GOSPEL FREEDOM
IN A WORLD OF NO ACCOUNTABILITY
We live in a culture where attitudes and behavior are increasingly shaped by political correctness. If we don’t conform we are marginalized. It is an outcome of society’s rejection of God.
The Greek philosopher Protagoras and the modern-day Carl Sagan both insist there is no God. We are alone in a vast universe. It’s a scary yet exciting idea. It offers us a freedom to think and do what we want, for there is no final accountability.
So, someone wanting a million dollars will decide to rip off a bank, a company, the government – without getting caught. Still others, experiencing an unwanted pregnancy see termination to be the solution. Others, finding themselves in a marriage that is coming apart, view divorce as the only option. Because there is no external moral order, we can shape our lives as we want.
GOSPEL FREEDOM
Centuries ago when there was the same desire for ‘freedom’, Jesus said: “I have not come to abolish the law and the commandments, but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17).
Matthew uses the word ‘fulfill’ in the first four chapters of his gospel to make it plain that Jesus fulfills a range of Old Testament prophecies. In chapter 1 an angel points out to Joseph that everything about Jesus’ birth was to ‘fulfill what the Lord had spoken through the prophet’. The same idea is echoed in the following chapters.
Jesus was saying that everything in the Old Testament points to him. He was not working against the law and the prophets. Rather he was bringing them to fruition. Far from being abolished by him, they find their continuity in the way they are worked out in him.
Imagine that all the law and the prophets are like light waves. They are traveling towards the same focal point – Jesus. Having reached the focal point, the light waves are now filtered: some come to an end; others are given a new shape; still others continue on just as they were.
So, the specific laws concerning sacrifice for sin are now perfectly fulfilled. Jesus’ death was the one, perfect and sufficient sacrifice for human sin. The legal principle of the need for a sacrifice for sin continues, but there is now no longer any need for further sacrifices for sin.
WHAT IS EXPECTED
Furthermore, the specific laws concerning our relationship with God and with one another – the Ten Commandments – also find their fulfillment in Jesus. However, the requirements of those laws continue. For Jesus, in setting out the commands of the kingdom, gives us insight into the meaning and practice of the Ten Commandments. He expects us to live them out.
So we read in 5:19: “Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” What we might call ‘gospel freedom’, is not the license to do as we want, but the liberty to do as we ought – defined by Jesus.
Jesus has become the lens through which we view the Old Testament. What he teaches about the law has now become the requirement of the kingdom. He is God’s king instructing us how to live. His teaching includes all that he has been saying about our mind-set and behavior in the Beatitudes. It includes what he has yet to say about murder, about adultery, about love, about prayer and possessions, about self-righteousness and hypocrisy.
Jesus gives us clear instruction as to how the law, which will not pass away, is to be understood and applied. His words are not a sentimental do-goodism. He is forthright, clear and punchy! The standards of goodness he expects of those who want to follow him are high.
We won’t reach God’s standards in this life. However, Jesus expects us by his grace and through the power of his resurrection, to work towards them. He wants the expectation of the new heaven and the new earth which he holds out to us, to be shaping our lives now.
POLITICAL OUTSIDER
POLITICAL OUTSIDER
In a thought provoking op-ed article in The New York Times (October 27, 2015), David Brooks asks what ‘A Sensible Version of Donald Trump’ might ‘sound like’. He asks the question because Donald Trump, like Dr. Ben Carson, has not come out of the typical party-political ranks, but has caught the attention of a not insignificant number of people because he is a political ‘outsider’.
David Brooks paints an idealized portrait of what a president who is ‘some former general or business leader with impeccable outsider status but also a steady temperament, deep knowledge and good sense’ might do. While there is applause for the Brooks op-ed article, responses indicate it could never happen.
JESUS THE ‘OUTSIDER’
My purpose in touching on David Brooks’ piece, is not to engage in political discussion, but to discuss what another ‘outsider’ in history taught and did. I am speaking of Jesus of Nazareth and the legacy he left his people and the world.
With the opening words of his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus knew he could be accused of changing the meaning of the law of Moses and developing a ‘new speak’ concerning the commandments of God. Indeed, those nice sounding Beatitudes (Blessings) seemed to be setting out very new ways of expressing our relationship with God and with one another. In the eyes of the religious establishment he was in every way ‘an outsider’.
COUNTER-CULTURE
Consider what Jesus says to anyone who would follow him. He expects our lives to undergo radical changes, counter to the values and practices of the culture. Instead of thinking we can contribute to our relationship with God, we need to feel our poverty before his awesome holiness. Instead of being indifferent towards unbelievers, we need to feel the pain for a world that mocks the very idea of God. Instead of engaging in the power play and plotting of the world to achieve our goals, we should walk the tougher path of humility and service.
Furthermore, Jesus calls on us to ‘hunger and thirst for righteousness’, to ‘show mercy’, ‘pursue purity’, and to ‘work for peace’. Knowing that life won’t always be easy for his followers, Jesus urges us to stay firm in our faith and persevere. ‘It will be worth every bit of it’, he says. ‘And understand this,’ he continues, ‘You are the salt of the earth’ and ‘the light of the world’ (Matthew 5:1-16).
TRUE EVANGELICALS
In the 16th century Reformation, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer and those around him were part of a movement rediscovering the unique authority of the Bible and its clarity concerning Jesus’ teaching, life, death and resurrection. The changes they initiated re-formed what had been a de-formed church and had an outcome for good in the church and the wider society.
Historians today refer to Cranmer and those around him as ‘evangelicals’. They were men and women of faith who were committed to the priority of the ministry of God’s gospel and growing God’s people in their walk with him.
At the end of the 18th century and at the beginning of the 19th, William Wilberforce and Ashley Cooper, the Earl of Shaftesbury, initiated anti-slavery laws in England, and facilitated education programs and better conditions for the poor.
The starting point for all of them was a healthy awareness of a good and merciful God, and a personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Today, the voice of the most significant ‘outsider’ in history is scorned if not simply dismissed.
Here then is our challenge. We need to encourage one another to bring God’s truth back into the conversation. We need to equip one another to answer questions people ask about the present woes and the larger issues of life. I have found the Book of Ecclesiastes is a helpful starting point to do this.
Let me urge you to take to heart Jesus’ Beatitudes. Own afresh his words that we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. We can’t do this in our own strength. We need to pray for his mercy and courage to live out our calling. More than ever our world needs to hear of God’s extraordinary love and compassion. The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few. Pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers… (Luke 10:2).
SHINE
SHINE
In an op-ed article in yesterday’s New York Times, David Brooks wrote of the way that ‘great powers’ have allowed ‘the global order to fray’ because of the loss of conviction and meaning.
He concludes by asserting the primary problem is mental and spiritual. Some leader has to be able to digest the lessons of the past 15 years and offer a revised charismatic and persuasive sense of America’s mission. This mission… would be… more realistic about depravity and the way barbarism can spread.
Increasingly I find people around us are looking for answers. Indeed over coffee or at dinner party the conversation often turns to concerns about the future and where the world is going. We need to consider ways we might respond.
LET YOUR LIGHT SHINE
It’s important we keep Jesus’s words before us: “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).
What we often overlook is that the world into which Jesus Christ spoke these words was a time of one of the most powerful and ruthless dictatorships – the Roman Empire. Most people had no vote and there was no such thing as free speech. Say a word against the emperor and you could be jailed.
In his Letter to the Philippians Paul the Apostle applies Jesus’ words when he writes: Do all things without murmuring and arguing, so that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine like stars in the world (2:14f).
Shine like stars. God wants us to shine like heavenly bodies in a crooked and corrupt world, a world of darkness and despair. But, Paul notes, ‘as stars in the world’ or, to use Jesus’ words, as ‘the light of the world’, we face a danger: As we stand together and work out our salvation (Philippians 2:12), we will encounter difficulties, hardships and frustrations. The sacrifices we have to make in dealing with people around us will lead us, in tough times, to grumble, to complain, to be bitter, and even to fight amongst ourselves.
You may know the lines: ‘To dwell above with saints we love, oh yes, that will be glory. To dwell below with saints we know, well that’s another story.’
Grumbling and complaining will make us blemished. The blazing witness of our lives and our church will dim or even be extinguished. Paul is saying that where the people of Israel failed, you ought to succeed for God is at work in you enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. This is a new feature of the new covenant. God’s Spirit is at work in us.
LIGHT OF THE WORLD
We are to shine as the stars of the sky, not in our own strength but in the strength of God himself. As heavenly lights, God’s people in Philippi and we today, are to shine in the world – a world that is crooked and twisted because it’s a world that is in darkness and despair, without ‘conviction’ and without ‘meaning’, because it rejects its God.
When people come to know we are Christian they will observe us. They want to know whether we are genuine, whether what we profess is changing us for the better – making us someone they might respect. For deep within many hearts is a cry for help.
We often forget a significant line in the Book of Ecclesiastes 3:11 – God has put eternity into the mind of men and women, yet they cannot find out what he has done from the beginning to the end. God has given everyone a sense that life doesn’t end at the grave.
It’s a point I find that can be readily introduced into a conversation: ‘There’s more to life than what we have now’. And most agree. This in turn often opens up an opportunity to speak about God in a way that Paul did in his address to the Athenian intelligentsia (Acts 17:22-31). It’s worth working at this, for God has invited us to partner with him in revealing himself to the world.
Through the light of our lives others will be drawn to find out who we are and what makes us a dependable and joy-filled people whatever the circumstance of life. If we have taken Jesus’ Beatitudes to heart, and by his grace are living them out, others will notice. In turn, through the words of our lips people around us will come to hear God’s gospel, enabling them to glorify God on the final day. All of us have a part to play for we are called to be the light of the world.
LIGHT
LIGHT OF GOD’S TRUTH
Up until the 1970s there was an agreed morality in the West, grounded in the Judaeo-Christian ethic. As I indicated last week, this was the foundation for what developed, from the time of Alfred the Great, as the ‘Common Law’ of England and Great Britain. This was also influential in the development of laws in the United States, Canada and Australia.
At the heart of the ‘Common Law’ there was also something else. Monarchs, presidents and prime ministers, as well as justices of the courts of law, understood that they were accountable to a higher authority, the perfect lawmaker, God himself. Not that any of this made everyone Christian. But in bringing the light of God’s truth to bear it encouraged people to sort out their relationship with God.
AGE OF RELATIVITY
Now all has changed. Few leaders in government or in society today would challenge the prevailing assumption that there is no morally binding objective authority or truth above the individual. Today words such as true and false, right and wrong, good and bad, have lost their objective meaning. Everything is relative. We are in a world without compass bearings.
There is at least one person who is at odds with these ideas: Jesus Christ. Today we turn to a second command he lays on his followers: “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house…” (Matthew 5:14f).
‘Light’ is a metaphor for truth. Because we live in an age of relativism and tolerance we easily lose the impact of this imagery. We don’t see the moral darkness of life around us, let alone in our own lives. Part of the problem is the prevailing ethos that there are no absolutes.
Into our world which reckons it has the answers, Jesus says to anyone who follows him: “You are the light of the world…” Two ideas stand behind his words. The first is Isaiah 9 where the prophet speaks of the people walking in darkness and seeing a great light. On those living in a land where the shadow of death falls, a light has dawned. A child will be born. He will be called “Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.”
JESUS IS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD
Isaiah was foreshadowing the birth of God’s King. Jesus is the light our world desperately needs. We may treat him as a cute little baby at Christmas, nod our heads sagely when the words of Isaiah are read, but ignore him for the rest of our lives. Yet Jesus doesn’t remain silent. He calls upon those who would follow him to be as a light to the world.
Jesus’ reference to light picks up another promise from Isaiah: Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you (Isaiah 60:1). This theme is taken up in John 1:14 – And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son,* full of grace and truth. God has come to us in Jesus Christ.
During the course of his public life, thousands were drawn to him. Following his death and resurrection millions upon millions continue to come to him, worshipping him as the Lord and Savior of the world. People everywhere have come to see him as the light of the world.
WALKING IN THE LIGHT
‘How then can we be the light of the world?’ we ask. The context of Jesus’ words gives us the clue: “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven…” (Matthew 5:16).
‘Everything you are, everything you do,’ Jesus is saying to us, ‘must reflect all that I have taught you’ (the Beatitudes, for example). ‘Live your life as I command and others will be drawn to hear God’s gospel. It won’t happen otherwise.’ It’s an awesome thought. We’re all involved. No-one who calls themselves a Christian is exempt. All of us are commanded to reflect the light of Christ in our lives to the world.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer commented: ‘Flight into the invisible is a denial of the call. A community of Jesus which seeks to hide itself has ceased to follow him.’
