God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble

-1 Peter 5:5b

In dealing with my own heart and observing others I’ve found that the way we respond to our own mistakes or sin often reveals our lack of gospel understanding.

If you’re like me your first response is to try to fix the situation so you don’t need the cross and others don’t see your weakness.  Or maybe you respond to your sin by being upset at yourself for failing to keep your standard- you hate the feeling of failure and your anger at yourself reveals that your desire for self-produced perfection has become an idol.  These responses and many others avoid the cross.

This very issue is addressed in the following excerpt from an article by Michael Kelly (via the Vitamin Z blog).

I made a mistake at work this week. And by mistake, I don’t mean “Oops. I accidentally embezzled thousands of dollars.” Nothing sinful, just a mistake. But whenever you make a mistake, there are consequences.

Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody fails. But I spent alot of time thinking today about how you respond to mistakes from a perspective of faith. Here are a few reflections on how the gospel can influence your perspective the next time you find yourself trying to recover from a mistake.

1. When you make a mistake, you make an error in judgment or a moment of forgetfulness. The gospel reminds you that your self-worth is not tied to your ability to perform perfectly.

2. When you make a mistake, you are tempted to hide, blame, or ignore. The gospel gives you the confidence you need to own up to it and accept responsibility.

3. When you make a mistake, you start to focus on yourself, thinking that the whole world is looking at you. The gospel reminds you that you are not the center of the universe – Jesus Christ is.

4. When you make a mistake, you find yourself wanting to do anything you can to avoid the potential of failure. The gospel encourages you to take risks instead of burying your talents in the dirt.

5. When you are around someone who has made a mistake, you can easily slip into judgment in order to make yourself feel better. The gospel reminds you that you have the responsibility to fulfill the law of Christ by bearing another’s burden.

6. When you make a mistake, you look for ways to redeem yourself in the eyes of your bosses and peers. The gospel reminds you that you have nothing to prove to anyone since Christ has proven Himself on your behalf.

7. When you make a mistake, you become afraid. Afraid of what people think, afraid of doing something wrong, afraid of the consequences. The gospel drives out fear with perfect love.

Here are a couple of quotes I’ve enjoyed recently from the blog Of First Importance.

“God is never doing just one thing in what he does with us. He is always doing thousands of things that we cannot see. He never has only one purpose in what he does. He always has thousands of purposes, in everything he does. He is infinitely wise, and everything he does relates to everything else that he does sooner or later. For those who love him and are called according to his purpose, all of them—all of them!—work together for good.”

- John Piper, You Will Never Be Thirsty Again

“The perfection we do not have, Jesus provided. The judgment we do not want, Jesus bore.”

- John Piper, Finally Alive

“Christ wins our salvation through losing, achieves power through weakness and service, comes to wealth via giving all away. And those who receive his salvation are not the strong and accomplished but those who admit they are weak and lost.”

- Timothy Keller, Gospel Christianity

Here’s a recent post on self-pity from The Blazing Center blog.  Very helpful.

One of our best weapons against self-pity is to compare what we deserve with the free grace God lavishes on us in Christ.  For those who have suffered tragic losses of loved ones and other heavy afflictions, I’d never try to comfort them by saying, “It could be worse.”  But often I find I need to grab my thoughts by the collar, give myself a good shaking and say, “Hey, Mark, quit feeling sorry for yourself.  Now listen up…”

I deserve worse

I should be screaming in agony in hell right now for my rebellion against God; instead, I’ve merely been criticized by someone.  I should be burning in torment, but I only have to replace my car engine.

It could always be worse

I could be going through this same trial, only in a poverty-wracked country.  I could have cancer instead of the flu.  I could be a paraplegic but all I have is a sprained ankle.

Many have it far worse

My grocery budget may be tight, but there are multitudes who go to bed hungry every night. I have to wait for my prescription to be filled, but in parts of Uganda where people have no access to band-aids or antibiotics, a mere scratch can lead to a limb amputation or death. My back hurts, but in North Korea soldiers jam Christians into shipping crates where for months they can never stand or stretch out.

Jesus had it infinitely worse

My Savior bore the furious wrath of God with no relief, no mercy, no help, no friends and no sense of his Father’s love.  Whatever pain I experience completely pales compared to Jesus’ agony.  And he endured it all so I could escape God’s richly deserved wrath and come to the Father.

This life is the worst it will ever get

I may suffer fiery trials in this life, but this is the worst it will ever be for me.  In the next life Jesus will wipe away every tear from my eyes and ache in my joints.  But for those who reject Christ, this life is the best they’ll ever know and the next life will be eternal, unremitting misery and despair.

I could be going through this trial apart from Christ

Millions of unbelievers suffer tragedies, disease, and evil at the hands of others apart from the love of Jesus.  They have no comfort from his Spirit, no hope for eternity, no God to help them.  They suffer here then slide into eternal destruction.  Though I may be hurting, my Good Shepherd will never forsake me.

These truths bring perspective to my peewee trials and help me apply the gospel to them.

So how do you encourage yourself when tempted to self-pity?

The idolatry around us is rarely of the crude species of more primitive cultures.  Often it is far more refined and even religious in its character.  Ray Ortlund recently posted the following in regards to this.

Our local deity is not Jesus. He goes by the name Jesus. But in reality, our local deity is Jesus Jr.

Our little Jesus is popular because he is useful. He makes us feel better while conveniently fitting into the margins of our busy lives. But he is not terrifying or compelling or thrilling. When we hear the gospel of Jesus Jr., our casual response is “Yeah, that’s what I believe.” Jesus Jr. does not confront us, surprise us, stun us. He looks down on us with a benign, all-approving grin. He tells us how wonderful we really are, how entitled we really are, how wounded we really are, and it feels good.

Jesus Jr. appeals to the flesh. He does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him. He is not able to understand them, much less impart them, because Jesus Jr. is the magnification of Self, the idealization of Self, the absolutization of Self turning around and validating Self, flattering Self, reinforcing Self. Jesus Jr. does not change us, because he is a projection of us.

It is time to tear down Jesus Jr. It is time to rediscover the real Jesus. Still today, even to us, his invitation stands: “Come to me” (Matthew 11:28).

The following is a recent post from Mark Altrogge at The Blazing Center blog.  From my experience it is difficult to overestimate the impact of this advice.

In Finally Alive, John Piper’s great recent book about the new birth, he  says, “Be encouraged that simply finding people interesting and caring about them is a beautiful pathway into their heart.  Evangelism gets a bad reputation when we are not really interested in people and don’t seem to care about them.”

Another way of saying this might be, “Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.  Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others” (PHP 2.3-4).  Look to the interests of others.  Find people interesting.

For the past year I’ve had the opportunity to take an interest in our postman.  Though I had a few interactions with him years ago (we were both in rock ‘n roll bands), he became our postal carrier about a year ago.  He’s a cheerful, outgoing guy, and from time to time I’ve been out in the yard when he’s delivered our mail and we’ve chatted for a few minutes.  He has a passion for basketball and has coached many girls basketball teams.  He truly wants to inspire and encourage them and sounds like an amazing coach.  He told me that former players often stay in touch with him years after they play for him.

Yesterday the doorbell rang and he was on my front porch with a couple packages that were too large for our mailbox.  We spent a few minutes talking about his most recent team and the tournaments they played in.  As we talked he mentioned his desire to always “do the right thing” as a coach, and even mentioned that he prays.  So I asked him where he goes to church.

He told me he didn’t go to church and didn’t believe in organized religion, but believes in God and doing good.  I asked him if I could take a couple minutes to share how the Bible says we can be accepted by God, and he graciously agreed.  So I told him the gospel, and we talked about it briefly, completely amicably.  And though he disagreed with me, he said he’d think about it.

As he left I thanked him for listening.  He said, “Well sure!  You always listen to me when I talk about girls basketball.”

John Piper says, “If you really find their story interesting, and care about them, they may open up to you and want to hear your story – Christ’s story.”

Recently I’ve been listening to a message by Bob Kauflin from the Sovereign Grace Pastors Conference.  The message is about parenting older children- specifically teenage children.  Here are a couple of quotes.

Our parenting is simply one part of God’s greater plan to redeem a people for His glory…We are not raising children for our own preferences, for our own ideals or dreams.

Being an instrument in the Redeemer’s hand is not the same as being the Holy Spirit.  There is a Holy Spirit and we are not Him.

Our [primary] job is not to keep our children from sinning but to teach them to deal with their sin in light of what Christ has done.

If we live life in community with our brothers and sisters in Christ we will have occasion to love them through confrontation (this may not be the best word for it but it’ll have to do for now). In other words we are called to care for the souls of our fellow believers by helping them see and kill sin in their lives.  When was the last time you stepped forward to love your brother or sister in this way?

Recently Thabiti Anyabwile posted a summary of a chapter from Paul Tripp’s book War of Words.

Examine your heart. Confrontation always begins with you. Because we all struggle with indwelling sin, we must begin with ourselves. We must be sure that we have dealt with our anger, impatience, self-righteousness, and bitterness. When we start with our own confession, we are in a much better place to lead another to confess.

Note your calling. Remember that confrontation is not based on your opinion of the person. You are there as an ambassador and your job is to faithfully represent the message of the King. In other words, your goal is to help people see and accept God’s view of them.

Check your attitude. When you speak, are your words spoken in kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness, forbearance, compassion, and love? Failure to do this will hinder God-honoring, change-producing confrontation. We need to examine both our message and our attitude as we speak.

Own your own faults. It is vital to enter moments of confrontation with a humble recognition of who we really are. As we admit our own need for the Lord’s forgiveness, we are able to be patient and forgiving with the one to whom God has called us to minister.

Use words wisely. Effective communication demands preparation, particularly of our words. We need to ask God to help us use words that carry his message, not get in the way of it.

Reflect on Scripture. The content of confrontation is always the Bible. It guides what we say and how we say it. We should enter moments of confrontation with a specific understanding of what Scripture says about the issues at hand. This means more than citing proof texts; it means understanding how the themes, principles, perspectives, and commands of Scripture shape the way we think about the issues before us.

Always be prepared to listen. The best, most effective confrontation is interactive. We need to give the person an opportunity to talk, since we cannot look into his heart or read his mind. We need to welcome his questions and look for signs that he is seeing the things he needs to see. We need to listen for true confession and the commitment to specific acts of repentance. As we listen, we will learn where we are in the confrontation process.

Grant time for a response. We must give the Holy Spirit time to work. There is nothing in Scripture that promises that if we do our confrontation work well, the person will confess and repent in one sitting. Rather, the Bible teaches us that change is usually a process. We need to model the same patience God has granted us. This patience does not compromise God’s work of change, but flows out of a commitment to it.

Encourage the person with the gospel. It is the awesome grace of God, his boundless love, and his ever-present help that give us a reason to turn from our sin. Scripture says that it is the kindness of God that leads people to repentance (Rom. 2:4). The truths of the gospel–both its challenge and its comfort–must color our confrontation.