 

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

 

Faith, Hope? and Love

If I had a perfect memory, I am positive the number of sermons I could recall on the subject of faith would reach into the hundreds. I have attended church my entire life, and if you include the numerous ORU chapels I have also attended pastors have had more than ample opportunity to impress upon me the importance of faith. Of course this is not in error. Faith is a vital component to our Christian walk. The author of Hebrews is not joking when he says that without faith it is impossible to please God. However, I cannot recall in all of my childhood or adolescence ever hearing a sermon about hope. Now since I don’t have a perfect memory, there may have been a sermon or two on that subject. I can remember some sermons on hope in the more recent past. However the disparity is great. I have heard hundreds of sermons about faith, but I could probably count on two hands the number of sermons I have heard specifically concerning hope. Hope–along with faith and love–is one of the “big three” mentioned by Paul in that oft quoted verse from 1 Corinthians 13, yet hope receives only a fraction of the attention that the other two attributes do.

In my estimation this disparity exists for several reasons. First, the concept of the Christian hope has become almost exclusively tied to the return of Christ. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this location for hope, but as the doctrines of eschatology are separated from salvation and ethics, hope drifts away from faith. Secondly, Christian hope can be twisted into a sort of secular progressivism bereft of the gospel message. The Christian hope is a strong hope. It is hope for a new world free from the fetters of death and decay. When this hope is hijacked by society at large and redefined around human potential (as has happened so often since the enlightenment) it seems like the natural Christian response to reject such utopian ideas and focus instead on the necessity of faith, which is much harder to twist in that particular manner. Finally, a robust theology of Christian hope raises many uncomfortable questions about suffering, questions that the church, and the charismatic/Pentecostal tradition in particular, has not been particularly fond of answering as of late. As Paul acknowledges in Romans 8, the object of hope is always something we do not yet possess. A strong emphasis on faith and it’s power in our daily lives is a far easier stance to take than one that embraces the ambiguity and current disappointment that dwells with hope.

Despite this disparity, faith and hope belong together. In fact, the author of Hebrews places them together in what has to be the most quoted verse about faith (perhaps along with Romans 10:17).

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen -Hebrews 11:1

Notice how closely faith and hope are linked. Faith is the very substance of hope. Thus hope gives faith its structure and foundation. It is true that it is impossible to please God without faith. Through faith in God and His character, we allow the Holy Spirit to work in our lives. But this faith would have no foundation were it not inextricably linked to the hope that one day God will act decisively against the current state of sin and death in our lives. What is the point of having faith in a God who will not one day bring all things into perfection? Why would we have reason to believe that our faith has any true impact? Hope grounds our faith in the promises of God by looking forward to the day when all of His promises and blessings will be fully realized on earth as it is in heaven. Thus, hope strengthens our faith even in difficult circumstances. We do not have crises of faith as much as crises of hope, and we cannot lose faith in God without first losing hope that one day God will set all things right. When we feel that our faith is shaken by the circumstances around us, the solution is not to conjure up more faith, but to remember the hope to which we are called, the hope of resurrection and renewal that will one day be ours. The job of hope is to strengthen and support our faith.

This doesn’t make faith any less important. Faith is still the substance of our hope. It is by faith that we recognize that many aspects of the promises of God for which we hope are available to us now. We hold the hope that one day sickness, sin, and death will be no more, but by faith we believe that the cross of Christ has allowed that future world to break into our own. By faith we bring the healing of Christ into this broken world. By faith we receive the forgiveness of sins and the sanctification of our sinful humanity. Faith makes the promises of God real to us now. As Moltmann puts it:

Without faith’s knowledge of Christ, hope becomes a utopia and remains hanging in the air. But without hope, faith falls to pieces, becomes a fainthearted and ultimately a dead faith. It is through faith that man finds the path of true life, but it is only hope that keeps him on that path. -Jurgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope

So finally, how do we avoid the utopian errors that remain so enticing? How do we balance the applicability of faith in the present moment while still acknowledging the future realization of our hope? One key is the the proper object of our hope:

Therefore prepare your minds for action; discipline yourselves; set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed. -1 Peter 1:13

Christ should always be the focus of our hope–and our faith for that matter. We do not hope for a particular outcome in our lives, or change in a particular circumstance. Least of all should we put our hope in our own faith. No, we put our hope in the One who knows the story from beginning to end, who is coming to set all things right, and who loves us so much that He chose to die that we might die with Him and live. In the end, that kind of hope will never be disappointed. It is only when we take our hope off of Christ and the grace that He brings that we find disappointment. As we place our faith in the returning King of all creation, we see some aspects of His kingdom establish themselves on earth and in our lives. But when we are faced with the harsh realities of a world that is still in bondage to decay, we look with hope on the victory that has already been purchased on the cross, the victory that will one day be ours. And so we pray:

Thy kingdom come

Thy will be done

On earth as it is in heaven.

Think but do not Lean

“Just trust God.” This is a common piece of advice to young and old alike concerning their need to follow God’s direction and trust His ultimate faithfulness. I’ve certainly heard this advice, offered this advice, and encouraged myself with this advice. Young Christian singles tell themselves to trust that God will bring the right person into their dating lives. Older married couples reassure themselves that by trusting in God, their checkbook will balance at the end of the month. Parents know that the only option they have when it comes to raising children is trusting God. When faced with difficult circumstances, many turn to this popular verse:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. -Proverbs 3:5

The verse is simple enough: trust in God, not your understanding. The importance of this instruction cannot be diminished. Human understanding is inherently suspect for two reasons. First, humans are created beings; they have set limits imposed on them by nature of being created. Humanity was not, as God famously reminds Job, present during the creation of the world. Human understanding is not limitless, because we experience the world as finite human beings. Secondly, and more importantly, human understanding is marred by the fall. The vision of God that was once so clear to Adam is now, even to Christians, like looking in a clouded mirror. Trust in God is so essential because we do not know the entire story and cannot see the entire picture. There are times I wonder why there is so much evil in the world, why God has allowed such corruption and destruction and suffering. Other times I question the role that God plays in my own life. At times, reason seems to dictate that God should act differently. But does trusting God mean that I have to forcefully repress this rationality?

Well, yes and no. There is a kind of prideful rationality, the kind that sees God as being subject to human reason. This reason says that if God is doing something I don’t understand or that doesn’t make sense, then it must not be God; it binds God’s infinite wisdom to a very human ball and chain. This sort of prideful assertion of human understanding is utter foolishness.

But we must not go to far. Reason, though flawed, is still a gift of God. I can do many things with my rationality and intelligence. I can question, prod, infer, argue, debate, wrestle, and otherwise utilize my mental resources attempting to understand God and His creation. There is one thing I must not do; I must not “lean”. It’s as if our efforts to understand God are like a wobbly fence. We can build our wobbly fences all we want, and they create boundaries and doctrines that help us understand the complexity of God. But the moment we start to lean against our fences and admire our handiwork, the moment we decide that the fences are more important than the God we hope to understand, the fences crumble beneath our weight and our experiences destroy our neat little lines and exhaust our faith.

Our reason is a tool, but it must not become our only tool. We can reason because we are made in His image. The error comes not when use our understanding, but when we lean on our understanding. When our understanding becomes the focal point around which everything else in our life is comprehended, we fail to trust God. However, if I use my understanding to seek out His wonderful nature and purpose to the best of my abilities, I please Him. There is a rationality that does not have to understand everything in order to make sense of it, a rationality that is still trusting. In fact, trusting God frees us to use our rational minds without the awful burden of being alone with our thoughts. So I ask hard questions of God; I ask for understanding; I ask for wisdom to grasp the things He is doing in this world and in my life. However, sometimes the harsh reality of a fallen world tempts me to place my own understanding above my trust in God, to despair and reject the faithfulness of God, to lean on my fence. And so I ask for grace, that I would not attempt, as Chesterton says, “to cross the infinite sea and so make it finite.” To make God finite is impossible folly. To stretch my mind in his infinity is pure joy. To trust that He, in His infinite wisdom, works all things together for good is complete freedom.

 

Where Did Mr. Perfect Go?

I like to fancy myself as a dream husband, as a man who truly loves his wife and does all that he can to protect her, provide for her, and make her feel loved and cherished. I like to fancy myself as Mr. Perfect, the one who was made for my wife and the one for whom my wife was made. Unfortunately Mr. Perfect has this nasty habit of taking vacations right when I need him most. Instead of being the perfect man, I can be selfish, stubborn, lazy, and unloving. It’s not that I always want to be unloving, it’s just that sometimes Mr. Perfect simply does not show up, and I can’t muster the will power to force myself to do what I know my wife would like for me to do. In the worst case scenarios I end up acting like Mr. Perfect’s jealous twin, an imperfect husband who thinks he’s perfect and thus can do no wrong. As you can imagine, that does not bode well for a successful intimate conversation between two human beings.

Everyone, at least initially, is looking for Mr. or Mrs. Perfect. Perhaps after years of frustrations and disappointments in relationships some give up the search and “settle for less”, but the majority of individuals want to find the best possible match for themselves. That match of course is different for every individual. For example, a major reason I fell in love with my wife was that she appreciates the same kind of intelligent, witty, and sometimes utterly random humor that I do. I was looking for that attribute. I’m sure there are people out there who would fail to understand or appreciate our myriad inside jokes. Regardless, dating has a way of accentuating those positive attributes of an individual while eliminating the negative attributes. When I was dating my wife, we spent a lot of time together, but we still spent a great deal of time apart. If I was grumpy or frustrated at her, I only needed to avoid saying hurtful words until I was in the safety of my dorm room. Then my frustration would be able to spill out freely, without her realizing the extent of my frustration. Marriage is completely different. We still have time apart of course, but we live in the same house. Now I have to learn to deal with my frustration and grumpiness in a way that is still loving to my wife! While we were dating we could each deal with our faults and failures before God in the privacy of our own space. Now that we’re married, those faults and failures have a way of leaking out into our conversations with each other. It’s not that I’m a different person than I was while dating; it’s that the intimacy level of the relationship exponentially increased when we said “I do.”

The real secret to Mr. Perfect is that there is no Mr. Perfect, at least not perpetually. I may want to be a dream husband, but that desire will never become a complete reality. However romantic, loving, or kind-hearted my motivations might be, Mr. Perfect will still elude my grasp at times. The same is true of my wife. As much as I might like for her to be my dream bride every moment of every day, there will be some days when she just misses it. We are both broken individuals in need of healing. So I then have two responsibilities. First, I have the responsibility to forgive my wife when she isn’t Mrs. Perfect. After all, I know that I don’t perfectly meet her needs at all times, and I know that at times my inability frustrates me. By offering her forgiveness when she fails, I validate her role as my wife even when she fails to meet my highest expectations. Thus she knows that her place in my life is secure in my love for her. Secondly, I need to forgive myself when I fail to be Mr. Perfect. Learning to love my wife more fully is the goal, but I will never reach that goal by dwelling on my past mistakes. By forgiving myself and allowing the Holy Spirit to teach me through my failures, I help myself take one more step towards becoming the dream husband I want to be. I may not be Mr. Perfect, but I am the man who has promised to love my wife forever. I am able to keep that promise only when I embrace the forgiveness of God and offer that same kind of forgiveness to my wife. When I master that, we may not become Mr. and Mrs. Perfect, but we will become a more godly and effective couple, which is far better.

So Much More than Material

How easy it is to get sucked into the illusion that the material world is all that matters. Work, responsibilities, and the daily grind can all testify to how material life is. I look at an effect, and I see a cause for that effect. I can trace good events in my life–such as marriage, college graduation, success in my job–back to specific things that I did; I see a natural progression. Likewise, I can trace not so pleasant events back to equally logical and natural causes. Doing this sort of cause and effect analysis for too long can deaden my awareness of the faithfulness of God in all areas of my life at all times.  The logical and natural causes are not invalid; they are simply incomplete. I miss the point when my analysis does not leave space for the amazing love and grace of God who is carefully working all things together for good, both our own individual good, and ultimately the good of all creation (more on that here). For me, the individual cases of cause and effect should not matter so much as the knowledge that I serve a God who is in ultimate control, and who is interested in seeing myself, my family, my community, and my world achieve it’s true purpose in Him. But how can I remember what God is in the business of doing when everything around me seems so natural and material? The psalmist writes in Psalm 71:15

My mouth will tell of your righteous acts, of your deeds of salvation all day long, though their number is past my knowledge.

The psalmist is right. We simply cannot know how many times God has acted on our behalf. That number is truly incomprehensible. It is important to note that the psalmist is currently experiencing persecution at the hands of his enemies. His circumstances are desperate, but even so he reminds himself of the faithfulness of his God by telling of all the things God has done. Not only that, he acknowledges that the sum total of God’s faithfulness is beyond his comprehension! So it should be for me. When life seems ordinary and natural, I must remind myself of the many works of God in my life and in the lives of those around me. His faithfulness remains regardless of my circumstances. Yes the material world is real; it is the world in which I live. Events in my life have material causes and material effects, and is vitally important! This world is where I learn to love my neighbor as myself, to love God with my whole heart, and to live like Christ lived, and ultimately I am judged based on what I do here. But I cannot count God out of this world. I cannot allow the seeming natural causes to blind me from seeing the supernatural and transcendant God who has redeemed the material world with his own flesh and blood. I cannot allow myself to forget God and live as if He does not matter. In truth, He is the only One who matters.

I still can’t believe that all we are and that all of our dreams are nothing more than material. -Switchfoot

Why Christians should Mourn

Blessed are those who mourn… -Matthew 5:4

Like all of the Beatitudes, the one about mourning is counter intuitive, but this Beatitude is particularly so. We esteem humility as one of the chief virtues, so we understand why the poor in spirit and meek are blessed. We all prefer peace over conflict, so the peacemakers should certainly be blessed. As for persecution, we don’t like it, but various passages of Scripture and two thousand  years of church history have taught us that there are worse ends than martyrdom. But mourning? Why would we want to mourn? We are, after all, the redeemed people of God, who have been set free from the terrible oppression of sin and death, the people who will one day obtain eternal life and a home with God Himself. We, of all people in the world, have much about which to rejoice. We become very proficient at rejoicing. Our praise songs are loud and fervent. Our Easter and Christmas services are filled with wonderful music and productions designed to celebrate the important events in the life of our Lord. But here this Beatitude stands, “Blessed are those who mourn,” and an even stronger parallel in Luke’s gospel, “Blessed are you who weep now.” (Luke 6:21)

Why should we mourn when there is so much for which to rejoice? Why are those who mourn placed alongside the merciful and the peacemakers as those types of individuals who would typify the church? If Jesus went so far to include mourning as a blessed characteristic, surely he had a reason. One reason I believe is this: mourning effectively connects the church to the pain and suffering still present in the world. We do possess joy in knowing Christ our Savior and the hope of eternal life. However, the world cannot even comprehend the slightest fraction of the joy that is ours. Much of the world is full of nothing but sadness, violence, oppression, injustice, and sin. Even knowing the joy that will one day be ours, we cannot ignore these realities. We cannot be an effective witness to the world without acknowledging the presence of evil and admitting our own role in the tragedy of humanity. We too, after all, are the offspring of Adam, and though we no longer belong to Adam, we still feel effects of his Fall and our own falls pulling us downward. Thus we mourn. We mourn because all is not yet right in the world. We mourn because violence, even violence for a good cause, is necessary. We mourn because of oppression and injustice. We mourn because we ourselves have participated in the furtherance of all these evils, both before and after our conversions. By mourning, we embrace the suffering of the world in the same way Christ embraced His own suffering on the cross, not for the sake of mortification but for the sake of redemption. By mourning for our fallen world, we more effectively bring the light and hope of the gospel into the dark places.

Mourning produces another good fruit in us; it reminds us that we are not at home in this world. A common critique leveled against American Christianity is that it is far too consumed with worldly matters, that it equates consumerism, patriotism, and the American dream with the gospel. Whether or not this accusation is entirely true across the board, there certainly are elements of truth to this caricature. Thus, mourning reminds us that we are not truly at home; we have not arrived in a place where Christ is the reigning King on earth and where God is truly all in all. Mourning reminds us that our possessions, our careers, and even our nations are still part of a fallen world, a world that will someday be destroyed. A picture of this attitude emerges from the New Testament. Peter calls the readers of his first epistle, “aliens and exiles,” and urges them to orient their lives around the fact that they are not yet in their true home. What was true of Peter’s audience is still true today. Believers are exiles, aliens in the world. When we mourn, we challenge the ideology that states the world and its systems are the sole authority. Mourning is an aspect of repentance, and through mourning, our minds are shaped around a reality that is centered around Christ, not around our earthly responsibilities. By mourning the state of the present, we look to the hope of the future. When every evil will be judged, every enemy destroyed, and every knee bowed to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Of course the Beatitude does not end with mourning. Matthew’s full beatitude reads, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted,” and Luke’s reads, “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.” Even though we mourn for a time, our mourning is still subject to the overwhelming joy of Christ and the hope we have of His return. It is not with hopelessness or despondency that we mourn, but rather joy and expectation. Though the sorrow of this fallen world may last for a time, we know that Love and Joy Himself is coming with the morning. So for now we rejoice in the redemption that He has bought for us; we mourn for the sin and destruction that still exists in the world; and we look to the world to come, the world in which we find our true home with God. We mourn, but we know that in the end even our darkness and most sorrowful moments will be turned to dancing and joy in the light of the One who is greater and more fulfilling than any human tear or laugh.

The Marital Incompleteness Theorem

The picture of marital perfection so often laid before us is that of two individuals who perfectly complement each other. Each partner balances out the extreme tendencies in the other; they do everything together; and they even complete each other’s sentences. It is common to refer to spouses as “the other half” of a relationship (or the “better half” if referring to the female member). This implies a sense of completeness in a marriage relationship. The husband and wife both add something to each other’s lives that is simply not present before the relationship exists. The creation of a shared life together furthers this element, and as husband and wife grow closer together, the intimacy and connection between them grows.

As wonderful as this picture looks, and as true as this portrayal is, marriage in reality can at times be quite different. If spouses are the “other halves” of their partners, then why are so many deciding to walk around as half people? Why do young brides and grooms who are madly in love on their wedding day become madly in hate within a few years? Even successful marriages experience difficult times, times when the spouse feels more like dead weight in the relationship than an intrinsic “other half.” In answer to this seeming dilemma, I propose what I will call, “The Marital Incompleteness Theorem.”

We like to exalt marriage as the ultimately fulfilling relationship, but marriage simply does not live up to the hype, or if it does, it sure seems to take a lot of work. That is because marriage, by itself, cannot bring true completeness to any couple. Physical, emotional, or spiritual completeness cannot be achieved simply through the union of two individuals in holy matrimony, even when the couple is truly and deeply committed to caring for each other. There have been times when I could do nothing to help my wife through a difficult circumstance, even though I desperately wished I could help her. I cannot heal all of her hurts, I cannot help her with all of her responsibilities, and I simply cannot always be there for her in the way that she needs me to be, no matter how hard I try. Likewise, I cannot expect her to fix everything that is wrong inside of me or make up for my lack in a certain area with her own extra effort. This is the tension that I live in as a husband. I truly desire the best for my wife, and I want to be able to provide the best, but there are times when my own efforts to provide the best actually produce the worst. Sometimes, as hard as it is to accept, my own efforts uncomplete her more than I complete her.

The two become one flesh, as the Bible says, but two broken pieces do not equal one perfect piece. We cannot fix each other, only God can fix us. The point of marriage is not to bring two mutually compatible individuals together so that they can fix all of their problems together. The point of marriage is to bind two broken and sometimes incompatible individuals together so that God, through their brokenness and relationship with each other, might be able to fix them. God, not our spouse, is the one who completes us. Our spouses are simply the ones whom God uses to help further that process of completion. Once we recognize that we do not have to fix our spouses we free ourselves to truly love each other. If I become too concerned with fixing the problems I see in my wife, there is no room for me to show unconditional love for her. By relinquishing my right to fix my wife, I demonstrate unconditional love towards my wife and trust in God who is transforming both of us into His image. In the same way, when I recognize that it is not my wife’s purpose to fix all of my problems or meet all of my needs, I free her to truly love me in her own unique way, not in a specific way that I demand. Marriages, like everything else this side of eternity, are not complete; they are messy. But we serve a God who works through the messyness, the incompleteness, to form something perfect and whole.