The Table

Tag: faith

  • But God…

    There are two little words in Ephesians 2 that might be among my favorite words in the entire Bible:

    But God.

    You really can’t appreciate those two words, though, without reading what comes before them.

    Paul begins Ephesians 2 with some pretty terrible news.

    “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins…”
    — Ephesians 2:1

    Not struggling.

    Not spiritually underperforming.

    Not mostly good but in need of a little improvement.

    Dead.

    That’s Paul’s description of humanity apart from Christ.

    And dead people are helpless.

    We like to believe that if we work hard enough, learn enough, behave well enough, go to church enough, serve enough, or clean ourselves up enough, we can somehow make ourselves acceptable to God.

    But you can’t improve your way out of being dead.

    That’s the problem.

    The Bad News Matters

    Sometimes we’re so eager to get to the good news of the gospel that we rush past the bad news.

    But if we don’t understand the problem, we’ll never understand how incredible the solution really is.

    Paul says that apart from Christ, we were spiritually dead in sin. We followed the ways of the world. We gratified the desires of our sinful nature. And we were deserving of God’s wrath.

    That’s some pretty heavy stuff.

    But we can’t understand how desperately we need a Savior until we understand how helpless we are to save ourselves.

    On our own, mankind isn’t simply in need of some assistance.

    We are helpless.

    We are hopeless.

    And then come two of the most beautiful words in Scripture.

    But God…

    “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ…”
    — Ephesians 2:4–5

    But God.

    We were dead.

    But God.

    We couldn’t save ourselves.

    But God.

    We were deserving of wrath.

    But God.

    Our hope doesn’t begin with our goodness.

    It begins with God’s character.

    Because of His great love.

    Because He is rich in mercy.

    Because of His grace.

    God made us alive with Christ.

    Notice who is doing the work here.

    We don’t make ourselves alive.

    God does.

    We don’t earn His mercy.

    He gives it.

    We don’t perform well enough to deserve His grace.

    That’s precisely why it’s called grace.

    Grace is undeserved favor.

    Have Been Saved

    Paul continues:

    “It is by grace you have been saved…”
    — Ephesians 2:5

    I love the tense of that sentence.

    Have been saved.

    Not might be.

    Not could be if you perform well enough.

    Not will be once you’ve finally gotten your act together.

    For those who are in Christ, the work has been accomplished.

    Then Paul says it again a few verses later:

    “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.”
    — Ephesians 2:8–9

    Our salvation is completely dependent upon what Christ has done, not what we can do.

    Church attendance won’t save you.

    Reading your Bible won’t save you.

    Serving in ministry won’t save you.

    Giving money won’t save you.

    Being nicer than your neighbor won’t save you.

    Having Christian parents won’t save you.

    Knowing all the right theological answers won’t save you.

    Those may be good things. Some are things followers of Jesus absolutely should do.

    But none of them can make a dead person alive.

    Only God can do that.

    And that’s exactly what makes grace so astonishing.

    There is nothing we can do to earn it.

    And there is nothing about us that could ever make God owe it to us.

    So Do Works Matter?

    This is where we can swing the pendulum too far in the other direction.

    If we’re saved completely by grace and not by works, does that mean it doesn’t matter how we live?

    Paul answers that in the very next verse.

    “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
    — Ephesians 2:10

    Works don’t save us.

    But true saving faith produces works.

    I’ve said for years that faith is belief activated.

    Faith isn’t merely agreeing that something is true.

    Saving faith elicits a response to the gospel. It changes us. It begins changing the way we live, the way we think, the way we treat people, and what we desire.

    Not perfectly.

    Not overnight.

    And certainly not because we are trying to earn something from God.

    We obey because God has already done something in us.

    That’s an important distinction.

    Our works aren’t the cause of our salvation. They are the result of it.

    We don’t do good works so that God will make us alive.

    God makes us alive—and living people begin to live differently.

    James says much the same thing when he tells us that faith without works is dead.

    Real faith moves.

    Belief becomes action.

    No Room for Boasting

    And that’s why there is absolutely no room for boasting in the Christian life.

    If salvation depended upon my performance, I could compare my performance to yours.

    I could keep score.

    I could look at my church attendance, Bible knowledge, giving, serving, morality, or spiritual discipline and decide I’m doing pretty well.

    Maybe even better than you.

    But grace destroys that entire system.

    I brought nothing to my salvation worth boasting about.

    I was dead.

    But God made me alive.

    I was guilty.

    But God showed mercy.

    I couldn’t earn righteousness.

    But Christ gave me His.

    The gospel doesn’t leave us standing before God proudly displaying everything we’ve accomplished.

    It leaves us standing there with empty hands, completely dependent upon Jesus.

    And somehow, those empty hands receive everything.

    But God

    Maybe you’ve spent years trying to be good enough for God.

    Maybe you’ve wondered whether you’ve prayed enough, served enough, learned enough, changed enough, or finally become enough for Him to accept you.

    Ephesians 2 points us somewhere else.

    Away from ourselves.

    Away from our performance.

    Away from our ability to fix what is broken.

    And toward Christ.

    The gospel isn’t the story of humanity finally figuring out how to reach God.

    It’s the story of what God did for people who could never reach Him.

    We were dead.

    But God made us alive.

    We were hopeless.

    But God loved us.

    We could never earn salvation.

    But God gave us grace.

    And once you’ve really understood everything that comes before those two words, it’s hard not to stop for a moment when you read them.

    But God…

  • When God Calls You What You Can’t See Yet

    Several years ago, a friend asked me to go with her to an outdoor worship night at a church I had never attended.

    I like to sit near the front at things like that because if I don’t, I get distracted watching what everyone in front of me is doing. So my friend and I marched right up to the front row and sat down.

    I didn’t know anybody. I didn’t know the church. And apparently, I also didn’t know that people at this particular church did not worship quite the way I did.

    After the service, a woman walked up to me and asked, “Who are you?”

    I thought that was a little odd—and maybe a little rude—but I told her my name.

    “No,” she said. “Who are you?”

    Still rude.

    So I told her about my family and some of the things I was involved in at my church.

    “NO! WHO ARE YOU?!”

    At this point I was completely confused, so I finally said, “I am a daughter of the King!”

    She rolled her eyes so far back I thought they might get stuck.

    It turned out she was the senior pastor’s wife, and what she really wanted to know was why this stranger had marched to the front of their worship service, stood up, and thrown her hands in the air.

    Nobody did that there.

    I had no idea.

    There wasn’t anybody in front of me to watch.

    But I’ve thought about her question many times since then.

    Who are you?

    We have all kinds of ways of answering that question.

    We build our identities around our families, our jobs, our accomplishments, our relationships, our reputations, our appearance—even our failures. And the problem is that every one of those things can change.

    So what happens when something you used to define yourself disappears?

    What happens when you fail?

    When people leave?

    When the thing you thought you would be good at turns out differently than you expected?

    Who are you then?

    Gideon Had an Answer

    When we meet Gideon in Judges 6, Israel has been terrorized by the Midianites for seven years. They would wait until Israel’s crops were ready and then sweep in, taking the food and livestock and devastating the land.

    Israel was afraid.

    And Gideon was hiding.

    He was threshing wheat in a winepress—something that made very little sense. Wheat was normally threshed in the open where the wind could carry away the chaff. A winepress was a hole in the ground.

    But Gideon wasn’t trying to be efficient.

    He was trying not to be seen.

    And that is where the angel of the LORD found him.

    “The LORD is with you, mighty warrior.”
    — Judges 6:12

    Mighty warrior?

    Gideon was hiding in a hole.

    He certainly didn’t see himself that way.

    In fact, Gideon immediately began explaining why this couldn’t possibly be right. If God was really with Israel, why had all of this happened? Where were all the miracles their ancestors had talked about?

    And when God told Gideon that He was sending him to rescue Israel, Gideon had another objection.

    How could he possibly save Israel?

    His clan was weak.

    He was the least in his family.

    Gideon saw himself through his fear.

    God saw something Gideon couldn’t see yet.

    But notice God’s answer.

    He doesn’t give Gideon a motivational speech.

    He doesn’t tell him to dig deep and discover how strong he really is.

    He says:

    “I will be with you.”

    That changes everything.

    God Called Him Before He Was Brave

    One of my favorite things about Gideon’s story is that God calls him “mighty warrior” before Gideon ever does anything mighty.

    Before the army.

    Before the battle.

    Before the victory.

    Before Gideon even stops being afraid.

    God’s calling wasn’t based on Gideon’s résumé. It wasn’t based on what Gideon had already accomplished.

    And Gideon’s ability to do what God called him to do wasn’t ultimately going to depend upon Gideon’s strength.

    It depended upon the presence of God.

    That matters for us, too.

    Our identity is not ultimately defined by what we have done, what other people say about us, or even what we happen to feel about ourselves on a particular day.

    For those who are in Christ, Scripture gives us a different place to begin.

    We are new creations (2 Corinthians 5:17).

    We are God’s people, called out of darkness and into His light (1 Peter 2:9).

    We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for the good works He has prepared for us (Ephesians 2:10).

    Before asking, What can I accomplish? maybe we need to remember whose we are.

    Obedience While You’re Still Afraid

    Then God gives Gideon something to do.

    And it isn’t leading an army.

    Not yet.

    First, God tells him to tear down his father’s altar to Baal and the Asherah pole beside it.

    So Gideon does.

    At night.

    Because he’s afraid.

    I love that detail.

    Gideon didn’t suddenly become fearless because God called him a mighty warrior.

    He obeyed while he was still afraid.

    Sometimes we imagine faithfulness as reaching a place where we’re finally confident enough, brave enough, knowledgeable enough, or spiritually mature enough to do whatever God has put in front of us.

    Gideon’s story looks different.

    His obedience began with one frightened step.

    And then another.

    He didn’t begin by leading an army.

    He began by obeying God in his own backyard.

    Maybe that’s where purpose usually begins.

    Not with knowing the entire plan.

    Not with seeing exactly where God is taking us.

    Just with doing the next thing He has put in front of us.

    Telling the truth.

    Serving someone.

    Forgiving.

    Standing for what is right.

    Opening Scripture.

    Praying.

    Taking one small step of obedience when we’d really rather stay hidden in the winepress.

    Bigger Than Gideon

    Eventually Gideon does lead Israel into battle.

    But even then, God makes sure Gideon understands where the victory will come from.

    Gideon begins with an army of 32,000 men.

    God reduces it to 300.

    Because this was never going to be a story about how impressive Gideon was.

    It was going to be a story about God.

    God’s calling was bigger than Gideon’s ability because God’s power—not Gideon’s—would accomplish it.

    Maybe that’s the part we need to remember when God puts something in front of us that feels bigger than we are.

    We may very well be right.

    Maybe it is bigger than us.

    Gideon wasn’t wrong when he recognized his weakness.

    He was wrong when he assumed his weakness meant God couldn’t use him.

    God’s answer was never, “Gideon, you’re stronger than you think.”

    His answer was:

    “I will be with you.”

    So, Who Are You?

    Maybe you’re in a season where you don’t recognize yourself.

    Maybe something you used to build your identity around is gone.

    Maybe you’re looking at what God has put in front of you and thinking, Surely He has the wrong person.

    Maybe you’re still hiding in the winepress.

    Gideon’s story reminds us that God meets people there.

    He calls us to trust what He says more than what fear says.

    And then He asks us to take the next step.

    You don’t have to see the whole road.

    Gideon didn’t.

    You don’t have to become fearless first.

    Gideon didn’t.

    And you don’t have to manufacture enough strength to accomplish whatever God asks of you.

    Gideon couldn’t.

    You need the same thing Gideon needed:

    “I will be with you.”

    So maybe the question isn’t only:

    Who am I?

    Maybe the better question is:

    Who does God say I am—and do I trust Him enough to live like I believe Him?

  • Is Believing Enough?

    What James 2 actually means when it says faith without works is dead.

    “Faith without works is dead.”

    That’s one of those Bible verses that can make you stop for a second.

    Because wait.

    Aren’t we saved by grace through faith?

    Didn’t Paul make it abundantly clear that our works can’t save us?

    Didn’t we just establish that Jesus doesn’t need our help finishing what He accomplished on the cross?

    Yes.

    Absolutely.

    So what in the world is James doing?

    Is he contradicting Paul?

    Is he saying faith gets us started but then we have to produce enough good works to stay saved?

    Do our works somehow prove to God that we deserve the salvation He gave us?

    No.

    James isn’t telling us how to earn salvation.

    He’s asking us to think seriously about what saving faith actually is.

    And there’s a difference between believing something is true and entrusting yourself to it.

    Faith is belief activated

    I’ve been saying this for years:

    Faith is belief activated.

    I used to make the people in one of my Bible studies write it in their Bibles because I wanted them to remember the distinction.

    James makes that distinction pretty hard to miss.

    “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.” — James 2:19

    That’s uncomfortable.

    Because apparently it’s possible to have correct information about God and still not have faith in Him.

    The demons aren’t atheists.

    They know God exists.

    They know who Jesus is.

    Their theology on some points may be more accurate than ours.

    But they don’t trust Him.

    They don’t love Him.

    They don’t surrender themselves to Him.

    Knowing something is true isn’t the same thing as trusting it with your life.

    Think about a car.

    I can stand beside a car and believe everything necessary about it.

    That’s a car.

    It runs.

    It has gasoline.

    It’s mechanically sound.

    It’s capable of taking me from Indiana to Florida.

    I can sincerely believe every one of those things.

    But if I never get in the car, I’m not going to Florida.

    At some point, belief has to become trust.

    I have to get in.

    That’s the distinction James is making.

    Then what about the works?

    This is where we can easily get the order backward.

    James isn’t saying:

    Faith + enough good works = salvation.

    He’s saying that genuine faith does something.

    Not because we’re frantically trying to prove we’re Christians.

    Not because God is keeping a heavenly scorecard.

    Not because we need to pay Jesus back for saving us.

    Works don’t create saving faith.

    They flow from it.

    When we begin trusting Christ, the Holy Spirit begins changing us.

    Our attitudes begin to change.

    What matters to us begins to change.

    The way we see other people begins to change.

    Our relationship with sin begins to change.

    What we do with our time, abilities, resources, relationships, and opportunities begins to change.

    Not perfectly.

    Not all at once.

    And certainly not identically in every Christian.

    But living faith doesn’t remain completely disconnected from the life of the person who possesses it.

    That’s why James gives such a practical example.

    Suppose someone is hungry and doesn’t have adequate clothing. We see the need and say:

    “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed.”

    And then we walk away.

    James essentially asks:

    What good did our words do?

    If I claim to love someone but can repeatedly look directly at their suffering without ever being moved toward them, there’s a disconnect between what I say I believe and what my life reveals.

    James isn’t asking whether we’ve accumulated enough charitable acts to qualify for heaven.

    He’s asking whether our professed faith is alive.

    Look at the people James chooses

    Then James gives us two examples of faith accompanied by action.

    Abraham.

    And Rahab.

    That’s quite a pair.

    Abraham trusted God when God asked something of him that made absolutely no sense from a human perspective.

    God had promised him descendants through Isaac—and then told Abraham to offer Isaac.

    Abraham obeyed.

    Not because Abraham was earning his salvation.

    He acted because he trusted the One who had made the promise.

    His action revealed his faith.

    And then there’s Rahab.

    Rahab was a prostitute.

    If James were trying to teach us that good moral behavior makes someone acceptable to God, Rahab would be an awfully strange example to choose.

    But that’s exactly the point.

    Rahab heard what God had done.

    She believed Israel’s God was truly God.

    And then she entrusted herself to that truth.

    She protected the spies.

    She took a risk.

    Her belief changed what she did.

    Neither Abraham nor Rahab is presented as someone who accumulated enough good deeds to impress God.

    Their actions revealed where their trust was placed.

    This isn’t a call to spiritual paranoia

    There is a danger when we talk about examining the fruit of our faith.

    We can become so focused on ourselves that we start taking our spiritual temperature every fifteen minutes.

    Did I do enough today?

    Am I changing fast enough?

    Would a real Christian still struggle with this?

    Do I have enough fruit?

    And suddenly we’ve created another to-do list.

    We’re staring at ourselves instead of Christ.

    That’s not the freedom of the gospel.

    James isn’t calling Christians to live terrified that salvation disappears every time we fail.

    And he’s certainly not teaching that Christians become perfect.

    Abraham wasn’t perfect.

    Rahab wasn’t perfect.

    Peter wasn’t perfect.

    Paul wasn’t perfect.

    We’re not going to be either.

    The question isn’t:

    “Have I finally become good enough?”

    You haven’t.

    Neither have I.

    That’s why we need Jesus.

    The better question is:

    “Is the faith I profess actually trust in Christ—or is it merely information I agree with?”

    Because those aren’t the same thing.

    Living things bear fruit

    Maybe the simplest way to understand James is to think about something alive.

    You don’t tape apples onto an apple tree to make the tree alive.

    A living tree produces fruit because it’s alive.

    The fruit doesn’t give the tree life.

    The life produces the fruit.

    That’s the relationship between faith and works.

    Our works don’t make us alive in Christ.

    But when Christ makes us alive, something begins growing.

    Sometimes slowly.

    Sometimes unevenly.

    Sometimes with seasons that look more fruitful than others.

    There will be pruning.

    There will be setbacks.

    There will be sin to confess and things God exposes that we’d rather He didn’t.

    There will be plenty of reminders that we still desperately need grace.

    But there will be life.

    And life eventually shows itself.

    So maybe James 2 isn’t primarily asking us:

    “Are you doing enough?”

    Maybe it’s asking something deeper:

    Do I simply believe things about Jesus—or am I trusting Him?

    Has what I believe begun affecting how I live?

    When I see someone in need, am I becoming more willing to move toward them?

    Is the Holy Spirit changing what I love, what I value, and what I’m willing to surrender?

    Not perfectly.

    Not to earn anything.

    But because faith isn’t simply knowing the right answers.

    Saving faith rests its weight on Jesus.

    And when we actually entrust ourselves to Him, eventually that trust finds its way into our hands, our feet, our relationships, our choices, and our lives.

    Faith is belief activated.