So Many Reformed Christians are Trapped in the Lego Movie...

2 Corinthians 13:5 and Examining Faith by What We Believe

2 Corinthians 13 .5 is so often brought up, you know, the examine yourselves to see whether you're in the faith. The way that's typically handled is this is about fruit, and this is about faithfulness, and this is about obedience.

And so you need to assess yourself in terms of what you're doing to know whether or not you're legit. You and I are of like mind that the thrust of 2 Corinthians is Paul defending the legitimacy of his apostolic ministry given the fact that he is weak over and against these quote-unquote super apostles who, like theology of glory type stuff, are very impressive to the eye.

Paul is not. And so what Paul is saying effectively here is you need to examine yourselves in terms of what you believe. You've heard the gospel from me, and you've heard the nature of the gospel from me, and everything that you're enamored with is opposite of that.

That's right. It's theology of glory. It's strength and power and shininess, you know, in the world. It's about you, and it's about the evidence and the fruit and all the stuff that we can see rather than when I'm weak, he's strong.

God's power is made perfect in our weakness. It's all about God's grace, and ultimately, it's all about Jesus for us. Examine yourselves, therefore, to see if you're in the faith is in a call to examine what do I believe, and am I trusting in Christ or am I trusting in myself?

Am I trusting in Jesus that he's enough, or am I looking to something else as though I have to supply it or we have to supply it to be enough? Listen to how he starts this. I, Paul, myself, entreat you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ.

Boasting in the Lord Instead of Human Strength

The reason he says this is that he's contrasting these wise, strong, boastful people who are pointing to their success. And the church of Corinth, it's like, Paul, why aren't you like that? Like, we think you're weak, and we actually think that you are scared, and you're acting timid because we have these strong leaders, and what they're doing is they're pulling them back into Judaism.

And their strength and their boasting is in, look, look how well we're doing. When he talks about boasting, he says, if you're going to boast, we're going to boast in the Lord. How many times is that written?

Right. I mean, that's Jeremiah, but then it's 1 Corinthians 1, too. I mean, Ephesians 2. I mean, it's everywhere. Dear Christian, if you're sitting here and you wake up every morning and you groan and you're like, man, this just seems hard, that's because it's supposed to be.

That's normal. Suffering and trials and struggles and fighting your flesh and fighting temptations and looking unto Christ, receiving the table, all of this stuff so that we can be refreshed and renewed is the normal experience of the Christian life.

This idea where, you know, we play the Lego music, and that should be what we experience. And what I love about the Lego movie is it's like, the whole thing comes crashing down because everything isn't awesome.

Everything is fake. You know, the whole, even the TV show, Honey, Where's My Pants? The whole thing is fake. And I love it because the whole Lego. I'm taking your word for it, John, because I've not seen any of these.

Oh, you got to go watch it. It's great because it's like everything is this awesome world until they realize it's fake. It's not real. And this Christianity that you've been handed, this theology of glory.

That's right. It's exactly like the Truman Show. When you wake up and you go, this isn't reality. Some people crash and burn so hard they walk away from church. We don't want that. We want you to go, listen, there's a hope beyond the Truman Show.

There's a hope beyond the veil. In this pilgrimage, we will experience these things. And it doesn't mean for one second that we're not Christ's or that the Lord isn't with us. Right. But it does mean that we have not arrived yet.

And so we continue to remind ourselves that Christ is enough. The object of my faith, Jesus of Nazareth, is the one who has saved me. And he's the one who will keep me. And so we press on.