One Way To Know If You’re Not Believing the Gospel

Mike Leake

A guy tells a lie in front of many people. Every one knows that he has lied. But when pressed he says, “I said things that were not true”. He cannot bring himself to actually name his sin. This would be like a man busted for having countless affairs say, “I’ve slept with women who are not my wife”.

I lied. I committed adultery. There is no wiggle room in these.

Everybody says things that are not true. I once lost a bet with my wife about how to spell banana. I had an extra “n” in there somewhere. In arguing my point I said many things that were not true. But nobody would call me a liar. Nobody would question my qualifications to pastor and lead people into truth because of this.

But if I truly lied. And I said, “I lied”. There isn’t much wiggling out of there. You don’t get to wonder whether maybe I just had a slip-up, or I was misunderstood. No, I was guilty. I lied. I’m guilty.

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As a pastor I have the opportunity to talk to many people about the issues they are facing in life. My job in caring for their souls is to listen to what they are saying and to discern what is underneath their words. In order to help people grasp the gospel more fully I need to try to find places where there are gaps in their understanding/application of the gospel.

One place I look is in how people speak about their sin. If they are never able to name it I know that the gospel hasn’t gone deep enough. Because we only are able to truly name our sin and own up to our guilt whenever we realize that we are already forgiven in Christ. We haven’t drank deeply of grace when we pretend like we are carrying around fictitious or little sins. It’s as Luther said:

If you are a preacher of grace, then preach a true and not a fictitious grace; if grace is true, you must bear a true and not a fictitious sin. God does not save people who are only fictitious sinners. Be a sinner and sin boldly,  but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly, for he is victorious over sin, death, and the world…No sin will separate us from the Lamb, even though we commit fornication and murder a thousand times a day. Do you think that the purchase price that was paid for the redemption of our sins by so great a Lamb is too small? Pray boldly—you too are a mighty sinner.”

So listen to the way you talk about your sin. If you are trying to dismiss it, to cheapen it, to excuse it, to make it not such a big deal—this is likely because you aren’t truly believing the gospel. This is not to say that you are an unbeliever—it’s just saying that in this regard you are living as one. Apart from Christ all we have to hide behind are the walls of flimsy excuses that we’ve constructed.

In the end all our wordsmithing will topple and we’ll be seen as guilty. Only in Christ can we—as full-blown liars and cheats—stand guiltless. When folks drop the façade, own up to sin, and rest in Christ—I know that they are truly believing the gospel.

That One Thing

Mike Leake 1 Comment

There is a worship song that was popular a few years back called One Thing. It’s a song that I generally like, but I always tease my wife when she is singing it. The song opens by saying, “one thing I ask” and then the chorus goes on to list about five different things. And so I tease my wife by counting on my fingers as she sings through the list.

The bridge does the same thing. “All of life comes down to just one thing…and that’s to know you oh Jesus and to make you known”. So the guy asks five things when he says he’s only asking for one thing and all of life comes down to one thing that is actually two things.

Math.

Actually, I get what the artist is doing in this song. There are times when one thing is actually a bunch of things. This is what John Newton said to Thomas Scott when he told him that he “lacked one thing”; namely, a relationship with Jesus. But Scott didn’t get it and was a bit offended by his suggestion of “one thing”. Perhaps he annoyingly counted, just like I do with my wife. But Newton’s response is, as typical, brilliant:

I limited my expression to one thing, because it is our Lord’s expression, and because that one thing includes many.

Newton understood that all of his work with Scott really came down to one thing. Apart from this one thing happening all of his labor would be in vain. No reasoning would be able to penetrate a stone cold dead heart. Thought it might be the means God used to awaken Scott’s heart. And so on every occasion Newton pressed on this one thing.

The casual reader can pick up that Scott starts to get a bit agitated and frustrated that Newton is only talking about this one thing. Scott sees the issues between them as being multi-faceted. And they are. But Newton understands that until they are looking and embracing the same multi-faceted diamond they really only have one massive difference. One man is regenerate and the other is not.

And this really is where we find ourselves when we are engaging with unbelievers on all sorts of issues. They cannot see the world through the eyes of believers unless they are believers. And to this end they’ll never understand what it is like to have a new heart. And we can “no more describe to those who have not experienced it, than I could describe the taste of a pine-apple to a person who had never seen one.”

Our job is hard but thanks to the Lord it is not impossible. Impossible with us, but absolutely possible with the sovereign Lord. Let us, then, follow Newton in humbly allowing ourselves to be made instruments in the redeemers hands. And as such let us constantly be pressing for that one thing necessary. It is in the Lord’s hands. So let us plead with Him for it and let us labor with the belief that God really does change hearts. He gives that One Thing.

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Photo source: here

Today in Blogworld 06.19.15

Mike Leake

Accidental Inventions

Sorry that this has now become one of those sites where you have to click on the next page to view all eighteen, but I found this interesting.

How to Survive a Moral Revolution

I believe Dr. Mohler has a book coming out on this. In the meantime check this out.

How Younger Preachers Can Help Their Hearers

All of these are valuable. I’ve found #5 particularly helpful. But this is a great list for us young preachers to really consider.

Africa Infested By Health and Wealth Teaching

Yuck.

This is totally my wife when a horsefly is around:

The Underwriter and I

Mike Leake

We were supposed to close on our new home tomorrow. As it stands we won’t be closing until the first week of July. Some silly rule about having to have 30 days of pay stubs to prove employment. Since I just started here, giving thirty days of pay stubs is impossible until the first week in July.

Grrrrr….

I understand the purpose of this regulation. It is a good thing that our banks and those involved in lending do their homework to verify employment and such. That’s a good thing. But there really ought to be alternative forms of documentation. What is happening in our case is that someone is just staring at the letter of a regulation and not considering the spirit of the thing. We could give them about any paper they need as a church that would verify my employment and the fact that it takes an awful lot to fire a pastor in a Baptist church.

For one particular FHA underwriter, thirty days of pay stubs equals thirty days of pay stubs and it cannot equal anything else. That’s what the regulation says and we can’t move on that. But in reality what thirty days of pay stubs ought to be is a means to verify employment and a steady flow of income. If you can do that sans pay stubs then it ought to work. But it’s not because this person is going by the letter of the regulation and not the spirit of the thing.

The Pharisees did the same thing with the Law. For them, do not work on the Sabbath equaled do not work on the Sabbath and it cannot equal anything else. But as Jesus says the Sabbath was made for man—not man for the Sabbath. And so it is foolish to wait until the end of the Sabbath to heal someone. Because Sabbath is a means of continually reminding us that God is in charge and that His Kingdom is coming to bring eternal rest. Healing a paralytic does that just as much as not picking up sticks.

As I reflect on this, I realize that it is not only Pharisees and FHA underwriters that follow the letter of laws and regulations instead of the spirit of the thing. It’s me too. I’ve got an idea in my head of how the world should be. Of how my children should act. Of what other professing believers ought to look like. I’m even a Pharisee with myself. And when they (or I) don’t match up to my letter I respond with my red stamp of disapproval just as fast as an FHA underwriter rejects a loan.

Of course regulations and such are in place for a reason. This is not an attempt to have some loose interpretation of what makes a disciple of Jesus. Nor is this saying that my children shouldn’t have certain expectations to meet. But what it does mean is that we no longer view people only through the letter but we view people through the lens of the Kingdom.

I’ll close with an example. There was a guy who I had the opportunity to lead to Jesus. This guy was rough. Super rough. He said things that’d make you cringe. And he’d do this even after coming to Jesus. But if you knew the guy before he came to Christ you’d celebrate how much the Lord had already done on redeeming his tongue.

If you didn’t know his story and all you heard was one of his slip-ups, then you might dismiss him. You might not go so far as to say “this guy can’t be a Christian” but you would likely assume that you were doing a bit better in sanctification than him. But in actuality what the Lord was doing in this man’s heart and life was phenomenal.

And that’s what I mean. Let us be a people that view others through the Spirit and not through the letter. The letter kills…it gives you a big disapproval stamp. But the Spirit…though often more unconventional than makes u comfortable…gives life.