After a long day of carpentry, I was able to debrief with my dear wife in the hot tub.  (That one sentence shows how much I have to be thankful for, but I digress!!)  We were marveling that as a painfully shy person I was in about 6 plays/school video productions in my elementary through high school years.  How was I able to overcome crippling fear of others to stand up and deliver a song or lines in front of a crowd of hundreds?

We arrived at this diagnosis:

The character/role told me who I was.

The lines were written there for me.

As the character, I could do things I could never do in real life.

The response of the crowd was pretty much assured to be good unless I forgot my lines, threw up, wet my pants, or died while on stage. (Thankfully none of those things happened!)

The punch line:  Everything was scripted.  The unknowns were minimal.  Expectations were clear.  Play acting is fun.  

What this reveals:  When the expectations are unclear, the responses of others are unknown, and there is no script - It is called real life in relationship.  This is why I was so shy I wouldn’t call my best friend Jason to hang out and listen to tapes.

What does the Gospel say to us in this?

• Our role is clear.  We are loved by God, forgiven by him, created with great dignity in his image.  Paul prays for his friends the Corinthians (who were messing up in a lot of ways):  May all grace abound to you, so that having everything you need, you may abound in every good work.  
• Better than a script - What’s better than a script to go off of in our relationships?  Having God as both director and fellow actor!  In Christ, God has come down and become man “tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4)  This means that in the great uncertainties of living with others (and ourselves) in a broken world, God is moving, relating, and redeeming all the junk that is unscripted.  He is working all things for good.
• Ripping up scripts - Tim Keller has some great insights into how legalism and libertinism are both false paths.  Legalism says “Here is your script.  Here’s how to talk, dress, vote, and shop.  Do this and live.”  This legalism has no need for God and repentance since the goal is obedience to the script.  Libertinism says “Whatever dude.  All activities are legit.  Don’t let anything slow you down.”  The Gospel says that God has come in Christ so that we might no longer be ruled by any desire or creature or creation, but ruled by God’s magnificent, beneficent grace.  As we are mastered by this grace, we are remade into the image of Christ.  As we grow into our “true selves”, living in character, we are free to improvise.  ”For the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control.  Against these there is no law” (Gal. 5.22-23)  As we grow in God’s wisdom, repenting of attitudes and actions that are against God, we are increasingly free, enabled to be daring in the most loving ways in the most unsettling of circumstances.

The kicker that we arrived at in our discussion is that as a Christian, I had the resources to be free and “unscripted” all along.  I just didn’t know how to act as who I was:  a son of the Father, forgiven by his grace, empowered to love in daring and scary ways.

I refer to son #3 as my “soul twin.”  He is a thinker, theologian, creative soul, and a moody, easily irritated passionate person.  Without the Gospel taking hold of my heart, since I share his heart struggles, it would be very tempting to blast him for being an “emotional terrorist” who takes out his frustrations on his other brothers.  Since our sin blinds us to our own sin, blasting him for my same sins is the easiest thing to do. It is a well-worn path for me.  Several family members have confronted me recently on my tone of voice with my kids.  I am tired and busy.  I act as if their sorrows and their needs are a personal affront to me.  My tone of voice shows what I believe about them and myself.

By God’s grace, my heart was tender this morning.  I called him over.  The brim of his hat covered his eyes, now brimming with tears.  I asked him to take off his hat and tell me about his frustration.  I talked about how his “heart was showing.”  I got down on his level (literally and figuratively) and said, “You’re my son.  But you’re also my Christian brother.  We need our brothers to help us fight sin.  Since I’m your ‘soul twin’ and struggle with frustration and being annoyed, I can help you fight this sin.  I want to help you fight sin.  Can you come to me when you’re frustrated and we’ll talk about it?”

We hugged and he walked off.

A few take away lessons from this:

• The moral of the story is NOT “Be more like Shawn.”  The moral of the story is that the Gospel is not just for the pulpit, or the evangelistic encounter on the beach.  Since God moves outside of his relational huddle full of “high fives” and “fellowship” we call the Trinity, everything that God does outside of himself is grace.  This movement of God that culminated in Christ’s incarnation, death, ascension and giving of the Spirit is the Gospel.  Since the Gospel is the MESSAGE of the MOVEMENT of God in Christ towards enemies, it means that the Gospel is more relational than intellectual.
• As our kids grow up, the authority of parenting has to switch over to the influence of parenting.  I credit Tedd and Paul Tripp for bringing this insight to light.  Authority over my son would have said “Stop treating your brother like that.  Go to your room”. Influence means that I use the Gospel to reach his heart so that he becomes free from his besetting sins (that annoy me and ruin family peace) and can enjoy God and love and serve God and others.
• 1 Corinthians 7 states that the children of believers are “holy”, set apart for God. This goes all the way back to Abraham in Genesis 17:  I will be a God to you and your seed.  My kid is God’s kid.  I need to parent him the way that God parents me: with the Gospel.  He “spanks my heart” but speaks his delight over me (Zeph. 3.17), refusing to allow my sins to define me.  He grants me repentance so I can enjoy being reconciled to God and others.

¹⁶From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. ¹⁷Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 

2 Corinthians 5.16-17 ESV

In a recent counseling session we looked at how the project in counseling is not to get over the annoying psychological condition or symptoms.  The goal is growing into our new selves in Christ.

One of the great blessings of the Gospel is that it drives a wedge between the way we have previously defined ourselves and others and what God is opening up to us through our justification and ongoing sanctification.  Since God views us through the lens of Christ, we can begin to view ourselves and others through the lens of Christ, in whose image we are being re-created.  As Will Smith counsels a client in the movie Hitch:  “‘You’ is a very fluid concept right now.”  

Psychological labels, for all their descriptive value, often present a sense of self that is fixed and in many ways hopeless.  It can be tempting to think that depression or anxiety is something you are versus something you have or are plagued with.  Anxiety or depression are an alien growth in the garden of our lives.  Brokenness has been seemingly forever woven into our nature.  Yet new creation in Christ introduces a new form of human nature - neither sub-human nor super-human - but truly human through the Incarnation, Redemption, Resurrection, and Spirit-filling of Christ.  

Not only is this wedge revolutionary for our self-identity, but also for our relationships. When we are frustrated with someone’s treatment of us, it is very tempting to view them through the lens of their sin.  They don’t have sins.  In our eyes, they are their sins. “They are so annoying.”  ”What a jerk!”  If someone confronted us with our sin, we would say there are extenuating circumstances:  ”I didn’t have my coffee.”  ”That’s my personality, take it or leave it!”  When assessing other’s sins against us, there are no acceptable appeals or “get out of jail free cards”.  It is cut and dried:  You are evil.  The Gospel wedge allows us to see sin as a terrorist who has wrested the helm of our lives. The Gospel brings clarity, but it also brings freedom from the tyranny of sin and our sinful characterization of ourselves and others. 

“Who will rescue me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord!”  Paul (Romans 7)