Paul Tripp describes a typical Christian:

Jason could explain to you what it meant to say that he had been “saved by grace,” and he knew that he was going to spend eternity with his Savior. His problem was in the here and now. Day after day, in situation after situation and relationship after relationship, Jason didn’t carry with him a vibrant and practical sense of the nowism of the grace of Jesus Christ.

Yes, Jason believed in life after death, but he desperately needed to understand life before death; the kind of radical life you will live when you understand what Christ has given you for the life he has called you to right here, right now.

Tripp offers four things the gospel radically changes right now:

1. Grace will decimate what you think of you, while it gives you a security of identity you’ve never had.
   Grace will expose your sin, but it will not leave you without identity. Grace had liberated Jason, but he didn’t know it or live like it. He had not only been forgiven and empowered, but he had been given a brand new identity. Jason had been freed from looking inward for his identity. No longer did he have to measure his potential by his track record or the size of the problems he was facing.
2. Grace will expose your deepest sins of heart, while it covers every failure with the blood of Jesus.
   No longer did Jason have to work to excuse, deny, rationalize, or minimize his sin. No longer did he have to exercise his inner lawyer when someone pointed out a wrong. Because of the cross of Jesus, Jason could admit his weakness and failure before a holy God and be utterly unafraid. And if a holy God had accepted him as he was, why would Jason fear the opinion of others?
3. Grace will make you face how weak you are, while it blesses you with power beyond your ability to calculate.
   Grace does require you to admit how weak you are, but it doesn’t leave you there. The cross not only dealt with the guilt of sin, but with the inability if sin as well. In this broken world of regular difficulty and constant temptation, Jason did feel weak and unprepared, so he lived more out of fear and avoidance than with hope and courage.
4. Grace will take control out of your hands, while it blesses you with the care of One who plan is unshakable and perfect in every way.
   Jason had some kind of distant belief in the sovereignty of God, but it was almost completely separate from his everyday experience. He lived like he had no idea that Jesus was ruling over all things for his sake (Ephesians 1:20-23). So Jason was constantly dealing with the frustration of trying to control people and things which he had little power to control.

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According to Paul, we have a duty to defer to the weak. Why? They’re right, even though they’re wrong!

Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother. I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean. (v. 13-14)

He’s saying that Jesus has made all things clean and good, but until he brings a new Christian to that realization, there are things like alcohol that will still be unclean to them because of the association these things still have in their minds to their formerly sinful lifestyles.

In that case, our love will outweigh our liberty. Good liberty can become bad when it’s flaunted and hurts the weak. That’s why Paul says this:

If your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died. (v. 15)

It is possible to destroy a new believer through the unloving liberty we unthinkingly pursue. That’s Paul’s theme for the next few verses:

• The kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. (v. 17)
• Let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding. (v. 19)
• Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats. (v. 20)
• It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble. (v. 21)

He’s simply asking us to keep things in perspective! The kingdom of God is infinitely more important than food and drink. In eternal terms, how important is it that you drink a glass of wine just because you can? How much more important is fostering righteousness, peace, and joy?

When Paul talks about the “work of God” in verse 20, he’s probably referring to the church. Are you really ready to destroy the precious fellowship of the family of God… just for a beer? No? Then Paul has a very practical suggestion:

The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves. (v. 22)

He’s saying that there’s a difference between private and public behavior. If you don’t want to be judged for what you approve by others who don’t, then don’t go around church loudly proclaiming your love for PF Chang’s Peach Mojitos. Don’t bring a case of Heineken to the church potluck.

But say you’ve taken pains to avoid drinking in front of others (or advertising your views to others) who might be hurt by it. A Christian who doesn’t drink hears that you do. He confronts you on it, saying that no Christian should drink alcohol. Then, Paul says that everything changes:

Do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil. (v. 16)

D.A. Carson echoes this thought in The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World:

If I’m called to preach the gospel among a lot of people who are cultural teetotallers, I’ll give up alcohol for the sake of the gospel. But if they start saying, “You cannot be a Christian and drink alcohol,” I’ll reply, “Pass the port” or “I’ll think I’ll have a glass of Beaujolais with my meal.” (via)

Paul’s overall point? Your conscience is a sacred thing, given to you by God. God is conforming each one of us to the image of Christ, and we are all at different points in a process that looks radically different for different people. As Paul says, “Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind” (v. 5).

But our own convictions on things that are not explicitly condemned in the Bible can never be imposed on others. Out of love, “let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.” (v. 19).

In Sunday’s sermon, we heard Peter tell us that we need to sober up (1 Peter 1:13). In my view, he’s speaking about the temptation to get spiritually drunk on the things of this world, and also the temptation to get literally drunk on alcohol and other substances. I got a few questions about how Christians should approach alcohol, so this week we’ll explore biblical texts that will help us avoid the unbiblical extremes many people take on this issue, usually in response to their past experiences.

The Effects of the Past

Some people grew up in homes where alcohol abuse was just a normal part of everyday life. They came home and didn’t know whether dad would just be drunk, or angry drunk. Or they themselves were the substance abusers, putting themselves and their families through years of pain. Now that they have been freed by Christ from the effects of alcohol abuse, they fully abstain from drinking and expect all other true Christians to do the same.

Others grew up in homes where they never saw alcohol once. It was a tool of the devil, like cigarettes and school dances and Disney movies. They were led to feel shame just for passing by the alcohol aisle at the supermarket. Now that they have been freed by Christ from legalism, they love to flaunt their new-found liberty, mentioning in casual conversation as often as possible how much they love a good Kona Fire Rock Pale Ale or a Black & Tan with Newcastle.

I was blessed to grow up in a home where alcohol wasn’t a big issue one way or another. My parents never drank, but they also never vilified those who did. This grace-centered upbringing made it possible for me to get all the way through high school without drinking a single sip of alcohol. Then I made it through college with only two sips of beer under my belt. I never drank an entire beer until I was a few years into youth ministry. There’s nothing that’ll drive you to the bottle like fifty teenagers! But still to this day, I’ve never been intoxicated.

A Gift from God

I base my moderate use of alcohol on the consistent biblical view of alcohol as a gift from God. Psalm 104 says that God gives “plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth, and wine to gladden the heart of man.” Jesus’ first miracle was to turn water into “the best wine” (John 2:10), and seeing that the banquet-master in Cana assumed the guests would be drunk by the end of the feast, it does not make sense that wine in biblical times was watered down to the consistency of grape juice, as some claim.

When Moses was giving the Israelites the last commands of God before they entered the promised land, one commandment was to take a tenth of their grain to Jerusalem once a year to offer it to God. But if they lived too far from Jerusalem, then God wanted them to sell their grain for money, and do this:

“Spend the money for whatever you desire–oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves. And you shall eat there before the LORD your God and rejoice, you and your household. And you shall not neglect the Levite who is within your towns, for he has no portion or inheritance with you.” (Deut. 14:26-27)

In other words, “Take your offering money, and instead of putting it in the offering box, take your family out to Morton’s Steakhouse, and order up as an explicit act of worship. Make sure you order a few bottles of the best wine on the menu. Oh, and if there’s a Levite priest around, take him along too. Because he can’t afford Morton’s, and we all know about priests and their wine, right?”

The Danger of Pride

There are some Christians who have very good reasons for abstaining from alcohol (as we’ll explore in later posts). But for many, it is simply an issue of pride. They feel holy and righteous because they are able to deny themselves the pleasures that so many other people seem so powerless to avoid.

Paul wrote to the Colossians about this issue:

If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations— “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. (Colossians 2:20-23)

We might seem holy and wise if we deprive ourselves of every single pleasure on earth, but Paul says that by depriving yourself of things that aren’t necessarily bad, you’re just stoking the flame of your pride. Anytime you set up an extrabiblical system of rules and regulations to try to follow, you’re going to end up in one of two places… either with pride because you follow these rules and other people don’t, or with false humility because you can’t do it.

Everyone has their own list of rules that define what it means to follow God. For some people, it may mean keeping yourself pure by avoiding alcohol. For others, it may mean living simply by never buying a new car. For other people, it might mean never watching an R-rated movie.

The irony Paul highlights in this passage is that when you try to starve your fleshly nature, you’re actually feeding your fleshly nature. It’s like drinking salt-water. The more you drink, the thirstier you get!

Wine is a gift of God that is given for our enjoyment. But as with all gifts of God, it’s possible for us to turn it into an idol that leads us away from God. More on that in the next post.

“Jesus Came to Save Sinners” contains five original songs that teach children about the character and nature of God and His plan to save sinners through Jesus Christ. These songs correspond with the five foundational truths – Jesus Came to Save Sinners, God is Good, God is in Charge of Everything, God Wants to Talk with Us, God Made Everything – taught each weekend in our preschool ministry, The Little Village. The mission and vision of The Little Village is “to partner with parents to build a firm spiritual foundation for their children.” Our hope is that these songs will be an effective tool in engaging your children with the truth of who God is as you endeavor to obey the biblical call to bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. (Ephesians 6:4)

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The gospel cannot be preached without words! Nobody can learn about sin, judgment, mercy, grace, and redemption just from our actions, no matter how loving they might be. So when is the right time to use words? John Piper answers that question in this video (transcript here):

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When I meet people from the first category, I pray with them and cry with them and praise the Lord for his deliverance. When I meet people from the second category, I usually tell them they should stay where they are.

As always, my motivations for doing so are mixed. When a new person complains to me about some pastor on the other side of town, I sinfully want to set a stopwatch to see how long they’ll be in our church before they start complaining about me. But on the other hand, I believe people should humbly work to influence their church for God’s glory until it’s absolutely clear that he is leading them elsewhere. Whether or not they are able to effect change in their church, God can use the struggle to effect change in their hearts.

This post reminded me of Wayne Grudem’s wise words on the subject:

If we are to work for the purity of the church, especially in the local church of which we are a part, we must recognize that this is a process, and that any church of which we are a part will be somewhat impure in various areas. There were no perfect churches at the time of the New Testament and there will be no perfect churches until Christ returns. This means that Christians have no obligation to seek the purest church they can find and stay there, and then leave it if an even purer church comes to their attention. Rather, they should find a true church in which they can have effective ministry and in which they will experience Christian growth as well, and then should stay there and minister, continually working for the purity of that church. God will often bless their prayers and faithful witness and the church will gradually grow in many areas of purity (Systematic Theology, 875)

Marriage and the Mercy of God

This Valentines Day, why don’t you and your spouse commit to virtually attend this conference together?

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Paul says this in 2 Corinthians 9:

Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully … He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. (2 Corinthians 9:6,10)

When we “sow seed” through our generosity to others, God promises to multiply our generosity back to us for the purpose of sowing more and being even more generous. A powerful story passed along to me by a missionary friend in Africa illustrates how Paul’s original audience in the first-century church might have understood this truth:

I was always perplexed by Psalm 126 until I went to the Sahel, that vast stretch of savanna more than four thousand miles wide just under the Sahara Desert. In the Sahel, all the moisture comes in a four month period: May, June, July, and August. After that, not a drop of rain falls for eight months. The ground cracks from dryness, and so do your hands and feet. The winds of the Sahara pick up the dust and throw it thousands of feet into the air. It then comes slowly drifting across West Africa as a fine grit. It gets inside your mouth. It gets inside your watch and stops it. The year’s food, of course, must all be grown in those four months. People grow sorghum or milo in small fields.

October and November…these are beautiful months. The granaries are full, the harvest has come. People sing and dance. They eat two meals a day. The sorghum is ground between two stones to make flour and then a mush with the consistency of yesterday’s Cream of Wheat. The sticky mush is eaten hot; they roll it into little balls between their fingers, drop it into a bit of sauce and then pop it into their mouths. The meal lies heavy on their stomachs so they can sleep.

December comes, and the granaries start to recede. Many families omit the morning meal. Certainly by January not one family in fifty is still eating two meals a day.

By February, the evening meal diminishes. The meal shrinks even more during March and children succumb to sickness. You don’t stay well on half a meal a day.

April is the month that haunts my memory. In it you hear the babies crying in the twilight. Most of the days are passed with only an evening cup of gruel.

Then, inevitably, it happens. A six- or seven-year-old boy comes running to his father one day with sudden excitement. ‘daddy! Daddy! We-ve got grain!” he shouts.

“Son, you know we haven’t had grain for weeks.

“Yes, we have!” the boy insists. “Out in the hut where we keep the goats’there’s a leather sack hanging up on the wall-I reached up and put my hand down in there’daddy, there’s grain in there! Give it to Mommy so she can make flour, and tonight our tummies can sleep!’

The father stands motionless.

“Son, we can’t do that,? he softly explains. ‘that’s next year’s seed grain. It’s the only thing between us and starvation. We’re waiting for the rains, and then we must use it.’

The rains finally arrive in May, and when they do the young boy watches as his father takes the sack from the wall and does the most unreasonable thing imaginable. Instead of feeding his desperately weakened family, he goes to the field and with tears streaming down his face, he takes the precious seed and throws it away. He scatters it in the dirt!

Why? Because he believes in the harvest.

In this post, Jonathan Dodson explains why it’s important to read along in your own Bible during a sermon. Here’s his first reason:

It allows the Bible to make up your mind about meaning, not you make up your own mind about the meaning. Having a Bible in front of you (electronic or hardcopy), allows you to read and refer to the passage as a complete thought. Reading it in complete allows you to compare the reasoning of the preacher to the reasoning of Scripture. We can follow the argument of Scripture, not just the argument of the preacher. Instead of making up your mind about the Bible, let the Bible make up your mind about the Bible.

Follow the argument of Scripture, not just the argument of the preacher.

Consider the example of the Bereans who thought about Paul’s teachings by “examining the Scriptures daily” (Acts 17:11). They respectfully compared Paul to the OT. Paul himself taught the Roman churches to be “convinced in their own mind” before God regarding interpretation and application of Scripture (Rom 14:5). By reading Scripture during a sermon, we can follow the biblical admonition to be persuaded through our own study, not merely relying on second-hand interpretation, as good as it may be.

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