Friday, May 25, 2018

Robotic Repentance


This post is part 2 of what I began earlier, called “An Automated Apology.” This is intended to be a reminder that true religion can never be robotic; that faith is more than intellectual assent and that repentance is more than saying “sorry.” The heart of God has been shown to have moved us-ward, and the only proper response is that our hearts are to be found to moved God-ward.

Let me start with a story, from a different time and a different place. I was serving as a youth pastor, being pretty much a youth myself, and I found myself naively caught in a power play at the church board level. A deacon who ran the church and the pastor decimated me in a board meeting when I presented an idea that the pastor and I had discussed and agreed upon. We were coming to the board for approval, but this board member didn’t like it that he wasn’t given opportunity to veto the idea before the rest of the board heard it. I slunk away that night from that meeting to our apartment, licking my wounds. It was apparent that the offense toward me was real by the fact that another deacon stopped by the apartment that night, and I received a couple of phone calls from others. There was internal discussion, and it was agreed that I should meet with a small group in order for this man to apologize. This never happens. And, this never really happened. Because what he said to me that night was simply this: “I hope I didn’t say anything that you can’t get over.” That was it. No apology. No repentance.

The point of hearing about robotic repentance is that we might consider what true repentance is. It is certainly not a pious act by which we gain God’s favor. It is rather a grace (free gift) that can only be expressed as a grace - a sorriness for our own sin based on a God-given regard for Himself, and a discovery of how hateful that sin is to this holy God. True repentance is the grace by which we find ourselves more in love with Christ than with our sin. It is the side of faith associated with broken-heartedness and contrition. It is the condition by which we are properly humbled even as God, in our hearts and minds, is properly exalted.

Repentance is not merely saying ‘sorry.’ Any robot can be programmed to do that. Any graceless, guile-filled Pharisee can do that. Any 3-year old who wants to make the unpleasantness disappear can do that. We can all do that, and we all have done exactly that - treated our sin like it doesn’t matter, and we sincerely desire that we haven’t done anything that God can’t get over. But we are not to live like robots. Rather, like children of God.

Saturday, May 19, 2018

An Automated Apology


We have all had the experience of being on the phone with “someone” called “customer service.” A common experience would be for the person on the line to apologize for the wait which you are about to endure. In these days when we are becoming increasingly aware that machines are rapidly replacing people, we may come to the realization, as I did, that the apology you just received was automated. It very well have been a digitally produced sound spoken by “no one,” addressed to any old person on the other end of the line (that, by the way, is you), and there is absolutely nothing personal at all in the exchange. It is an automated apology, and the only person who is sorry is you.

We don’t know yet all of which robots may eventually be capable. I read that they are now being desired to provide company for elderly and lonely people. They are coded to respond properly with words of affection, care, and concern. They can offer a loving touch. Oh, except for one thing. They are incapable of affection, care, and concern. And their touch cannot be loving. They are designed to mimic was is truly human. But be sure of this. They are not truly human, and true humanity cannot be mimicked.

But the question that begs asking is this: Do you respond in less than human ways when you apologize? Do you fake your expressions of affection, care, and concern? Is your “loving touch” really something else, something less? In such a case, you are more like an automated machine than a human. But don’t miss this point: While that machine, as machine, is not morally responsible for its actions, you, as a human created in the image of God and thus accountable ultimately to Him, - you are morally responsible.

There may be many things at stake as we progress into our “Brave, New World” (a reference that Albert Mohler makes regularly on this podcast, and an important book to read as its prophetic viewpoint becomes reality in our own day). Even more prophetic would be these words from 2 Timothy: “holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power.” Automated apologies, and the like, are not the product of a powerful Spirit.

And one other note: Is it possible as we begin the act and talk and think like robots (mimicking the very machines that were designed to mimic us), that we think of God in that way as well? Note these verses, and notice the correction that we need: 


Saturday, May 12, 2018

Stooped, but Straightened (Luke 13:10-17)

The little old lady comes into the church building and sits in her usual place. It is, after all, her usual place, because she is there just about every, single Sunday, and she has been there as long as anyone can remember. Young people cannot remember a time when she wasn’t there.

Nor can the young people remember a time when she was not stooped over (after all, she has been this way for eighteen years). If she wanted to look at you in the eye, she would have to turn her head sideways and force her chin up. On a clear night, there is no way that she could see the stars. But she sure knew where the weeds were .

Perhaps our lady in Luke 13:10-17 is even worse off than this. Maybe she is bent double in the shape of an inverted “L.” Our text uses a term for “bowed,” as when the disciples “bowed down” to look in the empty tomb at the resurrection of Jesus. But then this - it was not just arthritis; not just a physiological condition. This affliction was the result of a spirit - “a spirit of affliction."

We have no reason to believe she brought this on herself. She did not deserve this. But cast down she was. Stooped, not only physically, but spiritually as well. And was there more. Perhaps mentally? Emotionally? Many of us who stand up straight can resonate with her condition. 

The psalmist says, “Why are you cast down, O my soul?” I would guess this woman had prayed that prayer. Perhaps she sang this song as well: “When I was sinking down, sinking down, sinking down,  beneath God’s righteous frown, - Christ laid aside His crown - for my soul, for my soul.”We tend to pray these prayers and sing these songs more when we are in a state of thlipsis, of anxiety; of trouble and turmoil; of distress and despair. We discover the depths of God’s love when we can’t look up, but we can only look down.

For this woman in Luke 13, this isn’t the end of the story. Unbidden by her, Jesus touches her, releasing her from this bondage to bent-ness. And then she does what she had always wanted to do. She does what she was created to do. She glorifies God. Not only that, but as the crowds look on, they also rejoice at this glorious thing, that Jesus has a heart for those in despair, bent over by the weight of spirits we do not understand. “Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, The help of my countenance and my God.”

Friday, May 04, 2018

The Abundance of God beats out the Abundance of Me


I recently read a book called “Abundance: The Future is Better than you Think” by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler. They seek to make a case, in contrast to the “gloom and doom” crowd, that, largely due to technological advances, our best days are ahead of us, and we are up to meeting the challenges of poverty, climate, water, disease, etc. While many of the things that they describe are indeed exciting, their motto could be “In Technology We Trust.” 

I was drawn to their use of the word “abundance.” Some have said that you can quickly tell the difference between people who have an “abundance” mentality vs. those who have a “scarcity” mentality. The one is optimistic and opportunistic. The other is pessimistic and on guard against the worst. In that light, we should all have an “abundant” mindset. But not necessarily in the way they think.

From a Biblical point of view,  what is quite obvious to us is that sin abounds. There is corruption of all kinds all around us. It seems as though even the best things of our culture are now tainted with iniquity. And, if we are honest with ourselves, we find that same corruption in our own souls. Yet we read that great verse in Romans 5, “where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” Even though, as Chesterton said, sin “is the only part of Christian theology that can really be proved,” it is the grace of God in Christ that pays the penalty of our sin and breaks the power of sin, so much so, that one day even the practice of sin will be removed from us and we will be removed from the very presence of sin, - it is this abundance which most amazes us.

Once we have discovered that the God of the Bible is a God of abundant grace, then we quickly also realize that His abundance is not limited to His grace. He is also abundant in power. He is also abundant in wisdom and knowledge. He is also abundant in right judgment, but also abundant in mercy. He is the super-abounding God, so much so that the authors mentioned above should be ashamed that they did not have a chapter on this God in a book entitled “Abundance.” They missed the best part.

But let’s address our own selves. We live in great prosperity; in an abundant society. It affords us great security, and we are persistently  and  persuasively tempted to trust in our own abundance rather than in God’s. And when we do that, we are not much different than the authors above, because the abundance of God beats out the abundance of me.