D17 P14: What must non-legalists do?

Grace is the most scandalous aspect of the Gospel, the hardest pill to swallow, and ironically, one of the biggest barriers to embracing the Gospel. Grace says you can't earn or deserve any favor from God, no matter what you do. But we love to earn and deserve. Just when we begin to come to terms with grace, we begin to lose perspective on the do part of the Gospel. We are not legalists, who teach you must do in order to garner His favor. But ... what must non-legalists do?

The discipleship mindset is anchored in the Great Commission (Matt 28:18-20), where Jesus tells His disciples to make disciples of all nations. Included in this commission is the command to "teach them to obey everything I commanded you." Discipling someone includes teaching him what to do.

Prior to giving the Great Commission, Jesus consistently did exactly this - teach people to obey His commands. For example, in John 8:31-32, He says, "If you continue in My Word, you are truly My disciples." Discipleship is marked by doing. Again in John 15:10, he says, "If you keep My commandments, you will remain in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and remain in His love." Not only is our discipleship marked by doing, Jesus' own relationship with His Father is marked by doing.

But we're not legalists!!!

The 14th entry in our series on the 17 Truths of Discipleship ("D17") is:

Discipleship is obedience-driven.

Jesus was not merely a philosopher, teaching us only to have a particular worldview. The Gospel affects not only our theology, our philosophy, and our worldview; the Gospel transforms what we do. The Gospel is not about just getting your entry ticket to heaven, but living now in God's Kingdom according to the nature of God's Kingdom. We get to live this way!!!

Disciples are followers, which means far more than merely "following Jesus' teachings" by agreeing with the good stuff He says. It means following Him - following a Person by doing as He does, speaking as He speaks, thinking as He thinks, and following the path that He blazes.

We're not legalists - we don't teach that you gain merit or favor by what you do. We're practitioners of Grace, those who practice (do) what Grace is. We are followers of the One who merited all of the Father's favor on our behalf. Following cannot exclude doing and still be considered "following."

As we disciple one another, we teach and encourage ourselves to do all that Jesus tells us to do as a matter of following, not as a matter of earning. As one author put it, "Stop trying to be a 'good Christian' and just do what Jesus says."

Doing is the Second Half of Learning

Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.

-- Benjamin Franklin

Last week, I asked a pair of questions during the sermon. The first was, "What kind of verb is the word follow?" Immediately, the right answer came from several directions: "Action!" Then the second question, "How similar is that word to what we're doing right now?" Crickets, at least for a few seconds. Then the realization ... it's impossible to follow Christ by just sitting down.

There are times to sit and learn, but we will never be followers of Jesus if sitting down "learning" is the bulk of our Christian experience. Sitting to listen to a sermon, sitting to learn in a Bible study or Sunday school class, sitting in a circle in a small group. All of these are valuable and important. But they do not comprise the phrase following Christ.

To follow anyone, we must do what they do. That's the simplest definition of follow. The word in the original language of John 6:66-71 carries the idea to follow a teaching by obeying it. A follower of Jesus does the same kinds of things He does (within the sphere of human ability). It is a stretch to call oneself a follower of Jesus based just on regular attendance to sitting-and-learning events.

Let's look at this another way. Let's consider the word obey in terms of being a learner. But before we do, let's also look alternate ways to think about the word obey.

Obedience as "ought". Perhaps this is the most common view. We do because we're supposed to. It's what good followers do. We ought do some things, and we ought not to do other things, and getting those categories sorted out well means obedience.

Obedience as righteousness. Take that a step further, and you can look at obedience as a form of righteousness. By obeying, you're becoming more righteous - a better person, a purer person.

Both ideas have some merit. There is some sense of "ought" to obeying Christ - we certainly ought to. There is even a sense that we do become more righteous the more we walk in His ways (even though we cannot merit His favor or earn salvation in any way). However, I think there's a stronger motivation than these that God has for us for obedience.

Obedience as learning. Jesus taught His disciples, sometimes sitting down as a group, sometimes on a hillside or in a boat, and sometimes along the way. But teach He did. However, He also had His disciples do. They handled the fish and the loaves, they retrieved the donkey, they prepared the Last Supper, they went out by two's to tell others about the Kingdom. He did not expect them to obey just because they ought to or to make them more righteous. He did this to teach them! As they obeyed, they would learn. 

Why do we expect Him to teach any differently today? Have we outgrown the need to do in order to learn? Can we just study forgiveness and learn it, without actually ever forgiving anyone? Or, will we only learn forgiveness when we actually forgive someone?

That would mean that Jesus wants to me forgive not just because I ought or in order to be more righteous, but to really, truly, actually learn forgiveness. And I need to learn forgiveness because that's one of His key attributes. I cannot get to know the forgiving Christ well without learning forgiveness by forgiving people.

Not just forgiveness. Apply this same idea to anything He wants us to learn: love, joy, grace, generosity, compassion, humility, patience, endurance, surrender, and so on. We won't get to know well the Christ who loves unless we learn love by loving people. Go on down the list.

So, why do so many of our Christian teaching venues have chairs?

Consider the seated learning as the "first half of learning." Then consider the unseated, action verb learning as the "second half of learning." Whenever you learn something about walking in the way of Christ, don't consider that you've learned it until you're doing it. Take that lesson and find some way to do it right away - that day, that week, sometime before you try to learn the next thing. Don't declare you learned something awesome in a sermon until you're doing that awesome thing or actually living according to that awesome thing. Then you've learned it!

The last thing we want for our Bible studies is for us to learn something that we're going to disobey only to come back the next week and learn something else we're going to disobey.

You will get to know Christ better by this. It's a way of learning! Jesus even says so Himself in John 14:21. Rather than some mystical appearing of Jesus for those who obey, I rather suspect what He means is, "As you obey, what you are doing is getting to know Me in ways you can't learn by just sitting in a chair."

The one who has my commandments and keeps them—that one is the one who loves me. And the one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will reveal myself to him. (John 14:21)

License, Legalism, Love

Last Sunday, I added a last-minute thought to the message which 1) was a much bigger thought than I gave it room for, 2) may have been distracting to the main message, 3) was not thought through fully, and 4) the one thing some people really latched onto. I still haven't decided if it was a good addition or not!

The idea was that in Christ, we have three possible paths to tread: License, Legalism, or Love. When we went through Galatians over a year ago, we talked about License, Legalism, and Liberty, which is a theologically accurate list, but I like the focus of Love more than that of Liberty.

License is the idea that because I have my sins forgiven by grace, I can live as I please, do whatever my flesh desires. Hey, it's all going to be forgiven, right? Sure, it might be disrespectful to the Cross, but if it's covered, it's covered. Paul repeated teaches against this view, especially in Galatians.

Legalism is the idea that our righteousness and our standing before God is dependent on how well we adhere to a certain moral code. There are plenty of non-Christian religions that are blatantly legalistic. Although it's relatively rare to find an evangelical church that teaches this outright (there are some!), this more often finds its way into church by stealth. A church can believe in grace and teach grace, but still end up with teachings and sermons that boil down to "try harder, do it right, it's all on your shoulders." We can inadvertently create an attitude of legalism while preaching grace.

Liberty is the idea that in Christ, we finally have the freedom and ability to obey Him. We have been set free from sin and death and set free for following Him from our heart. The bonds are gone, but we are also enabled for the first time to actually obey, which we choose to do freely.

But I prefer the third element to be labeled Love. Not because Liberty is inaccurate in any way, but because Love encompasses Liberty and so much more.

Love is more than an idea ... it's a relationship, it's a motive, it's a mode, it's an attachment, it's so many things. Rather than freely disobeying God (License) or obeying God in bondage (Legalism), it is freely obeying God drenched by love in every way. We obey Christ because we love, love is our attitude while following Him, we love Him by obeying Him, and we even love by obeying the command to love. We have been freed because of love, Christ's will has been revealed to us because of love, and His will is how He provides for us a way to love Him.

"Liberty" describes the freedom and enablement we have because of Christ. "Love" describes the what, the why, and the how to exercise that freedom and enablement.

It's easy to slip back into legalism, where we try to create a set of rules. It's even easier to slip into license - just do whatever we desire to do, whether or not it is Christ's will. Loving relationships are not the easiest routes, but they are clearly the best ones, because love is the only path of the three that reflects Christ's character.