Motivated to Obey
This last week Stacy and I had the joy of attending Liberate 2014 in Ft. Lauderdale. It is a conference founded by Tullian Tchividjian and Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church. This year's theme was one way love for an exhausted world. It is the message of grace. It is needed. But how do we live that out day to day and what of obedience?
Steve Fuller has a post that I think is helpful when it comes to discussions on motivations for Christian obedience. Something Tullian and specifically Kevin DeYoung (a pastor, author in Michigan) have disagreed one. Fuller says this of the debate:
"Tchividjian — obedience comes from faith alone — faith in our justification. Our effort should go into strengthening faith in our justification."
"DeYoung — obedience does not come from faith in justification alone. We need effort in addition to faith."
Fuller wonders though if John Piper has a better, or more Biblical way. "For Piper, faith means trusting all that God promises to be to me in Christ Jesus, including both His promise that I am freely justified through Christ, and also His promise to fully satisfy me in Christ (Future Grace, p.27)."
"When I trust God’s promise that I have been justified through Christ alone — and that I will be satisfied in Christ alone — then I will obey. (There’s other promises and motivations in Scripture– but for the sake of simplicity I’ll just focus on these.)"
I commend the whole post to you. You can read it here.
Motivation for obedience is an important thing in the church today. I tend to agree with Piper here (at least as articulated). We also talk about it a lot in our young adult ministry. Recently I preached on 2 Peter 1:3-11 on what it means to lives as a Christian and be rightly motivated for obedience. You can listen here.
Let me know what you think the source of Christian motivation is.
Steve Fuller has a post that I think is helpful when it comes to discussions on motivations for Christian obedience. Something Tullian and specifically Kevin DeYoung (a pastor, author in Michigan) have disagreed one. Fuller says this of the debate:
"Tchividjian — obedience comes from faith alone — faith in our justification. Our effort should go into strengthening faith in our justification."
"DeYoung — obedience does not come from faith in justification alone. We need effort in addition to faith."
Fuller wonders though if John Piper has a better, or more Biblical way. "For Piper, faith means trusting all that God promises to be to me in Christ Jesus, including both His promise that I am freely justified through Christ, and also His promise to fully satisfy me in Christ (Future Grace, p.27)."
"When I trust God’s promise that I have been justified through Christ alone — and that I will be satisfied in Christ alone — then I will obey. (There’s other promises and motivations in Scripture– but for the sake of simplicity I’ll just focus on these.)"
I commend the whole post to you. You can read it here.
Motivation for obedience is an important thing in the church today. I tend to agree with Piper here (at least as articulated). We also talk about it a lot in our young adult ministry. Recently I preached on 2 Peter 1:3-11 on what it means to lives as a Christian and be rightly motivated for obedience. You can listen here.
Let me know what you think the source of Christian motivation is.
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