Along with feeding God’s people, the pastor must correct us when we stray into error. This is where the exhortation to preach the whole counsel of God is so critical. Remember that Paul writes that “all Scripture is … profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” [2 Tim. 3:16] The package of “reproof plus correction” is critical to our understanding of how the pastor contends for God’s people. To offer reproof means to confront error, declaring in no uncertain terms that some particular idea, attitude, or action is wrong. But reproof is insufficient in itself. Reproof identifies the problem but doesn’t clarify the solution. The “Don’t do that” must be followed by, “Instead, do this, and here’s why.”

Indeed, when Paul addressed the Corinthians in the face of their rampant failures to practice self-control, he didn’t stop at “Quit it!” or even merely “Now try this” and so promote mere morality. He began with reproof but then moved on to Christ-centered correction, calling them back to a holy and self-controlled life and pleading with them to recall the grace of Christ. Paul emphatically reminded the Corinthians that they were a people purchased by Christ, that God was at work among them, and that they were to live in light of that truth. He reproved them for their error, but then he also corrected it for the sake of Christ. Faithful pastoring and preaching must do likewise.

Error will certainly try to seep into every congregation, for the world and the flesh and the devil are permanently opposed to the progress of the gospel. The pastor who cannot discern actual error, or who is unwilling both to reprove and correct it when necessary, badly misses the mark. As Paul warned both the Corinthians and the Galatians, “A little leaven leavens the whole lump.” [1 Cor. 5:6; Gal. 5:9] Uncorrected error only leads to greater error among the flock.

Adapted from Contend: Defending the Faith in a Fallen World, pp. 45-46

Earlier this week I reviewed Jared Wilson’s new book, Gospel Deeps: Reveling in the Excellencies of Jesus (you can read the review here). Today, I wanted to share a two quotes from the book illustrating the beauty and confidence that comes from our union with Christ:

Why do some Christians think that to seek our identity in Christ, the way the Scriptures say we ought to, is thinking too much of ourselves? Why are they afraid to trust what God says about them? When God says to his people, “Whoever touches you touches the apple of my eye” (Zech. 2:8), am I to think he doesn’t mean it? In fact, to live in insecurity (or to insist upon it doctrinally) is to side with the accusations of the Devil, whose chief end is to convince us that our sin is greater than our God’s promise to forgive it.

(Gospel Deeps, Kindle location 830)

Union with Christ is a beautiful, inseparable tangle. By God’s grace, through the gift of faith, we are bound up with him and he with us for all eternity. He has hemmed us in; he has us covered:

• Christ is in us. (John 14:20; 17:23; Rom. 8:10–11; 2 Cor. 13:5; Col. 1:27)
• Christ is over us. (Rom. 9:5; 1 Cor. 11:3; Col. 1:18, 3:1; Heb. 3:6)
• Christ is through us. (Rom. 15:18; 2 Cor. 2:14; 5:20)
• Christ is with us. (Matt. 18:20; 28:20; Eph. 2:5–6; 2 Tim. 4:17)
• Christ is under us. (Luke 6:47–48; 20:17; Acts 4:11; 1 Cor. 3:11)
• Christ is around us (that is to say, we are in and through him). (John 14:6; 1 Cor. 8:6; 2 Cor. 3:4, 14; 5:17; Gal. 3:27; Heb. 7:25)

Christ is also before us and for us. He intercedes for us and advocates for us (Heb. 7:25; 1 John 2:1). The gospel so engulfs us in Christ, we are mystically indistinguishable from him, at least in terms of our spiritual state. In Colossians 3:3, Paul describes union as being “hidden with Christ in God.” Because of our union with Christ, we are secured to God and secured from sin, death, and Satan, and all this for as long as Christ lives, which is forever.

(Gospel Deeps, Kindle location 2879-2886)

Here, Wilson helps us see the wonder of what it means to be united with Christ—to see our identity in Christ as something more than a mere label, but something that really ought to shape and transform our lives. The implications are astounding.

If we truly believed that we are “the apple of [God's] eye” (Zech. 2:8), how does that change how we live?

If we truly begin to grasp all the implications of being united with Christ as outlined in the bullets above, what new confidence does it bring to us? How can we do anything else but rejoice?

So often we seem to live with this mindset that if we just had enough faith, our plans, hopes and dreams, would all come true.

But what happens when, despite having a strong and vibrant faith, they still don’t?

Imagine what it’s like for the faithful pastor who desires to make Jesus’ name great in his community and among the people God has entrusted to his care, who preaches the Word of God faithfully and with conviction… but the church doesn’t grow like many say it “should.”

Or the parents who consistently train their children in the faith, yet their kids walk away.

Or the couple that prays for a baby, but infertility persists.

What do we do when “faith” seems to fail?

When this happens, the wisest course of action seems to be to examine the object of our faith—is faith in Christ the means to an end or the end Himself?

When faith becomes a means to improvement, victory, or whatever word you want to use, faith ultimately becomes about one thing: glory.

More specifically, my own glory.

Faith allows me to improve in my character. Faith gives me victory. Faith becomes about me.

But when I’m the point of faith, and Jesus is the means by which I self-actualize my potential, I’m headed for disaster. I love the way Tullian Tchividjian puts it in his new book, Glorious Ruin: How Suffering Sets You Free:

The house of religious cards “that glory built” collapse when we inevitably encounter unforeseen pain and suffering When the economy tanks and you lose your job of thirty years, or when, God forbid, your child gets into a car accident (or is exposed to something damaging). When you simply can’t keep your mouth shut about your in-laws even though you promised you would. When the waters rise and the levee breaks. Suddenly, the mask comes off, and the glory road reaches a dead end. We come to the end of ourselves, in other words, to our ruin, to our knees, to the place where if we are to find any help or comfort, it must come from somewhere outside of us. Much to our surprise, this is the precise place where the good news of the gospel—that God did for you what you couldn’t do for yourself—finally makes sense. It finally sounds good! (p. 47)

The house of cards that human vain-glory built will always collapse under the weight of pain and suffering. Only Christ is sufficient to carry us through trial and difficulty.

Where is our hope? What is faith? Is Jesus the means to an end, or is Jesus the end in and of Himself?

This week I’ve been very fortunate to see a number of kind words come into my inbox about my next book, Contend: Defending the Faith in a Fallen World. Here’s what Owen Strachan and Dr. Peter Jones have to say about Contend:

Contend, by one of evangelicalism’s most promising young writers and thinkers, is exactly the kind of book the church needs in our moment. We are tempted today on every side to be meek as a mouse. Christianity is many things, but it is not—it cannot be—anodyne. Armstrong’s gospel-saturated writing, coupled with deeply instructive practical examples, will equip the church to be as bold as a lion, and to roar as Luther, Calvin, Spurgeon and Machen before us.

—Owen Strachan, Assistant Professor of Christian Theology and Church History, Boyce College; coauthor, Essential Edwards Collection

At a time of great theological confusion and emotional calls to content-less “unity,” a time of politically-correct “can’t-we-all-get-alongism,” here is a balanced and passionate appeal especially to young believers from a young author, Aaron Armstrong, to take seriously their commitment to Jesus in all areas of life, both individually and in community, contending for the Faith, using both their minds and their hearts in defense of the Truth, in the manner laid out by the apostle Jude. May this call be heard far and wide.

—Dr. Peter Jones, Executive Director, truthXchange

Contend is due to be released early next week and is still available for pre-order from Cruciform Press.

When we think about modesty, it’s easy to look at the external—how much is or isn’t showing, that sort of thing. But there’s so much more to modesty than merely the external appearance. Modesty has to do with the heart. I love the way that RW Glenn and Tim Challies put it Modest: Men and Women Clothed in the Gospel:

When it comes to modesty we define the term too narrowly (our first mistake) and then surround ourselves with rules like “only this low,” “at least this long,” “never in this combination,” and “never so tight that _______ shows.” In fairly short order, the gospel is replaced with regulations. Indeed, in this particular area, the regulations become our gospel—a gospel of bondage rather than freedom.

The truth we are missing in all this mess is that the gospel of grace informs and gives shape to what it means to be modest.

Modesty without the gospel is prudishness. Modesty divorced from the gospel becomes the supposed benchmark of Christian maturity—perhaps especially for women—and a perch of self-righteous superiority from which to look down on others who “just don’t get it.” You may find yourself exclaiming disbelief about someone else’s wardrobe: “Can’t she see what she is (not) wearing?”

Modesty, apart from the gospel, becomes a self-made religion that can give some appearance of being the genuine article but that is in the end of no value (none!) in our battle with the sinful and inordinate desires of our hearts. If we reduce modesty to certain rules of dress, we are completely separating the concept of modesty from the person and work of Jesus Christ. As a result, we may have the appearance of godliness, but not a whole lot more.

RW Glenn & TIm Challies, Modest: Men and Women Clothed in the Gospel (pp. 12-13)

Question: How does the gospel inform your understanding of modesty? 

Some people think that anytime a Christian applies the Scripture to life and points out right and wrong, good and bad, do and don’t do, then they’re being legalists. That’s not legalism: that’s wisdom and godly living. That is growing in Christ and holiness, sanctification, the ongoing work of God’s Spirit in the Christian life. Applying the Bible to life is what the Bible calls us to do. . . .

True Christian freedom occupies the great middle ground between license on the one hand, and legalism on the other. Christian freedom is based on what Jesus has done for us (not on what we do or don’t do) and what Jesus continues to do in, through, and for us in making us holy and like Himself. The life of God in our souls works itself out in genuine freedom from the shackles of legalism and the blindness of license, because Christian freedom rests upon the finished work of Christ on the cross and the ongoing work of Christ in sanctification.

Thabiti M. Anyabwile, The Life of God in the Soul of the Church: The Root and Fruit of Spiritual Fellowship