Cynicism is a result of misplaced faith, of arrogance really, of false and shattered expectations. You may recall Katerina Ivanovna from Crime and Punishment. She would latch onto people, invent all kinds of fantasies about them, experience bitter disappointment, and rage at them and the world. This is why the Bible warns us against “putting our trust in princes.” Jesus knew what was in man, and thus did not trust in man.
The gospel never leads to cynicism and is the only ultimate antidote to cynicism. Some of you have heard me say in class that the gospel is infinitely rugged. It destroys both our pride and our despair. Joshua was able to say, near the end of a very eventful life in which he saw both exodus and conquest: 14"And now I am about to go the way of all the earth, and you know in your hearts and souls, all of you, that not one word has failed of all the good things that the LORD your God promised concerning you. All have come to pass for you; not one of them has failed” (Joshua 23). This is an absolutely astonishing claim that atomizes all cynicism. I will be sixty very soon, and can say the same thing. We can never expect too much from God and He never disappoints. It is never about us and always about Him.
We at PHC will, by God’s grace, along with all the saints, help to serve the nation, shape the culture, take the gospel to the ends of the earth, build the kingdom. This is my fondest hope and has always been my prayer. This puts God at the center and not ourselves, is not delusional and will not lead to bitterness. As Christians, we are at once both utterly realistic and thoroughly idealistic—wise as serpents and innocent as doves. The cynic, ironically, is neither. He fancies himself the realist, shaking his head sadly at naïve “believers.” In fact, he has no real faith in God, for God’s magnificent realities always trump our tawdry ones. Where our sin abounds, God’s grace abounds all the more.
--Dr. Stephen Hake
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Where To Look
The hard reality is that the more we grasp the sinfulness of man the more we must watch for the sinfulness of those we hope will teach us wisdom. We are indeed all sinners, which explains why even the most pious among us take wrong turns theologically. But even those who take wrong turns know and teach that the Bible is the map. And what that map always shows us, not surprisingly, is our own sin.
Which means that the ones we ought to be listening to are those who are least likely to tell us what to think, who are most likely to tell us where to look. Those who speak, who write about their own sin, those are the ones who have been given wisdom. Those, on the other hand, who are most quick to point out the sins of others, that is where we need a godly skepticism. Sinners speak of their own sin and God’s grace and pronounce peace. The proud, on the other hand, speak of the sins of others and pronounce judgment. In short, where the gospel shows its impact is where we see ourselves. Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner. -- Posted by Ligonier Ministries September 17, 2011
Which means that the ones we ought to be listening to are those who are least likely to tell us what to think, who are most likely to tell us where to look. Those who speak, who write about their own sin, those are the ones who have been given wisdom. Those, on the other hand, who are most quick to point out the sins of others, that is where we need a godly skepticism. Sinners speak of their own sin and God’s grace and pronounce peace. The proud, on the other hand, speak of the sins of others and pronounce judgment. In short, where the gospel shows its impact is where we see ourselves. Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner. -- Posted by Ligonier Ministries September 17, 2011
Monday, September 05, 2011
All Grace
To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. (I Corinthians 12:7)
God is pouring out His grace on us through our church. After receiving a letter from our insurance company Monday, Aug. 29, setting a Sept. 20th deadline for fascia repairs to our home, we were scrambling. This fascia has been dangling for more than two years. Every time we think we will have money to fix it, the money goes for something else we deem a higher priority -- sometimes wisely, sometimes not. Now we were cornered, and with seemingly no way out. In South Florida it's the rare handyman who even shows up to give an estimate within the time frame we were facing.
On Tuesday, Leah and I read this passage in her Stewardship lesson: "In many ways, it is easier knowing that all of your possessions are His. When you live in a rental property and you have a leak in your roof, you just call the landlord and he takes care of it. Someday you may have your own home. Maybe you'll find a leak in the roof. When you remember that your house is really his, call on your heavenly landlord and let Him know he has a problem with His roof. Ask Him how He intends to fix it! It really is a liberating way to live. I confess I have difficulty remembering this concept in every crisis, but when I do, it is comforting to know that the problem is His responsibility." -- Steven P. Demme
And so we prayed about the fascia. I felt silly and irresponsible to pray this way. I felt that the fascia problem was our own fault. And it is.
But I was reminded and humbled again this week: With God, it is all grace.
Instead of a consequence or even a lecture, He poured out His grace.
When I told our friend, who knows how to do these kinds of things, about our deadline, he was over the very next day, measuring fascia. Then the following day, he came back with three other guys -- and four of their sons -- and they ripped down the old wood, ripped it down with evident joy at serving. Today, he was back with three different guys (and one son) to cut and put up the plywood soffit.
They explained this kindness, so overwhelming, by pointing to verses we are studying in I Corinthians in our Sunday School class. They are happy to use the gifts God has given them to strengthen us in the areas in which we are so weak and lacking.
Their grace, their generosity -- it's so big. And yet... how much bigger is the Lord's? My tiny mind is trying to grasp this: How big is God's Grace? I am stunned into silence. All I can say is: Thank you.
God is pouring out His grace on us through our church. After receiving a letter from our insurance company Monday, Aug. 29, setting a Sept. 20th deadline for fascia repairs to our home, we were scrambling. This fascia has been dangling for more than two years. Every time we think we will have money to fix it, the money goes for something else we deem a higher priority -- sometimes wisely, sometimes not. Now we were cornered, and with seemingly no way out. In South Florida it's the rare handyman who even shows up to give an estimate within the time frame we were facing.
On Tuesday, Leah and I read this passage in her Stewardship lesson: "In many ways, it is easier knowing that all of your possessions are His. When you live in a rental property and you have a leak in your roof, you just call the landlord and he takes care of it. Someday you may have your own home. Maybe you'll find a leak in the roof. When you remember that your house is really his, call on your heavenly landlord and let Him know he has a problem with His roof. Ask Him how He intends to fix it! It really is a liberating way to live. I confess I have difficulty remembering this concept in every crisis, but when I do, it is comforting to know that the problem is His responsibility." -- Steven P. Demme
And so we prayed about the fascia. I felt silly and irresponsible to pray this way. I felt that the fascia problem was our own fault. And it is.
But I was reminded and humbled again this week: With God, it is all grace.
Instead of a consequence or even a lecture, He poured out His grace.
When I told our friend, who knows how to do these kinds of things, about our deadline, he was over the very next day, measuring fascia. Then the following day, he came back with three other guys -- and four of their sons -- and they ripped down the old wood, ripped it down with evident joy at serving. Today, he was back with three different guys (and one son) to cut and put up the plywood soffit.
They explained this kindness, so overwhelming, by pointing to verses we are studying in I Corinthians in our Sunday School class. They are happy to use the gifts God has given them to strengthen us in the areas in which we are so weak and lacking.
Their grace, their generosity -- it's so big. And yet... how much bigger is the Lord's? My tiny mind is trying to grasp this: How big is God's Grace? I am stunned into silence. All I can say is: Thank you.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
God's Infinitude
God doesn't extend into space; God contains space. C.S. Lewis said that if you could think of a sheet of paper infinitely extended in all directions, and if you took a pencil and made a line one inch long on it, that would be time. When you started to push your pencil it was the beginning of time, and when you lifted it off the paper it was the end of time. And all around, infinitely extended in all directions, is God. -- A.W. Tozer
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Ann Voskamp: One Thousand Gifts
What in the world, in a world of certain loss, is grace?
And the more of the blessings I name, this theological problem deepens… If I am numbering gift moments to one thousand and now beyond—what moments in my life count as blessings? If I name this moment as gift, grace, what is the next moment? Curse? How do you know how to sift through a day, a life, and rightly read the graces, rightly ascertain the curses?
What is good? What counts as grace? What is the heart of God?
Do I believe in a God who rouses Himself just now and then to spill a bit of benevolence on hemorrhaging humanity? A God who breaks through the carapace of this orb only now and then, surprises us with a spared hand, a reprieve from sickness, a good job and a nice house in the burbs—and then finds Himself again too impotent to deal with all I see as suffering and evil? A God of sporadic, random, splattering goodness—that now and then splatters across a gratitude journal? Somebody tell me:
What are all the other moments? ….
To read His message in moments, I’ll need to read His passion on the page; wear the lens of the Word, to read His writing in the world.
Only the Word is the answer to rightly reading the world, because The Word has nail-scarred hands that cup our face close, wipe away the tears running down, has eyes to look deep into our brimming ache, and whisper, “I know. I know.”
The passion on the page is a Person, and the lens I wear of the Word is not abstract idea but the eyes of the God-Man who came and knows the pain. …
I stand in our bedroom by the window and hold a cue card to the light I’ve had for years, carried around with me. I can hardly now make out the water-splat words of Isaiah 14:24, “Surely, just as I have intended so it has happened, and just as I have planned so it will stand” (NASB). As God plans … so it stands.
I read the faded ink below, and I remember what I felt the day I copied those words, “Does disaster come to a city unless the Lord has planned it?” (Amos 3:6). And I feel it again today and I breathe: A good God plans everything. Everything. So a good God can only … make plans for good? He only gives good gifts? A thing of evil cannot be created by a good God? …
Without God’s Word as a lens, the world warps. …
I awaken to the strange truth — that all new life comes out of the dark places, and hasn’t it always been?
Out of darkness, God spoke forth the teeming life. That wheat round and ripe across all these fields, they swelled as hope embryos in womb of the black earth. Out of the dark, tender life unfurled. Out of my own inner pitch, six human beings emerged, new life, wet and fresh.
All new life labors out of the very bowels of darkness.
That fullest life itself dawns from nothing but Calvary darkness and tomb-cave black into the radiance of Easter morning.
Out of the darkness of the cross, the world transfigures into new life. And there is no other way.
Then … yes: It is dark suffering’s umbilical cord that alone can untether new life.
It is suffering that has the realest possibility to bear down and deliver grace.
And grace that chooses to bear the cross of suffering overcomes that suffering….
My pain, my dark—all the world’s pain, all the world’s dark—it might actually taste sweet to the tongue, be the genesis of new life?
Yes. And emptiness itself can birth the fullness of grace because in the emptiness we have the opportunity to turn to God, the only begetter of grace, and there find all the fullness of joy.
So God transfigures all the world…
I have hacked my life up into grace moments and curse moments. The chopping that has cut myself off from the embracing love of a God who “does not enjoy hurting people or causing them sorrow” (Lamentations 3:33), but labors to birth grief into greater grace. Isn’t this the crux of the gospel? The good news that all those living in the land of shadow of death have been birthed into new life, that the transfiguration of a suffering world has already begun.
That suffering nourishes grace, and pain and joy are arteries of the same heart—and mourning and dancing are but movements in His unfinished symphony of beauty. Can I believe the gospel, that God is patiently transfiguring all the notes of my life into the song of His Son?
What in the world, in all this world, is grace?
I can say it certain now: All is grace.
I see through the woods of the world: God is always good and I am always loved.
God is always good and I am always loved. …
And all is grace — only because all can transfigure.
And the more of the blessings I name, this theological problem deepens… If I am numbering gift moments to one thousand and now beyond—what moments in my life count as blessings? If I name this moment as gift, grace, what is the next moment? Curse? How do you know how to sift through a day, a life, and rightly read the graces, rightly ascertain the curses?
What is good? What counts as grace? What is the heart of God?
Do I believe in a God who rouses Himself just now and then to spill a bit of benevolence on hemorrhaging humanity? A God who breaks through the carapace of this orb only now and then, surprises us with a spared hand, a reprieve from sickness, a good job and a nice house in the burbs—and then finds Himself again too impotent to deal with all I see as suffering and evil? A God of sporadic, random, splattering goodness—that now and then splatters across a gratitude journal? Somebody tell me:
What are all the other moments? ….
To read His message in moments, I’ll need to read His passion on the page; wear the lens of the Word, to read His writing in the world.
Only the Word is the answer to rightly reading the world, because The Word has nail-scarred hands that cup our face close, wipe away the tears running down, has eyes to look deep into our brimming ache, and whisper, “I know. I know.”
The passion on the page is a Person, and the lens I wear of the Word is not abstract idea but the eyes of the God-Man who came and knows the pain. …
I stand in our bedroom by the window and hold a cue card to the light I’ve had for years, carried around with me. I can hardly now make out the water-splat words of Isaiah 14:24, “Surely, just as I have intended so it has happened, and just as I have planned so it will stand” (NASB). As God plans … so it stands.
I read the faded ink below, and I remember what I felt the day I copied those words, “Does disaster come to a city unless the Lord has planned it?” (Amos 3:6). And I feel it again today and I breathe: A good God plans everything. Everything. So a good God can only … make plans for good? He only gives good gifts? A thing of evil cannot be created by a good God? …
Without God’s Word as a lens, the world warps. …
I awaken to the strange truth — that all new life comes out of the dark places, and hasn’t it always been?
Out of darkness, God spoke forth the teeming life. That wheat round and ripe across all these fields, they swelled as hope embryos in womb of the black earth. Out of the dark, tender life unfurled. Out of my own inner pitch, six human beings emerged, new life, wet and fresh.
All new life labors out of the very bowels of darkness.
That fullest life itself dawns from nothing but Calvary darkness and tomb-cave black into the radiance of Easter morning.
Out of the darkness of the cross, the world transfigures into new life. And there is no other way.
Then … yes: It is dark suffering’s umbilical cord that alone can untether new life.
It is suffering that has the realest possibility to bear down and deliver grace.
And grace that chooses to bear the cross of suffering overcomes that suffering….
My pain, my dark—all the world’s pain, all the world’s dark—it might actually taste sweet to the tongue, be the genesis of new life?
Yes. And emptiness itself can birth the fullness of grace because in the emptiness we have the opportunity to turn to God, the only begetter of grace, and there find all the fullness of joy.
So God transfigures all the world…
I have hacked my life up into grace moments and curse moments. The chopping that has cut myself off from the embracing love of a God who “does not enjoy hurting people or causing them sorrow” (Lamentations 3:33), but labors to birth grief into greater grace. Isn’t this the crux of the gospel? The good news that all those living in the land of shadow of death have been birthed into new life, that the transfiguration of a suffering world has already begun.
That suffering nourishes grace, and pain and joy are arteries of the same heart—and mourning and dancing are but movements in His unfinished symphony of beauty. Can I believe the gospel, that God is patiently transfiguring all the notes of my life into the song of His Son?
What in the world, in all this world, is grace?
I can say it certain now: All is grace.
I see through the woods of the world: God is always good and I am always loved.
God is always good and I am always loved. …
And all is grace — only because all can transfigure.
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