One of the key characteristics of revival is that the participants are surprised to be a part of it.

Throughout church history the ones who have fueled revival haven’t been the strategists and theologians. It’s been the ones who just couldn’t get over the fact that God loved them, that He actually wanted them and called them by name, that He didn’t care that they couldn’t hold life together…stunned by His grace.

Questions: Can you remember the day you realized that in spite of yourself, you were loved by Someone perfectly reliable and strong? Can you capture that feeling and hold it in your heart?

If so, you just may be ready for revival.

The Text

I’m fascinated by God’s timing; always have been.

A few years ago my study of Mark brought me to chapter 9:30-37, a fascinating conversation between Jesus and His disciples concerning greatness. As they passed through Galilee, Jesus taught them again concerning His impending death and resurrection. This time He added the discouraging news that all of this will happen because someone will betray Him. They didn’t understand; it was just too much for them, and they were afraid to ask Him to explain further.

What they did understand were the prophecies that someday Messiah would rule and reign over His Kingdom on earth. Still clinging to their insistence that Jesus should be that Messiah—the ruling and reigning one, rather than the Messiah He was telling them He was—the One who would first suffer, die, and then rise from the dead, they did what everyone does when they are around someone they think has power and status: They postured for position in His Kingdom. They were about to learn Jesus’ definition of greatness—His radical, counterculture, counter-flesh, measure of greatness in His Kingdom: If you follow Jesus, He will ask you to serve everyone—especially the weak.

It’s an upside-down measure of greatness for most people. It’s not the number of people who serve you that matters to Jesus; it’s the number of people you serve.

The Life

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We Were Pilgrims

I met Jesus in the 60s.

Before the idea that some Christian moral majority could make people behave right so that we could live comfortably in this world.

During the Jesus Movement we knew our status: We were pilgrims living as aliens in a hostile land.

I remember times in classes at the University of California when we Christians spoke up. The venomous wrath of the professors and our fellow students let is know they didn’t think we belonged there.

What’s Changed?

That was okay with us, because we knew they were right.

We didn’t belong there.

Still don’t.

None of us do.

We’re aliens, living for a while in a place we don’t belong and longing for home.

And along the way, experiencing the full measure of His grace and peace (1 Peter 1:1-2).

The Battle is Real!

If you’ve been reading this blog you know that you should never underestimate the danger of legalism. “Legalism means making laws that God has not made and treating them as equally authoritative as God’s Word.” (Dr Tom Constable, professor of Bible, Dallas Theological Seminary) It doesn’t lead to holiness, it leads to hiddenness and sin.

Legalism never works because it depends upon and energizes the old nature, the flesh. Grace always works because it depends upon and energizes and releases the new nature–who we are in Christ.

Remembering the Jesus Movement: What I wish we had back then!

The legalists attacked us constantly during the Jesus Movement of the 60s and 70s. Here are the resources I have discovered during my decades of Bible study and teaching that I wish I would have known about, or wish would have been available back then:

Classics:

Holiness, the False and the True , by H. A. Ironside. You can usually pick up a used copy on Amazon. Dr. Ironside was one of the great Bible teachers of the Bible Conference movement and a champion for grace. You can also download the ebook at www.inchristalone.org/IronsideHoliness.htm.

The Grace Awakening, by Charles Swindoll. This book has convinced many that the Christian life is best lived by grace, not by works.

My Personal Writing

Living Water: The Gospel of John. I wrote the study notes to this years ago. I still feel it is one of the best ways to introduce unbelievers to the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. You can get a free copy from the gracious people at www.livingwater.org.

Beginning In Grace: What the Bible Teaches About Relationship with God. This is the basic discipleship manual we have used at Church of the Open Door. We’ll send you one if you write, email, or call us. www.churchoftheopendoor.com.

My Personal Favorite

TrueFaced, by Bill Thrall, Bruce McNicol, and John Lynch. These men are close friends and warriors for authentic Christianity. Anything they write or produce…get it! wwwtruefaced.com.

This book and these resources will set you free!

“

It was for freedom that Christ set you free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1).

Holy or Hypocritical?

Every time I talk or write about legalists, church folk get uneasy…even testy. Their charge is always the same, “But these people are good Christians, just a little narrow.”

Really?

That’s not what Jesus said. When the legalists of His day confronted Him for not “following the tradition of the elders,” He called them hypocrites (Mark 7:7-8).

Why did He call these sincere followers of their religious traditions and expectations hypocrites? Two reasons:

Wrong Source of Authority

In my last blog I introduced you to Dr. Tom Constable’s definition of legalism: “Legalism means making laws that God has not made and treating them as equally authoritative as God’s Word.”

Tom didn’t think of this, Jesus did. In Mark 7:8-13, He excoriated the legalists for replacing the Word of God with the traditions of men as the source of authority in their lives.

How can anyone conclude that people who replace God’s Word with their own traditions are holy?!

They’re not, they do violence to the Word of God so that they can manipulate people with their rules and regulations.

Wrong Definition of Righteousness

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The Unkind, Impatient, Intolerant Jesus

As I read the accounts of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, I’m impressed by His amazing kindness, patience, and tolerance toward all types of people: children, fishermen, businessmen, lepers, rulers of synagogues, tax-collectors, occupying Roman soldiers, prostitutes, political traitors, adulteresses, zealous political patriots, rich, poor, Jew, and even Gentile.

He lets people say the most inane things about Him or His Father, and gently asks them clarifying questions or offers insightful guidance. He listens before He speaks, or sometimes doesn’t say anything at all.

Except for one type of person, one group of people, one crowd He meets. Every time He meets them, every conversation He has with them, every circumstance and occasion when their paths cross, Jesus aggressively confronts them. And the names He calls them–a bunch of snakes, whitewashed graves, hypocrites and heretics.

To these people He is surprisingly unkind, impatient, and intolerant.

Meet the Legalists!

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A Logistical Nightmare

When the Lord Jesus wrapped up His Galilean ministry, He took His disciples to a remote place to rest. “Yeah, right!” I’m sure the Twelve were thinking when thousands of people met them on the shore of their “getaway.” Jesus, moved with compassion, taught the crowd for hours.

About 3:00 PM, the disciples told their Master that He needed to send the crowds away. They were in the middle of nowhere, and the families were getting hungry. This was like a rock concert with no vendors or toilets. “Hurry, Jesus, before it’s too late and this crowd gets unruly.”

You Feed Them!

In His characteristic way, Jesus blows them away with His radical response. “You give them something to eat” (Mark 6:37). The Greek text highlights the power of His words by adding the plural personal pronoun: YOU, You give them something to eat!

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It was what we loved about Jesus. He was simple, clear, up-front.

And then we got religious, and complicated; complex, layered, involved, intricate, and, well, impressive.

…to everyone but Jesus, and honest people.

People ask me how we made such a difference, how did kids off the street had such impact for the Lord Jesus.

Answer? We kept it simple. One friend telling another friend about his or her best friend, Jesus Christ.

It was conversation.

It was relational.

It was simple.

Just like the New Testament.

Do you remember those simple days?

Does your heart long for those simple days?

Then keep it simple. Tell someone about Jesus. Talk to them about Jesus.

And trust Him for the results.

And write me. Let’s talk.

If you have to ask what I mean by “cool,” you probably weren’t a part of the Jesus Movement. To me a “cool” person is someone who gets “it,” whatever “it” might be. What made the Jesus People cool was that we got Jesus. We didn’t get religion, we didn’t get the institutional church; we got Jesus. And we especially “got” how  Jesus was relevant to our culture.

If that definition of cool doesn’t push your button, then you probably shouldn’t read on. But if it does get you excited, here’s my list:

Seven Ways To Stay “Cool”

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What Makes Us Different?

Years ago a group of British thinkers on comparative religion furiously debated whether one belief set Christianity apart from other world religions. C. S. Lewis wandered in late, took a seat and asked, “What’s the rumpus about?” They told him they were trying to determine Christianity’s unique contribution among world religions. Without hesitation he replied, “Oh, that’s easy. It’s grace.”

Would you say that? Without hesitation? If not, you’ll never experience the life Jesus wants to give you. Only those who embrace grace by trusting in His Son receive eternal life. Only those willing to join Christ in risking grace by extending it to sinners without vacillation or compromise will know the spontaneous spiritual joy that sparks spiritual revolution.

Do You Remember the Jesus Movement?

That’s what I remember when I remember the Jesus Movement!

Undeserved, unending, unearned, unconditional, uncontrollable, unblinking, unbound, undefiled, undeniable, unequivocal, unfaltering, unhinging, unlimited, unmistakable, unprecedented, unsettling—grace—God’s gift of life to all who believe in His Son, unheard of anywhere else but here—Christianity.

I just finished a wildly popular book the entire Christian world seems gaga over. I found a lot to challenge me in the pages of the book—if I were a Mormon, or a Muslim, or a Buddhist, or the follower of any teaching that tells people to get to work to get right with God. One enamored reviewer wrote, “It’s really deep, there’s a lot there!” I agree…

• A lot to cause believers to wonder if they really do belong to God.
• A lot to shame the reader into shaping up the outside of his or her life.
• A lot to motivate the reader to measure up to the author’s standards of righteousness.

What I didn’t find was grace.

What are we doing? Where did we go wrong? When did we forget that the Christian life begins and ends with the one distinction of our historic faith: grace!

Don’t write me asking the name of the book because I don’t want you to read it. I don’t want one more person to read it. And I’m praying that everyone exposed to this lie will someday read Paul’s writings. And when they do, they will realize they have been deceived by the latest holier-than-thou-excoriating-grace-protestant version of “righteousness by works, and that of yourselves.”

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).