faith for faith

It is with great humility and a bit of regret that we leave the eighth chapter of the letter to the Romans. We leave it humbly knowing that it is considered by many to be the greatest chapter of the greatest letter ever written and knowing also that it has been a wellspring of life and comfort to the saints of God for centuries. We also leave it with a bit of regret knowing that the treasures of this chapter are boundless (for its Author is boundless) and that the shortness of our stint in mining its treasures is sure to have left many unturned. But before we progress and move onto the ninth chapter, I would like to take some time to review what we have studied in the eighth.

Complete Freedom in Christ
The contrast between the end of Romans seven and the beginning of Romans eight is quite jolting literarily and theologically. Chapter seven ends with a narrative of a desperate man—a man who characterizes himself as a man of the flesh, a slave of sin, a slave to the law, and a condemned man in need of deliverance. In the context of Romans 6:1-7:6 (the didactic section that precedes the narrative), we know clearly that this man’s character is the polar opposite of the one who is in Christ. We know that the Apostle has said in the preceding context that those who have been crucified with Christ have had their body of sin brought to nothing so that they would no longer be slaves of sin. We know also that those who are in Christ have been freed from the law, for the Apostle writes, “You are not under law but under grace.” And we know from our study in Romans eight that, “Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”

Though this man is utterly without Christ, we somehow find ourselves identifying with him. We read his narrative and look at our own lives before Christ, and we sympathize with his condition. We are drawn into his story and are drawn into his desperate condition, and we vicariously experience his hopelessness through it. And we, at the apex of his desperation, feel our hearts plummet with his when he cries out, “Who will deliver me from this body of death!” And we, at the end of the chapter, find ourselves shackled beside the narrator—enslaved to the law and to sin and without hope for deliverance.

And then through the blinding fog of desperation, Romans eight bursts forth like the spotlight of a lighthouse: “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus! For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death!” All the feelings of condemnation and inadequacy in law keeping that we experienced through the speaker of the narrative are brought to nothing in the light of Christ.

The Apostle writes:

For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit (Romans 8:3, 4).

The reason for the great contrast between chapters seven and eight becomes most clear in these verses, namely “God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do.” Without Christ and the imputation of his righteousness to our account, our stories would be exactly like the narrator’s of Romans seven. We would find in ourselves the desire to keep the law so that we might live on the one hand, but we would find our absolute inability to keep the law on the other. How desperate and impotent we are apart from Christ!

But Christ did not merely impute his righteousness to us so that we might live after this life, but he has freed us through the Spirit from the bondage of sin and death so that we might live like the Apostle commands in vv. 6:1-7:6. On this, the Apostle elaborates further in his contrast between living in the flesh and living in the Spirit in the following verses, which we will look at in depth next time.

The great point of the narrative of Romans seven and the introduction of Romans eight is to demonstrate our inability against Christ’s ability. Apart from Christ, we are powerless against sin and our flesh. In our natural state, we might by some grace find in ourselves the desire to keep the law so that we might attain the life that the law promises, but apart from Christ we would continually practice evil all the same. For this reason, we, like the narrator in chapter seven, need an Emancipator, a Law Keeper, and a Redeemer. Thus the great contrast between these sections is designed by the Apostle to bring our hearts to the deepest depth of desperation and then exhilarate them with the power and truth that is in Christ so that our weaks hearts might feel a fraction of the joy that this great truth is due. Rejoice today that Christ has fulfilled the law on our behalf, and give to him the praise that he is due!

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:13).

There are few things that are as common and mundane as eating and drinking. Everyone must do both regularly to live and to be healthy. Unlike breathing, which is also necessary to live, we can take great pleasure in the foods we eat and the drinks we drink. We find also that, unlike the oxygen that we must breathe to live, there are bountiful varieties in the foods and drinks available to us.

For this reason, the nature of the Apostle’s command, “Whether you eat or drink, do all to the glory of God,” revolves around the conscious choices that we make each time we eat and drink and the reasons behind those choices. This glorification of God, unlike breathing which is done to the glory of God simply by its testimony of God’s good design and provision, is accomplished by our will. In the context of the command, this glorification of God is accomplished particularly by not offending our brother with the foods we eat—by regarding our brother as better than ourselves. And though this is the context, the implications of the command reach much further than offense.

Every time that we make a conscious choice in our lives, that choice immediately demonstrates whom we regard as Lord at that particular moment. This demonstration is not simply relegated to the “big things” of life, but it is relegated to all things. The Apostle uses the most common of activities, eating and drinking, to declare that regardless of the commonality of a choice God is to be Lord of it. That is also to say that ultimately there is nothing that we do in the physical world that does not have spiritual ramifications. With each choice in life, we are either lining up with God, or we are lining up against him. With each conscious turn of the radio dial, with each button-press of the remote control, with each click of the mouse, we are either consciously glorifying God or we are consciously defying him.

There is a contemporary saying that has been manipulated and abused by marketers, but its truth still rings forth: “What would Jesus do?” It was the will of Jesus Christ to do the will of the Father in all things and thereby glorify the Father in all things. Do you, as Christ did, seek to glorify the Father in all things? Do the television shows that you watch, the songs that you listen to, and the things that you buy declare that God is glorious and sufficient for all your needs? Evaluate the decisions that you make, and make all of them acts of worship to the Lord.

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure (Philippians 2:12, 13).

We live in a unique time in history. We live in a time of microwave ovens, jet planes, fast food, and high-speed everything, so much so that we by nature expect all things to be done at lightning fast speeds. When our age of microwave ovens encounters the doctrine of salvation, we tend to get a doctrine that is warmed over, but one that has been irradiated of its healthful qualities. Question the typical Christian where the proof of his salvation lies, and he will point to a walking down the aisle during a worship service, or to a prayer he recited as a child, or to the black ink that bears his name on a membership roll. Ask the same man of his fears and uncertainties before a holy and righteous Judge, and he will truthfully say that he has none. He knows that he pressed the button of salvation years ago and that once one is saved he is always saved.

Though orthodox Christianity does indeed hold onto the glorious truth that, “He who began a good work in you will carry it out till the day of Christ Jesus,” something of substance is missing from our doctrine of salvation that was not missing in the doctrine of the saints of old. While the olden saints saw the light of the Gospel, believed upon Jesus, and lived the rest of their lives with holy fear before a holy God, we in the American church repeat a fabricated prayer, claim to believe in Jesus, and go about living our lives in much the same manner as we had before. Some things might change mind you—we may go to church more often, we may switch political parties, we may stop watching particular television shows or movies, but do our lives really change? Do our new lives in Christ genuinely reflect the profundity of being brought from death to life, of being blind and now seeing, of being deaf and now hearing? Would a man raised from the dead simply go to church more often? Would a blind man having gained his sight simply switch political parties? Would a deaf man having gained his hearing simply change the programs that he watches? How much greater then should our transformation be, we who were at one time spiritually dead, blind to the glory of God, and deaf to the call of Christ!

Why do we not respond rightly to the profound change that has been wrought in us by the Triune God? It has much to do with the reason why we cannot make sense of the Apostle’s command to the Philippians: “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work his good pleasure.” We simply have no categories in our minds for such things in our microwaved salvation. We claim that we have believed on the Word, yet we cannot make sense of his Word. Perhaps now, for the sake of our soul, we should now make a category for testing and doubting our salvation.

There Is No Fear and Trembling before God
“The fear of God is the beginning of Wisdom,” which is to say that there is no wisdom where there is no fear of God. Consequently, the fear of God is the greatest thing that we lack in the American Church. Preachers and teachers go to great lengths to demonstrate that the word “fear” does not mean “to fear” in Scripture, but it means “to respect.” We are not to fear God, they say, but we are to respect him. Yet these same teachers give no account for the trembling of which the Apostle speaks in Philippians, nor do they give account of Isaiah’s exclamation, “Woe is me!” when he beheld the Almighty.

It is clear by this that we as a people have broken the second commandment. We may not have erected physical idols for our homes and churches, but we have erected them in our minds and hearts. We know this because our bodies do not shake when our minds transcend the temporal and attempt to grasp the Almighty. We instead imagine a very safe God—one whom we have no problem drawing in children’s books, about whom we are quick to make cheesy sayings, and for whom we live lukewarm lives. Our lack of fear and lack of due response demonstrates that we do not know the God of Scripture but a god of our own making.

Work Out Your Salvation
The Apostle Paul in his letter to Romans makes it clear that salvation is a free gift from God. It is neither accomplished by works nor by the will of man, so that no man might boast in his destiny and so that in the work of salvation God will receive all of the glory. We must believe this and cherish this, for this is the clear declaration of Scripture. Scripture also declares through the Apostle in the same letter, “If you live according to the flesh you will die, but if you by the Spirit put to death the deeds of the body you will live.” Our salvation is not a onetime event, but it is a lifetime of death. It, like every great story, has an introduction, a climax, and a dénouement—all woven together by its Master Author to glorify his name.

This story, spoken of commonly in the theological terms, justification, sanctification, and glorification, is tainted by the American church to be all justification and glorification and no sanctification. How many in the American church love the free gift of justification and the promise of glory but despise holiness! The testimony of the Apostle flies in the face of this false salvation, “Those whom he foreknew, he predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.” And also in Philippians he writes, “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.”

Our working out our salvation can be described in a number of phrases. It can be described as “our putting to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit so that we might live;” or as: “we, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree to another;” or as “taking up our cross daily;” or as “losing our life so that we might gain it.” All these things point to a salvation that transforms the entirety of one’s life. Indeed, that is what repentance unto salvation means—to be walking towards hell and destruction and to turn completely around and to be walking toward Christ. There is no standing still in this life. One is either walking toward Christ and holiness, or he is walking toward hell. For this very reason we work out our salvation with fear and trembling, knowing that if we are not seeking God and his righteousness, we are walking toward our destruction.

God Sanctifies Us for His Good Pleasure
There is no mystery to the Apostle’s certainty in his statement, “I am sure that he who began a good work in you will perform it till the day of Christ Jesus.” Our sanctification, like our justification and glorification, rests solely in the power of God. It is God who foreknew us, it is God who predestined us, it is God who called us, it is God who justified us, and it is God who will glorify us. In the same way, God will carry us through the good works that he has prepared for us to walk in before the foundation of the world, and he will continue to mold us into the image of Christ. Conversely, if we are not walking in good works or being molded into Christ’s image, regardless of any prayer we might have prayed, or any aisle that we might have walked, or any membership role on which we find our names, we should fear and tremble before God who is the Author of good works and holiness. For a life not characterized by these things is a life that is without God and his power.

If you are not walking in good works, if you are not becoming holy as he is holy, if you not are dying daily to yourself, if you are trying to serve God and money, the appropriate response is to fear for your soul. Your only recourse is to fall on your face before the Holy One, for it is his good pleasure to save those who call upon his name and to do a mighty work in their lives for his name’s sake.

Be appalled, O heavens, at this;
be shocked, be utterly desolate,
declares the LORD,
For my people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living waters,
and hewed out cisterns for themselves,
broken cisterns that can hold no water (Jeremiah 2:12,13).

Dear Members of the Acts Forum,

You have joined this group because you have witnessed a great atrocity. You have read the Holy Scriptures breathed forth by the very Spirit of God, you have also observed the practices of the Church in America, and you cannot any longer with your imagination fill the chasm that divides the two. You witness on the one hand that the Spirit of God through Christ declares, “Fear not little flock, it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom; sell your possessions and give to the poor,” and on the other the American Church declares, “The tithe is God’s; the rest is yours.” You also witness on the one hand the Spirit of God through Christ commands, “Store up for yourselves treasure in heaven,” and on the other the American Church declares, “Live the American Dream; buy for yourself SUVs and large and beautiful houses in safe neighborhoods.” You have also witnessed on the one hand the Spirit of God through Christ declares, “Do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on…Seek the kingdom of God, and these things will be added to you,” and on the other hand the American Church declares, “Build bigger barns and retirement funds so that your soul might rest easily.” You witness these things in the American Church, and you, with great lamentation, witness them in your own soul.

By the Spirit of God, you have come to realize that the God of the Bible and the God of the American Church are not the same God. You have come to realize that the God of the Bible is a holy and untamable God and that the God of the American Church is a corny and well-contained God. You have come to realize that the God of the Bible is a God that provides sufficiency in himself alone and that the God of the American Church provides sufficiency in possessions. You witness these things, and you, like the convicted at Pentecost, are cut to the heart by the very Spirit of God and cry out, “Brothers, what shall we do?”

My brothers and sisters, there is no easy remedy for our ill. It is a sophisticated cancer that has been silently progressing for decades, cunningly injecting into our veins the pleasures of the world all the while sucking out the joy that is in God. It has transformed the American Church not into a shrine for unadulterated Materialism but into a shrine for Materialism with cross and steeple upon it. She has the oracles of God within her walls, but has not its convictions. She has a Christ and a Savior, but he has no power to save. She has a God, but he is petty and mutable. And again your heart cries out, “Brothers, what shall we do?”

Brothers and sisters, take heart, for we do have a divinely appointed course of action. First, we must pray. We must pray that the Spirit of God that dwells within us will convict us of the things of God. We must pray that our hearts and minds, through the power of the Spirit, will submit to all the declarations of Scripture. We must pray that our misconceived thoughts about the Almighty will be nullified and replaced with proper ones. Second, we must be diligent students of the oracles of God. We must test every nook and cranny of our hearts, minds, and lives against the clear commands of Scripture and destroy all of our inconsistencies. Third, having prayed and having come to a proper understanding of God and his commands, we must proclaim these to the Church. A medicine that remains in the cupboard is of no benefit to the dying soul, “For how are they to hear without a preacher?” Finally, the Church must be purged of those who resist the will of God. These steps might take a lifetime to accomplish, or, if the Lord so desires, might never be accomplished in our lifetimes in our churches. And yet we must try for his name’s sake.

The first step is a crucial one. We must pray. Therefore I propose that those of us who are willing meet weekly for prayer for the American Church. There is no power for change apart from the working of the Spirit of God, and we must seek his power and implore him for wisdom. I propose that Saturday mornings be designated for such a time of prayer, but other times can be proposed and considered. Your input is desired.

To God Alone Be the Glory,

Matt Brown

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Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?” And then will I declare to them, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness” (Matthew 7:21-23).

In a weekly worship service, a not so well known man quoted a fairly well known man as saying, “America left God when she disallowed praying in her public classrooms.” At another time in the service, a man prayed (in the context of Barack Obama’s winning the presidency) “Lord, America is walking away from you.” At another time, a man designated to pray prayed not his own prayer but recited Thomas Jefferson’s at his presidential inauguration. “What’s your point?” you ask.

The point is American Christianity in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries looks much more like the Christianity of Constantine than it does the Christianity of the Apostles. Just like the Christianity of Constantine and the Judaism of the Scribes and Pharisees, American Christianity is a political facade more than it is a life devoted to one’s own death; it is a cake of paganism topped with a vague semblance of Christian icing. We bicker and grumble over prayer leaving a public classroom, when it is the husband and father, not the public school system, who is designated by God to lead his family toward holiness. We distress over a democrat winning the presidency of this puny, temporal country when Christ has been, is, and will be reigning as Sovereign King over the universe forever and ever. We lament over the “loss” of America’s Christian foundation, when the persons who founded this country were no more followers of Christ than the plane hijackers of Nine-Eleven.

We bicker and stress over these things because we have been brought up to do so. We have been brought up to think that America is somehow different than every other country in the world. We have been brought up to think that America is God’s second shot at a chosen nation. We have been brought up to think that we, as God’s choice nation, have some exemption to the Apostles’ Christianity and to certain fundamental aspects of Christianity.

Disagree? Poll American Christians about the ethics of the American Revolution, and ninety-nine percent will justify the Revolution in spite of Jesus’ command to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and Paul’s discourse on a Christian’s duty to submit to authorities in the fourteenth chapter of Romans. Ask the typical American Christian about Jesus’ command to sell all for his name’s sake, and he will slither around the point and justify his prosperity as if he has been doing it his whole life. Ask the typical American Christian about his 401k’s and his IRA’s and retirements in light of the rich fool’s bigger barns in twelth chapter of Luke, and you will get the typical, “Christ was not speaking of everyone, just the rich fool.” Show the typical American Christian your plan for selling all that you have to give to the poor and thereby store up for yourself treasure in heaven and inherit eternal life, and you will get a snicker and an, “Are you serious?”

Why is American Christianity this way? It is because American Christians have found contentment in disobedience. They feel content and justified ignoring the laws of Christ because they have replaced them with a set of christian-esque laws that they have created for themselves. Just like the Pharisees and hypocrites of Jesus’ day, American Christians are too busy keeping their own agendas to worry about God’s agenda. They are too busy working to pay for their plush lives to worry about meditating on God’s law. They are too busy fighting to keep the Ten Commandments nailed on the wall of the courtroom to worry about actually keeping them with their lives. They are too busy studying up on the backgrounds of a hundred politicians who promise to fight for prayer in schools all the while their children, who are glued to the television, know nothing about God. They charge into battle, like Constantine, with crosses painted on their shields against the people of the world, all the while Christ is saying, “You are not fighting for me.”

Our dire plight as the American Church will only start to be remedied when we realize, as the disciples did after Jesus’ crucifixion, that Jesus is not a political Messiah. His desire then as it is now is not to create a Christian nation in America but it is to call a people to himself who will love him and keep his commandments. I suggest that we in the American church, who are more ingrates than Christians, stop whining that our tax dollars are going to support the undeserving and remember that Jesus’ blood was spilt for us who are thousand times more undeserving.

Were all human beings suddenly to become blind, still the sun would shine by day and the stars by night, for these owe nothing to the millions who benefit from their light. So, were every man on earth to become atheist, it could not affect God in any way. He is what he is in himself without regard to any other. To believe in him adds nothing to his perfections; to doubt him takes nothing away

Almighty God, just because he is is almighty, needs no support. The picture of a nervous, ingratiating God fawning over men to win their favor is not a pleasant one; yet if we look at the popular conception of God that is precisely what we see. Twentieth-century Christianity has put God on charity. So lofty is our opinion of ourselves that we find it quite easy, not to say enjoyable, to believe that we are necessary to God. But the truth is that God is not greater for our being, nor would he be less if we did not exist. That we do exist is altogether of God’s free determination, not by our desert nor by divine necessity (A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy, p. 32).

There are few doctrines that are as glorious as the Providence of God. The fact that every particle of the smallest atom is vivified, governed, and ordained by a benevolent God has massive implications in all spheres of existence. In the context of the Church, its teleological implications are summarized gloriously in Romans 8:28: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” As the children of God–as those who have been adopted by the Father through the merit of his Son, we know that every struggle with sin, every confrontation by the Adversary, every stop light, and every spilt cup of coffee are working harmoniously together for our ultimate good. We cannot even pretend to begin to grasp this or what the culmination of all things will look like at the end of days, but we do know this–God will be fully glorified, and we will fully delight in his glory.

Such a glorious doctrine demands an appropriate response. Unfortunately, the doctrine of the Providence of God has more often than not has been met with inappropriate responses from the Church than appropriate ones, ranging from intellectual arrogance to radical passivity. What is an appropriate response to God’s Providence?

1. Cultivate Humility in Our Hearts
The absolute and teleological governance of God over all things leaves little room for what is affectionately know as “free will.” Scripture says this particularly with regards to the salvation of souls in Romans 8:29-30:

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn of many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

The appropriate response to such a weighty truth, namely God’s Providence over the salvation of souls is absolute humility. For this reason, the Apostle writes earlier in the letter, “What then becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith (v. 3:27). And again he writes in Ephesians 2:8, 9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

But what about boasting in our deeds after our salvation? Of this Apostle writes in following verse–Ephesians 2:10, “For we are [God's] workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. God’s Providential hand, as we said before, encompasses all spheres of existence, even the salvation of sinners and the works of saints. Therefore, we who understand and believe this truth should be the humblest of people.

2. Take Comfort
The chief objective of Romans 8:28 in its context is to give comfort to saints who are suffering. Indeed, we should take great comfort knowing that the loving hand of God is directing every event in our lives in such a way that it ends with our greatest good. As the Apostle so excellently writes:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or danger, or sword? … No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:35-39).

Regardless of the trials that come our way, the enemies that seek our death, or the demons who plot our fall, we can take comfort knowing that the love of Christ has conquered all these things and that lets us partake in their conquering.

3. Be Bold in Life
Because of these things, we should live bold lives. We should love Christ boldly, we should love each other boldly, and we should love the world boldly. We should pursue our holiness boldly, and we should pursue the holiness of the church boldly. We should sacrifice our lives boldly, and we should give boldly. We should do all these things boldly knowing that no obstacle or persecution comes our way apart from the benevolent ordinance of God and that in all things we are more than conquerors through the power and love of Christ Jesus.

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God (Romans 8:26, 27).

We as Christians make much, and rightly so, of the work of reconciliation that Christ accomplished for us who are in him. Through his holy life and his death he has reconciled us, who were once children of wrath and enemies of God, forever to the Father. Scripture declares also that Christ’s work of reconciliation did not end with his holy life and death but that Christ is now at the right hand of the Father pleading our case as our advocate and high priest. And though Christ has once and for all reconciled us the Church to a holy and just God through his spilt blood, there is further reconciliation needed to make us one with the Father.

Our lack, or weakness as it is called in Romans 8:26, is our ignorance of the Providence (i.e. the unrevealed will) of God. This ignorance coupled with Scripture’s command for us to pray without ceasing in all that we do has the certain potential to create disharmony between us and the Father. For example, we may pray according to God’s revealed will (i.e. Scripture) that he would spark a revival in our churches, and yet this request might be against the Providence of God. We might pray that our grandmother would be healed of her sickness, that a lost neighbor would see the Gospel as gospel, or that we might have victory over a particular sinful inclination–and all these requests, as rooted in Scripture as they might be, might be in conflict with the Providence of God.

Paul experienced this disharmony firsthand with what he calls his “thorn in the flesh” in 2 Corinthians 12. Though we do not know exactly what this thorn in the flesh of Paul was, we can be sure that each of the three times that Paul prayed for its removal that he was praying according to the testimony of Scripture. Although his request was Scriptural, God denied his request each of the three times. Why? Because God had a greater purpose, namely to keep Paul a humble man and to prove to him that his grace was sufficient for his sustenance.

Should we then be concerned that our prayers that accord with Scripture are contrary to the Providence of God? Should we, as the context in Romans 8 dictates, hesitate to pray for the alleviation of our sinful passions and inclinations for the sake of holiness? Absolutely not! Why? Because we have a mediator in the Holy Spirit that maintains our harmony with the Father in spite of our ignorance of his Providence. Scripture says that we do not know how to pray as we ought, and for this very reason the Spirit intercedes for us with groanings to deep for words (v. 8:26). And though these groanings of the Spirit are inexpressible and incomprehensible to us, we do know that they are done in accordance with the unrevealed will of the Father (v. 8:27).

Just as we praise Christ and are comforted that he has brought us close to the Father through his life and blood, we should also praise the Holy Spirit and be comforted that he is interceding for us according to the will of the Father. We should be comforted first because in spite of our weaknesses we are still one with Father through the work of the Spirit and second because his intercessions are according to the good and perfect Providence of the Father. It is the same Providence that in the following verse declares, “We know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (v. 8:28). Praise God for his intercession and Providence!

We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints—-and this, not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us. Accordingly, we urged Titus that as he had started, so he should complete among you this act of grace. But as you excel in everything—-in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all earnestness, and in our love for you see that you excel in this act of grace also(2 Cor. 8:1-7).

A big problem with American Christianity is that it is all supposing and no practice. We suppose that if we were persecuted for the sake of Christ that we would keep the faith. We suppose that if Christ called us to forsake our family and friends and to follow him that we would drop our nets and follow him. We suppose that if Christ commanded us, like he did the rich young ruler, to sell all of our possessions and give them to the poor that we would. And we suppose that if we found ourselves impoverished, that we would be satisfied with Christ as our portion. At least so we suppose.

Our problem also is that we view these Scriptural “supposals” as the circumstances of a niche and not as demands for the whole. We cannot be persecuted, for example, because we live in a free country. We do not have to sell our possessions, because Jesus was simply making a moral point. And we do not have to worry about being happy in poverty, because, obviously, impoverishment isn’t our calling as Americans.

But then we encounter the impoverished Macedonians. These saints could have easily looked at their poverty and concluded that the Lord did not bless them with the gift of giving. They could have easily been content with praying for the needy saints and with tending to their own physical needs. But they were not content. They heard of the church’s plight and chose to give to the saints according to their impoverished means–that is, whatever little they had in excess. And yet they were not content with that. Scripture says that the Macedonians begged the Apostle to allow them to give beyond their means to the relief of the saints. What does this mean? It means that the Macedonians became creative. They looked at their present impoverished way of living and asked themselves what they could do as a church to consume less so that they might give more. Perhaps they decided that they could live okay on one meal a day instead of two. Perhaps they decided to squeeze multiple families into one home to cut their housing expenses. Perhaps they decided to make do with the clothes on their back though they were worn and torn. Whatever they did, they did it with joy-filled hearts, because they gave all of themselves to God and his purposes.

Now, let’s take a look at ourselves. Do we even give according to our means to the relief of the saints of God and to the spreading of his Gospel? I must confess that I do not, and I am sure that most of us, if we were honest, would admit that we do not. We certainly do not give beyond our means and are, for this reason, robbing ourselves of the same joy that the Macedonians had in Christ alone. Let’s for the sake of our joy challenge each other to be like the Macedonians and to think of creative ways that will minimize our consumption and maximize our giving.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn born of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominions or rulers or authorites–all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross (Colossians 1:15-20).

Sometimes commentary just isn’t necessary.