The Longest Sabbath Ever.

"On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment."

Luke 23:56

This does not seem like the proper response after your rabbi, master, and lord has just been executed for a crime he did not commit. If I was one of the disciples I would most certainly be freaking out right now, despite Jesus' multiple proclamations that this is exactly what was going to happen (see Luke 9:18-22). In my mind, Jesus was going to overthrow Rome, be established as king, and usher in a new Golden Age for Israel. He was definitely NOT going to die by the hands of those very same Romans. But isn't it interesting that the one full day Jesus lay dead in a tomb just happened to be the Sabbath?

Now, the Sabbath is all about rest. In Genesis, God makes everything in six days, and on the seventh He rests.

God does not need to rest.

God is not tired after a full work week.

God is doing something here.

He is intentionally wiring the world to work in a certain way, a certain rhythm. God wants creation to enter a rhythm of work and rest, work and rest. The Sabbath teaches us not to rely on ourselves but to trust in God by resting in His work for us.

So then why is Jesus in the ground on the Sabbath? Because he has finished his work and now it is time to rest in that work. That is what God does. Jesus as the eternal God already has a track record of resting after a magnificent work; first in creation, and secondly in salvation. But Jesus does not need to rest after the work of the cross. The rest is for us. We are the ones that need to rest in God's work. If the disciples actually listened to Jesus and understood what was taking place, they would be resting in the fact that God has finished His redemptive work and wait for Jesus to rise from death. But instead they had lost all hope that Jesus was who he said he was. Luke 24:21 accounts two disciples reaction to the whole scenario:

"We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel."

You can just hear the despair in their voices; "we had hoped..." I'm quite sure that although God had planned to have the death of Jesus land on a Sabbath, the disciples did not grasp the full reality of this move. For them the Sabbath was a routine part of life, and so the deep truth of this Sabbath must have been lost on them. Maybe it's just me, but perhaps the reason God puts so much weight and emphasis on the Sabbath was for this specific day. Every command of God is not just a command in itself, but always points to a bigger reality. The entirety of existence in a sense is packed into 3 days. On Good Friday God works in a magnificent display of glory, He rests on the Sabbath, and then He ushers in a new creation. God's intent in the Sabbath falling between the cross and resurrection is to teach us to rest in God's work for us, trusting in his atoning work and looking forward to his resurrecting power. And notice that he is not "suggesting" we rest, he is commanding it. "On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment" (emphasis mine). Our command is not to impress God with our work, but to be impressed by His work and rest in it.

So if we take this passage and zoom out to see all of redemptive history, it would seem that we are living in the longest Sabbath ever. we live between Good Friday (God's magnificent work) and Easter Sunday (His new creation). The whole life of a Christian is one long Sabbath; we behold the work of God on our behalf, live our lives in light of that work, not adding to it, and we wait for Him to resurrect everything. So behold the marvelous atoning work of Jesus, rest in it, and wait in hope for the New Creation.

Dating Law vs. Dating Gospel, Part 4: The Junk Drawer: Or, The Difference Between Legalism and Wisdom

This is part 4 of a series on grace, dating, and law. Today we will look at how having a dating gospel influences how we think through the “can’s”, the “cannot’s” and what wisdom the Bible has to in regards to dating relationships. You can check out the rest of the series here, here, and here.

If you haven’t figured it out by now, let me confess: I am a grace addict. It fuels my life, drives my motivations, and guides my relationships. Now it didn’t used to be, but with the help of some key people in my life and the work of the Spirit on my pride and insecurity (yes, those two things are connected), I have come to desire nothing more than to bask in my acceptance before God because of the work of Jesus on my behalf. I still struggle with pride and insecurity, but I now know that it does not change or affect how God sees me, rather, the only thing that changes is my attitude towards Him, myself, and others. Now as you can imagine, this has had a profound effect on my dating relationships, namely because nothing brings out pride and insecurity more than grace and acceptance in the presence of sheer failure.  I’m sure nobody wants to fall flat on their face in front of people on a regular basis (especially around those whom we are dating), but many of us seem to get stuck in cycles of sin, failure, and defeat in this specific area. So to continue with our theme of law and gospel, I would like to propose two ways to handle failure, rough patches, and the junk drawer of sin in dating, and how different of a result they produce. As with before, let’s begin with our dating Law.

Dating law, when addressing how to navigate sin, frustration, and failure will do three things:

1) Assess which rules have been broken.

2) Assign blame.

3) Reassert a “do better, try harder” outlook.

In my dating relationships this is what I did, because my pride (which said I didn’t need outside help to figure this out) and my insecurity (which said I still wasn’t good enough) were directing my decisions, not grace.

Dating gospel, when addressing the same issues, will react like this:

1) Assess how they have not looked out for the good of the other.

2) Seek wisdom from Scripture and godly counsel.

3) Reassert identity in Christ.

What I have learned (and am still learning) is the importance of the gospel in the moment of weakness and failure, and the inclusion of wisdom afterward. For you see, if you do not remember the grace of God in the presence your failures and frustrations, you will revert back to a self-centered introspection which can only lead to pride (thinking you’re not that bad) or despair (thinking you’re too far gone). If you do not remember the gospel (which by it’s very nature is outside yourself) afterward, then you will be prone to make the same mistakes over and over again. This is where wisdom from outside comes in and helps form us in regards to gospel relationships.

The thing I have gotten the most most pushback when sharing this idea with others is how far grace stretches. I hear “but Jordan, if you don’t enforce some kind of moral standard, then people just do whatever they want and sin will reign in that relationship”. They will speak of “cheap grace” (a contradiction in terms if I’ve ever heard one), which shows how little grace is actually understood. There is no such thing as cheap grace, because grace is by definition infinitely costly, though the cost is on God, not ourselves. To quote Tim Keller once more, “God is so holy that because of sin, Jesus had to die, but because God is loving, Jesus was glad to die.” Sin is serious, and in dating that reality is only magnified because when you allow another into your life, it becomes hard to hide (exactly what relationships are supposed to do, bring us into the light). Interestingly enough, the other hesitancy I receive goes something like this: Well if it’s true that grace changes everything, including the way we date, then shouldn’t that be all we need? Isn’t all this supposed “biblical wisdom” the exact kind of “law” you have been warning us about?  If grace is all we need, why look for a guiding rule to dating? The problem here is an unnecessary and unhelpful dichotomy. Wisdom from the Scriptures and submission to godly counsel and authority is exactly the kind of grace I am talking about. If the dating gospel is looking out for the good of the other, and not the needs of the self, then we would do a disservice to those we are dating if we isolated ourselves from others and refused the grace that is present in wisdom, seeing that grace is not a rug that we sweep all our mistakes under, but a transformative reality.

So let’s end with a few practical points for surrounding ourselves and our significant others with the grace of wisdom, and training ourselves to see the deception of dating law.

FIrst: Surround your relationship with godly people who love you and will speak truth and grace into your lives.

This doesn’t just mean you have “accountability partners”, but that you are constantly spending time with and around these people. They are part of the normal rhythms of your week and see you two in the good and the bad. One of the worst things you can do for a relationship is to isolate the two of you where you spend all your time “alone together”. I’m not just talking about physical temptation (that will always be there), but when you only get time with one person, it begins to be more difficult to do what is actually best for them.

Second: Be quick to repent.

In dating relationships you are going to sin against one another, and when it happens, acknowledge your sin, repent, and ask for your significant other’s forgiveness. If you are both fully covered under grace, then sin doesn’t have to come in and tear you apart. You can acknowledge what it is, and live in the reality of God’s forgiveness as it flows through you. The goal of the gospel is reconciliation, and if God can reconcile sinful humanity to himself, then you can apologize for trapping her cat in the closet or belittling him in front of his friends.

Third: Be quick to forgive.

Again, when to sinners get together, sin happens. In relationship, what seems miniscule to one may be a huge deal to the other. If we are using the gospel as the defining mark of dating, then practicing forgiveness has to be a core element. We must learn to understand that the vertical reality of our relationship with God has to have horizontal implications for those we are relationship with, especially those in our dating relationships. Holding onto resentment, bitterness, and unforgiveness is the quickest way to dissolve a relationship, and if we have experienced such a great forgiveness, why would we hold it back from those closest to us?

Next week, in our final installment, we will try to understand the relationship between the gospel, dating, and marriage as a capstone to all we have discussed so far. Dont miss it.

The Gospel for Dating Part Two: Implications

(This is part three of a five-part series entitled “Dating Law vs. Dating Gospel”. Today is a continuation of my post yesterday about Gospel identity with a focus on the implications for dating relationships)


If you missed yesterday’s post, you can check it out here. Today we’ll build on part one of “The Gospel for Dating”, so if you didn’t get a chance to check it out, I’d suggest reading it before jumping in.

When you anchor your life in the reality that God has rescued you from slavery by giving His Son to make you righteous and free, you are free to stop obsessing about your life because it’s not about you, it's about Jesus. This then leads us to the following conclusion:

Gospel-centered dating is about the good of the other, not the needs of ourselves.

This has generated three profound implications in my own life. I share them with you in the hopes that they will set you free as well.

1. Who you date does not define you.
All of the pressure we take on when we set out to find “The One” disappears when we apply our identity in Christ to the idea of what our “perfect partner” would be like. And let’s face it, they don’t exist ok? Tim Keller says in his book The Meaning of Marriage that “you never marry the right person”, and, because dating is the precursor to marriage, that statement applies to dating as well. You will never date the right person. Find someone who you can let into the mess of your life ,and see if you can stand to be around them for more than ten minutes at a time. Don’t set out looking for Michelangelo's David, just look for a good piece of marble, and let God shape you both into the people He made you to be. When you give up all of your dating laws and start embracing the Gospel in light of your relationship, it starts to become less about your wants and needs and checklists. You can finally, selflessly give to the other person, serve them, and care for them instead of using them. When you realize that they do not define you, you can stop trying to control your relationship and start working on it, letting them be them, and learning together how to help each other become all that God has created you to be.

2. How you date does not define you.
Because God has set you free from any self or culturally imposed law, from all the electric fences, from all the do’s and do nots, you are now free from any preconceived notions about how this dating thing is going to work. Grace is your defining measurement of and requirement for your dating relationships. When you start believing in and proclaiming unfettered grace, people will inevitably start asking, “So does that mean we can do whatever we want and God will forgive us?”, and your answer will be a resounding “YES! But you won’t want to!” If you think that is an overestimation of grace, I would ask you what you think grace accomplishes. Is grace a sort of rug that you sweep all your junk under? Or is grace a radically transforming reality that changes everything about you, including your desires and motivations? If you were hesitant about my earlier “YES!”, than I would submit that you have actually, tragically underestimated grace, and that you would probably fall in the former category. Grace isn’t neat, it isn’t orderly, and it most definitely ISN’T controllable. Grace makes you do ridiculous things. Grace leaves all paranoia of “are we doing this right?” in the dust and chases after the broken-hearted and those hopelessly wounded from not measuring up. It grabs them, embraces them, shakes them silly, and messes up their hair. Grace messes up your hair. And when it’s done, you can brush the dust of Dating Law off your clothes and freely, adventurously pursue someone in hopes that they’ll experience the same hair-raising grace that you have.

3. Why you date does not define you.
One of the saddest products of Dating Law has been an overly pious and spiritualized assessment of our motivations. I cannot tell you how many times I was asked after expressing interest in someone, “so why do you want to date them?” like what I was describing was nothing but carnal. Many of us want pious and glib answers to make us feel like we’re in control, but truth is, we want to date because we want the opportunity to experience love. It’s as if we didn’t trust ourselves to be in any sort of place where we have a deep commitment and experience together with another person without sin getting in the way (which is a sure sign that you are under the Law). Of course sin is going to get in the way, we are all sinners! Do we think that we have to (or are even able to) get to a place of perfection before we ever start even thinking about dating someone? That is pure naivety and another sure sign that we are deeply entrenched in a Dating Law.

Relationships are messy. Whenever you put two sinners together, things are gonna get a bit messy. This does not mean that your relationship is unhealthy (although it will become so without grace), it just means it’s real and not a fairytale. You are going to sin with and against one another, and the only way for you not to idolize the other person or completely despise them is to center yourself around the Gospel of grace as you seek to understand your motivations for wanting a relationship.

God created you to be in relationships. It is not sinful to want the company and affection of another, even if you are not ready for it. God made you to image Him, to reflect Him. This is what theologians call the imago dei, the image of God. Now since God is trinitarian in nature and essence, always and continually in community within Himself with each member of the Trinity loving, serving, and giving to each other, we by our nature image God in our desires for love, communication, and relationship. It’s no accident that God said “it’s not good for man to be alone” after He said repeatedly and emphatically said that everything He made “was very good”. Our desires flow out of God’s nature, so we want relationships because God's very nature is relational. When the Bible says “God is love”, it is saying “God is in relationship”. Trinitarian love is the basis for all human love, so just as each member of the Trinity loves and serves the other, love in a romantic context, or any context for that matter, should seek to do the same because it’s built into the very core of who you are. It’s beautiful and godly to want a suitable companion. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

So let your heart be full of the grace of God, and I promise you, it will begin to flood the lives of others, especially those you date.

(Next week we’ll be looking at some wisdom in dating, and specifically the difference between wisdom and legalism. stay tuned...)

The Gospel for Dating Part One: Identity

Note: This is part two of a five-part series titled "Dating Law vs. Dating Gospel". Today we will look at identity in Christ and grace, and tomorrow we'll flush out some of the implications of this on dating. You can catch up by reading Part One: "Are You Under a Dating Law" here.

Before we dig in, let me say this: This idea has actually been very hard for me to express, and I nearly gave up and scraped this whole series, but some key friends really pushed me to finish this because they believe what I am wrestling with is exactly what God is going to use to help others. In addition to struggling with having a massively crushing Dating Law myself, I have never quite experienced what this blog will describe. I have experienced failure, loss and plenty of rejection, but grace is not something I have seen in my dating life. The Gospel is the only thing that can help me deal with the complexities of modern romantic relationships. The fact that I have trouble believing this doesn't mean it isn't true, it just means that (ironically) grace seems harder to live by than the Law. So would you join this broken and fragile man in seeing how the great story of God's radical grace in Jesus can transform how we view and deal with our emotions, relationships, and immensely broken hearts?

In my last post we looked at the problem of Dating Law, in which we set up a list of rules and standards for ourselves and those we pursue in relationship in order to get what we think we deserve in a potential mate. But this law becomes a crushing weight that turns us into frustrated and despondent people lacking any grace. The development of this dating law looks something like this:

1) All of us want to have some sort of control over our dating relationships in regards to a biblical standard of holiness
2) But we also live in a culture which subtly feeds us a standard based on a self-centered worldview
3) So we have merged our own personal code for holiness with modern dating, in effect creating a dating law.

We saw last week that the biblical Law gave a diagnosis of the spiritual and relational problems of God's people, but was never intended to be the cure. And along the same lines, having a dating law can tell you what you want for yourself and those you wish to pursue, but it can never bring any real and lasting change in the way you relate to them; for that you need the Gospel.

In Exodus 20, when the original Law, the Ten Commandments, were given, God prefaces it with a very important piece of truth that we often overlook, and it has caused a detriment in our thinking, living, and interacting with others, including the precarious realm of dating.

This is how the 10 Commandments begin:

"And God spoke all these words, saying,

'I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.'"


Before God ever told them what to do, how to behave, or what to expect of each other, He gave them a decisive foundation on which to build their life: I am your God and I alone have rescued you out of slavery.

This should absolutely floor us. God has made a people for Himself by rescuing them from themselves, their enemies, and all who would oppress them. No doubt He gave them a mode of conduct to set them apart from all the other people, but before He spoke even one word of command, He told them who He is and what He has done. If the Law is the diagnosis for the spiritual and relational problems of God's people, then Exodus 20:1 is the cure: God has rescued you out of slavery.

This is the Gospel.

J. Alec Motyer, great OT scholar, using the story of the Exodus as well said it this way.

"If you asked an Israelite coming out out of Egypt on the way to Canaan 'Who are you?' they would say 'I was in a foreign land, under the sentence of death, in bondage, but i took shelter under the blood of the lamb. Our mediator lead us out of there and we crossed over and now we're on our way to the promised land, but we're not there yet, but He's given us His Law to make us a community, and He gave us the tabernacle because you have to live by grace and forgiveness. His presence is in our midst and He is going to stay with us until we get home."

Funny, that is exactly what a Christian says.

God has rescued you from your slavery to sin, not by killing all the firstborn sons of your oppressors, but by providing the sacrifice of His one and only Son. He has called you His own, brought you out of the land of slavery and sent you on a journey to the Promised Land. Therefore, your identity is no longer based on obedience or disobedience, success or failure, perfect law-keeping or reckless law-breaking, but in the perfection of Christ's life, the spotlessness of his death, and the glory of his resurrection. All of it. Everything that Christ did is reckoned to you. Every temptation he overcame is now your victory. Every bead of sweat and drop of blood shed as now completely, completely covered all of your sin. When you believe in Jesus, God immediately takes His eyes off of your iniquitous life and turns to look at Christ. And He can't take His eyes off of him. He is no longer interested in keeping track all of your wrongs (and your precious little rights); He is only interested in the matchless record of Jesus, given to you. This is where you stand, and this is what now defines you. You are in Christ.

The cure for our ailments comes before the diagnosis. God gives the answer to all of our woes before He tells us what's wrong.  That's because it's not about us, but about Him and His grace.

This is where we can begin to see the Gospel in relation to dating:

Gospel-centered dating is about the good of the other, not the needs of ourselves.

Stay tuned tomorrow where we will continue to look at how Gospel identity reorients our dating relationships.

Are you under a Dating Law?

Note: This is the first of four posts of a series i’m entitling “Dating Law vs. Dating Gospel”. Looking at dating through the lense of law and gospel has freed me from the crushing weight I put on myself and those I pursue in relationship, and I hope it will do the same for you.
Have you ever been golfing? It’s difficult. it’s expensive. And yet every weekend, the courses are full of men and women in goofy outfits having minor Turette’s episodes regarding the number FOUR. Similarly, every weekend you’ll find restaurants and movie theatres full of men and women wearing their best outfits and trying to disguise who they really are. Now, pepper some American evangelical nonsense into all that, and it’s enough to turn anybody into one frustrated curmudgeon. I know because I have experienced this first-hand over the last ten years, with little fruit to show for my hard work.

Dating culture in the modern church seems to be lost in-between two worlds: that of the biblical Christianity that we try to take seriously, and that of the secular world which has an invisible grasp on our decisions, standards, and practices. Most of us desire to live lives of holiness (especially when it comes to dating), and so when considering who to date, we have things like purity, trust, and service in mind. What we don't often realize is the world around us is subtly feeding us ideas about what we should look for in a potential mate. These would include social status, income, how they make us "feel", and most importantly, sex appeal. Now these things aren't inherently bad (for example, no one wants to date someone they are not attracted to), but they do need to be assessed biblically in order for them to contribute positively to a healthy dating relationship.

American evangelicalism has "Christianized" this second list, taking all that we want in a boyfriend/girlfriend and justifying it spiritually. For example, "income" becomes "can he provide for me?", "How they make me feel" becomes "Do they speak my love language?" and sex appeal becomes "will she protect me from lust"*. For example, I think somewhere in the mid-90's, many Christian girls I knew were being told that they were princesses; they were "daughters of the King". This led to the only logical conclusion that if they were princesses, then they must be waiting for a prince. This set an incredibly high standard for the average Christian guy, one that many, if not all, felt they could not meet. The qualifications necessary to date a Christian girl became so ridiculous that Jesus himself could've walked into the room and five of the girls would have said, "I don't like beards"**.

So what was the solution?

Easy.

1) learn to play the acoustic guitar,
2) lead a small group
3) start working out at The Lord's Gym.

I did all of these things fairly early on in my Christian life, thinking that if I could just get these things down, maybe I could snag a nice church girl of my own. When it came to actually taking her on a date, it all had to be perfect. The date had to be elegant, not too cheap, creative, and fun. It had to be approved by your pastor, her parents, your small group, and her BFF's. Everything had to be perfect.

Do you see what we have done? We have created a set rules and standards that nobody in the world could possibly keep. We have created a Dating Law.

We have, in effect, created our own Mosaic Law when it comes to dating. In biblical terms, the Law is a list of 613 rules and practices that God gave to His people through Moses in order that they might thrive in relationship with Him and with each other. It provided a diagnosis of their spiritual and relational condition, but It was never supposed to the cure. A law can never solve a problem, it can only point it out. So, do you have a "Ten Commandments of dating"? I did, and I have only began to see that I thought God did not trust me with any kind of romantic relationship unless there were strict guidelines, which brings me back to my original observation:

We have merged Biblical Law with modern dating, and the outcome is a lot of broken hearts.

You see, the Law works on an "if/then" principle. If you obey these commands, then God will bless you. Dating has subsequently taken on these same parameters; "If" you meet my requirements, "then" I will give you my attention and affection. But does anyone want that? Don't we all feel a little despondent, just wanting to find love without all the stupid rules? Is there a better way?

Well if there is a spiritual answer for those who can't keep the Law, then there must be a relational answer for the same. But that’s for next week...

*I am not saying a woman is responsible for a man’s lust (which she is not), I am just pointing out what happens when we justify worldly ideas with “spiritual” answers.
**This isn’t to say that guys haven't set an incredibly high standard as well, but that doesn’t really flow with the joke.

Grief and the Gospel

Evil.

What a complex word. I am at odds with myself on how to describe how I am feeling right now; writing, deleting, rewriting to try and express what is welling up in me right now.

 I do know one thing though; evil showed up this morning. It showed up in a classroom in Newtown, CT, it showed up on the front page of my newsfeed as tears streamed down my face, and it showed up in the heart of a young man who, for reasons unbeknownst to us, decided he needed to take the lives of nearly 30 people today, mostly young children.

Now I know that many you experienced the same thing: brokenness, tears, unquenchable grief, and a sense of lostness and confusion rarely felt. As I scrolled through the story this morning, stopping every few lines to weep, I realized something; Everything I am feeling is a gift. It is no accident that I am feeling unbelievably crushed, even for a group of people I have never met, for it pulls me out of my self-centered world and forces me to deal with ultimate reality. Many people will baulk in coming days, "I can't believe in God when there is evil like this in the world", and yet it is precisely because of this kind of evil that I have to believe in God. The only explanation for the weight I feel over this story, the utter sadness that sweeps over me, is that I am made in the image of a God who weeps, a God who feels, and a God who is by no means a stranger to grief. We can point fingers and make deriding comments towards a deity we may or may not believe in, but the fact is, deep down, there is a well of emotion that no scientist or philosopher can explain. As tragedy and horror strikes, we drink deep of the well of God's emotions, just as he weeps and mourns along with us.

God is not immune. Not only does He grieve with us, he has suffered for us. God is intimately familiar with the lost of a child, just as many parents in Newtown are experiencing today. God lost a Son, not in the chaos of gunfire, but in the horror of Roman execution. The shooting today only brought hurt and mourning, but the crucifixion brought peace to all. God wept so that we could not weep hopelessly. Jesus suffered so that we do not suffer in vain.

God may not explain evil, but he experienced it, and He holds out the hope that one day, He will destroy everything that sets itself up against his heart, and when that day comes, evil will be only a distant and fading memory.

Blue Like Jazz, The Gospel, and Heart-softening Stories

Yesterday I went and saw the motion picture rendition of Donald Miller's spiritual autobiography Blue Like Jazz. Needless to say, I had been anticipating this for some time now. Blue Like Jazz was the first spiritual book, besides the Bible I had ever read, and it quickly became my favorite read for a number of years. Now while Don, Ben and Steve Taylor did a tremendous job at creating a compelling story out of a set of memoirs on Christian faith, which I heartily encourage everyone to go and see, this is going to be less of a movie review and more of a reflection on how to share God's story in a post-Christian world.

The film has been critisized by some, including a few of my friends for "not having a clear Gospel message", to which I replied, "Maybe, but that was not its job; that's your job."

You see, we always want to outsource evangelism to something or someone other than ourselves. Now, whether that be a movie, Christian television, or God forbid, a brochure featuring cartoons of people burning in hell, we secretly hope that these things will do the hard work of gospel proclamation for us The problem is, these things cannot and will not talk back. They can't ask questions, can't know what someone needs to hear, and they certainly can't offer up prayer. With all the good things movies like Blue Like Jazz can do, they can never replace a real person in sharing God's story with those who don't know it.

Blue Like Jazz did magnificently at answering common objections to Christian faith, and I think that is, in some sense, what it was meant to do. My hope is that Christians see that, and when they invite their friends to see it with them, they would use Don's story to share God's story as well.

Find Blue Like Jazz at a theater near you.
www.bluelikejazzthemovie.com