John 10:28 - I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand.

There is an all-important distinction Christians must make between horizontal consequences of sin and vertical condemnation for sin.

When a Christian friend falls into sin, lots of people confuse these two categories, which results in two basic responses. Some people question their friend's salvation: "How could anybody really be a Christian and do something like that?" Others say, "Just let it go. After all, nobody is perfect. Don't we believe in grace and forgiveness?"

The first group needs to be reminded that God's love for us and acceptance of us does not in any way depend on what we do or don't do but rather on what Jesus has done. Who we are before God is firmly anchored in Jesus' accomplishment, not ours.

The second group needs to be reminded that consequences on the ground of life are real. Real people make real mistakes that require real action to be taken. So for instance, we can talk bad about our boss without sacrificing one ounce of God's acceptance, because before God, our sin has been atoned for, our guilt has been removed (Isaiah 6:7). But we might still lose our job. We can make the mistake of driving one hundred miles per hour without losing a bit of God's love for us, because nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. But we might still lose our license.

When we confuse consequences with condemnation and vice versa, we don't know how to make sense of things when our brother or sister makes a big mistake.

The truth is that when we are in the throes of consequences for foolish things we do, our only hope is to remember that "there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1). In fact, the kind of suffering that comes from the consequences of sin is like a brushfire that burns away every thread of hope we have in ourselves and leaves only the thread of divine grace - a thread that will never break no matter how foolish we may be.

Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,

 

Psalm 51:14 - Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, you who are God my Savior, and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.

David Gelb's 2011 documentary,Jiro Dreams of Sushi, is an interesting illustration of law and grace. Jiro Ono, the film's subject, is a master sushi chef whose restaurant is, according to a food critic interviewed in the film, the most expensive restaurant in the world.

Jiro relentlessly pursues the perfect piece of sushi. He has a routine and follows it religiously every day, even so far as to board the commuter train from the same point on the platform. However, this pursuit is offset by his knowledge that actual perfection will remain out of his reach. He acknowledges that just when you think you know everything, something happens to remind you how much more there is to know and how much more work needs to be done.

This is quite reminiscent of God's law and its demand for perfection, which is always beyond our reach. Ironically, and graciously, it is in our acknowledgment of our failure to live up to the law, whether it be the law of perfect sushi or perfect righteousness, that we can actually find true freedom.

Jiro's son Yoshikazu remains at Jiro's restaurant as a sous chef despite being fifty years old, because in Japan it is expected that the elder son will stay with the father and take over his position. Yoshikazu, of course, is in the unenviable position of following in a master's footsteps. One of Jiro's former apprentices notes that when Jiro does retire, even if Yoshikazu's sushi is the equal of his father's, it will be seen as inferior and that it will only be seen as equal if it is, in fact, twice as good. Again we come up against the face of the unyielding law. There is literally nothing Yoshikazu can do to fulfill the expectation that is placed on him.

In a happy postscript, it seems as though Yoshikazu may have gotten his miracle: it turns out that every time the Michelin inspectors ate at Jiro's restaurant in the first year, it was Yoshikazu who made their sushi. There is a gospel note in this "mistaken identity," if we have the eyes to see it, because when our heavenly Father makes His judgment on the quality of our righteousness, He judges us by the work of His Son. By grace, Christ's righteousness becomes our justification, and I'm now regarded not simply "just-as-if-I'd" never sinned, but "just-as-if-I'd" always obeyed!

Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,

 

Colossians 2:12 - having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

Paul spoke of our "having been buried with Christ in baptism," in which we "were also raised with Him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead". Our old identity - the things that previously "made us" - has been put to death. Our new identity is "in Christ." We've been raised with Christ to walk "in newness of life" - no longer needing to depend on the "old things" to make us who we are.

Out of some very real incidents in mid-twentieth-century history comes the story that is now modern lore. Many years after the end of World War II, it was discovered that a lone Japanese soldier still occupied a Pacific island, harassing and attacking anyone who ever approached. He was considered a wild man, a crazy hermit of sorts but very dangerous. This fellow had never heard that the war was over, that his side had surrendered. Thus, he lived according to the old reality. He wasn't enjoying the peace coming from his side's defeat. He kept soldiering on, still warring according to his old identity.

Similarly, too many Christians continue living as if the death of sin is ultimately up to them. Or just as sadly, they continue on in sinful patterns of living, not realizing that they are living according to their old nature, not their new. This is why when Paul confronted Peter about his hypocrisy, he said that Peter was "not in step with the truth of the gospel" (Galatians 2:14).  Peter was living as if the "old things" were still in effect and the new things had not come.

If you're a Christian, here's the good news: you're free! Now you can spend your life giving up your place for others instead of guarding it from others, because your identity is in Christ, not your place.

Now you can spend your life going to the back instead of getting to the front, because your identity is in Christ, not your position.

Now you can spend your life giving, not taking, because your identity is in Christ, not your possessions.

All this is our new identity - all because of Christ's finished work declared to us in the gospel.

Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,

 

1 Peter 4:12-13 - Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.

The apostle Peter probably would not have made a good pastor. One could just imagine him sitting in his office, feet up on his desk, when distraught parishioners keep coming in. "Peter! My husband is leaving me!" "My kid won't return my phone calls!" "My mother is in the hospital!" "I got laid off!" Peter probably wouldn't even take his feet off the desk. "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place. Nothing strange is happening to you. Rejoice! You are sharing Christ's sufferings!"

Now this seems to be the worst kind of response to someone in pain. "Suffering? Relax! It's no surprise ... actually, you should be happy!" As insensitive as this sounds, don't let yourself think that Peter isn't following the example of God Himself.

Consider the crucifixion. When Jesus told the disciples that He was going to be arrested, tried, convicted, and executed. Peter said, "Never!" And Jesus' response was, "Get behind me, Satan." Remember, God works sub contrario - "under the opposite" - of where we think He will be. He worked in the crucifixion to save us. He worked in Peter's abandonment and deniel to restore him, and He works in our struggles and in our hurt to give us joy.

Jesus told His followers that in this life they will have struggles. "But," He said "take heart! I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). He didn't say that things would get better, although we wish He would (and sometimes things do). He simply said that He has overcome the world.

We suffer, but we never suffer alone. Jesus said that He came for the sick. The healthy have no need of Him. We never suffer alone. And our suffering, stinging though it may be, not only has an end, its end has already been assured. "The God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ assured. "The God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ ... will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast" (1 Peter 5:10).

You never suffer alone!

--Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,

 

Philippians 3:8 - What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ

A man was standing at the gate of heaven waiting to be admitted. To the man's utter shock, Peter said, "You have to have earned a thousand points to be admitted to heaven. What have you done to earn your points?"

"I've never heard that before," said the man, "but I think I'll do all right. I was raised in a Christian home and have always been a part of the church. I have Sunday school attendance pins that go down to the floor. I went to a Christian college and graduate school and have probably led hundreds of people to Christ. I'm now an elder in my church and am quite supportive of what the people of God do. I have three children, two boys and a girl. My older boy is a pastor and the younger is a staff person with a ministry to the poor. My daughter and her husband are missionaries. I have always tithed and am now giving well over 30 percent of my income to God's work. I'm a bank executive and work with the poor in our city trying to get low-income mortgages."

"How am I doing so far?" he asked Peter.

"That's one point," Peter said. "What else have you done?"

Good Lord," the man said in frustration. "Have mercy!"

"That's it!" Peter said. "Welcome home."

If heaven came down to earning points, we'd all be excluded. In fact, the place where this illustration really breaks down is that Peter gives the man any points at all. If points can be earned, then grace has no value at all. But if points are impossible to earn 0 and anyone who has ever tried knows that they are - then grace is imbued with surpassing value.

The law shows are failure to earn points, and grace - in the gospel of Christ - gives us all the points in the world, for free.

Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,

1 John 5:3-4 - In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.

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?

And as if those laws weren't burdensome enough, we could add all of the self-imposed Christian commandments. 

The idea that God's commandments are not burdensome seems diametrically opposed to our experience: they certainly feel 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 is it that Jesus' yoke is easy when He is the One asking us to be perfect?

The answer is as simple as it is profound. Though the commandments are indeed burdensome, the burden has been laid on the shoulders of another. Jesus Christ achieves perfection in our place. Jesus Christ, the culmination of the Old Testament expectation, fulfill 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.

-Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,

Acts 1:8 - But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

When Peter Pan tells the Darling children they can go with him to Neverland, they ask how to get there. He tells them that they'll fly. When they try and fail, Peter is puzzled. "This won't do," Peter murmurs. "What's the matter with you? All it takes is faith and trust." I could almost hear the frustrated preacher behind those words. "What's the matter with you, congregation of mine? Why aren't you doing good Christian thing A or good Christian thing B? All it takes is faith and trust!"

Most pastors, and for that matter, Christians in general, have too high a view of Human ability. We are left wondering what's wrong when we try to do something and fail. We wonder why our minds drift to the same selfish or impure places day after day, despite our efforts to control them. We wonder why our relationships seem to falter when we've tried so hard to make them work.

But Peter Pan is forgetting something: "Oh! And something I forgot ... dust! A little bit of pixie dust." And so, with the magic ingredient introduced into the situation, flight is possible. Sure it helps to set your mind on "the happiest things," but the pixie dust is the key. It's the fuel that makes the flight go.

In the same way, it is the Holy Spirit that makes our Christian lives possible. But unlike Tinkerbells's dust, we can't grab the Holy Spirit and shake a little out. No, it's better than that. The Holy Spirit is promised as power to us, but He is not fairy dust or a magic potion. He is God! He is the third person of the all-powerful triune God indwelling us, instructing us, and empowering us.

It's the Spirit that allows for flight, not the quality of our "faith and trust." Someone once said that as our opinion of human ability goes up, our reliance on Jesus goes down. Let's always remember that. A high view of ourselves gives us a low view of Jesus. But it's a low view of ourselves and what we can actually do that promotes a high view of Jesus and what He has done for us. Only the eye-opening power of the Holy Spirit can grant us this kind of gospel sanity and cause us to fly into the freedom that Jesus paid so dearly to secure for wingless people like us.
Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,