The Dangers of a Moral Improvement Testimony | Episode: Triumphalism

The Problem With Triumphalism and Moral Improvement Testimonies

When we think about the corporate realities of church life, or even the individual realities of church life, is often when the emphasis is the victorious Christian life or triumphalism, the gospel all of a sudden shifts to the background.

The good news of what Christ has accomplished on our behalf moves to the background, and then what moves to the foreground is life transformation. And I'm going to kind of poke at something, and I'm sure people are going to get really upset, but I mean, think about the modern evangelical way of sharing testimonies.

What is the focus? Jesus changed my life, or Jesus transformed my life, and I'm not against that, but you better not regress where you are right now. Otherwise, Jesus didn't change your life. And I'm also going to say something that's probably going to blow people's minds, and we'll get another email about antinomianism.

My worst and most heinous sins, guys, have been committed after I became a Christian.

Oh yeah, of course.

Think about that. So, I have sinned against my wife and others in ways that when I was a teenager, when I first became a believer, I have sinned against my wife and others in ways that if you would have told me when I was a teenager, I would have ran from you in fear and said, there's no way I'd ever do that.

There's absolutely no way I'd ever do that. But here I stand, and I can say no other, that my nature to sin, my propensity to sin is great. It is unbelievable. Something I like to say to our church all the time is we are experts in sin.

We are so good at it. We are just naturally good at it. What we're trying to say is when the progress of the Christian life moves to the foreground, it is going to wreck you when you struggle. It is going to wreck you when you sin because you have it in your brain that, well, my testimony is that Jesus changed my life, and if I regress anything lower than that standard of that day when I gave my testimony, you're going to find yourself in a heap of trouble because you're going to begin to question everything.

And I know, John, you wanted to jump in here, so I'll defer to you.

The False Assurance of a Better Past

Jimmy, that is super insightful and very helpful because it's true. If you were saved as a young child, as I was, then your worst struggles are ahead of you. I mean, I was saved before I really hit into—I was 12, so my greatest, deepest struggles hadn't even happened yet, even just from a natural standpoint.

Then if you come from a drug background and you are a partier and all of a sudden you're not there, you can have a false sense of assurance, and you can even have a false sense of, I'm good with God because at least I'm not sleeping around doing drugs anymore.