Scandalous Mathematics of Grace: Weary

Showing posts with label Weary. Show all posts

Thursday, February 5, 2015

Wounded and Weary Sinners Waiting for Good News that Never Comes

By Jeff Nichols at Liberate:

I usually take a solo camping trip to the North Carolina mountains every Labor Day weekend. Sort of my way to hit the reset button. On one of those outings a couple of years ago, I decided one Sunday morning to head down the Blue Ridge Parkway on my way to a small rural church.

It looked like a postcard from the outside. The parishioners inside warmly greeted this blue jean wearing, scruffy stranger. It was awesome to sit with them in old straight-back wooden pews again and sing “Amazing Grace.”

Then the sermon started. From the beginning the pastor whacked us with the Law. Nothing wrong with God’s Law, it shows us the standard. The standard we can’t meet on our own.

As I waited to hear the resuscitating words of the Gospel, I realized they weren’t going to come.

With increasing intensity and sweat, the message was solely “do more, try harder, get your act together. God is tired of sinners! His patience is wearing out! You’re nowhere close to doing everything you can to please God!”

It was the elder brother from Jesus’ parable of the lost son(s) up on that tiny stage with a message that wayward little brothers and sisters have no right to any feast. No right to a warm greeting from a Father who joyfully runs out to greet sinners and welcome them back home over and over again. We hadn’t earned any of that.

Thundering Law. Not even a whisper of the Gospel.

A scene too often played out in worship services not just in the South, but across the world. In churches large and small.

Wounded and weary sinners waiting for an announcement of good news that never comes.
It turned out he was a guest preacher. The church was looking for someone full-time.

When he finally sat down after kneeling and wiping his brow, one of the elders stood up and said, “Now this is the kind of man we’ve been missing. Someone unafraid to tell us, and it, like it is.”

When it was over, I eased out of the pew, lowered my head and made a beeline to the parking lot, thinking I was the first soul to leave in such haste and wondering why I hadn’t gone for a nice hike instead.

When I looked up, I saw the pastor’s college-aged daughter already ahead of me on the way to their car. I’ll never ever forget the look on her face. The very picture of beaten-down. Not an especially embarrassed or surprised look—she’d obviously heard all this before.

Just weariness. Hopelessness.

I wish to this day I would’ve said something to her, although I have no idea what that would’ve been.

Maybe, on the day before Labor Day, just Jesus’ words from Matthew 11:29-30.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,
for I am gentle and humble in heart,
and you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

Along with maybe the message we had all just sang—some in tears—but never heard spoken back to us. God’s saving promise of “Amazing Grace.”

The sound that revives. The sweetest sound.

Thursday, June 12, 2014

Driving a nice (but not too nice) car.

By Tullian Tchividjian at Liberate Blog:

In 1 John 5:3-4 John makes what seems, on the face of it, to be a ridiculous claim: the commands of God are not burdensome.

What? Has John not read the Old Testament, with its 613 commandments? Was he not there for the Sermon on the Mount, complete with Jesus’ proclamation that his followers are required to be perfect, just as their father in heaven is perfect? As if those laws weren’t burdensome enough, we could add all of the self-imposed Christian commandments, like the kinds of movies we allow ourselves to watch (maybe a swear word or two is okay, but nudity isn’t), the cars we drive (we like nice things as much as the next person, but we don’t want to be showy, do we?), or even the expressions on our faces (we want to be cheerful, to show people what a good life Christ has given us). We are burdened…perhaps more than anyone.

The idea that God’s commandments are not burdensome seems to diametrically oppose our experience: to us, they feel super burdensome.

And yet, we do have Jesus offer of an easy yoke and a lightened burden. He does promise rest. But how does that work? How do the obviously burdensome commandments of life become not burdensome? How is it that Jesus’ yoke is easy when he is the one asking us to be perfect?

The answer, though incredibly profound, is actually quite simple. Though the commandments are indeed burdensome, that burden has been laid on the shoulders of another. Jesus Christ, who demands that we be perfect, achieves perfection in our place. Jesus Christ, the culmination of the Old Testament story, fulfills the Old Testament laws. That same weight that threatens to break our backs actually did crush our savior. The weights that we bear every day are simply aftershocks of our human attempts to save ourselves. The weights we feel are a phantom; they’ve already been taken to the cross, carried up the Via Dolorosa on Christ’s back. We are free. We are, in Christ, unburdened.
This is true today, and every day.

Sunday, March 9, 2014

Inexhaustible Grace

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30 (NIV)

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” Matthew 11:28-30 (The Message)

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Wherever I go and whoever I talk to (regardless of age or season in life) people are exhausted. People are exhausted relationally, emotionally, and spiritually. I’ve never been more convinced that the message of God’s inexhaustible grace is needed.

After talking to the spiritually exhausted people, I discovered that their exhaustion is due, in large part, to what they think they need to be doing in order to gain and maintain God’s love and favor. The root cause of our exhaustion has nothing to do with what goes on outside of us and everything to do with what’s going on inside of us. In other words, we’re not weary and heavy laden simply because we’re busy raising kids, working, maintaining relationships, and so on. The reason we’re so tired is because, through these things, we are trying to save ourselves. We are desperately trying to secure for ourselves meaning and worth – desperately trying to justify ourselves – in and through all of the things we’re so busy doing.

The good news of the gospel announces that everything we need in Christ we already possess, so we no longer have to win, be the best, succeed, raise the perfect kids, and so on, to feel like we matter. This brings huge relief and freedom to our lives and we find ourselves now enjoying our work and our kids and our spouse because we’re no longer relying on these things to “save” us.

In theological terms, most people live their life as if their justification depends on their sanctification: if I do and become all that I must do and become, God will love me and accept me. We need to be reminded that God’s love for sinners like me is not dependent on what we do, but on what Jesus has done for us. We are accepted and approved by God because of Christ’s work, not our work. This message desperately needs to be recovered in the twenty-first-century church. Pastors can lead the charge in making, once again, the Church to be the one place in all of society where the weary and heavy laden can come and find rest—not to-do lists.

--- Tullian Tchividjian

Thursday, March 6, 2014

Finished. Done. Ended. Over.

In Luke 4:18-20, Jesus read His mission statement:
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor" (English Standard Version).
- See more at: http://www.gospelherald.com/articles/50456/20140217/billy-graham-s-grandson-tullian-tchividjian-at-linger-conference-2014-why-christians-are-exhausted.htm#sthash.9Z02IN4W.dpuf

In Luke 4:18-20, Jesus read His mission statement:

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor" (English Standard Version).

"Church is the one place where people who are weary and heavy-laden should be able to come and find rest, so that when they leave they feel lighter that the pressure's off. They're reminded that everything you need, God has done for you in Jesus and given to you. Oftentimes, people don't leave worship services feeling like that. They feel more burdened, because they've been given a to-do list. They've been given a checklist of things they must do if they're gonna be a good Christian, a checklist of things they must do if they want God to really love them and even like them"

"Life doesn't have to be a tireless effort to save ourselves - by striving to be the best, the most beautiful, the most accomplished ... The Gospel of grace announces that Jesus came to satisfy the deep judgment against us, once and for all, so that we could be free from the judgment of God, from the judgment of others - even from the judgment of ourselves."

"Exhausted Christians are looking for something that we already possess in Christ - approval, love, and acceptance."

"You live your life under a banner that reads, 'It is finished."

--- Tullian Tchividjian