Chesterbrook Taiwanese Presbyterian Church

A great post by Dane Orlund via thegospelcoalition.org.

“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” –Lam. 3:24

Our tendency in our evangelical universe is to articulate justification by faith alone morally, for the past (conversion) and future (entrance into heaven), without applying the soothing salve of justification emotionally and psychologically, for the present. We embrace Christ for forgiveness of sins but move on to other ideas and strategies when it comes to our emotional life and the daily pressures that do not lie directly in the “moral” realm. This is a great mistake and a recipe for worried, half-hearted Christians, dabbling their toes in an ocean of grace, thinking they’ve hit bottom.

When sinners are justified, however, two (organically linked) liberations wash into their life. The first and more obvious liberation is moral. The second liberation is emotional and psychological.

To be sure, these are two interlocking facets of a single gift. Yet it is easy to embrace the former and neglect the latter, as my own heart has been discovering over the past 22 months (under the tutelage of Martin Luther, Herman Bavinck, G. C. Berkouwer, and Paul Zahl).

The second liberation is more subjective and more slippery. Rescued sinners bring to their new life in Christ a host of latent emotional lifelines onto which their affections have latched—relationships, skills, bank accounts, sexual stimulation, a reputation, a salary, a golf swing, a sense of humor, an education, affection from children, affection from parents. These have provided psychological stability. Often one lifeline in particular is the lifeline of all lifelines. As long as we have this, we know we’re okay.

Transposed onto biblical categories, it is by this that we sought to be “justified.” This provided the security about which our heart of hearts has whispered to us, “If all of life unravels around you, at least you’ll still have _________.” It was a final retreat, a felt lifeline to emotional sanity. Whether familiar with the tune and words or not, every human heart fills in the first stanza of the hymn—“When ____________, it is well with my soul”—with something.

We must continue to clarify in our churches and books and preaching and conferences and blogs how alarmingly easy it is, operationally, to swallow the first liberation without the second. We embrace God’s free forgiveness of sins yet go on funneling our affections and emotions into our old felt securities—what the Bible calls idols. We rest assured of our ultimate destiny; but the internal frenetic scurrying continues in the meantime. The old lifelines lined up in the heart continue to function as psychological nicotine when life’s pressures rise.

This miserable half-liberation manifests itself in any number of ways—seminary students finding their emotional security in academic performance; businessmen finding psychological stability through profits; pastors assuring themselves of the legitimacy of their ministry through congregational favor; mothers undergirding their sense of worth with obedient children; church planters silently validating themselves through growing attendance. Each is a question of securing that elusive sense of “okayness,” of justification. More subtle than deliberate; more sub-conscious than self-conscious; more emotional than moral. But justification nonetheless.

The knife that severs these functional lifelines onto which the heart is latched is the gospel, returned to daily, tenaciously. For Jesus is the one person who ever lived who was, from the womb, “okay.” “Justified.” And on Calvary he allowed himself to be made un-okay, to be condemned, so that you and I can walk into every class, every business deal, every pulpit, every parenting endeavor, every church plant, every anxiety-generating real-life situation, already justified. Not only morally, but emotionally. Not only for the past and the future, but for the present.

Coming off of this past Sunday’s sermon by Steve, I thought this was too good not to pass along.

“. . . knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ.”  1 Peter 1:18-19

Our cultural inheritance is a hankering after things, a gnawing on things, Pascal’s “licking the earth” — technically called materialism.  We were suckled by it, schooled in it, rewarded for it.  It has been beaten into us every day of our lives.  By now, it forms the architecture of our inner beings.  We know it’s futile.  We know it de-personalizes us.  But we have been shaped by it too deeply to be easily freed.

One of the benefits of financial suffering can be that we might go back.  We might rediscover the things of the Spirit.  We might, in deprivation, be surprised at the all-sufficient fullness of Christ.  If this breakthrough happens to enough people, it could mean a new culture — or at least a refreshing new current within the larger flow.

It’s called revival.  It re-personalizes us.  If we need to suffer to get there, Christ is

If you, your family, or growth group would like to raise money to help LL’s campaign, Steve and Mary brought along soup cans that serve as piggy banks. If you’d like one, please let me know.

As your growth group evolves, perhaps you can consider these questions as well. They are some pretty hard hitting questions that cuts through the fluff.

David Powlison, in his book, Seeing with New Eyes (P & R Publishing, 2003) examines human motivation—why we do what we do by listing 35 questions that are practical, theological, psychological, motivational and convicting. (pg. 132-40)

By asking these questions, pastors can discover hidden (and not so hidden) idols in their hearts. I am deeply concerned about the spiritual health of pastors more than ever. We verbalize all of the right things about gospel-centrality and we mentally ascent to worshipping God whole-heartedly. Yet, functionally we bow before the gods of knowledge, achievement, success, creativity and prestige.

Tim Keller said:

“Remember, your career didn’t die for your sins. Neither did your marriage. It’s hard not to slip into idolatry if your marriage is good. But Jesus has to be your King, your Savior. Now you don’t love your wife less. But you love Jesus more. Jesus is the only Savior who can help you when your heart is breaking” (2009 The Gospel Coalition conference).

A pastor’s functional savior can easily be his success—however he defines it. We know something or someone is a savior to us if it gives us worth, value, identity, peace, satisfaction, meaning and fulfillment. Only the gospel can provide this for us. Salvation, satisfaction, significance and pleasure is ultimately only found in Jesus and He will relentlessly pursue us to make that a reality in our hearts.

John Calvin wrote in the Institutes,

“The human heart is a factory of idols…Everyone of us is, from his mother’s womb, expert in inventing idols.”

Examine the following questions and ponder your heart for the existent idols and then crush the idols of our heart before they crush you.

35 X-Ray Questions for the Heart

1. What do you love? Hate?
2. What do you want, desire, crave, lust, and wish for? What desires do you serve and obey?
3. What do you seek, aim for, and pursue?
4. Where do you bank your hopes?
5. What do you fear? What do you not want? What do you tend to worry about?
6. What do you feel like doing?
7. What do you think you need? What are your ‘felt needs’?
8. What are your plans, agendas, strategies, and intentions designed to accomplish?
9. What makes you tick? What sun does your planet revolve around? What do you organize your life around?
10. Where do you find refuge, safety, comfort, escape, pleasure, and security?
11. What or whom do you trust?
12. Whose performance matters? On whose shoulders does the well being of your world rest? Who can make it better, make it work, make it safe, make it successful?
13. Whom must you please? Whose opinion of you counts? From whom do you desire approval and fear rejection? Whose value system do you measure yourself against? In whose eyes are you living? Whose love and approval do you need?
14. Who are your role models? What kind of person do you think you ought to be or want to be?
15. On your deathbed, what would sum up your life as worthwhile? What gives your life meaning?
16. How do you define and weigh success and failure, right or wrong, desirable or undesirable, in any particular situation?
17. What would make you feel rich, secure, prosperous? What must you get to make life sing?
18. What would bring you the greatest pleasure, happiness, and delight? The greatest pain or misery?
19. Whose coming into political power would make everything better?
20. Whose victory or success would make your life happy? How do you define victory and success?
21. What do you see as your rights? What do you feel entitled to?
22. In what situations do you feel pressured or tense? Confident and relaxed? When you are pressured, where do you turn? What do you think about? What are your escapes? What do you escape from?
23. What do you want to get out of life? What payoff do you seek out of the things you do?
24. What do you pray for?
25. What do you think about most often? What preoccupies or obsesses you? In the morning, to what does your mind drift instinctively?
26. What do you talk about? What is important to you? What attitudes do you communicate?
27. How do you spend your time? What are your priorities?
28. What are your characteristic fantasies, either pleasurable or fearful? Daydreams? What do your night dreams revolve around?
29. What are the functional beliefs that control how you interpret your life and determine how you act?
30. What are your idols and false gods? In what do you place your trust, or set your hopes? What do you turn to or seek? Where do you take refuge?
31. How do you live for yourself?
32. How do you live as a slave of the devil?
33. How do you implicitly say, “If only…” (to get what you want, avoid what you don’t want, keep what you have)?
34. What instinctively seems and feels right to you? What are your opinions, the things you feel true?
35. Where do you find your identity? How do you define who you are?