The Bible exhorts us to obey by leaning into the future grace of God. That is, we obey trusting in the rich and varied and many promises of God that life with him, in him, and following him is qualitatively better than anything that sin could possibly offer. We walk by faith, moving in obedience even when it's difficult, believing that on the other side of obedience, God always promises more life.
And unlike gratitude, it's everywhere in the Bible.
Hebrews 11 is a veritable Sportscenter-esque highlight reel of all the hero-bumbler-faithful ones from the Old Testament who took what often looked from the outside like ridiculous actions of obedience. And over and over and over again, how is their obedience described? By faith, by faith, by faith, by faith...faith in future grace. Consider how the author describes Moses:
By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.
Moses is motivated by faith in future grace. That is, he trusts that the fleeting pleasures of sin pale in comparison to the rich promises of God--he was looking ahead to his reward. In fact, this is highlighted throughout Hebrews 11. These heroes of the OT were not motivated out of a deep understanding of their identity in Christ, not out of gratitude, not by some motivational speaker, but by faith, believing that the promises of God were true and that the One who promised was faithful.
What drove Jesus to the cross? Not gratitude. Faith in future grace: Jesus endured the cross "for the joy set before him." There was a promise of unspeakably glorious things on the other side of that gruesome death. That's what drove Jesus through the dark hours.
Why should we die to ourselves and give up all our rights and fleshly desires? Faith in future grace: "Whoever loses their lives for my sake will find it again." Ever hear someone talk about their summer missions trip? "I went to Botswana, thinking I'd give teach them all this stuff, but I got more out of it then they did." Exactly. Why should we be surprised? Jesus says this multiple times throughout his ministry! On the other side of every death we die for Christ we are promised life. Guaranteed. Put it in the bank. Live and die by it. This isn't Jesus playing games with us. It's a precious promise and a powerful weapon given to us to fight the battle for obedience and against sin.
Why should we share our faith? Fatih in future grace: "I pray that you will be active in sharing your faith so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ." (Philemon v. 6)
Why should we work hard in all that we do? Future grace...and consequences of possible future punishment: Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for his wrong, and there is no favoritism. (Col 3:23-25)
Of course there's hundreds more characters and verses and stories: Daniel and his fiery furnace friends in Daniel 1, Abraham, Joseph, and David; Paul called the Romans to latch onto the reward awaiting them that far outweighed 'this present suffering.'
All this isn't just a bunch of proof-texting, it's more like shooting fish in a barrel (not that I've ever done such a thing). Over and over and over again in the Scriptures we are called to obedience not through gratitude for past grace or even out of a deep sense of who we are in Christ (as important as all those things are) but out of a trust in God's future grace. We trust in God and believe him when he says that life is only in him--or at least we fight to believe it. So we obey recklessly and at all costs in order that we might know real life. Not some health-wealth cheapening of the promises of God (as if our lives only consisted of money and objects) but rich promises of genuine joy, peace, and resting in the presence of God. Ultimately and forever, God is our good. Apart from him, there is no good thing.
Piper calls our obedience by faith in future grace 'enlightened self-interest.' All of us are hedonists--that is, everyone seeks their own happiness. God made us this way. Mother Teresa was a 100% sold-out hedonist--her work gave her much joy. The problem is that we seek our happiness in all the wrong things. We sin because we think it will make us happy. The Bible makes unmistakable and boldly outrageous promises that life with God is simply better than life in sin. Part of the process of discipleship is that we begin to believe the promises by the Spirit and we walk by faith into all those promises, leaning into those promises, finding that God is faithful, even and especially when it's hard. It is only by the Spirit's working out faith in us that we can truly believe that sin is thin, that holiness yields life, a fruitful and rewarding life.
God has so designed the cosmos that his will and our good are the exact same things. He makes us and redeems us to show us his character and his faithfulness--to prove to us his trustworthiness. Then he gives us the Scriptures saturated with promises of life in connection with obedience. And then he says: "Move. Trust me. I've got great things for you."
Let's put it more practically. With the explosion of the internet in the last ten years, pornography has easily become the number one issue among boys to men ages fifteen to fifty. I believe that my life is qualitatively better because I have been porn free (by God's grace) for the last eleven years. Sometimes when temptation comes, I simply remind myself of the deceptiveness of sin ("sin is thin, sin is thin, sin is thin") and the richness of life on the other side of obedience ("holiness is fat"). It is the rich promises of life found in obedience and hooking my faith into those promises that motivate me to stay clean. I believe that my internal thought life, my marriage, my family, my friendships, my work and my relationship with God--that is, all the things that I really value--are more richly enjoyed as I continue to walk porn-free. This is not a one-time thing, it is a continual battle to believe that future grace is worth the wait.
We live our lives as Christians between the two great lines in the old hymn Amazing Grace: 'Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.
Tomorrow we'll unpack more of what this might mean for us in our reading of Scripture and applying it to our own lives.
7 comments:
Ok, I think I see the way through here which will bring together the theological values I'm trying to hit with gratitude and what you're trying to hit with Future Grace.
I'll post on it tonight.
Teaser: Future Grace is a theological concept which points forward, calling us to respond in Faith to God's promises. Gratitude is a theological concept which points backward, calling us to respond in Faith to God's work in History and in our lives. These go together and need each other. And both are aspects of what it means to be motivated in/by Faith.
Also, I suspect that there needs to be a place for Faith in God's present presence.
Then we'd be covering our human chronological bases.
Yes, Macon, that's exactly it. Gratitude for past grace fuels our pressing forward into future grace. In order to make the point, I had to start by slightly going overboard on the 'gratitude isn't it' side in order to re-orient around the future grace side. But obviously gratitude and cultivating spiritual memory (David does this all the time in the Psalms) is what gives us vision and perseverance during hard/lonely/difficult times. Gratitude is an important part of the mix, but not the solitary motivator.
As my good friend Joe Ho once said, 'sometimes in order to correct you have to over-correct.' So I'm aiming at getting folks thinking about how future grace fuels obedience...and clearly past grace fuels that. i was going to clean some of that up tomorrow, but if you'll do it for me, that makes my job a bunch easier and I can talk about some other stuff that pertains to this.
ladies and gentlemen, that's one of the many reasons why i love me some macon stokes. even when we disagree, we end up (mostly) agreeing!
hey, wait! I never agreed to do any heavy lifting around here . . . dang.
and, just so we get this straight: Am I agreeing with you, or are you agreeing with me? Of course, I prefer the latter, though if you want to go with the former, I understand.
"God has so designed the cosmos that his will and our good are the exact same things."
Raises a lot of questions for some of the things that happen in the world . . . slavery, natural disasters, etc. Which leads us to questions about the nature of God's sovereignty. And whose good is it anyways . . . C.S. Lewis notes that what's good to one is not necessarily good to all (i.e. the stone you trip over is the one i don't). We need to clearly define and specify what we're talking about when we say "good" since it's relative from any human perspective.
I can see that God's view of our good is different from our own and it could thus be argued that because of God's eternal perspective his will in fact is equivalent with human good.
Perhaps you could elaborate?
Good comment, Jason. Maybe I can be more specific.
Primarily, I'm discussing our personal decisions of obedience or disobedience and how we understand God's will and action.
In terms of how we think about our life of with God, what I'm asserting here is that we are never 'victims' of God's will. Sin is the dehumanizing agent. God's grace and love re-humanize us, make us whole in any context, no matter what's happening externally. This includes the commands he gives us to obey. God will never call you or send you or give you work to do or put you in a place that is not intended to bless you.
So what I'm talking about here is specifically in relation to obedience. Any time we disobey God, we miss out on his intended blessing that we would have found if we had obeyed. When we disobey, our lives are the worse off for it.
This is a different realm than conversation about natural disasters and other events that God may or may not make happen. I'm no where near ready to take those questions on. What I'm most interested in saying here is that God's commands to us are always for our good, never for our bad, even if we are called to 'give all we have to the poor and follow him' the commands of a good God are always good.
Does narrowing the scope down to our personal obedience help make sense out of my comment?
I'm with you on that. Thanks for the clarification.
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