The Church is often stereotyped by many who don't have any relationship with Church as being judgmental and self-righteous. I think in our efforts to reach out to people who have this perspective, those of us inside the church have really majored in a kind of seeker-sensitive grace. We present the unconditional love of God. We proclaim the truth that God is full of grace to meet anyone exactly where we are.
This is grace. It is a characteristic of God. God does wish that no person perish. However, God isn't just interested in resolving our feelings of guilt so that we can go on living in self-destructive and relationship-damaging ways.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer claimed that grace that simply deals with sin alone is cheap. He contrasts this with "costly grace" that deals with not only our sins, but that is transformative of the sinner as well.
I'm not sure that we proclaim and teach that kind of surrendered position before a holy and redemptive God very well.
I'm working on a teaching series that might begin with the encounter between a rich young ruler and Jesus where the young man asks, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?". Jesus' answer is ultimately to require that he divest himself of everything in which he trusts and follow Jesus. That demand proves too much for him and he leaves in sorrow.
I'm wondering how you might organize a teaching/preaching series on "the marks of the Christian life" or holiness, Christian discipleship, "fitness for heaven" etc.? Thoughts? Ideas?
Monday, December 15, 2008
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4 Response to Transformation
Check out Ron Sider's book "Living Like Jesus: Eleven Essentials for Growing a Genuine Faith" it might provide an outline for teaching/preaching series
You made the statement about needing to "proclaim and teach" a surrendered life. Maybe that is the problem, we proclaim and teach rather than live. As equippers of the saints, we do need to proclaim and teach this to the church, yet what the secular world needs and quite possibly what the church needs is to see "costly grace" lived out. The problem we run into is that we do not see it lived out amoung us, and the church of America has ran the gammit on cheap grace. As the clergy, we have exploited cheap grace for several reasons: First, it fills the church pew and pays the bills. Second, many of us are hesitant to dive into depths of costly grace because it is much easier to stand in the shallows and proclaim grace, where our feet touch, and we can control the undercurrent of the Spirit before it sweeps us off into the deep end. As laity, we have very little knowledge of costly grace and the life of surrender becuase we fill our lives with many things that have very little to do with the eternal. We tend to associate those times when the Spirit moved,and lives were radically changed as either happenings that occured only in Scripture or at the beginning of some denominational movement. The result of such ideology and belief is that the church of America is not effectious, is not caustic (taking over), not even cancerous, but rather a benign tumor that simply takes up space and has no value in society.
You mentioned of starting series with the question of the rich young ruler, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?". That question is one of cheap grace, he wanted to know that he could do to go to heaven. Christ responded to him, with an answer of costly grace-surrender. To many of us in the church, in front and behind the pulpit, find ourselves asking the same question as the rich young ruler. When the real question we should ask is, "What is it to live the surrendered life where the Holy Spirit is in control?" That is the real definition, I believe, of what Christ meant by trasformation. The surrendering of my life to His LORDSHIP, so that what people see is not me but rather Him.
Maybe the series should be labeled "Come on in to the deep end of costly grace, the water is warm and deep." Just a thought.
Hi Ken,
I will add your blog to my Asbury blog roll.
Good post and question. I talk about holiness as becoming the person whom God created us to be. This involves three aspects: mission, holiness, and community.
God created humanity to serve as a missional community that reflects God's character to/for/in the World. My own sense is that we are not radical enough in our call to follow Jesus, but we too often deploy an outmoded language and wonder why no one gets us.
How about a series on "Becoming a Person of God's Dreams"? Or "Life that Demands Explanation".
Good to be in conversation.
I love these series title suggestions and the book suggestion. I'm working on the series now (and have ordered the book from Amazon.com). I'll post the series here when I get it together. Thanks friends.
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