Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream

DCC Family,

To keep my column in line with the purposes of our church, I decided to dedicate it to sharing with you great books I’ve read and think you’d like as well. Each month, I’ll choose a book I believe would encourage, challenge, or build you up spiritually then write a short review summarizing the high points. Followers of Jesus never stop trying to grow more into His likeness, and I’m excited to share with you some of the tools I use to seek Christ.

For the first book, I’ve chosen one you’ve heard me mention often lately. We will be offering a study of this book as part of our Wednesday evening lineup starting in January.

Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream
Dr. David Platt

(Currently $6.46 on Amazon.com)

“Jesus commands us to go. He has created each of us to take the gospel to the ends of the earth…anything less than radical devotion to this purpose is unbiblical Christianity.” (p. 64)

In Radical, the author (Dr. David Platt, a senior minister from Birmingham) shows us the “blind spots” in American Christianity that keep so many of us from following the real Jesus of the Bible. The entire book is blunt and challenging, so I don’t recommend reading it if you’re not serious about growing in your Faith. He writes with a no nonsense approach to Scripture, making it a hard book to ignore.

The first half of the book exposes the subtle yet terrifyingly effective traps Satan weaves into the American Dream to keep Westerners from fully believing and doing all that Jesus died for. Clearly stating the difference between the two, he writes: “While the goal of the American dream is to make much of us, the goal of the gospel is to make much of God.” (p. 47)

Platt also shines the spotlight on the way we pick and choose among Jesus’ commands. For

instance, we treat ministry and mission work as something to which He only “calls” a select few, but then we’re quick to claim and obey the command to “Come to me, all you are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” We pretend the Great Commission is only for varsity believers, while promises of abundant life were intended for everybody.

To maintain urgency, the second half of the book gives alarming statistics about the thousands of people who die every day, launching off into a Christless eternity while many of us are content to do nothing. “We leave worship to spend thousands of dollars on lunch…meanwhile the poor man is outside our gate. And he is hungry.” (p. 114)

The challenge then becomes clear: are we willing to forsake everything for the advancement of the gospel (Mark 10.28), or would we rather build our own Kingdom here on earth (Matt 6.19)? This book seeks to keep us all away from the lukewarm faith Jesus attacked in Laodicea (Rev 3.14-19). The author does so by simply reminding us of the Great Commission:

“A community of Christians each multiplying the gospel by going, baptizing, and teaching in the contexts where they live every day. Is anything else, according to the Bible, even considered a church?” (p. 106)

At Your Side,

-bill

Other Books Like It:

Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger

The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience (I have not personally read this book)

I’m Not Very Spiritual

I’m not a very spiritual person.  To people who know me, that’s not a surprise.  When others say things like, “I’m spiritual but not religious,” or “I’m sorry I can’t be there, but I’ll be with you in spirit,” I don’t know what they mean. 

Don’t get me wrong: I’m completely crazy about Jesus and do everything within the Power of Grayskull to live for Him.  But, I still feel like a regular joe experiencing life one day at a time, working to find contentment in everything God sends my way.  Looking back over this year, it stands out to me that I’ve said and/or thought something along the lines of, “I’m loving life right now” more times than in any other year since we lost my sister in 2005.  Maybe the Realty of a reunion in Heaven is becoming that much more…realistic to me.  I don’t think that makes me spiritual, but it does make me happy.

So, in the spirit of holiday thankfulness, I thought I’d compile a random, probably-half-completed, no-specific-order kinda list of the (mostly) unspiritual things that have brought me the greatest amount of happiness during 2010.  Here they are:

My wife.  Pepsi Max.  Watching the Colts win.  Watching the Colts lose (anything with a Blue horseshoe makes me happy).  Wrestling with my son.  Bacon.  Wearing my uniform.  Books on the culture’s rejection of irrelevance.  The Office.  Tickling my baby boy.  Madden and LOTRO.  Reading Dan Brown books.  Calling Dan Brown a heretic.  Tuesday mornings with a good friend.  Friday nights with a hot wife.  Little Debbie.  Going deeper in God’s Word.  Droid, ping.fm, and Google.  Jesus-lovers who want what I want.  The Smokey Mountains.  Medical insurance.  3 Musketeers (lots of them).  Fires.  Seeing new Believers come on fire for Jesus.  Criminal Minds.  Podcasts.  Spending money on my wife.  Spending money on my niece. Third Day, Brad Paisley, & Bob Seger. Lemon cake.  Mom & Dad.  CS Lewis.  1st Timothy.  Groundhog Day.

Make a list of your own.  It doesn’t have to be “spiritual.”  Most of us don’t even know what that means anyway.  Just graciously give credit where credit’s due. (see James 1.17)

“Yet true godliness with contentment is itself great wealth.” –1 Tim 6.6 (NLT)

What is the “Sabbath”

 

The concept of a Sabbath, or a day or rest, comes from the Bible’s teaching on and use of the word “yisbot” (יִּשְׁבֹּת), which literally means “cease”, “rest” or “desist.” In Jewish tradition, it came to be defined as the period of time beginning at sundown on Friday and ending with sundown on Saturday.

 

 

 

Brief History of the Sabbath

The first time we see a biblical Sabbath/rest is in Gen 2.2-3[1]. These opening verses show us God’s expectation that we use this day to celebrate His two greatest acts: Creation and Redemption. Celebrating these two divine accomplishments provide the purpose and meaning for the Sabbath.

Genesis 2:3 (NLT)
³ And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy [Redemption], because it was the day when he rested from all his work of creation [Creation].

Celebrating Creation (Ex 20.11) and Redemption (Deut 5.12-15, esp. 15) continue as the two “twin themes” of the Sabbath throughout the Old Testament. It is important to note: the first purpose (Ex 20) is communicated through Israel, while the second purpose (Deut 5) is communicated strictly to Israel. All of the world reaps the benefits of God’s grand and beautiful creative work, but only those responding to him in faith are able to receive the benefits of his redemptive work. (See also Ezek 20.12)
Later, the establishment of a sabbatical year extends the “time-out mandate” to the land as well (Ex 23.10-11). Israelites were only able to farm six out of every seven years—a demanding limitation for an agrarian society of nomads. This would have surely stretched the faith of the entire country and forced them to remember that the Lord who created them was more than capable of redeeming them (see also Lev 25.4; cf. Lev 26.34).
Given God’s intent that his people simply rest and refrain from regular, everyday work (Ex 16.29), the people felt a need to define “work” with the most exacting details. God made the Sabbath by setting it aside (making it different/holy; Ex 20.11), so treating it just like any other day would be an extreme insult to God. Therefore, knowing exactly what constituted “work” became extremely important.[2] Unfortunately, many quickly forfeited the forest by trying to recreate the tree (Isa 58.13-14). In other words, their stringent details aimed at defining work caused them to lose sight of why God created the Sabbath in the first place. Celebrating the Sabbath became an end in itself for the sole sake of pleasing God rather than a simple time of rest and recovery.

Galatians 4:10 (NLT)
¹⁰ You are trying to earn favor with God by observing certain days or months or seasons or years.

Mark 2:27 (NLT)
²⁷ Then Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people, and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath.

 

Jesus and the Sabbath

To this end, Jesus frequently confronted and corrected heretical teachings concerning the Sabbath.

· He was familiar with the Law’s teaching, and operated comfortably within its guidelines (Lk 4.16; Mk 1.21; Lk 13.10).
· The arguments, therefore, always sprung from the Pharisees’ enforcement of a tradition that didn’t stem from biblical mandate. If the Bible didn’t demand it, Jesus wouldn’t allow the Pharisees to do so either. (Mt 12.5-7)
· In particular, Jesus addressed the way in which religious leaders of the day neglected the benevolent nature inherent to the Sabbath so as to elevate their man-made regulations (Mk 3.4-5; Lk 13.16).

 

The Sabbath After the Cross

Neither of the occasions for Sabbath celebration (creation and redemption) ceased to hold value after the Resurrection, so the principle of intentional rest and remembrance still holds true. However, like so many other aspects of the Old Testament/Mosaic Law, the theological mandate toward prescribed behavior was fulfilled in the work of Christ (Mt 5.17; see also Heb 4.1-11).
Therefore, the Christian’s responsibility lies not in specific adherence to a written code, but in a wholesale embrace of all that God created and Jesus redeemed. If one feels most comfortable doing so in accordance with Jewish tradition, he has that freedom (Acts 13.14-16; cf. Gal 2.4). If another accomplishes frequent rest and Christian joy through some other format, she is perfectly within her rights (Rom 14.5-6). The danger we all face is in packaging our personal opinion as a Biblical priority—demanding that others adhere to our preferences (Rom 14.13; Gal 4.8-11).
Let us never forget:

Colossians 2:17 (NLT)
¹⁷ For these rules are only shadows of the reality yet to come. And Christ himself is that reality.

---

[1] After this initial appearance, we have only one additional pre-Sinai (the event/place of God’s giving of the Ten Commandments) mention of the Sabbath (Ex 16.22-30).
[2] For example: Special elevators (called Shabbat Elevators) exist in Israel that allow one to simply walk inside and wait for the lift to automatically stop at her/his floor. No one pushes a button (this would be considered work), so the elevator is programmed to stop at each floor every time someone boards. This feature is only turned on during “Shabbat” (or Sabbath).