Babies

My son turned one-month old yesterday.

And he still doesn’t do a single thing around the house.

Well, a single thing other than eat (apparently whenever he feels moved), and speaking of movement, he does a few other things that will remained unmentioned here.

Mostly he just lays around, alternating between the swing, the bed, and the baby recliner thingie, so long as someone else picks him up and puts him there. He cries until you pick him up and hold him for a few minutes. Then he stops.

He won’t help set the table or clear it off at meal time. He won’t even take his own clothes off, wash himself, or anything.

This is very time-consuming for us adults (by which I mostly mean momma … Okay, I entirely mean momma) because he requires everything be done for him whenever he wants it, and does nothing to help anyone  else out. And he cries until someone gets him what he wants, which takes that someone away from other things they need to be doing.

And this reminds me why the Scripture uses “baby” as a metaphor for some Christians.

Here’s my advice to you, if you are a time-consuming, lay-around-the-church, expecting-everything-to-be-done-for-you-while-contributing-nothing-in-terms-of-real ministry kind of Christian: GROW UP ALREADY.

Quit being a baby.

I’ll tolerate it from my son for a few more days. But that’s because he’s cute. You’re not. So stop doing nothing.

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.  For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.  (Hebrews 5:12-14)

No Half-Jesus

Jesus will not be divided. People have tried. Even those closest to him.

In Mark 8:27-33, Peter tried to divide Jesus. After Peter proclaimed Jesus to be the Christ—the Messiah, the King—Jesus prophesied of his own death that would make him the Savior.

Peter’s immediate response is to divide Jesus by trying to prevent Jesus from going to the cross. You see, Peter liked a King Jesus, one with great miracles, great teaching, and great power; he didn’t like a Savior Jesus, one who would be rejected and die.

Jesus called him Satan for this division because Jesus will not be divided. Peter, by trying to have a half-Jesus, was acting as a tool of Satan.

Interestingly, in the very next verses, Jesus now calls the crowd to him. He is no longer speaking only to his disciples, the already committed. He is now speaking to everyone. 

To this crowd, he warns them against accepting him as Savior but not as Lord. These are people who want the Savior Jesus but do not want the King Jesus. They want to live as their own master, while pretending to trust in someone else as Jesus. They want Jesus on the cross, but they do not want to pick up their own cross.

To these, Jesus says, “If you are going to follow me, then you are going to have to follow me. To fail to deny yourself and take up the cross is to lose your existence—your life, your soul, the very thing you are trying to save.” And that life is lost at the return of Christ when Jesus is ashamed of you.

I think it very difficult to make the case that Jesus is saying merely that he will be embarrassed by one of his children at his second coming. I think he is saying what he says in Matthew 7 and other places: “Depart from me. I never knew you.” Or Matthew 10:33 where Jesus says, “I will deny him before my Father in heaven.”

You can pretend that Jesus is calling on those already committed to take some extra step of commitment to discipleship. But I think it hard to reconcile that with the fact that Jesus is speaking to the crowd, not the core. And I think it hard to reconcile that with the fact that Jesus ties eternity to it. And I think it hard to reconcile with the fact that the Bible, the New Testament which is our final rule of faith and practice, has no apparent use for a distinction between salvation and discipleship, between the saved and the disciples. And if Jesus had no room for that, either in his own ministry or in his early church, then we must question why there are some who pretend to know more than Jesus did.

You see, Jesus will not be divided. He will not be a King without being a Savior. And he will not be a Savior without being a King.

Yes, it’s a hard saying.

But it’s Jesus’ saying.

And we have no right to say anything else.

The Great Commission Compiled

While it is customary for believers to think about the Great Commission in terms of Matthew 28:19-20, there are actually five passages that communicate the Great Commission: Matthew 28:18-20; Mark 16:15; Luke 24:46-48; John 20:21; and Acts 1:8.

By looking at these passages together, we can get a full sense of the mission to which God has called the church.

I have compiled it this way:

The Great Commission is to go[1] with the authority of Jesus[2] and the presence of Jesus[3] in the power of the Spirit[4] to all people groups,[5] preaching the gospel[6] calling people to repent and believe on Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins,[7] and incorporating them into visible churches through baptism[8] and teaching them the commands of Jesus[9] so that they become disciples who believe his word and obey his commands.[10]

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[1]Matt 28:19; Acts 1:8; cf. Mark 16:15; Luke 24:47; John 20:21

[2]Matt 28:18; Acts 1:8; John 20:21

[3]Matt 28:20

[4]Acts 1:8

[5]Matt 28:19; Mark 16:15; Luke 24:47; Acts 1:8

[6]Mark 16:15; Luke 24:46-47; Acts 1:8

[7]Luke 24:46-47

[8]Matt 28:19

[9]Matt 28:20

[10]Matt 28:19-20;

Dave Doran, pastor of Inter-City Baptist Church and president of Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary has an excellent extended discussion of the Great Commission in the book For the Sake of His Name: Challenging a New Generation for World Missions (Allen Park, MI: Student Global Impact, 2002), pp. 68-154.

Why Rules Don’t Work

Notice that I said “Why rules don’t work.” I did not say “Why rules are not good.” I think rules are good. I think they are helpful, but they never work to bring about lasting change?

Why? Because they are external.

John Owen, in Indwelling Sin, say, “A law proposed unto us is not to be compared, for efficacy, to a law inbred in us.”*

This is why Gentiles “do instinctively the things of the Law … [showing ] the work of the Law written in their hearts.” (Romans 2:14-15). It is internal.

This is why Israel’s grand hope in the New Covenant is that God writes a new law on their hearts (Jeremiah 31:33). External law exacerbated sin; it did not cure it.

This is why external walls can modify behavior but cannot change the life.

Too many Christians are into behavior modification. “Stop … Start.” But we too often fail to address the heart.

Heart issues always show up. If we fix one problem area, it will simply show up in another area. For lasting change, we must kill the root. And that can only be done by internal change.

So let us, as those committed to making disciples, be more worried about the why than the what.

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*The Complete Works of John Owen, 6:165