Forget the Rules!…but keep them

This is the attitude many Christians take when it comes to the Law, and especially the “laws” we seem to find in modern evangelicalism. We proclaim Christ crucified in our churches (I hope!) and that His death and resurrection was more than enough to save us, but then we somehow shift into this “Obey the rules” mentality when it comes to living the Christian life. We do this because grace is scandalous, and we are afraid of it because it removes from us any measure of control or ability to measure the amount of pride we want to have.

Tullian Tchividjian is right when he says that as much as we can’t stand the law telling us what to do, we hate grace even more because it tells us there isn’t even anything we CAN do. The power of the gospel which justifies us and is the driving work of our sanctification is ALSO the power that removes from us any ability to boast in our “good” behavior.

I’ve often heard that on Sunday morning we’re supposed to wake up and “give God our best.” Really? Have we forgotten how God sees our good deeds? Scripture tells us that it’s the exact same thing as a girl waking up in the morning and running to her dad and exclaiming “Here, Daddy!” while handing him a used tampon. “That’s vulgar!” some of you may be thinking as you shiver from reading this. It’s supposed to be vulgar! That’s why it was written that way in the text! We need to let the weight of our “goodness” being so vulgar in God’s eyes really sink into our hearts.

Sunday morning (or any other morning, afternoon, or evening) isn’t about giving God your best, because your best is infinitely unrighteous in God’s eyes because it is so infected with sinful actions, motives, and desires. Instead, the Sabbath is about falling on our knees and thanking God for the violent, fearsome Grace that we find in the gospel: that Christ’s external work on the cross was more than enough to remove our internal lack of righteousness so that we might become (and remain!) the “righteousness of God” (2. Cor. 5:21).

Our ability, or inability to keep a set of rules isn’t what saves us, and it isn’t what defines our worth in God’s eyes. The number of check-marks on the “Christian Weekly To-Do List” isn’t what ultimately measures our walk with Christ. To be sure, actions are important, but they are not an end in themselves. They are important because they reveal the idols of our heart in areas we don’t value Christ supremely.

When Christ boiled down the whole of the Law to the two-fold command of “love God and love people,” He reveals to us that breaking these commands is a sign that we don’t really love God and others as much as we should. The interesting thing about the gospel is that the more we revel in our inability to keep these rules and in our desperate need for grace, the more our hearts come to value Christ supremely and we find the ability to better obey the law. And this is not an end in itself, but a reflection of the posture of our heart toward Christ.

For His glory and the joy of all peoples.

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