Sad Irony

arkansas 1

Yesterday: I began reading John Piper’s Bloodlines which is now available for free in pdf format.2 While there are many areas of theology and practice where I would disagree with Pastor Piper, I have been encouraged by the first four chapters. Racism is absolutely and unequivocally incompatible with the Gospel.

Today: One of the occupational hazards of being on deputation is discovering disturbing information on church websites. This evening I happened upon the worst type of racism on a Independent Baptist church website–contorting Scripture to attempt to legitimize racism.

We Baptists still have a long way to go on the issue of race, but I thank God that many are moving in the right direction. I thank God that there are some old paths that were not good paths that we are finally moving away from. (Just so you know, Jeremiah 6:16 does not say that all old paths are good paths.) May we by God’s grace continue to move closer to Him.

  1. Photo courtesy of Creative Commons, the National Archives, and the US Army. Click the photo for a link to the source. ↩

  2. Where you can find the pdf. ↩

Hope

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Not the maybe, kinda, sort of, middle school guy hoping the girl he has a crush on will ask him out to the Sadie Hawkins dance (or banquet for us IFBer’s) type of hope. Hope in the Bible springs from faith. Hope is not the prospect that something might happen, but rather it is the expectation that whatever has been promised will happen.

Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.2

Romans 15:13

Paul couches this talk of hope in the Gospel. The announcement of the Lord and Christ, Jesus, is our hope. He makes the winter of this life bearable, and not only bearable, but full of both joy and peace.

The grandeur of the Gospel is that our hope in Christ is not mere escapism. For many years, that’s exactly what I thought though. I had trusted Christ and His finished work on the cross, and someday I would escape all of the messiness of this life in heaven. I had latched onto redemption. Christ did die for my sins, God’s wrath was justly out on Him, and by faith, I was given His righteousness (goodness), and justified (that is, declared righteous or good). The Gospel is certainly not less than that. Redemption is a glorious theme, but it is not alone. Redemption has a twin.

What I had missed with another key theme of the Bible–restoration. The Gospel is about my personal redemption, but it is also about my personal restoration, and not just my restoration, but that of everything. Christ will one day set everything right. I will no longer struggle with my old nature in a never-ending battle. The image of God will not always be obscured by my own darkness. I will no longer succumb to the lumbering march towards frailty and fatality. Creation will not just be spared the results of the curse and sin, but it will be fixed.

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.3

Romans 8:28

Our hope is not that through Christ we will escape, but it is that through Christ all things will be made new. Eternity in the presence of God will be all the much sweeter because of, not despite, the winter that we have walked through. Through every disappointment, in the midst of every despair, we eagerly look towards that day with hope. With Christ, we will never feel the sting of: “Always winter, but never Christmas.”

  1. Photo Credit: (Pol sifter–Creative Commons)[http://www.flickr.com/photos/polsifter/4047982682/] ↩

  2. The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version., Ro 15:13 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009). ↩

  3. The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version., Ro 8:28 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009). ↩

Always winter, never Christmas

Not all sweetness and light

“Always winter, but never Christmas.” This was the curse upon Narnia in C.S. Lewis’ classic. Good writing is amazing. Lewis instantly transports us to a bleak world, but not just a bleak world–a world without hope.

His five simple words capture the timbre of a life without Christ at its center. Tim Keesee applied these words aptly to the world of missions and unevangelized regions in his worthwhile DVD series, Dispatches from the Front. Narnia is not the only place with that curse.

Celebrating Christ’s birth in the midst of a bleak, sunless winter brings hope and joy. Many days it can make the unpleasant pleasant. Memories of caroling and freezing till I hurt…and having a great time still warm me many years later. Or bird hunting with my brothers on a blustery, biting Christmas Eve and returning to a cozy house, a warm meal, and the excitement that accompanies that night.

Yet sin has made a mess of everything. Not one corner of our lives is safe from its reach. Misery, sin’s offspring, is part of our very existence. Unemployment. Bankruptcy. Cancer. Pain. Betrayal. Heartbreak. Death. Burning tears are no surprise. Instead tears are an expected, albeit unwelcome, visitor. One that visits far more frequently than we care to think about.

Many have cling to a “prosperity gospel” trusting that God will guarantee us a pain-free life with wealth and popularity if they have enough faith. Yet, Christ told us to expect the opposite.

Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.

John 15:20

The gospel of Christ is much more grand. Our sin has brought misery. Sin has brought has brought winter to our lives. Jesus offers enduring peace and joy in the midst of misery. Greatest of all, He offers hope.

Join us the next few days as we learn how as a Christian we never have to experience “always winter, but never Christmas.”