You Are Holy, Not Just Heaven Bound

One day, I’m gonna die.

When I die, because I have placed my faith in Jesus, I will spend the rest of eternity in communion with Him and all the saints in a place called heaven. It will be a place where there are no more tears, pain, sin, or death. It will be a place where all will have been made right. It will be a place where we have perfect communion with God. I believe it will be here on earth, that ‘heaven’ will be God restoring creation to the perfection of the pre-fall period, not blowing it all up and starting again (ultimately though, who knows).

All that to say, heaven sounds pretty great.

Unfortunately, many of us (yours truly too) live as if the blood of Jesus ONLY seals our eternal locale.

The Bible however teaches us that the blood of Jesus makes us holy.

If we evaluate our memories, our experiences, our childhoods, many of us would conclude that we were talked to way more often about where we are going (heaven or hell) than what we have become.

Now, heaven is obviously a great thing for us to look forward to. I definitely look forward to the perfection that is promised in Scripture. I look forward to seeing Christ face to face, seeing those I love who are also in perfect communion with God (they aren’t waiting for me, mind you, they’re in a perfect utopia, remember?).

But, the Christian life is not just about the endgame (oh, wow, just typing that makes me excited for the Avengers movie that is about to come out. Just thirteen more days)!

The Christian life is about who we are, not just where we’re going.

The Christian life is about holiness, not just heaven.

If following Jesus was only about going to heaven when we die, then we wouldn’t need to care about living lives of holiness today.

Oops, I just described how I too often live.

I just described how many of us who claim Jesus live.

If following Jesus is just about dying and going to heaven, then honoring Him with our actions, thoughts, words, and habits in the here and now isn’t that important.

In some churches, we have been taught more than this. We have in fact been taught about holiness, and how being set apart should show itself in every area I described above. But even in those settings and circumstances, we can hear it the wrong way. 

Since I was sixteen years old, my dad has encouraged me with the following mantra: “Be God’s Man.” He has texted it to me, told me face to face, e-mailed it, and modeled it.

Here’s how I have misheard it at times.

In moments where the gospel is far from my view, I start to make it a standard to live up to, instead of my identity to walk in.

In those moments I strive with all my vigor and power to become the man of God that Jesus is calling me to be through the encouragement of men like my father. When I fail to live up to my self-imposed standard, I feel woefully inadequate.

But, man alive, listen up!

Because of my faith in Jesus, I AM God’s man! I am a child of God! It’s not something I have to earn or live up to, it’s something I already AM! That’s where the power for holy living is found! The grace of God! My dad’s encouragement is for me to walk out who I AM, not earn the title!

My point is, many of us hear about calls to holiness in church. If you attend the church I work at, you’ve likely heard it from me. We can hear these calls to holy living and misunderstand. We can hear these calls to holy living and spend our energy and effort trying to earn the title of holiness. Yet, Scripture makes it clear that we already are holy in the sight of God! We are already saints! Already set apart! Already righteous!

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. – 2 Corinthians 5:21

The title of holy is not something you have to earn, it’s who you ARE.

Let’s quickly run through just two implications of this.

If I’ve been made holy in the sight of God, it is my Savior who should be praised, not my sin. 

Let me be clear, repentance and confession are powerful. Acknowledging my sins to my wife, friends, and family in Christ is important. There is freedom found in doing this. But if my sin becomes the point of emphasis in an effort to be “authentic” and “transparent”, I am glorifying the very thing that put Jesus on that cross.

My youth group knows that I sin. I tell them.

My family and friends know. They see it.

Those I disciple know that I sin.

But my youth group, family, friends, and those I disciple all know as well that I have a Savior in Christ Jesus who set me free from anything they see and anything I confess. I glorify my Savior, not my sin. Let us not be so concerned about not being judgmental to others that we start to parade our sin and not our Savior.

If I’ve been made holy in the sight of God, so are all others who follow Him

Our churches are full of men and women who are prone to act like immature toddlers (same as I). Gossip, slander, backbiting, attention seeking, anger, rudeness, selfishness. There is this in abundance. But, if we are all holy, shouldn’t we thus see the best in those around us? Where would gossip and slander go if we acknowledged that Becky and Brandon were holy? Where would the selfishness and attention-seeking go if we realized we were all equal in the sight of God?

I believe that these classic church sins would disappear if we saw each other as fellow recipients of the holiness of Christ.

You, if you’ve put your faith in Jesus, are holy.

Stop trying to earn it. 

Stop waiting to live with and for Christ once you die.

Accept who you are.

Let it change everything about you.

Nothing so floods our hearts with the experience of God’s grace as making sure it overflows from our hearts. – Bryan Chapell 

In His Name,
Nathan Roach

 

 

 

As For Me And My House

Movies like God’s Not Dead and A Matter Of Faith popularize in Christian circles the  belief that it is in college that a Christian young person has their faith questioned, sometimes by militant and angry atheist professors. While I’m not intending to chide these Christian films or those who believe the “going to college = faith being tested” mantra, I hope that I can remind us that the testing of a child’s faith is happening long before they leave for college.

I grew up in a day when Christian home decorations were all the rage (they may still actually be all the rage). Everywhere I looked I saw verses and hymn lyrics and crosses in people’s kitchens, living rooms, and family rooms. Sometimes even the bathroom. The maybe over-popularized verse on family, Joshua 24:15, was all over the place: “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

These were families who had a heart and desire to see their children grow up in Christian homes, filled with gospel conversations or at least gospel decorations.

Here’s where I’m fearful for my students, this next generation of kids. I see parents and families who are gospel-centered in their public sphere, their social media, but they’re just good moral people in their family and private life. I see this in me, so it gets me nervous about my future kids as well. While finishing an old book from 1985 (if you know me, you know finishing a book was a tremendous feat), I came across a quote that floored me due to it’s accuracy and it’s conviction.

Our homes, the homes of church members, are often no different from the homes of non-Christians. We worship pleasure, convenience, the country club, money, success, power, and prestige, just as the world does. We don’t pray in our homes any more than our moral neighbor next door. We attend church twice a month to appease the Lord, and yet we become upset if the service goes beyond twelve o’clock. We go to great pains to teach our children math, science, business, football, baseball, tennis, golf, and soccer, or perhaps ballet, music, art, and theater. But how much time or effort is spent in the training of our children in godliness? – John Sartelle 

Read that again. It stunned me. Written 8 years before I was born, but even more applicable today than it was back then.

You see, children in Christian homes are not getting their faith tested in college, they aren’t getting pulled away from Jesus in college. They are getting their faith tested and are getting pulled away from Jesus in elementary school, in Christian homes.

I have seen peers grow up in homes where sports was the parent-worshiped god. I have seen peers grow up in homes where good grades was the parent-worshiped god. I have seen peers grow up in homes where being liked, admired, and well-received in the community was the parent-worshiped god. I have seen younger peers right now grow up in homes where their accolades and even their struggles are put on display on Facebook so the parents can gain a following (pet peeve numero uno).

It breaks my heart to write this and it breaks my heart to see it. Countless members of my generation have abandoned their steadfast commitment to the Lord not because they were challenged by an atheist professor in college, but rather because they looked back and saw that in their homes their parents modeled that discipleship, missional living, and Christlikeness were all half-hearted additions to a life of comfort, pressure to be perfect, and athletics.

People of God, let this not be so. Let us not be men and women who raise children to take the gospel as an addition to life, instead of the onus of life itself.

I have a healthy fear of parenting, and while I pray it’s a part of my future, it makes me nervous to take on the responsibility of shepherding a home and raising kids who love the Lord.

Brother or sister in Christ, you cannot control the outcome of your child’s life. You cannot control whether or not a child continues to walk faithfully with the Lord into adulthood, or not. That is not on you, so don’t carry that weight.

I do pray however that you carry the weight of being a mother or father who makes your home about the gospel. For the sake of your kids. It’s not enough to be for Christ in the public sphere, even if that’s working in a church like I do. You must be for Christ at home. Make Jesus more important than good grades. Make Jesus more important than being admired by everyone around. Make Jesus more important than sports. Make Jesus more important than any other pressure in your child’s life.

Let your children know that Jesus is the center of your life outside of your home. Way more importantly however, let your children know that Jesus is the center of your life inside your home.

Repentance goes a long way. When you’re imperfect (which we all are, daily), repent. Apologizing to children is a huge win for the gospel.

Start small. It’s going to be weird and awkward. Praying with my fiancee Jamie is kinda weird still sometimes. But it’s worth it.

In His Name,

Nathan Roach

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You’re Not Great, But God Is

I remember being on a third grade Little League baseball team. It was the first year that kids were allowed to pitch, and I was terrified every time I stepped up to the plate. I made contact with the ball only two times that entire season. The rest of the time I got walked, or struck out looking. I played left field, and one time I had a ball go through my legs. In the outfield. At the end of this atrocious season, I received a trophy and was told I was great.

That was a common theme in my life. The parenting and social culture that I grew up in told me and my peers that we were great, that we could accomplish anything, that we were going to change the world. That we were above average. The reality is, that’s not the case.

This self-image obsession snuck into the church, and what was birthed out of this misconception is the “Self-Image Gospel”, a false gospel that makes the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ about making you and I feel better about ourselves as people.   I am thankful for men like Matt Chandler and others who have called out this insidious misbelief about the gospel.

There are tremendous gospel promises, promises that state all kinds of amazing things about us as children of God. That being said however, when we make the onus of the gospel about our self-image, we make the gospel about us instead of about God. This lie is insidious and not easy to catch, but we can see it creeping into our walk with Christ, when we start letting the litmus test of our faith be about how we feel at the time.

The self-image gospel can lead to two dangerous and concerning practices in our churches:

1) Acting Like We’re Perfect 

This is probably beating a broken drum, but it still continues to eat away at true community in the body of Christ. Because we were fed lies that we are great, amazing, and extraordinary people, we carry that facade into our small groups, our relationships with fellow members of our churches.

Women are supposed to be perfect. They are supposed to look perfect, act perfect, have the perfect home, the perfect family, the perfect life. Men are supposed to be strong, able to overcome and tackle any struggle or difficulty in their life without help. These are standards that the Scriptures never ask of us. But because of our culture, we forfeit deep relationships. We make our lives out to be perfect, we don’t ask for help, we don’t admit that sometimes we’re simply not great.

Here’s something that’s freeing to me. In Scripture, when one of God’s servants proclaims their inability or their weakness, God never corrects them. God never tells them how great they are. He only ever tells them how great He is.

While praying in Genesis 18, Abraham says that he is but dust and ashes, and God doesn’t correct him.

In Exodus 3, Moses will come up with countless excuses as to why he can’t lead the Israelites out of Egypt, whether because of his lowliness, his speech, or the like. God doesn’t correct him. When Moses says “who am I?” to lead the people out, God simply reminds him of who God is.

In Jeremiah 1, Jeremiah says he’s too young and too inexperienced and unable to speak and thus he can’t be a prophet for the Lord. God doesn’t correct him and tell him how great a speaker he is. Instead, God reminds him of who made the mouth, of how great He was.

This is absolutely freeing. The reality is, you and I aren’t perfect. We can take down the facade. We are not great.

2) Obsession With Our Brokenness

People who tend to realize that the Scriptures never tell us to put up a facade take things to the complete opposite extreme. With hearts in the right place, they end up taking their eyes off of the character and greatness of God and spend too much time obsessing over their own broken lives.

This sounds like the gospel, when men and women are open about their brokenness. However, it becomes decidedly not the gospel when it becomes an obsession, the central focus of their walk with Christ. They preface every facet of their ministry in the context of their own brokenness. This is a twisted form of self-worship, which shows just how insidious the traps of Satan can be in our lives.

It is one thing to humbly admit that we don’t have it all together. It is another thing entirely to fixate on ourselves, taking our eyes off of Christ and who we are in Him.

In the Exodus story, Moses won’t take his eyes off of himself. He keeps remaining fixated on his own brokenness, and won’t put his eyes on God. In chapters four and seven, Moses continues to cry out to God, saying he’s unable to do what he’s been called to do. God is patient with him, but says time and again “I will go before you and with you”. Moses was so obsessed with his own shortcomings and ‘brokenness’ that he forgot the character and greatness of God.

Here’s where this struggle is tough for me. The men and women in the ‘brokenness’ subset of Christian community are some of the most genuine and well-meaning people that I know. Their hearts are in the right place. It is my prayer that this blog is not a form of condemnation upon them, but rather that it would remind them to acknowledge that they aren’t great, but God is.

The perfection facade club forgets that they aren’t great. The brokenness club forgets that God is. I have found myself in both camps in my life. And it’s a constant struggle.

Let us remember that the gospel is not about our self-image.

Let us remember that we are not great, but God truly is.

In His Name,

Nate Roach

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I Am Nothing

“You’re not cool, Nathan! You’re not cool!” 

In college I played intramural basketball with some of my best friends. One of these guys would yell that at me every single time that I made a basket (which was rare). If there was even the teeny-tiniest hint of pride or arrogance on my face, he would scream from the sideline to remind me that I was in fact not very cool. At the time, this annoyed the snot out of me. It got to the point where I would dread seeing the ball go in the basket because I knew his scream would soon be filling the court.

While I did not enjoy that refrain ringing in my ears, there are some statements that I intend to tell myself daily:

“I am nothing. I deserve nothing. I can do nothing.”

In a world of self-help praise and positive thinking vibes, this proclamation does not sit well. I do want to clarify from the onset though that I am a wholehearted believer in reminding ourselves daily of our blessed identity in Jesus Christ, and I strive to teach myself the implications of the gospel onto my identity each day.

But for the purpose of this blog, I am focusing on the idea of contentment and how these phrases help us to reorient our hearts and minds on thankfulness and gratitude in light of our present circumstances.

We are called by God to deny ourselves. This is one of the main mandates of Jesus’ call to discipleship.

And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” – Luke 9:23

Discontentment is a litmus test for how well we are walking after Christ in our day-to-day lives, how well we are practicing the spiritual discipline of self-denial.

But how do we deny ourselves daily? How do we remind ourselves that we are not the center of our world? In his book, Chasing Contentment, Erik Raymond offers up these three short proclamations as one of a myriad of means through which we can find true and lasting contentment in Jesus Christ through denying ourselves.

I Am Nothing

This is not to be in conflict with the biblical truth about the dignity of every human life.

Rather it is putting ourselves against the majesty of God and realizing how small and insignificant we all truly are. All throughout Scripture I see men and women of God who had an understanding of their nothingness so to speak in light of the wonderful majesty of God. One of the most stark and surprising instances of this comes from Genesis chapter eighteen. In this chapter, Abraham is conversing with God, making his requests known to God in regards to Sodom and Gomorrah. Look at verse twenty-seven with me.

Then Abraham spoke up again: “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, – Genesis 18:27

Let me remind us that this proclamation comes after Genesis 15, when God proclaims his covenant blessings to Abraham. So Abraham knows the good news of God’s covenant faithfulness, yet he still proclaims that he is but dust and ashes.

Erik Raymond encourages us to find joy in being able to say that we are nothing:

Isn’t this what makes God’s pursuit of us in the gospel so refreshing? He pursues and arrests us by his grace. Though it may seem severe to think you are nothing, in the gospel you have Christ to be your everything!

I Deserve Nothing

The gospel shines incredibly bright into our lives because without Christ what we deserve is death. This may be a well-worn verse but it is no more striking in its verdict:

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. – Romans 6:23

This couldn’t be any more clear. What we deserve for our sin against God is physical and spiritual and eternal death; eternal separation from God. The wonderful news of the gospel could not shine any brighter either in this passage, as we see that the gift of eternal life in Christ Jesus is available for us!

Contentment is found in denying ourselves. Denying ourselves comes from remembering not only that we are nothing apart from Christ, but that we also deserve nothing. Pastor and theologian Mark Dever is known to quip “Anything less than hell is dancing time for Christians!” How true this is. When we truly understand that what we deserve is hell, anything less than that in our lives is a time for rejoicing. Lecrae, in his song Boasting makes the statement:

If we fought for our rights, we’d be in hell tonight. 

This is truly the case. You and I deserve nothing.

I Can Do Nothing

This is a hard one for me to remember as I am striving to live for God in vocational ministry. Yet its implications are profound on every one of us who professes Christ. Apart from Jesus, you and I can do nothing. We don’t have the power to say no to temptation, we don’t have the power to say yes to the Spirit, we don’t have the power to save souls. In all things we are unable to do what is necessary for bringing God glory in our own strength or ability.

I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit: apart from me you can do nothing. – John 15:5

This is the reality about me that I seek to cling to:

I am nothing. I deserve nothing. I can do nothing.

With this, I can strive to deny myself daily. With this, I can see the beautiful message of the gospel shining through as it is truly a gracious gift of God. With this, I can practice Biblical and gospel-centered contentment.

While I often despised the refrain of my lack of coolness coming from the sidelines during a basketball game, I am already growing to love this method of self-denial.

Remember that you are nothing.

You deserve nothing.

You can do nothing.

Meditate on this and you will find the joys of the gospel message.

In His Name,

Nathan Roach

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Affirmation Addiction

The whiteboard here at the Community Center where I work holds a special place in my heart and in my relationship with one of my best buddies out here. The whiteboard is where we go to unpack in written form the deep recesses of our brains. This is often hilarious and joyous as we speak candidly about relationships, health, and the things which plague our minds and hearts at the time.

More than just being a good end of the week laugh, we use this time to speak gospel truth into each other’s lives as we admit our places of fear, doubt, and other things which hinder our growth in the Lord. Just yesterday was once such impactful moment, where I was able to speak truth to my friend, while also receiving from the Lord a reminder through my very own words of a truth I needed to hear as well (It’s intriguing how God often speaks to me the loudest via my very own words).

Affirmation. Purpose. Identity.

These three things tend to go hand in hand in hand in my mind and life (boy, that was quite the sentence). When I feel affirmed, I feel like I serve a purpose, and my identity becomes wrapped up in that feeling of affirmation. I begin to seek it out more from the place I received it from, and become acutely aware of where I’m not getting that feeling. Where I’m not getting that feeling, I then struggle with thoughts that I have failed in some way in that arena of my life. In the most ironic of ways, it was in addressing this in my friend’s life that I realized how big a struggle it is in mine as well.

This is a terrible way for a follower of Christ to live. It is dangerous, draining, depressing, and devoid of gospel grace.

I believe every follower of Christ has struggled with this or is currently struggling with this in some form or facet. We all struggle with needing to be affirmed by our family, friends, work supervisors, or significant other. Not only that, but when we get sucked into the idea of ‘Christian karma’, where God’s affirmation of us as individuals is contingent upon our performance and behavior, then we feel like we have to fight for His love and thus our very purpose and identity. This level of needing affirmation can destroy a person at their very core. I know. I’ve experienced this.

This debilitating desire of needing affirmation can lead us to inspect every word said to us, feeling joyous when it appears positive, and devastated when it isn’t. Brother or sister, this is no way to live. Man in the mirror, this is no way to live.

This desire to be affirmed seems to be not so insidious at first glance. We all want encouragement, the Scriptures teach that we should be affirming and supporting our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, so it only makes sense that we should expect that in return.

Yet when the enemy creeps in and starts to make that encouragement the source of our identity, bad things are in store. What should give us life and purpose and identity is the gospel, what the good news of Christ crucified says about us. Grace. Coming to the Father in prayer, meditating on Scripture, partaking in the Lord’s Supper. It is these things that should fuel our lives, beckoning our hearts into ever increasing joy as we feel the grace of God seeping into and filling the dark and hidden crevices of our hearts.

Your relationship with him [Jesus] must be your ultimate satisfaction. Every other relationship and every other source of success is like a sugar high. The buzz feels good for a while but leaves you deflated in the end.  > Jeff Iorg

Brother and sister in Christ, search the Scriptures for a deeper understanding of who God is. When we come to a deeper understanding of who God is, we then can understand the wonderful riches and blessings that we have in Christ. When we remind ourselves of this day by precious day, the insidious craving of affirmation grows bleak in comparison to the guaranteed love and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Search the Scriptures. We are forgetful people, and I believe I’m the worst of all when it comes to this. That’s why we must preach the gospel to ourselves daily as we remember who we are in Christ.

Every page of the grand narrative of Scripture points to Christ, and we are able to glean a beautiful and marvelous depiction of who we are in Him.

I’m praying that God would open my eyes through His Word to the realities of my identity in Him.

I pray that He would do the same for you.

Blessings.

In His Name,

Nathan Roach