BROKEN-DOWN HOUSE
Living Productively in a World Gone Bad
Paul David Tripp
Shepherd Press Wapwallopen, Pennsylvania
Broken-Down House ©2009 by Paul David Tripp
ISBN: 978–1–63342–362–6 (paperback) ISBN: 978–1–63342–363–3 (epub) Published by Shepherd Press P.O. Box 24 Wapwallopen, Pennsylvania 18660
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system—except for brief quotations for the purpose of review, without written permission from the publisher. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, New International Version ®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. Scripture references marked ESV are from: The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2000, 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Italics or bold text within Scripture quotations indicate emphasis added.
First Printing, 2009 This revised edition © 2025
Page design by Lakeside Design Plus Typeset by Quinta Press, www.quintapress.com Cover design by Callie Wilburn
Thanks, Steve, I couldn’t have done it without you.
Contents
Preface
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PART ONE: Knowing
1. Life in This Broken-Down House
13 21 31 47 61 75 85 97
2. Know Where You Are 3. Know Who You Are 4. Rest in God’s Sovereignty
5. Admit Your Limits 6. Trust What Is Sure 7. Resist Spirituality 8. Listen to Eternity
9. Learn to Wait
109 123
10. Be Good and Angry
PART TWO: Doing 11. Reject Passivity
137 149 163 177 191 205
12. Pursue Community 13. Determine to Love 14. Celebrate Grace 15. Minister Everywhere 16. Examine Your Legacy
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Preface
T
he Bible is a picture book in many ways. No, God didn’t include drawings or photographs for you, but the language of the Bible is wonderfully visual and graphic. Again and again, God reaches into the physical world and paints a familiar image to help us grasp the less familiar realities of the spiritual world. Bread, the sun, a rock, a river, a judge, a flower, a lion, and more all become visual tools for understanding God and his kingdom. It is not an accident that the physical world pictures the spiritual world so well. This was part of God’s intention. He embedded rich metaphors all over the universe he made, knowing full well that he would employ them to help us understand the spiritual realities we must grasp in order to live life his way. The more I study Scripture, the more I appreciate this quality of vibrant physicality. Word pictures splash across page after page, reminding us how much God cares for us. From the seed in the ground, to the cross to be carried, to the weed, to the treasure in the field, God wants to draw from his storehouse of physical examples to help us know him, ourselves, and our world more accurately. This means that, in simply looking out my window,
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I can be reminded of precious truths that God has connected to the physical world I am viewing. This book is written around one modern word picture, the broken-down house. We’ve all seen them—those sagging and dilapidated dwellings that look as if they are in physical pain. As you pass by, you wonder what the house once looked like, who lived in it, and how it got into such a miserable condition. Some of us look at this kind of house and are simply overwhelmed. We quickly move on, not for a moment considering the possibility of restoration. Others of us immediately see potential. We can’t wait to get our hands on the mess and restore it to its former beauty. Well, sin has ravaged the beautiful house that God created. This world bears only the faintest resemblance to what it was built to be. It sits slumped, disheveled, in pain, groaning for the restoration that can only be accomplished by the hands of him who built it in the first place. The Bible clearly tells us that the divine Builder cannot and will not leave his house in its present pitiful condition. He has instituted a plan of restoration, and he will not relent until everything about his house is made totally new again. That is the good news. The bad news is that you and I are living right in the middle of the restoration. We live each day in a house that is terribly broken, where nothing works exactly as intended. But we do not live in the house by ourselves. Emmanuel lives here as well, and he is at work returning his house to its former beauty. Often it doesn’t look like any real restoration is going on at all. Things seem to get messier, uglier, and less functional all the time. But that’s the way it is with restoration; things generally get worse before they get better. So in the pages that follow, I invite you to consider one simple thing. What does it look like to live productively in a world—a “house”—that is broken down? Someday you will live forever in a fully restored house. But right now you are called to live with peace, joy, and productivity in a place that has been sadly damaged by sin. How can you live above the damage? Even
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better, how can you be an active part of the restoration that is at the heart of God’s plan of redemption? This is what the book you have in your hands is all about. May God help you to be fruitful in all you do, even though you live in a broken-down house! Paul David Tripp 7/21/08
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P A R T O N E Know i ng
Broken-Down House
Shards of window glass shimmer in weed-strewn sod. Roof shingles clap with the wind, a spontaneous ovation for the dwelling that once was. With creaking voices dark halls repeat long-gone conversations. Too much decay too much damage violent elements have disrespected the carpenter’s dream. The sagging-porch frown
tells a painful story of beauty shattered. All that’s left is a broken-down house.
1 Life in This Broken-Down House I really did think he had lost his mind. I couldn’t believe he was going to do what he was about to do. I tried to reason with him, but he was so excited and engaged, I don’t think he heard a word I said. The day had started out normally. We were with Luella’s parents having a leisurely breakfast and discussing whether we wanted to venture out into the Florida sun, when my father-in-law chimed in that he would like to go look at houses. My mother- in-law was not interested at all. The thought of getting out of the car again and again in the blazing sun to tour house after house held no attraction for her. So he extended the invitation to me, and I agreed to go. He had done his research well and knew of several houses he wanted to see. One particular house was at the top of his list, so we drove to the north side of Miami and into a rundown neighborhood. Already I was thinking, Why would he want to own a house here? I hadn’t seen anything yet. As we wove our way through the ribbon streets we came upon a lot that
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could have passed as a bomb site. That’s when my father-in-law stopped the car. The first thing that hit me was the condition of the front yard. The grass was beyond cutting; it needed harvesting. Scattered across this suburban savanna was a random collection of rotting mechanical debris. Old lawnmowers, decrepit appliances, and rusting car parts were strewn everywhere. The house had at one time been painted white, I think. But time, sun, dirt, wind, and neglect had given it a sickly, grayish-yellow skin, mottled and peeling everywhere. The storm door hung at an odd slant, held in place by one rusty hinge. While I was still trying to take it all in, my father-in-law turned to me and said cheerfully, “Well, this looks promising!” I checked in every direction, trying to identify anything that might fit his description. Promising? What, exactly, seems promising here? When he followed up with, “Let’s go in and take a look,” I began to wonder if he was delusional. A strong desire to protect this man from himself rose up in me. It didn’t seem possible that he could be seeing what I was seeing and still use the word promising . We walked up the grease-stained driveway to the tottering front door and my father-in-law gave it a good knock. I half expected the house to collapse in front of us. An older man, as dirty and unkempt as his surroundings, invited us in. I remember thinking he was just the kind of man you would expect to live in such a place. The inside of the house actually made the outside look pretty good. As I glanced about me, there seemed to be nothing that was clean and whole. Every inch appeared stained and dirty. Every corner seemed filled with junk. Every feature of the house looked to be damaged in some way. It was overwhelming. As we sat on a filthy, sagging couch in the middle of this broken- down house, that puzzling sentence kept echoing through my mind . . . Well, this looks promising! Emerging from my daze, I realized my father-in-law had actually begun to negotiate for
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the house. I wanted to stop him, but I couldn’t. He was too focused and excited. Within a few days my father-in-law had secured the money to buy the house. Not long afterward, he moved in and began a complete and total restoration. I will never forget walking into that house after all the work had been completed. It was hard to imagine it was the same house. This Broken-Down World The world you live in is a lot like that broken-down house. Every single room has been dirtied and damaged by sin. Not one part of it shines with anything like the pure glory that was so evident when it was first made. Sin has left this world in a sorry condition. You see it everywhere you look. You see it in great cities and small communities. You see it in the environment, blighted by pollution and misuse. You see it in government, often focused more on caring for itself than on serving the people. You see it in entertainment that replaces what is truly beautiful with what is essentially pornography. You see it in the family, as the place designed for growth and protection often becomes a source of life’s greatest hurts. You see it in a staggering, diseased economy that has finally exhausted itself after decades of financial debauchery. You see it in art and culture that often debases the very concept of beauty. You see it in history, with instance after instance of man’s inhumanity to man. You see it in each life as we all struggle with physical, emotional, spiritual, and relational brokenness every day. The brokenness around you affects you in different ways at different times. Sometimes you have to deal with personal hurt. Sometimes you grow angry that things do not function as they were designed to. Sometimes you are overwhelmed with feeling sad or lost in the face of this world’s pitiful condition. Sometimes you get tired of the effort it takes to live in a broken-down house, and you just want to quit. At every point and every moment, your life is messier and more complicated than it really ought
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to be because everything is so much more difficult in such a terribly broken world. But let us also see that this world of ours is more than a broken-down house. It is a broken-down house in the process of being restored. There’s a Whole Lot of Restoration Going On Like my father-in-law examining that ruined little house in Miami, God is not willing for this broken-down world to stay in its sorry condition. As Creator, he is able to look at it and see promise, the promise of a total restoration of its beauty. And he has asked you to move in with him to be one of his tools of restoration. While it is hard to live in a house that needs to be restored, in some ways it is even harder to live there while the restoration takes place. Not only is everything more difficult in a broken house, there is also the dust and dirt of restoration and the intermittent noise and chaos and sweat and soreness that comes with the repairs. Try as you may to keep the dust sealed off in one room, you find grit in the drawers and on your food. The din of creative destruction wears you down. The labor wears you out. There are days when you simply don’t want to face it. Other days, you forget the mess you’re living in for a moment, only to step on a rusty nail or through a rotted step. You often find yourself dreaming of what it would be like to live in a house that needed no restoration, and you wonder if the job will ever be completed. You want to hold on to the promise of everything eventually being fixed, but it’s hard. You want to rest, but there’s work to do. You want to escape, but you can’t—this is your house and you have to live in it. You wonder if what you are seeing is really progress. In fact, it often seems like you’re losing ground. The kitchen is more usable than it was, and the pipes from the upstairs bathtub don’t drench the living room anymore. But now the staircase has been ripped out and the only way to your bedroom is by a ladder! In light of this mess and all the work
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yet to be done, it is difficult to celebrate progress for very long. You have worked hard, but so much restoration is still needed. This interwoven set of difficulties is the environment you live in every day. It is the only environment you have. It conditions what you face as an individual. It shapes what you experience in your family. It structures the struggles of your marriage and friendships. It creates the stresses of your community. It determines the issues that politicians and government officials must deal with. It molds the work of the church. It affects the condition of the physical environment. It shapes the struggles of your heart and mind. It even determines the things you deal with in your body. The fact that you live in a broken-down house in the midst of restoration makes everything more difficult. It removes the ease and simplicity of life. It requires you to be more thoughtful, more careful. It requires you to listen and see well. It requires you to look out for difficulty and to be aware of danger. It requires you to contemplate and plan. It requires you to do what you don’t really want to do and to accept what you find difficult to accept. You want to simply coast, but you can’t. Things are broken and they need to be fixed. There is work to do. You can tell if a house is being condemned or restored by the size of the tools that are in use. If there’s a crane equipped with a wrecking ball out front, you can give up on restoration. But if there are a lot of hand tools around, that’s a sign of hope. True restoration takes patience, subtlety, skill, and grace. I live in Philadelphia where a lot of restoration goes on. I once wandered into a row house that was being lovingly restored. In the high- ceilinged living room I found a man on scaffolding removing antique moldings. It was triple-crown molding—three separate moldings fitted together to create a beautiful effect. He wasn’t trying to pry off the molding with a big crowbar because he knew that would splinter and break it. He was using a very small hammer to drive very small wedges between the molding and the wall. It was a tedious job, requiring much patience, but he did
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it because he had restoration in mind, not destruction. Across the room were three piles of molding he had already removed, every piece perfectly intact. That molding would be refinished and hang on the wall in beauty once again. Living Productively in a Broken-Down House So, that’s what this book is about. What does it look like on a practical level to live well in a broken-down world that is being restored? What does it look like to live a restoration lifestyle—to live productively in a broken place? What does it look like to function as one of God’s tools of restoration? This book proposes that you have been created and called by God for more than survival. You have been created and called to care for more than just yourself. You have been chosen to be engaged in a process—to care about, to work for, and to embrace the promise and possibility of a restoration lifestyle. The reason the old man’s house had gotten so bad is that he didn’t care. He was willing to settle for personal survival. He didn’t live with hope or promise. He lived a life of avoidance and daily denial. He wouldn’t let himself face how bad it was and how good it could be. He didn’t care what the house looked like to his neighbors and he didn’t seem to mind that it was getting worse. He gave in as the house gave out, so things just got worse and worse. But God does care, and he calls you to care. God is not satisfied with the state of this house, and he calls us to share in his holy dissatisfaction. In our hearts he wants dissatisfaction and hope to kiss. He wants us, every day that we live, to embrace the gospel promise of a world made new. He wants our lives to be shaped by uncompromising honesty and undiminished hope. He wants us to face how bad things really are, not as survivalists, but as restorers. He wants to pick us up in his hands and use us as the hammers, saws, and screwdrivers of a brand new world. He wants us to believe that because of what he has done there is hope for new beginnings and fresh starts.
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Your Lord is the ultimate Restorer, and he never rests. One day his work will be over and the world will be completely renewed. In the meantime, he calls you and me to live in this broken-down house with hearts of patience and eyes of promise. He calls us away from self-focused survival and to the hard work of restoration. He calls us away from paralyzing discouragement and the nagging desire to quit. He welcomes us to live in the patience and grace that only he can give. God calls us to live productively in a world gone bad. Do you understand what that means? Chapter 1 Questions. Life in This Broken-Down House 1. Have you, or has a friend of yours, ever lived in a broken-down house that needed significant restoration? How did you or your friend find the experience of living in the house while it was being restored? 2. Are you conscious of this world resembling a broken-down house? In what ways are you aware of this brokenness as you go about your daily life? 3. “You have been created and called by God for more than survival. . . . You have been chosen to be engaged in a process—to care about, to work for, and to embrace the promise and possibility of a restoration lifestyle.” How do you respond to these words?
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A Light in His Hands
So little preparation so many unrealistic expectations so often dreams are dashed unwanted fears realized. Too few understand where they are too few know where they’re going too many feel alone and lost. Yet the One who knows and who understands has joined the journey. He holds a light in His hands and He is One who can be trusted.
13 Determine to Love H onestly, I cannot recall a single day where I have not encountered evidence of the Fall. And if I could fast-forward through a video recording of my life, I doubt I would even find an hour without such evidence. In countless ways, you and I are continually confronted with the brokenness surrounding us and within us. It has been this way through all of human history. It is the reason that people everywhere have always agreed, “life is hard.” Perhaps it’s the pain that greets you as you get out of bed. Maybe it’s the reality that you are facing another holiday without that loved one who always made the season so special. Perhaps it’s the latest natural disaster that has devastated entire communities and swallowed up lives. It may be the hurtful thing a good friend said to you yesterday evening. Or maybe you’re just tired of hearing about wars, disease, political corruption, urban violence, racism, Internet pornography, and a seemingly endless catalog of ills that daily alert you to the fact that you really do live in a groaning and broken-down house.
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But there is another truth at work here as well, something else that you must face up to: it is not an accident that you are right here, right now. God has chosen and arranged for you to live precisely where and when you are living. It can be hard to grasp, but the God who is the ultimate source of wisdom, power, and love has exercised all three of these limitless attributes to place you where you are today. In Acts 17 Paul says of God that “he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else . . . and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live” (vv. 25–26). God chose for me to be alive in this period of history. He alone determines the day of my death. And he decided exactly where I would live! This means God has a reason and a purpose for me, here and now, in this broken-down house of a world. His wisdom and intentionality are at work in my life and in yours. Yet I think this is the point where we often lose our way: the harsh realities of the fallen world can tempt us to question God’s wisdom, or love, or power, or all three. The hardships we face often don’t make sense to us. We find ourselves swept up in something far bigger than we are—a global economic crisis, for example—and it can seem like a vast system of unrelated, impersonal forces is actually affecting the world in a random way, instead of a loving and omnipotent God ruling the world in a purposeful way. The collection of large and small difficulties that make up so much of our lives can seem like pointless obstacles blocking our access to the good life God has promised us. It is admittedly difficult to greet hardships as a testimony to God’s wisdom, power, and love, but that is exactly what they are. The only reason we find it hard is because the “good” we seek and hope for is different from the good that God is accomplishing through the difficulties that come our way. Often when we look back on a “good” week, we think it was good because it was comfortable, predictable, pleasurable, controllable, successful, etc. Our evaluation of the week is shaped
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by our wants, feelings, and estimation of our needs. But there is another “good” that God is working on. He is using this period of time to continue the work of radical rescue and restoration that he has begun in us. There is yet more work God desires to do in our lives before we go to spend eternity with him. God does not settle for “good enough.” He loves us too much to sit back idly while we struggle with personal weakness, failure, and sin. He is not satisfied to leave us at the level of immaturity and foolishness we find ourselves in today. He has a character goal for you to attain in this life, and by his unrelenting grace and mercy you are going to get there. He is God. We are made in his likeness. His ultimate goal for us in this life is that we be further conformed to his image. So he will not stop doing good to us—good in the most important sense of the term, however painful it may be at times—for as long as we are on this earth. A Time of Preparation What does this mean for the here and now? It means this is not a time of slogging through hardships day after day, just hoping they will end soon. Yes, we wait for the day when our hardships will be over. Waiting and hoping are biblical and legitimate. But the issue for now is not the future. The issue for now is now . The question is not, “When will we get what we are waiting for?” but “What we will become as we wait?” Passages like Romans 5 and 8, James 1, and 1 Peter 1 remind us that God is not just working on bringing things to a final end. He is working on us ! The agenda during this moment is not destination , but preparation ; not “How can I get the good stuff ASAP?” but “How is God working to change me now in anticipation of then ?” Preparation is hard. Any athlete will tell you that competing is more fun than training. Yet all successful athletes put themselves through self-imposed torture because they recognize the vital importance of preparation. The hours in the gym, the early morning runs, the repetitive drills, the careful diet, the costly
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expenditures of time and money, the sacrifice of other pleasures, the mental discipline, and the willing submission to the wisdom and authority of coaches are simply some of the rigors of careful preparation. My son, Darnay, has a friend who played college football. We have known him since he was a small boy. I remember his puny little-boy body when he was in Pee Wee Football. Then we watched as he and his family got serious about his football. There were many times when Darnay wanted to do something with his friend, but he was in the gym lifting weights, or out running. We watched as he became more and more successful, even receiving a college scholarship. But what I remember most is how he changed physically. Over time, the weightlifting and exercise he did literally remolded his body. No longer was he the skinny kid I had once known. With lots of muscle mass and minimal body fat, he barely resembled that boy who had grown up around us. Not only was his body larger and stronger, he was faster and more limber, far more versatile and agile than ever before. His body, mind, and reflexes had honed themselves into a single, formidable tool. He had become what he needed to be so that he might enjoy success in the sport he had chosen. This a lot like what God is doing in you through the hardships you encounter. There is a point to the daily drills and the grueling exercises you face. They are not random or pointless bouts of pain, temptation, and challenge. God is training and changing you in mind, body, and spirit. He is building you up from frailty, immaturity, and weakness, and making you capable in areas where before you could only dream of success. Where your spirit tends to be slow, selfish, and lethargic, he is developing in you new reflexes and habit patterns of love and service to others. He is building onto you the muscle-mass of godliness to increase your spiritual strength and stamina. His intention is to rebuild you so fundamentally that you no longer resemble the person you once were. And he wants to teach you how to use this new
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set of abilities for the thing to which he has called you—service in his kingdom of glory and grace. So What’s Love Got to Do with It? Perhaps you’re reading along and you’re thinking, “But, Paul, I thought this was a chapter on love and all you’re talking about is the hardship of being chosen by God to live and mature in this broken-down house. I’m lost.” Well, here’s the connection. It has to do with the fact that the basic condition of hardship that you face in life—the pain and difficulty and challenge and uncertainty—is also faced in various ways by everyone else on the planet. So let me say it again: life in this fallen world is hard. Preparation is hard. Change is hard. It is very easy to get discouraged. It is very easy to feel overwhelmed. It is very easy to remain or revert to being self-focused and self-absorbed. It is very easy to feel alone. It is very easy to think that no one understands what you are going through. It is very easy to think that God must have gotten a wrong address; that this trial couldn’t have been intended for your doorstep. It is very easy to give in to wondering if following God is worth it. It is very easy to look over the fence and yield to debilitating envy. It is very easy to begin to let go of good and godly habits. It is very easy to try to numb or distract yourself by whatever temporary pleasure is within reach. It is very easy to try to convince yourself that you are godlier than you are and therefore less in need of change than you actually are. It is very easy to hit those moments when you lose your way and just want to give up. Life in the fallen world is hard. That is why God, in his love, has designed for us not to be left in this broken-down house alone, but to live here with others in a community of love. When I read 1 Peter 1, I am always struck by how God has placed a call to love at the end of a discussion of hardship. As Peter summarizes what God is doing in the here and now he uses three words, “suffer, grief, and trial.” None of
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us want these things in our lives! But Peter reminds us that they have come our way as tools of refinement in the hands of a loving Redeemer, intent on completing in us what he has begun. Then Peter begins to lay out how to live productively in the middle of the hardships of the here and now. Listen to his final directive, “Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart” (1 Peter 1: 22). Peter is saying something very powerful here. He is saying that God hasn’t simply called us to endure the refining fires of sanctification. He has ordained us to incarnate his love through the community of love he has placed around us. This community of love is meant not only to give us hope and strength, but to encourage us with a reminder that the One who is testing and training us is with us and loves us. This community of love is meant to comfort the person who is discouraged, to strengthen the person who is weak, to give hope to the person who has none, to be present with the person who is alone, to guide the person who has lost his way, to give wisdom to the person lost in foolishness, to warn the person who is beginning to wander, to correct the person turning the wrong way, to give eyes to the person who is blind to God’s presence, and to be a physical representation of God’s presence and love. So, as you are living in the broken-down house, what does God call you to do? There is one sure and reliable answer to the question: he calls you to be an instrument of his love. There is no lack in your life for opportunities to love. That teenager who is growingly attracted to the world needs God’s love. That single person who is facing the death of personal dreams needs God’s love. That immigrant brother or sister who feels so out of place and so misunderstood needs God’s love. That mom who is simply overwhelmed with her parenting responsibilities needs God’s love. That man who is tempted to walk out of his troubled marriage needs God’s love. That little boy who lost his father to divorce needs God’s love. That
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woman who is living through the ravages of cancer needs God’s love. That couple facing debts they don’t seem able to pay needs God’s love. The woman who now faces life without the man who has been her companion for decades needs God’s love. That pastor carrying a heavy weight of spiritual responsibility needs God’s love. That university student facing the spiritual warfare of college needs God’s love. We could multiply example after example. There is no location, situation, or relationship this side of heaven where this love is not needed. This love is not about liking people. It is not about romantic affection. It is something more than cultural niceness. It is deeper than being respectful or mannerly. This love finds its motivation, hope, and direction at the cross of Jesus Christ. The Shape of Love What is the nature and shape of the love to which each of us has been called? Hear the words of 1 John 4:9–11. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love; not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we ought to love one another. What is our motivation to love others? We love others because we have been so magnificently loved. Jesus said, when the woman washed his feet with expensive perfume and dried them with her hair, “The one who is forgiven much, loves much.” We live with a deep sense of privilege that, quite apart from anything we could earn, deserve, or achieve, our lives have been transformed by the love of God. He has every reason to turn his back on us. He has every reason to turn his anger against us. He has every reason to judge us unworthy, but he does not. He first turns to us so that we would then turn to him. So, being filled with the awe of this love, we are excited about sharing this love with others.
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And we really do believe that this love is the most powerful force for change in the universe. What is the hope of this love? We don’t feel burdened by this call to love, because we know that the God, who is love, is transforming us by his love, so that we will increasingly be people who love. Here is the biblical model: God’s love rescues us from self-love so that we will be able to love others. Let me unpack this for you. God knows that, because we are sinners, our first inclination is not to love others, but to love ourselves. Sin turns us in on ourselves. Sin causes us to be selfish, self-absorbed, and self- focused. Sin causes us to be obsessed with what we want, what we feel, and what we think we need. Sin causes us to want to exist at the center of our own universe, having our feelings addressed, our wants satisfied, and our needs met. Sin makes us demanding and expectant, rather than serving and giving. So God has to rescue us from us. He has to free us from our bondage to ourselves so that we can live for him and for others. And as he does this, God is not taking our humanity from us. He is giving it back to us. You see, we were designed to love him and to love others. In progressively freeing us from sin, he is increasingly enabling us to live as we were created to live. And this is itself the happiest and most satisfying way to live. God has arranged all this so that we need not be overwhelmed or weighed down with the call to love, for the God who is love now lives inside of us empowering us to love others as he has loved us. But there is more. We don’t have to wonder what in the world this love is meant to look like. We don’t have to fear that we won’t know how to function as his tools of love. Why? Because there is a moment in history that is the final definition of the love to which God has called us. That moment is the cross of Jesus Christ. We have been called to cruciform love. What does this mean? This means that the love we give to others must shape itself, mold itself, to resemble in some essential way what took place at the cross of
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the Lord Jesus Christ. Hear these words again, “since God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.” What does this cross-shaped love look like in the hallways, subways, boardrooms, living rooms, and sidewalks of everyday life? It looks like what Jesus did for us. Here is what this love is. Here is how it functions. It is willing self-sacrifice for the redemptive good of another . It is willing . No one took Jesus’ life from him; he laid it down himself as an act of his own will. God calls us to be willing and ready to function as instruments of his love. It requires sacrifice . For Jesus, this meant his death. It is not likely to mean death for you or me, although it might. What is important to recognize, however, is the element of costliness. Love is costly. There is no such thing as true, active love that does not require sacrifice. God calls us to be willing to lay down our lives; to be willing to sacrifice time, energy, money, reputation, possessions—whatever may be necessary as we seek to love others as we have been loved. And we do all of this for the redemptive good of others. Jesus died so that salvation would be accomplished and transforming grace would be available. The cross guarantees that someday all of God’s children will be finally free of every last microbe of sin in every last cell of their hearts. So we look for opportunities to be part of what God is doing in the lives of others and we will not stop looking until all of God’s work is completed in all of his children. This call to love is second only to our call to worship God above anything else. And if this has been God’s will from the beginning, before the Fall, how much more is it needed as we live under the burdens of life in a broken world! Cruciform Love in the Here and Now Let me suggest in very functional, practical terms what it means to be committed to being an instrument of cross-shaped love:
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It means not keeping yourself so busy with you and yours that you have no practical time to love others. It means being committed to knowing people, because you can minister only in very limited ways to those whom you do not know. It means being willing to have your life complicated by the needs and struggles of others. It means being willing to share your physical resources with others. It means being willing to live with an open home. It means being perseverant and patient even when the love you give is not returned. It means actively looking for places where you can function as one of God’s tools of love. It means resisting the temptation to be judgmental, self- righteous, and critical. It means overlooking minor offenses and fighting the temptation to become bitter or cynical. It means making life decisions out of a recognition of this inescapable call to love. It means being lovingly and humbly honest in moments of misunderstanding; more committed to reconciliation than to being right. It means admitting that you are still learning to love as you have been loved. It means being willing to own up to your sin and admit your faults. It means not judging the success of your life by the size of your house or bank account, or by the quality of your car, but by the quality of your love for God and others. It means regularly examining the motivations, desires, and thoughts of your heart in the mirror of God’s Word. It means moving beyond simply surrounding yourself with people whom you find comfortable and likeable. It means being a student of God’s Word, a joyful participant in the means of grace, and a committed participant in the fellowship of the body of Christ, so that the love you offer others may be increasingly pure and mature.
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It means being willing to be misunderstood, mistreated, and misrepresented for the sake of incarnating Christ’s love. It means overcoming evil with good. It means not letting race, social class, gender, age, or ethnicity get in the way of a biblical call to Christlike love. It means being willing to have your schedule and plans interrupted or altered. It means being willing to grant and seek forgiveness. It means paying attention to the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of the people God puts in your path, and looking for ways to help them bear these burdens. It means believing that God will not call you to a task without giving you what you need to accomplish it. It means being willing to get up earlier and stay up later. It means learning the details about someone’s struggle so that you can love wisely, while at the same time guarding the reputation of the person you are loving. It means weeping with the one who weeps and rejoicing with the one who rejoices. It means being willing to endure tense and uncomfortable situations lovingly. It means not allowing yourself plausible excuses that seemingly free you from love’s call. It means making a commitment to being a faithful friend. It means being willing to take on big things, even as you humbly admit your limits. It means keeping your promises and being faithful to your word. It means being open to correction, loving criticism, and godly rebuke. It means believing in the body of Christ and recognizing that you are but one of the tools in God’s big toolbox of redemption. It means being open to counsel and receptive to advice. It means being willing to go to bed tired and to awake to another day of calling. It means hiding God’s Word in your heart and keeping his Kingdom always before your eyes.
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It means refusing to become anyone’s substitute messiah, but instead to point people to the presence and grace of Jesus. It really does mean looking out not only for your own interests, but also for the interests of others. It means building relationships, not just for the purpose of being relationally comfortable, but so that those relationships would be a workroom for redemption. It means loving people in such a way that they never feel like they are in debt to you. It means remembering that you are more like than unlike the people you are called to love. It means understanding that the call to love is a call to both word and deed. It means daily remembering Jesus, being in awe of the gift of his love, and living thankfully. Someone near you right now has lost his way. Someone near you is feeling alone. Someone near you is overwhelmed. Someone near you is being tempted to step off God’s pathway. Someone near you is doubting God’s presence and love. The God who is love now lives inside of you, enabling you to love as you have been loved. He has chosen you to be one of his ambassadors, incarnating his love in the lives of those he has placed you near. Open your eyes and your heart and offer to others what you have been given. There is no better way to live in this fallen world.
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Chapter 13 Questions. Determine to Love 1. What in your view would make a “good” week? How does the “good” God wants to do in our lives often seem at odds with our view of what is “good” for us? 2. “God’s love rescues us from self-love so that we will be able to love others.” How does this statement affect your understanding of your salvation and of the daily hardships and struggles you face in this fallen world? 3. Thoughtfully reread the list of examples of “Cruciform Love in the Here and Now.” Which of these particularly challenge you? How can you put these into practice? 4. “Open your eyes and your heart and offer to others what you have been given.” Are you aware of anyone who is in need of love right now? How can you incarnate God’s love in this person’s life?
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Celebration
It will be the most exuberant
celebration ever. It will never grow boring. It will always be fresh It will consume us all. We will want to do nothing else. The celebration will go on and on, with songs that will never grow old. We will be so amazed that we have been invited into the choir. And our amazement will never abate. This celebration that will never end is the celebration of grace. If you listen carefully You will hear the songs have already begun.
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