Matt and Nancy Heerema

After I saw this YouTube video today, I was thinking about my own experience of how seeing my sin more clearly has made me see the gospel in a completely different light. Dr. Piper says it so well:

I would say that I’ve been a Christian since about age 6, when I “asked Jesus to come into my heart.” Since then, I would have said I had a pretty good understanding of Jesus’ work on the cross, dying to pay for our sin. And for the most part, I was a fairly good kid: keeping my nose out of trouble, and generally doing what was expected of me. However, when I would hear songs like “The Wonderful Cross” and “Jesus Paid It All” and I would think, “Good grief…I haven’t done anything all THAT bad…” and part of me would just feel really uncomfortable.

A situation about two and a half years ago changed that. A set of circumstances made me see clearly, I think probably for the first time, how ugly my sin is to God. Without really realizing it, I had come to really, really like how people responded to me when I did the right/good/noble/expected things and ended up valuing that over God’s opinion. And in turn, I figured that God would probably be fairly impressed by that, too. Over and over the Bible talks about how God isn’t impressed by the things that people are, but that God sees past it and looks at the heart. I realized how awful my seemingly good works looked to God: things that I did to look good to people that were often motivated by jealousy, pride, or selfishness. Suddenly, I realized I wasn’t looking so hot in God’s eyes. Here’s this girl trying to be all religious when inside her heart is just ugly. In the Bible, Jesus uses religious people quite frequently to show how their hearts were in the wrong place and how they really liked the respect that their position got them. And that was me!

All of a sudden, I realized that need for that blood. I was really dirty. I am still so amazed that God hasn’t just zapped me out of existence…considering all of the junk that has been (and is) in my heart and mind. But, he loved me enough to not only not zap me out of existence, but to pay for all of the ugly things that I have (and still will) done.

There’s a children’s Bible that I love (The Jesus Storybook Bible) that puts it so simply: “All Naaman needed was nothing. It was the one thing Naaman didn’t have.” I was trying to please God and please people by doing, by having it all together. But all we need is the understanding that we don’t and can’t have it all together…that all our attempts at being good and perfect will fail. That’s why we need Jesus’ blood from the cross, the perfect sacrifice to pay for our sins.

Why I love Matt Chandler. (From a message this morning to Southern Seminary.)

“My plea to young ministers, over and over and over again, is a plea for holiness! To be holy men of God! If we had time I’d love to take you over to 1st John 1 where he says there are two ways to deal with sin. One is to make confession and repentance a continual ethic, and the other is for you to be a liar!

To pretend that you are holier than you are, to pretend that you are godlier than you are, to buy into the pressure to wear a cape and let it flutter in front of your people, instead of continually confessing and repenting of the wickedness that is in your heart right now and if you are not aware of it then you have not done the hard work of letting scripture read your soul, you have not done a good job of slowing things down, breathing, and coming face to face with your own depravity.

What happens to pastors is that they spend their time, so much of their time, with immature believers that they begin to see themselves as some sort of spiritual superman. This is a problem. This is a problem.”

I need to sit on this and ponder for awhile. And then deal with myself.

I have had the book Desiring God by John Piper on my shelf for 6 years. I bought it for Nancy as a birthday gift 10 years ago when I barely knew Christ. It seemed like the thing to do at the time. I have picked it up to read it about three times over the last decade and never got very far.

This last week ChristianAudio announced that they were giving away the audiobook for free for the month of November. Get it get it get it! You can also read it online for free.

I have just finished listening to it. Oh my is it a gold mine. This particular piece nailed me to the floor. From chapter 7.

What about the Lake Home?

So what does a pastor say to his people concerning the purchase and ownership of two homes in a world where 2,000 people starve to death every day and mission agencies cannot penetrate more unreached peoples for lack of funds ? First, he may quote Amos 3: 15-”I will smite the winter house and the summer house; and the houses of ivory shall perish; and the great houses shall come to an end.” Then he may read Luke 3:11, “He who has two coats, let him share with him who has none.”

Then he might tell about the family in St. Petersburg, Florida, who caught a vision for the housing needs of the poor. They sold their second home in Ohio and used the funds to build houses for several families in Immokalee, Florida.

Then he will ask, Is it wrong to own a second home that sits empty part of the year? And he will answer, Maybe and maybe not. He will not make it easy by creating a law. Laws can be obeyed under constraint with no change of heart; prophets want new hearts for God, not just new real estate arrangements. He will empathize with their uncertainty and share his own struggle to discover the way of love. He will not presume to have a simple answer to every lifestyle question.

But he will help them decide. He will say, “Does your house signify or encourage a level of luxury enjoyed in heedless unconcern of the needs of others? Or is it a simple, oft-used retreat for needed rest and prayer and meditation that sends people back to the city with a passion to deny themselves for the evangelization of the unreached and the pursuit of justice?”

He will leave the arrow lodged in their conscience and challenge them to seek a lifestyle in sync with the teaching and life of the Lord Jesus.

In Brad’s sermon on Hebrews 1:1-4 this last Sunday at Stonebrook Church, he started off by reading Revelation 20:11-15, in order to help us understand God as a sovereign judge, which is probably the closest thing we in America experience in terms of absolute authority.

Reading this text blew my mind and sent me on a tangent that lasted for most of the sermon. I’d like to share with you some thoughts I’ve had after stewing on this for several days now.

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I read a good chunk of 1 Cor this AM. This is what hit me hardest.

1 Corinthians 15:1-11 (emphasis mine)

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.
Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.

Many many things stick out about these eleven verses and I could rave about a lot of them. What hit me this morning was this: After fourteen chapters of intense instruction to the Corinthians about deep and mysterious things… he comes back and reminds them AS OF FIRST IMPORTANCE of the foundation. What they need to know most is not all the mysteries about tongues, spiritual gifts, etc, but of the HISTORICAL FACT OF THE GOSPEL.

The personal realization of this historical fact drives Paul to WORK HARDER than anyone. But he does so in full view that he himself is not the source of the real work, nor does he need to somehow muster up the power or the will to do this work. Rather, it is the GRACE OF GOD THAT IS WITH HIM that is doing the work.

This reality is amazingly emboldening, confidence instilling, and peace giving.