Pastoral Musings
Just the Beginning
by Tim Lien
The tendency to exclusively understand the Gospel in light of my own sin exposes my weakness and my own immaturity in the Gospel. But Saint Paul has something else in mind: (Ephesians 3:1-13ff)
You do not even understand the Gospel fully for yourself, until you understand it for someone outside of yourself.
But not only that, but someone who has sinned against you and is rightly deserving of punishment. Spiritual navel gazing cannot sustain a believer.
Posted by Tim Lien at October 14, 2007 08:50 AM
In light of yesterday’s sermon…I think I understand but I’m going to put myself out here and ask the question. I’ve been staring at your post and can’t take it anymore. By spiritual navel gazing, are you referring to our penchant for staring inward at our gut when applying the gospel? And that we need to apply God’s spiritual nourishment to those whose guts we hate?
I thought I understood your sermon but your term “navel gazing” is throwing me. Of course, I am a literal minded engineer.
Heya Prathima, I think I need a sermon ghost writer if you are interested. But you are right on: By exclusively staring downward/inward, it can lead to a selfish and myopic understanding of sin and grace. The term “navel-gazing,” is not even original to me: I ripped it off a MOJO article I read about emo kids, a few years ago.
One thing that I didn’t thouroughly explain on Sunday: Sometimes we don’t necessarily have to go to every last person we hate and ask them to sit down to listen to “the Gospel.” But what I think is a great exercise: is to formulate/articulate in our minds what it would sound like for them.
What has been particularly convicting for me lately? This point exactly: If I don’t understand the Gospel for those who have offended me, then I don’t really understand it for myself. (Because how can their offenses really be any greater than my own?) And it has been my tendency to believe that I would mature by exclusively seeing the depth of my personal sin and God’s grace to that personal sin. But growth in grace also means that I have to understand the Gospel outside of my sinful selfish shell. (say those last 3 words, 6x very fast.)