More of a Knob Creek guy, myself

As promised on twitter, here are a few thoughts about a particular quip from Mark Driscoll’s sermon of February 20, 2011, the pertinent passage of which which is quoted here in full:

I heard the dumbest testimony I’ve ever heard recently on the radio, and I’ve heard a lot of dumb testimonies. It was so bad, I almost vomited so hard that I almost triggered my airbag. It was literally this: “My life was horribl e and painful, and then I met Jesus and now everything’s perfect.” That’s not true. You didn’t meet Jesus. You met Jack Daniel’s and you are not paying attention to reality. A true testimony is this: “My life was pretty hard and I met Jesus. It’s gotten a lot worse, but he’s worth it and one day I’ll be with him.” That’s a good testimony. Jesus doesn’t fix everything. Jesus just makes the death purposeful. He makes the suffering and the pain and the hardship and the sacrifice meaningful.

In fairness, “perfect” is a strong word, and if we think the testifier means it literally then she’s indeed gone off the tracks and needs some loving correction.  But “perfect”, used conversationally, is almost always meant in a superlative sense: not to indicate actual perfection, but rather perfection by comparison.  If Jesus has truly set me free from slavery and bondage to sin and the devil, if He has truly transferred my citizenship from the dominion of darkness to His own Kingdom, if the God who once was a distant and ominous foe now draws near in brotherly fellowship, if my dealings with others in word and deed are now seasoned with salt and peppered with grace, if indeed it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me, and if these are not mere platitudes but the realities of my daily walk, then might not even the most trying adversity seem like a slice of heaven when compared with what came before?

Not to put too fine a point on it, but is Jesus’ burden so hard and his yoke so heavy that every sinner who comes to Him is made a liar if they are not groaning “some day it’ll be worth it” under its colossal tonnage?

I’ve made variations on this point before, but I think this highlights a hole in the middle of Mars Hill’s understanding of the Holy Spirit: it is His active work within us which enables us to take James 1:2 literally and “count it all joy”, to testify honestly to the world that as we are beset by light and momentary troubles, His strength truly is sufficient, and that by the sufficiency of His grace even a trial embodies His perfection when compared with the death and condemnation which used to saturate us and everything we touched.  Is our only consolation the “one day” when we’ll be with him, or is His kingdom in-breaking even now through the presence and work of the Holy Spirit, who even right now is not only with us but within us?  Am I referencing mere verses to confess, or the narrative elements of our own stories?

None of this, of course, is to say that we should all expect Jesus to grant us immediate and uninterrupted smooth sailing as a quid pro quo of our conversion.  Far from it!  But at the same time, let us be wary of encouraging a congregation to sneer “they are filled with aged whiskey” (a la Acts 2:13) when we could in fact be hearing a testimony to the Spirit’s gracious generosity pouring out wisdom, courage, strength, joy, power, love, and a sound mind (for example) upon those whom until recently spent their entire lives stumbling down the wide road to perdition, dragging the curses of their iniquities every step of the way.  If the theologians in print are correct that the Kindgom is an “already-and-not-yet” reality, that the Church lives today in the “inaugurated eschatological present“, then we must be at least willing not only to give an “amen” when a brother or sister testifies that it is indeed so, but concerned for our own faith if that reality has never leapt from the page into the realm of our lived experience.

So do take up your cross, do not shy away from it, even as it pushes you past what you thought was your breaking point, for you know full well that it is no longer you who bears it, but Christ in you who has already born it for you and now fills you with His Spirit who enables you to bear, believe, hope, and endure.