Trouble in River City

One of my favorite musicals is The Music Man; and one of my favorite numbers in The Music Man is You Got Trouble.  I was thinking about this today because trouble has come into my life.  I knew it was coming; I tried to circumvent it; but it remained out of my hands, and now is knocking at my door like the angel of death.  Okay, this is over dramatic and hyperbole; things could be much, much worse, and is for so many people I know.  In some respects, though, trouble in America is much like the trouble Harold Hill spoke of in River City.  The town was well fixed and peaceful, compared to other places in the world at the time, so what they saw as trouble was really only a minor annoyance.  Many things we see as trouble in America are really only what my daughter refers to as first world problems.

What disturbs me more than the pending storm is my inability to deal with it in my spirit.  I mean, how often have I encouraged us to trust Christ, and not fear because He is alive?  Now, with what is really only a minor disturbance--comparatively speaking--I am completely unsettled.  It is easy to pontificate about faith from an easy chair, in front of a warm fire, while sipping a glass of Malbec.  Only when the fire goes out and you start to feel cold, do you begin to understand how much of what you believe is only theory.  It reminds me of what the disciples of Jesus felt when a storm suddenly rose up over the lake as they were boating their way across....

And there was a sudden great squall of wind and the waves crashed into the boat so that the boat was already filled.  And Jesus was sleeping in the stern on a pillow, and the disciples woke Jesus up and said to Him, "Teacher, doesn't it matter to you that we are perishing?"  And after having been aroused, Jesus rebuked the wind and said, "Be silent, Be quiet!"  And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.  And Jesus said to them, "Why are you cowardly?  Do you not yet have faith?"  And they were filled with great fear and spoke to each other, "Who, then, is this, that both the wind and the sea obey Him?" [Mark 4:37-41]

It all goes to show that ideas and doctrines do not hold us up, only the real presence of Jesus in our life does.  And we only come to really understand faith when we are forced to walk in it.  This reminds me of a story my physics professor once related to us.  He told how he had invited his girlfriend to go sailing with him.  She asked him if he had ever sailed before, and he told her he knew everything there is to know about the theory of sailing--and he did.  Well, after several hours of floundering on the water, and finally walking the boat along the shoreline, his girlfriend told him in no uncertain terms they were through.  I think she called him an idiot, but it was a long time ago, so I might be wrong about that.

Thank the Lord he isn't fickle like my professor's girlfriend.  The Lord didn't give up on His disciples because of their tentative faith; He hasn't given up on me because of my cowardice; and I assure you He won't give up on you, either.  He will continue to give us grace upon grace:  grace to forgive us when we stumble, grace to pick us up again, and grace to strengthen our faith for the next challenge. Such is the beauty of the Gospel of Christ; such is the wonder and peace of standing in His kingdom.

Thanks a lot, folks, for letting me unload on you like this.  I am feeling much better.  I guess this is why Jesus calls us to be a community; we cover for each other in our moments of weakness.  Thanks again for listening.

Weed

Yesterday was a beautiful day.  The temperature was cool without being cold.  The sun played hide and seek with the clouds; and best of all, it all happened on a holiday.  It was a perfect day to commune with the outdoors by attending to our yard and garden.

As I have said many times before, everything in life is a metaphor.  Well, perhaps not everything; but living in a house full of women, you learn to speak in hyperbole.  Of course, that is also a hyperbole because not all women are prone to exaggerate.  The few women I've come to know well over the years have tended in that direction, though.  It's not a criticism; actually, I think it's kind of cute.  In fact, I've come to use the classic "always" statement as a means of making a point; I use bad grammar to the same end.  So I will say it again.  Everything in life is a metaphor.

Our small garden comprises a variety of perennials that bloom at different times over the course of the summer in order to treat the viewer with a ever changing palette of color. You gardeners reading this are likely thinking, Ah, yeah, that's the way it's supposed to work.  You must understand; our garden in particular, and all botanical matters at our house in general are the brain-children of my wife; I'm strictly a brown thumb.  My job is to mow the lawn, trim, and weed the garden.  The challenge for me is differentiating the weeds from the flowers.  My wife has been perplexed her daisies haven't come up this year.  I'm thinking I may had mistook them for weeds.  Some of this mistaken identity is due to my ignorance; but I attribute some of it to the cleverness of the weeds.

As I was surveying the garden yesterday, all seemed nice and tidy.  There were a few small weeds spotting the clear areas, but overall the garden appeared healthy.  Yet on closer inspection, I found some weeds dressed to the nines, standing straight and proud among the flowering plants past bloom, feigning to be part of the gang.  From a distance they were pretty convincing, too; close up, though, their weediness was quite obvious.  Huh, I thought, there's got to be a metaphor in this, somewhere....

And answering, Jesus again spoke in parables to them by saying, "The kingdom of heaven is like a ruler of people who prepared a wedding feast for his son.  And the ruler sent away his slaves to call those who have been invited to the wedding, but they didn't want to come.  Again, the ruler sent away other slaves by saying, 'Tell those who have been invited, see, I have prepared my feast, my bulls and the fattened animals have been slaughtered, I prepared everything.  Come into the wedding feast.'  But those ignoring the invitation went away: one to his family farm, and another to his market; but those remaining seized the slaves and assaulted and killed them.  The ruler was furious; and dispatching his soldiers, he killed those murderers and set fire to their city.  Then the ruler said to his slaves, 'The wedding is ready, but those who have been invited were not worthy.  Therefore, go upon the roads leading out of the city, and invite however many you might find to the wedding feast.  And those slaves took to the roads, and invited everyone they encountered, both the bad and the good.  And the wedding was filled with those reclining at the banquet table.  When the ruler entered the gathering to look at those who were reclining at the table, he saw a person there not dressed in wedding attire.  And the ruler said to the person, 'Comrade, how did you get in here without having wedding clothes?'  The person was dumbstruck.  Then the ruler told the servants, 'After you bind the person's feet and hands, throw the person out into the outer most darkness.'  There, there will be the wailing and the gnashing of teeth.  For many are called, but few are chosen." [Matt. 22:1-14]

No doubt some will cite this passage as a proof text for unconditional election.  I spent a good part of this summer rebutting such an idea, so I won't belabor the point here.  I will say this.  Our hope and security don't rest in God having decided before all eternity how everything in His creation will play out, down to the last motions of each subatomic particle.  No, our hope and security lie solely in the perfect, finished work of Jesus the Christ.

God calls each of us to join Him in His eternal kingdom.  But we must respond, and respond totally on His terms, not our own.  This means we mustn't think we will get in because we're wearing a "I love Jesus" T-shirt; or toting citizenship papers to some nation, ethnic group, or church affiliation; or clutching our advanced degrees from prestigious universities, proving we have mastered the correct theology; or packing our get-out-of-jail-free card.  No, to come to God on His terms is to come clothed in Christ--ensconced in Him as in our skin--by surrendering ourselves completely to His strength and will with an indefatigable trust.  Jesus explains what I mean with graphic imagery:

"Truly, yes truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, you do not have life in yourselves.  The one who is gnawing my flesh and drinking my blood has eternal life, and I will resurrect that person on the last day." [John 6:53-54]

Unless we put on Christ in this most intimate and utterly dependent way, we will remain like those weeds in my garden, believing ourselves to be flowers in God's garden, when we are not.  And our fate will be the same as the fate of those weeds: yesterday, I entered our flower bed, pulled those weeds out by their roots, and cast them behind the fence to dry and whither in the hot sun.

The One Sided Coin

This week I would like to make a comment concerning the ongoing culture war by considering a well known incident in the life of Jesus.  I will translate it from Mark's Gospel account (Mark 12:13-17) because the other Gospel writers (Matt. 22:15-22 and Luke 20:20-26) probably used Mark as their source material:

And they sent away certain ones of the Pharisees and Herodians in order to ensnare Him [Jesus] by [His] word.  And after they came, they said to [Jesus], "Teacher, we know that you are true, and in you is no bias concerning anyone; for you do not look into the face of people, but you teach the way of God in truth.  Is it lawful to pay the poll tax [i.e., a tribute imposed by Augustus in 6 C.E.] to Caesar or not?  Should we pay it or shouldn't we pay it?"  But having seen their hypocrisy, Jesus said to them, "Why do you test Me? Bring to Me a denarius so that I might look at it."  They brought [Him one].  And [Jesus] said to them, "Whose image and inscription is this?"  They said to Him, "Caesar's."  Jesus said to them, "Pay the things of Caesar to Caesar, and the things of God to God."  And they they were exceedingly astonished by Him.

Brother, nothing is new under the sun, is it?  The same political manipulations and trickery used two thousand years ago live on today without mitigation.  Duplicity is one of humankind's best weapons against its self.  Our advanced technology definitely has afforded us the ability to refine duplicity into a high art and science, but we are still as nasty as ever.

Some nineteenth century American scholar/statesman--I don't remember his name--once said something to the effect that politics makes strange bedfellows.  It's true.  Here we see two opposing forces in first century Palestine--the Herodians, who represent the economic and political arm, and the Pharisees, who are the religious arm--in cahoots to blacken Jesus' eye of reputation in order to turn the people against Jesus.  They attempt to liquor Jesus up with  Jim Beam's oldest and most potent recipe affectionately dubbed, "Vanity."  They hope that in His inebriated condition He would slip up and either answer "no" and get the Romans down on Him for fomenting sedition, or answer "yes" and incite the Jewish zealots against Him.  What they don't understand is only the will of God intoxicates Jesus--as it should all of us.

What we need to see in understanding Jesus' response is what coinage represented in the minds of people in those days.  Whoever struck a coin was in effect saying, "this is my realm, my rules, my things!"  Whoever's money you exchanged with others marked you as an ally of the minter of the money.  For this reason, the Jews only used faceless coins minted by either Herod, Herod Antipas, or, until the reign of Vespasian, the Romans in deference to Jewish sensibilities (see A. Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. Hendrickson (2000): p.740).  In this way the Jews maintained their allegiance to the Jewish nation and therefore God.

Don't miss what they were doing in the incident under discussion.  In order to win their culture war against Rome and Jesus--because Jesus, by standing outside of the war, was undermining the causes of both sides of the conflict--the Jews willingly contradicted their own sacred beliefs and traditions; they resorted to using their enemy's methods to achieve their own purposes; they showed their true alliance was with the sword which they hoped someday to wield, but for the time being remained in the hand of Caesar.  The Herodians had long ago bought into the so-called truth of might makes right; but the religious Jews were not far behind them; they would later fully capitulate to this so-called truth when they would confess before Pilate, "We have no King except Caesar!!" (end of John 19:15)

 Jesus' answer to all those hypocrites might be restated as, "Let Caesar do his gig, you play God's gig."  Jesus wasn't into culture wars because the present world order--if we can be so gracious as to call it an order--will do whatever suits it, and what suits it will always oppose the perfect order and love of God's kingdom Jesus has brought to us.  This doesn't at all mean Jesus condones or doesn't care about all the evil persisting in the present age--He does, and so should we.  But such evil will never be beaten by its own methods because the evil feeds on its methods.  The present world system will only be vanquished by the methods of God's kingdom, which are love and forgiveness.

As members of Christ's kingdom juxtaposed on this grim, dark, and evil world system, we should not be trying to fight a culture war because eventually we will be drawn in to use the same tactics and methods of our opponents--that's how wars always work.  Inevitably, as did those Jewish leaders of two thousand years ago, we will attempt to make our point by investing our enemy's money against them, as if to say I represent one side of the coin and you represent the other side.  In reality, though, the coin is one sided.

For example, we cannot hope to show the truth of God's kingdom by repudiating abortion while at the same time war mongering and supporting the death penalty and harboring bitterness against other people, as evidenced by a relentless spewing of vitriol against everyone who doesn't see it our way.  In the end, everyone is killing everyone else.  Instead, we must stand for the sanctity of all life by investing ourselves in a crumbling society by trying to lift people from the desperation, despair, and false allegiances leading them to their murderous decisions and outcomes.  We do this by living according to the sacrificial and humble nature of God's love, which by its very definition means we won't be liked by the present world--indeed, they will try to snuff us out.  But we should not be deterred because God's love is the Truth; and we know this because our King, Jesus the Christ, is alive.  I mean, really folks, what are we afraid of?

Our fear is palpable because we insist on fighting a culture war.  As long as we keep fighting culture wars, all that our opponents will see is our fear.  And our fear will defeat us because fear is contrary to the only force that can bring life, beauty, and peace.  As John writes in his first epistle, "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear holds punishment, the one who fears has not been perfected in love." (I John 4:18)

The people of the present world system are afraid, so the methods they employ are fear based.  When we use their methods we show them we are afraid, too.  There is only one side to the coinage of the present world system, and it is fear.  We need to bring to this fearful world a new coin--a rare, precious, and beautiful coin--that has been minted in a kingdom they do not know, yet long for without knowing it.  We need to dazzle them with the resplendent and bright coin of God's holy love by loving them as Christ has loved us.  Only in the light of the stark contrast of our fearless love will they perhaps come to see their fear and all that fear leads them to do to escape it, only to keep dragging them farther down into its hopeless misery and despair.

Jesus said, "I have spoken these things to you so that you might have peace in Me.  In the world you have tribulation.  But be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." (John 16:33)
 

Lost

A few years ago, I was sitting at my wife's desk waiting to take her out for lunch.  She was a therapist at an elementary school, and was away somewhere on the campus dealing with whatever she dealt with.  I watched the children passing by her open door on their way to the cafeteria.  Each child or group of children streaming by became framed for a moment by the doorway as snapshots of the human race.  It was all of us coursing before my eyes that noon: the flamboyant, the timid, the tough, the haughty, the humble, the weak, the contemplative, the playful, the scared, the invincible, the popular, the marginalized, the swindler, the wheeler and dealer, the politician, the bully, the picked-on, the predator, and the prey.  There we are, I thought.

Then I sat up a little because a small boy--maybe eight or nine years old--drifted through my view, wearing out in the open what all the others were concealing.  There were elements of despair and worry in his face; yet none of these quite described what I witnessed in that little shaver.  In fact, those descriptors--even though accurate at one level--are too easily spoken--too glib.  If they were all one saw in that little guy at that moment, then one would completely miss the profound impression I'm trying to convey. No, he was lost; but lost in the deepest sense.

It was quite evident that he had found himself up against a high, blank, and impenetrable wall.  He knew something lay on the other side, and he knew he needed to get there in order to survive.  But he had looked up and looked to his right and looked to his left, and all he saw was featureless gray.  He no longer thought of going back.  The little lad had come to a point where there were no answers.  It was as if his tender mind simply shrugged its shoulders and told him, "I don't know."  The boy was lost.

When my wife returned, she saw my eyes had welled with tears.  After I explained what I had seen, she said, "Oh, yes, he is one of my students,  He lost his lunch box."

We don't often have such an open window to our selves as I had that day in my wife's school.  I wouldn't see that little light again until sometime later when it reappeared in a woman.

I was waiting for my girls--as I am wont to do--outside a department store when I spied a solitary, middle aged woman walking away from the store.  All she was carrying was her purse; the scene was quite ordinary.  What caused me pause, though, was the manner by which she held her purse.  Her bag had nothing to distinguish it.  As I recall, it was plain and perhaps a bit worn; I don't even remember its color, except that it was monotone.  Yet she carried the purse as if she were carrying her self.  She was clearly lost in the same deep sense as the little chap back at school was lost.

Everyday, millions and millions of people tote around their purses, backpacks, and bags.  If a robber were to snatch a bag from one of these people, you know he or she would get mad--and rightly so; the person might even go after the thief.  But after it was all over, the victim would simply go out and buy new stuff.  This was not the impression that lone woman left me with.  If someone were to suddenly lift her purse, I'm convinced she would end up standing there where it happened in exactly the same state as that little boy had found himself. She would be paralyzed by a hopelessness she couldn't understand.  She wouldn't see her self as a victim--only as one without recourse or options or explanation.  To take something from someone else is wrong; to take that poor woman's purse would be an inscrutable cruelty that would leave her devastated.  And the bleak sadness in this is she wouldn't be able to articulate her devastation because she is lost.

Two people afforded me two glimpses into all of us.  We are all lost just as I have described here.  We are a race in denial.  We are experts at hiding our selves from our selves.  We are all like those with iTunes(R) blaring in their ears in order to drown out themselves in those unwelcome silences.  We are a people without hope until we are willing to quiet the white-noise and finally meet our selves.  We cannot really help each other, either; unless we are willing to look beyond the smoke and mirrors--clever and intimidating as they often are--and see each other as God sees us: the little guy without his lunch pail, the lonely woman clutching her purse.  And when we do that, let us turn back to God; the only one who holds the answers, who finds the lost, who leads the way out, and who genuinely loves us.

"When Jesus saw the crowds, he was filled with compassion concerning them, because they were distressed and sunk powerless like sheep without a shepherd.  Then [Jesus] said to His disciples, "The harvest is great, but the workers are few.  Therefore, ask the Lord of the harvest so that He might cast out workers for His harvest (Matt. 9:36-38)."

And on another occasion:

"After He heard this [i.e., about the execution and burial of John the Baptist], Jesus departed from there by boat to a deserted place by himself.  And after the crowds learned this, they followed after Him on foot from the towns.  And after He came out, Jesus saw the populous crowd and was filled with compassion for them, and He healed their sick (Matt. 14:13-14)."

Oh, and by the way, my wife made sure her bewildered little charge had lunch that day.

Ol' Dad's Advice

My wife and I recently returned home from our annual anniversary getaway weekend.  In the mail that had accumulated in our absence was a contest promotional from a regional business.  It was one of those scratch and play deals, where if you match three icons, you win.  Well, I scratched away and sure enough I matched three $25000 icons.  The sheet claimed I was a certain winner, although there was an asterisk following this proclamation. But even after reading the fine print, it seemed I had really won.  After fifty-plus years my ship appeared to have finally come in; perhaps lady luck was giving a wink to this old luckless Kokko.  It was Sunday, so I put the document aside to pursue on Monday.

As the day wore on, though, I kept thinking about how I was going to spend the twenty-five grand--well, actually the twelve grand after taxes.  Then I recalled a piece of sage advice that was part of a trilogy of wisdom nuggets my Dad had passed on to me the day I left home for the last time.  He said, "There's no such thing as a free lunch."  I related this to my wife, who then went on the internet to see if anyone had posted anything about the company or its promotion.  Sure enough, the business had played this game before in another city.  A winner in that contest was awarded a fifty dollar gift certificate, which she later learned was really only worth five dollars.  When she complained they told her the contest had ended and all prizes were non-negotiable. My Dad's wisdom and my wife's cool objectivity rescued us from a lot of wasted time and the embarrassment of looking like rubes.

Perhaps you are curious about the remaining two pearls of wisdom my Dad had left me all those many years ago.  Some people--mostly my mother--have been a bit put off by the colorful manner by which my father packaged his little gems.  But even this shows how wise my father is; after all, one will probably forget, "You don't get anything for nothing," but will almost certainly remember, "There's no such thing as a free lunch!"

According to my mother's sensibilities, my Dad's other two pieces of advice to his parting son are not fitting for any child with any breeding.  By today's standards--if you can call them that--they pretty much read PG.

Dad had actually introduced me to the first when I was in high school, years before my famous send off.  We had gone to a small shopping mall near our home, that day.  As we entered the mall we passed by a sixties-something woman, who was holding a shopping bag and a purse, and standing by the front doors, apparently waiting for someone.  Coincidental with this my Dad blurted (I don't remember what we had been talking about) out loud, "Yeah, you don't want to be a closet drunk."  Well, as it happened, a short while later we passed through the same set of doors and the same woman still waiting for whoever, when my Dad offered, quite for all to hear, what would become the first of his famous canon of wisdom:  "Well, just remember to save your money and buy good bourbon!"  The poor woman was noticeably appalled that a father would teach his young son (I looked like I was ten in high school) such horrid things.  But I have never forgotten what he taught me that day, and I bet you won't forget it, either.

What was the third piece of the trilogy, you ask?  Well, he told me, "And, son, always pay your poker debts."  It's perhaps not as poetic as Shakespeare's "Neither a borrower, nor a lender be," but it sure hits you right in the gut--don't you think?

Did God Create Some Humans to be Damned? Part 7

Conclusion

Even though the title question seems to emerge from an airtight syllogism, we cannot afford to decide such an important theological issue on the basis of logic alone; because such simple logic is totally silent to the character and purposes of God.  Certainly the character and purposes of God fall far beyond our capacity to understand them (Rom. 11:33-36).  Nevertheless, we are also not totally ignorant because we can see what God has revealed about His nature and purposes in His one, only, and unique son, Jesus the Christ.  Through Jesus we see God’s goodness and the primacy of His goodness.  We also see that because of His goodness God has predestined a place to dwell with us, who are His image-bearers, in perfect justice, which is the right order of all things through righteous relationships of holy-love.  And He predetermined that this place of perfect relationships would stand in Christ, and Christ alone, forever.  This eternal realm is the kingdom of God and His glory.

A person stands in Christ and therefore in His kingdom because he or she chooses, under the all-sufficient light of God’s grace, to repent and surrender him or herself in uncompromised humility wholly to Christ.  A person remains outside the kingdom of God only because he or she stubbornly and arrogantly clings to the delusion of his or her self-sufficiency.  And the only one of these two people you will ever find boasting of his or her decision is the rebel.

God knew before all time the decisions we all would make in the light of grace afforded each of us because of the faithfulness of Christ.  But just because He had such foreknowledge doesn’t mean He had destined us to our choices; for to do that would contradict His goodness and subvert His purpose of a just kingdom of holy-love.  God predetermined to create us and the cosmos to be His kingdom fully aware of those who would resolutely rebel against Him; and He allowed for such rebellion because His love can have it no other way and still remain His love.  This meant that with such great love would also likely be great suffering.

But ponder long and deep this love of God; God’s love loved so much and so powerfully that it completely took all the suffering upon and within itself and then consumed it.  It is as John teaches in his gospel account: 

“In Him [Jesus] was life, and the life was the light of humankind; and the light is shining in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it (John 1:4-5).”

In one sense God because of His love created a universe with the risk His love would go unrequited and incur suffering. Yet even as I admit this again here, I--as I well hope you do, too--realize how simple minded it is to speak of risk at all in the context of God’s love.  God’s love is so powerful it can recover its losses without compromising its nature; so love proceeds in its purposes insensible of any concept of risk or threat of risk. This is the power of God surpassing all understanding; this is truly God’s glory.

Because of Jesus’ faithfulness in going to the cross and taking upon himself all the suffering—past, present, and future—born of unrequited love, and carrying it to the grave, and on the third day vanquishing it once and for all by being bodily raised from the dead and ascending to the right-hand of God (i.e., to reign King over His kingdom), we all stand forgiven (I John 2:2); suffering and evil no longer have any lasting power except what we grant them.

Therefore, in the light of such a love as God’s love, the very idea of God purposely creating people to be damned is ridiculous.  The God who is love created a universe by means of His love, because of His love, and for His love, and in His love; and God’s love is prevailing in Christ, forever.

So the only question remaining for any of us is, “Who is my king?” 

Jesus said,

 “The appointed time has been fulfilled and the kingdom of God has drawn near; repent and believe in the good news! (Mark 1:15)”

Did God Create Some Humans to Be Damned? Part 6

Jesus’ Response to the Title Question

Tensions weigh heavily on us human beings—modern ones in particular; I am no different.  A while ago I sat in the privacy of my library struggling with the tension of God’s sovereignty and human responsibility, wanting desperately to find a clean resolution.  Finally, I prayed, “Lord why couldn’t I just go back in time and ask you or even Paul the direct question and get a straight answer?”  He would show me only a little later I needn’t go to all that trouble; Jesus already answered the question.  Let’s go back together to circa 29 C.E., shall we, and listen in….

Someone said to Him, “Lord, are those who are saved a few in number?” But He said to them, “Struggle earnestly to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.  From the moment the master of the house got up and secured the door, you also will begin to stand outside and to knock on the door, saying, ‘Lord, open the door to us!’  And answering he will say, ‘I don’t know where you are from.’  Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets!’  And he will say, ‘I don’t know where you are from.  Go away from me all of you that does unjust deeds!’ The wailing and the gnashing of teeth will be there, whenever you will see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you are those cast outside.  And they will come from the east and the west and from the north and the south and they will recline at the dinner table in the kingdom of God (Luke 13:23-29).”

The question and Jesus’ answer concern the eternal salvation of humankind.  And Jesus clearly locates this salvation as the kingdom of God; all who come and dine together with Christ in His kingdom are counted as those who are saved.  As I have discussed earlier, our salvation is to stand in the kingdom of God, in Christ.

How do we come to stand in His kingdom?  Notice carefully, Jesus doesn’t give a number—many or few—of those who will be saved; nor does Jesus say only a few who had been chosen before the beginning of time will be those who stand in His kingdom; nor does He say, “don’t worry, everybody will be saved.”  What does He say, then?  He says, “struggle-- literally like a warrior in battle, or an athlete straining toward the prize—yes, earnestly struggle to enter by the narrow door!”  What is the basis of this struggling?  To continuously surrender your whole self in trust to the will of God: to believe in Christ unceasingly.

Jesus tirelessly calls us to repent (turn away from trusting in ourselves and the world and trust God, alone)--to be in a continuous state of believing in Christ.  Why should we agree to this?  Because the kingdom of God has come.  How do we know the kingdom of God has come? Because Jesus has been raised from the dead and rules His kingdom at the right hand of the Father.  Jesus said,

“And if I am raised up from the earth, I will draw all people to Myself (John 12:32).”

The kingdom of God has come because Christ is alive.  Therefore, God calls each of us by putting this question before us, “Who then shall be your king?”

Notice how Jesus describes here the character of those who shall remain outside the kingdom—that is, those who answer God’s call with, “I will be my own king.”  They are a people who have put their faith in rituals and institutions and the camaraderie of people who also profess Christ (i.e., “we ate and drank in your presence”).  They are a people who put their faith in their doctrines and knowledge of Christ (i.e., you taught in our streets).  When Jesus first spoke on the subject of the narrow door leading to life, but the broad door leading to destruction, he further described people taking the broad path as those who will say to Him,

“Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy by your Name, and by your name cast out demons, and by your name do many miracles (Matt. 7:22).”

All these people are serving their selfish-ambition by invoking the name of Christ.  Some do so to check off the box labeled eternal security on their life to do list, where professing the name of Christ is nothing more than a get-out-of-jail free card to them.  Others invoke the name of Christ in a so-called intellectual attempt to sate the nagging feeling there is meaning in the universe even though they are certain there is no meaning.  In his book Escape from Reason in Trilogy, Crossway Books (1990): p. 241-242, Francis Schaeffer explains it this way,

“Neo-orthodoxy seemed to have an advantage over secular existentialism because it uses words that have strong connotations, as they are rooted in the race—words like resurrection, crucifixion, Christ, Jesus.  These words have the illusion of communication….One hears the word Jesus, one acts upon it, but the word is never defined. The use of such words is always in the area of the irrational, the non-logical.  Being separated from history and the cosmos, they are divorced from possible verification by reason downstairs, and there is no certainty that there is anything upstairs.”

None of these people or of the many others we might uncover through Jesus’ descriptions of them has surrendered him or herself to the kingship of Jesus.  And Jesus rightly says of them, “…I never knew you, depart from Me you who work lawlessness (Matt. 7:23).”

   

So, then, what does it mean, “struggle to enter through the narrow gate?”  Jesus says,

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but the person who is doing as a consistent practice the will of My Father who is in heaven (Matt. 7:21).”

So what is the will of the Father (i.e., God)?  Jesus says,

“This is the work of God [i.e., the work God expects us to do], that you believe continuously in(to) Him [Jesus] whom He [God] sent (John 6:29).”

As we have seen, believing as Jesus describes here is not a simple confession of Christ, nor is believing intellectually acceding to Christ.  No, believing is a continual trust validated by an objective obedience of Him.

Because Jesus is who He is and has demonstrated such ineffable love towards us, we struggle and labor in love for Him by loving the same way He loves us.  We struggle because to love this way goes counter to all the present world stands for and rewards, so we encounter relentless resistance both from without and from within ourselves.  We labor because the kingdom of God has come, and as true believers we are kingdom dwellers; and as kingdom dwellers we are to be about the work of the kingdom: to be a light and a salt to a tormented, angry, disillusioned, and lost world (Matt. 5:13-16).  And we do this by acting justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly before God because only in Him can we do this.

Paul expressed this tension that is no doubt weighing on you at this point succinctly as follows,

“Therefore, my beloved ones, just as you always heard, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, accomplish the salvation of yourselves [i.e., Paul is telling us to live as the kingdom dwellers we are] with fear and trembling [i.e., in the humility of complete subjection of our whole selves to Christ]; for God is the one who is working continuously in you both to desire and to effect for [His] good pleasure [i.e., because by standing in Christ we know what really needs to be done, why it needs to be done, when it needs to be done, and we have the desire and the wherewithal to do what needs to be done, and we will be forgiven should we fall short] (Philippians 2:12-13).”

The apostle John describes the tension this way:

“But the one who is practicing the truth comes to the light in order that it is made evident that the person’s deeds are deeds that have been done in God (John 3:21).”

Jesus describes the beauty of the tension of the righteous relationship we have with God, in Christ this way:

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and it shall be opened to you; for everyone who is asking, is receiving, and the one who is seeking, is finding, and to the one knocking it shall be opened (Matt. 7:7-8).”

Notice how the verbs begin as present tense imperatives (i.e., we must respond to the risen Christ) and are then reiterated in the present tense indicatives (actually participles and indicatives).  The present tense in the Greek means the actions occur continuously.  The volleying of present tense verbs (e.g., asking/receiving and seeking/finding) powerfully portrays the translational nature of God’s love flowing between God and His image-bearers as they walk together in the kingdom relationship.

God has placed before each of us the gift He had preordained in Christ from all eternity.  It is an eternal, righteous relationship, and therefore a clear tension of God’s sovereignty and human responsibility.  It ceases to be the relationship God has prepared for us if we believe it only comes to us as totally passive recipients—such as one sleeping on a roof top, who is suddenly awakened, as if from a bad dream, surprised by some influx of enlightenment and transformation.  Ironically, people ultimately cling to this understanding--even though it is usually couched as the only way God can be glorified is if He does absolutely everything--so they can remain in control of their lives.  It is a key reason, I think, why purveyors of this theology are some of the most unloving people I know.

On the other hand, it is also not about us laboring to impress God, as if the kingdom principles were cast as examples to aspire to, but God will ultimately reward us for doing our best.  This too is self-serving and delusional because the kingdom of God is totally the work of God--a pure gift as an act of perfect love through the faithfulness of His one and only, unique son, Jesus the Christ.  We cannot build the kingdom for ourselves, nor can we build it for God; to believe otherwise is to hold to our original conceit that we can be god.

No, solely because of whom Christ is and His great love for us, we, in the light of God's all sufficient grace, repent and love Him by obeying Him.  To do this is to stand in the kingdom of God, and therefore squarely within the tension of God’s sovereignty and human responsibility; it is that simple.

If we stand back and examine ourselves and we see persons striving to bring justice by freely forgiving others, by making amends for those things people have against them,  by giving without expecting payments in return, by using both their spiritual and physical resources to restore others, by celebrating the beauty and prosperity of others instead of lusting after them, by seeking to restore others while keeping the persons’ own weaknesses always in view, by seeking peace and eschewing all violence, by seeing others as God sees them, by praying unceasingly for God’s kingdom to come and His will to be done, by acting in integrity, and by loving all people--whether friend or enemy—just as God loves all people, then we are truly struggling to enter through the narrow gate.  If not, we are attempting to crash the party Jesus describes at the consummation of His kingdom.  And Jesus says all such pretenders will be cast outside where there is wailing and the gnashing of teeth--sober words, indeed.