What does it mean to live a life worthy of the gospel?

I’ve been chasing that question for about two months now. Some journeys take longer than others. There is simply too much to see.

I’ve been reading through Philippians but haven’t made it much past 1:27. That verse begins with the admonishment to “live in a manner worthy of the gospel.”

So, what does that mean? A similar question is: “What does it mean to be a Christian?”

Here’s why the questions are so important: There are people in the world who appear to be genuinely good people. I’m thinking of two as I write this. One is a Frenchman, Charles, who was the overnight manager at the hotel in which we stayed our first two nights in the UK. The second was a Thai waiter at a restaurant in the city near where we live. He went beyond service to helpfulness. These types of people deserve an answer to why their “goodness” isn’t good enough.

The first thought I had was, “What makes me better than them?” Immediately God reminded me there are no “good” people in the world.  A rush of Scripture verses flooded my mind reminding me and reprimanding me that I am not better than anyone: “There are NONE righteous, no not one…no one seeks for God” (Rom 3:10-11); “For ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23); “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience – among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Eph 2:1-3).

The reality is that EVERY person who has every lived and will ever live stands squarely in the sites of God’s judgment. God is a good and benevolent God, yet a more accurate reading of the Bible forces one to deal with the reality that God is also a righteous and just God who is perfectly holy and requires perfect holiness.

God quickly reminded me that it was by His grace (Eph 2:4), through faith He granted that I have the opportunity to believe in what Jesus has done (Eph. 2:8), which was to satisfy God’s penalty for sin by being a perfect and righteous sacrifice (Rom 3:21-26). I contributed nothing but sin. He contributed perfect righteousness. Martin Luther called it “The Great Exchange.”

There is a path near my house that leads to the open area I often walk. The path is often mucky because of water runoff. Decomposing leaves contribute to the mess. Life is like that path. It is mucky. We experience disappointment, hardship, broken relationships, lost jobs, financial ruin, unmet expectations, etc., but these are actually byproducts of our greatest problem, which according to the Bible, is our separation from God. There is no hope that the mucky paths of life lead anywhere except to God’s judgment apart from Jesus. But it doesn’t have to.

So, what does it mean to be a Christian? I’ve settled on two things.

First, it means to glorify God. (Notice I didn’t say removal from the mucky path!) That’s what we were created for anyway. We were created to have fellowship with God, enjoying His presence and glorifying Him as infinitely worthy of our praise. As enemies of God we can’t do this, but once He grants salvation and restores for us what He intended from the beginning, then we are free to praise Him and make Him known to others walking life’s mucky path if they will turn from sin and believe in Jesus.

Second, as a Christian it means living in the reality that this world is NOT our home. I’ve met way too many Christians who talk about eternal life, being sojourners in this world, heavenly mansions, etc., yet live like this world is their destination. They cling to the materialism of this world and try to anchor their hearts to something tangible. We want to stop in the muck. I’ve been there. God has graciously taught me that my heart does want to anchor to something tangible, but that tangle thing MUST be unwavering confidence in the finished work of Christ that looks forward to the reality of delivered promises (Hebrews 11:1).

The mucky path near my house eventually opens into a field ringed with wild blackberries and gorgeous views of the countryside. Every living person is traveling the mucky path of life. However, a life worthy of the manner of the gospel ought to be a life lived in the recognition of our calling to glorify God (including sharing His glory with others) while looking forward to open the spaces that lie ahead.

I returned Saturday night from the States to wake to a beautiful day – a rambling kind of day – Sunday morning. After sleeping off jet lag…sort of….the three of us set out for a walk through the “Chalk Hills” that are behind our house. Here are some images from the ramble. Sorry, kinda heavy on pics for grandparents.

I’ll never forget the moment the earthquake hit. It was 2:30 pm.

Jim, the photographer with whom I traveled, and I had been catching naps recovering from a 14 hour bus ride that took us  overnight up to and over a 16,000 foot rise in the Andes Mountains with several 1,000 foot drop-offs along the route (I was totally under the influence of Dramamine so fortunately don’t remember most of that ride). We each had cots that amounted to pallets with a sort of mattress tossed across them. Jim had just risen and asked what time it was. As soon as I said “2:30″, the adobe block hotel we were in deep in the Cotahuasi Valley (Peru) began shaking like a rail car run off its tracks. We bolted down the steps and into the courtyard to see the mountains around us exploding. Boulders the size of houses tumbled like pebbles down the slopes.

Looking up, we could see the switchback road – our only way in or out of that remote valley – was covered in landslides from the top where it crossed the ridge to nearly a 1,000 feet below where it entered the village. The valley took extensive damage but fortunately there were no fatalities. Eventually we were able to finish the assignment.

I recently found some pictures from that trip and they are below. None in the way of the earthquate damage, but some from the rest of that trip. We were reporting on a group of volunteers who were backpacking across the mountains  showing the Jesus film in remote villages. Since we were so close, Jim and I slipped away at the end of that coverage to grab some stock images from Machu Picchu, an ancient Inca holy place for indigenous Andeans. Enjoy.

My cynicism kicked in as I settled into my seat in the balcony of All Souls Church, London. Before arriving in the UK many people told us how post-Christian Europe and Great Britain are so I really didn’t expect to hear a gospel-centered message from the pulpit of a 160-year old church.

“The only way to have the gates of heaven opened to us,” said the speaker about two minutes into his sermon, “is to confess to God that we are sinners under God’s judgment and in need of God’s mercy.”

I about fell over the railing. “Are you kidding me,” I thought. “So much for teaching that amounts to moralistic therapeutic deism.”

Rico Tice, All Souls Associate Minister of Evangelism,  then spent the next 30 minutes preaching from Luke 15:1-10 rightly sizing up what ills humanity (sin that separates us from God) and made some provocative statements:

“Christianity is for bad people.”

“There has been a shift in the way we think about sin. Sin has gone from evil against God to crime against people to sickness against self.”

“Religion is man’s attempt to reach up to God while Christianity is God reaching down to us and finding us.”

“We are catastrophically lost in sin and can do nothing to save ourselves.”

“We remain incomprehensible to ourselves” [quoting Blaise Pascal, in the context of one who is lost and doesn’t comprehend their spiritual condition.]

“God loves us in spite of our self-centeredness.”

I would expect to hear such a sermon from John Stott, one of the great minds of the 20^th Century and recognized as one of history’s great theologians. Dr. Stott is 90 years old now and living in a nursing home, so I anticipated there might be a drop off in the intensity of the gospel-centered preaching he brought for more than 30 years from All Souls pulpit. However, there in the heart of London, next door to the BBC (British Broadcasting Corp), blocks from Buckingham Palace, 10 Downing Street and Parliament, Christ was being exalted as man’s only hope for reconciliation with God.

What’s more is that All Souls is a true picture of The Church universal. There is an African and an Asian on staff in prominent positions and more than 30 nationalities represented in its membership (See Revelation 5:9 and 7:9). The church is engaged in worldwide ministry and missions.

So, if you’re passing through London on a Sunday, I recommend a stop at All Souls. Feel free to leave the cynicism at the airport.

Several months ago I roomed with a Brit during a conference. It was then I received my first language lessons in English.

“When you go hiking it isn’t called hiking, it is called rambling,” he said. “You go out for a ramble.”

I had just finished a “ramble” the next day when he saw me and asked what I’d been doing. “Rambling about,” I offered with my finest redneck British accent.

“No!” he shot back. “You Americans are all alike. Rambling is hiking. Rambling about is talking incessantly, which I’ve gathered you are quite prone to doing.”

More humored than offended, I decided that at least now I’d have a clear understanding of the difference between the two words. Now that I’m on British soil I’ve officially begun to ramble (although those I work with -- including my most recent former colleagues -- will no doubt know that I  quite often ramble about!). I’m a Rambling Man (Okay, had to work that in so I could link to one of my favorite Allman Brothers songs).

Now that we’ve moved into our house, I have countless places to ramble. The image above is taken from a hillside looking back toward our dwelling, which is hidden behind the trees. The cool thing about all this property is that it is private, but there are public pathways that cut across all of it. About two miles from our house up the hill is a church whose bells echo through the valley on Sunday mornings. I’ll post pictures of that church when I: A) find a way up to the thing and; B) get in shape enough to get all the way up the hill.

In the meantime, here are a few images of signs along one of the pathways.