A Gospel Perspective on Complaining, Whining, Gossip, Etc.

Part 1 - The Complainer and Jesus - I doubt that I can say it any better than Jonathan Dodson said it on The Resurgence blog.  I'll post parts 2 & 3 as they become available.

Regret

The following article was written by Ed Welch and posted at www.ccef.org

“If Only . . .” Living with Regrets

Ed Welch

It feels so right – so spiritual – to live with regrets. It means you feel bad for the wrong things you have done or think you have done, and that sounds like a good thing. If you forget those wrongs, you are acting like they were no big deal.

How many “if only’s” do you have in your life?

If you have a scrupulous conscience, you lost count long ago. For the rest of us, there are a few basic categories of regrets.

1. Things you did that were especially shameful, which means that they became public and the public did not approve of them. Perhaps you failed in school or work, had legal problems, or did something immoral.
2. Things you did that either purposefully or (more often) unintentionally hurt someone else. Car accidents, sexually transmitted diseases, poor parenting of a wayward child, and recklessness while intoxicated make this list. “If only I had left 5 minutes later I wouldn’t have hit that person.” “If only I hadn’t gone to that party…etc.”
3. Things you think you could have done to avoid a catastrophe. If you have a specific moment when the course of your life took an irreparable turn for the worse, then you will be able to think of dozens of things you could have done differently. Bad marriage? You will review the list of old marital prospects and wonder why you didn’t pursue them. Most anyone who has known someone who committed suicide will be afflicted with regrets. “If only I had just called.” Most women who have been sexually violated ruminate, “If only I . . . (yelled, trusted my instincts that something was wrong, went with my friends).
I knew a woman who was so filled with regrets that the burden of them felt normal. The first “if only’s” registered as weights on her soul, but it’s like wearing ten-pound ankle and wrist weights all the time, after a while you no longer notice them. You feel sluggish and tired all the time, and everyone else seems to be going at a different emotional tempo, but, somehow, that’s normal.
Here is the paradox.

We live with regrets because we think we should. We think it’s the right thing to do—that it is our duty before God. But…

The Kingdom of Heaven is regret-free. The truth is that the triune God liberates us from past regrets. His will is being done. Bank on it. Neither your human limitations nor your sins hinder the good plans of your sovereign Father.

Let’s go one important step further. It is God’s will that you jettison past regrets. They only make you feel unqualified and, therefore, unfruitful.
Now to the line up. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, Jonah, Peter and Paul, to start. They all had good reason to have a bad case of the “if only’s”. King David is the most severe example. His sin with Bathsheba resulted in the death of their son and his conspiracy to cover up the adultery caused the death of her husband. (2 Sam.12) Even worse, his sin of numbering the people led to the death of 70,000 Israelite men (2 Sam. 24). His remorse was great, and his repentance sincere, but you won’t find lingering regret. In its place is doxology to the Lord who freely forgives sins.
Consider Jonah. He was an enigmatic character whose flight from the Lord nearly resulted in the death of an entire crew and did result in his being swallowed by a fish. A belly of a fish is an ideal place for regrets, especially when you know you brought it on yourself – “if only I would have just gone to Nineveh” – but instead it became a holy place where Jonah came to his senses and proclaimed, “Salvation is of the Lord.”
Regrets? What about Paul? He watched approvingly as Stephen was stoned to death. (Acts 7:59-8:1) He zealously hunted down Christians, sent them to prison and approved of it when they were put to death (Acts 26:9-11). Yet, after his conversion, though he clearly disapproves of these acts, he does not dwell on past sins, rather he writes: “But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:13-14) The irony is that Paul isn't even talking about his sins, because he is so confident that his Lord is in control and his sins are completely forgiven. He is talking about the "good" things on his resume.
But, in the post-resurrection era, it is Peter who is our mentor in handling regrets. After all, he knew Jesus from the beginning, and assumed that his egregious sin of denying that on the night of Jesus’ arrest demoted him back to the rank of fisherman. Not that there is anything wrong with fishing, but Jesus had changed Peter’s vocation to fishing for people (Matt.4:19), and, for Peter, regular fishing signaled his own conviction that his sins disqualified him from Kingdom service. Peter assumed that his calling was no longer valid. But breakfast with Jesus and a walk on the beach changed everything. (More on this in the blog, “The World’s Best Epilogue— Ever”).
Try to find a hint of regret or “if only’s” in his two letters. Instead, following King David’s lead, Peter opens with perhaps the most spectacular and eloquent statement of hope in the New Testament, which ends with this exhortation: “Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:13). He is reminding us that life in Christ rests in what Jesus has done and looks forward to what he will do. We are visionaries. We look ahead. We hope. We aim to be drawn by the beauty that is almost within reach rather than be restrained by the regrets of the past.
Hearing anything here? Hope rising? If not, you believe that the Kingdom of Christ is where you pay for past sins, past indiscretions, or just being a human being who isn’t omniscient and omnipresent. You believe that if you store up enough regret and remorse you can finally sneak out of your self-imposed purgatory – though, as you already know, no matter how much you stockpile the stuff you always feel as though you must add a little more. That isnot the Kingdom where Jesus reigns.
Maybe you believe your regrets will be your protective talisman to help make sure you don’t repeat past sins. That makes sense and sounds spiritual, but it’s a false gospel. It is the sweet mercies of God that compel us to fight sin. One way to identify the nefarious nature of regrets is that they do not give mercy the prominent seat at the table. These regrets might be so stubborn that they will only leave through repentance. While you have been repenting of your perceived contribution to past regrets, the real reason to repent is much closer to the present: you are saying, “Lord I don’t believe that you cover my past, though you probably cover the pasts of other people, and I certainly don’t believe that confidence in your goodness and hope for tomorrow is even permissible.” Call it unbelief. If you want to get nasty, call it pride, in which you believe yourself rather than the Lord. Either way, repent.
I have my own regrets—you have yours. God’s mercies are stockpiled even higher.

Why Legalism Is Far More Dangerous Than Licentiousness

The following article was written by Rev. Ken Pierce.

Among religiously conservative people, legalism is the respectable sin. We figure, I fear, that it is far better than license --a necessary corrective to the wanton rebelliousness of our age. Better to be a little scrupulously over-obedient than to dwell in the tents of wickedness with the prostitute and the addict and the tax collector.

Aren't we free to make up rules as we try to work out the thorny issue of obedience?

Admittedly a very difficult issue. Making up rules and expecting others to keep them seem to be evil twins, yet heartfelt obedience is important. How do we keep the Lord's Day without a few rules that govern how we keep it? How do we reign in lust without a few stipulations about what we will allow our daughters to wear, and what entertainment we will watch? No easy answers --it would be legalistic to give them!

Still and all, Jesus has far harsher words for those who are scrupulous about obedience (and, incidentally, often excuse a world of their own disobedience) than he does for the prostitute and the tax collectors, who indeed "go into the kingdom ahead of you." The scrupulous seem inevitably to "treat others with contempt." I know I do.

We make a tragic mistake when we restrict Pharasaism to a strict category, and write ourselves out of it. Our syllogism is simple:

Pharisees believe in justification by works

I believe in justification by faith.

Therefore I am not a Pharisee.

Phew! Glad I got that settled. Not so fast. First, Pharisees weren't (to paraphrase Sinclair Ferguson) Pelagians, they were semi-Pelagians. In plain speech, they didn't believe they were innately free from sin's corrupting influence, who could merit unaided eternal life. Rather, they believed that, with God's help, they could be good people who could lead lives that pleased God --"Lord, I thank thee that I am not as other men are...." They were not sinless, but they were not sinners either. They were good people who sinned. The difference between seeing ones' self as a good person who sins, and a sinner is the difference between winding up in Heaven or in Hell.

Jesus tells his disciples, "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." Christians can have Pharisee leaven in their dough. Peter acted the part in Galatia. I am a Pharisee every day, when I comment to a friend on the life choices of a congregant. I am not saying at all that we should never speak to anyone about their sin. I am saying, however, when I think or talk to another in passing judgment on a third party, I am pretty well convicted of being a Pharisee.

Pharisaism is dangerous. It is far more dangerous than lust or greed. It is dangerous precisely because it masquerades as righteousness, as surely as Satan masquerades as an Angel of Light. It is, however, the farthest thing from actual righteousness. Pharisee righteousness is self-derived --the product of God's work in me. True righteousness is derived only from God, by faith. I have no merit and standing with God based upon my obedience, either before my salvation or after. My only hope is God's patience and grace.

We ought to accord various sins the same weight Jesus did. The greatest church in the world would be the one where: a.) sinners were regularly coming to Christ and b.) alongside CEO's and politicians there were strippers and addicts. It would really be awesome to be the pastor of a church like that. I think I'll ask God and see if he'll make it happen.

Ken Pierce is a Teaching Elder in the Presbyterian Church in America, currently serving as Senior Minister at Trinity Presbyterian Church, Jackson, MS. This article first appeared in his blog The Quiet Protest.

Gospel-Driven Sanctification

For the last several weeks I have been preaching through Galatians and of course it is saturated with the nature of the Gospel.  In fact, the word 'Gospel' is used more times in Galatians than any other New Testament book; the exception being Romans where Paul used the word 'Gospel' the same amount of times as he did in Galatians.  All that to say, you cannot study and preach Galatians without being confronted with the nature and power of God's glorious Gospel.  Yet, one of the things that continues to amaze me is how fully orbed Paul was in his teaching on the Gospel; he didn't merely present the Gospel in terms of justification, he also presented it in terms of sanctification.  For example, in Galatians 3:3 he asked, "Are you so foolish?  Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?"  Paul was saying, "How thick headed can you be?  Why would you ever think that you would be justified by God's free grace and faith alone, yet sanctified through a combination of faith plus works?"  That truth never ceases to stop me in my tracks and smack me across the face.  Our sanctification is just as Gospel-driven as our justification.  

I recently came across an old article written by Jerry Bridges in Modern Reformation magazine.  He begins with these words, "Early in my Christian life I heard someone say, 'The Bible was not given to increase your knowledge but to guide your conduct.'  Later I came to realize that this statement was simplistic at best and erroneous at worst.  The Bible is far more than a rulebook to follow.  It is primarily the message of God's saving grace through Jesus Christ, with everything in Scripture before the cross pointing to God's redemptive work and everything after the cross - including our sanctification - flowing from that work."

Amen, Jerry!  I need those words, those are words of life.

Once Again

So once again I will take on the blogging world.  I think this makes three or four times, but what do they say...fifth times the charm?  It has been proposed by a number of church folks that a blog would be a nice touch, so I will make a noble effort to contribute a few occasional thoughts about one thing or another.  This first entry is simply a way for our webmaster to place some content on our new and improved church website.