A Pleasant Shade of Grace

Perhaps one of the best known narratives from the book of Genesis comes from chapter 32. Here we have the accounting of Jacob wrestling against One whom he comes to realize is God. This narrative speaks in a very powerful way to the gospel of painless prosperity that is rampant not just in “those” types of churches, but is found hiding in some pews (or padded chairs) where we would least expect it. I suppose that this comes easily to so many because of the culture in which we live which seems to offer us all we need with such ease and efficiency, but

regardless of the reason, it is a danger to our understanding of what it means to grow in an intimate knowledge of God.
In this passage we have Jacob, his four wives, all of their children and livestock leaving the house of Laban to return to the land of his father Isaac. The problem he had run from 21 years earlier is headed straight toward him with 400 men…his brother Esau. Jacob has sent gifts on ahead of him, he has divided his family into two great companies in hopes that not all could be attacked. He has sent is family across the ford of the Jabbok and remains behind for the night. What Jacob experiences for the next several hours is a physical parable of his entire life…he wrestles with God. This man had wrestled with his brother Esau in the womb and throughout their lives. He had wrestled the blessing from His father Isaac, He had wrestled with his uncle Laban for 21 years and in all of these he often found himself wrestling God. He has truly lived up to his name!

What is amazing about the wrestling on this particular night is that Jacob begins to understand who his assailant is and begs with tears (Hosea 12:3-4) for a blessing from Him. Surprisingly the blessing takes the form of a name change from ‘he strives’ or ‘usurper’ to ‘God Prevails’ or ‘God fights’. Jacob is now Israel and the blessing is seen in that God will prevail for His people ultimately in Christ! But Jacob’s wrestling and acquiring the blessing and being pulled in to know God more did NOT leave him unharmed. God touched (wrenched) Jacob’s hip and left him with a lasting reminder of having been face to face with God. Israel crossed the stream the next morning limping.

Often times we find out that the greatest blessings come with a painful reminder. Was God cruel in wrenching Jacob’s hip? Not at all, this painful reminder would demonstrate for Jacob the faithfulness of God and the weakness of Jacob. It is in the times of great difficulty and pain that God’s goodness shines all the brighter and tastes more sweet. The apostle Paul knew this well! When God blessed him immeasurably by showing him visions beyond description (2 Corinthians 12) He also gave him a ‘thorn in the flesh’ to keep him humble.  Paul, like Jacob, knew what it meant to be pulled in close to God in His glory and they both walked away with a lasting reminder of their frailty, dependency and the certainty of God’s faithfulness!  We so often measure God’s faithfulness by the rod of our comfort and the barometer of our pain. We fool ourselves with a cancerous theology that says we have found favor in God’s sight by our sewing seeds of faith and then measure the harvest by what we get.  It was in spite of Jacob’s life that God grabbed him and pulled him into to the fight of his life for his eternal joy!

May we like Jacob, Paul and countless others understand by experience that Grace is indeed Amazing, that it comes despite who we are, and that it can be gloriously crippling…and that is a very good thing!

How important is knowing someone to the substance of loving them? Surely all of us would agree that not all knowledge leads to love, in fact, it many times leads to repulsion. But, I would argue that all love is directly proportionate to the level of knowledge we have of someone. To put it another way, our love for someone is dependent on how well we truly know them. Is this a fair statement? After all we are to love strangers aren’t we? Of course, but the point is that we will not love a stranger in the same way or at the same level as we do someone we have had the opportunity to get to know. It seems that God has so designed the exercise of love that it grows or shrinks with knowing its object. This is why we so often here the lament of spouses drifting apart, “I feel like I don’t know you anymore.”
Now, why do I bring this up? Because it is vitally important in our relationship to Christ and our growth as a disciple.  Ultimately it reminds us that the point of discipleship is to love Christ more.  Consider Jesus’ own statements regarding this issue.  First, in regard to mankind’s purpose, Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:5,

And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. (Mat 22:37 ESV)

Obviously to do this would mean that we are in a covenant relationship with God, LOVING Him with every aspect of who we are.  Here is the picture of one who has been justified since the essence of sin is to love anything more than the One to whom all love is due!  Then Jesus, while praying in John 17, makes this amazing statement which confirms what we are considering here,

And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. (Joh 17:3 ESV)

Jesus’ quoting of Deuteronomy 6:5 and his prayer in John 17 are not in opposition to one another,but reveal the stunning truth that truly to Know God is to Love God.   This has amazing implications on the issue of discipleship.  We learn of Christ and pursue a deeper knowledge of Him that we might Love Him more.  Any acquiring of Biblical knowledge that does not lead to a deeper love of our great God and Savior is deficient knowledge.  As the apostle Paul states in 1 Corinthians 8:1, “Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies”.

As you might expect, my short answer to the above question is that  I would say with great emphasis, “Everything!” We just concluded a four day conference at FBC Clovis that was focused on the gospel-centered family. My good friend Brian Croft of Auburndale Baptist Church in Louisville, KY came down to preach five sessions on this theme. The Lord did and is doing incredible things through our time together and I am convinced that the benefits of this conference will be felt for years to come.
As Brian and I spoke early on about what to title this conference, I kept going in my mind to the title, “The Gospel-centered Family”. My concern as well as Brian’s was the saturation that the phrase “Gospel-centered” has endured in everything from publishing, to blogging and sermons, to conversation in young reformed circles. However, as Brian laid the foundation on Sunday morning and evening from Ephesians 5 and moved into very practical exhortations from Proverbs 5, 1 Peter 3, Deuteronomy 6 and Colossians 3, it became abundantly clear that the title “Gospel-centered” was not only appropriate, but necessary. The beauty of the messages that Brian Preached were encapsulated in a phrase he reminded us of often…”The same grace that empowers you to walk in these commands, is the same grace that offers forgiveness when you fail at them.” What a timely word for struggling Christian husbands, wives, and parents.
The sermon audio for these messages will be on First Baptist’s website soon! Please check fbcclovis.org for updates. I would encourage you to give a listen and learn what in the world the gospel has to do with your family.

It is true that you don’t see much from this blog, and that is usually because I struggle to find the time to devote to it. But this morning I feel compelled to deal with some questions I have been getting in regard to Rob Bell’s new book “Love Wins: A book about Heaven, Hell and the fate of every person who ever lived”. As a pastor I have started receiving questions about this book and the view of salvation that it espouses. Another aspect that has compelled me to respond in part is the seeming unwillingness on the part of many Christians to bristle at Mr. Bells redefining of both heaven and Hell as well as the nature and extent of salvation as the Bible clearly sets it forth and as it has been understood by the church throughout history.

Let me be clear: I have not read the book and do not know that I will.   My information has come from interviews with Rob Bell that have been televised as well as the firestorm of blogs that have dealt with the book chapter by chapter. So, as for my part, I will not deal with the book per se, but with the questions that have come to me as a result of the book and the interviews Mr. Bell has given. These are questions that are not new in any sense, but have been brought to the surface in many peoples minds because of the media attention “Love Wins” is getting.

What is being thrown about in conversation now are the issues of Universalism (all people will eventually be saved) and the nature of Hell (is it eternal punishment or a period of penance, or even something we create here on earth for ourselves). Based on an interview Rob Bell gave recently on MSNBC Town Hall, some have begun to wrestle with issues such as:
How can God be “just” in condemning someone to an eternal Hell if they never heard the gospel or the name of Christ? Or
What about the person who was abused by a “Christian” leader or pastor, and now they are repulsed by anything to do with Christianity?
In order to deal with questions like these, we must come to a settled conviction in our own minds about the nature of sin, Judgment and the atonement of Christ.

The Book of Romans (though not exclusively) gives us a good foundation in understanding these issues. In this epistle, the Apostle Paul establishes several extremely important things regarding the answers to the questions that are being asked.
First, Romans makes it abundantly clear that NO ONE goes to hell because they have not heard the name of Christ or have not had the gospel presented to them.  Rather, people go to hell because they are condemned before God and reject Him even at the level of creation.   In Romans 1:18ff, Paul establishes clearly that what we see of God in all that He has created is enough to establish our condemnation before Him because we refuse to give Him thanks and would rather worship what He has created than God Himself. So in essence, we could say that fabled innocent person on the desert island who has never heard the name of Jesus will ABSOLUTELY go to heaven and spend eternity with Christ! The only problem is that there are NO INNOCENT PEOPLE!! That person on the desert island does not exist.

This is not a New Testament idea that the apostle Paul developed. The fact that all are guilty and condemned in Adam (Romans 5) is established and, dare I say, assumed in the Old Testament. Take Psalm 51 for example. Here is the great Psalm of repentance composed by King David after his adultery and murder. Interestingly it is not just those things that concern him but the underlying reason that explains his treachery against the glory of God, namely, v.5 “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.” David understood that the problem “pre-dated” even his own conception! Also, consider the books of Deuteronomy and Joshua as they lay out for us the conquest of the land of Canaan by the Israelite people.  Here we read of the Israelite army being commissioned by God to go in a utterly destroy whole peoples whom (by a modern day definition) would be considered “innocent” because they had likely never heard of the name of YHWH!! The only way God could be just in destroying them, then is if this doctrine know as ‘original sin’ is actually the reality into which we are born.

The fact that there are none “innocent” before God is established in Romans 3:9-23. Paul goes to great pains in the context of the Jew and Greek debate, to establish that regardless of ethnicity or even exposure to the OT scriptures (as was the case with the Jews) that all are condemned and none pursue God. So, God’s being “Just” is not a matter of offering salvation, but of upholding His Holy name before those who have trampled on it by their sin. The most “just” thing it seems that God could do would be to condemn all humanity to Hell, and that is exactly what our plight was, but that is not the end of the story!

Amazingly, rather than wrestling with the question of God being “just” and sending sinners to Hell who never heard the gospel, it seems that the apostle Paul wrestled with the exact opposite of that question. In Romans 3:21-26 he seems to struggle with how God could maintain His being perfectly just while at the same time pardoning those whom have fallen short of His glory!! Particularly in vv.25-26 He demonstrates the great love of God for us by showing that it was only possible in Jesus Christ the righteous!! It is in the word “propitiation” that it is possible for God to remain just and yet justify sinners. That word has everything to do with the absorbing of, and exhausting of God’s wrath for His people.  God is able to uphold His perfect justice against the sin of His people whom He would forgive, by emptying the cup of His wrath on the head of the One appointed as a sacrifice…Jesus!

I think the issue we are dealing with here is much deeper than just our understanding of sin and the justice of God.  It eventually lands on the understanding of the nature and extent of the atonement of Christ.  Let me lay my cards on the table.  I am a Christian in the tradition of the Reformation.  That in itself may be a little confusing since the doctrines that came to the fore and were so staunchly defended during the Reformation, were NOT a product of the Reformation but of Scripture itself from Genesis to Revelation.  The doctrines I am referring to fall under the umbrella of the Sovereignty of God in salvation and are known as the “Doctrines of Grace”.  Within that set of doctrines is an expression of the nature and extent of the atonement.  This is know as “Particular Redemti0n” or “Definite Atonement” as opposed to “Universal Atonement”.  Here is the point, Rob Bells position regarding his proposition that all will be won over by God’s love even if it is after death and some time in “hell” makes sense if we hold to a universal atonement.  As for Mr. Bell (and I do not want to assume his thoughts or struggles)  it seems his struggle is with the reality that God’s love would seem to fail if scores of people who have had their sins atoned for reject Christ and spend eternity in Hell, and therefore He must win in the end by convincing them even after they die.  That problem dissolves if we hold to a view of particular redemption or definite atonement because then we understand that ALL those for whom Christ has born the penalty of their sin WILL be saved because He will effectually call them to Himself.

In Scripture, there is no chance or hint that the Love of God would ever fail.  It is sheer and magisterial grace that God has atoned for the sin of His people. The very name of our Savior assures us that LOVE WINS!!  The angel told Joseph in Matthew 1:21 to name the child Mary would bear “Jesus, for He WILL save HIS people from their sins.”  Not ‘might’, not ‘will offer salvation to’, but “will save”.  Yes, the title of Mr. Bell’s book is a glorious truth of Scripture Love Wins!!  Not only that it has triumphed!!

The challenges of parenting are many and any parent would testify to the fact that patience is a prerequisite to the task. Parent’s also know that this very discipline is sometimes stretched to the limit as children grow and pass through different stages of maturity. Of course, most parents know that the “Terrible Two’s” is a myth because it starts much earlier than Two and ends…well I hope it ends at some point! Seriously, even in the midst of all its challenges, parenting is the toughest yet most rewarding privilege I have been graced with in regard to affecting the lives of others.
You may be wondering what this has two do with lessons learned while on vacation, and honestly, it doesn’t have so much to do with vacation as it does with where my children happen to be right now. And again, it was while on vacation that the Lord highlighted something for me.
I have know for some time that I have a lot of my father in me when it comes to patience and getting things done around the house. I can see in me the drive to want something done, to want it done correctly, and tendency to just do it myself and not take advantage of opportunities to patiently teach my children how to do something. My wife constantly reminds me that it is about the journey NOT the destination when it comes to our kiddos. I tend to be all about the result, whether it is washing my car, cleaning the kitchen, working in the yard, whatever…and my kids often suffer for that attitude.
All this is to say that I see in me a need for a work of grace to slow me down to savor the childhood years of my children and walk slowly with them as they grow and learn about even the mundane things in life. The gracious reminder came to me in relation to my oldest daughter, Perri. Perri is transitioning into her teenage years and I can see very clearly even now that she is entering into a critical time as it relates to my relationship as a father with her. Of course all the physiological changes that are taking place in her are contributing to this fact, and I as a father want to cultivate and strengthen our relationship, not damage it.

While staying at my mother’s house in Kentucky earlier this month, a seeming small but significant exchange took place between Perri and I, that had been played out countless times before but now with a different result. A result that cut me by necessity to the heart. All of my four children and I had been out on a Friday afternoon while Kristi was shopping with her sister. Upon our return to my mom’s house, I opened the garage door as our only entrance to the house was through the garage and the door leading into the house from it. We had no key to the house, as my mom was still in Virginia at a family reunion. As the children piled out of the van, Perri tried to open the door into the house, which is notorious for sticking. I heard Perri say, “Daddy it’s locked!”. My response was something along the lines of, “You’re KIDDING me…we don’t have a Key!!” Thinking that someone had locked the door when we had left, I went over and tried it myself and it opened with a little more effort than Perri had applied. To my shame, my look to her was equivalent to verbally saying, “you idiot…if you would just put forth a little effort…”. I watched as my little girl’s countenance fell…she “heard” me loud and clear.   She immediately walked into the house and went into a back room and sat down by herself.  I had crushed her spirit.  There have been many times I have had to apologize to my children, and this was one of them.

I recognize very clearly that this is a very critical time in the life of my little girl, a time when I would do well not to push her away but to draw her in that she would be assured of my unconditional love for her.  My hope is that all of my children will know that regardless of their performance and irrespective of their achievements, their daddy loves them and would give his life for them.  The worst thing a father can do is be one who is disconnected and unapproachable.  Now, let me make it clear, my father was in no way disconnected or unapproachable!  I simply see how my having learned from him an expectation of how I want things done can very easily be perceived as such from a twelve year old little girl.

As I think about the father I need to be for my little girl, I realize that it is the type of father that God is to me!!  Patient, loving, approachable, disciplining in love not out of irritation.  My prayer is that when my children are older, they will thank God for His providential plan of letting me be the one they call Daddy!

1 John 3:1 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. ( ESV)

Yesterday I wrote about the grace of lives shared that centered around the beginning and end of our vacation and the families we spent time with at those points. Today, I find myself reflecting upon the center of our vacation and a family we spent time with at that point.

The things I reflected upon yesterday apply to our time with a family that we have grown close to as a result of our homeschooling our children.  Through that endeavor, we met Kevin and Lori Davis and their two little girls whom my daughters adore.  We were afforded an opportunity to spend time with them on a Sunday afternoon and evening this past week. Now, the reason this family falls into my reflection on the grace of a Sabbath is because this is what I was experiencing not only by way of vacation, but by way of sickness.  As, I mentioned yesterday, I became quite ill on this vacation and found myself unable to do much of anything but to either sit in a chair or lay in bed, neither of which I am a fan of during the daylight hours.  On the particular Sunday we spent with the Davis family, as enjoyable as that was, I began to really feel terrible.

Let me back up for a moment.  The point of this post is the grace I experienced in the rest of a Sabbath.  I praise God that according to Hebrews 4:9-11 I experience a Sabbath’s rest in Christ every moment.  I am free from working and performing and bolstering some phantom merit of my own to enjoy the rest of God’s people in His presence as His child.  This is given to me in the completed work of Christ on the Cross and the continual intercession of Christ for me in Heaven.  But, I believe the Scriptures make very clear that a part of the design of God in humanity is a rhythm of work and rest.  By His grace we are limited in our strength and ability and by necessity we need a time of rest and refreshing.  Now, I am not a Sabbatarian in the sense that I feel legalistically bound to refrain from work or entertainment on Sunday or any other day, but I am learning the lesson of enjoying rest as a means of grace.  So, I am one who sees the good and necessity in taking a vacation, not from spiritual disciplines or good habits of worship, but from the routine of daily responsibilities that tend to wear on us over time.  I have been in circles where the refusal to take a vacation was lauded as admirable and used as a bench-mark to measure ones dedication to and enjoyment of their job, but I see this as dangerous and foolish.

After determining to take a vacation and planning on enjoying time away, I became frustrated when sickness hit me that occupied most of my time off.  As we spent time with our friends that Sunday evening, even though I began to feel bad, I was thankful for the time to simply sit and enjoy good conversation.  As I lay in bed in bed that evening after having had a coughing fit, unable to sleep, I was moved to thank God for the grace of Him having slowed me down, dare I say, stopped me in my tracks, with this illness.  I began to understand that even though I was on vacation, I was running full-speed ahead and was not experiencing a Sabbath’s rest.  I have reflected much lately on my physical, mental, and emotional limitations that are mine by divine design, and as frustrating as those can be to me, I realize that God is reminding me that I need His strength, His direction and His provision of rest.

A refusal to enjoy a Sabbath’s rest for the believer is a prideful danger.  I think the physical reminder and necessity of rest (seen even in our need for sleep) is a reminder of spiritual necessity of our rest in Christ.  We are limited creatures and to enjoy the fullness of the infinite God we must rest in Christ.  This is not a call to laziness, because to heed a call to rest assumes that we have been working.  May the reality of our Sabbath’s rest in Christ be echoed in our humble acknowledgment of our limitations.

So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, 10 for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. 11 Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. (Heb 4:9 ESV)

Once again, I praise God that the opportunity for this reflection was couched in the presence of great friends whose shared lives mean more to us than they know!

Pastor E

I have recently returned from a two week vacation with my family, which turned out to be pretty brutal due to an illness that literally put me out of commission for over half of it. Nevertheless, one night lying in bed unable to sleep, I began to reflect on things that God was showing me. Overt the next several posts, I hope to do some brief reflection (mostly for my own benefit) regarding some of these things. I am one who reflects often and tries to see the finger of God in all the circumstances I find myself in, this vacation was no different.

One of the things that we often take for granted, and one of the things that seems to be a lost grace on my generation, is the act of Hospitality.  Biblical hospitality is more than just a demeanor of ‘niceness’ toward others, but a genuine and unselfish sharing of life.  Now let me say up front, I am using the Biblical term “Hospitality” in a skewed way here.  The three references we find to Hospitality in the New Testament (Romans 12:3, 1 Timothy 5:10, Hebrews 13:2) are all in reference to behavior toward strangers over and against the expected sharing of lives with other believers.   But in the popular sense, hospitality has come to mean being hospitable toward those outside your immediate family.  So, in truth what we experienced was the Biblical practice of meeting the needs of the saints.

I was reminded of this grace in a couple of places on this vacation. The first was in the small town of Louisville, Illinois.  My family and I had left Clovis, New Mexico and 2:30 a.m. on our way to Virginia, and had made plans to stop in this little town to stay with some very dear friends…Corey and Rachel Reynolds and their beautiful children.  The Reynolds family is a family that I had the privilege of being Pastor to for several years in Kentucky while Corey was finishing up Southern Seminary.  Over those years we grew to be very good friends and our children love one another.  As we drug our tired bodies into the Reynolds home around 7:30 p.m. that evening, as tired as we were, we were immediately refreshed and encouraged to see these friends.  Dinner was ready, conversation was pleasant, and genuine love for our family was evident.  We were sent on our way the following morning, having invaded the normal routine of this family, with expressions of how good it had been to spend even those brief hours under the same roof, and an expectation of future fellowship.

The second experience of this “hospitality” was in Chattanooga, Tennessee while visiting the wife and Children from another family I was privileged to pastor while in Kentucky, the Pratt Family.  In much the same way we were greeted with joy and open hearts.  The Parents of Ruth Pratt opened their home to us for meals and conversation, and the Parents of Jake Pratt opened up the house of his recently deceased grandfather for us to stay in those two days.  What a privilege it was to stay in the home of this godly pastor and church planter!  The visit was such a needed reconnection of our families and I praise God for the sharing of life we experienced and continue to experience.

I say all this and reflect on these days, as I have said, mostly for my own benefit, but also to say ‘Thank you’ to the Reynolds’ and the Pratt’s.  It seems to be rare today that people are willing to share their lives on any level other than surface, but God’s grace toward my family is evident in the gift of your lives to us and ours to you.  My prayer is that as believers we will take seriously the  communion that we are called to and that has been made possible between us in Christ.

Pastor E

In Mark 15:37 we read the words, “and Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed His last.” For many the significance of this cry is lost in the surrounding elements and horror of the crucifixion. I believe we are to see this cry as a victory cry! It is not insignificant that the apostle John tells us that Jesus said “it is finished”. A victory cry comes after a great victory, and Christ accomplished just that for His people. We are reminded by the apostle Paul in the epistle to the Colossians that Jesus ‘disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them…”.
So when we consider the cry of Christ from the cross let us not feel feelings of sorrow or pity but let us understand in some sense a fulfillment of Amos 1:2! That here indeed we witness the Lion of the tribe of Judah roaring in a thunderous victory cry from Zion. Let us also consider that every time the gospel is proclaimed in truth, with a fidelity to the Word of God, that the roar is still heard from Zion. The roar rings out to the nations announcing the victory of Christ for all who will surrender in faith and repentance!

trembling at His roar,

Pastor Eric

For the very few people who even know that this blog exists, I promise to start posting again. One of my fears when starting this thing was having no time to do it. I do see the value of charting out my thoughts and struggles and thoroughly appreciate the comments, questions and encouragements. So, In short, the blog is still up, just not active at the moment (well, except for this little blip).

The LORD bless you and keep you,
Pastor Eric

Recently, I was reading through the gospels, I came across this amazing statement from Jesus to the crowd in Luke 11,
“The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.”

We might have expected Jesus to say, “SOMEONE greater than Jonah…” which surely is intended in His statement, but wording in the way He did, allows for a much richer consideration of the ministry of Christ compared to the ministry and person of Jonah.
Last November, at the Ninth and O Baptist Church in Louisville, Dr. William Cook gave these six observations as to how this statement from Jesus should impact us:

1) Jesus is greater than Jonah in His person: Spokesman for God vs. God Incarnate.

2) He is greater than Jonah in His message: Jonah’s message was founded on the grace that would be revealed in Christ, and did not stand on its own.

3) Jonah almost died because of his sinful choices, but Jesus willingly died for the sins of the world.

4) Jonah’s ministry was to one city, but Jesus is the savior of the world.

5) Jonah did not love those to whom he was sent, but Jesus proved His love for sinners by dying for them.

6) Jonah went outside the city to sulk, but Jesus went out the city to die!

The question that comes to us as we consider these implications of Jesus’ statement is: Am I more like Jonah or more like Jesus?