What happens when we get rid of the Intolerable Burden

I found this outstanding quote that follows up on the topic from the earlier posting entitled, "An Explaining Mechanism Kicks in."

"Luther, Calvin and those who followed them inisted that the fruit of justification is faith active in love. A living faith expresses itself in works of love, in service to the neighbor.... Such love is directed in the first instance not toward God in hope of attaining some merit toward salvation, but toward one's neighbor, for "the Christian lives not in himself, but in Christ and his neighbor." Luther urged Christians to perform good works out of spontaneous love in obedience to God for the sake of others. To put it in other words, justification by faith alone frees me to love my neighbor disinterestedly, for his or her own sake, as my sister or brother, not as the calculated means to my own desired ends.

Since we no longer have to carry around the intolerable burden of self-justification, we are free "to be Christs unto one another," as Luther put it, to expend ourselves on behalf of one another, even as Christ also loved us and gave Himself for us.

From The Mark of Jesus by Timothy George and John Woodbridge p. 41

What do we talk about?

I talk a lot with people. Sometimes I wonder if I am doing a good job at it. I can chat all day about most things and only on few occasions have people fallen asleep on me. What I really mean is—do the topics of conversation I wander to reflect God’s concerns? Or, another way to put this is; “If community is going to be genuinely Christian, what will we talk about? We will talk about following Christ.” Paul put it this way:

“And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to reliable men, who will also be qualified to teach others….Remember my gospel…” 2 Timothy 2:2, 8

What did he want Timothy to talk about? The things he said in front of many witnesses. From the rest of his writings, his central message and the overall teaching that holds everything together is the gospel (Col 1:6-8): The good news.

This is what gives Christian community teeth. It is the only thing that sets it apart as Christian. Mormons, Jews, Jehovah Witnesses all talk about the Bible and so should we. But the gospel is the message over which Paul said, if somebody teaches you something contrary, let them be condemned (Gal 1). In other words, it is the Christian interpretation of scripture. It sees the entire scripture through the lens of the incarnation, the crucifixion, the resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ. These historical events bear upon our every minute life. It is the message that teaches and the teaching that calls me to a response.

My fear is that it is easy for us to unknowingly teach something else—not by directly teaching against the gospel, but—by ignoring its importance in our conversation.

So, how are you responding in faith to the gospel today? I am by writing this. Ask me tomorrow.

I found the quote

I found the quote that I mentioned in the last posting:

It was from an episode of the sitcom, Coach in February of 1995:
“When one man talks about loving another man, an explaining mechanism kicks in.”

"An Explaining Mechanism Kicks In"

If I was a little cooler, I would remember the show that I heard that line on. I bring up the “explaining mechanism” because I think it is one of the chief hindrances to following Christ in genuine community.

We have explaining mechanisms that we use with others in order for us to feel “ok” about ourselves before them. We explain ourselves. We justify ourselves. I catch myself doing that when somebody notices a new product I might have bought.

“I got it on sale…”

“We really needed it…”

Why do I feel the need to explain it? At the heart of what we do when we begin explaining ourselves to others is that we begin answering to them. We begin fearing them and we begin posturing ourselves so that in our day of court before them, we can come out in the right. And the sad thing about it all is that THEY DON’T CARE!

Though no one cares, our posturing hides our true selves from others and puts invisible boundaries to our ability to build friendship. When we are justifying ourselves before others, we are living duplicitously. We are projecting a person we want others to see. What happens is that they never get to know the real person behind ourselves. And neither do we.

A spiral can occur in this situation. The more we project, the more we believe that we are the people that we project. As we distance others from our real selves, we distance ourselves from who God made us to be. When we experience the inevitable dissonance of this false self, an insecurity is produced which accelerates the whole thing even further.

This is one place where following Christ makes all of the difference in our experience of community. If he is the one who justifies us (Rom 3:24), we no longer have to. In the safety of his grace, we can be honest about ourselves to others and our self and then take the long journey, in the company of others, to genuine self understanding. The truth, as they say, becomes our friend.

Richard Foster speaks of this in his chapter on Solitude in The Celebration of Discipline:

“Silence is one of the deepest disciplines of the Spirit simply because it puts the stopper on all self-justification. One of the fruits of silence is the freedom to let God be our justifier. We don’t need to straighten others out…. Perhaps more than anything else, silence brings us to believe that God can care for us—‘reputation and all.’”

Maybe a way for us to trust God in following Christ is to simply say less about ourselves, trust God with what others think about us and focus more of our energies on what others have to say about themselves.