Friday, April 13, 2007

Psalm 51: A Rabbi and Two Imams

It was a wonderful opportunity. I was asked to participate in an open discussion about death and dying from a patients perspective. The event was held at a local medical college. It was the first ministry situation I had ever been in where I had sat between a rabbi and two imams. My Jewish and Islamic colleagues were all very warm and articulate, but I had an unfair advantage, I came armed with the Gospel. I carried something into the room that no one else had and as the evening went on this message glistened with greater and greater beauty.

The men on either side of me were gentle and caring. They knew their faith well, but they had one distinct disadvantage, the only message they brought into the room was the message of the law. The only hope they could give was the hope that somehow, someway, a person could be obedient enough to be accepted into eternity with God. The more they spoke, the more beautiful the Gospel looked.

The most significant moment of the evening came when we were asked about what we would say to a family of someone who had committed suicide. It was at this moment that the Gospel shined the brightest. I said, "Suicide doesn't change the paradigm. Think with me, who of us could lay in our bed during the last hours of our life and look back and say to ourselves that we have been as good as a person could be? Wouldn't all of us look back and have regrets about things we have chosen, said, and done? None of us is able to commend ourselves to God on the basis of our performance. In this way, the person who has committed suicide and the person who hasn't are exactly the same. Both of them are completely dependent on the forgiveness of a God of grace, in order to have any hope for eternity."

You and I share identity with the hypothetical suicidal man just as we share identity with the adulterous and murderous king of Psalm 51. Our only hope is one thing, God's "unfailing love" and his "great compassion."(verse 1) We cannot look to our education, or family, or ministry track record, or our theological knowledge, or our evangelistic zeal, or our faithful obedience. We have one hope, it is the hope to which this ancient Psalm looks. Here is that hope in the words of a wonderful old hymn, "Jesus Paid it All."

"Since nothing good have I
Whereby Thy grace to claim,
I'll wash my garment white
In the blood of Calvary's lamb.

Jesus paid it all,
All to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson satin;
He washed it white as snow."

I said goodbye to the rabbi and the two imams and got in my car to drive home. But I didn't just drive, I celebrated! I was very excited as I thought about the evening, not because I had had such a golden opportunity to speak the Gospel, but because by means of God's grace I had been included in it!

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Psalm 51: Accurate Self-Assessment

Sin lives in a costume, that's why it's so hard to recognize. The fact that sin looks so good is one of the things that make it so bad. In order for it to do its evil work, it must present itself as something that is anything but evil. Life in a fallen world is like attending the ultimate masquerade party. Impatient yelling wears the costume of a zeal for truth. Prevented lust masquerades as a love for beauty. Gossip does its evil work by living in the costume of concern and prayer. Craving for power and control wears the mask of biblical leadership. Fear of man gets dressed up as a servant heart. The pride of always being right masquerades as a love for biblical wisdom. Evil simply doesn't present itself as evil, that is part of its draw.

You'll never understand sin's slight of hand until you acknowledge that the DNA of sin is deception. Now what this means personally is that as sinners we are all very committed and gifted self-swindlers. I say all the time to people that no one is more influential in their own lives than they are because no one talks to themselves more than they do. We're all too skilled at looking at our own wrong and seeing good. We're all much better at seeing the sin, weakness, and failure of others than we are our own. We're all very good at being intolerant of others of the very things that we willingly tolerate in ourselves. The bottom line is that sin causes us to not hear or see ourselves with accuracy. And we not only tend to be blind, but to compound matters, we tend to be blind to our blindness.

What does all of this mean? It means that accurate-self assessment is the product of grace. It is only in the mirror of God's Word and with the sight-giving help of the Holy Spirit, that I am able to see myself as I actually am. In those painful moments of accurate self-sight, we may not feel as if we are being loved, but that is exactly what is happening. The God who loves us enough to sacrifice his Son for our redemption, works so that we would see ourselves clearly, so that we would not buy into the delusion of our own righteousness, and with a humble sense of personal need, seek the resources of grace that can only be found in him.

In this way, Psalm 51 is both the saddest and most joyous of all the Psalms. It is sad that David has to confess what he must confess, but at the same time, the face that he is accurately seeing, and fully acknowledging his sin, is a cause for celebration. Only Jesus can open blind eyes. Whenever a sinner accurately assesses his sin the angels in heaven rejoice, and so should we.

Monday, April 09, 2007

Psalm 51: Violent Grace

Our relationship with the Lord is never anything other than a relationship of grace. It is grace that brought us into His family. It is grace that keeps us in it and it is grace that will continue us in it forever. But the grace that we have been given is not always comfortable grace. Here is why.

As sinners we all become way too comfortable with our sin. The thought that once bothered becomes an action that no longer plagues our conscience. The word that troubled us the first time it was uttered, now is accompanied by others that are worse. The marriage that was once a picture of biblical love has now become a relationship of cold-war detente. Commitment to work degenerates into doing as little as I can for as much pay as I can negotiate. A commitment to a devotional life now become perfunctory and empty duty, more like getting my ticket punched for heaven than enjoying communion with my Lord. Minor, unexpressed irritation, which once troubled my heart, is now fully expressed anger that is easily rationalized away. Sin is like the unnoticed drips of water that silently destroy the foundation of a house.

You see, we all have a perverse capacity to be comfortable with what God says is wrong. So God blesses us with violent, uncomfortable grace. Yes, He really does love us enough to crush us, so that we would feel the pain of our sin and run to Him for forgiveness and deliverance. David says, "let the bones You have crushed rejoice." (verse 8) It is a curious phrase. Crushed bones and rejoicing don't seem to go together. You wouldn't say, "Hooray, I have a broken bone!" But that is very close to what David is saying. He is using the searing pain of broken bones as a metaphor of the pain of heart that you feel when you really see your sin for what it is. That pain is a good thing!

Think about it. The physical pain of an actual broken bone is worth being thankful for because it's a warning sign something is wrong in that arm or leg. In the same way, God's loving hammer of conviction is meant to break your heart and the pain of heart you feel is meant to alert you to the fact that something is spiritually wrong inside of you. Like the warning signal of physical pain, the rescuing and restoring pain of convicting grace is a thing worth celebrating!

So God's grace isn't always comfortable because He isn't primarily working on our comfort, He's working on our character. With violent grace He will crush us because He loves us and is committed to our restoration, deliverance, and refinement. And that is something worth celebrating!