TLP 95: The Question We’ve Been Looking For | The Merest Christianity, Part 1

All of the truth claims of Scripture can and will revolutionize your life if you let them. However, I believe this truth is the single greatest lesson we can learn because it's the answer to our deepest heart yearning and family struggles.

Welcome to Truth.

Love. Parents. Where we use God's Word to become intentional, premeditated parents. Here's your host, A .M. Brewster. Thank you for joining us.

The Merest Christianity as the Answer to Heart Yearning and Family Struggles

Today we're starting a series that has affected me more than I can put into words. The truths that we'll uncover over the next few episodes rocked my world over a decade ago, and since then they've had a significant effect on my family and my ministry.

And I've presented this material in various forms over the past 10 years, but this is the first time I've specifically formulated it for parents. But please understand that this is not just some man-made idea.

This is more than a tactic that worked for me. It's definitely not some magic bullet. But what I stumbled on is something that in many ways has been known since the beginning of time. Unfortunately, with the help of Satan and our own sinful, forgetful hearts, we either misunderstand this truth or we just completely ignore it.

But time and time again, men of God have brought this doctrine back to the forefront of their teaching and preaching. But more on that in a minute. No doubt many of you are very familiar with the Simple Moms.

These ladies use and review various products, services, and programs, and they blog about their experience to share with other moms. Well, recently, Jenny, one of the bloggers for the Simple Moms, had this to say about TLP, quote, Parenting is hard, but we have the truths from God's Word to guide us.

I'm so thankful for all the wisdom this podcast shares. It's not always easy to hear what I'm doing wrong, but I'm thankful for the refinement. Unquote. Jenny also wrote an article that she talked a little bit about TLP, and I'm very thankful for that.

Jenny, her kind words have been so wonderful. And we really praise God that He loves us enough to point out our shortcomings and provide answers to His Word. We're also thankful for the opportunity to occasionally be that friend who gets to encourage and bless, but who's also able to share those faithful wounds that Proverbs 27, 6 talks about.

We never want to stroke any of our sinful egos like the deceitful kisses of an enemy. It's not always easy to say the hard things, but it's so necessary. But as I was saying, the study we're about to embark on has been taught before.

As an example, nearly everyone is celebrating the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther's nailing his 95 theses onto the door of Wittenberg Castle Church, which sparked what is commonly referred to as the Reformation.

In fact, this October 31st, many Christians will celebrate Reformation Day. During this time, among other things, Martin Luther drew our attention to the five solas. Sola Scriptura, Sola Fidei, Sola Gratia, Solus Christus, and Soli Deo Gloria.

In English, there's scripture alone, faith alone, grace alone, Christ alone, to the glory of God alone. These five points are considered the essentials of Christianity. And then again, between 1941 and 1944, C .S. Lewis, the famous former atheist, beloved inkling, and philosopher extraordinaire, did a number of radio talks for the BBC.

Those talks were later collected and transcribed and edited down in the volume we all know and love called Mere Christianity. If you haven't read that, I would strongly urge you to get a copy. Lewis had a great way of simplifying many of the same truths Martin Luther fought for and making them accessible.

Of course, his work was much broader than the five solas, but as it was biblically founded, many of the solas were included in his talks. Obviously, many other Bible-believing men and women have spoken on and counseled with and written about these truths, but for me, these realities hit me the hardest not long after reading Mere Christianity.

And this lesson just completely revolutionized my life. To be fair, all the truth claims of Scripture can and will revolutionize your life if you let them. However, I believe this truth is the single greatest lesson we can learn.

It affects everything we think and do. It is the answer to our deepest heart yearnings and family struggles. It's something I like to call the Merest Christianity. Unlike Luther and Lewis, my goal isn't to discuss all the essentials for Mere Christianity.

I want to talk about the one and only most seminal truth of the Bible. So we're going to spend the next few episodes walking through this truth carefully and clearly so that all of us can truly understand this most beautiful of doctrines and this merest of realities.

Why This Study Matters for Parents

But before we start, let me give you a glimpse into the issues that we're going to address in this study. We're going to talk about why your children do what they do and say what they say. We're going to look at why your children feel what they feel.

We're going to discuss why they think how they think and why they want what they want. We're going to even study why they believe what they believe. And of course, there's gonna be a whole bunch more thrown in there.

But today, I just want to lay a foundation and invite you to embark on this journey with me. First things first, I really want to invite you to this study for your sake. This truth had to rock my heart before I could even think about parenting my children in it.

We need to see the log in our own eyes before addressing the speck in our families. And if nothing else, I pray this study will jar you and enlighten you and draw you closer to the Lord. If that occurs, it will all have been worth it, even if none of our children change.

To that end, I'd like you to consider these questions. How can I make every decision the right decision? How can I gain increasing victory over sin? And more generally, number three, how can I live my entire life to the honor and glory of God?

By understanding the answers to these questions, these questions that we've all been looking for, and putting them into practice in our lives, we'll be able to become more like Christ and therein experience spiritual victory.

And only then will we have the necessary understanding to guide our families into these same truths. Second, I'd like to suggest that we use an inductive approach to this study. I could tell you right now what I think the mirror's Christianity is, but I believe it'll be important for our journey through this material if we force ourselves to grapple with the hard questions.

According to the Thorndike Barnhart Comprehensive Desk Dictionary, deduction is a logical inference from a general rule or principle, whereas induction is reasoning from particular facts to a general rule or principle.

Most American schooling is deductive. Even the sciences, which are subjects born from induction, they are handled in a deductive way. Teachers tell their students that gravity is a law of nature, and then they proceed to demonstrate it by using preplanned experiments.

This is the show-and-tell side of education. Gravity exists. Watch the apple fall. See, I proved it. And by the way, the man who discovered it was named Newton. Deductive education fills a basic need to disseminate many facts in a short period of time, but it fails painfully short of experiential learning.

Students taught by deduction may be good test takers, but their true understanding of the subject is often shallow, and I don't want that for us. On the other hand, pure induction without deduction isn't good either.

What if every doctor had to learn by trial and error? What if they were not instructed in the findings of doctors that went before them? Each practitioner would be required to start from scratch, and they would barely break the surface of their study before they died.

With learning like that, there wouldn't be a civilization on earth that wasn't still in the Stone Age. Induction alone is a grueling process that creates many specialists with only a cursory understanding of the subject.

But the marriage of induction and deduction is invaluable. Requiring an individual to personally accumulate the facts allows for deeper investment and a better understanding of the subject. Then, by supplementing those findings with the research of those who've gone before, the student can synchronize the information and come to personal conclusions.

All the while, the knowledge they are gaining becomes nigh impossible to forget, and the whole experience helps root the truths deep in the student's heart and mind. Now, when it comes to the Christian life, can we afford to just be head knowledge Christians?

Can we be Christians at all if we merely possess facts about Christianity? The spiritual life is not a dry subject to be memorized for a test. The Bible is not a textbook we study to earn a grade. Christianity is not merely a set of religious behaviors.

It's a vibrant relationship. See, a religion can be taught, but a relationship cannot be. There is nothing more inductive than relationships. My relationship with my wife would have failed long before we ever got married if all I did was discuss with my brother-in-law all the ways to have a successful relationship with his sister.

I needed to personally get to know her if I wanted to have the marriage and have it work. In the same way, if we want to have victory in our spiritual lives and in our families, and if our spiritual lives are all about a relationship with God, we have to go about it a little inductively.

We can't hope to be victorious if scriptural truths are nothing more than factoids. Nay, nay, they are grand facets in our relationship with God. So, like any other relationship, it's going to require involvement, personal investment, and a little bit of sweat.

So, for the first few episodes, we're going to collectively attempt to discover the merest Christianity, that most seminal element of our relationship with God. Then we'll spend the remaining time learning from others how we can put this foundational truth into practice on a daily basis, keep it vibrant and real in our lives, and the lives of our family members, and hopefully protect it from the attacks of Satan.

Hope for Spiritual Victory Through Christ, Sanctification, and Glorification

Now, my third hope is this. As we take this personal journey of discovery and growth, we need to acknowledge that there is hope for victory. Think of the words of victory, success, accomplishment. Imagine the implications of those words.

Do those words define your parenting? Do they define you at 2 .45 in the afternoon when you seem to hit that brick wall on your workday? Do your children have, quote, a spiritual victory of Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so written on their backs?

Is your devotional life a success? Are you victorious when the office flirt finds her way to your cubicle? What about when you stretch your fingers to the world wide web? I understand, of course, that in our human condition we will never be perfect, but are we victorious Christians?

In episode 87, we answered the question, what is successful parenting? And we saw that we can be successful. We just need to understand what God means by the word. And even though we're sinners, we can have victory in our personal lives.

So let's look quickly at what God has to say about spiritual victory. First of all, God presents the model of victory through his Son. Matthew 3 .17 says,. We know Jesus made God-honoring choices. We know he didn't sin.

Jesus glorified the Father in every area of his life. In his totality, Jesus exemplified spiritual victory. But it's easy to say, yeah, well, that's Jesus. But see, we must accept that God commands us to be like Christ.

1 Peter 1 .15 -16 says,. And Ephesians 1 .4 tells us,. Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. It's clear that Christ was spiritually victorious.

He was holy. He was blameless. It's also clear that God expects us to follow the model he illustrated in his Son. We, too, are to be holy and blameless. I believe this is a pretty good definition of spiritual victory.

But the best news is that God also promises that we will one day be like our sinless Savior. This promise will be completed through our glorification. 1 John 3 .2 tells us,. And Romans 8 .17 -30 beautifully paints the deeper realities of glorification.

Verse 30 says,. I love how that's stated in the past tense. It's so powerful. But in order to have hope for our spiritual transformation on this earth, we must acknowledge that we have more than a future glorification to which to look forward.

Though we'll always be plagued by our sin nature, the Word of God is clear that it is possible to make right decisions, gain ever-growing victory over sin, and glorify God in this body. That's true for us and our families because God promises earthly victory through sanctification.

2 Corinthians 3 .18 says,. Now, before I continue, do remember our three application questions. How can I make every decision the right decision? How can I gain increasing victory over sin? How can I live my entire life to the honor and glory of God?

Please notice that the three verses I'm about to cite deal directly with those three questions. 2 Peter 1 .3 -4 says,. If our lives could be defined by these verses, I think it'd be safe to say that we're experiencing true spiritual victory.

What about 1 Corinthians 10 .13? There's not a Christian alive today who wouldn't love to sin less. In one of our TLP favorites, Romans 8 .28 -29 says,. And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.

For those whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. Every moment of our day can be a moment that God is pleased with when we participate in the conforming work God's doing in us.

But one of our hurdles is that we live in a world that puts an inordinate amount of importance on experiences. So if we gauge our success by our day-to-day experience, what will our conclusion about spiritual victory be?

Paul gives us his personal testimony in Romans 7 .15 -24. He says,. And if we're honest with ourselves, we know that Jeremiah 17 .9 is spot on when it says that our hearts are deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.

And how many times does it feel like Isaiah 64 .6 is talking about us when it says,. We eat that donut when we know we shouldn't, and though we hate every bite we take, we do it anyway. We become livid when our kids keep doing that one thing we ask them time and time again not to do.

Every time we get behind the wheel of the car, we take a few steps back in our sanctification. Our daily experience makes the thought of success sound like an impossibility, yet the ringing truth is that God is quite optimistic concerning our conformity to Christ.

The Inductive Method and the Relationship of Christianity

So imagine with me an optimistic Christian parent who decides it's high time to find the answers to the question, I know God says I can glorify Him, but how? Our optimistic Christian parent also says, So where do they go for spiritual guidance?

Well, they go to church. They're going because they genuinely desire to change. They want to find the answers that will free them from this Israel-like circle of fail, repent, fail, repent. But unfortunately, so many pulpits in America aren't teaching us the ways of Scripture.

They either gloat in pop culture-soaked opinion and feel good inspiration, or they rain fire and brimstone down in utterly vague and confusing terms like, be holy, do right, stop sinning, and don't listen to rock music.

Now, at first glance, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with that advice. Technically, it's all true. So when we leave church on Sunday, why doesn't it help us to have spiritual victory? Well, there's some very important steps missing from the directions.

What if I told you, it's your responsibility to fly a commercial airliner from Chicago O 'Hare to Houston, Texas? Knowing that you don't know how to fly an airplane, you say, but I don't know how to fly an airplane.

So I respond, all you have to do is fly it. How, you ask? Fly it straight, do it right, stop crashing, and don't listen to rock music. Where's the detail? Where's the application? How do we actually accomplish all that?

Where are the answers you really need so badly? Well, know this. The Bible does provide the answers. Regardless of our daily experiences, and despite our cycle of failure, God promises we can have victory.

We can glorify Him. We just need to dig nice and deep into His Word and find the piece of the puzzle we're missing. That's what this series is all about. We're going to the absolute root of truth. We'll leave no stone unturned as we dig for the foundation.

That piece, that bridge that allows us to span the gap between the promises of God and our own human experience is what I refer to as the merest Christianity. It's not groundbreaking, and it's definitely not original.

It's simply the essential element of Christianity that we too often forget about. Let me compare the merest Christianity to a childhood scenario that most of us have experienced. My son started standing and walking while holding onto furniture at about 10 months.

At 11 months, he was all out walking. When he was 3, obviously he was running and jumping like he'd been doing all his life. And as a 10-year-old, he gives no thought whatsoever to the act of walking.

That's how it is in our spiritual lives as well. I believe we may have forgotten about this vital element of our lives, this merest Christianity, simply because it's so rudimentary. Even though we talk about it all the time, I believe it's become elementary to us, and I think we're going to need to hold on to some furniture for a little while.

We just haven't put real concentrated thought into it since we were first born again. Rediscovering that essential element, or in some cases, maybe learning it for the first time, is our goal. And eventually we hope to get to the place where we're able to let go of the furniture and it becomes part of our daily lives.

Next Time: Why Do You and Your Children Do What You Do?

So please join us the next time as we study the question, Why do you and your children do what you do? Now, we didn't create any episode notes today, but the full transcript of today's show is available at TruthLoveParent .com.

You can find the link in the description. You can also find our support TLP link in the description. If you click that, you'll be taken to our Patreon page, where you can learn all about supporting TLP with your finances.

In fact, we'd like to thank Kara for being one of our patrons, and we invite you to discover why she thought TLP was worth investing in. So go ahead and click through to that page. And of course, don't forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

You can also follow me on Twitter at AM Brewster. If you go onto Facebook or Twitter, just search TruthLoveParent and you'll find us. Now, I know I've set the bar high for this series, but I believe it's attainable for us.

Our spouses and our children, because we serve a God who's in the business of change. See you next time.

Truth. Love. Parents is part of the Evermind Ministries family and is dedicated to helping you become an intentional premeditated parent. Join us next time as we search God's word for the truth your family needs today.