Come from alongside not above

There at least three different attitudes people have as they go about helping others.

1 – I am up here and you are down there, let me pull you up
2 – I wish I could help you but I am so far below you that I can’t
3 – I am not way up there, I am here, but by God’s grace I am changing and growing, let me come alongside of you and see how I can help

I want to show you that when it comes helping people, it’s the third approach we have to take.

In Galatians 6 we are commanded to restore those who have been overtaken by sin and then to bear one another’s burdens but I want you to look at the explanation Paul attaches to both these commands.

Verse 1.

He says when you see someone overtaken by a sin, you should restore them, but that is not all he says, he says you should restore that person “in a spirit of gentleness.”

And then he adds another instruction, look back at the text,“keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.”

He continues, “For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.”

And then one more, “But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and no in his neighbor.”

All of those statements help us understand how we are to go about restoring one another and bearing one another’s burdens and each one of them tells us that it is very important as we do so that we don’t go about it in a prideful, arrogant way.

Now let me walk you through exactly what that means. Because it is obvious that we shouldn’t help others in a prideful way but we often do because we haven’t thought specifically about what helping others in a prideful way looks like. So let’s look at the text and ask, what does it mean not to be prideful as you seek to help someone else? What does it mean not to come from above, but to come alongside?

I think there are at least 4 keys to coming alongside.

1. Coming alongside means you come gently, not harshly.

Paul says in verse 1, “Restore one another in a spirit of gentleness.”

Gentleness is basically humility in action. It means you don’t come in there like you are better than the person. It means you don’t come in there with a self-righteous spirit. It means you don’t come in there just knocking the person over with angry words. Instead as you come, there’s an approachability to you. As you come, you are talking to the person like they are a person, as you come you are relating to them the way you would want them to relate to you if you were in their shoes.

It means as you talk to the person your love for them is more obvious than your desire to prove them wrong. It means there is a willingness to listen and make sure you have really heard exactly what is going on their lives. It means you don’t say more than you know and speak authoritatively about stuff you really have no right to speak authoritatively about.

2. Coming alongside means you remember you are a sinner too.

Paul says in verse 1, “Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.”

Keep watch on yourself means you can’t just look at the other person, you have to look at yourself. And the reason you have to look at yourself is because you can be tempted by sin too. You can get so focused on the other person and how they were tempted that you can forget you can get tempted too.

There is a danger as we talk about developing life transforming relationships to sort of think of ourselves as above the people that we are wanting to help and you know Paul just blows that idea out of the water. He says o.k. you are going to get in there and you are going to start wanting to work with other people, that’s right you need to do that, but watch out as you do that you aren’t overwhelmed by the same sin or another sin.

This is such an important thing for Paul to say because often when you are helping people, you find that they are struggling with different sins than you are or at least it looks like it at first and so you are kind of tempted to think well you know I better help this guy, this poor, weak sinner, and because whatever is tempting him, you have struggled with yet, you sort of think of yourself as being a little better and Paul’s like man, if you are thinking like that you are setting yourself up for a big fall. Instead of getting all conceited, watch yourself, that you are not tempted and overtaken by a sin suddenly either.

(Might be something as simple as getting on your knees and praying – God I am going to help this person, you know I can get caught up in it too – Lord help me, please help me not to fall in the way I handle this…)

However you do it, if you are going to develop life-transforming relationships, you can’t think of yourself as immune from temptation, as Mr. or Mrs. Spiritual Superhero, because if you do that, what is going to happen, is you are going to be harsh, self-importance based on self-ignorance is a major hindrance to life transforming relationships, the self-ignorant/important man is rough with people; instead you need to recognize you are not all that different than the person you are trying to work with and that’s going to create a spirit of gentleness.

This is such an important point, you notice that Paul comes back to it in verse 3.

Where after talking about bearing one another’s burdens he says, “For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.”

3. Coming alongside means is not having too high an opinion of yourself.

It seems like Paul here is continuing on with this idea of watching ourselves and explaining it and he says look, you have to do this, for if you think you are something when you are nothing, all you are doing is fooling yourself.

What can happen when you see someone else’s sin is that it makes you feel better about yourself. The low opinion you have of that person leads to a high opinion of yourself. We used to have shows in the United States where people would get on those talk shows and talk about how messed up their lives were and people loved those shows, why because watching up how messed up other people’s lives are can make you proud about your own.

And Paul’s saying as you get involved in helping people, don’t let that start happening in your mind. Because if it does, you are ruining all the help you are giving. If you look back at the verse this is sort of a tragic picture, you have got this guy who is going to help someone else, but he doesn’t have a proper view of himself, he thinks he is something and really what is he is, he is self-deceived, and he’s not going to be of much help to anyone as a result.

Because you know what the truth is, apart from Christ, we are all nothing. Spiritually. We’ve got to apply the gospel to our lives. Man, if we have moved ahead, it is only because of help we have received from Christ. So looking at someone else and feeling all great about yourself is self-deception because while you may not struggle with the same sin they do, you are a sinner just like them.

4. Coming alongside you don’t compare yourself with the person you are helping, instead you focus on honoring God with your actions.

Paul continues and he makes just such an important point, he says “But let each one test his own work and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor.”

This explains what Paul means by thinks he is something. We see someone in sin, we compare ourselves to them and we think, yeah we are kind of doing good here. But Paul says instead of comparing yourself with others and boasting about how you are doing, you should take a good, long, hard look at yourself. Test your own work. If you are going to boast, don’t boast in the fact that your neighbor is stuck in a certain sin and you are not. And that’s really what we are doing every time we gossip isn’t it? Look at how bad this person is, and how good I am. Paul says don’t do that. Instead when you see them overtaken by a sin, it should give you pause to really examine yourself and your relationship with the Lord.

Now that’s the main point of what Paul is saying, I am not totally sure what he means when he says, let each one test his work and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone. There are some who think Paul is being sort of funny here, where he is like man you are bragging about how much better you are than the other person, when if you would just slow down and look at yourself, you would see you have no reason to boast. Test your own work and what is going to happen, you are going to see it is so flawed, there’s no way you are going to boast. Others, like say John Calvin, they say no Paul’s not being funny, he’s serious. Test your own work and then if you are doing well, you have reason to boast, not the bad sort of boast where you go around bragging about yourself obviously, but instead the good sort of boast where you are giving thanks to God for the work he’s done in you.

I think that’s probably what Paul is getting at because there are times when Paul himself did this. (You can just check out Acts 23:1 and 2 Corinthians 1:12.)

And then the reason, the reason you need to examine yourself so carefully is in the next verse where Paul says, “For each one will have to bear his own load” which is I think Paul saying, that each one of us is going to have to stand before God and thinking about the fact that one day God is going to evaluate our lives should make us a little less arrogant in comparing ourselves to others.

Need Compassion, Need Knowledge

Helpful article on the group that allegedly took children out of Haiti illegally…

Breaking Down the Walls pt.1

Fighting Against Prejudice in the Church

Who are you?

Really?

It seems like a simple question. At first. Thing is, I am not talking about your name, I am talking about how you define yourself. In other words, where you find your identity. How do you think about who you are?

There are lots of different options.

I mean if I asked you to finish the statement, I am ______; you could answer in a number of different ways. We are constantly coming up with ways to define ourselves and set ourselves apart from others. I am a husband. I am a father. I am American. I am… Fill in the blank.

When I ask you, who are you, really I am asking, who are you fundamentally?

At the core?

Ultimately?

Your answer to that question is important. To Paul.

That is why he is always talking about it. If Paul’s not talking about who Christ is, he’s usually talking about who you are or the difference who you are should make on the way you think about your life.

To make sure I am not exaggerating, I surveyed the book of Colossians noting all the different times Paul talks about who the believer is and in one quick barely doing any work kind of way I noticed at least 20 different descriptions Paul uses of what it means to be a Christian.

20.

In 4 chapters.

Who you think you are. It is important to Paul.

It is important because the way you think about yourself has major practical real life implications.

Obviously.

We barely even need the Bible to know that.

If I think of myself as someone’s husband I am going to speak and act differently towards that person than I would if I didn’t. If I think of myself as inadequate in a certain setting I am going to speak and act differently than if I think I have everything I need. If I think of myself as superior to someone I am going to speak and act differently than if I think of myself as inferior.

More importantly though, the way you think about yourself is important because the Bible says so.

Look at the way Paul counsels people.

For example, check out the book of Colossians. Paul begins really exhorting believers how they ought to live starting in verse 16 of chapter 2.

Practical stuff.

And if you follow his instructions down to verse 11 of chapter 3, you will find 7 ‘sort’ of markers of explanation.

I am talking about words like therefore.

Paul is exhorting believers how they need to live their lives and throughout this passage we find a number of words like,

v.16 therefore
and
v. 20 if … basically the thought is…if this is true, then this ought to be true in your life
and again in
ch.3 v.1 if… then
v.3 for…
v. 5 therefore…
v. 6 for
v. 10 since

Paul is giving commands and he is giving reasons for those commands and if you look carefully at the reasons Paul gives; about 6 out of the 7 have specifically to do with the believer’s identity, who the believer is and what Christ has accomplished for believers on the cross.

In Paul’s mind having the right idea about who you are is not abstract, it is not theoretical, it is practical. In fact, if you look even more closely in Colossians you will notice that a big part of the problems these believers were experiencing was because they were acting in a way that was not consistent with who they really were, their identity.

We would all say, we would all know that if we are talking to an unbeliever they are never going to be able to understand salvation or embrace salvation if they don’t understand who they are. We know, you can’t just tell them what to do, they have to know, the unbeliever has to appreciate exactly who the Bible says they are if they are going to move forward spiritually. It is impossible for the unbeliever to know God without knowing themselves. And what I am saying is that we can take that a step further and say something similar is true even after we are saved; just as the unbeliever can’t understand salvation without understanding what the Bible says about who he is, we as believers will not really understand sanctification, without understanding and embracing who the Bible says we are.

This is important.

To Paul.

Practically.

And you know, it is important for us to slow down and think about really because we are not who we used to be.

A change actually has taken place in our lives.

We’ve got to slow down and think about how we look at ourselves, how we think about ourselves, how we define ourselves, because a change has taken place in our very identity. We are talking about a change at the core level, not on the surface, we’re talking the very real self level, an identity change has taken place in our lives as believers. A change that is so big, we can refer to it in terms of laying aside the old self and putting on the new self. It’s like we’re two different people. There’s who we used to be. We can call that the old self. And then there’s who we are now. The new self. There is a break that has taken place.

In conversion. In salvation.

That is why he refers to it as old self versus self. Death versus life. Being transferred from one kingdom to another. We exist as believers in a whole new mode, in a different place spiritually, we have an entirely different way of seeing things, we are different people, we have a different identity.

Big things have taken place in our lives.

We have changed at a fundamental level.

And so our thinking about ourselves should change.

That’s why we’ve got to slow down and think about how we are seeing ourselves, because you know how we as humans work, we have habits, patterns, and those habits and patterns die hard. Even when it comes to something like this, where we are primarily finding our identity.

Before we were saved we had a way of thinking about ourselves that way of thinking became sort of habitual for us and those habits die hard.

It is kind of like if someone is single and he’s always thinking about girls and he’s always flirting with girls and then he gets married, that event changes his identity but it doesn’t necessarily, right away change the way he thinks at least not without some work. He’s a new man. He’s married. But he’s got to work on lining up the way he thinks with who he is.

That’s definitely true when it comes to being a Christian. Only thing with being a Christian for some people the exact change that is supposed to take place in the way they think about themselves and others and the world can seem a little more fuzzy at first and so I want give you a simple test to help you determine whether or not you are really looking at yourself and defining yourself the way you should in light of the great transformation that has taken place in your life.

It is found in Colossians 3:11.

“Here”

Here as opposed to there. Here in the new self as opposed to there in the old.

“There is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all and in all.”

One of the things the characterizes the new self as opposed to the old self is that there is not Greek and Jew and all these other things but instead Christ is all and is in all, which is really a very interesting thing for Paul to say because it seems at first like there still sort of is.

He says in the church basically, in the new self, as individuals and as a body, a core kind of transformation has taken place, that is part of what it means to have become a Christian, to be Christians and one of the implications of that transformation is that there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free, which what we are saying is a very interesting for Paul to say because as we look around us it kind of seems like there is still is.

I mean, when a person becomes a Christian it is not like he stops being white and becomes black or stops being black and becomes Asian. We’ve still got all kinds of colors going on. There still are Greeks and Jews, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free, which indicates that what Paul means when he talks about there not being Greek and Jew is that the difference he is talking about has to do not so much with the physical differences and cultural differences in and of themselves but instead, what is obliterated in the new self as someone has put it “are the barriers formed by these differences and the relative status among the people of God based on these differences.”

That is why the New American Standard adds in italics, “there is no distinction between Greek and Jew”

Paul’s making a contrast between where people find their identity fundamentally before they become Christians and where they find it after. Before people become Christians they find their identity primarily in things like their ethnicity or nationality or social class or religious achievements but for us as believers, that is not true any longer.

There is one thing that primarily defines this new self and that is its relationship to Christ.

“But Christ is all and in all.”

The reason we can say in the new self there is not Greek and Jew is because we have stopped living for the glory and exaltation of ourselves and we have stopped depending on things like race and culture and social class for our salvation and instead we are depending completely on Christ.

He is all.

When we look at the world around us He is the reason for everything we see in creation. When we turn to look at ourselves we find He is everything we need for salvation. The only thing we need.

He is all.

And he is in all.

All believers.

We are talking about union with Christ.

Every true Christian is united to Christ through faith! Every true Christian regardless of race, culture, social background, is indwelt by the Creator, Sustainer and Lord of the entire Universe.

The way we think about ourselves first and foremost and the way we think about other Christians first and foremost, our primary identity as Christians has to be “based on this our union with Christ” and based on this, “their union with Christ” and not on traditional human sociological connections.

Which is why I am here asking you, honestly, at the end of the day how do you really define yourself?

Where are you really finding your identity?

How much of who you are and the way you think about who you are is defined by the gospel and how much of it is really determined by other factors?

One great way to evaluate who you think you are is by looking at the way you think about others.

Love

“I am deeply persuaded that the foundation for people transforming ministry is love… Love is what drove God to send and sacrifice his Son. Love led Christ to subject himself to a sinful world and the horrors of the cross. Love is what causes him to seek and save the lost, and to persevere until each of his children is transformed into his image. His love will not rest until all of his children are at his side in glory… Without it, [Christ's love for his own] we have no hope personally, relationally or eternally. This love is not a band-aid attempting to cope with a cancerous world. It is effective and persevering. It is jealous, intent on owning us without competition. It faces the facts of who we are and how we need to change and simply goes to work. Any hope for the problems we face-with our own hearts and with a dark and corrupt world-is found in the love of the Lord Jesus Christ. This love offers hope to anyone willing to confess sin and cry out for transformation.

Yet this is where we often get stuck. We want ministry that doesn’t demand love that is well, so demanding. We don’t want to serve others in a way that requires so much personal sacrifice. We would prefer to lob grenades of truth into people’s lives rather than lay down our lives for them. But this is exactly what Christ did for us. Can we expect to be called to do anything less. The love of Christ is not only the foundation for our personal hope, but our incarnation of that love is our only hope for being effective for Christ with others. Sadly many of us have forgotten this and we are resounding gong people in cymbal clanging relationships. There is a whole lot of noise but not much real change.”

Paul Tripp, Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands

Quotable

“…Christian leadership is profoundly self-denying for the sake of others, like Christ’s ultimate example of self-denial for the sake of others. So the church must not elevate people to places of leadership who have many of the gifts necessary to high office, but who lack this one. To lead or teach, for example, you must have the gift of leadership or teaching (Rom. 12:6-8). But you must also be profoundly committed to principled self-denial for the sake of brothers and sisters in Christ, or you are disqualified.”

D.A. Carson

HT: The Gospel Coalition

Sometimes the right way is the wrong way

“In comparison with the strategies employed by many ministries today, we could say Francis Schaeffer did everything wrong. He shunned the celebrity circuit, and was willing to minister on the other side of the ocean in an obscure village that no one had ever heard of. While many Christian leaders are obsessed with getting publicity, visibility and name recognition in order to raise money, Schaeffer was willing to start a small ministry completely invisible to the public, hidden away in the Swiss Alps. When he wrote about dying to our natural ambitions, he was not merely parroting a theological doctrine, his insights grew out of hard won personal experience.

Nor did he use mass marketing techniques to get his name out and build a constituency. He did not have a fund development department to churn out an endless flood of fundraising letters, advertising copy, and premium offers. Instead he started with a modest list of prayer supporters, while his wife, Edith, typed personal letters to send out.

Even more remarkable he was willing to get started by simply talking to his kids friends. As his children grew older they went down the mountain to Lausanne to attend university, and when their friends raised spiritual questions, they would say, ‘You ought to talk to my Dad.’ Since their home was so inaccessible, a chalet perched on the side of the mountain, once students arrived, they would have to spend the night. Later they would tell their friends about the earnest little man with the goatee and a powerful message, hidden away in the Alps. And they would tell their friends, and after a while the Schaeffers had students sleeping everywhere – on couches, on floors, and in the hallways.

This is how L’Abri grew into a home based ministry: It was completely an organic process, as the Schaeffers talked to real people about real questions. No five year marketing plans, no list of goals and objectives, no pumping donors for major gifts, no PR campaign to project an image. The ministry grew almost completely by word of mouth, as the Schaeffers prayed that God would bring them the people of His choice.

Many of Schaeffer’s former colleagues thought he was crazy to give up opportunities in the States to speak before large audiences and build a mega organization. Some were angry and critical, accusing him of wasting his gifts. What kind of ministry is that, they asked, just talking to people. Later Schaeffer was to say in a sermon that if we can speak to thousands, we may have to die to that, and be willing to speak to one or two at a time. Clearly his insights were not abstract but were the fruit of his courage to follow God’s leading in the face of sometimes vicious criticism…

In many ministries, there is relentless pressure for constant growth: Every year the numbers have to be bigger, the results more impressive, so that donors will be moved to write another check. By contrast, I once heard Schaeffer speak at a conference where he was asked what would happen if someday, the money didn’t come in. He responded simply: ‘I guess we’ll be smaller.’ The conference hall erupted into applause at such a refreshing lack of pretentiousness. His mentality was that God had a time and a purpose for L’Abri and when it had fulfilled tha tpurpose, it might simply end.”

Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth, p.376-77

One of the letters on my keyboard won’t work. Can you guess whch?

Evil’s weakness and its strength

“Evil must rationalize, and that is its weakness. But it can, and that is its strength.”

J. Budziszewski

The Acid Test

“There are two kinds of people that go to church: there’s religious people and real Christians. And the way you can tell the difference is that a Real Christian is somebody who sees everything that comes as a gift. In other words a real Christian sees that you are totally in debt to God, but a religious person is someone who is working hard and making an effort and trying to be good, going to Bible studies and just saying “no” everywhere, and denying themselves a lot of pleasures, and so forth, and a religious person is someone who is trying to put God in their debt. That is the difference. A religious person is someone who is trying to save themselves through their good works. A religious person is somebody who thinks they are putting God in their debt since they have tried so hard. A Christian is somebody who sees themselves as in God’s debt. “

Tim Keller

Cry out for Justice!

Sad stuff.

Yet another reason to pray for our Savior’s return.