Blogging through the Articles of Religion: OF GOOD WORKS, featuring guest blogger: Tony Ares

Article X - Of Good Works

Although good works, which are the fruits of faith, and follow after justification, cannot put away our sins, and endure the severity of God's judgment; yet are they pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ, and spring out of a true and lively faith, insomuch that by them a lively faith may be as evidently known as a tree is discerned by its fruit.

I have no better words to explain good works than those of my long-distance brother from another mother, Tony Ares.  

The following is an article in it's entirety from Tony's afreshword.org 

Rich Son, Poor Son

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. (‭Ephesians‬ ‭2‬:‭8-9‬ KJV)

One of the hardest spiritual obstacles that Christians have to overcome is the “works based” mindset. Today many so called Christians are going to church, volunteering and giving money in order to get to heaven. They work to get to heaven, instead of working gratefully because of what Jesus did to get them to heaven.

An analogy or metaphor that I have embraced is that of the rich son and the poor son.

A poor son is taught to “grind” because he has to if he wants to be successful. The poor son is defined by his works. If the poor son doesn’t work, he is assigned a room in his private version of hell on Earth. The poor son is dependent on himself and his labor to make it on this planet.

The rich son is born successful. He is taught to work hard not to be successful but to be thankful! He is thankful for the family that he was born into. The rich son is not defined by his works but his family name. (Think Rockefeller, DuPont or Kennedy.) If the rich son doesn’t work, he will disappoint his Father and besmirch the family name, but he will still be in the family and he will still be loved. The rich son works hard because excellence is his identity. The rich son works because of who his daddy is.

We should go to what we call ‘church.’ We should help in the community. We should witness the Gospel. We should give. We should do all of that! We should do that because it’s what a true Child of God does. It is our identity. We should never do those things in order to “make it”.

I was raised in a poor neighborhood. I identify every day with the working class or the poor man. Physically Jesus wants us to be empathetic to the needy. From a soteriological and spiritual perspective though, I am retraining my brain to think of myself as a rich son. Why?

-Cause my daddy in heaven is RICH!

-I am going to heaven, not because of my works but for the family name….Jesus!

I work hard for the family business not to be saved but for the love and appreciation that I have for my daddy!

(paraphrase of Galatians 4:1-7)

Think of it this way. If a father dies and leaves an inheritance for his young children, those children are not much better off than slaves until they grow up, even though they own everything their father had. They have to obey their guardians until they reach whatever age their father set. And that’s the way it was with us before Christ came. We were like children; we were slaves to the basic spiritual principles of this world. But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children. And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, “Abba, Father.” Now you are no longer a slave but God’s child. And since you are his child, God has made you his heir.

- See more at: http://afreshword.org/search/rich#sthash.iD5bPjaC.dpuf

Who Made YOU Mad? or “3 Questions for the Offended”

This is not the post I meant to write today. I meant to get back to blogging through the Articles of Religion, but I had an online exchange with my friend Tony Ares that forced me to do some real self-examination. 

Tony posted something about the debate over the Washington Redskins mascot debate. In our back and forth, Tony referred to the “ 'loud professionally offended' making decisions for all of us.”*  

The comment stopped me.

I started thinking about all the things that bother me today that didn’t bother me a year or two years ago.  I tried to mentally divide my offendednesses** into stuff I didn’t understand enough about to be angry and times when I jumped on the indignation bandwagon.

I couldn’t discern the difference. Not immediately. 

Can you?

Think about the political and social issues and activities that you think need to be outlawed or legalized after all the decades they’ve been whatever they are.

Think about them.

Did you read the book?  Did you then read an equally well researched and written book supporting the opposite viewpoint?

Or did you hear about it on Twitter or Facebook?

If the overwhelming majority of your friends and online followers believed the exact opposite and if you had heard the opposite opinion from all of them FIRST, would you still have the same opinion?  Would you still be offended?

This is important.  How much of your opinion is really YOUR opinion?

For who-knows-how-long, Adam and Eve walked around Eden buck naked and nobody had a problem with it.

And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. (Genesis 2: 25)

Then one afternoon, they did something they’d never done: they put on clothes and hid from God. 

Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.  (Genesis 3: 7, 8)

When God confronted them about this shift in their view of what was socially appropriate in a Pre-Fall society, Adam explained that he and his wife were now offended by their traditional state of primordial nudity. (Genesis 3: 10)

Why? 

“Who in crap’,”  (My paraphrase. You won’t find that phrase in the NIV.)  God asked “Who in crap told you that you were naked? I didn’t say anything was wrong with you being naked.  Why do you suddenly find it ‘offensive’?”

Adam’s response was evasive and embarrassing.  The gist though was that he did not arrive at his new opinion independently.  He had consumed opinion-based media in the form of fruit from the Tree of “Knowledge.”   And this new source of information had him and his wife looking at themselves and each other differently.

Adam and Eve had stopped seeing themselves the way God saw them and started seeing themselves the way a certain serpent saw them. 

Solomon once said, “Do not take to heart everything people say, Lest you hear your servant cursing you.”  (Ecclesiastes 7: 21)   In other words, “If you listen to everything everybody says you’ll find reasons to be mad.”

But some of you think, “Well, if that’s how they feel, then I wanna know.”  (Try to imagine me rolling my neck when I say that.  Better yet, don’t.)

To you who wanna know EVERYbody’s opinion, Solomon points out “Many times, also, your own heart has known that even you have cursed others.” (Ecclesiastes 7: 22) 

Is what they did/ said out loud really so much more offensive than what’s happened in your own heart? (Matthew 5: 20-22)

Who told you to be offended?

Now pause for a minute, because right now you might be absorbing what you think is my opinion instead of examining your opinions.  I am not trying to unoffend*** you.  I’m trying to get you to consider WHY this pisses you off and that doesn’t.  You may have good reasons.

But what if you don't have any reasons?

Christians especially have to be extra conscious and careful about simply copying and pasting the prevailing cultural opinion onto our minds.

Sometimes, popular opinion is right. 

And sometimes it’s not. 

The prevailing opinion during Jesus’ public ministry was that Jesus was either a new prophet or a reincarnated one (Matthew 16: 13, 14) .

The correct answer was something totally outside the mainstream. 

Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16: 16)

How did Peter find the courage to speak such a fringe opinion? 

He faced the 3 questions I have to face and you need to face as well.  They are the 3 questions Tony got me thinking about.  They’re the 3 questions God has been asking His children since the beginning.

The 3 questions come from the Father’s examination of Adam in the Garden and the Son’s examination of the disciples in the gospels.

Who told you that you were naked? (Genesis 3: 11)

Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? (Matthew 16: 13)

But who do you say that I am? (Matthew 16: 15)

The 3 Questions are:
 Who told you?
 What do they say?
 But what do you say?

I’m re-examining what offends  (and doesn’t offend) me by asking myself the 3 Questions.  I pray you’ll do the same. 

 Who told you to be offended?
What do they say to make you feel that way?
But what do you say for yourself?

May your final answer come from the right place.

“Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 16: 17)

And may you be convicted if your answer comes from the wrong place.

But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”  (Matthew 16: 23) 

*(If you’re on Facebook, you can read the post and our exchange here. )

** Yes, “offendedness.” Well, it’s a word now.

*** “Unoffend” is also a word now.  It’s a verb.

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

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THE FIRST NAIL

Brother Tony Ares reviewed the Navy Seals movie "Lone Survivor" on his blog, A Fresh Word .  In one paragraph, Tony compared the Seals' willingness to push through pain to the calling of Christians in the church. 

Tony wrote, "What if Jesus had quit after the first nail?"

WHAT IF JESUS HAD QUIT AFTER THE FIRST NAIL?

The “FIRST nail” meant that the worst thing that had ever happened to Him was going to get WORSE.

It does seem to just get worse and worse, doesn't it? 

The more you forgive them the more the hurt you, huh?

You try so hard to do right, but you can't catch a break. 

Every fool and form of foolishness known to Earth seems to find its way to your doorstep.

Well, guess what?

It's probably going to get even worse than this.

You may have only felt the FIRST nail.

I’m sorry.  That wasn’t the Word of comfort you were looking for, was it?  That wasn’t the declare-and-decree-that-your-haters-can’t-touch-you message you wanted, was it?

Scripture promises victory to the faithful. But Scripture does not promise easy victory.  God does NOT promises that you won’t be wounded, that you won’t suffer.

The weapons formed against you won’t prosper, but they will be formed against you (Isaiah 54: 17).  You have a shield of faith to quench the fiery darts of the devil, which means that the missiles will be launched after you (Ephesians 6: 16).   You will be restored, but restoration necessarily first requires LOSS (Joel 2).

Jesus promised that if we sacrificed for His sake we would receive a hundredfold now in this time—houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions—and in the age to come, eternal life.

The middle of that promise includes an nonnegotiable condition: WITH PERSECUTIONS.

PLURAL. Persecutions.

There will be more than one nail.

But what if Jesus had quit after the first nail?

There would be no empty tomb, no Resurrection Sunday, no glorious Ascension, no Holy Spirit on Pentecost, and no hope of salvation except by living absolutely perfectly according to a law that not even God had been able to fulfill.

What if you quit before the final nail?

You’ll miss your blessing, your breakthrough, your “getting’ up mo’nin’.” 

The nails are not mistakes, they are the marks of your coming glory.  The necessary pain you must go THROUGH to get TO what God wants to make of you.

Don’t quit. 

There’ll be another nail.  But don’t quit.

You may have to hang there for a while.  Don’t give up on God’s plan.

Push through the pain, soldier.  

Pray.  Minister to those who need you.   Prepare others to lead and serve. Forgive them because they know not what they do.  And commit your spirit to the hands of God.

He will raise you up.

And when He does, your nail prints will be a witness to many, and a treasure that Heaven counts as worthy.

That’s how you survive.  That’s how you win.

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Hall Memorial CME Church in Montgomery, Alabama, executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO) and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

To hear sermons, read devotions, and learn more about the ministry at Hall Memorial CME Church, visit www.hallmemorialcme.blogspot.com .

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