Chill Out

Although I haven’t done the maths, these are probably my second and third most-used words at the moment.* As I support students in Christian Unions, I seem to say it a lot. But occasionally people misunderstand what I mean, to the extent that I might be getting a reputation as a liberal, or lazy, or both. So here’s what I mean.

This isn’t about just telling students to calm down a bit, although they sometimes need to. Think about what people usually mean when they say "chill out." They usually mean stop caring, abandon your responsibilities and think about yourself more. But that’s not how Christians should chill out (which is probably why I’ve been misunderstood before now).

No, this is about the gospel. It’s about the awesome, liberating truth that Jesus died in our place so we can be reconciled to the God we rejected. We rebelled against a God who is worthy of infinite glory and honour, and so we’ve committed the ultimate crime. And the ultimate crime deserves the ultimate punishment. So there is nothing we could possibly do to save ourselves. But the brilliant news is, God loves us so much that he has sorted it out. His own Son, the Lord Jesus, willingly dies in our place and took the punishment we deserve. We don’t have to do anything, because there’s nothing we can do! And now we can have a restored relationship with the God we rejected, we’re adopted into his family, and it’s a relationship we can enjoy for eternity.

When I tell a Christian to chill out, I’m saying take everything that means – our changed status, our changed relationship, our changed future – and live your life in the light of it. If we really grasp how the gospel changes reality for us, it will turn things upside down. And it will give us room to chill out.

So “chill out” doesn’t mean it’s OK to be lazy. But it means there’s nothing we can do to earn our forgiveness or work our way into God’s good books. So we don’t have to slave away as God’s servants; we can joyfully serve him as sons and daughters.

“Chill out” doesn’t mean stop reading the Bible or praying. But it means that, through God’s grace in Jesus, we can have a restored relationship with the God who made us. So reading God’s word and speaking to God should be an exciting, joyful prospect, not a chore.

“Chill out” doesn’t mean forget about doctrine. But it means that there is space for differences of opinion. There is room to be generous as we work through the issues that diverse brings up, because we have a solid truth to stand firm on as we do it.

“Chill out” doesn’t mean don’t bother with holiness. But it means that we are made holy and blameless through the death of Jesus on the cross – we need to trust in his obedience, not ours. And when we slip up, we can go back to him for forgiveness. There is always more grace.

“Chill out” doesn’t mean don’t bother with evangelism. But it means that salvation is a gracious gift from God. We can’t save ourselves, and we can’t save anyone else. So as we do our part in sharing the gospel with people who don’t know Jesus, we can trust God to do his part in rescuing people.

Got it yet? Basically, “chill out” doesn’t mean stop being so Christian. It means be more of one – make it all about Jesus and hold on to the gospel. He said himself, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” So you can chill out.


*NB: #1 is hopefully grace.

Never Let the Gospel Get Smaller!

I guess it's a bit cheeky nicking entire blog posts, but I LOVE this from John Piper. I think out of everything I've learned from the guy, this emphasis is probably the one which has affected me most, and it's one I try to get across to students whenever I can. Anyway, it's brilliant. Print it out and stick in on your fridge!

Here is a simple exhortation that I have been trying to implement in our family:

Seek to see and feel the gospel as bigger as years go by rather than smaller.

Our temptation is to think that the gospel is for beginners and then we go on to greater things. But the real challenge is to see the gospel as the greatest thing—and getting greater all the time.

The Gospel gets bigger when, in your heart,

* grace gets bigger;
* Christ gets greater;
* his death gets more wonderful;
* his resurrection gets more astonishing;
* the work of the Spirit gets mightier;
* the power of the gospel gets more pervasive;
* its global extent gets wider;
* your own sin gets uglier;
* the devil gets more evil;
* the gospel's roots in eternity go deeper;
* its connections with everything in the Bible and in the world get stronger;
* and the magnitude of its celebration in eternity gets louder.

So keep this in mind: Never let the gospel get smaller in your heart.

Pray that it won’t. Read solid books on it. Sing about it. Tell someone about it who is ignorant or unsure about it.

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel.... For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. (1 Corinthians 15:1-4)

Freed for Freedom

I've just spent most of the day writing an overview of Galatians. It was still pretty rough when I delivered it this evening, although it wasn't bad considering I started from scratch this morning (with a few pointers from Peter). But I'm basically loving Galatians now! I need to spend more time digging into it, but it's been a great reminder of just how brilliant the gospel is, and how stupid it is to trust anything else. Plus it's a real challenge to keep watch for legalism creeping in. It's so easy to start trusting in things which aren't the cross; it might not be as obvious as obeying the Old Testament law, but we can easily invent a million other kinds of law to put in it's place...

One particularly striking bit is the barney Paul has with Peter. Peter is behaving badly by separating himself from the Gentiles (non-Jews) when his Jewish mates come to visit. Paul goes ballistic, although it leads to some quality insights about being justified (or 'made right with God') by faith. But I think what makes it worse is his hypocrisy (2v13). Peter doesn't believe that he needs to separate from Gentiles for theological reasons - most of the time he eats with them. But when people are looking, he changes his behaviour to please them.

I started to wonder - do I do that? Do I act in ways which don't fit with the gospel, just to keep other people happy? And do I condone other people doing it, when I should be challenging it like Paul did?

Paul challenged it because it was really, really important. By moving to a different table, Peter was doing more than just disrespecting the Gentiles. He was effectively saying that the rules were more important than the gospel, and that the cross isn't enough. No wonder Paul went crazy. Maybe I should go crazy more often?!

You can look at the overview here if you want to.