How to Receive Christ as Lord

Posted on March 9, 2012 by Pastor Foley

Part V of our series on Opening Your Home

In our last post, we explored how receiving Christ is a physical act that changes us spiritually (not vice versa) and the ramifications this has for things like the sinner’s prayer.  One good example of this truth is in Christmas itself: the Word of God become man.  But the consistent witness of Scripture is that nothing has changed.  This is still the way God works and it has significant impact for how we think about the Work of Mercy of Opening Your Home.

In Romans 10:13-15 Paul says that the Gospel always comes with a messenger attached; one’s reception of the messenger is synonymous with one’s reception of the message:

13…for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

14How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”

In the New Testament, the treatment of those feet is regarded as the bellwether response to the message.

Jesus equates himself with the messengers he dispatches.

The one who receives the messenger hospitably and gives heed receives Christ himself. The affirmative response is not, then, mental assent (receiving Christ “into your heart”) but rather hospitality extended to the messenger and the Good News the messenger brings.

As Paul describes it in 2 Corinthians 5:20, “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.” In contrast to the Sinner’s Prayer approach, where the work of intellectual assent is the gateway to fellowship with God, the hospitality model genuinely portrays faith without works. The host’s sole act is opening his or her home widely and warmly to the Christ who stands at the door and knocks. Repentance occurs in the resultant reordering of one’s household to receive, understand, prize, and share the gifts offered by the messenger.

It is in the form of a sojourning stranger totally dependent upon the generosity of those inside the house on which he calls, that Christ stands at the door and knocks (cf. Rev. 3:20). Those who receive him hospitably are promised unimaginable hospitality in return (cf. John 1:12). Christ pledges to open his Father’s house to them (cf. John 14:2). He offers his own life as the guarantee that they will join him as his honored guests and friends (cf. John 15:15). As hospitality scholar Christine Pohl notes, John Chrysostom preached to the early church that while we offer Christ meager hospitality, he offers us lavish, infinite hospitality in return:

We receive Jesus into our homes, but he receives us into the kingdom of his Father; in responding to a hungry person, we take away Jesus’ hunger, but he takes away our sins; we see him a stranger and he makes us citizens of heaven; we give him bread, but he gives us an entire kingdom to inherit and possess…

In Chrysostom’s quote, we catch a glimpse of the “guises” in which Christ comes:

    • In Hebrews 13:2, we learn that Christ often comes in the form of a stranger, so how we receive strangers is how we receive Christ: “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.”
    • Last month we studied the parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25:31-46. In that parable we learned that Christ comes in the form of the brother without food, drink, clothing, shelter, health, or freedom. So how we receive these in the flesh is how we receive Christ in the spirit.
    • In Acts 9:1-4, we read the story of the Apostle Paul, who was first Saul the persecutor of Christians:

1 Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. 3 As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

In 1 Corinthians 12:27, we learn that when a person receives Christ, they become a part of his body. So when Saul is persecuting Christians, Jesus doesn’t say, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Christians?” He says, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

Sum it up and say: Receiving Christ happens first in the body and subsequently, as a result, in the spirit. We receive Christ by receiving his messengers, strangers, and the least of his brothers in the flesh.

Have you received Christ in the body, not only in the spirit?

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Why the Private, Personal “Sinner’s Prayer” is Completely Unbiblical

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Pastor Foley

Part IV of our series on Opening Your Home

Becoming a Christian is often described in terms of hospitality—e.g., “accepting” Christ or “opening your heart” to Christ. We read in Revelation 3:20, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock,” and we add in the words, “at the door of your heart.”

The whole transaction is described as a private, personal experience—the “sinner’s prayer.” Here’s a sample version from www.sinner-prayer.com:

“Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner. I believe you died for my sins and rose again. Please forgive me of my sins. I am trusting you, and you alone, to take me to Heaven when I die. Thank you for saving me. In the name of Jesus I pray, Amen.”

In fact, people praying this kind of “sinner’s prayer” are often told to pray it “with every head bowed and every eye closed” so that the individual can focus completely on what is happening inside.

The problem is, such a concept is absolutely, completely, emphatically unbiblical. Nowhere in the Scripture is accepting Christ portrayed as something that happens privately, in your heart.

Remember the spirit/soul/body diagram? In the Bible, the way that you receive Christ into your spirit…is to receive him bodily. We receive Christ by hosting him and those who he sends in the real, live, flesh and blood world. (Remember: Christianity is a physical religion!) The Bible makes clear that if we do not accept Christ “in the flesh,” we cannot accept him “in the spirit.”

If we wanted to do a biblical “sinner’s prayer,” we’d do it something like this: We’d shake the person and tell them to keep their eyes open and say to them, “Now, stay awake! Be ready! You do not know the hour or the day he is coming. Stay awake! Be ready! For the Lord will be visiting you soon!” And through the Scriptures we’d show them the “guises” the Lord most often travels in, and the messengers he most often sends in his name, and we’d say: “Now keep an eye out for such, for to receive them is to receive the Lord personally. The Lord will be coming to you soon; be ready to receive him!”

In other words, receiving Christ is a physical act of hospitality that changes you spiritually, not a spiritual act of will that changes you spiritually.

Last week we talked about prevenient grace—how God surrounds his creatures moment by moment with his love, wooing them and creating within them the capacity to respond to him even through their spirits are dead and enslaved to sin. Well, the grace of justification is an extension of that prevenient grace. Christ comes to us “from the outside in,” and we are enabled to receive him, in real life, in the real world.

That’s what happened at Christmas: Christ came in the flesh! He didn’t come into the world through the spirit, but through the body. And it is the consistent witness of Scripture that this is the way Christ still comes to us today.

Are you awake and ready for the Lord’s visit today? You sure?


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The Host-Like Grace of God

Posted on March 5, 2012 by Pastor Foley

Part III of our series on Opening Your Home

In our last post, we noted how the central story of the Bible is God’s hospitality.  We concluded that post by pointing to Romans 1:18-23 which teaches us that God’s hospitality is apparent in nature as well.

The knowledge of God in nature (e.g., the sunshine, the rain, our ability to live and move and breathe) is called natural theology. But it is not only God’s goodness in nature that shows his hospitality. It is his all-around goodness (God shows his love and care to all humans, not just those who believe in his son, Jesus) that comprises his hospitality.

When you think about it, God answers a lot of prayers, not just those of Christians. And he does a lot of miraculous things for people who do not know (or who do not love) Jesus.

We have a name for this hospitality of God—the host-like grace of God that he shows to all human beings, which often gives us an awareness of God even before we come to see that we are sinners and Christ is our savior. We call this prevenient grace. 

Here is how The United Methodist Book of Discipline (2004) defines prevenient grace:

 …the divine love that surrounds all humanity and precedes any and all of our conscious impulses. This grace prompts our first wish to please God, our first glimmer of understanding concerning God’s will, and our ‘first slight transient conviction’ of having sinned against God. God’s grace also awakens in us an earnest longing for deliverance from sin and death and moves us toward repentance and faith.

God’s prevenient grace is what makes it possible for us to respond to his grace in Christ. Remember: because of original sin, there is no good thing in us—our spirits are born dead and captive to sin. As a result, we would have no way to respond to his grace unless he showed us grace from the “outside in”—God’s hospitality which we can see in the goodness of creation, and God’s goodness to us even in the depths of our sin.

Prevenient grace is what makes it possible for us to respond to God’s offer of grace, even when our spirits are incapable of hearing or sensing him inwardly.

Which is why this month, as part of hearing and doing the Work of Mercy of opening our homes, .W Church is singing Charles Wesley’s hymn “Sinners, Turn: Why Will You Die?”

Charles wrote hymns not just for singing but also for learning theology. He wrote them to be used as “daily devotionals.” That’s why his hymns have so many verses! So I want to commend this hymn to you to learn and sing.

Think deeply on the theology. This is God the host speaking, through creation and through his consistent, persistent good to all human beings. His question: Sinner, why do you insist on clinging to sin and death when you can see evidence of my hospitality all around you?

Sinners, turn: why will you die?
God, your Maker, asks you why.
God, who did your being give,
Gave Himself, that you might live;
He the fatal cause demands,
Asks the work of His own hands.
Why, you thankless creatures, why,
Will you cross His love, and die?
Sinners, turn: why will you die?
 
God, your Savior, asks you why.
God, who did your souls retrieve,
Died Himself, that you might live.
Will you let Him die in vain?
Crucify your Lord again?
Why, you ransomed sinners, why,
Will you slight His grace and die?
 
Sinners, turn: why will you die?
God, the Spirit, asks you why;
He, who all your lives hath strove,
Wooed you to embrace His love.
Will you not His grace receive?
Will you still refuse to live?
Why, you long sought sinners, why,
Will you grieve your God, and die?
 
Let the beasts their breath resign,
Strangers to the life divine;
Who their God can never know,
Let their spirit downward go.
You for higher ends were born,
You may all to God return,
Dwell with Him above the sky;
Why will you forever die?
 
You, on whom He favors showers,
You, possessed of nobler powers,
You, of reason’s powers possessed,
You, with will and memory blessed,
You, with finer sense endued,
Creatures capable of God;
Noblest of His creatures, why,
Why will you forever die?
 
You, whom He ordained to be
Transcripts of the Trinity,
You, whom He in life doth hold,
You for whom Himself was sold,
You, on whom He still doth wait,
Whom He would again create;
Made by Him, and purchased, why,
Why will you forever die?
 
You, who own His record true,
You, His chosen people, you,
You, who call the Savior Lord,
You, who read His written Word,
You, who see the Gospel light,
Claim a crown in Jesus’ right;
Why will you, ye Christians, why,
Will the house of Israel die?
 
Turn, He cries, ye sinners turn;
By His life your God hath sworn;
He would have you turn and live,
He would all the world receive;
He hath brought to all the race
Full salvation by His grace;
He hath not one soul passed by;
Why will you resolve to die?
 
Can ye doubt, if God is love,
If to all His mercies move?
Will ye not His Word receive?
Will ye not His oath believe?
See, the suffering God appears!
Jesus weeps! Believe His tears!
Mingled with His blood they cry,
Why will you resolve to die?
 
Dead, already dead within,
Spiritually dead in sin,
Dead to God while here you breathe,
Pant ye after second death?
Will you still in sin remain,
Greedy of eternal pain?
O you dying sinners, why,
Why will you forever die?
 
What could your Redeemer do
More than He hath done for you?
To procure your peace with God,
Could He more than shed His blood?
After all His waste of love,
All His drawings from above,
Why will you your Lord deny?
Why will you resolve to die?
 
Turn, He cries, ye sinners, turn;
By His life your God hath sworn,
He would have you turn and live,
He would all the world receive.
If your death were His delight,
Would he you to life invite?
Would he ask, obtest, and cry,
Why will you resolve to die?
 
Sinners, turn, while God is near:
Dare not think Him insincere:
Now, even now, your Savior stands,
All day long He spreads His hands,
Cries, you will not happy be!
No, you will not come to Me!
Me, who life to none deny:
Why will you resolve to die?
 
Can you doubt if God is love?
If to all His vowels move?
Will you not His Word receive?
Will you not His oath believe?
See! the suffering God appears!
Jesus weeps! Believe His tears!
Mingled with His blood, they cry,
Why will you resolve to die?
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