The Ways We're the Same (Or, What Not to Do in an Awkward Social Situation)

A while back I went to a meeting. A woman I had never seen before was standing alone, so I went and introduced myself. After we had chatted a bit, she confessed that she was worried about the meeting, because it was clear that the other women there were “not her type.” She then went on to list the reasons why she was different—and superior—to the other women present.

The problem? Those women were my friends. She didn’t know that, of course. But because one of them was blessed with good looks and a bubbly personality, and another was uncharacteristically preoccupied with her phone—for a very good reason—the woman had made her judgment and pronounced them inferior.

I wish I could say I had words of peace and reconciliation. I wish I could say I looked beyond the woman’s obvious hurt and fear and sought to build a bridge. But no. As soon as someone else started talking to her, I hastily retreated to the alleged bubbleheads across the room. Even worse, I was still distracted when the meeting began. I kept imagining what I could say to make her see how wrong she had been.

It was several hours before I realized that I was just as guilty as she. Yes, she had wrongly judged my friends—but I in turn had wrongly judged her. She didn’t form those opinions in a vacuum. I could have used the time discovering what we had in common, rather than dwelling on the ways I thought she was wrong.

We've All Been Hurt Before

We can all remember a time when we were excluded and rejected. For some the wounds came early on. For others the wounds are fresh. Maybe it’s a mixture of old and new scars, but we all have them. We are all sinners, and we’ve all been sinned against. No one will leave this world without a few bruises.

We All Want to Be Understood

Behind the woman’s insistence that she was different was the desire to be understood. She wanted me to see that her priorities were a conscious choice. They were also more similar to my friends’ choices than she realized, but she didn’t know that. I’m sure she's encountered people who don’t know what to make of her. She wanted me to know that she was basically good with who she was, even if she was sometimes excluded because of it.

We All Are Prideful

The woman’s pride compelled her to judge others. My pride caused me to retreat in hurt and anger—and do a little judging of my own. It caused me to sit and fume rather than reach out.

We All Need Jesus

I have no hope apart from God’s grace. I am also pretty hopeless without him.

Paul was probably the most unlikely person to take the gospel to the Gentiles, but God used him mightily. For one thing, he was willing to be all things to all people.

For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings (1 Corinthians 9:19–23).

And then there’s me, who was unwilling to endure an awkward social situation.

I dropped the ball that day. I’m sure to do it again. I missed a chance to be the hands and feet of Jesus. But in spite of my foibles and mistakes, God still loves me, and his grace covers me.

I like to believe I’m beyond all that high school stuff, but that incident reminded me how quickly I can retreat when things get uncomfortable. I’m not as selfless and fearless as I think I am. I need God’s grace and mercy every second of the day.

Life Between the Lines

One week ago today, family and friends gathered to say goodbye to my grandmother. We celebrated her 92 years of living with laughter and tears. She possessed equal amounts of sass and class, and I was honored to be her granddaughter.

By most standards, my grandparents lived an ordinary life. He was a farmer; she, a homemaker. After his father passed away and an older brother was struck with a debilitating illness, he dropped out of school in the 8th grade to assume the responsibilities of the family farm. They married not long after her high school graduation, and my dad was born a year later. He was stationed in Japan during World War II, leaving his young wife with a toddler, and a newborn. In the years following his return home, two more children were born. Together, they loved the Lord and served His church faithfully. They set an example for their four children, eight grandchildren, and 10 great-grandchildren, as well as our spouses and their small community.  They were the kind of people I aspire to be.

My grandparents never focused on being missional; they helped when they saw someone in need.

They didn't have great theological debates; they read their Bibles and discussed their Sunday School lessons.

They didn't concern themselves with engaging people; they struck up conversations because they enjoyed getting to know others.

They didn't share their private lives in order to appear authentic; they respected and protected each other and their family.

They didn't talk about Biblical manhood and womanhood; he plowed the fields and brought three sons alongside him as soon as they could manage the work, while she kept the home and trained their daughter to do the same.

When either of them used the words radical, relevant, or journey, they certainly weren't talking about their faith.

Even though it's been nearly 15 years since my grandfather died, I haven't forgotten the text his pastor chose for the funeral.  That cold February day, he read 2 Samuel 3:31-39 and shared how his heart was full with David's lament, "Do you not know that a prince and a great man has fallen this day..."  I dare say most, if not all, people who knew my grandfather felt the same.

Last week, the pastor selected 2 Timothy 4:6-8 to remember my grandmother. He shared how she was an encouragement to him, a young pastor, even when she was unable to attend church. They would talk about the Sunday School lesson during his visits, and she exhorted him to remember his calling. Indeed, my grandmother fought the good fight, finished the race, and kept the faith.

My grandparents weren't in full-time ministry. They didn't seek public platforms or look to do "big things for God." They simply lived out each day according to Psalm 16:5-6:

The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup;
you hold my lot.
The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

There is much talk these days about living the extraordinary life. Somewhere along the way we've forgotten that while God is extraordinary, we are extremely ordinary. We've forgotten than when we grumble about our ordinary lives, we grumble against the God who sovereingly placed the lines around us. We've forgotten that what lies between those lines is a gift from the Lord and we are called to be good stewards of it. My grandparents understood this truth, and that is is the greatest legacy they could have left for me.

*****

Every Christian is an ordinary Christian, and every ordinary Christian is a radical Christian. The ordinary Christian is not a complacent, passionless, nominal, or casual Christian. On the contrary, every ordinary Christian person—child, teenager, college student, father, mother, husband, wife, single man, single woman, retired man, and retired woman—every Christian is radical because every Christian is united to Christ by faith and will bear radical, life-giving fruit. - Burk Parsons (source)

Jesus Lived and Died

Peace by the blood of his cross

Have you noticed that the truths in this series of posts on things every Christian woman should know¹ are telling a story? It's a big story—the biggest story ever—the true story of God and his work in the history of his creation. Like all good stories, this true story has a problem that must be solved, and it's only right that a big story has a big problem—the biggest ever—a problem only God can solve.

The Problem of Sin

You probably remember what the problem is. It all started with human sin: We are all alienated from God because of our sin—and the alienation is mutual. Because we are sinful, we are, by nature, "hostile to God" (Romans 8:7; see also Colossians 1:21); and God, by nature, hates our sin.

It's God's side of this two-way alienation that is the focus of this post. (We'll deal with the solution to our side of the alienation problem later.) God's justice requires that he execute judgment against sin. All sinners are rightly condemned to eternal death, or to use other language from scripture, sinners are under "God's wrath," which is his perfectly righteous response to unrighteousness.

Our situation is grim, and there's nothing we can do about it. We can't fix the problem. Thankfully the story doesn't end here (although had God chosen to simply leave all sinners under his wrath, he could could have). Instead of executing justice against all humanity, our merciful God made a plan to save sinners from his own wrath.

The Problem of Mercy

Saving sinners from his just judgment required a plan of action because God can't simply ignore sin. Bruce Ware calls this "the problem of mercy":

[H]ow can a holy, just, and righteous God show mercy . . . to sinners who deserve the judgment that he, as God, is obligated to execute? . . . He cannot pretend they're not guilty. As God, he must exercise justice, and to fail to do so would be to fail to be God!²

In the previous post in this series, we began discussing the Son's role in the solution to the problems of sin and mercy. To save sinful people, it was first necessary for the eternal Son to become a human being. Then the Son had to live a human life and die a human death. And this is exactly what Jesus, who was (and is) true eternal Son and true man, did.

His Saving Death

Christians call the work Jesus did in both his life and death to earn salvation for his people the atonement. The New Testament presents the work of atonement Jesus accomplished when he died on the cross for sinners in several ways: It was sacrifice, redemption, reconciliation, and more. These word pictures are different ways to see this one complex work of God. Here, I've chosen to look through the lens of reconciliation, but you can use the resources listed below to learn more about other ways to view the atoning work of Jesus.

Reconciliation

In Jesus's work of reconciliation, God took the initiative to make peace with sinners. Because of human sin, God and humankind are, in a sense, at war with each other. God sent his Son to reconcile these two estranged parties, God himself on one side and sinners on the other. Christ came to make "peace by the blood of his cross" (Colossians 1:20).

Christ's blood brings peace by shielding sinners from God's righteous response to their unrighteousness. His death accomplished reconciliation by turning away, or propitiating, God's wrath toward sin, so that God can be for sinners rather than against them.

Penal Substitution

The death of Jesus propitiates God's wrath because it is a penal substitution. In his death, Jesus represented his people, enduring the penalty of death that is the just expression of God's wrath against their sin. He stood in their place and bore God's wrath on their behalf. In Christ, God did not count his people's sins against them, but counted them to the sinless Christ instead (2 Corinthians 5:19-21). On the cross, Jesus substituted for us and our sins were counted as his so that he could endure the penalty for our sin in our place. This is where the term penal substitution came from: penal for penalty, and substitution for in our place.

That Jesus endured the wrath of God against our sin on our behalf is the reason we can be pardoned. Or to put it another way, propitiation through penal substitution is the basis for our forgiveness. You might say that Jesus, in his death, earns our forgiveness.

His Saving Life

And there's more. God's plan for the Son's role in our salvation included not only his representative death, but also his representative life. Jesus earned our forgiveness by his death and he earned a record of perfect obedience for us by his life. A forgiven sinner has a righteousness "not [their] own . . . but . . . which comes through faith in Christ" (Philippians 3:9). Believers have a positive moral record achieved by Jesus in his perfectly obedient life lived on their behalf.

Jesus's death takes away the wrath of God that our sin brought upon us, and his perfectly obedient life earns eternal life for us. This two-sided work of God—forgiving our sin based on Christ's substitutionary death, and declaring us righteous based on Christ's obedient life—is called justification.

There is much more to be said about Jesus's saving life and death. They are the centerpiece of God's plan for his creation, the heart of the gospel, the sinner's only hope, and the subject of the song of the redeemed throughout eternity:

And they sang a new song, saying, 

“Worthy are you . . .
for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation . . . .

“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
and honor and glory and blessing!” (Revelation 5:9, 12)

And here I am, trying to package it in a blog post!

Learn More

Here are a few ways to learn more about the saving work of Jesus.

1. Study Romans 3:23-26, 2 Corinthians 5:18-21; Colossians 2:13-15, Hebrews 2:14-18, and Hebrews 9 and 10.
2. Read up on the atonement or the work of Christ in your favorite systematic theology. It's in chapter 27 of Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine. And online from Berkhof'sSystematic Theology: The Cause and Necessity of the Atonement; The Nature of the Atonement; The Purpose and Extent of the Atonement.
3. Read The Atonement: Its Meaning and Significance by Leon Morris, The Cross of Christ by John Stott or Redemption Accomplished and Applied by John Murray, especially the section on the accomplishment of redemption. Or any of the book recommended in this post.
4. Listen to the teaching series The Atonement of Jesus by R. C. Sproul.

[1] See below for a list of previous posts.
[2] Bruce Ware, Big Truths for Young Hearts, page 128.

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This post is the latest in a series of posts on truths every Christian woman should know. Here are the previous posts:

1. God Has Spoken (posted at the True Woman Blog)
2. God Is Three and God Is One
3. God Is Who He Is
4. God Had a Plan
5. God Created the Universe
6. We Are Made in God's Image
7. We Are All Sinners
8. God Saves
9. The Son Came

A Closed Door

A while back, I attempted something, but the proverbial door was shut. I don’t mean it closed with a gentle click. I mean it slammed so hard the walls rattled. It’s purported that in times like this God opens windows, but they appear to be painted shut.

As I reflected on it, a phrase from days gone by came to mind. Did I “get ahead of God”?

To be fair, some people use that phrase to communicate biblical ideas. They simply mean we act out of fear rather than faith (Romans 14:23b), in a futile attempt to somehow manipulate God. But for me, that phrase carries a lot of baggage that is best left behind.

Thanks to some of the false teachers who clog Christian radio, I heard a lot of bad teaching as a young adult. And a lot of those teachers talked a lot about discerning God’s will. They said I was supposed to be looking for signs and impressions. Not about sin (which is always wrong), but about morally neutral things. God had a plan, and I needed to figure it out, otherwise I would apparently be outside his will. Something as simple as failing to discern where one should go on vacation could apparently set off a myriad of missed connections, and God would be wringing his hands, thinking of all the good things he had in store for me that I missed, all because I misread the signs.

This is dangerous thinking. Just like the prosperity preacher who claims God rewards good deeds with wealth, this idea implies that God rewards good “sign reading” with easy circumstances. Did you go to the beach when God wanted you to go to the mountains? Well then, expect to be rained on every day and sprain your ankle on your way back to the condo.

The Bible teaches otherwise. John 9:1–3, Genesis 37–50, and the book of Job (not to mention the cross) all indicate that God is working even when things look quite grim from here.

I appreciate John MacArthur’s booklet Found: God’s Will  [1]. God’s will is actually simple. He wants us to be saved, Spirit-filled, sanctified, submissive, and suffering [2]. Yes, that’s right, suffering. That doesn’t mean you’re more holy if you never break a smile. But in a world hostile to the message of the gospel (1Corinthians 1:18), we will face opposition (1 Peter 3:13–18).

But if you're doing all these things? If you're saved, following God, and submissive to those placed over you?

If those five elements of God’s will are operating in your life, who is running your wants? God is! The psalmist said, “Delight yourself in the LORD; and He will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4). God does not say He will fulfill all the desires there! If you are living a godly life, He will give you the right desires. [3]

It’s good to ask God for the things we think we need, but we need to remember that what he eventually gives us is what we need. I tried something, but it didn’t work out. It was not sinful—it was a good thing. And for now, the door is closed. If it never comes to pass, it won’t be because I got in the way of God’s plans. He just has a different plan for me.

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[1] Another book that covers similar ground is Just Do Something: A Liberating Approach to Finding God’s Will by Kevin DeYoung.

[2] John MacArthur, Found: God’s Will (Colorado Springs, CO: David C Cook), 68.

[3] Ibid, 68.

Dead Poets Society, carpe diem, and the story of my life

When I was in college, and for several years after, my favorite movie was Dead Poets Society. The story of John Keating and his students inspired me; carpe diem became my mantra. I was impassioned. I was determined. I was going to live a life that counted.

However, I was also clueless.

I wonder now, these 25 years later, if the 20 year old me with all her bright eyed idealism had been given a snapshot of her life as it would be at 45, what would she think? Would she consider her life lived to the fullest? If she saw herself on a hot day in July, for example, running errands and doing laundry and sweeping up dog hair, would she trust that she had indeed seized the day and lived a life thus far that counted?

I like to think she would, you know, being that I am that 45 year old me of which we speak. I mean, being a mom is the most important job I can do, right? And I volunteer at the crisis pregnancy center one day a week and we do good work, important work, kingdom work. And I teach women’s Bible study which certainly is not a waste of time or potential, is it? This is a full life I lead, an important life, a life that counts, right?

Sometimes I am not so sure.

I recently read Death by Living by N.D. Wilson. As I read I thought often of my younger self and her infatuation with Dead Poets Society and its invitation to carpe diem. In Death by Living, Wilson offers a similar plea to make the most of this life as we only live once then we die. Throughout the book he intertwines the stories of the lives of his grandparents and the story of his own life, who they were affecting who he is. Who will you be, he asks the reader. What story will your life tell?

As I ponder Wilson’s questions I feel much as I felt as that twenty year old sitting in the darkened theater all those years ago: inspired but clueless. What does it mean for me, for my life, to live with death as my reality? How do I make this life count? This life, here, today, this normal, white bread, middle class, ordinary, nay, even boring, life. Is there more? Is this enough? What will be the story of my life?

My pastor recently preached from Matthew 10:24-30. He too encouraged us to live a life that counted, a life free from fear. Trust in the sovereignty of God, he exhorted us, He sees the sparrows and we are of more value than they! What are we preserving our lives for? Why not pour it all out in glad risk for our Savior who loves us?

Again I wondered what this means for me and my life. Are the only courageous Christians serving as missionaries in the Middle East or dying as martyrs in the Sudan? Can a stay at home soccer mom seize the day and live boldly, daring to give all for her Savior?

I think yes and I don’t say so just because I am that stay at home soccer mom asking the questions. Sure, the Lord calls some of us to sell all and go. Maybe He is calling you to do just that. Or me.

But I think He also calls some of us to the radical and risky place of living like Jesus is real in the midst of a culture that has no need of Him what with its materialism and consumerism, its wealth and affluence, its arrogant intellectualism and laissez-faire tolerance. Here He calls us to boldly proclaim that there is something, Someone, infinitely better than, say, football or a new pair of shoes. Dare we? Dare I?

The post in its original draft ended here but I can’t help a postscript. Some of you know my friend died this week. From the moment of her diagnosis a mere four months ago she and her husband determined to humbly accept whatever the Lord granted. Even in her suffering she boldly proclaimed the true life, the better life, that is found in Christ. This audacious belief framed the story of her too-short life: Jesus is real, Jesus her only hope.

My friend knew something better, Someone better, awaited her beyond this life and she trusted Him with her life and in her death. And the life she now lives, she lives whole and full and free for all eternity with the One who loved her and saved her, to the praise of His glorious grace.

This is the life that counts.

Jesus is real. Jesus is better. Carpe diem. Sola Deo gloria.