The gospel and counseling

In the three weeks we have been in the Adirondacks, we have had the wonderful opportunity to slow down and rest. Marveling at the beauty of these mountains while hiking has itself been a means of God's grace for us. Michelle has already read four books, and if I could ever finish The Death of Death I would also have read four. The people of Adirondack Bible Chapel have been overwhelmingly generous and welcoming, and the staff have been generous with their time in meeting with us for encouragement and counseling.

During our time here I have been reflecting on the relationship between the gospel and counseling. I have long been convinced of the sufficiency of Scripture in the context of Christian community to bring healing and maturity (Deut 8:3; Ps 119: 97-104; Eph 4:7-16; 2 Tim 3:14-17; 2 Pet 1:3-4). But this is a conviction that ministries such as CCEF have been exploring and developing far longer than I. So I have no new or profound insights to offer.

But this central conviction has deepened: whatever the struggle for which the child of God seeks counsel, if the gospel is not central to the solution offered, then it is not a real solution. If the cross is not allowed to critique us and show that we are much worse sinners than we ever thought; if the Savior's death is not presented as the Father's final word about our guilt, forgiveness, and adoption; if the power of the resurrection does not form the foundation of our hope for a transformed life; if the risen Christ is not the reason for our confidence and His Spirit not the source of our power; if the Word of God is not our final measuring line; if God's glory reflected in Christlike character is not our goal -- if those things are not present, then counseling cannot properly be called Christian, no matter what the counselor and the one counseled may profess as their creed, no matter what methodology is applied, no matter how many Bible verses get batted about.

The gospel is my only hope. It does not merely make solutions possible -- it is the solution. It is not a first step on the path to wholeness -- it is the means of wholeness. I must constantly relearn such lessons, consistently preach this gospel to myself, and frequently be reoriented away from other "solutions" to God's solution. I need the cross and the empty tomb -- or rather I need the One who died on the cross and walked away from the tomb who purchased God's grace for me.

On the road again...

...but this time not on a roadtrip. A Free church in the Adirondacks has opened their hearts and their homes to us for the summer. So we are moving to the mountains of upstate New York to stay with our new friends at Adirondack Bible Chapel.

This summer will give us opportunities to rest, heal, and receive mentoring as we seek God and look forward to His provision for us. There will be opportunities for lots of reading, lots of hiking, and lots of ministry. Our prayer is that by the end of the summer, the Lord will provide sufficient wisdom to know what the next steps are for us in ministry. Please join me and my family in thanking God for His wonderful provision for us through Jesus Christ!

Waiting tables

After a car trip from New York to Chicago and back that lasted a little over two weeks, and a similar two-week long car trip in December from New York to Florida, my wife and I agree on something: the quality of service at restaurants has definitely declined. Now without a doubt there are plenty of restaurant waitstaff who work hard and try to do right by their customers. We encountered a few of them during those two trips. But on the whole we encountered poor service: indifferent service, extra long delays, significant mistakes made with meals with no offer to make things right.

Those experiences prompted me to reflect on my own attitude about service. It is not a big jump -- the most common word in the New Testament for "service," the word from which we get the term deacon, is used in Acts 6:2 of waiting tables. My initial response to the poor service we received was frustration and irritation. But further reflection led me to wonder: Am I so different? When I am called upon to serve, what is my own attitude?

This reflection was God's grace to me, for I fear that much of the time my attitude is poor, especially when such service is inconvenient or unpleasant. But surely this does not reflect the attitude of our Lord, who gladly served and sacrificed (Phil 2:1-11; Heb 12:1-3). And I have concluded that my poor attitude can only come from loving myself and thinking more highly of myself than I ought -- I value my own comfort and pleasure more than I value others, and particularly more than I value and delight in Christ.

A waiter's motivation for good service is a tip. It is external. And while Christ offers us rewards for faithful service (Lk 19:17), those rewards have their greatest value if we already value the one who gives them. "Well done, good and faithful servant" is most meaningful if we highly esteem the One who speaks the words. And that means that something has to change on the inside, that what I love, value, and esteem has to shift away from me to Someone Else. A tip will not do the trick. My heart must change.

But thanks be to God! He has given us the resources we need through His power by His great and precious promises (2 Pet 1:3-4). He has given me a new heart that wants to serve. He has given me food for my soul in His Word. He has sent His Spirit to dwell in my heart and progressively conform me to Christ's image.

Part of my plan for the summer is to dwell on the excellencies of Christ, and to spend some time in introspection asking God to help me see the idols of my heart, that I might turn from them and exult more fully in Christ. And in doing so, my hope is to become a better servant, someone who gladly waits tables.

Go (mid)west, young man

With my pastorate at Bethel EFC drawing to a close, my family and I are headed to the Midwest for a couple of weeks. We will see family and friends, and will also attend the Gospel Coalition conference outside of Chicago.

There is something symbolic about this roadtrip. As we literally drive west, we are also driving spiritually into the unknown. Where will I minister next? How long will the Lord have us wait? Will it be an associate or senior role, and if it is an associate then how long before I regularly step into a pulpit again? If there is a long delay before my next pastorate, how will I support my family? Lots of unanswered questions.

But the God whose power and might raised Jesus Christ from the dead is the same God who governs all the days of our lives. In the past few weeks, that has not been merely a pious platitude for us. Today on Easter it is the truth that will sustain us through a painful goodbye with our church of three years. And in the weeks to come it will be the bedrock reality that we will likely cling to for life and sanity.

He is risen! And His Father works all things for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purposes (Rom 8:28), even if my idea of "good" does not always resemble His.

Where O Death Is Now Thy Sting?

Heavy-laden weary soul, bearing up a heart of stone;
His Spirit comes to dwell in you, and Christ the weight of sin assume.
All my guilt is cast on Christ,
and His righteousness is mine.
What guilt should weigh upon my head?
For Christ has cleared it all!

The sum of all my sacrifice, though joyful fails to justify.
I cannot pay for grace that’s free, nor add to work that is complete.
Jesus paid it all for me:
This my ransom and my plea
What debt I labor to repay?
For Christ has paid it all!

Through the law comes sin and death, but faith is counted righteousness.
So I will trust in Christ alone, my debt to pay, my sin atone.
And I’ll stand in confidence,
covered by His righteousness.
What shall become of boasting tongues?
For Christ has done it all!

Where O death is now thy sting? Swallowed up in victory!
The Lord of Glory reigns on high, sovereign over earth and sky.
Yes He triumphed o’er the grave,
and He comes again one Day.
What lesser name shall draw our praise?
For Christ has conquered all!

Christ Has Conquered All, Kristie Brasleton

The image of God redeemed

Although I have not posted on the image of God in some time, more recent developments with embryonic stem cell research, and continuing concern regarding the Freedom of Choice Act, prompt me to take up the thread again.

In the first post in this thread, I attempted to defend biblically the proposition that all homo sapiens, from conception to the grave, bear the image of God. In the second post, I briefly described what it means for human beings today to bear the image of God, differentiating between structural and functional understandings of the image and pointing to the explanatory power of this portrait of human beings.

In this post, I would like to examine one way that the Bible describes salvation. Although the mirror that is human being has been shattered, God does not intend for it to remain that way. All human beings possess the image of God structurally; none of us fully possess it functionally. Through the cross of Christ, God intends to restore His image in human beings.

Notice that I did not say that no human being possesses the image of God functionally. On the other side of humankind's rebellion against God, there is one who perfectly and fully reflects the glory and being of God: Jesus Christ. This truth lies implicit in the biblical teaching that Christ is fully human but wholly without sin (Jn 8:46; Heb 4:15; 9:14; I Pet 1:19). His nature is as our nature, but without sin; Jesus bears the image as we bear the image, but without the mirror being broken. But Christ as the image of God is not only implicit, but Scripture also teaches it explicitly (II Cor 4:4; Col 1:15). Christ fully possesses the structural and functional dimensions of the image of God.

Why is this reality so important? To cite the popular paraphrase from Athanasius' On the Incarnation 54.3, "The Word was made like us so that we could become like Him." Athanasius himself made clear, as John Piper has helpfully pointed out, that we do not assume God's nature in the same way that the Son assumed human nature. Rather, it is a reference to the image of God that all human beings bear. In becoming one of us, and providing justification for us, Christ removes the obstacles of guilt and wrath (Rom 8:3; Phil 2:7). Having forgiven all believers our sins and credited us with Christ's own righteousness, God now looks upon His people with favor and works on their behalf. Through the work of the Spirit He transforms each of His children so that they are not only credited with righteousness, but also live in righteousness, progressively becoming increasingly able to obey God and display His character. In other words, the mirror is being repaired (II Cor 3:18; Eph 4:24; Col 3:10; II Pet 1:4). And at the end of history, when Christ returns and makes all things new, the mirror will be fully restored and we will perfectly image God even as the man Jesus Christ images Him (Rom 8:29; I Cor 15:49).

This teaching of Scripture on the restoration of the image of God should encourage greatly Christ's followers. Everyone who trusts in Christ is a new creation (I Pet 1:3-5; II Cor 5:17) with new desires to please and glorify God (Rom 7:22; 8:5-11). Yet as Scripture and experience attest, we consistently fail to obey Him perfectly (Rom 7:13-20; I Jn 1:8-10). But the image is being restored and will be fully restored. For someone who wants to honor God, that promise gives much hope. It should also help us see that God's purposes cannot be thwarted. God created everything good, including human beings (Gen 1:31). Human and demonic rebellion may have marred what God has created, but it has not undone His purposes for His world. He will remake human nature not only into something that may not sin, but ultimately that cannot sin.

And it reemphasizes the importance of the image of God for our view of human nature. One approach to undermining the dignity of all human life is to find a basis for human personhood not related to the image of God. But that is not an approach that any Bible-believing Christian can take. The image is so important to God that He describes salvation as its restoration, not just in one or two passages, but throughout the New Testament. Christians need to keep God's image front-and-center in our understanding of human beings. It is that important to God.

Five Questions for Evaluating Spiritual Growth

In his book Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, Mark Dever shares five questions he asks when he visits with members of his church to help evaluate their spiritual growth (p. 212). We discussed these questions during an adult Sunday School class this morning, and it was a fruitful discussion. So I am posting them here as well.

• In what particular way have you grown in your understanding of the Christian life since we last met?
• In what particular way have you grown in your practice of the Christian life since we last met?
• In what particular way do you feel that you need instruction?
• In what particular way are you disappointed in your own pursuit of holiness?
• How specifically can I pray for you?
  

Catching up

We were sitting in a booth at a local diner, drinking coffee and catching up.

"I noticed you haven't posted anything at your blog in a while," he said. "You know, you might find it easier to build your readership if you actually wrote something."

I grimaced. "I know." I stared out the window for a moment and sighed. "The whole idea was to post once or twice a week with my reflections on theology, ministry, really whatever I was spending my time thinking about. But with all that has happened in the last few weeks..." I shrugged. "I haven't really known what to write."

"Why? What's going on?"

"You haven't heard?" His forehead furrowed as he slowly shook his head. "Oh boy." I sighed again. "There's no easy way to say it. I've submitted my resignation at Bethel."

His shoulders slumped. "I knew it wasn't going well. But I had hoped it wouldn't come to this."

"Yeah." The waitress came by and refilled our coffee. I took my time stirring in milk and sweetener. "The church wasn't healthy when I got here. It's very tempting, and it would be very easy, to blame things on everyone else. But the last few weeks have given me a lot of opportunities to do some self-examination, some self-questioning. And I've realized that you can be right, but still be wrong."

"What do you mean? You think it was your fault?"

"Sort of. Not exactly." I leaned forward over my coffee cup. "I have no regrets about the decisions or changes we made. Our values and convictions come right out of Scripture. The congregation is hooked on expository preaching now. We've seen people grow in their faith, and several people have started following Christ in the last couple of years. But I can look back and see relationships I should have handled differently, or people I should have made more of an effort with, or how I could have taken a different tone or attitude. I didn't always help myself."

He looked thoughtful. "It sounds like God has been doing some work on you too." He grinned. "Maybe you could have blogged about that."

"Maybe I still will." I smiled. "But it's not an online diary. I needed some time to think and pray. And really I'm still processing things. Add to it that my family doesn't yet know where we're headed... There's been a lot going on lately. But it was time to go. My wife and I had already decided that. We wanted to take things in one direction, and many in the church wanted to go in another. So this is best."

"You'll keep me posted on what happens next, right?"

"As soon as there's something to tell." We both took a drink of coffee. "Did you fill out your brackets this year?" He laughed, and the conversation turned to other things.

Created in the image of God

Picking up on a line of thought from an earlier post, I intend to explore a little more of what it means to be created in God's image.

Those who believe the truthfulness of Scripture must affirm that every human being reflects or "images" who God is, more than any other kind of created being. We bear His image structurally -- it is "hardwired" into what it means to be human -- and can be seen in our faculties to reason, choose, emote, form relationships, make covenants, work, and create. And before humankind rebelled against God's rule and fell under His curse, we bore His image functionally -- we reflected God not only in what we could do but also in how we did it. Human beings were created good; when God created humans He called His creation very good (Gen 1:31).

When Adam and Eve rebelled against God and came under the curse (Gen 3:16-19), the image of God remained, but it was damaged in us. The image is retained in its structural sense -- human beings still have the faculties we had before. But the functional image has been lost. We are not capable of doing the good we ought; we do not live and use our abilities in the God-worshiping, neighbor-loving way that we were created for (Ps 143:2; Isa 64:6; Rom 3:9-20). We could describe it this way: Human beings are like mirrors, created to reflect who God is. But through our sin we have struck the mirror in its center so that it is cracked and broken. It still reflects. But what it reflects is now distorted, the image ruined.

The fact that the image of God remains provides a strong basis for human rights and inherent human dignity. This account of human being also explains better than any other how we can see such great good and great evil at the same time in humanity. We are bearers of the image of the Creator, more like Him than anything else in the universe, and are therefore capable of brilliant accomplishments in the arts and sciences. We carry the image of the Holy One, of whom the seraphim cry out, "Holy, Holy, Holy" (Isa 6:3), who calls Himself Love (I Jn 4:8), and are therefore capable of extraordinary acts of kindness and self-sacrifice. But we are broken and shattered as well, and therefore capable of taking science and destroying life with it, of taking the arts and profaning truth and beauty with it, of acting in extraordinarily cruel and selfish ways.

If we are to bear His image properly once again, we will need to be remade. And broken artifacts do not repair themselves. If human beings are to become all of which we are capable, then we will need to learn to look outside of ourselves toward the One who made us.

The image of God and the unborn

Many churches across the U. S. observe Sanctity of Life Sunday each year. Typically a Sunday is selected near the date when Roe v. Wade was handed down. Our congregation observed Sanctity of Life Sunday on January 18th; other churches will observe it this Sunday, the 25th. We mourn the death of nearly 50 million children since 1973 because of abortion. We pray for our society to repent. We call our congregations to give their time and their resources to aid mothers facing crisis pregnancies and their unborn children.

Why observe the Sanctity of Life each year? Why does the status of the unborn trouble so many Christians? The answers are rooted in the Bible's teaching about the image of God. The repeated teaching of Scripture is that every human being is created in the image of God (Gen 1:26-28; Gen 5:1-3; Gen 9:6; Ps 8; Jas 3:9-10). Whole books have been written on what that means (especially this excellent book by Anthony Hoekema, Created in God's Image).

Those who believe the truthfulness of Scripture must affirm that every human being reflects or "images" who God is, more than any other kind of created being. As such, any assault on this image is an assault on God Himself (Gen 9:6; Jas 3:9-10). This reality provides the soil in which inherent human dignity grows. It is the basis for human rights and the sanctity of all human life.

In another post, I will explore a little further what the image of God means. But in thinking about the Sanctity of Life, I want to go in another direction for now. Every human being "images" God. In this respect we are unique in the created order. Image-bearing is part and parcel of what it means to be a human being. Everywhere the creature called homo sapiens is present, there the image of God is present.

That includes those members of homo sapiens who are still in the womb. From the moment of conception, the type of biological being that has been brought into existence is a human being. The DNA that is present is human DNA. Given time, protection, and nutrition, the human zygote becomes a human blastocyst, which becomes a human embryo, which becomes a human fetus, which in fact is a human infant located inside the womb. What kind of being are we talking about? A human being. The stage of development or level of viability does not change the biological reality that the being is human. And where there is human being, there is the image of God. And where there is the image of God, there is life with inherent dignity, worthy of respect and justice.

The way that God relates to the unborn in Scripture confirms their humanity and dignity. In Psalm 139, David describes God's complete knowledge of him and the intimacy of their relationship. He includes these words: "For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb... Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them" (vs. 13, 16). Exodus 21:22-25, properly understood, showcases God's equal concern for unborn children and their mothers (see this helpful article regarding the ways this passage is misused to justify abortion). The Spirit of God rested on John the Baptist even in his mother's womb (Luke 1:15, 41-44).

From the moment of conception, the image of God is present. The unborn are fully human, fully image bearers, and therefore fully worthy of respect and justice. Abortion is therefore the taking of human life. Legalized abortion is therefore an assault on human dignity. If the God of the Bible is a God of mercy and justice who cares for the alien, the fatherless, and the widow -- the Bible's shorthand for those people in human society who lack power and resources to defend themselves and seek justice -- if that is what God is like, then that is what His people should be like as well (Exod 22:21-24; Deut 10:16-20; Ps 10:17-18; Ps 82:3-4; Isa 1:16-17; Matt 25:31-46; Jas 1:27).

And that means that Christians must defend the cause of the unborn. And that means that as long as the destruction of unborn human life is legal and is considered a moral, acceptable course of action, our churches need to observe Sanctity of Life Sunday.