Soli Deo Gloria

So we've been blogging our way through the reformation and today we tie up the fifth of the 'sola' statements of the reformation.

Soli Deo Gloria

For God's glory alone. So often we want to take centre stage and make it all about us, or we allow other things to take centre stage and Jesus becomes a smaller and smaller focus for us. John the baptiser reminds us that "He must increase and I must decrease" and Paul reminds us "I count everything as rubbish for the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus as my lord" Jesus is the one deserves all glory, honour, praise and worship.

The reformers where reacting against excesses in the church where men where in positions of great authority and power and where themselves collecting glory that was due to God. We still see this today with many ministries named after their founders - it's not about them, it's about God! It's always and only about God and his glory.

Our lives are to be lived to make God look as good as He is. That's the goal. You work? you do it for God's glory as we are reminded to in Colossians 3:23 Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men. You eat food? do it for God's glory: 1 Corinthians 10:31 So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

We bring God glory when we fight against injustice, when we stand up for the truth, when we love the broken and care for the hurting. We bring God glory when we act with grace, show compassion, fight for love and live with integrity. We bring God glory when we witness about his grace, speak his gospel, and live by his power. We bring God glory, when we lead our families, love our children, honour our spouses. We bring God glory when we spend money with wisdom, show generosity and care for the environment.

Our entire life is to be built around that singular focus: bringing glory to God.

Is yours?

Sola Scriptura

We continue with our series on the 5 solas.

The other posts are linked:

Sola Christos

Sola Gracia

Sola Fidei

Sola Scriptura

In reaction to deep seated traditionalism in the Roman Church the reformers said 'Sola Scriptura' - by Scripture alone.

In some traditions like Romans Catholic and Orthodox, scripture has to be interpreted through sacred tradition and in reality tradition holds equal weight to scripture. Out of this one finds abuses such as the veneration of Mary, indulgences, purgatory, the papacy, penance and many other heresies that make it very difficult (if not impossible) for people to understand the grace of Christ.

Whilst tradition has its place, the resultant belief of the Roman Catholics and others is that the Bible has no inherent authority outside of it's interpretation by the Church. That means the authority lies with fallible people and not some external source of clear truth, like the Bible.

The Reformers held that the final rule of faith and life was the scriptures as contained in the Old and New Testaments. Their claim was that there was nothing outside of the Scriptures themselves, read by the insight of the Holy Spirit, that was necessary to interpret and understand them. The Bible is a self revealing book and we don't need anything like tradition to help us understand it. They did not throw out the role of the church, but instead of believing the church to be an infallible interpreter of scripture, rather they believed the church to only be an authoritative interpreter.

There is a big difference.

Strictly speaking this series should have started with this principal as it is the foundation that all the others are built upon. The Bible is all that is needed for the Christian to understand God's revelation, it is the word of God, perfect and unalterable and in it we see God's grace, the need of faith, the supremacy of Jesus and the focus on God's glory alone.

In a wonderful moment in history the reformer Martin Luther, so convinced of this truth, said under threat of death: "Unless I am overcome with testimonies from Scripture or with evident reasons -- for I believe neither the Pope nor the Councils, since they have often erred and contradicted one another -- I am overcome by the Scripture texts which I have adduced, and my conscience is bound by God's Word."

As God's people we need to live by the scriptures alone. It's great to read other books, to hear other information and to sit under good faithful teaching by gifted teachers. But it is the Word of God itself that is our teacher. We have a great privilege since the printing press and even more so now with technology as every one of us has access to God's word and also to a good number of tools that can assist us in unpacking the truths in the scriptures. (see eSword and Logos for two great tools)

So may you learn to love God's word as the truth of God revealed to his people. May you wrestle with it, devour it and, as James reminds us, be doers of the Word and not just hearers. May the Bible become part of you as you seek to know it's author.

Psalm 119:105 Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. It is God's word that will lead us to Jesus and He is all we need and the Bible is the only path to find him.

Sola Fidei

So it's all about Jesus.

We're saved by grace alone.

The way we access grace is through faith and the Reformers said it like this: "Sola fidei" by faith alone.

Grace and faith are inextricably linked as the Bible teaches us Ephesians 2:8–9 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. Faith is by definition faith in the grace of God shown through Jesus death, burial and resurrection from the dead! Put another way: God offers us grace (unmerited favour) that is able to save us and we access that grace by faith in Jesus as resurrected Lord.

What is faith? It is believing in what is unseen Hebrews reminds us. But what does believing mean? Intellectual agreement to doctrinal truth is not enough! The Devil also believes in Jesus, but he does not have faith in Jesus. The Biblical idea of faith is to trust upon Jesus, to lean on him in our times of need, to trust him not only for our eternal destiny but for our lives here and now.

When we have faith in Jesus he gives us all his righteousness and he takes from us all our sin. Paul writes it like this in 2 Corinthians 5:21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. There is no action required of us so that God would make us right. Faith is us believing that Jesus has made us right with the father. We are justified (made legally right) by faith. The reformers where reacting to abuses in the Catholic church where people where able to purchase indulgences, basically pardons for sin, or people were told to venerate long dead saints and receive pardon for sin. That is justification by works - you must do something to be made right with God.

Justification by faith is to have trust that everything needed to make us right with God has been done by Jesus. Faith is absolutely central to reformed thinking and for that matter biblical thinking!

Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. Without faith in Jesus we have no way to please God. In faith everything we do can become pleasing to God. Whether you work in faith, parent in faith, play in faith, relax in faith, discipline in faith, eat in faith, spend in faith, laugh in faith, cry in faith - anything done in faith becomes a pleasing and good thing in the eyes of God.

The Reformers had it right: faith alone!

Sola Gracia

We continue our look at the 5 Sola's of the protestant reformation. The five things that stand alone as key truths of our faith.

Sola Gracia means that we're saved by God's grace alone.

We live in a society that values the individual and calls us to think well of ourselves. The self-help thinking that is commonly held by people tells you that you have the power within you to change yourself, the power within you to affect the world and the power within to find peace and meaning.

But the Bible never allows us to say that. We see in Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? and God, looking at the creation shortly after he had created humankind did not think well of us. The Bible records these tragic words: Genesis 6:5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Wow, that does not bode well for us does it? And perhaps the greatest challenge is that in this age of self-confidence those kinds of texts are really jarring. People don't like to hear they are not worthy of God's love or that they can bring nothing to God that is of any worth.

The point of these texts is that we cannot save ourselves. We simply don't have it in us. We may desire to be saved and we may even desire to be good, but anyone who has tried to hold fast to a simple New Year's resolution knows that it is almost impossible to even get that right!

And so the gospel is the good news that God the Father achieved everything necessary through Jesus death, burial and resurrection to get us in good standing with him and to free us from everything that holds us in slavery including our default desire for sin.

God has done it all. God is the actor in human salvation and we only respond. It's called grace.

Hebrews 10:14 For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

Did you hear that? He has perfected...Jesus does the work in making us perfect before God in heaven!

Colossians 1:20 ...and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

Jesus death is powerful enough to reconcile all things to God the father, that means he will save you too.

Romans 5:10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.

Grace is the life changing truth that God does the work required in saving us and that there is nothing inherently good in us that merits us being saved. And for those of us who through the work of the Holy Spirit recognize our severe shortcomings in the sight of a holy God, this is good news indeed!

It is this truth that we must continue to apply to people's lives in every way that we can. For God does not love good people, but because of his perfect Son, he loves bad bad people, of whom we are of the worst, and that is good news and all world need to hear it!

It reminds me of the words of a song: 'Only by grace can we enter, only by grace can we stand, not by hour human endeavour, but by the blood of the lamb!'

Sola Christos

We are a reformed church and when the Reformation happened the Reformers came up with the 5 solas, sola being Latin for 'alone'.

1. Sola Christos - Christ alone, no saints, Mary or others are need to get to God
2. Sola gracia - grace alone not good works is the means of salvation
3. Sola fidei - faith alone is the way to access all the promises of God not religious rituals
4. Sola scriptura - scripture alone is the final rule of faith and life for the church
5. Soli Deo gloria - For God's glory alone

I thought it would be helpful to blog through these over the next weeks to remind you of the great truths to which we adhere.

Sola Christos - Christ alone

In this day and age we have an obsession with ‘lite’ things that look like the real deal but have half the calories. ‘lite’ beer, ‘lite’ chips there is an obsession with low calorie foods that don’t have real substance so that we can still fit into last year’s jeans and look good on the beach for summer!

Sadly the church has often become Jesus-lite. It may still look like the real thing, but the one person who should be the centre of everything is often conspicuously absent. In fact at a recent service in a mainline church that I attended, I heard Jesus spoken of just twice: once in a scripture reading the other at the end of a prayer. A church without Jesus is NOT a church at all.

Scripture teaches that Jesus is the centre of all things and the fullness of God as Paul reminds the Colossian church Colossians 1:15–17 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

This means that everything we do revolves around Christ. Whether it is preaching up front, teaching children, spending time in rest or working a 9 to 5 job. Jesus is the centre of the life of a disciple.

Jesus is the head of the church and anything that does not point to the head, Christ, needs to be cut out or reshaped into something that is Jesus-full! Too often the church clouds Jesus in all sorts of other things to the point where he is often almost completely hidden. When Jesus is hidden we've lost everything. The Reformation was a reaction against the church taking Jesus out of his role as the only mediator between God and humanity and placing other things or people alongside or sometimes even above Jesus.

We have nothing else to proclaim and nor do we need anything else to proclaim other than Jesus crucified for sin: 1 Corinthians 1:23–24 We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Those looking for truth need us to preach and teach about Jesus. This narcissistic world needs Jesus, not self-serving religion. The hurting need Jesus power and healing, not self-help. The sinner needs Jesus and not do-good moralism. The lost need the Truth and not feel good story telling. Those who are despondent need the work of the Spirit of Christ and not a pep-talk.

Everything we do needs to point people to Jesus and so the writer of Hebrews reminds us Hebrews 12:2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Our job as Jesus leaders, full of the Holy Spirit is to point people to Jesus as John the baptizer did, and we must become less that He might become more. Jesus is everything. He is a treasure of greater worth than anything and when we’re all for Jesus everything else pales into insignificance! Perhaps we might also get to the point that Paul did when wrote Philippians 3:8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ

Jesus leaders should have that kind of passion and priority so that they might lead people to Him!