The Gospel

The second annual Elephant Room event is over and the blogosphere is already lit with responses. I had the opportunity to attend a simulcast of the event in Lansing, MI at Riverview Church, one of Mark Driscoll’s Acts29 church plants. During the event, I tweeted around 100 quotes from the participants using the SharperIron Twitter account and took 4 pages of personal notes.

What follows will not be a summary of each of the seven conversations. That would be an exercise in vain repetition since Trevin Wax masterfully transcribed (and very accurately, might I add) on his blog what each person said, pretty much word for word. You can read it at Kingdom People.

What I do want to do is offer some personal reflections and observations about the event as someone who was able to not merely read what was said but see it said. As is the trouble with properly interpreting emails, so it is with properly interpreting the words of others in a setting like this when you cannot see the facial expressions and body language that sometimes enhance or say more than the person’s words.

Theology

There is no doubt that the invitation of Bishop T. D. Jakes sparked a huge controversy and was the focal point of the event leading up to Wednesday. Immediately before The Elephant Room 2 blog announced that Jakes was being invited, it announced that Mark Dever was going to join the event. Then, immediately after the Jakes announcement, the Dever announcement was removed. To my knowledge, no explanation was ever published, from either MacDonald or Dever, as to why Dever withdrew his presence from ER2, but it does not take a seminary class in theology to figure it out.

Two years after my whitewater rafting accident, my physical therapist dropped a bombshell in the form of a simple question: “Stephanie, have your doctors ever talked to you about MS?”

Little did he or I realize that less than a year later, my supposedly accident-related symptoms would take a dive, and suddenly all my doctors would be talking to me about multiple sclerosis.

Today, nearly nine years after my accident, I’m drafting this post in a Starbucks far from home. This morning I met with a neuromuscular specialist at the Cleveland Clinic. Again, MS was discussed—but only in passing. It’s been ruled out too many times to be a serious possibility anymore. The doctor and I talked about the pain, weakness, numbness, and other symptoms that have plagued me the last several years. Despite tests and treatments at some of the best facilities in the country, to date there’s been no firm diagnosis.

The doctor and I discussed my physical quality of life—how it has waxed and waned over the years, and how I try to live as normal a life as possible. But a subject we didn’t broach is something actually much more pertinent to how I keep going day by day: my inner, spiritual quality of life. It, too, has changed a lot since my accident: a waxing and waning faith, a growing and healing that no physician could ever attempt, a deeper experience of the person and character of God—all rooted in a deeper understanding of the gospel.

Gospel Meditations for Men is a book published recently by ChurchWorks Media and authored by Chris Anderson and Joe Tyrpak. Copies are available at ChurchWorksMedia.com.

Day 5—The Basis For True Humility

Read Isaiah 6

Woe is me! For I am lost…for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Isaiah 6:5

Humans—and perhaps men in particular—are nothing if not proud. We love ourselves, promote ourselves, and defend ourselves. Arrogance is sewn into our fallen nature. The problem is this: God detests pride. Proverbs 16:5 says that the proud person (not just pride as an impersonal concept) is an abomination to God. James 4:6 teaches that God actively opposes the proud. Pride is dangerous and foolish. Spurgeon described pride as “a groundless thing” and “a brainless thing” and “the maddest thing that can exist” (in a sermon preached on August 17, 1856).

How, then, can we cultivate humility? Is it a way of walking or speaking? Is it an “Aw, shucks” personality? A self-loathing? On what is true humility based? Scripture answers these questions definitively in Isaiah 6:1-7. True humility begins with a right estimation of God.

Our humility grows when we recognize God’s unrivaled majesty. The prophet Isaiah was given the unfathomable privilege of seeing God’s majesty (6:1)—the glory of the pre-incarnate Christ, according to John 12:41! Jehovah was enthroned in the temple, which shook beneath His sovereignty (6:1, 4). His robe had a vast train which testified of His splendor (6:1). He was identified as “the King” and “the Lord of hosts” (think “Commander in Chief,” 6:5). His reign outshone the recently ended reign of King Uzziah (6:1). Whereas Uzziah had died, Jehovah lives. Whereas Uzziah’s reign was limited in time and sphere, Jehovah’s is infinite. There is no King like Christ. We too would be humbled if we would see God in all of His majesty.

January, 1945. U.S. troops battle for the liberation of the Philippines. As they make their labored advance, the occupying Japanese army burns alive 150 American prisoners of war at a camp on the island of Palawan. Fearing a similar atrocity, Lieutenant General Walter Krueger assigns Lieutenant Colonel Henry Mucci and his Sixth Ranger Battalion the mission of rescuing the allied prisoners held at Cabanatuan.

On January 30, Mucci moved. 127 Army Rangers under the direct command of Captain Robert Prince, supported by 200 Filipino guerrillas, led a daring raid upon the compound at Cabanatuan. In a stunning tactical victory, Prince’s unit killed 523 Japanese troops—losing only four men in the process—and freed 511 frail, starving and disease-ridden prisoners of war. At 8:15 pm, Captain Prince shot a flare into the night sky signaling that the improbable mission of liberation was complete.

Yet as that victorious flare lit up the night sky, the task was long from finished. You do not free 511 infirm prisoners behind enemy lines and say, “Gentlemen, it’s been a pleasure; good luck to you all,” and walk away. Through the remainder of that night, the soldiers who liberated their comrades escorted them to safety through many dangers, toils and snares. The mission was not complete the moment the prisoners were freed. It was complete when they were delivered safely home.

It is this kind of complete deliverance the Bible promises the followers of Jesus Christ. By His death in the sinner’s place, and by His triumphant resurrection from the dead, Jesus stormed the gates of hell, liberating those who turn from their sin to trust in His rescue. This cosmic victory over sin and death accomplished the most glorious liberation in history.

The thunderous roar of water was deafening as it pounded the rocks some 250 feet directly below where I stood wide-eyed and fairly quivering with excitement. I stood suspended in space before Zambia’s Victoria Falls—a stunning 250-350 foot high water fall stretching an entire mile across its length.

Imagine standing in front of a sky-scraper and counting up 30 stories. Then take that height and stretch it out for one mile. The waters of the mighty Zambezi River hurl angrily over this precipice into a gorge measuring a mere 400 feet in width. The converging waters detonate with such force as they pour into this narrow chasm, the spray can rise over one mile into the air and be seen from 25 miles away. The mist is so heavy and the sound so cacophonous, I confess I felt Victoria Falls more than I actually saw its splendor.