In this episode, Nate and Pastoral Resident Ryan Gawrych discuss New City Catechism Question 6:
How can we glorify God?
We glorify God by enjoying him, loving him, trusting him, and by obeying his will, commands, and law.
They discuss the theology, significance, and practical implications of living our lives to God's glory.
In this episode, Nate and Pastoral Resident Ryan Gawrych discuss New City Catechism Question 6:
How can we glorify God?
We glorify God by enjoying him, loving him, trusting him, and by obeying his will, commands, and law.
They discuss the theology, significance, and practical implications of living our lives to God's glory.
Welcome to another episode of the All the Black Podcast. I'm your host, nate Claybourne, and today, for the second week in a row, I'm here with pastoral resident Ryan Garich.
Speaker 2:How are we doing, Ryan? Good to be with you, Nate. I told you it wasn't going to be very long.
Speaker 1:I know you must have some kind of gift of prophecy. I can't remember your scores on our spiritual gifts assessment.
Speaker 2:I'm not a prophet, but maybe I have to retake the test.
Speaker 1:Well as you say you can have the gift but maybe not hold the office. Okay, something like that.
Speaker 2:That's probably what it is.
Speaker 1:Maybe a spiritual perception, word of knowledge, something like that just kind of came to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm curious. I'm going to go back and retake. Okay, yeah, I'll let you know.
Speaker 1:We'll report on it whenever we do another one. So last week we talked about question five. Today we're talking about question six, which is how can we glorify God? The long answer is we glorify God by enjoying Him, loving Him, trusting Him and by obeying His will, commands and law. Then the short answer is by loving Him and by obeying His commands and law. So, ryan, as we're thinking about this question, what's a theological lesson or what's kind of the theology of this question and answer on the Catechism?
Speaker 2:Well, I think when I hear by loving Him and obeying His commands and law, first thing that comes to mind is that in Christ we can do those things which I think is important.
Speaker 2:There's a posture we can take as Christians. It's kind of like an Isaiah 64 posture, which is everything that we do is like filthy rags Right, and we tend to carry that with us, even as a new creation in Christ. And so we think and it's actually kind of reformed-ish too in some ways it's like, hey, you can't do anything to please God. I'm not saying that's how the reformed faith expresses works and the law.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's at least a stereotype or a caricature of reformed theology being very dour and very like, you must reckon with how much of a sinner you are, and so much so God can never take any delight or joy in anything you ever do.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Because it's just your own righteousness and that's not important.
Speaker 2:That's right. So we don't want to dwell there, though, because Jesus doesn't have us dwell there. He makes us something new when His Spirit indwells in us, we can actually do things now that please the Father. It doesn't mean that we're earning something salvifically, but it does mean that something new has started, and even that new creation isn't just an end time reality for us or for our kids. It's a here and now. There's real change, that's happening and we actually get to do things that please God.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we can even. I think this might be a good place to even throw in a diagnostic. I hate to use that word, but as we're thinking about pleasing God, glorifying God, we could ask listeners imagine you're telling God about something you've done. Just let you say you're going through like how you help someone, or what you something you think that was a good work, or something like that. Now imagine, as you're imagining that scenario, what's the look on His face? Does he seem annoyed, Like oh my gosh, this is this person again. Does he seem? Is he smiling? Is he frowning? Is he checking His phone? You know, metaphorically speaking, because he's like what is this going to be done? I think whatever we imagine God looking like in a scenario like that gives us an idea of how we're understanding whether or not we can please God. That's helpful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and even as a father, I think about what do my children want to hear from me as their father when they've done something that's good? Yeah, they ought to be celebrated. And I'm sure I don't reflect God in all the ways I should when they come to me with those questions, but I think your point is well taken. Is that God delights in hearing what we do in His name and His son's name?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like you should picture Him smiling at you, and I don't think for most, I could even speak for me, as I don't think that's. Our natural inclination is like God is delighted to hear from you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you're right. There's probably more we can unpack there as to why, but it's at least worth posing. The question to our listeners is how do you I think it's a great diagnostic how do you perceive or understand or what comes to mind when you think about God and yourself and the things that you do, the good things that you do and the bad things? I suppose, yeah, you can take it that way too Does he.
Speaker 1:You know, is he enraged when you bring God at messed up again? Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, someone had a helpful image once that they shared of like how do you do you think of God as this angry, like the father, as the angry person standing behind the son, just like waiting for you to mess up so that he can move Jesus aside and point the finger at you and be like I knew it. It was just about to happen. Right, jesus is the cool older brother, that's like no, no, no, he can come.
Speaker 1:He can come with us, yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, it's so true my kids do that they're oftentimes to try to mitigate the wrong that one or the other does, so that we can go somewhere and they don't have to sit out on it. Well, I think a helpful place is to turn again, because we're in the Beatitudes right now and which is the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. And so much of the Sermon on the Mount is Jesus unpacking portions of the wall, saying you have heard it said that dot dot, dot, and he's, of course, talking about the phariseical interpretation of the wall. And then he goes on to say but I say yeah, and so we can read through all these things like anger and lust, divorce, retaliation, loving your enemies, giving even, and think, wow, jesus is really like turning the dial up and I thought he was supposed to come with grace and peace, and this seems even more challenging than it did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the Old Testament. But I think what's really helpful is, if you find yourself there in Matthew five and six and Matthew five, 17 to 20, what Jesus says, before he says anything expounds at all on the law, is that I've come to fulfill the law, which should immediately put our guard down, which means okay, what he's about to ask of us, he's already done for us. I think that's really important. Yeah, verse 19, 519 says therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same, will be called the least in heaven. And then he says whoever does these will be called the greatest. But notice, he says whoever relaxes or doesn't do these. He doesn't say they're out and those who do them are in.
Speaker 1:Mm, hmm.
Speaker 2:What Jesus says is if you are in me, you are in, whether you're doing this perfectly or imperfectly. If your faith is in me, the one who has fulfilled this law, you're in, which I think is so good to hear, because that means we no longer pursue the law as a matter of life and death. We now pursue it as a matter of love. It's an expression of our love for God because of what Christ has done for us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I think that's a helpful way of reframing things there so that it's not the default way that we might think of and experience it. So, as we're thinking, maybe in leaning into the next question from here, how does this make us a counterculture for the common good? Or how is this way of thinking about engaging God? I mean, I think even thinking about glorifying God is already countercultural on its own, because that's not something our neighbors and our communities are even thinking about. They're thinking about glorifying. I don't. I feel bad saying people just want to glorify themselves, but it does seem like that's sort of the alternative. You're either glorifying God or yourself or some other.
Speaker 1:you're glorifying something, yeah.
Speaker 2:The irony is that in glorifying God, he actually gives us glory too. So, but to your question about how is this countercultural? I do think I think you're right. I think it's the selflessness of it all. It's pursuing something for someone else which is it sounds so simple, but I think our default is to pursue things for ourselves, to accumulate or to keep our own, whereas God's saying if you follow me and follow me in the way that I'm asking you to, it's going to lead to a type of flourishing that's actually going to benefit your neighbor as well. So it's not just a personal benefit, but it's for the benefit of our neighbor, and that, in and of itself, is countercultural, because our last podcast we talked about the world.
Speaker 2:I don't want to really name the world as a quick and easy way to say to refer to something bad, but the ways in which our culture is misdirected and the people in our culture who are not following Jesus are misdirected. We're actually able to do something for them that they're unable to do for themselves as we pursue the law of God, and so they're even like side, beneficiaries of the love of God. As we pursue the law of God, which is countercultural because we're loving them and we're not looking out for our own welfare, necessarily, we're able to deny ourselves in order that those around us might flourish.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's not just countercultural in that sense, it's counterintuitive it goes against what you would think you would think like, oh, I need to look out for myself and I need to put myself first, or nobody else is going to do it, and instead it's like, well, if you glorify God, that's a way of we could say putting God first it actually benefits you and your neighbors, opposed to if you're just doing things for yourself. You may not even get what you're trying to get for yourself and it's definitely not benefiting your broader community either.
Speaker 2:It's a great way to witness too, because our neighbors could look at us let's say we're doing something moving toward them in some way in love, and be suspicious of it and say, okay, well, what are you trying to get out of this? But because we're pursuing it out of love for God and what he's done for us, immediately our answer can be with confidence well, we're not trying to get something out of it, we're moving. I'm moving towards you because God's moved towards me and I'm trying to be faithful in this area that he's called me to, which now involves loving you in this way.
Speaker 1:Right, there is no ulterior motive, is maybe the language we use sometimes like, yeah, it looks like I'm trying to help you, but really I'm trying to get this thing from you and since that's sort of the dominant way the world thinks we're going to use the world in that sense, that's just. It's actually a reasonable assumption on other people's part that you wouldn't just be doing things out of the goodness of your heart, although we would say out of the you're trying to pass on the grace that you've received, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think about my children too. One question I would have and I'm actually as someone on this podcast who's supposed to be helpful I actually have a question that I'm not sure I can answer. But how can we, with our children, seek to show them what it means to obey and, at the same time, give them a healthy dose of grace along the way? That's a constant battle I have as a parent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's a. You know, it's someone speaking to someone that doesn't have kids. It's not something I think about as much, but when I was a teacher, that was something that was. A dominant thing is how do I have rules and expectations but also be kind and gracious? It's almost like if you don't ever enforce the rules, there's no way to be gracious, because then you're always it's always punishment. Yeah, assuming people are not following the rules.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's this suspicion that I have as a parent that if I give my child grace here, it's going to undo everything that To give them an inch, they'll take a mile.
Speaker 1:Right, right.
Speaker 2:Right. So I'm still working through that as a parent.
Speaker 1:I guess is what I'm saying, yeah, and also noting that grace is good and we need to take our medicine of grace, yeah Well let's even say this I don't I'm not opposed to doing this either of saying on a podcast like, yeah, we're talking about things, we're trying to clarify things, but we have our own like, well, yeah, what about this? If you're a listener and you have some thoughts or reflections on that, just send us. We've tried to open up this email as a way for people to be interactive with this, so that we're not just it's not just me and you talking and we don't know what people are saying. But shoot us an email. Podcast at newcityorlandocom. Just if you've got experience with how do I balance wanting obedience and showing grace, that could be really helpful for us because it could be something we talk about on the podcast. It could be even something you come on the podcast and talk about. We don't often have calls for podcast guests in the middle of the podcast, but I'd love to hear that.
Speaker 2:I know that we have many families at New City and we have many singles and college students and older singles who are also wise in this area, even outside of relationships and children. That I would absolutely love to hear and learn from. So, yeah, tell us what it's like to give grace and, at the same time, love rules.
Speaker 1:That's right. Holding those things in tension Even that maybe is an answer to how is this countercultural is. I think our culture wants one or the other Either it's all permission or it's all punishment.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:I think about a Keller's book. I say that and then pause and you're like, oh, which one is like that? But his book on forgiveness, where he talks about how culture doesn't understand how to deal with forgiveness because Christians on the one hand, christians can to cheap grace. Where it's like someone apologizes and you're just like, oh, that's okay, it's no big deal. It's like, but if it's no big deal, then you don't need to apologize for it. Kind of it is a big deal.
Speaker 1:That's why they're apologizing and in broader culture, they don't know how to offer forgiveness and so it's just cancel, like you do something wrong, you just cancel, you can't speak in this place anymore, and so it's like the Christian path is actually you have to acknowledge the gravity of the debt in order to then offer forgiveness. And it is doing both and it's like you can't really offer the grace of forgiveness if you can't also acknowledge a rule has been violated, a sin has been committed, a wrong has been done. And being able to hold both of those things at the same time is kind of what the gospel is calling us to.
Speaker 2:In other words, it sounds like there's a type of love that we can't actually experience without acknowledging the law. This also sounds like I don't know much about. I hear a lot about third way. I don't know a lot about it. This sounds like a third way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a color distinctive. It's like, well, it's this and that, but actually if you go in between the two, that's the right way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're kind of we're ribbon on him, but that is. There is something to that. It's culture. The broader culture pulls us in one direction. A distorted understanding of our own theological position pulls us in a different direction, and the truth is, both sides are sort of true, but not the whole truth.
Speaker 2:Well, I would just, as a way of closing, encourage our listeners to, as like, put on this filter or these glasses, if you will, as you're reading, even going through the McShane Bible reading, you'll see it all over the place in Mark, which we're in right now. But this idea of hearing and obeying, or being in, doing, or, as we two weeks ago now went through Philippians four, paul calls it thinking and practicing. It's being with God and then doing with God.
Speaker 1:You'll see it all over scripture.
Speaker 2:It's not something that's not there that we're trying to make a thing. Jesus makes it a thing.
Speaker 1:I like the idea I'm thinking about. You said put these glasses on, as we're both sitting here wearing glasses but it really is a. Once you have that lens to look through, you see it kind of pop off the page everywhere.
Speaker 2:Yep yep. Jesus says in Matthew seven maybe we'll close with this, but everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.
Speaker 1:Yeah, here and do, it's not one or the other. Well, ryan, has been a great talking with you two weeks in a row now about these music mechanics in question, and I'll look forward to whatever next time. Yes, you're welcome.