Election / Free-Will: An Answer

Note: I said AN answer. Not THE answer. Not THE PERFECT answer. Not THE BEST answer. Maybe just the best answer I can give. 

It is coming up in the sermon Sunday on Colossians 3:12-17, so I thought I could use the blog as a sort of appendix to discuss the topic.

I get roped into the conversa… ok, debate, all the time. The big question concerning how a saved person came to Christ in the first place. Do we pick God, or did God pick us? The answer is: yes.

For the record, I don’t consider myself a Calvinist. Or an Armenian. Or a Reformed Dispensational Covenant… guy. I am just a follower of Christ. Some people love to wax eloquently about these frameworks some men built around theology. I just don’t care. And I don’t mean that in a mean way. I just literally don’t care. I don’t think about it. I don’t read books about it. And I have never doodled John Calvin’s name on the front of my notebook.

I care about the message of the Bible and presenting it to people that know the Lord and people who don’t. Sometimes the Bible says God chose us. Sometimes it says we are to choose to follow Him. I simply want to preach the message of each passage, and let the Word of God speak for itself. Let the text be the message, let the message reflect the text. Do the homework, yes. Cross reference, yes. Scripture interprets Scripture, yes. Preach theological constructs from men, no. (The real danger in these is going to the extreme on either side, but that is a discussion for another time).

And at the end of the day, whether you are a Calvinist or Armenian, what difference does it make? It doesn’t change anything. I am to love God with all of my heart / soul / mind / strength and my neighbor as myself either way. I am to worship, to witness, and to pray either way.

My preacher friends are aghast that I am not a Calvinist, in the same way my wife would be if I wore skinny jeans. But I want you to think of the guy who comes to church because his life is a wreck. He needs to know the beautiful simplicity of the Gospel, Jesus revealed in His Word. His death and resurrection. The Holy Spirit indwelling those who believe. I have no interest in introducing him to all this Calvinism / Armenian stuff. Just pursue God, man! Get in the Word and on your knees and revel in the fact that the Holy Sovereign Eternal God loves you and became a man and forgave your sin and gave you eternal life. Then go love people and share that message. "Then what?" Do it again!

The Bible teaches God chose us and we chose Him. At the same time. This makes no sense to us because from the day we were born, we have always ever known 2 things: time and space. We can’t fathom a reality outside of those. But God is not bound by time or space. So whether it is the “who chose who” debate, or the Trinity, or “repentance: a command (Acts 17:30) or something granted by God (2 Timothy 2:25)?”, and many other issues, sometimes we can’t just systematically explain things into a neat and tidy little outline.

These things all make sense to an infinite God. Don’t be shocked that man can’t figure these things out. He is God and we are… not. Is it okay with you that there are things about God that we just don’t understand? Deuteronomy 29:29 says God has some things we don’t know, but He made sure to give us what he wants us to know in His Word.

If using these labels of identification help you, that’s cool, and you are still my brother / sister. Nothing said here was meant to be intentionally offensive, but to share my heart about these things because I am often asked about my position on them. 

So if I have to pick a label, I’ll just go with “clueless but joyful”.

Leave a comment below. I know you want to respond somehow. And we can handle a lively discussion, right?

p.s. - does not wear skinny jeans, for the record

Thoughts from the Elephant Room...

I knew early this week I wanted to make some comments about the Elephant Room the day after the event took place. So here I sit, trying to figure out how to recap wisdom accumulated over lifetimes... and do it in a couple paragraphs. 

It wasn't just food for thought, it was a buffet. I was surprised, however, that the conversations never got really heated. At first, I was a little disappointed, but then I was convicted for being disappointed that there wasn't a degree of discord. 

But taking one giant step back and looking at the whole event, here is the real lesson: we need to talk with people, get to know people, before we judge people. 

Most of what I knew about TD Jakes came from what I heard about him. But to actually hear him speak... honestly, he probably dished out the most heavy-hitting wisdom of anyone at the Elephant Room 2! He affirmed belief in Scripture as the inerrant, inspired Word of God, the Deity of Jesus Christ, and the atonement that comes only through Christ's finished work on the cross. My opinion radically changed about him. All because I got to actually hear from him. Shame on me that I formed an opinion beforehand. 

Real lesson #2: let's think well of people serving the Lord in the first place and not assume anything until we have heard from them. Why is it so easy to disregard those whose methods, scope, and delivery are a little different than ours? 

I am not talking about doctrine. We need to be as serious about the truth as the Lord is. But what I am talking about is throwing every ministry under the bus unless it isn't exactly like ours. Which is perfect. Because I never make any mistakes. Everyone should be just like me. Give me a break. 

Real lesson #3 - someone at the ER said "People tend to act like their leader." I hope, for my sake, that is true. James MacDonald took some heat for holding this event. That blows my mind. The whole premise of the event is to sit down and have honest conversation with those who differ in theology and methodology. Why in the world is that a bad thing?! I don't get it. But despite the heat, James went ahead with the event. For that I applaud him and stand behind him. 

If you missed it, DVDs will be available for sale at Walk in the Word in the not-too-distant future. Get them. And get on board with seeing the body of Christ as a bigger place than my little part of it. 

p.s. - "It is easier to be a critic than a pastor." God help me!

A PS from James MacDonald...

I read this and wanted to re-post it here, because it tied in perfectly to what the sermon was about last Sunday. In the Our Journey devotional, Pastor James has been talking about change, and wrong ways to go about it. Read on! (And if you missed the sermon from last Sunday, listen to it from our sermons links: "Anti-Bullying Campaign".)

One of the persistent faulty plans for change among Christians is the idea of change by the rules. Change by unbending, merciless, military following of orders. Picture the drill sergeant barking out orders right in the face of the recruit. Well that’s the way a lot of churches are. This is the kind of church I grew up in: change by the power of the rules. This is not a new problem for the church of Jesus Christ—it shows up already among Christians in the New Testament.

Change by rules means strict adherence to a list of some kind. Keep the list and you will change. And don’t overlook the importance of making sure others are keeping the list too. Life becomes a daily nightmare of tracking rules and desperately trying to compensate or cover-up for the rules we’ve broken. That’s Christianity? A bunch of rules? Really!?!

I’m a Christian. I don’t do these five things. You know, the Filthy Five, the Dirty Dozen. Whatever they are; it depends on how fired up your church was. But there’s a list. Rules! Rules! Rules!  The problem with that, as Romans 6-8 makes abundantly clear is that it reduces God’s work of life-change to a heart-hardening, mind-numbing, soul-stifling not-so-merry-go-round of effort and disappointment.

Read again the passage above from Romans 7 and note how the rules inflame your desire to sin. Legalism just makes you want to sin. Sin has power; rules have no power. Rules bring sin to the surface.  I don’t want us to be a church like that. God hasn’t offered us a life like that! Some of us need to get off the rule-keeping treadmill and leave it behind. Otherwise, we will never change!

Nuff said!

p.s. - not certain who Nuff is, but he gets credited with a lot

God Keeps Teaching Me About This, and I Hope Someday Soon I'll Learn...

I want to circle back and say one more thing about expectations. I know, you are thinking, “Dude, move on, you blogged about that, like, 5 weeks in a row recently.” I know. But this is a forum where I can share where God is working on me. And this has been a big one for me. I don’t even think I got it down perfectly, because the Lord is still graciously teaching me.

When the Apostle Paul wrote the letter to the Philippians, he was in a jail cell. A jail cell, as in: a prison cell, as in incarcerated, confined, chained, the big house… as in no freedom, restricted, locked away from society at large. Why am I belaboring the point…? Because when you read Philippians, Paul seems so unbelievably joyful and content! You would think he wrote it from Disney World, but he wrote it from a jail cell (did I mention that?).

So where is the joy? It certainly wasn’t from his circumstances… but neither was it from wrong expectations. We often get depressed, frustrated, or angry because we have unbiblical expectations.

• If only my spouse were a better…
   
• My kids had better be…
   
• My job HAS to start getting better…
   
• My doctor better say…
   
• I should be seeing a better financial situation this year…

When we start laying out un-biblical expectations, we will lose our joy in a hurry. If there is something I had to learn in 2011, and am still learning in 2012, it was to not get my hopes up in my own expectations. Too often I did, and too often I became depressed, frustrated, AND angry. Things I was expecting to happen, didn’t. And things I was almost certain would not happen, did. And the Lord reminded me who is really in control here.

Did Paul have any expectations? He could have said, "I expect to get out of jail, I expect one of the churches to bail me out or break me out, I expect the Lord to rescue me..." He didn't have any of those expectations, really he had just one: it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. (Philippians 1:20)

I want to honor Christ. In my life, by my death. That’s really all I should be looking towards.

That’s one thing that Paul is saying in this verse. We are not going to meet the Lord and say, “I wasted my life on You?! I gave my years on earth to telling people about You?!”

And I will not be ashamed. I will not look back on my life and say “Jesus disappointed me.” I will not look back on my ministry and say, “Jesus wasn’t enough.”

My expectation is that I will cross over to death and rejoice at this glorious truth: Jesus is worthy. Of everything I had, everything I did, every heartache, every trial. Every day that this was all uphill… He is more than worthy. And I will not be ashamed.

That is my expectation. Too much of this life disappoints. Jesus will not.

p.s. - I promise this is the last time I talk about expectations (until the next time)