I’m convinced we struggle with it for two reasons, both of which are variations on pride. 

1.  I’m too proud to admit I can bring nothing to God that He would find worthwhile enough to exchange my effort for some kind of favorable treatment.  Yet, the Bible makes it plain that our righteousness (works) is as filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6).  Imagine that God comes to your house, and as a welcome gift you give Him a sack full of rags that you used to wipe your hands after you changed the oil.  We don’t want to admit it, but that’s how our works look to God.  The only work He honors for salvation is the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross.  The basis for His favor is His love, mercy, and grace.  This is not a putdown to us but a tremendous source of assurance because God is reliable and unchanging and I am unreliable and changeable.
2.  I’m also too proud to admit that God doesn’t want my help in changing me.  To prove He doesn’t, He calls us dead (Ephesians 2:1), helpless (Romans 5:6), and tells us salvation is grace (pure gift) from start to finish (Romans 1:16-17).  Why, then, when we get sick do we double our church attendance, give more, and clean up our act as if God wouldn’t take care of our health unless we did more to get His attention?  God expects us to act like we belong to Him, but that belonging is His doing and my work or action is done only in response to the gift I have been freely given.  It is much more joyful to work for God because we’ve already been paid in full.  We don’t need to wheedle out of Him what it turns out He’s already given.  If He already loved the people who nailed Jesus to the cross while they were doing it, what do you honestly think you can do to earn more of His love for yourself?  I don’t go home at night hoping Patty will love me.  I go home because I’m already sure she does. 

             Can you give up the prideful and disconcerting notion that God requires you to do something to improve the level of His love for you?  Your Christian life will be a lot more joyful when you understand the assurance of the power of grace.

Thanks for your favorable responses to this past Sunday’s sermon.  The antichrist is an interesting subject, and I want to share a few more thoughts on what I think it means to acknowledge the presence of the antichrist in our world. There are three basic beliefs about God in the world:  antitheism, deism, and theism.

1.  ANTITHEISM – This belief holds there is no God and that the material universe just happens to exist.  There is no explanation for it.  There is no purpose for it.  It started nowhere.  It’s going nowhere.  It has no creator and does not need to be understood except as something that is material and exists.  This outlook finds the idea of the Christ and antichrist equally unnecessary.  Evil is a behavioral problem.  There are no spiritual problems.
2.  DEISM – There is a God (or gods).  He or they probably made the universe.  He has no personal involvement in its management or preservation, and he does not enjoy it because he is uninvolved with it.  The enemies of the Gospel whom John is confronting in his letters (called Gnostics) were a lot like these deists.  They believed God existed but was uninvolved, distant, and knowable only as we speculated, argued, and disagreed.  Even then we could not be certain.  This outlook also finds no place for antichrist.  Everything here plays out at a behavioral level.  Prayer and the Spirit of God are an illusion.
3.  THEISM – There is a God.  He created, manages, and loves the universe, the world, and all that is in it.  He is personal in nature.  He reveals Himself to people in many ways and is interested in us and how we’re doing.  He not only pays attention to us, but He helps us and intervenes.

             The doctrine of the antichrist reminds me that the material world is governed spiritually and is headed for a spiritual destination.  The problems that come my way are not just a result of the need to reengineer the material world.  There is also a need for me to deal with the spirit of the antichrist in this world of ours.  Other than this being interesting, why should this idea be important to you?

             I wish there could be more people like Albert Einstein who were clear about the existence of immovable truths and that how you feel about it or how it interferes with your desire to enjoy life is of little consequence.  It is still true…even absolutely true. 

             I had a conversation with an acquaintance who was part of a more liberal expression of Christianity who said to me, “You need to stand up and be counted in the more moderate camp of the Southern Baptist Convention.”   I said to him, “I’m not about to do that.”  He said, “Why?”  I said, “They are selling freedom, and the conservatives are selling truth.  I had all the freedom I wanted in the sense that I could do whatever I felt like doing without any prior restraint before I became a Christian.  When I became a Christian, I wanted some truths that did not move in my life.  I signed up for the prior restraint of Scripture.”  I don’t need protection for my self-centeredness.  I do need accountability and immovability for my developing walk with God.

 Christianity is based on immovable truth.  God is good in that He allows us a great deal of discretion about how we dress, what kind of music we like, and other things of that nature.  But there are certain things about which we are completely and absolutely restricted.  A great many moral requirements come to mind.  Our beliefs about who God is and what He expects come to mind. 

 I wonder if you are a person who is uncomfortable with the notion of truth being imposed on you.  If you are, you are uncomfortable with Christianity because that is what it is about.  It is not about getting God’s help in doing what you want.  It is about you getting the help of the Holy Spirit in doing what God wants.

 Systematic theology has been something I’ve had a love/hate relationship with since seminary.  I love all theology because it is about eternal truth.  There are three types of theology which I love in this order:  Biblical theology, historical theology, and systematic theology. 

             Biblical theology asks the question, “What does the Bible say?” As straightforwardly as possible it lists what the Scripture says.  It does its best not to impose logic, tradition, preference, or the personal into the expression of theology.  It prefers Biblical words to non-Biblical words.  Historical theology is simply a study of the record of what the church and churches have said about God, church, man, etc., down through the ages.  Systematic theology is an attempt to create a structure for theology that does not exist in Scripture and is too much the product of human organization of thought.

 I’ve heard people say the Bible is a systematic book, but it is evident that if it were, they wouldn’t have to make that defense.  The Bible is a relational book and has some of the loose ends all relationships do, even being an infallible, inerrant book.  It demonstrates God’s love for the world through story, law, poetry, gospel, letters, etc., but in no part does it resemble a systematic theology for long.  Therefore, it is by design not systematic. 

 You may be a person who isn’t interested in this and may see it as a preacher argument, but I assure you most of the wrong turns the church has taken have been done in the name of systematic theology.  Most of the corrections have been through a return to Biblical theology.  This is a caution and an interesting point (I hope) for those of you who are students of our faith.

            When I had an opportunity to preach at the SBC Pastor’s Conference several years ago, I took the opportunity to take a swipe at Calvinism and have wished ever since I had not.  Any believer who is reformed is my brother and we will spend eternity together, and I should treat them with the respect any brother in Christ deserves. 

            That being said I am not a Calvinist for a number of reasons, the most prominent being the denigration of faith that they commit.  They confuse action with meritorious deeds by making them the same, and they are not.  Scripture makes it plain that in response to the eternal sovereign work of God I must believe in order to be saved.  My belief does not merit salvation, it does not make me worthy of salvation, it merely receives the salvation offered from before the foundations of the earth.  That is the one and only condition required in order to receive the saving, regenerating benefits of grace.  Granted on the timeline of salvation, it is a very small spec of difference between believing in order to be regenerated and being regenerated in order to believe.  But the Bible makes this spec of difference significant, and for me it will always keep me out of the Calvinist camp.

            I have many days when I wish all of us Christians believed everything alike.  But that would be as too good to be true as Bernie Madoff’s returns on investment.  So in the meantime, I remain anchored in the Biblical necessity of faith and in love with my reformed brethren. 

            What about you? What do you think about Calvinism?