Tag: christianity

Do You Have An Idol?

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Devotionals7 Comments

Lately, I have been reading J.D. Greear’s new book Gospel. If you do not have a copy, I would highly recommend it. While preparing for my latest sermon, I happened to read his section on idolatry. In that section, he gives several questions we can ask ourselves to determine what may be an idol in our lives.

Idol: Can you define that, please?

An idol is anything that we allow to take the place of God in our lives. It is those things we give the most weight to, or think are necessary for life and happiness. Ultimately, an idol is anything that stands between us and God, hindering our relationship with Him because we are giving it our love, affections, and worship instead of God.

John Calvin likened our hearts to an idol factory because we are good at making things into idols. If our hearts are little idol making factories, how do we know if we have made something into an idol? J.D. Greear’s list of questions is helpful at this point.

Questions to Ask Yourself

(1) What thing have you sacrificed most for?

  • A scholarship?
  • A successful career?
  • The perfect body?

Sacrifice and worship often go hand in hand. What you worship and prize the most is often shown by what you pursue the most. What you pursue the most could very well be your idol.

(2) Who is there in your life that you feel like you can’t forgive and why?

An inability to forgive could be connected to the fact that someone took away from you something you can’t be happy without. Something you depended on for your life, happiness, and security. Determining why you cannot forgive someone, could help you discover an idol in your life.

(3) What one thing do you most hope is in your future?

  • Career success?
  • A certain salary?
  • Owning your own home? Or even a second one?
  • Having the respect of your peers?

If you believe having these things will bring you happiness or acceptance, then the one thing you most hope for in your future could be your idol.

(4) What is the one thing you most worry about losing?

  • Your job?
  • Your family?
  • The respect of your kids?
  • The love of your spouse?
  • Your money?

If you believe the loss of these things would be life ending, then the thing you most worry about losing could be your idol.

(5) If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

  • Your looks?
  • Your job?
  • Your zipcode?
  • Your car?

If you believe you would be happier by changing these things, then these could be your idol.

(6) When you do you feel the most significant?

  • In other words:
    • When do you hold your head up the highest?
    • What is there that you hope people find out about you?
    • Do you constantly mention:
      • Your job?
      • The job you hope you get ?
      • Your new car?
      • Your house?
      • Your college degree?
      • Does your heart soar with pride when you talk about your kids or grandkids?

Your identity is often wrapped up in what makes you feel the most significant. Discovering what makes you feel the most significant could help you determine your idol.

(7) Where do you turn for comfort when things are not going well?

  • Your work?
  • Pornography?
  • Food?
  • Alcohol?
  • Drugs?
  • A truth about yourself? Like, I may not be a great athlete, but academically I am far above my peers.

Where you turn for comfort when things are not going well could reveal your idol.

(8) What triggers depression in you?

  • Your kids not calling?
  • The struggles in your marriage?
  • Not getting the recognition you think you deserve?
  • How little you think you have accomplished?

Barring any medical complications, depression is often triggered when something you deem essential for life is denied or taken away. The things that most often trigger depression in you could be your idol.

Conclusion

By honestly answering these questions, you should have a good idea if something is an idol in your life.

Resources

J.D. Greear Gospel: Recovering the power that made Christianity revolutionary, 70-75.

When God Test’s Us

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Devotionals2 Comments

Genesis 22:1-2 tells us that the Lord tested Abraham by asking him to sacrifice his son, his only son, the one whom he loved. After reading those words, our immediate response might be, “Should the Lord do that? Is that right? Can he ask Abraham to sacrifice his son as a test? What is the Lord accomplishing by asking such a thing of Abraham? What would He accomplish by testing us?”

The Lord Tests Our Hearts

Before we jump to conclusions, it is important to understand the Lord’s testing of us is not sinful. In fact, Scripture is full of verses showing the Lord tests the hearts of men (Prov. 17:3).

  • Ex. 15:25-26 and Deut. 8:2 – Tells us the Lord tests Israel to see if they will follow His commandments.
  • Deut. 13:3 – Tells us that the Lord will tests us by sending prophets who will tell us to go after other gods instead of serving the Lord Himself.
  • Ps. 11:5 and Luke 8:13 – Tells us Lord tests the righteous, who claim to be His followers
  • Ps. 26:2 – The Psalmist asks the Lord to test his heart, in order for him to show that he loves the Lord and knows that the Lord is faithful to His promises.
  • James 1:3 – Tells us the testing of our faith produces steadfastness.
  • James 1:12 – Tells us those who endure testing prove they love the Lord more than the world, which results in them receiving the crown of life.

How does the Lord test us?

We know from James 1:13-15 that the Lord does not tempt us to do evil, but He does test us. He tests us by putting us in difficult situations to see if we will obey and trust Him or seek to do it our own way (Ex. 15:25-26; Deut. 8:2). In addition, He tests us by sending those our way who preach a false gospel to see if we will follow after it (Deut. 13:3). Furthermore, He tests us by putting us in situations where we have to deal with either the lack of, or the excess of, recognition, fame, wealth, and comfort among other things (1 Thess. 2:4-7)

He Tests us to know:

  • If we believe His promises (Ps. 26:2)
  • If we believe in His gospel (Gal 1:6-7; Hosea 6:4)
  • If we are fully dedicated to Him and Him alone (Ex. 15:25-26; Deut. 8:2; 13:3)
  • If we desire the things of the world, looking for joy and satisfaction there; rather, than finding it in God and God alone (1 Thess. 2:4-7).

Conclusion

In the end, we see that the Lord does test us. The reason He tests us is to see where our heart is, to show us our true nature, and to humble us so we will follow Him alone.

Don’t Hide Your Sin, Expose It

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Devotionals4 Comments

What if you did not have to hide your sins? What if you could expose your sins, admitting them to God and one another? These questions and their answers do not have to be hypothetical.

Christians Can Expose Their Sins

As Christians, we really can expose our sins. We do not have to hide them from God or one another, which allows us to honestly evaluate ourselves. When we are freed to honestly examine ourselves, we can evaluate where we are doing poorly and where we are doing well. In other words, we can determine what sins we need to work on, so we can knock down those strongholds in our lives.

Christians are Saved by Grace

The reason we can honestly evaluate ourselves is due to the nature of our salvation. As Christians, our works do not save us, merit us favor with God, nor keep us in a saving relationship with God. As Christians, we are saved by God’s grace. God’s grace is given to us as a free gift. We do not have earn it, repay it, or work to keep it.

Christians have Jesus as their Advocate

Along with God’s grace, we, as Christians, also have Jesus as our Advocate. 1 John 2:1-2 tells us that those who are truly saved have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous One.

Advocate carries the idea of someone coming alongside of you and pleading your case for you. When Jesus acts as our Advocate, He comes alongside of us, and He reminds the Father of His person (He is the Christ and the Righteous One) and His work (His death on the cross for our sins, taking God’s wrath on Himself, removing our defiling sin, and imputing His righteousness to us) and our profession of Him as our Lord and Savior, when we sin. When we realize this, we are free to evaluate ourselves.

Think about it like this:

Say you are called into your bosses, principal’s, or teacher’s office and asked to evaluate your work. To tell them where you believe you are doing well, and where you believe you are doing poorly.

Before they ask you to evaluate yourself, they say, “No matter what you tell me, your shortcomings will not be held against you. You will not be fired, demoted, or given a bad grade.”

When you hear those words, that you are going to be accepted no matter what you tell them, no matter how poorly you have done in your work, you are at that moment freed to honestly evaluate yourself. You don’t have to feel like you need to hide anything from them. You can lay it all out on the table, honestly evaluating what you have done, so that you will know what areas still need work.

Because we are accepted by God based on Jesus’ work, we don’t have to hide our short comings from God either. Rather we can honestly evaluate ourselves to see where we are doing well and where we are doing poorly, to see what sins and idols we are still allowing to affect our lives, so we can work to remove them.

A Cover Up

However, when we do not realize God’s grace is free and that Jesus stands as our Advocate when we sin, then we will never truly be free to examine ourselves. When we are not free to honestly examine ourselves, we will cover our sins up, thinking maybe God will not notice.

The reasons we cover our sins up are many, but most fall into a misunderstanding of God’s grace, which leads to people thinking we have to earn, repay, or keep our salvation through our works. If our works are subpar, then earning, repaying, or keeping our salvation is not going so well. Which means, instead of honestly looking at ourselves, we make things out to be better than they really are.

Conclusion

You see, based on Jesus’ work, we are always accepted by God no matter what we have done in the past, what we do right now, and what we are going to do in the future. That does not give us a license to sin. Rather it gives us a license to honestly evaluate ourselves, and to confess our sins to one another.

If we do not see ourselves as accepted by God through Jesus’ work alone, then we will never be freed to evaluate ourselves. And we will never truly grow in holiness. But when we have a right view of our salvation, we can honestly evaluate our sin and deal with it in a healthy manner. As we deal with our sin, we become more holy.

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How Do We Live Like the Elder Brother?

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Devotionals2 Comments

In my last post, I made some observations from the parable of the prodigal son. In doing so, I highlighted the Gospel as the third way to live, with the other two ways to live being the way of the Relativist and the way of the Moralist. You can read my post here.

In the parable, the younger brother represents the Relativist, and to him everything is about self. The elder brother represents the Moralist, who lives outwardly for God, but inwardly his heart has not changed. In an effort to help us see how we live like the elder brother, so we can correct our thinking and actions, I want to ask and answer the question: How do we live like the elder brother?

We Act Like The Elder Brother:

When we believe we are saved by our works

  • This manifest itself in the following ways
    • We do this so, so we get salvation type thinking
    • When we do not think of our sin as being offensive to God.
    • When we think we are not that bad saying, “Sure Christ died for me, but I really was not that bad.”
    • Comparing ourselves to others saying “I needed God’s grace, but not as much as this person over here does. Look at their sin and look at mine.”

When we believe our works earn us favor with God

  • This manifest itself in the following ways:
    • We show up to church every time it is open thinking if we miss a service we are not in God’s favor.
    • When we believe we may get in a car wreck, or lose our job, or fail a class, or that one of our kids will not turn out right, if we are not consistent with our quiet times because somehow God will pay us back for not spending time with Him.
    • When we believe God will not use us or bless us if we are not reading His Word or doing Christian type activities often.

When we believe we must pay Christ back for our salvation

  • This manifests itself when we say things like: 
    • Christ died for you, witnessing to others is the least thing you can do for Him.
    • Christ suffered for you, the least you can do is read your Bible and pray to Him everyday.
    • Christ went to the cross for you, the least you can do for Him is go on a missions trip, part with some of your resources in order to help the church, or show up to services on Sunday.

When we believe God owes us for being such a good Christian.

  • This manifest itself when:
    • We do not receive the recognition we thought we should have received at church for helping with a ministry project, serving the church, attending regularly, and we get mad about it.
    • When we get jealous when another person who obviously has not done as much as we have gets recognized or asked to help with another ministry/task even though we said we wanted to serve as the chairman of that committee, teach that class, or serve those people.

The Christian disciplines mentioned throughout this post are good, but they can become corrupted when we believe they: 

  • Earn us salvation
  • Earn us favor with God
  • Become a way to pay Jesus back for what He has done for us
  • When they are done because we want to gain things such as recognition, or opportunity.

Should we stop coming to church, serving the body, doing our quiet time, praying, teaching a class, etc? 

  • No, we should not. The reasons we do them though should change.

The Gospel: A Third Way

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Devotionals1 Comment

The parable of the prodigal son found in Luke 15:11-32 is directed at two types of people. The relativist (younger brother) and the moralist (elder brother).

The Relativist

The Relativist lives how he wants. He does the things he wants to do because he does not believe it is important to follow God’s commands. He does not believe it is necessary to give God His rightful place, which is the Lord of His life. In doing so, he shows he believes he does not need a Savior.

In the parable, the younger brother represents the Relativist. He asks for and receives his inheritance from his father before his father’s death. He turns his inheritance into cash and leaves home to seeks fulfillment and joy in living how he pleases. Even though he thought living his own way would bring him joy, it brought him nothing but despair and enslavement.

The Moralist

While the Relativist does not obey God’s commands, the Moralist strictly seeks to obey God’s commands and please Him. He is at church every time it is open. He reads his Bible everyday, prays, and does a host of other things that look Christian. Even though he does and says all the right things, his heart is not right. He believes his good works earn His salvation and favor with God.

In the parable, the elder brother represents the Moralist. While, he did not ask his father for his inheritance early, turn it into cash, and leave home to seek his own desires, he still seeks to serve himself by staying home and serving his father faithfully.

Even though, his actions looked noble righteous, they did not stem from a righteous heart. He believes he should receive good things for his good works. Notice in the parable the complaint of the elder brother. He believes his father should have given him a young goat to celebrate with his friends because of his dedication in serving him.

Instead of living to glorify God, the Moralist does good, in order to attempt to control God.  Not only does he believe his works earn him salvation and favor with God, but his good works are an attempt to control God.

A Third Way

Jesus tells this parable not only to point out the error of the Pharisees in living like the elder brother, and the enslavement and joylessness that comes from loose living, but also to show us the gospel, which is the third way we can live. In the gospel, we are not accepted based on our works, but by God’s grace, and His grace is not something we can earn. It is something freely given to us.

In the gospel, we do not seek to please ourselves, or we do not obey God, in order to control Him and get our way. Rather we live a righteous life because we have been freed and empowered to do so.

Our belief in Jesus as our Lord and Savior serves to change our hearts, and with it our desires. Not only are we given a new heart and new desires, but we are empowered through the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives to live out our righteousness. In other words, we do not perform good works to earn our salvation or favor with God, but we perform good works because we have been freed and empowered to do so.

Conclusion

In this parable, we do not see two ways to live, but rather three. We can live either like the Relativist, the Moralist, or we can rest in the gospel. For it is only in the gospel that we are truly free to worship and serve God, rather than ourselves.

Confessing Sin the Key to Vertical & Horizontal Fellowship

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Church Life, Discipleship, Practical7 Comments

This last Sunday, I preached over 1 John 1:5-10. Part of John’s message is that admitting we are sinners and confessing our sin is the only way we can experience true fellowship with God (Vertical) and with one another (Horizontal). In 1 John 1:7,9 we read:

But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin…If we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

John tells us that we have fellowship with one another if we walk in the light. The same light that God Himself walks in. A light we are able to walk in by confessing our sins. Let’s look at this one piece at a time.

Confession of Sin

In order to confess our sin, we have to first understand sin. Sin is more than just breaking the commandments of God, even though it is that. Sin is more heinous though. It is an outright attack and denial of who God is. It is to follow ourselves rather than to follow God. Now that we understand the heinousness of sin, we can answer the question:

What does it mean to confess sin?

It means that we first recognize we are a sinner, that we have rebelled against God to seek after the things of the world, thinking ourselves to be wiser than God.

Second, it means that we confess to God our rebelliousness against Him. We confess that we have tried to go at it on our own because we thought that our wisdom was greater than His. And in doing so we have sinned against Him.

The Cleansing Blood of Christ

When we confess our sins, Christ acts as our propitiation. He removes our sin and the wrath of God from us. In doing so, He is our substitute, standing in our place, taking the punishment we deserve because of our sinfulness.

Once we confess our sins, Christ’s blood cleanses us from all unrighteousness. When God looks down on us, He sees Christ’s blood and not our sin. This results in our relationship with God being reconciled.

It also shows that Christ’s blood is the only way we are cleansed from our unrighteousness, meaning our works will not do. Thus, confessing our sin, not performing works, is the only way we can be reconciled to God

Walk in the Light

Our confession of sin results in a changed heart and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (Jer. 31 & Acts 2). Our changed heart and the Holy Spirit empowers us to live in accordance with the commandments of God, as well as we are able to walk in the light with Him.

Because of Christ’s cleansing blood, we are freed from the bondage of sin. Where we once lived for ourselves, we now have the ability to live for God. Where we once used one another for personal gain, we now have the ability to love and serve each other. This means that the cleansing blood of Christ not only results in us having fellowship God, but it also results in us having true fellowship with one another.

Conclusion

When we confess our sins, recognizing Christ is our Savior – that He is the one who took our punishment for us – then we are cleansed from all our unrighteousness and our relationship with God and one another is restored. John’s message then is that true fellowship with God and one another only happens when we confess our sins. There is no other way. May we all recognize this truth, confess our sins, and be saved from all unrighteousness, which results in true fellowship with both God and one another.