True Blessing Comes from Countercultural Living

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Collin Hansen
Jesus hears and cares about the things that make your heart heavy and your cheeks wet. That was perhaps the most moving line and Aleister Beggs new book, The Christian manifesto. Jesus’s life changing words from the Sermon on the plane published by the Good Book Company. It’s a challenging book. It’s a sensible book. It’s a book about how we approach the world, how we engage the culture in truth and love. Above all, it’s a biblical Book, all about Jesus. quarterbacks manifesto is a contrast between the teaching of Jesus and the way of the world. The Sermon on the plane and the Gospel of Luke isn’t the kind of speech that gets you elected to public office today. Jesus didn’t flatter and he didn’t compromise. His ways are not always our ways. And beg argues this, the biggest reason for the ineffectiveness of contemporary Christianity is a failure to take seriously the radical difference that Jesus calls for as we follow Him as King. The 21st century Western Avenue local church has far too often given in to the temptation to soft peddle Jesus’s words, to find caveats and loopholes, and what he says, in order to offer the world something that sounds more palatable and less demanding. We have spent decades congratulating ourselves for being able to go among our non Christian friends and say, You know what, we’re just the same as you. And they’ve said, You know what? I think you’re absolutely right. There’s a quote from Alistair beg. So what’s the alternative? The kingdom of Jesus, of course, followers of Jesus don’t get happy and sad about the same things as the rest of the world. Christians personal ambition and ways the world regards this week. Sometimes Jesus’s commands won’t make sense to others. Sometimes they don’t even make sense to his followers to us. And yet we trust Him and obey. We’ve tried just about everything else in our changing world, maybe we should just try doing what Jesus says. Here’s Alistair beg again. I’ll show you how to make an impact on the culture says Jesus, love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you, and pray for those who Ill treat you. If we choose to live this out, it would cause a revolution in our culture, it would prompt a complete change in the tone that many of us adopt on social media would open doors of homes and make them places of welcome and restoration would cause bridges to be built across political divides that have caused disagreements or worse in the past, and it would transform relationships in the workplace into ones of collaboration and forgiveness, rather than self promotion, and grudge holding. In other words, if we chose to live this out, it would show what our father is like, merciful. Well, there you go. long quotes there from Alistair Begg, who is the senior pastor at Parkside church in Cleveland, Ohio, and the Bible teacher at Truth For Life, which is heard on the radio and online around the world. And I look forward not now to talking with Aleister about Jesus, and this gospel bound episode of gospel bound. Alistair, thanks for joining me.

Alistair Begg
Thank you, Colin, it’s nice to see your face and to hear your voice.

Collin Hansen
Great. Well, here’s another quote. You write this, we live in a contemporary setting that cries out for us to stand up for ourselves, be proud of ourselves and elevate ourselves and to be self assertive in our pursuit of happiness. As a basic question here, Alastair for a pastor, how do we crucify that spirit of the flesh in the church?

Alistair Begg
Well, it’s nice to start with an easy question, isn’t it? How do we do it? Under the authority of Scripture, enabled by the Holy Spirit, and not overnight, that’s for sure. Because this would seem to me to be a constant challenge and a constant tension. And there is just something I think about a certain perspective on Christian living that almost tends in that direction. And those of us who live in that sort of realm are perhaps more prone to that than we might otherwise be.

Collin Hansen
I mentioned this Aleister in the introduction, that the book is in so many ways, sensible, straightforward, obvious, and in some ways, it just rings with that truth of Jesus’s own radical direct plane teaching. But that is so incredibly difficult, unfortunately, I’m even as we’re walking in the Spirit to be able to do and I, I guess, I’m just wondering, as I read the book, what makes us as Christians think that we should fit in with the world’s self assurance, riches and boasting what? Why don’t we see them or more the obvious contrast and the the way that Jesus calls us to instead?

Alistair Begg
While it’s a spiritual thing, you know, in its essence, isn’t it that we tend towards ourselves by nature, we tend to think too much of ourselves. And we tend to make ourselves seem a little better if we can find flaws in other people. With that said, though, I think in some, it’s one of the reasons is that the way in which we have sort of adopted an approach to Christian living, at least in Western culture that has managed somehow or another just to accommodate ourselves to some of these, what I think Jerry bridges refer to the most acceptable sins us that we’ve almost baptized into orthodoxy, a number of the things that Jesus is, is just picking up and turning upside down. And I think that’s part of the challenge. Excuse me, sorry, you take that one out as well.

Collin Hansen
Well, I want you to expand on this point. You right that the first disciples were more reviled than we are. And yet they were also more full of joy than we seem to be. I guess I’m wondering, wondering Aleister are the two connected, because later you write something similar, you say the genuine Christian is poor, hungry, crying and hated. And they have found blessing. For with these things come satisfaction and joy. We spend a lot of time complaining about persecution, complaining about how the world treats us worrying about what this is going to look like in the future. But is there actually a connection between that reviling and the joy that we’re supposed to experience as Christians

Alistair Begg
are? Well, you know, the little phrase, and that isn’t a, you know, bless it, or you when men say evil against you, for my sake. Some of us are very good at having people say bad things about us. And they’re entirely legitimate, more, it’s the problem. But yeah, there certainly is the sense of being on the side of Jesus, you know, that sort of Athanasius perspective Athanasios, the whole world is against you. And he says, well, then I guess I’m against the whole world. I don’t think he meant in a defiant way, in an arrogant way. He just essentially knew his place. And I must confess the column that the more I have opportunity to talk about this book, the more unnerving it is for me, because the more challenging it seems. And I’ve said to a number of people that I really felt in rereading that I had stood on a rake, and the handle had come up and hit me squarely, you know, on the nose. And, you know, I turn the page looking to feel a little better about myself, only perhaps, to feel a little worse. And I, I think that is, that is the challenge it is. So Jesus is so unequivocally straightforward in what he said, that there are no obvious places to hide. Because wealth, and in fact, at one point in the book, I say, you know, Jesus is essentially inviting us to kiss the American Dream goodbye. Well, that doesn’t sell very well at all. I mean, that could be regarded as a form of heresy in some circles.

Collin Hansen
I tell people all the time, and I guess I’m saying it in such a way to really make the point land. But if you’re reading Jesus, and you’re not offended, I just don’t think you’re reading Jesus. And I don’t care how long you’ve been walking with the Lord. It’s, it is hard teaching. But at the same time, it seems that with the Spirit’s work in our lives, it strikes us as true, even when we want to try to cover it up. And I’ve said a couple times here already, that’s the the spirit that feels like comes through in this book. This next point is very similar to something that you are the next question is similar to something you already said. But want to follow up on that point, because I think it’s so important and you write this longer quote, here again, it is virtually impossible to have everybody speak well of us unless we speak out of both sides of our mouths, saying one thing to one person another thing to another and always saying what people want to hear. I’ll just do an interlude there and say of course, that that usually also catches up on you know, catches, you don’t usually get away with that for too long. But then you go on to say that is what the false prophets did, preaching peace when invasion was coming, assuring people that their lives were in good order. When in truth God was no angry with their injustice and hypocrisy. If we want everyone, everybody to speak well of us, we will have to sacrifice our principles left, right and center. It is a miserable thing. Jesus says, to lose the truth and to lose yourself in order to be it was a miserable thing. Jesus says to lose the truth and lose yourself in order to be liked. Aleister, I just I could not agree more. You already alluded to this, but I want to drill down a little bit deeper. That’s what I’m trying to discern. being disliked doesn’t mean you’re being faithful, either, right? That’s not a one to one. And I do think that some Christians seem to just act like jerks for Jesus. So how do you find that way to be fully truthful and loving at the same time?

Alistair Begg
Well, it’s, it’s hard, isn’t it? Because, you know, there are paradoxes in this that, on the one hand, we are able to speak with authority. And yet, at the same time, there are certain things we are uncertain about, we don’t know the answer to everything. So the people who tend to lean in that direction, usually end up saying very little at all, those who lean in the other direction, probably end up saying too much. And somewhere there, there is a there is a balance, and when it comes to the very issue of you know, self orientation, and and it dies, it dies slowly. And I mean, I keep going back to Philippians, you know, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who is at work, and you both are willing to do of His good pleasure. And not only do we need the direction of Scripture, but we need the encouragement and help of the Christian community. And part of the challenge can be that we live in communities that become insular, that we are able to establish, you know, sufficient patterns of acceptable behavior. But we want probably not to be overheard, in speaking by those who live outside the boundaries of our of our own little spiritual empire. And I come to that in the book as well that we think in terms of the challenge of loving those who do not hold to the things that we hold to it, I find that very difficult. And, you know, it’s much easier to be nice to people who are just nice people, and to regard you as fairly nice as well. And that is that you can get past the parable of the Good Samaritan on that road now.

Collin Hansen
Well, another example here of the radical nature of Jesus’s teaching comes through when you when you write this, what is Christian is to seek to do what’s best for your enemy, in the same way as you would for your spouse, your best friend. I don’t know, Alistair, if my question here is going to be critical. But I do want to press into it and just ask maybe for some clarification, I wonder, does this approach flatten all of our relationships, because it seems as though we’ve got different obligations to our children or spouses compared to someone who, for example, writes a bunch of false and nasty things about us as their self appointed enemy. Part of what I’m trying to get at here is I don’t know exactly what’s best for us to always be able to do with enemies as they kind of conceived themselves in a digital age. But I do know that sometimes, I think the only thing we can do is just to ignore them. Am I wrong on this just sent me sent me straight on this. I’m just

Alistair Begg
No, I think that’s a fair distinction. I mean, the point that one is trying to make and that is to hold up somebody that you find it really easy to love as the as the CounterPoint. But ya know, I mean, truly, we’re not going to be able to extend the same sense of genuine affection towards someone who is that, who takes the position of an opponent to us. The point that I’m trying to make, though, is that everybody who doesn’t agree with us is not necessarily ipso facto, an enemy, and are not to be treated immediately as an enemy. I mean, we’re very good at that. And, and that’s why I think we’ve lost the opportunity to build bridges in into areas and instead of decided just, you know, draw up the port colors and and let it go. So no, I don’t think it’s sufficient for us to, to say just ignore them. The negative side of fear like of things is insufficient because Jesus is going beyond that. He’s actually asking us to do more than simply if you like, tolerate

Collin Hansen
I was just talking Aleister with a group of, of pastors and this is one of the things that I come back to most often talking with as ministers and about ministers, we derive our earning our provision for our family, from people who are, you know, they’re under the Lordship of Christ, they’re following the leading of the Holy Spirit. But they’re also Crucifying the flesh in the same way that we are. But they’re the ones who pay our bills. And we’re in a kind of an era where the consumer is always right. And I just keep mentioning the people that it’s a basic difficulty as a minister, to be able to bring the words of Jesus to bear on people who don’t necessarily want to hear them. But that are that kind of control your future they control your your, your pay your family’s provision your your home and things like that. I know that’s not a new problem. But how do you approach that as a pastor? Do you just say, Oh, I don’t care, I just I preach the Word and let the results be what they are? Or is it ever hard? How would you talk to a younger pastor here? Yeah,

Alistair Begg
no, I think, I think it is all it is always hard. You know, the Prophet, God’s word to the prophet is don’t be afraid of their faces, you know, which is okay, when you’re reading the Old Testament prophets, but sometimes we are afraid of their faces. I, I think, a genuine sense of the calling of God upon our lives that we have been set apart to a task. So that the the privilege and the duty that follows to us in pastoral ministry demands our submission to the to the text of Scripture, therefore, we’re going to have to say things. But first of all, we have to preach them to ourselves. And I think our congregation very quickly begins to determine whether we have actually, whether we’re using the pulpit as simply a platform for hortatory cries, or, or whether it becomes obvious to people, perhaps just by the winsomeness of our approach, that we’re taking this seriously ourselves. But but at the same time, it depends which way you go, some are so timid, that they need a little backbone. And some of us are too aggressive that we need to settle down. You know, Paul says, I don’t care whether I’m judged by you or by any human court. My conscience is clear. That doesn’t make me innocent. And that little statement is so important as well, you know, that we do want to have a clear conscience. But we’re not we’re not innocent. I mean, we are under the tutelage of the same scriptures that we are entrusted with the privilege of teaching.

Collin Hansen
Has that changed for you over the course of your maturation, your career homes gotten easier? I mean, easier to do obey the command is what I’m getting at. Yeah,

Alistair Begg
I? Well, I don’t know if it’s got easier, but I’m more aware of it than I was, I think, when you’re younger, what are your slightly, whatever your predilections are they’re probably on on trained by grace to the extent that they need to be. Yeah, I think I’m more alert of that more more aware of how easy it was as a younger person to be far more hortatory, dealing far more in the realm of the imperatives moving too quickly to that, which is imperative without, you know, laying down the foundation for it. And certainly, when it comes to material like this, I mean, you realize that your congregation is listening to you, and they’re watching you, as well as listening to you. And so, it, it really, there’s no, there’s no place to hide?

Collin Hansen
Well, especially over a long tenure, like you had in one in one congregation in one community. I mean, I think the easy way to say it, just to use the cliche, is that it’s a lot easier to talk the talk when you’re walking the walk

Alistair Begg
absolutely faster. And that doesn’t. And that remains true all day, every day. You know, for all your life. I I’m aware of the fact that, you know, Daniel’s greatest challenges came at the end of his life, not at the beginning, that you desire was gloriously helped until he became strong. When he became strong. He grew proud to his own destruction. And so I’m very aware of the temptation to think that hey, you know, 40 years is a long time you know, we I can look back on it now. But no, I I didn’t do that. You can trip on the last 10 yards of a marathon.

Collin Hansen
And in the way our economy works in the modern West, the warnings about the deceitfulness of riches are usually more difficult to obey at the end of the day. Life that the beginning of your life when you don’t have the money?

Alistair Begg
That’s exactly right. Yes. It’s very easy to talk about it when it doesn’t matter.

Collin Hansen
It doesn’t apply. I know based on the rest of the book, I think the following that you offer are rhetorical questions you ask this. Is it distinctly possible that people have been left with the impression that conservative Christianity takes the approach? That only if you agree with our doctrines and often with our politics, do you get to experience our kindness and love? And if you do not, then you will be disregarded and demonized? Do you think the average student on a university campus or family in your community would read Love your enemies? And think of angelical Christianity as exemplifying this command? Or as setting it aside? I think Aleister, you understand that the answer is no to these rhetorical questions. So I guess my question in response to you is this. Why doesn’t this matter more to us? Why don’t we more disturbed by how our our actions seem to misaligned in such a basic way from Jesus’s clear example and command. And I don’t want to be merely rhetorical on this. Whereas if I’m blaming other people, I think what struck by with me is that sometimes it’s fairly easy for me to act in these ways in terms of acts of commission sins of commission. But when I just think about all the things that I don’t do, to love my enemies and love my neighbors, it’s those sins of omission are what really get me here. So I just feel like this should be more disturbing to us that this is the reality we all know.

Alistair Begg
Well, I agree with you entirely. I mean, that’s what I said earlier that I find this looking at it, even talking to you, and I find it disturbing. It’s not a very comfortable thing to, to listen very carefully to Jesus, when He challenges our self righteousness, when he points out how easy it is to be hypocritical, how the tendency on many of our parts, is a tendency towards harsh judgmental ism. Because it’s, it’s, you know, you can usually get a crowd around you, depending on what circles you move in. And so you, you secure yourself, if, you know, it’s, you know, Paul Simon in our safe within my safe within my room, I hide within my woman, I touched no one and no one touches me, you know, that sort of, we’ve we’ve we have so isolated ourselves from the world in which we live, that the the impinging impact of the world in which we live is not there that you take, for example, the issues of gender or sexuality in the present environment, unless you are moving in that community, unless you have friends who are there, then it’s very easy to talk about things in a very generic way. But when the person that you have in mind is your next door neighbor, and they are actually listening to what you’re saying, then it changes the tenor and the tone. And I think it moves us far more in the direction of Jesus. And what he’s saying here than it does in some of the approaches that we have arrogated to ourselves.

Collin Hansen
So much of what we’re talking about here comes down to the struggle to be able to disagree, in love. And I understand why the world without the Holy Spirit does struggles to do this in a fallen world. I can also understand that. I mean, it’s a challenge in the church, even though we are working, as I’ve said a number of times you’re working with the Holy Spirit here. Just looking back over these decades of ministry, your work as a pastor, how have you seen Christians express that love that crosses? Differences? And maybe as a pastor, what do you do to help them in that regard?

Alistair Begg
Wow, well, funnily enough, just this last while I’ve been in various contexts where the question of the 60s has come up, and particularly the West Coast phenomenon of Chuck Smith and Calvary Chapel, and, you know, it’s easy to look back on that with a sense of nostalgia or with criticism, depending on your perspective. But one of the things that strikes me in looking back to that era, is that there was a simplicity almost a naivety about the way in which those erstwhile hippies, were engaging with their community. They were they were they were being radically shifted from the underlying conflict convictions or lack of convictions that the addicts that they had been experiencing, and yet they didn’t turn around to, to shout at them or or to judge them by to say to them, I have made an amazing discovery, I have found a peculiar friendship. And I would love for you to meet this friend that I have met. So it’s very disarming, and very easy to approach. The way in which the practicalities if you go back in history, whether it’s Dwight L moody, or whether it’s Charles Haddon Spurgeon, they are combining a fairly fiery approach to the proclamation of Scripture, with orphanages, with engagement in the community in a way that would cause people to say, you know, I don’t agree with a single word that comes out of that guy’s mouth. But I must say that he, that what he’s doing, they’re up on that street. It really disarms me, and causes me to wonder whether what he’s actually saying is directly tied to what he’s doing. And I think probably the short answer is that, if we’re going to, if we’re going to simply take to ourselves a political perspective, or an agenda, that is something other than the Christian manifesto, then we will continue to talk, probably without listeners.

Collin Hansen
Which is a good reminder here, we’re talking about Alistair bags book, The Christian manifesto, Jesus is life changing words from the Sermon on the plane? I want to go back again to another question about what this just means for you. And in the Gospel of Jesus Loves People who can give nothing back to him, the Son of God. That’s what he asked us to do, as well love others as he’s loved us. What does this mean to you? Aleister, you’ve been a pastor for 47 years. No doubt, as a pastor, you’ve loved some people who didn’t love you back, maybe even some people who were your enemies? What does it mean for you?

Alistair Begg
Well, as I’ve said, again, and again, in the course of this, it’s, it’s a constant challenge. It’s, it’s, it’s, it seems to me that the Christian pilgrimage this is going to be an on is always unfinished until it’s until it’s finished that yeah, what is it? What does it mean to me it, it means to me that, the more the more I face up to the challenge of this, the more I am forced back on Jesus, the more I’m forced back on Jesus, then perhaps I may, in a modicum at least become more like Jesus, thereby becoming more available more accessible, dare I say, more attractive to those who may not immediately be drawn to the things that I hold as convictions?

Collin Hansen
Let’s, let’s give a word here. Because I think that’s a good segue to what you think Jesus would say, to reform the churches in particular, you offer a warning in this book that sometimes we the reformed are so concerned with being right, that we don’t realize how harsh and judgmental we can be. You want to expand on that at all?

Alistair Begg
Yeah, well, I mean, I’m really in that I’m writing to myself, first of all, you know, I just not that I know, a lot of people that are like that I just know my own tendencies. And so, yeah, to expand on it, I think that in specific areas, we we miss, we miss this. Perhaps we said this early, I don’t remember we, that we’ve, in our environment, we feel that to be tentative about anything is actually a form of weakness. Whereas, so we must be absolutely clear about what the Scriptures are clear about. The scriptures are not as clear about everything, as ever, as everything, you know, now, now, are we the children of God, but it does not yet appear what we shall be. We don’t we don’t know about that part. And there are other parts that we don’t really know much about. And that sense of constantly looking beyond ourselves and encouraging others to recognize that, as Augustine said, that the journey of faith is faith seeking understanding, so that we can encourage people to come and think these things out, rather than, you know, come to whoever the standard Guru is, who will be able to explain everything to us with with nothing left out. And it seems to me that there is a right sense in which we have benefited from others who have maintained a ministry over a period of time that has been distinctly helpful, but we got to be very, very careful in choosing those that were prepared to do what Jesus said not to do And that is to call him father. Call no man, Father, you know you only have one Father. And so I don’t know if that’s a good answer, call him. But yeah.

Collin Hansen
Well, I mean, there’s so many things I’ve already shared in here throughout so many different quotes. And you talk about how we don’t know Jesus is truly our Lord, until our lives turn upside down. And it’s one of the things that I say, to young pastors in particular, but also just in general to younger Christians is that part of part of maturity is getting up in Christ, when you fall on your face, through failure, through your own sin, through house other people sin against you. It’s not something that you can entirely avoid. In fact, it’s, it seems to be fairly essential. You mentioned some of your some great spiritual giants there earlier. And that’s what’s true, and all of their stories, including the apostles themselves. So I just love the way you you call us back to Jesus again and again, of these hard words, but the hard words that create as we’ve heard, others say the hard words that create soft hearts, and, and I think just in general to summarize and conclude, I’ll end with this quote you you say that following Jesus, I think the way he put his following Jesus may be a hard road. This way I would put it in summary, summarizing, but it ends with a beautiful view, hard road beautiful view. And you say this, there is joy and being willing to own our own sin, knowing it to be forgiven, and then being slow to speak, knowing there is wisdom and thoughtfulness and and being quick to ask the spirit to be at work in our hearts, so that inside and then outside, we are being changed more and more into the likeness of our King. Skin from Alistair Begg, my guest this week on gospel bound his new book, The Christian manifesto, Jesus’s life changing words from the Sermon on the plane published by the Good Book Company, Alistair, thanks for joining me.

Alistair Begg
Thank you, Collin.