Tag Archives: conflict

Discernment: Thinking God’s Thoughts after Him

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By Sinclair Ferguson

Someone I knew recently expressed an opinion that surprised and in some ways disappointed me. I said to myself, “I thought he would have more discernment than that.”

The experience caused me to reflect on the importance of discernment, and the lack of it in our world. People do not see issues clearly and are easily misled because they do not think biblically. But, sadly, one cannot help reflecting on how true that is of ourselves, in the church community too.

Most readers of this article would want to distance themselves from what might be regarded as the lunatic fringe of contemporary Christianity. But there is more to discernment. True discernment means not only distinguishing the right from the wrong; it means distinguishing the primary from the secondary, the essential from the indifferent, the permanent from the transient, the good and the better from the best.

Thus discernment is like the physical senses; to some it is given as a special grace gift (1Cor. 12:10), but a measure of it is essential for us all, and must be constantly nourished. The Christian must take care to nourish his “sixth sense” of spiritual discernment. This is why the psalmist prays, “Teach me knowledge and good judgment” (Ps. 119:66).

1.     But what is discernment? In Scripture (as Ps.119:66 indicates) it is the ability to make discriminating judgments, to distinguish between, and recognize the moral implications of, different situations and courses of action. It includes, apparently, the ability to “weigh up” and assess the moral and spiritual status of individuals, groups and even movements. Thus, while warning us against judgmentalism, Jesus urges us to be discerning and discriminating, lest we cast our pearls before pigs (Matt. 7:1, 6).

The most remarkable example of such discernment is described in John 2:24-25: “Jesus would not entrust himself to them . . . for he knew what was in a man.” This is discernment without judgmentalism. It involved our Lord’s knowledge of God’s Word (he, supremely had prayed, “Teach me . . . good judgment, for I believe in your commands” [Ps. 119:66]) and his observation of God’s ways with men. Doubtless his discernment grew as he himself experienced conflict with, and victory over, temptation and measured what is by what ought to be.

Christ’s discernment penetrates to the deepest reaches of the heart, but it is of the same type as the discernment the Christian is to develop, for the only discernment we possess is that which we receive in union with Christ, by the Spirit, through God’s Word.

2.     Discernment is learning to “think God’s thoughts after him,” practically and spiritually; it means having a sense of how things look in God’s eyes, and seeing them in some measure “uncovered and laid bare.” 

How should this discernment affect the way we live?

  • It acts as a means of protection, guarding us from being deceived spiritually.
  • We are not blown away by the winds of teaching that make central an element of the gospel that is peripheral, or treat a particular application of Scripture as though it were Scripture’s central message.

3.     Discernment also acts as an instrument of healing, when exercised in grace. I have known a small number of people whose ability to offer a diagnosis of the spiritual needs of others has been remarkable. They have diagnosed others’ spiritual condition better than the people themselves could ever do. When exercised in love, discernment can be the healing knife in spiritual surgery.

Again, discernment can function as the key to Christian freedom. The zealous but undiscerning Christian becomes enslaved—to others, to his own uneducated conscience, to an unbiblical pattern of life. From such bondage, growth in discernment sets us free, enabling us to distinguish practices that may be helpful in some circumstances from those that are mandated in all circumstances.

In a different way, true discernment enables the freed Christian to recognize that the exercise of freedom in any given respect is not essential to the enjoyment of it.

4.     Finally, discernment serves as a catalyst to spiritual development: “The mocker seeds wisdom and finds none, but knowledge comes easily to the discerning” (Prov. 14:6). Why? Because the discerning Christian goes to the heart of the matter. He knows something about everything, namely that all things have their common fountain in God. Increase in knowledge therefore does not lead to increased frustration, but to a deeper recognition of the harmony of all God’s words and words.

How is such discernment to be obtained? We receive it as did Christ himself—by the anointing of the Spirit: through our understanding of God’s Word, by our experience of God’s grace and by the progressive unfolding to us of the true condition of our own hearts. That is why we should pray; “I am your servant, give me discernment” (Ps. 119:25).

Sinclair B. Ferguson is an associate professor of systematic theology at Westminster Theological Seminary. His many books include John Owen on the Christian Life.

The Gospel and the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-10)

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This is a sermon I spoke at three services at Shiloh Community Church in Orleans MI last weekend (Palm Sunday).  I focused primarily on poor in spirit, mourning, and peacemaking…

It’s Palm Sunday and we are remembering and celebrating the triumphal entry of The Servant King Jesus – arriving into Jerusalem to the praise and adulation of the multitude — and less than a week later, he is to be brutally and shamefully murdered…

  1. Next week is the high point of the Christian calendar as we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
  2. Jesus triumphed over death and hell and bridged the gap between our utter depravity and God’s standard of holiness. (To miss the mark by even a little is still to have missed the mark.)
  3. We call this sacrifice the Gospel – or Good News.

I believe it is Tim Keller who reminds us that the Gospel is not advice, it is news.  It is the ultimate Good News.  He suggests that weekend services are not primarily the place to give advice… Gospel-centered (or Christ-centered) change is rooted in remembrance. We are to remind one another of what Christ Jesus has done, not what we must do.

We cannot commend what we do not cherish.  -John Piper

The essence of Christian maturity is when the Gospel – or, what Christ has done — gets worked in – and then through our lives, which is what I’d like to spend our remaining time considering.

Turn to Matthew 5 where we will take a look at the Beatitudes.  While you’re turning, allow me to offer a few introductory thoughts.

What is Christian conversion? Christian conversion, or salvation, occurs when genuine repentance and sincere faith in Jesus intersect.

  1. These are not two separate actions – but one motion with two parts:
    • As we turn to Christ for salvation we turn away from the sin that we are asking Jesus Christ to forgive us from. (Rom 3:23 – All have sinned and fallen short of God’s standard.)
    • Neither repentance nor faith come first – they must come at the same time.
  2. They are two sides of the same coin.[1]

Contained in the Beatitudes are eight qualities that characterize the life of Jesus Christ, and therefore, through conversion, they begin to characterize our life in Jesus Christ.  Jesus calls us to follow him through life and to depend upon his strength and power.

The word beatitude comes from the Latin word meaning “blessed.”

  1. More specifically the word means exalted joy, or true happiness. (Joy is calm delight in even the most adverse circumstances.  Joy fueled Paul’s contentment.)
  2. With the beatitudes, Jesus dives into our innermost being probing the heart and raising the question of motive.
  3. What made Jesus a threat to everyone and the reason He was eventually killed was that in His encounters with people (particularly the religious leaders), He exposes what they were on the inside.  Some people find it liberating – others hate it.

The Beatitudes, I have come to see, are our surrendered response to the Gospel.  I view the Beatitudes as a step-by-step spiritual formation process that moves us toward spiritual depth and maturity.  This becomes cyclical as we grow deeper and deeper in our faith.  The Beatitudes become the outworking of the Gospel in and through our lives.

Matthew 5:3-10…

3“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

 4“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

 5“Blessed are the meek (gentle), for they shall inherit the earth.

 6“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

 7“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

 8“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

 9“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

 10“Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Following is an overview and how one unfolds into the next…The first two are foundational to the Gospel blossoming in and through our lives…

1.  Blessed are the poor in spirit…

a.  “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope.  With less of you there is more of God and his rule.” (MSG)
b.  Another translation renders this verse, “Happy are those who know their need for God.” (JBP)
c.  What does it mean to be “poor in spirit”?  A desperateness of soul that is weary of living in it’s own strength and longs for God’s mercy and grace to come and refresh the soul.  In a word, it is DESPERATION.
d.  Consider the Prodigal Sons (Lk 15)…

2.  Blessed are those who mourn…

a.  I have a river of sin in my life – with 3 primary tributaries…

#1 – Original sin (Adam & Eve traded the presence of God for the knowledge of God – and that’s been our core tendency ever since…

#2 – Family of origin issues

#3 – My own dumb choices.

b.  As we are honest about the sin that has infected us there will be a transforming grief and accompanying repentance, that surfaces – not only for our own lives, but also for the injustice, greed, lust, and suffering that grips our world.

c.  I want to own my sin everyday.[2]

d.  This is counter intuitive (paradox – seeming contradiction).  We go down to go up; death precedes resurrection; we get to joy by traveling through grief.  Our soul wants to find a way around grief, but God says, “No, you must travel through grief – and the good news is, He says, “I’ll go with you and we will do it in My strength and power.”

e.  The way of the Gospel is a death and resurrection cycle…

f.  The gospel has the greatest potential to captivate us when we understand that we are more depraved than we ever realized and simultaneously more loved that we ever dared to imagine.

g.  I don’t mind inviting you to question your own salvation today.  If our default mode is, “I’m basically a good person…” then we simply have not understood the gospel.

3.  Blessed are the meek…

a.  Rick Warren would say, “Meekness is not weakness, but the power of your potential under Christ’s control.”

b.  The concept of meekness describes a horse that has been broken.  We can either surrender to Christ and invite the breaking, or remain the undisciplined and wild stallion.

c.  Grieving over sin and suffering grows meekness in us and delivers us into a humble learning posture (disciple means learner).

4.  Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…Spiritual hunger and thirst is the growing desire to be empty of those things that don’t reflect God, and initiates a deep longing for wholeness in our lives.

5.  Blessed are the merciful…

a.  Mercy is entering into another persons feelings – attempting to see things from another person’s perspective – all with understanding AND acceptance…just like Jesus has done for us.

b.  As we receive God’s mercy we begin to give mercy – to ourselves and to others.

6.  Blessed are the pure in heart…

a.  Mercy cleanses our heart and restores purity to our lives.

b.  Did you know that your (spiritual and emotional) virginity CAN be restored?

2 Cor 11:2For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy; for I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin.

7.  Blessed are the peacemakers…

a.  Purity gives way to a personal serenity and peacefulness.  Peace is not the absence of conflict, but the absence of anxiety in the midst of inevitable conflict – and when others encounter it, they want it too.

b.  Our Western concept of peace needs to be considered in the light of the ancient Hebrew concept of peace, which is SHALOM — and means more than our limited understanding of peace (i.e., the lack of conflict).

Biblical SHALOM speaks of a universal flourishing, wholeness and delight; a rich state of affairs in which natural needs are satisfied, natural gifts a fruitfully employed — all under the arc of God’s love. Shalom is the way things ought to be.

Neal Plantinga – “the webbing together of God, humans, and all creation in equity, fulfillment, and delight.”

c.  There is a difference between a peacemaker and a peacekeeper.

To be a peacemaker does not mean peace at any cost.

Peacekeeping creates a false peace.

Many of us live out our lives with this false peace and say nothing or do nothing to change it—in churches, homes, work places, and our marriages.

Examples:

(i)  A family member makes a scene at a family gathering.  It embarrasses you, the rest of the family, but you say nothing.  You keep the peace because to go there would unearth a lot of stuff that you just aren’t willing to deal with.

(ii) Your spouse makes insulting remarks to you or humiliates you publicly through critical tone of voice.  It grates on you.  But you keep silent because you want to keep the peace.

d.  We struggle with this false peace because the conventional wisdom of the day is that its better to keep the peace than to make the peace and there is a very real difference.

e.  Keeping this false peace insures that real issues, real concerns, and real problems are never dealt with.

f.  A façade, or veneer, of peace in that there is calm but the reality is the tension is still there.

g.  True peacemakers will challenge and disrupt the false peace.

h.  Jesus didn’t have a problem disrupting the false peace of his day.

i.  The whole history of redemption, climaxing in the death and resurrection of Jesus is God’s strategy to bring about a just and lasting peace between rebel man and himself and between man and man (Eph 2:14-22)

j.  Colossians 1:19-20 puts it like this,

“For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”

k.  True peacemakers will give people the benefit of the doubt while graciously bringing up concerns

l.  But true peacemakers will deal with what is real.  FIRST IN THEIR OWN LIVES…

m.  True peacemakers will steward the conflict they find themselves in because God will often use conflict to develop things in our lives that are developed in no other way.

8.  Blessed are the persecuted… Living life from a kingdom of God perspective will place us in conflict with those that oppose it (often times it’s “religious” people!).

Without the knowledge of our extreme sin, the payment of the Cross seems trivial and does not electrify or transform.

But without the knowledge of Christ’s completely satisfying life and death, the knowledge of sin would crush us – or move us to deny and repress it. By walking the way of the Beatitudes we hold our depravity and the Cross in a healthy and dynamic tension that will lead to transformation and renewal.

[1] Wayne Gudem, Systematic Theology, p. 713.

[2] “None is righteous, no, not one.” Romans 3:10 (ESV)
“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.” Eph 2:1-2 (ESV)

Change

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Change is hard work.  Looking at the book of Nehemiah (an example of a masterful change-agent) we see he did three initial things

  1. He established a sense of urgency (including identifying and embracing the crises as well as “grace disguised” opportunities)
  2. He created a guiding coalition (in other words he put together a group with enough influence to lead the change and sought to help them work together like a team)
  3. He developed a vision and strategy (asking, “how do we get there from here?”).  Following is a list that has been percolating in me regarding the opportunities to grow to a new place.  What does it take to change?

10 Signs you’re not ready for change:

  1. We believe conflict is a bad thing.
  2. We’re trying to avoid the criticism that comes when we fail — and when we succeed.
  3. We think the surrounding culture needs to think like we do (instead of contextualizing the gospel for them – like a missionary would).
  4. Our lives are too fast and cluttered — and there’s no space to dream.
  5. We value being right over being in right relationship.
  6. We think disillusionment is a bad thing (to have an illusion is to have a false idea).
  7. We’ve stopped asking questions.
  8. We think systems and strategy are the enemy of creativity (remember, we’re invited to live in the tension of Spirit AND Truth).
  9. We’re expecting to receive credit for our ideas.
  10. We think we’ve already arrived.

The Discomforting Comfort of Turning to God

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Hebrews 12:14-17

14Pursue peace with all [people], and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.

15See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled;

16that there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal.

17For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears.

Hindrances to True Repentance
Jacob and Esau were the twin sons of Isaac and Rebekah (see Genesis 25:19-34), as well as grandsons of Abraham and Sarah. Esau sold his birthright to his younger brother Jacob for a meal. (The birthright meant eventual headship of the family and a double share of the inheritance.) He also sought for repentance with tears but he could not (allow himself?) get there and was rejected by God. Why? I believe that the writer of the letter to the Hebrews displays deep prophetic insight into Esau’s psyche and identifies specific hindrances to Esau’s repentance. Repentance, is sometimes a last ditch effort to comply with our perception of God’s standards in order to avoid God’s wrath and punishment. However, the above description would more accurately characterize relentance and not repentance. In reality, repentance is one of the grand privileges of the Christian faith. So what is true biblical repentance?

Repentance Defined: not only a turning away from sin, but also a turning to God
In his book The Wounded Heart, Dan Allender records some penetrating yet refreshing definitions: “Repentance is an about-face movement from denial and rebellion to truth and surrender…repentance involves the response of humble hunger, bold movement, and wild celebration when faced with the reality of our fallen state and the grace of God…It is a shift in perspective as to where life is found…It is melting into the warm arms of God, received when it would be so understandable to be spurned.”

These are recorded for us as six specific admonitions:
1. Pursue peace with all people (v.14) – [To run swiftly in order to catch] [Peace — the harmonized relationships between God and humankind, the sense of rest and contentment. The corresponding Heb. word shalom primarily signifies “wholeness:”] Roms 12:18 – If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all [people].

2. Pursue sanctification (v.14) – [Sanctification is to set apart our heart’s and life for God’s purpose.] Esau was rejected by God because he steadfastly refused to serve the purpose of God and instead served his lust for the immediate and the tangible.

3. See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God (v.15) – [Exercising oversight] [The merciful kindness by which God; exerting holy influence upon souls; turns them to Christ; keeps, strengthens, increases them in Christian faith, knowledge, affection; and kindles them to the exercise of the Christian virtues] We are to deposit the grace of God into everybody’s account! Titus 2:11,12 asserts, “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all [people], instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age.”

4. See to it that no root of bitterness springs up – causing trouble and defiling many (v.15) – [Metaphor for extreme wickedness] [To dye with another color, to stain; to defile, pollute, sully, contaminate, soil] Deuteronomy 29:18-20 defines a root of bitterness as, “walk(ing) in the stubbornness of my heart.” Unforgiveness and unresolved hurt &/or anger combine to create a deadly poison. We must take the time to resolve our misunderstandings and differences. (Matthew 18:15-17 identifies the biblical pattern for conflict resolution)

5. Immorality (v.16) — Proverbs 5:9 tells us that in immorality, “you give your vigor to others and your years to the cruel one” (Satan). Hardly worth it for a few moments of sensual gratification.

6. Godlessness (v.16) — Most followers of Christ think they are immune to this admonition, yet we need to ask ourselves this question: Do I invite the wisdom and counsel of God to accompany me as I move throughout my days? Proverbs 3:6 (TLB) tells us, “In everything you do, put God first, and He will direct you and crown your efforts with success.”

Esau found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears. I want my heart to remain soft and pliable before the Lord through humility, honesty, and integrity – quick to identify, confess, and forsake my sins. I want to live my life in grateful surrender to the plans and purposes that God has ordained for my life. I want to experience the blessings of being in right relationship with the King of kings and the Lord of lords through the privilege of repentance! This concept has come to be know as “walking in brokenness and vulnerability.” It is the counterintuitive way of the Christ-follower – and the unlikely route to joy (a chapter title in Allender’s book).

Romans 2:4 – the kindness of God leads us to repentance