The Real Self Coming Out

In my sermon series I am in Ephesians 4. Here Paul urges the church to show patient love with a commitment to the hard work of maintaining unity. I have talked a lot about the fact that we live in a broken down house (this world and our sinful bodies/lives) where a Restorer (Jesus) has come and is promising to RESTORE.

One of the things He does in this restoration process is to reveal our Sinfulness which often is seen in the form of selfishness. One of God's gifts to us is to show us where we need to grow by allowing us to go through trials and difficulties even when it means that other people provoke and sin against us. Our reactions to these situations often teach us a lot about ourselves and should help humble us as we observe how self-centered we really are. I was reminded of this in my reading of C. S. Lewis this morning:

When I come to my evening prayers and try to reckon up the sins of the day, nine times out of ten the most obvious one is some sin against charity; I have sulked or snapped or sneered or snubbed or stormed. And the excuse that immediately springs to my mind is that the provocation was so sudden and unexpected; I was caught off my guard, I had not time to collect myself. Now that may be an extenuating circumstance as regards those particular acts: they would obviously be worse if they had been deliberate and premeditated. On the other hand, surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of a man he is? Surely what pops out before the man has time to put on a disguise is the truth? If there are rats in a cellar you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not create the rats: it only prevents them from hiding. In the same way the suddenness of the provocation does not make me an ill-tempered man it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am. The rats are always there in the cellar, but if you go in shouting and noisily they will have taken cover before you switch on the light. Apparently the rats of resentment and vindictiveness are always there in the cellar of my soul. Now that cellar is out of reach of my conscious will. I can to some extent control my acts: I have no direct control over my temperament. And if (as I said before) what we are matters even more than what we do - if, indeed, what we do matters chiefly as evidence of what we are - then it follows that the change which I most need to undergo is a change that my own direct, voluntary efforts cannot bring about. And this applies to my good actions too. How many of them were done for the right motive? How many for fear of public opinion, or a desire to show off? How many from a sort of obstinacy or sense of superiority which, in different circumstances, might equally have led to some very bad act? But I cannot, by direct moral effort, give myself new motives. After the first few steps in the Christian life we realise that everything which really needs to be done in our souls can be done only by God.

Imagine Yourself As a Living House

C. S. Lewis on God's work of sanctification in our lives:

Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.

— C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity, p. 160)

Why Do We Like Ice Cream Off the Blacktop?

On Monday my family was in Stillwater enjoying the sunny day, picnicking at the Teddy Bear park, and eating tremendous portions of ice cream at Nelson's Drive Inn Dairy. All my kids received a healthy portion of their choice of ice cream which happened to be rainbow sherbet. As I was enjoying my gigantic scoop of Snowflake ice cream (white chocolate, macadamian nut, etc.) I did my routine scan to make sure all the kids were properly in their places when to my horror I saw my son Elijah (if you ask him his name its -- ELIJAH JAMES EDWARDS PATZ) stooping on all fours with his tongue licking the blacktop hungrily where ice cream had fallen and melted probably more than an half hour ago. The goofy grin on his face told me that he was enjoying his filthy choice and he, knowing right well that his behavior was not in line with our expectations, took off running when I shouted out his name. Of course, he had plenty of ice cream in his bowl at the picnic table. Oh no, ice cream off the blacktop is more fun and yummy.

This reminds me of C. S. Lewis' famous quote from "The Weight of Glory" when he says that we are too easily pleased if we are not fully pursuing the joy that is in Jesus Christ and instead living for material possessions and joys.

We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

Are we not unlike Elijah when we delight more in pizza and dough nuts rather than the One who is the Bread of Life; or when our cup of coffee or espresso, or whatever you like to drink brings greater anticipation to our hearts than talking to or about the Person who is the DRINK who is called the Living Water; or when we enjoy reading the paper, the sports magazine, the mystery novel or email more than the Word of God which offers to bring us into an all-satisfying relationship with our Creator; or when we care more about what is on TV then what's on God's agenda for our evening which might include time talking with our spouse, or reading the Bible, or serving a friend, or sharing the Gospel with your neighbor.

The only thing different is that Elijah pursuit of sour ice cream on the blacktop merely reveals normal childish behavior that needs to be corrected. Our preferences of inferior substitutes for God reveals our sinful hearts that need transformation by God's grace. Thankfully the cross of Christ and the work of the Spirit make maturity possibly.

We Are "Jolly Beggars"

Here is a quote by C.S. Lewis from The Four Loves (pg. 149), about being desperately and delightedly dependent on God.

It is easy to acknowledge, but almost impossible to realize for long, that we are mirrors whose brightness, if we are bright, is wholly derived from the sun that shines upon us. Surely we must have a little- however little- native luminosity? Surely we can’t be quite creatures…Grace substitutes a full, childlike and delighted acceptance of our Need, a joy in total dependence. We become “jolly beggars”.

Now, like any good C. S. Lewis quote, you probably should reread it.

Two Middle Names?

I get teased often (and I enjoy it) for the two middle names we have given to each of our sons. Last week someone jokingly remarked that he figured that we couldn't agree on a name so we gave Barnabas two middle names -- John Calvin (or Paul Stephan Lewis or Elijah James Edwards). At the risk of being vain and talking about my sons (and I am sure I have more vanity in me than I imagine), I thought I would use the explanation of my three sons middle name to recommend a few books and the general reading of biography (especially good Christian biography).

My three sons (wow, that sounds like a TV show) have three middle names, partially because I think it sounds cool and intelligent, and partially for a good reason. Each of their second middle names is one of my favorite authors or characters from church history. [Believe it or not, Molly was in for this move] Paul Stephan was given the second middle name "Lewis" after C. S. Lewis. Elijah James was given the second middle name of "Edwards" after Jonathan Edwards. Most of you can figure it out, that Barnabas was named after John Calvin.

Here are some great quotes on the reasons for reading good, Christian biography (quotes collected by John Piper):

Philips Brooks (an Episcopalian pastor in Boston 100 years ago) commented on the reading of Christian biography like this:

While it is good to walk among the living, it is good also to live with the wise, great, and good dead. It keeps out of life the dreadful feeling of extemporaneousness, with its conceit and its despair. It makes us always know that God made other men before He made us. It furnishes a constant background for our living. It provides us with perpetual humility and inspiration. (In W. Wiersbe, Walking with the Giants, p. 15)

Isaac Watts wrote:

The lives or memoirs of persons of piety, well written, have been of infinite and unspeakable advantage to the disciples and professors of Christianity, and have given us admirable instances and rules how to resist every temptation of a soothing or a frowning world, how to practice important and difficult duties, how to love God above all, and to love our neighbors as ourselves, to live by the faith of the Son of God, and to die in the same faith, in sure and certain hope of a resurrection to eternal life. (In James Reid, Memoirs of the Westminster Divines, p. iv)

Jonthan Edwards wrote:

There are two ways of representing and recommending true religion and virtue to the world; the one, by doctrine and precept; the other, by instance and example.

Here are three good biographies on the three men I mentioned above (with links to a review of each book):

• John Calvin: His Life and Influence by Robert Reymond
• Jonathan Edwards: A Life by George Marsden
• Jack: A Life of C. S. Lewis by George Sayers
  

MCQ - "Seeing Our Own Badness Rightly"

Here is a Mere Christianity Quote (MCQ) from C. S. Lewis' classic. It is the last paragraph from chapter 14 called "Morality and Psychoanalysis." The more we grow in our faith and knowledge of God; the more we are sanctified, the more clearly we will see how much remaining sin remains in our heart. Thank God for His mercy and sovereign work to root it out...

When a man is getting better he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him. When a man is getting worse he understands his own badness less and less. A moderately bad man knows he is not very good: a thoroughly bad man thinks he is all right. This is common sense, really. You understand sleep when you are awake, not while you are sleeping. You can see mistakes in arithmetic when your mind is working properly: while you are making them you cannot see them. You can understand the nature of drunkenness when you are sober, not when you are drunk. Good people know about both good and evil: bad people do not know about either.

C. S. Lewis' MERE CHRISTIANITY Online

One of my favorite books, Mere Christianity, is now free online to read and print (see here). If you have not read this classic you should.

If you want to get a sampling start by reading chapter 18 (my favorite) called "The Great Sin."

Here are the first two paragraphs:

I now come to that part of Christian morals where they differ most sharply from all other morals. There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves. I have heard people admit that they are bad-tempered, or that they cannot keep their heads about girls or drink, or even that they are cowards. I do not think I have ever heard anyone who was not a Christian accuse himself of this vice. And at the same time I have very seldom met anyone, who was not a Christian, who showed the slightest mercy to it in others. There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others.

The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility. You may remember, when I was talking about sexual morality, I warned you that the centre of Christian morals did not lie there. Well, now, we have come to the centre. According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.

The Human Machine Was Meant to Run on God

As I was studying this week's discipleship group chapter on "Recognizing Our Dependence on God" I was reminded of this quote by C. S. Lewis from Mere Christianity that also fits the topic of "Wholly Satisfied."

God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on gasoline, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.