Winning Approval of God or Man

“Think with me for a moment about the theology that resulted in the building of medieval monasteries. The thinking was that there’s an evil world out there, and the way to escape that evil is to create a community that lives inside a big wall that separates you from that evil of the surrounding world… What was the big mistake that monasteries made? I can tell you; they let people in them! And people brought with them all the evils of their own hearts. You see, culture isn’t the problem, people are.” – Paul David Tripp, Parenting

I was devastated when I read this. It crushed my plan. As my kids got older and more heavily influenced by culture, I was going to move us to the remote lands of Alaska and live off the grid. That would solve all behavior and sin issues, I thought. We’d be too busy hunting and freezing to do anything else. 

But my method isn’t just for parenting. If I want to lose weight, I cut sweets from my diet. (After eating whatever sweets are left in the house… And garage freezer.) If I want to stop spending so much money, I cut shopping. If I want to spend time better, I cut social media. Whatever it is – we can all jump to remove one thing in favor of something else. The problem is, we tend to neglect swinging full circle to also address the root of our problems: ourselves.

Sin is within us.

Culture isn’t the real problem, selfishness and willingness to compromise values is. Food isn’t the real problem, lack of self control is. Shopping, social media… same thing. They all highlight the flaws that already exist within us.

We are called to hold wise boundaries. Absolutely. Proverbs is filled with wisdom and warning for staying away from temptation and not putting ourselves at risk.

But God calls us to so much more than behavior correction and self-improvement. He calls us to be made new [1]. He calls us to holiness. He calls us to himself.

When Paul is addressing the church in Galatia here, he is standing up for the integrity of the gospel. He is arguing that we are saved by Christ alone, and Paul is rebuking the church for their acceptance of alternate doctrine that accommodates what people want to hear. Generations later, we still find this relevant. We want to hear that we can improve ourselves and contribute to our salvation. But despite our best intentions, even the most compliant behavior doesn’t soften a heart. 

We read verses like this message from Paul, and we’re reminded – yes, living to please man is foolish. We’ll never keep everyone happy. But we’re still drawn to it because we want to be our own gods. We want to collect our own glory.

Equally, living to please God is foolish. Even our best deeds are like “filthy rags” [2] if they are brought as a means of acquiring our own righteousness. But we attempt anyway. We try to clean ourselves up.

We jump to new boundaries without spending a moment in prayer. We strategize but don’t talk to God. We head in a new direction but don’t pause to see if it’s where our Shepherd has led.

We mean well, but we forget. We were never saved into an independent self-improvement plan. God saved us into a covenant agreement. A binding, forever commitment by God that he would care for us. He would change us. 

And the cost of the covenant – his life for ours – should be such overwhelming evidence that God cares about something so much more than good behavior. God was already Holy, the Son was already compliant, and the Spirit was already moving. God had everything within himself.

But his love for creation, his jealousy for us to be right with him and saved from ourselves put his affections on display. 

Christ died so he could have us. And we could have him. 

This is the true gospel message that we see Paul give his whole life for. A Savior has come. He fulfilled the law and paid the price of our sin, offering you and I an opportunity to be saved from ourselves and live with him forever.

Now, I still go in and out of boundaries as I think necessary in life. And I still contemplate moving to the hidden parts of Alaska. But considering the gospel provides a fundamental change in our approach to God as it causes us to draw near, to pray, and to listen. It causes us to depend on God as a way of life, for he is the only source of life.

[1] John 3:3, 2 Corinthians 5:17
[2] Isaiah 64:6