I've got the best song EVER to share with you guys this Tuesday...
Below is one of my favorite articles, written by Keith Johnson.
I love the picture it paints
I love the conviction it brings
& I love the Savior it points me to
For the next 2 weeks, I have the privilege--and challenge--of taking 2 IBS (Institute of Biblical Studies)courses as part of my training for joining staff with Cru.
As I struggle to wake up at 6:45am,
stay awake in lecture for 4 hours,
understand new theological terms,
and soak up as much as I can...
my prayer is that these are not just dance moves,
but natural responses to the music of the gospel
which compels me to grow in knowledge of Him
The Music and the Dance
Imagine
yourself in a large house in which those who are deaf and those who can hear
are living together.[1] In one of the rooms, you see a man sitting in a chair
listening to music on his iPod.
Rhythmically, he is tapping his foot, snapping his fingers and swaying
to the beat of the song. His entire body moves in response to what his ears are
hearing. It is obvious that he is
enjoying himself.
A few minutes later, one of the deaf persons opens
the door and enters the room. He
carefully watches the person listening to the music and thinks to himself, “He
seems to be having fun, I think I'll try that too.” So, he sits down next to the man with the
iPod and begins to imitate him. Awkwardly and haltingly at first, he tries to
snap his fingers, tap his toes and move like the man next to him. After a
little practice, he slowly begins to sway in time with the first man by
watching and trying—mirroring his actions.
Although
he eventually gets better at keeping time, he concludes that it is not as much
fun or as easy as it initially seemed. Indeed, it takes an enormous amount of
effort to mimic the dance.
Imagine
that a third person enters the room and watches this scene. What does he see? Two people apparently doing
the same thing. Is there a
difference? Absolutely! The first man hears
the music and his actions are but a natural response to the music’s rhythm and
melody. The second man is merely imitating the outward actions.
An important parallel exists
to our Christian life. The “dance”
represents the Christian life while the “music” represents the gospel. Sadly, we are often like the person in my story who
tries to perform the dance steps without hearing the music. God’s heart is not simply to get us to dance
but to get us to hear the music of the gospel—dancing reflexively follows. What
follows in this article is a brief reflection on how to tune into the music of
the gospel, listening for its rhythm as you read the Scriptures.
Understanding the Redemptive Focus of Scripture
Often we look to the Bible seeing nothing more than a
collection of ethical directives and moral imperatives instructing us in how to
live. But to read Scripture this way is
to reduce it to dance steps, the do’s and don’ts of the Christian life, and
miss the melody entirely. To hear the
music of the gospel, we need to understand how God intends his Word to function
in our lives.
Toward this end, the writer of Hebrews gives us a push
us in the right direction. In chapter four, he urges his readers not to be hard-hearted and miss the
“rest” God has provided in Christ (Heb. 4:1-11). He closes with the following statement about
God’s Word: “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword,
piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and
discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are
naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Heb. 4:12-13, ESV).
Notice how he describes the role of Scripture in our lives—likening it to
the sharpest sword imaginable, a sword that penetrates to the deepest recesses
of our soul. As a result, we are “naked
and exposed” before God. What the writer
wants us to see is that Scripture, first, is designed to expose the sinful condition of our heart.
Several
years ago I had a very stressful week prior to the start of major conference I
was leading. A number of times, I found
myself asking my wife’s forgiveness for being rude to her. However, in the back of my mind I really
believed the problem was my circumstances: “If my life were not so stressful,”
I told myself, “I would not be treating the people around me so poorly.” The following Sunday, our pastor spoke from
Deuteronomy 8 about how God tests our hearts to reveal what is in them. It was as if God’s Spirit shined his
spotlight in my heart saying, “Your problem is not these circumstances. These circumstances merely revealed what was
in your heart.” This is precisely what
Scripture is intended to do – to reveal our brokenness.
I realize that what I have said so far about the
Scripture is not particularly upbeat and something you’d want to dance to. But that’s coming. The choreography of grace is indirect, by
which I mean you cannot access it directly but must waltz first through
brokenness and repentance. Those who seek to move directly to the upbeat and
eliminate the downbeat, destroy the tune entirely.
Scripture,
graciously, does not merely leave us naked, exposed in our sin. Notice how the writer of Hebrews continues: “Since
then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the
Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we
do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but
one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence
draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to
help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:14-16, ESV). The writer of Hebrews does not point us toward a program of behavior
modification but to a person: the
remedy to our brokenness not in corrective dance steps but in the person Christ.
Most
scholars believe that the readers of Hebrews were Jewish Christians. A number of them had experienced persecution
for following Christ and some were tempted to walk away from Christ. In this context, the writer of Hebrews paints
a portrait of one who fundamentally understands because, in his human nature,
he has experienced the exact same temptations as they have. Through this (and other
portraits of Christ), the writer of Hebrews is attempting to woo the hearts of
his readers to the love and beauty of Christ.
This
highlights a second role of Scripture—namely, pointing our hearts to our Savior. We tend to limit this dimension
of Scripture merely to those who are outside the Christian faith (i.e., the
primary role of Scripture for the unbeliever is pointing his or her heart
toward Christ). We often fail to
recognize that our hearts constantly
need to be pointed to Christ as well. As
believers, we are still tempted to make our lives work apart from Christ and
often seek life apart from him in control, influence, approval, performance, or
any number of aternatives. We, therefore, constantly need to be pointed back to
the one in whom alone life can be found.
From Genesis to Revelation, Scripture does
two things: (1) it exposes our brokenness and (2) points us to our savior. We will look at each of these in more detail.
Portraits of Our Brokenness
The
primary question on most of our minds as we read and apply Scripture is “What
does this passage teach about what I am supposed to do?” If we read the Bible
merely looking for dance steps (“What does this passage tell me to do?”), we
will fail to hear the music of the gospel.
To hear the music of the gospel, we must first ask a different question:
“What does this passage reveal
about our spiritual brokenness that requires the redemptive work of Christ?”
Let’s
look at a couple of examples. Imagine
you are reading through the Gospel of Mark.
In chapter ten, you read about an incident that took
place as Jesus and his disciples were making their final journey to Jerusalem
where he would be crucified. Immediately
after Jesus tells his disciples that he will be spit upon, flogged and murdered
in Jerusalem (Mark 10:32-33), James and John approach Jesus with a special request:
“Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory”
(Mark 10:37). James and John were
requesting special places of honor in his kingdom. They saw their association with Jesus as a means to future status,
power and influence. As a result, they were
blind to Jesus’ true purpose. At
this point, you may be thinking, “How can they have been so blind?” But if we each ask the question, “What does this passage
reveal about my spiritual brokenness that requires the redemptive work of
Christ?” we may very well see ourselves
in the actions of Jesus’ disciples. Are
we not also like James and John? On staff with Campus Crusade for Christ we
may not make a lot of money; however, we certainly can look for life in power
and influence and even use ministry (Jesus) as a means to that end.
Next, imagine you were reading through the book of
Jeremiah. In the second chapter, you
came across these words: “Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate,
declares the Lord, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken
me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves,
broken cisterns that can hold no water” (Jeremiah 2:12-13, ESV). The people of Israel were dependent on
rainfall for their survival. They
frequently collected rain water underground in cisterns hewn of rock. For people who lived in a drought-filled
land, this imagery would be startling.
The prophet claims that God’s people exchanged a rich flowing, fresh
fountain for leaky buckets that cannot even hold life-giving water. As we reflect on this passage, we want to ask ourselves the question, “What does this passage reveal about our spiritual
brokenness that requires the redemptive work of Christ?” As we reflect on this question, we
immediately recognize that this passage aptly describe our lives as well. When we look for life apart from Christ in
relationships, success, control, influence, sexual fantasy, etc., we trade a
fresh flowing spring for leaky buckets
that cannot hold any water.[2]
Portraits of a Beautiful Savior
Because Scripture has a redemptive purpose, it does
not merely leave us exposed in our sin.
It also points us to the music of the gospel (i.e., all that God is for
us in Christ). Hence, there is a second
question we need to ask as we seek to respond to God through his Word. After we have asked, “What does this reveal
about my brokenness that requires the work of Christ?” we next must ask, “How does this passage point me
to Christ and the ‘good news’ of the gospel?”
In a debate with Jewish leaders over his authority
and identity, Jesus offers the following indictment: “You search the Scriptures
because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear
witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life” (John
5:39-40, ESV). Jesus was not talking
with theological “liberals.” He was
talking with the people who revered the Scriptures. Even though they carefully studied the
Scriptures, Jesus claims that they completely missed the meaning of the Scriptures.
They were looking for life in
the wrong place. What was it that they
missed? They had missed the redemptive
purpose of Scripture: that they were designed to point us to Christ.[3]
They had come to believe
that Scripture’s role in redemption was in detailing for us the commands and
demands that God required while missing that Scripture’s role in redemption was
in pointing us to the Christ.
Again, note the difference in the following
examples, when we come to the text not simply looking for dance steps but
asking “How does this passage point me to Christ and the ‘good news’ of the
gospel?” Two short examples may help make this question
(“How does this passage point me to Christ and the ‘good news’ of the gospel?”)
more concrete.
Matthew
4 records the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. If we read this passage simply asking “What
does this passage exhort me to do?” we will not hear the music of gospel. The temptation of Jesus in the wilderness
will be reduced to a lesson about how to avoid temptation. While this story may have implications for
how we handle temptation, it is crucial that we consider how this story points
us to Christ. Matthew is drawing a
parallel between the experience of the people of Israel and Jesus. Both were led into the wilderness. Both were tested. What happened when Israel was led into the
wilderness? Israel failed. What happened when Jesus was led into the
wilderness? He remained faithful. We must remember that the Gospels proclaim
“good news.” In what sense does this
passage offer “good news”? Like Israel,
we too have been tempted and fail. If we were honest, we fail more often than
we care to admit. We need someone who
can live a perfect life in our place, on our behalf. And the great news of the
Gospel is Jesus has done just that.
Jesus, therefore, is not primarily our example in this passage. He is our hero. In a sermon on this passage, Jason Gibson sums
this up well:
If Jesus
had failed in the desert we could not have been put right with God, for there
would have been no perfect sacrifice to take away sin forever, and no perfect
life to be credited to our account. In the Gospel God treats Jesus as if He had
failed and treats us as if we had never failed. In the Gospel Jesus is punished
as if He had disobeyed God, and we are declared to be perfect as if we had
never disobeyed God! Matthew’s Gospel is about just that - the Gospel! Which is
about Jesus, God’s final obedient Son. The wait for an obedient son is over. He
has arrived. Jesus is the new and better Adam, the true Israel who has defeated
the devil and won back for rebels the paradise lost. And this is the Gospel
that is available to all of us who admit our weakness and inability to overcome
Satan, and trust in what Jesus has done for us on our behalf.[4]
By asking
how this passage points us to Christ, we begin to hear music we might easily
have missed.
Consider
again the following passage in Hebrews 4: “Since then we have a
great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God,
let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high
priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every
respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of
grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb.
4:14-16, ESV).
We live in a world marked by suffering and
difficulty. Parents married twenty years
file for a divorce. A friend’s life is
tragically ended by an auto accident. A
parent contracts a debilitating illness.
As believers we sometimes find ourselves despairing in response to these
circumstances. It’s easy to feel like no
one understands. Notice how the writer
of Hebrews points our hearts to one who truly does understand, calling us to reflect
upon Jesus’
final hours: He was betrayed by a
friend; abandoned by his disciples; endured unimaginable physical and emotional
abuse; and experienced an excruciating death.
He understands abandonment, loneliness, rejection, shame and deep
sadness because he experienced these things himself. He can identify with the entire gamut of our
painful experiences. Not only can we
find understanding in Christ, but when we draw near to him we also find “mercy
and grace to help in time of need.”
Thus, as we ask the question, “How does this passage point
me to Christ and the ‘good news’ of the gospel?” we see that the “good news” is
that we have a savior who understands suffering and pain because he has
experienced them himself.
...
Conclusion
Our hearts were made to
respond to the music—the music of the gospel.
As we allow Scripture to expose our
brokenness and point us to our savior, we will richly experience the
gospel. As Tim Keller, Pastor of
Redeemer Presbyterian Church, explains, “[The gospel ] tells us that we are
more wicked than we ever dared believe, but more loved and accepted than you
ever dared hope—at the same time. In fact, if the gospel is true, the more you
see your sin, the more certain you are that you were saved by sheer grace and
more precious and electrifying that grace is to you . . . .” You are going to have the opportunity to
apply these two questions as you reflect on six passages in Ephesians in the
study that follows entitled, “Hearing the Music of the Gospel in Ephesians.”
[1]
This illustration was developed by Larry Kirk.
I am indebted to Larry for helping me better understand and experience
how the Scriptures point us to the music of the gospel.
[2] To use a biblical term, we are
“idolaters.” Idolatry is one of the
major themes in Old Testament. What is
the first commandment? “You shall have
no other gods before me” (Exod. 20:3).
Idolatry is not merely about creating a wooden statue to which we bow
down in worship (cf. Ezekiel 14:1-8).
Idolatry takes place anytime the functional trust of our heart shifts to
someone or something other than Christ.
[3] In his
book Ancient Love Song, Charles Drew
rightly notes that Scripture points us to Christ in a complex variety of
ways. The Law anticipates Christ by
exposing our hearts and persuading us of our need for a savior. The promises anticipate him by kindling a
longing at numerous levels that only Jesus can ultimately fulfill. Wisdom Literature compels us to look to Christ
for meaning and for the ability to live wisely.
The psalmists and prophets often speak with the voice of Christ,
anticipating his own anguish and exaltation.
Old Testament characters look forward to a prophet greater than Moses, a
priest greater than Aaron and a king greater than David. Thus, the way Scripture points us to Christ
in Genesis differs significantly from the way Scripture points us to Christ in
the Gospel of John. See Charles D. Drew, The
Ancient Love Song: Finding Christ in the Old Testament (Phillipsburg, N.J.:
P & R Publishing, 2000).
[4]
Jason Gibson, “Finally . . . An Obedient Son.” www.beginningwithmoses.org/briefings/matthew4v1to11.htm,
accessed December 21, 2007.
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