Book Released! Gospel-Centered War
My book Gospel-Centered War: Finding Freedom from Enslaving Sin just got released! Here are a few of the things people are saying about it.
“As the title of this book makes clear, a gospel-centered approach is, in the long run, the only effective way to combat sin and addiction. Any resource, like this one by Paul O’Brien, which helps us fight our sinful compulsions by means of the gospel of Jesus Christ is one I recommend.”
—Dr. Donald S. Whitney, professor of biblical spirituality and associate dean at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
“Gospel-Centered War is for those who struggle with life-dominating sin and for those who counsel them. Instead of simply addressing behavior modification, Paul O’Brien gets to the heart of the matter. This book addresses the issues that provide freedom from destructive, self-defeating behaviors by helping the reader understand how God can change their heart and passions. Read it, devour it, and then be changed from the inside out.”
—Pastor Mike Wilson, Lincoln Heights Baptist Church, Mansfield, Ohio
“Paul is a genuine man of faith who has dedicated his life to Jesus and his calling. As a former heroin addict who was mentored by Paul, I had the privilege to witness his passion for Christ and his desire to help people through God’s word. This book shows that same passion.”
—Ricky Upton, Louisville, KY
Be Transformed by a New Consuming Passion
A Consuming Life Passion?
Instead of feigning for a substance or porn we need to have a new and better all consuming passion. We need to have a new purpose with a new goal as its end. We need a reason to get out of bed in the morning. We need a reason to be.
One of the fundamental questions that psychologists face is what is to be the motivational force in our lives? Is it to get rich? Propagate are genes? To enjoy as much pleasure as we can? What is to be the fuel for the engine of our lives? Do we have anything that can propel us through the sufferings and struggles of life?
This question cries out to be answered, and how it’s answered will have profound implications for the way that we live. Many, I’m sure, are unaware of their motivations and could care less about them. However, I’m sure that this is a great mistake.
The athlete, for instance, competes for a price and are very much aware of what that prize is. We, like the athlete, must not only be aware that there is a prize but what that prize is. We must seek to live with the intentionality of an athlete.
An athlete will discipline their body and bring it under subjection in pursuit of the prize. And when focused on the prize the athlete will gladly do away with hindrances. However, the athlete must have a goal, be competing for a prize, and have an idea of what that prize is if they are to have motivation to compete well.
Christians have Motivation to “Compete”
The language of running the race and competing for a prize were frequently used by the Apostle Paul. He was someone that clearly had a reason for getting out of bed in the morning. He had a consuming passion. He said, “I count everything as absolutely worthless compared to Christ.” Paul suffered the loss of all things in order that he could gain Christ. We also see that Jesus Himself raced the race and endured the cross for the joy that was set before Him.
We too need motivation. We need to be motivated like the Apostle Paul. We need the love of Christ to be the fuel that burns and propels us through the sufferings and struggles of life. Christ alone is sufficient motivation. Christ Jesus, as the Apostle Paul, Augustine, and Brian “Head” Welch, and many others make clear, alone satisfies and is it worth living for.
Here’s Brain “Head” Welch:
Take it from me, nothing you chase after on this earth will satisfy you like a real, everyday intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. Nothing. Trust me. While I was in Korn I had people waiting on me left and right. Anything I wanted, I got. Anywhere I wanted to go, I went. All I had to do was give the word, and it happened. I had the world in the palm of my hand, people; and I have to tell you one last time, there’s nothing there. I promise you. Jesus Christ is the only one that can make you complete. (Save Me from Myself)
The end of the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, tells us in chapter 21 what our ultimate goal is. To see God face to face, to be in the eternal temple where He will make all things new. Where He will wipe away every tear from our eye. Where there will be no more pain or crying anymore. Where we will have pleasure forevermore in His presence.
So we see that we have much that God has called us to do. We have much purpose. We have a reason to be. We would do well to set God’s truth before us so that we are motivated to live for the prize.
A verse that God has used to wake me up to the unseen realities and motivate me to purposeful living to His glory is 1 Corinthians 15:58. It says, “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” This verse, when understood in the context of chapter 15, shows us that it makes sense for us to be motivated to labor for the Lord because of the reality of the resurrection of Jesus.
The Bible verse that says, “Whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do you all to the glory of God” is not just a Bible verse. It is not just a good tagline under the name of some private Christian school. It is the way that it makes sense for us to live in light of the glorious gospel.
In a similar way, the oft-quoted phrase “our chief end [or main purpose in life] is to glorify God and enjoy him forever” is not a mere tagline but a phrase that gets at a biblical motivational reality.
Create Your Own Motivational Purpose Statement
We have laid a little bit of groundwork. Now it’s your turn. I want you to write out a biblically infirmed motivational purpose statement for your life.
Just write something down. It does not have to be able to stand the test of time like the Westminster Shorter Catechism on your first attempt. Your purpose statement can adapt and grow as you do.
My own purpose statement is not the best and I certainly could do better about purposely keeping it in my head so that it will be lived out through my hands. However, the purpose behind the statement is not to make it timeless or flawless. It is to be purposeful about our purpose. We have a purpose and it is great. We have a reason to wake up in the morning. A reason to be. I reason to say no to whatever sin it is that calls our name.
Evangelism as an Overflow of Worship
Why do we share the gospel? Because we’re told to? Guilted into it? Or do we share the gospel? Many of us don’t. However, what could motivate us to share the gospel? Guilt? I don’t think that’s the most helpful or biblical motivation.
We share the gospel or should share it because it is the gospel; it is good news! When we have good news will share it. If we like a certain football team, soccer team, or bad mitten team we will be excited if they win and likely even call friends that like the opposing team to brag. If we go to the store and see a certain purse or pair of pants on sale and we buy them we will be excited and even tell someone how much we paid for them. If we go to a new movie or see a show we like we will not hesitate to tell someone about it and that they “have to see it.” We do these things because we’re excited about the “good news.”
I could command you to tell the good news. I could write out the Great Commission right here and just say, “Do it.” But I think if I did that, I would be pulling that text out of context. Notice, before Jesus said His words in Matthew 28:16-20, He first did and said many other things. We find the Great Commission positioned at the end of Matthew. In fact, if my math is correct, there are one thousand and sixty-six verses before it. I believe we must first hear the rest of the book for Jesus’ last charge to be in context; not least of which is Jesus’ death and resurrection. I believe the followers of Christ who were there to hear Jesus’ charge were worshipers (cf. Matt. 28:1; 9: “Mary Magdalene and the other Mary… took hold of his feet and worshiped Him.”). They had not only heard the gospel but had seen it with their own eyes (1 John 1:1-2). They were not given some bland command in the Great Commission but rather it was to them an outlet so that they did not burst.
The singer must sing a song or go mad and the Christian must tell of Christ. Elihu describes well the feelings of compulsion we should have. “The spirit within me constrains me. Behold, my belly is like wine that has no vent; like new wineskins ready to burst. I must speak, that I may find relief” (Job 32:18b-20a).[i] Or Jeremiah says it this way, “If I say, ‘I will not mention him, or speak anymore in his name,’ there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot” (20:9).[ii]
Our Missionary God and Our Mission
God incarnated Himself. Became poor, despised. God is the ultimate missionary. He Himself who is the good news, brought good news.
If we are going to be “missional,” i.e. intentionally evangelistic, we must focus on and learn from God the Great Missionary. God’s love is unrelenting and displayed through a vast array of means. It is tangible. It cares. It comes to us. It gives. God’s love is present, active, premeditated.
God’s mission is not disconnected from who He is but expressive of who He is. God’s character, in Christ, literally bled out. God’s missionary heart is not forced but fundamental. God is a God who calls, reaches, and loves the unloving; and He always has been.
We cannot expect our hearts to overflow with missional love unless we meditate on God’s love that we see expressed through the Scriptures. For the good news of Christ to overflow out of our hearts it must daily be in our hearts as good news. We don’t want the gospel and a life of love to be forced, we want it to be so natural that it pours out. We don’t just need our actions to change, we need our character to change. We need to be different. We need to care in ways that we don’t care. We want to intentionally share, not mainly because we have to but because we want to.
We must regularly challenge ourselves by the active nature of mission. God did something. He was not passive. He came. He had a plan (since before the foundation of the world) and He executed it. It cost Him but He carried it out. He opened wide His arms and welcomed in the unloving and hateful world as He hung stretched out on the tree.
We too must be active. We too must enter the world in tangible and intentional ways. We must have a plan and execute it; even if it costs us.
We are ambassadors for Christ, God makes His appeal through us. God speaks through us! So we must implore people on behalf of Christ to be reconciled to God (2 Cor. 5:20).
We Must Make Disciples (Part I)
The goal of the Great Commission is not just for someone to pray a prayer, rather the goal is discipleship. The emphasis in the Great Commission is not on “go,” but on “make disciples” by teaching them to obey all Jesus commanded.[1]
“The participle [“go”] is probably better translated ‘when you go’ or ‘as you go’”[2] and thus it is a command for all of us in all the phases of our lives to make disciples. “The commission is not fundamentally about mission out there somewhere else in another country. It’s a commission that makes disciple-making the normal agenda and priority of every church and every Christian disciple.”[3]
We can read the Bible because faithful men did not let the chain of discipleship be broken; even with great distress and peril to their lives. But the question is: are we going to be faithful? Are we going to pass on the gospel and the message of radical discipleship? Or are we going to be the weak link? Will we make disciples as the Great Commission commands?
The fields are white for harvest and God promises that if we ask Him for laborers He will send them; however, we must be faithful to teach them. Gospel work is not meant to be done by one person. We are called to work together and make disciples who in turn, make disciples themselves.
If there was a lot of work to be done in harvesting a field, wouldn’t it make sense to recruit help? Would not more work get done with many hands? Many hands make light work or, at least, more work accomplished. It is not only thoroughly biblical to make disciples, it is also logical.
Imagine a farmer was given the task by the king of the land to sow enough seed and harvest enough crops to feed the entire kingdom. How foolish would it be if he sought out to sow the seed and bring in the harvest all by himself? He would fail miserably. Even if he worked terribly hard he would still not be able to cultivate enough food to feed the entire kingdom. The farmer needs fellow laborers but he must also equip them for the task. He must teach them and give them tools.
What would the king’s response be if the farmer failed to bring in enough food because he failed to recruit or equip the laborers he did recruit? The king would surely be outraged. The farmer would be found unfaithful because he did not train the labors so that he could complete the task. Will we hear this same indictment from the King?
Ezekiel 33:6 warns against the watchman that does not blow the trumpet and warn the people that the sword is coming. If we have the gospel, we are responsible to share it. We are responsible to warn men and women of the sword of God’s wrath which is to come. We are also responsible to share the blessed hope that we have in the cross of Christ by which that wrath of God has been diverted from us to Jesus.
Not long after Ezekiel cautions those who would not warn against the sword to come another warning is issued. A warning against those who would not feed God’s sheep, “Should not shepherds feed the sheep?” (Ezek. 34:2). The implied answer is, yes, they should. That is what shepherds do; they feed and take care of sheep. Later it says,
“You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep. The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up… So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd, and they became food for the wild beasts” (Ezek. 34:3-4).
That is the horrible result of a shepherd not taking care of and feeding his sheep. They become food for beasts. It is an eye opening picture for us. Imagine being a shepherd in a field and lapsing for one moment only to awake and find one of your sheep slaughtered, bloodied, ripped from limb to limb. Just a short lapse and a wild beast has destroyed what has been entrusted to your care.
We, the mature in Christ, not just pastor-shepherds, have been entrusted with being Christ’s under shepherds and faithfully caring for and feeding His flock. God wants us to be faithful and present every member of his body (every sheep) fully equipped lacking in nothing built up into Christ which is the head (Eph. 4:12; 15).
Although, most believers will not hold the office of pastor and may never teach from a pulpit,[4] everyone is responsible to grow up in the faith and thus be able to teach, disciple, and minister to others (Eph. 4:11-13; 15; Col. 3:16; Titus 2:2-4; 1 Peter 4:10-11). Stephen is also an example of this (Acts 6:5; Ch. 7) and Timothy was taught by his grandmother as a child (2 Tim. 1:5). In Titus it says that older women are to teach what is good and so train the young women to love their husbands and children (2:3-4).
It is not just official pastors that these warnings from Ezekiel come to. It is all those that are called to faith in Christ, God’s royal priesthood. The sheep must be fed. Who will feed them? The call for discipleship has been issued to every believer. Each Christian must play their part.
Will you? Will you be faithful to make disciples?
_____________________
[1] That, however, in no way negates the fact that we must make disciples of all nations: Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the utter most parts of the world (Acts 1:8). See for example: Lk. 24:47, Matt. 28:19 (“all nations”), Rom. 1:5 says “for the sake of his name among all the nations,” and Ps. 96:3 says, “Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples!”
[2] Colin Marshal and Tony Payne, The Trellis and the Vine (Kingford, Australia: Matthias Media, 2009), 13.
[3]Ibid., 13.
[4] See qualifications for shepherd/pastor/elder: 1 Timothy 3:1-7; Titus 1:5-11. Everyone is to strive to meet the qualifications even if they are not called to be in the office of pastor.
How is our burden light?
“My yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:30)
“I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (Jn. 15:5)
“His commandments are not burdensome” (1 Jn. 5:3)
I don’t want to, as the Pharisees, lay on burdens too hard to bear; especially since I can’t carry them myself. I want us to see that Christ carried our burdens! Christ says His burden is light. John said that Jesus’ “commandments are not burdensome.” Yet, how is this true in light of the all-encompassing call to which He calls us? Does He not tell us to take up our cross and follow Him? How is an instrument of torture light or easy?
Jesus is the image of the glory of God, the exact imprint of His nature; our call to imitate Him is no easy calling. We are to conform our life to His life, and death. So how then could Jesus say, “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:30)? It is because it is in Him that we have fulfilled His commandments and it is through Him that we’re empowered to fulfill His commandments. Our burden is light because Christ took our burden. Our burden is light because through Christ we have the Spirit who helps us. In Jesus, we find “rest for our souls” (v. 29)!
We will with Christian of Pilgrim’s Progress, find our yoke easy and our burden light when at the sight of the cross our burden falls off. When we realize that our true burden, namely sin, has been carried for us by none other than Jesus, the Son of God, we will cry out “His commandments our not burdensome!” They are but an overflow of joy. The grace of the call of Christ bursts all bonds of the burden of the Christian life. We do have burdens, you could say, but we carry them now with joy.[1] We carry them knowing Christ carried our sin on the cross!
While we must be faithful to carry our cross, we do so in light of the fact that Jesus died on the cross for us and bore the wrath of God in our place. We carry our cross, yet not to death but to victory! The cross for the Christian is not a sign of death but of victory. We run the race set before us, yes with a limp at times, but the pain flees, as with any runner, as we gaze upon the prize. Life, and even death, has purpose in and for Christ. Yes, there are many commands in Scripture, but they are blessings. They encourage us on towards joyous Christ-like conformity. It is only when we are in Christ that these commands can begin to be truly obeyed.
Many in the Old Testament saw God’s Law as burdensome. How then did David love and delight in God’s Law? It was because God gave David that delight. In the same way when we are in Christ the Spirit comes to reside in us and changes us. We begin to love the things that God loves. His commands become not merely demands but delights to our soul.
We could talk long about the ills of contemporary Christianity, but what is the prescribed cure? Christ is! It is through Christ that we are once-and-for-all holy in our standing before God and it is through Christ that we become holy, i.e. live holy lives. Christ is the cure. Though, that does not mean that the remedy is simplistic. The prescription for the cure has been wrought in Christ, but ultimate healing won’t come this side of Eden.
We have right standing before God in Christ. No, this does not change the fact that we must still conform ourselves (that is, by God’s empowering) to match our position. But we are right before God!
No, you and I do not rightly evangelize but praise God Jesus did, and now, in Him, it is as if we do evangelize rightly. Are we willing to suffer? Christ did suffer for us! Do you spend your time wisely? Jesus always did what pleased the Father! No, brother and sister we don’t measure up. But Christ does! And in Christ we do! In our call to imitate Christ, we are just to imitate our actual standing before God; we are to, paradoxically, be where we already are.
David Platt has rightly said,
“You will never be radical enough. No matter what you do—even if you sell all your possessions and move to the most dangerous country in the world for the sake of ministry—you cannot do enough to be accepted before God. And the beauty of the gospel is that you don’t have to. God so loved you that, despite your hopeless state of sin, he sent his Son—God in the flesh—to live the life you could not live. Jesus alone has kept the commands of God. He alone has been faithful enough, generous enough, and compassionate enough. Indeed, he alone has been radical enough.”[2]
Interestingly, the way of Christ is at the same time impossible (more than just hard) and tremendously easy. We cannot carry the burden, we cannot bear the cross yet that is why the way of Christ is easy. Because we can do nothing. It is all done in Him. Jesus said, “apart from me you can do nothing.” Thus, the call of Christ is paradoxically impossible and easy.
Our burden is light because Christ carried our burden. He carried our cross. As we see from Isaiah 53, Christ has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.
“He was wounded
for our transgression;
He was crushed
for our iniquities;
upon Him was the chastisement
that brought us peace,
and with His stripes
we are healed.”
Verse 11 of this chapter says that the Righteous One, Jesus Christ, will make many to be accounted righteous. We are not innately righteous. We have sinned, we do not rightly live for the Lord, yet we are accounted righteous in Christ. We have fulfilled all righteousness, but not in ourselves, but in Christ!
[1] Paul said he had many difficulties, many burdens, on top of all that he had anxiety for all the churches (2 Cor. 11:28 cf. vv.23-28) yet he also said, “We do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day” (4:16). “For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too” (2 Cor. 1:5). In fact, Paul was burdened to death. He said at one point, “We were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.” (2 Cor. 1:8). We learn from 2 Corinthians 1:9-10 that at times we have burdens to teach us to rely on Christ, we learn to give Him our burden and find hope in Him. We carry burdens, but it is different now, we have Christ’s comfort abundantly now!
[2] David Platt, Radical Together, 27.
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