G-S is for Grace as Source

But when we hit the ELCA National Youth Gathering in Atlanta, we ran into a very different approach. From the first evening's mass gathering of 25,000 in the Georgia Dome, from the very first music, through all the days and all the music and the videos and speakers and skits, the dominant message was of God's grace.

The first day's theme was, "molded by God." Whoever you are, whatever gifts you have and gifts you don't have, whatever your abilities and disabilities, you are made as God meant you to be, and He does good work!

The second day was, "Marked by Christ." Here the great acceptance of all people was expressed in terms high schoolers could recognize. Even if you aren't on the team, didn't make the play or aren't among the beautiful people, Christ desired you, came for you, died for you, and will pull you along in His resurrection. That is His grace to you.

I hope the point is already clear, even without relating the other three themes ("Moved by the Spirit," "Made for Love" and "Do Life!") Namely, because of this abiding stress on God's superabundant grace to us, we did "get excited" and we did want to "commit ourselves to Christ." But here is the super-important thing: these were the result of the Message told to us. We did not call up our own love nor excitement, nor did we summon our resolve or sense of justice or duty in order to get excited or committed. No, rather the Gospel happened to us, and it is why we were filled with gladness and eagerness to live for Christ. We got "Gospel-ed" into it. That is, the Word of grace vivified our faith.

In this way, what we do out of excitement and commitment is God's work. It comes not out of ourselves, out of our flesh, but when we act from the Gospel then it is Christ living through us.

This emphasis of mine on piety, maybe even psychology, is authentic Reformation. In the Augsburg Confession and Apology (Defense), Melanchthon argues that although the Law and a bad conscience can compel one to do some works, the greats and best, such as loving God and suffering patiently, cannot be done that way. And:

It is impossible to love God until the forgiveness of sins is first grasped by faith. For the heart that truly believes that God is angry is unable to love God until he is shown to be reconciled...Personal faith [is that] by which an individual believes that his or her sins are remitted on account of Christ and that God is reconciled and gracious on account of Christ...[Such] faith consoles and uplifts hearts, it regenerates us and brings the Holy Spirit that we might then be able to live according to the law of God, namely, to love God, truly to fear God, truly to assert that God hears prayer, to obey God in all afflictions, and to mortify concupiscence, etc. (Apology IV:36,45)

I need to emphasize how very important is this pleasant theology. Only the Gospel of Christ can create in us (more specifically, only by the Gospel does the Spirit create in us) hearts that are able to love God, without which no work is good. Not only faith, but also obedience and good works, all are impossible without the Gospel being said, heard and believed.

And not just once. While an initial hearing of the news about Jesus, and the first onset of faith, would certainly reorient a person and save her life, veteran Christians know that their gas tank needs continually to be re-filled. This metaphor I borrow from my preaching instructor, the late Doc Caemmerer. He was carefully attuned to the doctrine that works done for reasons other than God are not really good works. The motivation must come from the Spirit and not from the flesh. So he emphasized above all else that every sermon is to announce the news, since it is the fuel that runs our spirits. Further, merely mentioning the Gospel incidentally is not enough, rather that news should be the basis for the sermon: all instructions, appeals and encouragement should be rooted in it, flow from it.

His formula, which he said more eloquently than I remember, was that "the Christian preacher seeks to move his hearers into God's plan using only the lever of the Spirit rotating around the fulcrum of the Gospel." Other motivations, which other kinds of speakers can use effectively, such as fear, pride, ego, ambition, are unavailable to the Christian speaker simply because works proceeding from those motivations will be inherently evil, not good, however fine their outward appearance. So the preacher relies only on the Spirit, reaching people through the preacher's use of the Gospel, to move people into the good works God has prepared for them.

And beautifully, in this way Christ and His dear cross are the foundation not only of our justification, but of our whole life and being, our whole saving.

tbcm