Jack Collins, Science and Faith: Friends or Foes? (Crossway, 2003), pp. 331-332:
It’s pretty common to hear that we’re in a culture war—the traditionalists and the secularists are fighting over who will control the culture. There is a sense in which the image is right: as we will see in the next chapter, there are worldviews that are at odds with each other, and therefore it’s no surprise that we find conflict.

The image is a dangerous one, though, because it can lead us to look at everything in combatant terms: people who disagree with us become our enemies, and we have to defeat them. If you are my enemy, and I am a Christian, then—even if you’re a Christian too—you must be morally defective.

Three further dangers follow from this warfare imagery.

The first is that we can forget that worldviews involve not just philosophical positions but also moral commitments; and that back behind unbelief there lies a demonic enslaver. As Paul put it in Ephesians 6,

12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. . . . 18 [Pray] at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints . . .

There is a spiritual component to this battle; and therefore, all our intellectual efforts must express our faithfulness to Christ and must be bathed in prayer. We must never use the weapons of unbelief—dishonesty, slander, name-calling, and so on.

The second danger, related to the first, is that we can forget that the unbeliever is not the person we’re fighting against; rather, he is the person we are fighting for: that is, the purpose of all this is to free people from their slavery to the Devil.

The third danger that arises is that we can forget that any Christian—and any Christian church—always has only a partial grasp of a fully Christian worldview; and even those parts that we grasp rightly, we practice only partly. So some of our “warfare” ought to be against our own imperfections!

The warfare image is a biblical one, to be sure; but we will do well to be careful how we use it.

At the 9Marks Ministries blog I recently came across a brief article that outlined some of the ways church members can (and should!) serve their church on a Sunday morning. These are, in turn, drawn from a Trellis & Vine conference led by Colln Marshall.

Since tomorrow is Sunday, a day when the majority of the readers of this blog will head to their local church, it seems like a good time to reflect on a few of these things. Is there anything that should be added to the list?

Before the Service

• Read the passage in advance
• Pray for the gathering
• Greet newcomers (act like you are the host)
• Think strategically about who you should sit with
• Arrive Early

During the Service

• Sing with gusto (even if you can’t sing)
• Help with logistics (if there’s a problem, help fix it)
• Don’t be distracted
• Listen carefully
• Be aware of your facial expressions (you may affect others and discourage preachers)

After the Service

• Connect newcomers with others
• Get newcomers information
• Start a conversation about the sermon
• Ask someone how they became a Christian
• Stay late

A vacillating walk, a backwardness to take a bold and decided line, a readiness to conform to the world, a hesitating witness for Christ, a lingering tone of religion, a clinching from a high standard of holiness and spiritual life, all these make up a sure receipt for bringing a blight upon the garden of your soul.

~ J.C. Ryle

Holiness: Its Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties, and Roots, “Assurance”, [Moscow, ID:Charles Nolan Publishing, 2001], 144, 145.

Originally Posted here:

If only spiritual transformation were that easy. Just read a book, see a counselor, attend a conference, make a fresh commitment, shed a few tears at an altar, memorize a few verses … and, presto, out comes a mature, godly Christian.

To the contrary, the experience of many believers looks like this.

Commit. Fail. Confess.
Re-commit. Fail again. Confess again.
Re-re-commit. Fail again. Give up.

After all the struggle and effort, we tend to want a “quick fix”—a once-for-all victory—so we won’t have to keep wrestling with the same old issues.

In my own walk with God, I have discovered some helpful principles about how spiritual change takes place.

1. Deep, lasting spiritual change rarely happens overnight. It is a process that involves training, testing, and time. There are no shortcuts.

We hear of people being dramatically delivered from drug or alcohol addiction, and we may wonder, “Why doesn’t God do that for me? Why do I have to struggle with this food addiction, with lust, worry, and anger?”

Before the children of Israel could possess the Promised Land, they had to drive out the pagan nations that occupied Canaan. Ultimate victory was assured if they would “trust and obey,” but it would take time. “I will not drive them out in a single year,” God said. “Little by little, I will drive them out before you” (Exodus 23:29-30).

God is committed to winning the hearts and developing the character of His people. That requires a process.

2. Spiritual change requires desire. We must ask ourselves: Do I really want to change, or am I content to remain as I am? How important is it to me to be like Jesus? What price am I willing to pay to be godly?

Godly desires are nurtured by prayer and by meditation on Christ, who is the object of our desire. As I read the Scripture and gaze on the Lord Jesus, I find my heart longing to be like Him—humble, holy, compassionate, surrendered to the will of God, and sensitive to the promptings of the Spirit.

When our desire to be holy is greater than our willingness to stay where we are, we have taken a big step toward spiritual transformation.

3. Spiritual change flows out of an intimate relationship with Jesus. The more we love Him, the greater will be our motivation to obey Him and to make the choices that please Him.

The ultimate issue in life is who or what we worship. The process of true change takes place as we are weaned from our love and worship of self, pleasure, and this world, and our hearts become wholly devoted to Christ.

4. Spiritual change requires discipline. I can remember sitting in tiny, windowless practice rooms for hours on end as a college student, playing the same piece of music over and over again. I knew I would never reach my goal—to make beautiful music—without that rigorous discipline.

Discipline for the purpose of godliness is not the same as self-effort. Rather, it means consciously cooperating with the Holy Spirit—yielding to Him so He can conform us to the image of Christ.

The problem is, we want the outcome without the process. We want victory without the warfare.

It is futile to pray and hope for spiritual change, while sitting glued to a television set or neglecting the means God has provided for our growth in grace. Bible study, meditation, worship, prayer, fasting, accountability, and obedience are disciplines that produce a harvest of righteousness in our lives.

Spiritual change is brought about by the Holy Spirit, as we exercise faith and obedience. There were occasions when God promised to drive out Israel’s enemies for them. But sometimes He said, “You must drive out the enemy.” Sometimes God said, “I will fight for you.” At other times, He said, “You must fight.”

So which is it? Does God do the fighting, while we “rest in Him,” or do we have to fight against the enemies of our souls? According to Scripture, the answer is, Yes. “Work out your salvation … for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose” (Philippians 2:12-13).

True spiritual change is initiated and enabled by the indwelling Spirit of God; it is all of grace, which we receive as we persevere in humility, obedience, and faith.

5. Spiritual change is possible (and assured) because of the new life we received when we were born again. According to God’s Word, at the point of regeneration, we became “a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17). For the believer, holy living is not a matter of trying harder, but of walking in the reality of a supernatural change that has already taken place.

Sanctification is the process by which the change God has wrought within us is worked out in our daily experience, as “we are being transformed into [Christ’s] likeness” (2 Corinthians 3:18). It is a life-long—and sometimes painful—process. But we have the confidence that one day the transformation will be complete and “we will be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

*****

For more from Nancy, check out www.ReviveOurHearts.com. There, you’ll find her daily radio program/podcast/transcript, books, and much more helpful content. Check in at the blog Thursday, Friday and Saturday of this week as my wife and I travel to the True Woman conference in Fort Worth, TX.

That’s why we must fix our eyes on Jesus. JC Ryle said it this way:

Let us never doubt for a moment, that the preaching of Christ crucified – the old story of His blood, righteousness, and substitution – is enough for all the spiritual necessities of all mankind. It is not worn out. It is not obsolete. It has not lost its power. We need nothing new – nothing more broad and kind – nothing more intellectual – nothing more effectual. We need nothing but the true bread of life, distributed faithfully among starving souls. Let men sneer or ridicule as they will. Nothing else can do good in this sinful world. No other teaching can fill hungry consciences, and give them peace. We are all in a wilderness. We must feed on Christ crucified, and the atonement made by His death, or we shall die in our sins.

What a fantastic time we had last night! God has been so abundantly faithful to us in our first year together as a church. I have personally witnessed the gospel’s transformation in so many of your lives. It’s been inspiring!

Thank you ALL for your sacrifice of giving, time, and service over this first year. Your investment reaches far beyond what you’ll see – with Christ as the foundation, you are building a spiritual house for people to experience the grace of God. To Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus, throughout all generations – forever and ever Amen!

Licentious Larry – He’s the person who hears that we’ve been “sent into the world” and thinks that to be in the world and reach people, you have to be just like the world. You have to love what it loves and pursue what it pursues. After all, relevance is the key to successful evangelism. This is the person who throws off the other commands of God for the sake of “mission” and justifies their immature desires with a spiritual cover.

Larry’s main strategy for reaching the lost is blending in, and he does such a great job of it that no one knows he is a Christian. He never says anything about Christ, never asks a hard question, never turns the conversation toward spiritual things, and yet he expects that people with see what a nice guy he is and how much he likes the same things they like and that conversion will happen. This person has embraced TOO MUCH WORLD.

Jesus prays that God would SANCTIFY us in the truth so that have something real to give the people we talk with – the gospel power on display. We cannot make the mistake of “blending in” at the risk of being swallowed up.

Fundamental Fred – an equal and opposite danger, Fred doesn’t want to engage with anyone because they might get beyond the barrier of his holiness bubble and infect him with some worldly disease. Fundamental Fred wants protection from the Evil One and has built a man made castle with moat and everything to keep the masses out, only lowering the drawbridge for the qualified few.

Fred’s main strategy for outreach is moral platitudes and a superior self-discipline and a “make them come to me” attitude, which neither communicates the love of Christ nor actually has ever made anyone come to them. This person has engaged TOO LITTLE with the world.

Jesus calls us to be in the world, not of the world. We are equipped with the gospel and for the sake of the gospel. There is a gospel way.

Gospel Gary – Gary is a believer who is a part of a local church and growing in his faith. He works for a bank as a mortgage processor. He has been praying for his co-workers that God would open up the door for conversations with them. He hangs out with them at the smoke break, he goes out with them to celebrate birthdays, and he invites them over for occasional dinners.

One of his co-workers is walking through a divorce. Gary asks him how he is holding up and where he is finding his strength. The man, Elect Ethan, starts confiding in Gary because he has watched his life and trusts him. Gary is only able to share briefly his hope in Christ as their time is short, but asks if Ethan wants to come to the guys night at church.

He declines, but over time comes to a couple of gatherings of the church and really is starting to ask questions about salvation and God and how good we need to be to be loved by Him. Over the next year, Ethan comes to learn the gospel – that we are too sinful to be accepted by God on a scale of goods and bads. Our bads deserve and demand the punishment of God, but God has poured out that punishment on Jesus instead of us when he sent Jesus to the cross.

As God uses Gary’s life, friendship, willingness to engage him in the truth, Ethan comes to believe that Jesus is the Lord and Savior. He repents and trusts Christ and is saved. He’s won by the mission of the gospel into the mission of the gospel.

This kind of gospel opportunity is all around us if we are believe we are the sent ones of God, if we believe that God wants to use us despite our lingering sin, and if we believe God desires to see his gospel work miracles all around us.

Derek Kidner, in his 1964 commentary on Proverbs, writes about the sluggard (pp. 42-43):

The sluggard in Proverbs is a figure of tragi-comedy, with his sheer animal laziness (he is more than anchored to his bed: he is hinged to it, 26:14), his preposterous excuses (“there is a lion outside!” 26:13; 22:13) and his final helplessness.

Kidner identified four features of the sluggard according to Proverbs:

(1) He will not begin things. When we ask him (6:9, 10) “How long?” “When…?”, we are being too definite for him. He doesn’t know. All he knows is his delicious drowsiness; all he asks is a little respite: “a little…a little…a little…”. He does not commit himself to a refusal, but deceives himself by the smallness of his surrenders. So, by inches and minutes, his opportunity slips away.

(2) He will not finish things. The rare effort of beginning has been too much; the impulse dies. So his quarry goes bad on him (12:27) and his meal goes cold on him (19:24; 26:15).

(3) He will not face things. He comes to believe his own excuses (perhaps there is a lion out there, 22:13), and to rationalize his laziness; for he is “wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render a reason” (26:16). Because he makes a habit of the soft choice (he “will not plow by reason of the cold,” 20:4) his character suffers as much as his business, so that he is implied in 15:19 to be fundamentally dishonest…

(4) Consequently he is restless (13:4; 21:25, 26) with unsatisfied desire; helpless in face of the tangle of his affairs, which are like a “hedge of thorns” (15:19); and useless—expensively (18:9) and exasperatingly (10:26)—to any who must employ him. . . .

Kidner continues:

The wise man will learn while there is time. He knows that the sluggard is no freak, but, as often as not, an ordinary man who has made too many excuses, too many refusals and too many postponements. It has all been as imperceptible, and as pleasant, as falling asleep.

I should have added this – when you find yourself at IKEA, pray “God, Bring Yourself Glory”.

I had made my purchase and was doing the awkward IKEA dance as I pushed my heavy cart toward the loading zone (if you’ve been there, you know what I mean). I saw an open spot at the very end, close to where my father in law had parked and would soon arrive. I pulled my cart up to the very front of the parking stall and waited. As I scanned the lot, I saw his vehicle coming around the bend and I began planning how to get all my goods in his car.

My plan was thwarted. The car in front of him pulled past the spot, but then threw the car in reverse and began backing his way into the stall. I’m standing right there, mind you. In the stall. I recover from my shock in time to wheel myself backwards and allow him to back his way in. Meanwhile, Doug had to pass by and find a different spot. Struggling against my perceived injustice, I stood there for a moment. The wife of the man in the car pulled her cart up to the truck and began to load up her purchases. What did she buy, you might ask, that justified me losing my spot? Heavy furniture? A sofa bed?

Hangers. She picked up about 10 hangers and put them in the trunk. I was stupified. I looked down the row of cars, vans, and trucks with people roping down their entire family room furniture. Beyond all of them, at the very end of the other side of the loading zone, I saw Doug waving his hands to get my attention. I turned my cart with a sigh and began the long walk with an awkward, sliding cart.

Funny? It’s pretty pathetic. As I walked, I heard my own words preaching back to me – this was an opportunity designed to worship God and bring Him glory and I was suffocating under the chokehold of my unmet self-worship. What should it have looked like for me to glory God in that moment?

1. I should have remembered the truth and glory of the gospel.

I am a wicked sinner deserving hell, not the parking stall of my choosing. God’s judgment on me was forever averted through the cross, providing me with forgiveness and mercy. I have everything I could have ever hoped for in Christ and nothing that I deserve. I am purchased by His blood and I am now His possession, to live for His glory. This was true for me as I stood there waiting for the car. I should have had my eyes on Christ and His glory, not my demands.

2. I should have remembered that the gospel promises me that God is good.

If I had remembered Christ in that moment, I would have seen that other car as another kind and merciful expression of God’s love for me. He has promised in Romans that all things work together for my good and that He will graciously give me all that I need since Christ has been crucified for me. I could have remembered that great truth and promise and let it determine my worldview – rather than starting with the lie of what I want or feel like I deserved and then judging God’s faithfulness.

3. I did remember that God is a forgiving God who is glorified in us through our repentance and faith.

As I thought and walked, God was gracious to bring these truths to mind. To be honest, it hurt. It hurt because it showed me once again how foolish I am. It showed me again that I am nowhere near the god I was pretending to be in that moment. It showed me that God’s word must be more than preached or studied, but lived. And then it showed me that God was loving me the whole time, to draw me away from worshipping an idol and back to worshipping Him, the only true and living God. As I repented, God was drawing glory back to Himself.

Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord – and let any boast of ourselves be in our weaknesses and His mercy to forgive!

I closed the message on Sunday by saying that we can do this by boasting in our weaknesses. One question that was emailed in: What’s the connection between our weaknesses and God’s glory in the cross?

When we boast in our weakness, we are proclaiming a power that does not come from us. We are pointing the attention away from us and on to the one who has all glory. We are declaring that God’s grace is sufficient for us, even as sinners. When we boast in our weaknesses, we are showing that the realities of the gospel are true and good and glorious. Paul says it like this in 2 Corinthians 12:3-10:

³ And I know that this man was caught up into paradise—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows— ⁴ and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter. ⁵ On behalf of this man I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses. ⁶ Though if I should wish to boast, I would not be a fool, for I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain from it, so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me. ⁷ So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. ⁸ Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. ⁹ But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. ¹⁰ For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

So, if the cross is the unique display of God’s glory in the world, and we want to see Christ glorified in our lives, then our lives must show the glory of the cross. Let us boast not in our strengths, which come from God, but our weaknesses. In doing, we are putting on display the glory of forgiveness and justification.