Posts
March 31, 2009
March 14, 2009
sweet resolution
In the summer of 2002, while working for Peak 3 Outfitters in the mountains of Colorado, I read John Piper’s signature book called Desiring God. It has been, so far, the most formative book I’ve ever read and it set my life on a trajectory from which I doubt, by God’s grace, I will ever deviate. In this book Piper demonstrates the harmony of the two greatest realities that govern human experience- that we were created for the glory of God, and that above all, men seek there own happiness. The harmony he demonstrates is that God is most glorified in us when we are happiest in him. He then discusses the implications of this for life. If you haven’t read it I highly recommend it.
While this book opened my eyes to realities that blew my mind, it also delivered to my soul a weighty “crisis of faith” for which I found no resolution until last week. That’s six and half years of uncertainty and lack of assurance and fear. I want to try to share this with you for three reasons. First, I want to boast before you and God that He gives and He takes, blessed be his name. Second, maybe you, like I was, are in the midst of some sort of crisis of faith. I want to encourage you that God knows and that He cares and that he will meet you where you are when it is best for you. Third, I believe that we all have or will encounter this same “crisis of faith” at some point. When you do, you will respond in one of three ways. I want you to choose the right response.
The crisis of faith as simply as I can put it was this: that summer of 2002 I learned what takes place at conversion, that God opens the eyes of our hearts and we see the beauty and the worth of Christ for the first time. And seeing him, we also see and are devastated by our sinful condition and are compelled to respond in two ways. We respond in love for Christ, in that moment he becomes our treasure. And we respond in faith, which is our dependence upon Christ to reconcile us to God. Half of this was familiar to me, the other half wasn’t. I grew up hearing the same thing most of us did. You’re a sinner, repent and trust in Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. There was never anything about Christ becoming my joy. As I recall, he was usually just extended as a means of getting out of hell and being accepted into the Christian social structure. So this scared me.
I began to question my own conversion experience. Did this happen? Did Christ become my treasure? Because of this, I became quite conscious of my inner life. I became very aware that I didn’t value Christ anywhere near his worth. In addition to this, I was very aware of how difficult it was for me to love people. And I was also very aware how much and how often I delighted in sin. And this really scared me. My honest evaluation of myself was that, given how little love for God and people I found in myself, and given the degree to which I enjoyed sin, I was either emotionally dysfunctional at best or unconverted at worst. So I talked to a lot of people (pastors, professors, anyone who I thought might be able to deliver me from this crisis). I read a lot of books. I prayed earnestly that God would increase my love for him and people. I lived with varying degrees of anxiety because of this for six years.
And then last week came glorious resolution to this crisis. We had had a long day. They’ve all kind of seemed like that lately. It was late in the evening. I just wanted our kids to go to sleep so I could find some peace but they just wouldn't. And sitting in the dark, in a chair, holding my daughter, I experienced emotions toward my children that I didn’t think were possible. Didn’t do anything, just emotions, but it was as if my heart was making it’s final, fatal condemnation of me. The thoughts went through my head, you don’t even love your own children. How could you possibly love God or anyone else for that matter? The experience left me almost hopeless. It just about confirmed to me that I was in an unconverted state. How could I feel this way toward my children? I left the room, T took the kids and I sat alone completely hopeless. After T had gotten the kids to sleep she found me and we had a long talk about all of this. She encouraged me to confess any sin I was holding onto which I did. This was hard but I think in retrospect it was an essential piece of the resolution. She then said that she, by chance, or probably more accurately, by God’s design, had listened to a sermon the previous week which dealt exactly with the crisis of faith I was experiencing and encouraged me to listen to it which I did that night.
The sermon was preached by John Piper. I’ll do my best to distill it down for you to the main pieces that resolved my crisis of faith. Piper posed the question, the day is going to come in your life when you will fail to love someone the way you should. What are you going to do when, according to 1 John and other places, love for people is the evidence of your conversion? How are you going to reassure your heart when it condemns you, which it will? 1 John says it will.
His answer was that, though faith and love happen in a moment at conversion, it is of upmost importance that we keep them distinct from one another. This is what he meant.
1 John 2 is familiar to us. If we sin (by sin, John is referring to not loving people the way we ought) we have an Advocate with the Father. Jesus Christ the righteous. John assumes that Christians sin, that we will fail to love each other the way we should. In fact, he calls us a liar if we say we don’t (1 John 1:8). And when we sin, John says we can be sure of one thing, we have an Advocate before God- Jesus Christ the righteous. And everything hangs on why we think he’s our Advocate. And this is where I went wrong. Is it because we’ve been loving people pretty good? Is that the bottom of our hope? Been loving God as much as He is worth. Is that the grounds of my union with the Advocate? I, without realizing it, was believing it was. I thought he wasn’t my Advocate because I found so little love in me. That’s where I went, confusing love and faith, and I was undone, sitting in the dark holding Iri, hopeless of my conversion, about to throw it all in, pack our bags and head home. The answer, the resolution, is that we have an Advocate because we trust him. Faith is the way we are united with Christ. He’s never failed in loving people the way we should have. We fail every day perhaps. He doesn’t. We have an Advocate He is the righteous, the perfect One, the loving One. The reason this works for us, this Advocacy, is that the meaning, the definition of faith, is that in conversion we receive Christ. Love isn’t that. The meaning of faith is that eyes go open, Christ becomes beautiful as our righteousness, our punishment, our treasure, our love and our immediate, no lapse of time response is receive! I take you! Your mine! You offer yourself. I take you! That is the act by which we are united to the Advocate. Love is the going out to God and people. Faith is a receiving. I got these things confused and got six and-a-half years. Faith is the welcoming of all God is for us in Christ. Love is the overflow of this fullness, this standing. It is by faith alone that we are united to Christ. As Piper put it, faith is the fountain, everything else the stream.
So the resolution to my crisis was this: My ability to love God and to love people imperfectly is rooted in and based on my assurance that in Christ I love them perfectly already.
In other words, even as I fail to love as I ought, Christ’s perfection stands before God for me as a perfect lover of people and a perfect lover of God advocating on my behalf in light of his never having failed where I did.
As I wrote earlier, I wanted to share this with you for three reasons. First, this realization brought great peace to my heart and filled me with a renewed love for Christ the righteous and people, and renewed the joy of my salvation. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be his name!
Second, if you are in the midst of some sort of crisis of faith I want to encourage you that God knows, and that he cares, and that he will meet you where you are when it is best for you. In the midst of this I thought to myself and even told T, if I were a single person, I’d quit life and pursue this crisis with all my strength. But I had responsibilities and couldn’t do this and was left to either resign myself to taking this crisis to the grave, which seemed surely to put me in the grave early, or to trust God to meet me in the midst of my responsibilities. I hoped in God, it was as feeble a hope as I can imagine, but by God’s grace I chose hope and He met me and He will do the same for you in your circumstances.
Third, I believe that we all have or will encounter this same “crisis of faith” at some point. When you do, when you fail to love someone the way you ought and your heart condemns you, there will be three options and I want you to choose the right one. You can respond in hard working legalism, just gonna work hard on my own strength to love better next time. Or you may become bitter and hopeless and just give it all up to immorality. The final way is to reassure your heart that you have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous who stands before God for you as a perfect lover of people and a perfect lover of God advocating on your behalf in light of his never having failed where you did.
-J
While this book opened my eyes to realities that blew my mind, it also delivered to my soul a weighty “crisis of faith” for which I found no resolution until last week. That’s six and half years of uncertainty and lack of assurance and fear. I want to try to share this with you for three reasons. First, I want to boast before you and God that He gives and He takes, blessed be his name. Second, maybe you, like I was, are in the midst of some sort of crisis of faith. I want to encourage you that God knows and that He cares and that he will meet you where you are when it is best for you. Third, I believe that we all have or will encounter this same “crisis of faith” at some point. When you do, you will respond in one of three ways. I want you to choose the right response.
The crisis of faith as simply as I can put it was this: that summer of 2002 I learned what takes place at conversion, that God opens the eyes of our hearts and we see the beauty and the worth of Christ for the first time. And seeing him, we also see and are devastated by our sinful condition and are compelled to respond in two ways. We respond in love for Christ, in that moment he becomes our treasure. And we respond in faith, which is our dependence upon Christ to reconcile us to God. Half of this was familiar to me, the other half wasn’t. I grew up hearing the same thing most of us did. You’re a sinner, repent and trust in Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. There was never anything about Christ becoming my joy. As I recall, he was usually just extended as a means of getting out of hell and being accepted into the Christian social structure. So this scared me.
I began to question my own conversion experience. Did this happen? Did Christ become my treasure? Because of this, I became quite conscious of my inner life. I became very aware that I didn’t value Christ anywhere near his worth. In addition to this, I was very aware of how difficult it was for me to love people. And I was also very aware how much and how often I delighted in sin. And this really scared me. My honest evaluation of myself was that, given how little love for God and people I found in myself, and given the degree to which I enjoyed sin, I was either emotionally dysfunctional at best or unconverted at worst. So I talked to a lot of people (pastors, professors, anyone who I thought might be able to deliver me from this crisis). I read a lot of books. I prayed earnestly that God would increase my love for him and people. I lived with varying degrees of anxiety because of this for six years.
And then last week came glorious resolution to this crisis. We had had a long day. They’ve all kind of seemed like that lately. It was late in the evening. I just wanted our kids to go to sleep so I could find some peace but they just wouldn't. And sitting in the dark, in a chair, holding my daughter, I experienced emotions toward my children that I didn’t think were possible. Didn’t do anything, just emotions, but it was as if my heart was making it’s final, fatal condemnation of me. The thoughts went through my head, you don’t even love your own children. How could you possibly love God or anyone else for that matter? The experience left me almost hopeless. It just about confirmed to me that I was in an unconverted state. How could I feel this way toward my children? I left the room, T took the kids and I sat alone completely hopeless. After T had gotten the kids to sleep she found me and we had a long talk about all of this. She encouraged me to confess any sin I was holding onto which I did. This was hard but I think in retrospect it was an essential piece of the resolution. She then said that she, by chance, or probably more accurately, by God’s design, had listened to a sermon the previous week which dealt exactly with the crisis of faith I was experiencing and encouraged me to listen to it which I did that night.
The sermon was preached by John Piper. I’ll do my best to distill it down for you to the main pieces that resolved my crisis of faith. Piper posed the question, the day is going to come in your life when you will fail to love someone the way you should. What are you going to do when, according to 1 John and other places, love for people is the evidence of your conversion? How are you going to reassure your heart when it condemns you, which it will? 1 John says it will.
His answer was that, though faith and love happen in a moment at conversion, it is of upmost importance that we keep them distinct from one another. This is what he meant.
1 John 2 is familiar to us. If we sin (by sin, John is referring to not loving people the way we ought) we have an Advocate with the Father. Jesus Christ the righteous. John assumes that Christians sin, that we will fail to love each other the way we should. In fact, he calls us a liar if we say we don’t (1 John 1:8). And when we sin, John says we can be sure of one thing, we have an Advocate before God- Jesus Christ the righteous. And everything hangs on why we think he’s our Advocate. And this is where I went wrong. Is it because we’ve been loving people pretty good? Is that the bottom of our hope? Been loving God as much as He is worth. Is that the grounds of my union with the Advocate? I, without realizing it, was believing it was. I thought he wasn’t my Advocate because I found so little love in me. That’s where I went, confusing love and faith, and I was undone, sitting in the dark holding Iri, hopeless of my conversion, about to throw it all in, pack our bags and head home. The answer, the resolution, is that we have an Advocate because we trust him. Faith is the way we are united with Christ. He’s never failed in loving people the way we should have. We fail every day perhaps. He doesn’t. We have an Advocate He is the righteous, the perfect One, the loving One. The reason this works for us, this Advocacy, is that the meaning, the definition of faith, is that in conversion we receive Christ. Love isn’t that. The meaning of faith is that eyes go open, Christ becomes beautiful as our righteousness, our punishment, our treasure, our love and our immediate, no lapse of time response is receive! I take you! Your mine! You offer yourself. I take you! That is the act by which we are united to the Advocate. Love is the going out to God and people. Faith is a receiving. I got these things confused and got six and-a-half years. Faith is the welcoming of all God is for us in Christ. Love is the overflow of this fullness, this standing. It is by faith alone that we are united to Christ. As Piper put it, faith is the fountain, everything else the stream.
So the resolution to my crisis was this: My ability to love God and to love people imperfectly is rooted in and based on my assurance that in Christ I love them perfectly already.
In other words, even as I fail to love as I ought, Christ’s perfection stands before God for me as a perfect lover of people and a perfect lover of God advocating on my behalf in light of his never having failed where I did.
As I wrote earlier, I wanted to share this with you for three reasons. First, this realization brought great peace to my heart and filled me with a renewed love for Christ the righteous and people, and renewed the joy of my salvation. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be his name!
Second, if you are in the midst of some sort of crisis of faith I want to encourage you that God knows, and that he cares, and that he will meet you where you are when it is best for you. In the midst of this I thought to myself and even told T, if I were a single person, I’d quit life and pursue this crisis with all my strength. But I had responsibilities and couldn’t do this and was left to either resign myself to taking this crisis to the grave, which seemed surely to put me in the grave early, or to trust God to meet me in the midst of my responsibilities. I hoped in God, it was as feeble a hope as I can imagine, but by God’s grace I chose hope and He met me and He will do the same for you in your circumstances.
Third, I believe that we all have or will encounter this same “crisis of faith” at some point. When you do, when you fail to love someone the way you ought and your heart condemns you, there will be three options and I want you to choose the right one. You can respond in hard working legalism, just gonna work hard on my own strength to love better next time. Or you may become bitter and hopeless and just give it all up to immorality. The final way is to reassure your heart that you have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous who stands before God for you as a perfect lover of people and a perfect lover of God advocating on your behalf in light of his never having failed where you did.
-J
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