Slave of Christ

Paul identifies himself, as he often does in his letters, as a δοῦλος of Jesus Christ.  Most English versions translate this "servant."  Others translate it "bond-servant," or "slave".  The greek word here literally means "slave," but in our context the word slave has extremely bad connotations.  Because of this, modern translators opt to go with a word that keeps the "idea," but isn't distorted by our cultural understanding of slavery.

John MacArthur wrote an entire book on exactly what Paul meant when he used the word δοῦλος, and although I have not read it, I have heard him speak on the subject, and would highly suggest it.


Here's the crux of what I want to say about this concept.  We have such a negative sense of slavery here in America, and rightly so!  No human being should be bought as property by another human being!  But think with me for just a moment about why Paul uses this term.  What can we draw from the first few words of Romans?


Why is it wrong for a human to be the property of another human?  Because all humanity is created equal, right?  There is no superior race, superior breed of humanity, etc.  God created all humanity from one man.  My point here is not to argue the "wrongness" of slavery, but to get you to see what I'm going to say next.


I think that we normally read Paul's introduciton of himself as a slave of Jesus Christ and think something like this..."Ok.  So, Paul is saying that he is acts as a slave of Jesus Christ. He has chosen to totally commit himself to Jesus Christ his master."  I think that this gets at part of Paul's heart, but let's keep probing deeper.


Another reason human slavery is so wrong (disregarding those who choose slavery because of a debt owed or something similar) is that freedom and vitality of life is stripped from the individual who is forced into slavery.  They can no longer do what their heart desires, but are forced to do the will of their master.  Maybe that's how some of you think about yourself as a "slave" of Jesus Christ.  I think it goes even further than that for us.


Think with me about this passage in Ephesians 2.

2 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 

So, unlike the otherwise free African slaves that came to America years ago, we were not free to live as we pleased.  We were not "OK" until God made us His slaves.  In fact, Ephesians says that we were DEAD!  What is a dead person free to do?  You were spiritually dead! Hopeless!

4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. 

God in His what?  His Authority as a Master to get all the slaves He could? NO! His mercy!


Being a slave of God means that He has rescued, redeemed, delivered, and purchased you!  He reached down into your "deadness" and sin and purchased you for Himself.  It's God's grace that you are His slave!  It's not some sort of Divine Master that rules over you with an iron fist relationship, but a love relationship.


Paul's use of the word δοῦλος reminds us that we did not choose to "come under the 'Master-ship' of God" or "decide that God was the best person to work for." No.  It's because of the incomprehensible, majestic mercy of God that reached down and saved you and I from death by purchasing us with the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ.  We have been purchased by the Creator, the King of King, the Sovereign God of the universe and now we serve Him with our lives.

Unlike the slavery we know, in which hope was stripped away from the slaves, our slavery is at the very center of our hope.  God reached down and purchased hope for us through His Son.

Stop believing the lie that God saving you ruined your ability to experience life to the fullest.  Being a slave of God does not limit your freedom, but rather enhances it.

Stop and thank God that in His mercy He saved you.

Proudly accept and "wear" the title "slave of Jesus Christ," for there could be no greater title.

Scott

What We Learn from Ruth

            I studied and taught through the book of Ruth this summer in our college ministry at Grace Baptist Church in Chattanooga, TN.  It was a phenomenal experience for me in both the learning and the teaching aspects!  At the end of my studying, I wrote out a summary of the lessons that I believe God had us to focus on this summer from Ruth.  I hope that they are both encouraging and challenging to you.

What Do We Learn from Ruth?

            Now that we can see not only the individual scenes of the book of Ruth, but now also the book in its entirety, we must ask, “What does the Holy Spirit intend us to learn about God’s character, how He works in our world, and how we should correctly respond to Him?”

            In chapter 1, we learned that God is Sovereign over all events in all of history.  But not only is He Sovereign, He is also good and trustworthy!  In the midst of the most intense pain and greatest loss, God has not turned His back on us.   In the midst of dark, oppressive times, God is still working in our world.  Many times, however, when difficult situations come our way, we become bitter and miss God’s work in our lives – our Bitterness Blinds Us from Seeing God’s Blessings.  Even when we can’t understand what God is doing, even when it seems like God is against us, we must trust His Word and trust His heart.

            In chapter 2, we focused in on Ruth’s journey into Boaz’s field.  She didn’t think long and hard about which field to choose, nor do we sense any kind of pressure.  This was just a daily decision.  But this decision was essential to God’s plan of redemption! Ruth had to end up in Boaz’s field.  Since we can see the entire story and then the larger Story of God’s redemptive work, we get insight into how God interacts and leads His people.  Though we don’t see Ruth struggling with the decision, we do see her coming under the “wings of God” in chapter 1.  She made a decision that the God of Israel was the God that she would serve and love.  Just a few verses later we find her in Boaz’s field.  Ruth was simply doing life “under the wings of God.”  She was going to provide for herself and Naomi, not doing anything “spiritual,” so to speak.  Too often, in our minds, we limit God to the spectacular, the big, the weighty!  But the story of Ruth teaches us that God works in the small, the minute, the daily grind.  We said that the defining moment of our lives may come when we are simply being obedient and “doing life.”  Every conversation, every relationship, every accident is a part of God’s working in our lives.

            In chapter 3, we mainly focused on hope.  Naomi went from hopelessness in chapters 1 & 2 to finally catching just a glimpse of God’s kindness to her when Ruth relays her encounter with Boaz.  Naomi realizes that God is not against her, but is fighting for her.  As soon as she realizes this hope, she begins fighting for others.  

                We too, when we have hope for or in something, take the focus off of ourselves and onto the source of that hope.  This enables us to fight for people rather than ourselves.  The reality is that we have the greatest hope, the ultimate hope of eternal life with the God of the Universe because of what Jesus has done for us on the cross.  However, too often we live our lives as if we do not have hope!  We live to build ourselves up, live to secure earthly hope, earthly security, earthly pleasures for ourselves at the expense of others because we don’t understand the hope that we have.  Jesus secured all that we could ever want or need on the cross.  And His resurrection gives us hope and sends us out into the world.  As we come into a deeper understanding of the hope that we have, we are freed to love unconditionally, serve passionately, and give relentlessly because I am secure.  I don’t have to secure anything else for myself, but fight with God in His plan to spread His love and Glory over the earth.

            In chapter 4, we see Boaz as the redeemer of Ruth.  The whole idea of the kinsman-redeemer is a beautiful picture of Christ!  Ruth was a foreigner, she was hopeless and helpless, and had no way to redeem herself.  All that she had to offer was her broken life.  We see her at Boaz’s feet in chapters 2 & 3, her rightful position in that culture, but also her position of humility.  Boaz is a close relative of the family, he has the wealth needed to redeem her, and he was willing to do just that.  He does all that was necessary to secure for her a hope and a future with him, and takes her as his own to be his bride.  

           Do you see the picture yet?  

           Ephesians 2, as well as other passages, tells us that we were “dead in our trespasses and sins.” We were foreigners, not only non-Israelites, but sinners that God could not justly have anything to do with.  All that we had to offer were the filthy rags of our sin, and our dead hearts.   The only place that we can go is the feet of Jesus, who God sent down to earth to die in our place.  We cannot do anything to earn our way into the family.  In fact, we wouldn’t even know that we needed to be revived unless God’s Spirit had not revealed that to us!  We too were hopeless and helpless.  So, God in His mercy sent Jesus to be our redeemer.  Jesus became “like us” when He took on human flesh.  

          Not only was He human so that He could die in our place, He was fully Deity so that He was able to pay the infinite penalty for the sins of the whole world.  Lastly, and most unbelievable, He was also willing to do all of this for us!  Hebrews 12 tells us that Jesus endured the cross because of “the joy set before Him.”  That joy was glorifying the Father by redeeming a people from every tribe, tongue and nation to worship Him.  Jesus endured the cross to redeem you and me!  We are His beautiful bride; He is our Kinsman-Redeemer! And Boaz in the story of Ruth embodies Christ as the greatest redeemer.

            Every trial, every blessing, every encounter, and every seemingly insignificant decision is part of a much larger, grander plan of God.  God’s work in our world is to bring glory to Jesus, the great redeemer.  The book of Ruth shamelessly points to Jesus in both the concept of the kinsman redeemer and the Offspring of Ruth.  So, Naomi’s heartaches – they were about Jesus.  God leading Ruth into Boaz’s field was about Jesus.  Boaz’s work of redemption was a picture of Jesus’ redemption of all those who would trust in Him including both past, present, and future humanity.  Piper clarifies this in saying, “the blood of Jesus flows forward and backward in history.”  Jesus paid for the sins of Boaz, Ruth, and Naomi, just like He did for you and me.  They were trusting by faith that God would send a redeemer; we trust that He did send that redeemer – Jesus Christ. 

            Just like the lives of Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz were about Jesus, our lives will be to the glory of Jesus.  If we are believers, we will glorify Him by eternally showing and glorying in the work of His grace and mercy, and being ambassadors of His grace to the rest of the world. If we do not trust in the work of Christ, we will glorify Him by proving the justice of His character and wrath against sin.  God desires that all come to repentance, and if you haven’t ever trusted Christ, today is the day for you to do that.  Look and see the beauty of what Christ has done and the beautiful picture of it in the book of Ruth.  Your life, whether you are a believer or not, is not about you.  You are here to serve a much larger, much more significant purpose than to fill a spot on earth for 80 years.  Our lives are about the Kingdom of God.  

             Remember, Ruth teaches us that we can bear the weight of great loss because we know that God is a loving God, working for our good and the Glory of Jesus in every situation.  We can stop living for ourselves because Jesus has secured all that we need on the cross, enabling us to love and serve others rather than ourselves, regardless of our circumstances.  Ruth points us to the Gospel, and the Gospel reminds us that our lives are not our own, we have been bought, like Ruth, with a price.  Therefore, we live to honor Christ, not ourselves.

A Book You Should Read

         Cruciform: Living the Cross-Shaped Life 

        
          I just completed what I think is one of the most simple, yet insightful, books available on the outworking of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our daily lives.  God has been shaping my understanding of the Gospel by both chiseling away at my false suppositions and supplementing my already correct ones, leading to a far greater appreciation of what Jesus accomplished for me.  This book fits perfectly into the Gospel-saturated journey that has been weaved into my path in recent days.  I hope that my thoughts about the book will spur you on to read it for yourself, beginning your journey of not only seeing the cross of Jesus Christ more clearly than ever before, but also sculpting your life into the shape of the cross.

            Cathedrals posses some of the most beautiful, ornate architecture of any structure built in the Middle Ages.  Interestingly, some of the floor plans of these Cathedrals were in the shape of a cross.  The prominence of the cross in the structure of the building served as a constant reminder of the Gospel and its prominence in God’s redemptive plan.

           

            In the same way that the Cathedrals were made into the shape of the cross, so our lives should be lived out in the shape of a cross – “the Cruciform Life.”  You and I strive desperately to be something and do something special because we were made to be and do just that.  We were created to be a part of a community-on-mission with God to exalt and proclaim His glory in all things and to all people.  However, instead of joining in this community-on-mission, we selfishly look inward to how we can best further ourselves. 

            So, imagine the simple shape of a cross.  Picture the intersection point of the horizontal and vertical pieces as a nucleus from which all (now four) of the pieces of the cross originate.  We were designed, in all of our actions, to worship God and exalt His name (the upward section of the cross), and point all people with whom we interact, and all of creation to worship Him as well (both the horizontal pieces and the downward piece). 

          Because we have perverted this model into one in which we only look to serve and love ourselves, God sent Jesus to be the ultimate model of the Cruciform Life while on earth, and then to offer His life as an atoning sacrifice, completely restoring us to the God who created us.  As we look at the example of Jesus, we see two things very clearly: He lived as a Son and loved as a servant.  You have to get this.  We are called to serve people and make God’s glory known among all nations, but we cannot do this without first understand our “son-ship.”  Realizing that because of the cross we have God’s total acceptance and affection, we can have the confidence and satisfaction in our relationship with God to “count all things as loss” and take on the role of a servant.

           

            You see, when I understand that no matter what I do, think, say, or what others do, think, or say to me, I still have God’s total acceptance and affection, I am totally free to lay down my life – I have nothing to lose.  Now I can live my life to show others how they too can experience this kind of freedom.  However, I must continually come back to the cross to be reminded of who God is, who I am, and what Jesus has done for me.  Then I go back into the world with new love and passion to serve others with.  This cyclical life is the Cruciform Life.

            What I love about this book is that it does not leave us with some Theological truth, but meets us where we are daily living, giving practical applications of those Theological truths.  How do we live as sons, and serve people?  Using an ingenious, stick-figure drawing, Davis illustrates how to view our daily lives as “waiting tables.”  We have to have our eyes open to see who is sitting at the “tables” of where we work, eat, workout, and shop.  Each of us has areas of influence, and God has called us to serve and love those in our sphere of influence.  So, now we apply the cyclical process of going to the cross, and then acting out the cross to each of these “tables” that we are serving.

            The great misunderstanding of Christianity today is that I have to “do these things” in order to earn the presence and acceptance of God.  You and I can do absolutely nothing to gain or lose God’s affection and acceptance for us.  Jesus earned that for you and I.  If you are trusting in anything else to earn that for you, you are sadly mistaken.  For example, I do not read my Bible so that God will be accept me, I read my Bible to understand better the fact that He already has accepted me in Jesus, and to hear Him tell me that again.  Davis helps us to understand more clearly this concept through his own personal journey.

            I hope that my words have stimulated in your heart a desire to read this book and see more extensively how YOU can live the Cruciform Life that God created you to live.  The truths of the Gospel combined with Jimmy Davis’ personal experiences are sure to impact your heart and mind, compelling you to begin living the Cruciform Life.  I cannot urge you enough to read this simple, short, Gospel-saturated book. 

You can purchase your copy of the book at Amazon Site or Cruciform Site

Also, if you want to enter to win a free, signed copy of the book, go to http://cruciformlife.org/

You can find Jimmy’s blog at  http://cruciformlife.org/blog.htm  

Scott

Usurping God's Throne

Sorry about the long drought, but life gets busy.  Here are some thoughts that I think will be healthy for you to hear...

I have been reading a book for a Theology class by A.W. Tozer entitled, “The Knowledge of the Holy.”  I would highly suggest this book for all of you who desire to think rightly, and therefore act rightly before the God of the Universe.  I realized as I was reading that my thinking about God directly affects my actions in daily life, and that my thinking concerning God’s nature was severely distorted.  Prepare yourself to be humbled because nobody leaves a time of deep thinking about God in a spirit of arrogance, rather it always leads to humility and worship.

This one quote really grabbed my attention...

“Sin has many manifestations but its essence is one.  A moral being created to worship before the throne of God, sits on the throne of his own selfhood and from that elevated position declares, ‘I AM.’” – A.W. Tozer

What is your reaction to this statement?  Read it again.

Tozer claims that every time you and I choose to sin this is what we say: “God you have no place to rule in my life!  I’m calling the shots! I am hitting the “ejection button” so that you are catapulted off of your throne and now I will run my life.”

How does that sound? Stupid? Arrogant? Like suicide?

Yet we do this multiple times every single day!

I don’t know about you, but I know that I “sugar-coat” my sin.  After all, I look around me and see all those around me doing much “worse” things than I am doing. 

You see, the point is not what “kind” of sin we are committing; it is against WHOM we are committing it.  We have to understand that God, who created us and sustains every minute detail of His creation at this very moment, is an infinite, holy, righteous, self-sufficient Being.  He was perfectly happy in Himself before He created you. 

So when you sin you say to this gracious, majestic God: “Though I am finite, dependent, and have a desperately wicked heart, I will rule my life!”

Is this starting to sink in?  I hope you see how this is absurd on every level!

God’s Commands Are Good

What makes this even more absurd is that He is not asking us to obey Him for no reason.  We don’t obey God’s commands because we do not believe that He is Good.  Let me explain why I believe this to be true.

As Creator, God created the world to function in specific way; therefore He knows how to live life here on earth to its fullest.  The commands that we are given in Scripture are NOT restrictive! We hear this taught and preached constantly, but we still don’t get it.  God is not trying to limit our lives or our pleasure.  Matt Chandler, Lead Pastor of The Village Church, states it this way, “God’s commands align us with how He created the universe to function.”

When God tells us to do sex inside certain guidelines, He is not restricting our pleasure, but teaching us how to experience sex to its fullest – the way He created it to work.  Any other way is a perversion of sex, and is only a partial experience of the fullness of it.

When God tells us to do family roles this way, He is not limiting our freedom (male or female), but instructing us on how we can experience the fullness of joy in our family relationships.

These are just two examples, but the principle can be applied across the board.

The question is, do we believe this?

I think that this is how David could write how much he loves God’s law in Psalm 119; he understood that God gave His commands to show His children how to live in the world that He created.

1 John 5:3 states, “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.” 

Obeying God should not be “burdensome,” but should be joyous as we deny our fleshly desires, obey God’s commands, and therefore align ourselves with how He created the world to work.

The Gospel

Too often we talk about sin without talking about the Savior.  Because of Jesus’ death on the cross, we have access to the Father through repentance and faith in the blood of Jesus.  When we truly repent and believe, Biblically we receive a new heart and new nature that desires to follow after the commands of God. 

However, on the “dirt path” called sanctification, we all choose to usurp the throne like we discussed earlier.  Because the blood of Jesus has forgiven us from all sin, when we realize that we have sinned against God and elevated ourselves rather than God, we can run TO Him because our righteousness is based on what Jesus DID, not what I DO!  Too often when we sin we run away from God instead of running to Him.  This is a sign of Spiritual immaturity, and exposes an incorrect understanding of the Gospel.

Instead of usurping God’s throne, we desire to “promote the honor of God and the good of our fellow men.”  Commit, along with me, to magnify and bring glory to God’s throne and rule in my life rather than constantly ruling my own life.

So in closing, I want you to realize the gravity and disgusting nature of your sin before a Holy God, while remembering that we do not get better by “trying harder” not to sin, but by focusing on the Savior and what He has purchased for us.  That is the glorious Gospel.

I hope this makes sense. I could have developed some of the ideas more fully, but ran out of time, and it was already getting lengthy.  May God bless His words and my humble thoughts.

Scott