About Us :: The Tragic-Happy Tale of the Gospel Lost & Found                                

Greetings. Johnny & Becky Long here—recovering "Pharisees" gradually being transformed by the grace of God. If you have a few minutes, dive into this mini-
novel. It's quite shocking really—something like a 21st Century version of St. Augustine's Confessions. I found myself alternately chuckling and weeping while writing this up, so chances are, you'll not find it overly boring.

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In 1990, twenty-five years into our marriage and ministry, I hadn't the foggiest notion that I was in desperate need of spiritual renewal. As senior pastor of Altadena Valley Presbyterian
Church (PCA) in Birmingham, Alabama, in my not-so-humble opinion, it was others who needed changing. I was always on the lookout for the "magic bullet" - the perfect discipleship tool I could use to change all the imperfect people in my life.

 

THEN, when a very needy couple (read: a basket case) in our church were greatly helped by a discipleship seminar called "Sonship," I wondered if this might be the tool I had been searching for. Written by Dr. C. John "Jack" Miller of Westminster Seminary, Philadelphia USA and his son Paul, the course was designed to bring the sweetness of the Gospel to bear on the hearts of weary Christians. So,
in 1990 November, Becky and I flew 900 miles north to New Jersey where World Harvest Mission (now "Serge") was to host their SONSHIP Week '90.

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            Sonship Week Hell

 

Believe it when I say this week was more than I had bargained for—a lot more. The lectures by Dr. Miller and his colleagues were not what we expected. They taught with an openness and sincerity of heart we had never witnessed before. They freely shared their weaknesses and struggles with sin. It was frightening and attractive at the same time—attractive because it was authentic, frightening because their honesty exposed my total lack thereof.

 

Despite his being a seminary professor, author of several books, founder of World Harvest Mission and a very successful church-planter, Jack had a palpable sense of being an adopted son of God. I believed the same, but was living in such denial about the secret sin in my life (we Yanks have a term for it—"lust bucket") the Spirit's "Abba-Father!" cry in my heart was inaudible. I spent a great deal of my time and energy every day trying to give people the impression I was better than I really was. Jack sensed that he had a Mighty Christ—a Great High Priest interceding for him at the Father's
right hand—a Saviour that so covered his sin and shame he had no need to play the hiding game. I was a Grand Master at the hiding game. Jack boasted in his weakness.

 

Unbelievably, at one point, the leaders
separated us men from our wives, herded us into a room, had us sit down and said,
"Gentlemen, during this session, we're going to talk to you about the idol of your ministry." My mouth went dry. They had nailed me.  

A horrible truth was becoming clear: this seminar was for me. It was not my congre-gation that needed changing, it was me. I desperately needed the kind of "working Gospel faith" these people had.

My dear Becky, on the other hand, like so
many daughters of Eve, knew she was needy. (See her article "A Perfect Mess" and our jointly written "Christians Come in Flavours" in SAMPLE LESSON BITS.) While Becky was crying out for spiritual help to anyone who would listen, I was shoring up my defenses—fighting to survive. I felt as if these people were trying to kill me. And, that is precisely what they were doing—trying to lead me to say with Paul, "I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live!" and, "May I never boast except in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ through which I have been crucified to the world, and the world to me."

 

And to make matters worse, for one
unbearable hour every day, Becky and I met with a "mentor" whose job it was to help us process what we were hearing in the lectures. Can you believe it? We had actually elected to do this. When we had registered months before, not having the foggiest idea of what "mentoring" was, I had signed us up—and our church was paying extra for the privilege!

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Wait. It gets worse. Our mentor was none other than the Rev. Rick Downs, a chap with a Masters in counselling with Dr. Larry Crabb. Only later did we discover that Rick had a well-earned nickname in World Harvest circles... "The Assassin." 

But, Rick loved me, in spite of my resistance to his attempts to help me. He questioned and listened intently, trying to find a way into the fortress that was my heart—a heart that feared being needy, feared being exposed. Others were needy. I had no needs. I had been a pastor for twenty-five years for crying out loud! I was The Great Need-Meeter.

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What finally got to me? It was during our
third session when Rick said to me, 

"Johnny, tell me about your relationship with your father." "You mean with my earthly father?", I asked. I was a bit stunned by the question. After all, I
was forty-eight years old at the time, but,
staring down at the table between us, for the first time I was honest—painfully so. (I must say here that the difficult relationship between me and my father dated back to my university days and was as much my fault as his, so no disrespect is intended.)

Rick understood that many who have strained relationships with our earthly fathers are guilty of "transference" - unconsciously assuming that our heavenly Father treats us the same way as our earthly father. As for me, I never felt that I could "dance hard enough", never
measure up to my Dad's expectations. I was doomed forever to be a disappointment—the eldest son who didn't become a surgeon like him—what we had dreamed of early on.

When my sad tale of woe was done (one during which I had expressed a good deal of pain and anger), I glanced up at Rick, a big bear of a man, and a tear was running down his cheek. He was weeping—for me, the unloved son, the wounded child, the spiritual orphan. He said sadly, "Johnny, There's more; there's so much more." I hadn't a clue as to what he meant, but something had changed in my heart. Now I wanted to know.

 

The SONSHIP Week speakers confused me. They used the term "Gospel" in ways that were foreign me. And, they made much of the value of repentance—and "seeing our sin." Those were things I had
done at the beginning of my Christian life but had steadfastly avoided since. Gradually, however, I came to suspect that the "magic bullet" for which I had sought might actually be the Gospel. Whereas I had devolved into thinking of it as the door through which one entered the Christian life, these people were
teaching that it was the room in which we
were to live, or, put another way, the road on which we were to walk for spiritual growth. It was not that I had somehow forgotten that, I was never taught it and never understood it. 

Jerry Bridges calls the Gospel "the
atmosphere of the Christian life." And Luther said, "To progress in the Christian life is to be always beginning again in the Gospel." The great Dutch theologian G.C. Berkhouwer put it this way: "Faith is as much at the heart of sanctification as it is of justification." What Bridges, Luther and Berkhouwer are saying is this: believing the Gospel saves us, and believing the Gospel makes us holy. Or, put another way, the same Gospel that saves us, sanctifies us.

 

In this paragraph, I'll explain what I had not understood about the Gospel that had me so confused about how the Christian life works. Think with me: It makes sense that holiness is keeping the whole Law of God, right?. But, what is the essence of the Law of God? Jesus tells us in Matthew 22:37-40, "...love the Lord you God with all your heart" and "love your neighbour as yourself." Then he said something amazing: "On these two hang all the Law and Prophets." Love God and love your neighbor. It's about love. But where do we get love? Paul tells us in Galatians 5:22. "The fruit of the [Holy] Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control..." And here's the rub. This love that God gives is not something we can manufacture. Our flesh can't produce it because unlike our love which is conditional and selfish—"If you love me, I'll love you." But the love the Holy Spirit gives is God-love, unconditional and selfless—all of grace. But where do we get the Holy Spirit whose gift is this kind of love? That is precisely what Paul asked the Galatian believers. After reminding them that he had preached Christ crucified to them, he asks them several questions about the Christian life—some little ones and two BIG ones. Listen to  

Galatians 3:1-6: "O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. 2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? 4 Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? 5 Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works wonders among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith—6 just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”?

This passage is what my friend Paul Miller called "The uranium core of the nuclear reactor of the Christian life." Indeed, it is Paul's theology of how spiritual growth (sanctification) works! Paul asks the Galatians if, after they began their life in Jesus by the Spirit, did they think they would become holy by fleshly effort? And, did you notice his two "how" questions about Spirit? Paul asks the Galatians:

1. How did you get the Holy Spirit in the first place—by works of the law, or hearing with faith? Hearing what? The Gospel of Christ crucified! And,

2. How does God supply the Spirit (Greek present tense: "keep giving") and work wonders among you—by works of the law, or by believing the Gospel? 

So, what is the point of all this? What is true holiness? Love. Where do we get love? the Holy Spirit How does God supply us with the Holy Spirit whose fruit is love? by believing the Gospel.

And that, dear friends, is what I had never understood about how the Christian life goes forward, so that is what I was constantly flogging my people with the "works of the law."