Congratulations! You’ve persevered through the three prior posts of these admonitions from Paul to finding the ever illusive path to true Christian joy. I remember well the flood of freedom that swept over me when I first envisioned and understood the importance of becoming a gospel-humble person in my spirit, soul and body, my heart mind and will, borrowing from John Eldredge in Moving Mountains. I’m praying now for even greater revelations for you.
How did Paul get this blessed self-forgetfulness? He does tell us – but we have to look carefully. First he says, ‘I don’t care what you think; but I don’t care what I think.’ In other words, he does not look to them for the verdict nor, does he look to himself for the verdict. Then he says ‘My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent’. The word translated ‘innocent’ comes the word ‘justify’. The word for ‘justify’ is the same one he uses throughout Romans and Galatians. Here Paul is saying that even if his conscience is clear, that does not justify him.
What Paul is looking for, what Madonna is looking for, what we are all looking for, is an ultimate verdict that we are important and valuable. We look for that ultimate verdict every day in all the situations and people around us. And that means that every single day, we are on trial. Everyday, we put ourselves back in a courtroom. But do you notice how Paul says that he does not care what the Corinthians think of him or what any human court thinks? It is odd that he is talking about courts – after all the Corinthians are not a court. He is talking metaphorically, I think. And he is saying that the problem with self esteem – whether it is high or low – is that every single day, we are in the courtroom. Every single single day we are on trial. That is the way everyone’s identity works. In the courtroom, you have the prosecution and the defense. And everything we do is providing evidence for the prosecution or evidence for the defense. Some days we feel we are winning the trial and other days we feel we are losing it. But Paul says that he has found the secret. The trial is over for him. He is out of the courtroom. It is gone. It is over. Because the ultimate verdict is in.
Now how could that be? Paul put it very simply. He knows that they cannot justify him. He knows that he cannot justify himself. And what does he say? He says that it is the Lord who judges him. It is only His opinion that counts.
Do you realize that it is only in the gospel of Jesus Christ that you get the verdict before the performance? The atheist might say that they get their self-image from being a good person. They are a good person and they hope that eventually they will get a verdict that confirms that they are a good person. Performance leads to the verdict. For the Buddhist too, performance leads to the verdict. If you a Muslim, performance leads to a verdict. All this means that every day, you are in the courtroom, every day you are on trial. That is the problem. But Paul is saying that in Christianity, the verdict leads to performance. It is not the performance that leads to the verdict. In Christianity, the moment we believe, God says ‘This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.’ Or take Romans 8:1 which says ‘Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus’. In Christianity, the moment we believe, God imputes Christ’s perfect performance to us as if it were our own, and adopts us into his family. In other words, God can say to us just as He once said to Christ, ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.’You see, the verdict is in. And now I perform on the basis of the verdict. Because he loves me and accepts me, I do not have to do things just to build up my resume. I do not have to do things to make me look good. I can do things for the joy of doing them. I can help people to help people – not so I can feel better about myself, not so I can fill up the emptiness.
With every other form of identity and every other ‘badge’ or accolade we might award ourselves, it is always the case of the verdict coming from the performance. We might find security in labeling ourselves a good person, a free person, a religious person, a moral person. Whatever it is, it is always the same: performance leads to the verdict. But the verdict never comes. Madonna said so, and she should know. Madonna has done things that you and I are never going to do – and it is still not enough. Madonna has heaps of talent, she has tremendous guts. But even Madonna, despite everything she has done, says that she has still not found the ultimate verdict she is looking for. The performance never gets the ultimate verdict.
But in Christianity, the verdict can give you the performance. Yes, the verdict can give you the performance. How can that be? Here is Paul’s answer: He is out of the courtroom, he is out of the trial. How? Because Jesus Christ went on trial instead. Jesus went into the courtroom. He was on trial. It was an unjust trial in a kangaroo court – but he did not complain. Like the lamb before the shearers, He was silent. He was struck, beaten, put to death. Why? As our substitute. He took the condemnation we deserve; He faced the trial that should be ours so we do not have to face any more trials. So I simply need to ask God to accept me because of what the Lord Jesus has done. Then, the only person whose opinion counts looks at me and He finds me more valuable than all the jewels in the earth.
How can we worry about being snubbed now? How can we worry about being ignored now? How can we care that much about what we look like in the mirror?
Let me say a word to those for whom this is all new. You may wished you believed this. Here is what I would say – some people have never understood the difference between Christian identity and any other kind of identity. They would call themselves a Christian, they consider their behavior to be on the upper end of the scale, they go to church and they hope that one day God will take them home. Let me say that Christian identity operates totally differently from any other kind of identity. Self-forgetfulness takes you out of the courtroom. The trial is over. The verdict is in. Perhaps that is new to you. Keep looking. Keep digging. Keep asking questions. There is a lot to discover. I have covered a lot of ground in a short space. There are lots of pieces of the jigsaw to put together – why did Jesus have to die? Why did He rise from the dead? Was He really the Son of God? Keep looking until you understand the whole picture.
But maybe you are in a different position – you believe the gospel; you have done so for years. But … and it is a big ‘but’ … every day you find yourself sucked back into the courtroom. You do not feel you are living like Paul says. You are getting sucked back in. All I can tell you is that we have to re-live the gospel every time we pray. We have to re-live it every time we go to church. We have to re-live the gospel on the spot and ask ourselves what we are doing in the courtroom. We should not be there. The court is adjourned.
Like Paul, we can say, ‘I don’t care what you think. I don’t even care what I think. I only care what the Lord thinks.’ And he has said, ‘Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus’, and ‘You are my beloved child in whom I am well pleased’. Live out of that.
Thoughts & Questions For Reflection
If you are new to Christianity, why not read the Gospel of Mark and ask God to show you the truth about Jesus – particularly His death on the cross. If you know any Christians, perhaps you could ask them to talk to about it.
Or you may use the words of Psalm 139 in prayer. Ask God to show you your heart. Ask him to show you the places you look for self-worth and the ways you try to find your sense of identity.
‘Search me, O God, and know my heart; and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Psalm 139:23,24
Could you explain to someone else how the gospel can (and should) transform our sense of identity? How much do you experience that transformed sense of identity? In what way’s has God’s Word encouraged you or challenged you? Pray about it.
Pray that God would give you what you need to enable you to develop true gospel-humility and the freedom of self-forgetfulness.
In addition, I suggest two of his many books for greater clarity, The Reason For God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, and Making Sense of God : Finding God in the Modern World. Blessings As YOU GO FORTH>>>> Merlin