I seldom travel into New York City to meet someone for
lunch, but I had been invited by Richard, a good friend from college days, and
I was eager to see him again.
We had planned to meet at a restaurant near Union Square,
and while waiting for our food and drink to be served, we tried to give each
other a quick story about what we had been doing since we had last met. I
learned that Richard, his wife and their two kids now live in New York City,
and seem to be enjoying city life and its many diversions.
Later, Richard mentioned that he had become a member of
Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan. The Senior Pastor of that
church, he said, was a man named Timothy Keller. Rev. Keller had been
preaching recently on the subject of one's relationship with God. Richard
paraphrased Pastor Keller as saying,
"Our identity is not
built on our earthly record or our performance,
but on God's love for us
in Christ. Our main purpose is fellowship
with God. Our
self-view is not based on our moral achievement.
In Christ, we are
simultaneously sinful and lost, yet accepted in
Christ. We are so
bad that Jesus had to die for us, and we are
so loved that Jesus was
glad to die for us."
Richard stopped to take a breath, and then continued to
paraphrase Pastor Keller,
"This leads us to
deep humility and confidence, at the same time.
Our identity and
self-worth are centered on one who died for us.
We are saved by
sheer grace, so we cannot look down on those who
believe or practice
something different from us. Only by God's
grace are
you and I what we are."
Frankly, I knew all of this, so I was a little surprised
that Richard found it so astonishing.
Then Richard reminded me that in his college days, he had
always been his own boss, and that he had not believed there was
a God who cared about humankind, so that Richard had seen a need to be his own
Savior. Later, after college, Richard said, as he saw a bit more of the
world he had looked upon God as his helper and teacher, and through Jesus as
the model for his daily behavior. Richard claimed that in those years he
had always tried to obey God's law (that is, to be really righteous and really
moral), but he was still the boss.
I wondered to myself whether this had been just so Richard
could be his own Savior and bargain better for his own
salvation. I was thinking that if Richard had given thanks to God merely
in the hope that it would earn Richard blessings in heaven, then he was not
actually doing anything at all for God? It would be for Richard's
benefit only. I was remembering the Pharisees of Jesus' time, who were so
fixated on the letter of the law, but not the spirit of the law.
Richard seemed to be admitting that he had been obeying God
in order to get things from God. He said that when circumstances in his
life would go wrong, he was angry at God, as he believed that anyone who is
"good" deserves a comfortable life. In those earlier days, he said,
if he were criticized, he would become furious or devastated, because it was
critical that he think of himself as a "good person." He said
that his prayer life had consisted mainly of petition, and prayers that he would
employ only when he was in a "time of need." Richard admitted
to me that in those days his main purpose in prayer was to control his
environment, not to develop a relationship with God.
Richard said of himself that his motivation then was based
on fear and insecurity. "If and when I was living up to my
standards," Richard continued, "I felt confident, but then I was
prone to be proud and unsympathetic to failing people. If I was not
living up to my standards, I felt humble, but not confident ----- I felt
like a failure. My identity and self-worth were based mainly on how hard
I worked, or how moral I thought I was ---- and so I had to look down on those
I perceived as lazy and immoral."
I thought hard about where Richard said he had come in
seeking a compass for his life. It seemed that before hearing Pastor
Keller, Richard was avoiding God as the Savior and Lord.
He was trying to keep control of his life by looking to something besides God
for salvation ---- HIMSELF. It occurred to me that perhaps
"religious legalism and irreligious relativism" are just different
strategies for "self-salvation."
Now I needed to react to Richard's description of his path
to spiritual discovery ---- his personal discovery of a relationship with God.
"Only an experience of grace," I said, "can
change us so we do not avoid Jesus Christ as Savior, but do good things for
goodness's sake. What is this grace? It is not fundamentally
an invitation to get more religious. No, though we often do fail to obey
the moral law, the deeper problem is why we are trying to obey it.
Even our efforts to obey it may have been a way of just seeking to be our own
Savior."
In my opinion, I said, the way to live does not involve only
an attempt to repent. Richard's earlier way to live had involved
repentance of his sins. But followers of the way to live as
described by Pastor Timothy Keller, repent both their sins and their self-
righteousness.
"So," I concluded, "we must change not so
much the amount, but the object of our faith. We have to do more
than just subscribe to a set of doctrines about Christ. It is more than
that ----- we must transfer our trust from our own works and record, to
Christ's work and record."
Having said that, I felt obliged to pick up the tab for
lunch.
________________________________________________________________________
These thoughts are brought to you by CPC's Adult
Spiritual Development Team, hoping to encourage you to pursue some personal
growth this year at CPC.
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