Analogy: New Towels, Bleeding and Lint

 Okay. This one is not complicated, and is pretty similar to the last one (dog poo).

We decided it was time for new bath towels. We bought light and dark gray to match the color scheme of our home interior (and the colors are pretty). You know what you have to do with some new materials like towels, right? Wash them separately in case of bleeding. I did. That is, I washed these new towels together, the light and dark gray, but separate from any other clothing or towels.

I might have accidentally led you to expect that the colors bled from dark towel to light. Nope. The colors had been set before sale. However, that would have provided a similar analogy to the one I did notice.

Lint.

The towels are new, so we'll have a period of shedding off the excess fuzzy material. So, now we have light gray lint on the dark towels and dark lint on the light. It reminds me of how we offset the font color and the background, but - hey - I might have a future post there!

The way things work normally in this broken world the corruption (in this case, the opposite color lint) is unavoidable. Put a dark towel in with a light one and you will have cross-contamination. Like I said, the concern or potential problem was bleeding.

Jesus was and is the supernatural anomaly. The Father put the Son - pure white - in the wash with the whole of corrupt humanity - every kind of dark. However, rather than being contaminated Jesus began to bring a reversal we'd only expect from bleach. The curious begin to accumulate white lint as the gospel prods and provokes. Some believe and follow, at which point there is more than accumulation - there is transformation. The dark towel becomes pure white (see Rm 4:22-24), though still exposed to other dark towels (Jn 1:5 with Php 2:15), and though there is intermittent dark fuzz to peel away with the lint roller (see 1 Jn 1:9).

What Jesus does is not only uniquely supernatural. It is also ironic. The very thing it took to wash away and whiten all our corruption was a particular kind of bleeding:

Hebrews 9:11–14 (CSB)

11 But Christ has appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come. In the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands (that is, not of this creation), 12 he entered the most holy place once for all time, not by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. 13 For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a young cow, sprinkling those who are defiled, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse our consciences from dead works so that we can serve the living God?

This washing by Jesus gives us boldness and belonging:

Hebrews 10:19–25 (CSB)

19 Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have boldness to enter the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus—20 he has inaugurated for us a new and living way through the curtain (that is, through his flesh)—21 and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water. 23 Let us hold on to the confession of our hope without wavering, since he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider one another in order to provoke love and good works, 25 not neglecting to gather together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day approaching.

It also gives us a mission for others. What Jesus does for us Christians in the spiritual "wash" he keeps doing through our witness. As the Church proclaims Christ, he continues to wash others. We are not called to withdraw from the company of dirty laundry. We ARE called to be careful (Jude 23b) but not to isolate. Rather, we are called to a sort of gospel mingling where others are influenced by Jesus through us (vv. 22-23a). As we "keep ourselves in the love of God" (v.21) we are agents in the washer, even as the gospel works its holy agitation and then rinsing.

So, understand, Christian, that you are a towel washed white by the bleach-blood of our supernatural Savior. You will still accumulate some of that old lint. Trying to isolate from the world won't stop that, for you are still stuck with the old fibers within yourself. The answer for that lint is John's lint-roller of confession and renewal. No, Christ keeps us in with the wash for how ever many cycles he has determined. Be a cleansing agent, spreading the gospel with every contact. Christ in you will permeate some other soul by exposure, and he will reverse the natural contamination for them too.

Titus 3:4–8 (CSB)

4 But when the kindness of God our Savior and his love for mankind appeared, 5 he saved us—not by works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy—through the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit. 6 He poured out his Spirit on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior 7 so that, having been justified by his grace, we may become heirs with the hope of eternal life. 8 This saying is trustworthy. I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed God might be careful to devote themselves to good works. These are good and profitable for everyone.

Are You A Creative?

 First, let me say that perhaps the most shocking thing about 2020 is not the pandemic, not the riots nor the tumultuous election (now evangelicals have at least TWO kinds of election about which to argue!). It is that I have not blogged since January. Better, it is that I am finally blogging again now. I suppose the latter is more shocking, since it is usually easier to not blog than to blog. (In defense of my neglect, I will put forth that God did enable me to publish 2 books this year!)

Now, sometimes we creatives can hardly hold it in, whatever the IT is - some idea we feel we must express or burst. The prophet Jeremiah wrote about this, though, I'm not sure he'd consider himself a creative. He DID write poetry. Some of it was rehearsed over and over in Israel's national Lamentations. In Jer 20:9 he wrote:

I say, “I won’t mention him 

or speak any longer in his name.” 

But his message becomes a fire burning in my heart, 

shut up in my bones. 

I become tired of holding it in, 

and I cannot prevail.

It is telling (and convicting) that Jeremiah would even express a desire to HOLD IN God's message, but my point here is that he couldn't. He was compelled. Christians are compelled in a similar way to share the message of God, a message the NT calls the gospel. We are more than compelled to herald this good news (of access to eternal life by faith in Jesus Christ). We are commanded to share it. (Passages like Mk 16:15 are understood to be TO Jesus' original disciples but FOR all of us disciples.)

That command gets too lightly and easily brushed off in cultures like our modern American Christianity. Preaching is for professionals in the pulpit or the classroom. Gospel proclamation is for the Christian pop creatives in bands like Hillsong and Elevation Worship. I might listen or sing along but I'm not a creative like them.

The premise (it's the professional's job) is faulty or the command is nullified. Scripture militates against the latter, so the former must be the problem. Proclaiming the gospel is for every Christ-follower. The title of this blog belies the fact that I believe the follow-up (I'm not a creative) is also faulty. A strong argument can be made that ALL of us are creatives rather than they are only some subset of people who happen to be gifted in particular art forms. In this I largely agree with Andrew Peterson who makes this argument here, and fleshes it out more in his book, Adorning the Dark.

Now let me put these two thoughts - 1) the command to proclaim the gospel and 2) the reality that the creative God patterned you as a creative in his image - let me put these together in a challenge for us all. God has created you and me as unique messengers to proclaim his amazing creative goodness to the entire cosmos (Eph 3:10-11). This is our purpose first by nature of being humans God made in his own image. It our mandate second by nature of our recreation in the image of God's Son as followers of Christ.

So, the question is not whether but how you are to proclaim the gospel. You don't have to write a song or drama or paint a masterpiece on a chapel ceiling to be a creative. You will proclaim a true or false gospel as you spin the lug nuts on with your pneumatic wrench at the shop. Or you will do it as you crunch the numbers and make your recommendations to your client. Perhaps you have about an hour to do it after the trim while your customer waits for her color to set. Or you will proclaim a pure or corrupt gospel as you try to help your kids - or someone else's kids - with their online or hybrid schooling, praying and waiting for the day they are back on campus! The gospel is your charge even as you wait for the shut-down to end so you can go back to work full-time. It will also be yours when you are back to working more hours than you wish and trying to hang on until the next holiday or vacation.

Are you a creative? I'd say yes, at least to the point that God has created you with your unique personality, background, situation and opportunities, all for one thing. You are to proclaim his goodness by proclaiming his gospel. That means using words, yes, that is true. But it is not true enough. It means proclaiming in every way you live: in your vocation, in your home, in your recreation and in your communities. Our whole lives are living sacrifices, not only of worship but of proclamation (Rm 12:1-2). To proclaim the gospel in either words OR actions is confused and insufficient. We must do both. We speak the words as heralds, AND we live accordingly as servants of Jesus.

Understand that the Apostle Peter was about as down-to-earth as a guy gets. (I doubt he would have called himself a creative!) Remember that he was rough, stumbling and inclined to regrettable screw-ups like you and me. Then hear him call us to both the speaking and the living out of the gospel:

1 Peter 3:14–15 (CSB)

... Do not fear them or be intimidated, 15 but in your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy, ready at any time to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.

2 Peter 3:11–12 (CSB)

11 Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, it is clear what sort of people you should be in holy conduct and godliness 12 as you wait for the day of God and hasten its coming.

Analogy: Cleaning Dog Poo & Cleaning Sin

Theological truths hit me at the weirdest times. Probably just me.

Case in point. Over the holidays, some of our kids were coming over with their kids. That meant restless grands needing some space to play and get rowdy. So, I went out ahead of time to pick up the dog poo from the back yard. We convince ourselves we can avoid those annoying moments when the kids race in and the adult spots an off-color and – sure enough – off-SMELLING – footprint or three on the floor just inside the back door. Stop! Check the bottom of your shoes! Ugh! Where’s the disinfecting cleaner!

I do my best, but it is nearly inevitable that the dogs are more prolific than I am thorough. Maybe you’ve been there.

Anyhow, as I was executing my well-rehearsed pickup method with hand in inverted doggy poo bag, I noticed at one point that I had worked a little tear into the plastic – too aggressive about this cleanup. Naturally, I immediately wondered: Did this just happen or has this hole been there for the last few piles? Of course, at risk is the purity of my hand.

Even when the bag has retained its integrity, I always feel like some of the nastiness has somehow found its way onto my hand, so I am cautious and mindful. For example, it’s been my experience that these little rolls of plastic bags have usually gotten too hot at some point. This means one has to lick one’s fingers before rubbing them together on the unsealed end to get it open. This is not an issue for a single-bag pickup, a one-and-done poo extraction. However, when you are clearing a whole yard of a month’s worth of deposits, which requires peeling off and opening multiple doggy bags…

Well, you can see why one must be careful to remember which is the “licking” hand and which is the “picking” hand.

So, in this moment of panicked assessment, a flurry of theological ideas came to mind. I’m odd that way. Still, maybe these will get you thinking as well.

First, I cannot imagine how repugnant and offensive my sin and impurity are to a perfectly pure and holy God. Were I to imagine myself in this moment as perfectly clean, dressed all in white down to the soles of my shoes, and surrounded by the poo of a million dogs, the analogy could still not stretch far enough. I cannot comprehend how offensive my impurity is to God. My reaction to the tracks on the floor in the house could not begin to compare to the proper reaction of God if I were to waltz into his presence with unconfessed sin or an unresolved conflict or angry disposition or some other impurity – maybe a favorite idol stuck to the bottom of my shoe.

I wonder how many times we come storming into God’s house in exactly the same way. Like Sunday mornings, for example. Six days (or more!) out on the playground, picking up all kinds of yuck, and we come barging in looking for food and drink and more fun – maybe some hugs – and tracking mess everywhere! Maybe if we sometimes find Sunday’s worship experience a little lacking, it’s because God is staring at us, pointing to the filth and saying, Really? Take off your shoes outside. You’re standing on holy ground. I am reminded that we, like children, do not think nearly enough, nearly often enough, about cleaning up.

Second, I remember how grateful I am for the cleansing and atoning work of Christ. However long I spent in that yard, I was going to miss something. Likewise, no matter how careful I would be, no matter how hard I might scrub, I would never be able to get clean enough to come into God’s house, to come close to him. This filth of this world – and my own sin – is horribly offensive to God. That makes nearness to him fatal, even impossible (without help).

Think of the Israelites not daring to come up on mount Sinai where God’s cataclysmic presence was (Ex 19). Impurity is the reason God gave the law to them, why the rules about tabernacle access were so stringent, why there was a holy place and even a most holy place. We humans are in desperate need for cleaning up. Jesus is the solution, the cleaning solution, if you will. The rituals God gave the ancient Israelites did not purify them. Their obedience in faith did. The rituals brought them into a state of faithful following, but they looked forward to the real solution for impurity. That was the atoning and cleansing work of Christ’s blood offered on the cross. We now look back on that completed work with another ritual, and it too only symbolizes – but is not itself – the real power of cleansing. Baptism.

As I continued my work, I thought ahead to the fact that I would surely wash my hands thoroughly. I began to think how cleaning works, and that led me to my third big theological thought.

Jesus’ cleaning power is mind-boggling. Think about washing your hands. How does that work? You keep running water over the dirt. Filth washes away. But how clean is clean? When you wash out a rag, how does it get clean? There is repeated dilution. You keep reducing the number of parts per million of microscopic gunk in the rag or the bucket or whatever. How many parts per million is clean? 1000? 100? 1? 0.000001?

I realized that this points to the reality that only Jesus could ever truly clean any of us, let alone ALL of us. The cleaning power of any other man would be limited, and at best could only approach clean. The dirty parts per million number could never get to zero. Only an infinitely pure Man could do that. Only a God-Man could to that. Since God is one, there could only be one God-Man. He is Jesus. 

This is why until Jesus came unclean people had to be quarantined, just like those with the recent coronavirus. The unclean corrupts the clean. When Jesus hit the scene, he showed his power to reverse that. He walked up and touched lepers and cleansed them. He did the same for blind and deaf and lame and even reversed death. This was only the demonstration of his power in the visible realm, so that we might become aware of his real power, that to cleanse spiritually. Jesus CAN clean every impurity in the hearts and lives of us sinners. And he DOES for everyone who believes and who asks.

This means we are welcome in the house, provided we come in with Jesus. That makes us clean. SWEET! Praise God for the cleansing work of Christ, so we can come into the house and be with him!

Revelation 22:14–15 (CSB) 

“Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs, the sorcerers, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.

1 Corinthians 6:9–11 (CSB) 

Don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God’s kingdom? Do not be deceived: No sexually immoral people, idolaters, adulterers, or males who have sex with males, no thieves, greedy people, drunkards, verbally abusive people, or swindlers will inherit God’s kingdom. And some of you used to be like this. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. 

2 Corinthians 5:21 (CSB) 

He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 

Hebrews 10:19–22 (CSB)

Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have boldness to enter the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus—he has inaugurated for us a new and living way through the curtain (that is, through his flesh)—and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water.

How Do We Ask?

We Christians understand that we are heralds, witnesses and representatives of Jesus Christ to the world of unbelievers around us. At least we understand that if we read our Bibles and or if we sit under good biblical teaching as we should.

We realize that means we must look for opportunities to engage anyone who is interested in talking about faith. We have to ask some questions to find out where someone is spiritually. What is his worldview? What does she believe about God? Is he a theist of some kind? Deist? Atheist? Do they call themselves Christians?

I think in our present situation in the United States, and the West in general, that we are going to have to tweak our list of diagnostic questions. If the question, "Are you a Christian?" ever yielded a fairly well-defined understanding of where someone was coming from, today an affirmative answer really doesn't tell us much. That is, if you asked this question, and 100 people said, "Yes, I am a Christian," I don't think you could be confident that all, most or even a majority of them were actually regenerate followers of Jesus Christ, possessors of eternal life.

I say this because many today describe themselves as a Christian because they are American, or from the Bible Belt, or they are political conservatives. Or because they are members of a church identified as Christian. Or because they are generally good (compared to, you know, criminal types or political radicals or mean neighbors or whatever), or because they think Christianity is probably closer to the right religion than the 2 or 3 other options they know a little bit about. The list goes on.

I think we are naive to think that most people answering that question today mean to say that they are trusting Christ alone to provide the righteousness God requires to have eternal life, and that they are committed to living in obedience to Christ's commands as a living sacrifice in worship and thanksgiving.

I think we are going to have to ask more precise questions today, and probably quite a few of them, before we can begin to get a feel for whether someone is truly born again.

So, what are the options?

• Do you believe in Jesus?

• Do you know Jesus?

• Do you love Jesus?

• Do you trust Jesus alone for eternal life?

• Are you a follower of Jesus?

• Do you serve Jesus?

• Do you obey Jesus?

• Are you born again?

These, and a bunch more targeted questions may lead to more clarity, but the truth is we'll have to do a lot of careful listening and then keep following up with very particular questions every step of the way.

What seems very clear, though, is that we cannot afford to ask something so general as "Are you a Christian?" and then, upon getting a "yes" breath a sigh of relief, check that person off the list and feel good that we have been a faithful witness for Christ. We're going to need to dig deeper than that.

By the way, I am convinced that one of the places today where our general question would yield the most false positives is IN OUR CHURCHES. Many have written about this in recent years, and I would agree that our churches are full of professing Christians who are in fact spiritually dead. As in NOT followers of Jesus. As in NOT born again. As in destined for hell.

We must start getting very specific in questioning people about their spiritual condition - even in our local congregations. If we presume too much, if we ask vague questions and accept equally vague answers, we risk missing real opportunities to see dead people come to life.