Peter Witkowski Apologetics

Trump, Chicken Little, & A Quick Reality Check

During their recent walk through the Republican primary forest, the happy little chicks of evangelicalism were wChick littleacked on the head by the Trump nut. And now they are scurrying in every direction, calling for all to flee the coming Trumpmania doom. The sky is falling! The Sky is falling!

And though I have am not eager to see Trump become the next president, I think evangelicals need to back away from all the predictions of doom. The sky is not falling. God still reigns. Yes, America could take a turn for the worse under President Trump. We may see Religious, social, and personal freedoms all venture into the fox’s den never to be seen again. But God still rules (Is. 46:8-11). God appoints and tears down nations for his purpose. The even better news is that the worst, most despicable rulers can and are used by God to advance His purposes. No matter how successful Trump becomes, he can never dethrone God.  We need to place our trust in Christ.

What does this look like?

1.       Express Opinions With Grace.

As American’s, we have the freedom to speak into our political system. We should exercise such freedom, advocating for Christian liberties, fighting for justice, and voting for the candidates that best represent us. But such political engagement must be tempered by Christian speech.  Paul’s command to “Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place,” extends to our political discourse (Eph. 5:4).  At the end of the day, we need to only offend people with the good news of the gospel and not our political philosophy. When this election cycle is over, we are going to have to work with Trump supporters and a whole host of people with a host of political backgrounds. Let’s not limit our future ability to reach the nations by planting seeds of discord on Facebook and Twitter. One day soon, we will need to work together with the duck, the hen, and maybe even a fox or two to advance the gospel. Will we be able to?

2.       Hope In God.

If we get worked up into a sinful frenzy over any political candidate, party, or issue, we have a worship donald trumpproblem. When we are expecting this candidate, that party, or those issues to save us through restoring the economy, expanding freedom, or defending decency, we are seeking after an earthly rescuer. And though I am for all these things, we shouldn’t believe any of these things will really save us. No amounts of cash, free press, or marital laws will fulfill us. Longing for these things above all will not lead us to peace. Rather, they land us in turmoil deep within the fox’s den.

Hence, Christ tells us to layup treasures in heaven instead of earth (Matt. 6:19-20. Our ultimate hope is not a better economy; our hope is the perfect savior and the new heavens. As long as Jesus reigns and is working all things together for our good, we can be joyful people. Let’s stop looking hopefully at little politicians who promise what they cannot deliver. And let’s turn our eyes heavenward toward the God who has already delivered what he promised.  What are you hoping in?   

3.       Don’t Fear Evil.

I fully understand that a Trump Presidency is a scary prospect. In large part, we don’t know what we are getting. But regardless of what “Make America Great Again” actually translates into, we don’t have to be afraid. Even if Trump is Hitler (I don’t think he is; see point 1.) God’s church will be fine. Think about Abraham, Joseph, Daniel, Paul, Jo4-republican-elephant-mascot-usa-flag-aloysius-patrimoniohn Huss, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Chinese underground church and the many others who have thrived under unjust empires. They all were and are being used by God in the midst of pagan kingdoms to advance His glory. If anything, the destruction of America may actual grow God’s church exponentially.

I hope our future is not dark. I do not long for our country’s collapse. I don’t want the duck and hen to waddle down into the fox’s den. I want my kids, grand kids, and neighbors to enjoy the wealthiest, freest, and most just society ever. But if God has other plans, we will be ok. After all, even the worst dictator can only kill the body. He can never separate us from the love of God (Rom 8:38-39). At some point in the not too distant future, God will descend from the sky and set the world aright. What should we really be afraid of?

The political landscape may not look very cheery today. But, the sky is not falling. Christ is still reigning brightly above! Do evangelical really need to keep scurrying around.

 

Peter Witkowski Discipleship

The Evangelical Problem With Sin

blog sin problemIt only happened once in my life. But it happened. I threw away a Bible. Just moments earlier, I had been wearing rubber gloves, a surgical mask and a hospital gown. When the very sick and very contagious patient asked to flip through my Bible, I let him. We had a great time together, discussing our Lord and savior.  As I prepared to leave the room, he did the unexpected. He gave me back the Bible. Talk about being in a bind. When I looked at that Bible all I could see was germs, sickness, and my impending death. So…as I prepared to leave, I quietly placed the Bible into the toxic bin with my gloves and all.  There was no way, I was going to risk death. Sadly though, we evangelicals are far more flippant about our spiritual health.

This weekend, Deadpool grossed $55 million dollars. Risen grossed 11.8 million.  As Dr. Albert Mohler recently noted, Deadpool can only be such a big success (grossing over 296 million over the last few weeks) because church goers are being entertained by the very sins they supposedly denounce. And this past Saturday, 1/3 of the evangelicals in South Carolina supported a presidential candidate who regularly contradicts the scriptures in both lifestyle and policy. So while we give Jesus a nod on Sunday, we Christians are increasingly going against him on Monday – Saturday. We are increasingly ok with sin if it promises entertainment, wealth, or security. We are increasingly comfortable with death.

I think we find ourselves willing to risk spiritual death because we don’t really believe that sin is all that bad. Sure, It’s an annoyance; it’s a distraction; perhaps, it’s even a stinging paper cut. But it’s not deadly; it’s not something we need to put on masks and gloves to encounter. We excuse sin as an enjoyable albeit slightly tainted endeavor that brings minimal harm. And sure, we will try to improve upon our vices at some point. But until then, we are content to watch the sexual explicit movies on Saturday before worshiping Jesus on Sundays. After all it’s the secular culture that’s destroying America. We are not as bad as them.

The solution? We need view our sin as death. Yes, God is concerned about divorce and homosexuality. But, He is equally concerned with our secret sins whether they be pornography, pride, racism, stealing, etc. To be a friend of the world (even a secret one) means you are an enemy of God.

In Mark 1:40, Jesus encounters a leper, a man who has been kicked out of his family and community because he is physically beyond help. He is also highly contagious. In short, he is unclean. To encounter him, one risks becoming unclean. One risks physical death.

Friends, this is us. We are not Jesus. We are the leper. Our sin in not little, insignificant, or minor. Our sin destroys our lives, families, and communities. As Romans 8:13 say, if “you live according to the flesh you will die.” Don’t miss this. If left unchecked, our sins will kill us. Instead of entertaining them, we need to flee from it, screaming.

But we can’t. We are already infected with the deadly virus. We can’t make ourselves clean. And that latest five step program or legalistic rubric won’t do the trick. At the end of the day, we are all lepers incapable of healing ourselves.

We have to call out to Jesus. The leper did just this. He asked Jesus to take away his uncleanness. And, Jesus did. He touched the leper. Instantly, the man was made clean.  The way we overcome sin is to call out to Jesus for salvation.  And when Jesus saves us he makes us eternally clean; we are justified. He cleanses us from all sin.

But we are not yet perfected. We still struggle with sin. Every day, we need to continue to cry out to Jesus. We need to continually remember that all sin, even the whitest white lie brings death. We need to daily stand out the foot of the cross.

To be a holy people all seven days of the week, we have to understand sin. We have to get just how bad we are. Only then, we will see the need to depend daily upon our great God.

Peter Witkowski Discipleship

WJD – Moving Past WWJD

What Would Jesus Do? It’s a fine question as long as we remember one thing: We aren’t Jesus. Ok, I know most people know this, but we often forget it. We often see life as a maze and Jesus as our guide. Our thinking goes like this:

“Should I turn down the street marked anger or go left and walk down forgiveness lane? I Know I’ll ask Jesus. We’ll Jesus would forgive. Forgiveness lane it is!”

The problem with this thinking is that we cannot be Jesus. We cannot in our own strengthen reason ourselves to obedience by looking at what Jesus did. And we aren’t supposed to. As Jack Klumpenhower writes,

What a tyrant Jesus would be if he lived a perfect life and then as his main message, told us to be like him. What a setup for failure.”

Why Jesus Came

Thankfully, Jesus did not come to expand the law. He did not come to guilt trip a bunch ofbracelet kids into behaving well. “You got mad and threw your bat…Yeah, Jesus wouldn’t have done that. You stop that now.” No, Jesus came to live a perfect life for us. He came to do what we could not. He came to fulfill the law. He was baptized, he was tempted, and he perfectly obeyed God in all things so that he could become our substitute.

And here is the great news, the heart of the gospel, God the father is “well pleased” with his son. God accepts Jesus as our substitute. Everything Jesus has done honors, glorifies, and satisfies God the father, including Jesus’s death on the cross. By pleasing God, Jesus recues us from our sins. If we believe on him, Jesus gives us his righteousness and then takes our sin. He pays the full penalty for our sin. Because God is well pleased with Jesus, He is well pleased with every man woman, and child who repents of their sin and embrace Jesus.

How To Respond to Jesus’ Life

The point of Jesus’ life is not to guilt trip kids into cleaning up their rooms. The point of Jesus’ life is to call kids and everyone to repent on believe in Jesus. As our savior, Jesus is perfect. He is God. He is fully deserving of our trust. Let’s truth him!

Obviously the kid that trusts Jesus will want to follow and obey him. The child that loves his savior we want to be like him. He will, like the disciples, leave this world behind and seek after Jesus. He will stop lying, cheating, and fighting and start reading, praying, and serving. But there is a huge difference between the kid who obeys and the kid who loves. One is trying to impress from a heart of shame and guilt Jesus and feels oppressed. The other is seeking to follow Jesus from a heart of love and experiences joy.

So instead of challenging our kids to think about WWJD, let’s challenge them to think about WDJD (What Did Jesus Do). He live and then died to pay for our sins. When our kids struggle with lying, let’s direct them back to the cross. Instead of shaming them into being good, let’s call them to repent and trust the God who saves, the God who makes us all things new.

Are you ready to living by WJD?